The EWTN News article, published on April 28, 2026, reports on the private audience between 97-year-old Cardinal Ernest Simoni and the antipope Leo XIV at the Vatican. Simoni, a former political prisoner under the Albanian communist regime of Enver Hoxha, presented the “pontiff” with a cross and a relic of Albanian martyrs. The article highlights Simoni’s endurance of 18 years of imprisonment and forced labor, his clandestine celebration of Mass, and his emotional meeting with the “pope” Francis in 2014, who subsequently created him a cardinal in 2016. The cardinal’s own words, as reported, speak of proclaiming “peace,” “fraternity,” and “love for all the peoples of the world” with the “Holy Father.” While the suffering of this man under communism is undeniable, the article and the event it describes are a masterclass in the post-conciliar Church’s strategy of using genuine suffering to legitimize a false hierarchy and promote a naturalistic, Masonic gospel of universal “fraternity” devoid of the supernatural mission of the Catholic Church.
The Exploitation of Suffering for the Sake of the Conciliar Sect
The article presents Cardinal Simoni as a “living martyr,” a title laden with profound theological weight. In Catholic doctrine, a martyr is one who suffers death for the faith, for the defense of a virtue or a commandment of God. The Church has always been exceedingly cautious in bestowing this title, reserving it for those whose death was a direct and explicit act of witness to Christ. The suffering of Simoni and countless others under communist regimes is a historical fact and a testament to human endurance. However, the instrumentalization of this suffering by the conciliar structures is a calculated maneuver. The purpose is not to glorify God or to highlight the evils of communism as a godless ideology, but to create a narrative of legitimacy for the post-conciliar “Church.” By showcasing a “cardinal” who suffered under communism, the structures occupying the Vatican seek to present themselves as the true persecuted Church, the continuation of the faithful flock, thereby masking their own apostasy. This is a classic tactic of psychological manipulation: using a genuine emotion (sympathy for a sufferer) to bypass critical judgment and elicit acceptance of the system that claims him as its own.
The Omission of the True Enemy: Modernist Apostasy
The article, and the event it reports, operates within a carefully constructed framework that identifies the sole enemy of the Church as external: communism. This is a deliberate and fatal omission. While communism is indeed a mortal enemy of Christ and His Church, it is not the only one, nor, since the mid-20th century, has it been the most dangerous. The most pernicious enemy is the one within. As St. Pius X warned in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907), the “synthesis of all heresies,” Modernism, had infiltrated the very heart of the Church. The “enemies within,” as he called them, were not the avowed atheists of the Soviet Union, but the Catholic intellectuals, theologians, and clergy who sought to reconcile the faith with the spirit of the age, to subject divine revelation to the judgment of human reason, and to transform the Church from a divine institution into a democratic society of man.
The article is silent on the fact that the structures Simoni now serves, the very “Vatican” he visited, are the epicenter of this internal apostasy. The “pope” he met, Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), is a direct product and promoter of the conciar revolution that has gutted the Church of her supernatural character. The “Mass” that Simoni celebrated clandestinely in Latin, while heroic in its context, is now a relic of the past within the very structures he represents. The Novus Ordo Missae, the new “mass” promulgated by the antipope Paul VI, is a Protestantized assembly that obscures the propitiatory sacrifice of Calvary. To celebrate the suffering of a man who risked his life for the true Mass, while he is now a prince of a sect that has effectively destroyed it, is a profound and tragic irony. The article, by failing to mention this reality, becomes complicit in the deception.
The Gospel of “Peace and Fraternity”: A Masonic Slogan
The most revealing element of the article is the language used by Cardinal Simoni himself. His words to the “pontiff” are a textbook example of the naturalistic and Masonic spirit that pervades the post-conciliar Church. He spoke of proclaiming “to all mankind the good news from heaven, of peace, of fraternity, and of love for all the peoples of the world.” This is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel is the proclamation of the Kingdom of Christ, a kingdom that is not of this world (John 18:36), and which demands repentance, faith, and baptism for salvation (Mark 16:16). The “good news” is that Christ has redeemed us by His Blood and that there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).
The language of “peace,” “fraternity,” and “love for all” is the language of the French Revolution, of Freemasonry, and of the United Nations. It is a horizontal, naturalistic message that reduces the mission of the Church to the promotion of universal brotherhood based on a common humanity, rather than on the supernatural grace of God. This is the very error condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), where he condemned the proposition that the Roman Pontiff “can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). It is the error of “indifferentism,” the belief that all religions are equally valid paths to God, an error condemned by Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832) and by Pius IX himself.
The article quotes Simoni as saying the meeting was about proclaiming “the peace that comes from heaven, that most sweet peace, spiritual joy, and the joy of the Resurrection.” But this “peace” is divorced from its true source: the triumph of Christ the King over all His enemies, including the errors of modernism and the structures of the conciliar sect. The “joy of the Resurrection” is not a vague feeling of spiritual uplift but the objective reality of Christ’s victory over death and the promise of eternal life to those who persevere in the true faith. To use these sacred concepts as slogans for a universalist, naturalistic agenda is a blasphemy.
The “Cardinal” and the Usurper: A Meeting of Apostates
The article presents the meeting between Simoni and Leo XIV as a meeting of the “faithful” with the “Holy Father.” This is a lie. Leo XIV is not the Holy Father. He is an antipope, a usurper of the Chair of Peter, who has never been validly elected according to the laws of the Church and who professes the heresies of the conciliar revolution. His very name, Leo XIV, is a deliberate attempt to evoke the legacy of Leo XIII, the great pope who consecrated the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and who condemned Freemasonry in Humanum Genus (1884). This is a calculated act of deception, designed to lend an air of legitimacy to a regime that is the antithesis of everything Leo XIII stood for.
Cardinal Simoni, by his own actions, has placed himself in communion with this usurper. He was created a cardinal by the apostate “pope” Francis, a man who has publicly denied the divinity of Christ and who has promoted the worship of Pachamama in the Vatican. He has accepted the cardinalate, a title that, in the true Church, carries with it the duty to defend the faith and to elect a true pope. By accepting this title from a false pope, Simoni has implicitly recognized the legitimacy of the conciliar sect. His presence at the “urbi et orbi” blessing of Leo XIV is not an act of faith but an act of submission to a false authority.
The article’s description of the meeting as “a special grace by the Holy Spirit” is a blasphemy. The Holy Spirit does not bestow His graces upon meetings that promote heresy and apostasy. The “atmosphere of joy and hope” described is the false joy of those who have abandoned the narrow path of truth for the broad road of error. It is the joy of the world, not the joy of Christ.
The Relic and the Cross: Symbols of a Stolen Faith
The article mentions that Simoni presented Leo XIV with a cross and a relic of the Albanian martyrs. These are powerful symbols. The cross is the instrument of our salvation, the sign of contradiction that divides the world between those who accept Christ and those who reject Him. A relic is a tangible connection to the communion of saints, to those who have gone before us in the faith. But what is the meaning of these symbols in the hands of an antipope? They are emptied of their supernatural significance and reduced to mere artifacts, tokens of a “faith” that has been stripped of its content.
The Albanian martyrs died for the true faith, for the true Mass, for the true Church. To offer their relics to the representative of a sect that has betrayed that faith is a desecration. It is as if the blood of the martyrs is being used to anoint the abomination of desolation that now sits in the temple of God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). The article, by presenting this act as a pious gesture, is complicit in this desecration.
The Silence on the True Remedy: The Reign of Christ the King
The article’s entire framework is naturalistic. It speaks of “peace,” “fraternity,” and “love” as if these could be achieved by human effort, by dialogue, by the structures of the United Nations or the conciliar Church. This is the error condemned by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quas Primas (1925), where he instituted the Feast of Christ the King. Pius XI wrote that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” He explicitly stated that the evils of the world are due to the fact that “very many have removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from their customs, from private, family, and public life.”
The true remedy for the evils of the world, including communism, is not the false “fraternity” of the conciliar sect but the public and social reign of Christ the King over all nations, all families, and all individuals. This is the only path to true peace: “the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ.” The article, by failing to mention this, offers a false hope, a placebo that leaves the root cause of the world’s misery untouched. It offers the world a “smile of heaven” while the structures it represents are busy destroying the very means of salvation: the true Mass, the true sacraments, the true doctrine.
Conclusion: The Tragedy of a Misplaced Witness
The story of Cardinal Ernest Simoni is, at its core, a human tragedy. A man who suffered greatly for his faith, who risked his life to celebrate the true Mass, who endured years of imprisonment and forced labor, has been co-opted by the very structures that have destroyed the faith for which he suffered. His genuine suffering is used to legitimize a false Church, his heroic witness is emptied of its supernatural meaning and turned into a tool for promoting a naturalistic, Masonic gospel of universal brotherhood.
The article from EWTN News is not a news report; it is a piece of propaganda for the conciar sect. It is a call to submission to the antipope, to acceptance of the new “mass,” to embrace of the new “fraternity.” It is a denial of the true mission of the Church, which is not to make the world a better place according to human standards, but to lead souls to heaven through the preaching of the true faith, the administration of the true sacraments, and the recognition of the true social reign of Christ the King.
The faithful must see through this deception. They must reject the false “fraternity” of the conciar sect and cling to the narrow path of integral Catholicism. They must pray for the true Church, for the restoration of the true papacy, for the return of the true Mass. And they must remember the words of Our Lord: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). The path of Cardinal Simoni, however heroic his past, has led him into the broad way of conciliar apostasy. The faithful must choose the narrow way.
Source:
Living ‘martyr’ of communism, Cardinal Simoni, presents relic of Albanian martyrs to Leo XIV (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 28.04.2026