Francis Perfectly Answered Dubia – Just Wrongly
1. Whether Divine Revelation can be reinterpreted according to cultural changes?
Francis replied: “While it is true that Divine Revelation is immutable and always binding, the Church must be humble and recognise that it never exhausts its unfathomable richness and needs to grow in its understanding.”
[Plain text: yes]
2. Whether homosex unions can be blessed and there is good in sinful situations?
Francis replied that homosex unions should not be called marriage however in dealing with people “pastoral charity must not be lost” made up of kindness, patience, tenderness and encouragement, “We cannot become judges who deny, reject, exclude.” Pastoral prudence must discern forms of blessings, requested by one or more persons that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage. Persons in objectively morally not acceptable situations should not be treated as sinners.
[Plain text: yes]
3. Whether synodality replaces the authority of the Papacy?
Francis replied that the Dubia submitted by Cardinals themselves claim some form of synodality in the exercise of Papal ministry.
[Plain text: remains unanswered but implies a no]
4. Whether the Church can ordain women to the priesthood?
Francis replied that “a clear and authoritative doctrine about the exact nature of a ‘definitive statement’ has not yet been exhaustively developed.”
[Plain text: yes]
5. Whether a penitent [=fornicator] can be absolved from sins without contrition?
Francis replies that repentance is necessary for the validity of sacramental absolution, “but” the confessional is not a custom house, “Already approaching confession is a symbolic expression of repentance.”
[Plain text: yes]
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