The cited EWTN News article from March 31, 2026, reports on Dr. Aaron Kheriaty’s discussion of the settlement in *Missouri v. Biden*, a case that resulted in a consent decree restricting certain federal agencies from pressuring social media platforms to censor speech. The article frames this as a victory for free speech against government overreach, highlighting Kheriaty’s personal story of being fired from the University of California, Irvine, for refusing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. While the settlement is presented as a precedent-setting blow against censorship, the analysis remains confined to a secular, constitutional framework, utterly devoid of the supernatural perspective and the social reign of Christ the King that constitute the immutable Catholic doctrine on the relationship between truth, authority, and the common good. The article’s fundamental error is its acceptance of the modern, naturalistic premise that “free speech” is an absolute right divorced from the moral law and the duty of the state to uphold the true religion, a premise condemned by the Magisterium.
The Illusion of Neutrality: Speech Without Truth
The article celebrates the consent decree’s recognition that labeling speech as “misinformation” does not strip it of constitutional protection. This operates on the foundational Modernist error that all opinions possess an inherent right to expression in the public square. Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors unequivocally condemns this notion, declaring as an error the proposition that “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Error 15) and that “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation” (Error 16). The secular concept of “free speech” promoted here is a direct descendant of the indifferentism and latitudinarianism condemned in the Syllabus. It posits a neutral public forum where competing “narratives” vie for supremacy, a concept utterly alien to Catholic teaching, which holds that the state has the duty to recognize and foster the true religion and to curb the public dissemination of error, which is a poison to souls and society. The article’s language—referring to the “government’s preferred narrative” and “constitutionally protected content”—implicitly accepts the relativist premise that the state’s role is to arbitrate between competing human opinions, not to submit its laws and public discourse to the divine law and the teaching authority of the Church. The gravest omission is the complete silence on the supernatural destiny of man and the obligation of all human speech and law to be ordered to the ultimate end of knowing, loving, and serving God. This silence is the hallmark of the conciliar sect’s absorption into the “world.”
The Naturalistic Trap: Legalism Over the Kingship of Christ
Dr. Kheriaty’s strategy and the article’s framing rely entirely on American constitutional law and civil liberties jurisprudence. This is a profound theological failure. Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas, on the feast of Christ the King, establishes the immutable Catholic principle that all human authority, including that of the state, is derived from and subordinate to the kingship of Christ. The Pope teaches that “when God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The article’s entire premise—that a “win” is a court decree limiting federal agency pressure on private platforms—operates as if the state’s legitimacy springs from a social contract and a bill of rights, not from the divine mandate. It seeks to reform the machinery of a secular, apostate state, not to subject that state to the sweet yoke of Christ. Kheriaty’s personal stand, while courageous in a human sense, was framed in the language of “equal protection and due process” and “natural immunity,” not in the language of the Church’s moral law on the sanctity of the human body, the duty to obey legitimate authority, or the sin of scandal. His bioethical work, conducted within the “Ethics and Public Policy Center,” a secular think-tank, further demonstrates the capitulation of Catholic thought to naturalistic, utilitarian frameworks. The article thus promotes a purely naturalistic humanism, where the highest good is the preservation of a certain type of civic freedom, rather than the establishment of the social reign of Christ, which alone can bring “true freedom, order, and tranquility, and concord and peace” (Quas Primas).
The “Catholic” Figure in a Post-Conciliar Ecosystem
The article presents Dr. Kheriaty as a “Catholic psychiatrist and ethicist,” and notes his affiliation with EWTN News. This identification is deeply problematic. EWTN is a flagship institution of the post-conciliar “Church,” which has embraced the errors of Vatican II’s *Dignitatis Humanae* (religious liberty) and *Gaudium et Spes* (the “signs of the times” approach). To be a “Catholic” figure within this system is to be in formal or material communion with the conciliar sect, which professes the heresy of religious liberty and the evolution of dogma. Kheriaty’s firing from a state university for a medical mandate issue, while a personal injustice, is fought within the secular legal system that the Syllabus condemns. 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.” This is precisely the philosophical foundation of the American secular state whose constitutional mechanisms Kheriaty invokes. His victory, therefore, is a victory within the very system of apostasy that the Syllabus anathematizes. It reinforces the false principle of a neutral state, which Pius IX declared to be an error. The article never questions whether a Catholic should be engaging with or seeking validation from a legal system built on the separation of Church and State and the principle of religious indifferentism. It simply assumes the legitimacy of that system and celebrates its functioning as intended, a system that, according to Catholic doctrine, is intrinsically disordered because it does not subordinate civil law to the law of God and the authority of the Church.
Symptomatic of the Conciliar Apostasy: Worldly Concerns Over Supernatural Ends
The focus of the article—government censorship on social media—is a purely temporal, political concern. The post-conciliar “Church” and its affiliated personalities, like Kheriaty, are perpetually engaged in such temporal battles, whether for “religious liberty,” “pro-life” causes within a pluralistic framework, or now, “free speech” against “government overreach.” This is the essence of the “abomination of desolation”: the replacement of the supernatural mission of the Church—the salvation of souls—with a naturalistic, philanthropic, and political activism. St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane Exitu condemns the Modernist error that “Christian doctrine was initially Jewish, but through gradual development, it became first Pauline, then Johannine, and finally Greek and universal” (Proposition 60), which underpins the idea that the Church must constantly adapt its message to contemporary political categories. Here, the “message” is framed in terms of “free speech” and “censorship,” categories of the Enlightenment, not of the Gospel. The article exhibits zero consciousness of the duty of the state to protect the faith and repress heresy, a duty taught by the Church Fathers and the Magisterium. Instead, it laments the censorship of specific viewpoints (vaccine skepticism) and champions the right of all viewpoints to circulate, a position that, if applied consistently, would defend the right to propagate blasphemy, heresy, and immorality—all of which the state, in a Catholic order, would be bound to restrict. The article’s worldview is that of the “world,” concerned with the balance of power between government agencies and private corporations, not with the reign of Christ the King over minds, wills, and hearts, as defined by Pius XI.
Conclusion: A Pyrrhic Victory in the War Against Christ’s Kingship
The settlement in *Missouri v. Biden* is hailed as a landmark victory. From the integral Catholic perspective, it is nothing of the sort. It is a tactical win within the enemy’s camp, a reinforcement of the secular, naturalistic order that the Syllabus of Errors and Quas Primas condemn. It strengthens the illusion of a neutral public square where Catholics can compete on equal footing with error, an illusion that Pius IX declared to be a “pest” (Syllabus, Introduction). Dr. Kheriaty’s story is one of a man fighting for his rights within a system that has formally rejected the rights of Christ. His identification as a “Catholic” while operating entirely within the parameters of that apostate system is a stark illustration of the confusion wrought by the conciliar revolution. The article, emanating from a post-conciliar news outlet, presents this confusion as a model of faithful Catholic engagement. It is, in truth, a perfect specimen of the “Church of the New Advent”: active, vocal, and utterly worldly, fighting for a place at the table of a civilization that has officially dethroned Christ, while remaining silent on the one thing necessary: the public and social recognition of Our Lord Jesus Christ as King of nations and the sole source of law and liberty. The only true “precedent” set is the further entrenchment of the naturalistic, Masonic principles of the modern state, against which the Church has always waged war.
Source:
Plaintiff discusses landmark settlement curbing government social media censorship (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 31.03.2026