The Deification of Human Resilience Over Divine Redemption

The cited article from the National Catholic Register (April 1, 2026), authored by George Weigel, presents a commentary on the Via Crucis featuring reflections from three figures: layman Jimmy Lai, “Bishop” Erik Varden, and Major-Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk. It frames their experiences of suffering—Lai’s imprisonment, Varden’s description of global chaos, Shevchuk’s account of Ukrainian resilience—as a theology of “courageous suffering” configured to Christ’s Way of the Cross. The article’s thesis is that such human endurance, empowered by prayer and the Holy Spirit, is the primary grace of our age, a light in darkness. This analysis will demonstrate that this presentation is a profound deviation from integral Catholic theology, reducing the supernatural mystery of redemptive suffering to a naturalistic humanism, while omitting the essential doctrines of the Faith that give suffering its true meaning and efficacy.

1. Factual Deconstruction: The Omission of Doctrinal Context

The article presents three testimonies as self-evident models of Christian virtue. It quotes Lai stating his “lighthearted” mood in solitary confinement is due to prayers, making him “always in God’s presence.” It quotes Varden describing the world’s chaos but asserting the Spirit “unites” and the Church must “let that sacrifice work… in the confidence that God, through his holy Church, is still working out the salvation of mankind.” Shevchuk testifies to the “extraordinary resilience and even joy” of Ukrainians as “a gift of the Holy Spirit,” linking it to Matthew 25:40 (“the least brothers and sisters of Christ”).

These statements, while emotionally potent, are doctrinally vacuous. They contain no reference to:

The Sacrament of Penance as the ordinary means by which sins are forgiven and souls are restored to a state of grace, without which no suffering is meritorious for heaven.
The necessity of the status gratiae (state of grace) for any act to be supernaturally good and meritorious. Lai’s “joy” is presented as a direct result of prayers, bypassing the need for sacramental confession and the theological virtues.
The dogma of the Communio Sanctorum (Communion of Saints) in its proper, hierarchical sense—the mystical union of the faithful on earth with the saints in heaven and the souls in purgatory, mediated through the Church’s sacraments and liturgical prayer, not a vague “prayer” from anonymous well-wishers.
The final judgment and the four last things (death, judgment, heaven, hell). Suffering is presented as an end in itself (“a joy and treasure for this life and next”) without the eschatological orientation of making satisfaction for sin and being purified for the vision of God.
The unique role of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the unbloody re-presentation of Calvary, the sole perfect sacrifice that atones for sin. Varden mentions “renewed each day at our altars,” but the article’s context strips the Mass of its propitiatory nature, reducing it to a vague “sacrifice” that “works” in general.

Furthermore, the article fails to interrogate the ecclesial status of its subjects:

Jimmy Lai is a layman whose public stance has consistently praised and supported the conciliar “popes,” including Francis, thereby adhering to the modernist “Church of the New Advent.” His suffering is not presented as that of a Catholic confessing the Faith against heresiarchs, but as a generic prisoner of conscience.
“Bishop” Erik Varden is a conciliar bishop. His speech speaks of the Spirit “uniting” over chaos and the Church “letting that sacrifice work,” echoing the post-conciliar hermeneutic of a diffuse, immanent Spirit rather than the Holy Ghost guiding the Ecclesia Catholica in her immutable dogmas and disciplines.
Major-Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk is the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which is in formal schism with the Orthodox but in communion with the conciliar “papacy.” His phrase “brothers and sisters in Christ” for a five-year-old boy (presumably Catholic) applies the ecumenical, indifferentist language condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors ( propositions 15-18) to intra-Catholic contexts, blurring the necessary distinction between those in visible communion with the true Church and those outside it.

2. Linguistic and Rhetorical Analysis: The Language of Naturalism

The article’s language is saturated with the emotional vocabulary of modern psychotherapy and humanistic optimism, not the doctrinal precision of Catholic theology.

“Courageous suffering” and “resilience” are psychological terms. Catholic theology speaks of patientia (patience), fortitudo (fortitude as a cardinal virtue), and above all of satisfactio (satisfaction) and compassio (compassion united to Christ’s Passion). The article substitutes a human quality for a theological virtue and a sacramental reality.
“Lighthearted” and “joy” are presented as fruits of suffering itself, divorced from the theological joy (gaudium) which is a fruit of the Holy Ghost (Gal. 5:22) and requires sanctifying grace. This mirrors the Modernist error condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (Proposition 25): “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities.” Here, joy is based on a subjective feeling (“I am so thankful”) rather than on the objective truth of the Faith and the sacramental participation in Christ’s victory.
“The Spirit hovers… benignly” and “let that sacrifice work” are vague, immanentist phrases. They reflect the Modernist conception of God as a vague presence in human experience, not the personal, transcendent God of Revelation who demands worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24) and whose Holy Ghost operates through the instituted sacraments. This is the “living immanence” of the Modernists, condemned by Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis.
The phrase “God saves us from evil. He also saves us from ourselves” (Varden) is a piece of banal spiritualism. Catholic doctrine teaches that God saves us from sin (the evil we commit) and its eternal consequences (hell) through the merits of Christ’s Passion, applied through the sacraments. “Saving us from ourselves” is a Pelagian echo, suggesting an autonomous human effort at self-improvement with divine assistance, rather than the total dependence on grace taught by the Council of Trent (Session VI, Chapter 1).

3. Theological Confrontation: The Missing King and the Missing Sacrifice

The article’s entire framework collapses when measured against the unchanging doctrine of Christ’s Kingship and the nature of His sacrifice.

a) The Social Kingship of Christ is Ignored. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), established the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism that removes God from public life. He wrote: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The article discusses “the world… caught up in a maelstrom” and “political and cultural climate… marked by fierce polarization,” but it never once articulates that these disorders are the direct result of the rejection of the social reign of Christ the King. There is no call for the conversion of nations, the submission of public law to the Ten Commandments and Canon Law, or the duty of rulers to honor the Divine King. Instead, it offers a private, interior “resilience” as the solution, precisely the error Pius XI condemned: the belief that Christ’s kingdom is merely spiritual and interior, with no claim on temporal orders. This is the “cult of man” replacing the “reign of Christ.”

b) The Propitiatory Nature of Christ’s Sacrifice is Obscured. The article mentions Christ’s sacrifice and the Mass, but in a way that renders it inert. Pius XI, in the same encyclical, explains that Christ’s kingdom “encompasses all men” because He is “Redeemer” and “Lawgiver.” His sacrifice on Calvary was a true, propitiatory sacrifice that satisfied Divine Justice for sin. The article, following the post-conciliar tendency, reduces the Cross to a mere example of “courageous suffering” or a vague “sacrifice” that “unites.” It fails to state the dogma defined by the Council of Trent (Session XXII, Chapter 2): that in the Mass, “the same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross.” Without this, suffering has no redemptive value; it is merely human endurance. The article’s theology is that of the “table of assembly” (the conciliar “Mass”) applied to life: suffering is a communal, uplifting experience, not a participation in the one sacrifice of Calvary offered for sin.

c) The Error of Indifferentism is Promoted. Shevchuk’s testimony, coming from a hierarch of an Eastern Catholic Church in schism with Orthodoxy, is presented without canonical or theological distinction. The article uses the ecumenical phrase “brothers and sisters in Christ” for a child in Kyiv, implying a spiritual equality between all who call themselves Christian. This is the condemned error of the Syllabus of Errors (Proposition 18): “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion.” The article’s silence on the necessity of Catholic unity (outside of which there is no salvation, extra Ecclesiam nulla salus) is a damning endorsement of the post-conciliar ecumenical project, which is a direct assault on the uniqueness of the Catholic Church as the sole ark of salvation.

4. Symptomatic Analysis: The Conciliar Revolution in Microcosm

This article is not an anomaly; it is a perfect expression of the systemic apostasy of the post-1958 “Church.”

Hermeneutics of Continuity in Action: It uses traditional language (“Way of the Cross,” “Calvary,” “Holy Spirit”) but empties it of its supernatural, sacramental, and dogmatic content. It is a prime example of the “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” disguised as continuity, where old words are filled with new, Modernist meanings.
The Cult of Man: The focus is entirely on human response: “resilience,” “courage,” “joy,” “lightheartedness.” God is a background enhancer of these human qualities (“God’s action always confounds us but turns out to be marvelous for us”). This is the exact “cult of man” Pius XI warned against in Quadragesimo Anno and Pius XII condemned as the error of our age. It inverts the order: grace builds on nature, but here nature (human strength) is elevated to the primary reality, with grace as a vague supplement.
Silence on the Real Crisis: The article mentions “craziness” in the Church but never identifies the cause: the apostasy of the hierarchy since John XXIII, the destruction of the Mass and sacraments, the heresies of Vatican II (e.g., Dignitatis humanae on religious liberty, Nostra aetate on non-Christian religions), and the proliferation of false “saints” (like John Paul II, a noted heretic). It treats “the Church” as a monolithic, holy entity being persecuted, when in reality the structures occupying the Vatican are the “abomination of desolation” (Matt. 24:15), a counterfeit sect. The suffering of Lai, for instance, is not for the integral Catholic Faith against the neo-church, but for a generic “conscience” that aligns with the anti-life, anti-family policies of the conciliar “popes” on other matters.
The Demotion of Doctrine to Experience: Faith is reduced to a “sum of probabilities” (condemned in Lamentabili, Prop. 25) or to a “practical function” (Prop. 26). The article’s theology is entirely experiential: “I am always in God’s presence,” “I see the face of our people,” “this extraordinary resilience… is a gift of the Holy Spirit.” There is no appeal to the depositum fidei, to the definitions of councils, to the encyclicals of pre-1958 popes. This is the essence of Modernism: religion as interior sentiment, not as objective, revealed truth.

5. The True Catholic Doctrine of Suffering

Contrast the article’s naturalism with the unchanging Catholic doctrine. Suffering, when united to the sacrifice of Christ, becomes a powerful means of sanctification and reparation. This requires:

Sacramental Life: The suffering soul must be in the state of grace, ordinarily maintained through frequent confession and worthy communion. Without this, suffering is merely natural and can lead to resentment, not merit.
Doctrinal Purity: Suffering must be endured for the Faith (propter fidem), not for vague “conscience” or political ideals. The martyrs suffered because they confessed the integral Catholic Faith against heresy and schism. Lai’s suffering, while perhaps politically just, is not presented as a witness to the dogmas denied by the conciliar “popes” (e.g., the impossibility of salvation without the Catholic Church, the duty of the state to recognize Christ as King).
The Theology of the Cross: As St. Paul says, “I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the Church” (Col. 1:24). This is not a “courageous” self-affirmation, but a participation in Christ’s redemptive work, done in humility and in union with the Church’s opus redemptionis. It is oriented toward the salvation of souls and the triumph of the Church, not merely personal “joy” or national “resilience.”
The Primacy of the Supernatural: The ultimate purpose of suffering is to detach us from the world and unite us to God. It is a means to acquire sanctifying grace and merit for heaven. The article’s focus on “this life” (“a joy and treasure for this life and next”) inverts this, making the next life an afterthought to present psychological well-being.

Conclusion: A Heresy of Humanistic Optimism

The Weigel article is a masterclass in conciliar spiritual discourse: it uses Catholic terminology to preach a Gospel of human self-reliance and emotional uplift, completely stripped of the supernatural economy of sin, grace, and redemption. It presents a “Church” that is merely a community of “resilient” people, not the Mystical Body of Christ with a hierarchical, sacramental structure. It presents a “suffering” that is humanistic, not redemptive. It presents a “Spirit” that is an impersonal force of unity, not the Third Person of the Holy Trinity who proceeds from the Father and the Son and who sanctifies souls through the sacraments administered by validly ordained priests in communion with the true bishops.

This is the “synthesis of all heresies” (Pius X, Pascendi) in action: the substitution of a natural religion of human progress and inner feeling for the supernatural religion of divine revelation. The article’s silence on the dogmas denied by the conciliar “popes,” on the sacrilege of the new Mass, on the apostasy of the post-conciliar hierarchy, and on the absolute necessity of the Catholic Faith for salvation, is not an oversight; it is the very point. It is a call to trust in human “courage” and “resilience” rather than in the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Social Kingship of Christ as defined by Pius XI. It is a spiritual poison that leads souls to trust in themselves, not in God, and to find comfort in the false “Church” of the New Advent, not in the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church that endures in the faithful who profess the integral Faith and are led by true pastors.

The only true “courageous suffering” is that which is endured in union with the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary, offered in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in the state of grace, for the triumph of the Catholic Church and the conversion of sinners, with eyes fixed on the eternal reward. Anything else is a delusion of the Modernist spirit.

[Antichurch] Modernist “Suffering” Theology: Heresy of Humanism

The Deification of Human Resilience Over Divine Redemption

The article’s language is saturated with the emotional vocabulary of modern psychotherapy and humanistic optimism, not the doctrinal precision of Catholic theology. Terms like “courageous suffering” and “resilience” are psychological, not theological. Catholic theology speaks of patientia (patience), fortitudo (fortitude as a cardinal virtue), and above all of satisfactio (satisfaction) and compassio (compassion united to Christ’s Passion). The article substitutes a human quality for a theological virtue and a sacramental reality. “Lighthearted” and “joy” are presented as fruits of suffering itself, divorced from the theological joy (gaudium) which is a fruit of the Holy Ghost (Gal. 5:22) and requires sanctifying grace. This mirrors the Modernist error condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (Proposition 25): “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities.” Here, joy is based on a subjective feeling (“I am so thankful”) rather than on the objective truth of the Faith and the sacramental participation in Christ’s victory. Phrases like “the Spirit hovers… benignly” and “let that sacrifice work” are vague, immanentist phrases. They reflect the Modernist conception of God as a vague presence in human experience, not the personal, transcendent God of Revelation who demands worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24) and whose Holy Ghost operates through the instituted sacraments. This is the “living immanence” of the Modernists, condemned by Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis. The statement “God saves us from evil. He also saves us from ourselves” (Varden) is a piece of banal spiritualism. Catholic doctrine teaches that God saves us from sin (the evil we commit) and its eternal consequences (hell) through the merits of Christ’s Passion, applied through the sacraments. “Saving us from ourselves” is a Pelagian echo, suggesting an autonomous human effort at self-improvement with divine assistance, rather than the total dependence on grace taught by the Council of Trent (Session VI, Chapter 1).

Omission of Doctrinal Pillars

The testimonies are presented as self-evident models of Christian virtue but contain no reference to:

The Sacrament of Penance as the ordinary means by which sins are forgiven and souls are restored to a state of grace, without which no suffering is meritorious for heaven.
The necessity of the status gratiae (state of grace) for any act to be supernaturally good and meritorious. Lai’s “joy” is presented as a direct result of prayers, bypassing the need for sacramental confession and the theological virtues.
The dogma of the Communio Sanctorum (Communion of Saints) in its proper, hierarchical sense—the mystical union of the faithful on earth with the saints in heaven and the souls in purgatory, mediated through the Church’s sacraments and liturgical prayer, not a vague “prayer” from anonymous well-wishers.
The final judgment and the four last things (death, judgment, heaven, hell). Suffering is presented as an end in itself (“a joy and treasure for this life and next”) without the eschatological orientation of making satisfaction for sin and being purified for the vision of God.
The unique role of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the unbloody re-presentation of Calvary, the sole perfect sacrifice that atones for sin. Varden mentions “renewed each day at our altars,” but the article’s context strips the Mass of its propitiatory nature, reducing it to a vague “sacrifice” that “works” in general.

Furthermore, the article fails to interrogate the ecclesial status of its subjects:

Jimmy Lai is a layman whose public stance has consistently praised and supported the conciliar “popes,” including Francis, thereby adhering to the modernist “Church of the New Advent.” His suffering is not presented as that of a Catholic confessing the Faith against heresiarchs, but as a generic prisoner of conscience.
“Bishop” Erik Varden is a conciliar bishop. His speech speaks of the Spirit “uniting” over chaos and the Church “letting that sacrifice work,” echoing the post-conciliar hermeneutic of a diffuse, immanent Spirit rather than the Holy Ghost guiding the Ecclesia Catholica in her immutable dogmas and disciplines.
Major-Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk is the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which is in formal schism with the Orthodox but in communion with the conciliar “papacy.” His phrase “brothers and sisters in Christ” for a five-year-old boy (presumably Catholic) applies the ecumenical, indifferentist language condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (propositions 15-18) to intra-Catholic contexts, blurring the necessary distinction between those in visible communion with the true Church and those outside it.

The Missing Kingship and the Missing Sacrifice

The article’s entire framework collapses when measured against the unchanging doctrine of Christ’s Kingship and the nature of His sacrifice.

The Social Kingship of Christ is Ignored. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), established the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism that removes God from public life. He wrote: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The article discusses “the world… caught up in a maelstrom” and “political and cultural climate… marked by fierce polarization,” but it never once articulates that these disorders are the direct result of the rejection of the social reign of Christ the King. There is no call for the conversion of nations, the submission of public law to the Ten Commandments and Canon Law, or the duty of rulers to honor the Divine King. Instead, it offers a private, interior “resilience” as the solution, precisely the error Pius XI condemned: the belief that Christ’s kingdom is merely spiritual and interior, with no claim on temporal orders. This is the “cult of man” replacing the “reign of Christ.”

The Propitiatory Nature of Christ’s Sacrifice is Obscured. The article mentions Christ’s sacrifice and the Mass, but in a way that renders it inert. Pius XI, in the same encyclical, explains that Christ’s kingdom “encompasses all men” because He is “Redeemer” and “Lawgiver.” His sacrifice on Calvary was a true, propitiatory sacrifice that satisfied Divine Justice for sin. The article, following the post-conciliar tendency, reduces the Cross to a mere example of “courageous suffering” or a vague “sacrifice” that “unites.” It fails to state the dogma defined by the Council of Trent (Session XXII, Chapter 2): that in the Mass, “the same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross.” Without this, suffering has no redemptive value; it is merely human endurance. The article’s theology is that of the “table of assembly” (the conciliar “Mass”) applied to life: suffering is a communal, uplifting experience, not a participation in the one sacrifice of Calvary offered for sin.

The Error of Indifferentism is Promoted. Shevchuk’s testimony, coming from a hierarch of an Eastern Catholic Church in schism with Orthodoxy, is presented without canonical or theological distinction. The article uses the ecumenical phrase “brothers and sisters in Christ” for a child in Kyiv, implying a spiritual equality between all who call themselves Christian. This is the condemned error of the Syllabus of Errors (Proposition 18): “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion.” The article’s silence on the necessity of Catholic unity (outside of which there is no salvation, extra Ecclesiam nulla salus) is a damning endorsement of the post-conciliar ecumenical project, which is a direct assault on the uniqueness of the Catholic Church as the sole ark of salvation.

Symptomatic of the Conciliar Apostasy

This article is not an anomaly; it is a perfect expression of the systemic apostasy of the post-1958 “Church.”

Hermeneutics of Continuity in Action: It uses traditional language (“Way of the Cross,” “Calvary,” “Holy Spirit”) but empties it of its supernatural, sacramental, and dogmatic content. It is a prime example of the “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” disguised as continuity, where old words are filled with new, Modernist meanings.
The Cult of Man: The focus is entirely on human response: “resilience,” “courage,” “joy,” “lightheartedness.” God is a background enhancer of these human qualities (“God’s action always confounds us but turns out to be marvelous for us”). This is the exact “cult of man” Pius XI warned against in Quadragesimo Anno and Pius XII condemned as the error of our age. It inverts the order: grace builds on nature, but here nature (human strength) is elevated to the primary reality, with grace as a vague supplement.
Silence on the Real Crisis: The article mentions “craziness” in the Church but never identifies the cause: the apostasy of the hierarchy since John XXIII, the destruction of the Mass and sacraments, the heresies of Vatican II (e.g., Dignitatis humanae on religious liberty, Nostra aetate on non-Christian religions), and the proliferation of false “saints” (like John Paul II, a noted heretic). It treats “the Church” as a monolithic, holy entity being persecuted, when in reality the structures occupying the Vatican are the “abomination of desolation” (Matt. 24:15), a counterfeit sect. The suffering of Lai, for instance, is not for the integral Catholic Faith against the neo-church, but for a generic “conscience” that aligns with the anti-life, anti-family policies of the conciliar “popes” on other matters.
The Demotion of Doctrine to Experience: Faith is reduced to a “sum of probabilities” (condemned in Lamentabili, Prop. 25) or to a “practical function” (Prop. 26). The article’s theology is entirely experiential: “I am always in God’s presence,” “I see the face of our people,” “this extraordinary resilience… is a gift of the Holy Spirit.” There is no appeal to the depositum fidei, to the definitions of councils, to the encyclicals of pre-1958 popes. This is the essence of Modernism: religion as interior sentiment, not as objective, revealed truth.

The True Catholic Doctrine of Suffering

Contrast the article’s naturalism with the unchanging Catholic doctrine. Suffering, when united to the sacrifice of Christ, becomes a powerful means of sanctification and reparation. This requires:

Sacramental Life: The suffering soul must be in the state of grace, ordinarily maintained through frequent confession and worthy communion. Without this, suffering is merely natural and can lead to resentment, not merit.
Doctrinal Purity: Suffering must be endured for the Faith (propter fidem), not for vague “conscience” or political ideals. The martyrs suffered because they confessed the integral Catholic Faith against heresy and schism. Lai’s suffering, while perhaps politically just, is not presented as a witness to the dogmas denied by the conciliar “popes” (e.g., the impossibility of salvation without the Catholic Church, the duty of the state to recognize Christ as King).
The Theology of the Cross: As St. Paul says, “I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the Church” (Col. 1:24). This is not a “courageous” self-affirmation, but a participation in Christ’s redemptive work, done in humility and in union with the Church’s opus redemptionis. It is oriented toward the salvation of souls and the triumph of the Church, not merely personal “joy” or national “resilience.”
The Primacy of the Supernatural: The ultimate purpose of suffering is to detach us from the world and unite us to God. It is a means to acquire sanctifying grace and merit for heaven. The article’s focus on “this life” (“a joy and treasure for this life and next”) inverts this, making the next life an afterthought to present psychological well-being.

Conclusion: A Heresy of Humanistic Optimism

Source:
Via Crucis, 2026 (ncregister.com)
Date: 01.04.2026

The Deification of Human Resilience Over Divine Redemption

1. Factual Deconstruction: The Omission of Doctrinal Context

2. Linguistic and Rhetorical Analysis: The Language of Naturalism

3. Theological Confrontation: The Missing King and the Missing Sacrifice

4. Symptomatic Analysis: The Conciliar Revolution in Microcosm

5. The True Catholic Doctrine of Suffering

Conclusion: A Heresy of Humanistic Optimism

The Deification of Human Resilience Over Divine Redemption

Omission of Doctrinal Pillars

The Missing Kingship and the Missing Sacrifice

Symptomatic of the Conciliar Apostasy

The True Catholic Doctrine of Suffering

Conclusion: A Heresy of Humanistic Optimism

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