On August 29, the Yahoo Finance website published an article by Quartz’s Annalissa Merelli headlined, “The Vatican is in damage-control mode after the Pope sent his blessings to a same-sex family.” The article details Pope Francis’s response to a lesbian woman who sent him a book she authored which translates to English as, Why do you have two moms?
Italian writer Francesca Pardi penned a letter to the pontiff back in June that expressed her respect for Catholics and how many have treated her well while complaining that some in “catholic organizations” have “lowered themselves to unworthy behaviors, deliberately deforming reality, the very ones who are meant to demonstrate a superior moral fiber," as such, "I would really like for you to stop them" she asked the bishop of Rome.
Much to her surprise, Pope Francis responded to Ponti nearly three weeks after she sent the letter. Postmarked July 10, it came via Monsignor Peter Brian Wells. Pardi recapped the Pope’s letter on her Facebook page. She wrote:
He thanks me for the kind gesture and for the sentiment that motivated it, and hopes for an always more fruitful activity at the service of young generations and sharing authentic human and christian values.
Here’s where Merelli tries to make a controversy. She writes:
The Pope closes the letter with his “apostle’s blessing” (a special benediction), for Pardi, she said, “together with Ms Maria Silvia Fiengo”—her same-sex partner and the other mother of her four children.
Pardi and others in Italy’s LGBTQ community in Italy took the Pope’s message as a sign of acceptance: In particular, his saying her work is “at the service of young generations” and the fact that he imparted a blessing upon her and her same-sex partner.
Merelli’s title of her article suggests that because Pope Francis closed with an “apostle’s blessing” (a special benediction), that was a sign of acceptance – a “groundbreaking” big deal. Of course, getting a letter from the Pope IS kind of a big deal, but does Merelli not know that it’s common practice for letters sent by the pope to often end with an Apostle’s Blessing to the person addressed and others associated with that person?
The Vatican didn’t deny the correspondence between Pope Francis and Pardi, but they did issue a statement that the letter in no way “…meant to endorse behaviors and teachings unfit to the Gospel.”
They also reiterated that “the Pope’s blessing was meant for the individual, and was “not in line with the church’s doctrine on gender theory, which has not changed in the slightest.”
There is no controversy here. There is no need for damage control. This is just another failed attempt by the liberal media using clickbait headlines to rile up conservatives and those within the Catholic Church, and make Pope Francis look like their left-leaning liberal savior to the public.
Wrong again.
