The Pillar portal publishes a podcast preview for the Twenty-third Sunday of the Novus Ordo’s fabricated “Ordinary Time,” featuring laymen JD Flynn and Dr. Scott Powell discussing the Mass readings—Ezekiel 33, Romans 13, and Matthew 18—as a “framework for forgiveness” and a guide to being “your brother’s watchman.” This episode epitomizes the conciliar sect’s reduction of the supernatural economy to a naturalistic self-help exercise, stripping the Gospel of its judicial, sacrificial, and ecclesiological reality.
The Liturgical Fiction of “Ordinary Time” and the Usurpation of the Teaching Office
The very title “Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A” exposes the liturgical revolution of 1969 which shattered the immemorial Roman cycle of the Tempus per Annum (Time after Pentecost) into a manufactured “Ordinary Time”—a term unknown to the Missale Romanum of St. Pius V. This novelty is not mere nomenclature; it signifies the conciliar sect’s rupture with the lex orandi that expressed the lex credendi. The podcast format itself—two laymen, one a canon lawyer in the service of the usurping hierarchy (Flynn), the other a professional “Catholic speaker” (Powell)—usurps the munus docendi reserved exclusively to the legitimate hierarchy. As Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis Christi, “Christ did not appoint the laity to teach authoritatively in His name.” Here, the laity perform the “Sunday School” function, simulating a magisterium that has no mission (missio canonica) from the true Church, which subsists only in those bishops and priests retaining valid orders and the integral faith prior to 1958.
Ezekiel’s Watchman: The Divine Judgment Obscured by Therapeutic Jargon
The first reading, Ezekiel 33:7-9, presents the terrifying mandate of the watchman:
“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you shall surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.”
The podcast reduces this judicial office—binding under pain of eternal damnation—to a vague “parable” and a discussion of “how to forgive.” The watchman’s duty is not to “facilitate dialogue” but to proclaim the sanctitas iustitiae Dei (the holiness of God’s justice). The Syllabus of Pius IX condemns the error that “the Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion” (Error 21). By treating the prophetic warning as a generic moral lesson, the podcast denies the extra Ecclesiam nulla salus reality that the watchman guards: the visible boundaries of the one Ark of Salvation. The “blood required at the hand” of the silent watchman is the precise doctrinal equivalent of the automatic loss of office (ipso facto) for the manifest heretic who fails to defend the Faith—as St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, the heretic “ceases to be Pope and head… by which things he may be judged and punished by the Church” (De Romano Pontifice). The conciliar “watchmen” (Flynn, Powell, and the “bishops” they serve) have been silent for sixty years while the “wicked” (Modernists) destroy the vineyard; their blood is required.
Romans 13: The Law of Christ Replaced by Naturalistic “Love”
The second reading, Romans 13:8-10 (“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law”), is presented as a standalone ethical principle. St. Paul, however, roots this debt of love in the caritas poured forth by the Holy Spirit in the Sacraments (Rom 5:5), not in a naturalistic philanthropy. The podcast’s “framework for forgiveness” severs the moral law from its Source and Sanction: Christ the King. Pius XI in Quas Primas declares: “His reign encompasses not only Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ” (Encyclical Annum Sacrum, cited in Quas Primas, n. 28). The conciliar reading reduces the regnum Christi to a horizontal fraternity. The Syllabus condemns the proposition that “moral laws do not stand in need of the divine sanction” (Error 56). By discussing forgiveness as a psychological technique or social lubricant, the podcast commits the error of “natural religion, a natural inner impulse” (Syllabus, Intro), denying that “there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, cited in Quas Primas, n. 29).
Matthew 18: The Power of the Keys Usurped by the Laity
The Gospel, Matthew 18:15-20, contains the institution of fraternal correction culminating in the power of binding and loosing:
“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
This power was given to the Apostles and their successors—the valid episcopate—not to a podcast duo or a “synodal” assembly. The podcast discusses the “process” of correction as if it were a conflict-resolution algorithm. It ignores the conditio sine qua non: unity in the true Faith and communion with the true Pastor. Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907) condemns the Modernist proposition that “the organic structure of the Church is subject to change… are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness” (Prop. 53). The conciliar sect’s “binding and loosing” is a simulation; its “priests” lack valid orders (novus ordo rite of 1968), its “bishops” lack jurisdiction (heresy/schism), and its “pope” (Leo XIV / Prevost) is a manifest heretic who has lost office ipso facto per Canon 188.4 (1917 Code) and the Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio of Paul IV. As the Defense of Sedevacantism file demonstrates citing Bellarmine and Pope Celestine I on Nestorius: “he could not remove anyone by sentence who himself had already shown that he must be removed.” The “forgiveness” dispensed in the neo-church is a nullity, a “table of assembly” simulation, not the Sacramentum Poenitentiae instituted by the Divine Physician.
Symptomatic Level: The “Pillar” as an Organ of the Abomination of Desolation
The sponsor “Annunicate” (“helping ministries… launch their own fully branded app, without the pitfalls of Big Tech”) reveals the entrepreneurial, technological spirit of the civitas terrena masquerading as the Civitas Dei. The platform “Substack,” the “RSS Feed,” the “Comments,” the “Restacks”—this is the liturgy of the Marketplace, not the Sanctuary. The podcast title “Sunday School” is Protestant terminology, alien to the Catholic Catechismus or Doctrina Christiana. It betrays the hermeneutic of rupture: the replacement of the Sacrificium Propitiatorium (the Holy Mass) with a “Bible Study.” The silence regarding the Holy Sacrifice, the Real Presence, the Priesthood, the Virgin Mary, the Saints, Purgatory, Hell, and the Last Judgment is the gravissima accusatio. As Pius X condemned in Lamentabili: “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). This is precisely the pragmatic, therapeutic deformation on display.
Conclusion: The Blind Leading the Blind into the Ditch
The episode is a microcosm of the abominatio desolationis standing in the holy place (Matt 24:15). It offers the faithful of the conciliar sect a stone instead of bread (Matt 7:9), a naturalistic ethics instead of the supernaturalis vita. The “watchman” who does not blow the trumpet against the heresy of the “popes” from John XXIII to Leo XIV is a dumb dog that cannot bark (Isa 56:10). The “forgiveness” preached without the Sanguis Christi, without the Potestas Clavium validly exercised, without the Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, is a lie. Return to the immutable Tradition. Reject the conciliar sect. Seek the valid Mass and the true Pastors who hold the Faith of the Fathers. Non est alia salus.
Source:
Your brother’s watchman, and how to forgive (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 01.09.2026