A Declaration of War: Francis & Fernández against the Faith of our Fathers

An overview of reactions from December 18th to the present

A strange Christmas

A few days before Christmas, I committed myself to silence about the Declaration Fiducia Supplicans of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in order to free up mental space and leisure for honoring the holy days. Here was the message I posted on Facebook and X on December 21:

It is gratifying to see the massive reaction against Fiducia Supplicans. Its opponents (i.e., Catholics) are poking more holes in it than you'd find in a colander, while its defenders are looking like mentally compromised ideologues.

All that being said, I'm sick of the subject. For goodness' sake, it's December 21st, the feast of St Thomas the Apostle and just a few days before Christmas. I am resolved to stop posting on this nasty business, even though there are and will be plenty of things that would normally be worth sharing.

In my view, the essays of Sammons, Weinandy, Hitchens, Chapp, and Dreher, and the bishops' statements from Peta & Schneider and many African nations have more than successfully skewered this slouching beast, and we would do well to move on. The radioactive fallout of this papacy will last for decades and possibly centuries, so it's not like we can "solve" anything at the moment.

Or rather, there is one thing we can do that will make the demons shriek with rage and their earthly potentates quiver in fear. We can be true Catholics who fervently worship the Word made flesh, in harmony with tradition. Let us beg Him for a deliverance only He can give, and let the dead bury the dead.

Venite, adoremus Dominum!

I think this was a good move, not only for spiritual reasons, but also because it allowed me to keep an eye, now and again, on the flow of commentary, and to evaluate the different interventions, informally ranking them as they rolled in. Thus, a couple of weeks after the bomb dropped, the lay of the land had become quite clear to me.

The avalanche of responses has made it rather difficult to keep up with everything, but some general observations are possible. Here I will share those observations, quoting from or listing the best writing I have seen so far—a sort of “overview of the FS debacle.” Thus, I give you my assurance that anything linked in this post is worth reading.

Pastoral policy: always moving ahead!

Understanding the game

Every intelligent commentator has recognized the game that Francis and Fernández are playing: assert till blue in the face that doctrine hasn’t changed, but modify pastoral policy in such a way that the impression is given that the Church is blessing couples who are living in an objectively gravely sinful situation. The inference is then widely drawn that the Church has surrendered to a triumphalistic decadent culture—an inference that was entirely predictable and therefore at some level or in some sense deliberately intended.