The National Catholic Register portal (August 5, 2026) publishes a commentary by George Weigel, the distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, titled “The Work Ethic Incarnate.” The article exploits the death of former Baltimore Colts wide receiver Raymond Berry to advance a neo-conservative reading of the antipope John Paul II’s encyclical Laborem Exercens, presenting the athlete’s naturalistic striving and subsequent conversion to evangelical Protestantism as a model of Catholic spirituality. Weigel cites a Wall Street Journal column on male joblessness to frame Berry’s “fierce work ethic” as the remedy for spiritual malaise, culminating in the hope that Berry now intercedes from the “Communion of Saints” despite having died outside the visible unity of the Catholic Church. This exercise in religious sentimentalism exposes the complete substitution of supernatural grace by natural virtue, the legitimization of a heretical “pope,” and the effective canonization of a non-Catholic by a conciliar apologist.
The Neo-Conservative Project: Baptizing Americanism and Naturalism
The article is a textbook specimen of the Americanist heresy condemned by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae (1899), wherein the active virtues of the natural order are elevated above the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Weigel writes: “Through our work we don’t just make more or earn more; we become more. Work is our participation in God’s ongoing creation of the world, and mastering work’s hardships is our participation in Christ’s ongoing redemption of humanity.” This is a direct paraphrase of the antipope Wojtyła’s Laborem Exercens, which itself represents a shift from the theocentric doctrine of work as participation in the opus Dei through grace, to an anthropocentric exaltation of human activity as self-actualization. The traditional doctrine, expressed by Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno (1931), teaches that human labor finds its dignity only when ordered to the common good and subordinated to the divine law: “The right ordering of economic life cannot be left to a free competition of forces. From this source, as from a poisoned spring, have originated and spread all the errors of individualism” (n. 88). Weigel’s citation of Jason Riley’s WSJ column on “male joblessness” reduces the spiritual crisis of modernity to a sociological datum, ignoring the Syllabus condemnation of the error that “Human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil” (Pius IX, Syllabus, prop. 3). The “work ethic” here is stripped of its supernatural finality—the glory of God and the salvation of souls—and becomes a Pelagian project of self-making.
Legitimizing the Usurper: “Pope St. John Paul II” as Doctrinal Authority
Weigel repeatedly invokes “Pope St. John Paul II” as a magisterial authority, citing his 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens as normative teaching. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, Karol Wojtyła was a manifest heretic who, by the very fact of his public adhesion to the errors of Vatican II (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality), lost all jurisdiction ipso facto according to the teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine (De Romano Pontifice, lib. 2, cap. 30): “A manifest heretic… by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” The Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio of Paul IV (1559) declares that the promotion of a heretic to the papacy is “null, void, and of no effect” regardless of unanimous cardinal consent. To cite Wojtyła as “Pope” and “Saint” is to participate in the great imposture of the conciliar sect, conferring legitimacy on the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15). Weigel’s description of Wojtyła as “himself a veteran of manual labor under awful conditions” is a hagiographic tactic designed to lend existential credibility to a false magisterium, substituting biography for orthodoxy.
The Protestant Convert as Catholic Model: Ecumenism in Action
The most damning element of the article is its presentation of Raymond Berry’s religious trajectory. Weigel states: “Shortly afterward, he became a devout evangelical and a leader in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.” And later: “Speaking at John Unitas’ funeral Mass in 2002, Berry bore eloquent witness to ‘the truth of the Scripture — to be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord.'” Berry died a Protestant, outside the unity of the Catholic Church, denying the sacrifice of the Mass, the priesthood, the sacraments, and the mediation of the Blessed Virgin. Yet Weigel concludes: “From his current station in the Communion of Saints, I hope Raymond Berry is interceding for all those men without work.” This is practical ecumenism and indifferentism in its purest form, condemned by Pius IX (Syllabus, prop. 16: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation”) and Pius XI (Mortalium Animos, 1928): “The Catholic Church… cannot take part in their [non-Catholic] assemblies, nor is it lawful for Catholics to support in any way their enterprises.” Weigel effectively “canonizes” a non-Catholic, implying that explicit faith in the Catholic Church and reception of her sacraments are unnecessary for salvation—a direct contradiction of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, defined by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and reiterated by Boniface VIII in Unam Sanctam (1302): “We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
Reduction of Redemption to Self-Improvement: The Pelagian Core
The article’s anthropology is fundamentally Pelagian. Berry’s “ruthless” self-grading on game films, his pursuit of the impossible “hundred percent effort,” and his pride in one fumble in 13 seasons are presented as spiritual virtues. Weigel writes: “Berry once made a study of the so-called ‘hundred percent effort’… ‘I used to pore over the game films… [and] graded myself on every play as ruthlessly as I could.’ The highest grade he ever gave himself was 87.” This is the spirituality of the natural man (animalis homo, 1 Cor. 2:14), not the spiritual man justified by grace. St. Augustine teaches: “Without grace, men do nothing good, either in thought or in deed” (De Natura et Gratia, cap. 31). The Council of Trent anathematizes anyone who says that man can be justified by his own works without the grace of God through Jesus Christ (Sess. 6, can. 1). Berry’s “conversion” experience—“became immediately aware that what had just happened was the work of God… that was a revelation — and I didn’t know how to say thank-you”—is presented as a generic religious experience, devoid of sacramental confession, baptismal grace (if he was not validly baptized), or entry into the Church. The article mentions no sacraments, no priesthood, no Mass, no Mary. It is a religion of human effort and divine acknowledgment, the very essence of the Masonic naturalism condemned by Leo XIII in Humanum Genus (1884): “The sect of the Freemasons… endeavors to establish a purely naturalistic morality… from which the hope of eternal salvation is excluded.”
The Liturgical Perversion: “Funeral Mass” for a Non-Catholic
Weigel notes Berry spoke at “John Unitas’ funeral Mass in 2002.” Unitas was a nominal Catholic; the “Mass” referenced is almost certainly the Novus Ordo Missae, the fabricated liturgy of Paul VI (1969), which Cardinal Ottaviani and Cardinal Bacci declared in their Critical Study (1969) represents “a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent.” The participation of a Protestant (Berry) in this rite, and his delivery of a eulogy citing Protestant eschatology (“absent with the body is to be present with the Lord”—a misreading of 2 Cor. 5:8 used to deny Purgatory), signifies the complete liturgical and doctrinal collapse of the conciliar structures. The true Most Holy Sacrifice of the Tridentine Mass, the unbloody renewal of Calvary, has been replaced by a Protestantized memorial service where heretics are given voice. This is the abomination of desolation in the sanctuary.
Symptomatic Diagnosis: The Neo-Conservative “Catholic” as Agent of the Revolution
George Weigel, ensconced in the Ethics and Public Policy Center—a think tank funded by plutocratic interests—functions as a primary ideologue for the neo-conservative wing of the conciliar sect. His project is to reconcile Catholicism with liberal democracy, capitalism, and American civil religion. The article’s citation of the Wall Street Journal (organ of financial capitalism) and the Department of Labor statistics frames the spiritual crisis in technocratic terms. The solution proposed is not the Social Kingship of Christ (Pius XI, Quas Primas, 1925: “If rulers of states… wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness, let them not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ”), but the “work ethic” of a football player. This is the laicism condemned in Quas Primas: “This plague is the secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors… the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” Weigel’s Berry is the homo oeconomicus baptized: productive, disciplined, generically “spiritual,” harmless to the regnant order. The true Catholic remedy—the integral Faith, the Traditional Mass, the Rosary, the reign of Christ the King over legislation and education—is entirely absent. The article is not a Catholic commentary; it is a secular humanist op-ed sprinkled with holy water stolen from the fonts of the conciliar sect.
Conclusion: The Counterfeit Sanctity of the Conciliar Order
The article stands as an indictment of the entire post-conciliar enterprise. It takes a talented athlete who died a Protestant, views him through the lens of a heretical “pope’s” encyclical, and presents him as a model for Catholics—all within the pages of the flagship publication of the American conciliar hierarchy. There is no Catholicism here: no Cross, no Sacrifice, no Sacraments, no Church, no Papacy, no Mary, no Hell, no Purgatory, no supernatural Grace. There is only the “work ethic incarnate”—the religion of Man making himself. “Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it” (Ps. 126:1). Raymond Berry built his house on the sand of natural virtue and Protestant presumption; George Weigel builds his on the quicksand of a false magisterium. Both structures will fall. “And great was the fall thereof” (Matt. 7:27).
Source:
The Work Ethic Incarnate (ncregister.com)
Date: 05.08.2026