VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The latest and much anticipated document from Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández’s Vatican office will be released April 8, with the cardinal launching it at a press conference.
Announced to journalists accredited to the Holy See on Tuesday, April 8 was set as the release date for the upcoming document on human dignity from the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith. (CDF)
Chiefly authored by CDF Prefect Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, the new text is called “Dignitas infinita.” Its imminent publication has been anticipated for several months, with Fernández initially suggesting it would be released in March and then stating it would appear in April.
La Croix’s Vatican correspondent, Loup Besmond de Sennevile, wrote in March that the text had been in preparation by theologians at the CDF for five years, but that Pope Francis specifically tasked Fernández to completely rework it.
The document is, according to Fernández himself, anticipated to address “not only social issues, but also a strong criticism of moral issues such as sex change, womb rental, gender ideologies, etc.”
In January, the cardinal attested that he did not anticipate much criticism about the document. But de Sennevile wrote that the text also covers “migration and the environment” and noted that the first – now defunct – version of the document “was limited to bioethical issues.” He anticipated it “could provoke mores shockwaves throughout the Church.”
Fernández’s hope that the text is likely to not be controversial is likely fueled by the global backlash to the document Fiducia Supplicans which he quietly published on December 18, which opened the door to “blessing” same-sex “couples” in contradiction to Catholic teaching.
READ: Pope Francis publishes norms for clergy to ‘bless’ homosexual couples
Outrage at the document came from cardinals, numerous bishops and bishops’ conferences, along with groups of priests, who warned of the dangers to the Catholic faith posed by the text. Both Fernández and Francis embarked on a campaign to regain favorable media coverage, and shortly afterwards, Fernández largely disappeared from the public view. His absence was a marked change after having issued numerous documents through the autumn.
Amongst the plethora of documents which emerged from Fernández’s office since he assumed the role as Prefect in September have been a number of texts which have caused widespread confusion and consternation amongst Catholics, including:
- A rejection of the concerns of the five dubia cardinals over the Synod on Synodality, including a rejection of the definitive ban on female ordination, opening to same-sex blessings.
- Affirming Amoris Laetitia’s permission for the divorced and ‘re-married’ to receive Holy Communion.
- Allowing transgender-identifying individuals to be Baptismal godparents, contradicting Canon Law by doing so.
- Re-iterating the prohibition for Catholics to join the Freemasons.
- Further relaxing rules on cremation and the storing of ashes of those who have been cremated.
- Affirming that single mothers do not have to abstain from receiving Holy Communion, in a document which commentators suggested answered a question which few were actually asking.
- Approving “blessing” of same-sex “couples,” via Fiducia Supplicans.
Addressing the CDF in January, Francis expressed his hope that the upcoming document would “help us, as a Church, to be always close to all those who, without proclamations, in the concrete life of every day, fight and pay in person to defend the rights of those who do not count.”
The pope quoted from his controversial encyclical Fratelli Tutti, adding that the new document would help to “ensure that, ‘in the face of various current ways of eliminating or ignoring others, we are able to react with a new dream of fraternity and social friendship that is not limited to words.’”
Launching the text on Monday at a press conference, Fernández will be joined by Monsignor Armando Matteo, secretary for the Doctrinal Section of the CDF, and Paola Scarcella, who is a professor at the Tor Vergata University and Rome’s Lumsa University.
It remains to be seen how far in advance the Vatican press corps will receive the text, and therefore what kind of scrutiny will be able to be placed on its contents and Fernández during the cardinal’s rare public appearance at the press conference.
The most recent pair of lengthy documents released by the Synod on Synodality were issued less than 30 minutes before the press conference started.
LifeSiteNews will provide coverage of the upcoming Dignitas infinita text from the ground in Rome.