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THE ABBOT OF SOLESMES AND THE ILLUSION OF LITURGICAL SYNTHESIS: BETWEEN SUBJECTIVISM AND DOCTrinal CONFUSION

It is true that each of us is accountable for what we say, however, the container in which these statements are deposited is not irrelevant, for it too is not devoid of meaning. And maybe, for this, a certain prudence would suggest avoiding the more complex themes of sacramental theology from being treated, by a Benedictine Abbot, in contexts — like certain blogs — that, by their nature, they are more prone to itching gossip clerical than in search of the truth.

— Theologica —

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

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PDF print format article – Article print format – Article in printed format

.

My late friend Paolo Poli, unforgettable theater master, with his usual disarming irony, he loved to say: «Men who declare themselves bisexual are nothing more than gays masquerading as heterosexuals».

And here the reader can legitimately ask himself what does such an approach have to do with the Sacred Liturgy. Nothing in itself; however, on the analogue level, not a little. Because, when an attempt is made to hold together irreconcilable realities through an artifice of synthesis, we often end up producing not one unit, but an ambiguity. This is precisely the impression that the proposal put forward by the Abbot of Solesmes, Dom Geoffroy Kemlin, in the interview given to the blog I can not remain silent: an attempt to overcome the liturgical fracture not through theological clarification, but through a practical composition that risks generating further confusion (See. Interview, who).

When Mr. Abate states: «I believe that each of the Catholic sensitivities must agree to take a step towards the other», already introduces a deeply problematic assumption: the one according to which the liturgy is in some way an expression of different "sensibilities"., to be harmonized through compromise. But the Sacred Liturgy is not the place of subjective sensitivities: it is the public act of the Church, in which faith is objectively expressed. The liturgical unity, therefore, it does not arise from a compromise between sensitivity, but from adhesion to it the law of prayer which expresses the law of belief.

Even more serious this is what is proposed on a concrete level: «The priest could simply choose to integrate elements of the ancient missal...». E qHere we reach a decisive point. The priest is not the master of the liturgy, nor is he given the right to select ritual elements according to personal or "enrichment" criteria. The Constitution Holy Council is crystal clear: the government of the liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church and no one, not even the priest, can add, remove or change anything on your own initiative. This principle was also forcefully reiterated by the Instruction Sacramentum.

The idea of ​​a modular liturgy, in which different elements can be integrated at discretion, it therefore contradicts not only ecclesial discipline, but the very nature of the liturgy as an act received and not constructed. On the other hand - mutatis mutandis — we place ourselves on the same level as the most casual liturgical creativity of certain Neocatechumenal circles: there we dance around the altar to the sound of the bongos, Gregorian chants are sung here in Latin; but the underlying principle remains identical. Change the external form, not the logic that generates it.

No less problematic it is the statement according to which «the liturgy belongs to the Church». Expression that, if not adequately specified, risks being theologically misleading. The liturgy is not the property of the Church, nor any of its productions. It is first and foremost the action of Christ, High Priest, who works in his Body which is the Church. The primary subject of the liturgy is Christ himself, as the Second Vatican Council recalls: it is He who acts in the sacramental signs and makes the paschal mystery present (cf.. Holy Council, n. 7). The Church is not the master of the liturgy, but her guardian and servant, called to receive it faithfully and transmit it without arbitrariness, as clearly reiterated by the magisterium: «The liturgy is never someone's private property, neither of the celebrant nor of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated" (Sacramentum, n. 18).

Then when Mr. Abate calls back the Motu proprio Guardians of tradition claiming that it simply aimed to put an end to divisions, shows that he does not grasp the real scope of the document or, more simply, that I didn't really understand it. That text is not limited to a generic wish for unity, but it intervenes precisely to regulate and limit the use of the so-called The old order, precisely because the previous experience had shown how the coexistence of two ritual forms had become, In many cases, factor of ecclesial division and not of communion, but what is worse - and unfortunately not infrequently - is a pretext for real ideological struggles. So the idea of ​​solving the problem through a fusion of the two orders — inserting elements of one into the other — not only does it not address the root of the issue, but it risks worsening the confusion, introducing a form of “variable composition” liturgy, foreign to the Catholic tradition and explicitly rejected by it in its magisterium: «it is necessary to rebuke the audacity of those who arbitrarily introduce new liturgical customs or revive rites that have already fallen into disuse» (Mediator Dei, n. 58).

In this sense, the reference to Dom Prosper Guéranger it appears not only inappropriate, but paradoxical. The founder of the Benedictine liturgical restoration worked precisely to bring the disorderly plurality of the French diocesan rites back to the unity of the Roman rite. In his Liturgical institutions he strongly defends the idea that the liturgy is not the object of local invention, but an organic expression of the Tradition of the universal Church. His intent was to restore unity, not to build hybrid syntheses.

The real knot, which the interview carefully avoids addressing, it is therefore another: the liturgy is not a field of mediation between sensibilities, but the place where the Church receives and transmits an objective form of faith. As the Magisterium recalls: «the regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church» (Holy Council, 22), precisely because it is not available for the free manipulation of subjects. And when this form is transformed into an object of composition, selective adaptation or integration, we inevitably slip into a form of subjectivism that empties the liturgy of its nature. The problem is not legitimate plurality, but the loss of the sense of liturgical normativeness and its theological root.

When the liturgy becomes the result of a constructed synthesis, it ceases to be received as a gift and becomes the product of human mediation. So yes, the risk is that of replacing the real unity of the Church with an apparent unity, obtained not in the truth of faith, but in the negotiation of forms. As Joseph Ratzinger wrote lucidly: «the liturgy does not arise from our imagination, it is not the product of our creativity, but it is something that precedes us and that we must receive" (Introduction to the spirit of the liturgy).

It is then painful that the Most Reverend Abbot - which the interviewer, now short of information, dusts off as if it were one news a letter sent by him to the Supreme Pontiff 25 November 2025 — this far from secondary element also escapes. They, indeed, declares: «My letter to the Pope is evidently only a suggestion. I am well aware that it still needs to be refined and specified. I hope that the bishops continue to reflect on this theme and themselves make proposals so that the Church finds the much desired unity".

The very way in which one addresses the Roman Pontiff is never neutral. In the tradition of the Church, we don't talk to him like an interlocutor between equals, nor are "proposals" submitted to him as if it were a questionable matter entrusted to discussion between specialists, nor are suggestions and advice offered, if they are not expressly requested by him. Rather we address the Holiness of Our Lord with filial respect, humbly exposing observations and desires, in the awareness that the final judgment on what concerns the life of the Church belongs solely to him. That, so, the exponent of an ancient two thousand year old monastic tradition does not even notice the delicacy of this ecclesial register, indeed present publicly as a "suggestion" that which touches the very heart of the liturgical life of the Church, offers a significant — and not a little worrying — index of the level of confusion that is widespread today even in areas that, by their nature, they should be immune to it, nothing else for history, tradition and, not last, also for elementary ecclesial education.

It all proves it to us that when theological competence is replaced by an emotional and conciliatory approach, the liturgy - which is the heart of ecclesial life - ends up being reduced to a field of experimentation. And what begins as an attempt at unity easily transforms into the subtlest form of disorder.

Finally, it is true that each of us is accountable for what we say; however, the container in which these statements are deposited is not irrelevant, for it too is not devoid of meaning. And maybe, for this, a certain prudence would suggest avoiding the more complex themes of sacramental theology from being treated, by a Benedictine Abbot, in contexts — like certain blogs — that, by their nature, they are more prone to itching gossip clerical than in search of the truth. This should lead to the due virtue of prudence of both the Archbishop H.E. Mons. Renato Boccardo (cf.. Video interview who), as much as the Bishop H.E. Mons. Eduard Profittlich (cf.. Interview who), which, agreeing to intervene in similar contexts, end up - hopefully without full awareness - by implicitly endorsing the method and tone of a blog that daily indulges in invectives against dignitaries and departments of the Holy See, as well as dioceses and ecclesiastics judged not to conform to their subjective satisfaction. But on the other hand: «We in the Vatican … here in the Vatican …».

From the island of Patmos, 21 March 2026

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THE ABBOT OF SOLESMES AND THE ILLUSION OF LITURGICAL SYNTHESIS: BETWEEN SUBJECTIVISM AND DOCTRINAL CONFUSION

It is ultimately true that each of us is responsible for what he affirms; however, the medium in which such statements are placed is not irrelevant, for it too is not without meaning. And perhaps, precisely for this reason, a certain prudence would suggest avoiding that the most complex themes of sacramental theology be treated, by a Benedictine Abbot, in contexts — such as certain blogs — which, by their very nature, are more inclined to the unhealthy fascination with clerical gossip than to the search for truth.

— Theologica —

.

Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

.

My late friend Paolo Poli, an unforgettable master of theatre, with his usual disarming irony, used to say: “Men who declare themselves bisexual are nothing other than homosexuals disguised as heterosexuals.” And here the reader may legitimately ask what such a comparison has to do with Sacred Liturgy. In itself, nothing; yet, on an analogical level, quite a lot. For when one attempts to hold together realities that are not reconcilable through an artificial synthesis, one often ends up producing not unity, but ambiguity. This is precisely the impression conveyed by the proposal advanced by the Abbot of Solesmes, Dom Geoffroy Kemlin, in the interview granted to the blog I can not remain silent: an attempt to overcome the liturgical fracture not through theological clarification, but through a practical composition that risks generating further confusion (article, here).

When the Reverend Abbot states: “I believe that each of the Catholic sensibilities should accept taking a step toward the other,” he already introduces a deeply problematic presupposition: namely, that the liturgy is in some way an expression of differing “sensibilities” to be harmonized through compromise. But Sacred Liturgy is not the realm of subjective sensibilities: it is the public act of the Church, in which the faith is expressed objectively. Liturgical unity, therefore, does not arise from compromise between sensibilities, but from adherence to the same the law of prayer which expresses the law of belief.

Even more serious is what is proposed on the practical level: “The priest could simply choose to integrate elements of the ancient missal…” Here we touch upon a decisive point. The priest is not the master of the liturgy, nor is he granted the faculty to select ritual elements according to personal criteria or for the sake of “enrichment.” The Constitution Holy Council is absolutely clear: the regulation of the liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, and no one, not even the priest, may add, remove, or change anything on his own initiative. This principle has been forcefully reiterated by the Instruction Sacramentum.

The idea of a liturgy assembled at will, in which different elements may be integrated at discretion, therefore contradicts not only ecclesial discipline but the very nature of the liturgy as something received and not constructed. From another perspective — mutatis mutandis — one finds oneself on the same level as the most uninhibited liturgical creativity found in certain Neo-Catechumenal environments: there one dances around the altar to the sound of bongos, here Gregorian chants in Latin are intoned; yet the underlying principle remains identical. The external form changes, not the logic that generates it.

No less problematic is the statement that “the liturgy belongs to the Church.” An expression which, if not properly clarified, risks being theologically misleading. The liturgy is not the property of the Church, nor its production. It is first and foremost the action of Christ, the High Priest, who operates in His Body, which is the Church. The primary subject of the liturgy is Christ Himself, as the Second Vatican Council recalls: it is He who acts in the sacramental signs and makes present the Paschal mystery (cf. Holy Council, 7). The Church is not the master of the liturgy, but its custodian and servant, called to receive it faithfully and to transmit it without arbitrariness, as clearly reaffirmed by the Magisterium: “the liturgy is never anyone’s private property, neither of the celebrant nor of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated” (Sacramentum, 18).

When the Reverend Abbot then invokes the Motu Proprio Guardians of tradition, claiming that it simply aimed at putting an end to divisions, he shows that he has not grasped the real scope of the document — or, more simply, that he has not understood it at all. That text does not merely express a generic aspiration to unity, but intervenes precisely to regulate and limit the use of the so-called The old order, precisely because previous experience had shown that the coexistence of two ritual forms had, in many cases, become a factor of division rather than communion — and worse still, not infrequently a pretext for genuine ideological conflicts. Thus, the idea of resolving the problem through a fusion of the two ordines — inserting elements of one into the other — not only fails to address the root of the issue but risks aggravating the confusion, introducing a form of a liturgy of variable composition foreign to Catholic tradition and explicitly rejected by its Magisterium: “it is necessary to reprove the temerity of those who arbitrarily introduce new liturgical practices or revive rites already fallen into disuse” (Mediator Dei, 58).

In this sense, the appeal to Prosper Guéranger appears not only inappropriate but paradoxical. The founder of the Benedictine liturgical restoration worked precisely to bring the disordered plurality of French diocesan rites back to the unity of the Roman Rite. In his Liturgical institutions, he strongly defends the idea that the liturgy is not the object of local invention but the organic expression of the Tradition of the universal Church. His aim was to restore unity, not to construct hybrid syntheses.

The real issue, which the interview carefully avoids addressing, is therefore another: the liturgy is not a field for mediation between sensibilities, but the place in which the Church receives and transmits an objective form of the faith. As the Magisterium recalls, “the regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church” (Smost holy Council, 22), precisely because it is not available for free manipulation by individuals. And when this form is transformed into an object of composition, adaptation, or selective integration, one inevitably slides into a form of subjectivism that empties the liturgy of its nature. The problem is not legitimate plurality, but the loss of the sense of liturgical normativity and of its theological foundation.

When the liturgy becomes the result of a constructed synthesis, it ceases to be received as a gift and becomes the product of human mediation. And thus, the risk arises of replacing the real unity of the Church with an apparent unity, obtained not in the truth of faith but in the negotiation of forms. As Joseph Ratzinger wrote with clarity: “the liturgy does not arise from our imagination; it is not the product of our creativity, but something that precedes us and that we must receive” (The Spirit of the Liturgy).

It is also regrettable that the Most Reverend Abbot — whose interviewer, now short of news, dusts off as though it were a news item a letter sent by him to the Supreme Pontiff on 25 November 2025 — should fail to grasp this element, which is by no means secondary. He, in fact, declares: “My letter to the Pope is evidently only a suggestion. I am well aware that it still needs to be refined and specified. I hope that the bishops will continue to reflect on this matter and that they themselves will make proposals so that the Church may rediscover the unity so greatly desired”.

The very manner in which one addresses the Roman Pontiff is never neutral. In the tradition of the Church, one does not speak to him as to an interlocutor among equals, nor does one submit “proposals” as though it were a matter open to debate entrusted to specialists, nor does one offer “suggestions” and advice unless they have been expressly requested by him. Rather, one addresses the Holiness of Our Lord with filial respect, presenting with humility observations and desiderata, in the awareness that the final judgment on what concerns the life of the Church belongs to him alone. That, therefore, a representative of an ancient monastic tradition spanning two millennia should fail even to perceive the delicacy of this ecclesial register, and indeed publicly present as a “suggestion” what touches the very heart of the Church’s liturgical life, offers a significant — and by no means reassuring — indication of the level of confusion today widespread even in circles which, by their very nature, ought to be immune to it, if only by reason of history, tradition, and, not least, elementary ecclesial decorum.

It is ultimately true that each of us is responsible for what he affirms; however, the medium in which such statements are placed is not irrelevant, for it too is not without meaning. And perhaps, precisely for this reason, a certain prudence would suggest avoiding that the most complex themes of sacramental theology be treated, by a Benedictine Abbot, in contexts — such as certain blogs — which, by their very nature, are more inclined to the unhealthy fascination with clerical gossip than to the search for truth. This should lead to the due virtue of prudence both the Archbishop H.E. Msgr. Renato Boccardo (cf. Here) and the Bishop H.E. Msgr. Eduard Profittlich (cf. Here), who, by agreeing to intervene in such contexts, end up — one hopes without full awareness — implicitly endorsing the method and tone of a blog that daily indulges in invectives against dignitaries and dicasteries of the Holy See, as well as dioceses and ecclesiastics deemed not to conform to its own preferences.

From the Island of Patmos, 21 March 2026

.

THE ABBEY OF SOLESMES AND THE ILLUSION OF LITURGICAL SYNTHESIS: BETWEEN SUBJECTIVISM AND DOCTRINAL CONFUSION

Is, In short, It is true that each of us responds for what he affirms; however, The scope in which such statements are deposited is not irrelevant., Well, this is not meaningless either.. and maybe, precisely for this reason, A certain prudence would suggest avoiding the most complex topics of sacramental theology from being treated, by a Benedictine abbot, in contexts — such as certain blogs — that, by its own nature, They are more inclined to the morbid inclination towards clerical gossip than to the search for truth..

— Theologica —

.

Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

.

My late friend Paolo Poli, unforgettable theater master, with his usual disarming irony, I used to say: "Men who declare themselves bisexual are nothing more than homosexuals disguised as heterosexuals". And here the reader may legitimately wonder what such a comparison has to do with the Sacred Liturgy.. in itself, nothing; however, on the analog level, not a little. Why, when an attempt is made to keep together non-reconcilable realities through an artifice of synthesis, often ends up producing not one unit, but an ambiguity. This is precisely the impression aroused by the proposal made by the abbot of Solesmes, Dom Geoffroy Kemlin, in the interview given to the blog I can not remain silent: an attempt to overcome the liturgical fracture not through a theological clarification, but through a practical composition that runs the risk of generating further confusion (article, here).

When the Lord Abbot affirms: "I believe that each of the Catholic sensibilities should accept taking a step towards the other", already introduces a deeply problematic budget: that the liturgy would be, somehow, expression of different “sensitivities” that must be harmonized through a commitment. But the Sacred Liturgy is not the place of subjective sensibilities: It is the public act of the Church, in which faith is objectively expressed. The liturgical unity, therefore, It is not born from a compromise between sensibilities, but of the adhesion to it the law of prayer that expresses the lex credendi.

Even more serious is what is proposed on a concrete level.: "The priest could simply choose to integrate elements of the old missal...". Here we touch on a decisive point. The priest is not the owner of the liturgy, nor does it have the power to select ritual elements according to personal or “enrichment” criteria.. The Constitution Holy Council it is very clear: The regulation of the liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, and nobody, not even the priest, can add, remove or change anything on your own initiative. This principle has also been strongly reaffirmed by the Instruction Sacramentum.

The idea of ​​a composable liturgy, in which diverse elements can be integrated at discretion, contradicts, therefore, not only ecclesial discipline, but the very nature of the liturgy as an act received and not constructed. On the other hand - change of changes — we find ourselves on the same plane as the most uninhibited forms of liturgical creativity in certain neocatechumenal environments: there they dance around the altar to the sound of the bongos, Gregorian chants are sung here in Latin; but the underlying principle is identical. Change the exterior shape, not the logic that generates it.

no less problematic is the statement according to which "the liturgy belongs to the Church". Expression that, if not properly specified, runs the risk of being theologically equivocal. The liturgy is not property of the Church, not even one of his productions. It is above all the action of Christ, High priest, that acts in your Body, what is the Church. The primary subject of the liturgy is Christ himself, as the Second Vatican Council recalls: It is He who acts in the sacramental signs and makes the paschal mystery present (cf. Holy Council, n. 7). The Church is not the owner of the liturgy, but your custodian and servant, called to receive it faithfully and to transmit it without arbitrariness, as the Magisterium has clearly reiterated: «the liturgy is never someone's private property, neither of the celebrant nor of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated" (Sacramentum, n. 18).

When the Lord Abbot later invokes the Motu proprio Guardians of tradition, maintaining that this was simply intended to end the divisions, demonstrates not having grasped the real scope of the document or, more simply, not having understood. This text is not limited to a generic desire for unity, but intervenes precisely to regulate and limit the use of the so-called The old order, because previous experience had shown that the coexistence of two ritual forms had become, in many cases, a factor of ecclesial division and not of communion, and - what is worse - not infrequently as a pretext for real ideological struggles. So, the idea of ​​solving the problem through a fusion of the two orders — inserting elements of one into the other — not only does it not address the root of the issue, but it runs the risk of aggravating the confusion, introducing a form of liturgy “of variable composition”, alien to Catholic tradition and explicitly rejected by its Magisterium: "it is necessary to condemn the audacity of those who arbitrarily introduce new liturgical customs or revive rites that have already fallen into disuse" (Mediator Dei, n. 58).

In this sense, The reference to Dom Prosper Guéranger is not only inappropriate, but paradoxical. The founder of the Benedictine liturgical restoration worked precisely to redirect the disorderly plurality of French diocesan rites to the unity of the Roman rite.. In their Liturgical institutions strongly defends the idea that the liturgy is not an object of local invention, but organic expression of the Tradition of the universal Church. Its purpose was to restore unity, do not build hybrid syntheses.

The real knot, that the interview carefully avoids facing, is therefore another: The liturgy is not a field of mediation between sensibilities, but the place in which the Church receives and transmits an objective form of the faith. As the Magisterium remembers, "The regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church" (Holy Council, n. 22), precisely because it is not available for the free manipulation of the subjects. And when this form becomes an object of composition, selective adaptation or integration, inevitably falls into a form of subjectivism that empties the liturgy of its nature. The problem is not legitimate plurality, but the loss of the sense of liturgical normativity and its theological root.

When the liturgy becomes the result of a constructed synthesis, It stops being received as a gift and becomes a product of human mediation.. And then yes, The risk is to replace the real unity of the Church with an apparent unity, obtained not in the truth of faith, but in the negotiation of the forms. As Joseph Ratzinger lucidly wrote:: «the liturgy is not born from our fantasy, It is not the product of our creativity, but something that precedes us and that we must receive" (The spirit of the liturgy).

It also hurts that the Most Reverend Abbot —whose interviewer, already lacking in news, dusts off as if it were news a letter sent by himself to the Supreme Pontiff on 25 November 2025 — you also miss this non-secondary element: The very way in which one addresses the Roman Pontiff is never neutral. In the tradition of the Church, you are not spoken to as an interlocutor among equals, nor are “proposals” presented to it as if it were an opinionable matter entrusted to debate among specialists., nor are suggestions and advice offered, if they have not been expressly requested by him. Rather, one goes to the Holiness of Our Lord with filial respect, humbly exposing observations and wishes, in the awareness that the final judgment on what concerns the life of the Church corresponds solely to him. What, therefore, the representative of an ancient two-thousand-year-old monastic tradition does not even perceive the delicacy of this ecclesial record and, even more, publicly present as a "suggestion" that which touches the very heart of the liturgical life of the Church, constitutes a significant – and not a little worrying – indication of the level of confusion today widespread even in areas that, by its own nature, They should be immune to it., not only for history and tradition, but also, and not last, for an elementary ecclesial education.

All this confirms us what, when theological competence is replaced by an emotional and conciliatory approach, the liturgy – which is the heart of ecclesial life – ends up reduced to a field of experimentation. And what is born as an attempt at unity easily transforms into the most subtle form of disorder..

Is, In short, It is true that each of us responds for what he affirms; however, The scope in which such statements are deposited is not irrelevant., Well, this is not meaningless either.. and maybe, precisely for this reason, A certain prudence would suggest avoiding the most complex topics of sacramental theology from being treated, by a Benedictine abbot, in contexts — such as certain blogs — that, by its own nature, They are more inclined to the morbid inclination towards clerical gossip than to the search for truth.. This should induce the due virtue of prudence both to Archbishop H.E.. Mons. Renato Boccardo (cf. Video-interview here), as at Obispo S.E. Mons. Eduard Profittlich (cf. Interview here), who, by agreeing to intervene in such contexts, They end up — hopefully without full awareness — implicitly endorsing the method and tone of a blog that daily indulges in invective against dignitaries and dicasteries of the Holy See., as well as against dioceses and ecclesiastics considered not to conform to their own subjective criteria.

From the Island of Patmos, 21 March 2026

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THE DESERT, THE EXODUS AND THE STAGE: YOUNG PEOPLE AND LENT WITH POPE LEO XIV

«How rare it is to find adults who mend their ways, people, companies and institutions that admit they were wrong! Today, from noi, it is precisely this possibility".

— Theologica —

Author:
Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

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PDF article print format – Article print format – Article in printed format

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«I always imagine all these kids who play a game in that immense rye field etc. etc. Thousands of kids, and there is no one else around, no big ones, I am trying to say, just me. And I'm standing on the edge of a crazy cliff. And all I have to do is catch everyone who's about to fall off the cliff, I am trying to say, if they run without looking where they are going, I have to jump out from somewhere and catch them. I shouldn't have to do anything else all day.".

This famous and poignant confession of the protagonist of Young Holden di J.D. Salinger (1), resonates, decades later, with an impressive prophetic relevance. Holden Caulfield, in his restless and disenchanted wandering, he profoundly despises the falsity of the adult world, empty conformism, what today we could define as the hypertrophy of the ephemeral. He desperately seeks authenticity, a safe place where innocence is not corrupted. Those were other times now gone? We are sure? I do not believe. The youth of today, immersed in our complex and turbulent era change, they're right on that crazy cliff, one step away from the dizzying void of the loss of meaning.

Ours are unprecedented times. The post-pandemic era has left deep scars in the souls of the new generations, scars that add to the anxieties of a society in which artificial intelligence, predictive algorithms and the new logic of the global economy risk reducing the human person to a mere data point for consumption and processing. In this scenario, as trainers, theologians and pastors, we clash with two fundamental tensions that run through the hearts of young people. The first is the absence of future and planning: the new generations struggle to imagine their own tomorrow because they are not given the coordinates to trace it; their hopes, too often, they have not been integrated into a journey of faith capable of giving breathing space to existence.

The second tension, even more radical, it is precisely the search for a profound meaning that goes beyond the ephemeral, the urgent need for something, or rather than Someone, that does not fade with changing fashions, of Amazon advertisements and various digital stores. However, at least at our personal level of pastoral and human experience, we can say with certainty that under the ashes of this crisis there is a living fire. The extraordinary experience of the Youth Jubilee of the summer 2025 it wasn't a flash in the pan, an isolated event consumed in the enthusiasm of a few days. Was, on the contrary, an authentic beginning. Many have started walking along that road. We certainly cannot guarantee for all the two million young people present, but the excitement is undeniable. Young people feel increasingly attracted to the sacred. Paradoxically, Precisely the aggressiveness of a secularization that has flattened itself on commercialization and on the hypertrophy of the ego is pushing the new generations to look elsewhere, to escape from a materialism that does not nourish the spirit. They seek the God of Jesus Christ, a God who knows how to value them, that shows them their strengths but also helps them deal with necessary self-denials.

The beginning of this Lent of 2026 it was marked by a beautiful and programmatic homily by the Holy Father Leo XIV, who made his debut as Pontiff for the first time on the penitential path. The Pope grasped this dynamic of youthful research with extraordinary clarity, offering a theological and pastoral reading that shakes us from our laziness. In his message for the Ash Mass, Pope Leo XIV states: opposing idolatry to the living God - Scripture teaches us - means daring freedom and finding it again through an exodus, a path. No longer paralyzed, rigid, secure in their positions, but gathered to move and change. How rare it is to find adults who repent, people, companies and institutions that admit they were wrong!

"Today, from noi, it is precisely this possibility. And it is no coincidence that numerous young people, even in secularized contexts, feel the call of this day more than in the past, on Ash Wednesday. Are they, indeed, young people, to clearly understand that a more just way of living is possible and that there are responsibilities for what is wrong in the Church and in the world. It should be, so, start where you can and with whoever is there. «Now is the favorable moment, here is now the day of salvation!» (2Color 6,2). We feel, so, the missionary significance of Lent, certainly not to distract us from working on ourselves, as to open it to many restless people of good will, who seek ways to authentic renewal of life, on the horizon of the Kingdom of God and his justice" (Homily in the Holy Mass for the blessing of the ashes, 18 February 2026, text who).

Here is the key: Lent is not an intimate retreat, but an exodus. And who, more than young people, it is structurally ready to hit the road? The Pope acutely observes a dynamic that shames us adults:

«How rare it is to find adults who mend their ways, people, companies and institutions that admit they were wrong! Today, from noi, it is precisely this possibility".

The Church today finds itself in an ambivalent phase: is experiencing an undeniable decadence of its oldest institutional forms, but at the same time experiences a silent and powerful spiritual growth, a return to the essential. In this disorientation, in which as an ecclesial community we are not always able to provide the right answers, young people desperately ask for new ones “fixed points”. Fixed points necessary to decipher reality, so as not to be dragged away by the ideologies of the moment and to resist the spiritual desert.

Pope Leo XIV underlines precisely this aspect: young people. Young people are not looking for a perfect Church, but a credible Church, capable of admitting one's limits and getting back on the path. From here arises the urgency of a new mission, as recalled by the Apostle Paul cited by the Pontiff: «Now is the favorable moment, here is now the day of salvation!» (2Color 6,2). The Pope sends us as missionaries among young people, inviting us to get down from our chairs and seek new pastoral and theological ways to make people understand the beauty of being Christians. It is an invitation to make the desert flourish, offering solid proposals that overcome intimacy and embrace the drama of history.

Let's try to come up with some ways for this research by young people, with young people you become an effective pastoral action and theologically founded in the Theodrama of Christ which generates saving action and Hope. There is a precious interpretation that emerges every year, at the beginning of the penitential time, in conversations with a dear friend, who always reminds me how Lent is her favorite liturgical period. The motivation, translated into theological language, it is enlightening: Lent is the journey into which we are called to enter physically and spiritually drama of Christ, to immerse yourself in His deepest action, taller and more beautiful.

All other liturgical mysteries — Christmas, Ordinary Time, the Marian solemnities - find their center of gravity and their perfect connection only here, in the dramatic and saving action of Jesus. It is here that the thought inevitably refers us to the brilliant intuition of Hans Urs von Balthasar. In its monumental Theodramatic, the great Swiss theologian reminds us that Revelation is not a static picture to witness, but a drama in which God enters personally, compromising with history. He writes:

"It gave […] he is like a poet. From here it is also explained that he finds himself in evil and in all filth… He himself is all over the place, observe, goes on composing, in a certain sense in poetically impersonal ways, pay attention, so to speak, to everything" (2).

Man is then torn from his condition of simple spectator and is drawn to play his part in Christ, so long as:

«This entire existence can be understood – in its relation to the cross and of the cross – as a drama» (3).

This is the heart of the proposal to offer our young people. We must bring them back to live the drama of Christ, to understand that Christianity is the boldest adventure in which the infinite intertwines with the finite. We need to help them insert their action, their failures, their frustrated hopes and their disorientation in the victorious action of Jesus. When a young person understands that his pain and his aspirations have been taken on by the Son of God on the "stage" of the Cross, secularization suddenly loses its deceptive charm.

Let us then look at this Lent, led by the magisterium of Leo XIV, with unshakable optimism and profound hope. Despite the shadows of our era, the Holy Spirit continues to arouse in the hearts of the new generations a hunger and thirst for the Absolute that no human logic will ever be able to satisfy. Accompany young people in this exodus towards freedom, become their traveling companions to help them rediscover the dazzling beauty of faith in Christ, it is the most exciting challenge that the Church today is called to face. And the victory, in the drama of redemption, it has already been assured to us.

Santa Maria Novella, in Florence, 8 March 2026

.

NOTE

(1) (D). SALINGER Young Holden, Torino, Einaudi, 1961, cap. 22.

(2) U. FROM BALTHASAR, TheoDrammatica, Vol. I: Introduction to the drama, Jaca Book, Milan, 1980, 30.

(3) U. FROM BALTHASAR, TheoDrammatica, Vol. IV: The Action, JACA BOOK, MILANO, 1986, 368).

.

.

THE DESERT, THE EXODUS AND THE STAGE: YOUNG PEOPLE AND LENT WITH POPE LEO XIV

«How rare it is to find adults who repent, people, companies and institutions who admit that they have been wrong! Today, among us, this is precisely the possibility».

— Theologica —

Author:
Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

.

«I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do is catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day».

This famous and moving confession of the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1) resonates, decades later, with astonishing prophetic relevance. Holden Caulfield, in his restless and disenchanted wandering, profoundly despises the falseness of the adult world, its empty conformism – what today we might define as the hypertrophy of the ephemeral. He desperately seeks authenticity, a safe place where innocence is not corrupted. Were those times long gone? Are we sure? I do not think so. Today’s young people, immersed in our complex and turbulent change of epoch, stand precisely on that crazy cliff, one step away from the vertiginous void of the loss of meaning.

Ours are unprecedented times. The post-pandemic era has left deep scars on the souls of the younger generations, scars that add to the anxieties of a society in which artificial intelligence, predictive algorithms and the new logics of the global economy risk reducing the human person to mere data for consumption and processing. In this scenario, as educators, theologians and pastors, we encounter two fundamental tensions that cross the hearts of the young. The first is the absence of a future and of life projects: new generations struggle to imagine their tomorrow because they are not given the coordinates to chart it; their hopes, too often, have not been integrated into a journey of faith capable of giving breath to existence.

The second tension, even more radical, is the search for a profound meaning that surpasses the ephemeral, the pressing need for something — or rather Someone — who does not vanish with changing fashions, Amazon advertisements and the countless digital stores. Yet, at least according to our own pastoral and human experience, we can affirm with certainty that beneath the ashes of this crisis there burns a living fire. The extraordinary experience of the Youth Jubilee in the summer of 2025 was not a flash in the pan, an isolated event consumed in the enthusiasm of a few days. On the contrary, it was an authentic beginning. Many have begun to walk along that road. We cannot guarantee for all the two million young people who were present, but the ferment is undeniable. Young people are increasingly attracted to the sacred. Paradoxically, precisely the aggressiveness of a secularization flattened into commercialization and the hypertrophy of the ego is pushing the new generations to look elsewhere, to flee from a materialism that does not nourish the spirit. They seek the God of Jesus Christ, a God who knows how to value them, who shows them their strengths but also helps them to face the necessary renunciations of self.

The beginning of this Lent of 2026 was marked by a beautiful and programmatic homily by the Holy Father Leo XIV, who for the first time opened the penitential journey as Pontiff. The Pope grasped with extraordinary clarity this dynamic of youthful search, offering a theological and pastoral interpretation that shakes us from our laziness. In his message for the Mass of Ash Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV states: opposing the living God to idolatry – Scripture teaches us – means daring freedom and rediscovering it through an exodus, a journey. No longer paralyzed, rigid, secure in one’s positions, but gathered in order to move and change. How rare it is to find adults who repent, people, companies and institutions who admit that they have been wrong!

«Today, among us, this very possibility is at stake. And it is no coincidence that many young people, even in secularized contexts, feel more than in the past the appeal of this day, Ash Wednesday. Indeed, it is the young who clearly perceive that a more just way of living is possible and that there are responsibilities for what does not work in the Church and in the world. Therefore we must begin where we can and with those who are willing. “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation!” (2 Color 6:2). Let us therefore feel the missionary scope of Lent, not in order to distract ourselves from the work on ourselves, but to open it to the many restless people of good will who are seeking paths for an authentic renewal of life, in the horizon of the Kingdom of God and of His justice» (Homily for the blessing of ashes, 18 February 2026).

Here lies the turning point: Lent is not an inward-looking retreat, but an exodus. And who, more than the young, is structurally ready to set out on a journey? The Pope astutely observes a dynamic that exposes us adults:

«How rare it is to find adults who repent, people, companies and institutions who admit that they have been wrong! Today, among us, this is precisely the possibility».

Today the Church finds herself in an ambivalent phase: she experiences an undeniable decline of her most ancient institutional forms, yet at the same time she witnesses a silent and powerful spiritual growth, a return to the essential. In this disorientation, in which we as an ecclesial community are not always able to provide the right answers, young people desperately ask for new “points of reference”. Firm points necessary to decipher reality, to avoid being swept away by the ideologies of the moment and to resist the spiritual desert.

Pope Leo XIV highlights precisely this aspect: young people. Young people do not seek a perfect Church, but a credible Church, capable of admitting its limits and setting out again on the journey. From here springs the urgency of a new mission, as the Apostle Paul – quoted by the Pontiff – reminds us: «Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation!» (2 Color 6:2). The Pope sends us as missionaries among the young, inviting us to descend from our chairs and to seek new pastoral and theological paths to make people understand the beauty of being Christians. It is an invitation to make the desert blossom, offering solid proposals that go beyond intimacy and embrace the drama of history.

Let us try to devise some paths so that this search of the young, with the young, may become an effective pastoral action and theologically grounded in the Theo-drama of Christ that generates salvific action and Hope. A precious interpretative key emerges every year, at the beginning of the penitential season, in conversations with a dear friend who always reminds me that Lent is her favourite liturgical season. The reason, translated into theological language, is illuminating: Lent is the journey in which one is called to enter physically and spiritually into the drama of Christ, to immerse oneself in His deepest, highest and most beautiful action.

All the other liturgical mysteries – Christmas, Ordinary Time, the Marian solemnities – find their centre of gravity and their perfect convergence precisely here, in the dramatic and salvific action of Jesus. Here our thought inevitably turns to the brilliant intuition of Hans Urs von Balthasar. In his monumental Theo-Drama, the great Swiss theologian reminds us that Revelation is not a static picture to be observed, but a drama in which God enters personally, committing Himself to history. He writes:

«God […] is like a poet. Hence it is understandable that He finds Himself in evil and in all the filth… He Himself is everywhere on the scene, observing, continuing to compose, in a certain sense with poetically impersonal ways, attentive, so to speak, to everything» (2).

Man is thus torn from the condition of a mere spectator and drawn to play his part in Christ, since:

«This whole existence can be understood – in its relation to the Cross and from the Cross – as a drama» (3).

Here lies the heart of the proposal to offer to our young people. We must bring them back to live the drama of Christ, to understand that Christianity is the boldest adventure in which the infinite intertwines with the finite. We must help them insert their action, their failures, their frustrated hopes and their disorientation into the victorious action of Jesus. When a young person understands that his suffering and aspirations have been taken up by the Son of God on the “stage” of the Cross, secularization suddenly loses its deceptive charm.

Let us therefore look to this Lent, guided by the magisterium of Leo XIV, with unshakeable optimism and deep hope. Despite the shadows of our age, the Holy Spirit continues to awaken in the hearts of the new generations a hunger and thirst for the Absolute that no human logic will ever be able to satisfy. Accompanying young people in this exodus toward freedom, becoming their companions on the journey so that they may rediscover the dazzling beauty of faith in Christ, is the most exciting challenge that the Church of today is called to face. And the victory, in the drama of redemption, has already been assured to us.

Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 8 March 2026

.

NOTES

(1) J.D.. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston–Toronto, Little, Brown and Company, 1951, ch. 22.

(2) Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, Vol. I: Prolegomena, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1988, p. 30.

(3) Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, Vol. IV: The Action, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1994, p. 368.

.

.

THE DESERT, THE EXODUS AND THE SCENARIO: YOUNG PEOPLE AND LENT WITH POPE LEO XIV

"How rare it is to find adults who become, personas, companies and institutions that admit to having been wrong! Hoy, among us, It is precisely this possibility.".

— Theologica —

Author:
Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

.

«I always imagine all those children playing in that huge rye field… Thousands of children and no one around, no adult, I mean, only me. And I'm standing on the edge of a terrible precipice. And all I have to do is catch everyone who's about to fall off the cliff.; if they run without looking where they are going, I have to come out from somewhere and grab them. "That's the only thing I would have to do all day.".

This famous and moving confession of the protagonist The catcher in the rye by J.D.. Salinger (1) resonates, decades later, with impressive prophetic relevance. Holden Caulfield, in his restless and disenchanted wandering, deeply despises the falsehood of the adult world, empty conformity, what today we could define as the hypertrophy of the ephemeral. Desperately seeking authenticity, a safe place where innocence is not corrupted. Were those times long gone?? Are we sure? I don't believe it. The youth of today, immersed in our complex and turbulent change of era, They find themselves precisely on that terrible precipice, one step away from the dizzying emptiness of the loss of meaning.

We live in unprecedented times. The post-pandemic era has left deep scars in the souls of the new generations, scars that add to the anxieties of a society in which artificial intelligence, predictive algorithms and the new logic of the global economy run the risk of reducing the human person to a mere piece of data for consumption and processing.. In this scenario, as trainers, theologians and pastors, we find two fundamental tensions that cross the hearts of young people. The first is the absence of future and projects: The new generations have difficulty imagining their tomorrow because they are not provided with the coordinates to plot it; your hopes, too often, have not been integrated into a path of faith capable of giving breath to existence.

The second tension, even more radical, It is the search for a deep meaning that surpasses the ephemeral, the urgent need for something – or rather Someone – that does not disappear with the change of fashions, of Amazon advertising and the various digital platforms. However, at least according to our pastoral and human experience, We can affirm with certainty that under the ashes of this crisis a live fire burns. The extraordinary experience of the Summer Youth Jubilee 2025 It was not a straw fire, an isolated event consumed in the enthusiasm of a few days. Was, on the contrary, a real beginning. Many have begun to walk down that path. We cannot guarantee it for the two million young people present, but the ferment is undeniable. Young people are increasingly attracted to the sacred. Paradoxically, precisely the aggressiveness of a secularization reduced to commercialization and hypertrophy of the ego is pushing new generations to look elsewhere, to flee from a materialism that does not feed the spirit. They seek the God of Jesus Christ, a God who knows how to value them, that shows them their strengths but also helps them face the necessary renunciations of themselves.

The beginning of this Lent 2026 was marked by a beautiful and programmatic homily by the Holy Father Leo XIV, who for the first time heads as Pontiff on the penitential path. The Pope captured with extraordinary lucidity this dynamic of youthful search, offering a theological and pastoral reading that shakes us from our laziness. In his message for Ash Wednesday Mass, Pope Leo XIV affirms: Opposing the living God against idolatry — Scripture teaches us — means daring freedom and rediscovering it through an exodus, of a path. No longer paralyzed, rigid and secure in our positions, but gathered together to move and change. How rare it is to find adults who become, personas, companies and institutions that admit to having been wrong!

«Hoy, among us, It is precisely this possibility. And it is no coincidence that many young people, even in secularized contexts, perceive the call of this day more than before, Ash Wednesday. are they, the young, who clearly understand that a more just way of living is possible and that there are responsibilities for what does not work in the Church and in the world. It is necessary, therefore, start from where you can and with those who are willing. “Now is the favorable time, “Now is the day of salvation.” (2Color 6,2). Let's feel, therefore, the missionary reach of Lent, not to distract us from working on ourselves, but to open it to so many restless and good-willed people who seek paths for an authentic renewal of life., on the horizon of the Kingdom of God and his justice" (Homily at the Holy Mass for the blessing of the ashes, 18 February 2026).

here is the key: Lent is not an intimate withdrawal, but an exodus. and who, more than the young, is structurally ready to get going? The Pope keenly observes a dynamic that reveals to us adults:

"How rare it is to find adults who become, personas, companies and institutions that admit to having been wrong! Hoy, among us, It is precisely this possibility.".

Today the Church is experiencing an ambivalent phase: experiences an undeniable decline of its oldest institutional forms, but at the same time witness a silent and powerful spiritual growth, a return to essentials. In this confusion, in which we are not always able as an ecclesial community to offer adequate responses, young people desperately ask for new “reference points”. Firm points necessary to decipher reality, to not be carried away by the ideologies of the moment and to resist the spiritual desert.

Pope Leo XIV emphasizes precisely this aspect: the young. Young people are not looking for a perfect Church, but a credible Church, able to admit its limits and get back on track. From here arises the urgency of a new mission, as the Apostle Paul recalls quoted by the Pontiff: «Now is the favorable time, "Now is the day of salvation." (2Color 6,2). The Pope sends us as missionaries among young people, inviting us to come down from our chairs and look for new pastoral and theological paths to make us understand the beauty of being Christians.. It is an invitation to make the desert bloom, offering solid proposals that overcome intimacy and embrace the drama of history.

Let's try to imagine some paths so that this search of the young, together with the young, becomes an effective pastoral action and theologically founded on the Theodrama of Christ that generates saving action and Hope. There is a precious reading key that emerges every year, at the beginning of penitential time, in conversations with a dear friend who always reminds me how Lent is her favorite liturgical season. The motivation, translated into theological language, It is illuminating: Lent is the path in which we are called to enter physically and spiritually into the drama of Christ, to immerse ourselves in its deepest action, taller and more beautiful.

All other liturgical mysteries —Christmas, Ordinary Time, the Marian solemnities — find their center of gravity and their perfect convergence precisely here, in the dramatic and saving action of Jesus. It is here that thought inevitably refers us to the brilliant intuition of Hans Urs von Balthasar. In its monumental Theodramatic, The great Swiss theologian reminds us that Revelation is not a static picture to attend, but a drama in which God personally enters, engaging with history. He writes:

"God […] is like a poet. From there it is also explained that he is found in evil and in all the filth... He himself is everywhere on the scene, observa, continue composing, in a way with poetically impersonal ways, attentive, so to speak, to everything" (2).

The man is then torn from his condition as a mere spectator and is drawn to play his own part in Christ, since:

«This entire existence can be understood – in its relationship with the cross and from the cross – as a drama» (3).

Here is the heart of the proposal that we must offer to our young people. We must bring them back to live the drama of Christ, to understand that Christianity is the most daring adventure in which the infinite is intertwined with the finite. It is necessary to help them insert their action, your failures, their frustrated hopes and their bewilderment in the victorious action of Jesus. When a young person understands that his pain and aspirations have been assumed by the Son of God on the “stage” of the Cross, secularization suddenly loses its deceptive charm.

Let's look at this Lent then, guided by the teachings of Leo XIV, with unwavering optimism and deep hope. Despite the shadows of our time, The Holy Spirit continues to stir up in the hearts of new generations a hunger and thirst for the Absolute that no human logic can ever satisfy.. Accompany young people in this exodus towards freedom, become companions on the journey to rediscover the dazzling beauty of faith in Christ, It is the most exciting challenge that the Church today is called to face. and the victory, in the drama of redemption, it has already been assured to us.

Santa Maria Novella, Florence, a 8 March 2026

.

NOTES

(1) J.D.. SALINGER, The catcher in the rye, Torino, Einaudi, 1961, cap. 22.

(2) H.U. FROM BALTHASAR, Theodramatic, Vol. I: Introduction to drama, Jaca Book, Milan, 1980, 30.

(3) H.U. FROM BALTHASAR, Theodramatic, Vol. IV: The action, Jaca Book, Milan, 1986, 368.

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CONSCIENCE IS NOT A COUNCIL. THE FRATERNITY OF SAINT PIUS

One can remain in full communion by rejecting outright the authority of an Ecumenical Council and the subsequent Magisterium? The Catholic answer is no. Certainly not due to rigidity, but for consistency. Subjective conscience is not a Council and communion is not an interpretative option.

— Theologica —

.

Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

.

PDF print format article – Article print format – Article in printed format

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In the article on the meeting between Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and the recently published Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius (see who) we have indicated what constitutes the non-negotiable point of the issue: ecclesial communion is not a feeling nor a self-declaration, but an objective fact based on the recognition of the authority of the Church.

The official letter from the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Fraternity (see full text, who), repeats exactly the issue that we highlighted in that previous article: not a simple interpretative divergence, but a claim to redefine the very criteria of communion from within. In fact, the Fraternity speaks of a "case of conscience". It would not be, so, question of disciplinary dissent, but of fidelity to Tradition against alleged conciliar deviations. And here we must immediately stop, because we are not faced with a problem of liturgical sensitivity or theological accents, but rather to a structural issue: who judges who in the Church?

Let's start by clarifying a point that does not allow for ambiguity: conscience is not a higher instance than the Magisterium. Catholic doctrine is unequivocal. The authentic Magisterium of the bishops in communion with the Roman Pontiff "requires the religious obsequiousness of the will and intellect" (The light, 25). This is not a psychological option, but of an ecclesial duty that belongs to the very structure of faith. Conscience, in the Catholic tradition, it is not an autonomous source of truth, but a practical judgment that must be formed in the light of objective truth. If conscience is invoked against the Magisterium, the very order of faith is altered and the hierarchy of sources is overturned.

It's here, incidentally — without indulging in gratuitous polemical spirit, but for simple intellectual honesty - it is necessary to observe an element that cannot go unnoticed. For over four decades the environments of this Fraternity have proudly claimed to train their priests according to the most solid principles of logic, of classical scholasticism and Thomism. That's a really challenging statement. However, to the test of the texts and argumentative constructions that are proposed, it is not easy to trace that rational solidity that is proclaimed. In fact, confusing some manual formulas of decadent neo-scholasticism with Aristotelian logic, or with the great speculations of Saint Anselm of Aosta and Saint Thomas Aquinas, it means reducing a very high-level philosophical-theological tradition to a repetitive pattern. Logic is not a password, but rigor in proceeding, internal coherence, respect for the principles of non-contradiction and identity.

When conscience is erected as a superior tribunal with respect to the Magisterium e, at the same time, loyalty to scholasticism is invoked, we fall into an evident methodological contradiction, not to mention gross: we claim to defend the order of reason while undermining it at its roots. It is therefore not a question of theological schools, but of basic coherence. Saint Anselm never opposed his conscience to the authority of the Church; nor did St. Thomas ever build an alternative system to the Magisterium. Their greatness consisted precisely in harmonizing reason and faith within the ecclesial order, not in replacing it. And this is not an abstract statement. None of the great Doctors of the Church would ever have allowed themselves to oppose - even more so with aggressive tones - the ecclesiastical Authority for having clarified and established that the title of "co-redemptrix" cannot be attributed to the Virgin Mary (cf.. Mother of the Faithful People, 17). It can be argued theologically, can be explored further, it can be specified. But to oppose one's position to the legitimate authority of the Church as if it were an abuse to be corrected means crossing a limit that would horrify all the great masters of the scholastic tradition..

If today we intend to invoke Aosta and Aquinas, let it be done with the same intellectual discipline that these two Doctors demanded. Because praising logic while introducing a principle of subjective judgment that claims to evaluate an Ecumenical Council is not an act of fidelity to scholasticism, but a rhetorical operation that does not stand up to rational analysis. The Second Vatican Council states that the authentic interpretation of the Word of God "is entrusted to the living Magisterium of the Church alone" (God's word, 10). Not to the individual, not to a group, not to a Priestly Fraternity.

One further element must be observed: it is not uncommon for theologians of the so-called to be dismissed as "modernist heretics" in certain circles New Theology. It's a convenient simplification, but intellectually fragile. That there are problems in those currents is beyond question, just as there have been in the history of theology in almost all the great authors, including Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church. St. Augustine, converted, baptized and already bishop, he had to work quite a bit on himself to purify residues of Manichaeism; and nobody, because of this, denies his greatness. But let's also take the names that in certain circles are presented as the most dangerous of the theologians of the twentieth century: Karl Rahner and Hans Küng. We can — and in some cases we should — criticize Rahner. One can also radically disagree, but to think that the teaching staff of the Ecône Seminary could have supported a high-level theological discussion, conducted on the terrain of classical Thomism and great scholasticism, with a mind of vast culture like that of Hans Küng, it really means giving in to an overestimation that has no basis in reality.

Incidentally, a personal memory: Brunero Gherardini, theologian certainly not suspected of being pro-modernism, defined Leonard Boff as "one of the most brilliant ecclesiologists of the twentieth century". One may not agree with his conclusions, but to deny his intellectual stature would simply be to deny the evidence. What is at stake here is not adherence to the theses of these authors but a principle of intellectual honesty. Controversy does not replace argumentation nor does label replace refutation. The proclamation of orthodoxy is not equivalent to rational solidity. If scholasticism is invoked, really practice it: with logical rigor, with distinction of floors, with respect for ecclesial authority and with that discipline of reason that does not fear confrontation, but he faces it without caricature.

When it is declared that the Council and the post-conciliar Magisterium they would be breaking with Tradition and that such judgment would derive from an obligation of conscience, a leap is made that is not theological but structurally arbitrary: one attributes to one's conscience the power to review the authority that Christ established to safeguard the faith. That's the point, It's not a question of good or bad faith, but of an ecclesial order.

Placing Tradition against Magisterium it is an impossible construction, illogical. Yet the Fraternity speaks of fidelity to Tradition against the "fundamental orientations" of the Council, a contrast that is in and of itself theologically unsustainable. Tradition is not an archaeological deposit to be contrasted with the living Magisterium. It is the living transmission of the faith under the guidance of apostolic authority. The Council of Trent already taught that revelation is contained «in written books and unwritten traditions» (DS 1501), but always preserved and interpreted by the Church. Separating Tradition from the authority that safeguards it means transforming it into an ideological and illogical principle.

Theologian Joseph Ratzinger, well before becoming Pontiff, he remembered that Tradition is not an immobile block, but a living reality that grows in the understanding of faith, without breaking but also without fossilization. In particular, in the famous speech to the Roman Curia of 22 December 2005, he spoke of "hermeneutics of reform in the continuity of the single subject-Church" as opposed to a "hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture" (in Speech to the Roman Curia, 22 December 2005). Rejecting an Ecumenical Council as such is not an exercise in discernment; it is the denial of an act of the universal Magisterium. A hermeneutic can be discussed, but authority cannot be suspended.

The letter from the Rev. Davide Pagliarani expresses availability for a theological comparison, but at the same time contests the conditions set by the competent authority by staging a form of dialogue that denies the hierarchical principle. And here the problem is not diplomatic, it's logical again. An ecclesial dialogue takes place within a hierarchical structure. If the legitimacy of those who convene and direct the discussion is not recognised, dialogue becomes a confrontation between equals that does not exist in the constitution of the Church, which is not a federation of autonomous interpretations but an ordered body. Demanding dialogue without recognizing the authority that establishes the criteria is equivalent to asking for recognition while maintaining one's own regulatory self-sufficiency.

In the previous article we wrote that communion is not a negotiable point (see who). We reiterate it, specifying what ecclesial communion implies: the recognition of the Roman Pontiff, of the Magisterium of the bishops in communion with him and the acceptance of the ecumenical Councils as acts of the universal Magisterium. It is not enough to declare yourself Catholic, because to be one it is necessary to accept the Catholic order. It is therefore easy to say: when a group exercises the sacred ministry, train the clergy, administers the Sacraments e, at the same time, suspends membership in an Ecumenical Council and in the subsequent Magisterium, an objective tension is created that cannot be normalized with rhetorical formulas. Communion is not self-definable, nor can it be reduced to self-certification; it is mutual recognition within a hierarchical order received from Christ. And it then comes naturally to ask whether some zealous followers of Aristotelian logic, who also declare that they base their school education on it, have not sometimes confused Aristotle with the sophists. Because classical logic is based on the principle of non-contradiction; sophistication, instead, on the art of making sustainable what remains contradictory.

The most problematic core it then lies in the risk of self-authorization. When one's ecclesial identity is built on the systematic contestation of authority, you enter into a dynamic that, historically, it has always produced fractures. It's not about accusing, but to note the structure that the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius. If in fact the ultimate criterion becomes: “our conscience judges the Council”, then the hierarchy of sources is totally overturned through what the Greeks called παράδοξος, from which the term paradox derives.

The Church is not founded on individual conscience, but on apostolic authority. Conscience is called to obey the truth guarded by the Church, not to replace it. The question, so, it's not whether there are questionable aspects in the post-conciliar period. The Church has always known tensions, clarifications, developments, starting from the First Council of Nicaea, which was not sufficient to draft the Symbol of Faith entirely, to the point that the subsequent First Council of Constantinople had to intervene, so that, the I believe, It is certainly not called the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol by chance (see my latest work, who). The question is another: one can remain in full communion by rejecting outright the authority of an Ecumenical Council and the subsequent Magisterium? The Catholic answer is no. Certainly not due to rigidity, but for consistency. Subjective conscience is not a Council and communion is not an interpretative option.

This Fraternity it was dedicated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to Saint Pius, the same Pontiff who condemned the modernists for maintaining that «the authority of the Church, whether he teaches or governs, must be submitted to the judgment of private conscience"; but like this, he warned, «the order established by God is overturned» (Feeding of Dominic's Sheep, 8 September 1907). Paradoxically, It is precisely here that the irony of the story is consummated: the most insidious modernists are not those who declare themselves as such, but those who, while condemning modernism, they assume the methodological principle, elevating one's conscience to the criterion of judgment of ecclesial authority.

From the island of Patmos, 20 February 2026

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CONSCIENCE IS NOT A COUNCIL. THE SOCIETY OF SAINT PIUS X AND THE SOPHISM OF SELF-AUTHORIZATION

Can one remain in full communion while rejecting wholesale the authority of an Ecumenical Council and of the subsequent Magisterium? The Catholic answer is no. Not out of rigidity, but out of coherence. Subjective conscience is not a Council, and communion is not an interpretative option.

— Theologica —

Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

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In the recent article on the relationship between Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and the Society of Saint Pius X (see here), we indicated what constitutes the non-negotiable point of the matter: ecclesial communion is neither a sentiment nor a self-declaration, but an objective reality grounded in the recognition of the Church’s authority.

The official letter of Rev. Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Fraternitas (full text, here), reproposes precisely the very knot we had highlighted in that previous article: not a simple interpretative divergence, but a claim to redefine from within the very criteria of communion itself. The Society speaks, in fact, of a «case of conscience». It would therefore not be a matter of disciplinary dissent, but of fidelity to Tradition against alleged conciliar deviations. And here one must pause immediately, for we are not facing a question of liturgical sensitivity or theological nuances, but a structural issue: who judges whom in the Church?

Let us begin by clarifying a point that admits of no ambiguity: conscience is not an instance superior to the Magisterium. Catholic doctrine is unequivocal. The authentic Magisterium of the bishops in communion with the Roman Pontiff «requires religious submission of will and intellect» (The light, 25). This is not a psychological option, but an ecclesial duty belonging to the very structure of faith. Conscience, in the Catholic tradition, is not an autonomous source of truth, but a practical judgment that must be formed in the light of objective truth. If conscience is invoked against the Magisterium, the very order of faith is altered and the hierarchy of sources overturned.

And here, by way of aside — without indulging in gratuitous polemics, but out of simple intellectual honesty — one must observe an element that cannot pass unnoticed. For more than four decades the circles of this Society have proudly claimed to form their priests according to the most solid principles of logic, classical scholasticism, and Thomism. It is a demanding claim indeed. Yet, when tested against the texts and argumentative constructions proposed, it is not easy to discern the rational solidity that is proclaimed. To confuse certain manualistic formulas of a decadent neo-scholasticism with Aristotelian logic, or with the great speculative syntheses of Saint Anselm of Aosta and Saint Thomas Aquinas, is to reduce a philosophical-theological tradition of the highest order to a repetitive schema. Logic is not a slogan, but rigor in reasoning, internal coherence, and respect for the principles of non-contradiction and identity.

When conscience is erected as a tribunal superior to the Magisterium and, at the same time, fidelity to scholasticism is invoked, one falls into an evident — not to say gross — methodological contradiction: one claims to defend the order of reason while undermining it at its root. This is therefore not a matter of theological schools, but of elementary coherence. Saint Anselm never opposed his own conscience to the authority of the Church; nor did Saint Thomas ever construct a system alternative to the Magisterium. Their greatness consisted precisely in harmonizing reason and faith within the ecclesial order, not in substituting themselves for it. Nor is this an abstract affirmation. None of the great Doctors of the Church would ever have presumed to oppose — all the more so with aggressive tones — ecclesiastical Authority for having clarified and established that the title «co-redemptrix» cannot be attributed to the Virgin Mary (cf. Mother of the Faithful People, 17). One may discuss theologically, one may deepen and refine; but to oppose one’s own position to the legitimate authority of the Church as though correcting an abuse is to cross a boundary that would have appalled all the great masters of the scholastic tradition.

If today one wishes to invoke the Aostan and the Angelic Doctor, let it be done with the same intellectual discipline those two Doctors demanded. For to extol logic while introducing a subjective principle of judgment that claims to evaluate an Ecumenical Council is not an act of fidelity to scholasticism, but a rhetorical operation that does not withstand rational analysis. The Second Vatican Council affirms that the authentic interpretation of the Word of God «has been entrusted to the living Magisterium of the Church alone» (God's word, 10). Not to the individual, not to a group, not to a Priestly Society.

And again, by way of aside — but in earnest — another element must be noted. It is not uncommon in certain circles to dismiss the theologians of the so-called Nouvelle Théologie as «modernist heretics». Such simplification is convenient, but intellectually fragile. That problematic elements may be found in those currents is beyond dispute, just as they have been present throughout the history of theology in nearly all the great authors, including the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Saint Augustine, converted, baptized, and already a bishop, had to labor considerably upon himself to purge residual Manichaean tendencies; yet no one, for that reason, denies his greatness. Let us take, however, the names that in certain environments are presented as the most dangerous among twentieth-century theologians: Karl Rahner and Hans Küng. One may — and in certain cases must — criticize Rahner. One may also dissent radically; but to imagine that the faculty of the Seminary of Ecône could have sustained a high-level theological confrontation, conducted on the terrain of classical Thomism and the great scholastic tradition, with a mind of the vast culture of Hans Küng, is truly to indulge in an overestimation that finds no support in reality.

By way of personal recollection: Brunero Gherardini, a theologian certainly not suspect of modernist leanings, described Leonard Boff as «one of the most brilliant ecclesiologists of the twentieth century». One may disagree with his conclusions, but to deny his intellectual stature would simply be to deny the evidence. What is at stake here is not adherence to the theses of these authors, but a principle of intellectual honesty. Polemic does not replace argument, nor does labeling replace refutation. The proclamation of orthodoxy does not equate to rational solidity. If scholasticism is invoked, let it be practiced truly: with logical rigor, distinction of levels, respect for ecclesial authority, and that discipline of reason which does not fear confrontation, but engages it without caricature.

When it is declared that the Council and the post-conciliar Magisterium stand in rupture with Tradition, and that such judgment derives from an obligation of conscience, a leap is made that is not theological but structurally arbitrary: one attributes to one’s own conscience the power to sit in judgment over the authority that Christ constituted to safeguard the faith. This is the point. It is not a matter of good or bad faith, but of ecclesial order.

To set Tradition against the Magisterium is an impossible and illogical construction. Yet the Society speaks of fidelity to Tradition against the “fundamental orientations” of the Council — a contrast that is in itself and of itself theologically untenable. Tradition is not an archaeological deposit to be set against the living Magisterium. It is the living transmission of the faith under the guidance of apostolic authority. The Council of Trent already taught that revelation is contained «in written books and unwritten traditions» (DS 1501), yet always safeguarded and interpreted by the Church. To separate Tradition from the authority that guards it is to transform it into an ideological and illogical principle.

The theologian Joseph Ratzinger, long before becoming Pontiff, recalled that Tradition is not an immobile block, but a living reality that grows in the understanding of the faith, without rupture yet without fossilization. In his well-known address to the Roman Curia of 22 December 2005, he spoke of an «hermeneutic of reform in continuity of the one subject-Church» as opposed to an «hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture» (Address to the Roman Curia, 22 December 2005). To reject an Ecumenical Council as such is not an exercise of discernment; it is the denial of an act of the universal Magisterium. One may debate an hermeneutic, but one may not suspend authority.

The letter of Rev. Davide Pagliarani expresses willingness for theological dialogue, yet at the same time contests the conditions set by the competent authority, thereby staging a form of dialogue that denies the hierarchical principle. And here the problem is not diplomatic; it is once again logical. Ecclesial dialogue takes place within a hierarchical structure. If the legitimacy of those who convoke and guide the discussion is not recognized, dialogue becomes a confrontation among equals — something that does not exist in the constitution of the Church, which is not a federation of autonomous interpretations but an ordered body. To demand dialogue without recognizing the authority that establishes its criteria amounts to seeking recognition while maintaining one’s own normative self-sufficiency.

In the previous article we wrote that communion is not a negotiable point (see here). We reiterate this, specifying that ecclesial communion implies: recognition of the Roman Pontiff, of the Magisterium of the bishops in communion with him, and acceptance of the Ecumenical Councils as acts of the universal Magisterium. It is not enough to declare oneself Catholic; to be so, one must accept the Catholic order. It follows, then, that when a group exercises sacred ministry, forms clergy, administers the sacraments and, at the same time, suspends adherence to an Ecumenical Council and to the subsequent Magisterium, an objective tension arises that cannot be normalized by rhetorical formulas. Communion is not self-definable, nor can it be reduced to self-certification; it is reciprocal recognition within a hierarchical order received from Christ. One is then led to wonder whether certain zealous cultivators of Aristotelian logic, who declare that they ground their formation upon it, may at times have confused Aristotle with the sophists. For classical logic rests upon the principle of non-contradiction; sophistry, by contrast, upon the art of rendering sustainable what remains contradictory.

The most problematic nucleus lies in the risk of self-authorization. When one’s ecclesial identity is constructed upon systematic contestation of authority, one enters into a dynamic that historically has always produced fractures. This is not an accusation, but an observation of structure — the structure the Society of Saint Pius X has given itself. If the ultimate criterion becomes: “our conscience judges the Council,” then the hierarchy of sources is entirely overturned through what the Greeks called παράδοξος, from which the term “paradox” derives.

The Church is not founded upon individual conscience, but upon apostolic authority. Conscience is called to obey the truth safeguarded by the Church, not to replace it. The issue, therefore, is not whether there may be debatable aspects in the post-conciliar period. The Church has always known tensions, clarifications, developments — beginning with the First Council of Nicaea, which was not sufficient to formulate the Symbol of Faith in its entirety, so that the subsequent First Council of Constantinople had to intervene; hence the Creed is not by chance called the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Symbol (see my latest work, here). The issue is another: can one remain in full communion while rejecting wholesale the authority of an Ecumenical Council and of the subsequent Magisterium? The Catholic answer is no. Not out of rigidity, but out of coherence. Subjective conscience is not a Council, and communion is not an interpretative option.

This Society was dedicated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to Saint Pius X, the same Pontiff who condemned the modernists for maintaining that «the authority of the Church, whether teaching or governing, must be subjected to the judgment of private conscience»; yet thus, he warned, «the order established by God is overthrown» (Feeding of Dominic's Sheep, 8 September 1907). Paradoxically, it is precisely here that the irony of history unfolds: the most insidious modernists are not those who declare themselves such, but those who, while condemning modernism, unconsciously adopt its principle, elevating their own conscience to a criterion for judging ecclesial authority.

From the Island of Patmos, 20 February 2026

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CONSCIENCE IS NOT A COUNCIL. THE FRATERNITY OF SAINT PIO X AND THE SOPHISM OF SELF-AUTHORIZATION

Can we remain in full communion by rejecting en bloc the authority of an ecumenical Council and the subsequent Magisterium?? The Catholic answer is no.. Not because of rigidity, but for consistency. Subjective conscience is not a Council and communion is not an interpretive option.

— Theologica—

Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

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In the recent article about the relationship between Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius (see here) We indicate what constitutes the non-negotiable point of the issue: ecclesial communion is neither a feeling nor a self-declaration, but an objective fact founded on the recognition of the authority of the Church.

The official letter of the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Fraternitas (full text, here), exactly rethinks the knot that we had pointed out in that previous article: not a simple interpretative divergence, but the attempt to redefine from within the very criteria of communion. The Brotherhood speaks, indeed, of "case of conscience". would not be treated, therefore, of a disciplinary dissent, but of fidelity to Tradition in the face of alleged conciliar deviations. And here it is necessary to stop immediately, because we are not facing a problem of liturgical sensitivity or theological nuances, but before a structural issue: Who judges who in the Church?

Let's start by clarifying a point that does not allow ambiguity.: conscience is not a superior authority to the Magisterium. Catholic doctrine is unequivocal. The authentic Magisterium of the bishops in communion with the Roman Pontiff "requires the religious gift of will and understanding" (The light, 25). This is not a psychological choice, but of an ecclesial duty that belongs to the very structure of faith. The conscience, in the Catholic tradition, is not an autonomous source of truth, but a practical judgment that must be formed in the light of objective truth. If conscience is invoked against the Magisterium, the very order of faith is altered and the hierarchy of sources is inverted.

and here, by the way — without incurring a gratuitous polemical spirit, but for simple intellectual honesty — it is worth pointing out an element that cannot go unnoticed. For more than four decades, the circles of this Fraternitas have proudly claimed to train their priests according to the most solid principles of logic., of classical scholasticism and Thomism. It is a truly demanding statement.. However, to the testing of the texts and the argumentative constructions that are proposed, It is not easy to find that rational solidity that is proclaimed. Confusing certain manualistic formulas of a decadent neo-scholasticism with Aristotelian logic, or with the great speculations of Saint Anselm of Aosta and Saint Thomas Aquinas, It means reducing a very high level philosophical-theological tradition to a repetitive scheme. Logic is not a slogan, but rigor in the procedure, internal coherence and respect for the principles of non-contradiction and identity.

When conscience is erected as a court superior to the Magisterium and, at the same time, fidelity to scholasticism is invoked, falls into an obvious methodological contradiction, not to say rude: it is intended to defend the order of reason while undermining it at its roots. It is not about, therefore, of theological schools, but of basic coherence. Saint Anselm never opposed his own conscience to the authority of the Church; Not even Saint Thomas ever built an alternative system to the Magisterium. Its greatness consisted precisely in harmonizing reason and faith within the ecclesial order, not to replace it. And this is not an abstract statement.. None of the great Doctors of the Church would have allowed themselves to oppose – much less in aggressive tones – the ecclesiastical Authority for having clarified and established that the title of “co-redeemer” cannot be attributed to the Virgin Mary. (cf. Mother of the Faithful People, 17). It can be discussed theologically, can be deepened, can be specified. But to oppose one's own position to the legitimate authority of the Church as if it were an abuse that to correct means crossing a limit that would have scandalized all the great teachers of the scholastic tradition..

If today we intend to invoke Aostano and Aquinas, that it be done with the same intellectual discipline that these two Doctors demanded. Because praising logic while introducing a principle of subjective judgment that seeks to evaluate an ecumenical Council is not an act of fidelity to scholasticism., but a rhetorical operation that does not resist rational analysis. The Second Vatican Council affirms that the authentic interpretation of the Word of God "has been entrusted solely to the living Magisterium of the Church" (God's word, 10). Not to the individual, not to a group, not to a Priestly Fraternity.

Y, also in passing — but seriously — it is worth observing another element. It is not uncommon for the theologians of the so-called Nouvelle Théologie to be dismissed as "modernist heretics" in certain circles.. It's a convenient simplification., but intellectually fragile. That there are problems in these currents is indisputable, just as there have been in the history of theology in almost all the great authors, including Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Saint Augustine, converted, baptized and already bishop, he had to work a lot on himself to purify residues of Manichaeism; and nobody, for it, denies his greatness. Let's take, however, the names that in certain environments are presented as the most dangerous among the theologians of the 20th century: Karl Rahner and Hans Küng. One can — and in certain cases one should — criticize Rahner. One can even radically disagree; but to think that the teaching staff of the Ecône Seminary would have been able to sustain a high-level theological confrontation, developed in the field of classical Thomism and great scholasticism, with a mind of vast culture like that of Hans Küng, It means giving in to an overvaluation that finds no support in reality..

A personal memory, by the way: Brunero Gherardini, theologian certainly not suspected of philo-modernism, He defined Leonard Boff as "one of the most brilliant ecclesiologists of the 20th century". You can not share your conclusions, but to deny his intellectual stature would simply be to deny the evidence. Adherence to the theses of these authors is not at stake here., but a principle of intellectual honesty. Controversy does not replace argumentation nor does label replace refutation.. The proclamation of orthodoxy does not equate to rational solidity. If scholasticism is invoked, that it be truly practiced: with logical rigor, with distinction of plans, with respect for ecclesial authority and with that discipline of reason that does not fear debate, but he faces it without caricatures.

When it is declared that the Council and the post-conciliar Magisterium would be in breach with Tradition and that such a judgment would derive from an obligation of conscience, a leap is made that is not theological but structurally arbitrary: the power to judge the authority that Christ has established to guard the faith is attributed to one's own conscience. This is the point. It's not about good or bad faith, but of ecclesial order.

Poner Tradition and Magisterium is an impossible and illogical construction. Y, however, The Fraternity speaks of fidelity to Tradition in the face of the "fundamental guidelines" of the Council, a contrast in itself theologically unsustainable. Tradition is not an archaeological deposit that should be opposed to the living Magisterium. It is the living transmission of faith under the guidance of apostolic authority. Ya el Concilio de Trento taught that the revelation is contained "in written books and unwritten traditions" (DS 1501), but always guarded and interpreted by the Church. Separating Tradition from the authority that it safeguards means transforming it into an ideological and illogical principle..

Theologist Joseph Ratzinger, long before becoming Pontiff, remembered that Tradition is not an immobile block, but a living reality that grows in the understanding of faith, without rupture but also without fossilization. In his famous speech to the Roman Curia of the 22 December 2005 spoke of "hermeneutics of reform in the continuity of the single subject-Church" versus a "hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture" (Speech at the Roman Curia, 22 December 2005). Rejecting an ecumenical Council as such is not an exercise in discernment; It is a denial of an act of the universal Magisterium. A hermeneutics can be discussed, but authority cannot be suspended.

The letter of the Rev. Davide Pagliarani expresses availability for a theological dialogue, but at the same time challenges the conditions established by the competent authority, staging a form of dialogue that denies the hierarchical principle. And here the problem is not diplomatic; It's logical again.. Ecclesial dialogue takes place within a hierarchical structure. If the legitimacy of the person who convenes and guides the debate is not recognized, Dialogue becomes a confrontation between equals that does not exist in the constitution of the Church, which is not a federation of autonomous interpretations, but an ordered body. Pretending dialogue without recognizing the authority that establishes its criteria is equivalent to demanding recognition while maintaining one's own normative self-sufficiency..

In the previous article we write that communion is not a negotiable point (see here). We reiterate it, specifying that ecclesial communion implies: the recognition of the Roman Pontiff, of the Magisterium of the bishops in communion with him and the acceptance of the ecumenical Councils as acts of the universal Magisterium. It is not enough to declare yourself Catholic, because to be so it is necessary to accept the Catholic order. Is, therefore, obvious: when a group exercises the sacred ministry, trains the clergy, administers the sacraments and, at the same time, suspends accession to an ecumenical Council and the subsequent Magisterium, an objective tension is created that cannot be normalized through rhetorical formulas. Communion is not self-defining, nor can it be reduced to self-certification; it is reciprocal recognition within a hierarchical order received from Christ. And then the question spontaneously arises as to whether some zealous cultivators of Aristotelian logic, who declare that they founded their scholastic formation on it, They will not have ever confused Aristotle with the sophists. Because classical logic is based on the principle of non-contradiction; the sophistry, instead, in the art of making sustainable what remains contradictory.

The most problematic core lies in the risk of self-authorization. When one's own ecclesial identity is built on the systematic contestation of authority, you enter into a dynamic that, historically, has always produced fractures. It's not about accusing, but to verify the structure that the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius. If the last criterion becomes: "our conscience judges the Council", then the hierarchy of the sources is completely inverted through what the Greeks called παράδοξος, Where does the term “paradox” come from?.

The Church is not founded on individual conscience, but about apostolic authority. The conscience is called to obey the truth guarded by the Church, not to replace it. The question, therefore, It is not whether there are debatable aspects in the post-council. The Church has always known tensions, clarifications and developments, beginning with the First Council of Nicaea, which was not enough to completely write the Symbol of Faith, to the point that the later First Council of Constantinople had to intervene; hence the Creed is called, not by chance, With the Nicene-Constantinopolitan symbol (see my latest work, here). The question is another: Can we remain in full communion by rejecting en bloc the authority of an ecumenical Council and the subsequent Magisterium?? The Catholic answer is no.. Not because of rigidity, but for consistency. Subjective conscience is not a Council and communion is not an interpretive option.

This Fraternity was dedicated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to Saint Pius, the same Pontiff who condemned the modernists for maintaining that "the authority of the Church, whether teaching or governing, "must be submitted to the judgment of private conscience"; But in this way — he warned — “the order established by God is disrupted.” (Feeding of Dominic's Sheep, 8 September of 1907). Paradoxically, It is precisely here where the irony of history is consummated: The most insidious modernists are not those who declare themselves as such., but who, even condemning modernism, they assume their methodological principle, raising his own conscience at the discretion of the ecclesial authority.

From the Island of Patmos, 20 February 2026

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ROMA DECADENCE. THE PASSION OF THE MYSTICAL BODY AND THE ILLUSION OF ACTIVISM

The historical body of the Church suffers from its wounds and from the sins of its members, but as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, the Church is "holy and at the same time in need of purification"; it is not holy due to the virtue of its members, but because its head is Christ and its animator is the Holy Spirit.

— Theologica —

Author:
Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

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Dear readers of the Island of Patmos, I am writing to you at a time that many, not wrongly, define of Roma decadence, an era in which the evaporation of Christianity, as Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi also lucidly observed[1], it is no longer a dystopian prophecy, but a tangible reality.

However, faced with this scenario, a theologian looks at the Church not with the worldly eyes of sociology, but with the gaze of faith that recognizes in the Mystical Body the living presence of Christ and His Spirit.

This article of mine was born from dialogue social with dear Alessandro, also a digital pastoral operator (who his site). I would like to divide our reflections into three moments.

The Ecclesial Kenosis: between the Holy Saturday of history and the heresy of efficiency. As Don Giuseppe Forlai writes, but the theme returns in many reflections carried out in multiple areas, the Church in Europe today resembles the body of Jesus taken down from the Cross: lifeless, consummate, apparently defeated, and yet - and this is the divine paradox - a treasure chest of eternal life persists in it. We must not be scandalized if the Bride of Christ appears disfigured; she is reliving the mysteries of her Spouse's life, including the passion and burial[2]. In this sulphurous ecclesial, the greatest temptation is to replace mystery with organization, grace with bureaucracy, falling into that Pelagianism that Pope Francis and his predecessors have often stigmatized. A young Saint Benedict of Nursia, in the face of the corruption of Rome, he did not found a party or a protest movement, but he retreated into silence to "relive with himself" (to live with him), laying the foundations for a civilization that was not born from a human project, but from the search for God (To seek God). This contemplative silence is not mutism but prayerful listening to the Word and is the only adequate response to the crisis. The historical body of the Church suffers from its wounds and from the sins of its members, but as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, the Church is "holy and at the same time in need of purification" (CCC 827); it is not holy due to the virtue of its members, but because its head is Christ and its animator is the Holy Spirit. Because of this, a serious way of reforming the ecclesial community is not frenetic activism. Already Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, of venerable memory, he wisely remembered that a shepherd must feed the sheep and not vice versa, and serve the sanctification of people. Following the teaching of Saint Paul in the Letter to the Philippians: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Fil 2,12), we must stop looking for scapegoats or structural solutions to problems that exist, in their root, pneumatic and spiritual. They take time, study and prayer.

The fundamental mistake I think it lies in a sort of "heresy of action" which forgets a basic principle of Scholasticism: Acting follows being (the Act follows the be). If the being of the Church is emptied of its supernatural substance, his actions become an empty shell, a background noise that converts no one. Today we are witnessing what we could define as an obsession with structures, almost as if by modifying the organizational chart of the Curia or inventing new pastoral committees we can infuse the Holy Spirit on command. I'm not saying that planning or reorganization are bad things in themselves, indeed they are welcome. But let's remember that the Spirit blows where he wants, not where our human planning forces it. This efficiency mentality betrays a lack of faith in the intrinsic power of Grace. We behave like the Apostles on the boat in the storm before Christ woke up: we get agitated, we row against the wind, we scream, forgetting that He who commands the winds and the sea is present, albeit apparently dormant, aft.

The current condition of the Church in Europe, which we defined above as "deposed from the Cross", it reminds us of the mystery of Holy Saturday. It is the day of great silence, not of desperate inactivity. On Holy Saturday, the Church does not proselytize, does not organize conferences, it does not draw up five-year synodal plans; the Church keeps vigil next to the tomb, knowing that that stone will not be overturned by human hands. The mortal danger of our time is wanting to "reanimate" the ecclesial body with worldly techniques marketing or sociological adaptation to a century, transforming the Bride of Christ into a compassionate NGO, pleasing to the world, but barren of divine life. Let us remember what Saint Bernard of Clairvaux wrote to Pope Eugene III in On Consideration: «Woe to you if, to worry too much about external things, you end up losing yourself[3]. If the Church loses its mystical dimension, it becomes flavorless salt, destined to be trampled by men" (cf.. Mt 5,13). Moreover, this anxiety about «doing» often hides the fear of «being». Standing under the Cross, stay in the cenacle, stay on your knees. The crisis of vocations, the closure of parishes, cultural irrelevance cannot be resolved by lowering the bar of doctrine to make it more attractive - a failed operation, as demonstrated by the now deserted liberal Protestant communities - but by raising the temperature of faith. The Church is Crawford Prostitute, the Fathers loved to say: chaste due to the presence of the Spirit, a prostitute for the sins of her children who prostitute her to the idols of the moment. But purification does not occur through human reforms, but rather through the fire of trial and the sanctity of individuals.

Non serve, so, a Church that is agitated, but a Church that burns. We need to return to that priority of God that Benedict XVI tirelessly preached: where God fails, man does not get bigger, but he loses his divine dignity. The remedy for Roma decadence it is not an «activist Rome», but a "praying Rome". We must have the courage to be that "little flock" (LC 12,32) who does not fear numerical inferiority, provided that he keeps the deposit of faith intact. Like yeast in the mass, our effectiveness does not depend on quantity, but by the quality of our union with Christ. Therefore, Let us commit ourselves not to let ourselves be robbed of hope by prophets of doom, nor by the strategists of creative pastoral care, let's go back to the tabernacle, at the Lectio Divina, to the passionate study of the Truth. Only from there, from the pierced and glorious heart of the Redeemer, the living water capable of irrigating this western desert will be able to flow. The Church will rise again, not because we are good organizers, but because Christ is alive and death no longer has power over Him. Because Christ offers everyone a profound act of contemplation if we know how to grasp it.

Rediscover Dogma against the dictatorship of sentiment. Faith that seeks understanding: Faith seeking understanding. To avoid falling into sterile quietism, But, we must understand that Christian contemplation is intrinsically fruitful and that love for the Church requires a radical return to the foundations of our faith. There is no charity without truth, and there is no real reform that does not start from the rediscovery of deposit of credit. In a liquid world where faith risks dissolving into mere emotional feeling and truth is sacrificed on the altar of social consensus, it is urgent to return to the Symbol of our faith which is not a nursery rhyme to be recited, but the route of our Christian existence. About that, I would like to suggest reading the latest book by Father Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo: I think to understand: Journey in the Profession of Faith. In quest’opera, Father Ariel explains each article of the Symbol or Creed making it taste its original power: not cold formula, but to a «word to live by». The text takes the reader on a theological journey where reason, illumined by faith, he bows before the mystery without abdicating, but finding its fulfillment. As Saint Thomas Aquinas taught, faith is an act of the intellect that adheres to divine truth under the control of the will moved by grace (cf.. QUESTION, II-II, q. 2, a. 9); for this reason, study the dogma, understand what we profess every Sunday, it is an operation of the highest contemplation. Approach the ineffable mystery of the Trinity, connate ourselves with the mysteries we profess, so that action becomes a reflection of our being in Christ. Sacred art, the liturgy, theology is not aesthetic frills, but vehicles of the Truth that saves. If we don't understand what we believe, how will we be able to testify to this? If the salt loses its flavor, It is good for nothing other than to be thrown away (cf.. Mt 5,13). Father Ariel's book teaches precisely this: give flavor to our faith, giving back to the word I believe the sense of perfect adherence to the incarnate Truth.

We live in an era afflicted by another serious spiritual pathology which we could define as "sentimental fideism". The erroneous idea has spread that faith is a blind feeling, a consoling emotion detached from reason, or worse, that dogma is a cage that imprisons the freedom of God's children. Nothing could be more false and dangerous. As a preacher brother, I strongly reiterate that the Truth (Veritas) it is the very name of God and that the human intellect was created precisely to grasp this Truth. Rejecting the intellectual effort to understand dogma means refusing to use the highest gift that the Creator has given us in his image and likeness. Culpable ignorance of the truths of faith is the ideal breeding ground for every heresy. When the Catholic stops forming, when he stops asking "who is God" according to Revelation and begins to build a god of his own size and likeness, he inevitably falls into the idolatry of his own self.

Give back meaning and value to the Creed it means rediscovering the constitutional charter of our Christian life. Each of his articles is not abstract philosophical lucubration, since they are linked to the Christian fact, to the history of salvation that has affected man and the entire cosmos. Saying "I believe in one God" or "I believe in the resurrection of the flesh" is an act of disobedience to nihilism that leads to desperation and the detriment of spirit and matter. The intellectual reconstruction I'm talking about is, ultimately, an act of love. You can't love what you don't know. If our knowledge of Christ is imperfect our love for Him will remain childish, fragile, unable to withstand the impact of the trials of adult life and the seductions of dominant thought.

On this journey that I propose to you let us learn to see theology not as a science for initiates, but what does the Church do when it bends over revealed data and therefore what it breathes and therefore lives from. The study, done on your knees, it becomes prayer; the understanding of the Trinitarian mystery becomes adoration in Spirit and truth. We need not fear the complexity of dogma: it is like the sun which, while being bright enough to be looked at directly without hurting the eye, it is the only source that allows us to clearly see all the rest of reality. Without the light of dogma, the liturgy becomes choreography, charity becomes philanthropy and hope becomes illusion. So let's get back to studying, to read, to meditate. Let us make St. Peter's exhortation our own: “Always be ready to answer anyone who asks you why the hope is within you” (1PT 3,15). But to give reasons (logos) of Christian hope we must honor reason as we seek to possess the things of God and in this theology is a great help.

The A small herd and the power of grace. Beyond desperation, theological hope. I conclude this itinerary by inviting "cautious optimism" that flows from the virtue of theological hope. The decadence of Christianity in Europe is a historical fact, but the story of Salvation does not end with Good Friday. Our identity, as the Scriptures and the testimony of many saints remind us, must be based on the awareness of being "useless servants/simple servants" (LC 17,10). This "uselessness/simplicity" is not devaluation, but the recognition that the main actor of history is God. I'll try to explain myself.

Christian hope is the polar opposite of worldly optimism. This could arise from a statistical or simply humoral prediction that "things will get better". theological Hope, instead, it is the certainty that God does not lie and keeps his promises even when things happen, humanly speaking, they go from bad to worse. Abraham "had faith, hoping against all hope" (Sa foot against hope, RM 4,18), just when biological reality presented him with the impossibility of having a child. We today are called to the same faith as Abraham. The numerical decline of believers and the loss of appeal of the Church must not lead us to a sectarian retreat, but to the awareness that God, as the history of salvation teaches and the biblical idea of ​​the "remnant" advocates, it has always operated not across ocean masses, but using a a small herd, a small faithful flock that takes charge of the whole. This appears in Scripture and in the history of the Church as a constant: some few pray and offer themselves for the salvation of many.

From this perspective, the definition of "useless servants" that Jesus talks about in the Gospel becomes our greatest liberation. Useless (useless) does not mean "worthless", but "without any claim to profit", that is, without claiming to be the efficient cause of Grace. When man, even within the Church, forget this truth, ends up building pastoral towers of Babel that collapse at the first breath of wind. The history of the 20th century, with its atheistic totalitarianisms, he showed us the hell that man builds when he decides to do without God to save humanity with his own strength. But be careful: there is also a spiritual totalitarianism, thinner, that creeps in when we think that the Church is "our thing", to be managed with corporate or political criteria. No, The Church is of Christ. And the Christian's action is fruitful only when it becomes teandric, that is, when our human freedom allows itself to be so permeated by divine Grace that it becomes a single act with Christ. This is what Saint Paul expressed by saying: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me " (Gal 2,20). This synergy between God and man is the antidote to despair. If the work were only mine, I would have every reason to despair, given my smallness; but if the work is of God, who can stop it? Under the leadership of the Holy Father Leo XIV (Robert Francis Prevost), we are called to guard this flame. It doesn't matter if our cathedrals empty or if the media laughs at us; what matters is that that flame remains lit and pure. Like the myrophores on Easter morning, like Joseph of Arimathea in the darkness of Good Friday, we are the keepers of a promise that cannot fail.

The beauty that saves the world is not a façade aesthetic, but the splendor of the Truth (The Splendor of Truth). It may appear uncomfortable, give the sensation of cutting like a sharp sword, but it is the only one capable of making man truly free. I think it's fair to say that we shouldn't be afraid to go out into the world and speak against the grain. Just as I think it is important to study our Creed to profess it in its entirety, though, even among priests, there are those who consider it obsolete and "don't believe in it" (4)[4]. In the silence of our rooms, in our families, in parishes or convents, wherever you operate, we are preparing the spring of the Church. We may not see it with our mortal eyes, but we are building it in faith and wisdom-based charity. Everything passes, only God remains. And who is with God, he has already won the world. The Cross stands while the world revolves: the Cross stands still while the world turns. Let us cling to this glorious Cross, and we will be immovable in hope.

Santa Maria Novella, in Florence, 29 January 2026

_____________

[1] Speech by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi at the opening of the 81st General Assembly of the CEI, Assisi, 17 November 2025. The full text can be found on the website of the Italian Episcopal Conference: Who

[2] Summarized by G. Forla, church: reflections on the evaporation of Christianity, St. Paul, Cinisello Balsamo (MY) 2025, p.133-134

[3] Paraphrased from this original text “Tibi feet, if you have completely abandoned yourself, and you have reserved nothing for yourself!“ (Woe betide you if you give yourself everything to them [to administrative matters] and you will not reserve anything of yourself for yourself!). In On Consideration Book I, Chapter V, paragraph 6.

_________________________

ROME DECADENCE. THE PASSION OF THE MYSTICAL BODY AND THE ILLUSION OF ACTIVISM

The historical body of the Church suffers from its wounds and from the sins of its members; yet, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, the Church is “holy and at the same time in need of purification” (CCC 827). She is not holy by virtue of her members, but because her Head is Christ and her animating principle is the Holy Spirit.

— Theologica —

Author:
Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

.

Dear readers of The Island of Patmos, I write to you in a time that many — rightly so —define as one of Rome decadence, an era in which the evaporation of Christianity, as Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi has also lucidly observed, is no longer a dystopian prophecy but a tangible reality. Yet, in the face of this scenario, a theologian looks upon the Church not with the worldly eyes of sociology, but with the gaze of faith, which recognises in the Mystical Body the living presence of Christ and of His Spirit.

This article arises from a dialogue on social media with my dear friend Alessandro, himself engaged in digital pastoral ministry (his website may be found here). I would like to divide our reflections into three moments.

Ecclesial kenosis: between the Holy Saturday of history and the heresy of efficiency. As Don Giuseppe Forlai writes — and the theme recurs in many reflections developed in various contexts — the Church in Europe today resembles the body of Jesus taken down from the Cross: lifeless, consumed, apparently defeated, and yet — and here lies the divine paradox — within her there persists a casket of eternal life. We should not be scandalised if the Bride of Christ appears disfigured; she is reliving the mysteries of her Bridegroom’s life, including His Passion and burial. In this ecclesial kenosis, the greatest temptation is to replace mystery with organisation, grace with bureaucracy, falling into that Pelagianism which Pope Francis and his predecessors have frequently denounced. A young Benedict of Nursia, confronted with the corruption of Rome, did not found a party nor a protest movement, but withdrew into silence in order “to dwell with himself” (to live with him), laying the foundations of a civilisation that did not arise from a human project, but from the search for God (to seek God). This contemplative silence is not muteness but prayerful listening to the Word, and it is the only adequate response to the crisis. The historical body of the Church suffers from its wounds and from the sins of her members; yet, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, the Church is “holy and at the same time in need of purification” (CCC 827). She is not holy by virtue of her members, but because her Head is Christ and her animating principle is the Holy Spirit. For this reason, a serious way of reforming the ecclesial community is not frenetic activism. Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, of venerable memory, wisely recalled that a shepherd must pasture the sheep and not vice versa, and must serve the sanctification of persons. Following the teaching of Saint Paul in the Letter to the Philippians: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12), we must cease seeking scapegoats or structural solutions to problems that are, at their root, pneumatic and spiritual. They require time, study, and prayer.

I believe the fundamental error lies in a kind of “heresy of action” that forgets a basic principle of Scholastic theology: Agere sequitur esse (action follows being). If the being of the Church is emptied of its supernatural substance, her action becomes an empty shell, a background noise that converts no one. Today we witness what might be defined as an obsession with structures, as though by modifying the organisational chart of the Curia or inventing new pastoral committees one could infuse the Holy Spirit at will. I do not say that planning or reorganisation are in themselves erroneous — on the contrary, they may be welcome. But we must remember that the Spirit blows where He wills, not where our human planning attempts to constrain Him. This efficiency-driven mentality betrays a lack of faith in the intrinsic power of Grace. We behave like the Apostles in the boat during the storm before Christ awoke: we agitate ourselves, row against the wind, cry out, forgetting that the One who commands the winds and the sea is present, though apparently asleep, at the stern.

The current condition of the Church in Europe, which we have described above as “taken down from the Cross,” leads us into the mystery of Holy Saturday. It is the day of great silence, not of desperate inactivity. On Holy Saturday, the Church does not engage in proselytism, does not organise conferences, does not draft five-year synodal plans; the Church keeps vigil beside the tomb, knowing that the stone will not be rolled away by human hands. The mortal danger of our time is the attempt to “reanimate” the ecclesial body through worldly techniques of marketing or sociological adaptation to the a century, transforming the Bride of Christ into a compassionate NGO, pleasing to the world yet sterile of divine life. Let us remember what Saint Bernard of Clairvaux wrote to Pope Eugene III in On Consideration: “Woe to you if, by occupying yourself too much with external matters, you end up losing yourself”. If the Church loses her mystical dimension, she becomes salt without flavour, destined to be trampled underfoot by men (cf. Mt 5:13). Moreover, this anxiety of “doing” often conceals the fear of “being”: being beneath the Cross, being in the Upper Room, being on one’s knees. The crisis of vocations, the closure of parishes, and cultural irrelevance are not resolved by lowering the bar of doctrine in order to make it more palatable — an operation that has failed, as demonstrated by liberal Protestant communities now largely deserted — but by raising the temperature of faith. The Church is Crawford Prostitute, as the Fathers used to say: chaste by the presence of the Spirit, a harlot through the sins of her children who prostitute her to the idols of the moment. Purification does not occur through human reforms, but through the fire of trial and the holiness of individuals.

What is needed, therefore, is not a Church that agitates, but a Church that burns. We must return to that primacy of God which Benedict XVI tirelessly preached: where God fades away, man does not become greater, but loses his divine dignity. The remedy for Rome decadence is not an “activist Rome,” but a “praying Rome.” We must have the courage to be that “little flock” (Page 12:32) that does not fear numerical inferiority, provided that it preserves intact the deposit of faith. Like leaven in the dough, our effectiveness depends not on quantity, but on the quality of our union with Christ. Therefore, let us commit ourselves not to allow hope to be stolen from us — neither by prophets of doom nor by strategists of creative pastoral planning. Let us return to the tabernacle, to Lectio Divina, to the passionate study of Truth. Only from there, from the pierced and glorious heart of the Redeemer, can living water flow to irrigate this Western desert. The Church will rise again, not because we are skilful organisers, but because Christ is alive and death no longer has power over Him. Because Christ offers to all a profound act of contemplation, if we know how to receive it.

Rediscovering dogma against the dictatorship of sentiment. Faith seeking understanding: faith seeking understanding. In order not to fall into sterile quietism, however, we must understand that Christian contemplation is intrinsically fruitful and that love for the Church requires a radical return to the foundations of our faith. There is no charity without truth, and there is no true reform that does not begin with the rediscovery of the deposit of credit. In a liquid world where faith risks dissolving into mere emotional sentiment and truth is sacrificed on the altar of social consensus, it is urgent to return to the Symbol of our faith, which is not a nursery rhyme to be recited, but the course of our Christian existence. In this regard, I feel compelled to recommend the latest book by Father Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo, I think to understand: Journey in the Profession of Faith. In this work, Father Ariel explains each article of the Symbol or Creed, allowing its original power to be tasted — not as a cold formula, but as a “word to be lived.” The text accompanies the reader on a theological journey in which reason, illumined by faith, bows before the mystery without abdicating, but rather finding its fulfilment. As Saint Thomas Aquinas taught, faith is an act of the intellect assenting to divine truth at the command of the will moved by grace (cf. QUESTION, Ii-ii, q. 2, a. 9); for this reason, studying dogma, understanding what we profess every Sunday, is an act of the highest contemplation. Approaching the ineffable mystery of the Trinity, becoming connatural to the mysteries we profess, so that our action may become a reflection of our being in Christ. Sacred art, liturgy, and theology are not aesthetic ornaments, but vehicles of the Truth that saves. If we do not understand what we believe, how can we bear witness to it? If the salt loses its flavour, it is good for nothing but to be thrown out (cf. Mt 5:13). Father Ariel’s book teaches precisely this: to restore flavour to our faith by returning to the word I believe its full meaning of perfect adherence to the Incarnate Truth.

We live in an age afflicted by another grave spiritual pathology that might be described as “sentimental fideism.” The erroneous idea has spread that faith is a blind feeling, a consolatory emotion detached from reason, or worse, that dogma is a cage imprisoning the freedom of the children of God. Nothing could be more false or more dangerous. As a preaching friar, I reaffirm with force that Truth (Veritas) is the very name of God, and that the human intellect was created precisely to grasp this Truth. To refuse the intellectual effort to understand dogma is to refuse to use the highest gift the Creator has bestowed upon us in His image and likeness. Culpable ignorance of the truths of faith is the ideal breeding ground for every heresy. When a Catholic ceases to be formed, when he stops asking “who God is” according to Revelation and begins to fashion a god in his own image and likeness, he inevitably falls into the idolatry of the self.

To restore meaning and value to the Creed means rediscovering the constitutional charter of our Christian life. Each of its articles is not an abstract philosophical speculation, but is bound to the Christian event, to the history of salvation that has marked man and the entire cosmos. To say “I believe in one God” or “I believe in the resurrection of the flesh” is an act of disobedience to the nihilism that leads to despair and to the degradation of spirit and matter. The intellectual reconstruction of which I speak is, ultimately, an act of love. One cannot love what one does not know. If our knowledge of Christ is imperfect, our love for Him will remain infantile, fragile, incapable of withstanding the impact of adult life’s trials and the seductions of dominant thought.

In the journey I propose, we learn to see theology not as a science for initiates, but as what the Church does when she bends over the revealed datum — and thus what she breathes and lives by. Study, when done on one’s knees, becomes prayer; understanding the Trinitarian mystery becomes adoration in Spirit and truth. We must not fear the complexity of dogma: it is like the sun, which, though too luminous to be stared at directly without harming one’s sight, is the only source that allows us to see all the rest of reality clearly. Without the light of dogma, liturgy becomes choreography, charity becomes philanthropy, and hope becomes illusion. Let us therefore return to study, to reading, to meditation. Let us make our own Saint Peter’s exhortation: “Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15). But in order to give reasons (logos) for Christian hope, we must honour reason as we seek to possess the things of God—and in this, theology is a great aid.

The a small herd and the power of grace. Beyond despair, theological hope. I conclude this itinerary by inviting to a “cautious optimism” that flows from the theological virtue of hope. The decline of Christianity in Europe is a historical fact, but the history of Salvation does not end with Good Friday. Our identity, as Scripture and the testimony of so many saints remind us, must be founded on the awareness of being “unworthy servants / simple servants” (Page 17:10). This “uselessness / simplicity” is not devaluation, but the recognition that God is the principal actor in history. Let me explain.

Christian hope stands at the opposite pole of worldly optimism. The latter may arise from statistical forecasts or from a merely emotional expectation that “things will get better.” Theological Hope, by contrast, is the certainty that God does not lie and fulfils His promises even when, humanly speaking, things go from bad to worse. Abraham “believed, hoping against hope” (hope against hope, Rom 4:18), precisely when biological reality placed before him the impossibility of having a child. We are called today to the same faith as Abraham. The numerical decline of believers and the loss of the Church’s cultural appeal must not lead us into sectarian withdrawal, but into the awareness that God, as salvation history teaches and as the biblical notion of the “remnant” proclaims, has always acted not through vast masses, but by means of a a small herd, a small faithful flock that bears responsibility for the whole. This appears in Scripture and in Church history as a constant: a few pray and offer themselves for the salvation of many.

In this perspective, the definition of “unworthy servants” spoken by Jesus in the Gospel becomes our greatest liberation. Useless (useless) does not mean “without value,” but “without claim to usefulness,” that is, without the presumption of being ourselves the efficient cause of Grace. When man, even within the Church, forgets this truth, he ends up constructing pastoral Towers of Babel that collapse at the first breath of wind. The history of the twentieth century, with its atheistic totalitarianisms, has shown us the hell that man constructs when he decides to do without God in order to save humanity by his own strength. But let us be careful: there also exists a more subtle spiritual totalitarianism, which insinuates itself when we think the Church is “ours,” to be managed according to corporate or political criteria. No — the Church belongs to Christ. And Christian action is fruitful only when it becomes theandric, that is, when our human freedom allows itself to be so penetrated by divine Grace as to become a single action with Christ. This is what Saint Paul expressed when he said: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). This synergy between God and man is the antidote to despair. If the work were only mine, I would have every reason to despair, given my poverty; but if the work is God’s, who can stop it? Under the guidance of the Holy Father Leo XIV (Robert Francis Prevost), we are called to guard this little flame. It does not matter if our cathedrals empty or if the media mock us; what matters is that the flame remain lit and pure. Like the myrrh-bearing women on Easter morning, like Joseph of Arimathea in the darkness of Good Friday, we are the custodians of a promise that cannot fail.

The beauty that saves the world is not a superficial aesthetic, but the splendour of Truth (The Splendor of Truth). It may appear uncomfortable, may feel like the cut of a sharp sword, but it alone is capable of making man truly free. I believe it is right to say that we must not be afraid to go out into the world and to speak against the current. I also believe it is important to study our Creed in order to profess it in its entirety, even though, tragically, even among presbyters there are those who consider it obsolete and “do not believe in it”. In the silence of our rooms, in our families, in parishes or convents — wherever one may labour— we are preparing the springtime of the Church. We may not see it with our mortal eyes, but we are building it in faith and in sapiential charity. Everything passes; only God remains. And whoever abides in God has already overcome the world. The Cross stands while the world revolves: the Cross stands firm while the world turns. Let us remain clinging to this glorious Cross, and we shall be immovable in hope.

Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 26 January 2026

_______________________

ROMA DECADENCE. THE PASSION OF THE MYSTIC BODY AND THE ILLUSION OF ACTIVISM

The historical body of the Church suffers for its wounds and for the sins of its members., but, as he teaches Catechism of the Catholic Church, The Church is "holy and at the same time in need of purification" (CIC 827); It is not holy because of the virtue of its members, but because its Head is Christ and its life-giving principle is the Holy Spirit.

— Theologica —

Author:
Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

.

Dear readers of The Island of Patmos, I am writing to you at a time when many, not without reason, define as Roma decadence, a time when the evaporation of Christianity, as Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi has also lucidly observed, It is no longer a dystopian prophecy, but a tangible reality. However, in this scenario, a theologian looks at the Church not with the worldly eyes of sociology, but with the look of faith, that recognizes in the Mystical Body the living presence of Christ and his Spirit.

This article of mine is born from dialogue on social networks with dear Alessandro, also the operator of digital pastoral (here). I would like to divide our reflections into three moments.

The sulphurous ecclesial: between the Holy Saturday of history and the heresy of efficiency. As Don Giuseppe Forlai writes — and the theme reappears in numerous reflections developed in different areas —, The Church in Europe today resembles the body of Jesus taken down from the Cross: let's examine, consumed, apparently defeated, and yet — and here lies the divine paradox — a chest of eternal life persists in it.. We should not be scandalized if the Bride of Christ appears disfigured; She is reliving the mysteries of her Husband's life., including passion and burial. Herein sulphurous ecclesial, The greatest temptation is to replace mystery with organization, grace for bureaucracy, falling into that Pelagianism that Pope Francis and his predecessors have repeatedly denounced. A young Saint Benedict of Nursia, in the face of the corruption of Rome, He did not found a party or a protest movement, but he withdrew into silence to "dwell with himself." (to live with him), laying the foundations of a civilization that was not born from a human project, but of the search for God (to seek God). This contemplative silence is not muteness, but listen prayerfully to the Word, and it is the only appropriate response to the crisis. The historical body of the Church suffers for its wounds and for the sins of its members., but, as he teaches Catechism of the Catholic Church, The Church is "holy and at the same time in need of purification" (CIC 827); It is not holy because of the virtue of its members, but because its Head is Christ and its life-giving principle is the Holy Spirit. For this reason, a serious way to reform the ecclesial community is not frenetic activism. Already Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, of venerated memory, wisely remembered that a shepherd must feed the sheep and not the other way around, and serve the sanctification of people. Following the teaching of Saint Paul in the Letter to the Philippians: "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Flp 2,12), We must stop looking for scapegoats or structural solutions to problems that are, at its root, pneumatic and spiritual. They require time, study and prayer.

The fundamental error, I think, resides in a kind of "heresy of action" that forgets a basic principle of Scholasticism: Agere sequitur esse (working follows being). If the being of the Church is emptied of its supernatural substance, his work becomes an empty shell, a background noise that converts no one. Today we are witnessing what we could define as an obsession with structures, as if by modifying the Curia's organizational chart or inventing new pastoral committees the Holy Spirit could be infused at will. I'm not saying that programming or reorganization is wrong in itself.; on the contrary, may be welcome. But let us remember that the Spirit blows where it wants, not where our human plans force it. This efficiency mentality betrays a lack of faith in the intrinsic power of Grace.. We behave like the Apostles in the boat during the storm before Christ woke up: we stir, we row against the wind, we scream, forgetting that He who commands the winds and the sea is present, although apparently asleep, in the stern.

The current condition of the Church in Europe, which we have defined above as "descent from the Cross", It refers us to the mystery of Holy Saturday. It is the day of great silence, not from desperate inactivity. On Holy Saturday, The Church does not proselytize, does not organize conferences, does not prepare five-year synodal plans; the Church watches next to the tomb, knowing that that stone will not be removed by human hands. The mortal danger of our time is wanting to "reanimate" the ecclesial body with mundane marketing techniques or sociological adaptation to the a century, transforming the Bride of Christ into a compassionate NGO, pleasing to the world, but barren of divine life. Let us remember what Saint Bernard of Clairvaux wrote to Pope Eugene III in the On Consideration: «Woe to you if, for worrying too much about external things, you end up losing yourself!». If the Church loses its mystical dimension, turns into tasteless salt, destined to be trampled by men (cf. Mt 5,13). Besides, This anxiety of “doing” often hides the fear of “being.”: be under the cross, be in the cenacle, kneel. The crisis of vocations, the closure of parishes, cultural irrelevance are not resolved by lowering the bar of doctrine to make it more attractive — a failed operation, as demonstrated by the liberal Protestant communities today practically deserted —, but by raising the temperature of faith. The Church is Crawford Prostitute, the Fathers said: caste by the presence of the Spirit, prostitute for the sins of her children who prostitute her to the idols of the moment. But purification does not occur through human reforms, but through the fire of trial and the holiness of individuals.

It is not necessary, well, a Church that shakes, but a Church that burns. It is necessary to return to that primacy of God that Benedict XVI preached tirelessly: where God disappears, man doesn't get bigger, but loses its divine dignity. The remedy to Roma decadence It is not an "activist Rome", but a "praying Rome". We must have the courage to be that "little flock" (LC 12,32) who does not fear numerical inferiority, in order to keep intact the deposit of faith. Like yeast in the dough, our effectiveness does not depend on the quantity, but of the quality of our union with Christ. So, Let us commit ourselves not to let the prophets of calamity or the strategists of creative pastoralism steal our hope.; let's go back to the tabernacle, to the Lectio Divina, to the passionate study of the Truth. Just from there, of the pierced and glorious heart of the Redeemer, living water capable of irrigating this western desert may spring forth. The Church will resurrect, not because we are skilled organizers, but because Christ is alive and death no longer has power over Him. Because Christ offers everyone a profound act of contemplation, if we know how to welcome it.

Rediscover the Dogma against the dictatorship of feeling. The faith that seeks understanding: faith seeking understanding. To avoid falling into a sterile quietism, We must understand that Christian contemplation is intrinsically fruitful and that love for the Church requires a radical return to the foundations of our faith.. There is no charity without truth, nor is there a true reform that does not start from the rediscovery of the deposit of credit. In a liquid world where faith runs the risk of dissolving into mere emotional sentiment and truth is sacrificed on the altar of social consensus, It is urgent to return to the Symbol of our faith, that it is not a song to recite, but the route of our Christian existence. For this purpose, I would like to suggest reading the latest book by Father Ariel S.. Levi di Gualdo, I think to understand: Journey in the Profession of Faith. In this work, Father Ariel explains each article of the Symbol or Creed, allowing you to savor its original power: not a cold formula, but a "word to live by". The text accompanies the reader on a theological journey in which reason, illuminated by faith, bows before the mystery without abdicating, finding in it its fulfillment. As Saint Thomas Aquinas taught, Faith is an act of the understanding that assents to divine truth by command of the will moved by grace (cf. QUESTION, II-II, q. 2, a. 9); for it, study the dogma, understand what we profess every Sunday, It is an operation of the highest contemplation. Getting closer to the ineffable mystery of the Trinity, connaturalize ourselves with the mysteries we profess, so that acting becomes a reflection of our being in Christ. sacred art, the liturgy, theology is not aesthetic decorations, but vehicles of the Truth that saves. If we do not understand what we believe, How can we bear witness to this?? If salt loses its flavor, It's good for nothing but to be thrown out. (cf. Mt 5,13). Father Ariel's book teaches precisely this: restore flavor to our faith, restoring the word I believe the sense of perfect adherence to incarnate Truth.

We live in an affected time due to another serious spiritual pathology that we could define as "sentimental fideism". The erroneous idea has spread that faith is a blind feeling, a consoling emotion unrelated to reason, or even worse, that dogma is a cage that imprisons the freedom of the children of God. Nothing more false and dangerous. As a preaching friar, I strongly reaffirm that the Truth (Veritas) is the very name of God and that the human intellect has been created precisely to grasp this Truth. Rejecting the intellectual effort to understand dogma means rejecting the use of the highest gift that the Creator has granted us in his image and likeness.. Guilty ignorance of the truths of faith is the ideal breeding ground for all heresy.. When the Catholic stops forming, when he stops asking himself "who is God" according to Revelation and begins to build a god in his own image and likeness, inevitably falls into the idolatry of one's own self.

Return meaning and value to the Creed means rediscovering the constitutional charter of our Christian life. Each of his articles is not an abstract philosophical musing., because they are linked to the Christian fact, to the history of salvation that has affected man and the entire cosmos. Saying "I believe in one God" or "I believe in the resurrection of the flesh" is an act of disobedience to nihilism that leads to despair and the deterioration of spirit and matter.. The intellectual reconstruction I speak of is, ultimately, an act of love. You can't love what you don't know. If our knowledge of Christ is imperfect, our love for Him will remain childish, fragile, unable to resist the shock of the trials of adult life and the seductions of dominant thought.

On this path that I propose to you we learn to see theology not as a science for initiates, but as what the Church does when it leans on the revealed data and, therefore, what she breathes and lives. The study, performed on knees, becomes a prayer; the understanding of the Trinitarian mystery is transformed into worship in Spirit and truth. We must not fear the complexity of dogma: It's like the sun that, even though it is too bright to be fixed directly without damaging the eyesight, It is the only source that allows us to see everything else clearly. Without the light of dogma, liturgy becomes choreography, charity in philanthropy and hope in illusion. let's go back, well, to study, to read, to meditate. Let us make the exhortation of Saint Peter our own: "Always be ready to give an account of the hope that is in you" (1 Pe 3,15). But to give reasons (logos) of Christian hope it is necessary to honor reason as we seek to possess the things of God, and in this theology is a great help.

The a small herd and the power of grace. Beyond despair, theological hope. I conclude this itinerary by inviting a "cautious optimism" that springs from the theological virtue of hope. The decline of Christianity in Europe is a historical fact, but the history of Salvation does not end with Good Friday. Our identity, as the Scriptures and the testimony of so many saints remind us, must be based on the awareness of being "useless servants" / simple servants (LC 17,10). This "uselessness" / simplicity" is not devaluation, but the recognition that the main actor in history is God. I try to explain myself.

Christian hope is at the antipodes of worldly optimism.. This may arise from a statistical forecast or from a purely emotional expectation according to which "things will go better.". Theological Hope, instead, It is the certainty that God does not lie and keeps his promises even when, humanly speaking, things are going from bad to worse. Abraham "believed, hoping against hope" (hope against hope, Rom 4,18), precisely when the biological reality presented her with the impossibility of having a child. Today we are called to the same faith as Abraham. The numerical decrease of believers and the loss of attractiveness of the Church should not lead us to a sectarian retreat, but to the awareness that God, as salvation history teaches and as the biblical idea of ​​the “remnant” proclaims, has always acted not through oceanic masses, but using a a small herd, a small faithful flock that takes charge of the whole. This appears in Scripture and in the history of the Church as a constant: a few pray and offer themselves for the salvation of many.

In this perspective, the definition of "useless servants" what Jesus talks about in the Gospel becomes our greatest liberation. Useless (useless) does not mean "worthless", but "without any pretense of usefulness", that is to say, without the pretension of being the efficient cause of Grace. When the man, even within the Church, forget this truth, ends up building pastoral towers of Babel that collapse at the first breath of wind. The history of the 20th century, with their atheistic totalitarianisms, has shown us the hell that man builds when he decides to do without God to save humanity with his own strength.. But attention: There is also a spiritual totalitarianism, more subtle, that is insinuated when we think that the Church is "our thing", that must be managed with business or political criteria. No: the Church is of Christ. And the action of the Christian is fruitful only when it becomes theandric., that is to say, when our human freedom allows itself to be penetrated so deeply by divine Grace that it becomes a single act with Christ. This is what Saint Paul expressed by saying: «It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2,20). This synergy between God and man is the antidote to despair. If the work were only mine, I would have every reason to despair, given my smallness; but if the work is from God, who can stop her? Under the guidance of the Holy Father Leo XIV (Robert Francis Prevost), we are called to guard this little flame. It doesn't matter if our cathedrals are empty or if the media ridicules us; What matters is that that flame remains lit and pure. Like the myrophores on Easter morning, like Joseph of Arimathea in the darkness of Good Friday, We are custodians of a promise that cannot fail.

The beauty that saves the world is not a facade aesthetic, but the splendor of Truth (The Splendor of Truth). It may seem uncomfortable, give the sensation of cutting like a sharp sword, but it is the only one capable of making man truly free. I think it is fair to say that we should not be afraid to go out into the world and speak against the current.. I also believe that it is important to study our Creed to profess it in its entirety., although, tragically, Even among priests there are those who consider it obsolete and "do not believe in it". In the silence of our rooms, in our families, in parishes or convents, wherever you work, we are preparing the spring of the Church. Maybe we don't see it with our mortal eyes, but we are building it in faith and in sapiential charity. everything passes, only God remains. And whoever remains in God has already overcome the world. The Cross stands while the world revolves: The Cross stands firm while the world turns. Let us remain clinging to this glorious Cross, and we will be immovable in hope.

Santa Maria Novella, Florence, a 29 January 2026

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