The National Catholic Register (EWTN News) reports on the impending visit of the antipope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) to the Republic of San Marino on August 22, 2026, marking only the third such visit by a claimant to the papal throne since the conciliar usurpation. The article enumerates ten historical and cultural curiosities about the microstate — its founding during the Diocletian persecution, its status as the world’s oldest republic, its papal protection since 1631, its unique dual captain-regent system, and its hosting of the “Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples” organized by the modernist lay movement Communion and Liberation. The piece reads like a travelogue sanitized of all supernatural content, presenting the visit as a benign pastoral gesture while ignoring the catastrophic theological reality: a manifest heretic, elected by a college of cardinals who themselves defected from the Faith, parades through a remnant of Christendom to legitimize the paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican. Non est in eo veritas (There is no truth in him).
The Usurper’s Itinerary: A Mockery of the Social Kingship of Christ
The article notes that Leo XIV will “meet with authorities, lead Eucharistic adoration, and meet the faithful gathered before traveling to the nearby city of Rimini, Italy, for the ‘Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples.'” This itinerary encapsulates the entire conciliar revolution: the reign of Christ the King is replaced by a “meeting for friendship among peoples”; the propitiatory Sacrifice is displaced by a vague “Eucharistic adoration” devoid of the Mass’s sacrificial theology; the conversion of nations is supplanted by dialogue with civil authorities who derive their legitimacy from the very liberal principles condemned by the Syllabus of Errors. Pius XI, in Quas Primas, declared with unshakeable authority: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed, because the main reason why some have the right to command and others have the duty to obey was removed.” The antipope’s visit to San Marino — a republic governed by two captains-regent elected by a parliament for six-month terms, a system rooted in the very “popular sovereignty” that Pius IX anathematized (Syllabus, Error 39: “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits”) — is not a pastoral act but a political endorsement of the Masonic order.
San Marino: A Relic of Christendom Held Captive by Liberalism
The article celebrates San Marino’s “deep Catholic roots” and its survival as “the world’s oldest continuing republic,” founded in A.D. 301 by St. Marinus fleeing the Diocletian persecution. It notes that “by the 17th century, it was even surrounded by the Papal States… Pope Urban VIII placed San Marino under papal protection through the 1631 treaty while recognizing its full sovereignty.” This historical fact is weaponized by the conciliar narrative to suggest a harmony between the papacy and republican sovereignty that is theologically impossible. The Syllabus of Errors condemns the proposition that “The Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free… but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church, and the limits within which she may exercise those rights” (Error 19). San Marino’s “full sovereignty” as a republic — its captains-regent, its Grand and General Council, its separation from the temporal power of the Pope — is a fossil of the revolutionary principle that the State is the source of its own legitimacy. The article’s mention of Abraham Lincoln’s honorary citizenship (1861) only underscores the liberal pedigree: Lincoln, the architect of a centralized secular state built on the blood of a war against subsidiarity, is honored by a republic that claims Catholic origins. Corruptio optimi pessima (The corruption of the best is the worst).
The “Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples”: Communion and Liberation’s Masonic Parody of the City of God
The article reveals the true purpose of the visit: at 12:45 p.m., the antipope travels to Rimini for the “Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples, an annual international Catholic cultural festival organized by the lay movement Communion and Liberation.” This movement, founded by the modernist Don Luigi Giussani, is a quintessential product of the conciliar apostasy — a “lay spirituality” that reduces the Faith to a “cultural proposal” and the Church to a “movement” among movements. The very name “Friendship Among Peoples” echoes the Masonic fraternité and the United Nations’ “dialogue of civilizations,” substituting the pax Christi in regno Christi (peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ) with a naturalistic camaraderie. Pius XI warned: “The state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders and Congregations… who are indeed the most valiant helpers of the Pastors of the Church and contribute most to the expansion and establishment of Christ’s Kingdom.” Communion and Liberation is no religious order; it is a lay ecclesial movement born of the false theology of the “People of God” (Lumen Gentium), which dissolves the hierarchical Church into a democratic assembly. The antipope’s participation is not a visit to a Catholic event but a ratification of the counter-church.
Veneration of Relics by False Popes: Sacrilege Disguised as Piety
The article states:
During their visits, both popes venerated the relics of St. Marinus, the country’s patron, at the Basilica of San Marino.
This refers to the visits of “St. John Paul II” (Wojtyła) and “Pope Benedict XVI” (Ratzinger) — both manifest heretics who, by their public adhesion to the errors of Vatican II (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, the new Mass), lost all jurisdiction ipso facto according to the teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine and Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code. As the Defense of Sedevacantism file demonstrates: “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope or a member of the Church… A non-Christian in no way can be Pope… The reason for this is that he cannot be the head of something of which he is not a member; now, he who is not a Christian is not a member of the Church, and a manifest heretic is not a Christian… therefore, a manifest heretic cannot be Pope.” Their “veneration” of relics was not an act of Catholic piety but a profanation — the simulation of worship by those outside the Church. Leo XIV’s planned imitation of this act continues the sacrilege. The relics of St. Marinus, a deacon who fled persecution for the Faith, are held hostage in a basilica served by clergy who recognize the usurpers in Rome. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The Linguistic Camouflage: “Pastoral Visit” as Euphemism for Political Recognition
The article’s language is deliberately anodyne: “pastoral visit,” “meet with authorities,” “greet the faithful,” “celebrate Mass.” Not a word about the Social Kingship of Christ, the duty of states to profess the Catholic Faith, the condemnation of liberalism, the necessity of the Church’s temporal independence. This silence is the loudest heresy. The Syllabus condemns: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55) and “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (Error 77). The antipope’s visit, framed as a friendly gesture to a sovereign republic, is a practical application of these condemned errors. He does not come as the Vicar of Christ demanding the submission of San Marino’s laws to the Kingship of Christ; he comes as a “religious leader” paying a courtesy call on a secular state. The article’s focus on trivia — the Torta Tre Monti, the three towers, the population size (34,000), the dialect — serves to trivialize the visit, rendering it a human-interest story rather than a theological event. This is the hermeneutic of continuity in action: the reduction of the papacy to a celebrity diplomacy.
The Symptomatic Level: The Conciliar Sect’s Strategy of Legitimization Through Microstates
Why San Marino? Why now? The conciliar sect, having lost the Faith and the Mass, seeks legitimacy through visibility. Visits to microstates (San Marino, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein) and participation in “youth days” and “meetings” are the only “apostolate” left to a church that has abandoned the conversion of nations. The article notes this is only the third papal visit in history — the previous two being by the antipopes Wojtyła (1982) and Ratzinger (2011). This pattern reveals the strategy: each visit by a claimant to the papal throne normalizes the usurpation. The faithful in San Marino, deprived of true bishops and the true Mass, are presented with a false shepherd who confirms them in their schism. The “Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples” in Rimini — a city in Italy, not San Marino — shows the real target: the Italian Church, the heart of the conciliar machine. Communion and Liberation, the Focolare, the Neocatechumenal Way — these are the shock troops of the new religion. The antipope’s presence blesses them. Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi — the law of praying is the law of believing is the law of living. The conciliar “Mass” (Novus Ordo), the conciliar “adoration,” the conciliar “meeting” produce the conciliar life: apostasy.
Conclusion: No Peace Except in the Kingdom of Christ
The article ends with a schedule: Mass at Rimini Cathedral, meeting the sick and elderly, return to Rome by 8 p.m. A tidy, bureaucratic day trip. But the theological reality is apocalyptic. A manifest heretic, elected by heretics, visits a liberal republic to attend a modernist festival, and the “Catholic” media (EWTN, National Catholic Register) reports it as “10 Things to Know.” The faithful are fed stones for bread. St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu, condemned the proposition: “The Church listening cooperates in such a way with the Church teaching in defining truths of faith, that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Error 6). Today, the “Church listening” is the conciliar laity at the Rimini Meeting; the “Church teaching” is the antipope. They deserve each other. The true Church — the Ecclesia militans — remains in the catacombs, adhering to the Mass of all time, the doctrine of all time, the papacy of all time (pre-1958). San Marino’s three towers (Guaita, Cesta, Montale) stand as silent witnesses: they were built for defense against enemies. Today, the enemy occupies the Vatican. Viva Cristo Rey!
Source:
10 Things to Know About San Marino Ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s Visit (ncregister.com)
Date: 17.08.2026