(LifeSiteNews) — Argentine Archbishop Hector Aguer has criticized Pope Francis and Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández for promoting “doctrinal relativism.”
Aguer said in a letter translated and published by the Rorate Caeli blog that the Argentinians Francis and Fernández have “colonized papal Rome.” He wrote that Francis “persecutes and liquidates those who do not keep up with the doctrinal relativism professed by the Latin American (Argentinian, we should say) officialdom.”
Aguer is the Archbishop Emeritus of La Plata in Argentina. He was succeeded in 2018 by the highly controversial Archbishop Fernández, Francis’ newly appointed head of the Dicastery (formerly Congregation) for the Doctrine of the Faith. Aguer has known both Francis and Fernández for decades.
This is the second letter criticizing Francis that Aguer published in July. Earlier that month, the Argentine prelate likened the heterodox Synod on Synodality to the “globalist Agenda 2030” of the U.N. and the Protestant schism.
In his latest critique, Aguer wrote that Francis’ letter to the newly appointed Fernández “implicitly intends to redo the history of the former Holy Office.”
Aguer quotes Fernández, who said about the former Holy Office: “that name, or that of the Inquisition — as it was also called — is a bit scary, because it was a place of persecution of heretics; Pope Francis says that at times immoral methods were used, as a sort of intelligence and control and even at some point torture.”
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Aguer notes that “this very distant allusion forgets centuries of ecclesial history, and it halts before the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — later Benedict XVI — during two decades of John Paul II’s pontificate.”
The 80-year-old Aguer recalled Fernández’s words about the Synod on Synodality: “a multitude of themes will emerge because it [the Synod] is planned with an openness never seen before; it is a unique space where the Pope sits, not to lower the line, but to listen to the diversity of opinions and to try to reach some consensus.”
Fernández went on to imply that the Church’s approach to morals has to change from what it was “40 years ago.”
“There is a mission, and it is that I have to make sure that the things that are said are coherent with what Francis has taught us. He gave us a look, a broader understanding, and we cannot respond today the same way we responded 40 years ago,” Fernández continued.
Aguer offered his “translation” of what the new doctrine chief’s word meant: “I translate: ‘there is absolute freedom for all the inventions and machinations; you just have to beware of the “backwardists” who stubbornly follow the ecclesial Tradition.’”
“To those with good understanding, this explains the meaning of the current pontifical ideology, according to which the papal monarchy persecutes and liquidates those who do not keep up with the doctrinal relativism professed by the Latin American (Argentinian, we should say) officialdom,” Aguer stated.
“The position that I have outlined — based on actual statements, which have been collected by the newspapers — is absolutely contrary to the historical depth of the ecclesial care of the Faith, since the time of the Apostles,” he continued. “Even in times when the pontifical power was exercised by cretins, womanizers, worldly men, or victims of imperial meddling, it always took care that the Truth that Christ has entrusted to the Church not be sullied.”
Aguer seemed to suggest that even popes of the past who lived immoral lives did not undermine Church teaching in the way that Francis has done.
The Argentine prelate confronted Francis’ approach with the words of Holy Scripture:
Let us review the apostolic teaching recorded in the New Testament. I limit myself to a single quotation: “I adjure you before God and Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in the name of his Manifestation and his Kingdom: proclaim the Word of God, insist with occasion or without occasion, argue, reprove, exhort, with untiring patience and with eagerness to teach. For the time will come when men will no longer endure sound doctrine; on the contrary, carried away by their inclinations, they will seek out a multitude of teachers to flatter their ears, and will turn away from the truth to listen to fanciful things [the Greek text says myths]. You, on the other hand, watch carefully…..” Thus wrote the Apostle Paul to his disciple Timothy (2 Tim 4:1-5).
Aguer furthermore noted that both the Church Fathers and the Councils have always condemned heresies and “people who spread errors.”
“It is a constant attitude,” he said. “The duty is not only to deepen, enlighten, and spread the Truth; the Truth must be vindicated when it is undermined. This has always been done. And doing it requires vigilance. In the quotation from 2 Tm 4, 5 it is said, in Greek: ‘sy de nēphe en pasin;’ it is a laborious and all-embracing occupation.”
Aguer has publicly defended Church teaching multiple times before and has not shied away from addressing controversial issues. In 2016, when he was still archbishop of La Plata, the Argentine prelate was put under investigation by the state for condemning sexual immorality that he called the “culture of fornication.”