Cardinal Fernández’s First Year: Undermining His Own Magisterium?

The soft-core pornographer has been doing his best to undermine Catholic doctrine, but at the same time, he has given so many 'exceptions' that it's hard to argue that any of it is 'magisterial' which is a very good thing!

From The Catholic Thing

By Fr Raymond J. de Souza

Víctor Manuel Fernández has been busy during his first year in office. But has he been effective?

Appointed one year ago this week as prefect of the Vatican’s doctrinal office – in the past known colloquially in Rome as “La Suprema” and now officially as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) – Cardinal Fernández has had an intense year, giving official responses to questions about Holy Communion for couples living together outside valid marriages, transgender godparents, freemasonry, and cremation; declarations on blessing same-sex couples and human dignity; a note on the valid administration of the sacraments, and norms on judging supernatural phenomena.

Yet amidst this flurry of magisterial activity, Cardinal Fernández may have undermined the very magisterium he has so vigorously exercised. He has taught energetically, but in a manner that makes unclear what is being taught. Such an approach can erode magisterial authority, not because Catholics might dissent from magisterial teaching, but because it is no longer clear what magisterial teaching is.

Three instances from the past year illustrate the problem.

I. Returning to Amoris laetitia

Just weeks after taking up his duties in Rome, Cardinal Fernández returned to Amoris laetitia, a document where it was shown that he was a key influence, likely the principal drafter. The 2016 apostolic exhortation struck many as contradicting what St. John Paul II taught in Veritatis splendor. Fernández defended Amoris laetitia, but while the thoughts of a ghostwriter are of interest, they are not magisterial.

Thus, early on as prefect, Fernández sought to shore up a salvage operation on Amoris laetitia, of which he was a participant. Answering questions submitted to the DDF, Fernández repeated in September 2023 that the definitive interpretation of Amoris laetitia was given by Pope Francis in a letter he wrote to the bishops of the Buenos Aires pastoral region in September 2016. In that letter, the Holy Father said that there were “no other interpretations.”

The Buenos Aires guidelines were more restrictive than was widely reported. For example, they were more strict than the Malta guidelines proposed by Cardinal Mario Grech – now head of the Vatican’s synod secretariat – when he was a bishop in Malta. He was joined by Archbishop Charles Scicluna, adjunct secretary of the DDF. If there are truly “no other interpretations,” it means that Grech and Scicluna were wrong.

Leaving that aside, the manner of the Buenos Aires maneuver was most remarkable. I described it then as “magisterium by stealth.” The ambiguous parts of Amoris laetitia were clarified by guidelines from the Buenos Aires bishops, among whom was Fernández, at that time a bishop in Buenos Aires as rector of the Catholic University of Argentina. The guidelines were then approved in a letter from Pope Francis to the Buenos Aires bishops, leaked to the press when the guidelines were released. Fernández subsequently argued that a leaked letter could be a magisterial act.

Could a leaked letter clarify magisterial teaching, especially when it appeared at variance with the teaching of an encyclical (Veritatis splendor)? That was not persuasive to many, so in 2017 Pope Francis declared, ex post facto, that his letter to Buenos Aires was now an apostolic letter, and thus part of the magisterium. For over a year there was an “apostolic letter” that no one knew was such, a hidden deployment of magisterial authority.

Upholding this unusual maneuver was the subject that Cardinal Fernández chose to address first as prefect, namely that the magisterium could be exercised by manner of press leaks. Once hidden, it could then become retroactively a magisterial teaching, which no one suspected had been offered.

Why would the prefect make that his first priority? Perhaps because it was important to emphasize that the magisterium is whatever the relevant pastors decide that it is.

II. Flip Flops on Fiducia supplicans

The Buenos Aires maneuver betrayed an approach that would dominate Cardinal Fernández’s signature initiative of the past year, Fiducia supplicans, the third section of which is entitled “Blessings of Couples in Irregular Situations and of Couples of the Same Sex.” That was rejected outright by many, for example, the largest eastern Church, the Ukrainian Greek Catholics.

While the controversy is well known, consider how Fernández decided to respond.

First was a “press release” that drew distinctions that appeared to empty the original declaration of its plain meaning. The press statement gave specific instructions on how priests might offer a blessing. Can a press release modify a “declaration” – the highest level of DDF teaching – approved by the Holy Father? Is the declaration then to be read in light of the latest comments of the prefect to the media? Does it have to be a formal press release? Would a tweet do?

Second, the bishops of Africa summarily rejected Fiducia. The prefect then met with Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besengu, president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) and signed a joint statement remarkably agreeing that the DDF’s own declaration did not apply in Africa.

“This is to express our position today in Africa and we do it in a spirit of communion, of synodality with Pope Francis, and with the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith,” Ambongo said. “In Africa there is no place to bless homosexual couples. Not at all.”

Thus magisterial teaching can be suspended geographically if the prefect agrees. Fernández did not make clear how an African priest should act if, for example, working in a California parish.

Third, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, headed by Pope Tawadros II, suspended ecumenical relations with Rome, “rejecting all forms of homosexual relationships, because they violate the holy Bible and the law by which God created man as male and female, and the [Coptic] Church considers any blessing of such relations, whatever its type, to be a blessing for sin, and this is unacceptable.”

Cardinal Fernández went on a fence-mending visit to Egypt and attempted to solve that problem by flatly stating that the Holy See “agrees” with the Coptic statement that rejected the teaching of Fiducia and broke off relations. The prefect is in agreement with a rejection of his own declaration.

Is it possible then to speak of Fiducia as magisterial teaching?

The original document remains officially unmodified. But on three occasions the prefect himself, by non-magisterial methods, has distanced himself from his own document, and agreed with those who reject it. If the prefect is not bound by his own magisterium, are other Catholics?

III. The Mystical Passion Modus Operandi

A review of the Cardinal Fernández’s first year must include the coming to light of his 1998 book on orgasms, Mystical Passion, which includes details of an imagined erotic encounter with Jesus Christ on the shores of Galilee. Fernández claimed that it was based on a spiritual experience disclosed to him by a 16-year-old girl. The book was a more penetrating examination of themes he addressed in his 1995 book, Heal Me With Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing.

How did Fernández respond to that scandal? Easily. He did not retract the book, or denounce it, but simply said that he “would not write that now” and “spread[ing] it now” is “not authorized” and “contrary to my will.” The text no longer corresponds to the prefect’s will. A certain voluntarism can come in handy.

It’s the same approach with magisterial texts. What is taught can be modified ex post by a contrary statement by the author. Mystical Passion is thus no longer to be read as written; neither is Fiducia supplicans nor Amoris laetitia.

On substantive matters, Michael Pakaluk has argued that Mystical Passion is consistent with Fernández’s moral theology. But that theology is elusive if it can simply be abandoned if it proves inconvenient. The magisterium is not intended to be abandoned.

To Protect the Faith

The day before the Fernández appointment was the 25th anniversary of the public release of a motu proprio of John Paul II, Ad tuendam fidem. Attached was a very careful and detailed commentary signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

“To protect the faith the Catholic Church against errors arising from certain members of the Christian faithful, especially from among those dedicated to the various disciplines of sacred theology,” is how John Paul’s document began. The exacting precision of the Ratzinger commentary demonstrated how carefully that task must be carried out.

That exacting care no longer marks the DDF. George Weigel recently argued that a “rupture by stealth” was underway in regard to capital punishment, given the imprecise formulations used by Fernández in Dignitas infinita.

The prefect’s next year in Rome might be similarly energetic. But how effective can he be working at cross purposes with himself?

Pictured: His Eminence Víctor Manuel, Cardinal Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith