Editor’s note: The following essay contains graphic language about sexuality that may not be suitable for all readers.
It recently came to light that Pope Francis’ doctrinal chief, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, is the author of a book that contains descriptions of pederastic sexual fantasies, normalizes pornographic images and language, and compares the spiritual life with lascivious sexual foreplay. However, the implications of the book run much deeper than spiritual condition of its author; it also gives us an insight into the warped theological reasoning that gave rise to Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, as well as Fernandez’s recent “declaration” on blessing adulterous and homosexual couples.
Fernandez has told the media that the work, in the paraphrasing of Crux, “is a book he wrote while still young and is one ‘that I certainly would not write now.’” In fact, he wrote the book when he was no younger than 35 years old and had already been a priest for more than eleven years. Although he told Crux that he removed the book from publication for fear it would be “misinterpreted,” the work includes the same arguments that Pope Francis used in Amoris Letitia to justify his doctrine of giving holy communion and blessings to people in “irregular unions.” Moreover, it was written in the same period in which the author wrote other passages that are quoted almost verbatim in the same part of Amoris Laetita.
The book, titled Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality, was published in Mexico in 1998, and was not listed among Fernandez’s published works when he was named by Francis as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Faith in 2023. Although it claims to be a work on mystical spirituality, it rejects the Catholic Church’s traditional doctrines on the relationship between the contemplative life and celibacy, and insists on making an equation of sexual pleasure and spiritual “love” that is misleading.
Perverse eroticism presented as “mysticism”
Fernandez pulls on numerous accounts of saints, mystics, and even the Sacred Scriptures, which occasionally use metaphors from marriage and sexual relations to talk about man’s relationship with God. Fernandez, however, attempts to use these cases as a pretext to import a hedonistic, promiscuous, and even pornographic notion of human sexuality into his “spirituality” which is largely reduced to an experience of ecstatic pleasure–both physical and spiritual–likened to an “orgasm.”
In the midst of explicit descriptions of sexual acts that he uses to make a comparison to the spiritual life, Fernandez explains the sexual nature of men and women in ways that seem to normalize pornography and sadomasochism, as well as serial infidelity. Marriage and family are almost never mentioned. Fernandez repeatedly refers to the exchange of sexual pleasure as “love” with little qualification.
For example, in chapter seven, entitled “Male and Female Orgasm,” Fernandez assures readers that women really are sexually excited by hardcore pornography—just not as much as men. “Normally, the woman, more than the man, considers sex without love to be very unsatisfactory, and needs the proper conditions to feel sexually excited. She is less attracted than the man to seeing photos with violent sexual scenes, images of orgies, etc. But this doesn’t mean that she feels less excited by hard-core pornography, but rather that she enjoys it and values it less, and in some cases, it causes her to feel terror.” Fernandez does not accompany such statements with any moral condemnation or further explanation.
Fernandez goes on in the same chapter to state that “the man, who permanently produces sperm, is more capable of enjoying a variety of women, while the woman, who produces few eggs and only in a certain period, values safe intimacy more. She puts everything into each child gestated in her body, while he can fertilize hundreds of more wombs.” This casual reference to male promiscuity as if it were natural seems to be the only occasion in which Fernandez mentions the reproductive purpose of the sexual act.
To these may be added other, even more explicit and gratuitous descriptions of sexual acts in chapter seven, but I will not burden the reader with them. May it suffice to say that the author leaves as little to the imagination as possible.
Pederastic fantasies presented as spirituality
From the beginning Fernandez’s book seeks to describe interactions with “Jesus” that are portrayed as what appears to be sexual foreplay between an adult male and a child.
I ask the reader’s pardon for the offensive implications of the following quotes; I am including them here only for the necessary purpose of documentation. In chapter two (“A well of sublime passion”), Fernandez writes of a secret “encounter” with “Jesus” at a well, in which the author describes himself as like “a little boy” and “an adolescent in love.” He continues:
There you are, next to the well, waiting. No one sees us, nobody sees, no one can make out this scene, no one can be a witness. Only you and I know about it. I approach, timid and trembling, like a little boy, like an adolescent in love…I experience the most precious human tenderness, the heat of flesh like my own, but much more attractive and beautiful…And now, surrounded by your arms, caressed by your skin, letting myself be bathed in your breathing, it seems to me that you are doing something new, Jesus. You don’t leave my side, your arms continue there, your skin, your warmth, your shoulder that sustains me. But now you are entering in me, you are taking over my intimacy…
In chapter six Fernandez continues with a even more sexualized description of an encounter between “Jesus” and a sixteen-year-old girl, in which Fernandez writes from the perspective of the girl. Although Fernandez claims to be relating, in his own words, what an anonymous sixteen-year-old girl told him about her relationship with “Jesus”–a claim that would be alarming in itself–his purpose of his first person description seems to be to visualize himself in her place. The result appears to be little more than a thinly disguised adolescent homosexual fantasy with “Jesus” himself as the object, while “Mary” gives her permission.
Again, begging the forgiveness of the reader, I quote:
And you are the most beautiful Jesus. Why not contemplate you, why not admire you, why not enjoy you? I see you walking next to the lake, always young, always healthy. I see you bathing yourself in the ocean, allowing those drops of water to have the privilege of touching you. I see you lying down on the shore, on the sand, and it is as if something infinite were shining in your pores. It is human flesh but beautiful like no other.
Fernandez continues:
Let me caress your skin, Jesus, slowly with all of the capacity for love that this small creature has. Because you, more than anyone, know how to let yourself be loved…And your mother, the freest woman in history also permits me to love you; she agrees to share with me this subime joy and leaves us alone…I caress your arms, Jesus, softly…Let me caress them…I caress your face, Jesus, and I arrive at your mouth. Your mouth that pronounced the most important words of history, the mouth that spoke with love and for love. I caress your lips, and in an unprecedented impulse of tenderness you permit me to kiss them softly…Then I caress your your delicate legs, that seem to me to be perfectly sculpted, full of force and vitality. I caress them, I kiss them.
Elements of Fernandez’s theology in Mystical Passion found in Amoris Laetitia
Fernandez rationalizes his crude sexualization of spirituality by means of copious but misleading quotations from Sacred Scripture, as well as saints and mystics who use the language of marriage and romantic love as a metaphor for their spiritual relationship with God. However, his presentation of human sexuality is itself a deeply impoverished understanding that reduces the sexual act to an interchange of pleasurable sensations, separated from its natural purpose of reproduction. He then takes his hedonistic notion of sexuality and seeks to make a spirituality out of it, linking the spiritual life to the experience of orgasms and sexual pleasure.
His only reference to the Church’s perennial teaching regarding excess venereal concupiscence and the superiority of the celibate life is to reject it in chapter nine.
Throughout the book, Fernandez associates “love” with sensual pleasure, and claims a divine association even with sinful and immoral sexual acts. At the end of chapter 5, Fernandez lays out what can only be called “hedonistic criteria” for understanding the “love” of God, equating pleasure and enjoyment with God’s love in a way utterly contrary to Scripture and tradition, which teach that God sends us the unpleasant experiences of suffering and punishment for our spiritual benefit.
“There is an easy way to liberate us from the false images that we have had of the love of God,” writes Fernandez. Let us think in this way: If it doesn’t attract you, it isn’t the love of God. If it frightens you, it isn’t the love of God. If it produces in you repulsion or annoyance, it isn’t the love of God.”
In chapter eight (“The road to orgasm”), Fernandez presents the sort of reasoning that can be used to claim the divine presence in homosexual relationships, which may be guiltless because of the psychological “conditioning” of the actors. He concludes that “grace can coexist with weaknesses and even with sins” in such relationships, a claim that is found with very similar wording in Amoris Laetitia, which is already known to contain verbatim reproductions of other texts written by Fernandez.
Fernandez claims that the “joyful experience of divine love, if I achieve it,” will not
free me from all of my psychological weaknesses. It does not mean, for example, that a homosexual will necessarily cease to be homosexual. We should remember that God’s grace can coexist with weaknesses and even with sins, when there is a very strong conditioning. In those cases, the person can do things that are objectively sinful, without being guilty, and without losing the grace of God nor the experience of his love” (emphasis added).
He then adduces the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) in favor of his claim, quoting paragraph 1735: “Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.”
Compare Fernandez’s above-quoted statement in Mystical Passion to what may be the most controversial passage of Amoris Laetitia, paragraph 351:
Because of forms of conditioning and mitigating factors, it is possible that in an objective situation of sin – which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such – a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end. (emphasis added).
It is notable that in paragraph 302 of Amoris Laetitia, Francis also quotes the same paragraph 1735 of the CCC quoted by Fernandez, following the use of a famous text copied almost verbatim from of another one of Fernandez’s works. In the previous paragraph of Amoris Laetitia, paragraph 301, Francis repeats almost exactly the same words of Fernandez from a journal article he wrote three years before his Mystical Passion, entitled “Romanos 9-11: gracia y predestinación” published in the journal Teología (volume 32, issue 65) in 1995. The text, which was not attributed to Fernandez, takes up the whole of the the second half of paragraph 301, which is one of the key passages in the text used to justify giving Holy Communion to people living in adulterous remarriages. This copy-paste earned Fernandez the title of “ghostwriter” of Amoris Laetitia.
Fernandez’s reasoning in Mystical Passion and Amoris Laetitia also provides a foundation for his recent “declaration” Fiducia Supplicans, that seeks to mandate the giving of blessings by priests to couples in “irregular situations.” The instructions provided by Fernandez for the blessing guide the priest to treat the relationship in question as fundamentally good, but only marred by possible flaws and imperfections, asking God to “grant those aids that come from the impulses of his Spirit—what classical theology calls ‘actual grace’—so that human relationships may mature and grow in fidelity to the Gospel, that they may be freed from their imperfections and frailties, and that they may express themselves in the ever-increasing dimension of the divine love.”
Fernandez proceeds to speak in chapter nine (“God in the couple’s orgasm”) about the “possibility” of “reaching a kind of fulfilling orgasm in our relationship with God,” in which “God manages to touch the soul-corporeal center of pleasure, so that a satisfaction that encompasses the entire person is experienced.”
He thus assures readers that God “can also be present when two human beings love each other and reach orgasm,” and that “orgasm, experienced in the presence of God, can also be a sublime act of worship of God.” He adds, “We thus see that pleasure is also something religious, because ‘it is a gift from God.’”
He also states that “sexual pleasure has a particular nobility above the other pleasures of the body,” not because it is procreative or even unitive in marriage, but just because “sexual pleasure is experienced by two, it is shared, and it can be a wonderful expression of love.”
Against the continuous teaching contained in Scripture and the Church’s sacred tradition, Fernandez says, “Sexual pleasure does not hinder spirituality or contemplation, because if the sexual union is an act of love, it does nothing more than open the heart, and thus facilitate the contemplation of God.” To this end, Fernandez misleadingly quotes Thomas Aquinas, stating that “human affection increases with pleasure,” ignoring the fact that the Angelic Doctor committed whole articles of the Summa (II-II, 152) to affirm the superiority of celibacy over marriage, expressly affirming that celibacy (“virginity”) is a virtue that is is superior to the chastity of marriage and is more appropriate for the contemplative life. Aquinas also speaks of the celibate life as a “purity” and as “freedom” from the excess concupiscence attached to the sexual act as a result of the fall.
Fernandez blames the Church’s exaltation of celibacy over marriage on the “Greek mindset that negatively influenced Christianity” by “transmitting a certain contempt of the body.” However, this is a false charge that has been repeatedly made by various enemies of the Church throughout its history, and particularly by sexual libertines who wish to affirm an opposite extreme. The Church’s exaltation of celibacy even above the sacrament of marriage—a doctrine repeatedly affirmed in Sacred Scripture and dogmatically defined at the Council of Trent—is not to deny the great good of the latter. Rather, it is to affirm that the contemplative life, to which we are all ultimately called in the Beatific Vision, cannot be so perfectly fulfilled in this life without forgoing sexual activity and the other worldly distractions associated with marriage. The chastity of the married life itself is a step towards that final end.
It is the celibate and contemplative life that is truly the closest to the supernatural experience of God in the Beatific Vision. There, we are taught, human sexual activity will cease completely, and the blessed will live in a perfect spiritual marriage with their Creator. Sadly, Cardinal Victor Fernandez seems to have rejected this sublime truth, which brings us to the perfection of authentic divine Love found in the life of the Blessed Trinity, in favor of a crass and degraded pseudo-mystical sensuality. In this age of confusion it is increasingly necessary for Catholics to search the Church’s treasury of traditional doctrine to rediscover what some of our prelates seem to have forgotten, lest our love grow cold in a degraded pursuit of carnal “passion,” which can never substitute for the real thing.
Related at CWR:
• “An examination of Archbishop Fernández’s erroneous positions on sexual morality” (August 3, 2023) by E. Christian Brugger
• “The refined, problematic casuistry of Abp. Fernández’s defense of chapter 8 of ‘Amoris Laetitia'” (July 6, 2023) by Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, SVD
• “’Amoris Laetitia’ and the chasm in modern moral theology” (September 1, 2017) by Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, SVD
• “Five Serious Problems with Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia” (April 22, 2016) by E. Christian Brugger
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Thanks to this writer and the others of his calibre who are tackling this odious piece and especially its link to Amoris Laetitia and Fiducia Supplicans.
I second that!
If I were you, I would spend more time doing your own research. There appears to be a serious problem with misquotes and misrepresentations in just about everything Pope Francis (or those serving with him inside the Vatican) says or does.
I also don’t understand the preoccupation with Cardinal Fernandez’s past. Please remember we all have a past in terms of failures, mistakes and sins. This book was reviewed and Cardinal Fernandez was investigated by JP II and all was well. Don’t forget that Jesus is referred to as the son of David. David was a fornicator, and murderer. Augustine has his own past. The material that some are freaking over was gathered together while he was working with married couples. He appears to wish he had handled it better, but as I say, we all have our failures. In the evening of life, we will be judged on love.
Patrice Amatrudi writes, “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love” (seemingly defending his argument of “love” as being a sexual, erotic love). But what type of love is the Church based on? Definitely not sexual. In Greek literature at the time the New Testament was written there were seven words for love (the English language has only one). In Greek there is eros, philia, erotorpia, storge, philautia, pragma, and agape. And in the written New Testament, when Jesus was speaking and encouraging people to love one another, it was always in the form of “agape” love — the love for anothers well-being.
We’ll also be judged on whether or not we were apologists for evil, Patrice.
You seem not to have read the article. The same “theology” that Cardinal Fernandez placed in Amoris Laetitia was a paraphrase of his writing in this book. Notably, Fernandez hasn’t repuidated the content of the book itself; he has merely stated that he fears it could be “misunderstood” and therefore doesn’t want it circulated. However, has also stated in interviews that his book’s thesis is justified by reference to statements made by mystical theologians, which is also what the book itself claims. So Fernandez is openly defending a book he wrote containing perderastic sexual fantasies about “Jesus” while functioning as the prefect of the DDF. Shouldn’t the faithful be concerned about that?
A whited sepulcher!
Needs to be flushed out with copious clean water; then re-dedicated to the numerous Christ-obedient Catholics who still love truth & holiness.
Will the Bergoglian papacy bring back the kind of Old Testament temple prostitutes the pagans used to help increase worship attendance?
Judging by Kissyboy Tucho’s proclivities, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.
Problems with worship go all the way back to the Church at Corinth. St. Paul had to give them correction to keep the faith pure in the face of pagan idol worship. St. Paul’s comments about women covering their heads and the eating of meat offered to idols was in response to the pagan worship practices of the time. The general sequence for pagan worship was for there to be a sacrifice to a pagan god. The meat from the pagan sacrifice was served in attached dining halls or sold in meat markets. The people in the dining halls got drunk and engaged in sexual orgies. In the pagan temples women who wore their hair down meant that they were sexually available. Proper women wore their hair up.
Tucho is the polar antithesis of Jansenism. One might say that he is the Catholic iteration of Larry Flynt.
Lord Jesus, cleanse and purify our Church. Rid her of all that comes from sin. Fulfill in Her the accomplished redemption of the world and all creation by Your cross and resurrection.
IIRC didn’t the German Church have a publishing company that was involved in pornography?
Remember when the guys at, “The Pillar” published a report showing that the use of homosexual and pedophilia hookup apps was rampant in the Vatican? They didn’t make it up, it was publicly available data provided by the ISPs and wireless companies. Remember how we never heard another peep about that? Anyway, it seems Tucho has found himself in a pederast’s wonderland there.
That will never happen. That would be like putting idols such as Pachamama in churches … oh, wait, never mind.
Thank you. Well done.
God is love. Sin is not love.
Who would be surprised that Tucho published more on this subject? See:
https://newdailycompass.com/en/orgasms-and-genitals-fernandezs-hot-texts-continue-to-surface
The Pontiff Francis’ new pet Cardinal Fernandez turns out to be psycho-sexually disturbed and disoriented.
In whom Secretary Xi is “well pleased.”
Meets the bizarre and sordid standards revealed by the Grassi-Zanchetta pontificate.
And it’s an apt time to recall that “when he was Eminent,” the ex-Eminence McCarrick gave a speech to a rapt audience at Villanova, telling them all how thrilled he was that he had succeeded in helping to get Jorge Bergoglio elected as Pontiff (after he and Danneels et al failed to elect him in 2005).
Well, there was a reason to revere the Pope when Popes like JP2 and B16 sat in the Chair of St. Peter.
That ended in a nightmare beginning in March 2013.
I wonder if or when it will ever change back?
Brineyman: You must have forgotten about the homosexual orgies that took place at the Vatican. The temple prostitutes have already arrived.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/location-based-apps-pose-security
In case anyone wanted the report I mentioned in my pervious comment. It’s a tough read.
Note to CWR. This Jesuitical papacy has the putrid stench of brimstone and death all over it. As opposed to the fragrance of holiness, which it has none of.
In fact, since its inception, the signs of the unholy spirit — the arrogance, the divisiveness, the vindictiveness— have only gotten stronger.
Here’s my question, CWR. What implications do this clearly diabolical papacy hold for the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope?
I mean, from a practical standpoint, I can see that the idea of an infallible pope is in shambles. Anyone can feel that.
But how about from the theological point of view? How can it stand after ten years of Bergoglian evil?
I really would like to know.
It does nothing. The game plan is simply to enable, but not to actually teach. Infallibility as defined by the First Vatican Council (and repeated in Vatican II) is bounded (boundaries!) by precise definition:
“The Roman Pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when exercising the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, he defines with his supreme apostolic authority a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, through the divine assistance promised to him in St. Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed in defining doctrine concerning faith and morals: and therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves (and not from the consent of the Church).”
Papal underlings present yet another layer of obscurity, as when Cardinal Fernandez in-sin-uates a new trinitarianism of sorts: Eroticism = Ecstasy = Mysticism.
Dear ‘brineyman’,
“Do not believe every spirit but test every spirit.”
“By their fruit you will know them.”
“Whoever says: I have come to know Him” but does not obey His commandments is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; . .”
Wow! I’m shocked. When will the Church be free of all these weirdos? It is a shame that the Church has lost all moral credibility with all of them.
The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is the eternal definition of moral credibility.
Try again.
So am I. I had no idea this was happening. And if valid, why is it being tolerated? Why was it allowed to happen/continue? Trying to defend the Catholic Church today just gets harder. This is so unbelievable!
Not a bit Shoe, we’re just faithfully holding the Body of Christ together & waiting for the day Africa takes charge. Please God.
🙂
Survived the contracted killing of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Survived the first Pope thrice denying he knew who Jesus was. Divine promise that the gates of Hell wouldn’t prevail against Her.
The Barque is secure.
With no malice intended, my best sense is that our Church faithful seem to misuse the words of Jesus to us here.
Our use of Jesus’ words, as done for example in the manner that you cited them, seems to be a misunderstanding of what The Lord is saying to us. If the gates of eehell shall not prevail against the Church, Jesus clearly implies that the Church is to be attacking the gates of hell, i.e., “playing on offense” in spreading the Gospel.
This quote of Jesus seems almost always in an opposite and not intended meaning, that the Church’s gates will withstand hell as long as we huddle safely inside.
This is not what Jesus intended regarding his Church.
Amen!
He should be thrown out of the Vatican to the street and everything he has written or helped to write burned.
…and Latin mass is bad?
We read: “…we are taught, human sexual activity will cease completely, and the blessed will live in a perfect spiritual marriage with their Creator.” But, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN, really? The following from St. John Paul II, an oversight by St. Cyprian, and Cantalamessa, the preacher of the papal household:
FIRST, “Speaking of the body glorified through the resurrection to the future life, we have in mind man, male-female, in all the truth of his humanity….This will be a completely new experience. At the same time it will not be alienated in any way from what man took part in from the beginning, nor from what, in the historical dimension of his existence, constituted in him the source of the tension between spirit and body, concerning mainly the procreative meaning of the body and sex. The man of the future world will find again in this new experience of his own body precisely the completion of what he bore within himself perennially and historically […]
“In the risen man, male and female, will be revealed, I would say, the absolute and eternal nuptial meaning of the glorified body in union with God himself through the ‘face to face’ vision of him, and glorified also through the union of perfect inter-subjectivity. This will unite all who participate in the other world, men and women, in the mystery of the communion of saints” (“Theology of the Body,” Pauline Books, 1997, pp. 248, 267).
SECOND, on nuptiality, John Paul II wrote earlier:
“…the reality of the union with the person now deceased. The value of the person, after all, is not transient, and spiritual union can and should continue even when physical union is at an end” (“Love and Responsibility,” 1982, p. 212).
THIRD, about the superiority of contemplation and celibacy, yes in a sense, we still might ask whether the celibate St. Cyprian, for example, had a blind spot when he omitted nuptiality and spouses from the following:
“A great crowd of our loved ones awaits us there, a countless throng of parents, brothers and children longs for us to join them. Assured though they are of their own salvation, they are still concerned about ours. What joy for them and for us to see one another and embrace!” (“Liturgy of the Hours,” Vol IV, 34th Week or Ordinary Times).
FOURTH, Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, says this about nuptiality and celibacy:
“Some Fathers of the Church [St. Cyprian]…thought that if Adam had not sinned there would have been no marriage, with the sexual procreation that is now its distinguishing feature, because in the way in which it is now exercised, human sexuality is the fruit of original sin. However, from a more biblical and less Platonic perspective it must be said that RATHER THE REVERSE IS TRUE: that, had there been no sin there would have been no virginity [!], because there would have been no need to question marriage and sexuality and subject them to judgment” (Virginity: A Positive Approach to Celibacy for the Sake of the Kingdom of Heaven,” 1995, p. 45, caps added).
But, TODAY, what about the prevaricating dichotomy between the “abstract” and the “concrete,” the blessing of anti-nuptial couplings, the synodal questioning priestly celibacy, and suspected agenda to replace temple prostitutes with married female priestesses?
Might we conclude that this current trajectory is not only wrong-headed and schismatic, but clueless and preposterous?
The fly in the ointment with the fourth point is that in Genesis we were told to be fruitful and multiply. Original Sin caused the disordering of our will and intellect. Our views on human sexuality are subject to this same disordering. Male and female existed before the Fall of Man, and needs to be considered as it was before the fall. Marriage could be considered to be a way for us to be educated in how to relate to the heavenly marriage of the beatific vision. The people who practice chastity for the sake of the kingdom are those who are embracing a way of life that is modeled on the heavenly marriage of the beatific vision. They are giving themselves body and soul to God, their bodies being set apart as a reserved vessel given over exclusively to God. In Matthew 19 Christ said that not all are called to this state. Those who are need to work on maintaining a solid relationship with God.
“Fly in the ointment”? In response, and speaking of the “fly,’ one early school of theology was that before the Fall, mankind reproduced asexually…
Did Michelangelo subscribe to this theory? Take a close look at an image of the Creation on the Sistine Ceiling…and notice two important details. Adam’s prelapsarian and modestly overlooked reproductive equipment is strikingly diminutive, quite useless; and second, notice what’s almost ready to emerge from his body, namely, the erect female figure that constitutes his left leg from the knee down to the angle. It might be that this interpretation shows up somewhere in one obscure parchment or another.
In any event, Cantalamessa’s point might well be that, yes, those in heaven do retain the unity of “body and soul,” as you also affirm. How this works in this life—and without excluding God—is the message of St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.” Likewise, Benedict proposed that rather than destroying eros, Christianity rescues it from the fallen notion that it is a kind of “divine madness” by which man experiences supreme happiness.
Regarding eros alone, he recounts:
“In religions, this attitude found expression in fertility cults, part of which was the ‘sacred’ prostitution which flourished in many temples . . . The Old Testament firmly opposed this form of religion, which represents a powerful temptation against monotheistic faith, combating it as a perversion of religiosity. But it in no way rejected eros as such; rather it declared war on a warped and destructive form of it, this counterfeit divinization of eros actually strips it of its dignity and dehumanizes it . . . It is part of love’s growth toward higher levels and inward purification that it now seeks to become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of being ‘forever.’” (Deus Caritas Est [God is Love], nn. 4,6).
A far cry, this, from any “pluralism” of religions, or from the fanciful conflation of eroticism, ecstasy and mysticism in the 1998 book by the incomparable Cardinal Fernandez…and from indiscriminate “blessing” in his derivative Fiducia supplicans.
The act of creation by God involved all Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. In human sexuality the creation of new human life also involves the cooperative act of God, Who creates the soul, the man, and the woman who procreate the body, in the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity.
*
Adam and Eve were the progenitors of the human race. The reason Eve was made from a part of Adam was so that she would be of one substance, one flesh, with Adam. Physically consubstantial with Adam, pointing to the Nicene Creed. In the same way at the Incarnation Christ derived the substance of His body from Mary.
How is the Holy Trinity, in God Creation? What is the Holy Trinity in Catholic church?
Fernandez, McCarrick, Rupnik, Zanchetta –
Why does the Vatican go to such lengths to protect and
promote these characters?
Why are our American bishops not speaking up to demand
changes in the Vatican?
Why are our bishops quiet? Well, think for a moment, what happened to Strickland, Torres, Weinandy, Burke, Pell, Zen, Sarah, Ganswien, etc.? These guys all stuck their necks out, and were stripped by our current pontiff. In most places, bravery is a rare commodity in a bishop because he is not plucked from the ranks of the priests for his bravery, but because he is a talented conformist.
Because they are complicit, cowards, careerists who don’t care, or waiting for a better day. At this point, they do not have a good reason. Safety in numbers…
Actually, there is another C.
1. They are complicit. Or
2. They are cowards. Or
3. They are careerists who don’t care. Or
4. They are cautious, waiting for a better day. Or (sadly)
5. They are COMPROMISED.
Our job is to stay Catholic.
Well said, dear ‘God’s fool’.
So many have also been conscripted by the confusticator.
Birds of a feather flock together, and then they circle the wagons to protect each other. Pretty reprehensible.
Half of them are probably homosexuals (Nighty Night Baby) and agree with Fernandez.
The other half probably decided that to openly attack the pope will cause great damage to the OFFICE of the papacy, and they have decided to simply wait Pope Francis out, ignore everything he ever said, and hope the next pope is Catholic instead of Episcopalian.
Didn’t read. Not interested in “graphic language.” I avoid such things at all cost. I think “journalists” who recycle it and put it before readers who otherwise would have no cause whatsoever to read the original source of it suggests “clickbaiting.”
What are you afraid of?
I don’t think CWR or Mr. Hoffman, who is indeed an actual journalist, is the problem here.
I don’t see any good reason to report on the details of obscenity. If isn’t as bad as “graphic language,” it also doesn’t seem to be necessary.
Sorry, this is nonsense. Hiding your head in the sand when the devil is attacking you does not work.
I am Filipino, the widow of a Catholic Englishman whose family was closely associated with the famous sculptor and printmaker Eric Gill. When my mother-in-law gave me a book of Gill’s religious artworks, I got so confused and didn’t know whether to feel grateful or insulted. On one of the pages was a print of a female saint having sex with Christ on the Cross. I was so shaken, I cried.
Descriptions of Cardinal Tucho’s book on sex and mysticism do not shock me anymore, but they still scandalize. I suspect the Cardinal got the idea of female orgasm from Bernini’s sculpture of the “Ecstasy of St. Teresa” (of Avila), or St. Catherine of Siena’s moaning prayer, “Jesus, love… Jesus, love,” or even St. Hildegard of Bingen’s surprisingly accurate description of female orgasm.
Way to go, Cardinal Tucho – pick the women Doctors of the Church out of context and show the world the devil, too, can play this game.
I think “infamous” might be a better word choice for Eric Gill. His scandals(crimes) were real life based, not just reflected in his art.
But I would have been rather confused also if someone gifted me with a book of his work. Yuck.
🙁
As to the Saint Theresa statue: For centuries, everyone understood that this depiction had nothing at all to do with sex. In the last 30 years or so, perverted art historians in the colleges began spreading around their idea that this expression on her face was an orgasm. This interpretation simply shows how degraded art historians have become (Roger Kimball wrote an entire book on their depravity). Of course TV and movies picked up on this idea and spread it around.
Mr. Hoffman has presented a brilliant article that is comparable to a scholarly paper. His presentation of the similarities between the book of the Cardinal and the pronouncements of Francis is excellent and certainly scholarly.
Some people are justifiably concerned about the credibility of Francis and of future popes, especially how this may affect the concept of papal infallibility. Fortunately, Francis has never claimed to be ex cathedra in any of his documents. A pope must state that he is speaking from the throne in order to claim infallibility. This has only been done three times in church history: proclaiming the dogma at Vatican I, proclaiming the Immaculate Conception, and proclaiming of the Assumption of Mary, body and soul into heaven.
Thanks for your kind words. I put a lot of thought and time into this piece and as you can imagine, it was painful to write (and to research). I hated quoting the book’s worst passages but I think that the Catholic faithful need to know what their prelates are thinking and doing, so they can exercise their right to express their concerns to the hierarchy, as outlined in canon law.
Cardinal Fernández is apparently locked into a parity of the two dimensions of existence, the physical and the spiritual due to an obsession with sensual pleasure. Beaulieu’s assessment of a seeming theological misdirection regarding nuptiality in papal preacher Fr Raniero Cantalamessa’s sermon on the beatific vision, as well as Hoffman’s is correct.
Fr Cantalamessa however clarifies an important issue regarding the moral legitimacy of marital conjugal relations as presumed by some of the Fathers as the result of Original Sin. As Cantalamessa states the opposite is true. Christ Creator and Savior sanctifies the conjugal act through grace. It’s entirely preposterous [saints albeit be they Fathers are not at all infallible] to believe that the entire transmission of life as designed in the human body male and female, the very creation of the natural order of the opposite sex was the result of Original Sin. As Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross suggests, Original Sin in this writer’s opinion was more likely disobedience in form of some activity, perhaps due to a sexual deviation from the naturally ordered conjugal act, commended to the woman by Satan, since it’s the woman who carries out the disordered act.
The spiritual order is infinitely superior to the physical order. As Matthew Hoffman affirms on the Beatific Vision, “There, we are taught, human sexual activity will cease completely, and the blessed will live in a perfect spiritual marriage with their Creator”.
On the ideological spectrum and based on his underlying book (so to speak), nobody can accuse Cardinal Fernandez of anti-semenitism.
The writings of Pope Francis and especially Cardinal Fernandez can be a Rosette Stone for identifying the writings, writers, “warped theological reasoning”, homilies, and the evolution of sexual perversion in the Church.
Their writings, aided by artificial intelligence (A.I.), can develop into an “Ultra Project”1 that breaks the code of communications that expand sexual perversion within the Church. These activities are designed to diminish the “Magisterium and the official texts of the Church”, and the faith of the people.
With a Catholic Ultra Project, the earliest infiltrations can be identified along with the identities of the original and subsequent perpetrators.
Stop digging up dirt from someones past You all have a past too. It’s the now that counts and his statements are now in line with CHARITY as stated in the Cathechism of the Catholic Church
What dirt? The Pope and his Tucho (little monkey?) have laughed together about his erotic books. No one is hiding Tucho’s past. The whole point is Tucho doesn’t think his pornographic theologizing is dirty. Why do you think it is? Who are you to judge? Be careful or this pontificate might gaslight you as a rigorist…
Oh, nice try, Armando.
But the article anticipated your feeble defense, pointing out that Tucho was at least 35 years old and had been a priest for some 11 years when the aforementioned book came out.
So this is not exactly the junior high school prank you might have us think it is.
Moreover, the sick, depraved, perverted depictions he renders in this book seem to precisely anticipate the position on homosexuality that he takes in Sfiducia Supplicans.
No, Armando. This papacy may be of a particular spirit, but it clearly isn’t the Holy One.
You sound very, very strange. I suppose a homosexual prostitute would consider this “charity” but almost no one else would.
Video (31 min. 40 sec.) at
The World Over January 11, 2024 | “BLESSINGS” CONTROVERSY: The Papal Posse with Raymond Arroyo
Description:
Jan 11, 2024
Robert Royal & Fr. Gerald Murray on the latest news from the Vatican including the growing international resistance by bishops’ conferences to the Vatican’s directive on blessings of same sex couples, and the controversy surrounding a salacious book written years ago by the current head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, Victor Cardinal Fernandez.
Armando,
Even in the secular world when you apply for certain positions you are background checked. Ive had to do that twice. Our past does matter.
God forgives, Christians are instructed to use charity but try to get employed by a school or any position working with minors and having published a book with a conversation like that with a 16 year old girl. It’s not going to happen.
Francis totally lost me when it became clear to me as a researcher of clergy sexual activity -> misconduct -> abuse -> crime that these usurpers of the Church and serious abusers of their role, men such as Rupnik, McCarrick were not responded too adequately, if at all unless they were FORCED to respond. Even worse, there is the almost total dismissal of the victims of such anti-clerics. The I find out that only 50% of clergy believe that chastity is necessary for a celibate. And I blame such books and approaches as this one for the dropping of chastity by these so called representatives of Christ. Fernanadez’s book or the content of it, was very much THE pick up/grooming line for almost all the survivors/victims of clergy misconduct that I have interviewed and surveyed, and I include myself among this cohort, having been indecently assaulted by a gay Jesuit. He appeared to firmly believe, like his many ‘brothers’, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with being sexually active even with a traumatised young man who came to him for help and that it was also perfectly OK according to his version of ‘God is love’ to do so as part of my ‘confession’. Twisted beliefs. Thing is, I have compassion for him because he, too, was also a victim of child sexual abuse, so, yes, a traumatised man.
So, you need to say something about all this, don’t you? And by the way, what has all this got to do with many Catholics being in ‘diapers’ when it comes to sex, Francis? This Church, the Church I loved and believed in, continues to harm me and others now, and I obviously still haven’t gotten over it fully, but that is also partly because I and my fellow victims just keep getting this kind of shite thrown at them. As an ex-Carmelite (for a short time) I get the concepts in this book, on a spiritual level, but in my research I came to meet a few women and men who heard these lines used in their grooming and spiritual manipulation. The victims may have been naive, but these bloody clergy weren’t, that’s for sure. The head of the order at the time who was 74 or so and who had sexually trapped a young mother into ‘pleasuring him’ regularly, even on his death bed, something she never wanted to do, said to her once that when he held the paten up at the consecration, he placed her and himself there with Jesus – would Fernanadez approve? This priest certainly got what he wanted, she became an alcoholic. Nice work Francis, clergy.
The vast majority of the laity could care less about all of this.
Has a poll been taken on that, Will?
The vast majority of the laity
Assumes facts not in evidence but if true, as you assert, irrelevant as truth is not determined by popular vote.
could care less
How much less could they care, William?
I hardly agree with Fernandez, but your article is not fair and the quuotations ill-intentioned. After checking with the original, since I felt the need to, I ratify my first impression…
The author is fluent in Spanish and translated all quotes himself. How exactly are the “quuotations ill-intentioned”?
I´m not saying I like Fernández´s book or that I like revisiting it, but quotations are intentionally decontextualized.
For instance, in the scene of the “breathing”, the reference to the Cross and the feel of protection are omitted.
In other scene, where the author suggests “pederastic fantasies”, the Virgin Mary´s presence is expunged!
Thus I ask myself why…
And by the way, “el calor de una piel” is rather “the warmth of a skin” than “the heat of flesh”.
I hardly agree with Fernández, but your article is not fair in my view, and the quotations are ill-intentioned. After checking with the original -since I felt the need to do it- I have to ratify my first impression…
Again, the author is fluent in Spanish (and has degrees in theology/philosophy). How are the “quotations ill-intentioned”? By whom?
Simple question: According to the sexual-spiritual theory of Fernanadez/Fernandez (the author spelt his name wrong at first), which of the following would fit his theory the best? https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/an-offense-against-god-sisters-say?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email. One could also ask the same thing of Francis. Is the priest ‘in diapers’ or are the nuns?
It’s actually spelled Fernández. 💋
Not sure who needs diapers, but it is obvious from the smell that many in this pontificate have soiled themselves.