The Apostolate’s magazine offers doctrinal instruction, theological reflections, and mission updates, preserving sacred tradition while addressing contemporary issues. Past editions feature catechetical articles, ecclesiastical commentary, historical insights, Apostolate news, and devotional resources, serving as a vital tool for clergy and laity alike.
This 103rd edition of Nuntiatoria breaks from predictable commentary. It does not merely critique policy—it exposes the legal architecture behind buffer zones, interrogates the theological ambiguity of Fiducia Supplicans, and documents how ideology enters classrooms without parental consent. Precise, sourced, and unsparing, it offers analysis rarely articulated with such clarity or scope.
Beloved sons and daughters in Christ,
Christ is risen. Resurréxi, et adhuc tecum sum. The Church, our Mother, places these words upon the lips of the Risen Lord, not merely as proclamation but as abiding reality: He is risen, and He remains with us. The Resurrection is not a past event recalled in sentiment, but a present victory in which we are summoned to participate—ontologically, sacramentally, and morally.
We have passed through the solemn days of the Passion, where the Church veils her glory and walks with her Spouse in suffering. We have kept vigil in the silence of the tomb. And now, in the full light of Easter, the Church does not whisper—she proclaims. The Alleluia, long buried, bursts forth again with irrepressible force. Death is conquered. Sin is vanquished. The ancient enemy is undone.
Yet, beloved, the Resurrection is not merely the vindication of Christ—it is the revelation of what man is called to become.
The Resurrection and the New Life
In the ancient discipline of the Church, the newly baptised—those clothed in white garments—spent this Octave as a continual feast, not only of joy but of formation. Their outward garment signified an inward reality: they had died and risen with Christ. What had been accomplished sacramentally in them must now be lived existentially.
This is no less true for us.
Too often, the Resurrection is reduced to a theological abstraction or a seasonal devotion. But the Apostle is unequivocal: “If ye be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above” (Col. 3:1). The Resurrection demands transformation. It is not enough to admire the empty tomb; one must leave behind the grave-clothes of sin.
Ask yourselves, then: what in your life still belongs to the tomb? What habits, attachments, compromises, or cowardices remain buried with Christ—but not yet relinquished by you?
The Risen Lord does not return to His disciples as a memory. He comes as Judge and King, bearing the marks of His Passion, calling them—and us—to conversion.
The Crisis of Faith and the Witness of the Apostolate
We cannot ignore the context in which this Easter finds us. The world in which we live grows increasingly estranged from the reality of the Resurrection. It prefers sentiment to truth, comfort to sacrifice, and appearance to substance. Even within the visible structures of the Church, confusion abounds: doctrine is obscured, liturgy is diminished, and the supernatural horizon is eclipsed by the temporal.
Against this, the Old Roman Apostolate exists not as a reaction, but as a witness.
We are custodians of a patrimony that is not ours to alter: the Faith once delivered to the saints, the Sacraments as they have been handed down, the liturgy formed by centuries of organic development, and the moral law inscribed by God Himself. In preserving these, we do not cling to the past—we safeguard the future.
For without the Resurrection, rightly understood and rightly lived, there is no future.
The Church does not renew herself by accommodation to the world, but by fidelity to Christ. And Christ is not encountered in novelty, but in continuity—in the same Sacrifice, the same doctrine, the same call to holiness that has sanctified souls in every age.
The Call to Personal Resurrection
Therefore, beloved faithful, let this Easter not pass as a festival alone. Let it be a turning point.
Rise from sin.
Rise from mediocrity.
Rise from the quiet despair that masquerades as realism.
The Resurrection is not an invitation to optimism—it is a command to holiness.
Let your homes become places where Christ truly lives: where prayer is habitual, where the Faith is taught without compromise, where charity is practiced not as sentiment but as sacrifice. Let fathers reclaim their role as spiritual heads, mothers as guardians of life and virtue, and the young as witnesses of courage in a confused age.
To the clergy of the Apostolate, I say this: preach the Resurrection not as comfort alone, but as truth that demands response. Offer the Holy Sacrifice with reverence, teach with clarity, and shepherd with courage. The faithful do not need ambiguity—they need certainty. They do not need novelty—they need Christ.
The Victory That Endures
Finally, remember this: the Resurrection does not eliminate the Cross—it transfigures it. The wounds remain in the glorified Body of Christ. So too in our lives, suffering is not abolished but given meaning. The Christian does not escape the Cross; he carries it in hope.
For the tomb is empty—and it will remain so.
Christ has risen. The victory is won. And yet, that victory must be claimed in each soul, in each family, in each community. This is the work of Easter—not merely celebration, but participation.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, who stood at the foot of the Cross and rejoiced in the Resurrection, obtain for us the grace to live as true children of the Risen Lord.
Given this Easter, in the Year of Our Lord 2026,
from our Oratory in Brighton,
Christus resurrexit—resurrexit vere. Alleluia.
✠Jerome Seleisi
Titular Archbishop of Selsey
Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
When the guardians of doctrine behave as though doctrine does not bind them, the scandal is not external—it is within.
What took place at the installation of Dame Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury, was not an exercise in ecumenical sensitivity, but a public contradiction: the Roman Catholic hierarchy participating in a liturgical act whose central claims it formally denies.
The facts are not contested. Archbishop Richard Moth, newly of Westminster proclaimed a lesson within the rite.¹ Kurt, Cardinal Koch, acting as envoy of the Holy See, joined in common prayer and then delivered a message from the Pope offering congratulations and invoking divine blessing upon Mullally’s ministry.² These actions occurred within a formal liturgical and ecumenical context, not in private diplomacy.³
These are not incidental courtesies. They are liturgical acts. And liturgical acts signify.
Set beside this, the teaching of the Church is neither obscure nor negotiable. In Apostolicae Curae, Anglican orders are declared “absolutely null and utterly void.”⁴ In Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, it is taught definitively that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, a judgment confirmed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.⁵ The Council of Trent affirms Holy Orders as a true sacrament conferring an indelible character.⁶ Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi teaches that the hierarchical structure of the Church is divinely instituted and essential.⁷ Pope Leo XIII in Satis Cognitum insists that unity must rest upon full agreement in faith and sacramental life.⁸ Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos rejects forms of ecumenism that proceed by bracketing doctrinal truth.⁹ Even Unitatis Redintegratio insists that ecumenism must proceed “in fidelity to the truth.”¹⁰ Dominus Iesus reaffirms that communities lacking valid episcopate and Eucharist do not possess the Church in the proper sense.¹¹
This is the doctrinal framework. It is clear, consistent, and repeatedly reaffirmed.
What occurred at Canterbury stands in direct opposition to it.
A Catholic bishop reads Scripture within a rite that presumes a priesthood the Church says does not exist. A Cardinal prays within that same rite and then delivers papal congratulations to the one installed into an office the Church insists cannot be sacramentally real. A papal message is received within a ceremony whose central claim—the conferral of episcopal authority—is, in Catholic doctrine, a nullity.
This is not nuance. It is contradiction.
And it is presented as though it were edifying.
The faithful are not confused because the teaching is unclear. They are confused because the teaching is clear—and contradicted. They are told one thing and shown another, and then expected to reconcile the two without questioning either. They are instructed that apostolic succession is real, that Holy Orders are ontological, that the Church cannot alter their substance—and then shown, unmistakably, that these truths may be treated as negotiable in practice when circumstances demand it.
This is not pastoral care. It is institutional double-speak.
The modern term is gaslighting, and here it applies with precision. Reality is affirmed in one register and contradicted in another, and those who observe the contradiction are expected to question their perception rather than the coherence of what they are witnessing.
The symbolism compounds the problem. The ring given by Pope Paul VI to Michael Ramsey, once a carefully delimited gesture of goodwill, now appears in a context where it inevitably suggests continuity and recognition. Yet this is precisely what Catholic doctrine denies. The symbol affirms what the theology rejects.
And in such circumstances, the symbol prevails—because it is what is seen.
What renders the episode not merely incoherent but scandalous is the contrast it exposes. The same Catholic hierarchy willing to extend liturgical participation and public courtesy in this setting will not extend comparable recognition to the world’s traditional Catholic bishops—men who profess precisely the sacramental theology articulated at Trent and reaffirmed throughout the magisterium. They are not invited to proclaim Scripture, not welcomed to robe in choir, not incorporated into public rites. They are held at a distance.
Those who hold the Church’s doctrine without compromise are excluded. Those who reject it are received.
This is not inconsistency. It is inversion.
It is precisely this inversion that Pope Pius X identified in Pascendi Dominici Gregis: a system in which doctrine remains formally intact while its practical force is dissolved; where contradictions are not resolved but managed; where clarity is preserved in text and abandoned in action.
There was a time when such contradictions would have been resolved by clarity. Now they are managed by choreography.
One might have expected the work of Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission to prevent precisely this outcome. It assumed that unity required truth and that disagreements concerning ministry and authority were decisive. Yet developments—explicitly acknowledged even in contemporary Vatican commentary—have introduced irreconcilable divergence.¹² And yet the gestures continue, as though nothing definitive has occurred.
This is not ecumenism ordered to truth. It is ecumenism ordered to appearance.
The cost is borne by the faithful. They are required to hold together what cannot be reconciled: to affirm what they are taught while disregarding what they are shown; to accept that participation does not imply recognition even as it visibly does.
They are asked to ignore the evidence of their own eyes.
A more honest course would have required nothing extraordinary. Not denunciation, but coherence. A refusal to participate in what one does not recognise. A willingness to let absence speak where presence confuses. A recognition that charity without truth is not charity at all.
If doctrine binds, it must bind in action. If it does not bind in action, it will not bind in belief. And if it does not bind in belief, it will not bind at all.
If the Church believes what she teaches, she must act accordingly.
If she does not, then the problem is no longer ecumenical.
It is internal.
And it is grave.
¹ Order of Service / eyewitness reporting of Bishop Richard Moth proclaiming a lesson at the installation liturgy.
² Vatican News, “Pope Leo XIV sends message to Archbishop of Canterbury,” March 2026.
³ Archbishop of Canterbury / Lambeth Palace official report on installation and ecumenical participation.
⁴ Apostolicae Curae §36.
⁵ Ordinatio Sacerdotalis; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Responsum ad dubium (1995).
⁶ Council of Trent, Session XXIII.
⁷ Mystici Corporis Christi.
⁸ Satis Cognitum.
⁹ Mortalium Animos.
¹⁰ Unitatis Redintegratio §11.
¹¹ Dominus Iesus §17.
¹² Vatican News, reporting on ongoing Anglican–Catholic dialogue acknowledging “new differences,” March 2026.
Introduction: Courtesy and the Question of Christian Identity
In recent years a growing number of churches across Britain and Europe have hosted Ramadan iftars, the evening meal that breaks the Muslim fast during the holy month of Ramadan. In the United Kingdom such events have been held in Anglican cathedrals and parish churches as part of wider efforts at interfaith engagement and community cohesion.¹ Organisers frequently present them as gestures of friendship toward Muslim neighbours and as expressions of hospitality and shared values.
These motivations are usually sincere. Yet sincerity does not remove the deeper theological and canonical questions such events raise. When a church building—consecrated for Christian worship—becomes the venue for a religious observance associated with another faith, the issue is not merely social courtesy but the meaning and purpose of sacred space. What may appear at first glance to be a simple gesture of goodwill touches on long-standing Christian understandings of the Church, worship, and the public witness of the Gospel.
Misplaced Hospitality
Christian hospitality is a genuine virtue deeply embedded in the Gospel and the early life of the Church. The New Testament repeatedly emphasises the importance of welcoming the stranger and caring for those in need.² The Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts believers not to neglect hospitality, reminding them that “some have entertained angels unawares.”³ The early Christian communities became known throughout the Roman world for their charitable care of widows, the sick, and the poor.⁴
Yet Christian hospitality has always been understood as ordered toward charity and truth. The Church historically distinguished between welcoming individuals and participating in religious practices that contradict the Christian faith.⁵ Hospitality does not require the endorsement of theological claims that deny the central doctrines of Christianity.
Islam explicitly rejects several of these doctrines. The Qur’an denies that God has a Son and rejects the Trinity, declaring: “They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three.”⁶ Christianity, by contrast, proclaims the Triune nature of God and the divinity of Jesus Christ as the core of divine revelation.⁷ For this reason Ramadan is not merely a cultural festival but a religious observance embedded within a theological framework fundamentally different from that of Christianity.⁸
To host an iftar within a church setting therefore risks conveying the impression that Christians are not simply welcoming Muslim neighbours but participating in, or symbolically affirming, a religious practice rooted in a theology that explicitly denies the central claims of the Christian faith.
The Canonical Meaning of Sacred Space
The question becomes clearer when one considers the canonical status of church buildings. In both Catholic and Anglican traditions a church is not simply a gathering space but a place formally set apart for divine worship.
The Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church defines a church as “a sacred building designated for divine worship, to which the faithful have the right of access for the exercise, especially public exercise, of divine worship.”⁹ Canon law further states that within sacred places only those activities that “serve the exercise or promotion of worship, piety, and religion” are permitted, and that uses incompatible with the sanctity of the place are forbidden.¹⁰
Similarly, the Canons of the Church of England affirm that a consecrated church is set apart “for the worship of Almighty God and for no other purpose inconsistent with that worship.”¹¹ The canons further regulate how church buildings may be used, requiring ecclesiastical permission for activities not directly connected with Christian worship and emphasising that such uses must not compromise the sacred character of the building.¹²
These canonical principles reflect a long Christian tradition in which church buildings are treated as sacred spaces dedicated to the proclamation of Christ and the celebration of the sacraments.¹³
The Adhān: A Confession of Islamic Faith
The theological significance of church-hosted iftars becomes even clearer when one considers how Ramadan observance normally begins. The breaking of the daily fast traditionally follows the adhān, the Islamic call to prayer announcing the sunset prayer known as maghrib.¹⁴
The adhān is not simply a ceremonial introduction to a meal. It is a public proclamation of Islamic belief. Among its words are the declarations:
“I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.”
“I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”¹⁵
These statements are closely related to the shahāda, the foundational confession of Islam.¹⁶ The recitation of the adhān therefore marks the beginning of an act of Islamic worship rather than merely the start of a communal meal.
When the call to prayer is recited inside a church building, the space becomes the setting for the public proclamation of Islamic doctrine. This creates an obvious symbolic tension with the purpose of a church, which exists to proclaim the lordship of Jesus Christ and the saving truth of the Gospel.
Islamic Prayer and the Symbolism of Place
Islamic jurisprudence distinguishes between a permanent mosque (masjid) and a temporary place of prayer (musallā).¹⁷ A mosque normally requires formal dedication as a charitable religious endowment (waqf).¹⁸ The recitation of the call to prayer alone does not legally transform a building into a mosque.
Nevertheless the adhān has historically functioned as a powerful marker of Islamic religious presence. Early Islamic historical sources frequently record that when a city came under Muslim authority the first religious act was the proclamation of the call to prayer.¹⁹
Even today the recitation of the call to prayer indicates that a place has become a site of Islamic worship, even if only temporarily.²⁰ When the adhān is recited in a particular location, that place effectively functions as a setting for Islamic prayer.
If the call to prayer is recited within a Christian church, the building therefore becomes—at least for the duration of that act—a place where Islamic worship is publicly proclaimed. While the legal status of the building does not change, the symbolic message becomes difficult to ignore: a sanctuary dedicated to the worship of Christ is temporarily serving as a setting for the proclamation of another religion’s creed.
Unintended Religious Relativism
Events such as church-hosted iftars are often motivated by the desire to promote social harmony and mutual understanding. Yet the symbolism can easily suggest that the doctrinal differences between Christianity and Islam are merely superficial variations within a broader shared spirituality.
Historically Christianity has never understood itself in this way. The Church proclaims that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God and the unique mediator between God and humanity.²¹ The Gospel does not present Christ as one religious teacher among many but as the one through whom salvation is offered to the world.
When churches host religious observances rooted in a theology that denies these claims, the impression may arise that such differences are unimportant. The result can be an unintended form of religious relativism.
False Equivalence Between Religions
Closely related to this problem is the risk of false equivalence. Christianity and Islam make fundamentally different claims about the nature of God, the person of Christ, and the means of salvation.
Islam affirms strict monotheism (tawḥīd) and explicitly rejects the Trinity and the divine sonship of Christ.²² Christianity proclaims the Triune nature of God and the incarnation of the Word as the heart of divine revelation.²³
Presenting the ritual practices of the two traditions as interchangeable expressions of devotion risks obscuring the depth of this theological divergence. Genuine dialogue between religions requires honesty about differences rather than symbolic gestures that blur them.
The Question of Reciprocity
There is also a practical observation that cannot be ignored: the absence of genuine reciprocity in the use of sacred spaces.
In most mosques the prayer hall itself is strictly reserved for Islamic worship, and activities conducted there are expected to conform to Islamic norms governing the sanctity of the space.²⁴ Islamic jurisprudence generally treats the mosque as a place dedicated to ritual prayer (salāh) and the remembrance of God rather than a neutral venue for interreligious gatherings.
It would therefore be extremely unusual for a mosque to permit an ecumenical meal within its prayer hall. Christian prayers would not normally be allowed, and the proclamation of doctrines such as the Trinity or the divinity of Christ would be incompatible with the religious purpose of the space.²⁵ In addition, the customary norms of many mosques involve gender separation within prayer spaces, reflecting established Islamic practice.²⁶
The result is a striking asymmetry. Christian churches are frequently presented as open venues for the religious practices of other faiths, while Islamic sacred spaces typically maintain clear boundaries regarding the forms of worship permitted within them.
A More Authentic Lenten Witness
None of these concerns require hostility toward Muslims or opposition to peaceful coexistence. Christians are called to treat all people with charity and respect. Yet charity must remain rooted in truth.
The irony is particularly striking when such events occur during the Christian season of Lent, a period traditionally devoted to fasting, repentance, prayer, and almsgiving.²⁷
The prophet Isaiah famously describes the true fast as sharing bread with the hungry and bringing the homeless poor into one’s house.²⁸ For the Fathers of the Church this passage became central to understanding the meaning of the Lenten fast.
St John Chrysostom taught that fasting must be accompanied by mercy toward the poor and warned that fasting without charity is empty.²⁹ St Leo the Great likewise instructed the faithful that what Christians deny themselves through fasting should become sustenance for the needy.³⁰
Historically the Church’s Lenten discipline therefore involved almsgiving, charitable distributions of food, and care for the poor.³¹ Christ Himself provides the pattern: “When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”³²
When churches open their doors to feed the poor during Lent, the sacred space of the church is not being repurposed but fulfilled in its deepest vocation as the house of God and refuge of the needy.
Conclusion: Hospitality Ordered by Truth
The Church should never be afraid of kindness. But kindness must be ordered by truth. A church is not a neutral venue between religions but the house of God, dedicated to the proclamation of the Gospel and the worship of Christ.
When that identity becomes blurred—even in the name of goodwill—the Church risks forgetting the very purpose for which her sanctuaries were built.
At a deeper level, the phenomenon of church-hosted iftars reflects a broader cultural and theological shift that has affected many Christian communities in recent decades. The increasing influence of secularism, religious relativism, and a subjective emotionalism in matters of faith has encouraged the view that the Church’s primary role is to foster social harmony rather than to bear witness to the truth of the Gospel. In such a climate, symbolic gestures of inclusivity often take precedence over theological clarity.
Yet the Christian tradition has always insisted that charity and truth cannot be separated. A Church that becomes hesitant to affirm the distinctiveness of the faith entrusted to it inevitably weakens its own witness. When sacred spaces are treated as neutral venues for religious pluralism, the Church’s proclamation of Christ risks becoming indistinguishable from the surrounding culture.
The result is not greater relevance but the opposite. A Church that mirrors the assumptions of secular society eventually loses the very identity that once made it a moral and spiritual guide for that society. If Christian communities wish to remain credible in their mission and ministry, they must recover the confidence to preserve the integrity of their worship, their doctrine, and the sacred spaces dedicated to them.
It should also be noted that the concern raised here is not about the act of sharing food with Muslim neighbours itself. Hospitality between communities can be a good and constructive expression of civic friendship. If a parish wishes to host a meal during Ramadan in a church hall, parish centre, or other community space, such an event would not carry the same theological symbolism as holding it within a consecrated sanctuary. Community spaces exist precisely for social gatherings and shared civic life, and hosting an iftar in such a setting would avoid the confusion created when a sacred space dedicated to Christian worship becomes the venue for the rituals of another religion.
Hospitality toward all people is a Christian duty. But hospitality must always be shaped by the truth that the Church exists to proclaim: that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that the house dedicated to His worship is not a neutral hall of religious exchange but the place where the Gospel is proclaimed and the saving mystery of Christ is celebrated.
First published at Nuntiatoria
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By the Titular Archbishop of Selsey
From Co-Redemptrix to Mater Populi Fidelis: Pius XII and the New DDF Note
When Pope Pius XII wrote Mediator Dei in 1947, his purpose was to safeguard the integrity of Christian worship by reaffirming that all liturgical and devotional life flows from Christ the one Redeemer. Yet in that same encyclical, and later in Mystici Corporis and Ad Caeli Reginam, he articulated a luminous vision of Mary’s participation in redemption. She is the New Eve who offers her Son to the Father, uniting her maternal compassion to His sacrifice, and who continues to distribute the graces of that sacrifice to humanity. The Church therefore honoured her under the titles Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix Omnium Gratiarum — not as rivals to Christ, but as signs of her unique cooperation with Him in the order of grace.⁶
The new doctrinal note of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mater Populi Fidelis (4 November 2025), revisits these titles with a markedly different emphasis. It affirms Mary’s singular role in salvation history but declares the titles Corredentrice and Mediatrice di tutte le grazie “inopportune,” lest they “obscure the unique mediation of Christ.”⁷ Instead, it invites the faithful to contemplate her primarily as Mother of the Faithful People — a maternal symbol of accompaniment rather than a formal participant in redemption.
Doctrinal Continuity and the Change of Accent
Pius XII taught:
Ipsa cum Filio suo patienti doluit, ac pro nobis se obtulit, ac pro salute humani generis sua materna iura ac maternum amorem immolavit. — Mystici Corporis Christi, §106
“She suffered with her Son, offering Him for us and immolating her maternal rights and love for the salvation of mankind.”¹
In this conception, Mary’s cooperation is real, causal, and meritorious by divine association: she cooperates in the act of redemption, though wholly dependent on the Redeemer. Likewise, Mediator Dei insists that “Christ is the one and only Mediator between God and men,” yet acknowledges that “Mary’s mediation shares in His and draws all its efficacy from it.”²
By contrast, Mater Populi Fidelis states:
L’uso del titolo di Corredentrice è teologicamente improprio, poiché rischia di oscurare la singolare mediazione del Redentore.
“The use of the title Co-Redemptrix is theologically inappropriate, as it risks obscuring the unique mediation of the Redeemer.”³
The Note does not deny Mary’s cooperation but recasts it as discipleship and maternal empathy — a “participation of faith and love” rather than of redemptive causality. Its emphasis is relational, not metaphysical; experiential, not ontological.
From Participation to Accompaniment: A Disincarnate Shift
Here the issue runs deeper than terminology. The Incarnation itself is the divine charter of participation: Deus homo factus est ut homo fieret Deus — God became man that man might become God.⁸ By assuming our nature, the Son did not merely draw near to humanity; He redeemed through humanity. Every act of grace therefore presupposes human cooperation elevated by grace — not human passivity.
Mary’s role in the Incarnation reveals this mystery in its fullness. By freely giving her consent for God’s Son to take flesh in her womb, she became the living bridge between heaven and earth. Through her “yes,” the Word truly became man, and by sharing in His suffering and love, the human nature He took from her became the very instrument of our salvation.⁹ God chose not to save us apart from humanity, but through it — and Mary’s cooperation shows how human freedom, united with divine grace, becomes the means by which redemption enters the world.
Mary’s fiat and her suffering at Calvary embody this incarnational realism. Through her consent, the humanity the Word assumed is offered back to the Father. Pius XII’s vocabulary of Co-Redemptrix safeguarded that truth: God’s redemptive will operates through a human will perfectly conformed to His own.
Mater Populi Fidelis, by reducing cooperation to empathy, risks turning that mystery inside out. If Mary’s role is merely affective, then the human instrumentality of redemption is blurred. Grace becomes a gesture of divine proximity rather than a transformation of human nature. In place of metaphysical participation stands psychological association — Mary as companion, not co-operator. This subtle disincarnation endangers not only Mariology but Christology itself, for the whole meaning of the Incarnation is that the divine and human truly act together in one salvific economy.
St Leo the Great expressed the principle: Agit enim utraque forma cum alterius communione quod proprium est.⁴ “Each nature performs what is proper to it, in communion with the other.” The Incarnation therefore enshrines cooperation as the structure of salvation itself. To diminish Mary’s participation is to obscure how God’s work continues through His creatures — and how the Church herself is the prolongation of the Word made flesh.
Tradition and the Risk of Reduction
The Note rightly warns against confusion or exaggeration, yet it risks overcorrection. The faithful have long understood that Co-Redemptrix implies dependence, not equality — the cooperation of the New Eve with the New Adam. To silence that language is to weaken the incarnational principle: that divine grace truly employs human freedom as its instrument. The faithful cease to see that their sufferings and prayers can be united to Christ’s redemptive act; the Marian model becomes sentiment rather than sacrament.
The Church’s lex orandi has always proclaimed otherwise: Stabat Mater dolorosa, iuxta crucem lacrimosa, dum pendebat Filius. Devotion to Mary as Co-Redemptrix does not rival the Cross — it magnifies its fruit in the human heart.
Mary Between Doctrine and Diplomacy
The title Mater Populi Fidelis is pastorally tender but diplomatically safe. It mirrors the modern preference for inclusive imagery over metaphysical definition. Yet the Church cannot live by diplomacy alone. Doctrinal language is not a barrier to charity but its guardian. As Pius XII reminded the faithful, “The truths of faith are not obstacles to unity but its foundation.”⁵
To obscure Mary’s co-redemptive office is, indirectly, to weaken the Church’s understanding of her own share in Christ’s saving work. For as the Fathers taught, quod Maria cooperata est in carne, Ecclesia cooperatur in Spiritu — what Mary accomplished in the flesh, the Church continues in the Spirit.¹² The Dicastery’s caution is understandable; its pastoral intent is genuine. Yet beneath every pastoral formula lies a doctrinal reality. The Mother of the Faithful People remains, in the deeper order of grace, the Co-Redemptrix of mankind — not because she redeems with Christ as equal, but because she uniquely, surrendering her body and will – cooperated and allowed His redemption to materialise and be affected through her.
¹ Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, §106 (29 June 1943).
² Pius XII, Mediator Dei, §84 (20 November 1947).
³ Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mater Populi Fidelis (4 Nov 2025), §15 (Ital.).
⁴ Leo I, Sermo 28 De Nativitate Domini, §3.
⁵ Pius XII, Address to the Ecumenical Congress of Assisi (1955).
⁶ Pius XII, Ad Caeli Reginam, §§34–39 (11 October 1954).
⁷ Vatican Press Office, “Nota Dottrinale Mater Populi Fidelis,” (4 November 2025), press.vatican.va.
⁸ Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, §54.
⁹ Luke 1:38; cf. Lumen Gentium, §§56–57.
¹⁰ Pius XII, Allocution to the Marian Congress of Buenos Aires (1954).
¹¹ Sequence Stabat Mater, Missale Romanum (1570).
¹² Augustine, Sermo 25 de Sanctis, PL 46, 937.
Fidelitas in Tenebris — Faithfulness in the Darkness
When a confessor of the Faith departs this life, the Church traditionally lifts her voice in gratitude. The names of those who suffered for Christ were once read aloud in the sacred liturgy, placed in the diptychs of memory, and inscribed in stone. But now, as Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo of Zhengding is laid to rest, the silence of Rome falls heavier than any bell.
This man, who bore imprisonment, torture, and solitude for loyalty to the See of Peter, died on 29 October 2025 at the age of ninety-one. Yet the Vatican has offered no tribute, no acknowledgment, not even a prayer of public record. The world barely noticed, but Heaven has already received a saintly soul. The question remains: why does the Church on earth act as if such faithfulness were an embarrassment?
The confessor of Zhengding
Bishop Jia was born in 1934 in Hebei, a region where Catholic faith has endured wave upon wave of persecution. From his youth he learned that the Cross was not an ornament but a destiny. He entered seminary amid the tightening coils of Maoist repression, and in 1963 he was arrested for refusing to break communion with Rome. Fifteen years he spent in prison, enduring brutal interrogations and isolation. His cell was once deliberately flooded, leaving him crippled with pain — yet he would not deny the Pope.¹
Released in 1978, he was ordained a priest two years later, and clandestinely consecrated a bishop in 1981 by the heroic Bishop Joseph Fan Xueyan of Baoding — who would himself die under house arrest.² For more than four decades, Bishop Jia shepherded the faithful of Zhengding without recognition, without protection, and often without even freedom of movement. His people, numbering more than a million and a half, looked to him as a father who shared their chains.³
He founded an orphanage for abandoned children — one of many quiet works of mercy performed by underground clergy. When the authorities demolished it in 2020 for lacking state approval, he answered with prayer, not protest. He knew that persecution, borne with patience, preaches more eloquently than speeches. His flock loved him for that serenity. When he was last arrested in 2020, on the eve of the Assumption, they gathered to pray the Rosary in secret, confident that their shepherd would again emerge unbroken.
The underground Church
To understand his witness, one must grasp the nature of the underground Church in China. These are Catholics who refused to join the state-controlled Patriotic Association, which since 1957 has claimed to be the “Chinese Catholic Church” independent of Rome. They are loyal to the Successor of Peter and to the universal Magisterium, yet their loyalty costs them their liberty. They celebrate the sacraments in hidden chapels, move from house to house to avoid surveillance, and raise their children knowing that Baptism might one day demand blood.
Pius XII foresaw their plight. In Ad Sinarum Gentem (1954) he warned that “no one can serve two masters: Christ and the state cannot both claim the allegiance of the same heart.”⁴ He urged Chinese Catholics to resist all attempts to build a national church apart from Rome, promising them that fidelity would one day be vindicated. That vindication has yet to come.
When the Holy See entered its secret “provisional agreement” with Beijing in 2018, many hoped it would secure the recognition of faithful bishops and end the long agony of division. Instead, the opposite occurred. The government continued to appoint bishops without papal approval, the faithful underground continued to suffer harassment, and Rome, bound by its own diplomacy, uttered few protests.⁵
The diplomacy of silence
Why has the Vatican not spoken of Bishop Jia? The answer, we are told, lies in diplomacy. Rome, anxious to maintain its fragile accord with the Chinese state, avoids words that might offend. But this policy of silence betrays a profound theological amnesia. The Church is not a political actor negotiating coexistence between powers; she is the mystical Body of Christ, called to bear witness to truth even when inconvenient.
Paul VI, in Evangelii Nuntiandi, declared that “there is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom, and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth are not proclaimed.”⁶ By the same measure, there is no true diplomacy that obscures the martyrs’ confession. When bishops and priests are imprisoned for fidelity to the Pope, the successor of Peter cannot remain mute without obscuring his own office.
Silence toward tyrants becomes complicity. Pius XII spoke plainly during earlier persecutions: “The Church has no desire to dominate, but neither will she be silent when the rights of conscience are violated.”⁷ To honour Bishop Jia publicly would be to declare that conscience still matters. To ignore him is to suggest that communion is negotiable.
A Church divided within herself
There is a deeper tragedy in this silence. The very allegiance for which the underground bishops suffered has become the pretext for their abandonment. They resisted the regime because they would not renounce Rome. Now Rome, in its pursuit of compromise, turns its gaze elsewhere. They are too Roman for Beijing and too Chinese for the Curia — witnesses without patrons.
Many of them live under house arrest or in hiding. Priests who refuse to register with the Patriotic Association are stripped of their churches, fined, or imprisoned. Yet they continue to celebrate the Mass in secret, reciting the Canon that unites them to Peter. They pray for the Pope even when he forgets them. Their fidelity has outlasted every persecution, but it has not been met with gratitude.
When Rome speaks of “inculturation” or “synodality,” it often forgets that true communion is forged in suffering, not in bureaucratic consensus. The underground Church of China is not a relic of the Cold War but a living reminder that faith has enemies, both open and subtle. They do not seek political privilege — only to be recognised as Catholic.
Faith stronger than the State
The authorities may imprison bishops, but they cannot imprison the faith. Tertullian, addressing the pagan Empire, wrote: “The more you mow us down, the more we grow; the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians.”⁸ In China that paradox remains visible. Every raid on a house-church drives the faithful deeper into conviction; every arrest exposes the fragility of an atheistic state that fears prayer more than protest.
Bishop Jia’s diocese of Zhengding stands as a symbol of that indestructible faith. Decades of harassment have not destroyed it. Young men still discern priestly vocations; families still catechise their children by candlelight; the Eucharist is still adored in makeshift tabernacles hidden from state eyes. This endurance refutes the illusion that faith can be negotiated.
The shadow of modern indifference
Yet persecution alone cannot wound the Church as deeply as indifference can. In former centuries, martyrs faced the fury of pagan emperors; now confessors face the apathy of their own brethren. Western Catholics, preoccupied with ideological fashions and ecclesial politics, scarcely glance toward Asia. The suffering Church is no longer fashionable.
In the halls of the Vatican, words like “dialogue” and “mutual understanding” are spoken with reverence. But dialogue without truth becomes the language of surrender. To negotiate with a regime that imprisons bishops while silencing those who defend them is to trade the Cross for comfort. It was not for such an accommodation that Bishop Jia endured his chains.
When he was ordained, he promised to “preach the Gospel in season and out of season.”⁹ That promise included the risk of death. His fidelity reveals how far much of the modern Church has drifted from the radicalism of its own vows. The Cross is no longer preached as the price of discipleship but as a metaphor for difficulty.
The forgotten testimony
The faithful of Zhengding issued a statement upon his death: “Your heart as a pastor never changed. Even when arrested and imprisoned, you continued to care for the flock, preserving the flame of hope in the darkest nights.”¹⁰ That simple tribute contains more theology than a dozen curial statements. It recalls the image of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep — not the hireling who flees when the wolves approach.
In ancient Rome, confessors who survived persecution were revered almost as martyrs. Their names were commemorated, their tombs visited. Bishop Jia belongs to that lineage of confessors: not slain, yet wholly consumed in the offering of fidelity. To forget him is to forget what the priesthood means.
The underground Church of China is not an embarrassment but a mirror. In its humility we see what the Church universal has lost — courage, clarity, and the readiness to suffer for truth. Its priests know that every Mass might be their last. Its faithful understand that the price of Communion may be a prison cell. That is what it means to believe in the Incarnate Word when words are forbidden.
Lament for a silent Rome
It would have been a simple act — a telegram, a brief note, a prayer from the window of the Apostolic Palace. Instead, the Vatican remained still. Perhaps officials feared that even the name of Bishop Jia would irritate Beijing. But what does it profit a Church to gain the favour of princes and lose her confessors?
Saint Ambrose once said, “The Church’s glory is the suffering of her bishops.”¹¹ By that measure, China’s underground Church is glorious indeed. But that glory shames the worldly prudence that now governs Rome. In neglecting her confessors, the Church risks exchanging her birthright for a bowl of political lentils.
The lament is not only for Bishop Jia but for what his silence reveals: a Church hesitant to speak when truth costs. The Lord promised that the gates of hell would not prevail, but He did not promise that cowardice would not wound. Fidelity remains, shining in the darkness — but from Rome, only silence.
¹ Cardinal Kung Foundation, Biographical Note on Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo (2025).
² AsiaNews, “Bishop Joseph Fan Xueyan and the Bishops of the Underground Church,” 2011.
³ UCANews, “Bishop Jia of Zhengding dies at 91,” 30 Oct 2025.
⁴ Pius XII, Ad Sinarum Gentem, n. 17 (7 Oct 1954).
⁵ Holy See Press Office, “Provisional Agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China on the Appointment of Bishops,” 22 Sep 2018; see also Cardinal Joseph Zen, For Love of My People I Will Not Remain Silent (Ignatius Press, 2019).
⁶ Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 22 (8 Dec 1975).
⁷ Pius XII, Allocution to the Sacred College, 24 Dec 1949.
⁸ Tertullian, Apologeticum, c. 50.
⁹ 2 Timothy 4:2.
¹⁰ Statement of the Catholic community of Zhengding, quoted in AsiaNews, 30 Oct 2025.
¹¹ St Ambrose, Epistula extra collectionem 11, PL 16: 1154.
By the Titular Archbishop of Selsey
When the Church trades doctrine for dialogue,
she risks mistaking noise for the Holy Ghost.
During his Jubilee of Hope, Pope Leo XIV has sought to cast a universal vision of renewal: a Church of accompaniment, dialogue, and missionary openness. Yet what should have been an anthem of divine certainty has become an ode to uncertainty. The tone of his address to the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies was not apostolic but anthropological—not the voice of Peter confirming his brethren but that of a moderator convening a forum.
Rome once sent missionaries to convert the nations; now it sends facilitators to listen to them. Once the Church proclaimed that she alone possessed the fullness of revelation, today she hesitates even to say that truth can be known. Under Leo XIV, the “Church of listening” risks becoming a Church of forgetting—forgetting her own authority, her divine commission, and her supernatural identity.
This is the paradox of the modern pontificate. While the Vatican adorns itself with banners proclaiming “Hope,” it offers a hope emptied of content—a hope whose object is no longer salvation through truth but coexistence through conversation. The Apostle’s command, “Preach the word, be instant in season and out of season,” has been replaced by the bureaucrat’s dictum: “Let us listen together.”
The present crisis is not one of governance alone but of essence. What kind of Church believes it must seek the truth when her Founder declared, “I am the Truth”? The danger is no longer external persecution but internal dissolution—the slow surrender of doctrine to dialogue.
A New Gospel of Synodality
On 24 October 2025, Pope Leo XIV stood before more than two thousand delegates in the Paul VI Hall and announced that the Church “is not looking for a uniform model.” He explained that “synodality will not come with a template where everybody and every country will say, ‘This is how you do it.’ It is rather a conversion to a spirit of being Church, of being missionary, and of building up the family of God.”² Later that evening, within St Peter’s itself, he made his most startling declaration: “No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and seek it together.”³
Those who applauded heard humility; those who wept heard apostasy. For if the Church no longer claims to possess the truth, she ceases to be its guardian. Leo’s words dissolve the very distinction that defines Catholic identity—the difference between the Church that teaches and the world that must be taught. “No one possesses the whole truth” may sound pastoral, but it negates the promise of Christ that His Spirit would lead the Church “into all truth.”⁴
A Church that must seek truth alongside the world has ceased to be the world’s light. She no longer teaches but consults, no longer judges but surveys, no longer baptises the nations but immerses herself in their confusion. Her new commandment seems to be: “Go into all the world and hold dialogue with every creature.”
From Revelation to Conversation
According to the Synod Office, the purpose of this Jubilee was to “translate the orientations of the Synod’s Final Document into pastoral and structural choices consistent with the synodal nature of the Church.”⁵ Leo described synodality as “a way of being Church… not a campaign but an attitude, beginning with learning to listen.”⁶ He urged patience with those “not yet capable to understand,” encouraged “formation at every educational level,” and praised the “growth of regional groupings of churches as expressions of communion.”⁷
Even the question of women’s participation was reframed not in terms of revealed order but cultural adaptation, as the Pope spoke of promoting “a culture of co-participation” in societies where women “are considered second-class citizens.”⁸ In every line the theological foundation gives way to sociological language. The Church’s identity, once defined by her relation to God, is now described by her relation to culture.
This is the new ecclesiology: revelation replaced by process, doctrine by discernment, faith by feedback. The Church no longer speaks from authority but seeks validation from experience. Her image shifts from the Bride of Christ to a human family endlessly negotiating its terms of cohabitation.
The Warning Voices
Among the hierarchy, the most urgent warnings come from those who remember that the Church’s authority descends from heaven, not consensus. Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, writing with the clarity of a confessor, warned that “two opposing visions” now compete within the Church: one hierarchical and apostolic, founded by Christ upon the apostles and their successors; the other democratic and undefined, a “people’s Church” inventing its own mission. “If the latter prevails,” he cautioned, “even the doctrine of faith and the discipline of moral life may change.”⁹
Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who once headed the very congregation charged with guarding doctrine, went further, describing the synodal process as “a hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ,” designed to prepare Catholics to accept false teaching under the guise of reform.¹⁰ Theologian Larry Chapp, though less severe, noted that a truly synodal Church “would require the rediscovery of the Cross as the only guarantee of unity”—a rediscovery conspicuously absent from synodal language.¹¹
These voices are not reactionary; they are prophetic. They remind the faithful that communion without truth is not unity but illusion. A Church that listens without teaching soon forgets what she was sent to proclaim.
The Voice of Tradition
The perennial magisterium has already spoken against these illusions. In 1906, Pope St Pius X taught in Vehementer Nos that “the Church is essentially an unequal society, comprising two orders of persons, the Pastors and the flock. The duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors.”¹² This was not arrogance but humility: the obedience of faith before divine order. The Church’s hierarchy is not a human invention but a reflection of heaven’s own structure, where authority serves truth and truth sanctifies authority.
Leo XIV’s language inverts that divine hierarchy. His “participatory Church” imagines authority that rises from below rather than descending from above. Bishops become moderators, priests become facilitators, and the Pope becomes the chairman of an ecclesial roundtable. The magisterium ceases to be a voice and becomes an echo. The Church that once converted the world now asks the world to help her discern what she believes.
A Crisis of Definition
In former ages the Church resolved tension by defining doctrine. The Councils of Nicaea, Trent, and Vatican I all brought peace through clarity. Today’s Church prolongs tension as a sign of vitality, mistaking unresolved contradiction for the breath of the Spirit. The Church Life Journal at Notre Dame noted the danger: “Critics of the synodal project fear that doctrinal decision-making may become obscure and unaccountable, blurring distinctions between ordained and lay authority.”¹³
It is precisely such obscurity that corrodes faith. If synodality is merely a “way of being,” then truth becomes elastic and unity accidental. Catholic Culture observed that the organisers of the Synod “could not answer basic questions—what exactly will change, or must change—betraying the danger of a Church walking without knowing the way.”¹⁴ The image is apt: a pilgrim people wandering in circles, congratulating themselves on their sense of motion.
Modernism Revisited
The ghosts of Modernism have returned, speaking the language of synodality. Pius X condemned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis the idea that truth evolves through human experience, calling it “the synthesis of all heresies.” Leo XIV’s claim that “no one possesses the whole truth” is that same heresy with a smile. It cloaks skepticism in the garments of humility.
Even Commonweal, sympathetic to synodal ideals, admitted that critics of the process are “not entirely wrong to fear that, if the magisterium ceases to claim possession of truth, Catholic identity itself is imperilled.”¹⁵ When even the progressive press recognises that the Church risks forgetting who she is, the warning has become universal.
The Lay Reaction
Among the faithful, reaction has been both articulate and anguished. Many sense instinctively that something essential is being lost. American journalist and traditional Catholic commentator Chris Jackson, writing in Hiraeth in Exile, described the Jubilee liturgy as “a Church that no longer teaches but takes minutes,” a powerful metaphor for the paralysis of authority.¹⁸
At Catholic Vote, Joshua Mercer warned that “synodality, if detached from revelation, becomes a process of perpetual self-reference, a Church listening to herself rather than to God.”¹⁹ Meanwhile, Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture observed that “a Church that listens to everyone will soon obey the loudest,” while Eric Sammons of Crisis Magazine remarked that “the rhetoric of dialogue too easily replaces the duty to proclaim.”²⁰
These lay critics do not speak from bitterness but from love of the faith handed down to them. They long for shepherds who will lead, not facilitators who will facilitate. Their collective anxiety stems from fidelity, not rebellion. They fear that, as one English layman put it after reading the papal text, “the shepherds have traded the crozier for the microphone.”
The Church That Listens to Herself
Synodality has made the Church introspective. Having ceased to listen to the Word of God, she listens now to her own echo. The act of listening—once the path to obedience—has become a substitute for belief. Certainty is portrayed as pride, while doubt is called humility. Dogma is dismissed as rigidity; confusion is rebranded as compassion. Under this logic, the shepherd who refuses to speak is praised as pastoral.
Cardinal Müller’s warning resounds: “Pastoral relativism leads to theological collapse.”¹⁶ When truth becomes pastoral preference, the Church’s moral authority disintegrates. The salt loses its savour. What began as the “walking together” of synodality risks becoming a march into the wilderness, where every voice is equal and none is divine.
A Call to Clarity
If Leo XIV’s words are to bear fruit, it will be only by forcing a return to fundamentals. The Church is not an experiment in religious coexistence but the divine institution of salvation. She does not assemble truth by consensus but receives it by revelation. She does not evolve through dialogue but is purified through conversion.
Pius XI declared in Mortalium Animos that “the unity of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ.”¹⁷ That unity presupposes truth possessed, not sought. The Church that seeks truth as though she did not have it has already lost her faith in the promises of Christ.
Conclusion: Beyond the Babel
We stand again at Babel’s threshold, where the multiplication of voices masquerades as vitality. A synodal Church, ever talking and never teaching, risks becoming a Church “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” The true reform the Church requires is not methodological but moral: repentance, not process; sanctity, not strategy; conversion, not conversation.
If Pope Leo XIV would truly renew the Church, let him begin where all true renewal begins—on his knees before the crucifix. Let him set aside the microphones of dialogue and take up the keys of Peter. The world does not need another symposium; it needs salvation. The faithful do not hunger for a new model of synodality; they hunger for the living Bread of doctrine, the unchanging truth that sanctifies and saves.
Only when the Church rediscovers her voice as the Bride of Christ will the confusion end. Only when she proclaims again that she possesses the truth, because she belongs to Him who is the Truth, will the world once more hear the Word of God in her preaching. The Church must again be the pillar and ground of truth—or she will be buried beneath the ruins of her own synodal Babel.
¹ 1 Timothy 3:15
² CNA, Pope Leo XIV: There’s No Template for Synodality Across All Countries (25 Oct 2025)
³ Vatican News, Jubilee of Synodal Teams: Pope Calls for Humble Search for Truth (24 Oct 2025)
⁴ John 16:13
⁵ Synod Office communiqué, 25 Oct 2025
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ ACI Africa, Pope Leo XIV on Women and Synodality (25 Oct 2025)
⁹ Cardinal Joseph Zen, How Will the Synod Continue and End? (2024)
¹⁰ Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, interview in Die Tagespost (Oct 2022)
¹¹ Larry Chapp, The Pillar (Oct 2025)
¹² Pope St Pius X, Vehementer Nos (1906)
¹³ Church Life Journal, “Should We Be Skeptical About Synodality?” (Mar 2023)
¹⁴ Catholic Culture, “The Dangerous Spirit of Synodality” (Nov 2024)
¹⁵ Commonweal, “Synodality and Catholic Amnesia” (Apr 2024)
¹⁶ Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, interview with Catholic World Report (2023)
¹⁷ Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos (1928)
¹⁸ Chris Jackson, Hiraeth in Exile, “The Synodal Séance” (28 Oct 2025)
¹⁹ Joshua Mercer, Catholic Vote editorial on synodality (Nov 2024)
²⁰ Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture commentary (Nov 2024); Eric Sammons, Crisis Magazine analysis (Feb 2025)
