Reflecting on Cardinal Fernández’ First Year as Doctrinal Chief; And More News

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith

The following are some items that may be of interest.

1. Last month marked the first anniversary of Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández’ tenure as prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. That year has been convulsive for LGBTQ+ issues as the dicastery issued both Fiducia Supplicans, which allowed blessings for queer couples, and Dignitas Infinita, which condemned gender transitions, in addition to a more minor document affirming transgender people in the church’s sacramental life.

But despite the bad and in view of the good, it seems Fernández has fulfilled his mandate from Pope Francis to refocus on evangelization and put away the dicastery’s past “immoral methods.” Christopher White of the National Catholic Reporter detailed the cardinal’s time in what was once the church’s most important post, second only to the pope. Of Fernández, theologian Fr. James Keenan, SJ, told NCR he was “a public theologian and pastoral administrator,” continuing:

“‘I do not think that Fernández sacrifices or compromises the law of the church, but he’s attentive to the hierarchy of truths and provides a pastoral hermeneutics through which he respects both the complexity of church teaching and the consciences of the faithful as they respond to the summons of Christ. In this he is like the canonist theologian who knows the smell of his sheep.'”

Relatedly, Pope Francis appointed three LGBTQ-positive prelates as members of the doctrinal dicastery. They are Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, and Archbishop Bruno Forte, reported Breitbart.

2. An LGBTQ+ book once again was the primary feature in U.S. Catholics’ “What We’re Reading This Month” feature. For August, the magazine profiled The Sacrament of Same-Sex Marriage: An Inclusive Vision for the Catholic Church by Bridget Burke Ravizza, which reports the stories of same-gender couples with ties to the Catholic Church and then “embeds the participants’ personal accounts in recent theological discussions.” U.S. Catholic reviews the book as “more academic” but “a resource for groups desiring to delve more deeply into the issues” of sexuality and gender in the church.

Bondings 2.0 recently published a more extensive review of the book by theologian Adam Beyt, which you can read here.

3. The Diocese of Trenton’s Catholic Charities affiliate has apologized for co-sponsoring a children’s reading hour which included a book on gender diversity. Hollis Painting, the affiliate’s spokesperson, said the organization was “very sorry for the confusion and hurt this may have caused” and will now be “reviewing what led to our agency’s participation in the book reading.” The children’s book that caused the dispute, My Shadow Is Purple by Scott Stuart, was read in mid-June at the Hamilton Township library in New Jersey. The book centers on a gender-diverse child with the author’s intention of “fully accepting and empowering our children, exactly as they are.”

4. A married gay couple in Spain filed has filed charges against a priest who denied them both Communion and a blessing, reported Zenit. According to the LGBTQ+ organization Andalusia Diversity, Fr. Francisco José López Martínez rejected the men in “a clearly discriminatory and unjust gesture,” adding, ““A person’s sexual orientation should not interfere in his relationship with God or in the way of being treated by the religious community. We urge the parish priest to reflect on his actions and to apologize for the pain and marginalization he has caused the couple.” The organization noted that López Martínez, ordained only in 2020, was an outlier among priests in that region of the Archdiocese of Seville because the gay couple knows “all the parish priests of the area and have always had a good relationship [with them], this being the first time that they face a rejection of this sort.”