After pushback by some bishops in Africa, Poland and elsewhere, the Vatican on Thursday defended the recent move by Pope Francis to allow blessings for same-sex couples, insisting there is nothing “heretical” involved.
In a five-page statement, the Holy See’s office to safeguard doctrinal orthodoxy expressed understanding that some bishops’ conferences need more time for “pastoral reflection” on the pontiff’s formal approval for such blessings.
But “there is no room to distance ourselves doctrinally” from the Declaration about the blessings “or to consider it heretical, contrary to the Tradition of the Church or blasphemous,’’ said the statement by the office, formally called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The new rule of blessings came last month in the form of a declaration, an important Catholic church document.
As a signal to the backwards bigots of the world to be slightly less shitty once in a while, it’s great. Still shouldn’t be pretending that crusty old useless institutions have anything of value to add. No points awarded for only being a few decades behind the majority to (grudgingly) recognize the gays as fellow humans.
If you were proposing to create a crusty old institution where there previously were none, I would agree they have no value to add.
But as an imbedded institution that has centuries of built up influence - right or wrong, those institutions can add a lot of value, particularly in cases like this where they are being led someone who is progressive relative to the mainstream of said institution.
If we scoff at any progress that isn’t ‘enough’ progress, we will find it tough to find a broad base of support to eventually get to ‘enough’.
“Can add value” is a long way from “does add value” and it’s been few generations since you could say the latter about the Catholic church and religion in general. Longer if you tack on “equal to or greater than what they take” but that’s not where I set the bar up the comment chain.
It’s not admirable for them to allow themselves to be dragged, kicking and screaming, toward the minimum standard for being decent to your fellow human being. It’s disgusting that they’ve taken this long, fought this hard against it and still aren’t even close to where they ought to be.
This is what I was responding to, and I could swear you wrote it (emphasis mine):
So are you even sure what point you are trying to make? You say they can’t add value, I suggest they can, and your response is that just because they can doesn’t mean they do, and…yeah? But what does that have to do with your original point? Do we need to start over?
Or I can engage on your new point. It is valuable for the Catholic Church to change their stance, and that value is not diminished by the fact that they had to, as you say, be dragged kicking and screaming. If their old view was harmful and their new view is less harmful, then that has value, and based on their reach, substantial value that could translate into a better overall quality of life for many, many people.
Whats not valuable is shitting all over anyone who wasn’t as quick to be as awesome as you are. You’re just spreading poison. No one is asking you to admire the Catholic Church, least of all me, but there is nothing at all wrong with speaking supportively about a good thing, even if it is too late and not enough.
You hate the catholic church - got it, so do I. You wish they didn’t exist, well ditto but guess what they fucking do. Complaining about their existence on a thread about them making a tiny bit of progress is just high school edgelord shit.
I’ll clarify but there’s only so much of the reading comprehension I can do for you. What they are doing now and what they have done in the past is harmful. My interpretation of the tiny little steps they’re taking toward being less awful is that they’re trying to find the minimum acceptable level of forward progress to ward off the executioner for a little while longer. No praise for this exercise in self-preservation, it’s the very least they can get away with and even then, it’s long overdue.
Well, that was a valiant attempt to establish a cohesive through-line to your various points. Let’s just chalk it up to my poor reading comprehension and let it go there. Have a good one.
Crusty old institutions with billions of people listening to them.
Just because they don’t matter to you and other keyboard warriors doesn’t mean they have no impact on the world.
Never said they don’t have an impact, just that they shouldn’t.
Well, you said “pretending they have value” and while the value isn’t what we want it’s still real enough
Then that’s where we disagree.