...By thy Holy Cross.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

“We adore Thee, O Christ. and we praise Thee, because by Thy Holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.” This familiar prayer offered as part of the Stations of the Cross is familiar to Catholics, and well it should be. It succinctly expresses our faith, and the unique reality of Jesus Christ—God’s Divine Son—as the one Savior of all humanity. 

 We are obliged to adore and praise Jesus Christ because He is God’s Son, and because He has brought salvation to our fallen state. We must cling tenaciously to the truth that only Jesus Christ is Savior, and that He lived, suffered, died, and rose for all humanity for all time. His loving sacrifice of His own life in order to redeem us is the greatest gift that humanity has ever received.

This simple prayer expresses the core of our faith that we are obliged to proclaim to the world if we wish to live as His disciples. The Church exists to proclaim this Truth in order to point the human family, from every nation and race to the means of our salvation. There is no other name by which we can be saved, and no other movement, religion, or human endeavor will save us. Christ alone is our Savior. We truly can gain the whole world and still find ourselves lost if we do not embrace Jesus Christ and His Cross.

As you read this, I can imagine that your reaction might be that I am merely stating the obvious by expressing the basic kerygma of our glorious faith in Jesus Christ, our loving Lord and Redeemer, and you are correct. But we must open our eyes to the reality that too many within the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, are rejecting this most basic expression of our faith and, in fact, rejecting Jesus Christ Himself. We must also acknowledge that leaders in the Church of the highest rank are leading the world, not towards, but away from Jesus Christ.

Pope Francis, recently speaking to a group of young people in Singapore, made this statement:

“One of the things that struck me about all of you here is your ability to engage in interreligious dialogue, and this is very important. If you, in the beginnings of your conversations and debates, start to say things like, ‘My religion is more important than yours,’ ‘No, mine is more important than yours,’ that sort of thing, where will this lead us? Because if we start to fight amongst ourselves and say, ‘My religion is more important than yours,’ ‘My religion is true, yours is not,’ where will that lead us? Someone respond. Where would it lead us? It’s okay to discuss. Every religion is a way to arrive at God. To make an example or a comparison, they are like different languages in order to arrive at God. But God is God for all - and if God is God for all, then we are all sons and daughters of God. ‘But my God is more important than your God.’ Is that true? There is only one God, and each of us is a language, so to speak, in order to arrive at God. Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian – they are different paths.”

This statement is theological heresy – it is called indifferentism. Indifferentism makes the claim that all religions are of equal value and all lead to the same divine truth. This directly contradicts the Church’s doctrine that there is one true faith, and that the Catholic Church is the only path to salvation.

Although tolerance and religious freedom are important, we in the Church must defend our faith with conviction and share the truth with certainty. As Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6)

In 1928, Pope Pius XI discussed indifferentism in his Papal Encyclical Mortalium Animos. He stated:  “For since they hold it for certain that men destitute of all religious sense are very rarely to be found, they seem to have founded on that belief a hope that the nations, although they differ among themselves in certain religious matters, will without much difficulty come to agree as brethren in professing certain doctrines, which form as it were a common basis of the spiritual life. For which reason conventions, meetings and addresses are frequently arranged by these persons, at which a large number of listeners are present, and at which all without distinction are invited to join in the discussion, both infidels of every kind, and Christians, even those who have unhappily fallen away from Christ or who with obstinacy and pertinacity deny His divine nature and mission. Certainly, such attempts can nowise be approved by Catholics, founded as they are on that false opinion which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different ways manifest and signify that sense, which is inborn in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgement of His rule. Not only are those who hold this opinion in error and deceived, but also in distorting the idea of true religion they reject it, and little by little, turn aside to naturalism and atheism, as it is called; from which it clearly follows that one who support those who hold these theories and attempt to realize them, is altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion.”

Pope Gregory XVI in his Papal Encyclical Mirari Vos (1832) condemned the idea that one could attain salvation in any religion. Pope Pius IX in Syllabus of Errors (1864) condemned the proposition that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”

I have often, at various times, expressed my deep concern regarding the occurrence of heresy and the atmosphere of apostasy as it emanates from the Vatican in Rome, but I must now ask this question: “Where is the outcry of the shepherds? Where is the courage and conviction to defend our faith?”

When Pope Pius X was worried that Modernism would wed the Church to the world with its emphasis on humanism, he mandated that every bishop must hunt down this heresy and crush it, and he required an oath as a prerequisite of receiving Holy Orders, which was in effect until 1978. Once when Pope Pius X was asked whether he should perhaps adopt a more conciliatory tone and perhaps seek more dialogue, he stated: “You want them to be treated with oil, soap and caresses. But they should be beaten with fists. In a duel, you don’t count or measure the blows, you strike as you can.” Pope Pius X saw the extreme danger in allowing heresy to stand unchallenged and uncorrected, as unchecked heresy will surely lead a great many souls away from Christ, and away from the fullness of the true and authentic faith which is found and safeguarded in its entirety in the Catholic Church alone. And so, I ask again – “Where is the outcry of the shepherds?”

I find it also of the utmost importance at this time to draw attention to significant sources of heresy and apostasy besides those originating from the Vatican. We are truly seeing cardinals oppose cardinals, and bishops oppose bishops, but as devastating as this is, we must note that we are also seeing Franciscans against Franciscans, Dominicans against Dominicans, and Jesuits against Jesuits. 

The harsh reality is that the outright rejection of Jesus Christ is not unique to the halls of Rome. This cancer of apostasy has also attacked those in consecrated life. In some cases, leaders of religious communities have been out in front leading this headlong charge away from Christ and the Church He founded. 

Founders of religious orders like St Ignatius of Loyola and St Francis of Assisi would find the leadership of their communities in this 21st century unrecognizable, and distant from the communities they founded. These great saints did not inspire their followers to be militant social workers, but to be evangelists who often gave their lives in imitation of Christ Himself. The greatness of these religious orders was always measured by the greatness of their devotion to Jesus Christ and His mission.

When founded by St. Ignatius in 1540, the Society of Jesus called for the Jesuits to be missionaries and to evangelize across the globe, and this they did, establishing schools and teaching the gospel. They were educators, and they monopolized education in Europe for over 200 years. The Jesuits were founded just before the Council of Trent, and they helped to counter the Protestant Reformation throughout Catholic Europe. Jesuits often stood between the indigenous people and slavery. Jesuit scholars studied the native languages and produced grammars and dictionaries.

The Jesuits were organized like an army, with a top-down authority structure, perhaps because from the time he was young, St. Ignatius wanted to be a soldier. However, after he was wounded and had had time to meditate upon his life, he realized it was not a military company that he was called to recruit and train but instead a spiritual company. When St. Ignatius was founding The Society, he saw clearly that the enemy was Lucifer, and that his army’s weapons would need to be supernatural/spiritual. And it must be said that the organization of The Society was exactly what it needed to be in order to fight the spiritual war that was underway, as no other group has come close to accomplishing what the Jesuits did in evangelization and education.

This all changed, however, in the 1960’s after the Second Vatican Council. Let me pause here to mention another thing that happened (or rather was to happen but did not) in the 1960’s because it helps to make clear the climate in the Church at this time. Our Lady told Sr. Lucia Dos Santos, one of the three visionaries of Our Lady of Fatima, that The Third Secret of Fatima was to be released in 1960, but it was not, and this, combined with the fact that Russia had still not been consecrated in the manner Our Lady requested, gives insight into the mindset of the Vatican during this period.

Pope Pius XII had strongly opposed Soviet Marxism, but with Pope John XXIII, there was an “open windows, open fields” approach to the USSR, and in fact he went so far as to guarantee the USSR immunity from attacks by the Church. It was during his papacy of course that the Third Secret was to be revealed, but it was not, for it seems offending Russia was of more concern than carrying out Our Blessed Mother’s instructions. Then with Pope Paul VI, the policy of placating Russia continued, even to the point of betraying the Primate of Hungary.

It was also during this time that there was a concerted effort to move the Church from a vertical Church that “looked to God” to a horizontal church that “looked to the people.” Although the Second Vatican Council’s document on the liturgy said nothing about liturgical positions, things changed all the same in this regard as well, as Mass celebrated with the priest facing the people (versus populum) was not common before Vatican II, and just a few years after the Council, versus populum was the ordinary way in which Mass was offered in most of the world. Although ad orientem did not go away, it was almost unseen for several decades.

And along with this, things were changing in The Society of Jesus. In fact, with the election of Jesuit Father General Pedro Arrupe in 1968, there was a complete turn-around. It soon became evident that the Jesuits were also envisioning a “new kind of Church,” a Church not with a central authority, but with the authority in the hands of “the people of God.” The history of The Society after that time reveals that many Jesuits started to wage war, not against Lucifer, but against flesh and blood “enemies,” those who they saw as responsible for social, economic, and political injustice, and they seemed to lose their focus of saving souls.

Also at this time, and in fact wrapped up in the changes, liberation theology found its way into The Society of Jesus. Liberation theology shares the modernist belief in humanism. Liberation theology is a belief that economic, social and political oppression are sins, and that they can be eradicated only when the oppressed seize control. The poor are told that they must take their own destinies into their hands, and that “good violence” is sometimes necessary. Salvation is interpreted in terms of socio-political liberation, and it is believed by its advocates that the poor are the source for understanding Christian truth and practice.

Although not all Jesuits embraced this theology, it favored the order as a whole, and the Jesuits not only ceased being “the Pope’s men,” they became in many ways the enemy of the papacy. Pope John Paul II tried repeatedly to rein them in during his papacy. He had experienced Marxist Poland, and he was vehemently opposed to what was unfolding in the Society. What became evident during this time, in Jesuit writing and Jesuit activities, was that their focus was on achieving a brotherhood and sisterhood which was a sociopolitical system with authority no longer seen as resting in the papacy but instead resting in the “people of God.”

The expression “liberation theology” was used by Father General Pedro Arrupe in 1968, and it was popularized by Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutierrez. In 1979, Pope John Paul II criticized radical liberation theology, stating “the idea of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth, does not tally with the Church’s catechesis.”

As Latin American governments reacted with violence to squash this movement, some priests not only began supporting leftist revolutions, but some even joined rebel groups and engaged in guerilla warfare. The movement spread to El Salvador, Nicaragua, Columbia, etc. I will not go into all that this movement caused or brought forth in this letter. However, the rules of obedience which St. Ignatius wrote for The Society and which were written with the greatest solicitude for the Church to uphold the papacy seemed to change radically with Liberation Theology as this system was a “bottom-up” movement.

In March 1983, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) accused Father Gustavo Gutierrez (a Dominican priest and one of the principal founders of liberation theory) of politically interpreting the Bible in supporting temporal messianism, stating that the predominance of orthopraxis over orthodoxy proved a Marxist influence. Regarding liberation theology, he declared “the ‘people’ is the antithesis of the hierarchy, the antithesis of all institutions, which are seen as oppressive powers. Ultimately anyone who participates in the class struggle is a member of the ‘people’; the ‘Church of the people’ becomes the antagonist of the hierarchical Church.”

Since at the second Vatican Council, the idea of the Church as the People of God was brought forth, many entrenched in Liberation Theology grabbed hold of this. Pope John Paul II strove to keep the Jesuits at bay, but they had become, for the most part, an organization that no longer lived in obedience to the Papal office and who no longer respected the hierarchy of the Church.

Fast forward to our day and the movement towards a “synodal Church.” Once again, we see the concept of a “people’s Church” arising. On September 11, 2013, Pope Francis hosted Gutierrez in his residence, and concelebrated Mass with him. On January 18, 2014, Pope Francis met with Arturo Paoli, an Italian priest whom the Pope knew from Argentina and who is a supporter of liberation theology. Miguel d’Escoto, a priest from Nicaragua who had been sanctioned with a divinis suspension from public functions in 1984 by Pope John Paul II due to his political activity in the leftist Sandinista government, had his suspension lifted by Pope Francis in August 2014. In January 2019, during World Youth Day in Panama, Pope Francis discussed with a group of Jesuits from Central America possibly changing attitudes to liberation theology.

In summary, I must state that we are now faced almost daily with heresy and apostasy even within the highest offices of the Church. There are penalties, or should be penalties, for committing these canonical crimes. Canon 1364, section 1, states that “an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.” By committing apostasy, a person brings the sentence of excommunication upon himself. This differs from an excommunication “ferendae sententiae” in which the excommunication is imposed by competent Church authority. However, we are living in a time when there is scarcely heard a word from the shepherds of the Church when someone makes statements that are heretical or that represent apostasy from the faith. Instead, it is those who point out the heresy or the apostasy that often meet with penalties.

I implore all of my fellow bishops to rise up and to protect the Deposit of Faith! And I implore all of the faithful to take to heart these words of Archbishop Fulton Sheen:

“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious: It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops, and your religious act like religious.”

“We adore Thee, O Christ. and we praise Thee, because by Thy Holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.”

May Almighty God continue to bless you and may our Holy and Immaculate Mother lead you in Truth to her Divine Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland

Bishop Emeritus