The EWTN News article of March 27, 2026, reports on the impending visit of the antipope “Pope” Leo XIV to Monaco, focusing on his scheduled stop at the Chapel of St. Dévote. It presents the legend of this 3rd-century martyr as a foundation for Monegasque national identity and Catholic life, highlighting traditions like the burning of a boat and the royal bride’s bouquet offering. The piece frames these practices as expressions of “deep devotion to the faith” and “shaping national life.” This narrative, however, is a textbook case of the post-conciliar sect’s replacement of supernatural Catholic doctrine with naturalistic, nationalist folklore—a sacrilegious syncretism that betrays the integral Catholic faith.
Naturalistic Nationalism Masquerading as Catholicism
The article celebrates how St. Dévote’s legend has “shaped national life in Monaco including its literature, arts, music, coins, and stamps.” This is a direct echo of the condemned error of national churches and the subordination of the supernatural to the secular. The Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX (1864) explicitly condemns the notion that “national churches, withdrawn from the authority of the Roman pontiff and altogether separated, can be established” (Error 37). Furthermore, Error 77 states: “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.” The article’s emphasis on Monaco’s “national traditions” and the saint as a “patron of the ruling Grimaldi family” reduces the universal, hierarchical Catholic faith to a tribal, cultural artifact. This is the naturalism condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu, which denounces the evolution of dogma into “modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness” (Proposition 54). The faith is not a national heritage but a supernatural deposit to be believed and practiced identically everywhere, under the exclusive reign of Christ the King.
The Ritualization of Superstition and the Omission of the Supernatural
The description of the “burning of the boat” ritual is presented as a pious custom: “The crowd prays, sings, and watches the boat burn, which serves as a reminder of the boat that once carried the martyr to safety.” This is sheer superstition, a material sign stripped of its supernatural meaning and reduced to sentimental folklore. The article is utterly silent on the state of grace, the necessity of the sacraments for salvation, or the final judgment. This silence is the gravest accusation. As Pope Pius XI taught in Quas Primas, the Kingdom of Christ is “primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters” and enters man “through faith and baptism.” The burning of a wooden boat, without explicit connection to the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass or the intercession of saints grounded in the Communion of Saints, is a pagan-like ceremony. The article’s tone treats it as a quaint national ceremony, not an act of Catholic worship. This reflects the Modernist error, condemned by St. Pius X, of reducing religion to a “certain religious movement” (Proposition 59) and sacraments to mere reminders (Proposition 41).
The Usurper’s Visit as Apostate Theater
The entire visit is orchestrated by the conciliar sect’s hierarchy. The antipope “Leo XIV” (the first of the line of usurpers beginning with Angelo Roncalli/“John XXIII”) will meet with the “archbishop” of Monaco—a validly ordained pre-1968 bishop, yet in communion with the apostate hierarchy, thus complicit in the apostasy. His meeting with “young people and catechumens” at a chapel dedicated to a pre-1958 saint is a theatrical attempt to lend traditional credibility to the neo-church. This is the “disinformation strategy” seen in the false Fatima operation: using ancient traditions to camouflage revolutionary change. The article notes the chapel “was rebuilt and expanded several times” and “became a parish church in 1887”—all within the true Church’s timeline. Yet the current “Diocese of Monaco” is a conciliar structure, its “liturgy” and “catechesis” infected with the errors of Lamentabili and the Syllabus. The antipope’s presence is not a sign of continuity but of usurpation. As Pope Pius IX declared in Quanta Cura (condemned in the Syllabus), the Church must have “full freedom and independence from secular authority” (Error 19-20 are reversed here; the state of Monaco, while officially Catholic, is treated as a partner in a religious pageant, not as a secular arm of Christ the King).
Omission of Christ’s Exclusive Kingship and the Duty of Public Profession
The article never mentions that Christ is King not only of souls but of nations, families, and public life. It speaks of “devotion” and “traditions” but never of the obligation of the State to publicly recognize and obey Christ the King. Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas taught that rulers “have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him,” and that “the entire government of public schools… may and ought to appertain to the civil power” only insofar as it submits to the Church’s authority (condemning Syllabus Errors 45-47). The article’s silence on this is deafening. Monaco’s “national public holiday” for St. Dévote is presented as a cultural event, not as an act of public worship due to Christ alone. This is the naturalistic, secularized Catholicism of the conciliar sect, where “religious freedom” (Syllabus Error 15) and the separation of Church and state (Error 55) are lived out, even in a micro-state.
The Cult of the Local and the Erosion of Catholic Unity
By focusing exclusively on Monaco’s unique traditions—the boat burning, the bouquet offering, the local patron saint—the article promotes a particularist, almost tribal Catholicism. This is the opposite of the Catholic principle: unus Dominus, una fides, unum baptisma (Eph. 4:5). The pre-conciliar Church always subordinated local customs to the universal liturgy and doctrine. Here, the local custom is the star. This is symptomatic of the conciliar church’s fragmentation, where every diocese or nation has its own “charisms” and “inculturation,” contrary to the unity willed by Christ. The article’s very premise—that a saint’s legend “shaped national life”—is a form of idolatry, placing the nation and its traditions above the universal call to holiness in the Church.
Conclusion: A Snapshot of the Neo-Church’s Apostate Identity
This article is not about St. Dévote or Monaco. It is a propaganda piece for the conciliar sect’s new religion: a naturalistic, nationalist, sentimentalized “Catholicism” that has stripped the faith of its supernatural ends, its hierarchical structure, and its exclusive claim to truth. The antipope’s visit to a chapel built for a true martyr is a satanic irony—using the veneration of a pre-1958 saint to validate the post-1958 apostasy. The burning boat, the bouquet offering, the “deep devotion” are empty rituals, for they are not ordered to the sole end of the Catholic faith: the glory of God and the salvation of souls through the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass and the sacraments. As the Syllabus condemns, the article treats religion as a “something accessory to the contract” of national life (Error 66). The only “devotion” on display is devotion to the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.
Source:
St. Dévote: The saint who inspired the chapel Pope Leo will visit in Monaco (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 27.03.2026