National Catholic Register portal (June 22, 2026) reports on Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s commentary advocating for a “civil debate” among Catholics regarding “postliberalism.” The article presents postliberalism as a legitimate political philosophy that Catholics should consider as an alternative to “liberal secularism,” while simultaneously warning against its “extreme” forms. Cordileone positions himself as a neutral arbiter, encouraging Catholics to “steel sharpen steel” in intellectual discourse about the relationship between church and state, the scope of civil liberties, and the common good. He explicitly states that “the Church’s mission is not to canonize a particular political system” and that “Catholics may legitimately prefer one form of government over another.” This framing reveals a fundamental misunderstanding — or deliberate evasion — of the Church’s perennial teaching on the social reign of Christ the King and the absolute duty of states to recognize His sovereign authority. The article’s very premise — that Catholics should debate the merits of various political systems as if the Church had no definitive teaching on the matter — is itself a symptom of the modernist apostasy that has infected the conciliar sect.
The Heresy of Political Indifferentism
The opening salvo of Cordileone’s argument is a masterclass in modernist equivocation. By asserting that “the Church’s mission is not to canonize a particular political system,” he implies that the Church is indifferent to the form of government a nation adopts — a proposition that directly contradicts the solemn teaching of Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas. The Pontiff declared with unmistakable clarity: “The Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” And further: “It matters not whether individuals, families, or states, for men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.”
This is not a matter of “speculative ideas” or legitimate preference. The Church has definitively taught that Christ the King possesses supreme authority over all nations and states, and that rulers have a strict duty to publicly recognize and obey Him. Pius XI explicitly stated: “Rulers of states therefore should not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ, but should 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.” The Pope further warned: “When God and Jesus Christ — as we lamented — were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.”
Cordileone’s appeal to Leo XIII’s Au Milieu des Sollicitudes is a textbook example of modernist hermeneutics — wrenching a text from its context to support a conclusion its author never intended. Leo XIII was addressing the specific situation of French Catholics who were tempted to reject the Republic entirely; he was urging them to work within existing political structures while maintaining their Catholic principles. He was not teaching that the Church is indifferent to whether states recognize Christ’s kingship. Indeed, in the very same encyclical, Leo XIII insisted that “the Church is not free to neglect the duty imposed on her by God of teaching, governing, and leading all to eternal happiness” and that “the Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers: the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, each supreme in its own order.” The “relative” preference for one form of government over another that Leo XIII acknowledged was always conditioned on the requirement that the state serve the common good — which, for the Church, necessarily includes the recognition of God’s law and the Church’s divine mission.
The “Neutral” Public Square: A Liberal Fiction
The article’s description of liberalism’s aim — to create a “neutral” public square “free from outside religious influence” — is presented as if this were a merely philosophical position rather than a condemned heresy. Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, explicitly condemned the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). He further condemned the notion that “in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (Proposition 77), and that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Proposition 55).
The very concept of a “neutral” public square is a liberal myth designed to marginalize the Church’s influence and relegate the true religion to the private sphere. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas, the plague of secularism — “so-called laicism” — began precisely with “the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations; the Church’s authority to teach men, to issue laws, to govern nations, which authority she received from Christ the Lord to lead men to eternal happiness, was denied.” The article’s framing of the debate as one between “liberal secularism” and “postliberalism” entirely omits the only Catholic position: the full social reign of Christ the King, which is neither “liberal” nor “postliberal” but simply Catholic.
The Phantom of “Postliberalism”
The article presents postliberalism as a serious intellectual movement offering a “richer account of the common good.” Yet what is postliberalism, if not yet another attempt by naturalistic philosophy to address the consequences of liberalism without acknowledging the root cause? The postliberals cited — Patrick Deneen, Chad Pecknold — are products of the conciliar sect’s intellectual apparatus, operating within frameworks that accept the legitimacy of the post-conciliar order. Their “critique” of liberalism never reaches the fundamental truth: that the modern world’s political, social, and moral crises are the direct result of the rejection of Christ the King and the Church’s social teaching.
The article acknowledges that “most ‘postliberals’ do not want to abolish civil liberties or establish theocracies” — as if the only alternative to liberal secularism were theocracy. This is a false dichotomy. The Church has never taught theocracy in the sense of clerical rule over temporal affairs. What she has taught is the indirect power of the Church over temporal matters insofar as they relate to the salvation of souls, and the duty of the state to recognize the Catholic religion as the religion of the state, to protect the Church in the exercise of her mission, and to govern according to the principles of faith and reason. This is not “theocracy” — it is the ordo Christianus, the Christian social order that prevailed in Europe for centuries and that the Church consistently taught as the ideal.
Cordileone’s reference to Portugal under Salazar as a cautionary example of “postliberal and integralist experiments” is revealing. Salazar’s regime, whatever its merits or flaws, is held up as a warning against uniting “religious authority and political power too closely.” But the Church’s teaching has never condemned the close connection of church and state — quite the opposite. What the Church condemns is the subordination of the Church to the state (as in Gallicanism and Josephinism) or the exclusion of the Church from public life (as in liberalism and laicism). The proper relationship is one of harmony between the two powers, each supreme in its own order, with the temporal order subordinated to the spiritual in all things pertaining to the salvation of souls.
The Omission That Condemns
Perhaps the most damning aspect of the article is what it does not say. There is no mention of the social reign of Christ the King. There is no mention of the duty of states to profess the Catholic faith. There is no mention of the Church’s indirect power over temporal matters. There is no mention of the solemn condemnations of liberalism, religious indifferentism, and laicism by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XI. There is no mention of the Syllabus of Errors, Quas Primas, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, or Lamentabili Sane Exitus.
Instead, we are offered a “debate” between two flawed secular philosophies — liberalism and postliberalism — as if the Church’s own teaching on politics and society were merely one option among many. This is the essence of modernism: the reduction of Catholic doctrine to a matter of opinion, subject to debate and revision according to the spirit of the age. As St. Pius X warned in Pascendi, the modernists treat dogmas as “modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness” rather than as immutable truths revealed by God.
The article’s closing appeal — “Let this be a debate in which ‘steel sharpens steel'” — is a pious platitude that masks a profound betrayal. The Church does not need her “steel” sharpened by engagement with liberal and postliberal philosophies. She needs her children to return to the unchanging deposit of faith, to the solemn teaching of her popes and councils, and to the recognition that there is no true justice, no true common good, and no true peace outside the Kingship of Christ. As Pius XI declared: “Oh, what happiness we would enjoy if individuals, families, and states allowed themselves to be governed by Christ.”
The “postliberal” debate is a distraction — a parlor game for academics and prelates who have lost sight of the Church’s true mission. The only question that matters is the one Cordileone and his fellow conciliar “bishops” refuse to ask: Will you accept Christ as King, or will you continue to serve the idols of modernity?
Source:
Catholics Should Debate ‘Postliberalism’ (ncregister.com)
Date: 22.06.2026