Conciliar Sect’s ‘Battle of Despair’: Sociology Substitutes for Supernatural Faith
The National Catholic Register portal (August 18, 2026) publishes a commentary by Alberto M. Fernandez, former U.S. diplomat and EWTN contributor, titled “The Catholic Church Must Prepare for the Coming Battle of Despair.” The article exploits the suicide of Cambridge academic Jason Arday to lament rising “deaths of despair,” citing Nietzsche, Anglican priest Nigel Biggar (member of the “Pontifical Academy for Life” since 2017), and “Pope Leo XIV’s” May 2026 encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. Fernandez calls for a reinvigoration of “corporal and spiritual works of mercy” to address the “whole man, body and soul,” predicting the Church will be “poorer than ever before — and yet needed more than ever before.” This text lays bare the conciliar sect’s complete naturalization of the crisis: it offers sociological palliatives for a spiritual catastrophe born of the Great Apostasy, while recognizing the usurper on Peter’s Chair as the legitimate Vicar of Christ.