A few days ago, a friend shared with me a photograph of a “Blessing of the Skis” ceremony in North Conway, New Hampshire in the late 1950s. A group of parishioners and skiers stand before their pastor to receive a blessing for the upcoming ski season. It is a prayerful moment, unique to its place and time, and utterly Catholic.
Blessings are much in the news these days. They are something every Catholic knows about, ranging from highly-regulated liturgical acts to an expression as basic as saying “God bless you” when someone sneezes. They are ubiquitous. Every Eucharistic Celebration concludes with a “final blessing.” The Benediction Liturgy is a blessing. Priests bless religious articles, pets, homes, cars, fishing boats — all reminders that even in created things we can find God’s hand.
Still it was unexpected when two days before Christmas 2023, the Vatican’s Dicastery (department) for the Doctrine of the Faith released a declaration “On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings.”
The document opens with the Latin words “Fiducia supplicans” ( “trusting supplication “), referring to an individual who opens himself or herself to receive “the gift of blessing that flows from the heart of Christ through the Church.” Such a blessing, the instruction explains, involves more than a spiritual gift. It is “a petition for God’s assistance, a plea to live better, and confidence in a Father who can help us live better.”
Blessings are deeply woven into the fabric of Catholic life. “Let us Imagine”, the Vatican explains, “that among a large number making a pilgrimage a couple of divorced people, now in a new union, say to the priest ‘Please give us a blessing, we cannot find work, he is very ill, we do not have a home and life is becoming very difficult, may God help us.'” No preparation is involved. The prayer of the priest “is not an ‘approval’ or ratification of anything, but is rather a response towards two persons who ask for God’s help. It is “an act of comfort, care, and encouragement.”
Unlike liturgical prayers, simple blessings have no prerequisites. There is no selectivity as to who may or many not receive such a blessing. A priest “neither approves nor justifies the situation in which… people find themselves…. He does not impose conditions and does not inquire about the intimate lives of these people.”
How a practice as innocuous as a blessing could create a stir is hard to imagine. Yet Fiducia Supplicans appears to have done just that. Papal biographer Austin Ivereigh relates that “the Vatican’s declaration kicked up the kind of resistance to the papacy not seen since the release of Amoris Laetitia [Apostolic Exhortation on Christian marriage] in 2016 – maybe even –some say since Humanae Vitae [the birth-control Encyclical] in 1968.” There is a backstory to this issue.
In early summer 2023, two retired cardinals submitted a set of questions (the so-called “dubia”) to Pope Francis regarding worrisome abuses in Church life. Among these was a movement in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands to develop a blessing ritual for couples in irregular- and same-sex relationships. In his response to this letter, Pope Francis reaffirmed the church’s long-standing teaching that Matrimony is a sacrament between one man and one woman. But he also insisted that in dealing with couples in irregular situations, the church not “lose pastoral charity, which must be part of all our decisions and attitudes.” He raised the question whether there might be “forms of blessing, requested by one or more persons, that do not convey an erroneous conception of marriage.” Such a blessing should have no ritual elements that would confuse it with the Sacrament of Matrimony.
The full text of his reply was made public at the time but aroused little interest.
As a result of continued pressure from the European Churches, the Vatican’s doctrinal office issued Declaration Fiducia Supplicans on December 23, 2023. The document repeated verbatim the earlier statements of Pope Francis but set them in a broader theological and scriptural framework. This time, however, the media and Catholic leaders did take notice and judgements quickly formed. Northern European bishops were pleased. American bishops divided on the matter. Bishops’ conferences in Africa, Poland and Hungary opposed its implementation. Italy and most parts of the Catholic world expressed support.
Although most Catholics were unaware of the entire matter, reactions from some quarters, were strident. It was argued that any form of prayer over persons living in an irregular situation was tantamount to treating it as a marriage. Some felt it was inappropriate for a papal document to acknowledge the existence of same-sex couples. The word “heresy” was bandied about, and one senior prelate suggested that the head of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith resign his office. When Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego wrote that many of his priests would be pleased with the teaching (while promising to support the decisions of any priest who chose not to exercise this option), the headlines of the National Catholic Register newspaper screamed: “Cardinal McElroy’s Attack on Church Teachings on Sexuality Is a Pastoral Disaster.”
Meanwhile, Rome moved on. Pope Francis expressed the hope that with prayer and reflection Catholics would find reassurance in the papal instruction, reminding his listeners that its purpose was “to include, not divide.” The Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith announced that it had no more to say on the matter. But the Pope was not backing down. In a mid-January conversation with a reporter he explained that “the Lord blesses everyone … and that such blessings invite people “to see what the road is that the Lord proposes to them.”
His thoughts echoed the moving words that close Fiducia Supplicans: “The Father loves us. The only thing that remains for us is the joy of blessing him, and the joy of thanking him, and of learning from him…to bless. In this way, every brother and every sister will be able to feel that, in the Church, they are always pilgrims, always beggars, always loved — and despite everything, always blessed.
