The National Catholic Register portal (July 15, 2026) reports on the “Clergy Champions League 2026,” a soccer tournament in the Peruvian Andes involving over 150 conciliar “priests” and “seminarians” from seven dioceses of the neo-church, complete with penalty shootouts, marching bands, and hymns composed by a post-conciliar “bishop,” all hailed as a “seedbed for vocations” and “evangelization through sport,” culminating in a quote from Antipope Francis on “acedia.” This spectacle of clerics in shorts chasing a ball is not evangelization; it is the apotheosis of the conciliar sect’s naturalistic reduction of the Sacerdotium to mere human fraternity, proving conclusively that the Novus Ordo hierarchy possesses neither the Sacerdotium nor the Regnum Christi.
The Conciliar Sect’s “Priests”: Laymen in Shorts Playing at Priesthood
The article boasts of “more than 150 priests from the dioceses of Puno, Cusco, Abancay, Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Huancayo, and Tarma.” From the perspective of integral Catholic theology, grounded in the immutable canons of the Council of Trent and the Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio of Pope Paul IV, these men are not priests. They are laymen. The “ordination” rites promulgated by the antipope Paul VI in 1968, stripped of the essential form and intention for the Sacerdotium — the power to offer the Propitiatory Sacrifice and to forgive sins — are invalid ex vi constitutionis. As Pope Paul IV defined infallibly: “his promotion or elevation… shall be null, void, and of no effect” (Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, 1559) for any who have defected from the Faith. The conciliar “bishops” who “ordained” them — such as the “bishops” of Huancavelica or Cusco — are themselves laymen, consecrated in the invalid 1968 rite by consecrators who had already defected from the Catholic Faith into the Modernist synthesis condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis. St. Robert Bellarmine teaches: “A manifest heretic… by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head… just as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church” (De Romano Pontifice, II, 30). These “priests” running after a soccer ball are not alter Christus; they are alter homo — mere men, stripped of the character of the Priesthood, engaging in a naturalistic spectacle. The “Chrism Mass” chrism they use is invalid; the “Mass” they simulate is a nullity; the “absolution” they give is null. They are not “young clergy with an average age of 35”; they are young laymen playing a game.
Naturalism on the Pitch: The Syllabus Condemned in Cleats
The article explicitly frames this tournament as “much more than soccer,” claiming it “strengthens priestly fraternity,” “promotes vocations,” and serves as a “reminder that sports can be a means of evangelization.” Fr. Ayuque states: “Sport disciplines the body, makes it more agile, and helps eliminate the body’s toxins. When our physical condition is well cared for, it also becomes easier to engage attentively in prayer and the encounter with God.” This is the heresy of Naturalism condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus Errorum (1864). Error 3: “Human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil.” Error 55: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.” Error 27: “The sacred ministers of the Church and the Roman Pontiff are to be absolutely excluded from every charge and dominion over temporal affairs.”
Here, the “sacred ministers” of the conciliar sect are not excluded from temporal affairs; they are ludi; they make the temporal game the very locus of their “ministry” and “sanctification.” Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), thundered against the “plague of our time, so-called laicism”: “It began with the denial of the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ over all nations… the Christian religion began to be equated with other false religions… subordinated to secular power.” Here, the Kingship of Christ is replaced by the “Kingship of Sport.” The “Clergy Champions League” is a liturgy of the Religion of Man, where the ball replaces the Host, the penalty shootout replaces the Consecration, and the “St. John Vianney hymn” composed by the modernist “Bishop” William Molloy replaces the Te Deum. The Syllabus condemns the error that “Catholics may approve of the system of educating youth unconnected with Catholic faith… which regards merely natural things” (Error 48). This tournament is precisely that: the formation of “seminarians” in naturalism, teaching them that the priesthood is compatible with — and indeed perfected by — worldly sportsmanship.
“Sport as Evangelization”: The Gospel of the New Man vs. The Gospel of Christ the King
Fr. Ayuque declares: “The priest is called to bring God’s grace to all people and to all human endeavors. That’s why more laborers are needed for the harvest, more young people who will dedicate their lives.” This is the Modernist heresy of the “sanctification of the secular” condemned by St. Pius X. The priest is not called to “bring grace to human endeavors” like soccer; he is called to offer the Sacrificium Propitiatorium for the remission of sins and to save souls for the Regnum Christi. Pius XI teaches in Quas Primas: “His kingdom is primarily spiritual and concerns spiritual things… men prepare for it through penance, but cannot enter except through faith and baptism… this kingdom is opposed only to the kingdom of Satan and the powers of darkness.” The “kingdom” built on a soccer pitch in Huancavelica is the kingdom of Satan disguised as “fraternity.” The article notes the “marching bands performed… and cheered equally for both Huancavelica and Cusco.” This is indifferentism in cleats — Error 18 of the Syllabus: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation.” Cheering for both sides is the liturgical gesture of the conciliar sect: indifferentism, ecumenism, the denial that Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. The “vocation” promoted here is a vocation to the Novus Ordo sect, a vocation to invalid orders and a false religion. As Pope Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis: “Only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith…” These “seminarians” profess the false faith of Vatican II.
Quoting the Antipope: The Conciliar Sect’s Magisterium of Acedia
The article cites Fr. Ayuque quoting “Pope Francis”: “Pope Francis frequently spoke of acedia, that kind of spiritual sloth that often stems from a body that is overly comfortable.” This citation alone condemns the entire enterprise. Jorge Bergoglio (Antipope Francis) is a manifest heretic who has publicly denied the dogma of the Holy Trinity (by worshiping Pachamama), denied the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation (Fratelli Tutti), and approved blessings for sodomite couples (Fiducia Supplicans). By the teaching of Paul IV (Cum ex Apostolatus Officio) and Bellarmine, he lost all jurisdiction ipso facto before his “election.” To cite him as an authority on “acedia” is to cite a heretic as a Doctor of the Church. It is the blind leading the blind into the pit of the abominatio desolationis. The conciliar “priests” invoke the Antipope to justify their soccer games, mistaking natural endorphins for supernatural grace. This is the “acedia” of the Modernist: a disgust for the opus Dei (the Divine Office, the Holy Sacrifice) replaced by a fervor for the opus hominis (the human workout).
“Seminarians” and “Vocations”: Manufacturing Novices for the Neo-Church
The article highlights: “Dozens of seminarians rushed onto the field… minor seminarians kept spirits high throughout the day.” These are not seminarians of the Catholic Church. They are novices of the conciliar sect, formed in “seminaries” that use the invalid New Rite of Ordination, the Novus Ordo Missae, and the modernist curriculum condemned by Pius XI in Studiorum Ducem and Pius XII in Humani Generis. They are taught “sports theology” — “Sport prepares our nature for a personal encounter with the Lord” — instead of Thomistic philosophy and dogmatic theology. The “vocations” promoted here are vocations to a lie. The “Diocese of Huancavelica” boasts a “very young clergy.” Youth without Truth is not vitality; it is the vigor of the synagoga Satanae. The “hymn to St. John Vianney” composed by “Bishop Emeritus William Molloy” (a post-conciliar “bishop” of the novus ordo hierarchy) replaces the true liturgical patrimony. St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, wept for sinners in the confessional for 16 hours a day; he did not organize penalty shootouts. To invoke him as the patron of a soccer league is blasphemy.
The Abomination of Desolation on the Soccer Field
The “Clergy Champions League” is the perfect metaphor for the conciliar sect: a hollowed-out shell of the Church, retaining the externals (cassocks, collars, “dioceses,” “bishops”) while the substance — the Priesthood, the Sacrifice, the Faith, the Jurisdiction — has been evacuated. The “priests” play soccer; the “bishops” watch; the “seminarians” cheer. The Holy Sacrifice is replaced by the penalty kick. The Regnum Christi is replaced by the “Champions League.” St. Paul warns: “For they that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh; but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that are of the spirit” (Rom 8:5). This tournament is the triumph of the flesh, the world, and the devil — the concupiscentia carnis, concupiscentia oculorum, et superbia vitae (1 Jn 2:16) — baptized with the holy water of the Novus Ordo. The true Church of Christ, the Ecclesia Militans, does not play games; she offers the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary. She does not seek “fraternity” in sport; she seeks the Unitatem Fidei in the Truth. The structures occupying the Vatican and the dioceses of Peru are the abominatio desolationis standing in the holy place (Mt 24:15). This soccer tournament is their liturgy. Let the faithful flee to the mountains of Tradition, to the true Mass and true Sacraments, where Christ the King reigns, not on the pitch, but on the Altar.
Source:
Priests’ Soccer Tournament Promotes Fraternity and Vocations (ncregister.com)
Date: 15.07.2026