Vatican News portal (June 5, 2026) presents an interview with Dr. Daniel Solymári, a humanitarian diplomat and development aid expert, who offers an enthusiastic commentary on the antipope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica humanitas. Solymári frames the document as a “powerful social and synodal appeal” to view the world from the perspective of the poor, refugees, and other “rejected stones” — a term borrowed directly from the Bergoglian lexicon. The interview celebrates the encyclical’s focus on “justice, fraternity, and peace” as the heart of public life, its warning about artificial intelligence creating further exclusion, and the Holy See’s diplomatic role as a voice for the voiceless. Nowhere in this lengthy panegyric does one encounter the slightest acknowledgment that the primary mission of the Church is the salvation of souls, that the greatest poverty is the state of mortal sin, or that true peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ. The article is a textbook specimen of the conciliar religion: a purely naturalistic humanitarianism dressed in ecclesiastical vestments, devoid of supernatural faith, and functionally indistinguishable from the program of any secular NGO.
The Complete Absence of Supernatural Faith in “Magnifica Humanitas”
The most devastating critique of the encyclical Magnifica humanitas, as presented through Solymári’s commentary, is what it systematically omits. The interview spans thousands of words addressing refugees, structural injustice, artificial intelligence, diplomatic outreach, and synodal governance — yet not a single syllable is devoted to the one thing necessary: the eternal salvation of souls. This is not an accidental oversight; it is the defining characteristic of the conciliar religion. As Pope Pius XI declared in Quas Primas (1925), the reign of Christ the King encompasses all men, and “there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The state is happy not by one means and man by another, for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men — and that harmony is impossible without the recognition of God’s supreme authority over both individuals and societies.
Solymári speaks of “rejected stones” — the poor, migrants, refugees, the excluded — as though their material condition were the ultimate criterion of ecclesial concern. He states: “The expression ‘rejected stones’ is an example of this: it recalls and builds upon the concepts of the ‘throwaway culture’ and ‘excluded people,’ so often mentioned by his predecessor.” The predecessor in question is the apostate Bergoglio, whose entire pontificate was characterized by the reduction of the Church’s mission to a horizontal, sociological program. The term “rejected stones” itself, while echoing Christ’s teaching about the stone the builders rejected (Psalm 117:22, Matthew 21:42), is here stripped of its Christological and ecclesiological meaning and repurposed as a slogan for humanitarian activism. Christ is the stone the builders rejected; He is the cornerstone of the Church, the one foundation upon which all spiritual edifice is built (1 Corinthians 3:11). To transfer this Christological title to a sociological category of “excluded people” is not merely imprecise — it is a subtle act of theological substitution, replacing the divine cornerstone with the human victim as the center of gravity.
The encyclical, as described, addresses “concrete and real problems within the actual conditions of our time” — urban slums, refugee camps, structural inequalities. These are real evils, and the Church has always taught that charity obliges us to assist those in material need. But the Church has never taught that material poverty is the supreme evil, or that the alleviation of structural inequality is the primary mission of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that spiritual almsgiving — instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, comforting the sorrowful — is greater than corporal works of mercy, precisely because the soul is infinitely more valuable than the body (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 32, a. 2). The conciliar sect has inverted this hierarchy entirely. When Solymári asks how the encyclical serves “as a powerful social and synodal appeal to see the world from the perspective of the poor,” he reveals that the “perspective of the poor” has replaced the perspectiva fidei — the perspective of faith — as the hermeneutical key to the Church’s self-understanding.
The “Culture of Power” and the Erasure of Christ the King
Solymári approvingly cites the encyclical’s critique of “hard power” — military force and war — as instruments of international politics. He states: “One of the encyclical’s most important elements lies in its explicit recognition that we live within a culture of power, of hard power, in which international politics makes use of military force and war as instruments.” He contrasts this with “soft power” — fraternity, trust, shared responsibility — which he associates with the legacy of Bergoglio’s Fratelli Tutti. The encyclical allegedly warns that “lasting peaceful coexistence is born not from breaking the other, but from winning the other’s free and reasoned assent.”
This language is revealing in its theological bankruptcy. The idea that peace is achieved through “free and reasoned assent” rather than through the submission of nations to the kingship of Christ is precisely the error condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), proposition 80: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” The peace described by Solymári and the encyclical is a purely horizontal, naturalistic peace — the peace of the United Nations Charter, not the peace of Christ. Pope Pius XI was unequivocal: the hope of lasting peace will not shine upon nations “as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior” (Quas Primas). The peace that Christ brought is not the absence of conflict negotiated between sovereign powers; it is the “peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ” — a supernatural order requiring the submission of all nations, all laws, and all social structures to the divine law.
Solymári further states: “The acceptance of hard power in this form is, in the final analysis, not only a political failure but also a moral regression: an admission that humanity has advanced in technical terms, while its political imagination remains captive to imperial reflexes.” This is the language of secular political science, not Catholic theology. The Church has never taught that the use of military force is inherently immoral or a sign of “moral regression.” The just war doctrine, articulated by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, recognizes that the legitimate defense of the common good may require the use of armed force. What the Church condemns is not the use of force per se, but the refusal to recognize that all authority — including the authority to wage just war — derives from God and must be exercised in accordance with His law. By framing the critique in terms of “imperial reflexes” versus “fraternity,” the encyclical and its commentator adopt the vocabulary of liberal internationalism, not Catholic social teaching.
The Holy See’s “Diplomacy” as Servility to the World
Solymári devotes considerable attention to the diplomatic role of the Holy See, which he describes as representing “a different form of power and authority” — one that “proceeds not primarily from geopolitical interest, military strength, or economic calculation, but from the dignity of the human person.” He adds: “The diplomats of the Holy See possess a particular voice, one that proceeds not primarily from geopolitical interest, military strength, or economic calculation, but from the dignity of the human person.”
This description is a masterpiece of equivocation. The “dignity of the human person” is a concept that, in Catholic theology, derives from man’s creation in the image and likeness of God and his supernatural destiny. It is inseparable from the obligation to worship God, observe His commandments, and seek eternal salvation. But in the mouth of Solymári and in the context of the conciliar sect, “the dignity of the human person” has been emptied of its supernatural content and refilled with the content of secular human rights discourse. It is the dignity of the autonomous, self-determining individual — the very concept condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, proposition 39: “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits.”
Solymári further claims: “The litmus test of a just society is how we treat refugees and those forced to leave their homes.” This is a direct quotation attributed to “Saint John Paul II” — the apostate Wojtyła, whose entire pontificate was a systematic dismantling of Catholic doctrine in favor of ecumenical dialogue with false religions and submission to the principles of religious liberty and human dignity as defined by the secular world. The true litmus test of a just society, according to Catholic teaching, is whether it recognizes the kingship of Christ, whether it protects and promotes the true religion, and whether it provides the conditions necessary for its citizens to attain eternal salvation. Pope Pius XI taught that Christ’s reign “extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ” (Quas Primas, quoting Leo XIII’s Annum Sacrum). A society that welcomes refugees but denies the divinity of Christ, suppresses the true Mass, and promotes religious indifferentism is not just — it is an abomination.
Synodality as the Democratization of the Church
Solymári describes the encyclical as “not only a social encyclical, but also a synodal one, calling everyone not to turn away from the cry of the poor.” He acknowledges that “it is not yet entirely clear how this can be translated into the everyday reality of communities such as those in the Middle East or Africa,” but insists that the process “can only take place through dialogue, cooperation, and the generous and merciful acceptance of differences.”
The language of “dialogue,” “cooperation,” and “acceptance of differences” is the language of the conciliar revolution — the same language used to justify the abandonment of Catholic missionary activity, the legitimization of false religions, and the transformation of the Church from a hierarchical society founded by God into a democratic assembly of “the faithful.” The Church is not a democracy. It is a kingdom — the Kingdom of Christ on earth — governed by the authority delegated by Christ to Peter and his successors. The synodal process, as practiced by the conciliar sect, is a mechanism for the democratization of doctrine, in which the “sense of the faithful” (itself a modernist concept condemned by Pope Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 1907) replaces the authoritative Magisterium as the source of truth.
Solymári’s vision of local communities “carefully discerned and refined by local communities themselves and shaped into forms that are valid and effective within their own concrete realities” is a recipe for the fragmentation of the Church into a collection of local assemblies, each determining its own “valid and effective” forms of worship, doctrine, and pastoral practice. This is precisely the error of Protestantism, condemned by the Council of Trent: the rejection of the universal Magisterium in favor of private judgment and local autonomy. The Church’s social teaching is not a set of abstract principles to be “discerned” and “refined” by local communities according to their “concrete realities.” It is a body of immutable truths, derived from divine revelation and natural law, which must be proclaimed, taught, and applied uniformly throughout the world.
The “AI Era” as a Distraction from the Real Crisis
The encyclical’s focus on artificial intelligence as a source of further exclusion is presented by Solymári as evidence of its relevance to “the epic changes underway in the ‘AI era.'” He warns that “the digital age is an age of universalization, in which the differences between cultures and peoples, as well as the very space for dialogue, become blurred.”
This concern, while not entirely without merit in a purely naturalistic framework, is a profound distraction from the real crisis facing humanity. The crisis of our time is not artificial intelligence — it is the apostasy of the conciliar sect, the suppression of the true Mass, the propagation of heresy from the highest levels of the visible Church, and the spiritual ruin of millions of souls led into error by the very men who claim to shepherd them. Pope St. Pius X, in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, warned that the Modernists — the “enemies within” — were the greatest danger to the Church, precisely because they used the language of Catholicism to undermine Catholic doctrine from within. The encyclical Magnifica humanitas, with its focus on AI, refugees, and structural injustice, is a perfect example of this strategy: it occupies the attention of the faithful with peripheral concerns while the central truths of the faith are systematically dismantled.
The Lamentabili sane exitu (1907) of Pope St. Pius X condemned the proposition that “the progress of sciences requires a reform of the concept of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, Revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption” (proposition 64). Yet this is precisely what the concilar sect has done — and what the encyclical Magnifica humanitas continues to do, by treating the “AI era” as a context requiring new “discernment” and “dialogue” rather than the uncompromising proclamation of eternal truths.
Conclusion: The Religion of Humanity Without God
The interview with Daniel Solymári, and the encyclical Magnifica humanitas it celebrates, represent the culmination of the conciliar revolution: the complete replacement of the supernatural religion of Christ the King with a naturalistic humanitarianism that addresses every conceivable earthly concern while ignoring the one thing necessary. The “rejected stones” of our time are not merely the refugees and the poor — they are the souls abandoned by a false pastorate that has substituted the worship of man for the worship of God, the pursuit of social justice for the pursuit of holiness, and the diplomacy of the world for the authority of Christ.
As Pope Pius IX declared: the Church demands for itself “full freedom and independence from secular authority, and that in fulfilling the mission entrusted to it by God — to teach, govern, and lead all to eternal happiness, those who belong to the Kingdom of Christ — it cannot depend on anyone’s will” (Quas Primas). The conciliar sect has made itself entirely dependent on the will of the world — on the approval of secular powers, the validation of humanitarian organizations, and the applause of the global media. It has become, in the words of Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, the servant of “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” rather than the guardian of divine truth.
The faithful who desire to remain in communion with the true Church must reject this counterfeit religion entirely. They must seek out the true Mass — the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Altar — offered by validly ordained priests who have not succumbed to the apostasy of the conciliar revolution. They must cling to the immutable teachings of the pre-conciliar Magisterium — the teachings of Pius IX, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and all the true popes who defended the faith against the enemies within. And they must pray for the restoration of the Church — not the “reform” of the conciliar sect, but the return of the true Church to her rightful place as the one ark of salvation, the Kingdom of Christ on earth, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail (Matthew 16:18).
Source:
Pope Leo’s Magnifica humanitas and the “rejected stones” of our time (vaticannews.va)
Date: 05.06.2026