Antipope’s Digital Delusion: When Virtual Reality Replaces Divine Truth
The VaticanNews portal (November 26, 2025) reports that antipope Leo XIV addressed 160 participants in the General Assembly of the Union of Superiors General, promoting a dangerous synthesis of technological idolatry and modernist ecclesiology. The address—entitled “Connected Faith: Living Prayer in the Digital Age”—attempts to baptize digital tools while undermining the supernatural foundations of religious life. At its core lies the heresy of horizontalism, where human connection replaces divine worship as the raison d’être of consecrated life.
Technological Utopianism as Spiritual Bankruptcy
Antipope Leo’s claim that digital tools offer “extraordinary opportunities for communion and mission” directly contradicts the Church’s perennial teaching on the means of grace. The Code of Canon Law (1917) explicitly warns against novel pastoral methods that risk “the sanctity of divine worship” (Canon 1261). His praise for livestreamed events like the National Catholic Youth Conference ignores the Council of Trent’s anathema against those who claim “the Mass can be celebrated…without the presence of the faithful” (Session XXII, Canon VI). When the antipope applauds technology enabling outreach to those who “struggle to come close to our communities,” he inverts the ordo salutis: souls aren’t saved through digital accessibility but through valid sacraments administered by properly ordained priests.
There is a real temptation to replace actual human relationships with mere virtual connections
This seemingly orthodox warning masks a deeper error—the reduction of religious life to interpersonal dynamics rather than supernatural transformation. The antipope cites Bergoglio’s Christus vivit to argue that traditional instruments of communion “cannot be relegated to the digital world,” yet his entire framework remains imprisoned in naturalistic anthropology. Nowhere does he mention that Chapters, Councils, and Canonical Visits derive their efficacy from submission to divine law, not organizational efficiency.
The Poison of “Walking Together”
Antipope Leo’s call to “walk together as brothers” through digital means constitutes theological sabotage. By invoking Bergoglio’s Fratelli tutti—a document condemned by faithful theologians for its religious indifferentism—he promotes the heresy of universal fraternity divorced from sanctifying grace. His vision of a “communal and historical subject of synodality” directly opposes Pope Pius XII’s teaching that the Church is “the Mystical Body of Christ, a society structured with hierarchical organs” (Mystici Corporis Christi, 63). The notion that digital tools could foster “bonds transfigured into sacred ties” blasphemes against the sacramental economy, where grace flows exclusively through validly administered channels established by Christ.
Prayer Reduced to Therapeutic Dialogue
Most grievous is the antipope’s redefinition of prayer as a “relational space” rather than latria (divine worship) owed to God alone. His description of prayer as where “we bear witness to who we truly are: creatures in need of everything” distorts the actus religionis into anthropological exhibitionism. Contrast this with Pope Pius XI’s definition: “Prayer is the elevation of the mind to God to adore Him, to thank Him, and to ask Him for what we need” (Quas Primas). The complete absence of references to propitiatory sacrifice, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or reparation for sins reveals the address’s diabolical disorientation.
Nova et Vetera: Modernist Code for Doctrinal Corruption
Antipope Leo’s closing exhortation to integrate nova et vetera constitutes the synthesis of all errors. This modernist trope—used by apostates from John XXIII to Bergoglio—twists Christ’s parable (Mt 13:52) to justify doctrinal evolution. As Pope St. Pius X condemned: “They synthesize Catholicism with false philosophy…fabricating a vain system of doctrine” (Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 6). The claim that digital tools represent “new talents that the Lord places in our hands” blasphemously equates algorithmic systems with supernatural gifts—a pantheistic confusion of nature and grace.
Omissions That Scream Heresy
The address’s silence speaks volumes:
- No mention of the Social Reign of Christ the King, despite the event occurring during Christ the King Sunday octave—a feast established by Pope Pius XI precisely to combat technological messianism.
- Total neglect of the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell), reducing eschatology to digital community-building.
- Absence of warnings against receiving “communion” in invalid Novus Ordo rites, where the propitiatory sacrifice is replaced with a communal meal.
Antipope Leo’s digital religion constitutes what Pope Pius IX condemned as “the heresy of human dignity divorced from divine law” (Syllabus of Errors, Proposition 64). When virtual connections replace sacramental realities, we witness not pastoral adaptation but apostasy—a betrayal fulfilling St. Paul’s prophecy: “They will hold the form of religion but deny its power” (2 Tim 3:5).
Source:
Pope: 'Virtual connection' cannot replace human relationships (vaticannews.va)
Date: 26.11.2025