Prof. Rist
Regarded as one of the Church’s finest living scholars of ancient philosophy, classics, and early Christian philosophy and theology, Rist believes the suspension in April of Father Tullio Rotondo would never have happened under a previous pontificate and put the decision partly down to an over-centralized papacy that has allowed “bad popes” to act lawlessly and with impunity.

Father Rotondo, who has a doctorate in theology and is the author of several books, remains suspended a divinis by his bishop, Mons. Camillo Cibotti of Isernia-Venafro, for writing "Betrayal of Sound Doctrine Through Amoris Laetitia — How Pope Francis and Some of His Collaborators Are Spreading a Morality Contrary to the Deposit of Faith".

Father Rotondo, who has a doctorate in theology and is the author of several books, remains suspended a divinis by his bishop, Mons. Camillo Cibotti of Isernia-Venafro, for writing Betrayal of Sound Doctrine Through Amoris Laetitia — How Pope Francis and Some of His Collaborators Are Spreading a Morality Contrary to the Deposit of Faith (the English translation can be read in its entirety online here).

According to its description, the book highlights “various errors that the Pope and some of his associates are spreading regarding the Sacrament of Confession, moral conscience, the moral law and the death penalty.” It also includes a weighty critique of some of the writings of the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández.

Professor Rist, who in 2019 was among 19 signatories of a letter to the world’s cardinals and bishops accusing Pope Francis of heresy, said Father Rotondo’s suspension is symptomatic of a doctrinal crisis that he believes is “even more serious” than the Reformation.

“You’ve got to go back to the Arian controversy to find something comparable,” Rist told me recently at his home in Cambridge. “But I think that, in terms of the damage that it now might cause, what might happen to the Church in the future, this is going to cause more trouble, more than anything else we’ve seen before.”

“You’ve got to go back to the Arian controversy to find something comparable,” Rist told me recently at his home in Cambridge. “But I think that, in terms of the damage that it now might cause, what might happen to the Church in the future, this is going to cause more trouble, more than anything else we’ve seen before.”

The English philosopher quotes Father Rotondo in his new book, Infallibility, Integrity and Obedience: The Papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, 1848-2023, which will be published on Thursday (July 27).

In that forthcoming book, Rist exposes the developments that have led to the current doctrinal and structural crisis in the Church, and explains why he believes a misapprehension of the nature and definition of papal infallibility is at the root of the crisis facing the Church today. He also proposes how the conciliar and individual decisions that have led to the current situation might be reversed, and how the proper role of the Pope can be reclaimed for the good of the Church.

Edward Pentin: Professor Rist, what is your view on the suspension of Father Rotondo for writing the book for which you wrote the preface?

Professro Rist: Well, my view, as I’ve expressed it in the interview with Maike Hickson, was that the bishop acted wholly unjustly. In fact, instead of punishing Don Tullio, he should have thanked him for defending the practice of the Church for over 2000 years. I would add, of course, that in my preface, I said I didn’t agree with everything that Don Tullio says, but I certainly think that his major thesis has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt.

And you mentioned that he’s been balanced and given both sides.

He is. And what the book is, is a collection of all the literature which has arisen since Amoris Laetitia, but it goes much wider than that. It’s not only concerned with that apostolic exhortation. If a historian a hundred years later on wants to know what all the fuss was about, he can look at the book by Don Tullio and will find articles for and articles against all laid out, and then examined, and commented on by Don Tullio himself.

Is this why you decided to write the preface, because you saw it was an even-handed and scholarly treatment of it?

Yes, I thought that the project itself was worth doing. I didn’t know Don Tullio at that time. He wrote to me asking if I would write the preface. I asked why he asked me, and he said it was because he’d seen your interview with me about the open letter in which I answered why I had signed the letter. Well, he’d read that, and that induced him to write to me. He asked whether I’d be willing to write the preface of the book. So I then had a look at the book. I can’t say I read every single word of it, but it became quite clear to me that this was a book which was a) both interesting and important in the contemporary debate, but b) also a goldmine of material for people looking back. They can go to Don Tullio and they can find an enormous number of resources and so examine the arguments of our period.

It no doubt concerns you that somebody of his ability, someone who’s contributing something important to the debate, is basically shut down and censored. How does such a ruling within the Church come about?

Well, it’s due to what I’ve called servile abuse of authority that has no place in the Catholic Church. If you think you can stop people arguing about Amoris Laetitia and other questions about traditional theology by just shutting down somebody who knows what they’re talking about, you’re really behaving like a fool. It won’t work. It causes more trouble. It’s just a stupid thing to do. But it comes out of a series of bad habits.

It’s also one thing for a bishop to shut down heresy and heterodoxy, but if it’s orthodoxy, or trying to emphasize orthodox arguments, that’s very odd, isn’t it?

As I say, because Don Tullio has got a position which he’s trying to advocate, and he’s done so by producing material on either side, and has then tried to evaluate it — what the French would call a catalogue raisonné. That, of course, is how things should be sorted out. It’s exactly what people should be doing. Don Tullio has a doctorate in theology. It’s his job to think about these kind of things. And because some bishop doesn’t like his conclusions… Put it this way: this book couldn’t have been written in the time of John Paul II or Benedict XVI, but had it been, he would not have been banned by his bishop. Let’s forget about Amoris Laetitia, if he’d discussed the subject matter of an encyclical, and related matters in the times of Benedict and John Paul, or let alone John XXIII, or Paul VI, for that matter, people would have said, “Yeah, it’s a bit pedantic, long-winded and so on, but of course very useful.” It would not have led to him being suspended by his bishop. Undoubtedly, it would not.

What does it tell us about this time in the Church?

Well, Don Tullio cites me, and others, in the interview which he gave to Maike Hickson, as well as, for example, John Finnis, who was a professor of law at Oxford, saying that the present crisis is probably the worst the Church has had for centuries, perhaps from its beginning, in some way or another. It’s more dangerous to the existence of the Church. You can compare the Reformation, but I think it’s even more serious than that. You’ve got to go back to the Arian controversy to find something comparable. But I think that, in terms of the damage that it now might cause, what might happen to the Church in the future, this is going to cause more trouble, more than anything else we’ve seen before.

Why do you say that?

Because it’s inviting the Church to follow the Protestant churches, to take a “if you can’t beat them, join them,” approach, that you think that you can persuade the secularists to become Catholic if you yourself become a secularist. But of course, that’s not going to work because if the Church is just another, for example, NGO, people are going want to join the real NGOs. They’re much more useful really.

It also appears to be an easier route?

Yes, it’s suicidal in that sense. Whatever the motive, whatever people think they’re going to get out of it, it can only have bad effects, I think that is what it comes down to. And it’s contrary to tradition. I mean, there’s a problem about the role of popes in the Church now, which didn’t exist in the middle-ages, for example. Even in the great rows that took place in the 13th and 14th centuries, generally speaking these things were dealt with at a local level. But now we’ve got a centralized Church, and it’s too centralized. A “good pope” can suppress undesirable things in terms of its tradition, but a bad pope can do what he likes and suppress the good things, because the Church has become “The Pope,” which is a thoroughly undesirable situation. It has no relationship to what the papacy was, even in the post-Reformation period. This is a modern 200-year phenomenon. And it’s a disastrous mix. It encourages servility among the bishops particularly. And of course, if you become servile and you lose your integrity in that sort of way, it’s going to affect not only what you do in the Church, it’s going to affect your relationship with the secular powers as well. I mean, when you think about the relationship with, for example, the Communist Party of China, you really wonder what on earth is going on.

Have we had a pontiff who’s impinged on doctrine like this before?

And you can see the disintegration, the disintegration was there before the present papacy, but it is being encouraged now. It’s been encouraged and developed. In this situation, always, the most extreme positions tend to predominate and win out. It’s the revolutionary dynamic that we’re basically talking about. And it’s particularly attractive because if you go down that sort of road, in the end, what you’re doing, you are making yourself “safer.” You are being the opposite of a sign of contradiction with regards to the secular universe. You are just part of the secular universe. And so, at best, the Pope becomes spokesman of the spiritual aspects (if there are any) of the United Nations or something like that. That’s not the role which I think he ought to have. And that’s not the reason why I joined the Church in the first place — not for anything like that. No.

Have we had a pontiff who’s impinged on doctrine like this before?

No, nothing like this at all. It’s the consistent view of canonists that a pope validly elected, and I think this pope was validly, though irresponsibly, elected, automatically disqualifies himself from holding office if he’s teaching heresy. And this is a consistent view. And, in the case of Honorius from the sixth century, it was actually carried out in practice. He was thrown out by his own clergy in the first instance, and their judgment was later on validated by the decision of ecumenical council, in fact.

So who is the successor of the clergy of Rome who first acted against Honorius? The answer to that is the College of Cardinals. That’s the modern equivalent. So it’s their responsibility. And that’s why when we signed the open letter, it was addressed primarily to them because they are the people who elected the Pope, and therefore they’re the people who should making sure that he follows tradition. Unfortunately, despite the example of Honorius, there’s nothing in canon law that tells you how, precisely, in other circumstances, you can remove a heretical pope. That’s a real hole in canon law, I would say. It means that you can’t get rid of him basically. So this has got to be rethought, and that’s why Don Tullio has done a real service, in my opinion.

And Father Rotondo didn’t expect this to be the consequence?

Right, because when Don Tullio started this work, he realized it was almost a full-time job. And he told his bishop what he was doing, and the bishop initially said, “Well, you go on ahead doing it, and I’ll let you go on doing it. Nevertheless I’m going to draw the attention of the CDF to this, and they’ll decide what to do.” But he didn’t do that. Instead, the bishop consulted with the Congregation for the Clergy and then fired him because his book would be contrary to the Pope’s authentic magisterium and Don Tullio wasn’t willing to retract it. Now, where that pressure came from is obviously an interesting question. You assume it must have been put on him by the bishop.

From the Vatican?

Yes, no doubt. So that’s another “political aspect” of the situation. I think that, in one way, Don Tullio was very surprised when this happened but in another, he wasn’t surprised. He told me specifically that the bishop had said he was going to refer this to the CDF, and then it would be up to them. But that isn’t what happened.

Do you see Father Rotondo’s suspension as just the beginning of many other future and similar disciplinary measures given the appointment of Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez as the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith?

Who can tell, but if priests are open in their criticisms of the current heresies being peddled, they will need to watch their backs!

Edward Pentin

Read the original on Pentin's blog here. 

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