The president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference (CEE), Archbishop Luis Argüello, opened the bishops’ 129th plenary assembly on April 21, 2026, with an address devoted largely to the problem of “polarization.” Drawing upon a doctrinal note published by the CEE in March, Argüello warned of the dangers of “emotivism,” defined as positions based fundamentally on emotions rather than reason or faith. He described how polarization “transforms opinions into identities,” dehumanizes opponents, and affects ecclesial life, politics, anthropology, and Spain’s national identity. He also criticized the Spanish government for adopting “confessional” stances on anthropology and history, and denounced the government’s focus on abuse cases within the Church and the “re-signification” of the Valley of the Fallen. This address is a textbook example of the conciliar sect’s systematic reduction of the Faith to the categories of secular political discourse, abandoning the supernatural mission of the Church in favor of negotiation within frameworks established by the enemies of Christ the King.
The Primacy of Emotion Over Truth: A Modernist Epistemology
The very foundation of Argüello’s analysis is fatally flawed. By framing “emotivism” as the root of polarization, he implicitly adopts a secular, sociological framework to diagnose what is, at its core, a moral and theological problem. The Church before 1958 taught unequivocally that the first principle of human reason is the principle of non-contradiction, and that the proper object of the intellect is truth — not feelings, not identities, not social cohesion. Pascendi Dominici gregis, St. Pius X’s magnificent encyclical condemning Modernism, exposed precisely this error: the reduction of religious experience to subjective feeling, divorced from objective truth. When Argüello speaks of “reductionism based on emotivism,” he is describing a phenomenon that is the direct fruit of the very Modernism his predecessors condemned — yet he diagnoses it with the tools of the disease itself.
The Church has always taught that the passions must be governed by reason illumined by faith. St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle and the entire Catholic intellectual tradition, held that the emotions (passiones animae) are acts of the sensitive appetite that must be ordered by the rational will under the guidance of the moral virtues, especially temperance and fortitude. To speak of “emotivism” as though emotions themselves were the problem, rather than the disorder of the will and the intellect, is to adopt a framework that is foreign to Catholic anthropology. The true problem is sin — original and actual — and the rejection of God’s law. But to name sin requires the Church to exercise her prophetic office, which the conciliar sect has systematically abdicated.
“Polarities That Constitute Us”: A Tritarian Distortion of Catholic Theology
Perhaps the most theologically revealing passage in Argüello’s address is his enumeration of what he calls “polarities that constitute us and make us fruitful.” He lists: “the Trinitarian polarity, which is foundational to all others; the anthropological polarity, male and female; the polarity of ‘you and I, ourselves and society’; and the polarity of ‘history and eternal life.'”
This language is not Catholic theology. It is the language of Hegelian dialectics — thesis, antithesis, synthesis — baptized with Christian vocabulary. The Most Holy Trinity is not a “polarity.” The Blessed Trinity is the mystery of one God in three divine Persons, consubstantial and co-eternal, distinguished by their mutual relations of origin: the Father begets the Son, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (Filioque). The Council of Nicaea (325), whose 1600th anniversary Pius XI commemorated in Quas Primas, defined that the Son is consubstantial with the Father — not in “polarity” with Him. The Council of Toledo (589) defined the Filioque. To speak of “Trinitarian polarity” is to introduce a category of opposition and tension into the very heart of the Godhead, which is absolute unity and absolute simplicity. This is the language of process theology, not Catholic dogma.
Similarly, the “anthropological polarity, male and female,” while superficially echoing Genesis 1:27, is deployed here in a context that has been systematically emptied of its supernatural content. The Church teaches that the distinction of sexes is ordered toward the procreation and education of children within the sacrament of matrimony, and that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of offspring, with the mutual help and the remedy of concupiscence as secondary ends (Canon 1013, 1917 Code; Council of Trent, Session XXIV). But in the conciar framework, “polarity” becomes an end in itself — a sociological category detached from the sacramental order and the divine law.
The Omission of the Supernatural: Silence as Apostasy
What is most striking about Argüello’s address is what it does not say. There is not a single mention of the most fundamental “polarity” that defines human existence: the polarity between grace and sin, between heaven and hell, between Christ and Satan. There is no mention of the necessity of baptism for salvation, the obligation to keep the commandments, the reality of mortal sin, the necessity of confession, the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass, or the social kingship of Christ. The entire address operates within a purely naturalistic framework — the framework of secular sociology, political science, and psychology.
This is not an oversight. It is the systematic method of the conciar sect since the Second Vatican Council. The “abomination of desolation” (Matt. 24:15) that now occupies the Vatican has stripped the Church’s public discourse of its supernatural content. When Pius XI issued Quas Primas in 1925, he declared unequivocally: “His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” And further: “The state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” Pius XI taught that rulers who refuse public veneration to Christ act against the common good and destroy the foundations of authority itself: “When God and Jesus Christ — as we lamented — were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.”
Argüello’s address contains not a whisper of this teaching. Instead, he speaks of “cooperation” with the government of Pedro Sánchez — a government that, as Argüello himself notes, adopts “confessional” stances on anthropology (that is, the promotion of gender ideology, which Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus of Errors as the denial of the natural moral law) and seeks to “re-signify” the Valley of the Fallen, a monument that, whatever one’s judgment of the political circumstances of its construction, contains a Catholic basilica dedicated to the Most Holy Cross.
Synodality as Ideological Power Struggle
Argüello’s treatment of synodality is particularly revealing. He states: “Democracy, when lived as an ideology, seeks to be applied to all dimensions of existence; it disrupts genuine synodality — a shared discernment aimed at being more faithful to the missionary mandate of the Lord — and transforms it into an exercise in the distribution of power based on the theological-pastoral preferences of the participants.”
This statement is a masterpiece of conciar doublespeak. First, Argüello implicitly contrasts “democracy as an ideology” with “genuine synodality,” suggesting that there is a form of synodality that is not ideological. But the synodal process as implemented by the conciar sect is precisely the application of democratic, parliamentary procedures to the governance of the Church — a Church that is not a democracy but a hierarchical society instituted by Christ. The Code of Canon Law (1917) established that jurisdiction in the Church descends from Christ through the Pope and the bishops in communion with him — not upward from the “base” through “shared discernment.” Lamentabili sane exitu (1907) condemned the proposition that “the Church listening cooperates in such a way with the Church teaching in defining truths of faith, that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Proposition 6).
Second, Argüello’s description of synodality as “shared discernment aimed at being more faithful to the missionary mandate of the Lord” is vacuous. What is the “missionary mandate”? In Catholic doctrine, it is the mandate given by Christ to the Apostles: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28:19). The purpose of evangelization is the salvation of souls through baptism, the teaching of all that Christ commanded, and the administration of the sacraments. But in the conciar framework, the “missionary mandate” has been systematically reinterpreted as dialogue with the world, the promotion of “human rights,” and collaboration with secular powers — precisely the errors condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (Proposition 80: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization”).
The Valley of the Fallen: A Test Case in Conciliar Capitulation
Argüello’s treatment of the Valley of the Fallen is instructive. He invites “the government and the monks of the Abbey of the Valley of Cuelgamuros to reach a reasonable and satisfactory agreement for both parties — one that, moreover, serves as a testament that it is possible to overcome polarization and find paths for reconciliation.”
The language of “reconciliation” and “overcoming polarization” in this context is the language of capitulation. The Spanish government’s program of “re-signification” is a program of ideological conquest — the imposition of a particular political reading of history upon a Catholic sacred site. The proper response of a Catholic bishop, speaking in his capacity as a successor of the Apostles, would be to defend the sacred character of the basilica and the rights of the Church over her own property and worship. Instead, Argüello adopts the language of mediation between equal parties — as though the rights of Christ the King and the rights of a secular government were comparable claims to be “balanced” through negotiation.
Pius XI taught in Quas Primas: “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.” Argüello’s approach is the precise antithesis of this teaching.
The “Far Right” and the Conciliar Sect’s True Concern
The article notes that Argüello alluded to a controversy surrounding leaked comments from a November 2025 meeting with “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), who allegedly said that his greatest concern in Spain is the “far right.” The CEE explained that “in the dialogue, the Holy Father reflected, among other things, on the risks of subjecting faith to ideologies, without mentioning any specific group.”
This is a transparent exercise in damage control. The conciar sect’s consistent pattern is to label any Catholic who insists on the unchanging teaching of the Church — the social kingship of Christ, the necessity of Catholic worship, the reality of sin, the obligation of the state to recognize the true religion — as “far right.” This is the same tactic used by every revolutionary regime against those who resist its innovations. St. Pius X, in Pascendi, warned that the Modernists “wish to be called Catholics” while undermining the very foundations of the Faith. The “far right” label is the conciar sect’s way of delegitimizing fidelity to Catholic tradition without having to engage with the substance of Catholic teaching.
Argüello’s statement that “ideologies in postmodern societies participate in the interplay of identity, belonging, and polarization, serving the struggle for power” is a perfect example of false equivalence. By placing all “ideologies” on the same level, he avoids the fundamental question: which ideology is true? The Catholic Church teaches that there is one true religion, that the Catholic Church is that religion, and that all other religions are false (Proposition 17 of the Syllabus: “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ” — condemned). To speak of “ideologies” in the plural, as though the Catholic Faith were one ideology among many, is to profess indifferentism — the very error Pius IX condemned.
The Abuse Crisis: Selective Justice and the Conciliar Double Standard
Argüello’s complaint about the government’s focus on abuse cases “committed solely within the Church” deserves scrutiny. He states that the Church “has provided compensation, in many cases, without any government or court ruling having imposed it,” and takes issue with Justice Minister Félix Bolaños’ assertion that “the government decides and the Church pays.”
While the principle that the Church should not be singled out for persecution is legitimate, Argüello’s framing omits the essential context: the abuse crisis in the conciar sect is not merely a public relations problem but a direct consequence of the moral and doctrinal collapse that followed the Second Vatican Council. The relaxation of seminary discipline, the abandonment of Thomistic moral theology, the introduction of psychological formation in place of ascetical theology, the toleration of homosexual networks within the clergy — all of these are fruits of the conciar revolution. To complain about the government’s focus on the Church without acknowledging the internal causes of the crisis is to treat the symptoms while ignoring the disease.
Moreover, the Church’s proper response to abuse is not negotiation with secular governments about compensation protocols but the exercise of her own judicial authority, the application of canon law, the protection of the innocent, and the spiritual reform of the clergy. The 1917 Code of Canon Law provided ample tools for the punishment of clerics guilty of crimes against the sixth commandment. The failure to apply these tools is a failure of the conciar hierarchy itself.
Conclusion: The Bankruptcy of Conciliar Pastoral Discourse
Archbishop Argüello’s address is a perfect specimen of the conciar sect’s pastoral method: the reduction of Catholic teaching to the categories of secular sociology, the substitution of “dialogue” and “reconciliation” for the proclamation of truth, the systematic omission of supernatural realities, and the adoption of the language of the world to describe the mission of the Church. It is the language of men who have lost the Faith and are attempting to manage the ruins.
The true remedy for polarization is not “shared discernment” or “emotional maturity” but the submission of the intellect and will to the truth revealed by God and taught by His Church. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — outside the Church there is no salvation. This is not “polarization”; it is the truth spoken by Christ Himself. Until the occupants of the Vatican return to the unchanging teaching of the Church — the teaching of Pius IX, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and all the Roman Pontiffs who preceded the conciar revolution — their addresses will continue to be what this one is: eloquent speeches about nothing, spoken by men who have abandoned the deposit of faith and now preside over the spiritual ruin of the souls entrusted to them.
Source:
Spanish Bishops’ Conference president concerned about polarization affecting Church and society (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 21.04.2026