Leo XIII against Leo XIV on Synodal Church

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Leo XIII against Leo XIV on Synodal Church – Part I
Only Peter Holds the Supreme Power

TIA | August 9, 2025

Pope Leo XIV says that he takes his name and inspiration from Pope Leo XIII. This does not conform with the new Pope's agenda of continuing to enforce a Synodal Church. Indeed, Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical Satis cognitum on the unity of the Catholic Church, teaches precisely the opposite.

We plan to bring to the attention of our readers on Saturdays for four consecutive weeks some decisive texts of that Encyclical in which the contradiction with the agenda of the Synodal Church is flagrant.

In the excerpt below Leo XIII teaches the perennial doctrine of the Church on the supremacy of the authority of the Pope over the entire Catholic Church.

Pope Leo XIII

Rightly, therefore, does St. Leo the Great say: "From the whole world Peter alone is chosen to take the lead in calling all nations, to be the head of all the Apostles and of all the Fathers of the Church. So that, although in the people of God there are many priests and many pastors Peter should by right rule all of those over whom Christ Himself is the chief ruler" (Sermo iv., cap. 2).

And so St. Gregory the Great, writing to the Emperor Maurice Augustus, says: "It is evident to all who know the Gospel that the charge of the whole Church was committed to St. Peter, the Apostle and Prince of all the Apostles, by the word of the Lord... Behold! He hath received the keys of the heavenly kingdom – the power of binding and loosing is conferred upon him: the care of the whole government of the Church is confided to him" (Epist. lib. v., Epist. xx).

It was necessary that a government of this kind, since it belongs to the constitution and formation of the Church, as its principal element – that is as the principle of unity and the foundation of lasting stability – should in no wise come to an end with St. Peter, but should pass to his successors from one to another. "There remains, therefore, the ordinance of truth, and St. Peter, persevering in the strength of the rock which he had received, hath not abandoned the government of the Church which had been confided to him" (S. Leo M., sermo iii., cap. 3).

For this reason the Pontiffs who succeed Peter in the Roman Episcopate receive the supreme power in the church, jure divino. "We define," declare the Fathers of the Council of Florence, "that the Holy and Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold the primacy of the Church throughout the whole world: and that the same Roman Pontiff is the successor of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and the true Vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church, and the father and teacher of all Christians; and that full power was given to him, in Blessed Peter, by Our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, to rule, and to govern the universal Church, as is also contained in the acts of oecumenical councils and in the sacred canons" (Conc. Florentinum).

Similarly the Fourth Council of Lateran declares: "The Roman Church, as the mother and mistress of all the faithful, by the will of Christ obtains primacy of jurisdiction over all other Churches." These declarations were preceded by the consent of antiquity which ever acknowledged, without the slightest doubt or hesitation, the Bishops of Rome, and revered them, as the legitimate successors of St. Peter.

Leo XIII, Satis cognitum, §§ 12,13

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Leo XIII against Leo XIV on Synodal Church – Part II
Peter Alone Is the Church’s Foundation

TIA [Emphasis in the original] | August 16, 2025

We continue today to bring to our readers’ attention another excerpt from Satis cognitum, the Encyclical by Pope Leo XIII that dealt with the unity of the Catholic Church. In today’s text it becomes clear that although the Bishops have their own power, its source is the power that Our Lord conferred upon St. Peter.

This document shows clearly that there is no place for the doctrine of a Synodal Church in which the supreme power in the Catholic Church would belong to the Bishops and the Pope, with the shared role as part of the nature of this power.

Pope Leo XIII

But since the successor of Peter is one, and those of the Apostles are many, it is necessary to examine into the relations which exist between him and them according to the divine constitution of the Church. Above all things the need of union between the bishops and the successors of Peter is clear and undeniable. This bond once broken, Christians would be separated and scattered, and would in no wise form one body and one flock.

"The safety of the Church depends on the dignity of the chief priest, to whom if an extraordinary and supreme power is not given, there are as many schisms to be expected in the Church as there are priests" (S. Hieronymus, Dialog, contra Luciferianos, n. 9). It is necessary, therefore, to bear this in mind, viz., that nothing was conferred on the Apostles apart from Peter, but that several things were conferred upon Peter apart from the Apostles.

St. John Chrysostom in explaining the words of Christ asks: "Why, passing over the others, does He speak to Peter about these things?" And he replies unhesitatingly and at once, "Because he was pre-eminent among the Apostles, the mouthpiece of the Disciples, and the head of the college" (Hom. 88. in Joan., n. I). He alone was designated as the foundation of the Church. To him He gave the power of binding and loosing; to him alone was given the power of feeding.

On the other hand, whatever authority and office the Apostles received, they received in conjunction with Peter. "If the divine benignity willed anything to be in common between him and the other princes, whatever He did not deny to the others He gave only through him. So, that whereas Peter alone received many things, He conferred nothing on any of the rest without Peter participating in it." (S. Leo M. Sermo iv., cap. 2)

From this it must be clearly understood that Bishops are deprived of the right and power of ruling, if they deliberately secede from Peter and his successors; because, by this secession, they are separated from the foundation on which the whole edifice must rest. They are therefore outside the edifice itself; and for this very reason they are separated from the fold, whose leader is the Chief Pastor; they are exiled from the Kingdom, the keys of which were given by Christ to Peter alone.

These things enable us to see the heavenly ideal, and the divine exemplar, of the constitution of the Christian commonwealth, namely: When the Divine Founder decreed that the Church should be one in faith, in government, and in communion, He chose Peter and his successors as the principle and centre, as it were, of this unity. Wherefore St. Cyprian says: "The following is a short and easy proof of the faith. The Lord saith to Peter: 'I say to thee thou art Peter'; on him alone He buildeth His Church; and although after His Resurrection He gives a similar power to all the Apostles and says: 'As the Father hath sent me,' &c., still in order to make the necessary unity clear, by His own authority He laid down the source of that unity as beginning from one" (De Unit. Eccl., n. 4).

Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis cognitum, §§ 14,15

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Leo XIII against Leo XIV on Synodal Church – Part III
The Bishops’ College & Councils Must Obey the Pope

TIA | August 23, 2025

In today's posting against "synodality" or "collegiality" we read that Pope Leo XIII directly condemned the two more common errors in the Conciliar Church. To wit:
1. The College of Bishops has more power than the Pope;
2. Council Vatican II has more power than any Pope.

These two pillars used for the usurpation of Progressivism are shaken, broken and thrown to the ground by the excerpt from the Encyclical Satis cognitum that we transcribe below.

With this excerpt the reader now has three powerful texts from the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII to destroy the erroneous progressivist doctrine – heresy, to say it plainly – that unfortunately has been taught since Vatican II by the Conciliar Popes themselves.



Pope Leo XIII

But the Episcopal Order is rightly judged to be in communion with Peter, as Christ commanded, if it be subject to and obeys Peter; otherwise it necessarily becomes a lawless and disorderly group. It is not sufficient for the due preservation of the unity of the faith that the head should merely have been charged with the office of superintendent, or should have been invested solely with a power of direction. But it is absolutely necessary that he should have received real and sovereign authority which the whole community is bound to obey. What had the Son of God in view when He promised the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter alone?

Biblical usage and the unanimous teaching of the Fathers clearly show that supreme authority is designated in the passage by the word keys. Nor is it lawful to interpret in a different sense what was given to Peter alone, and what was given to the other Apostles conjointly with him.

If the power of binding, loosening, and feeding confers upon each and every one of the Bishops the successors of the Apostles a real authority to rule the people committed to him, certainly the same power must have the same effect in his case to whom the duty of feeding the lambs and sheep has been assigned by God. "Christ constituted [Peter] not only Pastor, but Pastor of Pastors; Peter therefore feeds the lambs and feeds the sheep, feeds the children and feeds the mothers, governs the subjects and rules the Prelates, because the lambs and the sheep form the whole of the Church" (S. Brunonis Episcopi Signiensis Comment. in Joan., part III, cap. 21, n. 55).

Hence those remarkable expressions of the ancients concerning St. Peter, which most clearly set forth the fact that he was placed in the highest degree of dignity and authority. They frequently call him "the Prince of the College of the Disciples; the Prince of the holy Apostles; the leader of that choir; the mouthpiece of all the Apostles; the head of that family; the ruler of the whole world; the first of the Apostles; the safeguard of the Church." In this sense St. Bernard writes as follows to Pope Eugenius: "Who art thou? The Great Priest – the High Priest. Thou art the Prince of Bishops and the heir of the Apostles. ... Thou art he to whom the keys were given.

"There are, it is true, other gatekeepers of Heaven and pastors of flocks, but thou are so much the more glorious as thou bast inherited a different and more glorious name than all the rest. They [the Bishops] have flocks consigned to them, one to each; to thee all the flocks are confided as one flock to one shepherd, and not alone the sheep, but the Shepherds.

"You ask how I prove this? From the words of the Lord. To which – I do not say – of the Bishops, but even of the Apostles have all the sheep been so absolutely and unreservedly committed? If thou lovest me, Peter, feed my sheep. Which sheep? Of this or that country, or kingdom? My sheep, He says: to whom therefore is it not evident that He does not designate some, but all? We can make no exception where no distinction is made" (De Consideratione, lib. II, cap. 8).

But it is opposed to the truth, and in evident contradiction with the divine constitution of the Church, to hold that while each Bishop is individually bound to obey the authority of the Roman Pontiffs, taken collectively the Bishops are not so bound. For it is the nature and object of a foundation to support the unity of the whole edifice and to give stability to it, rather than to each component part; and in the present case this is much more applicable, since Christ the Lord wished that by the strength and solidity of the foundation the gates of Hell should be prevented from prevailing against the Church. All are agreed that the divine promise must be understood of the Church as a whole, and not of any certain portions of it. These can indeed be overcome by the assaults of the powers of Hell, as in point of fact has befallen some of them.

Moreover, he who is set over the whole flock must have authority, not only over the sheep dispersed throughout the Church, but also when they are assembled together. Do the sheep when they are all assembled together rule and guide the shepherd? Do the successors of the Apostles assembled together constitute the foundation on which the successor of St. Peter rests in order to derive therefrom strength and stability?

Surely jurisdicton and authority belong to him in whose power have been placed the keys of the Kingdom taken collectively. And as the Bishops, each in his own Diocese, command with real power not only individuals but the whole community, so the Roman Pontiffs, whose jurisdiction extends to the whole Christian Commonwealth, must have all its parts, even taken collectively, subject and obedient to their authority. Christ the Lord, as we have quite sufficiently shown, made Peter and his successors His vicars, to exercise for ever in the Church the power which He exercised during His mortal life. Can the Apostolic College be said to have been above its Master in authority?

This power over the Episcopal College to which we refer, and which is clearly set forth in Holy Writ, has ever been acknowledged and attested by the Church, as is clear from the teaching of General Councils. "We read that the Roman Pontiff has pronounced judgments on the Prelates of all the churches; we do not read that anybody has pronounced sentence on him" (Hadrianus II, in Allocutione III, ad Synodum Romanum an. 869, cf. Actionem VII, Conc. Constantinopolitani IV).

The reason for which is stated thus: "there is no authority greater than that of the Apostolic See" (Nicholaus in Epist. LXXXVI ad Michael. Imperat.) wherefore Gelasius on the decrees of Councils says: "That which the First See has not approved of cannot stand; but what it has thought well to decree has been received by the whole Church" (Epist. XXVI, ad Episcopos Dardaniae, n. 5).

It has ever been unquestionably the office of the Roman Pontiffs to ratify or to reject the decrees of Councils. Leo the Great rescinded the acts of the Conciliabulum of Ephesus. Damasus rejected those of Rimini, and Hadrian I those of Constantinople. The 28th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon, by the very fact that it lacks the assent and approval of the Apostolic See, is admitted by all to be worthless.

Rightly, therefore, has Leo X laid down in the 5th Council of Lateran "that the Roman Pontiff alone, as having authority over all Councils, has full jurisdiction and power to summon, to transfer, to dissolve Councils, as is clear, not only from the testimony of Holy Writ, from the teaching of the Fathers and of the Roman Pontiffs, and from the decrees of the sacred canons, but from the teaching of the very Councils themselves."

Indeed, Holy Writ attests that the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven were given to Peter alone, and that the power of binding and loosening was granted to the Apostles and to Peter; but there is nothing to show that the Apostles received supreme power without Peter, and against Peter. Such power they certainly did not receive from Jesus Christ. Wherefore, in the decree of the Vatican Council as to the nature and authority of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, no newly conceived opinion is set forth, but the venerable and constant belief of every age (Sess. IV, cap. 3).

Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis cognitum, § 15