The Apostasy of “Moral Imagination”: Archbishop Lori’s Naturalistic Political Pastoral
The conciliar prelate William Lori, presiding over the occupied Archdiocese of Baltimore, has released a pastoral letter titled In Charity & Truth: Toward a Renewed Political Culture. Marked for the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence, the letter addresses the perceived moral and spiritual crisis of American political life. It advocates for a recovery of virtue, a “moral imagination,” and the ecclesial concept of “synodality” as a model for public discourse. The document, emanating from the post-conciliar structures, presents a vision of political engagement that is fundamentally naturalistic, Pelagian, and stripped of the supernatural end of both the individual and society. It represents a profound abandonment of the Catholic Church’s immutable doctrine on the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, replacing it with a relativistic, immanentist program that is entirely consonant with the modernist errors condemned by Pius IX and St. Pius X.
The Omission of Christ the King: The Gravest Theological Bankruptcy
The most damning critique of the pastoral letter is its total silence on the absolute, non-negotiable doctrine that human society, and therefore all political life, must be explicitly and publicly subordinated to Jesus Christ and His law. This is not a secondary theme; it is the foundational principle of Catholic political thought. Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas—instituting the feast of Christ the King—declared with the full weight of his apostolic authority:
“The Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ… 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.”
This is not a suggestion; it is a divine law. The Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX explicitly condemned the proposition that “It is not lawful for the State to be without God” (Error #53) and that “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error #55). Archbishop Lori’s letter, in its entire 1,200-word exposition on political renewal, never once invokes this duty. It speaks of “the human person—created in the image of God” and “inviolable dignity” in purely philosophical, natural law terms, but omits the necessity of Baptism, membership in the Catholic Church, and submission to the Sovereign Pontiff for the proper ordering of society. This omission is not accidental; it is the logical outcome of the conciliar revolution’s embrace of religious liberty and the separation of Church and State, heresies condemned in the Syllabus.
The letter’s framework is one of “pluralism without tearing itself apart.” This is a direct repudiation of the Catholic doctrine that there is no peaceful order possible in society without the public recognition of the one true religion. Pius XI again: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The Archbishop’s call for “walking together despite disagreement” on fundamental moral issues is a capitulation to the indifferentism condemned in Syllabus Error #16: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation.” A Catholic political culture cannot “endure pluralism”; it must convert it to the Regnum Christi.
“Synodality”: The Modernist Trojan Horse
The letter’s central novel concept is the application of “synodality”—a post-Vatican II buzzword—to the political sphere. It defines synodality as “listening with humility, speaking with honesty, discerning patiently, and walking together rather than retreating into factions.” This is a dangerous and heretical distortion of the Church’s hierarchical, monarchical constitution divinely instituted by Christ.
The pre-conciliar Magisterium consistently taught that the Church is not a democracy or a “listening” community where truth emerges from dialogue. Pope Pius IX, in Quanta Cura and the Syllabus, condemned the errors of those who claim the Church should adapt to “the progress of the sciences” (Error #13) or that “the decrees of the Apostolic See… impede the true progress of science” (Error #12). St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane, condemned Proposition #6: “The Church listening cooperates in such a way with the Church teaching in defining truths of faith, that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening.” This is precisely the synodal model: the “listening” Church (the laity, progressives) dictates to the “teaching” Church (the hierarchy). Archbishop Lori imports this heretical ecclesiology into the civil order, suggesting that political truth emerges from a similar “listening” process among citizens with divergent views.
This is a subtle but deadly evolution of doctrine. The true Catholic model for society is not synodal “discernment” but the clear, authoritative, and non-negotiable proclamation of Christ’s rights by the legitimate hierarchy, in perfect unity with the Roman Pontiff. The Archbishop’s model, by contrast, is a blueprint for the “democratization” of truth, where charity is severed from the immutable dogmas of the Faith and becomes mere sentimentality. He explicitly states that charity must not be “severed from truth,” but by refusing to define what that truth is—the exclusive claims of the Catholic Church and the Social Kingship of Christ—he renders the phrase meaningless. Truth becomes whatever the “moral imagination” of a pluralistic society can conjure.
The “Moral Imagination”: Pelagianism Rebranded
The core of the letter is the call to recover a “moral imagination for political life,” defined as “the capacity—formed by virtue—to envision public life where courage does not become aggression, justice does not require humiliation, and truth is not severed from charity.” This is a classic exposition of naturalistic, Pelagian virtue ethics, utterly divorced from the supernatural end of man and the necessity of grace.
Catholic theology, as defined by the Council of Trent (Session VI, Chapter 1), teaches that man’s free will, though weakened, is not extinguished by Original Sin, but that without the grace of God he cannot truly love God, keep His commandments, or attain eternal life. The Archbishop’s “moral imagination” is presented as a human capacity, “formed by virtue,” with no reference to the sacramental grace that makes Christian virtue possible. The virtues listed—Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance—are treated as classic cardinal virtues, but their Christian perfection, which orders them to the ultimate end of union with God, is completely absent. Charity is reduced to “disciplined love of neighbor,” not the supernatural charity which is the theological virtue poured into our souls by God, making us children of God and members of Christ.
This is the “cult of man” condemned by Pius IX and Pius X. It assumes that human reason and effort, unaided by special revelation and grace, can construct a just political order. The Syllabus condemned the error that “Human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil” (Error #3). While Archbishop Lori invokes God, his entire argument operates on the level of natural reason and human virtue, systematically avoiding the supernatural remedy for sin: the Sacraments, the Holy Mass, the authority of the Church to teach and govern. This is the “humanism” against which the Holy Office issued Lamentabili Sane, condemning the proposition that “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Error #58). The “moral imagination” is precisely such a developing, human-centered truth.
The Symptom: Systemic Apostasy in the Conciliar Structures
This pastoral letter is not an anomaly; it is a perfect symptom of the systemic apostasy that has infected the structures occupying the Vatican since the death of Pope Pius XII. Its themes—synodality, pluralism, moral discernment without doctrinal definition, naturalistic virtue—are the precise hallmarks of the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place.
The letter’s author, Archbishop Lori, is a prominent figure in the “conciliar sect.” He participated in the synods that promoted the heretical documents Amoris Laetitia and Fratelli Tutti, which further erode Catholic moral teaching and promote religious indifferentism. His call for “renewal” is not a call to return to the immutable Faith of the centuries, but a call to perfect the modernist, ecumenical, and naturalistic revolution initiated by John XXIII and his successors. It is a call to polish the chains of apostasy, not to break them.
The document’s silence on the duty of the State to profess the Catholic Faith, to prohibit false religions, and to govern according to the divine law as interpreted by the true Church, is a direct embrace of the errors of the French Revolution and the principles of 1789, which Pius XI in Quas Primas identified as the source of the “secularism of our times.” The Archbishop’s America is a nation that must “thank God” while remaining constitutionally committed to the false principle of “no religious test” and the equal legitimacy of all religions. This is the “public apostasy” Pius XI lamented, where the “sweetest Name of our Redeemer is omitted with unworthy silence in international gatherings and parliaments.” Lori’s letter, by its very premise, accepts this apostasy as a given and seeks to make it “virtuous.”
Conclusion: A Honeyed Poison for the Political Square
In Charity & Truth: Toward a Renewed Political Culture is a masterwork of modernist infiltration. It uses the language of faith, virtue, and charity to smuggle in the fundamental errors of the age: the separation of Church and State, the dignity of man as an autonomous end, the evolution of doctrine, and the democratization of truth. It presents a Catholicism without Christ the King, a Church without hierarchical authority, and a virtue without grace. It is a call not to the conversion of nations to the Social Reign of Christ, but to the “renewal” of a fundamentally apostate political culture using tools that are themselves condemned.
The only “renewal” possible is the one foretold by Pius XI: when “all willingly accept the reign of Christ and obey Him.” Until the conciliar apostates are rejected and the true hierarchy, wherever it may be found in the faithful remnant, reasserts the immutable rights of Christ the King over every nation, all such pastoral letters are but honeyed poison for the political square, leading souls further into the abyss of naturalism and away from the only source of true peace: “Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.”
[Source: VaticanNews portal, 13 February 2026]
TAGS: Archbishop William Lori, Social Kingship of Christ, Syllabus of Errors, synodality, naturalism, Pelagianism, Quas Primas, Pius XI, political apostasy
Source:
Archbishop of Baltimore calls for renewal of US political life (vaticannews.va)
Date: 13.02.2026