Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery on the Doctrine of the Faith, speaks during a press conference about a new Vatican document on human dignity on April 8, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 8, 2024 / 12:10 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s top doctrinal watchdog, said Monday that the Vatican’s new document on human dignity is as much a reflection of Pope Francis’ pastoral thinking on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, surrogacy, and gender ideology as it is a summary of the Church’s magisterial teaching.
This document is “about gathering here and consolidating what the last pontiffs have said on this great topic and to summarize the innovation offered by the current pope,” Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said during a press conference at the Vatican coinciding with the release of the new document, titled Dignitas Infinita.
“The Church has also learned the hard way, going through difficult phases,” he added. “It has also learned to talk to the world by listening to society.”
The new document states that “the Church’s magisterium progressively developed an ever-greater understanding of the meaning of human dignity, along with its demands and consequences, until it arrived at the recognition that the dignity of every human being prevails beyond all circumstances.”
At the same time, Fernández explained, the document reflects Pope Francis’ pastoral priorities, noting that the theme of human dignity is “so present in the thought of Pope Francis” as well as “in his attitudes, in his way of treating the sick, the criminals, the forgotten, in the way he listens.”
Fernández began the midday press conference with a lengthy defense of last December’s controversial document Fiducia Supplicans, which has become a source of division within the Church. He noted that the document had garnered more than “7 billion views on the internet,” suggesting that it was the Vatican’s most-viewed document. He then pointed to an Italian survey, unnamed and unpublished, where “75% of people” under age 35 support the document, which allows for the “spontaneous” (nonliturgical) blessing of same-sex couples as well as those in “irregular” situations.
Copies of the Vatican document Dignitas Infinita, which was published on April 8, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Asked why he began by discussing Fiducia Supplicans, Fernández said that in “recent days I have received from many people from within and outside the Vatican who told me [the speech] cannot be done as if nothing had happened. And then I accepted what they told me to do there and I extended the speech with this.”
Dignitas Infinita (“Infinite Dignity”) has been in the works for the past five years but was significantly reworked following the input of “various experts” who met at a “consulta ristretta” held on Oct. 4, 2021. Pope Francis approved the document on March 25 and subsequently ordered its publication.
The document is unequivocal in its condemnation of abortion, noting that “the acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior, and even in law itself is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense.”
The document also addresses a range of new issues, including surrogacy, which “violates” the dignity of both the mother and the child, who “becomes a mere object,” as well as “gender theory,” which it describes as “extremely dangerous.”
On the question of gender theory it states: “Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the Gospel.”
With respect to sex change, the document notes: “It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”
Fernández reiterated this point during the press conference, noting that the document addresses the topic of sex change, reflecting on the importance of “accepting the truth as it is.” He noted the socially pervasive belief that man is “omnipotent” and “thinks that with his intelligence, and his will, he is capable of building everything as if there was nothing that came before him, as if there was no reality that was given to him.”
But on the question of sex change, he noted that while there is “a deeper issue” that is not “seen,” there are “pastoral consequences, the principle of welcoming everyone, which is clear in the words of Pope Francis, he always says it: everyone, everyone.”
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Prince Charles attends the Society of St. Augustine of Canterbury centenary reception at Archbishop’s House, Westminster, England, May 10, 2022. / Mazur/cbcew.org.uk.
London, England, May 23, 2022 / 12:35 pm (CNA).
Prince Charles has marked the… […]
An artist’s rendering of the affordable apartment complex soon to be built by Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance in Los Angeles. / Courtesy of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance
St. Louis, Mo., Aug 26, 2024 / 06:30 am (CNA).
Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, with an average home price almost touching a million dollars in 2024 — a landscape that crowds out not only the poor, but also young families with children. The high cost of housing is one of the primary reasons why tens of thousands of people live on the streets of LA, and most of those who are housed are “rent burdened,” which means they spend more than 30% of their income just keeping a roof over their heads.
In the face of such challenges, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently announced it will provide land for a new housing development dedicated to serving community college students and young people exiting the foster care system.
Amy Anderson, executive director of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance and a former chief of housing for the City of Los Angeles, told EWTN News that a group of Catholic lay leaders from the business and philanthropic community reached out to the archdiocese with a vision for creating an independent, nonprofit affordable housing development organization.
“Our vision is to really collaborate with the archdiocese and [use] the resources potentially available from the archdiocese to create homes that are affordable to a wide range of populations and incomes,” Anderson told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol.
She said they hope to break ground on the project, known as the Willowbrook development, “about a year from now.”
“The archdiocese is a fantastic partner. They are providing the land for our first development, which is already in process, and we’re working really closely with them to identify additional opportunities.”
The proposed building, which will be located steps from Los Angeles Community College, will feature 74 affordable housing units, as well as “on-site supportive services” for young people transitioning out of foster care — a population that often ends up experiencing homelessness.
The land, located at 4665 Willow Brook Ave just a few miles from the Hollywood Sign, currently hosts a Catholic Charities building, which will move its operations to another site to make way for the apartments.
“Through Catholic Charities and our ministries on Skid Row [an LA street where many unhoused people live] and elsewhere, we have been working for many years to provide shelter and services for our homeless brothers and sisters,” Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a statement to LAist.
“With this new initiative we see exciting possibilities to make more affordable housing available, especially for families and young people.”
Making land work for mission
The Catholic Church is often cited as the largest non-governmental owner of land in the entire world, with an estimated 177 million acres owned by Catholic entities.
Maddy Johnson, program manager for the Church Properties Initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate (FIRE), noted that the Church as a large landowner is not a new phenomenon, but there is a need today to adapt to modern challenges like regulations, zoning, and the importance of caring for the natural environment.
Many Catholic dioceses and religious orders have properties in their possession that aren’t fulfilling their original purpose, including disused natural land and parking lots, as well as shuttered convents and schools. Sometimes, Johnson said, a diocese or religious order doesn’t even realize the full extent of what they own.
“How can the Church make good strategic decisions, strategic and mission-aligned decisions, if it doesn’t know what properties it’s responsible for?” she said.
The Church of St. Agatha and St. James in Philadelphia, with The Chestnut in the foreground, a housing unit developed on property ground-leased from the church. Courtesy of Maddy Johnson/Church Properties Initiative
Since real estate management is not the Church’s core competency, FIRE aims to “provide a space for peer learning” to educate and equip Church leaders to make better use of their properties in service of the Church’s mission.
To this end, they offer an undergraduate minor at Notre Dame that aims to teach students how to help the Church make strategic real estate decisions that align with the Church’s mission. The Institute also organizes a quarterly networking call with diocesan real estate directors, as well as an annual conference to allow Catholic leaders to convene, share best practices, and learn from each other.
Fr. Patrick Reidy, C.S.C., a professor at Notre Dame Law School and faculty co-director of the Church Properties Initiative, conducts a workshop for diocesan leaders on Notre Dame’s campus in summer 2023. Courtesy of David J. Murphy/Church Properties Initiative
In many cases, Catholic entities that have worked with FIRE have been able to repurpose properties in a way that not only provides income for the church, but also fills a need in the community.
Johnson said the Church is called to respond to the modern problems society faces — one of which is a lack of housing options, especially for the poor.
“Throughout its history, there have been so many different iterations of how the Church expresses its mission…through education, healthcare — those are the ones that we’ve gotten really used to,” Johnson said.
“In our day and age, could it be the need for affordable housing?…that’s a charitable human need in the area that’s not being met.”
Unlocking potential in California
Queen of Angels Housing’s first development, which has been in the works for several years, is being made possible now by a newly-passed state law in California that aims to make it easier for churches to repurpose their land into housing.
California’s SB 4, the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, was signed into law in October 2023. It streamlines some of the trickiest parts of the process of turning church-owned land into housing — the parts most people don’t really think about. These can include permitting and zoning restrictions, which restrict the types of buildings that can be built in a given area and can be difficult and time-consuming to overcome. SB 4 even includes a provision allowing for denser housing on church-owned property than the zoning ordinances would normally allow.
Yes in God’s Backyard
The law coming to fruition in California is part of a larger movement informally dubbed “Yes in God’s Backyard,” or YIGBY — a riff on the term “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY), a phenomenon whereby neighbors take issue with and oppose new developments.
Several Catholic real estate professionals with ties to California expressed excitement about the possibilities that SB 4 has created in the Golden State.
Steve Cameron, a Catholic real estate developer in Orange County, told CNA that he is currently working with the Diocese of Orange, which abuts the LA archdiocese, to inventory properties that could be repurposed for residential use.
He said their focus is on building apartment buildings and townhomes, primarily for rental rather than for sale, in an attempt to address the severe housing shortage and high costs in Southern California.
Unlike some dioceses, the Orange diocese has an electronic GIS (geographic information system) database showing all the properties it owns. Prepared by a civil engineering firm, the database includes details such as parcel numbers, acreage, title information, and demographic reports, which facilitate the planning and development process.
“Strategically, what we’re doing is we’re inventorying all of the property that the diocese and the parishes own, and trying to understand where there might be underutilized property that would make sense to develop some residential use,” Cameron said.
Cameron said he can’t yet share details about the housing projects they’re working on, but said they are looking to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Queen of Angels housing project as a model for how to take advantage of the new incentives created by SB 4.
“I think it’s great, and it’s exciting that they’re taking the lead and that they are able to find an opportunistic way to repurpose an underutilized property to meet the housing shortage in California,” he said.
“[We] look at them as a role model for what we’re trying to accomplish here in the Diocese of Orange.”
Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago with One Chicago Square in the background, a residential tower constructed on the former cathedral parking lot, which was sold in 2019. Courtesy of Maddy Johnson/Church Properties Initiative
John Meyer, a former president of the California-based Napa Institute who now works in real estate with J2 Development, emphasized the importance of viewing the Church’s vast real estate holdings as an asset rather than a liability.
Meyer said he is currently working with two Catholic entities on the East Coast on ground lease projects, one of which will fund the construction of a new Catholic Student Center at a university. He told CNA he often advises Catholic entities to lease the land they own rather than selling it, allowing the church to maintain ownership of the property while generating income.
Naturally, he noted, any real estate project the Church undertakes ought to align with the Church’s mission of spreading the Gospel, and not merely be a means of making money.
“Any time we look at the Church’s real estate decisions, it’s got to be intertwined with mission and values,” he said.
“We’re not just developing for the sake of developing. What we want to do is we want to create value for the Church, and we also want to create value for the community. So working closely with the municipality to make sure that needs are met, and to be a good neighbor, is important.”
He said Church leaders should strongly consider taking advantage of incentives in various states such as California for projects like affordable housing, which align with the Church’s mission and provide both social and financial benefits.
“Priests and bishops aren’t ordained to do these things, and sometimes they have people in their diocese that have these abilities, and sometimes they don’t,” Meyer said.
“This [new law] in California has created an incentive that we can take advantage of, so we need to take advantage of that incentive…it’s allowing us to unlock potential value in land while at the same time serving a social good that’s part of the mission of the Church.”
Vatican City, Jul 12, 2017 / 09:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Gerhard Müller has strenuously denied media reports alleging Pope Francis asked the German prelate five pointed questions before informing him that his term as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was not being renewed.
The claims have been widely reported on social media.
Citing an unnamed German source, who in turn claims to have received the information from another person, the US-based news site One Peter Five and Italian Vaticanista Marco Tosatti have reported that Pope Francis, when meeting Cardinal Müller June 30, allegedly asked the then-prefect five questions about his views on a range of topics, including the introduction of a female diaconate and priesthood, the abolition of clerical continence, his stance regarding Amoris laetitia, and his stance on Francis sacking three members of staff in the congregation.
According to these reports, after hearing the German cardinal’s answers, Francis then informed him his mandate was ending and left the room, leaving behind a patiently waiting Cardinal Müller, who was expecting the Holy Father to be retrieving a token of gratitude, until an embarrassed Archbishop Georg Gänswein, prefect of the Papal Household, told the stumped cardinal that the meeting was in fact over.
Now Cardinal Müller has told Vaticanista Guido Horst that none of these claims are true. Writing in a guest editorial published at CNA Deutsch, Horst describes personally meeting the German clergyman the morning of July 11 in Rome.
The journalist, chief correspondent of the “Tagespost” newspaper, describes showing a surprised cardinal a printout of the reports: Müller himself had not seen the reporting on the Internet (his secretary, who provides the 69-year-old with online access, is on leave).
The cardinal was “flabbergasted to read this description of his meeting with the Pope”, Horst writes, quoting Cardinal Müller as stating: “This is incorrect”.
In fact, the whole meeting had run very differently Cardinal Müller asserted, and the claims made by the “anonymous German source” were quite false.
The comments echo a brief email sent by the Director of the Holy See Press Office, to both One Peter Five and Marco Tosatti yesterday. In it, Burke states that the claimed “reconstruction is totally false” and requests that the story be updated.
How horrible that the Church, which dictates what is holy, identifies abortion as an abomination to God, and seems to accept homosexuality as “loving all mankind”. As a Christian and a Catholic I can show biblical reference in both old and new testament that homosexuality is the abomination and the Church should NOT interpret this in any other way. I Timothy 1:8-11
Pope Francis would seem to be alleging that he is allowed to proclaim “legalize homosexual civil union” as a valid expression of the Church under VATICAN II.
Of course there is no justification for such a proclamation or assertion or “papal indication” or “papal opinion”.
This is one of the things Vigano would have to address if he answered the summons on the charge of schism made against him.
Pope Francis Has to publicly retract this item he lay in public. He must do this before he dies. He can not merely privately retract it and have someone else later say, posthumously, that he retracted it. Pope Francis has called Benedict XVI to witness that it is alright for him to have made this declaration and if the matter is corrected only privately, the “validity” of the “legalize homosexual civil union” will be in perennial contestation, as will Pope Francis’ purported reversal.
That is not VATICAN II and moreover it is never the way of the Church or the Holy Spirit. Christ’s Sacrifice is not the reinsertion of sin towards a hoped-for better result in case it should work out well in the end.
The latest synodalism development is the immersion of the the Holy See with “the people of God gathered”. Artificially creating or drumming up extenuating circumstances is going to overload the problem not simplify it.
The restoration of Lefebvre would mean Vigano having to condition/repurpose his own stances. A “trial” of Vigano at this time would thus have been premature and ill-founded; and whatever the outcome, it would shall have proved to have prejudiced everyone. Charity today should afford that to Vigano and everyone else by withdrawing the charges. Charity should look for the answers to these impasses.
‘ Reports suggest that Viganò has been reconsecrated as a bishop by a prelate linked to the breakaway traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in the wake of Vatican II, and in social media posts regarding the Vatican decree, Viganò identified himself with Lefebvre.
“[Lefebvre’s] defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine,” Viganò wrote.
It’s a comparison that Bisignani vigorously challenged in his June 21 essay.
“The small difference is that Marcel Lefebvre, before rejecting the documents of the Second Vatican Council – which he had voted for – had been the greatest missionary of the 20th century of the Catholic Church in Africa,” Bisignani wrote. ‘
How horrible that the Church, which dictates what is holy, identifies abortion as an abomination to God, and seems to accept homosexuality as “loving all mankind”. As a Christian and a Catholic I can show biblical reference in both old and new testament that homosexuality is the abomination and the Church should NOT interpret this in any other way. I Timothy 1:8-11
Pope Francis would seem to be alleging that he is allowed to proclaim “legalize homosexual civil union” as a valid expression of the Church under VATICAN II.
Of course there is no justification for such a proclamation or assertion or “papal indication” or “papal opinion”.
This is one of the things Vigano would have to address if he answered the summons on the charge of schism made against him.
Pope Francis Has to publicly retract this item he lay in public. He must do this before he dies. He can not merely privately retract it and have someone else later say, posthumously, that he retracted it. Pope Francis has called Benedict XVI to witness that it is alright for him to have made this declaration and if the matter is corrected only privately, the “validity” of the “legalize homosexual civil union” will be in perennial contestation, as will Pope Francis’ purported reversal.
That is not VATICAN II and moreover it is never the way of the Church or the Holy Spirit. Christ’s Sacrifice is not the reinsertion of sin towards a hoped-for better result in case it should work out well in the end.
The latest synodalism development is the immersion of the the Holy See with “the people of God gathered”. Artificially creating or drumming up extenuating circumstances is going to overload the problem not simplify it.
The restoration of Lefebvre would mean Vigano having to condition/repurpose his own stances. A “trial” of Vigano at this time would thus have been premature and ill-founded; and whatever the outcome, it would shall have proved to have prejudiced everyone. Charity today should afford that to Vigano and everyone else by withdrawing the charges. Charity should look for the answers to these impasses.
‘ Reports suggest that Viganò has been reconsecrated as a bishop by a prelate linked to the breakaway traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in the wake of Vatican II, and in social media posts regarding the Vatican decree, Viganò identified himself with Lefebvre.
“[Lefebvre’s] defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine,” Viganò wrote.
It’s a comparison that Bisignani vigorously challenged in his June 21 essay.
“The small difference is that Marcel Lefebvre, before rejecting the documents of the Second Vatican Council – which he had voted for – had been the greatest missionary of the 20th century of the Catholic Church in Africa,” Bisignani wrote. ‘
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2024/06/in-italy-prominent-conservatives-back-vatican-move-against-vigano