Roche, Fernández and the Collapse of Competence

My article; Roche, Fernández and the Collapse of Competence, has received a lot of oxygen!

It is not a personal attack on these two Vatican officials. It is an attempt to name something most serious Catholics instinctively sense but find difficult to articulate: a growing collapse of competence at the heart of Church governance.

The focus is not on personalities for their own sake, but on what their elevation reveals about a deeper institutional problem. Authority is increasingly detached from theological depth, historical literacy, and intellectual seriousness. The result is a widening gap between power and credibility, and Catholics feel it.

One of the central arguments I make is that liturgy is now being treated less as a received inheritance and more as a variable to be managed. This shift matters. When tradition is approached as something to be controlled rather than handed on, continuity gives way to bureaucratic improvisation. This mentality underpins the reasoning around Traditionis Custodes and exposes how thin the theological justification has become.

My critique of Cardinal Fernández is not about tone or personality, but about substance. Doctrinal precision is being displaced by rhetorical ambiguity. When clarity is treated as a problem and vagueness as a virtue, the Church’s teaching office loses its authority to teach. What replaces it is confusion presented as pastoral sensitivity.

Perhaps the most unsettling claim I make is that utility has begun to replace excellence as the decisive criterion for advancement. The question is no longer who possesses deep formation or a serious grasp of tradition, but who can be relied upon to deliver predetermined outcomes. This shift does not merely weaken individual offices, it corrodes trust in the system itself.

This is why I believe the article matters. The present crisis in the Church is not simply ideological, nor is it unprecedented disagreement. It is institutional. When authority is exercised without evident competence, obedience itself becomes strained.

For readers trying to understand why so many faithful Catholics feel disoriented, unheard, or dismissed, this essay offers a framework that goes beyond surface controversies. It names the problem plainly and without rancour. That, I think, makes it worth reading.