VaticanNews portal reports on May 6, 2026, that Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, pastor of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza, relayed a message from the antipope Leo XIV expressing “closeness,” “prayers,” and encouragement “to have hope” amid the ongoing war in Gaza. The message, delivered via video on Instagram, calls for “peace for Palestine, peace for Israel, conversion, and grace for all,” while lamenting humanitarian suffering. Fr. Romanelli praised the antipope’s words as an encouragement “to keep moving forward and doing good,” and thanked him and “the entire Church” for their prayers. However, this entire exchange is steeped in the theology of the conciliar sect—a naturalistic, modernist framework that reduces the supernatural mission of the Church to humanitarian sentiment, omits the necessity of explicit conversion to the Catholic Faith, and legitimizes the authority of an antipope who lacks any jurisdiction over souls. The cited article reveals not spiritual fortitude but the complete capitulation of the post-conciliar apparatus to secular pacifism and religious indifferentism.
The Antipope’s Message: A Synthesis of Modernist Apostasy
The so-called “Pope Leo XIV” sends a message of “closeness” and “prayers” for “peace for Palestine, peace for Israel, conversion, and grace for all.” This formulation is not merely vague—it is doctrinally catastrophic. It equates the salvation of souls with geopolitical peace, as if the cessation of hostilities were synonymous with the reign of Christ the King. Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas (1925), unequivocally declared: “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.” Peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ (Pius XI, encyclical Quas Primas). Yet here, the antipope offers no call to repentance, no mention of the One True Church, no demand for the baptism of Infants or the abjuration of heresy and schism. Instead, he invokes “conversion and grace for all”—a phrase so elastic it can encompass Muslims, Jews, Orthodox schatics, and apostate Catholics alike, without distinction. This is not Catholic teaching; it is the very essence of the modernist error condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis: “The sacraments merely serve to remind man of the presence of the ever-benevolent Creator” (Proposition 41). The antipope’s message is a humanitarian platitude, not a supernatural mandate.
Moreover, the antipope’s appeal to “the prayer of the entire Church” is a blasphemous fiction. The true Church—the Mystical Body of Christ—is not in communion with the occupant of the Vatican, who was never validly elected, never received the Faith, and never held the office of Supreme Pontificate. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches in De Romano Pontifice, “A Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” The antipope Leo XIV, like his predecessors from John XXIII onward, is a manifest heretic and apostate. His “prayers” are not those of the Church but of the conciliar sect—a counterfeit ecclesial body that has abandoned the Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus dogma and replaced it with the cult of man.
Fr. Romanelli: A Priest of the Conciliar Sect, Not the Catholic Church
Fr. Gabriel Romanelli presents himself as a shepherd of souls in Gaza, yet he operates entirely within the structures of the neo-church. He thanks the antipope for his “blessing,” encourages the faithful to “have hope” in the antipope’s words, and frames the crisis in purely humanitarian terms: lack of water, electricity, aid, and “dying people.” Nowhere does he mention the state of grace, the necessity of confession, the reality of mortal sin, or the eternal destiny of souls. His silence on supernatural matters is the gravest accusation against him. He is not a priest of the Catholic Church but a functionary of the post-conciliar apparatus, trained to prioritize temporal comfort over eternal salvation.
His invocation of “the entire Church” praying for peace is equally fraudulent. The true Church does not pray for “peace” in the abstract; she prays for the conversion of sinners, the return of schisms to the unity of the Faith, and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The conciliar sect, however, has replaced the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with a “table of assembly,” stripped the liturgy of its propitiatory character, and turned the priesthood into a social service agency. Fr. Romanelli’s words are consistent with this degeneration. He does not call for the consecration of Russia, the preaching of the Gospel to Muslims, or the establishment of Christ’s social kingship. He simply asks for “good” to be done—a naturalistic, Pelagian notion that ignores the necessity of sanctifying grace.
The OCHA Report: Secular Humanitarianism as Substitute for Divine Providence
The article cites the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), reporting on funding shortfalls, generator failures, water shortages, and population displacement. This is presented as the primary lens through which to understand the suffering in Gaza. Yet the Catholic Faith teaches that all suffering is permitted by Divine Providence for the salvation of souls. St. Paul writes: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). The conciliar sect, however, has abandoned this supernatural worldview. It treats material deprivation as the ultimate evil and humanitarian aid as the highest good. This is the religion of man, condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors: “The teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society” (Proposition 40). The antipope and his priests do not see souls in danger of Hell; they see “displaced populations” in need of “lubricating oil and spare parts.”
Furthermore, the reliance on the United Nations—a Masonic, secularist institution founded on the principles of religious indifferentism and globalist governance—exposes the true allegiance of the conciliar sect. The UN is not a neutral actor; it is the political arm of the “synagogue of Satan” described by Pope Leo XIII. To invoke its reports as authoritative is to submit to the enemies of Christ the King. The true Church would call for prayer, penance, and reparation—not for UN funding cycles.
The Absence of Catholic Doctrine: Silence as Heresy
Perhaps most damning is what the article omits. There is no mention of the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, no reference to the necessity of Baptism for salvation, no call to repentance or fear of judgment, no invocation of the Saints or the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mediatrix of all graces. The antipope’s message contains no doctrinal content whatsoever. It is pure sentiment, stripped of all supernatural reality. This is exactly what St. Pius X warned against in Lamentabili Sane Exitu: “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities” (Proposition 25). The conciliar sect has replaced faith with feelings, doctrine with dialogue, and the Cross with humanitarianism.
The phrase “peace for Palestine, peace for Israel” is particularly egregious. It implies that both entities have equal claim to legitimacy and that peace between them is the highest good. But the Catholic Church has never recognized the State of Israel as having any divine mandate or moral right to exist. The land of Palestine belongs to Christ the King, and its rightful order must be established under His reign. To pray for “peace” between a secular Zionist state and a Muslim-majority territory is to ignore the supernatural order entirely. It is to treat the Holy Land as a geopolitical problem rather than a sacred trust destined for the glory of God.
Conclusion: The Triumph of Naturalism Over Supernatural Faith
The entire narrative—from the antipope’s message to Fr. Romanelli’s response to the OCHA statistics—is a masterclass in modernist apostasy. It reduces the Church’s mission to humanitarian aid, replaces the supernatural virtues with natural ones, and legitimizes the authority of an antipope who lacks both faith and jurisdiction. The conciliar sect has become what Pope Pius IX warned against: “a certain dogmaless Christianity, that is, into a broad and liberal Protestantism” (Proposition 65, Lamentabili).
The faithful must reject this entire framework. True hope is not found in the words of an antipope or the reports of the United Nations. True hope is found in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments of the true Church, and the unchanging doctrine of the Catholic Faith. As Our Lord said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). Not through the UN. Not through the conciliar sect. Not through the antipope Leo XIV. Only through Christ and His true Church.
Source:
Gaza's parish priest: 'Pope Leo encourages us to have hope' (vaticannews.va)
Date: 06.05.2026