Thread by @DouthatNYT

On the implications of the Vatican document on blessings for same-sex couples, a brief thread. 1/X

In the pontificate's 1st stage I worried about Francis pushing the church over a "precipice" w/attempts at doctrinal change. But in the 2nd stage, after the family synods, there was a retreat to a strategy of ambiguous liberalization that avoided sharp doctrinal confrontation.

This still seemed to me to inevitably exacerbate tensions in the long run, widening gaps between liberal and conservative practice, encouraging liberals to always push further - a "slow road" to schism.
nytimes.com/2019/09/14/opi…

My initial take on Vatican permission for (a kind of) SSM blessings has been that it's more of the same, a move that claims to preserve doctrine as against the dramatic changes demanded by progressives; contradiction-heightening but not crisis-creating:
nytimes.com/2023/11/29/opi…

Following the reaction though I want to caveat that "more of the same" take, bc the core question raised by the document is what it asks/requires of priests. Is this a permission to offer blessings of the (ambiguous) kind envisioned, or a requirement?

If "permission" then the document essentially encourages the increasing separation of practice between different Catholic parishes, dioceses and countries. Again, in keeping with the larger pattern of (ambiguous) papal permissions for (partial) liberalization.

If it's a "requirement" for such blessings, OTOH, the document sets up a situation where conservative practice becomes disobedience, where a form of liberalization can be effectively demanded and not just embraced where it's desired.

The latter situation much more likely to lead to an explicit crisis of authority. Which is no doubt why the document declines to clarify: "no further responses should be expected about possible ways to regulate details or practicalities regarding blessings of this type."

That line seeks to immunize Rome from demands from more liberal Catholics for some kind of enforcement mechanism against conservative priests and bishops. But the rest of the document makes such liberal demands seem entirely plausible.

So the document is not a full departure from the "slow road" situation -- but only because Rome does not want to exercise enforcement powers. But it is a shift, insofar as the document legitimizes demands that, if answered, could push things closer to a breaking point. /fin