Does Fiducia Supplicans fall under papal infallibility, and can I disagree with it?
A viewer asks whether Fiducia Supplicans falls under the umbrella of the Pope's infallibility on faith and morals, and what it means if one disagrees with it.
Answer
We can definitely say it is not an infallible teaching. There is a canon that says nothing is to be deemed infallible teaching unless it is expressly manifest that it is infallible. So motu proprios, encyclicals, and letters from the Pope are not infallible, never were and never will be. The only time the Pope teaches infallibly is when he says, this is an infallible teaching, and even then you have to be careful. So you do not have to agree with it. You can give it your respect because it comes from the Pope, but you can also say, I just do not think you are going in the right direction, following Canon 212, which says we have the right and duty to tell our pastors when they have gone off the track. The bishops of Africa did this in unison, telling the Pope, we love you, but you are going off the deep end on this one, and gave public dissent. It is delicate, because you have to respect the Pope and yet stick up for the truth. The one thing we are happy about is that Fiducia Supplicans did not condone gay marriage, which is what everybody feared; it says exactly the opposite. But on the other hand, it gave the impression that homosexual couples can receive a blessing from the church, with all kinds of arguments that blessings are just spontaneous things. In the real world you give people an impression; if you go the legal route and say there is nothing really illegal about it and leave it there, you are not dealing with the real world, and they know your agenda. And Pope Francis has a notorious history regarding homosexuality: in Argentina he tried to make civil unions. So we know where his mind is at, and he does not get any grace from us just for being legal.