The Pillar Catholic portal publishes a column by Simcha Fisher (May 8, 2026) titled “Jesus does not recycle (and enjoy chopped liver).” The article uses the metaphor of recycling — its promises, illusions, and ultimate limitations — to illustrate what the author claims is a superior spiritual reality: that Christ does not merely “recycle” sin and suffering but genuinely transforms them into something new and beautiful. Fisher contrasts the materialist optimism of 1990s recycling PSAs with the supernatural reality of grace, arguing that even the best recycling only rearranges matter, whereas Christ effects a true ontological transformation. The article is written in a conversational, self-deprecating tone and ends with a call to offer one’s suffering to Jesus. However, beneath its seemingly innocent spiritual reflection lies a telling specimen of the post-conciliar theological impoverishment — a reduction of the Faith to sentimental metaphor, devoid of any mention of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacramental economy, the reality of mortal sin, the necessity of sanctifying grace, or the Church’s authoritative teaching on merit, satisfaction, and the propitiatory character of redemption.
The Metaphor Swallows the Mystery
Fisher’s central conceit — that Jesus “does not recycle” but truly transforms — is not wrong in itself. The Catholic doctrine of grace is indeed one of genuine transformation, not mere rearrangement. St. Paul teaches: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). The theological reality of sanctifying grace elevates the soul to a participation in the divine life, a reality infinitely beyond any material analogy. Yet Fisher’s treatment of this truth is so shallow, so stripped of doctrinal content, that it becomes functionally indistinguishable from the vague “spiritual but not religious” sentimentality that pervades the conciliar sect.
The article never once mentions the sacraments — the ordinary means by which Christ effects this transformation. There is no reference to Baptism, by which the soul is actually regenerated; no mention of the Holy Eucharist, the “source and summit of the Christian life” as even the post-conciliar documents feebly acknowledge; no reference to Confession, by which sins are truly remitted through the power of the keys; no mention of Confirmation, Holy Orders, Matrimony, or Extreme Unction. The entire sacramental economy of the Church — the very machinery of grace instituted by Christ — is absent. What remains is a Protestantized, subjectivist spirituality: “give it to Jesus” as a kind of cosmic therapy, detached from the visible, hierarchical, sacramental Church that Christ actually founded.
The Erasure of the Sacrificial Dimension
Most damningly, the article is silent about the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Fisher speaks of “offering up” suffering, but never connects this to the propitiatory sacrifice of Calvary, perpetuated in an unbloody manner upon our altars. The Council of Trent — whose authority the conciliar sect claims to uphold while gutting its content — teaches with unmistakable clarity:
Therefore, He is at once the priest and the victim, and He is also the end of the sacrifice. He offered Himself to God the Father on the altar of the Cross, and by this one offering He perfected forever those who are being sanctified. […] And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the Cross, the holy Council teaches that this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.
Fisher’s essay, by contrast, reduces the entire economy of redemption to a personal, interior gesture: “Every time we take a sin and give it to God, he makes it into something good.” This is not Catholic theology. This is sentimental moralism, the kind of therapeutic deism that the conciliar sect has elevated to the status of official catechesis. The reality — that sin offends the infinite majesty of God, that satisfaction must be made, that Christ’s sacrifice is not merely an example but a true propitiatory offering, that the Mass is the re-presentation of that sacrifice, and that we participate in its fruits through the sacraments — is entirely absent.
The Language of Youth Ministry as Theological Bankruptcy
Fisher herself acknowledges the tone of her essay with the parenthetical: “Thus endeth the part of this essay that can easily be read in a youth minister voice.” This self-awareness does not excuse the problem; it confirms it. The “youth minister voice” is the characteristic register of post-conciliar catechesis: warm, informal, emotionally engaging, and doctrinally vacuous. It is the voice of a Church that has abandoned its mission to teach, govern, and sanctify, and has instead become a kind of spiritual support group.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism and laicism that were already, in 1925, eroding the public recognition of Christ’s reign. He wrote:
If men were ever to recognize Christ’s royal authority over themselves, both privately and publicly, then unheard-of blessings would flow upon the whole society, such as due freedom, order, and tranquility, and concord and peace.
Fisher’s essay, by contrast, presents Jesus as a kind of cosmic recycler-upgrader — a friendly figure who takes our junk and makes it nice. There is no mention of Christ’s royal authority, no mention of the duty of rulers and states to recognize Him, no mention of the social reign of Christ the King. The Christ of this essay is domesticated, privatized, and stripped of His kingly dignity. He is not the Christ who “shall reign forever and ever” (Luke 1:33), but a therapeutic companion who helps us feel better about our suffering.
The Omission of Mortal Sin and the Necessity of Contrition
Fisher writes: “Every time we take a sin and give it to God, he makes it into something good.” This statement, taken at face value, is dangerously misleading. It suggests a mechanical process: sin in, grace out. But Catholic theology teaches that not all sins are equal, and that mortal sin — which destroys sanctifying grace in the soul — requires not merely a vague “giving it to God” but perfect contrition motivated by the love of God, or, failing that, the sacramental absolution of a priest in Confession. The Council of Trent teaches:
If anyone says that in order to obtain forgiveness of sins it is necessary for every mortal sin to confess to a priest, and that this is necessary by divine law, let him be anathema.
No such precision appears in Fisher’s essay. The reality of mortal sin — that it is a spiritual death, that it severs the soul from God, that it requires the specific remedy of sacramental confession (or at minimum perfect contrition with the intention of confessing) — is entirely absent. What remains is a fuzzy, therapeutic spirituality in which “giving it to God” is sufficient, and the Church’s sacramental authority is unnecessary.
The Fraud of Recycling as a Mirror of Conciliar Spirituality
There is a bitter irony in Fisher’s use of the recycling metaphor. She herself acknowledges that much of the recycling enterprise is “a giant scam” — that the optimistic promises of transformation were largely a marketing campaign to sell plastic consumption. The parallel to the conciliar sect is almost too perfect. The post-church, too, promises transformation — “spiritual renewal,” “a new springtime,” “the spirit of Vatican II” — while delivering only the rearrangement of externals: new liturgies, new catechisms, new ecclesial structures, all emptied of their supernatural content and refilled with naturalistic humanism.
The recycling metaphor, honestly applied, describes exactly what the conciar sect has done with the Faith: taken the materials of Catholicism — its vocabulary, its rituals, its institutional structures — and rearranged them into something more “useful” for the modern world. The Eucharist becomes a “meal of assembly.” The Mass becomes a “celebration of community.” Sin becomes “brokenness.” Redemption becomes “healing.” Grace becomes “self-acceptance.” The Faith is not transformed; it is recycled — and like much of what enters the recycling bin, much of it ends up in a landfill.
The Silence About the Abomination of Desolation
Perhaps the most telling omission in Fisher’s essay is its complete silence about the present state of the so-called Catholic Church. The column appears on a portal that routinely covers the “papacy” of Leo XIV, the “bishops” of the conciliar sect, and the ongoing demolition of whatever remnants of Catholic practice survive in the post-church. Yet Fisher’s spiritual reflection floats in a historical vacuum, as if the Faith could be discussed without reference to the catastrophe that has befallen its visible institution.
St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, warned that the Modernists — the “synthesis of all heretics” — would attempt to reconcile Catholicism with modern philosophy, producing a religion that was Catholic in name but modernist in substance. The result is precisely the kind of spirituality Fisher offers: warm, personal, metaphorical, and doctrinally empty. It is the spirituality of a Church that has lost its Faith and replaced it with feelings.
Conclusion: Not Recycling, but Resurrection
Fisher is right about one thing: Jesus does not recycle. But the reason is not merely that His transformation is “better” than recycling. The reason is that Christ effects a true resurrection — a passage from death to life, from corruption to glory, from sin to grace. This resurrection is accomplished through His bloody sacrifice on Calvary, perpetuated in the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass, and applied to souls through the sacraments of the true Church. It is not a metaphor. It is not a feeling. It is a supernatural reality, accessible only through the visible, hierarchical, sacramental Church that Christ founded upon Peter.
The conciar sect, by contrast, recycles. It takes the forms of Catholicism and fills them with the content of naturalism, modernism, and indifferentism. It promises transformation and delivers rearrangement. It offers “Jesus” without the Church, grace without the sacraments, redemption without sacrifice, and salvation without the Faith.
The faithful who still profess the integral Catholic faith — who attend the true Mass, receive the true sacraments, and submit to the unchanging Magisterium — know the difference between recycling and resurrection. They know that Christ does not merely rearrange the materials of our fallen nature. He creates anew. And He does so through the one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, and outside of which there is no true transformation — only the endless, fraudulent recycling of a world that refuses to die to itself and rise with Christ.
Source:
Jesus does not recycle (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 08.05.2026