I read it, and I found the title of the article misleading. Archbishop Manuel Fernández is not a radical disenter. No one encyclical is "adequate" to express absolute truth in its fullness, and this Catholic does not give interviews and off-the-cuff comments the same weight as encyclicals themselves.
When asked about his – and Pope Francis’s – approach to morality, Fernández asserted:
1) The absolute primacy of grace and charity in Catholic moral theology.
2) The inalienable dignity of each human person, and the consequences of that.
3) The preferential option for the poor, the last, and those abandoned by society.
4) The individualistic, hedonistic and egocentric approaches to life that make the option for marriage, family and the common good difficult.
But we would be off to a bad start if we separated morality from theology.
"There’s good here, properly understood, that VS itself would affirm. But we know that a lot of heterodox and “heterodox-adjacent” positions have found their way into the Church’s public stances under the aegis of charity and human dignity. And enabled the destructive public Catholicism of figures like the Bidens and Pelosis of the world."
I disagree with that conclusion. There have always been dissenters and trouble making theologians in the Church but they do not rule the Church. Satanists are at the Vatican but they do not run the Vatican. Contrary to the opinions of radical anti-Catholics, theologians are free to think for themselves, not blindly follow the Pope. Controversies can be useful for ongoing doctrinal development. I see nothing "inadequate" with
Veritas Splendor; there is no separation with Catholic moral teaching from theology. Bidens and Pelosis of the world are very destructive, and the Church does not have a police department.
It will take 300 years to unpack and apply all of Vatican II teachings, and we may need a Vatican III before that happens. The historic Church has a self-healing mechanism and is in a constant state of renewal and reform. That's why we have encyclicals, synods and councils.
Most discussions in this forum are locked into boring 16th century politics and there is little interest in what the historic Church teaches today.
