EWTN News portal reports on June 17, 2026, that the antipope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square, reflected on his recent apostolic journey to Spain, praising the country as “an example of unity despite differences,” celebrating the encounter between “Catholic tradition and contemporary culture,” and elevating the phenomenon of mass migration to a means of “rereading the Gospel” through intercultural exchange. He also expressed satisfaction with the U.S.-Iran peace deal and renewed appeals for peace in Ukraine. This address is not a mere travelogue but a concentrated distillation of every modernist error condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium — religious indifferentism, the democratization of the Church, the cult of man, and the subordination of divine truth to secular humanitarianism — all wrapped in the saccharine language of “dialogue” and “fraternity.”
The “Encounter of Ancient and Modern”: A Heresy Condemned by Pius IX and Pius X
The antipope Leo XIV described his Spanish journey as an “encounter of ancient and modern, Catholic tradition and contemporary culture,” presenting this synthesis as something positive and enriching. This formulation is not innocent. It is the very essence of the modernist heresy condemned in the most unequivocal terms by the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemned proposition 80: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” The antipope’s language of “encounter” between Catholic tradition and contemporary culture is precisely this condemned reconciliation — the subordination of immutable divine truth to the ever-shifting spirit of the age. The Church does not “encounter” modernity as an equal partner; she judges it, condemns what is erroneous, and converts what is capable of receiving the Faith. As Pope St. Pius X wrote in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), the Modernists seek to reconcile “faith and science” by subordinating the former to the latter, producing nothing but the “corruption of dogmas” (Lamentabili, condemned proposition 1: the pursuit of novelty leads to “the most grievous errors”).
The claim that Europe’s heritage is “a living reality, not a thing of the past” sounds pious, but its content reveals the rot. What does Leo XIV mean by “Europe’s heritage”? Not the social reign of Christ the King, not the Catholic confessional state, not the missionary expansion that Pius XI celebrated in Quas Primas (1925). Instead, he lists the fruits of secularism itself: “peace, integral ecology, equitable and sustainable development, and respect for human dignity.” These are the slogans of the United Nations, not the program of the Church. Pius XI taught that the Kingdom of Christ “extends not only to Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” The antipope inverts this: Christ’s Kingdom is reduced to a vague humanitarianism that any secularist could endorse.
“Unity Despite Differences”: The Indifferentism Condemned by Gregory XVI and Pius IX
The very title of the article — “Spain is an example of unity despite differences” — is a textbook expression of religious indifferentism, the heresy that one religion is as good as another and that unity need not be founded on the unity of the Catholic Faith.
Pope Gregory XVI, in Mirari Vos (1832), condemned the idea that “it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any religion whatsoever.” Pope Pius IX reiterated this in the Syllabus, condemning proposition 15 (“Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true”), proposition 16 (“Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation”), and proposition 17 (“Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ”).
When Leo XIV praises “unity despite differences,” he is not speaking of the unity that comes from the submission of all nations to Christ the King — the unity Pius XI described when he wrote that “every tongue will confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.” He is speaking of a unity that prescinds from truth, a unity of sentiment and culture that leaves doctrinal differences intact. This is the unity of the Masonic lodge, not the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ.
Migration as “Rereading the Gospel”: The Naturalization of the Supernatural
Perhaps the most revealing passage is the antipope’s treatment of mass migration. He states that the migration phenomenon “offers an interpretation that opens up a different, broader perspective,” allowing Catholics to understand how “to reread the Gospel in today’s world, exchanging with each other the gifts of our respective cultures, and in particular the results produced in them by the fruitfulness of Christ’s message.”
This is a breathtaking inversion of Catholic teaching. The Gospel is not “reread” through the lens of migration; the Gospel is the unchanging deposit of faith, and migration — like every other human phenomenon — must be judged by the Gospel, not the other way around. The Church has always taught that the primary duty of a Catholic state is the protection of the Faith and the common good of its own people, not the celebration of demographic transformation as a means of intercultural “enrichment.”
The antipope’s language — “exchanging the gifts of our respective cultures” — is the language of religious syncretism. It treats the Catholic Faith as one “gift” among many, to be exchanged with the “gifts” of other cultures and religions. This is precisely the error condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (proposition 18): “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church.” Extend this logic to Islam, Hinduism, or any other religion, and you have the antipope’s program: all cultures and religions are “gifts” to be exchanged in a great intercultural bazaar, with the Gospel reduced to one voice among many.
The “results produced by the fruitfulness of Christ’s message” in non-Catholic cultures is a particularly insidious phrase. It implies that Christ’s message bears fruit outside the Catholic Church — in Islamic cultures, in animist cultures, in secular cultures — and that these fruits are comparable to the fruits of the Church. This directly contradicts the teaching that there is no salvation outside the Church (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus) and that the Church is the sole ark of salvation.
“Dialogue” and “Fraternity”: The Vocabulary of the Anti-Church
The antipope’s vocabulary throughout this address is drawn entirely from the lexicon of post-conciliar apostasy: “dialogue between people and between peoples,” “encounter in a spirit of fraternity,” “civilization of love.” These are not Catholic concepts. They are the slogans of the conciliar sect’s program of replacing the supernatural mission of the Church — the salvation of souls through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments — with a naturalistic program of social cohesion and interreligious cooperation.
Pope St. Pius X, in Lamentabili, condemned proposition 54: “Dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy, both in concept and in reality, are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness.” The antipope’s address contains not a single mention of the sacraments, not a single mention of the necessity of conversion to the Catholic Faith, not a single mention of the state of grace or the final judgment. This silence is the gravest accusation. The supernatural order — the very reason for the Church’s existence — is entirely absent. In its place, we find a purely naturalistic program of “fraternity,” “dialogue,” and “civilization of love” that any secular humanist could endorse.
The “civilization of love” is not the Kingdom of Christ. Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught that the peace of Christ comes only when “all willingly accept the reign of Christ and obey Him.” The antipope’s “civilization of love” requires no such submission. It is a civilization built on the exclusion of Christ the King from public life — the very secularism that Pius XI identified as “the plague that poisons human society.”
The U.S.-Iran Peace Deal: Peace Without Christ
The antipope’s expression of satisfaction with the U.S.-Iran peace deal is consistent with the post-conciliar obsession with “peace” understood as the mere absence of armed conflict, rather than the tranquillitas ordinis — the tranquility of order — that St. Augustine defined as the peace that comes from the proper ordering of all things under God.
Pius XI warned in Quas Primas: “The hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” A peace agreement between the United States and Iran that does not recognize the kingship of Christ is not peace in the Catholic sense; it is at best a temporary cessation of hostilities, and at worst a consolidation of injustice. The antipope’s satisfaction with such an agreement reveals the depth of his naturalism: he evaluates political events by purely human criteria, with no reference to the moral law or the rights of Christ the King.
The Appeal for Ukraine: Compassion Without Truth
The antipope’s appeal for peace in Ukraine — asking “the Lord to open pathways to dialogue, to extinguish hatred, and to make a just and lasting peace possible” — is equally revealing in its omissions. There is no mention of the persecution of Catholics in Russian-occupied territories, no mention of the schismatic nature of the Russian Orthodox Church, no mention of the necessity of conversion to the Catholic Faith as the true path to peace. The appeal is purely humanitarian, addressed to a generic “Lord,” and framed in terms of “dialogue” — the conciar sect’s universal solvent that dissolves all doctrinal distinctions in the acid of false charity.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation Speaks
The general audience of June 17, 2026, is not a minor diplomatic event. It is a concentrated expression of the theological and spiritual bankruptcy of the conciliar sect. Every element — the praise of “unity despite differences,” the celebration of migration as a means of “rereading the Gospel,” the reduction of the Church’s mission to humanitarian concerns, the vocabulary of “dialogue” and “fraternity,” the naturalistic understanding of peace — is drawn from the playbook of Modernism condemned by Pius IX, St. Pius X, and Pius XI.
The antipope Leo XIV is not the successor of Peter. He is the spokesman of the abomination of desolation that occupies the Vatican — a structure that has replaced the Most Holy Sacrifice with a table of assembly, the preaching of the Gospel with interreligious dialogue, and the social reign of Christ the King with the “civilization of love.” The faithful who cling to the integral Catholic Faith must reject this counterfeit and hold fast to the immutable Tradition, which teaches that there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12) — not “dialogue,” not “fraternity,” not “unity despite differences,” but Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Source:
Pope Leo XIV: Spain is an example of unity despite differences (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 17.06.2026