NUNTIATORIA

“It Is Not Lawful”: John the Baptist, Francis, and the Blessing of Adultery

When The Telegraph reported that Pope Francis had blessed the twentieth wedding anniversary of Charles and Camilla, the world greeted it as a charming gesture of goodwill. But for Catholics who still believe in the indissolubility of marriage, it was a moment of scandal. A pope may extend courtesies to rulers; he may wish them health and assure them of his prayers. But a blessing is no mere formality. It is a sacred invocation of divine favour. By bestowing it on the anniversary of an adulterous union, Francis crossed the line from diplomacy into betrayal. Courtesy belongs to protocol; blessing belongs to truth. By confusing the two, he sanctified sin, mocked the Gospel, and shamed the papal office.

The timing sharpened the outrage. As the Church recalled the Decollation of St John the Baptist, news broke of Francis’s gesture. John was beheaded because he dared to confront a king: “It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife” (Mark 6:18). He died rather than compromise on the sanctity of marriage. Francis did the opposite. Where the prophet sealed truth with his blood, the pope squandered truth with flattery.

The contrast with Westminster Abbey is no less telling. Built by St Edward the Confessor, a king whose chastity and holiness sanctified his throne, it was last year the scene of a coronation that crowned adultery. The Communion rite was retained for show, but the King abstained from the Eucharist and Archbishop Welby cut the penitential rite to suit television schedules. What remained was theatre, not worship. Now Rome has matched London: a coronation without sacrament, a papal blessing without truth.

History makes the scandal clearer still. When Henry IV defied the Church, Gregory VII made him kneel barefoot in the snow at Canossa. When Philip Augustus cast off his wife, Innocent III placed France under interdict until he restored her. These were popes who rebuked kings in sin. They placed fidelity to Christ above fear of earthly thrones. Francis has reversed the order, flattering the powerful and betraying the faith.

This is modernism unveiled: the bending of truth to circumstance, the trading of morality for optics, the enthronement of sentiment over law. The zeitgeist demands sympathy over principle, relativism over reality, emotion over rationality — and Francis has obliged. But no gloss of diplomacy can disguise the reality: adultery was blessed, Christ was mocked, and the papal office was shamed.

One cannot bless adultery without blasphemy. One cannot confuse courtesy with doctrine without corruption. What John the Baptist died to oppose, Francis has dared to sanctify. His act was not charity, not prudence, not diplomacy. It was unconscionable. 🔝