LEO GOES HOME, PARIS BURNS, CARDINALS BEHAVE BADLY

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Surgeon says he should be good for South American trip

 

 Prayers and penance for his reversion to the Catholic faith have won more time for the man the world calls 'Pope Leo XIV'. He's had his Big C bullet removed and returned to the Vatican to continue his recuperation and plan his November excursion to South America. 

In the meantime the karaoke, John Lennon's 'Imagine'-singing, lavender-shirted Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle is the public face of the Catholic Church. The satanic Cardinal Joseph Bernardin is being fêted fulsomely in Italy as "an example for the Church and the world" by the singularly rebarbative, fellow-Chicagoan Cardinal Cupich. 

 

The infamous McCarrick (l) with his 'dear friend' Bernardin. who he said had already been kind enough to warn him about the letter from his “secret admirer.”

And the wily Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State - said to be still smarting from his defeat in the conclave - has said that "if necessary, the Pope will reshape his pontificate." 

What could go wrong?

It's gone wrong already. A papacy cannot be 'reshaped'. Canon law expressly forbids it. Rome isn't happy with Parolin; RorateCaeli says his remarks "are generating a flurry of alarmist rumors that were absolutely unnecessary. I understand he's still bitter about not being elected Pope himself, but after what he said [yesterday], which makes no sense whatsoever, Leo XIV should kick him out."

While his accomplices in ecclesial crime make fools of themselves and a fool of what the world thinks is the Catholic Church, Leo sat up in his hospital bed and called world hunger a 'terrible offense' against human dignity and emphasized that adequate food is 'a basic human right'. This is grandstanding. Pure theatre.

'World hunger' is actually a terrible offence and insult to God who gives humanity all that is necessary for sustenance, just as He gives it to the birds and the lilies of the field. It is human sin that deprives humanity of its 'basic human right'. Sin, whose exposure and condemnation is the first duty of a pope, rather than posturing on the world stage.

A pope's first duty when ill (and always) is exercising charity in prayer; and while at Gemelli Hospital Leo celebrated Mass. Of a kind, A very second-rate kind: the 'banal' Novus Ordo Missae which "created the crisis in the Church" (Cardinal Ratzinger).

self-explanatory

Leo is more blessed than he realises to have the immensely superior graces of the Traditional Latin Mass obtained for him by faithful Catholics all over the world. He benefits especially by the bishops and priests of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) - for example, in a funeral parlour in Hastings, New Zealand, this afternoon. (It's their third funeral parlour but a great improvement on a garage.)

Speaking of things going wrong, remember how a little while ago Paris was making a song and dance and festival over the visit of 'Pope Leo'? The French, it was said, were returning to their fathers' faith in "the eldest daughter of the Church". But now the world watches flames and fury, riots, rack and ruin in cities right across France.

In the following story The WM Review discusses the failures of the so-called Catholic hierarchy, France (especially its King Louis XIV) and the crisis in the Church (or more precisely, in the postconciliar Ape of the Church). They convincingly posit the argument that it is the spectacular failure of the hierarchy to comply with the requests made by the Sacred Heart to St Margaret Mary, and of Our Lady of Fatima to Pope Benedict XV, which has resulted in the loss of their visible head, the pope, in an extended interregnum. 

Such as we see in the Catholic Church today.

From The WM Review:  

Louis XIV

"Given they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of my request, they will follow him into misfortune.”

‘Like the King of France…’ 

 

As we all know, one of the requests of Our Lady of Fatima was that the Pope would, with all the bishops, consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. Let us read Sr Lucie’s words, referring to June 13, 1929:

“Then Our Lady said to me: ‘The moment has come when God asks the Holy Father to make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.’”1

Sr Lucie then relays the following message from Heaven:

“They did not want to heed my request [to consecrate Russia]! … Like the King of France they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread its errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions against the Church: the Holy Father will have much to suffer.”2

On August 29, 1931, she wrote the following words in a letter to the bishop:

“Make it known to my ministers that, given they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My request, they will follow him into misfortune. It will never be too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary.”3

On two further occasions, Sr Lucie referred to this message about the King of France.4

 

Is this referring to the Pope or the hierarchy?

 

What do these words mean? They are usually taken to refer to Louis XIV’s failure to execute the requests of the Sacred Heart, resulting in the death of Louis XVI exactly 100 years later. This historical example explained, it is usually applied to mean something like this:

“The Pope’s failure to comply with Heaven’s requests will result in the Pope’s death.”

This is certainly also what the text purporting to be the Third Secret of Fatima suggests.

pure theatre

 

This article will give a brief context to the history of Louis XIV, St Margaret Mary and the Sacred Heart. We will then consider whether the standard interpretation above actually fits the words given.

In our opinion, they appear to be addressed not to a Pope, but rather to the entire hierarchy – who are essentially told that they will lose their head if they do not comply. This is, naturally, rather more dramatic than the mere death of a pope.

However, it is not for us to provide definitive explanations to the prophecies of our Lady of Fatima, and everyone has their own opinions. We will all see how they are to play out in due course.

The context of the King of France is taken from the work of Frère Michel, scholar of Fatima. We are referring to the second volume of his monumental work, The Whole Truth About Fatima. In some places, we have edited the grammar for clarity.

We are entering dark, dark times.

 

It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good 

 

Louis XIV and the Sacred Heart

Frère Michel explains that Our Lord’s mention of the King of France refers to the requests of the Sacred Heart given to St Margaret Mary in 1689, to be passed to King Louis XIV of France. Frère Michel, like many, believes that the “misfortune” that our Lord mentions refers not to the end of Louis XIV’s reign, but rather to the events 100 years later – the regicide of Louis XVI, whose anniversary these articles are marking.

The beheading of Louis XVI was also a symbolic beheading of France – which has, excepting brief periods, lacked its royal head ever since.

What were the requests made by the Sacred Heart? Here are some, along with our Lord’s references to Louis XIV’s mother’s struggles to deliver a living child:

“Make it known to the eldest son of my Sacred Heart – [Louis XIV] – that just as his temporal birth was obtained by devotion to the merits of My holy Infancy, in the same way he will obtain his birth into grace and eternal glory by the consecration which he himself will make to my Adorable Heart. [This Sacred Heart] wishes to triumph over his own, and through his efforts, triumph over the great ones of the earth as well.

“It wishes to reign in his palace, to be painted on his standards and engraved on his arms to make them victorious over his enemies, bringing these haughty and proud people to their knees before him, to make him triumphant over all the enemies of Holy Church.”5

Later the same year, St Margaret Mary wrote another letter with Heaven’s requests and promises for the King of France. In this letter, she wrote that God the Father wished to establish “the empire of the Sacred Heart” in Louis XIV’s court. She conveyed the request, that Louis XIV should:

“[h]ave an edifice built containing the picture of this divine Heart, to receive there the consecration and homage of the King [Louis] and the entire court.”

Not only this, but the Sacred Heart made the following astonishing promises to the French King:

“[T]his divine Heart wishes to become the protector and defender of [Louis XIV’s] sacred person against all his enemies visible and invisible; to defend him against them, and assure his salvation by this means. Therefore, he has chosen [Louis] as His faithful friend [to establish with Rome the cult of the Sacred Heart].

“[The Sacred Heart] wishes to dispense the treasures of his graces of sanctification and salvation, pouring out His blessings in abundance over all his enterprises. He will cause [Louis’s enterprises] to succeed for [Christ’s] glory, and give new success to his arms to make them triumph over his enemies.

“Happy will [Louis XIV] be then if he learns to love this devotion, which will gain for him an eternal kingdom of honour and glory in this Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ. [Christ] will undertake to elevate him, and make him great in Heaven before God His Father, [insofar] as this great monarch will undertake to take away before men the insults and humiliations which this divine Heart suffered before them; this will be done by giving to and procuring for [Sacred Heart] the honours, love and glory which it awaits from the King.”6

Frère Michel tells us that the Sacred Heart added that the Jesuits, and particularly a priest named Fr de la Chaise, had been chosen to convey this message to the King of France. However, he tells us that this priest did not pass on the message, or encourage him to follow it.

‘Follow him into misfortune’

Turmoil followed, with the dissolution of the Jesuits in 1773 and the French Revolution. As for the King, he did eventually find out about the requests, but his reign did not end in success. Frère Michel tells us:

“In spite of all his ingenuity, and the incessant labours of his virtuous old age, in spite of his heroic patience in the face of the worst reversals, he did not succeed in decisively crushing ‘the haughty and proud heads’ of his enemies. […]

“The great king died piously in [1715], but isolated and already powerless to prevent the coming catastrophes. His kingdom, deprived of the increase of extraordinary graces and miraculous help of the Sacred Heart, was gravely menaced from without, and undermined from within by the frivolousness, deadly errors, cowardice and betrayals which soon brought about its ruin.”7

He continues, stating that the Revolution essentially began exactly 100 years after St Margaret Mary had written down the request, when the Third Estate proclaimed itself a National Assembly on June 17, 1789. In prison and deprived of his crown, Louis XVI did indeed fulfil the request – but this did not save him.

As we know, a few years later on January 21, 1793, “France, ungrateful and rebellious to its God, dared to decapitate its Most Christian King.”8

 

The ministers will follow the King of France

 

What are we to make of all this? Let us summarise: Louis XIV failed to execute the request of heaven, and 100 years later, his successor Louis XVI lost his head.

We have already noted that this is the standard interpretation of the reference to the King of France. Given the events, the symbolism of 100 years between Louis XIV and Louis XVI, and other things, it is convincing.

So much for what they refer to in the past. What do they refer to for the future, in the context of Fatima?

Let us recall again the standard application, bolstered by the so-called Third Secret: “the Pope’s failure to comply with Heaven’s requests will result in the Pope’s death” (or risibly – his being shot and then recovering).

But is this clearly so? Let’s read closely.

 

“Make it known to my ministers that, given they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of my request, they will follow him into misfortune. It will never be too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary.”

 

The threat is made to the “ministers” of Christ. So can we say that “ministers” clearly refers to the Popes? Is it referring to several popes in succession?

Or is it not more logically referring to the Pope and all of those ministers who were needed to make the consecration with him, and all those other ministers who were failing to comply with the various requests? We know that there were obstructions to the message and requests of Fatima coming from various ranks of the hierarchy.

On this reading, the words would mean the following:

 

“Make it known to my ministers [the Catholic hierarchy] that, given they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of my request, they will follow him into misfortune [by losing their head]. It will never be too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary.”

 

What would it mean for the ministers of Christ to lose their head? Who is their visible head on earth? The Roman Pontiff.

 

In other words, the text at least could be interpreted as saying that the ministers of Christ will enter into misfortune by being deprived of the Roman Pontiff in an extended interregnum. We know that St Peter will have perpetual successors, so even a long interregnum can only be temporary – but it would indeed be a great misfortune and occasion of suffering for the Church.

 

Let us look again at the other text:

 

“They did not want to heed my request [to consecrate Russia]! … Like the King of France they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread its errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions against the Church: the Holy Father will have much to suffer.”

 

Again, who is “they”? Is it clearly referring to multiple popes? There is only ever one Pope reigning, so the sentence “they will repent and do it” cannot refer to multiple popes.

Does this not more logically refer to the body of men requested to do the consecration, namely “Holy Father […] in union with all the bishops of the world”?

What of the last line – “the Holy Father will have much to suffer”? Well, which Holy Father? It does not say. It isn’t clear that it refers to the Pope who will eventually make the consecration. In 1931, Pius XI was the pope: it could refer to him. Or, it could refer to Pius XII: both men suffered greatly. It certainly doesn’t undermine the idea of the body of the hierarchy being deprived of its head.

 

It could also just as easily refer to a successor acceding to the office after a period of interregnum. And anyway, none of the claimants subsequent to Pius XII have repented and made the consecration with all of the bishops of the world – so these words can hardly be used to disprove this interpretation.

 

pure theatre

Conclusion

 

The ministers of Christ will enter into misfortune by being deprived, at least for a time, of the Roman Pontiff. Is this the true meaning? Who can say? More work may need to be done, but in any case, we do not profess to have definitive answers – although perhaps this will give rise to further questions.

 

But it does not appear certain to us that the image of the King of France and the accompanying prophecy are stating that “the Pope’s failure to comply with Heaven’s requests will result in the Pope’s death”.

The reading we are suggesting – that the failure of the hierarchy to comply with the requests will result in the loss of their visible head, the pope, in an extended interregnum – is at least as plausible, especially given everything else going on for the last sixty years. https://www.wmreview.org/p/king-of-france-fatima-crisis

 

 

“Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good.” - Pope Leo XIII (who composed the St Michael’s Prayer after a terrifying vision of Satan attacking the Church in 1884)

LEO PUSHED JAB, HAS CANCER, NEEDS PRAYER & PENANCE

 

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"Roll up your sleeves and all of you get vaccinated, because it is truly a great service. As Pope Francis said: 'It is an act of love.'" https://x.com/CatholicSOTC/status/2110380186940166299/video/1

A resurfaced video shows Leo XIV, like Francis, persuading Catholics to take the COVID jab in 2021, despite grave moral issues with the use of aborted fetal cells and doubts about their effectiveness, which were eventually vindicated. 

Francis invited disgraced former White House COVID czar Anthony Fauci to the Vatican to promote the shots and before taking the papacy, Leo “reportedly imposed receiving Communion on the hand” during the pandemic “and Confession by telephone, which is both invalid and sacrilegious,” as previously covered by LifeSite. As 'pope', he has promoted other bishops who supported the COVID shots.

Leo has now had surgery to remove a sizable chunk of his lung - as Francis did. Lung cancer in non-smokers would rank among the deadliest cancers in the world on its own, killing more people than breast, prostate and colorectal combined. A Japanese study tracking 20 million people found that all excess deaths were in the vaccinated group. The unvaccinated group? ZERO excess deaths.

That strange sound you may be hearing right now is the little shrieks emanating from certain traditionalists (veneration for the Traditional Latin Mass excludes any further identification). "Quel horreur!" they exclaim. How horrid to mention facts concerning cancer and the COVID shot when 'Pope Leo XIV' languishes in hospital following surgery.

"No doubt", one of their number in New Zealand (who shall be nameless) has said, "some of Pope Leo's ill health can be laid at the door of those involved in the terrible onslaught that greeted his pontificate from those who should have known better" and then she calls LifeSiteNews'  John-Henry Westen "the black-eyed devil roundly condemned by ... priests as attempting to divide the Church. His few supporters have a lot to answer for."

In this unpleasant little online campaign in NZ against what Dr Peter Kwasniewski calls 'naysayers', another Kiwi exemplar of charity states he has "not even a sliver of frustration or annoyance" for a blogger acquaintance - one of what Hireath in Exile describes as Kwasniewski's "online cottage industry of complainers", whom the learned professor has accused of "damaging the movement’s reputation" (https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/rorates-kwasniewski-blames-the-victim) exactly as these traditionalists do in NZ

"Even with all her grave errors," says one kind Kiwi Trad, "I still pray for her and all schismatics, and will for her conversion and salvation. ... [she] is not far from her death and judgment."



Quite apart from ignorance of the blogger's state of health, the issue here is one of giving genuine Catholic witness. How can a Catholic look upon the state of emergency in the postconciliar cult of Vatican II, and the danger of death for one of its chief engineers, 'Pope Leo', with complacency? Do they care for his immortal soul? And why would a Catholic want to shoot the messengers (bloggers) who bring bad news - the Third Secret of Fatima's "apostasy at the top"? 

The man this breed of traditionalists apparently believe to be Christ's Vicar on earth - 'Pope Leo XIV' - is seriously ill. A knowledgable commentor of considerable repute and huge following is certain he has turbo cancer (listed here by Pfizer as one the possible side-effects of its COVID vaccine (https://x.com/DrLindaHarper/status/2109374730021249453).

It is clear to anyone with eyes to see that Catholics are confronted with a choice: the Church - or the Antichurch. Holy Mother Church is just the same as she has been ever since her founding by Jesus Christ. And there is also the Antichurch, wherein generations of Catholics bred in the Novus Ordo have lost sight of the terrifying reality of hell, disclosed to the little shepherds at Fatima by the Mother of God. 

'Pope Leo XIV' is in danger of physical death. He is also in great danger of the loss of his soul, if only for his globalist promotion of the gravely immoral COVID vaccine. Compared with that the loss of his earthly life from cancer is a trifle, a bagatelle. 

Leo concelebrated the N O Missae today in a 10th-floor room at the Gemelli and still intends to go to South America next month. It seems that in his absence, the liberal, modernist Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Dean of the College of Cardinals and karaoke-exponent of John Lennon's antiChristic "Imagine", is to be the public face of the Catholic Church.

"Leo is a complete buffoon who is officially teaching error and making the Catholic Church look like it defected." ('Naysayer' Chris Jackson.)

“Today you’ve got to stand by the truth and tell it, and be ready to suffer for it. That’s how grave it is. And the situation today calls for martyrs.” ('Excommunicated' Bishop Richard Williamson.)

It's not enough just to pray for Leo. The situation is now graver than in Bishop Williamson's day and white martyrs are called also to penance and sacrifice, not just for 'Pope Leo XIV' but for all the hierarchy of the Church, not only homoheretical clerics but especially the very few who have the courage to defend the Catholic religion.

"Let nothing disturb thee; 

Nothing affright thee; 

All things are passing; 

God never changeth; 

Patient endurance Attaineth to all things; 

Who God possesseth In nothing is wanting; 

God Alone sufficeth."

St Teresa of Jesus (Avila)

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From the astonishingly prolific Chris Jackson of Hiraeth in Exile:

Rorate’s Kwasniewski Blames the Victim: Trads Who Expose Leo Are the Problem. Publishes Author Who Argues That If We Were Just Nicer to Leo We Would Be Treated Well!

 

Rorate scolds the “naysayers” for criticizing Leo. Its cure for Rome’s doctrinal crisis? Complain less, flatter more, and blame the Catholics who refuse to look away.

Peter Kwasniewski introduced an essay at Rorate Caeli on October 12 by chastising the traditional Catholics who spend their days exposing Leo XIV’s record. He called them an online cottage industry of complainers, accused them of damaging the movement’s reputation, and suggested that their pessimism is eating through the accumulated capital of the Francis years.

 

The essay itself comes from the Spanish-language Wanderer site, where the pseudonymous writer Eck published it on September 28 under the title A Series of Catastrophic Misfortunes. Rorate cautiously admits that the author exaggerates. Then it invites readers to take his diagnosis to heart. It is rather like publishing a denunciation of fire alarms, conceding that perhaps there are a few fires, and advising everybody to think seriously about the dreadful racket of the bells.

 

I’ve read the original essay. I know precisely which sort of Catholic writing its complaints are aimed at. Much of my work at Hiraeth consists of examining what Leo says, whom he appoints, what his officials enforce, and what his defenders prefer to explain away. On Eck’s theory, noticing too much is now a major threat to Tradition.

 

The Great Opportunity We Supposedly Squandered

 

 

Eck’s premise is political. When Prevost appeared on the balcony in May 2025, traditionalists allegedly occupied their strongest position since Pius XII. Francis had discredited the progressives. Benedict XVI had given the older liturgy prestige and breathing space. A pragmatic new generation, less personally invested in the Council, supposedly offered an opening. Traditionalists were even on the winning side of the conclave, he says, though the evidence for that rather sweeping claim is thin.

 

He imagines a fund of influence that could have been invested judiciously. Instead, its owners began making rude demands, called too many people modernists, and frightened away their possible benefactor. In the author’s language, pride and insatiability destroyed an historic chance for collaboration.

 

This may be a passable theory of lobbying. It is an astonishing theory of Catholic witness.

 

When did fidelity to revelation become a balance sheet of goodwill accumulated with the Roman court? We should welcome any genuine relaxation of persecution, any restored parish Mass, any bishop who publicly defends an unpopular doctrine. I would happily report such things. But the right to call adultery adultery or defend the inherited Roman rite cannot depend upon preserving a favorable relationship with the man who governs the dicasteries.

 

The author’s political capital is especially peculiar because he assumes what he needs to prove. What evidence establishes that Leo was preparing a restoration thwarted by online commentary? Where is the abandoned decree liberating the Mass, the suppressed correction of Amoris Laetitia, the order to undo Fiducia Supplicans? We are invited to believe that a treasury of future reforms vanished because Catholic writers had the impertinence to examine the ruler before he bestowed them.

 

That is speculation dressed as ecclesiastical statecraft. The argument never escapes its counterfactual: Leo might have done wonderful things had everyone behaved. Every actual decision can then be blamed on the people who predicted it.

 

Even the claim that progressivism was finished deserves a raised eyebrow. Who, exactly, controls the offices that write the pastoral guidance, govern the liturgy, and administer the synodal process? Fernández remains at Doctrine; Roche continues to pronounce upon the old Mass. Leo has convened bishops to assess the fruits of Francis’s Amoris Laetitia and explore new pastoral paths.

 

A movement may have lost some cultural prestige while its institutional machinery remains very much alive. Eck confuses the exhaustion of a faction’s slogans with the dismantling of its power. The bureaucracies do not care whether the revolution is fashionable. They care who signs the papers.

 

The Pope Was Apparently Too Delicate to Be Criticized

 

Eck resents that people judged Prevost before he had time to act.

 

But the early record did not consist of idle fortune-telling. As I documented in Hiraeth’s February examination of Rorate’s optimism, Leo immediately praised Francis’s legacy, embraced his synodal direction, retained controversial figures, and made appointments that continued the governing assumptions of the previous pontificate. The reader may dispute the significance of an individual event. He cannot make the events disappear by observing that Leo had only recently been elected.

 

When Rorate applauded a speech to altar servers in August 2025 with the confident declaration that traditionalists had dodged a bullet, I compared the warm words with concrete acts already in the record. It was perfectly legitimate to disagree with my assessment. It would have been more useful to answer the evidence than to advise Catholics to be encouraged by the tone.

 

Eck now says the critics provoked the very punishments they feared. Convenient, isn’t it? If Leo moves against the old Mass, our criticism caused it. If he preserves a Francis policy, our disloyalty tied his hands. If he fails to reform a dicastery, the authorities were too offended by traditionalist social media to act.

 

The ruler is thus shielded from responsibility by a theory under which nearly every exercise of authority can be attributed to the subjects who displeased him.

 

That is a marvelous privilege for a governor to enjoy. Medieval kings would have paid handsomely for it.

 

There is another difficulty. If Leo truly wanted to liberate the ancient Mass, a harsh Substack headline would supply an extraordinarily feeble reason to withhold justice from thousands of families.

 

Would a father withhold bread from his children because a neighbor insulted his management? A ruler’s duty to do what is right survives the irritation of being criticized. And if he would punish innocent priests for the words of unrelated commentators, Eck has accidentally described a serious defect in the ruler rather than in the commentators.

 

Rorate’s Own Archives Have a Problem With This Thesis

 

 

The sharpest rebuttal appeared, with delicious timing, on Rorate itself. On October 13—one day after publishing the essay deploring the naysayers—it reproduced a fresh interview in which Cardinal Arthur Roche stated that Leo would neither reverse Traditionis Custodes nor return to Summorum Pontificum.

 

Roche had already said substantially the same thing in July. At the time Rorate reported his statement and likened traditional Catholics’ situation under Francis’s law to captivity in Egypt. That is strong language. And perfectly warranted as criticism of a policy. Why, then, is persistent attention to the man maintaining the policy treated as an offense against the movement’s political prospects?

 

I covered the same matter in my August analysis of Roche’s anti-Latin-Mass paper. The central difficulty was never Roche’s temperament. It was the relationship between the prefect’s public program, Leo’s handling of the paper, the retention of the prefect, and the continuing legal restrictions. Critics were accused of trafficking in rumor merely for asking whether the official principally responsible for the liturgy was describing the administration’s actual intentions.

 

Now the prefect repeats himself. The restriction remains. Shall we send another polite note reminding Roche that Catholics have been extraordinarily cooperative? Perhaps ask whether the Pope might reconsider when the critics demonstrate a sufficiently cheerful disposition?

 

To Rorate’s credit, it reports many of these scandals. It has criticized the persecution of traditional priests, protested abuses and carried powerful analyses of Vatican II. That is precisely why its new invitation to scold the persistent critics is so perplexing. Its own reporting often establishes the premises for the conclusions it would prefer other writers to approach less aggressively.

 

The Purge That Never Happened

 

Francis and Fernandez. No comment

 

The first of Eck’s three catastrophic mistakes concerns demands to remove the men who served Francis. He thinks critics wanted Leo to conduct a vengeance campaign against the old regime, making traditionalists appear like Francis in reverse.

 

This argument is absurd because it treats demands for accountability as evidence of a tyrannical impulse. Cardinal Fernández did not accidentally sign Fiducia Supplicans. Roche’s liturgical program was never a minor misunderstanding discovered after his appointment. Officials responsible for policy remain responsible when a new administration retains them and their policies. A Catholic has every right to ask why the men advancing those measures continue exercising authority.

 

One need not demand their personal humiliation to insist that a purported restoration requires replacing discredited policies and, where necessary, those determined to enforce them. Eck calls that a purge. The familiar bureaucratic word is governance.

 

It gets worse. Eck himself calls Francis tyrannical and describes his regime as despotic. Why is vigorous condemnation a mark of discernment when directed backward toward Francis, but a symptom of diseased traditionalism when directed toward what Leo continues? The supposed principle seems to depend heavily on the date of the pontiff’s election.

 

It gets worse. Eck himself calls Francis tyrannical and describes his regime as despotic. Why is vigorous condemnation a mark of discernment when directed backward toward Francis, but a symptom of diseased traditionalism when directed toward what Leo continues? The supposed principle seems to depend heavily on the date of the pontiff’s election.

 

        Our Lady Has Become a Minor Public-Relations Problem

 

Our Lady of Perpetual Succour

Eck’s second calamity is the outcry against Mater Populi Fidelis, Fernández’s document discouraging the title Co-redemptrix. He regards the fight as secondary, since the title itself is not dogma, and says legitimate theologians may disagree over its wording.

 

But why does Eck assume that the Roman document’s disciplinary preference is trivial, while a heated defense of language sanctioned by earlier popes is an existential scandal? Theological development can be discussed; the faithful may also ask whether an official text has diminished a legitimate expression of Marian doctrine. Their concern is hardly invented out of thin air.

 

Here the self-contradiction becomes exquisite. On September 16, Rorate published Karen Darantière’s lengthy attack on the same Marian minimalism, criticizing both the Fernández document and Cardinal Müller’s position. It invoked St. Pius X and Benedict XV and investigated distinctions between merits de condigno and de congruo. That is precisely the sort of substantial theological argument Eck says critics should have offered.

 

Yet his denunciation sweeps denunciations of the Marian document into a story about traditionalists destroying their reputation. Rorate cannot comfortably publish robust attacks on the document one month and imply the next that Catholics deeply troubled by it are wasting everyone’s time. Nor should a publication have to choose between sound scholarship and a vigorous editorial voice. Serious arguments frequently arrive with anger. The answer is to inspect whether they are true.

 

The SSPX: Rome’s Favorite Emergency

 

 

Eck reserves his fiercest contempt for the Society of Saint Pius X. The Society’s 2026 episcopal consecrations, undertaken without a Roman mandate, brought a Vatican decree declaring excommunication and schism. He calls the Society’s conduct blackmail and portrays its leaders as men secretly convinced that they alone possess real Catholicism.

 

The Society’s claim of necessity cannot be dismissed as simple extortion without examining its reasons and Rome’s own treatment of Catholic tradition.

 

For decades the SSPX has maintained seminaries, schools, missions and sacramental life centered on the older Roman rite and doctrine. Its leaders argue that the postconciliar crisis threatens the preservation of traditional priestly formation and sacramental continuity. One may contest their conclusion or their canonical reasoning. Calling the whole case blackmail saves the critic the trouble of answering it.

 

More importantly, the SSPX announced on October 13 that its canonical recourse against the July decree remains ongoing. The Society says it is pursuing recognized legal procedures and asks its clergy and faithful to pray for Leo and the Church. Those are unusual features of a movement supposedly interested only in breaking away and coercing everyone else.

 

The Vatican’s position and the Society’s defenses remain sharply opposed; an appeal does not resolve the merits merely by being filed. Still, the existence of an active canonical controversy makes Eck’s theatrical language about the SSPX’s final schism a poor substitute for argument.

 

Consider, too, what Rome has been willing to accommodate elsewhere: ongoing synodal experimentation with irregular unions, officials who praise radical reforms of governance, and wide ecumenical flexibility.

 

Yet when the Society insists upon conditions it regards as necessary to transmit the older Faith, the vocabulary of negotiation suddenly hardens into punishment. Readers may reach different judgments about the consecrations. They deserve a serious accounting of that disparity.

The distinction between an irregular or illicit episcopal act and the much wider allegation that every associated priest and faithful Catholic has abandoned the Church deserves canonical precision, especially when the question of penalties and appeal remains contested. Nor does the Society need to claim a monopoly on grace to argue that a specific liturgical and doctrinal inheritance requires protection.

 

Eck attributes a secret ecclesiology to thousands of Catholics without producing evidence that they all hold it. The accusation is useful rhetorically precisely because it avoids the narrower legal and theological questions that might actually be answered.

 

If the Faith Is the Issue, Why Is Reputation the Standard?

 

 

The author repeatedly returns to lost prestige. Traditionalists could have been admired, he says, had they demonstrated loyalty, humility and strategic patience. They squandered their chance to be accepted as partners in restoration.

 

Accepted by whom? The same apparatus that has kept Traditionis Custodes in force? The officials who tell Catholics that the older rite requires special permission? The doctrinal authorities whose statements have supplied so much of the controversy?

 

I have no objection to negotiation as a means of obtaining justice. Priests and families suffer when access to their liturgy disappears. Diplomacy may spare them enormous hardship. Yet a tactic must be judged by the truth it is meant to serve. Once the preservation of friendly access becomes more important than defending doctrine, the movement has traded away the very reason it existed.

 

Eck quotes Talleyrand and praises political realism. Talleyrand, of all people, is a revealing patron for the strategy. The Catholic Church has always needed diplomats. It has never proposed that diplomacy should determine what her saints and martyrs were permitted to confess.

 

The Church’s first centuries would have furnished poor candidates for his public-relations program. Athanasius made powerful enemies by insisting upon Catholic doctrine while many bishops preferred formulas that seemed capable of keeping the peace. He did not first calculate whether his criticism would reduce his influence with the imperial administration.

 

The comparison has limits; Leo’s controversies must be argued on their own merits, and a writer is not another Athanasius merely for owning a keyboard. But the governing point stands. A Catholic cannot treat good standing with authority as the final test of fidelity to truth.

 

A Critic Is Allowed to Notice the Pattern

 

My readers know what Hiraeth covers. I have examined Leo’s favorable language about the Augsburg Confession while diocesan Catholics were warned about SSPX chapels, appointments of advocates of postconciliar reform, the preservation of Francis’s liturgical restrictions, and the continued institutional support for Amoris Laetitia. These are concrete matters of doctrine, discipline, and authority. There are primary texts to consult. Nobody needs an oracle to check them.

 

Some criticism may prove mistaken. A headline may be too heated. A report may lack enough evidence. Those are proper reasons for correction. What I reject is the attempt to substitute an accusation of pessimism for engagement with the claims.

 

If I say Leo retained a disputed official, demonstrate otherwise. If I quote a Vatican document wrongly, show the passage. If the SSPX’s legal argument fails, explain where. Saying my reporting harms the brand of traditionalism does nothing to resolve the facts.

 

I also refuse the demand that Catholics suspend their judgment of present actions until some hoped-for future benefaction arrives. The faithful who lost their Latin Mass cannot attend an imaginary future Mass liberated by an unpublished decree. They live under the rules now in force. The scandalized reader must evaluate the pronouncements being made now. Real families and real priests pay for each year spent waiting for a restoration that may never come.

 

There is a deeper ecclesiological question underneath the media argument. If the Church is indefectible and the Roman See exists to safeguard apostolic faith, how should Catholics account for sustained apparent conflict between current Roman governance and the Church’s earlier authoritative witness?

 

Catholics differ over the answer. Some resist particular measures while acknowledging Leo’s full authority. Others defend the SSPX’s extraordinary position. Still others consider more radical explanations of the crisis. The seriousness of the question is no argument for forbidding it.

 

Rorate has performed valuable service by recording attacks on Catholic tradition. I would prefer its contributors to continue that service with the intensity the subject deserves. A movement that cannot bear scrutiny of the man in Rome has developed a curious understanding of its own mission.

 

The ruler owes fidelity to the Faith; the faithful are entitled to examine his public exercise of authority. The burden cannot be reversed merely because a severe judgment would upset influential friends.

 

Eck insists that traditionalists should have demanded less and waited for time to deliver more. Tomorrow may indeed bring changes, and I would welcome every genuine one. Meanwhile the Mass restrictions stand, the doctrinal disputes deepen, and the Roman administration keeps making decisions. I intend to write about them. The problem is large enough without treating the people who document it as another catastrophe. https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/rorates-kwasniewski-blames-the-victim

 

Transverberation of St Teresa of Jesus (Avila)
Bernini

St Teresa of Jesus, please pray for the Church