The pope’s right-hand man is reshaping the church, becoming a target

The Washington Post ^ | June 24, 2024 | Anthony Faiola and Stefano Pitrelli

[ebb tide]

The pope’s right-hand man is reshaping the church, becoming a target

Most Catholics have little sense of the liberal archbishop behind the Vatican’s pronouncements. But critics of the pope see Víctor Manuel Fernández as Enemy No. 2.

“Fernández’s appointment was the most consequential of [Francis’s] pontificate,” said Massimo Faggioli, a Catholic theologian at Villanova University. “After one year of Fernández, we’ve witnessed a series … of frequent, specific, out-of-the-ordinary actions the likes of which have never been observed. And this from a prefect who knows full well that he’s Francis’s own alter ego and enjoys the pope’s complete trust.”

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Senior church critics insist it is no coincidence that Francis waited to place Fernández in the rulemaking post until after the death of Benedict XVI, the traditionalist pope emeritus.

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“I think Pope Francis felt himself now freer to realize his ideas,” said Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, an ally of Benedict who ran the dicastery from 2012 to 2017. “And therefore, he asked [Cardinal] Fernández to come [to] his side, and to promote this program, this agenda.”

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He (Tucho) also left open the door to a recasting of official church teaching — or catechism — that states homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”

“All subjects can be refined,” he said. “And the language we use can always be much better. In this way there is a chance of greater clarity.”

[ebb tide]

Barf Alert

[ebb tide]

Ping

[Gay State Conservative]

I'll go with what the nuns taught me during 10.5 years of Catholic school in the 50s and 60s *and* what I suspect that Pope John Paul II would say about a particular subject. I simply cannot accept the current “pope” as even being Christian...let alone Catholic.

[scouter]

That’s my strategy, too, to hold on to what I’ve always known to be true. The problem is our children and grandchildren, who have grown up in an age of confusion we could not have ever envisioned when we were their age. I just hope they have as good a grasp of the Truth and the importance of holding onto it, no matter what happens. I think they do, but please, Lord, strengthen them!

[fortes fortuna juvat]

I don’t care what Satan’s Pope does or says because I will continue to faithfully attend the liturgy as presented in the Roman Missal of the Catholic Church codified following the Council of Trent in 1570. When that Liturgy is not available I will attend The liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox. If neither is available I will pray the appropriate Mass in my Saint Joseph Daily Missal, copyright 1963.