Revisiting Graded Absolutism

 I wanted to revisit this topic today based on something I had just read a couple of days ago.  It was the text of an interview given by Fr. Daniele di Sorco, a priest of the SSPX, with the Italian District of the SSPX.   The article can be found at https://fsspx.news/en/news/sate-necessity-invoked-sspx-real-60862 (accessed September 7, 2026).  In the article, Fr. di Sorco is discussing something called "the state of necessity," and as he defines it, essentially that means a situation exists where a danger is evident, and this danger can be to body or soul - the presence of the danger, therefore, allows for the disregard of certain laws which could result in something harmful.  Reading that brought me back to what Dr. Norman Geisler said in his book Christian Ethics about graded absolutism - remember, he defined it as when the greater good, rather than the lesser evil, is pursued to follow the higher moral duty.  If two moral duties clash then, the believer is exempt by virtue from the lower duty by virtual obedience to the higher duty (Norman Geisler, Christian Ethics.  Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010: 98).  It is this reason why the Thomistic premise for just war exists, and why in certain circumstances (such as this demonic Lindsay Clancy who is in the news right now for murdering her own kids) capital punishment is also permissable.  In essence, both the state of necessity and the idea of graded absolutism are intricately related, if not even synonymous with one another (their component convictions are remarkably identical).  This means then that I would argue that Father di Sorco of the SSPX is in essence espousing graded absolutism as it relates to the way the Vatican has responded to the recent SSPX episcopal consecrations - the higher virtue of adherence to doctrinal orthodoxy exempts one from the duty of Papal allegiance when the Pope himself is in error with certain things.  I tend to agree with Fr. di Sorco on this, as what I have been seeing from Leo as well as his predecessor Francis and some Sadducees in positions of authority in the Vatican as well as some diocesan leadership has raised cause for concern.  This is where I will get into the "meat" of my argument. 

While I essentially went over the more fundamental aspects of all this earlier, graded absolutism at times is warranted, and we see even God himself setting the example many times with it, particularly in the Old Testament.  In the early days of Creation, for instance, God allowed consanguine marriages without consequence to populate the earth, and later he tolerated polygamy for a short time - polygamy was never God's ideal at all, but God worked through the process to accomplish a greater good.  God also allowed a degree of mass destruction in the books of Joshua and Judges because there was a greater good there as well - it has been offered by some that many of those original "-ites" that the Hebrews came against may have been beings who were not fully human, based on the Genesis 6 principle.   All you hear about, for instance, are supersized giants like Og of Bashan and Goliath, and some of those individuals were astronomical in size.   I tend to take those accounts at their word, and I understand why God would want entire populations of these individuals eliminated - they were in essence corrupting the land in unnatural ways.  In this day and age - and believe it or not, you actually hear this from people! - this makes God a racist genocidal maniac who made Hitler look like a Cub Scout.  It is one reason many of them are ambivalent to Christianity, but they don't understand the context and setting of the story.  If these supersized individuals were indeed somehow the descendants of fallen angels, then they were a mistake and were not part of God's original creation.  So, God had to cleanse the corruption of Creation for his own people to make the way for the redemption of mankind, and these half-angelic supermen were a problem.  Other sources of this I have read have said that those disembodied souls became the demons, and I see that as a possibility.  This means then that Satan - who is a fallen angel and not a demon - rigged the system to produce his own slave army to do his bidding, and that would make some sense.  I am not here today to argue the origin of demons, but rather that graded absolutism has been part of the story of God's purpose for mankind since the beginning.  If we are created in his image, then in that case it only makes sense that we are given the liberty to apply the same principle to the world we live in today.  The road to the right thing is often crisscrossed with bad acts and decisions, but they can be used for the greater good.  That explains just war and capital punishment then, but what of people disregarding a bad Pope?  Let's address that next.

The issue with this whole situation is a definition of terms, namely the Papal office vs. the person who occupies it.  The Papal office has Apostolic sanction and authority, and it supersedes all who occupied it because they too are subject to the Apostolic teachings that established the office.  So, when a sitting Pope does something stupid or sinful - such as worshipping a Pachamama or groveling to Islamists or the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party - he is in conflict with the Papal office.  So, there are some like the SSPX then who see this as a violation, and thus they are justified by their actions to continue the faith they hold convictions to even if it brings them into direct fire with a sitting Pope who is disobedient.  And, while Fr. di Sorco notes correctly that the state of necessity is not directly addressed or defined in Canon law, but it is implicitly understood by Magisterial teaching.  This leads to a few observations of my own as it relates to the SSPX issue but also to wider problems in the Catholic Church in general. 

For one thing, I disagree with the good Father on one point - he makes the claim that all of Vatican II is in error or is wrong, and I respectfully disagree with that.  It is possible to be a faithful and orthodox Catholic who attends the post-Vatican II Ordinary Form Mass.  I have attended many myself, and they are reverent, valid, and I saw no conflict with my personal faith.  The priest I consider my confessor and main counsel for spiritual matters, Fr. Timothy Grassi, celebrates the Ordinary Form in his parish every Sunday, and he is perhaps one of the most sound and orthodox priests I have ever known (as well as, like myself, having sympathies for the TLM without actively attending it).  Neither Vatican II, its documents, or a proper implementation of its reforms are the real problem - the problem is a wrong implementation of those things, and way too much of that goes on.  While it is true that there were dissident and rogue periti who served in advisory capacities at the Council, it is also true that for the most part the documents that came from it - in particular Lumen Gentium - are quite good.  I have a few issues though with Gaudium et Spes, as a lot of the liturgical abuses and other things we have seen can be traced back to what is perhaps a very faulty application of its more ambiguous language.  If a document like Gaudium et Spes is to be studied, perhaps some clarifying commentary would be in order to utilize with it.  I also tend to agree with what my good friend Charles Coulombe said as well, that being you accept what is good, and throw out what is bad - there were many good things to come from Vatican II as well, and as long as they are consistent with Tradition then there are no problems.  However, watch out for bad players in the game too - the dissident priests, the rogue bishops, and others who bend things they read in those documents to such a degree they can say anything they want them to say, and this is where you get characters like Cardinal Tucho Fernandez, James Martin, Richard Rohr, Richard McBrien, Bede Griffiths, and - dare I say it! - the late Pope Francis, among others.  These are individuals who try to rewrite the recipe, so to speak, and they tend to cast Tradition in a foreign mindset that many of the early Saints and Fathers of the Church would have rejected.  The same goes for some pre-Vatican II figures too, such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Merton.  And, that being said, it bears a few closing thoughts.

To begin, let me just reiterate that Pope Leo XIV, as well as Francis before him, were mortal, concupiscent human beings.  They didn't fart holy writ every time they sat on a toilet to do their thing, and for some badly misinformed Catholics who tend to give them more allegiance than they deserve, I would caution strongly to be careful - you are on the verge of creating an idol out of the occupant of the Papal office, even when what he is doing falls short of that office he has been given.   It is also a fundamental misunderstanding about Papal infallibility too - this does not mean that every time the Pope burps it is divine revelation either; that is not how Papal infallibility works.   For Catholics who hold to that erroneous view of Papal authority, you have just put Leo on the same level as Warren Jeffs of the FLDS, and the psychopath Jim Jones, and nothing good will come of that, I can assure you.  The Pope is also subject to Magisterial standards as well, and where he falls short, no one is obliged to follow it.  That is something people like the members of the SSPX understand, and that is why a state of necessity may be warranted, as it flips on its ear what the definition of a heresy is - who are the real heretics, and who really is in schism?  Is it a group of individuals who want to preserve a traditional form of the Holy Mass, or is it a Pope who tends to bow in reverence to pagan idols?  That's a definite thinker for sure, but it shouldn't be - the standard was established two thousand years ago when Jesus commissioned twelve men - his Apostles - to lead his Church on earth.  Magisterial teaching, and Holy Tradition, began there, but it had a foundation as well that goes back millennia before it.  On that we start getting into the history of philosophy and Judaic/Hebraic tradition, as both contributed to the construction of our Tradition because both were rooted in areas God created - one the natural law, and the other supernatural Revelation.  That, therefore, is the standard we judge things by, and we also cannot forget the importance of Holy Scripture too - God's own words, infallible and inerrant, eternal truth.  If something does not align with those, it is to be rejected, and if a cleric of the Church insists on holding the bad ideas anyway, they have declared themselves schismatic.  So, does that mean Leo XIV, or his predecessor Francis, were schismatics?  Weigh the evidence and decide for yourself, but just keep in mind the man is not the office.  The Papal Office is eternal and established by God, but the man who sits in the chair of it will be a creature of sin, and how they understand honestly that fact will determine how they responsibly accept the awesome burden of that office. 

Thanks again for allowing me to share, and will see you again soon.