I must begin with a confession: I’m not a big fan of Christmas movies. I’d rather watch football over the holidays and catch up on novels. In fact, I had not seen Elf, consistently ranked among the best Christmas movies, until our grandkids recently asked to watch it with us. I now understand why it’s so popular. But I’m not changing my mind about the predictability and “cheese” factor of many holiday movies.

It turns out, that’s why they’re so popular.

Dr. Pamela Rutledge, a media psychologist and director of the Media Psychology Research Center, explains: “You would almost be disappointed if they weren’t a little cheesy and predictable, because that’s why you’re there. You’re there to have a feel-good movie. This lowers stress, and it reinforces feelings of hope and renewal and all of those things that Christmas is supposed to bring.”

The good news that can be bad news

Dr. Rutledge is obviously right about our need for “hope and renewal” these days.

North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile this week that has the range to strike anywhere in the mainland United States. The CDC is warning that hospitals and emergency rooms could be forced to ration care by the end of this month as COVID-19 hospitalizations rise while influenza and RSV cases remain high.

The volcanic eruption in Iceland, the deadly earthquake in China, and the powerful storm in the northeastern US are reminders of our finitude and frailty. The ongoing Houthi attacks on international commerce illustrate the susceptibility of the global economy to terrorists.

There is much about the world that is not in our power to change. Which of these stories can you impact through your personal influence and capacities?

The good news—which can be bad news as well—is that the resources most foundational to American democracy are as much within our grasp as when our nation was founded.

“We must not sink into pagan materialism”

Speaking in 1926 to commemorate the 150^th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, President Calvin Coolidge concluded:

[The Declaration] is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.

As one example of these “altar fires,” consider our first president’s warning: “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

The “father of our country” also believed that “the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality.” And he asked, “Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue?”

“Though the fig tree should not blossom”

Both presidents were echoing biblical principles proclaimed twenty-five centuries earlier when God warned the sinful Babylonians: “Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity!” (Habakkuk 2:12). In response, he announced his ultimate purpose: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lᴏʀᴅ as the waters cover the sea” (v. 14). Everything God did then and everything he does now is a means to this end.

This is not because the Lord is a divine egotist. To the contrary, for God to seek the glory of anyone above his own would be for him to commit idolatry. Similarly, for us to glorify anyone above the Lord commits the same sin and forfeits all God can do in lives that are fully yielded to his purposes.

Now you and I have the privilege and the responsibility of choosing to think biblically and act redemptively. We can “cultivate the reverence” for “the things which are holy” that is foundational to our national virtue and thus to our “permanent felicity” under God. During this Advent week of joy, no matter how challenging our circumstances, we can then say with the prophet of old:

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lᴏʀᴅ; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17–18).

In what—or whom—will you “take joy” today?

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When I saw this New York Times headline yesterday, my first thought was that the pope has endorsed homosexual relationships. Judging from the media reaction, many are making the same assumption. When I read the actual Vatican announcement, I learned that the truth is much more complicated. Nonetheless, my first impression is, I fear, the lasting impression this news will leave with our secularized culture.

At the outset, I want you to know that my response does not express an anti-Catholic bias on my part. I have been privileged to know and serve alongside many Catholic priests across my ministry and am grateful for the many Catholic readers of The Daily Article. Catholic writers and theologians continue to inform and enhance my personal spiritual life. And I deeply appreciate the church’s continued support for the sanctity of life.

Nonetheless, I believe the Vatican’s announcement to be a foundational mistake with massive cultural ramifications we need to understand through the lens of biblical truth.

“When people ask for a blessing”

Titled “Fiducia Supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings,” the declaration was submitted to Pope Francis for his review and approved with his signature. It “remains firm on the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, not allowing any type of liturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite that can create confusion.” In this way, it is not “changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.”

In fact, the document quotes Francis’ definition of marriage as the “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children.” The declaration adds, “It is only in this context that sexual relations find their natural, proper, and fully human meaning” and states that “the Church’s doctrine on this point remains firm.”

What is new here, however, pertains to the “blessing” of individuals by the church, an act separate from the sacrament of marriage. In short, the declaration extends to Catholic clergy the authority for “blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples.”

The document then spells out in detail the practice of “blessing” in Scripture. It notes that biblical blessings are often conveyed by God to people and by people to others without moral preconditions. It therefore advises: “When people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it. . . . those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection.”

To summarize: Fiducia Supplicans authorizes Catholic clergy to pray for God’s blessing on those in “irregular” and same-sex relationships, so long as this is not confused with the liturgical sacrament of marriage, which remains available only to a man and a woman.

“If the trumpet makes an uncertain sound”

Fiducia Supplicans states that “the Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-marital sexual practice” (my emphasis) and adds that “there is no intention to legitimize anything.” But this is already how the document is being interpreted by LGBTQ advocates and the mainstream media.

This is because to “bless” someone in non-theological Catholic terms means precisely to “legitimize” them. When I asked my then-girlfriend’s father for his “blessing” on our engagement, his affirmation was obviously his endorsement of our marriage. As Merriam-Webster makes clear, to “bless” someone means to “approve” of them.

Rev. James Martin, a prominent Catholic LGBTQ advocate, responded to the Vatican’s declaration: “Along with many priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex unions.” Anyone reading his words would assume that they “offer a form of moral legitimacy” to such unions.

This is a significant step toward normalizing LGBTQ relationships, now with the “blessing” of the leader of the largest Christian denomination in the world. Such normalizing is unbiblical since Scripture clearly forbids “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality” and all sexual activity outside marriage (Galatians 5:19). Rather than give such an “uncertain sound” (1 Corinthians 14:8 NKJV), we are to “flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18) and encourage everyone else to do the same (cf. James 4:17).

“We must obey God rather than men”

Fiducia Supplicans offers the Church’s blessing not only to same-sex couples but also to those in “irregular situations.” The document nowhere defines the term, but it does refer to those who are engaged in “extra-marital sexual practice.” I assume that the two phrases are meant to be equivalent.

Would they include those in polygamous and polyamorous relationships, a growing movement in our culture? What about adulterous relationships? Sexual relationships between adults and minors? Between humans and animals?

Once we start blessing what God forbids, where do we stop? This is why the apostles’ testimony should be ours: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). And it is why Scripture warns: “Desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:15).

“There is no freedom without truth”

It seems that Pope Francis wants the Catholic church to be more loving toward all people regardless of the sins they commit. I commend such inclusive grace. God loved us “while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8) and calls us to love others in the same way (cf. Matthew 22:39).

But in a culture that understands “blessing” not in the technical terms of the Vatican declaration but in the general dictionary sense of approving, the document will mislead many into believing that God condones what he in fact forbids. It will therefore encourage people to commit sexual sins—homosexual and heterosexual—that are harmful to them. And it will be used to marginalize and stigmatize further those of us who declare and defend biblical morality.

Pope St. John Paul II observed, “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” How do we know what we “ought” to do? He added: “Man’s free creative forces will only develop to the full if they are based on the truth. . . . There is no freedom without truth.”

Where do we find such “truth”?

Jesus said to his Father, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17) and promised his followers that the Spirit would “guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). Accordingly, during this Advent week of joy, we can say to God, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11).

Will you walk God’s “path of life” into the “fullness of joy” today?

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