Amid violence, Central African Republic bishops denounce 'lack of patriotisms'
- Jan 19, 2021
Despite mounting doubt about whether Pope Francis’s bombshell remarks this week on civil unions in a new documentary are the result of clever editing by the movie’s director, a close ally from Argentina often dubbed his ghostwriter said the pontiff has always supported “civil coexistence” for same-sex couples.
Pope Francis has appointed his personal theologian and ghostwriter Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez to head the Argentinian Archdiocese of La Plata, the Holy See’s press office announced Saturday.
Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández, rector of the Catholic University in Buenos Aires and sometimes described as the pope’s amanuensis, has issued a systematic defense of “Amoris Laetitia,” Francis’s controversial document on the family, saying its critics are locked in a “death-trap” logic and their approach risks “a betrayal of the heart of the Gospel.”
It turns out that the most important footnote in ‘Amoris Laetitia’ may be one that’s not there, because a key passage of the document is lifted almost verbatim from a 1995 essay in theology by Archbishop Victor Fernandez — raising troubling questions about Fernandez’s role as ghostwriter, and the magisterial force of his ideas.
Pope Francis’s words are subject to scrutiny and spin everywhere, but probably no place more than his native Argentina. To bypass the filters Francis is launching an Argentine version of the Vatican newspaper, and to run it he’s turned to old friend who’s also a Protestant theologian.