The Pillar’s Lenten Naturalism: A Study in Conciliar Apostasy
Factual Summary and Thesis
The cited article, published February 24, 2026, on The Pillar portal, is a Lenten newsletter by JD Flynn. It opens with a lengthy, reverent biographical sketch of “Rattlesnake Kate” (1893-1969), a Colorado folkloric figure described as a Catholic who “didn’t make it to Mass too often.” The piece then transitions to several news items: a Chaldean “bishop” under embezzlement investigation; an unusual Vatican appointment of a former diocesan bishop as an auxiliary; the murder of a nun in Brazil; funding delays for Swiss Guard barracks; an Anglican “canon” converting to the “Catholic Church” and praising “substantive ecclesial communion” with the current Roman Pontiff; and a women’s group promoting “the whole of Catholic doctrine.” The newsletter concludes with excerpts from Bishop Erik Varden’s Lenten retreat for “Pope Leo” and a secular commentary on international hockey. The article’s thesis, implicit in its editorial choices, is that such a mélange of secular human-interest stories, scandal reports, and vague spiritual reflections constitutes legitimate “Catholic” commentary for the Lenten season. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this thesis is nothing short of catastrophic. The article is a perfect microcosm of the conciliar sect’s apostasy: it replaces the supernatural ends of the Catholic religion with a naturalistic, human-centered narrative, thereby embodying the very errors condemned by St. Pius X and Pope Pius IX.
Level 1: Factual Deconstruction – The Primacy of the Profane
The article’s factual structure is deliberately constructed to marginalize the supernatural. The lead story, occupying the majority of the text, is not a saint’s life, a doctrinal exposition, or a call to penance, but the tale of a rough-hewn, irregularly practicing Catholic woman celebrated for her gritty self-reliance and violent struggle against rattlesnakes. The narrative is framed with affectionate colloquialisms (“ole Rattlesnake Kate,” “a doozy,” “good day to be a hockey fan”) that belong to a popular magazine, not a publication claiming to serve the Catholic faithful. This choice is not neutral; it is a doctrinal statement. The focus is on human ingenuity, physical survival, and local color—the “secular” in the most banal sense. The single sentence mentioning Kate’s Catholicism (“She was a Catholic — people remember that she was often praying in the field — but she didn’t make it to Mass too often.”) is presented as a charming, inconsequential detail, not as the central reality of her soul’s state. The implication is clear: her practical, earthy virtues are more noteworthy than her sacramental life (or lack thereof). This is the religion of “Rattlesnake Kate,” not of St. Ignatius Loyola or St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
The news section further demonstrates the priorities of the conciliar sect. The investigation of a “bishop” for embezzlement is treated as routine “news,” not as a scandal demanding urgent canonical action and public condemnation from a legitimate hierarchy. The appointment of a bishop to a lesser role after a conflict with his clergy is noted with curiosity (“left open a lot of interesting questions”), not with alarm over the breakdown of hierarchical authority and doctrinal unity. The murder of a nun is a tragic footnote. The financial woes of the Swiss Guard are a logistical curiosity. The conversion of an Anglican “canon” is presented as a positive ecumenical outcome, with the convert stating his attraction to “substantive ecclesial communion” with the current occupant of the Vatican. This phrase is a direct affirmation of the heresy of **religious indifferentism** and **false ecumenism**, solemnly condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (Propositions 15-18). The women’s group, the Dorothea Project, is praised for wanting to present “the whole of Catholic doctrine,” yet its stated identity (“not because we’re conservative or liberal, not because we’re Republican or Democrat”) reveals its foundational error: it reduces Catholicism to a vague, politically neutral moralism, detached from the dogmatic and hierarchical truths that define the Church. The article’s “spiritual” high point is Bishop Erik Varden’s reflection on God’s “help,” which reduces the Almighty to a comforting presence (“a habitat”) and frames the Book of Job as a journey from “visceral Lament” to “Grace” in a psychologically therapeutic mode. There is no mention of sacrifice, sin, hell, the necessity of sacraments, the divinity of Christ, the Kingship of God over nations, or the final judgment. The supernatural order is entirely absent, replaced by a comforting, immanentist spirituality.
Level 2: Linguistic and Rhetorical Analysis – The Tone of Apostasy
The language of the article is a definitive marker of its theological decay. The author employs a casual, conversational tone (“Hey everybody,” “I know I usually open… but I’ve been thinking,” “It’s a smart bet,” “doozy”) that erodes any sense of sacredness or doctrinal gravity. This is the rhetoric of the tabloid or the lifestyle blog, not of a messenger of the Deposit of Faith. The selection of a figure like Rattlesnake Kate—a woman whose life involved divorce, bootlegging, and irregular Mass attendance—as a Lenten hero is a calculated act of democratization and vulgarization of sanctity. It aligns perfectly with the conciliar sect’s obsession with “the signs of the times” and “the people of God,” where heroic virtue is redefined according to worldly standards of toughness and self-sufficiency, rather than according to the evangelical counsels and the theological virtues.
The treatment of the “Pope” is symptomatic. The antipope Leo XIV is referred to without quotation marks or critical comment, his name used as a simple proper noun. This normalizes the occupation of the Holy See by a manifest heretic (as proven by his continuous apostasy from the faith, see the Defense of Sedevacantism file). The phrase “Pope Leo” is presented as an unassailable title, a linguistic acceptance of the false claim. Similarly, titles like “bishop,” “cardinal,” and “canon” are used without qualification, conferring legitimacy upon individuals who participate in and propagate the conciliar apostasy. This is not neutral reporting; it is propaganda for the neo-church. The silence on the nullity of the sacraments administered by these “clerics” is deafening. The article operates entirely within the naturalistic, juridical framework of the post-Conciliar “Church,” accepting its structures, its personnel, and its terminology as legitimate, thereby committing the error of externalism condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis.
Level 3: Theological Confrontation – Doctrinal Annihilation
Every major theme of the article stands in direct, irreconcilable opposition to the unchanging Catholic faith as defined before the rupture of 1958.
1. The Kingship of Christ vs. Naturalistic Humanism. The article’s worldview is fundamentally Pelagian and secular. It celebrates human achievement (Kate’s survival, hockey victories, entrepreneurial women) with no reference to the grace of God or the obligation of societies to recognize the reign of Christ the King. This is the precise error condemned by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas. The Pope wrote that the plague of secularism began with the denial of “Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations” and that “when God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The Pillar’s article, by filling its pages with stories that have no bearing on the Social Kingship of Christ, actively participates in this denial. It promotes a “Catholicism” that is compatible with the secular state and secular values, which is the essence of the “indifferentism” Pius IX anathematized (Syllabus, Prop. 16: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation”).
2. Ecumenism and the Unity of the Church. The conversion story of Anglican Canon Robin Ward is presented as an unalloyed good. He states: “I do feel a palpable sense of communion — substantive ecclesial communion — with the chief pastor of the Church and with him over a billion fellow Catholic Christians.” This is a formal denial of the Catholic doctrine that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus) and a promotion of the heresy that the Church of Christ “subsists in” multiple communions. This is the core error of Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio, which are themselves condemned by the infallible teaching of the Church as expressed in the Syllabus of Errors (Prop. 18: “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion…”) and by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (Prop. 22: “The dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are not truths of divine origin but are a certain interpretation of religious facts…”). The article’s approval of this conversion narrative is a direct attack on the uniqueness and exclusivity of the Catholic Church.
3. The Authority of the Church and the Papacy. The article refers without qualification to “Pope Leo,” “Cardinal Louis Sako,” “Bishop Emanuel Shaleta,” and “Bishop Gaspard Béby Gnéba.” It thus recognizes as legitimate the entire conciliar hierarchy, which is composed of modernists, heretics, and apostates. According to the theological principle defined by St. Robert Bellarmine and confirmed by Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code, a manifest heretic loses all ecclesiastical office ipso facto. The occupants of the Vatican since John XXIII have consistently and publicly professed heresy (religious liberty, collegiality, ecumenism, evolution of dogma). Therefore, they are not popes but antipopes. To address them with their titles is to commit the sin of scandal and to participate in the deception of the faithful. The article’s routine use of these titles demonstrates its complete submission to the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place.
4. The Nature of the Church and Her Mission. The Dorothea Project is cited as wanting to present “the whole of Catholic doctrine,” yet its identity politics (“not because we’re conservative or liberal”) reveal it is already compromised. Catholic doctrine is not a set of abstract principles to be “presented” in a politically neutral way. It is a hierarchical, dogmatic, and sacramental reality that demands submission of the intellect and will to the teaching authority of the true Church. The article’s silence on the necessity of the Roman Pontiff for Catholicity, on the excommunication of modernists (as decreed by St. Pius X), and on the absolute prohibition of any association with non-Catholic religions, places it squarely in the camp of the “liberal Catholics” condemned by Pius IX.
Level 4: Symptomatic Analysis – The Fruit of the Conciliar Revolution
The article is not an anomaly; it is the logical fruit of the conciliar revolution. Its characteristics are precisely those of the “Church of the New Advent”:
- Naturalism: The focus on human stories, human achievements, human problems, and human solutions without reference to the supernatural order of grace and the sacraments.
- Horizontalism: The vertical relationship between God and man, Christ and His Church, is replaced by horizontal relationships: community, dialogue, communion, “ecclesial communion” with heretics.
- Silence on Dogma: No defined dogma of the faith—the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Real Presence, the sacrifice of the Mass, the primacy of Peter—is mentioned or alluded to. The article is doctrinally vacuous.
- Personality Cult: The focus on individual “interesting” clerics (Varden) and converts (Ward) replaces focus on Christ the King and the immutable Magisterium.
- Sentimentalism: The emotional appeal of Kate’s story, the hockey triumph, the “visceral lament” replaces the rational, objective faith of the Catholic tradition.
- Omission of the Sacramental Life: There is no call to frequent Confession and Holy Communion (in a valid Mass), no mention of the necessity of Baptism for salvation, no reference to the Last Rites. The sacraments are invisible, presumed, or irrelevant.
This is the “new evangelization” of the conciliar sect: a message without the Cross, a Church without the Pope, a faith without dogma, a hope without heaven. It is the “synthesis of all errors” of Modernism, as condemned by St. Pius X. The article’s very existence proves that the structures occupying the Vatican have become a platform for naturalistic humanism, using the vocabulary of Catholicism to destroy the faith.
Conclusion: A Call to Rejection and Return
The Pillar article is not merely bad journalism; it is a doctrinal toxin. It presents a “Catholicism” that is indistinguishable from generic theistic humanism. It honors a woman who may have been in a state of mortal sin (absent from Mass, divorced) as a Lenten exemplar. It celebrates ecumenical conversion to a false church. It treats the hierarchy of the conciliar sect as legitimate. It is silent on the essential supernatural truths of the faith. This is the theological and spiritual bankruptcy of the post-Conciliar “Church” made manifest in a single newsletter. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the only appropriate response is total rejection. The faithful must flee this conciliar sect and adhere solely to the Roman Catholic Church, which endures in those who profess the entire faith and are united to the true, pre-1958 hierarchy. There is no “reform” possible within the structures of the abomination; there is only the imperative of refugium peccatorum: to find refuge from this modern Babylon in the unchanging Tradition of the Church, outside of which there is no salvation.
Source:
Rattlesnake Kate, Champions! and ‘visceral lament’ (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 24.02.2026