By Austine J. Crasta, STL –
Q: A recent statement (dtd. February 22, 2021 but made public March 15, 2021) by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) maintaining the inability of the Church to bless unions of the same sex has generated strong reactions in certain quarters, including among some within the Church. Even among Catholics who accept the theological position of the Church in this regard, some have expressed disappointment with the way the statement is formulated. How must this communication be understood?
A: Our reader has asked a very pertinent question with regard to Church and communications. Communicating on polarising issues in an honest and respectful way is never easy. And in the process of media transmission, it is not unusual for missing cues to cause a piece of communication to become obscured or even entirely distorted.
A very important cue that many seem to have overlooked with regard to the Vatican’s latest communication is the genre of the document. The CDF statement was not meant to be a ‘press release’ meant for communication at large. Instead, it was a very specific genre of communication in the form of a traditional dubium/responsum (doubt/response).
In this form of communication, dicasteries in the Vatican’s Roman Curia competent to provide authentic interpretations or authoritative responses on matters within their competences, are queried (especially by bishops) on specific questions on which clarification and guidance is sought. Such questions are formulated (traditionally, in Latin) to elicit a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ response, i.e., either an “Affirmative” or a “Negative”.
Beyond answering in the “Affirmative” or “Negative,” a Responsum (Response) might sometimes add a very brief note of explanation. The ‘tone’ used throughout is quite formal with the decision arrived at explained using objective, rational and logical criteria drawn primarily from dogmatic, ethical and legislative considerations.
The present reply follows the same style of Communication but has a more elaborate Explanatory Note and another very instructive accompanying Commentary which readers can read in its entirety at the links provided below.
Understood in this way, the Responsum must be taken as providing a brief but concrete response to a very specific query rather than a satisfactory solution to a complex pastoral issue that requires a multidisciplinary approach informed also by the sciences.
- Read the Documents:
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a dubium regarding the blessing of the unions of persons of the same sex (February 22, 2021) - Article of Commentary on the Responsum ad dubium
Austine J. Crasta is a theologian, visual artist and a catholic communicator from Bangalore, India and currently based out of Belgium.