EWTN News reports (February 5, 2026) on a federal indictment alleging a six-figure fraud scheme involving Catholic Charities of the “Archdiocese” of Milwaukee. Four individuals – Brandi Ellis, Jason Flanders, Ramon Hernandez, and Jezlia Barajas – stand accused of issuing fraudulent checks, creating fake invoices, and laundering stolen funds through interstate transactions. The indictment follows a May 2025 lawsuit by the “archdiocese” against Ellis, revealing systemic accounting failures at Baker Tilly auditing firm. This financial scandal exemplifies how conciliar structures have abandoned lex divina (divine law) for secular operational models, inevitably breeding corruption.
Naturalistic Governance Replaces Sacramental Economy
The article treats this as mere financial crime, ignoring how post-conciliar “charities” operate as NGOs divorced from caritas (supernatural charity). Nowhere does the “archdiocese” acknowledge this theft as sacrilege – the misappropriation of funds intended for Christ’s poor (Matt 25:40). Pius XI’s Quas Primas condemns such secularization: “When once men recognize…that Christ has been given all power in heaven and on earth…a force will permeate all public and private life” (n. 19). Instead, the “archdiocese” pursues civil litigation like any corporation, proving Benedict XV’s warning that “the Church cannot be put on a level with merely human societies” (Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, 1914).
Structural Apostasy Enabled by Vatican II Revolution
This fraud stems directly from the conciliar sect’s rejection of societas perfecta (the Church’s juridical independence). The 1917 Code of Canon Law mandated ecclesiastical tribunals for clerical crimes (Canon 1553), yet Milwaukee’s “chancery” runs to secular courts – an admission of its own canonical illegitimacy. Pius IX’s Syllabus condemned the error that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Proposition 55). By outsourcing auditing to Baker Tilly – a firm serving Masonic groups – the “archdiocese” violates Pius X’s ban on Catholic-modernist collaboration (Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 1907).
Silence on Supernatural Consequences Reveals Modernist Infiltration
The article’s clinical tone avoids spiritual realities: the eternal fate of perpetrators, sacrilegious misuse of donations, or need for reparative penance. This reflects the conciliar sect’s practical atheism condemned by St. Pius X: “The Modernist…is a heretic and not only a heretic, but the heir of all the heresies” (Lamentabili Sane, Proposition 65). Not one quoted “cleric” invokes divine justice or the victims’ need for sacramental consolation. Contrast this with pre-conciliar responses to Church theft, like St. John Bosco’s public exorcism of a thief who stole from Turin’s Oratory coffers.
Ecclesiological Amnesia Conceals Institutional Apostasy
EWTN’s report ignores how authentic Catholic charities functioned before Vatican II. Pius XII’s De Providentissima Mater Ecclesia (1947) required religious institutes to maintain triplex ordo (threefold accounting system) with monthly audits by superiors. Milwaukee’s multi-year fraud proves abandonment of these safeguards. The “charity’s” very name is fraudulent: post-1965 “Catholic Charities USA” broke from Magisterial principles, becoming a federal grant contractor – what Pius XI called “that false philanthropy which…gives a preponderance to the economic side” (Quadragesimo Anno, 1931).
Symptomatic of Bergoglian Ecclesial Anarchy
This Milwaukee scandal occurs under “Pope” Leo XIV’s regime, which dismantled remaining financial controls. His 2024 motu proprio Vos Estis Lux Mundi eliminated diocesan finance councils, enabling precisely this type of embezzlement. The fraud’s scale – hundreds of thousands diverted – mirrors the Vatican’s own “London property” scandal under “Cardinal” Becciu. Such systemic corruption fulfills Pius X’s prophecy that Modernism would produce “the annihilation of all religion” (Pascendi, 39).
The Milwaukee indictment reveals the conciliar sect’s ontological disorder: a pseudo-church mimicking Catholic forms while operating on purely naturalistic principles. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope” (De Romano Pontifice II.30), making all post-1958 “pontiffs” and their structures illegitimate. Until Catholics abandon these counterfeit institutions and return to true bishops preserving Tradition, such scandals will multiply – for corruptio optimi pessima (the corruption of the best is the worst).
Source:
Indictment accuses 3 more in major fraud scheme at Wisconsin Catholic charity (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 05.02.2026