(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, has announced that a document “on the transmission of the faith” will be published by his dicastery in October.
According to Michael Haynes of The Catholic Herald, the prefect revealed these plans while speaking to participants at the annual Vatican course for newly consecrated bishops in early September.
He stated that the text was requested by Pope Francis in his “last days” to “stimulate discussion and reflection in the community.” Haynes reported that the prefect linked the forthcoming text to a global survey of bishops regarding evangelization. In the same remarks, Fernández said that evangelization needs “a Church capable of welcoming everyone in a different way, precisely as it is.”
The October designation supplies a general schedule for a project that had already been described in outline earlier this year.
In May, the heterodox prefect told the publication Religión Confidencial that the document will discuss “the breakdown in intergenerational transmission in many countries, which in some cases begins to manifest itself suddenly, and considerations regarding the possible causes of this breakdown.”
The text, he said at the time, will further cover “the importance of the quality of the community in the transmission of the faith and in welcoming those who approach or return to the faith.”
In addition, it will address “the need to find ways to proclaim in an attractive manner the kerygma” — the preaching or proclamation of the Gospel — so that it is “capable of provoking an experience of encounter with the Lord.”
Fernández also said it will consider the importance of the liturgy, “recalling cases such as the conversion of St. Augustine and so many others,” as well as “a new deepening of the issue of inculturation,” meaning the adaptation of Church teachings, practices and worship to different cultural contexts.
The pronounced heterodoxy of Fernández calls into question the substance of the forthcoming document, particularly its coverage of problems with the transmission of the faith, and of the ideal manner of communicating the Gospel.
Perhaps most notably, the DDF prefect was the ghostwriter of the scandalous and heretical Amoris Laetitia, which claimed that those living in an objective state of adultery, the divorced and “re-married,” may be admitted to Holy Communion without confession and repentance. He has also endorsed the blessing of same-sex “couples,” equated objection to mortal sins with clerical sex abuse, and written an erotic book called Heal me with your mouth: The art of kissing.
The “transmission of the faith” document will reportedly be a product of “extensive consultation with episcopal conferences from around the world,” according to Religión Confidencial.
Cardinal Fernandez told the National Catholic Register in May that the document will avoid one-size-fits-all answers and instead draw from the “variety and richness of the universal Church,” Edward Pentin reported.