Archbishop Fernández, new DDF prefect, defends Heal Me with Your Mouth; publisher removes book from website

July 06, 2023

Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández, the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, defended his 1995 work, Sáname con tu boca: El arte de besar (Heal Me with Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing), as a “catechesis for [the young] based on what the kiss signifies.”

“A phrase from the epoch of the Fathers of the Church, which said that the incarnation was like a kiss from God to humanity, inspired me,” the prelate wrote in a Facebook post. “At that time, I was very young, I was a parish priest, and I tried to reach young people. Then it occurred to me to write a catechesis for them based on what the kiss signifies. I wrote this catechesis with the participation of a group of young people who gave me ideas, phrases, poems, etc.”

In the introductory passage of Heal Me with Your Mouth (Spanish text, online English translation), Fernández, then 33 and a priest for nine years, did not refer to catechesis as the book’s purpose—though he did write that he consulted the young as he prepared the text:

I want to clarify that this book was not written so much based on my own experience, but based on the lives of people who kiss. In these pages I want to synthesize the popular feeling, what people feel when they think of a kiss, what mortals experience when they kiss.

For that I chatted at length with many people who have abundant experience in this area, and also with many young people who learn to kiss in their own way. I also consulted many books, and I wanted to show how the poets talk about the kiss.

So, trying to synthesize the immense richness of life, these pages emerged in favor of kissing. I hope that they help you kiss better, that they motivate you to release the best of your being in a kiss.

At the beginning of his Facebook post, Archbishop Fernández implied that critical discussion of Heal Me with Your Mouth is unethical:

There are also groups opposed to Francis that are enraged [by my appointment as prefect] and that come to use unethical means to malign me. For example, for years they have been referring to a little book of mine that no longer exists, which spoke about the kiss.

Toward the end of his Facebook post, Archbishop Fernández—in an apparent reference to the online English translation of a poem that appeared on page 40 of the Spanish edition—stated:

Worse still, since these attacks come from Catholics in the United States, and they don’t know Spanish, they mistranslate one of the poems in the book. They translate the word “bruja” as “puta.” But the book says “bruja.” They don’t have the right to change my words. It seems that they have no ethics for this, and it is not the first time they have done it to me.

In the 1995 poem at issue, Fernández addressed a woman as a bruja —a word whose primary meaning is “witch” (Collins Spanish Dictionary, Wiktionary), and which the online translator rendered as the vulgar term “b----.” In his Facebook post, Archbishop Fernández described the English translation as equivalent to puta, whose primary meaning is “whore,” but which can also mean “b----” (Collins Spanish Dictionary, Wiktionary). Bruja, however, can also mean “b----” (Collins Spanish Dictionary), which suggests that a translator’s decision to render bruja as “b----” is not beyond the pale.

Sáname con tu boca: El arte de besar was published by Grupo Editorial Lumen. The publisher listed the book at this link when CWN reported on Archbishop Fernández’s appointment on July 1; the book was listed as recently as July 4, according to Google cache. Since that time, the publisher has removed the book from its website.

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Show 4 Comments? (Hidden)Hide Comments

• Posted by: charles.pullin6847 - Jul. 06, 2023 7:01 PM ET USA

  While the subject matter of the book is irregular for a priest, I must suggest that the linked English translation is quite imperfect and, in my opinion, does change the meaning inaccurately as charged by the Archbishop. Upon reading the poem on p. 40 (Spanish version), it is unquestionably referencing a "witch" or, better, a person with lips possessing the power of enchantment. The poem makes no sense if it refers to the lip-owning woman as a bitch or whore.

• Posted by: Randal Mandock - Jul. 06, 2023 2:02 PM ET USA

  Hide the smoking gun.

• Posted by: feedback - Jul. 06, 2023 11:38 AM ET USA

  "Worse still, since these attacks come from Catholics in the United States..." THANK GOD for the Catholics in the United States!

• Posted by: DrJazz - Jul. 06, 2023 9:54 AM ET USA

  "...a little book of mine that no longer exists..." This is a rhetorical trick. "Little" means, "It's nothing to be worried about because it's insignificant." And "no longer exists" means, "It doesn't represent me anymore," and "Despite my being such a good man, my critics hate me so much that they searched for a little old book that doesn't even exist just to criticize me." I don't need to read that book. I know, just from his recent statements, that he shouldn't be anywhere near the DDF.