Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast.

I'm Damien Thompson.

On the 18th of December, just as Catholic priests throughout the world were preparing for the great Feast of Christmas,

the Vatican dropped a theological and pastoral bomb on them

in a document written by Pope Francis' new doctrinal chief,

his Argentinian protégé, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez.

Entitled fiducius supplicans,

it announced that henceforth a new type of blessing would be available for same-sex couples

and couples in other sorts of irregular relationships such as unmarried parents.

Cardinal Fernandez, whose nickname is Tucho, has been Francis's unofficial personal theologian throughout this pontificate,

but since last year he's occupied the very grand office of prefect of the Dacastory from the Doctrine of the Faith,

a role that arguably the greatest Catholic theologian of the 20th century, Joseph Ratzinger,

performed for Pope John Paul II. But Tucci Fernandez is not, and would not pretend to be, ratzinger's intellectual equal.

He's a maverick who's been dogged by controversy ever since it was revealed that as a young priest,

he wrote an extremely embarrassing book on the theology kissing.

When that was revealed, he said, oh, I've written much worse than that.

And boy, he wasn't kidding. Last week, it was revealed that in 1998, Fernandis published a book

on the theology of orgasms under his own name, which, let me warn you, I will be quoting from

later, and I do need to warn you, because its be quoting from later, and I do need to warn you because its content

is very explicit, and I do need to quote from it little bits anyway, because it's really

blown up in his face and has antagonised powerful cardinals who are now openly maneuvering and

repositioning themselves for the next conclave. But let's go back to December the 18th,

...