Pope Francis appoints Argentine bishop to lead office enforcing church doctrine

• Pope Francis made a major announcement after suffering health problems.
• He has appointed an Argentine Bishop to lead an important Vatican office.
• Monsignor Víctor Manuel Fernández will head the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Pope Francis surprised many by making an important announcement after suffering health problems and undergoing surgery for a complicated abdominal hernia. So what did the supreme pontiff say?

According to The Associated Press and Vatican News, Pope Francis announced on Saturday that an Argentine bishop, a theologian he trusts, will occupy one of the most powerful posts in the Holy See. He will head the office that oversees doctrinal orthodoxy.

Pope Francis appoints Monsignor Víctor Manuel Fernández to head the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith

Monsignor Víctor Manuel Fernández, currently Archbishop of La Plata, Argentina, will head the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The new prefect has earned the nickname of «Theologian of the Pope», since it is believed that he has helped him write some of his most important documents.

The office enforces the orthodoxy of the Church’s magisterium and sanctions theologians whom it considers to have deviated from the doctrine in their lectures or writings. In recent decades, the office has become more important to ordinary Catholics as the scandal of pedophile priests spreads throughout the world.

What does the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith do?

One of his duties will be to evaluate and process allegations of clergy sexual abuse. Fernández is believed to have been one of the main authors of some of Francis’ most influential documents, notably the 2016 exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), which opened the door to allowing divorced Catholics to marry in civil ceremonies and receive communion.

The Catholic Magisterium maintains that the marriage is a sacrament and that remarried Catholics must live together as brothers and abstain from sexual relations in order to receive communion. That prospect — longed for by divorced and remarried Catholics who deplore being separated from the Eucharist — would infuriate conservatives among the hierarchy and the faithful if it were codified in the magisterium.

Fernández will assume responsibilities in mid-September

The new prefect succeeds Cardinal Luis Ladaria, a Jesuit like Francisco, who took office in 2017 after the abrupt dismissal of the German conservative Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, who served a single term at the head of the doctrinal congregation.

He had been appointed by Pope Benedict XVI, a favorite of the Catholic right. Fernández, 60, will take office in mid-September, according to the Vatican announcement of his appointment. He is a prolific writer and Bible expert who enjoys the support of Francis, who, before he ascended the pontifical throne in 2013, was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

The office’s «central purpose» is to guard the teaching that springs from faith

Fernández has said that Archbishop Bergoglio supported his candidacy for rector of the Argentine Catholic University when some detractors expressed concerns about some of his doctrinal positions. The dicastery, or office, originates from a 16th-century commission created to confront heresy and schism.

Originally known as the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, it also dealt with matters of faith and morals. In a letter to his new appointee that the Vatican released on Saturday, Francis wrote that the task of the prefect is to guard the teaching that springs from faith «to give reason for our hope, but not as enemies who point out and condemn» as a «central purpose».