Cardinal-designate Fernández, new DDF prefect, warns against bishops who think they can judge ‘doctrine of the Holy Father’
September 12, 2023
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CWN Editor's Note: Cardinal-designate Victor Manuel Fernández, the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said in an interview with Edward Pentin that “heretics always think they know the true doctrine of the Church. Unfortunately, today, not only do some progressives fall into this error but also, paradoxically, do some traditionalist groups.”
The author of academic and popular theological works, as well as erotic poems published for the adolescents of his parish, Archbishop Fernández said that no bishop, including himself and Cardinal Raymond Burke, had the “special gift of the Holy Spirit to judge the doctrine of the Holy Father.”
Archbishop Fernández also criticized the German Synodal Way—though he said he knew “little about” it.
“The German Church has serious problems and obviously has to think about a new evangelization,” the Argentine prelate said. “On the other hand, today it does not have theologians on the level of those who were so impressive in the past. The risk of the Synodal Way lies in believing that by enabling some progressive novelties, the Church in Germany will flourish.”
Asked to comment on his earlier remarks about blessing same-sex unions “if they can be carried out without causing confusion,” Cardinal-designate Fernández said, “I was referring to confusing a same-sex union with a marriage. At this point it is clear that the Church only understands marriage as an indissoluble union between a man and a woman who, in their differences, are naturally open to beget life.”
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