By Januarius Asongu

In the wake of Pope Francis’s pastoral initiatives affirming accompaniment for LGBTQ+ individuals— culminating in Fiducia Supplicans (2023)—the global Catholic hierarchy witnessed an extraordinary wave of episcopal resistance, particularly across the Global South. This article addresses two interrelated theological and canonical questions: (1) whether such papal statements constitute infallible doctrine, thereby excluding legitimate dissent; and (2) whether episcopal conferences possess canonical authority to reject, suspend, or reinterpret non-infallible papal guidance. Through a critical reading of conciliar, magisterial, and canonical sources, this study contends that the Pope’s action falls within the non-infallible Ordinary Magisterium, demanding obsequium religiosum—the religious submission of intellect and will—rather than optional compliance. Open defiance by bishops thus exceeds canonical liberty and fractures ecclesial communion. Furthermore, the paper situates this crisis within a broader moral and sociological context: a hierarchy compromised by historical failures of sexual ethics and clerical accountability lacks credibility in adjudicating pastoral mercy. The resulting conflict between papal mercy and episcopal rigidity is not merely disciplinary but eschatological—signifying the painful birth of doctrinal development toward full LGBTQ+ inclusion and the recovery of the Christocentric ethic of agape