In his weekly Letter from Rome entitled 'Blessing and Curses', Mickens says, "We do not have to wait for permission.

"The Church is vaster and much more diversified than we sometimes want to acknowledge."

Many LGBTQ+ Catholics and their supporters were extremely upset by the recent CDF explanatory note attached to the Responsum of March 15.

The CDF statement said the Catholic Church does not "have the power to give the blessing (sic.) to unions of persons of the same sex."

But, according to Mickens, there are places in almost every diocese in the world where divorced and remarried couples are warmly welcomed to receive the Eucharist.

And there are places where gays, lesbians and transgender persons are accepted just as openly.

There are also priests who are more than happy to bless unions between same-sex couples, Mickens said.

But these places fly under the radar, and an effort needs to be made to find them.

Still, he says, many Catholics are reluctant to do anything unless they get permission from clergy or unless the Church gives official approval.

However, according to Mickens, the problem is not what was published on March 15.

"The real stumbling block is the Vatican's official teaching on all human sexuality and the deeply flawed philosophy and anthropology that undergird it."

"Yet the Vatican insists that the Church's teaching on human sexuality continue to be based on bad science and a physicalist interpretation of so-called 'natural law."

Mickens continues, "to put it crudely, it deems that any sexual act that is not, by its very nature, designed for and open to procreation is gravely sinful."

The good news is that Pope Francis has already opened up a process to re-evaluate the Church's understanding and teaching about human sexuality.

It started with the 2014 and 2015 Synod assemblies on the family.

This led to the 2016 publication of the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia.

There are also some Vatican sources who say the Pope was distancing himself from the CDF statement on same-sex unions in his Angelus on March 21.

Sources

• La Croix International
• CathNews

And those with eyes to see can detect this opposition especially among the current crop of seminarians and younger priests, as well as a number of bishops.

"The resistance is coming from those that don't want to change," says Professor Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Sant'Egidio Community here in Rome.

In an interview some months ago, he pointed out that many regular folks all over the world were still enjoying a "honeymoon" with Papa Francesco. And he predicted that it would not wane quickly because it's "much more substantial" than a mere "media phenomenon".

Precisely because there is substance to changes the 77-year-old Jesuit Pope is trying to inculcate in the Church, especially his effort to wipe out clericalism, resistance to him has grown.

However, it is not fashionable or favourable (especially to one's career) for clerics to go around bashing the Bishop of Rome. So they have to find another target.

This is exactly what happened during Benedict XVI's pontificate when the former pope's enemies chose his Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB, as their surrogate punching bag.

Those hostile to Pope Francis and how he's governing the Vatican and the Universal Church have affixed the bull's eye on the backs of any number of people close to him.

For example, in the first weeks of his papal ministry they tried to dig up dirt on some of Papa Bergoglio's closest aides, only to see their poisonous arrows deflected by a shrewd and self-composed man who will not cave in to blackmail.

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Cardinal Walter Kasper is the latest and most prominent among those taking a hit for Pope Francis. Continue reading

- Robert Mickens update from the Vatican and around the world is back after a few months break. Robert is editor of new Catholic publication, Global Pulse Magazine.