Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky: The Fig-Leaf Vocabulary of Heresy 

Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky, The Catholic Thing, May 6, 2025

Father Jerry J. Pokorsky is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington. He is pastor of St. Catherine of Siena parish in Great Falls, Virginia.

In every generation, the world witnesses the Catholic ecclesiastical Super Bowl as the cardinals gather together in Rome to elect a new pope. The choice is always, at bottom, theological. Will they elect someone who believes God created man in His image and likeness? Or will the new pope believe, like most Catholics today (apparently), that man created God in man’s image and likeness? Alas, much of the Catholic world has replaced the language of the Catholic faith with fig-leaf terms that cover various kinds of heresy.

The term “heretic” is descriptive, properly understood, not merely polemical. It comes from the Greek haerein, which means to pick out – usually only what we like – from the full range of truth. Orthodoxy (which is to say, right belief) points us in the right direction, though we often don’t live up to the truth. Heretics willfully deny one or more truths of the Catholic faith. Open heretics are at least honest. But professed Catholics who often impose their dissident views on the Church via misleading language are dishonest heretics. …

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