The EWTN News portal reports on the feast of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, presenting a pious narrative of the Augustinian friar’s miracles and his patronage of the souls in purgatory, culminating in the claim that Pope Eugenius IV canonized him in 1446 after recognizing 300 miracles. The article functions as a typical conciliar-sect hagiography: it isolates a pre-conciliar saint from the integral Faith that formed him, strips the doctrine of purgatory of its terrifying reality, and offers the faithful a domesticated spirituality that ignores the vacant See of Peter and the extinction of the true Mass in the structures occupying the Vatican. This piece is not Catholic journalism; it is spiritual anesthesia administered by the paramasonic structure to keep its novus ordo adherents complacent in their schism.
The Conciliar Sect’s Instrumentalization of the Saints
The cited article relates that St. Nicholas “was drawn to the Augustinian religious order at a young age after hearing a sermon from the local superior on the vanity of the world.” It describes his “panini benedetti” — blessed bread dipped in water — which he distributed to the poor and sick, obtaining “healings for many” and “even raising some people from the dead.” The account of the deceased friar appearing to Nicholas, begging for the Holy Sacrifice to be offered for seven days until a “large number of souls were now with God,” is presented as the foundation of his patronage of the suffering Church.
What the EWTN portal deliberately omits is that the very Missale Romanum of St. Pius V — the only legitimate rite of the Mass — contains the proper prayers for this saint, and that the theology of purgatory so central to his cult was defined infallibly at the Second Council of Lyon (1274) and confirmed at the Council of Florence (1439) and the Council of Trent (Sess. XXV, *Decretum de Purgatorio*). The article mentions Lyon 1274 but remains silent on the dogmatic definition: “If those who are truly penitent die in the love of God before they have made satisfaction for sins of commission and omission… their souls are cleansed after death by purgatorial punishments” (Denzinger 464). This silence is not accidental. The conciliar sect has emptied purgatory of its poena sensus and poena damni, reducing it to a vague “process of purification” compatible with the heresy of universal salvation. By presenting Nicholas as a mere wonder-worker who “helped souls,” the article obscures the saint’s uncompromising preaching on the quattuor novissima — death, judgment, hell, and heaven — which is the very soul of Catholic asceticism.
Linguistic Sanitization: The Vocabulary of the Neo-Church
The rhetoric of the article betrays its origin. It speaks of “the Catholic Church’s teaching on purgatory” as if the institution currently headquartered in the Vatican — which the article implicitly identifies as the Catholic Church — possesses that teaching intact. It uses the phrase “celebrate the Eucharist” rather than “offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,” adopting the Protestantized lexicon of the *Novus Ordo Missae* promulgated by the antipope Paul VI in 1969. The term “panini benedetti” (blessed sandwiches) trivializes the sacramental action of a priest blessing bread *exorcizato* — a rite found in the *Rituale Romanum* — turning a liturgical act into a folksy anecdote.
The author, Jonah McKeown, is identified as a “staff writer for CNA’s sister news partner, the National Catholic Register” — both organs of the EWTN empire, which has never condemned the heresies of Vatican II, the *Novus Ordo*, or the manifest apostasy of the claimants to the papacy since 1958. The article’s closing boilerplate — “I agree to receive communications from EWTN… Privacy Policy” — reveals the commercial, bureaucratic nature of this enterprise. It is a business selling Catholic-flavored content to a demographic that has lost the Faith.
Theological Bankruptcy: A Saint Without His Church
The gravest error is the article’s presentation of St. Nicholas as a figure accessible to the faithful *within the conciliar sect*. The saint was an Augustinian canonized by Pope Eugenius IV — a true Roman Pontiff. The article notes this fact but draws no conclusion from it. It does not ask: Where is the successor of Eugenius IV today? It does not confront the reader with the dogma of the perpetual visibility of the Church (*Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus*, Denzinger 1825) and the necessity of communion with the Roman Pontiff for salvation (*Unam Sanctam*, Boniface VIII, Denzinger 468).
St. Nicholas died in 1305 or 1306. He lived under the true papacy. He offered the true Mass. He believed the full doctrine of purgatory as defined by the Church. The article invites the reader to venerate him *while remaining in communion with the usurpers who have abolished his Mass, denied his dogmas, and persecuted his true disciples*. This is the essence of the conciliar sect’s strategy: canonize the past to legitimize the present apostasy. As Pope Pius XI taught in *Quas Primas*, “When God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed” (Enc. *Quas Primas*, 1925). So too, when the true Mass and the true papacy are removed from the life of the Church, the veneration of the saints becomes idolatry — a cult of man, not of God.
The article mentions Nicholas’s “self-mortification” and vegetarianism, his refusal to eat meat even when ill, and the miraculous flight of the partridges. It treats these as charming legends. It does not present them as the fruits of a soul consumed by the timor Domini and the horror of sin — the only motives that can explain Catholic asceticism. The conciliar sect cannot comprehend mortification because it has denied the reality of hell and the necessity of satisfaction for sin. Its “saints” are social workers; the Church’s saints are victims of love crucified with Christ.
Symptomatic Exposure: The Abomination of Desolation in Disguise
This article is a symptom of the great apostasy foretold by St. Paul (*2 Thess. 2:3-4*) and identified by the true Magisterium as the work of the “synagogue of Satan” (Pius IX, *Syllabus of Errors*, condemning the separation of Church and State; *Allocution “Acerbissimum,”* Sept. 27, 1852). The conciliar sect occupies the visible patrimony of the Church — basilicas, canon law structures, the names of the saints — but has substituted the lex orandi with a Protestantized meal, the lex credendi with religious liberty (*Dignitatis Humanae*), and the lex vivendi with dialogue with the world.
The article’s URL — `ewtnnews.com` — belongs to a network founded by the Franciscan “Mother Angelica,” who died in 2016 in full communion with the antipope Bergoglio, never having denounced the false council or the invalid Mass. Her network is a pillar of the “Church of the New Advent.” It produces content like this to maintain the illusion of continuity. But non potest ecclesia Dei cum ecclesia diaboli communicare (the Church of God cannot communicate with the church of the devil).
The faithful who read this article and find consolation in it are being led deeper into the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15). They are told to pray to St. Nicholas for the souls in purgatory, but they are not told that the only efficacious suffrage for the dead is the Sacrificium propitiatorium of the true Mass offered by a validly ordained priest in communion with the true Pope — a Pope who does not currently reign in the Vatican. They are not warned that the “Masses” offered in the conciliar parishes are, at best, invalid simulations, and at worst, sacrilegious blasphemies that cry to heaven for vengeance.
The Duty of the Hour: Reject the Counterfeit
St. Nicholas of Tolentino belongs to the Church of the Catacombs, the Church of the *Sede Vacante*, the Church that preserves the *depositum fidei* entire and inviolate. His intercession is powerful for those who keep the Commandments of God and the Faith of the Fathers. For those who remain in the conciliar sect — whether “conservative,” “traditionalist” (those pretending to be traditional Catholics), or openly modernist — his patronage is a judgment. He who fed the poor with exorcized bread and raised the dead by the power of the true Priesthood would today be excommunicated by the “bishops” of the new religion for refusing the *Novus Ordo* and denying the legitimacy of the usurpers.
The article from EWTN is a trap. It offers the scent of sanctity to mask the stench of apostasy. Ecce enim veritas Domini manet in aeternum (For the truth of the Lord endures forever — Ps. 116:2). That truth is not found in the National Catholic Register. It is found in the catacombs where the true Mass is offered, where the true doctrine of purgatory is believed, and where the faithful await the restoration of the Papacy according to the promise of Christ: “Portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam” (Matt. 16:18).
Source:
Why St. Nicholas of Tolentino is the patron of souls in purgatory (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 09.09.2026