VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández issued a dubia response clarifying that “single mothers” do not have to abstain from receiving Holy Communion, noting that “[a]s for all other Christians, sacramental confession of sins allows the person to approach communion.” However, when comparing sections of the cardinal’s text with St. Thomas Aquinas’s teaching, notable differences appear in the application of the Church’s sacramental law.
Published December 14, the new prefect for the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith’s text was a response to an October 24 inquiry from Bishop Ramón Alfredo de la Cruz Baldera, ordinary of the Diocese of San Francisco de Macorís in the Dominica Republic.
Fernández wrote that the dicastery had received an email from Baldera “expressing concern about single mothers who ‘abstain from communion out of fear of the rigorism of the clergy and community leaders.’”
JUST IN: Cdl. Fernández issues dubia reply saying single mothers need not abstain from receiving Communion b/c “as for all other Christians, sacramental confession of sins allows the person to approach communion.”
Adds that phrase “sin no more” does “not constitute the central… pic.twitter.com/qLxc5TxLsD— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) December 14, 2023
According to Fernández, Baldera’s email echoed a theme present in “several letters from lay people received by the Holy Father.” The cardinal wrote that “in some countries, both priests and some lay people prevent mothers who have had a child outside of marriage from accessing the sacraments and even baptizing their children.”
Fernández praised mothers for having “chosen life and who lead a very complex existence because of this choice should be encouraged to have access to the healing and consoling power of the sacraments.”
He drew from previous words of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (the future Pope Francis) from 2012, when the then-cardinal criticized unspecified priests for apparently not baptizing children of single mothers.
READ: Vatican relaxes rules on storing ashes of the dead in striking departure from tradition
In light of this, Fernández wrote that single mothers should have access to receiving Holy Communion under the normal conditions as any other Catholic, namely availing of “confession” as needed:
In this sense, pastoral work should be done in the local Church to make people understand that being a single mother does not prevent that person from accessing the Eucharist. As for all other Christians, sacramental confession of sins allows the person to approach communion. The ecclesial community should, furthermore, value the fact that single mothers welcomed and defended the gift of life they carried in their wombs and struggle, every day, to raise their children.
Appealing to Scripture, leading to confusion
However, after enunciating this aspect of Catholic teaching clearly, the cardinal-prefect’s answer became less clear in its subsequent passages. He spoke of “‘difficult situations’ that need to be discerned and accompanied pastorally.”
One such situation he cited was when a single mother, “given the fragility of her situation, sometimes resorts to selling her body to support her family.”
“The Christian community,” Fernández wrote, “is called to do everything possible to help her avoid this very serious risk rather than judge her harshly.”
Quoting directly from Pope Francis’ controversial post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Fernández stated that “the Church’s pastors, in proposing to the faithful the full ideal of the Gospel and the Church’s teaching, must also help them to treat the weak with compassion, avoiding aggravation or unduly harsh or hasty judgment.”
READ: EXCLUSIVE: Cardinal Müller says mass migration is being used to destroy national identities
Fernández’s theme continued, appearing to further divide the dubia response into two parts, with two differing underlying mentalities.
While he had initially urged the necessity of Confession for the reception of Holy Communion, he now warned against a focus on teaching about repentance and a resolve to avoid sin in the future – both of which are necessary parts for making a good and valid confession, and such a confession is necessary to receive Holy Communion if in a state of mortal sin.
He referred to the Scriptural passage (John 8: 1-11) of the woman brought by the Pharisees to Christ. The Pharisees, leaders under the Old Law, came with the intent to stone the women they had caught in the act of idolatry, and hoped to trick Christ into saying that she should be allowed to go free – which would violate the law. Christ instead rebuked them, wrote in the sand, and then when He had dismissed the Pharisees, He dismissed the woman with the command to sin no more.
Commenting on this, Fernández wrote:
Often, when commenting on the biblical episode of the adulterous woman (Jn. 8:1-11), the final phrase is emphasized: ‘sin no more.’ Certainly, Jesus always invites us to change our lives, to respond more faithfully to God’s will, and to live with greater dignity.
However, this phrase does not constitute the central message of this Gospel pericope, which is simply the invitation to recognize that no one can cast the first stone. For this reason, Pope Francis, referring to mothers who must raise their children alone, reminds us that ‘in such difficult situations of need, the Church must be particularly concerned to offer understanding, comfort, and acceptance, rather than imposing straightaway a set of rules that only lead people to feel judged and abandoned by the very Mother called to show them God’s mercy.’ [A quote from Amoris Laetitia]
The cardinal’s scripturally sourced warning against casting the first stone appears to be directed at priests: being an apparent warning against enforcing the Church’s moral law through proper confession in favor of opening the door to leniency and tolerance of sin rather than admonition of such.
But Fernández’s text misses a crucial aspect: Christ did not state that “no one can cast the first stone,” despite what the cardinal wrote. Rather, Christ told the Pharisees that “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
READ: Pope Francis signs text affirming Amoris Laetitia allows Communion for divorced and ‘remarried’
No man is without sin, but priests in the confessional – acting in persona Christi – do not act in their own name but in the name and authority of Christ, who has no sin. Indeed, the Catholic Church’s authority to preserve and enforce the moral laws regarding human actions is not derived from the nature of the sinful and imperfect men who occupy the various hierarchical positions but from Christ: it is through partaking in His priesthood that imperfect men who are priests have the duty to teach and preserve the moral law, which involves admonishing the sinner.
Commenting on John 8:1-11, St. Thomas Aquinas explains the actions of Christ to the woman: “Jesus alone remained because he alone was without sin; as the Psalm says: There is no one who does what is good not even one, except Christ (Ps 13:1).”
Aquinas expands, writing how Christ “forgave her sin without imposing any penance on her because since he made her inwardly just by outwardly forgiving her, he was well able to change her so much within by sufficient sorrow for her sins that she would be made free from any penance.”
The great theologian warned against any imitation of this, however, noting that “this should not be taken as a precedent for anyone to forgive another without confession and the assigning of a penance on the ground of Christ’s example, for Christ has power over the sacraments, and could confer the effect without the sacrament. No mere man can do this.”
READ: Pope Francis says ‘trans’ people can be godparents, homosexual ‘parents’ can have children baptized
Additionally, while Fernández appeared to suggest that priests should not emphasize the need to “sin no more,” Aquinas teaches that Christ did precisely the opposite of the cardinal’s instruction. St. Thomas writes:
Finally, Jesus cautions her when he says, go, and sin no more. There were two things in that woman: her nature and her sin. Our Lord could have condemned both. For example, he could have condemned her nature if he had ordered them to stone her, and he could have condemned her sin if he had not forgiven her. He was also able to absolve each. For example, if he had given her license to sin, saying: ‘go, live as you wish, and put your hope in my freeing you. No matter how much you sin, I will free you even from Gehenna and from the tortures of hell.’
But our Lord does not love sin, and does not favor wrongdoing, and so he condemned her sin but not her nature, saying, go, and sin no more. We see here how kind our Lord is because of his gentleness, and how just he is because of his truth.
St. Augustine similarly writes that Christ’s actions were a condemnation of sin but not the sinner – a differentiation entirely absent in Fernández’s text. Commenting on the passage, St. Augustine writes:
Listen to what follows, ‘Go, and sin no more.’ So then our Lord condemned sin, but not the sinner. For if He favored sin, He would have said, ‘Go, and live as thou wilt: depend on my deliverance: howsoever great thy sins be, it matters not: I will deliver thee from hell, and its tormentors.’ But He did not say this. Let those attend, who love the Lord’s mercy, and fear His truth. Truly, Gracious and righteous is the Lord. (Ps. 35:7).
Baldera himself – consecrated in 2021 and a participant of the 2023 Synod on Synodality – appears to already be demonstrating a similar misrepresentation of theology as Cardinal Fernández. Baldera made headlines during his consecration ceremony when he expressed that he wished “to give reason for hope to feminist groups, LGTBIQ, anarchists, pro three causes, urban artists, among others. I recognize that in these groups there are men and women of good will. Let us unite dreams and hopes to achieve all that is beautiful, noble, worthy and just.”