Crux

The Advent season begins this Sunday, and that means The Sound of Music will soon be on television in the United States. The ABC network airs the film classic starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer each year before Christmas, a broadcasting tradition that began in 2002. (It would air before Easter when I was a child, which shows my age.)

As I considered the latest contretemps involving the prefect of the Dicastery of for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), Argentine Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, a song from the film came to mind.

“How do you solve a problem like Maria?” sing the sisters of the convent in which the heroine of the story is an unlikely novice at the beginning of the story.

Though they are reasonably unlikely to be breaking out in song anytime soon, Vatican types may be looking at Fernandez’s troubled tenure as DDF head and wondering: “How do you solve a problem like Fernández?”

A longtime friend of Pope Francis who often helped the late pontiff draft statements and documents even before coming to the Vatican, Fernandez was appointed by Francis to his present position in 2023 (around the same time Bishop Robert Prevost – the future Pope Leo XIV – was made the head of the Dicastery for Bishops, and both Prevost and Fernandez got their red hats in the consistory of September 30, 2023).

Fernandez’s appointment raised some eyebrows, especially when some of his early theological-pastoral titles surfaced, including Heal Me with Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing and The Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality.

Youthful indiscretions may be overlooked or even forgiven, if one has proven a steady pair of hands. Fernandez, however, has been stirring the pot almost since Day 1 of his turn in the corner office of the Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio.

Shortly after Fernández’s appointment, the DDF issued the declaration, Fiducia supplicans, which allowed priests to bless people in irregular marriages and relationships, including homosexuals.

The declaration caused controversy in the Church, with many dioceses and episcopal conferences – especially in Africa – refusing to accept it, and the largest self-governing ritual Church in full communion with Rome publicly ignoring it. Fiducia supplicans also caused the Coptic Orthodox Church to break off ecumenical dialogue with the Catholic Church.

The Vatican spent several weeks “clarifying” the declaration, and even Pope Francis eventually weighed in.

“What I allowed was not to bless the union, that cannot be done because that is not the sacrament. But to bless each person, yes, the blessing is for everyone,” Francis later said in an interview with 60 Minutes, a program on CBS.

After the election of Pope Leo XIV, Fernández didn’t stop causing controversy.

Earlier this month, DDF issued Mater populi fidelis, which said the designation “Co-Redemptrix” was inappropriate for the Virgin Mary. This was despite Pope St. John Paul II’s fairly frequent use of the title, and despite its use by other popes. In the document, Fernández noted how Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did not think much of the title, but he didn’t explain why Ratzinger didn’t issue a statement similar to Mater Populi Fidelis when he became Pope Benedict XVI.

Proponents of the title did not take kindly to Fernandez’s document, to say the very least, while observers wondered why he had bothered tackling the question, which had been almost a non-issue for two decades.

Three weeks after publishing Mater populi fidelis, speaking to journalist Diane Montagna, Fernández said the title “Co-Redemptrix” was only to be avoided “in the liturgy, that is, in liturgical texts, or in the official documents of the Holy See.”

“If you, together with your group of friends, believe you understand well the true meaning of this expression,” Fernández told Montagna, “[if you] have read the document, and see that its positive aspects are also affirmed there, and you wish to express precisely that within your prayer group or among friends, you may use the title—but it will not be used officially, that is, either in liturgical texts or in official documents.”

Nor was Fernández done making confusing statements in November.

Issuing Una Caro: In Praise of Monogamy on Nov. 21, the cardinal said the document was prepared in part to help address the problem the Church in Africa was having with polygamy. However, he spent most of the document quoting mid-20^th century statements from European theologians speaking about sexuality. No mention was made of the family and child issues facing women and their children in polygamous relationships. It also didn’t speak about how fertility was a major drive in convincing men to take second, third, or even more women as wives in Africa.

I can’t help but think of the words from the nuns’ song about Maria when I consider Fernandez.

“When I’m with her I’m confused; out of focus and bemused, and I never know exactly where I am,” the nuns sing. “Unpredictable as weather; she’s as flighty as a feather.”

It makes every Vatican observer want to ask: How do you find a word that means Fernández?

“Many a thing you know you’d like to tell [him],” the nuns sing. “Many a thing [he] ought to understand,” and it seems to apply.

How do you solve a problem like Fernández?

To ask it with the at-the-end-of-their-rope nuns: How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

Well, the nuns’ Mother Superior sent Maria to the Von Trapp family, and that turned out to be a perfect solution for everyone.

The Sound of Music – one of Pope Leo XIV’s favorite films, it bears mention – was still Hollywood fiction. In real life, the Vatican does not appear to have a similar option.

Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome