By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing, Jan. 2, 2024
Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent books are Columbus and the Crisis of the West and A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.
Note: Don’t miss Robert Royal’s new six-week online course on “The Catholic Heart of St. John Henry Newman,” which begins tomorrow. For more information or to enroll, click here and make the acquaintance of one of the greatest Catholic writers and thinkers in the English language.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the Declaration Fiducia Supplicans (FS), which says it’s possible to give “non-liturgical blessings” to people in “irregular relationships” (divorced and remarried, living together, same-“couples”), on December 18, 2023. The very next day, a photograph of Fr. James Martin, S.J. blessing a same-sex “couple,” who had been civilly married some time earlier, appeared in the New York Times, though the document had warned against that kind of public attention. Ten days later, Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie, who “identifies as Catholic” and was once a stout defender of marriage, cited FS for his shift to supporting same-sex marriage, saying “even the Church is changing.”
You would have to be very dense or very naïve to be surprised. Many of us predicted that this would be the result. And – only two weeks into the aftermath of this ill-conceived effort – things are just getting started. …