Pints With Aquinas - Blessing Gay Couples? What Does it Mean? | Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings and Same Sex Couples. Father gives his analysis and opinion of Fiducia Supplicans. 🟣 Join Us on Locals (before we get banned on YT): https://mattfradd.locals.com/ 📖 Fr. Pine's Book: https://bit.ly/3lEsP8F 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com 🚫 FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd We get a small kick back from affiliate links

Hello, my name is Fr. Gregory Pine and I'm a Dominican friar of the province of St. Joseph and this is Pines of the Aquinas. In this episode I'd like to talk a little bit about the declaration Fiducia supplicans, which as you know was recently promulgated by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, a document concerning the pastoral meaning of blessings. So it's created a lot of conversation in Catholic circles. Some people are bewildered by it, and some people are excited about it.

But there's been a lot of back and forth, often of a polemical or controversial sort. So I thought that we could just take the opportunity to read some key points from the document, to interpret them, to try to do so in good faith, and then to make efforts at a reception of the text while raising certain perhaps concerns or questions as to like difficulties that arise in our yeah interpreting and receiving of the text so yeah this is going to be difficult

but hopefully we can do so with patience. And we'll see what comes of it. Here we go. Alright, I feel prompted insofar as it's a controversial issue just to say a little prayer at the outset. So, to ask that God would open our minds and hearts so as to receive his saving truth. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Grant us grace, O merciful God, to desire ardently all that is pleasing to thee, to examine it prudently, to

acknowledge it truthfully, and to accomplish it perfectly, for the praise and glory of thy name, who live and reign forever and ever. Amen. Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, pray for us. Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Okay, so my reading of this text is a kind of modest effort. Insofar as I don't have like inside knowledge, I don't know the process that went into the drafting of the text, nor as I privy to those conversations. So I'm just reading it and interpreting it on the basis of what I know otherwise and the basis of what I learn in reading it.

So the document begins by stating or affirming that it remains firm on the doctrine of the Church about marriage. So only in marriage, you know, the marriage of a man and a woman, as the Church understands it, do sexual relations find their natural, proper, and fully human meaning, the document states? Okay, so in the background there we have the Catechism's teaching on same-sex attraction. So we have this distinction drawn between persons, inclinations, and acts, which you've probably heard. So the persons we affirm, you know, like persons who suffer same-sex attraction, we affirm them to be of infinite dignity, you know, insofar as they're made to the image and likeness of God. They have minds with

which to know and hearts with which to love, and that's, you know, true of all of us made to the image and likeness of God. So that's not something just to be like skipped over or, yeah, passed by in silence because it's worth affirming, because effectively what we're doing here is a kind of, you know, pastoral ministry, right? So, yeah, salvation is addressed to all. First Timothy 2, 4 says that God desires that all be saved and come to knowledge of the truth. So we start there.

So the catechism will say that these persons are to be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. The catechism says further that the inclinations to same-sex sexual acts are objectively disordered. So that means that they don't have for their end a proper object. Yes, so insofar as marriage is ordered to the union of the spouses unto the procreation and education of children, same-sex acts would be contrary to the natural law or contrary to human nature in its sexual expression and realization. And as a result of which it just doesn't have an object which can be part of an integral and morally upright act. All right, so for that reason, you know, like the catechism

will go on to say that it's contrary to a genuine effective and sexual complementarity and that hopes homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. So regardless of one's intention, the nature of the act makes it such that the same-sex sexual acts cannot be good. That is to say that they are bad. So then the catechism will go on to say that these persons are called to chastity and it'll say quote, by the virtuesatechism will go on to say that these persons are called to chastity. And it will say, quote, by the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

So chastity is a virtue. So all persons of whatever shape or size are called to chastity. And we acknowledge the fact that for persons who struggle with same-sex attraction, their struggle with chastity or for chastity is particular because there is this peculiar disorder, this seemingly greater disorder on the objective level. So a lot of people, they desire sexual intercourse at the wrong time or in the wrong place

or in the wrong measure, as it were. But here, to desire sexual intercourse with the wrong type of person, in the sense that with somebody it were. But here, you know, to desire sexual intercourse with the wrong type of person, in the sense that with somebody for whom or with whom the sexual intercourse is not fruitful, is not open to life, is not potentially ordered to the sanctifying capacity, as it were, of the sacrament of marriage, that makes their struggle with the virtue of chastity particular and particularly difficult because of this feature. So we don't want to just say, like, everyone's called to chastity, so difficult because of this feature. So we don't want to just say, like, everyone's called to chastity, so not that big of a deal.

I mean, it is a big deal. But I think this helps to bring into focus the fact that at the end of the day, all of us are called to just one vocation, and that vocation is the vision of God in heaven. There are certain states of life which we call vocation, like lowercase v by comparison to the uppercase v vocation of heaven. We call them vocations because they approach or approximate that one vocation, you know, like lowercase v by comparison to the uppercase v vocation of heaven. We call them vocations because they approach or approximate that one vocation in some way, shape, or form by their promises or their vows, their stability and fixity.

But at the end of the day, like we're called to the vision of God in heaven and that remains open to all persons who are willing to live the life of grace and virtue, including the virtue of chastity. So it'll entail for persons who struggle with same-sex attraction, like a real suffering, but one for which the church offers resources, right? So like prayer, sacraments, penance, Christian friendship, things other like that. So when the document continues, it says we're not redefining marriage, right? We're not recasting marriage. What we're doing here in this document says the prefect of the Dacastery for the doctrine of the faith is contributing to the understanding

of the pastoral meaning of blessings. Alright, so okay, well what's a blessing? Typically in the Christian tradition you would bless people, you would bless things, you would bless places. In the philosophical sense it's typically understood to be a kind of relation, alright, so it would pertain to the category of relation. And you're strengthening a relation by a kind of quasi-sacramental bond, and it, you know, like binds the person's concerned more intimately, or more sublimely with the Most High God, or the Thing, or the Place, or whatever it is. So, you know, blessings are a kind of sacramental, which means they yield grace ex operae operantes is the technical term used, which means that they like facilitate the receiving of grace, so they facilitate the giving of grace by the devotion or the zeal of the person involved. All right? So they're like kind of signs of spiritual benefit,

which we have to profit from by receiving. But like a blessing, as we've heard elsewhere, requires that what is blessed be conformed to God's will. Okay, so you can't just bless any and everything. We only bless some things which are apt to be blessed. So I think this is where we're kind of coming at this particular issue with a certain sensitivity to it. So the document says that it wants to push this notion specifically, and it refers to

blessings as an evolving phenomena. It describes how blessings lead us to grasp God's presence or how blessings remind us of something pertaining to the dispensation of salvation. So yeah, I suspect that people have quibbled with some of that language, like a certain worry about speaking in terms of evolution. I think typically in the Christian tradition we speak of a development of a doctrine, not that the doctrine changes, but in that we appropriate the document in a novel way, maybe for a new time, or that we understand the doctrine more richly or more profoundly in light of a certain growth in the people of God and in its capacity for reception. So there are a couple

of paragraphs here that I want to read, again ones that people have focused on in commentary. We read in paragraph 12, one must also avoid the risk of reducing the meaning of blessings to this point of view alone, which is to say, you know, like you only bless things that are apt to be blessed, for it would lead us to expect the same moral conditions for a simple blessing that are called for in the reception of the sacraments. Such a risk requires that we broaden this perspective further. Indeed, there is the danger that a pastoral gesture that is so beloved and widespread will be subjected to too many moral prerequisites, which under the claim of control could overshadow the unconditional power of God's love that forms the basis for the gesture of blessing." So the basic

point here is, yeah, like we're trying to bless people on the way even with a recognition of people's, you know, woundedness and weakness and we don't want to make it such that the bar for admittance to blessing is so high that it precludes the reception of blessing for those who might be disposed at, you know, at some way or in some way to a blessing. And then it continues in paragraph 13. Precisely in this regard, Pope Francis urged us not to, quote, lose pastoral charity which should permeate all other decisions and attitudes and to avoid being, quote, judges who only deny, reject, and exclude. Let us then respond to the Holy Father's proposal by developing a broader understanding of blessings. Okay. And then the document gives some evidence or grounds,

as it were, for this development. So in the sacred scriptures, it'll say blessings appear as super abundant and unconditional. And there's the sense like throughout that when one asks for a blessing, it signals an openness to the gift, as if a blessing were, or the asking for a blessing, it signals an openness to the gift, as if a blessing, or the asking for a blessing, were a kind of plea to live better, with the understanding that the blessing will facilitate that. And the document will say that it's appropriate to meet this need in a setting of spontaneity and freedom. Okay? So a lot of focus there on spontaneity and freedom. and freedom. Okay? So a lot of focus there on spontaneity and freedom. As over and against like a settled ritual or a liturgical form, they're saying, right, you know, maybe more along other lines. So it seems the document is exercised that ministers should show a kind of disposition of

readiness, not necessarily on the one hand of judgment as we just heard, but of like readiness as it were to bless that we would be poised or disposed to give blessing and that we would take the gestures of those who ask for blessing as goodwill gestures and that we would be disposed as it were to meet their need. The document will also say, you know, these people's culpability might be diminished as well for various reasons, so that should be taken into account. So the non-liturgical setting is what we're focusing on in this particular declaration. And it's thinking in terms of what it calls maybe the two dimensions of blessing. So there's a sense of blessing as blessing God, a kind of ascending dimension of blessing where people reach out, as it were, in thanksgiving or in praise,

but then this descending dimension of blessing, which would be one which might entail God giving blessing, and specifically through the minister. So this idea of blessing, both ascending and descending, they're saying it's like something that arises in light of spontaneity and freedom. It's an expression on the part of those who are it of a genuine need and an openness to the gift. This blessing doesn't validate the condition nor does it claim to sanction or legitimize everything. Just, you know, this is from the text. Okay. So as we go further, the document will say, in such cases, you know, if persons in a same-sex relationship were to request a blessing of such a sort in a spontaneous and free way, non-liturgical, quote, a blessing may be imparted that not only has an ascending value, but also involves the invocation of a blessing that descends from God upon those who, recognizing

themselves to be destitute and in need of his help, do not claim a legitimation of their own status, but who beg that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit." So that, in my understanding, is the basic shape of the text and the basic proposal which it sets forward. What follows is, like in the rest of this particular episode, is speculative. But I would say what it seems to have in mind as an apparent goal is that it's correcting the liberal German and Belgian bishops who have proposed this in more aggressive fashion, or have proposed liturgical blessing in more aggressive fashion, have even in some cases formulated a liturgical right for these types of blessings.

So it seems like they have in mind the correction of those individuals, all right, even whilst not naming them. But that there's also kind of on the other hand, the perceived, you know, we've called that the more liberal German and Belgian bishops, but the perceived kind of conservative rancor of what, you know, like the document might have in mind is like the culture warriors who might fall into the potential trap of thinking of persons with same sex attraction as like the problem, or as to be excluded in every way, shape or form, or as utterly unworthy of any kind of pastoral intervention. Okay, so I'm not saying that those people exist, right, or that the document pronounces upon the existence of those people,

but it seems like it has, you know, the liberal kind of German and Belgian bishops in mind, and then it has the more conservative culture warriors by way of secondary thought. So it seems like the text is trying to curb the left, admonish the right, and then offer something by way of pastoral encouragement without compromising the integrity of the church's teaching. So I think that if we were to level a criticism we might say that those are those are that's a lot, right lot. That's a lot of moving parts in an age of political polarity with instantaneous and hypercritical digital media at its disposal. I just don't know that there was ever the chance that this document would be read, interpreted,

received and criticized well, just because it seems to be doing a lot of things and I just think that the chances of its being Yeah, read interpreted received and criticized poorly are very high So there are some sources of potential confusion You know like the document seems to speak in different registers at times like the metaphysical register of what is in the sacramental order, and then the kind of experiential register of how people appreciate that or don't appreciate that or feel about that or need to be accommodated in light of that. And that's coupled then with an apparent conflict between the doctrinal and the pastoral, which I would not grant. I would not say that there is a conflict between the doctrinal and the pastoral, which I

would not grant. I would not say that there is a conflict between the doctrinal and the pastoral, because I think the most pastoral thing in the world is the doctrinal thing, which is to say that only the truth bears grace. And if people are going to be conformed to our Lord Jesus Christ, then they're going to go by way of the truth, which our Lord is, or who our Lord is. So there are some passages in the text which I think people might legitimately find troubling, like paragraph 25 which reads, elitism whereby instead of evangelizing one analyzes and classifies others and instead of opening the door to grace one exhausts his or her energies in expecting and verifying. Thus when people ask for a blessing an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it.

For those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection. I can understand some of the the language of that text and the meaning of that text. I can understand some of the language of that text and the meaning of that text. And maybe what's being called into question here are the schemes, but I think a lot of people might be inclined to read that as critical of doctrine. When truth be told, doctrine is just teaching and teaching is saving when it comes forth from the mouth of God, and we as the church are capable of recognizing and receiving that and then pronouncing upon it. And then we also see, like this is coupled then with an apparent conflict between law

and spontaneous liberty. So in paragraph 37 we read, In this regard there come to mind the following words of the Holy Father, already quoted in part, Decisions that may be part of pastoral prudence in certain circumstances should not necessarily become a norm. That is to say, it is not appropriate for a diocese, a bishop's conference, or any other ecclesial structure to constantly and officially establish procedures or rituals for all kinds of matters. Canon law should not and cannot cover everything, nor should the Episcopal conferences claim to do so with their various documents and protocols, since the life of the church flows through many channels besides the normative ones. Thus Pope Francis recalled that quote, what is part of a practical discernment in particular circumstances cannot be elevated to the level of a rule, because this would quote lead to

an intolerable casuistry. So again, I understand that. But the idea here being that if we try to get into all the nitty gritty details of human life and apply laws in every circumstance, there's a chance that our law will only partially account for the phenomena and that we will be unfit for where it does not account for the phenomena. So best than not to be hyper specific or overly particular in our application of the law and leave some room. in our application of the law and leave some room. But I think that what we'll find is that people are going to continue to ask questions as to whether or not it applies in this circumstance or in that circumstance. So we do need to form people in virtue, but also in a kind of jurisprudence, for lack of a better term, such that they can apply the law in various circumstances, because law is meant to be applied in various circumstances. So I think that there's an apparent conflict there

between law and spontaneous liberty when I think that spontaneous liberty arises most organically from one who is steeped in the law, who is formed by the law, trained in the law, and who has meditated on the law day and night. So yeah, I think that maybe where some of the criticism has focused is the attempts of the document to recognize certain goods present in the coupling of same-sex persons, even, you know, like while insisting on the need for ongoing conversion, but perhaps not as much as certain readers of the document would hope to see or hope to hear. So like in paragraph 38, we read, in a brief prayer, preceding the spontaneous blessing,

the ordained minister could ask that the individuals have peace, health, a spirit of patience, dialogue, and mutual assistance, but also God's light and strength to be able to fulfill his will completely. Okay, and then paragraph 40 says, to open one's life to God, to ask for his help to live better, and also to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the gospel

may be lived with greater faithfulness. So there's like this sense that what we're praying for is a certain peace, health, spirit of patience, dialogue, mutual assistance, but then we're asking for light and strength to be able to fill as well completely. We're asking to live better, to open one's life to God, etc. Those are very gentle touches. And I think that people reading the document are sometimes confused or bewildered by the fact that it's not clearly stating, like, we need conversion and we're praying for conversion, or that these persons are

approaching for a blessing, which blessing would be ordered principally and primarily to ongoing conversion. So there's a sense that, like, yeah, maybe there's a kind of affirmation here. And maybe that affirmation might be somewhat ambiguous, I think, as a concern. So that leads to the last, which is that it could potentially be an occasion of scandal, in the sense that the left will take it and run with it, the right will be further discouraged by lack of clarity and the apparent encouragement of the contrary position. So I think that this leaves us with a couple of questions.

Namely, we have to ask, what are we actually blessing? Because you can bless a person as an individual and for various reasons, but certainly unto conversion. You can bless persons qua group, and the document cites that at various points, like on the occasion of a pilgrimage. So two persons in the same sex relationship make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and they approach at the appropriate juncture or the appropriate moment for a blessing at

the conclusion of their pilgrimage, which pilgrimage is typically undertaken as an act of penitence and for convert, that seems appropriate there. But then the question is whether the persons can be blessed qua couple, right? Because obviously you have a blessing qua couple on the occasion of marriage, but could there be occasion? And it seems like the document is gesturing at least, or at least kind of tiptoeing around the possibility that one might bless qua couple. And then the question is what's being affirmed, right? What's being affirmed in that relationship? Is it the openness to conversion?

Is it a spirit of penitence? Is it a greater desire for healing and growing? Or is it like an affirmation of something which at the level of inclination is objectively disordered or at the level of act is intrinsically disordered? So I think those are the legitimate questions which arise from the document. And the document says that it won't further clarify, so yeah, I think that we're going to continue to talk about this for some time. But by way of final thoughts and apologies, this is getting long. But I think that interpreting this document, so reading,

interpreting, receiving, criticizing potentially, is complicated by the vehemence of the issue. And in part because it concerns deep-seated desires with which people identify, with which people identify personally and intensely in an issue that's become increasingly neurologic in the past 10, 15, 20 years. And so for many people, the call to chastity seems like a rejection, but it's not a rejection. So we need to be confident and bold in our announcement that the call to chastity seems like a rejection, but it's not a rejection. So we need to be confident and bold in our announcement that the call to chastity is not a rejection. It's an invitation to Christian integration and to conformity with the Lord Jesus Christ

which conduces to the revelation and mediation of that one vocation which is the vision of God in heaven. So a blessing, you know, like persons who struggle with same-sex attraction who are in a kind of relationship of a sort, they're asking for a blessing. It could be an openness to the type of conversion which we want to encourage, but I suspect and others suspect and fear that it could be a kind of plea for accommodation, a kind of anticipation of a potential change, you know, or at least by way of desire. And then the church's accession to that, I mean, it might be complicit in that kind of indication of accommodation. I

think that's a real concern. So the document will say, you know, God never turns away anyone who approaches Him, but I think there are various ways to approach God. And I don't think that we can be naive about that fact. Like, some people approach God in openness and some people approach God in non-openness. And a blessing might be requested as a seeming validation, even while this document attempts to clarify that it's not a validation. So I think that we just need to be sensitive to that and not be naive. So the church, as we've heard in previous documents, can't bless sin, but we shouldn't lack confidence in the various means of pastoral care and pastoral solicitude which we have at our command. You know, like we can give people God, we can genuinely give people God,

and whenever you give people God it's unto conversion, right, through the life of prayer and sacrament and penance and friendship and study of the faith and service of the material poor and whatever else, you know? Like there are various means that the church has at our disposal and we shouldn't lack confidence that the means available to us are sufficient because they're super abundant. They're more than sufficient. So I don't think that we just don't want to find ourselves in situations where we end up confusing further and alienating further those who might be on the way to a deeper conversion. Nor should we do anything which would confuse or alienate those who are attempting to live, even while struggling

with same-sex attraction, who are attempting to live in good faith in accord with the Church's teaching and struggling to carry out the call to chastity. And again, at the end of the day, only the truth bears grace. So it's a genuine call to conversion for all persons and a genuine call to accompaniment for all persons. Like we can't distance ourselves from the sufferings of others just because we find it what, I don't know. We need to be willing insofar as it conforms or as it fits within our own vocation to undertake this work of accompaniment.

But accompaniment will always mean further up and further into the divine life, which will demand of us ongoing conversion, right? Shedding the life of sin and vice and adopting the life of grace and virtue. So that's my best attempt. I apologize if that gives offense and I hope that it will promote good conversation because I think that that's what we need. I think that that's what we need. I think that's what we genuinely need. So yes, this is Pines with Aquinas.

If you haven't yet, please do subscribe to the channel, push the bell and get sweet email updates when other cool things come out. Also I contribute to a podcast called God Splitting with four of the Dominican friars and two of the friars, Father Patrick and Father Bonaventure. Just recorded an episode on the same issue, a live episode. So you'll find that on YouTube and on your podcast app, it's God's Plaining. And I think I'll leave it at that. So let's end with another prayer.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord God, great are you and glorious, wonderful in power and unsurpassable. You call each of your children to pursue you with an intense and intimate love, such that that love might spill forth on the surface of the earth in the integrity of chastity, so that, whether called to the sacrament of marriage or otherwise, we might testify by our love to your love for us, and so come more perfectly to participate in that mystery. We ask Lord God that we would be confident in the church's means of pastoral care and pastoral solicitude, that we would be instruments of the same care and solicitude, and that we would undertake the work of Christian conversion which awaits us all.

We ask all these things in Jesus name as as we pray, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Our Lady Queen of Peace, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. All right, know my prayers for you, please pray for me. God bless you.