CatholicNewsAgency.com reports that antipope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) delivered an Angelus address on December 21, 2025, focusing on four alleged virtues of St. Joseph: “piety and charity, mercy and trust.” The article claims these virtues should guide Catholics in the final days of Advent. The message describes Joseph as “fragile and fallible — like us — and at the same time courageous and strong in faith,” emphasizing his supposed decision to avoid “scandal” through “mercy” when confronted with the mystery of the Incarnation. The portal frames this as instruction for believers to become “a welcoming manger” through mutual forgiveness and encouragement. This modernist sentimentalism masquerading as spiritual guidance constitutes a grave doctrinal subversion.
Doctrinal Deviations in the Angelus Message
The antipope’s interpretation directly contradicts the Church’s perennial teaching on St. Joseph’s sanctity. Quemadmodum Deus (1870) of Pius IX declared Joseph “wholly holy and free from all stain of sin,” while Leo XIII’s Quamquam Pluries (1889) teaches that Joseph possessed “supreme dignity” through his “divinely ordained participation in the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption.” The portrayal of Joseph as “fragile and fallible — like us” constitutes blasphemy against his singular privileges as Spouse of the Immaculate Virgin and Guardian of the Word Incarnate.
This reduction of Joseph’s sanctity to mere humanistic virtue reflects the post-conciliar sect’s systematic denial of supernatural grace. The Council of Trent (Session VI, Canon 23) anathematizes those who claim “a man who is justified… can avoid all sins,” yet the message implicitly denies Joseph’s unique preservation from sin through God’s special dispensation. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (Part IV) explicitly states Joseph was “free from the slightest stain of sin” and “preserved by a special grace from every motion of concupiscence.”
Omission of Justice and Repentance
The article highlights the antipope’s emphasis on “mercy” divorced from justice: “Joseph did not choose ‘the way of scandal’ or public condemnation. Instead, he opted for the discreet and benevolent path of planning to divorce her quietly.” This manipulative narrative omits Joseph’s supernatural understanding of Mary’s perpetual virginity and his recognition of the divine origin of her pregnancy.
The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea) records ancient tradition that Joseph knew Mary’s vow of virginity and suspected divine intervention, explaining his hesitation. St. Augustine clarifies in De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia (I:11): “Joseph did not suspect adultery in Mary; he was perplexed about the mystery he could not comprehend.” The antipope’s silence about Joseph’s vir justus (just man) status (Matthew 1:19) constitutes suppression of the virtue of justice – the very foundation of Joseph’s response. Pius XI’s Divini Redemptoris (1937) reminds us that “charity cannot take the place of justice unfairly withheld,” yet this angelus message promotes mercy untethered from objective truth.
Naturalistic Reduction of Advent Preparation
The portal’s summary reveals the neo-church’s substitution of sacramental spirituality with moralistic platitudes: “these virtues ‘educate the heart’ for encountering Christ… [to become] a welcoming manger, a comfortable home.” This echoes the modernist heresy condemned in Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) which denounced those reducing religion to “a certain religious sense derived from nature.”
Nowhere does the address mention:
- The necessity of sacramental confession to prepare for Christ’s coming (Lateran IV Canon 21)
- The Eucharistic fast and penance proper to Advent (1917 Code of Canon Law, Can. 1251)
- The Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell
Instead, the message promotes the false irenicism condemned in Pius XI’s Mortalium Animos (1928): “exhortations to mutual forgiveness” without demanding contrition, restitution, or firm purpose of amendment. The true Advent preparation requires metanoia – the radical conversion of heart through the Sacrament of Penance, not the neo-church’s psychologized “trust” devoid of grace.
Perversion of Augustinian Theology
The article quotes the antipope misusing St. Augustine: “from Joseph’s piety and charity, ‘a son was born of the Virgin Mary — Son at the same time of God.'” This selectively edits Augustine’s Sermo 51 (PL 38:342) which actually emphasizes Joseph’s role as testis integritatis (witness to Mary’s integrity) and “guardian, not father” of Christ. The original sermon stresses Joseph’s virginity, not the sentimentalized “human sensitivity” fabricated by neo-modernists.
The post-conciliar sect systematically corrupts patristic sources to serve its naturalistic agenda. As St. Pius X warned in Lamentabili Sane (Proposition 64): “Modernists pervert the eternal concept of truth by claiming dogmas must evolve with scientific progress.” By divorcing Joseph’s virtues from their supernatural foundation, the antipope enacts precisely this modernist corruption.
False Presentation of Joseph as Model of Uncertainty
The portal amplifies the antipope’s most dangerous assertion: Joseph’s “great act of faith” consisted in “leaving behind the last of his certainties and set[ting] out into a future fully in God’s hands.” This transforms the Protoevangelium of James‘s account of Joseph’s divinely-certified mission into an existentialist leap into the unknown – the very “trust without evidence” condemned as fideism by Vatican I (Dei Filius, Chapter 3).
True Catholic faith rests on divine revelation, not subjective uncertainty. St. Thomas Aquinas clarifies in Summa Theologica (II-II Q4 A1): “Faith assents to divine truth on authority of God Himself who reveals it.” Joseph’s obedience flowed from supernatural certitude granted by Gabriel’s message (Matthew 1:20-21), not the neo-modernist “trust” in an ambiguous future. Once again, the conciliar sect replaces divine truth with human sentiment.
Theological Consequences of This Distortion
This angelus message constitutes pastoral malpractice through its:
- Denial of Joseph’s unique sanctity (implicitly attacking Mary’s Immaculate Conception by making her spouse “fallible”)
- Reduction of Advent to ethical humanism rather than sacramental preparation
- Omission of the necessity of grace for salvation (against Council of Orange Canon 6)
- Promotion of false mercy detached from justice and repentance
The final exhortation to “forgiv[e], encourag[e], offer hope” without mention of Christ’s Kingship or the Social Reign of Sacred Heart violates Pius XI’s Quas Primas (1925): “Nations will be happy when both citizens and governments render public worship to Christ… His kingly dignity demands that the State take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles.” By reducing Advent to interpersonal niceties, the antipope accelerates the neo-church’s apostasy from Christ the King.
The faithful must recognize this message as modernist poison. True devotion to St. Joseph requires embracing his purity, justice, and obedience to divine law – virtues systematically destroyed by the conciliar sect’s anthropocentric revolution. Let us prepare for Christ’s coming through the Rorate Caeli Masses, Eucharistic adoration, and the Rosary – rejecting all innovations of the counterfeit church occupying Rome.
Source:
Pope Leo XIV highlights key virtues for final days of Advent (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 21.12.2025