Did Pope Francis Allow Priests to Bless Same-Sex Relationships?

Cog Dis just got another month ban. The thread is renamed so members can discuss what the actual incident regarding Catholics and sodomites is, or if this is just more fake news from Jews? It goes without saying not to insult other people's Churches. So let's carry on.

As far as I can tell, why did the Vatican even release a statement on this subject? Very strange there is a need to publicly comment on this issue, especially since Priests bless anyone, practically everywhere. Before meals, before war, before Divine Liturgy starts, etc. What the state of each person's soul is upon receiving the blessing is, is largely irrelevant as far as the Priest's actions are concerned.

Thus, why would there even need to be a separate "statement" on this subject? Hence why everyone is skeptical, and why the Pope looks like he's just pushing heresy. That said, I haven't read the document in full nor do intend to, however, if some Catholics here would like to save us the time and effort to make their case known, then, by all means, let us see it.
 
Vas Incrementum said:
You know full well about contentious posts regarding the Catholic Church, so you are being disingenuous and that's me being polite. Despite only recently stirring the stinking pot of division and derision, you have done it again. As an "other" Christian, whatever that's meant to mean, what is your interest in what happens in Rome? Is the "other" church you belong to without sin?

I didn't flag your post to begin with because I wanted to wait for the inevitable schadenfreude pile on from non-Catholics, which has now occurred and was your expected outcome, no? But I'll flag it now.
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I simply used the title from the NYT article and thought it was worthy of discussion. As I mentioned, I thought maybe it should be in the Catholic forum for Catholics to discuss and was fine with the moderators moving it there, if that is what they intended, because inter-denominational disagreements can rapidly descend into name calling not conducive toward board discussion. And I'm not Catholic so can't post on that sub-forum. Would you have preferred that this forum not address this news at all?
 
Northumber said:
It's actually a brilliant move from Pope Francis. He's managed to stay within bounds (at least arguably) of Catholic doctrine while simultaneously pushing the world's agenda significantly.

Here's an article from Esquire raving about his move and lauding his superior Jesuit abilities:


I bet he'll even be able to play off as a victim.
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It is both interesting and highly suspicious to receive so much praise from the (((left))) regarding this "statement". Is the Pope playing them with word games, making the Church look progressive, taking an ordinary Christian position of blessing all of the laity sins and all, OR is there some heresy slipped in? One cannot help but wonder due to the attention this attracts.
 
Samseau said:
It is both interesting and highly suspicious to receive so much praise from the (((left))) regarding this "statement".
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It is. It's hard for me to believe this isn't coordinated. I'm seeing many articles rolling out about how conservative Catholics are attacking Francis too. I think a new frame of "acceptability" and "polite company" is being quickly built out and reinforced. Basically another tool to wedge out those trads as mean aggressors... potential terrorists!
 
What the Pope replied in response to dubia is what I summarized above. Yes, a priest may bless essentially anyone, couples, groups. People, not actions. Specific actions in the question such as same sex partnerships and irregular situations are reaffirmed as sinful. Appearance of anything that looks like marriage in the course of such a blessing is prohibited.

Now, what people do with that response is up to them. The NYT and others ran in the direction they liked. YT commentators ran in the direction they liked. Even forum posters in the Catholic sub forum did likewise.

I don't read clickbait. And so, I replied in kind on both threads where this was discussed. Now, meanwhile, every anti-pope poster took their shot. That's not a great environment for useful discourse.
 
Wutang said:
this blessing would be basically on the same level as a active fornicator or homosexual would receive - ie. basically anyone can get one regardless of what their spiritual state is.
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Yes, there is nothing wrong, per se, with the statement. The issue is the tone and the context.

If we were living in a society where homosexuals were being thrown off rooftops, regularly attacked and shunned from the workplace, etc. then singling them out and reminding us that they are also God's children and that we should love them, would be a very good role for the church to play.

But the reality is they are the protected elite class. They need no protection. They need no one speaking up for them. They are already Stunning, Brave, and Beautiful celebrating their PRIDEful lives.

So it's just WEIRD more than anything. Gay people dominate this society everywhere, almost as much as blacks. What if American churches all started doing black recruitment drives and everything they talked about was about how they are addressing the needs of black people? That would be pretty WEIRD no matter how defensible the message was.

Where is the messaging for everyone else? What the Pope did here is along the lines of all the Protestant churches putting out rainbow "You Are Welcome Here!" banners. Yeah. They are welcome. ALWAYS HAVE BEEN. But where is the message for the normal straight white male? I can't remember the last time I saw a church message directed towards normie whites, or even its own general congregation. (And yes, you are supposed to push people out of their comfort zone and all that but you also need to provide spiritual guidance and community to your congregation).

I don't have any specific criticism about the Pope's message here, and I think most are greatly overreacting to it, or using it to support preconceived biases against him or Catholicism or religion in general, but WHERE is the message for all the other groups? I mean I know gays are a growing group but surely they are still a tiny minority of the country? How about speaking up on these issues that we really need moral guidance on like internet pornography, drug addiction, poverty, homelessness. All these are huge headlines today and the silence from both church and state is deafening. (The internet pornography one is a HUGE issue that should be hammered on regularly. I was in my 30s before I even knew that pornography and masturbation were sinful. The church is allowing billions to fall to sin every day on this one).

The obsession on accepting people doing one particular sin (that society has already fully embraced and considers cool) is a bizarre way to lead a religion.
 
I forgot to mention the TONE part.
The tone of the message can lead some to think homosexuality is accepted by the church.

I mean if I were a 15 year old Catholic boy today, I would hear nothing about watching pornography, while it is free and readily available in my pocket 24/7, but I would hear a bunch of messages about how gay couples can receive a blessing (and periodically would hear other new announcements about gays in church, because there have been similar stories in the past before this one) and it's reasonable to assume, particularly for a youth, that homosexuality is ok now. Otherwise, when the topic is brought up, it would be in criticism, right?

When you have zero voices condemning a sin, how do you know it's sinful? You can't expect the entire nation of kids to go read their bibles and figure it out own their own. When schoolmates are openly gay and it's celebrated, when there is a Gay Prom King, when tv and movies celebrate gayness, and your church blesses a gay couple, is it unreasonable to conclude that being gay is totally fine? One has to parse the language pretty heavily to understand that no, it's actually bad, but we are just giving zero criticism of it because reasons.

Think of any other major sin, say masturbation, or gambling, or blasphemy.

Of course people doing all those things are free to be blessed by a priest, and attend mass, as they always were.
But what if the church started a campaign to specifically target them? While refusing to condemn the sin or get people to stop doing it?

"Gamblers welcome here" signs everywhere. Priests going to the casino and offering blessings to the people gambling there. Church ads on lottery tickets. Etc. Technically nothing wrong, if we want to do Jewish Pilpul, with sending that message.

But what is its TONE?

That gambling is a fine and normal activity, and that it goes along with Christianity just fine. Heck, maybe you should try it out, you can go do it with fellow Christians and then see them in church on Sunday. The TONE of this messaging is TERRIBLE.

And more than anything, it just smacks of virtue signalling. Gays were NOT cool in the 1990s. If the church stood up for them back then, ok, but today, what does this accomplish?

In short, the problem is more about what is NOT being said than what is being said.
 
Rax Moscow said:
I forgot to mention the TONE part.
The tone of the message can lead some to think homosexuality is accepted by the church.

I mean if I were a 15 year old Catholic boy today, I would hear nothing about watching pornography, while it is free and readily available in my pocket 24/7, but I would hear a bunch of messages about how gay couples can receive a blessing (and periodically would hear other new announcements about gays in church, because there have been similar stories in the past before this one) and it's reasonable to assume, particularly for a youth, that homosexuality is ok now. Otherwise, when the topic is brought up, it would be in criticism, right?
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I suppose this is slightly off topic, but does the Catholic church not preach against porn from the pulpit? I'd like to think they do preach against it.

I have only started attending my conservative Protestant church for about a year and a half, and I can tell you that they preach against porn and every other worldly behavior from the pulpit quite strongly. They also emphasize it strongly in youth services, preaching total purity, not even kissing until marriage. I would say porn is mentioned at some point more weeks than not. I have attended services at a variety of churches as well, and heard it consistently, so it's not just one particular pastor.

The anti-porn message gets heard plainly by young children, younger than would have learned about sex in an earlier generation. However, I think this is necessary because children probably have the opportunity to view full hard core porn at an extremely young age now.

I am used to having anti-porn, anti-gay, anti-tranny, anti-feminism, and anti-alcohol being grouped together as worldly sins we are to stay away from, but that are completely rampant in the world today.
 
I thought about that line after I posted it. The reality is I don't know what I would hear about porn from the church since I'm not in the shoes of a 15 year old Catholic boy.

I do know that pornography and masturbation are somewhat taboo topics that are not discussed enough (particularly since they are universal sins that basically every man falls to) and that as a protestant, I never was taught masturbation was a grave sin, and didn't know that until very recently!

I do think Catholics are much better on this topic. But still, the greater point is where would a young man hear criticism today of homosexuality? If a normie protestant like me could go decades without hearing the message that masturbation was sinful, how likely is it that your typical young man or woman is aware homosexuality is sinful (much less an "abomination")?

There is a place for accepting those who fall to homosexual temptation. But where is the place for criticism of it? I don't see it anywhere outside of banned websites and censored tweeters. Also when you give these wink wink nod nod "oh but you really shouldn't do this tho" critiques, many people think you are supposed to read between the lines and it's ok to do the thing. Institutions use this technique all the time with things that are technically against the rules but no one minds if you do them.

The very act of speaking in terms of "homosexual couples" and such language tends to normalize the act. It is no longer a sin, it is just an "alternate lifestyle that the church hasn't yet approved." To the degree homosexuality is even a thing (that's like calling someone a fornicator as if they are defined by their sin) it is a human failing, not a descriptive label.
 
Here is Fr. Josiah Trenhams take ..and it's not very flattering.



Bottom line, affirming a homosexual relationship, ensures people walk further from chastity and repentance.

He likens it to:

No priest with would bless a man or his mistress. Or people living together in fornication (something I had to work through during the catechism period... by getting civilly married before the before baptism and then sacramental ceremony.)
 
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The main reason homosexuality is condemned in Christianity is because it takes something that has a sacred purpose to create life, and makes it purely about pleasure. Any form of sodomy is condemned for the same reason.

When a society celebrates sodomy as much as ours, it is a sign that responsibility has been replaced by pleasure seeking. The case of embracing, legalizing, and celebrating homosexuality for the sake of liberty is like releasing all murderous psychopaths from prison for the sake of liberty. Liberty for the sake of liberty irrespective of the consequences.

The fact that the Pope wants to bless homosexual relationships to whatever degree is essentially trying to bless the work of Satan and his minions in this world. He might as well give people blessings to become heroin addicts. This idea that Christ-like love must necessarily entail modern ideas of inclusion, diversity and so forth is absurd and naive. Christ does not endorse the adultery of the Samaritan woman, His love entails telling her to sin no more.

And besides the examples of those who are genuinely repentant of their same sex attraction, what place does an unrepentant faggot have in the church anyway? They just want to turn every institution in this world into one that celebrates their degeneracy. The fact that the Pope has cucked to this is shameful.
 
For what it's worth (probably nothing), since I returned to going to church about 2 years ago I'm not sure I've ever heard the priest mention anything explicitly as pertaining to Catholic teaching on anything regarding sexuality. Closest I can remember is when the priest made some reference in a homily to the movie Titanic and mentioned something about the "questionable morality" of the relationship between Jack and Rose. A couple times I've heard a brief mention against abortion, but it's usually a quick one-liner. Seems to me they don't want to touch the controversial issues, except of course to occasionally let us know that the "migrants" need our help.
 
Doubting Thomas said:
For what it's worth (probably nothing), since I returned to going to church about 2 years ago I'm not sure I've ever heard the priest mention anything explicitly as pertaining to Catholic teaching on anything regarding sexuality. Closest I can remember is when the priest made some reference in a homily to the movie Titanic and mentioned something about the "questionable morality" of the relationship between Jack and Rose. A couple times I've heard a brief mention against abortion, but it's usually a quick one-liner. Seems to me they don't want to touch the controversial issues, except of course to occasionally let us know that the "migrants" need our help.
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Same for me. I returned 2 years ago and have had the same experience of homilies in my parish. The one traditional priest who was more outspoken was relocated earlier this year. It's a problem and a concern, but as someone who has just returned I'm in no position to say too much.

There is a core of traditional Catholics here who are trying to get the numbers for an SSPX priest to drop in to take Mass on a Sunday.

As for me I travel during the spring and summer months, so get to experience how the Church is in other areas and countries. I will say this, I have seen great things in Northern Ireland.There is a strong, unashamed Catholicism practiced there and a feeling all around that the buds of a revival are here. I may even relocate there.

There is a counter current in Ireland and it's building. I have seen and experienced it. Hold fast because I truly believe a big change is afoot. I pray that it is.
 
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