The National Catholic Register reports that on April 14, 2026, the antipope Leo XIV addressed the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, asserting that “true power comes from virtue, not strength.” In his message, he claimed that technological, economic, and military power must be directed toward the “common good,” and that “the legitimacy of authority depends not on the accumulation of economic or technological strength but on the wisdom and virtue with which it is exercised.” He further denounced the “delusion of omnotence” among global leaders and criticized the concentration of power as a threat to democracy, invoking “St. John Paul II’s” Centesimus Annus to affirm that legitimate power “finds one of its highest expressions in authentic democracy.” The article presents these remarks as a continuation of conciliar social teaching, framing them within the context of ongoing global conflicts. This address is yet another manifestation of the post-conciliar apostasy: a usurper of the Chair of Peter, devoid of any legitimate authority, presumes to instruct the world on “power” and “democracy” while remaining utterly silent on the only true source of all legitimate authority — the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the obligation of all nations to publicly recognize Him as their sovereign Lord. The entire discourse is steeped in naturalistic humanism, reducing the supernatural mission of the Church to a vague philanthropy indistinguishable from the most banal secular humanitarianism.
The Usurper Speaks: An Illegitimacy That Taints Every Word
Before dissecting the content of this address, the fundamental precondition must be established with the clarity that Catholic theology demands: the individual occupying the Vatican since 2025, styling himself “Leo XIV,” possesses no authority whatsoever — neither jurisdiction, nor teaching authority, nor any right to speak in the name of the Catholic Church. He is a manifest heretic and apostate who, by that very fact, ceased to be a member of the Church and ipso facto lost any claim to ecclesiastical office. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches: “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.” The theological basis for this is not speculative but the unanimous teaching of the Fathers and Doctors: a manifest heretic is not a Christian, and a non-Christian cannot be the head of that of which he is not a member. Pope Celestine I confirmed this principle when dealing with Nestorius: “He who has departed from the faith with such preaching cannot depose or remove anyone.” Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law further codified this truth: every office becomes vacant “by the mere fact and without any declaration” if the officeholder publicly defects from the Catholic faith.
The post-conciliar occupants of the Vatican have, since John XXIII, publicly defected from the Catholic faith by promoting and enforcing the heretical doctrines of Vatican II — religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae), ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio), and the collegiality that subverts papal primacy. Leo XIV, as their successor in this line of usurpers, is therefore not a pope, not a bishop, not a Catholic. He is an antipope, and every word he utters from the Vatican carries no more weight than that of any other non-Catholic. To analyze his statements is not to engage with Catholic teaching but to expose the continued erosion of truth by those who have made the Vatican an “abomination of desolation” (Matt. 24:15).
The “Common Good” Without Christ: A Naturalistic Abstraction
The central claim of the address is that “the legitimacy of authority depends not on the accumulation of economic or technological strength but on the wisdom and virtue with which it is exercised.” On its surface, this may sound unobjectionable — even pious. But the entire framework is constructed without any reference to the supernatural order, to the Church’s divinely instituted authority, or to the Kingship of Christ. The “common good” invoked is a purely naturalistic concept, detached from its only true foundation: the recognition of God’s sovereign dominion over all creation and the subjection of every human society to the moral law as taught by the Catholic Church.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, established with irrefutable clarity that “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men” and that “men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.” He explicitly stated: “He is indeed the source of salvation for individuals and for the whole… The state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” The duty of rulers is not merely to exercise “wisdom and virtue” in some vague philosophical sense, but to “render public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ,” for only thus can they “maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness.”
Leo XIV’s address is a textbook example of what Pius XI identified as the plague of secularism — “so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors.” The antipope’s discourse “began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations,” exactly as Pius XI described the process: “the Church’s authority to teach men, to issue laws, to govern nations, which authority she received from Christ the Lord to lead men to eternal happiness, was denied.” By omitting Christ the King entirely and replacing His social reign with the abstraction of the “common good,” Leo XIV perpetuates the very error that Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King to combat.
“Democracy” as the Highest Expression of Legitimate Power: A Heresy Condemned by the Magisterium
Perhaps the most doctrinally poisonous element of the address is the invocation of “St. John Paul II’s” Centesimus Annus to claim that legitimate power “finds one of its highest expressions in authentic democracy.” This is not merely an error; it is a heresy that has been condemned repeatedly by the authentic Magisterium of the Church.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). The entire democratic project, as understood in the modern liberal sense — with its emphasis on popular sovereignty, the autonomy of the individual conscience from divine law, and the separation of Church and State — is precisely the “liberalism” and “modern civilization” that Pius IX declared irreconcilable with the Catholic faith.
Gregory XVI, in Mirari Vos (1832), had already condemned the “absurd and erroneous proposition” that “liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone,” calling it a “deliramentum” (delirium). Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei, taught that “the right to command is not bound up with any special form of government” and that the Church does not reject any particular form of state administration, but he simultaneously insisted that “the sovereignty of the people, without any reference to God, is a doctrine of the most dangerous character.” The Church has consistently taught that the legitimacy of any government derives not from the consent of the governed but from its conformity to the divine law and its recognition of God’s supreme authority.
The post-conciliar adoption of “democracy” as a preferred — indeed, “highest” — form of government is a direct consequence of the heretical declaration Dignitatis Humanae, which asserted a right to religious freedom rooted in the dignity of the human person. This document, condemned by the Syllabus (Proposition 79: “it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship… [does not] conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people”), transformed the Church from the champion of Christ the King into an advocate of liberal democracy. Leo XIV’s invocation of this principle is not a development but a further descent into the modernist abyss.
The “Delusion of Omnipotence” — While the Usurper Claims Authority He Does Not Possess
The antipope’s denunciation of the “delusion of omnipotence” among global leaders is a masterpiece of unconscious irony. The true delusion of omnipotence belongs to the conciliar sect itself, which, having abandoned the faith of the Apostles, presumes to speak with authority on matters of war and peace, economics and technology, while possessing no mandate from Christ to do so. The Church’s authority is not derived from “wisdom and virtue” in the natural order but from the divine commission given to Peter: “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). A manifest heretic who has lost his office cannot “feed” anyone — he can only scatter the flock.
Pius XI warned: “When God and Jesus Christ — as we lamented — were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed, because the main reason why some have the right to command and others have the duty to obey was removed.” Leo XIV’s entire discourse is constructed on precisely this destroyed foundation: authority derived from human “virtue” and directed toward a human “common good,” with no reference to the divine source of all legitimate power.
The Cult of Man Disguised as Catholic Social Teaching
The address’s emphasis on “human dignity” as the foundation of democracy is yet another manifestation of what Pius X condemned as the defining characteristic of Modernism: “the cult of man” replacing the worship of God. In Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pius X exposed the modernist error that “the religious conscience” is the ultimate arbiter of truth, independent of external authority — whether divine revelation or the teaching Church. The post-conciliar “Catholic social teaching” is the practical application of this error: rather than proclaiming the obligations of men and nations to God, it speaks endlessly of “human dignity,” “participation,” “responsibility,” and “the common good” — all stripped of their supernatural content and reduced to the language of secular human rights ideology.
The antipope’s statement that “far from being a mere procedure, democracy recognizes the dignity of every person” is a direct echo of the modernist proposition condemned in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (Proposition 5): “Since only revealed truths are contained in the deposit of faith, the Church cannot, in any way, pass judgment on opinions concerning human abilities.” The authentic Magisterium has always taught that the Church’s competence extends to everything that touches the salvation of souls — which includes the moral law governing all human societies. The conciliar sect’s elevation of “democracy” and “human dignity” to the status of quasi-dogmatic principles is a usurpation of the Church’s teaching authority in service of the revolutionary agenda.
What the Address Deliberately Omits: The Supernatural Order
The most damning critique of this address is not what it says but what it omits entirely. There is no mention of:
- The Social Kingship of Christ — the doctrine that all nations are obligated to publicly recognize Our Lord Jesus Christ as their King and to order their laws and institutions in conformity with His law.
- The necessity of the Church’s authority — the truth that the Church, and not any human institution, is the sole divinely appointed guardian of the moral law and teacher of nations.
- The eternal destiny of souls — the reality that the “common good” is not merely temporal prosperity but the salvation of souls and their attainment of eternal beatitude.
- The reality of sin and the need for grace — the recognition that no human “virtue” or “wisdom” can suffice without sanctifying grace and the sacraments.
- The Last Judgment — the truth that all nations and all rulers will be judged by Christ, and that the “common good” apart from Him is a phantom.
This silence is not accidental; it is the defining characteristic of the conciar sect. As Pius XI lamented: “the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.” The foundation that Leo XIV’s address lacks — and that the entire post-conciliar edifice lacks — is Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, King of kings and Lord of lords.
Conclusion: The Voice of the Usurper Is the Voice of the World
Leo XIV’s address to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences is not a Catholic document. It is a secular humanitarian manifesto dressed in ecclesiastical language, indistinguishable in its substance from the pronouncements of the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, or any other organ of the globalist order. It proclaims “the common good” without Christ, “democracy” without God, “human dignity” without the supernatural order, and “virtue” without grace.
The true Catholic position was articulated once and for all by Pius XI: “The state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” And the happiness of that association depends not on “democracy” or “participation” but on the recognition that “there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12) — the Name of Jesus Christ, before whom every knee shall bow, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Phil. 2:10).
Until the nations — and the structures occupying the Vatican — return to this foundational truth, every discourse on “power,” “democracy,” and “the common good” will remain what it is: “a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1) — noise without substance, words without truth, and authority without God.
Source:
Leo XIV: True Power Comes From Virtue, Not Strength (ncregister.com)
Date: 14.04.2026