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Posted on 10/09/2026 1:53:58 PM PDT by ebb tide
In his October 1, 2026 address to the Delegation of the World Lutheran Federation, Leo XIV praised a 1999 joint declaration of the Lutheran World Foundation and the Catholic Church regarding justification:
“I am pleased that the Lutheran-Catholic relations have matured both spiritually and theologically over the decades. The international dialogue, now in its sixth phase, has yielded important insights. A milestone in the ecumenical journey was certainly the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.”
This Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification is worth examining because its content and history help us better understand the entire crisis in the Church today. In it, we can see the extent to which the Vatican has long been willing to violate divine law and natural law for the sake of promoting an anti-Catholic ecumenism.
The history of the Joint Declaration is somewhat complex, as we can glean from an excerpt from an October 1999 letter to John Paul II from Bishop Bernard Fellay, who was then the Superior General of the SSPX:
“Most Holy Father, In 1986, Mgr. Lefebvre and Mgr. De Castro Mayer thought it their duty to withstand You publicly following the example of St. Paul (Gal. 2, 11) for the prayer meeting of Assisi, to which you had convoked the main world ‘religions.’ This public sin (the meeting of Assisi) against the First Commandment and against the first article of the Credo, which was a great offense made to the Sovereign Majesty of the Only True God, One and Triune, was moreover an immense scandal to the faithful. . . . The deplorable event of Assisi was for Archbishop Lefebvre one of the ‘signs of the times’ permitting him to proceed legitimately to the episcopal consecrations without Your consent, and to write to You that ‘the moment of a frank collaboration has not yet come.’ The 13 years of Your Pontificate since have by no means removed the signs, their disastrous consequences for the Church or the wound they are causing to the hearts of faithful Catholics. To this first cause of our sadness is added the signature on the ‘Common Declaration of the Catholic Church and the Worldwide Federation’ next October 31. After the fact that Cardinal Cassidy, in the name of the Catholic Church, has contradicted the text of this declaration on serious points, discovering in it errors and ambiguities, how can You authorize its signature?”
Bishop Fellay and the SSPX understood the Joint Declaration as yet another betrayal of Catholic truth in the name of the ecumenical movement that produced the infamous prayer meeting at Assisi in 1986. Moreover, as Bishop Fellay wrote, Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, had identified certain errors and ambiguities in the Joint Declaration before it was signed.
The implications of this are staggering, but few other than the SSPX voiced any concern.Tweet this quote
Without even reading the Joint Declaration, we can get a sense of the confusion surrounding it from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity’s website page for the Joint Declaration, which lists the following documents:
Although the 1999 Annex to the Official Common Statement is presented as having the necessary clarifications to address Cardinal Cassidy’s critique of the Joint Declaration, the Annex actually fails to address some of the most dangerous problems with the Joint Declaration (discussed below). In addition, the Joint Declaration is a separate document with no cross-reference to the Annex. Accordingly, few people who might read the 1997 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification would have any idea that they needed to read a separate Annex to address the errors in the Joint Declaration. As a matter of common sense, the Joint Declaration ought to have been corrected or, at the very least, should have included the Annex within the same document. As it is, leaving the uncorrected Joint Declaration as a standalone document represents a contemptible disregard for souls.
Moreover, the Annex is so excessively deferential to the Lutherans that ordinary readers would have no way to appreciate the actual defects in the Joint Declaration without engaging in a careful side-by-side examination of the documents. This final paragraph of the Annex highlights that excessive deference:
“The Response of the Catholic Church does not intend to put in question the authority of Lutheran Synods or of the Lutheran World Federation. The Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation began the dialogue and have taken it forward as partners with equal rights (‘par cum pari’). Notwithstanding different conceptions of authority in the church, each partner respects the other partner’s ordered process of reaching doctrinal decisions.”
From these words one would naturally get the impression that the Catholic Church considers itself to be an equal partner with the Lutherans — sure, each religion may have different ideas about crucial matters of Christianity, but who can tell which religion, if any, is right. Thus, even before we look at the substance of the Joint Declaration we can see a willingness to lead souls astray by engaging in deception. Of itself, these tactics constitute an offense against natural law and suffice to show us that we are dealing with people who should not be trusted.
Turning to the substance, we can get to the heart of the Joint Declaration by considering paragraph 13:
“Opposing interpretations and applications of the biblical message of justification were in the sixteenth century a principal cause of the division of the Western church and led as well to doctrinal condemnations. A common understanding of justification is therefore fundamental and indispensable to overcoming that division. By appropriating insights of recent biblical studies and drawing on modern investigations of the history of theology and dogma, the post-Vatican II ecumenical dialogue has led to a notable convergence concerning justification, with the result that this Joint Declaration is able to formulate a consensus on basic truths concerning the doctrine of justification. In light of this consensus, the corresponding doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century do not apply to today’s partner.”
The message is clear: the Catholic Church once condemned the Lutheran errors (at the Council of Trent), but the post-Vatican II dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans has yielded a “notable convergence concerning justification” such that the Catholic Church’s “doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century” no longer apply to the Lutherans. Whether or not the Lutherans changed their position as a result of the dialogue is far less important than the suggestion that the Catholic Church has changed its beliefs on justification in light of Vatican II to overturn the Council of Trent’s condemnations of Lutheranism. The implications of this are staggering, but few other than the SSPX voiced any concern.
The Catholic Church once condemned the Lutheran errors (at the Council of Trent), but the post-Vatican II dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans has yielded a ‘notable convergence’…Tweet this quote
There is also another grievous scandal involved here. While it is true that the Joint Declaration rightly sets forth certain Catholic teachings that the Lutherans do not accept, the clear meaning is that the Catholic Church no longer condemns the Lutheran ideas on justification as they are described in the Joint Declaration. To appreciate what this means, we can consider a few statements from the Joint Declaration, along with applicable canons of the Council of Trent that relate to justification:
Cooperation with God’s Grace for Justification
Canon IV on Justification from the Council of Trent condemns the idea that man does not cooperate in his justification:
“If any one saith, that man’s free will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-operates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of Justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema.”
However, paragraph 21 of the Joint Declaration reiterates the Lutheran opposition to the Council of Trent:
“21. According to Lutheran teaching, human beings are incapable of cooperating in their salvation, because as sinners they actively oppose God and his saving action. Lutherans do not deny that a person can reject the working of grace. When they emphasize that a person can only receive (mere passive) justification, they mean thereby to exclude any possibility of contributing to one’s own justification, but do not deny that believers are fully involved personally in their faith, which is effected by God’s Word.”
Justification Requires More Than Faith Alone
Canon IX on Justification from the Council of Trent condemns the idea that man is justified by faith alone:
“If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the cooperate in the attainment of the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.”
However, paragraph 26 of the Joint Declaration reiterates the Lutheran opposition to the Council of Trent:
“26. According to Lutheran understanding, God justifies sinners in faith alone (sola fide). In faith they place their trust wholly in their Creator and Redeemer and thus live in communion with him. God himself effects faith as he brings forth such trust by his creative word. Because God’s act is a new creation, it affects all dimensions of the person and leads to a life in hope and love. In the doctrine of ‘justification by faith alone’” a distinction but not a separation is made between justification itself and the renewal of one’s way of life that necessarily follows from justification and without which faith does not exist.”
Loss of Justification through Sin
Canon XXVII on Justification from the Council of Trent condemns the idea that the grace of justification cannot be lost by sin:
“If any one saith that there is no mortal sin but that of infidelity; or, that grace once received is not lost by any other sin, however grievous and enormous, save by that of infidelity; let him be anathema.”
However, paragraph 29 of the Joint Declaration reiterates the Lutheran opposition to the Council of Trent:
“29 . . . Despite sin, the Christian is no longer separated from God, because in the daily return to baptism, the person who has been born anew by baptism and the Holy Spirit has this sin forgiven. Thus this sin no longer brings damnation and eternal death. Thus, when Lutherans say that justified persons are also sinners and that their opposition to God is truly sin, they do not deny that, despite this sin, they are not separated from God and that this sin is a ‘ruled’ sin.”
Other portions of the Joint Declaration also stand in stark opposition to the teaching of the Catholic Church, but these examples should suffice to demonstrate that the “developments” responsible for the Joint Declaration do not consist of Lutherans abandoning their errors but in false shepherds of the Catholic Church pretending that Catholic teaching has evolved. Paragraph 41 of the Joint Declaration emphasizes the all-important conclusion:
“41. Thus the doctrinal condemnations of the 16th century, in so far as they relate to the doctrine of justification, appear in a new light: The teaching of the Lutheran churches presented in this Declaration does not fall under the condemnations from the Council of Trent. The condemnations in the Lutheran Confessions do not apply to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church presented in this Declaration.”
As we have seen above, such a conclusion can only be reached by pure sophistry because the Lutheran beliefs in the Joint Declaration absolutely fall under the condemnations from the Council of Trent. It seems entirely reasonable to surmise that the drafters of the Joint Declaration knew that their document violated divine law (by opposing immutable Catholic teaching), so they had to obscure that reality with deception, thereby violating natural law. Tragically, we are dealing with men who have no respect for God’s law.
The message is clear: … the Catholic Church’s ‘doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century’ no longer apply to the Lutherans.Tweet this quote
One may reasonably ask why the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity has been able to propagate such anti-Catholic lies for so many decades. The most probable answer appears to be one that also excites the most active opposition from many Catholics of good will: the entire false ecumenism movement has never had a more important champion than John Paul II. His words from his 1995 encyclical “On Commitment to Ecumenism,” Ut Unum Sint, can remind us of this:
“Whatever relates to the unity of all Christian communities clearly forms part of the concerns of the primacy. As Bishop of Rome I am fully aware, as I have reaffirmed in the present Encyclical Letter, that Christ ardently desires the full and visible communion of all those Communities in which, by virtue of God’s faithfulness, his Spirit dwells. I am convinced that I have a particular responsibility in this regard, above all in acknowledging the ecumenical aspirations of the majority of the Christian Communities and in heeding the request made of me to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation.”
In a real practical sense, many Catholics of good will cannot view false ecumenism from a true Catholic perspective — such as that of the Council of Trent — because it would necessarily call into question one of the most important legacies of John Paul II. The silent supporters of false ecumenism act as though they wished that it was orthodox, or at least not nearly as bad as it is. They treat it as though it was a fairly benevolent heresy.
Unfortunately, wishing that false ecumenism was not an assault on the Catholic Faith that offends God and leads souls to hell does not make it so. If we wonder how it is that God has permitted Francis and now Leo XIV to promote outrageous heresies, it is worth considering that decades of false ecumenism has rotted the minds and eclipsed the Faith of almost all the men who occupy the highest places in the Church. These things have consequences.
Once we realize that, it should be no mystery that Leo welcomed the Lutherans and praised the Joint Declaration at the same time that he purports to excommunicate the SSPX and ignores their Profession of Catholic Faith. But the SSPX calmly follows God’s Providence and has been prepared for years to hear from the false ecumenists that they are “schismatic.” One wonders, though, if the false ecumenists are prepared to hear far more serious words from Our Lord:
“Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in Thy name, and cast out devils in Thy name, and done many miracles in Thy name? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, you that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:21-23)
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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Ping
Rome has not abandoned Trent.
Please.
Trent is Dogma.
A joint declaration addressing Lutherans is dicta.
The Cathedral of San Vigilio, where the Council of Trent met, is still standing in Trento, Italy.
A lot of Trent was crap, so good for Catholics, or whomever is repped by the Pope.
Sounds like he read Luther’s 95 theses.
Good deal
bmk
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