Global Courant
By Phillip Pullella
(Reuters) – Pope Francis has named an Argentine theologian and prolific author who decades ago wrote a book on the healing properties of kissing as the new doctrinal head of the Catholic Church, one of the Vatican’s top positions.
A Vatican statement on Saturday said Francis had chosen his fellow Argentine archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez to head the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).
The DDF, the modern-day successor to the infamous Inquisition that prosecuted heretics, is tasked with promoting and protecting the teachings of faith and morals. It oversees theological work to ensure adherence to the teachings of the Church and provides guidance, clarifications, and corrections.
In a clear reference to the Inquisition, known for torture and executions in the Middle Ages, Francis said in a letter to Fernandez that the department had used “immoral methods” in the past and made doctrinal errors of its own.
The powerful post of DDF prefect was held by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger for 23 years before becoming Pope Benedict in 2005.
Fernandez, 60, has written about 300 books and articles and is a former rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, where he also served as dean of the theology department.
In 1995, as a 33-year-old priest, he wrote a book called “Heal Me With Your Mouth – The Art of Kissing”, which was published in English in 2017.
He writes in the introduction “that this book was not written on the basis of my own experience, but on the lives of people who kiss” and that he also wanted to elaborate on what poets had written about kisses.
“The kiss is a meeting of the two at a time when there is nothing but them and nothing else matters,” Fernandez wrote in the book.
The Vatican did not list the book in the partial list of its publications it released with the nomination announcement.
The prefect of the DDF is traditionally a cardinal, meaning Francis Fernandez will likely be elevated to that rank after taking up his new post in September.
Francis succeeds Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria, a Spanish Jesuit, who is at the end of his mandate.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
