The Anglican Church of Canada, having run out of its own seemingly inexhaustible supply of sophistry, is looking to the Roman Catholic Church for inspiration in finding new ingenious ways to justify blessing same-sex marriages.
The Roman Catholic Church has demonstrated its enviable talent for casuistry in recent statements on same-sex marriage.
A same-sex blessing is blessing the person not the relationship. The fact that the two people in the same-sex marriage are being blessed together is purely coincidental; it has nothing to do with the relationship. Nothing at all.
Why didn’t we Anglicans think of that?
From here:
A document released by the Roman Catholic Church reconsidering its policy on blessings—including those to people in same-sex relationships—offers Anglicans a new way to think about divisions within their own communion, says the Rev. Iain Luke, principal of the Saskatoon-based College of Emmanuel and St. Chad and a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue.
The declaration Fiducia Supplicans, endorsed by Pope Francis on Dec. 18, lays out a shift in the Roman Catholic Church’s approach to blessings. It encourages clergy to offer blessings from the church to any who ask without first scrutinizing whether they are in compliance with the church’s doctrines or meet some moral standard.
When someone asks for a blessing, the document says, regardless of their marital or moral status, they are showing their openness to God’s love and assistance. “This request should, in every way, be valued, accompanied, and received with gratitude,” it states. “People who come spontaneously to ask for a blessing show by this request their sincere openness to transcendence, the confidence of their hearts that they do not trust in their own strength alone, their need for God, and their desire to break out of the narrow confines of this world, enclosed in its limitations.”
Though the new policy does not allow Roman Catholic priests to bless same-sex relationships, it does allow them to bless the people in them, whose relationship status would previously have been grounds for a priest to deny a blessing, says Luke. He compares this approach to that of the early days of Christianity in the first century AD.
Does Rev. Luke offer a course in logic at his institution? Seemingly not. By his logic, I should be able to receive a blessing after abusing my spouse and children, or committing adultery.
On a related note, the Pope has responded to his critics with this logic, ‘No one is scandalized if I give a blessing to an entrepreneur who perhaps exploits people: and that is a most serious sin. Whereas they are scandalized if I give it to a homosexual…This is hypocrisy! We all have to respect each other. Everyone! The heart of the document is welcome.’ Credere magazine 08Feb24
It would be a wonderfully God-honoring thing if the Church modelled the axiom ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’. And by calling sin ‘sin’. That might be a little closer to the actual teaching of Jesus.
Under the guise of becoming more “synodical” ARCIC has extended hands across The Tiber: The ACC Primate’s “local option” of Niagara Diocese provenance with a sharp Left detour at York, UK, meeting the heretofore ultra-Magisterial Roman Pontifex Marximus, S. J. all the way. Sinodical still according to that non-Via Media Book.
We turn to whom created us is what we do. I AM made us & who made us knows us better than we!
So, we must turn to I AM
My Roman Catholic Church is the same as before
“Holy Different”, The WORD-grounded sermon Preached on Sunday, February 18, 2024, by The Rev’d Dr. Michael Yousef, Atlanta, GA, including a like plea (online at ‘Leading The Way’) from a Lay Commissioner, St. Alban’s, UK to The House of Bishops not to pursue the path of ‘.Blessing’ ss civil unions, summoning + I Corinthians ch. 6 as one’s Sola Guide. The CoE General Synod has commenced, 23-27, with debate about ‘Living in Love and Faith’ scheduled for M.26, T. 27.”Watch and Pray” Amen.
With “reconciliation” of + I Corinthians 5:20 the upward and onward Watchword of the General Synod’s February 26, 2024, resolve to continue to formulate prayers in order to ‘Bless’ same sex civil unions; with something “concrete’ promised by July, 2024, another word comes to mind: Wager. In + Acts ch. 18, v.20, The LORD counsels Paul to continue in his Ministry to the Corinthians because He cautions, “I have much people in this City”; among whom, as listed in + I Corinthians ch. 6 – just before the cited ch. 5 – are all the sinners needing The Atoning Blood of Jesus Christ to Save them from their sins, not bless them in them, homosexuals included. Church history has the wager of Pascal. Will Church history accept the abstaining Wager of Welby? Even more sobering, will The LORD Jesus Christ?
Blessing is opening & asking & allowing Jesus in as Jesus knocks at the door and we say “Yes” & from there God is in us now too & hence changes & growths because we now have from only one just us to two both ‘Us’ & now ‘God’ too!
To grow & to benefit!