The Dutch bishops have become the latest conference to collectively reject the new provision by the Vatican for non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples and those in irregular relationships.
A statement issued by the Bishops’ Conference of the Netherlands stopped short of authorising either blessings or prayers for any couples if they could be construed as approving lifestyles at odds with the moral teaching of the Catholic Church.
“The Dutch bishops do not wish to deprive anyone of the support and power of God,” their statement said.
“It is possible to say a prayer about individual believers who live in an irregular relationship,” it continued.
“What one asks for in prayer and how one prays are important. For someone living in an irregular or homosexual relationship, the ordained minister can say a simple prayer outside the context of a wedding celebration or prayer celebration.
“In this prayer, God can be asked for strength and assistance, invoking his Spirit, so that he/she understands God’s will for his/her life and can continue to grow.”
The statement added: “This makes it clear in the chosen words that it is not a blessing or confirmation of an irregular relationship and it also avoids confusion with a marriage that, according to the Catholic Church, can only be concluded between a man and a woman.
“In this way, prayer can give the power to draw near to God and to live in accordance with his purposes for the creation of man and woman and of marriage.”
Auxiliary Bishop Rob Mutsaerts of ‘s-Hertogenbosch went further, describing Fiducia Supplicans, the pre-Christmas declaration by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith that permitted same-sex blessings, as “above all a cowardly document”.
He said: “It is not about an expansion of the meaning of blessings, but a deliberate modification of what is sin.”
He said that the document “explains ‘blessings’ in such a way that they no longer have a clear meaning”.
The bishop said: “Give ‘blessing’ a new meaning, and you can do anything with it. The magic word that is then easily pulled out is ‘pastoral’. A formal blessing is not allowed, the declaration says, but a spontaneous blessing is. That is ‘pastoral’.
“How often the word ‘pastoral’ is used to set aside the Magisterium, to set doctrine and life in opposition to each other, and then to condone life that is at odds with doctrine. Pastoral care is no longer soul care – it has become soulless. Doctrine is set aside.”
The Dutch bishops follow the entire Catholic leadership of Africa who last week rejected blessings for same-sex unions en masse.
The African bishops issued an emphatic, and unified, “no” in response to a Vatican declaration authorising the non-liturgical blessing of same-sex unions, indicating such blessings would cause confusion on the continent and will not be administered.
Their rejection of Fudicia Supplicans puts the African Church dramatically at odds with the Vatican, which a week earlier demanded that all bishops assented to the document which permits such blessings on the understanding that they do not, and cannot, equate to sacramental marriage or endorse a relationship at odds with Catholic moral teaching.
It has been widely criticised for creating “scandal” and “confusion” among the faithful at a time when Catholic teaching on human sexuality, marriage and the family is under sustained attack around the world.
The rejection of the demands of the document received the agreement of Pope Francis and Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Argentine Prefect of the DDF who has been the focus of separate controversy when it emerged that he wrote lurid theological books about kissing and orgasms.
Besides the African bishops’ conferences, and the Dutch bishops, the demands of the document to offer non-liturgical blessings to people in irregular relationships have been rejected by bishops’ conferences in Hungary, Poland and Kazakhstan.
It was accepted in France but with nine French bishops publicly dissenting from the demand to bless same-sex couples.
There is also open opposition from individual bishops in Peru, Uruguay, Brazil and Switzerland.
The document has been so far accepted uncritically by bishops in Ireland, Hong Kong, India, Portugal, Germany, Croatia, Belgium and Austria.
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti told the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero that same-sex couples will be able to receive blessings at St Peter’s Basilica, Rome.
In the United States the document has been broadly welcomed by the bishops, though in a few individual cases there is strong opposition to it.
Some of the most severe criticism has come from the heads of Vatican dicasteries who served under the predecessors of Pope Francis.
They include African Cardinal Francis Sarah, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, who warned bishops against applying the document.
To do so, he said, would be to participate in “the work of the divider … sowing doubt and scandal in the souls of the faithful”.
Most opposition in America, the UK and Australia is coming from priests, with the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy in each country explicitly rejecting its provisions.
In Spain and Latin America, priests have launched a petition demanding that the Pope rescinds Fiducia Supplicans, prompting Cardinal José Cobo of Madrid to threaten disciplinary action against any of the clergy who sign it, warning his priests that “we are going to fully apply the Pope’s doctrine” on same-sex blessings.
(Photo of Cardinal Willem Eijk, the Archbishop of Utrecht, by Simon Caldwell)
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