It didn’t take long for the world to respond — in a veritable firestorm — to the Vatican’s release of Fiducia supplicans just three weeks ago. Within days, images of priests donning vestments and blessing homosexual couples in front of altars in Germany and the U.S. were circulating the internet alongside declarations from bishops worldwide critiquing the document, prohibiting priests in their diocese from publicly imparting blessings to same-sex couples.

The response has been so extreme that on Thursday the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith (DDF) published a press release signed by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the DDF, to provide further clarification to the more confusing elements of Fiducia supplicans — even though the original document had indicated that no such clarification would be forthcoming. (RELATED from Aubrey Gulick: Vatican Offers Blessings to Same-Sex Couples. It’s Not What You Think.)

Oddly enough, Fernández’s latest statement seemed to walk back, or at least downplay, some of the more controversial and significant elements of the document — including what he called a “non-ritualized” blessing for homosexual couples. At the same time, the press release fails to address some of the more practical questions being raised by Catholics around the world.

Nothing Has Changed About Marriage

Similar to the original declaration, Thursday’s DDF press release emphasized that nothing has changed about the Catholic Church’s teaching on the sacrament of marriage. Marriage is, and always has been, the permanent union between a man and a woman for the procreation of children and the “good of the spouses.”

The fact that Fiducia supplicans allows clergy to give “spontaneous” and “non-liturgical” blessings to couples in unions not recognized by the Church does not, the release states, contradict that teaching. Fernández points to a passage in the declaration citing a 2021 Responsum, or an official Vatican statement, which says that “the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex.” (READ MORE: Who’s the Vandal?)

As far as the Church is concerned, anything approximating gay marriage can never exist — and, as the press release clarifies, the blessings are just that: simple blessings that should take mere seconds. Fernández writes: “We are talking about something that lasts about 10 or 15 seconds. Does it make sense to deny these kinds of blessings to these two people who ask for them?”

Fiducia supplicans is simply novel in that it places stronger distinction between “liturgical” and “non-liturgical” blessings.

Bishops Should Make Their Own Pastoral Decisions

Whether or not the DDF intended that the blessings be private, small, and spontaneous, the reality has been clergy like Fr. James Martin publicizing what they’re calling “historic” blessings of gay couples. Ultimately, the conclusion many Catholics and the wider public seem to have drawn is that something radical has shifted within the Catholic Church.

As a result, bishops around the world have decided to speak out: The document, they argue, is dangerous because it’s confusing. Bishops in Kazakstan, Ukraine, Zambia, Malawi, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Ghana have all told priests within their dioceses not to bless same-sex couples.

The Pillar indicates that the Church hierarchy initially wasn’t likely to tolerate any member of the clergy who refused to grant spontaneous blessings, but that seems to have changed. Fernández acknowledged that bishops have the power to discern in their diocese whether such blessings would be wise — and he admits that episcopal conferences can also advise that priests not administer the blessings for cultural or legal reasons.

In many ways, that’s a huge concession, especially given the kinds of statements made by Church leaders like Archbishop Tomash Peta in Astana, Kazakhstan. Peta went so far as to say that “[t]o bless couples in an irregular situation and same-sex couples is a serious abuse of the most Holy Name of God, since this name is invoked upon an objectively sinful union of adultery or of homosexual activity.”

Is a Couple a Union?

At the root of the whole controversy — one at which Peta nods and Fernández subsequently addressed explicitly — is the meaning of the word “couple” as it’s used in Fiducia supplicans.

The declaration wants to make a distinction between “couple,” two individuals who perceive themselves in some kind of relationship, and “union,” the relationship between the individuals. Unfortunately, that’s a distinction that is easily lost in translation and possibly represents the “desk-bound theology” Pope Francis warned Fernánedez about shortly after his appointment to the DDF. (READ MORE: Conservative Methodist Exit Nears End Point)

Soon after the publication of Fiducia supplicans, Fr. Gerald Murray, a canon lawyer from New York and a frequent guest on EWTN, took issue with the document’s use of the word “couple” as confusing compared to the traditional use of the word in the Church. It’s usually used to describe “a man and a woman who are married, or are engaged to be married, or dating in view of possibly getting married.” The word “couple” typically indicates that the two individuals are seeking a legitimate union in the Church, or marriage.

Murray further points out that “the use of the word couple is in fact a surrender to the heretical ideology that proclaims that homosexual couples are just as much couples are heterosexual couples.”

Fernández’s response to this critique is that the document intends to make a distinction; therefore, a distinction exists. Ironically, even though Fiducia supplicans prohibits any formulaic blessing, Fernández seems to give an example of one — the cleric blesses both individuals separately with the sign of the cross after praying that God will “[f]ree them from everything that contradicts your Gospel and allow them to live according to your will.”

A Source of Confusion

The problem with Fiducia supplicans is that the actual meaning of the declaration as it was intended by the Vatican and the DDF conflicts with the practical interpretation and perception of it. In the context of the war on marriage taking place in the culture — both in the U.S. and across the world — the declaration has been a source of confusion.

Fernández wants a pastoral, spontaneous, seconds-long blessing calling a couple to conversion (at least according to the press release), but that’s not what has happened in the more liberal dioceses around the world. Unless the Vatican is willing to publicly (and loudly) correct and censor bishops and priests who take these “spontaneous” blessings too far, it’s unlikely that the confusion will clear.