The cited article from the National Catholic Register reports that a group of fourteen scholars identifying as “Catholic moral theologians and ethicists” filed an amicus brief supporting the AI company Anthropic’s refusal to allow its systems to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. The brief appeals to “the teaching of the Catholic Church” and quotes Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical *Spe Salvi*. This represents a profound and dangerous distortion of Catholic moral theology, reducing it to a mere branch of secular humanism and completely omitting the supernatural order. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this is not a defense of doctrine but a public manifestation of the apostasy that has infected the post-conciliar structures.
The False Premise of “Catholic” Moral Authority
The very foundation of the brief is fraudulent. The scholars cited—Charles Camosy, Joseph Vukov, Brian Boyd, Brian Patrick Green, and Legionary Father Michael Baggot—operate within the conciliar sect, a structure that has definitively repudiated the immutable Catholic faith. Their claim to teach “Catholic” moral theology is null. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, a manifest heretic loses all jurisdiction and authority in the Church *ipso facto* (*De Romano Pontifice*). The magisterium of the post-1958 hierarchy, which these men acknowledge, is utterly devoid of teaching authority because it propagates the errors of Modernism solemnly condemned by St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi Dominici gregis*. Therefore, their “brief” is not a contribution to Catholic doctrine but a document of heretical propaganda, using the language of faith to advance a purely naturalistic, human-centered ethics.
Reduction of the Moral Law to Naturalistic Humanism
The brief’s arguments are rooted not in the divinely revealed moral law but in the secular principles of human dignity, subsidiarity, and prudential judgment. This is a capitulation to the errors condemned by Pope Pius IX in the *Syllabus of Errors*.
The scholars argued that mass surveillance “would undermine the dignity of those being surveilled” and violate the principle of subsidiarity.
While the Church indeed teaches the dignity of the human person, this dignity is rooted in being created in God’s image and redeemed by Christ, not in an abstract, autonomous humanism. The *Syllabus* condemns the error that “moral laws do not stand in need of the divine sanction” (Error 56) and that “all the rectitude and excellence of morality ought to be placed in the accumulation and increase of riches” (Error 58). The scholars’ focus on “freedom” and “dignity” as ends in themselves, disconnected from their supernatural purpose—the salvation of souls and the reign of Christ the King—is precisely the naturalism Pius IX anathematized. Their argument is a sophisticated version of the “cult of man” denounced by Pope Pius XI in *Quas Primas* as the source of societal decay.
The Omission of the Supernatural End: The Gravest Sin
The most damning feature of the brief is its total silence on the supernatural order. There is not a single mention of:
- The sin of scandal, which makes one responsible for the sins of others.
- The obligation to avoid the proximate occasion of sin, which mass surveillance and autonomous killing machines inherently create.
- The final judgment of Christ, where every human act will be judged according to its conformity to God’s law.
- The sacraments as the necessary means of grace for moral action.
- The Social Kingship of Jesus Christ, who must reign not only in souls but in societies and their institutions.
This silence is not accidental; it is the hallmark of Modernism. St. Pius X in *Pascendi* described the Modernist as one who “regards as the true and only philosophy that which is derived from human experience and the natural light of reason,” and who “rejects the supernatural” in practice if not in theory. By framing the issue solely in terms of “ethical formation” (quoting Benedict XVI) and human “dignity,” the scholars reduce morality to a social science, utterly divorced from its true foundation: the divine law and the beatific vision. This is the “synthesis of all heresies” in action.
Misuse of Papal Texts and Distortion of Tradition
The brief quotes Pope Benedict XVI’s *Spe Salvi*: “If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man’s ethical formation… it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and the world.” This quote is ripped from its context. Benedict XVI’s pontificate was a relentless promoter of the errors of Vatican II’s “hermeneutic of continuity,” which attempts to reconcile Modernism with Catholicism. His thought is suffused with the evolutionary doctrine of dogma condemned by St. Pius X (cf. *Lamentabili* Propositions 54-65). The brief uses this modernist source to give a veneer of “papal” authority to their naturalistic argument, while ignoring the clear, pre-1958 teaching of the Church on the duty of states and technologies to serve the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
In contrast, Pope Pius XI in *Quas Primas*—a document from the true, pre-Conciliar Magisterium—declares that the Kingdom of Christ “encompasses all men” and that rulers must publicly honor Christ and obey Him, “for it will remind them of the final judgment.” The state’s use of technology is not a matter of secular “ethics” but of its obligation to recognize the “royal dignity and authority” of Christ. The scholars’ brief, by avoiding this fundamental truth, demonstrates its complete alienation from Catholic doctrine.
The Symptom: Apostasy in the “Clerical” Class
This brief is not an isolated incident. It is a symptom of the systemic apostasy of the post-Conciliar “clergy” and “theologians.” These men hold positions at institutions like The Catholic University of America and Loyola University Chicago—bastions of Modernist thought. They are part of the “conciliar sect” that has exchanged the immutable faith for a evolving, man-centered religion. Their willingness to engage in civil litigation using the language of “Catholic” ethics, while their own “church” systematically destroys the Mass, the sacraments, and the dogma of the faith, is the height of hypocrisy. They fight for “ethical” boundaries in AI while their own “Pope” Francis (“Leo XIV” in the line of usurpers) promotes idolatry in the Vatican and blasphemes the Holy Name. They are like the Pharisees of old, who “strain out a gnat and swallow a camel” (Matt. 23:24), obsessing over technicalities while the entire edifice of faith lies in ruins.
Conclusion: A Call to Rejection and Integral Restoration
The brief filed by these “Catholic ethicists” is a document of apostasy. It employs the vocabulary of faith to promote a secular, humanist agenda that the *Syllabus of Errors* and *Lamentabili* condemn in the most severe terms. It represents the final stage of the Modernist infection: the use of Catholic-sounding language to dismantle the supernatural ends of the Church and reduce her mission to a social welfare agency concerned primarily with earthly “dignity” and “progress.”
The Kingdom of our Savior seemed to shine with a new light when we enrolled six confessors and virgins among the Saints…
Pius XI wrote in *Quas Primas*. The true Kingdom of Christ is built on the blood of martyrs and the practice of heroic virtue, not on amicus briefs filed in secular courts to regulate the “ethics” of godless technology. The only authentic Catholic response to the AI crisis is the public and solemn proclamation of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ over every domain of human life, including technology, and the absolute rejection of the conciliar sect and all its agents—including these modernist “ethicists”—who have exchanged the faith for the worship of man and his machines.
**TAGS:** Anthropic, AI ethics, Modernism, Pius XI Quas Primas, Syllabus of Errors, Lamentabili, Bellarmine sedevacantism, Benedict XVI, Pius X, Christ the King
Source:
Catholic Ethicists File Amicus Brief Backing Anthropic in Pentagon Dispute (ncregister.com)
Date: 16.03.2026