The Vatican News portal reports an interview with Vitalij Skomarovskyj, the “bishop” of Lutsk and president of the “Conference of Catholic Bishops in Ukraine (Latin Rite),” on the occasion of thirty-five years of Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union. The piece celebrates “genuine freedom of conscience” guaranteed by the Ukrainian Constitution as an “extraordinary and unique gift,” contrasts it with Soviet persecution, and frames the current war as a defense of the “common home” and “Fatherland.” Skomarovskyj invokes “Pope St. John Paul II” to condemn war as a “great scourge” and extols the “solidarity” and “material and spiritual support” from “every corner of the earth” as a “voice of people’s hearts” giving “strength and hope.” The article is a masterclass in naturalistic humanitarianism masquerading as Catholic pastoral care, utterly devoid of the supernatural mission of the Church and the Social Kingship of Christ the King.
Religious Liberty: The Synthesis of All Heresies Enthroned as Supreme Good
The central thesis of the interview is the exaltation of freedom of conscience as the primary fruit of independence. Skomarovskyj declares: “Today we live in an independent state and enjoy genuine freedom of conscience, not merely freedom written on paper. Every person has the opportunity to profess and bear witness to their faith.” This is the condemned error of indifferentism and liberalism elevated to the status of dogma. Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus Errorum (1864), anathematized the proposition: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Error 15), 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 “bishop” celebrates the very libertas perditionis that Pius IX identified as the font of societal ruin. He speaks of the Ukrainian Constitution guaranteeing this freedom as a “reality experienced in everyday life,” placing positive law above the Divine Law which binds all men and nations to the one true religion (Quas Primas, citing Leo XIII: “His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ”).
The Peace of the World vs. The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ
Skomarovskyj’s concept of peace is purely negative and naturalistic: the absence of armed conflict. He states: “Peace is an immense gift, while war is an immeasurable evil for anyone caught up in it… I have come to understand profoundly that prayer for peace has immeasurable value, because peace is an extremely precious good.” This is the peace of the world, which Christ explicitly distinguished from His peace (John 14:27). Pius XI, in Quas Primas, teaches with unmistakable clarity: “The hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” The encyclical condemns the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors” which began “with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” The “bishop” says not a word of the Social Kingship of Christ, the public worship due to Him by states, or the conversion of nations to the Catholic Faith as the sole path to true peace. His “prayer for peace” is a petition for temporal tranquility, divorced from the Pax Christi in Regno Christi.
Anthropocentric Solidarity: The Counterfeit of Supernatural Charity
The interview repeatedly highlights “solidarity” – “the extraordinary closeness shown by so many people from every corner of the earth toward the Ukrainian people… material and spiritual support… enduring… comes directly from the heart. It is the voice of people’s hearts.” This is the religion of humanity, the culte de l’homme condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis and Lamentabili Sane Exitu. True Catholic charity (caritas) is ordered to the salvation of souls and the glory of God; this “solidarity” is ordered to temporal survival and humanitarian comfort. It is the fraternité of the Masonic lodges, not the communio sanctorum. The “bishop” finds “strength and hope” in this humanistic chain, not in the Cross, the Mass, or the intercession of the Mediatrix of All Graces. Silence about the supernatural order is the loudest heresy.
Legitimizing the Usurpers: “Pope St. John Paul II” and the Conciliar Hierarchy
Skomarovskyj invokes “Pope St. John Paul II” as an authority on war: “Echoing Pope St. John Paul II’s warning that war is a great scourge.” Karol Wojtyła was a manifest heretic who taught religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae), false ecumenism (Ut Unum Sint), and the salvation of non-Christians in their false religions (Redemptoris Missio), thereby losing the papacy ipso facto according to the teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine (De Romano Pontifice) 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… therefore, a manifest heretic cannot be Pope.” To cite him as “Pope” and “Saint” is to participate in the great apostasy. Likewise, Skomarovskyj himself, as a “bishop” of the conciliar sect, derives his “mission” from the usurpers in the Vatican (John XXIII through Leo XIV), possessing no jurisdiction in the true Church. His “Conference of Catholic Bishops” is a synod of the abomination of desolation.
The “Fatherland” Idolatry: Naturalistic Patriotism Substituting for the Kingdom of God
The rhetoric of “Fatherland,” “common home,” “our land,” “defending our country” reveals a purely naturalistic patriotism. Skomarovskyj says: “We call it the Fatherland; it is our common home, our shared dwelling… it is a matter of our common home, of the bond that unites all of us Ukrainians.” There is no mention of the Patria Caelestis, the Civitas Dei, or the duty of the Ukrainian nation to publicly profess the Catholic Faith and submit to Christ the King. Pius XI teaches: “Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ… For what we wrote at the beginning of Our Pontificate about the diminishing authority of law and respect for power… ‘When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.'” The “bishop” fights for a secular state founded on “freedom of conscience,” the very principle that destroys the foundation of authority. He defends a “home” built on sand (Matthew 7:26).
Silence on the Conversion of Russia and the Immaculate Heart
Not a word is spoken of the conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith, the consecration requested by Our Lady of Fatima (however one judges the apparition, the theological principle stands: Russia must be converted), or the triumph of the Immaculate Heart. The war is framed geopolitically: “The enemy did not come simply to impose a different political system on us or dictate new electoral rules. They came to kill and destroy.” This reduction of a chastisement for the world’s apostasy to a mere territorial conflict is the hallmark of the Modernist mindset, which Lamentabili condemns: “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” (Error 59). The “bishop” reads the signs of the times not with the eyes of faith, but with the eyes of a secular NGO director.
The Seminary Crisis: Fruit of the Conciliar Revolution
Skomarovskyj inadvertently exposes the devastation wrought by the conciliar “renewal”: “Today, by contrast, there are no such barriers. And yet, sadly, we see that the number of people who want to enter the seminary is very small, sometimes close to zero.” He contrasts the “difficult undertaking” of entering seminary under Soviet persecution with the current ease, lamenting the lack of vocations. He fails to see that the novus ordo liturgy, the destruction of priestly identity, the teaching of religious liberty, and the loss of the sense of the sacred – all fruits of Vatican II – have caused this collapse. Where the Mass is a “table of assembly” and the priest a “presider,” vocations die. The Soviet persecution filtered for heroes; the conciliar “freedom” produces apostates.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation Speaking Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace
This interview is a document of the paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican. It proclaims the rights of man (religious liberty) over the Rights of God (the Social Kingship of Christ). It offers humanitarian solidarity instead of supernatural grace. It invokes false “saints” and “popes” instead of the immutable Magisterium. It defends a secular fatherland instead of the City of God. As Pius XI warned in Quas Primas: “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.” The conciliar sect does the opposite: it builds the Kingdom of Man on the ruins of the Kingdom of Christ. Non praevalebunt.
Source:
Ukrainian bishop: 'In the solidarity we receive, we find strength and hope' (vaticannews.va)
Date: 24.08.2026