It is hard to believe that it has already been twenty-three years since Pope John Paul II’s Rosarium Virginis Mariae, the 2002 Apostolic Letter on the Rosary that gave us the Luminous Mysteries. The so-called “Mysteries of Light” were proposed by John Paul II to promote his Year of the Rosary (2002-2003). Today we will revisit these mysteries in light of the two decades since their addition and offer what might be called a mature Trad reflection on the matter.

First, some essential background:

The Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae was intended to reinvigorate Catholic interest in the Rosary at the dawn of the Third Millennium. It is well-known that private devotions of all kinds went into sharp decline after Vatican II, as Church leaders insisted that all devotion needed to happen in a communal setting. The Rosary was one such casualty. The drop off was catastrophic. As early as 1974, Paul VI was already speaking of the need for a “restoration” and “renewal” of the Rosary in Marialis Cultus.[1] It could be said that Paul VI never willed this broad dismissal of the devotion; in Marialis Cultus he laments that some Catholics have “unjustifiably disregarded the Rosary” and insists that the Rosary ought to retain its special place in Catholic life.[2] Even so, it is indisputable that the devotional collapse Paul lamented was the result of his own policies.

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The Rosary endured, however, clawing its way back from the brink of oblivion year by year. By the turn of the millennium it was much more prevalent than in the 1970s, though still not as prevalent as it ought to have been. John Paul II thus sought to build upon Paul VI’s Marialis Cultus with an exhortation on the Rosary suited for the next generation of Catholics at the outset of the new millennium. Thus John Paul II’s Year of the Rosary and the accompanying letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae.

Regarding the Luminous Mysteries, John Paul believed that the addition of these new mysteries would help reinvigorate interest in the Rosary. He states his hope that the new mysteries will “give [the Rosary] fresh life and to enkindle renewed interest in the Rosary’s place within Christian spirituality.”[3]

The addition of the new mysteries was immediately subject to criticism by Traditionalists. The most common criticism was that the addition of the Luminous Mysteries throws off the synchronicity between the Rosary and the Psalter. Historically, the Rosary emerged out of the Psalter, its 150 Hail Marys corresponding to the 150 Psalms. In fact, before it was ever called the Rosary, it was called “Our Lady’s Psalter.” The addition of the new mysteries, Trads argued, disrupted this symmetry by sundering the historical link between the Psalms and the Rosary.

This objection, while true, is of limited weight. Most Catholics have no idea about the historical connection of the Psalter and the Rosary (to this day, I still meet Traditional Catholics who think Our Lady’s apparition to St. Dominic was the actual origin of the Rosary); much less have they suffered any direct spiritual harm from its disassociation. This objection from the Psalter is, at best, an objection about symbolism—which is not to say it is irrelevant, because symbolism matters—but it’s certainly not as consequential as some make it out to be.

A weightier Trad critique is that John Paul was establishing a dangerous precedent of altering traditional prayers by papal fiat. The Rosary is the most popular private devotion in the history of Latin Christendom. It was not created by the popes and should not be subjected to the tinkeritis of the modern pontiffs. There are some aspects of our patrimony that simply have to be accepted as given and cherished as part of an inheritance. To alter the structure of the Rosary in this way would be analogous to a pope deciding to remove a week from Advent or adding new clauses to the Rule of St. Benedict.

Popesplainers were quick to point out that the Rosary had, in fact, been subject to papal legislation in the past. St Pius V, they said, had codified the Rosary in its current form in his 1569 bull Consueverunt Romani. If the great St. Pius V himself was responsible for standardizing the form of the Rosary, then surely there is no reason why John Paul II could not similarly amend it?

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The only problem is that Consueverunt Romani does no such thing. Consueverunt Romani is a call to prayer issued in light of Ottoman aggression and continued disorders arising from Protestant heretics. To face these threats, Pius recommends Catholics pray the Rosary. He introduces his discussion of the Rosary by recounting how in prior times St. Dominic had used the Rosary to great success amongst the heretics of the 13th century. Pius goes on to identify the basic structure of the Rosary. He says:

Dominic looked to that simple way of praying and beseeching God, accessible to all and wholly pious, which is called the Rosary, or Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in which the same most Blessed Virgin is venerated by the angelic greeting repeated one hundred and fifty times, that is, according to the number of the Davidic Psalter, and by the Lord’s Prayer with each decade. Interposed with these prayers are certain meditations showing forth the entire life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, thus completing the method of prayer devised by the Fathers of the Holy Roman Church…

Christ’s faithful, inflamed by these prayers, began immediately to be changed into new men. The darkness of heresy began to be dispelled, and the light of the Catholic Faith to be revealed… Following the example of our predecessors, seeing that the Church militant, which God has placed in our hands, in these our times is tossed this way and that by so many heresies, and is grievously troubled and afflicted by so many wars, and by the depraved morals of men, we also raise our eyes, weeping but full of hope, unto that same mountain, whence every aid comes forth, and we encourage and admonish each member of Christ’s faithful to do likewise in the Lord.[4]

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In a recent interview, Cdl. Sarah – the 80-year-old former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship – has once again waded into the question of the Second Vatican Council and its impact on the Church of today. Speaking to French outlet La Nef, Sarah downplayed concerns about the Council needing “corrections,” and instead called simply for “clarifications.”

“I would first talk about clarifications rather than corrections,” he said. “A council must be read in continuity with the faith of all time. Where certain texts have given rise to divergent, even opposing, interpretations, it is legitimate to ask for further investigation, in order to rule out disruptive readings.”

The cardinal urged that attempts to work on such “clarifications” would be a benefit to the Church, since She has “nothing to fear from clarity.” Interpretation of the Council, he added, “falls to the Magisterium. It was largely initiated by John Paul II and Benedict XVI.”

Though known as one of the more liturgically conservative members of the College of Cardinals, Sarah has shied away from the firmer criticism of Vatican II which other prelates have made. Instead he has urged efforts to seek continuity in the teaching before and after the Council.

But interviewed by La Nef, the Guinean cardinal identified areas of the Council in which he deemed the Church needed to have “more precise work,” saying also that it is no secret about the necessity for such work.

“Religious freedom, ecumenism, the relationship between the Church and the modern world, collegiality, certain pastoral formulations whose use has sometimes encouraged a hermeneutics of discontinuity,” he listed.

“But great inner peace is needed here,” added Sarah, “it is not a question of judging the council as one judges a political program. It is about serving the more unified intelligence of faith.”

As on previous occasions he rejected the idea of a rupture in doctrine, saying that “the teaching of the Church does not contradict itself. It is always the same since it is nothing other than the revelation transmitted by Christ, constantly deepened and always better understood.”

The subject of Vatican II is one which is rarely out of ecclesial news, but it is especially at the moment that renewed attention is afforded to it. Much of the more controversial and heterodox elements of Pope Francis’ reign were described as the continuation and realization of Vatican II, in turn serving as a catalyst for the Society of Saint Pius X’s decision to consecrate new bishops.

SSPX Superior General Don Davide Pagliarani mentioned this aspect explicitly, stating recently that:

“With the legacy left to us by Pope Francis, the fundamental reasons that justified the consecrations of 1988 still exist and, in many respects, impel us with renewed urgency. The Second Vatican Council remains more than ever the compass guiding today’s churchmen, and they are unlikely to change course in the near future. Furthermore, the major orientations already taking shape in this new pontificate—particularly through the most recent consistory—only confirm this. An explicit determination to preserve the line of Pope Francis as an irreversible trajectory for the entire Church is discernible.”

Pagliarani added that the Society’s discernment of a “state of emergency” in the Church was linked to the continuation of the Council: “I admit to having been struck in recent years by the bitter and systematic reaction of a certain rather short-sighted conservative milieu, which has attacked in a very personal way the figure of Pope Francis, rather than the Council and the continuity of its doctrinal application to the present day.”

Sarah has also pointed to the doctrinal and liturgical crisis which has emerged since the Council, but always separated it from the Council itself. Delivering a conference in 2017, Sarah highlighted the “serious, profound crisis that has affected the liturgy and the Church itself since the Council is due to the fact that its center is no longer God and the adoration of Him, but rather men and their alleged ability to ‘do’ something to keep themselves busy during the Eucharistic celebrations.”

He has also commented how while “many believe and declare loud and long that Vatican Council II brought about a true springtime in the Church,” a “growing number of Church leaders see this ‘springtime’ as a rejection, a renunciation of her centuries-old heritage, or even as a radical questioning of her past and Tradition.”

But this is not the fault or intention of the Council itself, he opined, saying: “the true purpose of the Second Vatican Council was not to start a reform that could become the occasion for a break with Tradition, but quite the contrary, to rediscover and to confirm Tradition in its deepest meaning.”

For Sarah, it is “ideologues” who “want to set the pre-Council Church against the post-Council Church. They are dividers; they are doing the work of the devil.”

However the cardinal’s view is not shared by all among the traditional sphere. Bishop Athanasius Schneider has echoed Sarah in urging “a respectful attitude” towards the Council, warning against “throwing the baby out with the bath water,” but also noting how “several expressions in the texts of the Second Vatican Council cannot be so easily reconciled with the Church’s constant doctrinal tradition.”

“Through the Second Vatican Council, and already with Pope John XXIII, the Church began to present herself to the world, to flirt with the world, and to manifest an inferiority complex towards the world,” he lamented.

Such interventions are of course but a taste of the lively debate surrounding the Council, its aims, texts and interpretations – a debate which has increasingly and necessarily come to the fore in the Church’s life in recent years.

With the SSPX’s planned episcopal consecrations in July, it is the considered opinion of many analysts and clerics that the Holy See should take the opportunity to thoroughly and honestly examine the “fruits” of the Council and the spiritual health of the Church.

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Rubio’s visit to the Holy See comes after recent high-profile remarks by President Donald Trump attacking Pope Leo for his comments urging peace in the Iran war. As such, to many observers, the visit of the Secretary of State (himself a Catholic) is one designed to smooth the waters and further aid the work being done in that regard by the (also Catholic) U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch.

Rubio met with Leo XIV on the morning of May 7, before then sitting down with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, as is customary for visiting heads of state or high-ranking politicians and officials.

A statement from the Holy See after the encounter described the event as “cordial,” during which “the shared commitment to fostering good bilateral relations between the Holy See and the United States of America was reaffirmed.”

“There was also,” the Vatican’s read-out continued, “an exchange of views on the regional and international situation, with particular attention to countries affected by war, political tensions, and difficult humanitarian situations, as well as on the need to work tirelessly for peace.”

The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See added that Rubio spoke with Leo XIV about “situation in the Middle East and topics of mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere,” stating that the meeting “underscored the strong relationship between the United States and the Holy See and their shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity.”

It comes against the backdrop of criticisms lobbied against Leo by Donald Trump, amongst which Trump accused Leo of doing a poor job and of supporting crime. “I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime I guess. He’s worried about fear,” wrote Trump in a social media post.

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According to Trump, Leo was only elected to the papacy “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”

In response, Leo briefly told journalists on-board the papal voyage to Africa that “I have no fear of the Trump administration, nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel.”

Since then, Trump has issued fresh criticism of the Pope, but Leo has responded by renewing his calls for global peace and repeating the Church’s opposition to nuclear arms.

Commenting on the meeting beforehand, Parolin said that the request came from Rubio, thus dispelling any ideas that the Holy See had somehow summoned the Secretary. “We will discuss everything that has happened in recent days,” said Parolin on Wednesday, ahead of the meeting. “We simply cannot avoid these topics.”

Hosting a White House press briefing before his trip, Rubio revealed the visit had been planned prior to Trump’s recent remarks, saying: “it’s a trip we had planned from before, and obviously we had some stuff that happened, and – no, look, there’s a lot to talk about with the Vatican.”

The Secretary stated that the U.S. and the Holy See “have shared concerns about religious freedom, religious freedom in different parts of the world,” along with their collaboration with the Church to distribute humanitarian aid in Cuba.

As for Trump’s comments regarding the Pope, Rubio sought to diffuse the rhetoric, saying instead “the President – and I, for that matter; I think most people – I cannot understand why anyone would think that it’s a good idea for Iran to ever have a nuclear weapon.”

Early reports emerging from the meeting suggest that Rubio’s discussion with Leo was indeed cordial as described. Attention will now be paid to Trump’s rhetoric concerning Leo and the Church, especially to see whether the President decides to respond to any future calls for peace which the Pope will likely make when leaving Castel Gandolfo next Tuesday on his weekly visit.

Speaking prior to Thursday’s meeting, Cdl. Parolin said that the Holy See had no fresh proposals to make regarding the Iran war, other than that which it had already suggested – namely dialogue. “These conflicts cannot be resolved by force, but must be addressed and resolved through negotiation,” said the Vatican Secretary of State. “It must be a negotiation of goodwill, sincere, so that all parties can express their point of view and find common ground.”

Cardinal Gerhard Müller – emeritus prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and a great lover of America – was of the view that Rubio’s visit was the only option for Washington, if the Trump administration wished to smooth the waters.

“I simply think they have no alternative. The United States cannot be against the Pope and the Vatican; a compromise is necessary,” he told Corriere della Sera on Tuesday. “It is also a matter of prudence; there are more than fifty million Catholics in the U.S. who certainly did not appreciate the attacks on the Pope. Politicians must be more diplomatic, more reasonable.”

Müller defended Leo’s response to the global conflicts stating that the “Church’s position is very clear in invoking the higher values of peace, beyond politics and above it. Of course, the U.S. is a great democracy and a military power, and may feel it has a role to play for peace, the responsibility to contain authoritarian and dangerous regimes. But the end does not justify all means.”

The respected German prelate roundly slated Christians who “invoke divine protection over wars,” attesting that such individuals are “exploiting politics to advance their religious vision. They use the state to assert their theological views, just like in theocracies. And that’s much worse: abusing God’s name to impose their own theories.”

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The Catholic Church’s moral teaching regarding homosexuality is very clear: “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law,” the catechism notes, adding that such activity can never be approved, and that “[h]omosexual persons are called to chastity.”

Reading through the latest publication from the Synod’s spin-off study group, this clear teaching is not forthcoming. Study Group 9, looking at “Theological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of emerging doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues,” included testimonies from openly homosexual individuals in its report.

The report has no weight in itself, and is purely consultative. It was compiled by a 7-member group, including prominent, liberal leaning Synod theologians Mgr. Piero Coda and Fr. Maurizio Chiodi.

Both of the testimonies it cites document people living in active homosexual relationships and in contradiction of Catholic teaching, while one also attacks the Catholic charity “Courage” which assists same-sex attracted people in a manner in line with Church teaching.

One of the most controversial passages comes in the group report’s summary of a Portuguese homosexual man’s testimony. The study group writes that the man’s testimony “bears witness to the discovery that sin, at its root, does not consist in the (same-sex) couple relationship, but in a lack of faith in a God who desires our fulfilment.”

“This new awareness,” the report summarizes, “becomes the starting point for moving beyond a conception of the Christian community merely as a place of welcome and compassion, to arriving at the experience of the Christian community as a place where we are all loved.”

Such phraseology is employed by the study group not as its own thought per se, but as the summary of the testimony it received from a homosexual individual. However, the report is notably reticent in giving similar weight and prominence to actual Catholic moral teaching on the issue.

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The Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer (FSSR), also known as the Transalpine Redemptorists, have issued what the Vatican will see as an ultimatum likely leading to heavy penalties. On May 2, the community published a lengthy and detailed statement in which they addressed concerns about papal pronouncements and the validity of the popes themselves.

The weighty declaration stated that “the papal pretenders from Paul VI through Leo XIV have taught and acted in flagrant contradiction to the undoubtedly Catholic pre-Vatican II Popes.”

Furthermore, the FSSR argued that since Vatican II “the apparent Popes have caused a spiritual catastrophe of the greatest imaginable proportions.” The decision since Vatican II in “doctrinal, moral, liturgical, and disciplinary” concerns must be rejected, the FSSR attested, “because they contradict what came before.”

The community added that “accepting the false teaching of Vatican II separates us from the Catholic Church. A Catholic cannot recognise a man as the Vicar of Christ and resist his teachings in matters of Faith and Morals, nor can he resist his commands in matters of discipline and liturgy.”

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Formed just under 40 years ago, the community was originally part of the Society of Saint Pius X. After Benedict XVI issued his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, the community sought and was accepted into full communion with the Holy See in 2008. Warmly welcoming the news at the time, the community’s superior Fr. Michael Mary said that full communion was:

“a pearl of great price; a treasure hidden in the field; a sweetness that cannot be imagined by those who have not tasted it or who have not known it, now for many years. Its value cannot be fully expressed in earthly language and therefore we hope that all traditional priests who have not yet done so, will answer Pope Benedict’s call to enjoy the grace of peaceful and undisputed communion with him.”

But recent years have seen the community become increasingly disillusioned with a number of issues in the Church, including the COVID lockdowns and church closures and punitive measures against the congregation in New Zealand which saw the bishop of Christchurch evict them from the diocese over an investigation which the FSSR said had found no evidence of any canonical crime.

Indeed, well informed sources close to the community suggested to this correspondent that the FSSR’s very public opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine mandates at a time when the New Zealand bishops followed the official government mandates in that regard, was a key factor in their eviction from Christchurch. The FSSR became nationally famous for joining in protests against the injection mandates, being the sole religious community to do so in such a public manner.

In October, the community – based primarily on the Scottish island of Papa Stronsay – wrote expressing their believe they had been misguided to have hope for their position during Benedict’s papacy. “We have come to the unfortunate conclusion that the Traditional Catholic Faith, the Faith of all times and of the saints, is incompatible with the new, modern Church, the fruit of the Second Vatican Council,” they stated.

This prompted Bishop Gilbert of the Diocese of Aberdeen, in which they are incardinated, to write in response:

“The Diocese deeply regrets the tone, direction and key elements of this Letter. It is incompatible with the Catholic sense of the Church’s unity. While remaining open to conversation with the Congregation, the Diocese has made alternative arrangements for the ongoing provision of the older rite of the Roman Mass (usus antiquior) at St John’s, Fetternear.

The competent Dicasteries of the Holy See are also studying the situation and will provide canonical and doctrinal guidance. This is all an invitation to prayer for that unity of the Church so close to the Heart of Christ.”

Now, in their May 2 letter, the FSSR cite the influx of Freemasonry, papal indifferentism, and especially the pontificate of Pope Francis and his controversial documents. They rejected the possibility of what is known as the “recognize and resist” position, stating that “recognition of the destroyers of the Faith and any submission to them at all is both impossible and endangering one’s Faith.”

As such, the FSSR has called for what an “Imperfect General Council” to determine a way forward for the Church. This meeting would be for “all Catholic bishops of the world who have kept the true faith, to pronounce on the status of the present papal pretender, Leo XIV, and on the status of his Conciliar Church predecessors.”

Until such a council is concluded, “and until papal clarifications are issued,” the community states that they “cannot accept the current pretenders to the papacy from the time of the Second Vatican Council.”

“Our statement is new. Our perspective has changed. But our Faith has not changed,” they write. “Holding the True Faith of our Fathers, we will continue to offer the True Mass. We will worship the True God. And we will work for an Imperfect General Council to bring about the triumph of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

Vatican penalties are likely to be swift, especially given the precedent shown in recent years when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has moved quickly to pronounce excommunications against clerics who reject the Second Vatican Council.

Speaking to journalist Stephen Kokx on Monday, Fr. Michael Mary stated that as a result of the October letter he is already under “penal process” examining whether he is guilty of “heresy and schism.” The FSSR’s May 2 statement will likely bolster the Vatican’s case against him, although so far neither the Holy See nor the Diocese of Aberdeen have made any public response.

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Pius would later confide to Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini that he had promulgated Humani Generis and taken action to implement it because “everything was being lost.” What Pius foresaw was nothing less than the looming threat that the human element of the Church would simply surrender to the zeitgeist in practically every department so as to become de facto, as Louis Veuillot so vividly put it nearly a century earlier, “sufficiently nothing to live in peace with the rest of the world.” We cannot forget that nineteen years before he promulgated Humani Generis, the future Pius XII, speaking as Eugenio Pacelli, Secretary of State under Pius XI, uttered this prophecy in light of the Message of Fatima:

Supposing, dear friend, that communism is not the most visible of the organs of subversion against the Church and against tradition and divine revelation, then we all assist in the invasion of all that is spiritual, philosophy, science, law, teaching, the arts, the press, literature, theater and religion.

I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that would be represented by the alteration of the faith, in her liturgy, her theology and her soul.

I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments and make her feel remorse for her historical past. Well, my dear friend, I am convinced that the Church of Peter must accept its past or else dig its own grave….

A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, “Where have they taken Him?”

The Irenism of Vatican II

Only 34 years later, wittingly or not, Paul VI would enunciate a version of “false irenism” as the very motif of the Council over which he had presided. Speaking on the day before its official conclusion, Paul made an admission about the Council that would have stupefied every Pope before him, including the one who had so impetuously convoked it:

But one must realize that this council, which exposed itself to human judgment, insisted very much more upon this pleasant side of man, rather than on his unpleasant one. Its attitude was very much and deliberately optimistic. A wave of affection and admiration flowed from the council over the modern world of humanity…. Instead of depressing diagnoses, encouraging remedies; instead of direful prognostics, messages of trust issued from the council to the present-day world. The modern world’s values were not only respected but honored, its efforts approved, its aspirations purified and blessed.

The Council that “exposed itself to human judgment” would lead to a Church whose leaders allowed themselves to be daunted by the world’s view of her. The Church that is “the sole depository and interpreter of the ideals and teachings of Christ” and which “alone can introduce into society and maintain therein the prestige of a true, sound spiritualism, the spiritualism of Christianity,” as Pius XI insisted, would give way in its human element to the Council’s novelties of “dialogue” and “ecumenism.” The new ecclesial orientation introduced by the Council’s unprecedented irenicism toward a hostile world was aptly summarized by the great Romano Amerio decades before the post-conciliar crisis reached its zenith with the arrival of Jorge Mario Bergoglio on the Chair of Peter: “the demands and claims of the world, which were then external to the Church and opposed by her, have now been internalized within her, and the antagonism between the Church and the world abandoned….”

Where the papacy is concerned, the role of the Pope as teacher to the world rapidly waned after the Council—first in the realm of religious truth as the result of ecumenism and dialogue, the mainsprings of the Church’s sudden and substantial adequation to the spirit of the age. This was seen during the pontificates of Paul VI, John Paul II and, albeit much more moderately, even that of Benedict XVI, who at least attempted an ecclesial restoration of sorts. But with the advent of Bergoglio and the infamous Amoris laetitia, the Church’s de facto surrender to “the demands and claims of the world” would be extended even to the natural law on marriage and procreation—in direct contradiction to the traditional moral teaching of those three Popes. Bergoglio’s parting blow to the Church’s moral edifice came in the form of Fiducia supplicans, authorizing “simple,” “spontaneous,” “short,” and “non-liturgical” blessings to couples cohabitating in adultery, the divorced-and-“remarried”, and even “same-sex couples.”

Concerning Bergoglio’s disgraceful capitulation to the moral depravity of our age, the aptly named Bishop Athanasius Schneider protested that “Fiducia Supplicans seriously undermines the Catholic faith and morals, turning the Catholic Church, at least in practice, into a welcoming and nurturing environment for unrepentant homosexuals and adulterers who lead sinful lifestyles, instead of calling such sinners to repentance….” Bergoglio’s papacy also exhibited a political agenda virtually indistinguishable from that of the officially atheistic European Union, including “climate change,” open borders, anti-populism, mandatory COVID vaccination, and even civil recognition of “same-sex unions.” And while Bergoglio maintained a pro forma opposition to abortion, he never demanded its universal abolition, as he did incessantly respecting capital punishment. (Leo XIV, following suit, now declares simply that “I condemn capital punishment,” thus necessarily implying, to the world’s delight, that the Church had taught error on the subject for 2,000 years and that God Himself was mistaken when He revealed the principle of natural justice that “whosever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed.”)

Yet throughout the relentless moral disarmament of the papacy since the Council, papal authority would continue to be exercised with brute force for the suppression of conservative forces within the Church, particularly the Society of Saint Pius X. Despite the lifting of the excommunication of its bishops by Pope Benedict, the Society is still deemed to lack “full communion” with the Church. Indeed it does, if we are speaking of the new ecclesial orientation adopted in the name of Vatican II as opposed to the unreconstructed Catholic religion as it existed before the Council, and the Popes who fought against the conquering march of the zeitgeist at the very gates of Eternal Rome.

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The Conciliar Vicar of the Zeitgeist

Given the evidence of our senses, it is no exaggeration to say that by the time Robert Francis Prevost was elected to the papacy, the Vicar of Christ had allowed himself to become effectively a Vicar of the Zeitgeist. Nowhere is this more apparent than Leo XIV’s response to a reporter’s question about what he intended to do concerning Cardinal Reinhard Marx’s determination to extend Fiducia supplicans—as it inevitably would be—to the formal blessing of “same-sex couples.” To quote Leo’s remarks in full is to demonstrate the astonishing extent to which the conciliar aggiornamento has produced, as Paul VI lamented too late, a “veritable invasion of the Church by worldly thinking.” Quoth Leo:

First of all, I think it’s very important to understand that the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters. We tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality, I believe there are much greater, more important issues, such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue. The Holy See has already spoken to the German bishops.

The Holy See has made it clear that we do not agree with the formalized blessing of couples, in this case, homosexual couples, as you asked, or couples in irregular situations, beyond what was specifically, if you will, allowed for by Pope Francis in saying all people receive blessings.

When a priest gives a blessing at the end of Mass, when the Pope gives a blessing at the end of a large celebration like the one we had today, they are blessings for all people. Francis’ well-known expression ‘Tutti, tutti, tutti’ is an expression of the Church’s belief that all are welcome; all are invited; all are invited to follow Jesus, and all are invited to look for conversion in their lives.

To go beyond that today, I think that the topic can cause more disunity than unity, and that we should look for ways to build our unity upon Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ teaches. So that’s how I would respond to that question.

Note, first of all, the insulting resort to the sophistry of a slick politician: blessing a crowd at Mass is just the same as blessing a pair of homosexuals who purport to be married. Notice also Leo’s mere “disagreement” with Marx’s “formal blessings” for “homosexual couples.” No discipline for Marx, who is undermining the entire moral order in Germany, but looming excommunication for the Society of Saint Pius X. But then Marx is in “full communion” with Leo, their “disagreement” over mere sexual morality aside.

Not for a Vicar of the Zeitgeist is the admonition of Our Lady of Fatima that “The sins which cause most souls to go to hell are the sins of the flesh” or that of Padre Pio that the sin of impurity “destroys the soul’s light with frightening speed” and hardens it against the sacrament of Confession out of a prideful fear of humiliation. Not for a Vicar of the Zeitgeist is any recognition of the “silent apostasy,” as John Paul II called it, that has resulted principally from violations of the Sixth Commandment in the form of fornication, pornography, divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality, which have caused irreparable harm to the social nucleus of the family, the loss of grace and a darkening of the will throughout our entire post-Christian civilization. For a Vicar of the Zeitgeist, focus on the sexual sins ruining both souls and society “can cause more disunity than unity” whereas “justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion”—the revolutionary shibboleths on which post-Christian modernity was founded—are much more important matters.

So declared the Pope who began his papacy by imparting a papal blessing to a block of ice in order to manifest his assent to the quasi-religious “climate change” ideology. So declared the Pope who received in audience and prayed together with a ridiculous woman in a clerical costume who claims to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, calling her “Dear sister” and “Your Grace”, and daring to utter the nothing-less-than blasphemous prayer “that the same Holy Spirit will remain with you always, making you fruitful in the service to which you have been called.”

Only a Vicar of the Zeitgeist would thus dignify an ecclesiastical fraud whose “ordination” has been rejected as “grievous” even by conservative Anglicans, and who declared only days ago that “there can be limited conditions under which abortion may be preferable to any available alternatives.” Only a Vicar of the Zeitgeist would allow himself to be seen as being on equal footing with a heretic who is neither a priest nor a bishop and whose “church” not only condones women’s ordination, contraception and divorce but was blessing “same-sex couples” years before Bergoglio, the first fully realized Vicar of the Zeitgeist, decided to adopt the Anglicans’ depraved practice.

The Conciliar “Legacy”

On the first anniversary of Bergoglio’s death, Pope Leo issued a message to Cardinal Re, Dean of the College of Cardinals, in which he stated that his predecessor “took up the legacy of the Second Vatican Council and urged the Church to be open to mission, a guardian of the world’s hope, passionate about proclaiming that Gospel which is capable of giving every life fulfilment and happiness.”

Behold the “legacy of the Second Vatican Council”: gauzy rhetoric about hope and references to “mission” bereft of even the faintest suggestion that conversion to the Catholic faith is a matter of life and death for souls.

Behold “the legacy of the Second Council”: a neutered papacy that would never dare to offend the world by reminding it of Christ’s warning that “whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart”, but on the contrary a papacy that opens the door to Holy Communion for public adulterers in defiance of Our Lord’s injunction that “Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery against her.”

Behold “the legacy of the Second Vatican Council”: “informal” blessings for “same-sex couples” rather than proclamation of the revealed truth, respecting heathens of every epoch, that “God delivered them up to shameful affections, so that “women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature” and “the men also… men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.”

Behold the “legacy of the Second Vatican Council”: a Pope who considers defense of the Sixth Commandment divisive, views equality and freedom of religion as “much greater, more important issues,” and accords full ecclesiastical dignity and honors to the absurd female leader of an absurd pseudo-church that condones the murder of innocents in the womb and teaches all manner of other damnable error.

Behold “the legacy of the Second Vatican Council”: rejection of the Church’s constant teaching against the very thing Pius XI condemned but which the post-conciliar Church now embraces with voluptuous abandon: “intercourse with those who professed a mutilated and corrupt version of Christ’s teaching…”

Behold “the legacy of the Second Vatican Council”: passive acceptance and even “blessings” for adultery and sexual deviancy, papal inaction in the face of rampant heresy and orthopraxis, but a ludicrous “re-excommunication” for the bishops of SSPX, who are denounced as “lacking full communion.”

The “legacy of the Second Vatican Council” is, in short, the salt that has lost its savor and “is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men.” And just as it was at the height of the Arian heresy, so it is today: “Only one offense is now vigorously punished,” lamented St. Basil the Great, “an accurate observance of our fathers’ traditions. For this cause the pious are driven from their countries and transported into deserts.” Only today the “desert” consists of that ecclesiastical ghetto denominated “lack of full communion.” Full communion, that is, with the “legacy of the Second Vatican Council.” For the whole of Catholic teaching and praxis must be subordinated to what happened at the “zero hour” of a Council whose unprecedented bid for human respect has led its hopelessly blinkered partisans to reject St. Paul’s counsel to “Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine.”

The “legacy of the Second Vatican Council” seems alarmingly well-suited to Paul’s prophesy of that time, near the end of time, “when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables.” And the greatest of these fables is the preaching, not of the revealed truth that Christ likened to a sword that divides, but what Pius XII condemned as “the union of all, but only to their destruction.”

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By Serre Verweij

Pope Leo will be holding a meeting with the Presidents of Episcopal Conferences in October to discuss challenges to the modern family. He specifically indicated the meeting will also deal with Amoris Laetitia in the light of new developments.

This has led to uncertainty and speculation as to whether this is an attempt to consolidate Amoris Laetitia, or a way to de facto correct the document. Some see this as a revisiting that could finally clear up ten years of confusion.

In a previous article, we analyzed why it was somewhat likely that Pope Leo could overturn Amoris Laetitia. Various hints, including the fact that then-bishop Prevost never implemented Amoris Laetitia, as well as Pope Leo’s more conservative statements on marital indissolubility to the Roman Rota, were examined. The announcement of the meeting, as well as Pope Leo’s actions and words surrounding it, fit into the background knowledge we provided and can be read within that light.

The recent announcement on the meeting by the Secretariat of the Synod provided more details and confirmed some key things:

• The meeting will be separate from the ongoing synodal process which Francis (or so those who spoke for him while he was in the hospital claimed).

• Unlike Francis’ synodal process, this meeting does not appear to involve any laity or women or non-bishops of any kind.

• The Secretariat of the Synod will have only a supporting role with Pope Leo transferring main responsibility for the meeting to the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life.

This meeting, alongside the two Extraordinary Consistories, suggests Pope Leo is sidestepping the synodal process and returning to Episcopal Collegiality by discussing the really important issues with his brother bishops only. The undermining of episcopal authority appears to be coming to an end. It also suggests Pope Leo might not trust the Secretariat of the Synod and specifically Cardinal Grech too much. While Cardinal Farrell who heads the Dicastery for the Laity, is also controversial as he’s had ties to disgraced homosexual abuser McCarrick and supported James Martin’s book, as well as Amoris Laetitia, he has also taken more conservative stances and is far less radical than Grech. He explicitly reaffirmed Humanae Vitae and the Church’s prohibition of practices such as artificial insemination during Francis’ final years and prevented radical LGBT activists from speaking at the world meeting of families in Ireland.

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It was Lebanon which was part of Leo XIV’s first voyage as Pope and both during his time there and since, Leo has referred to the country with particular warmth as beloved Lebanon.

“Dear people of Lebanon, I invite you to cultivate always an attitude of praise and gratitude. You are the recipients of a rare beauty with which the Lord has adorned your land,” said Leo XIV at the close of his visit to the nation in December. “At the same time, you are witnesses and victims of how evil, in its various forms, can obscure this splendor.”

That visit, coming on the back of his trip to Nicaea for the 1700th anniversary of the Council, formed part of Leo’s first trip as Pontiff outside Italy and demonstrated the close bond between Lebanon and the Holy See. For the Pope personally it appeared to be a significant and often emotive experience.

“I am deeply moved and immensely grateful to stand among you today,” he told the crowds in Beirut. Lebanon, Leo said, is a “blessed land – a land exalted by the prophets of the Old Testament, who beheld in its towering cedars emblems of the righteous soul that flourishes beneath heaven’s vigilant gaze; a land where the echo of the Logos has never fallen silent, but continues to call forth, from century to century, those who desire to open their hearts to the living God.”

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Manufacturing Hate for Profit

By Mark Fellows

Why did the FBI begin infiltrating traditional masses and talking about “radical traditionalist Catholics?” Why did the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) suspect these same Catholics of belonging to hate groups and being domestic terrorists? Answer: because both federal agencies were relying on propaganda fed them by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Since 1971 the SPLC has postured as a valiant left-wing non-profit fighting the good fight against racism, bigotry, and other bad things. The fight included defaming traditional Catholics as belonging to “hate groups.” Many reputable traditional Catholic organizations were smeared, including Catholic Family News and its former editor, John Vennari. Also smeared by the SPLC was the SSPX and other traditional American Catholics viewed by the Biden administration as “dangerous extremists.”

Now we discover the SPLC gave much more money to the KKK and Nazi groups than the SSPX or any traditional Catholic did. On April 21, 2026, a federal grand jury in Alabama returned an 11-count indictment against the SPLC for wire fraud, making false statements to banks, and conspiring to commit money laundering.

These are serious charges. Each count of wire fraud carries up to 20 years in prison and $1 million in fines. The money laundering conspiracy could result in another 20 years, severe fines, and the possible forfeiture of all ill-gotten gains. SPLC is taking this seriously. When their employees were deposed for the grand jury they pled the Fifth Amendment 146 times.

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The indictments allege that from 2014 to 2023 the SPLC created fake bank accounts they used to secretly funnel over $3 million to extremist groups (KKK, Aryan Nation, etc). Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the SPLC is “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.”

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The appointment of Sarah Mullally as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican church has caused as much consternation internally as it has further afield in the Catholic Church. The Church of England is increasingly pursuing a course of action that is only fueling the widening global civil war, over issues such as homosexuality and female orders. But in doing so, it is also deepening the divide which exists between Lambeth Palace and the Holy See.

A casual observer of Mullally’s four-day visit to Rome and the Vatican this weekend, would perhaps be surprised that such a divide exists, given the notable warmth of the reception which she was awarded.

Mullally was certainly extended every courtesy. She received a VIP visit to the public and private areas of the four Papal basilicas around Rome and a private tour of the Vatican museums.

On Monday morning she met privately with Leo XIV, before joining him for midday prayer in the Urban VIII chapel inside the Apostolic Palace.

“The purpose of the visit is to strengthen Anglican–Roman Catholic relations through prayer, personal encounter, and formal theological dialogue,” Mullally’s office declares. “It aims to deepen bonds of communion, affirm a shared witness, and encourage ongoing collaboration at both global and local levels.”

Arguably the most controversial moment was on Monday afternoon when she presided over the Anglican service of Choral Evensong held inside the Catholic church of Sant’Ignazio di Loyola. During the ceremony she formally commissioned her representative in Rome, Bishop Anthony Ball, as Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle – Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation – delivered the homily.

But it was pre-empted by a video clip shared by Mullally online, in which the secretary for the Dicastery for Christian Unity was seen blessing himself while Mullally delivered a blessing in the Petrine Chapel, situated right next to St. Peter’s relics. Many opined that Archbishop Flavio Pace’s actions were severely misguided, given the fact that the Catholic Church does not recognize the validity of Protestant orders.

In 1896, Pope Leo XIII issued Apostolicæ Curæ in which he succinctly stated that “we pronounce and declare that ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void.” This teaching remains unchanged for the Holy See.

Such an element was likely what Leo XIV was referring to during his formal address to Mullally, the text of which was published – a rare event for a private meeting. The “ecumenical journey” of Catholics and Anglicans has been “complex,” said Leo.

Echoing the text of his message sent to Mullally for her inauguration, Leo added that

“while much progress has been made on some historically divisive issues, new problems have arisen in recent decades, rendering the pathway to full communion more difficult to discern.”

But he opined that such “continuing challenges” should not hinder the joint action of “proclaim[ing] Christ together.”

“As we continue to journey together in friendship and dialogue,” added the pontiff, “let us pray that the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord breathed on the disciples on the evening after his resurrection, will guide our steps as we prayerfully and humbly seek the unity which is the Lord’s will for all his disciples.”

For her part, Mullally told Leo that “I will remain united with the Pope in prayer – for peace in our world, for justice, and for every person to discover the fullness of life that God offers.”

“May we continue to walk together in that hope, trusting that the one who has begun this good work among us will bring it to completion,” she added.

The Catholic Church’s approach to ecumenism has changed notably in recent decades. Referring to the Church’s relationship with other religions, Pope Leo XIII wrote in his 1888 encyclical Libertas that the Catholic Church “tolerates certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind.”

The Church’s ecumenical mission must involve drawing others to the fullness of the truth. Indeed, Pope Benedict XVI affirmed this teaching in a 2010 address, in which he stated: “The witness of charity, practised here in a special way, is part of the Church’s mission, together with the proclamation of the truth of the Gospel.”

In recent years dialogue has often taken place in a spirit which has seemed to emphasize unity at the lowest common level, and though external relations have become warm, the actual possibility of large-scale Anglican conversions to Catholicism slowed after the initial spurt during the establishment of the Ordinariate.

Particularly under Pope Francis, the relationship with the Anglicans took a high profile, as he embarked on a number of ecumenical and interreligious ventures. Yet at the same time, the Anglicans have moved forward doctrinally in such a way that the Church of England is further adrift from the Holy See than it had been previously.

Reactions to the Holy See’s warm welcome of Mullally have been divided. Some in England view it as part of a natural diplomatic move, while those in America have tended to condemn the Vatican’s actions strongly.

What seems undeniable is that despite the many years of Catholic-Anglican ecumenical dialogue, by very fact of having approved female ordination the Church of England has clearly no immediate intention of aligning itself with Rome and the See of Peter.

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