For these reasons, Our address is addressed especially to you who also believe you are in communion with the Catholic Church, but who, fraudulently deceived by the authors of the nefarious schism. . . refuse communion with Us and with the Holy Roman Church. To you, therefore, We now address words of peace; to you whom almost all Christendom already celebrated, when once you were valiant in fighting the Lord’s battles against the furious destroyers of the altar and the throne, and who now, astonished and indignant, see you fighting, in such a changed situation, against the Church herself; to you We believe We must open with all the affection of Our heart the fullness of Our paternal benevolence. Indeed, disobedient and deviant as you are, We still consider you dearest children in the Lord and We embrace you close to Us; We certainly know that you are rebellious, not because of evil of spirit, but because you are deceived by the perverse and lying arguments of your false teachers, who abuse the name and authority of the Catholic Church itself; and this saddens Us.

Beware, then, dearly beloved, of such nefarious leaders; reject their designs; resist their pestilential instigations. Their aim is to snatch you from the bosom of the Catholic Church, to destroy you now and forever, since they are trying to distance you from communion with Us, with the Holy See, and with the Bishops united to it. For they falsely delude themselves that they maintain a fictitious communion with the Apostolic See when they refuse communion with the Roman Pontiff and with the Bishops in communion with him. Do not, therefore, allow yourself to be deceived on this point. Listen diligently and remember: ” The Church is where Peter is ” [St. Ambrose, In ps . XL, n. 30]; ” Those do not possess the inheritance of Peter who do not possess the see of Peter, and who tear it apart with impious divisions ” [St. Ambrose, De poenit ., lib. I, cap. VII]; ” Whoever refuses to be united in communion with the Chair of Peter belongs to Antichrist, and not to Christ ” [S. Hier., Epist . XV ad Damasum]; nor forget the saying of Cyprian: ” The Bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the Bishop ” [Lib. De unitate Ecclesiae ]. If each of you, at the foot of the Crucifix and in the light of faith, meditate upon these truths with a serene mind, you will easily admit that the instigations of these preceptors tend to this end: that, by separating you from the Roman Pontiff and from the Bishops united in communion with him, you separate yourselves from the entire Catholic Church, and thus cease to have her for mother.

(scroll down for answer)

.

Pope Leo XII

Pastoris Aeterni, 2-3

Liked this post? Take a second to support Where Peter Is on Patreon!