What is a “couple”?

In myrecent article on the controversy over FiduciaSupplicans , I noted three problems with the document’s qualifiedpermission of blessings for “couples” of a same-sex or other “irregular”kind.  First, the document is not consistentwith theVatican’s 2021 statement on the subject, which prohibited suchblessings, nor consistent even with itself. Second, its incoherence makes abuses of its permission inevitable,despite the qualifications.  Third, theimplicature carried by the act of issuing this permission “sends the message”that the Church in some way approves of such couples, even if this message was notintended.  In aninterview with The Pillar,Cardinal Fernández addressesthe controversy, but unfortunately, his remarks exacerbate rather than resolvethe problems.

Cardinal Fernández’s answer

Somedefenders of Fiducia Supplicans havesuggested that the document intends “couple” to be understood merely as a pairof individuals, without reference to any special relationship betweenthem.  I explained in my earlier articlewhy that simply is not plausible, and the cardinal’s remarks in the interviewnow decisively rule this interpretation out. Consider these passages from the interview:

Sometimes they are two very close friends who share goodthings, sometimes they had sexualrelations in the past and now what remains is a strong sense of belonging andmutual help. As a parish priest, I have often met such couples…

[In] a simple blessing, it is stillasked that this friendship bepurified, matured and lived in fidelity to the Gospel.  And even if there was some kind of sexual relationship, known or not, the blessingmade in this way does not validate or justify anything.

Actually the same thinghappens whenever individuals are blessed , because thatindividual who asks for a blessing… may be a great sinner, but we do not deny ablessing to him…

When it is a matter of a couple well-known in the place or incases where there could be some scandal, the blessing should be given in private,in a discreet place.

Endquote.  So, the “couples” that Fiducia Supplicans has in view include“friendships” and “two very close friends,” who may have “had sexual relationsin the past” or “some kind of sexual relationship” in the past, who retain “astrong sense of belonging and mutual help” and may be “well-known in [some]place” to be a couple.  And blessing suchcouples is explicitly contrasted with blessing “individuals.”  All of this makes it undeniable that what Fiducia Supplicans is referring to bythe word “couple” is not merely twoindividuals qua individuals, but two individuals considered as having a close personal relationship of some sort.  In other words, the Declaration is using theterm in just the way most people use it when discussing a romantic relationship,not in some broader sense and not in some technical sense either.

Now, thecardinal also goes on to say: “Couples are blessed.  The union is not blessed.”  This confirms that he intends to distinguish “couples” from “unions,” as many defendersof the Declaration have tried to do. However, the cardinal says nothing to explain how there can be such a distinction – that is to say, he does notexplain how this distinction is notmerely verbal, a distinction without a difference like the distinction between“bachelors” and “unmarried men.” 

There arethree problems here.  First, and again, CardinalFernández’s remarks confirm that by “couple,” what Fiducia Supplicans is referring to are two people considered ashaving some close personal relationship, and indeed one that may have had asexual component of some sort at least in the past.  But that is also just what the term “union”is typically used to refer to!  So, howcan one possibly bless a “couple” without blessing the “union”?  It is not enough simply to assert or assume that one can do so. We still need an explanation of exactlywhat it means to bless the one and not the other.

Second, thecardinal says that in the blessings that FiduciaSupplicans has in view, “it is… askedthat this friendship be purified,matured and lived in fidelity to the Gospel.”  In other words, the blessing is not merely onthe individuals who make up thecouple, but on their friendship itself. And how can that possibly fail to be a blessing on the “union”?  True, it doesn’t follow that it is a blessingon the sexual aspect of the union,but that is irrelevant to the point at issue. It still amounts to a blessing onthe union itself, despite the cardinal’s claim that “the union is notblessed.”

Third, theVatican’s 2021 document on the matter says that while “individual persons” inirregular relationships can be blessed, it “declares illicit any form of blessing that tends toacknowledge their unions as such.”  Hence,the older statement says that irregular unions not only cannot be blessed, they cannot so much as be acknowledged.  But as Cardinal Fernández’s remarks makeclear, Fiducia Supplicans does permit acknowledgement of suchunions.  For how can you bless “theirfriendship” without acknowledgingit?  How can you bless a “couple”considered as “two very close friends” who may have had “some kind of sexualrelationship” in the past and retain “a strong sense of belonging and mutualhelp,” without “acknowledging their union as such”?

Hence, thecardinal’s remarks in the interview donot refute, but rather reinforce, the judgment that the 2023 Declarationcontradicts the 2021 statement.

There is yetanother problem.  Again, the interviewwith Cardinal Fernández confirms that FiduciaSupplicans uses the word “couple” in the ordinary sense that entails notmerely two individuals, but two individuals consideredas having a personal relationship of a romantic kind, or at least of a kindthat once had a romantic component.  Now,in the past, the Church has explicitly repudiated the contemporary tendency toexpand this ordinary notion of a “couple” so that it includes same-sex andother irregular relationships.  Forexample, in Ecclesiain Europa, Pope St. John Paul II criticized “attempts… to accepta definition of the couple in whichdifference of sex is not considered essential.” In a2008 address, Pope Benedict XVI lamented that “so-called ‘de factocouples’ are proliferating.”  Insofar as Fiducia Supplicans uses “couples” torefer to same-sex and other irregular relationships, then, it accommodates theusage that these previous popes condemned. In this way too, the new Declaration conflicts with past teaching.

Mike Lewis’s answer

In arecent article at Where PeterIs, Mike Lewis complained that “countless papal critics are acting as ifthey can’t understand the difference between a couple and a union” and mockstheir “sudden inability to grasp the difference” as “a case of mass lexicalamnesia.”  Oddly, though, his article does not tell us what thisdifference is, which should have been easy enough if the distinction reallywere, as he insists it is, obvious and long-standing.

It seemsthat even some Where Peter Is readerswere unimpressed, which has now led Lewis to try to explain the difference in afollow-up article.  Much ofwhat he writes essentially just reiterates, at length, that the new Declarationclearly says that it authorizes onlyblessings for couples and not for unions, and that “most reasonably intelligentCatholics should be able to understand the difference if they read the documentwith a spirit of receptivity and an open heart.”  Of course, this does not address the questionat all.  Everybody already knows what theDeclaration says.  The question is how any coherent sense can be made of what it says.  In particular, exactly what is the difference between a “couple” and a“union”?  Naturally, to accuse those whocontinue to ask this question of lacking “a spirit of receptivity and an openheart” is not to answer the question.

Lewis doestake a stab at answering it, though.  Hewrites:

I don’t understand why this is adifficult concept, obviously a “couple” is two people who are pairedtogether.  A couple might be married,engaged, or involved in another type of relationship.  A union is a type of arrangement or agreementbetween two people… The Church can bless two people who are a couple withoutsanctioning everything that they do, nor recognizing every agreement they make.

Endquote.  I trust that most reasonablyintelligent Catholics who read Lewis with a spirit of receptivity and an openheart will see that this utterly fails to solve the problem.  Start with the last sentence.  Yes, one can certainly “bless two people whoare a couple without sanctioning everything that they do, nor recognizing everyagreement they make.”  But one can alsobless a union without sanctioningeverything the people in it do or recognizing every agreement they make.  So, this does exactly nothing to explain thedifference between blessing a couple and blessing a union.

Considernext Lewis’s claim that “a ‘couple’ is two people who are paired together.”  What does being “paired together” amountto?  Is Lewis saying that just any two individuals, even perfectstrangers, who happen to be standing next to one another counts as a “couple”in the sense Fiducia Supplicans hasin view?  I’ve already explained in myprevious article why that can’t be right, and we just saw above that theinterview with Cardinal Fernández confirms that it is not right.  “Couple” in this context means more thanmerely two individuals, and connotes a special relationship between them.  And Lewis may well acknowledge this, since hegoes on to say that “a couple might be married, engaged, or involved in anothertype of relationship.”

But then, wemust ask yet again, how does this differ from a union?  Lewis says, first,that a union “is a type of arrangement.” I hardly need point out that that is so vague that it is obviously trueof couples no less than ofunions.  Couples, such as the married andengaged couples Lewis gives as examples, are obviously in a kind of“arrangement.”  So, this too does exactlynothing to clarify the difference between a “couple” and a “union.”

What, then,of Lewis’s further suggestion that a union involves an “agreement” of somekind?  This is slightly less vague than“arrangement,” but not enough to help. Consider two people who decide to go steady, or to become engaged, or toshare bed and board.  Any of thesesuffices to make them a “couple.”  Butthese all involve agreements of sometype (as well as arrangements).  Hence, by Lewis’s criteria, this also sufficesto make them a “union.”  Once again,then, Lewis has utterly failed to explain the difference between a “couple” anda “union.”

Later in thearticle, Lewis suggests that the blessings the Declaration has in view “aremeant for each of the persons in thecouple, not an attempt to legitimize a union” (emphasis in the original).  But what does this mean, exactly?  Does it mean that what the Declaration has inview are blessings on the persons considered only as individuals, rather than asa couple?  But we already saw above,and at greater length in my previous article, why that is not what the Declaration is saying.

Following asuggestion from another defender of FiduciaSupplicans, Lewis suggests:

FiduciaSupplicans studiously avoids explicitlyfocusing on the dichotomy between individuals and relationships... “It does notso much discuss who or what gets blessed, but what blessings are and for whatpurpose.”  This suggests that thefixation of the document’s critics on the word “couple” is entirely misplaced,and we should turn our attention to why we bless.

Endquote.  The problem with this is that itis simply not true that the Declaration “does not so much discuss who or whatgets blessed.”  On the contrary, the whole point of the Declaration is togo beyond what was already said in the 2021 document and assert that blessingscan now be given to “couples” quacouples (and not merely to the individuals in the couple, as the 2021 documentallowed).  Hence for critics to focus onthe word “couple” is not only not misplaced,it is precisely to do what the newDeclaration itself does.

In a closingsection so absurd that the unwary reader might wonder whether his article is,after all, meant merely as a parodyof desperate defenders of FiduciaSupplicans, Lewis tells us that he consulted ChatGPT to see how it mightexplain the difference between “couples” and “unions”!  The part of the AI software’s response thatis actually relevant to this question reads as follows:

The Church may view the blessing of individuals in a same-sex relationship as a recognitionof their inherent dignity and worth as persons… Therefore, the Churchmight differentiate between blessing a couple (as individuals) and blessingtheir union. (Emphasis added)

Endquote.  So, the only way ChatGPT is ableto make sense of the difference between blessing a “couple” and blessing a “union”is to suggest that the individuals in the couple are blessed as individuals, rather than as acouple.  The problem with this, ofcourse, is that the 2021 document already allowed for that, and that the wholepoint of the new Declaration is to authorize the blessing of couples as couples.  Once again, I explained at length in myprevious article how that is the case, and Cardinal Fernández has confirmed itin the Pillar interview. 

Explainingthe difference between “couples” and “unions” thus eludes the best efforts ofman and machine alike.