We interrupt regular material from The WM Review with an urgent fundraiser for a Sister about to undergo extensive surgery.

Please read this important message.

(We don’t normally do this kind of thing – but we were too late to notify readers about the previous surgery in June, so here goes.)

Earlier in the year, Sister Mary Savio of the Sisters of St Thomas Aquinas underwent really serious brain surgery to deal with Intercranial Hypertension – “a condition involving excess fluid and pressure around the brain.”

The surgery was a success, but now she must undergo further operations – tomorrow (Friday 25 September 2026).

Sister Mary Savio’s parents have set up a GoFundMe fundraiser for this operation and aftercare – which, because they are not covered by insurance, will cost a cool $92,000.

Can you chip in and help cover these costs?

Sister Mary Savio's GoFundMe

FYI: This link may not work with a VPN.

What’s happening to Sister Mary Savio

Sister Mary Savio is the First Communicant instructor and manages the Flex courses online for Queen of All Saints Academy – an in-person and online school doing really impressive work.

Here are the details of the surgery on the fundraiser:

Six months ago, after living with immense pain, Sister Mary Savio was diagnosed with intracranial hypertension, a condition involving excess fluid and pressure around the brain, along with compression near the C1 and C2 vertebrae that was restricting blood flow at the brainstem. Because her surgery had to be performed by a specialist in Germany, it was not covered by insurance. Thanks to your generosity and prayers, she underwent that surgery in June and found real relief.

In the three months since, however, she has suffered increasing abdominal and back pain and significant weight loss. Her doctors have identified several additional conditions that require surgery. The cost of the operation and aftercare is $92,000.

This is a long and serious operation in which the doctors will perform four procedures to treat the following:

• A replacement of the L5 disc in her lower spine

• May-Thurner syndrome, a compression of a major vein in the pelvis

• Nutcracker syndrome, a compression of the vein draining the left kidney

• Superior mesenteric artery (SMA) syndrome, a compression of the small intestine that makes eating painful and has contributed to her weight loss

All funds raised go directly to the Sisters of St. Thomas Aquinas. Any donation, large or small, will be deeply appreciated and will help relieve the burden on our family and the Sisters.

Please offer your prayers for her surgeons and medical team as she goes into surgery tomorrow, Friday, September 25: for a safe surgery, an easy recovery, and especially for her to bear this cross with perseverance. If you are unable to give, please consider sharing this page and praying for Sister Mary Savio, the Sisters, her doctors, and all those helping her through this difficult time.

Can you help reach the $92,000 target?

Sister Mary Savio's GoFundMe

Who are the Sisters of St Thomas Aquinas

For a few years now, X has seen a few viral videos of white-habited Sisters singing Gregorian chant in a high gothic church. These videos have garnered much admiration, for the beauty of the singing and the architecture of the chapel – as well as appreciation for a young religious order of Sisters.

The Congregation was founded by Bishops Donald Sanborn and Joseph Selway, and is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Institute and Most Holy Trinity Seminary. They adhere to the Thesis of Cassiciacum of Mgr Guérard des Lauriers – holding that the Holy See is currently vacant formaliter (whilst being occupied materialiter).

(You can read more about the Thesis here, and Mgr Guérard des Lauriers here.)

The Sisters say this about the nature of their congregation:

“[T]he Congregation is devoted to the Catholic education of the youth. The Sisters, therefore, have the teaching of truth at heart.”

An important part of the congregation’s activity is running Queen of All Saints Academy.

Congregations like the Sisters of St Thomas Aquinas can’t rely on big bailouts like Novus Ordo religious orders might.

While the Sisters are dedicating themselves to providing a Catholic education for children all over the world, can you give them a hand and help them support Sr Mary Savio?

Sister Mary Savio's GoFundMe

And while you’re at it – make sure you share her GoFundMe with anyone who you think would like to help:

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P.S.: Defending the Sisters back in January

In January of this year, the Sisters’ popularity attracted the abuse of Fr Matthew Schenider – himself a member of the Legionaries of Christ, the congregation founded by the disgraced priest, drug addict, sexual offender (of individuals of both sexes) and a father of six illegitimate children, Marcial Maciel.

He and others responded to the Sisters’ advert about a Vocational Retreat for Young Women with accusations of schism.

When challenged, Schneider (host of SPQN’s Vatican II in a Year podcast, and known for his enthusiastic promotion of the COVID vaccines) doubled down – HARD.

I wrote in their defence, and this provided the opportunity to consider the topic of communion, and whether “sedevacantists” are in schism with the Catholic Church:

• What we can learn from bad reactions to the ‘sede’ Sisters of St Thomas Aquinas online

It also was an opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of some of our opponents.

An order that openly confesses that the Church is suffering an extended vacancy of the Holy See will always struggle to raise funds when compared to one that does not.

And they need the funds to support their members through thick and thin.

Do your bit today and help Sister Mary Savio’s GoFundMe!

Sister Mary Savio's GoFundMe

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Introduction

“The way of peace they have not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes.”

— Ps. 13.3

Over the last few days, the UK mainstream media has been pointing towards imminent war with Russia.

On 21 September, Sky began its new series The Wargame, which features a “cabinet” of formerly high-ranking politicians from across the political parties, simulating a Russian attack on the UK. Assembling such a high-profile “cast” for a “mere” reality show – including Lord Michael Gove, Dame Penelope Mordaunt, Baroness Harriet Harman, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, and former First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon – is truly remarkable.

At the same time, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg – former Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party, and leader of the House of Commons – has been discussing the need for the people of the United Kingdom to “join the armed services”, to “do their duty”, and “to face circumstances in which people have to die… to save their country, as they did in the first and second world wars, and in many other wars before and since.”

“That is something that makes a country survive,” he said. “If people are not willing to do their duty, then the country will be taken over by another country, ultimately, one way or another.”

Catholic commentator noted the irony of such rhetoric in the face of the wave of migrants illegally entering the UK on small boats and super-dinghies, and being given accommodation at the taxpayers’ expense.

Other commenters posted Shrek memes, and speculating whether Rees-Mogg's own children would be drafted.

The same rhetoric has continued on his show Jacob Rees-Mogg’s State of the Nation, featured on the “conservative” television channel GB News. On the 21 September show, he gave a platform to former Labour advisor Paul Richards, who said:

“I think the British people would rise to greatness if they had to. We would have to lock a few people up, by the way: some of the pro-Russian voices, people who say there isn’t a threat, don’t fight for your country, don’t go to war for [Andrew] Burnham [our sixth prime minister in 10 years] – we’ll have to lock ‘em up.”

Rees-Mogg’s response to Richards was effectively to agree:

“Well, we suspended habeas corpus under the Napoleonic wars.”

The exchange was as follows:

Richards: Well, and under the Defence of the Realm Act.

Rees-Mogg: Indeed.

Richards: So, we would have to go to those measures. And we would have to look at things like conscription as well, to get the numbers up.

Richards was a founder of the radical and progressive Labour political organisation Progress. He is also the treasurer and a former national Chair for the Fabian Society.

It is also notable that this clip has been removed from the video of the show available on the GB News YouTube channel.1

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Why should we care about Rees-Mogg at all?

A television pundit, or even a politician, engaging such rhetoric would be of little interest to The WM Review and our readers, if it were not for the fact that Sir Jacob enjoys a reputation as a kind of “super Catholic” in British public life.

He is regularly criticised by the left-wing press for his “pro-life views”. He has also spoken out against same-sex marriage. He has been known to refer to Pope Pius IX in his speeches at the House of Commons, attends the Traditional Latin Mass. He has a cultivated persona as “The Honorable Member for the Eighteenth Century”, and has even spoken condescendingly about men changing their babies’ nappies (“diapers”, in the language of many of our readers).

In short, liberals consider him to be their worst nightmare. Because of this, some Catholics consider him to be a dream come true. However, “the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend” – and in fact, when it comes to the Catholic faith and to moral issues, Rees-Mogg the apotheosis of superficiality and unseriousness.

While it is normally best to ignore such persons, such warmongering makes it necessary to explain why his “Catholic credentials” are a simply a veneer for the same liberalism that infects his fellow politicians. Other writers will be able to evaluate the necessity (or otherwise) of war with given nations; but whether the United Kingdom goes to war or not, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg cannot be allowed to use a veneer of traditionalism in support of it.

Update: There is an additional aspect to Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg’s persona which I, a mere English commoner, felt unable to address properly in this essay – and that is the “aristocratic” vibe which many believe him to have.

Since publication, however, I have discovered that (M. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry – himself “partially descended” from the French aristocracy) of the has done an excellent job of identifying and skewering it all.

• Jacob Rees-Mogg And The Curse Of The Fake Aristocrats

(I’ll include a link to M. Gobry’s article at the end, so you can carry on reading this one for now.)

But the author’s background makes his insights uniquely valuable, bringing a perspective which the majority of us commoners simply cannot have. “My culture,” he amusingly notes at one point, “is not your costume, Mr. Rees-Mogg.”

I found some of his observations about Donald Trump or Boris Johnson somewhat credulous, but – if we suspend our disbelief for the sake of analysis – even there his comments are insightful.

His article also feeds into another phenomenon which I addressed recently – namely OnePeterFive editor ’ absurd arrogation to himself of the rank of “lay nobility”.2 As I said elsewhere:

“We who live in nations that enjoy an actual nobility understand it to be a matter of blood and law; however, it appears to be otherwise in the fantasy land of ‘Lord’ Flanders. There, one becomes a noble simply by opening a publishing house and talking about matters which you later admit you did not understand at all.”

Although, as the Bretons cited in the article point out, someone “can ascend to the aristocracy through merit”, one does not do so by bourgeois striving or deranged LARPing. Such attitudes, along with anti-hierarchical egalitarianism and the corresponding aristocratic self-hatred Gobry describes, are ultimately all a rebellion against reality – and pathetic, too.

We are what God made us. “And God saw that it was good.”

Make sure to read Gobry’s article after you’ve finished this one – it really places Rees-Mogg’s persona in the much wider context of so much that has gone wrong with our society over the last few centuries.

Rees-Mogg and ‘the most Christian Prime minister in 50 years’

In 2016, Rees-Mogg described David Cameron as “the most Christian prime minister in 50 years.”

David Cameron was responsible for introducing “same-sex marriage” in 2013. Daniel Blackman summarised the matter:

“The UK’s coalition government, under Cameron, passed its same-sex marriage act in February 2013, by 400 votes to 175. ‘I believe we’ve made great steps … enabling those who love each other to get married whatever their sexuality,” Cameron said. Opponents of the act were branded bigots, homophobes, hate-filled, and ‘anti-love’.”

In 2012, Cameron delivered a speech at Melinda Gates’ London Summit on Family Planning, at which he advocated wider availability of contraception as a means of fighting poverty and “inequality.”

In 2008, he stated that he was in favour of the existing law that permitted the abortion of disabled babies up until birth. He also wrote to the UK’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), stating that he considered “proposals for wider access to abortion as “practical and sensible.’”

As such, it is legitimate to ask whether Rees-Mogg’s comment about Cameron says more about his own Christianity than Cameron’s.

Blackman recounts the context of this comment – which was an event at which I was also present:

“He was speaking at the London [Brompton] Oratory, South Kensington, to a gathering of young conservatives and Catholics in their 20s and 30s.

“When asked about his thoughts on Cameron’s same-sex marriage act, Rees-Mogg said: ‘It’s really hard for MPs because they get criticised for not standing by what they believe. Yet when David Cameron put forward his same-sex marriage plans he got criticised a lot, so it’s really hard, he really believed in it.’ […]

“‘I’m a Catholic, and I greatly value the Church’s sacrament of marriage. I voted against same-sex marriage, but I’m happy as long as the Catholic sacrament is left alone. The government is free to legislate and do as it pleases with secular legal marriage; however the legal arrangements are decided.’

“When challenged by members of the shocked audience, Rees-Mogg resorted to anecdotes about how happy he was to have a Catholic marriage, and repeated that the government had the job of legislating marriage. It was for the government to decide how marriage was arranged in secular, civil society.”

Blackman called it “a baffling and somewhat intense moment”, and explained why Catholics cannot accept the privatisation of “the Catholic sacrament” of marriage, or the idea that civil authorities are “free to legislate and do as it pleases with secular legal marriage”. On the contrary, marriage is a natural institution, and governments are obliged to respect the nature of things in their legislation.

At the same talk, Mogg opined that it was good that society had decided not to legislate for Christian morality, because this made it more meritorious for those who try to be virtuous. This is contrary both to common sense, and to the stated arguments in the various acts of the magisterium on the issue. The law has a normative force on the morality of society, and that which is permitted and forbidden necessarily has an effect on the conception of what is right and wrong.

Such is the teaching of the Popes to whom Rees-Mogg referred throughout his talk, as Blackman states:

“During his talk, Rees-Mogg quoted liberally from pre-Vatican II popes. Yet these same popes condemned the positions Rees-Mogg favoured in his talk.

“For example, Blessed Pope Pius IX, in his Syllabus of Errors, condemned the idea that ‘The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits,’ and the error that ‘The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.’

“In an earlier interview, Rees-Mogg said: ‘My great hero is probably Pius IX, because of his traditional view of the state and the Church and his Syllabus of Errors was a clear view.’

“A fellow member of the audience suggested privately that Rees-Mogg was ‘a child of Vatican II, bereft of authentic Catholic formation because of these changes ushered in following the council.’ Whatever the case, it is hard to reconcile Rees-Mogg’s apparent familiarity with traditional Catholic teaching with his public comments.

Rees-Mogg’s talk was actually delivered, and these comments made, beneath a large bust of Pope Pius IX himself.

Blackman also reported other words from Rees-Mogg on the same issue:

“In another interview, Rees-Mogg was asked how same-sex marriage might impact Catholic school teachers, pupils and their families. He replied: ‘I think this is going to be a matter for the leadership of the Church. Are they willing to take a strong view on what they believe is right? Or are they going to go along with secularism?’”

It is difficult to know what this is supposed to mean, and whether Rees-Mogg – who started his career at J Rothschild Investment Management, and has an estimated net worth of £100 million – really understood the subject at hand, or what was at stake for the “Catholic school teachers, pupils and their families” mentioned.

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Rees-Mogg and ‘the most naturally freedom-loving prime minister’

In November 2020, Rees-Mogg referred to then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson as “the most naturally freedom-loving prime minister we could think of having.”

What made this most ironic is that these comments were made during the COVID–19 debacle, in which Boris Johnson oversaw the UK’s lockdowns (which he famously flouted – with the “Partygate” scandal being a factor in Johnson stepping down as Prime Minister and MP).

Rees-Mogg’s comments came a few days after the 31 October 2020 announcement that – after a period in a regional “tier” system, in which restrictions were based on the number of alleged cases – England would go back into lockdown for a month (subject to a vote by Parliament on 4 November).

(During this tier system, Rees-Mogg was accused of “hypocrisy” for “ignoring government guidance” by travelling from his home in a lower tier, in order to attend a Traditional Latin Mass in a higher tier. The guidance stated that “you should stay local and avoid travelling outside of your local area”. Rees-Mogg was himself a part of the Government that had imposed the restrictions.)

But Rees-Mogg was not just defending Johnson’s lockdown in November 2020: he himself voted for them in Parliament – in spite of the inclusion of yet more draconian restrictions against the Church, and significant fines imposed on those who violated them.

The restrictions for that lockdown included the following:

5. Weddings, civil partnerships, religious services and funerals

Funerals can be attended by a maximum of 30 people, and it is advised that only close friends and family attend. Linked ceremonial events such as stone settings and ash scatterings can also continue with up to 15 people in attendance. Anyone working is not included. Social distancing should be maintained between people who do not live together or share a support bubble.

Weddings, civil partnership ceremonies will not be permitted to take place except in exceptional circumstances.

Places of Worship will be closed, unless they are being used for:

• Funerals

• To broadcast acts of worship

• Individual prayer

• Formal childcare or where part of a school

• Essential voluntary and public services, such as blood donation or food banks

• Other exempted activities such as some support groups

These restrictions permitted churches to remain open for “private prayer”, so long as this did not “form part of communal worship”. Those organising communal worship faced fines of up to £10,000. Paul Smeaton reported at the time:

“This past weekend, the first weekend since the regulations were approved by politicians, police entered at least one Catholic church in England on the suspicion that a supposed transgression was taking place. […]

“A November 10 police report states that one organizer of a religious event in London is already being considered by the police for the maximum fine.”

At the time, Smeaton sent Rees-Mogg a request for comment, which contained the following:

On Wednesday November 4th 2020 you voted for a second lockdown which, among other appalling restrictions on the English people, suppressed public religious services. In doing so you formally co-operated in Parliament suppressing the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the first time since the Catholic Relief Act. You voted to impose fines on those who disobey these new laws. Already there have been reports of police entering Catholic churches to check whether “communal services” are being conducted.

You must know that St Thomas Becket was martyred for the principle of the liberty of the Catholic Church from civil interference.

You have claimed to admire Pope Pius IX, particularly for “his traditional view of the state and the Church” and the Syllabus of Errors. You must know then of the 44th condemned error, which reads: “The civil authority may interfere in matters relating to religion, morality and spiritual government.”

And further, you must also know that this principle is enshrined in English law by Magna Carta, which states that “the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable.”

How then can you, a Catholic and an Englishman, vote for such a law? You should have voted against the bill on these grounds alone. What bargain or promise of future reconsideration of the restrictions could justify such an act?

You should have preferred to resign, or indeed to suffer anything, rather than embrace the ignominy of voting for that bill.

I urge you to consider that such a public betrayal of the Church and your co-religionists is a scandal that requires a similarly public act of repentance.

I would be grateful if you could reply to my email with answers to my questions by 5pm Thursday 12 November, after which we will publish our article.

Rees-Mogg did not reply. Smeaton’s article concluded with the following observation:

“These are without doubt strange and difficult times for us all. The greatest consolation any of us can have is recourse to the Mass and the sacraments. Thanks to Rees-Mogg and his colleagues, the government is now attempting to deny these to the faithful in England. So with friends such as him, who needs enemies?”

However, between the email being sent and the article being published, Rees-Mogg did deliver a short discourse in the House of Commons on 11 November 2020, on the traditional doctrine of the Church on the relations between ecclesiastical and civil authority. He was asked a straightforward question on the closing of places of worship by fellow Conservative MP Christian Wakeford:

“Throughout the pandemic, places of worship have helped to maintain social cohesion. They have mitigated the impact on the mental health of worshippers, and, more importantly, have been a sign of hope. Churches, Islamic centres and synagogues across Radcliffe, Whitefield and Prestwich have gone above and beyond to become covid-safe environments.

“Will my right hon. Friend, as a man of faith himself, join me in commending their efforts to protect the health and wellbeing of worshippers, and will he look to undertake an urgent review of places of worship so that they can continue to provide these most vital of services during these difficult times?”

To the visible bewilderment of Wakeford, Rees-Mogg responded with the following:

“The relationship between Church and state is one that sometimes proves rather difficult. Who can forget 29 December 1170, when Thomas à Becket was murdered in his own cathedral by the agents of the state sent by Henry II? The relationship between Church and state has not always been smooth. It was a great matter for discussion by medieval scholars, who concentrated on Luke 22:38: ‘there are two swords’.

“The question is which sword is superior – the spiritual sword or the temporal sword. The temporal authorities often think that the temporal sword is the superior sword. The ecclesiastical authorities were very happy to argue with that, and Pope Boniface VIII put it at its highest level in his 1302 papal bull ‘Unam Sanctam’, which claimed that all secular authorities were secondary to the spiritual authorities. We have seen this argument rage over the centuries, with greater powers taken by the state and then freedom of religion reasserting itself.

“My hon. Friend raises a point of fundamental importance, but the hope that we may all take – the reassurance that those of us who have faith may be certain of – is that the highest authority is unquestionably immortal, invisible and only wise, and even outside the control of the House of Commons.”

The speech was indeed bewildering, in that Rees-Mogg himself had played a role in violating what he was affirming, only a few days before. His general thrust seemed to be that God’s authority is so superior to man’s, that it does not really matter if man tramples over it.

Can. 1372 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law states:

The following are to be punished according to the provision of can. 1336 §§ 2-4:

1° those who hinder the freedom of the ministry or the exercise of ecclesiastical power, or the lawful use of sacred things or ecclesiastical goods, or who intimidate one who has exercised ecclesiastical power or ministry […]

Can. 2334 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law is clearer and stricter:

They are struck with an automatic excommunication specially reserved to the Apostolic See, who:

1.° Issue laws, mandates, or decrees contrary to the liberty or rights of the Church […]

Whichever Code one believes to be in force, both canons represent the mind of the Church.

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Rees-Mogg and the COVID vaccinations

Prime Minister Boris Johnson also presided over the rollout of the COVID “vaccines”. In December 2021, he declared that there would need to be a “national conversation” about mandatory vaccination in order to increase take-up nationally, and hinted that general COVID restrictions were still in place “just because a substantial proportion of the population still sadly has not got vaccinated.” However, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and the “national conversation” desired by the man Rees-Mogg “the most naturally freedom-loving prime minister” never took place.

In December 2020, Rees-Mogg was bragging in Parliament about how Brexit had enabled the UK to approve the COVID vaccinations more quickly than they would have done in the EU:

As regards Brexit and the vaccine, the UK should be really proud that our regulator got in first. We notice that the European regulator is a bit sniffy about it, wishes we had not done it, and that Germany and France and other European countries have not managed to do the same thing. We have, we are leaving – draw your own conclusions, Mr Speaker, as I am sure the British public will. We are now free of the dead hand of the European Union and will be even more free of it on 1 January. This is a huge British success that we should be proud of and pleased about.

In May 2024, he spoke negatively about what he called the Government’s “coercion” to take the vaccines at the time. However, he also stated that he considered the vaccine rollout to have been “the right decision” and that it “saved many lives” – despite acknowledging the lack of “long-term data” and that they “were not as efective as we first hoped.”

In the same video, he also condemned “conspiracy theories” and “conspiracy theorists” because they are “negative, and it lowers trust in society.”

Rees-Mogg and the ‘pro-life movement’

Rees-Mogg has taken abuse over the years for a firm anti-abortion stance. According to UK parliamentary voting record site They Work For You, Rees-Mogg has “almost always” voted against increasing access to abortion.

(Intriguingly, the same site reports that he “consistently voted for [100%] mass surveillance of people’s communications and activities”.)

He has also been an outspoken supporter of the anti-abortion movement in the media. However, at times his stated reasoning has been so problematic as to undermine the anti-abortion position itself.

For example, in 2017 he was interviewed by Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain, and challenged on his views. But while he was clear and immovable on this issue, his arguments were couched in the teaching of the Catholic Church, religious faith and personal opinion. This is effectively a kind of “fideism”, and is almost like equating opposition to grave moral evils with opposition to eating meat on Friday.

At the time, Lisa Bourne at LifeSiteNews reported:

“Jacob Rees-Mogg said abortion was ‘morally indefensible’ and he was personally opposed to it even in cases of rape and incest. Rees-Mogg said as well that he supported the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage.

“The Conservative Member of British Parliament identified himself as a Catholic in an interview with Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on the Good Morning Britain television program and said repeatedly that he supports the teaching of the Church.

“‘I’m a Catholic and I take the teaching of the Catholic Church seriously,’ Rees-Mogg responded when asked if he supports same-sex “marriage.’ ‘Marriage is a sacrament and the decision of what is a sacrament lies with the Church and not with Parliament.’

“The hosts pressed Rees-Mogg to state unequivocally whether he supports ‘marriage’ between same-sex couples, to which he replied, ‘I support the teaching of the Catholic Church,’ and, ‘The teaching of the Catholic Church is completely clear.’”

He also introduced a distinction between issues that involve “something people are doing with themselves” (i.e., same-sex marriage) and “something that is done to the unborn child”. While there is indeed a distinction, it does not follow that all matters in the former category pertain only to private morality and can therefore be permitted by law.

At another point, he expressed his opposition to abortion in terms of his “personal opinion”:

“When posed the question of whether a woman raped by a family member should have the right to abort the baby, Rees-Mogg stated, ‘My personal opinion is that life begins at conception and abortion is morally indefensible.’”

But the non-Catholic majority will feel no obligation to pay any attention to Rees-Mogg’s private religious opinions. We see here the same theme that appeared previously in the talk at the Oratory: an inability to distinguish between matters of faith and those of natural law. Even a non-Catholic nation is obliged to ensure that its laws are in keeping with the natural law: for Rees-Mogg to cede that ground, and make out that his “controversial views” are based solely on his religion, is to make a mockery of both faith and reason.

Various pro-abortion and pro-LGBT outfits criticized Rees-Mogg for his interventions. But his comments were similarly the subject very critical sermons in at least two "Traditional Latin Mass" churches in London that weekend. Bourne also reported the following from Dr Joseph Shaw, the Chairman of the Latin Mass Society:

“Shaw said it was a serious mistake for Rees-Mogg to distinguish abortion and same-sex ‘marriage’ on the basis that gay ‘marriage’ is a private matter and abortion one of public justice. He also took issue with Rees-Mogg’s appeals to Church teaching as though these issues were a matter of ecclesiastical law or faith, as opposed to natural law.”

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Rees-Mogg and congratulating same-sex parents

Despite his consistent voting record against LGBT issues, Rees-Mogg was extremely enthusiastic about Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson – who was at that time “engaged” to her partner Jen Wilson – expecting a child.

Speaking to broadcaster Kay Burley – who herself got into trouble for breaking the COVID restrictions which she had championed – Rees-Mogg said of Davidson’s news:

“I meant to write to her, I haven’t yet done it. I think it’s wonderful news. It’s absolutely joyous news. And I love the statement that was reported. that she said she couldn’t keep it secret because she was so excited, she wanted to tell everybody. Which is exactly what I felt when all my children have been on their way, and there’s the period when you’re not allowed to say, under strict orders. And I’ve always found that very hard, and when Ruth Davidson said that, I thought I know exactly what you mean. I think it’s a wonderful, happy news and a new life always is.”

Burley asked him:

“Potentially goes a little against your religious beliefs?”

The following exchange ensued:

Rees-Mogg: “New life is always good news.”

Burley: “Potentially goes a little—”

Rees–Mogg: “No it doesn’t! No, no. You’re confusing things.

Burley: “Explain it to me.”

Rees-Mogg: “The Catholic Church is always in favour of new life. There is a new baby: this is wonderful news. A new soul; this is terrific. There’s no problem with that.

Burley: “So you’re—”

Rees-Mogg: “You’re going back to what happened to create that new life. That doesn’t matter: there is now a new life, and that is of overwhelming importance, and a matter of great joy.”

Without entering into the details of the issue, we can simply observe that the man whom Sir Edward Leigh called a “fellow ultramontane Catholic”, was speaking in such terms, and with such warm enthusiasm, about a child who would be raised by a same-sex couple, rather than with his natural parents or in the context of a natural marriage.

Conclusion

“‘It is all well enough to make war on abstract doctrines,’ some may say, ‘but in combating error, be it ever so evident, is it so proper to make an attack upon the persons of those who uphold it?’”

Such is the objection presented by Don Felix Sarda y Salvani, in his classic 1886 work El Liberalismo es Pecado (Liberalism is a Sin). This work was strongly commended by Fr Jerome Secheri OP, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Index in Rome. Here is the answer given by the author:

“We reply that very often it is, and not only proper, but at times even indispensable and meritorious before God and men. […]

“In order to combat and discredit false ideas, we must inspire contempt and horror in the hearts of the multitude for those who seek to seduce and debauch them. […]

“The authors and propagators of heretical doctrines are soldiers with poisoned weapons in their hands. Their arms are the book, the journal, the lecture, their personal influence. Is it sufficient to dodge their blows? Not at all; the first thing necessary is to demolish the combatant himself. When he is hors de combat [‘out of the fight’], he can do no more mischief.

“It is therefore perfectly proper not only to discredit any book, journal or discourse of the enemy, but it is also proper, in certain cases, even to discredit his person […]”

To that end, let us recall that in this essay, we have seen that Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has:

• Strongly praised David Cameron as “the most Christian Prime minister in 50 years”, despite him bringing in same-sex marriage

• Denied the teaching of the nineteenth century Popes on the relations between the Church and State, despite presenting himself their admirer

• Strongly praised Boris Johnson as “the most naturally freedom-loving prime minister we could think of having”, despite the Prime Minister locking down the country during COVID, whilst hypocritically flouting his own regulations, and raising the possibility of mandatory vaccination

• Voted in favour of the suppression of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass during the November 2020 lockdown, with draconian penalties for priests who disobeyed, and flouting his own Government’s “tier system”

• Reduced serious moral issues of abortion and same-sex unions to the spheres of religion and his personal opinion

• Presented the Church’s on the sanctity of life in a seriously confused way, such that he conveys approval for children being raised by same-sex couples.

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg’s cultivated persona is one of respect for tradition, faith and decency. He is now employing this persona in order to prime British men and women to “do their duty”, in the face of the supposed threat of invasion of our nation – even while the UK Parliament reports that at least 205,000 migrants (or rather, as he suggested on the day of publication, potential Englishmen) have illegally entered the UK by small boats in the period 2018 to June 2026.

This is the man who presently throwing his moral support, and prestige as a refined and traditional Catholic gentleman, behind the possibility of war with Russia, conscription, the deaths of British men and women, the suspension of habeas corpus, and the imprisonment of dissidents.

As should be clear, this moral support and prestige are an illusion.

Ant. Give peace, O Lord, in our days, because there is no other to fight for us except thou, our God.

℣. Let peace be in thy strength. ℟. And abundance in thy towers.

Let us pray.

O God, from whom are holy desires, right counsels, and just works, grant to thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that our hearts being devoted to thy commandments, and the fear of enemies being taken away, the times may, by thy protection, be peaceful. Through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son, who with thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

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Postscript

In 1939, Sister Lucia of Fatima said:

War or peace in the world depends on the practice of this devotion (the first Saturdays), together with the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; that is why I long so much for its propagation, and especially because it is the will of our Good God and our beloved Mother in Heaven.

The means given by Our Lady of Fatima to achieve this peace are very clear: on the part of the hierarchy, Russia must be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart by a Pope and the bishops in union with him. On the part of the laity, we are to carry out the First Saturday Devotions – that is, on the First Saturday of each month we do the following:

• Go to confession

• Receive Holy Communion

• Say 5 decades of the Rosary

• Spend 15 minutes meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary.

Each of these four acts must be carried out in a spirit of reparation for sins against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

You can read about this here:

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• Article about other aspects of Rees-Mogg’s religion: ‘Conservative’ Catholicism as the Most Dangerous Position (Part I) by from

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• Are Christians obliged to ‘bless Israel’? Points missed in Cruz/Carlson commentary

• Does charity require us to assume orthodoxy and good will?

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Introduction

Over the summer, we have been publishing a number of texts from Fr Domenico Palmieri relevant to the “recognise and resist” movement. These touched on the following issues:

1. The distinction between the Holy See and the man Seated upon it

2. Fr Palmieri’s claim that ‘they miserably deceive themselves who think they can adhere to the Roman See while resisting the Pontiff’

3. Whether a Pope can fall into heresy, and whether he is ‘stripped of jurisdiction by God’

4. The proper response to the exercise of the Pope’s non-infallible magisterium

5. What Fr Palmieri ACTUALLY says about resisting the Pope

6. When the Pope is actually teaching ex cathedra

7. Do we need an infallible list of infallible propositions? Fr Palmieri responds

Prompted by the fourth part above, a reader sent the following question:

“Can I just politely ignore what the Pope says, especially since recent Popes have the irritating habit of pronouncing grand opinions about everything under the sun? Becoming the Pope is not a sort of magical transformation of one’s basic personality. One does not suddenly acquire a monopoly on all wisdom, human or divine.”

This question deserves a response in full. I am happy to have given it first at Integrity Magazine, and am now making it available here.

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Side note

I note that since this article was originally published “Lord”1 said something very similar to on the Crisis Point podcast:

“It’s OK to ignore the Vatican, it’s OK. Just… it’s OK to just live a very traditional Catholic life.”

As we shall see, there is a truth to what “his Lordship” says – but this truth is used in an equivocal way, in order to convey a falsehood.

(In passing, given the positions advocated by these two men and their outlets, one cannot help wondering if the Crisis Point podcast should not be renamed the No-Crisis, No-Point podcast.)

I also addressed aspects of this question previously, in the following articles:

• ‘Medieval peasants didn’t know the pope’s name, why should we care?’ +Lefebvre answers

• ‘Totem Pope’—Should we ignore what goes on in Rome?

The subtext of the question

With respect to the original questioner, it seems fair to point out that this question is asked as a means of solving or avoiding the problems that have arisen over the last sixty years. The questioner refers to the post-conciliar claimants “pronouncing grand opinions about everything under the sun,” but the only reason that this could be described as an “irritating habit” is that the pronouncements in question are so often gravely wrong, and contrary to the Catholic faith and to morals. If we had been facing sixty years of strong interventions on behalf of the Catholic faith and morals, nobody would be complaining about that.

Thus, let us name the central problems:

1. The Roman Pontiff is infallibly assisted in his definitive teaching, and cannot promulgate a universal disciplinary law which is evil or harmful to the faith. But Vatican II taught error in a definitive manner, and the post-conciliar claimants have repeatedly enjoined universal disciplinary laws which are evil and harmful to the faith.

2. The Roman Pontiff enjoys the habitual assistance of the Holy Ghost in leading the Church Militant. But the post-conciliar claimants show absolutely no sign of this habitual assistance; quite the contrary.

3. To hold office in the Church, one must be a Catholic. But the post-conciliar claimants reveal through their frequent interventions, regardless of authority, that they are not Catholics.

Let us proceed to each.

Definitions assisted with the charism of infallibility

It is important not to conflate different modes of speaking – because the answer to the question raised is in the affirmative for some, depending on the circumstances, and in the negative for others.

For example, everyone is aware that one cannot “politely ignore” the Pope when he says something like the following:

“[F]or the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory …

“Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.”

This is, of course, the definition of Pope Pius XII in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus, of 1950. Such statements, as indicated by the language, are an exercise of the extraordinary magisterium, and a solemn dogmatic definition. Among Catholics, nobody believes that such statements can be “politely ignored.”

The Pope is not limited in how he can issue a dogmatic definition. He may issue it in writing or in speech; he may do it in Rome, or elsewhere. There is nothing about an airplane which precludes the Pope issuing a dogmatic definition in the course of an in-flight interview – although even the post-conciliar claimants have not attempted to do this.

But dogmatic definitions are not the only type of definition. In addition we could consider the definitions of theological conclusions and the canonization of saints, which are also considered to be assisted with the charism of infallibility – and thus cannot be “politely ignored.”

Further, the Church herself has taught that her universal disciplinary laws are assisted by infallibility – not in the sense that they are irreformable (as with propositions) or are the most perfect possible dispositions, but in the sense that they cannot contain anything contrary to the Gospel and right morality. The theologian Van Noort explains why this is so – with the key section italicized:

“[T]he Church is infallible in issuing a doctrinal decree as intimated above – and to such an extent that it can never sanction a universal law which would be at odds with faith or morality or would be by its very nature conducive to the injury of souls …

“The Church was endowed with infallibility that it might safeguard the whole of Christ’s doctrine and be for all men a trustworthy teacher of the Christian way of life …

“But if the Church could make a mistake in the manner alleged when it legislated for the general discipline, it would no longer be either a loyal guardian of revealed doctrine or a trustworthy teacher of the Christian way of life …

“It would not be a guardian of revealed doctrine, for the imposition of a vicious law would be, for all practical purposes, tantamount to an erroneous definition of doctrine; everyone would naturally conclude that what the Church had commanded squared with sound doctrine (emphasis added) …

“It would not be a teacher of the Christian way of life, for by its laws it would induce corruption into the practice of religious life …

2. From the official statement of the Church, which stigmatized as ‘at least erroneous’ the hypothesis ‘that the Church could establish discipline which would be dangerous, harmful, and conducive to superstition and materialism.’”2

As the Supreme Pontiff, the Pope is capable of making universal disciplinary laws himself. When he does so, they cannot be “politely ignored.” Thus, while Catholics agree that solemn ex cathedra dogmatic decrees cannot be “politely ignored,” the reality is that the assistance of infallibility extends a little further than is commonly acknowledged today – and over certain acts which are definitely problematic. For example:

• The definitions of religious liberty at Vatican II.

• The canonization of manifestly evil men.

• The promulgation of the Novus Ordo Mass and many other evil universal laws.

It might be tempting to say that we can “ignore” such measures – but this is simply “to hope that they go away.” In fact, they cannot be ignored; they must be faced head on, and their consequence recognized. That consequence is the impossibility of the men responsible for such acts being true Roman Pontiffs.

Merely authentic magisterium

Next, let us look at what Pope Pius XII said about our attitude towards what is taught outside of such definitions, in the Pope’s “ordinary” or “merely authentic (authoritative)” magisterium:

“Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: ‘He who heareth you, heareth me;’ and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine.”3

Similarly, in his encyclical Casti Connubii,4 Pope Pius XI teaches the following:

“[I]t is quite foreign to everyone bearing the name of a Christian to trust his own mental powers with such pride as to agree only with those things which he can examine from their inner nature, and to imagine that the Church, sent by God to teach and guide all nations, is not conversant with present affairs and circumstances; or even that they must obey only in those matters which she has decreed by solemn definition as though her other decisions might be presumed to be false or putting forward insufficient motive for truth and honesty […]

“Quite to the contrary, a characteristic of all true followers of Christ, lettered or unlettered, is to suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals by the Holy Church of God through its Supreme Pastor the Roman Pontiff, who is himself guided by Jesus Christ Our Lord.”5

In other words – and as Fr. Palmieri and others teach – we are not to “politely ignore” what the Roman Pontiff says when exercising his merely authentic magisterium.

Our questioner rightly points out that “[b]ecoming the Pope is not a sort of magical transformation of one’s basic personality” and that he “does not suddenly acquire a monopoly on all wisdom, human or divine.” But our conclusions never had anything to do with the “personality” of the Pope; they refer to his office, and to Christ’s promise “to be with” him. Further, what a man does acquire when he becomes Pope is authority; and when he is exercising his magisterium, he is authoritative, even if he is not assisted with the charism of infallibility.

As with solemn and dogmatic definitions, there is nothing about an airplane which precludes the Pope from teaching authoritatively. Whether what he says in an in-flight interview or sermon (or any other means of communication) constitutes authoritative teaching will turn on the facts, the mode of expression, the manifestation of his intention, and so on. It may be made clearer if the address is later promulgated in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, but even this is not necessary.

The Fr. Palmieri article which prompted this question already addresses the question of potential errors in such non-infallible teaching acts. If such an error were to occur, the proper response might be something like the “ignoring” that the questioner suggests – at least in the sense that it may become necessary, for a certain class of persons, to suspend assent, whilst seeking clarity from Rome, whilst also retaining an obediential silence.

Such is the case for the hypothetical isolated error. But our problem is not one of an isolated error, but sixty years of habitual error. Even if it were conceded that all these errors fall below the censure of heresy, this habitual erring is a demonstration of the absence of the habitual assistance which the Roman Pontiff necessarily enjoys from the Holy Ghost, by virtue of Christ’s promise “to be with” the Church.6 Once again, this raises problems for the legitimacy of the men claiming to have been the Roman Pontiffs over the last sixty years.

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Non-authoritative statements

Finally, let us turn to what the Pope might say when not exercising his papal authority.

The Papacy does not prevent the person of the Pope teaching as a private doctor. One famous example is Pope Benedict XIV’s republication of his work On the Beatification and Canonization of Saints.

As a private doctor, it is generally the case that the person of the Pope enjoys a high authority. Nonetheless, one is not obliged to follow his opinions: here, even more than above, the questioner is right in pointing out that the Pope “does not suddenly acquire a monopoly on wisdom, human or divine.” With all proper respect to the Pope’s office and person, it does seem possible that some hypothetical circumstances might call for us to “politely ignore” him. This might be the case if a true Pope were, hypothetically, to publish a book or preach about botany, double glazing windows, the best football team in the British Premier League, or the merits of a carnivore diet.

Such treatments may be riddled with errors – the consequence of which might be limited to making the Papacy look ridiculous.

Our questioner refers to “the irritating habit of pronouncing grand opinions about everything under the sun.” But this is not quite true: the post-conciliar claimants have been pronouncing grand opinions about religious matters.

The Pope may publish works relating to faith and morals as a private doctor, and we are similarly free to disagree with the opinions which he may express in such works (providing, of course, that they are indeed merely his opinions). For example, a Pope may write such a work advocating a particular position on a disputed question, such as Molinism, or that even secret heretics cease to be members of the Church. What he writes may be erroneous, and contain errors; we are free to think so, and we are free to “ignore” what he writes, if one wishes to put it that way.

But if he were flagrantly professing errors which were heresies, this could not be “politely ignored.” The public profession of heresy, if clearly pertinacious, has consequences for one’s membership of the Church – and, as a result, for one’s ability to hold office. Such a scenario would either result in the Pope losing office automatically, or (according to some) needing to be declared to have lost office. Neither situation can be ignored – nor can such a one be treated as if he retains authority, lest souls be led into heresy themselves.

We do not “politely ignore” those who seriously say that they are going to go on killing sprees, or otherwise hurt others – even if they are “off duty” when they say so. On the contrary, such words call for a response. When John XXII preached, under correction and in a specifically non-authoritative way, discourses which contained errors on the state of the soul after death, the world sat up and responded. It seems quite wrong to suggest that we should “politely ignore” worse errors spread at greater frequency and publicity.

And in fact, these post-conciliar claimants have not even limited themselves to the profession of this or that heresy. Instead, they have been resolutely focused on issues relating to a naturalistic replacement for the Catholic religion, often using Catholic language and ideas as a means of promoting what is, essentially, apostasy.

Conclusion

All in all, the question posed can only offer any kind of solution to our current situation if we equate “what the Pope says” with a wide variety of modes of speaking – some of which authoritative to different degrees, and some of which non-authoritative but on different subjects.

But this is simply a tempting equivocation. By contrast, the arguments for a vacant See are really quite “minimalist.” Our opponents (among whom I do not count the questioner) wish to characterize us as treating every word of the Pope as divinely inspired, and so have a very easy straw-man to attack; but this is certainly not the case.

So can we “politely ignore” a Pope? Yes, and no.

Yes: for a variety of hypothetical things that a Pope might say, we can.

No: this does not help us with the current crisis in the Church, because the problems cannot be reduced to a generic notion of “what the Pope says.”

There really is no way out of the current crisis except acknowledging that the Holy See has been vacant since at least December 1965. One can seek any number of ways of avoiding this conclusion, but the only way out is through.

This topic has been addressed on several occasions on this website in the following texts:

• ‘Undoubtedly Magisterial Acts’? Pope Honorius and Roberto de Mattei

• What kind of assent is owed to the different papal statements? Fr Anton Straub SJ

• The Pope is ‘not to be publicly contradicted’ – Fr Palmieri on the non-infallible magisterium

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Read Next:

1. The distinction between the Holy See and the man Seated upon it

2. Fr Palmieri’s claim that ‘they miserably deceive themselves who think they can adhere to the Roman See while resisting the Pontiff’

3. Whether a Pope can fall into heresy, and whether he is ‘stripped of jurisdiction by God’

4. The proper response to the exercise of the Pope’s non-infallible magisterium

5. What Fr Palmieri ACTUALLY says about resisting the Pope

6. When the Pope is actually teaching ex cathedra

7. Do we need an infallible list of infallible propositions? Fr Palmieri responds

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Editor’s Notes

The following objection is sometimes levelled against Catholics by certain heretics or schismatics:

“[I]f we can’t know when the Pope is speaking ex-cathedra, then it really doesn’t matter how infallible he actually is because it can never become practically helpful unless you can know, with unmistakable certainty, every time the Pope does so. If we are still left in a state of debate, then we are left where we originally were before we sought the Pope’s help.”1

The lack of an “infallible list of infallible statements”, we are told, means that infallibility and the papacy are both dead letters.

In the course of considering a number texts from Fr Domenico Palmieri relevant to the “recognise and resist” movement, we also found and translated the following response to this objection – showing that it is far from new.

Note: The Latin text from Fr Palmieri has been translated into English with the assistance of AI, with each line subsequently checked against the original by a human, and edited in the process.

In the following treatment, let us notice the following two points:

1. Fr Palmieri rejects the need for such clarity, and explains why it is utterly irrelevant.

2. His comments on the alleged need for a “diligent inquiry” prior to a dogmatic definition completely destroy certain arguments which seek to explain why post-conciliar canonisations are not infallible.

You can read more about Fr Palmieri here.

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Tractatus de Romano Pontifice cum Prolegomeno de Ecclesia

Fr Dominico Palmieri SJ

Editio Altera Aucta Et In Nonnullis Emendata
Prati, 1891, pp. 700–1

Available at Archive.org

1. The See and the Seated: Fr Dominic Palmieri SJ against Gallican theology of the Papacy

2. ‘They miserably deceive themselves who think they can adhere to the Roman See while resisting the Pontiff’ – Fr Palmieri SJ

3. ‘Stripped of jurisdiction by God’ – Fr Palmieri SJ on the Pope Question

4. The Pope is ‘not to be publicly contradicted’ – Fr Palmieri on the non-infallible magisterium

5. What Fr Palmieri ACTUALLY says about resisting the Pope

6. Can the Pope teach ex cathedra in a letter to a single bishop? Fr Palmieri explains

7. Do we need an infallible list of infallible propositions? Fr Palmieri responds

THESIS XXXI: Infallible definitions

The following text is for WM+ members.

The WM Review is free for readers. This is because we believe these ideas must reach as many people as possible.

However, we also provide WM+ articles – additional material for those who choose to support this work financially.

This helps us continue producing serious Catholic research, while ensuring that the main body of material remains accessible for all.

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Editor’s Notes

This is the sixth and final part of a serialisation of Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for dealing with scrupulosity.

It deals with specific problems that arise from scrupulosity – with particular regard to purity and perfectionism.

Ultimately, if the scrupulous person does not let go of his white-knuckle grip on life, he can never let God act in and through him, for the very purpose that he exists.

We hope you have enjoyed this series and found it helpful. Bookmark it for future reference!

For more on Fr Doyle and this pamphlet, see Part I.

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Scruples and their Treatment

Fr William Doyle

1. What are scruples? Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for the scrupulous

2. Five remedies for scruples – Fr William Doyle SJ

3. Fixing the distorted vision of scrupulosity – Fr William Doyle SJ

4. Scrupulosity, Confession and Holy Communion – Fr William Doyle SJ

5. What makes scrupulosity complex – Fr William Doyle SJ

6. Purer and more perfect than God? Fr William Doyle SJ

Scrupulous and Dangerous Acts of Virtue

It is no uncommon plan of the demon of scrupulosity to so twist and distort even most praiseworthy acts as to take away liberty in their performance, and to impose as obligatory an act that is purely voluntary. A few examples will explain what is meant.

A person, having deprived himself several times, in a spirit of penance, of sugar in his tea or coffee, feels uneasy if he afterwards takes sugar, believing himself “guilty” of sensuality and infidelity to grace.

Meeting in the street several persons of the opposite sex, the sight of whom might cause me trouble, I have for a long time past imposed on myself the act of self-denial of not looking at them. Now, although my confessor assures me that I may look at them deliberately without shadow of sin, I am afraid to do so, and would believe myself “guilty” of any evil thoughts that might arise from so doing.

In these and a thousand other instances, the devil endeavours to steal away liberty of action, and to impose an obligation where there is none. He presents to the scrupulous soul a puzzling dilemma. If one acts against one’s foolish fears and asserts liberty of action, one omits what is more perfect, nay, what seems to be alone allowed. On the other hand, if one submits to the yoke of scrupulosity, many things generally allowed would have to be omitted, and liberty would be ever increasingly restricted.

What course, then, should be taken?

The most experienced masters of the spiritual life, when confronted with a case of this kind, give the following advice, the wisdom of which will be appreciated each time it is followed.

The penitent should enquire of his director, if it is not self-evident, whether the act in question is sinful or not. If assured that it is quite lawful, he should resolve:

1. To perform the act about which he is troubled, six, seven or eight times, or as often as may be necessary to acquire the habit of acting freely and stifling foolish remorse.

2. Afterwards to deny himself, by doing what is more perfect, but with the knowledge that the opposite way of acting would cause no uneasiness or scruples.

Without such a resolution, resolutely and perseveringly carried out, the poor anxious soul will remain caught in this dilemma of the devil as in a vice, which tightens more and more. For once the soul allows itself to be thus entrapped, the devil will multiply trouble on trouble, and fill the most indispensable actions with perplexities and difficulties.

On the other hand, as experience teaches, once these acts of mortification are done freely under obedience, they are done joyfully and with ease, the spirit of God and the spirit of liberty going always hand in hand. Obedience to the demon is hard; obedience to God is a pleasure.

It may be asked whence arises this dangerous complication of scrupulosity? It comes from the timidity which does not allow the soul to be content with the perfect security given by the confessor’s assurance or by common sense, both of which declare that the action in question may be performed without even the shadow of sin.

The soul is troubled because it seeks “a greater security” than Providence wishes to grant, that is to say, the security given by reason or the reply of the confessor.

Scruples regarding Holy Purity

As the scruples of pious persons are often concerned with the virtue of purity, many may find it useful and consoling to recall the following.

Mortal Sin not Probable.

In order that a mortal sin against purity be committed, it is necessary (as for every mortal sin) that there be at the time and at the same moment full consent and full actual attention to the grave malice of the thought, word or action. In other words, in order to sin mortally, there must be perfect knowledge and full consent, the one clearly perceiving, the other fully accepting, the grave sin. Besides this it is necessary that both acts be simultaneous.

Is this what happens in the thoughts or liberties of pious souls against the angelic virtue? Certainly not.

Nearly always they do not realise they are doing wrong; they completely forget their thought or act is sinful, even though a moment before they may have clearly perceived its malice. In all such cases they do not commit sin, since they are not conscious of wrong while thinking or acting. Or they only see the malice of their thought or act in a confused way, and though there may be full consent of will, the fault is no more than venial, since the knowledge of the wrong is imperfect.

Two Principles of Security

Should souls that have been tempted against purity examine whether they have consented? They must not think of doing so.

These examinations are imprudent and dangerous, their only result being to upset one’s peace of mind, or bring back the temptation with renewed force.

Besides they are quite unnecessary, because a scrupulous soul may take for rule the two following principles.

Firstly, every time mortal sin is committed, the soul knows it clearly before any examination. Secondly, on the other hand, the soul is certain that mortal sin has not been committed when there is any doubt on the matter.

But, it may be objected, if unhappily in these temptations consent has been given either mortally or venially, is not examination necessary for accusation?

No; such examination is neither necessary nor useful; it is even very dangerous, as has been said, since it is likely to renew the temptation. According to the first principle laid down, it is certain that no mortal sin has been committed, since there is no certainty of it before examination.

Besides, even if mortal sin was committed (which is not admitted), or a venial sin, these mortal and venial sins would be blotted out either by the first act of sincere sorrow made, or by the first absolution received.

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Bold Affirmation of Victory

The scrupulous soul struggling with the demon of impurity may, relying on the principles of security given above, constantly affirm that it has been victorious. This should be done often and boldly. To do so is of importance for the continuation of victory. For nothing gives such spirit and generosity in the struggle as the secret confidence that one is faithful and united to God.

On the other hand, the soul becomes discouraged if it believes, even wrongfully, that it has sinned mortally. It is then that it will give in to the temptation and verify the well-known axiom: “A battle believed to be lost, is a lost battle.”

Cut down Examination and Accusation

Examination and accusation of sins against purity should be reduced to a minimum. Without previous examination, it will be enough for the scrupulous soul, which has been tempted against the holy virtue, to say to the confessor:

“Father, I have been tempted against the virtue of purity, will you kindly question me?”

An experienced and prudent confessor will at once understand the case after a question or two, and will probably forbid the penitent to examine or accuse himself further in detail, but to be content with a general accusation.

Care of Health

As ill-health or want of certain bodily precautions are oftentimes the source of temptations against purity, the confessor will at times be able to give advice or suggest remedies that will lessen or completely remove the temptation.

Theologians agree that those private attentions necessary to health often recommended by doctors are allowable, and are in no way an occasion of mortal sin. It is, therefore, certain the confessor will not forbid them, especially to scrupulous souls.

On their side, penitents should disregard or despise any temptation that may arise in the performance of these lawful actions.

Utility of these Temptations.

Instead of being discouraged, souls strongly tempted against holy purity should look on themselves as highly privileged.

It is a truth of Christianity that God only permits trials for our greater good. The Holy Spirit assures us of this by the mouth of St. Paul:

“To them that love God all things (even the vilest temptations) work together unto good” (Rom. 8:28).

This great Apostle, who, in spite of his high sanctity, bore the assaults of the impure spirit, received as consolation from the Holy Spirit these words:

“Power (chastity) is made perfect in infirmity (temptation)” (2 Cor. 12:9).

That is why he boldly adds:

“Gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities (temptations), that the power (chastity) of Christ may dwell in me.”

Doubtful Security: Unshaken Security

To sum up all that has been said, the scrupulous soul has the choice of two certainties: the one precarious and unstable, the other unshaken and even divine, since it is God Himself Who is its author and guarantees its solidity.

The first is that deceitful security, which the scrupulous soul seeks, by always taking what he considers the surest side, but in reality by obeying his foolish fears and the demon of scrupulosity, which lead him into continual and even greater difficulties.

The second security is that which comes from heaven through his confessor. By following the advice of his director, the scrupulous soul is absolutely sure of not committing sin, because he is certain of thus being guided like a little child by the hand of God, which is one with that of the hand of his confessor. This security is so complete and absolute, that even if the director should be deceived, the obedient soul would still be secure, because even in this case it is God Who is obeyed. It is He Who commands obedience in spite of doubts and fears, and takes upon Himself all the responsibility.

There is no greater security of conscience than obedience to one’s confessor, joined to the secret assurance of conscience, attesting that one’s contrition is sincere. And this contrition, as already explained, is nothing more than the sincere will of never sinning mortally again.

This security, founded on obedience and true sorrow, is that with which God ordains that man should be content. It is a reasonable security, theologically accurate, truly divine. It is the supreme security. To wish for any other greater would be to seek the impossible, and to cast oneself into the abyss.

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Scruples and their Treatment – Fr William Doyle

1. What are scruples? Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for the scrupulous

2. Five remedies for scruples – Fr William Doyle SJ

3. Fixing the distorted vision of scrupulosity – Fr William Doyle SJ

4. Scrupulosity, Confession and Holy Communion – Fr William Doyle SJ

5. What makes scrupulosity complex – Fr William Doyle SJ

6. Purer and more perfect than God? Fr William Doyle SJ

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Read Next:

• Pamphlets for the Faithful – Fr William Doyle SJ

• Are you mad? G.K. Chesterton on maniacs and lunatics

• The Church’s teaching on suicide: Everything you need to know

• It’s not a sin to be depressed: What St Philip Neri and St Thomas Aquinas have to say

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Editor’s Notes

This is the fifth part of a serialisation of Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for dealing with scrupulosity.

It deals with complications that arise in the treatment of scruples – and why obstinacy can be both a feature of the scrupulous, and the main barrier for their cure.

For more on Fr Doyle and this pamphlet, see Part I.

Subscribe now

Scruples and their Treatment

Fr William Doyle

1. What are scruples? Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for the scrupulous

2. Five remedies for scruples – Fr William Doyle SJ

3. Fixing the distorted vision of scrupulosity – Fr William Doyle SJ

4. Scrupulosity, Confession and Holy Communion – Fr William Doyle SJ

5. What makes scrupulosity complex – Fr William Doyle SJ

A Favourite Stratagem of the Evil One

Sometimes scrupulous souls have temptations which the devil uses to trouble timorous consciences, to distract them in prayer, to keep them back at every step; above all, to crush them by the multiplicity of small worries, and so render their lives impossible. Among these temptations are thoughts of blasphemy, despising holy things, desire for the profanation of sacred objects, and even of the Sacred Host, joy in the sorrow of others, wishing the death of others, doubts against faith, evil intentions in innocent actions, evil thoughts about persons to whom one speaks, finally, temptations against the holy purity in souls that hold such things in horror.

These diabolical temptations, though harmless since there is no likelihood of their being consented to, nevertheless, hide, when frequent, a dangerous trick. For woe to the soul that sets about examining and analysing these suggestions!

That is what the devil desires. Because this imprudent examination will increase and multiply the temptations, will lead the soul into a maze of doubts and perplexities, from which every effort to extricate itself will only entangle it more hopelessly. The sacraments will become impossible, piety intolerable, and in the end conscience will become wholly unstrung, and despair will be the result.

Warned, therefore, by his confessor, of the insidiousness and danger of these temptations, yet assured of their harmlessness if rightly handled, the scrupulous penitent should put them from him at once with quiet scorn, and on no pretext whatsoever must he stop to examine them or recall them when once put away.

Four Complications of Scrupulosity

Scrupulosity may become complicated in various ways, a fact which renders cure very difficult.

The complications most often met with are the four following, each of which requires patient and careful treatment.

First Complication: Obstinacy

The first and most dangerous complication of scrupulosity is obstinacy, and the refusal to obey the confessor, above all, when this goes so far as absolutely to refuse to receive the Sacraments.

As a scrupulous soul can only be cured by obedience to his confessor, there is little hope for him, if, instead of following the director God has given him, he prefers as guides the demon of scrupulosity and the demon of disobedience, both of whom will lead him to destruction.

“Despair,” says the Holy Spirit, “of the man who is wise in his own eyes.” (Prov.)

Is there not much more reason to despair when this so-called “wise” man is the very blindest of the blind, as are scrupulous souls, and yet refuses obstinately to take the hand of the only guide who can save him from the abyss? The best advice to give such a one is to bid him meditate with faith on each of the two parts of the Gospel sentence:

“He that heareth you, heareth Me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me.” (Luke 10:16)

Can he doubt that these words spoken by our Lord to His apostles, apply to priests, heirs to their authority over the penitent?

He should also ponder on that other saying of the Saviour:

“Unless you become as little children (by your docility), you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:3)

With these poor obstinate souls, the confessor must exhaust every resource of his priestly charity, knowing there is question here of saving a soul from utter ruin. But he will be able to gain nothing with unreasonable minds in moments of excitement, which with them are really crises of madness. All that can then be obtained by zeal is that they may return in better dispositions.

Second Complication: Mortal Sins mingled with Scruples

As has been said, mortal sin may not uncommonly be found to accompany and mingle with scruples. They may mingle even in the most varied proportions. This occurs sometimes to such an extent that the confessor asks himself whether he should devote himself most to the cure of scruples or to the eradication of evil habits.

In dealing with scrupulous sinners the confessor must proceed with great caution. He will, first of all, assure himself that mortal sin has been committed, which is not lightly to be admitted in a scrupulous soul, but only after palpable and certain proof.

Next he will endeavour, as speedily as possible, to arrive at the number and species of these grave sins, so as to limit the evil, that is to say, to reduce their number and kind to a minimum, in his own mind first of all, and then in the mind of the penitent.

It is of the utmost importance that this scrupulous sinner should regard as mortal only this minimum of grave sins. To secure this the confessor will oblige him to disregard doubtful mortal sins. He will tell him there is no danger in acting thus, since even if these doubtful sins were really mortal, they would be effaced by contrition and the Sacraments. To prevent any uneasiness, the confessor should, of his own accord, assure the penitent that he regards the serious sins confessed as really mortal, but that in spite of these grave sins he maintains that his penitent is scrupulous, and that the treatment laid down is necessary.

The confessor will have less hesitation in continuing the treatment, as scrupulous sinners are, as a rule, the most timid in making use of the liberties permitted them.

Third Complication: Repetition of Explanations

If there is one class of scrupulous souls more dreaded by directors than any other it is those who are constantly going back on explanations given, or decisions received, because they appear faulty in their eyes.

A penitent who belongs to this class has one thing to recall, and one thing to do: it is his duty to obey the confessor without adding a single word, once the latter, having listened to the reasons given in favour of repetition, or even when not wishing to hear anything, maintains his previous decision.

It is God Who then declares through His minister that He takes everything on Himself. It is He Who bids the penitent to obey in silence. What, therefore, need he fear?

Fourth Complication: Incurable State

The fourth complication of scrupulosity is that which results from the advanced age or defective intelligence of the penitent, or from a persistent cowardice which shrinks from applying the treatment.

When one or the other of these obstacles is met with, the complete cure of scrupulosity is almost impossible. All that the director can do is to consider how much of the treatment can be prudently attempted.

Usually it will be best to try only to lessen the malady and prescribe palliations, above all, when it is perceived that a full and complete treatment will only upset still further a diseased mind, or an old person, whose deeply ingrained habits and notions are unalterable.

Subscribe now, so as not to miss the next part:

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Scruples and their Treatment – Fr William Doyle

1. What are scruples? Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for the scrupulous

2. Five remedies for scruples – Fr William Doyle SJ

3. Fixing the distorted vision of scrupulosity – Fr William Doyle SJ

4. Scrupulosity, Confession and Holy Communion – Fr William Doyle SJ

5. What makes scrupulosity complex – Fr William Doyle SJ

HELP KEEP THE WM REVIEW ONLINE WITH WM+!

As we expand The WM Review we would like to keep providing free articles for everyone.

Our work takes a lot of time and effort to produce. If you have benefitted from it please do consider supporting us financially.

A subscription gets you access to our exclusive WM+ material, and helps ensure that we can keep writing and sharing free material for all.

You can see what readers are saying over at our Testimonials page.

And you can visit The WM Review Shop for our ‘Lovely Mugs’ and more.

(We make our WM+ material freely available to clergy, priests and seminarians upon request. Please subscribe and reply to the email if this applies to you.)

Subscribe to WM+ now to make sure you always receive our material. Thank you!

Subscribe now

Donate

Lovely Mugs

Refer a friend

Give a gift subscription

Read Next:

• Pamphlets for the Faithful – Fr William Doyle SJ

• Are you mad? G.K. Chesterton on maniacs and lunatics

• The Church’s teaching on suicide: Everything you need to know

• It’s not a sin to be depressed: What St Philip Neri and St Thomas Aquinas have to say

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Editor’s Notes

This is the fourth part of a serialisation of Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for dealing with scrupulosity.

The sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion are the great means for overcoming scrupulosity – if they are used correctly. Fr Doyle gives concrete guidance how.

For more on Fr Doyle and this pamphlet, see Part I.

Subscribe now

Scruples and their Treatment

Fr William Doyle

1. What are scruples? Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for the scrupulous

2. Five remedies for scruples – Fr William Doyle SJ

3. Fixing the distorted vision of scrupulosity – Fr William Doyle SJ

4. Scrupulosity, Confession and Holy Communion – Fr William Doyle SJ

Confession

As the Sacrament of Penance is the great cure for scrupulosity, it is also the chief object of attack by the enemy. To meet these attacks the following points must be clearly grasped and kept in mind.

The first trouble that oftentimes is suggested by the devil with regard to confession is this: have past confessions been good? Ought they not to be made over again?

How far back should one examine and confess.

The answer is easy. Without either reflection or hesitation, the scrupulous soul must at once answer firmly: my past confessions were good. There is only one exception to this: when some past confession, clearly and before all examination, is seen to be bad, and this for reasons as clear as that two and two make four.

But, it may be objected, suppose these confessions, about which uneasiness is felt, should really have been bad? It does not matter very much. These bad confessions will be forgiven in the confession now about to be made, provided there is sorrow for all sins committed, known and unknown. Therefore, let the scrupulous soul obey God, Who, in the person of the confessor, forbids these former confessions to be repeated, and Who takes everything on Himself.

Examination of Conscience before Confession

To a scrupulous soul examination of conscience is a perfect anthill of anxieties and a real torture. This is true, whether the scrupulous soul is innocent, or has contracted habits of grievous sin, before which last is by no means rare. For the devil can mingle scruples with grave matter, while littleness of mind, joined to a timid and impressionable character, which is the source of scrupulosity, does not exclude vicious inclinations. In both cases the examination of conscience should be as simple as possible.

For the good scrupulous soul, a rapid glance over the past, since the last confession, will be sufficient and best. If grievous sin has, in the interval, been committed, it will thus be immediately perceived. This done, the obligatory examination ends, as the obligation extends to mortal sins alone. The confessor may, indeed, allow two or three minutes extra for the examination of venial or doubtful mortal sins, but the penitent must promise the confessor that he considers this a work of supererogation and in no wise of obligation.

But how is this examination to be simplified for the scrupulous sinner, that is to say, for one who falls more or less often into mortal sin? Briefly as follows.

Having first ascertained the kind of mortal sin or sins into which the penitent usually falls, the confessor will bid him consider this class or classes of sin for a few seconds, and to decide at once the probable number of times these mortal sins have certainly been committed. As has been said, this rapid glance is, for such a soul, the surest intuition of the truth, and the one least subject to perplexities. After this rapid examination on each of the habitual mortal sins, the confessor will allow his scrupulous penitent to examine for a moment as to whether he may have fallen into any other certainly grievous sins. This done, the examination of obligation is finished. If a few minutes be added for examination of venial sins, it would be well, but this is by no means of obligation.

Contrition

There is no forgiveness of sin without sorrow for sin. This sorrow is of two kinds: perfect contrition, which is sorrow for having offended God because He is so good in Himself; simple contrition or attrition, which arises from some less perfect motive than the love of God, such as the fear of hell, the loss of heaven, etc. Perfect contrition is not necessary for the Sacrament of Penance. An act of attrition is sufficient.

As the following questions relating to sorrow for sin often trouble scrupulous souls, they will be here briefly answered.

1. Is it necessary to feel sorrow?

The act of contrition is an act of the will resolved not to sin mortally. It in no way consists, therefore, either in affectionate regret or in tender feelings in the sensitive part of the soul. A dry, but firm and sincere act of the will is all that is necessary for contrition.

2. Is it necessary to have the firm purpose of avoiding all venial sin?

No attention to venial sin is necessary for contrition. Strictly speaking, every mortal sin might be forgiven without the pardon of a single venial sin. To obtain pardon of venial sin there must, of course, be sorrow for them, but venial sins for which we have either contrition or attrition may be forgiven without pardon being granted for those for which we have no sorrow.

3. Should the act of contrition apply to each mortal sin in particular?

No; any act of contrition embracing all one’s mortal sins taken together is sufficient.

4. Can contrition be sincere when one is certain of falling back again into particular mortal sins?

However great our weakness or the force of temptation, we are never absolutely certain of falling back into mortal sin. On the contrary, faith teaches that we shall always have grace sufficient to resist, if we so will.

But no matter how sure we may feel that we shall fall back again into sin, our actual sorrow is none the less good, provided that at the present moment our purpose of amendment is sincere. If we are prepared here and now never to commit mortal sin, our will is right, and anything that comes later to turn it in the wrong direction does not interfere with its present proper disposition.

5. When should the act of contrition be made?

The penitent should make his act of contrition during his preparation for confession, since at the moment of absolution a scrupulous soul is usually so troubled that the act of sorrow is not made attentively.

Accusation

The accusation must be made short, for it is here that fancies and scruples are apt to multiply. The rule of despising doubts must be applied in a broad-minded manner, the confessor imposing brevity, obeyed, and the longing for a fuller accusation in order to secure greater security mortified. Let the penitent accuse himself honestly, and tell everything simply as it appears in the mind. Let him not go back on what has been said, even if it is perceived that inadvertently the exact truth has not been told.

According to the Council of Trent and the surest theology, one is only obliged to confess sins which one is certain are mortal, that is to say, the grave guilt of which is as certain as it is that two and two make four. Sins, mortal in themselves, but which are committed in doubt, are not necessary matter for confession. In the same way sins clearly mortal and clearly committed, but probably already confessed, need not be mentioned. Finally, one is not obliged to confess any aggravating circumstances, no matter how great, unless it change the nature of the sin.

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Absolution

May a scrupulous soul refuse absolution? Nothing is more diabolical in a scrupulous soul than the refusal of absolution. Absolution is consented to at times, but on condition that the confessor allow this or that caprice. It is thus the demon becomes the “judge” of this most necessary sacrament, for is it not he who excites the imagination of the poor soul, and fills it with terror? He attaches tremendous importance to this prerogative of judge of absolution which is so foolishly given him, because it gives him a ready means of entangling the scrupulous soul still more hopelessly in his nets, besides depriving it of pardon and grace.

Why should absolution be feared when God, by the mouth of His priest, commands its reception, when He asserts its validity, when He takes all the responsibility, and declares that to refuse it is contrary to common sense?

After Confession

A victory is changed into defeat if, by a skilful manoeuvre, the opposing general should succeed in leading the victorious troops to imagine the battle lost. This is what often happens to the scrupulous soul after a really good confession. It is lost if it lend an ear to Satan, who will try to transform into a sacrilege the excellent confession made.

In fact, leaving the confessional is for the scrupulous soul like walking into an ambush where the enemy lies waiting. The preparation for confession, the examination of conscience, the accusation, the words exchanged with the confessor, the contrition, the absolution, in short, everything which goes to make up the sacrament becomes a flock of scruples, which Satan stirs into dangerous activity at the least examination imprudently made. There is no foolish longing the evil one does not excite, no false motive he does not suggest, in order to lead the poor soul to examine into the confession just made.

A decisive battle is then fought. If the soul remains in peace and decides that his confession was good, he is saved; an absolution received and believed valid through obedience is a long step towards the overthrow of scrupulosity. If, on the contrary, the confession is condemned as “invalid”, or at least if the poor soul remain tormented by the thought of sacrilege, the evil will become worse; he will fall into despair, because in his eyes the only efficacious remedy for his trouble, which is confession, has been changed into poison.

Consequently, on leaving the confessional, let the scrupulous soul observe the two following directions:

1. To refrain from any examination under any pretext whatsoever, either as to the confession itself, or any of its accompanying acts, such as preparation, contrition, etc.

2. In spite of the “gravest reasons” he may have for suspecting the validity of his confession, contrition, etc., once he is not as evidently certain as he is that two and two make four, that this sacrament was unworthily received, he must boldly decide, and this without examination, that his confession was entirely good in spite of contrary impressions.

Cure of Scruples by Receiving Holy Communion

When there is question of levelling a newly made road, the coarse stones are crushed by a steamroller. Such a levelling or crushing in the case of a scrupulous soul is best accomplished by frequent Communion. Because each Communion means a definite victory over a scrupulous disposition disposed to throw a thousand difficulties in the way; it means a casting aside of vain fears, a gain in trust and confidence in God, a strengthening of the will in whose proper use complete victory must finally lie.

Again, the repeated reception of the Blessed Eucharist by scrupulous souls produces other good effects. It gives joy to the heart, and a delightful consciousness of its union with God. This does away with sadness and the false impression that the soul is not right with its Creator, an impression, which scruples frequently produce. Lastly, the facility with which Holy Communion is often received is the surest and most consoling sign that scrupulosity is killed forever.

The scrupulous soul, therefore, should receive Holy Communion as often as his confessor directs. Let him obey blindly, treading under foot all uneasiness and uncertainty, however great it may be, of having perhaps sinned mortally since absolution. He must go to the altar rails after making a simple act of contrition, as he has been ordered, without seeking any other confessor. The promptitude of his cure and a delightful peace will soon be the reward of his obedience.

Storm the Forerunner of Lasting Calm

The scrupulous are nearly always inclined to discouragement, and even to despair, in the course of the treatment just explained.

“I have been promised solid peace,” they say, “as the reward of this painful treatment, but instead of calm it has greatly increased my disquiet of soul.”

They speak quite truly. The uneasiness and trouble of soul they complain of are inevitable in the beginning of the treatment, and even when it is almost ended. But these storms foretell a lasting calm which will soon follow. A little thought will convince of this, besides explaining the painful process through which the scrupulous soul is passing to peace.

All the treatment to be undergone by the scrupulous person is of a nature to produce at first great agitation. How could it be otherwise? How could the supports, on which his sickly security leant since childhood, be cut away without pain? How could he renounce everything that brought peace, such as it was, without feeling it intensely; for instance, exaggerating faults, repeating the same accusations, keeping away from Holy Communion for greater security, etc.?

Besides, Satan is on the watch to make sin of, to turn into horrible acts, the most lawful liberties. The devil knows that all is now at stake; he is conscious that his victim is slipping from his grasp. Feeling that his long tyranny over this poor soul is about to cease, seeing himself driven from a house where he was master so long, is it wonderful that he should shake it to its very foundations, just as he shakes and convulses the body of a possessed person out of which he is driven by an exorcism?

In almost every undertaking, be it human or supernatural, we must, according to the words of the Psalmist: “Sow in tears to reap in joy” (Ps. 125:5). And St. Paul says:

“Now all chastisement for the present indeed seems not to bring with it joy but sorrow; but afterwards it will yield to them that are exercised by it the most peaceful fruit of justice.” (Heb. 12:2)

The first effect of a serious operation is an increase of pain and discomfort. Now, the treatment of scrupulosity is equivalent to a series of painful amputations. It lops off one by one those foolish safeguards with which the scrupulous soul had surrounded itself, and which had become a kind of second nature to it. Small wonder, therefore, that pain and distress should result.

Yet this suffering which is experienced is the very best sign that the evil malady is being removed and that a cure is being effected. Consequently, instead of losing courage, the penitent should only redouble both efforts and confidence, assured that the treatment is producing lasting effects, effects foreseen and foretold by those who understand the spiritual life.

Subscribe now, so as not to miss the next part:

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Scruples and their Treatment – Fr William Doyle

1. What are scruples? Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for the scrupulous

2. Five remedies for scruples – Fr William Doyle SJ

3. Fixing the distorted vision of scrupulosity – Fr William Doyle SJ

4. Scrupulosity, Confession and Holy Communion – Fr William Doyle SJ

HELP KEEP THE WM REVIEW ONLINE WITH WM+!

As we expand The WM Review we would like to keep providing free articles for everyone.

Our work takes a lot of time and effort to produce. If you have benefitted from it please do consider supporting us financially.

A subscription gets you access to our exclusive WM+ material, and helps ensure that we can keep writing and sharing free material for all.

You can see what readers are saying over at our Testimonials page.

And you can visit The WM Review Shop for our ‘Lovely Mugs’ and more.

(We make our WM+ material freely available to clergy, priests and seminarians upon request. Please subscribe and reply to the email if this applies to you.)

Subscribe to WM+ now to make sure you always receive our material. Thank you!

Subscribe now

Donate

Lovely Mugs

Refer a friend

Give a gift subscription

Read Next:

• Pamphlets for the Faithful – Fr William Doyle SJ

• Are you mad? G.K. Chesterton on maniacs and lunatics

• The Church’s teaching on suicide: Everything you need to know

• It’s not a sin to be depressed: What St Philip Neri and St Thomas Aquinas have to say

Follow on Twitter, YouTube and Telegram:

• Twitter (The WM Review)

• The Father Coleridge Reader

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Editor’s Notes

This is the third part of a serialisation of Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for dealing with scrupulosity.

It sets out particular tips for scrupulous persons to help them overcome their problem, and fix their distorted view of God, morality and themselves.

For more on Fr Doyle and this pamphlet, see Part I.

Subscribe now

Scruples and their Treatment

Fr William Doyle

1. What are scruples? Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for the scrupulous

2. Five remedies for scruples – Fr William Doyle SJ

3. Fixing the distorted vision of scrupulosity – Fr William Doyle SJ

Particular Remedies

Besides these general remedies for the cure of scrupulosity thus briefly described, there are some particular and practical rules to be followed, which will be found of great use in freeing the scrupulous soul from its malady. These will now be set out in order.

1. Doubts must be Ignored

The scrupulous soul must take no notice of his doubts, that is to say, he must regard as absolutely null and void all doubtful laws, prohibitions or obligations, or any fear of sin, if the motive of the fear be doubtful. More than this. He must consider as doubtful, and consequently as not binding, all laws, obligations, or fears of having sinned, which are not absolute certainties, i.e., as self-evident as that two and two make four.

Again, in confession, such a soul must consider himself free to accuse or not accuse himself of mortal sin in any way doubtful. In the same manner he must not impose on himself, as an obligation, the accusation of mortal sins perhaps already confessed. On the contrary, he should boldly set his face against such a confession. Furthermore, he must abstain from making a confession over again, which, perhaps, was good, or perhaps bad, whatever reason he may have to doubt of its being all right. Let him have no uneasiness in acting thus, since the obligation of making these doubtful confessions over again is in itself doubtful, and consequently not binding.

2. Belief in the Easiness of Forgiveness

The scrupulous soul must believe that all his sins are forgiven immediately each time he makes an act of perfect contrition, or receives absolution, even with imperfect contrition. “But,” it may be asked, “how am I to be sure that I have this contrition?”

The scrupulous may believe they have the necessary contrition when the act of contrition is made with sincerity. This sincerity is assured when the firm purpose of never sinning again mortally is itself sincere or free from deceit. God so desires the conversion of sinners that He reduces to a minimum the conditions necessary for pardon. He asks only the most ordinary good will, that is to say, the simplest firm purpose of not sinning mortally.

3. Presuming Decisions

When the scrupulous are troubled as to how they should act, they may always presume on the reply which their director probably would give, and they should at once put into practice any relaxation that their director would probably permit. This “probably” should be sufficient for them; because it is God Who, through their confessor, ordains that they should be satisfied, and He will answer for it all.

In reality, the trouble of these souls, and their uncertainty as to their director’s reply, are merely doubts, and these, as has been seen, are to be put aside and done with at once, by taking the broader path.

4. Lenient View of One’s Faults

It is of the greatest importance that the scrupulous should not exaggerate their faults, either to themselves or to their director. The reason for this is obvious. Scrupulosity chiefly consists in seeing sin where there is none, or in exaggerating the malice of actions scarcely reprehensible.

The imagination sees through a powerful magnifying glass. The judgment becomes more and more deformed, until the poor soul comes to calumniate itself, telling lies about itself under pretext of greater security. Experience shows that the way in which the scrupulous exaggerate their faults to their confessor under pretext of greater security soon becomes the way in which they look at themselves. One wrong figure will upset a whole calculation; a false weight will not give correct results; but in this case it is worse still, it is the balance itself of the judgment that is rendered useless.

From this exaggeration of faults follows another and a worse evil. The director is completely handicapped. How could even the most skilful doctor cure a patient of whose state he constantly receives false reports? Is it not tempting God for the scrupulous thus to seek to be guided by Him in the person of His minister, whilst they use every means to deceive the latter? By exaggerating their faults, scrupulous persons run the risk of receiving from their confessor discouraging replies, and decisions which are over severe, and which will be to them as so much poison. Denying steadily that the most efficacious remedies prescribed produce any fruit whatever, they will end by causing their director to despair of their cure and by being abandoned by him.

The scrupulous should lessen rather than exaggerate their failings. In this way, little by little, they will come to see them as they are, and the scales of the balance will be set right. Thus, in speaking of their troubles outside confession, they should be on their guard against over-emphasising certain circumstances, which might make their case worse than it really is; and in their sacramental accusation let them not fear to extenuate rather than exaggerate. For why should they fear, when God Himself, by the mouth of their director, wishes them to act thus?

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5. Promptitude in Acting on Decisions

How many scrupulous people there are who have a mania for seeking advice, who make the confessor repeat the same thing a hundred times, but who take very little trouble to put his answers into practice?

It is necessary, therefore, that the scrupulous act at once on the decisions of their confessor. Something postponed is something not done. Unless they act at once, they forget what has been said, or only imperfectly remember it, or else it becomes a dead letter by delay. It may even happen that if later they decide to obey, they may no longer be able to recall what exactly has been said, and scruples will arise, and they will not dare to act.

6. Broad-minded Interpretation of Advice

Scrupulous persons should take care, when acting under obedience, to interpret the advice of their confessor in the broadest sense. The demon will try to make the path narrow. God bids them widen it.

When they are in doubt as to whether the decisions of their confessor apply to such or such a particular case, or if it might be understood in such or such a sense, let them take the broader way. These reservations in obedience—doing only by halves what their confessor ordains, or interpreting his orders in their narrowest sense—come from a want of faith and courage in conquering foolish fancies. Why should one fear to act freely when it is God Who commands?

7. Not to Pile up Questions.

Scrupulous souls should avoid filling their memory (or their notes) with question upon question to put to their director. On the contrary, the wise course is to try to forget doubts and worries as soon as they arise.

The effort made to remember all these troubles will only serve to root them more firmly. New difficulties will spring from the old ones, and, even whilst seeking advice, the fear of forgetting something so preoccupies the mind as to diminish the attention paid to the confessor. How much of this worry would vanish like smoke, if only scrupulous souls would not keep it alive by useless dwelling upon it!

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Scruples and their Treatment – Fr William Doyle

1. What are scruples? Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for the scrupulous

2. Five remedies for scruples – Fr William Doyle SJ

3. Fixing the distorted vision of scrupulosity – Fr William Doyle SJ

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• Pamphlets for the Faithful – Fr William Doyle SJ

• Are you mad? G.K. Chesterton on maniacs and lunatics

• The Church’s teaching on suicide: Everything you need to know

• It’s not a sin to be depressed: What St Philip Neri and St Thomas Aquinas have to say

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Editor’s Notes

This is the second part of a serialisation of Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for dealing with scrupulosity.

It sets out five remedies for scruples which cannot be omitted by anyone who wants to overcome this problem.

For more on Fr Doyle and this pamphlet, see Part I. (We have also expanded the commentary on the scurrilous attempt to link “sedevacantism” with scrupulosity, recently published in ’s Crisis Magazine. Go and check it out!)

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Scruples and their Treatment

Fr William Doyle

1. What are scruples? Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for the scrupulous

2. Five remedies for scruples – Fr William Doyle SJ

Treatment of Scrupulosity

The general rules for the treatment of scruples may be reduced to five: prayer, vigilance, struggle against depression, obedience, generosity in self-conquest. On the first three, little need be said; obedience and generosity in self-conquest constitute the basis of the treatment.

First Remedy: Prayer

The precept laid down by our Lord Jesus Christ to pray in temptation is evidently applicable to scruples, which are a great danger even to salvation. Satan would mock at our weakness in our fight with scruples, as Goliath mocked at David, unless we were armed by prayer with the very strength of God.

And so prayer, however dry and against the grain, is needed by the soul that is a prey to scruples.

Second Remedy: Vigilance

“Watch ye and pray that ye enter not into temptation” (Matt. 26:41).

For a scrupulous soul, what is this holy vigilance recommended by Christ? It is the vigilance of a soldier facing an enemy. To sleep, to throw down one’s arms, to neglect precautions, would be serious faults against this warlike vigilance prescribed by our Saviour. How foolish, then, those who think to cure scrupulous souls by recommending them to have a good time of it, to put aside prayer, mortification of the senses, and all care of conscience! Do they consider themselves wiser than Jesus Christ who thus dare to counsel the very opposite to His command?

Third Remedy: Struggle against Depression

If there be anyone who feels the effects of sadness as described by the Wise Man: “The sadness of a man consumes the heart” (Prov. 25:20), it is the poor scrupulous soul. And sadness only increases scrupulosity.

The scrupulous, therefore, will do well to have recourse with moderation to innocent amusements. And try to occupy their mind with pleasant thoughts. Above all, such people should strive to keep themselves usefully employed. This is the best antidote to trouble of mind. Does not a trouble, of which we think ten times less, owing to our occupations, become in consequence ten times lighter? No one can pity those who brood over their worries, neglecting the duties of their state, which, whilst giving them necessary distraction, would sanctify their lives and save them much suffering.

Fourth Remedy: Obedience

The two general remedies that yet remain to be discussed, obedience and generosity in self-conquest, are by far the most important. Without perfect, trustful and blind obedience to an experienced confessor there can be no cure for scrupulosity. This obedience should consist of two things: obedience of action, which carries out exactly all that the director prescribes; and obedience of the intelligence, which believes all that is ordered to be believed.

Obedience of action has for its object the putting into practice the freedom of conscience ordered by the director. To ensure complete cure, this freedom must be fully practised, the least holding back would spoil much, if not everything, since by so acting the scrupulous person would show that he either forgets, or does not believe, that it is God Whom he obeys. Although obedience to one’s confessor is necessary for all, it is more indispensable for the scrupulous than for any other.

There are several reasons for this.

1. First of all, because scrupulosity, by affecting the head, takes away one’s common sense in matters of conscience. Providence gave the soul common sense as a guide, and now that this is lost, a substitute is sent in the person of the director, a sympathetic and blessed guide, clothed with divine authority, having received a heavenly commission by the words: “He that hears you, hears Me” (Luke 10:16).

2. Not only does scrupulosity deprive man of the enlightened guide given him by his Creator, but at every step it leads him astray in a labyrinth of doubt.

For this reason also obedience is an indispensable guide. For what else can rescue him from this dreadful confusion? Again, when a plant is bent to the ground by the wind, a prop is necessary in order to strengthen it little by little until it is strong enough to withstand the storm. This is the part of a wise director. Not only does he help the soul in every storm, but he teaches it little by little to do without his aid, a result, however, that will be obtained only by an entire and courageous obedience.

But obedience of action must be accompanied and elevated by obedience of the understanding. For of what value, before God, is the servile obedience of the body, if the soul remains in revolt and persists in opposing its own false ideas to those of truth itself? Towards this more noble obedience the efforts of all enlightened directors tend.

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In the malady of scruples, the demon, by insinuating wrong ideas, leads his unfortunate victim where he wills. Therefore these ideas must be rectified. They have gradually, under Satan’s influence, passed from being mere wrong ideas, through the stage of wrong impressions, on to that of unshaken convictions, and finally have become rules of conduct, over which obedience alone can have any power. It is these errors of the intellect which keep the poor soul away from the Sacraments, and cause it to be guilty of foolish extravagances. But what, it may be asked, are these wrong ideas? The answer can be given in a word: all those by the confessor so considered. Those most generally met with are:

“My confessions were bad. My confessor does not understand me, he is mistaken in me, not believing that I could be so wicked. I have never had contrition. I am constantly committing sins against faith, against purity. I blaspheme interiorly. I rash judge, even priests. The oftener I receive Holy Communion, the worse I become,” etc. etc.

Wrong ideas like these must be given no quarter. It is God Who commands them to be exterminated without mercy, as of old He commanded Saul to destroy the Amalecites, not even sparing Agag, the king. That is to say, the scrupulous soul must abandon any opinion contrary to that of the director. But once rejected, are such opinions done with? By no means.

The Amalecites may feign death, and a guard must be set over apparently dead bodies that may seek to rise again. Above all, there must be a watch for traitors, who may have escaped the carnage, and remain closely concealed in some fold of the obstinate understanding. How may these be discovered? A little watchfulness suffices to detect them. Their presence betrays itself by an equivocation, by an embarrassed silence, or by a want of progress. To the question: “Do you still believe in such or such a theological truth, in such or such a way of looking at your conscience, upon which we were agreed some time ago?” a negative or hesitating answer will be given, or they will say “I dare not act on it.” Is not the clinging to one’s own opinion at once revealed? Are not the Amalecites discovered?

To sum up this twofold obedience, which is the fourth general remedy of scrupulosity, the scrupulous soul must give the confessor unlimited obedience by believing in, as well as acting on, his decisions and directions. Like St. Peter, this soul has the happiness of listening to Jesus Christ Himself. He is sure that it is really Our Lord Who commands him to walk boldly on the waters by despising foolish fears. Ought he not then to obey the call by casting himself into the sea as the intrepid Apostle did?

Fifth Remedy: Generosity in Self-conquest

Self-conquest consists in persevering acts of self-denial.

Vain fears, silly imaginations, all the turmoil and confusion that uncontrolled scrupulosity engenders in the soul, must be resolutely met and opposed at every step. This victory over foolish impressions is also the victory over scrupulosity. But this victory costs much to cowardly and sensual souls; indeed, at first it seems to them impossible.

On the other hand, it is easy to souls accustomed to self-denial. St. Aloysius Gonzaga was a striking example of this. Although his conscience was so delicate that he was unusually exposed to the danger of scrupulosity, his heroic mortification had become so habitual and rendered him so docile to his director, that once a thing was shown to be a scruple, it was conquered on the spot. Less heroic and mortified souls will, of course, have greater difficulty in winning a victory.

Yet let them not despair. The mountain of difficulties will disappear before perseverance. It is in the nature of impressions to become less vivid, to weaken, when despised, and perseverance in generously ignoring them, and driving them away will make them, in a little time, vanish completely.

Scruples and their Treatment – Fr William Doyle

1. What are scruples? Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for the scrupulous

2. Five remedies for scruples – Fr William Doyle SJ

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Read Next:

• Pamphlets for the Faithful – Fr William Doyle SJ

• Are you mad? G.K. Chesterton on maniacs and lunatics

• The Church’s teaching on suicide: Everything you need to know

• It’s not a sin to be depressed: What St Philip Neri and St Thomas Aquinas have to say

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Editor’s Notes

This is the first part of a serialisation of Fr William Doyle SJ’s guide for dealing with scrupulosity.

Fr William “Willie” Doyle SJ was an Irish Jesuit priest, who died serving as a military chaplain, shortly before the end of the First World War.

He lived a remarkable life of penance, and his exploits as a military chaplain are legendary: he lived in the trenches with his men, and would frequently venture into No-Man’s-Land in search of dying men to anoint, absolve and usher into eternity. He was present at the Battle of the Somme, and was nominated for military awards for his bravery. It seems that he died just after assisting a group of soldiers beyond the front line, being hit by a German shell. His body was never recovered.

Those who wish to read about his life, exploits and spiritual life will find ample materials – even the short Catholic Truth Society pamphlet contains enough to demonstrate Fr Doyle’s sanctity. His cause for canonisation is under consideration by the Conciliar/Synodal Church – but one cannot hold that against him.

In addition to his life, he also wrote a number of pamphlets, which have been collected by Cenacle Press. These included materials about vocation and Ignatian retreats for working men (as prospered in Spain and elsewhere in the twentieth century).

• Pamphlets for the Faithful – Fr William Doyle SJ

This mini-series will focus on his pamphlet on the problem of scrupulosity.

Scrupulosity

Many Catholics, especially those who have converted from a life of laxity, are affected by scrupulosity. Scrupulosity may be defined as a kind of religious obsessive-compulsive disorder, which prompts the scrupulous person to anxiety and fear about the morality of his acts and state.

Although he was referring to remorse for grave sins actually committed, Macbeth’s words portray the state of the scrupulous person:

“O, full of scorpions is my mind!”

Moral theologians distinguish between a scrupulous conscience and the state of scrupulosity itself, and both are considered significant enough as problems to warrant treatment in works of moral theology.

Contrary to Kathleen M. Yang, M.D's hit pieces against “sedevacantism”, published by ’ Crisis Magazine with shamelessness typical of that outlet, anecdotal experience indicates that scrupulosity thrives not amongst traditionalists or “sedevacantists”, but amongst conservatives attempting to be Catholics in the Novus Ordo milieu.

Even at the best of times, the scrupulous person may fear that the traditional advice for their direction feels “lax” or “liberal”; in the Novus Ordo milieu it is even worse. In that milieu, it is nearly impossible for the new and conservative Catholic to follow the traditional advice, or to put obedient trust in one's confessor – because the priests are so often infected with the true laxity and liberalism of the new religion.

That Novus Ordo milieu, rather than any traditionalist milieu, is the native home of the scruple for such people. One cannot even reach the traditionalist milieu (let alone the “sedevacantist” conclusion) without overcoming scruples to a certain degree: in many cases it is a scruple or excessive timidity that holds a person back from looking reality directly in the face.

Further, someone attempting to be a Catholic in the Novus Ordo milieu is essentially engaged in a DIY reconstruction project – whereas the traditionalist milieu is (by and large) simply a continuation of what came before. The person in latter has objective standards of faith and morals, and no need of reconciling them with modern contradictions; the person in the former must find some way of reconciling them, and without any objective standard is more liable to fall into the mental anxiety of scruples. Unlike the traditionalist, he simply cannot rest in the “lived tradition” of the Church and entrust himself to it.

Finally, those who return to the vomit of the Conciliar/Synodal Church and its new religion very frequently do so under the influence of a scruple, which leads them to prioritise a positivist conception of law and a fear of violating it, and to obscure, in their own intellects, an apprehension of reality as it is.

That is not to say that scruples never occur in traditionalist chapels; after all, they occurred before the Council. And some who suffer with them there will indeed find relief in the Conciliar/Synodal Church – in the deadening of their conscience in the embrace of the “new morality”, and in the blindness that comes from denying the known truth.

In short, it is risibly false to allege a link between “sedevacantism” and scrupulosity. Such a claim can only put one in mind of Our Lord's words in the Gospel:

“Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.”

Fr Doyle's pamphlet

Fr Doyle can by no means be suspected of either laxity or liberalism (as a perusal of his personal writings will demonstrate). His comprehensive account of the problem, and how to fix it, can go a long way towards helping scrupulous persons – even those in the Novus Ordo milieu.

The work itself was never published, but was found in manuscript form in Fr Doyle’s papers after his death. It was an adaptation of a longer 1897 work by Fr R.P. Dupois SJ, titled L’Ange Conducteur des Ames Scrupuleuses ou Craintive (‘The Guardian Angel of Scrupulous or Fearful Souls’). The main website dedicated to Fr Doyle states that this original went through at least sixteen editions and was approved by the Holy Office, as well as many churchmen. Fr Doyle’s version was reduced in size and published posthumously.

The pamphlet will be published on The WM Review in six parts over the coming days.

This first part sets out the nature of the problem of scruples, and the serious problems that can arise if they are left unchecked.

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Scruples and their Treatment

Fr William Doyle

General Considerations

Definition

Scrupulosity, in general, is an ill-founded fear of committing sin.

There are two kinds of scruples: those which affect only the intelligence; those which affect also the sensitive will.

Purely intellectual scruples are really only doubts. They are most frequently met with in straightforward souls, who exercise self-control and are not habitually scrupulous. As soon, therefore, as these souls become morally certain that the act in question is not sinful, the scruple vanishes. This kind of scruple is harmless, and needs no treatment.

The contrary is the case with scruples which affect the inferior part of the soul. From the strong impression produced on the senses these draw a force which resists the mere statement of facts. Such scruples chiefly afflict impressionable souls; in fact, it is their emotional nature which engenders scrupulosity. A practical definition of this kind of scruple would be: an uneasy, ill-founded fear of committing sin, increased by the impressions made on the inferior part of the soul.

An example may help to make clearer these different kinds of scruples. Two persons leave the church on a Sunday morning, fearing that, owing to their many distractions, they have not complied with their obligation of hearing Mass. Having listened to their doubts, their confessor reassures both. However, one only is entirely satisfied. The other soon becomes troubled again, gets nervous, and feels an almost irresistible longing to be quite sure, either by fuller explanation or by hearing another Mass. The first of these persons had only an intellectual scruple, the harmless fear of a loyal soul; the second suffers from nervous fear, which stirs the sensitive part of the soul, and causes a real scruple.

Difficulty in the Treatment of Scruples

A true scruple, being involuntary and spontaneous, the cure will consist, not in preventing it, as this is impossible, but in despising it. But in this lies all the difficulty. How deluded is the scrupulous person who imagines himself “cured” when he has fully understood his director’s decision, and realised the foolishness of his fears! He fancies that it is quite easy to do what he now so “clearly” sees to be “the best.” Yet it is only now that the real struggle will begin. For the first time he realises to what lengths the tyranny of his impressions leads him.

His feelings become so many iron chains; at every effort made by his confessor’s orders, to get free, his hands and feet feel tied down by almost invincible bonds. God will help him, but his cure will be complete only when, by dint of repeated victories, he will have acquired the habit of conquering himself.

God’s Plan and the Devil’s

God, Who is wisdom and light, wishes man to be guided by his intelligence, and not by the blind feelings of his animal nature. It is, therefore, very far from God’s plan that man should regulate his conduct by doubt, which is the enemy of his intelligence. This is so far true, that even God’s laws do not bind unless when clear and beyond doubt. The way to heaven is difficult enough for man, on account of the many real obligations which meet him almost at every step. What would it be if he were obliged, under pain of sin, to overcome the obstacle of a thousand doubtful obligations? Such an intolerable state of things would be quite unworthy of the divine wisdom and goodness.

The demon of scrupulosity wishes to upset this merciful design of Providence. In the guidance of man, he tries to replace certainty by doubt, reason by feeling. An angel of darkness himself, he plunges the scrupulous soul into the darkness of ignorance, and imposes on him, as his tyrannical guide, his own wretched doubts, and with fearful results.

Deadly Effects of Scrupulosity

Scrupulosity completely deforms the judgment in moral matters. It takes away one’s common sense. It places before the eye of conscience a magnifying glass, which enlarges the slightest cause of alarm, and makes a timid soul see a thousand phantom sins, whilst by false reasoning it seeks to persuade it that these are undoubted faults.

Scrupulosity stops all progress in perfection. It is a fundamental truth that we cannot love God unless we believe in His love for us. Scrupulosity completely represses such a belief, and thus paralyses all generous effort.

At every moment it creates trouble between the soul and its Creator by pessimistic feelings about the past, and about its present dispositions and actions. The conclusions foolishly arrived at under the influence of these feelings boldly give the lie to the wise decisions of the confessor, and lead the soul to rebel against his spiritual guidance, and to put itself at the mercy of its enemy. Soon the soul, seriously believing itself to be in a bad way, becomes discouraged, and often begins to commit real sin.

Even though sin does not follow from scruples, scrupulosity, nevertheless, retards the soul’s progress in several other ways. It represents prayer as full of difficulties. It stops the ears of the poor downcast soul to the consoling voice of the Holy Ghost. It destroys confidence. It prevents the frequentation of the Sacraments, and thus stops their strengthening effects. It almost takes away the power of resisting temptation. It causes discouragement, and may even lead to despair.

HELP KEEP THE WM REVIEW ONLINE WITH WM+!

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Our work takes a lot of time and effort to produce. If you have benefitted from it please do consider supporting us financially.

A subscription gets you access to our exclusive WM+ material, and helps ensure that we can keep writing and sharing free material for all.

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And you can visit The WM Review Shop for our ‘Lovely Mugs’ and more.

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Read Next:

• Pamphlets for the Faithful – Fr William Doyle SJ

• Are you mad? G.K. Chesterton on maniacs and lunatics

• The Church’s teaching on suicide: Everything you need to know

• It’s not a sin to be depressed: What St Philip Neri and St Thomas Aquinas have to say

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Editor’s Notes

Fr Reid Hennick RCI has kindly given us permission to publish the sermon which he preached on the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 2026.

This sermon deals with the question of human respect, and refers to one of our favourite comments made by Mgr Guérard des Lauriers:

“‘For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved’ (John III, 20).

“Those who in fact hold above all to their security render themselves by that very fact incapable of considering the Truth.

“‘He that loveth his life shall lose it …’ (John XII, 25).

“Those who love their security first lose the very taste for Truth.”1

A brief post-script about the sermon, and Fr Hennick’s movements, follows the sermon.

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‘Human Respect: A Work of the Flesh’

Fr Reid Hennick RCI

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Headings added by The WM Review for ease of reading.

The Wicked Master: Human Respect

“No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will sustain the one and despise the other.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Our Lord today names this second master “Mammon”. And we at once think of money. Money is its most direct historical meaning. But money is a coarse currency. It’s the coarsest of currencies that compete with God, the first master. There was a finer coin minted in every household, in every workplace, in every church even, and that is the good opinion of men.

The good opinion of men is very much like money. It is earned, sometimes displayed, sometimes it is hoarded. And as with money, we might lie awake at night fearing its loss. How easily it becomes a merciless master – yet how easily we sustain or even love this master.

The Church has already told us this morning which master to choose. We hear in the gradual,

“It is good to confide in the Lord rather than to have confidence in man.”

The old writers gave a name to this servitude of the second master. Human respect.

What is human respect?

Human respect has us shape our conduct to the judgment of men, rather than the judgment of God. In St. Paul, in his epistle today, he tells us what kind of servitude, what kind of slavery this really is.

“Walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.”

Slavery to human respect is a slavery of the flesh. Why? Because it is “a work of the flesh.”

We can go through the Apostle’s list this morning.

“Fornication, immodesty, murders, drunkenness.”

These items are quite obviously works of the flesh. And yes, human respect is not named there. In St. Paul’s language however, “flesh” does not mean merely “the body.” Notice other items on this list: envy, idolatry. These are sins of the rational part of our nature. So, for St. Paul, “flesh”, it means corrupt nature entire. “Living according to the flesh” means living according to degraded considerations. Appetite, comfort, advantage, self-regard.

Would human respect, for instance, have us pursue the truth because it is true? No. Human respect rather has us pursue what is safe, what is smiled upon, what is appreciated by the group, and what keeps the group happy. These are measurements, indeed, of the flesh.

St. John Cassian writes:

“The flesh is fed on honors and praises. The spirit joys in the persecutions and injuries inflicted on it.”

Evidently then, to serve human respect is not to walk in the spirit. No, the way of the spirit pursues the truth whatever the cost. Whatever the cost.

Three men, and their relations to the truth

Let us see how this plays out in something as ordinary as speech.

Imagine three men. The first man is the honest man. Before he opens up his mouth, he asks himself one question: “Is what I am about to say true?” His speech is measured against reality, and he submits to that measurement.

The second is the liar, the conventional liar. Now before he speaks, he actually asks himself the same question. “Is what I am about to say true?” But he asks this so that he may do the opposite, so that he may say the opposite. Even this wickedness of his pays truth a backhanded compliment. After all, he must know it to conceal it. So even in the ordinary liar, truth still has a claim.

And then there is the third man, someone the liar might become, and he is the man of our age. This man’s eye is not on the facts at all. The question of truth no longer occurs to him. He asks instead, “How will what I am about to say sound?” This man speaks to make an impression of cleverness, of belonging, of loyalty maybe. Whether his words happen to be true or false is a matter of indifference to him. So his talk is but wind, hot air.

Now let there be no confusion. Both of these men – the second and the third – both serve the flesh. Both are mendacious men, in that they oppose the truth. Note well though, the third man is the greater enemy of truth. His is a special kind of mendacity, more destructive, because the habit of speaking without regard to the truth, it slowly destroys our very capacity for truth.

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The master of the Third Man

We can ask of him the gospel’s question. “Whom do you serve?” Not God, certainly. God is truth. And the truth does not interest this man. This man has deposed truth altogether, and set on its throne the audience. He serves the audience. Human respect governs him.

And we ought to beware. This third man is not only in the comment boxes of the internet. Yes, scarcely a line written by this man is written to be true. All his posturing and bloviating are only signals of the flesh. They’re signals to the herd. This third man is also in us, though. Every time we say what the room expects, rather than what we know – or what we ought to know – we are serving the flesh.

Truth as the distinctly human thing

Why does this matter so much? Because the issue of truth is not one interest among others for us. Truth is the human thing.

Watch any mere animal. Everything the animal perceives is filed under three headings only. Three categories: Good for me, bad for me, nothing for me. It perceives for instance a pasture – that’s good for me; or a predator – that’s bad for me; or an indifferent stone – that’s nothing to me. These three categories are quite obviously the flesh’s measurements. Good, bad, nothing – to me.

Man can do something above that. Unlike the animal, man naturally asks. He asks, “Is my judgment here and now true?” Or, “Were my past judgments true?” Human judgment can reach infinitely beyond the phenomena before us. Our minds can touch on what is, what actually is. This capacity to know the truth puts us already on the plane of the angels and God himself, who is truth itself.

So when a man habitually speaks without regard for the truth, he is starving what is specifically human in him in favor of the flesh, in favor of the herd instinct we call human respect. But to walk in the spirit is to walk in the truth, no matter what it costs the flesh.

The saints and human respect

This past Friday, we celebrated the feast of St. Augustine – a man who knew both masters so well. He was a slave, not only to fornication; he was a slave to human respect. He sold persuasive words for a living, before the truth finally seized him. After his conversion, in the Confessions, he would ask why truth – which all men claim to love – he would ask why truth is so widely hated.

And his answer:

“They love the truth when she enlightens them. They hate the truth when she reproves them.”

So when the truth reproves us, we flee. We flee into the approving faces of men. And this vice of human respect is nothing but that flight on repeat, until it becomes our character.

St. Jerome, he comments on the very chapter of Galatians we’re reading from this morning where St. Paul warns, “Let us not be made desirous of vain glory.”

Glory, St. Jerome says, is the regard of the crowd. And he warns that we might aim for this glory, we might aim for this praise, in the noblest of places. Many, for example, they conceal their fasting and almsgiving in such a way as to be admired for that concealment. The saint writes,

“Sometimes, by shunning glory, you actually pursue it.”

Even martyrdom, he says, is wasted blood, if it is undergone to be admired.

So serving the first master – it cannot be effected by a pose of indifference or a pose of immolation even. It is effected only by a change of allegiance.

How to Change Masters

How do we make this change? How do we change masters?

Two things. First, objectivity. Simply strive to be right. That’s the only maneuver that breaks this cycle of self-regard: it’s to do the true thing, to live according to the truth. The effect this might have on our reputation is entirely secondary. “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.”

Bring these considerations to your examination of conscience. “Did I say anything today chiefly to be admired?” Or did I withhold any truth today chiefly to be spared?”

And secondly, be honest about the fear itself. Be honest. Very often our language of “I cannot” – I cannot speak up, I cannot refuse – is in reality “I will not.” In reality we can: we just won’t, for fear of ostracism. Do not be afraid to name the thing you actually fear.

The raised eyebrows, the cold shoulder, the withdrawn invitations. Fears, once they are named, shrink. So there’s no need to force the feeling of bravery when you do not yet know what it is that you fear. Name it.

Bishop Guérard des Lauriers, he helps us unpack this fear. He explained that human respect is ultimately the simple preference for security over truth. He would write:

“Those who in fact hold above all to their security, render themselves by that very fact incapable of considering the truth.

“Those who love their security first, lose the very taste for truth.”

And his warrant here is our Lord’s own words.

“He that loveth his life shall lose it.”

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Herod and the Chief Men

Holy Scripture shows us just how deep this fear of ostracism runs. We take the Gospel from yesterday, the beheading of St. John the Baptist. King Herod, he promises Salome whatever she might ask of him. Salome, manipulated by her mother, she asks for the head of St. John the Baptist, whom Herod secretly admired. And then we read:

“And the king was struck sad. Yet because of his oath and because of them that were at table with him, he would not displease her. But sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought in on a dish.”

Herod knows the truth, but he does not care to witness to it, out of human respect. So much would this become a part of his character that our Lord during his Passion would not even answer him a word. Pearls before swine.

And then there is this more general observation in the Gospel of St. John. “Many of the chief men also believed in him” – Christ – “but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, for they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.”

These chief men believed but they would not witness to it. And for that they kept their seats in the synagogue. They kept their seats in the synagogue.

The Crisis in the Church

Does not such human respect explain exactly where we are today? Does it not explain the crisis in the church? Many, many chief men even, have examined the evidence. They have seen that men cannot at once hold Christ’s authority, and impose on the flock what the church has always condemned. They have privately granted where this argument leads - and then they halt, because witnessing to the conclusion would perhaps cost them their chapel, their inner circle, their network. So their clearsightedness fades. Αnd it fades rather quickly.

That so few follow the evidence does not speak against the evidence or the argument. It speaks rather to the power of human respect. Security, preferred to truth.

Confess Me Before Men

Our Lord is our rightful master, the first master. And he demands our service no matter what the cost to our temporal security. He is after our eternal security.

“Everyone therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father.”

The second master’s approval is not merely worthless coin. No, the currency of human respect, when it’s hoarded to the end, is a down payment unto damnation. St. Paul closes today’s epistle with the same sanction on all works of the flesh.

“They who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.”

We admittedly serve the crowd from time to time because we are afraid. We are afraid of being cut off, unprovided for. We are afraid of being left alone. And our Lord answers us with a gentle rebuke today.

“Why are you solicitous, oh ye of little faith?”

Our heavenly Father knows what we have need of. Therefore the belonging that we fear to lose, he himself will supply. He’ll supply himself.

Put today’s Gradual to memory.

“It is good to confide in the Lord rather than to have confidence in man.”

Confide in the Lord. Confide in the First Master, and he who is the truth will not let you fall among mendacious men.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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Post-script

The below comments were based on my understanding of Fr Hennick’s trajectory, and subsequently confirmed with Fr Hennick himself.

Fr Hennick left the SSPX in February 2025. In the letter announcing his departure, he said:

“Over the past few years, my view of the crisis in the Church has changed significantly. Despite sincere efforts to find a way forward with the Society, my recent cordial audience with the Superior General gave me the clarity to know that I can no longer presume to represent its interests.”

Were those years an example of failing to speak up out of human respect? Has Fr Hennick fallen into that unfortunate habit which so many have, of condemning those for doing precisely what he had been doing only a short time before?

Such an analysis would not be fair.

First, this sermon hardly represents a “condemnation”.

Secondly, we are all human. It would not be particularly interesting or significant if Fr Hennick was subject to some human respect for that period – and it certainly has no bearing on either his comments about human respect, or the arguments for an extended vacancy of the Holy See.

Thirdly, and most importantly, Fr Hennick’s letter makes clear that his continuation with the SSPX, after having reached a position of certainty regarding the vacancy of the Holy See, was based on the hope that it was “possible to continue serving as a Society priest while holding to and acting on my convictions”. Upon concluding that it was not possible, he departed.

Although Fr Hennick is now of the opinion that his hope was naive, what he was doing is a very different picture to someone hiding his firm conception of the truth, or voluntarily acting against it, out of a fear of the consequences.

S.D. Wright

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Editor’s Notes

In the course of considering a number of texts from Fr Domenico Palmieri relevant to the “recognise and resist” movement, we published the nineteenth century theologian’s treatments of the “Heretic Pope” question, and of the authority of non-infallible teaching acts.

Both those texts were scholia to Thesis XXXII, which we reproduce below.

This section addresses the question of when the Pope speaks ex cathedra.

This text is relevant for its own intrinsic interest, but also because of its link with the case of Pope Honorius. As we have previously discussed, Pope Honorius’ letters to Sergius cannot be said to have been magisterial, because they were private. However, they were private because of their nature (as well as the fact that they were unknown for years), not because they were written to a single bishop or patriarch.

1. The History of Pope Honorius: Questioning Prof. Roberto de Mattei

2. ‘Undoubtedly Magisterial Acts’? Pope Honorius and Roberto de Mattei

In this extract, Fr Palmieri presents the “other side of the coin” to this issue – explaining why a letter to a single bishop or patriarch can be magisterial under different circumstances.

Note: The Latin text from Fr Palmieri has been translated into English with the assistance of AI, with each line subsequently checked against the original by a human, and edited in the process.

You can read more about Fr Palmieri here.

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Tractatus de Romano Pontifice cum Prolegomeno de Ecclesia

Fr Dominico Palmieri SJ

Editio Altera Aucta Et In Nonnullis Emendata
Prati, 1891, pp. 715–717

Available at Archive.org

1. The distinction between the Holy See and the man Seated upon it

2. Fr Palmieri’s claim that ‘they miserably deceive themselves who think they can adhere to the Roman See while resisting the Pontiff’

3. Whether a Pope can fall into heresy, and whether he is ‘stripped of jurisdiction by God’

4. The proper response to the exercise of the Pope’s non-infallible magisterium

5. What Fr Palmieri ACTUALLY says about resisting the Pope

6. When the Pope is actually teaching ex cathedra

7. Do we need an infallible list of infallible propositions? Fr Palmieri responds

The following text is for WM+ members.

The WM Review is free for readers. This is because we believe these ideas must reach as many people as possible.

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Savonarola vs. Alexander VI: An historical precedent

John Lane

Originally published at The Aquinas Site, 1998
Some headings, line-breaks and very light editing by The WM Review.

The fact that public heresy is absolutely incompatible with holding office in the Catholic Church has been argued elsewhere by this author. In fact, it is the constant tradition of Holy Church, taught explicitly by numerous popes, Doctors, theologians, saints, and accepted by General Councils. It is also expressly legislated in the Code of Canon Law, in the section on resignations. Canon 188, section 4 states that he who publicly defects from the faith resigns his office by the very fact, and this resignation is accepted by operation of law without the need for any declaration.

We should, therefore, expect to find evidence in history of its application to concrete cases. In fact, we find a number. The case of Savonarola and others versus Alexander VI is one such precedent. Fra Girolamo Savonarola was a Fifteenth-Century Dominican, famous for his zeal for the salvation of souls, and for his opposition to the gross immorality of many of the members of both the clergy and laity of his time. He was also a very competent theologian and philosopher, referred to by many as brilliant. Unfortunately for him, his preaching against vice was too effective for the comfort of many in positions of authority in Holy Church, and he came into open conflict not only with members of the Roman Curia, but with Pope Alexander VI. Alexander VI, a Borgia, generally competes with one or two others for the title of “Most Immoral Pope” in Church Histories. Eventually the friar was convicted of heresy in rather confused circumstances, hanged and then burnt. There seems to be no dispute that his death was contrived for political purposes, and that the charges of heresy were unjust. Even the historian Kirsch, whose account in The Catholic Encyclopedia is thoroughly hostile to Savonarola, affirms that he was not a heretic, and notes that the notary falsified the records of the trial.

Savonarola went further than simply accusing the Pope of vice – he accused the Pope of heresy. While it was a commonplace among knowledgeable Catholics that Alexander had purchased the papacy, it was not said so openly that he was actually a heretic in his personal theology. Savonarola not only made this claim in private correspondence with Cardinal della Rovere, but was agitating to have a council called at which he could prove his claim, and have Alexander deposed.

The following is from a life of the Dominican by Villari:

“Many good and experienced Catholics maintained the opinion that Alexander’s election was null and void, having been obtained, as all knew, by simony, and that the only way to put an end to the numerous scandals of which he was the cause, would be to summon a council to depose him. The leader of this party was the pugnacious Cardinal of St. Piero in Vincoli, afterwards Pope Julius II.”1

The footnote to this section includes the following:

“The said Cardinal, on being made Pope, issued a Bull (14th of January, 1505) in confirmation of the Lateran Council, declaring Alexander’s election null, and incapable of convalidation, even by the subsequent homage of the Cardinals…”2

The body text continues:

“He [Della Rovere] styled the Borgia [Alexander VI] an infidel and a heretic, and was constantly in waiting on King Charles [of France], doing his utmost to induce him to assemble a council, and achieve the reform of the Church. […] The first time the French passed through Rome, no less than eighteen cardinals joined Della Rovere in pressing the King to procure the desired reform.”3

The Catholic Encyclopedia article on Alexander VI, by Mgr. James Loughlin of Philadelphia, mentions Villari as a source, and appears to grant him considerable credibility. The article on Savonarola, written by the celebrated historian Mgr. J.P. Kirsch of the University of Fribourg, also gives Villari as a source in the bibliography at the end of that article.

However it should be noted that Villari reads as a partisan of liberalism, and this is confirmed by his dedication of the work to “Gladstone, Champion of Italian Freedom.” Given that this book was written not long after the uniting of Italy under Freemasonic hegemony, one can hardly be sympathetic with this reference! Additionally, it is clear that our hero is loved by Villari chiefly because of his supposed promotion of “democracy” against the “tyranny” of the Medici. A more obvious theme for a Freemason could hardly be devised.

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The actual nature of Savonarola’s accusation

At any rate, Villari doesn’t hesitate to mention that della Rovere “styled the Borgia an infidel and a heretic”, which of course is the only ground upon which a Catholic could expect to see a properly elected pope “deposed.” Undoubtedly the future Pope Julius II knew this. The Catholic Encyclopedia, on the other hand, omits mention of heresy, preferring to mention only the question of simony in the election (another possible cause of invalidation, but not the only one at issue).

From other sources, however, we know that Villari’s account is correct. Savonarola and the cardinals were seeking to overthrow Alexander VI on account of the latter’s heresy, and Savonarola made the point in correspondence to della Rovere and to various Catholic Princes that if they could only achieve the gathering of a council for the judgement of Alexander, then he (Savonarola) would prove the pope’s heresy publicly.

Cardinal Journet, in his The Church Of The Word Incarnate offers the following information about these letters of Savonarola:

“In a study in the “Revue Thomiste”,4 P. Hurtaud, O.P., has entered a powerful plea in the case – still open – of the ‘Piagnoni’ [those who followed Savonarola]. He makes reference to the explanation of Roman theologians prior to Cajetan, according to which a Pope who fell into heresy would be deposed ‘ipso facto’: the Council concerned would have only to put on record the fact of heresy and notify the Church that the Pope involved had forfeited his primacy. Savonarola, he says, regarded Alexander VI as having lost his faith.

“‘The Lord, moved to anger by this intolerable corruption, has, for some time past, allowed the Church to be without a pastor. For I bear witness in the name of God that this Alexander VI is in no way Pope and cannot be. For quite apart from the execrable crime of simony, by which he got possession of the [papal] tiara through a sacrilegious bargaining, and by which every day he puts up to auction and knocks down to the highest bidder ecclesiastical benefices, and quite apart from his other vices – well-known to all – which I will pass over in silence, this I declare in the first place and affirm it with all certitude, that the man is not a Christian, he does not even believe any longer that there is a God; he goes beyond the final limits of infidelity and impiety” (Letter to the Emperor).5

“Basing our argument on the doctrinal authorities which Cajetan was soon to invoke, we should say that Savonarola wished to collect together the Council, not because, like the Gallicans, he placed a Council above the Pope (the Letters to the Princes are legally and doctrinally unimpeachable), but so that the Council, before which he would prove his accusation, should declare the heresy of Alexander VI in his status as a private individual.

“P. Hurtaud concludes:

“‘Savonarola’s acts and words – and most of his words are acts – should be examined in detail. Each of his words should be carefully weighed and none of the circumstances of his actions should be lost sight of. For the friar is a master of doctrine; he does not only know it but he lives it too. In his conduct nothing is left to chance or the mood of the moment. He has a theological or legal principle as the motive power in each one of his decisions. He should not be judged by general laws, for his guides are principles of an exceptional order – though I do not mean by this that he placed himself above or outside the common law. The rules he invokes are admitted by the best Doctors of the Church; there is nothing exceptional in them save the circumstances which make them lawful, and condition their application.’”6

How the events unfolded

From The Catholic Encyclopedia’ article on ‘Alexander VI, Pope’, we have the following:

“The policy of Alexander was dictated not only by a laudable desire to maintain the peace of Italy, but also because he was aware that a strong faction of his cardinals, with the resolute della Rovere at their head, was promoting the invasion of Charles as a means towards deposing him on the twofold charge of simony and immorality.

“In September, 1494, the French crossed the Alps; on the last day of that year they made their entry into Rome, needing no other weapon in their march through the peninsula, as Alexander wittily remarked (Commines vii, 15), than the chalk with which they marked out the lodgings of the troops. The barons of the Pope deserted him one after the other. Colonna and Savelli were traitors from the beginning, but he felt most keenly the defection of Virginio Orsini, the commander of his army.

“Many a saintlier pope than Alexander VI would have made the fatal mistake of yielding to brute force and surrendering unconditionally to the conqueror of Italy; the most heroic of the popes could not have sustained the stability of the Holy See at this crucial moment with greater firmness. From the crumbling ramparts of St. Angelo, the defences of which were still incomplete, he looked calmly into the mouth of the French cannon; with equal intrepidity he faced the cabal of della Rovere’s cardinals, clamorous for his deposition.

“At the end of a fortnight it was Charles who capitulated. He acknowledged Alexander as true Pope, greatly to the disgust of della Rovere, and ‘did his filial obedience’, says Commines, ‘with all imaginable humility’; but he could not extort from the Pontiff an acknowledgment of his claims to Naples.”7

What does this tell us?

Firstly, it demonstrates the fact that cardinals, including a future pope, were not afraid to try and unseat a pope, on the grounds of heresy and/or simony.

Secondly, there is no suggestion by later authors that this was un-Catholic behaviour (however, cf. Hurtaud for an account of those who misunderstood Savonarola’s intentions).

Thirdly, della Rovere himself, after his accession to the Chair of Peter, confirmed the principle upon which he had acted as a cardinal, by the most solemn document a pope can issue – a bull.

Fourthly, even in the period when Holy Church was at her most vulnerable, suffering from terrible levels of immorality among the clergy and laity, heresy was considered so serious that it constituted grounds upon which even a pope could be judged. This is in accordance with the teaching of the great Thirteenth Century pontiff, Innocent III, as expressed in a sermon as follows:

“The faith is necessary for me to such an extent that, having God as my only judge in all other sins, I could however be judged by the Church for the sins which I might commit in matters of faith.”

Finally, it needs to be emphasised that Savonarola is singularly famous for the very fact that he wished to bring about the deposition of Alexander VI, and yet numerous popes and saints have been devoted to him. The Apostle of Rome Saint Philip Neri, for example, used to pray to Savonarola, and attributed miracles to his intercession. It is difficult, nay impossible, to imagine that so many saints and popes could have praised a man who was famous for being wrong, and in so grave a matter!

The theological points at stake

While it is true that Alexander never ceased to be pope, and it would be at least rash to assert otherwise, this is not necessarily because he was not a heretic, as some authors maintain. To understand what actually happened a little more theology is necessary.

Heresy can be either internal or external. That is, one may doubt or deny a dogma merely internally, without expressing it, or one may announce one’s heresy to others. While some authors maintain that all heresy makes one a non-Catholic, the common opinion is that only externally manifested heresy causes the loss of membership in Holy Church. And it is the loss of membership in Holy Church which is responsible for the automatic loss of offices in the case of manifest heretics.

In addition to this, there is another distinction drawn by theologians, between “manifest” and “public.” The common opinion is that only “public” heresy actually deprives one of the status of Catholic; “manifest” is a term which may apply to a case in which somebody admits their heresy privately, to one or two discreet individuals. Evidently, in a perfect and visible society, offices cannot be said to be lost by merely manifest heresy, if “manifest” is to be understood in this way.8 Heresy, for it to deprive a person of membership in Holy Church, and consequently any offices they hold, must be “public.” For the sake of completeness, it is worth mentioning that “notorious” is again distinct from “public.” “Public” facts are known, or capable of being known, to many. “Notorious” describes things which are actually known, or could be easily known, by all.

Applying these considerations to the case at issue, then: we see that indeed Alexander VI could well have been a heretic internally, and that he may have manifested this to a select number of persons, and that this could have been brought to the notice of Savonarola. There is no doubt that some doctrinal failure came to Savonarola’s notice. But for Alexander to lose the papacy he would have to cease being a Catholic, and this is why Savonarola was agitating for a council to be called at which he could make his case. Once the case was made publicly, then Alexander would cease to be a Catholic and thus pope.

In other words, Savonarola was most certainly right in his theology; and he was possibly right in his assertion that Alexander was a heretic. There seem to be absolutely no grounds for asserting that Savonarola was actually wrong in any way at all, unless we count excessive zeal for the honour of Christ’s Church as an error.

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Comparison with our time

Would that more suffered from this fault! The greatest tragedy of our era, and the most obvious cause of the further tragedies, is the failure of the clergy to act at the great moments of crisis in 1958 (when Roncalli emerged “victorious” from the conclave) and again in 1965 (when Vatican II was “promulgated” by Montini). Another great opportunity for action occurred in 1969 with the appearance of the Abomination of Desolation itself, the New “Mass.”

It was the express command of the Blessed Virgin that the third part of the Secret of Fatima be revealed by 1960, at the latest. In 1957 Sister Lucy confided to Father Fuentes:

“The Most Holy Virgin has told me that the devil is about to engage in a decisive battle against the Virgin ... and that he knows what most offends God, and what will make him gain the most souls in the shortest possible time. He does everything to gain souls consecrated to God, for in this manner, he will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.”

History knows no examples of such almost unanimous negligence, weakness, and faithlessness as that presented by the clergy of our age. Faced with somebody (Alexander VI) who was but a pale reflection in evil-mindedness of the servants of Satan who have despoiled the See of Peter in recent decades, no fewer than eighteen cardinals rose to the cause of defending Holy Church.

And during the depths of the Arian crisis, the Roman clergy deposed Pope Liberius on the basis that he had compromised with the Arians, even though it was clear that he was not actually one of them. Where were men such as these when the Immaculate Spouse of Christ needed them to come to her defence in 1958?

And more importantly, where are they now?

John Lane
December 13th 1998
Gaudete Sunday and Feast of St. Lucy
Revised December 22nd 1998
Feast of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

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Read more from John Lane:

• The Loss of Ecclesiastical Offices: Is Holy Church Unprotected?

• A Note for Confused Catholics: Apologetics and Dogmatic Theology

• Pope St Pius V – “Crushing of the Enemies of thy Church”

• The Seamless Robe and the Great Privilege of Witnessing the Passion of the Mystical Body

Archbishop Lefebvre and the Conciliar Church

1. What did Archbishop Lefebvre really think about the ‘Conciliar Church’?

2. Did Lefebvre see the Conciliar Church as a separate society to the Catholic Church?

3. Where is the Church today? Archbishop Lefebvre and the Conciliar Church

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Editor’s Notes

Having considered a number of different texts from Fr Domenico Palmieri, we are now ready to consider those texts which have been cited as evidence for the “recognise and resist” movement.

Note: The Latin text from Fr Palmieri has been translated into English with the assistance of AI, with each line subsequently checked against the original by a human, and edited in the process.

We have already seen that Fr Palmieri is cited as an authority for the “recognise and resist movement”, even though…

• His references to such resistance pertain to matters other than teaching and governance1

• He explicitly condemns those “who think that they can adhere to the Roman See and the Roman Church while resisting the Pontiff”

• He teaches that “[I]t is the right and office of the Roman Pontiff to feed all: and the obligation of all is to follow him and obey him.”

• He says that even the non-infallible teaching of the Pope calls for a “respectful silence” and “is not to be publicly contradicted”

• He holds that a Pope who obstinately falls into heresy is “stripped of jurisdiction by God.”

Having examined a number of other texts from Fr Palmieri, let us now consider the text that is cited in favour of the “recognise and resist” theology.

It comes as Question I in Thesis XXIX, which is principally about ecumenical councils and their relationship with the Roman Pontiff.

For example, the text immediately preceding the question deals with those who appeal from the Pope to a council – which Fr Palmieri condemns as schismatic, heretical and absurd:

“We say that this doctrine – that it is lawful to appeal from the Pope to a Council – is schismatic, for it surrenders the Church together with its Head to due subjection, a subjection entirely necessary if one is to be a member of the Church, and denies it to the Head of the Church.

“We say that it is heretical; for it is opposed to the constant and universal doctrine of the Church and is directly adverse to the dogma of the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff and the fullness of his power; and it was proscribed by Pius II (cf. l.c.) and in the Bull In Coena §. 2, and it was also declared at the Vatican Council, Session 4, Chapter 3: ‘those who affirm that it is lawful to depart from the straight path of truth by appealing from the judgements of the Roman Pontiffs to an ecumenical Council, as to an authority superior to the Roman Pontiff.’

“It is, finally, an absurd doctrine. For when you appeal to an ecumenical Council, you appeal either to the Pope – who himself convoked it and presides over it – or not. If not, you do not have an ecumenical Council: rather, 2° you have an illegitimate gathering of Pastors, which, 3° however great and however extensive it may be, is entirely subject to the authority of the Pontiff. If, however, you do include [the Pope]: it is absurd that the Roman Pontiff be subjected to the coercive authority (iure subiici auctoritati coactivae) of that Synod (for an appeal requires this), which, 1° cannot exist except by the will of the Roman Pontiff; in which, 2° the supreme and full authority belongs to the same Pontiff; who therefore, 3° can annul all the decrees of that same [council] by his negative vote alone.

“The supreme and full power of the Roman Pontiff is therefore not subject to appeal.”

These comments are relevant to our own situation. It has become popular to claim that the legitimacy of the post-conciliar claimants is an issue for a future pope to decide; this escapes the charges of schism, although it does fall afoul of some of the strictures which Fr Palmieri addresses under heresy and absurdity.

But this is not the main focus of our present consideration.

Fr Palmieri and resisting the Pope

Fr Palmieri immediately proceeds to the questions, the first of which deals with resisting a true Pope, and the answer to which is cited by the advocates of the “recognise and resist” movement.

But this answer is simply not to the point. Fr Palmieri cites St Robert Bellarmine, but, the saint’s “resistance quotes” do not provide any grounds for the “recognise and resist theology”. As we have already explained elsewhere:

“Bellarmine himself cites both Cajetan and Torquemada, both whom make clear that their conception of ‘destroying the Church’ excludes the teaching of error or promulgation of evil laws.”

For example, in the sections on “resistance”, Torquemada sets out the objection as follows, specifically excluding the question of heresy:

Hearing what both adversaries and likewise other simple faithful say—namely, that the Roman pontiff, apart from the case of heresy and by reason of the loftiness of his principate, has no judge on earth who might judge or punish his evil deeds—they ask what ought to be done against a pope, should it happen that he…

• Is incorrigibly corrupted in his morals, even to the scandal of the faithful

• Or that he abuses his power

• Is a squanderer of the Church

• Wishes to grant ecclesiastical benefices solely by simony.

In Cajetan’s sections on resistance, he sets out the crimes he has in view:

“[W]hen he sells all benefices, elevates corrupt individuals to dignities, behaves as a tyrant, gives an example of vice, and is openly filled with blasphemy, avarice, etc. […]”

Like Torquemada, he also makes clear that he is considering cases other than heresy:

“We have concluded explaining the nature of the relationship between the pope and the council in cases of heresy; it is now necessary to examine whether, in cases other than heresy, the pope is subject to the power of the council and may be deposed by it for a reason other than heresy.

“First, we must address cases that pertain to the pope’s sins. Then, we shall discuss cases arising from certain circumstances.

“Some, therefore, uphold the following opinion: that apart from the case of heresy, the pope can be deposed by a general council, and this is proven by seven reasons.”

Next, Fr Palmieri refers to Suarez. But Suarez is also very clear: he has in mind the same sorts of crimes as those mentioned by Cajetan and Torquemada:

“The fourth remedy – not unjust in itself, but more of a human expedient and fraught with peril, and therefore not to be employed without extreme necessity – is a just defence. For if the Pontiff inflicts manifest violence and unjust force, he can be resisted by way of defence, within the limits of blameless self-defence; for to repel force with force is a natural remedy, denied to no one, and it does not require a superior power or jurisdiction over the one against whom one defends oneself, but only the right and the strength to protect oneself. If one wards off harm from another, one does not punish him but rather justly avoids one’s own harm by that means.

“Accordingly, if the Pontiff inflicts bodily force through aggression or an unjust war, he may be resisted by a similar action in defence, but not for the purpose of attack. If, however, the violence were spiritual – commanding iniquity, or profaning sacred things, or destroying them – he may be resisted in a proportionate manner by taking measures to prevent such things from being carried out. These cases, however, are rare, and for such liberty to be taken, the facts must be utterly evident.”

Suárez himself cites Cajetan in his comments.

He also agrees with these other theologians, in holding that the heresy of a Pope would give rise to the question of deposition (whether ipso facto, after a declaration, or by some other means), rather than resistance:

“I add, moreover, that even if those arguments were admitted, they would demonstrate the disadvantages and absurdities that follow from the prior antecedent, rather than confirm it. We deny, therefore, that the Church can exercise coercive force over the Pontiff, whether by censure or by any other means, unless he first falls from the pontificate, either by a voluntary renunciation accepted by the Church, or by the fault of heresy juridically declared by the Church. (n. 11)

“[B]ecause heresy spreads like a cancer and destroys the foundation of the Church, he also established a law by the force of which the Pope would fall from his dignity if he were a heretic, giving the Church also the capacity to take cognisance of such a crime and to pronounce a sentence declaring it, and the divine deposition that follows from it.” (n. 14)

Does this section make Fr Palmieri an authority for the ‘recognise and resist’ position?

In addition to the above, let us consider the earlier parts of this series, such as Fr Palmieri’s Corollary to Thesis XXX:

“Therefore those men miserably deceive themselves who think that they can adhere to the Roman See and the Roman Church while resisting the Pontiff.”

He also says the following about the exercise of the merely authentic magisterium:

“To the magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra, there is owed:

“1° A respectful silence – that is, he is not to be publicly contradicted, nor is the opposite doctrine to be defended, unless it is established that he himself permits that the matter be disputed among Catholics […]”

He acknowledges that this exercise of the magisterium is not infallible, and admits only that the possibility of error could justify the suspension of assent and recourse to Rome, not public resistance.

He also makes clear that the Pope who is a heretic is either deposed or to be corrected in such a way that, if he does not amend, he is deposed (depending on how one understands him), and not to be resisted indefinitely.

All in all, the matter is entirely clear: Fr Palmieri cannot justly be cited as an authority for the “recognise and resist” position.

The two questions following Question 1 deal with whether the Roman Pontiff can submit himself to the judgement of others, whether in public (Question II) or in the tribunal of Penance (Question III). Although our purpose here is giving context to what Fr Palmieri wrote about “resistance”, these questions have their own interest and so will be included below as well.

You can read more about Fr Palmieri here.

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Tractatus de Romano Pontifice cum Prolegomeno de Ecclesia

Fr Dominico Palmieri SJ

Editio Altera Aucta Et In Nonnullis Emendata
Prati, 1891, pp. 700–2

Available at Archive.org

1. The See and the Seated: Fr Dominic Palmieri SJ against Gallican theology of the Papacy

2. ‘They miserably deceive themselves who think they can adhere to the Roman See while resisting the Pontiff’ – Fr Palmieri SJ

3. ‘Stripped of jurisdiction by God’ – Fr Palmieri SJ on the Pope Question

4. The Pope is ‘not to be publicly contradicted’ – Fr Palmieri on the non-infallible magisterium

5. What Fr Palmieri ACTUALLY says about resisting the Pope

6. Can the Pope teach ex cathedra in a letter to a single bishop? Fr Palmieri explains

7. Do we need an infallible list of infallible propositions? Fr Palmieri responds

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Editors’ Notes

The following article by presents the teaching of the magisterium on the Church’s indefectibility, and considers the implications of this teaching in our day.

The topic of indefectibility is at the front of mind at present, for both “sedevecantists” and for “sedeplenists”, and several articles or videos have been published on the topic in recent months. It is more important than ever that we have a correct understanding of the doctrine.

In addition to our own response to Fr Thomas Crean OP on the subject (Spotless and Unsullied), which has also been the subject of several videos with of Integrity Magazine, also recently released a video exposition which we can recommend:

You can see S.D. Wright’s long article on the subject here:

• ‘Spotless and Unsullied’ – Indefectibility and the Extended Vacancy

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‘The Elephant in the Room’: The Indefectibility of the Apostolic See

By Peregrinus

There is an ancient doctrine taught by many Popes and Doctors of the Church throughout her history; a doctrine always denied vehemently by heretics, because it is the effective and ever standing condemnation of their deviation from the Faith. It is also the foundation of that unshakeable confidence which prompted the great Doctor and Father of the Church, St. Augustine, to say:

“You are not to be looked upon as holding the true Catholic faith if you do not teach that the faith of Rome is to be held”1.

The doctrine to which I refer is one that many “sedeplenist” (viz., those who claim that the Holy See has continued to be legitimately occupied since Vatican II) Traditional Catholics have never encountered, or which has never been explained to them by the priests in the chapels that they frequent. In sedeplenist circles, this doctrine is conspicuous by its absence; it is very uncomfortable to hear it mentioned, because it perplexes them and makes them doubt their convictions.

Even the late Abp. Lefebvre was disturbed by its implications, which he seems to have understood well:

“It seems inconceivable that a successor of Peter could fail in some way to transmit the Truth which he must transmit, for he cannot – without as it were disappearing from the papal line – not transmit what the popes have always transmitted.”2

It is the elephant in the room, and however much you ignore it, it does not go away.

The doctrine to which I refer is that of the indefectibility of the See of Rome, and causally connected to it, the indefectibility of the Church in faith and morals.

Indefectibility means an inability to fail, to be corrupted or cease to exist. It is the constant and undisputed testimony of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium throughout the ages that the See of St. Peter has always remained and will always remain free of any defect in the faith; that this See of Truth will never become the see of heretical pestilence3; that the Holy Roman Church, Mother and Teacher of all the churches, will never contradict, dilute or renounce the faith by teaching heresy.

This protection is the foundation of what is described to be “the perfect and perpetual immunity of the Church from error and heresy”.4 In fact, out of all the sees, “only to one particular Church is indefectibility assured, viz. to the See of Rome”,5 guaranteed by no other than the Church’s Divine Founder, Our Lord Jesus Christ.6

In other words, the Catholic Church is indefectible because the Roman See is indefectible.

Some Quotes from the Magisterium

Pope Saint Lucius I, Epist. I ad Episcopos Hispaniae et Galliae:

“The Roman Apostolic Church is the mother of all Churches and has never been shown to have wandered from the path of Apostolic tradition, nor being deformed, succumbed to heretical novelties according to the promise of the Lord himself, saying, ‘I have prayed for thee, etc.’”7

Pope Saint Gelasius I, Epistle to the Emperor Anastasius:

“This is what the Apostolic See guards against with all her strength because the glorious confession of the Apostle is the root of the world, so that she is polluted by no crack of depravity and altogether no contagion. For if such a thing would ever occur (which may God forbid and we trust cannot be), why would we make bold to resist any error?”8

Pope Pelagius II, Quod ad Dilectionem:

“Consider, most dear ones, that the Truth could not have lied, nor will the faith of Peter be able to be shaken or changed forever. For although the devil desired to sift all the disciples, the Lord testifies that He Himself asked for Peter alone and wished the others to be confirmed by him; and to him also, in consideration of a greater love which he showed the Lord before the rest, was committed the care of feeding the sheep; and to him also He handed over the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and upon him He promised to build his Church, and He testified that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.”9

Pope St. Agatho, Letter to the Sixth Ecumenical Council:

“[F]or [Peter] received from the Redeemer of all himself, by three commendations, the duty of feeding the spiritual sheep of the Church; under whose protecting shield, this Apostolic Church of his has never turned away from the path of truth in any direction of error...

“... by the grace of Almighty God, has never erred from the path of the Apostolic tradition, nor has she been depraved by yielding to heretical innovations, but from the beginning she has received the Christian faith from her founders, the princes of the Apostles of Christ, and remains undefiled unto the end...

“... the evangelical and apostolic uprightness of the orthodox faith, which has been established upon the firm rock of this Church of blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, which by his grace and guardianship remains free from all error...”10

Pope St. Leo IX, Epistle to Peter of Antioch:

“Without a doubt, it was for he alone whom the Lord and Savior asserted that he prayed that his faith would not fail, saying, ‘I have prayed for thee, etc.’ Such a venerable and efficacious prayer obtained that to this point the faith of Peter has not failed, nor can it be believed that it is ever going to fail in his throne.”11

Pope St. Leo IX, In Terra Pax Hominibus:

“By the See of the Chief of the Apostles, namely by the Roman Church, through the same Peter, as well as through his successors, have not the comments of all the heretics been disapproved, rejected, and overcome, and the hearts of the brethren in the faith of Peter — which so far neither has failed, nor up to the end will fail — been strengthened?”12

Pope Innocent III, Sermon II (On the Consecration of the Supreme Pontiff):

“If I were not made firm in the faith, how could I strengthen others in the faith? That is what is recognized as pertaining especially to my office, as the Lord witnesses: ‘I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith not fail; and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren.’ He prayed and He brought it to pass, since He was heard in all things out of reverence for Him. And therefore the faith of the Apostolic See has never failed in any disturbance, but has always remained whole and unimpaired in order that the privilege of Peter should persist unshaken.”13

Pope Innocent III, Apostolicae Sedis Primatus:

“The Lord confesses at the time of the Passion that he prayed for him: ‘I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail: and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren,’ by this manifestly indicating that his successors would never at any time deviate from the Catholic faith, but rather, they would recall others and also strengthen the hesitant...”14

Council of Florence, Session 13:

“... the most illustrious profession of the Roman Church about the truth of the faith, which has always been pure from all stain of error...”15

First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeternus:

“So the fathers of the fourth Council of Constantinople, following the footsteps of their predecessors, published this solemn profession of faith: ‘The first condition of salvation is to maintain the rule of the true faith. And since that saying of our lord Jesus Christ, You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, cannot fail of its effect, the words spoken are confirmed by their consequences. For in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been preserved unblemished, and sacred doctrine been held in honor. Since it is our earnest desire to be in no way separated from this faith and doctrine, we hope that we may deserve to remain in that one communion which the Apostolic See preaches, for in it is the whole and true strength of the christian religion.’

“... It was for this reason that the bishops of the whole world, sometimes individually, sometimes gathered in synods, according to the long established custom of the Churches and the pattern of ancient usage referred to this Apostolic See those dangers especially which arose in matters concerning the faith. This was to ensure that any damage suffered by the faith should be repaired in that place above all where the faith can know no failing...

“Indeed, their apostolic teaching was embraced by all the venerable fathers and reverenced and followed by all the holy orthodox doctors, for they knew very well that this See of St. Peter always remains unblemished by any error, in accordance with the divine promise of our Lord and Savior to the prince of his disciples: “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.”16

Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum:

“The meaning of this divine utterance is, that, notwithstanding the wiles and intrigues which they bring to bear against the Church, it can never be that the church committed to the care of Peter shall succumb or in any wise fail... And since all Christians must be closely united in the communion of one immutable faith, Christ the Lord, in virtue of His prayers, obtained for Peter that in the fulfilment of his office he should never fall away from the faith.”17

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Implications of This Doctrine

Some Catholic theologians deny that the Pope, even as a private person, can ever defect from the faith, while others admit the possibility of a Pope defecting as a private person or private theologian.

However, all Catholic theologians either deny that the Pope as Head of the Church can teach the Universal Church heresy, or, with Gregory of Valencia and Torquemada, say that he could attempt to do such a thing but it would be in vain because by that attempt he would show that he had “lost his authority through manifest heresy” and the Church “would immediately recognize that he is no longer really the pope.”18

When confronted with this doctrine, some sedeplenist apologists will deny that the manifest errors of the Conciliar pretenders rise to the level of heresy, but this is easily refuted because of the not infrequent brazenness of the said pretenders in recognizing the opposition between their ideas, and the traditional teaching of the Church.

Others will try to deflect by claiming that these men are unaware of the contradiction between their statements and the Faith – but should we not expect someone who was first a Bishop, Cardinal and then supposed Pope to know the basic doctrines of the Faith?

Finally, there are those who will even try to deny that the pretenders’ heresies are public or notorious. But when every excuse is defeated, what will they do?

Differing Interpretations

They will tackle the elephant in the room. What else can they do? What can they say?

They are left only with the choice of accepting the dogma and its inevitable conclusion (which they dread, because they have been conditioned to dread it as the worst thing imaginable), or of changing the interpretation of the dogma.

At this step those who love the truth will stop and reflect, maybe a long time, and will not object any more. Some will accept the conclusion that is made manifest to their intellects. And some will be stuck somewhere in the middle, in the domain of doubt and fear, wanting to accept the dogma, but not the conclusion that inevitably proceeds from its application – because it is frightful to them, as an earthquake shaking the very foundations of their position, and asking them with every tremor:

Do you love the truth, even when it is difficult to bear? Do you love the truth enough to lose friends, to be scorned, attacked, defamed, accused, denied communion, ejected out of churches for its sake? Do you love the truth so as to shun all the subtleties of errors invented by those who would not accept it? Do you love the See of the blessed Peter so, that you will not permit its greatest glory to be denied, or an impostor to be glorified in its place? Do you love your Holy Mother Church so, that you will defend her honor when she is accused of infidelity, or when a harlot comes forward wanting to supplant her?

Others, however, will immediately seek to change the interpretation, so that it would fit the conclusion that they desire. They will say: Every time that the Popes and Doctors teach that the faith of the Apostolic See is indefectible, what they mean is that it is infallible when defining doctrine or condemning errors.

In other words, they will make the indefectibility of the Apostolic See the same thing as Papal Infallibility. The former can be correctly described as the passive protection of the See against error in faith, which is always in effect (proclaimed by Our Lord with the words “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not...”), and the latter as the active protection of the Pope against error in faith, when the Pope wields it (proclaimed by Our Lord in that same sentence: “...and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.”).

On the other hand, if we apply their interpretation to the present crisis, the quote from Pastor Aeternus would then mean something like this:

“This See of St. Peter always remains unblemished by any error, unless you count all of those grave errors and heresies it teaches the Universal Church without engaging infallibility.”

The meaning of Satis Cognitum would be:

“That in the fulfilment of his office he should never fall away from the faith, even if in the fulfilment of that office he teaches the Church all kinds of abominable errors and heresies, so long as they do not involve an infallible definition.”

And when this interpretation is applied to the whole Church, the words from Quas Primas would mean that the Church has

“… perfect and perpetual immunity from error and heresy, but absolutely no immunity from those errors and heresies that the Pope (or an ecumenical council under the Pope) teaches the Church without using definitions.”

A False Path

With apologists such as these, how easy it is for the Modernists! They can change the faith as much as they want into whatever they want, both in preaching and in catechisms, they can institute marriage ceremonies for unnatural perversion (they have already started with the so far “informal” blessings), they can introduce women “priests” and “bishops”, and as long as they do not define anything, that society will supposedly still be the Church and they will supposedly still be popes.

However, that would ultimately make the See of St. Peter, outside the strict limits of infallible definitions, no different than the seat of any heretical sect; far from being safe and confident in giving due filial obedience to its teaching, Catholics would always have to be on guard lest they be infected with some heterodox contagion proceeding from it. But never has any Catholic been advised to be guarded towards the teachings of the Holy Roman Church, or to sift through them for heresy. What an impious thought!

Some apologists will even go so far as to say that the only time the Pope actually teaches the Church is when he infallibly defines or condemns something, and that in every other case he is teaching merely as a private theologian, and so they will ironically find themselves affirming precisely the error of which they falsely accuse sedevacantists – that every teaching of the Papal Magisterium is infallible.

Consequences Following

However, what some of these sedeplenists have actually done is to neutralize the dogma in their minds. They have relegated it to the status of a synonym of Papal Infallibility, filed it away in a drawer of the mind, and forgotten about it.

But “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride”: treating something as if it does not exist will not change the truth of things. Thus, their every word in condemnation of the Modernist heresies found in the official teaching of the supposed Roman Pontiff will raise the question to which they will not have an answer, as will their every action done to preserve the Faith in opposition to the authority and Magisterium of the supposed Roman Pontiff (e.g. professions of faith, episcopal consecrations, and so on).

It pains me to say that if they are consistent in their thinking, what some of them end up believing in and confessing is not just a defected Roman Pontiff, but a defected Church (another impossibility contrary to dogma) – a Church:

• Which professes and officially teaches all kinds of pernicious errors and heresies to its faithful,

• Which by its laws permits sacrilege and deviations from the moral law,

• Whose official liturgy diminishes the faith of its faithful and the reverence due to God.

In short, it would be a Church which in no way resembles Christ’s Immaculate and Chaste Bride (“not having spot or wrinkle”19), of whom the Roman Catechism teaches “This one Church, seeing it is governed by the Holy Ghost, cannot err in delivering the discipline of faith and morals”.20

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The True Path

The solution, the way to recover true faith in the Church, as we profess in the Creed, is not to run away from the infallible doctrines of the indefectibility of the Apostolic See and of the Church, but to hold them firmly in our minds and in our hearts, where they will give us strength to know “that Jesus Christ, hanging on the Cross, opened up to His Church the fountain of those divine gifts, which prevent her from ever teaching false doctrine”21; and that despite all the assaults against her of both ancient and recent heretics, “never at any time were they able by any artifice or exertion to make this [Apostolic] See tolerate even a single one of their errors”.22

Do this, my dear sedeplenist friends and brothers in Christ, and (I speak from personal experience) the truth will set you free.

My recapitulation and conclusion are these words of Pope Pius XII:

“Mother Church, Catholic, Roman, she who has remained faithful to the constitution received from her Divine Founder, and who even today stands firmly on the solid rock on which He willed to found her, possesses in the primacy of Peter and of his legitimate successors, the assurance, guaranteed by Divine promises, of maintaining and transmitting whole and inviolate, through centuries and tens of centuries, even to the end of time, the whole body of truth and grace contained in the redemptive mission of Christ.”23

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Editors’ Notes

This is the tenth and final part of a serialisation of Orestes’ Brownson’s engagement with “Eastern Orthodoxy.”

It was originally published in two articles.

Article I

The background of this engagement – including that of the ex-Catholic author Abbé Vladimir (René-François) Guettée and his book The Schismatic Papacy – can be found in the first part. Here are the parts we have seen so far:

1. Eastern Orthodoxy? ‘The Schismatic Papacy’ and Guettée’s absurd imposture

2. Eastern Orthodoxy? St Cyprian is not a witness for schism

3. Eastern Orthodoxy? Schism defended with false history

Those parts made up one article; Brownson then proceeded to a second, much longer article. As such, this tenth part is also the seventh part of the second article – which systematically dismantles Guettée’s attempted appeal to the Councils:

Article II

4. Eastern Orthodox? Why the sixth canon of Nicæa isn’t an argument

5. Eastern Orthodoxy? Rome did not have primacy merely for being the capital city

6. Eastern Orthodoxy? No, Pope Leo the Great is not a witness against papal primacy

7. Eastern Orthodoxy? ‘Orthodox proofs’ from Chalcedon undermine their own case

8. Eastern Orthodoxy? St Gregory the Great and the ‘Universal Bishop’ title

9. Eastern Orthodoxy? Scraping the barrel with irrelevant authorities

10. Eastern Orthodoxy? The problem was always Constantinople, not the Papacy

Why are we publishing this?

For more on why we might bother republishing a nineteenth century review of a nineteenth century book, see the previous part. In short, Guettée’s book continues to bring the ill-informed into the Photian schism, and so Browson’s review and refutation continues to be of enduring importance.

However, in this final part, Brownson gives his definitive analysis of this “treasure” of “Orthodox” apologetics:

“It is in relation to its purpose the weakest and absurdest book we have ever read, and has not, so far as the author is concerned, a Christian thought from beginning to end. […]

“If M. Guettée’s readers will weigh well the arguments for the papacy he reproduces for the sake of refuting them, and his quotations from the fathers and the Roman pontiffs for the sake of blunting their force, they will find that, in spite of misquotations, mistranslations, and misrepresentations, the book carries with it its own antidote.”

As the contemporary “Orthodox” are publishing such works and encouraging Roman Catholics to enter into schism and heresy, they surely cannot complain about us publishing Brownson’s piece in response. We do so in good will, with the hope that they will instead return to the Church of Christ – outside of which there is absolutely no salvation whatsoever.

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The problem was always Constantinople, not the Papacy

Guettée’s ‘The Schismatic Papacy’

Orestes Brownson
Originally published as “Guetté’s Papacy Schismatic’1
From The Catholic World, 1867
Published in The Works of Orestes A. Brownson, Vol. VIII
Thorndike Nourse, Deroit, 1884. pp 491-500
Headings and some line breaks added by The WM Review

Constantinople at the heart of the problem

The whole controversy originated in the attempt to raise the see of Constantinople, which was not an apostolic, a patriarchal, or even a metropolitan see, to the rank and authority of the first see in the church after that of the see of Rome, contrary to the sixth canon of Nicæa, to the constitution of the church, to ancient usage, and to the prejudice of the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, and the metropolitans of Pontus, Asia (Minor), and Thrace.

On what ground does the author seek to defend this attempt, always resisted by the Roman pontiffs and the whole West? Simply on the ground that the rank and authority of a see are derived from the splendor and importance of the city in the empire. He assigns and pretends to assign no other ground.

“The Nicæan council,” he says, “in consecrating the usage by which the bishop of Rome was regarded as the first in honor in the church, had in view not so much the apostolic origin of his see as the splendor which he acquired from the importance of the city of Rome…

“Why, then, should not the bishop of Constantinople have been received as second in rank, Constantinople having become the second capital of the empire; since the bishop of Rome was first in rank, only because of its position as the first capital?” (pp. 100, 101.)

The argument is worthless, because its premises are false. In the first place, the question is one of authority as well as of rank. In the second place, the Council of Nicæa did not consecrate the usage by which the primacy, whether of honor or jurisdiction, was ascribed to the bishop of Rome, but confirmed the usage by which the bishop of Alexandria, the bishop of Antioch, and other metropolitans held a certain rank, and enjoyed certain privileges, and gave as their reason that a like usage or custom obtained with the bishop of Rome. In the third place, the council says not one word about the splendor acquired by the Roman pontiff from the importance of the city of Rome; and we have proved that, whatever his rank and authority, he derived it from the fact that his see was held to be the see of Peter, and he the successor of Peter, the prince of the apostles.

Finally, the author has no ground for his assertion, except the third canon of the second general council and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, the latter authoritatively annulled and the former declared to be without effect by St. Leo, and neither ever receiving the sanction or assent of the universal church. The ground on which the bishop of Constantinople based his ambitious pretensions, that of being bishop of the second capital of the empire, is wholly untenable.

“Alia ratio est rerum secularium, alia divinarum,” says St. Leo.

“We laughed,” says Pope St. Gelasius as cited by the author, p. 198, “at what they (the Eastern bishops) claim for Acacius (bishop of Constantinople) because he was bishop of the imperial city… The power of the secular empire is one thing, the distribution of ecclesiastical dignities is quite a different thing.

“However small a city may be, it does not diminish the greatness of the prince who dwells there; but it is quite as true that the presence of the emperor does not change the order of religion; and such a city should rather profit by its advantages to preserve the freedom of religion, by keeping peaceably within its proper limits.”

Rome wins the day

From first to last, one is struck, in reading the history of the controversy, not only with the superior calmness and dignity of the Roman pontiffs, but with their profound wisdom and catholic sense.

They defend throughout the catholicity of the church against Greek nationalism, and the independence of the kingdom of Christ on earth against its subjection to the secular empire, which was attempted and finally succeeded at Constantinople, and is the case in Russia, Great Britain, and all modern schismatical and heretical states and empires.

The author sees and appreciates nothing of this; he comprehends nothing of the church as the mystic body of Christ, the continuous representation of the Incarnation; his ideas are external, political, unspiritual, and, as far as appears from his book, pagan rather than Christian. The church he recognizes, as far as he recognizes any, is national, not catholic, and holds from the imperial authority, not from Christ, and has no completeness in itself.

Nationalistic ideas at root of the schism

It was precisely in nationalism, in regarding the church as organized for the Roman Empire, not for the whole world, and in recognizing the authority of the civil power in theological and ecclesiastical matters, as the author himself unwittingly shows, that the Greek schism originated.

The bishop of Constantinople, having in the hierarchy no apostolic, patriarchal, or metropolitan rank or authority beyond that which is held by every suffragan bishop, was obliged, in order to defend his ambitious aspirations to the second rank in the church, to give the hierarchy a secular origin, and to fall back on the imperial authority to support him. The idea was pagan, not Christian, and was but too acceptable to the Byzantine Cæsars.

In pagan Rome the emperor was at once imperator and pontifex maximus, and held in his own person the supreme authority in both civil and religious matters. He preserved the tradition of this in Christian Rome, and continually struggled to be under Christianity what he had been under paganism.

In the West the imperial pretensions were in the main successfully resisted, though not without long and bitter struggles, which have not even yet completely ended; but in the East, owing to the ambition and frequent heresy of the bishop of Constantinople, rarely faithful to the church after Constantinople became an imperial capital, and until the great patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, weakened by the Arian, Nestorian, monophysite, and monothelite heresies, and betrayed by the heretics, had fallen, through the pride, treachery, and imbecility of the Byzantine court, under the power of the Mohamedans, those bitter enemies of the cross, the emperor was enabled to grasp the pontifical power, to bring the administration of religion under his despotic control, to make and unmake, murder or exile bishops at his will or the caprices of the ladies of his court.

Hence the Greek schism.

And this is what M, Guettée defends; and because the Roman pontiffs did all in their power to resist such open profanation and secularizing of the church, he has the impudence to contend that it was the usurpations of Rome that caused the schism, and he has found a Protestant Episcopal Bishop in Western New York ignorant enough or shameless enough to uphold him, and to assure us that he is a Catholic in the true sense of the word!

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Hypocritical and opportunistic imperial ‘theology’

Notwithstanding the author defends the usurpations of the imperial authority and the ambitious pretensions of the courtly bishops of Constantinople, and maintains that all the general councils held in the East were convoked and presided over by the emperors, he does not blush to object to the Council of Florence on the ground that the reunion effected in that council was brought about by the ambition of a few Eastern prelates and the undue pressure of the emperor of Constantinople.

If the intervention of the Emperor did not in his judgment vitiate the third canon of the first Council of Constantinople, or the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon, or the fifth or sixth general council, what right has he to pretend that a far less intervention on the Emperor’s part vitiated the canons of the Council of Florence?

On the principles he has defended throughout, the emperor may convoke, preside over a council, dictate and confirm its acts, without detriment to its authority as a general council. He is by his own principles then, bound to accept the canons of Florence as the voice of the universal church, for they were adopted by the East and West united, and are and have been constantly adhered to by the West and the Eastern churches proper, and resisted only by heretics and schismatics, who have no voice in the church.

Conclusion to the series

We need proceed no further. We have said enough to refute the author in principle, and are tired of him, as must be our readers.

We said in the beginning that he had told us nothing in his book that we did not know before; but we are obliged to confess that the examination of authorities into which it has forced us has made us feel as we never felt before how truly the church is founded on Peter, brought home to us the deep debt of gratitude the world owes to the Roman pontiffs, and enabled us to see more clearly than we ever had done the utter groundlessness, the glaring iniquity, and the open paganism of the Greek schism.

The author has made us, we almost fear, an ultra-papist, and certainly has strengthened our attachment, already strong, to the Holy Apostolic See. He has served to us the office of the drunken Helotæ to the Spartan youth. It is in relation to its purpose the weakest and absurdest book we have ever read, and has not, so far as the author is concerned, a Christian thought from beginning to end.

If this book fairly represents the Christian intelligence and sentiments of the non-united Greeks, it is hard to see wherein they are to be preferred to the Turks, or why Christendom should seek their deliverance from the Mohammedan yoke.

If M. Guettée’s readers will weigh well the arguments for the papacy he reproduces for the sake of refuting them, and his quotations from the fathers and the Roman pontiffs for the sake of blunting their force, they will find that, in spite of misquotations, mistranslations, and misrepresentations, the book carries with it its own antidote.

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Read Next:

Orestes Brownson’s review of Abbé Guettée’s The Papacy Schismatic:

1. Eastern Orthodoxy? ‘The Schismatic Papacy’ and Guettée’s absurd imposture

2. Eastern Orthodoxy? St Cyprian is not a witness for schism

3. Eastern Orthodoxy? Schism defended with false history

Article II

4. Eastern Orthodox? Why the sixth canon of Nicæa isn’t an argument

5. Eastern Orthodoxy? Rome did not have primacy merely for being the capital city

6. Eastern Orthodoxy? No, Pope Leo the Great is not a witness against papal primacy

7. Eastern Orthodoxy? ‘Orthodox proofs’ from Chalcedon undermine their own case

8. Eastern Orthodoxy? St Gregory the Great and the ‘Universal Bishop’ title

9. Eastern Orthodoxy? Scraping the barrel with irrelevant authorities

10. Eastern Orthodoxy? The problem was always Constantinople, not the Papacy

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Introduction

This is a re-release of an article published on 29 July 2021 – one of the first articles published at The WM Review. It has now been revised and updated.

This is the second part of my study of Professor Roberto de Mattei’s treatment of Honorius, the so-called “heretic pope”. In his book, Love for the Papacy and Filial Resistance to the Pope in the History of the Church, Professor de Mattei presents the events in such a way as to bolster his own very particular “recognise and resist” view of the crisis in the Church. In certain respects, his narrative is closely aligned to those of anti-Catholics and anti-papalist.

In the first part, I discussed how theological principles regarding the crisis in the Church can be improperly shaped by interpretations of history – and began to demonstrate how this is the case for Pope Honorius.

I hope that this study will, in de Mattei’s own words in the same book, overcome “the many misunderstandings that often divide the forces of good people.”1

The claim to be analysed

Fr Ludwig Ott provides a compressed account of the standard narrative – unsullied by those of anti-Catholics and anti-papalists – of the “Honorius event”.

“There is no doubt but that Pope Honorius I (625-638) was personally orthodox.

“However, through his prohibition against speaking of two modes of operation [“two wills” in Christ] he unwittingly favoured the Monothelite error [“one will in Christ”].

“The Sixth General Council wrongly condemned him as a heretic. Pope Leo II (682-683) confirmed his anathematisation but not for the reason given by the Council.

“He did not reproach him with heresy, but with negligence in the suppression of the error.”2

The previous part addressed the historical account of Honorius’s letters and his subsequent condemnation. I did not claim to have proven that the letters were orthodox or that Honorius was not condemned as a heretic, but rather to have shown the uncertainty of the claims against him.

As de Mattei’s subsequent theological principles depend on his historical claims as their foundation, and as I have shown this foundation to be unsound, my study could have ended there.

But tribal myths do not die easily. With an alarming regularity, commentators and pundits resurrect the anti-Catholic myth of Honorius to support the very flawed “theology” of the so-called “recognise and resist” movement. This regularity gives an impetus to continue the critique, because responses to the crisis in the Church must be based on the truth and on sound doctrine, and not on anti-papal myths adopted in support of a priori conclusions.

In this part, we shall turn to another assertion, which de Mattei presents as certain.

He claims, with no indication that he is aware of any controversy:

“[Honorius’s letters] are undoubtedly magisterial acts, but in the non-infallible ordinary Magisterium there may be errors and even, in exceptional cases, heretical formulations.”3 [These and all subsequent emphasese are our own unless otherwise noted.]

This essay focuses on whether Pope Honorius’ letters can be called “magisterial acts”, and will show that, far from being “undoubtedly magisterial”, the nature of these letters is at best a debated subject.

As with the previous claims considered, this claim also sets de Mattei against two doctors of the Church and very many Catholic authorities – who have taught that they were private letters which did not engage his papal authority.

De Mattei also fails to provide authorities for his assertion of the “undoubtedly magisterial” quality of the letters. De Mattei has himself stated that he is an historian, rather than a theologian4 – and this makes it all the more important for him to thoroughly reference his material when he begins “doing theology” in this way. De Mattei does indeed provide authorities for uncontroversial points, and so his omission of evidence in support of controversial points such as this is noticeable. Without such authorities, he is acting as a theological authority in his own right – which is obviously not the case for a lay professor of history.

Is it pedantic to hold a popular column to such a level of rigour? No, because it is not treated as a mere column. It has been widely syndicated in several languages, and is given weight by de Mattei’s reputation. It is therefore appropriate to hold its debatable claims to this standard.

Further, as that which is asserted without evidence is refuted with a simple denial, we could again end this study here. Nonetheless, an exposition of this faulty theological method is essential.

Both the claim and de Mattei’s article as a whole exhibit “Döllingerist historical theology” at work.5 This Döllingerist approach claims to purify theology by subjecting it to the findings of history: in reality, it seeks to justify a priori principles (in this case, those regarding resistance to the pope) against the received theology of the Church.

Both the premise and the reality are unacceptable to Catholics. Uprooted from true theology, historical theology leads to irrelevant parallels and neglects true distinctions. This makes the precedents and principles it establishes liable to contradict received, traditional Catholic theology.

With that in order, let us consider de Mattei’s claim.

The Magisterium

It is unclear exactly what de Mattei means by “undoubtedly magisterial acts,” as he does not define his terms or refer us to any authorities.

For this reason we must ask: How should we define the term “magisterium”? What is it, and when is it exercised?

Fr Pietro Parente (consecrated bishop in 1955 and made a cardinal in 1967) defines the magisterium in his 1951 text as follows:

“The power conferred by Christ upon His Church and strengthened with the charism of infallibility, by which the teaching Church (Ecclesia docens) is constituted as the unique depository and authentic interpreter of divine revelation to be proposed authoritatively to men as the object of faith for their eternal salvation. […]

“The means, therefore, established by Christ, for the propagation of his teaching is not writing, but oral preaching, living magisterium, to which he assures his personal assistance to the end of the world.”6

Properly speaking, then, the magisterium is a permanent power to teach, which is exercised by the act of teaching, by those who have received it. The word can be used to refer both to those who have and exercise the power, and its exercise.

Those who have received this power are the Apostles and their successors (bishops with ordinary jurisdiction) – and not auxiliary bishops, priests or laymen.7 It is, perhaps, comparable to the Roman concept of imperium, the supreme power of command conferred upon certain magistrates.

By calling Honorius’s letters “magisterial,” de Mattei implies that they are exercises of this power, and as such public acts.8 We are therefore to assume that Honorius exercised his teaching authority, as the successor of St Peter and teacher of the universal Church, even if not at its highest level.

But even this idea contradicts the very many authorities, who hold the letters to be private, and not engaging his papal authority at all. De Mattei does not acknowledge this opinion, nor does explain his reasons for rejecting what is taught even by two Doctors of the Church.

In order to address the letters, we must consider when the magisterium is exercised, and when the pope acts as the pope, as opposed to as a private individual.

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When does the pope act as pope?

Theologians differ in their terminology regarding the official teaching acts of the Pope, but their distinctions between public and private acts are clear.

For example is Cardinal Louis Billot SJ, one of the most important theologians of the twentieth century,9 who explains this idea as follows:

“It is important to know that we can speak of the pope in three different ways.

“Firstly, as a private person, or as a theologian among others, in which case he can err in matters of faith and morals, just like anyone else: this is a fact that cannot be disputed.”10

When acting as a private person, his actions are no more magisterial than a sovereign’s private actions are monarchical. Billot points to examples such as Benedict XIV’s work as a private theologian on the canonization of saints as an example of this (although not as an example of a Pope erring as a private person).

He continues:

“Secondly, the pope may be considered as pope, but not as using the fullness of his apostolic power to define something that the whole church should hold.”11

Billot gives the examples of acts that either do not concern the universal Church, or do not constitute a “definition.” But just as there are no secret or private truths of the Catholic faith, there can be no secret or private acts of the magisterium: there is an opposition between the very categories of secrest/private and magisterial. That which truly is secret or private is, by that fact, not magisterial.

Billot continues:

“Thirdly, the pope can be seen as ‘discharging his office as pastor and doctor of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals as to be held by the whole church.”12

The essence of this third way of acting is the definition (which is not necessarily the same thing as a solemn definition) – the settling of a question for good.

With Billot’s division, we have three ways in which the pope can act.

1. A private person (even if this exercise is public, but the act of a private teacher), who can err.

2. A public teacher, exercising his office by teaching the whole Church or some part of her, but not defining anything.

3. A public teacher, teaching definitively, whether that be explicitly addressed to the universal Church or not.

These general distinctions are clear, even if there are some grey areas. The matter is illuminated further by Fr Domenico Palmieri SJ, who wrote the following:

“[I]t is manifest that the Roman Pontiff can teach something without defining ex cathedra. For upon becoming Pontiff he does not lose the qualities common to all men; the exercise of the authority to teach, moreover, can be manifold, while the full exercise of supreme power belongs freely to him who possesses it. It can also be discerned when the Roman Pontiff is not speaking ex cathedra: for when he teaches something but does not intend to impose an obligation to believe it as something to be held by the universal Church – that is, he does not signify that it is his will – then he is not said to be speaking ex cathedra, even if he is speaking of doctrine concerning faith or morals.

“In such a case it is not accurate to say that he speaks as a private teacher (doctor privatus); for although he does not speak from the fullness of his authority, he does speak with authority. Wherefore a Roman Pontiff speaking in this manner is not to be relegated to the rank of any private doctor possessing no authority.”13

We see here that Fr Palmieri also identifies an opposition between that which is private and that which is authoritative or magisterial.

The issue is also illustrated in the American Ecclesiastical Review’s answer to the question of whether a pope could teach heresy.

First, it was stated that the question was “altogether futile” and hypothetical, as “history has hitherto furnished no example of such an occurrence.”14

But the answer continues:

“… The admission that the Pope, whilst personally peccable, yet in his office as supreme teacher and moderator of the Church is infallible, covers the whole case; nor is there any more difficulty here than there is in distinguishing between the official acts of a sovereign and his private deeds, not as a private man but as sovereign.”15

We could also summarise it like this:

• “Private acts” are those which do not engage the pope’s authority as pope. “Private” does not mean “secret,” as even the pope’s acts as a private teacher can be public in a certain sense – e.g. as the author of a theological text, intending to exclude his papal authority.

• The pope acts as pope, and thus as a public teacher, when he exercises his magisterium, to whatever degree. These acts are necessarily magisterial.

• Neither his public acts as pope, nor his magisterium, are limited to solemn judgements or to definitions (it is also not clear that definitions are necessarily solemn judgments).16

While Billot’s division may not be the only legitimate one, the differences are concerned with the categorisation of magisterial acts and the nature of the assent which they are owed. The theologians distinguish clearly between the pope acting publicly and privately – as taught, for example, by Salaverri,17 Berry18 and others.

For example, Cardinal Franzelin quotes Melchior Cano in the following context:

“[The popes] often respond to private questions of this or that bishop, by explicating [their] opinion concerning the matters proposed to them, [and] not by imposing a judgment in which they mean the faithful to be obliged to belief.”19

Franzelin even cites Honorius’s letters as an example of such private actions. Of course, such private questions may also receive public, magisterial answers from the pope as pope: but whether this occurs will turn on the facts.

Does de Mattei accept a general division like this?

Elsewhere in his anthology of articles on resisting the Roman Pontiff, de Mattei makes these surprising claims – which run directly contrary to the theologians whom we have just cited:

“[…] the expression “private doctor” does not refer to the Supreme Pontiff’s acts of a private nature, but to his “public” function as “supreme pastor of the Church.”20

He clarifies:

“[…] at the First Vatican Council, Monsignor Vincenzo Gasser (1809–1879), representative of the Deputation of the Faith […], stated precisely that the pope is considered a “public person” only if he is speaking ex cathedra, with the intention of binding the Church to his teaching.”21 [Our emphasis]

In other words, he is claiming that ex cathedra statements – which he considers narrowly as solemn judgements – are the only occasions in which the pope is a public person. Encyclicals, motu proprios, apostolic exhortations: de Mattei claims that these are all the works of the pope as a private doctor, and as such may include heresy. It is difficult to express how deleterious this is for Catholic theology.

For his first claim, de Mattei cites an Italian work by Umberto Betti on the First Vatican Council. Betti (1922-2009) was involved in the preparation of Vatican II, contributed to Dei verbum and Lumen gentium, and was made a cardinal by Benedict XVI. I have not been able to locate this text.

However for the second claim, the paraphrase of Mgr Gasser at Vatican I is grievously misleading. This, below, is the text, originally in Latin, which de Mattei gives in the footnote to claim that “the pope is considered a “public person” only if he is speaking ex cathedra”:

“[…] The supreme Pontiff speaks ‘ex cathedra,’ not, first of all, when he decrees something as a private teacher, nor only as the bishop and ordinary of a particular See and province, but when he teaches as exercising his office as supreme pastor and teacher of all Christians.”22

As is clear, text in no way whatsoever even suggests that the pope is only a public person “if he is speaking ex cathedra.” It simply asserts that he does not speak ex cathedra when acting as a private teacher or as the teacher of particular churches. Considerably more evidence would be needed to prove de Mattei’s interpretation.

To confuse this as meaning what de Mattei says defies belief, indicating either an inability to reason. It is quite shocking for this Latin text to be cited, which most cannot understand or verify, in support of such a point.

Further, if even encyclicals are the acts of a “private” teacher, then the word “private” has no meaning. If the pope’s ordinary magisterium is reduced to that of a private teacher, then we may take or leave his “opinions” as we judge them to be true. So much for what Pius XII said of “the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: ‘He who heareth you, heareth me.’”23 This also has grave consequences for the preaching of the magisterium as the “proximate rule of faith”.

For these reasons, de Mattei’s account is to be rejected.

Any remaining ambiguities only prove the rule

The divisions drawn from Billot and others make it possible to categorise most of the pope’s acts, and so determine whether they are magisterial or not.

Nonetheless, there may be some acts about which it is harder to say that they are public or private, or definitive or otherwise. This difficulty may only increase with the lapse of centuries.

However, this does not undermine the basic divisions. Billot addresses uncertainly defined points, “which only probably belong to the definite truths.”24 Such cases, he says, are subject to “the general principle, that a doubtful obligation is void precisely insofar as it is doubtful.”25 Uncertainly defined points are not to be treated as undoubtedly defined; and uncertainly magisterial acts are not to be treated as undoubtedly magisterial.

As noted, the various divisions all assume the existence of private acts, but are mainly concerned with categorising the public acts of the magisterium. They hold that the faithful are bound to give (at least) a firm, true and internal assent to all exercises of the papal magisterium. This is a truly standard doctrine taught by magisterium itself,26 canon law27 and is the very common teaching of theologians.28

In this sense, whether a true teaching act is ex cathedra, a definition or something else is an interesting question in itself, but (in some ways) a moot point – especially for laymen and non-theologians. We can leave further categorisations to theologians and confessors, becuase we are required to assent to all that we are clearly taught by the papal magisterium. There is no non-obligatory magisterium, at least with reference to clear papal teaching: all such teaching requires religious assent and a respectful silence.

This is because the primary fact, which all these theologians seek to explain, is this: Our Lord has given us a safe, simple rule of faith – the preaching of the living and perpetual magisterium. Van Noort addresses this clearly:

“The Church’s preaching is a rule of faith which is nicely accommodated to people’s needs. For:

“(a) it is an easy rule, one that can be observed by all alike, even the uneducated and unlettered. What could be easier than to give ear to a magisterium that is always at hand and always preaching?

“(b) It is a safe rule, for the Church’s teaching office is infallible in safeguarding and presenting Christ’s doctrine.

“(c) It is a living rule, in accordance with which it is possible in any age to explain the meaning of doctrines and to put an end to controversies.”29

No doubt Van Noort’s emphasis on easiness and safety may be surprising to many in our day. But this is the teaching of the Church, and we are obliged to accept it – and to judge our current situation in light of it.

Also, as is clear, this is “rule of faith” is necessarily public, such that anything which is private or secret cannot possibly be a part of it.

Having now established all our principles, let us turn to Pope Honorius.

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What actually happened with Honorius’s Letters

Pope Honorius’ letters were addressed to Sergius alone. This does not necessarily mean that they are not magisterial: in recent times, papal addresses to small groups (e.g. midwives, newlyweds) were sometimes promulgated to the whole Church through inclusion in the Acta Apostolica Sedis.30

As such, Berry and others teach that a private letter like this could only really be considered magisterial if it were intended for the universal Church, notwithstanding the immediate person to whom it is addressed. How would we know if it were so intended? In his discussion of ex cathedra pronouncements, Berry quotes Cardinal Mazzella:

“‘[…] it should be noted for whom, rather than to whom the Pope speaks. [It may be] evident from the nature of the matter treated, from the manner of treatment, or from any other circumstance, that he speaks for all […]’”31

Does this apply to Honorius’s letters?

De Mattei could have cited the arguments of Fr Hartmann Grisar SJ, whom he cites elsewhere:

“A private person is not consulted in the way that Sergius consulted Honorius; nor does he write letters like those that Honorius sent to Sergius, and, with similar force of expression, to [others], and clearly with the purpose that they should be a standard for the whole church.”32

Fr Emile Amann, another of de Mattei’s sources, argues that a request from the Patriarch of Constantinople for the highest authority to settle a controversy cannot be reduced to private letters between two individuals.33 He argues that the letters purport to teach and impose this teaching, and as such are magisterial acts.

Bishop Hefele – another of his sources – also claims that these letters were implicitly intended to teach the whole Church.34

On the one hand, de Mattei’s source Dom Chapman holds that “Honorius addresses Sergius alone and not the whole Church,” and that the letter had “less publicity than a modern Encyclical” and “does not define or condemn [or] bind the Church.”35 Nonetheless – somewhat contradictorily – he also says that “the letter cannot be called a private one, for it is an official reply to a formal consultation.”36

But although Pope Honorius may have been consulted as a public person, it was his prerogative to decide how to reply; and a reply with private letters, no matter how peremptory their tone, seems to preclude his response being public act of authority.

Authorities who held them to be private letters

Further, against the sources mentioned, and de Mattei’s uncited claim, most authorities believe that Honorius’s letters were private, and as such did not engage his papal authority. For example:

St Robert Bellarmine – Doctor of the Church – says that “all that Honorius is accused of [is] that he fostered heresy in private letters.”37 He does not hold him to have expressed or taught heresy, nor even to have fostered it as accused. In fact, he praises him for the prudence in advising silence, “For then it was the beginning of this heresy, and nothing on these terms was yet defined by the Church.”38

St Alphonsus Liguori – another Doctor of the Church – writes in The History of Heresies that “he only wrote them as a private doctor, and in no wise stained the purity of the faith of the Apostolic See” and also, “there is no open heresy in the private letter of Honorius to Sergius.”39

Cardinal Franzelin is so clear on the private nature of Honorius’s letters that he uses them as an example of a pope acting as a private person.40

Cardinal Hergenröther – the great historian who refuted the historical theology of the excommunicate Döllinger in his work Anti-Janus – cites another writer (Habert) approvingly, saying that “the letters of Honorius were private letters.”41

Berry states that the letters were “not issued for the universal Church.”42 They were “private letters” and were “merely a matter of personal advice requested by Sergius.”43 “But,” he observes, “even as such they contain no error of doctrine”44 – Honorius fault, after all, being a failure to condemn, rather than the teaching of error.

However, it seems that Honorius’ letters were so private as to be actually unknown until they were produced at the Sixth Ecumenical Council.

Cardinal Manning, in Petri Privilegium, quotes another bishop, saying that the letters “were not published, even in the East, until several years later,” and Sergius had managed to keep his letter concealed for eight years, even from the Emperor – and this was “probably because its contents, if published, would not have suited his wily purpose of secretly introducing, under another form, the Eutychian heresy.”45 Manning concludes that “his letters were not addressed to a general council of the whole Church and were rather private, than public and official.”46

Dom Prosper Guéranger – whom de Mattei calls a “great theologian of history”47 – describes the events between Honorius’s death and his condemnation, referring to the various saints and prelates that appealed to Rome for aid against the monothelitist heresy. He writes:

“In all these letters [engaging in the Monothelite controversy after Honorius’s death], there is not the slightest mention of Honorius, nor of his having forbidden reference to one will, or of two wills. Everywhere the same confidence in the unbreakable fidelity of the See of Rome to the true faith, everywhere the conviction that this See has not yet pronounced on the question.”48

What can we conclude from this apparent ignorance of Honorius’s letters, Guéranger asks?

“Honorius’s letter to Sergius remained unknown in the Church in its capacity as a private writing; or that if it was known to a certain extent, no one recognized in this document the characteristics of an apostolic judgment. [It] was not addressed by him to the Church [and that] it never had any other character than that of a private writing.”49

He concludes that “those conditions which would take the letter out of the character of a private writing and elevate it to the importance of a general law […] are totally lacking here.”50

Fr Paul Bottalla SJ – the author of an important work on Honorius – summarises these arguments decisively:

“[The letters] were not intended for the instruction of the whole Church. Far from this, they were not even destined for circulation among all the Bishops of either East or West; still less were the Bishops required to sign them. […]

“No record whatever exists from which we learn that the letters of Honorius were communicated to the Oriental Bishops. Sergius, who was principally interested in the matter, did not put them in circulation, nor did he even mention them in the Ecthesis, which was his own composition.”51

Can private letters, which were in fact unknown, really be called “magisterial” at all?

Further, even if we were to believe them to be magisterial, can documents whose very status is so debated be called “undoubtedly magisterial”?

Concluding reflections

This present essay is a critique of historical theology, rather than the building of theories of my own. It is not necessary to prove that Honorius’ letters were private in order to establish the point in question – that they are not “undoubtedly magisterial” acts, and so provide no basis for the “recognise and resist theology.” Given the logic of de Mattei’s case, which depends necessarily on his premises being certain, all that I need to do is establish uncertainty on this point.

Why is this question important? The idea that these letters were “undoubtedly magisterial” is itself harmful to Catholic doctrine, as are the further theories derived from this claim. This historical-theological approach is used to bolster a particular interpretation of our crisis which is incompatible with the received theological tradition.

We have already seen Billot’s truism, that “a doubtful obligation is void precisely insofar as it is doubtful.”52 “Uncertainly magisterial” acts are not to be treated as “undoubtedly magisterial.”

The question, therefore, turns on the facts. Can private letters, unknown to most bishops at the time, addressed to a single Patriarch, not published in a form indicating a magisterial character, which were concealed for years, and which weighty authorities from the time and since have treated as mere private letters – can they really be called “undoubtedly magisterial acts”?

It is very difficult to see in what sense they could be called magisterial, public or official teaching.

I do not believe that I can settle this question – although to some extent, to ask it is to answer it. Given the certainly private aspects of the letters, and the debate around their actual status, we cannot conclude that are undoubtedly public or magisterial teaching in the sense defined above.

However, it is a serious mistake to compare this to our present situation. Amoris Laetitia, Fratelli Tutti and various documents of Vatican II cannot be compared to Honorius’s private letters. Amoris Laetitia, for example, was addressed universally, “to bishops, priests and deacons, consecrated persons, Christian married couples and all the lay faithful.”53

Such documents have been issued universally, and are held by all to be official.

The idea that the presence of dangerous errors within them automatically reduces these official documents to the level of private acts is not tenable. These documents truly are “undoubtedly ‘magisterial’ acts” of the so-called conciliar church – which, as proved elsewhere, cannot be the Catholic Church.

Thus, even if Honorius’s private letters did contain some error or heresy, the situation is completely different. They do not provide any precedent for the apparent spectacle of a heretical magisterium, or for the scandalous post-conciliar “pontificates”. False parallels cannot form the basis for us all “uniting around tradition,” as de Mattei says he desires; nor can they be a theoretical basis to assist us at this most dreadful hour of history.

We must unite around the truth, both in fact and in principle.

Post-script: The next stage of analysis

We have now seen that the best authorities hold Honorius’s letters to have been orthodox in themselves, but also private – and thus not exercises of the magisterium.

We have seen that de Mattei widens the boundaries of the magisterium to include even secret, private acts – and that elsewhere he constricts the boundaries of public acts to ex cathedra statements alone. These dubious boundaries allow him to suggest that the magisterium has previously taught dangerous errors and heresy with public acts.

We have seen that any historical parallels here with our crisis are unsound, and these letters have no points of comparison with the “undoubtedly ‘magisterial’ acts” of the conciliar church.

However, conclusions can be true, even if the premises used to defend them on occasion are false. What are we to make of de Mattei’s theological principle, that the “non-infallible ordinary Magisterium” can contain errors and even heresy?

Does it stand up to scrutiny? Or is it more historical theology, doing violence to received Catholic doctrine?

2026 Note

These questions were addressed in the subject of the next two parts of this study. These next two parts argued for the theory of “infallible safety” – namely that acts of the magisterium could not contain so-called “dangerous error”, and held Professor de Mattei to task for failing to adopt this theory himself.

I have since revised my views on this theory, which is why Parts IIIa and IIIb have been unavailable for so long. I hope to find time to revise them in due course.

My current thoughts on this theory may be found, in part, here, and here:

• Infallible Safety? – What Cardinal Franzelin actually taught

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Editors’ Notes

This is the ninth part of a serialisation of Orestes’ Brownson’s engagement with “Eastern Orthodoxy.”

It was originally published in two articles.

Article I

The background of this engagement – including that of the ex-Catholic author Abbé Vladimir (René-François) Guettée and his book The Schismatic Papacy – can be found in the first part. Here are the parts we have seen so far:

1. Eastern Orthodoxy? ‘The Schismatic Papacy’ and Guettée’s absurd imposture

2. Eastern Orthodoxy? St Cyprian is not a witness for schism

3. Eastern Orthodoxy? Schism defended with false history

Those parts made up one article; Brownson then proceeded to a second, much longer article. As such, this sixth part is also the ninth part of the second article – which systematically dismantles Guettée’s attempted appeal to the Councils:

Article II

4. Eastern Orthodox? Why the sixth canon of Nicæa isn’t an argument

5. Eastern Orthodoxy? Rome did not have primacy merely for being the capital city

6. Eastern Orthodoxy? No, Pope Leo the Great is not a witness against papal primacy

7. Eastern Orthodoxy? ‘Orthodox proofs’ from Chalcedon undermine their own case

8. Eastern Orthodoxy? St Gregory the Great and the ‘Universal Bishop’ title

9. Eastern Orthodoxy? Scraping the barrel with irrelevant authorities

Why are we publishing this?

For more on why we might bother republishing a nineteenth century review of a nineteenth century book, see the first part. In short, Guettée’s book continues to bring the ill-informed into the Photian schism, and so Browson’s review and refutation continues to be of enduring importance.

As the contemporary “Orthodox” are publishing such works and encouraging Roman Catholics to enter into schism and heresy, they surely cannot complain about us publishing Brownson’s piece in response. We do so in good will, with the hope that they will instead return to the Church of Christ – outside of which there is absolutely no salvation whatsoever.

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Scraping the Barrel with irrelevant authorities

Guettée’s ‘The Schismatic Papacy,’ Part 2.1

Orestes Brownson
Originally published as “Guetté’s Papacy Schismatic’1
From The Catholic World, 1867
Published in The Works of Orestes A. Brownson, Vol. VIII
Thorndike Nourse, Deroit, 1884. pp 491-500
Headings and some line breaks added by The WM Review

Scraping the barrel

The author is unhappy in his witnesses, and they are all too decidedly Roman to testify otherwise than against him. He cites other eminent fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, but he raises no new questions, and makes no points in his favor not already met and disposed of; and we may, therefore, pass over what he adduces, since, as we continue to remind our readers, we are not adducing our proofs of the papal authority, but refuting his arguments or pretended arguments against it.

In his fifth division, chapter, or section, the author examines “the authority of the bishop of Rome in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries.” We have anticipated him in regard to St. Gregory the Great, the most prominent papal figure in these centuries, and shown that this great pontiff and doctor, who justly ranks along with St. Leo, offers no testimony in support of the author’s vain attempt to prove the papacy schismatic.

We have read this section of his book with care, but we find that, while he shows very clearly that the Roman pontiff, to save the faith and the constitution and canons of the church from the attacks of the heretics and schismatics of the East, was obliged to intervene with his supreme authority in the affairs of the Eastern churches more frequently than in earlier ages, he brings forward nothing different from what has already been refuted to prove that they did not possess the authority which they exercised by divine right.

We may say, then, that the author has totally failed to establish his first conclusion, that “the bishop of Rome did not for eight centuries possess the sovereignty of divine right which he has since sought to exercise.” The facts he adduces prove that during those centuries the popes did exercise all the authority they have as supreme pontiffs since exercised, and that they professed to exercise it by divine right, and without any contradiction by the universal church.

No doubt the author has adduced instances in which general councils have recognized it, and made it the basis of their action; but this does not prove that the papal authority was conferred by the church, and was held only by ecclesiastical right. No doubt the civil authority on more than one occasion recognized it and made it the law of the empire, but this does not prove that it was held as a grant of the emperor, but the reverse rather.

The author, then, has not refuted the argument from possession, turned the presumption against the papacy, or proved that he and his friends the non-united Greeks are not decidedly schismatics in resisting the Council of Florence, in which both the East and West were represented and united.

Guettée’s second contention: That papal claims caused the schism

The author, having failed to establish his first conclusion, notwithstanding his misquotations, mistranslations, and misrepresentations of facts, which are numerous and barefaced enough to excite the envy of his editor, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Western New York, cannot prove his second conclusion, namely: The pretension of the bishops of Rome to the sovereignty of divine right over the whole church was the cause of the division.

This depends on the first, and falls with it; for it is necessary to deny the divine authority of the pope to govern the whole church before his assumption and exercise of that authority can be held to be a usurpation, and the cause of the divisions which result from resistance to it. Resistance otherwise is illegal, unauthorized, and conclusive evidence of schism, or, rather, is undeniably itself schism.

The resistance on the part of the Eastern bishops and prelates to the Roman pontiff in the exercise of his legitimate authority was schism, as much so as an armed insurrection against the political sovereign is rebellion, and the rebels cannot allege that the sovereign in the exercise of his legitimate authority is the cause of their rebellion, and hold him responsible for it.

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The burden of proof is on the schismatics, not Catholics

The author, forgetting that the pope is in possession, and that throughout the presumption is in favor of his authority, argues as if the presumption was on the other side, and the onus probandi was on us.

He, therefore, concludes that every exercise of papal jurisdiction beyond the patriarchate of the West is a usurpation, and resistance to it justifiable, unless we are able to prove the contrary. We deny it, and maintain that it is for him to prove that jurisdiction is usurped, and not held by divine right. The laboring oar is in his hands. It is always for those who resist authority to justify their resistance.

The author can justify his resistance to papal authority only by producing some law of God or some canon of the universal church that restricts the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff to the Western patriarchate, and forbids him to exercise jurisdiction over the whole church. A law or edict to that effect of the empire or canon of the Eastern churches alone, could it be produced, would not avail him; it must be a decision of the universal church, even according to his own doctrine. He alleges no such act or canon, and can allege none, for all the acts or canons of the universal church bearing on the question, unhappily for him, are the other way.

The failure to produce relevant and authoritative canons

The author adduces the third canon of the second general council, and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, but these canons, having never been assented to by the West, are without the authority of the universal church. And, besides, they do not distinctly deny the supreme authority of the bishop of Rome, and only profess to confer the first rank and authority after the Roman pontiff on the bishop of Constantinople.

It is a strong presumption against the author that he does not even allege any law or canon of the universal church which the popes have violated, and his charge against them is that of presenting themselves as defenders of the canons against innovation, as in the refusal of St. Leo to accept the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon.

But the author, with his usual facility, refutes himself, and shows that it was not the pretension of the bishops of Rome, but the pretensions of the bishop of Constantinople and of the secular government that caused the division. We have seen that the third canon of the second general council, and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, which was annulled by St. Leo, were in violation of the canons, but were prompted by the ambition of the bishop of Constantinople and the secular authority.

“We can perceive,” says the author, p. 100…

“… in the struggles between the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, respecting the twenty-eighth canon of the council of Chalcedon, the origin of the dissensions which afterward led to an entire rupture.”

The real cause of the rupture

And why did these dissensions lead to an entire rupture? Certainly because the same parties continued to maintain the same claims in relation to each other. The ground of the dissension remained always the same.

The question, then, is, which party in the beginning was in the right, and which was in the wrong? “In principle,” says the author on the same page, “St. Leo was right;” that is, right in defending the canons of the holy fathers and the decrees of the venerable Council of Nicæa against their violation and subversion by the innovations of Constantinople and Chalcedon. St. Leo, the author himself says, presented himself as the defender of antiquity and the canons of Nicæa; he must, then, have been right not only in principle, but in fact.

The real cause of the division was not the pretension of the bishops of Rome to an authority which they did not possess, but their refusal to assent to the violent and shameless usurpations of Constantinople. The attitude of the popes and the ground on which they resisted from first to last were distinctly taken by St. Leo in his letter to the emperor, Marcian, already cited:

“Privilegia ecclesiarum, sanctorum Patrum canonibus instituta et venerabilis Nicænæ synodi fixa decretis, nulla possunt improbitate convelli, nulla mutari novitate.”2

But St. Leo “could not deny,” says the author, “that one general council had the same rights as another that had preceded it.” But, even if so, none of the innovations proposed by the East and opposed by the bishops of Rome have ever had the authority of a general council. There is and can be, even according to the author and his schismatic Greek friends, no general council without the bishop of Rome; and the canons on which the author relies were from the first resisted by the Roman pontiff, and, therefore, could not override or abrogate the decrees of the Council of Nicæa.

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If you enjoyed this article, then why not get it in mug form?

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(Now, now, our Eastern “Orthodox” friends, don’t get too stressed. It’s all in good humour. We wish you well, and pray for your good.)

Read Next:

Orestes Brownson’s review of Abbé Guettée’s The Papacy Schismatic:

1. Eastern Orthodoxy? ‘The Schismatic Papacy’ and Guettée’s absurd imposture

2. Eastern Orthodoxy? St Cyprian is not a witness for schism

3. Eastern Orthodoxy? Schism defended with false history

Article II

4. Eastern Orthodox? Why the sixth canon of Nicæa isn’t an argument

5. Eastern Orthodoxy? Rome did not have primacy merely for being the capital city

6. Eastern Orthodoxy? No, Pope Leo the Great is not a witness against papal primacy

7. Eastern Orthodoxy? ‘Orthodox proofs’ from Chalcedon undermine their own case

8. Eastern Orthodoxy? St Gregory the Great and the ‘Universal Bishop’ title

9. Eastern Orthodoxy? Scraping the barrel with irrelevant authorities

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Stabat Mater Press just released a new translation of Fr. Théotime de Saint-Just’s classic work, The Social Kingship of Christ According to Cardinal Pie.

This book is a synthesis of Cardinal Pie’s writings, sermons, and addresses on the topic. Fr Théotime provides an extensive selection of long extracts (along with commentary), which results in a full exposition of the doctrine or Christ’s Social Kingship.

I had the honour of providing the foreword for this handsome new edition, available in both hardback and paperback.

The foreword, which is 25 pages long, situates Fr. Théotime’s work in our own ecclesiastical crisis – in which the doctrine of Christ’s Kingship has been so transformed as to constitute a denial of the original teaching.

It sets out why Vatican II’s doctrine of religious liberty is central to this transformation, how it has been interpreted by Vatican authorities (in ways quite contrary to those who seek to reconcile it with tradition), and the practical effects on our world – dealing with issues as varied as COVID-19 church closures, train crashes in Spain (in which the last rites were prevented in case they “interfere” with the emergency services), and the stated reasoning behind the SSPX’s 1988 episcopal consecrations.

This is the first such foreword I have provided. If you would like to read it then get the book from Stabat Mater Press:

• The Social Kingship of Christ According to Cardinal Pie – Fr. Théotime de Saint‑Just O.M.C.

(NB: I am not receiving any commission or benefits from sales.)

Who was Cardinal Pie?

Louis-Edouard-Désiré Pie (1815-80) was born in Pontgouin, France, in 1815. He rose in the ecclesiastical ranks until he was made bishop of Poitiers in 1849 and was elevated to cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, almost exactly a year before he died. He was an extremely energetic prelate, and his legacy was appreciated by several popes – as is recounted in Capuchin monk Fr. Théotime de Saint-Just’s introduction to the work. Pope St. Pius X, in particular, praised Cardinal Pie’s work publicly, calling him “my master.”

Cardinal Pie is one of the great, neglected voices in Catholic theology. His work provides a comprehensive exposition of the Social Kingship of Christ – and yet he remains almost unknown to English-speaking Catholics.

This is a great loss to us because the questions Cardinal Pie addressed in the 19th century – the duties of states toward God, the rights of Christ over civil society, the consequences of national apostasy from the Faith – are precisely the questions that confront us today.

About the book

The central question that Christ’s Social Kingship answers is expressed by Fr. Théotime in the introduction to the work:

Our Lord Jesus Christ – did He come to earth to sanctify souls, or did He also come to impose His will upon social institutions, codes of law, assemblies, and sovereigns themselves, thus becoming the supreme King of nations and peoples?

Cardinal Pie sets out the nature of Christ’s Kingship, showing that Our Lord did not come solely for sanctification of souls but also to “impose His will upon social institutions,” etc.; indeed, the latter is a necessary consequence of the former. For if Christ is King over all individuals, then He is their King whether they are alone or gathered as families, societies, and nations. All such gatherings of men have a duty to recognize this Kingship, and Christ has a right to their homage.

The WM Review and its editors have published many articles on this doctrine and its implications for our day.

• ‘Christ is King’—Christendom and Religious Liberty

• Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Christ the King, the antidote society needs

• Did Vatican II betray ‘Christ the King’? (Podcast)

• Top 5 Christ the King articles

• Liberalism vs. Christ the King: the defining battle of our age

• Leo XIV openly rejects the reign of Christ the King over states and nations

• Ted Cruz is wrong: Christ must reign over every state and nation

• Report: Leo XIV says ‘our task is not to build a Christendom’

At a time in which the Kingship of Christ is reduced to largely individualistic terms and the phrase “Christ is King” is thrown around as a slogan emptied of its original doctrinal content, this synthesis could not have been re-translated and published at a better time.

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The order of the book

Fr. Théotime’s work proceeds in an orderly manner, starting with Cardinal Pie’s exposition of the doctrine and its implications for societies and nations. He then proceeds to the cardinal’s analysis of the rebellion against Christ’s Kingship, and the consequences of this rebellion. He presents Cardinal Pie’s explanation of how Christ’s Social Kingship can be restored – examining the duties of different classes of men. The work ends with Cardinal Pie’s “prophecies” of the two outcomes that await mankind, depending on whether Christ is “allowed” to reign, or whether mankind replies by saying, “We will not have this man to reign over us.”

What makes this synthesis by Fr. Théotime so valuable is Cardinal Pie’s integration of Scripture, the Fathers, and the magisterium into a single, coherent manifesto. He demonstrates why Christ’s Kingship extends necessarily to civil society, how the refusal to acknowledge it leads to ruin, and what the restoration of this Kingship requires of each class of men.

In particular, Cardinal Pie’s analysis of the consequences of the rebellion against Christ’s Kingship reads like a description of our world­ – making this work especially important for our time.

How the book was received at the time

Fr. Théotime received much praise for this work.

Fr. Josephus Antonius a Persiceto, the Master General of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin praised it, speaking of the “greatest satisfaction” that he had reading this “fine work.”1

Fr. Théotime provides a number of reviews in the preface to the second edition. For example, Cardinal Mercier described it as “an illuminating synthesis,” and a professor at the Catholic University of Paris praised Fr. Théotime for having put Cardinal Pie’s work “into scholastic form,” and having given it “its full effectiveness against contemporary error.”2

He also provides the comments of a diocesan superior of a congregation:

Please accept my deepest gratitude and also my complete admiration for your perfect work. It is a well-organized, lively, illuminating, concise book which is both interesting and edifying to read. Not a word too many.

I read it with enthusiasm and with the desire that it be known and become the bedside book of all those who have authority over society, bishops, priests, legislators, and social leaders.3

Fr. Adhémar d’Alès, SJ, wrote the following in his review for Études4 in 1924:

The Rev. Fr. Théotime de Saint-Just had the very happy idea of gathering (Cardinal Pie’s teachings on the Social Kingship) so that they might be heard by the present generation.

He establishes, through textual quotations borrowed from the Bishop of Poitiers: (1) the right of Jesus Christ to reign over societies; (2) the all-too-certain fact of general apostasy; (3) the means for a possible restoration of this reign; (4) the future that is promised to him.

We must hope for the widest possible dissemination of these pages of sound doctrine and valiant faith.5

La France franciscaine said:

The work will be read with great profit.6

The Nouvelle revue théologique (which has nothing to do with the nouvelle théologie) wrote:

In today’s society, which is in the throes of a profound crisis of authority, Fr. Théotime … presents an ideal program.

The Revue des lectures praised the work by explicitly linking it with the encyclical Quas Primas:

“We are pleased to recommend this book in the wake of the Encyclical (Quas primas) on the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ … Fr. Théotime’s work will be very useful to priests and educated laymen in understanding the views of the Pope.”7

Lastly, Polybiblion featured the following review:

(An) excellent work, so full of doctrine and piety … The relevance of the subject-matter and the sound, clearly expounded doctrine ensure this book’s apostolic success, which will be the best reward for the author.8

The Social Kingship in our time

As mentioned above, the foreword explains why the doctrine of Fr Théotime’s work is so important for our own day, in terms of the attacks which it has sustained, and the consequences.

But there is another aspect to its contemporary relevance which we shold consider. The book ends with a discussion of whether we may reasonably hope for a restoration of Christ’s Kingship before the end of the world.

While firmly teaching that it is the duty of Christians to work for this restoration, Cardinal Pie was “neither overly optimistic nor discouragingly pessimistic about the future.” It seems that he did not expect a “very long period of social renewal in Christ before the end of the world” but that he nonetheless nurtured a hope for a possible “brilliant autumn for Christian society at the end of the world.”9

Also referring to Mgr. Delassus’ La Conjuration antichrétienne (The Anti-Christian Conspiracy, currently being translated and published by Shield of Faith Press), Fr. Théotime provided the following comments from Cardinal Pie:

What are the Lord’s thoughts on the Church, on society, on Rome, on France, on the world? Must we now descend a slippery slope to the bottom of the abyss? Must we climb back up to the light? It gives me pleasure to repeat: the predictions of the saints, the premonitions of the good, seem to allow us to hope yet for days of triumph, at least temporary, for the Church militant.10

(Incidentally, Fr Théotime refers positively to the great Mgr Delassus twelve times throughout the work, indicating where his sympathies lie.)

He also cites the following warning from Cardinal Pie, parts of which seems chillingly appropriate for our time:

[W]hat is certain is that as the world approaches its end, the wicked and the seducers will have more and more of an advantage. Faith will be almost impossible to find on earth – that is to say, it will have almost completely disappeared from all earthly institutions.

Believers themselves will hardly dare to make a public and social profession of their beliefs. The schism, the separation, the divorce of societies from God – which St. Paul gives as a sign preceding the end, nisi venerit discessio primum – will be consummated day by day.

The Church, a society that will undoubtedly always be visible, will be increasingly reduced to simply individual and domestic proportions. She, who said in her early days, ‘The place is too small for me, make room for me to dwell,’ Angustus mihi locus, fac spatium ut habitem, will find herself fighting for ground inch by inch, surrounded and hemmed in on all sides: as much as the centuries had made her great, so much will be done to restrict her.

Finally, there will be a veritable defeat for the Church on earth, and the Beast will be given power to wage war against the saints and defeat them. The insolence of evil will reach its peak.

Now, in this extreme situation, in this desperate state, on this globe given over to the triumph of evil and soon to be engulfed in flames, what should all true Christians, all good people, all saints, all men of faith and courage still do?

The very moving answer to this question will be found in the book.

Ultimately, Cardinal Pie’s teaching – as presented by Fr. Théotime – is both the accusation and the antidote for what has been ailing the world since Vatican II, and even before. As the Cardinal himself said:

The only hope for our social regeneration lies in the study of religion … the first step back to peace and happiness will be a return to the science of Christianity.

You can get Fr Théotime’s book here:

• The Social Kingship of Christ According to Cardinal Pie – Fr. Théotime de Saint‑Just O.M.C.

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Postscript: About Stabat Mater Press

Stabat Mater Press was founded in 2024 as a publishing house for traditional Catholic books and “dedicated to the restoration and preservation of the Church’s intellectual and spiritual patrimony.”

“We prioritize,” they say, “works that are expressly related to, or can shed light on, the Social Kingship of Our Lord.”

They also are engaged in restoring older texts. With a few exceptions, publishers releasing OCR scans of old texts can have low standards – and publish their Catholic works indiscriminately with very bad books (occult, masonry, heresy, and so on). Stabat Mater Press’s editions are avoiding both problems. You can see a sample of their quality in this preview of Fr Edward J. Cahill’s Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement:

Regarding big print-on-demand publishers of good and bad OCR scans indiscriminately, SMP says:

As a family-owned publishing house, we take seriously the idea that Catholic books should be made by Catholics and for Catholics — those formed by the Faith, obedient to the Church, and committed to tradition.

Stabat Mater Press has already put together a small but impressive range of books in nice editions, including:

• Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement – Fr. Edward J. Cahill

• To Restore All Things: Essays of Catholic Political Thought – de Maistre, Belloc, Dononso Cortes

• The Heresy of Popular Sovereignty – Fr. Charles Maignen

• INFERNO: A Journey Through Modern Hell in Search of Eternal Truth – Augustine Virgil

• The Social Kingship of Christ According to Cardinal Pie – Fr. Théotime de Saint‑Just, O.M.C.

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The editor is planning to migrate all of the titles away from Amazon in due course, in accordance with the vision which Mr Theo Howard from called “The Little Way of Christendom” – which is explained in the video and One Peter Five articles below:

• The Little Way of Christendom, Part 1

• The Little Way of Christendom, Part 2

You can get Fr. Théotime’s book here:

• The Social Kingship of Christ According to Cardinal Pie – Fr. Théotime de Saint‑Just, O.M.C.

HELP KEEP THE WM REVIEW ONLINE WITH WM+!

As we expand The WM Review we would like to keep providing free articles for everyone.

Our work takes a lot of time and effort to produce. If you have benefitted from it please do consider supporting us financially.

A subscription gets you access to our exclusive WM+ material, and helps ensure that we can keep writing and sharing free material for all.

You can see what readers are saying over at our Testimonials page.

And you can visit The WM Review Shop for our ‘Lovely Mugs’ and more.

(We make our WM+ material freely available to clergy, priests and seminarians upon request. Please subscribe and reply to the email if this applies to you.)

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