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

At this point, if Bergoglio were to officially approve the offering of human sacrifices in honor of Baal, some "Catholic" apologists would still defend him and assure us that there is no doctrinal change. Others would complain that the pope has erred but that his infallibility is not compromised. There's only one dogma for these people: the legitimacy of Bergoglio's papacy. Nothing else matters.

Integral Catholicism is to believe in all the articles of faith and to embrace Catholic doctrine entirely. Integral Catholicism is to profess belief in an indefectible Church and to affirm the infallibility of the Church as magistra.

Under the light of integral Catholicism, Bergoglio is exposed as a fraud and deprived of authority to rule the Church. That is why Bergoglio's apologists never cite pre-Vatican II theologians in favor of their position.
 
TheSurveyor said:
The Cathecism of the Catholic Church has very clear guidelines on what defines being a Roman Catholic and being in communion with Rome is one of them. This topic has clearly derailed.
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I take it there is a formal definition of being in communion with Rome. Is it a simple one?

I see most of us in the "western" world being in some kind of informal communion with Rome. Much of us assume the same frame of thinking laid out in the Latin West (secular people included).

edit: full disclosure: I have become critical of what I'm calling a "frame of thinking" which is why I've become an Orthodox Inquirer.

Hopefully the topic is not too derailed. Being in communion with Rome would include the question of being in communion with Pope Francis too (and his blessings for gay couples).
 
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Northumber said:
I see most of us in the "western" world being in some kind of informal communion with Rome. Much of us assume the same frame of thinking laid out in the Latin West (secular people included).
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Yes and the Latin church is a bellwether for the general moral and spiritual state of western society. So when we see them blessing homosexual relationships, we see a concrete and likely irreversible step toward further decay in our society. When they start doing gay "marriages" (and that day may be closer than you think), then we'll know the West has fallen completely. That's really the only reason I'm interested in the Vatican.
 
Vas Incrementum said:
In discussions prior to it going live, it was established that CiK is trying to mesh all Christians together, by avoiding the errors of RVF, which was essentially an Orthodox forum. In order to do so mutual respect for each other's denomination is necessary. That, if you had taken notice, was discussed already when this thread was used as open day to shoot at Catholics. That you haven't grasped that is evident, because you arrogantly assumed, as Orthodox, you could post your, off topic, evangelical diatribe and get away with it. And it looks like you will too, so well done.

As for being uncharitable, I've yet to read one post of a Catholic taking shots at the Orthodox or Orthodoxy, so you can bleat and moralise all you want, you fired first. And you can pat yourself on the back too, because it's members like you who cannot tame their "zeal", who will turn CiK into RVF 2. If you Orthodox want hegemony, you can go ahead without me. If you want CiK to accommodate all of us, then you need to lose some of the arrogance.
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Old habits die hard. A Catholic/Protestant is supposed to just undergo criticism and ridicule of its spiritual leader and denomination but whenever a single tenet of the ROC (criticism of Oriental Orthodox churches is fine of course) gets even questioned its instant brimming through the nose. Hence I applaud people like Basil, the Surveyor and yourself standing up for yourself.

That attitude is probably counterproductive too. Around the time of Roosh's first conversion I developed an interest in Orthodoxy but after experiencing the bellicose online behaviour of the Dyerite 'Orthobros' that interest disappeared rather fast.
 
TheSurveyor said:
The Cathecism of the Catholic Church has very clear guidelines on what defines being a Roman Catholic and being in communion with Rome is one of them. This topic has clearly derailed.
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That teaching refers to legitimate occupiers of the Petrine See. Your argument assumes the point under dispute: that Jorge Bergoglio is actually the Pope. We deny.

In order to know whether Francis is a true Pope, all we need to do is review the Catholic teaching on the Papacy and replace every mention of Roman Pontiff with 'Pope Francis' and see if we can affirm of Francis what the doctrine affirms of the Pope. Game over.

Here an example from Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Sapientiae Christianae 24:IMG_2763.webp
 
Hate to say it...this is a weak statement from Bishop Robert Barron.



Meanwhile...

GB0eQ2tX0AA30hL
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"...a Vatican-sanctioned blessing to a gay married Catholic couple..."
"...No longer living in sin..."

GCAbs93WEAI9q4m


Edit. Huh. No wonder Bishop Barron is besties with Father James Martin. Go figure.

Bp. Barron hit with massive backlash after praising pro-LGBT Fr. James Martin​

‘Fr. Martin is a winsome guide to all those who want to deepen their friendship with the Lord,’ Barron wrote.

October 31, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Robert Barron, an auxiliary bishop for Los Angeles and founder of the popular “Word on Fire” ministry, experienced a tsunami of criticism after praising pro-LGBT Fr. James Martin in an endorsement for the Jesuit’s new book about prayer.

“Delighted to share the final cover of ‘Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone,’ to be published in Feb by Harper One Books,” said Martin in a tweet which accompanies the galley proofs for the book’s cover.

“Thanks to Bishop Barron, Cardinal B Cupich … and others for their support,” he added.



A close inspection of the back cover reveals Bishop Barron’s personal praise for the Jesuit, long known for his dedication to normalizing homosexuality and transgenderism within the Catholic Church.

James_Martins_highlighted_book_back_cover-520x9999.jpeg


“Fr. Martin is a winsome guide to all those who want to deepen their friendship with the Lord,” wrote Barron.

Backlash

Social media erupted with sharp backlash from orthodox Catholics decrying Barron’s support for Martin.

“Now that Barron has publicly endorsed a book on prayer by Fr. James Martin, he has absolutely no credibility for orthodox Catholics,” declared LifeSite columnist Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, an outspoken Thomistic theologian, liturgical scholar, author, and Church commentator, in a Facebook posting.

“This, friends, is a moment of God-given clarity,” continued Kwasniewski. “Barron, standing atop his media empire, brandishing a new Barronized Bible, has made the mistake of thinking he’s invincible.”

“This step clinches that he is in the charmed circle of [James] Martin, [Blase] Cupich, [Wilton] Gregory, [Theodore] McCarrick, et alia.”

“I am angry. But, more than that, I am so very sad,” wrote Fr. Richard Heilman, popular author and speaker. “It is now more clear than ever that the appeasement and compromise of our bishops to the ruling class and the purveyors of moral disintegration has been revealed to be endemic. This, while prelates do not blink an eye in castigating any holy and heroic priest who receives so much as one complaint from the Left.”

“As seen with Wilton Gregory and others, this kind of appeasement and compromise (recall he warmly invited Fr. James Martin to speak in his diocese) opens the pathway to elevation, under this pontificate,” noted Heilman.

“Bishop Barron is not your friend. See the signs and run far away,” urged Catholic author and marriage activist Leila Miller.

“I will warn people away from him regularly now. Enough is enough,” declared Miller. “The faithful have had enough, and I am done being silent. Any complicity with James Martin is complicity with darkness.

“And to encourage people to READ any of Martin’s books, to put people on Martin’s trail, as if he were trustworthy, prayerful, ‘winsome’ — well, it’s a bridge too far (no pun intended),” she continued. “Asking slithery, disingenuous, LGBTQ-activist Martin to teach you how to pray is like asking the devil to teach you how to pray.”

“James Martin holds heretical views that are leading young men to burn,” tweeted Austin Ruse, pro-life activist, author, and founder of C-Fam. “No one, most of all a bishop should endorse his work on any topic.”

James Martin holds heretical views that are leading young men to burn. No one, most of all a bishop should endorse his work on any topic. pic.twitter.com/aBrSXVI2kS

— Austin Ruse (@austinruse) October 31, 2020

Perhaps the most poignant — and most important — reaction came from Joseph Sciambra, a former gay porn actor who returned to the Church, despite having suffered sexual abuse from predatory homosexual priests.

My abuser: “You were born gay; God made you that way.”

James Martin: “God made you this way.”

[Pope] Francis: “God made you gay.”

In less than 40 years, the script used by predator priests has moved through the hierarchy — all the way up to the Pope.

Earlier this month, LifeSiteNews reported on Bishop Barron’s murky, equivocating commentary on what he described as the “intense dilemma” Catholics face with regard to their vote. The net result was to obscure the clear pro-life choices Catholics and other people of faith face in the presidential election which is already upon us.

“A Catholic in good conscience could never say that she will vote for Joe Biden because the Democrat is pro-choice, and by the same token, a Catholic in good conscience could never say that he will vote for Donald Trump because the Republican is for capital punishment,” asserted Barron.

“In the political calculus of a Catholic, opposition to abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment should take pride of place,” said Barron, finally allowing that “the number of those threatened by abortion and euthanasia is far greater than the number of those under threat of capital punishment.”
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budoslavic said:
Hate to say it...this is a weak statement from Bishop Robert Barron.



Meanwhile...

GB0eQ2tX0AA30hL
GB0eQ2rXYAA4nAW


"...a Vatican-sanctioned blessing to gay married Catholic couple..."
"...No longer living in sin..."

GCAbs93WEAI9q4m


Edit. Huh. No wonder Bishop Barron is besties with Father James Martin. Go figure.

Bp. Barron hit with massive backlash after praising pro-LGBT Fr. James Martin​


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BasilSeal said:
I'm certainly not ready to judge anything the Catholic Church says or does by how Fr. James Martin interprets and acts upon it.
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Would it be spiritually discerning to make any righteous judgements regarding this? I mean in terms of very prominent and widely respected Catholic Bishop, Robert Barron, a representative voice in the Catholic church, publicly endorsing Martin?

There's a chain of events. The church the above gay couple were just 'married' in, Judson Memorial Church in New York, is a protestant church, not a Catholic church. So this couple has created a modus operandi of getting a blessing from a Catholic priest, then getting married by a Protestant priest, and all of it very clearly seen by the public eye. These are just some of the links in that chain.

It's all part of the same paradigm. This blatantly contradicts and is antithetical to what was being described as the actual, misunderstood intention of all this from the get go.

BasilSeal said:
Appearance of anything that looks like marriage in the course of such a blessing is prohibited.
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I guess one could say this isn't the pope's fault or the document's fault, or this wasn't the intended course of the blessing, or that the actions of this gay couple or the Protestant priest don't define the Catholic teaching, etc etc. I get all that, but we have a clear course of events here that involves prohibited actions, and they are linked together.

*I am not writing any of this to be combative. I used to be Catholic, many in my family are Catholic, and there are even Catholics who come to our Orthodox Liturgy, and I respect many of the Catholic members on this forum.*
 
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Following the British clergy taking a stand the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy in the USA release a statement. Here's a snippet:

"Sinful behavior and disordered inclinations can never be blessed or condoned. Even the appearance of endorsement of any moral evil must be avoided at all cost lest one infer that the one giving the ‘blessing’ is also a formal cooperator in evil, which is always forbidden."
 
TrainedLogosmotion said:
There's a chain of events. The church the above gay couple were just 'married' in, Judson Memorial Church in New York, is a protestant church, not a Catholic church. So this couple has created a modus operandi of getting a blessing from a Catholic priest, then getting married by a Protestant priest. These are just some of the links in the chain.
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Not to derail this thread. From browsing the Judson Memorial Church's About website page:
OPEN, AFFIRMING, AND THEN SOME
We welcome persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities (including cisgender, transgender, and genderqueer) to participate fully in the life and ministry of the church. We support each and every quest to construct one’s own identity, affirming any and all who identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer, questioning, polysexual, asexual, pansexual, omnisexual, and straight.

As an "Open and Affirming" UCC and "Welcoming and Affirming" American Baptist church: WELCOME!
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50ker6.jpg
 


'Blasphemous' same-sex nativity scene angers conservatives in Italy​

CAPOCASTELLO DI MERCOGLIANO, Italy, Dec 23 (Reuters) - A church nativity scene which features two mothers of the Baby Jesus, instead of the conventional Mary and Joseph figurines, has sparked anger among conservative Catholics and politicians in Italy.

Nativity scenes are popular in the largely Catholic country, but in recent years they have been increasingly mired in culture wars as its society becomes more secular and multi-cultural.

The priest at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, in Capocastello di Mercogliano, a hamlet in the province of Avellino about one hour's drive east of Naples, has defended its depiction of the birth of Jesus.

"I wanted to show with this scene that families are no longer just the traditional ones," Father Vitaliano Della Sala told Reuters.

"In our parishes we see more and more children from the new types of families that exist and are part of our society, children of separated and divorced people, gay couples, single people, young mothers."

Father Della Sala, known in Italy for sympathising with LGBT and left-wing causes, says his attitude is in line with that of Pope Francis, who this week, in a landmark ruling, allowed priests to bless same-sex couples.

But Senator Maurizio Gasparri, of the co-ruling Forza Italia party, said the LGBT creche "offends all those who always had respect and devotion for the Holy Family".

The Pro-Vita & Famiglia (Pro-Life and Family) group called it "dangerous, as well as shameful and blasphemous".

Pro-Vita, which launched an online petition calling on the bishop of Avellino to intervene, said the nativity scene contradicted the Church's teachings on the family and legitimised same-sex parenting and surrogacy.

The petition has so far attracted more than 21,000 signatories.

Having children through surrogacy is illegal in Italy, and parliament is discussing a government-sponsored law that would also criminalise couples who resort to the practice by going abroad.

This week, a senator from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party proposed another bill that would prevent school directors from halting Catholic-themed activities such as Christmas plays or the making of nativity scenes.
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So, it's been a few days. Let's actually discuss this issue without distraction. I ask:

Should a priest ever be permitted to bless an unrepentant sinner?

I think the answer to this single question provides the answer to every other issue raised.
 
For even more clarity, let's say this:

Should a priest ever be permitted to knowingly and specifically bless an unrepentant sinner?
 
BasilSeal said:
For even more clarity, let's say this:

Should a priest ever be permitted to knowingly and specifically bless an unrepentant sinner?
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I will argue the answer is no, he should not. Similar to what Fr. Josiah Trenham said, withholding the blessing will motivate someone who is on the fence of being repentant, to be repentant.

I'm not sure about the wording "permitted" however.
 
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