“Next year, Christians around the world will celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council: Nicaea. This occasion reminds us that we profess the same faith, and thus have the same responsibility of offering signs of hope that bear witness to God’s presence in the world.”

While it is true that Methodists and other Protestants accept the Nicene Creed, it is obviously incorrect to suggest that Catholics and Methodists “profess the same faith.” Pope Leo XIII provided a thorough refutation of Francis’s false claim in his 1896 encyclical on Christian unity, Satis Cognitum:

“But he who dissents even in one point from divinely revealed truth absolutely rejects all faith, since he thereby refuses to honour God as the supreme truth and the formal motive of faith. ‘In many things they are with me, in a few things not with me; but in those few things in which they are not with me the many things in which they are will not profit them’ (S. Augustinus in Psal. liv., n. 19). And this indeed most deservedly; for they, who take from Christian doctrine what they please, lean on their own judgments, not on faith; and not ‘bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ’ (2 Cor. x., 5), they more truly obey themselves than God.”

Thus, anyone who rejects even a single point of divinely revealed truth rejects the entire Faith. Because Methodists (like other Protestants) reject multiple points of divinely revealed truth, they reject the true Faith, relying instead on their own judgments. As such, Methodists obviously do not “profess the same faith” as Catholics.

Unfortunately, none of this is a surprise coming from Francis. But we should also recognize that this plays into the entire movement of false ecumenism that has dominated Vatican theology for the past sixty years. Francis alluded to this in his audience with the Methodists:

“For a long period of time Methodists and Catholics were estranged and also wary of each other. Today, however, we can thank God that, for almost sixty years, we have been progressing together in reciprocal knowledge, understanding and, above all, love. This helps to deepen our mutual communion.”

There is no real sense in which the actual Catholic Church could be “Protestantized” because the Catholic Church cannot change in that way. Anything resembling the Catholic Church that could be “Protestantized” would necessarily be a counterfeit church.

What happened sixty years ago that changed how Catholic and Methodists approach each other? The answer is clear to anyone who has studied the crisis in the Church: Vatican II happened. And, as we can see from Evelyn Waugh’s letter to Archbishop John Heenan from November 25, 1962 (less than two months after the Council opened), the “Protestantization” was evident from the beginning to those with eyes to see:

“The real difficulty (I think) is that Continentals are twisting themselves inside out to make us look as like as possible to the Protestants. How I wish we could persuade them (a large majority I fear) that to be at home with our Mass and ceremonies is far more important than being right according to the books of liturgical antiquities.”

Waugh was absolutely correct, and Michael Davies confirmed the existence of this “Protetantization” process in his Pope John’s Council:

“The story of the ecumenical dialogue which the Council initiated has been one of continual concessions by the Catholic Church to Protestantism — without any reciprocation. . . . [T]he most serious instance of this has been the modification of the Roman Mass to make it as acceptable as possible to those who reject Catholic teaching on sacrifice and transubstantiation.” (p. 154)

What, though, is being “Protestantized”? There is no real sense in which the actual Catholic Church could be “Protestantized” because the Catholic Church cannot change in that way. Anything resembling the Catholic Church that could be “Protestantized” would necessarily be a counterfeit church.

If Francis does not have the understanding or decency to properly identify his counterfeit church, we have a real obligation to correct him to minimize the chances that others will mistakenly believe that he is speaking about the Catholic Church in such instances.

Francis’s Synodal Church has helped us better understand what it is that has been Protestantized. As more Catholics are realizing, this Synodal Church is essentially a more advanced and official version of the so-called “Conciliar church,” which in many ways represented a counterfeit of the Catholic Church. Whereas good Catholics might have disagreed on the meaning or legitimacy of the term “Conciliar church,” Francis and his collaborators routinely emphasize the realities that their church (a) is now called the “Synodal Church,” and (b) has little overlap with the Catholic Church doctrinally.

In this light, Francis was generally correct that his church has the same faith as the Methodist Church. However, in this particular audience with the Methodists he mistakenly referred to his church as the Catholic Church rather than the Synodal Church. Whether this was through ignorance or malice, it is the type of error that true Catholics should be vigilant to correct. If Francis does not have the understanding or decency to properly identify his counterfeit church, we have a real obligation to correct him to minimize the chances that others will mistakenly believe that he is speaking about the Catholic Church in such instances.

This obligation to defend the true Catholic Church extends to the need for us to cooperate with God’s grace to overcome the false ecumenism that has plagued the Mystical Body of Christ for decades. Even though false ecumenism is alien to the Church because it is heretical, this erroneous notion about Christian unity harms Catholics in countless ways. God has allowed these harms to become increasingly clear in 2024, with the Bishop of Rome document and the Synod on Synodality. For those who love the Catholic Church, this calls for us to do more than ever in 2025 to charitably counteract the scourge of false ecumenism. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

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