Valentina di Giorgio
(ZENIT News / Rome, 01.02.2024).- Following the publication of the “Fiducia Supplicans” declaration, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith revealed in an interview that he would have a meeting with German bishops to continue the dialogue on the process known as the “Synodal Way” in Germany. There are three contentious issues in this process: the ordination of women to the priesthood, the blessing of same-sex couples, and the establishment of a supra-episcopal structure binding for the entire Catholic Church in the country. Regarding these issues, the third was actually prohibited as canonically inappropriate, and the first two were already addressed by the Secretary of State of the Pope, notifying the German bishops that these matters will not change.
Now, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reinforces what was anticipated by the Secretary of State, as revealed in an interview with the German newspaper Die Tagespost. He also rules out a different moral evaluation of homosexual acts and the possibility of women’s ordination to the priesthood. The prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith notes that, although the Pope allowed further investigation into the relationship between women and the sacrament of order, the Pontiff himself prohibited public discussion of the topic.
In a part of the interview, Cardinal Fernández states, “When you hear some of the considerations made in the context of the German Synodal Way, it sometimes seems as if one part of the world is particularly ‘enlightened’ to understand what the other poor fools cannot grasp because they are closed or medieval. And then this ‘enlightened’ part naively believes that thanks to this, the entire universal Church will be reformed and controlled.” The prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith adds that “in one part of the world, the crisis caused by sexual abuse cannot be resolved with decisions that contradict the teaching of the universal Church.” And he emphasizes: “In my opinion, it is not even possible or reasonably justified.”
Addressing the topic of the “Fiducia Supplicans” declaration, which allows the blessing of same-sex couples or remarried divorcees, the prefect recalls that the Pope “preserves the teaching that the Church has developed and enriched over the centuries through the listening to the Gospel, but that he is also capable of putting it into dialogue with the Church to realize concrete realities.” He also states that the often deeply wounded lives of believers come into contact not with the life of an abstract “human,” but with the real life of many men and women in various environments.
