Roma Locuta Est

October 2, 2023 (Steven O’Reilly) – Well, October has certainly started off with some fireworks.  First, Archbishop Vigano released a transcript and video which, apparently, was supposed to air at the Catholic Identity Conference over the weekend, but didn’t. Roma Locuta Est will publish a separate article on Vigano’s video/transcript.  But the biggest news is a new set of Dubia was been presented to Pope Francis in July, and again (re-worded) in August.  All of this comes out just a few days before the commencement of the Synod on Synodality in Rome.

Cardinal Fernandez, Prefect of the Dicastery of Doctrine of Faith, complained that these Dubia Cardinals did not also release the Pope’s original answers. However, it was not for these Cardinals to release the pope’s words, and expose the ‘father’s nakedness’.  That was for the Pope to do so, if he chose to do so.  However, Cardinal Fernandez has now released the Pope’s reply, which may be found HERE.  We will probably do a separate article on the Pope’s response.

As for the new Dubia, there is a bit of the old and new about them.  This recent set of five Dubia may be found on Edward Pentin’s site, or on Cardinal Burke’s website.  The reader can review them there. But to briefly recapitulate, it appears the five cardinals involved in this set of Dubia includes Cardinal Brandmuller, Cardinal Burke,  Cardinal Sandoval Íñiguez, Cardinal Sarah, and Cardinal Zen.  They originanlly submitted this new set of Dubia on July 10, 2023. 

The five Dubia dealt with questions about (1) whether “we should reinterpret Divine Revelation according to the cultural and anthropological changes in vogue”; (2) the “widespread practice of the blessing of same-sex unions would be in accord with Revelation and the Magisterium (CCC 2357)”: (3) the “assertion that synodality is a “constitutive element of the Church” (Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio 6), so that the Church would, by its very nature, be synodal”; (4) “about pastors’ and theologians’ support for the theory that “the theology of the Church has changed” and therefore that priestly ordination can be conferred on women”; and (5) about the statement “forgiveness is a human right” and the Holy Father’s insistence on the duty to absolve everyone and always, so that repentance would not be a necessary condition for sacramental absolution. 

One should read the actual Dubia questions in full – and the Pope’s response as well. In their recent letter the Cardinals revealed that Pope Francis had actually replied to these questions.  But, the Pope’s responses did not resolve the prior ambiguities — and indeed merely added to them in the opinion of the Cardinals (NB:  Roma Locuta Est concurs with their opinion).  Indeed, the Cardinals replied in their recent letter, publicly released on October 2 (sent to Pope on August 21), that the Pope’s answers to the Dubia of July 10 not only did not ‘resolve the doubts’ but had “if anything, deepened them.”  The Cardinals wrote (emphasis in the original): 

With the same sincerity with which You have answered us, we must add that Your answers have not resolved the doubts we had raised, but have, if anything, deepened them. We therefore feel obliged to re-propose, reformulating them, these questions to Your Holiness, who as the successor of Peter is charged by the Lord to confirm Your brethren in the faith. This is all the more urgent in view of the upcoming Synod, which many want to use to deny Catholic doctrine on the very issues which our dubia concern. We therefore re-propose our questions to You, so that they can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.”

At this point in their letter, the Cardinals reframed the Dubia of July 10, and re-worded them for the Pope to obtain “yes” or “no” answers. It’s not clear why the first set of Dubia was not as tightly worded.  Here again, the reader should check out the links above to read these Dubia for themselves.

The first 4 of these Dubia deal with or are related to topics that will be discussed in the ‘Synod on Synodality’, e.g., same-sex blessings, female ‘deacons.’  The last of these new Dubia hearkens back to the the original Dubia from 2016 on questions arising from Amoris Laetitia.

What is the Dubia Cardinals’ End-Game?

The five cardinals are to be commended for submitting these new Dubia to Pope Francis, and resubmitting them again in the face of clearly ambiguous answers. The Dubia were well-timed to come out before the start of the Synod on Synodality. These questions should give orthodox bishops additional ammunition during the synod to try to thwart any efforts to push forward same-sex blessings, women ‘deacons’, a synodal ecclessialogy, etc.  Indeed, perhaps the talk of the Pope imposing the ‘pontifical secret‘ upon the Synod’s proceedings (see HERE) was in fact a pre-emptive strike against the potential public impact of the Dubia, i.e., to squash any chatter about them at the Synod from going public.

Still, beyond giving some immediate ammunition to the cause of orthodoxy, was anything more intended?  If we think of the original Dubia of 2016 following the release of Amoris Laetitia, many Catholics generally recall them with disappointment, in the sense that all the talk of a ‘formal correction‘ never materialized into any apparent, concrete action.

Have the Dubia Cardinals learned from the prior lack of follow up, and action? One can only hope.  Have they thought through their moves this time?  Will they issue a ‘formal correction’ if necessary?  Or, perhaps instead, are these Dubia – aside from providing some ammunition against the Synod – really intended for an audience of Cardinals to deliberate upon at the next conclave?  Only time will tell.

While it remains to be seen whether the Dubia Cardinals plan a different strategy, and or are willing to actually take further action this time around; the interesting thing here is that Pope Francis has changed his strategy.  As we all know, with the last set of Dubia he simply ignored them outright.  We’ve gone seven years without a direct reply to them.

Curiously, this time around, the Pope’s response was apparently immediate.  The first round of these new Dubia were submitted on July 10, and already by August 21, the Dubia cardinals had received the Pope’s response, and they had had time to re-formulate their Dubia into new yes-no questions — and send them to Pope Francis.  Granted, Francis avoided giving the sought after, clarifying “yes” or “no” answers; but he responded.  Why this time, and not last?  Why did Pope Francis opt for a seeming change of tactics, even strategy?

In 2016, Pope Francis ignored the Dubia for a couple or more reasons. The most obvious reason suggested by common sense, is that he could not give the Dubia the necessary answers without causing scandal and controversy. Thus, it seems, he personally adopted an ‘Honorian’ — an Honorius-like — policy of silence, while at the same time encouraging and depending upon various “Francis apologists” to give their own Dubia answers.  Not surprisingly, these Francis-apologists would go on to give answers which are contradictory of each other, even to this day (see Confusion at Vatican Insider?; The Confusion of the Francis-Apologists; Book Review: “The Orthodoxy of Amoris Laetitia”; Book Review: “The Orthodoxy of Amoris Laetitia” – Part II; Summa Contra Stephen Walford ). 

One reason for this ‘Honorian’ policy was that Pope Francis was weaker back in 2016 with respect to the ‘correlation of forces.’ Then, at least theoretically on paper, the Dubia Cardinals might have been able to rally a greater degree of support in opposition to potentially erroneous responses to the Dubia.  The College of Cardinals, then, was certainly more “conservative” than it is today — at least on paper. But now, after 10 years in the papacy, Francis has been able to name over two-thirds of the vote-eligible College. Consequently, the “correlation of forces” has improved in favor of Francis, as was always inevitable, as he increasingly named cardinals and bishops favorable to himself, appointed to curial cardinals, and disciplined and ousted conservative bishops to serve as examples to the rest. 

Consequently, the Dubia Cardinals, today, are in weaker position to take any potential action they might theoretically contemplate; certainly in comparison to 2016. Fortune favors the bold. We can only wonder what might have been if Francis had been formally corrected back then. But still…let’s not give up hope!

Still, it is interesting to see that Pope Francis even bothered to reply. I do find it puzzling. If he could get away without replying in 2016; he certainly could have done so again in 2023. So why did he respond? He probably did so out of combination of reasons.  First, Pope Francis knew his close ally (the newly created Cardinal Fernandez), the “kissing” ghost-writer of Amoris Laetitia, would soon be the Cardinal prefect of Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.  With Fernandez so positioned, Pope Francis could more efficiently and boldly go after those who ‘oppose’ his theological views on controversial questions. The second reason, I think, Pope Francis’s decision to respond at this point exhibits a degree of hubris, perhaps based on his institutional position being, humanly speaking, unassailable.

But who knows?  Pope Francis, as a result of such hubris, may have fallen inadvertently for the old ‘rope a dope‘ trick (or “rope a pope“) — whether intended by these Dubia Cardinals or not. This time around, Francis has now exposed himself — through his answers  — to further public debate of his answers, to direct criticism of his reasoning, and to demands for further clarifications. Having deigned to answer the first set of questions; he will hardly be viewed as justified in the eyes of many bishops to not further clarify his answers to obvious questions.  While Pope Francis and Cardinal Fernandez may be crowing now about Francis’s answers by releasing them on the eve of the synod; they don’t yet seem to realize that by doing so, they may have helped the opposition to same-sex blessings, ‘women deacons,’ etc.

Let us pray for Pope Francis that he remembers the Lord’s words to Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren” (Luke 22:31-32).

Steven O’Reilly is a graduate of the University of Dallas and the Georgia Institute of Technology. A former intelligence officer, he and his wife, Margaret, live near Atlanta. He has written apologetic articles, and is author of Book I of the Pia Fidelis trilogy, The Two Kingdoms; and of Valid? The Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. (Follow on twitter at @fidelispia for updates). He asks for your prayers for his intentions.  He can be contacted at StevenOReilly@AOL.com  or StevenOReilly@ProtonMail.com (or follow on Twitter: @S_OReilly_USA or on GETTR, TruthSocial, or Gab: @StevenOReilly).