A priest, whose name I am withholding from this publication, has written this letter to the new man in the DDF. I am very grateful to him.
Dear Cardinal Fernandez:
I am a retired priest…… First, I’d like to congratulate you on your new assignment and on your elevation to the cardinalate. I’m of the opinion that Pope Francis only picks the best. So, I have the highest regard for you at the outset and trust that you will make a lasting contribution to the Church.
Thanks, Brendan, for this, and for your consistent support since the beginning.
Before Angelo Roncalli was elected as Pope John XXIII in 1958, he served in the Vatican diplomatic corps, first as nuncio to Bulgaria, an unpromising appointment during which he was often lonely and discouraged. After Bulgaria, to his greatdisappointment he was moved sideways to Turkey and he often wondered why.
Later, as pope he called into the offices of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and found written on his file the words: ‘Roncalli, suspected of modernism’.
This morning, Sunday, I attended an anniversary Mass of a person I had known. Yesterday evening I had been reading an article about the Synodal Process, and had been, as always with me, attracted by the theme of the Warsaw gathering, that lovely phrase from Isaiah, “Enlarge the space of your tent’, and I have been encouraged by the efforts of Francis to do that.
The priest who celebrated the Mass had a different tune.
