The National Catholic Register portal (July 20, 2026) publishes an interview with Noelle Mering, fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of the forthcoming book No Contact: How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships and How We Can Repair Them. The piece frames the surge in family estrangement — “no contact” — as an “autoimmune disorder” of society driven by individualism, “woke” ideology, therapeutic language, and social media influencers. Mering identifies COVID disagreements, voting for Donald Trump, and refusal to affirm “gender” transitions as primary catalysts. She advises parents to adopt “curiosity” and “nobility,” while urging potential estrangers to consult “trusted authority figures.” The analysis, however, remains entirely within the naturalistic, sociological framework of the conciliar sect, treating the dissolution of the family as a cultural pathology to be managed by “Christian response” rather than recognizing it as the inevitable fruit of the apostasy from the Social Kingship of Christ and the destruction of the sacramental order by the Second Vatican Council.
The Naturalistic Reduction of a Supernatural Crisis
The cited article relates Mering’s thesis that the “no contact” phenomenon is “not so much mimicking an immune system’s defense response as it is an autoimmune disorder, where we no longer can differentiate between normal familial conflict and friction and severe abuse and manipulation.” This medicalized metaphor — autoimmune disorder — epitomizes the naturalistic reductionism endemic to the conciliar sect’s intelligentsia. The dissolution of the family is not a sociological malfunction; it is a theological catastrophe flowing directly from the rejection of Christus Rex over society. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), declared with unshakeable authority: “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 entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.” The “no contact” epidemic is precisely this shaking — the collapse of the familia as a domestica ecclesia once the Reign of Christ was dethroned by the conciliar revolution’s false doctrine of religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) and the secularization of the State.
Mering’s diagnosis — “rising individualism,” “empowerment delusion,” “radical victimhood” — describes symptoms while ignoring the cause: the conciliar sect’s embrace of the cult of man condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) as the “synthesis of all heresies.” The article quotes Mering: “We have a divorce culture… that has taught generations of kids that family members are replaceable.” Yet the Register — organ of the “bishops” of the neo-church — remains silent on the invalidity of the new “annulment” machinery (post-1983 Code, Mitius Iudex) which de facto legitimizes divorce, and on the New Mass which replaced the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary with a Protestantized “table of assembly,” destroying the supernatural grace that alone sustains the indissoluble bond. Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi — the law of praying is the law of believing is the law of living. The conciliar sect’s liturgical apostasy is the divorce culture.
Linguistic Complicity: Therapeutic Newspeak as Pseudo-Theology
The interview reveals the total colonization of the conciliar sect’s vocabulary by modernist anthropology. Mering speaks of “boundaries,” “toxicity,” “narcissism,” “trauma,” “healing,” “grief stages,” “trusted authority figure” — not one supernatural term: no mention of sanctifying grace, mortal sin, final judgment, the Fourth Commandment (Honora patrem tuum et matrem tuam), the Sacrament of Penance, indulgences, prayer for the dead. The “advice” to parents: “adopt a posture of curiosity: ‘Why do you think what you think? I want to understand.'” This is Carl Rogers, not St. Thomas Aquinas. The Summa Theologiae (II-II, q. 101, a. 1) teaches that piety toward parents is a virtue of justice rendering debitum — a debt owed to God through them. The conciliar sect’s “pastoral” approach replaces justice with therapy, obedience with dialogue, filial fear with emotional validation.
The article notes Mering’s observation of “hyper-therapeutic speak… very casually using words like ‘narcissism,’ ‘toxic parents,’ ‘protect my boundaries.'” She correctly identifies the corruption of the term “boundaries” — “boundaries properly understood are for the sake of protecting a relationship. But I think the term has been circumscribed to be about just protecting the individual self.” Yet she fails to trace this to its source: the personalist anthropology of Wojtyła (John Paul II) (Love and Responsibility, Theology of the Body) which made the “subjectivity of the person” the axiom of morality, displacing the objective moral law inscribed in nature by the Creator. The “infallibility narrative of the victim class” Mering decries is the direct progeny of the conciliar sect’s Gaudium et Spes (n. 22): “Christ… fully reveals man to himself.” This anthropocentric inversion — man as the measure of all things — is the essence of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X: “The revelation which is the object of Catholic faith did not cease with the Apostles” (Lamentabili sane exitu, prop. 21).
Theological Bankruptcy: “Catholic” Analysis Without the Catholic Faith
The most damning omission is the complete absence of the supernatural order. The article states: “Mering’s book isn’t the only Catholic treatment of the phenomenon. Psychologists like Greg Bottaro have provided guidance… while catechetical platforms like Catholic Answers have assessed how the practice relates to — and can sometimes be consistent with — Church teaching on honoring ones parents.” “Sometimes consistent with Church teaching” — this casuistry reveals the conciliar sect’s functional Protestantism: the Fourth Commandment becomes a negotiable guideline subject to “discernment” by “psychologists” and “catechetical platforms.” The Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, can. 12) anathematizes those who say the Church cannot dispense from the commandment to honor parents. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (Part III, Decalogue, Fourth Commandment) teaches: “Children… are bound to honor their parents… not only by obeying them, but also by reverencing them… and by providing for their necessities.” No exception for “toxicity,” “boundaries,” or “gender affirmation.”
Mering’s background — Theology of Home series, Awake, Not Woke, fellow at Ethics and Public Policy Center — situates her firmly in the “conservative” wing of the conciliar sect. This wing performs the function of controlled opposition: it critiques the excesses of the revolution (wokeism, gender ideology) while accepting its principles (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, the New Mass, the validity of the usurpers in the Vatican). The article mentions she spoke “mostly to Catholic audiences, some Protestant, some secular” — indifferentism in action, condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (prop. 18): “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion.” Her “Christian response” is a naturalistic palliation that leaves the abomination of desolation (the conciliar sect occupying the Vatican) untouched.
Symptomatic Level: The Conciliar Sect as the Engine of Dissolution
The “no contact” phenomenon is not a bug in the conciliar system; it is a feature. The Second Vatican Council’s Gaudium et Spes (n. 47) teaches: “The well-being of the individual person and of human and Christian society is intimately linked with the healthy condition of the community of marriage and the family.” Yet the same Council’s Dignitatis Humanae (n. 2) proclaimed a right to religious freedom rooted in “human dignity” — a Masonic principle condemned by Leo XIII in Humanum Genus (1884): “The sect of the Freemasons… aims at the destruction of the Church and the State.” This “right” legitimizes the child’s “autonomy” to reject the parents’ faith, the parents’ “authority” to reject the Church’s law, the State’s “neutrality” to reject Christ the King. The result: “seeds of discord sown everywhere, flames of envy and hostility have engulfed nations… domestic peace completely shattered due to forgetfulness and neglect of duties; family ties loosened and family stability shaken” — Pius XI, Quas Primas, describing exactly the fruit of the conciliar revolution.
The article’s closing advice — “seek out some sort of trusted authority figure that they respect — someone who might be a little older but whom they trust to share their story… try to be as objective as they can be” — is the counsel of despair. In the true Church, the “trusted authority figure” is the validly ordained priest in the confessional, acting in persona Christi to bind and loose (John 20:23), imposing penance to repair the violated justice. The conciliar sect offers therapy instead of absolution, dialogue instead of obedience, self-esteem instead of fear of the Lord. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 110:10). Without it, the family — and the society — cannot but disintegrate.
The “no contact” epidemic is the just chastisement of a “Church” that went “no contact” with Christ the King. Non est aliud nomen sub caelo datum hominibus in quo oporteat nos salvari (Acts 4:12). The only repair is the restoration of all things in Christ (Eph 1:10) — the Social Kingship of Christ, the Traditional Latin Mass, the integral Faith — which the conciliar sect, by its very nature, cannot and will not proclaim.
Source:
How the ‘No Contact’ Phenomenon May Point to a Broader Societal Breakdown (ncregister.com)
Date: 20.07.2026