Suffering for the truth (Updated)

As many readers will have heard by now, last week Detroit’s new archbishop Edward Weisenburger suddenly fired three well-known professors at Sacred Heart Major Seminary: theologians Ralph Martin and Eduardo Echeverria and canon lawyer Edward Peters.  No official explanation has been given.  Martin has said that he was told only and vaguely that it had to do with “concerns about [his] theological perspectives.”  Echeverria has declined comment because of a non-disclosure agreement.  Peters says that he has “retained counsel.”

I have been commenting on the matter at Twitter/X and, because of its importance, thought it appropriate to do so here as well.  One thing all three of these professors are known for is their longstanding defense of the Magisterium and traditional teaching of the Church.  They have in recent years also respectfully criticized Pope Francis, because of words and actions of the pope that generated controversy due to their apparent conflict with the Church’s traditional teaching (on matters such as Holy Communion for those in adulterous unions, the death penalty, non-Christian religions, and blessings for homosexual couples).

In doing so, they were perfectly within their rights as theologians and as Catholics.  As I have documented elsewhere, the Church has always acknowledged that there can be cases where it is legitimate for the faithful with the relevant theological expertise respectfully to raise criticisms of problematic magisterial statements, even publicly.  The Church addressed the matter in some detail during the pontificate of St. John Paul II, in the instruction Donum Veritatis.  Martin, Echeverria, and Peters all have the relevant expertise and have presented their objections with respect to the person and office of the pope.  They have no history as “rad trad” firebrands or the like but are men of proven learning and sobriety.  A reasonable person might disagree with them, but could not accuse them of violating the theological and canonical norms governing theological discussion in the Church.

All the same, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they were fired because of their theological views.  Again, Martin, at least, was explicitly told that his firing had to do with that.  And that theological animus was the motive is made even more plausible by the fact that one of the first things Archbishop Weisenburger did upon taking office was to crack down on traditional Latin Mass communities in the archdiocese.  The archbishop has not explained how his harsh dealings with Catholics of more traditional opinions can be reconciled with what he has said elsewhere about how the faithful should treat one another:

Pope Francis is calling us to be a truly listening church... It is perhaps helpful also to note what synodality is not.  It is not a political process in which there are winners and losers.  We must not think of synodality as a power game whereby those with differing theological visions of the church and its mission contend for control and dominance… Dialogue and communication are essential for bishops to exercise their servant-leadership role on behalf of God’s people.

Nor, despite his admiration for Pope Francis, has the archbishop explained how his actions can be squared with what DDF prefect Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández tells us was the late pope’s desire “instead of persecutions and condemnations, to create spaces for dialogue” and to avoid “all forms of authoritarianism that seek to impose an ideological register.”

Other admirers of Pope Francis well-known for their endless chatter about dialogue, inclusion, and mercy have reacted with merciless glee at the peremptory exclusion of Martin, Echeverria, and Peters – and in some cases thrown in gratuitous smears to boot.  Austen Ivereigh matter-of-factly characterizes them as “notoriously... intemperate.”  It is difficult to judge this to be anything but a brazen lie, which Ivereigh perhaps thinks he can get away with because few of his readers are likely to know much about the three professors.  But whether or not he knows it to be false, the reality is precisely the opposite of what he says.  Echeverria long defended Pope Francis before only reluctantly and cautiously changing his mind, Peters is well-known for lawyerly nuance, and Martin is about as mild-mannered as can be imagined.

Mike Lewis accuses the three professors of “heresy.”  This is a preposterous calumny.  As the Catechism defines it, “heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same” (2089).  Never have any of the three professors expressed any denial or doubt about any such doctrine.  Michael Sean Winters is especially shameless in his bad faith, applauding the firing of Martin, Echeverria, and Peters while in the same breath defending Fr. Charles Curran’s notorious dissent from the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.

It should be recalled that last week’s firings are not the first time prominent and loyal Catholic academics lost their positions because they criticized Pope Francis for failing to uphold traditional teaching.  For example, in 2017, after criticizing the pope for sowing doctrinal confusion, Fr. Thomas Weinandy was removed from his position as consultant to the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine.  After signing a letter that accused Pope Francis of heresy in 2019, philosopher John Rist was banned from all pontifical universities, and theologian Fr. Aidan Nichols has had difficulty finding a stable academic position.

It is important to emphasize that, like the three professors fired last week, these are not mere media influencers, “rad trad” hotheads, or otherwise marginal figures.  They are eminent academics long known for their deep learning, scholarly rigor and nuance, and fidelity to the teaching and Magisterium of the Church.  Nor were they critical of Francis from the start, but only after his problematic statements and actions accumulated.  One can disagree with some of the things they have said (for example, I think Rist and Nichols went too far, as I said at the time), while acknowledging that their arguments are serious, presented in good faith, and worthy of respectful engagement.

And it should be noted too that these men are only a handful from among a much larger body of eminent scholars known for their longtime loyalty to the Church and its Magisterium who were deeply troubled by aspects of Pope Francis’s pontificate – Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Josef Seifert, Msgr. Nicola Bux, Cardinal Raymond Burke, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Cardinal George Pell, and on and on and on.  Even if we confined ourselves just to academics and other Catholic thinkers and churchmen who have been publicly respectfully critical of Pope Francis, the list would be very long.  If we added those who have opted for various reasons to keep their concerns private, it would be extremely long.

The reason is not that these people, long known for their deep loyalty to the Church and to other recent popes, somehow magically all became heretics or dissenters under Francis.  The reason is that Pope Francis was simply unlike any previous pope in history in the number of his theologically problematic statements and actions.  None of the previous popes notorious for such words and actions – not Liberius, not Honorius, not John XXII – comes close.  It is impossible for a theologically well-informed and intellectually honest person not to see the problem, and the gravity of the problem.

Yet for the most part, Pope Francis’s defenders have not seriously engaged with these thinkers’ arguments, and none of Francis’s defenders is remotely as notable for theological expertise and sobriety as the most eminent of the pope’s critics.  Instead, for the most part Martin, Echeverria, and Peters, like Weinandy, Nichols, and Rist before them, have been subject to vulgar abuse and dismissiveness from their moral and intellectual inferiors – adding insult to the grave injury of having their livelihoods unjustly taken from them.

Again, Donum Veritatis taught that it is possible for there to be cases in which Catholics with the relevant theological expertise can legitimately raise criticisms of defective statements from the Church’s magisterial authorities.  Indeed, the instruction even acknowledges that “such a situation can certainly prove a difficult trial.  It can be a call to suffer for the truth, in silence and prayer, but with the certainty, that if the truth really is at stake, it will ultimately prevail.”

The scholars who have lost their positions for criticizing Pope Francis’s errors are now indeed suffering for the truth.  But the truth will ultimately prevail, as it did in the cases of Liberius, Honorius, and John XXII.  We do not know how long this will take.  In the case of John XXII, it happened very quickly; in the case of Honorius, it took decades.  But we can have good hope that Pope Leo XIV, who seems to be a kind and generous man who appreciates theological learning and wants to unify the Church, will approach these controversies in a less divisive and draconian manner than did his predecessor.

UPDATE 8/2: The Pillar reports that Sacred Heart Major Seminary’s policy for terminating faculty requires “due process,” “specifying the grounds for dismissal,” and other conditions.  If these and the other details about the case that have been reported are accurate, it would seem that the firings violated the seminary's own policy.