Fiducia supplicans facts for kids

Fiducia supplicans ("Supplicating Trust") is a 2023 declaration on Catholic doctrine that allows Catholic priests to bless couples that are not married under canon law, including the blessing of same-sex couples. The document, dated 18 December 2023 and published on the same day, was issued by the Holy See's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) and approved with a signature by Pope Francis. It was the first declaration issued by the DDF since Dominus Iesus in 2000.

Fiducia supplicans was widely seen as a stepping stone towards a greater acceptance of homosexuality within the Catholic Church. However, it officially does not innovate or develop Catholic doctrine on marriage and received widely varying interpretations. Pope Francis advised that Vatican bureaucrats should avoid "rigid ideological positions" after it was issued. It reversed a 2021 ruling that forbid these blessings.

Background

In 2021, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2022) issued a responsum ad dubium ("response to doubt") that responded in the negative to the question of whether the church has "the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex". The reasons for that answer were set out in an accompanying explanatory note.

Fiducia supplicans reversed this decision.

Contents

Pope Francis (pictured in 2021) signed the declaration.

Fiducia supplicans provides clarifications and reforms on the church's treatment of what it calls "irregular relationships", that is, those that establish a monogamous and emotional bond that lasts over time and that have not contracted marriage. Most notably, it allows Catholic priests and deacons to perform "spontaneous blessings" of same-sex couples, as well as opposite-sex couples who are not married, and married couples who were previously divorced and have not received an annulment, but only so that they may "be able to fulfill [God's] will completely".

The document details that this type of informal and spontaneous blessing is neither a sacrament nor a rite of the Catholic Church, so no special ceremony is performed for it.

Fiducia supplicans does not provide for changes with respect to the institution of marriage in the Catholic Church. Marriage is still understood only as the union between a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all kind of marriages that are not heterosexual and monogamous.

See also

• Blessing of same-sex unions in Christian churches
• Catholic Church and homosexuality
• Marriage in the Catholic Church