National Catholic Register reports: Michael Pham, the “bishop” of San Diego, issued a statement condemning the “senseless act of violence” at the Islamic Center of San Diego on May 18, 2026, which left five dead — three victims and two teenage suspects who died by suicide. Pham declared that the Catholic community “stand[s] united in solidarity and prayer with the Muslim community,” praising the mosque as “a longtime partner in our collaborative work for justice, especially in accompanying immigrants.” He stated: “Houses of worship must always be sanctuaries of peace, safety, and prayer,” and that “an attack on one faith community is an attack on the sacred dignity of all human life.” He offered his “deepest condolences, solidarity, and fervent prayers to the families of the victims and the entire Muslim community.” The Islamic Center, the largest mosque in San Diego County which opened in 1989 and was itself the target of a bomb attack in 1991, described the three slain men — including a security guard — as “three pillars of our community” who “put themselves on the line for our [mosque] and our community.” This statement from the conciliar hierarchy is a textbook manifestation of the very religious indifferentism and false ecumenism that the pre-conciliar Magisterium condemned as heresy, revealing the complete theological bankruptcy of the post-1958 neo-church.
The Heresy of Religious Indifferentism Dressed in Pastoral Language
The statement by “Bishop” Michael Pham is not merely imprudent or tone-deaf — it is a formal embodiment of the heresy of religious indifferentism, condemned repeatedly and unequivocally by the pre-conciliar Magisterium. When Pham declares that “an attack on one faith community is an attack on the sacred dignity of all human life,” he implicitly places the Islamic Center of San Diego — a temple dedicated to the worship of a false god and the propagation of a religion that explicitly denies the Holy Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and the Redemption — on the same moral and spiritual plane as the Catholic Church, the one true Church founded by God Himself. This is not charity. This is apostasy
.
Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemned the following proposition: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation” (Proposition 16). He likewise condemned the claim that “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ” (Proposition 17). The very foundation of Islam is the denial of everything that constitutes the Catholic faith: Allah is not the Holy Trinity, Muhammad is not a prophet, the Quran contradicts Divine Revelation in its entirety. To stand in “solidarity and prayer” with a mosque — not merely as a civic gesture toward neighbors, but as a faith community — is to act as if the religion professed within its walls were a legitimate path to God. This is precisely the error that Pius IX anathematized.
The First Vatican Council (1870), in Dei Filius, taught that the Catholic Church is the una vera Ecclesia — the one true Church — outside of which there is no salvation. The Council of Florence (1442) declared with binding authority: “The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life everlasting.” Islam is not merely schism or heresy — it is a wholly false religion, a counterfeit revelation that denies the very foundations of supernatural truth. Pham’s statement treats it as though it were simply another “faith community” deserving of the same reverence and solidarity as the Catholic Church. This is not pastoral sensitivity; it is the total abdication of the episcopal duty to preach the truth.
The False Ecumenism of Vatican II Made Flesh
Pham’s language — “stand united in solidarity and prayer with the Muslim community” — is drawn directly from the lexicon of the post-conciliar revolution, specifically from Nostra Aetate (1965), the declaration of the Second Vatican Council that opened the floodgates to false ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. That document, which has no binding authority from the true Magisterium and was promulgated by the conciliar sect, declared that the Church “regards with esteem” the Muslims and their worship of God. This was a radical rupture with the constant teaching of the Church, which regards Islam not as an object of “esteem” but as a false religion that must be exposed as such and whose adherents must be converted to the Catholic faith through evangelization.
The duty of a true bishop — were Pham a true bishop, which he is not, being a creature of the conciliar sect — would be to preach the Gospel to Muslims, not to praise their mosque as a “partner” in justice. Pope Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei (1885), taught that the state and all public institutions must recognize the Catholic Church as the one true religion: “The Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, each the highest in its own kind, each fixed within certain limits, defined by its own nature and special object.” The “collaborative work for justice” that Pham praises is precisely the substitution of naturalistic humanitarianism for the supernatural mission of the Church — the salvation of souls through conversion to Jesus Christ and incorporation into His Mystical Body.
Pope Pius XI, in Mortalium Animos (1928), condemned in the strongest terms the very premise of Pham’s statement:
The union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it.
Pius XI explicitly rejected the idea that different “faith communities” could unite on the basis of a vague common belief in God while leaving doctrinal differences aside. This is precisely what Pham does: he treats Islam and Catholicism as complementary expressions of a generic theism, united in “prayer” and “solidarity.” This is the heresy of indifferentism elevated to the level of episcopal governance.
The Omission of Catholic Doctrine: The Gravest Accusation
What is most revealing about Pham’s statement is not what it says, but what it omits. There is no mention of Jesus Christ. There is no mention of the necessity of baptism. There is no mention of the duty to convert Muslims to the Catholic faith. There is no mention of the infinite gulf between the true worship of the Holy Trinity and the false worship of Allah. There is no mention of the fact that Islam explicitly blasphemes the Holy Trinity, denies the Divinity of Christ, and rejects the Gospel. There is no mention of the eternal destiny of souls outside the Catholic Church.
This silence is not accidental. It is the hallmark of the conciliar sect, which has systematically replaced the supernatural mission of the Church with naturalistic humanitarianism. The “justice” that Pham praises — “accompanying immigrants” — is a purely temporal concern, a work of the natural order that any secular humanitarian organization could perform. The true “justice” that a bishop owes to Muslims is the justice of truth: the declaration that Muhammad was a false prophet, that the Quran is a human fabrication, that Islam is a false religion, and that the only path to salvation is through Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church.
Pope St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), identified the core of Modernism as the substitution of naturalistic experience and sentiment for supernatural doctrine. Pham’s statement is a perfect illustration of this: he speaks of “solidarity,” “prayer,” “dignity,” and “peace” — all naturalistic, sentimental categories — while remaining completely silent about the supernatural truths that alone give meaning to human life and human suffering. The three men who died at the Islamic Center are mourned not as souls who died outside the true Church and in need of prayers for their conversion, but as “pillars of the community” whose loss is a blow to “the sacred dignity of all human life.” This is the language of the United Nations, not of the Catholic Church.
The Neo-Church’s Complicity in the Advance of Islam
The conciliar sect has been the single greatest institutional facilitator of the advance of Islam in the West. By preaching false ecumenism, by welcoming Muslim immigration, by refusing to preach conversion, and by treating Islam as a legitimate “faith community,” the post-1958 structures have created the conditions for the very scenario that played out in San Diego. The mosque that was attacked in 1991 and again in 2026 exists in the United States in large part because the conciliar hierarchy has consistently opposed any public Catholic witness against Islam and has instead promoted “dialogue” and “solidarity.”
Pope Eugene IV, at the Council of Florence, declared that those who die outside the Catholic Church cannot attain eternal salvation. If Pham truly believed this — which he cannot, since he professes the faith of the concilar sect — his first concern would be the eternal salvation of the Muslims of San Diego, not their “solidarity” with Catholics. The fact that he expresses no concern whatsoever for the state of their souls, no urgency about their conversion, and no recognition that their mosque is a place of false worship, demonstrates that he has completely abandoned the supernatural mission of the Church.
The pre-conciliar Popes consistently identified religious indifferentism as one of the gravest errors of modern times. Pope Gregory XVI, in Mirari Vos (1832), condemned the idea that:
it makes no difference to which religion one belongs, as long as one’s morals are correct… From this poisoned source of indifferentism flows the erroneous and absurd opinion, or rather madness, that liberty of conscience must be asserted and claimed for everyone.
Pham’s statement is a direct application of this condemned principle. He treats Islam as morally equivalent to Catholicism, as simply another “faith community” deserving of solidarity and prayer. This is not Catholicism. It is the religion of the Antichrist.
The Duty of True Catholics
True Catholics — those who profess the integral Catholic faith and reject the conciliar apostasy — must recognize in statements like Pham’s the full fruit of the post-1958 revolution. The neo-church is not the Catholic Church. It is a counterfeit institution that has replaced the preaching of the Gospel with naturalistic humanitarianism, the worship of the Holy Trinity with interreligious “dialogue,” and the salvation of souls with “social justice.”
The three men who died at the Islamic Center of San Diego deserve the prayers of Catholics — not the false “solidarity” of Pham, but genuine prayers for the repose of their souls and, if God wills, for their conversion. But they also deserve the truth: that they died outside the true Church, in a place of false worship, and that the only hope for their eternal salvation lies in the infinite mercy of God, who alone can reach souls who never heard the true Gospel.
Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), taught that Christ the King reigns over all men and all nations, and that no individual, family, or state is exempt from His authority. The duty of Catholics is not to express “solidarity” with false religions, but to work for the social reign of Christ the King — which means the conversion of all nations, including the Muslim nations, to the Catholic faith. This is the mission that the conciliar sect has betrayed, and Pham’s statement is but one more evidence of that betrayal.
The faithful must pray for the conversion of Muslims, for the destruction of Islam as a false religion, and for the restoration of the true Catholic Church with a true Pope who will preach the Gospel without compromise. The structures occupying the Vatican will never do this. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — outside the Church there is no salvation. This is the truth that Pham refuses to preach, and it is the truth that alone can save the world from the chaos of false religions and false peace.
Source:
San Diego Bishop Condemns ‘Senseless’ Deadly Shooting at Mosque (ncregister.com)
Date: 19.05.2026