Pope Francis … Again … and Why He Is Wrong …

Father Hunwicke reacts to the latest bombshell from Rome with some solid advice.

From Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment

I think we should all try to calm down. 

Mind you, that's not altogether easy when one, at least, of our British dailies has for its lead story this morning a large claim that Pope Francis favours "Gay Marriage". 

He does absolutely nothing of the sort. In fact, he has a long history, dating back to before his election as Bishop of Rome, of opposing SSM, but favouring Civil Partnerships. It is far from clear to me that his recent effusion represents any change in his publicly expressed views.

Any reaction to his words which is schismatic, or tends to encourage schismatic talk, is very wrong. It is matter of first importance to be in Full Communion with the See of S Peter.

When the occupant of that See is manifestly a poor silly old man, the obligation of koinonia is, if possible, even greater, not less. I would encourage any readers who do me the honour of taking seriously anything I say, to make an Act of Faith, explicitly expressing belief in the indefectibility of Christ's One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and the fact that Jorge Bergoglio is the Vicar of Christ upon Earth. We should pray, with Vatican I, that the Holy Spirit may help him "traditam per Apostolos revelationem seu fidei depositum sancte custodire et fideliter exponere". Tough job? Tough Spirit!

The root of the PF-and-Sex-Problem can be summed up in the question: When did you last hear him emphasise the importance of S Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae? And of Casti connubii from the pen of Pius XI?

Those two great encyclicals robustly emphasised the tradition of two Christian millenia about the licit use of Marriage. And about the disorder structurally inherent when that teaching is ignored. And, prophetically, S Paul VI saw the great Tsunami of sexual incontinence which the Enemy was planning to unleash upon the Church and upon the World. And has done.

In the context of this teaching, which upholds (like the Anglican Prayer Book) the primary procreative teleology of the sexual act, it is not difficult to see why the Church also teaches that a SS 'orientation' is intrinsically disordered, and that  SS genital acts are every bit as sinful as are contraceptive sexual acts among the married.

If we forget the teaching of HV, then condemnations of SSM, and of SS genital activity, are bound to seem to the World to be pure discrimination. Indeed, they probably are.

If PF, and other Ministers of God's Word, are too terrified to teach, opportune et inopportune, what the Papal Magisterium, from Casti connubii  to Humanae Vitae emphasised with such clarity, then they ... we ... condemn ourselves to the incomprehension, the ridicule, and the opposition of the World.

What if we teach what Scripture and Tradition teach? The World is very likely to say: "You want to cut out most of the Sex that most human beings have!! You even want to condemn a lot the sex Catholic married couples have!! What a weird lot you are ...". They will be making something very much like  the point made by the Disciples (S Matthew 19: 10 ou sumpherei gamesai). 

But they will be less able to hammer us with the unfair and illiterate accusation of 'homophobia'.

And the best back-up to this would be: robust teaching about the Christian emphasis on Virginity, as I wrote only a day or two ago in one of my pieces on S Frideswide. So we also need teaching, not least from PF's ever-generous tongue, on Virginity, both male and female, on Consecrated Virginity, on Consecrated Widowhood, and on Consecrated Widowerhood.

And this is the very last moment the Latin Church should dump its tradition of clerical celibacy.