NEWS: June 3, 2026
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Bird’s Eye View of the News
CLOUDS OVER THE LIGHT OF NATIONS –
From February 18 to May 13, 2026, Pope Leo XIV issued nine catecheses on Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium (the Light of nations).
Today I will analyze his main comments on Lumen gentium, LG, as I have already done with his catecheses explaining Dei Verbum on the Revelation, and his document Fidelity about Optatam totius on the formation of seminarians and Presbiterorum ordinis on priests.
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The title Lumen gentium is a beautiful reference to the Nunc dimitis, the canticle spoken by the Prophet Simeon as he held the Child Jesus in his arms when He was presented in the Temple: “Lumen ad revelationem gentium, et gloriam plebis tuæ Israel” [A light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel]. Actually, Simeon’s prophecy came to fruition because Our Lord brought light to the world: His Gospels could not be clearer. His Church, the only true Church, the Catholic Church, inherited that clarity in her teaching throughout the centuries: She was always adamantine.
Council Vatican II, however, abandoned that crystal clear attribute and issued an ensemble of ambiguous doctrines, which were exhaustively studied in a TIA work. 1
The Church as mystery
Indeed, instead of teaching something clear, Lumen gentium started with the idea of the Church as mystery; so also did Leo XIV start his first catechesis. He affirmed:
“For Saint Paul, the mystery is the manifestation of what God wanted to achieve for the whole of humanity, and it is made known in local experiences, which gradually expand to include all human beings and even the cosmos.” 2
Further on, Leo XIV returned to the same idea, but now using the word “sacrament” instead of “mystery”:
“Chapter 7 of the Constitution Lumen gentium, dedicated to the eschatological nature of the pilgrim Church, describes the Church as a sacrament, with the specification ‘of salvation.’” 3
He ended his first catechesis with these words:
“The Church … lives as a sanctifying presence in the midst of a still fragmented humanity, as an effective sign of unity and reconciliation among peoples.” 4
These texts allude to a theory that I will summarize in this way: The Church as mystery or sacrament of salvation is the principal element to bring together all peoples in different degrees, according to the belief they profess.
This ambiguous “Church mystery” takes different names and has different goals, as follows, depending on the audience it addresses:
An example of the Church Christ is this excerpt of Leo XIV, taken from his eighth catechesis on LG:
“Lumen gentium, in fact, affirms that all Christians form a single Church, that there is communion and sharing of spiritual goods founded on the union with Christ of all believers, a fraterna sollicitudo between the earthly Church and the heavenly Church: that communion of saints that is experienced in particular in the liturgy.” 6
It is not necessary to say that these applications of the concept of “Church as mystery” clash frontally with Catholic doctrine because they deny the dogma “extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” – outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.
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Pius IX, for example, was quite severe in his condemnation of those who preach that all religions save, which is the presupposition of the idea of “Church as mystery” or “Church as sacrament of salvation.” Here are his words:
“Also perverse is the shocking theory that it makes no difference to which religion one belongs, a theory which is greatly at variance even with reason. By means of this theory, those crafty men remove all distinction between virtue and vice, truth and error, honorable and vile action. They pretend that men can gain eternal salvation by the practice of any religion, as if there could ever be any sharing between justice and iniquity, any collaboration between light and darkness, or any agreement between Christ and Belial.” 7
We see, therefore, that the twin-concepts of “Church as mystery” and “Church as sacrament of salvation” need to be ambiguous to escape the previous condemnations of the Catholic Magisterium.
Priesthood of laymen
Another theory of Leo XIV’s catecheses taken from LG is the idea of the priesthood of the laymen. In various passages of his sixth catechesis he exaggerates the role of laymen:
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The progressivist conciliar conception is the opposite. To wit: the people are the initial bearers of divine light and, from them, the light goes down to the ministerial hierarchy. The hierarchy and the clergy were established only to discover what God is telling the people and to serve the people. In short, it is an upside-down cone. It is a precisely opposite conception of the Church.
As a matter of fact, Pope Pius VI, in his Apostolic Constitution Auctorem Fidei, condemned the following thesis, which is the one we find also in Lumen gentium and in Leo XIV’s sixth catechesis. Pius VI declared:
“The proposition [of the Synod of Pistoia] which states ‘that power has been given to the Church by God so that it might be transmitted to the Pastors, who are its ministers for the salvation of souls, understood in the sense that the power in the ministry and ecclesiastic regime derives from the community of the faithful to the Pastors, is heretical.” 13
These are two important dark clouds that saturate Leo XIV’s catecheses on Lumen gentium. There are many others as well, but here I have no space to comment on them.
Today I will analyze his main comments on Lumen gentium, LG, as I have already done with his catecheses explaining Dei Verbum on the Revelation, and his document Fidelity about Optatam totius on the formation of seminarians and Presbiterorum ordinis on priests.
The beautiful words of Simeon were used to pass on an obscure theory opposed to the Catholic Faith
Council Vatican II, however, abandoned that crystal clear attribute and issued an ensemble of ambiguous doctrines, which were exhaustively studied in a TIA work. 1
The Church as mystery
Indeed, instead of teaching something clear, Lumen gentium started with the idea of the Church as mystery; so also did Leo XIV start his first catechesis. He affirmed:
“For Saint Paul, the mystery is the manifestation of what God wanted to achieve for the whole of humanity, and it is made known in local experiences, which gradually expand to include all human beings and even the cosmos.” 2
Further on, Leo XIV returned to the same idea, but now using the word “sacrament” instead of “mystery”:
“Chapter 7 of the Constitution Lumen gentium, dedicated to the eschatological nature of the pilgrim Church, describes the Church as a sacrament, with the specification ‘of salvation.’” 3
He ended his first catechesis with these words:
“The Church … lives as a sanctifying presence in the midst of a still fragmented humanity, as an effective sign of unity and reconciliation among peoples.” 4
These texts allude to a theory that I will summarize in this way: The Church as mystery or sacrament of salvation is the principal element to bring together all peoples in different degrees, according to the belief they profess.
This ambiguous “Church mystery” takes different names and has different goals, as follows, depending on the audience it addresses:
- Catholic Church: Under this name the "Church mystery" would struggle to unite all Catholics around a democratic or synodal notion of Church;
- Church of Christ: Under this name it would struggle to unite all “Christians” – Prtotestants and other heretics so-called Orthodox – under the common belief in Jesus Christ as God, leaving aside their dogmatic disputes on behalf of charity;
- Church of God: Under this name it would struggle to unite the religions that believe in God or some god – “Christians,” Muslims and Jews – and bring them together, stressing the need to build a Pan-Religion to achieve the union of all believers;
- Messianic People: Under this name it would struggle to unite all men, believers or non-believers – Buddhists, Hinduists, Confucianists, Animists, Idolaters and even Masons and Communists – stressing the need to achieve peace in the world, resolve critical social problems and protect the environment. 5
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Gustave Doré's map of Dante’s Inferno expresses well the progressivist concept of Church
An example of the Church Christ is this excerpt of Leo XIV, taken from his eighth catechesis on LG:
“Lumen gentium, in fact, affirms that all Christians form a single Church, that there is communion and sharing of spiritual goods founded on the union with Christ of all believers, a fraterna sollicitudo between the earthly Church and the heavenly Church: that communion of saints that is experienced in particular in the liturgy.” 6
It is not necessary to say that these applications of the concept of “Church as mystery” clash frontally with Catholic doctrine because they deny the dogma “extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” – outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.
Giving the faithful a poisonous mystery
instead of crystal-clear doctrine
“Also perverse is the shocking theory that it makes no difference to which religion one belongs, a theory which is greatly at variance even with reason. By means of this theory, those crafty men remove all distinction between virtue and vice, truth and error, honorable and vile action. They pretend that men can gain eternal salvation by the practice of any religion, as if there could ever be any sharing between justice and iniquity, any collaboration between light and darkness, or any agreement between Christ and Belial.” 7
We see, therefore, that the twin-concepts of “Church as mystery” and “Church as sacrament of salvation” need to be ambiguous to escape the previous condemnations of the Catholic Magisterium.
Priesthood of laymen
Another theory of Leo XIV’s catecheses taken from LG is the idea of the priesthood of the laymen. In various passages of his sixth catechesis he exaggerates the role of laymen:
- “This section of the Document seeks to explain, in positive terms, the nature and mission of the laity, after centuries in which they had been defined simply as those who are not part of the clergy or the consecrated life”; 8
- “Before any distinction of ministry or state of life, the Council affirms the equality of all the baptized”; 9
- “They [laymen] are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ”; 10
- “The holy People of God, therefore, … is a community organically structured by means of the fruitful relationship between the two forms of participation in the priesthood of Christ: the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood”; 11
- “Lay people are, put simply, the vast majority of the people of God. The minority – ordained ministers – are at their service.” 12
This graphic comparing the Catholic Church with the progressivist Conciliar Church was drawn by Leonardo Boff in his book Igreja, Carisma e Poder - Church, Carism & Power - (Petropolis, Vozes, 1982, p. 208)
As a matter of fact, Pope Pius VI, in his Apostolic Constitution Auctorem Fidei, condemned the following thesis, which is the one we find also in Lumen gentium and in Leo XIV’s sixth catechesis. Pius VI declared:
“The proposition [of the Synod of Pistoia] which states ‘that power has been given to the Church by God so that it might be transmitted to the Pastors, who are its ministers for the salvation of souls, understood in the sense that the power in the ministry and ecclesiastic regime derives from the community of the faithful to the Pastors, is heretical.” 13
These are two important dark clouds that saturate Leo XIV’s catecheses on Lumen gentium. There are many others as well, but here I have no space to comment on them.
- See my Collection on Vatican II– Eli, Eli lamma sabacthani? – especially Volume I, In the Murky Waters of Vatican II, and Volume XI, Ecclesia.
- First Catechesis, § 2.
- Ibid., § 5.
- Ibid., § 6.
- These different attributions of the “Church as mystery” or “sacrament of salvation” are studied with due detail and documentation in Vol. XI, Ecclesia, (Los Angeles: TIA, 2009, pp. 83-90) of my Collection on Vatican II.
- Eight Catechesis, § 7; for more on the progressivist concept of “Church of Christ” as different from the Catholic Church, see Vol. V, Animus Delendi II, (Los Angeles: TIA, 2002) pp. 239-247.
- Pius IX, Encyclical Qui pluribus, November 9, 1846, apud Recueil des allocutions … citées dans l’Encyclique et le Syllabus du 8 décembre 1864, Paris : Adrien Leclere, 1865, p. 181
- Sixth Catechesis, § 2.
- Ibid., § 3.
- Ibid., § 4.
- Ibid., § 5.
- Ibid., § 1.
- DR 1502; the same was taught by Gregory XVI, Bull of 1843; Leo XIII, Brief of December 17, 1888; Encyclical Satis cognitum of June 29, 1896, and St. Pius X, Encyclical Vehementer nos of February 11, 1906.
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