VaticanNews portal reports on the final Mass of Leo XIV’s apostolic journey to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea, celebrated on April 23, 2026, at Malabo Stadium before approximately 30,000 people. The usurper in Rome centered his homily on the narrative of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch from Acts, urging the faithful to allow Sacred Scripture to reveal “the meaning of our lives” and to carry out a mission of evangelization. Yet beneath the veneer of scriptural references lies a thoroughly naturalistic and modernist framework that reduces the Church’s mission to horizontal service, omits the necessity of the true Faith for salvation, and treats the sacraments as mere symbols of fraternal unity rather than the indispensable means of grace instituted by Christ.
The Omission of the Supernatural Order: No Mention of the State of Grace, Mortal Sin, or Eternal Damnation
The most glaring deficiency in Leo XIV’s homily is what it systematically refuses to say. In an address purportedly centered on the Gospel, the word “sin” appears only in passing, the word “repentance” is entirely absent, and there is no mention whatsoever of the state of grace, the reality of mortal sin, the necessity of contrition, or the eternal consequences of dying in enmity with God. This is not a minor oversight — it is a deliberate theological excision that reveals the true spirit of conciliarism.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught with unmistakable clarity that Christ’s kingdom “is opposed only to the kingdom of Satan and the powers of darkness — and requires its followers not only to renounce earthly riches and possessions, to be distinguished by modesty of conduct, and to hunger and thirst for justice, but also to deny themselves and carry their cross.” The same Pontiff declared that “there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Leo XIV, standing before 30,000 souls in Africa — many of whom may never hear the fullness of Catholic truth again — offers instead the banal assurance that “the story of our lives finds its meaning in the Gospel.” Meaning for what? He does not say. Salvation from eternal perdition? Incorporation into the Mystical Body through Baptism in the true Faith? The forgiveness of sins through the sacrament of Penance? These questions are not merely unanswered — they are unasked.
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu, condemned the modernist proposition that “revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (proposition 20) and that “the dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are not truths of divine origin but are a certain interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind has worked out with great effort” (proposition 22). Leo XIV’s homily, with its psychologizing language about Scripture revealing “the meaning of our lives” and “illuminating our problems,” operates squarely within this condemned framework. The Word of God is reduced to a mirror for self-understanding rather than the objective, divinely revealed truth to which the intellect and will must submit.
Baptism Redefined: “Sacrament of Fraternal Unity” and the Erasure of Regeneration
Perhaps the most doctrinally dangerous passage in the entire homily is Leo XIV’s description of Baptism. He states: “All of us are called to this evangelization from the moment of our Baptism, the sacrament of fraternal unity, the cleansing water of forgiveness, and the source of hope.”
This formulation is not merely imprecise — it is heretical in its practical effect. By defining Baptism primarily as “the sacrament of fraternal unity,” Leo XIV inverts the sacrament’s essential purpose. The Council of Trent, in Session VII, Canon 1 on the Sacraments in General, anathematizes anyone who says that the sacraments of the New Law “were not all instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ” or that they “are more or less than seven, namely, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony, or also that any one of these seven is not truly and properly a sacrament.” Canon 5 on Baptism declares: “If anyone says that baptism is optional, that is, not necessary for salvation, let him be anathema.”
The essential purpose of Baptism is not fraternal unity — it is the remission of original sin, the infusion of sanctifying grace, and the incorporation of the soul into the Mystical Body of Christ. It is the gateway to eternal life, without which “no one can enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). By reducing it to a “sacrament of fraternal unity,” Leo XIV transforms a supernatural act of divine regeneration into a horizontal, sociological event — precisely the kind of naturalism that the Syllabus of Errors condemns in its first section: “All action of God upon man and the world is to be denied” (proposition 2).
The phrase “cleansing water of forgiveness” is equally suspect. It evokes the language of indifferentism — the notion that the external rite itself, apart from the proper disposition of the recipient and the intention of the minister to do what the Church does, effects a merely symbolic cleansing. The Council of Trent, Session XIV, Chapter 3 on Penance, teaches that “the matter of this sacrament, as it were, is the acts of the penitent himself.” Forgiveness is not an automatic consequence of water but requires contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Leo XIV’s language strips the sacramental order of its supernatural precision and replaces it with the warm, fuzzy language of the conciliar revolution.
The Ethiopian Eunuch: A Parable of Liberation Theology, Not Supernatural Faith
Leo XIV’s extended meditation on the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40) is a masterclass in modernist eisegesis. He describes the eunuch as “intelligent and cultured but not fully free,” whose body “shows this, as being a eunuch he cannot give life,” and whose “vitality is placed at the service of a power that controls and rules over him.” The proclamation of the Gospel, Leo XIV declares, “sets him free.”
This is not the Catholic reading of this passage. The eunuch’s conversion is presented in Sacred Scripture as a work of divine grace operating through the preaching of Philip, leading to Baptism and the forgiveness of sins. Leo XIV transforms it into a parable of socio-political liberation — the eunuch is “oppressed,” “marginalized,” and “a slave,” and the Gospel “sets him free” from these conditions. The supernatural reality of regeneration through Baptism is subordinated to the horizontal narrative of human emancipation.
This is the hermeneutic of the conciliar sect in its purest form. The Word of God is not read to discover what God has revealed for our salvation, but to find “meaning” for our earthly existence. Leo XIV explicitly states: “interpreting Scripture is ‘both serious and providential,’ as it ‘prepares us to read together the book of history, that is, the pages of our own lives, which God continues to inspire with His wisdom.'” This is precisely the modernist error condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis: the reduction of Sacred Scripture to a record of religious experience rather than the inspired, inerrant Word of God.
The Eucharist: “Eternal Covenant” Without Propitiatory Sacrifice
Leo XIV’s treatment of the Eucharist is characteristically conciliar. He states that the manna “is a sign, a blessing, and a promise that Jesus comes to fulfill,” and that “now it gives way to the Eucharist, the ‘eternal Covenant.'” He adds: “We praise you and bless you, because you chose to become for us the Eucharist, the bread of eternal life, so that we might live forever.”
What is conspicuously absent is any mention of the Eucharist as the propitiatory sacrifice of the New Law, the unbloody renewal of Calvary. The Council of Trent, Session XXII, Chapter 1, teaches: “For, after the celebration of the old Pasch, which was a commemoration of the outgoing of the children of Egypt, He [Christ] instituted a new Pasch, to be the celebration of this His own passage from this world to the Father, by the shedding of His own blood.” Canon 1 on the Sacrifice of the Mass anathematizes anyone who says that “in the mass a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God.”
Leo XIV’s language — “bread of eternal life,” “eternal Covenant” — is deliberately vague, capable of signifying anything or nothing. It is the language of the post-conciliar “reform” that replaced the theology of sacrifice with the theology of meal, of assembly, of “fraternal unity.” The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the act by which the Church perpetuates the redemptive work of Calvary and applies its fruits to the living and the dead, is reduced to a communal celebration of “meaning.”
Evangelization Without the True Faith: The Mission of the Conciliar Sect
Leo XIV urges his listeners: “Through our witness, the proclamation of salvation is made visible in action, service, and forgiveness — in a word, it becomes the Church!” This sentence encapsulates the entire conciliar distortion of the Church’s mission. Evangelization is reduced to “action, service, and forgiveness” — horizontal, naturalistic activities that any secular humanitarian organization could endorse.
The true mission of the Church, as defined by the pre-conciliar Magisterium, is to teach, govern, and sanctify souls for eternal salvation. Pius XI in Quas Primas declared: “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.” The same Pontiff insisted that the Church’s mission is “to teach, govern, and lead all to eternal happiness, those who belong to the Kingdom of Christ.”
Leo XIV’s evangelization has no doctrinal content, no demand for conversion to the Catholic Faith, no call to repentance, no warning against heresy or schism. It is a mission of naturalistic humanism dressed in scriptural vestments — precisely the “dogmaless Christianity, that is, a broad and liberal Protestantism” that St. Pius X condemned in Lamentabili (proposition 65).
The Vicar General’s Death: A Revealing Footnote
Leo XIV begins his homily by expressing “heartfelt condolence” for the sudden death of Fr. Fortunato Nsue Esono, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Malabo, who died on April 17, just days before the visit. He states: “I invite you to live this moment of sadness with a spirit of faith, and I trust that, without being swayed by speculation or rash conclusions, the circumstances surrounding his death will be fully clarified.”
The careful, bureaucratic language — “without being swayed by speculation or rash conclusions” — is characteristic of the conciliar apparatus’s instinct for damage control. There is no prayer for the repose of the soul, no commendation of the deceased to divine mercy, no reminder of the reality of judgment. The “spirit of faith” invoked is undefined and, in the context of the homily’s naturalistic framework, could mean anything or nothing.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation Continues Its Mission
Leo XIV’s homily at Malabo Stadium is a textbook example of the conciliar sect’s method: use the language of Catholic tradition while emptying it of supernatural content. Scripture is a mirror for self-understanding, Baptism is fraternal unity, the Eucharist is a communal meal, evangelization is social service, and the Church is a humanitarian organization. The supernatural order — grace, sin, redemption, sacrifice, eternal life and eternal death — is systematically suppressed.
This is not the Church of Christ. This is the “synagogue of Satan” that Pius IX warned against in the Syllabus of Errors, the “masonic associations” that he declared “anathematized not only in Europe but also in America and wherever they may be in the whole world.” The faithful who desire salvation must reject this counterfeit and cling to the immutable Tradition of the true Church — the Church that teaches, without ambiguity or compromise, that Jesus Christ is King, that His Church is the one ark of salvation, and that outside her there is only perdition.
Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. Outside the Church, no salvation. This is the truth that Leo XIV and his predecessors in the conciliar sect have labored for seven decades to destroy. It is the truth that endures.
Source:
Pope at Mass in Equatorial Guinea: 'Story of our lives finds meaning in Gospel' (vaticannews.va)
Date: 23.04.2026