Summary: EWTN News reports that “Bishop” Abdallah Elias Zaidan, head of the Maronite Eparchy of Los Angeles and chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, urged people to “pray for peace” amid the Middle East war, emphasizing interior peace and diplomatic solutions while expressing concern for civilians. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this plea is a prime example of the post-conciliar sect’s naturalistic humanism: it utterly omits the social kingship of Jesus Christ, reduces peace to a psychological and political commodity, and emanates from an invalid hierarchical structure. The article’s silence on the absolute necessity of Christ’s reign over nations, the supernatural means of grace, and the Masonic-modernist threats underlying global conflict exposes its complete theological and spiritual bankruptcy.
The Naturalistic “Peace” of the Conciliar Sect
The article centers on “Bishop” Zaidan’s statement:
“Peace has to start within the heart… If we don’t have peace within our hearts, we can never have peace outside. Starting within ourselves, let God’s presence move us and guide us so that we could really enjoy lasting peace, the peace that is a gift from God in every way.”
This formulation is a masterclass in Modernist equivocation. It acknowledges God as the source of peace but reduces that peace to a subjective, interior experience divorced from the objective, social order. There is no mention of peace as the tranquility of order (tranquillitas ordinis) which, according to Catholic doctrine, can only exist when human societies are ordered according to the law of Christ. Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas, explicitly links the peace of nations to the public recognition of Christ’s kingship:
“When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed, because the main reason why some have the right to command and others have the duty to obey was removed. For this reason, the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.”
Zaidan’s “peace” is the exact opposite: it is the peace of a world that has formally rejected Christ’s reign, a peace built on the shifting sands of human diplomacy and interior sentiment. This is the peace of the Antichrist, which Our Lord Himself declared He did not come to bring: “I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). The true peace of Christ is the peace of a world submitted to His sovereign law, a peace that necessarily involves conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Omission of Christ’s Social Kingship: A Denial of Catholic Doctrine
The most grave omission is the complete absence of any reference to the doctrine so solemnly defined and proclaimed in Quas Primas: that Jesus Christ is King not only of souls but of families, states, and all human associations. The encyclical states:
“His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ… It matters not whether individuals, families, or states, for men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.”
Zaidan, a supposed bishop, fails in his most fundamental duty to preach this doctrine. He echoes the calls of Maronite “Patriarch” Bechara Boutros al-Rahi for peace, but both men operate within the framework of the conciliar sect, which has systematically dismantled the Catholic doctrine of the Regnum Christi. The article’s entire narrative is one of political negotiation and humanitarian concern, with no hint that the war in Lebanon is ultimately a punishment for the nation’s rejection of the true Faith and a consequence of the absence of Christ’s law in public life. This silence is not neutrality; it is a positive denial of the Catholic Faith. As the Syllabus of Errors condemns (Error 40): “The teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society.” Zaidan’s peace, which avoids the “hostile” teaching of Christ’s kingship, is therefore a peace built on the very errors Pius IX anathematized.
Silence on the Masonic Threat and Religious Error
The article treats the conflict as a simple geopolitical dispute between “militias” and states. It notes Hezbollah’s Iranian backing and the Israeli retaliation, but it never once identifies the ideological and religious forces at stake. There is no condemnation of Islam as a false religion that denies the Incarnation and the Kingship of Christ. There is no exposure of the Masonic principle of secularism that underpins both the Israeli state’s rejection of the Social Reign of Christ and the Iranian theocracy’s perversion of religion. This is a direct echo of the Syllabus’s condemnation of indifferentism (Errors 15-18) and its warning about the “pests” of secret societies (IV). Pius IX’s encyclical Quanta Cura (attached to the Syllabus) explicitly identifies the Freemasons as the force behind the removal of Christ from public life:
“You see, therefore, that a bishop who is a hidden heretic still possesses the power of binding and loosing, whereas only from the time he begins to openly preach heresy does he lose episcopal jurisdiction… For if he who is not in the Church cannot have power in the Church, and a hidden heretic can have it, and indeed sometimes does have it, it clearly follows that a hidden heretic is not yet cut off from the body of the Church.”
Zaidan’s failure to name the enemies of Christ—whether in Tehran, Beirut, or Tel Aviv—is a failure of his office, an office he does not possess. His concern for “human life as sacred” is a natural law sentiment utterly emptied of its Catholic content, as it extends equally to the lives of infidels and heretics without any reference to the necessity of their conversion and submission to the Church. This is the “religious liberty” and “human dignity” of Vatican II, which is nothing but the heresy of indifferentism repackaged.
Invalid Authority of the Speaker: The Sedevacantist Reality
From the standpoint of unchanging Catholic doctrine, the entire premise of the article collapses because its primary source, “Bishop” Zaidan, holds no legitimate office. The theological principles outlined in the file on the Defense of Sedevacantism are clear and unassailable. A manifest heretic loses his office ipso facto. St. Robert Bellarmine 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.”
This extends to bishops. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 188.4) states: “Every office becomes vacant by the mere fact… if the cleric:… 4. Publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” The conciliar “hierarchy,” from “John XXIII” to the current usurper “Pope Leo XIV,” has publicly defected by embracing the errors of Vatican II: religious liberty, ecumenism, and the collegiality of bishops. “Bishop” Zaidan, as a member of the “USCCB” and a participant in the conciliar sect’s structures, is in formal schism. Therefore, his words have no magisterial weight, and his call to “pray for peace” is the voice of a stranger, not a shepherd (John 10:5). The article’s very act of quoting him as an authority is a deception perpetrated upon the readers of EWTN News.
The Supernatural Means Ignored: No Sacrifice, No Consecration
True Catholic peace is not achieved by vague interior dispositions or diplomatic talks. It is won through the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary, the propagation of the Social Reign of Christ, and the consecration of nations to the Sacred Heart. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, instituted the feast of Christ the King precisely as a remedy against the “secularism of our times.” He declared:
“The annual celebration of this solemnity will also remind states that not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him: for it will remind them of the final judgment, in which Christ… will very severely avenge these insults, because His royal dignity demands that all relations in the state be ordered on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles.”
Zaidan’s plea contains not a whisper of this. There is no call for the consecration of Lebanon or the Middle East to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. There is no demand that governments recognize Christ as King. There is no mention of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the true source of peace. Instead, we are offered a bland, ecumenical spirituality fit for the “Church of the New Advent.” This omission is the gravest accusation: it reveals a complete loss of the supernatural vision that defined the pre-1958 Church. The article promotes a religion of man, not the religion of the God-Man.
Conclusion: A Call to Return to Immutable Tradition
The EWTN News article is a symptom of the systemic apostasy. It presents a “bishop” from a false hierarchy preaching a peace that is antithetical to the Catholic Faith, all while ignoring the true enemies of Christ and the supernatural means of grace. It is a perfect distillation of the conciliar revolution’s goals: to reduce the Church to a humanitarian agency and to replace the Social Kingship of Christ with the tyranny of humanistic “dialogue.” Catholics must reject this empty rhetoric. They must return to the unchanging doctrine of Quas Primas and the Syllabus, recognize the sede vacante, and adhere to the true Church, which continues in those who profess the integral Faith and are shepherded by valid bishops who uphold the absolute and exclusive reign of Jesus Christ over all nations. The peace of Christ is not a wish; it is a law to be imposed by the legitimate authority of the Catholic Church. Until that day, all other peace is a prelude to the final, terrible peace of Antichrist.
Source:
Bishop Zaidan: ‘Pray for peace’ as Middle East war continues (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 11.03.2026