The National Catholic Register — flagship organ of the conciliar sect occupying the Vatican — publishes a retrospective by its former executive editor Tom Hoopes celebrating the “Catholic heroes of 9/11.” The article, originally appearing at Benedictine College’s Media & Culture, recounts the actions of Novus Ordo “priests,” firefighters, and laypeople on September 11, 2001, framing their natural virtues as the essence of Catholic witness. Hoopes explicitly contrasts this approach with journalists who “write about how the world changes the Church,” boasting that the Register instead covers “how the Church changes the world.” This inversion — the ecclesia docens reduced to a humanitarian NGO — is the thesis of the conciliar counter-church: the substitution of the Social Kingship of Christ with the religion of man.
The Invalid Ministry of the Conciliar “Priesthood”
Hoopes narrates at length the ministrations of “Father Peter,” “Father James Hayes,” “Father Chris Hynes,” “Father Gino Silva,” and the Franciscan “Father Mychal Judge” — all presented as valid ministers administering absolution, last rites, and blessing body parts at Ground Zero. Not one of these men possessed valid Holy Orders. The sacramental rites of ordination were gutted by Paul VI’s 1968 Pontificale Romanum, which suppressed the essential form and intention for the priesthood. As Pius XII taught in Sacramentum Ordinis (1947), the matter and form of Orders must signify the potestas ordinis — the power to offer the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary. The new rite, crafted by the Freemason Bugnini and his conspirators, signifies only a “presbyteral ministry” of presidency over a communal meal. Ex opere operato fails where the form is defective; therefore, no valid absolution was given, no valid Extreme Unction conferred, no valid blessing imparted. The dying firefighters and victims received not the sacramental grace of the Church, but a simulacrum administered by laymen in vestments.
The article describes “Father Peter” hearing confessions on the church steps as people fled: “Just give me absolution, Father,” as they ran away. This scene encapsulates the conciliar deformation: the sacrament of Penance reduced to a magical incantation divorced from contrition, purpose of amendment, and the juridical authority of a true priest. The Council of Trent anathematizes those who deny the necessity of sacramental confession (Sess. XIV, can. 6); the conciliar sect makes a mockery of it.
Idolatry at Ground Zero: The “Mass” and “Communion” of the Neo-Church
Hoopes mentions “Father Peter saying Mass that morning in Our Lady of Victory near the World Trade Center.” This was not the Most Holy Sacrifice. It was the Novus Ordo Missae — a Protestantized memorial meal fabricated by Hannibal Bugnini to please heretics. Pius V’s Bull Quo Primum (1570) perpetually binds the Roman Rite to the Tridentine Mass; Paul VI’s fabrication has no authority. The “Consecration” in the new rite uses the invalid form “for all” (pro multis corrupted to pro omnibus), the priest faces the people instead of God, the Canon is optional, and the theology of propitiatory sacrifice is excised. To participate in this rite is idolatry; to receive “Communion” from it is sacrilege. The Olympic rower Jason Reid, said to have converted after seeing a “priest blessing body parts,” was drawn not to the Verum Corpus of Christ but to a counterfeit liturgy. His “conversion” is entry into a false church.
The Antipope John Paul II: Heretic Cited as Authority
Hoopes quotes “Pope John Paul II” appealing for the Rosary “so that hatred and death will never have the last word.” Karol Wojtyła was a manifest heretic who lost the papacy ipso facto. St. Robert Bellarmine teaches: “A manifest heretic, by that very fact, ceases to be Pope and head… he cannot be the head of something of which he is not a member” (De Romano Pontifice II, 30). Wojtyła’s heresies are legion: the encyclical Redemptor Hominis (1979) teaches that Christ united Himself to every man (anthropocentrism); Ut Unum Sint (1995) promotes false ecumenism; Assisi 1986 placed the Catholic religion on par with pagan cults; he kissed the Koran; he taught religious liberty condemned by Gregory XVI (Mirari Vos) and Pius IX (Quanta Cura, Syllabus). Citing him as “Pope” is participation in the great apostasy. The Register uses his authority to legitimize its own counterfeit magisterium.
Ecumenism and Religious Indifferentism: The Rabbi at Ground Zero
Hoopes relates that “Father Gino Silva… and a rabbi were blessing the remains as they came by.” This is the communicatio in sacris explicitly forbidden by divine and canon law. Pius XI in Mortalium Animos (1928) condemns the “pan-Christian” movement: “The Catholic Church alone… can be the one true Church of Christ… To join with non-Catholics in religious worship is to abandon the truth.” The 1917 Code, Canon 1258, forbids communicatio in divinis with heretics and schismatics. The conciliar sect’s “Directory for Ecumenism” (1993) encourages precisely this abomination. The rabbi blesses according to the Old Covenant, abrogated by Christ’s Blood (Heb 8:13); the conciliar “priest” blesses according to the New Covenant, but without valid Orders. Two falsehoods do not make a truth. This scene is the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not (Mt 24:15).
Natural Virtue Elevated Above Supernatural Charity
The article’s core thesis: “They weren’t exactly martyrs. They weren’t exactly saints. They were just ordinary Catholics who were doing what ordinary Catholics are supposed to do.” This is Pelagianism. True martyrdom requires death in odium fidei for the Catholic Faith, not merely death in the exercise of natural courage. The firefighters and police — however noble their natural virtues — died as citizens performing civic duty, not as confessors of the Faith. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches: “Martyrdom consists essentially in standing firm for truth and justice against persecution… for the sake of the Faith” (ST II-II, q. 124, a. 5). To equate natural heroism with supernatural martyrdom is to deny the order of grace. The article cites St. Jude — “save others by snatching them out of the fire” (Jude 1:23) — but applies it to physical rescue, not the salvation of souls from hell. The spiritual battle is not fought with hoses and axes but with the arma spiritualia: the Mass, the Rosary, the Brown Scapular, the true priesthood.
Hoopes tells his children to “imitate the virtues of the 9/11 Catholic heroes” — promptness, efficiency, generosity. These are pagan virtues (Cicero’s officia), not the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The conciliar sect reduces Christianity to ethical humanism. Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925) — provided in the context — declares: “If men were ever to recognize Christ’s royal authority over themselves, both privately and publicly, then unheard-of blessings would flow upon the whole society… For the state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” The article recognizes no regnum Christi, no Christus Rex, no duty of states to profess the Catholic Faith. It offers only a “salad bar” Catholicism — the very phrase Hoopes approvingly quotes from the apostate Ed Koch.
The “Salad Bar” Church: Ed Koch’s Blasphemy Endorsed
Hoopes concludes with former Mayor Ed Koch’s remark: “Unlike a lot of other religions, Catholicism is not a salad bar. It’s very clear what Catholicism means and what it is about. You either are, or you are not, a practicing Catholic.” Koch — a pro-abortion, pro-sodomy politician — is held up as a witness to Catholic identity. This is the conciliar sect’s “clear” Catholicism: communion in the hand, altar girls, lay “ministers,” religious liberty, ecumenism, the new Mass. The “salad bar” is the conciliar church. The true Catholic Faith is not a menu of clear propositions to which one assents intellectually; it is the depositum fidei guarded by the living Magisterium, transmitted by valid sacraments, centered on the Unbloody Sacrifice. Koch’s “clear Catholicism” is the clarity of the Novus Ordo — a manufactured product of the Masonic lodge.
The Knights of Columbus: Paragon of the Neo-Church
Hoopes highlights the Knights of Columbus display of Mass cards: “There were also a lot of Knights of Columbus… they had a display showing all the Mass cards that had been printed for these men and women’s funerals.” The Knights, founded on naturalist principles (insurance fraternity), have been a vehicle for Americanism — the heresy condemned by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae (1899). Their “Mass cards” for Novus Ordo “funerals” are worthless paper. The article notes Andrew Walther, later “president of EWTN News,” provided a “balanced piece on Islam.” EWTN — Mother Angelica’s network — is fully integrated into the conciliar structure, promoting the false apparitions of Fatima, the false “sainthood” of Wojtyła, and the legitimacy of the usurpers. “Balanced piece on Islam” means indifferentism: the false religion of Mohammed placed on par with the one true Faith.
Tom Burnett: Private Revelation and the “Message” Delusion
The story of Tom Burnett — daily Mass attendee who “thought there was some kind of message that God wanted to give him” — exemplifies the conciliar obsession with private revelation and “messages.” The Church teaches that public revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle; private revelations add nothing to the deposit of faith. Pius IX in Quanta Cura condemns the “crafty errors” of those who “promote a certain progress of dogmas.” Burnett’s wife pressing him for the “message” — “Do you think you’re supposed to run for office?” — reveals the naturalist mindset: God as a career counselor. The true Catholic attends the Mass of Ages to adore the Trinity, offer propitiation for sin, and receive the Panis Angelicus — not to receive “messages” for geopolitical events. The article’s framing of Flight 93 as a divine mission (“impact a great number of people… something to do with the White House”) is gnostic superstition.
Silence on the Kingship of Christ: The Gravest Omission
Nowhere does the article mention the Social Kingship of Christ, the duty of nations to recognize Christ the King, the condemnation of liberalism and secularism. Pius XI in Quas Primas institutes the Feast of Christ the King precisely “to address the needs of the present times and provide a special remedy against the plague that poisons human society. And this plague is the secularism of our times, so-called laicism.” The 9/11 attacks were the fruit of a world that has “removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from their customs, from private, family, and public life” (Quas Primas). The conciliar sect’s response is not the proclamation of Christ’s rights but the celebration of humanitarianism. The Rosary is recommended not as a weapon for the conversion of the world to the Catholic Faith, but as a talisman against “terrorism.” This is the religion of the Civitas Terrena, not the Civitas Dei.
The Register: Propaganda Organ of the Abomination
The National Catholic Register, owned by the Legionaries of Christ (founded by the predatory Maciel, protected by Wojtyła), functions as the Pravda of the conciliar sect. Hoopes boasts: “We were seeing the real story of our time… the story of the Church in our time.” The “Church in our time” is the ecclesia haereticorum occupying the visible structures. The true Church — una, sancta, catholica, apostolica — subsists in the remnant faithful to the Mass of Pius V, the doctrine of Trent, the Syllabus of Pius IX, the anti-modernist oath of St. Pius X. The Register covers “how the Church changes the world” — meaning how the neo-church accommodates the world. “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed” (Quas Primas, citing Ubi Arcano). The conciliar sect has removed Christ; its journalism documents the ruin.
Conclusion: Return to the Catacombs, Not the Counter-Church
The article is a masterpiece of conciliar deception: it takes the natural virtues of men — many of them baptized Catholics deprived of the true Mass and true priesthood by the very sect that now canonizes them — and presents them as the fruit of the “Catholic Church.” It is a lie. The heroes of 9/11 died in a state of nature, assisted by invalid sacraments, mourned by a false hierarchy, eulogized by an antipope. Their eternal destiny is known to God alone; but the conciliar sect’s exploitation of their deaths to legitimize its counterfeit religion is a spiritual crime. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you build the sepulchres of the prophets, and adorn the monuments of the just” (Mt 23:29). The true Catholic response to 9/11 is not “imitation of virtues” but the reparatio of the Mass, the restoration of the priesthood, the proclamation of Christus Rex, the conversion of all nations to the one Ark of Salvation. Outside the true Church — the pre-1958 Church of the Catacombs — there is no salvation, no valid sacrifice, no true priesthood, no mission. The Register and its scribes are blind guides leading the blind into the pit (Mt 15:14).
Source:
The Catholic Heroes of 9/11 (ncregister.com)
Date: 10.09.2026