Francis 2.0

The conciliar revolution marches on.

“We want a synodal church.”

So declared Leo XIV as he stood on the balcony of St. Peter’s last week.

I’ve been asked by quite a few people for my thoughts on this new man dressed in white. I’m happy to share them here.

First, if you are interested in watching me in action so to speak, I appeared on the Catholic Family Podcast Friday. I’m grateful to the show’s host, Kevin Davis, and the guests who appeared alongside me for allowing me to come on.

My main takeaway so far is this…

After World War II, the Soviet Union established the Iron Curtain by installing puppet states across Eastern Europe. The “leaders” of those countries were not truly leaders. Nor were they free to do what they wanted. They were functionaries of the larger system.

In a similar way, following the Second Vatican Council the conciliar church erected its own totalitarian regime under the Novus Ordo religion. While each of the conciliar “popes” have certainly had different traits and characteristics, they all subscribed to the same erroneous ideology.

So while the newly-installed Leo looks to be very different in temperament and “pastoral style” than Francis, ideologically, they are aligned. Which is why he is so dangerous.

A Conciliar Company Man

The revolution that was unleashed at Vatican II will continue to march on under Leo, but will be dressed in traditional garb and will come with a smile instead of the insults and jeers of Francis. Leo admitted this on Saturday while addressing the cardinals:

"I would like us to renew our complete commitment to ... the Second Vatican Council [and the path] Pope Francis masterfully and concretely set forth in Evangelii Gaudium ...[including] growth in collegiality and synodality."

This was the second day in a row that he praised synodality; the first was when he appeared on the loggia following the conclave.

Many “trads” on social media have taken the first few days of the Prevost regime to express “hope” and “optimism” about the future.

They root this hope — or so it seems — in aesthetic changes: Prevost’s decision to say prayers in Latin, his wearing of fancier vestments, and his living in the papal palace, among other things.

While it is understandable that souls starving for the return of Tradition to its rightful place in the Vatican are looking for even the smallest sign of a positive development — especially after what the last 12 years were like — there is such a thing as false hope, naive optimism, and self-delusion. And this is what has been taking place, as the crisis in the church is due to doctrinal problems, not aesthetic ones.

As far as I can tell, many of the most influential voices in Trad Catholic Media were not around during the initial years of Francis the First. Many were either not Catholic, still attending the Novus Ordo, or were not aware there was a crisis in the church.

By God’s good grace, I was. I was there when Francis emerged from the 2013 conclave and stood on the balcony, staring obliquely into the Italian night. I was there when he first started making flippant remarks on the papal airplane. The propaganda campaign EWTN and others carried out to run cover for him was shameful. I fought it with every fiber of my being. You can read the essays I wrote back then in my book Navigating the Crisis in the Church here.

Astonishingly, the same psy-op is being carried out today, but now it is being done by the most well-known Traditionalists, who are showing themselves to be nothing more than Ratzingerian neo-modernists who just “prefer” the Latin Mass and who seem to think Vatican II wasn’t all that bad.

This is a sad and rather disappointing exercise to watch. It tells me that folks haven’t really learned anything over the past 12 years, and that they don’t really understand the nature of the crisis.

A Policy of Détente?

As it stands right now, Trad Inc. seems to be content to be a side chapel in the conciliar church. Bishop Fellay once described this arrangement as Tradition being put “in a cage at the conciliar zoo.”

Fr. David Nix made similar arguments in a blog post today:

“Are there American traditional Catholics willing to ignore yet another prelate’s destruction of the faith in order to keep their own local Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)? Are there allegedly-traditional Cardinals, teachers, priests, influencers or bishops willing to ignore yet another non-Catholic-in-white destroying the Faith just to save their local devotional life? … as much as I love the old sacraments, I’m not going to turn in my inheritance (the faith) for a bowl of porridge (the TLM, See Gen 25:34.)”

My guess is there was a memo sent out by some prominent “conservative” cardinal (or cardinals) who won concessions from Prevost in exchange for calling off the attacks from Trad influencers. This tweet from The Catholic Traveler seems to confirm my suspicions.

From what I’ve read, Parolin entered the conclave with around 50 votes. It seems he couldn’t grow beyond that. Cardinal Dolan of New York appears to have played some role in shifting the tide, at which point Parolin directed his supporters to back Prevost.

If true, it stands to reason that conservatives promised to support Prevost but only if he did not attack the Latin Mass, and if he would be more “traditional” in his presentation. That was agreed to, so it seems, but only on condition that American trads draw down their swords.

I could be wrong about all this but it seems to line up with how things are playing out.

Twitter user Catholic Esquire has not failed to notice the shift in messaging. He released a YouTube video on what he believes took place at the conclave. Scroll down to watch it. He has also been active on social media in calling out what is happening.

Trad Doomerism?

I have prayed and will continue to pray for Robert Prevost. I also have hope, the same hope I did when I first became a Traditionalist in 2012 after having been raised in the Novus Ordo. Namely, my hope is rooted in the fact that…

Christ is the head of the Church and that He is allowing it to be eclipsed by an imposter founded in the 1960s by dissident clergy who were censured by the Church in the decades prior. And just as the passion was necessary before Our Lord's resurrection, the current crisis is also needed before the glory of God can be fully manifested when Tradition is restored to its rightful place in the Vatican.

The Lord has not left us orphaned. While clergy in Rome who claim to govern in Christ's name still look to Vatican II as their North Star, Trads can seek out Traditional shepherds like Archbishop Viganò and others as their guiding light.

The principles for my “resistance” haven't changed and neither have my reasons for hope. That is why I fail to see why I should get excited over nice vestments and a few prayers in Latin. The crisis in the church is due to doctrinal errors and until those errors are meaningfully addressed, Catholics should think very little of the changes taking place in the Vatican and continue to expose the attacks on the faith that are coming from its leaders.