The EWTN News portal reports on a flurry of recent initiatives by the conciliar hierarchy: the Diocese of Phoenix inaugurates an education center for “mental health ministry” in partnership with a secular university; the University of St. Thomas stages a veneration of relics of the pseudo-saint Carlo Acutis; the Diocese of Bridgeport launches an animated cartoon series featuring a caricature of “Bishop” Frank Caggiano; and the Jesuit-run Loyola University Maryland announces financial guarantees to attract students. These disparate events share a single, damning essence: the total substitution of the supernatural mission of the Church for a naturalistic, therapeutic, and pedagogical simulacrum.
The Therapeutic State Replaces the Kingdom of Christ
The centerpiece of the report is the Phoenix “education center,” a 3,132-square-foot facility explicitly designed to support “mental health ministry” and the “Photina Center for Catholic Counseling.” “Bishop” John Dolan declares: “This work is ultimately about accompanying people and helping them recognize they are cherished, made in God’s image and likeness — and that can never be annulled — and they are not alone.” Notice the vocabulary: “accompanying,” “mental health services,” “cherished,” “not alone.” Absent is any mention of conversion, penance, the state of grace, the Four Last Things, or the Social Reign of Christ the King.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, teaches authoritatively: “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… the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.” The Phoenix initiative is the perfect embodiment of this removal. The collaboration with the University of Mary (a “Catholic” university in name only, fully integrated into the secular academic accreditation system) and the focus on “Catholic anthropology certificates” and “master’s-level counseling courses” signal a complete capitulation to the therapeutic state. The priesthood is reduced to a branch of social work; the cura animarum is replaced by cura psyches. The name “Photina” (the Samaritan woman) is twisted to signify “illuminating paths of hope and healing” — a horizontal, immanentist “hope” devoid of the spes theologica which rests on the promises of Christ, not on psychological coping mechanisms.
Liturgical Idolatry: The Cult of the Pseudo-Saint Acutis
At the University of St. Thomas, “Archbishop Emeritus” Domenico Sorrentino presides over the “public veneration of sacred relics of St. Carlo Acutis.” Here the abomination of desolation reaches its liturgical apex. Carlo Acutis, a youth who died in 2006, was “beatified” by the apostate Bergoglio in 2020 and “canonized” by the same false pope in 2025. This “canonization” possesses zero dogmatic authority, proceeding from a manifest heretic who, by the very fact of his public heresy (ipso facto), ceased to hold the Petrine office (St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice; Pope Paul IV, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio). To venerate his “relics” as if they were those of a true saint is idolatry — the rendering of dulia to a creature not raised to the altars by a true Vicar of Christ.
The event frames the “Canticle of the Creatures” as “a witness to St. Francis’ love for God carried at length to the full extent of the created universe.” This is a classic modernist distortion: the reduction of the Seraphic Father’s contemptus mundi and burning seraphic love for the Crucified to a vague, pantheistic “love for creation.” It echoes the condemned proposition of the Syllabus: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55), extended here to the separation of Grace from Nature. The “Chapel of St. Basil” on a secularized campus becomes a stage for this neo-pagan rite.
Catechesis as Digital Entertainment: The Animated Hireling
The Diocese of Bridgeport unveils “Bishop Frank Teaches the Faith,” a weekly animated series voiced by “Bishop” Frank Caggiano. He states: “Our children are growing up in a world shaped by digital media, and we have an extraordinary opportunity to enter that world with them and introduce them more deeply to Jesus Christ and the beauty of our Catholic faith.” This is the hermeneutic of the world, not the hermeneutic of Tradition. The Faith is not “introduced” via cartoons; it is transmitted by the living Magisterium through the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Baltimore Catechism, and the Roman Catechism — by validly ordained priests in the confessional and at the altar.
The goal articulated by Patrick Donovan — “spark conversations at home, reinforce what children are learning in their parishes and schools, and, most importantly, help them grow closer to Jesus” — reveals the subjectivist, relationalist anthropology of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (Prop. 25: “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities”; Prop. 59: “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples”). “Growing closer to Jesus” replaces believing all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God. The “Institute for Catholic Formation” is a misnomer; it is an institute for deformation.
The Jesuit Academy: Merchandising Indulgences for Tuition
Loyola University Maryland, a Jesuit institution long since severed from the Society of Jesus founded by St. Ignatius, announces “two financial aid guarantees for early decision students and graduates of Catholic high schools… guaranteeing at least $40,000 annually.” President Terrence M. Sawyer speaks of “making an exceptional Jesuit education more accessible… providing students and families with greater clarity about affordability.” This is simony of the spirit: selling a “Catholic” brand for tuition revenue. The “Catholic high school commitment” guarantees money for graduates of schools that almost universally teach the errors of Vatican II (religious liberty, false ecumenism, evolutionism). The “Jesuit education” offered is the Spiritual Exercises inverted: not Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, but ad majorem pecuniam.
Systemic Apostasy: The Symptomatic Unity
These four news items are not isolated; they are the necessary fruits of the conciliar revolution.
- Phoenix implements the Gaudium et Spes anthropology: man as a psychological subject needing “accompaniment,” not a sinner needing absolution.
- St. Thomas enforces the Lumen Gentium ecclesiology: a “communion” of the baptized where “canonization” is a bureaucratic act of a false pope, and liturgy becomes a museum display of “relics” of dubious origin.
- Bridgeport deploys the Inter Mirifica media strategy: the Gospel as content for digital consumption, the bishop as a media personality.
- Loyola embodies the Dignitatis Humanae university: a marketplace of “values” competing for customers.
All operate under the usurped authority of the line of antipopes beginning with John XXIII. “Bishop” Dolan, “Auxiliary Bishop” Nevares, “Archbishop Emeritus” Sorrentino, “Bishop” Caggiano — these men hold no jurisdiction in the Catholic Church. By their public adherence to the heresies of Vatican II (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, the new mass), they have ipso facto defected from the Faith (Canon 188.4, 1917 Code; Wernz-Vidal, Ius Canonicum). Their “offices” are vacant. Their “sacraments” (if the Novus Ordo rite is used) are invalid; their “blessings” are empty; their “teaching” is poison.
The Silence That Condemns
What is utterly absent from this entire report? The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (the True Mass, the Missale Romanum of St. Pius V). The Confessional. The Rosary. The Brown Scapular. The duty of the State to profess the Catholic Faith (Pius IX, Quanta Cura; Leo XIII, Immortale Dei). The reality of Hell. The necessity of the Baptism of Water for salvation. The Social Kingship of Christ.
The Syllabus of Pius IX condemns: “The civil government… has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs” (Error 41); “The best theory of civil society requires that popular schools… should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority” (Error 47). The Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego cutting the ribbon at a “Catholic” center is the living image of Error 41 and 55: the State sanctioning the Church’s self-demolition into an NGO.
Conclusio: Return to the Catacombs
The faithful Catholic, perceiving this theological bankruptcy, must flee these structures. “Go out from her, my people, that you may not share in her sins” (Apoc. 18:4). The true Church persists not in the chancery offices of Phoenix, Bridgeport, or St. Paul, nor in the boardrooms of Loyola, but ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia — where the true Successor of Peter (sede vacante since 1958) would be, and where bishops and priests retain valid Orders and the integral Faith. The “mental health ministry” is a counsel of despair; the only true medicine for the soul is the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary, the Sacrament of Penance, and the Kingship of Christ over every faculty of the soul and every institution of society. Non praevalebunt — but they will not prevail in these buildings. Viva Cristo Rey!
Source:
Diocese of Phoenix opens education center to support mental health ministry (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 17.09.2026