By the Archbishop of Selsey

The Perennial Mission
The faithful are told today to wait. To be patient. To sit down and talk. But talk is not the mission of the Church. The mission of the Church is to proclaim.

When St Peter stood before the crowds at Pentecost, he did not convene a dialogue circle. He proclaimed Christ crucified and risen, calling men to repent and be baptized.¹ When the martyrs were dragged before magistrates, they did not hedge their testimony with cautious qualifications. They confessed their Lord even unto death. Their words were clear, their witness uncompromised — and because it was clear, it was life.

The Temptation of Ambiguity
Yet now we are told something very different. We hear a voice suggesting that doctrine might change, if only attitudes first change.² This is not Catholic teaching. Truth does not follow fashion. Truth does not bow to the polls or wait upon consensus. Truth is Christ Himself — “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”³

Ambiguity may sound like compassion. It may win the world’s applause and soothe troubled ears. But ambiguity starves souls. The people of God cannot live on probabilities. They need certainties. They need the living bread of truth, not the stones of hesitation.

Unity Without Truth Is a Lie
Families who built their lives around the Mass of the saints now find the doors locked against them, told that “unity” demands their exile. Bishops invoke obedience while exiling the faithful from the very liturgy that nourished saints, martyrs, and missionaries. Unity at the expense of truth is not unity. It is choreography. It photographs well but it does not save.

The Church is not a debating society. It is the Ark of Salvation. The voice of Peter is not meant to echo the shifting winds of culture but to confirm the brethren in the faith. When Rome speaks in riddles, the sheep scatter. When pastors equivocate, wolves circle.

The Sacred Liturgy Is Not Negotiable
The liturgy is not a toy to be handed down by one generation and withdrawn by another. It is not an experiment in pastoral policy. It is the heartbeat of the Church. To suggest that its survival depends upon the decisions of committees and consultations is to treat the holy as negotiable.

The Mass of Ages has never been abrogated.⁴ It cannot be abrogated. It was sanctified by the Council of Trent, handed down through the centuries, and confirmed by Benedict XVI: “It is permissible to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass following the typical edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated.”⁵

This Mass is not a preference. It is a patrimony. To place it on probation is to suggest that tradition itself is provisional. But what is immemorial cannot be annulled. What sanctified the saints cannot be forbidden.

The Peril of Probability
What has been said of marriage and sexuality? That change is “highly unlikely,” at least in the “near future.” But this is the language of politicians, not of shepherds. This is the vocabulary of probability, not of proclamation.

Dogma admits of no such uncertainty. Vatican I solemnly declared: “That meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be a recession from that meaning under the pretext or in the name of a deeper understanding.”⁶

St Vincent of Lérins gave the true measure: the faith develops as a body grows, “strengthened with years, expanded with time, elevated with age,” yet always remaining the same.⁷ A living organism matures; it does not mutate. Doctrine may deepen, but it does not reverse. To speak of doctrine as “unlikely” to change is already to deny its immutability.

The True Unity of the Church
Unity in the Church is not built on compromise. It is not held together by committees or processes. It is not preserved by avoiding offense. The unity of the Church is the unity of faith, of sacraments, and of governance under Peter. Unity without truth is a counterfeit.

The Apostles did not keep silence to maintain appearances. They spoke boldly. St Paul withstood Peter “to his face” when clarity demanded it.⁸ The Fathers thundered against heresy, even when emperors pressed for compromise. The martyrs shed their blood rather than leave the impression that truth was negotiable.

A Call to Clarity
My dear friends, beware the soft words that mask hard betrayals. Beware the “codes” that promise continuity but deliver confusion. The bar for Catholic orthodoxy is not “better than Francis.” The bar is Christ, who said, “Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.”⁹

We are called to clarity, not choreography. To confession, not conversation. To sacrifice, not slogans. The Church does not live by “highly unlikely.” The Church lives by “Amen.”

Pray for Holy Mother Church. Pray for those in authority, that they may speak as shepherds, not as politicians. And hold fast — hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints, the faith that does not change, because it is the faith of Christ Himself.¹⁰

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

---

1. Jude 1:3.
2. Acts 2:14–36.
3. Crux, interview with Pope Leo XIV, September 2025.
4. Hebrews 13:8.
5. Council of Trent, Session XXII, Canon 9.
6. Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum (2007), Art. 1.
7. Vatican I, Dei Filius (1870), ch. 4, §13.
8. St Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, ch. 23.
9. Galatians 2:11–14.
10. Matthew 5:37.

---