What’s in a Blessing?

In December 2023, the Vatican’s highest office for the Catholic Church’s teaching, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), issued the declaration Fiducia supplicans (Supplicating Trust), subtitled “On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings”, to clarify under which circumstances people in irregular unions — divorced and remarried without an annulment, cohabitating, same-sex (no mention is made of polygamous) — may receive blessings from a priest, bishop or deacon.

Generally, the press coverage and often polemical social media reaction have offered an incomplete or even distorted interpretation of Fiducia’s content. This is a brief FAQ of the document’s background, what it says, and what it doesn’t say.

Why was Fiducia supplicans written?

In 2021, the doctrinal office issued a document that ruled out any kind of blessings of irregular unions within a liturgical context. It did not address the question of blessings of irregular unions outside the liturgical setting. Fiducia reaffirms the 2021 document and offers guidance on the latter.

In particular, the declaration is a response to a dubium posed by two retired cardinals and to an approved motion by the German Synodal Way to request that bishops institute blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples within the liturgy. Fiducia reaffirms that this is not possible because the Church cannot allow any kind of formal blessing of irregular unions within a liturgical setting.

However, it offers a pastoral solution to a wide-spread pastoral problem.

What is the difference between these blessings?

Fiducia makes a distinction between blessings imparted as part of a liturgical rite and non-liturgical simple blessings.

Within the liturgy, it says, blessings should be imparted only to “things, places, or circumstances that do not contradict the law or the spirit of the Gospel”. This obviously rules out the blessing of irregular unions within the context of a Mass or other liturgical rites.

A simple blessing would be spontaneous and private — not a planned event that includes rites and possibly even invited guests. The ordained minister, Fiducia suggests, “could ask that the individuals have peace, health, a spirit of patience, dialogue, and mutual assistance — but also God’s light and strength to be able to fulfil his will completely”.

Simple blessings must not be seen as a reward for the virtuous but as an aid for those who are seeking God. Such blessings are already administered to any person who requests it, without interrogating their interior state, and it is not our job to judge the worthiness of the recipient of a blessing. Pope Francis, responding to the controversy around Fiducia in an interview with the Italian magazine Credere on February 7, raised a good example of that: “No one is scandalised if I bless an entrepreneur who perhaps exploits people — and this is a very serious sin. Whereas they are scandalised if I give it to a homosexual… This is hypocrisy!”

Fiducia says that “when people ask for a blessing, there should not be an exhaustive moral analysis as a precondition for conferring it, for those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection”. That applies to any of us. When you go up to Father and ask him to bless you, he does not first interrogate your state of sinfulness; he simply blesses you.

Cardinal Stephen Brislin of Cape Town has noted that people coming for a blessing means that they are open to God’s grace and are seeking God’s grace. Therefore they cannot be turned away.

So what are the blessings for?

Fiducia supplicans states that those “who invoke God’s blessing through the Church are invited to strengthen their dispositions through faith, for which all things are possible, and to trust in the love that urges the observance of God’s commandments”.

The Church’s hope, among other things, is that those in irregular unions may live a life of chastity, even as she acknowledges that for many people, this is a struggle. Who needs the nourishment of a blessing and God’s grace more than those who are struggling to live by the Church’s teachings?

In January Pope Francis said: “The intent of the ‘pastoral and spontaneous blessings’ is to concretely show the closeness of the Lord and of the Church to all those who, finding themselves in different situations, ask help to carry on — sometimes to begin — a journey of faith.”

If the Church’s call to chastity within these relationships was impossible to attain, then her teachings would place an unreasonable burden on people. By blessing couples in irregular unions, the Church confirms her belief that it is possible to live by her teachings. The blessing encourages people in these situations in their struggle, without attaching conditions.

A blessing not only animates the couple to live by the Church’s teachings but also to treat each other with love, kindness, fidelity and generosity as they try to walk their path in the light of God.

What blessings are not for is to serve as a substitute for sacramental ceremonies that are not permitted by the Church.

But doesn’t Fiducia still validate irregular unions?

Not at all. Fiducia restates the Church’s teaching on the sacrament of marriage, and it emphasises that blessings for couples in irregular situations can be imparted only “without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage”. A blessing that is in conflict with this meaning is “inadmissible”. Such unions “cannot be compared in any way to a marriage”.

The wording of the simple blessings imparted to people in irregular unions is therefore important. Applicable formulas already exist; in future they should be included in official books of blessings.

The widely-spread idea that Fiducia validates same-sex unions is not supported by the document, despite assertions to the contrary — not always made without mischief — from progressive and conservative Catholics, and by lazy reporting in the secular media.

Some misunderstanding may be caused by an ambiguity in Fiducia about whether a blessing might apply not only to individuals but also to the relationship.

Pope Francis clarified that ambiguity in an address to officials from the doctrinal office in January: “When a couple spontaneously approaches to ask for it, the union is not blessed, but simply the people who have requested it together. Not the union, but the people, naturally taking into account the context, the sensitivities, the places in which one lives, and the most suitable ways to do so.”

Having already emphasised the teachings of the Church, Fiducia clearly does not consent to elements in a union that contravene Catholic doctrine.

Rather, Fiducia emphasises that the blessing of a couple must always be oriented to God — it must not be a token gesture but a genuine petition to God. The document’s suggestion that such a blessing ask for “God’s light and strength to be able to fulfil his will completely” expresses the Church’s hope that the couple will live in their relationship chastely. And if couples in such relationships live in strict chastity, the Church has no doctrinal reasons to object to such unions.

Contributing to the confusion may be a misunderstanding of the terminology of “blessing” in the context of Fiducia. Often the term is used to signify approval of something. One might say: “Your decision has my blessing.”

Fiducia does not apply that meaning. Here the term “blessing” denotes a petition to God. We use it in that sense when we preface our confession with the words: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” When the priest then imparts the requested blessing, he is not endorsing our sinfulness but aids us in making a good confession. Likewise, the act of imparting blessings to people in irregular unions is an appeal for God’s help in their lives. It does not imply approval.

Africa’s opposition to such blessings

The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (Secam) in a “common response” said that they “generally prefer” not to offer blessings to same-sex couples, though there is no binding policy, which the body has no authority to issue in any case.

“We, the African bishops, do not consider it appropriate for Africa to bless homosexual unions or same-sex couples because, in our context, this would cause confusion and would be in direct contradiction to the cultural ethos of African communities,” Secam said in a statement on January 11.

Secam acknowledged that Fiducia does not change Church teachings about human sexuality and marriage, but claimed that its language is “too subtle for simple people to understand”.

The statement said that Fiducia “offers the possibility of these blessings but does not impose them” and that in some countries, the Church may wish to take more time to reflect on it.

Matters are further complicated in African states where even simply being gay can lead to imprisonment, and same-sex carnal relations, between men or women, may even be subject to capital punishment. Under such dangerous conditions, blessing same-sex couples could be injudicious.

Will Fiducia be implemented in SA?

After the January plenary session of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Brislin said that the local Church was taking a “slightly different stand from the rest of Africa”.

In a statement issued before the plenary, the SACBC said: “What the document is affirming is that nobody is outside God’s grace, and couples living in same-sex unions may not be denied a blessing when they spontaneously request it. Such a blessing is seen as an opportunity to avail oneself of God’s mercy with a potential for conversion and openness to God’s will and direction.”

Cardinal Brislin explained: “Each bishop has to assess the particular needs of his own diocese and the particular impact this would have. And we in Southern Africa felt that obviously, it is up to each local bishop, but that we would implement the document and its recommendations with blessings prudently.”

In short, how Fiducia supplicans will be implemented in the Southern African region (and throughout the world) will be subject to the authority of the local bishops.

This echoes the Vatican doctrinal office, which in a January 4 statement said that although bishops may take a cautious approach to Fiducia, priests should not be deprived of the opportunity to discern and impart blessings upon those who request them, as some bishops had prohibited priests in their dioceses from administering pastoral blessings.

Many opinions have been expressed about Fiducia supplicans, often by people who know about it only from headlines and social media. It is always good to first read the source, especially if a text excites controversy and heated debate. The quite brief text of Fiducia supplicans, which also includes a section that reflects on blessings in general, is available on the Vatican website at t.ly/Xu7iJ