Protestantized Arthurian Fantasy Masquerades as Catholic Culture on EWTN Platform
The National Catholic Register, a flagship organ of the EWTN media empire, publishes a laudatory commentary by former diplomat and EWTN contributor Alberto M. Fernandez on The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin, a fantasy series produced by the Protestant-owned Daily Wire+ and streaming on Amazon Prime. Fernandez, identifying as a “Christian” and “right-winger,” praises the production for its “visceral, masculine Christianity,” its reliance on medieval sources like Geoffrey of Monmouth, and its alleged avoidance of “saccharine or heavy-handed preachiness.” He hails it as a model of “creating culture, not just criticizing it.” This endorsement by a post-conciliar “Catholic” outlet of a Protestant fantasy series as a vehicle for Christian culture exposes the utter vacuity of the neo-church’s cultural project: it has abandoned the Social Kingship of Christ for a generic, naturalistic “Judeo-Christian” aesthetic consumable on a secular streaming platform.
The Neo-Church’s Embrace of Protestant Cultural Production
The commented article reveals the advanced state of indifferentism (condemned in the Syllabus of Errors, props. 15-18) infecting the conciliar sect. Fernandez, writing for an outlet nominally “Catholic,” reviews a series created by Jeremy Boreing and based on novels by Stephen R. Lawhead — both explicitly identified as Evangelical Protestants — and finds it “very well made,” “grounded,” and a “success.” He notes the creators are “honest and humble enough to know that they stand on the shoulders of giants, drawing from the medieval chronicler and Catholic cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth.” This is a theft of Catholic patrimony by heretics, sanctioned by a “Catholic” reviewer. The Syllabus condemns the proposition that “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion” (prop. 18). Yet Fernandez treats this Protestant product as a legitimate, even commendable, expression of “Christian culture.” The series airs on Amazon Prime, a secular globalist platform; its production company, Daily Wire+, is a partisan political media operation. This is not the Catholic Action of Pius XI, who demanded in Quas Primas that “rulers of states… fulfill this duty themselves and with their people, if they wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness” by public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ. It is the action of a sect that has capitulated to the world.
Generic “Christianity” vs. The One True Faith
The article speaks consistently of “Christianity,” “Christian faith,” “monks preaching a strange Eastern faith,” and “Trust in Jesu [Jesus].” Nowhere does it confess the Catholic Church as the sole Ark of Salvation, the necessity of the Sacraments, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff, or the veneration of the Blessed Virgin. The reviewer describes the series as capturing “the flux and flow of contending faiths and ethnicities of late Roman/post-Roman Britain, with its various pagans and its monks preaching a strange Eastern faith.” This is a Protestantized, historicist reading: the Catholic Faith is reduced to one “faith” among “contending faiths,” an “Eastern” import, rather than the divinely instituted, universal, unchanging society (perfecta societas) established by Christ the King. Quas Primas teaches: “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.” The series, and the review, present a Christianity subject to history, evolving in a “flux,” not the immutable Kingdom that judges history. This is the Modernist error condemned in Lamentabili sane exitu: “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples, but rather initiated a certain religious movement, applied or applicable to different times and places” (prop. 59). The “visceral, masculine Christianity” praised by Boreing and Fernandez is a naturalistic substitute for supernatural grace.
The “Cultural” Trap: Naturalism Masquerading as Supernatural Mission
Fernandez quotes Boreing: “The Pendragon Cycle is the culmination of a 10-year vision to create culture, not just to criticize it.” This slogan — “create culture” — is the battle cry of the neo-Christianity that Pius X anathematized. It replaces the salus animarum (salvation of souls) with aesthetic production. The reviewer, a former U.S. diplomat, operates entirely within the natural order: he judges the series by its acting, locations, effects, lack of “anachronistic African Vikings,” and “artistic talent.” He explicitly contrasts it with “self-consciously ‘Christian’ movies” which he avoids, and “self-identified ‘right-wing’ media” which he eschews. His praise is that the series works as entertainment: “it is very much like our world.” This is the heresy of immanentism: the supernatural is validated only insofar as it mirrors the natural, fallen world. Quas Primas warns: “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 “culture” created here derives its authority from market success on Amazon Prime and the approval of a right-wing media cartel, not from the mandatum of Christ the King. The silence on the Most Holy Sacrifice, the Sacraments, the Papacy, and the Last Things is not an omission; it is the essence of the apostasy. A “Christian culture” without the Mass is a culture of death.
EWTN and the Register: Organs of the Conciliar Sect
The source of this article — National Catholic Register, owned by EWTN — is structurally incapable of rendering a Catholic judgment. EWTN was founded by the post-conciliar “nun” Mother Angelica under the aegis of the usurping hierarchy (John XXIII onward). Its “contributors” like Fernandez (a former diplomat of the Masonic-influenced U.S. State Department) are formed by the novus ordo religion. The Register consistently promotes the “hermeneutic of continuity,” false ecumenism, and the legitimization of the antipope line (currently Leo XIV, Robert Prevost). By publishing this review, the Register signals that “Catholic media” now functions as a curator of Protestant content for conservative consumption. This fulfills the Masonic strategy outlined in the False Fatima ApparitionsRex iustus under the Pope) and repackaged as generic “Christian” entertainment for the “right-wing” demographic. The reviewer’s own credentials — “former U.S. diplomat,” “contributor at EWTN News” — mark him as a man of the City of Man, not the City of God.
Geoffrey of Monmouth Plundered: The Theft of Catholic Patrimony
Fernandez notes the series draws on “the medieval chronicler and Catholic cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Welsh epic The Mabinogion and others, and from a rich tapestry of intertwined Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Roman and Norse taproots.” Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1095–1155) was a Catholic bishop (of St Asaph) writing in a Catholic Europe where the Social Kingship of Christ was the political theology. His Historia Regum Britanniae served to legitimize British sovereignty under the translatio imperii from Rome, ultimately subject to the Pope. The Daily Wire+ adaptation, produced by Protestants for a secular corporation, severs the Matter of Britain from its Catholic sacramental and hierarchical roots. The “Merlin” of Catholic tradition is a figure of ambiguous orthodoxy, often associated with demonic paternity redeemed by grace; the Protestant fantasy “Merlin” becomes a “man of power and a man of Christian faith” — a generic Bible-believing wizard. This is cultural appropriation in service of heresy. The Syllabus condemns the idea that “the Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion” (prop. 21). By treating a Protestant fantasy as a valid carrier of “Christian culture,” the Register implicitly denies this dogmatic power.
The “Year of Our Lord 2026” Without Christ the King
Fernandez dates his praise “especially in the Year of Our Lord 2026.” This dating is a hollow formula. In 1925, Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely because “very many have removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from their customs, from private, family, and public life” (Quas Primas). He decreed the feast “to address the needs of the present times and provide a special remedy against the plague that poisons human society. And this plague is the secularism of our times, so-called laicism.” In 2026, under the reign of the antipope Leo XIV, the “plague” has triumphed inside the Vatican walls. The Register’s commentary — praising a TV show on Amazon for its “naturalness” and “delicate touch” in depicting Christianity — is a symptom of the total capitulation to laicism. The “remedy” proposed by the neo-church is content creation. The remedy proposed by the true Pope Pius XI was the public, liturgical, legal, and political enthronement of Christ the King. “Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ.” The Pendragon Cycle offers a king without a crown, a faith without a Church, a Christianity without the Cross. It is a fantasy for a church that has become a fantasy.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation in the Cultural Sphere
The article is not a review; it is a manifesto of the counter-church. It demonstrates that the conciliar sect’s “cultural engagement” consists in celebrating Protestant-produced, Amazon-distributed entertainment that tickles conservative aesthetic preferences while ignoring the integral Catholic Faith. The “visceral, masculine Christianity” on offer is the religion of the natural man, not the supernatural life of grace. The true Matter of Britain is not Arthur and Merlin, but the Mass of the Ages offered on its altars, the martyrs who watered its soil, the monks who chanted the Divine Office in its abbeys, all in communion with the See of Peter. That Britain is dead, murdered by the Protestant Revolt and finished by the Modernist apostasy. No streaming series can resurrect it. Only the restoration of all things in Christ (Instaurare omnia in Christo) — the rejection of the antipope, the return to the true Mass, the confession of the Social Kingship — can. The Register’s endorsement of this Protestant fantasy is one more stone in the edifice of the abomination of desolation.
Source:
‘The Pendragon Cycle’ Is Fantasy Grounded in Truth (ncregister.com)
Date: 05.09.2026