The cited article from EWTN News reports that over 100 Chicago-area Catholic parents, led by Jillian Bernas Garcia, have filed a *remonstratio* (a canonical appeal) with the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education to prevent the closure of St. Hubert Catholic School. The Archdiocese of Chicago, under the leadership of “Superintendent” Greg Richmond, announced in January 2026 that seven schools, including St. Hubert, would close due to being “no longer sustainable.” The parents counter with a forensic audit claiming the school could be financially viable with modest cost reductions or revenue increases. They frame their argument around the school’s role in “youth faith formation” and its service to a “diverse, strong working-class community.” The appeal now awaits a decision from the Vatican body led by “Pope” Leo XIV’s appointees.
The tragic bankruptcy of this entire situation is not merely financial but fundamentally theological and ecclesiological. The parents’ appeal, while understandable on a natural level, operates entirely within the false paradigm of the post-conciliar “conciliar sect,” mistaking its structures for the Catholic Church and its authorities for legitimate pastors. This act of appealing to the very hierarchy that has orchestrated the systematic destruction of Catholic education—and the Faith itself—reveals a profound confusion, or worse, an implicit acceptance of the Modernist revolution. The core error is a refusal to recognize that the current occupants of the Vatican and diocesan sees are not Catholic authorities but usurpers, and that no canonical process before them can restore what they have deliberately dismantled.
Appealing to Usurpers: The Fatal Canonical Illusion
The parents’ strategy hinges on Canon Law’s provision for a *remonstratio*. This is a fatal misapplication. The 1917 Code of Canon Law, the definitive juridical instrument of the Catholic Church, presupposes the existence of a legitimate hierarchical authority—a true pope and true bishops in communion with him. As St. Robert Bellarmine taught, a manifest heretic *ipso facto* loses all jurisdiction (*De Romano Pontifice*, Bk. II, Ch. 30). The conciliar “popes” from John XXIII through the current antipope Leo XIV have explicitly embraced the errors of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in *Pascendi Dominici gregis* (1907) and *Lamentabili sane exitu* (1907). They have promulgated the heresies of religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae), ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio), and the evolution of doctrine (as seen in the very nature of Vatican II’s “aggiornamento”). Therefore, they possess no legitimate governing power. An appeal to a body that has no authority to judge is an exercise in futility, a participation in the illusion of a “Church” that is, in reality, the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15).
Pius IX’s *Syllabus of Errors* (1864) condemns the very premise of state or civil power interference in ecclesiastical matters (Errors 19-55), but it equally presupposes the Church’s own independent authority. When the Church’s own hierarchy becomes apostate, that authority is not transferred to the Modernist occupiers. The parents’ appeal implicitly accepts the Modernist principle that the “Church” is a human, bureaucratic entity whose decisions, however destructive, are binding. This is a direct rejection of the Catholic doctrine that the Church is a supernatural society founded by Christ, whose authority resides in those who hold the Faith integral and uncorrupted. The parents are asking the wolf to guard the sheep.
The Naturalistic Heresy of “Financial Viability”
The parents’ coalition presents a forensic audit arguing the school is “financially viable” with a 10% cost reduction or revenue increase. This argument, while seemingly practical, is steeped in the naturalistic humanism condemned by Pius XI in *Quas Primas* (1925). The encyclical on the Kingship of Christ states unequivocally: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed, because the main reason why some have the right to command and others have the duty to obey was removed.” The entire debate—sustainability, deficits, staffing costs—proceeds as if the primary purpose of a Catholic school were not the salvation of souls but the efficient management of a business. This is the “cult of man” in action, where the temporal and material supersede the spiritual and supernatural.
A true Catholic school’s viability is not measured in balance sheets but in its fidelity to the unchanging Faith and its role in forming children “in the discipline and doctrine of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). The archdiocesan leadership, having embraced the conciliar errors, has already abandoned this purpose. Their schools teach Modernist catechesis (like the “Christ-centered” but doctrinally vague programs post-*Gravissimum Educationis*), promote secular values, and often employ personnel who deny core doctrines. From the integral Catholic perspective, such institutions are already spiritually bankrupt, regardless of their bank balance. To fight to keep a school open *within* this apostate structure is to fight for a building where the true sacrifice of the Mass is not offered (where the Novus Ordo is celebrated), where sacraments are administered invalidly or illicitly, and where heresy is taught. The parents’ focus on “faith formation” within this system is tragically misplaced. As the *Syllabus* condemned (Error 48), the idea that a “Catholic” education can be separated from the “power of the Church” and its true doctrine is a “pest” against the Faith.
The Omission of the Real Crisis: The Missing Hierarchy
The article is masterful in its omissions, which are doctrinally significant. There is not a single word about the apostasy of the “Archbishop” of Chicago (currently “Cardinal” Blase Cupich) or the “pope” in Rome. There is no mention of the fact that the very “Archdiocese” making these closures is a component of the conciliar sect, which has officially endorsed the errors of Vatican II. The parents’ statement that “Catholic schools play an important role in youth faith formation” is meaningless if the “Catholic” formation offered is the Modernist, evolutionist, and syncretist program of the post-Conciliar Church. The article treats the closure as an administrative or financial problem, when it is a direct consequence of the hierarchical apostasy foretold by St. Pius X: “the synthesis of all errors” (*Pascendi*, n. 2).
The parents’ appeal to the Vatican Dicastery is an appeal to a department of the “paramasonic structure” occupying the Vatican. The Dicastery for Culture and Education, like all post-Conciliar congregations, exists to implement the revolution. It will not rule against the archdiocese’s decision because that decision aligns perfectly with the conciliar agenda: the secularization of Catholic education, the closure of traditional institutions, and the consolidation of a “church” that is a “service organization” rather than a supernatural kingdom. The parents are seeking justice from the very architects of the injustice. This is like appealing to a Masonic lodge to uphold Christian morality.
The False Promise of “Remonstratio” in a Time of Apostasy
Canon law is a tool for governance within a true, hierarchical Church. When the hierarchy ceases to be Catholic, the law loses its binding force in the order of grace. The *remonstratio* assumes the superior has a duty to govern according to canon law and Catholic doctrine. A Modernist “bishop” has no such duty; his governing principle is the “signs of the times” and the spirit of Vatican II, not the 1917 Code or the Thomistic theology it presupposes. The parents’ lawyer, Laura Morrison, may be versed in the letter of the 1983 Code of Canon Law (promulgated by the antipope John Paul II), but that code is the legal instrument of the apostate “Church of the New Advent.” It contains provisions (e.g., on episcopal conferences, collegiality) that directly contradict the Church’s traditional doctrine of papal primacy and episcopal authority. To invoke it is to recognize the legitimacy of the Modernist system.
The only legitimate recourse for Catholics facing such a crisis is not a canonical appeal to apostates, but a return to the true, pre-Conciliar Faith and the search for or formation of a true hierarchical structure—bishops consecated before 1958 who have not embraced Modernism, or clergy in sedevacantist or independent Catholic jurisdictions that maintain the integral Faith and sacraments. The parents’ action, however sympathetic, reinforces the illusion that the conciliar “Church” can be reformed from within. This is the “hermeneutics of continuity” error condemned by every sedevacantist theologian: the idea that Vatican II and its reforms are a legitimate development of Tradition. They are not; they are a rupture, a revolution, a “counter-Reformation” from within.
The Supernatural Priority: Salvation Over Schools
The most grievous omission in the entire article and the parents’ appeal is any mention of the state of souls. Where is the discussion of the children receiving the sacraments? Are they being baptized by a priest who believes in the Real Presence? Are they making a good confession to a priest with the proper intention and power? Are they being taught that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation (*Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus*, a dogma defined by Pope Boniface VIII and reaffirmed by the Council of Florence)? The focus is entirely on “faith formation” as a generic concept and the school as a community institution. This is the naturalistic religion of the conciliar sect.
Pius XI in *Quas Primas* declared that Christ’s kingdom is “primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters.” The primary duty of parents is to ensure their children’s eternal salvation. A school that does not provide valid sacraments and sound doctrine is a snare, not a sanctuary. The parents’ desire to keep the school open is good if it is ordered to that supernatural end. But their method—appealing to the Modernist hierarchy—is ordered to a naturalistic end: preserving a community institution. They are fighting for a building while their children’s souls are being fed a diet of Modernist errors in religion class and watered-down “liturgies.” The true tragedy is that these parents likely believe they are fighting for the Faith, when in fact they are fighting for a shell of Catholicism, a “Catholic” identity stripped of its supernatural content and subservient to the “civil power” of the diocesan bureaucracy.
Conclusion: The Need for Integral Catholic Separation
The closure of St. Hubert Catholic School is a microcosm of the Great Apostasy. The Modernist hierarchy, having embraced the errors of Vatican II, is actively dismantling the last remnants of the Catholic educational system to replace it with a secularized, ecumenical, and doctrinally ambiguous “Catholic” identity. The parents’ appeal, while motivated by love for their children, is a tragic misdirection of energy. It lends credibility to the occupiers and distracts from the only solution: total separation from the conciliar sect and all its works.
The integral Catholic Faith, as held before the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, demands that Catholics have no part in the Modernist “church.” They must seek out priests and bishops who maintain the traditional Faith and sacraments, even if they are few and outside the official structures. To appeal to “Pope” Leo XIV or his “Dicasteries” is to deny the catastrophic reality of the sede vacante. The school’s financial report is irrelevant. The only report that matters is the spiritual one: is the school a source of valid sacraments and sound doctrine? If not, its closure, while painful, may prevent greater harm. The parents’ first duty is to remove their children from the conciliar “Catholic” school system and place them in a school—or home-school them—where the unchanging Faith is taught and the true sacrifice of the Mass is offered. Their current appeal, by validating the Modernist hierarchy, is a participation in the very apostasy they seek to resist. They must choose: the sinking ship of the conciliar sect, or the barque of St. Peter as it existed before the revolution.
Source:
Chicago Catholic parents appeal to Vatican to keep school open (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 25.03.2026