The National Catholic Register, a flagship organ of the conciliar sect’s media apparatus (EWTN/ACI Prensa), publishes a hagiographic puff piece on Fr. Ricardo Bello Mato, a Spanish presbyter of the Santiago de Compostela archdiocese who recently reached 100 years of age. The article, authored by Walter Sánchez Silva, presents the nonagenarian’s musings on heaven and his priestly life as edifying testimony. In reality, this portrait of a centenarian “priest” of the neo-church lays bare the total evaporation of supernatural doctrine and the reduction of the priesthood to humanitarian social work that defines the post-conciliar apostasy.
The Naturalistic “Heaven” of the New Church
The centerpiece of the article is Fr. Bello’s answer to “What Is Heaven?” His reply is a masterpiece of theological impoverishment: “It’s like a dwelling place around the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. A space filled with the immensity of God, God’s children living together, seeing God’s wonderful, creative power in the cosmos.”
Not a word of the visio beatifica, the lumen gloriae, the essential and accidental glory, the distinction between the heaven of the blessed before and after the General Resurrection. No mention of Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, the necessity of dying in status gratiae, the particular judgment, or the reality of hell for the impenitent. The Trinitarian indwelling is reduced to a vague “dwelling place around” the Divine Persons — a spatial metaphor fit for a pantheistic spa, not the beatitudo perfecta defined by the Council of Florence (Benedictus Deus, 1439): “The souls of the just… see the divine essence with an intuitive vision and face to face, without the mediation of any creature.”
Pius XII, in Mystici Corporis (1943), teaches that the Church Militant must orient all its members toward this visio Dei as the finis ultimus. The conciliar “priest” offers instead a cosmic therapy session: “seeing God’s wonderful, creative power in the cosmos.” This is not Catholic eschatology; it is Teilhardian evolutionism — the Omega Point disguised as piety.
Priesthood Without Sacrifice: The “Social Worker” Model
The article’s treatment of Fr. Bello’s ministry confirms the functionalist deformation of the priesthood wrought by Presbyterorum Ordinis and the 1983 Code. His “most memorable moments” are his diaconal ordination (where he gave a speech as the oldest) and his first Mass — at which he “felt unworthy and inadequate.” Not a word of acting in persona Christi Capitis, of offering the Sacrificium propitiatorium for the living and the dead, of the character indelebilis configuring him to Christ the High Priest.
His crosses? “Many, which I strove to carry well.” Vague stoicism, not co-redemptive suffering united to the Cross. Was it worth being a priest? “For me, yes, and I believe also for some of the faithful whom I supported and who later thanked me for it.” The subjective validation of the faithful replaces the objective efficacy of the sacraments ex opere operato. This is Protestant “ministry” masquerading as Catholic priesthood.
His apostolate: “ministered to many people and helped restore a monastery… led short courses, spiritual exercises, and gave talks… chaplain of the Padre Rubinos Residence and also of the Sisters of Charity, where he ministered to the elderly, the poor.” Corporal works of mercy severed from the spiritual. No mention of converting sinners, combating heresy, defending the depositum fidei, or offering the Holy Mass for the Poor Souls. The “Salesian school” formation and the “Continent of Hope” (Latin America) missionary desire are framed in purely sociological terms.
The Conciliar Hierarchy’s Seal of Approval
The visit of “Archbishop” Francisco José Prieto Fernández — a usurper of the episcopal office in the conciliar sect — to the centenarian on August 12, 2026, completes the picture. The “prayer, spiritual accompaniment, and writing” to which Fr. Bello now devotes himself are the quietism of the new church: a spirituality stripped of the Church Militant’s combat, the lex orandi, lex credendi of the Traditional Mass, and the Social Kingship of Christ proclaimed by Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925): “If rulers and legitimate superiors will have the conviction that they exercise authority not so much by their own right as by the command and in the place of the Divine King, everyone will notice how religiously and wisely they will use their authority.”
Symptomatic Diagnosis: The Fruit of the Conciliar Revolution
This article is not an anomaly; it is the standard output of the conciliar sect’s propaganda machine. It reveals the modus operandi of the abomination of desolation occupying the Vatican:
- Doctrinal vacuity presented as “pastoral sensitivity.”
- Anthropocentrism replacing theocentrism: heaven as “God’s children living together” rather than the visio Dei.
- Naturalism: the priest as social worker, the Church as NGO.
- Silence on the Quatuor Novissima (Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell) — the Syllabus of Pius IX (Error 16) condemns the idea that “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation.” The article implies a generic “heaven” accessible to vague “God’s children.”
- Legitimation of the usurping hierarchy by featuring the “archbishop’s” visit as a blessing.
St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) condemned the Modernist reduction of dogma to “religious experience” and “symbol.” Fr. Bello’s “heaven” is precisely such a vitalist symbol, devoid of veritas revelata. The Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907) condemned the proposition: “The dogmas of faith should be understood according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief” (Prop. 26). The article embodies this pragmatism: priesthood validated by “thanking,” heaven as “dwelling place,” ministry as “accompaniment.”
Conclusion: A Portrait of the Anti-Church
The National Catholic Register offers this centenarian not as a confessor fidei who resisted the conciliar revolution, but as a model of the new “priest”: docile to the innovations, silent on doctrine, active in humanitarianism, comfortable in the paramasonic structure. His 1955 ordination (under Pius XII) makes his subsequent assimilation into the novus ordo and the conciliar parish system a testimony to the efficacy of the revolution: even those formed in the old rite were co-opted.
As Pius XI warned in Quas Primas: “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.” When the visio beatifica is removed from preaching, and the priesthood from the altar, the foundations of the supernatural life are destroyed. What remains is a geriatric NGO with religious vocabulary — the Church of the New Advent in its essence.
“Non est aliud nomen sub caelo datum hominibus, in quo oporteat nos salvari” (Acts 4:12). There is no salvation in the vague “immensity of God” of the conciliar sect, nor in the priesthood that serves it.
Source:
What Is Heaven? A Priest Who Just Turned 100 Replies (ncregister.com)
Date: 17.08.2026