The National Catholic Register reports that on May 4, 2026, Bishop Daniel Thomas of Toledo, chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, sent a letter to the chairs and vice chairs of the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations Committees. In this letter, he urged Congress to “advance appropriations that respect and affirm the dignity of all human life, from conception to natural death,” calling for policies that support women and children, defund abortion providers, and support restorative reproductive medicine. He specifically advocated for upholding the Hyde Amendment, defunding Planned Parenthood in Title X, and investing in maternal health programs like WIC. While voicing opposition to IVF, he simultaneously affirmed the “infinite, inherent dignity” of every person “conceived through IVF.” This letter, framed as a plea to “put children and families first,” is yet another manifestation of the conciliar sect’s fundamental apostasy: the reduction of the Church’s supernatural mission to naturalistic lobbying before a secular power that has legally enshrined the slaughter of innocents, demonstrating a complete abandonment of the Church’s divine mandate to condemn sin and proclaim the Social Reign of Christ the King.
The Illusion of “Pro-Life” Advocacy Within a Godless Framework
The letter from Bishop Daniel Thomas, speaking for the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, presents itself as a robust defense of “human life” and “dignity.” However, a closer examination reveals a profound theological and strategic bankruptcy, characteristic of the post-conciliar conciliar sect. The very premise of the letter – appealing to the United States Congress, a legislative body operating under a constitution that explicitly rejects the Social Kingship of Christ and enshrines religious indifferentism – is a fundamental betrayal of Catholic doctrine.
The Church, as established by Our Lord Jesus Christ, is a perfect society, endowed with all the means necessary to achieve its supernatural end: the salvation of souls. Its mission is not to lobby secular governments for incremental policy changes, but to proclaim the Gospel, administer the sacraments, and guide souls to eternal life. The Church’s authority is derived from God, not from the permission or assent of any civil power. As Pope Pius IX unequivocally stated in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemning the very premise of Bishop Thomas’s approach:
“The Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free- nor is she endowed with proper and perpetual rights of her own, conferred upon her by her Divine Founder; but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church, and the limits within which she may exercise those rights.” (Proposition 19)
and
“The ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government.” (Proposition 20)
Bishop Thomas’s letter implicitly accepts the legitimacy of a secular state’s authority over matters of life and death, reducing the Church’s prophetic voice to that of another interest group seeking “appropriations” and “funding priorities.” This is a far cry from the Church’s historical stance, which, as Pope Leo XIII articulated in Immortale Dei (1885), insists that “the Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, each supreme in its own kind, and each fixed within limits which are defined by its proper nature and special object.” The Church’s role is to teach, govern, and sanctify, not to beg crumbs from the table of a godless republic.
The Silence on the Social Reign of Christ the King: A Fundamental Apostasy
The most glaring omission in Bishop Thomas’s letter, and indeed in the entire “pro-life” strategy of the USCCB, is the complete silence on the Social Reign of Christ the King. This is not merely a doctrinal oversight; it is a fundamental apostasy that undermines the very foundation of the Church’s mission and the true source of all justice and order.
Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas (1925), explicitly established the Feast of Christ the King to address the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors.” He lamented that “this plague… began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations; the Church’s authority to teach men, to issue laws, to govern nations, which authority she received from Christ the Lord to lead men to eternal happiness, was denied.” Pius XI unequivocally declared:
“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
“Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ, but let them fulfill this duty themselves and with their people, if they wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness.”
Bishop Thomas’s letter, by contrast, operates entirely within the framework of a secular state, seeking “appropriations” and “funding priorities” from a Congress that has legally sanctioned the slaughter of millions. There is no mention of the duty of the state to publicly acknowledge Christ, to enact laws in conformity with His commandments, or to submit to the Church’s divine authority. This silence is not accidental; it is a direct consequence of the conciliar sect’s embrace of religious liberty and the separation of Church and State, condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832) as an “absurd and erroneous proposition” and by Pius IX in the Syllabus (Proposition 55: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.”).
The “pro-life” movement, as embodied by the USCCB, has tragically reduced the defense of innocent life to a political lobbying effort, divorced from the supernatural realities of faith, grace, and the ultimate judgment of God. It seeks to “put children and families first” within a system that has rejected the First Commandment, “I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.” The true “first” is God and His law. Without this foundational recognition, all attempts to protect life are built on sand, as they lack the divine sanction and supernatural efficacy that only the true Church can provide.
The Contradictions of “Restorative Reproductive Medicine” and the IVF Dilemma
Bishop Thomas’s letter attempts to navigate the complex issue of infertility treatments, voicing support for “restorative reproductive medicine” while opposing in vitro fertilization (IVF). He states:
“IVF represents an underregulated industry that creates hundreds of thousands or even millions of preborn children who will be interminably frozen, lost in attempts to implant them within a mother, or discarded and killed (often in a selective, eugenic manner)… By turning the conception of children into a lucrative manufacturing process, IVF also violates their rights and treats them like property.”
While this condemnation of IVF’s practical abuses is welcome, it is tragically undermined by the subsequent statement:
“Nevertheless, he said, ‘no one has any less worth because of being conceived through IVF. Every person has infinite, inherent dignity, which must be upheld through every stage and circumstance of life.'”blockquote>
This statement, while true in itself, reveals a profound theological confusion. The Church’s teaching on the dignity of the human person is inextricably linked to the natural law and the divine plan for procreation within marriage. IVF, by its very nature, separates the procreative act from the unitive act of marriage, reducing the child to a product and often involving the destruction of embryonic human life. To affirm the “infinite, inherent dignity” of a child conceived through IVF, without unequivocally condemning the sinful act that brought them into being, is a classic modernist error: separating the “person” from the “act,” and prioritizing a sentimental notion of “dignity” over the objective moral law.
The Church, before the conciliar revolution, would have unequivocally condemned IVF as intrinsically evil, regardless of the “dignity” of the resulting child. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, for instance, emphasizes that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children, and that any act which deliberately frustrates this end is gravely sinful. The “restorative reproductive medicine” advocated by Bishop Thomas, while perhaps well-intentioned, still operates within a framework that often seeks to achieve pregnancy by means other than the natural conjugal act, or at least without a clear and absolute condemnation of all artificial interventions that violate the integrity of the marital act and the sanctity of nascent life.
Furthermore, the letter’s call to “defund abortion providers” and “support authentic, life-affirming health care providers” is a tacit admission that the Church no longer possesses the spiritual authority or the institutional will to directly provide comprehensive, truly Catholic healthcare that addresses infertility, maternal health, and all other needs in full conformity with Catholic moral theology. Instead, it relies on the secular state to fund “authentic” providers, a clear indication of the conciliar sect’s abandonment of its own divine mandate to be the sole dispenser of salvation and the primary caregiver for souls.
The USCCB: A Paramasonic Structure in the Service of Naturalism
The USCCB, as a representative body of the conciliar sect in the United States, operates as a paramasonic structure, deeply embedded in the naturalistic and secularist framework of modern American society. Its “pro-life” advocacy, while ostensibly defending innocent life, is fundamentally compromised by its acceptance of the very principles that have led to the legalization and proliferation of abortion.
The conciar sect’s embrace of Dignitatis Humanae (Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom) has effectively neutralized the Church’s prophetic voice, reducing it to just another voice in the pluralistic marketplace of ideas. This document, condemned by traditional Catholic theologians as a direct contradiction of centuries of papal teaching (e.g., Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos, Pius IX’s Syllabus, Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei), asserts that the human person has a right to religious freedom, which the civil state must protect. This “right” is, in reality, a license for error and a denial of the state’s duty to suppress false religions and uphold the Catholic faith as the only true religion.
Bishop Thomas’s letter, by appealing to a Congress that operates under this very principle of religious indifferentism, implicitly legitimizes the secular state’s authority over matters of faith and morals. It seeks “appropriations” from a government that has legally enshrined the “right” to abortion, a direct violation of the natural law and the Fifth Commandment. This is not the action of the true Church, which would unequivocally condemn such a government and call for its conversion, not its funding.
The USCCB’s reliance on “dialogue,” “appropriations,” and “funding priorities” is a symptom of its profound spiritual decay. It has abandoned the supernatural means of grace – prayer, penance, the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and the preaching of the Gospel – in favor of political maneuvering and bureaucratic lobbying. This is the very essence of Modernism, which, as St. Pius X warned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), “substitutes for the true supernatural life a mere naturalism,” reducing the Church’s mission to social activism and humanitarian efforts.
The Blood of Innocent Children Cries Out for Justice, Not “Appropriations”
The letter mentions Planned Parenthood’s “all-time high of 434,450 abortions” and the fact that “almost half of Planned Parenthood’s revenue came from taxpayer dollars.” This is a horrifying testament to the scale of the slaughter of innocents, a slaughter that has been ongoing for decades under the watchful eyes of the conciliar sect.
The true Church, guided by the Holy Ghost, would not merely call for “defunding” or “appropriations.” It would thunder forth with the voice of the prophets, denouncing the abomination of abortion as a mortal sin, a crime against God and humanity, and a direct assault on the Social Reign of Christ the King. It would call for the immediate and total outlawing of abortion, the conversion of sinners, and the repentance of a nation that has shed innocent blood.
Instead, Bishop Thomas’s letter offers a tepid plea to “put children and families first” within a system that has legally sanctioned their destruction. It is a plea for crumbs from the table of a godless state, a state that has rejected the divine law and embraced the culture of death. This is not the voice of the true Church, which, as Our Lord declared, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). The true Church would not beg; it would command, in the name of Christ the King, that justice be done and that the innocent be protected.
The blood of millions of innocent children cries out to heaven for justice, not for “appropriations” or “funding priorities.” It cries out for the conversion of a nation, the repentance of sinners, and the restoration of Christ’s Social Kingship over all peoples and nations. The USCCB, by its very nature as a conciliar structure, is incapable of heeding this cry, for it has abandoned the only source of true justice and peace: the integral Catholic Faith.
Conclusion: A Call to Reject the Conciliar Sect and Return to Tradition
The letter from Bishop Daniel Thomas, while ostensibly defending “human life,” is a profound betrayal of the Catholic Faith. It operates within a framework of naturalism, secularism, and religious indifferentism, seeking solutions from a godless state rather than from the supernatural grace of God. It is a testament to the spiritual bankruptcy of the conciar sect, which has abandoned its divine mission to proclaim the Gospel and administer the sacraments in favor of political lobbying and bureaucratic maneuvering.
The true defense of innocent life lies not in “appropriations” or “funding priorities,” but in the uncompromising proclamation of the Social Reign of Christ the King, the administration of the sacraments, and the faithful observance of God’s commandments. It lies in the restoration of the true Mass, the true priesthood, and the true Church, which alone possesses the authority and the grace to combat the culture of death and lead souls to eternal salvation.
Let us reject the false “pro-life” advocacy of the conciar sect and return to the immutable Tradition of the Catholic Church, where the dignity of the human person is upheld not by secular laws, but by the divine law of God, and where the protection of innocent life is inseparable from the proclamation of Christ’s Kingship over all creation. Only then will the blood of innocent children be avenged, and true justice and peace reign in our land.
Source:
US Bishop Urges Congress to ‘Put Children and Families First’ in Appropriations Process (ncregister.com)
Date: 06.05.2026