Summary
EWTN News reports that the Vermont Department for Children and Families (DCF) settled a lawsuit with four Christian foster parents by revoking a policy that required them to affirm a child’s chosen gender identity and sexuality as a condition of licensing. The policy, which instructed foster parents to use preferred pronouns and support LGBTQ+ identities even if “uncomfortable,” was challenged as a violation of free speech and religious freedom. The settlement reinstates the parents’ licenses and bars DCF from considering “sincerely held personal, cultural, religious, moral, or philosophical beliefs” in licensing decisions or requiring “endorsement or affirmation of specific identities.” Alliance Defending Freedom hailed this as a victory for children and religious diversity. The article frames the issue as a balance between state mandates and parental conscience, wholly within the naturalistic paradigm of “rights” discourse, utterly silent on the supernatural order, the Social Kingship of Christ, and the intrinsic evil of gender ideology as a rebellion against God’s created order.
Thesis: This article exemplifies the conciliar sect’s systematic surrender to secularism, treating a grave moral evil—gender ideology—as a mere policy dispute to be negotiated, while omitting the non-negotiable demands of lex divina and the Social Reign of Christ the King, thereby confirming the apostasy of the post-1958 hierarchy and the urgent necessity of sedevacantism.
The Naturalistic Foundation of the Article’s Narrative
The article operates entirely within the false dichotomy of “religious freedom” versus “state mandate,” a framework inherited from the Enlightenment and solemnly condemned by Pope Pius IX. The Syllabus of Errors explicitly denounces the notion that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Error 15) and that “the civil authority may interfere in matters relating to religion, morality and spiritual government” (Error 44). Yet the article accepts this secular framework uncritically. It discusses “sincerely held religious beliefs” as a private commodity to be balanced against state policy, not as an inalienable duty to the Summa Veritas. The language of “rights” (free speech, religious freedom) is derived from the false principle of the sovereignty of the individual conscience apart from God’s law—a direct echo of the modernist errors condemned in Lamentabili sane exitu (Propositions 20, 25). The state’s previous policy was not merely a “mandate” but an imposition of formal cooperation in evil, forcing foster parents to affirm a lie that contradicts the natural law written on the heart (Romans 2:15) and the revealed truth that God created man male and female (Genesis 1:27). The article’s neutral description of this as requiring parents to “support children’s identities” and use “appropriate pronouns” sanitizes a profound sacrilege against nature and grace. The settlement, while removing the explicit requirement to endorse, still leaves the state promoting gender ideology through its foster system, and the article celebrates this as a “victory,” revealing its capitulation to the spirit of the age.
The Omission of Supernatural Truth and the Kingship of Christ
The gravest sin of the article is its total silence on the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, decreed the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularist plague that had “removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from… public life.” He declared: “Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ, but let them fulfill this duty themselves and with their people, if they wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness.” The article mentions “children’s best interests” but never defines them according to Catholic doctrine: the eternal salvation of souls. It never references the duty of the state to “order all relations in the state on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles” (Quas Primas). The state of Vermont, by previously imposing gender ideology, was guilty of the exact error condemned in the Syllabus: “The civil authority may interfere in matters relating to… spiritual government” (Error 44) and “The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion” (Error 21)—for in practice, the state was enforcing a false religion (the religion of gender) against the true one. The article’s omission of this supernatural perspective is not neutrality; it is apostasy in practice, accepting the modernist premise that the state is neutral in matters of truth, when in fact “when God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed” (Quas Primas). The foster parents’ Christian worldview is presented as one “sincerely held belief” among many, not as the sole true religion that has the right to shape society. This is the hermeneutics of discontinuity in action: the pre-1958 Church taught that “the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ” (Quas Primas); the post-conciliar church treats Christianity as one option in a pluralistic marketplace.
The Conciliar Church’s Complicity in Gender Ideology
The article originates from EWTN News, a flagship organ of the conciliar sect. Its very reporting of this event as a “victory” for “religious diversity” demonstrates the sect’s embrace of the indifferentism condemned by Pius IX (Syllabus, Errors 15-18). The conciliar church, from “John XXIII” through “Pope” Leo XIV, has systematically promoted religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) and dialogue with the world, creating the very conditions for the state to impose gender ideology. The “pope” and “bishops” of this sect have either remained silent or actively supported LGBTQ+ “rights,” thus scandalizing the faithful and confirming the errors of Modernism. St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici gregis (which Lamentabili sane exitu reinforces), identified Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies,” characterized by the “evolution of dogma” and the “democratization of the Church.” The conciliar church’s acceptance of the secular state’s authority to define family and gender is the logical fruit of its rejection of the Social Kingship of Christ. The article’s source, Catholic News Agency, is part of this compromised structure, thus its framing of the issue is inherently modernist. It never questions whether the state has any right to dictate moral formation in foster care; it merely argues for a “reasonable accommodation” of religious belief. This is the naturalistic, Masonic principle of the “wall of separation” between Church and State, which Pius IX anathematized (Error 55). The true Catholic position, held by all pre-1958 pontiffs, is that the state must recognize the Catholic religion as the sole true religion and frame its laws accordingly. Vermont’s original policy was a direct consequence of the conciliar church’s abandonment of this thesis.
The Sedevacantist Diagnosis: A Church Without a Pope
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the actions of the Vermont DCF and the response of the conciliar structures are not surprising. The Defense of Sedevacantism file provides the theological tools to diagnose the root cause: the See of Peter is vacant because the men who have occupied it since Roncalli (“John XXIII”) are manifest heretics. St. Robert Bellarmine, cited authoritatively, teaches: “a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” The conciliar popes, by promulgating Vatican II’s declarations on religious liberty, ecumenism, and the “evolution” of doctrine, have publicly defected from the Catholic faith. “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), like his predecessors, promotes gender ideology through his “appointments” and “teachings,” thus fulfilling the condition of manifest heresy. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law states that an office becomes vacant by “publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” The conciliar hierarchy’s public defense of LGBTQ+ “rights” and its punishment of traditional Catholics (as in Vermont’s original policy) constitute such a public defect. Therefore, the “settlement” achieved by Alliance Defending Freedom is a victory within the conciliar sect’s own compromised framework—a retreat on one tactical front while the sect continues to advance the revolution. It does not restore the true order because the true hierarchy does not exist; the See is vacant. The article’s celebration of this “victory” is thus a celebration of a temporary check on a revolution that the conciliar church itself initiated and continues to lead. The only true solution is the repudiation of the entire conciliar sect and the recognition of the sedevacantist reality: there is no legitimate “pope” or “bishop” in communion with Rome until a true pope is elected who restores the unchanging faith.
The Symptomatic Language of Apostasy
The article’s language is a study in modernist euphemism and naturalism. It speaks of “gender ideology” without defining it as the denial of the binary, God-given sexes—a direct attack on the Imago Dei. It refers to “sincerely held religious beliefs” as if truth were a matter of sincere opinion, echoing the modernist proposition that “dogmas are not truths of divine origin but are a certain interpretation of religious facts” (Lamentabili, Prop. 22). The phrase “children’s best interests” is a naturalistic, utilitarian concept divorced from the supernatural end of man. The article never uses the words “sin,” “truth,” “God’s law,” or “salvation.” This is the “silence about supernatural matters” that is “the gravest accusation.” The tone is that of a civil rights report, not a Catholic analysis. Even the victory is framed in terms of “loving homes” and “opportunities,” not in terms of justice to God and the preservation of children from mortal sin. This reflects the conciliar church’s own shift from a supernatural to a naturalistic anthropology. The “pastor” plaintiffs are identified only as “pastor,” not as Catholic priests—a subtle erasure of the Catholic identity that should be the sole basis for resistance. The article thus participates in the general apostasy by treating the conflict as one between two equal civil liberties, rather than between the Truth of God and the lie of the devil.
Conclusion: The Only True Victory Is the Reign of Christ the King
The Vermont settlement is at best a tactical retreat by a secular state pressured by legal action. It is not a restoration of the true order. The article, by framing it as a triumph of “religious freedom,” reinforces the very indifferentism that allows gender ideology to flourish. The Catholic Church, before the revolution of Vatican II, would have condemned Vermont’s original policy as an intolerable usurpation by the state of the Church’s right to educate youth in the faith (Syllabus, Errors 45-47) and a violation of the duty of the state to “order all relations… on the basis of God’s commandments” (Quas Primas). The pre-1958 Church would have demanded not just exemption but the repeal of all laws that promote gender ideology as a crime against the common good. The conciliar sect, having embraced the separation of Church and State (condemned by Pius IX), is powerless to make such a demand because it has accepted the secular state’s autonomy. Therefore, the faithful must reject this article’s naturalistic narrative, reject the conciliar sect that produced it, and pray and work for the restoration of the true Church and the Social Reign of Christ the King—the only foundation for a just society where children are raised according to God’s law, not the delusions of a dying world.
Source:
Vermont backs off ‘gender ideology’ mandate for Christian foster families (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 24.02.2026