EWTN News portal reports that on August 28, 2026, the conciliar “bishop” Erik Varden of Trondheim published a tribute commending Norway’s Lutheran monarch King Harald V to God’s mercy, hailing him as a “stable pillar in society” and calling Catholics to “stand loyally by the new sovereign” Haakon VIII. The article details a planned “Requiem Mass” at the conciliar St. Olav’s Cathedral and the use of the ninth-century Commendatio Animae for a ruler who died outside the Catholic Church, heading a Protestant state church. This spectacle of false ecumenism and political quietism exposes the conciliar sect’s total abandonment of the Social Kingship of Christ and the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
The Conciliar Sect’s Capitulation to Protestant Monarchy
The cited article reveals the depth of the apostasy that has consumed the structures occupying the Vatican since 1958. A “bishop” of the conciliar sect — a Trappist monk elevated by the usurper antipopes to the see of Trondheim, “apostolic administrator” of Tromsø, and president of the “Nordic Bishops’ Conference” — publicly praises a Lutheran king as “so completely and utterly king, devoted to the people, that it was as if no ego stood in the way” and “a stable pillar in society”. This is not Catholic piety; it is political sycophancy dressed in liturgical vestments.
King Harald V was the constitutional head of the Church of Norway, a Lutheran state church established by the Reformation’s rupture from the true Church. He swore an oath to uphold this heretical establishment. The Syllabus of Errors (1864) condemns the proposition that “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55) and that “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). Yet Varden’s tribute implicitly endorses the very separation and religious indifferentism that Pius IX anathematized. By praising a heretical monarch as a “stable pillar,” the conciliar prelate substitutes the regnum Christi for the regnum hominis, the Kingdom of Christ for the kingdom of man.
Profanation of the Commendatio Animae and the Invalid “Requiem”
The article states that Varden opened his reflection with the ninth-century Commendatio Animae: “Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God, the Almighty Father, who created you; in the name of Jesus Christ, the living Son of God, who suffered for you; and in the name of the Holy Spirit, who was poured out upon you.” This prayer is for a Christian soul — one baptized into the Catholic Church and dying in the state of grace. To invoke it for a lifelong adherent and supreme governor of a Protestant sect is a sacrilegious mockery of the Church’s intercession. It presupposes the heretic’s salvation while ignoring the dogmatic necessity of baptismus flaminis or at least baptismus sanguinis for those outside visible communion.
Worse, the article announces a “Requiem Mass” at the conciliar St. Olav’s Cathedral. Since the Novus Ordo Missae promulgated by the antipope Paul VI in 1969 is a fabricated rite that expresses a Protestantized theology of the “Lord’s Supper” rather than the Sacrificium incruentum of Trent, this “Mass” is at best a liturgical simulation, at worst an idolatrous service. The Council of Trent defined: “If anyone says that in the Mass a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God… let him be anathema” (Session XXII, Canon 1). The conciliar sect’s “Mass” cannot propitiate God for the soul of a heretic king; it compounds the scandal by simulating the Holy Sacrifice for one who died in schism and heresy.
Betrayal of the Social Kingship of Christ the King
Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), teaches authoritatively: “His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” The same encyclical condemns the plague of laicism: “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.”
Varden’s tribute does the opposite. It legitimizes a monarchy that derives its authority from the Norwegian Parliament (the Storting) and the Constitution of 1814 — a purely human, naturalistic foundation. The bishop writes: “The monarchy stands as ‘a stable pillar in society’ that represents continuity. ‘In a time as uncertain as ours, that is a comfort.'” This is the language of naturalism, not supernatural faith. The comfort of Catholics must be the Reign of Christ, not the stability of a Protestant throne. By calling the faithful to “stand loyally by the new sovereign” and pray for his “blessings and wisdom”, Varden demands political allegiance to a power that officially upholds Lutheranism, thereby violating the First Commandment and the Church’s mandate to subjicere omnia Christo.
The Conciliar “Episcopate”: Invalid Orders, False Authority
Erik Varden was ordained a “priest” in 1990 and “consecrated bishop” in 2020 by the conciliar “archbishop” of Oslo, within the new rite of episcopal consecration promulgated by Paul VI (1968), which is deficient in form and intention for the transmission of the sacerdotal character and episcopal power. As the Defense of Sedevacantism file demonstrates, a manifest heretic cannot hold office in the Church: “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope or a member of the Church… a non-Christian in no way can be Pope… 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” (Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice 2:30). The same principle applies to bishops. The conciliar “bishops,” by their adherence to the heresies of Vatican II (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, new ecclesiology), are manifest heretics who have ipso facto lost all jurisdiction. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code states: “Every office becomes vacant by the mere fact and without any declaration… if the cleric: 4. Publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” Varden’s public praise of a Lutheran king as a “stable pillar” is itself a public defection from the Catholic faith, confirming the vacancy of his claimed office.
False Ecumenism as Institutionalized Indifferentism
The article’s subtext is the conciliar sect’s false ecumenism. Varden invokes “the intercession of St. Olav, Norway’s patron saint” — a Catholic king martyred in 1030 defending the true Faith — to bless a dynasty that formally broke with Rome in 1537. This is the hermeneutic of rupture masquerading as continuity. St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907) condemned the Modernist proposition: “The dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are not truths of divine origin but are a certain interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind has worked out with great effort” (Prop. 22). The conciliar sect’s practice of “praying for” heretical rulers while ignoring their false religion operationalizes this condemned error: it treats the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus as a mutable “interpretation” rather than an immutable truth.
The Syllabus condemns: “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church” (Error 18). Varden’s tribute, by omitting any call to conversion, any mention of the king’s Lutheran profession, any reference to the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation, effectively proclaims this condemned error. The silence about the supernatural order — grace, sacraments, the state of soul, final judgment — is the gravest accusation. The article mentions “prayers for the new king” and “loyally by the new sovereign” but not a word about the salus animarum, the regnum Dei, or the judicium particulare. This is practical atheism.
EWTN: Propaganda Arm of the Neo-Church
The source, EWTN News, is a media apparatus of the conciliar sect, founded by the “Mother Angelica” under the patronage of the usurper antipopes. Its reporting style — bureaucratic, sentimentally pious, theologically vacuous — mirrors the novus ordo ethos. The article notes: “EWTN Norway is streaming the services on its website and YouTube channel.” This digital dissemination of false worship and political quietism serves to anesthetize the faithful into accepting the status quo of the abomination of desolation. The portal’s tagline — “reporting news concerning the Catholic Church around the world” — is a lie; it reports on the counterfeit church that occupies Catholic buildings.
Conclusion: The Duty of Resistance
The integral Catholic faith demands that we reject this entire spectacle. No Catholic may attend the invalid “Requiem,” join the prayers for a heretic monarch’s salvation as if he died in the Church, or owe loyalty to a Protestant king contrary to the Kingship of Christ. The true Church, reduced to the remnant of bishops and priests preserving the pre-1958 Tradition, valid sacraments, and unadulterated doctrine, alone offers the Holy Sacrifice for the dead and alone teaches the truth: “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Varden’s tribute is not a pastoral act; it is a public apostasy, a lapsus in haeresim that confirms the sedevacantist thesis: the See of Peter is vacant, the conciliar hierarchy is a pseudo-episcopate, and their “liturgies” are empty rituals. Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat — not Harald, not Haakon, not the conciliar usurpers.
Source:
Bishop prays for Norway’s King Harald V, hails ‘stable pillar’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 28.08.2026