[VaticanNews portal reports] In a 1981 homily by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later the antipope Benedict XVI, Saint Monica is presented as the model for a Church that is a “space of life, of welcome, of freedom,” where faith is “never imposed” and each person’s freedom is respected. This homily, recently republished in the volume *La fede del futuro* (“The Faith of the Future”) with a preface by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, depicts a Church that “accompanies” without constraint, a “field hospital” that respects individual journeys, even those involving “carnal passions” and error. The article frames this as a corrective to suspicions of the Church, presenting it as a personal, relational reality rather than a distant “structure, office, and apparatus.”
This representation is not a benign pastoral image but a definitive manifesto of the apostate theology of the conciliar sect. It systematically dismantles the Catholic Church’s divinely constituted nature, replacing it with a naturalistic, humanistic, and utterly Modernist construct that is antithetical to the immutable faith of the centuries. The “space of freedom” described is the precise antithesis of the Catholic Church, which is a hierarchical, dogmatic, and coercive society established by Christ to teach, sanctify, and govern all nations under a strict divine law.
The Theological Bankruptcy of a “Welcoming” Church Without Doctrine
The article’s core error is its presentation of the Church’s primary mission as one of “welcoming” and respecting “freedom,” with faith as a non-imposed personal discovery. This directly contradicts the Catholic Church’s own definition of its mission. Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical *Quas Primas* on the Kingship of Christ, explicitly states that the Kingdom of Christ encompasses all men and that rulers have the duty to publicly honor and obey Christ, ordering all state relations on the basis of God’s commandments. The Church, as the Kingdom of Christ on earth, possesses a right and duty to teach, govern, and lead all to eternal happiness, and this cannot be subject to the “freedom” of individuals or states to reject it. The article’s language of “freedom” and “non-imposition” is a direct repudiation of Christ’s royal authority, which demands obedience and submission.
Furthermore, the article’s model is based on a profound misreading of Saint Monica. While her patience and prayers for her son Augustine are exemplary, the homily omits the decisive conclusion of the story: Augustine’s conversion, baptism, and subsequent submission to the Church’s authority. Monica’s “freedom” was not the Modernist autonomy of the will but the freedom of a mother who, while enduring her son’s errors, never ceased to pray for his conversion and ultimately brought him into the one true Church. The article silences the fact that Augustine became a bishop, a Doctor of the Church, and a fierce defender of Catholic doctrine against heresies. The “space” Monica provided was not a neutral zone where all paths are equally valid; it was the space of a Catholic home leading to the Sacraments and the Faith. The homily’s interpretation is a classic Modernist tactic: extracting a saint’s virtue from its orthodox context and reinterpreting it to support a heresy of indifferentism.
The Omission of the Supernatural: The Gravest Accusation
The analysis must focus on what the article omits, as this silence exposes the naturalistic and apostate mentality. The entire piece discusses “space of life,” “freedom,” “hope,” and “becoming oneself” in purely natural, psychological, and humanistic terms. There is not a single mention of grace, the Sacraments, the state of sanctifying grace, the necessity of baptism for salvation, the Real Presence in the Eucharist, or the final judgment. This is not an oversight; it is the systematic elimination of the supernatural order, which is the hallmark of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in *Pascendi Dominici gregis* and *Lamentabili sane exitu*.
Proposition 65 of *Lamentabili* condemns the idea that “the doctrine that Christ has raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament cannot be at all tolerated.” The article’s entire framework of “freedom” and “personal journey” implicitly rejects the sacramental nature of Christian life, where grace is objectively conferred through the Church’s rites, not subjectively discovered through personal experience. The homily’s “space” is a secularized, psychological concept, utterly devoid of the sacramental reality that defines the Catholic Church. The article’s silence on the Sacraments is a silent condemnation of the entire supernatural economy of the Catholic Church.
The Heresy of “Non-Imposition” and the Rejection of Coercive Authority
The phrase “faith is never imposed” is a direct heresy against the Catholic doctrine of the Church’s coercive power. The Church, by divine institution, has the right and duty to use temporal penalties, including the interdict and excommunication, to coerce the will and bring souls to salvation. This is not a “medieval” aberration but a doctrine defined by the Council of Trent and rooted in Scripture (e.g., St. Paul’s instruction to “deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” – 1 Cor 5:5). The article’s model of a “welcoming” Church that “leaves people free” is the exact opposite of the Catholic Church, which, as Pius IX stated in the *Syllabus of Errors*, must have “full freedom and independence from secular authority” and must teach, govern, and lead all to eternal happiness, a task impossible without the authority to command and, when necessary, to punish.
This “non-imposition” error is the logical fruit of the conciliar revolution’s embrace of religious liberty, condemned by Pius IX in the *Syllabus* (Propositions 77-80). The article’s “freedom” is the same indifferentist liberty that allows false religions to flourish and places the Catholic Faith on a level with “any opinion whatsoever.” The homily’s “space” is the ecclesiastical embodiment of the Masonic principle of liberty, equality, and fraternity, where no truth is authoritative and all paths are respected. This is the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place: a structure occupying the Vatican that preaches a gospel of human autonomy instead of the divine law of Christ the King.
The Modernist Hermeneutics of Continuity in Action
The article attempts to present Ratzinger’s thought as a “moderate” or “authentic” voice within the post-conciliar Church, contrasting him with his “successors.” This is a deceptive maneuver. The fundamental premises of the homily—the Church as a “space of freedom” rather than a dogmatic institution, the emphasis on personal experience over objective doctrine, the downplaying of structures—are precisely the errors of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X. The encyclical *Pascendi Dominici gregis* describes the Modernist as one who “regards the Church as a human institution” and “seeks to bring it into conformity with the world.” The homily’s description of a Church that is “not some kind of apparatus” but a “person” in the vague, immanentist sense is pure Modernist rhetoric. The attempt to “set [Ratzinger] in opposition to his successors” is a fraud; all post-conciliar antipopes, from John XXIII through the current usurper Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), have propagated the same apostate theology of a “Church of the people of God” that dialogues, accompanies, and respects freedom, rather than commands and teaches with infallible authority.
The Rejection of the Social Kingship of Christ
The article’s entire vision is confined to a privatized, interiorized “faith” and a Church that is a “space” for personal growth. It is utterly silent on the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the central theme of Catholic social teaching from Leo XIII to Pius XI. Pius XI, in *Quas Primas*, declared that the State must publicly honor Christ and obey Him, ordering all laws, education, and public life on Christian principles. The homily’s “Church that welcomes” has no mandate to confront secular powers, to demand the recognition of Catholic morality in civil law, or to condemn the secular state as an apostate institution. This silence is a rejection of the doctrine that the entire social order must be subordinate to the law of Christ. The “space” is a ghetto for personal piety, not a militant institution destined to conquer the world for Christ.
Conclusion: The Conciliar Sect’s Apostate “Faith”
The homily, as presented, is a perfect distillation of the theology of the post-conciliar apostasy. It replaces the Catholic Church—a visible, hierarchical, dogmatic, and coercive society founded by Christ—with a nebulous “space” of human relationships where “freedom” trumps doctrine and “welcoming” replaces conversion. It is a Church without Sacraments, without authority to teach infallibly, without power to coerce the will, and without a mission to subject all human societies to the law of Christ. This is not the Faith of the future; it is the death rattle of the Faith. The only “future” for this conciliar sect is the final judgment, where Christ the King will severely avenge the insults done to His royal dignity by those who, in the name of a false “freedom,” have led souls away from the one true Church and the path of salvation.
Source:
Ratzinger and the Church that welcomes people while leaving them free (vaticannews.va)
Date: 25.02.2026