On Religion: As Pope Leo XIV Takes Charge, German Church Tests Doctrinal Limits
(ANALYSIS) The days after a pope's death are hectic, and it's a hard time for Vatican officials to examine complex, controversial documents.
Nevertheless, the bishops of Germany announced — two days after Pope Francis died on April 21 — guidelines for handling blessings for same-sex couples and other “irregular” relationships. The document, entitled “Blessing Gives Strength to Love,” mentioned, with a nod to the Vatican, that such rites "should be designed in such a way that there is no confusion with the liturgical celebration of the sacrament of marriage.”
The instructions, however, noted the need to consider a "couple's wishes" about the setting, choosing details “in a theologically meaningful way.” Also, the “aesthetics, including music and singing, should express the appreciation of the people who ask for the blessing, their togetherness and their faith.” Appropriate “biblical texts should be recited” and interpreted.
Blessing prayers should proclaim: “Those God blesses, upon whom he 'makes his face shine,’” are blessed to thrive “under God's loving gaze.”
Then, on May 2, a committee of German bishops and laity announced plans to discuss a text entitled “Respecting decisions of conscience in matters of birth control.” On May 3, Bishop Georg Batzing — chair of the German bishops' conference — voiced his full support for the ordination of women in Catholic ministry.
Welcome to the Chair of St. Peter, Pope Leo XIV.
While outsiders have focused on the political impact of the 267th pope — an American who has served in Peru and Rome — insiders have searched the career of Robert Francis Prevost for hints as to how he will handle conflicts about Catholic worship and doctrine. Germany is ground zero.
“Both orthodox Catholics and modernists have been celebrating, while there have been naysayers on both sides, too," noted Vatican analyst Serre Verweij, writing for Rorate Caeli ("Drop down, O heavens"). “This reflects the fact Prevost was touted as a 'compromise candidate' and pushed by strong prelates on both sides. Both the orthodox and the modernists seem to think, or hope, that the new Pope actually leans more in their direction. ... So, to put it crudely, the real question is: who got played?”
Texts — past and present — produced by Prevost are being analyzed and reanalyzed by his supporters and critics.
In his first homily, the 69-year-old Pope Leo XIV focused on challenges missionaries and apologists face in a world dominated by mass media, digital technology and global corporations. There are many settings, he said, in which “Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. ... These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied.”
But this is where missionaries are needed, added the former leader of the global Order of Saint Augustine, since a “lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.”
Many nonbelievers, but also "many baptized Christians," accept Jesus as “a kind of charismatic leader or superman" and "end up living ... in a state of practical atheism.”
While many LGBTQ+ Catholic leaders have welcomed Leo XIV, others have recoiled from passages in a 2012 Synod on Evangelization address.
“The sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyle choices that mass media fosters is so brilliantly and artfully ingrained in the viewing public that when people hear the Christian message, it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel," noted Prevost, then a bishop. "Catholic pastors who preach against the legalization of abortion, or the redefinition of marriage, are portrayed as being ideologically driven, severe, and uncaring. ... Note, for example, how alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children are so benignly and sympathetically portrayed in television programs and cinema today.”
In a public statement, New Ways Ministry director Francis DeBernardo responded: “We pray that in the 13 years that have passed ... that his heart and mind have developed more progressively on LGBTQ+ issues. … Pope Francis opened the door to a new approach to LGBTQ+ people; Pope Leo must now guide the church through that door.”
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Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.