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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 —

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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 —

.

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—

.

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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