The OSV News portal, disseminated through the National Catholic Reporter (NCRonline), publishes a hagiographic feature on three 19th-century missionary priests — Fr. Bernard Donnelly, Fr. Valentine Sommereisen, and Msgr. Joseph Buh — framed within the “USA 250” celebration of the Masonic American republic’s semiquincentenary. The article instrumentalizes genuine pre-conciliar missionary zeal to whitewash the conciliar sect’s apostasy, culminating in the report that the “U.S. bishops” at their 2026 spring plenary assembly voted to advance the “canonization cause” of Msgr. Buh under the authority of the usurper “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost). This maneuver exposes the conciliar sect’s strategy: co-opting the sanctity of true priests of the past to confer legitimacy upon a counterfeit church that has abandoned the Social Kingship of Christ for the idolatry of religious liberty and Americanism.
The Naturalist Reduction of the Priesthood to Nation-Building
The article’s lede reveals its anthropocentric telos: “For Americans reflecting on the nation’s history during its 250th birthday, the word ‘pioneer’ might conjure up images of settlers’ covered wagons… It’s rarer, however, to immediately think of the priests who were also among them.” The priesthood is presented not as alter Christus dispensing the mysteries of salvation, but as a functionary of westward expansion. Fr. Donnelly is lauded as “The Builder” who “recruited hundreds of Irish immigrants to literally carve Kansas City, Missouri, out of the tall limestone bluffs” and “owned a brickyard” supplying materials for the cathedral. The supernatural end of the priesthood — salus animarum suprema lex (the salvation of souls is the supreme law) — is entirely eclipsed by a narrative of civil engineering and demographic growth.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, condemns this precise inversion: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The article celebrates the “successes of the Catholic Church in the area” measured in bricks, parishes, and population — the metrics of the Civitas Terrena, not the Civitas Dei. There is no mention of the conversion of infidels, the condemnation of error, the defense of the Faith against the sects, or the establishment of Christ’s Kingship over public life. The “pioneer priest” is stripped of his sacerdotal character and refashioned as a religious NGO coordinator.
Americanism and the “Apostolic Vicariate of Indian Territory”
The article casually references the “Apostolic Vicariate of Indian Territory East of the Rockies” — a canonical structure erected by the true Church to evangelize the heathen. Yet the conciliar sect’s narrative frames this as a precursor to the current “Diocese of Dodge City” and “Diocese of Duluth,” implying institutional continuity where there is only rupture. Fr. Sommereisen’s baptism of 33 Dakota Sioux condemned to death is cited as a triumph, yet the article omits the theological context: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. These baptisms were administered in periculo mortis by a priest who understood the absolute necessity of the Church for salvation — a dogma the conciliar sect has effectively abandoned through its false ecumenism and “religious liberty.”
The Syllabus of Pius IX condemns the proposition: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Error 15). The “USA 250” celebration itself is a commemoration of the Masonic novus ordo seclorum, a regime founded on the separation of Church and State — Error 55: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.” By embedding these priests within the “USA 250 feature series,” OSV News implicitly endorses the Americanist heresy condemned by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae: the adaptation of the Church to the spirit of the age, the silencing of the Church’s rights over civil society, and the praise of the “separation of Church and State” as a blessing.
The Linguistic Camouflage: “Sainthood” Manufactured by Usurpers
The article’s most insidious passage concerns Msgr. Buh: “On June 10, the U.S. bishops voted in support of the Duluth Diocese advancing the cause of Msgr. Buh at their 2026 spring plenary assembly in Orlando, Florida.” Here the terminology of the true Church — “bishops,” “diocese,” “plenary assembly,” “cause for canonization” — is hijacked by the conciliar sect. These “bishops” are not successors of the Apostles but functionaries of a paramasonic structure, invalidly ordained in the post-1968 rite, lacking jurisdiction and mission. Their “vote” has zero canonical value. Nulla est potestas nisi a Deo (there is no power but from God).
Fr. Richard Kunst, identified as “diocesan postulator,” states: “We’re waiting from the Holy See to get the approval back… That’s when we would say that the cause is formally introduced, and he’ll automatically get the title ‘Servant of God.'” The “Holy See” referenced is the Vatican occupied by the antipopes since 1958. The “title ‘Servant of God'” conferred by an antipope is a theatrical prop. As Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis, the Church’s sanctity is not a human fabrication but a divine attribute. The conciliar sect’s “canonization factory” — producing “saints” like John Paul II, John XXIII, Paul VI, and now potentially Msgr. Buh — is a profanation of the cultus sanctorum, designed to canonize the conciliar revolution itself.
The Relic Trade and the Simulacrum of Sanctity
The article reveals: “Since the 1940s, second-class relics have circulated… the Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery had holy cards made with bits of cloth from one of his shirts.” This ante factum veneration — “Even though there was no formal cause, it was just the idea of the sanctity… They just knew — this priest is going to have some sort of cause for canonization” — manifests the conciliar sect’s subjectivist theology: sanctity is determined by popular sentiment and institutional momentum, not by heroic virtue confirmed by the infallible Magisterium. The “special casket intended to be exhumed” reveals a macabre premeditation: the corpse is treated as a future commodity for the “canonization industry.”
St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu condemned the Modernist proposition: “The Church listening cooperates in such a way with the Church teaching in defining truths of faith, that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Prop. 6). Here, the “common opinion” of the Duluth faithful is elevated above the judgment of the true Church. The true Msgr. Buh (if he died in 1922 in the odor of sanctity) belongs to the Church Triumphant; his memory is profaned by the conciliar sect’s exploitation.
Symptomatic Level: The Conciliar Sect’s Parasitic Dependence on Pre-1958 Holiness
The article’s very existence testifies to the spiritual bankruptcy of the conciliar sect. Fifty-eight years after the close of Vatican II, the “Church of the New Advent” cannot produce a single undisputed saint from its own ranks — only “saints” manufactured to ratify the Council (John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II) or dubious mystics (Faustina Kowalska, Maximilian Kolbe). It must parasitically feed on the authentic sanctity of pre-conciliar missionaries like Donnelly, Sommereisen, and Buh to maintain a façade of continuity.
This is the modus operandi of the Abomination of Desolation: occupy the visible structures, strip them of supernatural content, and refill them with naturalistic hero-worship. The “pioneer priest” becomes a mascot for the Civitas Americana, not a soldier of Christus Rex. The article’s closing — “This story appears in the USA 250 feature series” — is the signature of the Antichurch: the Kingdom of Christ is reduced to a subplot in the Masonic narrative of American exceptionalism.
Theological Verdict: Non Possumus
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the article is a tissue of idolatry of the nation, usurpation of ecclesiastical authority, and simulation of sanctity. The true priests mentioned — if they remained faithful to the pre-conciliar rites and doctrine — now intercede for the restoration of the Church, not for the success of the conciliar sect’s “USA 250” propaganda. The “canonization cause” of Msgr. Buh, processed by invalid “bishops” under an antipope, is nulla, vacua, et irrita (null, void, and of no effect) — to borrow the language of Paul IV’s Cum ex Apostolatus Officio regarding heretical elevations.
The faithful Catholic must reject this narrative entirely. Non est alia salus nisi in Ecclesia Catholica (there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church) — the true Church, which subsists in the remnant preserving the integral Faith, the traditional Mass, and the unbroken episcopal lineage, not in the conciliar sect occupying the Vatican. The pioneer priests built for Christ the King; the conciliar sect builds for the “king of kings” of the Apocalypse — the Antichrist.
Source:
Tales of pioneer priests recall the building of Catholic America (ncronline.org)
Date: 30.06.2026