Catholic News Agency (December 7, 2025) reports on “Father” Matthew Gonzalez’s “Sons of Thunder” program at St. Bartholomew Church in Scotch Plains, New Jersey – a vocations initiative for teenage boys featuring monthly meetings with prayer, discussions of the Knights of Columbus’ “Into the Breach” videos, seminary visits, and community service projects like beach cleanups. The article presents this as an answer to the “crisis of meaning” allegedly obscuring vocations, with Gonzalez declaring: “There is no crisis in vocations… What we are facing is a crisis of meaning and purpose in our culture.” This naturalistic anthropocentrism epitomizes the conciliar sect’s abandonment of supernatural faith.
Naturalism Masquerading as Catholic Formation
The program’s three pillars – “prayer, faith formation, and fun” – conspicuously omit the raison d’être of all authentic Catholic action: the salvation of souls through participation in Christ’s redemptive sacrifice. Nowhere does Gonzalez mention the necessity of sacramental grace, the Four Last Things, or the Church’s immutable teaching that “outside the Church there is no salvation” (Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam). Instead, the article celebrates garden projects and beach cleanups – reducing Catholic manhood to social activism. This echoes the modernist heresy condemned by St. Pius X: “In the daily exercises of piety, the faithful… should be more drawn by the social character of religion than by their own personal advantage” (Pascendi Dominici Gregis 25).
The Knights of Columbus’ “Into the Breach” videos promoted by Gonzalez embody this naturalism. Since embracing ecumenism and abandoning their founding principles, this organization has become a vehicle for the conciliar revolution – as evidenced by their 2025 partnership with Lutheran Global Relief. St. Pius X warned against such ecumenical entanglements: “That the State should be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false… pernicious to the Catholic Church” (Vehementer Nos 3). By forming boys through materials produced by an organization in communion with heretical sects, Gonzalez poisons spiritual formation at its root.
The “Vocations Crisis” Lie and Conciliar Apostasy
Gonzalez’s claim that “there is no crisis in vocations” constitutes blasphemous mockery of God’s immutable ordinance. The true crisis stems directly from the conciliar sect’s destruction of priestly identity through:
- The Novus Ordo Missae’s abolition of propitiatory sacrifice (Pius XII: “The worship rendered by the Church to God must be in its entirety interior as well as exterior” – Mediator Dei 24)
- Ecumenical contamination of seminaries (Pius XI: “Anyone who adheres to those who… attack the foundations of the Catholic religion is altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion” – Mortalium Animos 10)
- Suppression of clerical celibacy’s eschatological witness (Council of Trent, Session XXIV, Canon 9)
Where Gonzalez sees a “crisis of meaning,” Catholic doctrine identifies formal heresy. The article’s celebration of seminary visits ignores that Newark’s archdiocesan seminary teaches religious indifferentism – precisely the error condemned in the Syllabus of Errors: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Proposition 15). Until seminaries return to the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis of 1931, such visits constitute spiritual endangerment.
False Anthropology and the Cult of Man
The group’s namesake – Christ’s designation of James and John as “Boanerges or Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17) – is twisted to serve humanistic ends. Instead of forming boys as miles Christi armed with sacramental grace against the world, flesh, and devil, the program emphasizes “fraternity” and “service” divorced from the Cross. Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas establishes Christ’s kingship as the only foundation for Catholic action: “When once men recognize… that Christ has been given all power in heaven and on earth, and that there is no law given to mankind by which we are to be saved save the law of Christ” (18).
The article’s vision of “authentic Christian manhood” lacks all reference to the weapons of Catholic masculinity: daily Rosary, Eucharistic adoration, fasting, and devotion to the Sacred Heart. Contrast this with St. John Eudes’ The Wondrous Childhood of the Most Holy Mother of God, which formed saints by emphasizing “humility, mortification, and love of suffering.” Modernist formation produces effeminate “men” incapable of resisting sin – a fact evidenced by Gonzalez’s beach cleanups replacing penance for sins.
Illegitimate Authority and Invalid Sacraments
As a priest ordained in the post-1968 conciliar sect, Gonzalez’s very identity as “father” rests on dubious foundations. The New Rite of Ordination promulgated by Paul VI suffers from “grave defects” according to Cardinals Bacci and Ottaviani’s 1968 study, potentially rendering orders invalid. When combined with Newark Archdiocese’s systematic liturgical abuses – including Eucharistic Ministers distributing communion like fast-food workers – the spiritual danger becomes acute. St. Alphonsus Liguori warns: “To give communion to those who are unworthy is like putting the Sacred Body of Christ under the feet of the devils” (Sacra Tridentina Synodus).
Gonzalez’s transfer to Newark Cathedral exemplifies the conciliar sect’s abomination of desolation. This modernist architectural monstrosity – with its circular seating eliminating the sacrificial altar – physically embodies the new religion’s anthropocentrism. Yet the article presents Gonzalez’s mission there as legitimate, ignoring Pius XII’s condemnation: “The Church has the exclusive right to legislate… concerning the sacred liturgy” (Mediator Dei 58). No Catholic may licitly attend Novus Ordo services in such desecrated spaces.
Conclusion: True Sons of Thunder vs. Conciliar Counterfeits
Authentic Catholic youth formation requires restoration of the Militia Immaculatae founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe – a saint canonized before the conciliar apostasy. As the False Fatima Apparitions document establishes, post-1958 “apparitions” and “movements” typically serve Masonic agendas. Until the conciliar occupation of Rome ends and valid hierarchy returns, Catholic fathers must form sons through:
- Daily family Rosary (Pius XII: “The Rosary is the compendium of the entire Gospel” – Ingruentium Malorum 13)
- Regular confession and communion in traditional rites (Pius X: “The primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit is participation in the most holy mysteries” – Tra Le Sollecitudini 23)
- Spiritual reading from pre-1958 sources like The Soul of the Apostolate
The true “Sons of Thunder” are those who, like St. John Chrysostom, thunder against heresy from exile – not those polishing the conciliar sect’s crumbling facades. As the Roman Catechism teaches: “It is not enough to say ‘Lord, Lord’… unless we do the will of the Father” (Article IX). Until Gonzalez and his boys reject the conciliar antipopes and return to Catholic Tradition, their “brotherhood” remains but sounding brass in the eternal silence of God’s judgment.
Source:
‘Sons of Thunder’ vocations group teaches boys how to be Catholic men (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 07.12.2025