NCR/EWTN portal reports on a reflection by “Bishop” José Ignacio Munilla of Orihuela-Alicante, delivered on his Radio María program “Sixth Continent,” ahead of the 2026 World Cup final between Spain and Argentina. The conciliar sect prelate acknowledges the “values” of soccer—family unity, social connection, shared emotions—but warns against its elevation into a “religion” and the idolatry of sports stars. He contrasts modern “saints without holiness” (athletes) with “St. John Paul II,” “St. Teresa of Calcutta,” “Blessed Carlo Acutis,” and St. Francis of Assisi, quoting antipope Francis: “You roar for a goal, yet you are unable to praise God with that same intensity?” The piece concludes with a naturalistic exhortation to sportsmanship and the claim that “only God can fill the heart forever.” This discourse, masquerading as pastoral wisdom, is a quintessential artifact of the post-conciliar apostasy: it substitutes the Social Reign of Christ the King for a vague theistic moralism, legitimizes the neo-church’s false canonizations, and quotes a manifest heretic as authoritative—all while ignoring the unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary, the necessity of grace, and the eternal damnation awaiting those who die outside the true Church.
The Usurpation of Episcopal Authority and the Nullity of the “Bishop”
The very premise of the article rests on a juridical and theological fiction: that “Bishop” Munilla possesses legitimate authority to teach. According to the unchanging doctrine of the Church, a manifest heretic loses his office ipso facto without need of declaration (Canon 188.4, 1917 Code; Pope Paul IV, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio). As 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 member of the body of the Church” (De Romano Pontifice, Bk. 2, Ch. 30). The conciliar sect’s “bishops,” having accepted the heresies of Vatican II (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, liturgical revolution), are not true bishops but functionaries of a paramasonic structure occupying ecclesiastical buildings. Their “warnings” carry no supernatural weight; they are the blind leading the blind (Mt 15:14). The article’s treatment of Munilla as a legitimate shepherd is the first and gravest deception.
The Cult of False “Saints”: Canonizations by Antipopes Are Null
Munilla’s roster of models—“St. John Paul II,” “St. Teresa of Calcutta,” “Blessed Carlo Acutis”—exposes the neo-church’s counterfeit sanctity. Pope Pius XII infallibly defined that the Church’s infallibility in canonizations extends to the fact of heroic virtue and miracles; but this presupposes a true Pope. Since the line of usurpers began with John XXIII (1958), all subsequent “canonizations” are null, void, and of no effect (Cum ex Apostolatus Officio). Karol Wojtyła (John Paul II) was a public heretic who kissed the Quran, prayed with pagans at Assisi, and taught religious indifferentism—ipso facto excluded from the Church. Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Teresa of Calcutta) died without renouncing her Modernist “dark night” theology and her collaboration with the conciliar apostasy. Carlo Acutis is a product of the post-conciliar “youth culture” machine. To propose these as models of humility, self-giving, mercy is to blaspheme the Communion of Saints and to replace the supernatural heroism of the true Saints (canonized before 1958) with a naturalistic humanitarianism. As Pius XI declared in Quas Primas: “The Church… gives birth to and raises up ever new ranks of holy men and women”—but only through the true Magisterium and true Sacraments, not the abomination of desolation.
Quoting the Antipope: The Blind Leading the Blind
The citation of antipope Francis (Robert Prevost, “Leo XIV”)—“You roar for a goal, yet you are unable to praise God with that same intensity?”—is the theological climax of the article’s bankruptcy. A manifest heretic who has publicly taught Amoris Laetitia (adultery permitted), Fiducia Supplicans (blessing sodomy), and the Document on Human Fraternity (religious indifferentism) has no authority to speak for God. St. Cyprian teaches: “He who has not the Church for his mother cannot have God for his Father” (De Unitate Ecclesiae, 6). By quoting Francis as a spiritual authority, Munilla commits the sin of communicatio in sacris with a heretic and validates the neo-church’s false magisterium. The faithful are thus led not to Christ the King, but to the cult of man incarnate in the usurper on the Vatican throne.
Naturalistic Humanism Masquerading as Pastoral Theology
Munilla’s analysis of sport is thoroughly naturalistic. He speaks of “values,” “social connection,” “shared joys,” “role models,” “human fulfillment,” “maturity,” “sportsmanship”—not one word of grace, the Sacraments, Original Sin, the Four Last Things, or the Social Kingship of Christ. This is the laicism condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The conciliar sect has reduced the Church’s mission to ethical NGOs and cultural commentary. The Syllabus of Pius IX condemns the error: “The teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society” (Error 40)—yet Munilla inverts this, presenting the Church as a chaplain to secular culture, baptizing the World Cup with a veneer of piety. The true pastoral warning would be: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Eccl 1:2); “The world passes away, and the lust thereof” (1 Jn 2:17); “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” (Mk 8:36). Silence on these truths is pastoral malpractice amounting to spiritual homicide.
The False Equivalence: Athletes vs. Saints—Relativization of Holiness
Munilla’s rhetorical question—“whether our children are more familiar with the biographies of great soccer players than with those of St. Francis… St. John Paul II…”—creates a false equivalence between natural talent and supernatural sanctity. The true Saints are models of heroic virtue because they cooperated with grace unto death, not because they “pointed the way to human fulfillment” (a Modernist, immanentist phrase). The Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907) condemns the Modernist proposition: “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples, but rather initiated a certain religious movement” (Prop. 59). Munilla’s “saints teach us the art of living” reduces holiness to life-coaching. The Council of Trent anathematizes those who say the just man can persevere without special help of God (Sess. VI, Can. 22). By omitting grace, Munilla preaches Pelagianism.
Idolatry of the “Market” and the Silence on Usury
Munilla notes the “enormous financial disproportion surrounding professional soccer” and that “the market tends to put a price on what we turn into something indispensable.” Yet he fails to condemn the usurious, Masonic financial system that undergirds global sports—a system condemned by Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno (1931) and Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum. The Syllabus condemns: “Right consists in the material fact. All human duties are an empty word” (Error 59). The neo-church never attacks the root (Masonic finance, Jewish hegemony in media/sports) but only the symptom (idolatry of stars). This is controlled opposition: channeling legitimate disgust into harmless moralizing, leaving the Synagogue of Satan (Apoc 2:9) untouched.
Sportsmanship Without Charity: The Natural Virtue Trap
The prelate’s paean to “true sportsmanship”—“the rival player is not an enemy but someone who made the game possible”—is pure Stoicism, not Catholic charity. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that acquired natural virtues without infused charity are not virtues at all in the supernatural order (ST I-II, q. 65, a. 2). A pagan can be a “good sport”; only the baptized in state of grace can perform acts meritorious for eternal life. Munilla’s exhortation to “acknowledge the victor’s merit without resentment” is civic humanism, not the Cross of Christ. The true enemy is the devil, the world, and the flesh (Eph 6:12); the true victory is martyrdom or heroic virtue. To confuse a ball game with the meaning of life is bad enough; to confuse natural etiquette with supernatural charity is heretical.
The Symptomatic Level: The “Church of the New Advent” as Opium of the Masses
This article is a symptom of the Great Apostasy foretold by St. Paul (2 Thess 2:3). The conciliar sect has become the religious wing of the New World Order: it sanctifies the bread and circuses (World Cup) by offering a pious commentary that neutralizes any Catholic resistance to the panem et circenses of the Masonic state. The true Church—the remnant adhering to the Traditional Latin Mass, the pre-1958 Magisterium, and sedevacantism—alone proclaims Christ the King over all nations, all laws, all stadiums, all hearts (Quas Primas). Munilla’s “warning” is a pressure valve, releasing steam so the boiler of secular idolatry does not explode. “Woe to you when all men speak well of you” (Lk 6:26). The neo-church is well spoken of by the world because it is of the world (Jn 15:19).
Conclusion: Return to the Integral Faith or Perish
The only remedy for the idolatry of sport—and of the neo-church’s false saints, false popes, and false sacraments—is the integral profession of the pre-1958 Catholic Faith, submission to valid bishops and priests (ordained before 1968), and the rejection of the abomination of desolation occupying Rome. “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Mt 12:30). The World Cup final will pass; the Social Kingship of Christ endures forever. “His power is an everlasting power, which shall not be taken away: and His kingdom, that which shall not be corrupted” (Dan 7:14, cited in Quas Primas). Let the conciliar sect have its “values” and its “role models”; the true faithful kneel before the Most Holy Sacrifice and cry: “Viva Cristo Rey!”
Source:
World Cup: Ahead of Final, Bishop Warns Against Making Sports an Idol (ncregister.com)
Date: 18.07.2026