The Pillar Catholic portal reports on a new report from the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life, built on data from Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which exposes a “startling disconnect” between the psychological managers of the conciliar sect’s seminaries and their administrative functionaries. The document, tellingly entitled “Do You Know Them to be Worthy?”, advocates for the total psychologization of the conciliar “formation” process: mandatory psychotherapy, routine violation of the forum internum to feed the forum externum, the clinical management of sodomitical inclinations via “transitory” vs. “deep-seated” diagnostics, and the bureaucratic processing of autistic candidates. This report does not document a crisis of formation; it exposes the metaphysical bankruptcy of a counterfeit priesthood that has replaced gratia sanctificans and character indelebilis with psychotherapy, “coping mechanisms,” and “sustained patterns of continence.”
The Metaphysical Nullity of the Conciliar “Priesthood”
Before dissecting the psychopathological minutiae of this report, the integral Catholic faith demands the principium cognoscendi of the entire discussion: the structures issuing this report—the “USCCB,” “Notre Dame,” “Georgetown,” “The Pillar,” the “Vatican” under the usurper Leo XIV (Robert Prevost)—possess no sacramental authority whatsoever. Since the usurpation of the Holy See by the Modernist clique of John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli) in 1958, the See of Peter has been vacant (Sedes Vacans). The Novus Ordo Missae of Paul VI (Montini) is a Protestantized fabrication, invalid in form and intention; the 1968 Pontificale Romanum of Paul VI invalidated the sacrament of Holy Orders by defect of form (“ut sit sacerdos et promoveat sanctitatem” replacing the essential form “ut offerat sacrificium“) and defect of intention (the intention to do what the Church does, which the conciliar hierarchy explicitly rejects). Consequently, there are no valid bishops in the conciliar hierarchy, no valid priests, no valid seminarians, and no valid seminaries. The “formation” described in this report is the training of lay functionaries for a Protestantized social service agency, the “conciliar sect” or “neo-church.” As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches (De Romano Pontifice, lib. 2, cap. 30), a manifest heretic ceases to be a member of the Church and cannot be its head; the conciliar “popes,” by their public profession of the heresies of Vatican II (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, new ecclesiology), are manifest heretics and thus ipso facto deprived of all jurisdiction. Pope Paul IV’s Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio confirms that any promotion of a heretic to the papacy is “null, void, and of no effect.” Therefore, this report is an internal memo of a Masonic-inspired counter-church, devoid of any supernatural efficacy.
Psychologism: The Substitution of Gratia by Psychotherapia
The theological level of this report is pure Modernist psychologism, condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) as the reduction of the supernatural to the natural, of grace to psychology, of the mysterium to the phenomenon. The report explicitly demands: “Providing access to appropriate psychotherapy within the formation process more fully serves the seminarian.” It demands “regular therapy and counseling,” “thorough psychological assessments… at least twice during formation,” and the installation of a “staff psychologist” in every seminary. This is the triumph of Freud and Jung over St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross, and St. Alphonsus Liguori. The Program for Priestly Formation (PPF 6)—a document of the schismatical USCCB—is criticized for cautioning against “extensive psychotherapy,” but the report demands psychologists define the terms. The true Ratio Institutionis Sacerdotalis (Council of Trent, Sess. 23, c. 18; Pius XI, Ad Catholici Sacerdotii, 1935; Pius XII, Menti Nostrae, 1950) demands virtus, oratio, mortificatio, studium, disciplina canonica—not “therapy,” “coping mechanisms for loneliness,” or “internet filters.”
Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), teaches that Christ the King reigns in the minds of men by Truth, in the wills by Grace, in the hearts by Charity: “Christ reigns in the minds of men… because He is Truth… in the wills… because He inclines our free will… in the hearts because of His love.” The neo-church report replaces the Regnum Christi with the regnum psychologiae. The seminarian is no longer a levita conformed to Victima on the altar, but a “client” managed by a “provider.” The report’s language—“sustained pattern of continence (absence of sexual indulgence and activity), with increasing stability, and rapid recovery from any lapses”—reduces the angelic virtue of chastity (virtus angelica, St. Thomas, ST II-II, q. 152) to a behavioral metric, a “recovery curve” managed by clinicians. This is Pelagianism clad in clinical garb: salvation by self-management and therapeutic technique, not by gratia sanans and gratia elevans.
The Sacrilegious Violation of the Forum Internum
Perhaps the most diabolical proposal in this document is the explicit demand to breach the seal of the internal forum. The report states: “Given that the candidate has the obligation to disclose himself to the Church and that the Church has the right to know the man, a goal of seminary counseling/psychotherapy and spiritual direction ought to be to help the seminarian bring into the external forum those personal issues known in the internal forum which bear on his own formation.” This is a formal proposition of heresy and sacrilege. The forum internum (the tribunal of conscience, sacramental confession, spiritual direction) is inviolabile by ius divinum and ius canonicum (CIC 1917, Can. 889; CIC 1983, Can. 983 §1). The sigillum confessionis admits no exception (Can. 1388 §1 CIC 1917: “Sacramenti sigillum est inviolabile“). Spiritual direction, while not sacramental, participates in the secrecy of the internal forum by ecclesiastical law and divine right of the soul’s liberty before God. The conciliar report proposes a Stasi-model of formation: the “therapist” and “formator” colluding to extract the secrets of conscience for “formation goals.” This is the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt 24:15): the totalitarian state-church demanding transparency of the soul, destroying the libertas filiorum Dei (Rom 8:21). St. Pius X condemns this Modernist confusion of forums in Pascendi: the Modernist makes the conscience autonomous from the Church’s authority, yet here the counter-church makes the conscience transparent to its bureaucratic authority.
The Sodomite Infiltration: “Transitory” vs. “Deep-Seated” as a Novelty of Iniquity
The report’s treatment of sodomitical inclinations (“Same-Sex Attraction”—a euphemism for the vitium sodomiticum, crimen pessimum, Gen 19:5; Lev 18:22; Rom 1:27; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10) is the hallmark of the conciliar apostasy. The 2005 Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies (a document of the invalid Congregation for Catholic Education under the antipope Benedict XVI/Ratzinger) introduced the novel distinction between “transitory” (T-SSA) and “deep-seated” (DS-SSA) attractions. The report critiques the definition but accepts the framework, proposing a temporal criterion: “if the duration of the same-sex attractions persists for longer than five years… the diagnosis changes from transitory to deep-seated.”
This is theological nonsense and canonical corruption. The 1917 Code (Can. 968 §1, 2°) declares irregular for orders those who have committed the crimen pessimum. The Council of Elvira (Can. 17), the Council of Nicaea (Can. 7), St. Basil (Ep. 188), St. Peter Damian (Liber Gomorrhianus), and the constant tradition of the Church exclude the sodomite from the sanctuary ab initio. There is no “transitory” sodomy any more than there is “transitory” murder or “transitory” adultery. The inclination itself, if voluntary and persistent, is an objective disorder (intrinsice disordinata, Persona Humana 1975—though that document is conciliar, the doctrine is perennial). To create a category of “transitory SSA” admissible to orders is to ordain men with a proximate occasion of sin and a radical incapacity for the spousal meaning of the body required for the priesthood (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 50—conciliar, but reflecting the perennial truth that the priest acts in persona Christi Capitis, Bridegroom of the Church). The report notes only 36% of mental health professionals find the 2005 document helpful, while 60% of bishops/formators do. This reveals the psychologists (secular modernists) are more honest than the “bishops” (Modernist functionaries): the former know the category is a farce; the latter need the vocabulary to process vocations in a vocation crisis caused by their own apostasy.
The Managerial Processing of Autism: The Technocratic Priest
The report’s section on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)—citing a rise from 1 in 2,000 (1960s) to 1 in 31 (2022)—reveals the neo-church as a human resources department. 57% of “bishops” are “concerned” about ordaining high-functioning autistics; 20% say it alone disqualifies. The report calls for “development of resources necessary for candidacy assessment and for the sustained accompaniment of seminarians and newly ordained priests with ASD.” This is the technocratic paradigm condemned by Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno (1931) and Pius XII in Humani Generis (1950): man as a biological machine to be managed, accommodated, and optimized. The priesthood is a munus divinum, requiring the integritas naturae and sanitas mentis (Can. 968 1917: insanitas is an irregularity) not for “neurodiversity inclusion,” but for the capacity to govern souls (cura animarum), celebrate the Sacrificium Propitiatorium (Trent, Sess. 22), and teach with authority (magisterium). The conciliar “priest” does none of these; he “presides,” “accompanies,” “facilitates.” Thus, the autistic functionary fits the Novus Ordo “ministry” perfectly.
The Linguistic Engineering of Apostasy
The article’s vocabulary is a masterclass in Orwellian Newspeak designed to obscure the supernatural reality:
- “Formation” replaces institutio sacerdotalis / configuratio Christi.
- “Psychosexual maturity” replaces castitas, pudicitia, virtus.
- “Coping mechanisms for loneliness” replaces solitudo contemplativa, desertum, unio mystica.
- “Peer-peer or group accountability efforts” replaces directio spiritualis, confessio, correccio fraterna.
- “Internet filters” replaces custodia oculorum, mortificatio sensuum.
- “Sustained pattern of continence” replaces votum castitatis, gratia status.
- “Transitory / Deep-seated SSA” replaces vitium sodomiticum, peccatum contra naturam.
- “Neurodiversity / ASD” replaces impedimentum canonica, irregularitas.
This language strips the priesthood of its ontological character (character indelebilis, Trent Sess. 7, Can. 9) and reduces it to a functional role managed by HR protocols. The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 1864) condemns the proposition: “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). Here, the “Church” (neo-church) adopts the civil power’s categories (psychology, HR, DEI/neurodiversity) as its own norm.
The Symptomatic Fruit of the Conciliar Revolution
This report is the rotten fruit of Optatam Totius (Vatican II), Pastores Dabo Vobis (John Paul II/Wojtyla), and the Ratio Fundamentalis (Francis/Bergoglio). The “crisis of vocations” (numbers over quality) admitted by the report—“too many bishops are still willing to prioritize numbers over quality”—is the inevitable result of a Church that has lost the sensus supernaturalis. When the Mass is a “memorial meal,” the priesthood a “presidency,” the Church a “people of God” pilgrim to the world, and the world the measure of truth, only the psychologically damaged or the careerist apply. The “Pillar” outlet, a mouthpiece of the “conservative” wing of the neo-church (Ed Condon, JD Flynn), publishes this to manage the controlled opposition: it critiques the implementation of the revolution (better psych evals!) while defending the principle of the revolution (validity of the Novus Ordo hierarchy, validity of conciliar “formation”).
Conclusion: The True Church Endures in the Catacombs
The integral Catholic faith, preserved in the Sedes Vacans since 1958 by bishops of the Thuc and Carmona lines (valid orders, valid jurisdiction supplied by Ecclesia supplet for the common good), looks upon this report not with “concern for formation,” but with horror at the abomination. The true seminarian is formed in the Tridentinum, the Breviarium Romanum, the Summa Theologiae, the Exercitia Spiritualia of St. Ignatius, the Imitatio Christi, the Rosarium, the Cilice, the Silentium, the Sacrificium Missae. He is formed to offer the Hostia Immaculata, to absolve in the Tribunal of Penance, to teach the Depositum Fidei, to die for the Regnum Christi. He is not a “client” of a “staff psychologist” managing his “transitory SSA” and “ASD symptoms” via “peer accountability” and “internet filters” while violating his forum internum for “formation goals.”
Let the neo-church have its psychologically vetted, neurodiversity-inclusive, sodomy-managing, forum-violating functionaries. The Catholic Church, the Bride of Christ, the Una, Sancta, Catholica, Apostolica, remains where she has always been: at the foot of the Cross, offering the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary through the hands of valid priests, under the authority of valid bishops, awaiting the restoration of the See of Peter. Viva Cristo Rey! Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus.
Source:
Report highlights ‘startling disconnect’ between seminary formators, psychological experts (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 16.07.2026