EWTN News carries a report from ACI Prensa that on March 30, 2026, the conciliar “bishops’ conference” of Spain, along with the “Dominican Father” Jesús Díaz Sariego of the religious confederation, the Spanish government’s minister Félix Bolaños, and the people’s ombudsman Ángel Gabilondo, signed a protocol establishing a state-church system for compensating victims of abuse. The agreement gives the state’s ombudsman office final decision-making power in disputes, sets no fixed compensation parameters, and complements the Church’s own PRIVA plan—already used in over 100 cases with €2.5 million paid. The Vatican’s Secretariat of State was involved in the negotiations, with the minister confirming a recent meeting there alongside King Felipe VI’s audience with antipope Leo XIV. This protocol, effective April 15, concludes a process begun in 2022 after an ombudsman’s report recommended a state-run reparations system, which the conciliar “bishops’ conference” had previously rejected as discriminatory. The minister openly criticized the PRIVA plan’s “original sin” of self-judgment, yet the new system still subjects the Church to state oversight. This collaboration with a secular government that denies Christ’s social kingship is a stark betrayal of Catholic doctrine and a capitulation to modernist principles of state supremacy over the Church.
State Supremacy over Ecclesiastical Justice: A Direct Violation of Catholic Doctrine
The protocol’s core mechanism—granting the state’s ombudsman office ultimate authority to resolve disagreements between the Church’s PRIVA Plan advisors and the state’s victim unit—constitutes a clear subordination of the Church to civil power. As the article quotes Minister Bolaños: “the final say will rest with the state.” This is not mere collaboration but a surrender of the Church’s inherent right to govern her own internal affairs, a right rooted in her divine constitution.
Catholic doctrine before 1958 unequivocally condemned such state encroachment. Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus Errorum (1864) anathematized the proposition that “the ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government” (Error 20). It also condemned the notion that “the Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect” (Error 24), by which the Church’s indirect temporal power—her right to regulate her own temporal affairs without state interference—is denied. Furthermore, Error 19 states: “The Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free… but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church.” The Spanish protocol enacts precisely this error by allowing the state to define the outcome of ecclesiastical compensation cases.
Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas (1925), on the feast of Christ the King, explicitly affirms the Church’s independence: “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.” The protocol’s acceptance of state supremacy directly contradicts this immutable principle. The Church’s duty is to teach, govern, and lead souls to eternal happiness, a mission that “cannot depend on anyone’s will” (Quas Primas). By yielding final judgment to a secular ombudsman, the conciliar “bishops’ conference” renounces the liberty Christ won for His Church.
The Naturalistic Reduction of “Reparation”
The language throughout the article is bureaucratically naturalistic, reducing a profoundly supernatural crisis to a matter of social work and financial settlement. Phrases like “comprehensive reparation,” “alleviate the passion (suffering) of so many victims,” and “an opportunity for collaboration” frame the issue in humanistic, psychological terms. The minister’s acknowledgment of the PRIVA plan’s “original sin” is itself a secularized phrase—referring not to actual sin but to a procedural flaw—highlighting the complete omission of the moral and spiritual dimensions of abuse.
Catholic theology before 1958 understood abuse as a grave sin requiring canonical penalties, repentance, and sacramental absolution. The Church’s primary duty is the salvation of souls, which involves separating the sinner from the community (cf. 1 Cor. 5:13), imposing penance, and restoring the victim through spiritual means. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Can. 2195-2202) provided rigorous procedures for trying clerics accused of crimes, including delicts against the sixth commandment. The protocol’s focus on financial compensation as the primary remedy, devoid of any reference to canonical trials, sacramental confession, or public acts of reparation, reflects the Modernist heresy condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907). Proposition 63 of that decree attacks the idea that “the injustice of an act when successful inflicts no injury on the sanctity of right,” but here the conciliar sect treats abuse as a mere civil tort, not a mortal sin that offends God and destroys the ecclesial community.
Omission of Supernatural Justice and Sacramental Healing
The gravest accusation against this protocol is its total silence on the supernatural order. There is no mention of the sacraments as the ordinary means of grace for both victims and perpetrators. No reference to the Holy Eucharist as the source of healing, to confession as the necessary path to forgiveness, or to the Church’s power to bind and loose (John 20:23). This omission is not accidental but symptomatic of the conciliar sect’s apostasy, where the “Church” is reduced to a humanitarian NGO.
Pius XI in Quas Primas taught that Christ’s kingdom is “primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters,” and that entry into it requires “repentance… through faith and baptism.” The protocol addresses only temporal “reparation,” ignoring the eternal consequences of sin. A Catholic approach would prioritize guiding the abused to receive the sacraments, ensuring the abuser performs acts of penance, and publicly affirming the Church’s commitment to doctrinal purity to prevent future scandals. Instead, the conciliar “bishops’” primary concern is public image and financial settlement, echoing the modernist error that “the dogmas of faith should be understood according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief” (Lamentabili, Prop. 26).
The Conciliar Sect’s Apostate Alliance with Secular Powers
This protocol is not an isolated incident but a fruit of the conciliar revolution’s fundamental reorientation toward the world. Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes promoted “collaboration” with secular societies, while Dignitatis Humanae endorsed religious freedom—both condemned by Syllabus Errorum (Errors 15-18, 77-80). The Spanish government, as a secular state, promotes laws contrary to Catholic teaching (e.g., on abortion, euthanasia, gender ideology). By signing this protocol, the conciliar “bishops’ conference” legitimizes a state that “has removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from… public life” (Quas Primas), thereby participating in the “public apostasy” Pius XI lamented.
The involvement of the Vatican Secretariat of State—the very office of the antipope—demonstrates that this betrayal is orchestrated from the top of the conciliar hierarchy. Antipope Leo XIV, a manifest heretic who denies Catholic doctrine on marriage, the papacy, and the Church’s unique salvific role, thus sanctions this agreement. According to St. Robert Bellarmine (cited in the Defense of Sedevacantism file), a manifest heretic “by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head.” Consequently, any act of the conciliar “Church” lacks legitimate authority, and this protocol is null and void before God.
The article’s tone of procedural triumph—“an agreement—even an imperfect one—is preferable to no agreement”—reveals the modernist mentality that values human consensus over divine law. It is the same spirit that produced Vatican II’s “pastoral” approach, which downplays dogma in favor of “dialogue.” The protocol’s 14-page bureaucratic details, debated “every comma,” contrast sharply with the Church’s traditional swift and severe canonical penalties for clerics who scandalize the faithful. This is the “slow evolution” of Church discipline condemned by Pius X (Lamentabili, Props. 53-54), where “dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy… are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness.”
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation in Action
This protocol is a manifest betrayal of Christ’s kingship and a capitulation to the errors of the Syllabus. It replaces the Church’s spiritual authority with state-administered “reparation,” ignores the necessity of sacramental grace, and subjects the Body of Christ to the secular arm. In doing so, the conciliar “bishops’ conference” of Spain acts not as successors of the Apostles but as functionaries of the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15). The true Catholic response would be to defend the Church’s liberty with the decrees of Pius IX and Pius X, to prosecute abusers canonically, and to offer victims the supernatural remedies of the sacraments—not to kneel before the secular state’s ombudsman. The signatories have chosen the path of apostasy, aligning themselves with the “synagogue of Satan” that Pius IX warned was waging war on the Church. Their protocol is a document of the conciliar sect, not of the Catholic Church, and must be rejected by all faithful who hold to the integral faith of pre-1958 Catholicism.
Source:
Church and Spanish government sign protocol for compensating abuse victims (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 31.03.2026