EWTN News reports that Bishop Kevin Doran of Achonry delivered a homily at Dublin’s 2026 March for Life, affirming the humanity of the unborn and opposing Ireland’s new abortion expansion bill. While his words on embryology and the spiritual soul are doctrinally sound, the very need for such a defense exposes the catastrophic failure of the post-conciliar structures to form Catholic consciences capable of resisting the culture of death—a failure for which the conciar sect itself bears primary responsibility.
The Tragedy of Defending What Should Be Obvious
Bishop Doran’s homily at the Newman University Church in Dublin, delivered on the occasion of the May 4 March for Life organized by the Pro Life Campaign, touches upon truths that should require no defense in any authentically Catholic society. The bishop correctly states that “the genetic identity of a new individual is already established once fertilization has occurred” and that “there is an intelligent plan, and we mess with nature at our peril.” He further affirms that abortion “not only kills babies, it also wounds women in the depth of their being” and does “untold moral and spiritual damage to all who promote it or who participate in it.”
These are indeed truths consonant with perennial Catholic teaching. The Church has always held, as articulated by the Council of Trent and reaffirmed by every pope up to and including Pius XII, that the unborn child possesses a rational soul from the moment of conception and that the deliberate destruction of innocent life constitutes a grave sin against the Fifth Commandment. The Casti Connubii of Pius XI (1930) explicitly condemned abortion as a crime against God’s law, and the Vitae Mysterium of Paul VI—whatever the theological ambiguities of his pontificate—reaffirmed the Church’s opposition to direct abortion.
Yet the very fact that a Catholic bishop in 2026 must stand before a congregation and defend the humanity of the unborn child as though it were a disputed proposition reveals the abyss into which the conciliar sect has fallen. For over half a century, the structures occupying the Vatican have systematically undermined the faithful’s understanding of objective moral law, replacing the certitudes of faith with the ambiguities of “dialogue,” “conscience,” and “pastoral accompaniment.”
The Scientific Truth and Its Theological Foundation
Bishop Doran’s appeal to science is commendable in its intent but insufficient in its foundation. He notes that “scientific advancements have made it possible to confirm that the genetic identity of a new individual ‘is already established once fertilization has occurred'” and that anyone who denies “the essential continuity between the embryo and the baby born nine months later ‘is flying in the face of truth.'”
This is correct, but it is not science alone that establishes the dignity of the unborn. The bishop himself recognizes this when he references Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, noting that “in every living thing there must be a first principle of life which explained and governed all its action” and that “the first principle of life in human beings must be a spiritual soul.” He further emphasizes that “once there is a living body, even one as small as an embryo, there must be a soul which explains and directs all its growth and development.”
This is the perennial teaching of the Church, rooted not in empirical observation alone but in the revealed truth that God creates each human soul directly at the moment of conception. As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, following Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory as elevated by Christian revelation, the rational soul is the form of the body—it is not added later but is present from the moment the matter is organized to receive it. The Donum Vitae instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1987), despite emanating from the conciliar structures, correctly affirms that “the human being must be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception.”
However, the bishop’s appeal to Greek philosophy, while intellectually respectable, risks reducing the argument to a naturalistic plane. The full Catholic truth is not merely that the embryo has a “spiritual soul” in the Aristotelian sense, but that each human being is created in the image and likeness of God (imago Dei), redeemed by the Precious Blood of Christ, and destined for eternal beatitude. The gravity of abortion is not merely that it destroys a “living body with a soul” but that it murders a creature for whom Christ died, depriving the child of baptism and, in the ordinary course of divine providence, of eternal life.
The Omission of Supernatural Realities
Here lies the most grievous deficiency of Bishop Doran’s homily, and indeed of virtually all pro-life discourse emanating from the conciliar sect: the near-total silence on the supernatural consequences of abortion. The bishop speaks of “untold moral and spiritual damage” to those who promote or participate in abortion, but he does not name the specific sins involved, nor does he speak of the eternal damnation that awaits those who die in the state of mortal sin without repentance.
This silence is not accidental. It is the direct fruit of the conciliar revolution’s systematic suppression of the doctrine of hell, the reality of mortal sin, and the necessity of sacramental confession for the restoration of the state of grace. The post-conciliar catechisms, the reformed liturgy, and the entire pastoral apparatus of the neo-church have conspired to create a “gospel of mercy” that is, in reality, a gospel of moral indifference—a mercy without justice, a love without truth.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemned the proposition that “the violation of any solemn oath, as well as any wicked and flagitious action repugnant to the eternal law, is not only not blamable but is altogether lawful and worthy of the highest praise when done through love of country” (Error 64). How much more does this apply to the “love of women’s autonomy” that is invoked to justify the slaughter of the innocent? The bishop’s failure to name abortion as a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance (peccatum clamans) and to warn of its eternal consequences is a dereliction of pastoral duty that flows directly from the conciar sect’s abandonment of the supernatural order.
The Conciliar Sect’s Complicity in the Culture of Death
Bishop Doran appeals to the responsibility of Catholics to know the “Gospel of Life ‘in all its dimensions, and to confidently bear witness to it, both in our private lives and in the public space.'” He further recalls the invitation of the antipope Leo XIV: “The Church is called to reach all peoples, not by imposing itself but by bearing witness to the truth in charity.”
This last phrase is revealing in its conciliar provenance. The language of “bearing witness” rather than “teaching with authority,” of “reaching all peoples” rather than “converting all nations,” is the characteristic vocabulary of the post-conciliar aggiornamento. It reflects the false ecclesiology of Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae, which proclaimed the “right to religious freedom”—a direct contradiction of the perennial teaching of the Church as expressed in Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos (1832) and Pius IX’s Syllabus.
The conciar sect cannot credibly oppose abortion while simultaneously promoting the very theological errors that have made abortion culturally acceptable. The “right to religious freedom” proclaimed at Vatican II logically entails the “right to conscience” that is invoked to justify cooperation with abortion. The “dialogue with the world” called for by the conciliar fathers has produced a Church that is dialoguing itself into irrelevance on every moral question of consequence.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), taught that “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men” and that “rulers of states… have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” He further warned that “when God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The legalization of abortion throughout the Western world is the direct consequence of the laicism that Pius XI identified as “the plague that poisons human society”—a plague that the conciliar sect has not only failed to combat but has actively facilitated through its embrace of religious liberty and its abandonment of the social reign of Christ the King.
The Failure of “Life-Affirming Support”
Bishop Doran emphasizes that “we need to find new ways of offering life-affirming support to women who are in crisis during pregnancy or after the birth of a child.” This is a laudable sentiment, but it must be asked: where were these “life-affirming” structures when the conciar sect was dismantling the Catholic hospital system, closing Catholic adoption agencies, and surrendering Catholic education to the secular state?
The post-conciliar period has witnessed the systematic destruction of the very institutions that once provided the “life-affirming support” the bishop now calls for. Catholic hospitals have been secularized or closed. Catholic schools have been absorbed into state systems or transformed into institutions indistinguishable from their secular counterparts. Religious orders dedicated to the care of mothers and children have been decimated by the conciliar revolution’s assault on religious life.
The bishop’s call for “new ways” of support is, in reality, an admission that the old ways—the ways of Catholic Christendom, of a society ordered to the common good under the sovereignty of Christ the King—have been destroyed. And they have been destroyed not primarily by the secular state but by the conciliar sect itself, which has spent the last six decades dismantling the institutional Church from within.
The Primacy of the Supernatural Order
The fundamental error of Bishop Doran’s homily, and of the entire pro-life movement within the conciar sect, is its implicit naturalism. The defense of the unborn is conducted on the plane of science, philosophy, and human rights rather than on the plane of supernatural faith, divine law, and eternal salvation.
The true Catholic position on abortion is not merely that it is “wrong” because it kills a human being with a spiritual soul. It is that it is a mortal sin against the Fifth Commandment, a crime against the Creator who alone has dominion over life and death, an act of rebellion against the divine law that binds all men at all times and in all places. The true Catholic position is that the state has not merely the right but the duty to prohibit abortion under pain of punishment, and that Catholic legislators who vote for abortion legislation are guilty of formal cooperation in evil and incur automatic excommunication (latae sententiae) under canon law.
Pius IX, in Apostolicae Sedis (1869), declared excommunicated “all persons who procure abortion, if the effect follows.” This penalty was reaffirmed in the 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 2350) and remains in force. Yet the conciar sect has systematically failed to enforce this penalty, creating the impression that abortion is a matter of “conscience” rather than a grave crime against God and society.
Conclusion: The Bankruptcy of Conciliar Pro-Life Witness
Bishop Doran’s homily, while containing elements of doctrinally sound teaching, ultimately exemplifies the bankruptcy of the conciar sect’s approach to the defense of life. By framing the argument in terms of science and philosophy rather than divine law and eternal consequences, by invoking the antipope Leo XIV’s language of “witness” rather than the Church’s traditional language of authority and command, and by calling for “new ways” of support while ignoring the destruction of the old ways by the conciliar revolution itself, the bishop demonstrates the impossibility of effectively defending the faith from within structures that have been captured by the enemies of the faith.
The defense of the unborn requires not merely homilies and marches but the restoration of the social reign of Christ the King, the enforcement of divine and canon law, and the conversion of society to the Catholic faith. These are tasks that the conciar sect, by its very nature and constitution, is incapable of accomplishing. Until the faithful return to the integral Catholic faith—the faith of the unchanging Magisterium, the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and the social kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ—the culture of death will continue to advance, and the blood of the innocent will continue to cry out to heaven for vengeance.
Source:
Irish bishop: Truth about abortion is ‘it not only kills babies, it wounds women’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 05.05.2026