The article’s entire framework—the right to safety in “churches,” the duty of “elected officials”—presupposes a naturalistic, secular order where the state is the primary guarantor of peace. This directly contradicts the social teaching of the pre-conciliar Church. Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas (1925), instituting the feast of Christ the King, explicitly refutes this premise:

“When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed… the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.”

The shooting is a direct fruit of this apostasy. The article, however, presents it as a random tragedy solvable by better laws, completely omitting the Syllabus of Errors condemnation of the separation of Church and State (Error 55) and the denial of the social reign of Christ. The true “duty” belongs to rulers to publicly honor Christ and govern according to His law (Quas Primas), not to enforce a secular “right” to safety through gun control.

Linguistic Analysis: The Language of Naturalism and Revolution

The article’s language is saturated with the vocabulary of modern, secular humanism and political activism, which is antithetical to Catholic tradition.

• “Right to live free from gun violence”: This is a fabricated “right” of the Enlightenment, not a Catholic concept. Catholic doctrine speaks of the right to life as a consequence of the Fifth Commandment and the natural law, but it does not posit a “right to be free from all violence” guaranteed by the state. Such a notion implies a state so pervasive it becomes totalitarian, a danger warned against by the Syllabus (Error 39: “The State… is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits”).
• “Elected officials have a duty to protect us”: This inverts the Catholic order. The primary duty of rulers is to recognize and promote the true religion and the reign of Christ (Quas Primas, Syllabus Errors 19-24 on the rights of the Church). “Protection” in the Catholic sense means protecting the people from sin and heresy, not from every physical danger through state coercion. The article’s language makes the state a false messiah.
• “Commonsense gun laws”: This is the mantra of the revolution. It appeals not to divine law or natural law as understood by the Church, but to a vague, shifting “common sense” that is the product of a society that has “removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from… public life” (Quas Primas).
• Tone of empathetic trauma coupled with political demand: The emotional appeal (“No one should have to go through what we went through”) is used as a cudgel to bypass rational and theological debate and demand immediate legislative action. This is the tactic of sentimentalism, condemned by Pope Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis as a characteristic of Modernists, who “show no care for the authority of the teaching Church.”

Theological Confrontation: The Reign of Christ vs. The Reign of Man

The article’s core error is its complete silence on the supernatural. It discusses a tragedy in a building called a “church” but never mentions God, Christ, the sacraments, sin, grace, or the final judgment. This silence is itself a damning indictment, fulfilling the Lamentabili sane exitu condemnation of those who treat religion as merely a “movement” or “consciousness” (Propositions 59-60).

1. The Source of Evil and the True Solution. The article locates the evil in the instrument (the gun) and the solution in the state (new laws). Catholic doctrine locates evil in sin, which is a disorder of the will, and its ultimate source in Satan. The solution is not gun control but the reign of Christ the King in souls and societies. Pius XI taught:

“If men were ever to recognize Christ’s royal authority over themselves, both privately and publicly, then unheard-of blessings would flow upon the whole society, such as due freedom, order, and tranquility, and concord and peace.”

The article advocates for “security resources” and “mental health support” (naturalistic, psychological solutions). The Church has always taught that true peace comes from the Sacrifice of the Mass and the sacramental life, not from therapy or police presence. The related article mentioned about Bishop Cozzens saying “God’s answer to evil is the cross” is a faint echo of this truth, but it is drowned out by the survivor’s and governor’s purely secular demands.

2. The Duty of Rulers. Governor Walz’s proposals are framed as a “duty to protect.” Catholic doctrine, as defined by Pius IX in the Syllabus (Error 40), rejects the notion that “The teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society.” The opposite is true: the well-being of society depends on the public recognition of the Catholic faith. Error 77 of the Syllabus condemns the idea that “it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State.” Walz’s proposals, which would burden law-abiding Catholic gun owners (who have a right and duty to defend themselves and their families, a right recognized by the Church’s just war theory and natural law), are an exercise of a state that has officially separated itself from Christ’s law. They are an act of tyranny, imposing a particular secular morality under the guise of “public safety,” while the state itself is guilty of the greatest violence: the legalized murder of the unborn and the promotion of mortal sin.

3. The False “Catholic” Setting. The tragedy occurred in a building called a “Catholic church.” The Syllabus (Error 19) condemns the idea that “The Church is not a true and perfect society… but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church.” The post-conciliar “church” has accepted this error, submitting to the state in countless ways (e.g., accepting state funding for “Catholic” schools with strings attached, as condemned in Errors 45-47). The shooting is a metaphor for the violence done to the true Faith within these compromised structures. The article uses the term “Catholic” as a mere brand, devoid of its supernatural meaning, which requires communion with the true hierarchy and the profession of the integral faith. The true Catholic response to such an event would be penance, prayer, and reparation, not a political lobby for state power.

Symptomatic Analysis: The Conciliar Revolution’s Fruit

This article is a perfect microcosm of the post-conciliar apostasy.

1. The Hermeneutics of Continuity in Action. The article seamlessly blends the language of Catholic social concern (“All children have the right to live…”) with the rawest secular political activism. This is the “hermeneutics of continuity” in practice: using Catholic-sounding language (“rights,” “dignity,” “community”) to smuggle in Modernist, secularist, and socialist principles condemned by Pius IX and Pius X. It is a syncretism of Faith and Revolution.

2. The Cult of Man and the Rejection of God’s Law. The entire focus is on human security and human legislation. There is zero mention of God’s law, the Ten Commandments (especially the Fifth and the First), or the obligation of the state to recognize the Social Kingship of Christ. This is the “cult of man” condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas and the essence of Modernism, which Pius X defined as the substitution of a “vital immanence” (human experience) for divine revelation. The survivor’s trauma becomes a justification for a new legislative “commandment”: “Thou shalt not own certain firearms.” This is idolatry of the state.

3. The Democratization and Feminization of the Church’s Voice. The article elevates the emotional testimony of an eighth grader as a moral authority on public policy. In the pre-conciliar Church, the voice of authority on moral matters was the Magisterium, the bishops in union with the Roman Pontiff. The Modernist revolution has democratized and sentimentalized moral authority, making the raw, unfiltered “experience” of a victim the highest moral discourse. This is a direct attack on the hierarchical, doctrinal, and rational nature of the Church’s teaching authority, which is from God, not from man.

4. The “Catholic” Media as a Propaganda Arm. The article appears on “EWTN News,” a network that, while sometimes traditional in tone, fully recognizes the post-conciliar “popes” and “bishops.” It thus functions as a mouthpiece for the conciliar sect’s agenda, presenting a “Catholic” veneer for a fundamentally anti-Catholic political program. It uses the emotional power of a child’s suffering to promote a policy agenda that, in its practical effects, would disarm law-abiding Catholics while doing nothing to stop the violence perpetrated by those who ignore all laws—a point even the gun rights advocate in the article makes. The network’s participation in this narrative is a betrayal of the Faith.

Conclusion: The Only True Remedy

The Annunciation shooting is a terrible event. The article’s response is a spiritual catastrophe. It directs the faithful’s attention away from the only true source of peace—the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ—and toward the false idol of the omnipotent, gun-confiscating state. It uses a tragedy in a pseudo-Catholic setting to advance a program of state control that the Syllabus of Errors would condemn as an encroachment on the rights of the Church and the liberty of the individual (Errors 20, 24, 27, 50).

The genuine Catholic response, rooted in Quas Primas, is not to demand that “elected officials protect us from guns,” but to demand that elected officials protect us from sin by publicly recognizing the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ. It is to restore the Public Profession of the Catholic Faith as the foundation of law. It is to rebuild a society where the Mass is the central act of public worship, not a “school Mass” in a compromised building, and where the state’s primary function is to shield the people from heresy and blasphemy, not from inanimate objects.

Until the false “popes,” “bishops,” and “priests” of the conciliar sect repent and return to the immutable Faith—or are exposed as the manifest heretics they are, thereby losing all jurisdiction according to the doctrine of St. Robert Bellarmine (as cited in the Defense of Sedevacantism file)—there will be no true healing. The blood of the martyrs of the true Church, not the emotional appeals of survivors within the sect, will be the seed of the Church’s restoration. The only “common ground” is the rock of Peter, not the shifting sands of “mental health resources” and “school safety teams.”

[Antichurch] Gun Control as False Salvation: The Annunciation Shooting and the Rejection of Christ the King

The cited article from EWTN News reports on a press conference held on February 24, 2026, where an eighth-grade survivor of the August 2025 shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Lydia Kaiser, advocated for gun control legislation proposed by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Kaiser, who was shot in the head, stated, “elected officials have a duty to protect us from guns” and that “All children have the right to live free from gun violence in schools, churches, and in our communities.” Governor Walz announced a package of 11 gun restrictions, including bans on certain firearms and magazines, mandatory reporting of lost guns, and a tax on guns and ammunition, alongside increased mental health and school security funding. The article presents this narrative without critique of its foundational assumptions or its context within a “Catholic” institution that is, in fact, part of the post-conciliar sect.

The Shooting Occurred in a Conciliar Sect’s Assembly, Not a Catholic Church

The article’s entire framework—the right to safety in “churches,” the duty of “elected officials”—presupposes a naturalistic, secular order where the state is the primary guarantor of peace. This directly contradicts the social teaching of the pre-conciliar Church. Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas (1925), instituting the feast of Christ the King, explicitly refutes this premise:

“When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed… the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.”

The shooting is a direct fruit of this apostasy. The article, however, presents it as a random tragedy solvable by better laws, completely omitting the Syllabus of Errors condemnation of the separation of Church and State (Error 55) and the denial of the social reign of Christ. The true “duty” belongs to rulers to publicly honor Christ and govern according to His law (Quas Primas), not to enforce a secular “right” to safety through gun control.

The Language of Naturalism and Revolution

The article’s language is saturated with the vocabulary of modern, secular humanism and political activism, which is antithetical to Catholic tradition.

• “Right to live free from gun violence”: This is a fabricated “right” of the Enlightenment, not a Catholic concept. Catholic doctrine speaks of the right to life as a consequence of the Fifth Commandment and the natural law, but it does not posit a “right to be free from all violence” guaranteed by the state. Such a notion implies a state so pervasive it becomes totalitarian, a danger warned against by the Syllabus (Error 39: “The State… is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits”).
• “Elected officials have a duty to protect us”: This inverts the Catholic order. The primary duty of rulers is to recognize and promote the true religion and the reign of Christ (Quas Primas, Syllabus Errors 19-24 on the rights of the Church). “Protection” in the Catholic sense means protecting the people from sin and heresy, not from every physical danger through state coercion. The article’s language makes the state a false messiah.
• “Commonsense gun laws”: This is the mantra of the revolution. It appeals not to divine law or natural law as understood by the Church, but to a vague, shifting “common sense” that is the product of a society that has “removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from… public life” (Quas Primas).
• Tone of empathetic trauma coupled with political demand: The emotional appeal (“No one should have to go through what we went through”) is used as a cudgel to bypass rational and theological debate and demand immediate legislative action. This is the tactic of sentimentalism, condemned by Pope Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis as a characteristic of Modernists, who “show no care for the authority of the teaching Church.”

Theological Confrontation: The Reign of Christ vs. The Reign of Man

The article’s core error is its complete silence on the supernatural. It discusses a tragedy in a building called a “church” but never mentions God, Christ, the sacraments, sin, grace, or the final judgment. This silence is itself a damning indictment, fulfilling the Lamentabili sane exitu condemnation of those who treat religion as merely a “movement” or “consciousness” (Propositions 59-60).

1. The Source of Evil and the True Solution. The article locates the evil in the instrument (the gun) and the solution in the state (new laws). Catholic doctrine locates evil in sin, which is a disorder of the will, and its ultimate source in Satan. The solution is not gun control but the reign of Christ the King in souls and societies. Pius XI taught:

“If men were ever to recognize Christ’s royal authority over themselves, both privately and publicly, then unheard-of blessings would flow upon the whole society, such as due freedom, order, and tranquility, and concord and peace.”

The article advocates for “security resources” and “mental health support” (naturalistic, psychological solutions). The Church has always taught that true peace comes from the Sacrifice of the Mass and the sacramental life, not from therapy or police presence. The related article mentioned about Bishop Cozzens saying “God’s answer to evil is the cross” is a faint echo of this truth, but it is drowned out by the survivor’s and governor’s purely secular demands.

2. The Duty of Rulers. Governor Walz’s proposals are framed as a “duty to protect.” Catholic doctrine, as defined by Pius IX in the Syllabus (Error 40), rejects the notion that “The teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society.” The opposite is true: the well-being of society depends on the public recognition of the Catholic faith. Error 77 of the Syllabus condemns the idea that “it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State.” Walz’s proposals, which would burden law-abiding Catholic gun owners (who have a right and duty to defend themselves and their families, a right recognized by the Church’s just war theory and natural law), are an exercise of a state that has officially separated itself from Christ’s law. They are an act of tyranny, imposing a particular secular morality under the guise of “public safety,” while the state itself is guilty of the greatest violence: the legalized murder of the unborn and the promotion of mortal sin.

3. The False “Catholic” Setting. The tragedy occurred in a building called a “Catholic church.” The Syllabus (Error 19) condemns the idea that “The Church is not a true and perfect society… but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church.” The post-conciliar “church” has accepted this error, submitting to the state in countless ways (e.g., accepting state funding for “Catholic” schools with strings attached, as condemned in Errors 45-47). The shooting is a metaphor for the violence done to the true Faith within these compromised structures. The article uses the term “Catholic” as a mere brand, devoid of its supernatural meaning, which requires communion with the true hierarchy and the profession of the integral faith. The true Catholic response to such an event would be penance, prayer, and reparation, not a political lobby for state power.

Symptomatic Analysis: The Conciliar Revolution’s Fruit

This article is a perfect microcosm of the post-conciliar apostasy.

1. The Hermeneutics of Continuity in Action. The article seamlessly blends the language of Catholic social concern (“All children have the right to live…”) with the rawest secular political activism. This is the “hermeneutics of continuity” in practice: using Catholic-sounding language (“rights,” “dignity,” “community”) to smuggle in Modernist, secularist, and socialist principles condemned by Pius IX and Pius X. It is a syncretism of Faith and Revolution.

2. The Cult of Man and the Rejection of God’s Law. The entire focus is on human security and human legislation. There is zero mention of God’s law, the Ten Commandments (especially the Fifth and the First), or the obligation of the state to recognize the Social Kingship of Christ. This is the “cult of man” condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas and the essence of Modernism, which Pius X defined as the substitution of a “vital immanence” (human experience) for divine revelation. The survivor’s trauma becomes a justification for a new legislative “commandment”: “Thou shalt not own certain firearms.” This is idolatry of the state.

3. The Democratization and Feminization of the Church’s Voice. The article elevates the emotional testimony of an eighth grader as a moral authority on public policy. In the pre-conciliar Church, the voice of authority on moral matters was the Magisterium, the bishops in union with the Roman Pontiff. The Modernist revolution has democratized and sentimentalized moral authority, making the raw, unfiltered “experience” of a victim the highest moral discourse. This is a direct attack on the hierarchical, doctrinal, and rational nature of the Church’s teaching authority, which is from God, not from man.

4. The “Catholic” Media as a Propaganda Arm. The article appears on “EWTN News,” a network that, while sometimes traditional in tone, fully recognizes the post-conciliar “popes” and “bishops.” It thus functions as a mouthpiece for the conciliar sect’s agenda, presenting a “Catholic” veneer for a fundamentally anti-Catholic political program. It uses the emotional power of a child’s suffering to promote a policy agenda that, in its practical effects, would disarm law-abiding Catholics while doing nothing to stop the violence perpetrated by those who ignore all laws—a point even the gun rights advocate in the article makes. The network’s participation in this narrative is a betrayal of the Faith.

Conclusion: The Only True Remedy

The Annunciation shooting is a terrible event. The article’s response is a spiritual catastrophe. It directs the faithful’s attention away from the only true source of peace—the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ—and toward the false idol of the omnipotent, gun-confiscating state. It uses a tragedy in a pseudo-Catholic setting to advance a program of state control that the Syllabus of Errors would condemn as an encroachment on the rights of the Church and the liberty of the individual (Errors 20, 24, 27, 50).

The genuine Catholic response, rooted in Quas Primas, is not to demand that “elected officials protect us from guns,” but to demand that elected officials protect us from sin by publicly recognizing the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ. It is to restore the Public Profession of the Catholic Faith as the foundation of law. It is to rebuild a society where the Mass is the central act of public worship, not a “school Mass” in a compromised building, and where the state’s primary function is to shield the people from heresy and blasphemy, not from inanimate objects.

Until the false “popes,” “bishops,” and “priests” of the conciliar sect repent and return to the immutable Faith—or are exposed as the manifest heretics they are, thereby losing all jurisdiction according to the doctrine of St. Robert Bellarmine (as cited in the Defense of Sedevacantism file)—there will be no true healing. The blood of the martyrs of the true Church, not the emotional appeals of survivors within the sect, will be the seed of the Church’s restoration. The only “common ground” is the rock of Peter, not the shifting sands of “mental health resources” and “school safety teams.”

Source:
Eighth grader who survived Annunciation school shooting: ‘Protect us from guns’   (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 25.02.2026