BREAKING NEWS! Pope calls for civil unions for same-sex couples, in major departure from Vatican doctrine

Posted on by Tom

I don’t normally publish two posts in one day, but this news cannot wait.

I was doing some routine work on the blog late this morning when I overheard on the television in the adjoining kitchen a special news announcement involving the “leader of the Catholic church.”

I scrambled into the kitchen to hear that Pope Francis is calling for civil unions for same-sex couples. This is ASTOUNDING, although not altogether surprising. The Vatican has been preparing for this moment for several years via the work of Jesuit priest, James Martin, its advance man for full acceptance of practicing LGBTers.

The ramifications and fallout from this “announcement” (underhandedly communicated via a docu-bio of Francis) are and will be ENORMOUS. This contradicts previous papal teaching on the illicitness/sinfulness of homosexual practices and same-sex unions/marriages that many/most serious Catholics held to be unchangeable and even infallible. Conservative and traditionalist Catholics will be enraged to a such a degree that many will now surely call for a formal split from pragmatically-progressive, world-pleasing, pope Francis.

I need to read some more reports on this development before I can comment at length. The bottom line is the Roman Catholic church does not teach the genuine Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. Whether it’s Francis’s progressive camp, now publicly embracing same-sex unions, or the Catholic conservative camp, the genuine Gospel is not to be found in Roman Catholicism.

Pope calls for civil unions for same-sex couples, in major departure from Vatican doctrine
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/pope-calls-civil-unions-same-sex-couples-major-departure-vatican-n1244137

Update: I made it a point to listen to conservative Catholic talk-radio host, Al Kresta, at 4:00 p.m. today to get his take on Francis’s bombshell. As would be expected, Kresta tied himself up into multiple knots trying to downplay/minimize/mitigate/white wash the news. Kresta lamely postulated that, in approving civil unions for same-sex couples, Francis wasn’t necessarily sanctioning homosexual behavior. Kresta stumbled and stammered, suggesting the pope would expect civilly-united, same-sex Catholic couples to live as brother-brother or sister-sister. Say what?!?!? Kresta is living in fantasy land. He can’t yet admit to himself and his audience that his pope is a heretic according to Catholicism’s own tenets. But I think with this particular “reform,” Francis has finally given conservative Catholics, like Kresta, something they cannot glibly explain away.

48 thoughts on “BREAKING NEWS! Pope calls for civil unions for same-sex couples, in major departure from Vatican doctrine”

  1. Thank you for this!! Cathy had a good one too but I can’t reblog from her page right now 😔

    I just don’t know how people can stay in this trap of lies 😢
    🙏🏻❤️

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    1. Thank you, Beth! I’m astounded yet not surprised. We could see this train coming down the tracks for several years.
      RE: I just don’t know how people can stay in this trap of lies.
      Absolutely. I pray this will shake many Catholics to the core and that they will accept Jesus Christ as their Savior by faith alone and come out of the RCC.

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    2. Beth, if you use the WordPress app, go to the feed of the blogs you follow. Go to my post and there’s a reblog button there. I’m going to try again to add a reblog button to my posts. I haven’t been successful in the past. 😞

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    1. Thanks, Mandy. A very “interesting” development. The fallout will be quite dramatic. I’ve been observing the RCC closely for five years for my blog nothing comes close to this. Conservative Catholics won’t be able to tolerate this.

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      2. RE: Muslim clerics/leaders reaction

        Hmm. Good question. I imagine there are levels of strictness within Islam, just like Catholicism, and some of the more “progressive” Imams will continue dialoguing with Francis. The pope took the cowardly, half-way approach by supporting civil unions (a no-no according to Catholic theology) rather than endorsing church marriages.
        My head is still spinning over this. It’s like an A-bomb going off within Catholicism.

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  5. “Conservative and traditionalist Catholics will be enraged to a such a degree that many now will surely call for a formal split from pragmatically world-pleasing, pope Francis.” Shame on any Catholic who DOESN’T do this!

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    1. Oh, Catholics’ heads are spinning today in a big way! They’re trying to follow the Catholic rule book in order to merit Heaven, but the current pope keeps changing the rules.
      It’s ironic beyond words that Francis is every Catholic apologist’s worst nightmare.

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  7. If there’s one more reason to reject the papacy this is another brother. I don’t know how the Catholic Church can be conservative after this. Even if it is “conservative” it still denies the Gospel

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    1. Good thing I’m unemployed because I’ll need 8 hours/day for the next week to track how this bombshell reverberates throughout conservative Catholicism. Nope, no Gospel in sight at either extreme.

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      2. Thanks, brother. Tomorrow, I may try to listen to Catholic apologist, David Anders for his initial response. This will be interesting. Unimaginable only 10 years ago.

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      6. Just watched EWTN News Nightly and they glossed over the bombshell, about 20 seconds of coverage, although they did admit that Francis’ statement contradicted previous papal teaching.

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      8. Ha! You know my routine pretty well. Reading my latest book, Edmund P. Clowney’s “The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament.” Excellent! Did you review that at some point? Can’t remember. Anyway, lights out. Have a good evening!

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      10. Thanks for forwarding your good review! I wonder what I saw recently that prompted me to get the book? My short-term memory is shot. Oh, well. I’m on page 30 and thoroughly enjoying it!

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  8. I must confess it never ceases to amaze me how Romanists love to pontificate about the need for an infallible interpreter, yet exercise their own private judgement and private interpretation like a Protestant, when their infallible interpreter says something they disagree with. The Roman apologists as well, set themselves up like a bunch of mini-popes, engaging in private judgement of their magisterium.

    I took a look at Matt Fradd’s youtube channel and the there is chaos LOLOLOL!

    Their co-religionists Bellarmine and Ignatius of Loyola would be so disappointed in these modern day Romanists!

    Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Rule 13: That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the Church herself, if she shall have defined anything to be black which appears to our eyes to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black. See Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 260.

    Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621): If the Pope should err by enjoining vices and forbidding virtues, the Church would be bound to believe vices to be good, and virtues to be evil, unless she would be willing to sin against conscience. For translation, see William John Hall, The Doctrine of Purgatory and the Practice of Praying for the Dead (London: Henry Wix, 1843), p. 400.

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    2. The scholars and theologians know that Vatican 2 changed everything. It’s only apologists like David Anders who have to engage in sophistry to reconcile Vatican 2’s departure from previous papal teaching LOL!

      Francis A. Sullivan, S.J.: In this respect, it is more fruitful to consider what the Second Vatican Council did than what it said. While in its treatment of the ordinary papal magisterium it spoke only of its obligatory force and said nothing about the possibility of its needing to be corrected, on several important issues the council clearly departed from previous papal teaching. One has only to compare the Decree on Ecumenism with such an encyclical as Mortalium animos of Pope Pius Xl, or the Declaration on Religious Freedom with the teaching of Leo Xlll and other popes on the obligation binding on the Catholic rulers of Catholic nations to suppress Protestant evangelism, to see with what freedom the Second Vatican Council reformed papal teaching. I think it would be true to say that the deepest divisions at Vatican II were between those bishops who saw the council as bound to affirm what had already been taught by the popes, and those who recognised the need for the Council to improve upon, and in some cases, to correct such teaching. (Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church [Mahwah, NY: Paulist Press, 1983], p. 157)

      Raymond Brown S.S.: Essential to a critical interpretation of church documents is the realization that the Roman Catholic Church does not change her official stance in a blunt way. Past statements are not rejected but are requoted with praise and then reinterpreted at the same time. It is falsely claimed that there has been no change towards the Bible in Catholic Church thought because Pius XII and Vatican II paid homage to documents issued by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV and therefore clearly meant to reinforce the teaching of their predecessors. What really was going on was an attempt gracefully to retain what was salvagable from the past and to move in a new direction with as little friction as possible. To those for whom it is doctrinal issue that the Church never changes, one must repeat Galileo’s sotto voce response when told that it was a doctrinal issue that the earth does not move: “E pur si muove” (“Nevertheless, it moves”). And the best proof of movement is the kind of biblical scholarship practiced by ninety-five percent of Catholics writing today, a kind of scholarship that would not have been tolerated for a moment by church authorities in the first forty years of this century. (Raymond Brown, “The Critical Meaning of the Bible,” New York, NY: Paulist Press ©1981, Nihil Obstat and Imprimitur, page 18 footnote 41).

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  9. What a bomb! Like you, Tom, I’m not surprised as there are priest who are gay. One can imagine the shock of the traditionalist Filipino RCs. Maybe they will try to ignore this or confess to their priest that they hate their pope now; we don’t know.

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    1. Thanks, Kent. This is going to be “interesting.” As he has done previously with other issues, Francis’ “call” for same-sex civil unions wasn’t an official announcement, but rather an “off-the-cuff” (yet strategically staged) remark. So now Catholicism will heatedly debate this bombshell while Francis sits back and watches the chaos unfold.
      RE: there are priest who are gay
      Yes, and a sizable faction of the hierarchy are homosexual as reported by Frédéric Martel in his recent book. So the irony will be that many of the most vocal critics of Francis’ “call” for same-sex civil unions in the hierarchy will be conservative closet homosexuals.

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      1. What a timely thing, Tom, it is currently in the evening national news, as in right now. Well, that is what we call, hypocrisy on their part. I won’t be surprised as some here also seek car/SUV “donations” from politicians. We will just count our blessings, thanking GOD that we continously hear the correct Gospel. GOD bless you all!

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    1. Yes, Crissy, this event is jaw-dropping. We could see it developing with the pro-LGBT advance work of Jesuit, James Martin, but I would have never predicted that Francis would have taken this step this soon. MANY Catholics will be shaken to the core and, yes, we pray some will now be open to the Gospel.

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  11. When I heard this news I wasn’t surprised. Catholicism has been known to take liberties concerning the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is quite clear on several matters that are completely ignored, this is just another example. I’m looking forward to the time mentioned at Matthew 24:43-51 when God, through his Son, cleans this world of all things that reproach his holy name.

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    1. Thanks, Heatherjo! Yes, the RCC grants that even atheists can merit Heaven if they follow their conscience to the best of the ability, so this is not all that surprising. But it’s still quite newsworthy becuase the conservative Catholics still “go by the (catechism) book” in several respects.

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