So two things are true about Fiducia Supplicans.
One: Roman Catholic Apologists have been able to reconcile documents which are much more overtly contradictory with the tradition than this document. It is obvious that we can bless sinners, because there is no other category on earth for whom to bless. Fine.
Two: It is going to practically lead to homosexual couples coming to Roman priests to bless their marriages as if it was a wedding, and many Roman priests will either, not have the spine to clarify or call them to repentance, or who will explicitly convey to the couple that he is blessing their /marriage/ as priests like James Martin are already doing.
This is obviously contrary to the Church's position on marriage and so it is a sad day. As an Anglican who has little problem with Anglo-Catholics who have a similar theology to many Roman Catholics like Fr. Calvin Robinson, I think this is a good opportunity to point out one of the major concerns with Rome. Often times, there is an ivory tower explanation of some practice in Rome that contextualizes a practice which is actually doing harm to the Body of Christ, but which is technically not heretical. These kinds of errors are worth "protesting".
On the other hand, it is also plainly frustrating to see Roman Catholics who were deriding all Anglicans over the actions of a few Anglicans in the Western world who said the EXACT same thing Fiducia Supplicans said about blessing "couples" without the sacrament of marriage, as obviously ridiculous and heretical just a few weeks ago, now defending this document as if nothing changed, and that it is actually "super based" or something silly like that. It is not based. It was problematic when the Church of England did it, and it is problematic when the Church of Rome does it.
Those are my initial thoughts. What do you guys think?
I came from a Reformed back ground and I was discussing with my Presbyterian friend about how the Reformed view the patristics compared to Anglicans and here is what I wrote. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
"Quite honestly though the Reformed seem to be on the back foot in terms of patristic theology. You guys never present your theology positively from the patristics but only negatively. Pointing out nuance in the sources but you'll never hear from a Reformed theologian "Here is where Augustine agrees with us on baptism " or "Here is where Athanasius agrees with us on church polity" or "Here is where Ambrose agrees with us on the meaningof apostacy". All these issues were debated but none of the positive answers given fit with the Reformed distinctives on these issues. So instead you get here is what Augustine, Athanasius, Ambrose, etc did not believe about these things but not much authority is granted to what they said about most topics."
