Catholic News Agency reports on the 2026 Becket Fund Religious Freedom Index (RFI), claiming increased acceptance of Catholics in American society and growing support for religious expression in public spaces. The survey of 1,002 adults alleges 59% of Catholics feel “completely” or “mostly” accepted as people of faith in 2025, a five-point increase from 2024. Becket president Mark Rienzi celebrates this as evidence that “believers can participate in public life without fear of being bullied.” The report highlights majority support for school choice (77%), parental opt-outs from “LGBTQ-themed” content (73%), and protection of confessional seal (61%), framing these as victories for “religious sharing” and “religion in action.” Gen Z respondents reportedly show strongest support for public faith expressions.
Reduction of Christ’s Kingship to Mere Social Acceptance
The report’s celebration of Catholics feeling “accepted” in society constitutes blasphemous inversion of the Church’s divine mission. Quas Primas (Pius XI, 1925) explicitly condemns the notion that “very many have removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from their customs, from private, family, and public life,” declaring that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” The RFI’s anthropocentric metric – measuring faith by social acceptance rather than society’s submission to Christ’s reign – embodies the condemned error of religious indifferentism. Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864) anathematizes the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Error 80), directly contradicting Rienzi’s satisfaction with mere “participation” in a secular public square.
Neutrality Towards Truth in Education
While reporting 77% support for religious school choice, the survey ignores the Church’s immutable teaching that “the entire government of public schools… may and ought to appertain to the civil power” only when “the Church has not the power of establishing diriment impediments” (Pius IX, Syllabus, Error 45). The celebration of parental opt-outs from immoral content constitutes cowardly surrender, as St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane (1907) condemns those who claim “the Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics” (Proposition 63). True Catholic action would demand complete eradication of perverse materials, not mere opt-outs that implicitly accept the state’s authority to corrupt children. The Mahmoud v. Taylor case debate reveals modernist complicity – framing the issue as parental choice rather than the state’s duty to eliminate all offenses against Christian morality.
Sacraments Reduced to Legal Privileges
The report’s treatment of confessional seal protection as a First Amendment issue rather than divine law exemplifies conciliar apostasy. The Council of Trent (Session XIV, Chapter 5) declares priests violating the seal “subject to excommunication and incarceration in a monastery for life,” with no exception for civil authorities. That 39% of respondents believe priests should break the seal for abuse allegations proves the neo-church’s failure to teach infallibilem Ecclesiae magisterium (infallible Church teaching). This surveyed heresy flows directly from the conciliar sect’s naturalism, which Pius X condemned as making sacraments “merely serve to remind man of the presence of the ever-benevolent Creator” (cf. Lamentabili, Proposition 41).
Generational Apostasy Disguised as Progress
The report’s celebration of Gen Z’s “religious sharing” constitutes diabolical deception. When 55% of Americans accept public faith expression but only 22% of Catholics feel “completely accepted,” it reveals catastrophic evangelization failure. Pius XI’s encyclical establishes that true religious freedom means “all must obey His commands under threat of announced punishments” (Quas Primas), not mere social media posturing. That Gen Z’s “religion in action” doesn’t translate into mass conversions or societal repentance proves they’ve been catechized in the conciliar sect’s false gospel of dialogue. As the Syllabus condemns, this modern “freedom” means equating truth with error (Errors 15-18), reducing the Faith to one among many tolerated opinions.
This Becket report constitutes spiritual poison dressed as good news, celebrating crumbs of tolerance while society rejects Christ the King. Until American Catholics demand what Pius XI commanded – “the entire human race subject to the authority of Jesus Christ” (Quas Primas) – no survey can mask our collective apostasy.
Source:
Becket report finds increases in support for religious liberty in the public square (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 16.01.2026