Belmont Abbey’s New President and Notre Dame’s Contraceptive Scandal: Signs of Conciliar Apostasy
The Catholic News Agency (November 20, 2025) reports three developments in American “Catholic” education: Belmont Abbey College appoints retired Army General Jeffrey Talley as president, a University of Notre Dame professor distributes contraceptives on campus, and Minnesota Catholic institutions face an $800 million pension deficit. These events collectively demonstrate the complete subordination of conciliar structures to worldly principles, betraying their claimed Catholic identity.
Belmont Abbey’s Military President: Worldly Compromise Masquerading as Leadership
The appointment of retired three-star lieutenant general Jeffrey Talley as president of Belmont Abbey College exemplifies the neo-church’s embrace of naturalistic criteria over supernatural wisdom. The college’s press release boasts of Talley’s military career and tenure at the University of Notre Dame – institutions fundamentally opposed to regnum Christi (the reign of Christ). That Talley is a Benedictine oblate holds no weight when Benedictine monasteries themselves have largely abandoned the Rule of Saint Benedict, having traded ora et labora (pray and work) for ecumenical dialogue and liturgical abuse.
Charles Cornelio, chair of the college’s board, claims Talley will “live” the college’s mission. Yet this mission is already compromised by its existence within the conciliar sect’s educational paradigm, which Pius XI condemned in Divini Illius Magistri: “Any school in which the foundation of education is not religion…is building on sand.” Belmont Abbey operates under the USCCB’s accreditation system, which enforces acceptance of Vatican II’s heresies, including religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) condemned by Pius IX in Quanta Cura (1864).
Talley’s statement that the college helps students navigate “a world that’s become so challenging” ignores the only true solution: instaurare omnia in Christo (to restore all things in Christ). Nowhere does he mention forming students to reject modern errors or defend the extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (no salvation outside the Church) doctrine. This omission proves Belmont Abbey functions as a secular college with Catholic aesthetics.
Notre Dame’s Contraceptive Distribution: Logical Fruit of Conciliar Revolution
The report that Notre Dame professor Pamela Butler distributes Plan B and condoms through “Irish 4 Reproductive Health” exposes the rotten fruit of the university’s decades-long apostasy. That such activities occur at an institution bearing the name Domina Nostra (Our Lady) constitutes blasphemy. The group’s claim to promote “pro-choice Catholicism” is theological nonsense, directly contradicting:
“Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature” (Casti Connubii, Pius XI, 1930).
The university’s failure to immediately expel Butler and disband the group demonstrates its complicity. This scandal flows inevitably from Notre Dame’s 1967 Land O’Lakes Declaration, wherein it and other “Catholic” universities declared independence from ecclesiastical authority. Paul VI’s silence then paved the way for today’s abominations. As St. Pius X warned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis: “Modernists completely invert the parts, and the cause of all errors is theological.”
Pension Collapse: Temporal Consequences of Spiritual Bankruptcy
The $800 million pension deficit affecting Minnesota’s Catholic institutions reveals the temporal chaos accompanying spiritual rebellion. Christian Brothers Services’ financial mismanagement mirrors the conciliar sect’s theological bankruptcy. That two schools have withdrawn from the pension plan indicates the broader disintegration of post-conciliar structures – a phenomenon predicted by Our Lady of La Salette: “Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.”
This financial crisis stems from the same naturalism that produced Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes, which foolishly sought dialogue with modernity rather than condemning it. When institutions abandon their supernatural mission, God withdraws His temporal protections, as He warned through Moses: “But if you will not hearken to me… I will break the pride of your stubbornness” (Leviticus 26:19).
The Silent Apostasy in Educational Priorities
Throughout these reports, the gravest omission is any reference to the primary duty of Catholic education: the salvation of souls. No mention is made of:
- Training students to combat modern errors like religious indifferentism
- Preserving the Traditional Latin Mass as the center of campus life
- Rejecting the heresy of Americanism condemned in Leo XIII’s Testem Benevolentiae
Instead, Belmont Abbey touts “rigorous academics” while Notre Dame permits open rebellion against moral law. This confirms Pius XI’s warning that without Catholic formation, education becomes “not a blessing, but a menace.”
These institutions operate as secular corporations rather than outposts of Christ’s Kingdom. Their leaders – whether military generals or contraceptive-pushing professors – exemplify the conciliar church’s complete assimilation to the world. As Archbishop Lefebvre warned in 1974: “This conciliar church is a schismatic church because it breaks with the Catholic Church of all time.”
Source:
Retired Army general, Notre Dame professor to serve as president of Belmont Abbey College (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 20.11.2025