The article from the National Catholic Register (April 3, 2026) reports that “Pope Leo XIV” personally carried the cross during the Good Friday Via Crucis at the Colosseum in Rome, marking the first appearance of a “Supreme Pontiff” at this event in four years. It quotes him urging the faithful to “live our lives as a journey” and to “follow in the footprints” of Christ. This performance, staged with dramatic lighting and photographic emphasis, is presented as a moment of piety and papal presence. **The event is a calculated deception, using traditional imagery to sanctify an antipope and perpetuate the conciliar sect’s substitution of naturalistic sentiment for supernatural Catholic doctrine.**
Factual Level: The Lie of Papal Presence
The article’s foundational premise is false: Robert Prevost, calling himself “Pope Leo XIV,” is not the Vicar of Christ. According to the immutable theological doctrine of the Church, a manifest heretic cannot be Pope. St. Robert Bellarmine, whose teaching is definitive on this point, states: “A manifest heretic… by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church” (De Romano Pontifice, II:30). Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law confirms: “Every office becomes vacant by the mere fact… if the cleric… publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” Prevost, as the head of the conciliar sect, publicly defects by embracing the errors of Vatican II—religious liberty (condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus, Proposition 80), ecumenism (which destroys the uniqueness of the Catholic Church), and the evolution of dogma (condemned in St. Pius X’s Lamentabili sane exitu, Proposition 54). Therefore, the “papacy” has been vacant since the death of Pius XII in 1958. The event is not a papal Via Crucis; it is a theatrical production by a private citizen usurping the title of the papacy. The article’s uncritical use of “Pope,” “Supreme Pontiff,” and “Holy Year” (a conciliar innovation) actively colludes in this fraud, presenting a false narrative to readers.
Linguistic Level: The Language of Naturalistic Humanism
The rhetoric employed is dripping with the naturalism of Modernism. The call to “live our lives as a journey” and “follow in the footprints” of Christ reduces the supernatural reality of the Catholic life to a vague, imitative moralism. This is the language of self-help and personal development, not of Catholic theology. The *Via Crucis* is not a “journey” of self-discovery; it is a liturgical participation in the one Sacrifice of Calvary, which propitiates for sin and merits eternal life. The omission of any reference to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—which is the necessary context for the Way of the Cross—is deafening. In the true Church, the Good Friday liturgy centers on the Mass of the Presanctified, where the faithful adore the Body and Blood of Christ sacrificed for us. Here, the cross is carried as a symbol of personal struggle, not as the instrument of our redemption. The focus on “footprints” evokes a sentimental, almost pantheistic union with a historical figure, bypassing the necessity of sanctifying grace, the sacraments, and submission to the Church’s teaching authority. This is the “modernist” method condemned by St. Pius X: reducing the Incarnation and Redemption to a “religious movement” or a “consciousness” (Lamentabili sane exitu, Prop. 59).
Theological Level: Christ’s Kingship vs. Conciliar Relativism
The article’s entire context operates within the theological vacuum of the post-conciliar church, which has systematically rejected the social reign of Christ the King as defined by pre-conciliar magisterium. Pope Pius XI, in *Quas primas* (1925), declared that Christ’s kingdom “encompasses all men” and that “states… have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” He condemned the secularism that removes God from public life: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The conciliar sect, by embracing religious liberty (Dignitatis humanae) and the separation of Church and state, has enacted precisely the errors condemned in Pius IX’s *Syllabus of Errors*: Proposition 77 (“it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State”) and Proposition 55 (“the Church ought to be separated from the State”). By performing the Via Crucis in the Colosseum—a pagan monument—without any assertion of Christ’s exclusive right to rule nations, the antipope and his sect demonstrate their full embrace of the indifferentism and secularism Pius IX anathematized. The event is a performance of piety that utterly contradicts the dogma of Christ the King. It is a “kingdom” of private sentiment, not public order; a “king” who is ignored in parliaments and constitutions, precisely as Pius XI lamented.
Symptomatic Level: A Masonic Psychological Operation
This spectacle is a classic example of the disinformation strategy outlined in the analysis of the Fatima apparitions as a “Masonic operation.” The use of ancient Roman sites, dramatic lighting, and media coverage (EWTN News) is designed to create an emotional, traditionalist “feel” while promoting the conciliar revolution’s core errors. The “first time in four years” narrative manufactures a sense of rare papal piety, diverting attention from the daily apostasy of the conciliar church: the invalid Mass, the sacrilegious “communion,” the promotion of false religions, and the destruction of the clerical state. The focus on the cross as a burden to be carried personally (a Jansenist or Protestant trope) replaces the Catholic truth of the cross as the one sacrifice offered to the Father for the redemption of the world. The omission of the Mass is not accidental; the conciliar “Eucharist” is a memorial meal, not a propitiatory sacrifice. Thus, the entire event is a synagogue of Satan (Apoc. 2:9) masquerading as Catholicism, using the Church’s most sacred symbols to indoctrinate the faithful into accepting the antipope and his modernist agenda. It is a psychological operation to create the illusion of continuity, while the reality is the radical rupture of Vatican II.
Omission of Supernatural Realities: The Gravest Accusation
The article is a masterclass in the omission of all supernatural truths. There is no mention of:
- The state of grace necessary to participate fruitfully in the Passion of Christ.
- The sacrifice of the Mass as the unbloody re-presentation of Calvary.
- The hierarchy of the Church with authority from Christ to teach, sanctify, and govern.
- The final judgment and the eternal consequences of accepting or rejecting Christ’s kingship.
- The indelible character of Holy Orders and the invalidity of the conciliar “ordinations” (many of which are doubtfully valid due to the changed rite).
This silence is not accidental; it is the very essence of Modernism, which seeks to reduce religion to a “life” and a “journey” while emptying it of defined dogmas. As Pius IX’s Syllabus condemned (Proposition 57): “The science of philosophical things and morals… may and ought to keep aloof from divine and ecclesiastical authority.” The article embodies this error, presenting a purely human, emotional experience as the summit of Catholic devotion. The true Via Crucis is a contemplation of the Passion that requires the intellect assenting to the dogma of the Redemption and the will submitting to the Church’s laws. Neither is present here.
Contrast with Pre-Conciliar Doctrine: The Unbridgeable Chasm
The pre-1958 Church, as defined by Pius XI in *Quas primas*, taught that Christ’s reign “extends not only to Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians,” and that rulers must “publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” The current conciliar sect, led by Prevost, promotes the exact opposite: the “dignity” of all religions, the “autonomy” of the temporal sphere, and the “freedom” of man to choose his own path. The Via Crucis event is thus a blasphemous parody. It uses the symbol of Christ’s kingship (the cross) while denying His kingship in practice. It stages a “journey” while leading souls away from the narrow path (Matt. 7:14) that is the Catholic Church. The true Catholic, according to Bellarmine, must recognize that a manifest heretic like Prevost has no jurisdiction; to follow him is to follow a wolf in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15). The article’s failure to make this distinction proves its complicity in the apostasy.
Conclusion: A Call to Reject the Spectacle
This media event is not a moment of Catholic piety; it is a symptom of the great apostasy. It uses the Church’s sacred symbols to lend credibility to a false church that has abandoned the faith. The faithful are called not to “follow footprints” of an antipope, but to flee from his conciliar sect and adhere to the immutable faith of the pre-1958 Church. As Pius X taught in Pascendi Dominici gregis, Modernism is “the synthesis of all heresies.” This Via Crucis is Modernism in liturgical drag: a sentimental, human-centered, doctrinally vacuous performance that leads souls to hell. The only legitimate response is total rejection and a return to the Roman Catechism, the 1917 Code of Canon Law, and the papacy of Pius XII—the last true Pope. All else is the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15).
Source:
PHOTOS: Pope Leo XIV Carries the Cross at the Via Crucis in the Colosseum (ncregister.com)
Date: 04.04.2026