Is Leo XIV Correcting Francis? Against the Magisterial ‘Vibe Shift’ of Eric Sammons

Using false theology to refute false theology won’t work…

Is Leo XIV Correcting Francis?
Against the Magisterial ‘Vibe Shift’ of Eric Sammons

Mr. Eric Sammons, magisterial vibe shift detector

Eric Sammons, the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine, has once again cranked out some foolish and dangerous claims about the Catholic Faith.

In the June 3, 2025 episode of his Crisis Point Podcast, entitled “Pope Leo Contradicts Pope Francis”, he suggests that when Popes correct a teaching of their predecessors, they do so not openly or directly but by means of a ‘vibe shift’. This does not pose a problem for the Catholic magisterium, he maintains, because papal teaching isn’t truly magisterial of itself; rather, only subsequent repetition by future Popes and acceptance by the Church as a whole, drawn out over a long period of time, renders a papal teaching genuinely magisterial.

Alas, dishing up half-baked, harebrained theological ideas is nothing unusual for Sammons, who is a convert from Protestantism (1993) and holds a Master’s degree in Novus Ordo theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. To verify this, we only need to look at what he’s said about official teachings vs. unofficial attitudes; about the Catholic Church having lost her mission; or about sedevacantists behaving ‘like Judas’, to mention just a few examples.

His latest theological argumentation is entirely without foundation in Catholic teaching or practice, of course; nevertheless, being entirely convinced of his own errors, Sammons can certainly sound persuasive on the surface.

Before we take a critical look at what exactly he said, however, let’s first review some background.

Marriage as an ‘Ideal’: Leo XIV versus Francis

On June 1, 2025, ‘Pope’ Leo XIV stated during a sermon for the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly: “…I would remind all married couples that marriage is not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful” (underlining added).

Indeed, it is important to point out that marriage, and especially the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, is not simply an ideal only the heroic can live by, but the down-to-earth state of life to which most people — though by no means all — are called by God for the propagation of the human race, for mutual aid and support, for the easing of concupiscence, and for the fostering of true love between husband and wife.

In contrast to this, Jorge Bergoglio (‘Pope Francis’) in his infamous ‘Apostolic’ exhortation Amoris Laetitia (2016) presented permanent, faithful conjugal life — and, by logical extension, a holy life in general — as merely an ideal which the average human could not be expected to reach.

Whereas in true Catholic morality, sin contradicts God’s commandment, in the Amoris Laetitia paradigm, sin is merely the insufficient attainment of God’s ideal. The Ten Commandments thus become the Ten Ideals; and sin is transformed from being all bad to being not fully good. This change constitutes a true revolution in morality, as we pointed out in our powerful podcast on the topic.

Let’s consider a concrete and common example to illustrate the difference between the two views: Imagine a bachelor cohabiting with his girlfriend, who has likewise never been married. According to traditional (i.e. real) Catholic morality, the two are sinning against the Sixth Commandment, which forbids sexual impurity under pain of mortal sin. Although they may do very many other things that are naturally good, such as giving money to the needy, none of it has any supernatural value before God for as long as they remain in mortal sin. Unless they properly repent before their deaths, they will go to hell for all eternity. Thus, although fornication is by no means the worst sin, nevertheless it is clearly serious business.

According to the Amoris Laetitia view, on the other hand, the two cohabitants are already well on their path to full virtue, they simply have not attained the ideal just yet. They are already living as though married: They are being ‘faithful’ to each other; they habitually engage in an act that was made by God and is therefore good in itself; they are taking responsiblity for each other; perhaps they are even raising children and teaching them good manners; they help and comfort each other; etc.

All of these things, according to this perverted notion of morality, are good, they are simply lacking one element: The bond of matrimony is not present. Nevertheless, for all of the ‘good elements’ contained in their ‘irregular situation’ (to use the preferred vocabulary of Amoris Laetitia), the cohabitants are collecting moral ‘brownie points’, so to speak, and these count for something. If we add them all up, they might reach 77% of the ‘ideal’ of true (full) matrimonial life — getting married would take care of the remaining 23%. But, since practically no one except the holiest and most heroic among us reach the full 100% mark, that is not something to lose sleep over. Whereas one couple may lack marriage, another might be validly married but lack compassion or charity, and thus they, too, fall short of the 100% ‘ideal’. Therefore, no one had better be pointing fingers.

See how this works? Obviously, the morality of Amoris Laetitia makes a mockery of God’s commandments and Catholic teaching.

With what he said in his June 1 homily about marriage not being an ideal, therefore, Leo XIV has awakened hope in people like Eric Sammons, who is essentially a conservative Novus Ordo who became a recognize-and-resister only under Francis. It makes sense that he would be eager to see the new ‘Pope’ correct his predecessor on this point. For the desire to see an egregious error corrected we do not fault him, of course.

Although he acknowledges that what Leo said merely contradicts Francis, Sammons believes that this contradiction is to be understood as an implicit correction of Bergoglio’s false teaching (and indeed, that narrative is already gaining ground). After all, so Sammons argues, Popes never plainly state that a prior Pope was wrong, they simply smooth it over and perhaps even present their correction as continuity. What we must look for, the Crisis editor maintains, is not an outright repudiation of a prior Pope’s teaching but rather a ‘vibe shift’ to know that a correction has occurred.

Sammons’ Theological Claims Verbatim

Let’s look at what Sammons said verbatim in his podcast episode of June 3. The video is cued up to the relevant portion (beginning at the 20:04 timestamp — listen at least until 29:01):

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The following is an unofficial transcript. It is not easy to transcribe Sammons because of his rambling presentation style:

It’s one pope contradicting another. Because here’s the thing. This is how it’s done in the church. … The general way in which the church has worked for centuries is that popes don’t criticize their predecessors. They simply just don’t.

And so you’re not going to have Pope Leo or any other person who would have been elected or will be elected, who’s just going to come out and condemn Pope Francis. It just won’t happen. Stop living in your fantasy world where it might happen.

… Because it just won’t happen. And no pope would have done this. … It’s done quietly, and they want to give the appearance of continuity. They want to give the appearance of continuity. Even when they’re changing things, they want to give the appearance of continuity because that’s more stable. That’s what the church is supposed to be.

We’re not supposed to be changing direction with every single pope. We’re not a political, you know, a country with different political parties taking over the presidency or something like that. We can all wish we had a firebrand in there, somebody who would, you know, burn everything Pope Francis ever said and stuff like that. It just won’t happen. And to be honest, I’m not sure if that would be the best thing to have a firebrand who comes in and burns everything….

I don’t know if that would be the best thing because I think there’d be a lot of unintended consequences to that. I’m not saying that a pope can’t, shouldn’t, like, sometimes just basically directly contradict a previous pope if he was wrong about something. But just getting up there and condemning, saying it’s all garbage or whatever, it’s all heretical — that’s just… that’s not good. What Leo will do is he will emphasize Francis and quote him when he agrees with him, and he will ignore and even contradict him when he doesn’t.

This is a perfect example: What he said when he said marriage is not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman, a love that is total, faithful, and fruitful. That’s what popes do. They simply will state what they believe is the the proper way of expressing it, the proper way of teaching the Catholic faith. And they will at times purposely say things in a way that obviously kind of gives a little bit of a rebuke to maybe a previous pontificate.

Francis did this with Benedict, remember? Francis never came out and said that Benedict was a problem and that… He praised Benedict! Especially early in his pontificate, he praised him all the time. But he did things that were clearly in contradiction — obviously, Traditionis Custodes.

If you even read Traditionis Custodes, Francis makes it sound like it’s in continuity with Summorum Pontificum, which we all know it wasn’t. It was a repudiation, rejection of it. But he made it sound like it was in continuity with it: “Now, well, we’re just now that we’ve seen what’s happened, we’re just going to continue on the path and do this.” So the point is, what happens in the church is a vibe shift… more than an explicit “Okay, we’re going to break here and go in a different direction”. …

We have a vibe shift. The vibe shift was very real between Benedict and Francis, wasn’t it? And we all felt it. We all knew it. Well, now I think the vibe shift is already going, and it is already happening under Leo than [sic] it was under Francis, and that’s a good thing.

Now I might not agree with everything about this new vibe shift. I might, at times, be… you know, wish that Leo did things differently. The point is, though, this is how if we want really a pope to go in a truly different direction than Francis, to move away from a lot of the errors and problems of the Francis pontificate, this is how it happens. It’s through a vibe shift more than anything else. Now, some people, like some popesplainers, both the Francis sycophants and the sedevacantists, they might have real trouble with this idea of popes contradicting each other. Because they have this idea that, you know, a pope is never wrong, and so how could a pope contradict another one?

This is why I think it’s dumb to talk about the idea of a pope’s magisterium, like the magisterium of Pope Francis or the magisterium of JPII [John Paul II] or the magisterium of Leo XIV. Now, to be clear, it literally puts this on the Vatican website. So I know I’m going against the Vatican’s own language here, but I really think it’s problematic and mistaken to talk about a certain pope’s magisterium.

What happens in reality is, popes contribute to the church’s magisterium through their teachings, through their writings, through their actions, things of that nature. And… because we’re not talking about an infallible declaration — that’s one thing. That’s just obviously an insertion into the church’s magisterium — period, end of story. But that’s not… It very rarely happens. So normally, in their audiences, in their homilies, in their talks, and all that stuff, what they say is… kind of becomes… it contributes in a very general sense, of all, to the church’s magisterium.

But what happens is over time, later generations of Catholics, including the hierarchy, they kind of realize… they kind of take some of it and really emphasize that and say, “Okay, yeah, this is a great teaching we need to emphasize [it]”. And others, they just kind of ignore it and let it pass away. In some extreme cases, they might even condemn something. That happens very rarely, right, and hasn’t really happened in the modern church; but they just let it pass away.

So, for example, in a hundred years, every jot and tittle of the Francis pontificate is not going to be considered part of the magisterium. It’s only crazies today who act like that, that [with regard to] anything a pope says, “Okay, that’s part of the magisterium, now you have to accept it.” That’s just not the way it works.

The Magisterium is 2,000 years old. It is basically the tradition of the church that the church has said, “Okay, this is legitimate. This is from Scripture and Tradition. This is what we believe. This is how we apply it. But it’s not a definitive thing where, “Okay, Pope So-and-So said this, therefore, it’s part of the magisterium.” That’s just simply not how it works.

In a lot of ways, modern popesplainers are a lot like Sola Scriptura Protestants, because what they do is, they take every — like, the fundamentalist type, that take every word and say, “Okay, this is the literal inspired truth. This is what we have to believe”. And there’s, you know, a lot of truth in that when it comes to the Sacred Scriptures, but that’s what they do with papal writing. So, Pope Francis said this on this day in this plane, and in answer to this question? “That’s now defined Catholic truth!” – No. It becomes something that the church then considers over time: “Is this something that we accept as part of the church’s magisterium?”

So, for example, if future popes keep on talking about something Francis talked about, if they keep on teaching it, if they keep on reiterating it, if bishops throughout the world keep doing it and Catholics are all accepting it, yes, then yes, that becomes part of the magisterium. But already we see with Pope Leo going away from this idea of “there’s this ideal we can’t live up to and so we can just live at a lower level” — already, Leo is pivoting away from that. So we can see that isn’t going to be part of [the magisterium]… There’s a good chance, I should say, that, you know, the erroneous parts won’t be, at least; but it’s not going to be really part of the magisterium going forward.

So, that’s just kind of how this works.

(Eric Sammons in “Pope Leo Contradicts Pope Francis”, Crisis Point Podcast, June 3, 2025. Excerpt taken from 20:04-29:01. Unofficial transcript; slightly modified for clarity; underlining added for emphasis.)

This commentary is an utter theological train wreck, and Sammons’ perfunctory, convoluted style of presenting it doesn’t help.

Sammons’ Theological Claims Condensed

Cutting through all the rambling in Sammons’ presentation, we can identify at least four essential ideas he is putting forward. According to the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine:

1. Sometimes Popes have good reason to contradict prior Popes on a matter of doctrine
2. Correction of papal error is rare and typically done quietly, tacitly, and while feigning doctrinal continuity
3. A Pope’s teaching is ‘considered over time’ first by ‘the Church’, to see if it is true or if it is junk; this means papal teaching doesn’t enter the magisterium unless and until it is ‘accepted’ — by being frequently repeated by subsequent Popes, for example, and/or by being positively received by the world’s bishops and the laity; etc.
4. Only that which survives the test of time, only what is still adhered to by most after generations have passed, is truly magisterial; the rest is junk that should be disposed of

It defies belief, but is quite telling, that someone who leads an outfit that styles itself as being “orthodox” and “faithful” could pump out such incredible theological rubbish. What makes it worse is that Sammons clearly thinks he is sharing truly Catholic insights with his audience.

In truth, Sammons’ doctrine savors of Gallicanism or Febronianism perhaps but is certainly not recognizable as Catholicism. No wonder the Steubenvillain quotes exactly zero evidence from Church teaching or pre-Vatican II theology manuals to back up his odd ideas! Every claim he makes in that podcast is put forward on his own authority, and apparently his listeners are simply to accept his word for it all.

Sammons’ Theological Claims Refuted

Let’s briefly critique the four points identified above.

First, Sammons makes it seem as if a Pope teaching error on a matter of doctrine in his speeches, sermons, and documents is not a big deal and could even be a somewhat common occurrence. What evidence does he quote from pre-Vatican II Catholic teaching for this view? None, of course.

Yet, anyone who is familiar with the true Catholic teaching on the Papacy can see how problematic such a position is. Although it is true that the Pope’s daily magisterial activity is not protected by infallibility, such teaching is nevertheless authoritative and therefore necessarily safe for Catholics to accept. It could not, therefore, contain any heresy or other dangerous error, as explained at some length here.

“Some people, like some popesplainers, both the Francis sycophants and the sedevacantists, they might have real trouble with this idea of the popes contradicting each other” [on matters of doctrine], Sammons observes smugly in his podcast.

Indeed we would; and so would St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church, who thought it worthwhile to pen seven chapters in Book IV of his De Romano Pontifice exonerating a total of 40 Popes from the accusation that they erred in matters of faith. Poor St. Robert, he could have saved himself a lot of work if only he had known about the Sammons doctrine regarding papal junk teaching and magisterial mood swings.

Next, Sammons may think he is helping his case when he states that Popes tend to correct false prior teaching by peddling it as doctrinal continuity, but he is only making it worse. In fact, he is essentially accusing the papal teaching office not only of error but even of deliberate deception! To cloak error in the garb of truth is something the enemies of the Catholic Faith do, not the Apostolic See! Sammons seems blissfully unaware of how badly he is damaging the Papacy with his reckless and glib ‘orthodox’ punditry.

Then, the Crisis editor advances what is perhaps his worst idea yet: that the teaching of the Roman Pontiff is not magisterial or binding in and of itself but merely has the potential to be included in the Church’s magisterium by subsequent validation from other, even lesser authorities (such as the Church as a whole and/or a string of future Popes). It is useless to ask where Sammons finds this idea in the traditional doctrine of the Church — nowhere, obviously. He made it up.

If it were true, it would mean that, practically speaking, a Pope could never really teach his flock at all. Upon reading a papal address, sermon, or encyclical, the average Catholic would either have to wait a hundred years to see how it fares, or else he would need to check with his preferred friendly recognize-and-resist advisor — self-appointed voices such as Kennedy Hall, Peter Kwasniewski, or Eric Sammons himself, for example — who would then tell him what elements of the papal teaching are correct, binding, optional, or have to be rejected under pain of mortal sin or even heresy. A vibe shift analyst might even be able to give a prognosis on how likely it is that a particular point of proposed doctrine will be phased out before long.

By now, any reasonable thinker will be wondering what the point of having a Pope as Supreme Teacher is if at the end of the day he does not teach with any real authority. Why not simply have professional resistance advisors and vibe shift analysts do the teaching then? Oh, but who will guarantee their orthodoxy for us? What a mess!

Not surprisingly, the great Pope St. Pius X (r. 1903-1914) roundly condemns Sammons’ distortion of the papal teaching authority:

Jesus Christ Himself has laid on his disciples the duty of hearing the instructions of their masters, on subjects of living in submission to the dictates of rulers, on sheep and lambs of following with docility in the footsteps of their shepherds. And to shepherds, to rulers, and to teachers He has said, Docete omnes gentes. Spiritus veritatis docebit vos omnem veritatem. Ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem sæculi (Mt 28:19-20): “Going, teach ye all nations. The Spirit of truth will teach you all truth. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”

From these facts you can see how far astray are those Catholics, who, in the name of historical and philosophical criticism and that tendentious spirit which has invaded every field, put in the foremost rank the religious question itself, insinuating that by study and research we should form a religious conscience in harmony with our times, or, as they say, “modern”. And so, with a system of sophisms and errors they falsify the concept of obedience inculcated by the Church; they arrogate to themselves the right of judging the actions of authority even to the extent of ridiculing them; they attribute to themselves a mission to impose a reform — a mission which they have received neither from God nor from any authority. They limit obedience to purely exterior actions, even if they do not resist authority or rebel against it, opposing the faulty judgment of some individual without any real competence, or of their own inner conscience deceived by vain subtleties, to the judgment and commandment of the one who by divine mandate is their lawful judge, master, and shepherd.

(Pope Pius X, Address Con Vera Soddisfazione, May 10, 1909; underlining added.)

Obviously, the immediate context in which St. Pius X is speaking is that of Modernism, that is, the Modernists’ prideful disregard for Catholic authority. The general principles he expresses in his refutation, however, clearly apply no less to other people and errors that try to minmize and evade the papal teaching authority.

If the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine were correct, it would give many people a convenient excuse to refuse assent to many things the Pope teaches. “That’ll be overturned by a future Pope!”, would be the quick retort of those who don’t wish to agree. Others might quip, “I wonder how much of that teaching will still be around 100 years from now” (chuckle, chuckle).

Tragically, Sammons’ ideas about this would strip from the Pope his rightful role of being the “father and teacher of all Christians”, as Pope Pius IX taught (Encyclical Nostis et Nobiscum, n. 16). It would reduce him to a kind of ecclesiastical parrot who only gets to repeat what others before him have already said, at least if he wishes for his teaching to be considered binding on consciences. If Sammons thinks he can prove such a position from pre-Vatican II Catholic teaching, let him provide it. But we suggest you don’t hold your breath.

Further Evidence against the Sammons Thesis

There are many other problems with what Sammons argues, of course.

For instance, how is a Catholic supposed to know when a Pope’s teaching is meant as a correction of a prior false teaching and not a corruption of a prior true teaching? Or when he is faced with what is indeed a legitimate development of a prior doctrine? It sounds like those resistance advisors and vibe shift analysts will be quite busy. Don’t be surprised if Crisis Magazine and One Peter Five will be hiring soon.

Let’s use a concrete example: the morality of capital punishment (death penalty). Pope Pius XII taught its inherent moral legitimacy. In 1992, ‘Pope’ John Paul II did not deny its moral legitimacy in principle but greatly discouraged its use. By 1997, he had amended the Catechism to saying that it is almost never necessary to execute someone and therefore should not be done except in the rarest of circumstances. In 2017, ‘Pope’ Francis condemned capital punishment in principle as inherently contrary to human dignity as taught by the Gospel, and the following year updated the Catechism on that point. As ‘Pope’, Leo XIV has not made any official pronouncements yet about the death penalty, but as Robert Prevost he clearly opposed it as a matter of principle.

And now the question: Who is correcting whom here? How is a Catholic supposed to know what to hold regarding the death penalty? If Sammons responds that 1900 years of pro-death penalty teaching surely outweigh 30+ years of anti-death penalty teaching, we must ask: What does length of time have to do with any of it? If the Catholic Church can teach error for 30 years, why not for 300 or 1900? In any case, where does the Church teach that a Catholic must scour through all of Church history to figure out on which side the ‘weight’ of truth is to be found? And what is the purpose of having a reigning Pope then, if in the end each believer teaches him instead of the other way around?

Once more we turn to Pope Pius X, who mops the floor with this nonsense:

Jesus Christ, who knew our weakness, who came into the world to preach the gospel to the poor above all, chose for the spread of Christianity a very simple means adapted to the capacity of all men and suited to every age: a means which required neither learning, nor research, nor culture, nor rationalization, but only willing ears to hear, and simplicity of heart to obey. This is why St. Paul says: fides ex auditu (Rom 10:17), faith comes not by sight, but by hearing, from the living authority of the Church, a visible society composed of masters and disciples, of rulers and of governed, of shepherds and sheep and lambs.

(Pope St. Pius X, Address Con Vera Soddisfazione, May 10, 1909; underlining added.)

Sammons may have ideas, but he does not have authoritative documentation to back them up. We, on the other hand, provide the authoritative documentation to prove him wrong.

As for Sammons’ opinion that it is “dumb”,”problematic”, and “mistaken” to speak of the magisterium of a particular Pope, that is simply his insufficiently educated opinion, which in turn is fueled by his own errors about the magisterium. Although one cannot find many instances of reference being made to the ‘magisterium of Pope So-and-So’ before Vatican II, there certainly are some (see below), and there is no good reason why one could not employ such language. To speak, for example, of the magisterium of Pope Pius XII, the magisterium of Pope Leo XIII, or the magisterium of Pope Urban II would simply mean the collected magisterial acts of the respective Pope.

And so, for instance, we find Fr. Paul Bottalla referencing the “magisterium of Pope Victor” in his 1870 book The Pope and the Church Considered in Their Mutual Relations (vol. II, p. 122); we find Mgr. Domenico Tardini praising “the magisterium of Pius XII” (Memories of Pius XII, p. 13); and we find a lay author mentioning “the magisterium of Pius X” in an article in The Catholic World (March 1953, p. 412).

Ironically, the Dominican theologian Fr. Luigi Ciappi uses the expression “magisterium of Pius XII” precisely in the context of discussing the authority of the Pope’s magisterium and the assent that is owed to it (“Freedom of Faith and Papal Infallibility”, The Thomist Reader: Texts and Studies [1957], p. 15). Needless to say, Fr. Ciappi knows nothing of a ‘vibe shift’ or having to wait 100 years to see if what the Pope said is actually magisterial. Instead, he speaks of the ordinary papal magisterium being exercised in speeches, through mass media, and so forth, and this teaching having an intrinsic authority:

What ought to be the attitude of the believer towards those teachings of the ordinary magisterium of the Roman Pontiff which have a prudential character, whether they be taught in encyclicals or discourses or by radio or other like means? It is certain that in these cases the Pope’s authority does not intervene merely as a condition for our assent, but it itself is the immediate foundation.”

(Fr. Luigi Ciappi, O.P., “Freedom of Faith and Papal Infallibility”, in The Thomist Reader: Texts and Studies [1957], p. 16; italics given.)

Of course such teaching is not infallible, but the issue of infallibility is entirely beside the point here. The point is that it is the teaching of the Pope, who is the “Supreme Teacher and Vicar of Christ on earth” (Pius XII, Allocution Si Diligis); and since he has the right to teach all Catholics, he also has the right to have his teaching accepted — not because it is infallible but because it is the teaching of him who possesses full teaching authority from Christ Himself. As Pope Pius XII made clear, of the Pope’s “ordinary teaching authority … it is true to say: ‘He who heareth you, heareth me’ [Lk 10:16]” (Encyclical Humani Generis, n. 20).

Writing in the 1930s, Canon George Smith (1893-1960) explained:

…the source of the obligation to believe is not the infallibility of the Church but her divine commission to teach. Therefore, whether her teaching is guaranteed by infallibility or not, the Church is always the divinely appointed teacher and guardian of revealed truth, and consequently the supreme authority of the Church, even when it does not intervene to make an infallible and definitive decision on matters of faith or morals, has the right, in virtue of the divine commission, to command the obedient assent of the faithful. In the absence of infallibility the assent thus demanded cannot be that of faith, whether Catholic or ecclesiastical; it will be an assent of a lower order proportioned to its ground or motive. But whatever name be given to it – for the present we may call it belief – it is obligatory; obligatory not because the teaching is infallible – it is not – but because it is the teaching of the divinely appointed Church.

(Rev. George D. Smith, “Must I Believe It?”, The Clergy Review, vol. 9 [Apr. 1935], p. 305)

Contrast this beautiful, clear, sensible instruction from a real Catholic theology professor with Sammons’ claim that it’s “only crazies today who act like that, that anything a pope says, okay, that’s part of the magisterium, now you have to accept it. That’s just not the way it works.” Clearly, the Steubenville vibe shift detector is a little out of his league presuming to instruct his hapless audience about the ‘real’ papal magisterium. Talk about teaching nonsense without authority!

Clearly, therefore, speaking of the magisterium of Pope So-and-So is “dumb” only if one adopts Sammons’ error that a Pope’s teaching is not magisterial by itself but must wait for future validation by the whole Church or by a sufficiently long string of future Popes. It is an utterly outrageous doctrine Sammons is proclaiming, one that is entirely without foundation. (Simply referring to a future book by Dr. Michael Sirilla, as he does at the 29:01 min mark, is perhaps cute but obviously does not constitute proof of his ludicrous thesis.)

One way to verify that Sammons’ doctrine is absurd and not Catholic is to look at theological literature, especially manuals of theology, which provide magisterial evidence of a doctrine simply by quoting papal documents and addresses. There is a reason why collections of magisterial pronouncements such as the famous ‘Denzinger’ — properly called the Enchiridion symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, first issued by Fr. Henry Denzinger (1819-1883) in 1854 — also include excerpts from individual papal addresses, replies from the Holy Office and the Biblical Commission, etc.

In his first encyclical issued at the very beginning of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XV made clear:

All know to whom the teaching authority of the Church has been given by God: he, then, possesses a perfect right to speak as he wishes and when he thinks it opportune. The duty of others is to hearken to him reverently when he speaks and to carry out what he says.

(Pope Benedict XV, Encyclical Ad Beatissimi, n. 22)

The social doctrine expert Fr. John F. Cronin (1908-1994) explains that the means a Pope chooses to communicate his teaching is not all that significant:

As a second point, the form of teaching is relatively unimportant. Rather it is the solemnity and definiteness as determined by the text itself. It is true that the very nature of an encyclical, addressed to the entire world, implies a certain solemnity. But a broadcast, a papal letter, an allocution, or even an address to a particular group may, under certain circumstances, involve important and binding teachings on some matters. The intention as manifested in context is more important than the external form of teaching. Thus, Pope Pius XI is frequently solemn and formal in his pronouncements given in Quadragesimo Anno. We may quote one passage as an illustration: “…the deposit of truth that God committed to Us and the grave duty of disseminating and interpreting the whole moral law, and of urging it in season and out of season, bring under and subject to Our supreme jurisdiction not only the social order but economic activities themselves” (No. 41). At other times, the pope may indicate that he merely counsels, not commands, a given line of action. An example of this is his judgment on the wage contract: “We consider it more advisable, however, in the present condition of human society that, so far as is possible, the work-contract be somewhat modified by a partnership-contract…” (No. 65). The italicized words show a form of qualification which indicates a desire rather than binding teaching.

(Rev. John F. Cronin, Catholic Social Principles: The Social Teaching of the Catholic Church Applied to American Economic Life [Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1955], pp. 57-58; underlining added.)

All of this is not only the true Catholic position as found ‘on the books’, it also agrees with common sense.

Just how atrocious Sammons’ concept of papal teaching is, is reflected also in his prediction that: “What Leo will do is he will emphasize Francis and quote him when he agrees with him, and he will ignore and even contradict him when he doesn’t.” Now that sounds just like recognize-and-resist! It’s what Sammons himself does, as well as his colleagues, such as Michael Matt, Matt Gaspers, and Brian McCall. The problem is, it has nothing to do with actual Catholic teaching.

The Real Reason for the Sammons Thesis

At the end of the quoted excerpt from his podcast, Sammons reveals the motive behind his strange thesis: “…in a hundred years, every jot and tittle of the Francis pontificate is not going to be considered part of the magisterium.” There it is! Sammons is dishing up this nonsense because he needs a way to explain away the last 12 years of Bergoglio’s magisterial heresies, errors, and blasphemies.

Never mind that by distorting traditional Catholic teaching like that, the Crisis editor is actually himself helping to carry out the Bergoglian agenda of wrecking the Catholic Faith. That doesn’t matter at the moment — the immmediate need is to come up with arguments that allow one to conclude that even though he taught heresy and error by the truckload for 12 years, not only in airplane interviews but also in official documents, addresses, decrees, etc., Francis was nonetheless a true Pope.

That’s what this is ultimately about: providing an escape route from the Bergoglian magisterium from hell so as not to have to conclude that Francis was a false pope. While it is true that not everything a Pope says is magisterial (since he can also speak as a private individual, for example), there can be no doubt that those things that have entered the official Acts of the Apostolic See (Acta Apostolicae Sedis) are intended as being part of the official exercise of the papal office. What’s the alternative, anyway? Have Eric Sammons, Timothy Flanders, and Taylor Marshall determine what is and isn’t magisterial? Alas, that really seems to be what he’s suggesting, at least in effect.

Final Remarks

Eric Sammons styles himself an ‘orthodox Catholic’ but it is clear he does not believe in the papal magisterium as taught by the Church. Still, he takes the liberty of lecturing his viewers and readers on the ‘proper understanding’ of the papal magisterium. It would be funny if the matter weren’t so serious!

As a final note, we should keep in mind that it is quite possible that Sammons and others like him are simply making way too much of Leo XIV’s comment in that June 1 sermon to begin with, about matrimony not being an ideal. Let’s not forget that Francis himself is also on record saying some true and beautiful things about marriage, probably even things contradicting what he wrote in Amoris Laetitia. And maybe at some point he even said — somewhere in the 18 billion words he must have uttered during his 12 years — that marriage is not just an ideal. Who knows! He did like to say everything and its opposite.

But then, does it even matter? Does it matter if Francis contradicted himself, or if Leo XIV now consciously teaches in a sermon the opposite of what Francis taught in an exhortation?

No, not really. What matters much more is that recognize-and-resist pundits like Eric Sammons are teaching false, made-up doctrines regarding the Catholic magisterium, all the while presenting themselves as defenders of orthodox Catholicism.

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