De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

The British Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, a group of over 500 priests in England and Wales,  has issued a statement concerning marriage and family life following the release of excerpts from the documentary 'Francesco.' The statement is a simple re-statement of Catholic teaching, including the necessity of sensitivity and compassion when dealing with sensitive and difficult issues, however it balances this compassionate approach with the need for the Church to teach the truth that the normalisation of same-sex relationships harms individuals, damages marriage and society at large. As I have long thought - this is important stuff that the Church has consistently held and taught and cannot be diminished in an off-hand comment. To do so is - at best - extremely irresponsible, not least because, as head of the Catholic Church, one would hope the Pope had some inkling that at least a few people know what the Church teaches and maybe even follow it? So what about all those peop...

Fr Ray Blake comments on the article in L'Osservatore Romano which I blogged about yesterday here.  The conclusion Fr Ray draws is thought provoking: If the L'Osservatore article is correct, and there is no reason to imagine that it is not, or that it is just reserved to Rome or Italy, it would seem that despite popular acclaim of journalists and those outside or the edge of the Church that the clergy as it says 'high and low' -and presumably the committed laity- will quickly forget Francis, most of them of course will still continue when Francis moulders silently in his tomb amongst his predecessors. 'In the end the Lord wins'. Read Fr Ray's full post here . Jeffrey Mirus has some more pertinent observations here . Whenever people speak or write in this way it is because they wish to justify some position or course of action which is likely to meet greater resistance if it is clearly articulated. For Catholics, it is always at least potentiall...