Therapeutic Modernism Masquerading as Catholic Response to Tragedy

Catholic News Agency reports on Andrew Cozzens’ January 13, 2026 presentation at St. John the Baptist Church in Minnesota, following the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting that killed two children. The “bishop” emphasized emotional processing through prayer while avoiding any substantive Catholic teaching on sin, judgment, or the social reign of Christ the King. The talk exemplifies how conciliar church leaders replace depositum fidei (the deposit of faith) with therapeutic psychologism when confronting evil.

Reduction of Catholic Faith to Emotional Therapy

Cozzens’ approach exemplifies the modernist reduction of religion to subjective experience:

“The real thing that’s bothering me — that’s the only place his word can meet me… It’s actually after pouring out my feelings that then I can receive the truth”

This contradicts the Church’s teaching that truth precedes and informs right sentiment: “The truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). The Code of Canon Law (1917) mandates that pastors “preach the word of God to the people” (Canon 1327), not encourage emotional catharsis as primary spiritual response.

The presentation’s structure – “bookended by Mass and adoration” while avoiding doctrinal substance – demonstrates the Novus Ordo paradigm of sacraments as therapeutic props rather than ex opere operato channels of grace. Pius XII condemned such subjectivism: “The mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist… is not a proper object for human discourse” (Mediator Dei, 1947).

Evasion of Sacramental and Eschatological Realities

Nowhere does Cozzens mention:

The necessity of sacramental confession for those dying in sin
The particular judgment immediately following death
Hell as possible destination for unrepentant murderers
Requiem Masses for the dead

This silence constitutes pastoral malpractice. The Council of Trent dogmatically defined that priests must “admonish the people on the nature, use, and fruit of so great a sacrament [Penance]” (Session XIV, Chapter 4). By reducing evil to an abstract “problem” needing emotional processing rather than concrete mortal sin demanding repentance, Cozzens subverts Catholic soteriology.

Ecclesiological Cowardice in Addressing Abuse Crisis

When referencing his “personal struggles with faith” during clerical abuse scandals, Cozzens ignores the doctrinal roots of the crisis:

The suppression of Thomistic formation (Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis 26-27)
Abandonment of clerical discipline (Canon 125-126, 1917 Code)
Infiltration condemned in Leo XIII’s Humanum Genus (1884)

His therapeutic framing avoids Pius X’s diagnosis: “Modernists are the enemies of the Church” (Sacrorum Antistitum, 1910). The conciliar church’s refusal to identify modernism as the cancer explains its perpetual “struggles.”

Naturalization of Christ’s Kingship

Cozzens’ assertion that “God’s answer to evil is the cross” isolates Christ’s sacrifice from His social reign. Pius XI’s Quas Primas (1925) establishes the necessary connection: “Nations will be in revolt against Christ… peace will never be lasting until… individuals and states obey His laws.” The shooting occurred precisely because Minnesota’s laws reject Christ’s kingship – permitting abortion (5,746 in 2025) and same-sex “marriage” while restricting Catholic education.

The bishop’s omission of these causes – and his silence on Minnesota’s 63.2% ex-Catholic population – reveals the conciliar church’s capitulation to secularism. St. Augustine’s principle applies: “Without justice, what are kingdoms but great robberies?” (De Civitate Dei, IV.4).

Symptomatic Silence on Weaponized Ecumenism

The article notes Cozzens participated in a 2025 interfaith “vigil” with Protestant and Jewish leaders after the shooting. This implements Vatican II’s false ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio), condemned by Pope Pius XI: “The Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it in any way lawful for Catholics to give to such enterprises their encouragement or support” (Mortalium Animos, 1928). True shepherds would have demanded conversion, not interfaith platitudes.

Conclusion: When Pastors Become Therapists

This event epitomizes why Paul VI’s sacramental reforms yield spiritual disaster: When Novus Ordo “bishops” substitute Freud for Aquinas, and group therapy for the Last Things, the faithful remain starved of true doctrine. Let Cozzens’ therapeutic posturing stand as proof – as Our Lady of La Salette warned – that Rome has become “the seat of antichrist.”

Source:
Bishop Cozzens after Annunciation shooting: ‘God’s answer to evil is the cross’ (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 14.01.2026