Just weeks before the apostolic visit of the antipope Leo XIV to Spain, the Spanish Bishops’ Conference (CEE) released a document titled “Set Out on the Journey,” which establishes seven pastoral priorities for the 2026–2030 period. The document, approved in November 2025 but published only after the April meeting, was crafted using the same “conversation in the Spirit” method employed during the Synod on Synodality — that disgraceful parody of genuine ecclesiastical governance. The Spanish prelates openly admit that of Spain’s 45 million inhabitants, only about 8 million attend Sunday Mass regularly, and they lament that “the era — firmly established for centuries — in which we would say, ‘I am Catholic because I was born in Spain,’ has passed.” Yet rather than calling for the integral proclamation of the Gospel, the sacramental life, and the social reign of Christ the King, the document reveals the full extent of the conciliar sect’s capitulation to secularism, religious indifferentism, and the dissolution of Catholic identity into humanitarian nongovernmental activism.
The “Hunger for God” That Never Mentions Repentance or the Sacraments
The first pastoral priority — “Proclaiming the Gospel and initiation into the Christian life” — begins with an observation that is factually accurate but theologically sterile. The bishops note that “in secularized Spanish society, the Church’s challenge is not so much atheism as it is the hunger for God, which manifests itself in very diverse ways.” This language is revealing. The Modernist mind reduces the supernatural order to vague spiritual sentiment. There is no mention of original sin, of the necessity of baptism for salvation, of the obligation to profess the Catholic faith exclusively, or of the reality that outside the Church there is no salvation — extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.
When the bishops speak of “the hunger for God,”i> they carefully avoid specifying which God, how He is to be worshipped, and what He demands. This is the language of indifferentism, condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832) and by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, which explicitly rejected the proposition that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Proposition 15) and that “man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation” (Proposition 16). The bishops’ vague “hunger for God” could mean anything from Catholic devotion to pagan New Age spirituality — and that is precisely the point.
Furthermore, the bishops’ call for “impactful experiences following the initial proclamation” reflects the conciliar obsession with emotional experience over doctrinal content and sacramental grace. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), taught that the annual celebration of sacred mysteries “is far more effective than even the most serious proofs of the teaching Church; for these are usually accessible only to a small number of learned men, but those engage and instruct all the faithful.” The Spanish prelates, by contrast, prioritize subjective experience — what they themselves admit can fail to “transform emotion into virtue” — over the objective efficacy of the sacraments and the unchanging deposit of faith.
Sunday Mass Redefined as Assembly Experience
The second priority — “Celebrating Sunday” — deserves particular scrutiny. The bishops state that Sunday Mass “is not a mere act of private devotion or fulfilling an obligation but rather the experience of being an assembly of the called — those who, summoned by the Word, are gathered together as a form of the body of Christ, in order to be sent forth on mission.”
This statement is a masterclass in Modernist redefinition. Notice what is absent: the Mass as propitiatory sacrifice, the Real Presence of Christ under the Eucharistic species, the obligation of attendance under pain of mortal sin, and the Mass as the re-presentation of Calvary. The bishops have reduced the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to a communal “experience” oriented toward “mission” — which, in the conciliar lexicon, means social activism rather than the salvation of souls.
The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that the Mass is “a sacrifice of praise, of thanksgiving, of propitiation, and of satisfaction” and that “the sacrifice of the Mass is not merely a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, but also a sacrifice of propitiation and satisfaction for sins.” Pope Pius XII, in Mediator Dei (1947), reaffirmed that “the august sacrifice of the altar is not merely a rite commemorative of the passion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but a true and proper sacrifice, whereby the High Priest offers Himself to His heavenly Father as a victim for our sins.”
The Spanish bishops’ description of the Eucharist as an “experience of being an assembly” strips the Mass of its sacrificial character and transforms it into a Protestant-style gathering. This is entirely consistent with the post-conciliar reform, which deliberately obscured the theology of propitiatory sacrifice in favor of the “meal” imagery. The bishops are not merely reflecting secularization; they are accelerating it by stripping the faithful of the very understanding that would enable them to resist it.
That only 8 million of 45 million Spaniards attend Sunday Mass is not surprising when the shepherds themselves have redefined the obligation out of existence. As Pope Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors, “moral laws do not stand in the need of the divine sanction, and it is not at all necessary that human laws should be made conformable to the laws of nature and receive their power of binding from God” — this proposition was condemned as error (Proposition 56). Yet the Spanish bishops treat the Sunday obligation as a matter of communal experience rather than divine law.
“We Cannot Watch the Ship Sink” — But They Are the Ones Scuttling It
The third priority addresses the structural reality: Spain has more than 22,000 parishes across over 11,000 municipalities, many with fewer than 100 inhabitants. The bishops observe that “many baptismal fonts ‘hold no water’ — that is to say, there is no Christian community that, under the action of the Spirit, possesses the capacity to bring forth new Christians.” Their lament is poignant, but their diagnosis is dishonest. The cause of this devastation is not merely secularization from without; it is apostasy from within. The conciliar revolution — with its liturgical vandalism, its doctrinal ambiguity, its embrace of religious liberty, and its abandonment of the missionary mandate to convert all nations — is the proximate cause of the shipwreck.
The bishops’ cry — “We cannot simply stand by and watch the ship sink” — is the cry of men who have no intention of addressing the actual cause of the sinking. They cannot name Modernism as the enemy, because they are Modernists. They cannot call for a return to the Traditional Latin Mass, because they have spent decades suppressing it. They cannot proclaim the necessity of converting Spain to Catholic social order, because they have embraced the very liberalism and religious indifferentism that destroyed it. As Pope St. Pius X warned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), the Modernists are “the most dangerous of all enemies of the Church” because they “lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers.”
The bishops’ proposed solution to the parish crisis is not a return to orthodoxy but a further entrenchment of conciliar structures: reorganizing communities, fostering “visible communal face,” and integrating immigrants. There is no mention of the Traditional Mass as a means of evangelization, no mention of the necessity of Catholic education, no mention of the social reign of Christ the King over Spain — that Catholic nation which once sent missionaries to the ends of the earth and whose kings bore the title Rey Católico.
Immigration as “Opportunity” — The Evangelization Mandate Abandoned
Priorities six and seven — welcoming migrants and engaging in “political charity” — are perhaps the most revealing of the document’s Modernist character. The bishops call for the “integration of Catholic immigrants” and simultaneously highlight the “opportunity for interreligious dialogue and collaboration in the service of the common good” with those of other faiths.
There is a categorical moral obligation here that the bishops systematically evade: the duty to convert all men to the Catholic faith. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not command His apostles to engage in “interreligious dialogue” but to “go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught that Christ’s kingdom “encompasses all men” and that “the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” The bishops’ language of “mutual respect” and “fundamental right to religious freedom” is the language of the conciliar declaration Dignitatis Humanae, which contradicts the unanimous teaching of the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). Pope Gregory XVI, in Mirari Vos, condemned religious liberty as “insanity” (deliramentum). Yet the Spanish bishops treat the “fundamental right to religious freedom” as an established principle and call for “dialogue based on mutual respect” with adherents of false religions. This is not pastoral prudence; it is formal cooperation with indifferentism.
Moreover, the bishops’ warning that Catholic charitable organizations risk being “easily confused with NGOs” is telling. They recognize the danger but propose no supernatural remedy. The answer is not to withdraw from charitable work but to ensure that all such work is explicitly ordered to the glory of God and the salvation of souls, not to the “common good” defined in secular terms. As Pope Leo XIII taught in Immortale Dei (1885), the state must recognize the Catholic Church as the one true religion, and “it is a sin in the State not to have care for religion, as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit.”
The Cult of “Political Charity” and the Abandonment of Christ the King
The seventh priority calls for “practicing political charity in schools, in neighborhoods, in hospitals, and in our relationships with one another — fostering a presence, where possible, within institutional politics, the life of political parties, or other channels of institutional action.” This is the language of the conciliar sect’s obsession with temporal affairs at the expense of the supernatural mission of the Church. The Church’s primary mission is the salvation of souls through preaching the Gospel, administering the sacraments, and leading men to eternal life — not “political charity,” which is a euphemism for left-wing social activism.
Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely to remind rulers and nations that “not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” He taught that “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.” The Spanish bishops, by contrast, make no mention of Christ’s kingship over Spain, over its laws, over its education, or over its public life. Their “political charity” is charity divorced from the social reign of Christ — which is to say, it is not Christian charity at all but mere humanitarianism, indistinguishable from secular activism.
The document’s silence on the most fundamental truths is damning. There is no mention of: the necessity of the Catholic faith for salvation; the obligation of the state to profess and protect the Catholic religion; the reality of mortal sin and the necessity of confession; the propitiatory character of the Holy Mass; the existence of hell; the necessity of praying for the conversion of sinners, heretics, and schismatics; the social reign of Christ the King; the errors of Modernism, liberalism, and religious indifferentism; the obligation of Catholic parents to raise their children in the faith; the necessity of Catholic education; or the reality that the current conciliar structures are occupied by men who have systematically undermined the faith.
The “Conversation in the Spirit” — Synodality as Parody of Ecclesial Governance
It is essential to note that this document was produced using the “conversation in the Spirit” method — the same method employed during the Synod on Synodality, that grotesque parody of genuine ecclesiastical governance. This method, which involves group sharing, consensus-building, and the suppression of doctrinal clarity in favor of “listening,” is fundamentally incompatible with the nature of the Church as a hierarchical society established by Christ.
The Church is not a democracy. The Magisterium does not derive its authority from the “sense of the faithful” but from divine institution. As Pope Pius IX taught, “the Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free — nor is she endowed with proper and perpetual rights of her own, conferred upon her by her Divine Founder” — this proposition was condemned as error (Proposition 19). The bishops’ use of synodal methods reveals their fundamental misunderstanding — or deliberate subversion — of the Church’s constitution.
St. Robert Bellarmine, whom the conciliar sect claims to honor while contradicting at every turn, taught that the Roman Pontiff holds full jurisdiction over the entire Church and that “a Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head.” The bishops of Spain, by participating in synodal processes that treat doctrine as negotiable and the faith as a matter of communal discernment, are acting in contradiction to the very ecclesiology they profess.
Conclusion: A Document of Apostasy Disguised as Pastoral Concern
The Spanish Bishops’ Conference document “Set Out on the Journey” is not a pastoral plan but a manifesto of capitulation. It acknowledges the devastation of Catholic Spain — 37 million of 45 million Spaniards do not attend Sunday Mass — without identifying the cause: the conciliar revolution itself. It proposes solutions that are indistinguishable from secular humanitarianism. It embraces religious indifferentism, interreligious dialogue, and “political charity” while remaining silent on the most fundamental truths of the faith.
The bishops cry, “We cannot simply stand by and watch the ship sink.” But they are not standing by — they are actively dismantling what remains. Every word of this document, every priority, every omission, reveals men who have exchanged the deposit of faith for the spirit of the age. As Pope St. Pius X warned, the Modernists “yearn to be reconciled with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” — and the Spanish bishops have fulfilled this prophecy to the letter.
The faithful who still profess the integral Catholic faith must reject this document entirely and cling to the unchanging Tradition: the true Mass of all time, the sacraments as Christ instituted them, the necessity of the Catholic faith for salvation, the social reign of Christ the King, and the authority of the pre-conciliar Magisterium. The ship is sinking, but the lifeboats are not those offered by the mutineers who seized the helm in 1958. The lifeboats are Tradition, the sacraments, and the unchanging faith of the saints — preserved outside the conciliar structures by the mercy of God for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
Source:
Spanish bishops: ‘We cannot simply stand by and watch the ship sink’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 08.05.2026