The Heresy Slayer

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Jul 20, 2026

The study of heresies and theological errors illuminates the truths of the Catholic faith by contrast. Yet those same errors distort right thinking. The oldest heresies rarely disappear; they reappear in new forms and tempt every generation of Christians. The antibodies of God’s providence help us keep heresies in check before they do significant damage.

Pelagius was a 4th-century British monk. He taught that we possess the ability to choose good and obey God’s commandments without an interior transformation by divine grace. Like those who built the Tower of Babel, Pelagius downplayed God’s grace. He believed that people could attain holiness through the unaided exercise of free will.

In response, St. Augustine argued that man is deeply wounded by Original Sin. Grace is an interior gift that enlightens the mind, heals the will, and enables genuine love of God. “Pelagianism” describes any outlook that places excessive confidence in human effort while minimizing the necessity of God’s grace. Our failure to invoke the Gifts of the Holy Spirit when needed betrays Pelagian tendencies.

The opposite error is Jansenism. Cornelius Jansen, a 17th-century theologian, emphasized man’s fallen nature, the necessity of God’s grace for salvation, and a restrictive understanding of free will that resembled the rigoristic aspects of Calvinism. Jansenism included rigorous moral standards and encouraged infrequent reception of the sacraments except among those judged especially well prepared. A dour, rigoristic spirit is the hallmark of Jansenist tendencies.

The Church condemned Jansenism as heretical because it denied or distorted established teachings about free will, the universality of Christ’s redemption, and the availability of sufficient grace to all people.

The pendulum of our heretical inclinations often swings from the Pelagian extreme to the rigorism of Jansenism. The emphasis on willpower apart from God’s grace is a recipe for spiritual failure and discouragement. Similarly, an exaggerated understanding of grace that leaves little room for human freedom produces an angry rigorism rather than Christian freedom.

Some theological errors remain confined to academic debate. Others shape political movements and even international affairs. An erroneous Protestant theological construct that gained traction in America in the 1970s and 1980s was dispensationalism. Protestant dispensationalists held fast to the doctrine that the Temple in Jerusalem must be rebuilt to hasten the Second Coming and bring the elect to heaven. The dispensationalist book The Late Great Planet Earth was a bestseller with 35 million copies sold. At first, it seemed a harmless misunderstanding.

But in our day, variants of dispensationalism threaten international stability. The belief that human action can hasten God’s plan by rebuilding the Temple has influenced activists and commentators whose advocacy has reinforced conflict in the Middle East. Many dispensationalists interpret Old Testament prophecy in ways that overshadow the Gospel’s moral demands and encourage support for the unjust expansion of Israeli territory.

Some dispensationalists neglect a rigorous application of the Fifth and Seventh Commandments and invoke the WWII practice of the indiscriminate destruction of cities as a guiding principle to justify “leveling” Gaza and Lebanon. Some Protestant interpretations of being “born again” minimize the danger of mortal sin and the loss of sanctifying grace. Catholics, by contrast, must judge war by the Fifth Commandment rather than by appeals to Hiroshima or Dresden. “Nothing is more dangerous than sin, which separates us from God” (Saint John Chrysostom).

A proper understanding of the Incarnation helps us to neutralize the corrosive power of these theological errors and maintain faith in the compatibility of grace and nature. In Jesus, God and man, heaven and earth, are reconciled. Because the Word possesses both a divine and a human nature without confusion or division, He reveals that grace perfects rather than destroys nature. In Him, divine initiative and authentic human freedom cooperate perfectly. We may sense how easily we allow ourselves to swing in one direction or the other.

In his early years, a young priest may underestimate human freedom and the attachments to vice. He may convince himself that his golden words of orthodoxy from the pulpit alone will change hearts. He should preach the one, true, catholic, and apostolic faith with integrity. But he soon discovers that he will not be more successful than the good Lord Himself in the Gospels. He realizes that he has enemies, at times because of his failures, but often because of his orthodoxy.

As the priest matures and considers the slings and arrows of his pastoral failures, he may come to underestimate human freedom and responsiveness to God’s grace. With world weariness, he may give up the fight and neglect the hot-button questions of Catholic faith and morals. The clergy throughout the hierarchy may choose the easy path of silence and pious platitudes. Instead of invoking Church teaching to transform the world, the clergy may, with sloth and spiritual resignation, allow the world to transform the Church.

Restoring the interplay between grace and human freedom requires a spirit of prayer, action, and keen attention to God’s loving providence. In prayer, we may notice the interplay of God’s grace and our freedom as we examine the events of our lives. Looking back, we notice the gentle hand of God that prevents us from reducing Catholic teaching to heretical ideologies.

Here are some examples of God’s grace at work. Who among us does not remember:

• A loving mother?
• A father who pleasantly surprises his family by his example of prayer.
• A father who loves his son so much that he makes the painful effort to discipline the unruly teenager.
• A strict teacher who brings out the best in us.
• An on-the-job supervisor who teaches a young employee how to be polite and kind as he learns the skills of the enterprise.
• A wise bishop who teaches his priests to gaze into the morning mirror and practice saying, “No.”
• A family that arrives at Mass on time.

A generous spirit in response to God’s grace slays every heresy. God’s grace heals, elevates, and perfects human freedom. Indeed, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)