US ‘Bishops’ Obsess Over Coffee While Souls Perish: Triviality as Hallmark of the Conciliar Sect
The National Catholic Register portal (July 19, 2026) publishes a fluff piece cataloguing the coffee preferences of various United States “bishops” of the conciliar sect, detailing their favored brands, brewing methods, and caffeine schedules alongside mentions of “Holy Hours” and the Novus Ordo “Mass.” This trivialization of the apostolic office into a lifestyle blog entry exposes the total collapse of the supernatural sense of the episcopacy in the post-conciliar structure, reducing successors of the Apostles—so they claim—to mere functionaries of a religious NGO obsessed with creature comforts.
The Profanation of the Episcopal Dignity: Curiales of the Coffee Pot
The cited article presents a gallery of “bishops”—Rice, Hying, Keehner, Conley, Libasci, Lucia, Walsh, O’Connell, Tyson, Coakley, Johnston, Folda, Thomas—engaged not in the cura animarum (care of souls), nor in the defense of the depositum fidei (deposit of faith), nor in the condemnation of the errors ravaging the vineyard, but in the comparison of dark roasts, sugar-free syrups, Philips brewers, and Dunkin’ gift certificates.
I read somewhere that Archbishop Fulton Sheen had a cup of coffee first thing in the morning to stay awake praying the Divine Office and so I’ve always done that (black). That’s my first cup of the day, and then I do my Holy Hour.
This statement by “Bishop” Edward Rice is emblematic of the subjectivist piety infecting the conciliar clergy. He apes the external habit of Archbishop Fulton Sheen (a validly ordained prelate of the true Church, though later compromised by conciliar obedience) while occupying a see in the paramasonic structure that has eclipsed the true Church. The “Divine Office” he references is the Liturgy of the Hours, a fabricated modernist replacement for the Roman Breviary, stripped of its penitential psalmody and doctrinal integrity. The “Holy Hour” is likely performed before a Novus Ordo “tabernacle” where the Real Presence is obscured by a theology of “memorial” and “community.” Similitudo non est identitas (similarity is not identity); mimicking the accidents of sanctity without the substance of jurisdiction and grace is the definition of Pharisaism.
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi: The Law of Coffee is the Law of the Neo-Church
Pope St. Pius X taught in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907) that the modernist “lives” his religion in an immanent, subjective manner, divorced from objective dogma and hierarchical authority. The article inadvertently proves this condemnation. The “bishops” reveal their practical naturalism: their daily rhythm is governed by caffeine intake, “Wordle,” “Spelling Bee,” and the “morning newspaper” (Archbishop George Leo Thomas), not by the Opus Dei (Work of God) strictly understood.
I wake up, turn off my alarm and turn on the machine prior to anything else. I have a chair where I say my prayers and then do the “Wordle” and “Spelling Bee,” and the coffee sits beside me on a mini hot plate designed for that.
“Bishop” Mark O’Connell places the coffee machine before prayer, and equates the “prayers” with secular puzzles. This is the cult of man 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.” Here, the “bishop” removes Christ from the first moment of the day, enthroning the coffee grinder. The “prayers” become a hobby, sandwiched between caffeine and Wordle. This is not vita christiana; it is bourgeois religiosity, the “laicism” Pius XI identified as the “plague that poisons human society.”
The “Holy Mass” and “Holy Hour”: Simulacra in the Service of Apostasy
The article repeatedly references the “celebration of Holy Mass” (“Bishop” Lucia) and “Holy Hour” as mere calendar items punctuating the coffee schedule. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, these are not the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass nor Eucharistic Adoration.
The “bishops” cited derive their orders from the Pontificale Romanum mutilated by Paul VI (1968), a rite which defects in form and intention for the transmission of the sacerdotal character and episcopal power, as demonstrated by theologians of the true Church (e.g., Fr. Paul Trinchard, Abp. Pierre Martin Ngo-dinh-Thuc). Consequently, the “Mass” they “celebrate” is the Novus Ordo Missae, a Protestantized “memorial” invalid in form (multiplication of “Eucharistic Prayers,” alteration of the words of Consecration in many vernaculars, removal of the Offertory) and in intention (community meal vs. Propitiatory Sacrifice). Their “Holy Hour” is adoration of a putative Host, likely invalid matter (unleavened bread vs. valid matter requirements, though the form is the primary defect).
To speak of “coffee after the celebration of Holy Mass” (Bishop Lucia) is to profane the very concept of the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary. Corruptio optimi pessima (the corruption of the best is the worst). The highest act of religion is reduced to a morning appointment before a second cup of Café Olé.
Ecumenism with the World: Dunkin’, Starbucks, and the “Tariff-Free” Gospel
The brand loyalty displayed is a metaphor for the false ecumenism of the conciliar sect. “Bishop” O’Connell declares: “I prefer Dunkin’ over Starbucks… I am loyal to Dunkin’.” “Bishop” Tyson drinks “tariff-free Tim Horton’s sent to me from my Canadian friends.” “Bishop” Keehner reminisces about Sant’Eustachio Caffè in Rome, “behind the Pantheon”—a pagan temple converted, fittingly, into a tourist trap for the neo-church prelates who treat Rome as a vacation spot rather than the See of Peter now occupied by the antipope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost).
This obsession with supply chains, tariffs, and commercial brands reveals a heart entirely set on earthly things (Phil. 3:19). St. Paul warns: “For many walk… enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” The “bishops” of the neo-church have made their belly—their coffee palate—their god. They negotiate “tariff-free” coffee while the Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX) condemns the proposition that “The civil government… has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs” (Error 41), yet these “bishops” submit to the civil order (tariffs, trade laws) for their creature comforts while ignoring the Divine Law demanding the Social Kingship of Christ.
Silence on the Crisis: Tacet, Consentire Videtur
The gravest accusation is what is absent. Not one “bishop” mentions:
- The vacancy of the Holy See since 1958 (death of Pius XII) and the line of usurpers (John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, Leo XIV).
- The invalidity of the New Mass and the New Sacraments.
- The heresies of Vatican II (Dignitatis Humanae, Unitatis Redintegratio, Nostra Aetate).
- The apostasy of the clergy and the destruction of the faith among the laity.
- The duty to resist the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15).
Tacet, consentire videtur (he who is silent seems to consent). Their silence is the roar of the Great Apostasy foretold by St. Paul (2 Thess. 2:3). They are “dumb dogs that cannot bark” (Isa. 56:10), sleeping, loving to slumber, while the wolf scatters the sheep. Instead of the trumpet of Ezekiel (Ez. 33:6), they offer the grinder of Dunkin’.
The “Fulton Sheen” Fig Leaf
The invocation of Archbishop Sheen by “Bishop” Rice is a tactic of legitimization. Sheen represents the last gasp of the pre-conciliar Church’s public presence. By claiming his coffee habit, the conciliar “bishop” attempts to forge a continuity that does not exist ontologically or juridically. Sheen died in 1979, fully within the conciliar structure, yet his traditional piety stands in stark judgment against the triviality of his self-styled imitators. The “bishops” drink Sheen’s coffee but reject Sheen’s theology (anti-communism, Marian devotion, Thomistic philosophy, rejection of religious liberty as defined by Vatican II). They are whited sepulchres (Matt. 23:27)—externally sipping black coffee “for the Divine Office,” internally full of the bones of dead modernism.
Conclusion: Non Est Iocandum — This Is No Game
The article is not a harmless “human interest” story. It is a diagnostic document of the Church of the New Advent. It reveals a clergy that has lost the sensus supernaturalis, replaced the Cross with the coffee cup, the Breviary with Wordle, the Mitre with the mug.
Pius XI in Quas Primas instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism,” stating: “The more the sweetest Name of our Redeemer is omitted with unworthy silence in international gatherings and parliaments, the more loudly it must be confessed.” These “bishops” confess coffee loudly; they confess Christ the King not at all.
True Catholics, adhering to the immutable Tradition and recognizing the Sede Vacante, must flee this spiritual cyanide. The “bishops” of the Register have their reward: Tim Horton’s, Dunkin’, Peet’s, Mystic Monk. They have received their consolation (Luke 6:24). Let the faithful seek the Bread of Angels and the Living Water where They are truly found: in the valid Mass and Sacraments of the true Church, preserved by God’s providence outside the visible structures of the Vatican’s occupation.
Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare fratres in unum (Ps. 132:1) — but not in the unity of the coffee klatch. Sancta Mater Ecclesia, ora pro nobis.
Source:
US Bishops Share What Kind of Coffee They Drink — and How They Take It (ncregister.com)
Date: 19.07.2026