(LifeSiteNews) — One of the provisions in the “formula of adherence” for priests of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) who would want to “reconcile” with Rome refers to a certain section from Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium:

I accept the doctrine taught in No. 25 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council concerning the Magisterium of the Church and the adherence owed to it.

Some Catholics who have familiarity with the SSPX might assert, with great confidence, that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre never would have considered agreeing to anything like this. On this point, though, it is worth considering Archbishop Lefebvre’s May 10, 1988, conference at St. Nicolas du Chardonnet in Paris:

Then they said we had to accept the paragraph in Lumen Gentium which deals with the magisterium of the Church, §25. When you read this paragraph, you understand it condemns them, not us; they would have to sign it because it is not so badly written and it contains a whole paragraph stressing the immutability of doctrine, the immutability of the Faith, the immutability of the formulas. We agree with that. There are those who need to sign this. Thus there is no difficulty in accepting this paragraph which expresses traditional doctrine.

Whether we agree with Archbishop Lefebvre on his reading of Lumen Gentium No. 25 is irrelevant for purposes of the analysis that follows: what matters is that his strong opposition to Vatican II did not prevent him from recognizing that some passages from the Council can be used to point out the ways in which Rome has deviated from the Catholic Faith.

In like manner, a previous article demonstrated two of the ways in which Leo XIV’s Vatican rejects two categories of teachings from Vatican II’s documents: doctrinal development and ecumenism. This article focuses on another category of teaching from Vatican II that Rome opposes today, relating to the need for Catholics to remain faithful in the practice of Catholicism if they wish to save their souls. As with the previous article, the point is to elucidate Rome’s errors so that Catholics may better appreciate the crisis today.

READ: SSPX is actually more faithful to Vatican II than the Vatican itself

The passage in question also comes from Lumen Gentium:

They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ, accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a ‘bodily’ manner and not ‘in his heart.’ All the Church’s children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word, and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged. (Lumen Gentium, 14)

As this passage indicates, those who do not profess the Catholic Faith are not bound to the Church in a visible way. This is an important idea to revisit after first evaluating the primary focus of this analysis, which is based on the last sentence: “If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word, and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.”

At issue is the reality that Leo’s Vatican uses the moral authority of the Catholic Church to undermine Lumen Gentium’s warning to unfaithful Catholics. We can evaluate this by briefly considering topics with which most serious Catholics are already familiar: the Synod on Synodality, Fiducia Supplicans, and Amoris Laetitia. In this analysis, the question is not whether Leo XIV would directly deny the teaching from Lumen Gentium but whether he permits the Vatican to counter that teaching in indirect, yet emphatic, ways.

Synod on Synodality

As Cardinal Raymond Burke recently remarked, the Synod on Synodality must be stopped because it endangers the salvation of souls:

We have to insist that this whole synodality business stop … And there [should] be a very serious study done of the whole matter because we’re talking about the very life of the Church and we’re talking about the salvation of souls.

Catholics have known from the beginning of the Synod that it sought to “accompany” sinners who refuse to abandon their serious sins. The gravity of this problem was highlighted by the Study Group 9 report (May 5, 2026), which included the following statement about Christ loving sinners just as they are:

Here, we would like to emphasize the following key aspects: the stability of a healthy affective relationship, which allows for the sharing of life perspectives, ethical convictions, and faith; the recognition of the importance of sexuality, which nevertheless does not justify considering it the sole aspect of life; the liberating power of a personal encounter with Christ, who loves us just as we are; self-acceptance linked to the deepening of faith and to active participation and service within the life of the Christian community; and the specific contribution of a theology capable of opening up a contextual and hermeneutic reading of the Bible.

The fact that this document is still accessible online and has not been condemned by Leo XIV is a grave scandal that can only be explained by the fact that the Vatican does not consider it to be seriously problematic. Of itself, the Synod on Synodality’s moral teaching constitutes a negation of the words from Lumen Gentium above because the clear meaning is that God loves us, and will save us, even if we fail “to respond to [His] grace in thought, word, and deed.”

Fiducia Supplicans

Along the same lines, but perhaps even more scandalous, is the 2023 document from Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Fiducia Supplicans. As Tucho explained in the document’s presentation, it is an “innovative contribution” that permits the blessing of couples in irregular situations:

The value of this document, however, is that it offers a specific and innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings, permitting a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings, which is closely linked to a liturgical perspective. Such theological reflection, based on the pastoral vision of Pope Francis, implies a real development from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and the official texts of the Church. … It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.

There would be no need at all for a document permitting the blessing of sinners (for we are all sinners), whether they appear individually, in pairs, or in larger groups. The need for this innovative document was precisely that it authorizes the blessing of the sinful relationship, something the Church cannot legitimately do. But if the Church can appear (falsely) to be blessing same-sex unions, then there is no compelling reason why it cannot bless other grave sins. The message is unmistakable: Catholics do not really need to cooperate with God’s grace to overcome grave sins. Thus, this too constitutes a negation of the words from Lumen Gentium above.

Amoris Laetitia

Francis’s Amoris Laetitia attacked the Church’s moral teaching from a different angle, by teaching that divorce and remarriage was not necessarily a mortal sin: 

The Church possesses a solid body of reflection concerning mitigating factors and situations. Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding ‘its inherent values,’ or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin.

According to Amoris Laetitia, a key question is whether the person in the irregular situation might commit “further sin” if they desisted from the grave sin in question. If they believe they would commit further sin if they had to change their life, then they can continue in their grave sin. This operates as a denial of the meaning of St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians about the sufficiency of God’s grace to avoid sin:

And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. For which thing thrice I besought the Lord, that it might depart from me. And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)

If, as Amoris Laetitia tells us, St. Paul is basically wrong in thinking that we must cooperate with God’s grace to avoid grave sin, then how can the words above from Lumen Gentium be true?

Those who defend these novelties from Rome may have the best of intentions. Perhaps they even think that in defending the Vatican’s continuous assault on God and souls they are avoiding scandal. No matter what their intentions are, though, the effect is that by defending these erroneous positions they are contributing to the negation of the warning to unfaithful Catholics from Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium:

If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word, and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.

The poor Catholics who take seriously the messages conveyed by the Synodal Church, Fiducia Supplicans, and Amoris Laetitia are more likely to believe that they can continue in their grave sins without risking their salvation. So, far from being a good “pastoral” approach, these Vatican initiatives appear to be setting up souls to be “more severely judged.”

Returning to the words from Lumen Gentium about the “profession of faith” binding Catholics to the Church, how can we say that those who support the Synodal Church, Fiducia Supplicans, and Amoris Laetitia actually have the Catholic Faith? We do not need to take Vatican II’s word for this — we can look to Leo XIII’s 1896 encyclical on the unity of the Church, Satis Cognitum: 

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodoret, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity.

If, as Leo XIII insisted, a single heresy separates one from the Church, what can we say about those in the Vatican who promote the heretical views outlined above? Only God can judge their souls, but it seems evident that they actively oppose what the Church requires Catholics to believe. According to Lumen Gentium (as well as Satis Cognitum and Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis), this suggests that they are not visibly united to the Church.

God alone knows the depth of the crisis in the Catholic Church and how it will end. Therefore, it is not our task to answer every question related to the crisis, and at present we face uncertainty about some matters. However, it seems obvious from the analysis above that Leo XIV and his Vatican effectively reject one of the most important teachings of the very Council they cite as justification for their perpetuation of so many anti-Catholic novelties. And so rather than parroting Rome’s weaponized hypocrisy about Catholics needing to follow the Council’s novelties, Catholics should insist that Leo and his Vatican stop undermining those parts of the Council that actually reiterate the Catholic Faith. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

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