The Diocese of Charlotte’s widely circulated pastoral video, delivered by Bishop Michael Martin on February 14, 2026, presents a “vision” of evangelization centered on the slogan “everyone so loves Jesus, we share him with others.” Drawing heavily from Pope Francis’s *Evangelii Gaudium*, the message reduces the Catholic mission to three “action steps”: forming “missionary disciples,” “becoming the family of God,” and “going out to proclaim the Gospel.” The presentation is devoid of references to sin, damnation, the Real Presence, the Sacrifice of the Mass, or the absolute necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation. It substitutes sentimental, horizontal community-building for the supernatural mandate of converting nations to the one true faith. This is not Catholic pastoral guidance; it is the precise operational language of the conciliar sect’s program of apostasy, cloaking the abandonment of dogma in the vacuous rhetoric of “love” and “family.”
The Naturalistic Evasion of Supernatural Realities
An Evangelization Without the Gospel
The bishop’s entire message is a masterclass in what St. Pius X condemned in *Pascendi Dominici gregis*: the separation of the “scientific” or “pastoral” from the supernatural. The core error is the complete omission of the *why* of evangelization. The article states the bishop urged Catholics to share “the good news that Jesus came to proclaim… that our Father loves us unconditionally, and wants to save us from the death of sin.” This is a lie. The “good news” is not a vague paternal affection; it is the specific, exclusive, and necessary redemption wrought by the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, mediated solely through the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation (*extra Ecclesiam nulla salus*). The Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX explicitly condemns the notion that “man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation” (Error 16). Martin’s unconditional “love” narrative directly contradicts the dogma of the *necessity* of the Catholic faith and the sacraments for salvation, a truth defined by the Council of Florence and reaffirmed by Pope Pius IX in *Quanto conficiamur*.
The bishop’s analogy between a “fan” and a “player” is particularly insidious. It frames discipleship not as a state of grace, a participation in the divine nature (*participatio divinae naturae*), and a supernatural obligation to worship God according to His commandments, but as a shift from passive consumption to active participation in a communal project. This is Modernism’s synthesis of all errors: reducing the supernatural life of grace to a higher form of natural human activity. The “Gospel” he proposes to proclaim is a moralistic therapeutic deism, a “winning lottery ticket” of personal fulfillment, not the bloody battle cry of Christ the King against the powers of darkness.
The “Family of God” as Ecclesiological Subversion
The phrase “becoming the family of God” is a direct echo of the conciliar document *Lumen Gentium*, which redefined the Church as the “People of God” and emphasized a horizontal, fraternal “sense of Church” over the hierarchical, juridical, and hierarchical Body of Christ. This is a fatal error. The Mystical Body of Christ is a supernatural organism, not a natural family. Its head is Christ, its members are those in sanctifying grace, and its visible head on earth is the Roman Pontiff. To speak of the “family of God” in vague, biological terms (“family implies an intimate connection that is not determined by our choice, but rather by our birth”) is to deny the necessity of sacramental incorporation through valid baptism and the profession of the integral Catholic faith. It opens the door to the heresy of “baptism of desire” and “anonymous Christianity,” condemned by the Holy Office in 1949 and by the perennial teaching of the Church.
Furthermore, the bishop’s statement that “our parish is primarily the place where we encounter the love of God” is a grotesque inversion. The parish church is primarily the place where the unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary is offered to the honor and glory of God, to satisfy for sin, and to apply the merits of Christ’s Passion to the faithful. It is the locus of the Real Presence. To reduce it to an encounter with “love” is to empty the Mass of its sacrificial and propitiatory character, the very heart of Catholic worship. This aligns perfectly with the Modernist agenda described in *Lamentabili sane exitu* (Proposition 41): “The sacraments… merely serve to remind man of the presence of the ever-benevolent Creator.” The article’s silence on the Mass as sacrifice is deafening and damning.
The Omission of Christ the King and the Social Reign
The entire vision operates within a framework of total secularism. There is no mention of the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the central theme of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical *Quas Primas*, which the article’s source material would have known. Pius XI taught that Christ’s reign “encompasses all men” and that “the state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” The bishop’s program is entirely intra-ecclesial and personalistic. It speaks of sharing Jesus in “daily life” but never of demanding that civil society, laws, and governments recognize and submit to the authority of Christ and His Church. This is the precise error of the “secularism of our times” which Pius XI identified as the plague poisoning society. By accepting the secular distinction between private belief and public order, Martin is an active agent in the apostasy described in the Syllabus (Errors 39-55). His “evangelization” is confined to the private sphere of personal relationships, a direct repudiation of the papal teaching that “all power in heaven and on earth is given to Christ the Lord” and that His kingdom must govern all human associations.
The Symptomatic Language of the Conciliar Revolution
The linguistic choices are not accidental; they are the mandatory lexicon of the post-conciliar apostasy.
* **“Missionary disciples”:** A Vatican II innovation replacing “apostles” and “soldiers of Christ.” It connotes a peer-to-peer witness, not a hierarchical mission to teach all nations.
* **“Family of God”:** As noted, the *Lumen Gentium* term that dissolves the juridical, hierarchical Church into a vague, familial communion.
* **“Go out and proclaim the Gospel”:** The *Evangelii Gaudium* mantra, where “proclaim” means to “accompany” and “dialogue,” not to dogmatically declare the necessity of the Catholic faith and the falsity of all other religions. It is a command to witness to a “life” rather than to preach a defined “faith.”
* **“See ourselves as God sees us”:** A sentimentality that bypasses the terrifying reality of the particular judgment. God sees us as we are: either in a state of grace or mortal sin, destined for heaven or hell. This fluffy self-affirmation is the antithesis of Catholic asceticism and the constant call to penance and amendment of life.
The tone is one of therapeutic encouragement, not prophetic warning. There is no call to repentance from mortal sin, no mention of the horror of sacrilege, no fear of the eternal fires of hell. This is the “gospel of nice” that has replaced the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the “dulcet tones” of the “enemies within” that St. Pius X warned of in Pascendi, who “play the part of the physician” while poisoning the soul.
The “Pastoral Vision” as a Tool of the Abomination of Desolation
Martin’s “vision” is the perfect pastoral instrument for the conciliar sect’s goal: the creation of a global, religiously indifferent, naturalistic “human family” under the guise of Christianity. It prepares the ground for the one-world religion of the Antichrist by:
1. **Eliminating Dogma:** By focusing on “love” and “sharing,” it makes doctrinal truth irrelevant. The content of what is shared is deliberately vague.
2. **Democratizing the Church:** “Everyone so loves Jesus” implies a horizontal equality that destroys the divinely instituted hierarchy of Pope, bishops, and priests. The “family” is where “we don’t get to choose our own brothers and sisters,” subtly undermining the authority of legitimate pastors.
3. **Rejecting the Sacramental System:** No mention of confession, last rites, or the salvific necessity of the sacraments. The “encounter with God’s love” in the parish is presented as an experience, not a sacramental event.
4. **Promoting Religious Indifferentism:** By making “sharing Jesus” about a feeling of love rather than the acceptance of a defined, exclusive truth, it implicitly accepts that others can “love Jesus” in their own way. This is the heresy condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (Errors 15-18).
The article notes this vision comes “some 20 months after the bishop’s installation” and follows controversy over liturgical changes (banning altar rails). This is the classic conciliar tactic: distract from doctrinal and liturgical corruption with a call to “mission” and “engagement.” While he dismantles traditional piety (kneeling, altar rails), he offers a new, empty piety of “sharing.” It is the bait of activism for the trap of apostasy.
Conclusion: A Call to Reject and Flee
Bishop Martin’s message is not a pastoral letter from a Catholic bishop. It is a manifesto of the conciliar sect. It embodies the “synthesis of all heresies” (St. Pius X) by stripping the Catholic faith of its supernatural, exclusive, and juridical character. It replaces the Mysterium Fidei with a sociological program. The “nearly 600,000 Catholics” in Charlotte are not being shepherded to heaven; they are being organized for the final, global apostasy. The only legitimate response from any Catholic who wishes to save his soul is to reject this teaching with abomination, to avoid the “parish” where such errors are propagated, and to seek the true faith in the remnant that holds fast to the integral Catholic doctrine defined before the death of Pope Pius XII. The “new heaven and new earth” Martin invokes is the infernal dream of the Modernists; the only “new earth” promised is the one after the final judgment, for those who kept the faith “whole and unimpaired” (St. Athanasius).
Source:
Martin urges evangelization in widely anticipated ‘pastoral message’ (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 14.02.2026