The EWTN portal reports on the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, presenting a curated list of “fascinating facts” regarding his Marian devotion, including a vision of two ladders, the testimony of Thomas of Celano, the patronage of the Immaculate Conception by Duns Scotus, and the saint’s Salutation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The article functions as a pious diversion, masking the total rupture between the seraphic spirituality of the Poverello and the naturalistic, ecumenical religion of the conciliar sect that publishes it. This superficial hagiography serves only to drape the abomination of desolation in the mantle of a saint who would have anathematized its very existence.
The Theft of Sanctity for a False Church
The cited article originates from the propaganda organ of the neo-church, EWTN, a network founded by the modernist “nun” Mother Angelica and fully integrated into the paramasonic structures occupying the Vatican. Its purpose is not the glory of God but the maintenance of the status quo of the Great Apostasy. By presenting St. Francis—a saint who embraced Lady Poverty and the Cross with a rigor that shames the comfortable clergy of the conciliar sect—as a mere “Marian devotee” in a generic, sentimental sense, the article commits a theft of sanctity. It plucks the saint from his doctrinal context—absolute submission to the Roman Pontiff, the necessity of the Catholic Faith for salvation, the reality of sin and hell—and reframes him as a mascot for the “Church of the New Advent.”
The article notes the 800th anniversary of his death (1226–2026) and the month of the Rosary. This calendrical coincidence is exploited to generate content that feels traditional while the substance of the Faith is denied daily by the “pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) and his predecessors back to John XXIII. St. Francis did not die for a “spirituality”; he died for the Catholic and Apostolic Faith, outside of which there is no salvation (extra Ecclesiam nulla salus), a dogma the conciliar sect has effectively abrogated by its false ecumenism and religious liberty.
Reduction of Marian Mediation to Psychological Comfort
The article recounts the vision of the two ladders: the steep red ladder of Christ and the less steep white ladder of Mary. “Advise your sons to go by the ladder of my mother.” In the hands of the neo-church, this profound mystery of mediatrix gratia is reduced to a self-help metaphor: an “easier way.” The theology of St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, the great Marian doctor of the pre-conciliar Church, teaches that devotion to Mary is necessary not because it is “less steep” in a worldly sense, but because it is the via immaculata, the sure path that avoids the illusions of self-will. The conciliar sect strips the Cross from the ladder. The “white ladder” implies purity and the Immaculate Conception—a dogma defined by Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus (1854) under pain of anathema for deniers. The article mentions Duns Scotus’s role but omits the binding dogmatic definition and the anathema. Why? Because the conciliar sect no longer teaches dogma as immutable truth but as “evolving consciousness.”
The Silence on the Immaculate Conception as Dogma
The article states: “The writings of Blessed John Duns Scotus… led the Church in part to proclaim the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854.” Note the phrasing: “led the Church in part to proclaim.” This is the language of historical-critical modernism, not Catholic theology. The dogma was not “proclaimed” as a historical event resulting from theological lobbying; it was defined infallibly by the Supreme Pontiff exercising the charisma veritatis certum. Pius IX declared: “The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception… was preserved free from all stain of original sin… is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.” (Ineffabilis Deus). The article treats the dogma as a Franciscan achievement rather than a divine revelation binding the conscience. This is the hermeneutic of evolution: dogmas as human projects.
The Rosary: A Weapon, Not a Bead-Counting Exercise
The article speculates: “Although we don’t have written proof that St. Francis prayed the rosary founded by St. Dominic… it may be very probable he would know and pray it.” This banal speculation reveals the naturalistic mindset. The Rosary is not a “method of meditation from the earliest centuries” nor a habit of “counted beads.” It is the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, a spiritual weapon given by Our Lady to St. Dominic for the conversion of heretics and the destruction of sin. St. Pius V, in Consueverunt Romani Pontifices (1569), established the Rosary as a bulwark against the Turkish invasion and the Protestant revolt. The conciliar sect has turned this sword into a therapy bead. The article’s focus on “probability” and “common method” insults the supernatural efficacy of the Rosary pleaded by Leo XIII in Supremi Apostolatus Officio (1883) and Pius XI in Ingravescentibus Malis (1937).
The Salutation: A Creedal Act, Not a Poem
The article prints St. Francis’s Salutation to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a devotional coda. “Hail, O Lady, Mary, holy Mother of God: you are the Virgin made Church…” This is not poetry; it is ecclesiology. Virgo facta Ecclesia—the Virgin made Church. St. Francis identifies Mary with the Church in her spotless purity and maternal mediation. The conciliar sect, however, has replaced the Virgo facta Ecclesia with the populus Dei (People of God) of Lumen Gentium, a horizontal, sociological entity. By printing the Salutation without the dogmatic context of Mary’s Divine Maternity, Perpetual Virginity, Immaculate Conception, and Assumption—all defined truths the conciliar sect pays lip service to while gutting their meaning—the article commits a fraud. It uses the saint’s words to legitimize a sect that denies the very object of his praise: the Una, Sancta, Catholica et Apostolica Ecclesia.
Omission of the Stigmata and the Cross: The Heart of Franciscan Spirituality
The gravest omission in the article is the total silence on the Stigmata. St. Francis is the first recorded saint to bear the wounds of Christ crucified. His Marian devotion was inseparable from his conformity to the Crucified. The vision of the ladders leads to Calvary, not to a comfortable “protection.” The article mentions “poverty of Bethlehem” but ignores the poverty of the Cross. This is the hallmark of the conciliar religion: Christianity without the Cross, a “joyful” naturalism. Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), teaches that Christ’s Kingdom demands that “men… deny themselves and carry their cross”. The EWTN article offers a Francis who is a “strong Marian devotee” but not a victim of love. It presents a domesticated saint for a domesticated laity.
Symptomatic Level: The Franciscan Order as a Metaphor for the Conciliar Ruin
The article speaks of the “Friars Minor” and “Franciscan sons and daughters” under Mary’s protection. Today, the Franciscan orders (OFM, OFM Cap, OFM Conv) are the vanguard of the conciliar revolution: promoters of religious indifferentism, “interfaith dialogue” (Assisi 1986, 2002, 2011), and the dissolution of religious life. The “chapel of Mary of the Angels” (the Portiuncola) has been the stage for the most scandalous acts of false ecumenism. St. Bonaventure, cited in the article as a biographer, was the Seraphic Doctor who defended the unicity of the Church and the necessity of the Faith. His theology is the antithesis of the “fraternity” of Fratelli Tutti. The article’s invocation of Bonaventure is a crimen laesae majestatis against the saint’s memory.
Conclusion: The Devil’s Apologetics
This article is a masterpiece of the devil’s apologetics: simulatio sanctitatis. It offers the faithful of the conciliar sect a “safe” Francis—a Francis of birds, wolves, and gentle Marian sentiments—while the true Francis, the alter Christus who fasted forty days, received the Stigmata, demanded obedience to the Holy See, and sought the conversion of the Sultan to the one true Faith, remains a stranger to them. The EWTN portal, by publishing this, fulfills its role as the propaganda fidei of the Antichurch: keeping the sheep in the fold of the wolf by feeding them the memory of the Shepherd they have rejected. Quo vadis? The faithful must flee these structures, for “he who is not with Me is against Me” (Mt 12:30), and the conciliar sect is manifestly against Christ the King.
Source:
5 things to know about St. Francis of Assisi’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 01.10.2026