Veneration of Relics: The Profanation of the Dead

The article notes with apparent approval that “400,000 people came to pay their respects and venerate the relics” of St. Francis, including his skeletal remains “displayed for the first time in honor of the jubilee year.” Let us be clear about what this represents. The Catholic Church has always venerated relics of the saints — but within the framework of the true faith, with proper authorization from legitimate ecclesiastical authority, and with the understanding that such veneration is directed to God, whose sanctity shines through the remains of His servants. The Council of Trent teaches: “The holy bodies of the holy martyrs and of others now living with Christ… are to be venerated by the faithful, for through these [bodies] many benefits are bestowed by God on men” (Session XXV).

But who authorizes this display? An antipope. Who controls the basilica? The conciliar sect. What faith do the 400,000 pilgrims profess? In the vast majority, the religion of Vatican II — the cult of man, the democratization of the Church, the denial of the supernatural. The veneration of relics outside the context of the true faith and true Church is not Catholic piety; it is superstition, the empty shell of a once-sacred practice, now gutted of its supernatural content and reduced to religious tourism. The shuffle of footsteps over a tomb, the soft glow of a votive lamp — these are the aesthetics of death, not the glory of the resurrection. Where is the preaching of the necessity of baptism? Where is the call to conversion, to the state of grace, to the avoidance of mortal sin? Where is the warning that those who die outside the Catholic Church — or who profess the heresies of the conciliar revolution — face eternal damnation? Silence about supernatural matters is the gravest accusation.

The Franciscan Order: From Charism to Charade

The article celebrates the Franciscan order’s global reach: “35,000 Franciscan friars worldwide spread across 100 countries.” It speaks of the Portiuncula as the “spiritual center of the new Franciscan community” and of St. Clare being welcomed there. But what is the Franciscan order today? It is an order that has been systematically captured by modernism, that participates fully in the conciar revolution, that has abandoned the Rule of St. Francis in all but name. The Franciscans of the 21st century are, in their overwhelming majority, agents of the neo-church — promoters of ecumenism, religious liberty, the cult of man, and the destruction of the traditional liturgy.

The article quotes Father John Puodziunas, OFM: “The pilgrim returns changed … they see themselves, their world, God differently.” This is the language of naturalistic humanism, not Catholic theology. The Catholic pilgrim does not return “changed” in some vague, subjective sense. The Catholic pilgrim returns with a deepened faith, a firmer resolve to avoid sin, a greater love for the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and a renewed commitment to the salvation of his soul. The language of “seeing God differently” is the language of the evolution of dogmas — condemned by the Syllabus of Errors (Proposition 5: “Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to a continual and indefinite progress”) and by Lamentabili sane exitu (Proposition 58: “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him”).

The Statue of Syncretism: Icons of World Religions

Perhaps the most revealing detail in the entire article is this: “A statue of St. Francis features icons of other world religions celebrating the universality of his spiritual appeal.” Let this sink in. A statue — presumably erected or approved by the conciliar authorities — depicts the great St. Francis of Assisi, the seraphic saint who received the stigmata, the man of poverty and penance, surrounded by icons of false religions. This is not Catholic devotion. This is religious syncretism, the very error condemned by the Syllabus of Errors in its condemnation of indifferentism (Proposition 15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true”; Proposition 17: “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ”).

St. Francis, who went to Egypt to convert the Sultan, who preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation, is now co-opted as a patron of religious relativism. This is blasphemy. This is the fruit of Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate, which declared that the Church “rejects nothing that is true and holy” in other religions — a declaration that contradicts the perennial teaching of the Church: “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12), as Pope Pius XI reminded us in Quas Primas.

The “Plenary Indulgence”: A Forgery of the Counterfeit Church

The article explains that pilgrims can obtain “plenary indulgences” by visiting Franciscan churches, receiving “Communion,” reciting the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Creed, and the Glory Be “for the intentions of the Holy Father,” and making “confession” within eight days. This is a tissue of absurdities.

First, the “Holy Father” is not the Holy Father. Leo XIV is an antipope. Praying for his intentions is praying for the success of the conciliar revolution — the very system that has devastated the Church.

Second, the “Communion” distributed in post-conciliar structures is, in the vast majority of cases, not the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The new “Mass” — the Novus Ordo Missae of Paul VI (Montini) — is a Protestantized assembly that obscures the theology of the propitiatory sacrifice. As the Ottaviani Intervention (1969) demonstrated, the new rite represents “a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Holy Mass.” Receiving “Communion” in such a context, without the proper disposition of faith in the Real Understanding and without the protection of the traditional liturgy, is if not “just” sacrilege, then idolatry.

Third, “confession” in the conciar sect is frequently reduced to a therapeutic encounter, often without proper accusation of sins, without firm purpose of amendment, and without valid absolution — since the new rite of penance was crafted by the same modernist apparatus that destroyed the Mass.

Fourth, the very concept of “plenary indulgence” presupposes the authority of the Church to grant it — an authority that the conciliar usurpers do not possess. As Pope Paul IV declared in Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (1559): “If at any time it shall appear that any… Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion… has defected from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy: his promotion or elevation… shall be null, void, and of no effect.” The line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII (Roncalli) has defected from the Catholic Faith. Their acts — including the granting of “indulgences” — are null and void.

The Testimony of Regina Brown: Naturalism Disguised as Piety

The article quotes pilgrim Regina Brown: “It’s the closest I can get to keeping in mind and expressing my (our) hope in Christ, the promise of eternal life, the Mass, our glimpse into heaven.” This statement, presented as edifying, is in fact a devastating confession of spiritual bankruptcy. The Mass is not a “glimpse into heaven” — it is the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary, the most sacred action performed on earth, in which the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are offered to God for the living and the dead. To reduce it to a “glimpse” is to deny its sacrificial nature — precisely the error of the Novus Ordo.

Moreover, Brown speaks of taking “Communion” to her bedridden neighbors as an act of charity. But if the “Communion” she brings is not the true Eucharist — if it is a counterfeit — then she is not bringing Christ but a lie. True Catholic charity demands bringing the true sacraments, administered by validly ordained priests in communion with the true Church, not the simulacra of the neo-church.

The Papal Audience: Witnessing the Abomination

The article describes the pilgrims’ experience at “a papal audience in St. Peter’s Square,” where they witnessed “its grandeur as Pope Leo reflected on the living mystical body of Christ, the Church.” The grandeur of St. Peter’s Square is not the grandeur of the Catholic Church — it is the grandeur of a counterfeit, a stage set for the religion of man. Leo XIV’s reflection on the “living mystical body of Christ” is almost certainly a reference to the modernist ecclesiology of Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium, which taught that the Church of Christ “subsists in” the Catholic Church — a formulation deliberately chosen to obscure the identity between the Church of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church, thereby opening the door to the claim that elements of sanctification and truth exist outside her visible structure.

This contradicts the perennial teaching of the Church. Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis (1943) taught: “The Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing.” The neo-church’s ecclesiology is heresy. To witness this heresy proclaimed from the balcony of St. Peter’s and to call it “grandeur” is to be complicit in the abomination.

The Omission of the Supernatural: The Defining Characteristic

What does this article not mention? It does not mention the necessity of the state of grace for salvation. It does not mention mortal sin. It does not mention the reality of hell. It does not mention the necessity of the true Mass. It does not mention the obligation of Catholics to profess the integral faith and to reject the conciliar revolution. It does not mention that the Catholic Church is the only ark of salvation. It does not mention that outside the Church there is no salvation — extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

Instead, it offers a religion of feelings: “the pilgrim returns changed,” “the spirituality of space,” “a symphony of praise,” “hope in Christ.” This is not Catholicism. This is Protestantism with Catholic aesthetics — the very outcome predicted by the Syllabus of Errors (Proposition 65: “Contemporary Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true knowledge without transforming it into a certain dogmaless Christianity, that is, into a broad and liberal Protestantism”).

Conclusion: The Call to Reject the Counterfeit

The Franciscan Jubilee Year of 2026-2027 is not a spiritual opportunity. It is a psychological operation of the conciar sect, designed to draw the faithful deeper into the structures of the neo-church, to normalize the authority of the usurpers, to reduce Catholic piety to tourism and sentimentality, and to advance the agenda of religious syncretism and indifferentism.

The true Catholic response is not to walk in the footsteps of St. Francis through the structures of the counter-church. It is to walk in the footsteps of St. Francis through the practice of the integral Catholic faith: the true Mass, the true sacraments, the true doctrine, the true morality, and the uncompromising rejection of all heresy — including the heresy of modernism, which is, as St. Pius X taught, “the synthesis of all heresies” (Pascendi Dominici gregis, 1907).

Let the faithful flee the counterfeit jubilee. Let them seek the true Church, which endures in those who profess the integral Catholic faith and are led by bishops with valid sacraments and validly ordained priests. Let them return to the immutable Tradition — the only path to salvation.

Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

Source:
Franciscan Jubilee Year invites pilgrims to walk in St. Francis of Assisi’s footsteps   (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 02.06.2026