Cardinal flies to Rome to convey African rejection of Fiducia Supplicans

Cardinal Ambongo, adviser to the Pope, flew to Rome to Protest to Pope Francis…

By ACI Prensa/CNA

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, President of SECAM (Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar) since 2023, has also been a member of Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinal Advisers since 2020 (photo: Wikipedia)

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besengu, OFM Cap, president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), recently recounted step by step how the rejection of the blessing of homosexual couples was handled on the African continent and at the Vatican during January.

In an interview posted January 18 on the French lay Catholic blog Le Salon Beige, the cardinal explained what happened in Africa after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), headed by Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, published the declaration Fiducia Supplicans, which allows the blessing of same-sex couples and couples in irregular situations.

Reactions in Africa

“When on December 18, we received the document Fiducia Supplicans, signed by the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and co-signed by His Holiness Pope Francis, it caused a shockwave in Africa,” Cardinal Ambongo said. “We didn’t understand what was happening at the Church level. Furthermore, other churches that called us said: ‘We count on the Catholic Church to oppose this ideology. Now, you are the first to authorize the blessing of homosexual couples.’ All of you, all of you, have suffered for this. A lot. Everyone has suffered for this,” the cardinal lamented.

“The reactions began. And with all responsibility, I wrote to all the episcopal conferences of Africa and Madagascar,” continued Ambongo, who is the archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“The episcopal conferences wrote. I printed all the reactions from all the episcopal conferences. I made a synthesis in a document,” he said.

Ambongo said he then wrote a seven-page letter on January 11 to Pope Francis not only as president of SECAM but also as “his adviser, member of the council of the nine cardinals who accompany the Pope for the reform of the Church.”

He then traveled to Rome to meet with the pontiff, telling one of the Pope’s private secretaries why he had come and giving him all the documentation: the reactions of the episcopal conferences, the synthesis, and his personal letter.

That same day the Holy Father received him: “The Pope was very sad,” Ambongo said. “I must say that he was the first to suffer from all the reactions that came from all over the world. He suffers for it because he is a human being. This doesn’t make him happy.

“I reached an agreement with him because I told him that the solution to this issue is no longer to send us documents with theological or philosophical definitions of blessings. The people are not interested in that. What is of interest now is a communication that reassures the people in Africa, that calms the spirits of the faithful. And he, as a pastor, was touched by this situation,” the African cardinal concluded.

Working with Fernández

The Holy Father put Ambongo in contact with Cardinal Fernández, who agreed to work with him the next day at the DDF, “the most important dicastery from the point of view of the Catholic faith.”

“With the prefect, myself in front of the computer, a secretary writing, we prepared a document,” Ambongo said. “And we prepared the document in dialogue and agreement with Pope Francis, so that at every moment we called him to ask him questions, to see if he agreed with that formulation, etc.”

When completed, Ambongo said, “I signed the document as president of SECAM on behalf of the entire Catholic Church in Africa. And the prefect of the dicastery signed it, not the document that was made public, but the document that we keep in the archives.” The document is entitled “No to the blessing of homosexual couples in the Catholic Churches,” the cardinal said.

Ambongo clarified that “I signed it in Rome.”

“This is to express our position today in Africa and we do it in a spirit of communion, of synodality with Pope Francis, and with the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: In Africa there is no place to bless homosexual couples. Not at all,” he stressed.

On Jauary. 11, the African bishops published a five-page statement stating: “The Episcopal Conferences of all Africa, which have strongly reaffirmed their communion with Pope Francis, believe that the extra-liturgical blessings proposed in the declaration Fiducia Supplicans cannot be carried out in Africa without exposing themselves to scandals.”

Ambongo stressed that, although Africa opposes the blessing of samesex couples, it is necessary to “respect homosexual people because they are human beings… They are creatures of God. And as creatures of God, if an individual homosexual asks for a blessing, we bless the person.”

The cardinal pointed out that these blessings for individual persons are given “in the hope that the grace of the blessing can help them convert.”

He added: “And if we bless a homosexual, it is also to say that ‘your sexual orientation is not in accordance with the will of God and we hope that the blessing can help you change because homosexuality is condemned in the Bible and by the magisterium of the Church.’

“We cannot be promoters of sexual deviation,” he said. “Let them do it in their homes, but not in ours.”

Marriage, family in Africa vs. the West

Ambongo also lamented that currently “in the West, since they don’t like children, they want to attack the basic cell of humanity, which is the family. If you destroy the family, you destroy society.”

The cardinal remarked that now in the West the meaning of marriage has also been lost and culture “is in decline,” something that also affects the economy. “Little by little, they are going to disappear. They will disappear. We wish them a good demise,” he continued.

“However, our culture in Africa is not like that. Yes, we have many defects, but we cannot be reproached for homosexuality. You can find isolated cases, like those in Uganda,” he said, but “society doesn’t work that way. That practice does not exist among us.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

“It is not surprising the bishops of Africa are heralds of truth”

Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, wrote his own response to the Fiducia Supplicans controversy (photo: Grzegorz Galazka)

An excerpt from the “Christmas Message” of Cardinal Robert Sarah, 78, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, published by the website Settimo Cielo on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 2024

The Declaration Fiducia Supplicans writes that the blessing is instead intended for people who “ask that all that is true, good and humanly valuable in their lives and in their relationships be invested, healed and elevated by the presence of the Spirit Holy” (n. 31). But what is good, true and humanly valid in a homosexual relationship, defined by the Holy Scriptures and Tradition as a serious and “intrinsically disordered” depravity? How can such a writing correspond to the Book of Wisdom which states: “Troubled thoughts lead away from God, and Power, when tested, confounds fools.” No, Wisdom does not enter an evil soul, it does not dwell in a body dependent on sin. For the Holy Spirit, the teacher, flees deceit” (Wis 1:3-5). The only thing to ask of people who are in an unnatural relationship is to convert and conform to the Word of God.

[…]

The Church of Africa is the voice of the poor, the simple and the small. It is responsible for proclaiming the Word of God to Western Christians who, because they are rich, endowed with multiple skills in philosophy, theological, biblical and canonical sciences, believe themselves to be evolved, modern and wise in wisdom of the world. But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men” (1Cor 1:25). It is therefore not surprising that the bishops of Africa, in their poverty, are today the heralds of this divine truth in the face of the power and wealth of certain episcopates in the West. For “whatever is foolish in the world, this is what God has chosen to confound the wise; God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame what is strong.” (1Cor 1:27).