Bishop Eleganti is the former Auxiliary Bishop of Chur, Switzerland

Here is his official Comment on Fiducia Supplicans

I’ve thought about it. Disagreement is already evident in the way the new document “Fiducia supplicans” is classified and implemented. The range extends from the benevolent interpretation of the “New Beginning” to Bätzing’s permissive statement to the complete ban on such blessings in the Archdiocese of Astana. The latter amounts to a withdrawal of the Dicastery’s new document for the doctrine of the faith, because in Astana people see “Fiducia supplicans” as a break with the consistent teaching of the Church and with its previous, two-thousand-year-old pastoral practice, or because they do not want to bless objectively sinful conditions still can.

Individuals were always allowed to be blessed if their inner disposition was appropriate. Since, according to “Fiducia supplicans”, homosexual unions or concubinages (so-called irregular relationships) cannot be blessed liturgically in order not to confuse them with marriage or to avoid causing confusion with regard to their unchanged evaluation, such couples should logically not be blessed at all, not even with a kind of downgraded blessing according to “expanded understanding”. One cannot bless a couple but not their union, bless a couple but not “convalidate” their objectively sinful way of life (cf. FS), as is attempted. These are pull-ups that never work in practice. The opposite will be the case. The press has already pumped out the corresponding bold titles. They show how things are being received at the grassroots level.

The so-called Magisterium of Francis, which is presented as something new and unprecedented in contrast to tradition, is a nonsensical conceptual creation by Card. Fernandez, because popes, like the bishops, are guardians of the Church’s teaching and its unbroken tradition. Truths are eternal and do not change with the spirit of the times. The other way around: Popes and bishops do not bring anything of their own, but rather interpret the Church’s constant faith along the lines of tradition without breaking with it. The fact remains that a sinful practice and connection cannot be blessed because it contradicts the order of creation or the will of God and in such a case the blessing can neither be given nor received fruitfully (cf. the justification in the responsum ad dubium of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Blessing of Unions of Persons of the Same Sex from 2021 under Card. Ladaria). The church has always taught that. Blessings without the right inner disposition of the giver and the recipient are ineffective because blessings do not work ex opere operato like the sacraments. They are sacramentals. There is no new, expanded understanding on this matter, only false claims. In the current understanding, there is no first-class (liturgical) or second-class (spontaneous) blessing by the priests. However, if the right inner disposition is present in our context, these people try to turn around, give up and correct an objectively sinful practice (concubination and sexual interaction). In addition, they can receive the blessing for growth in grace and for the success of their moral efforts and their next steps in the good direction, but not as a couple because of the ambiguity and impossibility of such a blessing. «May the LORD give you right understanding, strengthen you in good things and confirm your decision to keep His commandments. May he accompany you in your conversion with his grace!” Anything that goes beyond what has been said is sophistry and does not adhere to the teaching of the Church, but rather undermines it. This is about theology, not psychology. The church cannot contradict itself through the ages, but grows in the understanding of revelation. The negative assessment of homosexuality belongs to the latter.

And one more thing: every action is soaked in theory. Orthodoxy and orthopraxy must therefore not be placed in a position of opposition or contradiction to one another, as has been done continually since the Council and in this pontificate. As if a contradiction to the teaching in pastoral practice (2 plus 2 equals 5) was justified, even required, because (life) reality supposedly stands above the idea (teaching) (a nonsensical principle, because ideas change reality, translate into action, have often proven to be revolutionary by overturning the so-called reality of life; ideas belong to reality and are highly effective in practice; no action without theory). Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are the same or they do not deserve the name. They don’t cancel each other out. Where they do the latter, we have arrived at the heresy and division of the church, at its self-dissolution through practice. This is not a reform or a blessing.