October 3, 2023

"Pope Francis has suggested there could be ways to bless same-sex unions...."

"In his new letter, Francis reiterated that matrimony is a union between a man and a woman. But responding to the cardinals’ question about homosexual unions and blessings, he said... priests could not become judges 'who only deny, reject and exclude.'... '[W]hen a benediction is requested, it is expressing a request for help from God, a plea to be able to live better, a trust in a father who can help us to live better.' He said there were situations objectively 'not morally acceptable' but the same 'pastoral charity' required that people be treated as sinners who might not be fully at fault for their situations. [He said]... the issue could be dealt with on a case-by-case basis 'because the life of the church runs on channels beyond norms.'"

52 comments:

Dave Begley said...

Typical Jesuit.

Mr Wibble said...

He's a fucking coward.

Homosexuality is a sin to the Catholic Church, and homosexual unions are sinful. To offer a blessing on a sinful act is horrible, because it will give the impression that the Church is offering approval of these acts. It's cruel to the people in those unions, both by denying them the true love that comes from being honest about the danger to their souls, and also because it offers them false hope which will only lead to pain and anger later.

Worse, he's trying to shift all of this down to the individual priests, who are now responsible for making these decisions. Rather than taking responsibility for it himself, giving those priests the support and cover to refuse any blessings, he's deliberately exposing them.

To hell with him.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Anybody else feel like they went to sleep for 25 years and just woke up to everyone being retarded and homosexual? It's like I don't live on the same planet I lived on just 10 years ago.

Buck Ofama. It started with him. He can go straight to hell.

Clyde said...

@ RideSpaceMountain

Idiocracy got here waaaaaaaay ahead of schedule.

rcocean said...

Huh, what? Homosexuality is wrong according to Catholic teaching. But then the Catholic Leadership supports all kind of nonsense in variance with 1500 years of Catholic tradition. You actually have Catholics who think "antisemitsm" is a sin. So, disagreeing with the ADL is a "sin". LOL.

Jews also don't have to believe in Jesus Christ to get into heaven. According to some in the Catholic leadership. Given that, I'd suggest just skipping the Catholic stuff and believe in Judaism.

You can't make this stuff up.

Of course, in comparison to the Anglican Church or the Methodists, the Catholic Church looks like a solid rock of tradition and faithfullness to Christian teaching.

Enigma said...

The political realignment continues. Even the Catholics are splitting up, a full 500 years after the Protestants broke away and after Catholics circled the wagons.

Just wait a few decades to see who has the most fertile, reproducing babies. Today's babies who make more babies will inherent the Earth and decide what to do with it. Babies are more functional than ideologies.

wendybar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
wendybar said...

WOKE IS DOPE. #NOTMYPOPE!!

Sebastian said...

"the life of the church runs on channels beyond norms"

Nice way of running down tradition. Why do I get the feeling that the only norms the church channels run beyond are those disliked by progs?

Rocco said...

RideSpaceMountain said...
"Anybody else feel like they went to sleep for 25 years and just woke up to everyone being retarded and homosexual? It's like I don't live on the same planet I lived on just 10 years ago. Buck Ofama. It started with him. He can go straight to hell."

It goes back further than that. Post 9/11, I've felt like I've slipped into an alternate reality. But it definitely accelerated under Obama.

Alan said...

Good for Pope Francis. The things he says about economics are just silly, but when he does his job he'd get my vote (not that I have one).

One odd feature about this blog is that although most of Professor Althouse's posts (other than the "men in shorts" stuff) are sensible, moderate, and fair, many of the commenters skew reactionary, at least on social issues.

Alexander said...

Denial, Rejection, and Exclusion of the earthly world are a fundamental *point* of Christianity, right from the beginning of rejection and exile from the Garden, through Christ's denial of Satan during the Temptation, and on to the rather explicit exclusion of those who seek to come to the Father through some method other than Jesus.

Here we once more are told to follow the hell-worn path of moving from "Tolerance" to "Celebration". Don't worry, everything will be fine. People who hold your beliefs in contempt all agree they'll accept you if you take just one more step.

The only thing the "slippery slope" conservatives of the 90s got wrong was that it was much worse than they imagined.

Buckwheathikes said...

Virtually all Roman Catholic priests are gay and many of them are pedophiles - literal child rapists - so this is hardly surprising.

The Devil is alive and well and working ferociously.

n.n said...

Transgender/cisgender couplets have no redeeming value to society or humanity, but are an exercise in narcissistic indulgence. That said, civil unions for all consenting adults... children with social progress. Stop the binary bigotry, the politically congruent ("=") constructs of diversity, equivocation, and exclusion.

AlbertAnonymous said...

Seems like more and more when Pope Francis speaks there’s controversy about the “teachings”. Sad. I don’t know if it’s him or the media playing it up as they do for they’re own purposes. Maybe both.

It saddens me, because it doesn’t bring anyone to the church, to God. Instead, it drives some away, seeing it as a loosening or changing of teaching that shouldn’t happen. And for those not in the church it either leaves them in the same place or gives them grist for their mocking mill.

Should some of us be more charitable to homosexuals and “love the the sinner hate the sin”? Should we be less judgmental of others and show more love and compassion? I’m sure all of us should. Are homosexual acts and homosexual unions acceptable to God, non-sinful? Absolutely not. Are they going to hell if they don’t repent and change their ways? Probably. I would say yes, but no one really knows the infinite mercy of God, so who knows. But the church teaching certainly say yes.

Reminds me of two great comments:

Bishop Fulton Sheen once said, when a woman told him she didn’t believe in hell, “you will when you’re there ma’am”

And CS Lewis I think said “there are only two types of people in the end, those who say to God ‘thy will be done’ and those to whom God says ‘ok thy will be done then’.

gilbar said...

priests could not become judges 'who only deny, reject and exclude.'...

so if a catholic girl marries a protestant man.. The church will no longer deny, reject and exclude?
WHY is it? That i DO NOT BELIEVE THIS? AT ALL

Of course, that would be a serious matter.. Non Catholic Christians are TABOO

But ass-f*cking, and child mutilation? Those are JUST FINE

gilbar said...

Is there ANYTHING in the bible (besides Old and New Testaments) that says anything against homosexuality? We as NEW CHRISTIANS, are allowed to totally disregard the parts of the bible we don't like, right? I mean PAUL? He's got a LOT of complicated rules, and let's not even START on Moses.

Let's; as NEW CHRISTIANS, just hone the bible down to the simple truths:
Love your neighbor (and his wives, and his sons, and his daughters).. Love them often, and long..
ALSO.. Don't forget to Fill the Offering Plate!!!

cassandra lite said...

There could be ways to bless a same-sex union in exactly the same way the Church was for centuries willing to grant annulments to twenty-year marriages: $.

Paul said...

I can site several passages in both Old and New Testament where homosexuality is a sin....

There are at least three passages that refer to non-heterosexual sexual intercourse in the New Testament, all of which are found in the Pauline epistles: Romans 1:26–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, and 1 Timothy 1:9–10.

Old Testament:

Leviticus 18:22 ~ You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Leviticus 20:13 ~ If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

And Jesus did not come into the world to ABOLISH the law, but to fulfill it. The 10 commandments still stand. The Old Testament still stands.

So the Pope cannot bless such as homosexuality or such 'union' cause that would be blessing a SIN!

Scotty, beam me up... said...

When Francis was elevated to Pope, I expected him to slowly get to gay marriage, just like Obama did by first denying it would happen while working to make it happen behind the scenes. I saw the other day that he elevated to cardinal two bishops who will be part of his “cabinet”, both who had looked the other way with pedophilic priests that they had overseen. As in this country with liberals (prosecutors and politicians) who are turning a blind eye to pedophilia and child sex trafficking, I fear that this pope’s policies will do the same thing and we will be back to square one with priests being ordained who assault children. This almost destroyed a number of dioceses/archdioceses in the past 2 decades - maybe this pope will destroy the Catholic Church with his liberal thinking and policies; homosexual marriage is causing a schism in the United Methodist Church right now between supporters and opponents of gay marriage.

M said...

Homosexual sex between men is not just a sin, it is an abomination. It required the death penalty in the Old Testament and unlike the death penalty for adultery it was actually carried out. If the offender was the son of a powerful man he might “just” be banished from the Land of Israel and given no aid by any Jew.

Christianity didn’t usually carry out the death penalties against men committing homosexual acts as the Old Testament Jews did, but it is still an abomination. Which makes it worse than a normal sin. The Pope knows this. Having homosexual urges isn’t a sin. Acting on those urges is. Living in sin as if it were a normal life will d@mn your soul. Imposing the acceptance and participation of your sin on others (bake the cake!) is a whole other level of damnation.

Why do practicing gays even want to be Christian or Jews? Other than to control the social and power aspects of those religions? The Bible clearly and bluntly states that homosexual acts between men are an abomination in the same line as bestiality and child sacrifice.

wildswan said...

I just hope that whatever was said was distorted by the media which has happened often before.

Because when the guy at the top seems to say that everything is a matter of individual decisions, there's no reason to have a guy at the top. "I, the Pope, tell you authoritatively I have no authority." So break your staff, leave the palace, stop collecting from the churches world-wide, tell the Cardinals to do the same. Defund the Vatican, it has no purpose, the Pope is busy counselling individuals.

St. John Paul II did not see his responsibilities in that way. Nor did St. Peter. It is said that Peter was leaving Rome to get away from persecution when he met the Lord, who said to him "Quo vadis? meaning, "Where are you going?" "I'm running away; where are you going?" "I'm going to Rome to suffer in your place." Peter went back to Rome and was martyred.

What I mean is that a parish priest talking to people he knows can, like a parent, make clear to them his disagreement with their present life plans while also making clear his lasting love for them. A Pope is not a parish priest and he has a responsibility to realize exactly how his words will be taken by the media in the present world situation. He shouldn't run away from this responsibility.

Mark said...

The horse left the barn a long time ago, this isn't going to encourage the masses who have been fleeing the church in the last decades to reverse course.

When Morlino made every parish read a letter telling us who to vote for in the Walker Recall, it made it clear that US Bishops like their political friends more than the faith.

Trying for minor tolerance at this point is far far too late. It's a MAGA Catholic Church in most places now.

gspencer said...

I'd guess the Bible isn't on top of the Pope's bedside table.

MacMacConnell said...

Don't worry. When Catholics resist the FBI and DOJ will deal with them. This Peronista Pope is the antichrist.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Hey, he won the papacy like Joey B won his.
Maybe the next pope will be a twerker like Meatball.
Get them lining up for mass w/gluten free hosts and Chardonnay.

PM said...

Pope's right. Marriage - by true definition - is btw a man and a woman. To demand, to codify, that same-sex unions are a 'marriage' is silly, a misuse of the term. It's really a civil union - a long-needed and necessary one - brought about during the 1st round of AIDs, when one's same-sex partner, one's life-partner, was not allowed the visiting rights afforded to family members.

mikee said...

My darling baby sister has taken over the role of family arbiter of all things Catholic, my aged mother having mellowed a bit since Vatican II sent her off the deep end of Tridentine traditionalism. Opus Dei barely makes my sister's list of OK Catholicism. Padre Pio was OK for a while but who knows these days. The Pope is right out, and should be excommed or maybe burned as a heretic.

I stopped discussing religion and politics with my family decades ago. This LGBQT+ kerfuffle might be worth listening in at Thanksgiving as they hold forth, if only for the laughs.

Narr said...

Couldn't happen to a nicer cult. In terms of the old joke about Northern Ireland, I'm a protestant atheist--raised in the Wesleyan way.

My wife was raised RC but was creeped out by the whole thing. Despite that, we were hitched by her family's parish priest as a nod to the cultural norms and to keep all the living parents and grandparents more or less happy.

hombre said...

Francis gives a new twist to the question: "Is the Pope Catholic?"

We may have to stick with, "Does a bear shit in the woods?"

Jim Gust said...

Evidently bears no longer shit in the woods.

David said...

The Vicar of Christ apparently can't read:

"And He answered and said, ‘Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.’”

At 86, he seems to be even more feeble-minded than Uncle Joe

Mountain Maven said...

Will the Catholic Church go the way of other apostate denominations and descend in to irrelevance like the Episcopalians? Certainly the Anglo population has largely left the churches. Without the mass immigration of Hispanics the church would be marginalized here. Unfortunately the faithful in the church can't easily leave like the protestants do and form new more biblical denominations. The Pope will have a lot to explain when he reaches eternity.

Tim said...

He's Jesuit, and a South American commie. No suprise.

lgv said...

Finally, catholicism has began the final descent into irrelevancy. As a former fundamentalist, this will lead to much smaller catholic church in the long run. The Bible is quite clear on homosexuality, despite some cherry picking of verses to try and counter the clear teachings (remember Sodom and Gomorrah?) When you liberalize teachings and abandon what the Bible (i.e. God) says, you now must now say God was wrong or changed his mind. This undermines the entire concept, ergo there is no point to continue worshipping this God. While seeming to be more inclusive in order to retain membership, membership slowly slips away, as seen in mainstream protestantism.

It's like veganism and religion. Don't tell me you are a firm believer in both. God clearly calls for the killing and sacrifice of animals.

Anthony said...

I'll say it: I quit Catholicism because of this pope. I'd been increasingly losing trust in institutions for years, but then the latest sexual abuse scandal a few years ago put the final nail in the coffin. When it first became known -- yet another one* -- the Babylon Bee made a satirical news story including a statement from the Vatican saying something to the effect of "Yes, this is bad, but we have more important things to worry about, like climate change and social justice." Ha ha ha, pretty funny.

Except then a week or two later the Vatican released a statement that said almost the same thing word for word. Done with that.

* I don't want to single out the Catholic church for underage sex abuse; bad is it is, teachers make priests look like a bunch of pikers.

Aggie said...

I really love the new "Exit-Thru-the-Gift-Shop" Christianity.

~ Gordon Pasha said...

The Mormons are shaping up to be the last bastion.

Robert Cook said...

"Homosexuality is a sin to the Catholic Church, and homosexual unions are sinful."

Umm...per Christian teaching, we are all sinners. What makes homosexuality more egregious than other sins? It is not mentioned or forbidden in the Ten Commandments, (which precedes but informs Christianity). The Catholic Church--and its doctrines--is not synonymous with Christ's teaching, btw.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

""Pope Francis has suggested there could be ways to bless same-sex unions...."

Well, once a year at the Basilica in Minneapolis they bless the animals, so there is precedent.

Kate said...

This too shall pass. If you're Catholic, pray that whatever trials we needed to endure under Francis are over, lesson learned, and that the next pope is a better communicator and a stronger adherent to the traditions of the Magisterium.

n.n said...

Catholics also don't hold parades for masturbators, pedophiles, abortionists, and other liberal actors of social progress.

JAORE said...

Does a bear crap in the woods?

Sure.

Is the Pope Catholic?

Signs point to "No".

Doug said...

The perfect pontiff for America's Cafeteria Catholics

JK Brown said...

Well, the Church has likely lost the admiration of Hitler.

Hitler, accordingly, admired the Church. He admired not its teachings but its methods—“its knowledge of human nature,” its hierarchical organization, its discipline, “its uncommonly clever tactics.” One of its cleverest tactics, he believed, is its unyielding dogmatism.

Faith, he explains in Mein Kampf. must be “unconditional.” It cannot in any essential way be made dependent on arguments, proofs, reasons. Its content must be offered to the masses in the form of rigid dogmas, “dogmas as such.” Once a doctrine has been announced publicly, therefore, there can be no changes in it, no debates, no discussion.

Peikoff, Leonard. Ominous Parallels (p. 54).


But then undermining established religions has been the goal of socialist for more than a century

Joe Smith said...

Gays are like blacks now.

There is no end to their complaining and you can't escape them.

If the RCC starts marrying gays I will be out.

I will have to find some underground church that has a Latin mass.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"Umm...per Christian teaching, we are all sinners. What makes homosexuality more egregious than other sins?"

John Boswell explains how that came to be. Excellent read.

Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century First Edition


https://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Social-Tolerance-Homosexuality-Fourteenth/dp/0226067114

Beaneater said...

Yes, Robert Cook, we are all sinners. In a very significant sense, there is nothing more sinful about homosexuality acts than there is about theft, drunkenness, adultery, etc. I am extremely grateful that there is forgiveness for all these and more through the death of Jesus. The life transformed by Christ's forgiveness seeks (imperfectly!) to please God out of gratitude for his goodness. Homosexual acts are not pleasing to God. Christians should avoid them, though of course if we do stumble, we have an advocate in Jesus.

veni vidi vici said...

I have no dog in this fight, being neither gay nor Catholic.

As an outside observer, I'll note that this pivot from the Vatican, if implemented, would provide the teeming hordes of the Muslim world and elsewhere with very resonant confirmation of their beliefs that the west is over and Islam is the future - and coming sooner than anyone thinks.

That is going to make the world a more dangerous place. Especially after all that Vatican-backed "migrant" movement from the Islamic world into western Europe, Canada and to a lesser extent the USA. One could almost be forgiven for thinking there's some kind of hidden-hand consensus on leading the "enlightenment" world into another dark age, or something.

GingerBeer said...

The answer to the old saw "Is the Pope Catholic?" is no. He's a Jesuit.

Narr said...

veni vidi vici @11:12 gets it.

The secular version is the German NGOs trafficking as many as possible ASAP to Italy.

California Snow said...

I see this wresting of scripture and twisting of God's direction to justify man's desires and I can't help but be grateful for continuing revelation from God through a prophet.