EWTN News reports that Bishop Earl Fernandes of Columbus, Ohio, described Ukrainian wartime clergy as “two living saints” after meeting them at the New York Encounter. Fernandes lauded their humanitarian work and willingness to die for their people, contrasting their “reality” with his own comfortable life in the U.S. He linked their witness to combating “invisible forces” and fostering charity amid American polarization. This narrative, devoid of supernatural criteria for sanctity and centered on naturalistic humanitarianism and vague spiritual warfare, represents a profound betrayal of Catholic doctrine. It exemplifies the post-conciliar Church’s substitution of the Social Kingship of Christ with a humanistic, experience-based religion, rendering it apostate.
The “Saints” Fallacy and the Invalidity of Post-Conciliar Canonizations
Bishop Fernandes’s declaration that he was “in the midst of two living saints” is not a mere devotional expression but a doctrinal catastrophe. Within the integral Catholic framework, the title “saint” is not a subjective assessment of heroic virtue or a media-friendly label for those suffering in war. It is a juridical and supernatural fact, conferred only by the actus canonizationis of a valid Roman Pontiff, which declares a soul to be in heaven and worthy of universal veneration. The very concept of a “living saint” is a novelty, a sentimental corruption of the Church’s infallible teaching on the process of canonization, which always occurs post mortem after a rigorous investigation into heroic virtue and, traditionally, miracles.
Fernandes implicitly validates the canonization process of the conciliar sect. However, from the perspective of unchanging Catholic doctrine, every “canonization” promulgated after the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958 is null and void. This is because the individuals claiming the papacy since John XXIII have been manifest heretics, and therefore, as St. Robert Bellarmine definitively taught, a manifest heretic ceases to be Pope and head of the Church ipso facto (De Romano Pontifice, Bk. II, Ch. 30). The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 188.4) confirms that an office becomes vacant by the mere fact of public defection from the faith. The “saints” produced by this invalid process—such as the falsely canonized “Maximilian Kolbe” or “John Paul II”—are not Catholic saints but idols of the new religion. Fernandes’s language thus places him squarely within the apostasy of the “Church of the New Advent,” accepting its false sacramental and juridical structures.
Reduction of Ecclesial Mission to Naturalistic Humanitarianism
The article reveals that the core of the Ukrainian clergy’s message, as presented by Fernandes, is centered on humanitarian work: transforming parishes into Caritas centers, responding to power outages, and providing material aid. While charitable works are essential, Fernandes explicitly notes that the message was “never about political pressure or asking for financial assistance” but that “what was at the center of his message was Christ, ultimately.” Yet, the description of how Christ is centered is telling: through the willingness to die for the people and the humanitarian response.
This is a subtle but deadly substitution. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the “secularism of our times” and the error that “the Christian religion should be replaced by a natural religion.” The Pope taught that the Kingdom of Christ is “primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters,” yet it demands the public recognition of Christ’s authority over all societies and laws. He warned that when “God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” Fernandes’s focus on the humanitarian “reality” of the Ukrainian crisis, while moving, completely omits this essential doctrine. There is no mention of the duty of the state to recognize Christ as King, no condemnation of the secular Ukrainian government’s promotion of LGBTQ+ ideology or its suppression of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s traditional liturgical life under pressure from the Orthodox. The “witness” is reduced to a noble naturalism—suffering and service—stripped of its supernatural purpose: the salvation of souls and the establishment of the Social Reign of Christ. This is the “Church as a social system” Fernandes claims to avoid, yet his entire narrative exemplifies it.
Vagueness About “Invisible Forces” Denies Catholic Demonology
Fernandes recounts asking Bishop Honcharuk about combating “invisible forces,” to which the bishop reportedly responded that he authorized his priests to act because “there are invisible forces that are bent on dominating us.” This language is dangerously vague and modernistic. Catholic doctrine on demonic activity is precise, rooted in the authority of Christ to cast out demons and the Church’s power to exorcise. St. Pius X, in the decree Lamentabili sane exitu, condemned the proposition that “the Church… has no right to require any internal assent from the faithful to the pronouncements issued by the Church” (Proposition 7) and that “the dogmas of faith should be understood according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief” (Proposition 26). The vague, psychological, or purely moral interpretation of “invisible forces” as mere societal pressures or personal struggles, without explicit reference to the demonic realm and the Sacramental/ liturgical weapons of the Church (Holy Water, blessed salt, the Sign of the Cross, the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass), is a hallmark of Modernist evasion.
A true Catholic bishop would speak of the potestas exorcandi given to the Church, the necessity of sacramentals, and the battle against principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12). The silence on the specific, sacramental means of combatting these forces—the Holy Eucharist as the supreme weapon, the Rosary, the Litany of the Saints—is deafening. It reflects the post-conciliar demythologizing of the spiritual warfare, reducing it to a vague “reliance on Christ” devoid of the concrete, objective armor of Catholic tradition. This aligns with the condemned errors of Lamentabili, which attack the supernatural origin and efficacy of the Church’s rites and power.
False Notion of Peace Through Charitable Dialogue
Fernandes applies the Ukrainian clergy’s witness to the U.S. context, stating: “I think it’s recognizing the other person is our brother… When we continue to wage violence upon children in the womb, should we not expect violence against children outside of the womb?” He then advocates for “charity in speech, charity in thinking the best of others” to diffuse polarization, concluding: “the charity of Christ urges me on… to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters, regardless of whether they agree with our politics.”
This is a naturalistic, Pelagian distortion of Catholic social doctrine. Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “it is lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate princes, and even to rebel against them” (Error 63), but more fundamentally, he condemned the separation of Church and State (Error 55) and the idea that “the civil authority may interfere in matters relating to religion, morality and spiritual government” (Error 44). True peace, as Pius XI taught in Quas Primas, is only possible when “all men… allow themselves to be governed by Christ.” It is not achieved through generic “charity” or dialogue with those who “agree or disagree with our politics,” but through the public profession and legal establishment of the Catholic faith, which orders all human relations according to God’s law.
Fernandes’s statement about abortion leading to societal violence, while factually true, is presented as a mere sociological observation, not as a theological necessity: the violation of God’s law (the Fifth Commandment) brings divine punishment upon nations. There is no call for the Catholic State to outlaw abortion as a mortal sin against God, no mention of the duty of rulers to “publicly honor Christ and obey Him” (Quas Primas). Instead, the solution is reduced to individual “charity” and “thinking the best of others,” which is the essence of the indifferentism condemned by Pius IX (Errors 15-17). It is a recipe for the continued legalized murder of the innocent and the triumph of Masonic secularism.
Omission of Christ’s Social Kingship and the Duty of Catholic Rulers
The most glaring omission in Fernandes’s reflection is any reference to the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a minor oversight but the central heresy of the modern world, which he unconsciously perpetuates. Quas Primas is explicit: the Kingdom of Christ “encompasses all men” and extends to “individuals, families, and states.” Rulers have a duty to “publicly honor Christ and obey Him,” for “His royal dignity demands that all relations in the state be ordered on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles.” The encyclical warns that when Christ is “cast out of the state… forgotten and ignored through contempt,” He will “very severely avenge these insults.”
Fernandes speaks of bishops giving “consent [to die] all the time,” but he divorces this from the purpose for which a bishop must be willing to die: not merely as a “good shepherd” in a vague sense, but as a witness to the exclusive rights of Christ the King over every nation. A true bishop would demand the conversion of the state and the repression of false religions, as taught by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus (Error 21: “The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion” – condemned). Fernandes’s silence on this point is a silent endorsement of the conciliar sect’s doctrine of religious liberty, which is a restatement of the indifferentism condemned in the Syllabus (Errors 15-16). His “charity” is a charity that denies Christ His rightful place on the throne of every nation, which is no charity at all but a betrayal of the Divine Master.
Conclusion: The Apostasy of the Conciliar “Witness”
Bishop Fernandes’s account is a perfect microcosm of the post-conciliar apostasy. It replaces:
– The objective, juridical reality of canonization with subjective admiration for “living saints.”
– The Social Kingship of Christ with naturalistic humanitarianism.
– The concrete, sacramental warfare against demons with vague references to “invisible forces.”
– The Catholic State’s duty to profess the Faith with the modernistic ideal of “charity” and dialogue.
– The necessity of martyrdom for the Faith with a generalized willingness to die for one’s people.
This is not the faith of our fathers. It is the synthesis of all heresies—Modernism—condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis and Lamentabili sane exitu. The Ukrainian clergy, while perhaps admirable in their natural courage, are operating within the schismatic structure of the “Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church,” which is in full communion with the conciliar antipopes and therefore with the apostasy. Their witness, as presented, is devoid of the Catholic integrity that demands the exclusive reign of Christ, the repudiation of all false religions, and the use of the Church’s full supernatural armory. Fernandes, a bishop of the conciliar sect, praises this witness while remaining blind to its fundamental defect: it does not, and cannot, save souls in the state of mortal sin by bringing them into the one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation (extra Ecclesiam nulla salus). The entire event, sponsored by the modernistic Communion and Liberation movement, is a theater of apostasy, presenting a false “Catholicism” that is merely a noble humanism with a thin Christian veneer.
Source:
‘In the midst of 2 living saints’: Ohio bishop reflects on witness of Ukraine clergy (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 23.02.2026