CARDINAL FERNANDEZ’ INTERVIEW WITH GERMAN PAPER ON “SYNODAL WAY”
The following is from the Pillar’s January 4 Starting Seven Starting Seven | The Pillar (pillarcatholic.com). If you do not subscribe to the Pillar and do not also get the daily bulletin Starting Seven, you are really losing out on a terrific news site. You can count on accuracy and clarity with every report that comes out of The Pillar. I felt this piece was important because what we should expect from a prefect of the most important dicastery of the Catholic Church, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is total clarity and that is not what we have been hearing and reading. You might have seen my earlier post today (DICASTERY ISSUES CLARIFICATION OF FIDUCIA SUPPLICANS | Joan’s Rome (wordpress.com)
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More ‘pastoral developments’? Initial reports on Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández’s interview with Germany’s Die Tagespost newspaper focused on the Vatican doctrine czar’s criticisms of the country’s “synodal way.”
Fernández did indeed offer some sharp words about the German initiative’s perceived elitism.
- He said: “When you hear some of the reflections that have been made in the context of the German synodal path, it sometimes seems as if one part of the world feels particularly ‘enlightened’ in order to understand what the other poor wretches are unable to grasp because they are closed or medieval, and then this ‘enlightened’ part naively believes that thanks to it the whole universal Church will be reformed and freed from the old schemes.”
But when the full interview was published Wednesday, another remark jumped out.
Excluded topics Fernández, who was appointed prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in July, spoke about talks that are due to take place between German bishops and Vatican officials in January, April, and June this year.
He noted that the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin had written to H\the German bishops in October, enclosing a “Nota” from the doctrine office ruling out two topics from the conversations: women priests and Church teaching on homosexual acts.
But Fernández then made a comment that is likely to raise eyebrows around the Catholic world.
- “But after it was said that two topics would not be discussed, the door remains open for the discussion of the other questions,” the cardinal said. “Not to move towards a liberal answer, but perhaps to find a better understanding anda pastoral development similar to that on the blessing of irregular couples [my italics].”
The cardinal added: “So let us move forward in dialogue on these topics, which, as the ‘Nota’ says, may have aspects that cannot be reformed, but also some that can be deepened. And let’s not waste time on the two topics that have been excluded.”
Germany’s ‘other questions’ What are the “other questions” raised by the synodal way? They are many and various.
At five synodal assemblies from 2020 to 2023, participants produced 150 pages of resolutions calling for, among other things, women deacons, a re-examination of priestly celibacy, regular lay baptisms, lay preaching at Masses, an official handout with a text for same-sex blessings, a revision of the Catechism on homosexuality, and a greater lay role in choosing bishops.
Could some of these topics be subject to a “pastoral development” along the lines of Fiducia supplicans? That is a prospect that Cardinal Fernández has himself just raised.
Tucho and triangulation There are a seemingly infinite number of ways to interpret Fiducia supplicans. One way is to see it as Rome’s response to questions raised by the blessings of same-sex couples in Belgium and Germany.
In the Die Tagespost interview, Fernández said that there was “now a clear answer to this that bears the pope’s signature.”
- “It is not the answer that one would like to have in two or three countries,” he said. “Rather, it is a pastoral answer that everyone could accept, albeit with difficulty. And so the Church is growing in its pastoral ministry without this being a rupture for some parts of the world, a disregard for hundreds of years of reflection guided by the Holy Spirit.”
Observers might see this as a form of “triangulation” — a political strategy in which a leader presents an idea as being either between or above the opposing positions of the “left” and “right.” It often involves the partial adoption of the contending ideas, followed by their reformulation.
How might this work with the synodal way? The initiative endorsed lay preaching at Masses, while canon law says that the homily is “reserved to a priest or deacon.” It might be possible to triangulate the two positions by adding a clause to canon law saying that the homily is “reserved to a priest or deacon, unless pastoral reasons suggest otherwise.”
This is a crude example, presented only to convey a general idea. There is no evidence that the Vatican is considering this, especially as it recently ruled out the synodal way’s demand for lay homilists.
It is also worth underlining that the triangulation theory is only one among many and may not be Fernández’s strategy at all. But it might be worth bearing in mind as one possibile interpretation as the Rome-Germany talks unfold.
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