The NC Register portal reports that on Holy Saturday 2026, masked individuals assaulted faithful at Eucharistic adoration in the Diocese of Tlaxcala, Mexico, stealing the ciborium containing consecrated hosts. Bishop Julio Salcedo Aquino issued a statement deploring the physical and spiritual harm, noting the theft of the Eucharist constitutes “one of the most grave” offenses against the Catholic faith and that perpetrators automatically incur excommunication. He called for prayers for the conversion of the thieves, announced a rite of reparation, and requested “Days of Eucharistic Prayer.” The bishop’s reflection invoked Mary Magdalene’s discovery of the empty tomb.
The bishop’s response, while acknowledging the gravity of the sacrilege, fundamentally fails to confront the theological and ecclesial crisis that makes such acts possible. His language remains trapped in a naturalistic, pastoral framework that omits the supernatural truths essential for understanding the crime’s true magnitude and the Church’s proper response. This incident is not merely a criminal act but a symptom of the doctrinal and liturgical chaos sown by the Vatican II revolution, which has desacralized the Eucharist and neutered the Church’s authoritative voice.
Naturalistic Pastoral Tone Over Supernatural Horror
The bishop’s statement begins with naturalistic concern: “we deplore this incident, above all for the lives and physical and spiritual well-being of the people.” While charity for victims is obligatory, the primary outrage must be against the infinite Majesty of God offended. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 1367) stipulates that “a person who profanes a sacred species… incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.” The bishop correctly notes automatic excommunication but frames it as a canonical penalty rather than a soul-destroying rupture from the Mystical Body. His call to “pray intensely for the people who stole” is good, yet it lacks the doctrinal clarity of pre-conciliar documents that would demand public penance and emphasize the eternal consequences of sacrilege. The omission of any reference to the necessity of sacramental confession for the thieves, the absolute requirement of making restitution, and the duty to avoid the near occasion of sin reveals a pastoral approach softened by Modernist humanitarianism.
Omission of the Public Reign of Christ the King
The bishop’s invocation of Mary Magdalene is poignant but dangerously incomplete. He stops at her running to tell Peter: “They have taken the Lord from the tomb.” This is a narrative of loss and confusion. What is utterly absent is the triumphant, juridical response demanded by the Kingship of Christ. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, established the feast of Christ the King precisely to counteract the secularism that leads to such outrages: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The bishop makes no connection between this theft and the apostasy of secular states that have removed Christ from public life, nor does he call for the public restoration of Christ’s rights over society. The Modernist mentality, condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (Proposition 59: “Truth changes with man”), reduces the sacred to a private devotion, stripping it of its social and political implications. The Eucharist is not a “holy thing” to be mourned in a chapel; it is the True King of kings, whose Real Presence demands public honor and whose desecration is a crime against the common good of the entire social order.
Liturgical and Doctrinal Chaos as Root Cause
The theft occurred during “Eucharistic adoration.” The post-conciliar Church has transformed the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass into a “meal” and “assembly,” and Eucharistic adoration into a devotional exercise often stripped of its sacrificial context. The 1969 Missal of Paul VI’s “Ordo Missae” eliminates explicit references to the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, replacing it with a “memorial of the Lord.” This naturalistic redefinition, a direct fruit of the Modernist error condemned in Lamentabili (Proposition 46: “In the early Church, there was no concept of a Christian sinner whom the Church absolves…”), has destroyed the Catholic sense of the Eucharist as the true, substantial Presence of the Victim of Calvary. When the Sacrifice is obscured, the Sacrament becomes merely a “symbol” or “presence” for veneration, making it vulnerable to theft as a valuable object rather than an act of supreme worship owed to God. The bishop’s planned “rite of reparation” will almost certainly be a post-conciliar ceremony lacking the exorcistic and penitential rigor of the traditional rite, which explicitly invokes the power of Christ’s Blood to cleanse the sanctuary.
The Silence on Modernist Apostasy and the “Enemies Within”
St. Pius X, in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907), identified Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies.” The bishop’s statement is a masterclass in omission. He does not condemn the theological liberalism that denies transubstantiation, the ecumenical projects that place the Eucharist on par with other religions’ “sacred meals,” or the sacrilegious communions received by public heretics and apostates in the conciliar sect. He does not mention that the very “Diocese of Tlaxcala” is part of a structure that has officially embraced religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae), which erodes the Catholic Church’s exclusive right to public worship. The Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX (1864) condemns error #15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which… he shall consider true.” The post-conciliar Church’s endorsement of this thesis has created a religious indifferentism where the Eucharist is no longer recognized as the exclusive Sacrament of salvation, thereby diminishing the horror of its theft. The bishop’s call for “conversion” is vague; it does not specify conversion to the integral Catholic faith, outside of which there is no salvation, as defined by the Council of Florence. His silence on the apostasy of the “Pope” Leo XIV and the entire conciliar hierarchy is complicity.
Failure to Apply Canon Law and Demand Restitution
The bishop mentions automatic excommunication but does not apply the canonical consequences. Canon 1367 is clear: the excommunication is reserved to the Apostolic See. In the pre-conciliar Church, such a public sacrilege would trigger an immediate canonical process, a public act of condemnation, and a demand for the immediate return of the Sacred Species, under pain of further penalties. The bishop’s “call for return” is a private, pastoral request, not a juridical demand backed by the authority of the Church. This weakness stems from the post-conciliar Church’s abandonment of its judicial and disciplinary powers, as condemned in the Syllabus (Error #24: “The Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power”). The traditional response, seen in Pope Celestine I’s letters regarding Nestorius (cited in the Defense of Sedevacantism file), was to declare that a heretic loses all jurisdiction and that his acts are null. A bishop in communion with the true Church would have declared the thieves’ actions not only criminal but sacrilegious in the highest degree, demanding public penance and restitution as a condition for any consideration of lifting the excommunication.
Conclusion: A Pastoral Response That Reinforces the Crisis
Bishop Salcedo’s reaction is a quintessential product of the conciliar revolution. It replaces the supernatural, juridical, and kingly response of the pre-1958 Church with a therapeutic, naturalistic, and vague appeal for prayer and personal conversion. It treats the symptom (theft) while ignoring the disease (the apostasy of the Vatican II sect that has dismantled Catholic dogma, liturgy, and discipline). The true Catholic response, rooted in the unchanging Magisterium, would have been:
1. A public condemnation of the act as an offense against the infinite Majesty of God, citing the explicit definitions of the Council of Trent on the Real Presence.
2. A declaration that the perpetrators are excommunicated latae sententiae and that this excommunication is reserved to the Holy See of the true Church (which currently does not exist, as the See is vacant).
3. A demand for the immediate and public return of the consecrated Hosts, with the threat of further canonical penalties if they are not returned or are profaned.
4. A link to the broader apostasy: the loss of faith in the Real Presence among the clergy and faithful due to Modernist preaching and the invalid post-conciliar “Mass.”
5. A call to restore the traditional Roman Rite and the doctrine of the Social Kingship of Christ, as defined in Quas Primas, as the only remedy for such outrages.
Instead, we receive a statement that could have been issued by a Protestant minister concerned about a “sacred object” being stolen. This is the bankruptcy of the “Church of the New Advent”: it has no supernatural answers, only naturalistic platitudes, because it has lost the faith. The faithful are robbed not only of the Eucharist in Tlaxcala but of the true Faith everywhere the conciliar sect holds sway. The only reparation acceptable to God is the public repudiation of Vatican II and a return to the immutable Tradition, which the bishop and his entire “hierarchy” are utterly unwilling to offer.
Source:
Eucharist Stolen, Faithful Robbed During Adoration in Mexico On Holy Saturday (ncregister.com)
Date: 07.04.2026