Editor’s Note: There is a short article about the use of the phrase, “Ecclesia semper reformanda est” here. — The phrase is formally heretical because it implies that at no time did the Church have the proper form. Implicit in this thesis is that the Church is a merely human institution and not a work of God. While such a thesis correctly characterizes all fake Churches, it does not apply to the one true Church of Christ, which is the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Faith, however, is that the Church is a direct immediate creation wrought by the Most Holy Trinity. Perfect in her form, which She obtains manifestly at Pentecost, which form she maintains until the end of time by the working of God’s Providence, Christ’s mediation, and the vivification of the Holy Spirit.

Catholic Theologians, therefore, speak differently. The sinful members of the Church need to be purified.

Moreover, to transfer the guilt of individuals to abstractions or to the Church Herself is always a co-out for personal responsibility.

Pope Francis has consistently blamed abstractions like clericalism and rigidity for the problems in the Church. His secretary of state is merely trying to keep the facade going. But the day of justice is coming, when God will give us a new pope, or the Bishops wake up and rebuke Pope Francis and his crew, to their face in a provincial synod and depose them from their offices if they do not repent.

Purification of the Church requires the deposition from office of heretics, apostates and schismatics. When a pope deposes an honest man, he sins gravely; and the victim  sins gravely by obeying such an unjust request. When honest Bishops depose a fake claimant to the papacy or someone without a valid canonical claim, by reason of an invalid election or heresy, schism or apostasy, they collaborate fully with the work of the Holy Spirit in purifying the Church.

Thus, Cardinal Parolin is — theologically speaking — calling for opposition to the Sutri Initiative. But Catholics who know better, see it for what it simply is: the audacious protestations of a crook who wants to obstruct the purification of the Church.