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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"?
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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.
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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
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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
MaryKay Hutchison
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Yep