Cardinal Zuppi Anticipated the German Synod

While we are scandalized by the German Synod and its proposals for moral revolution, in fact, “ecclesial experience” is already beyond debate.

We know that in the modernist system, authority intervenes belatedly to put a stamp on what common experience, ecclesial life, the internal dialectic of the parties, has long made the common heritage of the community of believers. For those who disagree, there will be a time of tolerance until the next step.

Chastity Before Marriage

Certainly, the Dicastery for the Laity and the Family has published a document of “itineraries” for marriage preparation – with a preface by Pope Francis – where chastity is defined as a choice that the Church must have the courage to propose to engaged couples. Not a commandment, of course, but a possibility that must be bravely offered.

It cannot be said that the Roman authorities shine with their confidence in the power of grace. It is now taken for granted that certain moral discourses must remain the ideal that some may choose to follow, but for the masses other ways must be found.

This is exactly the discourse hidden behind Amoris Laetitia. In a certain way, the commandments have become evangelical counsels of perfection.

New “Humanly Viable” Paths

A very similar discourse was given by Ratzinger in his book Light of the World (2010), regarding contraception within marriage: “The perspectives of Humanae Vitae remain valid, but it is another thing to find humanly viable means.”

“I believe that there will always be minorities who are intimately convinced of the correctness of these perspectives, and who, in living them, will be fully satisfied with them to the point of becoming fascinating models for others to follow.”

Thus, the rejection of contraception and premarital chastity are presented to us as models, which some can live with fulfillment, but not as “humanly viable paths.” After all, when it comes to morals, the German Synod does not speak much differently.

And in addition, it seems that in the diocese of Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, the new president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, eminent member of Sant'Egidio, and candidate for the papacy, paths are being experimented with that can be followed by everyone.

The Bologna Case

On June 11, in the town of Budrio, near Bologna, a homosexual couple went “to unite civilly” at the municipal hall. Then, as they belonged to a pastoral group of “gay Catholics” called in cammino – “on the way,” they went into the church to celebrate a “Mass of thanksgiving” presided over by the director of the diocesan office for the family, with their group, and with many other priests present and concelebrating.

It is not necessary here to examine the extreme gravity of this act, which thanks God for evil and causes the obvious scandal of approving the civil union of two people who have decided to live publicly in a sinful way – they were clearly not worthy of the courage of the proposal to choose “chastity.”

Zuppi's Blessing

However, it should be noted how, faced with an obvious reaction from many Catholic circles, the Bologna Curia actively defended the ceremony in question, inventing a series of specious distinctions.

The Mass was not in thanksgiving for the newly “married” couple, but for the gift of faith that the whole gay community shares; moreover, the “Mass of thanksgiving” would certainly not be a “blessing” of the couple, prohibited by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The distinction of the curia regarding also accompanying people with “homosexual tendencies” seems ridiculous in the face of the scandal of a civil union between two people who present themselves as a couple in love.

Pharisaic distinctions aside, all invented after the fact – when the local priest had simply said that “a blessing must not be refused to anyone! – the photos and videos show how the two people entered the church in a procession, surrounded by their formally dressed relatives, with photographers and flowers, and were received by the clergy and seated in a reserved pew. After communion, the two people received an “apron” as a gift from the celebrant to thank them for their commitment to the group.

The modernist dialectic strikes again: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, through a responsum, prohibits the blessing of homosexual unions (March 2021), by repeating a “beautiful ideal.” The German synod, on the other hand, discusses it freely.

In the meantime, the “prophetic” groups are already putting everything into practice in the concrete experience of the life of the Church, always defended and blessed by authority. A scenario already seen many times, to be fought at the root – modernism – and not only in what are for the moment its most extreme symptoms.”