The National Catholic Register portal (September 11, 2026) publishes a “Sunday Guide” by the conciliar “Monsignor” Charles Pope for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, ostensibly commenting on the readings from Sirach, Psalm 103, Romans, and Matthew 18:21-35. The article reduces the divine command to forgive seventy times seven to a psychological exercise of “letting go of hatred and anger,” explicitly separating forgiveness from the restoration of justice or the necessity of sacramental confession. It presents God’s mercy as a vague “experience” divorced from His justice, the Sacrament of Penance, and the firmissima propositio (firm purpose of amendment). The thesis is clear: the conciliar sect substitutes a naturalistic, therapeutic simulacrum for the supernatural virtue of charity and the rigorous demands of the Gospel.
Reduction of Divine Mercy to Psychological Therapy
The cited article opens with a definition that is purely naturalistic and Pelagian: “Forgiving means letting go of the hatred and anger we so often carry.” This is not Catholic theology; it is modern psychotherapy masquerading as piety. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that forgiveness is an act of the virtue of charity, moved by grace, whereby we will the good of our enemy for God’s sake, not merely the cessation of a passion. St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 30, a. 1) defines mercy (misericordia) as “heartfelt sympathy for another’s distress, impelling us to succor him if we can.” It is a movement of the will informed by grace, not a psychological “letting go.”
The conciliar “Monsignor” writes: “Experience mercy from God and then extend it to others.” This vague imperative — “experience mercy” — replaces the objective reality of the Sacrament of Penance, instituted by Christ Himself: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them” (John 20:22-23). The Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, c. 1) defines this sacrament as necessary for salvation for those who have fallen after Baptism. The article’s silence on the tribunal of mercy, the necessity of auricular confession, integral accusation, and sacerdotal absolution is not an oversight; it is a manifestation of the Modernist heresy condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), proposition 47: “Contrary to the views of the Fathers of the Council of Trent, the words of the Lord: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them’ (John 20:22-23) do not refer to the sacrament of penance.” The conciliar sect has effectively abolished the sacrament in favor of a vague “experience.”
The Absence of Firmissima Propositio and the Justice of God
The article attempts to navigate the difficult cases of the abusive husband and the embezzler by asserting: “No — rather, we are not always able to live in peace with people who have shown themselves untrustworthy or who cause serious harm to us or others.” This pragmatic concession reveals a fundamental confusion between forgiveness and reconciliation, but more gravely, it omits the conditio sine qua non of forgiveness on the part of the offender: the firmissima propositio (firm purpose of amendment) and satisfaction.
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church, teaches in Theologia Moralis (Lib. 6, n. 701) that without a firm purpose of avoiding the near occasion of sin, there is no valid absolution. The abusive husband who “says he’s sorry” but returns to his violence; the embezzler who “says he’s sorry” but makes no restitution — these have not received forgiveness because they lack the dispositions required by divine justice. The parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matt. 18:23-35) ends not with the king’s mercy alone, but with his justice: “And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all the debt. So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts” (Matt. 18:34-35). The article quotes the mercy but suppresses the justice. This is the hermeneutic of rupture applied to the Gospel itself: a “mercy” that contradicts justice is not divine mercy but sentimental laxity.
Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925) proclaims: “Christ received from the Father unlimited right over all that is created, so that all is subject to His will… His kingdom is primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters… this kingdom is opposed only to the kingdom of Satan and the powers of darkness — and requires its followers not only to renounce earthly riches and possessions… but also to deny themselves and carry their cross.” The conciliar guide offers a cross-less, justice-less mercy — a mercy of the “kingdom of Satan” disguised as light.
False Opposition Between Forgiveness and Justice: The Naturalistic Mentality
The linguistic level of the article betrays a thoroughly naturalistic mentality. The “Monsignor” speaks of “wounding situations,” “untrustworthy” people, “serious harm” — the vocabulary of the social worker, not the confessor. He writes: “It means learning to love those who have harmed us, even if we cannot live in close relationships with them.” This is a redefinition of charity as mere benevolent sentiment, stripped of the opus operatum of justice. St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei, XIX, 13) defines peace as “tranquillitas ordinis” — the tranquility of order. True forgiveness restores order; it does not pretend order exists where injustice reigns.
The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 1864) condemns the proposition: “Moral laws do not stand in need of the divine sanction, and it is not at all necessary that human laws should be made conformable to the laws of nature and receive their power of binding from God” (Error 56). The article’s approach treats forgiveness as a human psychological technique (“letting go”) rather than a participation in the divine order. It echoes the Modernist error condemned in Lamentabili (prop. 26): “The dogmas of faith should be understood according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief.” Here, the dogma of God’s justice and the necessity of satisfaction is dissolved into a “practical” advice column.
The Conciliar Clergy’s Complicity in the Destruction of the Supernatural Order
The author, “Msgr. Charles Pope,” is identified as a “dean and pastor in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC,” serving on the “Priest Council, the College of Consultors, and the Priest Personnel Board,” conducting “weekly Bible studies in the U.S. Congress and the White House.” This curriculum vitae is the resume of a functionary of the paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican. He is a “priest” ordained in the invalid Novus Ordo rite (post-1968), under a “bishop” consecrated in the invalid Paul VI rite, in communion with the usurper antipope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), the latest in the line of antipopes beginning with John XXIII.
The Defense of Sedevacantism file establishes the theological certainty: “A Pope-manifest heretic loses his office automatically.” St. Robert Bellarmine (De Romano Pontifice) states: “A Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” Wernz and Vidal confirm: “By notorious and publicly manifested heresy, the Roman Pontiff… is deprived ipso facto of his personal jurisdiction even before any declaratory sentence by the Church.” Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code declares vacant any office by “public defection from the Catholic faith.” Pope Paul IV’s Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio declares the elevation of a heretic “null, void, and of no effect.”
Therefore, “Msgr. Pope” possesses no jurisdiction, no orders, no mission. His “Sunday Guide” is not a pastoral exhortation but the propaganda of a false church. His “Bible studies in the U.S. Congress and the White House” are the fulfillment of the Syllabus error 55: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” — here inverted: the conciliar sect serves the Masonic state, offering a domesticated, politically useful “mercy” that demands no conversion, no rejection of abortion, no defense of the Kingship of Christ over legislation.
Symptomatic of the Modernist Revolution: The Cult of Man Replaces the Cult of God
The symptomatic level reveals the article as a perfect fruit of the conciliar revolution. The Lamentabili sane exitu condemnation of Modernism (1907) identifies the root: “The pursuit of novelty in the investigation of the foundations of things leads in our times to deplorable consequences, abandoning all restraint. It causes the heritage of humanity to be rejected… Under the guise of more serious criticism and in the name of historical method, they aim at such a development of dogmas as appears to be their corruption.”
The article’s “mercy” is the cult of man denounced by Pius XI in Quas Primas: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The conciliar “mercy” derives from human sentiment (“experience mercy”), not divine revelation. It is the religio naturalis condemned by the Syllabus (Error 79): “It is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship… conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people.” Here, the “liberty” to define forgiveness as mere emotional release corrupts the very notion of sin and redemption.
The omission is the loudest accusation. Nowhere does the article mention:
– The Sacrament of Penance (instituted by Christ for the forgiveness of sins)
– The necessity of contrition, confession, and satisfaction
– The reality of mortal sin and eternal damnation
– The Kingship of Christ over the conscience and the social order
– The duty of the faithful to resist evil and defend the innocent (the abused wife, the defrauded business)
– The distinction between the virtue of charity and the vice of human respect
This silence is the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15). The conciliar sect offers a “mercy” that costs nothing, demands nothing, and saves no one. It is the wide gate and broad way that leads to destruction (Matt. 7:13).
Conclusion: Return to the Integral Faith and the True Sacrament of Mercy
The only remedy for the theological bankruptcy exposed in this conciliar “guide” is the total rejection of the post-conciliar sect and a return to the lex orandi, lex credendi of the immemorial Tradition. True mercy is found only in the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary offered by validly ordained priests in the Roman Rite of St. Pius V, and in the Sacrament of Penance administered with the rigor of the Council of Trent. “He who gives the Kingdom of Heaven does not take away earthly things” (Pius XI, Quas Primas, citing the hymn Crudelis Herodes) — but the conciliar sect gives neither Heaven nor earth; it gives only a psychological placebo.
The faithful must flee the abomination of desolation (Matt. 24:15), seek out bishops and priests of the true Church who maintain the unbroken succession of orders and jurisdiction (however hidden), and live by the integral Catholic faith — extra ecclesiam nulla salus. The “seventy times seven” is not a therapeutic technique; it is the measure of the divine charity that flows from the pierced Side of Christ on the Cross, received in the sacraments, and lived in the imitatio Christi unto death. “Non est qui consoletur… nisi qui consolatur in veritate” (There is none to comfort… save he who comforts in truth).
Source:
Seek Mercy and Forgive (ncregister.com)
Date: 11.09.2026