BREAKING: SSPX responds to Vatican threats with profession of faith

[Stone]

NB: I confess, I hoped that with this new 'Declaration' the SSPX would reestablish itself upon more solid ground as it did so very clearly during the years Archbishop Lefebvre was still at it's helm. But that did not happen. This is a very watered down 'Declaration' with no mention of Vatican II, of the dangers of the New Mass, but rather taking aim at the moral errors and 'climate' errors but failing miserably to address the source of these and the doctrinal errors that emerged from Vatican II. Contrast this with the clear, decisive 1974 Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre! 

BREAKING: SSPX responds to Vatican threats with profession of faith
'There is only one Faith and one Church by which we may be saved,' writes Father Pagliarani of the SSPX.



SSPX Superior General Fr. Davide Pagliarani
YouTube/Screenshot

May 14, 2026
(LifeSiteNews) — The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) has responded to yesterday’s warning from the Vatican with a profession of faith.

This morning, May 14, Father Davide Pagliarani, the Switzerland-based superior general of the traditionalist priestly society, released a letter to Pope Leo XIV. In the letter Fr. Pagliariani addressed yesterday’s accusations of schism and threat of excommunication by expressing the SSPX’s devotion to perennial Catholic doctrine. [...]


Full letter published below:

Declaration of Catholic Faith
addressed to His Holiness Pope Leo XIV
by Fr. Davide Pagliarani
Superior General of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X

Most Holy Father,

For more than fifty years, the Society of Saint Pius X has endeavoured to set before the Holy See a matter of conscience in the face of the errors that are destroying Catholic faith and morals. Regrettably, all the discussions entered into have remained without result, and none of the concerns expressed have received any truly satisfactory response.

For more than fifty years, the only solution truly considered by the Holy See has appeared to be that of canonical sanctions. To our great regret, it seems to us that canon law is thus being used, not to confirm in the faith, but to lead away from it.

In the text that follows, the Society of Saint Pius X is glad to express to You, filially and sincerely, its devotion to the Catholic faith, concealing nothing, either from Your Holiness or from the universal Church.

The Society places this simple Declaration of Faith in Your hands. It seems to us to correspond to the minimum indispensable to be in communion with the Church, and to truly call ourselves Catholics and, consequently, your sons.

We have no other desire than that of living and being confirmed in the Roman Catholic Faith.

“Thus, remaining firmly rooted and established in the true Catholic Faith,
strive always to be worthy ministers of the divine Sacrifice
and of the Church of God, which is the Body of Christ.

For, as the Apostle says: ‘all that is not of faith
is sin’,[1] schismatic and outside the unity of the Church.”[2]

DECLARATION OF CATHOLIC FAITH

In the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, divine Wisdom, the Word Incarnate, Who willed one sole religion, Who rendered the Old Covenant definitively null and void, Who founded one sole Church, Who triumphed over Satan, Who conquered the world, Who remains with us until the end of time and Who shall come again to judge the living and the dead.

He, the perfect Image of the Father, the Son of God made man, was appointed the sole Redeemer and Saviour of the world through the Incarnation and the voluntary offering of the Sacrifice of the Cross. Our Lord satisfied divine justice by shedding His Most Precious Blood, and it is in that Blood that He established the New and Eternal Covenant, abolishing the Old. He is therefore the sole Mediator between God and men and the sole way to come to the Father. Only he who knows Him knows the Father.

By divine decree, the Most Holy Virgin Mary has been directly and intimately associated with the entire work of Redemption; to deny this association — in the terms received from Tradition — is therefore to alter the very notion of Redemption as willed by divine Providence.

There is only one Faith and one Church by which we may be saved. Outside the Roman Catholic Church, and without the profession of Faith that she has always taught, there is neither salvation nor remission of sins.

Consequently, every man must be a member of the Catholic Church in order to save his soul, and there is but one baptism as the means of being incorporated into her. This necessity concerns the whole of humanity without exception and embraces without distinction Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, and atheists.

The mandate received by the Apostles, to preach the Gospel to every man and to convert every man to the Catholic faith, remains binding until the end of time and responds to the most absolute and most pressing necessity in the world. “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.”[3] Therefore, to renounce the fulfilment of this mandate constitutes the gravest of crimes against humanity.

The Roman Church alone possesses simultaneously the four marks that characterize the Church founded by Jesus Christ: Unity, Holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity.

Her unity flows essentially from the adherence of all her members to the one true Faith, faithfully preserved, taught, and handed down by the Catholic hierarchy throughout the centuries.

The denial of even a single truth of faith destroys faith itself and renders radically impossible all communion with the Catholic Church.

The only possible path to restoring unity among Christians of different confessions consists in the urgent and charitable appeal addressed to non-Catholics to profess the one true Faith within the one true Church.

The Catholic Church can in no way be regarded or treated on an equal footing with a false form of worship or a false church.

The Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ, is the sole possessor of supreme authority over the whole Church. He alone directly confers on the other members of the Catholic hierarchy jurisdiction over souls.

“The Holy Ghost was not promised to the successors of Peter that they might make known, by His revelation, a new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the revelation transmitted by the Apostles, that is, the Deposit of the Faith.” [4]

To a unique Faith there corresponds a unique form of worship, the supreme, authentic, and perfect expression of that same Faith.

The Holy Mass is the perpetuation in time of the Sacrifice of the Cross, offered for many and renewed upon the altar. Although offered in an unbloody manner, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is essentially expiatory and propitiatory. No other form of worship offers perfect adoration. No other form of worship that is not ordered to it is pleasing to God. No other means is sufficient for the sanctification of souls.

Consequently, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can in no way be reduced to a mere commemoration, to a spiritual meal, to a sacred assembly celebrated by the people, to the celebration of the Paschal mystery without sacrifice, without satisfaction of divine justice, without expiation of sins, without propitiation, and without the Cross.

The help afforded to souls by the Sacraments of the Catholic Church is sufficient in every circumstance and in every age to enable the faithful to live in a state of grace.

The moral law contained in the Decalogue and perfected in the Sermon on the Mount is the only one practicable for obtaining the salvation of souls. Every other moral code — founded, for example, on respect for creation or on the rights of the human person — is radically insufficient to sanctify and save souls. In no way can it replace the one true moral law.

Following the example of Saint John the Baptist, true charity obliges us to warn sinners and never to renounce the means necessary to save their souls.

He who eats the Body of Our Lord and drinks His Blood whilst in a state of sin eats and drinks his own condemnation, and no authority can alter this law contained in the teaching of Saint Paul and in Tradition.

Sins of impurity that are against nature are of such gravity that they always and in every circumstance cry to God for vengeance, and are radically incompatible with every form of authentic Christian love. Such a ‘lifestyle’ can therefore in no way be recognized as a gift from God. A couple practising this vice must be helped to free themselves from it, and can in no way be blessed — formally or informally — by ministers of the Church.

The submission of institutions and nations, as such, to the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ flows directly from the Incarnation and the Redemption. Therefore, secularism of institutions and nations constitutes an implicit denial of the divinity and universal kingship of Our Lord.

Christendom is not a mere historical phenomenon, but the only order willed by God among men.

It is not for the Church to conform herself to the world, but for the world to be transformed by the Church.

It is in this Faith and in these principles that we ask to be instructed and confirmed by Him Who has received the charism to do so. With the help of Our Lord, we would rather die than renounce them. It is in this immutable Faith that we desire to live and die, in the hope that it may give way to the direct vision of the immutable eternal Truth.

Menzingen, 14 May 2026,
on the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord

Davide Pagliarani


[1] Rom. 14:23

[2] Roman Pontifical, Admonition to ordinands to the subdiaconate

[3] Mark 16:16

[4] Pastor Aeternus, ch. 4

[Stone]

A reminder of the strong voice of the SSPX under the Archbishop, here is his 'Declaration'!

1974 Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre

The famous "1974 Declaration" of Archbishop Lefebvre was an affirmation of the Catholic Faith in response to the Modernist crisis afflicting the post-conciliar Church.

On November 21, 1974 Archbishop Lefebvre, scandalized by the opinions expressed by the two Apostolic Visitors, drew up for his seminarians "in a spirit of doubtlessly excessive indignation" this famous declaration as his stand against Modernism.

Ten days before, two Apostolic Visitors from Rome arrived at the St. Pius X Seminary in Econe. During their brief stay, they spoke to the seminarians and professors, maintaining scandalous opinions such as, the ordination of married men will soon be a normal thing, truth changes with the times, and the traditional conception of the Resurrection of Our Lord is open to discussion.


We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth.

We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.

All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments, to the disappearance of religious life, to a naturalist and Teilhardian teaching in universities, seminaries and catechectics; a teaching derived from Liberalism and Protestantism, many times condemned by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.

No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries.

“But though we,” says St. Paul, “or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1:8).

Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today? And if we can discern a certain contradiction in his words and deeds, as well as in those of the dicasteries, well we choose what was always taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties destroying the Church.

It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.

This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.

The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.

That is why, without any spirit of rebellion, bitterness or resentment, we pursue our work of forming priests, with the timeless Magisterium as our guide. We are persuaded that we can render no greater service to the Holy Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff and to posterity.

That is why we hold fast to all that has been believed and practiced in the faith, morals, liturgy, teaching of the catechism, formation of the priest and institution of the Church, by the Church of all time; to all these things as codified in those books which saw day before the Modernist influence of the Council. This we shall do until such time that the true light of Tradition dissipates the darkness obscuring the sky of Eternal Rome.

By doing this, with the grace of God and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that of St. Joseph and St. Pius X, we are assured of remaining faithful to the Roman Catholic Church and to all the successors of Peter, and of being the fideles dispensatores mysteriorum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi in Spiritu Sancto. Amen.

November 21, 1974
Econe, Switzerland

[Stone]

Could we not also apply the words of Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei to this new SSPX 'Declaration,' with its refusal to address the most pernicious errors we face?


Reposted here a short catechism Fr. Hewko gave some years ago on this Papal Bull:

Ambiguity Condemned by Pope Pius VI in 1794

A Short Catechism by Fr. Hewko: Auctorem Fidei - The Author of the Faith

Transcript
I would like to cover briefly with you this great encyclical Auctorem Fidei written by Pope Pius VI. It is a Bull. Why he wrote it was that in 1786 there was in Italy the town of Pistoia there was a Council held by a Bishop, and he introduced novel ideas, he introduced heretical ideas in this Council that he held.

So it was kind of like an advertiser of Vatican II way back in 1786. So Pope Pius VI got wind of it. He tried to appeal to this Bishop to change, to denounce the errors of this Council and the Bishop delayed, delayed, delayed. So Pope Pope Pius VI says I have waited long enough. The wolves are attacking the flock, I must act now. He pulled out the twenty odd six gun and he started shooting at those wolves and the errors that oppose Catholic teaching.

He begins this Bull written in 1794, August 28th just right after the French revolution. Right at the outbreak - in fact during 1974 there were big wars going on in the Vendee, and in Flanders, the Freemason armies are marching in trying to crush the Catholic Church. They've got the clergy, the priests who took the constitution... they say the Latin Mass in all the parish Churches but the Catholic people will not go to those Latin Masses because they know they are said by priests who compromise the faith. And that is a lesson for us, we don't go to Masses - to priests who, in any way accept Vatican II and the new Mass. You cannot go.

So:

"Pius, Bishop Servant of the servants of God greetings, and my apostolic blessings to all the Christian faithful. The Apostle Paul commands us, who look on Jesus as the author and finisher of the faith, to consider diligently the nature and magnitude of the opposition against Him."

Then he goes on to say that there is a huge conspiracy against the Catholic Church and there always will be a conspiracy to destroy the work of Our Lord Jesus Christ. So the Pope says a greater zeal is upon me to look after the flock. This is a really great Pope who loves the Church. Loves our Lord Jesus Christ. He's protecting the flock. Not like these Vatican II Popes who allow the wolves to tear up the whole flock of our Lord and drag them to hell by their jaws.

Then he says:

"In fact, when a leader of God's holy Church under the name of priest turns the very people of Christ away from the path of truth. (He's talking about this bad bishop in Pistoia) toward the peril of erroneous belief and when this occurs in a major city then clearly the distress and anxiety is multiplied."

In other words, the Pope is saying: this Bishop is teaching heresy and holding a council against our will and causing havoc in the Catholic Church. Well his errors must be condemned.

And then he goes on and he says:

"So, the Pope says a greater zeal is upon me to look after the flock."

He is a really great Pope. And then he goes on and he says 'This bishop - at first he was good. We entrusted him with this diocese and then he turned evil. and he embarked on confusing, destroying and utterly overturning this diocese by introducing troublesome novelties under the guise of a sham reform.'

[...] Remember, novelties in Catholic language - whenever you hear of a novelty it is equivalent to heresy. When you deal with the Catholic faith if anything is new it equals heresy in Catholic language. St. Thomas Aquinas says the same thing. 'Anything that is novel is heretical because in the Catholic church nothing is new, nothing. It's always beautiful. Always the same. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever.'

And so he continues and then the Pope quotes St. Zosimus, a former pope:

"..those things that of great importance call for a weighty examination."

So now this Pope steps into the boxing ring and he's going to clean house. Here he goes. Listen to this:

"They knew the capacity of innovators in the art of deception."

So, these are artful. This bishop and these catholic clergy are slippery snakes he says:

"In order not to shock the ears of Catholics, the innovators sought to hide the subtleties of their tortuous maneuvers by the use of seemingly innocuous words such as would allow them to insinuate error into souls in the most gentle manner. Once the truth had been compromised, they could, by means of slight changes or additions in phraseology, distort the confession of the faith that is necessary for our salvation, and lead the faithful by subtle errors to their eternal damnation. This manner of dissimulating and lying is vicious, regardless of the circumstances under which it is used. For very good reasons it can never be tolerated in a synod of which the principal glory consists above all in teaching the truth with clarity and excluding all danger of error."

This is powerful. This condemns Vatican II. This condemns the doctrinal declaration of April 15th, 2012 signed by a Bishop (Fellay). It condemns double meaning language and fuzzy weasel-words. It condemns that when you talk about the Catholic faith. This also condemns those five Eleison Comments (of Bishop Williamson's) that say the new Mass gives grace. It is the same slippery language that is used to insinuate error.

Listen to this: Pope Pius VI - again this is 1794 condemning Vatican II doctrinal declaration [...]

"Moreover, if all this is sinful, it cannot be excused in the way that one sees it being done, under the erroneous pretext that the seemingly shocking affirmations in one place are further developed along orthodox lines in other places, and even in yet other places corrected; as if allowing for the possibility of either affirming or denying the statement, or of leaving it up the personal inclinations of the individual – such has always been the fraudulent and daring method used by innovators to establish error. It allows for both the possibility of promoting error and of excusing it."

See the confusion, there is traditional language, then there's novelty, then there's traditional language again, so people can read it and say well, 'It has a Catholic meaning'. You've got a double tongue here. Scripture says God hates the double tongue. Bishop Fellay admitted that the Doctrinal Declaration can be doubly interpreted. And Bishop Williamson also makes comments defending that the new Mass gives grace and Eucharistic miracles. We have to say it is gravely misleading. It is causing a civil war among many traditional Catholics over a question that shouldn't be an issue. Whether the new Mass gives grace or not is a dead issue. A bad tree gives bad fruit. And then Vatican II - the bishops at Vatican II, with Cardinal Ratzinger among them, they admitted that 'we used ambiguous language deliberately' so that afterwards we can take the phrases, run with the ball - that is implement the errors of Vatican II's heresies.

Pope Pius VI continues:

"It is a most reprehensible technique for the insinuation of doctrinal errors and one condemned long ago by our predecessor St. Celestine who found it used in the writings of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, and which he exposed in order to condemn it with the greatest possible severity."

Anybody remember the heresy of Nestorius? He said Mary is not the Mother of God. He said Mary is the mother of the MAN of Jesus Christ but not God. This heresy is that there are two Persons in Christ. The truth is that there are two natures in Christ and only one person. The attack was Mary who was the Mother of God. He was condemned by St. Celestine.

"Once these texts were examined carefully, the impostor was exposed and confounded, for he expressed himself in a plethora of words, mixing true things with others that were obscure; mixing at times one with the other in such a way that he was also able to confess those things which were denied while at the same time possessing a basis for denying those very sentences which he confessed. In order to expose such snares, something which becomes necessary with a certain frequency in every century, no other method is required than the following: Whenever it becomes necessary to expose statements that disguise some suspected error or danger under the veil of ambiguity, one must denounce the perverse meaning under which the error opposed to Catholic truth is camouflaged."

We can take the Eleison Comments and do the same. Camouflaged language to say the new Mass gives grace, has Eucharistic miracles. It is deadly for souls. If the new Mass gives grace what are we doing telling people to stay away from it? It is very misleading. And Bishop Fellay also in the Doctrinal Declaration accepts Vatican II; accepts the new Mass; accepts the new profession of faith that. Archbishop Lefebvre condemned, the new Mass, the new sacraments and rejects the new Mass is legitimate. If you say the new Mass is legitimate, you're saying that it's good for souls. [....] So, don't be surprised if the new Mass is being said in an SSPX chapel. Of course, the priest says he will never say the new Mass. The Campos priests in Brazil in 2003 they also said the same thing. Oh, we're never going to say the new Mass. Now today those same priests are saying the new Mass with altars facing the people. Giving communion in the hand. It can happen, it has happened, and it will happen again in the future.

The Pope quotes:

"For we, along with Augustine and the Fathers of Milevis, prefer and desire that men who teach perverse things be healed in the Church by pastoral care rather than be cut off from Her without hope of salvation, if necessity does not force one to act."

So this good pope is saying 'Ok, but with this Bishop Nestoria, we tried to be patient, we tried to appeal to him, to condemn this heresy, to revoke his heresies and no nothing came, so now I'm have to act ...and pull out the rifle. It is not a matter of the danger of only one or another diocese. This is very important because people were saying, well its just one diocese the diocese of Nestoria, so just clean up the mess with Nestoria.' But this Pope says,

“Any novelty at all assails the Universal Church.”

Any novelty at all attacks the Catholic church. Its universal. That's why no bishop or priest can sit back when there is heresy being taught. Archbishop Lefebvre - remember he stood up to defend the Catholic Faith and all the modernist clergy attacked him; tried to tear him to pieces. They attacked the seminary in Écône because the enemies of Christ did not want priests in the line of the traditional popes in the mind of Archbishop Lefebvre. They don't want that. There is such a fierce hatred of OLMC in Kentucky. All we want to do is continue the work of Archbishop Lefebvre and hold his position. Tell the pope to come back to tradition. It's our job. It's very clear. The Virgin Mary sealed this when she prophesied his (Archbishop Lefebvre's) coming 300 years beforehand.

Now for a long time, from every side, the judgment of the supreme Apostolic See has not only been awaited but earnestly demanded by unremitting, repeated petitions. The good priests are begging 'Do something, Holy Father, this is a heresy that is leading souls astray'. God forbid that the voice of Peter ever be silent in that See, where, living and presiding perpetually, he presents the truth of the faith to those in search of it. A lengthier forbearance in such matters (in other words - any delay in condemning these heresies in such matters) is not safe, because it is almost just as much of a crime to close one’s eyes in such cases, as it is to preach such offenses to religion.

In other words, I will be sinning if I close my eyes to this. I think of these five Vatican II popes closing their eyes to the heresies of Vatican II....all the damage...

"Therefore, (says Pius VI,) such a wound must be cut away, a wound by which not one member is hurt, but the entire body of the church is damaged."

So this is one of the arguments that St. Thomas Aquinas would use ....if you've got a leg that's gangrene, the gangrene is spreading until it kills the whole body. What does the doctor do? He amputates the leg to save the body. So this good pope (Pius VI) is amputating this bad bishop (of Pistoia) to save the whole universal church.

"And with the aid of divine piety, We must take care that, with the dissensions removed, (that is the fighting removed) the Catholic faith be preserved inviolate, and that those whose faith has been proved may be fortified/strengthened` by our authority once those who defend perverse teachings have been recalled from error."

And then the good Pope adds in this Encyclical saying that:

"We have resolved to condemn and reprove several propositions, doctrines, and opinions of the acts and decrees of the Council of Nestoria, either those expressly taught or those conveyed through ambiguity, with their own appropriate notes and censures for each of them (as was said above), just as we condemn and reprove them in this our constitution, which will be valid in perpetuity - until the end of the world. They are as follows."

And now follows is a list of 83 condemned heresies and errors [See Denzinger, beginning with #1501]. So this is a Pope acting and doing his duty. Some day there will be a good Pope condemning the heresies and errors of Vatican II. He is going to condemn the whole thing because the whole thing is poison. Archbishop Lefebvre, in his great declaration said, 'Even though not every word and not every sentence of the documents of Vatican II may be heretical or formally heretical the whole thing is poison. It is saturated, marinated in the modern heresies'.

So there is this little brief summary of this great encyclical - this great Bull: Auctorem Fidei.

Archbishop Lefebvre quotes it very often. He says, how do we know Rome will come back to tradition? When the pope professes the teaching of Auctorem Fidei, the Syllabus of Errors, Pascendi, and Toleransibus condemning ecumenism, and all the other great encyclicals.

* * *

Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794

“[The Ancient Doctors] knew the capacity of innovators in the art of deception. In order not to shock the ears of Catholics, they sought to hide the subtleties of their tortuous maneuvers by the use of seemingly innocuous words such as would allow them to insinuate error into souls in the most gentle manner. Once the truth had been compromised, they could, by means of slight changes or additions in phraseology, distort the confession of the faith which is necessary for our salvation, and lead the faithful by subtle errors to their eternal damnation.

This manner of dissimulation and lying is vicious, regardless of the circumstance under which it is used. For very good reason it can never be tolerated in a Synod of which the principal glory consists above all in teaching the truth with clarity and excluding all danger of error. Moreover, if all this is sinful, it cannot be excused in the way that one sees it being done, under the erroneous pretext that the seemingly shocking affirmations in one place are further developed along orthodox lines in other places, and even in yet other places corrected; as if allowing for the possibility of either affirming or denying the statement, or of leaving it up to the personal inclinations of the individual--such has always been the fraudulent and daring method used by innovators to establish error. It allows for both the possibility of promoting error and of excusing it.

It is as if the innovators pretended that they always intended to present the alternative passages, especially to those of simple faith who eventually come to know only some part of the conclusions of such discussions which are published in the common language for everyone's use. Or again, as if the same faithful had the ability on examining such documents to judge such matters for themselves without getting confused and avoiding all risk of error. It is a most reprehensible technique for the insinuation of doctrinal errors and one condemned long ago by our predecessor Saint Celestine who found it used in the writings of Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, and which he exposed in order to condemn it with the greatest possible severity.

Once these texts were examined carefully, the impostor was exposed and confounded, for he expressed himself in a plethora of words, mixing true things with others that were obscure; mixing at times one with the other in such a way that he was also able to confess those things which were denied while at the same time possessing a basis for denying those very sentences which he confessed. In order to expose such snares, something which becomes necessary with a certain frequency in every century, no other method is required then the following: Whenever it becomes necessary to expose statements which disguise some suspected error or danger under the veil of ambiguity, one must denounce the perverse meaning under which the error opposed to Catholic truth is camouflaged.”

See also a short description of Auctorem Fidei in the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia.