The VaticanNews portal (December 23, 2025) reports on an interview with “Cardinal” Lazarus You Heung-sik regarding antipope Leo XIV’s apostolic letter “A fidelity that generates the future.” The article promotes modernist distortions of priesthood centered on “fraternity,” “synodality,” and adaptation to contemporary culture, while systematically omitting the sacrificial essence of Holy Orders. The “cardinal” claims this document responds to priestly “scandals” and vocational crisis through “pastoral styles” that embrace radical Gospel proposals without “watering them down” – a contradiction exposed by the text’s silence on the propitiatory sacrifice and eternal truths.
Naturalistic Reduction of Priestly Identity
The portal’s presentation reduces the sacerdotal ministry to mere ecclesial functionality, with “Cardinal” You asserting priesthood is “an indispensable ministry within the mission of the Church.” This directly contradicts the Council of Trent’s definition: “Sacerdos est alter Christus” (The priest is another Christ), emphasizing ontological transformation through Holy Orders (Session XXIII, Chapter IV). Pius XI’s Ad Catholici Sacerdotii condemns such minimalist views: “The priest is the dispensator mysteriorum Dei (dispenser of the mysteries of God)… not a mere delegate of the community” (§17).
The interview’s repeated emphasis on “communion” and “co-responsibility” masks the erasure of hierarchical distinction between clergy and laity. When the “cardinal” states “no priest can exist and work alone,” he perverts the true communio hierarchica taught by Pius XII in Mystici Corporis (§63), where priests act as “ministers of the Eternal Priest” with powers inaccessible to the baptized. The claim that synodality represents “true co-responsibility” rather than democracy is semantic trickery – Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium (§22) already planted this egalitarian poison now metastasizing in Leo XIV’s letter.
Rejection of Sacramental Ontology
Nowhere does the “cardinal” or quoted document mention the priest’s ex opere operato power to confect the Eucharist, forgive sins, or offer sacrifice. This silence confirms the modernist agenda described in Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis: “They deny that the Eucharist is a true sacrament… reducing it to a… symbol” (§37). The portal’s praise for “pastoral styles that do not seek to diminish… the radical proposal of the Gospel” ironically coincides with abandoning the radical supernaturalism of the Mass as defined in Trent’s De Sacrificio Missae (Session XXII).
The interview’s treatment of social media exemplifies this desacralization. Rather than warning priests against worldly vanity, “Cardinal” You merely cautions against self-promotion while encouraging digital evangelization. Compare this to Pius XI’s mandate: “The priest must shine before men… by the integrity of his life, by his continual mortification, by his detachment from earthly goods” (Ad Catholici Sacerdotii §66). When the “cardinal” speaks of “generative pastoral styles,” he replaces asceticism with accommodation – precisely the “evolution of dogma” condemned in St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane (Proposition 64).
Omissions Revealing Apostasy
Three grave silences expose the document’s apostatic core:
1. No mention of the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell) – the foundational motive for priestly ministry according to St. Charles Borromeo’s Instructions to Confessors. The “cardinal’s” talk of “generating the future” concerns only temporal community-building, rejecting Eschaton-oriented Catholicism.
2. Absence of Marian devotion and Eucharistic adoration – pillars of priestly spirituality affirmed in St. John Vianney’s witness and Pius XII’s Menti Nostrae. The portal’s reference to “fraternity” replaces filial piety toward Our Lady with horizontal collectivism.
3. Conflation of formation with psychological adaptation – The interview cites Vatican II’s Optatam Totius rather than Pius X’s Pieni L’Animo which demands: “Firmness in faith… unshaken by… erroneous opinions” (§3). Modernist “formation” produces administrators, not alter Christi.
Anti-Dogmatic Foundations
The portal’s celebration of “sixtieth anniversary of conciliar decrees” reveals the cancer’s origin: Vatican II’s rejection of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus and sacramental absolutism. When “Cardinal” You claims “the Church is not experiencing a vocational crisis, only parts affected by secularization,” he denies the universal apostasy foretold in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors already condemned this naturalism: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself with progress… and modern civilization” (Proposition 80).
The article’s final blasphemy comes in urging priests to “point to Christ” on social media “in the style of John the Baptist.” But the Forerunner preached penance (Matthew 3:2), not the faux-mercy of Amoris Laetitia. This inversion completes the portrait of a counterfeit priesthood serving the ecclesia diaboli rather than the Ecclesia Dei.
Source:
Cardinal You Heung-sik: Pope invites priests to fraternity (vaticannews.va)
Date: 23.12.2025