The National Catholic Register, flagship organ of the conciliar sect’s propaganda apparatus, publishes a puff piece celebrating the 2026 World Series matchup between the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays as a triumph of “Catholic connections.” The article, authored by Jonathan Liedl, breathlessly catalogs players who minored in theology, wear crucifixes as jewelry, and make the sign of the cross, while “bishops” of the neo-church wager bratwurst and cigars on the outcome. The piece culminates in the revelation that the usurper “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) was asked to “bless” the Brewers, laughing at the request. This trivialization of the sacred, this reduction of the Church’s divine mission to a chaplaincy for professional sports, exposes the utter bankruptcy of the post-conciliar religion.
The Conciliar Sect’s Chaplaincy to Mammon and Entertainment
The cited article relates how “Father Thomas Anastasia, a priest of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida… served as chaplain from 2013 to 2024” for the Tampa Bay Rays, praising the team for “playing as a unified body and they’re not worried about individual accomplishments.” Here is the reduction of the priesthood to a motivational coach for millionaires. The Alter Christus, ordained for the Opus Dei — the propitiatory Sacrifice and the salvation of souls — is deployed as a mascot for a baseball franchise. “They’re playing at the highest level, and they’re not worried about what’s in their bank accounts,” claims the conciliar presbyter, ignoring that the minimum MLB salary exceeds $700,000 annually. This is not evangelization; it is the sanctification of the world’s vanities, a direct violation of 1 John 2:15: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world.”
The article notes that “neither team has ever won a World Series… The matchup between the two long-suffering franchises guarantees that, this year, ‘the last will be first.’” This perverse application of Matthew 20:16 to a sporting event is blasphemous typology. Our Lord spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, not the pennant race. The conciliar sect, having abandoned Regnum Christi, seeks a substitute kingdom in the fleeting glory of sport. Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas (Vanity of vanities, all is vanity — Eccl 1:2).
The Usurper as Sports Fan: The Antichrist’s Theater
The article centers the narrative on “Pope Leo XIV’s beloved Chicago White Sox,” identifying Robert Prevost — the current usurper on the Chair of Peter — as a legitimate pontiff with a rooting interest. This is the cult of the antipope normalized. The piece recounts how a conciliar “priest,” Father Javier Bustos, “asked Pope Leo after the Oct. 7 general audience to bless the Brewers. The Holy Father laughed at the request.”
Laughter at the request for a blessing. The Vicar of Christ — or rather, the usurper of his seat — treats the invocation of divine favor on a baseball team as a joke. Yet the conciliar faithful lap it up. This is the abominatio desolationis (abomination of desolation) foretold by Daniel and Our Lord (Matt 24:15): the sacred mocked in the very precincts of the Temple. St. Pius X condemned the Modernist tendency to “adapt the Church to the world” (Pascendi Dominici Gregis); here the “pope” adapts the blessing of God to the dugout.
“Catholic” Players in the Novus Ordo: Externalism Without Grace
The article parades a roster of “Catholic players”: Sal Frelick, who “minored in theology… wears a crucifix around his neck on gamedays… wants people to see I’m wearing it”; William Contreras, who “dropped to his knees and looked upward, saying: ‘Gracias, Papá Dios!’”; Junior Caminero, who “makes the Sign of the Cross upon crossing home plate.”
This is Pharisaism perfected. Our Lord condemned those who “enlarge their phylacteries… that they may be seen of men” (Matt 23:5). These athletes perform piety in the stadium — the modern Colosseum — while belonging to the conciliar sect which denies the Social Kingship of Christ (Quas Primas, Pius XI). They receive the Novus Ordo “communion,” a Protestantized meal devoid of propitiatory sacrifice, administered by invalidly ordained “priests” in a rite that “represents a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass” (Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae, 1969). Their “faith” is fides informis — dead faith without charity, severed from the True Church (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus).
The article mentions “Blessed Sacrament parish” where players “took part in a relief drive for victims of the recent earthquake in Venezuela.” Corporal works of mercy severed from the supernatural end are mere philanthropy. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches: “Caritas est forma fidei” (Charity is the form of faith). Without the true Faith, there is no supernatural charity, only natural humanitarianism — the religion of Freemasonry.
Episcopal Buffoonery: Betting Bratwurst for “Catholic Charities”
The depth of degradation is plumbed in the “friendly wager” between “Archbishop Jeff Grob of Milwaukee and Bishop Gregory Parkes of St. Petersburg.” “If the Rays win, Bishop Parkes will send Archbishop Grob a box of his own hand-rolled cigars, along with a donation to Catholic Charities… If the Brewers win, Archbishop Grob will send Bishop Parkes some of Milwaukee’s finest bratwurst.”
Sacerdotes Dei non sunt ludicra (Priests of God are not playthings). These men, claiming episcopal succession, reduce their office to a carnival sideshow. St. Paul warns: “No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses” (2 Tim 2:4). The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 1864) condemns the proposition: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55). Here the conciliar “bishops” separate the Church from Christ the King, enthroning Sport as the new sovereign. The donation to “Catholic Charities” — the conciliar NGO that funds contraception, immigrationism, and Modernist propaganda — adds simoniacal insult to injury.
Marian Superstition as Playoff Strategy
The article descends into rank superstition when “Bishop Haines pointed out that some of the Brewers’ big wins… have had a Marian connection.” “The team won their series against the San Diego Padres on Oct. 7 on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. And they completed the sweep of the Dodgers on Oct. 15, the feast of… St. Teresa of Ávila… ‘Every time I turn around, it seems like the Blessed Mother is helping us.’”
This is pagan fatalism baptized with holy water. The Blessed Virgin is not a talisman for athletic victory. Quas Primas teaches that Christ’s Kingdom is “primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters”; He “fled and hid, because He did not want the name and honor of king” when the crowd sought to make Him an earthly ruler. The conciliar “bishop” inverts this: he seeks the Queen of Heaven’s intercession for a penant. This is the “ecumenism of the bleachers” — religion reduced to tribal loyalty.
The Linguistic Decay: Bureaucratic Newspeak Replaces Theology
The article’s language reveals the Modernist mutation of thought. Terms like “faith-filled players,” “Catholic connections,” “Catholic milieu,” “servant-leadership mentality,” “unified body” — this is the vocabulary of Gaudium et Spes, not the Catechism of Trent. The word “chaplain” is stripped of its canonical meaning (a priest with faculties for a specific community) and applied to a team employee. “Small ball,” “long ball,” “Win Our Way” — marketing slogans substitute for the Regula Fidei.
The author, Jonathan Liedl, is identified as “managing editor for the National Catholic Register… ‘Writer of the Year’ by the Catholic Media Association… M.A. in Catholic Studies from the University of St. Thomas… M.A. in Theology from the Saint Paul Seminary.” Credentials in the counter-church are not credentials in the Church. As Pius XII warned in Humani Generis (1950): “Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution… explains the origin of all things… Such fictitious tenets of evolution… are not to be taught.” The evolution of doctrine here is the evolution of the Church into a sports marketing agency.
Symptomatic Diagnosis: The Conciliar Sect’s Necrosis
This article is not an anomaly; it is the essence of the post-conciliar religion. Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907) condemned the Modernist proposition: “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples, but rather initiated a certain religious movement, applied or applicable to different times and places” (Prop. 59). The conciliar sect applies this “movement” to the World Series.
The Syllabus of Errors condemns: “The civil government… has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs” (Error 41). Today, the conciliar hierarchy cedes all power to the civil order — and to the entertainment industry — retaining only the role of chaplain to the circus. Quas Primas declared: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The conciliar sect has removed Christ from the public square and installed Him in the luxury box.
The “priests” and “bishops” cited — Anastasia, Bustos, Haines, Grob, Parkes — are functionaries of the paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican. Their orders, derived from the Novus Ordo rite of Paul VI (1968), are dubia de facto; their jurisdiction, nonexistent. They are “blind guides of the blind” (Matt 15:14), leading souls not to Calvary but to the concession stand.
The True Catholic Response: Non est hic, surrexit
The integral Catholic, adhering to the lex credendi of Tradition, sees in this article not “faith-filled storylines” but the apotheosis of the Great Apostasy. The True Church, Ecclesia Militans, endures in the catacombs of the Traditional Mass, in the hands of bishops and priests who reject the conciliar revolution in toto. She does not bless baseball teams; she offers the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary for the conversion of sinners and the exaltation of the Regnum Christi.
“He shall rule from sea to sea: and from the river unto the ends of the earth” (Ps 71:8). This prophecy concerns Christ the King, not the Milwaukee Brewers. The conciliar sect’s “World Series Catholicism” is idolatry of the trivial, a ludibrium (mockery) of the Faith. Quo vadis, Domine? — Not to Tropicana Field.
Source:
Pope Leo’s Team Is Out, but Catholic Connections Abound in This Year’s World Series (ncregister.com)
Date: 22.10.2026