The National Catholic Register portal published on May 12, 2026, a transcript of remarks delivered virtually on April 9, 2026, by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a conference titled “Endowed by Their Creator: Catholicism, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Experiment at 250,” organized by The Catholic University of America and the University of Notre Dame. Rubio’s address attempts to weave Catholic history into the fabric of the American founding, praising the “Catholic faith” as integral to the nation’s story, from Columbus to the Revolution, and celebrating the “American experiment” as a testament to “eternal truth.” He quotes Pope Leo XIII’s 1895 encyclical and emphasizes the role of Catholic explorers, soldiers, and pioneers in shaping the nation, concluding that “to look upon the history of this golden land is to see the face of God.” This speech, delivered by a high-ranking official of a secular republic occupying a position of global power, is a textbook example of the post-conciliar neo-church’s systematic reduction of the Faith to a mere cultural and civilizational accessory of a liberal political order, stripping it of its supernatural, exclusive, and kingly character in favor of a naturalistic, patriotic, and ecumenical “contribution” that serves the abomination of desolation.
The Reduction of the Supernatural to the Naturalistic: A Modernist Hermeneutic of History
Marco Rubio’s speech is a masterclass in the modernist art of historical revisionism, where the supernatural mission of the Church is systematically reduced to a naturalistic “contribution” to a secular political project. His narrative begins with Christopher Columbus, whom he describes as having “renewed the West’s confidence in itself and launched that great age of discovery, exploration, and expansion from which America was born.” This is a profoundly naturalistic framing. The true purpose of Columbus’s mission, as every pre-conciliar Catholic knows, was not the “renewal of Western confidence” or the launching of an “age of expansion,” but the propagation of the Gospel and the salvation of souls. Pope Alexander VI’s bull *Inter Caetera* (1493) explicitly granted Spain the lands discovered for the purpose of “propagating the Christian faith and religion” and “bringing to the Christian religion the peoples dwelling in those islands and lands.” Rubio’s omission of this supernatural mandate is not accidental; it is symptomatic of the post-conciliar mentality that views the Church’s mission as primarily cultural and civilizational rather than supernatural and soteriological.
Rubio continues: “The first Christian service on our soil was a Catholic Mass. The oldest permanent settlement in the United States is the town of St. Augustine planted by Spanish Catholics on the coastal sands of my home state of Florida.” While factually accurate in a purely historical sense, this statement is stripped of its theological significance. The Mass is not merely a “Christian service” that happened to be first; it is the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary, the source and summit of the Christian life, the means by which the faithful are nourished with the true Body and Blood of Christ for the remission of sins and the attainment of eternal salvation. By reducing the Mass to a historical footnote in the “American story,” Rubio commits the same error condemned by Pope Pius XI in *Quas Primas*: the removal of Christ and His most holy law from public life, reducing the Faith to a mere cultural artifact. The Mass is not a “contribution” to American civilization; it is the means by which souls are saved, and its primary purpose is the worship of God, not the glorification of a nation.
The Omission of Christ’s Kingship: The Secularist Apostasy at the Heart of the “American Experiment”
The most glaring and damning omission in Rubio’s speech is any mention of the Social Kingship of Christ. He speaks of the “American experiment,” the “Declaration of Independence,” and the “founding documents” as if they were self-contained, self-justifying realities, without any reference to the fact that all nations, including the United States, are subject to the kingship of Jesus Christ. Pope Pius XI, in *Quas Primas*, taught with absolute clarity: “The Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” And further: “It matters not whether individuals, families, or states, for men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.”
Rubio’s speech is a direct contradiction of this teaching. He celebrates the American founding as a “renewal of an older inheritance” rooted in “the laws of nature and nature’s God,” but he never once acknowledges that the “God” of the Declaration of Independence must be recognized as the God-Man, Jesus Christ, and that the “laws of nature” are merely a participation in the Eternal Law of God, which finds its full expression in the Catholic Church. The Declaration’s assertion that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” is, in the mouth of a Catholic, an incomplete truth that must be completed by the recognition that these rights are ordered toward the supernatural end of man, which is the vision of God in the Beatific Vision, and that the “Creator” is the Blessed Trinity, known with certainty only through Divine Revelation and the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.
Pope Leo XIII, in *Immortale Dei* (1885), taught: “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 own kind, each fixed within certain limits, defined by its own nature and special object.” Rubio’s speech, by contrast, presents the American political order as if it were autonomous, self-sufficient, and self-justifying, without any subordination to the spiritual authority of the Church. This is the very error of laicism that Pius XI condemned as “the plague that poisons human society” in *Quas Primas*: “It began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations; the Church’s authority to teach men, to issue laws, to govern nations, which authority she received from Christ the Lord to lead men to eternal happiness, was denied.”
The False Ecumenism of “Shared Civilizational Tradition”
Rubio’s speech is saturated with the false ecumenism that is the hallmark of the post-conciliar sect. He states: “It is true, of course, that most of the men who wrote our founding documents were not Catholics themselves, but the system that gave us belongs to the same civilizational tradition that produced the towering cathedrals of Rome and the philosophy of Augustine and Aquinas.” This is a classic modernist trope: the reduction of the Catholic Faith to a “civilizational tradition” that can be shared with Protestants, Deists, and even unbelievers. The implication is that the “system” of government established by the American founders is a product of the same “tradition” as the Catholic Church, and that Catholics and non-Catholics alike can celebrate this “shared heritage” without any need for the conversion of the non-Catholics to the true Faith.
This is directly contrary to the teaching of the Church. Pope Pius IX, in the *Syllabus of Errors*, condemned the proposition that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Proposition 55), as well as the proposition that “in the present day 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 American founding, with its First Amendment guaranteeing the free exercise of religion and prohibiting the establishment of a state religion, is precisely the kind of liberal, indifferentist arrangement that the Church has consistently condemned. Rubio’s celebration of this arrangement as a “gift” and a “testament to the eternal truth of our faith” is a betrayal of the Church’s constant teaching that the Catholic religion must be recognized as the one true religion of the state, and that the state has a duty to suppress false religions when the common good requires it.
Pope Leo XIII, in *Libertas Praestantissimum* (1888), taught: “The Church is a society chartered as of right divine, perfect in its nature and in its title, to possess in itself and by itself, through the will and loving kindness of its Founder, all needful provision for its maintenance and action. And just as the end at which the Church aims is by far the noblest of ends, so is its authority the most exalted of all authority, nor can it be looked upon as inferior to the civil power, or in any manner dependent upon it.” Rubio’s speech, by contrast, presents the Church as merely one contributor among many to the “American experiment,” a “civilizational tradition” that can be celebrated alongside the contributions of non-Catholics, without any acknowledgment of the Church’s unique and supreme authority over all nations and all aspects of human life.
The Idolatry of the Nation: “To Look Upon the History of This Golden Land Is to See the Face of God”
The most blasphemous statement in Rubio’s speech is his concluding assertion: “To look upon the history of this golden land is to see the face of God.” This is not Catholic theology; it is idolatry. The “face of God” is not to be found in the history of any nation, however “golden” its achievements may appear to natural eyes. The face of God is to be found in the Person of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, and in the sacramental life of His Church, particularly in the Most Holy Eucharist, where He is truly and substantially present under the appearances of bread and wine. To claim that the history of the United States reveals the “face of God” is to commit the sin of idolatry, substituting the creature for the Creator, the nation for the Church, the “American experiment” for the Kingdom of Christ.
This statement is also a manifestation of the “cult of man” that is one of the defining characteristics of modernism. Pope St. Pius X, in *Pascendi Dominici Gregis* (1907), described the modernist error as the reduction of religion to “a feeling born of a need of the divine” that “springs from the hidden places of the subconsciousness.” Rubio’s speech is a perfect example of this: the “Catholic faith” is reduced to a “spirit” of “expansion and discovery” that “conquered continents” and “unlocked the mysteries of the universe,” a naturalistic, humanistic “spirit” that has nothing to do with the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity, or with the sacramental life of the Church.
The Silence on the True Church: No Mention of the Crisis of Faith</h2
Perhaps the most telling omission in Rubio's speech is any mention of the crisis of faith that has engulfed the Catholic world since the Second Vatican Council. He speaks of the "Catholic faith" as if it were a monolithic, unchanging reality that has been "part of the American story" from the beginning, without any acknowledgment that the "Catholic faith" as professed and practiced in the vast majority of American Catholic institutions today is a modernist counterfeit that has been condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium. There is no mention of the fact that the "Catholic University of America" and the "University of Notre Dame," the co-sponsors of the conference at which he spoke, are institutions that have been at the forefront of the modernist revolution, promoting the very errors condemned in *Lamentabili Sane Exitu*, *Pascendi Dominici Gregis*, and the *Syllabus of Errors*.
There is no mention of the fact that the "Catholic Church" in the United States is today a conciliar sect that has abandoned the traditional Mass, the traditional sacraments, and the traditional teaching on the Social Kingship of Christ, religious liberty, and the relationship between Church and State. There is no mention of the fact that the "bishops" and "priests" who lead this sect are, in the judgment of many faithful Catholics, manifest heretics who have lost their jurisdiction and their authority by virtue of their public defection from the Catholic faith. There is no mention of the fact that the true Church, the Church of all ages, endures in the faithful who profess the integral Catholic faith and are led by bishops with valid sacraments and validly ordained priests, outside the structures of the conciliar sect.
This silence is not accidental; it is the silence of complicity. Rubio's speech is a celebration of the conciliar sect's false narrative, a narrative in which the "Catholic faith" is reduced to a cultural and civilizational accessory of the American liberal order, stripped of its supernatural, exclusive, and kingly character, and made to serve the interests of a secular republic that is, in its very constitution, hostile to the Social Kingship of Christ.
The Theological Bankruptcy of “Catholic Contributions” to a Hostile Order</h2
Rubio's speech is a perfect illustration of the theological bankruptcy of the post-conciliar approach to the relationship between Church and State. He celebrates the "contributions" of Catholics to the American founding and the American experiment, without ever asking the fundamental question: Is the American political order compatible with the Social Kingship of Christ? The answer, according to the constant teaching of the Church, is no. The American founding, with its principles of religious liberty, the separation of Church and State, and the autonomy of the individual conscience in matters of religion, is directly contrary to the teaching of the Church as expressed in the *Syllabus of Errors*, *Immortale Dei*, *Libertas Praestantissimum*, and *Quas Primas*.
Pope Pius IX, in the *Syllabus of Errors*, condemned the proposition that "the Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion" (Proposition 21), and that "the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization" (Proposition 80). Rubio's speech is a practical application of these condemned propositions: the "Catholic faith" is presented as one religion among many, a "contribution" to a pluralistic society, rather than as the one true religion to which all men and all nations are bound to submit.
The true Catholic position on the American founding is not one of celebration but of critical judgment. The American Republic, like all human societies, is subject to the kingship of Christ, and its laws and institutions must be evaluated in light of the teaching of the Church. Where they conform to the natural law and the divine law, they may be tolerated; where they contradict the teaching of the Church, they must be condemned. Rubio's speech, by contrast, presents the American founding as an unqualified good, a "gift" and a "testament to the eternal truth of our faith," without any critical evaluation of its principles in light of Catholic doctrine. This is not Catholic teaching; it is modernist apostasy.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation in the Temple of the Nation
Marco Rubio’s speech is a textbook example of the post-conciliar neo-church’s systematic betrayal of the Social Kingship of Christ. It reduces the Catholic Faith to a cultural and civilizational accessory of the American liberal order, strips it of its supernatural and exclusive character, and celebrates a political system that is, in its very constitution, hostile to the kingship of Christ. It is a speech that would have been unthinkable before the Second Vatican Council, a speech that could only have been delivered by a Catholic who has been formed in the modernist spirit of the conciliar revolution.
The true Catholic response to Rubio’s speech is not celebration but condemnation. The “American experiment” is not a “testament to the eternal truth of our faith”; it is a manifestation of the spirit of liberalism and naturalism that the Church has consistently condemned. The “Catholic faith” is not a “contribution” to a pluralistic society; it is the one true religion, to which all men and all nations are bound to submit. The “face of God” is not to be found in the history of any nation; it is to be found in the Person of Jesus Christ and in the sacramental life of His Church.
Let us reject the false patriotism of the conciliar sect and return to the immutable tradition of the Church, which teaches that Christ is King of all nations, that the Church is the one true society instituted by God for the salvation of souls, and that all human societies must be ordered toward the supernatural end of man, which is the vision of God in the Beatific Vision. *Non possumus* — we cannot do otherwise.
Source:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio: The Catholic Roots of America (ncregister.com)
Date: 13.05.2026