Angelus News | January 12, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 1

last time a prefect of what was once
known as the “Holy Office,” and
which is historically the successor to
the Roman Inquisition, felt compelled
to issue a public statement denying
that his previous declaration contained
anything “heretical, contrary
to the tradition of the Church or
blasphemous.”
The press release capped what had
been a spiraling series of media interviews
by Fernández, including a Jan. 3
interview with the German newspaper
Die Tagespost, in which he called the
document a “clear answer” to Germany’s
effort to codify formal liturgical
blessing ceremonies for same-sex
couples.
That interview seemed to create yet
another bit of confusion: If the point
was to deliver a verdict on a single
nation, why did the Vatican choose to
speak to the entire universal Church,
publishing the first formal declaration
from the Holy Office since Dominus
Iesus (“The Lord Jesus”) in 2000,
almost a quarter-century ago?
Of all the unanswered questions
about Fiducia Supplicans, however,
perhaps this most basic one is the following:
Does any of this really matter?
Or, are we witnessing the latest Catholic
cycle of sound and fury signifying
relatively little?
It’s a well-documented fact of Catholic
life that sometimes we argue over
It’s a well-documented fact of Catholic life that
sometimes we argue over things that seem to
have a great deal of symbolic importance, but
which, over time, are revealed as less sweeping or
monumental than we originally thought.
things that seem to have a great deal
of symbolic importance, but which,
over time, are revealed as less sweeping
or monumental than we originally
thought.
To take one example, Anglophone
Catholics of a certain age will recall
the titanic battles fought in the 1990s
and 2000s over the new English translation
of texts used in the Mass, known
collectively as the “liturgy wars.”
Oceans of ink were spilled arguing
over matters such as “dynamic equivalence,”
and whether it’s appropriate
to use relatively obscure terms such as
“consubstantial” and “oblation” in the
people’s parts of the prayers.
Supporters of the new translation
predicted it would stir a liturgical renaissance
of deeper and more reverent
celebration. Critics forecast a liturgical
exodus, as people would be so
alienated by the remote and unnatural
language they would vote with their
feet against it.
Participants attend a meeting of the third Synodal
Assembly in Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 4, 2021. Cardinal
Fernández has said Fiducia Supplicans was a response
to the German Church’s efforts to codify formal
liturgical blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. |
CNS/JULIA STEINBRECHT, KNA
January 12, 2024 • ANGELUS • 21