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Now is the time to take personal responsibility and begin living our faith, writes Robert Mickens, Editor in Chief of La Croix International.
In his weekly Letter from Rome entitled ‘Blessing and Curses’, Mickens says, “We do not have to wait for permission.
“The Church is vaster and much more diversified than we sometimes want to acknowledge.”
Many LGBTQ+ Catholics and their supporters were extremely upset by the recent CDF explanatory note attached to the Responsum of March 15.
The CDF statement said the Catholic Church does not “have the power to give the blessing (sic.) to unions of persons of the same sex.”
But, according to Mickens, there are places in almost every diocese in the world where divorced and remarried couples are warmly welcomed to receive the Eucharist.
And there are places where gays, lesbians and transgender persons are accepted just as openly.
There are also priests who are more than happy to bless unions between same-sex couples, Mickens said.
But these places fly under the radar, and an effort needs to be made to find them.
Still, he says, many Catholics are reluctant to do anything unless they get permission from clergy or unless the Church gives official approval.
However, according to Mickens, the problem is not what was published on March 15.
“The real stumbling block is the Vatican’s official teaching on all human sexuality and the deeply flawed philosophy and anthropology that undergird it.”
“Yet the Vatican insists that the Church’s teaching on human sexuality continue to be based on bad science and a physicalist interpretation of so-called ‘natural law.”
Mickens continues, “to put it crudely, it deems that any sexual act that is not, by its very nature, designed for and open to procreation is gravely sinful.”
The good news is that Pope Francis has already opened up a process to re-evaluate the Church’s understanding and teaching about human sexuality.
It started with the 2014 and 2015 Synod assemblies on the family.
This led to the 2016 publication of the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia.
There are also some Vatican sources who say the Pope was distancing himself from the CDF statement on same-sex unions in his Angelus on March 21.
Sources
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News category: World.
