ACI Prensa Staff, Jan 17, 2024 / 18:35 pm (CNA).
The prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, said in a recent interview that Pope Francis previously knew of his Spanish-language book “Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality.”
The book was originally published in Mexico in 1998, when Fernández was 36. He had been a priest for 12 years and already held a doctorate in theology. The book has been out of circulation, but the Argentine blog Caminante Wanderer revealed its existence in a Jan. 8 post, and it was later reported by various media outlets.
In an interview last week with the EFE news agency, the Argentine cardinal responded to criticism he received after the latest revelations about the book: “I foresaw it, and I knew that in the midst of controversial issues they could use old things like this book.”
“I had told the pope, when he proposed this position [DDF chief] to me for the second time, that this could happen, but he was already clear about it and also knew about this book,” the cardinal revealed.
“It so happens that on one occasion many years ago they had already accused me about that book and I was not sanctioned in Rome for it. They have already exhaustively investigated me,” he added.
As is also the case with the Spanish-language book “Heal Me with Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing,” published by Fernández in 1995, “Mystical Passion” is not found in the list of his published works released by the Vatican Press Office on July 1, 2023, when his appointment as the new prefect of the DDF was made official.
What is ‘Mystical Passion’ about?
In the interview, the DDF prefect noted that the “book grabs attention because it comes from research on male and female orgasm that I had done with a group of married couples.”
“But two people greater and wiser than me did something similar: St. John Paul II and the holy abbess and doctor of the Church Hildegard of Bingen. I quote verbatim part of the conclusions of St. Hildegard’s research because it’s important to read it directly: ‘When the sexual impulse makes itself felt in a man, something begins to turn inside him like a windmill … But in a woman, pleasure is like the sun, which gently, lightly, and continuously bathes the earth with its heat,” Fernández continued.
The cardinal also noted that “this saint was more thorough and concrete than me. Except that the research we did with these couples was to discover if these differences had any influence on the way they related to God. Why this saint did it I don’t know.”
“The Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality” consists of nine chapters: “The Fire of Divine Love,” “A Well of Sublime Passion,” “A Crazy Love Story,” “Mystical Passion,” “Until the End,” “My Beautiful One Come,” “Male and Female Orgasm,” “The Path to Orgasm,” and “God in the Couple’s Orgasm.”
The last three chapters of the book are possibly the ones with the most controversial content.
In a Jan. 8 statement to Infovaticana, Fernández distanced himself from the text and called it “a book from his youth that he certainly would not write now.”
Was Fiducia Supplicans necessary? Fernández responds
When asked if “it was necessary” to publish the Fiducia Supplicans declaration, which allows priests to give a blessing to same-sex couples and those in an irregular situation, Fernández told EFE that “many people and institutions have been sending questions about this topic for some time.”
In addition, he pointed out that in his “conversations with the pope one thing became clear to me, that he wanted to reject blessings to irregular couples with rites or liturgical forms, but at the same time he wanted to avoid that this involve beginning to set many conditions to give a simple blessing on the go, on the street, on a pilgrimage, because he holds in his heart the value of pastoral care for the people, which welcomes everyone.”
“For many priests in Argentina, Brazil, and other countries it’s very common to give these simple blessings without requiring anything, and to give them even to criminals. Therefore, if two people ask for it, it doesn’t involve demanding moral or canonical perfection to give it,” he stressed.
“Deep down, Francis’ interest was in safeguarding the freedom and spontaneity of this other type of blessing that is the only priestly gesture we have to give to everyone,” he stated.
When asked if Fiducia Supplicans creates division in the Church, the DDF prefect responded: “In any case, that division already existed and is only becoming transparent.”
The cardinal also said that he has spoken with Pope Francis about the criticisms and reactions in opposition to the declaration and said that the Holy Father considers them as “purifications from God to allow us to fulfill better and with more humility the task that the Lord entrusts to us.”
Responding to the question if there are any other issues he would like to clarify because they create confusion, Fernández replied: “I must say that I don’t think I’ll be in the news in the future because we don’t have any topics planned in the dicastery that could be very controversial, like the last ones.”
Fernández added: “We are preparing a very important document on human dignity that not only includes social issues but also strong criticism on moral issues such as sex changes, surrogacy, gender ideology, etc. In that sense, the people who are most concerned will be able to take it easy.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Cardinal Fernandez reports that he has discussed the controversy with Pope Francis, but does not explain why his critics did not accompany (!) him or get equal face time. For example, the former Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Muller:
https://newdailycompass.com/en/mueller-blessings-for-gay-couples-are-blasphemous
And then, our paragon of “transparency” (Fernandez) also implies concurrence from St. John Paul II, when this former pope actually affirmed truth over error. This, for one example, from the real St. John Paul II:
“According to the criterion of this truth [Humanae Vitae], which should be expressed in the language of the body, the conjugal act signifies not only love, but also potential fecundity. Therefore it cannot be deprived of its full and adequate significance by artificial means [nor by mimicking a colonoscopy!]. In the conjugal act it is not licit to separate the unitive aspect from the procreative aspect, because both the one and the other pertain to the intimate truth of the conjugal act […] Therefore, in such a case the conjugal act, deprived of its interior truth because it is artificially deprived of its procreative capacity, ceases also to be an act of live […] Such a violation of the interior order of conjugal union, which is rooted in the very order of the person, constitutes the essential evil of the contraceptive act” (Theology of the Body, TOB, 1997 from Wednesday audiences 1979-1984; August 22, 1984).
From his 1998 book (curiously the two decades and the year following TOB), Fernandez would have us believe that the “interior order” of the conjugal act can morph into a blessing/non-blessing of rectal anti-conjugal coupling, since eroticism = ecstasy = mysticism.
And, that the above clarity of St. John Paul II (whose doctoral dissertation was on the mystic St. John of the Cross) is actually spoken tongue in cheek.
If I were a betting man and were it not immoral, I would have bet everything I owned in a heartbeat that Francis knew. No more surprising than standing at the bottom of the ocean and expecting to find water.
Also “Francis the stubborn” notes in reference to negative receptions to his demonically conceived blessings that “purifications from God to allow us to fulfill better and with more humility the task that the Lord entrusts to us.” What does this mean. Absolutely nothing is what it means. It is another abuse of religious sounding language where Francis employs phony calls to humility to endorse his anti-faith agenda, to make him seem thoughtful and sincere when he is imprudent, vindictive, secular, and arrogant.
This comment by dear Edward J Baker, plus many other good articles & comments in CWR have, to my surprise, made me proud to be a Catholic.
For: despite the horrors of clergy criminal child sexual molestation & clergy sexual abuse of vulnerable adults; despite the lying cover-ups & waste of billions in legal costs; despite the fraudulent misuses of monies sacrificially contributed by poor lay people to help those in dire need; despite the heretical misfeasances & malfeasances of the current anti-Apostolic incumbent of The Chair of Peter & his discredited cronies; THERE IS STILL a strong constituency of faithful & informed, lay & ordained Catholics who have the courage to publicly speak out THE TRUTH.
“Pilate asked Him: ‘So you are a king?’”
“Jesus answered: ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, & for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.’”
“Pilate asked Him: ‘What is truth?’” John 18:32-38a
Just skip 2000 years & wince to hear Team Bergoglio questioning Jesus Christ again: ‘What is truth?’”
The difference is that today, worldwide, there are numerous faithful, informed & courageous Catholics ready to tell our Pontius Bergoglios exactly what THE TRUTH is, was, & eternally will be!
We all pray for our leaders to repent and return to THE TRUTH.
Yet, Hebrews 6:6 warns us that this may be impossible if they are indeed:
“. crucifying again The Son of God & holding Him up to contempt.”
These are strange & unprecedented times demanding our faithful perseverance. So, stay strong in THE LORD, dear brothers & sisters; with love & blessings from marty
Rupnik, Vanier, Fernandez, that other guy who just got a five-year slap on the wrist from the Vatican.
These guys all seem to be on the same page.
All these perverts are on Team Francis…he put them where they are. You are known by the people you choose as your associates.
“ … they could use old things like this book.”
“ “It so happens that on one occasion many years ago …
Right, because 1998 is practically in the Old Testament era.
What a cynical, manipulative dirty old man he is.
Aside from the bizarre comparison of mystical ecstasy to organism, a priest’s blessing given anonymously differs from specification, in this instance the desire to bless homosexual couples. To compare the similarity of anonymity to specification doesn’t follow. “For many priests in Argentina [etc] it’s very common to give these simple blessings without requiring anything”. Requiring anything suggests to forgo questioning.
But it would be highly unusual for a priest to interrogate anonymous persons. If a priest gives a blessing when it’s not apparent the persons are homosexual it’s acceptable. Although Card Fernández speaking for Pope Francis suggests the priest’s knowledge of the couple’s homosexuality, and that a blessing should be given as if it were anonymous, which is impossible. The premise is false.
Correction. bizarre comparison of mystical ecstasy to [orgasm]
Who would have ever doubted the knowledge of the book by Pope Bergoglio? Only the deliberately self-deceived.
Tucho has given us a theology for our times: The Dumb Ages. ¿Qué hora es? 💋
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cKGyOE_jOI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZGac0jM8f0
Bedtime stories at the Vatican. As Catholics we should be focused on the road to Emmaus. Instead we get ‘the road to orgasm’. When you can’t make deep, cogent, theological arguments, you become the Pope of footnotes, innuendos, plane conversations, and power politics. He uses the cover of pastoral to push through his duplicitous agenda.
Also, well discerned by mighty Saint James:
“ADULTERS! DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT FRIENDSHIP WITH THW WORLD IS ENMITY WITH GOD? THEREFORE WHOEVER WISHES TO BE A FRIEND OF THE WORLD BECOMES AN ENEMY OF GOD.” James 4:4
The answer for ‘Pope’ Francis, ‘Cardinal’ Fernadez, & their co-conspirators:
“SUBMIT YOURSELF THEREFORE TO GOD. RESIST THE DEVIL, AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. DRAW NEAR TO GOD, AND HE WILL DRAW NEAR TO YOU. CLEANSE YOUR HANDS, YOU SINNERS, AND PURIFY YOUR HEARTS, YOU DOUBLE-MINDED. LAMENT AND MOURN AND WEEP. LET YOUR LAUGHTER BE TURNED INTO MOURNING AND YOUR JOY INTO DEJECTION. HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE THE LORD, AND HE WILL EXALT YOU.” James 4:7-10
We are told not to let ourselves get led into dialogue with the devil. Eve did that, with well-known results. When your well-formed conscience signals, even though incohately, that you are in the presence of evil, resist the temptation to bargain and run the other way, our spiritual directors tell us.
I wonder what Fernández’s prayer life is like?
No priest who is vowed to chastity should EVER write a book like this. It has the potential to be an occasion of sin to others. If the Pope knew and appointed him anyway, shame on him. The church has had enough black eyes from sexual abuse cases, etc without drawing attention to itself yet again with another negative sex related scandal. Beyond inappropriate, and he should have been reprimanded when the book was first written.