The EWTN News portal (July 11, 2026) publishes an article by R. Jared Staudt, Director of Content at the modernist “Exodus 90” program and a self-styled “Benedictine oblate” of the conciliar sect, promoting the St. Benedict medal as a “shield against the powers of darkness.” The piece recounts the medal’s history, the 1741 approval by Pope Benedict XIV, the 19th-century advocacy of Dom Prosper Guéranger, and the medal’s inscriptions, concluding with a commercial plug for the “EWTN Religious Catalogue.” The article treats a legitimate pre-conciliar sacramental as a standalone spiritual commodity, utterly divorced from the Una, Sancta, Catholica et Apostolica Church, the valid priesthood, and the Sacrosanctum Sacrificium — revealing the neo-church’s reduction of the supernatural order to naturalistic self-help.
The Neo-Church’s Counterfeit Sacramentalism
The cited article presents the St. Benedict medal as a talisman of “faith and confidence in God” accessible to anyone who purchases it from the “EWTN Religious Catalogue site.” This is the essence of the conciliar revolution’s sacramentalism without sacraments. St. Pius X, in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), condemned the Modernist proposition that “The sacraments merely serve to remind man of the presence of the ever-benevolent Creator” (Prop. 41). The neo-church, of which EWTN is a primary propaganda organ, has realized this heresy: it simulates the externals of piety — medals, rosaries, “oblates” — while denying the ex opere operato efficacy of the true Sacraments administered by valid priests. The article’s silence on the necessity of the state of grace, the Sacrosanctum Sacrificium, and the jurisdiction of a true bishop is not an oversight; it is the modus operandi of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15). A sacramental detached from the Church’s potestas iurisdictionis and potestas ordinis is reduced to a superstitious charm, precisely the “superstitious way” the article superficially warns against while implicitly promoting.
The Illusion of Continuity: Guéranger Dragged Into Modernity
The article invokes Dom Prosper Guéranger (1805–1875), the restorer of Benedictine life in France, to legitimize the medal’s modern use. Guéranger, a stalwart of the Syllabus era who fought Gallicanism and liberal Catholicism, is here weaponized by the very forces he opposed. The article quotes his preface to The Medal or Cross of St. Benedict: “In an age when ‘rationalism is so rife,’ God has deigned to offer help to those ‘who put their confidence in the sacred signs marked on the medal’ with ‘strong and simple’ faith.” This is a calculated hermeneutic of rupture disguised as continuity. Guéranger understood the medal as a weapon of the Ecclesia Militans under the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in communion with him. The neo-church, having abandoned the Syllabus condemnations of “the separation of the Church from the State” (Error 55) and “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself… with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Error 80), uses Guéranger’s words to adorn a spirituality of ecclesia domestica individualism. The “rationalism” Guéranger fought has triumphed in the “Archdiocese of Denver” where Staudt served as “Director of Formation” — a structure that recognizes the usurper “Leo XIV” (Robert Prevost) as Vicar of Christ.
The Layman’s Presumption: Staudt and the Exodus 90 Phenomenon
R. Jared Staudt, a layman with a doctorate from the post-conciliar “Ave Maria University” (founded 1998), styles himself a “Benedictine oblate” and “Director of Content” for “Exodus 90” — a program emblematic of the neo-church’s cult of man and democratization of the spiritual life. The article notes his past roles: “director of religious education in two parishes and Director of Formation for the Offices of Evangelization and Catholic Schools of the Archdiocese of Denver.” These titles, within the conciliar sect, signify participation in the destruction of the priesthood and the usurpation of the teaching office by the laity. Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), teaches that “the Church, established by Christ as a perfect society, demands for itself by a right belonging to it… full freedom and independence from secular authority.” The “Archdiocese of Denver” is a civil corporation subject to the usurpers in the Vatican; its “Offices of Evangelization” propagate the false ecumenism and religious liberty condemned by Pius IX and St. Pius X. Staudt’s “theological journal Nova et Vetera” is a organ of the nouvelle théologie condemned by Pius XII in Humani Generis (1950). His “Benedictine oblation” is a simulation, lacking canonical erection by a valid abbot in communion with the true Roman Pontiff — the last of whom was Pius XII (d. 1958).
Commercialization of the Sacred: EWTN’s Religious Catalogue
The article concludes with a undisguised advertisement: “St. Benedict medals and rosaries with the medal affixed can be purchased at religious gift stores and can be blessed after purchase. Medals are also available at EWTN’s Religious Catalogue site.” This is the simony of the neo-church: the merchandising of grace. The “blessing” mentioned — “can be blessed after purchase” — presupposes a valid priest using the Rituale Romanum (pre-1962). In the conciliar sect, the “Book of Blessings” (1984) has replaced the traditional rites, and the “priests” are ordained in the invalid Paul VI rite (1968), rendering their blessings sacramentally null. The faithful are thus sold a piece of metal devoid of the Church’s benedictio constitutiva, while EWTN — the “Eternal Word Television Network,” founded by the “Franciscan” Mother Angelica (d. 2016), a darling of the usurpers — profits. This commercialization fulfills the Syllabus condemnation of those who think “the civil power may… suppress the said religious orders… and subject their property and revenues to the administration and pleasure of the civil power” (Error 53), here applied to the spiritual patrimony of the Church by the paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican.
The Absence of the True Mass and Priesthood
Nowhere does the article mention the Sacrosanctum Sacrificium, the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary, or the necessity of a validly ordained priest. The St. Benedict medal, in authentic Catholic theology, derives its efficacy from the passion of Christ applied through the Church’s intercession — per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso. The medal’s exorcistic formula — “Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!” — is a prayer of the Church Militant, not a private incantation. The article’s reduction of the medal to a personal “shield” for “our journey of faith” epitomizes the Modernist error condemned in Lamentabili: “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities” (Prop. 25) and “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). The neo-church offers a pragmatic spirituality: buy the medal, feel protected, ignore the vacancy of the Holy See, the invalidity of the Novus Ordo Missae, and the apostasy of the hierarchy.
Liturgical Modernism: The Feast Day Shift
The article opens: “St. Benedict, whose feast the Catholic Church celebrates on July 11…” This date is the innovation of the 1969 Calendarium Romanum of Paul VI (Montini), moving the feast from March 21 (the traditional date of his transitus) to July 11 (the translation of his relics). This liturgical vandalism, part of the lex orandi, lex credendi revolution, severs the faithful from the sanctoral cycle that formed Christendom for 1400 years. The neo-church’s calendar is a manifesto of its rupture with Tradition. By adopting the new date, EWTN and Staudt signal allegiance to the conciliar liturgical reform — the “new Pentecost” that has produced a desert. The true Church, adhering to the Missale Romanum of St. Pius V (1570) as codified by St. Pius X (1911) and St. Pius XII (1955), celebrates St. Benedict on March 21. The July 11 feast is a badge of the Church of the New Advent.
Conclusion: A Shield Without the Armor of God
The article is a masterpiece of neo-church deception: it offers the signa of Tradition (the medal, Guéranger, Benedict XIV) while serving the substantia of Modernism (lay-led spirituality, commercialized sacramentals, invalid liturgy, recognition of the usurper). St. Benedict, the Patriarch of Western Monasticism, who fled the world to seek God alone (quaerere Deum), would recoil at his medal being hawked by a media empire built on the “dialogue” and “religious liberty” he would have anathematized. The true shield against the powers of darkness is not a medal purchased from a catalogue, but the Armadura Dei (Eph. 6:11): the Sacrosanctum Sacrificium offered by a valid priest, the Sacramentum Poenitentiae administered by a true confessor, the Regula lived under a legitimate abbot, and submission to the true Vicar of Christ — not “Leo XIV,” not Bergoglio, not Montini, not Roncalli, but the See of Peter vacant since 1958, awaiting the Rex Christus who “shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth” (Ps. 71:8). Non praevalebunt (Matt. 16:18) — but not through the neo-church’s simulacra.
Source:
How the St. Benedict medal became a shield against the powers of darkness (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 11.07.2026