The cited article from EWTN News, a mouthpiece of the conciliar sect, presents five superficial methods for “solemnly celebrating” Good Friday. It reduces the most sacred day of the liturgical year to a series of personal devotional options, completely divorcing it from its essential context: the one, unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary made present in the Traditional Latin Mass, and the necessary authority of the Catholic Church. The article’s language is naturalistic, focusing on human activity (“attend,” “participate,” “fast,” “read,” “spend time”) while remaining utterly silent on the supernatural realities of sin, propitiation, and the juridical satisfaction of Christ’s death. This omission is not accidental; it is the very essence of the conciliar apostasy, which replaces the Catholic religion with a humanistic, psychological spirituality. The article’s final reference to “Pope Leo XIV’s” Holy Week schedule cements its place within the paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican, whose rites are null and void.
The Missing Sacrifice: Good Friday’s Core Erased
The article states: “Mass is not celebrated on Good Friday. However, Catholic churches will offer a service celebrating the Lord’s passion with holy Communion and veneration of the cross.” This is a deliberate and damning equivocation. In the pre-1958 Roman Rite, Good Friday was not a “service” but the solemn celebration of the Missa Praesanctificata (Mass of the Presanctified). The altar was stripped, the Sacraments were removed, and the faithful received Communion from the Host consecrated at the previous day’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper. This liturgy was a profound theological statement: on this day, the Church does not offer a new sacrifice, but solemnly presents the one Sacrifice of Calvary, made present on the altar, now completed. The Improperia (Reproaches), the Solemn Collects, and the unique structure of the liturgy all centered on the objective, once-for-all atonement for sin.
The conciliar “Celebration of the Lord’s Passion” is a human invention that severs this connection. It is often structured around a “Liturgy of the Word” with a general intercessory prayer, followed by the veneration of the cross and a Communion service using hosts consecrated at a previous Mass. This structure, promoted after Vatican II, fundamentally alters the theology of the day. It transforms a day of liturgical mourning for the death of the God-Man, which demands contrition and reparation, into a generic “celebration of the passion” that can be “participated in” like any other devotional event. The article’s description mirrors this empty rite, omitting any mention of the sacrificial nature of the day, the necessity of sacramental confession prior to Communion, or the juridical concept of Christ’s satisfaction for sin. The silence is deafening and heretical.
The Omission of Authority and the False Ecclesiology
The article instructs Catholics to attend services at “your local parish” and participate in “Stations of the Cross” offered there. It assumes the legitimacy of the local “parish” and its ministers. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this is a fatal error. The pre-1958 Church taught, as defined by the Council of Trent, that the Church is a perfect society with an inherent, divinely conferred right to freedom and independence from secular authority (Quas Primas). The conciliar sect, however, has embraced the errors condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus, particularly #19: “The Church is not a true and perfect society… but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church.” The modern “parish” is an administrative unit of a national bishops’ conference, itself in submission to the state in matters of doctrine and practice (cf. Syllabus #20, #44). To direct souls to such structures without warning of their apostasy is to lead them into spiritual danger.
Furthermore, the article’s author, Francesca Pollio Fenton, writes for EWTN News, an organization in full communion with the antipopes from John XXIII through Leo XIV. She references “Pope Leo XIV’s” schedule, thereby acknowledging the legitimacy of a manifest heretic. According to St. Robert Bellarmine, as quoted in the Defense of Sedevacantism file: “a manifest heretic… ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” Bellarmine’s position, confirmed by Wernz and Vidal, is that a manifest heretic is deprived ipso facto of jurisdiction. Therefore, the “parish” she promotes is not a Catholic parish but a congregation of the conciliar sect, and its ministers are not Catholic priests but functionaries of a false religion. The article’s entire premise—that one can “solemnly celebrate” Good Friday within these structures—is a lie. It is a participation in the sacrilege of the abomination of desolation.
The Reduction to Personal Piety and the Rejection of Social Kingship
The suggested practices—fasting, reading Scripture, prayer—are not inherently evil. In the context of Catholic tradition, they are means to an end: deeper union with Christ’s sacrifice and amendment of life. However, the article presents them as ends in themselves, as a “checklist” for a “solemn” day. This reflects the modernist hermeneutic condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu, which seeks to reduce religion to a purely interior, personal experience. Proposition #26 from that document states: “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities.” The article’s tone implies that solemnity is a subjective state achieved through chosen activities, not an objective participation in a liturgical reality governed by the Church’s law.
This individualism is a direct attack on the social reign of Christ the King, so clearly taught by Pius XI in Quas Primas. The encyclical states: “the kingdom of Christ… is intended for all people of the whole world” and that “individuals, families, and states” must be subject to His authority. Good Friday, as the commemoration of the King’s death, must fundamentally challenge the secular order. The article says nothing of this. It does not call for public acts of reparation, for the vindication of the Church’s rights against the state, or for the condemnation of the secularism that Pius XI called “the plague of our times.” Instead, it promotes private, safe, and inoffensive devotions that can be practiced within the comfort of one’s home or the approved conciliar parish. This is the exact opposite of Catholic social teaching. It is the “cult of man” replacing the cult of God.
The Poisoned Source: The Conciliar Sect’s Liturgical Revolution
Every suggestion in the article presupposes the legitimacy of the post-Conciliar liturgical books. The “celebration of the Lord’s passion” at 3 p.m., the “Stations of the Cross” in the evening, the encouragement of Communion—all are framed within the Ordo of the post-1958 rite. This rite is a direct product of the Modernist revolution. The architects of the new order, like Annibale Bugnini, explicitly sought to create a “new prayer book” that would be acceptable to Protestants and reflect the “spirit of the liturgy” as understood by the School of Sant’Anselmo, which was permeated with the errors condemned by St. Pius X. The new Good Friday liturgy strips away the ancient Roman elements (the Missa Praesanctificata with its specific prayers, the Improperia in Greek and Latin, the solemn unveiling of the cross) and replaces them with a bland, scriptural reflection that could be at home in any Protestant service.
To participate in this liturgy is to assent to its underlying theology, which is explicitly Modernist. As Lamentabili condemns:
– Proposition #52: “Christ did not intend to establish the Church as a community lasting for centuries on earth…”
– Proposition #54: “Dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy… are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness…”
The new Good Friday service, by its very form, teaches that the Church’s worship is a human construct, an “evolution” from ancient rites, rather than a divinely ordered, immutable sacrifice. The article’s promotion of this service, without a word of caution or distinction, makes it an instrument of apostasy.
The False Mercy and the Omission of Justice
The article concludes with suggestions for prayer, including the “Divine Mercy Novena.” This is particularly insidious. The Divine Mercy devotion, based on the alleged revelations to “St.” Faustina Kowalska, is a prime example of the conciliar sect’s pseudo-mysticism. As noted in the user’s facts, Faustina Kowalska is a pseudo-mystic, her writings controlled by the charismatic (freemasonic) movement of Sopoćko, and her diary was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. The devotion emphasizes God’s “mercy” to the exclusion of His justice, a key error of Modernism that softens the doctrine of eternal punishment and the necessity of final perseverance. On Good Friday, the day of Christ’s sacrifice for sin, the focus must be on the horror of sin that demanded such a death, the need for perfect contrition, and the terrible justice of God. The article’s recommendation of this novena, originating from a condemned source, is a further sign of its theological corruption.
The article’s entire framework is one of omission. It omits:
– The doctrine of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the re-presentation of Calvary.
– The necessity of sacramental confession before receiving Communion on this most solemn day.
– The Church’s authority to prescribe the liturgy and the grave sin of violating her laws.
– The social and political implications of Christ’s kingship.
– The reality of hell and the urgency of making the Good Friday fast and prayer acts of perfect contrition for sin.
– Any warning about the conciliar sect’s apostasy and the invalidity of its services.
These omissions are not neutral; they are a positive declaration of a new, naturalistic religion. The article teaches a Good Friday without the Cross as an atoning sacrifice, without the Church as the sole dispenser of grace, and without Christ as King who must reign in society. It is a celebration of the passion of Christ emptied of its saving power, perfectly suited for the members of the conciliar sect who have “removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from their customs” (Pius XI, Quas Primas).
The only legitimate way to solemnly observe Good Friday is to assist at the Traditional Latin Mass (pre-1958) or, where that is impossible, to make a spiritual communion with the sacrifice offered by the true Church, which survives in the faithful and priests who have maintained the integral Catholic faith outside the conciliar structures. To participate in the rites of the antipopes is to offer worship to an empty tabernacle, to venerate a cross without its Crucified, and to receive a “communion” that is, at best, a symbol and, at worst, an act of idolatry. The article from EWTN News is a masterclass in presenting the outward forms of piety while systematically destroying their substance, leading souls not to Calvary, but to the comfortable, man-centered religion of the Antichrist.
Source:
5 ways to solemnly celebrate Good Friday (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 03.04.2026