Thai Bishops’ Electoral Call Betrays Catholic Social Doctrine
EWTN News reports that Thailand’s Catholic bishops have issued a pastoral letter urging citizens to vote for “worthy candidates” in February elections. Archbishop Francis Xavier Vira Arpondratana of Bangkok frames voting as a moral duty invoking the Catechism (2240), emphasizing human dignity and anti-corruption while warning against abstention unless all candidates prove “morally unacceptable.” The article contextualizes Thailand’s political instability and describes the Church’s purported role as “social conscience.”
Naturalism Replaces Supernatural Mission
The bishops reduce the Church’s mission to ethical oversight of temporal affairs, stating: “While the Church remains strictly independent from any political party, all have a responsibility to act as a moral mission and a social conscience”. This formulation ignores Quas Primas where Pius XI established that “Christ reigns…not only in the minds of men, but in wills and hearts” (1925). By omitting Christ’s royal authority over nations, the bishops commit the error denounced in the Syllabus of Errors: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself…with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Pius IX, Prop. 80).
False Notions of Human Dignity and Rights
Archbishop Arpondratana’s appeal to “human dignity, human rights, and the common good” as democracy’s foundation constitutes modernist heresy. The Lamentabili Sane condemned precisely this substitution of natural virtues for supernatural order: “Revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Prop. 20). Pius IX’s Syllabus explicitly rejected the notion that “the Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics” (Prop. 63) through temporal compromise.
“Look for leaders who value local citizens, allow communities to participate in decision-making, and possess a spirit of sacrifice,” Arpondratana said.
This democratic populism contradicts Pope Pius XI’s teaching that “the salvation of souls must always be the supreme law” (Quas Primas). Nowhere do the Thai bishops mention Thailand’s obligation to recognize Catholicism as the sole true religion or condemn the Buddhist monarchy’s suppression of Christ’s Social Kingship.
Complicit Silence on Religious Indifferentism
The bishops’ directive to elect leaders “who fear God” constitutes theological indifferentism when addressing Thailand’s 99% non-Catholic population. St. Pius X’s Lamentabili condemned the notion that “Christian doctrine was initially Jewish, but through gradual development, it became…universal” (Prop. 60). By not demanding Catholic confessional states, the bishops betray Boniface VIII’s Unam Sanctam (1302) declaring submission to Roman Pontiffs necessary for salvation.
False Distinction Between Moral and Doctrinal Authority
The bishops claim “strict independence from any political party” while simultaneously dictating electoral morals – a modernist dichotomy condemned by Pius IX: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Syllabus, Prop. 55). True Catholic doctrine holds with Leo XIII that “the Church…is a society far more perfect than any other” (Immortale Dei, 1885), having jurisdiction over temporal affairs when faith is endangered.
Modernist Ecclesiology in Pastoral Application
By reducing voting to a personal moral duty (“contribute to society through taxes, national defense, and…vote”), the bishops embrace the condemned proposition that “the faith of the Church is contrary to history” (Lamentabili, Prop. 3). The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 682) required clergy to teach that states must recognize the Church’s plenitudo potestatis – a truth notably absent here.
Conclusion: Conciliar Apostasy Manifest
This electoral exhortation exemplifies the conciliar sect’s fundamental error: replacing Christus Rex with anthropocentric democracy. As Pius XI warned, “the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation” (Quas Primas) when rejecting Christ’s Kingship. Until Thailand’s bishops demand the nation’s conversion to Catholicism and submission to Rome’s authority, their political counsel remains complicit in the apostasy foretold in the Third Secret of Fatima – which the conciliar church has indeed suppressed to enable this global betrayal.
Source:
Thai bishops urge citizens to elect ‘worthy candidates’ in upcoming vote (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 31.01.2026