The article "Burke’s Trans Nun Amnesia: How a Cardinal Who Approved a Male “Sister” Now Hosts a Conference Warning About Them" by Chris Jackson, published on August 14, 2025, articulates a sharp critique of the contemporary Catholic Church's leadership, pointing to a series of contradictions and hypocrisies. The author identifies five central issues: 1) The alleged duplicity of Cardinal Raymond Burke, who now warns against the ordination of transsexuals, despite having previously approved a congregation co-founded by a man who had undergone sex-change surgery. 2) Pope Leo XIV's official welcome of the dissenting movement "We Are Church," which openly advocates for positions contrary to Catholic doctrine, such as women's ordination and the LGBTQ+ agenda. 3) The inclusion of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) in the Vatican's Jubilee calendar alongside LGBT activist groups, suggesting a strategy of neutralization rather than a restoration of Tradition. 4) The mass apostasy of Catholics (nine out of ten), which the author attributes not to a lack of community but to the systematic demolition of the supernatural faith, sacred liturgy, and clear morality in the post-conciliar period. 5) The legacy of Pope Francis, exemplified by a "Children's Encyclical" focused on climate activism, which replaces catechesis and soteriology with a secular sustainability agenda. The article's central thesis is that the post-conciliar hierarchy operates a "double game," affirming doctrine in theory while undermining it in practice, resulting in a loss of credibility and the ongoing disintegration of the Church.
The phenomena described in Jackson's article (2025) are not isolated events or mere personal failings, but rather symptoms of a systemic disorientation that has afflicted the Church for decades. The apparent contradiction between discourse and practice, the peaceful coexistence of orthodoxy and heterodoxy under the same institutional roof, and the substitution of supernatural ends for temporal objectives constitute the manifestations of a profound identity crisis. It is a variation that, while preserving certain nomenclatures, attacks the very substance of the Catholic faith.⚖️The Desistence of Authority and the Primacy of the Pastoral
The case of the prelate who, at different times, adopts opposing stances on the same fundamental issue—sexual identity in the context of religious life—exemplifies a broader phenomenon: the disintegration of authority. True ecclesiastical authority is not based on arbitrariness, but on its coherence with an immutable body of doctrine. When "pastoral discretion" overrides ontological and theological principles, authority ceases to govern and begins to manage contradictions.
This mode of operation, an institutionalized "Yes and No" (Sic et Non), reflects a profound uncertainty (Amerio, 2011, p. 125). The decision to permit an anomaly in the name of pastoralism, only to later condemn the same anomaly in theory, reveals an authority that has renounced its function to teach, correct, and, when necessary, exclude error. The direct consequence is the paralysis of governance and the loss of clarity, as the Church begins to "strike at herself" through her own ambiguities (Amerio, 2011, p. 6).
🤝Dialogue and Ecumenism as Instruments of Neutralization
The reception of openly dissenting movements and the simultaneous inclusion of traditionalist groups and progressive activists in the same official calendar are manifestations of a deviation in the concept of unity. Post-conciliar ecumenism, which originally aimed at the reintegration of the separated into the one Church of Christ, has transformed into a perpetual "dialogue" where truth is no longer the final objective, but one of many voices in an endless conversation (Amerio, 2011, p. 281-283).
In this new paradigm, unity is no longer conceived as a convergence in truth, but as coexistence in a "big tent" that accommodates contradictory theses. The inclusion of the SSPX alongside LGBT activists does not represent a victory for Tradition, but its assimilation into a system that neutralizes all positions by treating them as equivalent. The essential antithesis between the Church and the world—or, in this case, between Catholic doctrine and the ideologies that deny it—is dissolved. The goal is no longer conversion but coexistence, a political end, not a religious one (Amerio, 2011, p. 443).
📉The Evaporation of the Supernatural and the Silent Apostasy
The alarming statistic of the loss of the faithful is the logical and inevitable consequence of a process of the "desubstantiation" of the faith. The proposal of merely sociological solutions, such as "more community life" or "youth groups," reveals a failure to diagnose the root of the problem. People do not abandon the Church for lack of social interaction, but because the Church herself has ceased to offer that which is her reason for being: access to the supernatural.
When religion is reduced to its secondary and subordinate effects—such as the promotion of peace, social justice, or ecological awareness—it becomes a "secondary Christianity" (Amerio, 2011, p. 400). This horizontal Christianity, focused on man and his temporal problems, cannot compete with the countless secular organizations that perform these same tasks with greater efficiency. The degradation of the sacred in the liturgy, the dissolution of catechesis into experiential pedagogies, and the replacement of soteriology with sustainability empty the Church of its unique and irreplaceable content. The result is indifference and exodus, for no one feels the need to remain in an institution that has become a pale reflection of the world it was meant to convert.
🌀Conclusion: The Double Game as a System
The "double game" identified by Jackson (2025) is not a conscious strategy but the inevitable result of the crisis. It is the manifestation of a mindset that has lost the perception of the incompatibility between being and non-being. The contemporary Church attempts to maintain unity of governance while permitting the loss of the unity of faith and worship (Amerio, 2011, p. 562-566). The theoretical affirmation of doctrine serves as an alibi for practical permissiveness, creating an illusion of continuity while the rupture advances. This duplicity is not a temporary deviation but the very modus operandi of a structure that, having renounced the clarity of its principles, can only survive by managing its own internal contradictions, until they consume it completely.
📚References
Amerio, Romano. Iota Unum: Estudio sobre las transformaciones en la Iglesia en el siglo XX. Versión corregida, 2011.
Jackson, Chris. Burke’s Trans Nun Amnesia: How a Cardinal Who Approved a Male “Sister” Now Hosts a Conference Warning About Them.