Source Summary: The National Catholic Register (March 12, 2026) publishes an interview with Jirair Sefilian, a former Armenian military commander and political figure, who advocates for Armenia to pivot from its historical reliance on Iran and Russia toward a strategic partnership with the United States. Sefilian frames the ongoing Iran-U.S. war as a potential “turning point” that could allow Armenia to secure U.S. protection, modernize its military, and ultimately recover Nagorno-Karabakh. The analysis is rooted entirely in geopolitical realism, economic corridors, military balances, and national sovereignty, with only a perfunctory, abstract nod to Armenia’s Christian identity as a cultural asset for aligning with the “Western world.” The article’s core thesis is that Armenia’s survival depends on abandoning its existing alliances for a new one with the U.S., presented as a rational, secular strategy for national preservation. This represents the complete evaporation of the supernatural from political analysis, substituting a naturalistic, Masonic-inspired calculus for the immutable Catholic doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King.
The Abomination of Naturalistic Geopolitics
The cited article presents a geopolitical analysis that is, in its essence, a perfect specimen of the modernist apostasy condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors and by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu. It operates on the foundational error that the temporal order can be separated from the supernatural, that nations can pursue “sovereignty” and “security” without reference to the law of Christ, and that “Christian identity” is merely a cultural variable in a power politics equation. This is not a Catholic analysis; it is the very secularism that Pius XI, in Quas Primas, identified as the “plague” poisoning society.
1. The Erasure of the Social Kingship of Christ
The article’s entire framework is a categorical denial of the doctrine so solemnly defined by Pius XI. Quas Primas teaches that the Kingdom of Christ “encompasses all men” and that “the state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” The Pope explicitly states that rulers have a duty to “publicly honor Christ and obey Him,” and that all laws and governance must be ordered on “the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles.” The consequences of rejecting this are clear: “the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.”
Sefilian’s proposal—that Armenia’s future lies in a strategic pact with a power whose foundational principles are explicitly secular, pluralistic, and often hostile to the rights of Christ—is a direct repudiation of this teaching. The analysis speaks of “national interests,” “economic lifelines,” “military modernization,” and “geopolitical realignment” as supreme goods. The name of Christ is absent from every calculation of security, prosperity, or diplomacy. This is the precise error condemned in the Syllabus, Proposition 77: “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.” The article assumes this proposition as a given, treating the secular state as the neutral arbiter to which a Christian nation must appeal for protection. It is a surrender to the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism,” which Pius XI called the “plague” that must be opposed by the feast of Christ the King.
2. The Silence of Supernatural realities: A Modernist Signature
The most damning evidence of the article’s apostasy is what it systematically omits. There is not a single mention of:
- The state of grace as the primary necessity for a nation’s survival.
- The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the true source of all blessings and protection.
- The Rosary and public consecration to the Sacred Heart as the proven means to avert disaster (cf. Pius XI’s reference to the consecration at the end of the Jubilee Year 1900).
- The moral law as the non-negotiable foundation for any just society, regardless of geopolitical alignment.
- The Final Judgment and the salvation of souls as the ultimate purpose of all human endeavor, including politics.
- The sacraments as the channels of sanctifying grace without which no nation can prosper spiritually or temporally.
This silence is not accidental; it is the hallmark of Modernism, which St. Pius X defined as the “synthesis of all heresies.” In Lamentabili sane exitu, Proposition 59 states: “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples, but rather initiated a certain religious movement…” The article’s treatment of Christianity as a “civilizational moment” or a “cultural asset” that may “save Western civilization” is a direct echo of this error. It reduces the Incarnation to a civilizational influence, not the unique, objective, salvific event that demands the submission of all human authority. The article’s Jesus is a “cultural symbol,” not the King of kings and Lord of lords whose authority is immediate, absolute, and extends to the enactment of civil laws (Quas Primas, 31).
3. The Naturalistic “Rights” vs. the Law of God
The entire discourse is built on the idolatry of “national sovereignty,” “independence,” and “rights.” These are the false gods of the modern world. The Syllabus of Errors demolishes this premise:
- Proposition 56: “Moral laws do not stand in need of the divine sanction, and it is not at all necessary that human laws should be made conformable to the laws of nature and receive their power of binding from God.”
- Proposition 57: “The science of philosophical things and morals and also civil laws may and ought to keep aloof from divine and ecclesiastical authority.”
- Proposition 59: “Right consists in the material fact. All human duties are an empty word, and all human facts have the force of right.”
Sefilian’s argument—that Armenia must choose the “power capable of containing Turkey” based on military and economic calculus—is the practical application of these condemned propositions. It posits a “right” to national survival based on material capability, not on fidelity to the law of God. It advocates for an alliance with a power that, in its official ideology, promotes religious indifferentism (cf. Syllabus, Propositions 15-18) and the separation of Church and State (Proposition 55). This is not a “strategic choice”; it is a pact with the very errors that have brought the world to the brink of chaos. As Pius XI taught, “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.”
4. The Conciliar Roots of the Error: From “Signs of the Times” to Apostasy
The article’s methodology—reading the “signs of the times” (the Iran-U.S. war) as a purely geopolitical event to be navigated by human prudence alone—is the direct offspring of the conciliar spirit. The “hermeneutics of continuity” pretends to read the “signs of the times” through the lens of the Gospel, but in practice, it reduces the Gospel to a vague inspiration for worldly projects. The article’s conclusion that Armenia’s “natural place is with the Western world” is a secularized version of the conciliar “dialogue with the world.” It is a rejection of the Catholic position that the “Western world,” as currently constituted under the reign of secularism, is an enemy of Christ the King and a tool of the “synagogue of Satan” (cf. Pius IX, allocution cited in the Syllabus).
The reference to “revival of Christian values in the West” is particularly insidious. It points to the post-conciliar “renewal” that is, in reality, the “evolution of dogmas” condemned by St. Pius X. The “values” promoted by the conciliar church and its allies are the naturalistic, humanistic “values” of dignity, rights, and fraternity stripped of their supernatural foundation—precisely the “dogmaless Christianity” or “broad and liberal Protestantism” against which Pius X warned (Lamentabili, 65). To place hope in this “revival” is to place hope in the very Modernism that has destroyed the Church.
5. The “Pseudo-Traditionalist” Trap and the False Choice
The article presents a false dichotomy: align with the U.S.-led West or remain tied to Iran/Russia. Both poles are part of the same apostate world order. The U.S., since its founding, has been a bastion of religious indifferentism and Freemasonic principles (as condemned in the Syllabus and by numerous Popes). Russia, under its post-Soviet regime, promotes a “traditionalist” Orthodoxy that is schismatic and hostile to the Catholic Church. Iran is a Shiite theocracy that persecutes Christians. To choose between these is to choose between different forms of opposition to the true Church and the Social Reign of Christ.
This is the trap set by the conciliar revolution: to force Catholics to choose between “lesser evils” within the secular system, thereby legitimizing the entire secular order and abandoning the principle that “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). The only Catholic position is the absolute non possumus of the true Church: rejection of all alliances that require compromise with false religions or secular principles. The article’s advocacy for a “major non-NATO Ally” status is a capitulation to the very power that promotes
Source:
Armenian Advocate: Why the Iran-US War Could Be a Turning Point for Armenia (ncregister.com)
Date: 12.03.2026