An international coalition of traditionalist Catholics is urging Pope Leo XIV to repeal the two edicts from Pope Francis that permit couples in adulterous partnerships to receive Holy Communion and authorize priests to offer nonliturgical blessings to homosexual couples.
The petition marks the first joint effort by traditionalist Catholics, who have thus far been largely silent on the new papacy’s ambivalent approach to issues of sexual morality, to challenge Leo’s acceptance of the two controversial declarations, Amoris Laetitia and Fiducia Supplicans, as part of the Church’s magisterium.
Issued on September 15, the appeal accuses Pope Francis of having “further aggravated” the “widespread confusion among Catholics” by opening a “breach” within the Church “that would accept adultery — by permitting divorced and then civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion — and would virtually accept even homosexual unions.”
The petitioners “boldly and respectfully” implore Leo that “a word from Your Holiness is the only way to clarify the growing confusion amongst the faithful.” They request him “to reaffirm the prohibition on granting any blessing to homosexual pairs” issued by the Vatican in 2021.
Petition Names Prelates Campaigning to Change Catholic Teaching
Signed by 25 national associations that trace their inspiration to Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, the Brazilian thinker and founder of the Tradition, Family and Property movement, the petitioners ask Leo to “clearly reiterate that those who are divorced and civilly remarried, but sexually cohabiting “cannot receive sacramental absolution nor, as public sinners, Holy Communion.”
The appeal to Leo emphasizes the worsening of the situation regarding homosexuality and the “proliferation of statements by high-ranking prelates calling for an updating of Church teaching,” warning that “some prelates and theologians are already demanding the discarding of so-called moralist prejudices by historicizing situations, updating the Church’s two-thousand-year-old language, and adapting it to the present times.”
Italian archbishops Francesco Savino and Hervé Giraud, as well as cardinals Timothy Radcliffe, Robert W. McElroy, and Jean-Claude Hollerich, claim that the sociological and scientific basis of homosexuality “is incorrect” and hence no longer valid.
The petition also slams the recent pilgrimage of more than 1,200 LGBTQ+ pilgrims who entered the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica “under the pretext of obtaining Jubilee indulgences” as an “open offensive” that offered heterodox campaigners “an occasion of great visibility.”
Leo Affirms Same-Sex Blessings Edict in First Interview
The publication of the petition coincided with the release of Leo’s first interview with Catholic magazine Crux, in which he states that his approach to LGBTQ Catholics will be similar to that of Francis, while assuring conservatives that Church teaching will remain unchanged.
“What I’m trying to say is what Francis said very clearly when he would say, “todos, todos, todos.” Everyone’s invited in, but I don’t invite a person in because they are or are not of any specific identity. I invite a person in because they are a son or daughter of God,” the pope said.
However, several conservative Catholics reacted with alarm to the pontiff’s suggestion that “we have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the Church says about any given question.”
While Leo affirmed Francis’s declaration permitting same-sex blessings in the interview, he argued that certain clergy were going against the stipulations of the edict by offering liturgical blessings to homosexual couples. “Fiducia Supplicans, [which] basically says, of course, we can bless all people, but it doesn’t look for a way of ritualizing some kind of blessing because that’s not what the Church teaches,” he explained.
Petition Ignores Leo’s Endorsement of Magisterial Change on Death Penalty
While protesting magisterial alterations to sexual morality, the traditionalist associations, however, fail to raise the issue of Leo’s categorical rejection of the death penalty and his endorsement of Francis’s magisterial affirmation of the inadmissibility of capital punishment in the papal declaration Dignitas Infinita.
Despite the unambiguous teaching of the Bible and church tradition on the legitimacy of the death penalty, Leo has definitively rejected it and even affirmed an “interconnectedness” between abortion and the death penalty in a powerful endorsement of the “seamless garment” ethic of life propounded by Cardinal Joseph Bernadin, the former archbishop of Chicago.
“A Catholic cannot truly claim to be ‘pro-life’ by maintaining a stance against abortion while simultaneously advocating in favor of the death penalty,” Leo declared, while receiving an honorary doctorate in 2023 from the Universidad Católica Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo in Chiclayo, Peru. “Such a position would lack coherence with Catholic social teaching.”
In April 2022, while serving as bishop of Chiclayo, the then Robert Prevost rejected both the death penalty and chemical castration for a pedophile who savagely raped a three-year-old girl when he was bishop in Peru, aligning himself with Pope Francis’s magisterial repudiation of capital punishment even in the face of heinous crimes, The Stream reported.
Dr. Jules Gomes (BA, BD, MTh, PhD) has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.
