The Vatican News portal reports a pastoral message from Cardinal Abune Berhaneyesus, CM, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Ethiopia, for the 2026 Lenten season. The message urges “Catholics and all people of good will” toward “profound interior conversion through prayer, fasting, and works of charity,” citing Matthew 6:17-18. It notes the Ethiopian Catholic Church’s “dual rites” (Ge’ez and Latin) and references Pope Francis’ encyclical *Fratelli tutti*. The Cardinal calls for prayers for peace, justice, and leaders, concluding with invocations to “Our Lady, the angels, martyrs, and all saints.”
This message, emanating from a hierarchical structure that acknowledges the antipope “Pope Francis,” epitomizes the post-conciliar Church’s reduction of the sacred season of Lent to a generic, naturalistic call for personal betterment, systematically omitting the supernatural foundation, purpose, and means of true Catholic penance.
The Lenten Season: From Dogmatic Penance to Subjective Ethics
1. The Omission of the Sacrificial Core
The Cardinal’s message is built upon a profound and deliberate silence. There is not a single mention of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the unbloody re-presentation of Calvary which is the very heart and raison d’être of the Lenten season. The traditional Introit for Ash Wednesday, “Thou hast mercy upon all, O Lord, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made, for Thou dost spare and pardon the sins of men for the sake of repentance,” is replaced by a vague appeal to “interior conversion.” This is not an oversight; it is the logical outcome of the conciliar revolution’s demystification of the liturgy, reducing the Sacred Mysteries to a “memorial” or “celebration” of community, as condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (Proposition 45: “The Christian community introduced the necessity of baptism…”).
The entire supernatural economy of redemption—satisfaction, propitiation, the treasury of merits of Christ and the saints—is absent. Fasting is redefined not as a penitential act of satisfaction for sin and union with Christ’s Passion (cf. Matthew 9:15: “Can the children of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast”), but as a vague “restraint from excess, distractions, sin, harmful speech.” This is mere moral philosophy, not Catholic asceticism. It echoes the Modernist error condemned by Pius X: “The principal articles of the Apostles’ Creed did not have the same meaning for the first Christians as they do for contemporary Christians” (Lamentabili, Prop. 62). The ancient, terrible, and consoling doctrine of divine justice and the need to make amends for offenses against God has been erased.
2. The “Dialogue” of Error and the Abandonment of the Social Kingship of Christ
The Cardinal’s invocation of *Fratelli tutti* is a glaring symptom. This encyclical of “Pope Francis” is a manifesto of naturalistic humanism, promoting a “global fraternity” based on vague “human dignity” and “dialogue,” utterly divorced from the exclusive reign of Christ the King. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, established the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism that “denied Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” He declared: “The state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders and Congregations… the Church… cannot depend on anyone’s will.” The post-conciliar paradigm, which the Cardinal implicitly endorses, has done the opposite: it has subjected the Church to the world, promoting the “separation of Church and State” condemned by the Syllabus of Errors (Error 55: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church”).
The call for “prayers for peace and justice” without a simultaneous, unambiguous call for the public and official recognition of the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ by all nations is a betrayal of the Gospel. Pius XI taught that “when God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The Cardinal’s silence on this is a silent approval of the secular order that crucifies Christ anew in public life. His appeal to “leaders to govern with wisdom and integrity” is meaningless without the standard of the Law of Christ, which is the only true source of justice.
3. The “Dual Rites” as a Symptom of Doctrinal Relativism
The article proudly notes the Ethiopian Church’s “dual rites,” blending “traditional Ge’ez liturgy with the universal Latin liturgical practice.” This is presented as a cultural richness. In reality, it is a direct consequence of the post-conciliar destruction of liturgical unity and the promotion of a false “inculturation” that waters down dogma. The Syllabus of Errors (Error 37) condemns the establishment of “national churches, withdrawn from the authority of the Roman pontiff and altogether separated.” The “dual rite” structure, while not identical, operates on the same principle of liturgical pluralism that contradicts the divinely ordered, Roman-centric liturgy of the Catholic Church. It suggests that the manner of divine worship is a matter of cultural preference, not a matter of faith and morals defined by the Church. This is the spirit of Modernism, which “regards the dogmas of the faith as… a sort of philosophical system, gradually elaborated by human reason” (Lamentabili, Prop. 22).
4. The “Interior Conversion” of Modernism vs. the Catholic Notion of Penance
The Cardinal’s central theme, “profound interior conversion,” is the very language of Modernism. St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici gregis, described the Modernist as one who “regards the external works of penance… as signs of an inward penance, which alone is of any account.” This is precisely the error: reducing penance to a subjective, internal state, detaching it from its objective, external, and often bodily expressions commanded by the Church (fasting, abstinence, almsgiving). The Cardinal says: “True fasting encompasses restraint from excess, distractions, sin, harmful speech…” This is a Pelagian-like focus on human effort and moral improvement, divorced from the primary purpose of Lenten penance: to make satisfaction for sin, to subdue the flesh, and to identify with the crucified Christ. The Catholic Lent is a liturgical season with defined penitential practices; the modernist “Lent” is a vague, self-determined spiritual retreat.
5. The Authority Question: Recognizing a Public Heretic
The entire message is issued under the authority of a man who holds office in a hierarchy that acknowledges “Pope Francis.” According to the unchanging doctrine of St. Robert Bellarmine, cited in the provided file on sedevacantism, a “manifest heretic… by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head.” The current occupant of the Vatican, “Pope Francis,” has committed numerous public acts of heresy (e.g., promoting religious indifferentism, altering the Catechism on the death penalty, approving of homosexual “civil unions,” etc.). Therefore, his authority is null. A cardinal who acknowledges such a man’s authority cannot himself possess valid jurisdiction in the Church. His pastoral message, therefore, does not proceed from a legitimate pastor of souls but from a functionary of the “conciliar sect.” It is a spiritual poison, offering the “milk of human kindness” instead of the “strong meat” of Catholic doctrine (Hebrews 5:12-14).
6. The Silence on the Great Apostasy
The Lenten call to “conversion” is utterly vacuous because it ignores the one conversion that matters in our time: the conversion from the apostasy of Vatican II. The Syllabus of Errors (Error 80) condemns the idea that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” The post-conciliar popes have done exactly this. A true Lenten message would thunder against the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place (Matthew 24:15)—the Novus Ordo Missae, the ecumenical documents, the religious liberty of Dignitatis Humanae. It would call for a return to the immutable Faith, the Roman liturgy, and the hierarchical constitution of the Church. Instead, we get a call to generic “dialogue” and “listening,” which is the very method of the Modernist infection condemned by St. Pius X: “The Church listening cooperates in such a way with the Church teaching… that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Lamentabili, Prop. 6).
Conclusion: A Lenten Message from the Abomination
The Cardinal’s message is a perfect artifact of the post-conciliar apostasy. It takes the Catholic season of penance, strips it of its sacrificial, hierarchical, and dogmatic content, and recasts it in the mold of secular humanism and interreligious “dialogue.” It appeals to “all people of good will,” echoing the indifferentism of the Syllabus (Error 16: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation”). It promotes a “spirituality” without the Mass, without the sacraments (especially Confession), without the mediation of the hierarchical priesthood, and without the supreme goal: the glory of God and the salvation of souls through the uniquely redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
This is not a pastoral letter; it is a symptom of the “church of the New Advent,” a structure occupying the Vatican that has exchanged the “sweet yoke” of Christ for the easy yoke of the world. The true Lenten call, from the pre-1958 Church, would be: “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2)—a call to flee the conciliar sect, to reject its false shepherds who acknowledge public heretics, and to cling to the immutable Faith, the traditional Mass, and the true hierarchy, wherever it may be found in valid bishops and priests who uphold the integral Catholic doctrine condemned by no council before 1958.
Source:
Cardinal urges spiritual conversion as Lent opens in Ethiopia’s dual rites (vaticannews.va)
Date: 17.02.2026