Vatican City, Jul 1, 2023 / 13:22 pm (CNA).
The announcement on July 1 that Pope Francis has named Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández to lead the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith was accompanied by a letter the Holy Father addressed to the Argentine theologian.
While Fernández’s appointment came as a surprise to many, the pope’s letter also has attracted attention because of what it reveals about Francis’ vision for the dicastery, one of the most important and powerful offices in the Roman Curia.
The pope says in the letter that the dicastery at times has promoted pursuing “doctrinal errors” over “promoting theological knowledge.”
“What I expect from you is certainly something very different,” Francis said. “I ask you as prefect to dedicate your personal commitment in a more direct way to the main purpose of the dicastery, which is ‘guarding the faith.’”
Quoting from his first apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, which Fernández reportedly helped to draft, Pope Francis emphasizes that the Church grows “‘in her interpretation of the revealed word and in her understanding of truth’ without this implying the imposition of a single way of expressing it.”
The pope said that differing “currents of thought in philosophy, theology, and pastoral practice, if open to being reconciled by the Spirit in respect and love, can enable the Church to grow.”
“It is good that your task expresses that the Church ‘encourages the charism of theologians and their scholarly efforts’ as long as they are not ‘content with a desk-bound theology’ with a ‘a cold and harsh logic that seeks to dominate everything.’”
The Holy See Press Office’s official English translation of the letter is below. Source material appears in footnotes beneath the letter.
Letter of the Holy Father to the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith
To His Most Reverend Excellency
Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández
Vatican City, 1 July 2023
Dear Brother,
As the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, I entrust to you a task that I consider very valuable. Its central purpose is to guard the teaching that flows from the faith in order to “to give reasons for our hope, but not as an enemy who critiques and condemns” [1].
The Dicastery over which you will preside in other times came to use immoral methods. Those were times when, rather than promoting theological knowledge, possible doctrinal errors were pursued. What I expect from you is certainly something very different.
You have served as dean of the Faculty of Theology of Buenos Aires, president of the Argentinean Society of Theology and president of the Faith and Culture Commission of the Argentinean Episcopate, in all cases voted by your peers, who have thus valued your theological charisma. As rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina you encouraged a healthy integration of knowledge. On the other hand, you were parish priest of “Santa Teresita” and until now archbishop of La Plata, where you knew how to bring theological knowledge into dialogue with the life of the holy People of God.
Given that for disciplinary matters — especially related to the abuse of minors — a specific Section has recently been created with very competent professionals, I ask you as prefect to dedicate your personal commitment more directly to the main purpose of the Dicastery, which is “keeping the faith” [2].
In order not to limit the significance of this task, it should be added that it is a matter of “increasing the understanding and transmission of the faith in the service of evangelization, so that its light may be a criterion for understanding the meaning of existence, especially in the face of the questions posed by the progress of the sciences and the development of society” [3]. These issues, incorporated in a renewed proclamation of the Gospel message, “become tools of evangelization” [4] because they allow us to enter into conversation with “our present situation, which is in many ways unprecedented in the history of humanity” [5].
Moreover, you know that the Church “grow[s] in her interpretation of the revealed word and in her understanding of truth” [6] without this implying the imposition of a single way of expressing it. For “Differing currents of thought in philosophy, theology, and pastoral practice, if open to being reconciled by the Spirit in respect and love, can enable the Church to grow” [7]. This harmonious growth will preserve Christian doctrine more effectively than any control mechanism.
It is good that your task expresses that the Church “encourages the charism of theologians and their scholarly efforts” as long as they are not “content with a desk-bound theology” [8], with a “a cold and harsh logic that seeks to dominate everything” [9]. It will always be true that reality is superior to the idea. In this sense, we need theology to be attentive to a fundamental criterion: to consider that “all theological notions that ultimately call into question the very omnipotence of God, and his mercy in particular, are inadequate” [10]. We need a way of thinking which can convincingly present a God who loves, who forgives, who saves, who liberates, who promotes people and calls them to fraternal service.
This happens if “the message has to concentrate on the essentials, on what is most beautiful, most grand, most appealing and at the same time most necessary” [11]. You are well aware that there is a harmonious order among the truths of our message, and the greatest danger occurs when secondary issues end up overshadowing the central ones.
In the horizon of this richness, your task also implies a special care to verify that the documents of your own Dicastery and of the others have an adequate theological support, are coherent with the rich humus of the perennial teaching of the Church and at the same time take into account the recent Magisterium.
May the Blessed Virgin protect and watch over you in this new mission. Please do not cease to pray for me.
Fraternally,
FRANCIS
Footnotes
[1] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 271.
[2] Motu proprio Fidem Servare (11 February 2022), Introduction.
[3] Ibid., 2.
[4] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 132.
[5] Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ (24 May 2015), 17.
[6] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 40.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 133.
[9] Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate (19 March 2018), 39.
[10] International Theological Commission, “The Hope of Salvation for Infants who die without being baptized” (19 April 2007), 2.
[11] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 35.
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Surely the key line in this letter is the final one dealing with both “…the rich humus of the perennial teaching of the Church and at the same time take into account the recent Magisterium.”
Of this conundrum or possibly false dualism, yours truly (a non-credentialed spectator) fully appreciates the riddle of out time of fully addressing both (a) personal direct morality and (b) the connected, but broader and less discrete (not discreet) morality of structural sin and cultural sins of omission.
The solution is to heighten the tension between the two, and not simplistically or ideologically to reduce either to the other…Two examples:
FIRST, take the “LGBTQ” political and cultural agenda….At the 2014-2015 Synod on the Family, and under pressure from a unanimous “demand,” Cardinal Baldiserri removed the mysteriously-inserted collective term. The Church deals with persons, not categories –the point made earlier by Archbishop Chaput and initially brushed aside in clericalist fashion!
Today, one moral issue embedded in the synodal Instrumentum Laboris is reappearance of the collective term for the LGBTQ demographic, aka “community.” The personal moral issue is already clearly addressed in the Catechism (n. 2352) with regard to the, yes, complexity of predisposing conditions, i.e., “affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors…”
Pope Francis’ letter to his ghostwriter, Archbishop Fernandez, will be at least twofold: (a) to reestablish the Church’s focus on individual human persons (and maybe even their “families”!), AND, (b) to avoid throwing gas on the fire—that is, any enabling verbiage that either continues to elide underlying causes in early sexual abuse or fatherless families, porn, or the slippery slope of getting locked in by early sexual experimentation…”
(Is the collectivist term/agenda “LGBTQ” now part of the “recent Magisterim?” Said the Chinese emperor when asked what he would do to salvage his civilization: “I would restore the meaning of words.”)
SECOND, similarly but more visible is the complexity of the micro-economics of individuals alongside the macroeconomics of related structures as the latter contribute to the urgent but murky issue of global ecological disruption—and then the indirect neglect or even triaging of vulnerable populations.
Laudato Si (2015): On this binocular problem set, St. John Paul II made one vital connection (Cupich’s dismissive “rabbit hole”): “These [abortion] policies are extending into their field of action by the use of new techniques, to the point of poisoning the lives of millions of defenseless human beings as if in a form of ‘chemical warfare'” (Centesimus Annus, 1991, n. 39).
SHORT STORY, and speaking theologically, before GOD the 2023 Synod on Synodality must run deeper than “continental” breakfast, linguistic-group divide-and-conquer, and three-minute comments and protocols; AND Archbishop Fernandez and his dicastery must do better than simply moving things along through artful wording—such pseudo-magisterial (?) stuff as “proportionalism,” “consequentialism,” and the Fundamental Option (Veritatis Splendor, 1993).
So, growth or mutation? Butt, who am I to judge?
Can anyone else see that the Emperor (Pope Francis) is entirely spiritually naked.
His theological spin-tailors have so mesmerized him that his letter is almost entirely self-referential. Not a single stitch of clothing by the words and life-example of Our Lord Jesus Christ, so richly given to us by the apostolic 9 authors of the 27 texts of The New Testament: the wedding garment of two millennia of Catholicism.
(Please recall, dear Francis, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, with over 3,500 citations from our Founder’s New Testament).
It seems that, tragically, ‘The Holy Father’ has come to the point of condemning the Faith we have all believed in and lived by as: “a cold and harsh logic that seeks to dominate everything”.
Un-spin this and Francis is writing that: “Obdurately unrepentant offenders against the teachings of Christ are now to find a warm welcome among the faithful!” That is, rather than their being mercifully told the Gospel truth & lovingly invited to repent & be saved, and thus to join the rest of us in normal Catholicism.
No one ever imagined we’d live to read of a pope organizing an anti-Apostolic rebellion.
Keep praying everyone!
Ever in the joy of obedience to Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
More self-referential than even you suggest. Wanna bet that key lines in the letter addressed to the archbishop by Pope Francis were penned by Archbishop Fernandez himself, the pope’s ghostwriter….
The new head of the dicastery for Catholic Doctrine has a reputation for skillfully harmonizing diverse themes, but it seems for also glossing over real contradictions. And for citing himself as an authority. Intellectual incest?
Notice below from July 1, part of the back story for my entry above:
“Pope Francis, who has known Fernández for decades, reportedly entrusted him with drafting his first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, a text in which the archbishop cited his own prior scholarship [!] as a source document.” https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/07/01/pope-francis-appoints-argentine-archbishop-fernandez-as-head-of-doctrine-dicastery/
It was graffiti “four principles” in the 2013 Evangelii Gaudium (influenced by Fernandez) that hinted early at the likely suppression of the (unnamed) Veritatis Splendor–by what has become a deformed version of “synods”.
About the four “principles”:
First, when is “realities are more important than ideas [concepts?]” at risk of NOMINALISM (concrete exemptions from, yes, never denied, but irreducible and sidelined moral absolutes)?
Then, when is “time is greater than space” at risk of HISTORICISM (the process IS the message)?
Also, when is “unity prevails over conflict” at risk of CLERICALISM (the synodal word processing “experts” and, ironically, earlier local bishops “primarily as facilitators”)?
And, when is “the whole is greater than the part” at risk of GLOBALISM (e.g., synods of bishops [!] redefined in Rome as a grand finale clerical/lay focus group)?
“A God who loves, who forgives, who saves, who liberates, who promotes people and calls them to fraternal service” – is indeed a healthy God.
Well the last safeguard againSt Heresy has just been destroyed. Please God, end this corrupt Pontificate, we have suffered enough.
This CNA report appears to have been written by Pope Francis acting in his capacity as a journalistic reporter.
In the VATICAN NEWS link, Archbishop Fernandez says he identifies “6 strong points” related by the Pope that he intends to follow.
The opening section of the CNA report above, appears to be a read-out of the “6 strong points”.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-07/archbishop-fernandez-jesus-saves-interview-doctrine-ddf-prefect.html