A 700-Page Book That Unmasks Years of Roman Arbitrariness and Reminds Us That Without Law There Is No Church, Only Power.
I’ll start by confessing bluntly: I know almost nothing about the Heralds of the Gospel. Their aesthetic, let’s be honest, gives me the creeps: fabric armour, giant crosses, an air of medieval crusade in the 21st century. It’s not exactly my cup of tea.
But taste is one thing and justice is another. And the more I read about what has been done to them and how they have responded, the clearer another thing becomes: I deeply admire them.
You can’t stand up to power… unless you’re willing to pay for it
For years we have been hearing that this is the synodal Church, the Church of dialogue, the Church of listening, the Church of processes. All of that is fine for slogans, but in practice there is a golden rule that everyone has quickly learned: you don’t stand up to power.
And even less so after twelve years of Bergoglian dictatorship, with a court perfectly oiled to reward the regime’s faithful and crush those who get in the way. Among the collaborators of that long iron age was, incidentally, the then prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Leo XIV.
In this climate, most Catholic institutions have opted for what we might call the “turtle strategy”: retreating into their shells, protecting their small interests, avoiding problems, and praying silently that the storm will pass without destroying their homes and bank accounts.
The Heralds have done exactly the opposite: they have decided to go all in.
Commissioned… and with the commissioner in the moral dock
The Heralds of the Gospel were commissioned. Someone had to be commissioned; the system needed a visible enemy, an “exemplary case,” a warning to others: this is how those who do not toe the line end up. Nothing new under the sun.
What is new—and almost unheard of—is the response. Instead of bowing their heads, apologizing for existing, and discreetly disappearing from the map, the Heralds have done something that only someone who has not lost faith or respect for the truth would think of doing:
they have compiled, documented, and published a complete chronicle of the abuse.
I am referring to the volume El Comisariado de los Heraldos del Evangelio (The Commissioning of the Heralds of the Gospel), Sanctioned without evidence, without defense, without dialogue. Chronicle of the events 2017–2025, coordinated by Prof. Dr. José Manuel Jiménez Aleixandre and Sr. Dr. Juliane Vasconcelos Almeida Campos: more than 700 pages of facts, documents, decrees, notarial acts, canonical reports, letters, legal opinions, and testimonies.
And what they do in those pages is devastating: they demonstrate that there was no process, no evidence, no defense, no dialogue. Only a chain of abuses of authority, shady maneuvers, self-serving leaks to the press, guilty silences, and an artificial construction of suspicions to justify a commissariat that—if the law had been minimally respected—could never have been sustained.
Not only that: the book shows how, over time, the commission has ended up becoming a caricature of itself, to the point that the commissioner himself has been morally “commissioned,” put under the spotlight and questioned about his suitability. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect boomerang.
Fifteen terrible years without rights
There is a phrase that hangs over this whole case, although it is not always said out loud: “we have lived through fifteen terrible years.” Fifteen years in which canon law has been treated as a hindrance, a bureaucratic nuisance that can be circumvented or ignored when it is not convenient.
The Heralds’ book illustrates this with surgical precision: poorly drafted or directly altered decrees; unmotivated decisions; generic and never proven accusations; apostolic visits turned into fishing expeditions in search of crimes that do not appear; restrictions imposed without basis; civil proceedings that end up exonerating the institution while Rome acts as if nothing has happened.
In short: for too long, the law has been replaced by the will of those in power. And that, in the Church, is lethal. It is one thing to believe in authority; it is quite another to justify arbitrariness.
While everyone remained silent, one institution decided to lose its fear
The most scandalous thing about all this is not that there has been abuse. Unfortunately, we know that and have seen it in too many areas. What is truly scandalous is that, in the face of abuse, almost everyone has remained silent.
Long-standing and recent religious orders have remained silent. Catholic universities have remained silent. Powerful ecclesial movements have remained silent. Foundations and congregations that knew very well what was happening have remained silent, preferring to look the other way so as not to jeopardize subsidies, permits, privileges, or simply institutional tranquility.
And suddenly, there is an institution that is not silent. An institution that, instead of resignedly accepting the role of docile victim, has decided to put the entire process in writing, with names, dates, references, and appendices. An institution that dares to affirm, with facts in hand, that what has been done to them is a paradigmatic case of ideological persecution within the Church.
It is not just a matter of “defending their name.” It is something much more serious: defending the very idea that there must be a legal order within the Church. That decrees cannot be falsified. That signatures cannot be manipulated. That a commissioner cannot behave as if he were above the law. That the faithful and communities have rights, not just obligations.
What the whole Church owes to the Heralds
It is not necessary to share the charism of the Heralds or enjoy their processions to recognize it: the whole Church owes them gratitude.
Because, by refusing to be crushed into silence, they have forced everyone to acknowledge what everyone sensed but almost no one dared to say: that Rome has too often acted “without evidence, without defense, without dialogue.” That it has played with people and their works as if they were pieces on an ideological chessboard. That “visits” and “accompaniments” have, in many cases, been instruments of pressure and control.
If today there is a detailed account of how this machinery works, it is largely thanks to them. And that is not only useful for their own case; it is a service, uncomfortable but necessary, to the whole Church. Any institution that finds itself in the crosshairs of the system tomorrow will know that it is not obliged to disappear in silence.
At a time when the word “synodality” is used to justify everything, the Heralds have reminded us, with facts and documents, that without justice there can be no communion. That charity without truth becomes sentimentality. And that authority without law degenerates into despotism.
By Carlos Balén/infovaticana
Compiled by Gustavo Kralj
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