The EWTN News article from December 5, 2025, reports on Philippine “bishops” leading nationwide protests against corruption, with Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David celebrating Mass at the EDSA People Power Monument and encouraging 90,000 protesters to demand governmental accountability. The article frames these political rallies as a continuation of the 1986 “People Power Revolution,” emphasizing “moral clarity,” “democracy,” and “justice” while omitting any reference to Regnum Christi (the Kingship of Christ) or the Church’s supernatural mission. This fixation on temporal power structures reveals the conciliar sect’s fundamental apostasy from Catholic ecclesiology.
Subordination of Supernatural Ends to Naturalistic Activism
The spectacle of pseudo-clerics like David urging Filipinos to “protect democracy” through street protests constitutes a complete inversion of the Church’s divine mandate. Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas (1925) establishes that “the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men” and that “princes and rulers” must “give public honor and obedience to Christ” (n. 32). By contrast, David’s statement that “the democracy restored by the EDSA People Power Revolution… is the only soil where genuine change can take root” blasphemously substitutes human political systems for Christ’s sovereignty. The Syllabus of Errors explicitly condemns the notion that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55) – precisely the secularist framework embraced by these protests.
Nowhere do the conciliar “bishops” call for the conversion of rulers or the public recognition of Christ’s Kingship. Their demand for mere “accountability” in flood control projects ignores St. Paul’s warning that “our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power… against the spirits of wickedness in the high places” (Eph 6:12). The true Church has always taught, as Leo XIII declared in Immortale Dei (1885), that “the Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals” – not a political NGO auditing infrastructure budgets.
Ecclesiological Sabotage Through Revolutionary Symbolism
The choice to stage protests at the EDSA People Power Monument – a site commemorating the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos – exposes the conciliar sect’s revolutionary ethos. Bishop Honesto Ongtioco’s call to “hold accountable government officials” deliberately echoes Enlightenment social contract theories condemned by Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832): “The Church has the right to require that the civil power proscribe the publication of evil teachings” (n. 15), not demand bureaucrats “promote development.” The article’s praise of AndrĂ©s Bonifacio as a “national hero” further illustrates this problematic stance, given his Masonic affiliations and rebellion against Catholic Spain.
Pius IX’s Quanta Cura (1864) anathematizes those who assert “that the will of the people… constitutes the supreme law” (n. 3). Yet the conciliar clergy describe their protests as “the quiet bravery of those who still believe” – not in the Immaculate Conception or the Real Presence, but in procedural governance. This reduction of faith to political activism constitutes the heresy of Americanism condemned by Leo XIII, which emphasized “external action” over interior sanctification (Testem Benevolentiae, 1899).
Omissions Revealing Doctrinal Bankruptcy
The article’s repeated references to “peaceful protests” and “moral clarity” conceal three grave silences:
- No mention of reparation for sins causing societal decay, contrary to Pius XI’s teaching that “the sin of mankind” necessitated Christ’s Kingship (Quas Primas, n. 18)
- No call for sacramental confession among corrupt officials, despite Trent’s decree that “the Sacrament of Penance is necessary for salvation” (Session XIV)
- No warning that political solutions cannot replace grace, rejecting St. Augustine’s dictum: “Non vincit nisi veritas” (Nothing conquers except truth – Sermon 358)
The conciliar “bishops” thus propagate the Modernist error condemned in St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane (1907): that “revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Proposition 20). By reducing the Church’s mission to anti-corruption rallies, they deny her true purpose: “ut ad Deum perveniatur – that we may come to God” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.1.1).
Symptom of Conciliar Apostasy
These protests epitomize the post-Vatican II sect’s abandonment of Catholic integralism. The true Church teaches with Pius XI that “when once men recognize… that Christ has been constituted King of the whole human race… it will be possible to heal wounds” (Quas Primas, n. 21). The conciliar counterfeit, however, operates as a secular NGO – its “bishops” acting not as successors of the Apostles, but as community organizers. Until Filipinos reject these false shepherds and return to the unchanging Magisterium, their nation will remain enslaved to what St. Pius X called “the dictatorship of relativism.”
Source:
Thousands protest corruption in Philippines as Church leaders call for accountability (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 05.12.2025