Pope Francis Same Sex declaration: Leo X and Luther’s Argument on the Defence of conscience, Truth

“If it is  same sex blessing, it is not possible in Africa, it is not possible in our culture, and then when the Pope says, they could be blessed, then, that creates confusion. For us, the sanctity of marriage is so serious. To  give a blessing to something that is a deviation , a moral deviation, that is not right -Bishop Kaigama

January 4, 2024, News/Comments

COMMENTARY-Pope Francis, leader of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics across the world announced on December 17, 2023 that priests are now allowed to bless the relationships of same-sex couples and others in what the  Vatican refers to as “irregular situations” Later on, the Voice of America (VOA) reported that the Papacy declaration titled, “Fiducia Supplicans on the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings,” appears to overturn a 2021 ruling issued by the same office of the Vatican, which found that such blessings were impermissible because the church “cannot bless sin.” The Pope’s recent declaration is now a sort of confusion generating  controversy among Catholics, and its lay faithfuls.

Then comes the outburst of  Burundi’s President  ,Evarite Ndayishmiye, who totally rejected the Vatican’s declaration on same sex marriage,  asking citizens of his country to stone any gay practitioner  to death, and even initiated a crackdown on sexual minorities  where LGBT people already face social ostracism and jail terms of up to two years if convicted of same-sex offence. The President in a strong terms warned:

“If you want to attract a curse to the country, accept homosexuality,” I even think that these people, if we find them in Burundi, it is better to lead them to a stadium and stone them. And that cannot be a sin,”  He concluded by blaming the West for her rascality and recklessness  in promoting  homosexuality.

Now, Pope Francis’s pronouncement is already a battle of cultural ‘non acceptance’ by some of his subjects based on moral principle and biblical  justification. “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”  ( 2Corinthian 6:14) .

Sadly, African countries have rejected the Vatican same sex marriage blessing except Ghana, Kenya while Western Countries, such as Austria,  Germany, France, United States, Philippines and Ukraine have accepted it, and even hoping for its implementation by the Vatican.

Do Christians generally need to debate the Pope’s declaration, as it is an abomination before us in African, because our cultural beliefs, and philosophical thoughts is unique in values. And if it is by a call to repentance for same sex partners who have conscience, as explained by some Bishops, then, repentance is no longer a self-denial of wrongs and obedient to God’s commandments. First, from creation, “God made them male and female” , and any dogma whether expressly or by implied does not adhere to this simple terms, should not be regarded as moral and godly.

It was the late Prof. Chinua Achebe, in his book, ‘There was a country’ that told us a short story about how a madman in his own town could identify the importance of cultural value and the danger of foreign desecration. He gave this narrative when a white man was teaching Ogidi people the geography of the West, rather than  local geography of the people.

“The village madman came by, and after  standing and listening to the teacher’s lesson for a short while, walked up to him, snatched the chalk from the teacher’s hand, wiped the chalkboard, and then proceeded to give us an extended lesson on Ogidi”

The prolific writer’s view was that, the so called madman could identify the congruity of their situation, that the pupil would benefit , not only from the colonial education but also by instruction about their own history and culture. The West by now should know that people are well educated and well-informed, and so,  neocolonialism whether on religion or political will be impracticable.

But then, what is culture. It is the value of our true identity as a people, whether on traditions, economy  or religion . That is why I agree with the Catholic  Archbishop of Abuja diocese, Most Rev. Dr. Ignatius Kaigama, who on Arise Tv NewsNigtht on December 30, said, the Vatican’s pronouncement on same sex marriage blessing is a serious test for the majority of Catholics, even as he expressed confidence that the church will surmount it but further explained the misunderstanding of Pope’s  declaration by many:

“If you read the document thoroughly, you will find out that the Pope is not actually saying, people who are of the same sex could present themselves to the church, and the priest will bless them, that’s certainly not the case. The issue of marriage is definite, it is conclusive.”

Fr. Kaigama noted that marriage, as far as Christian faith is concerned , is designed between a man and a woman. And even in our African traditions and cultures, we know-that is it. There is no argument about this. I am a priest, and I stand by my priestly commitment to ensure that we implement marriage as man and woman.

The Archbishop faulted critics of giving hasty generalization of Pope’s declaration , stating that people didn’t understand but quoted the Pope out of content.

“The Pope has been talking about mercy, and even declared a year of mercy-we should be opened to embrace saints or sinners, and so, the category we are talking about, people who say, they are of same sex orientations, are also human beings. The Pope had said, it is not right for a man and a man to marry, and we can’t bless such a union.  The Church can’t bless sin, it would be regarded as a deviation. As a priest, people come to you, and asked for blessings. Spontaneously, I give the blessings. When two same sex people come to us and say, bless us as couple, we want to remain a couple, we don’t accept that.”

The respected Bishop further state, “if it is  same sex blessing, it is not possible in Africa, it is not possible in our culture, and then when the Pope says, they could be blessed, then, that creates confusion. For us, the sanctity of marriage is so serious. To  give a blessing to something that is a deviation , a moral deviation, that is not right.”

Now that the Vatican has given the order of blessing same sex marriage, a contradiction of the bible. The question before us is,  can the Bishops in their various dioceses  overrule the Pope or rebel against him, like in the case of Pope Leo X and Fr. Martin Luther King Jr. May be that is the direction the situation will go but I do not hope so.

Meanwhile, according to John Foxe in his book titled, ‘The New Foxe’s Book of Martyrs’ published in 2001,  gave detailed insight of similar order of Pope Leo X, which Martin Luther rebelled against with biblical facts. Foxe’s narrative:

“In 1508, Martin Luther Jr.  was ordained at the monetary, and in 1509, was sent to the University of Wittenberg where he continued his studies and lectured in moral philosophy. In 1510, Luther visited Rome on business for his order and was shocked to find some open corruption among leading church officials. In 1511, he received a doctorate in Theology, and was appointed a Professor of Scripture at Wittenberg. Although Luther was well acquainted with Roman Catholic Scholastic theology, the seriousness with which he took his Christianity and condition of his soul led him into a severe personal crisis. In the theology that he had been taught, he could not find the answer to his increasing concern as to whether to reconcile the demands of God’s law with human inability to live up to that law. To find his answer, he made the study of the Bible the center of his work, and in his studies concentrated on the epistle of the Apostle Paul, especially Paul’s letter to the Romans. It was there that he found his answer:

“In the death of Christ on the cross,  God had reconciled humanity to Himself. Christ was now the sole mediator between God and man, and forgiveness of sin and salvation are effected by God’s grace alone, and are received by faith. What was required therefore, was not a person’s strict adherence to the law or the fulfillment of religious obligations, but a response of faith that accepted what God had done in the finished work of Christ. As such faith matured , it would lead to obedience based not on fear of punishment, but on love”

“As Luther continued in his studies, he found that Paul’s doctrines were radically different than the traditional beliefs and teachings of the Roman church. This affected Luther’s personal teaching and they soon began increasingly to turn away from those beliefs and doctrines. Before long he was totally against Roman scholastic theology that emphasized man’s role in his own salvation, and against many church practices that emphasized justification by good works. His new understanding of the true Gospel and the finished work of Christ soon led to a clash between him and church officials.”

“In 1517, Luther had his first direct confrontation with his church over the selling of indulgences. To raise money to build st. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Pope Leo X started selling indulgences to Roman Catholics. These promised partial remission of the amount of time that a person, either the buyer or a loved one, had to suffer in purgatory for their sins. Soon after, some of the more cunning clergy saw the sale of indulgences as a way to raise money for their local churches or themselves. Luther considered himself a good Roman priest, but strongly objected to this practice because it was unscriptural and degraded the forgiving grace of God and the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.”

“Luther and Pope Leo immediately clashed over this, but Pope Leo considered Luther’s objections to be of little consequences because he had little regard for Luther. So on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed to the main door of the castle church in Wittenberg a list of 95 propositions or theses. Among other things they denied the right of the Pope to forgive sins by the sale of indulgences. Almost caused a great controversy.”

On the church side, friars and clerics throughout the region began attacking Luther and his teachings through their sermons and writings. One of them said, “Luther is a heretic and worthy to be persecuted with fire.” He then burned some of Luther’s writing and sermons as a symbolic burning of Luther.”

“Soon after, Maximilian, emperor of Germany, Charles V, Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain as Charles I, and the Pope contacted Fredrick III, Duke of Saxony, and demanded that he silence Luther. Fredrick did not move immediately, but consulted many educated men on the problem, including Erasmus. Erasmus answered the Duke by saying that Luther had two great faults: he would touch the clerics’ the theologian told the Duke that Luther was right in his desire to correct errors in the church. He then added this affirmation: “The effect of Luther’s doctrine is true.”

“Later that year, Erasmus wrote to the Archbishop of Mentz. In his letter, he started, “The world is burdened with men’s institutions, and with the tyranny of begging friars. Once it was counted a heresy when a man opposed the gospels. But now he is a heretic who is not like the friars, and whatsoever they do not understand is heresy to them. To know Greek is heresy, or to speak more finely than they do, that is heresy.”

“On August 7, 1518, Hierome, Bishop of Ascoil, issued a citation requiring Luther to appear at Rome. Duke Fredrick and the University of Wittenberg wrote letter to the Pope on Luther’s behalf. They wrote a similar letter to Carolus Miltitius, the Pope’s chamberlain, a German bore believer whom they judged to be somewhat sympathetic to Luther. In their letters they requested that Luther be heard by cardinal Cajetan in Augsburg instead of Rome. The Pope responded by telling Cajetan to summon Luther before him in Augsburg and immediately bring him to Rome, by force if necessary.

In October 1518, Martin Luther went to Augsburg in response to the Cardinal’s order. He took several letters of commendation with him. He waited in Augsburg for three days until a warrant of safe conduct could be obtained from the Emperor Maxmillan. Luther then appeared before cardinal Cajetan, who demanded three things from him:

1. That he repent and revoke his errors;
2. That he not to revert back to those errors;
3. That he refrain from all things that might trouble the church.

When Martin Luther asked the Cardinal what his specific errors were, the Cardinal showed him a copy of Pope Leo’s papal bull on indulgences and the resulting remission of sins, stated that faith isn’t necessary for a person who receives the sacrament, that the Pope was infallible in all matters of faith.”

“In his written reply, Luther said the Pope was capable of error and was only to be obeyed so long as what he said agreed with the scriptures, and that any faithful Christian has the right to disagree with him and to point out to him his errors from the word of God. He also stated that no one is righteous and cannot be made so by works, and that anyone receiving the sacraments must have faith in the finished work of Christ. In every case, Luther quoted the appropriate scriptures to confirm his words.”

“The Cardinal, however, did not want to hear the scriptures quoted to him in that manner. He ignored Luther’s biblical arguments and responded with intellectual and traditional doctrines from his own head rather than from the scriptures. He then told Luther to go away until he was ready to repent.”

The point here, is that, the Pope is not above sin, and can make mistakes. That is why, the Pope is infallible. Thus, the Vatican can retracts his declaration on same sex marriage blessing and never to implement it, otherwise it will dent  the sanctity and dignity of the Catholic church. Besides, the issue of blessing same sex marriage is alien to African traditions, culture, and it is against the scripture. In fact, If it were to be in the olden days, the gods will strike with thunderous mite against such ungodly practice. However, Luther King Jr as he pointed out that the Papacy is not above error, therefore, errors can be corrected. The church must work hard to avoid unprecedented rebel within itself and the Vatican.

Mark Orgu, is a Public affairs analyst and social commentator, Wrote from Lagos (+2348028592006). He is a practicing Catholic.

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