Guatemalan Prelates’ Naturalist Response to Violence Ignores Christ’s Social Kingship
Vatican News portal (January 23, 2026) reports on statements by “Bishop” Rodolfo Valenzuela Núñez, president of the Guatemalan “bishops’ conference,” following gang violence and government-imposed state of emergency. The article describes his calls for “unity,” “reason,” and governmental collaboration against “dark political and economic forces,” while suspending Eucharistic celebrations in violence-affected areas. Valenzuela insists Christians must engage in politics to elect “honest individuals” to judiciary positions, framing the crisis as primarily a battle against corruption and institutional weakness.
Omission of the Divine Remedy for Social Order
The Guatemalan prelates’ statement exemplifies the naturalism condemned by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925), which declares: “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.” Nowhere does Valenzuela mention the Social Reign of Christ the King as the solution to Guatemala’s violence, despite the encyclical’s teaching that “nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ” (Quas Primas §32).
Instead, the “bishop” reduces the Church’s mission to human political engineering: “We bishops insist that Christians… engage in politics and government.” This contradicts Pope St. Pius X’s condemnation in Vehementer Nos (1906): “That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error.” The prelate’s exclusive focus on judicial elections and anti-corruption efforts constitutes a radical secularization of the Church’s social doctrine.
Sacramental Abdication Amid Crisis
Valenzuela’s admission that “Eucharistic celebrations and evening church gatherings” were suspended in violence-prone areas reveals a disturbing prioritization of temporal security over spiritual necessities. Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei (1947) taught that the Holy Sacrifice “is the culmination and center of the Christian religion.” To withhold the Mass—the “source and summit of the Christian life” (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium §11)—precisely when souls most need grace constitutes pastoral malpractice.
This echoes the modernist tendency condemned in St. Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907): “For them, the Sacraments are mere symbols or signs… not truly causes of grace” (§39). By treating the Eucharist as an expendable activity rather than the essential remedy for societal ills, Guatemalan prelates demonstrate their alignment with conciliarism’s desacralizing agenda.
False Equivalence Between Church and State
The “bishops'” statement that “the government has serious weaknesses, but… must nonetheless be supported” ignores the Church’s divine mandate to judge temporal authority by eternal standards. Pope Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei (1885) establishes the proper hierarchy: “Whatever… is of sacred character… must be subordinate to her [the Church], and must be subject to her judgment” (§13). Valenzuela’s uncritical endorsement of the state of emergency—including mass arrests and military patrols—without demanding the state’s submission to Christ’s reign violates this principle.
Moreover, his praise for modernist martyr Monsignor Gerardi—a proponent of Marxist “liberation theology”—exposes ideological alignment with condemned movements. Pius XI’s Divini Redemptoris (1937) §58 warned against “those who… do not scruple to preach those ideas which… call themselves ‘liberation theology,’ while they are in reality a new form of communism.”
Symptomatic of Conciliar Apostasy
The Guatemalan hierarchy’s response flows inevitably from Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes §76, which subordinates the Church to the temporal order: “The Church… has no… mission in the political, economic or social order.” This heresy directly contradicts Pius XI’s teaching that “the Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals” (Divini Illius Magistri §14).
By reducing their role to social activists and political advisors while withholding supernatural remedies, these prelates fulfill St. Pius X’s prophecy in Pascendi §3: “The Modernist apologist… sets about doing his best to make the non-believer… start from the fact of the Church as… a society which… is the fruit of the collective conscience.” Their silence on the need for Guatemala’s consecration to Christ the King and emphasis on purely human solutions confirm their membership in the conciliar anti-church.
Source:
President of Guatemalan bishops: Peace, justice against violence (vaticannews.va)
Date: 23.01.2026