Category: Ministry

A Pastoral Letter to the Newly Consecrated Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Society of Saint Pius X,
and to the Bishops, Clergy, Religious and Faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate

To Their Excellencies the Most Reverend Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier; to the bishops, priests, religious, seminarians and faithful associated with the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X; and to the bishops, clergy, religious and faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate: grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord.

My Lords, Reverend Fathers, dear Brethren in Christ,

On 1 July 2026, within the Octave of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, four priests of the Society of Saint Pius X received episcopal consecration at Écône from Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, assisted by Bishop Bernard Fellay. The new bishops are Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier.¹

This is an event of grave consequence for the Society, for those faithful who depend upon its ministry, and for the wider Church. It should be considered neither with the triumphalism of those who imagine that Écône has prevailed over Rome, nor with the indiscriminate denunciation of those who treat every canonical irregularity as though it were already identical with formal schism.

The consecrations took place beneath the shadow of Peter and Paul. That circumstance is providential. Saint Peter represents neither arbitrary power nor administrative absolutism, but the office established by Christ as the visible principle of ecclesial unity. Saint Paul represents neither private judgement nor independence from the Church, but fidelity to revealed truth even when that fidelity required him to withstand Peter to the face.

The Church cannot dispense with either principle. Authority is bound to the divine deposit which it exists to guard and transmit. Yet fidelity to the deposit cannot be separated from the divinely constituted order of the Church. Authority is not above Tradition; but neither is resistance above the constitution which Christ gave His Mystical Body.

It is in that difficult conjunction of truth and authority, Tradition and obedience, sacramental necessity and canonical order, that the present events must be judged.

To the Newly Consecrated Bishops

My Lords, you have received not an ecclesiastical distinction, nor the vindication of a party, but the supreme degree of Holy Orders and a correspondingly grave responsibility before God.

The episcopate is not possessed for oneself. It exists for the sanctification, government and instruction of the faithful within the order established by Christ. A bishop is not merely a priest capable of ordaining other priests. He is consecrated to serve the unity, continuity and apostolic mission of the Church.

You have received episcopal consecration without a pontifical mandate. That fact should not be concealed beneath euphemism. Canon 1013 expressly forbids a bishop to consecrate another bishop unless the existence of a pontifical mandate is first established, and the revised penal law of the Latin Church attaches a grave canonical penalty to both the consecrator and the recipient of such a consecration.²

At the same time, Catholic precision requires distinctions which public controversy often ignores. The canonical offence of episcopal consecration without pontifical mandate and the canonical crime of schism are not defined as though they were simply the same offence. Schism is separately defined as the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with those subject to him. An unlawful consecration may constitute, manifest or lead to a schismatic act; but the juridical and theological questions cannot be settled merely by repeating the word “schism” without examining intention, profession, conduct and the subsequent exercise of episcopal ministry.²

The gravity of the act must therefore be admitted without exaggerating what has yet to be proved.

The Society has publicly declared that these consecrations were not undertaken to claim ordinary jurisdiction, establish a parallel authority or deny the supreme jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff. It presented the dossiers of the four candidates to the Holy See and stated that their episcopal ministry would be limited principally to Holy Orders, Confirmation and sacramentals reserved to bishops.³

Those declarations now impose obligations upon you.

If you claim no ordinary jurisdiction, you must not behave as though you possess it. If you deny any intention to establish a parallel hierarchy, you must not permit your episcopate to develop into one. If you profess submission to the Roman Pontiff, that submission must be more than a theoretical formula invoked to answer accusations. It must be visible in your public teaching, in your restraint, in your rejection of sedevacantism and in your continued pursuit of a canonical settlement.

The extraordinary character claimed for these consecrations must remain extraordinary. Necessity cannot become a self-perpetuating ecclesiology by which the Society alone determines whether a crisis exists, how long it continues, what powers it supplies, and when the ordinary authority of the Church may be disregarded. A plea of necessity which admits no external judgement and no foreseeable termination risks becoming indistinguishable from permanent autonomy.

You must therefore exercise the episcopate in such a manner that every ordination and confirmation points not towards the consolidation of separation, but towards the eventual restoration of normal ecclesial order.

The Society has asked Catholics to believe that you were consecrated to preserve the Church’s Tradition rather than to create another Church. The burden of demonstrating that claim now rests substantially upon you.

The Lesson of 1988

The events of 2026 cannot be considered without reference to 30 June 1988, when Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without pontifical mandate.

Pope John Paul II judged that act to be one of grave disobedience and described it as schismatic. Yet even the severity of Ecclesia Dei adflicta did not bring the history of the matter to an end. Twenty-one years later, Pope Benedict XVI remitted the excommunications declared against the four surviving bishops. He explained that this was intended to remove an obstacle to reconciliation, restore trust and address the scandal of division.⁴

Pope Francis subsequently granted the priests of the Society faculties for the valid and licit hearing of confessions and authorised arrangements by which Society priests could assist at marriages with the delegation of the local ordinary. The Holy See did this while continuing expressly to recognise the Society’s objective canonical irregularity.⁵

These acts did not amount to complete canonical recognition. They do, however, establish something important. Rome has already found juridical and pastoral means to care for the faithful associated with the Society without pretending that the irregularity does not exist. It has remitted penalties, supplied sacramental faculties and created practical provisions for marriages.

It cannot therefore be maintained that nothing practical can be done.

The Pope possesses the dossiers of the four newly consecrated bishops. The Apostolic See has the competence to remit penalties, grant faculties, provide canonical structures and regulate episcopal ministry. The obstacle is not an absence of papal power. It is a decision concerning whether and how that power should be exercised.

The Society, for its part, cannot invoke the concessions already granted by Rome as though they rendered a pontifical mandate unnecessary. Those concessions demonstrate Rome’s pastoral concern; they do not abolish the canonical constitution of the episcopate.

The lesson of 1988 is therefore not that Archbishop Lefebvre was entitled to do whatever he personally judged necessary. Neither is it that Rome’s judgement resolved every doctrinal and pastoral problem which produced the rupture. The lesson is that an irregular episcopal act can produce consequences lasting for generations, while punishment alone does not heal the underlying wound.

The Church should not repeat that history without having learned from it.

To the Clergy and Faithful of the Society

To the priests, religious, seminarians and faithful of the Society of Saint Pius X, I counsel sobriety.

You may reasonably be relieved that bishops now exist who can continue the ordination of priests and the administration of Confirmation according to the traditional Roman Rite. That relief should not be converted into celebration of an act performed against the express will of the Pope.

There has been no victory over Rome, because no Catholic victory can consist in a further impairment of visible communion with the Apostolic See.

You should continue to assist at the traditional rites, receive the sacraments, form your families in the Faith and support priests who preach Catholic doctrine without compromise. You should also reject the sectarian conclusion that fidelity is confined to the Society or that Catholics beyond its chapels are necessarily faithless, compromised or beyond the ordinary means of grace.

The Society did not create the traditional Roman liturgy, the scholastic theology of the Church or the doctrines which it preserves. These belong to the whole Catholic Church. They are not the property of Écône, nor of any priestly fraternity, episcopal lineage or traditionalist movement.

You must therefore resist two contrary errors. The first is the modernist error which treats inherited doctrine and worship as obstacles to be overcome. The second is the sectarian error which treats possession of the traditional liturgy as sufficient proof of ecclesial rectitude.

Do not permit legitimate criticism of the post-conciliar crisis to become contempt for the papal office. Do not allow anger at Roman authorities to become habitual derision of the Pope. Do not mistake the grave failures of churchmen for the disappearance of the visible Church.

The sedevacantist solution is no solution. It substitutes a private conclusion for the visible constitution of the Church and leaves each adherent dependent upon his own judgement as to when the Apostolic See ceased to possess an occupant and by what authority that judgement binds the faithful.

Pray, therefore, sincerely and publicly for Pope Leo XIV. Pray for him not as a mere verbal safeguard against the accusation of schism, but as the reigning Roman Pontiff upon whom rests the care of the universal Church.

Teach your children the truth about the crisis, but do not form them in bitterness. Explain why the traditional Mass was suppressed, why doctrine has been obscured and why Catholics have resisted destructive innovations. Teach them also that the purpose of resistance is the restoration of Catholic order, not the indefinite preservation of an embattled subculture.

A generation instructed only in what it opposes may eventually cease to understand what it was intended to preserve.

To the Old Roman Apostolate

My dear brethren of the Old Roman Apostolate, we cannot address the Society’s position as though the questions raised at Écône had no bearing upon ourselves.

Our history is not identical with that of the Society of Saint Pius X. Our episcopal succession, institutional origins and present circumstances are distinct. We must not appropriate every argument advanced by the Society, nor cite its actions as a retrospective justification for every irregular act in our own history.

Nevertheless, we too maintain Catholic sacramental life in circumstances which do not possess ordinary canonical recognition. We therefore have a particular obligation to speak with accuracy, humility and consistency.

We have described ourselves as Roman Catholics in irregular circumstances. That description must govern us in fact and not merely serve as an apologetic formula.

Irregularity is not an ecclesial identity. It is not a mark of superiority. It is not evidence that those who possess ordinary canonical recognition are less Catholic than ourselves. It is a wound in the visible order of the Church which may sometimes have to be endured, but which should never be treated as desirable or permanent.

Valid apostolic succession is necessary for the continuation of sacramental ministry, but validity alone does not confer canonical mission. The historical transmission of episcopal orders does not make each recipient the final judge of his own authority, territorial competence or ecclesial status. Apostolic succession is not merely a genealogy of consecrators; it is ordered to the apostolic faith, the sacramental life of the Church and communion within her divinely established constitution.

We must therefore guard against the characteristic temptations of prolonged irregularity. A bishop may begin as the custodian of an inheritance and end by behaving as its proprietor. Independence initially endured from necessity may become independence preferred from habit. Reconciliation may be professed in principle while every practical possibility of it is regarded as a threat to institutional autonomy.

We must examine ourselves honestly.

Do our bishops and clergy understand irregularity as a condition to be remedied, or as a status to be defended?
Do we pray for the Pope because we recognise in him the successor of Saint Peter, or merely because the mention of his name distinguishes us from sedevacantists?
Do we genuinely desire a canonical settlement, or only one which would require no sacrifice, scrutiny, correction or change on our part?
Have we formed our faithful to desire the visible unity of the Church, or to suspect that any reconciliation with Rome must necessarily involve betrayal?

These questions do not imply that recognition should be purchased by doctrinal compromise. We cannot accept as the price of regularisation the denial of the received Faith, the abandonment of the traditional Roman Rite or silence concerning errors which have caused demonstrable harm to the Church.

But neither may we employ the defence of truth as a pretext for avoiding every serious attempt at reconciliation.

As Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate, I therefore renew publicly our desire for honourable reconciliation with the Apostolic See: a reconciliation founded upon the perennial Magisterium, the integrity of Catholic doctrine, the preservation of the traditional Roman liturgy and a truthful acknowledgement of our history and circumstances.

We do not seek recognition at the price of truth. Neither do we invoke truth as an excuse never seriously to pursue recognition.

The events at Écône should move us not to self-congratulation, but to an examination of conscience and a renewed commitment to the visible peace of the Church.

To the Holy Father

Most Holy Father, your appeal of 29 June was direct and paternal. You recognised the Society’s attachment to liturgical life, priestly formation and the preservation of Tradition, while pleading with Father Davide Pagliarani to desist from the intended consecrations. Father Pagliarani replied by denying any intention of separation from the Roman Church, expressing confidence in an eventual resolution and asking for your blessing.⁶

The consecrations have nevertheless proceeded.

The Apostolic See must now respond. That response should uphold the genuine authority of the Roman Pontiff and the canonical order of the episcopate. It should also distinguish carefully between unlawful consecration, canonical disobedience and a proved refusal of submission constituting schism.

Indiscriminate language will not assist the Church. Neither will penalties imposed without a corresponding pastoral plan for the priests and faithful who depend upon the Society.

Holy Father, do not answer the wound with amputation.

The faithful must not be used as instruments by either side. They should not be deprived of sacramental care in order to compel the submission of their superiors, nor should their attachment to Tradition be used to justify an indefinitely expanding parallel structure.

The Holy See should receive Father Pagliarani personally, appoint intermediaries possessing doctrinal orthodoxy and genuine knowledge of the traditional movement, and establish a definite process directed towards canonical resolution.

The dossiers have been submitted. Rome has regularised irregular bishops in other circumstances. It remitted the penalties imposed upon the Society’s bishops in 2009. It granted sacramental faculties without requiring the prior resolution of every doctrinal disagreement. There is therefore no absence of juridical competence and no want of possible mechanisms.⁴ ⁵

What is required is the will to employ them prudently.

A lawful provision for episcopal ministry would not resolve every dispute concerning the Second Vatican Council, religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality or the liturgical reform. It would, however, remove the recurrent claim of sacramental necessity and place future disagreements within an ordered canonical relationship rather than an expanding state of exception.

The Society must be required to recognise the real jurisdiction of the Apostolic See. Rome, in turn, must make that recognition practically possible without demanding silence concerning legitimate doctrinal questions or the abandonment of the traditional Roman Rite.

The authority of Peter is not diminished when it acts with paternal generosity. It is vindicated.

The Responsibility of the New Bishops

My Lords, your future conduct will determine how the consecrations of 1 July are eventually understood.

If you assume ordinary jurisdiction, encourage contempt for the Apostolic See, tolerate sedevacantism, multiply episcopal acts without restraint or prepare further consecrations as though papal authority were irrelevant, you will substantiate the charge that the present act established a parallel hierarchy.

If, however, you limit your ministry according to the purpose publicly declared by the Society, profess and demonstrate submission to the Roman Pontiff, resist every movement towards formal separation and work consistently for regularisation, you will provide evidence that the act, although canonically unlawful, was not intended to found another Church.

You must not allow praise from those embittered against Rome to determine your course. Neither should hostile commentary from those indifferent to the destruction of Tradition provoke you into greater separation.

Your duty is not to satisfy a party. It is to preserve the Catholic Faith, sanctify souls and place the episcopal ministry you have received at the service of the whole Church.

That service will remain incomplete for as long as your ministry lacks normal canonical mission. You should therefore regard regularisation not as an optional concession which Rome may one day offer, but as an object towards which your own conduct must be deliberately ordered.

A Common Duty

The present crisis will not be resolved while every party regards repentance and correction as obligations belonging solely to others.

Rome must acknowledge the doctrinal confusion, liturgical destruction and pastoral injustice which have contributed to the alienation of traditional Catholics.

The Society must examine whether its interpretation of necessity has become so comprehensive that no practical act of Roman authority can bind it whenever its own superiors judge the crisis to continue.

The Old Roman Apostolate must ensure that its profession of Roman Catholic identity is expressed in a serious and practical desire for ecclesial reconciliation.

Traditional Catholics generally must distinguish principled resistance from anger, factionalism and contempt.

Those who defend the post-conciliar settlement must cease to use obedience as though it relieved them of the obligation to answer substantive doctrinal and pastoral criticism.

The Church cannot be healed by falsehood. Neither can she be healed by the indefinite multiplication of exceptional structures.

The task before us is to preserve the Faith without converting resistance into a permanent principle of separation; to uphold papal authority without treating it as arbitrary power; and to seek canonical peace without making peace dependent upon the suppression of truth.

To the newly consecrated bishops, I offer my prayers and the counsel of a brother bishop acquainted with the burdens of irregular ministry.

To the clergy and faithful of the Society, I commend sobriety, fidelity and continued prayer for the Roman Pontiff.

To the bishops, clergy, religious and faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate, I renew the obligation to apply to ourselves every principle which we invoke in judging others.

To the Holy Father, I make this filial appeal:

Holy Father, provide a lawful road home—not only for the Society, but for all Roman Catholics who preserve the received Faith and worship of the Church while enduring irregular circumstances.

May the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul obtain for us fidelity without rebellion, authority without arbitrariness and unity without compromise.

May Saint Pius X preserve the Church from Modernism and from every false remedy which would cure error by separation.

May the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of the Church and Mother of Good Counsel, obtain the reconciliation of father and sons before the present wound is permitted to deepen.

Oremus pro invicem.

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
In Octava S. Joannis Baptistæ
Commemoratio: Tertia die infra Octavam Ss. Apostolorum Petri et Pauli MMXXVI A.D.

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Pro Pontifice Nostro Leone XIV

Oratio pro Apostolatu Vetero-Romano

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Notes

¹ Society of Saint Pius X, “Episcopal Consecrations at Écône—July 1, 2026,” and “The General House Announces the Names of the Future Bishops,” 26 May and 1 July 2026. The Society identified Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier as the four candidates and stated that Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta would act as principal consecrator, assisted by Bishop Bernard Fellay.
² Code of Canon Law, canons 751, 1013 and 1387. Canon 1013 prohibits episcopal consecration without an established pontifical mandate; canon 1387 prescribes the penalty attached to the act; canon 751 separately defines schism as refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or communion with those subject to him.
³ Society of Saint Pius X, “The General House Announces the Names of the Future Bishops,” 26 May 2026. The communiqué stated that the dossiers were presented to Pope Leo XIV and denied any intention to claim jurisdiction, establish a parallel authority or challenge the supreme jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff.
⁴ John Paul II, apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei adflicta, 2 July 1988; Congregation for Bishops, “Decree Remitting the Excommunication Latae Sententiae,” 21 January 2009; Benedict XVI, “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church Concerning the Remission of the Excommunication of the Four Bishops Consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre,” 10 March 2009.
⁵ Francis, apostolic letter Misericordia et misera, 20 November 2016, no. 12; Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, “Letter to the Ordinaries of the Episcopal Conferences Concerned on the Faculties for the Celebration of Marriages of the Faithful of the Society of Saint Pius X,” 27 March 2017.
⁶ Leo XIV, “Letter to the Reverend Father Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X,” 29 June 2026; Davide Pagliarani, “Letter from the Superior General in Response to His Holiness Pope Leo XIV,” 30 June 2026.

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A Pastoral Epistle on the True Question Beneath the Question of Artificial Intelligence

Carissimi

Beloved in Christ,

Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The recent publication of Magnifica Humanitas, the first encyclical of Pope Leo XIV, demands from us neither uncritical enthusiasm nor reflexive dismissal, but a sober and disciplined reading. Much has been made of its engagement with artificial intelligence, and it is widely presented as a response to the technological conditions of our age. Yet this does not reach the heart of the matter. Artificial intelligence is not the true subject of the encyclical. It is the occasion. The real subject is man—what man is, what he now believes himself to be, and what he is becoming as his power increases beyond anything known before.¹

The Holy Father presents humanity as standing at a crossroads, speaking of a choice between constructing a new “Tower of Babel, marked by self-sufficiency and the idolatry of profit,” and rebuilding “Jerusalem… as a project of shared responsibility and communion under the gaze of God.”² This is a striking and evocative image, and it rightly captures the sense of a decisive moment. Yet the crisis is deeper still. It is not first a question of what man builds, but of who man is when he builds. A civilisation cannot be rightly ordered if man himself is disordered, and modern man, having ceased to begin with God, no longer possesses a stable understanding of himself.³

For this reason, the encyclical returns persistently to the language of human dignity, fraternity, solidarity, and the common good. It affirms that nothing authentically human will be lost, but rather that “everything will be purified and reunited in the One… rescuing them from nothingness and delivering them, redeemed, to the Father.”⁴ These are noble affirmations, rooted in the Christian vision of creation and redemption. Yet they do not stand on their own. They depend upon a prior truth: that man derives his dignity not from himself, but from God.⁵ When this order is not clearly maintained, dignity begins to function as a foundation rather than as a consequence, and what is derivative is made to carry what only the first principle can sustain.⁶

Christ is present in the encyclical, and this must be acknowledged. The Incarnation is recalled, and the mystery of recapitulation is invoked: that “the Father has decreed to bring all things… back to Christ, the one Head.”⁴ Yet Christ is most often presented in relation to man—as the one who reveals human greatness, who gathers the fragments of human experience, who accompanies the human family in history. All of this is true. But it is not sufficient. Christ is not merely the one who reveals man. He is the one before whom man must bow.⁷ He is not only the fulfilment of human aspiration. He is the Lord who judges it.⁸

This orientation is made explicit in the text itself: “this human face is the fullness toward which history is moving… nothing will be lost that is authentically human… everything will be purified and reunited in the One.”⁴ Such language, while drawing upon the mystery of recapitulation, places a notable weight upon what is human as the interpretive centre of the argument.

Here lies the central weakness of the encyclical. It does not deny the Kingship of Christ, but it does not proclaim it with the clarity demanded by the present crisis. The Church has never begun with man and moved upward. She has begun with God and spoken downward.⁹ She has declared that man is not his own, that he stands under law, under judgment, and under grace.¹⁰ When this order is softened, even without formal denial, the entire structure of the argument is weakened. The language remains recognisably Catholic, but its force is diminished.

This becomes more evident in the treatment of artificial intelligence. The encyclical rightly insists that “technological innovations… are not neutral, for they can either foster participation and justice or exacerbate inequality, control and exclusion.”¹¹ It observes that the concentration of knowledge and technological power creates new imbalances, such that “when these goods remain concentrated in the hands of a few… a new imbalance is created that contradicts the universal destination of goods.”¹² These are serious and legitimate concerns. They demonstrate a clear awareness that technology shapes society and is not merely a passive tool.

The encyclical further describes artificial intelligence as an “accelerator” that places “traditional social categories in crisis,”¹¹ indicating not only a tool, but a force that reshapes the very framework within which human life is understood. This is extended in a striking way to immaterial goods, with the suggestion that “patents, algorithms, digital platforms, technological infrastructures, and data” are to be understood within this same moral horizon of shared access and responsibility.¹² This expansion signals a significant development in the application of traditional principles.

Yet the analysis does not reach its deepest level. Artificial intelligence is not the origin of the crisis. It is its manifestation. The machine does not corrupt the will; it executes it.¹³ It does not introduce disorder; it extends its reach. This is why the problem cannot be resolved at the level of systems alone. The question is not technological but moral and theological.¹⁴

Here the encyclical remains too restrained. It speaks of responsibility, but it does not press the reality that man is fallen. Without a clear doctrine of sin, the analysis remains incomplete. The Church has always taught that the disorder of the world proceeds from the disorder of the human heart.¹⁵ Augustine of Hippo describes history as divided between two loves: the love of God and the love of self.¹⁶ Artificial intelligence will serve whichever of these governs the human will.

The same need for clarity arises in the encyclical’s treatment of war. It states that, “without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense,” the just war theory has been “far too often invoked to justify any war whatsoever” and may now be considered “outdated.”¹⁷ The encyclical continues by proposing that humanity now possesses “more effective and humane instruments to promote life and resolve conflicts,” identifying dialogue, diplomacy, and forgiveness as preferable to recourse to armed force.¹⁷ While this aspiration is commendable, it must be distinguished from the doctrinal question of whether the moral legitimacy of just war itself remains intact.

A similar clarity is required in the encyclical’s acknowledgment of historical injustices such as slavery. It must be said plainly that the Church has never taught, approved, or condoned slavery understood as the ownership of one human being by another. Such a notion is incompatible with the natural law and with the truth that every man is created in the image of God. Where forms of servitude existed in history, they were tolerated within particular social conditions, but never upheld as a moral good in themselves. The distinction is essential. Toleration is not endorsement, and historical circumstance is not doctrine.²⁰

Moreover, the Church did not remain silent. Over time, she spoke with increasing clarity and authority in condemning both slavery and the slave trade. The teaching of Pope Paul III in Sublimis Deus, followed by the explicit condemnations of Pope Gregory XVI in In Supremo Apostolatus and Pope Leo XIII in In Plurimis, leaves no doubt as to the mind of the Church. These were not reversals of earlier doctrine, but authoritative reaffirmations and clarifications of principles already present within the tradition.²¹

Taken together, these elements reveal not only a difference of emphasis, but a deliberate method governing the encyclical’s approach. Its tone is dialogical and reflective. It seeks engagement. There is a place for this, but it cannot replace proclamation. The Church does not negotiate truth; she declares it.²² When this clarity is weakened, the result is not immediate error, but gradual dilution.

The reason for this shift must also be understood. The encyclical is not merely expressing a theological preference; it is adopting a method. It seeks to articulate the Church’s moral teaching in a form that can be received within a pluralistic and largely secular world, and therefore it places emphasis upon concepts—human dignity, fraternity, solidarity—that can function as a shared moral language even where explicit faith is absent. In this sense, the document is attempting to build a bridge, to make Catholic teaching intelligible and persuasive without first demanding conversion.

In this respect, though addressed formally to the Church, the encyclical speaks in a voice calibrated for the world, and this choice governs both its method and its limits. It is not that the Church is speaking to the world from her own ground; rather, she speaks in such a way that the world may receive her without first being confronted. This is a significant shift. For when the presentation of truth begins from what is commonly accepted rather than from what is divinely revealed, the order is subtly reversed. The Church no longer speaks first as one who proclaims from authority, but as one who seeks convergence. What is gained in accessibility may be lost in clarity. Christ is not denied, but He is no longer placed so unmistakably at the beginning and the end of the argument.

The question, therefore, is not whether the Church should speak to the modern world, but whether she can do so without first speaking as the Church.

At the centre of what must be preserved stands a truth that admits of no ambiguity. Christ is King.²³ His authority extends over men, societies, and all that man creates. When this is not explicitly affirmed, every appeal to justice, peace, and dignity remains without its proper foundation.

Thus we return to the fundamental question beneath the encyclical. Artificial intelligence is not the decisive issue. Man is. And beneath that lies the question that determines everything: does man belong to God, or does he claim to belong to himself?²⁴

If he belongs to himself, then his works—however refined and however powerful—will bear the mark of his disorder. They will not liberate him, but bind him more effectively to the errors he refuses to abandon. If he belongs to the world, then his systems will serve the shifting desires of the age, and what is called progress will conceal a deeper loss. But if man belongs to God—truly, not rhetorically, but in obedience—then even his greatest powers may yet be ordered toward the good. Yet that ordering will not arise from reflection alone, nor will it be secured by dialogue or regulation. It requires conversion. It requires submission. It requires that man cease to place himself at the centre and return to the truth from which he has departed.

This is where the encyclical must be read with caution, and where it must be completed by the tradition it presupposes but does not fully articulate. The Church does not exist to stabilise man in his present condition. She exists to call him out of it. She does not merely illuminate dignity; she judges sin. She does not simply accompany humanity; she commands it in the name of Christ. And Christ is not one voice among many in the human story. He is its Lord.

Until this is said without hesitation, without qualification, and without dilution, the crisis of our age—whether expressed through artificial intelligence or any other form of power—will not be resolved. It will only take on new forms. The question before us has not changed. It is the same question that has always stood before man: whether he will serve God or serve himself. Upon that answer depends not only the future of technology, but the salvation of souls.

Christ must reign—not as an idea, nor as a sentiment, but as King in truth, in authority, and in fact. Only under His sovereignty does human dignity stand secure, and only within His order can the works of man, however advanced, be directed toward the good.

Vivat Christus Rex.

Oremus pro invicem.

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
Die Quinta infra octavam Pentecostes
Commemoratio: S. Augustini Episcopi et Confessoris MMXXVI A.D.

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Pro Pontifice Nostro Leone XIV

Oratio pro Apostolatu Vetero-Romano

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On the Sanctity of Human Life and the Present Crisis of Principle

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

A matter of grave consequence now stands before us. A measure has been advanced within the Parliament of the United Kingdom—having secured approval at its final stage in the House of Lords—which proposes that a child may be lawfully destroyed at any stage of pregnancy, including immediately before birth, where certain statutory conditions are certified.¹

This measure has not yet completed the legislative process, and that distinction must be maintained. Yet it would be mistaken to conclude that nothing of significance has occurred. The principle required to justify such a measure has now been openly advanced, defended, and accepted within parliamentary deliberation, and it is this principle, rather than the procedural stage of the bill, which demands our attention.

What is now being asserted is that the continuation of a human life may depend upon whether another judges that it should continue. In this formulation, life is no longer protected simply because it is human, but because it satisfies certain conditions determined by others. Such a position stands in direct contradiction to the constant teaching of the Church, which recognises that human life must be respected and protected from its beginning, not as a matter of policy, but because of what it is.²

The practical implications of this shift are already evident. A child capable of independent survival may nonetheless be destroyed if the relevant statutory conditions are certified. The determining factor is not the nature of the child, but the judgement applied to its continued existence. In this way, the law is no longer being asked to recognise and protect a human life; it is being asked to authorise its termination on the basis of assessed conditions. The transition from recognition to permission is decisive, because what is permitted may also be withheld.³

This principle does not remain confined to its initial application. If it is accepted that a human life may be ended because it is judged to be burdensome, dependent, or unwanted, those same criteria are not unique to the unborn. They apply equally to other forms of human vulnerability: to the elderly who require sustained care, to the disabled whose independence is limited, to the chronically ill whose treatment is prolonged, and to those who come to believe themselves a burden to others. Once the worth of life is made conditional upon judgement, the scope of that judgement is no longer fixed, and the category of those subject to it is liable to expansion.⁴

Nor does this development leave untouched the most fundamental of human relations. It alters the meaning of motherhood itself. Scripture presents the child in the womb not as a potentiality awaiting recognition, but as one already formed and known by God: “For thou didst form my inward parts; thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.”⁵ The natural relation between mother and child is therefore not constructed by human decision but grounded in reality. The Fathers speak with equal clarity: “The woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder.”⁶ If, however, the existence of the child is treated as contingent upon permission, that relation is subordinated to judgement.

It may be said that this proposal is not yet law and should therefore be regarded with restraint. That is correct in one sense, but incomplete in another. Laws do not arise in isolation. They follow from what a society has first permitted itself to consider arguable and defensible.⁷

It must also be recognised that such developments do not remain confined to a single jurisdiction. Legal and ethical arguments of this kind are cited, adapted, and advanced elsewhere—through courts, through international institutions, and through political pressure.⁸

At the same time, a tension becomes evident within contemporary debate. In discussions concerning assisted dying, it is often argued that the vulnerable must be protected, that safeguards tend to expand, and that clear limits must be maintained. Such arguments presuppose that human life possesses a value that cannot be made contingent upon judgement. Yet that presupposition is difficult to sustain if, in another context, it is accepted that life may be ended on the basis of assessed conditions. Once the principle is admitted, distinctions may be asserted, but they become increasingly difficult to secure.

It may further be objected that the law has historically permitted the taking of life in the case of capital punishment. That question is distinct. In its classical formulation, the death penalty concerns the punishment of grave injustice and the defence of society, and is not grounded in the claim that an innocent life lacks value or may be ended because it is burdensome or unwanted. The present question concerns the deliberate ending of innocent life on the basis of conditional judgement, and therefore rests upon a fundamentally different principle.⁹

At its root, however, the issue extends beyond law and policy into the question of authority itself. Scripture affirms that life belongs to God, who alone is its author and end: “I kill and I make alive.”¹⁰ If it is conceded that the worth of a human life depends upon whether it is recognised, desired, or permitted, then man assumes a role that does not belong to him. St. Augustine warns that justice itself is undermined when man sets himself as the ultimate arbiter of life.¹¹

Yet the truth remains unchanged. Every human being is made in the image of God, and therefore possesses a dignity that does not arise from autonomy, capacity, or recognition, and is not diminished by dependence, suffering, or decline.¹² As the Church teaches: “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.”¹³ This dignity is not conferred by law and cannot be removed by it. It is given.

For this reason, these developments must not be treated as distant or abstract. They concern the principles by which human life is understood and protected. It is therefore necessary to remain attentive to the arguments by which such measures are advanced, and to recognise them when they appear under different forms.

It must also be acknowledged that, at the time of writing, no comparable public exhortation has been issued by the Catholic episcopate in this country, nor has there been a corresponding intervention at the level of the Holy See addressing this development in its present form. This absence does not alter the truth, nor diminish the obligation to uphold it. It does, however, increase the responsibility of the faithful to bear witness where clarity is lacking.¹⁴

This responsibility is not opposed to fidelity but arises from it. The faithful are called to hold fast to what has been given and to defend it when it is obscured.

Therefore, beloved sons and daughters, remain firm in what you have received. Do not concede the principle upon which the protection of human life depends.

For where life depends upon permission, no one is secure.

Haec est via.
Per Crucem.

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
S. Benedicti Abbatis MMXXVI A.D.

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¹ Thomas Erskine May, Treatise upon the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, 25th ed. (London: LexisNexis, 2019), 649–655.
² Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), §2270. Latin: “Vita humana inde a conceptione absolute observanda et protegenda est.”
³ John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (1995), §20. Latin: “Ipsa iuris ad vitam natura negatur.”
⁴ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q.94, a.2 (Leonine ed., vol. 7, Rome, 1891), 170–172. Latin: “Bonum est conservatio vitae humanae.”
⁵ Psalm 139:13 (Vulgate 138). Latin: “Tu possedisti renes meos: suscepisti me de utero matris meae.”
⁶ Basil of Caesarea, Epistula 188, Canon 2, in Patrologia Graeca, vol. 32, col. 672. Latin: “Mulier quae fetus abortum procurat homicidii rea est.”
⁷ John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, §12. ⁸ John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, §18.
⁹ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q.64, a.2 (Leonine ed., vol. 9, Rome, 1895), 146–148. Latin: “Occidere innocentem nullo modo licet.”
¹⁰ Deuteronomy 32:39. Latin: “Ego occidam et ego vivere faciam.”
¹¹ Augustine, De Civitate Dei, I.20 (PL 41:32–33). Latin: “Iustitia est virtus suum cuique tribuens.”
¹² Genesis 1:27. Latin: “Ad imaginem Dei creavit illum.”
¹³ Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2270. ¹⁴ Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (1964), §37. Latin: “Ius est… sententiam suam manifestandi.”

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