VaticanNews portal reports on April 22, 2026, that the antipope Leo XIV visited Bata Prison in Equatorial Guinea, where he delivered a message of “mercy” to inmates, telling them that “no one is excluded from God’s love” and that “life is not defined solely by one’s mistakes.” The article describes a choreographed spectacle of singing prisoners, rain presented as “a sign of God’s blessing,” and gifts of a wooden cross and a statue of Saint Francis of Assisi. What is presented as a pastoral visit is, upon examination, a carefully staged performance that reveals the theological bankruptcy of the conciliar sect: a mercy divorced from truth, a compassion that refuses to name sin for what it is, and a theatrical display that substitutes emotional manipulation for the supernatural mission of the Church.
The Choreographed Spectacle: Manufacturing Consent Through Emotional Manipulation
The article describes a scene that bears all the hallmarks of a carefully orchestrated media event rather than a genuine pastoral encounter. Hundreds of inmates stood “in neat rows, heads shaven,” waving “Vatican flags and flags with pictures of the Pontiff dangling from their hands.” They sang on cue: “Nuestro Santo Padre, te damos gracias. Ora por nuestros pecados y nuestra Libertad.” The language itself is revealing — they pray for “our sins and our freedom,” conflating the desire for physical liberation from prison with spiritual freedom, as though the two were equivalent or even related. This is not Catholic teaching; it is the naturalistic reduction of the supernatural order to the temporal.
The entire spectacle — the flags, the choreographed singing, the dancing, the rain presented as divine theater — resembles nothing so much as a political rally or a celebrity visit. The article itself notes that “on a normal day, the scene that played out at the end of the visit could have been confused with a prison riot, inmates breaking formation and rushing towards the exit, their frenzied chants reverberating over the sound of the pouring rain.” The author attempts to frame this as a beautiful expression of longing for freedom, but the honest observer must ask: what kind of “freedom” is being celebrated here? The freedom of men and women who, in many cases, are incarcerated precisely because they violated the moral law of God?
Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Quas Primas (1925), taught with crystalline clarity that Christ’s kingdom “is opposed only to the kingdom of Satan and the powers of darkness — and requires its followers not only to renounce earthly riches and possessions, to be distinguished by modesty of conduct, and to hunger and thirst for justice, but also to deny themselves and carry their cross.” The antipope’s message — “life is not defined solely by one’s mistakes” — is a direct contradiction of this teaching. It is not that life is not defined solely by one’s mistakes; it is that every mortal sin is an offense against God that, if unrepented, leads to eternal damnation. To tell prisoners that their mistakes do not define them without calling them to repentance, confession, and amendment of life is not mercy — it is cruelty of the highest order, for it leaves them in the state of spiritual death.
“No One Is Excluded from God’s Love”: The Heresy of Universalism
The centerpiece of the antipope’s message was the declaration that “no one is excluded from God’s love!” This statement, while sounding pious, is either trivially true or gravely heretical, depending on its meaning. If it means that God’s love is offered to all, this is Catholic teaching — but it is incomplete to the point of deception without the corollary that man can exclude himself from God’s love through unrepented mortal sin. If it means that no one is ultimately excluded from salvation — that all are saved regardless of their response to God’s grace — then it is the heresy of universalism, condemned repeatedly by the Church.
The Council of Trent, in its Decree on Justification, taught that “those who through sin have fallen from the received grace of justification, will be again justified when, God exciting them, they shall have been able by the merit of Christ to recover their lost grace by the sacrament of penance.” The Council anathematized anyone who said that “the man who is justified is bound to believe that he is also certain of his justification” in a way that excludes the possibility of falling from grace. The antipope’s blanket assurance that “no one is excluded” without any mention of the necessity of repentance, confession, and satisfaction is a direct contradiction of this teaching.
St. Robert Bellarmine, whose authority the conciliar sect claims to respect, wrote in De Romano Pontifice that 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.” The antipope Leo XIV, by promoting a message that either implicitly denies the reality of eternal damnation or explicitly teaches that all are saved regardless of their sins, places himself squarely in the category of one who teaches error on matters of faith and morals. His words are not those of a shepherd but of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, leading the flock to perdition with soothing words.
The Rain as “Blessing”: Pagan Superstition in Catholic Vestments
Perhaps the most revealing moment of the entire visit was the antipope’s interpretation of the rain: “In some places, it is said that rain is a sign of God’s blessing. Let us pray that this may indeed be the case.” This is not Catholic theology; it is pagan superstition dressed in clerical garments. The attribution of supernatural significance to weather events is a practice condemned by the Church as divination and superstition. The Catechism of the Council of Trent explicitly warns against “those who pretend to foretell future events by the observation of natural causes” and condemns “all divinations, whether by lots, by dreams, by omens, or by any other means.”
The antipope’s willingness to endorse this superstitious interpretation — even tentatively, with “let us pray that this may indeed be the case” — reveals the depth of his theological ignorance or, worse, his deliberate accommodation of pagan beliefs. This is entirely consistent with the conciliar sect’s approach to mission territories, where the Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae, 1965) opened the door to the legitimization of false religions and their practices. Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemned the proposition that “it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (Proposition 77). The antipope’s visit to Equatorial Guinea, far from being a mission to convert, is a mission to validate — to tell the people of Africa that their superstitious beliefs are compatible with the Catholic faith.
The Statue of Saint Francis: Hijacking the Saints for the Revolution
The article notes that the antipope presented the inmates with “the statue of Saint Francis of Assisi he had brought for them,” explaining that “a decisive part of Saint Francis’ spiritual journey came about during his months-long detention in prison after the Battle between Assisi and Perugia (1202-1203).” The article continues: “That period of solitude and trials put him on a path of conversion towards the radical joy of the Gospel, showing that true peace comes from a profound transformation of the heart.”
This is a masterful example of how the conciliar sect hijacks the saints of the true Church to serve its own revolutionary agenda. Saint Francis of Assisi was a Catholic saint who founded an order dedicated to poverty, chastity, and obedience — the three evangelical counsels that stand in direct opposition to the conciar sect’s embrace of worldly wealth, sexual liberation, and democratic governance. His conversion was not a vague “transformation of the heart” but a specific, radical conversion to the Catholic faith, involving the renunciation of all worldly goods, the reception of sacred orders, and the establishment of a rule of life approved by the true Pope Innocent III.
The antipope’s use of Saint Francis as a symbol of “starting over” and “becoming a new person” without any mention of the sacraments, the moral law, or the necessity of repentance is a grotesque distortion of the saint’s legacy. It is the same tactic used by the conciliar sect with every saint it claims: strip them of their Catholic specificity, reduce them to vague symbols of “love” and “mercy,” and deploy them as weapons against the very faith they professed.
The Omission of the Sacraments: The Gravest Silence
The most damning aspect of the entire article is what it does not mention. There is no mention of confession. No mention of the Holy Eucharist. No mention of the necessity of repentance for mortal sin. No mention of the state of grace. No mention of the Last Judgment. No mention of the possibility of eternal damnation. No mention of the Church’s teaching on the moral law and the distinction between venial and mortal sin.
This silence is not accidental; it is the defining characteristic of the conciar sect’s approach to pastoral care. Pope St. Pius X, in the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), identified the Modernist as one who “puts the natural above the supernatural, the human above the divine, the temporal above the eternal.” The antipope’s visit to Bata Prison is a perfect illustration of this principle: everything is natural, nothing is supernatural. The prisoners are told they can “start over” and “become a new person” — but without the sacrament of confession, without absolution, without satisfaction, without the grace that comes only through the true Church, this is a lie. It is the lie of the serpent in the Garden: “You will not surely die.”
The Council of Trent taught that “the sacrament of penance is as necessary unto salvation for those who have fallen after baptism as is baptism itself for those who have not yet been regenerated” (Session XIV, Chapter 2). The antipope’s failure to mention this necessity — his failure to call these men and women to confession, to absolution, to the only means by which their sins can be forgiven — is not mercy. It is the most profound cruelty: to offer hope without the means of salvation.
The “Holy Father” Who Is Not Holy and Not a Father
The inmates addressed the antipope as “Nuestro Santo Padre” — “Our Holy Father.” This title, applied to a manifest heretic and usurper, is not merely inaccurate; it is blasphemous. The title “Holy Father” belongs to the true Pope, the Vicar of Christ, who possesses the fullness of jurisdiction and the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. The antipope Leo XIV possesses none of these things. He is a usurper who occupies the See of Peter without legitimate authority, a heretic who promotes errors condemned by the Church, and a false shepherd who leads the flock astray.
Pope Paul IV, in the bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (1559), declared that if any Roman Pontiff “has defected from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy,” his promotion or elevation is “null, void, and of no effect.” The antipope Leo XIV, by his promotion of universalism, his endorsement of superstition, and his omission of the sacraments, has manifestly defected from the Catholic Faith. His claim to the title “Holy Father” is therefore null and void, and the inmates of Bata Prison — and all the faithful — are under no obligation to recognize him as such.
Conclusion: The Theater of the Antichrist
The visit of the antipope Leo XIV to Bata Prison is not an act of mercy; it is an act of deception. It is a carefully staged performance designed to project an image of compassion while concealing the theological bankruptcy of the conciar sect. The rain is not a blessing; it is rain. The singing is not worship; it is choreography. The message is not hope; it is a lie. And the “Holy Father” is not holy and not a father; he is a usurper and a heretic who leads souls to perdition with soothing words and empty gestures.
The true Church, the Church of all ages, teaches that mercy without truth is not mercy but cruelty. The true Pope, the Vicar of Christ, would have gone to Bata Prison not to tell inmates that “no one is excluded from God’s love” but to tell them that they must repent, confess their sins, and be reconciled to God through the sacrament of penance, or face eternal damnation. He would have brought them not a statue of Saint Francis but the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. He would have told them not that “life is not defined solely by one’s mistakes” but that one unrepented mortal sin is enough to condemn a soul to hell for all eternity.
This is the mercy of the Catholic Church: terrible, uncompromising, and true. The mercy of the conciar sect is none of these things. It is the mercy of the Antichrist — a mercy that leaves men in their sins, a mercy that offers comfort without conversion, a mercy that is, in the end, the most refined form of cruelty ever devised by the enemy of the human race.
Source:
A rain-soaked message of mercy inside Bata Prison (vaticannews.va)
Date: 22.04.2026