The EWTN News portal reports on an international student, Tzu Ping Liu, who will be baptized into the Catholic Church this Easter after connecting with a campus ministry, “Catholic Gators,” via a Facebook Marketplace post seeking friends. The article emphasizes Liu’s personal journey from Buddhism/Taoism, his attraction to the community and perceived logic of salvation history, and his emotional response to a Gospel reading on Jesus’ baptism. The narrative highlights the role of peer evangelization, the use of post-conciliar rites like the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA), and the involvement of a conciliar bishop, Erik T. Pohlmeier. The story concludes with reflections on God using any moment to spread the Gospel. This account, framed as a success story, is presented by a post-conciliar news outlet as a model of contemporary evangelization.
The Reduction of Salvation to Naturalistic Humanism
The article’s core narrative replaces the supernatural, sacramental, and ecclesiological foundations of Catholic conversion with a relativistic, experience-based, and logically coherent tale. The conversion is portrayed not as an entry into the one true Church, the sole ark of salvation, but as a personal choice influenced by social connection and intellectual appeal. This is the very essence of the Modernist error condemned by St. Pius X, which reduces religion to a “sentiment” or “experience” derived from “the innate strength of human reason” (Syllabus of Errors, Propositions 3, 4, 6). The focus on Liu’s shock at seeing “students praying very deeply” and his finding the biblical narrative “logical” compared to the “chaos” of polytheism elevates subjective religious feeling and rational coherence above the objective necessity of faith, grace, and sacramental incorporation. There is no mention of the absolute necessity of baptism for salvation (extra ecclesiam nulla salus), the indelible sacramental character, or the dogma that the Church is the una vera Ecclesia (Lamentabili, Prop. 52; Syllabus, Prop. 19). The story’s emotional climax—the Gospel reading “hitting him straight to my heart”—mirrors the Modernist principle that faith is ultimately based on “a sum of probabilities” and internal sentiment, not on the immutable authority of God revealing through His Church (Lamentabili, Prop. 25).
The Omission of Christ’s Social Kingship and the Church’s Perfect Society
The article is utterly silent on the doctrine of Christ the King as taught by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas. Pius XI explicitly taught that Christ’s reign “encompasses all men” and that “states… have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him,” with law and governance ordered on “the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles.” The conversion story is framed entirely within the private sphere of individual belief and campus fellowship. There is no reference to the duty of the state to recognize the Catholic religion as the sole religion of the state (Syllabus, Prop. 77), nor to the Church’s right to full freedom and independence from secular authority as a “perfect society” (Syllabus, Prop. 19; Quas Primas). The “Catholic Gators” group operates within the secular university framework, a direct contradiction of the Syllabus error that the Church should be “subordinated to secular power” (Prop. 20). The evangelization method accepts the secular premise of a pluralistic campus where multiple “religions” are merely different paths, a clear embrace of the indifferentism condemned by Pius IX (Syllabus, Props. 15-17).
The Invalid Sacramental Framework and the Conciliar Schism
The entire process described occurs within the conciliar sect’s structures. The “Mass” attended is, with overwhelming probability, the Novus Ordo Missae of Paul VI, a liturgical rite that, in its official Latin text, contains ambiguities and omissions that render it invalid for the sacrifice of the Mass according to the unchanging theology of the Holy Sacrifice. The use of the post-conciliar “OCIA” (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) is a direct replacement for the traditional RCIA, embodying the Modernist principle of “the organic structure of the Church… subject to continuous evolution” (Lamentabili, Prop. 53). The “Rite of Election” presided over by “Bishop Erik T. Pohlmeier” is a sacrilegious parody. According to the pre-1958 Magisterium, a bishop must possess the Catholic faith integrally to exercise jurisdiction. A bishop who accepts the errors of Vatican II (e.g., religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality) is a manifest heretic and, by the law of Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code, has ipso facto lost his office (Defense of Sedevacantism). Such a “bishop” cannot validly confirm or ordain, and his participation in sacraments is null. Therefore, any baptism or subsequent sacraments administered in this context are, at best, illicit and, given the compromised faith of the minister, likely invalid. The student’s entry is into a pseudo-Catholic community, not the Ecclesia Catholica.
The Modernist Hermeneutics of Evangelization
The evangelization method described is pure Modernism. Robert Manoogian states: “I just told him who Jesus was and then it was kind of planting that seed… God works through them.” This reflects the Lamentabilis condemnation of the proposition that “the Church listening cooperates… that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Prop. 6). It reduces the Church’s teaching authority to a mere reflection of popular opinion and divine action to an impersonal force working through any “source.” The article’s concluding quote—”God can use any source… to spread the Gospel”—is a direct echo of the condemned error that “the Church ought to tolerate the errors of philosophy, leaving it to correct itself” (Syllabus, Prop. 11) and the Modernist synthesis that truth evolves through “the experience of consciousness” (Pascendi Dominici Gregis). It ignores the Church’s exclusive, divinely instituted role as the “sole dispenser of salvation” (Quas Primas). The use of a “pamphlet” and personal Bible reading, without authoritative magisterial guidance, is the private judgment and “free examination” that St. Pius X anathematized (Lamentabili, Props. 1-8).
The Symptomatic Silence on Supernatural Realities
The gravest accusation is the complete absence of the supernatural. There is no mention of:
- The necessity of sanctifying grace and the state of justification.
- The sacrificial nature of the Mass as a propitiatory offering to the Most Holy Trinity.
- The reality of the mystical body of Christ and the horror of schism.
- The final judgment and the four last things (death, judgment, heaven, hell).
- The duty to convert one’s spouse and the indissolubility of marriage (the wife’s “shock” is treated as a personal hurdle, not a doctrinal imperative).
- The absolute primacy of God’s law over all human laws and the duty of Catholic states to enforce it (Quas Primas).
This silence is not accidental; it is the hallmark of the conciliar sect’s naturalistic religion. The faith is presented as a positive life-choice, a community, and a logical system—a “religion of humanity” condemned by Pius IX (Syllabus, Props. 58-60). The article’s language (“deeply praying,” “great friendship,” “logical story”) is the vocabulary of sociology and psychology, not of theology.
The False Ecumenism and Religious Indifferentism
Liu’s background in Buddhism and Taoism is presented not as a path to damnation from which he must be rescued by the unica Ecclesia, but as a different “story” that is “confusing” and “chaotic” compared to the “logical” Christian narrative. This implies a hierarchy of religions based on coherence, not truth. It is a subtle form of indifferentism. The article states he “had never been introduced to Christianity before,” ignoring the Church’s constant teaching that non-Catholic religions are “without hope in themselves” and that the duty of the Church is to evangelize all nations with urgency (Quas Primas; Syllabus, Prop. 16). The post-conciliar “Church” has replaced the mandate to convert with the mandate to “dialogue,” as seen in the student’s later sharing with other Mandarin speakers—a dialogue that presumes equality of religious paths, a direct violation of Pius IX’s condemnation that “it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship… conduce more easily to corrupt the morals” (Syllabus, Prop. 79).
Conclusion: A Conversion to a Counterfeit Church
The conversion described is not a cause for rejoicing but a tragic illustration of the post-conciliar apostasy. Tzu Ping Liu is not entering the Catholic Church founded by Christ. He is being initiated into the “conciliar sect,” a paramasonic structure that has exchanged the immutable faith for the “synthesis of all errors,” Modernism (Lamentabili). The rites are invalid, the ministers are heretics, the theology is naturalistic, and the goal is a personal, subjective peace, not the submission of all things to Christ the King. The true Catholic Church, which endures in those who hold the integral faith and are led by bishops in communion with the pre-1958 Magisterium, cannot and will not recognize this event as a legitimate baptism or incorporation. This story is a potent symbol of the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place: a pseudo-Catholic institution using social media to propagate a religion of feeling and logic, while omitting the stern, absolute, and supernatural truths of the faith once delivered to the saints.
Source:
International student to enter Catholic Church this Easter thanks to Facebook Marketplace (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 08.03.2026