Fiducia supplicans

[27] On 25 September 2023, in another responsum to conservative cardinals before the 16th World Synod of Bishops, Pope Francis signalled the Church's openness to blessings for gay couples as long as they did not misrepresent the Catholic view of marriage as between one man and one woman.

[15] The document details that this type of informal and spontaneous blessing is neither a sacrament nor a rite of the Catholic Church, so no special ceremony is performed for it.

[30] All extramarital sexual relations are considered to be sinful by the Church and continue to be so, leading to the implication that the nature of the ideal affect existing between two persons in a same-sex relationship is chaste-affection.

[52][53] In Belgium, Johan Bonny, bishop of Antwerp, praised the decision as "moving towards" future recognition of same-sex sacramental marriage in the Catholic Church.

[54] Geert De Kerpel, the spokesperson for the Belgian Catholic Church, stated that it would not have an impact locally, as same-sex unions were already being blessed, but that the declaration would rightfully now apply this situation at an international level.

[65] The declaration sparked considerable controversy and criticism among Catholics, including from several conservative commentators, clerical congregations, and high-profile bishops, priests, and lay people.

[74][75] Schneider added that Fiducia supplicans was a "great deception" and warned of "evil that resides in the very permission to bless [...] same-sex couples".

[66] German cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller said that the declaraion was "sacrilegious and blasphemous",[76] and that the Catholic Church "cannot celebrate one thing and teach another".

[66] Cardinal Robert Sarah, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, called the declaration "a heresy that seriously undermines the Church".

[78] A Spanish-language petition requesting that the declaration be rescinded led Cardinal José Cobo Cano, Archbishop of Madrid, to threaten disciplinary action against any clergy in his diocese that signs it.

[79][80] Several figures associated with traditionalist Catholicism rejected the declaration, including Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States,[81] and YouTube commentator Taylor Marshall.

[84] Carl Trueman expressed concern that contemporary conservative Protestants in the West would be less able to shelter under the Roman Catholic Church's cultural umbrella as a result of Fiducia supplicans.

[85] On 20 February 2024,[86] the Synodal Biblical-Theological Commission of the Moscow Patriarchate called Fiducia supplicans an "innovation [that] reflected a sharp departure from Christian moral teaching".

[92] On 26 January 2024, addressing the DDF's annual plenary assembly, Francis said that the purpose of the blessings discussed in the document was to "concretely show the closeness of the Lord and the Church to all those who, finding themselves in different situations, ask for help to continue – sometimes to begin – a journey of faith".

Francis said that "those who vehemently protest [the document] belong to small ideological groups", while the church in Africa presented "a special case" because "for them, homosexuality is something 'ugly' from a cultural point of view".