FOCUS Parish Initiative Embodies Post-Conciliar Ecclesial Collapse
Catholic News Agency reports on the expansion of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) into parish ministry, with Curtis Martin and his son Brock Martin describing their “FOCUS Parish” program as sending missionaries to “where the people are.” The initiative embeds two full-time missionaries in parishes to create “small communities” and form “missionary disciples,” currently operating in 25 parishes with plans to double in 2026. Brock Martin cites declining parish engagement as justification, while Curtis Martin claims this responds to an alleged “resurgence of faith” through “new ardor and new methodologies.”
Naturalism Displacing Supernaturally-Grounded Evangelization
The program’s language reveals its foundation in anthropocentric modernism. When Brock Martin states “evangelization takes root when there’s real transformation” without specifying sanctifying grace as the sole cause of spiritual regeneration, he reduces the divine work to human activity. This echoes the Modernist error condemned by St. Pius X: “In the Modernist school… man, by that religious sentiment… gradually evolves… his conscience” (Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 6). The article’s repeated emphasis on “friendship” and “small communities” as primary evangelistic tools substitutes sociological methods for the Church’s immutable means: the sacraments and doctrinal clarity.
Heretical Ecclesiology in “Missionary Disciples” Paradigm
The term “missionary disciples” constitutes theological novelty alien to pre-1958 magisterial teaching. Pius XII unequivocally defined the Church’s hierarchical structure in Mystici Corporis Christi (1943): “Only to the apostles, and thenceforth to those on whom their successors have imposed hands, is granted the power of the priesthood.” FOCUS usurps the bishop’s exclusive role by creating parallel formation structures, exemplified by their missionaries becoming “part of the parish’s leadership team” despite lacking holy orders. This mirrors the condemned Protestant theory of universal priesthood, violating Canon 132 §1 of the 1917 Code: “The Church’s power of governance is divided… into the legislative, judicial, and executive power, which is exercised only by ecclesiastical superiors according to the norm of law.”
Statistical Idolatry Masquerading as Renewal
Curtis Martin’s lament that “the Church ought to be growing” and Brock’s celebration of 100% missionary retention expose the program’s quantitative fallacy. The Church measures success by souls sanctified, not bodies counted – a truth articulated by Pope Leo XIII: “The true Church is… the company alone of the righteous… even though at times they may be reduced to a few individuals” (Satis Cognitum, 3). Nowhere does the article mention increased Mass attendance, confessions, or Eucharistic adoration – the only authentic gauges of spiritual vitality. Instead, it celebrates bureaucratic expansion: 50 new hires and 25 additional parishes. This corporatist mentality was anathematized by Pius XI: “Those who hold… that the salvation of the people is to be sought in merely human means… such men are walking by false light” (Miserentissimus Redemptor, 4).
Symptomatic of Conciliar Apostasy
This initiative embodies three Vatican II heresies simultaneously: religious indifferentism (treating Catholics as unevangelized pagans), ecclesiological subjectivism (redefining the Church as “People of God”), and anthropological Pelagianism (implying salvation through human effort). Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors condemned the underlying errors: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55) and “The Roman pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself… with modern civilization” (Error 80). By claiming “business as usual is not working,” FOCUS implicitly rejects the perennial Catholic tradition that produced saints for millennia, instead embracing the revolutionary spirit condemned in Pascendi: “To hear them speak of their works… one would believe them to be reformers” (Pascendi, 40).
Omission of the Divine as Diagnostic of Modernism
The article’s most damning feature is its complete silence about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – the source and summit of parish life. This omission proves FOCUS operates within the post-conciliar paradigm that reduces Catholicism to social activism. Compare this to Pius X’s prescription: “The primary and indispensable source of… the Christian spirit is participation in the sacred mysteries and the public prayer of the Church” (Tra le Sollecitudini, 1). When Brock Martin speaks of “a unique moment… to live the new evangelization,” he parrots the heresy of dogmatic evolution condemned in Lamentabili Sane: “The dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are… interpretations of religious facts which the human mind has labored to understand” (Error 22). True evangelization remains unchanging: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations… teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).
Source:
FOCUS expands reach into parishes, hoping to revitalize local Church (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 03.01.2026