Cardinal Fernández visits Egypt to defuse crisis with Copts

The Coptic Church suspended dialogue with the Catholic Church after "Fiducia supplicans," which allowed the blessing of people in same-sex relationships.

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), visited Egypt in person to meet Coptic Orthodox leader Tawadros II, to discuss the document Fiducia supplicans, reports Vatican News this May 23, 2024. Last December’s declaration, which authorizes Catholic priests to grant non-liturgical blessings to people in “irregular situations,” including in same-sex relationships, provoked a reaction from the Copts, who announced that they were suspending their theological dialogue with the Catholic Church.

While the Coptic Church didn’t outright say the suspension was in a response to the document, in a communiqué issued on March 7, the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church — made up of 133 dignitaries — condemned homosexuality as a “sexual perversion” and rejected “so-called homosexual marriage.”

More than 50 years after the restoration of bilateral relations (1973), it announced “the suspension of theological dialogue with the Catholic Church.”

Cardinal Fernández clarifies the meaning of Fiducia supplicans

Against this backdrop, Coptic Pope Tawadros II received the prefect of the DDF in Cairo on May 22. During their talks, Cardinal Fernández “confirmed that the Catholic Church is also opposed to same-sex marriage,” reports Vatican News.

According to Vatican Media, the Argentine prefect told Tawadros II that the Catholic Church shares the teachings of the Coptic Church. He insisted that Fiducia supplicans proposes a “simple, spontaneous blessing, […] without any ritual, without any liturgical vestments and without any outward manifestations that might confuse this blessing with a marriage.”

Cardinal Fernández also clarified that “the union of persons is not blessed,” but that “a sign of the cross is made over each of them.” In a recent interview with the American network CBS, Pope Francis himself explained that he had not allowed “the union to be blessed,” but “each person to be blessed.”

“Blessing a homosexual union goes against the law, the natural law, the law of the Church,” the Pope said.

Shocks throughout the Church

Following the meeting with the prefect of the DDF, the Coptic Church also published a report noting the cardinal’s statements. In it, however, it reiterates Tawadros II’s wish to “evaluate” the theological dialogue between the two Churches — initiated in 2004 — and to “develop more effective methods.”

Published on December 18, 2023, the declaration Fiducia supplicans caused a stir within the Catholic Church. On the following January 11, the bishops of the African continent opposed the practice of such blessings, pointing to the risks of “confusion.” Other bishops’ conferences, such as those of Poland and Ukraine, also criticized the text issued by Rome and endorsed by the Pope.

The Coptic Orthodox Church’s move to distance itself from the text comes at a time when Pope Tawadros II and Pope Francis have shown many signs of rapprochement in recent years.

Pope Tawadros II went to meet Pope Francis at the Vatican on May 10, 2013, and received him in Cairo on April 28, 2017, signing a Joint Declaration with him.

Shared saints

On May 11, 2023, in front of the patriarch who had come to the Vatican again, Francis announced that the 21 Christian martyrs, including 20 Copts killed by Daesh in 2015 in Libya, would be entered into the Roman martyrology.