The National Catholic Register, a flagship publication of the conciliar sect, publishes a hagiographic profile of Sherry Weddell and her 2012 book Forming Intentional Disciples, celebrating its widespread adoption across the neo-church’s dioceses and parishes. The article details Weddell’s conversion from “uber-fundamentalist” Protestantism, her founding of the Catherine of Siena Institute, and the propagation of her “thresholds of conversion” methodology through workshops training “lay pastoral leaders, priests, deacons and bishops” in over 1,000 parishes and 200 dioceses. It quotes the “Bishop” Joseph Williams of Camden distributing 450 copies to his “diocesan leaders” and “Msgr.” James Shea praising her “profound” contribution. The piece culminates in Weddell’s satisfaction that “more people entering now on a personal quest” rather than for marriage. This article exposes the total Protestantization of the conciliar sect’s “evangelization,” replacing the supernatural life of grace and the Social Kingship of Christ with a naturalistic, experience-based methodology indistinguishable from the very Protestant sects Weddell fled.
The Theft of Catholic Terminology for a Protestant Substance
The cited article relates that Weddell’s central thesis is that “the majority of Catholics she encountered… were well-meaning, faithful Massgoers, but they could not be called disciples” because they lacked “a personal relationship with God.” This is the heretical doctrine of sola fide disguised in Catholic vocabulary. The Council of Trent anathematizes anyone who says “that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us” (Session VI, Canon 12). The true Catholic disciple is not defined by a subjective “personal relationship” — a phrase foreign to the Magisterium before the conciliar revolution — but by incorporation into the Mystical Body of Christ through valid Baptism, the profession of the integral Catholic Faith, participation in the true Sacrifice of the Mass, and obedience to the divinely instituted hierarchy. As Pius XII teaches in Mystici Corporis Christi: “Only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.” Weddell’s criterion makes discipleship a private religious experience, effectively denying the ex opere operato efficacy of the sacraments and the objective reality of the Church as a perfect society (societas perfecta).
Reduction of the Church’s Mission to Naturalistic Humanism
The article reveals the entirely horizontal, anthropocentric focus of Weddell’s program: “accompanying others on their spiritual journeys,” “being good listeners,” “telling their stories to somebody who really listens.” Nowhere is there mention of the Missio ad Gentes, the conversion of nations to the Catholic Faith, the Social Kingship of Christ the King, or the necessity of the Church for salvation (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus). Pius XI in Quas Primas declares: “His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ… Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ.” The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX) condemns the proposition that “The Church is not a true and perfect society… but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church” (Error 19) and that “The Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society” (Error 40). Weddell’s “discipleship” is a purely privatized, therapeutic spirituality that leaves the res publica entirely to the Masonic state. It is the practical application of the condemned proposition: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Syllabus, Error 80).
The “Kerygma” Without Dogma: Modernist Evolution of Doctrine
The article states Weddell aims to reintroduce Catholics to “the Person of Jesus Christ through the kerygma — the proclamation of the Gospel message.” This is the Modernist separation of the “Christ of faith” from the “Jesus of history,” condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (Propositions 27-35). The decree condemns: “The Gospels do not prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ, but it is a dogma which Christian consciousness has derived from the concept of the Messiah” (Prop. 27); “The teaching about Christ transmitted by Paul, John, and by the Councils… does not correspond to the teaching of Jesus, but is a teaching about Jesus formulated by Christian consciousness” (Prop. 31); “Christian doctrine was initially Jewish, but through gradual development, it became first Pauline, then Johannine, and finally Greek and universal” (Prop. 60). Weddell’s “kerygma” stripped of the Credo, the defined dogmas of Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Trent, and the anathemas of the Council of Trent, is precisely the “dogmaless Christianity, that is, a broad and liberal Protestantism” condemned in Lamentabili (Prop. 65). The article notes Weddell “rarely heard anyone say the name ‘Jesus'” — but the name of Jesus without the confession of His Divinity, His Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, His Sacrificial Priesthood, and His Kingly Authority is the Jesus of the Protestants and the Modernists, not the Dominus et Deus of St. Thomas.
Laywoman Instructing Invalid Clergy: The Inversion of Hierarchical Order
The article boasts that “Lay pastoral leaders, priests, deacons and bishops in more than 1,000 parishes, 200 dioceses and 11 countries have been trained through the Catherine of Siena Institute.” This is the democratization of the Church condemned by the Syllabus (Error 20: “The ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government” — here, the “civil government” is the laity) and by St. Pius X in Pascendi: “The Church listening cooperates… that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Lamentabili, Prop. 6). A convert laywoman, formed in Protestant fundamentalism, presumes to teach “bishops” and “priests” the nature of discipleship. But as the Defense of Sedevacantism file demonstrates, the post-conciliar “bishops” and “priests” are not true successors of the Apostles. The new rites of episcopal consecration (1968) and priestly ordination (1968/1976) are invalid ex defectu formae et intentionis, as they omit the essential sacrificial character of the priesthood and the governing power of the episcopate. Thus Weddell, a laywoman, instructs men who possess no sacramental character, no jurisdiction, no mission from Christ — a perfect parody of the Church’s hierarchical constitution (Episcopus, sacerdos, diaconus).
The “Thresholds of Conversion”: A Gnostic Map Replacing the Sacramental Economy
The article describes “five ‘thresholds of conversion,’ beginning with ‘trust’ and ending with ‘intentional discipleship.'” This is a Gnostic itinerary of subjective stages substituting for the objective, sacramental economy of grace. The true thresholds of the Christian life are the Sacraments: Baptism (regeneration), Confirmation (strengthening for combat), the Holy Eucharist (nourishment and sacrifice), Penance (restoration), Extreme Unction (final fortification), Holy Orders (hierarchical mission), Matrimony (domestic church). The Council of Trent defines: “If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation… let him be anathema” (Session VII, Canon 4). Weddell’s “thresholds” make grace dependent on human psychological readiness (“trust,” “curiosity,” “openness”) rather than on the ex opere operato action of Christ the High Priest. The article notes: “a suggestion to simply pray for openness to God often bears much fruit.” This is Pelagianism: the initiation of salvation depends on a human act of will (“pray for openness”) rather than on the gratuitous, prevenient grace of God (gratia praeveniens). The Second Council of Orange (Canon 5) condemns: “If anyone says that the beginning of faith… belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace… he contradicts the Apostle.”
False Ecumenism and the Protestantization of the “Parish”
Weddell admits: “To talk about a personal relationship with God just smacked of being Protestant, which was automatically wrong. Therefore, we don’t talk about it. But now we’re talking about it constantly.” This reveals the ecumenical agenda: the adoption of Protestant pietism as the norm for Catholic life. The Syllabus condemns: “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church” (Error 18). The “parish” in the conciliar sect is not the canonical parish (parochia) with a true pastor possessing the cura animarum and the care of souls for the Holy Sacrifice, but a “community of believers” gathered around a “presider” at a “table of assembly.” The article’s language — “ministry of accompaniment,” “spiritual journeys,” “sharing stories” — is the vocabulary of the Novus Ordo ecclesiology of communion (communio), which replaces the juridical, hierarchical, sacramental Church of Christ with a sociological “People of God.” This is the “Church of the New Advent” prophesied by the Modernists, where the sensus fidelium replaces the Magisterium.
Symptomatic Diagnosis: The Conciliar Sect’s Programmed Self-Destruction
The article’s celebration of Weddell’s influence — 200,000 copies sold, 13,500 Facebook group members, endorsement by “Bishop” Williams, “Msgr.” Shea, “Father” Bowen, “Father” Jacobson — is the measurement of the conciliar sect’s total capitulation to the spirit of the world. As Pius XI teaches in Quas Primas: “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 conciliar sect, having abandoned the Kingship of Christ, the integrity of the Faith, the validity of the Sacraments, and the authority of the Papacy, necessarily turns to marketing techniques, Protestant church-growth models, and therapeutic spirituality to maintain its institutional existence. Weddell’s “Forming Intentional Disciples” is not a renewal; it is the coup de grâce of the supernatural life in the structures occupying the Vatican. The “mustard seed of missionary renewal” of which “Bishop” Williams speaks is a mustard seed sown in the barren rock of heresy, which “immediately sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: and when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away” (Matt 13:5-6).
The Silence That Condemns: No Mass, No Confession, No Mary, No Hell
The article’s most damning feature is its silentio clamor. In thousands of words describing “discipleship,” “evangelization,” “conversion,” “relationship with God,” there is not a single mention of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Real Presence, the Sacrament of Penance, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Communion of Saints, the Four Last Things, the necessity of the Church for salvation, or the Social Kingship of Christ. This silence is the argumentum ex silentio proving the apostasy. The true Catholic disciple lives the Mass, frequents Confession, honors the Mother of God, fears Hell, prays for the conversion of the nations, submits to the Roman Pontiff. The Weddell “disciple” experiences a “personal relationship,” “shares his story,” “accompanies” others, and “entrusts his life to Jesus” — all within the false church of the “pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), the usurper on the Chair of Peter. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches (De Romano Pontifice): “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope… a non-Christian in no way can be Pope… he cannot be the head of something of which he is not a member.” The conciliar sect’s “evangelization” produces not disciples of Christ, but disciples of the Antichrist’s forerunner.
Quod non est in actis, non est in mundo. What is not in the acts of the Magisterium before 1958 is not in the Catholic world. Weddell’s book, her institute, her “thresholds,” her “kerygma,” her “accompaniment” — all are novitates condemned by the Syllabus, Pascendi, Lamentabili, Quas Primas, and the immutable Tradition. The National Catholic Register’s promotion of this Protestantized product confirms its status as an organ of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat.
Source:
‘Forming Intentional Disciples’: The Book That Changed Catholic Ministry (ncregister.com)
Date: 15.07.2026