The EWTN News/ACI Prensa report from March 26, 2026, details the dismissal of a criminal investigation into Father José Eduardo de Oliveira e Silva, a priest from Osasco, Brazil, who was suspected in the 2022 attempted coup against President-elect Lula da Silva. The Supreme Federal Court closed the case after the Prosecutor General declined to file charges. The priest’s defense attorney, Miguel Vidigal, stated that the priest’s visits to Brasília were solely for “spiritual care and guidance,” and criticized media accusations as “unfounded and slanderous.” The article frames the issue as one of legal procedure and religious freedom, citing the Brazil-Holy See Agreement.
This superficial reporting, which treats the matter as a mere legal controversy, reveals a profound and damning omission: the complete absence of any reference to the non-negotiable Catholic doctrine concerning the duty of the state and the clergy. The article’s underlying assumption is that a priest can neutrally provide “spiritual care” within a secular, modernist framework that explicitly rejects the Social Kingship of Christ. This is the very apostasy condemned by pre-conciliar magisterial teaching.
The Naturalistic Blindness of the Report
The article operates entirely within the sphere of natural law and civil procedure, ignoring the supernatural order. It quotes the defense’s claim that the priest acted “strictly fulfilled what is expected of a Catholic priest: spiritual care and guidance.” This phrase is a quintessential product of the post-conciliar “hermeneutic of continuity,” which empties Catholic identity of its dogmatic and social content. What is “expected” of a true Catholic priest? Not the vague, psychological “spiritual care” of the conciliar sect, but the explicit proclamation of Jesus Christ as King of individuals, families, and nations.
Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas, promulgated in 1925, is unequivocal: “Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ, but let them fulfill this duty themselves and with their people, if they wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness.” The encyclical continues, condemning the secularism that “began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” A priest who advises state officials without demanding the alignment of all laws with the “divine commandments and Christian principles,” as Quas Primas requires, is not performing Catholic spiritual care; he is abetting apostasy. The article’s silence on this fundamental duty is a silent endorsement of the modernist error that the Church’s mission is confined to the private sphere.
The “Brazil-Holy See Agreement”: A Covenant with Apostasy
The defense attorney’s appeal to the “Brazil-Holy See Agreement (Federal Decree No. 7.107/2010)” is particularly revealing. This agreement is a fruit of the conciliar doctrine of “religious liberty,” which Pope Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus of Errors. Error #15 states: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” This is the foundation of the secular state that guarantees “religious freedoms” for all sects, including the true Catholic religion and false ones, thereby placing them on an equal footing. The agreement is thus a formal recognition of the modernist, indifferentist principle that the state must be neutral regarding truth—a direct repudiation of the Catholic doctrine that the state has the duty to profess the Catholic faith as the sole religion of the state (cf. Syllabus, Error #77, which condemns the notion that “it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State”).
By invoking this agreement, the priest’s defense implicitly accepts the conciliar sect’s pseudo-diplomacy with a Masonic-style secular state. The true Catholic position, taught by Leo XIII in Immortale Dei and Pius XI in Quas Primas, is that the state must recognize the Catholic Church as the sole guide of souls and the foundation of public order. The article’s neutral citation of this agreement, without a single word of critique, demonstrates its complete assimilation into the modernist paradigm.
The Omission of the Priest’s Ecclesiological Stance
The article provides no information on Father Silva’s stance regarding the post-conciliar “church.” Does he recognize the antipopes from John XXIII onward? Does he accept the heretical Vatican II documents, especially Dignitatis Humanae on religious liberty and Nostra Aetate on non-Christian religions? His participation in the “Brazil-Holy See Agreement” strongly suggests he acknowledges the authority of the conciliar “popes” and their modernist hierarchy. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this makes him a member of the “conciliar sect,” not the Catholic Church.
The sedevacantist theological position, based on St. Robert Bellarmine and Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code, holds that a manifest heretic loses all jurisdiction ipso facto. The current occupier of the Vatican, “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), and his predecessors since John XXIII, have promulgated doctrines condemned by Pius IX and Pius X. Their public adherence to religious liberty, ecumenism, and the evolution of dogma constitutes manifest heresy. Therefore, the “Holy See” with which Brazil has an agreement is a vacant see occupied by heretical antipopes. Any priest in “communion” with this structure is in formal schism and apostasy. The article’s failure to even raise this question is a fatal flaw, treating the priest as a legitimate Catholic cleric when, in fact, he is a functionary of the “abomination of desolation” (cf. St. Pius X’s Pascendi).
The “Spiritual Care” of the Conciliar Sect: Idolatry in Disguise
The defense’s description of the priest’s activity as “spiritual care and guidance” is a euphemism for the administration of the post-conciliar “sacraments.” The Novus Ordo Missae, promulgated by Paul VI in 1969, is a “ Lutheran-style supper” (as noted by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci) that lacks the essential Catholic elements of propitiatory sacrifice and Real Presence. The “spiritual care” provided by such priests leads souls to idolatry, not salvation. Pius XII, in Mediator Dei (1947), taught that the liturgy must reflect sound doctrine; the Novus Ordo explicitly contradicts the Catholic theology of sacrifice, priesthood, and the Real Presence.
Furthermore, the “guidance” offered would necessarily be based on the moral errors of the post-conciliar magisterium. The conciliar church’s acceptance of the “dignity of the human person” as a foundation for moral theology (cf. Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes) is a return to the naturalism condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (Errors #56-64). A priest guiding souls according to this anthropocentric “morality” is not a minister of Christ but a promoter of the “cult of man” denounced by Pius XII.
The Symptom: Clerical Collaboration with the Anti-Kingdom
This case is a perfect symptom of the systemic apostasy of the post-conciliar church. The priest was investigated for allegedly advising on “decrees intended to serve alleged coup-related interests.” Even if the legal charge is dismissed, the underlying activity—a priest engaging with the civil power on matters of state—is only legitimate if done in the name of Christ the King, as Pius XI commanded in Quas Primas. The article’s framing suggests the priest’s crime was merely political incorrectness or conspiracy, not the far graver sin of failing to proclaim the exclusive rights of Christ over the Brazilian republic.
The true “coup” is not the attempted political overthrow of 2022, but the ongoing, successful coup of Modernism against the Catholic Church, initiated at Vatican II. This priest, by operating within the conciliar structures and acknowledging the false “Holy See,” is an active participant in that coup. His “spiritual care” is the spiritual coup—the substitution of the Catholic Faith with the modernist synthesis of all heresies, as St. Pius X defined it in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907).
Conclusion: The Irrelevance of Legal Dismissal
The Supreme Federal Court’s dismissal of the case is a civil matter of no consequence to Catholic theology. The priest remains gravely culpable before God. His participation in the “Brazil-Holy See Agreement” is a public act of schism and apostasy. His provision of “spiritual care” using the invalid Novus Ordo rite and modernist moral guidance is a sacrilegious betrayal of souls. The article’s failure to condemn this, and its neutral presentation of the facts, makes it complicit in whitewashing the apostasy. The only legitimate response of a Catholic is to reject this priest, the conciliar sect he serves, and the secular state he advised, unless and until they publicly abjure all errors condemned by Pius IX, Pius X, and the pre-1958 magisterium, and recognize the true, immovable authority of Christ the King over all human societies.
The dismissal of the investigation is not an exoneration; it is a further proof of the collusion between the “deep state” of Brazil and the “deep church” of the conciliar sect, both of which conspire to keep Christ outside the public square. The faithful are called not to celebrate legal technicalities, but to heed the immutable teaching of Quas Primas: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” Father Silva’s actions, even if legally innocent, contributed to this destruction. His “spiritual care” is the care of the Anti-Christ.
Source:
Case Against Priest for Alleged Role in Attempted Coup D’état in Brazil Dismissed (ncregister.com)
Date: 26.03.2026