By Ryan Brady
A Denver priest, busy as he may be in an active parish and teaching at a respected seminary, has recently published a thorough and timely book on blessings.
Father Israel Perez-Lopez, pastor of St Cajetan Parish in Denver and the Archbishop Charles Chaput Chair of Philosophy at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, wrote Bless and Do Not Curse: Thomas Aquinas’ Moral Theology of Blessings, which is now available online and in stores.
Father Perez-Lopez wrote Bless and Do Not Curse as both an exploration and explanation, which he found necessary after the controversial issuing of Fiducia Supplicans by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document, released in December 2023, details the possibility, stipulations and basic theology by which a priest may bless couples in irregular unions, including same-sex relationships.
Far from intending to engage in or stoke controversy, Father Perez-Lopez began his research and writing with one fundamental question: “How do we use blessings in a Christian way?” He especially approached this question with a desire to avoid what he called a “hermeneutic of suspicion” regarding the Holy See. By “hermeneutic of suspicion,” he means the way many Catholics view and interpret anything the Holy Father says or does with extreme suspicion and doubt, as if looking for heresy and false teaching around every corner instead of receiving the teaching of the Vatican with what he calls “filial charity.”
Expanding on that filial charity, he said he hopes for “a clear understanding of blessings, and also, maybe, the realization that we should receive the Magisterium of the Pope with a filial attitude. Maybe if we’re too quick to judge the teaching because we have ideological prejudices, we will miss the teaching. I know more theology than my father, but I respect my father. Usually, when he has something to tell me, he has a point. So, I think, if we have the same attitude to listen to the Magisterium maybe we’ll receive the teaching in a different way, without prejudice. I’m not saying the Pope is infallible in every teaching. I’m not saying every bishop is infallible in every teaching. But I am worried about this attitude in which we judge the teaching of the Church.”
The book, which summarizes St. Thomas Aquinas’ teaching about blessings, is not a comprehensive theological text. Rather, it is meant to provide a theological framework for interpreting the Magisterium’s teaching on blessings.
“What I want to provide is a theological framework to receive the document and to see how the document is in continuity with Catholic tradition and Catholic teaching. And, it is difficult to think of a theologian that is more ‘traditional’ than Thomas Aquinas, so let’s see what Thomas says about question, about the topic. That is the idea of the book,” Father Perez-Lopez explained.
When asked, Father Perez-Lopez would not go so far as to say that we have an impoverished understanding of blessing. Still, he did speak of a “deficit of philosophical consideration,” which he seeks to address in the book.
He began his research into the topic a little over a year ago, and after working out a full understanding of what Aquinas says on the matter, he used the saint’s model for teaching and inquiry to distill the information into a short 106-page text.
Father Perez-Lopez’s path in the book follows Aquinas’ own as he examines blessings through the lens of four virtues: veracity, charity, religion and prudence, each of which has a particular connection to and purpose in the act of blessing or its reception. Each chapter, focusing on each individual virtue, examines the angle in-depth, and Father Perez-Lopez does not hesitate to invite the reader into his theology class (he is a professor, after all!) to understand the topic in a new way.
However, despite the theological language and framing of the book, he says it is not meant for experts or to be read by an exclusive club of educated Catholics. Rather, Father Perez-Lopez intended the book for Catholics with “average formation,” enough to have a foundation but with no need to be experts in moral theology. He wrote it as an explainer and exploration of a current issue or event, after all, so it is made to be useful for the average layman.
By writing Bless and Do Not Curse, Father Perez-Lopez hopes that we acquire a “clearer understanding of blessings,” that we learn to “receive the Magisterium with filial charity,” and most of all, that we follow the words of St. Paul in his letter to the Romans: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”
+++
For more information on Bless and Do Not Curse: Thomas Aquinas’s Moral Theology of Blessings, visit wipfandstock.com.
