Conciliar Sect Reduces Pilgrimages to Economic Instrument Amid Spiritual Desolation
Vatican News portal (January 8, 2026) reports on an address by “Father” Francesco Ielpo, “Custos of the Holy Land,” urging the faithful to resume pilgrimages to the Holy Land, primarily framed as economic support for local communities and a source of “hope.” The article omits all supernatural dimensions of pilgrimage, reducing it to a tool for socioeconomic survival and interfaith dialogue, thereby exposing the conciliar sect’s abandonment of Catholic soteriology.
Naturalization of Pilgrimage: A Betrayal of Catholic Tradition
The article centers on Ielpo’s plea to “return as pilgrims to this land” not for spiritual enrichment but to halt the “progressive depopulation” of Christians. This utilitarian framing contradicts the raison d’être of pilgrimage as defined by pre-1958 Magisterium. Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas (1925) declares that all human activities, including pilgrimage, must submit to Christ the King’s reign: “When men… allow themselves to be governed by Christ, then… sweet peace will return again.” Pilgrimage is foremost an act of penance, a quest for sanctifying grace through devotion to the holy places where Christ’s redemptive work unfolded. By reducing it to an “economic lifeline,” the conciliar sect substitutes the economy of salvation with materialist calculus.
“Pilgrims generate hope… [by] seeing Christians from all over the world come to the Holy Land… to encounter a living Church,”
Ielpo states. The term “living Church” here signifies not the Mystical Body of Christ but a sociological entity sustained by tourism. This aligns with Modernist ecclesiology condemned in St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane (1907), which rejects the Church as a perfect society “endowed with proper and perpetual rights” (Proposition 19). Silence on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, sacramental grace, or the Four Last Things reveals a naturalistic worldview.
Ecumenism and Antisemitism: Conciliar Double Betrayal
The article applauds interfaith initiatives like the Custody’s “multi-religious choir school” where Muslim students initially refused lessons from a Jewish teacher. Ielpo resolves this not by defending truth but through indifferentism: “I am not the government… I only want to build the best choir.” This exemplifies the conciliar heresy of religious liberty, condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors: “Every man is free to embrace… that religion which… he shall consider true” (Proposition 15). The true Church teaches extra Ecclesiam nulla salus—outside her, there is no salvation—and thus cannot equate the synagogue with Christ’s Bride.
Moreover, Ielpo’s condemnation of antisemitism prioritizes political correctness over doctrinal clarity. While the Church forbids hatred of Jews, she also demands their conversion, as Pius XII taught: “The Church… prays for [the Jews’] conversion.” By contrast, the article reduces antisemitism to a social ill divorced from its theological cause: rejection of Christ’s divinity.
Omission of Supernatural Warfare and the Church’s True Mission
Nowhere does Ielpo mention spiritual combat, the necessity of the sacraments, or the Church’s mandate to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). Pilgrimages are reimagined as vehicles for “positive initiatives” and “encounters” rather than reparation for sin. This reflects the conciliar sect’s broader apostasy, which Pius IX anathematized: “The Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics” (Proposition 63). The “local Christian community” praised is likely the post-Vatican II “Palestinian Church,” steeped in liberation theology and interfaith syncretism.
Conclusion: Pilgrimage Without the Cross
The article epitomizes the conciliar sect’s inversion of ends and means. Pilgrimage is stripped of its telos—union with Christ through penance—and repurposed as welfare for a dwindling ethnic community. Quas Primas warned that societies rejecting Christ’s reign would fracture into “flames of mutual hatred,” precisely the state of the Holy Land today. True Catholics must reject this desacralized parody and instead seek grace through traditional pilgrimages centered on the Immemorial Mass, adoration, and the Rosary—all anathema to the “abomination of desolation” occupying Jerusalem’s ancient sanctuaries.
Source:
Custos of the Holy Land: “Return as pilgrims to the Holy Land” (vaticannews.va)
Date: 08.01.2026