The National Catholic Register portal reports on the Franciscan Jubilee Year declared by the antipope Leo XIV, marking 800 years since the death of St. Francis of Assisi. The article describes pilgrimages to Assisi, the veneration of relics, and the spiritual experiences of modern Catholics, framing the event as an opportunity for renewal and encounter with the saint’s legacy. However, beneath the veneer of piety lies a profound theological and spiritual bankruptcy, symptomatic of the post-conciliar Church’s systematic departure from Catholic truth.
The Illusion of Pilgrimage in a Church of Apostasy
The article presents the Franciscan Jubilee as a call to “be more than a tourist … to be a pilgrim,” promising transformation through encounter with sacred sites. Yet, this language of “encounter” and “experience” is the hallmark of the conciliar revolution, which has replaced the supernatural life of grace with a naturalistic, anthropocentric spirituality. True pilgrimage, in the Catholic sense, is a penitential act ordered toward the salvation of souls and the glory of God, not a subjective “experience” of “spirituality of space.” As Pope Pius XI taught in *Quas Primas*, the reign of Christ the King demands that all actions, including public worship and devotion, be ordered toward His divine authority and the immutable truths of faith. The reduction of pilgrimage to a personal, emotional journey reflects the modernist error condemned by St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu*, where “revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (proposition 20).
The Veneration of Relics in a Heretical Context
The article highlights the display of St. Francis’s skeletal remains, noting that 400,000 people came to “venerate the relics.” While the veneration of saints’ relics is a Catholic practice, its context within the conciliar sect is deeply suspect. The post-conciliar Church, having embraced the errors of Modernism and ecumenism, has obscured the distinction between true Catholic veneration and superstitious or syncretistic practices. The display of relics in a basilica controlled by a heretical antipope, whose authority is null and void according to the principles of sedevacantism (as articulated by St. Robert Bellarmine and Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law), risks leading the faithful into sacrilege. As the *Syllabus of Errors* condemns, “the Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion” (proposition 21)—a heresy now embedded in the conciar sect’s very structure.
The Portiuncula and the Corruption of Franciscan Spirituality
The article describes the Portiuncula as the “spiritual center” of the Franciscan community, where St. Francis heard Christ’s call to “repair my house.” Yet, the post-conciliar Franciscans have become agents of the very ruin they claim to oppose. The Order, once a bastion of orthodoxy, has been infiltrated by modernist and even Masonic influences, as seen in the promotion of ecumenism, religious liberty, and the dissolution of traditional asceticism. The article’s mention of a statue of St. Francis “featuring icons of other world religions celebrating the universality of his spiritual appeal” is a damning indictment of this apostasy. This is not Catholic universality, which seeks the conversion of all nations to Christ the King, but the false ecumenism condemned by Pius XI in *Mortalium Animos*, which treats all religions as equally valid paths to God. Such syncretism is a direct violation of the First Commandment and the Church’s missionary mandate.
Indulgences and the Sacramental Chaos of the Neo-Church
The article promises “plenary indulgences” to pilgrims who visit Franciscan churches, receive “Communion,” recite certain prayers, and make confession. However, the conciliar sect’s sacraments are gravely suspect, if not invalid. The Novus Ordo Missae, promulgated by the apostate Paul VI, has been criticized for its Protestantizing tendencies and its ambiguity regarding the propitiatory nature of the Mass. As the *Defense of Sedevacantism* argues, a manifest heretic loses his office *ipso facto*, and the post-conciliar antipopes, by their public heresies and apostasies, have forfeited any authority to grant indulgences or administer sacraments. To seek an indulgence from such a source is to participate in a system of sacramental magic, devoid of true supernatural efficacy. The faithful are reminded of the warning in *Cum ex Apostolatus Officio*: any promotion or elevation of a heretic is “null, void, and of no effect.”
The Absence of Supernatural Truth
Perhaps the most glaring omission in the article is any mention of the supernatural realities of faith: the state of grace, the necessity of baptism, the reality of hell, or the final judgment. Instead, the focus is on “hope in Christ, the promise of eternal life, the Mass, our glimpse into heaven”—phrases that, in the conciar context, are emptied of their Catholic meaning. The “Mass” referred to is likely the Novus Ordo, which, as Archbishop Lefebvre himself acknowledged, “leads to heresy” and is not the true Sacrifice of the Calvary. The article’s language of “glimpse into heaven” is a naturalistic reduction of the Beatific Vision, which is the eternal reward of the predestined, not a subjective experience to be “glimpsed” in this life. This silence about supernatural matters is the gravest accusation against the conciar sect, as it reveals a Church that has abandoned its divine mission to save souls in favor of a humanistic, worldly agenda.
Conclusion: A Call to Reject the Conciliar Fraud
The Franciscan Jubilee, as presented in this article, is not a genuine call to holiness but a sophisticated marketing campaign for a Church in ruins. The faithful are urged to reject this false pilgrimage and return to the immutable Tradition of the Catholic Church, which endures in the true sacraments, the true Mass, and the true faith. As St. Pius X warned, “the pursuit of novelty in the investigation of the foundations of things leads in our times to deplorable consequences” (*Lamentabili sane exitu*, proposition 1). Let us heed his warning and flee from the abomination of desolation that now occupies the Vatican, seeking instead the true Christ, who reigns in His Church through the unbroken succession of true bishops and priests, outside the structures of the Antichrist.
Source:
Franciscan Jubilee Year Invites Pilgrims to Walk in St. Francis of Assisi’s Footsteps (ncregister.com)
Date: 02.06.2026