The EWTN News portal reports on the opening of “Grow the Kingdom,” a Catholic-branded fitness facility in Greenwood Village, Colorado, operated by laymen Jayce Rastrelli and Hayden Dalton under the auspices of the conciliar “Archdiocese of Denver.” The facility features a crucifix, a prayer-intention whiteboard, a modest dress code, and “clean” music, marketing itself as a “safe space to glorify God” where workouts become intercessory acts. Rastrelli explicitly frames physical training as a laboratory for building “virtues” like discipline and delayed gratification, detached from the sacramental economy and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. A planned youth mentorship program promises “vice versus virtue training” through the four cardinal virtues, monthly Bible studies, and saint studies — all devoid of the Baltimore Catechism, the Traditional Latin Mass, or the necessity of sanctifying grace. The article concludes with Rastrelli’s sentimental appeal to “know their worth in God’s eyes.” This enterprise is not a restoration of Catholic culture but a quintessentially modernist substitution of naturalistic self-improvement for the supernatural life of grace, reducing the *regnum Christi* to a gym membership.
The Conciliar Sect’s Anthropocentric Perversion of Catholic Asceticism
The very concept of a “Catholic gym” as a standalone apostolate — blessed implicitly by the conciliar hierarchy and trumpeted by the neo-church’s premier media organ, EWTN — manifests the *hermeneutic of rupture* inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council. Here we witness the *cult of man* condemned by Pope Pius XI in *Quas Primas* (1925), where he warned that “when God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The “Grow the Kingdom” project does not *restore* the Kingship of Christ over the body; it domesticates the body to the ego of the “autonomous” layman who imagines he can “offer his workout” as a *sui generis* prayer, bypassing the *only* channel of grace instituted by Christ: the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar.
“The first thing you see is going to be Our Lord giving his body for us on the cross. And then you’re going to get to come in here and work on your body for God.”
This statement by Rastrelli encapsulates the Pelagian heresy at the heart of the conciliar “theology of the body” (a phrase coined by the antipope John Paul II, himself a manifest heretic who taught the evolution of doctrine and religious liberty). The Crucifix is reduced to a *motivational poster* for self-actualization. The True Cross is not a stimulus for “ego lifting” versus “serving God”; it is the *propitiatory Victim* whose merits are applied to souls *ex opere operato* through the unbloody renewal of Calvary in the Traditional Latin Mass. St. Paul teaches: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service” (Rom 12:1). This “reasonable service” (*logikē latreia*) is the participation in the *Sacerdotium Christi* via the Mass, not a solitary weightlifting session sanctified by a whiteboard of names.
Supplanting the Communion of Saints with a Whiteboard
The “prayer intentions board” is a grotesque parody of the *Communio Sanctorum*. In the true Church, the faithful unite their sufferings to the *Sacrifice of the Mass*, offering them through the hands of the priest *in persona Christi*, for the living and the dead, *pro vivis et defunctis*. The conciliar gym replaces the *Canon of the Mass* — the *Te igitur*, the *Memento*, the *Nobis quoque peccatoribus* — with a dry-erase marker and a list of first names. This is practical atheism: it presupposes that God accepts “workouts” offered *extra Ecclesiam* and *extra Missam* as efficacious intercession. St. Cyprian thundered: *Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus* — “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” The conciliar sect’s “prayer board” operates precisely *outside* the Church’s juridical and sacramental structure, in a “safe space” constructed by men who recognize the usurper “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) as the Vicar of Christ.
“You’re allowing God to take your workout and transform it into a prayer and send it back to someone in the form of grace.”
This is blasphemous presumption. Grace is not a commodity “sent back” via metabolic exertion. Grace is the *gratuitous gift* of the Holy Ghost, merited *ex condigno* by Christ Crucified and communicated *ex opere operato* through the sacraments administered by validly ordained priests (ordained *sub conditione* in the traditional rite before 1968). The “grace” Rastrelli speaks of is a Protestantized, subjectivist “experience” — the *fides sola* of the gym rat, not the *fides catholica* of the Council of Trent (Sess. VI, Can. 8: “If anyone says that by faith alone the sinner is justified… let him be anathema”).
“Virtue Training” Without Grace: The Pelagianism of the Neo-Church
The planned “mentorship program for 11- to 21-year-olds” focusing on “vice versus virtue training” through the “four cardinal virtues” is a naturalistic moralism indistinguishable from Stoicism or Boy Scouts. The cardinal virtues — prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance — are *acquired* by human effort *elevated and perfected* by the *infused* theological virtues (faith, hope, charity) and the *Gifts of the Holy Ghost*, which are conferred in Baptism and strengthened in Confirmation (traditional rite). Without the *state of sanctifying grace* — lost by mortal sin, restored by sacramental Confession to a valid priest — the “virtues” built in this gym are *virtutes politicae*, pagan virtues, “splendid vices” (St. Augustine, *De Civitate Dei*, XIX.25) that merit nothing eternal.
The article mentions “monthly Bible studies, virtue talks, Q&A sessions, saint studies” — but silence screams regarding the *Catechism of the Council of Trent*, the *Baltimore Catechism*, the *Imitation of Christ*, the *Summa Theologica*. There is no mention of *mortification of the flesh* (Col 3:5), *fasting and abstinence* (Can. 1250-1254, 1917 Code), *the Four Last Things* (Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell), *the Social Kingship of Christ* (*Quas Primas*), or the *necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation* (*Unam Sanctam*, *Cantate Domino*, *Mystici Corporis*). This is religious indifferentism masquerading as “youth ministry” — precisely the error condemned by Pope Pius IX in the *Syllabus of Errors* (Prop. 16: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation”).
The “Theology of the Body” Trojan Horse
The related articles linked by EWTN explicitly reference “St. John Paul II’s theology of the body.” This is the poisoned chalice of the conciliar revolution. Wojtyła’s “theology of the body” — with its phenomenological obsession with “the nuptial meaning of the body,” its personalist subjectivism, and its silence on *Humanae Vitae*’s infallible condemnation of contraception — opened the floodgates for the *cult of the body* now on display in Greenwood Village. The “Catholic gym” is the logical terminus of this anthropocentric deviation: the body is no longer *templum Spiritus Sancti* to be mortified for the love of God (1 Cor 9:27: “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection”), but a *project* to be optimized for “service” defined in purely horizontal, humanitarian terms.
“Is it just for that ego, that vanity? ‘I want to look big. I want to have this appearance.’ What are you going to use that for?”
Rastrelli’s dichotomy — vanity vs. “serving God” via fitness — excludes the *Catholic third option*: mortification for the love of the Crucified. The true Catholic does not ask “What will I use this muscle for?” but “How may I *crucify the flesh with its passions and desires* (Gal 5:24) to make reparation for my sins and those of the world?” The *Desert Fathers* did not build “virtues” in gyms; they fasted until their ribs showed, slept on stones, and wept for their sins. The conciliar “gym apostolate” is the antithesis of Christian asceticism — it is the *sanctification of the world* (Gaudium et Spes) in its most carnal form.
Juridical Illegitimacy: Operating Under the Usurpers
The gym operates in the “former Augustine Institute building in the Archdiocese of Denver.” The “Archdiocese of Denver” is a juridical fiction of the conciliar sect, headed by a “bishop” (Samuel Aquila) who recognizes the antipope Leo XIV as supreme pontiff. Since the death of Pope Pius XII (1958), the See of Peter has been vacant (*Sede Vacante*). The “clergy” of the conciliar sect — including the “priests” who reportedly work out at “Grow the Kingdom” — possess no jurisdiction, no mission, no sacramental validity (unless conditionally ordained in the traditional rite before 1968). Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code declares vacant any office held by one who “publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” The conciliar hierarchy, by adhering to the heresies of Vatican II (*Dignitatis Humanae*, *Unitatis Redintegratio*, *Nostra Aetate*, *Gaudium et Spes*), has defected *publice* and *manifeste*. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches (*De Romano Pontifice*, II.30): “A manifest heretic… by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head… as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.”
Therefore, “Grow the Kingdom” is not a Catholic gym. It is a lay-run fitness center in a building formerly owned by a conciliar institute, decorated with Catholic sacramentals used superstitiously, promoting a naturalistic spirituality that prepares souls not for Heaven but for the *abomination of desolation* standing in the holy place (Matt 24:15).
The EWTN Propaganda Apparatus
The article is authored by Francesca Pollio Fenton, a staff reporter for EWTN News — the media empire founded by the late “Mother Angelica” (Rita Rizzo), a Poor Clare nun who obtained a “dispensation” from her cloister from the conciliar hierarchy to build a television network that became the de facto magisterium of the neo-church. EWTN has consistently promoted the “hermeneutic of continuity,” the “new evangelization,” the “theology of the body,” the “Divine Mercy” devotion (Faustina Kowalska — writings once on the *Index*, “canonized” by the antipope John Paul II), and the legitimacy of the Novus Ordo Missae. This “news” piece is not journalism; it is ecclesial marketing for a lay apostolate that fills the vacuum left by the destruction of Catholic parishes, schools, and sodalities by the conciliar revolution.
The related article “An athletic pope: Pope Leo XIV worked out…” confirms the idolization of the antipope. The conciliar sect’s “pope” is presented as a role model for *physical fitness* — the *summum bonum* of the modernist religion of man. Pius XI, in *Quas Primas*, instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat this: “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, either by combating the triple concupiscence of the world through religious vows…” The conciliar “gym” replaces *religious vows* with *gym memberships*, *triple concupiscence* with *cardio*, and *Christ the King* with *Jayce Rastrelli*.
Conclusion: A Fitness Center for the Kingdom of Antichrist
“Grow the Kingdom” is a perfect metaphor for the conciliar sect: a Potemkin village of Catholic externals (crucifix, Bible, modest dress) concealing a hollow core of naturalism, Pelagianism, and lay activism *sine missione canonica*. It offers the *appearance* of piety without the *reality* of the Cross. It promises “virtue” without *grace*, “prayer” without the *Mass*, “community” without *unity of faith*, and “kingdom” without *Christ the King*.
The faithful Catholic — adhering to the *integral Faith* of Trent, the *Traditional Latin Mass*, the *Syllabus of Errors*, *Pascendi Dominici Gregis*, *Quas Primas*, and the *Sedevacantist* position that the See of Peter has been vacant since 1958 — must flee such institutions as spiritual traps. *Qui non est mecum, contra me est* (Matt 12:30). A gym that teaches youth to “build virtues” while recognizing the antipope, attending the Novus Ordo, and ignoring the Social Kingship of Christ is not building the *Regnum Christi*; it is building the *regnum hominis* — the kingdom of the Antichrist, brick by sweaty brick.
“Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” (Ps 126:1)
The “house” of “Grow the Kingdom” is built on the sand of conciliar novelty. When the flood of God’s judgment comes — *et venit tempestas* — it will collapse, because its foundation is not *Petrus* but *Prevost*; not the *Mass of Ages* but the *muscle of the age*.
Source:
‘No more ego lifting’: How one Catholic gym is putting God at the center of fitness (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 09.09.2026