EWTN News portal reports on the response of San Diego “Bishop” Michael Pham to a deadly shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego on May 18, 2026, which killed three people. Pham condemned the “senseless act of violence” and expressed “solidarity and prayer with the Muslim community,” stating that “an attack on one faith community is an attack on the sacred dignity of all human life.” Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, similarly expressed “prayerful solidarity” and quoted “Pope” Leo XIV’s call for “compassion and unity” in response to violence. The Islamic Center, established in 1989 and previously targeted by a bomb attack in 1991, described the victims as “pillars of our community.” This tragedy, while genuinely sorrowful, exposes the conciliar sect’s systematic abandonment of Catholic truth regarding the unique salvific mission of the Church and its embrace of religious indifferentism, where all “faith communities” are treated as equally valid paths to God, directly contradicting the solemn teaching of the Catholic Magisterium.
The Heresy of Religious Indifferentism in Action
The statements by “Bishop” Michael Pham and Archbishop Paul Coakley represent a textbook manifestation of the heresy of religious indifferentism, condemned repeatedly by the Catholic Church prior to the conciliar revolution. Pham’s declaration that “an attack on one faith community is an attack on the sacred dignity of all human life” implicitly places the Islamic mosque on the same plane as Catholic churches, as if both were equally legitimate “houses of worship” serving the same divine purpose. This is a direct contradiction of the Church’s perennial teaching.
Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemned 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). Furthermore, Proposition 18 explicitly rejects the notion that “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.” Islam, a religion explicitly denying the Holy Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, and the Redemption through His Precious Blood, is even further from truth than Protestantism. To treat a mosque as a “sanctuary of peace, safety, and prayer” equivalent to a Catholic church, where the true God is worshipped in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is to deny the first commandment and the exclusive salvific mission of the Catholic Church.
The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that the Church is “the congregation of all the faithful who profess the faith of Christ” and that “outside the Church there is no salvation” (extra ecclesiam nulla salus). This dogma, defined at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and reaffirmed by Pope Boniface VIII in Unam Sanctam (1302), is not a matter of private opinion but of divine revelation. The conciliar sect’s consistent refusal to proclaim this truth, instead opting for diplomatic platitudes about “shared dignity,” constitutes a grave betrayal of the souls entrusted to their care, both Catholic and Muslim.
The Naturalistic Reduction of the Church’s Mission
Pham’s emphasis on the Islamic Center as a “longtime partner in our collaborative work for justice, especially in accompanying immigrants” reveals the conciliar sect’s reduction of the Church’s mission to naturalistic humanitarianism. While the Church has always taught the importance of corporal works of mercy, these are ordered towards the ultimate end of leading souls to Christ and His Church. The primary mission of the Church is the salvation of souls through preaching the Gospel, administering the sacraments, and guiding the faithful to eternal life.
Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Quas Primas (1925), established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors.” He lamented that “this plague… began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations; the Church’s authority to teach men, to issue laws, to govern nations, which authority she received from Christ the Lord to lead men to eternal happiness, was denied.” The conciliar sect, by focusing exclusively on temporal collaboration and “social justice” while remaining silent on the necessity of conversion to the Catholic faith, embodies the very “public apostasy” that Pius XI warned against.
The bishop’s statement that “houses of worship must always be sanctuaries of peace, safety, and prayer” is a purely naturalistic sentiment, applicable to any human gathering place. It completely ignores the supernatural reality that a Catholic church is the dwelling place of God Himself in the Most Blessed Sacrament, the place where the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary is renewed, and the font of grace through the sacraments. To equate this with a mosque, where the true God is not worshipped and the sacraments are absent, is to commit sacrilege by treating the sacred as profane.
The Omission of Supernatural Truths and the Call to Conversion
The most glaring omission in the statements of both Pham and Coakley is any mention of the necessity of conversion to the Catholic faith for salvation. While expressing condolences and prayers, neither bishop called upon the Muslim community to embrace the true faith, nor did they explain that the victims, if they died outside the Catholic Church, are in need of prayers for the repose of their souls, as they could not have attained the beatific vision without baptism of water or desire and membership in the Church.
Pope Eugene IV, at the Council of Florence (1442), solemnly defined: “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; but that they will go into the ‘everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Matthew 25:41), unless before the end of their lives they are joined with Her.” This teaching, far from being a relic of a bygone era, is an infallible definition of the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
The conciliar sect’s silence on this matter is not accidental but systematic. It flows directly from the modernist heresy condemned by Pope St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), which taught that “revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Proposition 20) and that “the dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are not truths of divine origin but are a certain interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind has worked out with great effort” (Proposition 22). If dogmas are merely human interpretations, then there is no urgency to proclaim them, and all religions can be treated as equally valid expressions of the human search for the divine.
The Quotation of “Pope” Leo XIV and the Hermeneutic of Continuity
Archbishop Coakley’s quotation of “Pope” Leo XIV — “Where violence wounds the human family, compassion and unity must be our steadfast reply” — is a perfect example of the conciliar sect’s strategy of using the language of “mercy” and “dialogue” to obscure the abandonment of Catholic truth. This statement, while superficially benign, is devoid of any supernatural content. It could have been uttered by any secular humanist or leader of any world religion.
The “hermeneutic of continuity,” the conciliar sect’s attempt to portray the post-1958 revolution as a legitimate development of pre-conciliar teaching, is here exposed as a fraud. Pope Leo XIV, as a product and perpetuator of the conciliar revolution, cannot be cited as an authority on Catholic doctrine. His statements, like those of his predecessors since John XXIII, must be evaluated in light of the unchanging teaching of the Church, and where they contradict it, they must be rejected.
Pope St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), condemned the proposition that “the progress of sciences requires a reform of the concept of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, Revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption” (Proposition 64). The conciliar sect’s entire project is based on this condemned proposition, seeking to “update” the Church’s teaching to conform to the spirit of the age, rather than proclaiming the unchanging truth to a world in need of salvation.
The Symptomatic Silence on Islamic Doctrine
Neither Pham nor Coakley made any mention of the specific doctrines of Islam that are incompatible with the Catholic faith. This silence is not merely diplomatic but doctrinally culpable. Islam denies the Holy Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, the Redemption through His death on the Cross, the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures (as we possess them), and the necessity of the sacraments. To treat Islam as a “faith community” worthy of “solidarity” without addressing these fundamental errors is to participate in the deception that all religions are essentially the same.
Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught that Christ’s kingdom “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.” The duty of the Church is not to express “solidarity” with non-Christian religions but to proclaim the kingship of Christ and call all men to submit to His authority by entering the Catholic Church.
The conciliar sect’s failure to do this, instead embracing the false ecumenism condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos (1928), is a betrayal of the Church’s divine mission and a scandal to the faithful. It leads the Catholic people to believe that the Church no longer claims to be the sole ark of salvation, thereby endangering their own souls and those of the non-Catholics whom they should be striving to convert.
Conclusion: The Fruits of the Conciliar Revolution
The response of the conciliar sect to the San Diego mosque shooting is a microcosm of its broader apostasy. By treating Islam as a legitimate “faith community,” reducing the Church’s mission to naturalistic humanitarianism, omitting the necessity of conversion, and quoting the usurper in Peter’s chair as an authority, Pham and Coakley demonstrate the complete triumph of modernism within the structures occupying the Vatican.
The true response of a Catholic bishop to such a tragedy would be twofold: first, to express genuine sorrow for the loss of human life and to pray for the repose of the souls of the deceased, recognizing that they, like all men, are called to salvation through Christ and His Church; and second, to proclaim boldly and without compromise that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, and that the only true response to the tragedy of religious division is for all men to embrace the faith delivered once and for all to the saints.
Until the structures occupying the Vatican return to this uncompromising proclamation of Catholic truth, they will continue to lead souls astray, offering the false comfort of “solidarity” and “compassion” while withholding the only remedy that can truly heal the wounds of sin and error: the grace of God, obtained through the sacraments of the Catholic Church and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mediatrix of all graces.
Source:
San Diego bishop condemns ‘senseless’ deadly shooting at mosque (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 19.05.2026