While things won't change for Mormons, it just shows how increasingly out of step they are -- just like divinely inspired racism and the black priesthood ban that didn't end until 1978. Mormons, far-right Catholics and evangelicals are trying to go backwards, not forwards.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/vatican-approves-blessings-same-sex-couples-under-certain-conditions-2023-12-18/

ROME — The Vatican on Monday issued its most definitive permission yet for Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples, as long as those benedictions are kept separate from marriage, a decree that fully reverses a 2021 ruling — and that may deepen division over the open-door papacy of Pope Francis.

The ruling by the powerful Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith expands on a far briefer statement of support for such blessings issued by Francis in September in response to questions raised by conservative clerics. The document on Monday, described as likely to be the most comprehensive on the issue to emerge from the Vatican on the question, repeats the assertion that such blessings should not suggest even the trappings of sacramental marriage — including traditional wedding vestments. But it explicitly gives permission to “ordained ministers” to conduct such blessings, asking them to use their own “prudent and fatherly discernment” to decide when doing so is appropriate.


Couples in “irregular situations” as well as “couples of the same sex” may receive priestly blessings, the Vatican said, so that these “human relationships may mature and grow in fidelity to the Gospel.”

“With its untiring wisdom and motherly care, the Church welcomes all who approach God with humble hearts, accompanying them with those spiritual aids that enable everyone to understand and realize God’s will fully in their existence,” the Vatican said.


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Francis is confronting conservative American bishops, another sign of change. Again, don't expect to see any type of change at the top of LD$, Inc -- until around 2087 perhaps :)


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https://apnews.com/article/vatican-cardinal-burke-conservatives-strickland-163f2d3522a80fa5f908421cc812cfc9


VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has decided to punish one of his highest-ranking critics, Cardinal Raymond Burke, by revoking his right to a subsidized Vatican apartment and salary in the second such radical action against a conservative American prelate this month, according to two people briefed on the measures.

Francis told a meeting of the heads of Vatican offices last week that he was moving against Burke because he was a source of “disunity” in the church, said one of the participants at the Nov. 20 meeting. The participant spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal the contents of the encounter.


Burke, who spends much of his time in the U.S. at the Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine he founded in his native Wisconsin, is the second American prelate to face punishment in what appears to be a new phase of Francis’ pontificate. This reform-minded period seems to have accelerated with the arrival in September of Francis’ hand-picked new doctrine czar, Argentine Cardinal Victor Fernández.

Earlier this month, Francis forcibly removed the bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Strickland, another conservative who had also become one of Francis’ critics. Strickland was removed after a Vatican investigation into governance of his diocese.

In a tweet Tuesday, Strickland expressed shock at reports that Francis had taken action taken against his fellow American, which was first reported by the conservative Italian newspaper La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, the main sponsor of “The Synodal Babel” conference.

“If this is accurate it is an atrocity that must be opposed. If it is false information it needs to be corrected immediately,” Strickland said.

Asked Tuesday about word of Francis’ decision, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni didn’t deny the reports but referred questions to Burke.

“I don’t have anything particular to say about that,” Bruni told reporters.

Pope Benedict XVI had made Burke a cardinal in 2010, after he appointed him prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s high court. After Francis removed him from that position in 2014, he made Burke the cardinal patron of the Knights of Malta, a prestigious but limited role.

But there too, Burke and Francis clashed over Burke’s involvement in a governance crisis at the chivalric order. Francis pushed him aside and named two subsequent envoys to essentially replace him.

More recently, the two seemingly were at odds over COVID-19 vaccines. Francis had been a big proponent of the vaccines and had lashed out at vaccine skeptics, who included some conservative Catholics.

During a 2021 airborne news conference, Francis lamented the vaccine “negationists” in the College of Cardinals, an apparent reference to Burke, who had just been hospitalized in the U.S. and placed on a ventilator with a serious bout of the virus.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2023 11:26AM by anybody.

Vatican politics can be something else. When Francis was first elected pope, he inherited an entrenched Vatican bureaucracy (the Curia,) that was largely hostile to change. It seems that over the years Francis has mastered the game.

I'm wondering if the idea of couples "in irregular situations" is meant chiefly for Brazil, where divorce has historically been nearly impossible. I don't know if the situation has changed there in this regard.

Interesting point about Brazil and, I suspect, true.

Meanwhile we still await action on child abuse.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Vatican politics can be something else. When
> Francis was first elected pope, he inherited an
> entrenched Vatican bureaucracy (the Curia,) that
> was largely hostile to change. It seems that over
> the years Francis has mastered the game.

The Curia is not "hostile to change". The Curia enacts and enforces change. Catholic churches had been using the Latin Mass for centuries, before it was semi-banned in the 20th century by Vatican. Rebel groups continued to hold traditional services to their chagrin. Nowadays, the traditional Latin Mass is allowed, but on sufferance. This is a slap in the face of all Catholics who took the old mass while being persecuted by Protestants etc. You have to go through bureaucracy to apply for permission to hold them now.

There are numerous other examples of how they enforce "change" as you put it.

By the way it is nonsensical to worship "change". Change is not the same as progress. It's something which happens anyway and can be good, bad or indifferent.

Liberty Bell wrote in part:

"By the way it is nonsensical to worship "change". Change is not the same as progress. It's something which happens anyway and can be good, bad or indifferent."

Everything about us, and yea, even ourselves, is always changing, regardless of whether or not that change is for the good. Put another way, Aristotle was absolutely wrong (as shown in later physics) when he observed that the natural state of objects is at rest. Change is a constant, and we need to learn to live with it.

Is ANYTHING in our universe "at rest"?

When there's talk about 'traveling back in time,' no one seems to appreciate that 24 hours ago is not only 24 hours 'distant,' but also about 1.6 million straight miles away, not to mention the mileage the Earth covered in its orbital path.

I do share a fondness for the notion that every moment (and position) in time always exists and will do so forever!  But for now, humans can only appreciate it one connected instant at a time, when in fact/theory, it's a tapestry that could be conceptualized and appreciated in a single, continuous gestalt*.





*Not to be confused with gesundheit!

> I do share a fondness for the notion that every
> moment (and position) in time always exists and
> will do so forever!  But for now, humans can
> only appreciate it one connected instant at a
> time, when in fact/theory, it's a tapestry that
> could be conceptualized and appreciated in a
> single, continuous gestalt*.

All that from a airplane crash on the way to an optometrists' convention?

The mind reels.

Who knew that the exhaust systems of automobiles had, as part of their design, the saving of lives!!

I swear, as ghawd is witless, that I had no idea!!

"This is a slap in the face of all Catholics who took the old mass while being persecuted by Protestants etc. You have to go through bureaucracy to apply for permission to hold them now."

As a descendant of Huguenots chased out of France by Catholics, I would call that statement rather one-sided. Historically, Catholics have been at least as much persecutors as persecuted (and probably more...).

As a missionary in Brazil, I had to deal regularly with their divorce laws, or more correctly, lack of divorce laws. Couples who had left previous marriages and were legally separated (that was allowed, and was a de facto divorce) but were living together as a family, since they were not allowed to remarry, could be baptized into the Mormon Church. They had to be interviewed by the Mission President, but I never knew of any couple that failed that interview.

I just looked up the current status of divorce in Brazil. It is allowed, as of 2010, and no grounds other than irreconcilable differences are required.

Priests are already allowed to bless gay people. But they need to demonstrate their ESG/SDG ratings are all good.

I do think this is something more. It's a sort of un-wedding wedding. And IMO there is only so far the pope can go. He doesn't want to lose the more conservative end of the church.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I do think this is something more. It's a sort of
> un-wedding wedding. And IMO there is only so far
> the pope can go. He doesn't want to lose the more
> conservative end of the church.

Francis is a South American Catholic. He is steeped in what is referred to as Liberation Theology, which backs things like this.

Eh, no. Liberation Theology goes back a long way, and is concerned with the oppression of the poor. And Francis never aligned himself with that theology, considering it too extreme. I do not think he would have been elected pope if he were. I think that some people are having knee-jerk reactions, thinking that Francis, being somewhat more liberal that most of his predecessors, is a proponent of liberation theology. He is not.

I do think that he is more open-minded than recent popes, and is trying to bring the church into the modern world. But even he has his limits.

Liberty Bell is stuck in the 1950s and 1960s. That the horse is little more than parched bones in the desert does not deter him.

I happened to be in NE Brazil (Recife) at precisely the time Liberation Theology was exploding on the scene. The archbishop of Recife was Hélder Câmara, and I am pretty sure he was the Big Kahuna of Liberation Theology internationally. He was quite obviously the LT big kahuna in NE Brazil.

It was all about the dispossessed. I don't recall any talk of sexual identity, pro or con.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hélder_Câmara

The irony is that Liberty Bell disfavors Liberation Theology but, in his anti-colonial rants, repeats the related ideas of Francis Fanon and Kwame Nkrumah, who were also products of the period you describe.

https://www.dw.com/en/africans-differ-over-clerical-blessings-for-same-sex-couples/a-6778748

###########

Homosexuality is a controversial topic in Africa, a continent where many people have strong and very conservative views on sexual orientation.

Pope Francis' recent approval of blessings for same-sex couples has left many Africans confused, triggering mixed emotions.

"As a Christian I am very embarrassed. What the pope did, he represented himself not the whole of Christians," Mary Lesiba of South Africa told DW. "How can he say he is a Christian when he is busy approving such things?"

Ayeah Alain Bravo from Cameroon also shares similar discontent. "[The decision] does not make sense to me," he said. "It makes some of us start doubting religion or feeling reluctant or trying to lose my faith."

Such strong reactions worry Francis Mpekansambo, a devout Catholic and religious analyst from the southern African nation of Malawi.

He said the pope's authorization of blessings for same-sex couples has sparked confusion because it's being misconstrued to mean that he is giving his approval to homosexuality.

"The church in Africa has received the news with mixed reaction and in somewhat a confused state," Mpekansambo told DW.

The Vatican said on Monday that following the pope's authorization, Catholic priests can now administer blessings to same-sex couples under the condition that they are not part of regular church rituals or liturgies.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2023 05:53AM by Maude.

This shows the tightrope that Francis has to walk.

I don't see the big deal of blessing gay couples. The Catholic Church has blessed all kinds of things over the years.

On St Francis of Assisi feast day, first week of October, the church bless pets and animals. I witnessed Catholic priests blessing peoples homes, their cars, farms,etc.

What does it matter? For the people involved it's a sign of their faith in the Lord.

None of us knows what happens at the end of this life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2023 07:12PM by tumwater.

> None of us knows what happens
> at the end of this life.


... Pepperidge Farms knows ...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2023 08:26PM by lousyleper.

Don't forget the Catholic blessing of the first keg at Oktoberfest

Least the Catholics have their priorities straight..... none of this praising of the profit.