The push for a ‘synodal church’ is the ‘Ape of the Church’ Archbishop Sheen warned against
LifeSiteNews is one of the only major news organizations prepared to call out this synodal ‘Ape Church’ – and to carry on calling it out, no matter the cost.
- 4
Mon Jun 8, 2026 - 9:09 am EDT
Listen to this article
7 min
(LifeSiteNews) — Dear friends,
In 1948, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen sounded the alarm about a coming “counter-church.”
He called it “the Ape of the Church” because the Devil “is the ape of God.”
Sheen warned that it would have “all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content.”
“It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist,” he said, “that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.”
Sheen was describing how communism could come to rival the Church, both in its structure and in men’s hearts.
But the reality has proved far worse than even this warning.
That’s because the ape church is not an external rival like communism troubling the faithful today, but a deception pretending to be the Catholic Church.
Many prominent churchmen have discussed this.
· Cardinal Burke spoke, in 2012, of clergy who thought they “were forming a new Church,” and that everything before Vatican II was defective.
· Cardinal Ratzinger said, in 1988, that many people were unsure “if the Church of today is really the same as that of yesterday, or if they have changed it for something else without telling people.”
· Father Linus Clovis stated, in 2017, “that the Catholic Church and the anti-Church currently coexist in the same sacramental, liturgical, and juridical space” – and that the anti-Church, “having grown stronger is now attempting to pass itself off as the true Church.”
Even Padre Pio is said to have warned the exorcist Don Gabriele Amorth:
It is Satan who has entered the womb of the Church, and within a while he will rule over a false church
On September 24, Archbishop Sheen will be beatified.
It’s a great irony that Archbishop Sheen is being beatified under the very man who wants a “Synodal Church.”
LifeSiteNews is one of the only major news organizations prepared to call out this synodal “Ape Church” – and to carry on calling it out, no matter the cost.
When the May 2025 conclave chose Leo XIV, the Catholic media scene overlooked his first words from the Loggia: “We want to be a synodal Church.”
Haut du formulaire
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DAILY HEADLINES
Bas du formulaire
But do we really “want to be a synodal Church”?
At LifeSiteNews, we do not.
That’s why LifeSiteNews deals with the hard questions others won’t touch. We tell you:
· The truth about the errors and heresies Leo XIV is preaching,
· The terrible offences he is committing, like beatifying a bishop who abused teenage boys,
· How to keep the faith in these times of trial.
When Our Lady’s title of Co-Redemptrix was mocked by Cardinal “Tucho” Fernández, LifeSiteNews defended Our Lady’s honor, and made the true doctrine known.
When others fell silent in the hope of saving the Traditional Latin Mass, LifeSiteNews continued to speak up on the doctrinal crisis, the persecution of faithful priests, and the unrelenting betrayal of Christ by Leo XIV’s Vatican.
We do this out of love: love for God, love for our readers, and love for the Church.
