EWTN News portal reports on a new international initiative called CatholicPOST, the Association for the Renewal of Catholic Political and Social Thought, which held its inaugural conference in Budapest on March 9–10, 2026. The article presents this gathering of academics and Vatican officials as a noble effort to restore Catholic social doctrine to intellectual life, invoking the legacy of Leo XIII and the newly elected antipope Leo XIV. Yet beneath the veneer of scholarly respectability lies a project thoroughly embedded in the post-conciliar modernist framework — one that, far from restoring authentic Catholic teaching, perpetuates the very errors condemned by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
The “Renaissance” That Is No Renaissance
The article opens by framing the COVID-19 pandemic as a catalyst for rethinking social life, with Professor Ferenc Hörcher, president of CatholicPOST, stating: “COVID was a tragic moment in contemporary history, and it required thinking back again on the basics of social life… And that is something you can do best on the grounds of the Catholic tradition, pointing back to Aristotle and forward to the social teaching of the Church.” This rhetorical gesture — invoking Aristotle and Catholic tradition — is precisely the kind of superficial classicism that conceals a fundamentally modernist project. The appeal to Aristotle without the explicit, binding framework of Thomistic metaphysics as understood by the perennial Magisterum is a hallmark of the very rationalism condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, which rejected the notion that “human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood” (Proposition 3) and that “philosophy is to be treated without taking any account of supernatural revelation” (Proposition 14).
What CatholicPOST calls a “renaissance” is in reality a continuation of the post-conciliar project of reducing Catholic social doctrine to a set of negotiable principles compatible with liberal democracy, religious pluralism, and the secular order — the very errors anathematized by the pre-1958 Church. The article’s framing of the initiative as “nonpartisan” and “open not only to Catholics but also to thinkers willing to engage seriously with the tradition” is itself a telltale sign. The true Catholic social teaching, as articulated by Leo XIII, Pius XI, and their predecessors, is not a menu of intellectual options open to “engagement” by non-Catholics; it is the binding public law of Christ the King over all nations. As Pius XI declared in Quas Primas (1925): “His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” The very premise that Catholic social thought must be made palatable to non-Catholic thinkers is a capitulation to the indifferentism condemned by Pius IX, who taught that “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church” is a proposition worthy of condemnation (Proposition 18).
The Antipope Leo XIV and the Usurpation of Leo XIII’s Legacy
The article notes with evident approval that the election of the antipope Leo XIV “whose choice of name evokes Pope Leo XIII, author of the landmark 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum.” This is a calculated piece of modernist propaganda. The conciliar sect’s antipopes have no authority whatsoever to invoke the legacy of true popes. As the sedevacantist position, grounded in the teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine, holds: “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” (De Romano Pontifice, II, 30). The post-conciliar occupants of the Vatican have consistently promoted heresies — religious liberty, ecumenism, the evolution of dogmas — that place them outside the Church. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law confirms that “every office becomes vacant by the mere fact and without any declaration by reason of tacit resignation… if the cleric publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” The antipope Leo XIV, like his predecessors from John XXIII onward, is therefore not a legitimate successor of Leo XIII but a usurper who exploits the prestige of his name to lend credibility to a thoroughly modernist agenda.
Father Avelino Chico, described as “head of office at the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development,” is quoted presenting Catholic social teaching as “a living intellectual tradition still evolving in response to the ‘new things’ of each age — from industrial modernity in the time of Rerum Novarum to contemporary social challenges such as artificial intelligence, migration, ecological crisis, and widening inequality.” This language of “living tradition” and “evolution” is the very heresy of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), which rejected the propositions that “truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Proposition 58) and that “the Church is an enemy of the progress of natural and theological sciences” (Proposition 57). The dogmas of the Church are immutable. As the First Vatican Council defined, “the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter so that, by His revelation, they might disclose new doctrine, but so that, with His assistance, they might guard the revelation transmitted through the apostles — the deposit of faith — and faithfully explain it.” The notion that Catholic social teaching must “evolve” to address artificial intelligence or ecological crisis is not a development of doctrine but a corruption of it — precisely the error St. Pius X identified when he condemned those who, “under the guise of more serious criticism and in the name of historical method, aim at such a development of dogmas as appears to be their corruption.”
The “Integral Human Development” of the Conciliar Sect
Chico’s reference to “integral human development” — a concept borrowed from Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio and further developed under the antipopes — is itself a modernist construct that reduces the Church’s mission to temporal and naturalistic concerns. The article notes that this approach “takes seriously not only economic realities but also the spiritual, cultural, and political dimensions of human life.” Yet this language, while sounding holistic, is in practice a dilution of the Church’s supernatural mission. The true Catholic position, as articulated by Pius XI in Quas Primas, is that “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men” and that Christ’s authority is not merely spiritual in a privatized sense but extends over every dimension of human society: “It matters not whether individuals, families, or states, for men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.” The conciliar sect’s “integral human development” is a far cry from this; it is a naturalistic framework that treats the Church as one actor among others in the project of human progress, rather than as the sole divinely instituted society with authority to teach, govern, and sanctify.
The article’s mention of “polarization” over “gender identity, family, bioethics, and the very understanding of the human person” is telling. CatholicPOST positions itself as addressing these questions through “philosophical anthropology” — yet the article offers no indication that the initiative affirms the binding teaching of the pre-1958 Magisterium on these matters. The silence is deafening. There is no mention of the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts as taught by the natural law and the perennial Magisterium, no affirmation of the indissolubility of marriage as defined by the Council of Trent, no condemnation of the gender ideology that Pius XI foresaw when he warned against “the plague that poisons human society… the secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors.” Instead, the initiative promises “intellectual support” for “young people rediscovering Christianity” — a formulation that suggests a Christianity defined by intellectual fashion rather than by the unchanging deposit of faith.
The Network of Natural Law Theorists — A False Foundation
The article highlights the involvement of prominent natural law theorists: Pierre Manent, John Finnis, and Robert George of Princeton’s James Madison Program. While these thinkers may employ the language of natural law, their framework is fundamentally at odds with the Catholic understanding. The natural law as understood by St. Thomas Aquinas and the perennial Magisterium is not an autonomous philosophical system accessible to reason apart from revelation; it is the participation of rational creatures in the eternal law of God, and its correct interpretation requires submission to the teaching authority of the Church. Pius IX condemned the error that “moral laws do not stand in the need of the divine sanction, and it is not at all necessary that human laws should be made conformable to the laws of nature and receive their power of binding from God” (Proposition 56, Syllabus of Errors). The natural law tradition as practiced by Finnis and George, while more sophisticated than utilitarianism, operates within the framework of liberal democracy and religious pluralism — the very framework condemned by the pre-1958 Church. Their “natural law” is a naturalistic natural law, stripped of its supernatural end and its dependence on the Church’s Magisterium.
Professor Hörcher’s forthcoming visiting scholarship at Princeton’s Department of Politics further illustrates the problem. The initiative is not seeking to restore the social reign of Christ the King; it is seeking a seat at the table of secular academic power. This is the antithesis of the Catholic position. As Pius XI taught: “The Church, established by Christ as a perfect society, demands for itself by a right belonging to it, which it cannot renounce, full freedom and independence from secular authority.” CatholicPOST’s strategy of embedding itself in elite American universities is not a restoration of Catholic social teaching but an accommodation to the secular order — precisely the error of those who, as Pius IX condemned, hold that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80, Syllabus of Errors).
The Omission of Christ the King — The Gravest Silence
Perhaps the most revealing feature of the article is what it does not say. There is no mention of the Feast of Christ the King, no reference to the social kingship of Christ, no call for the recognition of Christ’s authority over states and rulers. The entire project is framed in terms of “intellectual tradition,” “academic discussion,” and “political and social thought” — categories that, while not inherently evil, are here deployed in a manner that systematically excludes the supernatural and juridical claims of Christ’s reign. This is the essence of the laicism that Pius XI identified as the great plague of the modern age: “It 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 article’s reference to Jacques Maritain’s contribution to “the postwar rise of the human rights framework” is particularly significant. Maritain, whatever his personal piety, was instrumental in drafting the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — a document grounded in the very religious indifferentism and naturalism that the pre-1958 Church condemned. Pius IX’s Syllabus explicitly rejected the idea that “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” (Proposition 77). The “human rights framework” that Maritain helped create is built on the premise that religious truth is a private matter and that the state must remain neutral among competing claims — a premise directly contrary to the teaching of Leo XIII that “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 that both individuals and states are subject to Christ’s authority.
Conclusion: A Counterfeit Restoration in Service of the Conciliar Revolution
CatholicPOST’s “Renaissance of Catholic Social Teaching” is not a restoration but a further stage in the conciliar sect’s project of modernizing the Church’s social doctrine to make it compatible with the liberal secular order. Its invocation of Leo XIII is a hollow gesture, for it simultaneously embraces the very errors — religious liberty, ecumenism, the evolution of dogmas, the democratization of the Church — that Leo XIII and his successors condemned. Its network of natural law theorists operates within a framework of liberal pluralism that the pre-1958 Church explicitly rejected. Its engagement with secular academic institutions is not a missionary effort to convert the world to Christ the King but an accommodation to the world on the world’s terms.
The true “renaissance” of Catholic social teaching will not come from academic conferences in Budapest and Princeton. It will come only through the restoration of the integral Catholic faith — the faith that proclaims Christ the King over all nations, that recognizes the Church as the sole ark of salvation, that rejects all forms of religious indifferentism and naturalism, and that submits human reason and political life to the authority of divine revelation as taught by the unchanging Magisterium. As Pius XI declared: “If men were ever to recognize Christ’s royal authority over themselves, both privately and publicly, then unheard-of blessings would flow upon the whole society, such as due freedom, order, and tranquility, and concord and peace.” CatholicPOST, for all its scholarly pretensions, offers none of this. It offers only another variation on the modernist theme — the adaptation of the Church to the world, rather than the conversion of the world to Christ.
Source:
From Budapest to Princeton, Catholic scholars mobilize to reconnect faith and political life (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 18.05.2026