The EWTN News portal reports on a roundup of conciliar “Catholic education” initiatives for August 2026: the Lilly Endowment—a Protestant philanthropic entity—funds Notre Dame’s theology department to “reimagine” lay ministry; the Diocese of Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School replaces explicit Pride flags with a bespoke rainbow “Inclusive O” symbol after episcopal pressure; the Diocese of Wichita canonically erects a “seminary” under the patronage of St. Philip Neri despite using the invalid post-conciliar rites; the Archdiocese of Milwaukee celebrates its first new school buildings in six decades, emphasizing “modern, student-centered environments” and “community hubs”; and the Diocese of Raleigh boasts superior standardized test scores as proof of “academic excellence rooted in the Catholic tradition.” This constellation of news reveals the conciliar sect’s educational apostolate as a thoroughly naturalized, horizontally oriented, and theologically bankrupt enterprise that has substituted the regnum Christi for the reign of man.
The Protestantization of Formation: Lilly Endowment Buys the Conciliar “Theology”
The headline grant—$5 million from the Lilly Endowment to the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Theology—exposes the fatal dependency of the conciliar sect on heterodox capital. The Lilly Endowment, founded by pharmaceutical heirs steeped in Mainline Protestantism, has long directed its wealth toward the dissolution of Catholic identity under the guise of “ecumenical partnership.” That the conciliar “Father” Kevin Grove, CSC, speaks of using this money to “reimagine how lay church leaders are raised up, formed and placed” is a confession of the novus ordo’s creative infidelity. The true Church does not “reimagine” formation; she transmits the depositum fidei intact (tradidi quod et accepi—I handed on what I received). Pius XI, in Quas Primas, teaches that Christ’s Kingship extends over “all nations” and that “the Church, established by Christ as a perfect society, demands for itself by a right belonging to it… full freedom and independence from secular authority.” Accepting Protestant money to engineer “dynamic Church leaders” is the antithesis of that independence; it is the pecunia non olet of the conciliar compromise, ensuring that the “theology” produced at Notre Dame remains a theologia naturalistica acceptable to its paymasters.
The “Inclusive O”: Liturgicalizing the Rainbow, Mocking the Cross
The maneuver at Bishop O’Dowd High School is a masterclass in conciliar duplicity. Pressured by the Oakland “bishop” Michael Barber to remove the explicit Pride and Progress flags, the school’s president, Kim Walsh, substitutes a “custom rainbow ‘Inclusive O’ symbol” displayed “campus-wide.” This is not a retreat from gender ideology but its inculturation into the sect’s branding. The rainbow, the sign of God’s covenant with Noah (Gen. 9:13), is perverted into the banner of the peccatum contra naturam. The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX) condemns the proposition that “The civil government… has the right to make enactments regarding the administration of the divine sacraments, and the dispositions necessary for receiving them” (Error 44); here, the conciliar “diocese” claims the right to police symbols while the school retains the substance of the rebellion. The “joint letter” of Barber and Cordileone (2023) calling for “truth and charity” is revealed as theatrical: the “truth” is jettisoned when the “charity” of the world demands a rainbow logo. As St. Pius X thundered in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Modernism “aims at such a development of dogmas as appears to be their corruption.” The “Inclusive O” is the corruption of the Cross, the signum contradictionis replaced by the signum sodomiticum.
St. Philip Neri Seminary: A Canonical Fiction for Invalid Orders
The Diocese of Wichita’s “historic milestone”—erecting St. Joseph House of Formation as “St. Philip Neri Seminary”—is a juridical farce enacted under the 1983 Code, a legislative product of the apostate “pope” John Paul II. The “bishop” Carl Kemme declares the institution “a place of formation for the priests of our diocese,” but the forma of ordination used (Paul VI’s 1968 rite) and the intentio of the “ordinary” (who recognizes the usurper Leo XIV as pope) render any orders conferred there irritus et invalidus (null and void). The Defense of Sedevacantism demonstrates that a manifest heretic “cannot be Pope or a member of the Church” (Bellarmine); the conciliar “bishops” are, at best, laymen in purple, possessing no jurisdiction, no power to erect seminaries, no authority to ordain. St. Philip Neri, the saint of the Roman Oratory and the Counter-Reformation, is invoked as patron for a structure that feeds the abominatio desolationis. The “nine years” of “success” cited by Kemme are measured in vocations to a false priesthood, a “table of assembly” masquerading as the Unbloody Sacrifice. Lex orandi, lex credendi—the law of praying is the law of believing; the Novus Ordo rite expresses and forms a Protestantized priesthood.
Milwaukee’s “Vibrant Hubs”: The Church as Community Center
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s celebration of “the first newly constructed Catholic school buildings in nearly 60 years” reveals the sect’s priorities. The press release lauds “modern, student-centered environments designed to foster learning, creativity, and spiritual growth” and “vibrant hubs for student engagement, community gatherings and faith development.” Not a word of the Catechismus Romanus, the Summa Theologiae, the formation of souls for beatitudo aeterna, the terror of the iudicium particulare. The language is pure pedagogical naturalism, indistinguishable from the latest public-school bond referendum. Pius XI in Quas Primas warned that when “God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” Here, Christ the King is removed from the very architecture of the school; the building is a monument to the laicism Pius XI called “the plague that poisons human society.” The “ribbon-cutting ceremony” is the liturgy of the new religion: the worship of brick, mortar, and “engagement.”
Raleigh’s Test Scores: The Idol of Academic Achievement
The Diocese of Raleigh’s boast—47% math proficiency, 59% reading proficiency via i-Ready diagnostics—is the final insult. Michael Mastrocinque crows that “Our students arenʼt just meeting expectations — theyʼre exceeding them at a level that puts them well ahead of their peers across the state and the country.” This is the criterium of the conciliar sect: standardized test scores. The Syllabus condemns the error that “The best theory of civil society requires that popular schools… should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority… and should be fully subjected to the civil and political power” (Error 47). The conciliar schools have internalized this error; they compete on the state’s terms, using the state’s metrics (i-Ready), celebrating the state’s definition of success. “Academic excellence rooted in the Catholic tradition” is a lie; the tradition is the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits, the scholastic method, the formation of the sacerdos alter Christus and the laicus catholicus ordered to the finis ultimus. Raleigh produces competent technicians for the civitas terrena, not saints for the civitas Dei. Quid prodest homo si mundum universum lucretur, animae vero suae detrimentum patiatur? (What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his soul? — Matt. 16:26).
Systemic Apostasy: The Conciliar “Educational” Project as Anti-Church
These five data points form a single, coherent picture: the conciliar sect has no supernatural mission. Its “universities” are bought by Protestant plutocrats; its “high schools” fly the rainbow flag under a rebranded logo; its “seminaries” are canonical fictions producing invalid priests; its “school buildings” are secular community centers; its “success” is measured by secular exams. This is the ecclesia perversa foretold by the Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), where Modernism teaches that “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples, but rather initiated a certain religious movement” (Condemned Prop. 59) and that “The Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics, because it steadfastly adheres to its views, which cannot be reconciled with modern progress” (Condemned Prop. 63). The “education” offered is the formation of the homo novus of the Masonic city—tolerant, inclusive, academically competitive, sacramentally empty. The true Church, the Ecclesia Catholica of the Catacombs and the Counter-Reformation, survives only where the Missa Tridentina is offered by valid priests, where the Catechism of Trent is taught, where the Kingship of Christ is proclaimed over every classroom, every curriculum, every human faculty. Non praevalebunt—the gates of hell shall not prevail; but they have prevailed over the structures occupying the Vatican, and the “education” they peddle is the cibus mortis for the souls entrusted to them.
Source:
Lilly Endowment awards $5 million grant to Notre Dame (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 13.08.2026