By: A Perplexed (Ex-)Catholic Woman
In the book-interview conducted by Diane Montagna, Bishop Athanasius Schneider considers that we are immersed in one of the four most turbulent moments in the history of the Church, alongside Arianism, the pope-princes, and the Western Schism.
We are witnessing, it seems to me, the silent but systematic creation of a new church, a substitution of its contents and even of the sacraments with modernist and Protestantizing elements, entirely alien to the tradition of the Church.
Let us look at some «isolated cases» that, when connected to each other, offer a clear image of this process of substitution and creation of a new church by men who no longer have the faith of the Church. Whether they triumph or not is in God’s hands.
Let us read three news items and relate them:
On January 27, InfoVaticana published an article titled “Going for the Sacrament of Confession in the Almudena Cathedral”. In it, what appears to be a project of Cardinal Cobo was explained, no less than in the cathedral, announced in the diocesan magazine, Alfa y Omega, “in relation to the sacrament of reconciliation, which will consist of offering ‘listening points in the temple with the aim of grasping and healing wounds’.”
The trap is that, in reality, the project has nothing to do with the sacrament of confession, but rather seeks in fact to replace it; since the project, according to the Lanceros community that signs the article, “involves placing some ladies, and that’s what’s important, that they be ladies, so that with a little coffee they receive those who want to come and tell their life in a psychologist’s consultation”.
Is this initiative original to the little cardinal of Madrid? No. In fact, it is inspired by high ecclesiastical instances, an uncomfortable inheritance from the nefarious pontificate of Francis that we will see how Pope Leo manages; no less than by the meeting on meeting, the Synod on Synodality. Precisely, on the Vatican News portal, it could be read last October (2024) that “the Synod reflects on women and listening to the excluded. Pope Francis participated in the II General Congregation of the second session of the synodal assembly, in which free interventions were developed on topics such as ministries, liturgy, dialogue with cultures and religions.”
Much to comment on in so few lines. These few elements mentioned are key in the fabrication of a new church. New in its content, not only separated from the two-thousand-year tradition of the Church, but opposed to it. The ministries, for example, which replace the orders and allow them to be assigned to laypeople, and dialogue with cultures and religions: relativism and religious indifferentism that contradicts the very Word of God: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6).
In relation to women, the Vatican News article continues by narrating the different interventions of this synod session, highlighting “the role of women, the presence of laypeople, the ‘active’ listening to people who do not conform to the dictates of the Church.” We are witnessing, announced positively, the demolition of the tradition of the Church and the fabrication of its opposite, a version not only worldly, but Masonic (therefore, of the Evil One). Let us note that, at bottom, everything is aimed at the annihilation of the ordained priesthood, which is fundamental in the Catholic Church since priests are the only ones who can administer the Sacraments and celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Without priests, there is no Mass; and without Mass, there is no Catholic Church. For this is where all these measures emerging from the top of the Church seem to be heading, which the bishops, turned into mere delegates of the pope in each diocese, reproduce with greater or lesser zeal and fidelity. Only here in Catalonia we have recently seen in the dioceses of Girona, Tarragona, and Urgell the respective bishops declare that they are not worried about the decrease in the clergy and the lack of vocations, given the existence of an active and committed laity. Teams of laypeople are being created in all dioceses, and not only in Catalonia, especially ladies, who can celebrate Liturgies of the Word and give Communion to the faithful on Sundays. The key, as we will see, is the substitution, in two steps (Paul VI and Francis I), of admission to orders by ministries.
Almost a year ago, in October 2024, at the synod, as the Vatican News text recounts, it dealt with “the charisms of women and laypeople.” In the case of women – I don’t understand why they don’t fall into the category of “laypeople,” since they are –, it was determined that, in the case of female sacred orders, “it was asked to ‘deepen the study of certain ministries, such as the “ministry of consolation”’ and not to lose sight of the contribution of women in the past and present.”
We see that they focus not only on lay women, but also consecrated ones, and, above all, the neologism “ministry of consolation.” Who are these people? None of this sounds Catholic. Our sensus fidei tells us so in our guts.
In its concatenation of absurdities, the article continues by explaining that “the members of the Synod insistently demanded an ‘equal dignity and co-responsibility of all the baptized for the Church.’ On this basis, one can reason about the ‘inclusion of women, laypeople, and young people in the decision-making processes of the life of the Church.’ And always on the man-woman relationship, some groups urge ‘identifying the fears and apprehensions behind certain positions, because these fears in the Church have led to attitudes of ignorance and contempt toward women.’ Therefore, ‘identify to heal to discern.’” This language is not ecclesial. It is worldly. It is the introduction of feminist thought, which despises women, into the Church. And the insistence on the concept of listening, so dear to Pope Francis, which replaces the teaching of the Church, as if Catholicism, which guards the Truth revealed by God, had to place itself on an equal footing with erroneous thoughts and learn something from them. From this erroneous perspective, the synod spoke of “developing a synodal spirituality of active listening, closeness, support without prejudice, even to those who are different, to those who do not make us feel comfortable.” It is the diaphanous expression of what Benedict XVI defined as the dictatorship of relativism, adopted by the current ecclesiastical hierarchy as its own.
Having reached this point, if we observe the domestic situation of the Church in Spain, we can establish a sequence in the events not only between these synodal proposals and Cardinal Cobo’s project for his diocese of Madrid, but also, to no one’s surprise when it comes to modernist initiatives, the Benedictine nuns of Montserrat, who belong to the diocese of Sant Feliu, governed by the infamous Bishop Xabier Gómez.
Because the Benedictines – we do not know if on their own initiative or in dialogue with their bishop – have created a free listening service! Let us admire the generosity of the sisters. Did a priest ever charge for listening to a confession or a nun in her parlor for listening to the problems of the people who came to her? No. But the problem is not in the “novelty” of not charging, but in equating both practices: the sacrament of confession and the listening service by the nuns, with the aim that the second replace the first. That is why Francis was persistent in scolding priests who, according to him, turn the confessional into a torture chamber (has it ever happened to you? Not to me), instilling fear in the faithful to approach a priest to confess while, at the same time, promoting that these adorable and heterodox dis-habited old ladies sit to listen to our problems.
The small difference between one and the other practice is that, while the priest is Christ who listens to us, forgives us, and absolves us, the nuns cannot give absolution for sins. Once again, at bottom, two totally antagonistic practices are being equated, for the confusion of the faithful and in the line of the annihilation of the ordained priesthood.
The initiative of the Benedictines of Montserrat, as can be read on their own website, is a free in-person and online listening service, inaugurated by the Shema volunteer group of the Monastery of San Benito de Montserrat on December 6, 2024. So, are the nuns not the ones listening, but lay volunteers? I don’t quite understand it. What is clear in black and white is that “the people offering the service have training in active listening and/or in focusing.” Focusing? If we continue browsing the website of the nuns of Montserrat, we can read that there is a Montserrat Focusing School, which in 2025 celebrates no less than 20 years of existence, and that focusing is “a technique for connecting with yourself, felt bodily listening, that serves all people, a pedagogical method developed in six steps that facilitates access to internal bodily wisdom. Focusing appeared in the USA in the 1950s and consists of six steps. It develops the skill of self-listening, being aware of how one feels about the issues and circumstances one lives with, deepening self-knowledge, improving confidence and emotional management, giving inner freedom and certainty in decisions.” As we see, a practice that is not at all Catholic, in which the abbess of Montserrat herself is an expert and promoter, as explained no less than on the portal of the Union of Religious of Catalonia.
If we add to that the fact that the Benedictine nuns of Montserrat have insisted for years on communal absolution prior to individual confession of sins, which is optional, we see that the damage is not something new or spontaneous, but the fruit of a gradual process of loss of faith and, worse, of substitution and fabrication of new contents for a new church. A community of consecrated women who do not seem Catholic, and a danger to the spirituality of unprepared baptized people who approach there thinking they are arriving at a Catholic cenobite. You can see what the Germinans Germinabit portal explains here and here.
To conclude, let us keep in mind a very important issue regarding the tasks that women can perform in the Church that we already addressed here: that of the substitution of admission to orders by “ministries”, impeccably explained by Roberto de Mattei: “Through the motu proprio Spiritus Domini, Pope Francis modified canon 230.1 of the Code of Canon Law, allowing women access to the ministries of readers and acolytes, which at the time caused a great media outcry because it seemed to open the door to female priesthood. That door remains closed, but the pope’s document undoubtedly contributed to continuing to devalue the priesthood, and ratified with it a widespread practice, that of women’s service before the altar, as happens with readers and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist.”
To understand this degradation of the Church’s liturgy, it is necessary to emphasize that the greatest responsibilities in this process must be attributed to Paul VI and the Second Vatican Council; Francis did nothing more than clarify some principles,” as Professor de Mattei indicates; because “on August 15, 1972, Pope Paul VI transformed the sacred orders into ministries through the motu proprio Ministeria Quaedam, making them partially accessible to laypeople according to the principle of the common priesthood of the faithful of the Second Vatican Council.”
The underlying objective is clear if we connect all the points: the destruction of the Catholic ordained priesthood and, with it, of the Mass and, therefore, of the Catholic Church, an operation carried out from the very corrupt human side, hijacked by modernist heresy, of the institution.