The EWTN News portal, through its African affiliate ACI Africa, reports on the inaugural strategic meeting of the so-called “Council of Priests” (COP) of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, held September 9–11, 2026, in Johannesburg. The article lauds this novel bureaucratic entity for fostering “collaboration” and a “synodal approach” between the conciliar hierarchy and its presbyterate, focusing on temporal concerns such as finances, healthcare, and retirement policies. This report manifests the total substitution of the divina constitutio (divine constitution) of the Church with a horizontal, democratic parody of ecclesiastical governance.
The Abolition of Hierarchy in Favor of Synodal Conciliarism
The very concept of a “Council of Priests” established by a “Bishops’ Conference” as a “collaborative and synodal body” is a direct repudiation of the monarchical constitution of the Church established by Christ. Pope Pius VI, in the Constitution Auctorem Fidei (1794), condemned the synod of Pistoia for proposing that “the Church is not a monarchy” and for introducing a “democratic form of government.” The article quotes the COP vice-chairperson, “Father” Alex Beukes, stating the structure was created because “there was not much collaboration between bishops and priests.” This reveals the revolutionary premise: the sacra potestas (sacred power) of the episcopate, received directly from Christ through the Sacrament of Order, is reduced to a partnership requiring the consent of the governed. The Syllabus of Errors (1864) anathematizes the proposition that “The ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government” (Error 20); a fortiori, it cannot be subjected to the veto or “collaboration” of a presbyteral senate. The Codex Iuris Canonici (1917), Canon 108, teaches that the power of jurisdiction is ordinaria et propria, not delegated by the clergy. This “synodal” inversion is the ripe fruit of the Second Vatican Council’s heretical doctrine of collegiality (Lumen Gentium 22), which makes the college of bishops subject to the “pope” only in a collegial act, thereby destroying the primatus iurisdictionis (primacy of jurisdiction) defined by Vatican I (Pastor Aeternus, Denz. 1831).
Naturalistic Reductionism: The “Sustainable Church” of This World
The meeting’s theme—”Strengthening Priestly Communion, Stewardship, and Mission for a Sustainable Church“—exposes the purely naturalistic horizon of the neo-church. The term “sustainable,” borrowed from secular environmentalism and corporate governance, replaces the supernatural finality of the Church: salus animarum suprema lex (the salvation of souls is the supreme law). The priorities discussed—finances, revenues, healthcare, retirement policies, mental stress—are the agenda of a trade union or an NGO, not the Ecclesia Militans. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), teaches that Christ’s Kingdom “is primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters” and that “men who wish to belong to it prepare themselves through repentance, but cannot enter except through faith and baptism.” The article records not a single mention of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the salvation of souls, the combat against sin, the Four Last Things, or the rights of Christ the King over society. “Father” Sandile Mswane describes the meeting as an “eye-opener” regarding “finances, revenues, the changing face of the Church, healthcare, and self-care.” This is the cultus hominis (worship of man) condemned by the Syllabus (Error 58: “No other forces are to be recognized except those which reside in matter… and the gratification of pleasure”). The “changing face of the Church” is the euphemism for the apostasy of the conciliar sect, which has abandoned the immutable depositum fidei for the “signs of the times.”
The Invalidity of the Ministers and the Nullity of the Structure
The participants in this assembly—”bishops,” “priests,” “vicars general”—operate within the post-conciliar structures occupying the Vatican. Since the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae (1969) and the new sacramental rites (1968/1972), the validity of orders conferred in the Paul VI rite is graviter dubia (gravely doubtful) due to the defect of form and intention, as demonstrated by Archbishop Lefebvre’s resistance and the theological critiques of the Breve Examen Critico. Even if validly ordained before 1968, these clerics have ipso facto lost all jurisdiction by public defection from the Catholic faith (Canon 188 §4, 1917 Code), adhering to the heresies of religious liberty, ecumenism, and collegiality. Pope Paul IV’s Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (1559) declares that any prelate who “has defected from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy” incurs automatic invalidity of promotion: “(i) his promotion or elevation… shall be null, void, and of no effect.” The “Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference” is a juridical fiction, a “national church” withdrawn from the authority of the true Roman Pontiff, condemned by the Syllabus (Error 37). Its “Council of Priests” is therefore a gathering of private individuals, devoid of any canonical mission, simulating the Church’s governance to legitimize the usurpation of ecclesiastical property and the souls of the faithful.
EWTN: Propaganda Arm of the Neo-Church
The source of this report, EWTN News (via ACI Africa), functions as the mainstream media outlet of the conciliar sect, ceaselessly promoting the narrative of a “living Church” undergoing “renewal.” By uncritically amplifying the bureaucratic jargon of “synodality,” “strategic priorities,” and “stewardship,” it anesthetizes the faithful into accepting the demolition of the Church’s divine constitution. The journalist, Silas Isenjia, is identified as a “Kenyan journalist with a great zeal and interest for Catholic Church related communication”—a layman reporting on ecclesiastical governance as if it were a corporate restructuring. This is the laicismus (laicism) denounced by Pius XI in Quas Primas: “the Church’s authority to teach men, to issue laws, to govern nations… was denied… the Christian religion began to be equated with other false religions and shamelessly placed in the same category.” EWTN’s role is to normalize the abnormality, presenting the paramasonic structure as the legitimate Bride of Christ.
The Silence on the Supernatural: The Gravest Accusation
The most damning aspect of the article is its total silence on the supernatural order. There is no reference to the Sanctissimum Sacrificium (Most Holy Sacrifice), the Sacramentum Poenitentiae, the status gratiae (state of grace), the quattuor novissima (Four Last Things), or the regnum Christi (Kingship of Christ) over nations. The “priests” discuss “mental stress” and “retirement policies” but not the cura animarum (cure of souls) or the munus sanctificandi (sanctifying office). This silence is the signature of Modernism, condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907) and Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907). Proposition 26 of Lamentabili condemns: “The dogmas of faith should be understood according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief.” Proposition 65: “Contemporary Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true knowledge without transforming it into a certain dogmaless Christianity, that is, into a broad and liberal Protestantism.” The COP meeting is precisely this: a Protestant-style consistory managing a religious NGO. The “synodal process” is the operationalization of the Modernist heresy of the “evolution of dogma” and the “democratization of revelation” (Prop. 21, 54).
Conclusion: Return to the Immutable Tradition
This “Council of Priests” is a counterfeit institution born of the Great Apostasy foretold by St. Paul (2 Thess. 2:3). It possesses no authority, no mission, no sacraments, and no future. The true Church of Christ endures in the catacombs of the faithful who reject the conciliar revolution, adhere to the Mass of All Time, and recognize no “pope” after Pius XII. As Pope Pius IX taught in the Syllabus (Error 55): “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” is an error; a fortiori, the Church cannot be separated from her Divine Founder and His immutable laws. The “sustainable Church” of the synodal bureaucrats will perish; the Ecclesia Catholica, built on the Rock of Peter, portae inferi non praevalebunt (the gates of hell shall not prevail against it). Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.
Source:
New priests’ council in South Africa lauded for fostering collaboration with bishops (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 28.09.2026