The EWTN News portal, propaganda organ of the conciliar sect, reports on the suicide of Father Bernard Card, a “priest” of the Diocese of Dijon, and the subsequent reaction of the local “archbishop,” Antoine Hérouard. The article details the “astonishment and deep sadness” of the hierarchy, the organization of vague “prayer vigils,” and the citation of secular mental health statistics to frame the tragedy, concluding with a boilerplate assurance that the “Church accompanies those who suffer with compassion and without judgment.” This report exposes the total eclipse of the supernatural in the neo-church, replacing the horror of self-murder and the reality of eternal judgment with a naturalistic, psychologized humanitarianism that is the hallmark of the apostasy since 1958.
The Conciliar Sect’s Therapeutic Deism Masks the Horror of Self-Murder
The cited article relates that the “archbishop” Hérouard wrote a letter entrusting the suicide victim “to the merciful love of the Lord” and asking prayers for the “parishioners, shocked by this unexpected news.” Nowhere does this functionary of the abomination of desolation mention the gravity of the act: suicide is a voluntary violation of the Fifth Commandment, a rejection of God’s sovereignty over life and death, and traditionally constitutes a manifest impediment to ecclesiastical burial. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that “no one ought to take away his own life” and that such an act is a “most grievous sin.” The “archbishop’s” language—”merciful love,” “unexpected departure,” “deep sadness”—is the vocabulary of the world, not the Church. It is the language of the cult of man condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas, where he warns that “when God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” Here, the divine law against self-murder is removed from the pastoral response, replaced by a sentimental “accompaniment” that confirms the sinner in his error and the faithful in their ignorance.
The article notes the “priest” was “deeply affected” by his brother’s suicide. This familial pattern suggests a generational curse or diabolical oppression demanding the Rituale Romanum and the power of exorcism, not “coffee with the staff” and meetings of the “Diocesan Council for Economic Affairs.” The conciliar “clergy” are functionaries of a paramasonic structure, administrators of temporalities, utterly devoid of the character indelibilis of the true priesthood conferred by the traditional rite of ordination (nullified by Paul VI’s 1968 rite). They cannot offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; they preside over a “table of assembly.” They cannot absolve; they simulate reconciliation. When the hour of trial comes, they have no supernatural armor, because they belong to a sect that has ex opere operato severed itself from the Church of Christ.
A “Priest” of the New Rite: Invalid Orders, Worldly Preoccupations, and the Absence of the Supernatural
The article describes the deceased as “very involved in the life of the cathedral chapter,” participating in “canons’ prayer” and “coffee with the staff,” and taking part “with interest in the meetings of the Diocesan Council for Economic Affairs.” This is the portrait of a bourgeois functionary, not an alter Christus. St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu, condemned the proposition that “The Christian community introduced the necessity of baptism… adopting it as a necessary rite” (prop. 42) and that “The elders… were appointed by the Apostles as priests or bishops to ensure order in the developing communities, but they did not… continue the apostolical mission and authority” (prop. 50). The conciliar “priesthood” is reduced to community management and liturgical presidency. The “Diocesan Council for Economic Affairs” is the supreme concern—not the salvation of souls, not the conversion of sinners, not the defense of the Faith against Modernism.
The “archbishop” mentions they had spoken of continuing his mission “past the usual retirement age.” Emeritus bishops, “retirement” from the priesthood—these are novelties of the neo-church, unknown to Tradition. A true priest dies at the altar or in the confessional; he does not “retire” to manage investments. The detail that he was “bothered by insects in his house” and “tired lately” is presented as the sum total of the analysis. No mention of the devil, the world, the flesh. No mention of the Sacraments of Penance or Extreme Unction. No mention of the Particular Judgment. This is practical atheism. The “priest” Card lived and died in the conciliar sect, likely without valid sacraments, without the true Mass, without the true Faith. The “vigils” organized—Chenôve, Corcelles-les-Monts, Sainte-Chantal—are not Requiem Masses of the Traditional Rite (the only efficacious suffrage for the dead), but vague “prayer” services, likely the Novus Ordo service, which is a cena, not a sacrificium. They profit the dead nothing.
The “Archbishop” as Functionary of the Neo-Church: Managing Decline, Not Saving Souls
Antoine Hérouard, the “archbishop” of Dijon, is a usurper of the see. He holds his “office” by the grace of the antipope Leo XIV (Prevost), in the line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII. He has no jurisdiction, no mission, no authority. As Pope Pius XII taught (following Bellarmine and the Syllabus), a manifest heretic cannot be Pope, nor a bishop, nor a member of the Church. The “archbishop” participates in the ecumenical, interreligious, modernist apostasy of the Second Vatican Council. His letter is a masterpiece of bureaucratic empathy. He expresses “astonishment” at a suicide? A true shepherd is never astonished by the wages of sin. He knows the devil prowls “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8). He knows the Modernist clergy, stripped of grace, are the primary targets.
The “archbishop” calls for prayers for the “vicar,” Father Jean-Philippe Nollé, and the “family and friends.” He treats the suicide as a “sudden departure,” a euphemism for death that obscures the etiology: mors peccati. The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX) condemns the proposition that “The civil government… has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs” (prop. 41) and that “The teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society” (prop. 40). The conciliar hierarchy has inverted this: they have surrendered to the civil power (the French State’s “mental health national priority”) and adopted its language. The “archbishop” is a chaplain to the Revolution, managing the “human resources” of a collapsing NGO.
Statistical Apostasy: The Fruit of the Conciliar Revolution
The article cites a 2020 study by “Mutuelle Saint-Martin and Action Sociale”: “9% of French priests showed a depressive syndrome, 40% had a low sense of personal fulfillment, 7% a high degree of exhaustion, and 2% suffered from severe burnout.” These are not statistics; they are the stigmata of the Great Apostasy. The “priests” of the new rite, ordained invalidly, celebrating an invalid Mass, teaching heresy (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality), living in a structure that contradicts the Quas Primas declaration that Christ’s reign “encompasses all men… individuals, families, or states”—these men are empty vessels. They have no sacerdotium, no imperium, no munus docendi that is Catholic. They are “hirelings” (John 10:12) who flee when the wolf comes. The “low sense of personal fulfillment” is the inevitable fruit of a “ministry” severed from the Cross. The “burnout” is the collapse of a purely naturalistic activism. The French State declares “mental health a national priority for 2025 and 2026,” and the conciliar sect applauds, adopting the State’s categories. Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi: they pray like Protestants (or pagans), they believe like Modernists, they live—and die—like secularists.
Denial of Divine Justice: “Compassion Without Judgment” as Heresy
The article concludes with the standard neo-church disclaimer: “The Catholic Church teaches that life is a gift from God. The Church accompanies those who suffer with compassion and without judgment, offering hope, prayer, and consolation to the affected families.” This is a lie. The Catholic Church teaches that life is a gift from God to be rendered back to Him in justice and love, and that he who destroys it commits a sin crying to heaven for vengeance. The Church does not accompany “without judgment.” The Church judges: Peccatum mortiferum est. The Church warns: Qui se ipsum occiderit, aeternam mortem subibit. The phrase “compassion without judgment” is the essence of the heresy of mercy propagated by the antipope Francis (Bergoglio) and his successor Prevost. It is the magna haeresis of our time: the denial of Hell, the denial of the Justice of God, the reduction of the Gospel to humanitarian therapy.
Pius XI in Quas Primas declared: “Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ… For what we wrote at the beginning of Our Pontificate about the diminishing authority of law and respect for power… ‘When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.'” The conciliar sect has removed God from the “pastoral care” of suicides. They offer “helplines” (988) and “professional help.” They offer the world. They do not offer the Blood of Christ, the Indulgences, the Communion of Saints, the Holy Sacrifice. They have “no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12)—yet they act as if the psychologist’s couch is the confessional and the psychiatrist’s pill is the viaticum.
The Abomination of Desolation: Simulated Sacraments and Simulated Pastoral Care
The source of this tragedy is the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt 24:15). The “Diocese of Dijon” is not a diocese of the Catholic Church. It is a franchise of the Church of the New Advent. The “priest” Card was likely ordained in the invalid rite of 1968, by a “bishop” consecrated in the invalid rite of 1968, in a line of succession broken by the heretical intent of the reformers (Bugnini, Liénart, etc.). Even if validly ordained conditionally (e.g., by a traditional bishop in secret), he exercised his “ministry” in a schismatic structure, under a heretical “ordinary,” using a Protestantized rite. He died outside the visible boundaries of the Church, without the true Sacraments, without the true Mass.
The “funeral will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 13, at 10 a.m., also at Sainte-Chantal.” It will be a Novus Ordo “Mass of Christian Burial”—a simulation. The Church’s law (Canon 1240 §1, 1917 Code) denies ecclesiastical burial to “those who have killed themselves” (qui se ipsos occiderunt), unless they gave signs of repentance before death. The conciliar “Code” (1983) and practice have abolished this discipline, another sign that they are not the Catholic Church. They bury the impenitent with honors. They canonize the heretics (John Paul II, John XXIII, Paul VI). They beatify the suicides by implication, treating the act as a “tragedy” rather than a crime.
EWTN News, the mouthpiece of the “Mother Angelica” legacy (herself a product of the conciliar era, promoting the false Fatima apparatus and the charismatic movement), sanitizes this for the conservative wing of the neo-church. Walter Sánchez Silva, “senior writer,” reports the “pontificates of Benedict XVI and Pope Francis” as if they were legitimate. They were not. They were the reign of the Antichrist’s precursors. The article is a potemkin village of piety: “prayer vigils,” “golden wedding anniversary Mass,” “kind person.” It is whitewashing a tomb.
Conclusion: Return to the Integral Faith or Perish
This event—the suicide of a “priest,” the bureaucratic response of an “archbishop,” the statistical confirmation of systemic collapse, the therapeutic language of the neo-church media—is a signum contraditionis. It screams the truth of the sedevacantist position: the See of Peter is vacant; the hierarchy has defected; the sacraments are largely inaccessible; the faithful must flee these structures to save their souls. As Bellarmine teaches (De Romano Pontifice), a manifest heretic “ceases to be Pope and head… by which things he may be judged and punished by the Church.” The “archbishop” Hérouard is a manifest heretic (adherent of Vatican II), therefore he has no authority. The “priest” Card was his subject in schism. The faithful of Dijon are sheep without a true shepherd, scattered by the hirelings.
The only remedy is the Social Reign of Christ the King (Quas Primas): the restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass, the traditional Sacraments, the traditional Catechism, the traditional Episcopate. Until then, every “priest” suicide, every “bishop” scandal, every “synod” on synodality, is simply the logic of the revolution playing out. Non possumus. We do not “accompany without judgment.” We judge with the Church of all ages: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. The “merciful love of the Lord” is found in the Confessional of the true Church, not in the “listening ear” of a conciliar functionary. Let the dead bury their dead (Matt 8:22); let us who remain fight for the Faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).
Source:
Archbishop of Dijon, France, asks for prayers for priest who died by suicide (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 08.10.2026