Atlanta Conference Betrays Catholic Justice for Modernist Subversion
The Vatican News portal reports on the 2025 National Catholic Conference on Restorative Justice held in Atlanta, Georgia, organized by Catholic Mobilizing Network. The event, framed as a “Jubilee-inspired” initiative, promoted “healing approaches” to criminal justice through collaboration with interfaith groups, legal professionals, and formerly incarcerated individuals. Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer celebrated the opening Mass, invoking “hope” as “the extravagant mercy of God” working through human efforts. The conference featured tours of civil rights landmarks, ecumenical services at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and panels advocating alternatives to incarceration. Organizers claimed this aligns with Catholic social teaching while transforming “systems of capital punishment and incarceration.”
Replacing Divine Justice with Naturalistic Humanism
The conference’s core error lies in its reduction of justice to a horizontal, sociopolitical construct (justitia socialis), utterly divorced from the primacy of Christ the King’s dominion over all law and society (Pius XI, Quas Primas). By framing “restorative justice” as merely “building capacity within communities” and “transform[ing] systems,” the organizers discard the lex aeterna which demands that civil laws conform to Divine Law. Pius IX condemned such naturalism in the Syllabus of Errors, explicitly rejecting the notion that “the State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits” (Proposition 39). The event’s emphasis on “healing approaches to harm” deliberately omits the necessary correlation between crime, personal sin, and eternal damnation—reducing justice to therapeutic sociology.
Ecumenical Apostasy Masquerading as “Hope”
Archbishop Hartmayer’s blasphemous assertion that “hope is the extravagant mercy of God working through us” inverts the Catholic understanding of grace. True hope resides solely in “uniting ourselves to the merits of Jesus Christ” (Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter XVI), not in human activism. The ecumenical prayer service with Ebenezer Baptist Church—a den of heresy denying the sacraments and papacy—constitutes formal participation in false worship, condemned by Pope Pius XI as “religious indifferentism, the pernicious error… that all religions are more or less good and praiseworthy” (Mortalium Animos). The pilgrimage to Martin Luther King Jr.’s tomb elevates a Marxist revolutionary above the martyrs and confessors of the Faith, betraying the Church’s mission to convert all nations (Matt 28:19) in favor of secular civil rights idolatry.
Subversion of Penal Justice Through Modernist Doublespeak
The conference’s advocacy for “restorative justice alternatives to incarceration” directly opposes the Church’s perennial teaching on the state’s right and duty to punish criminals. Leo XIII affirmed that “the power of punishing is… necessary to the State” (Immortale Dei), while Pius XII condemned the “exaggerated humanitarianism” seeking to abolish capital punishment (Address to Italian Jurists, 1952). By prioritizing “victims’ needs” through dialogue rather than retributive justice, organizers reject the objective moral order in favor of situational ethics. This aligns with Modernist subjectivism condemned by St. Pius X: “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Lamentabili Sane, Proposition 58).
Omission of Supernatural Essentials: A Silent Apostasy
Nowhere does the conference acknowledge the primacy of the Sacrament of Penance for true restoration of souls wounded by sin. The silence on grace, repentance, and final judgment exposes its apostate foundations. Contrast this with the Council of Trent’s decree that “the sinner is not restored to grace unless he hates his sin and has a firm purpose of amendment” (Session XIV, Chapter IV). Instead, organizers promote “liberation through restorative practices”—a Marxist liberation theology trope disguising spiritual bankruptcy. The involvement of “formerly incarcerated individuals” as equals in theological discussions violates the Church’s prohibition against laymen judging doctrinal matters (Canon 1325, 1917 Code).
The Invalid “Jubilee 2025”: Usurping Sacred Time
Benedict XV warned that “no one can change the fixed times and laws established by God” (Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum). By attaching their revolutionary agenda to a “Jubilee Year” declared by antipope Bergoglio, organizers participate in the Vatican II sect’s parody of Holy Years. True Jubilees require a valid pope and emphasize penance, pilgrimage to Rome, and indulgences for the remission of temporal punishment due to sin—none of which occur in this Atlanta circus. The event’s tagline “#JUBILEE2025” constitutes sacrilegious branding of heresy as holy.
Conclusion: Justice Without Christ the King is Tyranny
This conference epitomizes the conciliar church’s total abandonment of Catholic integralism. As Pius XI taught: “Christ reigns in the State when the State acknowledges the Church as a perfect society and respects her laws” (Quas Primas). By reducing justice to sociological tinkering while embracing heretics and revolutionaries, the Atlanta gathering confirms the conciliar sect as an “abomination of desolation standing in the holy place” (Matt 24:15). Only a return to the Social Kingship of Christ—not “hope-filled justice solutions”—can heal our crime-ridden society.
Source:
Transforming the US criminal legal system through hope (vaticannews.va)
Date: 21.11.2025