By Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky.

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.

The pope is the successor of Peter. The Petrine ministry, established by Jesus, participates in Saint Peter's papacy. By the very office, every pope should be the guardian of the Catholic faith. He is the Vicar of Christ and the first among the bishops. With his brother bishops, the pope is a sacred ambassador of the infallible Deposit of Faith.

We discover who we are when we study and accept God's revelation with faith. Theological reflection deepens our understanding of God's revelation. Led by the successors of the Apostles, with the pope as the Vicar of Christ, the Church hands down the faith. Tradition, Scripture, and the Magisterium, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, form a beautiful and logical structure of doctrine.

The pope is not, however, some latter-day Oracle of Delphi. As he sits on the Chair of Saint Peter, the pope is infallible by God's grace, but only under strict conditions that apply theological logic to the existing Deposit of Faith. Human reason buttressed by faith permits him, for example, to proclaim the Immaculate Conception and Mary's glorious bodily Assumption into Heaven. A pope is the servant, not the master, of God's revelation.

Centuries of Church teaching and theological speculation have given us the vocabulary of the faith: creedal formulations, the Ten Commandments, Sacraments, and prayer. Borrowing from the philosophical disciplines, we add to the Scriptural inheritance a vocabulary of virtue rooted in Christian love. The Church also highlights the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Sin distorts and degrades the Divine imprint on our humanity.

We examine our consciences against these violations of His goodness. We obtain the grace of the Sacraments, above all the Eucharist, to sustain us in a life of virtue. At the end of our lives, we stand before God, manifesting our responsibility for our lives. Our virtues demonstrate our commitment to the truth that God created man in His image and likeness. Purgatory purifies the unfinished business of our pursuit of holiness.

But most Catholics seem to believe that man created God in man's image and likeness. The evidence of this outrageous contention has become unmistakable during this ecclesiastical season. Almost every Catholic outlet uses a fig-leaf vocabulary that hides various heresies: the widespread rejection of the wholeness of Catholic teaching.

The media cite so-called experts who sort the candidates into several categories: traditional, progressive, moderate, liberal, conservative, and centrist. But this lexicon is inimical to the faith. The designations categorize God and Church teaching on our terms, not God's, as if the faith were merely a spiritual version of secular politics. The ideological vocabulary disguises heresies under a Catholic label. Many of us have become dishonest heretics.

Moderates and progressives revo...