Spanish bishop criticizes Vatican for not acting in synodal manner in drafting new document
December 22, 2023
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CWN Editor's Note: While stating that the new Vatican document on blessing same-sex couples is not heretical, a Spanish bishop criticized the Vatican for not consulting with the world’s bishops beforehand.
Recalling the consultation with the world’s bishops that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, conducted in drafting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Bishop José Ignacio Munilla of Orihuela-Alicante said that “I would have expected another way of approaching the subject. I believe that a mistake has been made by not consulting the entire episcopate, especially when pastoral reasons are alleged in the declaration.”
Given that this “is a particularly debated and sensitive issue, it’s surprising that (the Vatican did not) proceed in a synodal manner, in line with the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council. We would have been spared the dissenting reactions of episcopal conferences that we are witnessing, for example.”
Criticizing Father James Martin as well as German and Belgian priests who publicly bless same-sex unions, Bishop Munilla noted that “sectors that are in open disagreement with the sexual morality of the Church are applauding this declaration at the same time that they disobey it.”
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