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
