By Jesse T. Jackson, ChurchLeaders newsletter
Franklin Graham, president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, denounced Pope Francis in a Facebook post on Monday (Dec. 18) for approving Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples.
“So-called ‘blessings’ from religious leaders won’t save you from the judgment of God,” Graham said. “Pope Francis has now approved Catholic priests ‘blessing’ same-sex couples. But none of us, including the Pope, has the right to ‘bless’ what God calls sin.”
Quoting Isaiah 5:20, Graham warned the Pope and others who agree with him that they have no right to “call evil good and good evil.”
“The Good News is that right now God will forgive sin,” Graham said. “But we have to come to Him His way, on His terms by repenting of our sins and placing our faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Otherwise, the Bible says, ‘The destruction of transgressors and of sinners shall be together, and those who forsake the LORD shall be consumed (Isaiah 1:28),’” Graham added.
On Monday, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith declared in its Fiducia Supplicansthat Catholic priests are permitted “the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.”
Although these “blessings” of same-sex couples are now permitted, the declaration made it clear that the sacrament of marriage is still only between a man and a woman, stating “the Church’s doctrine on this point remains firm.”
“God never turns away anyone who approaches him! Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God,” the declaration stated. “The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live. It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered.”
This move signals a reversal from the Vatican’s position, as it stated in 2021, that the Catholic Church wouldn’t bless same-sex marriages because God “cannot bless sin.”
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler called new “blessings” of same-sex couples a “disaster” in his podcast, The Briefing, on Tuesday.
“It’s a disaster, I think, on many fronts,” Mohler said, “but in particular it’s a disaster because the impact of this in the larger culture is going to be to add momentum to the very forces that are tearing apart gender, tearing apart sexuality, tearing apart civilization, tearing apart marriage, tearing apart sexual morality, and all the rest.”
First published Dec. 20, 2023
Jesse T. Jackson is the Content Editor for ChurchLeaders and Site Manager for ChristianNewsNow. Follow him on twitter here (https://twitter.com/jessetjackson). Accredited member of the Evangelical Press Association.
