How to Read Fiducia Supplicens: A Guide

In anticipation of the wild hysteria that seems to follow papal pronouncements, and in particular with an eye towards heading off the spurious claims that many people are determined to make about Pope Francis, it is important to actually engage with the document produced by the Vatican. This author encourages readers to go and read the document on the Vatican’s website in full, because it is worth the read and is an example of the rich philosophical-theological traditions of the Church continuing to endure through the centuries.

This article should not in any way be taken as a substitute for the full text of Fiducia Supplicans, only as a guide to helping people who might not be familiar with the more technical language of Church theologians in dissecting it. To that end, here are the important points to take away from the document.

Point 1: The Vatican Is NOT Condoning Same-Sex Unions/Relationships

Fiducia Supplicans goes to great pains to emphasize several critical points in the document. The very first point, right out of the gate, is that blessings contained within the sacraments cannot be rightly given to people who are determined to not conform their lives to the will of God. Paragraphs 4-6 and 9-11 beat this point nearly to death, re-emphasizing over and over again that blessings cannot be given as a way of endorsing or supporting sinful lifestyle choices.

This is not anything radical or new in the teaching of the Church. The Church’s understanding of the Sacrament of Reconciliation operates in the same way. If a Catholic goes into the confessional and confesses his/her sins, but fully intends in their heart to go right back out into the world and repeat the same sins as before, full absolution is not properly received by the individual. A prerequisite for that absolution to be granted is sincere contrition on the part of the sinner, both in sorrow for the sins committed as well as a resolution to do everything possible to avoid repeating the sin in the future.

In Paragraph 20, FS points out that blessings are intended to help bring us into line with God’s will and assist us in better living out the lives God intended for us. To that end, because same-sex unions are not striving to live out God’s commandment – the avoidance of the sin of homosexuality – there is no blessing within the confines of a sacrament that can be properly conveyed upon them. So for all of those Catholic news media sites panicking because they think Pope Francis is endorsing same-sex unions, this author would recommend reading the text more closely.

Point 2: The Vatican is Condemning ALL IRREGULAR RELATIONSHIPS

A sin that has unfortunately become quite prevalent among Catholic circles is the sin of cohabitation. To willfully live with someone with whom a person is romantically involved outside of the bonds of marriage, when other living circumstances are quite possible, is gravely sinful. This is because cohabitation violates two principles of chaste courtship. First, it means putting oneself into the position of the near-occasion of sin consistently (i.e. sleeping in the same bed with someone to whom you are not married but romantically involved increases the likelihood of pre-marital relations), which is a deliberate offense against God’s grace and God’s mercy. The second is that it commits the sin of scandal, which suggests that the behavior is both normal and appropriate for someone calling themselves a practicing Catholic.

Within the text of the document, especially in Paragraph 11, the Church identifies that any sexual relationship lived outside of the expected bonds of marriage is not legitimate. This means that if two people are in a romantic relationship and are living together in violation of the Church’s instruction not to do so, the blessings in sacramental form would be invalidated for them in the same way that they would be for a same-sex couple seeking a sacramental blessing on their union. This is worthwhile to mention, because while a great number of Catholics rightly identify the sin of homosexuality, they conveniently overlook the sin of cohabitation that either they or people close to them are practicing while they remain silent onlookers.

Point 3: Sin is a Wound, and All Wounds Require God’s Grace to Heal

People who are living in sexually impure states of life are separated from the fold of the Church, this is true. But the great mission that Jesus left His Church before ascending into Heaven was to go out and make disciples of the whole world. This discipleship is achieved by evangelization, which not only means teaching and instructing the faithful but also means the active healing of spiritual and mental wounds caused by both faithful and non-faithful persons alike.

God’s grace functions like radiation. Even if a hardened atheist comes into contact with God’s grace, and intellectually refuses to believe that grace is existent there, that makes no difference. The grace touches the atheist and affects the heart of the atheist. It might be that the atheist goes home and ruthlessly stamps out the small spark of grace, not allowing it to catch fire and begin moving things in the heart to stir up a spirit of conversion. But in a number of cases, that spark ignites movement in the heart of the atheist, and it genuinely leads to a conversion on the part of the atheist. That conversion does not happen without that contact with God’s grace!

Blessings are vehicles within which God’s grace is contained. FS talks about how liturgically, grace is conveyed in a particular way. People cannot rightly participate in the liturgies of the Church and desire the blessings of the liturgies without conforming their hearts to the desire to live as Christ calls them to live. Within the boundaries of the liturgy come the sinners who have accepted the dominion of God’s law in the world, still needing His grace, but are resolved to amend their lives to conform to what He desires for them. Within that particular setting, same-sex unions and those living in other irregular sexual relationships cannot receive blessings, because they are not properly disposed to receive such a blessing and it would appear to be an endorsement of their lifestyle on the part of the Church.

However, outside of a liturgical setting, blessings as vehicles of grace are absolutely necessary to bring about conversion in someone who has wandered from the fold. While the same-sex couple that quietly approaches the priest in the sacristy after Mass asking for a blessing might have it in their hearts to not turn from their way of life, thinking that it is a de facto blessing of the Church on their union, that is not actually the case. The priest blesses both of the individuals as individuals, and in doing so calls down God’s grace upon them to conform their lives to live the way God desires them to live. This includes having the grace to make the tough choices to amend lives in the places where it is most difficult to amend them, such as altering the nature of a relationship a person might have with another person. The grace conveyed through such a blessing is the spark of conversion described above, having the potential to catch fire in the person’s heart and lead them to renounce sin and come back into the Church. Will it always work? No, but for the sake of carrying out the instruction to convert the whole world that Jesus left the Eleven before ascending into Heaven, we as the Church have an obligation to make the effort anyway.

Point 4: The Goal is Expanding the Circle, Not Circling the Wagons

Pope Francis has repeatedly and often advocated for the need for evangelization to the world around us. Catholics, and this author is no exception, have too often been quick to circle the wagons and focus on strengthening the faithful rather than working with the Lord to increase the number of that faithful. Subsequently, this results in unfortunate side effects such as petty arguments on social media, dispositions towards non-Catholics that are oriented towards winning arguments rather than winning souls, and a completely ridiculous demand that the Church never clarify her teachings or explain them in a way – without compromising their fundamental essence – that is more intelligible for the world to grasp.

That last point is of paramount importance, because it is one that Catholics who are anti-Pope Francis will vehemently use over and over again to excoriate the pope when he says or does something that they do not like. They are correct in the sense that we do not have an obligation to conform our teachings to the world – quite the opposite, actually – but they are wrong in the sense that we do not have an obligation to explain things clearly to the world around us. The Church has never been against the inclusion of homosexuals, simply against the practice of homosexuality itself, and the fact that the perception has cropped up for so many years among Catholics that the Church feels the first way and not the second is a failure of instruction.

Pope Francis, acting as the successor to Saint Peter, has sought to rectify that failure of instruction. This latest document is a perfect example of the clarification he seeks to provide. Instead of trusting that the Holy Spirit is moving through the chair of Peter, though, a good many Catholics simply howl about how they do not like the way Pope Francis is doing something or saying something. Not everyone can be like Saint Pope John Paul II, who was fluent in nine languages, or Pope Benedict XVI, who was fluent in seven. Instead of creating an ideal for the pope in our minds, we should be looking at the pope for the man he is, and praising God for the gifts that he has been given. And one of those gifts is a heart deeply oriented to pastoral charity.

If we never offer those people living in sinful relationships the opportunity to receive God’s grace and to enter into the sheepfold, what kind of shepherds does that make us? How is that fulfillment of the Lord’s instruction to go forth and make disciples? This is an earnest effort on the part of the Vatican to really reach out and bring those people home.

Above All: Trust God

Jesus promised Saint Peter that the Church would never fail. We have had bad popes. We have had horrible leaders. We have had all manner of travesties and tribulations throughout our history as a Church. But no human-led institution could have been as incompetently led as the Catholic Church has been at times throughout two thousand years of existence, and still be left standing. This is a matter of whether or not you trust the Lord. If you trust the Lord and believe in His power to save souls, then you should not be distressed at every little thing that comes forth from the Vatican that you might not like or understand.

If the pope is a good pope, then he is carrying out the Lord’s instructions.

If the pope is a bad pope, the Lord will heal and correct anything that said pope has done wrong during his papacy, as he did in the aftermath of the bad papacies that we had in our past.

But that is on the head of the pope. If you are obedient to the pope as the head of the Church, and the pope is wrong, that falls on him, not you. If you are disobedient to the pope, now you run a terrible risk: if the pope is right, and you are wrong, you have no excuse, because you were disobedient. And last this author checked, the promise of infallibility was granted to the papacy, not to any one of us.

Merry Christmas, and may your hearts be at peace. The Church will not fail.