Forbidden in Kinshasa, But Authorized in Rome

But it is forbidden in Africa, where Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), obtained an exemption for the whole continent from Pope Francis. 

So then, in order not to have to bless homosexual couples--that is to say, not to have to go against natural and divine law--it is necessary to obtain a Roman dispensation. On the other hand, in order to bless such couples, it suffices to obey the directives of Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. 

Such is the state of extreme confusion in the Church, two months after the publication of Fiducia supplicans. Soon, to live in accordance with natural and divine law, one will have to go to Kinshasa, in Cardinal Ambongo's diocese, or to Abuja in Nigeria, or to Accra in Ghana.

Africans are exempt from applying Fiducia supplicans on the grounds that their culture does not tolerate same-sex couples. Which means that non-Africans have a culture that accepts these couples. 

What is this culture that is so tolerant? A culture of erasure (cancel culture) which makes, in the name of misguided pastoral care, "what has been believed everywhere, always, and by everyone" disappear, in the words of the Commonitorium of St. Vincent of Lérins. 

To be mercifully "inclusive" with regard to minorities allegedly discriminated against by Catholic doctrine and morality, this doctrine and morality are virtually excluded,  while respect for them is feigned. In fact, what they condemn is approved. 

Fiducia supplicans should immediately have had a very concrete consequence in Switzerland. Logically, Cardinal Fernández should have solemnly restored to favor Fr. Wendelin Bucheli, who had been dismissed from his office as pastor of Bürglen by Bishop Vitus Huonder, then Bishop of Chur, for having blessed the union of two women in 2015. 

Since Fr. Bucheli justified himself in a book released in 2018, and he was even elected dean of Uri in 2022, now all he is missing is the title of "precursor of Fiducia supplicans." The Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith will provide it. 

And good souls, their eyes misty with sadness, will lament the churches that are emptying, the seminaries that are closing, and the priests who are dying without being replaced. This blindness in the face of such a crisis in the Church does not require the intervention of a ophthalmologist. These weary and burdened eyes do not need eye drops, but a holy anger. 

That alone could open them to reality. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting" (Gal. 6:7-8). 

Fr. Alain Lorans