Vatican News portal (January 13, 2026) reports on Leo XIV’s response to Swiss catechist Nunzia, who laments the collapse of family participation in sacramental life. The antipope dismisses empty churches as a “lack of awareness in feeling part of the Church,” claiming numbers matter less than an undefined “sense of belonging.” He concludes with a naturalistic appeal to “bear witness to the joy of Christ’s Gospel” divorced from doctrinal substance. This exemplifies the conciliar sect’s systematic replacement of salvation theology with communal psychotherapy.
Subversion of Apostolic Mandate Through Linguistic Relativism
Leo XIV’s assertion that “hours dedicated to catechesis are never wasted, even if there are very few participants” constitutes theological sabotage. Contrast this with Christ’s command: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). The divine imperative demands conversion, not mere presence. When the antipope claims
“the problem is not the numbers…but the increasingly evident lack of awareness in feeling part of the Church”
he inverts the Great Commission into a therapy session.
Pius XI condemned this inversion in Quas Primas, establishing Christ’s social kingship: “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.” The conciliar sect replaces this with a democratic concept of “unique gifts and roles” – code for dismantling hierarchical authority.
Omission of Supernatural Realities as Dogmatic Apostasy
Nowhere does the antipope mention:
- The necessity of sanctifying grace for salvation
- Mortal sin’s consequences for sacramental neglect
- Hell as the fate of those abandoning the Church
His call to “seek conversion together” deliberately avoids specifying conversion to what. Compare this ambiguity with the Oath Against Modernism: “I hold with certainty and sincerely confess that faith is not a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious…but a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source.”
The article’s focus on “the joy of Christ’s Gospel” without defining that Gospel exposes its Modernist core. As St. Pius X warned in Pascendi, Modernists reduce faith to “a sentiment which originates from a need of the divine” (n.14). When Leo XIV cites Paul VI’s legacy in urging joy-filled witness, he invokes the architect of the Novus Ordo – a liturgical revolution condemned by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci as “a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass…formed in the Council of Trent.”
Symptomatic Silence on Sacramental Collapse
Nunzia’s observation that “Churches seem to be increasingly emptier” receives no substantive diagnosis. The true causes – abrogation of the Tridentine Mass, invalid sacraments, and heresy from Rome – remain unmentioned. Pius XII’s Mediator Dei explains the consequence: “The temerity and daring of those who introduce novel liturgical practices…should cause no wonderment; it is merely the natural outcome of those false tenets.”
The conciliar sect’s catechetical crisis stems from its own doctrinal corruption. When Leo XIV speaks of “being living members of the Body of Christ” while occupying Peter’s chair illegitimately, he parodies St. Paul’s teaching: “For as the body is one and hath many members…so also is Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12). True membership requires visible unity with the Church’s magisterium, not emotional affiliation with a counterfeit ecclesial body.
Naturalism Disguised as Pastoral Concern
The antipope’s advice to prioritize “feeling part of the Church” over sacramental participation constitutes apostasy from the Council of Trent’s Decree on Justification: “If any one saith that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto salvation…let him be anathema” (Canon 4). His therapeutic language –
“the joy of rebirth and resurrection”
without mention of baptismal regeneration or Eucharistic sacrifice – reduces Christianity to pagan revivalism.
St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane condemned precisely this Modernist reduction: “Revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Proposition 20). By framing Church membership as psychological belonging rather than doctrinal submission, the conciliar sect fulfills Augustine’s warning: “They are more dangerous enemies who pretend to be friends.”
Source:
Pope: Sense of belonging more important than numbers of people in Church (vaticannews.va)
Date: 13.01.2026