Fiducia Supplicans
Sir – It is worrying that the Holy Father appears to question the motives of anyone who has concerns about Fiducia Supplicans and same-sex relationships. That these have been raised by a large and varied group in the Church is surely at least testimony to the fact that the document is problematic. The traditional continuum that marks the development of doctrine seems to have been circumvented by the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, which now appears to present a new sort of “pastoral blessing” – as distinct from a liturgical blessing, with its associated sacramental character. It is, in effect, what the late Pope Benedict XVI would have called a “rupture”. In all of this (with St John Henry Newman in mind), do we not see the dogmatism of the modernists among us? They negate the absolute and normative status of the solemn doctrine of the Church, while bowing to the corrupting nature of a secular world devoid of absolutes, and substituting circumstance as its prime modus vivendi. I hope and pray that the indwelling Spirit of God will bring about certainty and steadfastness within the Church we love.
Brendan O’Leary
Swansea, UK
