The National Catholic Register, a propaganda organ of the conciliar sect operating under the EWTN umbrella, publishes an interview conducted by its senior contributor Edward Pentin with former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. The interview, recorded on the sidelines of the “Alliance for Responsible Citizenship” (ARC) conference in London — a Jordan Peterson-adjacent gathering devoted to the naturalistic “reconstruction” of the West — features Abbott defending his government’s draconian immigration policies under the utilitarian rubric of “the least bad option,” criticizing Catholic bishops for opposing them, lamenting “cultural Catholicism” in politicians like Andy Burnham, and declaring the late Cardinal George Pell a “modern-day saint” and “contemporary martyr.” The article epitomizes the bankruptcy of political Catholicism severed from the Social Kingship of Christ: it substitutes the Civitas Dei for the Civitas Terrena, replaces the immutable moral law with consequentialist statecraft, and usurps the Church’s sole prerogative to judge sanctity.
The Idolatry of “Western Civilization” vs. The Social Kingship of Christ
Abbott tells Pentin that the ARC conference is “unique” because it delves into “culture and civilization,” asserting that “politics is often said to be downstream of culture, and ultimately culture is downstream of faith — a faith that people can believe in that’s bigger than themselves.” This formulation, redolent of the Action Française error condemned by St. Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique (1910), inverts the Catholic order. The Faith is not a sociological glue for “Western civilization”; it is the supernatural revelation of the Triune God demanding the submission of every knee — of individuals, families, and states — to Christ the King.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), teaches with unmistakable clarity: “His reign encompasses not only 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 encyclical condemns the “plague… of secularism, so-called laicism” which “began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” Abbott’s “faith bigger than themselves” is a vague, Masonic theism — the “Great Architect” of the lodges — not the Fides Catholica. He seeks a “Catholic political presence” to save the City of Man, not to extend the Kingdom of God. This is the essence of the Sillon heresy: the democratization of the Church, the reduction of the Divine to a human project.
Utilitarian Ethics: “The Least Bad Option” and the Rejection of Moral Absolutes
The most theologically destructive moment in the interview is Abbott’s explicit embrace of consequentialism: “I’ve often observed that moral theologians don’t normally make good statesmen because sometimes in this imperfect world you’ve got to choose the least bad option.” This sentence alone condemns him as a modernist pragmatist. Catholic moral theology, grounded in the Decalogue and the natural law, teaches that one may never do evil that good may come of it (Romans 3:8). The end does not justify the means. An intrinsically evil act — such as the deliberate drowning of migrants as a deterrent, or the indefinite detention of the innocent without trial — remains evil regardless of the “good” consequence of “stopping the boats.”
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), condemned the Modernist proposition that “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities” (Prop. 25) and that “The dogmas of faith should be understood according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief” (Prop. 26). Abbott operationalizes this heresy: morality becomes a calculation of utility for the State. He speaks of the “people-smuggling trade” as “evil” — which it is — but then justifies “pretty direct action” akin to “war” to stop it, implicitly endorsing the suspension of justice and charity for non-citizens. This is the raison d’État of the Enlightenment, not the Lex Christi.
The Myth of the “Humanitarian” Border: Naturalism vs. Supernatural Order
Abbott claims: “The humanitarian thing to do — the genuinely humanitarian thing — is to stop people-smuggling.” He frames the exclusion of asylum seekers as an act of mercy (“stop drownings”). This is the language of the Rights of Man, not the Rights of God. The Syllabus of Errors (Pope Pius IX, 1864) condemns the proposition: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Prop. 55) and “The civil government… has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs” (Prop. 41). Abbott’s State is the absolute sovereign, defining its own “humanitarian” duties toward its own “citizens” — “you’ve got a duty to your own citizens that trumps any duty to give a better life to outsiders who have no real claim on you.”
This is a flat denial of the Catholic doctrine of the Communio Sanctorum and the universal destination of goods. While the State has a primary duty to its own subjects (ordo caritatis), this duty is exercised sub Deo, under the judgment of Christ the King, and cannot abrogate the natural right of the persecuted to seek refuge or the divine command to welcome the stranger (Matthew 25:35). Abbott’s rhetoric mirrors the “cultural Marxism” he decries: both reduce man to a unit of political utility, one by class, the other by citizenship. Neither acknowledges the Imago Dei in the “outsider.”
Canonization by Soundbite: The Beatification of Cardinal Pell by a Lay Politician
Abbott’s declaration — “I think Cardinal Pell was a modern-day saint. He was, in a sense, a contemporary martyr, given that he was subjected to a form of living crucifixion” — is a usurpation of the Potestas Clavium. Canonization belongs solely to the Supreme Pontiff exercising the charism of infallibility; beatification requires a rigorous canonical process proving heroic virtue and miracles. A lay politician, ignorant of theology, declares a “saint” based on political sympathy and media persecution.
Cardinal Pell was a man of the Second Vatican Council, a signatory of its documents, a participant in the conciliar “magisterium” which teaches religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae), collegiality, and false ecumenism — doctrines condemned by the perennial Magisterium (Pius IX, Quanta Cura; Pius XI, Mortalium Animos; Pius XII, Humani Generis). To call him a “martyr” — one who dies in odium fidei for the Catholic Faith — is a blasphemy against the true martyrs of the Catacombs, the Cristeros, and the Spanish Civil War. Pell died in a hospital bed after heart surgery, a cardinal of the conciliar sect. Abbott’s “canonization” reveals the cult of personality that replaces the Cult of the Saints in the neo-church.
The ARC Conference: A Masonic “Reconstruction” of the City of Man
The “Alliance for Responsible Citizenship” (ARC), hosted by the “psychologist” Jordan Peterson and Baroness Stroud, is a paradigmatic Masonic front: a “brotherhood” of “responsible citizens” of all religions and none, united to rebuild the “West” on naturalistic foundations — “faith bigger than themselves,” “shared values,” “civilizational renewal.” It is the City of Man attempting to mimic the City of God without Grace, without the Cross, without the Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.
Pius XI in Quas Primas warns: “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.” ARC derives authority from “culture” and “civilization” — from men. Abbott praises it because it validates his political project. This is the Laicism condemned by the Syllabus (Prop. 55) and Quas Primas: the pretense that a temporal order can be “Christian” in spirit while rejecting the Kingship of Christ in law.
The Register and EWTN: Propaganda Organs of the Conciliar Sect
The interviewer, Edward Pentin, is the “Vatican Analyst” for EWTN and the Register — the media apparatus of the “Church of the New Advent.” His questions are softballs designed to platform a “conservative” Catholic politician who validates the conciliar establishment’s political engagement. The Register never asks: “Mr. Abbott, how do you reconcile your ‘least bad option’ utilitarianism with Veritatis Splendor (even the conciliar encyclical) or the Council of Trent on the impossibility of observing the commandments without grace?” It never asks: “By what authority do you declare Cardinal Pell a saint?” The Register functions to normalize the status quo of the neo-church: political activism substituting for sanctity, the State substituting for the Church, “Western values” substituting for the Kingship of Christ.
Silence on the Supernatural: The Grave Omission of the Mass and the Kingship of Christ
The most damning indictment is what is absent. In an interview about “faith in the public square,” there is zero mention of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments, the State of Grace, the conversion of nations to the Catholic Faith, the Social Kingship of Christ the King, or the necessity of the Church’s freedom (Libertas Ecclesiae) from the State. Abbott speaks of “Mass and sacraments” only as a personal piety check for politicians (“better people… if we’re more regular at Mass”), not as the fons et culmen of the Christian social order.
This silence is the signature of Modernism. St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis identifies the Modernist tactic: “They put forward the idea of a ‘vital immanence’… religion is reduced to a sentiment, a feeling.” Abbott’s Catholicism is a sentiment, a cultural marker, a political asset. It is not the Regnum Christi. The “reconstruction” he seeks is the reconstruction of Babel. Non est in eo salus (Acts 4:12). There is no salvation — temporal or eternal — in the “least bad options” of Tony Abbott, the ARC, or the conciliar sect that platforms them. Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat.
Source:
Tony Abbott: ‘Sometimes Governments Must Choose the Least Bad Option’ (ncregister.com)
Date: 07.07.2026