[Source: CNA/NC Register, March 7, 2026] reports on the safe return of 18 seniors and two faculty from The Heights School in Potomac, Maryland, after their layover in Abu Dhabi turned into a multi-day evacuation amid Middle East hostilities. The article emphasizes the teachers’ calm leadership, the boys’ prayers (especially the Rosary), and the “overwhelming feeling of comfort” from widespread prayers. Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente thanked the UAE government and U.S. authorities. The school, affiliated with Opus Dei, is described as teaching “with a Christian spirit and in accord with the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
**This narrative reduces Catholic identity to a sentimental, naturalistic humanism that utterly omits the supernatural goals of the true Faith, revealing the apostate core of post-conciliar “Catholic” education.**
The “Catholic” School That Forgot Christ is King
The article presents a seemingly edifying story of crisis averted through prayer and competent leadership. Yet, from the perspective of integral Catholic theology—the immutable faith before the revolution of Vatican II—every element of this narrative is a symptom of the *abomination of desolation* standing in the holy place. The focus is not on the salvation of souls or the public worship of Christ the King, but on psychological comfort, physical safety, and the efficient management of a logistical problem by “pros.” This is the religion of man, not of God.
1. The Factual Level: A “Catholic” School Under Usurpers
The Heights School claims to operate “in accord with the teachings of the Catholic Church” and receives chaplains from the personal prelature of Opus Dei. This is a fundamental deception. The Church Christ founded is a perfect society with immutable doctrine and a visible, legitimate hierarchy. Since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, the See of Rome has been occupied by a series of modernist antipopes, beginning with Angelo Roncalli (“John XXIII”), who promulgated the heretical documents of Vatican II. Any institution in communion with these usurpers—including the conciliar “personal prelature” of Opus Dei—is part of the *neo-church*, the *paramasonic structure* occupying the Vatican. Thus, The Heights School is not a Catholic school in any canonical or theological sense. Its “Catholic doctrine” classes are based on the post-conciliar, evolutionist, and syncretist “Catechism of the Catholic Church” and other modernized texts that contradict the *Tridentine Catechism* and the *sensus catholicus*.
The teachers, Justin Myers and Dan Sushinsky, are presented as heroes. But if they are priests or religious formed in the post-conciliar system, they are agents of the apostasy, having likely received Holy Orders from bishops who are themselves in formal schism or heresy (as sedevacantist theology, following St. Robert Bellarmine, holds that a manifest heretic cannot be a valid bishop or pope). Their “calm” and “professionalism” in a crisis is the calm of naturalists, not of Catholic priests whose first duty is to secure the sacraments and ensure the salvation of their charges. There is no mention of them celebrating the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, hearing confessions, or administering last rites. Their “prayer” is a communal, psychological activity, not the liturgical, sacramental prayer of the Catholic Church.
2. The Linguistic Level: The Tone of Naturalistic Humanism
The language of the article is saturated with the vocabulary of contemporary secular humanism, repackaged as “Catholic” virtue.
- “Men fully alive”: This motto, borrowed from the personalist philosophy of the conciliar and post-conciliar period (echoing themes in Gaudium et Spes), is a direct contradiction of Catholic asceticism. The Catholic man is called to be homo mortuus (a dead man to the world) through mortification and penance, not “fully alive” in a naturalistic, self-actualizing sense. The article quotes a student praising Headmaster de Vicente as the “epitome” of this motto—a clear sign of the school’s modernist orientation.
- “Incredible,” “amazing,” “overwhelming feeling of comfort”: These emotional, subjective descriptors replace the objective language of faith, grace, and divine providence. The mother’s “image of Jesus wrapping his arms around the boys” is a private, sentimental revelation, not a doctrine of the Faith. Catholic consolation comes through the sacraments and the certainty of God’s will, not through subjective feelings or visions.
- “Real pros,” “in control,” “confidence they emanated”: The teachers are evaluated by the standards of secular crisis management and emotional intelligence, not by their ability to act as in persona Christi. This is the language of a corporate retreat, not a Catholic school in extremis.
- The omission of any theological vocabulary: No mention of sin, judgment, hell, grace, the state of grace, the redemptive value of suffering, or the ultimate end of man (the Beatific Vision). The crisis is framed purely in terms of physical danger and emotional distress. This silence is the gravest accusation; it proves the article’s authors and subjects operate within a naturalistic, de-supernaturalized worldview.
3. The Theological Level: A Complete Omission of the Kingship of Christ
The most damning evidence of apostasy is what the article completely ignores. In the face of international conflict—a clear manifestation of the nations rebelling against the reign of Christ the King—there is not a single word about the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a direct violation of the dogmatic teaching of Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quas Primas (1925), which established the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism and laicism that had infiltrated society and even Catholic thought.
Pius XI taught: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed… the entire human society had to be shaken.” The article describes students stranded in a Muslim country due to a war involving a “Christian” nation (the U.S.), yet there is no call for the public recognition of Christ’s Kingship over these nations. There is no condemnation of the secular, godless policies of the U.S. or Israeli governments that provoke such conflicts. There is no mention that true peace can only come from the public obedience of states to the law of Christ. Instead, gratitude is expressed to the “United Arab Emirates government” (a regime that practices and promotes a false religion, Islam) and to the “U.S. government” (a secular power that has institutional
Source:
Maryland High-School Seniors Arrive Home Safely After Being Stuck in Middle East During Hostilities (ncregister.com)
Date: 07.03.2026