Indianapolis Conciliar Sect Battles City Over Church Demolition Rights
The Catholic News Agency portal reports on a legal conflict between St. Philip Neri Catholic Church in Indianapolis and municipal authorities over the planned demolition of the Holy Cross parish building. The structure, merged with St. Philip Neri in 2014 and relegated by “Archbishop” Charles Thompson in 2019 due to structural instability, received emergency historic designation in 2024 from the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission. The parish’s lawsuit alleges unconstitutional interference in religious matters, seeking court permission to demolish what it deems an “unused and unusable” building. The case centers on whether civil authorities may override ecclesiastical decisions regarding church properties.
State Usurpation of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction
The city’s preservation order constitutes blatant violation of the Church’s divine right to self-governance, condemned explicitly in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864). Proposition 41 declares:
“The civil government, even when in the hands of an infidel sovereign, has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs”
as heresy. This aligns with Pius XI’s teaching in Quas Primas (1925) that Christ’s kingship demands “rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ” (¶31). By substituting secular preservationists’ judgments for ecclesiastical authorities – even conciliar ones – Indianapolis engages in the regalismo condemned by nine ecumenical councils.
Theological Bankruptcy of Structural Neglect
While the conciliar sect’s lawsuit correctly identifies state overreach, it reveals its own modernist degeneration through indifference to sacred spaces. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 1187) mandated that churches be maintained “with the greatest diligence” as houses of God. That this building deteriorated to “structural instability” within five years of merger exposes the conciliar sect’s abandonment of pietas toward consecrated places. The post-conciliar obsession with property liquidation – masked as “parish consolidation” – manifests the materialist mindset denounced in Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane (1907): “The Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics” (Proposition 63).
Sacrilegious “Relegation” Practices
Thompson’s 2019 “relegation” of Holy Cross employs post-conciliar innovations foreign to Catholic tradition. The Pontificale Romanum (pre-1955) prescribed De Ecclesiae Deconsecratione rites requiring bishops to:
- Remove relics from altars
- Scrape consecration crosses from walls
- Celebrate a Mass of Reparation
This contrasts starkly with the conciliar sect’s bureaucratic “relegation” process – a term absent from traditional sources – which reduces desacralization to administrative paperwork. The lawsuit’s reference to avoiding “sordid” activities while permitting secular use violates the Council of Trent’s decree (Session XXII, Chapter V) that profaned churches must never resume non-sacred functions.
Hidden Modernist Complicity
The silent acquiescence of the Indianapolis “archdiocese” to cultural marxist preservation agendas reveals deeper doctrinal corruption. As Pius XI warned in Quas Primas, societies rejecting Christ’s social reign inevitably “contribute to the destruction” of authority (¶31). That conciliar authorities now seek federal intervention – rather than asserting the Church’s divine rights – demonstrates their internalization of Americanist errors condemned in Leo XIII’s Testem Benevolentiae (1899). This case exemplifies how the conciliar sect operates as a non-governmental organization begging crumbs from Caesar’s table, rather than as Christ’s militant Church commanding nations.
Conclusion: Principle Above Pragmatism
While canon law unquestionably supports the Church’s right to manage her properties (1917 CIC Canons 1499-1500), the conciliar sect’s legal arguments remain spiritually hollow. Having abandoned the lex orandi through liturgical devastation, they now plead for property rights they’ve systematically betrayed. True Catholics recognize that churches become “unusable” only when shepherds lose faith in the Real Presence – a crisis no lawsuit can remedy. As Our Lord prophesied: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Matthew 23:38).
Source:
Indianapolis church files federal lawsuit to knock down parish after historic designation (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 31.12.2025