2026

The National Catholic Register portal reports on a May 31, 2026 article by Joseph Pronechen encouraging Catholics to visit their diocesan cathedrals as a form of “local pilgrimage.” The piece, featuring commentary from Nell Andrzejewski of Catholic Church Tours, presents cathedrals as spiritually significant sites — seats of bishops, repositories of sacred art, and places where the faithful can encounter Jesus and learn the history of the Church in America. Pronechen lists 193 Latin Rite cathedrals and 20 Eastern Rite cathedrals in the United States, describing architectural marvels, stained-glass windows depicting Marian dogmas, relics of saints, and devotional shrines. He references Benedict XVI naming St. Joseph Co-Cathedral in Brooklyn, highlights the Cathedral of the Madeleine’s woodcarvings, and describes murals of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The article’s thesis is that cathedrals are “schoolhouses for the heart” where pilgrims can slow down, contemplate sacred art, and deepen their faith. Yet this entire presentation operates within the framework of the post-conciliar sect, treating its occupied buildings, its usurping bishops, and its syncretistic devotions as though they were the true Church — a deception so thorough that even the language of pilgrimage, authority, and sacred art is stripped of its proper Catholic meaning and repackaged for a generation that has been taught to worship aesthetics in place of dogma.