National Catholic Register portal reports on the first anniversary of the enthronement of the usurper Robert Prevost, who styles himself “Pope Leo XIV.” The article, written by Amy Smith, celebrates this individual’s year in the Vatican, highlighting his “tender moments,” his “pastoral approach,” his book recommendations, and the commercial merchandise — children’s books — produced to cultivate devotion to his person. The portal describes his greeting to the crowds, his visit to Pompeii, his “pizza delivery,” and the canonizations he has performed. The article quotes his exhortations to read books and cites his favorite spiritual authors. This piece of hagiographic journalism, dressed in the language of piety, is in reality a textbook case of the neo-church’s systematic substitution of the cult of Christ the King with the cult of a personality — the very “cult of man” condemned by Pope St. Pius X as the synthesis of all Modernist errors.
The Abomination of Desolation Seated in the Temple of God
Let us begin with what the article dares not say, yet screams from every line: the entity occupying the Vatican is no pope. He is a usurper, an antipope enthroned by a paramasonic structure that has occupied the Holy See since the death of the last legitimate pontiff. The article refers to “Pope Leo XIV” as though this title were legitimate, as though the seamless garment of Christ’s Vicar had merely changed hands in an orderly succession. This is the foundational lie upon which every subsequent falsehood is built. The conciliar sect — that abomination of desolation spoken of by Our Lord (Mt 24:15) — has installed a figurehead whose very existence presupposes the destruction of the Catholic Church as a visible, hierarchical society with authority from Christ. The article’s casual use of “Holy Father” for Robert Prevost is not merely an error of fact; it is an act of complicity with the greatest fraud in the history of Christianity.
Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas (1925), established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism and laicism that sought to remove Christ from public life. He wrote that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” What would Pius XI say today, when the structures occupying the Vatican no longer even pretend to assert Christ’s royal dignity over nations, but instead produce children’s books celebrating an American prelate who delivers pizza and cultivates his image as a kindly grandfather? The neo-church has not merely abandoned the reign of Christ the King — it has replaced it with the reign of public relations.
The Cult of Personality as Modernist Substitute for Worship
The article’s structure reveals the theological bankruptcy of the conciliar sect with devastating clarity. Amy Smith writes: “His tender moments with his flock (including the littlest) have been poignant — and his Africa trip was most memorable for the sweetest scenes… And who can forget his pizza delivery!” This is not journalism. It is not even piety. It is the language of celebrity worship, transplanted into the sanctuary and dressed in liturgical vestments. The “Register” — itself a organ of the neo-church’s media apparatus — reduces the supposed Vicar of Christ to a figure of sentimental fascination: the pope who greets babies, who delivers pizza, who smiles. Where, in any of this, is the recognition that if this man were truly the successor of Peter, he would possess the fullness of jurisdiction to teach, govern, and sanctify — and that his primary duty would be to condemn error, not to distribute hope “like candy,” as one of the recommended children’s books puts it?
The language is revelatory. “He handed out hope like candy: with a smile, with kindness, and always with enough to go around.” This phrase, drawn from the children’s book Leo XIV: The Pope from Both Americas, is not Catholic theology. It is the language of a feel-good self-help manual, applied to the highest office in the Church. Where is the doctrine of the Papacy as defined by the First Vatican Council — that the Roman Pontiff has “full and supreme jurisdiction over the whole Church, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the whole world” (Pastor Aeternus, Ch. 3)? Where is the acknowledgment that the Pope is the guardian of doctrine, not a dispenser of warm sentiments?
Pope St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), condemned the Modernist proposition that “the Church listening cooperates in such a way with the Church teaching in defining truths of faith, that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Proposition 6). The entire media operation surrounding “Leo XIV” — the book recommendations, the children’s literature, the careful curation of “tender moments” — is precisely this: the reduction of the Magisterium to the approval of common opinions. The neo-church does not teach; it polls. It does not define; it markets.
The Canonizations: Sacramental Fraud and the Inversion of Sanctity
The article notes with satisfaction that “Leo XIV” has “canonized Sts. Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati — reminding us to look to these young men as holy role models.” This statement contains multiple layers of deception that must be ruthlessly exposed.
First, the canonizations performed by the conciliar sect are null and void. A usurper antipope has no authority to canonize anyone. Canonization is an exercise of the extraordinary Magisterium — it requires the very papal authority that the conciliar occupants of the Vatican do not possess. As Pope Paul IV declared in his Apostolic Constitution Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (1559), “if at any time it shall appear that any… Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion… has defected from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy: his promotion or elevation… shall be null, void, and of no effect.” The line of “popes” beginning with Roncalli (John XXIII) are manifest heretics and apostates; their acts — including canonizations — are juridically null. To call Carlo Acutis a “saint” on the authority of Robert Prevost is to participate in a sacramental fraud.
Second, the very choice of Carlo Acutis as a model reveals the neo-church’s inversion of sanctity. Here is a young man whose “holiness” is presented primarily through his use of computers and the internet — the very tools of the globalist, secular order. The neo-church does not canonize martyrs who shed their blood for the faith (for that would require acknowledging that the faith is something worth dying for, which the conciliar sect denies). It canonizes “nice young men” who used technology and smiled a lot. This is the odium sanctorum — the hatred of true sanctity — that has characterized the conciliar revolution. Pope St. Pius X warned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) that the Modernists “aim at such a development of dogmas as appears to be their corruption.” The corruption of the canonization process is the practical application of this principle: when the faith is reduced to naturalistic humanism, the “saints” become merely admirable human beings, and the supernatural order is abolished.
The Silence About Supernatural Realms: The Gravest Accusation
The most damning feature of the article is not what it says, but what it omits. There is no mention — not a single word — of the state of grace, of the necessity of the sacraments for salvation, of the reality of mortal sin, of the Final Judgment, of the Four Last Things. The “pastoral approach” of “Leo XIV” is presented as though the spiritual life consisted entirely of warm feelings, book recommendations, and smiling at babies. This is the very essence of the Modernist heresy as defined by St. Pius X: “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities” (Proposition 25 of Lamentabili), and “The dogmas of faith should be understood according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief” (Proposition 26).
The article quotes “Leo XIV” as saying: “Let us ask the Heart of Jesus for the grace increasingly to have the same feelings as him.” Note the word: feelings. Not obedience to God’s commandments. Not contrition for sin. Not the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Feelings. This is the religion of the conciliar sect in its purest form — a religion of sentiment, devoid of doctrine, devoid of the supernatural, devoid of the Cross. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught that Christ’s kingdom “is opposed only to the kingdom of Satan and the powers of darkness — and requires its followers not only to renounce earthly riches and possessions, to be distinguished by modesty of conduct, and to hunger and thirst for justice, but also to deny themselves and carry their cross.” Where, in the entire article, is there any mention of self-denial? Of carrying one’s cross? Of the narrow gate? Of the reality of hell?
The answer is nowhere. Because the neo-church does not preach the Gospel. It preaches itself.
The Book Recommendations: A Window into the Modernist Soul
The article notes that “Leo XIV” has recommended The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson, and the works of St. Augustine. On the surface, these might seem like orthodox choices. But the context reveals everything. Brother Lawrence’s work, while genuinely Catholic, is stripped of its ascetical and doctrinal context and reduced to a technique of “presence” — a quasi-Buddhist mindfulness dressed in Christian vocabulary. Lord of the World is a dystopian novel about the Antichrist — one wonders whether “Leo XIV” recognizes the irony of recommending a book that describes, in prophetic detail, the very system he serves. And St. Augustine — Doctor of Grace, hammer of Pelagianism, defender of the necessity of baptism and the reality of original sin — is cited by a man whose entire “pontificate” has been a practical denial of everything Augustine taught.
Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), 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). This is precisely what “Leo XIV” and his predecessors have done. They cite the Fathers and Doctors of the Church while systematically denying their teaching. They invoke Augustine while preaching Pelagianism. They mention the Heart of Jesus while abolishing the propitiatory sacrifice. They recommend books about the presence of God while filling the world with the presence of the Antichrist.
The Children’s Books: Catechesis of Apostasy
Perhaps the most revealing element of the entire article is its enthusiastic promotion of children’s books about “Leo XIV.” Three titles are highlighted: White Smoke, Two Gulls and a Pope, Leo XIV: The Pope from Both Americas, and Leo XIV: Portrait of the First American Pope. These books are designed to cultivate devotion to the person of the antipope from the earliest age — to acculturate children into the conciliar sect’s cult of personality.
The description of Leo XIV: The Pope from Both Americas is particularly instructive: “kids age 7 and up will discover how a young Bob Prevost, accompanied by his guardian angel, liked to ‘play Mass’ and studied hard before becoming a priest.” A child “playing Mass” — that is, simulating the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, the unbloody renewal of Calvary — is presented as a charming anecdote, a sign of future vocation. But in the theology of the neo-church, where the Mass has been reduced to a mere “assembly” and a “meal,” the distinction between “playing” and “celebrating” has effectively been abolished. If the Mass is just a communal gathering, then a child “playing Mass” is engaging in the same activity as a validly ordained priest — which is precisely the Protestant heresy of the priesthood of all believers that the Council of Trent anathematized.
Pope St. Pius X, in Lamentabili, condemned the proposition that “The elders fulfilling supervisory functions at Christian gatherings were appointed by the Apostles as priests or bishops to ensure order in the developing communities, but they did not, in the proper sense, continue the apostolical mission and authority” (Proposition 50). The entire conciliar ecclesiology — with its “assemblies,” its “ministries,” its reduction of the priesthood to a “function” — is built upon this condemned proposition. The children’s books celebrating “Leo XIV” are catechesis in this heresy.
The Motto: “In the One, We Are One” — A Masonic Formula
The article quotes “Leo XIV’s” motto: “In the One, we are one.” This phrase, far from being a Catholic expression of unity in Christ, is a formula of religious indifferentism — the very error condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation” (Proposition 16), and “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church” (Proposition 18).
“In the One, we are one” — but which “One”? Christ, who said “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by me” (Jn 14:6)? Or the “one” of the United Nations, of the Parliament of World Religions, of the globalist project that the conciliar sect serves? The deliberate ambiguity is the point. The motto is designed to mean everything and nothing — to unite all religions under a single banner while denying the exclusive claims of the Catholic Church. It is, in short, a Masonic formula — and its presence as the motto of the Vatican’s occupant is entirely consistent with the paramasonic nature of the conciliar revolution.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus, condemned 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 motto “In the One, we are one” is the spiritual equivalent of this condemned proposition — a declaration that the Catholic Church no longer claims to be the one true religion, but merely one path among many to an undefined “One.”
Conclusion: The Neo-Church as Counter-Church
What the National Catholic Register presents as a celebration of a pontificate is, from the perspective of integral Catholic faith, a portrait of the Antichrist’s counter-church. Every element — the cult of personality, the voidance of canonizations, the silence about the supernatural, the children’s books, the indifferentist motto, the reduction of religion to sentiment — points to the same conclusion: the structures occupying the Vatican are not the Catholic Church. They are the “synagogue of Satan” (Apoc 2:9) that Pius IX warned about in the Syllabus, the “pestilence” that St. Pius X identified as Modernism, the “abomination of desolation” that Our Lord prophesied.
The true Church endures — in the faithful who profess the integral Catholic faith, in the bishops with valid sacraments who reject the conciliar apostasy, in the priests who offer the true Most Holy Sacrifice according to the immemorial Roman Rite. Outside of this, there is only the neo-church: a paramasonic structure that uses the language of Catholicism to destroy Catholicism, that canonizes false saints while persecuting true ones, that preaches “peace” while waging war on the Peace of Christ.
Pius XI spoke truly: “When God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The article about “Leo XIV’s” book picks is a perfect illustration of this destruction — a document in which God is absent, Christ is reduced to “feelings,” authority is derived from public opinion, and the only thing that remains is the cult of a man. Non possumus — we cannot accept this. We must reject the neo-church, reject its antipope, reject its canonizations, reject its books, and return to the immutable Tradition of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation.
Source:
Pope Leo’s Book Picks, Plus 3 Good Reads About Pope Leo (ncregister.com)
Date: 09.05.2026