The EWTN News portal reports the death of Bishop John Ricard, described as the first president of the National Black Catholic Congress and former bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee, who died at the age of 86. The article presents a hagiographic obituary of a man who spent his entire career within the structures of the post-conciliar sect, praising his “grace, humility, and joyful spirit” while ignoring the fundamental question: what does it mean to serve a Church that has abandoned the Faith? The death of Bishop John Ricard offers an opportunity to examine the spiritual wreckage wrought by the conciliar revolution and its infiltration of every level of the Catholic hierarchy.
A Career Built on the Ruins of the True Church
John Ricard was ordained to the priesthood on May 25, 1968 — a date of profound significance that the EWTN article conveniently glosses over. This was the very year that the post-conciliar sect promulgated its new “Rite of Ordination,” a rite whose validity remains gravely doubtful according to numerous theological studies conducted before and after the crisis. The Catholic University of America, where Ricard obtained his doctorate, had already been ravaged by modernist dissent following the “Land O’Lakes Statement” of 1967, when Catholic university presidents declared their independence from all authority, whether human or divine. To speak of Ricard’s “formation” is to speak of a man shaped by institutions that had already apostatized from the Faith.
His consecration as auxiliary bishop of Baltimore in 1984 placed him squarely within the hierarchy of the conciliar sect — a hierarchy whose authority derives not from Christ but from the revolution inaugurated by John XXIII and consummated at the Second Vatican Council. The EWTN article celebrates the fact that he was “the first Black bishop to serve there,” a detail that reveals the post-Church’s obsession with worldly categories of race and representation rather than the supernatural mission of the episcopate: to teach, govern, and sanctify souls for eternal salvation. “The office of bishop is not a prize for diversity but a burden of sacred authority conferred by the Holy Ghost” (Council of Trent, Session XXIII).
The National Black Catholic Congress: A Study in Conciliar Captivity
Ricard served as president of the National Black Catholic Congress from its inception in 1987 until 2017. This organization, like all conciliar entities, operates within the framework of the post-conciliar sect’s ideology — an ideology that reduces the supernatural mission of the Church to naturalistic categories of social justice, racial reconciliation, and humanitarian activism. The EWTN article notes that Ricard “devoted his life to the proclamation of the Gospel, humanitarian efforts worldwide” — a formulation that deliberately conflates the supernatural work of evangelization with secular humanitarianism, as though feeding the body were equivalent to saving the soul.
The true Catholic approach to racial questions is found not in congresses and committees but in the universal teaching of the Church: “There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). The National Black Catholic Congress, by organizing Catholics along racial lines, perpetuates the very divisions that the Gospel dissolves. It is a product of the conciliar mentality that sees the Church not as the Mystical Body of Christ transcending all earthly distinctions, but as a mere human association to be managed according to the categories of secular sociology.
The Josephite Society and the Corruption of Religious Life
Ricard was a member of the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, the Josephites, and was elected its superior general in 2019. The Josephites were founded in 1893 with the mission of serving Black Catholics in the United States. While the original charism may have been sound, the trajectory of virtually every religious community after 1958 has been one of catastrophic decline. The post-conciliar religious life has been characterized by the abandonment of the religious habit, the dissolution of common life, the abandonment of the traditional liturgy, and the embrace of modernist theology.
Pope Pius XII, in his 1950 apostolic constitution Sponsa Christi, insisted that religious life must be marked by “the total consecration of oneself to God” and “the faithful observance of the evangelical counsels.” The post-conciliar religious life, as practiced by communities like the Josephites, bears no resemblance to this ideal. When Ricard was elected superior general in 2019 — during the pontificate of the heretic and apostate Bergoglio — he assumed leadership of a community that had long since abandoned any semblance of authentic religious life. To call such a man a “religious superior” is to mock the very concept of religious life.
The Silence About the State of His Soul
Perhaps the most striking feature of the EWTN article — and of all conciliar obituaries — is the complete silence about the state of the deceased’s soul. The article asks for “prayers for the repose of Bishop Ricard’s soul,” but it does not pause to consider what a soul formed, ordained, and consecrated within the structures of the conciliar sect might face at the judgment seat of Christ. The Catholic Church has always taught that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31), and that those who occupy positions of authority will be judged with particular severity: “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation” (James 3:1).
The article celebrates Ricard’s “joyful spirit” and his “grace” and “humility” — but these are natural virtues, not supernatural ones. A man may be personally affable and still be a heretic. A man may be personally humble and still lead souls to perdition. The conciliar sect has always preferred the appearance of virtue to its substance, natural pleasantness to supernatural sanctity. The EWTN article’s hagiographic tone reveals the fundamental bankruptcy of the post-Church’s understanding of holiness: it has replaced the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity with the secular virtues of niceness, inclusivity, and humanitarian concern.
The Fundamental Question: Was He Ever a Bishop?
The most serious question raised by the death of John Ricard is one that the EWTN article does not even consider: was he ever validly consecrated as a bishop? The 1968 “Rite of Ordination” introduced by the conciliar sect has been the subject of intense theological scrutiny. The new rite altered the essential form of the sacrament in ways that many theologians have judged to be defective. If the form is defective, the sacrament is invalid, and Ricard was never a bishop at all — merely a layman dressed in episcopal vestments, exercising no authority in the Church of Christ.
Even setting aside the question of sacramental validity, one must ask whether Ricard could have held legitimate office in the Church given his manifest adherence to the errors of the conciliar revolution. The teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine, confirmed by Wernz and Vidal in Ius Canonicum, holds that a manifest heretic “is deprived ipso facto of his personal jurisdiction even before any declaratory sentence by the Church.” Ricard’s entire career was spent promoting the conciliar agenda — racial congresses, humanitarian works, ecumenical gestures — while never, so far as the public record shows, denouncing the heresies of Vatican II. If he was a manifest heretic — and the public record suggests he was — then he never possessed any jurisdiction in the Church of Christ.
The Lesson of John Ricard’s Life and Death
The death of Bishop John Ricard is not a cause for mourning but for reflection. His life illustrates the complete capture of the conciliar structures by the spirit of the world. A man ordained in 1968, formed in apostate institutions, consecrated under a doubtful rite, and elevated to positions of leadership within a sect that has abandoned the Faith — such a life is not a model to be imitated but a warning to be heeded.
The true Catholic response to the death of a conciliar prelate is not hagiography but prayer: prayer for the mercy of God upon a soul that may have been deceived by the enemies of Christ, prayer for the faithful who were led astray by false shepherds, and prayer for the restoration of the true Church — the Church that has always taught, governed, and sanctified, and that will endure until the end of time. “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
Source:
Bishop John Ricard, first head of National Black Catholic Congress, dies at 86 (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 21.05.2026