The National Catholic Register reports that the U.S. government has filed a civil action seeking eminent domain over land belonging to the Diocese of Las Cruces, New Mexico, for the purpose of constructing a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The disputed parcel lies at the base of Mount Cristo Rey, site of a 29-foot statue of Christ and an annual pilgrimage destination for thousands. The diocese filed a response on May 8, arguing that the seizure would “substantially burden” religious freedom and infringe upon the rights of worship. The government offered just over $183,000 in compensation. The Las Cruces Diocese, a body fully integrated into the post-conciliar conciliar sect, here reveals the utter bankruptcy of the neo-church’s claim to represent the rights of Christ the King over earthly territories and sacred spaces. Rather than invoking the divine constitution of the Church and the absolute sovereignty of Our Lord Jesus Christ over all nations, the diocese hides behind the secular language of the First Amendment — a document born of the very liberalism and indifferentism that the true Popes have repeatedly condemned.
The Silence of Mount Cristo Rey: A Prophetic Image of the Conciliar Abandonment
A great statue of Christ the King stands atop Mount Cristo Rey, gazing out over the land. Yet below, His so-called representatives negotiate with Caesar. The image is devastatingly prophetic. Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught with absolute clarity: “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: “The state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” The reign of Christ is not a private devotion to be practiced behind closed doors; it is a public, social, and political reality that demands recognition from every government on earth.
Yet what does the Diocese of Las Cruces do? It does not proclaim the rights of Christ the King. It does not invoke the divine constitution of the Church against the pretensions of the secular state. It does not remind the United States government that the Church possesses rights conferred by her Divine Founder — rights that no civil power may abrogate. Instead, it pleads before a secular court under the First Amendment, the very fruit of the liberal revolution that Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus of Errors (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” — condemned).
The First Amendment: A Heretical Foundation Invoked by a Heretical Church
The diocese’s legal strategy is itself a theological confession. By invoking the First Amendment — the constitutional guarantor of religious indifferentism and the legal equality of all religions before the state — the conciliar church reveals that it has fully internalized the very principles that the true Magisterium has condemned as heretical. Pius IX, in the Syllabus, explicitly condemned proposition 15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” And proposition 79: “It is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism.” These were condemned as errors. Yet the entire legal framework under which the Las Cruces Diocese operates — the framework of “religious liberty” as understood by the American constitutional order — is precisely the framework that the Catholic Church has condemned.
Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae — the conciliar document that first proclaimed the “right to religious liberty” — was a radical break with this unbroken tradition. It is no accident that the diocese feels at home invoking the First Amendment. The neo-church and the liberal state are twin children of the same revolutionary spirit. The conciliar church does not fight liberalism; it has married it.
The Church’s Divine Right to Property and Immunity
The Catholic Church has always taught that she possesses, by divine right, the freedom to acquire and possess property, and that her sacred ministers enjoy immunity from civil jurisdiction in matters pertaining to their spiritual office. Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus proposition 26: “The Church has no innate and legitimate right of acquiring and possessing property.” And proposition 30: “The immunity of the Church and of ecclesiastical persons derived its origin from civil law.” These errors are now the operating assumptions of the United States legal system — and the Las Cruces Diocese, rather than denouncing this as an intolerable violation of divine law, simply asks for a delay in proceedings.
Consider the language used. The diocese says the land seizure would “substantially burden” religious freedom. This is the language of American jurisprudence, not of Catholic theology. The true Church would say: This seizure is an act of sacrilege against the rights of God and His Church, null and void by the very authority of divine law. Pius IX, in his letter to the bishops of Prussia, declared: “These laws are null and void because they are absolutely contrary to the divine constitution of the Church. In fact, with respect to matters which concern the holy ministry, Our Lord did not put the mighty of this century in charge, but Saint Peter, whom he entrusted not only with feeding his sheep, but also the goats; therefore no power in the world, however great it may be, can deprive of the pastoral office those whom the Holy Ghost has made Bishops in order to feed the Church of God.”
The principle is clear: no civil power has authority over the Church’s property when that property is consecrated to divine worship. The land at the foot of Mount Cristo Rey, the site of annual pilgrimages, is sacred ground. Its seizure for a border wall is not merely a legal inconvenience — it is an act of profanation. And the response of the conciliar church is to file a motion for delay.
The Compensation of $183,000: Selling Sacred Ground for Silver
The U.S. government offered just over $183,000 in compensation for the land. The very fact that the diocese entertains this negotiation — that it does not immediately and categorically reject the premise that a secular government has any right whatsoever to seize land dedicated to the worship of God — reveals the depth of the conciliar apostasy. The true Church has always held that her rights are not for sale, that her immunities are not subject to eminent domain, and that the attempt to seize ecclesiastical property is an act of tyranny that the faithful must resist.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus, condemned proposition 53: “The laws enacted for the protection of religious orders and regarding their rights and duties ought to be abolished; nay, more, civil Government may lend its assistance to all who desire to renounce the obligation which they have undertaken of a religious life, and to break their vows. Government may also suppress the said religious orders, as likewise collegiate churches and simple benefices, even those of advowson and subject their property and revenues to the administration and pleasure of the civil power.” This is precisely what is happening here — the civil power is subjecting ecclesiastical property to its own administration and pleasure. And the conciliar church responds with legal briefs about “substantial burden.”
The Pilgrimage That the Conciliar Church Cannot Defend
The diocese notes that Mount Cristo Rey is the “site of annual pilgrimages” drawing thousands. This is the language of bureaucratic management, not of faith. A true bishop, a true successor of the Apostles, would declare: This mountain is consecrated to Christ the King. No earthly power may profane it. We will resist with every means God provides, and we call upon the faithful to stand with us in defense of the honor of God. Instead, the diocese asks the court to “halt the proceedings until the First Amendment dispute could be fully adjudicated.”
This is the conciliar church in its essence: a bureaucratic entity that manages religious real estate, negotiates with secular governments, and speaks the language of rights and burdens rather than the language of divine law and sacred duty. It is the Church of the New Advent — the paramasonic structure that has replaced the Kingdom of Christ on earth with a non-governmental organization operating within the framework of liberal democracy.
The Deeper Apostasy: Silence About the Social Reign of Christ
The most damning aspect of this entire affair is not what the diocese says, but what it does not say. There is no mention of Christ the King. There is no invocation of Quas Primas. There is no reminder to the United States government that it has a duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him. There is no reference to the final judgment, in which Christ “will very severely avenge these insults, because His royal dignity demands that all relations in the state be ordered on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles.” (Pius XI, Quas Primas).
This silence is the silence of apostasy. The conciliar church has abandoned the social reign of Christ not only in practice but in principle. It no longer even speaks the language of Catholic social kingship. It has reduced itself to one more interest group in the pluralistic marketplace of American civil society, competing for “religious liberty” alongside every other cult and ideology. The statue of Christ atop Mount Cristo Rey stands as a monument to a kingship that the conciliar church no longer believes in.
The Lesson of the Syllabus: Liberalism Is the Enemy
Pius IX, in the concluding passages of the Syllabus, warned: “Anyone who knows the nature, desires and intentions of the sects, whether they be called masonic or bear another name, and compares them with the nature the systems and the vastness of the obstacles by which the Church has been assailed almost everywhere, cannot doubt that the present misfortune must mainly be imputed to the frauds and machinations of these sects.” The United States of America was founded upon the principles of liberalism, religious indifferentism, and the separation of Church and state — principles that the Catholic Church has consistently condemned. Proposition 55 of the Syllabus declares: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.” — condemned.
The Las Cruces Diocese operates within this condemned framework as a matter of course. It does not challenge the legitimacy of a government founded on anti-Catholic principles. It does not remind the faithful that the best form of government is one that publicly recognizes the Catholic Church as the one true religion. It simply asks for a fair hearing in a secular court. This is the fruit of the conciliar revolution: a church that has lost its divine mandate and reduced itself to a petitioner before the very powers that were built on the ruins of Christendom.
Conclusion: The Mountain Remains, the Church Has Fallen
Mount Cristo Rey still stands. The statue of Christ still gazes out over the borderlands. But the church that claims to represent Him has forgotten His kingship. The Diocese of Las Cruces will continue to file its legal briefs, negotiate its settlements, and manage its properties within the framework of American liberal democracy. It will never proclaim the fullness of Catholic truth about the social reign of Christ, because to do so would be to condemn the very system in which it operates — the system of Vatican II, of religious liberty, of dialogue with the modern world.
The true Church — the Church of Pius IX, of St. Pius X, of Pius XI, of all the Popes who defended the rights of God against the pretensions of civil power — endures. She endures in the faithful who profess the integral Catholic faith, who reject the conciliar apostasy, and who know that the rights of Christ the King are not subject to adjudication by any secular court. The mountain is sacred. The land is God’s. And no power on earth — not the United States government, not the conciliar sect, not the antipopes in the Vatican — can alter this eternal truth.
Non possumus. We cannot yield what belongs to God.
Source:
US Government Moves to Seize Land From New Mexico Diocese to Build Border Wall (ncregister.com)
Date: 13.05.2026