Today in the Vatican it is possible to identify a plurality of centers of power, operating within a complex dialectic between strategic convergence and internal tensions. Bergoglio acted as several sovereigns and emperors of the past did, that is, he concentrated power in his own hands during his lifetime, even going beyond what is granted to a Pope by divine law, while at the same time preparing a deliberate fragmentation of this very power that would explode at the moment of his death, precisely to prevent a single successor from monopolizing it and changing its direction.
Tetrarchy in the Vatican?
This is the technique employed by great emperors of the past, such as Genghis Khan or (perhaps a more fitting example in our case) Diocletian, the Roman emperor who prepared the Tetrarchy, that is, a system with four emperors in order to preserve the political project and to prevent the fate of the entire Empire from depending on the will of a single successor.
Paradoxically, the Pope has become, among these four new major centers of power, the least “influential” of them all, although on paper he remains the summit of the Church from every point of view; and he certainly remains so, because the Church is of divine institution, which no one can modify according to his own arbitrary will.
In addition to the Pope, among these centers of power we find the Secretariat of State, which retains control over the most delicate international dossiers (such as the secret agreements with China and multilateral dialogue) and exercises pervasive control over the bureaucratic machinery through offices such as that of the Substitute (a role formerly held by the controversial Edgar Peña Parra), but above all through its influence over episcopal appointments in synergy with the Secretariat of the Dicastery for Bishops.
The third tetrarch is the Roman Curia as a whole. Once at the service of the Pope, over the last twelve years it has become a revolutionary bureaucratic and doctrinal apparatus that dictates to the Pope the agenda to be followed.
The proposal for the new canon states that the totality of the baptized, having received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, ‘cannot err in matters of faith.’
Leo XIV himself said at the beginning of his pontificate: “Popes pass, the Curia remains”: an announcement that appeared revealing and programmatic. The Bergoglian Curia now acts by seeking to preserve the acceleration initiated by its founding father and finds its nerve centers in the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, a true sounding board for the environmentalist agenda and a privileged interface with the Popular Movements and the UN; in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, until now led by Cardinal Fernández; and in the Dicastery for Divine Worship, which intends to pursue a precise agenda of liturgical reform (aka demolition).
There is a fourth and final center of power that Bergoglio established during his years of rule, namely the Secretariat of the Synod. Led by Cardinal Mario Grech and including key figures from the progressive world such as Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich (who is its General Rapporteur), the Secretariat of the Synod is not merely an organizational body, but the driving force of the ecclesiological engineering of the post-conciliar Church. A laboratory that realized the dream of many revolutionary Jesuits of the last century.
The Secretariat collects, synthesizes, and often steers the impulses coming from local Churches and the more “advanced” European episcopates (such as the German and Belgian ones), serving as a buffer between the most radical reform proposals and the authority of the Pope.
A Proposal to Amend Canon Law
On September 29, the Secretariat of the Synod published the final report of the canonical commission, led by Filippo Iannone, the Prefect for Bishops chosen by Leo XIV, and by Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, Bergoglio’s leading canonist and architect of some of the most important legislative reforms carried out by the Argentinian.
This report proposes restructuring the Latin Code of Canon Law to make it more consistent with the new “needs” of the synodal Church. The main reform proposals mostly include granting laypeople – both men and women – governmental, judicial, and liturgical roles that until now have been reserved to the ordained clergy.
The sensus fidei is the reflection in the people of God of the faith preached by the teaching Church and is what confirms Tradition, without judging it.
For example, the reform of canon 1425 §4, which would provide for the possibility of a layperson (man or woman) serving as a “sole judge” in first-instance trials involving serious sanctions such as dismissal of a priest from the clerical state and the declaration or imposition of excommunication; the reform of canon 463 §1, which would provide for the requirement that laypeople constitute the majority of members in diocesan synods; the reform of 512 §4, which would allow the appointment to diocesan pastoral councils of Christians belonging to “Churches not in full communion with the Catholic Church”; the reform of canons 230 §3 and 1112 §1, delegating to laypeople (men or women) the authority to assist at marriages without the need for prior authorization from the Holy See and even to lead the liturgical prayers proper to this sacrament.
According to statements by Cardinal Grech and the Commission, the purpose of this reform would be to convert into binding legal norms the ecclesiology that “emerged from the synodal journey.” Canon law is understood as the juridical expression of the Church’s perception of herself, necessary so that theological reflection on so-called “co-responsibility” does not remain purely theoretical.
The Reinterpretation of the Dogmatic Concept of Infallibility
Understandably, many analysts focused on this aspect of the canonical reform proposed by the Synod, namely the extension of governance to laypeople. Less attention, however, has been given to another proposal by the same commission, in my view more serious and important, although it is specular and directly connected to the one that received greater attention.
Among the proposed amendments, in fact, the rewriting of canon 749 §1 reinterprets the concept of infallibility. This is not a minor amendment, since infallibility is a very important theological and dogmatic concept for Catholic doctrine.
Infallibility, traditionally restricted to the Supreme Pontiff and, in a subordinate sense, to the College of Bishops under specific conditions, is now extended to the entire body of the faithful.
The proposal for the new canon states that the totality of the baptized, having received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, “cannot err in matters of faith.” Such infallibility would manifest itself through universal consensus. In this way, the “supernatural sense of faith of the entire people… from the bishops down to the last of the lay faithful” would become the new measure (at least apparently) of truth.
Thus we witness the democratization and, ultimately, the relativization of Dogma.
Note the usual lexical manipulation, typical of neo-modernism. “Sense,” that is, feeling, elevated to a criterion. Catholic Tradition always regarded the sensus fidei, that is, the people’s sentiment of faith, with great respect, but it has never considered it a measure of truth, also because, in the past, there have been several moments in which the majority of baptized faithful – laity and clergy – believed in erroneous doctrines: consider the Arian crisis or the great diffusion of Protestant and related ideas between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Every feeling is a sign of something real, but this does not mean that it is necessarily a sign of truth. It certainly has an important experiential dimension worthy of consideration, but it is not an autonomous source of Revelation – as some modernist theologians would have it – precisely because a feeling cannot be authoritative.
Some great theologians of the past, such as St. Vincent of Lérins, St. Robert Bellarmine, and John of St. Thomas, taught that the con-sensus of the faithful is worthy of consideration because it is a privileged witness to Tradition, that is, to the transmission of the same doctrine from the time of the Apostles.
St. Vincent of Lérins coined the famous maxim: quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus (“everywhere, always, by everyone”). When one considers history and sees that a certain doctrine has been continuously transmitted and believed, especially at the liturgical level, then that doctrine is worthy of belief. Therefore, the sensus fidei is the reflection in the people of God of the faith preached by the teaching Church and is what confirms Tradition, without judging it.
One could also say that, traditionally, the People of God must be listened to in order to understand how the faith is lived, not to establish what is true. It may also happen, and it has often happened in the history of the Church, that because of a crisis of authority the People of God live the faith badly. In such a case, the People of God must not be indulged, but admonished and corrected.
A New Conception of Power in the Church?
The proposal for canonical reform reverses this traditional vision. It stands in continuity with a theological tendency of recent times that seeks to reform the traditional concept of the power of governance in the Church, according to which authority arises from God through charism. We will return to this shortly.
Traditionally speaking, in the Church there are two parallel hierarchies, united but distinct: the hierarchy of order and the hierarchy of jurisdiction. The first has the bishop at its summit, who possesses the fullness of Holy Orders; the second has the Pope at its summit, who possesses direct, universal, and absolute jurisdiction over ecclesiastical laws.
Teaching, in fact, is the noblest act of governance, because it guides the will not through coercion, but through conviction.
Over the centuries, various schools of thought have arisen to study, deepen, and understand to what extent the bond between these two hierarchies should exist, but the majority of authoritative theologians have always held that consecration, and episcopacy in particular, makes the subject especially “suited” to receiving the power of governance, while the two hierarchies – as stated – remain formally distinct and are not confused with one another.
This is, moreover, fitting to the very nature of the Church, which is not only hierarchical but also sacral in its foundations, in which the teaching Church and the learning Church must remain clearly distinct for proper functioning, and where the munus docendi (“office of teaching”) is traditionally considered part of the munus regendi (“office of governance”). Only those who govern also have teaching authority: the Pope above all, and then the bishops united to him. Teaching, in fact, is the noblest act of governance, because it guides the will not through coercion, but through conviction.
Moreover, it is fitting that the power of governance should not derive immediately and automatically from Holy Orders (this too being a tendency of thought that spread in the post-Council period, especially in conservative circles), also in order to avoid the presumption that merely being consecrated is sufficient to govern legitimately.
The two hierarchies must nevertheless remain tendentially united (although there have always been cases in history of laypeople to whom jurisdiction was delegated), both to maintain the unity of the three munera, that is, the offices of Christ (to sanctify, govern, and teach), and because the Church is neither merely a juridical society nor merely a sacramental reality: it is both.
Now, if governance is distributed horizontally, teaching also becomes horizontal, and the one who teaches is also the one who learns. Thus we witness the democratization and, ultimately, the relativization of Dogma. Exactly what the modernists want: to modify attitudes, while perhaps leaving doctrine intact on the pages of catechisms.
From this perspective, the munus docendi tends progressively to transform from an act of governance into an act of consultation; the Magisterium ceases to be conceived primarily as the objective criterion and sole legitimate interpreter of the twofold source of Revelation (Sacred Scripture and Tradition), and instead becomes the interpreter of a faith presumed already to be present and widespread among the people of God.
What the neo-modernists refuse to understand out of ideological obstinacy is that reality is by nature monarchical: this fact cannot be evaded.
The charismatic vision of ecclesiastical authority was mentioned. Under the pontificate of Francis (and in the reflection of many cardinals close to him), the idea has emerged of completely severing the power of governance from the power of order, in order to anchor it in the transversal dignity of Baptism: two hierarchies no longer distinct but united, but neither confused with each other as certain conservative theologians would have it, but rather distinct and independent. A sort of ecclesiological Nestorianism.
On February 16, 2026, for example, Cardinal Marc Ouellet defended the lay appointments made by Francis, calling them a prophetic shift and proposing the development of an even more “charismatic” vision of Church governance. According to Ouellet, it would be Baptism – not the sacrament of Holy Orders – that makes the faithful “suited” to participate in a stable and proper manner in ecclesiastical governance.
Even earlier, in November 2025, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio suggested in one of his books modifying canon law precisely in order to stabilize and structure lay participation in the governance of the Church according to this “charismatic” vision. With this proposal from the Synod’s canonical commission, this project reached a greater degree of concretization.
The Tetrarchies of the Past Always Collapsed
In conclusion to this brief analysis, I would like to propose a reflection on Bergoglio’s strategy of dividing centers of power in order to preserve control of the Church’s direction along the path he had undertaken. Bergoglio’s strategy, as we said at the beginning, is not a new strategy in history.
Yet history itself teaches us that tetrarchies, or more generally systems of collegial government among several formally equal sovereigns, tend to fail for a structural reason: supreme authority is by its nature difficult to share stably.
This happens because every complex organization sooner or later requires a definitive decision. What the neo-modernists refuse to understand out of ideological obstinacy is that reality is by nature monarchical: this fact cannot be evaded.
The Church will rise again through those who have known how to preserve the true Catholic Tradition.
In the event of conflict, when there is no truly common superior, the dispute inevitably tends to turn into internal struggle. Moreover, successors do not necessarily share the founder’s project. Sooner or later someone may arise who begins to ask himself: why be one of four when I can be the only one? And the experience of the post-conciliar Church teaches us that personalism is not exactly an unlikely temptation for bishops…
Furthermore, the nature of the human being means that people tend to attach themselves to personality more than to structures. If there are four centers of power, four patronage networks inevitably arise and end up competing with one another. In reality, of all these limitations, this is perhaps the one of which Bergoglio was most aware.
Indeed, as is gradually emerging throughout the world, Francis created in the Vatican a veritable “society of mutual blackmail”: key roles entrusted to prelates burdened by serious allegations or by affairs that have never been entirely clarified, who are guaranteed protection in exchange for absolute loyalty to the line of government. Those who belong to the entourage of power thus feel protected by the higher authority or by the other converging centers of power as long as they remain aligned with the power agenda. As soon as conformity is betrayed, the existence of a judicial case or a complaint is revealed through the media. Consider the unfortunately well-known “McCarrick network” in the United States or the “Lute case” in Peru.
This gives us further hope, in truth, in the fact that modernists do not have a long life. As the Gospel says, “do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, nor secret that will not be made known” (Matthew 10:26). The proposal of the Secretariat of the Synod to redefine infallibility and democratize the Church is part of a deliberate strategy of fragmenting authority, but this strategy is already structurally destined to fail. The Church will rise again through those who have known how to preserve the true Catholic Tradition.
Gaetano Masciullo, The Remnant Newspaper
