My thoughts on Fiducia Supplicans
For better or worse, I believe it's inevitable that, within my lifetime, the Church will be substantially more accepting towards committed gay relationships. I also believe it’s certain that, within ~60 years, committed and monogamous gay relationships will be recognised as a vocation distinct from traditional marriage. While the Church’s teaching on marriage itself is definite and unchanging, I don’t believe that makes every imitation of it a necessary cause for intractable conflict.
To be a conservative remnant, in societies that are perceived to be more accepting and loving of those who are different, is the opposite of what Jesus intended for the Church. The insistence that gay people commit to a life of celibacy as a condition for being deemed full members of the Church is unrealistic, unworkable and unjust. I think Pope Francis is at least trying to address that reality.
The amount of opposition to 'Fiducia Supplicans' from the vocally conservative Catholics, including priests and bishops, over the past several weeks, was surprising. They effectively argue (often in ridiculously over-the-top ways) that it’s divisive and causes confusion and doubt about the Church’s teaching on marriage. I’m left wondering how much of their animosity towards Pope Francis is attributable to misinterpretation and their apparent incapacity to grasp things that are unabiguously and explicitly written - as Fiducia Supplicans is. And surely priests and bishops are allowed to exercise a lot of discretion over this sort of thing anyway?
Others, writing for The Guardian, express the opposite opinion, saying that the 'small step on gay couples isn't enough', and the declaration is 'a means of laundering your prejudice to make it seem like a step towards acceptance'.
Fiducia Supplicans basically declares (or rather clarifies) that priests should bless a couple who happen to be in a gay relationship, but not bless the relationship itself. Essentially it's the concurrent blessing of two individuals, and of what is good between them. The relationship is not the subject of the blessing.
The blessing must not be liturgical, ritualised or have any resemblance to a rite of marriage, it’s explicitly stated.
What good is that, we might ask, if Fiducia Supplicans is not progressive and it changes nothing whatsoever? Well, it is conceivable that the declaration, following a considerable amount of discussion and discernment, was intended to subtly indicate what I think is an important change of attitude toward gay relationships.
The Church (protestant and Catholic) generally pronounces such relationships entirely sexual and exclusively immoral, which I find an immaturely reductive position that's difficult to take seriously, given that it's manifestly not the case for all gay couples, and given the institutional Church appears perfectly fine (as repeatedly demonstrated) with priests who sexually abuse children being allowed to continue in positions of leadership and ministry. That the faithful in gay relationships are explicitly denied those positions makes the latter point directly relevant.
Fiducia Supplicans instead could be a decisive move by Pope Francis - and I hope it is - to make the Church’s position more credible by acknowledging that gay relationships can indeed be a means to achieve good, and there are aspects of such relationships that should be blessed.