Catholic News Agency portal (December 26, 2025) reports on recent “Mass dispensations” issued by multiple “bishops” in the United States, permitting Catholics to abstain from Sunday Mass attendance due to fears of immigration enforcement. The article cites canonist David Long and “Fr.” Daniel Brandenburg LC explaining that diocesan “bishops” possess authority to dispense from Mass obligations for “just and reasonable cause,” including weather emergencies, pandemics, and now immigration concerns. Long emphasizes that laity cannot self-dispense but may licitly miss Mass when participation is “impossible,” while Brandenburg compares the obligation to eating while warning against “lax conscience.” The piece illustrates the conciliar sect’s progressive dismantling of Eucharistic discipline through subjectivist interpretations of canon law.
Canonical Subversion of Divine Law
Ecclesia supplet (the Church supplies) becomes Ecclesia dissolvit (the Church dissolves) when post-conciliar administrators invoke Canon 1245 to excuse Mass attendance for political expediency. The article’s premise fundamentally corrupts the Church’s perennial teaching that Sunday Mass constitutes praeceptum divinum (divine precept) flowing from the Third Commandment and Our Lord’s institution of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Pope Pius XII’s Mediator Dei (1947) explicitly condemns the notion that “the Eucharistic Sacrifice is a ‘concelebration’…to be regarded as the culminating point of a communal banquet” rather than the unbloody renewal of Calvary’s propitiatory sacrifice. By reducing Mass attendance to a dispensable social obligation comparable to weather hazards, the conciliar sect manifests its naturalistic ecclesiology.
The cited “experts” exemplify the neo-church’s doctrinal bankruptcy. David Long directs the “Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies” at the apostatized Catholic University of America – an institution condemned by Pius XI’s Divini Illius Magistri (1929) for embracing secular pedagogies. Brandenburg belongs to the Legionaries of Christ, founded by the morally compromised Marcial Maciel. Their theological authority is null, as St. Pius X decreed in Pascendi Dominici Gregis: “Modernists make the whole organism of the Church to vibrate…under the guidance of the new theologians.”
“This ‘obligation’ is sort of like the obligation of eating…the bare minimum to survive is Mass once a week on Sundays.” (Brandenburg)
This blasphemous analogy reduces the Holy Sacrifice to spiritual nutritionism, ignoring the Council of Trent’s anathema against those who deny that Mass is “truly propitiatory” (Session XXII, Canon 3). The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 1248) mandated Mass attendance under pain of mortal sin except for “impossibility” strictly defined by moral theologians like Prümmer: grave illness, necessary care of infants, or journeys exceeding three hours. Modernists expand “impossibility” to include subjective fears – a radical departure from St. Alphonsus Liguori’s teaching that only vera impossibilitas (true impossibility) excuses absence.
From Shepherds to Social Workers
The dispensations for immigration fears reveal the conciliar sect’s transformation of bishops into NGO administrators. Contrast these actions with Pope Pius XI’s Quas Primas establishing Christ’s social kingship: “When once men recognize…that Christ has authority over all mankind…it will be a pleasure to obey.” Instead of demanding Caesar respect Christ’s laws, neo-“bishops” accommodate Caesar’s persecutions by relieving the faithful of their primary spiritual duty. This confirms St. Pius X’s warning in Vehementer Nos (1906) that separation of Church and state inevitably degrades religion into human respect.
Notably absent is any mention of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (no salvation outside the Church) or the mortal sin incurred by deliberately missing Mass. The 1917 Code (Canon 1247) required making spiritual communion when physically absent, but modernist “pastors” neglect this remedy. Instead, the article promotes the heresy of pastoral solutio – solving temporal problems by relaxing divine precepts, condemned by Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei (1794) as “injurious to the Church…impious, scandalous, and pernicious.”
Hermeneutic of Rupture in Canonical Application
The article’s historical references expose the neo-church’s discontinuity with tradition. While accurately noting the Vatican’s 2024 suppression of U.S. holy day transfers, it ignores that this “dispensation” itself originated in Paul VI’s illicit liturgical reforms. Traditional discipline required holy days to be observed on their proper dates unless transferred by Rome – not national episcopal conferences. The COVID-19 “dispensations” constitute further evidence of conciliarism’s sacramental abandonment, as true shepherds would have defied worldly authorities to provide the sacraments, as St. Charles Borromeo did during Milan’s plague.
Brandenburg’s warning against “lax conscience” rings hollow while his institute promotes the very subjectivism enabling “dispensations” for immigration anxieties. When he states “the saints became holy not through excuses, but through heroic love,” he unwittingly condemns his own sect’s leadership. True saints like St. Isaac Jogues traversed wildernesses to offer Mass for converts, while modern “martyrs” allegedly fear bureaucratic harassment more than eternal damnation.
The article’s final insult comes in promoting financial donations to CNA – the conciliar propaganda arm – under the banner “Our mission is the truth.” Yet it systematically omits the foundational truth that the Novus Ordo “Mass” itself lacks certainty of validity due to illicit sacramental form and intention, making attendance spiritually hazardous. As Pope Leo XIII decreed in Apostolicae Curae (1896), sacraments require proper form and intention – both corrupted in the post-conciliar rites. Thus, the entire discussion occurs within the neo-church’s false paradigm of sacramental validity.
In this tragic inversion, the conciliar sect dispenses from divine law while binding consciences to human respect. As true Catholics endure persecution without dispensations – as Cristeros did during Mexico’s persecutions – neo-Catholics receive episcopal permission to abandon Christ’s altar for earthly security. Such is the terminal phase of the conciliar revolution: not merely heresy, but apostasy masquerading as mercy.
Source:
CNA explains: How does ‘Mass dispensation’ work, and when is it used? (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 26.12.2025