The National Catholic Register reports that Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop David Bonnar of Youngstown, Ohio, issued statements condemning violence after a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., on April 25, 2026. The bishops called for prayers, emphasized that “violence is never the answer,” and urged a deeper look into the “human heart” to build peace. Their statements, while superficially aligned with Christian charity, are a masterclass in theological evasion, naturalistic humanism, and the complete abandonment of the Church’s supernatural mission.
The Omission of the Supernatural: A Telltale Sign of Modernist Apostasy
The most glaring deficiency in the bishops’ statements is their complete silence on the supernatural order. There is no mention of sin, grace, repentance, or the need for conversion to Christ and His Catholic Church. Instead, the language is saturated with the jargon of secular humanism: “look deeper into the human heart,” “build each other up,” “live as a nation under God with liberty and justice for all.” This is not the language of the Gospel; it is the language of the United Nations.
Bishop Bonnar’s exhortation to “look deeper into the human heart” is particularly revealing. It implies that the root of violence lies in psychological or social factors, not in the fallen nature of man and his rebellion against God. The Catholic teaching, as articulated by the Council of Trent, is clear: “If any one saith, that man’s free will, moved and excited by God, cannot cooperate with God, by consenting to God, who excites and calls it… but that, if it does so, it does nothing at all, and that it is merely passive; let him be anathema” (Session VI, Canon 4). The bishops’ naturalistic language effectively denies the reality of original sin and the necessity of divine grace.
The Cult of Man: A Heresy Condemned by the Syllabus of Errors
Bishop Barron’s statement on X, quoted in the article, is a textbook example of the “cult of man” condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors. He writes: “Can we please remember that it is possible to disagree with a politician’s ideas without demonizing and de-humanizing him? Jesus commanded us to love our enemies, and that includes our ideological opponents.” While love of enemy is a Gospel precept, Barron reduces it to a call for civility in political discourse, devoid of any reference to the truth of Catholic doctrine or the obligation to combat error.
This is the heresy of indifferentism, condemned in Proposition 15 of the Syllabus: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” By refusing to identify the ideological roots of violence in the rejection of God’s law, Barron implicitly places all ideas on an equal footing, as long as they are expressed “civilly.” This is the very essence of Modernism, which St. Pius X condemned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis as “the synthesis of all heresies.”
The False Peace of the Conciliar Sect
The bishops’ call for “peace in moments of disagreement and discord” is a false peace, a peace without justice, a peace that ignores the reality of the warfare between the City of God and the City of Man. Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas, warned: “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… For this reason, the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.”
The bishops’ statements are a perfect illustration of this warning. By refusing to call for the submission of the state to the Kingship of Christ, they perpetuate the very conditions that lead to violence and social disintegration. Their “peace” is the peace of the world, not the peace of Christ, which is “not as the world giveth” (John 14:27).
The Abdication of Authority: A Betrayal of the Church’s Mission
The U.S. bishops’ conference, as a collective body, has utterly failed in its duty to teach, govern, and sanctify. Instead of proclaiming the fullness of Catholic truth, they issue bland, inoffensive statements that could have been written by any secular NGO. This is not leadership; it is abdication.
The Church, as Pope Leo XIII taught in Immortale Dei, is a perfect society, endowed with all the means necessary to achieve its end: the salvation of souls. It is not the role of bishops to echo the platitudes of the world but to proclaim the hard truths of the Gospel, even when they are unpopular. As St. Paul wrote: “Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).
Conclusion: The Bankruptcy of the Conciliar Sect
The response of the U.S. bishops to the White House shooting is a microcosm of the conciliar sect’s spiritual bankruptcy. It is characterized by a naturalistic humanism that ignores the supernatural, a false ecumenism that refuses to condemn error, and a cowardly silence on the Kingship of Christ over the state. Until the clergy return to the unchanging teaching of the pre-conciliar Magisterium, such statements will continue to be a scandal and a betrayal of the faithful.
Source:
US Bishops Say Violence ‘Never the Answer’ After Shooting at White House Press Dinner (ncregister.com)
Date: 26.04.2026