The EWTN News portal reports on the reactions of the conciliar “bishops” and pro-life organizations to the November 3, 2026 midterm elections, in which three of four state referendums entrenched the “right” to abortion in state constitutions while Democrats seized control of Congress. The “bishops” of Virginia, Nevada, and Missouri issued statements lamenting the results as “profoundly tragic” or “disappointing” while pledging continued “advocacy” and “accompaniment” within the democratic framework. Pro-life leaders framed the defeats as “setbacks” requiring renewed political effort. **This spectacle of the conciliar hierarchy treating the legalized murder of infants as a policy dispute to be resolved by majority vote constitutes a definitive abandonment of the Social Kingship of Christ and the Church’s divine mandate to bind and loose in matters of natural and divine law.**
The Conciliar “Episcopate” Legitimizes the Democratic Idol
The statements attributed to the “bishops” Knestout, Burbidge, Christensen, and the various conciliar conferences reveal a theological vacuum where the munus docendi and munus regendi ought to reside. Not one of these men — validly ordained though they may be, yet canonically missionless and juridically separated from the True Church — invokes the authority of Christ the King over civil society. Not one declares that no human legislature, no referendum, no majority vote can legitimize the killing of the innocent, because the Fifth Commandment binds in conscience and in foro externo every ruler and every citizen, quoad hunc (in this matter) admitting no exception, no democratic override, no “constitutional amendment.”
Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), teaches with unmistakable clarity: “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, because the main reason why some have the right to command and others have the duty to obey was removed.” The conciliar “bishops” do not proclaim this truth. They do not tell the faithful that the Virginia, Nevada, and Missouri amendments are null and void ab initio (ex vi legis divinae), binding no one in conscience. Instead, they speak the language of the Civitas Terrena — “advocacy,” “policy,” “accompaniment,” “common good” stripped of its supernatural finality. They have capitulated to the Masonic principle that the State is the source of all rights (condemned in the Syllabus, Error 39), functioning as chaplains to the revolution rather than sentinels of the Kingdom.
Pro-Life Movement: The Political Wing of the Conciliar Apostasy
The reactions of National Right to Life, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and state affiliates confirm that the organized “pro-life movement” is a purely naturalistic pressure group, devoid of supernatural vitality. Carol Tobias declares “an election cannot diminish the humanity of an unborn child” — true, but irrelevant to the supernatural order. Marjorie Dannenfelser blames Republican consultants for “watering down pro-life stances,” as if the solution were a more effective marketing campaign for the Gospel of Life. Emily Naugle celebrates Idaho’s victory because “voters saw through a campaign,” placing ultimate trust in the vox populi rather than the Vox Dei.
“We will continue to push for laws that protect babies and help their moms, while looking for new and innovative ways to love them both… And we will continue to promote the value of innocent human life so that, even if abortion is legal, no woman will want one.”
This is utilitarian humanitarianism masquerading as Catholicism. The goal is reduced to making abortion “unthinkable” through cultural persuasion, not to restoring the Lex Christi as the supreme law of the land. St. Pius X condemns this error in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (Prop. 59): “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples, but rather initiated a certain religious movement, applied or applicable to different times and places.” The pro-life movement has embraced exactly this Modernist reduction: the Gospel of Life becomes a “movement” adaptable to democratic contingencies, not an immutable divine law demanding subiectio of every knee.
Silence on the Supernatural: The Gravest Accusation
Nowhere in the reported statements — not from the “bishops,” not from the pro-life leaders — is there a call to public prayer, penance, reparation, or the conversion of the nations to Christ the King. Nowhere is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass mentioned as the fons et culmen of the Church’s power against the gates of hell. Nowhere is the Regnum Christi proclaimed as the only remedy for the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism” (Pius XI, Quas Primas). The Colorado “Catholic Conference” congratulates election winners and urges them to “support the common good” and “protect religious liberty” — the Masonic shibboleths of the conciliar church, which seeks only a protected niche within the secular order.
This silence is not accidental. It is the modus operandi of the Church of the New Advent, which since Vatican II has systematically replaced the social reign of Christ with “dialogue,” “religious liberty,” and “collaboration with men of good will.” The Syllabus of Pius IX (Error 55) condemns: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.” The conciliar hierarchy lives this condemnation as its guiding principle, begging the State for crumbs of “religious freedom” while the State, unchastised by the Church’s voice, legislates infanticide.
The Democratic Process as Idol: Vox Populi, Vox Dei Inverted
The referendums themselves — Virginia (62%), Nevada (62%), Missouri (55.5%), Idaho (56%) — are treated by all parties as legitimate exercises of popular sovereignty. The “bishops” do not denounce the very concept of voting on the right to life. They do not declare, with Pope Celestine I regarding Nestorius, that he who has departed from the faith cannot bind or loose anyone (Defense of Sedevacantism, citing Pope Celestine’s letters). They do not apply Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code: “Every office becomes vacant by the mere fact and without any declaration… if the cleric publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” Legislators who vote for abortion, judges who uphold it, executives who enforce it — these are public defection from the faith, ipso facto losing all authority to govern Catholics in this matter.
Instead, the conciliar “bishops” accept the referendum results as binding law, promising to “continue to advocate” within the system that just ratified child-killing. This is the heresy of Americanism condemned by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae (1899): the adaptation of the Church to the spirit of democratic pluralism, the confusion of the Civitas Dei with the Civitas Terrena.
The Conciliar “Bishops” as Usurpers of the Pastoral Office
It must be stated with theological precision: the men quoted in this article — Knestout, Burbidge, Christensen, and their brother “bishops” — hold no canonical mission from the True Church. The See of Peter has been vacant since the death of Pius XII (1958). The line of usurpers — John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and now Leo XIV (Prevost) — are manifest heretics who have ipso facto lost the papacy (St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice; Wernz-Vidal, Ius Canonicum; Canon 188.4; Pope Paul IV, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio). Their “bishops” are appointed by an antipope, ordained in the invalid Novus Ordo rite (1968), and govern a paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican — the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel and Our Lord (Matt. 24:15).
Their statements are not the voice of the Church. They are the voice of the counter-church, the synagogue of Satan (Apoc. 2:9; 3:9) which Pius IX identified as the driving force behind the war on the Church (Syllabus, Introductory allocution). When these men say “we remain committed to protecting human life,” they speak as functionaries of a neo-church that has made its peace with the world, that concelebrates with heretics, that worships at the altar of “human dignity” divorced from the Imago Dei restored in Christ.
The Theological Bankruptcy of “Accompaniment” and “Advocacy”
The Missouri “bishops” pledge to “accompany mothers and fathers facing hardship” and “offer hope and healing.” The Nevada “Conference” promises to “keep speaking up for the unborn.” The Virginia “bishops” call the amendment “extreme, radical, dangerous and deadly.” These are the words of NGOs, not successors of the Apostles. Where is the anathema? Where is the interdict on Catholic legislators who voted for these referendums? Where is the declaration that no Catholic may cooperate in the enforcement of these laws, no Catholic judge may uphold them, no Catholic police officer may execute them?
Pius XI in Quas Primas commands: “Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ, but let them fulfill this duty themselves and with their people, if they wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness.” The conciliar “bishops” do not address the rulers thus. They address them as “elected leaders” to be “urged” to “implement policies.” They have forgotten the potestas ligandi et solvendi entrusted to Peter alone (Matt. 16:19), exercised only in communion with the True Pope — not the usurper in the Vatican.
Idaho: The Exception That Proves the Rule
The Idaho result — 56% rejecting the abortion amendment — is hailed by Emily Naugle as a victory because “voters saw through a campaign.” Bishop Christensen “encouraged priests to emphasize the teaching on the sanctity of human life at every Mass leading up to the vote.” Even here, the supernatural is instrumentalized for a political end. The Mass becomes a get-out-the-vote rally. The truth of the Faith is preached not propter se (for its own sake) but propter referendum (for the sake of the referendum). Had the vote gone the other way, the same “bishop” would doubtless have issued a “disappointed” statement pledging continued “advocacy.” The Regnum Christi is not advanced by democratic victories; it is advanced only by the conversion of nations to the Catholic Faith and the public confession of Christ the King.
Conclusion: The Conciliar Church Is the Whore of Babylon
This article, read with the eyes of the integral Faith, reveals the total theological bankruptcy of the conciliar sect. Its “bishops” are hirelings who flee when the wolf comes (John 10:12). Its pro-life organizations are lay-led NGOs operating on naturalistic principles, indistinguishable from secular human rights groups save for religious vocabulary. Its “faithful” are led to believe that the Kingdom of God advances through ballot boxes, that the Lex Divina is subject to the vox populi, that the Church’s mission is “advocacy” within a Masonic order.
“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.” — Pius XI, Quas Primas, citing Ubi Arcano
The shaking we witness — the referendums, the Democratic sweep, the “bishops'” impotent laments — is the direct fruit of the conciliar apostasy. The only remedy is not “better advocacy” or “new and innovative ways to love them both.” The only remedy is the restoration of the Catholic Church in her integrity: the True Pope, the True Bishops, the True Mass, the True Faith — and the public proclamation that Jesus Christus Rex reigns now, over Virginia, over Nevada, over Missouri, over Idaho, over the United States Congress, over every nation and every law. Non praevalebunt (Matt. 16:18). But the conciliar sect, the abomination of desolation, has no part in that promise.
Source:
Bishops, pro-life movement react to abortion referendums, election results (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 04.11.2026