The National Catholic Register reports that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has filed an amicus brief backing Daniel Grand, a Jewish resident of University Heights, Ohio, in a lawsuit against the city for blocking his home prayer group (minyan). The case, now before the U.S. Supreme Court, challenges the “finality” rule requiring plaintiffs to exhaust all government options before suing. The bishops argue that religious plaintiffs have standing “as soon as a credible threat arises” and that prolonged court processes constitute “constitutional harm.” Grand seeks to host about a dozen friends for prayer at his home, framing it as a simple act of speaking to God. This case reveals the profound theological and spiritual bankruptcy of the post-conciliar Catholic hierarchy’s engagement with secular “religious liberty” within a system fundamentally ordered against Christ the King.
The Idol of “Religious Liberty” and the Apostasy of the Conciliar Sect
The U.S. bishops’ intervention in this case is not an act of Catholic defense but a capitulation to the very principles that have destroyed Christendom. By framing the dispute as one of “religious liberty,” they implicitly accept the liberal, Enlightenment-era premise that religion is a private matter to be tolerated by the state, rather than the public, social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ over all nations and individuals. This is the heresy of Laïcité condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis as the “synthesis of all errors” and by Pius XI in Quas Primas, who lamented that “the sweetest Name of our Redeemer is omitted with unworthy silence in international gatherings and parliaments.”
The bishops’ brief argues that “religious plaintiffs have standing to sue ‘as soon as a credible threat arises.'” This language is revealing. It speaks the dialect of American constitutional law, not of Catholic theology. The true “threat” is not a zoning ordinance but the systematic exclusion of God from public life, a process the conciliar sect has actively facilitated since Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae, which enshrined the very religious liberty the bishops now invoke. They seek protection under a system they have helped legitimize—a system that, as Pope Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors (Proposition 77), erroneously holds that “it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to further the welfare and interests of the state.”
The Scandal of Backing a Jewish Minyan: False Ecumenism in Action
The most damning aspect of this case is the explicit support for a Jewish prayer group. The U.S. bishops are not defending the right to offer the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass or public Catholic worship; they are defending the right of non-Catholics to practice their false religion. This is a direct fruit of the post-conciliar revolution, particularly Nostra Aetate, which initiated a disastrous dialogue with non-Catholic religions based on a spirit of false ecumenism.
Pope Pius XI, in Mortalium Animos (1928), unequivocally condemned such efforts: “The union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it.” The bishops’ action is a practical denial of this teaching. They act as if the Catholic Church and Judaism are simply two equal “faith communities” seeking common ground before a secular state. This is the “religious relativism” condemned in the attached file on Fatima, where the imprecise formulation of “conversion of Russia” (without specifying Catholicism) opened the door to such errors. Here, the door is not merely open; the bishops are holding it wide, ushering in the very indifferentism condemned by Pius IX (Proposition 15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true”).
The “Finality” Rule and the Illusion of Justice in a Babylonian Captivity
The legal strategy of challenging the “finality” rule is a symptom of the Church’s current state of captivity within secular legal systems. Grand’s attorney, Jonathan Gross, describes how governments can “‘jerk you around’ and table your case indefinitely to prevent you from ever getting finality.” This is a precise metaphor for the experience of faithful Catholics within the conciliar structures themselves, where appeals to Rome are met with bureaucratic silence, reinterpretation, or outright rejection of pre-conciliar doctrine.
The bishops seek a more efficient path to a secular court, hoping to “open up the Hoover Dam” for religious plaintiffs. This reveals their complete lack of faith in the supernatural means of the Church—prayer, penance, and the intercession of the saints—and their total reliance on human legal mechanisms. It is a practical admission that the “paramasonic structure” of the post-conciliar church cannot provide true justice, so they must appeal to the very secular order that is the enemy of Christ the Kingdom. As St. Pius X warned in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (Proposition 57), “The Church is an enemy of the progress of natural and theological sciences,” and by extension, of the secular legal order built upon them.
The Omission of the Supernatural: A Case Study in Naturalistic Humanism
The article and the bishops’ actions are characterized by a profound silence on supernatural realities. There is no mention of the state of grace, the necessity of true faith for salvation, the dangers of indifferentism, or the duty of the state to recognize the Social Kingship of Christ. Daniel Grand’s desire “to speak to God” is presented in purely naturalistic, humanistic terms—as a personal spiritual need, not as an act that has eternal consequences for his soul or the souls of his neighbors.
This silence is the gravest accusation. It shows that the conciliar sect has reduced religion to a matter of personal fulfillment and social harmony, stripping it of its dogmatic content and missionary imperative. The bishops do not call for Grand’s conversion to the Catholic Faith, the only means of salvation (Acts 4:12: “And there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved”). Instead, they seek to protect his right to remain in his error. This is not charity; it is a betrayal of the command to “teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19). It is the “cult of man” condemned by Paul VI himself, though he did nothing to stop it.
Conclusion: The Neo-Church as Servant of the Secular Order
This lawsuit, backed by the U.S. bishops, is a microcosm of the post-conciliar apostasy. It demonstrates the conciliar sect’s full integration into the liberal, secular order it was supposed to evangelize. By championing “religious liberty” for a Jewish minyan, the bishops deny the exclusive rights of Christ the King and the Catholic Church. By seeking justice in secular courts through procedural maneuvers, they abandon the supernatural mission of the Church. By remaining silent on the necessity of conversion and the dangers of false worship, they commit a sin of omission that leads souls to perdition.
The true “finality” is not a legal rule but the Final Judgment, where Christ will “very severely avenge these insults, because His royal dignity demands that all relations in the state be ordered on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles” (Pius XI, Quas Primas). The U.S. bishops, by their actions, are not preparing the faithful for that judgment but are instead building a comfortable prison within the City of Man, all while claiming to serve the City of God. Their brief is not a defense of religion; it is a manifesto of surrender to the spirit of the age, a spirit that is, as St. Pius X taught, the spirit of Antichrist.
Source:
Catholic-Backed Religious Liberty Lawsuit Asks Supreme Court to Address ‘Finality’ Rule (ncregister.com)
Date: 15.06.2026