Has Pope Francis changed Catholic Church teaching?
My friends at the Christian Post have asked for my insights, as a faithful Roman Catholic, regarding the recent Vatican document Fiducia Supplicans. I am honored to be asked. The Vatican’s recent actions have caused tremendous confusion. All of us who are committed to traditional Christian sexual morality must keep our wits about us if we are to navigate this mess.
The Sexual Revolution is intrinsically seductive. The Revolution claims that people can have all the sex they want, under any circumstances they want, and nothing bad will happen. Lots of people would like to believe this, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The Sexual Revolution has corrupted every authority structure in the West: political, educational, academic, all the professions, and yes, pretty much all the major religious structures.
I remember what the Episcopalians went through when their leadership insisted on ordaining homosexually active men and even consecrating an openly gay man as bishop. The denomination split. In many cases, the most traditional members lost their church property. Many placed themselves under the authority of African bishops. I thought to myself, “our brothers and sisters are in agony.”
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Now, it is our turn to suffer.
Sola Scriptura has not protected you from the ravages of the Sexual Revolution. Papal infallibility has not protected us. I conclude that unless a person or institution specifically and intentionally resists the Sexual Revolution, it will sweep you away.
Some Catholics are taking comfort from the idea that the doctrine reaffirms important points of Christian teaching. And that is technically correct. But no one needed a new 5,000-word document to reaffirm things that could have been stated in less than 100 words.
The remaining 4,900 words were weasel words. The weasel words are the point of the document. In my opinion, this document is psychological warfare, a psy op, one more psychological operation in an ongoing campaign to disarm opposition to the Sexual Revolution.
Let me be as clear as I possibly can about how Catholics understand themselves and their church. Pope Francis has not changed the teaching of the Church BECAUSE He does not have the authority to change the teaching of the Church.
Technically this document does not meet the very high threshold required for a papal pronouncement to be “infallible.” In that legalistic sense, Pope Francis has not changed the teaching of the Church on homosexual acts and the definition of marriage. I predict he will not cross that line. However, this document has changed the allowable pastoral practice so much, that our counter-cultural, life-giving teaching is obscured.
Sadly, this is not the only instance in which the gap between Catholic doctrine and Catholic practice has left us in bad shape. On paper, the Catholic Church maintains the biblical prohibition on divorce and remarriage. On paper, the Catholic Church maintains the ancient and universal Christian prohibition on contraception. But Catholic practice in both these areas is barely distinguishable from the rest of society.
The modern world thinks all moral systems are man-made and changeable. Many people in our world cannot even entertain the idea that morality could be eternal and universal. That is why I have been telling my Catholic friends, we must repeat this statement as often as possible. The teaching of the Church was given to us by God. No one has the authority to change it, including the Pope in Rome. Full stop.
If we look around us, we can see the destruction that our society has inflicted on itself by attempting to rewrite the moral law.
- The pornification of the culture.
- Marriage disappearing from the lower classes, much to the harm of their children.
- People denying the reality of male and female.
I don’t know who is really making decisions in Rome. I am not aware of any allegations of sexual misconduct by Pope Francis himself (although cover-up rumors abound). But it is undeniable that he has surrounded himself with some disreputable characters, including Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, the head of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith, and author of Fiducia Supplicans, and some known homosexualpredators.
Whomever is actually responsible for what is coming out of Rome, these men collectively are doing what gay men so often do when they gain control of an institution. They are running it into the ground for their own purposes.
Pope Francis is the pope. Catholics believe he has the responsibility to guard the ancient teachings entrusted to the church by God. Pope Francis is doing a bad job of this primary responsibility. This makes him a bad pope. We’ve survived bad popes before. We will survive this one.
As a Catholic and as a social scientist who has studied the Sexual Revolution for years, I firmly believe we must never apologize for the Church’s sexual teaching. We may have to apologize for the actions of our fellow Catholics. (After all, this is a worldwide organization of over one billion sinners.) But we must never apologize for the teaching itself. Fiducia Supplicans changes the pastoral practice to obscure the teaching. This will just mean more destruction, more grief, more pain, more brokenness.
The Ancient teaching of the Church on marriage, family, and human sexuality is good and true. It is the only intellectually coherent competitor with the Sexual Revolution. I hope all of you can join me in saying at least that much, as often and as clearly as we can.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse is Founder and President of the Ruth Institute, an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love. Dr. Morse released a video on Fiducia Supplicans on January 3, 2024.
