A senior cardinal has said the Vatican must force the Belgian bishops to reverse their decision to permit liturgies for the church blessing of same-sex couples.
Cardinal Willem Eijk of Utrecht, the Netherlands, denounced a document produced by Flemish-speaking bishops to bless gay couples because it undermined “the Church’s teaching on the morality of marriage and sexual ethics”.
He encouraged “ecclesiastically competent circles” to demand the withdrawal of “Being pastorally close to homosexual persons — For a welcoming Church that excludes no one”, which was issued earlier this month.
The document includes prayers, Scripture readings and suggested wording for same-sex couples to proclaim publicly and in a church setting “before God how they are committed to one another”.
Cardinal Eijk said: “If gay couples in monogamous, lasting sexual relationships can receive a blessing, should not the same be possible in the monogamous, lasting sexual relationships of a man and a woman living together without being married?
“Allowing the blessing of gay couples carries the great risk of devaluing blessings and undermining the Church’s teaching on the morality of marriage and sexual ethics,” he said in an article for The New Daily Compass.
“The statement of the Flemish bishops, in which they allow the blessing of same-sex couples and even provide a liturgical model for it, meets with inherent ethical objections, radically contradicts a recent ruling by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and carries the risk that it may lead Catholics to views on the morality of same-sex relationships that are contrary to Church teaching,” he said.
“Catholics who accept the Church’s teaching, including on sexual morality, therefore fervently hope that the Flemish bishops will soon be asked by ecclesiastically competent circles to withdraw their statement and that the latter will comply.”
The move by the Flemish bishops contradicts the contents of ruling from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in March 2021 that the blessings of same-sex couples was impermissible.
Cardinal Jozef De Kesel of Mechelen-Brussels and the other bishops behind the document argue however that their teachings are consistent with Amoris Laetitia (the Joy of Love), the 2016 post-synodal exhortation of Pope Francis on the pastoral care of families.
In his article, Cardinal Eijk, a former hospital doctor who is considered among the favourites to succeed Pope Francis, disagreed with their interpretation.
“Distinguish, accompany, and integrate remain the main keywords of Amoris Laetitia (chapter VIII), according to the Flemish bishops,” he wrote.
“It goes without saying that people with a homosexual orientation must also be treated with respect and have a right to pastoral care and guidance,” he continued.
“By discernment, however, it is meant in Amoris Laetitia that people in an irregular relationship are brought to understand what the truth is about their relationship (AL 300). In short, that they come to understand that their relationship goes against God’s order of creation and is therefore morally unacceptable.
“Integration means giving people in an irregular relationship – as far as possible – a place in the life of the church. Of course, people in a sexual relationship with a person of the same sex are welcome in church celebrations, even if they cannot receive communion or actively participate in the celebration.”
He said: “The declaration prayer in which same-sex couples commit to each other shows an unequivocal analogy with the ‘I do’ that a man and a woman say to each other during the marriage ceremony.”
“God created marriage as a total and mutual gift of man and woman to each other, culminating in procreation,” the cardinal added.
“Sexual relations between persons of the same sex cannot in themselves lead to procreation. They cannot therefore be an authentic expression at the bodily level of the total mutual self-giving of man and woman, which marriage is essentially.
“Situations that are objectively wrong from a moral point of view cannot be blessed. God’s grace does not shine on the path of sin. One cannot cultivate spiritual fruit by blessing relationships that go against God’s order of creation … it is not morally permissible to bless the homosexual relationship as such.”
He said that in the liturgy prepared by the Flemish bishops, the community is asked to pray for God’s grace to work in same-sex couples.
“However, we cannot pray for God’s grace to work in a relationship that does not conform to his order of creation,” Cardinal Eijk said.
He added that there was a risk that the average Catholic “will be led astray and begin to think that lasting, monogamous same-sex sexual relationships are morally acceptable”.
The Flemish bishops say their document was issued as a “concrete response and fulfilment to the desire to give explicit attention to the situation of homosexual persons, their parents and families in the conduct of policy”.
“Every human being, regardless of his sexual orientation, must be respected in his dignity and treated with respect,” they said.
“We want to continue on that path by giving this pastoral relationship a more structural character.”
They said that same-sex unions “although not a religious marriage, can be a source of peace and shared happiness for those involved”.
“Pope Francis asks to value and support the judgment of people’s conscience[s], even in life situations that do not fully realize the objective ideal of marriage. No one can be condemned forever because that is not the logic of the gospel.”
The new liturgy, they said, would confirm “their joy of knowing a steady partner, their choice for an exclusive and lasting relationship, their firm will to care responsibly for each other and their desire to be of service in Church and society”.
Last year the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared that “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family,” adding that it cannot be licit to bestow a blessing imitating “the nuptial blessing invoked on the man and woman united in the sacrament of matrimony”.
The Church, the ruling from the CDF said, “does not have the power over God’s designs” but was only “their faithful interpreter and witness”.
(Photo by Simon Caldwell)
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