The National Catholic Register (NCRegister) portal reports on a bipartisan effort led by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Florida) to urge the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to add the crucifix — a cross bearing the body of Christ — to its list of acceptable emblems for veteran headstones. The article notes that while symbols for Christian denominations, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, atheism, humanism, and Wicca are already approved, the crucifix, “an emblem of belief that most accurately represents the faith of nearly 20% of all veterans,” is conspicuously absent. Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, expressed support for the initiative. The VA responded that it is “looking into the lawmakers’ request.” This seemingly minor bureaucratic matter exposes a far deeper rot: the conciliar sect’s systematic abandonment of the public reign of Christ the King and its capitulation to secular indifferentism, which now forces Catholic legislators to beg a pagan state for permission to honor the instrument of our Redemption.
The Crucifix: Not an “Emblem of Belief” but the Sign of Victory
The very framing of the crucifix as merely one “emblem of belief” among many — listed alongside the Star of David, the Islamic crescent, the Hindu Om, and even the atheist and humanist symbols — is itself a profound degradation. The article’s language reduces the most sacred symbol of human history to the level of a personal preference, a consumer choice in the marketplace of religious options. This is the inevitable fruit of the conciliar revolution’s embrace of Dignitatis Humanae, the Vatican II declaration on religious freedom, which Pope Pius IX condemned as the error that “the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism” (Syllabus of Errors, Proposition 79).
The crucifix is not a denominational logo. It is the instrument upon which “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). It is the sign before which every knee shall bow — “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10). To place it on a list alongside the pentagram of Wicca and the symbol of atheism is not religious freedom; it is religious relativism elevated to the level of state policy. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught with unmistakable clarity that “the feast of Christ the King, which we shall henceforth celebrate annually, will bring society back to our most beloved Savior” and that “the more the sweetest Name of our Redeimer is omitted with unworthy silence in international gatherings and parliaments, the more loudly it must be confessed and the more urgently the rights of Christ the Lord’s royal dignity and authority must be recognized.” The article’s premise — that Catholics must petition the state for the right to display the crucifix — is itself an admission that the reign of Christ the King has been effectively abolished from public life.
The Conciliar Sect’s Complicity in the Expulsion of Christ
What the article does not say is far more damning than what it does. There is no mention of the fact that the conciliar sect itself — the very structures occupying the Vatican — has been the primary agent in removing the crucifix from public consciousness. The post-conciliar “reforms” systematically stripped churches of their crucifixes, replacing them with abstract “resurrection crosses” devoid of the corpus, signaling the modernist denial of the propitiatory sacrifice. The new rite of Mass, engineered by the Masonic-influenced Annibale Bugnini, shifted the theology of the altar from sacrifice to meal, from Calvary to table. The conciar sect did not defend the crucifix; it abandoned it.
Pope St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu, condemned the modernist proposition that “the teaching on the death of Christ for the redemption of men is not an evangelical teaching, but only Pauline” (Proposition 38). The crucifix is the visible proclamation of the dogma that Christ died for our sins — that His sacrifice was propitiatory, not merely exemplary. The conciar sect’s silence on the nature of the Mass as a true sacrifice, its embrace of ecumenism with Protestants who deny transubstantiation, and its dialogue with Jews who reject the Messiah — all of this has rendered the crucifix unintelligible even to those within the neo-church. Archbishop Broglio’s support for the congressional letter is a classic example of the conciliar mentality: addressing a symptom (the VA’s omission) while ignoring the disease (the systematic destruction of Catholic identity from within the structures of the Church).
The State of Apostasy: When Caesar Decides What Is God’s
The article reveals a political class operating entirely within the framework of liberal secularism. Rep. Steube invokes the First Amendment — “the pursuit of religious freedom” — as the basis for his request. But the First Amendment, as interpreted by the American regime, is itself a product of the Enlightenment errors condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos and by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors. The notion that the state is neutral toward religion, that it dispenses “freedom” to religious communities as a matter of constitutional grace, is precisely the error of laicism that Pius XI identified as “the plague that poisons human society” (Quas Primas).
The Catholic position, immutable and non-negotiable, is that the state has a duty to recognize the one true religion and to place Jesus Christ and His law at the center of public life. Pope Leo XIII taught in Immortale Dei that “the Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, each the highest in its own kind, and each fixed within limits which are defined by its own nature and special object.” The state does not have the authority to determine which religious symbols are “acceptable” — it has the obligation to recognize the symbols of the true faith.
The fact that “atheists, humanists, and Wiccans have an eligible emblem” while Catholics must petition for the crucifix is not an oversight; it is the logical consequence of a political order built on the rejection of Christ the King. Pope Pius IX warned: “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits” (Proposition 39). This is precisely the unlimited state that now sits in judgment over the Cross.
The Omission of the Supernatural: A Telltale Sign of Naturalism
The article’s treatment of the crucifix is entirely naturalistic. It speaks of the crucifix as a “spiritual symbol that recalls the passion and sacrifice of Jesus Christ” — language that could satisfy a Unitarian or a Modernist. There is no mention of the theological reality: that the crucifix represents the propitiatory sacrifice of the God-Man, the reparation for sin, the victory over Satan and death. There is no reference to the doctrine of the merit of Christ’s Passion, to the reality of redemption, to the necessity of grace obtained through the sacraments.
This silence is not accidental. It is the hallmark of the post-conciliar mentality, which has reduced the faith to a system of “values” and “symbols” stripped of supernatural content. Pope St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, identified this as the core of Modernism: “the vital germ of Modernism” is “the perversion of the religious sense” which “consists in the denial of the supernatural order and the reduction of religion to the plane of natural experience.” The article’s treatment of the crucifix as a cultural artifact rather than the sign of the world’s salvation is a textbook example of this perversion.
The False Ecumenism Behind the Bipartisan Effort
The article notes that the letter was signed by “45 members of Congress — including 42 Republicans and three Democrats” and that “Steube is Protestant.” The ecumenical framing — a Protestant leading the charge for Catholic symbols, with bipartisan support — is presented as a virtue. But from the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this is not a virtue; it is a symptom of confusion. The Catholic Church does not need the patronage of Protestant legislators to defend her sacred symbols. The Catholic Church has the authority of Christ Himself: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations” (Matthew 28:18-19).
The ecumenical spirit that celebrates Protestant support for the crucifix is the same spirit that led the conciar sect to remove the phrase “the one true Church” from its vocabulary, to enter into “dialogue” with heretics and schismatics, and to treat the Catholic faith as one option among many. Pope Pius XI, in Mortalium Animos, condemned this false ecumenism: “The union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it.” The bipartisan, ecumenical approach to the crucifix issue is not a solution; it is a capitulation.
Conclusion: The Crucifix Demands More Than a Headstone
The congressional effort to add the crucifix to VA headstones is a symptom of a Church that has lost its identity and a state that has usurped the place of God. The crucifix does not belong on a list of “emblems of belief” alongside the symbols of false religions and anti-religions. The crucifix belongs above the throne of every king, in the legislative chamber of every nation, at the center of every public square. “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).
The conciar sect, which should be the first to demand the public reign of Christ the King, is instead silent — or worse, complicit in the secularization that made this congressional petition necessary. The faithful must reject the modernist reduction of the crucifix to a “symbol” and proclaim with the Church of all ages: the Cross is the instrument of our salvation, the throne of the King of Kings, and the sign before which every enemy — including the secular state — must ultimately bow. Per crucem ad lucem — through the Cross to the light.
Source:
Lawmaker Calls for Allowing Crucifix Symbol on Veterans’ Headstones (ncregister.com)
Date: 15.04.2026