An Open Letter to the Transalpine Redemptorists: If Rome Says You Are In Schism, Make Rome Prove Its Case

The Transalpine Redemptorists should answer the process. If Rome wants to accuse them of schism, let Rome first prove that Leo XIV and his bishops possess the Catholic authority they claim.

The Monks Have Finally Said the Quiet Part Out Loud

Over the past several days, the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, better known as the Transalpine Redemptorists of Papa Stronsay, have crossed a line that most traditionalist institutions spend decades approaching and then nervously pretending they never saw. In October 2025, their General Chapter issued an open letter declaring that the “chain of command has been broken,” repudiating Amoris Laetitia, Traditionis Custodes, Fiducia Supplicans, the Abu Dhabi document, Pachamama, religious indifferentism, and the whole machinery of the postconciliar revolution.

Then, on May 2, 2026, they published The Dogma to Steer By, a far more explicit declaration arguing that Catholics can give “no juridical recognition” to Leo XIV and the bishops in communion with him, because the post-Vatican II hierarchy has defected from the Catholic Faith under the camouflage of Catholic structures. Their argument is that the men now claiming office have embraced, promoted, continued, and defended a religion alien to the one taught by the Catholic Church before the Council.

In Stephen Kokx’s subsequent interview with the community, Father Michael Mary stated that he is already under a penal process for “heresy and schism” arising from the October letter. He also explained that the community had been studying the question since March 2025, and that Francis’s Singapore remarks about religions being different paths to God forced the question into the open: “This isn’t even Catholic. This looks like apostasy.”

So here we are. Rome, having spent sixty years tolerating doctrinal vandalism, pagan theater, sacramental ambiguity, sexual revolution by footnote, and a DDF prefect with a literary record that would have ended an ordinary priest’s career in a sane age, now appears ready to prosecute monks for saying aloud what every honest traditional Catholic has at least had to consider: whether men who publicly promote a religion alien to the one taught by the popes before Vatican II can still claim the authority of the offices they occupy.

My advice to the Redemptorists is simple: answer the process, but do not walk into it as defendants begging for mercy. Make Rome prove its own standing.

The Question Is Leo, Not an Academic Seminar on Vatican II

The temptation is to frame this whole thing as another debate over Vatican II. That is part of it, obviously. The monks themselves trace the rupture to Vatican II, especially religious liberty, false ecumenism, and religious indifferentism. But that is not the live charge. The live charge is not: “Did Nostra Aetate use bad language sixty years ago?”

The live charge is: Leo XIV claims to be the Roman Pontiff right now. The monks deny that claim right now. Rome wants to punish them right now.

That means the Redemptorists should not let the case drift into safe abstractions. The question is not whether a committee of theologians can spend ten years massaging conciliar ambiguities into some notional continuity. The question is whether Leo XIV, his bishops, and the men directing the DDF can prove that they profess the Catholic Faith and possess the offices from which they now presume to judge others.

The monks’ October letter gives the indictment in concrete form. They repudiated Amoris Laetitia for permitting Holy Communion to couples living in sin. They repudiated Traditionis Custodes for persecuting the Mass and faithful Catholics. They repudiated Fiducia Supplicans for permitting the blessing of same-sex couples. They repudiated the Abu Dhabi document for saying that God wills the diversity of religions. They repudiated “sister churches,” Pachamama, Francis’s apology for the man who threw the idol into the Tiber, Francis’s Singapore speech, the Synodal Church, and the bishops who stayed silent before all of it.

That is a bill of indictment against a living regime.

Rome’s Charge Presumes the Very Thing Under Dispute

Canon 751 defines schism as the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or refusal of communion with those subject to him. Canon 1364 attaches excommunication to apostasy, heresy, and schism. The DDF’s reserved-delict norms likewise identify heresy, apostasy, and schism as delicts against the faith.

But notice the hidden assumption. A charge of schism presupposes that the man being refused is, in fact, the Supreme Pontiff. It presupposes that the bishops in communion with him are Catholic bishops possessing Catholic jurisdiction. It presupposes that the accusers stand inside the Church while the accused stand outside.

That is precisely what the monks deny.

So the Redemptorists’ first answer should be: you may not smuggle your conclusion into the charge. Before accusing us of refusing submission to Leo XIV, prove that Leo XIV possesses the office. Before accusing us of breaking communion with his bishops, prove that these bishops profess the Catholic Faith. Before declaring us outside the Church, prove that your own hierarchy has not publicly defected from the religion it claims to administer.

This is the move. Not “we refuse to answer, because you have no authority.” Answer, but answer by challenging the premise.

Rome says: “You are in schism because you refuse Leo.”

The monks should answer: “Prove Leo.”

Make Them Defend the Francis Program Leo Inherited and Continues

The monks should force Rome to answer article by article.

How can Leo XIV be the Vicar of Christ while accepting the Francis program that produced Amoris Laetitia, Fiducia Supplicans, synodal doctrinal relativism, and the practical normalization of adultery and sodomy?

How can he be the guardian of the deposit of faith while refusing to repudiate the Abu Dhabi claim that religious diversity is willed by God?

How can he be the visible principle of Catholic unity while continuing the same ecumenical and interreligious language that places false worship beside the true religion?

How can his bishops claim jurisdiction while they defend, tolerate, or remain silent before these public betrayals?

The monks’ Dogma to Steer By makes this point directly. It does not treat Leo XIV as an innocent heir who wandered into a difficult inheritance. It places him inside the same public pattern. The document cites Leo telling leaders of pagan religions that dialogue requires them to stand firmly within their own faiths, and it cites his language about a mosque in Algiers as “a divine and sacred space.” The monks’ conclusion is blunt: when a man publicly teaches religious indifferentism in word, action, writing, and international spectacle, Catholics have to ask what he is.

That is the issue Rome should be made to answer. With propositions. With texts. With doctrine.

The DDF Has No Moral Standing to Lecture Anyone on Purity of Faith

Then there is Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández.

The current official Vatican page lists Fernández as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The same dicastery describes its role as protecting doctrine on faith and morals.

That would be grimly comic if it were not so grotesque.

Fernández is the man whose dicastery issued Fiducia Supplicans, which explicitly opened the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples, while trying to preserve deniability by insisting the blessing was non-liturgical and not a validation of the union.

Then came the old books.

Public reporting established that Fernández wrote La pasión mística: espiritualidad y sensualidad, a 1998 book discussing spirituality and sensuality, including orgasm, and containing an eroticized imagined encounter with Jesus based on what Fernández said had been relayed by a 16-year-old girl. One German Catholic outlet quoted the passage this way: “Ich liebkose Deine Lippen,” meaning “I caress your lips,” and then noted that the account did not stop there. A Spanish copy of the text gives the line: “Entonces acaricio tus piernas delicadas,” meaning, “Then I caress your delicate legs.” That is enough. No exaggeration is needed. The verified text already speaks for itself.

Fernández also wrote about orgasm in relation to worship. NCR reported that the book said an orgasm lived in God’s presence can be “a sublime act of worship of God.” The Tablet reported that Fernández later said he “certainly would not write” the book now, that he cancelled it after publication, and that he had not allowed it to be reprinted. That is not a public doctrinal retraction. That is reputation management after the corpse floated back to the surface.

So let the monks ask a simple question: how does this man get to prosecute anybody for crimes against the faith?

A DDF prefect who helped unleash Fiducia Supplicans, who has authored scandalous sexualized theological material, and who has never given the Church a full public doctrinal accounting of that record, has no moral credibility to sit in judgment over monks defending the traditional Mass and the traditional Faith.

This is not the central canonical argument. The central argument is Leo’s claim to office. But Fernández is the perfect symbol of the whole regime. The Holy Office once guarded the purity of doctrine. Now its prefect is the man of Fiducia Supplicans and Mystical Passion. And these people want to lecture Papa Stronsay about scandal.

The Proper Response: Demand Particulars

If Rome proceeds, the monks should not answer with general indignation. They should answer with demands.

Specify the proposition.

Specify the act.

Specify the date.

Specify the canon.

Specify the competent authority.

Specify whether the process is judicial or extrajudicial.

Produce the proofs.

Identify the evidence of pertinacity, imputability, and formal refusal of Catholic truth.

Canon law gives them room to demand exactly this. Canon 1717 requires inquiry into facts, circumstances, and imputability, while protecting good name. Canon 1720 requires that, in an extrajudicial penal process, the accused be informed of the accusation and proofs and be given an opportunity for defense.

So the monks should use Rome’s own machinery against it. Make the process precise. Make it textual. Make it public where possible. Make the accusers put their theology on paper.

Because the moment they must explain why Fiducia Supplicans is Catholic, why Abu Dhabi is Catholic, why Francis in Singapore was Catholic, why Leo’s interreligious program is Catholic, why the Synodal Church is Catholic, and why Fernández is fit to guard doctrine, the accusation changes shape. It ceases to be “obedient Rome versus rebellious monks.” It becomes something far more dangerous for them: a doctrinal trial of the regime itself.

A Draft Response the Monks Could Send

To the competent authority:

We acknowledge receipt of the notice that a penal process has been initiated or contemplated against us for alleged heresy and schism. We do not evade the accusation. We answer it directly.

First, we request that the competent authority identify, in writing, the precise propositions, acts, publications, dates, and persons on which the accusation rests. We request the exact canon or canons allegedly violated. We request clarification whether this matter proceeds by judicial penal process or by extrajudicial decree. We request production of the proofs. We request identification of the competent authority in whose name this process is conducted.

Second, we state that the accusation of schism presupposes the very matter under dispute. Schism is refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with those subject to him. We deny that the present claimant, Leo XIV, has been shown to possess the Roman office in the Catholic sense, and we deny that the bishops in communion with him have been shown to possess Catholic authority while publicly adhering to, defending, or tolerating teachings and acts contrary to the Catholic Faith.

Third, we request a doctrinal response to the specific causes of our refusal: Amoris Laetitia, Traditionis Custodes, Fiducia Supplicans, the Abu Dhabi document, the Pachamama scandal, Francis’s Singapore teaching that religions are paths to God, the Synodal Church, the persecution of the traditional Mass, and Leo XIV’s continuation of the same interreligious and synodal program. These are public acts touching faith, morals, worship, and the constitution of the Church.

Fourth, we request that the authority bringing this accusation explain how a hierarchy that blesses or permits the blessing of same-sex couples, treats false religions as vehicles of divine encounter, persecutes the immemorial Roman Mass, and tolerates public doctrinal scandal in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith can claim the Catholic authority necessary to judge others for crimes against the faith.

Fifth, we state plainly that we do not separate from the Catholic Church. We cling to the Catholic Church. We cling to the Faith of the Fathers, the traditional Mass, the perennial magisterium, the condemnations of indifferentism, and the dogma that the See of Peter remains unimpaired by error. If we are accused of separation, then let the accusers prove that they have not separated themselves from the Faith once delivered to the saints.

Finally, we reserve every right available under law, including the right to defense, the right to examine the proofs, the right to canonical recourse, and the right to make public the doctrinal basis of our position.

The Strategic Point

The Redemptorists should not play the role assigned to them.

Rome wants monks in the dock. Rome wants a tidy narrative: emotional traditionalists, wounded by liturgical restrictions, radicalized by internet polemics, finally drifting into schism.

No.

The monks should force the real question into the record: can a man who continues the Francis revolution, refuses to repudiate its doctrinal wreckage, and presides over bishops who tolerate it, claim to be the Roman Pontiff?

That is why the process matters. The value of answering is not that the diocesan apparatus will suddenly discover courage and declare the postconciliar structure illegitimate. The value is that a record can be made. The claims can be sharpened. The contradictions can be forced into daylight. Rome can be made to explain itself.

For decades, traditional Catholics have been trained to defend themselves endlessly while Rome explains nothing. The Mass is suppressed, and we explain ourselves. Same-sex couples are blessed, and we explain ourselves. Pagan idols enter Roman churches, and we explain ourselves. Francis says all religions are paths to God, and we explain ourselves. Leo continues the same program, and we explain ourselves. Fernández sits at the DDF after Fiducia Supplicans and Mystical Passion, and we explain ourselves.

Enough.

If Rome calls this schism, make Rome prove its case.

Make Leo prove his office.

Make his bishops prove their faith.

Make Fernández prove his credibility.

And make the whole counterfeit apparatus answer the question it has avoided for sixty years: by what authority do men who contradict the Faith presume to punish those who still profess it?

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