In this episode, Trent reviews the CDF’s recent dubium on blessing same-sex marriages and replies to the bad theology promoted by critics who want this change in the liturgy.
Welcome to The Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Hey everyone, welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host Catholic Answers apologist and speaker, Trent Horn. On Monday, March 15th the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a dubium which is a response to a question. And this case was on the question of bishops or priests blessing same-sex unions. And so the CDF, which was, the document was also signed off by Pope Francis said that, “No, not only does the church not do this, it cannot do this.” And so they released an entire explanation related to this and some of it’s been covered even in mainstream media outlets, Washington Post, CNN, much to the chagrin of people outside of the church and frankly some people inside of the church who had probably been hoping that Pope Francis will make a radical change to the church’s teaching on homosexuality. Or at least if not a radical change I think many of them were hoping that the Pope would usher in something, a way to get the camel’s nose under the tent.
So I think most people except for the far radical left did not think that Pope Francis was just going to single with the stroke of a pen change the church’s teachings on the morality of same-sex behavior. I think what they were hoping to do as part of their long game to try to get this behavior accepted in the church, and by the way, it’s very apropos that we’re talking about this because I just did that whole series on Matthew Vines Scott who wrote that book on the gay Christian. I rebutted that entire video he did where he claims the Bible does not condemn so-called modern same-sex relationships.
If you haven’t seen that be sure to go to the Counsel of Trent YouTube page to go and check it out there. It’s about a three-hour rebuttal. I covered it in some of the podcasts episodes but the whole rebuttal is available on our Counsel of Trent YouTube page. Go there, click subscribe. And by the way, if you want to help us to make even more rebuttal videos consider becoming a premium subscriber at trenthornpodcast.com.
So it’s really helpful. Let me know if it’s helpful, but it’s appropriate this is happening right now because what Vines is arguing about in the evangelical church, there are all kinds of Catholic so-called theologians and LGBT revisionists in the Catholic Church, New Ways Ministry be one of these people who would love to try to change the church’s teaching to say, “Oh, turns out we’ve got a new understanding of homosexuality and this teaching is no longer valid anymore.” Of course, it wouldn’t say that you would undermine all teachings related to sexual ethics and the human person as a whole if you were to do that.
But you’ll see these different kinds of arguments. I think that people who promote this view did not actually think Pope Francis would just say, “Oh, nevermind, I’m just going to completely change this,” but that he would give them an opportunity so they have an inroad, and they see this as a long game, really something that they hope in the next 50 or 100 years the church would… They can’t change overnight but you start with baby steps to change the church’s teaching on something like homosexuality. And for them you would start not with the behavior but to say, “Oh, well, we’re just blessing these same-sex unions, we’re not blessing the activity they’re engaging in. We’re blessing the people, we’re recognizing the goodness of their relationship.”
And I think a lot of them would have seen that as a stepping stone towards the church fully permitting sexual behavior between two men and two women. So they were dealt a crushing rebuke today with the release of the CDF documents. What I want to do is read through the document and offer some of my thoughts on it. Before I do that though, I want to bring up, this is a graphic that I showed in my rebuttal video for Matthew Vines. It’s a Pew Forum poll, I think it goes back to 2017.
It talks about Catholic attitudes towards the issue of homosexuality. And this is going to be the giant fight that we will have over the next 100 years, more so than abortion. I think the only issue that’s harder than this honestly is the issue of contraception. It is truly… What’s the word I’m looking for here? It’s just abundantly sad to see how many people reject the church’s teaching on contraception, I think that’s the hardest one.
America Magazine to their credit actually did an article promoting natural family planning instead of contraception and they got a ton of blow back on their Facebook page and Twitter from all of the Catholics with an asterisk next to their name because they show up at Christmas and Easter and they don’t believe in the real presence. They see nothing wrong with abortion and contraception, homosexuality, saying things like, “America Magazine has lost its way.” I would say that that’s baby steps for American Magazine to find its way again after they published an article a year or two ago called The Catholic Case for Communism by Dean Dettloff, which I wrote a rebuttal to by the way at catholic.com.
But in my video I talked about just how much the so-called homosexual behavior is accepted in society. Among Catholics under the age of 30, 85% of them say homosexuality should be accepted. Now, that could be a reference to the person, of course the person should always be accepted but not necessarily the behavior. But in every age group, all Catholic, if you put all that Catholics together, it’s about 70% say homosexuality should be accepted. So this is going to be the big fight that we will have and you’re going to keep hearing these things.
And when I read online it’s interesting, and it was fascinating to look at social media after this was released because normally social media is a big fan of Pope Francis. Like when you said about homosexuality, “Who am I to judge?” You remember that? All the social media, he’s the Pope for LGBT. He’s great. Now you go on social media especially on Twitter it’s just boo. They’re absolutely not happy with this at all because they don’t want just more of a pastoral concern.
It’s not that those who identify and support the LGBTQ movement, it’s not like they say, “We wish the Catholic Church was more pastoral.” That’s not what they want. What they want is the Catholic Church to stop being Catholic, to stop teaching the deposit of faith that was handed on by Jesus and the apostles 2000 years ago, that’s what they want and so we have to meet that head-on. And we have to always remember by the way that evangelism is not a popularity contest. Because there’s two extremes, some peoples say, “I don’t care if people get offended, that’s your problem.” Well, we should try to present the truth in as inoffensive a way as possible.
I think what we need to focus on is what Saint Paul says in Ephesians 4:15, to speak the truth in love. If a person’s going to be offended we want them to be offended not by us, our character, our vocabulary, the tone that we use, if they’re going to be offended we want the truth to be that which offends them, but then hopefully ultimately convicts them and brings them to repentance and the joy of the gospel. So with that said, I want to jump into what the CDF said. I’m going to read through the response they gave him the dubium and then add some of my thoughts to that.
So it begins, “In some ecclesial contexts, plans and proposals for blessings of unions of persons of the same sex are being advanced. Such projects are not infrequently motivated by a sincere desire to welcome and accompany homosexual persons, to whom I propose paths of growth in faith so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.”
Now, it doesn’t say where these plans are being advanced, this is probably a reference to the German Catholic Church. Some of the bishops there have proposed blessings for the same-sex unions. There’s an article from New Ways Ministry, a pro-LGBT group that would absolutely love to change the church’s teaching on homosexuality. Now in this article from a year ago, January, 2020, it says, “German Cardinal Key Bishop Endorse Church Blessings for LGBTQ Couples. Two leaders of the German Bishops Conference have offered support for church blessings of same gender couples. Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising stated in an interview that same gender couples could receive a church blessing.” Reported katholisch.de, I think that’s a German Catholic newspaper.
It goes on to say, “According to Marx, homosexual couples can receive a blessing in the sense of pastoral care in the Catholic Church but no marriage-like relationship is blessed with this. He said in an interview with Stern on Monday. Marriage is also not possible.” He says they can’t get married but we can bless them. It’s interesting. He says, “I get criticism for this from some sides,” said the Archbishop. “Some say it too far, others it doesn’t go far enough.”
So we can see that the Germans are proposing this and the German Catholic Church is a constant source of worry, probably for Pope Francis and everybody else in the things that they are proposing. It’s sad, it’s absolutely sad to see what it’s become of the Catholic Church in Germany. What’s remarkable is that as mass attendance has plummeted, the German Catholic Church’s revenue has steadily increased because the German Catholic Church benefits, like other churches in Germany, benefits from the Church Tax.
If you’re a German citizen on your taxes you say what church you go to. You select it and then eight to 9% of your income goes to the church. If you’re a Catholic who does not designate the Catholic Church in your tax form you’re denied access to the sacraments, which I think is absolutely outlandish. And now the church, they’re getting what they paid for basically in being so intimately tied with the state. And instead of allowing people to give, I mean, St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians made it clear, “God loves a cheerful giver, I do not compel you.”
The German Catholic Church is basically compelling people through the Church Tax and you’re seeing the awful fruits that are coming from how the church is being managed there. So including blessings for same-sex couples, well, we’re not trying to change the teaching on marriage but it is certainly starting to down that path to do that.
The CDF is referencing this probably obliquely. It goes on to talk about why someone would do this. It says, “On such paths, listening to the word of God, prayer participation in ecclesial liturgical actions and the exercise of charity can play an important role in sustaining the commitment to read one’s own history and to be here with freedom and responsibility to one’s baptismal call because God loves every person and the church does the same, rejecting all unjust discrimination.”
Of course this is a reference to paragraphs 2357 to 2358 of the Catechism that talk about the issue of homosexuality. And it says in there that people who have same-sex attractions should be accepted and not subject to unjust discrimination. But the key word here is unjust and this will come up later in the dubium because it’s good it doesn’t say discrimination because discrimination is not a bad thing, discrimination is not intrinsically evil. If you’re hiring two people for a job and one of them has never performed the skills necessary for the job and the other is an expert in those skills, then you discriminate, you make a choice. That’s all discrimination is, you’re making choice. You pick the person who is more qualified, that would be just discrimination.
But let’s say you had two people applying, one who is very skilled the other who is not skilled at all. And the person who is not skilled at all gets the job because they’re white and the employer just doesn’t like black people, for example, and doesn’t hire the black individual who’s very skilled at the job. There’s actually an episode of That’s Raven, where Raven doesn’t get the job at the mall even though she’s more qualified than her white friend because the employer is racist. How do I know that? I watch a lot of YouTube, okay?
The point is that not all discrimination is bad, unjust discrimination is bad. To give you another example, if a doctor refused to a gunshot victim because he identifies as gay or a woman who identifies as a lesbian, or someone who identifies as transgender, refuses to treat that person of their gunshot injuries just because of their identification, that would be unjust discrimination. But it would be just discrimination if you have a doctor who treats fertility who is helping a man and a woman to conceive a child through licit means but refuses to help two men or two women to conceive a child because he considers that a disordered understanding of procreation and where children should come to be and that children should only come from the marital act, that would not be unjust discrimination.
So when we’re talking about accepting those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, whatever it may be, it’s important to focus on the church prohibits unjust discrimination, not discrimination in itself. Which means that there can be blessings obviously for married couples. Now, you could even have a blessing for an engaged couple provided that the couple is not engaging in fornication or something like that but you’re blessing them because they are continuing on the path towards marriage. As long as there’s nothing sinful about the relationship itself you might bless an engaged couple to spiritually prepare them for entering into the Sacrament of Matrimony, but you cannot … The CDF is clear you cannot provide the same kind of blessing for a same-sex couple or for any other similar kind of a sinful relationship.
Then the document goes on to talk about the nature of blessings and where they fit into the church. It says, “Among the liturgical actions of the church, the sacramentals have a singular importance,” so blessing remember is the sacramental. “These are sacred signs that resemble the sacraments. They signify effects particularly of a spiritual kind which are obtained through the church’s intercession. By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments and various occasions of life are sanctified.”
I think the most popular sacramental probably in the church worldwide, would be making the sign of the cross. That’s something that prepares us to receive the grace of the sacraments and the catechism is very clear. The document goes on to say, “Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the church’s prayer they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it.” It’s para-quoting paragraph 1670. So if you receive a blessing that’s not the same as receiving absolution and confession, for example. But sacramentals, and there’s a wide variety of them in the church we can avail ourselves of, they prepare us, they spiritually prepare us like wearing a scapular or receiving a blessing. There’s something that make us more to receive grace in the sacraments like the Eucharist, Confirmation, Absolution, things like that.
Blessings belong to the category of the sacramentals whereby the church “calls us to praise God, encourages us to implore His protection, and exhorts us to seek His mercy by our holiness of life.” In addition, blessings have been established as a kind of imitation of the sacraments. Blessings are signs above all of spiritual effects that are achieved through the church’s intercession. And so now we know what a blessing is. A blessing is important because it fits within an entire sacramental economy. A blessing or a sacramental is not a sacrament itself, that’s kind of the on-ramp, it prepares us to be able to fully receive them.
Now, that’s important because we’re called to be properly disposed when we receive the sacraments. Whether it’s Confirmation, Eucharist, when you go to confession, you have to actually be contrite. If you’re not sorry for your sins the absolution is not valid. We need to be prepared to receive the sacraments. You might say, “Well, how is a baby prepared to receive the sacraments?” My infant son, John Paul, was baptized, confirmed and received his first Eucharist. When he was prepared through the faith of Laura and I, that when babies are baptized the preparation lies in the faith of the parents who then eventually transmit that faith to the child when they enter the age of reason. All right?
So we understand the role of blessings, why they’re important, which is why the CDF goes on to say, “Consequently, in order to conform with the nature of sacramentals, when a blessing is invoked on particular human relationships in addition to the right intention of those who participate,” this is important here, “It is necessary that what is blessed be objectively, and positively ordered to receive an express grace.” I’ll repeat that again because this is an important part of the CDF document. “It is necessary that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive an express grace.”
According to the designs of God inscribed in creation and fully revealed by Christ, the Lord, therefore only those realities which are in themselves ordered to serve those ends are congruent with the essence of the blessing imparted by the church. So because of that then the CDF label gives its answers saying, “For this reason, it is not licit or lawful to impart a blessing on relationships or partnerships, even stable that involves sexual activity outside of marriage.”
So this is a broader stance here. It’s not just same-sex unions, but it’s any relationship that involves sexual activity outside of marriage. I would say this would also apply to marriages contracted after divorce in which the previous marriage was not annulled, those relationships cannot be blessed if they involve sexual activity outside of the original marriage bond. It says outside of marriage, i.e., the indissoluble union of a man and a woman opening itself to the transmission of life, that is what marriage is. As is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.
And I mentioned this a little in my Matthew Vines video by the way. I don’t believe the word union is that appropriate. I’ve talked about civil unions before but I absolutely cannot stand that term. I’ve talked about legal households, whatever it may be. The word union implies an actual coming together. So two separate individuals become one and in important sense. In the sexual act a man and woman truly do become one flesh as Genesis 2 tells us. But two men and two women can not form a union. Body parts inside of their body parts are not in union. When a surgeon puts his hand in my abdomen to fix me he does not form a union with me. Union is more than just combining body parts.
Union here might also be talking about just legal unions, but I still don’t like the language as being ambiguous, but obviously the message here is very clear. The presence in such relationships of positive elements which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing. Since the positive elements exist within the context of a… Here’s another important part, a union not ordered to the creator’s plan.
So even if there are positive elements, and it is important in a pastoral sense, if you’re reaching out to someone who identifies as gay, for example, they’re in a sexual relationship with another person. Well, the church is asking them to do, the church is not asking them to just rebuke this other person in their life and never speak to this individual again. That may be what is most healthy for them in that relationship, and that’d be the same thing with a man and a woman in a toxic or unhealthy relationship.
But what it’s saying is that your caring for someone who is ill, your providing companionship, your providing conversation, abating loneliness with someone, that is not bad, what is bad is engaging our sexual faculties outside of the marriage bond. That is what that, that is what is bad. So if you can have a relationship with someone of the same sex without those sexual proclivities, that can be a good thing. Now, in some relationships you’re just going to have to essentially quit cold Turkey, there they’re too much of a stumbling block in that area. Though, I do know other people, two men for example who were previously in a sexual relationship who have a platonic relationship, and they claim to have a platonic relationship living in the same home together. Hopefully they are.
Different people have to follow the different paths ahead of them to see what will lead to sin, what is an occasion of sin, what isn’t. And so while I wouldn’t recommend these kinds of co-habiting platonic relationships for two men, two women, or even for a man and a woman, they’re far superior to sexually immoral relationships. But here’s the passage I want to focus on, a union not ordered to the creator’s plan. Think back to the catechism where it says that sexual relationships between two men or two women are intrinsically disordered, is the language that is used.
And some people are not happy about that language. One of them surprise, surprise, is Father James Martin. This is an interview he gave with, I think it’s Religion Newswire several years ago after his book Building a Bridge came out. And so he’s talking about how to reach out to people who identify as gay or lesbian. And so the interviewer asked Father Martin, “The Catechism Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. Do you affirm and agree with this teaching and language?”
Notice Father Martin’s response here. He says, “I’m no theologian but…” Which always is starting you off on a bad path and an answer and say you can say, well, the theologians of the CDF say, “I’m no theologian.” Which I think is also a way for him to dodge if somebody calls him out on his answer. Father Martin, by the way, is a pro at this, of giving an answer but always having an escape route if his answer is criticized. Well, I’m making a theological definition here, people, I’m just offering a pastoral definition. I’m no theologian, but I would say that some of the language using the catechism on that topic needs to be updated given what we know about homosexuality.
Earlier for example the Catechism says that the homosexual orientation is itself objectively disordered. But as I say in the book, saying that one of the deepest parts of a person, the part that gives and receives love is disordered is needlessly hurtful. A few weeks ago I met an Italian theologian who suggested the phrase differently ordered might convey that idea more pastorally. No, if anything, it confuses the idea. Differently-ordered, to say that something is differently ordered just means, oh, okay. You can put it together different way and it’s fine.
I’ve been buying for my kids LEGO sets. Matt is six, Thomas is four, they love LEGOs. And I could say with the LEGOs there’s actually these three-in-one sets, so you can put the LEGOs together to make it dragon or there’s also plans to put it together to make a race car. They’re differently ordered. But if my kids put LEGOs up their nose, that is an intrinsically disordered use of the LEGO, that’s not where the LEGO goes. And then you have to get it out of there and all that. I’m not saying that’s happened but I’m saying if it did happen that’s an intrinsically disordered use of your LEGOs. They don’t go up your nose like that.
So to say it’s differently-ordered that confuses it. The sexual act to engage in genital stimulation outside of the marital act is not just differently ordering our sexual faculties, it’s intrinsically disordering them. It’s putting them towards an indefinite improper end. And so what he says here, he’s saying the deepest part of a person, the part that gives and receives love… Well, no, the part that gives and receives love is the deepest part of our person. You don’t have to be sexually attracted to someone or anyone to give and receive love.
But our sexual faculties, our sexual powers if you will, to Dr. Jay Bujewski has several books on sexual ethics. He talks about our sexual powers. But I say the vast majority of people they are disordered because people have natural desires towards sexually immoral relationships and those desires are broken. We’re all broken, sinful people. And so to try to downplay the harms of those disordered desires only ends of further harming the people who are tempted by them.
Let’s go back then to the CDF’s document saying, “Furthermore, since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit. This is because they would constitute a certain imitation or analog of the nuptial blessing invoked on the man and woman United in the Sacrament of Matrimony, while in fact there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”
So if priests offered blessings to same-sex couples, and even if they had the qualifier, this is not for the immoral part of your relationship, this is to bless the positive parts and to encourage you. The sheer optics of it will create such an absolute scandal saying, “See, the church doesn’t really think sex outside of the marriage bond between a man and woman is bad. In fact it doesn’t really think it’s bad otherwise it wouldn’t bless these people. That’ll be like saying, “We’re going to bless this sandwich shop even though we know it is a front for the mafia, because there’s nothing sinful about making sandwiches for people.”
I actually once lived in a town where there was this totally rundown sandwich shop. I always thought about going there but it looked absolutely scary. And I never saw anyone go in there to order sandwiches by the way, yet it was still in business. So I think there was some dirty money propping it up. But imagine if the church blessed that. “We know that they do drugs and kill people, but hey, sandwiches are moral. Feeding the hungry, feeding the hungry is a corporate work of mercy. Well, even if there’s a positive element there, if it’s wrapped up, if it’s so positively intertwined with these negative sinful elements you can’t separate them to bless it in that way.
The declaration of the unlawfulness of blessings of unions between persons of the same sex is not therefore as not intended to be a form of unjust discrimination. Remember if someone says, “You said a blessing for that engaged couple, father, why won’t you say for the same-sex couple? That’s discrimination?” No, it’s not because this engaged non-married men and woman are one, not fornicating as far as you know that’s what they have pledged, they just want to be strengthened with a blessing as they pursue their preparation for the Sacrament of Matrimony. The blessing fits in with the Sacrament of Matrimony in that case.
Two men or two women can never receive the sacrament of matrimony, they can never do that. So the blessing does not prepare them for anything, it only seeks to confuse the faithful observing it and to confuse frankly, that the couple, the two men or two women who were seeking out that blessing to confuse them and draw them away from the repentance that they need to be able to come into full communion with the church in spite of any disorder desires that they may have.
So rather the reminder of the truth of the liturgical right and the very nature of the Sacramento’s as the church understands them, the Christian community and its pastors are called to welcome with respect and sensitivity persons with homosexual inclinations and will know how to find the most appropriate ways consistent with church teaching to proclaim to them the gospel in its fullness. At the same time they should recognize the genuine nearness of the church which prays for them, accompanies them, and shares their journey of Christian faith and receive the teachings with sincere openness.
Now, essentially when you go online the people who are a part of more of a liberal persuasion, Catholic and secular, are not happy about it. They’re saying, “You’re not welcoming at all.” Well, there are ways that you can welcome those who identify with this sexual behavior without welcoming the behavior. There was, actually mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity back in the ’80s were running a hospice for AIDS victims. And they did so even in the face of great pressure from the community saying they didn’t want those kinds of people there because they worry that what if I got AIDS in the air around this hospice, you didn’t really know a lot about it at that time.
And so you see that outreach there without saying, “No, we’re not going to treat you because you got AIDS, it’s your fault. We’re always going to express compassion and sympathy and respect for all people but we’re not going to respect everyone’s behaviors. We want to save people from behaviors that will cause them to live apart from God for all eternity.
It was funny when I went online to see what people thought about this. This is on a social media which by the way I’ve been fasting with social media but I don’t know, my fast is really broken because I want to see what people are saying, I just don’t post on social media. I’ll probably do an episode after Easter where I’ll talk about what my social media fast has taught me but I will say this, I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ever going to go back to posting, engaging and back and forth posts on social media.
I might use social media to announce what I do but it’s still a time suck for me and I’m not even posting right now. So to be free of the time, suck of social media I think will be a blessing to me. But I love this year on Twitter is it had the news item of Vatican Says Catholic Church Cannot Bless Same-Sex Unions: A New Decree. Their stock art is St. Peter’s Basilica at night with gray clouds behind it, it almost should have had like a musical tone to it (singing). I mean, it’s just funny to see how people who once lauded Pope Francis, you can’t really put Pope Francis in a box. His very conservative critics and very liberal critics have always tried to do this and you can’t, he always surprises you. He’s a surprising individual, that’s for sure.
CDF goes on to say, “The answer to the proposed dubium does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the reveal plans of God as proposed by church teaching.” So the members of a same-sex couple could receive a blessing but as individuals, not as a couple, and if they’ve made it manifest they are choosing to live in conformity with the church’s teachings on sexuality. This is not saying, “Oh, if you have same-sex attractions you can never receive a blessing.” That’s not the case at all. A person who is striving for chastity with these attractions in a world that tells them they’re crazy for doing that needs all the spiritual help that they can get.
But what people don’t need are confused blessings for same-sex unions that make people think that sexual activity within those relationships is not sinful because it is. Rather it declares elicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such. For example, if you have friends who are in a so-called same-sex marriage, a same-sex relationship, and let’s say their close family members, how do you interact with them? What do you do if you want to maintain lines of communication to help witness to them, to be there for them? One thing I recommend is around the holidays or birthdays or anniversaries to not get them gifts as a couple, not one gift as a couple, but to give them gifts, for example, an affirmations to each individual, to affirm them as an individual not as belonging to this sinful or sinful relationship.
In fact, the blessing would manifest not the intention to entrust such individual persons to the protection and help of God in the sense mentioned above, but these so-called same-sex blessings. But to approve and encourage a choice in a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to the reveal plans of God. Their use of the word choice in here, it was interesting. So I go over to Twitter’s CNN, always a hoot, and this is what they said about it. “A Vatican statement says the Catholic Church won’t bless same-sex unions calling homosexuality a sin and a choice. Pope Francis who has frequently been praised for his welcoming tone towards LGBTQ people approved the note. (singing).
Notice the… And of course part for the course for CNN, the inaccuracy here, or at least that this is highly misleading. The Vatican says the Catholic church won’t bless same-sex unions calling homosexuality a sin and a choice. But that is not what the document said. The document is not saying that sexual orientation and that having same sex attraction, that one chooses to have these attractions. Go all the way back to the catechism when it first was released back in 1994. The Catechism has always been firmed in saying that the psychological Genesis of same-sex attractions is unknown. The church doesn’t give an answer on where they come from because that’s a scientific question.
The church has never said that same-sex sexual attractions arise as a choice. What it says is our behavior, what we choose to do with our attractions is a choice. So you go back to the document, “But to approve and encourage a choice and a way of life,” it’s talking here about being in a sexual relationship with a person of the same sex, not having the attraction. So thanks CNN for always proving you are what you are.
And so the document closes by saying, “At the same time the church recalls that God Himself never ceases to bless each of His pilgrim children in this world because for Him, we are more important to God than all of the sins that we commit, but He does not and cannot bless sin, He blesses sinful man so that he may recognize that he is part of God’s plan of love and allow himself to be changed by Him. He, in fact, I love this quote, “Takes us as we are but never leaves us as we are.” That’s an important message when it comes to evangelism, repentance, and becoming a new creation in Christ. You are never too bad for the gospel. You’re never too bad for God.
Some of you will say, “I’ve done horrible things, God can never love me.” That is a lie from the devil. No matter what you have done God is ready to make you a new creation in Christ. God takes us as we are but never leaves us as we are. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul talks about… Remember my Matthew Vines rebuttal, “Who will not inherit the kingdom of God? Drunkards, revilers, greedy, thieves. Adulterers, sexually immoral persons. People who engage in same-sex relationships.” But 1 Corinthians 6:11 says, “As such were some of you, but you were sanctified. You were washed, you were sanctified in Jesus Christ.” God takes us as we are, but never leaves us as we are.
Who said that? Pope Francis. I love that the CDF statement includes this message from one of Pope Francis’s general audiences. “For the above mentioned reasons the church does not have and cannot have the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex in the sense intended above.” This passage reminds me a little bit of Pope Saint John Paul II Apostolic Letter or [foreign language 00:34:47], which was on reserving the priesthood to men. In there he said, “I declare that the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church’s faithful.”
So the Pope is saying this belongs to the church’s ordinary and universal magisterium, so it’s infallible because it’s been universally taught by the bishops with the intent of it being infallible, but [foreign language 00:35:16] is not an infallible statement. It’s not like when Pope Pius XII infallibly defined Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven. [foreign language 00:35:23] is not infallible but it’s reaffirming that the teaching of the priesthood being reserved to men is an infallible teaching. Now, Pope Francis… I’m sorry, the CDF is not making that same kind of declaration or the same kind of strength here, but notice the language the church does not have and cannot have the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex in the sense intended above.
I hope that was a helpful explainer on the subject. It’s going to come up a lot more because this is one of the big wedges in our society. And there’s people who identify as Catholic who would like to change the church’s teaching on the subject and we have to engage them graciously yet persuasively on this issue, and so I hope that this podcast will help you to be able to do that.
Thank you guys so much for listening. Be sure to leave a review on iTunes or Google Play. If you’re not watching on YouTube go to YouTube, click subscribe, leave a comment below the YouTube video, we love to read those. Thank you guys so much, and I hope you have a very blessed day.
If you liked today’s episode, become a premium subscriber at our Patreon page and get access to member-only content. For more information, visit trenthornpodcast.com.