Fernández, who has over 10,000 followers on Facebook, said there are “anti-Francis groups that are outraged [at my appointment], and they get to use unethical means to harm me.”
Attacks against the 79-page book on kissing, the archbishop said, “come from Catholics in the United States” who do not know Spanish and mis-translate one of the text’s poems.
In the poem, the word “witch,” he said, has been mistakenly translated into English as “bitch.”
“In the end, they will continue to say a lot of things, and they will ally with whomever to attack Francis for nominating me. But those who know me closely know who I am. Thank you for the trust and love forever,” he said.
Fernández explained that the book in question was written by a very young pastor trying to reach the young, and that it “no longer exists.”
“I was inspired by a phrase from the time of the Church Fathers that said incarnation was like a kiss from God to humanity,” he wrote.
