Posted on 11/07/2026 5:12:42 PM PST by ebb tide
One of the most intriguing aspects of the current crisis in the Catholic Church comes to light when we consider the following truths of our religion:
We know that these truths have not changed, and yet it is far from obvious how they work together in the context of what the world currently considers to be the visible Catholic Church. In other words, it is difficult (or impossible) to see the four marks of the Catholic Church in the words and deeds of the most prominent and visible structures and leaders of the Church today. Without attempting a comprehensive theological explanation, the analysis that follows considers how God has allowed the so-called fifth mark of the Church to help preserve the visibility of the Church’s four official marks.
Traditional Catholics have all four marks, plus one (persecuted).Tweet this quote
Like many other catechisms from before Vatican II, My Catholic Faith by Bishop Louis LaRavoire Morrow reminds us that our Catholic Faith is infinitely more true, good, and beautiful than we could glean from the way the religion is presented by the current occupants of the Vatican. Here, for example, is how My Catholic Faith describes the marks of the Church:
“The True Church must be that which Christ personally founded, and the Apostles propagated. It must have existed continuously since the time of Christ. It must teach in their entirety all the doctrines commanded by the Divine Founder while He was still on earth; and all its members must profess those fundamental doctrines. It must be a visible organization, discernible and discoverable, evidently existing, with clear marks or signs distinguishing it as the True Church.” (p. 101)
No serious Catholic could dispute these holy words, and yet Catholics today encounter a difficulty unknown to Catholics in the 1950s: the words do not actually describe the religion of those most visibly associated with the Catholic Church, particularly the pope and most cardinals and bishops. As one demonstration of this, if the pope and these cardinals and bishops truly professed the Church’s doctrines in their entirety we would not have abominations such as the Synod on Synodality, Fiducia Supplicans, Amoris Laetitia, or Mater Populi Fidelis.
Moreover, if we consider the simple descriptions of the Church’s four marks from My Catholic Faith, we can see that none of them apply even remotely to the Vatican today:
One: “Christ intended His Church to be One; therefore the True Church must be One. Its members must be united in doctrine, worship, and in government.”
Holy: “Christ intended His Church to be Holy; therefore the True Church must be Holy. It must teach a holy doctrine in faith and morals, because its Founder is holy.”
Catholic: “Christ intended His Church to be universal, that is, catholic; and therefore the True Church must be Universal, or Catholic. It must be for all peoples of every nation and for all times and teach the same faith everywhere.”
Apostolic: “Christ intended His Church to be propagated by His Apostles; and therefore the True Church must be Apostolic. It must be the Church propagated by the Apostles. Its rulers must derive their office and authority by lawful succession from the Apostles. It must hold intact the doctrine and traditions of the Apostles, to whom Christ gave authority to teach.”
The post-Conciliar Church that follows the novelties promulgated by the Vatican is not One because there is no unity in doctrine or worship; it is not Holy because it now opposes holy doctrine in faith and morals; it is not Catholic because it has abandoned what was taught in previous times; and it is not Apostolic because it does not hold intact the doctrine and traditions of the Apostles. Thus, one looking at the Vatican today will see none of the marks of the Catholic Church.
The Vatican is not persecuting those who have broken with Rome.Tweet this quote
This does not mean, however, that the marks have completely vanished. Traditional Catholics around the world adhere to the holy wisdom of St. Vincent of Lerins regarding what Christians must do if “some novel contagion” were to infect the whole Church:
“What then will a Catholic Christian do, if a small portion of the Church has cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member? What, if some novel contagion seeks to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty.”
Those who heed this wisdom are the members of the Church Militant who visibly continue and sustain the marks of the Church today. Still, it is beyond question that it is more difficult today to see these marks in light of the general apostasy among so many Catholics, including a majority of the hierarchy.
It is in this connection that it is worthwhile to consider the so-called fifth mark, which Dr. David Allen White described in his The Horn of the Unicorn: A Mosaic of the Life of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
“An old saying has it that persecution is the ‘fifth mark’ of the Church, the first four marks being those recited in the Creed, that the Church is ‘one, holy, catholic, apostolic.’ If you want to know where the Catholic Church is and who is doing Christ’s work in the world, then look for those souls being most harshly persecuted for holding to the teachings of Our Lord and the traditions of His Church.” (p. 232)
Dr. White was not making a doctrinal claim about “persecution” as the fifth mark, but he knew that Catholics have long considered this to be a mark of the Church. And, as a matter of simple observation, he could see that those who held to what the Church had always taught were being harshly persecuted by Rome for doing so. For Archbishop Lefebvre, that persecution began in earnest in the 1970s (long before the 1988 episcopal consecrations) and was especially cruel because it was from those purporting to lead the Church he loved.
We can find additional support for Dr. White’s statement from St. Pius X, who spoke of persecution as a mark of the Church in January 1907:
“The Church is called one, holy, Catholic, apostolic, Roman, and I would add, persecuted. Did Jesus Christ not say so? It is one of the Church’s characteristics to be always persecuted. Persecution is the sign that we are truly the children of the Church of Jesus Christ.”
St. Pius X’s words provide a more theological basis for seeing persecution as a mark of the Church. His words also recall Our Lord’s words:
“Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept My word, they will keep yours also.” (John 15:20)
The Church is persecuted because Our Lord was persecuted. Thus is it not surprising that Traditional Catholics are persecuted today for adhering to what the Church has always taught. What it means, though, is that the most prominent structures and representatives of the Catholic Church have none of the four marks, whereas the Traditional Catholics have all four marks, plus one (persecuted).
The greatest service they can render to the Church and the papacy is to remain faithful to what the Church has always taught, even if it means that they are punished for doing so.Tweet this quote
Somehow we must align these considerations about the marks of the Church with the Church’s teaching about its perpetual visibility. In his 1896 encyclical on the unity of the Church, Satis Cognitum, Leo XIII described the Church’s visibility as follows:
“The Church is not something dead: it is the body of Christ endowed with supernatural life. As Christ, the Head and Exemplar, is not wholly in His visible human nature, which Photinians and Nestorians assert, nor wholly in the invisible divine nature, as the Monophysites hold, but is one, from and in both natures, visible and invisible; so the mystical body of Christ is the true Church, only because its visible parts draw life and power from the supernatural gifts and other things whence spring their very nature and essence. But since the Church is such by divine will and constitution, such it must uniformly remain to the end of time.”
Even though the Mystical Body of Christ draws its life and power from its invisible divine nature, it is by divine will and constitution a visible society. The hierarchy is one component of the visible Church as Our Lord established it, and so theologians generally agree that this excludes the possibility of lengthy periods of time without a pope (or even cardinals to elect a pope). But the fact that we can see a hierarchy today does not seem to satisfy the requirements of the Church’s teaching if that hierarchy oversees a Church that lacks the four marks.
How, then, can we reconcile plainly observable reality about the crisis with what the Church teaches about its marks and visibility? It seems that one vital component is the reality that the Vatican persecutes only those who hold to Catholic tradition and persist in attempting to maintain union with Rome. Importantly, the Vatican is not persecuting those who have broken with Rome (such as the sedevacantists) — these groups may feel some pain from the crisis but Rome generally ignores them. Some may argue the SSPX is among those who have broken with Rome but the fallacy of such a position is apparent from the reality that the SSPX (a) insists that it is not schismatic, (b) names the pope in its Masses, and (c) is appealing the unjust penalties that Rome has attempted to impose on it. If the SSPX had broken with Rome it would not be persecuted; it, like other Traditional Catholic groups, is persecuted because it holds to the true Faith but refuses to break with Rome.
Returning to St. Vincent’s image of some novel contagion infecting the entire body of the Church, it is as though the contagion of the current crisis causes the earthly head (the Vatican) to attack the healthy parts of the body (faithful Catholics). Today those healthy parts of the body are what makes the body recognizable as Catholic — the unhealthy parts of the Church are disfigured and unrecognizable as Catholic. If the healthy parts were to separate themselves from the head, they would not be persecuted; but they remain united, trusting that the greatest service they can render to the Church and the papacy is to remain faithful to what the Church has always taught, even if it means that they are punished for doing so. In so doing, Traditional Catholics show the world the importance and permanence of the marks that the Vatican works so hard to crush.
The Church is persecuted because Our Lord was persecuted.Tweet this quote
The overall picture of how the visibility and marks of the Church are manifested today can be seen in Angeline Tan’s recent article describing two events on the weekend of the Feast of Christ the King:
“While we in Lourdes [with the SSPX] were banned from organizing public processions in the sanctuary grounds, other pilgrims of the annual Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage, organized since 2012 in gratitude for Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio, were refused entry to St. Peter’s Basilica for their prayer service—after years in which they had congregated there, even when Mass itself was unavailable—to sing the Credo and pray at the tomb of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles. Whatever the precise administrative reasoning, the Vatican’s decision was devastating: faithful Catholics were forbidden from praying in the basilica built over the grave of the first Pope. Two holy places. Two groups of faithful Catholics. Two restrictions imposed in the same season. Indeed, the Vatican’s draconian restrictions on the TLM (in both SSPX and non-SSPX communities) hit faithful Catholics like a ton of bricks during the weekend of the feast of Christ the King.”
It is as though Rome is telling the world that it no longer wants to be Catholic, while those simple Traditional Catholics it persecutes are insisting that Rome must be Catholic. God has permitted it to be astoundingly clear that, as a matter of both theology and natural justice, Rome is wrong and the Traditional Catholics are right. The spectacle highlights the extraordinary sickness of the earthly head and, more importantly, the robust health of the Traditional Catholics remaining in the body, which can only be sustained by God.
None of this amounts to a theologically definitive explanation of how we can understand the current crisis of the Church in light of the Church’s marks and perpetual visibility. Still, we trust in God’s Providence and can see that He allows simple Catholics to help preserve the essential characteristics of the Church even when the hierarchy does not. God will solve the crisis in the Church; our task is only to remain as faithful as possible. In so doing, we will show those of goodwill that the Church is still One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and, in a special way today, Persecuted. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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“The Church is called one, holy, Catholic, apostolic, Roman, and I would add, persecuted. Did Jesus Christ not say so? It is one of the Church’s characteristics to be always persecuted. Persecution is the sign that we are truly the children of the Church of Jesus Christ.”
St. Pius X’s words provide a more theological basis for seeing persecution as a mark of the Church. His words also recall Our Lord’s words:
“Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept My word, they will keep yours also.” (John 15:20)
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