The article from EWTN News portal (May 9, 2026) reports on Pope Leo XIV’s audience with members of the Italian Association for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (AISLA), during which the pontiff emphasized that “no one should be left alone” in difficult life situations, praised ALS patients as “prophets” who “teach everyone the true value of life,” invoked the “culture of waste and death,” referenced Pope Francis’ encyclical *Laudato Si’*, and encouraged care for creation as “an indispensable prerequisite for peace.” The article also notes Leo XIV’s reception of beer from the Augustiner Brewery pilgrims, during which he recalled St. Augustine’s teaching on using gifts in service to neighbor. While the article presents these gestures as pastoral care, a thorough examination from the perspective of integral Catholic faith reveals a systematic reduction of the Church’s supernatural mission to naturalistic humanitarianism, the omission of the redemptive value of suffering through the Cross, and the continuation of the conciliar revolution’s errors.
The Omission of the Supernatural End of Man
The most striking and theologically damning feature of Leo XIV’s address is what it fails to mention. The Holy Father spoke at length about closeness, presence, solidarity, and the “goodness and value of life,” yet nowhere did he utter a single word about the supernatural end of man — the beatific vision, eternal salvation, the state of grace, or the necessity of the sacraments for the salvation of souls. This silence is not accidental; it is the hallmark of the modernist apostasy that has consumed the conciliar sect since 1958.
When Pius XI promulgated the feast of Christ the King in Quas Primas (1925), he declared with unambiguous clarity: “The Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” The Pope further warned: “The state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” Yet Leo XIV, addressing the gravely ill — persons standing at the very threshold of eternity — offered them not the hope of heaven, not the promise of the Resurrection, not the necessity of confession, absolution, or the Last Rites, but rather the language of psychosocial support and environmental stewardship.
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), condemned the modernist proposition that “the progress of sciences requires a reform of the concept of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, Revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption” (proposition 64). The entire tenor of Leo XIV’s address reflects precisely this condemned error: doctrine is not proclaimed but replaced by therapeutic accompaniment, and the supernatural order is entirely collapsed into the natural.
The “Prophets” of Immanentism: ALS Patients as Moral Exemplars
Leo XIV told ALS patients: “As prophets, you teach everyone the true value of life — and our world desperately needs this message!” This statement, far from being a harmless compliment, is theologically perverse. The true prophet in the Catholic sense is one who speaks the word of God to men, who calls souls to repentance and conversion, who announces the truths of faith even at the cost of martyrdom. The prophets of Israel were not praised for their suffering but for their fidelity to the divine message. To call suffering patients “prophets” because they “teach the value of life” is to reduce prophecy to immanent moralism — the very error Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus of Errors when he rejected the proposition that “right consists in the material fact” and that “all human duties are an empty word” (proposition 59).
Moreover, the phrase “the goodness and value of life are greater than illness” is dangerously ambiguous. Catholic doctrine teaches that eternal life is infinitely greater than earthly life, and that the value of earthly life is precisely ordered toward the attainment of eternal life. To praise “life” as a value in itself, detached from its supernatural end, is to fall into the naturalism condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus: “All the rectitude and excellence of morality ought to be placed in the accumulation and increase of riches by every possible means, and the gratification of pleasure” (proposition 58). The modernist substitution of “quality of life” for the salvation of souls is the same error that underlies the culture of death — and Leo XIV’s invocation of the “culture of waste and death” rings hollow when he himself reduces the Gospel to the same immanentist framework.
The Heresy of the “Culture of Waste” Without the Cross
Leo XIV invoked the “culture of waste and death” — a phrase borrowed from his predecessor Francis — and stated that volunteering “responds with gestures of care to the culture of waste and death.” Yet he failed to identify the root cause of this culture: the rejection of Christ the King and His law by individuals and nations. Pius XI, in Quas Primas, identified the plague of secularism — “so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors” — as the source of “seeds of discord sown everywhere, flames of envy and hostility” that engulf nations. The remedy he prescribed was not humanitarian volunteering but the public recognition of Christ’s royal authority: “If rulers and legitimate superiors will have the conviction that they exercise authority not so much by their own right as by the command and in the place of the Divine King, everyone will notice how religiously and wisely they will use their authority.”
By omitting any reference to Christ the King, to the necessity of conversion to the Catholic faith, to the sacraments, or to the Last Judgment, Leo XIV offers a truncated Gospel — one that addresses material suffering while ignoring the far greater suffering of souls in mortal sin, separated from God for eternity. This is the very “compassion without doctrine” that St. Pius X identified as a hallmark of Modernism: the reduction of the Church’s mission to social service, stripped of all supernatural content.
The Invocation of *Laudato Si’* and the Distortion of Creation
In his address to the Augustiner Brewery pilgrims, Leo XIV recalled Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ and stated that “man is called not only to care for creation but also also to ensure that its resources are always used with wisdom and with a view to justice — an indispensable prerequisite for peace.” This statement, while superficially benign, contains a fundamental theological distortion.
Catholic doctrine teaches that the primary purpose of creation is the glory of God, not “peace” among men. The Catechism of the Council of Trent states that God created all things “for His own glory” and that “the end of all things is God Himself.” To make “peace” — a natural good — the end of the use of creation’s resources is to subordinate the supernatural to the natural, the eternal to the temporal. Pius IX, in the Syllabus, condemned the proposition that “the teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society” (proposition 40) — but the reverse error is equally grave: to make the Church’s mission identical with the promotion of social and environmental justice is to deny her supernatural character.
Furthermore, Leo XIV’s encouragement to “continue contributing to the promotion of a just and effective approach to the care of creation, both in the professional and personal spheres, for the common good” echoes the democratization of the Church and the cult of man that are the hallmarks of the conciliar revolution. The Church’s mission is not to promote “the common good” as defined by secular humanism but to lead souls to eternal salvation through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments. As Pius XI declared: “The Church, established by Christ as a perfect society, demands for itself by a right belonging to it, which it cannot renounce, full freedom and independence from secular authority.”
The Invocation of St. Augustine Without Augustinian Doctrine
Leo XIV recalled St. Augustine’s teaching that “we all possess gifts and talents bestowed upon us by God and that our purpose, fulfillment, and joy derive from offering them in loving service to God and to our neighbor.” While this is a genuine Augustinian theme, the context in which it was invoked — a gift of beer from a brewery — reveals the trivialization of doctrine that characterizes the conciliar sect. St. Augustine, the Doctor of Grace, taught that “our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee” (Confessiones, I, 1) — a truth that points exclusively to the supernatural end of man. To invoke Augustine in the context of a brewery visit, without any reference to grace, sin, or the necessity of conversion, is to empty Augustinian theology of its substance and reduce it to a vague spirituality of “service.”
The Silence on the Sacraments and the Last Things
Perhaps the most damning omission in Leo XIV’s address is the complete silence on the sacraments. The Church has always taught that the gravely ill are in urgent need of the sacrament of Extreme Unction (now called “Anointing of the Sick” in the conciliar rite), the sacrament of Penance, and Viaticum — the Holy Eucharist as food for the journey to eternity. The Council of Trent anathematized anyone who would deny the necessity of these sacraments for the salvation of souls. Yet Leo XIV, addressing ALS patients — many of whom are in imminent danger of death — offered them no encouragement to seek the sacraments, no reminder of the necessity of being in the state of grace, no warning about the reality of judgment, heaven, or hell.
This silence is not merely pastoral negligence; it is doctrinal apostasy. It reflects the modernist error condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis: the reduction of the Church to a “purely natural” institution, concerned with temporal welfare rather than eternal salvation. The conciliar sect has systematically emptied the Church’s supernatural mission and replaced it with humanitarian activism — and Leo XIV’s address to the sick is a perfect illustration of this apostasy.
The Continuation of the Conciliar Revolution
Every element of Leo XIV’s address — the therapeutic language, the environmental activism, the invocation of Francis’ encyclical, the omission of the sacraments, the reduction of prophecy to moral exemplarism, the silence on Christ the King — is a direct continuation of the errors introduced by John XXIII, Paul VI, and their successors. The conciliar sect has consistently substituted the supernatural Gospel with a naturalistic message of “human dignity,” “care for creation,” and “solidarity” — all of which, while not evil in themselves, become instruments of apostasy when they replace the Church’s true mission.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, 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). Leo XIV’s address is precisely such a reconciliation — a capitulation to the spirit of the age, dressed in the language of pastoral concern.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation Continues
Leo XIV’s address to ALS patients and the Augustiner Brewery pilgrims is not a minor pastoral misstep; it is a manifestation of the systemic apostasy that has consumed the conciliar sect since 1958. By reducing the Gospel to therapeutic accompaniment and environmental activism, by omitting the sacraments, the supernatural end of man, and the redemptive value of suffering through the Cross, and by invoking the errors of his modernist predecessors, Leo IV demonstrates that the structures occupying the Vatican remain what they have been for nearly seven decades: the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15).
The faithful who profess the integral Catholic faith must reject these modernist innovations and cling to the unchanging Tradition of the Church — the Tradition that teaches that the salvation of souls is the supreme law (salus animarum suprema lex), that the sacraments are necessary for salvation, and that Christ the King must reign over all nations, all families, and all individuals — not only in word, but in deed and in truth.
Source:
Pope Leo to sick and caregivers: ‘In the various situations of life, no one should be left alone’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 09.05.2026