Supreme Court Case Exposes Conciliar “Traditionalists” Begging Caesar for Crumbs of Religious Liberty
The National Catholic Register, organ of the conciliar sect’s EWTN propaganda apparatus, publishes a commentary by its legal analyst Andrea M. Picciotti-Bayer on the case Missionaries of St. John the Baptist v. Frederic, currently before the US Supreme Court. The dispute concerns a “public association of the faithful” erected in 2019 by the conciliar “bishop” of Covington, Roger Foys, for adherents of the 1962 Missal, subsequently suppressed in 2024-25 by his successor, “bishop” John Iffert, wielding the club of Traditionis Custodes. The group, now a mere civil nonprofit, seeks to build a Lourdes grotto on its own property; the Kentucky Supreme Court denied relief under RLUIPA, ruling the zoning prohibition no “substantial burden.” Picciotti-Bayer argues the High Court should reverse, invoking the Second Vatican Council’s Dignitatis Humanae as support for the association’s civil claim. The commentary reveals the terminal contradiction of the “recognize-and-resist” phenotype: it appeals to the Masonic doctrine of religious liberty to beg Caesar for permission to honor the Mother of God, all while recognizing the very usurpers who suppress them.
The Conciliar Sect’s Internal Police Action Masquerades as Canonical Discipline
The article recounts the suppression of the Missionaries of St. John the Baptist with the clinical detachment of a bureaucrat processing paperwork. “Suppressing an association is an act of ecclesial discipline that a bishop has authority to take, and no county zoning board or federal court should review it. The Church governs its own.” This sentence alone condemns the author to the ranks of those who have made their peace with the abomination of desolation. She calls the usurper Iffert “bishop” and his act “ecclesial discipline,” thereby acknowledging the canonical mission of a man who holds office in the counter-church erected by the robber council Vatican II.
The “bishop” Iffert cited Traditionis Custodes — the 2021 motu proprio of the antipope Francis (Jorge Bergoglio) — as grounds for suppression. The article treats this document as binding legislation. “He cited Traditionis Custodes, the 2021 apostolic letter of Pope Francis restricting the pre-conciliar liturgy…” Here the “recognize-and-resist” faction exposes its fatal flaw: it recognizes the false pope’s authority to restrict the immemorial Mass of the Ages, then squeals when he uses that acknowledged authority to crush them. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope… he cannot be the head of something of which he is not a member” (De Romano Pontifice, II, 30). By accepting Francis as pope, they accept his “authority” to bind and loose — and thus have no ground to stand on when he looses the wrecking ball on their institutes.
Dignitatis Humanae: The Poisoned Chalice the “Traditionalists” Drink From
The most damning passage in the commentary is its explicit invocation of Vatican II’s declaration on religious liberty:
Those who favor civil authority closely integrated with church authority should note that the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, teaches that the civil power must protect religious communities’ freedom to govern themselves. The Missionaries applied for the grotto in 2021, when they were canonically in good standing, and their rights under RLUIPA did not shrink when the bishop acted.
Here the mask slips entirely. The author cites Dignitatis Humanae — condemned by the Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 1864) in its propositions 15, 16, 17, 18, 77, 78, 79 — as authoritative teaching. She argues that the Masonic principle of “religious freedom” (error 15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true”) protects a “Catholic” group from the civil consequences of its own “bishop’s” suppression. This is the reductio ad absurdum of the conciliar revolution: the false church’s own false doctrine is weaponized by its “traditionalist” wing against its own hierarchy, all within the framework of the secular state.
Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925) thundered against this very error: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed… the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.” The author proposes the very foundation Pius XI condemned: authority derived from men (RLUIPA, the Supreme Court, Dignitatis Humanae) rather than from God. She seeks “strict scrutiny” from Caesar’s court, not the Social Reign of Christ the King.
The Naturalistic Reduction of the Sacred: Grotto as Zoning Variance
The article reduces the honor due to the Blessed Virgin Mary to a land-use dispute. “The proposed structure at the center of a case the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review earlier this month is about the size of a backyard swimming pool.” The Lourdes grotto — a replica of the cave where the Immaculate Conception appeared to St. Bernadette — becomes a “16-by-39-foot grotto with a statue of the Virgin Mary, a plaza and a retaining wall,” subject to “conditional use permit and variance,” “traffic and parking,” “residential collector street,” “arterial street the ordinance requires.”
This is the language of the City of Man, not the City of God. The author admits: “Traffic on a residential street is a real concern, not a pretext, and the scriptural advice to settle with your adversary on the way to court applies to both sides.” She counsels the Missionaries to “work at strengthening relations with their neighbors.” Pax christiana is replaced by neighborly comity; the Rex Gentium is dethroned in favor of the zoning board. The Syllabus condemns the proposition: “The civil government, even when in the hands of an infidel sovereign, has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs” (Error 41). Here the “traditionalists” not only accept but invoke that power, asking the Supreme Court to apply RLUIPA’s “substantial burden” test — a statutory creation of the Masonic state — as the measure of their religious rights.
The Theological Bankruptcy of “Canonical Good Standing” in the Neo-Church
The commentary hinges on a temporal distinction: “The Missionaries applied for the grotto in 2021, when they were canonically in good standing, and their rights under RLUIPA did not shrink when the bishop acted.” This reveals the positivist ecclesiology of the conciliar sect. “Canonical good standing” is a status granted and withdrawn by the usurping hierarchy at will. In 2019, “bishop” Foys erects them; in 2024, “bishop” Iffert suppresses them. The Missionaries accept both acts as valid exercises of authority. They are sui generis creatures of the neo-church, existing only by its sufferance.
The Defense of Sedevacantism file establishes the principle: “A Pope-manifest heretic loses his office automatically… By notorious and publicly manifested heresy, the Roman Pontiff, should he fall into it, is deprived ipso facto of his personal jurisdiction even before any declaratory sentence by the Church.” (Wernz & Vidal, Ius Canonicum). The same principle applies to “bishops” who adhere to the heretical antipope and the robber council. They possess no jurisdiction. The Missionaries’ “canonical standing” is a fiction within a fiction. As Pope Celestine I taught regarding Nestorius: “he could not remove anyone by sentence who himself had already shown that he must be removed” (Epist. ad Ioan. Antioch.). The “bishop” Iffert, in communion with the antipope Francis, is a manifest heretic (Vatican II heresies: religious liberty, collegiality, ecumenism, etc.); he cannot validly suppress anything, nor validly erect anything. The Missionaries’ very existence as a “public association of the faithful” is a chimera of the neo-church.
RLUIPA and the Supreme Court: The False God of the “Recognize-and-Resist” Movement
The article’s entire legal strategy rests on the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) — a statute of the United States Congress. The author wants the Supreme Court to rule that “a prohibition on building a religious structure on a religious association’s own property is a substantial burden requiring strict scrutiny.” She explicitly rejects the Kentucky court’s reasoning that alternative sites or prior knowledge of zoning laws negate the burden.
This is Caesaropapism inverted: the “traditionalists” run to Caesar’s tribunal to vindicate their “rights” against their own “bishop,” using a law passed by a Masonic legislature (the US Congress) interpreted by a Masonic judiciary (the Supreme Court). They have no concept of the Libertas Ecclesiae as taught by Pius IX (Syllabus, Error 19: “The Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free… but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church” — condemned). The true Church claims her freedom ex iure divino, not by statutory grace of the secular state. By litigating under RLUIPA, the Missionaries and their EWTN apologist concede that the Church’s rights are whatever Caesar says they are.
The “Two-Lucia” Syndrome: Schizophrenia of the Conciliar “Traditionalist”
The False Fatima Apparitions file documents the “Two Lucia Sisters” theory — the suspicion that the visionary was replaced after 1958. The Missionaries of St. John the Baptist exhibit a similar schizophrenia. They claim to preserve the “Traditional Latin Mass” (the 1962 Missal of John XXIII, itself a modernized rite), yet they accept the “bishops” who suppress it, the “pope” who restricts it, the Council that birthed the Novus Ordo, and the secular state that zones their grotto. They are the “Lucia” after 1958: outwardly similar, inwardly transformed, accepting the new religion.
The author writes: “Nothing in the record says the Missionaries are among them [those who reject the Council], and I would not impute it. But the Council’s teaching supports a community like this one in bringing a civil claim…” She explicitly affirms that Vatican II’s teaching — Dignitatis Humanae — supports their claim. This is an admission that their “traditionalism” is fully compatible with, indeed dependent on, the conciliar apostasy. They are not Catholics resisting Modernism; they are Modernists resisting a slightly more radical Modernism, using Modernism’s own tools (religious liberty, secular courts).
Quas Primas vs. The Zoning Board: The Only True Remedy
Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the plague described in this article: “this plague is the secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors… It began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations; the Church’s authority to teach men, to issue laws, to govern nations… was denied.” The Missionaries, their “bishops,” their “pope,” their EWTN apologist, and the Supreme Court all operate within this denial. The grotto dispute is a symptom of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15).
The only solution is not a favorable Supreme Court ruling on RLUIPA — which would merely cement the Masonic principle that religious exercise is a statutory privilege — but the restoration of the Social Kingship of Christ. “Peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ” (Pius XI, Quas Primas). The Missionaries should not be building a grotto on land held by a civil nonprofit under license from a suppressed conciliar association; they should be part of the true Church, under true bishops with valid jurisdiction, in a Catholic state where the zoning ordinance conforms to the law of God, and where the honor of the Mother of God is not subject to a “conditional use permit.”
Conclusion: The “Traditionalist” Dead End
The commentary by Picciotti-Bayer is a masterclass in the theological suicide of the “recognize-and-resist” position. It accepts the false pope, the false bishops, the false council, the false religious liberty, the false Mass (1962 as “extraordinary form” of the Novus Ordo), and the false secular jurisdiction. It then asks the false judiciary to protect a religious structure built by a canonically suppressed association of the false church. “The Missionaries should work at strengthening relations with their neighbors if they haven’t already” — this is the final counsel: accommodate the world, for you have no King but Caesar.
“We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). The conciliar “traditionalists” have spoken.
Source:
US Supreme Court Takes Up Missionaries’ Case (ncregister.com)
Date: 12.10.2026