Italy: From Fiducia Supplicans to Free Fall

The Scandal of Caprino Bergamasco and the Unraveling of Doctrine

From ambiguity to crisis
The scandal of Caprino Bergamasco, in which Father Roberto Falconi of the Diocese of Bergamo presided over a civil union and blessed a same-sex couple with a Waldensian rite, is not an isolated lapse of judgment. It is the predictable fruit of a longer doctrinal drift, inaugurated at the highest levels of the Church and crystallised in the 2023 declaration Fiducia Supplicans. To understand how a priest can now justify acts that he admits are “against morality” while claiming that the Church must “evolve,” one must trace the arc of equivocation that has stretched from papal remarks in 2013 to the present moment.

Francis and the first equivocations
The roots of this crisis lie in the famous words of Pope Francis aboard a papal flight in July 2013, only four months after his election. Asked about a priest accused of homosexual conduct, he replied: “If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”¹ Though the comment was framed in terms of individual conversion, it was seized upon by media and activists as a watershed moment. A new tone had been set: one of non-judgmental ambiguity, easily interpreted as a softening of doctrine.

Civil unions and accommodation
This tendency deepened in October 2020, when a documentary film captured the Pope endorsing civil unions: “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.”² Though the Vatican later attempted to clarify that the Pope was speaking about civil protection rather than doctrinal endorsement, the signal had been sent. Civil unions, once opposed by the papacy as a threat to marriage, were now presented as a legitimate compromise.

The pastoral turn of Amoris Laetitia
The principle underlying these shifts was the language of pastoral accompaniment. Rather than present the objective moral law as the Church had always done, the new emphasis fell upon subjective situations, personal conscience, and the avoidance of “exclusion.” This hermeneutic, pioneered in Amoris Laetitia (2016), made possible the suggestion that individuals in irregular situations could receive sacramental life if they discerned “in conscience” that God was calling them forward.³ While appearing merciful, the approach undermined the universality of Catholic moral teaching, creating a relativistic framework in which exceptions could easily swallow the rule.

The emergence of Fiducia Supplicans
It was against this background that Fiducia Supplicans appeared in December 2023. Issued by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the new Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the declaration insisted that it did not alter Catholic doctrine on marriage. Yet it authorised priests to give “spontaneous pastoral blessings” to couples in irregular unions, including same-sex partners, provided that the blessings did not imitate the form of marriage.⁴ The ambiguity was immediate and glaring. If the Church has always taught that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and can never be approved,⁵ how could the Church bless a couple precisely in the state of their irregular union? The distinction between blessing the persons and blessing their relationship was so fine as to be practically meaningless. Many bishops and priests warned at once that the text would be taken as permission to bless sin.

Global backlash
The reaction was swift. In Europe and North America, liberal dioceses hailed the declaration as progress. But in Africa, Asia, and much of Latin America, bishops’ conferences rejected it outright. The Zambian bishops declared: “Blessing same-sex unions would equate to offering approval to what the Church has always taught is intrinsically disordered. We cannot and will not permit this in our dioceses.”⁶ The bishops of Malawi spoke of their “total rejection,” while Nigeria’s bishops stated that such blessings “contradict both Scripture and the tradition handed down by the Church.”⁷ Even in Europe, some bishops resisted. Cardinal Wim Eijk of Utrecht emphasised that a pastoral blessing could never obscure the fact that homosexual relationships are contrary to divine law. Cardinal Gerhard Müller denounced the declaration as “a direct contradiction of Revelation and the perennial Magisterium” and therefore “null and void.”⁸ Bishop Athanasius Schneider warned that it was “blasphemous” and called on priests to refuse compliance.⁹

Vatican clarifications
The Vatican responded with clarifications in January 2024, insisting that blessings were to be brief prayers, lasting only a few seconds, and never formalised.¹⁰ Yet the very need for such clarifications confirmed that the text had been dangerously imprecise.

The Lombardy scandal
The warnings about Fiducia Supplicans were not theoretical. Less than two years after its publication, the fears of traditional bishops were confirmed in the hills of Lombardy. On 13 September 2025, Father Roberto Falconi presided over a same-sex civil union and imparted a religious blessing upon the couple, Gabriele and Mario. The ceremony took place at Cascina Ombria, a rustic reception venue in Caprino Bergamasco. Photographs posted by the venue to Instagram showed the priest in surplice and stole blessing the couple, accompanied by captions celebrating the event as a historic breakthrough.

A priest without restraint
The publicity destroyed any pretence of discretion. What had been staged as a private “pastoral accompaniment” became a public celebration of a homosexual union with the active participation of a Catholic priest. In his interview with La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, Falconi admitted that what he had done went beyond even the allowances of Fiducia Supplicans. “It was not a strict blessing according to Fiducia Supplicans,” he said, “I received a blessing from the Waldensian Church and organised this liturgy, for which I take full responsibility.” When asked directly whether he thought the act was moral, he replied: “I know it goes against morality, but we must evolve.”

The Waldensian shadow
The use of a Waldensian rite is especially telling. The Waldensians, originating in the twelfth century as a sect condemned for heresy, were absorbed into the Reformed tradition during the sixteenth century and became a symbol of Protestant resistance to Catholic authority in Italy. Today they are among the most progressive Protestant groups in Europe, openly promoting same-sex marriage and gender ideology.¹² For a Catholic priest to import their liturgy into a blessing of a homosexual couple represents not merely disobedience but a profound rupture of Catholic identity.

Consequences of ambiguity
The consequences are grave. The first is confusion among the faithful. For centuries, the Church has taught that homosexual acts are gravely sinful, “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.”¹³ By blessing couples in such unions, even under the pretext of brevity or spontaneity, priests communicate the opposite: that the relationship itself can be approved by God. The faithful, seeing their pastors impart blessings, reasonably conclude that what is blessed cannot be sinful. Thus ambiguity produces scandal, and scandal erodes faith.

A rupture of sacramentals
The second consequence is the undermining of sacramental theology. Blessings in the Catholic tradition are not arbitrary gestures but sacramentals ordered to the sanctification of persons and things. To bless is to invoke God’s favour upon that which is good, or to strengthen the faithful against evil. To apply blessings to what the Church has always condemned as evil is to empty sacramentals of meaning, reducing them to sentimental gestures or cultural affirmations. In Falconi’s words, they become “diversions.”

A fractured Church
The third consequence is the rupture of ecclesial unity. The African bishops’ rejection of Fiducia Supplicans highlighted a new fault line in the Church. The global South, which still upholds the perennial teaching, now finds itself at odds with European and North American dioceses that embrace innovation.

The return of modernism
Finally, the theological foundation of revelation itself is threatened. By appealing to “evolution” and comparing moral teaching on homosexuality to St Paul’s regulation of slavery, Falconi implied that divine revelation is culturally conditioned and therefore subject to change. This is the essence of modernism, condemned by St Pius X as the “synthesis of all heresies.”¹⁵ The Magisterium becomes not a guardian of truth but a facilitator of adaptation.

Toward a Catholic response
The crisis exemplified in Caprino Bergamasco calls for a clear and uncompromising Catholic response. It is not enough to lament abuses or to issue clarifications that leave ambiguity intact. The Church must recover the perennial understanding of truth and charity, both of which have been obscured by the false mercy embodied in Fiducia Supplicans.

Truth and charity united
St Augustine expressed the authentic Catholic position: *“Love the sinner, but hate the sin. For if you love in them what God hates, you are not loving them as God commands.”*¹⁶ To invoke blessing upon what God condemns is not an act of mercy but of betrayal. The Catechism teaches that homosexual acts “do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity” and can never be approved.¹⁷ Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2003 CDF document was explicit: *“There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”*¹⁸

Mercy and conversion
Authentic pastoral care therefore does not consist in blessing sin but in calling sinners to repentance. True mercy invites conversion, not confirmation in error. The African bishops have offered an example of balance: firm rejection of Fiducia Supplicans, combined with compassionate pastoral care for individuals. “We accompany all our sons and daughters, whatever their struggles,” wrote the Zambian bishops, “but we cannot call good what God has revealed as evil.”¹⁹

Conclusion
The scandal in Lombardy is a symbol of the free fall that occurs when ambiguity supplants clarity in the Church. Fiducia Supplicans presented itself as a pastoral adjustment without doctrinal change, yet its effect has been to license the blessing of sin, erode sacramental theology, fracture ecclesial unity, and undermine the credibility of Catholic teaching. Father Falconi’s actions — publicly blessing a homosexual couple with a Protestant rite, admitting it was immoral, and justifying it in the name of “evolution” — are not an aberration but the logical outcome of a trajectory set in motion by papal equivocation.

The Catholic response must therefore be unambiguous. Charity without truth is sentimentality; truth without charity is cruelty. But when truth and charity are united, souls are led to salvation. The Church cannot bless what God has condemned, nor can she evolve beyond the revelation entrusted once for all to the saints.²⁰ Unless clarity and fidelity are restored, the free fall will continue, with priests indulging in what Falconi called “diversions” and the faithful left in confusion. But if the Church recalls her perennial teaching, and if her pastors imitate the courage of the African bishops and the candour of the saints, she will recover the integrity of her witness. For in the end, as Christ Himself taught, “every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up” (Matthew 15:13).

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Footnotes

1. Jude 3.
2. Pope Francis, Press Conference, July 29, 2013, L’Osservatore Romano.
3. Remarks in Evgeny Afineevsky’s documentary Francesco (October 2020).
4. Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, §303–305.
5. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Fiducia Supplicans (December 18, 2023), §31–41.
6. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2357.
7. Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops, Statement, December 2023.
8. Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, Statement, January 2024; Episcopal Conference of Malawi, Communiqué, December 2023.
9. Gerhard Cardinal Müller, interview with The Pillar, January 4, 2024.
10. Bishop Athanasius Schneider, “Declaration on Fiducia Supplicans,” January 2024.
11. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Clarifications on Fiducia Supplicans, January 2024.
12. Giorgio Tourn, You Are My Witnesses: The Waldensians Across 800 Years (1977).
13. Waldensian Synod, “Resolution on Same-Sex Marriage,” 2010.
14. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2357.
15. Archbishop Andrew Nkea, interview with ACI Africa, January 2024.
16. Pope St Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), §39.
17. St Augustine, Letter 211 to Crispin, c. 424.
18. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2357.
19. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons (2003), §4.
20. Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops, Statement, December 2023.