EWTN News reports that the Archbishops of San Antonio and New York have made a “friendly wager” over the NBA Finals, reducing their pastoral office to the level of sports commentary and entertainment. This spectacle reveals the complete inversion of priorities that has consumed the conciliar sect since 1958, where the pursuit of the supernatural has been replaced by an obsession with the carnal and the trivial.
The Scandal of Pastoral Abdication
When the Archbishop of San Antonio, Gustavo García-Siller, declares on social media that he is “really looking forward to enjoying those bagels” and that “thousands” of Salesian sisters are praying for a basketball team’s victory, we witness the grotesque fruits of the conciliar revolution. When the Archbishop of New York, Ronald Hicks, proclaims that he has “caught Knicks fever” and has “lit my candles, I’ve said my prayers” for a professional sports franchise, we see the complete confusion of the natural with the supernatural that defines Modernism.
These men occupy what they claim to be the seats of St. Peter and St. Paul’s successors. They are supposed to be shepherds of souls, guardians of the deposit of faith, and soldiers of Christ the King against the powers of darkness. Instead, they behave like talk-show hosts, reducing the sacred office of bishop to the level of a celebrity endorsement.
Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical *Quas Primas* (1925), established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the “plague that poisons human society”—namely, “secularism, so-called laicism,” which “began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” Pius XI declared that “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men” and that “it matters not whether individuals, families, or states, for men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.” What would Pius XI say to bishops who publicly declare their allegiance to basketball teams while remaining silent on the social reign of Christ?
The Modernist Inversion of the Hierarchy of Goods
The wager between these archbishops is not merely a personal foible. It is a symptom of the systematic inversion of the hierarchy of goods that the Second Vatican Council unleashed upon the Church. When the Council’s document *Gaudium et Spes* declared that the Church is “linked with the world” in a manner that subordinated supernatural ends to temporal concerns, it opened the floodgates to the exact spectacle we now witness.
St. Paul’s admonition is clear: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). The Apostle to the Gentiles understood that the Christian’s citizenship is in heaven, and that earthly affairs—however legitimate in their proper order—must never displace the primacy of the supernatural life.
Yet these archbishops, like their conciliar masters, have embraced what Pope Pius IX condemned in the *Syllabus of Errors* as the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). The “friendly wager” is precisely such a reconciliation—a public demonstration that the Church’s shepherds have capitulated to the spirit of the world.
The Silence on Supernatural Realities
What is most striking about this spectacle is what is entirely absent. There is no mention of the state of grace, no call to prayer for the conversion of sinners, no reference to the final judgment, no reminder of the eternal destiny of every soul on those courts and in those arenas. The archbishops speak of “prayers for the safety of the players”—a natural good, certainly, but one that in the integral Catholic faith is subordinated to the infinitely greater good of the immortal soul.
Where is the prayer for the salvation of those souls? Where is the call to offer one’s sufferings in reparation for sin? Where is the reminder that every moment of this life is a preparation for eternity? These are not rhetorical questions. They expose the theological vacuum at the heart of the conciliar Church.
Pope St. Pius X, in *Lamentabili sane exitu* (1907), condemned the Modernist proposition that “revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Proposition 20). The archbishops’ basketball wager is the practical application of this heresy: religion reduced to a horizontal, human phenomenon, a matter of community bonding and friendly competition, entirely emptied of its vertical, supernatural dimension.
The Salesian Sisters and the Corruption of Religious Life
The report notes that “thousands” of Salesian sisters have been “cheering on the Spurs during the playoffs” and that their “viral appearance” at games has “drawn an interest in Catholicism.” This is perhaps the most damning detail of the entire affair.
Religious sisters, consecrated to God through the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, are supposed to be eschatological signs of the world to come. Their life is meant to be a perpetual reminder that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). When they become viral sensations at sporting events, they cease to be signs of contradiction and become instead accomplices in the worldliness that the consecrated life is meant to denounce.
The conciliar revolution systematically dismantled the distinctiveness of religious life. The instruction *Ecclesiae Sanctae* (1967) and the subsequent imposition of the “renewal” of religious communities led to the abandonment of distinctive habits, the dissolution of common life, and the secularization of apostolates. What remains are pseudo-religious who function as cheerleaders—literally—for professional sports teams.
The Villanova Connection and the Cult of the Natural
Archbishop Hicks’s reference to Knicks players Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart as Villanova alumni—”the alma mater of our Holy Father”—deserves particular scrutiny. Hicks invokes the “Holy Father” (the antipope Leo XIV, formerly Robert Prevost) not in the context of the faith, but in the context of sports. The “gift of sport” and “the joy of playing as a team” are praised, while the gift of faith, the grace of the sacraments, and the joy of eternal salvation are passed over in silence.
This is the religion of *Gaudium et Spes* made flesh: a religion that finds God in human activity rather than in the supernatural order, that sanctifies the natural without elevating it to the supernatural, and that replaces the worship of God with the celebration of human achievement.
Pope Pius XI warned in *Quas Primas* that “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.” The same principle applies to the Church’s own authority. When bishops derive their relevance from basketball wagers rather than from the faithful transmission of the deposit of faith, their authority is not merely diminished—it is destroyed.
The Contrast with Catholic Tradition
The integral Catholic tradition offers a radically different vision of the relationship between the Church and the world. The great bishops of the pre-conciliar era understood that their office demanded a prophetic witness against the spirit of the age, not a capitulation to it.
St. Robert Bellarmine, whose authority is cited in the defense of sedevacantism, taught that the Church is a *societas perfecta*—a complete and self-sufficient society with all the means necessary for its supernatural end. This understanding of the Church leaves no room for the reduction of episcopal authority to sports commentary.
The 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 188.4, established that any cleric who “publicly defects from the Catholic faith” automatically vacates his office. While the archbishops’ wager does not constitute formal defection, it represents what theologians would call a *material* defection—a practical abandonment of the supernatural purpose of the clerical state in favor of worldly concerns.
The Judgment of History and Eternity
History will record this episode as one more datum in the long catalog of conciliar absurdity. But history is not the final judge. The final judgment belongs to Christ the King—the very King whose social reign these archbishops have effectively denied by their silence and their worldliness.
On that day, the question will not be whether the Spurs or the Knicks won the 2026 NBA Finals. The question will be whether the shepherds of souls entrusted with the care of millions of the faithful fulfilled their supernatural office or betrayed it for the sake of bagels, gift boxes, and viral videos.
The “friendly wager” is, in the final analysis, a wager against the supernatural order itself—a bet placed on the world against the Church, on the natural against the divine, on time against eternity. It is a wager that every Catholic who loves the integral faith must recognize for what it is: another sign that the structures occupying the Vatican have become, in the words of Our Lady’s message at La Salette (itself a true private revelation, unlike the Masonic operation of Fatima), “the abomination of desolation” spoken of by the Prophet Daniel.
Conclusion
The archbishops’ NBA wager is not a harmless jest. It is a theological statement—a practical confession that the conciliar Church has abandoned its supernatural mission in favor of a naturalistic humanism indistinguishable from the world it is supposed to convert. It is the logical fruit of the hermeneutics of continuity applied in reverse: not the continuity of faith, but the continuity of apostasy.
Let those who still profess the integral Catholic faith take note. Let them understand that the crisis in the Church is not merely a matter of liturgical abuse or doctrinal ambiguity. It is a crisis of identity, of purpose, of the very nature of the Church as a supernatural society. When bishops become cheerleaders, the faithful must become witnesses—witnesses to the unchanging truth that the Church exists not for the sake of the world’s games, but for the sake of God’s glory and the salvation of souls.
Fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra. (Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.)
Source:
Archbishops of San Antonio, New York announce ‘friendly wager’ as Spurs face Knicks in NBA finals (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 08.06.2026