Friday morning marked the opening of the second consistory of the year, which has brought around 180 cardinals to Rome for the few days of meetings. Four sessions will be held in total, with two now completed and the final two taking place on Saturday.

Of these, the beginning session was arguably the most open in terms of what might emerge, given that it was on the theme of the Church proclaiming the Gospel in the current world and the challenges inherent to this. Yet no particular notable concerns appear to have been raised by the cardinals, according to the information provided by the Holy See. {Strict secrecy is being enforced on the cardinals during the consistory}

Both in the morning and afternoon the various table groups highlighted a need for the Church to respond to:

• Growing polarization in society and the myriad effects.

• Lack of respect for religion in many countries and the violence against the Church.

• “The rise of antisemitism.”

• Family break ups leading to drug and alcohol abuse, suicide and worsening conditions for children.

• Secularism robbing people of a sense of purpose and meaning in life.

• The question of migration and responding in “a humane and Christian manner.”

• Ecological issues and concerns.

• For the Church to be a “credible witness” in the quest for peace. In this capacity they spoke about “a language that facilitates the search for unity within the Church.”

• Based on the peace-quest they called for a united front from Christians and other creeds. More dialogue with Islam was also highlighted on this aspect.

• They discussed political power, the need to move to longer term sustainable projects rather than immediate responses, and “a bold work of evangelization, since determination stems from the Gospel, from life, and from faith.”

• “The need to work together with leaders of other religions to affirm the civilization of love.”

Many of the table groups pointed to a wide sense in the global population of “distrust, fatalism, and powerlessness toward institutions, democracy, and the future,” all factors cited in the increase in substance abuse and the decline in births.

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“All the groups,” stated the Vatican, “emphasized the need for the Church to present itself as a mother, a welcoming place—including through the restructuring of parishes—capable of acknowledging its own mistakes and transforming suffering into an opportunity for growth, reminding the world that we are one human family.”

In light of these numerous crises in society, many of the table groups attested that the Church must “speak with authority in favor of human dignity, peace, reconciliation, and the common good.” They added that, in so doing, the Church can “find the credibility that is lacking in other institutions.”

Pope Leo was in attendance at the opening and closure of each of Friday’s two sessions, and is anticipated to be present on Saturday afternoon for the sole time-slot set aside for free interventions.

As already reported, the cardinals are divided into two halves: nine groups will be made up of cardinal-electors, while eleven groups will be made up of cardinal-electors serving in the Roman Curia and all those cardinals too old to vote. There are 8 of cardinal-electors and 10 of the mixed second group.

Only groups of cardinal-electors were due to deliver the results of their table discussions before the entire room, but in the end all 8 cardinal-elector groups gave reports as did 4 also from the second mixed groups.

The Just War Doctrine had officially been removed from the schedule, after being newly inserted in May. Nevertheless, according to the Vatican, “numerous groups agreed on the need to move beyond the logic of a ‘just war,’ since the Gospel is not imposed by force, and to speak instead of the right to proportionate self-defense.”

Great appreciation was expressed to Leo for writing his encyclical Magnifica humanitas, particularly regarding the work’s call for peace. In that vein, cardinals reportedly urged more demonstrations of the Church’s role in leading the quest for peace, such as events born out of the 1986 Assisi meeting.

Thanks to the format of the consistory laid out by the organizers, the cardinals’ discussion appears to have remained very much on sociological questions, more than internal ecclesial ones. Issues such as moral crises, lack of practice of the faith and confusion about Church teaching was not apparent in the table group reports – in large part because this was not anticipated by the schedule.

Saturday’s sessions will likely be more revelatory given that there is at least an opportunity for free interventions.

But it seems that the small table format is very much ensuring that discussion stay largely uniform by the time reports are read out in front of the assembly. This methodology was criticized by many after January’s, yet Leo has notably ignored such concerns and even informed cardinals today that they must commit to the new style of consistories.

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On June 25, twenty six professors and administrators of the Franciscan University of Steubenville signed an open letter addressed to the Superior General of the SSPX Fr. Davide Pagliarani, his general council, and the entire Society imploring them to suspend their episcopal consecrations scheduled for Wednesday July 1.

“We write not as adversaries, but as fellow Christians who love the Church, which is built on Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and who, like you, long for the salvation of souls.

Your love for the beauty of the traditional liturgy and your reverence in worship witness your earnest desire to serve the Lord. We share this love and desire.

With humility we ask you to reconsider the announced consecration of bishops, scheduled for July 1st. It would cement and deepen the already existing separation between the Society and the See of Peter. Our Lord Jesus Christ prayed to the Father, “that all may be one” (John 17:21). Unity in the Church is not merely practical; it belongs to the very will of Christ. The Church is one because Christ is one. We are convinced that every bishop, priest, and faithful Catholic is called to preserve and strengthen that visible unity.”

The Professors cited the First Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Primacy and Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff Pastor Aeternus. They went on to cite Canon Law on the definition of schism and the documents of the Second Vatican Council Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) and Unitatis Redintegratio (Decree on Ecumenism).

Among the signatories of the letter are Dr. John Bergsma, Professor of Theology, and Dr. Scott Hahn, also Professor of Theology.

This open letter comes just a day after the Society of St. Pius X sent its own Open Letter to the Pope and the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church before they entered into the extraordinary consistory which began this morning in Rome.

The open letter from Professors of Franciscan University to the Society is likely to have little to no effect on the Superior General or the members of the Society of St. Pius X as the episcopal consecrations are just five days away.

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On this episode of the Pelican Brief Daily, Murray Rundus looks at the latest from the SSPX and Michael Haynes updates us on the Consistory in Rome.

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On this episode of the Pelican Brief Daily, Murray Rundus looks at some of the controversies surrounding the consistories and an interesting series of meetings from Pope Leo.

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The subject of papal apologies is often derailed by convoluted discussions over what constitutes an apology, whether the apology was warranted, whether a given pope’s apology was sufficient, and so on. While these are all valid and interesting questions, we are going to set them aside for the purposes of this essay, which is construing the term apology more broadly as any public statement—whether framed as an expression of sorrow, an acknowledgment of wrongdoing, a request for forgiveness, or an act of penitence—in which a pope recognizes that harm was done by representatives of the Church and expresses solidarity, to whatever degree, with the perspective of those harmed.

Understood thus, the post-Conciliar era offers an interesting litany of papal apologies for the Church’s history.

The post-Conciliar apologies can be said to have begun with the historic 1965 joint declaration of Paul VI and Athenagoras of Constantinople, after their historic meeting at the Mount of Olives the previous year. The joint declaration is not a formal “apology” per se, but it contains all the essential elements of an apology. There is a recounting of “painful incidents” and “excesses,” and a statement that the pope and patriarch “deplore…events which “led to the effective rupture of ecclesiastical communion” in 1054. There was a request for “mutual pardon” and expression of “regret for historical wrongs.” The 1965 joint declaration is thus widely regarded as a penitential act of historic significance—the pope highlights an aspect of Church history where he finds fault with the actions of the Church or its representatives, expresses regret at said actions, and pledges a course correction. It is clear that he is sorry for the Church’s role in the schism.

But it is Pope John Paul II who was the papal apologizer par excellence. It is estimated that he issued around 100 public expressions of contrition on behalf of the Church, far more than any of his predecessors. Indeed, John Paul II’s apologies were so many it would be tedious to list each one. A few of the more notable include, in chronological order:

In August of 1985 during a trip to Cameroon he apologized to Africans for Catholic complicity in the slave trade.

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In 1992 he addressed the Galileo controversy, calling the affair a “painful misunderstanding” and “tragic mutual incomprehension” involving Galileo and the Church.

That same year the pontiff apologized to indigenous peoples of Latin America for “pain and suffering” caused during the Church’s 500-year presence in the Americas, during a visit to the Dominican Republic.

In 1998 he apologized for missionary abuses against aboriginal peoples in Oceania. This was reaffirmed by a formal apology in the 2001 document Ecclesia in Oceania.

In one of his more notable apologies, John Paul II’s 1995 “Letter to Women,” apologized for the Church’s historical role in the marginalization of women and for failures of its own members in relation to the treatment of women, for which he was “truly sorry.”

In March 1998 the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews issued We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, expressing sorrow for the silence and inaction of many Catholics during the Holocaust.

In December 1999, John Paul II expressed “deep regret” for the execution of Czech reformer Jan Hus in 1415 at the Council of Constance.

On March 12, 2000, John Paul II celebrated the “Day of Pardon” Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica during the Great Jubilee, formally asking forgiveness for a broad catalogue of Church sins, including: the Crusades and religious wars, the Inquisition, offenses against Jews, wrongs against women, violations of human rights, and divisions among Christians, and all acts of “discrimination, exclusion, and oppression.” This became the occasion of an entire document by the International Theological Commission entitled Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past.

Less than two weeks later, he visited Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and prayed for the victims of the Holocaust, expressing sorrow for the failures of Christians who did not act.

In May of 2001 he apologized to the Greek Orthodox Church for the Catholic crusaders’ sack of Constantinople in 1204, during a visit to Athens.

In October of the same year the pope apologized to China for the conduct of Catholic missionaries during the colonial era.

The following month he issued an apology (via email, notably the first digital papal apology) for clerical sexual abuse and for the Church-backed forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families in Australia, the so-called “Stolen Generations.”

Pope Benedict XVI continued his predecessor’s apology tour. During his 2008 visit to the United States, Benedict expressed personal sorrow to victims of clerical sex abuse during his visit to the United States, telling them he was “deeply ashamed.”

His 2010 Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland likewise apologized to victims of clerical sexual abuse, saying he was “truly sorry” for the betrayal of trust and criticizing Church leaders’ “grave errors of judgment” in failing to respond adequately.

In September of 2006, Pope Benedict inaugurated a papal first by addressing his own statements in his famous Regensburg Lecture. The pope expressed a waffling apology, not for his comments directly, but for the way they were received.

The public apologies of Benedict XVI were notable for this kind of circumlocution, as the pope preferred apologies for secondary level effects, like how things were received or handled after the fact, rather than deploring events or words themselves, for which his apologies were frequently lambasted as not “true” apologies.

Pope Francis was far more explicit in the nature of his apologies, of which we have many examples.

In July 2015, he apologized in Santa Cruz, Bolivia for the Church’s “grave sins” against indigenous peoples during the colonial conquest of the Americas, going further than his predecessors by explicitly asking forgiveness for the crimes of the institutional Church, not only its individual members.

In July 2016 Francis said the Catholic Church owes an apology to gay people (and others it has marginalized), during an in-flight press conference returning from Armenia. Francis’s statements here were quite sweeping, suggesting that “as Christians, we should apologize over and over again,” not only for the treatment of gays, but for failure to help families in need, for ostracism of divorced persons, for failure to help the poor, and a litany of other sins of omission.

In January 2018 Francis issued a written apology to Chilean bishops and abuse victims, acknowledging serious mistakes in his own handling of the case of Bishop Juan Barros, who was accused of covering up abuse by serial abuser Fr. Fernando Karadima. The pope expressed “sorrow and shame” and asked for forgiveness.

Pope Francis expressed apologies for clerical sex abuse scandals on multiple occasions: in his 2018 “Letter to the People of God,” issued in response to the Pennsylvania grand jury report and accelerating global revelations; in 2018 to Irish abuse victims during his visit to Dublin; and in July 2022 in Quebec City, promising “never again” would the Church collude with such evil.

The year 2022 saw two apologies by Francis relating to the Church’s missionary work in Canada. In April he apologized at the Vatican to delegations of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples from Canada for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system, saying he felt “indignation and shame.” In July this was followed up by a formal on-soil apology in Alberta, Canada, asking forgiveness for the Church’s co-operation in the residential school system and its destruction of indigenous cultural identity. He described the trip as a “penitential pilgrimage.” It should be noted these apologies were issued in wake of the much-publicized announcement of hundreds of mass graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. It has subsequently been clarified that the alleged “mass graves” were merely inferred, not discovered. To date, not a single grave has been excavated at Kamloops, not a single body discovered, not a single bone fragment retrieved.

One of Francis’s more humorous apologies came in May 2024 after reports surfaced that he used an anti-gay slur (frociaggine) in a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops. The Vatican statement said he “never meant to offend or use homophobic language.”

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“We hope that one day this doctrinal text may serve as a basis for an honest discussion with the Holy See, in a spirit of peace, brotherhood, and charity,” they wrote about the Profession.

The full text of the Profession of Faith is below.

In the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Preamble

1. I profess and embrace the entire truth of the Catholic Faith, as it was “received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ Himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating”, then faithfully preserved and transmitted to us in unbroken succession within the Catholic Church, through the preaching of Popes and bishops, the writings of the Fathers of the Church and of theologians, and the definitions of holy councils.

2. I firmly receive each and every truth which the infallible Church has proposed as divinely revealed and necessary for salvation, whether through the definitions of her solemn Magisterium or through the unanimity of her Ordinary and Universal Magisterium. I likewise receive all that belongs to Catholic doctrine by reason of its necessary connexion with the revealed Deposit, and I hold as certain the truths which the Church has taught with constancy in order to safeguard that Deposit against errors.

3. I consequently reject all errors contrary to this Faith, and in particular those of liberalism, indifferentism, modernism, ecumenism, and laicism, condemned by Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, Saint Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII. These errors obscure revealed doctrine, falsify Tradition, disfigure the sacred liturgy, corrupt morals, weaken the missionary spirit, and disintegrate the Christian social order, gravely harming the salvation of souls.

4. I profess this Faith and reject all errors contrary to it, because I wish to remain faithfully subject to the Holy Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church, Mistress of truth, and to the Pope, Vicar of Christ, in attachment to eternal Rome, which has received the mission of guarding holily and expounding faithfully the revealed Deposit until the end of time.

5. I add that, in the present confusion, it is no longer sufficient to recall a few isolated truths. It has become indispensable to set in full light the entire order of Catholic doctrine, in its supernatural coherence and luminous harmony, omitting no dogma, diminishing no truth, and substituting for the received Faith no equivocal or truncated language which, under the pretext of ecumenism or adaptation to the world, disfigures this doctrine with ever greater audacity.

6. Charity itself demands that this doctrine be professed with clarity, patience, and strength, for the glory of God, the honour of the Church, and the salvation of souls.

I. Divine Revelation, the Faith, and Tradition

7. I believe that God, in His goodness, has called man, through the gift of grace, to obtain the Beatific Vision. I hold firmly and profess that this exaltation of man surpasses the powers and exigencies of human nature, and that it is a gratuitous gift of God, that is to say, a supernatural gift.

8. I believe that God has not left man to his natural powers alone, but has revealed to him the mysteries of His divine life and the supernatural destiny to which He calls him. Thus, having spoken of old through the Prophets in the Old Covenant, He has spoken definitively through His only-begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the New Covenant, with which Divine Revelation received its perfect fulfilment.

9. This Revelation is the true Word of God, entrusted to the Church as a Deposit, and proposed to men as the Rule of Faith in the form of a body of doctrine, in which the mysteries are formulated in a manner that renders them intelligible and expressible in words. Revelation is not the progressive expression of a religious consciousness, nor the fruit of a collective experience of the believing community; it is the very truth of God supernaturally communicated to the minds of men for their salvation.

10. I believe that the Deposit of the Faith was completed with the death of the last Apostle. After the Apostles, the Church receives no new Revelation: she guards, explains, defends, and transmits the Deposit received.

11. I recognize the external proofs of Revelation, in particular miracles and prophecies, as most certain signs by which the divine origin of the Christian religion is demonstrated in a manner suited to the human intellect, in every time and place. I likewise recognize the Church herself, through her unity, holiness, catholicity, fruitfulness, and invincible stability, as a permanent motive of credibility and an irrefutable witness to her divine mission.

12. I profess that faith is the supernatural submission of the intellect, under the motion of grace, to the truth revealed externally by God. It rests neither upon the evidence of things seen, nor upon private judgement, nor upon experience of what is lived, but upon the very authority of God Who speaks and Who, being the first Truth, can neither deceive nor be deceived. Faith is therefore neither a blind religious sentiment, nor an emotion of the soul, nor an intimate conviction produced by personal or collective consciousness. It is the supernatural virtue which elevates the human intellect and enables it to know God as He is, thanks to the testimony that God gives of Himself, while awaiting the Vision.

13. I consequently reject the error of modernism, as it still rages today, which reduces faith to an interior experience, to a sensible aspiration, or to a progressive realization in the believing community. Such a conception destroys the very notion of dogma and renders the obligation to believe impossible, replacing divine truth with subjective sincerity and handing doctrine over to the fluctuations of history.

14. I further profess that the Deposit of doctrine revealed by God is contained in its two sources, namely Sacred Scripture and Tradition. I profess that Tradition contains many truths revealed by God which are not found in Scripture, and that consequently Scripture must be read and understood in dependence upon Tradition.

15. I profess that Sacred Scripture, whose books were written integrally, in all their parts, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, is truly the Word of God, free from all error, and entrusted to the authentic interpretation of the Magisterium of the Church, according to the norm of Tradition and according to the Analogy of Faith.

16. I therefore reject rationalist exegesis, which treats the sacred books as documents having only man for their author, which excludes a priori the possibility of the supernatural, artificially separates the historical Christ from the Faith of the Church, dissolves miracles into symbols, or subjects Scripture to the shifting hypotheses and manipulations of naturalistic critical methods. True biblical scholarship must be placed at the service of the understanding of the Faith; it is not to be made the rule, the interpreter, or the judge of the Word of God.

17. I finally profess that Tradition is not a dead memory, but the living transmission of the doctrine received from the Apostles. It remains living, in distinction to Revelation, which is closed. It is so both in the activity of the Magisterium of the Teaching Church and in the profession of Faith of the Church Taught, of which the sentire cum Ecclesia is the result of the teaching of the Magisterium. Tradition may be called ‘living’, not in the sense that it changes its meaning, but in the sense that the living Magisterium proposes throughout the centuries, in an ever clearer and more explicit manner, the same truth according to the same meaning. What has been believed by all, everywhere, and always, as belonging to the Faith, cannot be denied or called into doubt by any theological fashion, pastoral pressure, diplomatic necessity, or alleged exigencies of the modern world.

II. God, Principle and End of All Things, Holy Trinity

18. I profess the existence of one God, personal, living, and true, first principle and last end of all things, Who in the beginning created Heaven and earth, all things visible and invisible, from nothing. Infinitely perfect, eternal, and almighty, immutable, incomprehensible in His essence and sovereignly free in His works, He is distinct from the world which He freely created, which He conserves in existence, and which He governs by His Providence.

19. I profess that God can be known with certainty by the natural light of reason from His creatures, as a cause is known from its effects. The Catholic Faith recognizes that the human intellect is capable of truly attaining the reality of things, often of knowing their causes, and of arriving at genuine certitudes.

20. I therefore reject modern agnosticism, philosophical scepticism, idealist subjectivism, and all doctrines which limit the scope of human knowledge to sensible phenomena or to the constructions of consciousness, thereby denying the very possibility of an ecclesiastical Magisterium and of a true theology.

21. I confess that in the one Divine Nature there subsist three really distinct Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, consubstantial and indivisible Trinity. The Father is without principle; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from a single principle. But these three Persons are one and the same Divine Substance: They are one Eternal, not three Eternals; one wise, good, and almighty God, not three equally wise, good, and almighty gods; they are one in the Divine Will and Providence, and enjoy one and the same glory.

22. I reject the diminished professions of trinitarian faith which, under pretext of religious unity or ecumenical prudence, deliberately pass over in silence what God has revealed about Himself. It does not suffice to say with the Jews and Muslims that God is one; it does not suffice to acknowledge with the Arians that the Son is of the same nature as the Father; nor does it suffice to confess with the schismatic Greeks that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father while passing over in silence the Filioque. This false irenicism pursues an illusory concord: by omitting to profess certain revealed truths, it substitutes confusion for clarity and threatens the integrity of the Faith.

III. The Creation of Man and the Supernatural Order of Grace

23. I believe that God created man in His image, endowed with a spiritual and immortal soul, capable of knowing truth, of loving the good known by natural reason, and of freely turning towards his Creator. Man is therefore not the necessary product of a blind evolution, nor the simple result of material forces; he comes from God as from his creative cause, depends upon God, Who maintains him in being, and is ordered to God as to his end.

24. I profess that God did not destine man to his natural perfection alone, but has freely called him to a supernatural end which absolutely surpasses the powers and rights of created nature: the Beatific Vision, by which the soul shall see God face to face and participate in the intimate life of the Most Holy Trinity. That man is called to become a child of God, a partaker of the Divine Nature and an heir of Heaven, is not the necessary fulfilment of his nature, but a pure effect of divine liberality.

25. I therefore reject every doctrine which dissolves the distinction between nature and grace, which makes supernatural life a requirement of human nature, or which presents grace as a simple interior development of man’s natural capacities. Such a confusion destroys both the gratuity of the supernatural and the reality of nature. It ends by reducing faith to a religious anthropology, and Redemption to a revelation of man to himself.

26. I likewise profess that grace neither destroys nor replaces nature: it heals, elevates, and perfects it whilst preserving it. The supernatural order calls into question neither reason, nor the natural law, nor creatures; it heals them and subordinates them to a higher end. This is why the modern opposition between human freedom and grace, between the dignity of the person and dependence upon God, between culture and the Faith, is radically false.

27. I reject the false religious humanism which celebrates man in himself, as though the Incarnation had revealed first and solely the image of God in the creation of man, rather than the misery of sin and the mercy of God stooping towards the sinner. Man is truly great only when he humbly receives the grace which heals and elevates him, does penance for his sins, submits to the truth, and lives as a child of God. In separating himself from God, he does not exalt himself: he destroys himself.

28. I profess that human dignity, by which God has established His creature at the summit of the material world, can never be invoked against the law of God, against the necessity of conversion, or against submission to revealed truth. This dignity is wounded by sin: it must be restored and raised to the dignity of the adoptive children of God, through grace.

IV. Original Sin and the Condition of Man

29. I believe that our first parents were established by God in a state of original justice and holiness, and endowed with the gifts of integrity, impassibility, and immortality. By a particular favour of God, they possessed not only the integrity of their own nature, but also the supernatural gifts which ordered them to the very life of God. Adam, head and principle of the human race, was additionally given the gift of knowledge.

30. I profess that, by his disobedience, Adam truly committed the original sin, which is transmitted to all men by generation. This sin is for all a sin of nature, which condemns them to death, suffering, ignorance, and concupiscence. Having been stripped of sanctifying grace and of preternatural gifts, which they could no longer transmit to their descendants, Adam and Eve were driven from the earthly paradise.

31. In Adam, however, the nature of man was not destroyed, but only wounded: his intellect, though darkened, remains capable of knowing truth; his free will, though weakened, remains capable of willing and loving natural good. I therefore reject all doctrines which, in a despairing pessimism, judge man to be irremediably corrupt and incapable of any good.

32. I likewise reject all doctrines which, in a senseless optimism, minimize original sin, naively exalt the native goodness of man, or claim to found universal peace upon the moral, technical, political, or cultural progress of humanity alone. The tragedies of history, the disorders of societies, and the darkness of the human heart are explained fundamentally, first and foremost, by the deep wound of sin.

33. I profess that man needs to be saved by a redemption which delivers him both from original sin and from all his personal sins. This redemption — or ‘buying back’ — requires the gift of God’s grace in Christ: without it, man cannot save himself by his natural works, his culture, his science, or his religious sincerity. Without the sanctifying grace of Christ, he remains incapable of attaining his supernatural end.

34. I therefore reject modern naturalism, whether theoretical (in philosophy or theology) or practical (in morality, politics, or pastoral work). Every doctrine which speaks of fraternity, peace, dignity, or progress, without acknowledging sin, the Cross, or the necessity of grace, builds upon an illusory foundation and ends by deceiving the souls it claims to serve.

35. I profess at the same time that the gravity of sin should never lead to despair, for God, in His mercy, did not abandon man after his fall, but from the very beginning promised him a Saviour born of the Woman, Whose coming He progressively prepared throughout the history of salvation.

36. In all this, I profess that the facts recorded by the Book of Genesis concerning the foundations of the Catholic religion are to be taken in their literal, historical sense: for example, the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time; the special creation of man; the formation of the first woman from the first man; the unity of the human race; the original happiness of our first parents in the state of justice, integrity, and immortality; the commandment given by God to man to test his obedience; the transgression of the divine precept at the instigation of the devil in the form of the serpent; the fall of our first parents from that primal state of innocence; and the promise of the Redeemer to come.

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V. Jesus Christ, Word Incarnate, Sole Mediator and Redeemer

37. I believe and profess that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Eternal Word of God, true God and true man, consubstantial with the Father in His Divinity and of the same nature as ourselves in His humanity, like us in all things save sin. He is the sole Mediator between God and men, the sole Saviour of the human race, the sole King of souls and of societies, promised by God in His mercy to our first parents and announced by the prophets.

38. I profess that, in the fullness of time, the Son of God became incarnate, not to confirm man in his human dignity or to reveal to him the image of God within himself, but to save him from sin and once again give him access to eternal life. Born of the Virgin Mary, without ceasing to be God, He took a true human nature, lived among us, taught the truth, fulfilled the prophecies, manifested His Divinity by His miracles, and then freely offered himself on the Cross as a propitiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the world.

39. I profess that the Redemption is a true satisfaction offered to Divine Justice, in reparation for original sin and personal sins. Christ, Priest and Victim in His holy humanity, redeemed us by His Blood. By bearing our sins and undergoing the punishment due to us, He offered to His Father a perfect act of obedience, an act of love and reparation, to which the dignity of His Divine Person conferred an infinite meritorious value.

40. I therefore reject every doctrine which would reduce the Redemption to a simple manifestation of God’s love, to a solidarity of Christ with human sufferings, to a revelation of the dignity of man, or to a purely moral, political, or social liberation. The Cross is not merely a sign: it is the altar of the redemptive Sacrifice. Christ did not merely announce salvation: He merited it by His Sacrifice. His voluntary Passion and Death on the Cross constitute the sole redemptive Sacrifice by which humanity is reconciled with God.

41. I profess that on the third day He rose glorious from the dead, and that this Resurrection is properly a historical fact. It is the most resplendent sign of His definitive victory over sin, death, and hell. It constitutes the foundation of Christian hope and the pledge of our own resurrection. It also represents the principal motive of credibility for the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

42. I believe that forty days later He ascended into Heaven, that He now sits at the right hand of His Father, that He invisibly governs His Church through His Vicar, and that He intercedes for us constantly, awaiting the time when He shall come again in glory at the end of time to judge the living and the dead.

43. I likewise profess that, although Christ died for all, not all are thereby saved. The merits of the Passion must be applied to souls, which ordinarily takes place when they receive, with the required dispositions, the sacraments which communicate to them sanctifying grace. He who refuses the sacraments, receives them unworthily, or remains voluntarily in sin, shuts himself off from the salvation which Christ has gained for him.

44. I therefore reject the false optimism of a universal redemption already accomplished in every man, independently of his conversion and perseverance. Such a doctrine destroys the urgency of preaching, weakens missionary zeal, renders penance useless, and contradicts the very words of the Saviour: “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.”

45. I profess finally that Jesus Christ is not only the Redeemer of individuals, but the centre of all history and the King of all Creation. All things were created by Him and for Him; all things must be restored in Him. No culture, no society, no law, no human wisdom finds its true and complete perfection outside His reign.

VI. The Most Holy Virgin Mary in the Economy of Salvation

46. I believe that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary holds a unique place in the history of salvation, willed by God from all eternity, and that her condition is therefore not the common condition of other creatures. He Who had resolved to give His Son to men had also resolved to give Him a Mother.

47. I profess that the Blessed Virgin Mary, by a singular privilege, was immaculate from the first instant of her conception, so as to be the worthy Mother of Jesus Christ: preserved from original sin in anticipation of the merits of Christ and thus redeemed in a more sublime manner, filled with grace from the first instant of her existence, Mary always showed herself perfectly faithful to the Will of God.

48. I believe that she remained ever virgin, before, during, and after childbirth; her perpetual virginity manifests the divine origin of her Son and her total consecration to the work of God.

49. I profess that, truly Mother of God and Mother of men, she was associated in a unique and incomparable manner with the redemptive work of her divine Son: the new Eve beside the new Adam, her Fiat opened the way to the Incarnation; her silent fidelity accompanied the entire life of the Saviour; her sorrowful Compassion at the foot of the Cross united her with one heart to the redemptive Sacrifice.

50. I profess that, thus united to her Divine Son, she merited by congruity in her Compassion what Christ merited by strict justice in His Passion; not as the principal cause of the Redemption, but as a subordinate associate, dependent upon and wholly relative to her Son, in one and the same act of the Redemption of our souls. It is in this sense that Catholic piety, supported by the traditional teaching of Popes and theologians, rightly calls her, by reason of this Compassion, ‘Co-redemptrix’, and consequently ‘Universal Mediatrix’.

51. I consequently reject with indignation the modern tendency to diminish the privileges of the Most Blessed Virgin under pretext of ecumenical prudence, of dialogue with false religions, or from a fallacious fear of obscuring the unique redemptive Mediation of Jesus Christ. To weaken Marian doctrine is not to honour Christ better: it is to misunderstand the order willed by God, Who wished to come to us through Mary and to lead us to Himself through her.

52. I believe that at the end of her earthly life, she was taken up, body and soul, into celestial glory, where she reigns beside the throne of God, alongside the holy humanity of her Divine Son, over angels and men, exercising her maternal role as Dispensatrix of all Graces.

53. I finally profess that the authentic and special cult rendered to His Mother in no way diminishes the worship due to God; on the contrary, it increases it, because it recognizes the marvels of divine grace in the most perfect of creatures, and leads souls more surely to Jesus Christ. True Catholic restoration cannot be separated from the honour rendered to her who crushes the head of the serpent.

VII. The Catholic Church, Mystical Body of Christ and Sole Ark of Salvation

54. I firmly believe that, to perpetuate and prolong the work of Redemption until the end of time, Our Lord Jesus Christ founded one Church, visible, hierarchical, indefectible, and necessary for salvation. This Church, purchased by the Blood of Christ, entrusted to Peter and his successors, the Roman Pontiffs, is none other than the Roman Catholic Church.

55. I profess that the Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. She is One in her Faith, her worship, her government, and her end. She is Holy by her Founder, by her doctrine, by her sacraments, and by the saints whom she ceaselessly brings forth. She is Catholic because, sent to all peoples and established throughout the whole world, she is everywhere fitted to procure the salvation of men of every condition. She is Apostolic because she remains founded upon the Apostles, preserves their doctrine, and continues their mission, governed by their successors.

56. I profess that the Church is identically a visible society and the Mystical Body of Christ. Christ is her Head; the faithful are her members; the supernatural life purchased upon the Cross is communicated in her through the sacraments received in faith, and flourishes in charity.

57. I profess that the Church is the Immaculate Bride of Christ. Christ loved her to the point of delivering Himself for her, in order to sanctify her and present her to Himself without spot or wrinkle. If her members can sin, she herself, in her doctrine, her sacraments, her divine constitution, and her end, remains the faithful and pure guardian of the revealed Deposit, and the dispenser of the mysteries of God. The faults of churchmen cannot be imputed to the Church as such; they arise from the fact that these men have not lived according to her holy laws. I therefore reject the unjust and blasphemous accusations levelled against the Church in the name of the sins of her children, and likewise the acts of repentance which seem to lay upon the Bride of Christ the faults of those who have betrayed her.

58. I profess that the Church is the Mother of souls. She begets them to the divine life through Baptism, nourishes them through the Eucharist, raises them up again through Penance, strengthens them through Confirmation, sanctifies families through Matrimony, consecrates priests through Holy Orders, and assists the dying through Extreme Unction. Her motherhood is supernatural and salvific: she gives to men the bread of sound doctrine, grace, and the means of eternal life.

59. I profess that God willed to make the Church the necessary means of salvation; just as there is under Heaven no other name given to men than that of Jesus Christ by which we must be saved, so there is no supernatural salvation independent of the Catholic Church. For all salvation comes from Jesus Christ; and every saving grace is either given in and through the one Church He has founded, or orders the one who receives it to that same Church.

60. This truth means that no one can be saved without Christ and His Church, through a false religion as such, nor be assured of His salvation outside the visible structure of the Church. If men are saved without belonging to the visible society which is the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, it is by a supernatural ordination to the one Church of salvation, and in spite of the errors of the false religions in which they find themselves, from which they free themselves by not refusing the grace offered to them and by corresponding to it.

61. I therefore reject false ecumenism, which rests upon the idea that the Holy Ghost would not refuse to use separated communities as means of salvation, as though the Church of Christ were present and active in them, or as though these communities possessed in themselves a salvific value whose efficacy would derive from the fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church. If any man comes to the revealed truth or receives a grace of sanctification outside the visible limits of the Catholic Church, that truth and that grace belong by right to that same Church and unequivocally call to Catholic unity, and the Holy Ghost does not give these as means of salvation by using separated communities as such, of which souls can never be warned too much.

62. I likewise reject the idea that non-Christian religions might reflect a ray of truth which illumines every man, or might be legitimate paths by which God positively leads men to salvation. Some fragments of natural truth, or distorted vestiges of ancient truths, may indeed be encountered among the adherents of these false religions; but these religions taken as such, and insofar as they mingle error with their worship, are the work of the devil and cannot be acceptable to God. The Holy Ghost does not use them as paths to salvation, and in them there is no proper virtue of the one Church of Christ, the sole light which enlightens every man in the darkness.

63. I further reject the idea of an ‘anonymous Christianity’, according to which any man who leads a naturally honest life, whether ‘believer’, atheist, or agnostic, would be oriented towards Christ and therefore saved by Him, as a ‘Christian’ without knowing it.

64. I finally profess that the Old Covenant has been fulfilled, surpassed, and rendered obsolete by the New Covenant, which is the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham, in Christ and in His Church. The figures of the old Law have found their realization and their cessation in the Sacrifice of the true Lamb, Mediator of the New Covenant and Priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech. By the eternal Will of God, the true descendant of Abraham is Christ, together with those who belong to Him in His Mystical Body, which is the Church.

65. I therefore reject the new ecclesiology, which destroys the missionary impulse by relativizing the uniqueness of the Church, the sole ark of salvation.

66. I likewise reject inculturation understood as the indiscriminate adoption of the religious, moral, or symbolic categories of pagan cultures and their practices. The Gospel can assume what is naturally good, true, and noble in peoples; it can never consecrate idolatry, superstition, error, or customs contrary to the natural law. The mission of the Church is not an indefinite dialogue, a humanitarian cooperation, or a mutual recognition of religious traditions: it is the command received from Christ to teach all nations, to baptize them, and to teach them to observe all that He has commanded.

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VIII. The Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of Souls and Soul of the Church

67. I profess that the Holy Ghost, the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, true God with the Father and the Son, has spoken through the prophets, inspired the Scriptures, sanctified the just, formed the humanity of the Word Incarnate in the virginal womb of Mary, and was visibly sent at Pentecost to manifest the Church and to give her life until the consummation of the ages.

68. I believe that, sent by the Father and the Son, He abides in the Church until the end of time, in accordance with the promise of Our Lord. He is the uncreated Soul of the Church, not as a substantial form which would abolish the distinction between Christ and His members, but as the invisible principle and efficient cause of her supernatural life, of her unity of profession of Faith and worship, of the holiness of her government and her Magisterium, and of her fruitfulness in her works.

69. I profess that the whole life of the Church depends upon His action. It is He Who assists the ecclesiastical Magisterium, and especially that of the Pope, so that it may preserve, declare, and explain the revealed Deposit without error: not that it may invent new doctrines, but that it may penetrate more deeply, in the same sense and the same meaning, the truth already revealed by God to the Apostles.

70. I believe that it is He Who communicates to souls, in the sacraments, the grace gained by the Saviour, dwells in them through that grace, and conforms them to Christ; He Who enlightens minds by His wisdom, sustains wills by His power, and pours His charity into hearts; He Who gives rise to good works, inspires fraternal charity, and leads souls towards their perfection.

71. It is He Who has sustained the martyrs, enlightened the Doctors, raised up missionaries, nourished the contemplative life, fructified religious orders, and caused holiness to flourish in all states of life. The great works of Christian civilization, fruits of Catholic culture, themselves bear witness to this discreet yet fruitful presence of the Spirit of God in the Church throughout the centuries.

72. I therefore reject every claim to invoke the Holy Ghost in order to justify doctrinal adaptations that break with Tradition, moral reversals, or synodal procedures by which what the Church has received from God is put in question. The Spirit of truth cannot today inspire the contrary of what He inspired yesterday. He does not invite the Church to listen to the world in order to receive its aspirations from it; on the contrary, He impels her to teach the world, to convert it, and to sanctify it. His work consists neither in stirring up anarchic inspirations, nor in encouraging doctrinal creativity, nor in grounding spiritual life upon the search for extraordinary charismatic phenomena; it consists in guiding souls by enlightening their faith and defending them against their spiritual enemies, in order to complete in them the work of their salvation and to lead them into the light of eternity.

IX. The Roman Pontiff, the Episcopate, and the Hierarchical Constitution of the Church

73. I recognize in the Roman Pontiff the successor of Saint Peter, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the supreme and universal Pastor, the visible head of the whole Church, possessing, by divine institution, a power of truly proper, supreme, full, immediate, and universal jurisdiction over all pastors and over all the faithful baptized in the Church.

74. I believe that this authority does not come to him from a delegation by the community, but directly from Christ Himself, Who instituted this office for the safeguarding of the doctrine of faith, the sanctification of souls, and the government of the Church.

75. I recognize that by reason of this proper and genuine power, pastors and faithful owe him respect and filial obedience in all that concerns the legitimate exercise of his office. Thus, the unity of communion with the Roman Pontiff and the unity of profession of the same Faith being safeguarded, the Church of Christ constitutes one flock under one supreme Pastor.

76. I likewise recognize that the bishops are the successors of the Apostles, which makes them true pastors by divine right, possessing in the Church, by the will of Christ, a particular and subordinate jurisdiction which they receive immediately from the Roman Pontiff. United with him, in submission to his supreme authority, they legitimately exercise their own authority in their respective dioceses, as established by the Holy Ghost in the hierarchical order willed by Christ.

77. I further recognize that the body of bishops, united with its head the Roman Pontiff and never without that head, can be the extraordinary and non-permanent subject of a full and supreme power over the universal Church, but that this takes place only in the act of an ecumenical council, on the initiative and at the order of the Roman Pontiff alone, and within the limits of his exclusive will.

78. I consequently reject the collegialist conceptions which would make the college of bishops a permanent moral person in the Church, or a second subject of supreme power, distinct from the successor of Peter. The monarchical constitution of the Church is of divine and inviolable institution, and it will remain so until the end of time, for no one can redefine the function that Christ Himself conferred upon Peter in His Church.

79. I likewise reject the synodalist conceptions which tend to transform the hierarchical Church into a consultative, parliamentary, or democratic structure, subject to the fluctuating opinions of the Christian people or to the pressures of the world. The collective conscience of the faithful, pastoral surveys, cultural sensibilities, and the expectations of the world are not sources of Revelation. The legitimate hearing of souls can never become a continual adaptation of the life of the Church, her doctrine, and her divine constitution to the spirit of the world, under pretext of interpreting the ‘sensus fidei’ of the people of God.

X. The Magisterium, Guardian of the Revealed Deposit

80. I believe that the Roman Pontiff enjoys infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, fulfilling his office as pastor and doctor of all Christians, he defines, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, that a doctrine concerning faith or morals is to be held by the universal Church.

81. I further profess that the power of the Magisterium in the Church is essentially ordered to the safeguarding of the revealed Deposit and, through this means, to the salvation of souls. The Holy Ghost was not promised to the successors of Peter so that they might manifest new doctrine, but so that they might guard holily and expound faithfully the Deposit transmitted by the Apostles.

82. This is why the present Magisterium cannot substantially contradict the prior Magisterium. The living Magisterium is not current preaching set in opposition to past preaching; it is the continual and uninterrupted preaching of the same truth of Faith with the same meaning throughout the centuries. The Pope and the bishops are not the masters of Revelation; they are its guardians and are subject to it as a disciple is subject to his master. They can neither change the Faith, nor modify the divine constitution of the Church, nor declare good what is contrary to the law of God.

83. I therefore reject every evolutionist conception of dogma, according to which revealed truths would change their meaning over the course of history. There can be within the Church a homogeneous progress in understanding, which perceives better, in a more distinct and explicit manner, the meaning of revealed truth, but never a mutation in the meaning of that truth. What has already been taught by the living Magisterium of the Teaching Church, and believed in the profession of Faith of the Church Taught, cannot become false; what has been condemned as contrary to the Faith cannot become legitimate; what belongs to the divine constitution of the Church cannot be remodelled according to the categories of the modern world or the historico-cultural context.

84. I therefore reject the notion of a new Magisterium, which would claim the authority of the present day to impose doctrines opposed or foreign to what is constant Tradition. I likewise reject the artificial opposition between the Magisterium of yesterday and that of today, as if the sole living Magisterium of the Bride of Christ were that of the present, and could, under pretext of better adapting it, renounce what the Church has always taught, believed, and condemned since the time of the Apostles.

85. I hold that, the legitimate freedom of research and opinion of theologians in relation to open or disputed doctrinal questions remaining intact, the Magisterium of the Church has the legitimate duty to exercise supervision and, where appropriate, censorship over publications, to prevent them from endangering the faith of the faithful. I therefore reject the accusation levelled against the holy Church of having lacked charity in anathematizing heresies and excommunicating heretics.

86. I also reject the perpetual dialogue established in the spirit of the last Council, by which the hierarchy renounces the exercise of a true Magisterium, and claims sometimes to receive its inspiration from the ‘sense of faith’ of the believing people, sometimes to converse on equal terms with the adherents of false religions or even with unbelievers.

87. I finally reject the subjectivist conception of theological pluralism which flows from such a resignation of the magisterial function. I hold that the Church is not an assembly in permanent search, but the guardian of a truth revealed by God and transmitted by the Apostles, and that her authentic Magisterium is the proximate and universal rule of truth in matters of faith and morals, ensuring the uninterrupted transmission of the revealed Deposit throughout the centuries.

XI. The Moral Order and the Law of God

88. I profess that there exists a moral order truly founded in the eternal wisdom of God. Human acts are good or evil according to their conformity or opposition to the divine law, which is holy and indefectible. Individual opinions, social consensus, subjective intentions, and historical circumstances cannot change the inviolable value of these principles of Christian morality.

89. From the immense goodness by which God has raised man up to the supernatural order, it follows that man has but one ultimate end, supernatural in character, to which he remains ordered according to God’s design, even after sin. This supernatural end assumes, raises, and perfects the end of man’s natural order.

90. The natural law, inscribed by God in human nature, remains knowable by right reason and binds all men. The positive revealed law, being of the supernatural order, confirms, raises, and clarifies the natural law whilst surpassing it. There is therefore no opposition between the law of the Gospel and the natural law; furthermore, the same grace gives man the strength to be supernaturally faithful to the demands of both, and thus to enjoy that liberty of the children of God by which, freed from the power of sin, man can tend towards his ultimate end.

91. I therefore reject situation ethics, according to which concrete circumstances could render actions that are intrinsically evil good. In particular, I hold that no circumstance can ever legitimize recourse to contraception, abortion, or euthanasia. I reject every doctrine which would claim that a course of action objectively contrary to the commandments of God could constitute, for some persons, the generous response demanded by God in that moment. God never commands sin, nor what is impossible; He never blesses moral disorder and never justifies what contradicts His own law; but to him who does his utmost, He never refuses the grace to keep His commandments.

92. I profess that adulterous unions, unions contrary to nature, and all public situations contrary to the divine law cannot be presented as imperfect goods, gifts of God, positive steps, or realities which may be blessed as such. Such a misleading presentation gravely distorts the principles of Christian morality, and harms the sacred institution of marriage and the good of families.

93. I therefore reject as contrary to the Faith and to the constant discipline of the Church the claim to admit to the sacraments, and most especially to the reception of the Most Holy Eucharist, those who publicly persist in such states without renouncing their disorder. True mercy calls the sinner to conversion; it does not ratify sin under the pretext of pastoral accompaniment or discernment of particular situations.

94. I likewise reject the modern dissociation between doctrine and pastoral practice. A pastoral practice that contradicts doctrine is not pastoral; it leads souls astray. Charity does not consist in silencing truth to avoid suffering, but in speaking truth with benevolence in order to lead to salvation. The medicine of the Church can heal only by naming evil, calling to penance, and offering the remedies of grace.

95. I finally profess that God is not only the author and end of the moral order, but also its guardian, its judge, and the sovereign rewarder of good and evil. Forgetfulness of divine judgement engenders a false mercy, sentimental and powerless, which saves no one because it converts no one.

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XII. The Social Kingship of Christ and Christian Civilization

96. I profess that the Most Holy Trinity can and must be acknowledged and adored not only by each individual, but also by families, institutions, and civil societies. No human authority is independent of God, for all authority comes from Him and must be exercised according to the eternal law.

97. I profess that civil societies, like persons, have the duty to acknowledge and honour this one and only true God, Who is Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, and to render Him the worship due to Him, in the true religion revealed and instituted by Him.

98. I profess that the authorities which govern these societies must procure the common good by conforming themselves to the twofold divine law, natural and revealed. The use of freedom does not consist in giving free rein to all the caprices of concupiscence, but in choosing the best manner of using the goods of this world in view of eternal salvation.

99. I thus reject modern laicism, which claims to organize society as if God did not exist. The public refusal to recognize God as sovereign Lord is not neutrality, but a social injustice towards the Creator and a profound cause of disorder among peoples. Indeed, a society which refuses God the honour due to Him progressively destroys the foundations of its own justice: it severs human law from its eternal source and delivers peoples to the shifting wills of fallen man.

100. I profess that Our Lord Jesus Christ, because He is the Word Incarnate and because He has redeemed men by His Blood, is King not only of individuals, but also of families, institutions, peoples, and nations. All power has been given to Him in Heaven and on earth: His reign is not limited to the interior forum of consciences or to the private sphere; it must extend to the external forum, to laws, morals, education, culture, and public life. His Kingdom is eternal and universal: a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.

101. I profess that civil society, though perfect in its own order, does not possess all the means necessary to lead man to his true perfection, which remains inaccessible to fallen human nature without the help of grace, which heals and raises up.

102. This is why I profess that those who govern society must submit to the salutary influence of the Church, which enlightens minds through her Magisterium, heals and strengthens wills through the grace of the sacraments, and directs man towards his true supernatural destiny, of which she is the guardian. The good of society consequently demands that heads of state recognize their right and duty to favour and protect the holy Church, and likewise to oppose by the laws of their government whatever would obstruct her necessary influence, which is that of the one true religion.

103. I therefore reject political and religious liberalism: not only that which claims for error the same rights as for truth, and for false forms of worship the same official and public recognition as for the true; but also that which, in the name of human dignity and a false religious freedom, attributes to everyone the right to act publicly according to his conscience without being hindered by civil authority, even when that conscience is erroneous and opposed to the common good or to the true religion.

104. I acknowledge that error can in certain cases be tolerated to avoid greater evils, or to preserve the greater good of civil peace, but I profess that it does not possess in itself a moral right to be defended or encouraged on the same footing as truth, nor in the name of a false freedom of conscience never to be impeded.

105. I likewise hold that, although man possesses an ontological dignity which raises him above material beings, the human dignity to be respected is not indifferent to the truth and error professed by persons, nor to the good and evil they accomplish: he who professes error or does evil forfeits his moral dignity. This is why legitimate authority in no way attacks human dignity when it punishes crimes according to the demands of justice, by proportionate penalties, in order to defend the common good against grave disorders.

106. I also reject that modern form of personalism which would assign to the Church the mission of safeguarding the dignity of the human person, and of establishing a universal fraternity upon the foundation of this allegedly common dignity of the human race — without making any distinction between, on the one hand, the true dignity of the Christian who renounces sin in order to live according to evangelical morality in the Catholic Church, and, on the other, the false dignity of those who, lost in error and vice, refuse the path of salvation.

107. I reject the falsification that flows from this, which tends to make the Church, if not the servant, at least the collaborator of the world in the realization of its own ideal: that of a purely earthly and temporal peace, founded upon a naturalistic perfecting of humanity, devoid of supernatural perspective. This ideal fosters the independence of man with regard to God, His law, truth, and the good; it implies contempt for the Social Kingship of Christ and for Christendom, and leads ultimately to atheism and the substitution of man for God.

108. I likewise reject the modern prejudice which presents Christian civilization as oppressive, obscurantist, or hostile to human dignity. Far from destroying what is good in different cultures, the Christian order assumes and purifies it. Thus, from revealed doctrine and through the radiance of Catholic theology, especially that of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Common Doctor of the Church, there was constituted, under the vigilance of the Magisterium, a true Christian culture of universal scope, integrating the finest elements of Greek and Latin culture. An authentic fruit of the Gospel, it contributed to educating peoples and causing them to grow in faith and Christian virtues. Even if it was never perfect, men always remaining sinners, this civilization was nonetheless in history the highest realization of the Christian social order.

109. Conversely, the modern refusal of the Social Kingship of Christ has produced a regression of civilization, through the secularization of institutions, the dissolution of marriage, the destruction of authority, education without God, the tyranny of the passions, and the progressive effacement of the spirit of sacrifice in once-Catholic nations. Against this public apostasy, we profess that all things must be restored in Christ, Who alone is holy and Who, through His Mystical Body, is the only sanctifier of souls and of peoples.

XIII. The Sacraments of the New Law

110. I believe that there are seven sacraments properly so called of the New Law, instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ to confer efficaciously the grace which they signify: Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.

111. I profess that the sacraments must be validly celebrated with the prescribed matter, form, and intention, observing the liturgical rites which clearly express the Catholic Faith; and that they must be received with the required dispositions.

112. I believe that Baptism is the door of the Church and that it is necessary for salvation. Ordinarily, no one can be saved without receiving it; through this sacrament, man is washed from original sin, incorporated into Christ, marked with the Christian character, and made a member of the Church. I therefore reject the practice of deferring without grave cause the Baptism of children who have not the use of reason. However, one who, after the age of reason and without fault on his part, is prevented from accessing this sacrament, can be saved in an extraordinary manner by Baptism of Desire, that is, by a supernatural act of faith and perfect charity which orders him to the Church.

113. I profess that Confirmation strengthens the baptized through the gift of the Holy Ghost, so that he may courageously confess the Faith, resist the enemies of salvation, and live as a witness to Christ. In a time of confusion, this supernatural strength is particularly necessary, for no one can keep the Faith without combat.

114. I profess that Penance remits sins committed after Baptism, by means of the acts of the penitent, which are contrition, confession, and satisfaction. I firmly reject every pastoral approach which weakens the sense of sin, minimizes the necessity of sacramental confession, or reduces satisfaction to a mere act of reparation towards oneself or others, without reference to the offence committed against God.

115. I profess that Extreme Unction relieves and strengthens the sick, remits sins when this is applicable, powerfully contributes to effacing the punishment due to sin, and prepares the Christian soul to appear before God.

116. I affirm that Matrimony is the stable and indissoluble union of one man and one woman, elevated by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized. The purpose of this union, established by God, the Orderer of nature, is twofold: the generation and education of children on the one hand, which constitutes the primary and principal end of marriage; the mutual support of the spouses and the remedy for concupiscence on the other, which are its secondary ends: true and essential ends, but naturally subordinated to the first.

117. I therefore reject every doctrine which considers unions contrary to marriage as real, if imperfect, participations in it; or which, wishing to define marriage in terms of the love of the spouses alone, destroys the hierarchy of the ends of marriage, at the risk of legitimizing divorce, the refusal of children, and thereby contraception, which is contrary to the natural law.

118. I confess that the sacrament of Holy Orders imprints upon him who receives it the sacerdotal character which configures him to Christ the Priest, and that no woman can receive it at any degree whatsoever. Thereby, the priest receives the power to offer the salutary Sacrifice for the living and the dead, to remit sins, and to sanctify the faithful. I thus reject all confusion between the priesthood, in the true and proper sense of the ministers of Christ, and the common priesthood, used in an improper sense with reference to the faithful: the faithful offer spiritually with the priest and through the priest; but only the duly ordained priest realizes and offers sacramentally the Sacrifice in the Person of Christ.

XIV. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist, and the Catholic Liturgy

119. I profess that the Mass is truly, in the proper sense of the word, a Sacrifice. It is not merely a memorial of the Last Supper or of the Passion; celebrated by a duly ordained priest, it sacramentally represents the unique Sacrifice of Calvary, and renews it in an unbloody manner, without however multiplying it. The Victim is the same, the principal Priest is the same; only the manner of offering differs.

120. In the Mass, and through the action of His minister, Our Lord Jesus Christ offers Himself to His Father as a Sacrifice of adoration, thanksgiving, propitiation, and impetration. By uniting herself to this action of Christ, which is identical to that of the celebrating priest, the Church renders to God the perfect worship due to Him, and applies to the souls of the living and the dead the merits of the Sacrifice of the Cross.

121. I believe that, through the words of Consecration validly pronounced by a priest, the bread and wine are changed in their entire substance into the Body and Blood of Christ, though their sensible accidents remain. This admirable change is rightly called Transubstantiation.

122. I believe that the Most Holy Eucharist occupies the centre of the life of the Church, and that it truly, really, and substantially contains the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I adore the Most Blessed Sacrament of the altar and reject every doctrine or practice which weakens faith in the Real Presence, diminishes the respect due to the Eucharist, trivializes Holy Communion, or alters the sacred character of the sanctuary.

123. Because it is the privileged expression of faith, the liturgy is also the permanent school in which the Christian soul is formed. Through its orientation, its silence, its gestures, its canon, its sacred language, its spirit of adoration, and its theocentric structure, the liturgy nourishes faith and exercises a profound influence upon souls. Through it, peoples learn to think according to God, to judge according to eternity, to love what is holy, to despise what is transient, and to order their entire life to the Sacrifice of Christ. It also shapes morals and inspires the arts, institutions, feasts, and customs of the Christian people. This is why, when divine worship becomes prosaic, hollow, equivocal, profane, or anthropocentric, it weakens the very understanding of the Faith.

124. I profess that the traditional Roman Mass, celebrated according to the rite in use before the reform of the Novus Ordo Missae, expresses with incomparable clarity the Catholic doctrine of Sacrifice, the priesthood, and the Real Presence. But I observe with sorrow that the contemporary liturgical reforms have departed considerably from the traditional liturgy, on the whole as in its details: in so doing, they have obscured the sacrificial and propitiatory character of the Mass, fostered a democratic conception of worship, brought Catholic liturgical expression closer to Protestant conceptions, and thereby contributed preponderantly to the loss of the sense of the sacred, the corruption of the Christian spirit, the decline of vocations, and the general weakening of the Faith.

125. I therefore reject every liturgical reform or usage which, through omission, doctrinal ambiguity, or practical orientation, favours heresy, weakens faith, departs from the Catholic doctrine of the Mass as formulated at the Council of Trent, or turns the faithful away from the adoration due to God. The public worship of the Church must express the Catholic Faith without equivocation.

126. I am certain, finally, that the Catholic restoration of peoples necessarily involves the restoration of divine worship, through the traditional liturgy of all time. Where the Mass is celebrated as the true Sacrifice of Christ, faith, piety, the life of grace, Christian families, vocations, and the desire for eternal goods are reborn.

XV. Christian Life, Holiness, and the Perfection of Charity

127. I believe that the supreme vocation of man is holiness. Created by God, redeemed by Christ, and sanctified by the action of the Holy Ghost, man is called to participate in the very life of God through a growing conformity to His Will, so as to attain perfect and definitive union with Him in glory.

128. I believe that sanctifying grace makes man an adoptive child of the Father, a member of Jesus Christ, a temple of the Holy Ghost, and an heir of eternal life. It makes the soul pleasing to God, communicates to it a created participation in the Divine Nature, makes it capable of supernatural acts, and orders it to the Beatific Vision. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity unite the soul directly to God; the infused moral virtues order its conduct to the divine law; the gifts of the Holy Ghost make it apt to receive His inspirations with docility, conferring upon the virtues their ultimate perfection.

129. I believe that the Christian life involves, to a very great and by no means negligible degree, a spiritual combat. Since the fall, man remains exposed to the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Grace does not suppress this combat: it gives the necessary strength to engage in it victoriously.

130. I believe that the path to holiness is by imitation of Jesus Christ, obedience to His commandments, prayer, the sacraments, penance, self-renunciation, fidelity to one’s duty of state, and love of the Cross. The disciple is not above his Master: if he wishes to enter into glory, he must walk in the footsteps of the crucified Christ.

131. I therefore reject the false Christianity without the Cross, which promises earthly peace without conversion, mercy without penance, brotherhood without dependence upon the Fatherhood of God, and holiness without heroism. The Church has never canonized mediocrity, adaptation to the world, or merely natural goodwill; she has proposed, for the imitation of her faithful, saints whose faith was integral, whose charity was heroic, and whose lives were conformed to that of Christ.

132. I therefore reject every reduction of the Christian life to a vague philanthropy, social awareness, or commitment to the affairs of this world. Christian charity is first measured not by shared emotion or visible utility, but by the supernatural love of God above all things and of one’s neighbour for God’s sake. Corporal mercy itself loses its true meaning and its authentic value when it is no longer ordered to spiritual mercy and eternal salvation.

133. I profess that holiness is the most beautiful fruit of the Church. Martyrs, confessors, virgins, monks, missionaries, doctors, pastors, and all holy faithful souls bear witness to the power of truth, the fruitfulness of grace, and the victory of Christ over sin.

XVI. The Last Things and Christian Hope

134. I believe that the present life is a time of preparation for eternity and therefore of trial. Man has no lasting dwelling here on earth: he is created for a supernatural destiny which infinitely surpasses the passing goods of this world. I believe in life after death, which one enters by the separation of soul and body.

135. I believe that at the end of his earthly life, each person will appear first before the tribunal of Christ for the particular judgement and will receive, according to his thoughts, words, actions, and omissions, the sentence of his eternal destiny; I also believe that at the end of time, Our Lord Jesus Christ will return in His glory to preside over the general judgement.

136. I maintain with love and trembling that both mercy and justice shine forth in the works of God. The sin of man has offended the glory of the Creator, man has become the debtor of God, and divine justice demands reparation; but, in His incomparable mercy, God has given us a Redeemer Who, as Head of humanity, has offered Himself for the sins of the whole world: a satisfaction which calls for the concurrence of our own.

137. I trust in the infinite mercy of God: there is no sin He cannot pardon, nor any misery He does not wish to relieve; but I firmly condemn that mercy without justice preached by the new humanism, that of a god who does not chastise sin, condemns no one, and demands no conversion, justifying the sin rather than the sinner.

138. I profess that souls who die in a state of mortal sin are condemned to the dreadful abyss of hell, the eternal punishment of privation of God and the eternal punishment of fire. I reject every doctrine which denies the eternity of hell, diminishes the reality of eternal punishments, or implies that all men will ultimately be saved, hell remaining empty.

139. I believe that souls who die in a state of grace, but still liable for temporal punishment, are purified in purgatory. I therefore profess the necessity of praying for the departed, of applying to them the suffrage of the Church, and I reject the falsehoods which promise to all immediate entry into the house of the Father, thereby extinguishing the pious custom of the Church of praying constantly for the dead.

140. I reject in particular the false pastoral language which, for fear of troubling consciences, passes over in silence judgement, hell, and the necessity of penance. There is no charity in hiding from men the eternal peril in which sin places them. The preaching of the Last Things belongs to the mercy of the Church, because it awakens souls and turns them towards salvation.

141. I affirm, finally, that souls who die in the friendship of God, perfectly purified, enter immediately into eternal life and enjoy the Beatific Vision. They contemplate God face to face, as He is, and possess in Him their eternal rest. The Christian life is ordered to this beatitude; every pastoral approach which reduces human happiness to earthly well-being, social peace, or merely psychological fulfilment betrays the supernatural end of the Gospel.

142. Christian hope is therefore neither earthly optimism nor uncertainty mingled with fear. It is the confident expectation of the eternal Kingdom, founded upon the promises of God and nourished by grace. It gives the Christian the strength to labour here below without forgetting that his homeland is in Heaven, and to combat the errors of the age without losing his peace of soul.

XVII. The Modern Crisis and the Duty to Confess the Faith

143. I believe that the Church, assisted by divine Providence, remains indefectible until the end of time. The promise of Christ cannot fail: the gates of hell shall never prevail against her.

144. I believe, however, that the history of the Church knows periods of trial, in which the profession of the true Faith is gravely diminished, in which errors spread, in which discipline weakens, and in which many souls are led astray.

145. I acknowledge in particular that modern errors represent a dreadful threat to the whole of the Catholic order, and that their penetration into the life of the Church, under the influence of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar reforms, has provoked a crisis of exceptional gravity: agnosticism attacks the knowledge of God; naturalism attacks the necessity of grace; subjectivism attacks the supernatural motive of faith; relativism attacks the immutability of dogma; situation ethics attacks the divine law; liberalism attacks the Social Kingship of Christ; false ecumenism attacks the uniqueness of the Church; collegiality and synodality attack the divine constitution of the Church in her hierarchy; liturgical anthropocentrism attacks the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

146. The current crisis therefore cannot be reduced to a mere conflict of sensibilities, liturgical preferences, or pastoral options. It touches upon the very foundations of faith and morals, of the priesthood and worship, of the Church and the Kingship of Christ.

147. These errors do not remain abstract; they have produced visible fruits: the weakening of doctrinal preaching, the extinction of the missionary spirit, the trivialization of sin, the crisis of the family, the ruin of the liturgy, the loss of the sense of God, the scarcity of vocations, the silent apostasy of Christian nations, and the profound confusion of the faithful.

148. This is why it is no longer sufficient today to affirm Catholic truths in general terms, without simultaneously denouncing the errors which seek to corrupt them. Charity towards souls demands the clarity of the whole truth, without any ambiguity.

149. This crisis can only be overcome by the restoration of all things in Jesus Christ, through the return to the Faith, to the life of grace, to divine worship, and to the pursuit of holiness.

150. In these painful circumstances, without judging anyone nor usurping the authority of the Church, I cannot but confess the Faith whose profession is being diminished, recall the Tradition which is being banished, defend morality, guard the liturgy, and proclaim the rights of Christ.

Conclusion

151. Faithful to eternal Rome which guards the Deposit transmitted by the Apostles, I wish to preserve this heritage integrally, without diminution, without alteration, and without fear, not as a particular opinion within the Church of today, but as the Faith received from the Church that is One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman.

152. For this Faith does not belong to me: I have received it in order to remain faithful to it, to live by it, to transmit it, and, if God so asks, to suffer for it, in the confident expectation of the triumph of truth and of grace, for the salvation of souls and the glory of the Most Holy Trinity.

153. I ask God to keep me firm in this profession of Faith until the last instant of my life. I entrust this profession of Faith to the intercession of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, the holy Apostles, the martyrs, the confessors, and all the saints who have preceded us in fidelity to Christ.

154. And in the hope of the resurrection and of the life of the world to come, I place my soul, the Church, and all things in the hands of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to Whom belong honour, glory, and power forever and ever.

Amen.

Given at Menzingen, on 24 June 2026, the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

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On this episode of the Pelican Brief Daily, Murray Rundus looks at Pope Leo's crackdown of the German bishops and is joined by Michael Haynes to discuss what the LGBT controversy in the Church.

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Monday morning saw Leo XIV host a number of audiences at the Vatican, before departing to the United Nations for his speech at the World Food Program office. The schedule of the morning set the tone for the week to come, a week marked by a great many key events including the second consistory of the pontificate.

First on his appointment list for Monday was a joint audience between Cardinals Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity; and George Jacob Koovakad, Prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue. Leo had met with Fernández most recently on Friday, and the joint audience he held today with Koch and Koovakad suggests a discussion relating to some points of ecumenical unity – a topic which Leo has prioritized since the start of his papacy.

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Of those three, Fernández is the prelate whom one would expect Leo to spend time with this week, given that last Tuesday the Pope announced he would make a “another appeal” to the SSPX attempting to convince them away from the episcopal consecrations.

“Don’t do this, let’s try to live the communion of the Church,” Leo summarized his intended message. Fernández has thus far led the ill-fated Holy See negotiations with the Society – a decision deemed questionable in its wisdom given that he is behind a number of documents that the SSPX (and many others) have highlighted as presenting immense doctrinal concerns.

The planned episcopal consecrations are just over a week away and the logistical preparations by the SSPX suggest no anticipation of them being cancelled.

But the Pope will not have much time to focus on this issue. Already on Monday morning he met with youth at the Vatican’s annual summer camp and then the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation.

Tuesday is his official dies non, perhaps the best opportunity to address his appeal to the SSPX. Wednesday is heavily dominated by the General Audience, and Thursday sees him meet with Synod officials and bishops. Friday and Saturday are given entirely to the consistory, while on Monday he celebrates the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul with Mass in the Vatican and blessing the new palliums. In short, between now and July 1 the Pope has ensured that his diary is busy.

During his Monday morning audience with the Foundation – named after Venerable Jérôme Lejeune who served as the first president of the Pontifical Academy for Life at direct request of John Paul II – Leo decried the facilitation of anti-life practices in the medical profession.

“The value of the person does not depend on what they achieve or produce,” he stated, adding that “this is why a doctor should never allow himself, on the basis of laboratory algorithms, to decide the life of a particular embryo or an elderly person. Medicine will never be able to become the servant of planned death.”

Bioethicists and moral theologians have increasingly lamented that, due to Pope Francis’ revolution, the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) and its sister body the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, have betrayed the intentions of its founder. Such has been the assessment of Monsignor Livio Melina. Issuing a new treatise in response to an interview by former PAV president Archbishop Paglia, Melina commented how Paglia’s leadership was “aimed at a radical paradigm shift, which for the first time is recognized as being located not only at the pastoral but also at the doctrinal level.”

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On this episode of the Pelican Brief Daily, Murray Rundus looks at the resignation of the UK Prime Minister and whether or not Pope Leo will have the time to speak with the SSPX this week.

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On this episode of the Pelican Brief Daily, Murray Rundus looks at the latest comments from two cardinals in the USA on the LGBT agenda and looks at Pope Leo’s latest meeting.

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For many decades analysts, clerics, journalists and everyday Catholics have been steadily pointing to Vatican II as a point of immense concern, of rupture with tradition or of immense confusion. Some have tried to marry Vatican II with the Church’s prior Tradition: others have defended it strongly saying it presents no issues: still more have argued that it contains immense confusion that must be clarified as a point of great necessity.

For the SSPX the issue of the “state of necessity” is not simply linked to the traditional Mass but is much more deeply connected to Vatican II. Declining the Holy See’s proposed dialogue in February, the Society’s Superior General wrote:

“We both know in advance that we cannot agree doctrinally, particularly regarding the fundamental orientations adopted since the Second Vatican Council. This disagreement, for the Society’s part, does not stem from a mere difference of opinion, but from a genuine case of conscience, arising from what has proven to be a rupture with the Tradition of the Church. This complex knot has unfortunately become even more inextricable with the doctrinal and pastoral developments of recent pontificates.

I therefore do not see how a joint process of dialogue could end in determining together what would constitute “the minimum requirements for full communion with the Catholic Church”, since—as you yourself have recalled with frankness—the texts of the Council cannot be corrected, nor can the legitimacy of the liturgical reform be challenged.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday night, Pope Leo XIV confirmed that the SSPX’s stance regarding Vatican II is the chief cause of the Holy See’s stance against them. “I am considering making another appeal and saying ‘don’t do this, let’s try to live the communion of the Church.’ But it is their choice,” he said regarding the upcoming July 1 consecrations.

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On the possibility of “schism” he replied: “We must realize what it means for them and for the Church. Certainly, the division among Christians is a painful point.”
Finally he referenced the chief matter at hand:

“However, they refuse to accept some fundamental elements of the Church, starting with several points of the Second Vatican Council. If they make that choice, I am sorry. But we must move forward.”

Such a statement succinctly points to an issue which many Catholics have expressed concerns about – namely the emphasis given by the Holy See to Vatican II seemingly at the expense of centuries of Tradition.

For a Council which was “pastoral” above all else, the Holy See’s stance makes little sense according to the SSPX. If Vatican II was indeed “pastoral” and not dogmatic then any new elements proposed in it not in line with Tradition need not be agreed with. If the Council was formally proposing a new teaching on many points, and if those points disagree with Tradition, then the Church is in an immense crisis.

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On this episode of the Pelican Brief Daily, Murray Rundus looks at the details of the MOU between the USA and the Iranian Government and hears from Michael Haynes about the latest on the Transalpine Redemptorists

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On this episode of the Pelican Brief Daily, Murray Rundus looks at Pope Leo’s remarks on the SSPX, and the latest news about next week’s consistory.

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On this episode of the Pelican Brief, Murray Rundus looks at the latest MOA between the United States and Iran and is joined by Michael Haynes to discuss the latest on Archbishop Vigano.

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“How providential,” said Cdl. Burke on Friday, “that on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, we consecrate our homeland to the Sacred Heart and make the act of reparation for the indifference and offense with which we have so often responded, in our nation, to the love of the Sacred Heart!”

The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 12 saw a number of events held in honor of the liturgical feast, but also linked to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. By prudentially choosing to align one with the other, a notable juxtaposition was thus made with the ideologies so often pushed by modern America and much of the West – ideologies which seek to hijack the month of the Sacred Heart for themselves.

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In contrast to that, Burke noted that “it is faith in God and in His love for us that has inspired devout Catholics to love their homeland and to serve the common good of the nation at great sacrifice, even at the sacrifice of their lives, over the past 250 years.”

The cardinal’s homily came as part of his Mass for the feast itself, celebrated at his Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Wisconsin. Burke – whose devotion to the Sacred Heart is one of the most public aspects of his spirituality – utilized the Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart composed by Pope Leo XIII. The Pontiff especially proposed his 1899 Act of Consecration as a means to combat the increasing trend by which, “in the constitution and administration of States the authority of sacred and divine law is utterly disregarded, with a view to the exclusion of religion from having any constant part in public life.”

One day prior on June 11, the amassed bishops of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) performed an act of consecration of the nation to the Sacred Heart. Coming at the conclusion of a novena to the Sacred Heart, the USCCB’s consecration was the fulfillment of a decision taken in November last year to mark the 250th anniversary.

Explaining the USCCB’s decision, Portland’s Archbishop Alexander Sample stated that “we have the opportunity to encourage all Catholics to honor Our Lord and to infuse the spirit of the Gospel into communities and departments of life.”

“Our devotion to the Sacred Heart demands that we consider how we might foster truth, justice, and charity in American life,” Sample continued. “We are called to bring our faith into the actions we take and the lives we lead.”

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This theme was taken up by Archbishop William Lori during the USCCB’s consecration Mass. “To consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart means remaining in Christ’s love and carrying that love into the world,” he homilized.

Such a consecration is “an act of faith,” said Lori, noting that the nation looks back on its history “with humility, recognizing in faith that every nation stands in need of God’s mercy, wisdom, and guidance.”

It is also, he noted, “a declaration that the future does not belong merely to political movements, economic forces, or human plans – the future belongs to God.”

The USCCB’s endeavor received support also from President Trump, who issued a message welcoming the consecration as being “a powerful moment in our national story and a poignant reminder that America has always been guided by the loving hand of God.”

Trump linked the feast of the Sacred Heart to President Reagan’s 1987 Berlin speech – in which he called on the Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” – and an address given simultaneously by Pope John Paul II in Poland.

“As Catholic Bishops consecrate the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in this 250th year of our Independence, we,” wrote Trump, “recommit ourselves, like President Reagan and Pope Saint John Paul II, to defending our spiritual identity and great civilizational inheritance.”

As part of the wider number of events linking the Sacred Heart to the Declaration of Independence’s 250th anniversary, Burke also headlined the zeal for America 250 Rally organized by Catholic Vote, delivering a speech focused on the common good, justice and well-ordered love of country.

“In the Declaration of Independence, the objective fulfillment which the common good safeguards and promises is described as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he said, before linking this to the Second Vatican Council’s own writings: “The reality underlying the description of the common good in the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, and the description in the Declaration of Independence, that reality is the same.”

As Americans reflect upon the nation’s past and future, Burke sought to ensure that any understanding and treatment of legal theory was intrinsically linked to the orders of God’s creation.

“There can be no question that democracy and the laws which govern it must be founded upon right reason, distinguishing ends from purposes and respecting fully the natural law which God has written upon every human heart,” he said.

For the cardinal, the Church has a particular duty at this time to be even more proactive in ensuring that the laws of nations align with the laws of God: “in the present situation, the Church’s service of the world demands of her above all a witness to the foundation of the political order upon the unchanging precepts of the natural moral law which God has taught and teaches to all men and women of every time and place.”

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And yet the real relationship between these two groups is more dynamic than it first appears. In my twenty years in the trad space, I have observed what I would call a charismatic-to-trad pipeline. Quite a few traditionalists began their spiritual journey as charismatics because the Traditional Latin Mass offers them the fulfillment of what they were looking for in the Charismatic Renewal.

You may balk at this. “How could the Charismatic Renewal lead anyone to the Traditional Latin Mass!?”

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Southeastern Michigan is an incredibly unique region in American Catholicism, for not only is this area home to one of the largest and most vibrant Latin Mass communities in the country, but it also contains the biggest charismatic Catholic community in the U.S. This means that these two communities interact here to a degree that is probably uncommon elsewhere, and I can tell you there is definitely a pipeline that connects one to the other. I encounter people along every point of this spectrum all the time. Go to any of the TLM sites in metro Detroit and you will find scores of people who began their spiritual walk as charismatics; I am one of them. I began my Christian life long ago as a Pentecostal and then dabbled in the Renewal once I returned to the Church before moving toward Tradition (if you want to hear about it, I discuss it in my conversion story). Then there are people who are still deeply ensconced in the charismatic world but are beginning to be disenchanted with it and occasionally seek out the TLM for something more stable and timeless. And there are plenty who exist in both worlds simultaneously without any dissonance: I know families who are parishioners at the charismatic parish but will attend all sorts of Latin Mass liturgical celebrations as well. I know diocesan priests who are more or less charismatic but who pray the traditional Breviary or even say the TLM privately. I remember meeting one charismatic priest who said that when he travels he always uses the Rite of 1962 exorcism on his hotel rooms because he finds it “more effective” than the revised rite.

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There’s a lot more I could say, but anecdotes will only get us so far. The point is that overlap definitely exists among these communities in places where they interact with one other. I do notice, however, that the movement seems to only go one way—I have known countless trads who began as charismatics but I can’t think of any charismatics who began as trads. I will have more to say about this momentarily.

Now obviously trads can come from anywhere. We all know trads who began as Protestants, as atheists, pagans, or just as Novus Ordo Catholics who fell in love with the historic expressions of the Catholic faith. In each of these cases, the individual usually finds something in traditional Catholicism that speaks to some important spiritual value they already hold, exemplifying it in a more perfect form. If this is true, what spiritual value do charismatics and trads share in common that draws the former to the latter?

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Charles A. Coulombe

O, for a muse of fire that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention!

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels,

Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and

fire

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,

The flat unraisèd spirits that hath dared

On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

So great an object. Can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram

Within this wooden O the very casques

That did affright the air at Agincourt?

William Shakespeare, Henry V

Recently I attended a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest at the International Theological Institute here in Trumau, Austria. The entirely student-produced, directed, and acted effort was one of the best, if not the best of four or five performances I have seen. The witty script showed forth in the brilliant performances of the young cast, and I happily roared along with the audience at Wilde’s ageless late-Victorian wit. It was, I remarked to the very talented young man who played Jack Worthing, a tour-de-farce. That would have made Oscar laugh or cringe – I shudder to think which.

In either case, the theatre, alongside the Catholic Church, the military, and writing, was one of the dominant themes of the family to which I was born. My parents were both actors – radio actors when they met on the sound stage of the Luxe Theatre of the Air back in 1951. It was hereditary on my Dad’s side; my Mother was the first of hers, and this venture did not come with parental approval. But growing up, both in New York and in Hollywood, most of their friends were actors or tied to the profession one way or another. To our shared horror, one of my best friends my freshman year in High School and I discovered at the first parents’ night that our fathers were classmates at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

As a result, I learned early on that theatre and the acting profession are a world of their own. There are past and present Actors’ clubs, bars, and restaurants: in Hollywood, the late lamented Masquers’ Club comes to mind (the first I ever joined); New York boasts or boasted the Players’ Club, The Lambs’ Club, Chumley’s, Sardi’s, and my Father’s beloved Carnegie Tavern; London had the Green Room, and retains The Garrick – but there are a great many more, in those and a hundred other cities the world over. There are even Actor’s churches.

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But while a great many people think of the most successful film and television actors as “celebrities,” this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Once upon a time, they were considered less than respectable, like the Carnival, Medicine Show, Vaudeville, Circus, and other such performers, with whom they shared in part a common origin. The Lambs’ Club got its name from the two early 19^th century English actors in New York who founded it as a social refuge when most club doors were closed to members of the Profession. They chose the title to commemorate Charles and Mary Lamb, a literary brother-and-sister couple in London, who at a time when actors received similar exclusion, kept open house for them. “Let’s go round to the Lambs,” became the constant saying for a time in the Metropolis when curtains fell. The two expatriates never forgot the kindness shown them at home, and named their new club accordingly.

“The Little Church Around the Corner,” actually Transfiguration Episcopal Church, got its name in 1870, when the actor George Holland died. William T. Sabine, the rector of the nearby (and now defunct) Church of the Atonement, refused to conduct funeral services for him, saying, “I believe there is a little church around the corner where they do that sort of thing.” Holland’s friend and sometime castmate, Joseph Jefferson, who was trying to arrange the funeral, replied “If that be so, God bless the little church around the corner!” It has been the spiritual home for non-Catholic actors in New York ever since. We Catholics have our own St. Malachy, the “Actor’s Chapel.” There is a similar arrangement in London, with Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane for Catholics, and St. Paul’s, Covent Garden for Anglicans. Both Paris and Rome also boast churches for Catholic actors.

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“The Church cannot ignore these waters, nor any place where hunger, thirst, violence, fear, or exile continue to wound human dignity,” said Leo today. His address came as part of an encounter between the Pope, migrants and migrant charities, held at the port of Arguineguín, in Gran Canaria.

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“What kind of world have we built, if so many brothers and sisters must risk death in search of life?,” Leo asked.

Spain’s Canary Islands has become one of the main exit points for migrants coming from Africa and entry points to Europe. The Port of Arguineguín was dubbed the Port of Shame when in 2020 a huge influx of immigrants were met with inadequate facilities and shortages of food, water and clothing.

“May history not accuse us of having turned the pain of those who suffer into a familiar sight along our shores,” said the Pope. “Because today, here, by the sea, every life that arrives asks us what remains of our humanity.”

After listening to testimonies from migrants and charities assisting them, Leo delivered his own speech, aimed at giving support to migrants, while also urging greater international attention to the question.

He decried also the business of human trafficking and “exploitation,” saying that “even if others have placed a price on your body, God has never ceased to see you as a person of inestimable value.”

Instead, Leo urged a Catholic response to a transactional view of human life: “Your life belongs to God and retains a dignity that no one can take from you. And we want to walk with you, until that truth is heard once more, louder than the pain.”

“Before saying anything else, I want to bow before your dignity,” he told the migrants gathered at the port to hear him. “You are not numbers, nor are you files! You are people with a family and a home you left behind, with dreams that no one has the right to despise.”

Leo also issued a warning to them not to fall into the pitfalls of opening themselves up to human trafficking, and urged against believing “those who promise easy paradises in exchange for your bodies, your money, your silence, or your freedom.” Such “siren songs” are in fact the “industries of death,” commented Leo.

The port of Arguineguín was a location that Pope Francis wished to visit, and would have been a pinnacle of his papal focus on immigration during his 12-year reign. By visiting instead, Leo was thus in many ways fulfilling the vision of his predecessor as he has done in other aspects of his foreign travels. His attention to immigration also echoes that of Francis, as does some of his rhetoric.

But Leo also presented a more nuanced response to immigration than Francis was known for. While voicing support for migrants, he also urged that their home nations must take responsibility of ensuring there is no need for such a journey:

“Your plight must become a call to conscience: for your countries of origin, which must create conditions of peace, justice, and development; for transit nations, called to protect and not leave the vulnerable in the hands of criminal networks; for Europe, which cannot proclaim human dignity while growing accustomed to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic being graveyards without headstones; for the international community, called to effective and persevering cooperation.”

Posited in concern even just for human dignity, Leo urged increased activity to address the various issues relating to immigration: “legal and safe routes, rescue and assistance, genuine cooperation against traffickers, effective protection for victims, serious processes of reception and integration, and policies that allow every person to live with dignity in their own land.”

There exists, he said, a right not to have to migrate: the right to remain in one’s own home without hunger, without war, without persecution, without violence, without the land becoming uninhabitable, without corruption stealing bread from the poor, without weapons destroying children’s futures.”

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The American pontiff also pointed a finger at the Church to also be “challenged” by the topic of migration. “Welcoming migrants cannot be a secondary concern, nor can it be delegated solely to a few volunteers,” he said. “We kneel before the altar to adore Christ present in the Eucharist, from whom we receive the strength and motivation to live out charity: for this reason, we cannot simply ‘pass by’ the cayucas and pateras, since every act of service springs from prayer and every commitment returns to it.”

Immigration figures for the Canary Islands have fallen since the peak of nearly 47,000 people who arrived in 2024. A total of around 17,800 were recorded as arriving by sea to the Islands in 2025. Nevertheless Gran Canaria remains a highly active port of entry for many African migrants, and given the current debate and attention over immigration in Europe, Leo’s visit to the port is a moment in which the Pope directly involves himself in a key political talking point.

Unchecked immigration into much of Europe has indeed led to a severe increase in violent attacks on locals, including just this week when a Sudanese asylum seeker – who was granted speedy entry into the U.K. in 2023 – attempted to behead a man in Northern Ireland.

The Holy See’s repeated interventions on immigration always appear blind to the fact that immigration channels are regularly abused not just by traffickers – which Leo did address – but by the admission of fighting age males with no apparent desire or intent of assimilating into the culture, and who are repeatedly the cause of unrest.

Responding to similar such issues and the deleterious effect of unchecked immigration – often political rather than humanitarian migration – a new initiative called the Save Europe Act was recently launched. Revealed at a Remigration Summit in Porto by key remigration activists – including Catholic, Dutch commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek – the Act calls for an instant end to all non-Western migration into Europe.

The Act has already amassed over 300,000 signatures within two weeks, and seeks one million names in order to “force Brussels to take action.”

For his part, Leo has weighed into the immigration debate with an attempt to highlight human dignity, respect for one’s fellow man, and urging an end to wars, persecution and other circumstances which force immigration.

Lamentably he appears blind to the reality of the dangers of such channels of travel being used to funnel large swathes of men who have no need of safe immigration and appear aimed at disrupting the countries they enter.

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On this episode of the Pelican Brief Daily, Murray Rundus looks at the sentencing of Karmelo Anthony and is joined by Michael Haynes to discuss the latest from Pope Leo’s trip to Spain

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