Cardinal Fernández: Bishops Banned From ‘Total or Definitive Denial’ of Fiducia Supplicans, by Michael Haynes
January 5, 2024Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation: Come and See
January 5, 2024
By John Ferrannini, Bay Area Reporter, January 4, 2024
A document obtained by the Bay Area Reporter reveals that San Francisco’s archbishop issued supplemental instructions to the archdiocese’s Catholic priests stating they can deny blessing same-sex couples under some circumstances.
The December 21 memorandum came just days after the Vatican issued the document Fiducia Suplicans, allowing same-sex blessings in a radical sea change for the church, as the B.A.R. previously reported.
In the memo, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone wrote that the Vatican document had been misunderstood “by some reports and analyses,” but did not indicate how, stating “please do not rely on secular media stories, which are easily fueled by ignorance, animosity, and judgmentalism.”
Long-standing Catholic teaching is that while homosexuality isn’t sinful per se, it is a sin to have sex with someone of the same sex. The Vatican document, written by Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and approved by Pope Francis, states that same-sex couples can be blessed but the blessings have to be done in such a manner that they are not confused with marriage, which the church teaches can only be between one man and one woman. The blessings also cannot be in the context of the liturgy, as marriages are.
