By Fr. John A. Perricone
Crisis Magazine
November 12, 2025
Try as hard as you might to understand him, still Pope Leo leaves us befuddled. Even giving the benefit of the doubt to his recent statements, Catholics are still left short of clarity. Faithful Catholics fully understand the bounds of papal teaching. Assent of mind and will is only reserved to the highest reaches of magisterial intention. All other pronouncements obligate Catholics to show respectful attention, nothing more. Even with that, certain of Pope Leo's statements strain the Catholic conscience.
Tucked precariously between assent and respectful consideration lies a critical distinction lost upon many simple Catholic souls. Some assume every syllable that falls from the lips of the Roman Pontiff bear the same status as the Nicene Creed. Little do these well-meaning Catholics know that they have fallen prey to the perils of papal absolutism (cf. ultramontanism), a parlous and faulty interpretation of papal prerogatives. This very tendency is what caused St. John Henry Newman such concern at the promulgation of Vatican I's Pastor Aeternus. Pity, for this error leaves them marooned in the regions of doubtful conscience at best and an erroneous conscience at worst.
Thus, we are left on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, there are those who relegate papal teaching to only opinion and live an à la carte Catholicism. On the other hand, there are those Catholics who embrace the equally erroneous position that every word uttered by the Roman Pontiff binds in conscience. We have here a theological Scylla and Charybdis which must be avoided at all costs.
A distinguished theologian was recently disinvited from an interview by a papal absolutist who claimed the theologian was an unfaithful Catholic! Why? Because he did not give absolute assent to every line of Amoris Laetitia and Fiducia Supplicans. Here is ultramontanism writ large. Imagine, a credentialed, orthodox theologian having sentence passed upon him by a layman who runs a grocery store. O, deliver us from the perils of papal absolutism and the preening dilettantes it creates.
Avoiding such extremes still leaves Catholics in a bit of a dilemma. Pope Leo has both made statements that are confusing and countenanced actions equally so.
When he appeared on the loggia of St. Peter's on the day of his election, his words created the first twitches of discomfort. He hailed the wonders of a synodal Church. Many thought this an exercise of romanità easily suffered for the sake of papal etiquette. But then, a few days ago, there was this: "Being a Synodal Church means recognizing that the truth is not possessed, but sought together, allowing ourselves to be guided by a restless heart in love with Love."
Initially, the Augustinian reference was affecting, leaving us disarmed. But the swoon of that reference was soon erased when he spoke that "truth is not possessed, but sought."
All at once, the educated Catholic recoiled. Was this a seeming return to the backwaters of the Modernists fiddling with the nature of truth? Memories of such worrying figures as Blondel, Rousselot, and Bouillard surfaced. Their writings relativized truth, leaving theology and philosophy in shambles. What sent chills up our spines was that their words were almost identical to Pope Leo's.
Let us assume that was an accidental embellishment of poetic license. Still, if taken on its face, it held ominous consequences. For one, if truth is "not possessed," then all human discourse collapses. Plato and Aristotle proved this against the Sophists millennia ago. Moreover, this would necessarily imply that the Church herself is no longer in possession of the truth and she must "humbly" search elsewhere.
But what of Our Lord's apodictic words: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."
Or, the infallible dogmas of the Nicene Creed?
Or, the irrefragable truths of the moral law?
More fundamentally, what of the truth of man's human nature, his dignity, and the rights attendant upon that nature. All of this dissolves in the acids of a synodal Church. Or, at the very least, it becomes open to endless "synodal debate."
Surely, Pope Leo could not mean that. But if he did, are we not warranted in feeling a bit ill at ease?
Then there is Pope Leo's unsettling introduction of new sins. In a speech on the concocted apocalyptic ramifications of climate change, he introduces novel moral infraction: climate injustice. What is that? How can there be an injustice to the climate? Persons are the sole subjects of rights. Even if that could be clarified, there remains a Roman Pontiff stepping into matters of prudential judgments, the exclusive prerogative of the laity. Moreover, he seems to be wading into matters better left to the proper evidence-based methods of science.
We all pray that these sweeping politicized statements, so redolent of the Bergoglio papacy, would be set aside for more robust restatements of the Faith. Maybe they are still to come, but it seems they have not arrived yet.
Sadly, there is more. Pope Leo's homily to the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies (take a breath): "We must dream of and build a more humble Church; a Church that does not stand upright-triumphant and inflated with pride...a Church that does not judge but becomes a welcoming place for all."
Where does one begin? Is it the Vicar of Christ's intention to indict a Church that for 2,000 years confidently built Western Civilization? Does this mean that the martyrs were misled in proudly submitting to sadistic executions for a Faith that was triumphant and not merely "inquiring"?
Catholics are befuddled. If it is hubris to stand with a Church that stands upright, then what effect can she have upon the world? Using this criterion, would St. Peter and St. Paul stand accused? Does a Church "inflated with pride" mean that the stalwart sorties of St. Athanasius and St. Leo the Great were problematic and better forgotten?
Must Catholics reevaluate the bold proclamations of unchangeable doctrine that the Church is the sole Church by which all men are saved? Is the whole enterprise of the conversion of souls to be abandoned? If the Church must cease to "judge," must she then abandon all the immutable principles of moral truth? Hasn't the Church always been a "welcoming" place for all because she alone welcomes men on every continent and at every moment to partake of the saving graces of Christ?
Is it indelicate to suggest that those words of the Roman Pontiff seem to gag the triumphant, divine voice of Christ our Savior?
Help us, Holy Father. Is there something we have missed?
Holiness, correct our blind spot.
What of the groups that entered the Holy Door of the Jubilee Year waving agitprop flags of impermissible moral conduct? If we are to be welcoming, why was the Society of St. Pius X not officially welcomed to the Jubilee festivities? Applying your own words, are they not welcome? Are they so reprobate that they lie beyond the reach of "synodal listening"?
Then there are the perplexing words of your Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin. His already diminished stature (due to his shameful abandonment of loyal Roman Catholics in China) makes all his judgments seem tainted. But his recent statement on the Nigerian crisis reached new depths of Orwellian Newspeak. Speaking at the Aid to the Church in New Religious Freedom Report, he declared:
The violence against Christians in Nigeria is not a religious conflict of Muslims against Christians, but rather more a social one, for example, disputes between herders and farmers. We should also recognize that many Muslims in Nigeria are themselves victims of this same intolerance. These are extremist groups that make no distinction in pursuing their goals. They use violence against anyone they see as an opponent.
This absurdity makes it appear that the Secretary of State now acts as a spokesman for Hamas. But the truth, as reported by Chris Jackson, unveils the facts which defy the good cardinal:
Between January 2023 and December 2024, Nigeria suffered a surge in religiously motivated violence, particularly in the North and Middle Belt. Armed groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) led coordinated assaults on churches, villages, and clergy in Plateau and Benue states alone, thousands were displaced and hundreds killed including over 11000 Christians, among them twenty priests, within a single month after the 2023 presidential inauguration. During Christmas 2023, joint attacks by local and foreign militants left nearly 300 dead; by June 2025, another 200 displaced Christians were massacred in Benue. Church leaders describe the campaign as deliberate, a jihadist strategy to expel Christian populations. Radicalized Fulani herdsmen, aided by Islamist militias, continue systematic attacks and land seizures. Even Catholic schools have been assaulted, such as the 2024 attack on a Christian high school in Makurdi, where blasphemy accusations and witchcraft related killings inflamed the violence. Dozens of clergy have been kidnapped or murdered, while regional hisbah police enforced Sharia restrictions in northern states defying constitutional law.
Yet Cardinal Parolin tells us that these Islamic religious persecutions are misinterpreted. They are merely "social tensions." But as Mr. Jackson concluded, "the same Vatican that can detect 'microaggressions' against the environment cannot recognize a genocide against its own flock. When the blood of martyrs cries from the ground, Rome hears only 'the cry of the earth.'"
Holy Father, there must be some kind of miscommunication between your young papacy and the Secretary of State. If not, Catholics are left downcast at the harm done to the credibility of your own Vatican.
Holy Father, we pray for you daily.
But anomalies such as these weigh heavily upon us and leave us dispirited.
How can we march forward, "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (1 Corinthians 15:52).
This article was originally published on Crisis Magazine.