Pope Francis has defended his controversial decision to let priests bless same-sex couples but admitted that “solitude is a price you have to pay” when you make difficult decisions.
Francis doubled down and insisted that the “Lord blesses everyone,” during a Sunday interview with an Italian talk show. But he acknowledged the remarkable opposition his decision has sparked — Africa’s bishops have united in a continent-wide refusal to implement the Vatican declaration and individual bishops in Eastern Europe, Latin America and elsewhere have also voiced opposition.
Vatican’s Dec. 18 declaration restated traditional church teaching that marriage is a lifelong union between a man and woman. But it allowed priests to offer spontaneous, non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples seeking God’s grace in their lives, provided such blessings aren’t confused with the rites and rituals of a wedding.
During an appearance on “Che Tempo Che Fa,” Frances acknowledged, in his first comments since the uproar, the “resistance” the decision has generated. He blamed it on bishops not really understanding the issue and refusing to open a dialogue about it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Francis doubled down and insisted that the “Lord blesses everyone,” during a Sunday interview with an Italian talk show.
But he acknowledged the remarkable opposition his decision has sparked — Africa’s bishops have united in a continent-wide refusal to implement the Vatican declaration and individual bishops in Eastern Europe, Latin America and elsewhere have also voiced opposition.
Vatican’s Dec. 18 declaration restated traditional church teaching that marriage is a lifelong union between a man and woman.
But it allowed priests to offer spontaneous, non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples seeking God’s grace in their lives, provided such blessings aren’t confused with the rites and rituals of a wedding.
Asked if he felt alone, Francis replied: “You take a decision and solitude is a price you have to pay.”
The danger, he said, is that when people who don’t understand refuse to enter into a “brotherly discussion” and instead harden their hearts, resist and “make ugly conclusions.”
The original article contains 266 words, the summary contains 155 words. Saved 42%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is such a non-news. “pope says God still hates gay marriage.” Catholics are still wrong.
Did…you actually read the article?
That’s not at all what the Pope said.
I mean what has actually been said by this Pope is that gay people should not be denied blessings. Not sure if this article specifically got into the nitty gritty but the things he has ALSO said in his original full brief was :
- Being gay is still a sin
- Gay people however should not be denied access to the church because they are sinners.
- You can bless a gay person or couple BUT strictly outside the context of anything resembling a marriage or civil union ceremony because marriage still only counts for heterosexual couplings
Which… Really isn’t anything substantial. There have been people’s pets who have been blessed in the way he is describing… So gay people have finally reached parity with the family cat in the eyes of the Catholic Church! Huzzah!
In reality holding the Pope to an actual progressive standard isn’t going to be feasible. The cardinals don’t want to lay hands on us LGBTQIA lepers so even the notion that we deserve anything but to sit mournfully outside the gates is a completely radical notion. The Vatican city was not built in a day and revisiting the bible and throwing out Pauline doctrine, the cornerstone of (very sus) legitimacy the Catholic Church was built on isn’t exactly something they want on the agenda this or any century.
Or, he was realistic and practical about how far he could push change. In fact, considering the response, he might have gone a bit too fast. From a practical perspective, if he wants to change church policy, the best way to do it would be via the boiling frog method. Having an entire continent of the church potentially splinter away into a new extremist faction will not help the progressive cause
There is no pace at which he could have gone that wouldn’t have created some backlash.
If he had waited a hundred more years, there would still have been backlash.
The catholic church is an organization that is built around stability first and foremost. It changes, of course, but very, very slowly. That is very much by design.
That design has helped them “survive” for as long as they did, but it might end up being what eventually leads them into irrelevancy.
There would have been backlash, yes. The line he has to walk is in managing that backlash to avoid a schism in the church.
The Pope is the infallible word of God - Catholicism isn’t a democracy. And religion is all about what should be instead of what is, so there shouldn’t be any precedence for being practical. Letting gay people be murdered so the church might splinter doesn’t seem like a fair trade. He sounds like a coward for either not taking a stand for gay people, or for just doing this to get some press in more liberal outlets.
I should say I’m nowhere near unbiased - my perspective is that religious belief is a mental illness and Catholicism has enabled genocide from its inception to today.
The Pope is the infallible word of God
Well. Yes and no. The Pope has the capacity to provide infallible words according to church law. But that ability is used surprisingly rarely.
Just because he uttered “man, that’s the best bagle ever” during breakfast doesn’t mean that it’s suddenly sacrilegious to claim any other bagle is/was better.
The pope has to be speaking “ex cathedra” for it to be considered infallible and there’s some pretty severe limits on what that means and what topics that can be about. The last two times this power was used were 1854 and 1950, so not really a frequent thing.
I just find that an interesting detail.
And religion is all about what should be instead of what is, so there shouldn’t be any precedence for being practical.
I agree. But this isn’t about religion per se. This is about the church. And church and religion are two very different beasts. And in matters of the church they are required to take practicality into consideration.
Note that I’m by no means defending the catholic church here, I too think they did many, many harmful things and suspect their overall effect on the world is net-negative by many metrics.
The Pope is the infallible word of God
I think we all know better. I’m sure the bishops do.
Letting gay people be murdered
How did we get from blessing gay marriage to letting gay people be murdered?
He sounds like a coward for either not taking a stand for gay people
That’s funny, because it certainly seems like he is taking a stand
Catholicism has enabled genocide from its inception to today.
No argument there. That doesn’t mean that the current change is not for the better, and one of the best steps forward he could be taking.
religious belief is a mental illness
religious belief is a coping mechanism. it helps people cope with uncertainty and the unknown, creating a community. It has been in decline because there is much less unknown now that before, although it will probably always exist; since we will never know what happens after death, there will always be some unknown
Organized religion like Catholicism is a instrument of power, and it has definitely enabled genocide
Catholicism still a tyrannical hate org and child molestation ring, more at 11. Who would have thought a bunch of people sniffing their own farts thinking they literally know what the supposed omnipotent creator of the universe wants (to be overly concerned about human dongs) would be hard to convince otherwise?
Nah
As a gay atheist, I love this Pope.
No, I wouldn’t invite him to dinner anytime soon, but the man has very, very clearly been moving things in the right direction as much as he can, which is no small task, given the generations of cultural and historical gunk that weighs down this particular institution from any change. He has my respect for trying.
He’s effectively the captain of a massively oversized ship, and he’s bringing it around as fast as she’s able to move without capsizing or breaking apart.
Honestly, I’d love to have dinner with him. I think he has the same failings as other popes regarding the most important problem with the church (imo, even the failing attendance is probably related to the fact that priests have been molesting children for centuries with impunity) and he fucked up Zika, badly, but in the other areas he’s great.
The Pope is nothing but a PR figure. He’s full of shit. Go to any third world nation and see how Catholic churches treat lgbt people. These are all just hollow words from a hollow man. Jorge Bergoglio was a homophobic, sexist dinosaur before he ever became pope, and his expensive white robes aren’t gonna fool me into believing he’s anything but a liar
I agree, he should advocate for the death of T H E G A Y S instead.
Why not? You’re going to bitch at him regardless, might as well only get whined at from one direction.
the fact that Catholicism still exists at the scale it does is mind blowing and frankly horrifying.
Went to Kenya recently and got a taste of their winning recipe.
There was great resentment towards the UK in general. Colonizers.
But they still loved the church. The missionaries are who bring them relief and educate their kids.
They oddly don’t see them as good cop and bad cop, two arms of the same operation. And as we can see in other ex colonies, their faith will hold as the scars of colonization fade.
