The story surrounding the somewhat controversial papal advisor and ghostwriter of Amoris Laetitia, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández, continues. As we had reported, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, in the June 2016 issue of Herder Korrespondenz, recently refuted as being potentially heretical Fernández’ 2015 claim that the pope himself could very well reside also in places other than Rome. This story was then also reported on by Dr. Sandro Magister in Italy and by Guiseppe Nardi in Germany.
Yesterday, 13 June, Archbishop Fernández came back with a reply, by giving an interview to La Stampa‘s journalist and papal friend, Andrea Tornielli. In his indirect response to Cardinal Müller’s critique, the archbishop from Argentina now claims that he only meant to say that the pope may well reside “outside the Vatican.” This is a seeming novelty which may further add to the confusion. He states that the pope needs to be “the pastor of a local church” in order to be adequately manifesting himself as the “supreme pastor of the Church.” Since, according to Fernández, Saint Peter had resided in Rome, it is that same local Church that is now the pope’s Church. However, adds the archbishop, he admittedly cannot theologically explain the reasons as to why the pope has to reside in Rome, but, rather, he can mainly refer to the “historical reality.” Backing off from his earlier statements, Fernández concludes: “So, I did not mean to belittle in any way the bond that exists from the beginning of the Christian history between Peter and his successors in Rome.”
Adding further confusion, Fernández then reflects upon the possibility that the pope might as well reside outside of the Vatican itself, but still “in the Diocese of Rome.” He then says: “But this is a useless and bizarre speculation.”
Importantly, Fernández also discusses the idea of the decentralization of the Catholic Church and explicitly says that one could consider “to give more power to the Bishops’ Conferences, including some doctrinal authority.” [emphasis added] He adds: “Progress is very slow – not because the pope has not encouraged it, but because the theologians and pastors themselves do not dare react with generous creativity.” [emphasis added]
The archbishop then explained that the pope’s intention – as expressed in Amoris Laetitia – is to give more scope to the local bishops to deal with moral questions “in dialogue with the pope.” Fernández still insists that the Church has to become “more merciful, more transformed by the primacy of love and also closer to the reality of the people.” He also repeated that there is a “pastoral door” opened with regard to the divorced and “remarried.”
At the end of his interview, Archbishop Fernández concludes his reflections with the idea that the decentralization – which was the topic of a 2015 seminar organized by Father Antonio Spadaro, S.J. – could also lead to having several of the Curial components themselves distributed to other locations, even “anywhere else in the world.” He concretely mentions here The Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Academy for Life, among others, that could be potentially and even usefully located in other places outside of Rome. It seems that such comments lead to a further destabilization of Rome as a coherent center of the Church’s authority and operations.
In this context, a clarifying note may be helpful to the reader: In his deeper discussions about Church history and theology with my husband over the years, Father John Hardon, S.J., (with the citation of other experts as well) expressed his strong belief and conviction that one part of “Divinely Revealed Sacred Tradition” (as distinct from “Divinely Revealed Sacred Scripture”) is that Saint Peter was directed to go to Rome as the final destination, after leaving Antioch, where he first had locally established his Seat of Authority (Sedes Auctoritatis). All the other times when the popes have been in exile, as in Avignon or during the captivity of the papacy under Napoleon, there were very grave divisions and dangers for the Church, as St. Catherine of Siena so eloquently expressed. Of course, in times of emergency, the pope might have to go outside of Rome, perhaps in the End Times.
However, in the presentation of Archbishop Fernández, no such distinctions were made, and he showed no perceptible reverence about the matter. Rather, he has been off-handed and flippant in his comemnts, as if he believes that one could diffuse incoherently, all over the world, the Church herself — and with it, the papal authority and the pope’s supportive apparatus of the Curia.
Even though the Argentinian refers back to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and seems to defer to it at the end of his interview, he nonetheless seems especially interested in promoting what he persistently calls a “healthy decentralization of the Church.” It is to be hoped that Cardinal Müller’s recent words on this matter will help the archbishop’s own further reflections and activities.
…”to give more power to Bishops’ Conferences, including some doctrinal authority…” Well, there it is. I wonder if I’ll live long enough to see the schism break wide open. When the Church is no longer One, with opposing doctrines on top of contradictory praxis and all approved by the Holy See, when the patrimony of our faith is in the hands of committees, what then?
Thank you for this informative piece, Dr. Hickson.
Pope Saint John Paul II already conceded on the matter
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_22071998_apostolos-suos.html
I totally agree. While I am not a particular fan of the systemic cultural issues with the hierarchy, to put authority like that into the hands of different people is asking for more confusion with in the church. Who would they be accountable to if one of more comes out with something totally ridiculous? Then one has to remember what led to the abuse crisis continuing and growing, the lack of Bishops/Cardinals to live up to their vows. With the pope as the central head of the church, and with the ability to make sure deviations are not allowed to perpetuate, there is no logical reason to even consider this. We would be turning the church into separate priestdoms, looking more and more like Evangelicals with separate parishes.
Good morning, SAF,
The “Church” is always One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, as our Blessed Dominus Deus, Jesus the Christ, commanded. He told us the gates of hell would not prevail against Her. What we are seeing (granted the chaotic nature of what is happening is difficult now but will become almost perfectly blinding for most excepting for those who through their fiat receive God’s grace perfectly: be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect), as time moves along its trajectory, is the real manifestation of transition that we are existentially now living. The language always precedes the forthcoming imminent implosion and destruction that can only result from the lie being parlayed as Truth. In caritas.
At the Council, The Conservatives were, rightly, skeptical about the new ideology of collegiality
http://tinyurl.com/cyht52d
O, and also note where the revolutionaries met during V2- at a certain Domus where a famous man now lives
more ambiguity, more double-speak
But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil.
Fruits of Vatican II are quite sour…the Luther anniversary fiesta ought to make those fruits even more sour and bitter.
Stephen Lowe: I suggest the term “rotten” for both. Additionally, more power to the bishop’s conferences? Hardly. They should be abolished.
For some reason, this “conversation ” extends to an odd concept of having local parish rectories off church grounds so pastors can “leave work” at the end of the day like everyone else. In other words….. let him be a 9 to 5 shepherd instead of a 24/7 protector and guide. Liberal dioceses across the country are in favor of this and are pushing the idea on the flock as they bring the idea to building committees. Beware!!!!
ARGENTINE & ARGENTINIANS: OH, THE RAT-LINES DO RUN.
Acknowledging a nod to the fact that Comrade Che was Argentinian, a quick Google thing located the items below: matching “decentralization” with “Che Guevara”. May be worth a factoring in.
[And, please, none of this talk of Che being the patron (whatever) of anything!]
_______________________________
Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner’s Manual for …
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=142007184X
Malcolm W. Nance – 2008 – Social Science decentralized authority structure, 72 deliberate actions, 67-68 diyads, … 22-23 Guevara, Che, 57 Guevara communism, ideology, 57 Gulett, Morris, 278 Guns …
* * *
Rebel Raider: The Life of General John Hunt Morgan
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=081314633X
James A. Ramage – 2014 – Biography & Autobiography As Che Guevara acknowledged: “It is practically impossible to guard every inch of a … The law provided a decentralized system of authority, allowing the local …
* * *
The Church at the Grassroots in Latin America: Perspectives on …
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0275966593
John Burdick, Warren Edward Hewitt – 2000 – Religion… Christ, Indian caciques, Bartolome de las Casas, Che Guevara, and Sandino. … The CEBs’ decentralized conception of authority and its work with popular …
* * *
Textbook of International Health: Global Health in a Dynamic World
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0199885214
2009 – Medical… redistributive taxation system, and the decentralization of political authority. … Another Latin American physician—Argentine Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who .
* * *
Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics and Revolution
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1876175699
Ernesto Guevara, Che Guevara, David Deutschmann – 2003 – History Writings on Politics and Revolution Ernesto Guevara, Che Guevara, David … Starting from the fact that under both systems the state’s general plan is the highest authority, … is based on overall centralized control and greater decentralization.
* * *
Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0742573028
Peter McLaren – 2000 – Education… world’s leading example of social netwar lies in the decentralized, dispersed, … to the fate of most previous armed rebellions against state authority in Mexico.
* * *
Good work Dr. Hickson – top marks.
I’d like to zero in on the following part of your article: “…to give more power to the Bishops’ Conferences, including some doctrinal authority.” He [Fernández] adds: “Progress is very slow – not because the pope has not encouraged it, but because the theologians and pastors themselves do not dare react with generous creativity.”
Fernández’s aim is clear; to give power to apostate bishops to be ‘generously creative’ in that they may be able to remove or emasculate (at their local diocesan level) those doctrines within the sacred Depository of Faith and Morals which are challenging to sodomites, adulterers, fornicators and to those sympathetic to every kind of false god and false religion.
To all Catholics who hold true to Faith and Tradition, prepare yourself for a fierce battle with those who are attempting to usurp God’s authority over His Church. It’s going to get rough. God will do His part, but He will expect you to do yours.
Yes, well said!
God is with us.
Archbishop Fernándezis a destructive force in the Church. Everything we know about him indicates he is undermining the historical teaching of the Church. He must be silenced and perhaps excommunicated.
Perhaps? Why perhaps?
We are not God. We are not omniscient..
You misapply that truth. Instead the Church teaches that we can and must observe external facts and judge them by objective moral and doctrinal standards. Otherwise it would be impossible to do the Gospel requirement of fraternal correction. Bishops’ conferences, a modern man-made construct, can never be validly given doctrinal authority. We can easily judge that. Did you know that most heresies in the Church were started by bad clergy?
The idea of bishops conferences is a Vatican II thing. They did not really exist before that. Another bureaucratic ploy by the modernists to seize power. The reverse is happening in this messed up world. The Church is supposed to have centralized power and the Government is NOT supposed to be that. The inverse is happening.
Reminds me of Wormtongue.
To paraphrase St. Jerome: The whole Church awoke, and was astonished to find itself Modernist.
More heresy from the kissing bishop. Conferences can never have doctrinal authority as they are not a Divine Institution. But Francis will make an equivalent of the “Anglican Communion” – that is the regional solutions mentioned by him in various speeches and documents.
A commitment toward transparency and accountability must accompany any request for greater responsibility. When the Bishops start acting like servants of Christ rather than servants of the World, then and only then should they be given authority to speak in His Name.
The Thomist, Brunero Gherardini, in The Ecumenical Vatican Council II A MUCH NEEDED DISCUSSION analyses the quite quizzical “doctrine” formuated in the putative Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, and He (this is IANS’ own interpretation of his analysis) can not get past the obvious novelty of defining two different subjects (Pope and College of Bishops) as possessing supreme authority but at the same time, exercising that supreme authority differently.
The poor Thomist avers The mere thought of it would be a scandal to St. Thomas and his disciples.
Indeed, earlier in his analysis (much of which is quite positive) Msgr. Gherardini observed about the L. G. document; Anyone who, like myself, is habituated (by prolonged academic custom) to the lingo of theology and specifically the terminology used with regards to the Sacraments can not help but marvel and even be scandalized by L.G. The astonishment comes, not so much from the linguistic diversity employed, but from the contamination of the language itself
The Msgr. later avers he does not understand how Blessed – sure to be Canonised as a Saint – Pope Paul VI could have been an advocate of L.G. which, he frankly observes about this Dogmatic constitution: But precisely because it lacks this dogmatic form and thus the corresponding force, this author is unable to explain how such a doctrine, namely. that which we read in the conciliar formulation of two subjects of full and supreme ecclesiastical power and two distinct exercises of it, could have found an advocate in Paul VI for its dogmatic and binding validity which, to the contrary, does not have, nor can it in any way have, such validity, as articulated in the analysis shown here.
The kind Msgr. politely and pacifically wonders how this confusing state of affairs could continue long after Vatican Two: Unexplainable too is the teaching of those post-conciliar theologians who, transgressing logic, theology, and history, have continued to harp on these two powers and two distinct exercise of it…
Well, he is a pacific and polite Professor whereas IANS ain’t.
The revolutionaries plowed the Vatican Two fields and sowed in the texts their modernist theological hybrid seeds that have now sprouted doctrinal darnel and the revolutionary laborers are dutifully at work in the fields bringing to us the harvest of heterodoxy.
Bringing in the sheaves or bringing us the shite?
And this is binding on those of men like IANS who, in 1948,was born into the no-longer-visible One True Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church that has since been replaced with a Shadow Church ( a shadow lacks substance).
Nope. IANS will be dragged to his grave fighting for the entirety of the Faith once delivered in the Original Deposit of Faith and any and all heterodox “developments” will be avoided as so many cow flaps in the pastures of Vermont IANS use to roam.
How’n’hell can any man tolerate such bunk as two subjects each being identified and defined as having supreme authority?
Was the principle of non-contradiction suspended for Vatican Two?
In utter humility, it would seem that the “relationship of Cardinal Mueller and Archbishop Fernandez” is one of the “good cop, bad cop”, when one accounts for other heterodox and minimally maladaptive commentaries made by Mueller during this destructive Pontificate. One must never forget the relationship between Frs Gutierrez and Mueller (see here: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/02/25/founder-liberation-theology-hailed-at-vatican.html )
In this understanding, the question arises, are we now existentially bearing witness to what the great Saint and Doctor of Holy Mother Church, Robert Bellarmine, SJ, in his book entitled, “Anti-Christ”, identifies as, “…the desolation in every way possible of the Roman Empire”? This as written of in the books of Daniel and the Apocalypse must precede the real manifestation of the person of the Anti-Christ. In caritas.
Why is the suggestion that the Pope can reside outside of Rome heretical? Clement V resided in Avignon, and all the popes from him to Gregory XI were valid, weren’t they?