The National Catholic Register portal (July 25, 2026) reports on the founding of “Cappella Studio” in Atlantic City, New Jersey, by a layman, Jim Dessicino, who has converted an abandoned convent into a “Catholic art studio” complete with an “adoration chapel,” artist residencies, and workshops. The initiative is explicitly linked to a “special jubilee year called by ‘Pope’ Leo XIV” and frames the mission as reaching “artists of all faiths” in a “third space” to encounter Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. This enterprise epitomizes the lay-driven, ecumenical, and naturalistic apostasy of the conciliar sect, simulating Catholic life while denying the necessity of the hierarchical priesthood, valid sacraments, and the integral Catholic Faith.
The Usurpation of the Clerical Office by the Laity
The article centers entirely on the agency of a layman, Jim Dessicino, identified as a “catechetical leader,” who “founded Cappella Studio,” “saw that it could be something more,” and directs its spiritual and artistic mission. A “parochial priest,” “Fr.” Robert Hughes, is relegated to a supporting role, stating they “took a leap of faith” and focusing on “the need to pray.” This inversion of the divine constitution of the Church — where the laity govern and the clergy serve as chaplains to lay initiatives — is a direct fruit of the conciliar revolution’s democratization of the Mystical Body.
Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, teaches that Christ the King “received from the Father unlimited right over all that is created” and that His Kingdom “consists of a threefold authority… legislative, judicial, executive,” exercised through the Hierarchy He established. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 109) declares: Ecclesia est societas inaequalis (The Church is an unequal society), comprising two classes: the shepherds and the flock. Dessicino’s “studio” operates as a de facto parish — with a chapel, adoration, retreats, and “catechetical” leadership — yet lacks a canonical erection by a legitimate Ordinary. It is a parasitic structure feeding on the corpse of a suppressed convent, erected by lay presumption in the vacuum left by the destruction of the true parish life.
False Ecumenism and the “Third Space” Heresy
Dessicino explicitly states:
“Weʼre inviting artists and the community into a third space; those who might not initially feel comfortable coming into a church are not dissuaded by coming to an art studio… Because we have an adoration chapel at the studio, people are confronted with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, even if they donʼt know it.”
This is the condemned heresy of false ecumenism and religious indifferentism. Pope Pius XI, in Mortalium Animos (1928), condemned the “pan-Christian” error which holds that “the Church of Christ can be divided into sections” and that unity is achieved by “a certain vague and indefinite union” rather than by the return of dissidents to the one true Church. The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 1864) condemns the proposition: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation” (Error 16). Dessicino’s “third space” — neither world nor Church, but a neutral “art studio” — is a practical denial of the social Kingship of Christ, which demands that all men, families, and states publicly profess the Catholic Faith (Quas Primas). To expose non-Catholics to the Blessed Sacrament “even if they don’t know it” as a technique of “encounter” reduces the Mysterium Fidei to a mechanism of psychological manipulation, stripping the Eucharist of its nature as the sacrament of unity in the truth (1 Cor 10:17).
Idolatry in the “Adoration Chapel”: Invalid Orders and Sacraments
The article notes:
“Therefore, our first initiative was to open the Mercy Chapel… The daily adoration chapel, open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., has been ‘well attended’… The Eucharist is the source and center of our Christian lives.”
From the perspective of integral Catholic theology, this is the gravest accusation. “Fr.” Robert Hughes was almost certainly “ordained” in the invalid Paul VI rite of 1968, which eliminated the essential form specifying the sacrificial priesthood (“offer up… the holy sacrifice”). Consequently, he lacks the character sacerdotalis and the power to confect the Eucharist. The “host” in the “Mercy Chapel” is mere bread. The “adoration” offered there is idolatry — the worship of a creature (bread) as God.
St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907) condemned the Modernist proposition: “The sacraments merely serve to remind man of the presence of the ever-benevolent Creator” (Prop. 41). The conciliar sect’s “adoration” functions precisely thus: a subjective “encounter” divorced from the objective reality of the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary confected by a valid priest. The “well attended” chapel measures only the success of a naturalistic piety, devoid of supernatural grace. As the Defense of Sedevacantism file demonstrates, the line of claimants to the papacy since John XXIII are manifest heretics who have ipso facto lost jurisdiction; their “bishops” and “priests” possess no authority, and their “sacraments” are null.
Aestheticism Substituting for Supernatural Faith
Dessicino asserts:
“The beauty of the Catholic tradition in the arts is that there is no official style… The artworks must be instructive and clear. They can have layered meaning, like a Shakespearean drama, but they should be understood by the average parishioner.”
This subjectivist aesthetic — “no official style,” “layered meaning like Shakespeare” — severs sacred art from its liturgical and dogmatic end. Pope St. Pius X, in Tra le sollecitudini (1903), defined sacred art as that which “the more closely it is united to the liturgy, the more holy it is.” Pius XII in Mediator Dei (1947) taught that sacred art must “direct the minds of the faithful to the mysteries of faith.” Dessicino’s reduction of Catholic art to “instructive and clear” works for “artists of all faiths” transforms the ars sacra into religious humanism. The “Sculpt a Crucifix” workshop becomes a technique of self-expression, not an act of liturgical service. The ship imagery (“convent shaped like a ship,” “Cappella Studio as a ship”) is pure sentimental naturalism, replacing the Ecclesia Militans battling for souls with a cruise-ship spirituality for “creatives.”
The “Leo XIV” Jubilee: Obedience to a Usurper
The article reveals the sectarian allegiance explicitly:
“When I entered that chapel for the first time, I knew I had the opportunity to emulate St. Francis during his special jubilee year called by Pope Leo XIV.”
“Leo XIV” (Robert Prevost) is the current usurper antipope occupying the Vatican, the latest in the line of manifest heretics beginning with John XXIII. By invoking his “jubilee year,” Dessicino and Hughes publicly adhere to a false head, separating themselves from the Catholic Church. St. Robert Bellarmine teaches (De Romano Pontifice) that a manifest heretic “ceases to be Pope and head… by that very fact.” The Cum ex Apostolatus Officio of Paul IV declares the elevation of a heretic “null, void, and of no effect.” The “special jubilee year” is a counterfeit indulgence issued by a man with no jurisdiction, attaching spiritual value to works performed in schism and heresy. This single reference condemns the entire enterprise as outside the Church.
Symptomatic Decay: The Conciliar Sect’s Structural Apostasy
The abandoned convent — “holes in the walls,” “sanctuary lamp extinguished 10 years prior” — is the perfect material metaphor for the conciliar sect. The “sisters” who abandoned it were religious of the post-conciliar orders, whose vocations withered under the “renewal” of Perfectae Caritatis and the loss of the traditional habit, office, and enclosure. The sect cannot maintain its own buildings because it has lost the sensus fidei and the supernatural charity that sustains religious life.
Into this vacuum steps the lay entrepreneur, baptizing the ruin with “art,” “hospitality,” and “community.” The “lodging for visiting artists,” “private studios,” “book clubs,” and “sold out workshop” with attendees “from California, Florida, and Connecticut” reveal the commercial and sociological nature of the operation. It is a Catholic-themed cultural center, funded by workshop fees and donations, staffed by invalid clergy, led by a layman, open to all religions, under a false pope. It possesses not one mark of the true Church (One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic). It is a syncretistic idol erected in the ruins of a convent killed by the very revolution Dessicino celebrates.
Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. No “encounter” in a “third space,” no artistic “beauty,” no “adoration” of invalid species, no “jubilee” of an antipope can supply the life of grace which flows only from the Side of Christ through the valid Sacraments administered by true priests in submission to the true Roman Pontiff. This “Cappella Studio” is a whited sepulchre — beautiful outwardly, within full of dead men’s bones (Matt 23:27).
Source:
From Crumbling Convent to Catholic Art Studio: A New Light in Atlantic City, New Jersey (ncregister.com)
Date: 25.07.2026