NC Register portal reports that on March 29, 2026, “Bishop” Andrew Cozzens of the Diocese of Crookston addressed the closing of a 40 Days for Life campaign in Moorhead, Minnesota, sharing a personal testimony about his mother’s refusal to abort him despite medical recommendations. The article presents Cozzens as a heroic pro-life witness and frames the abortion issue primarily through the lens of “human dignity” and cultural transformation, while remaining entirely silent on the supernatural dimensions of the question — the state of grace, mortal sin, excommunication, and the Church’s judicial authority over the faithful.
The Anatomy of a Modernist “Bishop”: Cozzens and the Reduction of the Gospel to Social Activism
The story as presented is, at the natural level, moving. A mother defies a doctor’s recommendation to abort her child. The child grows up to become a bishop. He credits this experience as the foundation of his pro-life convictions. One might think this is simply an edifying anecdote. But from the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the article — and the figure of Cozzens himself — reveals the profound theological bankruptcy of the entire conciliar edifice and its inability to wage the war against evil with anything other than naturalistic weapons.
Let us begin with what the article does say, and then, more importantly, with what it refuses to say.
Factual Level: The Story as Told
The narrative is straightforward. Cozzens recounts that his mother, at 20 weeks of pregnancy, was hospitalized after her water broke prematurely. A doctor informed her the child was “severely deformed” and recommended inducing labor — which, at that stage, would constitute a direct abortion, the deliberate killing of an unborn child. The mother refused. She reportedly called the child a “gift from God” and dismissed the doctor when he used the word “freak.” A second doctor was found. The child — Cozzens — was born prematurely but healthy.
Cozzens then draws the following conclusion: “That’s why we stand here today, praying that our culture would just recognize the dignity of a human life. That’s a dignity that’s inalienable, we say, because it comes from God.”
He adds: “Life is always God’s choice, and always God’s solution.”
These are the words of a man occupying a position of authority in the conciliar structure. They are the words the faithful hear from the pulpit. And they are, upon examination, theologically vacuous — not because the natural sentiment is wrong, but because the supernatural reality is entirely absent.
Theological Level: The Missing Supernatural Order
What does the Catholic Church — the true Church, before the modernist hijacking of the Second Vatican Council — teach about abortion? It is not merely a question of “dignity” or “life” in the abstract, humanitarian sense. It is a question of divine law, of mortal sin, of excommunication, and of the eternal damnation of those who procure or cooperate in it.
Pope Pius IX, in Apostolicae Sedis (1869), solemnly declared that those who procure a successful abortion incur latae sententiae excommunication — automatic excommunication, reserved to the Holy See. This is not a disciplinary nicety. It is the Church exercising the authority given to her by Christ: “Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” (Matthew 18:18). The Church, as a perfect society endowed with all the means necessary for her divine mission, has the right and duty to punish those who commit grievous offenses against God’s law. This is not optional. It flows from the very nature of the Church as founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ.
And what of the doctor who recommended the abortion? What of the medical establishment that normalizes the killing of the unborn? What of the state that legalizes and funds it? The article is silent. Cozzens is silent. The conciliar sect is silent.
Pope Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei (1885), taught with unmistakable clarity: “The Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, each the highest in its kind, and each fixed within certain limits, which are defined by the special nature and object of the province of each.” The state has no authority to legalize murder. To do so is to exceed its competence and to rebel against the King of kings.
Yet where in Cozzens’ address is there any mention of excommunication? Where is there any mention of the mortal sin committed by those who procure abortions? Where is there any call to repentance — not cultural transformation, not “recognizing dignity,” but the supernatural act of turning from sin to God through the Sacrament of Penance? Where is there any mention of the Final Judgment, where every soul will render an account of every deed done in the body, whether good or evil?
The answer is: nowhere. And this silence is not accidental. It is the hallmark of Modernism, condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) as “the synthesis of all heresies.” Modernism does not deny the existence of God outright — it simply removes God from the equation. It reduces the faith to a system of natural ethics, of human dignity, of social justice. It speaks of “God” but means “the forces of love and compassion within the human spirit.” It speaks of “life” but means biological existence, not the supernatural life of grace.
Proposition 20 of the Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 1864) condemns the following: “The ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government.” And yet here we have a “bishop” who speaks of abortion as a cultural problem to be addressed through prayer and witness, while never once invoking the Church’s authority to bind and loose, to excommunicate, to command, to judge. The conciliar sect has effectively surrendered the Church’s judicial power to the secular state — precisely the error condemned by Pius IX.
Linguistic Level: The Vocabulary of Naturalism
Examine the language Cozzens employs. He speaks of “the dignity of a human life,” of “life is always God’s choice,” of “the struggle against evil.” These phrases are not, in themselves, heretical. But they are incomplete to the point of deception. They are the language of naturalistic humanitarianism — the language of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, of secular bioethics, of Protestant moralism.
The Catholic vocabulary — the vocabulary of the true Church — is different. It speaks of ensoulment at conception, of the sin of murder, of the blood of the innocent crying out to heaven, of the obligation of the faithful to resist unjust laws, of the duty of Catholic rulers to suppress evil. It speaks of hell.
Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to remind the world that “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men” and that “rulers of states… have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” The reign of Christ is not merely spiritual in the sense of being interior and invisible. It extends to every aspect of human life, including the laws of the state, the practice of medicine, and the protection of the unborn.
When Cozzens speaks of “praying that our culture would just recognize the dignity of a human life,” he reveals the conciliar mentality in its entirety. The goal is not the submission of culture to the Kingship of Christ. The goal is dialogue, recognition, awareness. The conciliar sect does not seek to conquer — it seeks to be heard. It does not seek to rule — it seeks to participate. This is the spirit of Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae, which proclaimed the right to religious liberty — a document condemned in advance by every Pope from Gregory XVI to Pius XII.
Symptomatic Level: The Pro-Life Movement as Safety Valve
The 40 Days for Life campaign, as described in the article, is a perfect example of how the conciliar sect channels Catholic energy into harmless, naturalistic activism. Catholics are encouraged to pray outside abortion clinics. They are encouraged to witness. They are encouraged to share stories — like Cozzens’ personal anecdote.
But they are not encouraged to demand that the Church exercise her authority. They are not encouraged to call for the excommunication of Catholic politicians who support abortion. They are not encouraged to resist the legalization of abortion through civil disobedience, as the early Christians resisted the edicts of pagan emperors. They are not encouraged to recognize that the entire post-conciliar structure is itself complicit in the culture of death, having abandoned the supernatural weapons of the Church — the sacraments, the preaching of hell, the exercise of jurisdiction.
The article mentions that the Red River Women’s Clinic moved from Fargo to Moorhead after Roe v. Wade was overturned. It mentions that a Women’s Care pregnancy resource center now operates nearby. It frames this as a battle between “life” and “death.” But the real battle is not between a pregnancy center and an abortion clinic. The real battle is between the true Church of Christ and the synagogue of Satan — and the conciliar sect, with its interfaith dialogue, its ecumenism, its religious liberty, and its naturalistic humanitarianism, has already surrendered.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). And yet this is precisely what the conciliar sect has done. It has reconciled itself with the modern world. It has accepted the premises of liberalism — the autonomy of the individual, the neutrality of the state, the primacy of conscience — and it has merely attempted to influence the culture from within, rather than conquering it for Christ the King.
The “Bishop” Who Never Speaks of Authority
Consider the most revealing passage in the entire article. Cozzens says: “We don’t want abortion clinics anywhere, but especially in my diocese, right?” He then adds: “seemingly reclaiming the area over which he has spiritual authority that had fallen into the enemy’s hand.”
Note the language: “spiritual authority.” Not jurisdiction. Not the power of the keys. Not the authority to command, to forbid, to excommunicate. “Spiritual authority” — a vague, interior, almost sentimental concept. This is the language of a man who has been formed entirely within the conciliar system, where “authority” means “moral influence” rather than the exercise of the potestas jurisdictionis Christ entrusted to His Church.
The same article reports that Cozzens read from the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel and offered a blessing and closing prayer. These are liturgical acts. But they are performed within a structure — the conciliar liturgy — that has been so thoroughly reformed along Protestant and modernist lines that its Catholic identity is, at best, ambiguous. The 1969 “Novus Ordo Missae,” promulgated by the apostate Paul VI, has been criticized by Catholic theologians as “Protestantized” and as failing to express the Catholic doctrine of the propitiatory sacrifice. To read Scripture and offer prayers within this context, while never mentioning the true Mass, the true sacraments, the true Church — is to participate in a system of religious simulation.
The Deeper Problem: A Church Without Teeth
The fundamental problem with Cozzens’ testimony — and with the entire article — is that it presents the fight against abortion as a humanitarian cause rather than a supernatural war. The unborn child is not merely a “gift from God” in the sentimental sense. A human being, from the moment of conception, possesses an immortal soul created by God, destined for eternal beatitude or eternal damnation. To kill that child is to murder a soul destined for heaven. It is to commit a crime that cries out to God for vengeance. It is to incur the pain of loss and the pain of sense in hell for all eternity — unless the sinner repents.
But the conciliar sect does not preach hell. It does not preach repentance. It does not preach the necessity of the sacraments. It preaches “dignity,” “life,” “love.” It preaches a god without wrath, a Christ without a cross, a Church without authority. It preaches, in short, another gospel — and St. Paul condemns those who preach another gospel with the most terrible anathema: “If anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one you have received, let him be anathema!” (Galatians 1:9).
The true Church — the Church of all centuries, the Church of the martyrs and the Fathers, the Church that canonized saints and condemned heresies, the Church that established the Feast of Christ the King and proclaimed the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ over all nations — this Church would never reduce the fight against abortion to a prayer vigil outside a clinic. This Church would excommunicate the doctors, the politicians, the judges. This Church would command Catholic rulers to suppress the evil by force if necessary. This Church would preach the reality of eternal damnation to every procurer of abortion. This Church would refuse communion to any Catholic who cooperated in the crime.
But the conciliar sect does none of these things. It prays. It witnesses. It tells stories. And the killing continues.
Conclusion: The Spiritual Bankruptcy of Conciliar “Pro-Life” Witness
The article about “Bishop” Cozzens is a microcosm of everything wrong with the post-conciliar Church. It takes a genuinely moving personal story and strips it of its supernatural content. It presents a “bishop” who speaks of “dignity” but never of sin, who speaks of “life” but never of grace, who speaks of “the enemy” but never of Satan, who speaks of “spiritual authority” but never of the power of the keys. It presents the pro-life movement as a cultural struggle rather than a supernatural war. And it does all of this while remaining entirely silent about the one reality that matters most: the eternal destiny of every human soul.
The faithful who desire to fight the culture of death must recognize that the conciliar sect — with its “bishops,” its “Masses,” its “sacraments,” and its “pro-life” campaigns — is not the weapon God has given us for this battle. The true weapon is the integral Catholic Faith: the true Mass, the true sacraments, the true doctrine of the Church’s authority, the true preaching of hell and heaven, the true submission of every soul and every nation to the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Until the conciliar sect is rejected — root and branch — and the true Church is restored to her rightful authority, the culture of death will continue to triumph. Not because the enemy is strong, but because the so-called “Church” has laid down her arms and negotiated a surrender with the world.
“The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.” This proposition, condemned by Pius IX as Proposition 55 of the Syllabus of Errors, is the operating principle of the entire conciliar system. And it is the reason why Cozzens’ “pro-life” witness — however sincere, however moving — is ultimately spiritually bankrupt.
The only true pro-life position is the Catholic position: extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — outside the Church, there is no salvation. And outside the true Church — the Church that binds and looses, that excommunicates and anathematizes, that preaches Christ crucified and the reality of eternal judgment — there is no true fight for life. There is only humanitarianism dressed in Catholic vestments, and humanitarianism has never saved a single soul.
Source:
‘That Baby Was Me’: Bishop Cozzens Moves Crowd With True Pro-Life Story (ncregister.com)
Date: 18.04.2026