Fiducia Supplicans

 "Fiducia supplicans, issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope Francis, has reaffirmed that the Church does not have the power to impart a liturgical blessing on irregular or same-sex couples or to bless their union," McManus said. "It can, however, offer a type of blessing that can be conferred on anyone to invoke God’s help and mercy in their lives if the individuals seek to be guided by a greater understanding of God’s plan for love and truth. These blessings are offered for the people themselves, not their union."

Of course, the problem for the good bishop, for the Pope, and for the Church as a whole, is precisely what Fiducia Supplicans says:

25. ... Thus, when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it. For, those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection.

Well, who can seek these blessings? Well, the preface to the document explains: 

It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.

Notice blessings are not restricted to individuals. The document explicitly specifices that blessings may be bestowed upon "same-sex couples." Now, homosexual inclination is intrinsically disordered, while homosexual activity itself is intrinsically evil. What stops a priest from blessing polygamy? Sure, the document may specify "couples", but certainly any two-person combination of a polygamous relationship would constitute a couple. 

If we are now able to bless intrinsically evil situations, then can we ask for a blessing on our abortifacient pills? Can a woman and her abortionist ask for a blessing before they enter the abattoir to slaughter a child? In principle, there is no clear reason why such blessings couldn't be delivered, as we are not supposed to bother our sweet little heads with "an exhaustive moral analysis."

And, to be fair, this nonsense did not start with Pope Francis. Read this passage from FS...

40. ... Indeed, through these blessings that are given not through the ritual forms proper to the liturgy but as an expression of the Church’s maternal heart—similar to those that emanate from the core of popular piety—there is no intention to legitimize anything, but rather to open one’s life to God, to ask for his help to live better, and also to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the Gospel may be lived with greater faithfulness.

Then read what Pope Benedict had to say about the use of condoms by heterosexual couples: 

"There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be ... a first bit of responsibility, to re-develop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes," Benedict was quoted as saying.

And the Vatican spokesman doubled down:

"I personally asked the pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine," [Vatican spokesman] Lombardi said. "He told me no. The problem is this ... It's the first step of taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk of the life of another with whom you have a relationship." [There is that insistence that condom use is a move towards objective good. Again.]

"This is if you're a woman, a man, or a transsexual. We're at the same point. The point is it's a first step of taking responsibility, of avoiding passing a grave risk onto another," Lombardi said.

Do you see the similarity between the concepts here? Fiducia Supplicans merely re-iterates in 2023 what Pope Benedict privately told a reporter for an Ignatius Press book in 2010. And, to be fair, Pope Benedict's statement was merely a positive affirmation of the negative nonsense that emerged from JP II's TOB. In a series of audiences that were ostensibly about the human body and human sexuality, JP II managed to omit all discussion of children, family and suffering.

How on earth do you develop a theology of human sexuality without even mentioning children or family? What kind of theological nonsense pretends to be a theology of the body, yet does not mention suffering? The Second Person of the Trinity took on human flesh, a human body, in order to suffer and die, yet you don't mention suffering or death in your Theology of the Body? SERIOUSLY? 

John Paul II's TOB audiences were so atrocious that, once delivered, they are never again referenced by any Magisterial document. There is a straight line from JP II's silence, through Benedict's "moral" condom use to Francis' blessing of same-sex couples. The papacy has been building this line for the last fifty years.

So, don't be surprised to see a new liturgical rite within the next 18 to 24 months for the ordination of women deacons. It may differ from the male rite of ordination, but it is coming. Pope Francis made that clear when he started washing women's feet on Holy Thursday in 2013. 

As I've noted elsewhere, the Catholic Faith was a superb faith for a subsistence-level society. But Catholic ideas are completely unable to adequately respond to a surplus-goods society. One of the hallmarks of the wealth the world is now experiencing is a change in the foundational meaning of human sexuality. In a subsistence-level society, procreation is the foundational meaning, but in a surplus-goods society, human sexuality becomes primarily about communication, not procreation. If the Church has no poor to minister to, She has no way to evangelize. If the foundational meaning of sexuality changes, her message cannot be changed to match without breaking everything that came before. 

UPDATE:

Homosexual activity may be intrinsically evil, but the participants can be blessed, as long as they aren't participants in a duel. If you are, you don't even get the sacrament of confession. In fact, if a priest tries to absolve a penitent involved in a duel, the priest will be excommunicate.

[From the Response of the Holy Office to the Bishop of Poitiers, May 31, 1884]

To the question:

1862 I. Can a physician when invited by duelists assist at a duel with the intention of bringing an end to the fight more quickly, or simply to bind and cure wounds, without incurring the excommunication reserved simply to the Highest Pontiff? 

 II. Can he at least, without being present at the duel, stay at a neighboring house or in a place nearby, ready to offer his service, if the duelists have need of it.

III. What about a confessor under the same conditions?

The answers are: 

To I, he cannot, and excommunication is incurred.

To II and III, that, insofar as it takes place as described, he cannot, and likewise excommunication is incurred.