Shocking modernist call to reformulate Nicene creed - robust response from Traditionalist priest
1700 years later... The Nicene Creed needs to be reformulated
Christmas Mass 2024: the church is so full that several dozen people were unable to enter. As every year, many people are there whom we never see during the year: it's a Christmas tradition. Many teenagers came with their parents: this is the case for my 16-17-year-old neighbor who looks bored to tears (without, however, going so far as to turn on her phone). And then, after the homily, the priest invites everyone to recite the Nicene Creed and to kneel for a few moments to hear the words "And the Word was made flesh." I wonder what my young neighbor—and many others of all ages—could possibly have understood from this Creed: "Born of the Father, he is God born of God, begotten not created, consubstantial with the Father..." As for "the Holy Catholic Church," I prefer to remain silent. Yes, really, what is this gibberish, this liturgical jargon (gibberish: a Breton word meaning a mixture of bara bread and gwin wine)? Is this question shocking? Wouldn't it rather be the use of this ancient text (1,700 years old!) that is shockin
On November 10, 2024, the Bishops of France sent a Letter to priests, deacons, consecrated persons, lay people on ecclesial mission, and the people of God on the occasion of the Jubilee and the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea: six long pages, paragraphs 8 and following of which deal with this anniversary. I note paragraph 10:
"The formula 'consubstantial with the Father' was chosen to express Jesus' relationship to the Father. Although distinct, the Father and the Son share the same divine 'substance.' This clarification of the Creed obviously does not confine the mystery of God, infinitely greater than our poor words, to a definition. But it does rule out the idea that God the Father sent an intermediary being, a superior angel or a superman, to save us. No: God himself, God in the highest sense of the term, comes to us in Jesus, to save us."
The entire episcopal text—which can be judged to be magnificently wordy—is entirely in praise and admiration of the said Creed: "The Nicene affirmation brings something truly revolutionary to the image of God, to our understanding of man, of the Church, and of its relationship to the world."
Yet, we are entitled to ask ourselves these questions:
Can a text dating from the fourth century still express our Faith, to us, men and women of the 21st century?
Can Christians—and especially we French people, steeped in healthy secularism—accept the interference of political power—in this case, Emperor Constantine and his successors—in the development of what has become the dogma of the Trinity?
Constantine, who was not baptized and who can reasonably be suspected of being a Christian believer out of self-interest, was no theologian and understood little of the doctrinal issues under debate. Yet he was declared a saint by the Orthodox Church... During the controversies initiated in Alexandria, Egypt, by Bishop Alexander and the priest Arius, which shook the entire Middle East, he wrote to the two men:
"When I considered the origin and subject of your dispute, it seemed to me very trivial, hardly worthy of being discussed with such fervor... You should neither ask the questions you have asked nor answer them. These questions are unnecessary and are usually only raised by people who have too much leisure, serve to exercise the mind; it is more appropriate to keep them secret than to publish them lightly before the people… Consider whether it is reasonable that, over a vain quarrel over words, brothers should arm themselves against brothers and divide the assembly of the faithful… If, by disputing too subtly over these vain and useless questions, you do not agree with one another, let each one keep his opinion in the secret of his heart.”
Unnecessary questions, vain quarrels over words, vain and useless questions: isn't this what the majority of the Christian people think in their hearts? For who can claim to truly understand this ancient text of the Nicene Creed? Theologians themselves give lectures and thick books to explain the Trinitarian dogma with brilliance and many intellectual acrobatics, of which they alone understand what they are trying to say. Moreover, could we not take up on this subject the famous words of Jacques Chirac in 2002: "Our house is burning and we look the other way"? Yes, the Church house - Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox - is burning and collapsing silently: in France, according to 2021 data from Ifop, 6.6% of French people say they are practicing Catholics but barely more than 2% are regular practitioners. And we act as if nothing is happening, with masses, adorations, pilgrimages, confessions... and jubilees.
The reason for this collapse is not, as Cardinal Ratzinger-Benedict XVI thought and said, in the cultural upheaval surrounding May 1968. It is not in the development of the "consumer society" or the "leisure society." Nor even in the failure of intergenerational transmission within the Christian community. So? It is in the fact that this ancient Creed, and with it the entire dogmatic, theological, and intellectual system of Christianity, is no longer credible. The ideological system, even if called theological or Christological, is no longer part of our "available believability," to use Paul Ricoeur's words. And this is something that the Christian hierarchies and the vast majority of Christians want neither to see nor to know.
And yet, it is about the Good News discovered, lived, and proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth!
Perhaps it would be wise to listen to this surah from the Quran that Muhammad said he received from God: “O People of the Book! Do not exceed the measure in your religion; say, about God, only the truth. Yes, the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, is the Prophet of God, his Word which he cast into Mary, a Spirit emanating from him. Do not say: Three; stop doing it, it will be better for you. God is one! Glory to him! How could he have a son?”
From Father Cadiet
In an article published by Golias on July 23, 2025, Paul Fleuret shares his thoughts on the singing of the Creed last Christmas: the mystery of the Incarnation as formulated in the Nicene Creed is unintelligible; in any case, it is impossible for the faith of 21st-century Catholics to be formulated with a text from the 4th century. Moreover, its formulation was imposed by Emperor Constantine, which constitutes an interference contrary to secularism.
The consequence: the collapse of religious practice. For, as everyone knows, if people no longer practice, it is because they are attached to the Nicene Creed… The text concludes with an invitation to meditate on a verse from the Quran, according to which it is better to avoid attributing a son to God.
Obviously, we did not expect to find in Golias anything to nourish the faith; Let us admit, however, that the invitation to embrace Arianism, or even Muslim doctrine, marks a step forward.
Without going so far as to embrace the religion of Golias, how many Catholics, clergy and laypeople, question the validity of dogmatic teaching under the pretext that faith must be an experience of encounter, that Truth is not an intellectual content, but a Person, etc.? The Gospel is reduced to a philanthropy scrupulously conforming to the fashions of the moment and redacted of anything reminiscent of doctrine. Apparently, however, this attitude is not enough to lose the label of "full communion."
Let us perhaps recall that the Gospel brings with it not only a model of life, but also a Revelation: the Apostles receive the mission of “teaching” (Mt 28:19), with authority (“Whoever listens to you listens to me.” Lk 10:16), and one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to make them understand “all truth” (Jn 16:13). But the human mind has a frenzied tendency to form far-fetched theories, so Saint Paul must warn against "foolish fables and idle talk" (1 Tim 4:7), "foolish, unruly researches" (2 Tim 2:23), which spread like gangrene or cancer (2:17) under the influence of false prophets, false philosophers, who profess a false science (1 Tim 6:20), "wanting to play the role of teachers of the law, not understanding what they say or of what they speak" (1 Tim 1:7). This is why we must "guard the deposit" of faith against the "contradictions of a science that falsely bears this name" (1 Tim 6:20).
The Fathers of the Church also endeavored to defend this deposit preserved by the Church of Rome with its Magisterium, in particular by the dogmatic Councils; Let us quote Saint Augustine:
"Shall we hesitate to throw ourselves into the bosom of this [Roman] Church, which, by the admission of the whole human race, holds the apostolic seat, and has retained, through the succession of its bishops, supreme authority, despite the clamor of the heretics who besiege it and who have been condemned either by the judgment of the people, or by the solemn decisions of Councils, or by the majesty of miracles? Not wanting to give it first place is assuredly the act of either supreme impiety or desperate arrogance." And if every science, even the most humble and easiest, requires, in order to be acquired, the help of a doctor or a master, can one imagine a more reckless pride, when it comes to the books of the divine mysteries, than to refuse to receive knowledge of them from the mouths of their interpreters, and, without knowing them, to want to condemn them? (De utilitate credendi, cap. XVII, n. 35). Protestantism had created the So-called Reformed Religion. Here we are before the So-called Religious Reformation, a mutation of the faith which results in an NGO (or a GMO!) concerned with supporting globalism instead of speaking of God and his mystery.
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