Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith, urged an end to unauthorized online condemnations during a January 27-29 plenary session attended by over 70 church leaders and theological experts. He criticized the “culture of ex-Catholic condemnations” created when blogs and commentators, including some bishops and cardinals, issue opinions as if they carry ultimate authority. Fernández emphasized that human reason never fully grasps reality and called for intellectual and spiritual humility across the Church hierarchy. His meditation explored historical warnings and contemporary challenges facing theological discourse.
In a direct challenge to the growing culture of theological overreach on social media, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith, called for an end to online condemnations issued without proper authority during a plenary session at the Vatican from January 27 to 29.
Addressing over 70 participants including cardinals, bishops, and theological experts, Fernández warned that blogs and online commentators frequently issue opinions as if they were ex cathedra pronouncements, despite limited theological training and no genuine claim to such authority.
Blogs and online commentators issue opinions as if they were ex cathedra pronouncements, despite having no genuine claim to such authority.
The cardinal described a troubling pattern in which anyone online expresses condemnations with what appears to be ultimate authority, creating what he termed a culture of ex-Catholic condemnations.
He noted that this problem extends beyond amateur bloggers, pointing out that bishops and cardinals themselves sometimes make uncorrected statements that contribute to the issue.
His call for restraint applies across the entire Church hierarchy, not simply to lay commentators in digital spaces.
Central to Fernández’s message was a plea for intellectual, spiritual, and theological humility.
He emphasized that human reason never fully grasps reality, which belongs to God alone, and that the advance of science and technology makes awareness of our limits increasingly important.
Quoting Pope Leo, he reminded participants that no one possesses the whole truth and that believers must seek it together.
He urged the Church to recover healthy realism from its sages and mystics.
The cardinal’s meditation, titled “Ask not of the light, but of the fire”, was delivered one day before the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Fernández drew sobering historical lessons to illustrate the dangers of theological overconfidence.
He cited how deception and the belief that one fully understands God’s will led to the Inquisition’s excesses, world wars, the Holocaust, and contemporary tragedies such as the massacres in Gaza, all justified by fallacious arguments.
The risk of repeating such deceptions grows, he suggested, when people live too confidently in what they think they know.
Even the Dicastery’s own documents, he acknowledged, form only part of the ordinary magisterium, underscoring that authoritative teaching itself requires humility and collective discernment in the ongoing search for truth.
Fernández himself has been targeted on Catholic blogs since his appointment to the dicastery in 2023.
The cardinal also warned that persistent online falsehoods can corrode communal trust and impede the Church’s call to biblical honesty.
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