Dem
51
GOP
49
The abortion fight is still being waged in pitched fashion. On the other hand, the primary culture wars battle of a generation ago, namely equality for gay and lesbian people, appears to be almost over. Case in point: The Catholic Church will now allow same-sex couples to be blessed by Catholic priests.
Yes, there are some carefully spelled out limits on this. The blessings cannot happen as part of a regular church service or ceremony. And they cannot happen at the same time as a same-sex marriage is performed. But these seem relatively meaningless, to us. For example, how much time does there have to be between the blessing and the marriage service for it to be OK? 5 minutes? 10? An hour? 6 hours? Whatever it is, if you're getting same-sex married AND you really want your spiritual leader's blessing, it's workable.
In part, we suspect this move is a shot across the bow of conservative Catholic bishops in the U.S. who have been critical of Pope Francis for being too liberal. In an unusual move, Francis fired one of them (Joseph Strickland). Now, the others get to swallow hard and fall into line, or else risk sharing Strickland's fate.
Mostly, however, Francis is doing what the leader of the Church is supposed to do, and deciding what priority takes precedence. Half a century ago, conducting services in Latin was driving away parishioners who did not want to master a dead language (i.e., one with no living native speakers) just to be able to commune with God. The Church decided that being welcoming was more important than sticking with a tradition that had no scriptural basis. In other words, better to have 1 billion Catholics, with services in their native tongues, than just 750 million Catholics, with services in Latin.
Greater openness to gay and lesbian Catholics is pretty clearly the same thing; there are a lot of gay and lesbian people out there, and there isn't much of a scriptural basis for excluding them (outside of the notion that sex is only supposed to happen within the bonds of matrimony). One wonders what doctrinal change might happen next. Maybe, someday not too far off, gays and lesbians will actually be allowed to marry in the church, eliminating that one last significant issue. Alternatively, there is considerable historical basis for female priests and very limited scriptural basis for excluding them. So, maybe that will soon come down the pike. (Z)