The way Tucho thinks. More salacious writing from the enemy of the great Marian dogmas

The recent resurgence on social media of a booklet published in 1989 by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, current Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, has raised questions about the language used by the cardinal at the time. The work, conceived as a guide to inner healing, contains passages of a sensual nature and poems with a strong erotic and emotional charge that are being discussed again two decades later.

The dissemination of Víctor Manuel Fernández's text, titled "Why Can't I Finish Healing?", has been surprising due to the presence of bodily descriptions that contrast with its pastoral purpose. In the chapter "When Sensuality Clouds My Image," he explains how certain garments enhance physical attractiveness, noting: "The sensuality of tanned shoulders and arms is accentuated by wearing a t-shirt […] A bare neck is more sensual when adorned with a chain." He also compares shifting tastes—"fine, white, and delicate" hands versus "fleshy and warm" ones—and warns that following these variations can turn a person into "a depraved individual" who uses and discards others.

Another passage that perplexes the faithful comes from the section "Love Without Direction," where Fernández introduces a short poem focused on the oscillation of emotions and the intensity of desire. In it, he writes: "To desire with all one's soul and suddenly discover that I no longer want so much, that I can no longer bear the weight of an immense passion, that infinite risk, that death-defying leap, the dangerous game that begins on your lips and then, who knows…" The image of an affection that ignites and wanes has been interpreted as an example of the introspective tone that characterizes this small book of barely 33 pages.

The fragment that has circulated most widely is the poem "Kiss," where Fernández uses suggestive language to describe the affectionate expression projected by the mouth. It includes verses such as "Your mouth sings without using words […] Let your mouth speak, confidently freeing the sky from its borders, loosening its flesh and smiling my name." The reference to "loosening its flesh" and to lips "that invite when they open" has generated particular attention among those who have recently commented on the text on social media.

Sources close to the author recall that it is a short work from his early period, written when Fernández was in the first years of his theological work. They also point out that the cardinal himself has admitted on other occasions that he would not write certain passages in the same style today as he did in the 1990s and early 2000s, which places these descriptions within the context of his personal literary evolution. Nevertheless, the cardinal himself alerted Pope Francis to these early works before appointing him Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a point Francis dismissed.

The rest of the volume maintains a classic spiritual approach, centered on forgiveness, acceptance of limitations, and the search for inner healing. However, the text's reappearance has prompted commentary on the contrast between this content and the sensory imagery included in certain chapters. To date, neither the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith nor Fernández has issued a statement regarding this renewed public dissemination of the work.

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