The National Catholic Register reports on the 2026 commencement ceremonies at various institutions recommended by the Cardinal Newman Society, detailing honorary degrees conferred upon businessmen, politicians, media personalities, and “Catholic” leaders. The article presents these honors as celebrations of faithful Catholic education, listing recipients such as Lisa Brenninkmeyer (founder of Walking with Purpose), Dr. John Bruchalski, Iqbal Z. Quadir, Timothy Busch, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Chris Stefanick, and Peter Cancro, among others. The piece frames these individuals as exemplars of Catholic leadership and service, highlighting their professional achievements, charitable contributions, and inspirational messages to graduates. What this article unwittingly exposes is the complete capitulation of the conciliar institutions to worldly criteria of success, the reduction of Catholic education to naturalistic humanism, and the utter absence of any supernatural criterion in evaluating what constitutes genuine Catholic leadership.
The Honorees: A Pantheon of Worldly Success, Not Sanctity
The selection of honorary degree recipients at these so-called “Catholic” institutions reveals, with devastating clarity, the theological and spiritual bankruptcy of the conciliar sect’s educational apparatus. Not a single recipient was honored for heroic sanctity, theological orthodoxy, defense of the Faith against heresy, or martyrdom. Instead, the criteria are transparently worldly: business success, fundraising prowess, political power, media influence, and charitable donations measured in dollar amounts.
Timothy Busch, a Catholic businessman and lawyer, is honored at both the University of Mary and Franciscan University of Steubenville. His NAPA Institute co-founder, Jesuit “Father” Robert Spitzer, also receives an honorary doctorate. That a Jesuit — a member of an order systematically infiltrated and subverted by Modernism since the mid-20th century — is honored with a doctorate in “catechetics and evangelization” is itself a damning indictment. The Society of Jesus, as constituted after Vatican II, has been one of the primary vehicles for the propagation of the very errors condemned by Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis and Lamentabili sane exitu. To honor a Jesuit with a degree in catechetics is to honor the architect of the catechetical devastation that has left generations of Catholics ignorant of their own faith.
Peter Cancro, founder of Jersey Mike’s, receives an honorary degree for his charitable contributions, including a $5 million gift to Ave Maria School of Law. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is honored at Ave Maria University. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop emeritus of New York, receives an honorary degree from the University of Dallas. Chris Stefanick, an EWTN host, is honored at Walsh University. Not one of these individuals has distinguished himself by defending the integral Catholic faith against the conciliar revolution. Not one has publicly denounced the apostasy of Vatican II. Not one has called for the restoration of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the sole legitimate liturgical rite of the Roman Church.
The Cardinal Newman Society: Honoring a Heretic
The article references the Cardinal Newman Society, which produces the Newman Guide recommending Catholic institutions. The very name of this society is a scandal of the first order. John Henry Newman — the figure after whom the society takes its name — was a convert from Anglicanism whose theological writings were saturated with the very Modernism that Saint Pius X condemned as “the synthesis of all errors.” Newman’s theory of the development of dogma — the idea that Christian doctrine evolves and changes over time through the progressive understanding of the “Christian consciousness” — is precisely the error condemned in Lamentabili sane exitu (propositions 58, 60, 64) and Pascendi Dominici gregis. Newman was “canonized” by the conciliar sect, a sect whose very authority to canonize is null and void, since a manifest heretic cannot be Pope, and the line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII has no authority to bind the faithful.
That a society named after this figure recommends “Catholic” institutions is itself a guarantee that those institutions will be faithful not to the Catholic Church but to the conciliar revolution. The Cardinal Newman Society is, in effect, a gatekeeper ensuring that the institutions it recommends remain within the boundaries of acceptable Modernism — neither too radical nor too orthodox, but always firmly within the parameters of the post-conciliar apostasy.
The University Speeches: Naturalism Dressed in Catholic Vestments
The commencement addresses quoted in the article are masterclasses in naturalistic humanism — the very error that Pius XI identified as the root of all modern evils in Quas primas. Consider the words attributed to Chris Stefanick: “Your formation as men and women of character is the primary end of Catholic education. The secondary end is the formation of useful citizens.”
This is a direct inversion of the true ends of Catholic education. The primary end of Catholic education, as defined by the Church throughout the centuries, is the salvation of souls and the formation of Catholics who know, love, and serve God in order to attain eternal life. The formation of “useful citizens” — a purely naturalistic, temporal goal — is not merely secondary but is entirely subordinate to and ordered toward the supernatural end. Stefanick’s formulation reduces Catholic education to a slightly more moral version of secular humanism, indistinguishable in its practical effects from the public school system save for the addition of some Catholic cultural trappings.
Ron DeSantis’s exhortation to Ave Maria’s graduates — “The faith does not depend on what is fashionable or who holds power. It is, in fact, the truth that ultimately will set you free” — is a platitude that could be uttered at any evangelical Protestant gathering. It contains no specifically Catholic content whatsoever. There is no mention of the Church as the sole ark of salvation, no mention of the sacraments as necessary means of grace, no mention of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, no mention of the social reign of Christ the King over the State of Florida or any other civil authority. This is the religion of “generic theism” that the conciliar sect has substituted for the Catholic Faith — a faith stripped of all its dogmatic content, reduced to a vague belief in “truth” and “freedom” that offends no one and demands nothing.
The Absence of the Supernatural: The Gravest Accusation
What is most striking about this entire article — and what constitutes the most devastating critique of the institutions it describes — is the complete and total absence of any supernatural criterion. Not once does the article mention the state of grace, the necessity of sanctifying grace for salvation, the reality of mortal sin, the existence of hell, the necessity of the sacraments for salvation, the propitiatory nature of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or the obligation of the faithful to live according to the commandments of God and the Church in every aspect of their lives.
The “Catholic” education celebrated in this article is, in substance, indistinguishable from secular education with a Catholic veneer. Students are formed as “men and women of character” and “useful citizens.” They are inspired by businessmen who donate millions, by politicians who speak of “faith” in generic terms, by media personalities who entertain rather than evangelize with the fullness of Catholic truth. This is precisely the “dogmaless Christianity, that is, a broad and liberal Protestantism” that the Holy Office under Saint Pius X condemned as the inevitable result of Modernism (Lamentabili, proposition 65).
Pius XI, in Quas primas, taught with the full weight of his Apostolic authority that “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men” and that “men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.” He explicitly stated that rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him, and that the State must order its laws and administration on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles. Yet the political figure honored in this article — Governor DeSantis — is praised not for submitting the laws of Florida to the governance of Christ the King, but for uttering vague platitudes about “faith” and “truth” that commit him to nothing.
The Conciliar Sect’s Educational Captivity
The institutions mentioned in this article — The Catholic University of America, Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, University of Mary, Franciscan University of Steubenville, University of Dallas, Benedictine College, Ave Maria University, Walsh University — are all institutions of the conciar sect. They operate within the framework established by Vatican II and its subsequent documents. They accept the legitimacy of the post-conciliar “popes.” They employ the Novus Ordo Missae as their primary liturgical form (even if some also offer the Traditional Latin Mass as an indulgence). They teach theology through the lens of the “hermeneutics of continuity” — the Modernist interpretive framework that claims Vatican II is consistent with prior Magisterial teaching while in reality subverting it entirely.
Saint Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici gregis, identified the Modernist method as one of “dissimulation and hypocrisy” — the Modernists “exercise all their ingenuity in discovering every possible artifice for proposing and teaching their doctrines entire, while they outwardly appear to profess and teach the very contrary.” This is precisely what these institutions do: they profess Catholicism while teaching its opposite, they honor “Catholic” leaders who have never defended the Faith against the conciliar revolution, and they graduate students who are, in the overwhelming majority, ignorant of the most basic truths of the Catholic religion.
The True Measure of Catholic Education
The true measure of Catholic education is not the professional success of its graduates, the amount of money raised for its capital campaigns, or the worldly prestige of its honorary degree recipients. The true measure is whether its students leave with a thorough knowledge of the Catholic Faith, a firm resolve to save their souls, a deep love for the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and an unshakeable commitment to the social reign of Christ the King over every nation, family, and individual.
By this standard, the institutions celebrated in this article are catastrophic failures. They are producing graduates who are, at best, culturally Catholic — people who identify with the external trappings of Catholicism while lacking any understanding of or commitment to its dogmatic content. At worst, they are producing graduates who are actively hostile to the traditional Catholic Faith, having been taught that the conciar revolution was a legitimate development and that the “spirit of Vatican II” represents the true face of the Church.
The honorable degree recipients celebrated in this article — businessmen, politicians, media personalities, and conciliar “clergy” — are not Catholic leaders. They are leaders of the conciliar sect who have achieved worldly success while the Catholic Faith is systematically destroyed. To honor them as exemplars of Catholic education is to declare, in effect, that the purpose of Catholic education is to produce successful worldly professionals rather than saints.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation in the Holy Place
This article, read with the eyes of the integral Catholic Faith, is a portrait of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. The institutions it celebrates are not Catholic institutions in any meaningful sense — they are institutions of the conciar sect that bear the name “Catholic” while systematically undermining the Catholic Faith. The individuals they honor are not Catholic leaders but worldly figures whose achievements, however impressive by natural standards, are entirely irrelevant to the supernatural mission of the Church.
The faithful Catholic — the Catholic who adheres to the unchanging teaching of the Church prior to the conciar revolution, who recognizes that a manifest heretic cannot be Pope, who attends the Traditional Latin Mass as the sole legitimate liturgical expression of the Roman Rite — must look upon these institutions and these honors with the same horror with which a Catholic of the first centuries would have looked upon the Arian bishops who occupied the churches of the Roman Empire while denying the Divinity of Christ.
“The state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders and Congregations, both male and female, who are indeed the most valiant helpers of the Pastors of the Church and contribute most to the expansion and establishment of Christ’s Kingdom” (Pius XI, Quas primas). But the Orders and Congregations of today — the Jesuits, the Franciscans, the Benedictines as reconstituted after Vatican II — are not helpers of the true pastors of the Church. They are agents of the conciar revolution, and the institutions they staff and lead are instruments of apostasy.
The faithful must reject these institutions, reject these honors, and reject the entire framework of conciar “Catholic” education. They must seek out — or build — institutions that are faithful to the integral Catholic Faith, that teach the unchanging doctrine of the Church, that offer the true Mass, and that form not “useful citizens” but saints and soldiers of Christ the King.
Source:
Newman Guide Schools Honor Catholic Leaders at 2026 Commencements (ncregister.com)
Date: 15.05.2026