Today is the feast day of one of my favorite popes, St. John Paul II. In a 2002 address to Brazilian bishops, he warned about the then-growing movement for same-sex civil unions, saying:
I am aware of your commitment to defending and promoting this institution [the family] which has its origin in God and in his plan of salvation (cf. Familiaris consortio, n. 49). Today we are seeing a trend, very widespread in certain areas, which is tending to reduce its true nature. Indeed, there is no lack of attempts, in public opinion and in civil legislation, to make equivalent to the family mere de facto unions or to recognize as such same-sex unions. These and other anomalies lead us with pastoral firmness to proclaim the truth about marriage and the family. Not to do so would be a serious pastoral omission that would lead people into error, especially those who have the important responsibility of making decisions for the common good of the nation.
But today’s news is dominated by a another pope’s quite different comments on civil unions, as the cover of this morning’s Wall Street Journal shows:
Catholic News Agency (a generally trustworthy source) reports that in a newly-debuted documentary on the pope called Francesco, Pope Francis said, “Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it,” and then a little later, “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”
Others have pointed out (I think correctly) that the first part of this is taken out of context. When Pope Francis says homosexuals “have a right to a family,” he’s probably not saying that there is a right to (for instance) gay adoption, although it’s easy to understand why his phrasing led some to that conclusion. Instead, I think he’s saying (and rightly!) not to disown your child because of their homosexuality. So on that part, no complaint, other than (once again) poor wording. The problem is in the second part, when Pope Francis speaks of the need for a civil union law.
Originally, this seemed like it might be another mistranslation: “ley de convivencia civil” doesn’t literally mean “civil union law” (it means something like “law of civil coexistence”). But another Argentine bishop quickly explained that this is one of the names for the civil union law that Argentina had. That’s also certainly what the context clues suggest: Pope Francis spoke of the need for homosexuals to have civil protections, and alluded to his own advocacy as Bishop of Buenos Aires… in which he advocated for civil unions. So I certainly hope that the pope has been misunderstood here, and that the Vatican issues a speedy correction, but it sure doesn’t look that way currently.
The pope’s words have proved controversial for three reasons. The first is because of the subject-matter themselves. We’re at a point in which basically no one is happy with civil unions: not the Church, not gay rights activists, etc. They were one of those failed attempts at compromise that only succeed in annoying everyone (like Monothelitism). There’s a lot more to be said on this point, but I will have to save the topic for another day.
Second, it is part of an ongoing and unhealthy dynamic within the Catholic family. Matt Fradd compares it to a situation in which a husband is addicted to pornography, his wife finds out and gets hysterical, and the husband treats her like she’s insane or ridiculous for having an issue with it. His point (if I’m getting him right) is that both are to blame: the wife for overreacting; but more so the husband, for downplaying and “gaslighting” the justly-aggrieved spouse. Right now, we’re in a situation in which there are Catholics who seem to look for reasons to be upset with Pope Francis, who judge him uncharitably, and/or who want to throw out the baby (or the Second Vatican Council) with the bathwater. But on the other hand, there are also defenders of the pope who pretend that every difficulty is imaginary, or just an innocent misunderstanding, or that the scandalized Catholics are hateful bigots looking for trouble.
The third issue (and the one I actually want to address) is papal authority. When Pope Francis contradicts prior Magisterial teaching, he necessarily undermines the authority of the Magisterium. Whatever you may think of the morality of civil unions, hopefully it’s crystal clear that when Pope St. John Paul II says it’s immoral not to oppose them, and Pope Francis says that he supports them, the credibility of the papacy as an organ of truth is severely tarnished. Indeed, under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the CDF declared that “it is necessary to oppose legal recognition of homosexual unions,” and gave several reasons:
Laws in favour of homosexual unions are contrary to right reason because they confer legal guarantees, analogous to those granted to marriage, to unions between persons of the same sex. Given the values at stake in this question, the State could not grant legal standing to such unions without failing in its duty to promote and defend marriage as an institution essential to the common good. [….] Lifestyles and the underlying presuppositions these express not only externally shape the life of society, but also tend to modify the younger generation’s perception and evaluation of forms of behaviour. Legal recognition of homosexual unions would obscure certain basic moral values and cause a devaluation of the institution of marriage.
The CDF went on to say that
When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.
In other words, if a Catholic lawmaker had said what Pope Francis said, we wouldn’t hesitate to say that they were advocating something gravely evil. And again, this problem exists whether you think Francis is wrong and all of his predecessors were right, or vice versa. You can’t affirm both what JPII believed and what Francis believes, because they’re flatly contradictory.
So as someone who believes in papal infallibility, how do I make sense of this? Here, I would say two things. First, we need to avoid two extremes: that of calumny, and that of whitewashing. It’s not spiritually healthy to spend your whole life being outraged, especially being outraged by things said and done in the Church. Your outrage won’t change much of anything, but it will almost certainly destroy your hope, and your soul. On the other hand, while we shouldn’t go looking for scandal, pretending that real problems don’t exist is dishonest and a real failure of charity. How is it a failure of charity? Because it’s denying that my neighbor’s problems exist.
Avoiding these two extremes is easy when we’re dealing with bad popes from the distant past. For instance, Pope Benedict IX apparently wanted to retire as pope so that he could marry, and so he tried to sell the papacy to his godfather, who became Pope Gregory VI. Gregory abdicated after the Synod of Sutri pointed out that this is the sin of simony (even if Gregory was motivated, as he seems to have been, by an honest desire to rescue the papacy from his awful godson)… meaning that Benedict was restored as pope. Here, it’s easy to know what to do: don’t develop an unholy scandal-mongering curiosity, but also don’t pretend like this black eye didn’t exist. But when we’re dealing with scandals in 2020 (whether it’s this one, or McCarrick, or any of the various smaller ones), it’s harder to do that. But we should try to, nevertheless. Figure out which side you err on, and do what feels like overcorrecting. As Aristotle says, “We must drag ourselves away to the contrary extreme; for we shall get into the intermediate state by drawing well away from error, as people do in straightening sticks that are bent.”
But the second thing I think is worth saying is that this doesn’t touch on papal infallibility. As confusing or scandalizing as they may be, nothing here is Pope Francis acting in any kind of official capacity as the pope. The simplest way of explaining it is this: papal infallibility doesn’t exist for Pope Francis; it exists for you and me.
Jesus commands us to be one (John 17:20-23; cf. Gal. 5:19-21) but we’re also forbidden from holding to false doctrine (2 Peter 2:1-3). So we can never choose heresy or schism. We cannot reject unity for the sake of truth, nor truth for the sake of unity, since both of those would be choosing to do what God has forbidden us from doing. If tomorrow, Pope Francis ordered all Catholics to affirm civil unions, and threatened to excommunicate those who refused, we would be in an impossible position – obey the pope and disobey God, or disobey the pope and break union with the Church… and also disobey God.
The only alternative is to be united in the truth.That is, the only way that God doesn’t force us to sin (which He never does) is if He always leaves open a path by which one can be totally orthodox and in union with the pope. Maybe that sounds like a low bar (and in some ways, it is!), but it’s all that’s necessary to be in full union with the Catholic Church. We must believe everything the Catholic Church teaches, but that doesn’t mean that every word that comes out of the pope’s mouth is inspired or even infallible.
So are the pope’s words problematic? They are. If Pope St. John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI are right, they’re even a sort of sinful misleading of the faithful. But they’re not the sort of thing that should cause us to lose hope, or to reject papal infallibility or God’s continual oversight of His Church. At many points in the history of the Church, things got bad, and seemed hopeless. In each case, they were bad, but weren’t hopeless, and the gates of Hell didn’t prevail. The same is true today. Be not afraid!
Very well stated. All will be well, it’s just a bump on in the road
Agreed. White smoke from the Sistine can correct a lot of problems.,
This is a really good post. I have a question though. Since you cited the document released by CDF, I have a question. Suppose someone said that the Pope is not advocating for legalizing civil unions if proposed for the first time but that if it’s necessary to avoid the greater harm, one may choose the lesser evil (civil union) over the greater evil (same-sex marriage). I am thinking that same-sex civil unions already existed in Argentina in at least, the year 2002 which some people used as a justification for the permissibility of the prudential judgment of Cardinal Bergoglio in 2010. I am thinking specifically of this section in CDF’s document.
“When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is already in force, the Catholic politician must oppose it in the ways that are possible for him and make his opposition known; it is his duty to witness to the truth. If it is not possible to repeal such a law completely, the Catholic politician, recalling the indications contained in the Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, “could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality”, on condition that his “absolute personal opposition” to such laws was clear and well known and that the danger of scandal was avoided.(18) This does not mean that a more restrictive law in this area could be considered just or even acceptable; rather, it is a question of the legitimate and dutiful attempt to obtain at least the partial repeal of an unjust law when its total abrogation is not possible at the moment.”
I would love to see your thoughts on that since I haven’t seen others touching this point. Thank you.
I am still waiting for the answer on this question.
With over a million dead young men in the west directly due to sexual behaviors for which are not even remotely suited by nature, it is hard to see how anyone can advance “social unions” in society. But what about a prudential decision to permit some kind of widely worded civil law that permitted some kind of shared coexistence if this might forestall a government intent upon installing a right to “marriage? Could one morally support this lesser of two evils especially if explained this way? I don’t know. I do know I don’t like it. And what about providing safe needles to drug addicts, facilitating the means to a bad end, but with an obvious concern for the poor souls? I’m trying to find a way to agree with a “civil union” support if indeed Francis had any such clear thing in mind, but don’t want to find a good argument for so doing. My instinct , for lack of a better term.. my moral intuition on the matter is not in the direction of supporting an ontologically and biologically impossible “union” unless it is part of a general cohabitating law that might applies to two family members or close friends regarding some civil, legal matters. I hope this matter resolves smoothly.
It (papal infallibility) exists for me mostly as a problem of history of dogma. I have not come across a single good defense of this doctrine which is more of an embarrassment for the Catholic Church than anything else. Popes have erred throughout history, ex, in, sub, extra, super and behind cathedra, and will continue to do so. For a couple hundred years they imagined they didn’t. It’s totally ok they don’t any more.
I don’t really see any argument here – you just sort of claim that popes have erred ex cathedra (and maybe that everyone has known this for all but a couple hundred years?) but there’s no evidence or reason given.
Emil,
Old, old argument. Read the Catholic apologetic literature and tell us what is wrong with those arguments. Can’t you say that about any infallibility claim..whether it be councils, popes, etc.? If Jesus establshed a church and promised to protect it from error to the end of time, then who is the infallibilble agent you have in mind? I would argue the biblical and historical evidence stongly supports the claims of the Catholic Church. I would also argue that logic supports this claim as it is simplest explanation. (And please let’s not use the circular sola scriptura argument).
Emil – What’s the biggest error made by a Pope speaking ex cathedral?
Joe: Yes, it was a personal comment, a statement, not an argument.
No Way Billy: Thanks for the question – for sure the extra ecclesiam formulation by Eugene IV in Cantate Domino at Florence. One can of course try the usual tactics of saying the Church still believes/teaches that or that it wasn’t ex cathedra after all, both of which strategies are most implausible.
Emil,
NWB will surely provide his rebuttal with better wording, but the core of the issue, in my own words, is as follows: individuals, even if they are outside the Church, can be saved. On the other hand, teachings that are outside the Church jeopardize the salvation of those who choose to believe them.
Have a blessed week, brother.
That’s not really an argument either. I don’t see the contradiction. Please explain your case. It’s not immediately apparent.
@emil Anton
Yes, it is true that the RCC teaches that outside the Church there is no salvation. It is also true that the RCC teaches that the Sacrament of Baptism (performed with water, with the correct intention, and with the trinitarian formula) initiates membership in the Catholic Church.
Joe,
I don’t know if I agree with your point that “If tomorrow, Pope Francis ordered all Catholics to affirm civil unions, and threatened to excommunicate those who refused, we would be in an impossible position – obey the pope and disobey God, or disobey the pope and break union with the Church… and also disobey God”. If my understanding of the Papal Infallibility concept is correct, since he (Pope Francis) would be contradicting previously upheld Church’s teachings, he would not be teaching infallibly, even if he were speaking ex-cathedra and on matters of faith and moral. In other words, one of the pivotal points of Papal Infallibility would be missing. Therefore, it would be acceptable (and even obligatory, albeit painful) for all Catholics, Bishops in primis, to reject such teaching and even question Pope Francis’ legitimacy.
I also have a comment/question. It seems to me that the Pope Francis is a great Pietrine figure; by this I mean that he shows great pastoral care for his flock, our Church, in particular, but also for the entire Creation, and for this I am grateful. But, I was wondering if the Church, in these troubled times, wouldn’t also need a Paul, someone who can stand up and “oppose [the Pope] to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong” (Gal 2:11). This would not be unprecedented; after all, St. Catherine of Siena convinced Pope Gregory the XI to leave the city of Avignon (current France) and return to Rome. Who, in your opinion, in today’s Church could be that one true theologian able to advise the Pope just, perhaps, by recommending a more prudential expression of personal opinions, especially when they can so easily manipulated by the Media?
Jesus did not command the faithful to unify in John 17:20-23. The factual context of Joh 17:20-23 is not in the form of a command but is in the form of Jesus’ prayer to his Father. Union can only be accomplished in truth. Without truth, union does not follow. Union is a consequence, an effect of truth.
The sensus fidei, the belief and hope and love of those graced with knowledge of God, know what is wrong with the Pope’s statements. The spirit of Paul lives in the sensus fidei and their words surely reach the Pope’s ears.
The sensus fidei know that God is in the boat. The blindness of the captain, even if a tragedy of historic proportion, will not sink the boat.
Hello Margo,
I apologize, but I do not understand your comments. Were they directed to my post?
Have a blessed week, sister.
Hi LLC,
The comments were not directed specifically to you, but yeah, I did post them as a reply to you. I do not agree with the premise that Jesus commanded us to unity. It is impossible for truth to unite with error.
You too have a blessedly safe week.
Hi Margo,
“I do not agree with the premise that Jesus commanded us to unity. It is impossible for truth to unite with error” = the latter sentence doesn’t follow the former, I’m afraid. Jesus did command us to unity; just not to unite with error. Unity is one of the four distinct marks (the others being Sanctity, Catholicity, Apostolicity) that make the Catholic Church superior to any other church.
Which, indeed, is my point: if Pope Francis (or any Pope) would, ex-cathedra, advocate for civil unions for homosexuals, he would not be in unity with the Church that has preceded him, therefore we would not be required to hold that specific teaching as infallible.
Have a blessed week, sister.
Hi LLC,
You are absolutely correct that ‘unum’ is a mark of the Church. Each week in the Creed, the faithful recite it as one of many beliefs. Jesus prayed to his Father that his people would be one. Yet please explain how Jesus’ prayer, our belief, and a Church mark are a ‘command’?
Outside the Church there is no salvation. Heresy, schism, and splintering of man’s communion with Christ have horribly wounded His Body.
Both Ott’s Fundamentals as well as the Catechism do a good job of explaining Church unity. Both sources describe the origin and the foundation of Church unity: Christ within the Trinity, and Christ as the groom with the Church as his Bride.
The unity of the Church, then, arises from and follows unity or communion with Christ. The Catechism, paragraph 73 says, “…the Marian dimension of the Church precedes the Petrine.” Holiness and oneness of being within God’s sets the foundation for magisterial authority.
You are absolutely correct. When a Pope issues statements at variance with what Christ and His Church have always taught, the statements are not infallible.
73 In the Church this communion of men with God, in the “love [that] never ends,” is the purpose which governs everything in her that is a sacramental means, tied to this passing world.192
“[The Church’s] structure is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ’s members. and holiness is measured according to the ‘great mystery’ in which the Bride responds with the gift of love to the gift of the Bridegroom.”193 Mary goes before us all in the holiness that is the Church’s mystery as “the bride without spot or wrinkle.”194 This is why the “Marian” dimension of the Church precedes the “Petrine.”195
The universal Sacrament of Salvation
774 The Greek word mysterion was translated into Latin by two terms: mystenum and sacramentum. In later usage the term sacramentum emphasizes the visible sign of the hidden reality of salvation which was indicated by the term mystenum. In this sense, Christ himself is the mystery of salvation: “For there is no other mystery of God, except Christ.”196 The saving work of his holy and sanctifying humanity is the sacrament of salvation, which is revealed and active in the Church’s sacraments (which the Eastern Churches also call “the holy mysteries”). the seven sacraments are the signs and instruments by which the Holy Spirit spreads the grace of Christ the head throughout the Church which is his Body. the Church, then, both contains and communicates the invisible grace she signifies. It is in this analogical sense, that the Church is called a “sacrament.”
775 “The Church, in Christ, is like a sacrament – a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men.”197 The Church’s first purpose is to be the sacrament of the inner union of men with God. Because men’s communion with one another is rooted in that union with God, the Church is also the sacrament of the unity of the human race. In her, this unity is already begun, since she gathers men “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues”;198 at the same time, the Church is the “sign and instrument” of the full realization of the unity yet to come.
To answer your final question…Cardinal Sarah? A thoroughly sound, yet humane voice. But I’m not sure that he has sufficient influence, sadly.
Hi to all,
First of all, I would like to thank you for this awesome article that I’ve enjoyed very much. Nevertheless, I would like to clarify a little nuance in Francis’ statement about same-sex unions. I’ve read what he said in the new documentary and also what he stated while being Buenos Aires’ Bishop, regarding the second statement mentioned above (in Spanish, as I’m a native speaker). When he “supported” same-sex unions, he stated clearly against the so-called gay-marriage, remarking a difference between both. In fact, he mentioned only rights regarding inheritances and hospital visits. I don’t have clarified yet to myself if supporting these is into catholic doctrine, but I’m sure that is not the same as defending the morality of same-sex unions or equaling them to marriage (the real one, woman and man). I think that (independently its accommodation into catholic doctrine) it’s not contradictory with defending the [real] family institution, and thus I think it is not contradictory with JPII’s statement. What do you all think about this?
Thank you all for reading!
Emil –
Assume the papal bull you referenced is infallible, when has another Pope made an ex cathedra statement against this papal bull? It seems to me you need two ex cathedra statements that are diametrically opposed to prove papal infallibility is proven to be incorrect.
Is it heresy or just error?
The pope can make errors. But Vatican I not only teaches on papal infallibility, but also that the pope has never-failing faith: He will never fall into formal heresy.
If it is heresy, it’s not at all probable that the pope doesn’t know what the Church teaches or that he doesn’t mean it. Thus he would have commited formal heresy.
But this contradicts Vatican I, so he is not the pope. An imperfect council needs to judge this matter.
This is only if what he said was heretical. Is it? If father Martin said it would it be a heresy?
Emil –
Emil –
How does Cantate Domino differ from CCC 846? The fact that parts of the Church don’t teach doctrine correctly doesn’t prove infallibility is incorrect.
I’m not sure Cantate Domino demonstrates papal infallibility is incorrect.
Papal Infallibility was unknown before Vatican I. In addition the first council vote on it was certainly not universal as it caused much debate. Only after a large number of Cardinals who opposed the doctrine left was it approved. On 13 July 1870, a preliminary vote on the section on infallibility was held in a general congregation: 451 voted simply in favor (placet), 88 against (non placet), and 62 in favor but on condition of some amendment (placet iuxta modum).[16] This made evident what the final outcome would be, and some 60 members of the opposition left Rome so as not to be associated with approval of the document. The final vote, with a choice only between placet and non placet, was taken on 18 July 1870, with 433 votes in favor and only 2 against defining as a dogma the infallibility of the pope when speaking ex cathedra.[4] The two votes in opposition were cast by Bishops.
The laws of nature were “unknown” until someone formalized them. So I guess they did not exist prior to that. A lot of things cause debate! Does that mean they are not true?
Yes, but remember part of the “Get out of Hell Free Card” is the claim to be able to alter anything and have it rubber stamped by the Almighty, so we whip up a doctrine of infallibility and presto, the Kingdom of Heaven goes, “right you are, one infallibility to go, and we’ll have the same.”
Not even totalitarian states make such a claim!