The Catholic Association of Propagandists (ACdP), a private association of lay faithful in Spain, has announced the launch of a canonization cause for its founder, Jesuit Father Ángel Ayala (1867–1960), on February 20, 2026. The article, published by EWTN News, portrays Ayala as a humble ascetic and apostle who prioritized the formation of lay “select minorities” to evangelize public life and social structures. It emphasizes his focus on spiritual primacy, leadership formation, and boldness in the face of secularism, linking his legacy to the ACdP’s contemporary work in education and cultural initiatives. The postulator expresses confidence that the cause will “proceed relatively quickly” due to extensive preparatory documentation.
The Jesuit Context: A Historical Vector for Modernism
The very choice of a Jesuit founder is profoundly problematic. The Society of Jesus, after its restoration in 1814, became a primary vehicle for the infiltration of Modernism, which St. Pius X condemned as the “synthesis of all heresies” in Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907). The Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), issued by the Holy Office under St. Pius X, explicitly condemns propositions central to Modernist thought, such as the evolution of dogma (propositions 53, 54) and the subordination of Church authority to historical criticism (propositions 1-8). Many Jesuits of the early 20th century were notorious for promoting these errors. While the article attempts to sanitize Ayala’s legacy, the Jesuit context itself is a red flag indicating an environment prone to theological compromise. The post-conciliar church’s promotion of a Jesuit’s canonization cause is a deliberate rehabilitation of an order historically associated with doctrinal laxity and, in the current apostate hierarchy, outright heresy.
“Select Minorities” and Lay Leadership: A Rejection of Catholic Hierarchy
The article highlights Ayala’s emphasis on forming lay “select minorities” to lead evangelization in public life. This terminology and strategy, while presented as anti-elitist, fundamentally contradicts the Catholic Church’s hierarchical and supernatural constitution. The Syllabus of Errors (1864) condemns in no uncertain terms the errors that underpin such an approach:
- Error 19: “The Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free… but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church…” This error denies the Church’s intrinsic, divinely granted autonomy.
- Error 20: “The ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government.” This subordinates the Church to the State, contrary to her divine mandate.
- Error 54: “The Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics, because it steadfastly adheres to its views, which cannot be reconciled with modern progress.” This directly attacks the Church’s immutable moral teaching.
The ACdP’s model, as described, shifts the focus from the hierarchical, sacramental mission of the clergy to the secularized activism of the laity. It promotes a democratized Church where “leaders” are formed for “public life” rather than for the salvation of souls through the sacraments and doctrinal integrity. This is a clear manifestation of the Modernist error condemned by St. Pius X: the idea that the Church must evolve and adapt her structures to “the needs of the times” (Lamentabili, propositions 53, 54). The article’s omission of any discussion on the supernatural end of man, the necessity of the sacraments for salvation, or the subordinate role of the laity to the hierarchy is symptomatic of a naturalistic, human-centered religion utterly foreign to Catholicism.
The Invalidity of the Canonization Process
Any canonization process conducted under the authority of the post-conciliar hierarchy is null and void. The current occupant of the Vatican, “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), and his predecessors since John XXIII, are manifest heretics who have ipso facto lost all ecclesiastical office. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches in De Romano Pontifice, cited in the file on the Defense of Sedevacantism: “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 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 188.4) confirms that a cleric who “publicly defects from the Catholic faith” automatically loses any ecclesiastical office. The conciliar sect, by embracing the errors of Vatican II (especially Dignitatis Humanae on religious liberty and Nostra Aetate on non-Christian religions), has publicly defected from the Catholic faith. Therefore, the “canonization” processes they authorize are simulated acts with no validity in the true Church. The ACdP’s cause for Ayala is not a step toward sainthood but a liturgical and canonical fraud perpetrated by an apostate structure.
Naturalism and the Omission of the Supernatural Kingdom
The article’s language is steeped in naturalistic humanism. It speaks of “evangelization of public life,” “ordering of social structures,” and forming “leaders” for “all areas of public life.” While these phrases may sound Catholic, they are stripped of the essential supernatural framework that defines the Church’s mission. Pope Pius XI, in the pre-Modernist encyclical Quas Primas (1925), on the Feast of Christ the King, defines the Church’s mission in starkly supernatural terms:
“This kingdom is primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters… for His kingdom, as the Gospels present it, is such that men who wish to belong to it prepare themselves through repentance, but cannot enter except through faith and baptism… this kingdom is opposed only to the kingdom of Satan and the powers of darkness.”
The ACdP’s program, as described, reduces the “kingdom of God” to social and cultural influence, a secularized imitation of Catholic action. There is no mention of the necessity of grace, the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass, the sacrament of Penance, or the ultimate goal of eternal life. This omission is not accidental; it is the hallmark of Modernism, which seeks to transform the Church from a supernatural society into a naturalistic promoter of human progress. The article’s silence on the Social Kingship of Christ as defined by Pius XI—where “all power in heaven and on earth is given to Christ the Lord” and “there is no power in us that is exempt from this reign”—exposes its fundamental incompatibility with integral Catholicism.
Symptomatic Silence on the Apostasy
The article operates within a complete vacuum regarding the catastrophic state of the Church. It presents the ACdP and its founder as if the post-1958 revolution never occurred. There is no acknowledgment of:
- The destruction of the Holy Mass and sacraments by the conciliar sect.
- The universal apostasy of the hierarchy, who teach heresy on faith, morals, and ecclesiology.
- The nullity of all post-1958 canonizations, which are acts of the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place.
- The absolute necessity of the sedevacantist position, given the manifest heresy of the antipopes.
This silence is not neutrality; it is complicity. It lulls readers into accepting the conciliar sect’s narrative of normalcy. St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici gregis, warned that Modernists “are to be carefully watched, lest they should be able to disseminate their errors under the pretext of defending the Church.” The ACdP’s cause, promoted by the same structures that have dismantled Catholic doctrine, is precisely such a dissemination—a Trojan Horse for Modernist ideas under the guise of traditional Catholic activism.
The Jesuit’s Likely Modernist Alignment
While the article paints Ayala as a paragon of orthodoxy, his Jesuit affiliation and the timeline of his life (dying in 1960, amidst the pre-conciliar Modernist infiltration) demand scrutiny. The ACdP’s emphasis on “boldness” in “public life” and its adaptation to “emerging fields of evangelization” (like social media) mirrors the Modernist strategy of engaging the world on its own terms, abandoning the Church’s exclusive supernatural mission. The Lamentabili condemns the notion that “the Church ought to tolerate the errors of philosophy, leaving it to correct itself” (proposition 11) and that “the method and principles by which the old scholastic doctors cultivated theology are no longer suitable” (proposition 13). The ACdP’s model, with its focus on “select minorities” and cultural engagement, implicitly rejects the Scholastic-Thomistic synthesis and the hierarchical, dogmatic Church in favor of a relativized, dialogical approach to the world. The postulator’s claim that Ayala would today be “on the front lines of evangelization in the digital world” is a glaring anachronism that projects post-conciliar, aggiornamento-style activism onto a supposed pre-conciliar figure, thereby legitimizing the conciliar sect’s own agenda.
Conclusion: A Cause of the Apostate Sect
The launch of this canonization cause is not a sign of Catholic vitality but a symptom of the conciliar sect’s apostasy. It seeks to sanctify a Jesuit-associated, lay-focused model of “apostolate” that aligns with the Modernist errors condemned by St. Pius X and the Syllabus. It operates within the invalid, heretical framework of the post-1958 “church,” whose “canonizations” are null. The true Catholic Church, in exile, recognizes no such causes. The faithful must reject this and all similar initiatives from the conciliar sect, and instead adhere to the unchanging faith of pre-1958 Catholicism, where the Social Kingship of Christ, as defined by Pius XI, demands the complete subordination of all human societies to the law of God, not their transformation through naturalistic “evangelization.” The ACdP’s founder, whatever his personal virtues, is being used as a symbol of the new, demythologized, activist religion that has replaced Catholicism. This cause is an act of idolatry—the worship of human achievement over divine grace—and must be utterly repudiated.
Source:
Spanish apostolate launches cause for canonization of its founder, Father Ángel Ayala (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 18.02.2026