The National Catholic Register (CNA) reports on a gathering held July 13–15, 2026, at the retreat house of the “St. John Paul II National Shrine” in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Orientale Lumen Foundation. The event featured “Cardinal” Seán Patrick O’Malley, “Archbishop” Flavio Pace (secretary of the “Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity”), and “Metropolitan” Tikhon Mollard (primate of the Orthodox Church in America). They prayed daily vespers together in the Eastern rite and advocated for “concrete steps” toward “full unity,” including joint pastoral letters on social issues, shared committees, and “praying together” as the primary engine of reconciliation. “Cardinal” O’Malley described the schism as largely “political and cultural,” claimed the Orthodox “have the sacraments” and “apostolic succession,” and proposed a model of “communion without absorption” using Eastern “Catholic” Churches as “bridges” and “laboratories for synodal communion.” This report manifests the consummate apostasy of the conciliar sect: it substitutes the divine mandate for the conversion of schismatics to the one, true Church of Christ with a naturalistic, Masonic “dialogue” that denies the Social Kingship of Christ, the necessity of the Catholic Faith for salvation, and the very nature of the Church as una, sancta, catholica, et apostolica.
The Theological Abomination of “Praying Together” with Schismatics
The central act of this conference—the joint celebration of vespers by “Cardinal” O’Malley, “Archbishop” Pace, and “Metropolitan” Mollard—is not a “step toward unity” but a public act of communicatio in sacris explicitly condemned by the immutable Magisterium. Pope Pius XI, in Mortalium Animos (1928), thundered: “The Apostolic See cannot take part in [non-Catholic] assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. Shall we suffer them to pray together? This would be to admit that all religions are more or less good and praiseworthy”. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 1258) forbids communicatio in divinis with heretics and schismatics under pain of suspicion of heresy. By praying liturgically with those who reject the Filioque, the Papal Primacy of jurisdiction, and the Immaculate Conception, the conciliar “cardinal” publicly professes that the Orthodox sect is a valid path to salvation, denying Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.
The article quotes O’Malley: “Come together and pray for unity… it is the Holy Spirit who will ‘illuminate the way’ toward East-West communion.” This is the heresy of the “Holy Spirit of Vatican II”—a blasphemous invocation of the Third Person to ratify the contradiction of His own previous teaching through the Solemn Magisterium. The Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth (John 16:13), cannot “illuminate” a path that requires the Catholic Church to treat the Orthodox schism as a mere “difference” rather than a rupture of the unity of faith. As St. Cyprian teaches: “He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his Mother” (De Unitate Ecclesiae, 6). To pray with those outside the Mother Church as equals is to deny her maternity.
Reduction of the Schism to “Politics and Culture”: A Lie Against the Holy Ghost
O’Malley’s assertion that “the causes of the schism were more political and cultural… Most Catholics and Orthodox in the pews are not focused on those fine points of theology” is a diabolical falsification of history and dogma. The Great Schism of 1054 and its consolidation were doctrinal through and through: the rejection of the Filioque (defined dogmatically at the Fourth Lateran Council and Florence), the denial of the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff as Vicar of Christ with full, supreme, and universal jurisdiction (defined at Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, Dz 1831), and the rejection of the Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility.
To call these “fine points of theology” is to trample the blood of the Martyrs who died for the Primacy of Peter and the integrity of the Creed. It is the Modernist error condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (Prop. 52, 55, 56): “Christ did not intend to establish the Church as a community lasting for centuries on earth… The organic structure of the Church is subject to change… Dogmas… are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness.” By reducing dogma to “culture,” O’Malley embraces the evolution of dogma condemned by Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis.
“Communion Without Absorption”: The Ecumenical Heresy of “Sister Churches”
The phrase “communion without absorption” and the praise of Eastern “Catholic” Churches as “bridges for reconciliation and laboratories for synodal communion” encapsulate the Balamand heresy (1993) and the Lumen Gentium error of subsistit in. This formula denies that the Catholic Church is the one Church of Christ, positing instead a “communion of churches” where the Orthodox are “sister churches” lacking only “full communion.”
Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi (1943) defined: “Only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.” Schismatics are separated from the unity of the Body. They are not “bridges”; they are broken members requiring conversion and return, not “dialogue” on equal footing.
The Syllabus of Pius IX condemns: “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” (Error 18). The same condemnation applies *a fortiori* to Orthodoxy, which retains valid orders but lacks the forma of the Church: unity under the Roman Pontiff. As Bellarmine teaches (De Romano Pontifice, II, 30), “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope… a non-Christian in no way can be Pope… he cannot be the head of something of which he is not a member.” The Orthodox hierarchy, by rejecting the Head, are not members; their “sacraments” and “succession” exist in vacuo, devoid of the jurisdictional bond that makes them instruments of the one Church. To present them as “having the sacraments” in a way that satisfies the divine economy is sacramental naturalism.
Naturalistic Humanitarianism: The “Gospel” of the Neo-Church
The article reveals the entirely naturalistic horizon of this false apostolate. O’Malley urges “joint pastoral letters or statements on issues of mutual agreement like world hunger, euthanasia, and abortion” and “works of mercy.” This is the Gospel of Man condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed… the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.”
The conciliar sect has abdicated the Kingship of Christ. Quas Primas teaches: “His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ… Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ.” The “unity” sought here is not the unitas fidei under Christ the King, but a humanitarian coalition to manage the temporal order without reference to the supernatural end. The Syllabus condemns: “The civil government… has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs… In the case of conflicting laws enacted by the two powers, the civil law prevails” (Errors 41, 42). This ecumenical “joint statement” strategy is precisely the subordination of the Church’s mission to the secular agenda of the “world hunger/euthanasia/abortion” NGO complex.
The “Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity”: Engine of the Masonic Ecumenism Project
“Archbishop” Pace represents the “Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity,” a modernist invention of the conciliar revolution (1960, Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity). Its very name signals the inversion of the Church’s mission: from conversion of the nations (Matt 28:19) to dialogue with the enemies of the Church. The file on False Fatima Apparitions correctly identifies this dynamic: “The imprecise formulation ‘conversion of Russia’ (without specifying Catholicism) opens the way to religious relativism. It can serve to legitimize dialogue with schismatic Orthodoxy.” The “Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue” (1980) and its 2024 subcommittees on “infallibility” and the “Nicene Creed” are not seeking the truth; they are negotiating the surrender of dogma.
Pace’s goal of a “very good draft” on infallibility to be “discussed and approved” by a mixed committee of Catholics and schismatics is a parody of the Magisterium. The First Vatican Council defined: “The Roman Pontiff… when he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church… is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed” (Pastor Aeternus, Dz 1839). This definition is irreformable (ex sese, non ex consensu Ecclesiae). To submit it to a “dialogue” where the Orthodox “recognize the indefectibility of councils” but reject papal infallibility as “designated to one person” (per “Bishop” Vrame) is to treat the dogma as a negotiable opinion. This is the Modernist error: “The dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are not truths of divine origin but are a certain interpretation of religious facts” (Lamentabili, Prop. 22).
Sedevacantist Corollary: The Usurpers Build the One-World Religion
This spectacle confirms the sedevacantist thesis: the men occupying the Vatican structures since 1958 are not Popes but manifest heretics who have ipso facto lost all jurisdiction. St. Robert Bellarmine teaches: “A Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head… by which things he may be judged and punished by the Church” (De Romano Pontifice, II, 30). Wernz-Vidal confirm: “By notorious and publicly manifested heresy, the Roman Pontiff… is deprived ipso facto of his personal jurisdiction even before any declaratory sentence by the Church.”
The “Cardinal” O’Malley, the “Archbishop” Pace, the “Metropolitan” Mollard, and the “Pope” Leo XIV (Prevost) who appoints them—all are outside the Church by the very fact of their public profession of the heresy of ecumenism, religious liberty, and collegiality. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code applies: “Every office becomes vacant by the mere fact and without any declaration… if the cleric publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” Fr. McDevitt clarifies: “Joining, or enrolling in, a non-Catholic sect is not required to establish the publicity which the canon demands.” Public defection occurs through formal heresy—such as the heresy that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church but is also present in schismatic sects.
The “St. John Paul II National Shrine” hosting this abomination is the fitting symbol: a monument to the apostate “saint” of the neo-church, the architect of Ut Unum Sint and the Assisi abominations. The “Orientale Lumen Foundation” is a known instrument of the Masonic ecumenism project, designed to dissolve the Catholic identity into a pan-Christian syncretism, preparatory to the universal religion of the Antichrist.
Conclusion: The Only Unity Is Submission to Christ the King
The “unity” of the conciliar sect is the unity of the Tower of Babel—a human construction reaching toward heaven without God. The true unity of the Church is unitas fidei, unitas sacramenti, unitas regiminis—one Faith, one Baptism, one Government under the Roman Pontiff. As Pius XI commanded in Quas Primas: “If men were ever to recognize Christ’s royal authority over themselves, both privately and publicly, then unheard-of blessings would flow upon the whole society… Peace is only possible in the Kingdom of Christ.”
The Orthodox will not be “converted” by joint vespers, “synodal laboratories,” or humanitarian declarations. They will be converted only by the uncompromising proclamation of the Catholic Dogma: “We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff” (Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, Dz 468). The conciliar sect, by refusing this proclamation, proves it is not the Catholic Church but the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt 24:15). True Catholics must flee this apostasy, adhere to the immutable Tradition, and pray for the restoration of the true Hierarchy that will teach all nations whatsoever I have commanded you (Matt 28:20).
Source:
Cardinal O’Malley at Catholic-Orthodox Conference: ‘Come Together and Pray for Unity’ (ncregister.com)
Date: 16.07.2026