The EWTN News portal reports that the Belgian “bishop” Johan Bonny of Antwerp has renewed his demand to ordain married men to the “priesthood” in his diocese by 2028, explicitly linking this innovation to the implementation phase of the “Synod on Synodality.” Bonny claims to have presented this proposal to the “Dicastery for the Clergy” and the “General Secretariat of the Synod” in Rome in June 2026, expressing confidence that “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) will facilitate this rupture with immemorial discipline. He argues that failure to achieve this by the synod’s conclusion in 2028 would deal a “fatal blow to the credibility” of the synodal process. Canonists cited in the article correctly note that under current canon law (Canon 1042), a diocesan “bishop” cannot unilaterally set aside the impediment of marriage for sacred orders. This maneuver exposes the synodal machinery as the engineered vehicle for the Protestantization of the priesthood and the definitive abolition of the Catholic sacrifice.
The Synodal Engine of Apostasy: Manufacturing Consent for Heresy
The “Synod on Synodality” stands revealed not as a pastoral consultation but as a Masonic-style legislative assembly designed to dismantle the divine constitution of the Church. Bonny’s explicit linkage of the married priesthood innovation to the “synodal process” timeline (“by the end of the synodal process in the fall of 2028”) confirms that the “synodal” methodology is the modus operandi of the conciliar revolution: collegiality replaces primacy, democracy replaces hierarchy, and the “sensus fidelium” replaces the Magisterium. This is the practical application of the condemned Modernist proposition that “the Church listening cooperates… that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Lamentabili sane exitu, Prop. 6). The “Synod” is the parlement of the neo-church, where doctrine is not guarded but “discerned” into oblivion.
Bonny’s reference to “Germanic culture” and the “German Synodal Way” identifies the epicenter of this rebellion. The “German Synodal Way” is the avant-garde of apostasy, having already “resolved” to bless sodomite unions and demand female “deacons.” Bonny, as an “observer” there, imports this contagion into Belgium. The “Dicastery for the Clergy” and the “General Secretariat of the Synod” — organs of the Roman usurpation — do not rebuke him; they “dialogue.” This silence is assensus. As Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus (Error 80): “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” The antipope Leo XIV, by entertaining this “bridge-building,” fulfills this condemnation perfectly.
Violation of Divine Law and the Immutable Discipline of the Priesthood
The discipline of priestly celibacy in the Latin Church is not a mere positive law subject to “synodal” revision; it is a canonically ratified expression of divine law and the very nature of the priesthood. The Council of Trent defined anathema against those who say “that clerics… can contract marriage” (Sess. XXIV, Can. 9). The 1917 Code (Canon 1042, now Canon 277 §1 CIC 1983) codifies this: Clerici sunt obligati ad coelibatum observandum. But the deeper reality is theological: the priest is alter Christus, configured to Christ the High Priest in sacris by an indelible character (character indelebilis) which demands a total oblation, signified and effected by virginity or perpetual continence.
St. Paul teaches: “He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife: and he is divided” (1 Cor 7:32-33). The priesthood is not a function to be staffed by “viri probati” (married men of proven faith) to solve a “shortage.” It is a munus of victimhood. Bonny’s utilitarian language — “serious shortage of priests,” “potential candidates,” “formation” — reduces the Sacerdotium to a social service agency. This is the heresy of functionalism, condemned by Pius XII in Mediator Dei and inherent in the Modernist error that “the sacraments arose as a result of the interpretation by the Apostles… under the influence of circumstances” (Lamentabili, Prop. 40).
The Invalidity of the Conciliar Hierarchy: No Authority to Bind or Loose
Even if the “Vatican” approved this abomination, it would possess zero authority. The line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli) has forfeited all jurisdiction by manifest heresy. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches (De Romano Pontifice II, 30): “A manifest heretic… by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head… he cannot be the head of something of which he is not a member.” The “Defense of Sedevacantism” file demonstrates conclusively that a Pope who is a manifest heretic loses his office ipso facto, without need of declaratory sentence. The “popes” of the conciliar sect — Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and now Leo XIV — have publicly professed the heresies of religious liberty, false ecumenism, collegiality, and the new Mass. They are non-Christians in the juridical sense (Bellarmine: “A non-Christian in no way can be Pope”), severed from the Body of Christ.
Therefore, “Bishop” Bonny, ordained in the new rite (post-1968) by “bishops” consecrated in the new rite (post-1968), likely lacks valid orders entirely. The new ordinal of Paul VI (1968) eliminated the essential form specifying the power of offering sacrifice (ut offerre possit), rendering it doubtfully valid at best, invalid in practice. A “bishop” without valid orders has no power to ordain anyone, married or celibate. The “Canon 1042” cited by the EWTN canonist belongs to the 1983 Code, a legislative act of an antipope (John Paul II), possessing no canonical force in the true Church. The true law remains the 1917 Code and, above it, the ius divinum.
Canon Law vs. Divine Law: The Impediment of Marriage is Diriment by Divine Institution
The article cites David Long, a canonist of the “Catholic University of America” (a conciliar institution), stating the change “requires action by the Holy See.” This concedes the point: the impediment is not merely ecclesiastical positive law that a “pope” can dispense at whim. While the Church can legislate on the discipline of celibacy (e.g., admitting married converts from Orthodoxy under strict conditions), the ordination of married men as a general norm in the Latin Rite contradicts the immemorial tradition and the canones apostolici (Canon 51 of the Apostolic Canons: “If any bishop, priest, or deacon… puts away his wife… let him be deposed”). The Latin Church has forbidden priestly marriage since the 4th century (Council of Elvira, Carthage) and dogmatized the superiority of virginity (Trent, Sess. XXIV, Can. 10).
Bonny’s claim that “canonists told him canon law offered various lawful ways” is a sophistical lie. There is no “lawful way” for a Latin “bishop” to ordain married men ad presbyteratum without an explicit, universal, and legitimate papal decree — which cannot come from a heretic antipope. The “viri probati” experiment in the Amazon (Synod 2019) was rejected by Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sarah in From the Depths of Our Hearts, yet the synodal machine grinds on. This proves the “Synod” is a permanent revolution, not a consultative body.
The Ultimate Goal: Protestantization and the Abolition of the Propitiatory Sacrifice
Why married priests? Because a married “presbyter” is the Protestant minister model. The destruction of celibacy is the conditio sine qua non for the destruction of the Mass. A priest who lives “in the world” (married, employed, secularized) cannot be the victima of the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary. The conciliar “Mass” (Novus Ordo) has already been stripped of its propitiatory theology (Offertory prayers removed, “supper” narrative inserted, altar turned versus populum). Marrying the “clergy” completes the Lutheranization: a “presider” at a “community meal,” not a sacerdos offering Hostiam puram, Hostiam sanctam, Hostiam immaculatam.
Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches that “Christ reigns in the minds of men… in the wills of men… in the hearts of men” and that “the state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders… who combat the triple concupiscence of the world through religious vows”. The conciliar sect, by attacking celibacy, attacks the regnum Christi directly. It serves the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism” which Pius XI identifies as “the plague that poisons human society” (Quas Primas). The “Synod on Synodality” is the synagoga Satanae (Pius IX, Syllabus intro) legislating the abomination of desolation into the sanctuary.
Conclusion: The True Church Endures in the Catacombs
Bonny’s push is not a “pastoral initiative”; it is a demonic assault on the priesthood of Christ. The “credibility” he fears losing is the credibility of the anti-church before the world. The true Church, the Ecclesia militans, possesses no “shortage of priests” where the Traditional Latin Mass is celebrated and the Faith is kept integral; seminaries of the Resistance (true sedevacantist bishops with valid orders) are full. The “shortage” exists only in the neo-church because the vocatio flees from heresy and invalid sacraments.
“The authority of our See has decreed that a bishop… who was deposed or excommunicated by Nestorius or his followers, after the latter began to preach heresy, shall not be considered deposed or excommunicated. For he who has departed from the faith with such preaching cannot depose or remove anyone” (Pope Celestine I, cited in Defense of Sedevacantism). Bonny, Leo XIV, and the entire synodal hierarchy have “departed from the faith.” Their “ordinations” are null. Their “synods” are void. The faithful must flee the conciliar structures as from a plague, adhere to bishops and priests of the true Tradition (valid orders, true Mass, integral Faith), and pray for the Rex Regum to restore His Kingdom. Viva Cristo Rey!
Source:
Belgian bishop renews push to ordain married men to priesthood (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 02.10.2026