(ZENIT News / Rome, 23.01.2024).- On Tuesday, January 23, Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Member of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.
The appointment took place shortly after Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Christian Unity, admitted that the Declaration Fiducia Supplicans has also caused unease in the Orthodox world.
In an interview with the Vatican’s media, Cardinal Koch was asked about the possibility to give Communion to non-Catholics in light of Fiducia Supplicans. To which the Prefect of the Dicastery for Christian Unity responded:
Well, in the first place, I’m receiving some negative reactions from the ecumenical world about ‘Fiducia Supplicans’; next week we have the Plenary Assembly with the Oriental Orthodox here in Rome, and they have already announced that they can talk about these subjects. I believe we have to rethink this in the ecumenical dialogue: What is the blessing and what is the relationship between doctrine and pastoral care? These questions have become acute again and we have to talk about them. Hence, I think it’s not appropriate to transfer them to the question of Eucharistic Communion.
The interview with Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch took place in the context of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The Declaration is in line with what Hilarion publicly affirmed, who became number two in the Russian Orthodox Church.
After the publication of Fiducia Supplicans, the current Russian Orthodox Metropolitan of Budapest and Hungary said, in an interview with The American Conservative: “If we are realistic, now we cannot hope for a future unity between Orthodox and Catholics. These measures will obviously not bring us closer, but will create new lines of separation.”
It is reasonable to think that the inclusion of Cardinal Fernández [in the Dicastery for Christian Unity], is in line with his ability to know better the sensibility of a broad sector of world Christianity, with which he is not familiar, and that enrichment will redound to the good of the Dicastery he heads.
