The EWTN News portal reports that the usurper occupying the Vatican, Robert Prevost (“Pope” Leo XIV), has appointed Father Gerardo Antonio Vargas Cruz, OFM, as coadjutor “bishop” for the Diocese of Fajardo-Humacao in Puerto Rico. The 49-year-old Franciscan, ordained in 2006 and currently vicar for clergy in the Archdiocese of San Juan, will serve alongside the 72-year-old “Bishop” Luis Francisco Miranda Rivera, OCarm, automatically succeeding him upon retirement. This marks the third such appointment for the island in under three months. The diocese, erected in 2008 under the conciliar regime, serves approximately 63,500 nominal Catholics. This routine administrative act of the paramasonic structure masquerades as ecclesiastical governance while manifesting the total rupture with Catholic hierarchy and the divine constitution of the Church.
The Illegitimacy of the Appointing Authority: Nullus Potest Dare Quod Non Habet
The entire narrative presupposes the legitimacy of Robert Prevost as “Pope” Leo XIV. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this is the primordial fraud. Robert Prevost is a manifest heretic who, by embracing the errors of Vatican II — religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, the new ecclesiology — has ipso facto severed himself from the Church and cannot hold the papacy. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches: “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, lib. 2, cap. 30). The Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio of Pope Paul IV declares that any promotion of a heretic to the papacy is “null, void, and of no effect” regardless of unanimous cardinal assent. Therefore, Prevost possesses zero authority to appoint, transfer, or confirm any bishop. His acts are irritae et inanes — null and void — not merely illicit but ontologically impossible as exercises of Petrine ministry. The EWTN report treats this usurpation as normal, revealing its complicity in the great apostasy foretold in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4.
The Conciliar Diocese: A Juridical Fiction Erected in Schism
The Diocese of Fajardo-Humacao was “erected in 2008” — that is, created by the conciliar sect decades after the vacant See of 1958. No true diocese can be erected by an antipope; no true bishop can be appointed by a non-pope; no true jurisdiction exists where the bond of unity with the true Roman Pontiff is severed. Pope Pius XII, in Mystici Corporis Christi (1943), defined the Church as a perfect society united by one faith, one baptism, one government under the Vicar of Christ. The 2008 erection is a purely civil-corporate act within the novus ordo structure, devoid of canonical reality. The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 1864) condemns the proposition that “National churches, withdrawn from the authority of the Roman pontiff and altogether separated, can be established” (Error 37). The conciliar “dioceses” are precisely such schismatic structures, however much they mimic external forms.
The Franciscan Appointee: Agent of the New Ecclesiology
Father Vargas Cruz is presented with a curriculum vitae: theology professor, prison chaplain, vicar for clergy, Franciscan friar. Nowhere is there mention of the Catholic faith intact, the Tridentine Mass, the rejection of Vatican II, or fidelity to the Syllabus and Pascendi. His formation (ordination 2006) occurred entirely within the conciliar seminary system, saturated with Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907) and Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907). The Franciscan Order itself was among the first to capitulate to the “renewal,” abandoning the traditional habit, the traditional Office, and the traditional rule of poverty for a secularized activism. “The elders fulfilling supervisory functions at Christian gatherings were appointed by the Apostles as priests or bishops to ensure order in the developing communities, but they did not, in the proper sense, continue the apostolical mission and authority” — this condemned proposition (Lamentabili, 50) describes exactly the conciliar “presbyterate”: functionaries of a human institution, not priests of the eternal High Priest. Vargas Cruz’s role as “vicar for clergy” in the Archdiocese of San Juan signifies his integration into the administrative machinery of the neo-church, not the pastoral care of souls in veritate.
The Coadjutor Mechanism: Ensuring Continuity of Apostasy
The appointment of a coadjutor with right of succession (cum iure successionis) is a canonical device of the 1917 Code (Canon 329) designed for legitimate dioceses. In the hands of the conciliar sect, it becomes a mechanism to guarantee the uninterrupted propagation of the conciliar revolution. “Bishop” Miranda Rivera (72) is three years short of the canonical retirement age (75), yet a coadjutor is imposed — suggesting either hidden infirmity or, more likely, a preemptive strike to install a younger, more reliably “synodal” administrator. The article notes Miranda “did not provide a reason,” underscoring the bureaucratic, top-down nature of the neo-church where “bishops” are functionaries removable at the whim of the Roman dicasteries. “The ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government” (Syllabus, Error 20) — here the “civil government” is the Roman Curia of the antipope, and the “bishops” obey as corporate executives. The faithful of Fajardo-Humacao are not consulted; they are subjects of an imposed hierarchy.
Silence on the Supernatural: Naturalistic Ecclesiastical Administration
The entire report is devoid of any supernatural reference. No mention of the salvation of souls, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments, the state of grace, the Four Last Things, the Social Kingship of Christ. The “diocese” is described in demographic terms: “63,500 Catholics — about 30% of the area’s total population.” The “cathedral” and “co-cathedral” are mentioned as buildings. The press conference is a media event. This is laicism in its purest form — the very plague Pius XI condemned in Quas Primas (1925): “It began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations; the Church’s authority to teach men, to issue laws, to govern nations… was denied. And then, slowly, the Christian religion began to be equated with other false religions and shamelessly placed in the same category; then it was subordinated to secular power…” The conciliar “bishop” is a manager of a religious NGO; the “coadjutor” is a succession plan. “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” (Pius XI, Ubi Arcano, quoted in Quas Primas). The EWTN report exemplifies this destruction: ecclesiastical news reduced to personnel announcements.
The Puerto Rico Trilogy: Systematic Consolidation of the Neo-Church
The article notes this is the “third bishop nomination for the island of Puerto Rico in under three months.” Previous appointments included a new “archbishop of San Juan” and a new “bishop of Ponce.” This rapid turnover reveals a coordinated campaign by the Roman dicasteries to entrench the conciliar hierarchy in a territory where the Faith may still retain residual vitality. The strategy mirrors the Masonic infiltration described in the Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita: “We must win over the clergy… appoint bishops who will second our views… the Church will be ours within a few years.” The appointment of a Franciscan — an order historically devoted to the Immaculate and the Sacred Heart — now repurposed as an instrument of the “Church of the New Advent,” is a particular triumph of the adversary. “The sanctuary of God has been profaned by the abomination of desolation” (Dan 9:27; Matt 24:15).
EWTN: The Propaganda Arm of the Conciliar Sect
The source, EWTN News, functions as the semi-official media outlet of the neo-church. Its “Deputy Vatican Editor,” Hannah Brockhaus, presents the usurper’s act with reverential neutrality. No critical question is raised: Is this “pope” legitimate? Are these “bishops” validly ordained in the traditional rite? Do they hold the Catholic faith entire? The portal’s tagline — “Catholic Church in Puerto Rico / Bishop Appointments” — uses Catholic terminology to label conciliar realities, a classic Modernist technique condemned by St. Pius X: “They make use of a double language… they speak as Catholics to Catholics, as rationalists to rationalists” (Pascendi, 11). EWTN’s role is to normalize the abnormal, to make the faithful accept the paramasonic structure as the Church. “The more the sweetest Name of our Redeemer is omitted with unworthy silence in international gatherings and parliaments, the more loudly it must be confessed” (Pius XI, Quas Primas). EWTN does the opposite: it confesses the usurper’s name loudly while omitting Christ the King.
Conclusion: Non Est Inventus Similis Illis
This appointment is not a pastoral provision; it is an act of war against the remnant Church. Every “bishop” appointed by the antipope is a pseudo-episcopus, a wolf in shepherd’s clothing, whose ministry leads souls not to Christ but to the counterfeit church of the Antichrist. The faithful of Puerto Rico, like those everywhere, must flee from these hirelings (John 10:12-13) and cleave to the true Mass, the true priesthood, the true hierarchy — those who preserve the depositum fidei intact, who reject Vatican II root and branch, who recognize the See of Peter as vacant since 1958. “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who gathers not with Me scatters” (Luke 11:23). The conciliar sect gathers only for the kingdom of this world. Its appointments are dust and ashes. Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.
Source:
Pope Leo appoints coadjutor bishop for Puerto Rico’s youngest diocese (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 08.09.2026