The National Catholic Register (August 21, 2026) promotes a new volume of private homilies by the antipope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), published by Ignatius Press, extracting passages that sentimentalize the Blessed Virgin Mary, reduce faith to “touching with the heart,” and explicitly cite the Masonic fabrication of Fatima alongside authentic shrines, while hailing the arch-heretics John Paul II and Mother Teresa as “great figures” and “entrance of Christ into this time.” This article is not a presentation of Catholic piety but a manifesto of the conciliar sect’s counterfeit spirituality, designed to anchor the faithful in a false church through emotional manipulation and doctrinal ambiguity.
The Antipope’s Voice: Authority Usurped, Truth Abandoned
The article treats the private homilies of Joseph Ratzinger — a manifest heretic who, as “Cardinal” and “Pope,” publicly professed the errors of Vatican II, religious liberty, false ecumenism, and the new ecclesiology — as if they carried magisterial weight. St. Robert Bellarmine teaches that 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” (De Romano Pontifice, Bk. 2, Ch. 30). Ratzinger’s “private homilies” are the private opinions of a private theologian who occupied the Vatican palaces without the papacy. To publish them as spiritual reading is to legitimize the usurpation. The Register’s senior editor, Amy Smith, frames these texts as “blessed meditations” from a “master theologian,” yet the only master served here is the father of lies, for qui non est cum Christo, contra Christum est (he who is not with Christ is against Christ — Mt 12:30).
Mariology Corrupted: The Immaculate Conception Reduced to Psychological Comfort
The quoted homily for the Immaculate Conception declares: “Mary can be close to us all only because she is with God and shares in God’s openness… Precisely this being-with-God brings Mary quite close to us: every one can have immediate access to her.” This is not the Mariology of the Church but a modernist inversion. The Blessed Virgin’s mediation is not grounded in “openness” or psychological accessibility but in her unique role as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces, defined by her divine maternity and her sorrowful cooperation at Calvary. Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus (1854) defined the Immaculate Conception as a privilege granted “in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race” — not to make her “close” in a sentimental sense, but to make her a fitting vessel for the Incarnation. Ratzinger’s language — “she has no suspicions, she has no shadow of egotism” — psychologizes the sinless one, reducing the Tota Pulchra to a therapeutic presence. Worse, the homily concludes by thanking God for Mary “from the little house in Nazareth to the Cenacle, to the Gothic cathedrals, to Guadalupe, to Lourdes, to Fatima, to us all.”
Fatima: The Masonic Psy-Op Enshrined in False Piety
The inclusion of Fatima in this litany of Marian shrines is the smoking gun of the conciliar sect’s diabolical disorientation. As documented in the theological dossier on False Fatima Apparitions, the Fatima phenomenon is a “Masonic ‘psychological operation’ against the Church” featuring “ritualistic 200-year cycles” (1717, 1917, 2017), a “miracle of the sun” explained as “mass optical manipulation… and mass panic and autosuggestion,” and a message that “undermines the centralized role of the Church and the sacraments” by demanding “hyper-acts of worship (e.g., consecration of Russia).” The dossier concludes: “The Fatima message: Theologically contradictory to Catholic doctrine. A tool to divert attention from modernism. A potential Masonic ‘psychological operation’ against the Church. A call to reject Fatima and return to immutable Tradition.” By placing Fatima on par with Guadalupe and Lourdes, Ratzinger — and the Register promoting him — legitimizes a Masonic fabrication designed to divert the faithful from the true crisis: the modernist apostasy within the Church warned against by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907). This is not piety; it is complicity.
Faith Reduced to Sentiment: “Touching with the Heart”
Ratzinger’s reflection on the woman with the hemorrhage (Mk 5:25–34) declares: “She touched Him with her hands, yes, but more than that, she touched Him with her heart and thus was cured. This touching with the heart is faith.” This is Protestant subjectivism masquerading as Catholic mysticism. The Council of Trent teaches that justifying faith is “not only a certain knowledge… but also a firm assent” to divine revelation (Sess. VI, Ch. 6), and that it comes “ex auditu” (Rom 10:17) — by hearing the Word of God proposed by the Church, not by an interior tactile sensation. The woman was healed because “thy faith hath made thee whole” (Mk 5:34) — a faith that confessed Christ’s divine power, not a vague “heart-touching.” Ratzinger’s formulation evacuates faith of its dogmatic content, making it an experience rather than an assensus to revealed truth. This is the fides qua divorced from the fides quae — the very essence of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X: “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities” (Lamentabili, Prop. 25).
The “Goodness” of the Neo-Church: Pelagian Humanism in Disguise
The Lenten homily extols “goodness united with truth and justice” and cites as exemplars “Our Lady with her maternal goodness, and on to Saint Francis, to Don Bosco, down to Mother Teresa.” Mother Teresa (Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu) was “canonized” by the antipope Francis in 2016; her “goodness” was a media construct masking a theology of suffering devoid of the Cross’s redemptive meaning, and her “hospices” denied the dying the sacraments and pain relief. To place her in a line with St. Francis and St. John Bosco is to equate sanctity with humanitarian philanthropy. The homily’s definition of goodness — “not merely being good-natured… but rather gets to the bottom of a matter so as really to do good for someone else” — is pure naturalism. Catholic goodness is caritas, infused by the Holy Ghost, ordered to the glory of God and the salvation of souls, not to “doing good” in a secular sense. Sine caritate nihil prodest (1 Cor 13:3) — without supernatural charity, natural “goodness” merits nothing before God.
Advent as Evolutionary History: The Modernist “Coming” of Christ
The Advent homily presents a staggering Modernist narrative: Christ “comes in history” through St. Benedict, St. Dominic, St. Francis, St. Ignatius, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, 19th-century religious orders, and finally “Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and others are the entrance of Christ into this time.” This is the heresy of immanentism: Christ reduced to a historical force manifesting in human founders. The true Advent is the liturgical anticipation of the Parousia and the celebration of the Incarnation — not a series of human achievements. St. Pius X condemned the proposition: “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples, but rather initiated a certain religious movement, applied or applicable to different times and places” (Lamentabili, Prop. 59). Ratzinger’s “Advents of Christ” are exactly this: a religious movement evolving through history. To cite John Paul II (Wojtyła) — the architect of Assisi, the kisser of the Koran, the promulgator of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which teaches religious liberty — as an “entrance of Christ” is blasphemy. Qui contemnit vos, me contemnit (Lk 10:16).
The Sacraments in the Conciliar Sect: Simulation, Not Reality
Ratzinger speaks of the Eucharist: “Here Jesus really enters into our midst; the bread is no longer bread, it is the Lord… the Lord remains present, dwells with us.” He speaks of confession: “in absolution, in confession, the Lord really speaks to me and says: ‘I start over with you, your past no longer counts.'” These are descriptions of the Novus Ordo and the new rite of penance — both invalid in the conciliar sect. The Novus Ordo Missae (1969), fabricated by the Freemason Bugnini, altered the form of consecration, suppressed the propitiatory nature of the Sacrifice, and introduced a Protestantized “memorial.” The new rite of penance (1973) replaced the judicial absolution with a “reconciliation” formula that omits the essential words “Ego te absolvo.” As the sedevacantist position holds, the sacraments in the post-conciliar structures are at best doubtful, at worst null, because they lack the intention of the Church and the valid ministry of priests ordained in the traditional rite (pre-1968). Ratzinger’s “private homilies” simulate Catholic sacramental theology while the sect he headed dismantled the sacraments themselves. Simulacrum non est veritas (a simulacrum is not the truth).
The Register as Propagandist for the Abomination of Desolation
The National Catholic Register, a mouthpiece of the neo-church, publishes this review not to edify but to sell a product — a book by Ignatius Press, the publishing arm of the conciliar establishment. The article’s tone is bureaucratic piety: “personalized take on Scripture,” “master theologian,” “beautiful way to say what is often hard to put into words.” This is the language of the Church of the New Advent — therapeutic, subjective, historically illiterate, and doctrinally void. It omits entirely the Social Reign of Christ the King (Pius XI, Quas Primas: “His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ”), the necessity of the Church for salvation (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus), the reality of Hell, the duty to combat error, and the papal duty to condemn heresy. Silence about supernatural matters (sacraments, state of grace, final judgment) is the gravest accusation. The article is a spiritual anesthetic for Catholics drifting into the abyss of the Great Apostasy.
Conclusion: Return to the Immutable Tradition
The faithful must reject this literature root and branch. The homilies of Benedict XVI are the private writings of a heretic who lost the papacy by manifest heresy (ipso facto per Bellarmine, Wernz & Vidal, Canon 188.4, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio). The promotion of Fatima is the promotion of a Masonic fraud. The citation of John Paul II and Mother Teresa as models is the canonization of the revolution. The reduction of faith to “heart-touching” and goodness to humanitarianism is the religion of the Antichrist. Stat crux dum volvitur orbis (the Cross stands while the world turns). Cleave to the Mass of All Time, the Catechism of Trent, the Syllabus of Pius IX, the anti-Modernist oath of St. Pius X, and the bishops and priests who maintain valid orders and the true Faith. Non est alia salus (there is no other salvation).
Source:
Pope Benedict XVI: ‘Mary Can Be Close to Us All Only Because She Is With God’ (ncregister.com)
Date: 22.08.2026