With Pope Francis, The Provincial Letters Ride Again

He’s crossed the Rubicon with Fiducia Supplicans:

True, today’s declaration from the Vatican does not change Church teaching. Fiducia Supplicans earnestly insists on a distinction between giving a blessing to a homosexual couple and blessing their relationship. Good luck conveying that distinction to the world.

Anyone can ask a priest for a blessing; that has never been in question. But when two people ask a priest to confer a blessing on them as a couple, how can the Church avoid the impression that the priest, as representative of the Catholic faith, is blessing their union?

Back in the seventeenth century, Blaise Pascal wrote his Provincial Letters, where he set up a Jesuit who explained to his patient (for a while) listener the order’s morale accomodante, how great it was and (by implication) that it was in concord with the teachings of the Church. The Church eventually had a few things to say about that but not before Pascal and his fellow Jansenists were beaten into submission.

Well, that great Jesuit Pope Francis has done it this time. He has legalised same-sex blessings without de jure changing the teaching of the Church. And instead of that most Catholic monarch Louis XIV, the Jesuits of the present time can rely on the gods of this world to deal with the Jansenists who dare to resist.

I have dealt with the topic of Pope Francis and his agenda repeatedly on this blog (perhaps some of those posts will appear at the bottom of this one) and don’t need to repeat them. The impulse to turn the Roman Catholic Church into another Global North Main Line church has been there for a long time, certainly was when I was in the Church and has only gotten stronger. Francis and his ilk have learned nothing from the decline of these churches, that these churches are really pointless and that there is no need to go there, even if you agree with their idea. The assumption that “people will always go to church” has been belied, especially in Europe but now on these shores as well.

Those who have sought refuge from the apostatising silliness of Main Line religion (to say nothing of the exvangelicals) in the RCC are really in a tight spot. Didn’t we join ourselves with the Rock? Isn’t this the same Church who holds the keys? Those were certainly factors in my own Tiber swim. But we come to the point where we realise that, whether by doctrine or (in my case) by ecclesiastical practice, we have to chose between “going along to get along” and eternal life with Jesus Christ. There are many people out there who are going to have to make that choice, and Francis’ ill-advised encyclical will only hasten that.

As I’ve said before, it’s too bad that the issue of same-sex relationships has pushed things to this point; other things should have done so sooner. But it’s the world we live in, and we have to deal with it the best we can. It’s just too bad that our public discourse is so debased that we don’t have a Pascal to make us ROFL at these people.