National Catholic Register portal reports on what it describes as a resurgence of religious expression in American public life, highlighting events like the “Rededicate 250” gathering on the National Mall, court cases involving religious liberty, and the Trump administration’s Religious Liberty Commission. The article frames these developments as a vindication of faith against secular marginalization. However, from the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this narrative is not merely incomplete but fundamentally flawed, as it operates entirely within the framework of liberal indifferentism condemned by the Church, reducing the Faith to one “religion” among many in a pluralistic marketplace, while remaining silent on the absolute, public, and exclusive Kingship of Jesus Christ over all nations.
The Heresy of Indifferentism as Foundation
The article’s very premise is built upon the condemned error of religious indifferentism. It speaks of “Americans of many faiths” and “people of faith” as a generic category, placing Catholicism on the same level as Islam, Protestantism, and any other belief system. This is precisely the error condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation” (Proposition 16), and “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” (Proposition 18). The Catholic Church has always taught, and can never cease to teach, that she alone is the one true Church of Christ, outside of which there is no salvation. To speak of “many faiths” gathering for prayer as if this were a positive development is to embrace the very religious relativism that the Church has consistently anathematized.
The event “Rededicate 250” is described as a gathering of “Americans of many faiths” for “prayer asking for God’s guidance.” But which God? The Catholic God, Who is a Trinity of Persons, Who has established one Church, and Who demands the submission of all nations to His Kingship? Or the god of religious pluralism, a vague deity who is pleased with any sincere worship? The article’s silence on this point is deafening and reveals its modernist, indifferentist foundation. True prayer is not a civic exercise in national self-congratulation; it is an act of the virtue of religion, directed to the true God, through His true Church.
The Silence on Christ the King: The Gravest Omission
The most damning omission in the entire article is any mention of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas, established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism and laicism that the article so uncritically celebrates. Pius XI taught: “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.” The article discusses “religious liberty” and “faith in public life” as if these were ends in themselves, rather than means to the ultimate end: the recognition of Christ’s sovereign authority over all individuals, families, and states.
Pius XI further warned: “When God and Jesus Christ – as we lamented – were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed, because the main reason why some have the right to command and others have the duty to obey was removed.” The article’s celebration of “religious expression” in public life, while remaining silent on the duty of the state to publicly recognize Christ the King, is a direct contradiction of Catholic teaching. It is not enough for individuals to practice their faith privately or even publicly; the state itself has a duty to honor Christ and order its laws according to His commandments. The article’s framework of “religious liberty” is a liberal, Protestant concept that has no place in Catholic social teaching, which demands not liberty of cults but the social Kingship of Christ.
The Myth of “Separation of Church and State”
The article engages in a lengthy discussion of the “wall of separation” metaphor, quoting Thomas Jefferson and suggesting that the founding generation understood the importance of religion to self-government. While it is true that many of the founders recognized the utility of religion for social order, this is a far cry from the Catholic teaching on the relationship between Church and State. The article quotes John Adams: “Our Constitution was only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” But Adams was a Unitarian, not a Catholic, and his “religion” was a naturalistic deism, not the supernatural Faith of Christ.
The Catholic position is clear: the Church is a perfect society, endowed with all the means necessary for her mission, and she is independent of the state in her spiritual jurisdiction. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas: “The Church, established by Christ as a perfect society, demands for itself by a right belonging to it, which it cannot renounce, full freedom and independence from secular authority.” The article’s discussion of “separation of church and state” is a Protestant and Enlightenment concept that has been consistently rejected by the Church. The Syllabus of Errors condemns the proposition that “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Proposition 55). The article’s uncritical acceptance of this framework reveals its alienation from authentic Catholic teaching.
The Judicial Vindication of Naturalism
The article celebrates recent court decisions, such as the Fifth Circuit’s upholding of Texas Senate Bill 10 requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools, and the upcoming Supreme Court case St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy. While these decisions may be positive in a relative sense, they are framed entirely within the liberal paradigm of “religious liberty” and “equal access,” rather than the Catholic demand for the recognition of the true religion.
The article quotes the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning: “No Texas child is being catechized, no teacher is assigned to proselytize, no student is penalized for disagreement. Hanging a poster is not establishing a church.” This is the language of liberalism, not Catholicism. The purpose of displaying the Ten Commandments is not merely to inform or inspire, but to acknowledge the authority of God over the nation and its laws. The article’s celebration of this decision as a victory for “religious expression” misses the point entirely: what is needed is not the toleration of religious symbols in a secular public square, but the explicit recognition of the Catholic Church as the one true Church and the ordering of all civil society according to her teaching.
Similarly, the discussion of St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy frames the issue as one of “equal access” to government programs, rather than the state’s duty to support and promote the true religion. The article notes that Colorado permits schools that admit only children of color and gender-nonconforming children into the program, but excludes Catholic schools that adhere to Catholic teaching on sexuality and gender. The article’s critique is framed in terms of “discrimination” and “equal treatment,” rather than the state’s obligation to favor and support the true religion. This is the language of liberalism, not Catholicism.
The Modernist Conciliar Sect and False Ecumenism
The article’s very source, the National Catholic Register, is a publication of the conciliar sect, the post-conciliar structure that has occupied the Vatican since the death of Pope Pius XII. This sect, beginning with the antipope John XXIII and continuing through the current usurper Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), has systematically dismantled the Catholic Church and replaced it with a modernist, ecumenical, and indifferentist counterfeit. The article’s celebration of “many faiths” gathering for prayer is a direct fruit of the false ecumenism of Vatican II, which taught that the Catholic Church “acknowledges” that other religions “often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men” (Nostra Aetate, 2). This is a direct contradiction of the constant teaching of the Church, which has always taught that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation and that other religions are false and harmful.
The article’s silence on the apostasy of the conciliar sect is itself a form of complicity. While it celebrates the “restoration of the HHS Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” under the Trump administration, it fails to mention that the conciliar sect itself has been the greatest persecutor of faithful Catholics in history. The “religious liberty” celebrated by the article is a liberal, Protestant concept that has been used to justify the suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass, the persecution of faithful priests and bishops, and the promotion of abortion, homosexuality, and other abominations. The article’s failure to distinguish between the true Catholic Faith and the modernist counterfeit of the conciliar sect is a grave disservice to the truth.
The Illusion of “Religious Liberty”
The entire framework of “religious liberty” as understood by the article is a liberal, Protestant concept that has no place in Catholic teaching. The Church has always taught that the state has a duty to profess and protect the true religion, and that error has no rights. As Pope Leo XIII taught in Immortale Dei: “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 supreme in its own kind, and each fixed within limits which are defined by its own nature and special object.” The article’s celebration of “religious liberty” as the freedom of all religions to compete in the public square is a direct contradiction of this teaching.
The Syllabus of Errors condemns the proposition that “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” (Proposition 77). The article’s uncritical acceptance of the liberal framework of religious liberty reveals its alienation from authentic Catholic teaching. What is needed is not the toleration of all religions, but the establishment of the Catholic religion as the sole religion of the state, with the concomitant duty of the state to suppress public manifestations of false religions.
The Silence on the Social Reign of Christ
The article’s most fundamental error is its silence on the social reign of Christ the King. The entire framework of the article is horizontal, concerned with the relationship between “religion” and “public life” in a purely naturalistic sense. There is no mention of the supernatural order, the necessity of grace, the reality of sin, the obligation of the state to order all things to the last end of man, which is the vision of God in heaven. The article’s vision of “faith in public life” is a naturalistic, Protestant vision that has no place in Catholic teaching.
Pius XI taught in Quas Primas: “If rulers and legitimate superiors will have the conviction that they exercise authority not so much by their own right as by the command and in the place of the Divine King, everyone will notice how religiously and wisely they will use their authority and how much they will consider, when issuing laws and commanding them to be fulfilled, the common good and the human dignity of their subordinates.” The article’s celebration of “religious expression” in public life, while remaining silent on the duty of the state to publicly recognize Christ the King and order all things to His glory, is a direct contradiction of Catholic teaching.
Conclusion: A Call to Reject the Liberal Illusion
The article’s narrative of a resurgence of “religious expression” in American public life is a liberal illusion that has nothing to do with the Catholic Faith. It operates entirely within the framework of religious indifferentism, false ecumenism, and the liberal concept of “religious liberty,” all of which have been consistently condemned by the Church. Its silence on the Kingship of Jesus Christ, the necessity of the state to profess and protect the true religion, and the apostasy of the conciliar sect reveals its fundamental alienation from authentic Catholic teaching.
The faithful must reject this liberal illusion and return to the unchanging teaching of the Church. As Pius XI taught: “Then at last, so many wounds can be healed, then there will be hope that the law will regain its former authority, sweet peace will return again, swords and weapons will fall from hands, when all willingly accept the reign of Christ and obey Him, and every tongue will confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.” This is the only true “religious expression” that matters: the public, social, and exclusive recognition of Jesus Christ as King of all nations and all hearts.
Source:
Religious Expression in Public Life on the Rise (ncregister.com)
Date: 21.05.2026