The Vatican press office reports that “Pope Leo XIV” sent a message to Sarah Mullally upon her installation as “archbishop of Canterbury” on March 25, 2026. In the message, the “Pope” expressed a desire to continue ecumenical dialogue with the Church of England, praised the work of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), and emphasized that Christian unity must serve the proclamation of the Gospel. He quoted his predecessor “Pope Francis” and the previous Anglican “archbishop,” Justin Welby, acknowledging “new disagreements” but insisting on dialogue “in truth and love.” The installation of Mullally, the first woman to hold the position, has already triggered a major schism within Anglicanism, with the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), representing approximately 80% of Anglicans worldwide, declaring it will no longer recognize the authority of Canterbury. The message from “Leo XIV” thus congratulates a woman who holds an office the Catholic Church has always declared intrinsically impossible and reaffirms a path of dialogue with a communion now formally fractured over the rejection of Christian truth.
The Scandal of Recognizing a Female “Archbishop”
The very act of addressing Sarah Mullally as “archbishop of Canterbury” is a public denial of Catholic doctrine. The Catholic Church has always taught, with the certainty of faith, that the sacramental ordination to the priesthood and episcopacy is reserved to baptized males alone. This is not a matter of discipline but of divine law, as defined by the Council of Trent: “If anyone says that… the sacred unction which the bishops use is not true and proper sacrament… or that the order of presbyters is equal to the order of bishops… let him be anathema” (Session XXIII, Can. 7). Furthermore, the ordination of women to any order is intrinsically impossible because it would require a change in the very substance of the sacrament, which the Church has no power to do. The “ordination” of women in the Anglican Communion is a null and void ceremony, a mere theatrical simulation. By addressing Mullally with the title of “archbishop,” “Leo XIV” gives official Vatican recognition to a gravely illicit and invalid act, thereby scandalizing the faithful and betraying the immutable teaching of the Church. This action alone proves that the occupant of the See of Rome is not a Catholic, for he honors what the Church condemns. The Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX, condemning proposition 77, states: “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.” The current ecumenical policy inverts this error, not by granting civil toleration to error, but by granting religious recognition and honor to manifest heresy and sacrilege, thereby implying that the Anglican “priesthood” is somehow valid or respectable.
The Heresy of Ecumenism and the Denial of Catholic Unity
The message champions “dialogue in truth and love” and laments “new disagreements.” This language is pure Modernist jargon, condemned root and branch by St. Pius X in *Pascendi Dominici gregis* and *Lamentabili sane exitu*. The premise of ecumenical dialogue as conducted by the post-conciliar “church” is that the Catholic Church is merely one “church” among many, all of which possess some element of truth and are all called to some form of visible unity. This is a direct repudiation of the *Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus* (“Outside the Church there is no salvation”), a dogma defined by Pope Boniface VIII (*Unam Sanctam*) and reiterated by the Council of Florence. The Syllabus explicitly condemns the errors of indifferentism and latitudinarianism:
* Proposition 15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”
* Proposition 16: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation.”
* Proposition 17: “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.”
The call for “unity” with a communion that ordains women, rejects the Real Presence, and denies the sacrifice of the Mass is not an appeal to Catholic truth but a surrender to the naturalistic, human-centered principle of “dialogue” that places human consensus above divine revelation. Pius IX’s Syllabus, in its introduction, warns that the “double order of things” (spiritual and temporal) is being dissolved, and that the Church’s liberty is being trampled underfoot. The current “ecumenical journey” does the opposite: it subordinates the spiritual authority of Christ and His Church to the temporal power of human agreements and the “challenges” of the modern world. The “Pope” quotes “Francis” and Welby’s 2016 declaration about “new disagreements,” treating doctrinal chasms—the sacrifice of the Mass, the papacy, the nature of the Church—as mere “disagreements” to be negotiated, rather than souls-destroying errors to be anathematized. This is the very “moderate rationalism” condemned in the Syllabus (Proposition 8): treating theology as a human science subject to progress and revision.
The Omission of Christ the King and the Primacy of God’s Law
The message is a masterpiece of omission, a text utterly devoid of the supernatural. There is no mention of the Most Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Redemption, the sacrifice of Calvary, the sacraments, the state of grace, or the final judgment. The “unity” sought is a purely functional, worldly collaboration “to proclaim Christ” and “witness together.” This is the naturalism of Modernism, where religion is reduced to ethical action and social cohesion. Pope Pius XI’s encyclical *Quas Primas*, on the Feast of Christ the King, directly confronts this error. He writes: “When God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The “Pope’s” message operates entirely within the secular framework of “challenges,” “witness,” and “proclamation,” as if Christ’s kingship over individuals, families, and states is a forgotten abstraction. Pius XI instituted the feast precisely to combat the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism.” He declares that Christ’s reign “encompasses all men” and that rulers “have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” The message to Mullally says the opposite: that the Church’s primary mission is not to demand the public recognition of Christ’s social reign, but to engage in inter-communion with those who explicitly reject His doctrine and His Vicar. It promotes the “scandal” of which “Francis” warned—that divisions prevent evangelization—when the true scandal is the betrayal of the Faith itself. The “unity” desired is not the unity of Catholic unity (one faith, one worship, one government) but a false peace based on compromise, which Pius XI calls “the peace which the King of Peace brought to earth” only when “all willingly accept the reign of Christ and obey Him.”
The Symptom of a System in Apostasy
This message is not an anomaly but the logical fruit of the conciliar revolution. The Second Vatican Council’s decree *Unitatis Redintegratio* on ecumenism overturned centuries of Catholic teaching by recognizing that elements of sanctification and truth exist in non-Catholic communities and that the Church is “not unmindful of the portion of the people of God” outside her visible confines. This principle, condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (Props. 19, 20, 21, 24), is now the foundation of all “dialogue.” The “Pope” quotes theARCIC, a body whose very existence is a denial of the Catholic Church’s exclusive claim to possess the fullness of truth and means of salvation. The “challenging moment” in the Anglican “family” is their own apostasy on marriage, sexuality, and the priesthood—errors that a true Vicar of Christ would condemn unequivocally, not lament as “disagreements” while seeking common ground. The fact that GAFCON, representing the orthodox Anglican remnant, has broken with Canterbury over Mullally’s installation proves that the Anglican Communion is now a house divided against itself, with one faction holding to a semblance of Christian morality and the other embracing full modernism. The “Pope’s” message aligns with the modernizing faction, praising a “historic and controversial election” that has caused schism. This is the “ecumenism of the counter-reformation” in action: the “Church” seeks unity with heretics and schismatics on the basis of shared naturalistic values, while condemning those within its own purported communion who hold to traditional Christian ethics.
The Sedevacantist Reality: A Vacant See
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the entire episode confirms the theological reality of the vacant See. The arguments from the *Defense of Sedevacantism* file are decisive. St. Robert Bellarmine teaches: “A manifest heretic… ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” The current occupant of the Vatican consistently and publicly acts in a manner that demonstrates manifest heresy: he honors a female “archbishop,” promotes ecumenism condemned by Pius IX, and operates within a framework of religious indifferentism. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law states that an office becomes vacant “if the cleric… publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” The public acts of “Leo XIV” constitute such a defection. Pope Paul IV’s bull *Cum ex Apostolatus Officio* declares that anyone who “has defected from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy” prior to promotion has a null and void elevation. This bull, referenced 19 times in the 1917 Code, applies to the election of a heretical “pope.” Therefore, the See of Peter is vacant. The “Pope” who sends this message is not the Vicar of Christ but the head of the “conciliar sect,” a paramasonic structure that occupies the Vatican. His message is not a communication from the Catholic Church but a diplomatic note from an entity in formal apostasy, seeking to legitimize its own false ecumenism by engaging with another false communion in a mutual rejection of Catholic truth.
Conclusion: The Apostasy of Naturalistic Humanism
The message to Sarah Mullally is a perfect distillation of the post-conciliar apostasy. It replaces the *salus animarum* (salvation of souls) with a vague “witness.” It replaces the exclusive, dogmatic, missionary mandate of the Catholic Church with an inclusive, dialogical, humanitarian project. It replaces the reign of Christ the King over all nations with a collaborative partnership between “churches” that reject His authority. It replaces the theology of the Cross with the anthropology of dialogue. Every phrase—from “prayerful greetings” to “serve your communities” to “witness together more effectively”—is steeped in the naturalistic, human-centered religion of Modernism, which St. Pius X defined as “the synthesis of all heresies.” The “Pope” speaks not as the shepherd of the Catholic flock but as the president of a global NGO for religious cooperation. The true Catholic response is not to engage in this dialogue but to proclaim, with Pius IX and Pius XI, that the Catholic religion alone is true, that the papacy alone is the visible center of Catholic unity, and that all other communions are in error and must be converted. The only “dialogue” with heretics and schismatics is the call to repentance and submission to the one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, outside of which there is no salvation. The message to Mullally is, therefore, a public act of apostasy, worthy of excommunication *latae sententiae* according to the canons in force before the revolution. It demonstrates conclusively that the See is vacant and that the structures occupying the Vatican are the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place.
Source:
Pope Invites Continued Dialogue in Message to New Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally (ncregister.com)
Date: 26.03.2026