An anathema in the Catholic tradition refers to the clear rejection of a doctrine that contradicts the Gospel. It is directed not primarily against the person, but against the false claim itself. By doing so, the Church identifies what is incompatible with the faith of Christ, just as the Apostle Paul does in the Letter to the Galatians. There, he writes that even an angel from heaven should be rejected if he proclaims a gospel different from the one handed down by the apostles. This drastic formulation shows that the Gospel is unchangeable and that any doctrine deviating from it stands outside the truth. An anathema thus protects the purity of the faith and the faithful from error by unequivocally determining which statements are in agreement with Christ and which are not.