EWTN News reports that the newly elected Chaldean “Patriarch” Paul III Nona, in an exclusive interview, called for prayer, peace, and support for Christians in the Middle East. His eminence described the weight of his new responsibility, recalled his years serving in Mosul before and during the ISIS invasion, and spoke about the challenges facing Chaldean Christians in the diaspora. He emphasized the importance of faith, the need to safeguard rights and dignity, and expressed hope for peace and stability in the region. Notably, he cited the “encyclical” of “Pope” Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, on artificial intelligence, and asked Western Catholics to pray for the Chaldean Church and support efforts to keep Christians in the Middle East. This interview, while containing surface-level poignant elements, is a masterclass in the post-conciliar evasion of supernatural reality, reducing the Church’s mission to humanitarian activism and demonstrating a capitulation to the very modernist errors that have precipitated the current ecclesial catastrophe.
The Abdication of Supernatural Mission in Favor of Naturalistic Humanism
The entire framework of Paul III Nona’s discourse is stripped of the Church’s primary mission: the salvation of souls through the preaching of the Gospel, the administration of the sacraments, and the leading of men to eternal life. Instead, his eminence speaks the language of secular humanitarianism. He speaks of “safeguarding rights and dignity,” “participating in building the country on sound and legal foundations,” and “serving its people and working to secure their rights and protect their dignity.” This is the language of the United Nations, not of the Church founded by Christ to teach, govern, and sanctify.
As Pope Pius XI unequivocally stated in Quas Primas, the reign of Christ the King extends to all aspects of society, and the state has a duty to publicly honor and obey Him. The “rights” and “dignity” of man are not autonomous secular concepts to be negotiated with governments; they are derived from man’s creation in the image of God and his ultimate end, which is the Beatific Vision. To speak of “rights and dignity” without anchoring them in the supernatural order and the lordship of Christ is to engage in the very naturalism condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, specifically proposition 58, which condemns the idea that “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.” The modernist inversion is complete: the Church’s mission is no longer to lead men to God through the sacraments and the moral law, but to secure their temporal welfare within a secular framework.
His eminence’s description of the Church’s role — “through educational, healthcare, and other institutions” — reduces the Mystical Body of Christ to a non-governmental organization. While the Church has always engaged in corporal works of mercy, these were always ordered toward the spiritual good of the recipient and the glory of God. To present these as the Church’s “essential role in society” is to commit the error of Modernism, which, as St. Pius X exposed in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, reduces the Church to a purely natural phenomenon, stripping it of its supernatural character and divine constitution.
The Omission of the Primary Persecutor: Modernist Apostasy Within
Paul III Nona speaks of the “complex and painful” challenges facing the Middle East, of “years of wars, divisions, and violence.” He prays for peace and stability. Yet, he remains obstinately silent about the primary source of persecution and apostasy in our times: the modernist destruction of the faith from within the very structures of the Vatican. The Chaldean Church, like all Eastern Catholic Churches in communion with Rome, has been subject to the same post-conciliar revolution that has devastated the Latin Rite.
The article notes that “Pope” Leo XIV granted “ecclesiastical communion” to the new patriarch. This act itself is a recognition of the usurper on Peter’s throne, a man who, by the very fact of his election by a college of cardinals appointed by manifest heretics and apostates, cannot be the true successor of St. Pius X’s condemnation of Modernism in Lamentabili Sane Exitu and Pascendi is rendered a dead letter by the very authorities who claim to uphold it. The Chaldean patriarch’s silence on this point is not neutrality; it is complicity in the greatest deception in the history of the Church.
As the False Fatima Apparitions document articulates, the post-conciliar message focuses on external threats while omitting the main danger: modernist apostasy within the Church. This is precisely what Paul III Nona does. His call for “peace” in the Middle East, while ignoring the spiritual warfare being waged against the faith by the very authorities he recognizes, is a betrayal of the faithful who look to their pastors for spiritual leadership, not geopolitical analysis.
The Invocation of the Usurper’s “Teaching” as Authoritative
Perhaps the most damning element of this interview is Paul III Nona’s invocation of “Pope” Leo XIV’s “encyclical” Magnifica Humanitas on artificial intelligence. His eminence “stressed the need for technology to remain at the service of the human person and human dignity” and “encouraged people to read and study the pope’s teaching.” This is an act of formal cooperation with the usurpation of Peter’s throne and a public recognition of the authority of a man who, by any measure of pre-conciliar Catholic ecclesiology, cannot be the true pope.
The concept of “human dignity” as invoked here is a modernist concept, divorced from its supernatural foundation. True human dignity is conferred by baptism, nourished by the sacraments, and ordered toward eternal life. To speak of “human dignity” in the context of artificial intelligence, without reference to the immortality of the soul, the reality of sin, and the necessity of grace, is to engage in the very “cult of man” condemned by the pre-conciliar magisterium. As Pope Pius IX declared in Quanto Conficiamur (1863), it is not possible to entertain a good hope for the eternal salvation of those who are not in the true Church of Christ. The post-conciliar “Church” has inverted this principle, suggesting that all men, regardless of faith or sacramental status, possess an inherent “dignity” that the Church must serve.
Paul III Nona’s encouragement to “read and study the pope’s teaching” is an exhortation to imbibe the errors of Modernism, which, as St. Pius X taught, is the “synthesis of all heresies.” It is a call to spiritual suicide, dressed in the language of pastoral concern.
The Reduction of Faith to Cultural Identity
The patriarch’s message to Chaldean youth is particularly revealing. He states: “Our Christian faith is our foundation, our strength, and our life. In the Chaldean Church, we live it through our Chaldean identity, distinct in language, liturgy, and tradition. The closer young people come to knowing their identity of faith in its proper form, the more they will become a tremendous force of faith and humanity, capable of defending faith and humanity.”
This is the language of cultural preservation, not supernatural faith. Faith is presented as an “identity” rooted in “language, liturgy, and tradition” — in other words, in ethnic and cultural particularities. This is the very error of indifferentism condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus, proposition 18: “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church.” By reducing faith to cultural identity, Paul III Nona implicitly denies the universality of the Catholic Church and the necessity of the Roman primacy for the preservation of unity in faith and morals.
Moreover, his final message to Catholic youth — “Prayer is the most important thing. And also try always to live your faith with joy” — is a banal platitude that could be uttered by any Protestant minister or secular motivational speaker. It contains no mention of the necessity of the sacraments, the reality of mortal sin, the obligation to profess the faith publicly, or the duty to resist the modernist apostasy that has consumed the visible structures of the Church. It is the faith of the abomination of desolation, stripped of all substance and reduced to a feel-good sentiment.
The Illusory Hope for Temporal Peace
Paul III Nona expresses hope that “something is happening now that will change the Middle East a lot” and that “we hope it will be for the good.” He links the return of Christians to the region to “peace, stability, and a genuine sense of citizenship.” This is the hope of naturalism, not of supernatural faith. The Church has never promised temporal peace and stability in this world. Our Lord Himself said: “Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword” (Matthew 10:34). The Church’s mission is to prepare men for eternity, not to secure their temporal comfort.
The patriarch’s hope for Christian return based on “citizenship” is particularly egregious. The true Christian is a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, and his sojourn on earth is a pilgrimage. To make the continued presence of Christians in any land contingent on “citizenship” — a purely political and temporal concept — is to deny the supernatural character of the Christian vocation. As the Fathers of the Council of Trent taught, the sacraments are necessary for salvation, and the Church is the ark of salvation. To reduce the Church’s concern to securing “citizenship” rights for its members is to deny the very purpose of its existence.
The Complicity of EWTN and Catholic Media
The fact that this interview was published by EWTN News, a media outlet that presents itself as “Catholic,” is itself a symptom of the disease. EWTN has been a primary vehicle for the normalization of the post-conciliar revolution, presenting the usurpers in the Vatican as legitimate pastors and their modernist innovations as authentic developments of doctrine. By giving a platform to Paul III Nona without any critical commentary on his recognition of “Pope” Leo XIV, his invocation of the usurper’s “teaching,” or his reduction of the faith to cultural identity, EWTN demonstrates its own complicity in the apostasy.
The faithful are entitled to the truth, not to the sugar-coated presentation of modernist error. As St. Paul warned: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). EWTN and its ilk are precisely these teachers, heaping up fables for those who refuse to face the reality of the current ecclesial crisis.
Conclusion: The Spiritual Bankruptcy of the Conciliar Sect
The interview with Paul III Nona is a microcosm of everything that is wrong with the post-conciliar “Church.” It is a discourse devoid of supernatural content, steeped in naturalism and humanitarianism, silent about the primary enemy of the faith (modernist apostasy), and complicit in the recognition of a usurper on Peter’s throne. It reduces the faith to cultural identity, the Church to a social service organization, and the Christian life to a vague sentiment of “joy.”
The Chaldean patriarch’s call for “prayer, peace, and support” is, in reality, a call to ignore the most fundamental crisis in the history of the Church and to place one’s hope in temporal solutions to spiritual problems. It is the voice of the synagogue of Satan, speaking the language of the world while claiming to speak for Christ. The faithful must reject this false pastoralism and return to the unchanging teaching of the true Church, which alone possesses the fullness of the means of salvation and the authority to teach, govern, and sanctify.
As Pope Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors, proposition 80: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” is a condemned error. Paul III Nona and the entire conciliar structure have done precisely this, and the result is the spiritual devastation we witness today. There is no hope in the structures of the abomination of desolation. There is only hope in the immutable Tradition of the Catholic Church, preserved by the faithful who refuse to bend the knee to the modernist Baal.
Source:
Chaldean patriarch calls for prayer, peace, and support for Christians in the Middle East (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 01.06.2026