US Bishops’ Novena for the Unborn: A Masked Betrayal of Catholic Doctrine
The Catholic News Agency portal (January 6, 2026) reports that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has invited Catholics to pray a “9 Days for Life” novena from January 16-24, ostensibly to mark the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children on January 22. This annual event, now in its 14th year, claims to reach “hundreds of thousands of people in over 100 countries” with prayers to end abortion and build a “culture of life.” Such theatrical displays of piety cannot mask the doctrinal bankruptcy of an episcopal conference operating under the authority of the post-conciliar sect.
Theological Fraud in the Name of Life
The USCCB’s novena constitutes a grave theological fraud by obscuring the Church’s unchanging teaching on abortion. While claiming to pray for the unborn, the bishops deliberately omit the Church’s definitive condemnation of all direct abortion as homicidium perfectum (complete murder) regardless of gestational age (Pius IX, Ap. Sedes). Canon 2350 of the 1917 Code mandates excommunication latae sententiae for all participants in abortion, yet the USCCB materials make no mention of this penalty. Their silence constitutes implicit approval of the conciliar sect’s habitual failure to enforce canonical sanctions against pro-abortion politicians receiving “Communion.”
Participants will be offered daily prayer intentions accompanied by short reflections and suggested actions to help build a culture of life.
This vague “culture of life” rhetoric directly contradicts Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Connubii, which demands not cultural transformation but the “complete submission of individuals and societies to God’s law” (1930). The USCCB reduces the abortion holocaust to a social issue requiring dialogue rather than recognizing it as the satanic inversion of the Eucharistic Sacrifice – where modern Herods slaughter innocents while their accomplices in mitres distribute sacrilegious “communions.”
Sacrilegious Substitution of True Penance
The article’s reference to January 22 as a day of “prayer and penance” per the General Instruction of the Roman Missal reveals the conciliar sect’s sacramental destruction. The post-conciliar GIRM lacks all authority, having been promulgated by Paul VI under the false pretense of liturgical reform. True Catholic discipline requires not optional “suggested actions” but mandatory penance for national sins. Where the 1917 Code (Canon 1252) mandated year-round Friday abstinence, the USCCB offers theatrical alternatives:
On the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children, the bishops suggest the faithful observe the day by attending Mass, abstaining from meat, praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet, fasting, praying a decade of the rosary, or offering a prayer for life to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
This buffet of devotional options constitutes sacrilege when offered by men who sanction invalid Novus Ordo liturgies. The “Divine Mercy Chaplet” they promote derives from the false revelations of Faustina Kowalska – condemned by the Holy Office under Pius XII (1959) and revived by the antipope John Paul II as part of the conciliar cult of sentimentalism.
Complicity in the Roe v. Wade Regime
While boasting that “the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022,” the USCCB conceals its culpability in sustaining the culture of death. For decades, these same bishops refused to enforce Canon 855 (1917 Code) prohibiting Eucharist for pro-abortion politicians. Their post-2022 statement that “continuing efforts are still needed” constitutes heresy by implying civil law rather than divine law determines abortion’s morality. The Council of Trent (Session XXII, Canon 7) anathematizes those who claim circumstances can justify abortion – yet the USCCB’s novena materials never identify abortion as intrinsically evil.
The conciliar sect’s “pro-life” posturing serves its deeper apostasy. By reducing abortion to a single issue rather than recognizing it as the inevitable fruit of religious liberty (condemned by Pius IX in Quanta Cura), they perpetuate the Americanist heresy. Leo XIII condemned this exact error in Testem Benevolentiae (1899), warning that subordinating Catholic doctrine to pluralism leads to “the Church within the State” – precisely the USCCB’s strategy of lobbying for incremental restrictions while accepting abortion’s “legal” existence.
Liturgical and Doctrinal Sabotage
The Novena’s multilingual “resource kits” continue the conciliar revolution’s assault on Catholic unity. By providing materials in Spanish and English rather than Latin, the USCCB rejects Pius XII’s mandate that Latin preserves doctrine from “corrupting influences” (Mediator Dei). Their suggestion to pray before the “Blessed Sacrament” rings hollow when most novena participants will encounter illicit Eucharistic ministers and invalid matter (ordinary bread) in their parishes.
Most damning is the novena’s silence about the only truly pro-life action possible under the conciliar regime: total separation from structures that systematically profane the Eucharist and deny the Social Kingship of Christ. The USCCB’s “prayers” are as effective as Eli’s sons offering defective sacrifices (1 Samuel 2:12-17) – God will answer not with blessings but with the curse pronounced against false shepherds: “Woe to the pastors that destroy and tear the sheep of my pasture” (Jeremiah 23:1).
Source:
Bishops invite faithful to pray novena for the unborn (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 06.01.2026