The EWTN News article from January 2, 2026 reports that Timothy Costelloe, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, has called for a national inquiry into antisemitism following the December 14, 2025 Islamist terrorist attack at Bondi Beach that killed 16 people during a Hanukkah celebration. The article notes Costelloe’s claim that the government’s security review fails to address “deeper issues” of antisemitism in Australia’s political, business, academic, media, religious, and cultural institutions. It mentions Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher’s condemnation of “festering” antisemitism and quotes antipope Leo XIV’s generic condemnation of violence. The piece concludes by framing antisemitism as an attack on “shared humanity” rather than a theological crisis.
Naturalistic Reduction of Social Order to Mere Humanism
The conciliar sect’s response exemplifies the modernist heresy condemned by Pope St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907): “They put aside everything that is supernatural, that they may be able to profess without impediment that false philosophy of which they are supporters.” Nowhere does Costelloe reference the Social Kingship of Christ (Pius XI, Quas Primas, 1925) as the only solution to societal disorder. Instead, he promotes the secularist notion that “a society that protects its Jewish community is a society that protects everyone” – a dangerous inversion of Catholic truth which holds that societies rejecting Christ the King invite divine chastisement (Ps 2:10-12).
This naturalistic approach directly contradicts Pope Pius XI’s teaching that “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” (Quas Primas). The absence of any call for Australia’s consecration to the Sacred Heart or public recognition of Christ’s sovereignty reveals the bankruptcy of the bishops’ approach.
False Ecumenism Masquerading as Charity
The article’s emphasis on combating antisemitism while omitting the necessity of Jewish conversion to Catholicism constitutes implicit religious indifferentism condemned by Pius XI in Mortalium Animos (1928): “This perverse opinion is spread with pestilential effect… that all who adore God are to be esteemed equally worthy of salvation.” Archbishop Fisher’s statement that “any attack on Jews is an attack on all of us” dangerously equates the Old Covenant with the New, ignoring Our Lord’s words: “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn 14:6).
The true Catholic response would follow St. Peter’s Pentecost sermon: “Let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made both Lord and Christ, this same Jesus, whom you have crucified” (Acts 2:36). Silence about the necessity of conversion betrays the Great Commission (Mt 28:19) and constitutes spiritual negligence.
Modernist Language Revealing Doctrinal Corruption
Costelloe’s call to “shine a light into the dark corners of our society” employs the language of secular psychology rather than Catholic morality. His reference to “advance Australia fair” substitutes nationalist sentiment for the Gloria in excelsis Deo that should order societies. This echoes the condemned proposition in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864): “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State” (Error 77).
The antipope’s generic condemnation of “antisemitic violence” continues this naturalistic pattern. Leo XIV’s refusal to name Islamist ideology as intrinsically violent reflects the conciliar sect’s doctrinal surrender to religious relativism – a heresy explicitly condemned in the Oath Against Modernism: “I profess that… the Church founded by Him is unique and one for all peoples and all nations.”
Deliberate Omission of Islamic Theological Roots
Nowhere do the bishops identify the incompatibility between Islamic doctrine and civilized order, despite the attackers’ documented ISIS allegiance. This cowardice violates Leo XIII’s teaching in Humanum Genus (1884) that Catholics must “tear away the mask from Freemasonry and make plain to all what it really is” – in this case, the theological imperative of jihad against unbelievers present in Quranic texts (e.g., Sura 9:5, 29).
The article’s failure to mention the attackers’ religious motivations constitutes journalistic malpractice and theological cowardice. As Pope Innocent III declared at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215): “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved” (Constitution 1). True pastoral care would demand exposure of Islam’s errors and call for Muslim conversion, not diplomatic silence.
Sacramental Neglect and Denial of Final Ends
The conciliar bishops’ statements exhibit complete disregard for the Four Last Things – Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. No mention is made of praying for the terrorists’ conversion before death, the victims’ need for Last Rites, or the eternal consequences for unrepentant murderers. This reflects the modernist denial of the supernatural condemned in St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane (1907), which rejects the proposition that “Revelation could not be other than the consciousness man acquired of his relation to God” (Error 20).
Contrast this with the Catholic response to the 1572 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, when Pope St. Pius V ordered public prayers and processions for the conversion of heretics while upholding divine justice against unrepentant attackers.
Conclusion: Apostasy Through Omission
The Bondi massacre response reveals the conciliar sect’s complete capitulation to the “masonic ideal of human fraternity” (Pius IX, Quanta Cura, 1864). By treating antisemitism as a sociological phenomenon rather than a symptom of societal rejection of Christ the King, Australia’s bishops commit the sin of omission condemned by St. James: “He who knows the right thing to do and does not do it commits sin” (Jas 4:17). Until Catholic leaders demand the public reign of Christ over nations (Ps 2:10-12) and the conversion of all peoples to the One True Church, such atrocities will only multiply under God’s withdrawn protection.
Source:
Why Australia’s bishops’ president is calling for antisemitism inquiry after Bondi attack (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 02.01.2026