The Illusion of Catholic Heroism in a Post-Conciliar Context
The cited article from EWTN News reports the tragic drowning of two priests, Father Alfonso Avilés Pérez and Father Pedro Anzoátegui, who died attempting to rescue two altar servers during a Lenten retreat in Ecuador on March 13, 2026. It presents their actions as the ultimate expression of Christian charity, quoting the Gospel of John (15:13): “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The narrative is saturated with naturalistic humanism, focusing on emotional responses, secular accolades, and the priests’ personal qualities—their “flame,” their “legacy of faith, closeness, and love”—while utterly omitting the supernatural framework of the Catholic faith. This omission is not benign; it is the definitive mark of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. The article, emanating from a prominent post-conciliar news outlet, exposes the complete theological and spiritual bankruptcy of the conciliar sect’s understanding of sacrifice, priesthood, and salvation.
1. A Naturalistic Religion of “Love” and “Heroism”
The article’s core error is its reduction of the priests’ sacrifice to a merely natural, heroic act, devoid of the supernatural motives and ends that define true Catholic virtue. Bishop Cristóbal Kudławiec of Daule states: “Without love for God and neighbor, life has no meaning.” This is a tautological and empty phrase, as it defines “love” without reference to grace, the sacraments, or the supreme law of the salvation of souls. It echoes the naturalistic ethics condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors:
58. All the rectitude and excellence of morality ought to be placed in the accumulation and increase of riches by every possible means, and the gratification of pleasure.
59. Right consists in the material fact. All human duties are an empty word…
60. Authority is nothing else but numbers and the sum total of material forces.
The article’s language—speaking of the priests’ “flame,” their being “heroes, warriors,” and their “law of love”—places the ultimate value on human effort, sentiment, and earthly recognition (e.g., awards from the town of Samborondón, the presence of the First Lady). This is the precise “cult of man” denounced by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis and Lamentabili sane exitu. The true Catholic perspective, as taught by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, is that all authority, law, and love must be ordered to the supernatural end: “His reign encompasses all human nature… there is no power in us that is exempt from this reign. It is therefore necessary that Christ reign in the mind of man… in the will… in the heart… in the body.” The article’s silence on Christ’s reign, on the Mass as the unbloody sacrifice, on the state of grace, and on the eternal destiny of the souls involved, is a damning indictment of its conciliar, naturalistic worldview.
2. The Omission of the Supernatural: The Gravest Accusation
Nowhere does the article mention that these priests offered the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that morning, that they were in a state of sanctifying grace, or that their act was a meritorious act of charity ordered to the beatific vision. The theological concept of redemptive suffering—uniting one’s trials to the sacrifice of Calvary—is absent. Instead, the focus is on the psychological impact (“we are all reeling from this shock”) and the human example (“his homilies were spectacular”). This is the systematic silencing of the supernatural that characterizes the post-conciliar church. As St. Pius X taught in Lamentabili sane exitu, Proposition 25: “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities.” The article operates entirely on this probabilistic, human level. It presents a moving story but one that could just as well be told about two heroic firefighters. The absence of any reference to the sacraments, the Church as the Mystical Body, or the final judgment reveals that the authors and the clerics they quote are operating within the “broad and liberal Protestantism” condemned by Pius X (Proposition 65 of Lamentabili).
3. False Clerical Figures in a Schismatic Structure
The article treats “Father Avilés,” “Father Anzoátegui,” “Cardinal Cabrera,” and “Bishop Kudławiec” as legitimate Catholic clergy. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this is a fundamental and deadly error. The orders of priests ordained after the imposition of the invalid 1969 Missale Romanum and under the new sacramental theology of the post-conciliar “Church” are highly doubtful at best, and certainly null if the ordaining bishop lacked proper intention (which is the case in the conciliar sect’s changed sacramental theology). Father Avilés was ordained in 1990; Father Anzoátegui in 2010. Both were ordained in the Novus Ordo context, which, as sedevacantist theology demonstrates based on the principles of ex opere operato and the necessity of proper form and intention, cannot confect valid Holy Orders. They are, therefore, not priests but laymen wearing clerical attire.
Furthermore, “Cardinal” Luis Cabrera and “Bishop” Cristóbal Kudławiec are members of the conciliar sect. They owe their positions to the usurpers beginning with “Pope” John XXIII. Their authority is null and void, as proven by Pope Paul IV’s bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, which declares all promotions of heretics “null, void, and of no effect.” The modernists have explicitly embraced the errors condemned in the Syllabus, such as:
19. 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…
55. The Roman Church became the head of all Churches due to purely political causes…
80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.
The statement by “Bishop” Kudławiec that “God makes no mistakes, and his will is holy” is a blasphemous trivialization of divine Providence when applied to the current apostasy. It ignores the Syllabus’s condemnation of the error that “the civil authority may interfere in matters relating to religion, morality and spiritual government” (Proposition 44). The true Catholic response to such tragedies, offered by a legitimate bishop, would have been to exhort the faithful to pray for the souls of the deceased, to offer the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary for them, and to use the event as a memento mori to reform their lives in accordance with the immutable laws of God. Instead, we get a sermon of vague, humanistic comfort.
4. The Distortion of Sacrifice and Martyrdom
The article implicitly suggests these deaths constitute a form of martyrdom or supreme witness. Carlos Polo is quoted saying Avilés “died living his law — the law of love.” This is a profound distortion. True Catholic martyrdom requires death suffered in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith), either explicitly from persecutors or implicitly from a cause directly connected to the Faith (e.g., defending the Church’s rights). These priests died in a natural accident while performing a charitable act. While their act was morally heroic and may have been meritorious if they were in a state of grace, it does not constitute the witness of martyrdom which configures one to Christ in a unique way and carries the promise of immediate entrance into heaven. The article’s conflation of natural heroism with supernatural martyrdom is typical of the post-conciliar reduction of the Faith to mere ethics and sentiment.
Furthermore, the article’s focus on the saved altar boys—all “physically well, out of danger”—frames the event as a success story of human intervention. The true Catholic perspective, as seen in the encyclical Quas Primas, is that all temporal affairs must be ordered to the eternal salvation of souls. The primary concern should have been: Were these boys in the state of grace? Were they properly disposed to receive the sacraments? Have they been taught that their ultimate good is not physical safety but the salvation of their immortal souls? The silence on these questions is deafening. It reveals a church that has exchanged the redemption of souls for social work and human dignity projects, exactly as condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (Propositions 40, 57).
5. The “Lenten Retreat” in a Post-Conciliar Abyss
The event was a “Lenten retreat for altar servers.” In the pre-1958 Church, such a retreat would have been a serious spiritual exercise focused on the mortification of sin, the meditation on the Passion, and preparation for the Easter sacraments. The article provides no indication of this. The “retreat” appears to have been a recreational outing that tragically turned dangerous. This mirrors the general decay of Catholic life: the sacred season of Lent, a time of penance, is reduced to a context for a beach outing. The altar servers themselves are mentioned only as victims to be rescued, not as souls to be formed in the fear of God and the love of the sacred. The entire episode is a microcosm of the conciliar church’s priorities: external piety (the sea, the retreat) without internal conversion; humanitarian concern without supernatural vision; emotional experience without doctrinal content.
Conclusion: A Tale of Two Kingdoms
The deaths of Fathers Avilés and Anzoátegui are a human tragedy. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, they are also a stark illustration of the spiritual chaos within the structures occupying the Vatican. The priests, likely ordained with doubtful or null rites, served in dioceses headed by modernists who reject the social reign of Christ the King as defined by Pius XI. Their sacrifice, while naturally admirable, is presented in a framework that explicitly excludes the dogmas of the Faith, the hierarchy of the true Church, and the supernatural end of man. The article thus performs a diabolical function: it uses a genuinely sorrowful event to reinforce the very naturalism and humanism that are the essence of Modernism, the “synthesis of all heresies” condemned by St. Pius X.
The true Catholic response is not to celebrate a “heroic” act stripped of its supernatural context, but to weep for the loss of Faith that makes such a presentation possible. We must pray for the souls of the deceased, that they may have had time and grace to convert and die in the true Faith. We must also denounce the conciliar sect that has replaced the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with a memorial meal, the kingdom of Christ with human rights dialogues, and the martyrdom for the Faith with stories of naturalistic altruism. The only “law” is the Divine Law; the only “love” is caritas, the theological virtue infused by God; the only “heroism” is that of the saints who “loved not their lives unto the death” for the Faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).
TAGS: Modernism, Naturalism, Sacrifice, Priesthood, Ecuador, Alfonso Avilés Pérez, Pedro Anzoátegui, Luis Cabrera, Christ the King, Syllabus of Errors
Source:
2 priests save 2 altar boys from drowning in sea but die in the effort (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 16.03.2026