NUNTIATORIA

Doctrinal Clarity or Pastoral Ambiguity? The ORA’s Concerns Over the Vatican’s Invitation to We Are Church

The Old Roman Apostolate (ORA) receives with grave concern the news that We Are Church, an organisation publicly committed to positions contrary to Catholic doctrine, has been formally invited to participate in the Vatican’s Jubilee celebrations this October.

While pastoral outreach is a duty of the Church—our Lord Himself ate with sinners to call them to repentance (cf. Luke 5:32)—clarity about truth and error is also a divine mandate (cf. Galatians 1:8–9). The Church’s perennial Magisterium has repeatedly and definitively taught on the matters in which We Are Church demands change: the impossibility of ordaining women, the moral disorder of homosexual acts, and the necessity of chastity for all the faithful.

Pope John Paul II, in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, stated without ambiguity: “The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and… this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful”¹.

Similarly, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has warned that the legal recognition or ecclesial blessing of same-sex unions is incompatible with the divine plan for marriage².

In extending formal recognition to We Are Church within the context of a Jubilee, the Vatican risks conveying the impression that dissent on these matters is compatible with full ecclesial communion. This would mirror the post-conciliar pattern of engaging in dialogue without clear boundaries, where “encounter” is too often substituted for conversion. As Pope Pius XI reminded the faithful in Mortalium Animos: “It is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in [meetings] of non-Catholics… nor is it in any way lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises”³.

While the Pope’s intention may be to invite reformist voices into a synodal process in hopes of mutual understanding, history shows that public gestures without doctrinal reaffirmation lead to confusion among the faithful and embolden heterodox movements. In an age already marked by catechetical collapse and moral relativism, such ambiguity undermines the mission entrusted to the Church by Christ: to “teach all nations… to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20).

The ORA urges the Holy See to accompany any such encounters with unmistakable reiterations of Catholic teaching, coupled with a call to repentance for those who publicly reject it. Charity demands the truth; without it, dialogue becomes a tacit endorsement of error.

1. John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 22 May 1994.
2. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, 3 June 2003.
3. Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, 6 January 1928.