“Pope Francis opened the door Monday for some Catholic priests to bless same-sex unions, hinting at a reversal of the official Vatican position that has put it at odds with many of its own progressive followers,” reports NBC News.
There were caveats, including they should not be seen as equivalent to heterosexual wedding ceremonies.
As recently as 2021, the Vatican said it could not condone same-sex unions because “God cannot bless sin.” But on Monday, Francis signaled that there could be exceptions to that stance.
“We cannot be judges who only deny, reject, and exclude,” the Pope said in a letter to five conservative cardinals who asked for clarity on the issue ahead of a major global gathering on the future of the Church that begins Wednesday.
LGBTQIA+++ Catholics see this as undoing the marginalization of their lifestyle. However, the church has for thousands of years condemned sex outside of marriage. He is dismantling a primary church teaching.
WEAKENING SAME-SEX MARRIAGE?
The Pope’s own words are unequivocal: the Catholic Church, under his pontificate, is relaxing its stance on same-sex couples a letter released by the Vatican today, stating that priests can ultimately use discretion in blessing members of the LGBTQ community so long as they don’t conflate the blessing with the sacrament of heterosexual marriage.
This step weakens the church’s long-standing approach to the issue, including a 2021 decree approved by the Pope prohibiting the blessing of same-sex couples.
His remarks were released by the Vatican today in response to a formal letter signed by five prominent Cardinals, including Cardinal Raymond Burke from the United States, asking for the Pope’s clarification on several hot-button issues.
The Cardinals, however, say the Pope’s responses did not directly address the issues presented, and they’re now submitting their inquiry in the form of yes or no questions.
Pope Francis is taking a major step this week in pushing arguably the most progressive legacy of any Pope as members of a major church Synod and the Pope are called together in Vatican City to debate new changes that could rock the ancient faith.
The church has always viewed any sexual relations outside of marriage as sinful, and now church conservatives like Cardinal Burke and other traditionalists say blessing LGBTQ members is not a matter of acceptance but altering the very doctrine of the Christian faith.
Pope Francis says homosexuality is a sin, not a crime, and alternate blessings may be possible.
It’s already being done in Germany and other European countries.
THE SYNOD
The Synod will discuss this very issue this month and bring it to a vote in 2024, at which point Pope Francis will have the sole discretion of rejecting or accepting potentially transformative changes.
The Catholic Church is beginning to go off the rails. The Pope is deliberately confusing on something as basic as sexuality—no sex outside of marriage.
Some are saying that when the Pope does something like this, he sends the message that nothing means anything and everything can change tomorrow. He’s swaying from the biblical teachings of relationships between men and women. He’s going to look the other way. It’s the camel’s nose under the tent.
What do you think?
I offer consideration of the latest remarks by the brilliant Archbishop Vigano, a stunning and all encompassing denunciation of church leadership:
https://joehoft.com/breaking-archbishop-vigano-canceled-by-catholic-traditionalists-for-saying-pope-francis-intended-from-the-beginning-to-destroy-the-catholic-church/
The things the opponents of the fake pope said from the beginning are all coming true. (It reminds me of Infowars years ahead of time saying the elites would fly planes into the world trade center, and release bioweapons.)
The problem with Roman Catholicism is that both its material and formal principles are anti-Bible. For the moment let us put our focus on the Formal Principle.
Biblical churches accept the principle of Sola Scriptura. The Holy Scriptures are the divinely inspired Word of God by the Holy Spirit (e.g. 1 Peter 1:21 and 2 Timothy 3:16). It is the only source of teaching and it is the only measure by which a teaching can be measured as true or false. The Roman Catholic Church however adds the word of men at a Church Council, and the pope speaking ex cathedra as equal to the Word of God. Thus human reason becomes an arbiter of what God has said or not said. The pope is just as fallible as an other politician, so the doctrines become simply the teaching of sinful men. History demonstrates that the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church are changeable, but God’s Word is unchangeable.