The cited article from *The Pillar* reports on the Rite of Election ceremonies for adults entering the “Catholic Church” in 2026, framing the event as a positive indicator of numerical growth. It presents the gathering of catechumens as a routine statistical data point, devoid of any theological depth or reference to the supernatural reality of conversion. The article’s thesis is that the raw number of adults undergoing this rite signifies the health and expansion of the Church.
The Empty Ritual of a False Church
The article describes a public ceremony where individuals “publicly manifest their desire to become Catholics.” This description, in the context of the post-conciliar *Novus Ordo* sect, is a profound deception. The Rite of Election, as reformed after Vatican II, is a mere human assembly, a sociological event stripped of its former theological certainty and sacramental gravity. The pre-1958 Church understood conversion not as a statistical event but as a supernatural transformation wrought by *ex opere operato* through the valid sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, administered with the explicit intention of doing what the Church does, by a priest in communion with the true hierarchy. The modern rite, however, is an “ecumenical” and “pastoral” showcase, where the focus is on “desire” and “manifestation” rather than on the objective infusion of sanctifying grace. The article’s entire premise—that counting participants in this rite measures the influx of souls into the Catholic Church—is fundamentally false. It counts entries into a *conciliar structure* that has systematically dismantled the Catholic sacramental system.
Omission of the Supernatural: The Sin of Naturalism
The most damning critique of the article is what it omits. There is **zero** mention of:
* The state of grace of the catechumens.
* The validity of the baptism they will receive (contingent on the minister’s intention, which is notoriously ambiguous in the post-conciliar rites).
* The necessity of believing all defined Catholic dogmas without reservation (a requirement nullified by the conciliar emphasis on “degrees of communion”).
* The absolute requirement of rejecting all errors, especially the modernist errors condemned by St. Pius X in *Pascendi Dominici gregis* and *Lamentabili sane exitu*.
* The final judgment and the salvation of souls as the sole purpose of the Church’s mission.
This silence is not accidental; it is the very essence of the conciliar and post-conciliar apostasy. The Church’s mission is *supernatural*: to teach all nations, baptize them, and instruct them to observe all things Christ commanded (Matt. 28:19-20). The article reduces this to a naturalistic “initiation process” and a “public manifestation.” It treats the Church as a human institution measuring its success by membership rolls, precisely the “naturalistic humanism” condemned by Pope Pius XI in *Quas Primas*: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The article applies this same naturalistic metric to the Church itself, measuring it by human statistics rather than by the purity of its faith and the sanctity of its sacraments.
The Heresy of Implicit “Progress” and Religious Indifferentism
The article’s tone is one of cautious optimism about “numbers.” This implicitly endorses the modernist and *Syllabus*-condemned error of **progress**. The *Syllabus of Errors* (Pius IX) explicitly condemns the notion that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Error 80). The article’s focus on whether the “number… is still rising” treats the Church’s condition as a matter of sociological progress, a direct contradiction of the Catholic truth that the Church must be “in the world but not of it,” constantly fighting against the “secularism of our times” (Quas Primas).
Furthermore, the very idea of counting adults from all backgrounds who undergo a vague “initiation” process echoes the *Syllabus*’s condemnation of **indifferentism**:
* Error 15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”
* Error 16: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation…”
The post-conciliar Church, with its ecumenical dialogues, interreligious prayer meetings, and dilution of the dogma “Outside the Church there is no salvation” (cf. *Quas Primas*, citing Leo XIII: “His reign encompasses also all non-Christians”), has created a system where the “desire to become Catholic” can be interpreted through a lens of religious indifferentism. The article’s statistical approach treats all such desires as equally valid entries into the Church, ignoring the *Syllabus*’s thunderous condemnation: “The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion” (Error 21). By reporting on numbers without questioning the doctrinal content of the faith being embraced, the article implicitly accepts this condemned error.
The Sedevacantist Reality: A Church Without a Pope
The entire statistical exercise is rendered null and void by the **sede vacante** reality. The line of Roman Pontiffs ended with the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958. The conciliar and post-conciliar “popes” (from John XXIII to the current antipope “Leo XIV”) have manifestly held and promulgated heretical doctrines, thereby losing their office *ipso facto* according to the teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine, confirmed by Wernz & Vidal, and canonically supported by Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code. As Bellarmine states: “a manifest heretic… ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” The “Rite of Election” described is a ceremony presided over by men who are not validly ordained bishops in communion with a true Pope (many are likely invalidly ordained due to the changed sacramental rites and intention), and it is directed toward incorporation into a *sect* that has abandoned the Catholic faith.
Therefore, the article is not reporting on growth in the Catholic Church. It is documenting the activity of a **paramasonic structure** (as the *Syllabus* identifies the forces of modernism and secret societies as the primary antagonists of the Church) that simulates Catholic rites while teaching a different religion. The “adults becoming Catholic” are, in reality, adults being initiated into the **Church of the New Advent**, a synthetic institution that embodies the errors of Modernism—”the synthesis of all heresies” (St. Pius X)—which the Holy Office condemned in *Lamentabili sane exitu*.
Conclusion: The Only True Metric
The only legitimate metric for the Church’s health is not numerical growth but **fidelity to the unchanging Deposit of Faith**. Pius XI in *Quas Primas* links the reign of Christ to the defense of doctrine: “the more the sweetest Name of our Redeemer is omitted… the more loudly it must be confessed and the more urgently the rights of Christ the Lord’s royal dignity and authority must be recognized.” The article’s silence on the dogmas denied by the conciliar magisterium (on the Church, ecumenism, religious liberty, the nature of the sacraments) is a damning indictment. It measures the expansion of a human association, not the increase of the Mystical Body of Christ.
The true Catholic Church, enduring in the faithful and validly ordained clergy who reject the conciliar errors, continues its hidden, persecuted mission. Its growth is known only to God and measured by the sanctity of its members and their uncompromising profession of the integral faith. The statistics from the *Novus Ordo* rite are the numbers of a **false church**, a tool of the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15), and they signify not the triumph of Christ the King, but the success of a decades-long operation to lead souls into religious indifferentism and ultimate perdition.
Source:
Is the number of adults becoming Catholic still rising? (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 26.02.2026