The National Catholic Register (EWTN News) reports that on October 20, 2026, President Donald Trump signed legislation — passed by the House 350–5 and cleared by unanimous consent in the Senate — which opens a two-year window in tax years 2029 and 2030 for “clergy,” including conciliar “priests” and “bishops,” to reverse prior decisions to opt out of the federal Social Security and Medicare systems. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), through its “Archbishops” Shelton Fabre and Ronald Hicks, endorsed the measure as providing “much needed relief and support” for those who “often decades prior and due to inaccurate financial advice, opted out of contributing.” This sordid spectacle of the conciliar hierarchy begging Caesar for temporal security exposes the utter bankruptcy of the post-conciliar “priesthood,” which has abandoned the munus of victim and priest for the pensio of a welfare state.
The Alms of Caesar Replaces the Providence of God
The article reveals that the conciliar “bishops” — Fabre, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Hicks, chairman of the Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations — formally petitioned Congress for this legislation. Their April 14 letter frames the opt-out reversal as a matter of “financial and physical wellbeing” and a “more complete retirement.” Non est hic Deus (God is not here). The true priest, alter Christus, relies not on the aerarium of a Masonic republic but on the Providentia Divina and the oblatio of the faithful. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, declares: “His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ” — yet these hirelings subject themselves to the authority of the Social Security Administration. They have rendered unto Caesar not only the tribute coin but the very patrimonium of the priesthood, which is Dominus pars hereditatis meae et calicis mei (Ps 15:5).
Linguistic Corruption: “Clergy,” “Retirement,” “Wellbeing”
The rhetoric of the USCCB letter is saturated with the vocabulary of the secular welfare state: “retirement,” “transition into the next phase of their lives,” “comprehensive financial and physical wellbeing.” The word “clergy” itself — used throughout the article — is a Protestant and juridical category, not a Catholic one. The Church knows sacerdotes and episcopi, marked by an indelible character (character indelebilis) that configures them to Christ the High Priest in aeternum. There is no “retirement” from the sacerdotium; there is only the consummatio of the sacrifice in death. The Conciliar “priest” who speaks of “retirement” has already apostatized in his heart, treating the munus as a funcio with a pension plan. The Syllabus of Pius IX condemns the error that “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55); here the conciliar sect voluntarily binds itself to the State’s insurance scheme, making the State the true patron of its “clergy.”
Theological Bankruptcy: The Hireling Flees the Cross
St. Robert Bellarmine teaches that the Pope who falls into manifest heresy loses his office ipso facto (De Romano Pontifice, lib. 2, cap. 30). The same principle applies to “bishops” who, by embracing the conciliar revolution, have defected from the Faith. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code declares that an office becomes vacant ipso facto by publicam defectionem a fide catholica. The USCCB, as the governing body of the conciliar sect, possesses no canonical mission; its “bishops” are intruders in the seats of the true successors of the Apostles. Their advocacy for Social Security opt-ins is not pastoral charity but simonia spiritualis — selling the birthright of the priesthood for a mess of federal pottage. The article notes that “about 2,000 people take the opt-out” — a tiny fraction of the conciliar “clergy,” most of whom never opted out, having long since made their peace with the world. The “bishops” Fabre and Hicks advocate for the few who did, not out of justice, but to legitimize the conciliar “clergy” as a professional class within the Masonic order.
Symptomatic of the Conciliar Apostasy: Gaudium et Spes Realized
This episode is the bitter fruit of Gaudium et Spes and the heresy of religious liberty. The conciliar sect has replaced the regnum Christi with the civitas terrena. Pius XI in Quas Primas instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat “the secularism of our times, so-called laicism” which “began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” The USCCB’s letter is a public act of laicism: it acknowledges the State as the ultimate guarantor of the “clergy’s” material existence. The “priest” who opts back into Social Security confesses that his true father is not God but the Federal Government. The Syllabus condemns the proposition that “The civil government, even when in the hands of an infidel sovereign, has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs” (Error 41); here the conciliar hierarchy invites that power over their very sustenance. Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.
The Antichurch’s False Charity vs. The True Church’s Supernatural Mission
The article quotes Rep. Jason Smith: “America’s pastors and faith leaders spend their lives caring for others… A single, sometimes ill-advised, decision made decades ago should not stand between them and a secure retirement.” This is the language of the philanthropia of the Masonic lodges, not the caritas of the Cross. The true priest cares for souls by offering the Sacrificium Incruentum, administering the sacraments, and preaching the Gospel in season and out of season (2 Tim 4:2). His “retirement” is the corona justitiae (2 Tim 4:8). The conciliar “clergy” have reduced the sacerdotium to social work, and now they demand the wages of the civil servant. St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu condemned the Modernist error that “Christ did not intend to establish the Church as a community lasting for centuries on earth” (Prop. 52) and that “Dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy… are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness” (Prop. 54). The USCCB’s pension advocacy proves they believe the hierarchy is a bureaucratic functionary class, not a divine institution.
No Salvation in the Conciliar Structures
The faithful must understand: the “priests” and “bishops” of the USCCB are not ministers of the Church of Christ but functionaries of the abominatio desolationis occupying the visible structures. Their sacraments are doubtful at best, invalid at worst, due to the new rites of ordination and the defect of intention in the conciliar “bishops.” To seek spiritual succor from them is to eat the bread of deceit. The true Church, Ecclesia militans, endures in the catacombs of Tradition, served by validly ordained priests who reject the conciliar errors and rely solely on Divina Providentia. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — and the USCCB, by its own acts, places itself outside the Church. Let the “clergy” have their Social Security; the true sacerdos has thesaurus in caelis (Mt 6:20).
Source:
Trump Signs Bill to Reopen Social Security, Medicare Opt-Ins for Priests, Clergy (ncregister.com)
Date: 22.10.2026