Vatican Is Preparing Document on the ‘Transmission of the Faith’
Cardinal Fernández said that bishops from around the world have expressed ‘concern’ over the breakdown in handing on the faith and ‘proposed a study on the problem and possible ways of resolving it.’
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) is preparing a major new document on the transmission of the faith, drawing on a wide-ranging consultation with episcopal conferences across the globe.
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the DDF, revealed news of the document to the Register May 15, saying that the forthcoming text is being prepared “in dialogue with the Dicastery for Evangelization.” The cardinal did not specify a date for the text’s publication.
Cardinal Fernández said the document’s origins date back in part to Pope Francis’ 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). The late pontiff “highly valued popular piety and the family as means of transmitting the faith,” the cardinal said, but had stated in Evangelii Gaudium — although not in these exact words — “that this transmission had been broken.”
Cardinal Fernández said work on the document gathered momentum after bishops from around the world, while on various ad limina visits to the Vatican, had “expressed this concern and proposed a study on the problem and possible ways of resolving it.”
The initiative then took on greater significance when cardinal and bishop members of the DDF were consulted at two of their monthly meetings — called Feria IV. During the first of those meetings, the need for such a document was confirmed and a “fruitful dialogue took place.” Several consultations were then held with experts and a “first draft was prepared” which “forms the basis” for the document in process.
The cardinal said that during further ad limina visits, the scope of the topic was expanded, and at the second Feria IV meeting the DDF decided to “conduct a very broad consultation with all episcopal conferences, various specialists and research centers.”
“The response has been enormous,” Cardinal Fernández observed, adding that “many conferences have already sent their opinions and useful resources.” He noted that the dicastery has been “surprised both by the quantity and the length of the responses received” and predicted it will “take a great deal of time to read and make use of all this material.”
The Argentinian cardinal went on to stress that the breadth of the consultation ensures “a universal perspective, encompassing a wide variety of viewpoints,” and pointed to significant regional differences in how the challenge of transmitting the faith is experienced.
“One need only consider that even among Muslim-majority countries, the bishops’ perspectives on this issue vary greatly,” he continued. “The pastoral experience of the episcopates of North Africa is not the same as that of Mali; the perspective of Turkey is not the same as that of Pakistan. In Europe, Poland is not the same as Germany, and Italy is not the same as England. In Latin America, Argentina is not the same as Colombia, and Brazil is not the same as Peru.”
Cardinal Fernández stressed that “preparing a text on the transmission of the faith today clearly requires moving beyond a European or Italian framework and drawing on the breadth, variety and richness of the universal Church.”
This being the case, he said the document “cannot be a text that offers unique recipes or one-size-fits-all solutions, but it must acknowledge the full scope of the issue and propose some paths that might inspire everyone in some way.”
He said he believed it was “good news that this topic is arousing so much interest” and added that, for this reason, the DDF does not think it “worth distracting ourselves with other topics at this time — all the more so given that, for a while, we will need to focus on the reception of the forthcoming encyclical.”
The cardinal was referring to the reportedly imminent publication of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, principally on the subject of artificial intelligence.
Under Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Fernández’s DDF has published far fewer major texts than under Pope Francis, who originally appointed the Argentinian to head the influential office in 2023.
Cardinal Fernández indicated that not only is the text on the transmission of faith currently the only major document under preparation at the dicastery but said that the DDF remains “focused on day-to-day work which is overwhelming.”
“Each morning, mountains of correspondence arrive at my office,” he said. “Just skimming through them takes several hours. Then, for each issue, a process of analysis follows.”
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