The National Catholic Register — the flagship propaganda organ of the conciliar sect occupying the Vatican — reports that Gregory Popcak, a lay psychologist and host on the paramasonic EWTN network, has released an e-book addressing postpartum depression (PPD) through a synthesized “Catholic” lens that is, in reality, a capitulation to the therapeutic culture of the Antichrist. The article, authored by Alyssa Murphy on September 16, 2026, frames this publication as a merciful intervention for the “one in seven” mothers afflicted, yet the entire enterprise reveals the theological bankruptcy of the post-conciliar establishment: it substitutes the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary and the sacramental economy of grace for a cocktail of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and a psychologized “spirituality” that treats the Cross as a metaphor for “self-care.”
The Factual Level: Medicalizing the Mystery of Motherhood
The cited article presents the “facts” of PPD prevalence — “approximately one in seven new mothers” — as an epidemiological datum requiring a clinical response. Popcak is quoted asserting:
“Catholics aren’t immune from either physical or emotional illness, and, as Catholics, we have a unique, holistic perspective on healing that encourages us to use the medical, psychological, relational and spiritual tools available to us to promote our healing and well-being.”
This statement is the manifesto of the neo-church: a pragmatic pluralism that places the “tools” of the world — psychiatry, pharmacology, secular psychology — on par with, or even above, the supernatural means instituted by Christ. The “holistic perspective” is a Trojan Horse for naturalism. The article notes Popcak’s advocacy for routine screening:
“A postpartum depression-screening tool takes about four minutes to complete. … It should be just as standard as getting your blood pressure taken.”
Here the cura animarum is reduced to a bureaucratic checkbox, a “vital sign” for the soul managed by the OB-GYN, the new high priest of the conciliar sect. The recommendation of SSRIs as a standard adjunct —
“recommending psychological counseling alongside medical treatments like SSRIs… to help mothers develop coping strategies and process underlying stressors”
— constitutes a de facto endorsement of the pharmaceutical management of the spiritual life. The “carpenter sharpening his saw” analogy (
“It’s not irresponsible or selfish or self-indulgent for the carpenter to sharpen his saw.”
) reduces the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor 6:19) to a utilitarian instrument for productivity, stripping the body of its sacramental dignity and the suffering of its redemptive value (Col 1:24).
The Linguistic Level: The Rhetoric of Therapeutic Deception
The language of the article and Popcak’s interview is saturated with the novus ordo vocabulary of “wellness,” “coping,” “stigma,” and “support.” The phrase “spiritual guilt” is deployed not as a theological category — the remorse of conscience before the Divine Majesty — but as a psychological symptom to be alleviated. Popcak declares:
“These feelings are not the mom… They are the illness attacking your feelings. … You’re not failing any more than you would be failing if you had the flu.”
This is a radical dissociation of the person from her moral agency. It echoes the Modernist heresy condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis: the separation of the “phenomenon” from the “reality,” here applied to the soul. The mother is told her despair is an alien pathogen, not a potential dark night of the senses, a trial permitted by Providence for purification, or a consequence of the wounds of Original Sin requiring grace, not merely serum. The “urgent disclaimer” directing suicidal mothers to “immediate medical intervention” — while prudentially necessary in the natural order — is presented without any reference to the Last Rites, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, or the Holy Name of Jesus. The “faithful voice” is mute on the one thing necessary (Luke 10:42).
The Theological Level: The Abolition of the Supernatural Order
From the perspective of integral Catholic theology — the immutable doctrine of the Council of Trent, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, and the encyclicals of Pius XI (e.g., Quas Primas, Casti Connubii) and Pius XII — this e-book is a document of apostasy.
- Denial of the Primacy of Grace: The article speaks of faith as a “protective element” shown by “research.” This is religious indifferentism masquerading as apologetics. Faith is not a psychological buffer; it is the substance of things hoped for (Heb 11:1), a theological virtue infused by God, the beginning of eternal life (St. Thomas, ST II-II, q. 4, a. 1). To cite “research” as the warrant for faith is to subject the depositum fidei to the judgment of the scientia media of the world.
- Confusion of Nature and Grace: The distinction between “baby blues” (hormonal) and “clinical PPD” (pathological) is accepted uncritically as a purely medical taxonomy. The Catholic distinction is between temptation, trial, spiritual desolation (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, Rules for Discernment), and diabolical oppression — all of which require spiritual weapons (Eph 6:11-17), not primarily SSRIs. The “holistic” model inverts the order of being: it treats the soul as a function of the brain.
- Redefinition of Self-Sacrifice: Popcak’s dichotomy — “self-sacrifice vs. self-destruction” — is a Jansenist-tinged moralism stripped of the Mystery of the Cross. True Christian self-sacrifice is kenosis (Phil 2:7), a participation in the Victimhood of the Lamb. It is not “sharpening the saw” to maintain functionality; it is being broken like the alabaster box (Mk 14:3) for the love of the Bridegroom. The neo-church cannot comprehend victimhood because it has abolished the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (replaced by the “table of assembly”) and thus has no theology of suffering.
- Absence of the Sacraments: Nowhere in the Register’s summary — nor, by implication, in the e-book — is there a directive to Confession (for the peace of a clean conscience), Holy Communion (from a validly ordained priest, ex opere operato), or Extreme Unction (if danger of death). The “spiritual tools” are vague, generic, and Protestantized. This is the ecumenism of the bedside, the pan-religious psychotherapy condemned by Pius XI in Mortalium Animos.
The Symptomatic Level: The Rotten Fruit of the Conciliar Revolution
This initiative is not an anomaly; it is the logical terminus of the Second Vatican Council’s anthropocentric turn (Gaudium et Spes). The “Church of the New Advent” has no remedy for the suffering of mothers because it has forgotten the Mother of God — not the sentimentalized figure of conciliar piety, but the Co-Redemptrix who stood stabat mater dolorosa at the foot of the Cross. The conciliar sect’s “pastoral care” is the alchemy of the devil: turning the gold of supernatural grace into the dross of psychological management.
Gregory Popcak operates as a “priest” of the new religion of Mental Health. His “free e-book” is an indulgence of the paramasonic structure, offered gratis to bind the faithful more tightly to the abomination of desolation (Matt 24:15). The Register, EWTN, and the “Catholic Association” (cited in the embedded tweet) form a symphony of error, amplifying a message that says: “Christ is insufficient; you need the psychiatrist.”
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), condemned the proposition: “The Church is an enemy of the progress of natural and theological sciences” (Prop. 57). The conciliar sect has not made the Church an enemy of science; it has made the Church a handmaid of scientism. It has fulfilled the prophecy of Quas Primas: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” Here, Christ is removed from the delivery room and the nursery, replaced by the “screening tool” and the pill bottle.
The “spiritual guilt” of Catholic mothers is not a pathology. It is often the sensus fidei recoiling at the vacuum of holiness in their lives — a vacuum created by the invalid sacraments, the heretical liturgies, and the silence of the true shepherds in the catacombs. The remedy is not Popcak’s PDF. It is the Traditional Latin Mass, the Roman Catechism, the Rosary, and submission to a valid bishop holding the Catholic Faith entire and inviolate (Athanasian Creed). Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — and the conciliar sect is not the Church.
Source:
Postpartum Depression: New E-Book Offers Hope and Healing for Catholic Mothers (ncregister.com)
Date: 16.09.2026