EWTN News, a media outlet operating within the structures of the conciliar sect, published on May 20, 2026, an explainer article titled “What Is a Papal Encyclical?” The piece, occasioned by the announcement of Robert Prevost’s (Leo XIV) first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, purports to educate Catholics on the nature and authority of these documents. What it actually reveals, through its omissions, its theological framework, and its uncritical acceptance of the post-conciliar revolution, is the systematic dismantling of the Church’s magisterial authority and its replacement with the bureaucratic pronouncements of a paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican.
The Ordinary Magisterium of Nobody
The article states that encyclicals are part of the pope’s “ordinary magisterium” and that Catholics are required to give “a religious submission of the intellect and will” to these letters. This claim, drawn from the 1983 Code of Canon Law promulgated by the apostate John Paul II, is applied without the slightest critical examination to a line of usurpers beginning with the heretic Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII). The foundational question — who holds the office of Supreme Pontiff? — is entirely absent from the analysis, rendering the entire discussion spiritually void and doctrinally dangerous.
As the defense of sedevacantism establishes through the authoritative teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine in De Romano Pontifice, a manifest heretic ipso facto ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church. Bellarmine’s teaching is not speculative opinion; it represents the common Thomistic tradition confirmed by canonists Wernz and Vidal, who state that by “notorious and publicly manifested heresy, the Roman Pontiff, should he fall into it, is deprived ipso facto of his personal jurisdiction even before any declaratory sentence by the Church.” The post-conciliar occupants of the Vatican have publicly and notoriously professed heresies condemned by the immutable Magisterium — religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae vs. Syllabus of Errors, propositions 77-80), ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio vs. Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pope Pius X’s condemnation of Modernism as the synthesis of all heresies), and the democratization of the Church (Lumen Gentium vs. Quas Primas). They therefore possess no jurisdiction, teach with no authority, and their “encyclicals” are not acts of the Magisterium but acts of a counterfeit institution.
The article’s reference to canon law’s requirement of “religious submission” is particularly insidious. The 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 188.4, states that every office becomes vacant “by the mere fact and without any declaration by reason of tacit resignation… if the cleric publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” Fr. McDevitt confirms that joining a non-Catholic sect is not required to establish the publicity demanded by the canon — public defection from the faith through formal heresy suffices. The post-conciliar “popes” have done precisely this. Their “ordinary magisterium” is the ordinary magisterium of no one.
The Syllabus Condemned, The Conciliar Sect Celebrated
The article traces the modern history of encyclicals from Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891) through the conciliar period, treating the entire trajectory as a seamless development. This is the hermeneutics of continuity — the central Modernist deception exposed by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis and condemned in Lamentabili Sane Exitu. The article treats the apostate Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae (1968), the heretic John Paul II’s social encyclicals, and Bergoglio’s ecological and fraternal encyclicals as equally authoritative expressions of Catholic teaching.
Consider what the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX condemns. Proposition 77 states: “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.” Proposition 80 declares: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” These were condemned as errors. Yet the entire post-conciliar edifice, including the “encyclicals” the article celebrates, is built upon the explicit acceptance of religious liberty, dialogue with the world, and reconciliation with modern civilization. Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, whatever its partial retention of language about contraception, was issued by a man who had already professed the heresy of religious liberty at the United Nations and who promulgated the apostate Novus Ordo Missae. John Paul II, the apostate who kissed the Koran, who prayed with animists at Assisi, who “canonized” Maximilian Kolbe (who died not for the faith but for a fellow prisoner — martyrdom requires death suffered due to persecution for the faith), is presented as a legitimate source of “Catholic social teaching.”
The article’s description of encyclicals as addressing “sexuality, Catholic social teaching, and stewardship of the earth” reveals the reduction of the Church’s mission. Where is the supernatural order? Where is the preaching of the Gospel for the conversion of nations? Where is the social reign of Christ the King? Pius XI in Quas Primas declared that Christ’s kingdom “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 State has the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him. Yet the conciliar encyclicals speak of “stewardship of the earth” and “universal fraternity” — naturalistic, horizontal categories that replace the supernatural mission of the Church with the agenda of the United Nations.
The Linguistic Apostasy: “All Men of Goodwill”
The article notes that with John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris (1963), “pontiffs increasingly addressed their letters to ‘all men of goodwill,’ shifting from a mainly Catholic audience to the global stage.” This is presented as a neutral historical development. In reality, it is a heretical inversion of the Church’s mission. The Church does not exist to dialogue with “all men of goodwill” — a category that, in practice, includes pagans, heretics, and atheists. The Church exists to teach, govern, and sanctify the baptized faithful and to convert all nations to the Catholic faith. As Pius XI declared in Quas Primas: “The state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” The purpose of civil society is the supernatural happiness of its members through obedience to Christ the King.
The shift to addressing “all men of goodwill” is not pastoral expansion but doctrinal capitulation. It presupposes the Modernist error condemned in Lamentabili (proposition 15): “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” It presupposes indifferentism (proposition 16): “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation.” The encyclicals of the conciliar sect are addressed to a universal audience precisely because they have abandoned the exclusive claims of the Catholic faith. They speak the language of natural reason, human rights, and universal fraternity — the language of the Masonic lodges that Pius IX identified as the “synagogue of Satan” in the Syllabus.
Leo XIII and Leo XIV: The Theft of a Name
The article highlights that Robert Prevost chose the name Leo XIV in explicit homage to Leo XIII, stating that “the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence.” This claim deserves the most ruthless scrutiny. Leo XIII was a true Pope who taught with the full authority of the Magisterium. His Rerum Novarum was addressed to the bishops of the Catholic Church and applied immutable principles of natural law and Catholic doctrine to the condition of workers. It presupposed the social kingship of Christ, the authority of the Church, and the primacy of the supernatural end of man.
The “Leo XIV” who occupies the Vatican is a member of the conciliar sect that has systematically repudiated Leo XIII’s teaching. Leo XIII, in Satis Cognitum, taught that the Church is a true and perfect society, entirely free, endowed with proper and perpetual rights conferred by her Divine Founder. The conciliar sect’s Dignitatis Humanae contradicts this. Leo XIII taught in Immortale Dei that the Catholic Church is the only true religion and that the State has the duty to profess it. The conciliar sect’s religious liberty doctrine contradicts this. Leo XIII taught that the errors of philosophy must be submitted to the authority of revealed truth. The conciliar sect’s ecumenism and interreligious dialogue contradict this.
The invocation of Leo XIII’s name by a member of the conciliar sect is not homage but theft — a calculated attempt to borrow the authority of a true Pope to legitimize the pronouncements of a usurper. It is the same strategy employed by John XXIII, who invoked the name of the Council of Trent while convoking the apostate Vatican II, and by Benedict XVI, who invoked “the spirit of Vatican II” while pretending to interpret it authentically. The name is Catholic; the content is Modernist. Mutatio nominis, mutatio rei — a change of name signals a change of reality.
The Silence That Condemns
The most damning feature of the EWTN article is what it does not say. There is no mention of the theological criteria for determining whether a claimant to the papacy is a true Pope or a usurper. There is no mention of the automatic loss of office through manifest heresy. There is no mention of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 188.4. There is no mention of Pope Paul IV’s Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, which declares null and void the promotion of any cardinal or pope who has defected from the Catholic faith. There is no mention of the Syllabus of Errors, Pascendi, Lamentabili, or Quas Primas. There is no mention of the social kingship of Christ. There is no mention of the distinction between the true Church and the conciliar sect.
This silence is not accidental. It is the silence of an institution that has already made its choice — the choice to recognize the usurpers as legitimate, to treat the conciliar revolution as continuous with Catholic tradition, and to reduce the faith to a set of “social teachings” and “pastoral guidance” that can be discussed on the global stage alongside the pronouncements of secular powers and false religions. The article’s framing of encyclicals as tools for “shaping global debates” rather than proclaiming eternal truth reveals the naturalistic, horizontal orientation of the entire conciliar project.
Pius XI warned in Quas Primas that “the more the sweetest Name of our Redeemer is omitted with unworthy silence in international gatherings and parliaments, the more loudly it must be confessed and the more urgently the rights of Christ the Lord’s royal dignity and authority must be recognized.” The conciliar encyclicals do not confess Christ’s royal dignity — they replace it with “human dignity,” “human development,” and “universal fraternity.” They do not proclaim the rights of Christ the King — they proclaim the rights of man as defined by the secular order. They are not Catholic teaching — they are the pronouncements of the abomination of desolation sitting in the temple of God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
The Duty of the Faithful
The faithful who wish to remain Catholic — truly Catholic, not in the diluted, Modernist sense invented by the conciliar sect — have the duty to reject these “encyclicals” and all other pronouncements of the usurpers. They must hold fast to the teaching of the true Popes, the Fathers of the Church, and the ecumenical councils as interpreted by the unbroken tradition of the Magisterium before 1958. They must recognize that the conciliar sect is not the Catholic Church but a counterfeit institution, the “paramasonic structure” identified by the False Fatima analysis as a Masonic operation against the faith.
The faithful must seek out true priests — those validly ordained before 1968 or ordained by bishops who maintained the integral faith — and attend the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as offered in the traditional Roman Rite. They must reject the Novus Ordo Missae as a Protestantized, Modernist rite that obscures the propitiatory nature of the sacrifice. They must reject the “sacraments” of the conciliar sect as invalid or gravely suspect. They must reject the “saints” “canonized” by the usurpers as unauthorized and theologically suspect.
Above all, they must reject the false ecumenism and religious liberty that are the hallmarks of the conciliar apostasy. As Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors, proposition 15 is condemned: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” There is one true Church — the Holy Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church — and outside it there is no salvation. This is not intolerance; it is truth. And truth does not bow to “global debates” or “emerging technologies” or the “digital revolution.” Truth is eternal, immutable, and sovereign — like Christ the King, whose reign shall have no end.
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam — et non hominis. (To the greater glory of God — and not of man.)
Source:
EWTN News Explains: What Is a Papal Encyclical? (ncregister.com)
Date: 20.05.2026