Hirpinus, often referred to as Fr. Hirpinus, is the pseudonym adopted by a traditionalist Italian Catholic priest whose real identity remains anonymous to preserve discretion in a context of intense ecclesial controversies. Active in the second half of the 20th century, he stands out as a critical and scholarly voice within the anti-modernist movement, especially in circles resisting the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). His work reflects a profound theological formation, likely in Roman seminaries or Dominican institutions, influenced by Thomistic scholasticism and the counter-revolutionary Catholic tradition. Although precise biographical details are scarce—a deliberate choice to emphasize the message over the person—sources indicate he was an ordained clergyman, possibly linked to conservative religious orders, and active in Europe during the post-conciliar period when the Church faced deep divisions between progressives and traditionalists.
Presumably born in the 1920s or 1930s in Italy (based on his mature intellectual engagement in the 1990s), Hirpinus grew up in an environment marked by the legacy of modernism condemned by St. Pius X in the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907). This condemnation, which defined modernism as the "synthesis of all heresies," shaped his worldview, leading him to see the "aggiornamento" (updating) promoted by John XXIII and Paul VI as a subtle new version of these errors. His theological formation, rooted in the perennial philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, led him to reject what he called the "New Theology"—a theological movement that emerged in the 1940s, associated with figures like Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, and Karl Rahner, who sought to integrate modern thought with Catholic doctrine, but which he viewed as a rationalist subversion of revealed faith.
🛡️ Early Career and Anti-Modernist Engagement
Hirpinus's career as a writer and polemicist began in the post-Vatican II years, a period of ecclesial turmoil. As a priest, he witnessed firsthand the effects of liturgical reforms (like the New Mass of Paul VI, 1969) and doctrinal changes, which, in his analysis, diluted Catholic orthodoxy in the name of ecumenism and dialogue with the secular world. His proximity to the traditionalist episcopate—possibly influenced by figures like Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) in 1970—positioned him as a privileged observer of the crisis. He collaborated with Italian anti-modernist publications, such as the journal Sì Sì No No (founded in 1984), which served as a platform to denounce modernist infiltrations in the Church hierarchy.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Hirpinus emerged as one of the most incisive critics of the "New Theology." Influenced by the Dominican Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (1877-1964), the "guardian of orthodoxy" who foresaw the dangers of this new orientation in articles from 1946-1947 in the journal Angelicum, Hirpinus adopted a documentary and analytical approach. His texts, characterized by meticulous erudition and a prophetic tone, extensively cite papal encyclicals, conciliar acts, and the works of modernist theologians, exposing contradictions with the immutable tradition of the Church.
🏛️ Political and Ideological Views: The Fight Against Spiritual Subversion
As a traditionalist Catholic, Hirpinus aligned with the anti-modernist line of Pius X and Pius XII, viewing the New Theology as a "hidden war" against the Church. He criticized Vatican ecumenism as syncretism, episcopal collegiality as an erosion of Petrine primacy, and religious freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) as an inversion of the State's duty to coerce error. His theology was essentially Thomistic: a defense of the immutability of dogmas, extrinsic grace, and the liturgy as a propitiatory sacrifice. Influenced by Lefebvre and Sì Sì No No, he saw the crisis as providential, calling the faithful to resistance, without declared schisms, but with obedience to the perennial Magisterium.
✨ Post-Publication Activities and Legacy
After 1993, Hirpinus continued to contribute to traditionalist publications, possibly into the 2000s, but his output decreased with advanced age. There are no records of subsequent works under the same pseudonym, suggesting he retired to a life of prayer and study. His death is not publicly dated, but it is estimated to have occurred in the 2010s.
Hirpinus's legacy is polarizing: for traditionalists, he is a prophet who unmasked "spiritual subversion" (echoing Pius XII's Humani Generis, 1950); for progressives, a fundamentalist. His book is cited in anti-modernist lectures and conferences and has influenced authors like Fathers Álvaro Calderón and Dominic Bourmaud, reinforcing the narrative that the ecclesial crisis is rooted in 20th-century theology. Today, amidst debates on the Synod on Synodality (2021-2024), his analyses gain new relevance, warning against a doctrinal "evolution" that, in his view, leads to apostasy.
After 1993, Hirpinus continued to contribute to traditionalist publications, possibly into the 2000s, but his output decreased with advanced age. There are no records of subsequent works under the same pseudonym, suggesting he retired to a life of prayer and study. His death is not publicly dated, but it is estimated to have occurred in the 2010s.
Hirpinus's legacy is polarizing: for traditionalists, he is a prophet who unmasked "spiritual subversion" (echoing Pius XII's Humani Generis, 1950); for progressives, a fundamentalist. His book is cited in anti-modernist lectures and conferences and has influenced authors like Fathers Álvaro Calderón and Dominic Bourmaud, reinforcing the narrative that the ecclesial crisis is rooted in 20th-century theology. Today, amidst debates on the Synod on Synodality (2021-2024), his analyses gain new relevance, warning against a doctrinal "evolution" that, in his view, leads to apostasy.
📖 The Main Work: The “New Theology”: Those Who Think They Have Won
His most significant contribution is the series of articles published between February and October 1993 in Courrier de Rome (an anti-modernist magazine linked to Sì Sì No No), under the collective title "Those Who Think They Have Won." These texts were compiled and edited in 2001 by Editora Permanência (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), with the full title A “Nova Teologia”: Os Que Pensam Que Venceram (The "New Theology": Those Who Think They Have Won). The book is a sharp analysis of modernist theology as a force subverting the foundations of the Catholic faith, denouncing its doctrinal errors and devastating impacts on seminaries, sacraments, and the liturgy.
Structured in nine chapters, the volume examines the leaders of the "New Theology" and their philosophical roots:
Introduction: It contextualizes the movement as an heir to modernism, influencing Vatican II and promoting an "evolution" of doctrine that relativizes immutable dogmas.
Analytical Chapters: Sections are dedicated to key figures, such as Maurice Blondel (a pioneer of immanentism), Henri de Lubac (a critic of the "extrinsic" nature of grace), Hans Urs von Balthasar (a theologian of "universal hope"), Joseph Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI, accused of hermeneutical ambiguity), and others like Yves Congar and Karl Rahner. Hirpinus argues that these thinkers, by integrating Hegelian and phenomenological thought, replaced objective theology with a subjective one, where faith "becomes" rather than "is."
Preface and Annex: It includes a preface by Msgr. Francesco Spadafora (Italian theologian, 1913-1996), who endorses the critique as "urgent and necessary," and an appendix with Garrigou-Lagrange's essay "Where is the New Theology Going?", foreseeing the doctrinal collapse.
The book denounces how the New Theology infiltrated seminaries (promoting "pastoral" formation over speculative), the sacraments (relativizing their efficacy ex opere operato), and the liturgy (transforming the rite into an anthropocentric "community celebration"). Hirpinus sees this as an "illusory victory" for the modernists, who "think they have won" because they ignore the promise of Matthew 16:18 ("the gates of hell shall not prevail").
His most significant contribution is the series of articles published between February and October 1993 in Courrier de Rome (an anti-modernist magazine linked to Sì Sì No No), under the collective title "Those Who Think They Have Won." These texts were compiled and edited in 2001 by Editora Permanência (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), with the full title A “Nova Teologia”: Os Que Pensam Que Venceram (The "New Theology": Those Who Think They Have Won). The book is a sharp analysis of modernist theology as a force subverting the foundations of the Catholic faith, denouncing its doctrinal errors and devastating impacts on seminaries, sacraments, and the liturgy.
Structured in nine chapters, the volume examines the leaders of the "New Theology" and their philosophical roots:
Introduction: It contextualizes the movement as an heir to modernism, influencing Vatican II and promoting an "evolution" of doctrine that relativizes immutable dogmas.
Analytical Chapters: Sections are dedicated to key figures, such as Maurice Blondel (a pioneer of immanentism), Henri de Lubac (a critic of the "extrinsic" nature of grace), Hans Urs von Balthasar (a theologian of "universal hope"), Joseph Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI, accused of hermeneutical ambiguity), and others like Yves Congar and Karl Rahner. Hirpinus argues that these thinkers, by integrating Hegelian and phenomenological thought, replaced objective theology with a subjective one, where faith "becomes" rather than "is."
Preface and Annex: It includes a preface by Msgr. Francesco Spadafora (Italian theologian, 1913-1996), who endorses the critique as "urgent and necessary," and an appendix with Garrigou-Lagrange's essay "Where is the New Theology Going?", foreseeing the doctrinal collapse.
The book denounces how the New Theology infiltrated seminaries (promoting "pastoral" formation over speculative), the sacraments (relativizing their efficacy ex opere operato), and the liturgy (transforming the rite into an anthropocentric "community celebration"). Hirpinus sees this as an "illusory victory" for the modernists, who "think they have won" because they ignore the promise of Matthew 16:18 ("the gates of hell shall not prevail").
🌩️ Introduction: The triumph of the modernist sect and the ecclesial crisis
The work constitutes a vigorous and documented denunciation regarding the infiltration, rise, and apparent victory of modernism within the Catholic Church, under the moniker of "New Theology." The text, compiled from articles in the periodical Sì Sì No No, establishes as a fundamental premise that the current crisis of the Church is not the result of chance, but the result of a "resistance sometimes passive, but real" (p. 36) to the traditional Magisterium, operated by an organized "sect" that, despising the condemnations of St. Pius X in Pascendi and of Pius XII in Humani Generis, managed to impose its heterodox doctrines at the Second Vatican Council and in the post-conciliar period.
Msgr. Francesco Spadafora, in the preface, recalls Cardinal Billot's warning about the dangers of a council, predicting that it would be maneuvered by the "worst enemies of the Church, that is, by the modernists" (p. 12). The work demonstrates that the "New Theology" is nothing but a return to condemned modernism, characterized by contempt for scholastic philosophy and by the attempt to reconcile the Church with the principles of modern, immanentist, and subjectivist philosophy.
🧠 The philosophical root: The error of Maurice Blondel and the contempt for truth
The intellectual foundation of the theological collapse is identified in the philosophy of Maurice Blondel. The text argues that the "New Theology" operates a perversion of the eternal notion of truth. While Catholic doctrine, supported by Thomism, defines truth as adaequatio rei et intellectus (the conformity of the mind with objective reality), Blondel and his followers propose a subjectivist definition: the conformity of the mind with life (adaequatio realis mentis et vitae).
According to Father Garrigou-Lagrange, in the annex of the work, this substitution is fatal: "Truth is no longer the conformity of judgment with extra-mental reality and its immutable laws, but the conformity of judgment with the demands of action and of human life which is always evolving" (p. 187). Blondel, protected by influential friendships and operating through ambiguous language, introduced immanentism into Christian apologetics, maintaining that "nothing can enter man which does not come from him" (p. 50), which destroys the gratuity of the supernatural order. The text reveals the "intellectual symbiosis" between Blondel and Henri de Lubac, where the former provided the philosophical basis for the latter to destroy traditional theology.
🌫️ Henri de Lubac and the destruction of the nature-supernatural distinction
Henri de Lubac is presented as the "father" of the New Theology and a master of dissimulated disobedience. His formation is described as defective, marked by a passionate reading of modern philosophers and a contempt for scholasticism, to which he and his peers "never adhered and never understood well" (p. 65). The capital error of De Lubac, condemned by Pius XII in Humani Generis, consists in the denial of the possibility of a "pure nature." By stating that the supernatural is a necessary requirement of human nature, De Lubac naturalizes grace and destroys its gratuity.
This confusion between nature and supernatural is the key to understanding modern ecumenism and the secularization of the Church. If the supernatural is intrinsic to nature, the distinction between Christians and non-Christians blurs, leading to indifferentism. The text denounces that De Lubac and his "gang" acted as a secret society (clandestinum foedus), maintaining an external submission while undermining the doctrine from within.
🤝 Urs von Balthasar and the ecumenical apostasy
Urs von Balthasar is portrayed as the incarnation of the pseudomystical and delusional aspect of the New Theology. Devoid of solid theological formation and averse to scholasticism, Balthasar bases his theology on the hallucinations of the "mystic" Adrienne von Speyr and on Hegelian philosophy. The work harshly criticizes Balthasar's thesis that "hell exists, but it is empty," which contradicts the dogma of reprobation and the constant Faith of the Church (p. 23).
Even more serious is his ecumenical ecclesiology. Using Hegel's dialectic, Balthasar sees the Catholic Church not as the sole Church of Christ, but as one of the many "ecclesial configurations" that must die to give way to a "Super-Church" or "The Catholic" (p. 95). For him, the contradictions between religions are merely dialectical moments necessary for a future synthesis. The text classifies this thought as an "ecumenical delirium" and a proposal of apostasy, where the Church must integrate error to achieve a fullness never realized in history.
👑 The complicity of the hierarchy: Paul VI and the "masterstroke of Satan"
The work is emphatic in attributing the victory of modernism to the complicity of the highest authority of the Church. Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) is described as a philomodernist since his youth, an admirer of Blondel and protector of De Lubac. The text reveals that, while Substitute in the Secretariat of State, Montini acted behind Pius XII's back to minimize the reach of Humani Generis and protect heterodox theologians (p. 106).
As Pope, Paul VI used his authority to impose the New Theology, allowing modernist experts to draft the documents of Vatican II. His management is characterized as a betrayal of the Petrine mandate, placing the force of the Papacy at the service of the demolition of the Faith. "The masterstroke of Satan," according to the text, lies in the fact that the authority created to defend the Faith was used to destroy it.
🔄 Ratzinger and John Paul II: The continuity of error
The text dispels the myth that Cardinal Ratzinger (future Benedict XVI) and Pope John Paul II were conservatives or restorers. Ratzinger is analyzed as a "new theologian" whose Christology is evolutionary and anthropocentric. In his work Introduction to Christianity, Ratzinger redefines the person of Christ not as God who became man, but as a man who, by his total openness to others, "came to coincide with God" (p. 119), approaching the heresies of Teilhard de Chardin. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger is accused of protecting his modernist colleagues of the journal Communio and of promoting a "restoration" that is not a return to Tradition, but a consolidation of moderate modernism.
As for Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II), the book, relying on the analyses of Johannes Dörmann, denounces the thesis of "universal subjective redemption." According to this doctrine, every man is united to Christ and justified from conception, regardless of his faith or baptism. This heresy is the theological basis for the meeting of Assisi and for the leveling of all religions. For the work, the pontificate of John Paul II represents the consummation of the New Theology, where Catholic dogma is dissolved in a radical anthropocentrism.
🛡️ Conclusion: The necessity of resistance
The conclusion of the text is that the "New Theology" is not a legitimate evolution of dogma, but a return to modernism, the "synthesis of all heresies." The striking characteristic of this movement is the contumacious disobedience to the infallible Magisterium of always in favor of a "living magisterium" that contradicts the past.
Father Garrigou-Lagrange, in his annex, sentences prophetically: "Where is the new theology going? It returns to modernism. [...] Where is it going if not down the road of skepticism, fantasy and heresy?" (p. 186). Faced with this "autodemolition" of the Church, the book exhorts Catholics not to be deceived by the current authorities who have deviated from the Faith, remembering that blind obedience to error is a betrayal of Christ. True fidelity consists in adhering to the immutable Tradition of the Church and resisting the novelties that destroy the notion of truth and the substance of the Faith.
📚 Bibliographic reference
HIRPINUS. A “Nova Teologia”: Os Que Pensam Que Venceram. Translation by Editora Permanência team. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Permanência, 2001. ISBN 85-85432-05-5.
The work constitutes a vigorous and documented denunciation regarding the infiltration, rise, and apparent victory of modernism within the Catholic Church, under the moniker of "New Theology." The text, compiled from articles in the periodical Sì Sì No No, establishes as a fundamental premise that the current crisis of the Church is not the result of chance, but the result of a "resistance sometimes passive, but real" (p. 36) to the traditional Magisterium, operated by an organized "sect" that, despising the condemnations of St. Pius X in Pascendi and of Pius XII in Humani Generis, managed to impose its heterodox doctrines at the Second Vatican Council and in the post-conciliar period.
Msgr. Francesco Spadafora, in the preface, recalls Cardinal Billot's warning about the dangers of a council, predicting that it would be maneuvered by the "worst enemies of the Church, that is, by the modernists" (p. 12). The work demonstrates that the "New Theology" is nothing but a return to condemned modernism, characterized by contempt for scholastic philosophy and by the attempt to reconcile the Church with the principles of modern, immanentist, and subjectivist philosophy.
🧠 The philosophical root: The error of Maurice Blondel and the contempt for truth
The intellectual foundation of the theological collapse is identified in the philosophy of Maurice Blondel. The text argues that the "New Theology" operates a perversion of the eternal notion of truth. While Catholic doctrine, supported by Thomism, defines truth as adaequatio rei et intellectus (the conformity of the mind with objective reality), Blondel and his followers propose a subjectivist definition: the conformity of the mind with life (adaequatio realis mentis et vitae).
According to Father Garrigou-Lagrange, in the annex of the work, this substitution is fatal: "Truth is no longer the conformity of judgment with extra-mental reality and its immutable laws, but the conformity of judgment with the demands of action and of human life which is always evolving" (p. 187). Blondel, protected by influential friendships and operating through ambiguous language, introduced immanentism into Christian apologetics, maintaining that "nothing can enter man which does not come from him" (p. 50), which destroys the gratuity of the supernatural order. The text reveals the "intellectual symbiosis" between Blondel and Henri de Lubac, where the former provided the philosophical basis for the latter to destroy traditional theology.
🌫️ Henri de Lubac and the destruction of the nature-supernatural distinction
Henri de Lubac is presented as the "father" of the New Theology and a master of dissimulated disobedience. His formation is described as defective, marked by a passionate reading of modern philosophers and a contempt for scholasticism, to which he and his peers "never adhered and never understood well" (p. 65). The capital error of De Lubac, condemned by Pius XII in Humani Generis, consists in the denial of the possibility of a "pure nature." By stating that the supernatural is a necessary requirement of human nature, De Lubac naturalizes grace and destroys its gratuity.
This confusion between nature and supernatural is the key to understanding modern ecumenism and the secularization of the Church. If the supernatural is intrinsic to nature, the distinction between Christians and non-Christians blurs, leading to indifferentism. The text denounces that De Lubac and his "gang" acted as a secret society (clandestinum foedus), maintaining an external submission while undermining the doctrine from within.
🤝 Urs von Balthasar and the ecumenical apostasy
Urs von Balthasar is portrayed as the incarnation of the pseudomystical and delusional aspect of the New Theology. Devoid of solid theological formation and averse to scholasticism, Balthasar bases his theology on the hallucinations of the "mystic" Adrienne von Speyr and on Hegelian philosophy. The work harshly criticizes Balthasar's thesis that "hell exists, but it is empty," which contradicts the dogma of reprobation and the constant Faith of the Church (p. 23).
Even more serious is his ecumenical ecclesiology. Using Hegel's dialectic, Balthasar sees the Catholic Church not as the sole Church of Christ, but as one of the many "ecclesial configurations" that must die to give way to a "Super-Church" or "The Catholic" (p. 95). For him, the contradictions between religions are merely dialectical moments necessary for a future synthesis. The text classifies this thought as an "ecumenical delirium" and a proposal of apostasy, where the Church must integrate error to achieve a fullness never realized in history.
👑 The complicity of the hierarchy: Paul VI and the "masterstroke of Satan"
The work is emphatic in attributing the victory of modernism to the complicity of the highest authority of the Church. Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) is described as a philomodernist since his youth, an admirer of Blondel and protector of De Lubac. The text reveals that, while Substitute in the Secretariat of State, Montini acted behind Pius XII's back to minimize the reach of Humani Generis and protect heterodox theologians (p. 106).
As Pope, Paul VI used his authority to impose the New Theology, allowing modernist experts to draft the documents of Vatican II. His management is characterized as a betrayal of the Petrine mandate, placing the force of the Papacy at the service of the demolition of the Faith. "The masterstroke of Satan," according to the text, lies in the fact that the authority created to defend the Faith was used to destroy it.
🔄 Ratzinger and John Paul II: The continuity of error
The text dispels the myth that Cardinal Ratzinger (future Benedict XVI) and Pope John Paul II were conservatives or restorers. Ratzinger is analyzed as a "new theologian" whose Christology is evolutionary and anthropocentric. In his work Introduction to Christianity, Ratzinger redefines the person of Christ not as God who became man, but as a man who, by his total openness to others, "came to coincide with God" (p. 119), approaching the heresies of Teilhard de Chardin. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger is accused of protecting his modernist colleagues of the journal Communio and of promoting a "restoration" that is not a return to Tradition, but a consolidation of moderate modernism.
As for Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II), the book, relying on the analyses of Johannes Dörmann, denounces the thesis of "universal subjective redemption." According to this doctrine, every man is united to Christ and justified from conception, regardless of his faith or baptism. This heresy is the theological basis for the meeting of Assisi and for the leveling of all religions. For the work, the pontificate of John Paul II represents the consummation of the New Theology, where Catholic dogma is dissolved in a radical anthropocentrism.
🛡️ Conclusion: The necessity of resistance
The conclusion of the text is that the "New Theology" is not a legitimate evolution of dogma, but a return to modernism, the "synthesis of all heresies." The striking characteristic of this movement is the contumacious disobedience to the infallible Magisterium of always in favor of a "living magisterium" that contradicts the past.
Father Garrigou-Lagrange, in his annex, sentences prophetically: "Where is the new theology going? It returns to modernism. [...] Where is it going if not down the road of skepticism, fantasy and heresy?" (p. 186). Faced with this "autodemolition" of the Church, the book exhorts Catholics not to be deceived by the current authorities who have deviated from the Faith, remembering that blind obedience to error is a betrayal of Christ. True fidelity consists in adhering to the immutable Tradition of the Church and resisting the novelties that destroy the notion of truth and the substance of the Faith.
📚 Bibliographic reference
HIRPINUS. A “Nova Teologia”: Os Que Pensam Que Venceram. Translation by Editora Permanência team. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Permanência, 2001. ISBN 85-85432-05-5.