EWTN News reports that Pope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) is visiting Equatorial Guinea during his African itinerary, noting it is the only country on his trip where he can speak Spanish due to historical ties to Spain. The article highlights that Equatorial Guinea is “overwhelmingly Catholic,” with Spanish as an official language, and describes the country’s oil wealth alongside vast social disparities. Former U.S. ambassador Alberto Fernández characterized it as “a Spanish-speaking country, very Catholic, very African, but with certain touches of old Spain.”
The Illusion of Catholic Triumph: A Statistical Faith Without Substance
The article proudly proclaims Equatorial Guinea as “overwhelmingly Catholic,” with the “vast majority” of its 1-2 million inhabitants identifying as such. Yet this statistical triumphalism is precisely the hallmark of the post-conciliar neo-church’s distorted understanding of evangelization. The conciliar sect, following the errors condemned in Lamentabili sane exitu (proposition 54), has reduced the Church’s mission to a mere numbers game, where the “organic structure of the Church is subject to change” and “the Christian community, like the human community, is subject to continuous evolution.” The article’s celebration of Equatorial Guinean Catholicism—where one “buys Spanish wine, chorizo imported from Spain, and nougat from Spain”—reveals a faith reduced to cultural externals, a folkloric Catholicism devoid of the supernatural life that alone constitutes true conversion.
St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici gregis, warned that Modernism transforms the Church into “a certain religious movement, applied or applicable to different times and places” rather than the immutable Kingdom of Christ on earth. The article’s description of Equatorial Guinea as “very Catholic, very African, but with certain touches of old Spain” perfectly encapsulates this modernist reduction: Catholicism becomes a cultural accessory, compatible with any local custom, stripped of its exclusive claim to truth and its demand for the total conversion of souls to the one true Faith. Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (proposition 18), condemned the notion that “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church.” By parallel, the article’s implicit acceptance of a syncretic African Catholicism—where the faith coexists with animist practices and cultural relativism—constitutes the same error applied to the African context.
The Silence on True Evangelization: Where Is the Preaching of the Gospel?
Most damningly, the article is utterly silent on the content of Leo XIV’s message to the Equatorial Guinean people. There is no mention of the necessity of baptism for salvation, no call to repentance, no preaching of the Four Last Things, no exhortation to receive the sacraments worthily, and no warning against the sins that cry to heaven for vengeance. This silence is not accidental; it is the inevitable fruit of the conciliar revolution’s abandonment of the Church’s true mission.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, declared that “the Church, established by Christ as a perfect society, demands for itself by a right belonging to it, which it cannot renounce, full freedom and independence from secular authority, and that in fulfilling the mission entrusted to it by God—to teach, govern, and lead all to eternal happiness, those who belong to the Kingdom of Christ—it cannot depend on anyone’s will.” The article’s complete omission of any doctrinal content in Leo XIV’s visit reveals that the neo-church has abandoned this divine mandate. Instead of preaching Christ crucified and the necessity of the sacraments, the conciliar sect engages in diplomatic tourism, cultural exchange, and the celebration of statistical “Catholicism” that is, in reality, a baptized paganism.
The False Fatima Apparitions file notes that “the message focuses on external threats (communism), omitting the main danger: modernist apostasy within the Church since the beginning of the 20th century.” Leo XIV’s visit to Equatorial Guinea exemplifies this diversion. While the article mentions “the problem of poverty—the disparity between the rich and the poor,” there is no condemnation of the mortal sin of social injustice in light of the Church’s social teaching, no call to the observance of the Ten Commandments, no reminder that “the state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men” (St. Augustine, quoted by Pius XI in Quas Primas). The neo-church’s concern for “social disparities” is a naturalistic humanitarianism that substitutes the Gospel of Christ with the gospel of material redistribution.
The Heresy of Indifferentism: “Very Catholic, Very African”
The article’s characterization of Equatorial Guinea as “very Catholic, very African” is a textbook expression of the indifferentism condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (proposition 15): “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” This proposition was condemned as an error; yet the article’s tone implies that one can be simultaneously “very Catholic” and “very African”—the latter presumably encompassing animist, syncretic, or otherwise non-Catholic religious practices—without any contradiction.
The Church has always taught, as stated in the Syllabus (proposition 16), that “man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation” is an error. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) dogmatically defined: “There is indeed one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which nobody at all is saved.” The article’s implicit acceptance of a syncretic African Catholicism directly contradicts this infallible teaching. Leo XIV’s visit, far from correcting this error, legitimizes it by treating Equatorial Guinea as authentically Catholic despite the evident persistence of non-Catholic religious practices among its population.
Furthermore, the article’s mention of Equatorial Guinea’s oil wealth and infrastructure development (“major highways, modern airports, and investment in infrastructure”) alongside “the problem of poverty” reveals the neo-church’s characteristic preoccupation with temporal affairs at the expense of spiritual ones. Pius XI, in Quas Primas, warned that “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men” and that “it matters not whether individuals, families, or states, for men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.” The article’s silence on the duty of the Equatorial Guinean government to submit to Christ the King and govern according to Catholic principles is a grave omission that reveals the conciliar sect’s abandonment of the Church’s social kingship.
The Invalidity of the Conciliar Sect’s Sacramental Life
The article’s reference to Equatorial Guinea as “overwhelmingly Catholic” raises the question of the validity of the sacraments administered in the country’s parishes. Since the conciliar sect’s “Mass” is a Protestantized assembly that denies the propitiatory sacrifice of Calvary, and since the sect’s “baptism” employs an invalid formula (the 1969 formula “I baptize you in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier” rather than the traditional “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”), the sacramental life of Equatorial Guinean “Catholics” is gravely suspect.
The Defense of Sedevacantism file establishes that “a manifest heretic cannot be Pope or a member of the Church” and that “a Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head” (St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice). Since Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) is a manifest heretic who has never been validly elected to the papacy (following the principle of Cum ex Apostolatus Officio of Pope Paul IV, which declares null and void the promotion of any cardinal or pope who has “defected from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy”), he possesses no jurisdiction, no authority to teach, govern, or sanctify, and no power to validly administer or confirm any sacrament.
Therefore, Leo XIV’s visit to Equatorial Guinea is not a papal mission but a diplomatic excursion by a private individual who claims an office he does not possess. The “Catholicism” he promotes is the conciliar sect’s naturalistic humanitarianism, not the supernatural Faith of the Apostles. The article’s celebration of this visit as a papal event is a participation in the deception that sustains the abomination of desolation in the holy place.
The Call to True Catholic Mission
The article’s portrayal of Equatorial Guinea as a success story of Catholic evangelization is, in reality, a testament to the failure of the conciliar sect to truly evangelize. Where the pre-conciliar Church would have demanded the total conversion of souls, the eradication of pagan practices, the establishment of Catholic schools teaching sound doctrine, and the submission of the state to Christ the King, the neo-church has settled for a statistical “Catholicism” that is culturally Catholic but spiritually dead.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, declared: “If rulers and legitimate superiors will have the conviction that they exercise authority not so much by their own right as by the command and in the place of the Divine King, everyone will notice how religiously and wisely they will use their authority and how much they will consider, when issuing laws and commanding them to be fulfilled, the common good and the human dignity of their subordinates.” The article’s silence on this duty—its failure to call the Equatorial Guinean government to submit to Christ the King—reveals the conciliar sect’s abandonment of the Church’s divine mission.
The faithful must reject the neo-church’s false evangelization and return to the immutable Tradition of the Catholic Church. True mission work demands the preaching of the Gospel in its entirety, the administration of valid sacraments by true priests, and the submission of all nations to the social kingship of Christ the King. Until the conciliar sect is rejected and the true Church is restored, visits like Leo XIV’s to Equatorial Guinea will remain what they are: diplomatic exercises in futility that confirm the faithful in their error and delay the coming of the Kingdom of Christ on earth.
As St. Pius X warned in Lamentabili sane exitu (proposition 65): “Contemporary Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true knowledge without transforming it into a certain dogmaless Christianity, that is, into a broad and liberal Protestantism.” The article’s portrayal of Equatorial Guinean Catholicism is precisely this “dogmaless Christianity”—a faith without doctrine, a Church without authority, and a mission without the Cross. Let us pray for the true conversion of Equatorial Guinea and all nations, and for the restoration of the Catholic Church in her fullness and purity.
Source:
Pope Leo XIV will be able to speak Spanish in this African nation (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 21.04.2026