EWTN News reports that Rev. Canon Jean-Baptiste Commins, a French-American priest serving as pastor at St. Joseph Shrine in Detroit within the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, tackled an 18-year-old hit-and-run suspect in full cassock, punched him, and then returned to his “normal priestly life” — prayers and dinner — calling it “just another day in the D.” The article celebrates this as heroic, noting Commins also serves as an honorary board member for Regina Caeli Academy and participated in the “Good News Cruise” alongside Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Father Mike Schmitz, and Father Leo Patalinghug.
The Cult of the “Hero Priest” and the Reduction of Holy Orders to Social Service
The article presents a priest who physically assaults a suspect — punching him, causing cuts and a possible fracture to his own hand — and frames this as laudable heroism. The language is revealing: Commins “flew into action,” “put him down,” and “unfortunately” had to “give him a couple punches.” The casual tone — “just another day in the D” — betrays a clerical culture that has absorbed the spirit of the world rather than the spirit of the Gospel. Where is the horror at violence? Where is the recognition that a man ordained to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has instead engaged in fisticuffs in a parking lot?
This is not heroism. It is the natural fruit of a post-conciliar clerical formation that has replaced the supernatural identity of the priest — alter Christus, another Christ — with the secular ideal of the “active pastor” who is essentially a social worker in vestments. The priest’s own words confirm the reduction: after punching a man and potentially fracturing his hand, he returned to “prayers as usual and dinner with the community.” The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the unbloody renewal of Calvary, is reduced to “prayers as usual” — indistinguishable from a casual meal with parishioners.
The Institute of Christ the King: A Schism Within the Schism
Commins serves within the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, an organization that, while celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass, continues to recognize the usurpers occupying the Vatican as legitimate authorities. This is the fundamental contradiction that no amount of beautiful liturgy can resolve. The Institute operates with the approval of the conciar sect. Its priests are canonically recognized by the very structures that promulgated the apostasy of Vatican II — the same structures that imposed the Novus Ordo Missae, the religion of man, and the destruction of Catholic doctrine on religious liberty, ecumenism, and the Church’s exclusive claim to truth.
As the Defense of Sedevacantism file establishes, St. Robert Bellarmine teaches that “a Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head.” The post-conciliar occupants of the Vatican have repeatedly taught and promulgated heresies — from the Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) to the Abu Dhabi declaration that God positively wills the diversity of religions. These are not ambiguous statements. They are direct contradictions of Quas Primas, where Pius XI declares that Christ’s reign “encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ,” and of the Syllabus of Errors, where Pius IX condemns as error #77: “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,” and #80: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.”
The Institute of Christ the King, by maintaining communion with these manifest heretics, participates in their schism. It is, in the language of the file, a “schism within a schism of the neo-church.” Its members practice “contradictions and theological errors” while simulating the appearance of Catholic tradition. The Traditional Latin Mass they celebrate is, in this context, a liturgical costume draped over a fundamentally modernist ecclesiology.
The “Good News Cruise”: Ecumenical Syncretism in Action
The article notes that Commins participated in the “Good News Cruise” alongside Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Father Mike Schmitz, and Father Leo Patalinghug. This detail is not incidental — it is symptomatic. Cardinal Dolan is a prominent figure of the conciliar establishment, a “cardinal” in the paramasonic structure that has occupied the Vatican since the death of Pius XII. Father Mike Schmitz is a media personality whose catechetical content is thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the New Evangelization — that is, the modernist project of making the faith palatable to the world by stripping it of its supernatural demands.
The “Good News Cruise” itself is a perfect metaphor for the post-conciliar apostasy: the faith reduced to entertainment, the priest as cruise ship attraction, the Holy Mass offered as one activity among many aboard a luxury vessel. This is the religion condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis — the “synthesis of all errors” that transforms the Church from a divine institution into a horizontal community of shared experience. Pius X warned in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (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.” The Good News Cruise is precisely this: dogmaless Catholicism as cruise entertainment.
The Omission of What Matters Most
The article describes Commins approaching the injured woman and determining she “didn’t need the anointing of the sick or blessing.” This is presented as a casual assessment. But where is the gravity? Where is the recognition that a person who has just been struck by a vehicle, who is “not very responsive” with “eyes twitching,” may be in danger of death? The Sacrament of Extreme Unction is not a discretionary comfort measure — it is, as the Council of Trent teaches, instituted by Christ for the spiritual healing of the dying, conferring grace, remitting sins, and comforting the soul. The Catechism of the Council of Trent states that this sacrament should be administered to those in danger of death, and the 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 943) requires pastors to ensure that the sick are anointed in good time.
That Commins casually determined this woman did not need the last sacraments — and that the article presents this without any critical reflection — reveals the utter collapse of the supernatural sense in the post-conciliar clergy. The priest’s primary concern in such a moment should be the state of the woman’s soul, not the physical details of the accident. Yet the article devotes far more space to the priest’s punches and his quip about “the D” than to any spiritual dimension of the event.
This silence about supernatural matters — the state of grace, the last things, the eternal destiny of souls — is, as the instructions note, “the gravest accusation” that can be leveled against any piece of post-conciliar Catholic media. The article treats the priest’s physical intervention as the story and his spiritual duties as an afterthought. This inversion of priorities is not accidental. It is the systematic fruit of a formation that has replaced the cura animarum — the care of souls — with the cura corporum — the care of bodies.
The Regina Caeli Academy Connection
Commins serves as an honorary board member for Regina Caeli Academy, described as a “pre-K-to-grade-12 classical home school hybrid with more than 25 centers across the nation.” While classical education is commendable in principle, the question must be asked: what is the theological foundation of this institution? Does it teach the integral Catholic faith — including the doctrine of the Church’s exclusive salvific mission, the necessity of baptism, the reality of hell, the social reign of Christ the King? Or does it operate within the framework of the post-conciliar “spirit of Vatican II,” where such doctrines are quietly shelved in favor of a vague Christian humanism?
Given Commins’s affiliation with the Institute of Christ the King — an organization in communion with the conciliar sect — and his participation in events alongside figures like Cardinal Dolan, there is every reason to suspect that Regina Caeli Academy, whatever its classical veneer, operates within the broad tent of post-conciliar Catholicism. The “classical” label has become a marketing brand, not a guarantee of doctrinal integrity.
The Language of the Article: A Symptom of Theological Decay
The article’s tone is relentlessly upbeat and worldly. The priest is a “hero.” His actions are “harrowing” but also admirable. The phrase “just another day in the D” is presented as charming and relatable. There is no critical distance, no theological reflection, no awareness that something might be profoundly wrong with a priest punching a suspect in the face and then treating it as a minor anecdote.
This is the language of the conciliar sect: relentlessly positive, focused on human achievement, devoid of supernatural perspective. Compare this with the language of Pius XI in Quas Primas: “When God and Jesus Christ — as we lamented — were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The article does not lament anything. It celebrates a priest who acts like a bouncer and a social worker, and it calls this “heroism.”
The article also employs the standard post-conciliar naming conventions without quotation marks: “Rev. Canon,” “Cardinal Timothy Dolan,” “Father Mike Schmitz.” These titles are presented as legitimate, as though the conciliar structures that confer them possess any authority from Christ. They do not. As the Defense of Sedevacantism file demonstrates, a manifest heretic cannot be Pope, cannot hold jurisdiction, and cannot confer valid ecclesiastical titles or offices. The “cardinals” of the conciliar sect are not cardinals. The “priests” ordained under their authority are, at best, of doubtful validity. The entire structure is, in the words of the file, a “paramasonic structure” and an “abomination of desolation.”
Conclusion: The Priest as Celebrity, the Faith as Entertainment
This article is a microcosm of everything that has gone wrong with Catholicism since 1958. A priest who should be a man of God — dedicated to prayer, the Holy Sacrifice, the administration of the sacraments, and the salvation of souls — is instead celebrated for his physical prowess and his ability to deliver a soundbite. The faith is reduced to a feel-good story. The supernatural is invisible. The conciliar structures are treated as legitimate. The Traditional Latin Mass is celebrated not as a act of resistance against apostasy but as a aesthetic preference within the broad tent of the neo-church.
Pius XI declared in Quas Primas: “The annual celebration of this solemnity will also remind states that not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” The article honors a priest who punched a man. It does not honor Christ the King. It does not remind anyone of their duty to God. It is, in the final analysis, another piece of propaganda for the religion of man — the very religion that St. Pius X condemned as “the synthesis of all errors.”
The faithful who desire the true faith must reject these simulations. They must seek out priests who are truly separated from the conciliar apostasy — not those who celebrate the old Mass while kissing the feet of antipopes. They must demand the fullness of Catholic doctrine — not the diluted, worldly, feel-good Catholicism of the EWTN News variety. And they must pray for the restoration of the true Church, the true Mass, and the true social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King — cuius regni non erit finis, whose kingdom shall have no end.
Source:
Hero priest tackles suspect and helps woman after hit-and-run in Detroit (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 04.06.2026