EWTN News portal reports (May 9, 2026) that Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, declared in an interview with the Lithuanian magazine Kelionė: “In Kherson, there are no unbelievers left.” The article presents the war in Ukraine as an engine of religious revival, citing growing Catholic parishes, conversions from Orthodoxy and Protestantism, and the heroic presence of chaplains on the front lines. Yet beneath this narrative of spiritual resurgence lies a profound silence—on doctrine, on the supernatural order, on the true nature of conversion, and on the apostasy festering within the very structures claiming to shepherd souls. This is not evangelization; it is the sacralization of suffering without truth.
The Illusion of Conversion Without Doctrine
The nuncio recounts with admiration how an Orthodox bishop and two Protestant pastors “converted to Catholicism” after witnessing Catholic practices such as praying the rosary and building churches. One Protestant pastor reportedly entered the Church after hearing a single homily. But what kind of Catholicism is being presented? The article offers no mention of the Credo, no exposition of the necessity of baptism of desire or the unity of the Church, no reference to the Four Marks—One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic—and certainly no warning against the modernist distortion of these truths since 1958.
As Pope Pius IX taught in Quanto conficiamur (1864), while God may lead souls invisibly to salvation through invincible ignorance, “it is a most certain truth that those who are in invincible ignorance of our most holy religion, if it be invincible, are in no way guilty of this in the sight of the Lord.” Yet the same Pope, in Etsi Multa, condemned any suggestion that error and truth can stand side by side. The post-conciliar sect, however, has abandoned this clarity. Its “conversions” are not acts of supernatural faith but emotional responses to trauma, ritual aesthetics, or humanitarian aid—what St. Thomas Aquinas would call fides acquisita, not fides infusa.
Moreover, the nuncio speaks of “Catholic priests” and “Orthodox bishops” as if both possessed valid orders and sacraments in equal measure. But since the liturgical reforms of 1969, the new Rite of Ordination has been widely questioned for its invalidity due to defective form and intention. Canon law before 1958 insisted on strict adherence to traditional rites for validity. If the “Catholic priests” Kulbokas celebrates are ordained under the Pauline VI rite, their sacramental acts—including absolution offered to dying soldiers—may be null and void. The soldier who pleads, “Better give me absolution,” may be receiving nothing but words.
War as Sacrament: The Naturalization of Grace
The entire article operates within a framework where grace is replaced by humanitarian presence and psychological comfort. Chaplains are praised not for preaching repentance or administering the sacraments worthily, but for bringing dogs to the front lines, saying “Don’t be surprised if you pee out of fear,” and distributing rosaries like talismans. This is not the Ecclesia militans; it is the Church as trauma counselor.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), proclaimed that Christ’s kingship extends over all nations and individuals—not as a metaphor, but as a binding reality demanding public acknowledgment. Yet Kulbokas’ testimony contains no call for Ukraine to submit to Christ the King, no denunciation of secularism or Masonic influence in Eastern Europe, no insistence that peace comes only through the Social Reign of Christ. Instead, war itself becomes a quasi-sacramental event—purifying, converting, sanctifying—without reference to sin, judgment, or the Last Things.
This is precisely the error condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907): Proposition 20, which reduces “revelation to man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God.” Here, revelation is replaced by experience—by the shock of missiles, the silence of seminarians, the tears of mothers. Faith becomes immanent, horizontal, psychological. The supernatural is evacuated.
The Silence on Apostasy Within
While Kulbokas marvels at conversions at the front, he says nothing about the apostasy within the so-called “Catholic Church” in Ukraine and globally. Since the death of Pius XII, the conciliar sect has embraced religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae, 1965)—a direct contradiction of Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos (1832), which called the liberty of conscience “a deliramentum.” It has promoted ecumenism with schismatics and heretics, violating the dogma Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus as defined at the Council of Florence.
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, though historically in communion with Rome, has long been a battleground for Uniate ambiguity—retaining Orthodox rites while submitting to a papacy now occupied by antipopes. Kulbokas, as nuncio of Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), represents not the Vicar of Christ but a usurper whose authority derives from the Modernist revolution. His presence in Kyiv is not apostolic mission but diplomatic theater for a paramasonic structure.
The Chaplain as Therapist: The Collapse of the Sacred
The anecdote about the military doctor—wounded soldiers refusing surgery in favor of absolution—is presented as a triumph of faith. But what if that absolution is invalid? What if the chaplain belongs to the new rite and lacks jurisdiction? What if the soldier dies without true contrition, having been taught a naturalistic “gospel” of peace and tolerance rather than the hard demands of the Gospel?
Before 1958, the Church insisted that absolution requires proper form, matter, intention, and jurisdiction. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 871) required confessors to have faculties. Today, under the conciar regime, “general absolution” is routinely abused, and priests without jurisdiction presume to forgive sins. The nuncio’s story may inspire sentimentality, but it risks offering false hope to the dying.
Conclusion: No Faith Without the True Church
The war in Ukraine is real. The suffering is immense. But suffering without truth leads not to heaven but to despair—or worse, to a false peace built on emotionalism and doctrinal vacancy. The nuncio’s claim that “there are no unbelievers left” is not a sign of victory but of delusion. Unbelief today wears the mask of religion. It prays rosaries while rejecting dogma. It builds churches while denying the Real Presence. It seeks absolution without repentance.
As Bellarmine wrote, a manifest heretic ceases to be Pope ipso facto. Since John XXIII, the See of Peter has been occupied by modernists who deny the Church’s exclusive claim to truth. Kulbokas serves not Christ but Antichrist’s parody of the Church. True Catholics must reject his narrative, cling to the unchanging faith, and pray for the restoration of the papacy—not through diplomacy, but through the triumph of the Immaculate Heart in the way She always demanded: conversion, penance, and the Consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart—not as a political gesture, but as an act of supernatural obedience.
Until then, let no one mistake the noise of war for the voice of God.
Source:
Vatican nuncio: ‘There are no unbelievers left’ in Ukraine’s war zones (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 09.05.2026