SANCTIFYING OFFICE

For Cardinal Sturla, the Uruguayan Church, which is called to exercise its evangelical mandate in an officially secularized and anti-Christian country, faces two great challenges: the fight against institutionalized secular culture and the growing spread, especially among the younger generations, of a religious sentiment without God and, in many cases, even without religion.

The Risen Christ is the One who gives meaning to life. Therefore, in order to walk and live in the world, the Church needs and must “fix her eyes” on Him (cf. Heb 12:2).

On the basis of this scriptural text, Cardinal Sturla sets out the program of life for the Church, affirming that Sunday Mass is the fundamental essence and basis for the life and journey of the Christian faith, not as a precept to be fulfilled but as “a gratuitous encounter which constitutes the most evident personal and profound sign of belonging to the Christian community.”¹ He adds: since without Sunday Mass the believer “excludes himself from the unique instance of the life of friendship with God, he leaves Jesus waiting,” that is, without the Sunday liturgy there is no encounter or friendship with the Lord. The fact is that the weekly encounter with the Risen One is a gift and at the same time a mandate, because from the celebration arises the mission-mandate for every believer to ‘live the Christian life where I am planted’, which is why ‘it is necessary to be nourished by the Lord and his Word every Sunday’, in order to give an account of the hope that animates every believer.”

Sturla stresses the centrality of the Eucharist to the life of faith, sees the Church as the place in which Christ continues his saving work, because in her “the paschal sacrifice in the Eucharist is actualized every day.”

He sees the “outgoing” Church, proposed by Pope Francis as a necessity and duty, and believes that liturgical worship constitutes an essential element of this mission ad extra, together with the proclamation of the Risen Jesus Christ, life in communion, service to the poor and the neediest. In this sense, liturgical action — especially Sunday worship — is “essential for the journey of faith, personal and communal” and that without it, “the community distances itself from God and empties the Christian experience.”

Sturla stresses that participation in the Mass grows through “accessing the mystery of faith in its austere beauty” rather than “by making it an entertaining spectacle” — through a “well-celebrated liturgy, appropriate songs, a ministry of welcome for those who have just arrived, a homily with accessible language to communicate the Good News.” Moreover, the cardinal considers that every pastoral need undertaken in the archdiocese must “adapt to the Eucharist,” because it is “the source and summit of Christian life” and must be lived with the joy and dignity that are proper to it.

Continuing his emphasis on the importance of the centrality of the Eucharist, he adds that in every work of charity towards the poor and needy, not only material goods are necessary to alleviate the pain and suffering, but also to Jesus in the Eucharist, because without Him the charity exercised loses that which gives it all its power and its full effectiveness:

“Dear ones, let us wake up!! Let us wake up and be aware that we have the treasure of the Eucharistic Bread, that for us the ‘Jesus of the altar’ will always be united with the ‘Jesus of the suffering brother.’ But if we do not also take that suffering brother or sister to the Jesus of the altar, we are making him lose the most beautiful thing in life and the joy that nestles in our hearts.”

For Cardinal Sturla, the Church is the bridge through which each person can encounter the Lord: “The meaning of the Church is none other than to make Jesus Christ present in the life of humanity,” he said. “The Church is not an end in itself, she is a bridge for each person to discover, encounter, relate to Jesus Christ and in this way, through the action of the Holy Spirit, the infinite horizon of the merciful love of God the Father.”

Sacrament of Reconciliation

Cardinal Sturla sees the practice of Confession as inseparable from the life of faith, and that without which the believer’s faith is dehumanized, because the essence of being Christian is to act in such a way as to always be “joy for God” (just as a son rejoices his father’s heart). This is why he views approaching sacramental Confession as one of the ways in which the believer manifests that virtue, because the penitent approaches the Lord as a father, and He gives him his forgiveness. In Confession the believer not only brings joy to God, but also reaffirms and strengthens his condition as a child of the Almighty.

Marriage and Family

At the beginning of his role as cardinal, the prelate considered that “given the anthropological and cultural changes that have taken place in these times throughout the world” the family is “very affected” by these changes.

He stands by the established teaching of the Church: that “a family is made up of a man, a woman and open to life, therefore with children,” “united in a marriage that is unique and indissoluble.” In this context, he maintains that Pope Francis has placed the emphasis on “cordial pastoral care,” not on the change of doctrine, to attend to “all the personal and family situations that exist and that many of them do not respond to the ideal of the Christian family.” He has stressed that this pastoral care does not mean changing or making more flexible the traditional meaning of Christian marriage in its indissoluble unity of man and woman.” In this sense, the Cardinal said that this Christian conception of the family is not exclusive to marriage between believers alone, but encompasses “every marriage between a man and a woman open to life and with a perspective of continuity, even when it is not between Christians,” since “it is in itself a marriage and is indissoluble.” Strictly speaking, he added, marriage is in essence a natural human reality, which for believers has been elevated by Jesus Christ to the category of sacrament.

Open to life means that a married couple has a generative responsibility, in the sense that God makes man and woman participate jointly in his work of creation, through the transmission of human life. In this sense, he believes children are a gift from God to human love, but not a right that parents have, which is why he opposes assisted fertilization methods. These are not always morally licit, he believes, because there are a series of questionable elements in them, of dubious morality or totally rejectable (for example, human embryos being discarded).

Divorced and Remarried: No to Sacramental Communion

In an interview conducted in 2015, Cardinal Sturla maintained that marriage as a natural reality and as a sacrament is indissoluble, because “man and woman are called to create a communion of life that is unbreakable, until death do them part.”

Regarding the Synod on the Family discussions on this issue, Sturla mildly criticized the fact that Pope Francis had not clearly “regulated” the criteria to be applied. On the other hand, the cardinal considered the “merciful” openness promoted by Francis to be an advance, or a “victory” in ecclesial but not political terms, which would bring the Church closer to the people, “emphasizing the mercy of the Gospel.”²He said: “This was hotly debated [at the synod], because […] when you look at it from the point of view of doctrine, of the indissolubility of marriage, it is a complex, difficult issue […] The merciful inspiration of Pope Francis, who says, “let us look at each case individually,” prevails. That is to say, we must try to see in each situation the reasons why the previous divorce occurred, the reasons why people continue on, and there a distinction is made, which is a little complex, between the external forum, what is seen in the moral conduct of the people, and the internal forum, what the person in his conscience understands that he has lived and therefore understands that he is in a situation of sin or not. Obviously, the person is invited to live it, to share it with a confessor, with a prudent priest who can advise him what to do, whether to take communion or not.

Sturla later appeared to become firmer, or at least more straightforward, on the issue, saying in 2018: “A divorced person who has a second union cannot receive Communion, because if his marriage is first valid, that is the norm of the Church.”

The “Blessing” of Fiducia Supplicans

Cardinal Sturla had already, in the 2015 interview quoted above, strongly rejected talk of homosexual relations as a marriage bond, saying it is one thing for the Church to “respect for each person in his or her individuality and for what the person lives,” but another for the Church “to endorse all the moral conduct of people.” In this sense, he believes the Church can try to understand, accompany and welcome into her bosom those of homosexual orientation or even couples, but she can in no way bless or sacramentally endorse these relationships. He said that blessing “a type of union that the Church understands is not the one that is in the Creator’s plan”.

However, he nevertheless tries to justify Pope Francis’ position, stressing that in the face of the rigor of doctrinal formulas, “the heart of the doctrine of the Gospel is compassion” as opposed to Jesus Christ and his call to personal conversion being the core of the Gospel message.

A posteriori, Cardinal Sturla’s rejection of blessing same-sex couples has been clear, definitive and categorical. Firstly, he has criticized the fact that the document was published in the period leading up to Christmas and, secondly, that the Declaration is an ambiguous text that creates confusion and a strong division within the Church: “It is a controversial issue and it is dividing the waters within the Church.” The Church, he added, has always blessed people, but blessing people as couples is not admissible. Erroneously and contradictorily, the document in question “allows the couple to be blessed, but not through a rite,” he continued.

Ultimately, in the cardinal’s opinion, it is a document that “is not clear,” since on the one hand it affirms one thing and then the opposite, and on the other hand it openly contradicts a document of the Dicastery on the same subject two years earlier, in which the possibility of offering this type of blessing by the Church has been categorically denied. And in line with the Tradition of the Church, he reaffirms that the Church is open to all, “but with certain rules.”³Also in El Pais, December 24, 2023. Also Miguel Cuartero, “Un (altro) cardinale sfida Roma su Fiducia supplicans,” and Korazym.

GOVERNING OFFICE

We have described above the historical, political and ecclesial context in which Cardinal Sturla began his episcopal office in 2014, when he was appointed archbishop of Montevideo. In general terms, he carried out his work planning the archdiocesan pastoral action through successive Pastoral Letters in which he traced the broad lines of orientation in harmony with Revelation, Tradition and the ecclesial Magisterium, based at the same time on the rich, fruitful and masterful historical evangelizing work of the Church in Uruguay by both prelates and lay people. This pastoral work integrated the contributions of the Uruguayan prelates, religious and laity so that they could act in harmony and spiritual communion, as the one Body of Christ.

In these Pastoral Letters, there are constant references not only to Pope Francis, but also to St. John Paul II and, especially, to Pope Benedict XVI.

The starting point of his episcopal work was, it is worth reiterating, the limited and conditioned situation of the Montevideo Church with respect to the secularist culture prevailing in national life, the decline and loss of Christian fervor in a large part of the Catholic faithful, and the increasingly widespread diffusion of a religious sentiment without God and even without religion in the whole of Montevideo society.

The objective outlined by the cardinal in all these years of episcopal work has been ad intra to strengthen the faith of the believing people, the formation of priests and the promotion of sacramental practice, especially Sunday Mass, with a new and renewed spiritual vigor. And ad extra it has been to make the Church present in the civil, social and political spheres, seeking and promoting dialogue with the civil authorities, avoiding sterile and ineffective confrontation. In other words, looking for points of agreement, not division.

To carry out this task, the prelate from Montevideo established with total clarity and in an indubitable way that “Jesus Christ is the integrating center of the life of faith, the Church is the sacrament of communion and salvation, when it reflects the glory of the Redeemer,” because she has no light of her own, she is not an end in herself, but her mission is to make God present in the history of humanity evangelizing the hearts of men and culture, proclaiming the Risen Jesus, “in a centuries-old Homeland,” and celebrating the glory of God through liturgy and prayer.⁴Concepts developed by Cardinal Daniel Fernando Sturla, op. cit. in footnote 19.

But there were issues on which the cardinal expressed himself with total clarity and energy: gender ideology, violence against women, child abuse, euthanasia and abortion.

Gender Ideology and Violence Against Women

The cardinal criticized the imposition of gender ideology in primary education through a mandatory manual, promoted by the United Nations Population Fund. He said the guidelines were ignorant of the nature of the human person, adding that the text endorsed a “surreptitious imposition,” since it assumes a certain exclusive ideology, which is imposed above the constitutional right of parents as having primary responsibility for their children.  Such an imposition deprives them of parental authority, he said, adding that it is typical of a totalitarian State, not a democratic one.

To counter such an offensive, the cardinal promoted the teaching of a course on sex education “inspired by Christian values,” which aims “at the integral development of the person, and encompasses biological, psychological, social and spiritual aspects.” The course is based on an “anthropology based on the Bible, from a Christian or Judeo-Christian perspective of the human being created by God,” highlighting that the Church in Uruguay has at least forty years of experience in sex education.

In addition, he defined gender ideology as an “imperialist current that seeks to ideologically colonize the peoples and especially the poorest,” imposed through financial loans [foreign debt] that are subject to the prior approval of certain laws” that legalize contraception and prenatal murder as state policy. In this sense, he did not hesitate to describe it as “a kind of madness” that invents sexual genders and that directly attacks God the creator.

He also noted that it uses definitions of violence against women, attributable in large part to the loss of values in society, which give free rein to the primacy and predominance of violence and arbitrariness of the strongest against the weakest.

Child Abuse

Faced with the problem of child abuse, the Cardinal highlighted the proactive, anticipatory and precautionary policy promoted by the Uruguayan Episcopal Conference since 2013, to prevent conflicts from occurring as much as possible, training all those who perform functions in the Church, which has allowed the problem in Uruguay not to have the dimensions that it did in other countries.

TEACHING OFFICE

In his episcopal munus docendi, Cardinal Sturla has always tried to remain faithful to the ecclesiastical Magisterium of the universal Church, and at the same time recreate the legacy transmitted by exemplary figures of the Uruguayan Church, especially Monsignor Don Jacinto Vera (1813-1881), the first Uruguayan bishop, beatified on May 6, 2023.

In this sense, the cardinal took up the legacy of Monsignor Vera, defining it as the concretization of the evangelizing mission in a culture of weak Christianity that was secularizing, to adapt it and turn it into a luminous and guiding guide in the face of the challenge currently facing the Montevideo Church in particular and the Uruguayan Church in general, which is to carry out the evangelizing mission in post-Christian Uruguayan society.  subjected to a new “secularizing glacial wave,” which presents two scenarios: on the one hand, the strong historical secularization imposed between the Church and civil society, and on the other hand, the rise of believers without Church and without religion. Challenges that the Church must face even though she is “poor, free, small and beautiful,” without political and economic support to sustain her.

Jesus’ Missionary Mandate for the Church

Sturla believes the Church does not exist for herself, but to fulfill the evangelizing mandate entrusted to her and ordered by the Risen Lord himself: “That is why we exist, not to stare at our navel and become entangled in internal difficulties, but to open our hearts and proclaim Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, in season and out of season.” In a society in which the Church has been present for more than 400 years, “the Church in Uruguay has been the midwife of the homeland” which is why she is called to be a protagonist in the social and political life of the country, as responsible for being the bearer of the Gospel of salvation. She must be “salt of the earth and light of the world,” avoiding diluting her identity and falling into the trap of self-secularization, respecting the diversity of charisms present in it and inserting itself into popular environments still far from it.

Jesus Crucified and Risen, Truly Present in the Eucharist

The Montevideo prelate has stressed the true actualization of the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ in his homilies at a time when the current salvific meaning of the Eucharistic celebration is being lost. This has been a constant element of his preaching, especially in the homilies pronounced these years during the celebration of Corpus Christi: “The sacrifice of the Cross is actualized every day on the altars of the churches of the world, and today here in the center of the city, telling all of us, but also proclaiming it to our brothers and sisters, that we believe in Christ the Savior. He is the One who gives meaning and fullness to life. That He is the only one of whom each of us can say, ‘He loved me and gave Himself for me,’ and that He sheds His redeeming blood on all of us and on the whole world.“

Jesus in the Eucharist Together with Material Bread

Cardinal Sturla has also stressed that the Eucharist is the foundation and meaning of material food, in particular of the neediest, the poor, and migrants. He has underlined the foundation and meaning placed by the Lord himself in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, since the command “give food to the hungry multitude” means not only to bring material bread to satisfy hunger, but also to bring material bread to satisfy hunger.  At the same time, he has said it is to bring the Eucharistic Bread closer as the vital food of all who receive it.⁵“[…] We know that a plate of food is not enough, nor is it enough with a good therapeutic treatment, nor with receiving and sheltering migrants if we do not give the best we have: the Lord Jesus.” Indeed, it is necessary to reawaken this soteriological sense of material charity: “Let us wake up and be aware that we have the treasure of the Eucharistic Bread, that for us the ‘Jesus of the altar’ will always be united with the ‘Jesus of the suffering brother.’ But if we do not also take that suffering brother or sister to the Jesus of the altar, we are making him lose the most beautiful thing in life and the joy that nestles in our hearts.”

He also emphasized what St. Augustine of Hippo said several centuries ago: that the Eucharistic Bread not only nourishes those who receive it, like all traditional food, but fundamentally assimilates the recipient of the Bread with the Risen Lord himself. The love of God in Jesus Christ becomes so evident and concrete “that it becomes food for us to eat, so that we may be assimilated to Christ.”

Euthanasia

The cardinal has been forceful and unequivocal in opposing euthanasia legislation being imposed on Uruguayan society. He considers both legalized abortion and euthanasia to be an important element in the pseudo-culture of waste or death. In this sense, he maintains that sentimentality must be put aside and people must be accompanied so that they end their lives with dignity, without suffering, but without murdering them. He believes that within this issue psychological suffering, which can be much more tremendous than physical suffering, is often left aside, and in fact the law does not contemplate it.

When euthanasia was legalized in October 2022, the cardinal spoke out strongly against the approval of the initiative, describing it as “pedagogically a terrible law,” since “it advances the [anti]culture of waste and death,” which constitutes “a clear setback in the recognition of the dignity of all human life,” in such a way that “human life ceases to be an absolute value and becomes a relative value,” with tremendous consequences that are difficult to imagine.

The Church is aware that this case, like others (contraception, abortion), makes it difficult for the new generations to approach the Church, he said, but she is also well aware that although “the Church has to reach out to everyone,” at the same time “she has to do so without denying her own identity,” in imitation of her Lord. “She cannot seek to be sympathetic by leaving aside the Gospel message,” because to do so “would be a betrayal.”

Abortion

Abortion was legalized in Uruguay at the end of 2012, when the cardinal was auxiliary bishop of Montevideo, and abortion was already in force when he was appointed archbishop. For this reason, he affirmed that the Church had to “look forward, because the law has already been approved,” and that the important thing was that the Church go out to “heal the wounds of society” and that “it continue to defend the life of the conceived from the first moment of conception until natural death,” until the time comes – which he is confident it will – when abortion and the laws that allow it are seen for what it really is: “the worst tragedy in the contemporary world” and “a horror,” although there is a long way to go before that conviction is reached.

Same Sex “Marriage”

On the legalization of homosexual marriage, which was approved on April 10, 2013, Cardinal Sturla said: “We have to look forward,” and stressed that “he defends the family, constituted by man and woman,” although at the same time “feeling enormous respect for the people who form a homosexual couple.”⁶Loc. Cit., fn. 37.

Synodality

He sees synodality as a “new” distinctive sign of the Church of Christ but one that sets aside the Church’s essence of being “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” Cardinal Sturla has been very critical of previous initiatives in Latin America linked to the preparation of the Synod on Synodality, especially the Latin American Ecclesial Assembly (held at the end of 2021), because “it did not have a special resonance” and “failed to summon people and generate enthusiasm.” He said it spoke of a “paradigmatic change” that did not take root in the heart and soul of the faithful. This was shown, he said, in the text that emerged and developed from the Latin American Assembly that had “many shortcomings” and “was not representative” of the feeling of the majority of the participants, with “significant absences on what evangelization and salvation means.” He said it also lacked any reference to sin and the Blessed Virgin Mary, which makes us think that “we are not responding to the feelings of the People of God.”

The cardinal showed the same critical attitude towards the controversial Synod on Synodality, held in October last year in Rome. In his opinion, the Church must evangelize by focusing on proclaiming Jesus Christ as Savior, otherwise it will merely be “like a giant NGO that seeks a better world with others.” He added: “If the Synod is only going to make the Church look in on itself with respect to issues that attract the attention of the mass media, it will be a failure.”

New Evangelization

In his Pastoral Letter Give Me Back the Joy of Your Salvation! (2021), Cardinal Sturla outlined guidelines to strengthen and expand the pastoral care of Montevideo, which entails evangelizing in the face of new times not only in Uruguay but in the American continent and the wider world.

This current cultural reality is impregnated with what the Cardinal defines as a “secularizing glacial wave,” or a “second secularizing wave” present both inside and outside the Church in Uruguay. It is unlike the first one that, in 1918, enshrined in a new national Constitution the absolute separation of Church and State, leaving the latter under the domination of the Masonic Grand Lodge founded in 1856 in Montevideo, and relegating the Catholic Faith and the Church to the exclusively private sphere, without the right to externalize itself publicly.

His analysis is based on the recognition that the central proclamation of the Catholic Faith – Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Savior of man – is threatened by two tendencies driven to tarnish that message: incorporeal neo-Gnosticism and individualist neo-Pelagianism, also denounced at the global level by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.⁸Letter Placuit Deo, nos. 3-4 (2018).

The current secularizing wave can be seen in several important data: a decrease in the number of faithful,  widespread religious ignorance, the basic elements of the Catholic faith absent in the general culture of the population, little knowledge of the fundamental truths of the faith on the part of believers, the absence of children, adolescents and young people in parish catechesis,  growing relativism ad intra of the Church in the face of moral issues, serious difficulties in evangelizing in most Catholic schools, scarce vocations, disappearance of a large part of religious life, etc.⁹Op.cit. at note 44, Capítulo 2, La entrega en la misión y la escasez de frutos.

Second Vatican Council

Cardinal Sturla ascribes to the vision of Pope Benedict XVI regarding the Council, viewing it as being in continuity and not in rupture with the past. He therefore disagrees with those who see the Council as “a new beginning,” a “new era” that would have put an end to the history of the Church that began in the Constantinian era.

However, he believes the Council made valuable contributions such as:

* Introducing a new ecclesiological conception of the reality of the Church as a mystery, as the Body of Christ, and not only its description as a visible society – a perfect society – whose foundation in Christ is reduced to its hierarchical structure;

* Ecumenical openness;

* Dialogue with the world;

* A return to biblical and patristic sources;

* Liturgical reform;

* Freedom of conscience and freedom of faith and religion;

* The “aggiornamento” of the Church to the rapid changes of society.

At the same time, he believes the application of these reforms and contributions often resulted in disconcerting and superficial actions that shipwrecked a large part of its legacy.

Quoting the final address of Pope Paul VI at the end of the Council, he has criticized what he sees as an invasion of the secularized man and the world within the Church. This resulted, he argues, in the Church “depositing” her own identity in a corner for the sake of dialogue and understanding, with the result that “today, for many, [Catholics] we are no longer an interlocutor of interest.”¹⁰Opus cit. at note 46, Capítulo 3, El don del Concilio Vaticano II y la dificultad de su aplicación

Cardinal Sturla sees it as undeniable that the challenges of the new glacial wave of secularization that have occurred in the post-conciliar period have led to a “clear decrease in the number of Catholics in the West, to the fall of priestly vocations and to a resounding decrease in vocations to religious life.” This situation, he believes, is the result of the influence of the external cultural change that invaded the Church, together with the spiritual and religious weakening that gave space to this external cultural change.

For Cardinal Sturla, the first and fundamental challenge that the Uruguayan Church must face is to safeguard the faith in the face of this danger of self-secularization, keeping alive sacramentally the presence of the Risen Lord.¹¹Ibidem., Capítulo 4. To this end, he proposes three axes of pastoral conversion:

1) The recovery of the basic discourse of faith: one and only God who is Trinitarian, Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, present in the Holy Church, the true good of man, the immortality of the soul, eternal salvation and the terrible possibility of damnation.¹²Ibidem., Capítulo 5, taken from the Catecismo del Tercer Concilio de Lima (Perú), del siglo XVIII.

2) The recovery of the sense of original sin, the abandonment or oblivion of which has led to the anthropological errors that have been the basis of totalitarianism in the Church, led to the relaxation and abandonment of the wise discipline of the Church, and brought about the loss of the sense of responsible personal freedom.

3) The recovery of the integral sense of salvation and of its proclamation with joy, in order to overcome the tendency to reduce salvation to a morality of solidarity and of “goodism” or bonhomie (neo-Pelagianism),¹³Ibidem. Among other things, it also leads to the false perception of Communion as a right, to education in “values” and not in virtues through the “combat of faith,” in such a way that “strong personalities are not educated in love,” which implies sacrifice, but selfish and capricious beings. “If Jesus is the friend who puts up with me in all of them and legitimizes everything I think, feel and do, he will never be my savior.” a morality that leads, among other things, to the gradual secularization of salvation that culminates in “Jesusianism” (“Jesus is a friend who loves us”) and to a sentimentalist faith. In this sense, Cardinal Sturla proposes recovering the gift of salvation in Jesus through a new missionary evangelizing zeal that needs to be present in Uruguayan society.¹⁴In the sense of a “small Church,” anticipated and prophesied in 1969 by the then young priest Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger at Fe y futuro, capítulo 5 “Qué aspecto tendrá la Iglesia del año 2000” (1973).

• 1
  He adds: since without Sunday Mass the believer “excludes himself from the unique instance of the life of friendship with God, he leaves Jesus waiting,” that is, without the Sunday liturgy there is no encounter or friendship with the Lord. The fact is that the weekly encounter with the Risen One is a gift and at the same time a mandate, because from the celebration arises the mission-mandate for every believer to ‘live the Christian life where I am planted’, which is why ‘it is necessary to be nourished by the Lord and his Word every Sunday’, in order to give an account of the hope that animates every believer.”
• 2
  He said: “This was hotly debated [at the synod], because […] when you look at it from the point of view of doctrine, of the indissolubility of marriage, it is a complex, difficult issue […] The merciful inspiration of Pope Francis, who says, “let us look at each case individually,” prevails. That is to say, we must try to see in each situation the reasons why the previous divorce occurred, the reasons why people continue on, and there a distinction is made, which is a little complex, between the external forum, what is seen in the moral conduct of the people, and the internal forum, what the person in his conscience understands that he has lived and therefore understands that he is in a situation of sin or not. Obviously, the person is invited to live it, to share it with a confessor, with a prudent priest who can advise him what to do, whether to take communion or not.
• 3
  Also in El Pais, December 24, 2023. Also Miguel Cuartero, “Un (altro) cardinale sfida Roma su Fiducia supplicans,” and Korazym.
• 4
  Concepts developed by Cardinal Daniel Fernando Sturla, op. cit. in footnote 19.
• 5
  “[…] We know that a plate of food is not enough, nor is it enough with a good therapeutic treatment, nor with receiving and sheltering migrants if we do not give the best we have: the Lord Jesus.” Indeed, it is necessary to reawaken this soteriological sense of material charity: “Let us wake up and be aware that we have the treasure of the Eucharistic Bread, that for us the ‘Jesus of the altar’ will always be united with the ‘Jesus of the suffering brother.’ But if we do not also take that suffering brother or sister to the Jesus of the altar, we are making him lose the most beautiful thing in life and the joy that nestles in our hearts.”
• 6
  Loc. Cit., fn. 37.
• 7
  “What must be done is for the Church to really dedicate itself to its mission, which is to evangelize,” he said in a 2022 interview. In this sense, he reaffirmed that the Vatican Synod “will be able to fulfill its mission only if it truly emphasizes the missionary aspect of the Church,” that is, by bringing a “proclamation that is a saving proclamation,” in the sense that “the salvation proclaimed by the Gospel is in Jesus Christ,” not a salvation of universal experience. Conversely, he believes that “if the Synod is only going to make a look at the Church on itself with respect to issues that attract the attention of the mass media, it will be a failure.” In short, “the Church is fulfilled if she evangelizes” “by proclaiming Jesus Christ the Savior,” because “the mission of the Church is to be a sign and bearer of the salvation that has come to us through Jesus Christ the Lord.” Otherwise, the Church would only succeed in being “like a giant NGO that seeks a better world with others.” In other words: proclamation of Jesus Christ the Savior or philanthropic institution, in a purely horizontal dimension without transcendence.
• 8
  Letter Placuit Deo, nos. 3-4 (2018).
• 9
  Op.cit. at note 44, Capítulo 2, La entrega en la misión y la escasez de frutos.
• 10
  Opus cit. at note 46, Capítulo 3, El don del Concilio Vaticano II y la dificultad de su aplicación
• 11
  Ibidem., Capítulo 4.
• 12
  Ibidem., Capítulo 5, taken from the Catecismo del Tercer Concilio de Lima (Perú), del siglo XVIII.
• 13
  Ibidem. Among other things, it also leads to the false perception of Communion as a right, to education in “values” and not in virtues through the “combat of faith,” in such a way that “strong personalities are not educated in love,” which implies sacrifice, but selfish and capricious beings. “If Jesus is the friend who puts up with me in all of them and legitimizes everything I think, feel and do, he will never be my savior.”
• 14
  In the sense of a “small Church,” anticipated and prophesied in 1969 by the then young priest Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger at Fe y futuro, capítulo 5 “Qué aspecto tendrá la Iglesia del año 2000” (1973).