by The Archbishop of La Plata, Victor “Tucho” Fernandezasserted that “he came to tell me that I did not found the vision of the Church about homosexuals.” The research that the dicastery took upon him and how were the conditions under which they achieved the request the Pope Francisco ,is Fontevecchia modeby net tv and RadioProfile (FM 101.9).
What does it produce in the soul to have that responsibility, to find out that it is up to one to bear that responsibility?
Quite a strong internal shock, because this dicastery entrusted to me by the Pope has a rather dark history, he was always the most important in the Vatican which was like the “iron arm” of the Pope, was the so-called holy inquisition or the Holy Office, which persecuted the so-called heretics and witches, and which even came, as the Pope Franciscoto use immoral methods, such as torture, among other things.
So, you imagine that being named in that place is stinging. This Dicastery that I am going to direct was the Holy Office, the Inquisition, who even investigated me. People from here sent articles of mine that they thought were heretical and I spent a few months responding. They asked me questions and I answered them again, it was really very annoying.
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They had even published a note from me in a small and little-known newspaper from Río Cuarto, because at that time there had been homosexual couples (we are talking about 30 years ago) who asked for a blessing and the Bishop had said that we could not do it and asked me to explain it.
In the newspaper I said that we did not do it because we understood marriage as a union of man and woman, open to generate life, then we could not identify it. But that did not mean judging people, getting into their intimate lives, or condemning anyone.
Curiously, having said such a thing, they sent him to Rome and He even told me that I did not support the vision of the Church on homosexuals, to give you an example. I was with that nonsense for months.
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There were great theologians at the time of the Second Vatican Council that at that time they were persecuted by this institution. And the case of a great theologian who one night went and urinated on the door of the Holy Office as a gesture of contempt for this persecutory methodology is famous.
So you figure being named there is an intense issue. But when Pope Francis told him no, in the first instance, he told me “I want to reconfigure it, think about it.”
Later, from the hospital, while I was hospitalized, he asked me again, and I couldn’t say no. To which he told me: “Don’t worry, I’m going to send you a letter where I’m going to explain that I want to give another meaning to that Dicastery, to promote thought and theological reflection in dialogue with the world and with science, that is, more than persecutions and sentences, spaces for dialogue”. With which, that left me calmer.
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In a reading pact with the audience, I want to say that I am not an objective interviewer, in this case, because of the respect and special affection that I have for you. I was listening to you and Cardinal Bellarmine with Galileo Galilei and those discussions about whether the Earth revolved around the Sun or vice versa and how there is malpractice in any institution came to mind.
At the same time, I interviewed the world’s leading neurologist this Sunday and he pointed out that it was unfair to say that the Church had been against science, that there were exceptional cases but that the majority of science had developed within the institutions that the Church had supported.
We say that science, art and politics are the three ways to change the world and religion runs through all three, so I understand that responsibility.
Let us understand the practical issues. Do you have to live in Rome? Are you leaving the archbishopric of La Plata? How is your life going?
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Yes, because these Dicasteries are like ministries that involve a dedication full time and be there close to him Dad. I once proposed that these ministries be more decentralized, for example, in Latin America, with the facilities we have today to communicate, and that caused a stir a few years ago.
But the reality is that the Pope needs trustworthy people close by and tI have to go live inside the Vatican. In fact, he himself tried to find me a little house knowing me and having some characteristics so that I could live there.
When we opened the program today with your homily on May 25, I told the morning that it was a faithful reflection of your thought. How is that thought carried around the world? Does the Medieval Inquisition, with its ramifications, find any analogy in the non-religious world, that is, is there any ideology or economic idea that could represent something equivalent in the pagan world?
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You mentioned the homily of May 25 and obviously one like this in Europe resonates differently. In this sense, Francisco is quite right when he says that he looks different from the peripheries.
I always remember when I went to visit Holy LandThey told me how they knew the desert in such a detailed way, perceiving colors, shadows and changes throughout, that those who did not grow up there do not see it in any way.
He has no other perspective, that experience comes, that contact of years. So, in this position, for the first time there is a Latin American, something that he modifies, allows for the incorporation of other views, perspectives, is also valuable.
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Do you think there is a metaphor for what the Inquisition was, the Holy Office, very tempered in recent years, but still present, with some political or economic doctrines that are expressed in the pagan world?
Is there any relationship or metaphor between the evils produced by the Inquisition and other evils produced by the pagan world of certain economic or political doctrines?
It is like this: all forms of authoritarianismtrying to impose an ideological register, forms of populism who are also authoritarian, and unique thought. Obviously, the history of the Inquisition is shameful, it is harsh, and it profoundly contradicts the Gospel and Christian teaching itself. That’s why it’s so horrible.
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But in evidence, with other colors, perhaps in a more concealed way and with all kinds of excuses, similar things that existed and continue to exist in politics and in different institutions.
We always say that we must avoid judging the events of the past with current categories. And that they developed over the centuries and that allows, perhaps, not to justify but to partially understand
But current phenomena must be judged by today’s criteria, and today forms of authoritarianism, the imposition of unique thoughts, continue to exist everywhere. Perhaps, sometimes, more than entertaining ourselves in criticizing the past, we have to stop more and put the magnifying glass on things that could already have changed in today’s world.
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I wonder if there is a generational issue. You are 60 years old, and you spoke about the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis will be able to say that he is the first culturally post-Council Pope, although he was influenced by his age.
I think he was studying when the Council had not yet been, but he was already a priest with the Council, while Benedict XVI was one of the participants in building the foundations of the Council.
Is there something generational in the Church that, after the Council, the entire generation of priests who were ordained after the Council has a worldview different from the previous one?
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Yes, obviously the Council was an explosion and for those who were students at that time, it was surely a mark for life. In this sense, it is true what you say that this is the first Pope who may need to be clearly post-conciliar.
Someone cordially post-conciliar, because there are people who still do not accept the Second Vatican Council and prefer to go back to the past. He is cordially. So we can understand his pontificate and some say it as well as the true and full application of the Council.
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