Note: This article also appears on the author's blog Post Avenue.
Pope Leo declared recently that "no one possesses the whole truth." *
This proclamation was startling, if not shocking, to many Catholics and Christians. The great attraction--or objection--to the Catholic Church has long been that it embraces a strict adherence to theological truths. These truths themselves are based on the Bible; on Christ's teachings; and on the venerable Church Fathers, Doctors, and Councils who have discerned weighty matters over the centuries. The doctrines are established.
Catholic beliefs do not change with the times but are universal (the actual meaning of the word catholic) and permanent. If you read your Bible and your Catholic Catechism, you will be in good stead for knowing what is true. You discover these truths, as opposed to creating them, and they arm you for life's struggles and great questions. Or do they?
The new "synodal approach" promoted by the late Pope Francis and now by Pope Leo presents the matter differently. Both pontiffs have taken the stand that it is time to make the Church friendlier, more understanding, more--if you will--human. They maintain that many people are outside of the Church because they feel judged and unaccepted.
But hold on a moment. Everyone in every pew of every Catholic church harbors sins and imperfections. With enough humility, they accept this, measure themselves against the Church's teachings, and pursue repentance and improvement.
They do this because Truth does exist, and for 2,000 years Christians have understood that. They have understood that God's commandments, and the Church's admonitions, are for our own greatest good. God knew very well the beings He created, and what would make them thrive and what would destroy them. And he did not keep this knowledge a secret. As Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." **
The last thing we need in this corrupted era is theology by committee, or what is now called synodality. We do not need to tweak the Truth or toss out the Truth. We need to embrace the wisdom, orderliness, and especially the divine source of the Truth.
Back in the early 1900s, Pope Saint Pius X exposed the dangers of the Modernists, that is, Catholics of the time who sought to reform Church teaching into something that resembled atheistic humanism. Religion, they felt, was a more personal thing than our formal religion allowed, and they minimized the presence of the Almighty and his clear instructions for man. Pope Pius picked apart their faulty ideas in his famous encyclical On the Doctrine of the Modernists.*** We see this modernism again in today's new theology, where "love" is stressed to the exclusion of basic obedience to God's commands.
In Pope Pius X's blessing when issuing his encyclical, he said:
We beseech for you with Our whole heart the abundance of heavenly light, so that in the midst of this great danger to souls from . . . error upon every hand, you may see clearly what ought to be done, and labor to do it with all your strength and courage. May Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, be with you in His power; and may the Immaculate Virgin, the destroyer of all heresies, be with you by her prayers and aid.*** (Emphasis added)
I urge you to pick up your rosary and pray for the Holy Catholic Church that Jesus himself established. Pray that the Church's leaders will remember that, as Pope Benedict XVI wrote, we certainly must love one another; but we must love in truth, not dismissing truth to accommodate someone's proclivities or temptations, but proclaiming it clearly and without flinching, and with love.****
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* "No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and seek it together." And "Being a synodal Church means recognizing that truth is not possessed, but sought together, allowing ourselves to be guided by a restless heart in love with Love.— Pope Leo XIV's sermon, October 26, 2025.
**New Testament, John 14:15.
***Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius X: On the Doctrine of the Modernists, 1907.
****Caritas in Veritate, (Charity in Truth), 2009, third encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI.
