It is a close friend whom Francis appointed Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on Saturday, July 1st. The Pope has elected Msgr. Vìctor Manuel Fernàndez, an Argentine theologian and Archbishop of La Plata since 2018, to head this strategic service of the Curia, heir to the Holy Inquisition.
The 60-year-old, who will be responsible as the “guardian of dogma” of the Catholic Church from mid-September, has a long career as a theologian behind him. Born in Argentina, where he had developed close ties with Pope Francis, he founded a training center for lay people in the mid-1990s before heading the prestigious Argentine Pontifical Catholic University for nine years. Among the hundreds of articles he has authored, there is a common thread: the dialogue between theology and contemporary culture and the importance given to social issues.
charter do #DaddyFrancisco to Dom Víctor Manuel Fernández, who will direct the Dicastério para a Doutrina da Féhttps://t.co/6lzPXrzRrw
— Vatican News (@vaticannews_pt) July 1, 2023
The Pope’s pen
Since the beginning of Francis’ pontificate, the one who was also president of the Argentine Society of Theology, has multiplied the trips to and from Rome to work with Francis, of whose relatives he is. “When the Pope has an important text to write, he locks himself in with Monsignor Fernández for a week and they work tirelessly until something happens,” explains one of the Pope’s friends. The Argentine theologian was also one of the main protagonists of Amoris Laetitia, the family admonition published in 2016, which had sparked heated debates in the Catholic Church, particularly over the situation of remarried divorcees. He also spent the days leading up to his appointment at the end of June at the Residence of Saint Martha, where Francis lives, to work with the Pope.
It is therefore a profile of rupture that Pope Francis has chosen to succeed the Jesuit Luis Ladaria, who has been at the forefront of the doctrine of the faith since 2017 and has reached the age limit. In Rome, some still remember the interview the Argentine theologian gave to the Corriere della Sera in May 2015. At the time, the Archbishop of Argentina told the Italian daily that the Roman Curia was “not essential”. “The pope might as well live outside of Rome, have a dicastery in Rome and one in Bogotá, and maybe connect via video conference with liturgical experts based in Germany,” he explained at the time.
The end of the fight against doctrinal errors?
Pope Francis has set a clear course for the new prefect: “To watch over the teaching” of the Church, “but not like enemies who point the finger and condemn”. This conception of this dicastery, whose task is precisely to condemn theological deviations, involves the risk of a lot of ink being spilled, but is fully adopted by the Pope. “The dicastery that you will preside over has seen other times when immoral methods were used,” Francis wrote in a letter in Spanish to his Argentine friend released by the Vatican. These were times when possible doctrinal errors were investigated instead of promoting theological knowledge. What I expect from you is undoubtedly something else entirely. »
“It is good that your task expresses that the Church encourages the charism of theologians and their efforts in theological research, on condition that they are not satisfied with a clerical theology, with a cold and hard logic that wants to rule everything,” writes Francis, before insisting on his attachment to “an idea capable of convincingly portraying a God who loves, who forgives and who saves”.
fight against sexual violence
At the head of his dicastery, the new prefect will also be responsible for combating the most serious sexual violence, since his dicastery is responsible for handling cases of pedophilia and sexual abuse of protected adults. Over the years the ‘Disciplinary Department’ has continued to grow and now has 25 ‘officials’, up from 18 five years ago. The “teaching department”, which guarantees compliance with good teaching, consists of 9 people.
It is more than likely that this appointment will provoke much comment in Rome, since the profile of the new prefect is so close to that of Francis and, above all, embodies a new conception of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. In the 2015 Corriere della Sera interview, Bishop Fernàndez developed the spirit of the Roman Curia reform initiated by his compatriot: “The Pope is going slowly because he wants to be sure that the changes will have a profound impact,” he said said then. Slowness is necessary for their effectiveness. He knows some are hoping that the next pope will backfire. If you walk slowly, it’s harder to come back. » Support for deep reform. And finally.