— Roman Catholic bishops strongly disagree: Should the Church bless homosexual couples on their wedding or not? The official doctrine says no, but some bishops seem to ignore this altogether.
A Roman Catholic priest performing a wedding ceremony.
Now, they organise a mass blessing in protest against Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, who had criticised the blessing of same-sex couples. In protest, the diocese of Cologne organised a blessing service for heterosexual as well as homosexual couples last Sunday. In total, 130 people participated, Die Tagespost writes. In total, 25 couples received the blessing, among whom were two homosexual couples and several remarried divorcees. Remarriage after a divorce is also forbidden in the Roman Catholic Church.
The dispute started in March when pastor Herbert Ullmann of the parishes of Mettman and Wülfrath celebrated a blessing service “for all loving couples.” In response, he was reprimanded by Cardinal Woelki. Woelki pointed out that such celebrations were not to take place until the stance of the universal Church would be clarified on the matter. This is not yet the case. Ullmann was forbidden to organise such a celebration again.
Carnaval
However, Woelki’s statements led to much critique in Germany. The organisation behind the Cologne Carnaval responded that it found it strange that the Roman Catholic clergy are allowed to bless “barrels Kölsch (beer, ed.) and floats, but not people who love each other.”
The German Synodal Way decided in March to develop liturgies for blessing ceremonies for homosexual couples, remarried couples and divorcees. In total, 81 per cent of the bishops were in favour of this motion.
Ullmann did not partake in the protest blessing service last Sunday, Die Tagespost reports. Instead, he was present at the reception that took place afterwards.
Sexual abuse
On September 20, another protest blessing is planned, the Dutch daily Reformatorisch Dagblad writes. This is the same day as the day on which Woelki was installed as Archbishop in 2014.
Since that time, Woelki has been the centre of controversy for the way he dealt with sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. In 2022, he offered his resignation to the Pope, but Francis has not yet ratified it.
At a meeting Saturday, Pope Francis discussed with Vatican officials the prospect of requesting the resignation of Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, The Pillar has learned.
The pope met Sept. 9 with Archbishop Robert Prevost, OSA, head of the Dicastery for Bishops, and Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States – both cardinals-elect.
Several sources close to the dicastery told The Pillar ahead of the meeting that the prelates would present the pope with the results of an apostolic visitation of Stickland’s diocese, conducted earlier this year, as well as subsequent public actions by the bishop, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Holy Father.
“The situation of Bishop Strickland is the agenda,” one senior official close to the dicastery told The Pillar, “and the expectation is that the Holy Father will be requesting his resignation — that will certainly be the recommendation put to him.”
While noting that the papal audience did not exclusively concern the Bishop of Tyler, who has previously accused the pope of having a “program [for] undermining the Deposit of Faith,” the official said that Strickland’s case was set to be the “primary point of discussion.”
“There are two aspects,” the official said, “there is the matter of the public scandal from all these comments about the pope and the synod, but there are also real problems in the diocese. Those were the focus of the visitation; there are concerns in the diocese about governance, about financial matters, about basic prudence.”
The official predicted that the pope was unlikely to decide to depose Strickland as bishop of his diocese, a canonically rare act, but told The Pillar that Pope Francis would be advised to encourage the bishop to resign.
“The consensus in the dicastery is that he will be asked to consider resigning,” the official said. “That has been the substance of discussion among the members.”
“Depending on how the bishop responds, the strength of that encouragement could be increased,” the official said, and cited the case of Bishop Richard Stika who announced his resignation as Bishop of Knoxville, Tenn., earlier this year after being informed he no longer had the confidence of either the Holy See or his own clergy.
Prevost, who has been prefect of the Vatican dicastery since April, leads the department responsible for recommending candidates for episcopal appointments to the pope.
The department also oversees disciplinary investigations and processes concerning bishops’ acts of governance under the norms of Vos estis lux mundi and Come una madre amorevole, laws brought in by Pope Francis to enhance accountability among the episcopate.
Prevost, a member of the Augustinian order and a Chicago native, is one of three American members of the dicastery, the others being Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago and Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark.
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If Strickland is encouraged to resign, it is not clear how he would respond to such an invitation.
“I think that I went through this because I’ve been bold enough, and loved the Lord enough and his Church, simply preaching the truth,” Strickland said in July.
The Vatican probe was confirmed by The PillarJune 24, after rumors surfaced on social media, and the visitation was reported on the Church Militant website. The apostolic visitation, an official review of diocesan leadership and governance, was conducted by Bishop Gerald Kicanas, emeritus of Tucson, and Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden, who filed a report with the Dicastery for Bishops.
The visitation included questions about the governance of a diocesan high school, considerable staff turnover in the diocesan curia, the bishop’s welcome of a controversial former religious sister as a high school employee, and the bishop’s support for “Veritatis Splendor” — a planned Catholic residential community in the diocese, which has struggled with controversy involving its leadership’s financial administration and personal conduct.
Sources familiar with the investigation have previously told The Pillar that diocesan officials and clergy interviewed as part of the process were asked about the possibility of Bishop Strickland stepping down and canvassed for their views about suitable possible successors.
Strickland, 64, has been Bishop of Tyler since 2012; he was before that a priest of the same diocese.
The bishop has long been celebrated by many leaders in the pro-life movement, for his outspoken defense of human life, and opposition to abortion. The bishop is a frequent user of Twitter, with more than 135,000 followers.
In recent years, Strickland has been critical of Pope Francis, and was outspoken in his criticism of the Holy See’s approach to vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic, urging a more stringent position than the Vatican’s on ethical questions surrounding vaccine testing and embryonic cell lines.
In May, Strickland tweeted that he “rejects” Pope Francis’ “program undermining the Deposit of Faith” and he has built an increasingly national profile and following on a number of issues.
In June, Strickland left the U.S. bishops’ conference meeting in Orlando, FL., to lead a rally outside the stadium of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball club, part of a wider public pushback against the team’s decision to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an LGBT activist group specializing in Catholic-themed drag acts.
In July, following the apostolic visitation, Strickland released a pastoral letter to his diocese in August in which he warned Catholics about “the evil and false message that has invaded the Church, Christ’s Bride.”
“In this time of great turmoil in the Church and in the world, I must speak to you from a father’s heart in order to warn you of the evils that threaten us, and to assure you of the joy and hope that we have always in our Lord Jesus Christ,” Strickland wrote, before enumerating several points of Church teaching which he said would be debated at the upcoming session of the Synod of Bishops in Rome.
Senior sources close to the Tyler diocese told The Pillar that the tone of the letter had surprised many senior clergy of the diocese. Several figures in the diocese confronted Strickland over the tone of the letter, The Pillar was told, and warned the bishop his position was becoming untenable.
“People were deeply alarmed” by the letter, one senior source close to the diocese told The Pillar, “but the bishop was having none of it. He was absolutely firm that he was saying what needs to be said and that he wouldn’t be silenced by anyone.”
Some sources in the diocese have told The Pillar that Strickland claims he has been directed by the Blessed Virgin Mary to continue his outspoken engagement on global Church affairs.
However, despite Strickland’s reportedly bullish response to concerns within the diocese, he released on Sept. 5 a second letter, which he called “a more in depth consideration of point number one as expressed in the Pastoral Letter I issued on August 22,” and in which he treated several of the same points but in less emphatic terms.
Since the apostolic visitation in Tyler, there has been considerable debate and commentary on the subject among U.S. Catholics.
Some Catholics — among them both Strickland’s supporters and detractors — have said the bishop’s outspoken commentary on Church issues has likely put him in the spotlight of Vatican officials. Some of Strickland’s supporters have said the visitation in Tyler seems to them like a political move.
Addressing the possibility that the visitation could lead to his being asked to resign, Strickland vowed in July that no matter the outcome, he expects to continue his public role in the Church’s life.
“They won’t stop me,” Strickland said. “When we’re speaking the truth of Jesus Christ, there is no politically correct. And the world can try to shut us down, but it won’t work.”
As Catholic bishops and lay people prepare to gather in Rome this October to begin discussions on the main challenges facing the church, tensions over the topics — and the stakes — of the summit have grown.
Papal allies and organizers of the October 4-29 event — the “Synod on Synodality: Communion, Participation and Mission” — are trying to defuse the tension and reassure faithful that the church has nothing to fear from the discussions even if they will take place behind closed doors.
“The way we will communicate the synod is very important for the discernment process of the entire church,” said Paolo Ruffini, who heads the Vatican communications department and will conduct briefings on the event during the month of October, at a press conference at the Vatican on Friday (Sept. 8).
With its unassuming title, the Synod on Synodality could be easily dismissed as a gathering of no consequence. When describing the event, organizers use the terms “walking together,” “enlarging the space of our tent” and “ecclesiology.” But the summit is actually the culmination of a three-year process initiated by Pope Francis to engage the church at every level and has the opportunity to not only radically subvert power structures in the traditionally hierarchical institution, but also to create a new system of governance that can overcome growing polarization.
The success of this ambitious project greatly relies on how much people who participate in it believe in it, organizers said. Members of the Vatican’s Synod office have structured the event in such a way as to promote healthy dialogue, with short discussions interrupted by prayer and meditation, group retreats and small working groups. Individuals trained in synodality, called facilitators, will guide the event and help participants engage in a spirit of unity and fraternity.
Despite the efforts the Vatican has made to ensure the discussions at the synod occur in a collegial and thoughtful way, the church has little to no control of how the event is perceived from the outside. The Catholic Church is currently addressing controversial issues concerning the welcoming of LGBTQ Catholics, the creation of leadership roles for women and female ordination, and the accountability of bishops on questions ranging from sexual abuse to financial mismanagement. Anxieties abound over how the synod will grapple with these polarizing topics.
Local synodal expressions, such as the Synodal Way in Germany, have taken a very progressive stance on some of these issues and even defied Vatican recommendations by blessing same-sex couples.
Pope Francis talks to reporters during the return flight from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Monday, Sept. 4, 2023, at the end of a historic four-day visit.
To ensure attendants can speak freely, the Vatican Synod office has maintained that the speeches and conversations within the hall will remain secret. “We have to preserve the synodal environment,” Pope Francis said, answering questions by journalists on his return flight from Mongolia on Monday (Sept. 4). “This isn’t a television show where everything is on the table, no, it’s a religious moment, a religious exchange.”
Ruffini quoted the pope’s words during the conference on Friday, underlining the need to preserve “the sacredness” of synodal discussions. He also underlined that most institutions don’t publicly share the internal debates leading up to a decision.
At the end of the synod event, attendants will approve a synthesis document that will be made public. But it won’t be the final report, Ruffini specified, since there will be a second synod meeting at the Vatican in the fall of 2024 that will issue a final document.
“We are really counting on how media will be able to communicate this communal effort of ours,” he said, before adding: “You can count on us.”
Ruffini specified that the opening Mass, the first general assembly meeting and the opening sessions of each sections, or modules, will be livestreamed. The five modules will focus on the topics of synodality, participation, mission and communion and a final synthesis and approval of the synod report.
Shutting the doors on synodal discussions in the past has contributed to frustrating previous synods under Pope Francis, with coverage being centered on polarizing topics and sensationalist statements. When the pope called bishops and Indigenous peoples to the Vatican in 2019 to discuss the Amazon region, where fires burn down trees daily and pollution endangers the forest, articles on the event centered around a young conservative Catholic who stole a sacred image of Amazonian peoples and tossed it in the river Tiber.
The Vatican has so far ensured the synod will issue daily briefings and provide detailed information about what is happening behind the closed doors of the synod hall. The Synod on Synodality has opened its process and discussions to rank-and-file Catholics more than any other modern Vatican gathering, and now those people feel invested in the result of their efforts.
Synod on Synodality logo.
The secrecy that typically surrounds Vatican events, even one as open as the Synod on Synodality, has fueled papal critics who believe the summit is nothing more than a cover for the pope to implement a liberal agenda. After all, while synod participants will get to vote on the topics, it will be the pope who in the end draws the conclusions from the event.
The pope during the in-flight press conference acknowledged the polarization inside and outside of the synod. While he said that “there is no place for ideology inside the synod,” he also recognized that many looking from the outside are afraid the event will ultimately lead to changes to church doctrine.
“If you look deep at the root of this fear you will find ideology,” the pope said. “It’s always ideology that wishes to detach itself from the path of communion with the church.”
The synod is “very open,” the pope insisted, explaining that the discussions will be kept private to avoid fostering a climate of gossip and politics. After all, he said, “the synod isn’t a parliament.”
Former Irish president Mary McAleese, pictured here with Liz O’Donnell at a conference at Queen’s University Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.
The Church’s teaching in relation to homosexuality is a source for anti-gay laws in places such as Uganda, Professor Mary McAleese has said.
Speaking about human rights and the Church, she said the Church “practises, embeds and teaches things which promote hatred, contempt, exclusion, bigotry, bias, discrimination, victim-shaming, cover-up”.
The former president of Ireland is one of the keynote speakers at the October lay-led synodal assembly organised by the international reform network, Spirit Unbounded. The assembly, on the theme of human rights in the Catholic Church, will take place in Rome, Bristol and online 8-14 October and is open to everyone.
Another speaker who will address the assembly, Marianne Duddy-Burke, director of DignityUSA, called on Pope Francis and the Vatican to be more vocal and speak out against Uganda’s anti-gay laws.
She told The Tablet that members of the LGBTQI+ community in Uganda are living in fear for their lives. She referred to Pope Francis’ comment last January when he said, “Being homosexual isn’t a crime” and criticised laws that criminalise homosexuality as “unjust”, Duddy-Burke said the Pope must follow this up “with clear directives to bishops and catholics about our moral duty to honour the dignity and human rights of LGBTIQ+ people. The lives of many are at stake, in Africa and elsewhere.”
She said that through her work as co-chair of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics and DignityUSA she was “hearing horrific stories of intensified targeting” since the law increasing penalties for being gay came into effect in Uganda.
“There are so many places in Africa, where the situation for LGBTQI people has become dire,” she said.
Mary McAleese said Pope Francis has said a number of “vaguely useful things” on the issue such as his “Who am I to judge” remark. “That was interesting and useful except he does judge and his Church judges and regrettably the CDF document on same-sex blessings which [Francis] signed off on, used this terrible expression that gay married catholics could not or receive God’s grace.”
She added, “Francis tries to have it both ways in relation to anti-gay legislation. It was useful that he did ask his fellow bishops, particularly the African countries, not to support legislation which outlawed homosexuality but rather to decriminalise. But with the greatest respect to Pope Francis that is the kind of thing we were saying 40 and 50 years ago. It is at the very least four decades behind the curve of where the people of God are at in relation to homosexuality.
“For me the most pressing issue is what does the magisterium do internally; how does it change the teaching for example in relation to gay people within the Church; how does it change Church teaching and practice in relation to the inclusion or exclusion of women. The truth is, in terms of those issues, he [Francis] has done pretty much nothing that is credible.”
The issue of where human rights fit internally in the Church is “crucial” she said because “it sets the agenda for how we meet and what we meet as. Do we meet as equals? Is the synod going to be a discipleship of equals? And the answer seems to be no, the magisterium is still in control. The magisterium will still set the agenda, it will decide what can be discussed and it will decide what the outcomes will be.”
Whistleblower and former priest, Brian Devlin, who is one of the organisers of the Spirit Unbounded assembly, told The Tablet, “There is a real problem with human rights in the Catholic Church that needs to be addressed. We are an assembly of Christian people who are trying to make the Church a better place, a kinder place and a safer place for each of us to live in and to embrace.”
Retired Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said there is “a huge amount of resistance among the Catholic education establishment” to pluralism in schools’ patronage. He does not believe there will be women priests in the Catholic Church in his lifetime and described as “bad theology” the banning of condoms in the fight against Aids. The clerical child sexual abuse scandals had “badly damaged the church,” he said and, in particular, “the faith of young people”.
Now living in Dublin’s Stoneybatter, Archbishop Martin (78) has also admitted finding retirement in 2020 “very difficult at the beginning because I retired right in the middle of Covid.” He remembered “one day in the Phoenix Park, I was out in an open-necked shirt and there was a man sitting on a bench. He looked up and said: ‘Are you enjoying your retirement?’ And I said: ‘Yeah.’ And he said: ‘Did they take the collar off you? Did you have to give it back?’ They recognise the face. Somebody stopped me and said: ‘I know your face. Were you ever in Fair City?’ Dubliners are great for that.”
When he was born, the family “lived in a tenement, there was nothing else available, then we went out to Ballyfermot”. Once when he was archbishop a delegation of Christian Brothers complained about criticisms he made of Artane industrial school. They “were sent to me to tell me that I didn’t know what I was talking about and one of them came up with this punchline. He said: ‘You know, many of these children came from appalling backgrounds, from places like Ballyfermot.’ He hadn’t done his homework.”
In discussing child abuse he became emotional. On arrival in Dublin as Coadjutor Archbishop in 2003, he “wasn’t prepared for it. Do you know who understood the harm paedophilia did? Ordinary, working-class Dublin women. They saw the mess that their child got into, they saw in some cases how their child took their own life, and they went to bishops and they weren’t listened to.”
On education, he said: “We do need to have pluralism of patronage in schools to respect individuals, to respect teachers also. We should also be fighting to ensure that we can maintain schools which are strongly Catholic.”
He added: “There’s a huge amount of resistance among the Catholic education establishment to this. I think I was probably out of tune with the other bishops on this and still would be, mainly because I’ve lived in countries where they have a different system.”
He did not see “in any way that women priests will be something that we will see in my lifetime. I’d be very worried about consultations which lead to frustrated expectations which don’t take place. People’s faith is damaged by a church which doesn’t respect women’s dignity.”
Asked whether Pope John Paul II’s ban on condoms during the Aids crisis was bad judgment, he said: “I think that it was bad theology. It’s this idea of an extraordinary narrow dogmatic understanding of bringing principles and not looking at the broad circumstances in which the situation is taking place and the struggles that people have to face. It was one of the problems with the church in Ireland, we learned the rules before we learned who Jesus Christ was.”
As to what, on arrival at the pearly gates, he would say to God, he said: “The only phrase I have is, when you’ve got that weighing scales there, take the 80,000 files I gave and that might bring me the right way.” It was a reference to the number of documents he handed the Murphy commission when it was investigating how the archdiocese had dealt with allegations of clerical child sexual abuse.
Archbishop Martin was speaking to broadcaster Joe Duffy in the 100th episode of The Meaning of Life programme, which will be broadcast on RTÉ One television at 10.30pm on Sunday night.
