The EWTN News portal reports that the “Justice and Peace Commission” of the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm has published an electoral guidance document urging Catholics in Sweden to consider candidates’ positions on abortion and euthanasia in the September 13 general elections. The document, prepared by “Fr.” Thomas Idergard, SJ, distinguishes between what it calls “absolute values” (the right to life from conception to natural death) and matters of “practical wisdom” (economy, climate, crime, migration), the latter being open to “legitimate disagreement” among the faithful. The document frames political participation as a legitimate expression of Christian responsibility while employing “secular language and secular arguments for universality.” It cautions against equating any particular political stance with Catholicism itself, noting that “two equally good Catholics… may and can therefore arrive at entirely different party-political conclusions in all fields of practical wisdom.” This document represents yet another instance of the post-conciliar conciliar sect reducing the absolute moral law of God to the level of democratic negotiation and pluralistic relativism, while the “clergy” occupying the Vatican structures continue to lead souls toward perdition through deliberate ambiguity on matters of life and death.
The Abandonment of the Kingship of Christ Over Nations
The document issued by the Stockholm “diocese” operates from premises that are fundamentally incompatible with the integral Catholic faith. Its entire framework presupposes that the Catholic Church’s relationship to the state and to civil law is one of a participant in a pluralistic democracy, rather than the authoritative voice of Christ the King demanding obedience from all nations and all men. This is not a minor theological imprecision; it is the very essence of the Modernist revolution condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis and in the Lamentabili sane exitu, where the heretical proposition was condemned that “the progress of sciences requires a reform of the concept of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, Revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption” (prop. 64) and that “contemporary Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true knowledge without transforming it into a certain dogmaless Christianity, that is, into a broad and liberal Protestantism” (prop. 65).
Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Quas primas (1925), established with crystalline clarity the doctrine that Christ the King reigns over all nations, and that states have the duty to publicly honor Him and obey Him. The pontiff wrote: “The annual celebration of this solemnity will also remind states that not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him: for it will remind them of the final judgment, in which Christ, whom not only was cast out of the state, but was also forgotten and ignored through contempt, will very severely avenge these insults, because His royal dignity demands that all relations in the state be ordered on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles, both in the issuing of laws and in the administration of justice, as well as in the education and formation of youth in sound doctrine and purity of morals.” Pius XI further lamented that “the Christian religion began to be equated with other false religions and shamelessly placed in the same category; then it was subordinated to secular power and almost surrendered to the arbitramment of government and rulers” — a description that perfectly characterizes the Stockholm document’s entire approach.
The Stockholm document’s framing of democracy as “not a community of opinion but a system for the peaceful resolution of conflicts of values” is a direct echo of the condemned Modernist proposition that truth is subject to evolution and that religious truths are merely interpretations worked out by human consciousness. The Catholic Church does not participate in democracy as one voice among many; she speaks with the authority of Christ, and her moral teachings are not “values” to be negotiated but divine commandments to be obeyed. The Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX condemned the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (prop. 80), yet this is precisely what the Stockholm document does — it reconciles Catholic moral teaching with the liberal democratic framework, treating the killing of the unborn as one political issue among many rather than as a grave violation of the natural law and the Fifth Commandment that demands absolute legal prohibition.
The False Distinction Between “Absolute Values” and “Practical Wisdom”
The document’s central architectural flaw — its distinction between “absolute values” (life issues) and “practical wisdom” (economy, climate, crime, migration) — is a sophistic device designed to create the appearance of moral firmness on select issues while surrendering the entirety of Catholic social teaching to the liberal paradigm. This distinction has no basis in Catholic theology. The moral law of God is not divided into “absolute” and “prudential” categories at the convenience of democratic politics. The Church’s teaching on the social order, the rights of the family, the obligation of states to Christ, the prohibition of usury, the regulation of marriage and education — all of these are binding on the conscience and demand legal recognition, not merely “informed judgment.”
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili, condemned the proposition that “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” (prop. 6). By analogy, the Stockholm document effectively reduces the binding force of Catholic moral teaching to those issues where a political consensus happens to exist, while relegating the rest to the realm of “practical wisdom” where “two equally good Catholics” may hold opposite views. This is the democratization of moral truth — the very essence of the Modernist heresy that St. Pius X identified as “the synthesis of all errors.”
Furthermore, by acknowledging that “all [Swedish political parties] are on the same line” regarding abortion and therefore treating euthanasia as the “primary pro-life issue where voters may have tangible impact,” the document implicitly concedes that the legal protection of the unborn is politically hopeless and redirects Catholic energy toward a more “winnable” battle. This is not moral courage; it is the abandonment of the most defenseless victims to the machinery of death in exchange for a more manageable political agenda. The Catholic Church has never taught that the legal protection of innocent life is subject to political feasibility. Abortion is not a “political issue”; it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being, and the Church demands its total legal prohibition without compromise.
The Use of “Secular Language” and the Abandonment of Supernatural Mission
“Fr.” Thomas Idergard’s explanation that the document employs “secular language and secular arguments for universality” while remaining “transparent about faith as a ‘driving force'” reveals the depth of the conciliar sect’s capitulation to the world. This approach directly contradicts the mandate of Christ Himself: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations” (Matt. 28:19). The Church does not translate her supernatural message into secular categories to make it palatable to pluralistic societies; she proclaims the Gospel of Christ the King with full supernatural authority, demanding conversion — both personal and societal.
Pius XI in Quas Primas explicitly addressed this very error: the secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors… began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations; 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. The Stockholm document does not deny this explicitly — it simply operates as though it were already an established and unquestionable reality, which is far more insidious. By accepting the secular framework as the given within which Catholics must operate, the document implicitly concedes that Christ has no public reign over Sweden, and that the Church’s role is merely to offer “guidance” within a system that is fundamentally ordered against Him.
The document’s call for restraint and pluralism — cautioning against equating any political stance with Catholicism — is not pastoral prudence but doctrinal cowardice. When the Church speaks on matters of faith and morals, she does not offer suggestions; she pronounces judgments. The Council of Trent, in its sixth session, canon 21, declared anathema those who do not obey the commandments. The Stockholm document’s entire tone is one of bureaucratic accommodation, not of prophetic witness.
The Symptomatic Silence on the True Nature of the Post-Conciliar Sect
Perhaps the most damning aspect of this document is what it omits entirely. There is no mention of the necessity of the state of grace, no mention of the sacraments as the means by which Catholics receive the grace to live morally, no mention of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the source and summit of Christian life, no mention of the necessity of confession for those who have cooperated in the sins of abortion and euthanasia, and no mention of the eternal consequences — hell — for those who violate the divine law. This silence is not accidental; it is the hallmark of the neo-church of the Antichrist, which has systematically emptied Catholic teaching of its supernatural content and reduced it to a form of humanitarian ethics compatible with secular liberalism.
The document treats “people of goodwill” as the intended audience alongside Catholics, echoing the conciliar declaration Nostra Aetate and the entire false ecumenism project that treats all religions and all men as equally valid partners in dialogue. The Catholic Church does not seek the collaboration of “people of goodwill” to achieve political goals; she seeks the conversion of all men to the one true Faith and the submission of all nations to Christ the King. The Stockholm document’s entire framework is that of naturalistic humanism — the very “cult of man” that Pius XI warned against in Quas Primas: “the flames of mutual hatred and internal discord consume and contribute to the destruction of people and nations distant from God.”
The “Justice and Peace Commission” of Stockholm, like all such commissions in the conciliar structures, operates within a theological framework that has been entirely captured by Modernism. Its document on electoral guidance is not a Catholic document with minor flaws; it is a secular liberal document with Catholic vocabulary superimposed. It represents the complete victory of the conciliar revolution’s program: the reduction of the Church from the Mystical Body of Christ demanding the submission of nations to a non-governmental organization offering “guidance” within a pluralistic democracy. The faithful who desire to live according to the integral Catholic faith must reject this document entirely and recognize that the true Church endures not in the structures occupying the Vatican, but in those who profess the unchanging faith and are guided by valid sacraments outside the conciliar apostasy.
Source:
Catholics in Sweden receive rare electoral guidance on life issues (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 05.05.2026