My problem with Monsignor Fernandez (and the 'Church of Francis')

By Carlos Esteban

Monsignor Víctor Manuel Fernández, recently appointed Prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith, has granted Infovaticana an interview in which he outlines his conception of the post and substantially repeats the approach of the letter with which the Holy Father accompanied his appointment.

The Eyes are the Mirror of the Soul

In both texts he presents an understanding of the role of what was once the Holy Office that is radically different from what it has been historically. Originally, it was an ecclesiastical institution focused on the zealous preservation of doctrine, using sentences and condemnations with very real canonical consequences. It was understood then that what, in the eyes of the world, might appear to be rigidity and even cruelty was, in reality, mercy towards the People of God, who could thus trust the Church to be a reliable interpreter of Christ's message.

By contrast, the Dicastery over which Fernández will preside is, in the Holy Father's words, "undoubtedly something very different".

Now Doctrine of the Faith sounds vaguely like a kind of high theological 'debating club' in which "the aim is to 'increase the intelligence and transmission of the faith at the service of evangelisation, so that its light may be a criterion for understanding the meaning of existence, especially in the face of the questions raised by the progress of science and the development of society'". These questions, taken up in a renewed proclamation of the Gospel message, "become instruments of evangelisation", because they allow us to enter into conversation with "the present context in what is unprecedented for the history of humanity".

His Holiness goes on to affirm that "the Church "needs to grow 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. For "different lines of philosophical, theological and pastoral thought, if they allow themselves to be harmonised by the Spirit in respect and love, can also make the Church grow". This harmonious growth will preserve Christian doctrine more effectively than any mechanism of control".

The latter is, rather than a statement, a beautiful wish which, we fear, is not supported by the experience of the last century. It is a fact that new "lines of thought" have been promoted since the last Council, just as it is a fact that the phenomenon has not preserved "Christian doctrine more effectively than any control mechanism". In pastoral terms, "making a mess" can have an evangelically positive interpretation; in doctrinal terms, hardly. Clarity is an essential element of the beautiful, which in turn is an aspect of the good.

Fernández even uses in the interview one of the 'fetish verbs' of this pontificate: to listen. The Church, Mater et Magistra, comes down from the chair from which she teaches the people to listen to them.

It will not escape an obviously intelligent person like Fernández that these two conceptions are still present and confronting each other in the Church, without providing precisely "harmonious growth". One connects with that 'happily outdated' past and considers it essentially one with the present; the other speaks continually as if the Church of today were something substantially different, with new priorities, virtues, sins and doctrines. The division, thank God, is not yet declared and definite, but it is very real and visible.

And at this point my doubt arises. If the Dicastery is 'tainted' by this history that we want to overcome, if it is going to be something "very different", why not abolish it? Why not create something new, this centre for the promotion of theological research and dialogue that the Pope is outlining?

That is my doubt, and my fear. We are in the Pontificate of mercy, we are told from all ecclesiastical circles. Rome's attitude towards theologians condemned in the previous Pontificate is today not merely tolerated, but applauded and accepted as collaborators in the new magisterial undertakings.

But, on the other hand, one would have to be blind not to notice that the touted mercy is one-way, while those who harbour doubts about the desirability of 'renewal' are relentlessly removed, degraded or ignored. A Catholic should give anyone the benefit of the doubt, let alone the Holy Father, but, after more than a decade, any such doubts have been definitively dispelled.

Hence my fear that the new Holy Office, adorned with dialogue and mercy, will continue to be a weapon against dissent, but this time in a different direction.

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