(LifeSiteNews) — Pietro Parolin is widely regarded as one of the leading candidates who may be elected at the next conclave. Parolin was named a cardinal by Francis in 2014 and has been a member of his influential Council of Cardinal Advisers since that year. He played a prominent role in Francis’s radical revolution and has been a strong supporter of “synodality”, which he sees as a continuation of Vatican II.
Parolin is most notorious for his collaboration with Communist China, which has led to the increased persecution of the “underground Church.” Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former Archbishop of Hong Kong, has accused Parolin of “shameless surrender” to communism and of “producing” a “united schismatic Church” in China.
In 2018, Zen said:
I don’t think he has faith. He is just a good diplomat in a very secular, mundane meaning.
As early as 2013, Zen had warned that Parolin “has a poisoned mind” and that “he believes in diplomacy, not in our faith.”
As we will see below, there is much evidence to indicate that Zen was correct and that Parolin, by means of heresy, schism, and even apostasy, has separated himself from the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ.
Parolin’s core principles – the ‘conciliar way’
Parolin was born in Schiavon, Italy in 1955. He entered seminary at the age of 14 during the tumultuous aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. The Council and its reception are the key factors in understanding the course of Parolin’s life, especially his work as a member of the Vatican’s diplomatic service and his open collaboration with the enemies of the Church.
Like most ecclesiastics of his generation, Parolin welcomed Vatican II as a decisive break with what the Catholic Church had previously taught. He holds that at Vatican II “the Church abandoned the initial dialectic” she had adopted towards liberalism and initiated “the establishment of a new relationship with modernity.” In a 2017 lecture called The Council: A Prophecy That Continues With Pope Francis, he asserted that “Vatican II was a re-reading of the Gospel in light of contemporary culture.” The Council paved the way for “a church that lives in a conciliar way,” and paved the way for modern “synodality.” “In the end,” he remarked, “is this [synodality] not the most beautiful inheritance that the council could have prepared for us?”
Parolin holds, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that Vatican II led to a renewal of the Church. In the same speech he declared:
Vatican II produced a renewal movement that simply comes from the same Gospel. Its fruits are enormous.
For Parolin, as for many of his contemporaries, this renewal is to be brought about through compromise with the proponents of liberalism and naturalism, rather than by combatting these errors. This theme runs through the evidence presented below.
This evidence provides strong grounds for holding that Parolin is publicly separated from the visible body of the Church and is thus incapable of holding ecclesiastical office. If this is so, any attempt to elect him to the papacy would be null and void.
This conclusion is founded on the teaching of the Catholic Church, – infallible because taught by the universal and ordinary magisterium – that only those who fulfil the following conditions are members of the visible body of the Church: (i) valid baptism, (ii) public profession of the Catholic faith, (iii) obedience to lawful ecclesiastical authority.
By divine law, the pope must be a member of the Catholic Church. If a candidate for the papacy is not a member of the Church, his election would be invalid. If there are well-founded reasons for doubting that a candidate is a member of the Catholic Church, the election would be doubtful, and a doubtful pope is not to be accepted as the pope.
For more on the criteria established by divine law for a valid election to the papacy, and on the question of the doubtful pope see here.
Evidence of Pietro Parolin’s separation from the Catholic Church
- Support for Amoris Laetitia
Amoris Laetitia contains at least seven heresies. Profession of the doctrine of Amoris Laetitia is incompatible with the public profession of the Catholic faith.
In 2018 Parolin said that we must “look at Amoris Laetitia as a great gift.”
He acknowledged the novelty of the doctrine:
A change in paradigm, inherent in the text itself, that is asked of us: this new spirit, this new approach!
The document, he said, “resulted from a new paradigm which Pope Francis is carrying forward with wisdom, prudence, and patience.” He also said:
I believe Amoris laetitia – besides being the Church’s embrace of the family and its problems in today’s world, truly helping to incarnate the Gospel within the family, which is already a Gospel: the Gospel of the family – is at the same time a invitation for families to help by collaborating and contributing to the Church’s growth.
It was by a rescript in the name of Parolin that the letter of Francis to the Argentinian bishops, which confirmed his heretical intentions in Amoris Laetitia, was declared an act of the “authentic magisterium.” LifeSiteNews reported on this here.
- Rejection of Catholic teaching on capital punishment
Parolin has publicly aligned himself with Francis’s rejection of the Catholic Church’s infallible teaching on capital punishment. He has said:
It’s a question that is particularly dear to the Holy Father, who last August 2 decided to update the Catechism of the Catholic Church. ‘For a long time — reports the new formulation — recourse to the death penalty by the legitimate authorities, after a regular process, held an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable means, even if extreme, for the protection of the common good. Today the awareness is ever more alive that the dignity of a person isn’t lost, not even after committing very grave crimes. Moreover, a new understanding has spread of the meaning of penal sanctions on the part of the State. In fine, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which guarantee the onerous defense of citizens but, at the same time, do not take away definitively from the offender the possibility of redeeming himself. Therefore, in the light of the Gospel, the Church teaches that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it attempts against the inviolability and dignity of the person” [Parolin’s extended quotation is from Francis] and she commits herself with determination to its abolition in the whole.
The Catholic Church teaches that the state has the right to have recourse to capital punishment under certain conditions. This doctrine is infallible by virtue of being proposed by the universal and ordinary magisterium. To reject it is heretical and to depart from the public profession of the Catholic faith.
- Rejection of Catholic teaching on false religions and profession of naturalism
The Abu Dhabi declaration, signed by Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, proposes a naturalistic view of religion. LifeSiteNews has previously explained how this approach constitutes the sin of apostasy – the complete repudiation of the Christian revelation.
Dr. John Lamont has argued that the Abu Dhabi declaration, and especially its claim that God wills a diversity of religions, constitutes a “public repudiation of the Catholic faith,” and Professor Joseph Seifert has said that in this text Francis “professes the sum total of all heresies.”
Parolin has publicly praised the Abu Dhabi declaration and said that “it represents for the Catholic Church the important culmination of a journey begun with the conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate.”
Parolin has made clear his own adherence to naturalism. In an interview with Vatican News in February 2019 he said:
[T]he Pope goes above all – as he himself said in the video message he sent on the occasion of the trip – to write a new page – at least this is the expectation, the expectation and the hope – to write a new page in the history of relations between religions, confirming above all the concept of fraternity. And so it will be a message to all the leaders of religions and all members of the religions so that they commit themselves in a common way to building unity, peace and harmony in the world.
And
I believe they have a fundamental role because once again religions are together to affirm the message of universal fraternity. We are all brothers, we all have the same dignity, we share the same rights and the same duties, we are children of the same Father in heaven. It is therefore to find the root of our brotherhood which is the common belonging to humanity.
- Ambiguous response to Fiducia Supplicans
The Vatican instruction Fiducia Supplicans authorized the blessing of same-sex “couples.” The document leads to (i) sacrilege and (ii) directly confirming men and women in sin. It is directly opposed to the ends for which the Catholic Church was founded, which are the greater glory of God, and the salvation of souls. All Catholics have a duty to profess the Catholic faith and to manifest that profession explicitly under certain circumstances, such as when directly challenged. Parolin failed in his obligation to profess the truth.
When questioned about the text, Parolin said:
This document has aroused very strong reactions; this means that a very delicate, very sensitive point has been touched; it will take further investigation.
He explicitly refused to affirm the Catholic faith when asked to do so:
I do not enter into these considerations; the reactions tell us that it has touched a very sensitive point.
And he welcomed the scandal caused by the document:
If these ferments serve to walk according to the Gospel to give answers to today, these ferments are also welcome.
- Distorting Catholic teaching on contraception
The Catholic Church teaches, as defined in Pope Pius XI’s encyclical letter Casti Connubi, that the use contraception is intrinsically evil:
[A]ny use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.
Parolin would seem to reject this doctrine. In October 2018, Parolin spoke at an event focusing on a new book, The Birth of an Encyclical: ‘Humanae Vitae’ in the Light of the Vatican Archives, by Msgr. Gilfredo Marengo. Francis had given Marengo access to private documents in the Vatican archives. Of this book the recently launched Cardinals Report states:
Catholics opposed to Humanae Vitae’s central teaching hailed Marengo’s work as a ‘milestone’ that relativizes the encyclical; other Catholic scholars called Marengo a ‘bitter critic’ of the encyclical’s doctrinal core.
In his remarks at the event, Parolin also adopted a relativizing approach. Rather than acknowledging that the Church teaches that contraceptive acts are intrinsically evil, Parolin provided alternative, utilitarian, reasons for the Church’s approach to birth control. He said the Church was “at the beginning focused on the concern for the possible spread of anti-natalist policies,” and after that there was “the consideration that the obligation to follow moral principles was the only path to make the Church convincing in the world.”
And further Parolin notes, “these two positions cannot be imposed in abstract way,” but they must be harmonized with a “pastoral – ecclesial wisdom that cannot be found in many of the protagonists of those years.”
In other words, Parolin first proposes secondary grounds for the doctrine as if they were primary, and then states that even these cannot be “imposed.”
Parolin’s involvement in the Knights of Malta scandal also indicates his attitude towards the Church’s teaching on contraception. Parolin supported an official of the Knights, Albrecht von Boeselager, who had been dismissed after resisting disciplinary measures taken against him. These had been imposed because he was responsible for distributing hundreds and thousands of contraceptives. Parolin established a commission which vindicated von Boeselager, who was reinstated. The Master General, Fra’ Matthew Festing, and Cardinal Burke as Cardinal-Protector of the Knights of Malta, had both opposed von Boeselager’s actions contrary to the faith, and were subsequently removed from their positions.
More can be read about the scandal here.
- Collaboration with Communism
Pietro Parolin, serving as the Vatican’s “Secretary of State,” oversaw the 2018 Vatican-China agreement. This agreement led to the legitimation by Francis of a schismatic sect, the “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association,” which is controlled and directed by the Communist regime. The agreement has contributed to the persecution of the “underground Church,” which for decades resisted pressure to comply with the Communist party’s demands.
Cardinal Zen, former Archbishop of Hong Kong, has accused Parolin and the Vatican of “selling out the Catholic Church in China” and of “shameless surrender.” He has expressed fears Francis and Parolin are “legitimizing the schismatic church in China.” Zen has reported that those who refuse to collaborate with communism are coming under increased pressure and have been left confused and unsure how to act.
“Mainland brothers and sisters fear not losing all they have, the prison cell or shedding their blood,” Zen wrote “Their greatest suffering is being sold out by their ‘loved ones.’” And Zen said:
They’re giving the flock into the mouths of the wolves. It’s an incredible betrayal.
In 2020, Zen was even blunter:
Parolin is calling a united schismatic Church, which he has produced, ‘Catholic.’
As seen in the introduction, Zen has twice expressed his conviction that Parolin does not possess the Catholic faith.
More on the Vatican-China Agreement can be read here.
Parolin has also participated in a meeting of the secretive globalist Bilderberg group. LifeSiteNews’ report can be found here.
- Support for Traditionis Custodes and the suppression of the Roman liturgy
Parolin has supported the suppression of the Roman liturgy in Traditionis Custodes.
The Cardinal’s Report notes:
[T]he cardinal himself has made it clear in private that he is firmly opposed to the traditional liturgy. He not only fully backed Traditionis Custodes but played a ‘key role’ in its creation. He views the papal decree as part of a “return to the ‘pure’ Council,” and links it with other reforms of Pope Francis such as Amoris Laetitia.
The Report also notes:
In June 2024, it emerged that Cardinal Parolin was backing even fuller restrictions, and perhaps even a blanket ban, on the Traditional Latin Mass. Parolin was reportedly joined in his support by the prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, and the apostolic nuncio to Paris, Italian Archbishop Celestino Migliore.
Journalist Diane Montagna has named Parolin, along with Marc Ouellet and Giuseppe Versaldi, as the three cardinals who took the initiative in pushing for further restrictions on the traditional liturgy.
To subvert the received rites of the Roman Church is a schismatic act, as Francisco Suarez S.J., the “Doctor Eximius,” explained:
And in this second mode the Pope could be schismatic, in case he did not want to have due union and coordination with the whole body of the Church as would be the case if he tried to excommunicate the whole Church, or if he wanted to subvert all the ecclesiastical ceremonies founded on apostolic tradition, as we observed by Cajetan (ad II-II, q. 39) and, with greater amplitude, Torquemada (1. 4, c.11).
Cardinal Juan de Torquemada wrote in the 15th century:
The Pope can separate himself without any reasonable cause, just for pure self will, from the body of the Church and the college of priests. He will do this if he does not observe that which the Church Universal observes on the basis of the Tradition of the Apostles… or if he did not observe that which was universally ordained by the universal Councils or by the authority of the Apostolic See above all in relation to Divine Worship.
For example, not wishing to observe personally something from the universal customs of the Church, or the universal rite of the ecclesiastical cult. This would take place in case he did not wish to celebrate with the sacred vestments, or in consecrated places, or with candles, or if he did not wish to make “The Sign of the Cross” like the other priests make it, or other similar things which have been decreed in a general way for perpetual utility… Departing in such a way, and with pertinacity, from the universal observance of the Church, the Pope would be able to fall into schism.
What is true of the pope in this regard is true of every member of the Church. A man who refuses to observe, and even subverts, the received rites of the Roman Church is a schismatic.
- Pledged to follow Francis’s ‘irreversible course’
At a book launch in Rome in April 2024, Parolin was asked: “What will become of the reforms initiated by Pope Francis?”
He answered: “To this question is added another, which for some sounds like a threat and for others like an illusion: ‘is there a risk of a U-turn?’”
And he continued:
Discernment is not merely an intuition, but the fruit of constant prayer in the Spirit, and it will show us – in the longer periods of time of those who know how to exercise patience – how to proceed and what (of it) should be institutionalised. Precisely because the (Holy) Spirit is at work, there will be no turning back.
Conclusions
Parolin’s own public words and actions provide strong evidence to support the conclusion that he is a public heretic, a public schismatic, and a public apostate. If he were elected, we have his own words to indicate that he would follow the same course as Francis: “there will be no turning back.”
Under these conditions it is not possible for him to be validly elected as the pope.
