Episode 3072: Knotted in Confusion: The Modern Church Lost Sight of Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy

Knotted in Confusion: How the Modern Church Lost Sight of Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy
Opening Prayer
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
O Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal Wisdom and Divine Truth, grant that we may believe as You have taught and live as You have commanded. Preserve us from error, lukewarmness, and false charity, and inflame our hearts with zeal for Your Holy Catholic Church. Through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary and all the saints who kept the Faith without compromise, may we walk the narrow path that leads to eternal life.
Amen.
Introduction
Dear faithful listeners, welcome back to CR. Today we address a vital topic that strikes at the very heart of the crisis in the Church: the collapse of the distinction and proper integration between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. In simpler terms: right belief and right practice.
For centuries, the Catholic Church taught clearly: Lex credendi, lex orandi, lex vivendi the law of belief shapes the law of prayer, which shapes the law of life. Right belief led to right worship, and right worship formed holy lives.
But after the Second Vatican Council, this harmony was ruptured. What we see now in much of the modern Church is a tragic reversal: doctrine is downplayed or distorted, while outward activism or emotionalism is promoted as a substitute for authentic Catholic life.
The Church, especially in the West, has tied itself in knots trying to accommodate the world replacing clarity with ambiguity, and truth with sentiment. It now bends orthodoxy in the name of orthopraxy but ends up undermining both.
Orthodoxy: Is the right belief is not a luxury, nor a matter of opinion. It is the very foundation of salvation. Without it, the spiritual edifice collapses, for what we believe shapes how we live and, ultimately, where we spend eternity.
From the beginning, the Church has upheld that salvation is inseparably bound to believing what God has revealed and what the Church has infallibly defined. As the Athanasian Creed teaches: "Whosoever wishes to be saved must, above all, hold the Catholic faith; unless a person keeps this faith whole and entire, he will undoubtedly be lost forever."
This was not fanaticism. It was fidelity.
The Saints and Right Belief
St. Athanasius, the great confessor and Doctor of the Church, provides a heroic example of fidelity to orthodoxy. During the 4th century Arian crisis, when the majority of bishops including even the Pope at times wavered in their defense of Christ’s divinity, Athanasius stood alone. He was exiled five times and branded a troublemaker. Yet he knew: if Christ is not fully God, then we are not saved.
His orthodoxy preserved the Church's understanding of the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the very meaning of redemption.
Fast-forward to the 20th century: Pope St. Pius X, in his monumental encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), identified modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies.” Why? Because modernism doesn’t just attack one article of the Faith it undermines the very possibility of knowing objective truth. It replaces the supernatural with the psychological, the eternal with the sentimental, and the immutable teachings of Christ with the ever-shifting opinions of man.
Pius X prophetically warned that error in doctrine always leads to error in moral life. Confuse minds, and you will corrupt hearts.
The Modern Confusion: Orthodoxy as “Rigidity”
In the decades following the Second Vatican Council, orthodoxy has been increasingly marginalized. Clear doctrine is now seen by many Church leaders not as a treasure to guard, but as a stumbling block to “dialogue.”
We are told that doctrinal precision alienates people, that it’s better to “accompany” souls than to “instruct” them. But what kind of accompaniment is it that walks with the soul into darkness without handing it a lamp?
Today, we see:
• Bishops and cardinals publicly denying the Church’s teaching on mortal sin, the Real Presence, the indissolubility of marriage, or the male priesthood with no correction.
• Catechisms rewritten, not to clarify but to obscure.
• Seminaries producing clergy trained more in therapeutic language than in Thomistic theology.
• Faithful Catholics labeled “rigid” for clinging to what all the saints held sacred.
In the name of compassion, we tolerate heresies.
In the name of inclusivity, we obscure the Creed.
In the name of ecumenism, we betray the uniqueness of the Catholic Church as the one Ark of Salvation.
The result is a spiritual desert: a generation of Catholics baptized but unformed, attending Mass but unaware of the truths they are meant to live and defend.
Orthodoxy as a Footnote
In this inverted Church culture, orthodoxy becomes an afterthought a footnote, occasionally acknowledged but rarely taught with force. Instead, ambiguity is elevated to a pastoral method. Vague gestures replace clear teaching. “Encounter” replaces evangelization. “Listening sessions” replace catechesis.
But souls are not saved by ambiguity. They are saved by truth. As St. Paul wrote to the Galatians:
“Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel to you other than the one we preached to you, let him be anathema.” (Gal 1:8)
Our Lord Himself said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32)
How can we claim to free souls while denying them the truth that saves?
Let us remember: Orthodoxy is not a weapon to harm, but a gift to heal. It is not cold dogma, but burning truth the truth that God has revealed out of love, and the Church has preserved through blood and fire.
To abandon orthodoxy in the name of pastoral concern is to treat the disease while refusing the cure. And to suggest that doctrine divides, while forgetting that truth unites, is to surrender the mission Christ gave to His Apostles: “Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matt 28:20)
As St. Vincent of Lerins wisely said:
“We must hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.”
It is time to reclaim that faith. To teach it, to love it, to suffer for it if necessary. Because only in truth whole and unchanging can we find Christ.

ead of forming saints, we were told to “build communities.”
The essence of Catholic living was replaced with vague notions of “encounter,” “journeying,” and “dialogue” concepts with no objective moral compass. The hard sayings of Christ were softened, if not entirely silenced. The Ten Commandments were treated as mere ideals rather than divine mandates.
As Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre boldly declared:
“They have changed our religion, they have changed our faith, and they have changed our worship.”
And what has this produced? An unprecedented collapse in vocations, Mass attendance, belief in the Real Presence, and moral clarity even among clergy.
Deformed Orthopraxy: Good Works Without Truth
In this new paradigm, orthopraxy has been reduced to social activism. Feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and caring for the environment important though they are have replaced, not supplemented, the life of prayer, penance, and sacramental devotion.

Today, we are told:
• A person living in public and unrepented sin may receive Holy Communion so long as they are “accompanied.”
• Corporal works of mercy feeding the hungry, clothing the naked are to be emphasized, while the spiritual works of mercy (instructing the ignorant, admonishing the sinner, correcting error) are considered judgmental or unpastoral.
• Sin is no longer called sin, but a “woundedness,” and repentance is treated as optional.
This is not orthopraxy. This is a disfigured moralism detached from the truths that give action its eternal value.
False Mercy: Action Without Conversion
This brings us to the great lie of the modern age: that good works alone are sufficient for salvation, even in the absence of truth, repentance, or grace.
This pseudo-mercy is not the mercy of Christ. It is a counterfeit one that tolerates sin, excuses scandal, and prioritizes temporal comfort over eternal destiny.
We now hear homilies on climate change, economic inequality, and being “nice” but little or nothing about:
• The reality of Hell
• The necessity of sanctifying grace
• The obligation of frequent confession
• The Last Four Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell
St. Augustine declared:
“He who created you without you, will not save you without you.”
In other words, salvation requires your cooperation with grace, which entails believing rightly and living rightly.
What greater cruelty is there than to let souls wander in error while pretending they are “on a journey”?
The Traditional Catholic Response: Restoring Right Living
To recover authentic orthopraxy, we must reject the world’s definitions of “goodness” and return to God’s commandments, the examples of the saints, and the traditions of the Church.
That means embracing again:
• The traditional calendar of penance and feasts
• Regular, reverent participation in the sacraments
• Acts of self-denial, modesty, and charity rooted in truth
• The formation of conscience by sound catechesis, not emotion
• A liturgical life centered on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass not on human performance
It means raising children to love sacrifice, not avoid it. To seek heaven, not comfort. To fear sin, not rejection.
Final Thought
Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are not two paths they are one road with two rails. If either is missing, the train derails.
Let us not be deceived by the soft tyranny of false mercy. Let us live the truth in love and love the truth in action. That is the life of a saint.
As St. Teresa of Avila said:
“God deliver us from stupid devotions and sour-faced saints.”
In other words, let us be clear in faith and radiant in virtue, joyfully living the narrow way that leads to life.

The Traditional Catholic Response
We must reject this false dichotomy. True Catholicism demands both orthodoxy and orthopraxy because Christ is both Truth and Life.
• He taught clearly (orthodoxy).
• He lived sinlessly (orthopraxy).
• He commanded us: “Go and teach all nations... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” (Matt 28:19–20)
Pope St. Pius V, who preserved the Traditional Latin Mass in perpetuity, understood that the worship and beliefs of the Church must be immutable, handed down, not reinvented.
Restoring Order: The Way Forward
We cannot rely on the modern episcopacy to fix this. The crisis is deep. We, the faithful laity, must return to the sources Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, the Roman Catechism, the writings of the saints.
We must:
• Teach our children the Baltimore Catechism.
• Return to the Traditional Latin Mass and its unambiguous doctrine.
• Practice true charity: correction, instruction, prayer, and sacrifice.
• Pray for priests with courage to preach truth, and avoid compromise.
As St. Thomas Aquinas said: “It is better to be cast out from men than to be forsaken by truth.”
Closing Prayer
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We ask for the grace to believe with firm conviction all that You have revealed through Your Holy Church, and to live according to that truth with fidelity and love. Strengthen us against the spirit of the age, and grant us clarity in doctrine, purity in worship, and holiness in life. Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Pius X, and all holy martyrs of the Faith, keep us steadfast unto the end.
Amen.