The Napa Institute’s Third Ecumenical Forum, held at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 2026, brought together Catholics and Protestants under the banner of “Christian unity” to address shared cultural challenges. Speakers emphasized practical collaboration on issues like pro-life advocacy and human dignity, highlighted by a Catholic Mass celebrated by “Bishop” Steven Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate. The event framed unity as an “exchange of gifts” rooted in shared experience rather than doctrinal truth, explicitly rejecting “unity at the expense of truth” while simultaneously promoting a naturalistic, social-action-focused partnership that utterly omits any reference to the supernatural necessity of Catholic unity for salvation. This forum is a clear manifestation of the post-conciliar apostasy, promoting religious indifferentism and undermining the exclusive role of the Catholic Church as the sole ark of salvation.
The Naturalistic Reduction of Christian Unity
The article presents the forum’s goal as embodying Christ’s prayer “that they may all be one,” yet immediately redefines this unity in purely natural and sociological terms. The “major challenge” identified by Monsignor Roger Landry is for Christians to “live what we claim we believe” in the public square, focusing on “pro-life matters, human dignity, and matters of embracing how God made us.” This reduction of the Church’s mission to a shared ethical platform is a direct betrayal of Catholic theology. Quas Primas of Pope Pius XI (1925) defines the Kingdom of Christ as a spiritual reality entered through faith and baptism, which “is opposed only to the kingdom of Satan and the powers of darkness” and requires its followers “to deny themselves and carry their cross.” The forum’s silence on this spiritual kingdom—its means of entry (Catholic faith and sacraments), its laws (divine law), and its ultimate end (eternal salvation)—reveals a fundamental shift to a naturalistic humanism. The “unity” promoted is not the unity of the Credo (“one Church”) but a coalition for temporal goals, a hallmark of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X.
Omission of Supernatural Salvation: The Silent Heresy
The gravest accusation against the article is its complete silence on the supernatural destiny of the human person and the exclusive means of salvation. There is no mention of original sin, the necessity of sanctifying grace, the sacraments as the ordinary channels of that grace, or the dogma extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church there is no salvation). This omission is not accidental but symptomatic of the conciliar sect’s rejection of Catholic dogma. The Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX (1864) condemns in advance precisely this approach:
16. Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation. — Encyclical “Qui pluribus,” Nov. 9, 1846.
18. Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church. — Encyclical “Noscitis,” Dec. 8, 1849.
By convening Catholics and Protestants as equals in a shared mission without first proclaiming the Catholic faith as the sole path to salvation, the forum actively promotes the condemned errors of indifferentism and latitudinarianism. The article’s focus on “what we share” implicitly denies that Protestants are in a state of objective heresy and schism, separated from the life of grace. This is a direct attack on the doctrine of the unity of the Church, which Pius XI in Quas Primas describes as “the one dispenser of salvation.”
The Heresy of Indifferentism in Practice
The forum’s methodology, described as an “exchange of gifts” following “John Paul II,” is a explicit embrace of the ecumenical heresies of the post-conciliar period. This phrase, central to the document Ut Unum Sint (1995), posits that different Christian communities possess complementary “gifts” that can be shared, implying a positive valuation of non-Catholic communities. This contradicts the unambiguous teaching of Pius IX:
21. The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion. — Damnatio “Multiplices inter,” June 10, 1851.
The condemned proposition here is the *negation* of the Church’s power to define its exclusive truth. The Catholic Church has, in fact, defined this truth repeatedly (e.g., Lamentabili sane exitu of St. Pius X, 1907, which condemns the notion that truth changes or that other religions possess salvific elements). The forum’s practice of joint worship (“Protestant worship and a Catholic Mass”) and prayer (the Nicene Creed) is a sacrilegious profanation. The Mass is the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary, the supreme act of Catholic worship. To offer it in a context that treats heretical and schismatic worship as a parallel, valid expression of Christian piety is to deny the unique dignity of the Holy Sacrifice and the exclusive priesthood of the Catholic Church. This is the logical outcome of the “hermeneutic of continuity” that the user’s framework rejects as Modernist.
The Invalid “Mass” and the Profanation of the Sacrifice
The article reports that a Catholic Mass was celebrated by “Bishop” Steven Lopes. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this is a profound sacrilege. Lopes is a bishop of the conciliar sect’s Personal Ordinariate, a structure created by the antipope Benedict XVI’s apostolic letter Anglicanorum Coetibus (2009). The rite of Mass used in these ordinariates is the post-conciliar “Novus Ordo,” which, while potentially valid in intention, is a corrupted rite designed to appeal to Protestants and is replete with ambiguities that deny the sacrificial nature of the Mass. More fundamentally, Lopes, like all “bishops” consecrated in the new rite after 1968, is likely invalidly ordained due to changes in the ordination formula that render the sacrament doubtful. Even if validly ordained, his participation in the conciliar sect’s non-Catholic hierarchy makes him a schismatic. The celebration of Mass in such a context, without a repudiation of the errors of the participants, is an act of religious indifferentism. The pre-conciliar Church would have forbidden such a scandal. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Can. 1258) strictly forbade any active participation in non-Catholic religious functions. The forum’s event is the antithesis of this discipline.
Symptomatic of the Conciliar Apostasy
This event is not an anomaly but a symptom of the systemic apostasy of the post-1958 “Church.” The user’s framework correctly identifies the line of antipopes beginning with John XXIII. The forum’s spirit is that of Vatican II’s Unitatis Redintegratio, which redefined ecumenism as a “dialogue” with heretics and schismatics, contrary to the perennial teaching of the Church. St. Pius X, in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907), which is part of the condemned documents in Lamentabili, warned that Modernists “show no respect for the hierarchy” and “claim for the people the right to judge in matters of faith.” The forum’s structure—a “dialogue” where laypeople and “clerics” from different sects “find common ground”—embodies this democratic, naturalistic error. The theological authority is not the Magisterium but “consensus” on “practical collaboration.” This is the “synthesis of all errors” that St. Pius X identified.
Furthermore, the article’s invocation of “the public square” and the need for “guidance” reflects the Modernist error of reducing religion to a moral and social force. Pius XI in Quas Primas states that the State must recognize Christ’s reign and obey His laws, not merely consult “Christian” opinion. The forum’s goal of influencing culture without first securing the public reign of Christ the King is a recipe for failure, as it operates on the natural level while the primary battle is supernatural. The article’s entire premise—that the challenge is to “live what we claim we believe” without defining *what* that belief is in its fullness (i.e., the Catholic faith)—is a capitulation to the Modernist principle that doctrine evolves and that lived experience precedes and shapes belief.
Conclusion: A Call to Repudiation
The Third Ecumenical Forum is a stark exhibition of the theological and spiritual bankruptcy of the conciliar sect. It replaces the Catholic Church’s exclusive claim to be the “sole dispenser of salvation” with a pluralistic partnership for temporal aims. It replaces the necessity of conversion to the Catholic faith with the heresy of indifferentism. It replaces the hierarchical, sacramental, and dogmatic structure of the Church with a democratic, experience-based “dialogue.” Every statement and omission in the article aligns perfectly with the errors condemned by Pius IX, Pius X, and Pius XI. The only appropriate response for a Catholic is total repudiation of such events and a return to the immutable faith of the pre-1958 Church, which alone possesses the means of salvation and the authority to teach all nations.
Source:
Third Ecumenical Forum in Washington, D.C., addresses challenges facing Christianity today (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 20.03.2026