When Pope Francis, the of the Roman Catholic Church or the Holy See issued a decree, “Fiducia Supplicans” (Supplicating Trust) to all faithful on 18 December 2023, it created acrimonious debates globally. While many said he wanted the Church to agree to gay couples to walk down the isles, some claimed that was not the case. There were (and still are) countless many who are confused about the whole issue, couched in Latin, language of the Vatican.
However, Femi Ojumu presents a treatise to explain the knotty issue so much that one can mistake him for a member of the College of Cardinals! He is not. Ojumu is the Principal Partner at Balliol Myers LP, a firm of legal practitioners and strategy consultants in Lagos, Nigeria, and the author of The Dynamic Intersections of Economics, Foreign Relations, Jurisprudence and National Development.
Issued by the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, on December 18, 2023, Pope Francis, the libertarian head of the Roman Catholic Church, comprising 1.35 billion adherents globally, Ojumu said the papal decree authorised the blessing of same-couples, provided they do not incorporate Church liturgies and rituals. “That decree unleashed much controversy around the developing world, especially in Africa, home to 265 million Roman Catholics, roughly one fifth of Catholic adherents globally, on three key grounds.”
He wrote on its implications for Africa. “Can these contending schools of thought ever be reconciled with Roman Catholic pedagogics in Africa? How is this situated culturally and religiously? To what degree does the law intermediate? Take the Ashanti, Baganda, Banyankole, Bini, Igbo, Hausa, Fulani, Nuba, Yoruba, Zaghawa and several other ethnic groups, across Africa.”
Read his full submission below:
Roman Catholicism: Ecclesiastical pedagogics, conflicts of domestic law
Femi Ojumu
Issued by the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, on December 18, 2023, Pope Francis, the libertarian head of the Roman Catholic Church, comprising 1.35 billion adherents globally, signed a decree, “Fiducia Supplicans” (Supplicating Trust).
The papal decree authorised the blessing of same-couples, provided they do not incorporate Church liturgies and rituals. That decree unleashed much controversy around the developing world, especially in Africa, home to 265 million Roman Catholics, roughly one fifth of Catholic adherents globally, on three key grounds.
One, that it directly contravenes established cultural practices and mores. Two, it overruled the 2021 papal decree, Responsum ad dubium (response to doubt), which explicitly negated the proposition that the Roman Catholic Church exercises “the power to give blessings to unions of persons of the same sex.” Three, its implementation will violate domestic law in many African countries. This treatise examines the arguments and counter-arguments from a sociological perspective, the primacy of upholding the law of the land and cultural dimensions relative to unique settings.
Fiducia Supplicans provided, inter alia, for the blessing of same-sex couples, who are not considered to be married, triggering blistering critiques globally. The controversy is bifurcated: Roman Catholic adherents, of the traditionalist inclination, who believe that the ecclesiastical pedagogy of the Roman Catholic Church is immutable insofar as it originates from God’s ten commandments to Moses (Exodus 20 v 2-17, New King James Version (NKJV)); and that marriage, or any linguistic, legal, sociological formulation of the concept, however novel, nuanced and innovative, means, and will always mean, a marital union between a natural born man and a natural born woman: because that is the proper foundation of life and the basis of human procreation.
The implication being that same-sex unions, that is, bi-sexual, homosexual, lesbian unions, transgender unions, can never be justified in ecclesiastical pedagogy. This orthodoxy is common place across Africa.
That being so, the traditionalist school of thought query Fiducia Supplicans’ locus. According to Ulrich L. Lehner, Warren Foundation Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, the decree “invites misunderstanding and will sow confusion…an invitation to schism.”
And beyond that, this school of thought advocates the application of the law as it is, not as it is imagined to be. In that vein, the human rights of those in same-sex unions, it is contended, is constrained by the Pure Law theory of the overriding grundnorm, constitutional provisions, the national interest and enduring socio-cultural mores.
Modernists, however, adopt the opposing viewpoint. That is, the ecclesiastical pedagogy of the Roman Catholic Church, notwithstanding the biblical ten commandments, should evolve, with civilisation and modernity. They argue that sentient adult human beings possess freewill. And, if the exercise of a person’s freewill leads him or her to become a bisexual, homosexual, or lesbian, or transgender, that is entirely his or her own business: not the business of anyone else, irrespective of their heroic claims to moral purity and virtue pontifications.
Proponents here, are common place in Europe and much of the Western world. To this school of thought, the papal pronouncement, Fiducia Supplicans, is not only necessary, but long overdue. They argue, that if the Roman Catholic church, and its ecclesiastical pedagogy, is not aimed at blessing people, with freewill, from where on earth is that to come? They also contend that the human rights of those in same-sex unions accords them freedom to associate with consenting adults of similar inclinations.
Can these contending schools of thought ever be reconciled with Roman Catholic pedagogics in Africa? How is this situated culturally and religiously? To what degree does the law intermediate? Take the Ashanti, Baganda, Banyankole, Bini, Igbo, Hausa, Fulani, Nuba, Yoruba, Zaghawa and several other ethnic groups, across Africa.
Same-sex unions, and invariably, same-sex blessings, are culturally anathema and forbidden. Because, they are viewed as contrary to Biblical laws, Islamic injunctions, the predominant religions on the continent; and the natural order, which Muslims refer to as “fitrah.”
Authority for this proposition is established in Genesis, 1, verses 27-28, NKJV of the Bible: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female. And God blessed them. And God said to them: be fruitful and multiply…”
Similarly, Muslim theologians point to Al-A’raaf 7:80-81 viz: “And remember Lut (Lot), when he said to his people: ‘Do you commit the worst sin such as none preceding you has committed in the ‘Aalameen (mankind and jinn)? Verily, you practise your lusts on men instead of women. Nay, but you are a people transgressing beyond bounds (by committing great sins)’”
Accordingly, whether the opposing schools of thought within the Roman Catholic church can ever be reconciled on the papal decree “Fiducia Supplicans” of December 18, 2023, given fundamentally divergent interpretations of the explicit provisions of the Bible, ecclesiastic pedagogics and dominant cultures and mores on the African continent, remains a certain uncertainty!
Regarding the jurisprudential and sociological perspectives, across the continent, many countries have outlawed same sex unions, however they are characterised. In Nigeria, the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2013, signed into law on January 7, 2014, having received unanimous support across Nigeria’s bi-cameral legislature, outlaws a marriage contract or civil union entered into between persons of the same sex. It imposes, with a penalty of 14 years imprisonment, for any person who enters into such a union in the country.
Section 5 (3) of the enactment establishes that: “a person or group of persons who administers, witnesses, abets or aids the solemnisation of a same sex marriage or civil union, or supports the registration, operation and sustenance of gay clubs, societies, organisations, processions or meetings in Nigeria commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of 10 years imprisonment.”
In other words, any Roman Catholic priest in Nigeria, who relies upon the papal decree “Fiducia Supplicans” of December 18, 2023, and seeks to bless same-sex couples in the country will breach this law. Unsurprisingly therefore, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) affirmed, pursuant to Fiducia Supplicans, thus: “there is no possibility in the Church of blessing same-sex unions and activities.”
In Ghana, the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill is currently making its way through the parliament. The bill seeks to prohibit same sex marriage; proposes a 6 to10 year term of imprisonment for any person who teaches children about homosexuality, lesbianism, bi-sexuality, transsexuality or that there are more genders than male and female persons; a ban on sponsoring lesbian, homosexual, bisexual and transexual persons and groups etc. The bill was overwhelming supported by 275 parliamentarians.
The President of the Bono Regional House of Chiefs, Osagyefo Agyeman Badu II, affirmed that “chiefs in this country are strongly behind this bill” vowing to “storm parliament with 10,000 people” if the bill was not passed. Plus, it is supported by the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference (GCBC), the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and the Coalition of Muslim Organisations. Only on December 12, 2023, the GCBC reinforced its support for the bill asserting its: “a step in the right direction.”
Like Nigeria, any Roman Catholic priest who purports to effectuate the “Fiducia Supplicans” will encounter significant legal hurdles. In East Africa, Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023, prohibits the promotion or recognition of sexual relations between persons of the same sex. It criminalises homosexual and same sex acts, imposing a penalty of life imprisonment thereof; and, the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”.
Again, any attempt by any Roman Catholic priest in Uganda, to implement “Fiducia Supplicans”, will violate this law, risking harsh consequences. Yet again, responding to Fiducia Supplicans, Roman Catholic Bishops in Malawi, asserted in no uncertain terms: “We direct that for pastoral reasons, blessings of any kind and for same-sex unions of any kind, are not permitted in Malawi.”
Now then, do proponents of these enactments across African countries necessarily become homophobes? What, could the papal intentions have been in issuing “Fiducia Supplicans” understanding the reality that culturally, and religiously, the majority, 31 out of 54 African countries, 57.40% of Africa’s countries, vehemently oppose, and criminalise, same-sex unions however elegantly couched? Equally, the question arises as to the rationale for issuing “Fiducia Supplicans” as it clearly flies in the face of domestic legislation across swathes of the continent? These posers will, no doubt, exercise the wits of the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Nevertheless, as a matter of basic logic reasoning, it cannot be the case that opponents of same-sex unions in Africa are, of necessity, homophobic. That is faulty logic. Each country, however imperfectly formed, has its laws, underpinned by its unique cultural norms and religious practices. Those laws are enacted by its parliamentarians, who are the de facto, and de jure, representatives of the people, and those laws must be equally applied.
This point is amply reinforced by section 1 (1) and 4 (1) of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended), for example. It provides: “this Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria”; “The legislative powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be vested in a National Assembly (Parliament) for the Federation which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.”
Therefore, the significant contextual relevance of long-standing cultural and religious beliefs, and practices, objectively, imperils the value of the ecclesiastical pedagogy encapsulated in the papal Fiducia Supplicans on the African continent insofar as it clashes with domestic jurisprudence in the majority of countries.
*Ojumu is the Principal Partner at Balliol Myers LP, a firm of legal practitioners and strategy consultants in Lagos, Nigeria, and the author of The Dynamic Intersections of Economics, Foreign Relations, Jurisprudence and National Development.