The National Catholic Register portal reports on the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, framing the celebration through the lens of a “special jubilee year” proclaimed by the usurper “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost). The author, Sister Maria Gemma Salyer, OSF, president of the University of Saint Francis in Fort Wayne, Indiana, details a program of pilgrimages, indulgences, Eucharistic adoration, service projects, and a planned presidential pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi in 2027. The article culminates in the revelation that the “Holy Father” acknowledged their initiatives and imparted his “apostolic blessing.” This spectacle of piety serves as a Potemkin village for the conciliar sect, masking the total rupture with Catholic Tradition and the objective invalidity of the novelties on display.
The Usurper’s Jubilee: A Nullity Masquerading as Grace
The entire edifice of this “jubilee year” rests upon the authority of Robert Prevost, the current claimant to the See of Peter under the name “Leo XIV.” From the perspective of integral Catholic theology, the line of legitimate popes ceased with the death of Pius XII in 1958. John XXIII inaugurated the great apostasy foretold by St. Paul (2 Thess. 2:3-4), and every subsequent claimant — including Prevost — is a manifest heretic who, by that very fact, has severed himself from the Mystical Body and lost all jurisdiction ipso facto. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches in De Romano Pontifice: “A Pope who is 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.” The “jubilee” proclaimed by an antipope is a juridical nullity; the “plenary indulgence” attached to pilgrimages to Franciscan churches under his authority is worthless paper, a simulacrum of the Church’s treasury. The faithful who imagine they gain spiritual benefits by fulfilling conditions set by a usurper are deceived by a diabolical sleight of hand, substituting the true potestas clavium with a counterfeit exercised by one who has defected from the Catholic Faith (Canon 188.4, 1917 Code; Cum ex Apostolatus Officio).
False Obedience: Profession of Faith to an Antipope
Sister Salyer describes her inauguration as the 12th president of the university, during which she made a “public profession of faith and oath of fidelity,” explicitly linking this act to St. Francis seeking “the approval of the Holy Father himself.” She rejoices that the university received a letter from “the Holy Father” granting his “apostolic blessing.” This is the supreme irony: a religious superior professing fidelity to a manifest heretic who embodies the very antithesis of the regula fidei. St. Francis sought approval from Innocent III, a true Vicar of Christ; Sister Salyer seeks validation from a usurper who upholds the heresies of Vatican II — religious liberty, false ecumenism, collegiality, the new mass. The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 1864) condemns the proposition that “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Error 80). By swearing fidelity to the architect of this reconciliation, she has not followed the Poverello; she has betrayed him. Her “oath of fidelity” is ipso facto an oath of infidelity to Christ the King.
Ecumenical Adoration: The Cult of Man Disguised as Worship
The article boasts of expanded adoration hours where “the faithful, regular adorers — both students and employees, Catholic, Protestant and those still seeking — as well as students making a stop in between classes” gather before the Blessed Sacrament. This interconfessional piety is the hallmark of the conciliar sect’s “spirituality.” Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925) declares: “His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” The Kingship of Christ demands conversion, not a shared religious experience that implicitly validates false religions. The presence of Protestants and “seekers” at “adoration” in a post-conciliar setting — where the “Mass” is the Novus Ordo Missae, a Protestantized memorial meal fabricated by Bugnini and his Masonic consultants — renders the Real Presence ambiguous at best, denied at worst. The Lamentabili sane exitu (1907) condemns the Modernist proposition that “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities” (Prop. 25). This “adoration” is not the latria due to God Incarnate; it is a vague, sentimental “spirituality” tailored for the homo religiosus of the new world order.
Naturalistic Virtue: Service Detached from Supernatural Charity
The article repeatedly emphasizes “service,” “virtue,” “charity,” and “humility” as discoverable by “looking to the life of St. Francis,” taught in classes and practiced on “all-stakeholder service day.” Nowhere is the necessity of sanctifying grace mentioned. Nowhere is the state of grace prerequisite for meritorious works. Nowhere is the Sacrifice of the Mass (the true Mass of the Council of Trent) identified as the source and summit of Christian life. This is pure Pelagian naturalism: virtue as self-improvement, charity as philanthropy. The Syllabus condemns the error that “Moral laws do not stand in need of the divine sanction” (Error 56) and that “The science of philosophical things and morals… may and ought to keep aloof from divine and ecclesiastical authority” (Error 57). St. Francis did not “serve” as a social worker; he crucified his flesh (Gal. 5:24), embraced Lady Poverty as a bride, and sought the salvation of souls through the preaching of penance. The university’s “transitus service” commemorating his passage “from death into eternal life” is stripped of the Last Rites, the Indulgentiam plenariam in articulo mortis, the viaticum — the very means by which a Catholic dies in the state of grace. It is a theatrical reenactment devoid of sacramental reality.
The Pilgrimage to the Abomination of Desolation
The planned “presidential pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi in April 2027” reveals the ultimate telos of this jubilee: “By traveling to Rome, we will have the privilege of seeing the heart of the Church and visiting the places that are the foundations upon which our faith has been built.” Rome is the heart of the Church — but the Vatican has been occupied by the “abomination of desolation” (Matt. 24:15) since 1958. To pilgrimage to the Vatican today is to kiss the ring of the usurper, to pray in the “churches” where the Novus Ordo is celebrated, to venerate the “saints” canonized by antipopes (John Paul II, John XXIII, Paul VI, etc.). This is not pilgrimage; it is spiritual adultery. St. Francis would have fled such a Rome, just as he fled the world. The true foundations of the faith are not the stones of the Vatican Basilica occupied by Modernists, but the depositum fidei preserved by the remnant faithful to Tradition, the valid bishops and priests who reject the conciliar revolution, the catacombs where the true Mass is offered una cum the true Pope (whoever he may be, hidden in the wilderness, Apoc. 12:6).
Franciscanism Without the Stigmata of Orthodoxy
The article mentions the stigmata of St. Francis (Sept. 17) as a “special feast day.” The true stigmata are the seal of a soul crucified with Christ, conformed to Him in suffering for the salvation of souls and the defense of the Faith. The conciliar Franciscan orders (OFM, Conventuals, Capuchins, and their female branches like the OSF) have, by and large, abandoned the Rule of St. Francis (approved by Honorius III, 1223) which demands obedience to the Pope — meaning the true Pope, not the usurper — and catholic faith without gloss. They have embraced the “Spirit of Assisi” (1986), the interreligious prayer meetings initiated by Wojtyla, which are a violation of the First Commandment and the dogma Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. Sister Salyer’s community, the “Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration,” founded by Bl. Maria Theresia Bonzel (beatified by the antipope Benedict XVI), operates within the structures of the neo-church. Their “perpetual adoration” before a Host consecrated in the Novus Ordo (dubious form, dubious intention, invalid matter if the new rite of ordination is used) is a tragic farce. The False Fatima Apparitions document correctly identifies the strategy of the enemy: “Stage 3 (1958-2000): Takeover of the narrative by modernists, concealment of the Third Secret, ecumenical reinterpretation.” The co-optation of St. Francis for the jubilee of the antichurch is the latest act in this drama.
Conclusion: Return to the Catacombs, Not the Vatican
This article is a masterpiece of conciliar propaganda: beautiful words, pious sentiments, charitable works — all emptied of supernatural content and directed toward the consolidation of the counter-church. It appeals to the legitimate love Catholics bear for St. Francis to ensnare them in the net of the usurper. The only true “jubilee” today is the Jubilee of the True Church, celebrated in the secrecy of the catacombs, at the altar of the Tridentine Mass, under the authority of bishops who have kept the faith entire. The faithful must flee these universities, these “Franciscan” institutions, these “pilgrimages” to Rome. They must separate (2 Cor. 6:17) from the conciliar sect, which is the “synagogue of Satan” (Apoc. 2:9) foretold by Pius IX in the Syllabus allocution: “It is from them that the synagogue of Satan, which gathers its troops against the Church of Christ, takes its strength.” St. Francis, Alter Christus, pray for us to have the courage to be fools for Christ (1 Cor. 4:10) in the midst of this great apostasy, rather than “wise” collaborators with the destroyers of Thy vineyard.
Source:
In the Footsteps of St. Francis: Jubilee, Service and Pilgrimage (ncregister.com)
Date: 04.10.2026