EWTN News reports that Paraguayan President Santiago Peña has announced a government-led project to restore and enhance the Metropolitan Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Asunción. The project, developed by the Catholic University of Paraguay and financed by the Itaipú hydroelectric entity, was presented during a ceremony attended by Cardinal Adalberto Martínez and the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Vincenzo Turturro. Peña emphasized that the restoration is not merely an infrastructure project but a “tangible expression” of the government’s conviction that “the Catholic Church is not merely part of our history, but part of what we aspire to be as a nation.” This initiative forms part of a broader pattern of state-funded restoration of emblematic religious sites in Paraguay, including the Ñandejára Guasu shrine in Piribebuy and St. Blaise Cathedral in Ciudad del Este.
The Illusion of Catholic Restoration in a Post-Conciliar Landscape
At first glance, the news of a government restoring a cathedral with the blessing of a cardinal and an apostolic nuncio might appear to be a positive development—a recognition of the Church’s role in national life and a preservation of sacred architecture. Such a reading, however, is precisely the kind of superficial, sentimental interpretation that the conciliar revolution has cultivated among the faithful, training them to celebrate the appearance of Catholic action while remaining blind to the substance of what is actually occurring within these structures.
The article, sourced from EWTN News and originally published by ACI Prensa, presents the project in entirely favorable terms, framing it as a harmonious collaboration between the Paraguayan state and the post-conciliar ecclesiastical apparatus. There is no critical examination of what this collaboration entails, no questioning of the theological implications of a secular government positioning itself as a patron of the “Church,” and no scrutiny of the nature of the worship that takes place within the cathedral being restored. This silence is not accidental; it is the hallmark of a media apparatus that has fully internalized the conciliar ethos of “dialogue” between Church and state, an ethos that stands in direct and irreconcilable opposition to the perennial Catholic teaching on the social reign of Christ the King.
The Social Reign of Christ the King Versus Conciliar Collaboration
Pius XI, in the encyclical Quas Primas (1925), established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism and laicism that had been steadily eroding the recognition of Christ’s authority over civil society. The Pope taught with unmistakable clarity: “The state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” Christ’s reign, therefore, is not merely a private spiritual reality but a public, social, and political one. States have a duty—not merely an option—to publicly recognize and submit to the authority of Christ the King. As Pius XI declared: “Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ, but let them fulfill this duty themselves and with their people, if they wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness.”
What does President Peña’s statement actually convey? He says the government recognizes that “the Catholic Church is not merely part of our history, but part of what we aspire to be as a nation.” This is not the language of a Catholic state professing the social reign of Christ the King. It is the language of a secular government making a cultural and historical acknowledgment—a recognition of the “Church” as one institution among many in the national fabric, worthy of support as part of the country’s heritage and aspirations. The distinction is absolute and cannot be overstated. A true Catholic state would profess that Christ the King is the supreme authority over all nations, that the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by God, and that the state’s own legitimacy derives from its conformity to divine law. Peña’s statement reduces this to a vague aspiration, a sentiment, a cultural partnership.
Moreover, Pius XI explicitly warned against the very dynamic at work here: “The civil government, even when in the hands of an infidel sovereign, has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs”—this proposition was condemned as error in the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX (1864), error number 41. Yet the post-conciliar Church has not merely tolerated but actively embraced state involvement in ecclesiastical affairs, from the financing of church restorations to the acceptance of government-appointed commissions and oversight bodies. The Paraguayan government’s financing of cathedral restoration through Itaipú, a state entity, and the approval of the project by the National Secretariat of Culture, represents precisely the kind of entanglement between secular power and ecclesiastical structures that the pre-conciliar Magisterium consistently warned against. The Church, as Pius XI taught, “demands for itself by a right belonging to it, which it cannot renounce, full freedom and independence from secular authority.”
The “Catholic University” and the Apostasy of Catholic Institutions
The article notes that “Paraguay’s Catholic University developed the specifications for the project.” This detail, presented without commentary, deserves the most rigorous scrutiny. What is a “Catholic university” in the post-conciliar era? The conciliar revolution systematically dismantled Catholic higher education worldwide, transforming institutions that were once bastions of Thomistic theology and orthodox doctrine into indistinguishable replicas of secular universities, infected with modernism, religious indifferentism, and the errors condemned by Pius IX and St. Pius X.
The Syllabus of Errors condemned the proposition that “the best theory of civil society requires that popular schools open to children of every class of the people… should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority, control and interference, and should be fully subjected to the civil and political power” (error 47). It further condemned the idea that “Catholics may approve of the system of educating youth unconnected with Catholic faith and the power of the Church” (error 48). Yet this is precisely what happened to Catholic universities worldwide after the conciliar revolution. The “Catholic University of Paraguay” is, in all likelihood, an institution that has embraced the very errors condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium—an institution where the faith is taught alongside evolutionary theory, where ecumenism is practiced as a matter of course, where the “spirit of Vatican II” has replaced the immutable deposit of faith.
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), condemned the modernist proposition that “the progress of sciences requires a reform of the concept of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, Revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption” (error 64). He further condemned the claim that “contemporary Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true knowledge without transforming it into a certain dogmaless Christianity, that is, into a broad and liberal Protestantism” (error 65). These are not abstract theological disputes; they describe with precision the trajectory of every “Catholic” university that has submitted to the conciliar revolution. The specifications developed by such an institution for a cathedral restoration may preserve the stones of the building, but they do so within a framework that has abandoned the faith for which those stones were originally consecrated.
The Nature of Worship Within the Cathedral: Silence as Accusation
The most damning aspect of this article is what it does not say. There is no mention of what form of worship takes place within the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Asunción. This silence is, in itself, a devastating indictment. The pre-conciliar Church understood that a cathedral is not merely a building; it is the seat of a bishop, the center of diocesan liturgical life, and the place where the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered according to the immemorial Roman Rite. The restoration of a cathedral is only meaningful—only meaningful—if the worship offered within it is true worship, the propitiatory sacrifice of Calvary made present on the altar, offered by a validly ordained priest using the traditional rite.
But what worship actually takes place in the post-conciliar structures? The Novus Ordo Missae, promulgated by Paul VI in 1969, is a rite that was crafted in collaboration with Protestant observers, a rite that the Archbishop Guérard des Lauriers demonstrated to be ambiguous and insufficient in its expression of the Catholic theology of the sacrifice. Within these structures, the Mass has been reduced to a “table of assembly,” the rubrics have been altered to minimize the sense of the propitiatory sacrifice, and the faithful are encouraged to receive “Communion” in a manner that obscures the Real Presence. To restore a cathedral in which such worship takes place is to restore a building for the perpetuation of sacrilege.
The article mentions the Ñandejára Guasu shrine in Piribebuy as one of the other sites being restored with Itaipú funding. The very name—”Ñandejára Guasu” is Guarani for “Great Lord”—hints at the syncretistic nature of popular Catholicism in Paraguay, where indigenous religious elements have been blended with Catholic forms. This syncretism is not a peripheral concern; it is a direct consequence of the conciliar revolution’s abandonment of the missionary mandate to convert all nations to the Catholic faith, replacing it with a “dialogue” that treats indigenous religions as equally valid paths to God. The restoration of such shrines with state funding, under the auspices of the post-conciliar Church, is not Catholic restoration—it is the preservation and legitimization of religious syncretism.
The “Cardinal” and the “Apostolic Nuncio”: Usurpers in the House of God
The article refers without qualification to “Cardinal Adalberto Martínez” and “Archbishop Vincenzo Turturro” as though they were legitimate representatives of the Catholic Church. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this is a grave error. The line of usurpers occupying the Vatican since John XXIII has no authority to appoint true cardinals, true bishops, or true apostolic nuncios. The entire hierarchical structure of the post-conciliar sect is built upon a foundation of heresy and apostasy.
As St. Robert Bellarmine taught in De Romano Pontifice: “A Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” The post-conciliar usurpers—from John XXIII through Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and now Leo XIV (Robert Prevost)—have all promulgated, defended, or failed to condemn the modernist errors of the conciliar revolution. They are, in the language of canon law, manifest heretics who have ipso facto lost any claim to ecclesiastical authority. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law confirms that “every office becomes vacant by the mere fact and without any declaration by reason of tacit resignation, recognized by the law itself, if the cleric publicly defects from the Catholic faith.”
The “cardinal” who presided over the groundbreaking ceremony is therefore not a cardinal at all but a member of a paramasonic structure that has occupied the Vatican and systematically dismantled the Catholic faith. The “apostolic nuncio” is not a representative of the Holy See but an envoy of a usurper whose authority is null and void. To present these figures as legitimate, as the article does without any critical commentary, is to participate in the great deception of the conciliar era—the pretense that the structures occupying the Vatican are the Catholic Church.
The Broader Pattern: State-Church Collaboration as a Mark of the Apostasy
The Paraguayan project is not an isolated incident. The article itself notes that it is “part of a series of restoration projects of emblematic sites with support from Itaipú.” This pattern—secular governments financing the restoration of religious buildings in collaboration with post-conciliar ecclesiastical authorities—is a hallmark of the conciliar revolution. It reflects the new relationship between Church and state that emerged after the conciliar revolution, a relationship based not on the recognition of Christ’s social kingship but on mutual accommodation and “dialogue.”
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (error 80). Yet this is precisely what the post-conciliar Church has done. It has reconciled itself with the modern world, accepted the principles of religious liberty and church-state separation that were condemned by Gregory XVI and Pius IX, and entered into partnerships with secular governments on the basis of shared cultural and humanitarian goals rather than the supernatural mission of the Church.
The restoration of the Assumption Cathedral in Asunción, viewed in this light, is not a sign of Catholic vitality but a symptom of Catholic death. It is the preservation of a shell—a building, a structure, a cultural artifact—while the soul of the thing has been destroyed. The faith for which the cathedral was built in 1845 has been replaced by the religion of man, the worship of progress, and the cult of dialogue. The stones will be repaired, the façade will be cleaned, and the building will stand for centuries more. But the Most Holy Sacrifice will not be offered there—only its Protestantized simulacrum. The faithful will not receive the true Body and Blood of Christ—only bread treated as a communal meal. And the government that finances this restoration will not confess Christ the King but will continue to operate on the basis of secular principles that the pre-conciliar Church consistently condemned.
Conclusion: The Stones Cry Out, But No One Listens
The announcement of the restoration of the Assumption Cathedral in Asunción is, in the final analysis, a parable of the conciliar era. A secular government partners with a heretical ecclesiastical structure to restore a building in which false worship is offered, blessed by men who have no authority to bless, financed by an entity that operates on principles antithetical to the social reign of Christ the King. The article reporting this event presents it as a positive development, a sign of the Church’s continued relevance and vitality. This is the great lie of the post-conciliar age: that the Church can prosper by accommodating itself to the world, that buildings can substitute for belief, and that collaboration with secular power is a sign of strength rather than surrender.
The Catholic Church does not need restored buildings. It needs the restoration of the true Mass, the true hierarchy, the true doctrine, and the true social reign of Christ the King. Until these are restored, every cathedral restoration project, however well-intentioned, is merely the preservation of a tomb—a monument not to the living faith of the faithful but to the triumph of the conciliar revolution and the apostasy it has wrought.
Source:
Paraguay’s government to undertake restoration and enhancement of Assumption Cathedral (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 11.06.2026