The National Register portal reports on a commentary by Father Dave Pivonka, president of Franciscan University of Steubenville, praising the statements of the antipope Leo XIV regarding Catholic higher education. Pivonka enthusiastically embraces the conciliar narrative of “encounter,” “human flourishing,” and the integration of AI into academic life, presenting these as the fulfillment of the Church’s mission to “form saints.” The article reveals the complete capitulation of so-called “Catholic” education to the spirit of the world, where the supernatural order is replaced by therapeutic humanism, and the pursuit of truth is reduced to a technological and sociological exercise. This is not Catholic education; it is the final stage of the Modernist revolution’s conquest of the last bastions of resistance.
The Antipope’s Pedagogical Program: A Synthesis of Modernist Errors
The commentary by Father Pivonka is a textbook example of how the conciliar sect has co-opted the language of Catholicism to advance a fundamentally anti-Catholic agenda. His enthusiastic endorsement of Leo XIV’s vision for higher education is not merely a matter of prudential judgment; it is a public profession of the very errors that the true Church has condemned for over a century.
Pivonka begins by echoing the antipope’s concern about the “increasing fragmentation of knowledge,” a diagnosis that, while superficially plausible, is rooted in a profoundly Modernist understanding of the relationship between faith and reason. The fragmentation he laments is not the result of a lack of information or technological sophistication; it is the inevitable consequence of the rejection of the analogia entis and the subordination of all knowledge to the light of divine revelation. As Pope Pius X warned in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), the Modernists “aim at such a development of dogmas as appears to be their corruption” (Proposition 1). The “global vision of reality” that Pivonka seeks is not the synthesis of faith and reason achieved by St. Thomas Aquinas, but the immanentist, evolutionary worldview of the Modernists, which reduces religion to a mere “interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind has worked out with great effort” (Lamentabili, Proposition 22).
The “Encounter” Heresy: Christ Reduced to a Therapeutic Experience
The central pillar of Pivonka’s argument is the concept of “encounter,” a term that has become the hallmark of the conciliar sect’s theology of religious experience. He writes that “the answer to this fragmentation is not simply better-quality information; it is an encounter with the One in whom all truth finds its source and unity.” This language is deliberately vague and subjective, designed to obscure the objective content of the Catholic faith. The “encounter” Pivonka describes is not the supernatural encounter with the Person of Jesus Christ through the sacraments and the teaching of the Magisterium; it is a psychological, emotional experience that can be induced by any number of means, including technology, community activities, or even the manipulation of sacred rites.
This is the heresy of Modernism, pure and simple. As Pope St. Pius X explained in Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907), the Modernists “place the foundation of religious philosophy in that doctrine which is commonly called Agnosticism,” which holds that “human reason is confined entirely within the field of phenomena” and “has neither the right nor the power to transcend the domain of the supernatural.” The “encounter” is thus reduced to a subjective, interior experience, divorced from the objective truths of faith and the authoritative teaching of the Church. It is the religion of “man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Lamentabili, Proposition 20), a religion that is indistinguishable from the pantheism and immanentism condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (1864).
The Cult of “Human Flourishing”: A Naturalistic Substitution for Sanctity
Pivonka’s commentary is saturated with the language of “human flourishing,” a concept that has become the watchword of the conciliar sect’s social and educational agenda. He writes that “the human person is the glory of God, and we image God like nothing else he has created,” and that universities must “help students discover the magnificence of humanity.” While these statements may sound pious, they are, in fact, a subtle but devastating substitution of the natural for the supernatural, of the cult of man for the worship of God.
The Catholic understanding of human dignity is rooted in the fact that man is created in the image and likeness of God, and that his ultimate end is the beatific vision, the direct knowledge and love of God in eternity. “Human flourishing,” as understood by the Modernists, is a purely naturalistic concept, concerned with the development of human potential in this life, without reference to the supernatural order or the eternal destiny of the soul. It is the “gratification of pleasure” and the “accumulation of riches by every possible means” condemned by Pope Pius IX (Syllabus, Proposition 58), dressed up in the language of personal development and social justice.
Pivonka’s enthusiasm for the “AI and the Human Flourishing Chair” at Franciscan University is a telling example of this naturalistic orientation. The integration of AI into the curriculum is not presented as a tool for the defense and propagation of the faith, but as a means of “mastering technology” and “respecting the human person.” The question of whether AI can be used to promote heresy, to undermine the natural law, or to facilitate the spread of contraception, abortion, and other evils is not even considered. The “human person” is abstracted from his supernatural destiny and reduced to a mere object of technological manipulation.
The Abdication of Authority: The Conciliar Sect’s Inability to Teach
Perhaps the most damning aspect of Pivonka’s commentary is his complete failure to articulate any specific content of the Catholic faith. He speaks of “truth” and “encounter” in the most general terms, without ever mentioning the dogmas of the faith, the commandments of God, or the necessity of grace for salvation. This is not an oversight; it is a direct consequence of the conciliar sect’s rejection of the Church’s teaching authority.
As Pope Pius XI explained in Quas primas (1925), the Church’s mission is to teach, govern, and lead all men to eternal happiness. This mission requires the authoritative proclamation of the truths of faith, not the facilitation of subjective experiences or the promotion of vague humanitarian ideals. The “Catholic” university that Pivonka describes is not a place where the faith is taught and defended; it is a place where students are encouraged to “wrestle with the serious questions of our day” in the “light of faith,” a light that, in practice, is no different from the natural light of reason.
The conciliar sect’s educational institutions are, in reality, centers of apostasy, where the faith is systematically undermined by the promotion of Modernist errors under the guise of “dialogue,” “encounter,” and “human flourishing.” They are the “places of encounter” that Pivonka celebrates, but the encounter they facilitate is not with Christ, but with the spirit of the world.
The Final Apostasy: The Conciliar Sect as the Abomination of Desolation
The commentary by Father Pivonka is a microcosm of the conciliar sect’s total apostasy from the Catholic faith. It reveals an institution that has abandoned its divine mission, rejected the authority of the true Church, and embraced the errors of Modernism, naturalism, and religious indifferentism. The “Catholic” university it describes is not a place of formation for saints, but a factory for the production of compliant, worldly citizens, devoid of supernatural faith and prepared to serve the interests of the Antichrist.
The faithful must recognize, with the clarity of the pre-conciliar Magisterium, that the conciliar sect is not the Catholic Church. It is a counterfeit, a “paramasonic structure” that has occupied the Vatican and perverted the sacred institutions of the faith. The duty of every Catholic is to reject this abomination, to seek out the true Church, and to remain faithful to the immutable Tradition of the ages. As Pope Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors, “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). This is the program of the conciliar sect, and it is the program that Father Pivonka so enthusiastically endorses.
The “truth” that the conciliar sect offers is not the truth of Christ, but the lie of the Antichrist. The “encounter” it promotes is not the encounter with the living God, but the encounter with the spirit of the world. The “human flourishing” it seeks is not the flourishing of the soul in grace, but the flourishing of the flesh in sin. Let us pray for the deliverance of the faithful from this great apostasy, and for the restoration of the true Church, the Kingdom of Christ on earth.
Source:
Pope Leo Is Right: Colleges Should Help Students Seek and Live the Truth (ncregister.com)
Date: 09.06.2026