The National Catholic Register reports that “Archbishop” Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio and “Archbishop” Ronald Hicks of New York have announced a “friendly wager” over the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks, with bagels and Texas gift boxes riding on the outcome. The article, published June 9, 2026, presents this as lighthearted news, complete with social media videos, player statistics, and even the attendance of President Donald Trump at Game 3. What the article does not present — what it cannot present, because it is constitutionally incapable of recognizing it — is the profound theological scandal that two men occupying episcopal sees in the conciliar sect have nothing more urgent to communicate to the faithful than their enthusiasm for a professional basketball championship.
The Silence That Condemns: What Is Not Said
Let us begin where the article begins: with what it omits. Two archbishops of the conciar structures occupying the Vatican have issued a joint public statement. The occasion is not a doctrinal crisis, not the ongoing massacre of innocents through abortion, not the persecution of Catholics in China and Africa, not the apostasy of the very structures they serve. The occasion is a basketball game. The article quotes “Archbishop” García-Siller saying he is “really looking forward to enjoying those bagels” and “Archbishop” Hicks declaring he has “caught Knicks fever” and has “lit my candles, I’ve said my prayers … Go Knicks!”
There is not a single word in the entire article — not one — about the state of souls in New York or San Antonio. Not a word about the obligation of the faithful to attend the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation. Not a word about the necessity of confession, of mortification, of prayer for the conversion of sinners. Not a word about the reign of Christ the King over the civil society whose entertainment industry these archbishops so enthusiastically promote. The silence is total, absolute, and damning. De silentio loquitur — the silence speaks.
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 wrote that “this plague did not mature all at once, but has long been hidden in the soul of society. It began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” What would Pius XI say of archbishops who publicly identify themselves not with the kingship of Christ but with professional basketball franchises? The answer is already given in the encyclical: “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 Linguistic Symptom: “Archbishop” as Cheerleader
The article’s language reveals the theological bankruptcy of the conciar sect with surgical precision. “Archbishop” García-Siller is quoted saying “Go Spurs go!” — a cheerleader’s chant, not a pastor’s exhortation. “Archbishop” Hicks invokes “Knicks fever” and says he has “lit my candles” — a phrase that, in any other context, might refer to prayer before a blessed sacramental, but here refers to candles lit for a basketball team. The trivialization is not accidental; it is the natural fruit of an ecclesiology that has reduced the Church from the Mystical Body of Christ to a social club.
The article notes that “Archbishop” García-Siller says he and “thousands” of Salesian sisters are “praying for the Spurs’ victory.” Let this sink in: thousands of religious sisters — women who have consecrated their lives to God — are being encouraged by their archbishop to pray for the outcome of a professional sporting event. This is not piety. This is superstition. This is the simulacrum of religion, the outward form stripped of supernatural content. It is precisely the kind of “natural religion” condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, Proposition 1: “There exists no Supreme, all-wise, all-provident Divine Being, distinct from the universe,” and Proposition 15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”
When prayer is directed not to the salvation of souls but to the victory of a basketball team, the supernatural order has been effectively abolished. What remains is not the Catholic faith but a vague theism indistinguishable from the naturalism condemned by the Magisterium. The “prayers” offered for the Spurs are, in theological reality, not prayers at all but wishes — and wishes directed at a created good elevated above the Creator.
The Theological Level: What the Church Actually Teaches
The Catholic Church, in her immutable teaching, has always distinguished sharply between the supernatural order and the natural order, between the things of God and the things of Caesar. Our Lord Himself declared: Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo — “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). The Church’s mission is the salvation of souls through the preaching of the Gospel, the administration of the sacraments, and the governance of the faithful according to the law of God. This mission is not served by archbishops who behave as sports commentators.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught that “Christ reigns in the minds of men, not so much because He possesses a profound intellect and vast knowledge, but rather because He Himself is Truth, and men must draw truth from Him and accept it obediently.” He taught that “the royal dignity of our Lord surrounds the earthly authority of princes and rulers with a certain religious reverence.” Nowhere — nowhere — did any pope, any council, any Father of the Church teach that the royal dignity of Christ is compatible with archbishops placing wagers on basketball games.
The Council of Trent, in its twenty-fifth session, taught that the intercession of the saints is to be sought for spiritual goods — for the remission of sins, for perseverance in grace, for the avoidance of eternal damnation. The idea that thousands of nuns should be mobilized to pray for a basketball victory is not merely absurd; it is a contemptus of the communion of saints, a reduction of the supernatural economy to the level of pagan superstition. The ancient Romans prayed to Mars for victory in battle; the conciar archbishops pray to God for victory in sport. The theological category is identical: the instrumentalization of the divine for temporal, worldly ends.
The Symptomatic Level: The Conciliar Church as Mirror of the World
This episode is not an aberration. It is the logical, inevitable fruit of the conciliar revolution. When the structures occupying the Vatican abandoned the theology of the supernatural order — when they replaced the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass with a “memorial meal,” when they replaced the conversion of nations with “dialogue,” when they replaced the preaching of Christ crucified with the celebration of “human dignity” — they did not create a new kind of Church. They created no Church at all. They created a simulacrum, a hollow shell that mimics the outward forms of Catholicism while emptied of all supernatural content.
The “archbishops” of the conciar sect are not successors of the apostles. They are functionaries of a paramasonic structure that has as its true mission the demolition of the Catholic faith and the construction of a universal naturalistic religion. Their enthusiasm for basketball is not a lapse in judgment; it is a revelation of their true nature. They are men of the world, not men of God. They are pastors of a flock that has been led not to green pastures but to the slaughterhouse of modernism.
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), condemned the modernist proposition that “the Church is an enemy of the progress of natural and natural sciences” (Proposition 57) and that “truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Proposition 58). The conciar archbishops have not merely accepted these condemned propositions; they have embodied them. They have demonstrated that the “Church” they serve is indeed an enemy of unchanging truth, because it has replaced the immutable doctrine of Christ with the ever-changing fashions of the world — including, now, the fashion of professional basketball.
The Omission of Supernatural Concern: The Gravest Accusation
The article reports that both archbishops are “united in prayer for the safety of the players.” This is presented as evidence of their pastoral concern. But what kind of pastoral concern stops at physical safety? The safety of the body is a natural good; the safety of the soul is a supernatural good infinitely greater. Where is the prayer for the conversion of the players? Where is the prayer that they may receive the sacraments, that they may avoid mortal sin, that they may persevere in grace unto eternal life? Where is the recognition that a man who dies in the state of grace without ever having won a championship enters into eternal beatitude, while a man who wins every championship in history but dies in mortal sin suffers eternal damnation?
The silence on these matters is not merely an omission. It is a negatio — a denial, by practical action, of the very truths that define the Catholic faith. When an “archbishop” prays for the safety of basketball players but not for their souls, he reveals that he does not believe — or does not care — that the soul is immortal, that sin is real, that hell exists, that heaven is the only true home of the human person. He reveals, in short, that he is not a Catholic in any meaningful sense of the term.
The Wager as Symbol: Bagels and Gift Boxes in Place of Indulgences
The “friendly wager” itself deserves analysis. “Archbishop” García-Siller bets a box of bagels, cream cheese, and lox; “Archbishop” Hicks bets Texas gift boxes from HEB. The stakes are food — material, perishable, earthly. There is no spiritual dimension to the wager, no act of charity promised, no prayer offered for the souls of the losing city’s faithful. The wager is purely horizontal, purely natural, purely worldly.
Contrast this with the practice of the true Church. When the Church made promises — when she granted indulgences, when she attached spiritual benefits to pious acts — she did so with the authority of Christ and for the good of souls. The conciar archbishops make promises too, but their promises are for bagels. The reduction is complete: from the treasury of merit to the treasury of a Texas grocery store.
This is not humor. This is not “relatability.” This is the reductio ad absurdum of the conciliar project — the final, logical consequence of an ecclesiology that has abandoned the supernatural and embraced the natural, that has replaced the altar with the arena, that has substituted the worship of God with the worship of man’s physical prowess.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation in the Holy Place
The prophet Daniel foretold the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place (Daniel 9:27). Our Lord Himself warned of this sign (Matthew 24:15). The conciar structures, with their “archbishops” who bet on basketball games, who mobilize nuns to pray for sports teams, who speak of “Knicks fever” while remaining silent about the fever of sin consuming the world — these structures are that abomination. They occupy the holy place — the Vatican, the episcopal sees, the cathedrals — and they desolate it, emptying it of all that is holy and filling it with the profane.
The faithful who still profess the integral Catholic faith must see this episode for what it is: not a curiosity, not a harmless diversion, but a revelation of the true nature of the conciar sect. These are not shepherds. These are not fathers. These are men who have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, who have worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25), and who now reveal their apostasy not in theological treatises but in their enthusiasm for a basketball game.
Let us pray — truly pray, not for basketball teams but for the restoration of the true Church, for the return of valid shepherds, for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the way She actually requested at Fatima (not the distorted version promoted by the conciar structures), and for the conversion of those who have led the faithful astray. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam — not for the glory of the Spurs or the Knicks, but for the glory of God alone.
Source:
Archbishops of San Antonio, New York Announce ‘Friendly Wager’ As Spurs Face Knicks in NBA Finals (ncregister.com)
Date: 09.06.2026