Coffeehouse Catholicism: The Naturalist Reduction of the Kingship of Christ to a Café Aesthetic
The National Catholic Register portal (July 17, 2026) publishes a commentary by Alberto M. Fernandez, a former United States diplomat and contributor to the EWTN apparatus, entitled “The World Is My Coffeehouse.” The piece is a sentimental travelogue of coffee rituals across Cuba, the Arab world, and Spain, culminating in a daydream of a “Catholic coffee shop” in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter — “Café Goatico” — stocked with holy cards and paperbacks by Chesterton, Tolkien, and Belloc. The author calls coffee an “evangelistic beverage” that “brings people together with good cheer.” The cited article reduces the Social Kingship of Christ to a café aesthetic, substituting the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary and the Social Reign of Christ the King (Quas Primas) with a café con leche and a stack of Chesterton paperbacks — a perfect distillation of the naturalist, bourgeois Catholicism of the conciliar sect.