In the aftermath of blood and horror, after murders that have led to further murders, crimes, and coverups, Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth descends into madness. She sleepwalks with a candle at night recounting the crimes and admonishing her husband, “What’s done cannot be undone.” (Macbeth, Act V, scene i)
Indeed.
As king, Macbeth had hoped to accomplish good through evil, to gain the throne through regicide, and then to rule in peace. And yet, his crimes are now compounding. Nothing can stop the momentum and the descent. “It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood.” (Act III, scene iv)
Things have gotten out of hand in Macbeth’s realm, and more death and chaos are the natural progression of a disordered and diabolical event. The aftermath cannot be revised, nor indeed, can it be controlled.
And so it is with the Declaration Fiducia supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings. Hoping that the sleight of hand of turning our attention to an amplification of the meaning of blessings would distract our attention from the blessing of sin, the Declaration, written by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and approved by Pope Francis, unleashed an unstoppable force. Intentionally.
The worldwide media did not wait to parse the paragraphs. They saw sin condoned, they hooted, and they howled, and they announced the Catholic Church’s new stance on sin to the world. Homosexuality and living in sin are now (though somewhat covertly for now) condoned and approved. In fact, these are now asserted as actions with redeemable, even admirable, qualities. And what is done, in the world of the media soundbite, the photo op, and the communications coup, cannot be undone.
Such grave misleading of the flock into untruth is soundly condemned by Our Lord. He states, clearly, to his disciples, in the Gospel of Luke: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.” (Luke 17:1-3)
On matters of sin, Our Lord is unequivocal. But we might forget His words, were we to listen to their revision by the spin doctors long enough.
On living in sin, the Lord says: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Luke 16:18)
To the woman caught in adultery, the Lord says: “Go and sin no more.” (John 8:11)
On homosexuality, God’s word says:
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator. . .because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:22-27)
Impurity. Degrading. A lie. Shameful acts. Due penalty. Error.
And, in words that should give us all pause: “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” (Romans 1:32)
We thank, profoundly, those Bishops Conferences, and individual pastors all over the world, who have spoken God’s righteous decree clearly in recent days: churchmen who have declared that the Declaration cannot be implemented.
For instance, in a statement on December 23, 2023: The British Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, responding to widespread confusion over Catholic doctrine on same-sex unions and sexual behavior outside of marriage, felt “impelled to re-assert the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church (from the Catechism of the Catholic Church) which remains unchanged and unchangeable:
- 2357 Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. … Under no circumstances can they be approved.
- 2391 Carnal union is morally legitimate only when a definitive community of life between a man and a woman has been established.
The British Confraternity ends by saying that “as pastors we conclude that such blessings are pastorally and practically inadmissible.”
Because God’s Word stands, and what He has spoken cannot be unspoken.
What’s done in doctrine cannot be undone.
But we can watch for the descent into madness at the palace. As Shakespeare was prophetic in the workings of human psychology, so the frenzied sleepwalking is only just beginning. The unsteady grasp on power seeks to remove all threats, real and perceived. With its telltale signs, the progression into paranoid, distrust begins in speech, flowery and welcoming, and it ends at the point of an unforgiving knife for those who refuse submission.
“Naught’s had, all’s spent / Where our desire is got without content,” Lady Macbeth rightly remarks. (Macbeth, Act III, scene ii)
The goal of the Declaration is achieved. The world’s media has put the words into the vault, and the footage can be played and replayed in perpetuity.
But whether the implementation of the Declaration goes according to plan, or whether its goal is achieved amidst great discontent, remains to be seen. Pray God, that through the heroic fidelity of Christ’s churchmen, even to the point of martyrdom for the Truth, naught is ultimately to be had.
