When I first heard about this document, I wondered what the fuss was all about. My life experience as a priest in Peruvian parishes had taught me that people are able to manage family and community life and, at the same time, share a great variety of ways of approaching our Christian faith. For the most part, we humans seem to have an innate sense of what is right and wrong. We are also capable of sensing variety in culturally inspired beliefs, which stem from significantly different experiences leading to the accepted customs of a family, a people, a tribe, a nation and all humans. Life in Peru verified for me the validity of the French saying: Vive la différence!
I first arrived in Peru in 1968 and departed definitively in 2009 and returned to Australia. My final pastoral act was to bless the house of two gay men, one of whom I had first met a few months after he was born. We got to know each other over time and I accompanied him during a process of discernment that led him to the decision to leave a religious order’s formation program and forge a different life. He is now in his early 50s. He and his partner teach different subjects at a university in Lima. We have stayed in touch over the years. He was in touch recently to inform me that his partner was about to publish a book, the subject of which I was told but forget. It’s that time of life.
When I blessed their house, I presume I also blessed them. Peruvian Catholics are always asking the priest to bless them, their children, their house or their car (if it is new) and sometimes a possession that has a special significance for them. I was once asked to bless a brothel as it was about to be inaugurated but I chickened out on discovering what the building was destined to be. There is a verbal part to the blessing, but much more important for the people is the holy water sprinkled over whatever is being blessed.
Blessings are among the most widespread and evolving sacramentals. Indeed, they lead us to grasp God’s presence in all the events of life and remind us that, even in the use of created things, human beings are invited to seek God, to love him, and to serve him faithfully.[7] For this reason, blessings have as their recipients: people; objects of worship and devotion; sacred images; places of life, of work, and suffering; the fruits of the earth and human toil; and all created realities that refer back to the Creator, praising and blessing him by their beauty. (Fiducia Suplicans 8)
In his mystery of love, through Christ, God communicates to his Church the power to bless. Granted by God to human beings and bestowed by them on their neighbours, the blessing is transformed into inclusion, solidarity, and peacemaking. It is a positive message of comfort, care, and encouragement. The blessing expresses God’s merciful embrace and the Church’s motherhood, which invites the faithful to have the same feelings as God toward their brothers and sisters.
I can also verify the veracity of the following statement: People who come spontaneously to ask for a blessing show by this request their sincere openness to transcendence, the confidence of their hearts that they do not trust in their own strength alone, their need for God, and their desire to break out of the narrow confines of this world, enclosed in its limitations. (Fiducia Suplicans 21)
I particularly like the following affirmation: From the point of view of pastoral care, blessings should be evaluated as acts of devotion that “are external to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and of the other sacraments.” Indeed, the “language, rhythm, course, and theological emphasis” of popular piety differ “from those of the corresponding liturgical action.” For this reason, “pious practices must conserve their proper style, simplicity, and language, [and] attempts to impose forms of ‘liturgical celebration’ on them are always to be avoided.”(Fiducia Suplicans 24)
We navigate our lives on the basis of our experience, our beliefs and the wisdom we may discover in our communities and the theological tradition of the Church to which we belong. I expect that, in many cases, Christians also delve into the wisdom of other religious and secular traditions, hoping to discover more pearls of wisdom.
There is so much that helps us discover, walk, and shape our life’s path. There is no ‘one size fits all’! We humans are not the result of an efficient production line. However, we do have enough in common to care for each other. Precisely in this regard, Pope Francis urged us not to “lose pastoral charity, which should permeate all our decisions and attitudes” and to avoid being “judges who only deny, reject, and exclude. (Fiducia Suplicans 13)
Columban Fr Peter Woodruff lives and works in Australia.
Michael Rose:
Feb 14, 2024 at 05:48 PM
Tis a grave disappointment that our pope would resort to labels of "Hypocrisy"
for those that wont or dont support the FS declaration.
The following are but two of many commentries on this "divisive" declaration:
Confraternities of Priests from USA , Australia and England- response
https://catholicclergy.net/
FS Hypocrisy in opposition to FS
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/hypocrisy-in-opposition-to-fiducia-supplicans/
I for one, am tired of this pontificate and pray that our pontiff will help us all to " turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel".
Oliver Clark:
Mar 15, 2024 at 07:03 PM
I try to keep in uncertainty of my belief the inseparability and equality in quantity and quality of consecrated celibate marriage vowed to man in Christ and consecrated male female marriage vowed to God exercising an absolute power of simultaneous authorisations of consecrated marriage, either celibate or male female, ensuring its procreation role gifts and it insuring its need of union of its identity.
Pope Francis and economist/statistician, Colin Clark, were both trained in chemistry, inorganic and organic, enabling their consents in uncertainty of their respective beliefs to be joined in consecrated marriages, celibate of Pope Fracis and male female of Colin Clark, understanding the application of the multiplier in international non-economic progress and economic processes first described in 1930 and applied in a consecrated male female marriage by Colin Clark from 1946 in general circumstances and completed by Pope Francis on 17 June 2021 in his particular and general circumstances by his consecrated celibate marriage's simultaneous authorisations of its applications of it ensuring and it insuring in the cases of his Vatican state ten citizens/employees, including Cardinal Angelo Becciu's, alleged embezzlements of his consecrated celibate marriage's procreation role gift charity donations and the Italian Parliament "Zan" anti-homophobia bill unacceptable risk of fraud on its insuring its need of union of its identity.
Is it that we "distrust the Holy Father", Pope Francis?
Or is it that in our fraudulently attempting inverting Pope Francis’ consecrated celibate marriage’s procreation gift role and its identity in need of union, we resent Pope Francis' consecrated celibate marriage vowed to man in Christ withstanding the extreme tensions caused by diseased family member 'familyists' attempting to use this consecrated celibate marriage?
Is this using this consecrated celibate marriage by grooming Pope Francis in his helper of the family role with a non-economic status inducement of falsely purported presumed "higher vocation" (TTMHS, PCF, 1995, 35; cf. St Paul's "opinion" at 1 Cor 7:25-34) of, or associating together with, consecrated celibate marriage vowed to man in Christ to consecrated male female marriage vowed to God with a false occult as hidden, incest connected as substitute mate, inducement for economic advantage for his family by ensuring tax-exemption embezzlements and by under-insuring its identity as a consecrated celibate marriage with a lower insurance cost by fraud?
These were the two inducements causing extreme tensions withstood in uncertainty of belief by the consent in real presence present moment to be joined in consecrated celibate marriage of Pope Francis on 17 June 2021 in both his particular subjective and general objective circumstances in his keeping their inseparability and qualitative equality in the cases of its exercise of an absolute power of its simultaneous authorisations on 17 June 2021 in withstanding extreme tensions caused by: (a) his Vatican state ten citizens/employees, including Cardinal Angelo Becciu's, alleged embezzlements of his procreation role gift charity donations of criminal indictments authorised on 17 June 2021 by Pope Francis' consecrated celibate marriage on which these ten were convicted and sentenced on 18 December 2023. (b) the Italian Parliament "Zan" anti-homophobia bill as an unacceptable risk of fraud on the identity of his consecrated celibate marriage vowed to man in Christ on the reference point of Mary keeping the inseparability and qualitative equality of her consents in uncertainty of her belief to be joined in her two consecrated marriages, celibate at RSV Lk 1:38: "let it be to me", and male female at RSV Mt 1:24: "Joseph ... took his wife" which bill was defeated in early November 2021 after a protest note against it simultaneously authorised as for the embezzlement charges on 17 June 2021 by Pope Francis' consecrated celibate marriage.