‘Fiducia Supplicans’: Unequivocal Leadership Needed to Manage Fallout

The reception to Fiducia Supplicans has been anything but uniform. While some cardinals and bishops in the West have welcomed it, Church leaders in much of Africa and other parts of the world have flatly rejected it. What that means is that these blessings are happening in some places but not in others.

Why is that a problem? Because we’re a universal Church, to begin with. We’re also living in the internet age, so while the blessing of a same-sex couple in Belgium may not confuse or distress many Belgian Catholics, it can scandalize the faithful in Ghana or Mexico once they learn of it.