Summary: An EWTN News article from February 26, 2026, reports that Ambassador Alberto Fernandez and John Eibner urged the Trump administration to pressure Armenia’s government to cease its crackdown on the Armenian Apostolic Church, citing indictments against Catholicos Garegin II, jailed bishops, and travel restrictions. The article frames this as a defense of religious freedom against authoritarianism, aligning with U.S. geopolitical interests in the region. This narrative, however, exposes the conciliar sect’s complete abandonment of Catholic exclusivism in favor of modernist indifferentism, treating a schismatic body as a legitimate “church” worthy of defense while remaining silent on the plight of Catholics in Armenia and the supernatural primacy of Christ’s Kingship over all nations.

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The Naturalistic Trap: Defending Schism as “Religious Freedom”

The article’s core premise is that the Armenian Apostolic Church—a body in formal schism since the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.), rejecting the Council of Florence and the Papal Primacy—merits intervention by a secular power to protect its “religious freedom.” Ambassador Fernandez explicitly contrasts the Pashinyan regime’s actions with the “liberal West,” implying that the West’s model of religious liberty is the ideal. This is a direct repudiation of the Catholic doctrine that outside the Church there is no salvation (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus) and that schismatics are not part of the Body of Christ. St. Robert Bellarmine teaches that heretics and schismatics are extra Ecclesiam and cannot be defended as “churches” in any Catholic sense. The article’s language, borrowed from the post-conciliar “ecumenical” lexicon, deliberately obscures this fundamental truth, reducing the Church to one “religious body” among many in a pluralistic marketplace.

Silence on the Supernatural: The Gravest Omission

The most damning aspect of the article is its complete silence on the supernatural ends of the Church and the state. There is no mention of the salvation of souls, the necessity of the Catholic faith, the Sacraments, or the divine obligation of the state to publicly recognize Christ the King. Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas (1925), which the article’s authors presumably ignore, declares: “The kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… and there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The state’s primary duty is to serve this supernatural end, not to guarantee “religious freedom” for all sects. The article’s focus on geopolitical “stability” and “freedoms” is pure naturalism, condemned by Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (#39: “The State… is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits,” and #77: “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State”). By advocating for U.S. pressure to protect a schismatic body, the article promotes the indifferentist error that all religions have an equal right to public existence—a direct contradiction of Catholic Social Teaching.

The “Liberal West” vs. “Dictator” False Dilemma

Fernandez’s statement that Pashinyan “can’t have it both ways—they can’t say that they want to be a part of the liberal West… and at the same time imitate the religious standards of the [Turkish Erdoğan regime] or [the Syrian Asaad regime]” is a revelation of the conciliar sect’s apostasy. He sets up a dichotomy between two purely naturalistic models: the “liberal West” (with its secularized, Masonic-inspired “religious freedom”) and the authoritarian suppression of a favored sect. He omits entirely the Catholic model: a state that recognizes the Catholic Church as the sole true religion, protects her rights, and suppresses public error (as taught by Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei and Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus). This omission is not accidental; it is the logical outcome of the Vatican II revolution, which replaced the Social Kingship of Christ with the “principle of the secular state” (cf. Dignitatis Humanae). The article thus functions as propaganda for the conciliar sect’s new naturalistic religion.

Ecumenical Obfuscation: The Armenian Apostolic Church as “Church”

The article repeatedly refers to the Armenian Apostolic Church as “the Apostolic Church,” a title that rightfully belongs only to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church founded by Christ. This is a deliberate act of theological fraud. The Armenian Apostolic Church rejects the Filioque, the Council of Chalcedon, and the Papal Primacy; it is a schismatic body, not a “sister church.” The conciliar sect’s ecumenism, condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis and Lamentabili Sane Exitu (Propositions 53-56 on the evolution of the Church), has erased this distinction. By treating the schismatic body as a legitimate “church” worthy of defense, the article promotes the modernist error that the Church is an evolving, human institution composed of various “communions” that share a common “witness.” This is the synthesis of all heresies: the denial of the unique, immutable nature of the Catholic Church.

Geopolitical Instrumentalization: The Conciliar Sect as a Tool of Globalism

The article’s geopolitical framing—tying religious freedom to U.S. interests, the Trump-brokered peace plan, and opposition to Russian “disinformation”—reveals the conciliar sect’s entanglement with globalist powers. Fernandez and Eibner do not call for Armenia to return to the Catholic faith; they call for it to align with the “liberal West” and its model of secular pluralism. This is the same “worldly spirit” condemned by Pope Pius IX in Quanta Cura and the Syllabus (#80: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization”). The “religious freedom” advocated here is not the Catholic doctrine that the state may tolerate public dissent for the sake of peace (as taught by St. Robert Bellarmine and Pope Leo XIII), but the indifferentist principle that all religions have an equal right to public expression—a direct path to atheism.

The Missing Catholic Reality: Persecution of Catholics in Armenia

The article’s silence on the condition of Catholics in Armenia is deafening. Armenia is a predominantly schismatic Apostolic country with a tiny Catholic minority (both Armenian Catholic and Latin). Are they free to practice their faith? Are they subject to pressure? The article provides no data, because its authors are not interested in the salvation of Catholic souls; they are interested in promoting the ecumenical paradigm. This mirrors the conciliar sect’s global priority: building “dialogue” with schismatics and heretics while abandoning the Catholic mission to convert nations. St. Pius X’s Pascendi condemned the modernist tendency to “show an excessive love for the things of this earth” and to “despise the things of heaven.” The article’s entire focus is on earthly “freedoms” and geopolitical stability, with no reference to the eternal destiny of Armenian souls.

Conclusion: A Symptom of the Abomination of Desolation

This EWTN article is not a defense of religion; it is a symptom of the conciliar sect’s apostasy. By advocating for the “religious freedom” of a schismatic body, it promotes the indifferentist errors condemned by Pius IX. By framing the issue in geopolitical terms, it reduces the Church to a naturalistic institution. By omitting any supernatural purpose for the state, it denies the Social Kingship of Christ. The only legitimate Catholic response to Armenia’s situation is to call for the Armenian government and people to abjure their schism and return to the one true Church, as St. Pius X demanded of all non-Catholics. The Trump administration should not be urged to defend a schismatic “church”; it should be urged to recognize that true peace and order flow only from the public acknowledgment of Christ the King—the very doctrine Pius XI proclaimed in Quas Primas, which the conciliar sect has systematically dismantled. The article’s authors, whether knowingly or not, are building the “abomination of desolation” (Matt. 24:15) by promoting a false ecumenism that places the schismatic “church” on par with the true Church, thereby scandalizing the faithful and hastening the damnation of souls.

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Source:
Trump administration urged to act as Armenian government increases pressure on Apostolic Church   (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 26.02.2026