Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples (not marriage)

[Estro Felino]

I think that people always misinterpret Catholicism.

The priest's blessing is not a marriage.
It's granting the Holy Spirit where there is love, to defend it.

Of course the priest ascertains that there is love, and not lust in that couple.

 

[We Never Know]

I think that people always misinterpret Catholicism.

The priest's blessing is not a marriage.
It's granting the Holy Spirit where there is love, to defend it.

Of course the priest ascertains that there is love, and not lust in that couple.

Uhm.... The OP title says "Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples (not marriage)

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[Estro Felino]

Uh.... The OP title says "Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples (not marriage)

​

Misinterpretation is that they interpret it as the first step to recognize civil unions or marriages.

 

[The Hammer]

Misinterpretation is that they interpret it as the first step to recognize civil unions or marriages.

I hope not.

It would be much better for all, of homosexuals and trans persons were to be executed as abominations, and/or relegated to he absolute outskirts of civil society.

Think they can love each other and get recognized. Dumb*****.

 

[libre]

I think it's a step in the right direction but I also think that people ought to fawn less over the tiniest concessions of the Vatican and the Pope.

 

[Soandso]

I hope not.

It would be much better for all, of homosexuals and trans persons were to be executed as abominations, and/or relegated to he absolute outskirts of civil society.

Think they can love each other and get recognized. Dumbasses.

Abominations?! These are human beings and deserve to be treated as such! We should bring back stonings and deal with them that way. It's the way God intended, just like in Numbers 15:32-36

"32When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day. 33Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation. 34They put him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.” 36The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses."

How else should we deal with men who handle bundles of sticks?

 

[We Never Know]

Abominations?! These are human beings and deserve to be treated as such! We should bring back stonings and deal with them that way. It's the way God intended, just like in Numbers 15:32-36

"32When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day. 33Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation. 34They put him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.” 36The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses."

How else should we deal with men who handle a bundle of sticks?

Stay out of their business for starters.

If Bob loves Bill. It doesnt hurt or affect my life.

 

[Soandso]

Stay out of their business for starters.

If Bob loves Bill. It doesnt hurt or affect my life.

But then I can't be a busy body and inject myself into other people's business! What fun is there in that?

 

[Estro Felino]

Stay out of their business for starters.

If Bob loves Bill. It doesnt hurt or affect my life.

Homosexuals are better than heterosexuals.
Because they don't make children.
Or if they make them (very rarely), they make them out of love and because they can afford them.

The world is overpopulated.

 

[Estro Felino]

And by the way...homosexuals don't have unwanted pregnancies.
So they have no abortions. Which is a sin.

 

[The Hammer]

And by the way...homosexuals don't have unwanted pregnancies.
So they have no abortions. Which is a sin.

Got it... No abortions = Sinning

 

[Estro Felino]

Got it... No abortions = Sinning

Abortion is murder.

 

[The Hammer]

Abortion is murder.

Absolutely!

Doesn't make it morally wrong.

 

[Glaurung]

Francis isn't endorsing that, though, of course.

[On paper] the Church still teaches that being a willing participant in a same-sex relationship is a sin. How then does it make sense that you can now have a same-sex relationship blessed (albeit informally) without an at least tacit approval of said relationship as non-sinful?

The question is simple. Can the Church endorse a same-sex relationship even if it caveats that endorsement? If the answer is yes, then the Church has necessarily reupdated previous teaching regardless of its doublespeak.

Francis' interpretation of what's happening is clearly different. But that doesn't mean he's any less a believing Catholic.

I cannot look into that man's soul and know what he "really" believes. But I am not willing to pretend that he is in continuity with his predecessors.

What seems to be going on is that he's trying to find ways to make the Church a more welcoming place for sinners to receive love and grace instead of a place where people feel nothing but condemnation and shame (which is how many people perceive Catholicism).

Let's be honest here. If you're in a same-sex relationship and you have zero intention of leaving said relationship, then you don't actually care about what the Church teaches as binding moral law. The Church already welcomes sinners and offers confession as a remedy for their burdened consciences. As I see things the goal isn't to be welcomed into the Church. It's the destruction one of the few remaining (important) institutions of formal Christian teaching.

I understand the Catholic faith makes uncompromising moral demands that seem harsh in our current climate. I have struggled with them to the point of seriously questioning their truth. But what has also near destroyed my remaining faith is an institution that has reduced itself to a kabuki theater. An institution that demands obedience (on pain of hell) to authorities who more and more blatantly disregard the very claims that justify their authority to begin with. An unchangeable revelation given to them by God himself.

The Catholic clergy cannot demand my assent if they themselves feel free to dissent from the religion they claim to teach. Because it has all the sudden become inconvenient in a world hostile to its claims.

 

[1213]

Baby steps, but they're still steps. Your comments?

I wonder, do they bless murderers and thieves also.

 

[exchemist]

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, the Vatican announced Monday, a radical shift in policy that aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage.

But while the Vatican statement was heralded by some as a step toward breaking down discrimination in the Catholic Church, some LGBTQ+ advocates warned it underscored the church’s idea that gay couples remain inferior to heterosexual partnerships.

The document from the Vatican’s doctrine office elaborates on a letter Francis sent to two conservative cardinals that was published in October. In that preliminary response, Francis suggested such blessings could be offered under some circumstances if the blessings weren’t confused with the ritual of marriage.

My comment: Baby steps, but they're still steps. Your comments?

Yes, still steps indeed, and about as far as he can go at this point without exciting paroxysms of hyperventilation from the eyeball-swivelling conservatives, especially in the increasingly deranged United States.

As it is, I'm actually looking forward with some amusement to the denunciations rolling in - from people referring to Pope Francis as "Bergoglio" to indicate they don't consider him to be a true Scotsman, sorry real pope.

On one point of detail, I read that one objection in the past has been that "God does not bless sin". But as we know from the gospels, God most certainly does bless sinners. If He did not, nobody would ever get a blessing at all.

 

[exchemist]

I wonder, do they bless murderers and thieves also.

You mean as Christ did on the cross?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, the Vatican announced Monday, a radical shift in policy that aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage.

But while the Vatican statement was heralded by some as a step toward breaking down discrimination in the Catholic Church, some LGBTQ+ advocates warned it underscored the church’s idea that gay couples remain inferior to heterosexual partnerships.

The document from the Vatican’s doctrine office elaborates on a letter Francis sent to two conservative cardinals that was published in October. In that preliminary response, Francis suggested such blessings could be offered under some circumstances if the blessings weren’t confused with the ritual of marriage.

My comment: Baby steps, but they're still steps. Your comments?

A lot of kids had to be hurt before the Church would be so desperate for relevancy that they would take this step.

It makes sense that they would do this now, since otherwise most of the news about the Catholic Church in the news cycle these days is about the Church shuffling money around and letting dioceses file for bankruptcy rather than pay abuse survivors the settlements they're due.

Even still, they're prevented from going all-in on doing the right thing by their dogma.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

What??? Well that's it. I am definitely not joining the Catholic Church. Hmm I wonder how Westboro Baptists feel about the fact of evolution?

They hate it, ofcourse. Just not as much as they hate gay people. (I have to admit, every time I think about Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist, I'm reminded of Queen Gertrude's remark, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks.")

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Grace is the divine help that empowers a person to perform salvific acts. That divine help is not unconditional. It is predicated on the cooperation of the person. To ask God to aid you in the perpetuation of a sinful state is a mockery of Christian teaching.

The deeper issue is that it is hard not to get the impression that Catholic Church has become a practical joke. This is an institution that claims to be the custodian of divine revelation. The unchangeable doctrine of the logos incarnate. The one doctrine necessary for salvation. If the regime in Rome really believed in its claims it would not continually attempt to push the line on its own orthodoxy. Claiming to believe what the Church has always believed while attempting to enshrine an ever-leftward drift in moral theology is fooling no one.

Or perhaps the church, full of prelates much more educated than most of us, especially in scripture, are perfectly well aware that "divine revelation" has indeed been muddied by the way in which it was received and disseminated -- through individuals and then passed on orally or in writing, copied time and time again by mere humans for whom error is as natural as breathing.

One might also notice the amazing prevalance of homosexual behaviours in so many species, and suspect that maybe, just maybe, it is quite natural (or as Spinoza might have put it, natural/divine), and therefore only thought a sin due to our human capacity for error, mentioned above.