Category: Pastoral Epistles

“Non est bonum esse hominem solum”
A pastoral epistle for Septuagesima 2026

To the clergy, religious, and faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate,
and to all those who seek to preserve the Catholic faith in its integrity and fullness:
grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Carissimi

“It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen 2:18), as the Church enters the ancient season of Septuagesima, she does not yet command us to fast, but she does command us to remember. She places us, deliberately and soberly, at the threshold of Lent. The alleluias fall silent. The liturgy grows restrained. We are reminded that we live east of Eden, that the world is wounded, and that man does not naturally dwell in harmony—with God, with others, or even with himself.

Septuagesima is a season of realism. Before the discipline of Lent begins, the Church teaches us why discipline is necessary at all.

We live in an age that speaks endlessly of freedom and yet suffers deeply from isolation. Loneliness has become one of the most pervasive features of modern life—experienced not only by the elderly or the marginalised, but by the young, the educated, and the materially secure. Families fracture. Friendships thin. Communities weaken. Many find themselves surrounded by people, yet profoundly alone.¹

This loneliness is not merely a social inconvenience. It is a spiritual wound.

In recent years, this wound has been sharply deepened by the experience of the COVID lockdowns. For long months, ordinary patterns of human life were suspended. Families were separated, the elderly isolated, children removed from peers, and communal worship interrupted. What was presented as a temporary emergency measure has left enduring marks on the human psyche—marks that have not simply disappeared with the lifting of restrictions.²

For many, especially the young, formative years were spent in enforced isolation at precisely the stage of life when identity, trust, and social confidence are normally forged through embodied relationship. Screens replaced presence. Distance replaced affection. Even now, the after-effects linger: anxiety, social withdrawal, difficulty forming relationships, and a pervasive sense of disconnection.³

These effects are not unprecedented. They have long been observed wherever communion is deliberately removed.

Those who minister in prisons have known for decades what prolonged isolation does to the human soul. Psychological and pastoral observation alike confirm that extended solitary confinement produces disorientation, anxiety, emotional blunting, and lasting harm.⁴ This is not a rhetorical comparison. It is a moral insight.

Man was never designed to endure prolonged isolation without damage. Whether imposed by punishment, policy, illness, or fear, separation from human communion erodes the person. What prisons demonstrate in extremis, modern society has now experienced more broadly.⁵

Septuagesima helps us understand why. It reminds us that man’s struggle is not merely social or psychological, but theological. We are wounded because communion has been fractured—and because we have forgotten what communion is for.

At the heart of this crisis lies a forgotten truth: the human person is created for communion. Not for isolation. Not for self-construction. Not for solitary autonomy. From the beginning, God declares: It is not good that man should be alone (Gen 2:18). This is not sentiment; it is anthropology.⁶

God Himself is not solitary.
He is eternal communion: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—distinct, yet perfectly united in love. Creation flows not from divine lack, but from divine abundance. To be made in the image and likeness of God is therefore to be ordered toward relationship—toward communion with God and with one another.⁷

Loneliness, therefore, is not healed by distraction, stimulation, or self-expression. It is healed only by restored communion. The experiences of lockdown isolation and prison confinement testify to this with painful clarity. Remove communion for long enough, and the soul begins to fracture.⁸

Yet our culture increasingly teaches the opposite. Dependence is framed as weakness. Obligation is treated as oppression. Fulfilment is presented as radical self-definition. Family bonds are reduced to preference. Inheritance is cast as a burden. In the name of freedom, many are quietly severed from the very relationships that make freedom livable.⁹

The lockdowns did not create this mentality, but they intensified it. Isolation was normalised. Withdrawal was moralised. Presence itself was treated as a risk. For many—especially the young—this confirmed an already growing suspicion of embodied community. What began as an emergency hardened into habit. Relearning how to belong has proved harder than expected.¹⁰

The breakdown of the family is one of the clearest signs of this rupture. The family is not a social arrangement or lifestyle option. It is the primary school of communion. It is where the human person first learns sacrifice, authority, belonging, and love—where identity is received before it is chosen, and freedom is formed through responsibility.¹¹

Family breakdown today often occurs even where families remain physically intact. The fracture is not always absence, but mediation. Screens, devices, and algorithm-driven environments quietly displace shared meals, conversation, and attention. Presence remains, but communion fades.

Research consistently shows that heavy, unstructured use of internet-connected devices correlates with social alienation, diminished empathy, weakened family bonds, and increased psychological distress.¹² Children increasingly turn not to parents or parish, but to online figures—“influencers” and digital communities—for belonging and moral formation. These do not merely entertain; they catechise.¹³

Alongside digital saturation, parental absence in its many modern forms—divorce, single parenthood, economic overwork, irregular schedules, and chronic time poverty—further erodes family communion. The causes differ. The effects are strikingly consistent.

Children need more than provision. They need presence—predictable, attentive, emotionally engaged presence. Where this is fragmented or absent, vulnerability to anxiety, insecurity, and external influence increases markedly.¹⁴ Even where material provision is adequate, the loss of shared rhythms and stable relational authority leaves a formative gap that cannot easily be filled.¹⁵

Even in intact families, modern work patterns increasingly function as a form of absence. Long hours and constant connectivity steadily erode shared meals, conversation, and intergenerational time—activities repeatedly shown to protect mental health and social development.¹⁶

The Domestic Church as the School of Communion

If the family has been wounded by isolation and fragmentation, it is also within the family that healing must ordinarily begin. The Church has long spoken of the Christian household as the domestic Church—not as a metaphor, but as a lived reality. The family is the first place where the Gospel is practised before it is explained, and where communion is learned through habit as much as instruction.

In an age marked by disconnection, the ordinary life of a Catholic family becomes quietly countercultural. It does not argue against isolation; it simply lives otherwise.

This witness is profoundly ordinary. It is built through shared practices that form the soul over time: common meals, common prayer, shared reading and study, conversation, work, rest, and recreation. These are not optional embellishments. They are the ordinary means by which human beings learn how to belong.

The shared family meal is among the most powerful acts of resistance to fragmentation. Gathered around a table, without distraction, families learn patience, attentiveness, gratitude, and restraint. Conversation unfolds across generations. Research consistently associates regular family meals with improved mental health, reduced risk behaviours, stronger academic outcomes, and greater emotional resilience in children and adolescents.¹⁷

Family prayer anchors the household in its true centre. Whether through the Rosary, Scripture, simple forms of the Divine Office, or nightly prayer, families who pray together learn that life is received, not manufactured. Shared religious practice within the home is associated with greater psychological stability, stronger moral formation, and increased resilience in children and adolescents.¹⁸

Shared reading and study deepen this communion further. When families read together—Scripture, history, the lives of the saints, or serious literature—they enter a common narrative larger than themselves. Shared reading correlates with improved language development, attention, empathy, and long-term educational outcomes, while also strengthening relational bonds.¹⁹

Time spent together without agenda—play, work, and simple presence—is equally essential. Such time cannot be replaced by devices or programmes. It is here that children learn humour, forgiveness, perseverance, and the art of living with others who are not curated to their preferences.²⁰

None of this requires perfection. Catholic family life is not an idealised image free from tension or fatigue. It is a school of charity precisely because it involves weakness and perseverance. Fidelity, not flawlessness, is what bears fruit.

When lived consistently, the domestic Church bears visible fruit beyond the household. Children formed in stable, prayerful families tend to exhibit greater emotional security and stronger identity. Guests notice the atmosphere. Friends are drawn to the peace that arises not from ease, but from order. In this way, families evangelise without slogans.

Septuagesima prepares us to reclaim this vision. As Lent approaches, the Church calls families not first to extraordinary penances, but to renewed fidelity in ordinary life. The restoration of communion begins at home. From ordered households, wounded communities are healed.

The Church does not respond to this crisis with condemnation, but with truth and mercy. She knows that many carry wounds they did not choose: isolation, loss, fear, interrupted education, incarceration, broken routines, and fractured relationships. Communion cannot be commanded into existence, and it cannot be rebuilt overnight. But it can be healed—patiently and concretely—when grace is received and relationships are restored.²¹

Christ does not save isolated individuals. He gathers. He forms a Body. He establishes a household of faith in which no one is meant to stand alone. The Church herself is not an institution added onto belief; she is the sacrament of communion—where divine life is shared and human bonds are restored.²²

Communion is not a sentimental ideal; it is the motivation and the goal of the Gospel. Christ dies not merely to forgive sins, but to reconcile—to God and to one another. Lent will school us in this reconciliation. Septuagesima prepares us to recognise our need for it.

As we stand at the threshold of the holy season, the Church invites us to ask difficult but necessary questions. Where has communion been lost in our lives? Where have we substituted isolation for freedom, distraction for presence, autonomy for love?

May we enter Lent with honesty, humility, and courage—ready to labour again in the vineyard, not as isolated workers, but as a people restored to communion in Christ.

Oremus pro invicem.

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
S. Martinæ Virginis et Martyris MMXXVI A.D.

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1. Office for National Statistics (UK), Loneliness—What characteristics and circumstances are associated with feeling lonely?; Cigna Group, Loneliness Index (2018–2023).
2. World Health Organization, Considerations for Quarantine in the Context of COVID-19 (2020).
3. Loades et al., “Impact of Social Isolation on Children and Adolescents,” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 59 (2020).
4. Stuart Grassian, “Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement,” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 22 (2006).
5. Haney, “Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary Confinement,” Crime & Delinquency 49 (2003).
6. Genesis 2:18; Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, IX.
7. Augustine, De Trinitate, I–IV.
8. Cacioppo & Patrick, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection (2008).
9. Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (1992).
10. NHS England, Mental Health of Children and Young People (2022).
11. Catechism of the Catholic Church §§2201–2206.
12. Twenge, iGen (2017); Orben & Przybylski, Nature Human Behaviour 3 (2019).
13. Livingstone et al., Children, Risk and Safety Online (Policy Press, 2012).
14. Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1 (1969); Lamb (ed.), The Role of the Father in Child Development (Wiley, 2010).
15. Amato, “Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children,” Journal of Marriage and Family 62 (2000).
16. Fiese et al., “Family Mealtimes: A Contextual Approach,” Journal of Family Psychology 20 (2006).
17. Fiese & Schwartz, “Reclaiming the Family Table,” Journal of Family Psychology 22 (2008); Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, The Family Dinner Project.
18. Pew Research Center, The Transmission of Religious Beliefs and Practices (2019); King & Furrow, “Religion as a Resource for Positive Youth Development,” Journal of Psychology and Christianity 23 (2004).
19. OECD, PISA Reading Literacy Framework; Mol & Bus, “To Read or Not to Read,” Review of Educational Research 81 (2011).
20. Milkie et al., “Time with Children and Adolescent Well-Being,” Journal of Marriage and Family 77 (2015).
21. Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, §§27–29.
22. Lumen Gentium §§1, 7 (in continuity with perennial ecclesiology).

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LATIN

Non est bonum esse hominem solum

Epistula pastoralis pro tempore Septuagesimae
de communione, conversione et sanatione vitae communis

Dilectissimi in Christo,

Ecclesia, dum antiquum tempus Septuagesimae ingreditur, nondum nos ad ieiunium adigit, sed ad memoriam nos graviter advocat. Consulto enim atque sobrie nos ad limen Quadragesimae sistit. Alleluia silent. Liturgy severior fit. Revocamur ad condicionem nostram: nos ad orientem Eden vivere, mundum vulnere peccati affectum esse, hominemque non naturaliter in perfecta concordia consistere—neque cum Deo, neque cum proximi, neque etiam secum ipso.

Septuagesima tempus est lucidae veritatis. Priusquam disciplina Quadragesimae incipiat, Ecclesia nos instruit cur disciplina ipsa necessaria sit.

Vivimus aetate quae libertatem assidue praedicat, sed solitudine graviter premitur. Solitudo inter communissimas experientias vitae hodiernae numeratur—non solum apud senes aut marginales, sed etiam apud iuvenes, eruditos, ac materialibus bonis abundantes. Familiae dissolvuntur. Amicitiae languescunt. Communitates debilitantur. Multi hominum multitudine circumdati sunt, et tamen intime soli remanent.

Haec solitudo non est tantum incommodum sociale. Est vulnus spirituale.

Hoc vulnus his annis recentioribus acrius patefactum est experientia clausurarum publicarum. Per longum tempus cursus ordinarius vitae humanae interruptus est. Familia separatae sunt; senes segregati; pueri a sodalibus avulsi; cultus communis suspensus. Quod tamquam remedium temporarium proponebatur, vestigia diuturna in mente atque affectibus hominum reliquit—vestigia quae sublatis restrictionibus non evanuerunt.

Multis, praesertim iuvenibus, anni maxime formativi in solitudine coacta transacti sunt, eo ipso tempore quo identitas, fiducia et facultas communionis per praesentiam corporalem ordinatim conformantur. Praesentia per instrumenta substituta est; proximitas affectuum in distantiam versa. Etiam nunc manent effectus: anxietas, recessus socialis, difficultas relationes stabiliendi, sensus alienationis late diffusus.

Haec tamen non sunt phaenomena nova. Iam diu observantur ubicumque communio deliberata subtrahitur.

Qui in carceribus pastorale ministerium exercent, iam pridem noverunt quid solitudo diuturna animae humanae inferat. Testimonium psychologicum et pastorale concorditer demonstrat clausuram solitariam prolixam confusionem, anxietatem, obtusionem affectuum atque laesiones diuturnas efficere. Non est haec comparatio rhetorica, sed iudicium morale.

Homo non est ad solitudinem longam sine detrimento sustinendam creatus. Sive poena, sive lex, sive morbus, sive metus eam imponat, separatio a communione personam paulatim erodit. Quod carceres extremo modo manifestant, societas hodierna latius iam experta est.

Hic Septuagesima lumen affert. Monet enim pugnam hominis non solum socialem aut psychicam esse, sed theologicam. Vulnerati sumus quia communio disrupta est—et quia obliti sumus ad quid communio ordinetur.

In ipso corde huius crisis stat veritas neglecta: homo ad communionem creatus est. Non ad solitudinem. Non ad sui ipsius fabricationem. Non ad autonomiam solitariam. Ab initio Deus pronuntiat: Non est bonum esse hominem solum (Gen 2,18). Hoc non est affectus, sed anthropologia.

Ipse Deus solitarius non est.
Est communio aeterna: Pater, Filius et Spiritus Sanctus—distincti, sed perfecte caritate coniuncti. Creatio non ex defectu, sed ex abundantia divina procedit. Imaginem Dei gerere significat igitur ad relationem ordinari—ad communionem cum Deo et cum aliis.

Quapropter solitudo neque distractione, neque stimulatione, neque sui expressione sanatur. Solummodo communione restituta curatur. Experientia clausurarum et incarcerationis hoc aperte testatur. Ubi communio nimis diu sublata est, anima frangi incipit.

Cultura tamen nostra contrarium magis magisque inculcat. Dependere pro infirmitate habetur; obligatio pro oppressione; plenitudo vitae pro radicali sui definitione. Vincula familiaris ad praeferentias rediguntur; traditio pro onere reputatur. Sub specie libertatis, multi a relationibus ipsis seiunguntur quae libertatem humanam sustentant.

Clausurae hanc mentem non genuerunt, sed corroboraverunt. Solitudo normalis facta est; recessus moralizatus; ipsa praesentia suspecta. Multis—praesertim iuvenibus—hoc diffidentiam iam crescentem erga communitatem incarnatam confirmavit. Quod ut necessitas coepit, in consuetudinem abiit. Rursus discere ad alios pertinere difficilius evasit.

Dissolutio familiae inter manifestissima huius rupturae signa numeratur. Familia non est structura arbitraria nec optio privata, sed prima schola communionis. Ibi homo primum discit sacrificium, auctoritatem, adscriptionem et amorem; ibi identitas recipitur ante electionem; ibi libertas per responsabilitatem formatur.

Hodie fractio familiae saepe etiam fit ubi domus corpore integra manet. Ruptura non semper absentia est, sed mediatio. Instrumenta electronica et ambitus algorithmici convivia, colloquia et attentionem mutuam tacite substituunt. Praesentia manet; communio deficit.

Investigationes constanter ostendunt usum inordinatum instrumentorum digitalium cum alienatione sociali, imminutio empathiae, debilitatione vinculi familiaris atque incremento perturbationis psychologicae coniungi. Pueri magis magisque ad figuras digitales quam ad parentes aut parochiam convertuntur ad sensum adscriptionis et formationem moralem. Non solum delectant; formant.

Huic saturationi adiungitur absentia parentum variis formis hodiernis—divortium, uniparentalitas, nimia occupatio laboris, tempora inaequalia, penuria temporis—quae communionem domesticam ulterius corrumpunt. Causae variant; effectus fere idem manent.

Pueri plus indigent quam rebus materialibus. Indigent praesentia—stabili, attenta, affectuosa. Ubi haec deficit, vulnerabilitas ad anxietatem, incertitudinem et influxus externos augetur. Etiam ubi subsidia adsunt, amissio rhythmorum communium et auctoritatis relationalis vacuum formativum relinquit.

Etiam in familiis integris, rationes laboris hodiernae sensim in absentiam degenerant. Horae prolixae et connexio continua convivia communia, colloquia et tempus inter generationes consumunt—opera ad sanitatem mentis et progressionem socialem necessaria.

Ecclesia domestica, schola communionis

Si familia solitudine et fragmentatione vulnerata est, in ipsa familia sanatio ordinarie incipit. Ecclesia domum christianam Ecclesiam domesticam appellat—non per metaphoram, sed ut rem viventem. Familia est primus locus ubi Evangelium vivitur antequam explicetur, et ubi communio per consuetudinem discitur.

In aetate disiunctionis, vita ordinaria familiae catholicae tacite fit contra-culturam. Non contra solitudinem disputat; aliter vivit.

Ex communibus consuetudinibus nascitur hoc testimonium: convivia communia, oratio communis, lectio et studium, colloquium, labor, quies et recreatio. Haec sunt media ordinaria quibus homines discunt ad se invicem pertinere.

Convivium familiare est unus ex efficacissimis actibus contra fragmentationem. Circa mensam congregati, patientiam, attentionem, gratiam et moderationem discunt. Sermones inter generationes fluunt. Id experientia confirmat utilissimum esse ad sanitatem mentis, moderationem morum et firmitatem affectivam.

Oratio communis domum in suo vero centro collocat. Familia quae simul orat discit vitam accipi, non fabricari. Hic habitus stabilitatem moralem et constantiam animi fovet.

Lectio communis familiam in narrationem latiorem inducit—Scripturae, historiae, vitae sanctorum—qua lingua, empathia et iudicium formantur simulque vincula roborantur.

Tempus sine consilio una actum—ludus, labor, vel simplex praesentia—aeque necessarium est. Hic pueri discunt veniam, perseverantiam et artem convivendi.

Haec omnia perfectionem non exigunt. Vita familiaris catholica schola caritatis est quia fragilitatem et constantiam complectitur. Fidelitas, non impeccantia, fructum fert.

Ubi constanter vivitur, Ecclesia domestica etiam extra domum fructificat. Pueri securitatem affectivam ac identitatem firmiorem ostendunt. Hospites pacem sentiunt. Amici ad ordinem caritatis attrahuntur. Ita familiae sine verbis evangelizant.

Septuagesima nos ad hanc visionem recuperandam praeparat. Ecclesia familias non ad extraordinaria primum vocat, sed ad fidelitatem ordinariam renovandam. Communio domi instaurata communitates sanat.

Ecclesia huic crisi veritate et misericordia respondet, non condemnatione. Communio imperari non potest, nec subito reparari; sed sanari potest, ubi gratia recipitur et relationes restituuntur.

Christus non solitarios salvat. Vocat, congregat, Corpus format. Ecclesia non est fidei additamentum, sed sacramentum communionis, ubi vita divina communicatur et vincula humana curantur.

Communio non est affectus, sed finis et motus Evangelii. Christus non solum peccata dimittit, sed reconciliat. Quadragesima nos ad hoc opus format; Septuagesima ad eius necessitatem agnoscendam nos disponit.

Ingrediamur igitur Quadragesimam cum veritate, humilitate et fortitudine—parati rursus in vinea laborare, non ut operarii solitarii, sed ut populus in communione Christi restitutus.

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TAGALOG

Hindi Nilalang Upang Maging Mag-isa

Isang Pastoral na Liham para sa Septuagesima tungkol sa Pakikipag-ugnayan, Pagbabalik-loob, at Pagpapagaling ng Ating Sama-samang Buhay

Mga Minamahal kay Cristo,

Sa pagpasok ng Simbahan sa sinaunang panahon ng Septuagesima, hindi pa niya tayo inuutusang mag-ayuno, ngunit malinaw niya tayong inaanyayahang umalaala. Sinasadya at may kabigatan niya tayong inilalagay sa pintuan ng Kuwaresma. Tumatahimik ang mga alleluia. Nagiging mas payak ang liturhiya. Ipinapaalala sa atin na tayo’y nabubuhay sa silangan ng Eden—na ang daigdig ay sugatan, at ang tao ay hindi likás na namumuhay sa ganap na pagkakaisa: sa Diyos, sa kapwa, ni maging sa kanyang sarili.

Ang Septuagesima ay panahon ng pagharap sa katotohanan. Bago magsimula ang disiplina ng Kuwaresma, itinuturo muna ng Simbahan kung bakit kinakailangan ang disiplina.

Nabubuhay tayo sa isang panahon na walang tigil sa pagsasalita tungkol sa kalayaan, ngunit labis na nagdurusa sa pag-iisa. Ang kalungkutan ay isa sa pinakakaraniwang karanasan sa makabagong buhay—nararanasan hindi lamang ng matatanda o mga nasa laylayan, kundi pati ng kabataan, ng mga may pinag-aralan, at ng mga may sapat na kabuhayan. Nagkakawatak-watak ang mga pamilya. Kumakaunti ang tunay na pagkakaibigan. Humihina ang mga pamayanan. Marami ang napapalibutan ng tao, ngunit nananatiling malalim ang pag-iisa.¹

Ang ganitong kalungkutan ay hindi lamang isang suliraning panlipunan. Ito ay isang sugat ng espiritu.

Sa mga nagdaang taon, ang sugat na ito ay lalong lumalim dahil sa karanasan ng mga lockdown noong pandemya ng COVID. Sa loob ng mahabang panahon, naputol ang karaniwang takbo ng buhay ng tao. Nagkahiwalay ang mga pamilya. Nahiwalay ang mga matatanda. Napagkaitan ang mga bata ng ugnayan sa kanilang mga kalaro. Naputol ang sama-samang pagsamba. Ang inilarawan bilang pansamantalang hakbang ay nag-iwan ng pangmatagalang bakas sa isipan at damdamin ng tao—mga bakas na hindi basta naglaho nang alisin ang mga restriksiyon.²

Para sa marami, lalo na ang kabataan, ang mga panahong humuhubog sa pagkatao ay ginugol sa sapilitang pag-iisa—sa mismong yugto ng buhay kung kailan karaniwang nahuhubog ang pagkakakilanlan, tiwala, at kakayahang makipag-ugnayan sa pamamagitan ng buhay at pisikal na relasyon. Napalitan ng mga screen ang presensya. Napalitan ng distansya ang lambing. Hanggang ngayon, nananatili ang mga epekto: pagkabalisa, pag-iwas sa pakikisalamuha, hirap sa pagbuo ng matibay na ugnayan, at malalim na pakiramdam ng pagkakahiwalay.³

Hindi bago ang mga epektong ito. Matagal na itong nasasaksihan sa mga lugar kung saan sinasadyang alisin ang pakikipag-ugnayan.

Matagal nang batid ng mga naglilingkod sa mga bilangguan kung ano ang idinudulot ng matagal na pag-iisa sa kaluluwa ng tao. Pinatutunayan ng sikolohiya at ng karanasang pastoral na ang matagal na solitary confinement ay nagdudulot ng pagkalito, matinding pagkabalisa, pamamanhid ng damdamin, at pangmatagalang pinsala.⁴ Hindi ito palamuti ng pananalita. Isa itong aral na moral.

Ang tao ay hindi nilikha upang magtiis ng matagal na pag-iisa nang hindi napipinsala. Maging ito man ay bunga ng parusa, patakaran, karamdaman, o takot, ang pagkakahiwalay mula sa pakikipag-ugnayan ay unti-unting sumisira sa pagkatao. Ang matagal nang nakikita sa mga bilangguan sa pinakamatinding anyo ay naranasan na ngayon ng mas malawak na lipunan.⁵

Tinutulungan tayo ng Septuagesima na maunawaan kung bakit. Ipinapaalala nito na ang pakikibaka ng tao ay hindi lamang panlipunan o sikolohikal, kundi teolohikal. Tayo’y sugatan sapagkat naputol ang pakikipag-ugnayan—at sapagkat nakalimutan natin kung para saan ito.

Sa puso ng krisis na ito ay isang nakalimutang katotohanan: ang tao ay nilikha para sa pakikipag-ugnayan. Hindi para sa pag-iisa. Hindi para sa sariling paglikha. Hindi para sa ganap na awtonomiya. Mula pa sa simula ay sinabi ng Diyos: Hindi mabuti na ang tao ay mag-isa (Gen 2:18). Hindi ito damdamin; ito ay katotohanang ukol sa likás ng tao.⁶

Ang Diyos mismo ay hindi nag-iisa.
Siya ay walang hanggang pakikipag-ugnayan: Ama, Anak, at Espiritu Santo—magkakaiba, ngunit ganap na nagkakaisa sa pag-ibig. Ang paglikha ay hindi nagmula sa kakulangan ng Diyos, kundi sa Kanyang kasaganaan. Kaya’t ang pagiging nilikha sa wangis at larawan ng Diyos ay nangangahulugang pagiging likás na nakatuon sa ugnayan—sa Diyos at sa kapwa.⁷

Samakatuwid, ang kalungkutan ay hindi napagagaling ng libangan, labis na stimulasyon, o pagpapahayag ng sarili. Ito ay napagagaling lamang ng muling pagbabalik ng pakikipag-ugnayan. Malinaw itong ipinakikita ng karanasan ng lockdown at ng pagkakakulong. Kapag matagal na inalis ang pakikipag-ugnayan, nagsisimulang mabiyak ang kaluluwa.⁸

Gayunman, itinuturo ng ating kultura ang kabaligtaran. Ang pag-asa sa kapwa ay itinuturing na kahinaan. Ang pananagutan ay itinuturing na pang-aapi. Ang katuparan ay inihaharap bilang radikal na paglikha ng sarili. Ang ugnayang pampamilya ay ginagawang usapin ng personal na kagustuhan. Ang pamana ay itinuturing na pabigat. Sa ngalan ng kalayaan, marami ang tahimik na inihihiwalay sa mismong mga ugnayang nagbibigay-buhay sa kalayaan.⁹

Hindi nilikha ng lockdown ang ganitong kaisipan, ngunit pinalala nito. Ang pag-iisa ay naging normal. Ang pag-iwas ay ginawang moral na tungkulin. Ang presensya mismo ay itinuring na panganib. Para sa marami—lalo na ang kabataan—pinagtibay nito ang dati nang pag-aalinlangan sa buhay at pisikal na pamayanan. Ang nagsimula bilang emerhensiya ay naging ugali. Ang muling pagkatutong makibahagi sa kapwa ay naging mahirap.¹⁰

Ang pagkasira ng pamilya ay isa sa pinakamalinaw na tanda ng pagkakaputol na ito. Ang pamilya ay hindi isang panlipunang kaayusan o estilo ng pamumuhay. Ito ang pangunahing paaralan ng pakikipag-ugnayan. Dito unang natututuhan ng tao ang sakripisyo, awtoridad, pag-aari, at pag-ibig—dito tinatanggap ang pagkakakilanlan bago ito piliin, at hinuhubog ang kalayaan sa pamamagitan ng pananagutan.¹¹

Sa kasalukuyan, ang pagkasira ng pamilya ay madalas mangyari kahit buo pa sa pisikal na anyo ang sambahayan. Hindi laging kawalan ang sanhi, kundi pamamagitan. Tahimik na pinapalitan ng mga screen, gadget, at algorithm ang pagsasalo ng pagkain, pag-uusap, at pagbibigay-pansin. Nananatili ang presensya, ngunit humihina ang pakikipag-ugnayan.

Patuloy na ipinakikita ng pananaliksik na ang labis at walang kaayusang paggamit ng mga aparatong konektado sa internet ay kaugnay ng paglayo sa kapwa, pagbawas ng empatiya, paghina ng ugnayang pampamilya, at paglala ng kalagayang sikolohikal.¹² Lalong bumabaling ang mga bata hindi sa magulang o parokya, kundi sa mga online na pigura—mga “influencer” at digital na pamayanan—para sa pakiramdam ng pag-aari at paghubog ng moralidad. Hindi lamang sila naglilibang; sila ay naghuhubog.¹³

Kasabay ng labis na impluwensiyang digital, ang kawalan ng presensya ng magulang sa iba’t ibang anyo nito—diborsyo, pagiging solong magulang, labis na trabaho, pabago-bagong iskedyul, at kakulangan ng oras—ay lalo pang sumisira sa pakikipag-ugnayang pampamilya. Iba-iba ang sanhi, ngunit magkakatulad ang epekto.

Ang mga bata ay nangangailangan ng higit pa sa materyal na suporta. Kailangan nila ng presensya—tiyak, mapagmatyag, at may pusong nakikibahagi. Kapag ito’y naputol o nawala, lumalaki ang kahinaan sa pagkabalisa, kawalan ng katiyakan, at impluwensiyang panlabas.¹⁴ Kahit sapat ang materyal na tulong, ang pagkawala ng magkakasamang ritmo at matatag na awtoridad ay nag-iiwan ng puwang na mahirap punan.¹⁵

Kahit sa mga pamilyang buo, ang makabagong paraan ng trabaho ay nagiging anyo rin ng kawalan. Ang mahabang oras at tuluy-tuloy na koneksyon ay unti-unting sumisira sa pagsasalo ng pagkain, pag-uusap, at ugnayang intergenerational—mga gawaing napatunayang mahalaga sa kalusugang mental at panlipunang pag-unlad.¹⁶

Ang Domestikong Simbahan bilang Paaralan ng Pakikipag-ugnayan

Kung ang pamilya ay nasugatan ng pag-iisa at pagkakawatak-watak, sa loob din ng pamilya karaniwang nagsisimula ang paggaling. Matagal nang tinatawag ng Simbahan ang sambahayang Kristiyano bilang domestikong Simbahan—hindi bilang talinghaga, kundi bilang isang buhay na realidad. Ang pamilya ang unang lugar kung saan isinasabuhay ang Ebanghelyo bago ito ipinaliwanag, at kung saan natututuhan ang pakikipag-ugnayan sa pamamagitan ng ugali at gawain.

Sa panahong laganap ang pagkakahiwalay, ang karaniwang buhay ng pamilyang Katoliko ay nagiging tahimik ngunit makapangyarihang kontra-kultura. Hindi ito nakikipagtalo laban sa pag-iisa; simple nitong isinabubuhay ang kabaligtaran.

Ang patotoong ito ay payak ngunit malalim. Nabubuo ito sa mga magkakasamang gawain na dahan-dahang humuhubog sa kaluluwa: sama-samang pagkain, sama-samang panalangin, sabayang pagbabasa at pag-aaral, tapat na pag-uusap, paggawa, pahinga, at libangan. Hindi ito mga dagdag na gawain lamang sa buhay-pamilya. Ito ang karaniwang mga paraan kung paano natututuhan ng tao ang pakikibahagi at pakikipamuhay sa kapwa.

Ang pagsasalo ng pagkain ng pamilya ay isa sa pinakamabisang panlaban sa pagkakawatak-watak. Sa pag-upo sa iisang hapag, nang walang distraksiyon, natututuhan ang pagtitiyaga, pakikinig, pasasalamat, at pagpipigil sa sarili. Ang usapan ay kusang dumadaloy sa pagitan ng mga henerasyon. Patuloy na ipinakikita ng pananaliksik na ang regular na family meals ay kaugnay ng mas mabuting kalusugang mental, mas kaunting mapanganib na asal, mas matatag na pagganap sa paaralan, at mas malalim na emosyonal na katatagan ng mga bata at kabataan.¹⁷

Ang panalangin ng pamilya ang nagbabalik ng sambahayan sa tunay nitong sentro. Sa pamamagitan man ng Rosaryo, Banal na Kasulatan, payak na anyo ng Liturhiya ng mga Oras, o panalangin bago matulog, ang mga pamilyang sabay na nananalangin ay natututuhan na ang buhay ay tinatanggap, hindi nililikha. Ang sabayang pananalangin sa tahanan ay kaugnay ng mas matatag na sikolohikal na kalagayan, mas malinaw na paghubog ng moralidad, at mas mataas na katatagan sa harap ng pagsubok.¹⁸

Ang sabayang pagbabasa at pag-aaral ay lalo pang nagpapalalim ng pakikipag-ugnayan. Kapag magkakasamang nagbabasa ang pamilya—ng Banal na Kasulatan, kasaysayan, buhay ng mga santo, o makabuluhang panitikan—pumapasok sila sa iisang salaysay na higit na malawak kaysa sa sarili nilang karanasan. Ang ganitong gawain ay kaugnay ng mas mahusay na pag-unlad ng wika, empatiya, kakayahang mag-isip nang may lalim, at pangmatagalang tagumpay sa edukasyon, habang pinatitibay ang ugnayang pampamilya.¹⁹

Ang oras na magkakasama nang walang itinakdang layunin—laro, trabaho, o simpleng presensya—ay kasinghalaga rin. Hindi ito mapapalitan ng mga gadget, iskedyul, o programang panlabas. Dito natututuhan ng mga bata ang pagpapatawad, pagtitiis, katatawanan, at ang sining ng pamumuhay kasama ang iba—hindi bilang mga produktong iniayon sa sariling kagustuhan, kundi bilang mga taong minamahal sa kabila ng pagkakaiba.²⁰

Wala sa mga ito ang humihingi ng kasakdalan. Ang buhay-pamilyang Katoliko ay hindi isang huwarang larawan na walang tensiyon o pagod. Ito ay isang paaralan ng pag-ibig sapagkat may kahinaan, pagkukulang, at patuloy na pagsisikap. Ang katapatan, hindi pagiging perpekto, ang tunay na nagbubunga.

Kapag isinabuhay nang tuluy-tuloy, ang domestikong Simbahan ay nagbubunga hindi lamang sa loob ng tahanan kundi lampas dito. Ang mga batang hinubog sa matatag at mapanalanging pamilya ay karaniwang mas ligtas ang damdamin at mas malinaw ang pagkakakilanlan. Napapansin ng mga panauhin ang kapayapaan. Nahihikayat ang mga kaibigan sa kaayusang nagmumula hindi sa kaginhawaan, kundi sa kaayusan ng pag-ibig. Sa ganitong paraan, ang pamilya ay nag-eebanghelyo nang hindi gumagamit ng islogan.

Inihahanda tayo ng Septuagesima na muling yakapin ang ganitong pananaw. Habang papalapit ang Kuwaresma, inaanyayahan ng Simbahan ang mga pamilya hindi agad sa pambihirang penitensiya, kundi sa panibagong katapatan sa pang-araw-araw na buhay. Nagsisimula sa tahanan ang pagpapanumbalik ng pakikipag-ugnayan. Mula sa mga sambahayang may kaayusan, unti-unting gumagaling ang sugatang pamayanan.

Hindi tumutugon ang Simbahan sa krisis na ito sa pamamagitan ng paghatol, kundi sa pamamagitan ng katotohanan at awa. Batid niya na marami ang may dalang sugat na hindi nila pinili: pag-iisa, pagkawala, takot, naputol na edukasyon, pagkakakulong, sirang ritmo ng buhay, at basag na ugnayan. Ang pakikipag-ugnayan ay hindi maaaring ipag-utos, at hindi ito agad naibabalik. Ngunit maaari itong pagalingin—dahan-dahan at sa konkretong paraan—kapag tinatanggap ang biyaya at muling itinatayo ang mga ugnayan.²¹

Hindi inililigtas ni Cristo ang mga tao bilang magkakahiwalay na indibidwal. Kanyang tinatawag. Kanyang tinitipon. Kanyang binubuo ang isang Katawan. Itinatatag Niya ang isang sambahayan ng pananampalataya kung saan walang sinumang dapat manatiling nag-iisa. Ang Simbahan mismo ay hindi idinagdag lamang sa paniniwala; siya ang sakramento ng pakikipag-ugnayan—kung saan ang buhay ng Diyos ay ibinabahagi at ang ugnayan ng tao ay pinapanumbalik.²²

Ang pakikipag-ugnayan ay hindi isang sentimental na ideya; ito ang motibasyon at layunin ng Ebanghelyo. Hindi lamang namatay si Cristo upang patawarin ang kasalanan, kundi upang pagkaisahin—sa Diyos at sa isa’t isa. Ang Kuwaresma ang magtuturo sa atin ng ganitong pagkakasundo. Inihahanda tayo ng Septuagesima upang makilala ang ating pangangailangan nito.

Habang tayo’y nakatayo sa pintuan ng banal na panahon, inaanyayahan tayo ng Simbahan na itanong ang mahihirap ngunit kailangang tanong:
Saan natin nawala ang pakikipag-ugnayan sa ating buhay?
Saan natin ipinagpalit ang kalayaan sa pag-iisa, ang presensya sa distraksiyon, ang pag-ibig sa awtonomiya?

Nawa’y pumasok tayo sa Kuwaresma nang may katapatan, kababaang-loob, at lakas ng loob—handang muling magpagal sa ubasan, hindi bilang mga nag-iisang manggagawa, kundi bilang isang bayan na muling ibinalik sa pakikipag-ugnayan kay Cristo.

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ESPANOL

No Fuimos Creados para Estar Solos

Carta Pastoral para Septuagésima sobre la Comunión, la Conversión y la Sanación de Nuestra Vida Común

Amados en Cristo,

Al entrar la Iglesia en el antiguo tiempo de Septuagésima, aún no nos manda ayunar, pero sí nos llama claramente a recordar. Nos coloca deliberadamente, con sobriedad y gravedad, en el umbral de la Cuaresma. Los aleluyas enmudecen. La liturgia se vuelve más contenida. Se nos recuerda que vivimos al oriente del Edén: que el mundo está herido y que el hombre no habita naturalmente en plena armonía —ni con Dios, ni con los demás, ni siquiera consigo mismo.

La Septuagésima es un tiempo de realismo. Antes de que comience la disciplina cuaresmal, la Iglesia nos enseña por qué la disciplina es necesaria.

Vivimos en una época que habla incesantemente de libertad y, sin embargo, sufre profundamente de aislamiento. La soledad se ha convertido en una de las experiencias más extendidas de la vida moderna —no sólo entre los ancianos o los marginados, sino también entre los jóvenes, los instruidos y los materialmente seguros. Las familias se fragmentan. Las amistades se debilitan. Las comunidades se erosionan. Muchos se encuentran rodeados de personas y, sin embargo, profundamente solos.¹

Esta soledad no es sólo una incomodidad social. Es una herida espiritual.

En los últimos años, esta herida se ha profundizado de modo particular a causa de la experiencia de los confinamientos por la COVID. Durante largos meses, se suspendieron los ritmos ordinarios de la vida humana. Las familias fueron separadas. Los ancianos quedaron aislados. Los niños fueron apartados de sus compañeros. El culto comunitario fue interrumpido. Lo que se presentó como una medida temporal de emergencia dejó marcas duraderas en la psique humana —marcas que no simplemente desaparecieron con el levantamiento de las restricciones.²

Para muchos, especialmente los jóvenes, años decisivos para la formación de la identidad fueron vividos en aislamiento forzado, precisamente en la etapa en que la confianza, la pertenencia y la capacidad de relación suelen forjarse mediante vínculos encarnados y reales. Las pantallas sustituyeron a la presencia. La distancia reemplazó al afecto. Hasta hoy persisten los efectos: ansiedad, retraimiento social, dificultad para formar relaciones estables y una sensación generalizada de desconexión.³

Estos efectos no son nuevos. Han sido observados desde hace tiempo allí donde la comunión es retirada de forma deliberada.

Quienes ejercen su ministerio en las cárceles conocen desde hace décadas lo que el aislamiento prolongado hace al alma humana. La observación psicológica y pastoral confirma que el confinamiento solitario prolongado produce desorientación, ansiedad, embotamiento emocional y daños duraderos.⁴ Esto no es una comparación retórica. Es una intuición moral.

El hombre no fue creado para soportar un aislamiento prolongado sin sufrir daño. Ya sea impuesto por castigo, política, enfermedad o miedo, la separación de la comunión erosiona a la persona. Lo que las cárceles muestran en su forma extrema, la sociedad moderna lo ha experimentado ahora de manera más amplia.⁵

La Septuagésima nos ayuda a comprender por qué. Nos recuerda que la lucha del hombre no es sólo social o psicológica, sino teológica. Estamos heridos porque la comunión ha sido quebrada —y porque hemos olvidado para qué existe la comunión.

En el corazón de esta crisis se encuentra una verdad olvidada: el ser humano fue creado para la comunión. No para el aislamiento. No para la auto-construcción. No para la autonomía solitaria. Desde el principio, Dios declara: No es bueno que el hombre esté solo (Gn 2,18). Esto no es sentimentalismo; es antropología.⁶

Dios mismo no es solitario.
Él es comunión eterna: Padre, Hijo y Espíritu Santo —distintos, pero perfectamente unidos en el amor. La creación no brota de una carencia divina, sino de una abundancia divina. Ser creado a imagen y semejanza de Dios significa, por tanto, estar ordenado a la relación —a la comunión con Dios y con los demás.⁷

La soledad, por consiguiente, no se cura con distracción, estimulación o autoexpresión. Sólo se sana mediante la restauración de la comunión. Las experiencias del aislamiento durante los confinamientos y del encarcelamiento lo atestiguan con dolorosa claridad. Cuando la comunión se retira durante demasiado tiempo, el alma comienza a resquebrajarse.⁸

Sin embargo, nuestra cultura enseña cada vez más lo contrario. La dependencia se presenta como debilidad. La obligación como opresión. La plenitud como auto-definición radical. Los vínculos familiares se reducen a preferencias. La herencia se considera una carga. En nombre de la libertad, muchos son silenciosamente separados de las mismas relaciones que hacen posible una libertad vivible.⁹

Los confinamientos no crearon esta mentalidad, pero la intensificaron. El aislamiento se normalizó. El retraimiento se moralizó. La presencia misma fue tratada como un riesgo. Para muchos —especialmente los jóvenes— esto confirmó una sospecha ya existente hacia la comunidad encarnada. Lo que comenzó como una emergencia se convirtió en hábito. Reaprender a pertenecer se volvió difícil.¹⁰

La desintegración de la familia es uno de los signos más claros de esta ruptura. La familia no es un arreglo social ni una opción de estilo de vida. Es la escuela primaria de la comunión. Es donde la persona humana aprende por primera vez el sacrificio, la autoridad, la pertenencia y el amor; donde la identidad se recibe antes de ser elegida y donde la libertad se forma mediante la responsabilidad.¹¹

Hoy, la ruptura familiar ocurre con frecuencia incluso cuando el hogar permanece físicamente intacto. La fractura no siempre es ausencia, sino mediación. Pantallas, dispositivos y entornos gobernados por algoritmos desplazan silenciosamente las comidas compartidas, la conversación y la atención mutua. La presencia permanece, pero la comunión se desvanece.

La investigación muestra de forma consistente que el uso intenso y desestructurado de dispositivos conectados a internet se correlaciona con alienación social, disminución de la empatía, debilitamiento de los vínculos familiares y aumento del malestar psicológico.¹² Los niños recurren cada vez más no a los padres o a la parroquia, sino a figuras en línea —“influencers” y comunidades digitales— para encontrar pertenencia y formación moral. No sólo entretienen; forman.¹³

Junto a la saturación digital, la ausencia parental en sus diversas formas modernas —divorcio, monoparentalidad, exceso de trabajo, horarios irregulares y pobreza de tiempo— erosiona aún más la comunión familiar. Las causas varían. Los efectos son notablemente constantes.

Los niños necesitan más que provisión material. Necesitan presencia —previsible, atenta y emocionalmente comprometida. Cuando esta presencia se fragmenta o desaparece, aumenta considerablemente la vulnerabilidad a la ansiedad, la inseguridad y la influencia externa.¹⁴ Incluso cuando la provisión material es suficiente, la pérdida de ritmos compartidos y de una autoridad relacional estable deja un vacío formativo difícil de llenar.¹⁵

Incluso en familias intactas, los patrones laborales modernos funcionan cada vez más como una forma de ausencia. Las largas jornadas y la conectividad constante erosionan progresivamente las comidas compartidas, la conversación y el tiempo intergeneracional —actividades que se ha demostrado protegen la salud mental y el desarrollo social.¹⁶

La Iglesia Doméstica como Escuela de Comunión

Si la familia ha sido herida por el aislamiento y la fragmentación, es también dentro de la familia donde ordinariamente debe comenzar la sanación. Desde hace mucho tiempo, la Iglesia ha hablado del hogar cristiano como Iglesia doméstica —no como metáfora, sino como realidad vivida. La familia es el primer lugar donde el Evangelio se practica antes de explicarse, y donde la comunión se aprende tanto por el hábito como por la instrucción.

En una época marcada por la desconexión, la vida ordinaria de una familia católica se convierte silenciosamente en contracultural. No discute contra el aislamiento; simplemente vive de otro modo.

Este testimonio es profundamente ordinario. Se construye mediante prácticas compartidas que forman el alma con el tiempo: comidas comunes, oración común, lectura y estudio compartidos, conversación, trabajo, descanso y recreación. No son adornos opcionales. Son los medios ordinarios por los cuales los seres humanos aprenden a pertenecer.

La comida familiar compartida es uno de los actos más poderosos de resistencia contra la fragmentación. Reunidos alrededor de una mesa, sin distracciones, las familias aprenden paciencia, atención, gratitud y dominio de sí. La conversación fluye entre generaciones. La investigación asocia de manera consistente las comidas familiares regulares con mejor salud mental, menor conductas de riesgo, mejores resultados académicos y mayor resiliencia emocional en niños y adolescentes.¹⁷

La oración familiar ancla el hogar en su verdadero centro. Ya sea mediante el Rosario, la Sagrada Escritura, formas sencillas de la Liturgia de las Horas o la oración nocturna, las familias que rezan juntas aprenden que la vida se recibe, no se fabrica. La práctica religiosa compartida en el hogar se asocia con mayor estabilidad psicológica, formación moral más sólida y mayor resiliencia en niños y jóvenes.¹⁸

La lectura y el estudio compartidos profundizan aún más esta comunión. Cuando las familias leen juntas —la Escritura, la historia, las vidas de los santos o literatura seria— entran en una narrativa común más amplia que su propia experiencia. La lectura compartida se correlaciona con mejor desarrollo del lenguaje, mayor empatía, atención y logros educativos a largo plazo, al tiempo que fortalece los vínculos relacionales.¹⁹

El tiempo compartido sin agenda —juego, trabajo o simple presencia— es igualmente esencial. No puede ser sustituido por dispositivos ni programas. Es aquí donde los niños aprenden el humor, el perdón, la perseverancia y el arte de vivir con otros que no están hechos a la medida de sus preferencias.²⁰

Nada de esto exige perfección. La vida familiar católica no es una imagen idealizada libre de tensión o cansancio. Es una escuela de caridad precisamente porque implica fragilidad y perseverancia. La fidelidad, no la impecabilidad, es lo que da fruto.

Cuando se vive con constancia, la Iglesia doméstica produce frutos visibles más allá del hogar. Los niños formados en familias estables y orantes suelen mostrar mayor seguridad emocional y una identidad más sólida. Los invitados perciben la atmósfera. Los amigos se sienten atraídos por la paz que brota no de la comodidad, sino del orden. De este modo, las familias evangelizan sin consignas.

La Septuagésima nos prepara para recuperar esta visión. Al acercarse la Cuaresma, la Iglesia invita a las familias no en primer lugar a penitencias extraordinarias, sino a una fidelidad renovada en la vida ordinaria. La restauración de la comunión comienza en el hogar. De hogares ordenados, sanan comunidades heridas.

La Iglesia no responde a esta crisis con condena, sino con verdad y misericordia. Sabe que muchos cargan heridas que no eligieron: aislamiento, pérdida, miedo, educación interrumpida, encarcelamiento, ritmos de vida quebrados y relaciones fracturadas. La comunión no puede imponerse, ni reconstruirse de la noche a la mañana. Pero puede ser sanada —paciente y concretamente— cuando la gracia es recibida y las relaciones son restauradas.²¹

Cristo no salva a las personas como individuos aislados. Él llama. Él reúne. Él forma un Cuerpo. Establece un hogar de fe en el que nadie está destinado a permanecer solo. La Iglesia misma no es un añadido a la fe; es el sacramento de la comunión, donde la vida divina se comparte y los vínculos humanos son restaurados.²²

La comunión no es un ideal sentimental; es la motivación y la meta del Evangelio. Cristo no muere sólo para perdonar pecados, sino para reconciliar —con Dios y entre nosotros. La Cuaresma nos formará en esta reconciliación. La Septuagésima nos prepara para reconocer nuestra necesidad de ella.

Al situarnos en el umbral de este tiempo santo, la Iglesia nos invita a plantearnos preguntas difíciles pero necesarias:
¿Dónde se ha perdido la comunión en nuestra vida?
¿Dónde hemos sustituido la libertad por el aislamiento, la presencia por la distracción, el amor por la autonomía?

Que entremos en la Cuaresma con honestidad, humildad y valentía —dispuestos a trabajar de nuevo en la viña, no como obreros aislados, sino como un pueblo restaurado a la comunión en Cristo.

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FRANCAIS

Nous n’avons pas été créés pour être seuls

Lettre pastorale pour la Septuagésime sur la communion, la conversion et la guérison de notre vie commune

Bien-aimés dans le Christ,

Alors que l’Église entre dans l’antique temps de la Septuagésime, elle ne nous commande pas encore de jeûner, mais elle nous appelle clairement à nous souvenir. Elle nous place, délibérément et avec gravité, sur le seuil du Carême. Les alléluias se taisent. La liturgie devient plus sobre. Il nous est rappelé que nous vivons à l’est de l’Éden, que le monde est blessé, et que l’homme ne demeure pas naturellement en pleine harmonie — ni avec Dieu, ni avec les autres, ni même avec lui-même.

La Septuagésime est un temps de réalisme. Avant que ne commence la discipline du Carême, l’Église nous enseigne pourquoi cette discipline est nécessaire.

Nous vivons à une époque qui parle sans cesse de liberté et qui pourtant souffre profondément de l’isolement. La solitude est devenue l’un des traits les plus répandus de la vie moderne — touchant non seulement les personnes âgées ou marginalisées, mais aussi les jeunes, les personnes instruites et celles qui sont matériellement en sécurité. Les familles se fragmentent. Les amitiés s’amenuisent. Les communautés s’affaiblissent. Beaucoup se trouvent entourés de personnes et pourtant profondément seuls.¹

Cette solitude n’est pas seulement un désagrément social. Elle est une blessure spirituelle.

Ces dernières années, cette blessure s’est trouvée fortement aggravée par l’expérience des confinements liés à la COVID. Pendant de longs mois, les rythmes ordinaires de la vie humaine ont été suspendus. Les familles ont été séparées, les personnes âgées isolées, les enfants privés de leurs pairs, et le culte communautaire interrompu. Ce qui fut présenté comme une mesure d’urgence temporaire a laissé des marques durables dans la psyché humaine — des marques qui ne se sont pas simplement effacées avec la levée des restrictions.²

Pour beaucoup, en particulier les plus jeunes, des années décisives de formation ont été vécues dans un isolement imposé, précisément au moment où l’identité, la confiance et la capacité de relation se forgent habituellement par des relations incarnées et concrètes. Les écrans ont remplacé la présence. La distance a remplacé l’affection. Aujourd’hui encore, les effets persistent : anxiété, retrait social, difficulté à nouer des relations durables et sentiment généralisé de déconnexion.³

Ces effets ne sont pas nouveaux. Ils ont été observés depuis longtemps partout où la communion est délibérément retirée.

Ceux qui exercent leur ministère dans les prisons savent depuis des décennies ce que l’isolement prolongé fait à l’âme humaine. L’observation psychologique et pastorale confirme que le confinement cellulaire prolongé produit désorientation, anxiété, émoussement affectif et dommages durables.⁴ Il ne s’agit pas d’une comparaison rhétorique, mais d’une intuition morale.

L’homme n’a pas été créé pour supporter un isolement prolongé sans en être blessé. Qu’il soit imposé par la peine, la politique, la maladie ou la peur, l’éloignement de la communion érode la personne. Ce que les prisons manifestent à l’extrême, la société moderne l’a désormais éprouvé plus largement.⁵

La Septuagésime nous aide à comprendre pourquoi. Elle nous rappelle que la lutte de l’homme n’est pas seulement sociale ou psychologique, mais théologique. Nous sommes blessés parce que la communion a été brisée — et parce que nous avons oublié à quoi elle est ordonnée.

Au cœur de cette crise se trouve une vérité oubliée : l’être humain a été créé pour la communion. Non pour l’isolement. Non pour l’auto-construction. Non pour une autonomie solitaire. Dès l’origine, Dieu déclare : Il n’est pas bon que l’homme soit seul (Gn 2,18). Il ne s’agit pas d’un sentiment, mais d’une anthropologie.⁶

Dieu Lui-même n’est pas solitaire.
Il est communion éternelle : Père, Fils et Saint-Esprit — distincts, mais parfaitement unis dans l’amour. La création ne procède pas d’un manque divin, mais d’une surabondance divine. Être créé à l’image et à la ressemblance de Dieu signifie donc être ordonné à la relation — à la communion avec Dieu et avec les autres.⁷

La solitude, dès lors, ne se guérit ni par la distraction, ni par la stimulation, ni par l’expression de soi. Elle ne peut être guérie que par la restauration de la communion. L’expérience de l’isolement durant les confinements et celle de l’incarcération en témoignent avec une douloureuse clarté. Lorsque la communion est retirée trop longtemps, l’âme commence à se fissurer.⁸

Pourtant, notre culture enseigne de plus en plus l’inverse. La dépendance est présentée comme une faiblesse. L’obligation comme une oppression. L’accomplissement comme une auto-définition radicale. Les liens familiaux sont réduits à de simples préférences. L’héritage est perçu comme un fardeau. Au nom de la liberté, beaucoup sont discrètement séparés des relations mêmes qui rendent la liberté vivable.⁹

Les confinements n’ont pas créé cette mentalité, mais ils l’ont intensifiée. L’isolement a été normalisé. Le retrait a été moralisé. La présence elle-même a été traitée comme un risque. Pour beaucoup — surtout les jeunes — cela a confirmé une méfiance déjà croissante envers la communauté incarnée. Ce qui avait commencé comme une urgence s’est transformé en habitude. Réapprendre à appartenir s’est avéré plus difficile que prévu.¹⁰

L’effondrement de la famille est l’un des signes les plus manifestes de cette rupture. La famille n’est ni un simple arrangement social ni une option de style de vie. Elle est la première école de la communion. C’est là que la personne humaine apprend d’abord le sacrifice, l’autorité, l’appartenance et l’amour ; là où l’identité est reçue avant d’être choisie, et où la liberté est formée par la responsabilité.¹¹

Aujourd’hui, la rupture familiale survient souvent même lorsque la famille demeure physiquement intacte. La fracture n’est pas toujours une absence, mais une médiation. Les écrans, les appareils et les environnements régis par des algorithmes remplacent silencieusement les repas partagés, la conversation et l’attention mutuelle. La présence demeure, mais la communion s’estompe.

Les recherches montrent de manière constante que l’usage intensif et non structuré des dispositifs connectés à Internet est corrélé à l’aliénation sociale, à la diminution de l’empathie, à l’affaiblissement des liens familiaux et à une détresse psychologique accrue.¹² Les enfants se tournent de plus en plus non vers leurs parents ou la paroisse, mais vers des figures en ligne — « influenceurs » et communautés numériques — pour y trouver appartenance et formation morale. Ils ne se contentent pas de divertir ; ils forment.¹³

Parallèlement à cette saturation numérique, l’absence parentale sous ses formes modernes — divorce, monoparentalité, surcharge professionnelle, horaires irréguliers et pauvreté du temps — érode encore davantage la communion familiale. Les causes varient. Les effets, eux, sont remarquablement constants.

Les enfants ont besoin de plus que de pourvoir à leurs besoins matériels. Ils ont besoin de présence — stable, attentive et engagée affectivement. Lorsque cette présence est fragmentée ou absente, la vulnérabilité à l’anxiété, à l’insécurité et aux influences extérieures augmente de manière significative.¹⁴ Même lorsque les besoins matériels sont satisfaits, la perte de rythmes partagés et d’une autorité relationnelle stable laisse un vide formatif difficile à combler.¹⁵

Même dans les familles intactes, les modes de travail contemporains fonctionnent de plus en plus comme une forme d’absence. Les longues heures et la connectivité permanente érodent progressivement les repas communs, la conversation et le temps intergénérationnel — des activités dont il est démontré qu’elles protègent la santé mentale et le développement social.¹⁶

L’Église domestique comme école de la communion

Si la famille a été blessée par l’isolement et la fragmentation, c’est aussi au sein de la famille que la guérison doit ordinairement commencer. Depuis longtemps, l’Église parle du foyer chrétien comme de l’Église domestique — non comme d’une métaphore, mais comme d’une réalité vécue. La famille est le premier lieu où l’Évangile est pratiqué avant d’être expliqué, et où la communion s’apprend autant par l’habitude que par l’enseignement.

À une époque marquée par la déconnexion, la vie ordinaire d’une famille catholique devient discrètement contre-culturelle. Elle ne polémique pas contre l’isolement ; elle vit simplement autrement.

Ce témoignage est profondément ordinaire. Il se construit par des pratiques partagées qui, avec le temps, forment l’âme : repas communs, prière commune, lecture et étude partagées, conversation, travail, repos et loisirs. Ce ne sont pas des embellissements facultatifs. Ce sont les moyens ordinaires par lesquels les êtres humains apprennent à appartenir.

Le repas familial partagé est l’un des actes les plus puissants de résistance à la fragmentation. Réunis autour d’une table, sans distraction, les membres de la famille apprennent la patience, l’attention, la gratitude et la maîtrise de soi. La conversation circule entre les générations. Les recherches associent de manière constante les repas familiaux réguliers à une meilleure santé mentale, à une diminution des comportements à risque, à de meilleurs résultats scolaires et à une plus grande résilience émotionnelle chez les enfants et les adolescents.¹⁷

La prière familiale ancre le foyer dans son véritable centre. Qu’il s’agisse du Rosaire, de l’Écriture Sainte, de formes simples de la Liturgie des Heures ou de la prière du soir, les familles qui prient ensemble apprennent que la vie est reçue, non fabriquée. La pratique religieuse partagée au sein du foyer est associée à une plus grande stabilité psychologique, à une formation morale plus solide et à une meilleure résilience chez les enfants et les jeunes.¹⁸

La lecture et l’étude partagées approfondissent encore cette communion. Lorsque les familles lisent ensemble — l’Écriture, l’histoire, la vie des saints ou une littérature exigeante — elles entrent dans un récit commun plus vaste que leur propre expérience. La lecture partagée est corrélée à un meilleur développement du langage, à une empathie accrue, à une meilleure capacité d’attention et à des résultats éducatifs à long terme, tout en renforçant les liens relationnels.¹⁹

Le temps passé ensemble sans programme — jeu, travail ou simple présence — est tout aussi essentiel. Il ne peut être remplacé par des appareils ou des activités programmées. C’est là que les enfants apprennent l’humour, le pardon, la persévérance et l’art de vivre avec d’autres qui ne sont pas façonnés selon leurs préférences.²⁰

Rien de tout cela n’exige la perfection. La vie familiale catholique n’est pas une image idéalisée sans tension ni fatigue. Elle est une école de la charité précisément parce qu’elle implique fragilité et persévérance. La fidélité, et non l’irréprochabilité, est ce qui porte du fruit.

Lorsqu’elle est vécue avec constance, l’Église domestique porte des fruits visibles au-delà du foyer. Les enfants formés dans des familles stables et priantes manifestent généralement une plus grande sécurité affective et une identité plus solide. Les invités perçoivent l’atmosphère. Les amis sont attirés par la paix qui naît non du confort, mais de l’ordre. Ainsi, les familles évangélisent sans slogans.

La Septuagésime nous prépare à retrouver cette vision. À l’approche du Carême, l’Église invite les familles non d’abord à des pénitences extraordinaires, mais à une fidélité renouvelée dans la vie ordinaire. La restauration de la communion commence au foyer. De foyers ordonnés, les communautés blessées sont guéries.

L’Église ne répond pas à cette crise par la condamnation, mais par la vérité et la miséricorde. Elle sait que beaucoup portent des blessures qu’ils n’ont pas choisies : isolement, perte, peur, scolarité interrompue, incarcération, rythmes de vie brisés et relations fracturées. La communion ne peut être imposée, ni reconstruite du jour au lendemain. Mais elle peut être guérie — patiemment et concrètement — lorsque la grâce est accueillie et que les relations sont restaurées.²¹

Le Christ ne sauve pas des individus isolés. Il appelle. Il rassemble. Il forme un Corps. Il établit une maison de foi où personne n’est destiné à demeurer seul. L’Église elle-même n’est pas un ajout à la foi ; elle est le sacrement de la communion, où la vie divine est partagée et où les liens humains sont restaurés.²²

La communion n’est pas un idéal sentimental ; elle est la motivation et la fin de l’Évangile. Le Christ ne meurt pas seulement pour pardonner les péchés, mais pour réconcilier — avec Dieu et les uns avec les autres. Le Carême nous formera à cette réconciliation. La Septuagésime nous prépare à reconnaître notre besoin de celle-ci.

Alors que nous nous tenons au seuil de ce temps saint, l’Église nous invite à poser des questions difficiles mais nécessaires :
Où la communion a-t-elle été perdue dans nos vies ?
Où avons-nous substitué l’isolement à la liberté, la distraction à la présence, l’autonomie à l’amour ?

Puissions-nous entrer dans le Carême avec honnêteté, humilité et courage — prêts à travailler de nouveau dans la vigne, non comme des ouvriers isolés, mais comme un peuple rétabli dans la communion du Christ.

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“Per Tempus Concussionis et Ventilationis”
a New Year Pastoral Epistle

To the clergy, religious, and faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate, and to all those who seek to preserve the Catholic faith in its integrity and fullness:
grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Carissimi

As we cross the threshold into the year of Our Lord 2026, I write to you not merely to observe the calendar’s turning, but to acknowledge what many of you already feel in your bones: that we are living through a season of shaking and sifting. Laws have been passed which strike at the very heart of human dignity; children are sacrificed to ideology in clinics and classrooms; the name of Christ is pushed to the margins of public life while false religions and false unities are courted and indulged. Within the Church, liturgy is bent to personalities, doctrine is “managed” as if it were policy, and ecumenical ceremonies are staged without any serious call to conversion.⁷

Faced with this, the temptation is either despair or distraction. But for Christians, neither is permitted. Our Lord did not promise us comfort; He promised us a Cross and His own abiding presence: “In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”¹

This epistle is therefore not a lament but a call to action. I want to speak plainly about what you, as ordinary faithful, can do in 2026 to stem, and by God’s grace begin to reverse, the tide that seems so strong against us. The work begins where it always has: at the altar, in the confessional, in the home, in the mind, in the public square, and in the daily formation we receive.

I. Christ First: Rebuilding from the Altar Outward

Every renewal in the history of the Church has started, not with strategies, but with worship. When Israel forgot the law, the prophets rebuilt the altar. When Christ came, He established, not a programme, but a Sacrifice. When the world grows darker, the first duty of the faithful is to ensure that somewhere, in their time and place, God is truly adored in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.²

For us, this means redoubling our love and reverence for the sacred liturgy in its traditional form. Where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered worthily and devoutly, according to the rites handed down, there the Kingship of Christ is already visibly proclaimed, whatever the politicians may legislate and whatever confusion may reign in chancelleries and dicasteries.⁸

In practical terms, I ask you in this new year:

Make Sunday Mass non-negotiable, even at real cost. Arrange your work, your travel, your family gatherings around the altar, not the altar around your convenience. Where you are able, sanctify at least one weekday each week by assisting at Mass. The world is not sustained by our activism but by the Blood of Christ made present on our altars. Examine your manner of assisting at Mass. Come early enough to recollect; dress as if you really believed you were going to Calvary; remain in thanksgiving after Mass rather than rushing away as soon as the last word is said. Recover Eucharistic adoration in our chapels wherever it is possible. Half an hour of silent adoration each week will do more to steady your soul and re-order your priorities than hours of anxious news-consumption.

If laws are now passed that permit abortion to birth, if children are experimented on in the name of “gender affirmation,” if public blasphemies are staged in parliaments and city squares, it is above all because Christ is not recognised as King.⁸ The most radical thing you can do in 2026 is to adore Him with faith and reverence in the Blessed Sacrament and to place the Mass at the centre of your week and your decisions.

II. Return to the Fountain: Confession, Conversion, and the Interior Life

We cannot hope to convert our culture if we ourselves will not be converted. The crisis “out there” is sustained, in part, by tepidity within the Church. The line between good and evil runs through every human heart, including mine and yours.

Therefore:

Seek regular confession. Do not content yourself with an annual visit to the confessional, as if you were renewing a licence. Make a firm decision now: monthly, or even fortnightly, you will kneel before Christ’s representative and accuse yourself humbly of your sins.³ Do this even if you must travel or wait. The sacrament of Penance is not a decorative extra; it is the instrument by which God renews His image in us and equips us with grace for the battles of our time.

Establish a rule of daily prayer. Many Catholics attempt to fight great cultural battles with almost no interior life. Decide on a daily minimum and hold to it firmly: morning offering, consciously uniting the day to God; at least fifteen minutes of mental prayer or meditative reading of Scripture; the daily Rosary, even if you must divide the decades through the day; nightly examination of conscience, however brief, with an act of contrition.

Without this, you will find your reactions shaped more by fear, anger, and the media cycle than by the Holy Ghost. With it, you will begin to discern where God is calling you to act and where He is calling you to be silent, to suffer, or to wait.

III. The Domestic Church: Guarding Children and Re-Christianising the Home

The enemies of Christ understand something many Catholics have forgotten: whoever forms the children, owns the future. It is no accident that so much pressure is placed on schools, media, and medicine to normalise grave sin, confuse identities, and sexualise the young. If we do not actively guard and form our children, others will gladly do it for us.⁴

For parents and grandparents, I therefore speak with urgency.

First, reclaim authority in the home. You are not the chaplains of the State; you are the first pastors of the souls entrusted to you. No government, school, or clinician has a greater right over a child than his or her parents acting in accordance with God’s law.⁴ If policies or programmes directly contradict the moral law or the teaching of the Church, you have not only the right but the duty to say “no.”

Second, reform the home around the family altar. Enthrone an image of the Sacred Heart; keep a crucifix prominently displayed; mark the feasts and fasts of the Church with visible signs — blessed candles, an Advent wreath, a simple family altar. Let the liturgical year be kept not only in the chapel but in the kitchen and living room. Children whose imaginations are formed by crucifixes, icons, and the Rosary will be less captivated by the glowing idols of the screen.

Third, be intentional about schooling and catechesis. If your children are in state schools, you must recognise that you are sending them into mission territory. Know what they are being taught about sex, gender, and religion. Read the policies. Ask questions. Withdraw them from sessions that contradict your faith and morals. If you can homeschool, or support genuinely Catholic schools that refuse ideological capture, seriously consider this sacrifice.⁵

Do not delegate catechesis. Teach your children the basics of the faith from solid sources — the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Baltimore Catechism, the traditional prayers and devotions of the Church. Family catechism for half an hour each week will do more for their souls than a lifetime of vague “religious education.”⁵

Finally, guard their innocence in the digital sphere. Unfiltered smartphones and unguided internet access are among the most efficient tools for undoing everything you try to teach. Set limits. Use filters. Do not be afraid to be thought “old-fashioned.” Your duty is not to make your children fashionable but to help them reach Heaven.

IV. Formation of the Mind: Thinking with the Church in an Age of Confusion

Much of the present crisis is intellectual. Laws are passed, policies implemented, and ecumenical gestures staged on the basis of confused or deliberately distorted ideas about the human person, the Church, and God. Catholics who cannot think with the Church will be swept along, however orthodox their sentiments.

For this reason, I urge you in 2026 to make serious study of the faith part of your Christian life. This does not mean amassing internet arguments, but drinking from sound wells.

Choose one reliable catechism and read it through. The Catechism of Trent or the Baltimore Catechism are excellent foundations. Take a small section each day or each week, read it slowly, and discuss it in the family or parish group.⁵

Read Scripture with the mind of the Church. The Bible is not a weapon to be wielded for private interpretation; it is the book of the Church, to be read within Tradition. Consider choosing one Gospel and one Epistle this year and reading them meditatively, perhaps with a commentary from a trustworthy Father or Doctor, such as St Augustine, St John Chrysostom, or St Thomas Aquinas.

Be intentional in your media and news consumption. You do not need to know every outrage in real time. Choose a small number of sources that you know will not lie to you, and limit your intake. For the rest, do not be afraid to turn things off. A mind perpetually inflamed by outrage will not perceive where God is asking it to act.

On questions of sex, gender, and the body, acquaint yourself with the Church’s perennial teaching on creation, marriage, and the natural law. Understand why hormonal interventions on healthy children are wrong; why “assisted dying” is in truth assisted killing; why pornography is not merely a private vice but a grave injustice that deforms the soul and poisons society.⁶ Catholics who can explain these things calmly and clearly will be a rare and necessary leaven.¹⁴

V. Christian Action in the Public Square: Witness Without Illusion

Not every Catholic is called to stand in Parliament or to appear in the media. But every Catholic, by baptism and confirmation, is called to confess Christ before men in whatever station Providence has placed him.⁶

In 2026, this will demand both courage and prudence.

First, resolve never to cooperate in a lie. There will be increasing pressure in workplaces and institutions to affirm falsehoods about marriage, sex, and identity; to use words that deny reality; to treat abortion as healthcare and euthanasia as mercy. While there may be room for discretion and silence in some circumstances, there is never room for formal cooperation in error. Do not place your signature, your vote, or your voice behind statements that contradict the law of God. If policy demands that you affirm what you know to be false, seek advice and, if necessary, be ready to accept professional or financial loss rather than betray the truth.⁶

Second, support those on the front lines. Not everyone can bring legal challenges, stand for office, or lead campaigns. But many can write letters, sign petitions, attend peaceful vigils, support crisis-pregnancy centres, contribute to legal defence funds, or simply stand beside those who are being singled out for punishment because they have refused to compromise. In an age of official intimidation, honest men and women must know that they are not alone.

Third, exercise your duties as citizens. Vote when you can do so in good conscience. Make your representatives aware that their positions on life, family, and freedom are not marginal issues but decisive ones. Write respectfully but clearly. Where public consultations are opened on matters such as hate-speech legislation, “conversion therapy,” or restrictions on homeschooling, take the time to respond.

At the same time, do not allow politics to become your functional religion. The Kingdom of Christ is not tied to any party programme. When earthly parties or movements align more closely with the moral law, they may deserve your support; when they do not, withdraw it. Keep your ultimate loyalty for Christ and His Church.⁶ There is a fine line between rightful Christian engagement and idolatry of the political process; cross it, and you will find your spiritual life withers even as your activism increases.

VI. Building Small Strongholds: Communities of Faith, Charity, and Culture

We are too scattered. One of the devil’s most effective strategies has been to isolate faithful Catholics: each family thinking itself alone in its convictions, each priest imagining himself the last of his kind. This is not only emotionally draining; it is also strategically disastrous. Lone Christians are easier to intimidate than communities.

In 2026 I ask every chapel, mission, and group within the Old Roman Apostolate to take concrete steps toward forming small, sturdy communities of faith and friendship.

After Sunday Mass, do not rush away. Make a point of greeting those you do not yet know. Learn names. See who is standing alone. Over time, encourage the formation of guild-type groups: men’s confraternities, women’s sodalities, youth circles, study groups, practical mutual-aid networks.

Consider how your chapel can become a centre not only of worship but of Christian culture: catechism classes, talks, book groups, shared meals on feast days, practical workshops on living the liturgical year at home. The more the faithful know and love one another, the harder it will be for hostile structures to drive them into silence or compromise.⁹

Do not neglect works of mercy. The credibility of our witness depends in part on whether we actually care for the poor, the lonely, the sick, the unborn, the women in crisis pregnancies, the victims of abuse and neglect. Ask what your community can realistically do: perhaps supporting a local pro-life initiative, visiting the housebound, assisting a family in need of schooling help, or helping refugees who are genuinely fleeing persecution rather than exploiting systems. Start small, but start somewhere.⁹

VII. Standing Firm in the Church: Fidelity Without Servility

Some of you carry heavy burdens over the situation in the wider Church: the marginalisation of the traditional Mass, the confusion spread by ambiguous documents, the wounds of the abuse crisis, the sight of bishops hugging those who promote or live in public contradiction to the moral law while ignoring or disparaging those attached to Tradition. You ask: how can we remain obedient sons and daughters without endorsing manifest disorder?

The answer is the same as it has always been in times of crisis: cling to what the Church has always taught; love and receive the sacraments wherever they are validly and worthily celebrated; respect the office of the Pope and the bishops without imagining that every prudential decision or personal opinion they voice binds your conscience.

We in the Old Roman Apostolate have taken a particular path within this tension: neither abandoning the Roman See nor colluding in its present confusions; neither pretending that nothing is wrong nor declaring the See vacant; neither inventing a new Church nor accepting a new religion.¹¹ This position is not comfortable, but it is, I am convinced, the one that best preserves both the faith and the hope of eventual restoration.

You can assist this work by praying daily for the Pope, for the bishops, and for us who labour in this small portion of the Lord’s vineyard. Pray especially for holy priests and vocations. Encourage young men of faith and character to discern the priesthood; do not discourage them with your cynicism. Whatever else changes, the Church will always need altars, priests, and souls hungry for the sacraments.

VIII. Nuntiatoria and Old Roman TV: Daily Formation, News, and Worship

In this struggle for truth, you are not without companions and tools. One of the great dangers of our time is confusion: Catholics drinking from poisoned wells, relying on media that misrepresent the Church, and being formed more by partisan slogans than by the mind of Christ. It is therefore vital that you make use of sound, faithful resources.

For this reason, I commend to you in a particular way our own apostolate of word and image: Nuntiatoria and Old Roman TV.

Nuntiatoria exists to do three things for you.¹²

First, catechesis. Through essays, doctrinal reflections, and explanations of the liturgical year, Nuntiatoria aims to help you think with the perennial Magisterium of the Church, drawing especially on the Fathers, the traditional catechisms, and the pre-conciliar papal encyclicals. Make a habit of reading one substantial piece each week. Use it in family discussion, parish groups, or personal study. Let it sharpen your understanding and clarify your speech.

Second, informed news and analysis. We do not pretend to be encyclopaedic, but we strive to be honest: presenting key developments in Church and world through a Catholic lens neither captured by the secular left nor beholden to a merely political “right.” Many of you cannot spare hours to sift through partisan outlets. Let Nuntiatoria help you see what truly matters and why, so that you are neither naïve nor consumed by rage.

Third, orientation in the cultural battle. Our editorials on abortion, assisted dying, grooming gangs, Islamism, false ecumenism, academic freedom, policing, attacks on Christians, and the crisis in Rome are not meant merely to alarm you, but to arm you: with facts, principles, and language to speak the truth in your own circles.

Alongside Nuntiatoria, Old Roman TV — our daily online apostolate of worship and devotions — is there to sustain you when distance, illness, or circumstances prevent physical attendance at Mass or public devotions.¹³

Let me be clear: the livestreamed Mass does not fulfil your Sunday obligation when attendance is possible, and it can never replace the grace of sacramental Communion. But for the sick, the housebound, those too far from an Old Roman chapel, or those impeded on weekdays, the daily broadcast of the Holy Sacrifice, the Rosary, and other devotions can be a real consolation and a strong aid to prayer. Unite yourselves spiritually to the altar; make acts of spiritual communion; let the prayers and readings penetrate your heart.

I therefore encourage you: bookmark Nuntiatoria and consult it regularly for catechetical and news content; subscribe to our channels and share material judiciously with those who may benefit; when you cannot attend physically, join the streamed Mass or devotions with recollection, avoiding the temptation to treat holy things as background noise.

If we are to rebuild Christian civilisation from the altar outward, we must also rebuild a Catholic mind and imagination. Nuntiatoria and Old Roman TV are offered to you precisely for that purpose: to help you pray, to help you understand, and to help you stand.

IX. Hope That Does Not Lie: Looking to 2026 and Beyond

It would be easy, surveying the past year, to become paralysed. Abortion to birth, assisted dying, experimental treatments on children, open blasphemy, institutional cowardice before Islamism, false ecumenism that trades dogma for vague unity, the slow criminalisation of Christian speech — all these things are real, and we must not pretend otherwise.¹⁴

Yet despair is a sin because it denies either God’s power or His goodness.¹⁰ Christ remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. Grace is not weaker in the twenty-first century than it was in the first. The Holy Ghost has not retired. Divine Providence has chosen you to live in this time, with these particular challenges, because there are acts of faith, hope, and love that only you can perform: in your family, your workplace, your parish, your nation.

Our task is not to guarantee visible success. Our task is to be found faithful. If we adore Christ as King in the liturgy, if we confess our sins and strive for holiness, if we raise children who know that they are made male or female in the image of God and called to chastity and charity, if we refuse to lie on command, if we build small strongholds of Christian life, if we suffer rather than betray the truth — then we have already begun to reverse the tide, whether or not we live to see the full fruits.

Dearly beloved, I ask you this year to stop saying “someone ought to” and to begin asking, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then do that thing with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength, and all your love. Heaven does not measure the size of our sphere, but the depth of our fidelity within it.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, who kept the faith beneath the Cross when all seemed lost, obtain for you the grace of persevering courage. May St Joseph guard your homes. May the martyrs and confessors of every age strengthen you to choose the hard right over the easy wrong. And may Christ, our King and High Priest, bless you, your families, and our whole Apostolate in this new year, and bring us at last to that Kingdom where no error can mislead, no sin can wound, and no tear remains un-wiped.

Given at the beginning of the year of Our Lord 2026,
in the Octave of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

Haec est via.

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
S. Silvestri Papæ et Confessoris A.D. MMXXV

Oremus

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1. Jn 16:33.
2. Council of Trent, Session XXII, Doctrina de sanctissimo Missæ sacrificio, ch. 1–2.
3. Council of Trent, Session XIV, Doctrina de sacramento Pœnitentiæ, ch. 1–2.
4. Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, 22, 36–40, on the family as “domestic Church” and parents as first educators.
5. Catechismus ex decreto Concilii Tridentini (Roman Catechism), Part II, Baptism; The Baltimore Catechism, esp. Q. 585–606 on parents’ duties.
6. Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 80; 95–99, on intrinsically evil acts and the duty not to cooperate in moral error.
7. Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, on false irenicism and unity without conversion.
8. Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, esp. 11–19, on the social Kingship of Christ and the consequences of excluding Him from public life.
9. Acts 2:42–47; Heb 10:24–25, on the early Christian community, common life, and persevering assembly.
10. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ II–II, q.20, a.1–4; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2091–2092, on despair as a sin against hope.
11. Old Roman Apostolate, foundational declarations and statements on ecclesial position and mission (cf. selsey.org; brightonoratory.org).
12. Nuntiatoria: Old Roman online periodical for doctrine, culture, and commentary (nuntiatoria.org).
13. Old Roman TV: daily online apostolate of the Old Roman Apostolate, broadcasting Mass and devotions since 2008 across digital platforms.
14. Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People (Cass Review), Final Report; relevant UK parliamentary debates on abortion decriminalisation and assisted dying (2025).

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Please note that all material on this website is the Intellectual Property (IP) of His Grace, the Titular Archbishop of Selsey and protected by Copyright and Intellectual Property laws of the United Kingdom, United States and International law. Reproduction and distribution without written authorisation of the owner is prohibited.

(©)The Titular Archbishop of Selsey 2012-2025. All Rights Reserved.

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Christmas Message & Benediction

Beloved in Christ and all who pause to listen to this Christmas message,

Today the Church does not merely recall a birthday. She proclaims a judgment upon the world.

Into a world ordered by power, calculation, and fear, God enters in silence. Into history swollen with empires and ideologies, He comes not as a ruler demanding allegiance, but as a child asking to be received. Not to flatter our strength, but to expose our poverty.

He is laid in a manger, not a quaint cradle, but the feeding trough of sacrificial lambs. In Bethlehem, the house of bread, the Bread of Life is placed where victims are prepared for offering. Before there is a cross, before there is Calvary, the logic of sacrifice is already present. Christmas already contains the Mass. The crib already casts the shadow of the altar.

And who are summoned first?
Not princes.
Not scholars.
Not those with influence or prestige.

But shepherds — men of no status, no voice, no security. In the ancient world they were mistrusted and overlooked. Yet heaven opens to them. Angels fill the night sky not to entertain, but to command: Glory to God and peace to men of good will.

The message is unmistakable. God bypasses the powerful and entrusts His revelation to the humble. He still does.

Even the angels teach us something essential. They do not debate. They do not negotiate meaning. They adore. And having announced Christ, they withdraw. They do not replace Him. They point to Him.

So too must the Church.

And so too must we.

Christmas therefore confronts us. Neutrality is no longer possible. To welcome Christ is to choose allegiance. To kneel before the crib is to reject the lie that life can be lived without sacrifice, that love has no cost, that truth can be reshaped to suit our fears.

Yet this is not a message of despair. It is a message of hope. God has not abandoned the world. He has entered it. Quietly. Decisively. Irreversibly.

For some, this Christmas will be joyful. For others, it will be quiet, heavy, or uncertain. The Christian faith does not deny that reality. It speaks into it. It tells us that meaning has not vanished, that goodness still matters, and that even when the world grows dark, light remains.

This Christmas, make room.
In your homes.
In your consciences.
In your lives.

Let the child who lay among the sacrificial lambs reign in you, so that whatever the year ahead brings, His peace may dwell within you.

A blessed and holy Christmas to you all.

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Please note that all material on this website is the Intellectual Property (IP) of His Grace, the Titular Archbishop of Selsey and protected by Copyright and Intellectual Property laws of the United Kingdom, United States and International law. Reproduction and distribution without written authorisation of the owner is prohibited.

(©)The Titular Archbishop of Selsey 2012-2025. All Rights Reserved.

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“Parvulus enim natus”
a Christmas Pastoral Epistle

To the clergy, religious, and faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate, and to all those who seek to preserve the Catholic faith in its integrity and fullness:
grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Carissimi

Parvulus enim natus est nobis, et filius datus est nobis, et factus est principatus super humerum eius.¹

Beloved in Christ.

A child is born to us, a son is given to us — and the government is upon His shoulder. In this single sentence, Holy Scripture gathers together what the world insists on separating: humility and authority, weakness and rule, infancy and sovereignty. Christmas opens not with sentiment but with ontology. It does not begin by asking how we feel, but by declaring what is. Before consolation, before peace, before even hope as the world understands it, the Church proclaims a fact about reality itself: Christ is King.

This Kingship is not symbolic, not postponed, and not dependent upon recognition. It is rooted in who Christ is. The Child born at Bethlehem is King not because He will later acquire power, but because He is the eternal Son through whom all things were made. The Incarnation does not suspend His sovereignty; it reveals the manner in which divine sovereignty truly operates. The government rests upon His shoulder because all authority in heaven and on earth already belongs to Him — not by concession, but by nature.

The year now drawing to its close has made this truth unavoidable, precisely by attempting to deny it. Again and again, we have witnessed authority exercised as though it were self-grounding: law severed from truth, power detached from reason, and moral language emptied of objective content. Institutions have demanded obedience without accountability, compliance without coherence, and trust without truth. Compassion has been invoked not as a moral virtue ordered to the good, but as a rhetorical solvent dissolving moral distinction. As Nuntiatoria has documented throughout the year, this inversion has not yielded peace or justice, but anxiety, coercion, and fragmentation.² Christmas responds not by proposing an alternative ideology, but by reasserting the metaphysical ground of authority itself: the principatus belongs to Christ.

Nowhere has this been more evident than in the collapse of trust in institutions charged with justice and protection. Policing, courts, and safeguarding bodies have too often functioned as instruments of ideological enforcement rather than guardians of truth.³ Speech has been regulated while falsehood has been protected; narratives have been curated while facts have been obscured. In such circumstances, law ceases to be a participation in the eternal law and becomes merely an exercise of will. The result is not order, but fear. Christmas stands as a quiet rebuke to this deformation of authority. The Child who governs does not coerce. He illumines.

The suffering of children this year exposes the same theological failure in its most tragic form. When safeguarding becomes procedural rather than moral, when responsibility is displaced by policy, and when reputations are valued more than lives, authority has already abdicated its purpose.⁴ The Incarnation judges this failure with terrifying gentleness. God enters history not as one who dominates, but as one who must be protected. In doing so, He reveals that the measure of any authority is its willingness to suffer for the innocent. Systems that sacrifice the vulnerable in order to preserve narratives or maintain ideological coherence stand condemned by the manger.

Within the Church herself, the year has revealed a crisis not primarily of discipline or numbers, but of Christological confidence. Episcopal authority has too often been justified in managerial terms, as though governance were a technical skill rather than a participation in Christ’s own pastoral Kingship.⁵ Unity has been pursued by restriction rather than truth, by control rather than conversion.⁶ The priesthood has been flattened into a function, and the liturgy instrumentalised as a means to pastoral ends rather than received as the Church’s supreme act of worship.⁷ These developments are not merely administrative misjudgements; they reflect a deeper uncertainty about how Christ actually reigns in His Church.

Christmas answers that uncertainty decisively. Christ reigns not through bureaucratic neutrality, but through sacramental reality. He governs His Church through truth taught, sins absolved, sacrifices offered, and souls sanctified. Authority in the Church is not creative; it is ministerial. It does not invent the faith, but hands it on. Where this is forgotten, governance becomes anxious and defensive. Where it is remembered, authority becomes luminous and life-giving.

The disorders we have witnessed are not confined to one nation or communion. Across the Western world, the same moral grammar has asserted itself: emotion elevated over reason, inclusion over truth, process over substance.⁸ Yet alongside this decay, signs of grace have been quietly at work. Families have sought tradition not as an aesthetic preference, but as a school of reality. Young men have rediscovered discipline and vocation in a culture that has offered them neither meaning nor responsibility. Faithful souls have chosen reverence over novelty because they have intuited that worship shapes belief, and belief shapes life.⁹ These are not marginal developments. They are the beginnings of renewal.

The Son is given. This is the grammar of divine rule. Christ does not seize His throne; He receives it through obedience unto death. His Kingship is cruciform before it is glorious. That is why it endures when all others collapse. Earthly regimes rule by force or manipulation; Christ rules by truth and love ordered by justice. A Church that forgets this seeks relevance through accommodation and becomes indistinguishable from the age. A Church that remembers it becomes a sign of contradiction — and therefore a sign of hope.¹⁰

To our priests, this year has clarified your vocation with particular urgency. You are not managers of decline, nor facilitators of consensus, nor curators of institutional calm. You are configured sacramentally to Christ the King, the Priest, and the Judge. This configuration is not metaphorical, but ontological. By the character impressed upon your soul, you stand at the intersection of heaven and earth, charged not with inventing the Church’s mission, but with faithfully mediating Christ’s own authority to His people.

In a time when law collapses into power, when language is emptied of meaning, and when truth is negotiated rather than proclaimed, the priest is tempted either to retreat into silence or to seek safety in accommodation. Resist both temptations. Your fidelity to the altar is not ritualism; it is an act of governance, for Christ reigns first and foremost through His Sacrifice. Your fidelity to the confessional is not optional pastoral provision; it is the restoration of divine justice through mercy, the place where shattered consciences are healed and moral reality is re-established. Your fidelity to the full truth of the faith — taught without distortion, apology, or reduction — is not rigidity, but charity. Souls cannot be healed by half-truths.

Many of you have laboured this year under discouragement, isolation, or misunderstanding. Some have been pressured to soften what must be spoken plainly; others have been sidelined for refusing to confuse compassion with indulgence. Know this: Christ governs His Church not through managerial success, but through priestly fidelity. When you celebrate Mass reverently, preach the truth in season and out of season, and remain available to souls even when gratitude is scarce, you are exercising real authority — the authority of Christ Himself. It is through such hidden faithfulness that Christ continues to rule His people, even when His reign is denied in public discourse.¹¹

To our faithful, the implications of this year are no less serious. Neutrality is no longer a viable posture, nor is a private faith content to remain unseen. To raise children in the Catholic faith in a culture hostile to moral formation; to pray publicly when prayer is dismissed as eccentric or threatening; to speak truthfully when silence is rewarded and falsehood protected; to order one’s life according to Christ’s law rather than the shifting norms of the age — these are no longer culturally supported actions. They are acts of allegiance.

You should not be surprised if such fidelity costs you comfort, reputation, or ease. The Kingdom to which you belong is not an abstraction. It makes claims upon time, conduct, and conscience. You are not spectators to history, nor passive observers of cultural decline. You are subjects of a Kingdom that is real, demanding, and ultimately victorious. Your daily choices — often unnoticed and unrewarded — participate in that victory. The quiet perseverance of Christian families, the steady witness of moral integrity, and the refusal to surrender truth for acceptance are themselves signs that Christ’s reign has not been extinguished.¹²

Christmas does not promise that the coming year will be easier. It promises something far more bracing and far more consoling: that history is governed. The Incarnation is not a sentimental interruption of a tragic story; it is the decisive claim of God upon His creation. The manger already casts the shadow of the Cross, and the Cross already bears the title of the King. The Child who lies in straw already reigns from the Tree. His Kingship is not delayed until the end of time; it is exercised now — patiently, mysteriously, and often beneath the surface of events.

This truth steadies us when appearances suggest otherwise. History is not drifting toward chaos, nor surrendered to the will of the powerful. It is being judged, purified, and claimed. What seems like disorder is often the exposure of false authorities; what feels like loss may be the stripping away of illusions. Christ reigns even when His reign is denied, and He governs even when His governance is contested.

As we commend the year past to God’s mercy and entrust the year ahead to His providence, we do so without illusion. Trials will continue. Confusion will persist. Authority will be contested. But the government remains where it has always been: upon His shoulder. No court can revoke it. No synod can redefine it. No ideology can erase it.

The Nativity of Our Lord is not merely the revelation of divine humility; it is the manifestation of divine authority. As Pope Pius XI taught in Quas Primas, Christ’s Kingship is intrinsic to His Person and therefore extends beyond private devotion to laws, institutions, and public life itself.¹³ To separate Christmas from this doctrine is to sentimentalise the Incarnation and render it harmless. The Child laid in the manger already claims the nations. To deny Him that claim is not neutrality, but rebellion. To acknowledge it is not extremism, but obedience.

Christ reigns. Christ judges. Christ will triumph.

May the peace of Christ the King rule in your hearts and homes. May Our Lady, who first acknowledged His reign in her fiat and bore Him into history, intercede for us all. And may the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, descend upon you and remain with you always.

Haec est via.

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
In Vigilia Nativitatis Domini, A.D. MMXXV

Oremus

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¹ Isaias 9:6 (Vulgate).
² “Police Fabrication and the New Double Standard: The Maccabi Ban, Sectarian Politics, and the Moral Collapse of British Institutions,” Nuntiatoria, 23 November 2025.
³ Ibid.; see also “The Failure of the Via Media: How the ‘Reformed but Catholic’ Motif Collapsed in Anglicanism,” Nuntiatoria, 7 November 2025.
⁴ “The Invisible Child: The Death of Sara Sharif and the Culture that Failed Her,” Nuntiatoria, 14 November 2025.
⁵ “New Archbishop of Westminster: Biography, Context, and the Crisis of Episcopal Confidence,” Nuntiatoria, 19 December 2025.
⁶ “The Leaked CDF Assessment and the Fiction of Liturgical Unity,” Nuntiatoria, 10 July 2025.
⁷ “The Forgotten Disposition: The Crisis of Priesthood and the Loss of Sacramental Culture,” Nuntiatoria, 7 December 2025.
⁸ “The Illusion of Restoration: Christianity Without Christ, the Church Without Authority,” Nuntiatoria, 19 July 2025.
⁹ “Generational Shift in the Priesthood: Young Clergy, Tradition, and the Collapse of Synodal Enthusiasm,” Nuntiatoria, 24 October 2025.
¹⁰ Ibid.; cf. “The Orphaned Altar: On the Crisis of Episcopal Fatherhood,” Nuntiatoria, 17 October 2025.
¹¹ “The Holiness of Priests Contributes to Make the Faithful Holy,” Nuntiatoria, 16 December 2025.
¹² “The Apathy of Apostasy: False Compassion and the Collapse of Faith,” Nuntiatoria, 24 July 2025.
¹³ Pius XI, Quas Primas (11 December 1925), §§17–18.

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Please note that all material on this website is the Intellectual Property (IP) of His Grace, the Titular Archbishop of Selsey and protected by Copyright and Intellectual Property laws of the United Kingdom, United States and International law. Reproduction and distribution without written authorisation of the owner is prohibited.

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To the clergy, religious, and faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate, and to all those who seek to preserve the Catholic faith in its integrity and fullness:
grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Carissimi

Concerning the obedience of truth — that golden chain which binds intellect and will to God — the faithful are once more unsettled by a voice from Rome claiming to defend devotion while, in fact, diminishing it. The newly issued Mater Populi Fidelis of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved by Pope Leo XIV on 3 November 2025, declares that the ancient and venerable Marian titles Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix omnium gratiarum are “theologically and pastorally inappropriate.”¹ It exhorts pastors to avoid them, proposing instead that Our Lady be invoked in more general terms as Mother of the Faithful or Mother of the People of God.

At first glance, such language might appear modest and uncontroversial. Yet beneath its mild tone there breathes the spirit of the age — that cautious, calculating moderation which hides its unbelief behind diplomacy. To the modern ear, “pastoral sensitivity” has become the velvet phrase by which the bold truths of revelation are softened, reshaped, or quietly withdrawn. But divine truth cannot be domesticated. The mysteries of the faith are not ours to edit or abbreviate for fear of offending men. To forbid the ancient titles of the Mother of God in the name of prudence is to repeat the perennial temptation: that the Church should make herself more acceptable to those who do not believe.

This new prohibition therefore touches not only Marian devotion but the heart of the Church’s obedience to divine revelation. When the voice of authority ceases to echo the voice of Tradition, the faithful rightly ask: to whom, and to what, must our obedience be given? For obedience in the Church is not servile submission to the variable opinions of men, but the joyful adherence of the mind to what God has revealed once for all. It is the obedience of faith — oboedientia fidei — by which the soul bows before truth, not before expediency. When obedience is detached from truth, it becomes mere conformity; when truth is detached from obedience, it becomes pride. Only when both are united in charity does the Church remain whole.

Mater Populi Fidelis is presented as a refinement of devotion, an act of “pastoral clarity.” Yet what appears merciful to men may in fact wound heaven’s truth. The Church has never feared to proclaim the glories of the Mother of God; she has only feared to neglect them. From the Apostolic age to our own, it has been a mark of orthodoxy to magnify her privileges, for in magnifying her, the Church magnifies the Lord who chose her. Every age that has diminished Mary has soon diminished Christ. Her titles — Theotokos, Mediatrix, Co-Redemptrix — are not the adornments of sentiment but the necessary expressions of doctrine. Each title protects a mystery of faith; remove one, and the whole balance of truth begins to collapse.

To silence the Mother’s titles is, therefore, to muffle the voice of the Incarnation itself. For no Mary, no Jesus. The flesh by which the Word redeems us is the flesh she gave Him; her consent is the hinge upon which the world’s salvation turned. Grace does not abolish nature — it perfects it — and in Mary that perfection is complete. Her fiat was not merely a passive permission but an active cooperation with the divine will. In her, grace and freedom met in perfect harmony: the human will so united to the divine that her very “Be it done unto me” became the first note in the hymn of redemption. The Word became flesh not by divine decree alone, but through her living obedience.

Her compassion beneath the Cross was the consummation of that obedience. She stood, as St John records, when the apostles had fled — standing not merely in body but in faith. She stood beneath the storm of blasphemy, beneath the sword of Simeon’s prophecy, beneath the weight of every human sin. There, as Christ offered Himself for the life of the world, she offered the Son of her womb and the love of her heart. Her maternal anguish became an oblation united to His, so that in the single sacrifice of Calvary both Priest and Mother gave what was dearest to them: He, His life; she, her Son. And from that hour she received all men as her children.

To diminish this truth under pretext of “ecumenism” is to misunderstand both charity and unity. True charity does not flatter error; it redeems it. True unity is not achieved by negotiation but by conversion. The world was not saved by compromise between light and darkness, but by the blood of the Cross. Every time the Church hesitates to proclaim what is true for fear of division, she repeats the cowardice of Pilate: “What is truth?” Every time she trims the Gospel to suit the tastes of the age, she forgets that she was born from a Crucified God.

When, therefore, ecclesiastical authority speaks as though Mary’s co-operation were an embarrassment to the modern world, the faithful must remember that the obedience owed to men is measured by the obedience owed to God. The Church does not exist to please her critics; she exists to sanctify them. The shepherd’s staff is crooked indeed when it bends toward convenience rather than Calvary. To stand beneath the Cross with Mary is to stand in the truth — and in every age, it is truth, not diplomacy, that saves souls.

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Ecumenism and the Temptation to Compromise

The Dicastery itself admitted that this prohibition was motivated partly by the wish to foster “greater ecumenical understanding” among Christians separated from the Catholic Church, for whom such titles were deemed “obstacles to unity.”² Yet here lies the gravest irony: to veil revealed truth in the name of unity is not to heal division but to multiply it. Unity without truth is not communion but confusion. True peace is not purchased by the silence of faith but by the harmony of souls in the same confession of Christ.

The only authentic ecumenism is conversion — the return of all who are separated to the one Fold under the one Shepherd (John 10:16)³. It cannot consist in trimming doctrine to avoid offence, nor in re-phrasing dogma to placate unbelief. To change the Church’s speech so that error may feel comfortable is not charity but deceit. The desire for unity is noble, but it must be unity in the truth that makes us free. When that truth is obscured, all we achieve is the illusion of agreement and the death of conviction.

Modern man prizes dialogue, but he fears definition. Dialogue, in its proper sense, is the exchange that leads souls to the truth; yet when dialogue becomes an end in itself, it degenerates into the polite coexistence of contradictions. The Church cannot be content to sit at round tables while souls drift toward perdition. The charity that once sent missionaries across oceans now seems afraid to cross the street. What began as the call of Christ — “Go, and teach all nations” — has been diluted into the empty courtesy of “listen and learn.”

True charity speaks the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15)⁴; false charity whispers half-truths and hides the Cross. The martyrs were not slain for ambiguity. They died not for “dialogue,” but for doctrine. St. Stephen did not win the crown of glory by avoiding offence, but by speaking the truth to those who gnashed their teeth against it. St. Polycarp, St. Thomas More, the English martyrs — none of them sought compromise with error; they bore witness to the reality that love without truth is not love at all.

The Church of our time risks forgetting that unity must be built upon conversion, not concession. “If I yet pleased men,” warns the Apostle, “I should not be the servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10)⁵. Yet many shepherds, anxious to be praised by the world, have begun to measure success by applause rather than by sanctity. They confuse the noise of consensus with the voice of the Spirit. But the Holy Ghost is not the author of confusion; He is the Spirit of truth, whose unity is wrought through baptismal faith and sacramental grace, not through the erasure of doctrine.

Consider the bitter fruit of false ecumenism: when the Church dilutes her witness, the world is not converted — it simply ceases to take her seriously. When she hides the Cross behind vague affirmations of goodwill, she ceases to be the light of the world and becomes merely one lamp among many, flickering in the fog. The scandal of the Cross cannot be removed without removing the Cross itself. The only way to make Christianity inoffensive is to make it meaningless.

The faithful must understand this clearly: to love our separated brethren is a command of Christ; to withhold the truth from them is a betrayal of Christ. We cannot invite men to the fullness of faith by pretending that fullness does not matter. We cannot heal division by amputating dogma. To suppress the Marian titles affirmed by the Magisterium, lest they offend those who reject the Mother, is to betray the Son. The Church was not founded to negotiate truth but to proclaim it; not to conform to the world, but to convert it.

The ecumenism of the saints was not a diplomacy of accommodation but a passion for conversion. It was the zeal of St. Peter preaching to the Jews and Gentiles alike, of St. Paul confronting idolatry at Athens, of St. Francis Xavier baptizing pagans on distant shores. Their unity was not a truce with error but the triumph of grace over division. To imitate them, the Church must rediscover her missionary heart. She must cease apologising for her dogmas and begin again to proclaim them. Her unity will not be restored by hiding the Mother of God, but by exalting her — for wherever Mary is honoured, Christ is known, and wherever she is silenced, the Gospel fades.

The Church’s task is not to make peace with the world but to win the world to peace in Christ. It is not the business of the Bride of Christ to apologise for her purity in the company of adulterous creeds. When she blushes for her motherhood, she ceases to be a mother and becomes a widow. When she forgets her Marian heart, she forgets how to bring souls to birth in grace. The more she hides the Virgin’s glory, the more she hides the glory of her own identity.

Therefore, let us reject this false ecumenism which disguises compromise as compassion. Let us cling to that true ecumenism which the saints practiced: the unity of all men in the one faith, the one baptism, the one Church, the one truth. For unity divorced from truth is treason to both.

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The Faith Once Delivered and the Continuity of Catholic Tradition

Holy Scripture and the constant witness of the Church bear unanimous testimony to the Virgin’s singular participation in the Redemption wrought by Christ. She conceived the Redeemer by the power of the Holy Ghost (Luke 1:35)⁶, stood steadfast beneath the Cross (John 19:25–27)⁷, and was foretold from the beginning as the Woman whose seed would crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15)⁸. As Eve once cooperated in man’s ruin, so Mary freely cooperated in his restoration. The whole rhythm of salvation turns upon that contrast: through the disobedience of one woman came death; through the obedience of another came life. St. Irenaeus, at the close of the second century, called her causa salutis nostrae — the cause of our salvation — for “as Eve by her disobedience became the cause of death, so Mary by her obedience became the cause of salvation.”⁹ St. Augustine echoed the same truth: “The woman who merited to bring forth Life merited thereby that life should return through her.” In her womb, obedience undid the knot of pride, and from her fiat flowed the stream of grace that has never ceased to water the Church.

This faith, born in Scripture and confirmed by the Fathers, matured through the centuries into the Church’s constant tradition. In the early centuries, the faithful instinctively perceived that Mary’s role was not marginal but central in God’s plan. She was the Ark of the New Covenant, the living tabernacle in which the Word took flesh; the new Eve, standing beside the new Adam in the drama of redemption. Her image adorned the catacombs; her name was invoked in the earliest prayers. When heresy threatened to divide the Church, it was her title Theotokos — “God-bearer” — that preserved the truth of the Incarnation against Nestorius and his followers. To defend her was to defend her Son’s divinity; to deny her was to dissolve the mystery of the Word made flesh.

By the tenth century, liturgical hymns and sermons were already venerating her as Redemptrix, and by the fifteenth century the faithful invoked her as Co-Redemptrix in public devotion.¹⁰ The Church did not invent these expressions; she recognised in them the faithful echo of her own heart. What was first the intuition of the saints became the prayer of the people, and in time, the teaching of the Popes. For as theology matures, it does not abandon what is old but makes explicit what has always been believed. The oak of doctrine grows from the acorn of revelation; and just as Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary was the flowering of the divine will revealed at Bethlehem, so the titles of Mary are the unfolding of the truths implicit in her motherhood.

Thus, Leo XIII (1885) approved prayers calling her corredentrice del mondo, “the Co-Redemptrix of the world.”¹¹ Pius X, that pope of orthodoxy and reform, confirmed the title in three separate decrees of the Holy Office between 1908 and 1914, recognising in it nothing contrary to the faith but rather a profound affirmation of the mystery of the Incarnation.¹² Benedict XV, in Inter Sodalicia (1918), gave the matter its most explicit formulation: “We may rightly say that she redeemed the human race together with Christ.”¹³ These are not the words of poetic enthusiasm but of papal theology. Pius XI, addressing pilgrims in 1933, declared: “By necessity, the Redeemer could not but associate His Mother in His work; for this reason we invoke her as Co-Redemptrix.”¹⁴ And Pius XII, who crowned the Marian century with a clarity worthy of the Fathers, affirmed in Mystici Corporis Christi that she “offered her Son to the Eternal Father on Calvary, together with the holocaust of her maternal rights and love,” adding in Mediator Dei that she is “Mediatrix of all graces.”¹⁵

The Second Vatican Council, far from abandoning this tradition, restated it with serenity and precision. “In suffering with Him as He died on the Cross,” the Council Fathers taught, “she cooperated in the work of the Saviour in an altogether singular way.” (Lumen Gentium §§56–61)¹⁶ Here we find the same faith clothed in conciliar formality: the doctrine remains, though phrased for a restless age. The Council did not invent Marian cooperation, nor did it demote her; it simply assumed what every previous century had confessed — that the Mother of God’s participation in the Redemption is unique, subordinate, and yet indispensable to the divine plan.

St. John Paul II, reading the Council in continuity, used the title Co-Redemptrix repeatedly between 1985 and 2000. In his address at the Shrine of Our Lady of Bonaria, he proclaimed: “Mary was spiritually crucified with her crucified Son; her role as Co-Redemptrix did not cease with the glorification of her Son.”¹⁷ His theology of the body extended also to the Body of the Church, showing how Mary’s maternal participation exemplifies the cooperation of every Christian soul with grace. In her, the Church contemplates her own vocation — to suffer with Christ, to bring forth souls into new life, to become, in a mystical sense, co-redeemers under the one Redeemer.

Thus the Church, from the catacombs to the Council, from the Fathers to the modern Popes, has spoken with one mind and one heart. The title Co-Redemptrix does not place Mary on equality with her divine Son; it proclaims that she cooperated with and under Him — that the Almighty, in His mercy, willed to redeem mankind not by bypassing human freedom but by ennobling it in one sinless Woman. In her, grace reached its human summit; in her, creation consented to its Creator. She is not the fountain of grace but the channel; not the source of redemption but its maternal instrument. Through her, the divine condescension touched the human race not abstractly but personally, not as a decree from heaven but as the embrace of a Mother.

To deny or suppress this truth, therefore, is not pastoral sensitivity but pastoral blindness. It ruptures the continuity of faith and introduces ambiguity where the saints and Popes have spoken with luminous simplicity. It deprives the faithful of the language by which the mysteries of salvation are most beautifully expressed. To take from the Church the title Co-Redemptrix is to take from her lips the word by which she has long confessed the depth of her gratitude to God. The Church may change her vesture, but she cannot change her voice.

As Professor Miravalle observes, “a public denial of the title Co-Redemptrix would gravely and negatively impact authentic Christian unity, since it would oppose the revealed truth of Scripture, the consistent voice of Tradition, and the sensus fidelium.”¹⁸ The faithful instinctively recognise that to honour the Mother is to honour the Son; to obscure her prerogatives is to diminish His glory. To obscure Mary’s office is to obscure the Incarnation itself. If the Church forgets the Mother, she will soon forget the Son who took flesh from her. Therefore, let us speak boldly what the ages have confessed humbly: that the Mother of God cooperated uniquely in the work of salvation, and that in honouring her, we safeguard the truth of Christ’s humanity and the splendour of divine mercy.

For as St. Louis de Montfort wrote, “Never was there, and never will there be, a creature who gives more glory to God than the Blessed Virgin Mary.” Her very being proclaims the logic of the Incarnation: that God’s grace does not destroy the natural order but elevates it; that He redeems not by rejecting the world He made, but by entering it through a woman. In her, heaven and earth meet; and through her, man learns how to say fiat again.

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The Nature of True Obedience

Authentic obedience is never servility; it is the intelligent and loving submission of the will to divine truth. The Church does not command blind surrender, but enlightened assent to what God has revealed and entrusted to her keeping. Pastor Aeternus of the First Vatican Council teaches that the Holy Spirit was given to Peter’s successors “not to make known new doctrine, but to guard and faithfully expound the revelation handed down through the Apostles.”¹⁹ The Pope is the guardian of Tradition, not its author; his authority is ministerial, not creative. When he speaks rightly, he echoes the Word; when he deviates, he must himself be recalled to that same Word which he is bound to serve.

True obedience is therefore a participation in truth, not a suspension of conscience. It is the free act of a soul enlightened by faith, not the servile reflex of fear. The saints obeyed not because they were credulous, but because they believed in a God who cannot deceive. Their obedience was luminous, not blind — an obedience illuminated by understanding and inflamed by love. They obeyed authority precisely because they discerned in it the echo of Christ’s voice. When that echo fell silent, they clung to Christ Himself. For obedience is not primarily to men, but to the divine truth entrusted to men.

The Church has always taught that conscience is not an autonomous tribunal, but the application of divine law within the human heart. To obey God rather than men is not rebellion but fidelity when human commands contradict the divine order. Thus St. Peter, standing before the Sanhedrin, declared without hesitation: “We must obey God rather than men.” The same principle applies within the Church herself, for no human authority, not even the Supreme Pontiff, possesses power over the deposit of faith. He is its steward, not its master.

Therefore, when a papal or curial act appears to contradict or obscure what the Church has always taught, it loses its moral force. Authority is binding only when it is truthful; when it ceases to serve truth, it ceases to oblige conscience. The document Mater Populi Fidelis, being inconsistent with the prior Magisterium, cannot bind the faithful. It is disciplinary, not doctrinal — it attempts to regulate language, but it cannot erase the truths those titles enshrine. The divine constitution of the Church admits of no rupture between one era and another, for truth is one, and Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. To demand assent to a novelty that contradicts Tradition is to ask obedience to falsehood — an impossibility for any Catholic conscience.

The Council of Trent declared that all ecclesiastical discipline must be “wholesome and in conformity with sound doctrine.”²⁰ The Church’s laws exist to protect her dogmas, not to replace them. Likewise, Donum Veritatis permits theologians, when confronted by non-definitive statements that appear contrary to earlier teaching, to withhold assent — provided this is done with reverence, fidelity, and charity.²¹ Even the Code of Canon Law recognises the same principle: subordinates may suspend compliance with an order that is manifestly unlawful or contrary to the Church’s mind.²² Thus the Church, in her own legislation, admits that obedience without discernment is not virtue but weakness. True obedience never abandons reason; it perfects it in faith.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that obedience is a moral virtue, and like every virtue, it is bounded by right reason. It lies between the extremes of pride and servility. He writes, “It is better to obey God than men; and when the superior commands what is contrary to God, then the subject is bound to disobey.”²³ This is not an encouragement to defiance but a reminder of hierarchy: divine law stands above human law, eternal truth above temporal command. Even a pope is not infallible in every utterance; his authority is bounded by the perennial Magisterium. To resist error is therefore not disobedience but fidelity to the higher obedience owed to God.

Throughout history, the Church’s greatest defenders have exemplified this discernment. St. Athanasius resisted the majority of bishops when they faltered into Arianism, yet he was vindicated by time and by God. St. Catherine of Siena admonished popes to return from exile and restore reform, yet she never wavered in filial reverence. St. Paul resisted St. Peter to his face when the first Pope, out of human weakness, obscured the universality of the Gospel. Each of these saints teaches that authentic obedience may sometimes require holy resistance. Such resistance, when born of faith and charity, is not rebellion but purification.

The saints were not obedient to error but to grace. They bowed to authority because it reflected Christ; they resisted when it betrayed Him. So too must we. To refuse novelties that wound the deposit of faith is not schism but fidelity. When a father commands what dishonours the household, the son who disobeys preserves the family’s honour. Likewise, when churchmen attempt to dilute the faith, the faithful who hold fast preserve the Church herself.

This is not a call to insubordination but to integrity. True obedience is measured not by silence but by sanctity. The one who obeys truth obeys Christ Himself, even if this places him at odds with those who misrepresent Christ. The one who confesses what the saints confessed is not outside the Church but at her very heart. For the Church’s unity is the unity of truth, not the uniformity of error. To stand with Tradition is to stand with the living Magisterium in its continuity; to stand with novelty against Tradition is to oppose the very nature of the Church.

In our time, when many appeal to “synodality” or “discernment” as though these were virtues independent of truth, we must remember that discernment without doctrine is delusion, and synodality without faith is merely politics. The path of obedience is narrow, but it leads to freedom; the path of compromise is broad, but it leads to the loss of the soul. Therefore, let the faithful hold fast to the obedience of truth — humble before legitimate authority, but unyielding before error. For fidelity to Christ is the highest form of obedience, and He never contradicts Himself.

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The Law of Prayer and the Law of Faith

Our forebears expressed the indissoluble bond between worship and belief in that sacred maxim: ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi — that the law of prayer establishes the law of faith.²⁴ This phrase, attributed to Prosper of Aquitaine, was not a mere aphorism but a theological axiom, summarising the Church’s living method of guarding the deposit of faith. The lex orandi and the lex credendi are not two separate realities but two aspects of the same mystery: the faith of the Church finds its purest expression in her prayer, and her prayer, in turn, safeguards the integrity of her faith.

The Church’s liturgy is not an ornament to theology but its living voice. In her prayers, her gestures, her silence, she confesses what she believes and believes what she confesses. The altar, the chant, the incense, the posture of the priest — all are doctrinal statements rendered in sacred sign. To touch the liturgy, therefore, is to touch doctrine; to change the language of prayer is to reshape the content of belief. Every heresy in history has sought, sooner or later, to alter the worship of the Church, because the devil knows that the surest way to change what men believe is to change what they pray.

In the early centuries, before creeds were formalised, the Church’s liturgy was her catechism. The faithful learned the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Eucharist by the prayers they heard and the rites they saw. The baptismal formula, the Eucharistic canon, the sign of the Cross — these were the Church’s first theology textbooks. Thus, when Prosper wrote that the law of prayer establishes the law of belief, he was describing a reality already ancient: that orthodoxy breathes through worship. If worship falters, faith soon suffocates.

To alter the lex orandi is therefore never a neutral act. When official prayer no longer names the Virgin as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix, the faithful will slowly cease to believe what those titles signify. The Church’s piety is her memory; to silence her traditional language is to induce amnesia in her children. Suppress the words, and the truths they convey wither from memory. Language, once sanctified, forms the channels of belief; to dam them is to starve the soul. This is why the saints, even amid persecution, preserved the integrity of the sacred liturgy — because they knew that right worship is the guardian of right faith.

Pius XII warned: “The liturgy is a profession of immutable faith.”²⁵ To change that profession without necessity is to endanger the mysteries it proclaims. When the Church ceases to sing what she believes, she begins to forget it. And when she forgets, the world forgets with her. For the Church is the memory of mankind; her liturgy is the heartbeat of salvation history. Every time a sacred word or gesture disappears from her worship, some aspect of the divine truth grows dim in the world’s consciousness.

This is why the suppression of traditional devotions or venerable titles, such as Co-Redemptrix or Mediatrix, carries consequences far beyond vocabulary. To forbid their use in prayer is to diminish their place in theology; to expel them from theology is to impoverish the faith. Once the Church stops praying as she has always prayed, she will soon stop believing as she has always believed. This is not speculation but history. Every age that tampered with the liturgy — from the iconoclasts of the eighth century to the rationalists of the eighteenth — saw a parallel decay in doctrine. Worship and belief rise and fall together, for they share one soul.

The Old Roman liturgy, venerable in its unbroken continuity, has always borne witness to this truth. Its collects, prefaces, and hymns express not only devotion but doctrine: the kingship of Christ, the intercession of the saints, the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the mediation of Mary. When that language is silenced, the faith it embodies begins to erode. The Novus Ordo reforms, though claiming to simplify, in practice impoverished the Church’s spiritual vocabulary. The altar was turned to face man instead of God, the silence of adoration replaced with dialogue, and many prayers of atonement and sacrifice were reduced or omitted. The faithful were told that nothing essential had changed — yet the law of prayer had been rewritten, and with it the perception of belief.

Today, we witness a similar danger in Mater Populi Fidelis. By discouraging the invocation of Mary as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix, it touches the same nerve as those earlier liturgical innovations: it proposes to refine devotion by diminishing doctrine. But truth cannot be refined by subtraction. To silence the language of the saints is not progress but regression; it is to sever the present from the living stream of faith that flows from the Upper Room to the altars of today.

The faithful must therefore hold fast to the Church’s ancient prayers and titles, not as relics of nostalgia but as vessels of truth. The liturgy, like the Virgin Mary herself, is a mother: she nourishes faith by repetition, by beauty, by the familiar rhythms of sanctity. When we pray the same words that our fathers prayed, we breathe the same faith they breathed. In that continuity lies the Church’s identity. To rupture it is to fracture her memory, and a Church that forgets her past cannot recognise her future.

Let us, then, guard with jealous reverence the law of prayer that our forefathers handed down. Let us invoke Our Lady with the titles she has borne for centuries, confident that to do so is to join the unbroken chorus of believers who have honoured her from the dawn of Christendom. For the lex orandi is the Church’s heartbeat: when it falters, the body weakens; when it is strong, the whole Church lives. To wound the lex orandi is to imperil the lex credendi. But to preserve both, through fidelity to Tradition, is to remain in the full light of truth.

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The Peril of Pastoral Innovation

Modern ecclesiastics often appeal to “pastoral necessity” as a cloak for doctrinal revision. The word pastoral — once rich with apostolic meaning — has been stretched until it hides a multitude of evasions. It once described the shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep; now it too often means the bureaucrat who refuses to offend the wolves. But pastoral care, if it is to remain truly Catholic, must always serve truth, never disguise it. Charity divorced from clarity is counterfeit; mercy without truth is sentimentality.

Christ Himself was the Good Shepherd — Pastor bonus — but He was also the Truth. He led His flock not by compromise but by conversion. His mercy was never at the expense of His mission. When He forgave the adulterous woman, He said, “Go, and sin no more.” When He healed the paralytic, He first said, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” Divine mercy never bypasses moral reality. Yet modern pastoralism pretends to do just that: it seeks to heal wounds by denying that they exist. It replaces the Cross with comfort and the call to repentance with reassurance. It baptises compromise as compassion.

The Church’s mission is to convert the world, not to conform to it. Yet under the banner of “renewal,” whole generations have witnessed the retreat of faith beneath the banner of progress. This inversion is the essence of modernism — that ancient heresy reborn as sentimentality — which insists that the Church must adapt her truths to the needs of each age. Pius X warned that modernism “perverts the eternal concept of truth by making it subject to change,” and he foresaw that its most dangerous form would not be open rebellion but “pastoral adaptation.” When pastors prefer the approval of men to the fidelity of God, they cease to shepherd souls and begin to manage decline.

The tragedy of our age is that pastoral has been pitted against doctrinal — as though the care of souls could ever be severed from the truth that saves them. But genuine pastoral wisdom flows from doctrine; it is the application of divine law to human lives. The confessor who absolves without contrition is no healer but an accomplice. The bishop who refuses to preach repentance for fear of losing popularity abandons the souls entrusted to him. The priest who replaces penance with affirmation ceases to be a physician of souls and becomes their undertaker. Every age of decadence in Church history has begun when doctrine was set aside “for pastoral reasons.”

Under the pretext of outreach, the faithful were deprived of their inheritance. The Novus Ordo Missae was presented as a friendly gesture to “modern man,” a bridge toward unity with Protestants — yet it dismantled the very altar on which unity with heaven had been maintained. The sacred language of sacrifice was softened; the altar turned toward the congregation; the priest was reimagined as presider rather than sacrificer. The gestures of adoration faded, and faith in the Real Presence withered with them. The people were told that nothing essential had changed, but they awoke to find that the vocabulary of faith had been rewritten and the supernatural eclipsed by the horizontal.

The architects of this pastoral revolution promised renewal, but the fruits have been decline. Vocations dwindled, faith collapsed, and the faithful were scattered. When worship was made to please man, man ceased to worship. The lex orandi had been altered, and with it the lex credendi. This was not accidental; it was the inevitable consequence of substituting human psychology for divine theology. The liturgy was redefined as assembly rather than sacrifice, participation replaced contemplation, and the transcendent was eclipsed by the therapeutic. In this new climate, the language of salvation was replaced by the language of wellbeing — the shepherd became a facilitator, and the sheep were left without a guide.

The same logic animates Traditionis Custodes (2021), which, under the guise of “pastoral necessity,” sought to restrict the Mass that had nourished the saints for centuries. The faithful who clung to the ancient rite were accused of division — yet it was the decree that divided them from their patrimony. The document claimed to preserve unity by suppressing diversity, but true unity rests on truth, not uniformity in error. It declared the lex orandi of all time to be “abrogated” for the sake of unity — a phrase unknown to the Fathers and unimaginable to the saints. The irony was complete: the Mass that had built the Church was now treated as a threat to her stability.

Now, in Mater Populi Fidelis, the same pastoral sophistry has migrated from the sanctuary to the realm of doctrine. What was once called Co-Redemptrix is branded “theologically inappropriate”; what was once sung in prayer is now forbidden for “ecumenical sensitivity.” As the altar was stripped of its silence and sacrifice, so the Mother of God is stripped of her titles and honour — all in the name of “prudence.” But prudence without fidelity becomes deceit. Authentic prudence is the practical application of wisdom; false prudence is the camouflage of fear. To “protect unity” by suppressing truth is to imitate the chief priests who said, “It is expedient that one man should die for the people.” Such logic crucifies truth anew.

Both Traditionis Custodes and Mater Populi Fidelis spring from the same delusion: that the faith can be made more acceptable by concealing its splendour. Yet the Church’s task is not to please men but to glorify God. To make peace with error by muting truth is not evangelisation but apostasy. St. Paul’s warning rings with renewed power: “If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”²⁷ The Church must choose between popularity and prophecy; she cannot have both. The prophets were never “pastoral” by worldly standards, yet through their fidelity the people of God were saved.

This is the perennial law of renewal: every true reform has been a return to clarity, not a descent into compromise. St. Gregory the Great, reforming the clergy, did not dilute doctrine to win sympathy; he called his priests to penance and sanctity. St. Charles Borromeo, faced with scandal and laxity, restored discipline by fidelity to Trent, not by softening its demands. The saints reformed the Church not by appealing to fashion but by conforming to the Cross. Their “pastoral method” was sanctity; their “strategy” was conversion. And their reward was the salvation of souls.

Therefore, dear brethren, let us recognise the danger of this false pastoralism that dresses accommodation as compassion. Let us expose its poison with the antidote of truth. The true shepherd does not alter doctrine to fit his flock’s desires; he calls his flock to the pasture of holiness. The voice of Christ still speaks: “My sheep hear My voice.” The sheep do not change the Shepherd’s song; they follow it. And that song, echoing through the ages, is the unchanging melody of Tradition. To silence it in the name of pastoral sensitivity is to betray both the Shepherd and His sheep.

Let the Church therefore return to the courage of her saints and the simplicity of her faith. Let her remember that no age was ever converted by compromise, but only by conviction. The blood of martyrs, not the ink of committees, has redeemed the world. The Cross remains the only true pastoral programme, and the Mother who stood beneath it remains the model of all pastoral fidelity. To follow her is to stand unflinchingly at the foot of truth, no matter the cost.

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Exhortation to the Faithful

Dear brethren, do not be dismayed by shifting policies or ambiguous decrees. These pass like clouds; the sun of truth remains. Hold fast to what the Church has always believed and prayed. Continue to honour the Blessed Virgin under her rightful titles of Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all graces. These names are not innovations, but the echoes of centuries of faith. To speak them is to join the chorus of saints and martyrs who confessed that “God became man through her, and through her we are brought to God.” Teach your children these truths; enshrine them in your homes and chapels; let them resound again from your altars and in your Rosaries. For if the faithful fall silent, even the stones will cry out.

You live in an age of noise and confusion, when many voices claim to speak for the Church while contradicting the faith that built her. Do not be troubled. The voice of Christ still speaks clearly to those who love Him. You have received the rule of faith, and you know the sound of the Shepherd’s voice. You need not follow every wind of novelty that blows through the hierarchy. The barque of Peter has weathered greater storms than these, and she will weather this one too — but only if her children cling to the mast of Tradition. Remember that truth does not evolve with fashion, nor holiness with convenience. What sanctified your forefathers will sanctify you; what saved the martyrs will save you still.

True obedience is obedience to truth. To obey those who oppose the faith is not obedience but confusion. To persevere in the ancient faith is not rebellion but fidelity to the Bride of Christ, who cannot deny her own voice. The Church lives by continuity, not novelty. When novelty intrudes, continuity must resist. This resistance is not disloyalty; it is the defence of loyalty itself. As St. Paul withstood St. Peter to his face, not in pride but in faith, so too the faithful may withstand error when it masquerades as authority. To stand with the saints of every age is to stand with the living Church, not against her.

Take courage, therefore, and remember the vocation of the Old Roman Apostolate — to preserve the faith whole and entire, without alteration or diminution; to guard the ancient liturgy; to keep alive the doctrine and devotion that sanctified our forebears. You have not been called to comfort but to witness; not to convenience but to sacrifice. The world demands compromise; God demands fidelity. In every age He raises up those who will not bow to idols, even when those idols wear episcopal robes or synodal slogans. To be faithful in such an age is to share in the Cross; but to bear that Cross is to reign with Christ.

Let your homes be schools of prayer, your chapels be beacons of truth, and your hearts be altars of charity. Teach the young that to honour Mary is to love Jesus more deeply; to defend her titles is to defend His Incarnation. Let your children grow hearing her name pronounced with reverence, and the saints’ names invoked with gratitude. Sing again the old hymns and litanies, for they carry within them the soul of the Church. Keep the feasts, observe the fasts, and frequent the sacraments. The enemy may change his tactics, but the weapons of victory remain the same: faith, prayer, and perseverance.

Above all, hold the Rosary in your hands and the Creed in your hearts. Pray for the Holy Father — not that he may please the world, but that he may once again confirm his brethren in the faith. Pray for priests, that they may preach boldly, offer reverently, and live purely. Pray for the bishops, that they may remember that their mitres are crowns of thorns, not emblems of power. Pray for yourselves, that you may not lose the joy of faith amid the trials of fidelity. The battle for truth is not fought only in Rome; it is fought in every parish, every home, and every heart. Your steadfastness, your prayers, and your sacrifices sustain the Church more than any decree or synod could ever do.

Do not be afraid to stand apart if standing apart means standing with Christ. The saints were always a minority before they became the cloud of witnesses. They were mocked as rigid, condemned as schismatic, and persecuted as obstinate — yet in their fidelity the Church was preserved. What you defend now, future generations will thank you for defending. You are custodians of a holy inheritance; guard it with reverence, transmit it with love, and suffer for it with joy. For fidelity to truth is the truest obedience, and the obedience of truth is the highest act of love.

Therefore, beloved in Christ, lift up your hearts. The darkness of confusion is deep, but dawn always follows Calvary. Let us stand with the Mother of Sorrows beneath the Cross of this age, confident that the Resurrection will vindicate her and all who have remained faithful. The world may sneer, prelates may scold, but the Immaculate Heart will triumph. When it does, may she find in us sons and daughters who never ceased to call her Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all graces — not because Rome commanded it, but because heaven revealed it.

Haec est via.

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
Die VI Octavae Omnium Sanctorum, A.D. MMXXV

Oremus

¹ DDF, Doctrinal Note: The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Faithful (Mater Populi Fidelis), 3 Nov 2025; cf. Vatican News, “Doctrinal Note: Mother of the Faithful, Not Co-Redemptrix,” 3 Nov 2025.
² Ibid., Prefatory Explanation, §2.
³ John 10:16.
⁴ Ephesians 4:15.
⁵ Galatians 1:10.
⁶ Luke 1:35.
⁷ John 19:25–27.
⁸ Genesis 3:15.
⁹ St Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses III, 22, 4; cf. St Augustine, De Sancta Virginitate §6.
¹⁰ Miravalle, Mary Co-Redemptrix Is Catholic Tradition (2024).
¹¹ ASS 18 (1885), p. 93.
¹² AAS 41 (1908), p. 409; AAS 5 (1913), p. 364; AAS 6 (1914), pp. 108–109.
¹³ AAS 10 (1918), p. 182.
¹⁴ L’Osservatore Romano, 29 Apr 1933, p. 1.
¹⁵ AAS 35 (1943), pp. 247–248; Mediator Dei §90.
¹⁶ Lumen Gentium §§56–61 (1964).
¹⁷ Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II XXIII/1 (2000), p. 630.
¹⁸ Miravalle, Mary Co-Redemptrix Is Catholic Tradition (2024).
¹⁹ Pastor Aeternus, ch. 4 (1870).
²⁰ Council of Trent, Sess. XXII, ch. 4.
²¹ CDF, Donum Veritatis §§30–31 (1990).
²² Code of Canon Law, Canons 33 §1; 41 (1983).
²³ Summa Theologiae II-II, q.104, a.5.
²⁴ Prosper of Aquitaine, Indiculus, ch. 8.
²⁵ Mediator Dei, §46 (1947).
²⁶ Hebrews 13:8.
²⁷ Galatians 1:10.

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To the clergy, religious, and faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate, and to all those who seek to preserve the Catholic faith in its integrity and fullness:
grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Carissimi

In every generation, the Church must discern the times and guide the young in the way of truth and life. Today, the moral, cultural, and economic landscape in which our young people must navigate their calling is profoundly altered from that of our forebears. Institutions that once upheld the pursuit of wisdom now often undermine it; places that once nurtured virtue now promote vice; paths that promised stability now lead to uncertainty and debt.

It is within this reality that the Old Roman Apostolate must shepherd its youth. The counsel I offer here is not merely personal opinion, but a synthesis of practical wisdom, the perennial teaching of the Church, the lived experience of our clergy, and the empirical realities that shape life today.

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The Crisis of Higher Education
Once regarded as a gateway to opportunity, the university degree has in many cases become an overpriced certificate of conformity to prevailing ideologies. In the United Kingdom, the average graduate now leaves university with over £45,000 of debt, and for some courses the figure exceeds £50,000¹³. Government data indicate that, under current repayment structures, many graduates will still be making payments well into their fifties¹⁴. At the same time, the economic return on such investment is declining: the Higher Education Statistics Agency reports that nearly one in three graduates is employed in a role that does not require a degree at all, and a significant proportion work in fields unrelated to their studies¹⁵.

This is not merely an economic issue but a question of stewardship. Our Lord teaches: “He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is greater: and he that is unjust in that which is little, is unjust also in that which is greater” (Luke 16:10)¹. The Catechism teaches that prudence “disposes the practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance, and to choose the right means of achieving it”². To invest years of life and great sums of borrowed money in a qualification of uncertain value is to risk violating that virtue.

Nor is the problem limited to finances. The intellectual environment of many universities is no longer a marketplace of ideas but a factory of ideological formation. A 2024 Policy Exchange report found that nearly 80% of UK university staff in the social sciences identify with progressive political positions, and over 60% of students report feeling unable to express viewpoints contrary to prevailing orthodoxy without fear of social or academic penalty¹⁶. Critical Social Justice theory, gender ideology, and politicised history are woven into curricula, not as perspectives among others but as unquestionable truths.

Pope Pius XI warned in Divini Illius Magistri that “it is necessary to watch with the greatest care that the education of youth be not committed to false teachers who infect them with the poison of impiety”¹¹. His warning is more urgent now than in his own day.

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The Moral Peril of Campus Culture
For many young Catholics, the transition to university is not merely an academic step but an immersion into an environment that is often hostile to faith and virtue. In the United Kingdom, weekly religious attendance among students drops to less than 10% during university years¹⁷. St. Paul’s warning remains true: “Evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33)³.

Campus life today normalises vice under the guise of “freedom” and “self-expression.” The National Union of Students reports that over 70% of students engage in heavy drinking at least once a month¹⁸. The Office for National Statistics records the highest rates of drug use among those aged 16–24¹⁹.

Moral dangers are compounded by sexual misconduct: one in ten female students reports sexual assault during university, with far more experiencing harassment²⁰. Such an atmosphere corrodes the virtue of chastity, essential to Christian dignity⁴.

Mental health is also in crisis: over half of students report anxiety or depression, with demand for counselling doubling in a decade²¹. This is unsurprising when the stability of family, parish, and faith community is replaced by an environment in which relativism reigns, sexual morality is mocked, and belief in objective truth is derided.

Religious freedom is under threat on campus. In recent years, Christian speakers have been disinvited or censored for upholding Catholic teaching²². Pope Benedict XVI cautioned in Caritas in Veritate that “when freedom to be religious is at risk, all freedoms are fragile”¹². St. John Chrysostom likened sending an unformed youth into such an environment to “casting a tender lamb into the midst of wolves”⁵.

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A Practical Alternative: Work, Stability, and Discernment
In light of these realities, I counsel our young people: do not rush into higher education. Begin with work; gain practical experience; build financial stability. In the UK housing market, early employment combined with prudent saving can make the difference between securing a mortgage in one’s twenties and being locked out for decades²³.

Once stable, further qualifications may be pursued with purpose, avoiding both unnecessary debt and wasted years. Those who own property may let it to cover mortgage costs, creating credit history and long-term security. Such prudence benefits not only the individual but their family, freeing parents from the financial strain of prolonged dependency.

This counsel is not anti-intellectual. The Church esteems learning; but she also commands prudence, moderation, and stewardship. St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that “right reason in things to be done is the essence of prudence”⁶.

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The Old Roman Apostolate’s Formation Policy
This counsel extends to vocations. The ORA is cautious in admitting young men directly from universities to seminary. Too often we encounter candidates whose faith and morals have been compromised by the prevailing campus culture. For this reason, I have directed our episcopal administrators to favour Formation Houses — communities where candidates live, pray, and work together, supporting themselves through employment or vocational training.

This model prevents them from becoming a financial burden to the faithful, while giving them real-world experience that will later inform their pastoral care. A priest who has shared in the daily challenges of earning a living, paying bills, and navigating the economy will counsel his flock with a deeper empathy.

While a traditional residential seminary is an ideal, it is also costly and unsustainable for most of our missions, which cannot yet support full-time clergy. The Formation House model is thus both practical and apostolic — rooted in the Church’s missionary tradition, where priests were often trained in close contact with the communities they served.

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Counsel to Parents and Guardians
Parents, the Church calls you the “first heralds of the Gospel” to your children⁷. This duty includes protecting them from environments that could undermine their faith before it is mature. The decision about university is not just academic; it is spiritual.

Encourage your sons and daughters to see life’s choices through the lens of vocation: what will best prepare them to serve God, their family, and their community? Sometimes this will mean delaying university; sometimes it will mean choosing a trade or apprenticeship; sometimes it will mean carefully selecting a faithful Catholic institution.

You have the right — and the duty — to direct your children’s formation. As Pope Leo XIII taught in Rerum Novarum, “The family … must necessarily have rights and duties which are prior to those of the community, and founded more immediately in nature”¹⁰.

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Conclusion
My beloved children, the Church does not fear the world, for Christ has overcome it (John 16:33)⁸. But neither does she send her young unprepared into a spiritual battle. The prudent path — whether toward higher education, the workforce, or a vocation — is one that preserves faith, builds virtue, and secures the temporal stability needed for generous service to God.

Let us therefore walk “as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8)⁹, forming our youth not for the approval of the age but for the eternal glory of God.

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
In Vigilia Assumptionis B.M.V. MMXXV A.D.

Oremus

Ecclesial & Theological Sources
01. Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (2009), §29.
02. Luke 16:10, Douay-Rheims.
03. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1806.
04. 1 Corinthians 15:33, Douay-Rheims.
05. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2337–2359.
06. St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 7.
07. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q.47, a.2.
08. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2225.
09. John 16:33, Douay-Rheims.
10. Ephesians 5:8, Douay-Rheims.
11. Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891), §12.
12. Pope Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri (1929), §78.

Empirical & Factual Sources
13. UK Student Loans Company, Student Loan Statistics 2024, Table 1.
14. Institute for Fiscal Studies, Will most graduates pay off their student loans?, 2023.
15. Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Graduate Outcomes Survey 2023.
16. Policy Exchange, Academic Freedom in the UK, 2024.
17. Higher Education Policy Institute, Student Academic Experience Survey, 2023.
18. National Union of Students, Student Drinking Culture Report, 2022.
19. Office for National Statistics, Drug misuse in England and Wales: year ending June 2023.
20. Telegraph Investigation, “One in ten female students sexually assaulted,” 2022.
21. Universities UK, Stepchange: Mentally Healthy Universities, 2023 update.
22. Free Speech Union, Campus Censorship Report, 2024.
23. UK Finance, First-time Buyer Trends, Q4 2024.

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