The “Scandal” of Sin vs. The Sin of Silence: A Modernist Distortion
The cited article from The Pillar reports on the case of Bishop Gaspard Béby Gnéba of the Diocese of Man, Ivory Coast, who was transferred to an auxiliary position after publishing a letter denouncing priests in concubinage and other crimes. The article frames the ensuing conflict as a tension between the “scandal” of public exposure and the “scandal” of clerical misconduct itself, ultimately concluding that the institutional Church still prioritizes avoiding public scandal over addressing canonical crimes. This analysis, while factually reporting events, operates from a fundamentally modernist and naturalistic framework that represents the theological and spiritual bankruptcy of the post-conciliar ecclesial structure. It systematically omits the supernatural perspective of the pre-1958 Catholic Church, reducing sacred realities to institutional management problems and redefining “scandal” in purely sociological terms.
Reduction of Sacred Scandal to Institutional PR
The article’s central theme is the definition of “scandal.” Bishop Gnéba is quoted as stating that Catholics who fail to denounce sinful priests “commit a sin of complicity before God, the Pope and the Church.” The article then contrasts this with the perception among many in the hierarchy that “reporting serious… misconduct is itself an occasion of scandal.” This sets up a false dichotomy between two human concerns: the reputational damage of exposure versus the reputational damage of the sin itself.
This is a catastrophic omission and distortion of Catholic doctrine. The pre-1958 moral theology, as taught by St. Thomas Aquinas and the Roman Catechism, defines scandal (from the Greek skandalon, a stumbling block) primarily as an offense against God and the spiritual welfare of one’s neighbor. It is a mortal sin when it leads another to sin or makes them more likely to sin. The motu proprio Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela (2001) of John Paul II, while post-conciliar, correctly notes that “scandal” in canon law refers to “the attitude or deed which provides an occasion of spiritual ruin to others.” The article completely divorces this from its supernatural context. It discusses “scandal” as if it were merely a breach of trust or a public relations crisis, never mentioning its essence as an obstacle to salvation, a sin against charity, and a violation of the virtue of religion which demands that clerical state be a sign of Christ, not a source of corruption.
The article states: “there remains a strong institutional preference for addressing such cases with the relative dignity of resignations and even transfers — rather than any kind of public reckoning or redress for the wider communities affected.” This is presented as a pragmatic choice between two evils. The integral Catholic faith, however, sees it as a fundamental inversion of justice. Public, notorious sin by a priest—especially stable concubinage, which is a canonical crime (Canon 1395 §2 of the 1983 Code, reflecting long-standing tradition)—demands public canonical penalty to repair the offense against God, protect the faithful, and uphold the sanctity of the clerical state. The preference for quiet transfers is not a “preference” but a manifestation of the post-conciliar Church’s naturalism, where the maintenance of human structures and the avoidance of “bad press” are placed above the honor of God and the salvation of souls. This is the precise opposite of the teaching of Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, which condemns the idea that “the civil authority may interfere in matters relating to religion, morality and spiritual government” (Error 44), but here the error is internal: the ecclesiastical authority itself acts as if it were a mere human corporation concerned with image, not as the supernatural society founded by Christ to guard the deposit of faith and sanctify souls.
The Omission of God’s Law and the Primacy of the Supernatural
The article is breathtaking in its complete silence on the supernatural nature of the offenses it describes. It discusses “clerical misconduct,” “financial crimes,” and “sexual lapses” as if they were merely breaches of professional ethics or civil law. There is not a single mention of:
- The sacrilege involved when a priest, consecrated to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, lives in a state of grave sin and maintains a concubine. His very person, configured to Christ, becomes a lie and an outrage to the Divine Majesty.
- The scandal as a sin against the Holy Ghost in its gravity, because it destroys the faith of the weak and provides ammunition for the enemies of the Church.
- The obligation of the bishop to correct and, if necessary, punish his subordinates not as a managerial function, but as a judicial and pastoral duty derived from his own sacramental character (Episcopal consecration). His failure to do so makes him complicit and jeopardizes his own salvation.
- The state of grace of the accused priests. The article treats their “resignation from the clerical state” as an administrative step to “devote themselves to the women and children,” utterly ignoring that they are likely living in mortal sin, damning their souls, and leading others to damnation. The language of “honest fashion” is a chilling euphemism for obstinate impenitence.
This omission is not accidental; it is the necessary fruit of the conciliar revolution’s anthropocentrism. The Second Vatican Council‘s Gaudium et Spes shifted the Church’s focus to “the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the men of this age,” effectively sidelining the primary goal of the Church: the glory of God and the salvation of souls. The article reflects this perfectly. Its concerns are “accountability,” “transparency,” “institutional preference,” “public reckoning,” and “wider communities affected.” These are all valid natural concerns, but they are presented as the highest goods, eclipsing the supernatural ends of the Church. The article’s worldview is that of a human rights NGO, not the Mystical Body of Christ.
The Attack on Bishop Gnéba: A Modernist “Clericalism” of Sin
The article describes the priests’ revolt as a response to a bishop who was “a demographic contemporary” who “had already been bishop… for more than a decade and half.” It implies his actions were unexpected and heavy-handed. It then notes his “apparent demotion” and states his “thesis that Catholics who turn a blind eye… are complicit” “is not a view shared either among his local clergy or more widely in the hierarchy.”
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, Bishop Gnéba was doing his duty. A bishop is not a CEO whose primary task is to keep the organization running smoothly. He is a successor of the Apostles, charged with feeding Christ’s sheep and guarding the faith. Pope Pius X, in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907), condemned the Modernist error that “the Church is an enemy of the progress of natural and theological sciences” (Proposition 57 of Lamentabili), but here we see the inverse error: the Church as an institution that must not “scandalize” by enforcing its own laws. The priests’ revolt against their bishop for attempting to enforce canon law and moral law is the very essence of clericalism in its worst form: the belief that the clerical state confers a right to sin with impunity and to resist legitimate authority when that authority tries to correct sin. The article, in treating this revolt as a understandable reaction, sides with the Modernist, naturalistic “clericalism” of sin against the supernatural, hierarchical “clericalism” of duty and sanctity.
The article’s description of the Vatican’s action—transferring the bishop—is telling. It is presented as a routine administrative move that “appears to draw to a close a simmering two year dispute.” There is no hint that this might be a grave injustice to a bishop who was attempting to fulfill his most basic obligation. The language is that of a corporate HR department resolving a conflict between a manager and his team. Where is the language of canonical justice? Where is the recognition that a bishop’s primary duty is to the salvation of his diocese, not to its “normal” functioning? The transfer, without public vindication or explanation, reads as a capitulation to the “whistleblower retaliation” the article mentions elsewhere, but applied to a bishop. It demonstrates that in the post-conciliar Church, even a bishop’s attempt to uphold basic morality can be overridden by the “institutional preference” for avoiding scandal—now redefined as avoiding the “scandal” of exposing sin.
The “Neo-Donatism” Accusation Reversed
The article concludes by noting that groups like the SSPX use “accusations of institutional acceptance of clerical sexual misconduct to justify arguments for a kind of ecclesiastical ’emergency’ justifying schismatic actions.” It labels this a “neo-Donatism.”
This is a profound inversion. True Donatism was the heresy that claimed the validity of sacraments depended on the personal holiness of the minister. The SSPX and similar groups do not claim this. They claim that a hierarchy that tolerates, covers up, and fails to punish notorious, public, canonical crimes—especially sins against the Sixth Commandment by those consecrated to God—forfeits its moral authority and right to govern. This is not Donatism; it is a simple application of the principle that a manifest heretic loses all jurisdiction (manifestus haereticus omni iure et dignitate caret), as taught by St. Robert Bellarmine and Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. The article’s source file on sedevacantism provides exhaustive proof that a prelate who publicly and obstinately teaches error (heresy) or, by logical extension, publicly and obstinately tolerates and covers up crimes against God and the Church’s law, cannot be a legitimate pastor.
The article’s real accusation of “neo-Donatism” is a smokescreen. It seeks to discredit the traditional Catholic instinct that a sick body cannot heal itself by appointing more sick members to leadership. The “emergency” is not a Donatist fabrication; it is the plain reality of a hierarchy that, as the article itself documents, institutionally prefers transfers and resignations over public justice, and punishes the whistleblower bishop while protecting the sinful priests. This is a system in a state of manifest apostasy from its own laws and supernatural purpose. To call for the recognition of this reality and the seeking of guidance from valid, uncorrupted prelates (or, in their absence, from the perennial magisterium alone) is not schism; it is the only rational act of a Catholic who believes in the ex cathedra definitions of the Church and the divine constitution of the hierarchical, sacramental society.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation
The article from The Pillar is a perfect microcosm of the post-conciliar Church’s sickness. It presents a grave canonical and moral crisis—priests living in concubinage, a bishop attempting to correct them, a revolt by the priests, the bishop’s removal—and analyzes it entirely through the lens of modern corporate governance, “whistleblower” culture, and sociological “scandal.” It is a document of integral naturalism.
It never asks: What is the state of these priests’ souls? What is the effect on the faith of the people who see their pastors living in open adultery? What honor is due to the Blessed Sacrament from the hands of such men? What is the bishop’s obligation before God to purge the diocese of such an infection? What does canon law actually prescribe? These questions are absent because the post-conciliar ecclesial mindset, formed by the “spirit of Vatican II,” has replaced the supernatural perspective of the sensus Catholicus with the immanent perspective of the social scientist.
The final, damning sentence of the article is: “But the issues at play there make clear how far the Church still has to travel in reconciling how it thinks and speaks of itself, and how it acts, as an institution and as a society.” This is the modernist’s perpetual call for “reform” and “reconciliation” on natural terms. The integral Catholic faith knows that the Church does not need to “reconcile” its institutional self-image with its actions; it needs to return to the unchanging doctrine and discipline of the pre-1958 Church. The “travel” is not forward into a nebulous future of “dialogue” and “accountability,” but backward to the solid rock of Tradition, the Roman Catechism, the 1917 Code of Canon Law, and the Pontificates of Pius IX, Pius X, and Pius XI.
The case of Bishop Gnéba is not a tragic anomaly in an otherwise healthy system. It is the logical outcome of a system that has abandoned the primacy of God’s law, the supernatural end of the Church, and the hierarchical, sacramental, and missionary character of the Catholic Church as willed by Christ. The “abomination of desolation” (Matt. 24:15) stands in the holy place—not as a single event, but as the ongoing state of the structures occupying the Vatican and the dioceses of the world, where sin is managed, not condemned; where the sinner is protected, and the zealot for God’s law is removed.
“But the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” (Psalm 9:17)
Source:
‘Brother’s keeper?’ What an Ivory Coast case asks about clericalism (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 25.02.2026