Neo-Church Invokes St. Peregrine for Antipope’s Cancer: Sentimentalism Over Salvation
The National Catholic Register portal (October 13, 2026) reports that as the usurper Robert Prevost, styling himself “Pope Leo XIV,” recovers from lung cancer surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, the neo-church faithful are being directed to invoke St. Peregrine Laziosi, the 14th-century Servite priest known as “the cancer saint.” The article recounts Peregrine’s conversion from an anti-papal youth who struck St. Philip Benizi, his severe penance of never sitting for thirty years, and his miraculous healing from a cancerous foot wound the night before scheduled amputation. It notes his canonization by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726 and highlights the National Shrine of St. Peregrine in Chicago, Prevost’s birthplace, while promoting an EWTN novena for the antipope’s recovery. This spectacle of pious sentimentalism masks the diabolical reality: the neo-church implores a true saint to preserve the life of a manifest heretic who occupies the Chair of Peter illegitimately, thereby prolonging the spiritual ruin of souls.