The article from EWTN News reports that the U.S. federal government will proceed with a copper mining project at Oak Flat, a site sacred to Apache Native Americans, despite legal challenges by the Apache Stronghold coalition. This coalition, supported by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus, argued that the land transfer violates the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The Supreme Court declined to intervene, and the 9th Circuit Court upheld the transfer. The government cites “critical minerals” needs, while Apache activists vow to continue fighting, calling Oak Flat their “spiritual lifeblood.” The article presents this as a conflict between economic development and Native American religious rights, framing the bishops’ support as a defense of religious freedom.
This narrative, however, is a profound betrayal of the integral Catholic faith. It promotes religious indifferentism—the condemned error that all religions are equally valid paths to God—while utterly ignoring the exclusive reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ over all nations and peoples. The bishops’ amicus brief, lauded in the article, is not a defense of true justice but an active participation in the Modernist apostasy that has consumed the post-conciliar sect. Their silence on the necessity of Catholic conversion and the duty of the state to recognize Christ as King exposes their adherence to the very errors condemned by Pius IX and Pius X.
The Naturalistic Heresy of “Religious Freedom”
The article’s core premise is the RFRA, a secular law that purports to protect “religious exercise” without reference to truth. This is the very indifferentism anathematized by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors. Error #15 declares: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” Error #16 states: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation.” The bishops’ support for Apache Stronghold implicitly endorses this condemned doctrine, treating Apache spirituality as a legitimate “religion” deserving of state protection alongside the Catholic Faith. This is a direct repudiation of the Dictatus Papae and the teaching of Pope Boniface VIII that “it is necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
Furthermore, the article’s language—”sacred site,” “spiritual lifeblood,” “worship, pray, and connect with our Creator”—is vague naturalism. It speaks of “Creator” in a generic sense, utterly omitting the Incarnation, the Redemption, and the necessity of the Catholic Church as the sole dispenser of salvation. This is the “cult of man” condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis, where Modernists “under the pretext of honoring the dignity of the human race, degrade the dignity of Christ.” The bishops’ brief, by arguing for a “grave misunderstanding” of RFRA, actually advocates for a “misunderstanding” of divine law: they prefer the secular state’s false equality of religions over the Catholic doctrine that the state must honor and obey Christ the King.
The Omission of Christ’s Kingship: A Denial of Quas Primas
Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Quas Primas—instituted precisely to combat the secularism of his day—declares 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.” He commands rulers to “not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ.” The article and the bishops’ action are silent on this absolute duty. Instead, they appeal to a secular court system that explicitly excludes Christ from public life. This is the “plague of secularism, so-called laicism” that Pius XI lamented, which “began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.”
The bishops’ brief, as described, focuses on statutory interpretation of RFRA—a natural law argument divorced from the supernatural order. This is the “moderate rationalism” condemned in the Syllabus (Errors #8-14), where theology is subjected to human philosophical sciences. They argue “atextual constraint” and “no grounding in the statute,” treating religious freedom as a civil right rather than a duty owed to God alone. The true Catholic position, as Pius XI states, is that “the Church, established by Christ as a perfect society, demands for itself by a right belonging to it, which it cannot renounce, full freedom and independence from secular authority.” But this freedom is for the Church to teach and govern, not for false religions to propagate error. The bishops have inverted this: they demand the state protect a false religion, thereby surrendering the Church’s exclusive rights.
The Modernist Synthesis: From Lamentabili to Dignitatis Humanae
The bishops’ stance is the logical fruit of the Modernist heresy condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu. Proposition #58: “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him.” Proposition #65: “Contemporary Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true knowledge without transforming it into a certain dogmaless Christianity, that is, into a broad and liberal Protestantism.” By supporting a law that treats all religions as equally “true” for legal purposes, the bishops embrace this “dogmaless Christianity.” They reduce religion to a subjective “spiritual lifeblood” (as the Apache activist says), which is precisely the “evolution of dogmas” and “hermeneutics of continuity” that poison the conciliar sect.
The article notes the bishops joined an amicus brief in 2024. This is post-conciliar action, reflecting the revolutionary decree Dignitatis Humanae (1965), which proclaimed a “right” to religious freedom contrary to centuries of papal teaching. The pre-1958 Magisterium taught that the state must recognize the Catholic religion as the sole true religion and may tolerate other religions only for prudential reasons, never as a matter of right. Pius IX, in Quanta Cura (1864), condemned the idea that “it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State” (Syllabus Error #77). The bishops’ brief, by advocating for RFRA’s application to a non-Catholic religion, actively promotes this condemned error.
The Silence on Salvation and the Sacraments
The gravest omission in the article and the bishops’ position is the total absence of any reference to the state of souls, the necessity of baptism, or the damnation of those who die in false religions. Apache spirituality, with its “holy place” and “Creator,” is presented as a valid path to God. This is a denial of the dogma “extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” (outside the Church there is no salvation), defined by Pope Boniface VIII in Unam Sanctam and reiterated by Pius IX in Quanta Cura. The bishops, by defending this “religious exercise,” are complicit in the loss of souls. They have become “blind leaders of the blind,” as Christ said (Matt. 15:14), leading their flock to believe that honoring a pagan site is compatible with Catholic faith.
This silence is symptomatic of the “abomination of desolation” in the holy place (Matt. 24:15). The post-conciliar church has replaced the supernatural goal of salvation with a naturalistic “dialogue” and “peace.” The article’s tone is one of tragic conflict between “progress” and “tradition,” but it never asks: What is the truth? Which religion is from God? The answer is only the Catholic Faith, which the bishops have abandoned. Their support for Apache Stronghold is not an act of charity but of apostasy, as it legitimizes idolatry. St. Pius X, in Pascendi, warned that Modernists “seek to separate the law of God from the law of the Church,” and here we see the bishops separating the law of God (which commands the worship of the one true God alone) from civil law, thereby denying the social reign of Christ.
The Economic Naturalism: “Critical Minerals” vs. the Common Good
The government’s justification—”growing demand for critical minerals”—is pure materialistic naturalism. It reduces the common good to economic utility, ignoring the supernatural end of man. Pope Leo XIII, in Rerum Novarum, taught that the state must promote not just temporal but eternal goods. Pius XI, in Quas Primas, warns that when “God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The mining project, which will “obliterate” a site of idolatrous worship, is presented as a conflict. But from the Catholic perspective, the state’s primary duty is to destroy idolatry and establish the public worship of the true God. The bishops should be demanding the conversion of the Apaches to the Catholic Faith and the consecration of the land to Christ the King, not defending their “right” to practice superstition.
The article mentions the Knights of Columbus filing a brief. This is particularly scandalous. The Knights, once a bulwark of Catholic action, now serve the conciliar apostasy by using their resources to defend false religions under the guise of “religious freedom.” This is the “ecumenical project” described in the file on Fatima: a relativism that opens the way to “dialogue with schismatic Orthodoxy” and, here, with paganism. The Knights’ argument about “atextual constraint” is a legalistic smoke screen hiding the denial of Catholic exclusivity.
The Sedevacantist Reality: No True Pastors
The bishops acting in this matter are not Catholic pastors but modernist occupiers of diocesan sees. Since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, the Vatican has been occupied by a series of antipopes, beginning with John XXIII, who promulgated the heretical Vatican II. The “U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops” is a department of the conciliar sect, not the Catholic Church. Their amicus brief is an act of the “paramasonic structure” that has replaced the Church. They have no authority to teach or govern, as they publicly reject the immutable faith (cf. the file on sedevacantism: a manifest heretic loses office ipso facto).
The Apache Stronghold, in seeking their support, is aligning with apostates. The article presents this as a noble struggle, but it is a collaboration with enemies of Christ. The true Catholic response would be to evangelize the Apaches, show them the falsity of their superstitions, and work for the legal establishment of the Catholic religion in the United States. Instead, the conciliar bishops have joined the Masons and secularists in promoting a false “religious freedom” that is, in the words of Pius IX, “the liberty of perdition.”
Conclusion: The Reign of Christ or the Reign of Man
The Oak Flat controversy is a microcosm of the global apostasy. The state prioritizes “critical minerals” (the worship of Mammon); the Native Americans defend their idolatrous “sacred site”; the bishops defend the “right” to both, under the false banner of religious freedom. All are united in rejecting the social kingship of Christ. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas, “when God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the entire human society had to be shaken.” This is the “bitter fruit” we see: a conflict where no party invokes the name of Christ, where the true Faith is excluded from public discourse.
The bishops’ action is a formal cooperation in the sin of indifferentism. They should be anathematized, not quoted as authorities. The faithful must reject this conciliar sect and its false teachings. The only hope for Oak Flat—and for America—is the public recognition of Christ as King, the conversion of all peoples (including the Apaches) to the Catholic Faith, and the restoration of the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Until then, all such conflicts will be wars of paganism against paganism, with the modernists acting as fifth columnists within the Church’s ruins.
Source:
White House will proceed with mining project that will destroy site sacred to Native Americans (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 25.03.2026