Vatican News portal reports on the aftermath of the Venezuelan earthquake, featuring an interview with Father Luis Antonio García Thomas, a “parish priest” in Caracas, who describes the devastation while praising the response of the conciliar structures and the words of “Pope” Leo XIV. The cited article relates how this cleric of the post-conciliar sect views the catastrophe as an opportunity for “synodality” and “evangelisation,” reducing the Church’s mission to social assistance and public prayer in squares, while the structural collapse of his church building is treated as a mere logistical detail rather than a profound symbol of the spiritual ruin wrought by the modernist revolution.
When Buildings Crumble and Faith Modernizes: The Venezuelan Earthquake Through the Lens of the Conciliar Revolution
The interview with Father Luis Antonio García Thomas, published by Vatican News on June 30, 2026, presents a case study in how the post-conciliar institution interprets natural disasters through the distorted prism of its own theological errors. While the physical suffering of the Venezuelan people is real and demands authentic Catholic charity, the framework through which this “priest” and the conciliar apparatus process that suffering reveals the profound spiritual bankruptcy of the neo-church. Every statement, every omission, and every rhetorical choice in this interview bears the unmistakable marks of the modernist apostasy that has consumed the structures occupying the Vatican since the mid-twentieth century.
The Collapse of Sacred Architecture as Spiritual Metaphor
Father García reports with remarkable detachment that “the roof of the Coromoto nave collapsed completely” and that “one of the bell towers is now almost completely unsupported and could collapse at any moment.” He acknowledges this poses “a serious risk” to the surrounding community, yet the theological significance of this destruction passes entirely unremarked. In the integral Catholic tradition, the church building is not merely a gathering place for the community; it is the house of God on earth, the place where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered, where the Blessed Sacrament resides, and where the faithful come into contact with the sacred through the sacraments administered by validly ordained priests acting *in persona Christi*.
The collapse of a church roof and the imminent danger of a bell tower falling are not merely engineering problems requiring insurance claims and reconstruction funds. They are, in the symbolic language of divine providence, potent signs of what has occurred within those very walls since the imposition of the post-conciliar reforms. When the liturgy was gutted, when the true Mass was suppressed and replaced by the Protestantized “New Mass” of Paul VI, when altars were torn down and communion rails removed, the spiritual roof of that edifice collapsed long before the physical roof followed suit. The bell tower, which once called the faithful to the true worship of God through the Most Holy Sacrifice, now stands unsupported because the faith it proclaimed has been hollowed out and replaced with the anthropocentric nonsense of “synodality” and “accompaniment.”
St. Pius X, in his encyclical *Pascendi Dominici Gregis* (1907), warned that the Modernists “proceed to act upon the principle that is common to them, namely, that the religious sense, which through the agency of vital immanence springs from the hiding-places of the subconsciousness, is the foundation of all religion.” The physical destruction of sacred buildings, in this modernist framework, becomes merely an occasion for “putting into practice synodality” rather than a call to repentance and restoration of the true worship that alone sanctifies both buildings and souls.
“Synodality” as the Replacement for Supernatural Mission
Perhaps the most revealing statement in the entire interview comes when Father García declares: “We have been able to respond, we have organised ourselves, and I believe this has also allowed us to put into practice the synodality that we have reflected on, prayed for, and shared throughout the Jubilee Year of Hope.” This single sentence encapsulates the entire modernist revolution in miniature. A catastrophic earthquake has killed over 1,400 people, left thousands homeless, and reduced sacred buildings to rubble. The response of this conciliar “priest” is not to call the people to repentance, not to urge them to receive the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist in their true form, not to remind them of the Four Last Things—death, judgment, heaven, and hell—but to celebrate the opportunity to practice “synodality.”
The term “synodality” is itself a modernist neologism with no basis in the integral Catholic tradition. It emerged from the post-conciliar obsession with democratizing the Church, as if the Mystical Body of Christ were a parliamentary assembly rather than a divine institution established by Our Lord Jesus Christ with a hierarchical structure of authority flowing from the papacy through the episcopate to the priesthood and laity. The Church does not “go forth” as a horizontal community organizing itself in public squares; she teaches, governs, and sanctifies with the authority received from Christ through the Apostles and their legitimate successors.
Pius XI, in *Quas Primas* (1925), established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularist error that would remove Christ and His law from public life. He declared that “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men” and that “it matters not whether individuals, families, or states, for men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.” The modernist inversion is complete when a natural disaster becomes an occasion not for proclaiming Christ’s kingship and the necessity of supernatural faith, but for celebrating horizontal “synodality” and community organizing.
The Cult of “Accompaniment” and the Abandonment of Doctrinal Truth
Father García concludes his interview with the exhortation: “Let us continue to be a Church that goes forth. Let us continue to accompany one another and remain present.” This language of “accompaniment” has become the hallmark of the Bergoglian revolution and its continuation under Leo XIV. It sounds compassionate, even spiritual, but it is in reality a radical departure from the Church’s true mission. The Church does not merely “accompany” people in their suffering as if she were a social worker or a therapist; she teaches them the truths of faith, administers the sacraments that confer sanctifying grace, and leads them to eternal salvation through the narrow gate.
The integral Catholic position is clear: the greatest act of charity one can perform for a suffering soul is to help it save its immortal soul. Material assistance, while obligatory as a work of mercy, is secondary to the spiritual works of mercy—instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, admonishing sinners, bearing wrongs patiently, forgiving offenses, comforting the afflicted, and praying for the living and the dead. Yet in the entire interview, there is not a single mention of the necessity of confession, of the true Mass, of prayer for the dead in the traditional form, of the Last Judgment, or of the state of grace. The supernatural is entirely absent, replaced by the naturalistic humanism that Pius IX condemned in the *Syllabus of Errors* as the error that “the entire government of public schools… should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority” and that “Catholics may approve of the system of educating youth unconnected with Catholic faith.”
The Usurper on Peter’s Throne as “Source of Encouragement”
Father García explicitly states that the words of “Pope” Leo XIV “have been a great source of encouragement for all of us” and that “the people who have suffered as a result of this disaster have truly felt accompanied and are deeply grateful.” This is perhaps the most spiritually dangerous element of the entire interview. The man currently occupying the Vatican under the name Leo XIV is, from the perspective of integral Catholic faith, a usurper and an antipope. He is the latest in a line of modernist innovators beginning with John XXIII who have imposed upon the conciliar sect a revolution in doctrine, liturgy, and discipline that is incompatible with the Catholic faith.
To seek “encouragement” from such a figure is to seek light from darkness and comfort from the source of the very crisis afflicting the Church. The true Pope, whoever he may be (and the See has been considered vacant by sedevacantist theologians precisely because the occupants have manifested heresy), would never promote “synodality,” “accompaniment,” or the reduction of the Church’s mission to social assistance. He would call the faithful to prayer, penance, and the restoration of all things in Christ—beginning with the restoration of the true Mass and the integral Catholic faith.
St. Robert Bellarmine, as cited in the *Defense of Sedevacantism*, taught that “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 manifest heresies of the post-conciliar “popes”—their promotion of religious liberty, ecumenism, and the evolution of doctrine—are not private opinions but public, repeated, and obstinate manifestations of heresy that have caused the spiritual ruin of millions. To be “encouraged” by such a figure is to be encouraged in error.
The Omission of True Evangelization
Father García claims that the earthquake “has also enabled us as a Church to mobilise our strengths, not only in providing social assistance but also in evangelisation.” But what is this “evangelisation” he describes? He explains: “We have been able to care for victims spiritually, gather in public squares to pray, celebrate, and worship together, and that has brought us comfort.” This is not evangelization; it is the simulation of religious activity stripped of its supernatural content. True evangelization is the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—His divinity, His atoning death, His resurrection, the necessity of baptism, the reality of hell, the offer of heaven through the Catholic Church alone, and the urgency of conversion.
The post-conciliar “evangelization” is, as St. Pius X warned in *Lamentabili Sane Exitu*, the reduction of Christian doctrine to “a certain interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind has worked out with great effort” (condemned proposition 22). It is the denial that “the dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are truths of divine origin” and their replacement with a humanistic message of solidarity and community. When Father García speaks of “gathering in public squares to pray, celebrate, and worship together,” he is describing the liturgical revolution of the conciliar sect—the replacement of the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary with a communal meal celebrated in the vernacular on makeshift altars, facing the people, with lay “ministers” distributing unconsecrated bread.
The Venezuelan Episcopal Conference as Channel for Material Aid
The interview concludes with Father García directing potential donors to “the official accounts of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference.” This is the episcopal conference of the conciliar sect in Venezuela, an institution created by the post-conciliar revolution and entirely subordinate to the modernist innovations of Vatican II and its implementers. To donate to such an institution is to support the very structures that have emptied the churches, suppressed the true Mass, and led countless souls into religious indifferentism.
The integral Catholic faithful, moved by genuine charity toward the suffering people of Venezuela, should seek out channels that are faithful to Tradition—priests and religious communities that maintain the true Mass, the true sacraments, and the integral Catholic faith. To give to the conciliar structures is to participate in their modernist agenda, supporting an institution that has abandoned its divine mission in favor of naturalistic humanitarianism.
The Silence That Condemns
What is most striking about this interview is not what it says but what it omits. There is no mention of the true Mass, no call to confession, no warning about the state of grace, no reference to the Last Judgment, no invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in her true role as Mediatrix of All Graces, no appeal to the intercession of the saints canonized before the modernist revolution, no reminder that man’s ultimate end is the vision of God in heaven and that all earthly suffering is temporary compared to eternity.
This silence is not accidental; it is the defining characteristic of the modernist apostasy. As Pius IX declared in the *Syllabus of Errors*, the modernists seek to separate the Church from all temporal authority and to reduce religion to a private sentiment with no binding doctrinal content. The result is a “Church” that responds to earthquakes with the same tools any secular NGO would employ—organizing, fundraising, providing social assistance—while entirely neglecting the supernatural mission for which Christ established His Church.
The Venezuelan earthquake, like all natural disasters, is a reminder of human mortality and the fragility of earthly things. The proper Catholic response is not “synodality” but repentance, not “accompaniment” but conversion, not public prayer in squares but the true Sacrifice of the Mass in churches restored to their sacred purpose. Until the conciliar sect returns to the integral Catholic faith and the true worship of God, its responses to human suffering will remain what they are in this interview: naturalistic, modernist, and spiritually barren.
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Source:
Parish Priest in Caracas: Many people left with unsafe homes (vaticannews.va)
Date: 30.06.2026