{"id":2154,"date":"2026-01-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vaticanfiles.org\/?p=2154"},"modified":"2025-12-16T07:32:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T06:32:32","slug":"vf250","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vaticanfiles.org\/es\/2026\/01\/vf250\/","title":{"rendered":"250. The Blurred View of \u201cGrace\u201d of Cardinal Fern\u00e1ndez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the Cardinal Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (Victor Manuel Fern\u00e1ndez, number 3 in the Vatican) writes a book, it is worth paying attention. Cardinal Fern\u00e1ndez is also the one who signed \u201cFiducia supplicans<\/a>,\u201d allowing\u00a0the blessing of same-sex unions<\/a>, and \u201cMater populi fidelis<\/a>,\u201d on the use of\u00a0the Marian title of \u201cco-redemptrix.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0In reality, although the book\u00a0Grazia. Concetti fondamentali per pensare la vita nuova<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Grace. Basic Concepts to Think About the New Life<\/em>) has only just been published in Italian, it dates back to 2003 and was updated in 2010. It was therefore written before he took up his current position as the \u201cguardian\u201d of Roman Catholic doctrine. The theme of grace makes it appealing to the evangelical reader, given the doctrine\u2019s central position in Roman Catholic and Protestant theology.
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The author\u2019s intention is not to cover the entire doctrine on grace, but to touch on some fundamental concepts, as the subtitle indicates. The three main interlocutors considered in the discussion are Scripture, the medieval pair of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, and the German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner.
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Grace as Interpersonal Relationship<\/em>
The author begins by arguing that grace, biblically speaking, can manifest itself \u201conly in an interpersonal relationship\u201d (14). In the encounter between people, it is the triune God himself who communicates with our lives (uncreated grace) and brings about effects and consequences (created grace: regeneration, liberation, transformation).
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To this understanding of grace, the Roman Church has preferred other contents, making it more of a \u201cthing\u201d to be dispensed, deserved, and administered. Within the relational conception of grace, the author emphasizes grace as friendship with God, rather than sonship (33). Here, the sacramental categories typical of Roman Catholicism immediately come into play: at baptism, grace is received in order to be \u201cchildren of God,\u201d but friendship with God depends on sanctifying grace, which is incremental (38-39).
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Within the realm of relationships, even a \u201cnon-Christian\u201d can live in a state of grace (44): when one lives in friendship with others, one experiences grace. It is immediately clear that this relational-sacramental understanding of grace lacks the covenantal and juridical categories proper to Scripture. On the one hand, the sacramental framework of Tridentine Catholicism is reiterated, while on the other hand, the relational emphasis of the contemporary Catholic embracement is affirmed. This Roman Catholic expansion lacks the covenantal criteria of grace, i.e., we receive grace by the imputation of Christ\u2019s righteousness.
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In other words, for the author, God grants us grace by wanting us to be his \u201cfriends,\u201d but he fails to say that he does so by not imputing our sins to us, since our Substitute, Jesus, has taken them upon himself. God is a covenant God, and this covenant is broken because of sin and can only be reconciled through the vicarious work of Christ. Biblically speaking, adoption, sonship, and fellowship with God are grounded in justification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reinterpreting Augustine<\/em>
In his discussion, the author oscillates between harsh judgments against Protestantism and ecumenical attitudes. Among the former are the accusations of having conceived grace in such a \u201cparticularistic\u201d way as to give rise to a \u201crotten subjectivism\u201d (quoting J.I. Gonzales Faus, 89) and capitalism. Among the latter is the recognition of God\u2019s gratuitous initiative that precedes any moral action on our part (119).
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The author\u2019s treatment of Augustine is interesting. The thinking of the \u201cFather of grace\u201d requires \u201crevision\u201d because it has reached \u201cunacceptable extremes\u201d and \u201cexaggerations\u201d that have been harmful (131, 137). The author seems to understand the reasons of the \u201csemi-Pelagians\u201d who proposed a \u201cmiddle way\u201d between Augustine and Pelagius (134ff). In fact, even if the Cardinal does not say so explicitly, Roman Catholic theology is closer to semi-Pelagianism than to Augustine. In line with the Council of Orange, the Council of Trent moves with \u201ccaution\u201d and teaches that God inspires us first, but human cooperation is necessary (139). In explaining how, the author reverses the terms and shows how Roman Catholicism, in calling itself moderately Augustinian, is actually closer to semi-Pelagianism: in fact, God always acts with respect for our fragility (144), in a \u201cresistible\u201d way (151), and starting from human freedom (146, 150), with the exception of Mary, who had \u201cimpeccable freedom\u201d (144)!
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It is then understandable how convoluted the Roman Catholic doctrine of grace is: in words, it is Augustinian. In fact, it is far from Augustine, with an addition of Mariological exceptionalism. Within this complex and convoluted vision, baptism is seen as a sacrament that frees us from original sin and disposes us to justification (163). Yet the sacraments are not the only way to grace (162). Traditional sacramentalism is reaffirmed, but open to the universalist demands of contemporary Roman Catholicism.
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Clumsy Justification<\/em>
When it comes to justification, the conceptual difficulty that pervades the book emerges even more clearly. Without any biblical support, justification is understood as \u201cthe very fact of being a friend of God\u201d (178). Instead of accepting the legal categories of Scripture, friendly categories are preferred, which are not proper to justification. In addition, two modes of God\u2019s action (transforming and impelling) are associated with justification. First, it is said that grace precedes works, but then it is also argued, with Thomas, that one can dispose oneself to justification by giving consent (197). This cooperation is of \u201cvariable intensity\u201d (198) or \u201cdifferent intensity\u201d (200). In short, without the forensic framework of Scripture, justification is sometimes thought of as friendship, sometimes as a gift, and sometimes as something to be prepared for through one\u2019s own cooperation.
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The final theses proposed by the author are a theological potpourri (243-245). In a nutshell, Roman Catholic justification brings together all the complexity of the layered tradition of Catholicism: a little of Augustine but without the gravity of sin, a little of semi-Pelagianism that emphasizes our ability to collaborate, the subtle distinctions of Thomas Aquinas, the sacramentalism of Trent, the catholicity of Vatican II whereby even non-Christians can be justified (223).
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One of the last chapters deals with the Roman Catholic-Lutheran dialogue on justification. The interpretation offered by the author is in line with the mainstream ecumenical view: the two views (Catholic and Lutheran) are \u201ctwo aspects of the same truth\u201d (208) that use \u201cdifferent expressions\u201d (209) to refer to the same reality interpreted in the light of different concerns. In light of the 1999 Joint Declaration, anathemas have become \u201csalutary warnings\u201d that no longer apply (211). As for other religions, given the absence of forensic categories, justification can be accessible in various degrees of fullness (224-225): only the Roman Catholic sacraments guarantee the greatest fullness.
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In the end, the author\u2019s thinking on the subject is summarized as follows: \u201cGod is present in every human being from the moment of conception, not only as Creator, but also as Savior\u201d (235). This is the catholicity of grace in contemporary Roman Catholicism. Without the legal\/covenantal understanding, one slips into the universalism of salvation.
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The book introduces us to the universe of contemporary Roman Catholic theology of grace, in which everything can be found except a firm commitment to respect the biblical teaching that \u201cby grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God\u201d (Ephesians 2:8).<\/p>\n

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