(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu has said that Fiducia Supplicans “caused a lot of harm to the Catholic faithful” and was a “bad chapter” in Pope Francis’ pontificate.
Ambongo, who is the archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, made his latest critical comments about Francis’ document permitting homosexual “blessings” during a visit to Poland for the 12th Council of Gniezno peace summit.
He told OSV News that a pope’s “first responsibility is to ensure the unity of Catholics … within the Church.”
“Sometimes there are tendencies in one direction or another. And the role of the pope is to keep everyone united in the same family, regardless of our sensibilities, regardless of our opinions.”
Speaking about Pope Leo XIV, Ambongo said the current Roman Pontiff “is a man who speaks very little but listens a lot.… And when there are big decisions that affect the majority of the faithful, they also need to listen widely before making a decision to avoid what we had with ‘Fiducia.’”
“I believe that Fiducia is a bad chapter in the history, I would say, of Pope Francis, because it is a document that was made public between the two sessions of the Synod on Synodality,” he stated.
“The least we expected,” Ambongo said, “was that it would be discussed, at least at the synod. It was not discussed.”
He lamented that Fiducia Supplicans, “caused a lot of harm to the Catholic faithful, and even beyond.”
The cardinal said he faced criticism from Christians as well as other faith leaders in Africa for the document.
“I took responsibility into my own hands,” Ambongo noted. He “saw reactions coming from all sides,” including “angry laypeople, priests, religious men and women, and bishops who were very angry.”
When he discussed the matter with Pope Francis, the prelate said the two men “talked about it, and I believe that from that point on, he changed his mind.”
“And since then, there has been no more talk of ‘Fiducia Supplicans,’” the cardinal said.
Francis had allowed Ambongo to publish a statement after the meeting that granted the African bishops the right to ignore Fiducia Supplicans in their dioceses.
“[I]t was not a statement against the pope, but he understood that it was a mistake on his part,” he said.
When asked if he believes Pope Francis regretted publishing Fiducia Supplicans, Ambongo said he “can’t go into details because this is confidential information,” but that the pope authorized him to publish his document titled, “No to the blessing of homosexual couples in African churches.”
Ambongo has been an outspoken critic of Fiducia Supplicans since its publication in December 2023. In the document, “No to the blessing of homosexual couples in African churches” that he initiated, Ambongo wrote:
We, the African Bishops, do not consider it appropriate for Africa to bless homosexual unions or same-sex couples because, in our context, this would cause confusion and would be in direct contradiction to the cultural ethos of African communities.
Another prominent African bishop, Cardinal Robert Sarah, also recently reiterated his critique and rejection of Fiducia Supplicans. Sarah said the document “threatens the unity of the Church” and should be “forgotten.”
