The propaganda organ EWTN News trumpets a survey by the conciliar “Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate” (CARA) claiming that 18% of men “ordained” in 2026 attended a Franciscan University of Steubenville Youth Conference, presenting this statistical artifact as a “vocations boom.” The report showcases two conciliar functionaries—”Fr.” Rufino Corona of the post-conciliar “Third Order Regular Franciscans” and “Deacon” Arthur Bodenschatz of the “Diocese of Youngstown”—who attribute their “call” to emotional peaks experienced at these charismatic rallies. This narrative exposes the utter theological bankruptcy of the neo-church: a purely naturalistic, sentimental manufacturing of “vocations” devoid of the supernatural reality of the Catholic priesthood, the True Mass, and the Social Kingship of Christ the King.
The Nullity of the “Ordination” and the Vacancy of the See
The fundamental fact obliterated by the article is that the men counted in this CARA survey are not Catholic priests. They are “ordained” in the Novus Ordo Missae rite of Paul VI—a rite fabricated by the freemason Bugnini and his conspirators, which deliberately suppresses the propitiatory nature of the Sacrifice and the sacerdotal character of the priesthood. As Pope Pius XII taught in Mediator Dei, the liturgy is the primary organ of the Church’s faith; a rite that expresses a Protestant theology of a “memorial meal” cannot produce Catholic priests. Furthermore, the “bishops” who impose hands in these ceremonies are themselves invalidly consecrated in the post-1968 rite of “episcopal consecration,” which omits the essential form for the transmission of the fullness of the priesthood.
But even granting the rite, the “bishops” of the conciliar sect—such as the “Bishop of Youngstown”—are manifest heretics who, by their public adhesion to the Second Vatican Council’s errors (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, the new ecclesiology), have ipso facto lost all jurisdiction and membership in the Church. St. Robert Bellarmine teaches: “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope… he cannot be the head of something of which he is not a member” (De Romano Pontifice). This principle applies a fortiori to bishops. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code declares that an office becomes vacant ipso facto by “public defection from the Catholic faith.” Pope Paul IV’s Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio confirms that any promotion of a heretic is “null, void, and of no effect.” Therefore, the “ordinations” witnessed by the article are nullities—ceremonies producing laymen dressed in vestments, authorized by a paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican since 1958. The 18% statistic measures not vocations, but the recruitment efficiency of the abomination of desolation.
Modernist Immanentism: “Encounter” Replaces Grace
The linguistic DNA of the article is pure Modernism, condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu and Pascendi Dominici Gregis. The vocabulary is telling: “encounter,” “journey,” “personal experience,” “on fire,” “joyful,” “realization of grace,” “locking eyes with the Lord.” This is the heresy of vital immanence: religion reduced to an internal, subjective sentiment. Proposition 20 of Lamentabili condemns: “Revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God.” Proposition 25 condemns: “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities.” The “vocations” described by Corona and Bodenschatz are not supernatural calls mediated by the Church’s authority and the sacraments, but psychological events triggered by atmospheric manipulation—lights, music, crowds, emotional preaching.
Bodenschatz recounts:
I just had a moment of locking eyes with the Lord in the Eucharist and just had a moment of realization, of grace, where I just knew that that was Jesus in the Eucharist. I knew that he loved me. I knew that I loved him. And I knew I was going to be a priest.
This is not the language of a vocation tested by the Church (vocatio canonica), but of a private revelation enthusiast. The Council of Trent anathematizes those who say the sacraments confer grace ex opere operato by the mere act of receiving them without faith; here, the “grace” is conjured by the subject’s “moment.” The “Eucharistic adoration” at Steubenville is directed toward a host “consecrated” in the invalid Novus Ordo by a “priest” without orders or jurisdiction—it is, at best, bread; at worst, idolatry.
Charismatic Emotionalism as a Substitute for the Kingship of Christ
The article’s central thesis—that “joy” and “community” generate vocations—is a direct negation of the Social Kingship of Christ defined by Pius XI in Quas Primas. The Pope taught: “Peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ… When God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The Steubenville conferences are the liturgical expression of a church that has abdicated this Kingship. They are massive, ecumenical-adjacent rallies (the “universal Church so full of life” Bodenschatz praises) where the “Gospel” is preached without the integral Catholic doctrine on the necessity of the Church for salvation (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus), the rights of Christ over civil society, or the condemnation of the errors enumerated in the Syllabus of Pius IX.
Error 79 of the Syllabus condemns the idea that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” Steubenville is the reconciliation with modern civilization: a Christianized Woodstock, a youth festival where the “faith” is packaged as a consumer experience. Corona admits the attraction was seeing “a thousand other kids there for the same reason… It makes your faith seem like ‘OK, this is more than just my high school.'” This is sociological tribalism, not the virtus fidei. The “vocations call” at the end of the weekend—standing up for a blessing—is a revivalist altar call, a Protestant technique alien to the Catholic discernment of spirits guided by a holy spiritual director in the confessional, not a stadium bleacher.
The Franciscan University of Steubenville: A Modernist Seminary
The institutional source of this “vocations boom” is the Franciscan University of Steubenville, a citadel of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal—a movement born in 1967 at Duquesne University under Protestant Pentecostal influence, characterized by emotionalism, private prophecy, and a contempt for the Traditional Latin Mass and scholastic theology. The “Third Order Regular Franciscans” (TOR) staffing it are a post-conciliar construct, their rule rewritten after Vatican II to accommodate the “renewal” (i.e., secularization). Corona’s “spiritual director” was a layman—a grotesque inversion of the priestly hierarchy. The article mentions “dynamic talks, the Mass, Eucharistic adoration, confession, prayer, and fellowship” but omits any reference to the Summa Theologiae, the Roman Catechism, the vow of obedience to the pre-conciliar Magisterium, or the duty to combat the errors of our time. It is a factory for animators, not alter Christus priests.
Symptomatic Conclusion: The Recruitment Drive of the Antichurch
The CARA survey and the EWTN puff piece are not news; they are a recruitment brochure for the conciliar sect. They celebrate the production of functionaries for a counterfeit church that has no Pope, no bishops, no Mass, no sacraments, and no mission but to accommodate the world. The “joy” of Steubenville is the gaudium mundanum of those who have found a comfortable niche in the ruins. As Pius XI warned in Quas Primas: “The state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders… who are indeed the most valiant helpers of the Pastors of the Church and contribute most to the expansion and establishment of Christ’s Kingdom, either by combating the triple concupiscence of the world through religious vows.” The Steubenville “friars” and “deacons” combat nothing; they capitulate to the spirit of the age. Their “vocations” are a statistical mirage in a desert where the True Mass has been abolished. Sede vacante; the harvest is not theirs.
Source:
Where priestly vocations begin: The lasting impact of Steubenville Youth Conferences (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 18.08.2026