Printed Books Cannot Save a Church That Has Abandoned the Faith
The National Catholic Register reports that on May 7, 2026, the antipope Leo XIV, addressing employees of the Vatican Publishing House (Libreria Editrice Vaticana) on its centenary, urged Catholics to read printed books, claiming they “nourish the mind,” foster “critical sense,” guard against “fundamentalism,” and serve as “an antidote to closed-mindedness.” He further invoked the “culture of encounter” — a hallmark of his predecessor Bergoglio’s pontificate — and cited St. Paul VI’s 1976 exhortation to “look ahead” as a model for the publishing house’s mission. The address, wrapped in the veneer of cultural conservatism, reveals the profound spiritual bankruptcy of an institution that has systematically dismantled the faith it now pretends to promote through the medium of printed paper.







