The Detroit Catholic portal reports on a Michigan teenager, Luis Nava, who founded an online newspaper, *The Catholic Michigander*, to help peers understand and live their Catholic faith. Nava, a freshman, states his motivation is to answer classmates’ questions and know “exactly what I believe and exactly why I believe it.” The publication covers topics like infertility, natural family planning, life issues, and the Eucharist, with theological oversight from a “Father Jim Kean.” The project is praised by school officials for reaching public school students and providing a “safe place to voice beliefs.” Nava connects his interest in neuroscience with religion, stating, “We need God at the center of our lives if we want to have good mental health.” The article presents this initiative as a positive model of youth evangelization within the current ecclesial structure.
This project, while appearing commendable on the surface, is a quintessential fruit of the post-conciliar revolution. It reduces the Catholic faith to a set of debatable opinions for peer discussion, utterly omits the supernatural end of man and the absolute duty of the social reign of Christ the King, and operates within the indifferentist framework condemned by Pius IX. It is not an antidote to apostasy but a symptom of it, training a new generation in the naturalistic, human-centered “religion” of the conciliar sect.
Naturalistic Evangelization Replaces Supernatural Mandate
The article’s core premise is that the primary problem is a lack of information or confidence among teens to “voice their beliefs.” This frames the faith as a personal intellectual position or lifestyle choice to be discussed in a “safe place.” This is a radical departure from the Catholic Church’s mission, which is the salvation of souls through the promulgation of revealed truth and the administration of sacraments. The faith is not a topic for peer-to-peer debate but a supernatural deposit to be believed with divine and Catholic faith, under the authority of the teaching Church. The Syllabus of Errors condemned the notion that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Error 15). Here, the teen is encouraged to “find his voice” about what he believes, not to submit his intellect to the defined dogmas of the Church. The project’s success is measured by participation and inspiration, not by conversions or the defense of doctrine against heresy.
Omission of Christ the King and the Social Reign
A catastrophic silence pervades the article: there is no mention of Our Lord Jesus Christ as King of individuals, families, and nations. This is not accidental but foundational to the conciliar mindset. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, instituted the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism,” which “denied Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” The encyclical states: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” Nava’s project discusses “life issues” and the Eucharist in a vacuum, separated from the imperative that all human law and society must be ordered to the glory of God and the salvation of souls. There is no call for rulers and states to publicly honor Christ and obey His law, a duty Pius XI called “necessary.” The focus is on individual “mental health” and personal conviction, not on the conversion of society to the law of Christ. This is the precise error of Modernism: reducing religion to the private sphere, as condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis.
The “Safe Space” of Indifferentism
The article quotes school principal Doris Fornasiero praising the newspaper for reaching “public school” students and providing a “safe place to voice their beliefs.” This language is pure modernism. The Catholic faith is not one option among many in a pluralistic marketplace of ideas. The Syllabus anathematized the idea that “it is lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate princes, and even to rebel against them” (Error 63) and that “the civil authority may interfere in matters relating to religion, morality and spiritual government” (Error 44). A “safe place” implies a neutral zone where all opinions are equally valid, which is the heresy of indifferentism (Syllabus, Errors 15-18). The true Catholic approach is to proclaim the exclusive rights of Christ the King over every intellect and will, not to create a forum where Catholic belief is just one voice among many. The project’s advisor, “Father Jim Kean,” ensures content “adheres to Catholic teaching,” but the article gives no indication of which magisterial authority he follows—the pre-1958 Church or the post-conciliar “magisterium” of the conciliar sect, which has embraced religious liberty.
Syncretistic “Neuroscience” and the Cult of Man
Nava’s stated desire to study neuroscience and his claim that “neuroscience and religion and spirituality go hand in hand” reveal the underlying humanism. This is the “cult of man” condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the entire human society had to be shaken.” The attempt to integrate faith with a purely natural science like neuroscience, without the hierarchical subordination of all human knowledge to divine revelation, is a form of rationalism. The Syllabus condemned the proposition that “human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood” (Error 3). While Nava invokes God, his framework places human psychological well-being as the primary goal (“good mental health”), with God as a component. This inverts the proper order: God is not a means to human flourishing; He is the end for which man was created. The article’s silence on sin, grace, the sacraments as necessary means of salvation, and the eternal judgment is deafening. It presents a faith without judgment, without the cross, without the necessity of belonging to the one true Church for salvation (Syllabus, Error 18).
Modernist Clerical Collaboration
The involvement of “Father Jim Kean” as a theological advisor is not a sign of orthodoxy but of clerical compromise. A priest of the conciliar sect, by the very fact of acknowledging the legitimacy of the post-1958 antipopes and their revolutionary reforms, teaches a religion different from the Catholic faith. His role is to ensure the content is “acceptable” to the neo-church’s standards of ecumenism and religious liberty, not to the immutable doctrine of the Church. The article presents this collaboration as normal and praiseworthy. This normalizes the participation of modernist “clerics” in projects that, while containing some traditional elements (e.g., pro-life, Eucharist), are stripped of their supernatural context and purpose. It is a collaboration with the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place.
Conclusion: A Project of the Conciliar Sect
The Catholic Michigander is not a tool for the restoration of the faith but a product of the conciliar apostasy. It teaches teens to be “courageous” in voicing their beliefs in a pluralistic arena, not to be martyrs for the exclusive rights of Christ the King. It promotes a private, psychological faith devoid of social obligation and supernatural hope. It operates under the guidance of a modernist “priest” and within a “safe space” model that is the very essence of the indifferentism condemned by Pius IX. This is the “new evangelization” of the post-conciliar church: a naturalistic, human-centered, doctrinally vague effort to make Catholicism palatable to the world, precisely what Pius XI warned would happen when Christ is removed from public life. The only true “safe place” is the bark of Peter, outside of which there is no salvation. This project does not lead souls there; it acclimates them to the ecumenical, secularized world of the conciliar sect.
Source:
Michigan teen starts Catholic online newspaper for other teens (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 14.03.2026