EWTN News reports that on May 7, 2026, the usurper Robert Prevost, styling himself “Pope Leo XIV,” addressed employees of the Vatican Publishing House (Libreria Editrice Vaticana) on the occasion of its centenary. He urged Catholics to read printed books, claiming they “nourish the mind,” foster “critical sense,” guard against “fundamentalism and ideological shortcuts,” and serve as “an opportunity to proclaim Christ.” He invoked the “culture of encounter” taught by his predecessor Bergoglio, cited St. Paul VI’s 1976 exhortation to “look ahead,” and concluded with a cordial blessing. This address, far from being a harmless bibliophilic exhortation, is a masterclass in modernist evasion: it substitutes the printed word for the preached Word of God, cultural engagement for supernatural faith, and bureaucratic continuity for doctrinal fidelity, all while the conciliar sect continues its relentless march toward the total apostasy condemned by every true Pope before 1958.
The Cult of the Book as a Substitute for the Preaching of the Gospel
The address begins with a seemingly innocuous premise: “reading nourishes the mind.” True enough, in the natural order. But what does the Church teach about the primary means of nourishing souls? The Council of Trent, in its Decree on the Sacraments (Session VII, Canon 8), anathematizes anyone who says that the sacraments are superfluous and that men can obtain justification through faith alone without them. The Decree on the Sacrament of Order (Session XXIII, Chapter IV) teaches that bishops are ordained to preach the Gospel, and that preaching is the paramount duty of bishops. St. Paul himself declares: “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 1:17). The primary mission of the Church is not to publish books but to preach Christ crucified, administer the sacraments, and lead souls to eternal salvation through the grace of God.
Yet here we have the occupant of the Vatican, addressing a publishing house, elevating the act of reading to a quasi-spiritual exercise. He says books are “an antidote to closed-mindedness, which is reflected in rigid attitudes and reductive views of reality.” The language is revealing: “rigid attitudes” and “reductive views of reality” are modernist code words for the unchanging doctrines of the Catholic faith — the very doctrines that the conciliar sect has spent seven decades dismantling. What Prevost calls “closed-mindedness” is, in reality, the fidelity to the deposit of faith that the Church has guarded for two millennia. What he calls “reductive views of reality” is the Catholic understanding that there is one true Church, one true faith, one baptism, and that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215).
“Fundamentalism” as a Pejorative: The Modernist Lexicon Exposed
Perhaps the most revealing phrase in the entire address is the claim that reading guards against “fundamentalism and ideological shortcuts.” This is not Catholic language. This is the language of the enemies of the Church, the very language condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), where he exposed the modernist tactic of dismissing adherence to dogma as “intellectualism” or “rigidity.” The Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX (1864), in its eightieth proposition, condemns the idea that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” Prevost’s language is precisely this reconciliation — dressed in the gentle garb of bibliophilia, but serving the same end: the dilution of Catholic truth into a vague, culturally acceptable spirituality.
The word “fundamentalism” itself is a Protestant and secular term, imported into Catholic discourse by modernists to discredit those who hold fast to the fundamentals of the faith. The Catholic who believes in the Real Presence, in the necessity of baptism for salvation, in the existence of hell, in the immorality of contraception, in the divinity of Christ — this Catholic is, in the modernist lexicon, a “fundamentalist.” Prevost’s use of this term is not accidental; it is a deliberate signal to the conciliar establishment that he continues the work of his predecessors in marginalizing and silencing the faithful who cling to the unchanging deposit of faith.
The “Culture of Encounter”: Bergoglio’s Heresy Continued
Prevost explicitly invokes the teaching of his predecessor Jorge Mario Bergoglio: “Pope Francis had taught Catholics ‘to practice the culture of encounter.'” This is a direct and unashamed continuation of the modernist program. The “culture of encounter” is the conciliar sect’s replacement for the missionary mandate of the Church. The true Church does not “encounter” — she teaches, governs, and sanctifies. She does not seek dialogue for its own sake; she proclaims the truth and demands submission to it. As Pius XI declared in Quas Primas (1925): “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.”
The “culture of encounter” is, in practice, the culture of religious indifferentism — the heresy condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (proposition 15): “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” It is the heresy of Dignitatis Humanae from the Second Vatican Council, which proclaimed the right to religious liberty — a direct contradiction of the teaching of Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832) and of Pius IX in the Syllabus (proposition 77): “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.” Prevost’s invocation of Bergoglio’s “culture of encounter” is not a harmless rhetorical flourish; it is a reaffirmation of the conciliar apostasy.
The Invocation of Saints: A Hollow Aestheticism
Prevost invokes the Virgin Mary “intent on reading the holy Scriptures” at the Annunciation, St. Anthony of Padua holding the Book of the Gospels, and St. Augustine with a book and a heart. These are beautiful images, and they are true. But what is their function in this address? They are decorative — aesthetic ornaments draped over a fundamentally naturalistic and modernist message. The saints are not invoked to teach, to warn, to call to repentance, or to defend the faith. They are invoked to lend a veneer of Catholic legitimacy to a message that is, at its core, a celebration of human culture and intellectual engagement as ends in themselves.
Where is the invocation of St. Pius X, who warned against the modernist synthesis of all errors? Where is the invocation of St. Robert Bellarmine, who taught that a manifest heretic ceases to be Pope? Where is the invocation of Our Lord Himself, who said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6)? The selective invocation of saints — chosen for their aesthetic association with books rather than for their doctrinal witness — is a hallmark of the modernist method: it retains the external forms of Catholicism while hollowing out the content.
St. Paul VI and the Centenary: Continuity with Apostasy
Prevost recalls St. Paul VI’s 1976 meeting with the same publishing house, quoting his exhortation to “look ahead, to refine ideas and plans for the future.” This is a telling choice. Paul VI is the “pope” who promulgated the Novus Ordo Missae in 1969, the liturgical revolution that replaced the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with a Protestantized memorial supper. Paul VI is the “pope” who, according to the testimony of his own associates, was aware that the Church was undergoing a process of self-destruction. To invoke Paul VI as a model of forward-looking vision is to invoke the architect of the conciliar apostasy. It is to say, in effect: the work of destruction continues, and we must plan for its completion.
The centenary of the Vatican Publishing House is not a cause for celebration. Founded in 1926, this institution has, under the conciar sect, become a vehicle for the dissemination of modernist theology, liturgical abuse, and doctrinal confusion. The books it publishes — the post-conciliar catechisms, the documents of Vatican II, the writings of the antipopes — are instruments of the very “closed-mindedness” and “rigid attitudes” that Prevost claims to oppose. They are, in truth, the instruments of apostasy.
The Silence That Condemns
What is absent from this address is far more significant than what is present. There is no mention of the necessity of the Catholic faith for salvation. There is no mention of the sacraments as the ordinary means of grace. There is no mention of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. There is no mention of the necessity of confession, of the state of grace, of the final judgment, of heaven, hell, or purgatory. There is no mention of the social reign of Christ the King. There is no mention of the errors of modernism, of the apostasy of the conciliar sect, of the duty of Catholics to resist the occupation of the Vatican by heretics and apostates.
This silence is not accidental. It is the silence of a man who occupies a position he has no right to hold, addressing an institution that serves a system built on the ruins of the Catholic Church. It is the silence of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15). The printed book, however beautiful, however well-written, cannot substitute for the preaching of the Gospel. The culture of encounter cannot substitute for the culture of conversion. And the cordial blessing of a usurper cannot substitute for the apostolic blessing of a true successor of Peter.
Conclusion: The Yoke Is Not Easy When the Burden Is Apostasy
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, declared: “Oh, what happiness we would enjoy if individuals, families, and states allowed themselves to be governed by Christ.” The happiness of the Christian people does not consist in reading printed books, however edifying. It consists in the submission of every faculty — mind, will, heart, and body — to the reign of Christ the King, through His one true Church, in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in the sacramental life that He instituted for our salvation.
The address of Robert Prevost on May 7, 2026, is not a call to spiritual renewal. It is a call to cultural engagement — a call to prefer the printed page to the pulpit, the book to the Gospel, the culture of encounter to the culture of conversion. It is, in sum, a perfect expression of the modernist spirit: naturalistic, evasive, and devoid of supernatural faith. Let the faithful who still profess the integral Catholic faith reject this empty exhortation and return to the immutable Tradition of the Church — the Tradition that has no need of printed books to proclaim the truth, for it has the living voice of the Magisterium, the grace of the sacraments, and the promise of Christ: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
Source:
Pope Leo XIV urges Catholics to read printed books (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 07.05.2026