Posted on 10/02/2023 7:47:49 PM PDT by ebb tide
A few hours after the publication on Settimo Cielo of the five “dubia” on key points of the synod, submitted to Pope Francis on August 21 by five cardinals from as many continents and still left unanswered, there has appeared on the website of the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith the photostatic reproduction of three documents, under the following title:
“‘Dubia’ di due Cardinali (10 luglio 2023) e ‘Respuestas’ del S. Padre ‘a los Dubia propuestos por dos Cardenales’ (11 luglio 2023).”
The first of these three documents, reproduced above, is the request to the pope, signed by the current prefect of the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith, Victor Manuel Fernández, to authorize the dicastery to “take into consideration and possibly cite several paragraphs” of the responses given by Francis in a letter of his letter dated July 11 2023 “to five ‘dubia’ of cardinals Burke and Brandmüller”.
The request bears the date September 25, and below the formula of protocol “Ex audientia” appears the handwritten signature “Francisco.”
On September 25, it had been more than a month since the five “dubia” of the five cardinals had been delivered to the pope and the prefect of the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith.
But it is not to these “dubia” that Francis’s “respuestas” made public today refer, but rather to a previous formulation of them, delivered on July 10 and made the subject of a response from the pope the following day, with a private letter only to cardinals Raymond L. Burke and Walter Brandmüller (and not also to the other three of the quintet: Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, Robert Sarah, Joseph Zen Ze-kiun).
A response that the five cardinals, however, considered so vague and elusive that it induced them to present the same questions again in a more stringent form, “in such a way that they can be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
In the pope’s audience of September 25 with Fernández, however, everything happened as if this second proposition of the “dubia,” delivered on August 21, did not even exist. And the same happens in the correspondence published today by the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith.
In which correspondence the response of the pope, in relation to his letter of July 11, appears to be missing the initial and final parts, as can be noted by comparing it with the original draft, the publication of which the five cardinals authorized:
> “Dear brothers…” – July 11 2023
“The Pope responds to the ‘dubia’ of five cardinals,” Vatican News headlined today. But it’s not so. The true response is yet to come.
In the pope’s audience of September 25 with Fernández, however, everything happened as if this second proposition of the “dubia,” delivered on August 21, did not even exist. And the same happens in the correspondence published today by the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith.
In which correspondence the response of the pope, in relation to his letter of July 11, appears to be missing the initial and final parts, as can be noted by comparing it with the original draft, the publication of which the five cardinals authorized:
> “Dear brothers…” – July 11 2023
“The Pope responds to the ‘dubia’ of five cardinals,” Vatican News headlined today. But it’s not so. The true response is yet to come.
Ping
Matthew Bunson
By Matthew Bunson
CNA Newsroom, Oct 2, 2023
The publication of a new set of questions addressed to Pope Francis by five longtime cardinals has once again turned the focus of Catholics to the place of “dubia” in the life of the Church.
What are dubia?
The word “dubia” — plural for a “dubium” — literally means, from the Latin, “doubts.” But another way of translating it is to see the word meaning “questions that seek clarification.” A dubium, then, is a request for clarity from a dicastery or office of the Roman Curia or even of the Holy Father himself on a matter of Church teaching, a liturgical issue, or a fine point of interpreting canon law. The questions most often arise from the daily issues of Church governance and liturgical and sacramental practice. In fact, dubia are a regular feature of the interaction between the Vatican’s various dicasteries and Catholic dioceses around the globe.
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