The Vatican News portal publishes a commentary by Fr. Edmund Power, OSB, on the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Matthew 5:17-37), promoting a subjective, interiorized interpretation of the Moral Law that directly contradicts the unchanging doctrine of the Catholic Church. The article centers on the theme “On tablets of human hearts,” framing the Gospel not as a divine, objective norm binding on all societies, but as a personal, psychological transformation from “legalism” to a “warmer” and “more compassionate” interior disposition. This presentation is a quintessential expression of the Modernist heresies condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors. It systematically omits the supernatural, hierarchical, and juridical dimensions of the Law, reducing the Sermon on the Mount to a vague ethical sentimentality incompatible with the integral Catholic faith.
Subjective Interiorization vs. Objective Divine Law
The commentary’s core error is its presentation of Christ’s teaching as an “interiorization of the Law” that moves beyond “external observance” and “legalism.” Fr. Power states: “What he seems to be suggesting is an interiorization of the Law: it is not a question of external observance, a mere satisfaction of the letter. Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. How might our righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees? Presumably through a transformation of heart, from a legalism that can so easily become rigid, cold and too easily satisfied, to something warmer and more compassionate and flexible.”
This is a radical distortion. The Catholic Church has always taught that the Law is both external and internal, given by God to govern the whole man—soul and body, private and public life. Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas explicitly links the reign of Christ the King to the obligation of states to enact laws conformable to divine commandments: “His reign encompasses all human nature… it is clear that there is no power in us that is exempt from this reign. It is therefore necessary that Christ reign in the mind of man… let Christ reign in the will, which should obey God’s laws and commandments; let Him reign in the body.” The “scribes and Pharisees” were condemned not for “legalism” in the abstract, but for their hypocrisy and for teaching human precepts as divine law (Matt. 15:1-9). Their error was not external observance per se, but the omission of “weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith” (Matt. 23:23). True Catholic righteousness exceeds theirs precisely by fulfilling the Law in its full, objective rigor and its spiritual intent, under the governance of the Church’s teaching authority. The commentary’s dichotomy between “rigid legalism” and “warmer interiority” is a Modernist trope, pitting the letter against the spirit in a way that undermines the absolute and unchangeable obligation of the divine law. The “heart of flesh” promised by Ezekiel (Ezek. 36:26) is a supernatural reality wrought by sacramental grace and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, not a vague humanistic compassion.
Silence on the Social Reign of Christ and the Duty of States
The article is utterly silent on the doctrine of the Social Kingship of Christ, a central and non-negotiable teaching of the pre-Conciliar Church. While Fr. Power discusses personal “transformation of heart,” he says nothing of the obligation of political societies to recognize Christ as King and to order their laws accordingly. This omission is itself a denial of the Faith. Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas thundered: “Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ, but let them fulfill this duty themselves and with their people, if they wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness.” He directly links the rejection of Christ’s kingship to the social chaos of his time: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The Syllabus of Errors (Error 39) condemns the notion that “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits.” Error 80 declares: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” The commentary’s focus on personal, interior religion is the precise error condemned as “Indifferentism” (Syllabus, Errors 15-18) and as the “false striving for novelty” (Lamentabili, Prop. 1). It reduces the Gospel to a private spiritual exercise, severing it from its public, social, and juridical claims over all nations.
Misuse of Patristic and Monastic Sources
Fr. Power attempts to ground his interiorization theory in St. Benedict’s Rule (RB 7:67-69), which describes levels of motivation for monastic obedience, culminating in “love of Christ.” This is a blatant equivocation. The Rule of St. Benedict governs the specific, cloistered life of monks under a vow of obedience to an abbot. It is not a template for the moral obligations of all Christians in society. To apply its monastic阶梯 of motivation to the general observance of the Ten Commandments is to collapse the distinct spheres of evangelical counsel and precept, a fundamental error. The Gospel’s call to interior conversion is not an evolution from “fear of punishment” to a vague “delight in virtue,” but a supernatural transformation by grace that makes the objective, sometimes severe, demands of the Law “easy and light” (Matt. 11:30) through love of God. The commentary’s reading is a classic Modernist maneuver: using a monastic text to suggest that the moral law is a fluid, developmental reality rather than a fixed, objective norm defined by the Church’s Magisterium. Lamentabili, Prop. 54, condemns the error that “Dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy… are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness.” The article’s hermeneutic is exactly this evolutionist, subjective approach.
The Omission of Sacramental Grace and Hierarchy
The gravest theological bankruptcy of the article is its complete silence on the means by which the “heart of flesh” is actually created: the sacraments of the New Law. The “tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor. 3:3) are written by the Spirit of the living God (2 Cor. 3:3, 6), a grace received primarily through Baptism and continually nourished by the Eucharist and Penance. The commentary mentions no sacraments, no hierarchical priesthood, no Church as the necessary mediator of grace. This is the naturalistic, Pelagian undercurrent of Modernism. St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis identified the Modernist’s “immanentism,” which reduces religion to a purely interior, psychological experience. The article’s “transformation of heart” is presented as a self-driven, warming of compassion, utterly divorced from the sacramental system instituted by Christ. It is a religion of the human heart alone, not of the Corpus Christi mysticum. This omission is a direct denial of Catholic dogma. The Council of Trent (Sess. VI, Canon 1) anathematizes anyone who says “that the grace of Justification is not given through the merit of Christ’s Passion, but is due to our own works.” The “heart of flesh” is a grace, not an achievement of a more “compassionate” mindset.
Heretical Implications of “Compassionate Flexibility”
The article’s praise for a “more compassionate and flexible” approach to the Law has direct, heretical consequences. It implicitly rejects the absolute and exceptionless character of certain moral norms, particularly the negative precepts (“thou shalt not”). The commentary discusses the fifth (killing), sixth (adultery), and eighth (false swearing) commandments, suggesting that the “deeper… more pervasive implications” involve a flexible, context-driven love. This is the door to situation ethics and moral relativism. The Church has always taught that the negative precepts of the natural law are universally binding and admit of no exceptions. Pope Pius XI in Casti Connubii (1930) condemned all forms of “compassionate” adultery and divorce. The Syllabus (Error 58) condemns the notion that “All the rectitude and excellence of morality ought to be placed in the accumulation and increase of riches by every possible means, and the gratification of pleasure.” The article’s framework, by making compassion the supreme criterion, subverts the objective moral order. True Catholic compassion does not nullify the Law; it fulfills it by loving the sinner while hating the sin, and by upholding the Law as the expression of God’s justice and charity. The commentary’s “flexibility” is the slippery slope to the moral chaos condemned by Pius IX and Pius X.
Conclusion: A Modernist Pastiche
Fr. Power’s commentary is not a Catholic exposition of the Gospel but a Modernist pastiche. It takes biblical phrases (“tablets of human hearts,” “heart of stone/heart of flesh”) and empties them of their supernatural, sacramental, and hierarchical content, refilling them with the immanentist, psychological, and humanitarian spirit of the age. It presents a “Gospel” of interior feeling over objective duty, of personal transformation over social order, of vague compassion over just law. This is precisely the “synthesis of all errors” that is Modernism, as identified by St. Pius X. The article originates from the “Vatican News” service of the post-conciliar sect, which has no authority to interpret Scripture. Its teaching is a poison that undermines the integral Catholic faith, which alone holds that the Law of Christ is a unified, objective, and social reality to be taught and enforced by the hierarchical Church for the salvation of souls and the ordering of nations to the glory of God. The faithful are bound to reject this commentary and all similar naturalistic interpretations, returning to the unchanging doctrine of the Church as defined before the revolution of 1958.
Source:
Lord’s Day Reflection: On tablets of human hearts (vaticannews.va)
Date: 14.02.2026