VaticanNews portal publishes a commentary on the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time by Fr. Marion Nguyen, OSB, who, under the pious pretext of “preferring nothing to Christ,” offers a characteristically modernist homily that reduces the demands of the Gospel to naturalistic humanitarianism while remaining entirely silent on the obligations of the Faith, the sacramental life, and the social reign of Christ the King. The article is a textbook example of how the conciliar sect simulates piety while hollowing out doctrine, presenting a Christ who demands nothing supernatural and a Church that has no visible, hierarchical, and infallible authority.
A Christ Without a Crown: The Modernist Evacuation of the Gospel
The commentary begins by citing Our Lord’s words: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:37). Fr. Nguyen correctly identifies that Christ demands the primacy of affection, yet immediately dilutes this demand by framing it in purely subjective and psychological terms. He writes: “Jesus is not commanding us to love our families less. Rather, he calls us to love everyone through him rather than apart from him.” This seemingly innocent statement conceals a modernist error: the reduction of supernatural charity to a vague, horizontal “loving through Christ” that never specifies what it means to love Christ Himself as He is — the God-Man who founded a visible, hierarchical Church to which all must submit for salvation. The author omits entirely that to love Christ above all else means to love His Church, to profess the Catholic Faith without compromise, to receive the sacraments validly, and to submit to the authority of the Roman Pontiff — obligations that the conciliar sect has systematically dismantled.
The Cross Reduced to “Ordinary Acts of Charity”
Fr. Nguyen’s treatment of the cross is perhaps the most revealing passage. He writes: “Saint Bernard of Clairvaux reminds us that this radical discipleship is normally not lived through extraordinary acts of heroism but through ordinary acts of charity.” While there is a partial truth here — sanctity is indeed lived in daily duties — the modernist distortion lies in what is omitted. The cross, for the post-conciliar mentality, never includes the duty to profess the Faith publicly against a persecuting Church, to reject the apostasies of the conciliar sect, or to suffer for the integral Catholic Faith. The “ordinary acts of charity” become a substitute for doctrinal fidelity, a way to avoid the hard demands of the Gospel in an age of universal apostasy. St. Gregory the Great, whom the author invokes, taught that the cross includes the duty to rebuke error and to suffer for justice — a dimension entirely absent from this commentary.
Silence on the Social Reign of Christ the King
The most damning omission is the complete silence on the social kingship of Christ. Pius XI, in the encyclical Quas Primas, taught with irrefutable clarity: “His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” To “prefer nothing to Christ” means to prefer nothing to His public and social reign over nations, to His authority to command what is forbidden and forbid what is commanded by civil authorities when they contradict divine law. Fr. Nguyen’s Christ is a private, interior Christ — a Christ who makes no claims on states, on laws, on education, on the public order. This is the Christ of the conciliar sect, the Christ of religious liberty, the Christ who has been dethroned by the very “Church” that claims to preach him.
The Hermeneutic of Continuity as Apostasy
The author invokes St. Benedict’s Rule: “Let them prefer absolutely nothing to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life” (RB 72:11–12). Yet the conciliar sect, which Fr. Nguyen serves, has preferred everything to Christ: it has preferred dialogue with heretics to the condemnation of heresy, it has preferred religious liberty to the social reign of Christ the King, it has preferred ecumenism to the conversion of non-Catholics, it has preferred the “spirit of the Council” to the perennial Magisterium. The very “Church” that publishes this commentary has systematically violated the principle it claims to preach. As Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors, proposition 80: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” — an error that the conciliar sect has not merely embraced but made the foundation of its entire existence.
The “Cup of Cold Water” Without the Living Water of Grace
Fr. Nguyen concludes with the beautiful image of the cup of cold water: “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward” (Mt 10:42). Yet he remains silent on the fact that the conciliar sect has emptied the sacraments of their efficacy, that the “Eucharist” it offers is a Protestantized memorial that does not contain the true Body and Blood of Christ, that the “little ones” are being starved of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the sacrament of confession as taught by the Council of Trent. To offer a cup of cold water while withholding the living water of grace is not charity but cruelty. St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu, condemned the modernist proposition that “the sacraments merely serve to remind man of the presence of the ever-benevolent Creator” (Proposition 41) — yet this is precisely the theology that underlies the conciliar liturgical revolution and the commentary that Fr. Nguyen offers.
The Abbot of the New Church
Fr. Marion Nguyen, OSB, identifies himself as “Abbot of St. Martin Abbey—Lacey, Washington.” He is a monk of the post-conciliar Benedictine Confederation, an institution that has largely abandoned the integral Catholic Faith in favor of the very modernism condemned by St. Pius X. His commentary, published by VaticanNews — the official organ of the conciliar sect — is not an act of Catholic preaching but an act of simulation. It uses the language of the Gospel to preach a Christ who demands nothing that the conciliar sect has not already abandoned. The true Catholic response to the Thirteenth Sunday Gospel is not Fr. Nguyen’s naturalistic humanitarianism but the integral demand of Christ: to profess the Faith without compromise, to reject the apostasies of the conciliar sect, to seek the valid sacraments from true priests, and to work for the restoration of the social reign of Christ the King.
“Let them prefer absolutely nothing to Christ” — this means preferring nothing to His truth, nothing to His Church, nothing to His sacraments, nothing to His social reign. It means rejecting the conciliar sect with the same firmness with which the early Christians rejected the Roman Empire. Fr. Nguyen’s commentary is a masterclass in how to speak of Christ while betraying Him — a skill perfected by the modernists whom St. Pius X called “the synthesis of all errors.”
Source:
Lord's Day Reflection: 'Preferring nothing whatever to Christ’ (vaticannews.va)
Date: 27.06.2026