An Open Letter to the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church
Your Eminences:
The following document emerged from discussions over the past year among theologians, pastors, and canonists, who had been encouraged to produce this document by a senior cardinal. Originally our thought had been to seek for signatories—knowing, as we do, how many notable figures in the Catholic Church are in agreement with or sympathetic to the points made herein—but in view of the suddenness of the upcoming conclave, we have decided to publish the statement as it is.
In publishing this statement, we do not wish to take upon ourselves tasks to which we have not been called by God. Rather, we simply wish to offer, out of love for the Church and according to our lights, some suggestions that may be helpful to those who have received the awesome responsibility of governing Christ’s flock. This we do, moreover, on the traditional feast of St. Catherine of Siena, a laywoman who was a light to the Church in her time, and reminds us of the need to speak with boldness or parrhesia, as befits disciples of the one Master.
The authors recognise that “in vast areas of the world, the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel” (Benedict XVI, Letter to Bishops), while errors and deviations abound within the Church; and they hope that the proposals here set forth constitute a timely call to metanoia.
With the assurance of our fervent prayers to the Holy Ghost for the College of Cardinals especially in the upcoming Conclave, we humbly ask your prayerful consideration of the content that follows.
In publishing this statement, we do not wish to take upon ourselves tasks to which we have not been called by God. Rather, we simply wish to offer, out of love for the Church and according to our lights, some suggestions that may be helpful to those who have received the awesome responsibility of governing Christ’s flock. This we do, moreover, on the traditional feast of St. Catherine of Siena, a laywoman who was a light to the Church in her time, and reminds us of the need to speak with boldness or parrhesia, as befits disciples of the one Master.
The authors recognise that “in vast areas of the world, the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel” (Benedict XVI, Letter to Bishops), while errors and deviations abound within the Church; and they hope that the proposals here set forth constitute a timely call to metanoia.
With the assurance of our fervent prayers to the Holy Ghost for the College of Cardinals especially in the upcoming Conclave, we humbly ask your prayerful consideration of the content that follows.
April 30, 2025
St. Catherine of Siena
(usus antiquior)
* * *
Renewal and Restoration in the Church
Credidi, propter quod locutus sum
“I believed, and therefore I have spoken”
Psalm 115:10
Our Lord has left to His Church all that she needs to triumph over any obstacle. “For the earth of itself bringeth forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear.” The collapse of the Church in all her ancient strongholds therefore results less from external opposition than from the failure of those within rightly to use the means of grace.
An English historian has observed: “Nothing can reinvigorate itself or snatch itself from decay save by a return upon itself and a recapture of its own past.” Especially must this be true of the Catholic Church, directly founded as she was by a divine act: Look unto the rock whence you are hewn.
Although the governance of the Church is entrusted to the pope and to the other bishops, canon law recognises that other members of the faithful may also offer their opinions in accordance with whatever knowledge, competence, and position they may posses. The theologians, pastors, and canonists who composed the following statement wish to express our belief that the Church’s teaching, or rather the teachings of many churchmen, and also what is presented as her liturgy and discipline, have for a long time now been influenced by the spirit of the world; and we wish, with filial freedom, to express our opinions about the path to restoration and renewal.
The following lists contain some of the truths and principles that seem in our days most in need of restatement or vindication.
DOCTRINE
1. Revelation. Divine revelation requires the assent of faith to propositional truths communicated by God. The assertions made by the Scriptures and by sacred Tradition are not human interpretations of the word of God; they are His communication of these propositional truths. Since everything proposed by Scripture and Tradition is the word of God, all of these propositions are entirely true.
2. Stability of dogma. The dogmas of the Church can never be understood in a new sense, on account of some real or alleged advance in the empirical sciences or in any other branch of human knowledge. Although this truth was defined by the 1st Vatican Council, it has been widely ignored.
3. Doctrinal censures. The various doctrinal or theological censures should be restored as the normal means of papal teaching. Global censures, however, by which a series of propositions are condemned with many censures, with no indication of which proposition receives which censure, should not be used.
4. Modern heresiarchs. Some influential twentieth-century heresiarchs should be condemned by name at a future ecumenical council, as some men were condemned after their death by the Second Council of Constantinople. In particular: Karl Rahner for his account of justification and of the Assumption of our Lady; Hans Urs von Balthasar for his neo-universalism and his neo-Calvinist “theology of Holy Saturday”; and Teilhard de Chardin for being a mythologist masquerading as a Christian.
5. The identity of the Church. The identity between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Christ should be stated without ambiguity: there is nothing that is true of the Church of Christ that is not true of the Roman Catholic Church.
6. Non-Catholic Christian bodies. These bodies are not themselves means of salvation, since adherence to them involves a sin against faith and charity. Even if an individual non-Catholic may be guiltless before God of heresy and schism, his adherence to such a body is a grave objective disorder. All lawful ecumenism must aim to bring non-Catholic Christians to renounce the heresy and schism of the bodies to which they belong.
7. Non-Christian religions. In order to be saved, it is necessary to believe in and welcome the offer of salvation that God has made. This means coming to faith in Jesus Christ. Jews cannot be saved by keeping the Mosaic law without acknowledging Christ. Islam is designed to fight against Christianity: “This is Antichrist, who denieth the Father, and the Son.” All worship of idols is worship of demons and is hateful to God.
8. Communicatio in sacris. All active participation in the religious services of non-Catholics, whether Christians or not, is a sin forbidden by divine law.
9. Creation. The first man and the first woman came directly from the hand of God, and we all descend from them. The theory of human descent from the beasts should be condemned as incompatible with divine revelation. The variety and beauty of creatures derive from the direct act of the Creator: for a Christian to suppose that they are explained by the workings of chance, even as a proximate cause, is an unconscious reversion to paganism. “By the envy of the devil, death came into the world.”
10. The Kingship of Christ. Civil societies as such, and therefore their temporal authorities, are subject to the kingship of Christ. In consequence they are bound to profess the Catholic faith and to assist the Church. Although this duty was defined by Pius IX in Quanta cura, and recognised in the preamble to Dignitatis humanae, the definition should be repeated and made still clearer. No society can be truly neutral in religious matters: “He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth.”
11. Religious liberty. A sincere and morally blameless judgment of conscience does not as such confer rights. In order to confer rights, a judgment of conscience must be true. The duty of the civil power to give freedom, within due limits, to the private and public practice of monotheistic religions exists to enable non-Christians to reach supernatural faith and baptism without experiencing coercion. This principle may not be invoked to the harm of Catholic societies.
12. Absolute moral norms. John Paul II’s condemnations of the denial of absolute moral norms should be reiterated as an undeniably infallible pronouncement and those who deny it anathematised.
13. Correction. The distinction between fraternal correction and correction by a superior is today often overlooked in practice. The former is to be given only when one judges that the offender will not be made worse; the latter is to be given even if the superior judges that the offender will be made worse, since it is a duty of justice toward the community that he governs.
14. Euthanasia. Catholics who die as a result of euthanasia must be denied Christian burial and anyone who participates in their euthanasia must be excommunicated.
15. In vitro fertilisation. We ask bishops to set forth the sinful character of this procedure in their pastoral letters or elsewhere.
16. Living wage. The duty of employers to pay a salary adequate to allow a man to raise a family without the need for a wife to work outside the home ought to be defined as a point of natural law.
17. Usury. Usury – that is, the taking of any interest at all on the mere strength of a loan, not simply the charging of an excessive or illegal rate of interest – should be again condemned as a personal sin and a social evil, excluded by the Scriptures and by tradition.
18. Capital punishment. This is not excluded even under the gospel, when necessary for the protection of the moral order and civil society. The ambiguous or incoherent addition to the Catechism of the Catholic Church made in 2018 should be corrected.
19. Sacraments. Since, as the Council of Trent states, “all true justice either begins, or being begun is increased, or being lost is repaired” through the seven sacraments of the Church, the opinion should be explicitly rejected according to which the sacraments exist to manifest or celebrate a salvation already obtained.
20. Confession. We ask bishops frequently to set forth the Church’s teaching that sacramental confession is the only ordinary means of the forgiveness of grave sins committed after baptism.
21. Ordination of women. John Paul II’s definition in Ordinatio sacerdotalis of the impossibility of the priestly ordination of women should be reiterated as an undeniably infallible pronouncement and those who deny it should be anathematised. It should also be defined that women are unable to receive the sacrament of orders in any of its degrees.
22. Papal power of jurisdiction. Since bishops are successors of the apostles, they may not be treated as if they were middle-managers. The papal plenitude of power does not mean that a pope may depose bishops simply by his own will; he may depose a bishop only by a due process and where justified by natural or divine law.
23. Synodality. It is foreign to apostolic tradition for meetings to be held where other members of the faithful, or even non-Catholics, vote on doctrinal questions alongside bishops, even if such votes are presented as merely consultative. Moreover, it seems well to affirm that a bishop rightly governs his local Church by divine right as vicar of Christ and not as vicar of any synod, episcopal conference or other ad hoc organization.
24. Marriage. It should be re-affirmed in a definitive way that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and Christian education of children. Although the sinful nature of all forms of contraception was defined by Paul VI in Humanae vitae, the definition should be repeated and made still clearer.
LITURGY
1. Limits of ecclesial power. The Church does not have the right radically to alter the sacred liturgy. The responsibility and right of the pope with respect to the liturgy is to preserve and protect what already exists, not to replace it. While traditional liturgies of the Church allow for some changes, such as the celebration of new saints, only changes of this sort, that is, of a kind already warranted by immemorial tradition, should be introduced by a council, pope or patriarch.
2. The breviary psalter. Pius X’s revision of the psalter of the Roman breviary, which was not adopted by the monastic orders, appears to have exceeded these bounds and should be reversed or at least made optional. If necessary, dispensations from reciting some of the hours could be given to secular clergy.
3. Holy Week. Pius XII’s revision of the ceremonies of Holy Week exceeded these bounds, prevailed for only fourteen years, and should be reversed.
4. The revolution of the 1960’s. Paul VI’s attempted suppression of the missal, breviary, ritual, pontifical, ceremonial of bishops and martyrology of the Roman church wildly exceeded these bounds. The liturgical reform’s fundamental error was to seek to adapt the liturgy to modern man, rather than to adapt modern man to the liturgy. The impossibility of suppressing the traditional Latin Mass should be defined, and any attempt to forbid priests of the Latin rite from celebrating it should be condemned.
5. Pontifical High Mass. We ask the bishops of the Latin church to set the example of fidelity to tradition by frequently celebrating the traditional Latin Mass in their cathedrals, whenever possible in the most solemn form.
6. Concelebration. The practice of simple priests concelebrating among themselves is a novelty of recent decades that leads to a decrease in the number of Masses offered in the Church, and so presumably also to the flow of grace and mercy upon her, and should, therefore, be rescinded.
7. Latin. The liturgy of the Latin rite should normally be celebrated in Latin and not in the vernacular; this will also enable the Vulgate Bible to receive once again the “place of honour” recognised by Dei verbum as due to it. “We must admit it is a master blow of Protestantism to have declared war on the sacred language. If it should ever succeed in destroying it, it would be well on the way to victory” (Dom Prosper Guéranger).
8. Rites of religious orders. Religious orders that possessed distinctive liturgical traditions before the Second Vatican Council should return to these.
9. Rite of Holy Communion. The manner of distributing Holy Communion into the hands of the faithful that has come to pass in the Latin church was an abuse fraudulently presented as a return to primitive custom. It should be abolished, and Holy Communion once more given exclusively on the tongue, and by priests.
10. Art and architecture. Canonical regulations on church architecture and sacred art should be restored and enforced. Art and architecture that is unrecognisable by the Christian people as sacred must be banned from Catholic churches: existing art and architecture of this kind should be sold or destroyed. New churches should be built so that the celebrant at the high altar faces east, in accordance with an apostolic custom common to East and West.
11. Music. Childish, sensual or sentimental music unworthy of the sacred liturgy is unfortunately widespread. Gregorian chant and polyphony must once more be given pride of place throughout the Latin church.
DISCIPLINE
1. Confession of the faith. The current Profession of Faith, made by office-holders since 1989, needs to be expanded to denounce modern errors explicitly. One possible beginning would be to restore the Creed of Pope Pius IV, as supplemented by the Anti-modernist Oath of Pius X. These could in turn be further supplemented, for example by the Declaration of Truths published by several cardinals and other bishops in 2019.
2. Selection of bishops. Historical reasons explain why the popes came in the course of the second millennium to appoint all the bishops of the Latin church. However, this is not the practice approved by the Fathers of the Church. The present process of choosing bishops tends to disaffect the laity from the Church. The Church comes to appear as an organisation run by the clergy for their own benefit and making arbitrary demands on the laity. Heresy and anti-clericalism began to proliferate only when the patristic manner of electing bishops had fallen into disuse. St Leo the Great had predicted that depriving the faithful of their right to approve or reject an episcopal nominee would lead them to despise their shepherds and lose the faith: “Let no one be ordained against the express wishes of the place: lest a city should either despise or hate a bishop whom they did not choose, and lamentably fall away from religion because they have not been allowed to have whom they wished.” While bishops can be chosen by the other bishops of the province and by the clergy of the diocese, the consent of the laity should also be received: this consent should not be reduced to an empty ceremony, as at present is the case. This in turn requires that bishops exclude from ecclesiastical communion any member of the laity who has publicly dissented from Catholic dogma. Where no suitable candidate is agreed upon, the pope must appoint one.
3. The college of cardinals. Cardinals should not lose the right to elect a pope at 75, but only if they have become mentally incompetent. Cardinals in consistories should speak, responding to papal allocutions and raising their own questions, rather than just listening to the Pope speak to them: this was formerly the custom.
4. Bishops. Bishops should not be required, nor by a legal fiction ‘invited’, to submit their resignation at the age of 75. They are the fathers of their people. For the same reason, in accordance with the ancient rule and to exclude ambition, they should not move from one diocese to another. If necessary, co-adjutors can be provided.
5. Parish priests. Parish priests should not be obliged to retire, or moved as a matter of course. They should have the right to retain their parishes unless removed for good cause by a canonical process.
6. Jurisdiction. Since it is priestly ordination by which a member of the faithful may act in the person of Christ the head, ecclesiastical jurisdiction should not normally be conferred on those who have not received this ordination.
7. Public dissent. No member of the faithful must be allowed with impunity to express public dissent from Catholic dogma. Statesmen who advocate, approve of, vote for or implement measures contrary to the principles of natural law—such as abortion, euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, pseudogamy, or usury—must first receive a paternal warning from their bishop, and if unrepentant, be excluded from communion.
8. Minor seminaries. Minor seminaries should be revived to give a proper general education to future clergy. In particular, they should teach the Latin language to a high standard. Although Pope Pius XII expressed the desire that all clergy should be able to converse easily in Latin, few Catholic priests today are able adequately to understand even a simple Latin text.
9. Major seminaries. In accordance with Optatam totius, seminarians should be instructed in the perennial philosophy, and should study the mysteries of the faith under the guidance of St. Thomas Aquinas. Scriptural commentaries and other works of theology that contradict the Catholic faith should not be used as means of instruction. In accordance with canon law, all Latin-rite seminarians must be very well versed in Latin before ordination. While superiors should enforce good discipline in the seminary, they should not train seminarians in servile or blind obedience.
10. Bishops and sexual abuse. Bishops who can be shown to have protected sexual predators should be deprived of episcopal functions.
11. Clerical abuse and homosexuality. Clergy known to be guilty of the sexual abuse of minors or who have notoriously engaged in homosexual activity or promoted homosexual ideology should be returned to the lay state.
12. Homosexual inclinations. Those who habitually experience homosexual inclinations should not be admitted to seminaries; on the other hand, there seems no reason per se why such people, being resolved with God’s help to live in perfect continence, should not be admitted as non-clerical members of those religious orders where the traditional austerities of religious life are practised, since one of the reasons for these austerities is to weaken concupiscence and foster the virtue of chastity.
13. Minor orders. Minor orders and the subdiaconate should be restored. The existence of these steps to the priesthood is taken for granted by Pope Cornelius in the mid-third century, and their (near) abolition by Pope Paul VI is hard to understand. As part of the sacrament of orders, they bestow grace upon the ordinand and prepare him for priesthood.
14. Continence. The practice of complete continence for all those in major orders is of apostolic origin. Those who speak against it in the Latin church should be corrected, and thought given to its future restoration in all sui iuris churches.
15. Eucharistic fast. The practice of fasting from the beginning of the day before receiving Holy Communion is presumably of apostolic origin, as St Augustine also states. Although exceptions from it have always been allowed in the case of viaticum, it does not seem possible to prove that Pius XII had the general right to dispense from it in all cases, and so it should be restored.
16. Lenten fast. According to St Leo the Great, it was the apostles themselves, instructed by the Holy Spirit, who instituted the Lenten fast. Relaxed by Pius XII on account of the difficulties caused by World War II, and nearly abolished by Paul VI, it should now be restored in its entirety, as remains the case in the Eastern Catholic churches.
17. Religious life. The discarding by religious orders of their rules or constitutions after the Second Vatican Council was not only unprecedented and imprudent, but also a fault against the virtue of pietas. It should be repaired, with these orders returning to some version of their previous rules and constitutions. Institutes that are beyond reform, however large or wealthy, should be suppressed, as should those founded by persons known to have led an immoral life.
18. Contemplative life. The contemplative life should be promoted by recognising and fostering religious communities that use traditional liturgies and follow traditional ways of life. The policies of Vultum Dei quaerere and Cor unum jeopardise the contemplative life and should be revoked.
19. Solemn vows. It is not clear why popes in recent times have considered themselves able to dispense from solemn religious vows, when their predecessors would not have agreed that they had the right to do this. The argument of St Thomas, that a thing once solemnly consecrated to God can lose its consecration only by being destroyed, appears sound. Could a pope by signing a document make it lawful to use a consecrated chalice as an ordinary drinking vessel, or even (God forbid) as a chamber pot? By claiming to dispense from solemn vows, popes risk either dispensing invalidly or, alternatively, causing solemn vows no longer to exist anywhere in the Church, except in name. Such dispensations should no longer be given.
20. Laicisation. Likewise, it is not clear why popes in recent times have considered themselves able to grant those in major orders who have been returned to the lay state the right to marry. The validity of such permissions cannot be proved, and so they should no longer be given.
21. Catholic universities. Some Catholic universities with the highest standards in philosophy, theology, and related disciplines should be established. Some existing Catholic universities that already exhibit orthodoxy should be helped to attain to these standards. Universities claiming to be Catholic but in reality suffused with heterodoxy and widespread immorality should be stripped of their Catholic name, with any financial support of them forbidden to practising Catholics.
22. Mixed marriages. In order for a Catholic to receive permission to marry a non-Catholic, the non-Catholic partner should not simply promise to place no obstacles to the Catholic education of the children. He or she should be required, as previously, to promise actively to raise them as Catholics. If the non-Catholic partner feels unable to make this promise, the permission should not be given.
23. Decrees of nullity. Marriage tribunals must assume that spouses can consent to the obligations of matrimony, unless serious psychological abnormality is present. By definition, such cases are rare.
24. Cremation. The Church has always advocated interment of corpses and has condemned the burning of them for pagan reasons. Cremation today is frequently chosen for insufficient reasons. Funds should be made available to assist those who feel obliged to choose it for lack of money.
25. Apparitions. If a local bishop has ruled that there is no reason to believe in some alleged apparition of Christ, Mary, or a saint, at some place in his diocese, the faithful should not be allowed to assemble there from outside the diocese in large numbers for religious purposes. If necessary, he could forbid the distribution of the sacraments, except in danger of death, to people who are not habitually resident in that place.
26. Reparation. As bishops have organised ceremonies of reparation for the sexual abuse committed by some members of their clergy, so we believe that they should organise ceremonies of reparation for the many crimes of tolerating or promoting heresy that have been committed within the Church in recent decades.
27. Israel according to the flesh. Since St Paul teaches that the “receiving” of his people according to the flesh will be “life from the dead”, Catholics should be urged to pray that all Jews will recognise their Messiah; this intention could be entrusted in a special way to certain contemplative communities, for example, to the Carmelites.
“See therefore, brethren, how you walk circumspectly: not as unwise, but as wise: redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore become not unwise, but understanding what is the will of God.” (Eph 5:15–17)
