ARGENTINIAN CATHOLIC LAWYERS CORPORATION PETITION TO THE HOLY FATHERThe Catholic Lawyers Corporation of the Argentine Republic, publicly makes this petition to H.H. Francis, requesting the abrogation of the Declaration "Fiducia supplicans" of the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
This is due to the grave damage to the Faith and to moral customs that its content generates in the People of God through the teaching effect of the law, given that through the Declaration "blessings of couples in irregular situations and of same-sex couples" are permitted (n. 31), which implies that they are not made to the persons that integrate them individually and separately, but to the couples as such, in spite of maintaining a common life outside marriage, in an objective situation or close to the grave sins of adultery or fornicating or sodomitic concubinage, with the only condition that the couple requests it.
Since the document considers these blessings as a spiritual good, clerics are obliged to impart them, since "the laity, like all the Christian faithful, have the right to receive abundantly from the sacred Pastors the help of the spiritual goods of the Church" (Lumen Gentium n. 37) and because, according to the Declaration, "neither should the Church's closeness to every situation in which God's help is requested through a simple blessing be impeded or forbidden" (Fiducia supplicans n. 38). This makes it clear that the new practice is introduced by means of an act of authority whose substance is that of being a true legal provision - because it has the force of obligation - and, as such, becomes part of the law of the Church, suppressing the previous rules which, based on the immutable doctrine that such relationships are outside the law of God and cannot be favored in any way, prohibited such blessings, which has been recently ratified in this same pontificate1.
The assessment that this doctrinal change has taken place has been pointed out by influential media worldwide, a circumstance that will have harmful consequences on the civil legislation that governs societies. The laws of the Church must be clear in order to serve as a model for them.
The assessment that there has been a change in doctrine and not something merely disciplinary, is the reasonable consequence that arises from the objective facts prudently considered by the common man. In fact, suffice it to point out that the Dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy defines the term "blessing", in its different meanings, as: 1. consecration, sanctification, sacralization; 2. consent, approval, assent, favour, grace or congratulation; 3. blessing from God; and 4. nuptial blessings.
On the other hand, when defining the conjunction "blessing of God", it does it in the following way: "excellent or very beneficial thing"; and that of "casting the blessing" as "ratifying or confirming something". This perception is not avoided by only declaring the document the intention to keep firm to that one, by means of complex or subtle grounds, unacceptable for experts and scandalous for people of simple faith before the evident contradictory message of separating the law from the doctrine that essentially founds them2. As a consequence, there will be an actual impossibility of distinguishing between the goodness and sanctity of a relationship founded on marriage, from the intrinsic malice of the sins that are caused in these other relationships, by reason of the right of couples to demand the blessing, the obligation imposed on clerics to impart it and the duty of bishops to favor them.
On the other hand, the assessment that this doctrinal change has taken place has been pointed out by influential media worldwide3, a circumstance that will have harmful consequences on the civil legislation that governs societies. The laws of the Church must be clear in order to serve as a model for them.
The situation created by the Declaration is particularly serious with regard to children and adolescents, who are scandalized, because at that stage of growth they are exposed and defenseless to be victims - with the vivid examples of blessed couples - of falling in their youth into the false doctrines that promote divorce, free love, or those that exalt the practice of homosexuality - intrinsically disordered and contrary to the natural law - and promote gender ideology even in children themselves4. They are violently promoted by States through iniquitous laws that oppress the faithful.
To the extent that the Declaration has the approval of the highest authority of the Church, the assessment, in the judgment of the State authorities, of the existence of a doctrinal change, affects the seriousness5 of the grounds on which the right to conscientious objection is exercised before them.
By the mandate of Jesus Christ given to Peter to confirm his brethren in the Faith, we humbly ask H.H. Francis, the immediate revocation of the Declaration "Fiducia supplicans" to avoid certain and serious damage to the Faith, morals and life of the Church.
It also plays down the fulfillment of the ideals of Catholic institutions, especially educational and health institutions, severely attacked at present6. Because it is under the conditions of the positive laws in force in modern society, through the exercise of their right to religious freedom contained in those rules, that citizens and institutions resist in the civil sphere in order not to be part, through formal or material cooperation, of acts or situations contrary to the precepts of religion and morality, which those laws oblige them to carry out. For the same reason, the right of parents to educate their children according to their moral and religious convictions, recognized by civil laws and international treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child7, the American Convention on Human Rights8 and the Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms9 to the European Convention on Human Rights, is also clearly restricted. Indeed, this right includes, mainly, the right to prevent their children or wards from being instructed in what the parents or guardians deem harmful and detrimental for being contrary to them, which requires the demonstration that the concrete and specific contents of the teaching affect their spiritual, moral, physical, social or emotional well-being 10.
It is a minimum requirement that the law does not cause harm. This is not excepted for the purpose of satisfying some aspect of an alleged particular good, because it would be to justify for the sake of the end the use of an intrinsically evil means. The Declaration Fiducia supplicans, in its essential part, results in a necessary harmful effect for the common good of society and of the Church.
Nor can any provision or prescription of it, whatever its juridical nature, imperatively command that bishops, priests, deacons, catechists or laity should participate, cooperate, approve, consent, convalidate, propitiate or advise what they recognize as openly contrary to the Commandments of the Law of God, from which no human authority can exempt, waive, moderate or relax their observance, either expressly and assertively or by omission to teach the truth clearly, whatever the nature and aim of the purpose invoked; as a result, the faithful abandon themselves in the darkness of error and sin, renouncing their mission within the Church to proclaim the truth and the good, which the Declaration coercively imposes on them to carry out against their own consciences, which no one, by divine and natural right, has the authority to violate.
By the mandate of Jesus Christ given to Peter to confirm his brethren in the Faith, we humbly ask H.H. Francis, as a Catholic lay institution obliged to express its opinion according to its own position, exercising "the power, indeed sometimes the duty, to express its opinion on matters concerning the good of the Church" (Lumen Gentium n. 37), the immediate revocation of the Declaration "Fiducia supplicans" to avoid certain and serious damage to the Faith, morals and life of the Church.
Unanimously approved at the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Catholic Lawyers Corporation held in the City of Buenos Aires on December 21, 2023.
Latest from RTV — FRANCIS TURNS 87: Catholic World Divided Over Worst Pope in History
1 Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a dubium on the blessings of same-sex unions of February 22, 2021.
2 Accustomed to reciting the Psalm that proclaims "The law of the Lord is perfect, it comforts the soul, the testimony of the Lord is true, the wisdom of the humble".
3. https://www.lanacion.com.ar/el-mundo/en-un-documento-revolucionario-el-papa-le-abre-las-puertas-a-la-bendicion-de-parejas-del-mismo-sexo- nid18122023/
4. CONGREGATION FOR CATHOLIC EDUCATION "MALE AND FEMALE CREATED THEM" FOR A PATH OF DIALOGUE ON THE QUESTION OF GENDER IN EDUCATION.
5. The seriousness of the conflict of conscience arising between a precept or an act of authority, which compels the performance of an obligation or the abstention from a conduct, against a moral conviction or a religious precept, is a condition commonly required in comparative law to authorize the exercise of the right to conscientious objection.
6. INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS PAVEZ PAVEZ VS. CHILE CASE - SENTENCE FEBRUARY 4TH, 2022.
7. Art. 14
8. Article 12
9. Art. 2
10. CRC Art. 17
