EWTN News reports that the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois announced plans on April 29, 2026, to create “The Shrine for Father Augustine Tolton,” honoring the first recognized Black Catholic priest in the United States. The shrine, to be located at the closed St. Boniface Church in Quincy, Illinois, is presented as a “holy site” where pilgrims can pray for Tolton’s intercession and attend daily Mass. Bishop Thomas John Paprocki and Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry promoted the shrine as a place of “prayer, hope, and renewal,” while fundraising efforts estimate $5 million for renovations and $5–7 million for campus expansion. Tolton, born into slavery in 1854, was ordained in Rome in 1886 after American seminaries refused him due to racism, and died in 1897. His cause for canonization, opened in 2010, advanced to “Venerable” under the antipope Francis in 2019, pending a documented miracle. This project is not merely a tribute to a holy priest but a calculated move by the conciliar sect to advance its modernist agenda, reducing the faith to naturalistic humanism and racial politics while obscuring the true supernatural mission of the Church.
The Reduction of Holiness to Racial Identity
The article and the bishops’ statements consistently frame Father Tolton’s significance primarily through the lens of race. Bishop Paprocki emphasizes that Tolton “overcame the odds of slavery, prejudice, and racism,” while Bishop Perry highlights his “struggles” as a “shining example” of enduring disappointment. The shrine is presented as especially meaningful for “seminarians and priests, for patience, reconciliation, and harmony”—language that echoes the conciliar sect’s obsession with social justice rather than sanctity. This framing reduces Tolton’s priesthood to a narrative of racial triumph, ignoring that true holiness is measured by union with God, not by social identity. The Church has always taught that sanctity transcends race, class, and nationality: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). By foregrounding Tolton’s Blackness as his defining conciliar sect reveals its modernist tendency to reduce the faith to naturalistic categories, making a racial identity marker into an idol while ignoring the supernatural reality of holiness. Pius XI warned in *Quas Primas* that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” Yet here, the conciliar sect offers not Christ the King but Tolton the racial icon.
The Omission of True Supernatural Mission
The article is saturated with naturalistic language: “hope,” “renewal,” “healing,” “inspiration,” “lives transformed by grace.” Yet there is no mention of the supernatural realities that define the priesthood and the Church’s mission. There is no mention of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the propitiatory sacrifice of Calvary, no mention of the state of grace, no mention of final judgment, no mention of the necessity of the Catholic faith for salvation. The shrine is presented as a place where “hearts can be lifted to God”—vague, sentimental language that could apply to any religion or even secular self-help. This silence is the gravest accusation: it reveals that the conciliar sect has abandoned the supernatural mission of the Church in favor of naturalistic humanism. The true Church, as defined by the Council of Trent, exists for the salvation of souls through the preaching of the Gospel, the administration of the sacraments, and the offering of the Holy Sacrifice. The conciliar sect, by contrast, offers “spirituality” without dogma, “prayer” without the true Mass, and “sanctity” without the supernatural. As St. Pius X warned in *Lamentabili sane exitu*, the modernists “aim at such a development of dogmas as appears to be their corruption” (proposition 1). The Tolton shrine is another step in this corruption.
The Canonization Cause Under the Conciliar Sect
The article notes that Tolton’s cause was opened in 2010 and that the antipope Francis declared him “Venerable” in 2019. This fact alone should give pause to any Catholic faithful to tradition. The conciliar sect’s canonization process is deeply compromised. As documented in the file “False Fatima Apparitions,” the post-conciliar church has canonized figures whose lives and teachings are at odds with integral Catholic faith. The conciliar sect’s “saints” are often chosen not for their heroic defense of the faith but for their alignment with modernist values. Tolton’s cause, while perhaps based on a life of genuine virtue, is being advanced by a system that has canonized heretics like John Paul II and John Henry Newman. The faithful must ask: what guarantee is there that Tolton’s cause is free from the modernist distortions that have plagued every post-conciliar canonization? The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 188.4) states that “every office becomes vacant by the mere fact and without any declaration by reason of tacit resignation, recognized by the law itself, if the cleric: … 4. Publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” The antipopes from John XXIII onward have publicly defected from the Catholic faith through their endorsement of religious freedom, ecumenism, and other modernist errors condemned by the *Syllabus of Errors* (propositions 15, 18, 77-80). A manifest heretic cannot be Pope, and therefore cannot authorize valid canonizations. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches in *De Romano Pontifice* (2:30), “a manifest heretic cannot be Pope.” The Tolton cause, advanced by the conciliar sect, is therefore canonically suspect at its root.
The Financial Exploitation of the Faithful
The article reports that the shrine will require $5 million for renovations and an additional $5–7 million for campus expansion. Father Steven Arisman urges Catholics “everywhere to prayerfully consider supporting this project,” claiming that “by helping build this shrine, you are helping preserve Father Tolton’s legacy and offering future generations a place where hearts can be lifted to God and lives transformed by grace.” This is a staggering sum for a project dedicated to a figure whose canonization is far from certain and whose cause is advanced by a canonically illegitimate authority. The faithful are being asked to fund a shrine that will serve the conciliar sect’s modernist agenda, not the true Church. This financial exploitation is symptomatic of the conciliar sect’s broader pattern: using the faithful’s generosity to build monuments to its own apostasy. The true Church, as Pius XI taught in *Quas Primas*, demands that Christ reign “in the minds of men,” “in the wills of men,” and “in the hearts of men”—not in bank accounts. The Tolton shrine is a monument not to Christ the King but to the conciliar sect’s idol of racial reconciliation and naturalistic humanism.
The Omission of True Catholic Teaching on Race and the Church
The article makes no mention of the Church’s true teaching on race, the unity of the human race in Adam and in Christ, or the necessity of conversion to the Catholic faith for salvation. The conciliar sect’s obsession with racial identity is a modernist innovation, foreign to the Church’s perennial teaching. The Church has always taught that all men are equal in their common origin and their common destiny, and that the Catholic Church is the only ark of salvation. Yet the Tolton shrine is presented as a site of “reconciliation” and “harmony”—language that implies that racial division is the primary evil, rather than sin and apostasy. This is the conciliar sect’s characteristic inversion: it prioritizes social justice over supernatural justice, horizontal reconciliation over vertical reconciliation with God. The *Syllabus of Errors* condemns the proposition that “the teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society” (proposition 40). Yet the conciliar sect’s racial obsession implicitly accuses the pre-conciliar Church of complicity in racism, ignoring that the Church has always taught the dignity of all men and the necessity of charity. The Tolton shrine is not a correction of past sins but a perpetuation of the conciliar sect’s modernist inversion of values.
Conclusion
The announcement of the Tolton shrine is not merely a tribute to a holy priest but a calculated move by the conciliar sect to advance its modernist agenda. By foregrounding Tolton’s racial identity, omitting supernatural realities, exploiting the faithful financially, and advancing a canonization cause under a canonically illegitimate authority, the conciliar sect reveals its true nature: a counterfeit church that has abandoned the supernatural mission of Christ’s true Church in favor of naturalistic humanism, racial politics, and financial exploitation. The faithful are called not to support this project but to reject it, to pray for the true Church’s endurance, and to remain faithful to the unchanging Catholic faith. As Pius XI declared in *Quas Primas*, “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” The Tolton shrine is not a recognition of Christ’s reign but a substitute for it—a monument to the conciliar sect’s apostasy.
Source:
Bishops announce shrine honoring Father Augustine Tolton (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 30.04.2026