Vatican City, Oct 26, 2025 / 08:10 am
Pope Leo XIV said at a Mass on Sunday that no one in the Church “should impose his or her own ideas” and asked that tensions between tradition and novelty not become “ideological contrapositions and harmful polarizations.”
“The supreme rule in the Church is love. No one is called to dominate; all are called to serve,” Leo said in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 26.
“No one should impose his or her own ideas; we must all listen to one another,” he continued. “No one is excluded; we are all called to participate. No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and seek it together.”
The pontiff celebrated Mass on the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time for the closing of the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies, part of the Church’s wider Jubilee of Hope in 2025.
In a call for communion, Pope Leo addressed all the participants in the synodality meeting and asked for their help to expand “the ecclesial space” and make it “collegial and welcoming.”
Leo also spoke about synodality with the jubilee pilgrims during an Oct. 24 event at the Vatican.
The Holy Spirit transforms ‘harmful polarizations’
“Being a synodal Church means recognizing that truth is not possessed but sought together, allowing ourselves to be guided by a restless heart in love with Love,” he emphasized.
The pontiff called on Christians to live “with confidence and a new spirit amid the tensions that run through the life of the Church: between unity and diversity, tradition and novelty, authority and participation. We must allow the Spirit to transform them, so that they do not become ideological contrapositions and harmful polarizations.”
It is not a question of resolving these tensions “by reducing one to the other, but of allowing them to be purified by the Spirit, so that they may be harmonized and oriented toward a common discernment,” he said.
He also made it clear that, “prior to any difference, we are called in the Church to walk together in the pursuit of God, clothing ourselves with the sentiments of Christ.”
Resolving tensions in the Church
In his homily on the day’s Gospel passage, the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector, the pope warned of the danger of spiritual pride displayed by the pharisee: “The pharisee is obsessed with his own ego, and in this way, ends up focused on himself without having a relationship with either God or others.”
Leo pointed out that this can also occur in the Christian community.
For example, “when the ego prevails over the collective, causing an individualism that prevents authentic and fraternal relationships,” he said.
He also criticized “the claim to be better than others, as the pharisee does with the tax collector, [because it] creates division and turns the community into a judgmental and exclusionary place; and when one leverages one’s role to exert power rather than to serve.”
The pope highlighted the tax collector’s humility as an example for the entire Christian community: “We too must recognize within the Church that we are all in need of God and of one another, which leads us to practice reciprocal love, listen to each other, and enjoy walking together.”
Leo urged Catholics to dream of and build a more humble Church, capable of reflecting the Gospel in its way of living and relating.
“A Church that does not stand upright like the pharisee, triumphant and inflated with pride, but bends down to wash the feet of humanity; a Church that does not judge like the pharisee does the tax collector but becomes a welcoming place for all,” he said.
He also invited the entire ecclesial community to commit itself to building a Church that is “entirely synodal, ministerial, and attracted to Christ,” dedicated to serving the world and open to listening to God and to all the men and women of our time.
Angelus
After the Mass on Oct. 26, Pope Leo led the Angelus prayer in Latin from a window of the Apostolic Palace, which overlooks St. Peter’s Square.
In his message following the Marian prayer, he expressed his closeness to the people of eastern Mexico, who were hit earlier this month by devastating floods and landslides, leaving 72 dead and dozens still missing.
“I pray for the families and for all those who are suffering as a result of this calamity, and I entrust the souls of the deceased to the Lord, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin,” the pope said.
Leo also renewed his call to “unceasingly” pray for peace, especially through the communal recitation of the rosary.
“Contemplating the mysteries of Christ together with the Virgin Mary, we make our own the suffering and hope of children, mothers, fathers, and elderly people who are victims of war,” he said.
“And from this intercession of the heart arise many gestures of evangelical charity, of concrete closeness, of solidarity. To all those who, every day, with confident perseverance carry on this commitment, I repeat: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers!’”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Does Leo XIV replace religious commitment with psychological counselling? Is getting along for sake of getting along the end game rather than the effort to suffer adversity for Christ? A nuance of truth in a counsel does not make a commandment.
We hear of landslides rather than drowning in a sea of immorality. Ice melt instead of infanticide.
Am I wrong in wanting to hear an Angelus that doesn’t repeat a weather report? News about some natural calamity? Does a dog chase its tail seriously or is it playing a game? Does a man succeed in chasing the wind?
Leo XIV’s view is typically American: the Truth must lie somewhere in the middle of opposing opinions. This is the democratic way, and it is also the way of decadence, decline and death.
Absolutely Timothy. And the middle way of falsehood.
Leo said, “No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and seek it together.” Is this an implicit suggestion that Christ does not have the whole truth? No Holy Father. We must protect what we’ve received. And what does seeking “togetherness” mean for those in love with their sins?
Fr. M:
Thank you for making me laugh, with your line: “Can we have an Angelus without a weather report?”
While it’s all lamentable, it’s also good and fitting to laugh at this folly.
Indeed Chris. A bit of comic relief is healthy.
Meanwhile, Catholic Churches continue to close down in Europe and the U.S. and are sometimes bought and changed into mosques (as recently in Florida). But no word about this and other fundamental things (like killing the unborn or sometimes even the born…), but rather about synodality, global warming, and the need to build bridges. See about the largest mosque in EU and its connections to terrorist groups:
“French Intelligence Report Confirms That Turkish Islamist Outfit Behind Mosque is Linked to Muslim Brotherhood”
https://www.meforum.org/e-u-parliamentarian-raises-alarm-over-islamist-funding-for-europes-largest-mosque
No one – except the liturgical revolutionaries – is attempting to “impose” a view on anyone else. We just want to be left alone to worship as our forefathers did. Stop the gaslighting and the persecution of the Traditional Latin Mass, and there will be peace.
Right on man. With all due respect, if Pope Francis had left well enough alone, things would be just fine. Continuing to suppress the TLM divides us.
Not to mention Francis’ suppression of unchanging moral witness.
The Church has been open and listening to the World for 60 years… Look where the relativism has landed us.
Either the Church Does possess the whole truth or She doesn’t.
If she doesn’t any longer*, Catholic Truth has been subverted by the Prince of lies.
*Guadiem et Spes: Truth no longer subsists in the Catholic Church.
That gift to freemasonic relativism is today playing out in the post-conciliar wasteland of Lost New Church – in search of truth.
* Both Lumen Gentium and Guadiem et Spes are to blame for the loophole of Truth existing outside the Catholic Church. Ratzinger attempted to explain a restrained intention of the Church fathers in 2000 (Dominus Jesu).
The correct spelling is Gaudium et Spes.
The correct document is Lumen Gentium.
The correct reading of Lumen Gentium is:
“This Church, constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists [!] in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in union with the successor, although many elements of sanctification and of truth can be found outside of her visible structure” (n. 8).
Thanks for the précision Fr Peter.
“Truth outside the Church” risks transforming her from a teaching authority into a listening ngo?
I agree with both of you, Peter and Mr. Nut. (just teasing)
Ideology presented as truth, even when an ideology contains elements of truth, will inevitably seduce small-minded revolutionary voices, within the Church, to compromise propositional truth with “nuances” that only accommodate evil. I do not delude myself with a sense of superiority, but in my personal era of non-belief, I was grateful to have received the insight to be pro-life. The haste to always assume the good intentions of non-believers does no good at all other than in one on one dialogue.
Although not explicit, there was too much in VII documents that downplayed the tragic human condition in need of salvation.
If Pope Leo really wants unity in the Catholic Church, he’d respect a diversity of Rites for worshipping God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Along with so many other Rites, the Extraordinary Form should be allowed to freely breathe under the Holy Spirit’s guidance along with the Ordinary Form of the Mass. Let’s put an end to these liturgical wars once and for all.
“If Pope Leo really wants unity in the Catholic Church, he’d respect a diversity of Rites for worshipping God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Along with so many other Rites, the Extraordinary Form should be allowed to freely breathe under the Holy Spirit’s guidance along with the Ordinary Form of the Mass. Let’s put an end to these liturgical wars once and for all.”
THANK YOU for posting this, Deacon! A voice of common sense! I absolutely agree!
I am a convert to Catholicism (along with my late husband, two daughters, and a son-in-law, and of course, my grandson who was baptized into the Catholic Church as an infant after his parents converted!) from Evangelical Protestantism, which obviously varies from very traditional churches with an “Order of Christian Worship” handed down from the early Reformation days, to snake-handling tongues-speaking Pentecostal congregations, to traditional Baptist churches with worship services usually featuring choirs and soloists, piano and organ together accompanying the hymns, and the “altar call” (or nowadays, a Praise and Worship Band and if there is an organ, it’s used for the “rock music.”).
And nowadays, we are seeing many “non-denominational” Protestant-leaning congregations that could feature anything. e.g., meeting in bars and homes, all styles of music (or no music), “no books except the Bible”, “study groups utilizing all the classic works of great Christians of the past,” etc. etc.–or the banning of these books and using “Scripture Alone.”
(Note–after a frightening experience in a non-denominational church for my family, I consider “non-denominational congregations” dangerous and do not recommend them to anyone.)
And in many of these Evangelical Protestant churches, jeans and casual sweatshirts or t-shirts are the norm, although a few older folks still dress up. And of course, in the African American churches, dressing to the NINES is expected for church attendees!
Perhaps because of my religious background, I absolutely LOVE the vernacular Mass–the so-called “Ordinary Form!” I do realize that there are converts to Catholicism from the same background who LOVE the Extraordinary Form”–and that’s just fine with me (not that “I” matter!).
Perhaps I love the Ordinary Form of the Mass because I am just an “ordinary American person” who has a college degree in Biology/Laboratory Science, and worked in a hospital lab for over 40 years, but isn’t a brainiac and has absolutely no ability to learn and understand foreign languages, including Latin (and I am not enamored over the Latin names of the various species of plants, animals, and microbes!).
I spent five years taking German courses, and a semester in Latin–and I don’t remember more than a few words of either language! I wish I were able to “pick up” foreign languages, but I’m just not “good” at it. Apparently that part of my brain isn’t hooked up.
So for me, UNDERSTANDING as God allows humans is of utmost importance!
Before I converted to Catholicism, I read everything by Catholic converts from Protestantism like Scott Hahn, Tim Staples, etc. that I could get my hands on, and I attended Masses that featured hymns that I knew (and some beautiful hymns that I didn’t know), often accompanied by organ, but also piano and guitars. I still enjoy listening to Catholic radio shows featuring apologists.
I realize that I will never, ever, on this earth, fully comprehend and understand God, His Church, His Word, His Will, His Holiness, His incredible love for sinful humans that prompted Him to give His Own Son to be our Sacrifice.
BUT WHEN THE STORY IS TOLD IN MY HEART LANGUAGE, American English, and the music/hymns are sung in American English (or at least, British English!), I can have a vague understanding, appreciation, awe, grief for my own sins, and faith, hope, and love for my Lord, and know that a day will come, God willing, when all will be clear to me, and in the words of the Old Gospel Song (in American English), “I’ll understand it better by and by.”
I don’t consider any human language “superior” to other languages. And of course, Jesus didn’t use Latin in His ministry, although I’m guessing He knew it because the Romans had conquered so many countries back then (and also, of course, because He was God!).
I greatly appreciate and love those Catholics who DO love tradition, foreign languages like Latin (and actually understand it!), and who prefer the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. Several times, I have accompanied (on the organ!) the choirs and also helped the scholas out for these Masses. I am definitely not opposed to these Masses.
But I don’t understand anything that is said except for the homily, which is usually in American English in churches in the U.S.A.!! I’ve attended Latin Masses enough times to know that it’s not for me and my little brain.
I don’t “get” the fascination with foreign languages! Even in movies, e.g., the Star Wars saga, the various beings speak in strange languages (but there are English sub-titles!). I don’t watch many movies.
BUT again—I respect those who are lovers of foreign languages–and I hope that they will find it in their hearts to respect those of us who don’t “get it.”
(Note–I will NEVER understand, appreciate, or respect the use of cigars by the traditional Catholic men and see nothing “holy” or “traditional” or “reverent” about risking health and life, especially when a man is a husband and father.)
Mrs. Sharon, you aren’t alone in not being fluent in Latin. That’s why we’ve had missals with Latin printed on one side of the page & the English translation on the other. Those work for anyone who is literate. No college or high school degree necessary.
MrsCracker: Correct. And every Catholic schoolboy and girl was armed at around age 7 or 8 with a St. Joseph’s Missal which they carried to Mass with them on Sundays so they could follow along with the simultaneous translation of the Latin into English.
And while I’m at it, let me tell you of another of my pet peeves – Catholic parents who, to their credit, bring their undisciplined toddlers to Mass, insist on sitting up front and must make MULTIPLE trips to the bathroom during Mass.
When I was in Catholic school during the “bad ole days of pre-Vatican II”, all Catholic school children attended Sunday Mass as a group. I counted that there must have been 800 of us from grades 1-8. There were NO BATHROOMS IN CHURCHES IN THOSE DAYS. We all sat quietly and silently in our pews for the 1-hour Mass in Latin. If you found yourself talking to your fellows during Mass, the Religious Sister would simply get out of her pew, give you one look and if you were a repeat offender, she brought you back to sit with her in her pew. If that sort of church decorum was possible two generations ago, what’s happened in the interim? Oh, and by the way, I don’t recall ever hearing any student complain that they don’t understand a word of Latin because they knew the words of the Mass that were printed in English in their Missal. Unfortunately we now have a generation of tatooed, body-pierced, teddy bear-hugging dolts of adult age who were undisciplined children.
I have my grandfather’s little Missal. He didn’t come from a family with any history of higher education & his own grandfather was illiterate.
When I visited a Mennonite ladies’ prayer meeting years ago all the little children sat quietly in the pews with their mothers. No snack foods, no talking, no noisy toys, no disruptions.
Small children aren’t adults & things happen, but sometimes I think we can enable disruptive behaviors. “Gentle Parenting”, etc…
My dear Mrs. Whitlock, my spiritual journey and sentiments regarding the mass in many ways parallel yours. Thank you for sharing it so well and may God bless you and your family richly.
Would you enjoy or be encouraged or admonished having a conversation with someone if you had to look up what they were saying in a dictionary that translated everything they are saying to you?
I don’t speak or understand Spanish. I will listen with respect and try to provide help if it appears that someone speaking what I think is Spanish, but I am not a speaker of Spanish, which means that I don’t understand the emotion and the request of a written or spoken message in a different language as well as being unable to comprehend the “culture” of the people who speak that language because I am from the United States of America and am a fourth-generation person from a family with a German and Irish ancestry several generations back. I speak and understand English.and I’m glad that there are Americans like you who are comfortable with languages-and that includes Catholics who prefer and love Latin and other classical languages. God bless you!
There is more to the pre vatican II mass then the language. The theology, prayers and rubrics are 100% catholic, with no compromise or watering down of the faith to accommodate Protestants.
It is a shame that the discussion on liturgy is reduced simply to latin.
This false ecumenism in the church is a poison, spreading even into the most vital parts of the body.
Newsflash: the priest is not speaking to you, but speaking to God on your behalf. God understands.
Yes, God has no problem understanding any language.
Latin is not a “foreign” language. It is a universal language, and a dead language, to its credit. This means it cannot be altered and corrumpted unlike vernacular liturgies. Communion with those who preceded us matters. It is important to remind ourselves that we are not their betters. The Communion of Saints matters to the Church Militant in this world. It is even more important to remind ourselves that the Mass is for worshiping God, not ourselves.
It is not an accident that only half of regular Novus Ordo Mass goers believe in the Real Presence, while 99+ percent of those who frequent the TLM believe in the Real Presence.
We are sheep without a shepherd.
How so ?
How so Mrscacker? Do you not recognize that as a moral relativist, and a Pope who believes in the changeability of doctrine, once we agree to go through our version of reeducation camps designed to make us “more loving” towards the practices of those who, in defiance of repentance, extol their favorite sins, is failing to provide good shepherding?
And do you not recognize the consequences to the whole world when the leader of Catholic moral witness denies moral absolutes? How many more babies will have to die as a result of two popes in a row effectively telling the whole world, don’t listen to us; we don’t witness God; we make things up as we go along, just like everyone else.
And we have another Pope lacking the moral wisdom to not recognize the real signs of the times demonstrated by active moral displacement. Environmental hysteria is largely a psychological compensation of repressed guilt for having supported baby slaughter, reviving the myth of too many people in the world, so getting rid of inconvenient life is made to seem benevolent.
If a fool like me can figure this out, why not a pope? Would that we have a Pope of wisdom again.
Well said, Agnieszka.
Leo is babbling about relativism and everyone “being Church.”
Meanwhile, there are dioceses in America where Catholics are still being persecuted.
So far Leo has been a major disappointment.
For not living up to YOUR expectations?
No, for aligning the Catholic Church with one of the men responsible for the murders of scores of millions of innocent children, for placing a woman known for her homoerotic art in charge of the Vatican arts commission, and for failing to end the persecution of Catholics who choose to worship the Lord at the same Mass as was celebrated during the Second Vatican Council.
Thank you for asking, Frère Jacques.
No, for defying God’s absolutes to satisfy the expectations of religion haters.
Did you jump the wall?
One would have thought that the arrangement reached by Benedict XVI(RIP) would have allowed the ordinary and extraordinary to co exist with the joyful reality that grace and blessings were being delivered and just to give thanks for this? What were they afraid off?
Amen to this!
The Tridentine Mass bears within itself a mass of Tradition, in a way that speaks to the human heart and mind in many more ways than logic and reason and speech. That Tradition contains the truth of Divine Revelation with great richness.
Truth is dangerous. He’s not a tame lion.
Too much synodality, walking together, accompaniment, etc., etc.
“No one should impose their own ideas?”
This from the publishing house of the “Custodians of Tradition”?
Truly: “the janitors” are in charge.
Where has this man been for the last seventy years?
“…Don’t let tension between tradition, novelty become ‘harmful polarizations…”
Don’t let?
The tension has been in place since October 11, 1962.
The issue is not “don’t let.” The imperative at this moment in history is how to rectify a condition of total discord which has existed for sixty-three years and nurtured with self-serving irresponsibility by men and women who could have known better but declined, and now their devotees whom they have left behind, ironically unable to read the signs of the times.
Belief in the Most Holy Trinity, the Real Presence Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, Catholic divorce not uncommon, artificial contraception far more common than not, priestly vocations dried up, religious congregations in collapse, monasteries closing, Catholic education virtually extinguished,
No more admonitions. Ditch the rose colored glasses. Correct the problem.
“Belief in the Most Holy Trinity, the Real Presence Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, Catholic divorce not uncommon, artificial contraception far more common than not, priestly vocations dried up, religious congregations in collapse, monasteries closing, Catholic education virtually extinguished,
No more admonitions. Ditch the rose colored glasses. Correct the problem.”
James, do you honestly believe that “the Latin Mass” will correct all these problems and sins among Catholic Christians?
If so, why?
Even among the New Testament congregations, in spite of the presence and witness of those who personally knew Jesus while He was here on this earth, sin and faithlessness was happening.
I think that strong families and individuals who practice their Catholic (Christian) faith, seek to worship and serve Jesus, and remain involved with parish life will help to reverse this trend (and I think that staying away from social media online would also make a huge difference, but this isn’t too likely to happen for most Americans, including our teens and even children! Sigh.).
I also think that Catholic TV, radio, and other media (including forums like this) can be a huge help to Catholics who are “away from Home.” These media can be accessed in private, and do not require “dressing up”, or “sitting a in a pew” or any other “traditional church discipline.” They are very well done, IMO. I love Catholic radio!
With great respect for tradition, I don’t think “Latin” or “tradition” is the “Answer” to our degraded American (and in other countries as well) lifestyles.
Reverence, yes, but this happens all the time in many of the Ordinary Form of the Masses.
Of course there are Catholics who just “go through the motions” because they wish to avoid Hell, but they usually give it up eventually–and we need to help these people return “home” to Jesus and His Church and understand just what Holy Mother Church offers us! (I’m willing to venture a theory that even in the “Extraordinary Form Masses”, there are people who are just “going through the motions.”)
There are also Catholics who are immersed in some form of a sinful lifestyle and can’t break free–and we have to work to bring them “home,” too–by showing them Christian love no matter what Form of the Holy Mass we attend.
JMO, and I respect your love and devotion to Traditional Catholicism. But, again with respect, I think the problem of lukewarmness and attrition from Christianity is more complicated than “no Latin and avoidance of traditional Catholicism.”
Obviously you are unaware that the entire fabric of the pre-conciliar liturgy has been altered. It is not about Latin, it is about the content of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Nor is it only about the Mass. The eradication of accurate catechesis between 1965 and 1970 accounts for much of our present dilemma. If you need to know I don’t think I have been blessed to be able to attend the 1962 liturgy since 1966.
One need only observe the Church before 1962 and what began from that moment on. Your lengthy comment does not address the empirical evidence of the last sixty-three years. Perhaps you are not of sufficient years to understand the metamorphosis of Roman Catholicism over that period. If you weren’t there, you simply do not know. Nevertheless the proof is in the pudding. A little statistical research might provide you some insight.
That said, soon there will be no one walking on the planet that knew Roman Catholicism before the mid-century council. Those once committed to eternity one can anticipate the Church, but for a remnant, further slip into a post-Christian entity mirroring contemporary protestantism. The theological academy presently diving into the “demythologizing” the divinity of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, forgetting theology is an occupation of the knees, not the seat of the pants.
And finally, yes, prayer alone will bring sufficient Grace to bear upon the current crisis and bring it to healing. A little accurate catechesis might illuminate your perspective.
Mrs. Sharon,
I doubt anyone attending the Extraordinary Form Mass could possibly be “going through the motions.” Among other reasons, the Gregorian chant is so different from what we’re inundated with in the modern world. The silence is also so different from our very loud world (in which ads scream at us even as we pump gas).
Also, while I cherish Catholic media, entering a Catholic church can never be reduced to merely sitting in a pew…we have something that protestants do not—we have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, whereby we can actually partake of our Lord just as He instructed us. He is the Bread of Life come down from Heaven (!). He is the True Vine.
And if we can’t go to Mass, physically entering a church & praying before the Body of our Lord reserved in the tabernacle is always better than accessing Catholic media at home.
Mrs. Sharon Whitlock: I truly respect that you have a distaste for Mass said in Latin. I get that. But let’s be honest. No Catholic who prefers the Extraordinary Form of the Mass marches up to the home of any Catholic who prefers the Ordinary Form on any particular Sunday and, brandishing a gun, forcibly takes that person to an EF Mass. Not one!
The Novus Ordo does not generally attract a lot of men. It cannot, its focus is too narrow, and men also tend to focus/specialize, which greatly reduces the probability of the Novus Ordo catching their hearts and minds. To catch more than a small group of men, we need a Mass with attraction for every facet of human nature, not one that focuses on community and linear thought, to the practical exclusion of all else.
You cannot catch families without men. The greatest predictor of children remaining Catholic is their father’s Mass attendance.
Pretty much everyone has dry spells and difficulty paying attention. But showing up is a very large part of the solution to this problem. The proportion of family-aged men at the Tridentine Mass is significantly higher than the proportion at the Novus Ordo.
Making a matter-of-fact observation from direct repeat experiences and encounters.
This idea that faith “imposes” and “wants to overpower” and “dominate” and “strut about” and “bully”, is the usual and frequent report and posturing from those who actively disbelieve like fops and philanderers; and from cynics from the lodge and academia.
The issue that naturally follows is, What concern should clergy have about that. And the answer would NOT be, adopt a facilitative dialogue and promote the (false) dichotomy as “insight”. Nor is the answer to stand off from it and look for ways to “engage neutrally” as Swiss or otherwise.
The Catholic Church is “THE PILLAR OF TRUTH”.
In his time Jesus came across as humble, gentle, and firm. Without mincing words, Jesus had the courage to call a spade a spade. In his own way, Pope Leo XIV comes across as a stubborn imitator of Jesus in thought, word, and action. Like Jesus, Pope Leo shows guts to topple the tables and desks of money-makers and tax-collectors doing their small funny thing in wrong ways and in wrong places.
I’ve yet to observe what you assert. He tows the line of his predecessor but with the mask of social grace and the absence of vitriol. Twelve more years or more of what we just went through while Tucho remains at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith…
You take an outer form for the content. Our Lord is the Truth, the Word of God – the content and the form in One in Him, as it is always with God. Since the Truth of God is always clear, He is always clear. His words are a cutting sword which expose the contents of each soul tearing off the outer forms = fake selves/masks. If you like, He was killed because He was unbearably clear – not just His words but Person as well. It was impossible to be around Him and not to reveal themselves (what is inside a person) hence they had killed Him, for that very quality which is an inborn quality of the Truth. Truth is often unbearable.
PL, on the other hand, appears to be unable to say anything straight or even more so, to make a clear choice. He has to be inconsistent, with his agenda to please everyone and via that pleasing to create (a fake) unity. And here is the fundamental difference between Christ and PL – Christ did not care about human approval; He did not want to please anyone. He only wanted to deliver the Truth of/about God to people (know the Truth and it will make you free). He is a Liberator and Savior. Clarity always liberates. PL confuses; confusion and vagueness always enslave.
When there is a talk about good things but there is no consistency, no solid moral judgement, no clarity one can be sure that it is a fake. “Nice” people can imitate such an aspect of Christ as “being gentle” but they are never able to imitate His Person. They only imitate an abstraction, some abstract “gentleness” unlike the real one which in Our Lord was inseparable from the truth, clarity and ruthless uncovering what IS in each particular soul.
Hmmm, no. So far, not even close.
Its still all about the weather and synodoling.
Pope Leo is Bergoglio with manners.
John Chap. 18: “…Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. And the name of the servant was Malchus. Jesus therefore said to Peter: Put up thy sword into the scabbard. The chalice which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? Then the band and the tribune, and the servants of the Jews, took Jesus, and bound him…”.
Peter’s opinion obviously contradicted that of Jesus. So a consensus was needed and Jesus called for a synod – right? – to form that consensus on how to go forward, recognizing the future 21st Century Pope Leo XIV teaching that “…“No one should impose his or her own ideas; we must all listen to one another…” and therefore the apostles and disciples should have a vote on the future of Salvation History – right?
AND in John 6 when Jesus spoke about eating his flesh and drinking his blood and many of His followers turned and walked away – Jesus seized the opportunity “…to address all the participants [in that ” synodality” meeting] and asked for their help to expand “the ecclesial space” and make it “collegial and welcoming….” before telling Peter essentially to shut up – right?
And the most famous subject of Capital Punishment in history seized the time he was about to be crucified to rail against Capital Punishment – right?
Pope Leo XIV is clearly initiating the Second Synodal Crusade!
If you hold in mind the Holy Father’s repeated context of “within” the Church, expanding the “ecclesial space”, listening to one another, the need for “authentic and fraternal” relationships, and the evil of leveraging position to impose rather than to serve (certain bishops easily come to mind), and if you gather his thoughts under the canopy of the lex orandi rather than some idea that he is inviting sin to take a welcome place among us, could he not possibly be preparing to bring us back to the great pax liturgica of JPII and Benedict, possibly realizing that the need for that concordat surpasses any other, and that the peace of which he speaks cannot be given until our liturgical warfare is resolved by each side turning the other cheek, not just to suffer the pain, but to look for understanding in the opponent’s direction? Maybe he is, at the beginning, speaking above all the lesser troubles, to address the Great Trouble which afflicts us – the disturbed Prayer of Christ’s Bride. Lex orandi…
A few of the latins cooked the goose for the rest of them!
There are difficult people in every parish & in every Rite or liturgy but I’ve read it was more about misinformation reaching the Vatican. I hope that can be something remedied.
If the members of the hierarchy are so thin-skinned that a few people running their mouths is enough for them to start shutting things down, then why does the Novus Ordo still exist? It’s not like people there are ubiquitously papal adulators.
It seems to me that Pope Leo is attempting to extend the olive branch and a bunch of you are too pig headed to accept it!
The problem is the Leo olive branch basically looks the same as the Francis olive branch. We certainly don’t need Francis 2.0.
thank you, it had to be said. Yes, the Church has all the truth but we have to seek it to make it our own and this takes humility and not bragging and it takes LOVE in action. Sometimes people are so convinced their truth is the only truth they cannot listen and unity and truth and the Holy Spirit goes out the window. God bless this holy Pope full of truth, kindness and love, just look how he labors and all he has already accomplished.
We have been thrashed repeatedly with these “olive branches.” Maybe he could try out some of these branches on the modernist heretics who are in charge of the Church, and leave us marginalized Catholics alone.
James Connor: More of your usual nastiness and sarcasm.
James Connor: Patronizing Catholics who are Catholic by implying their fidelity to unchanging Catholicism is an ideology or idiosyncratic is not in itself benevolent. Sadly revolutionary Catholics are too hard headed to recognize the very idea of immutability.
PF1 and Leo14 ooze lukewarmness.
They speak in riddles and ambiguities where their predecessors did not. Both choke on the word “sin” and avoid the gospel mandate of repentance and conversion as being the core concept and requirement for salvation.
Act:19 “Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.”
Without conversion and repentance, there is no salvation.
In their foolish blindness, these two bind themselves to the sins of those who believe that God will ultimately accept their sins (e.g., sodomy) and bring them unrepentant and unconverted into Heaven.
“They speak in riddles and ambiguities where their predecessors did not. Both choke on the word ‘sin’ and avoid the gospel mandate of repentance and conversion as being the core concept and requirement for salvation” capsulizes the apostasy. They’re too busy trying to create togetherness without anxiety.
The pontiff called on Christians to live “with confidence and a new spirit…We must allow the Spirit to transform them (tensions in the life of the Church)…allowing them to be purified by the Spirit, so that they may be harmonized and oriented toward a common discernment,” he said.
These words, though modern, signify the ancient – conversion and repentance. The Holy Father nowhere calls on anyone to continue in sin, and hope for the best – whether they think they already have repented, or they are on the edge of conversion. The men gathered around the adulterous woman thought they already had the answer, leaning on the law, while she found herself, unpreparedly, on the edge of being changed, suddenly and miraculously, by the Lord’s forgiveness. We all find ourselves in some predicament – hypocrisy or transgression, pride or sin – and needing mercy. Is one the more deserving than the other?
The Holy Spirit does not force anyone to either repent or convert. These are both acts of the human will, which Almighty God respects to the point of allowing an individual to freely choose an eternity in hell.
God respects our choices, so don’t expect Him to make them for us. Many people have forgotten that Christianity is a participatory religion. God expects things of us. We must act and respond according to the Gospel that Jesus gave us.
Such is the fallacy of protestantism’s “once saved always saved.” The thinking behind such nonsense is that an individual can claim “I accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior” then continue to be the most abhorrent, wicked, unjust and uncharitable individual and, yet, fully expect that God, whose hand have been magically bound from judging said individual, is forced to accept such a one into heaven.
CHS,
The bottom line is that the most pew-sitting faithful think that divorce and marriage without nullity is just fine and one remains in the state of grace, sodomitical couples can be privately blessed by the church, and that unity in liturgy with our forefathers is somehow harmful.
We just need our shepherds to finish the admonition to the woman caught in adultery: “ go and sin no more”.
For the sake of those who have labored through difficult marriages because they believed in indissolubility, those who refused to practice contraception, and those who bear the cross of unnatural attraction in chastity, clarity and fraternal care are desperately needed… not another round of: your corresponding to grace was not really necessary… those who give in to these sins and stay in them are just fine.
Ave Maria!
I read this article not as a serious analysis, but as a collection of liberal feel-good gibberish and buzzwords devoid of any real substance regarding the world’s harsh realities. Where is the acknowledgement of the hundreds of Christians being daily slaughtered in Nigeria by Muslims? Pope Leo’s vague plea for peace simply isn’t enough. How many years does it take to defrock a perverted priest/artist? How long does it take to support the sacrament of marriage? How hard is it to condemn the perversion occuring both within and without the Church? How difficult is it to stand up and condemn abortion and those that support it?
I have reached a point where I fundamentally distrust Rome and much of the clergy; their actions have spoken louder than their words. I will no longer listen to what is said—I will watch what is done. My faith and trust reside exclusively in Tradition, Scripture, and the Saints.
Pope Leo recanting Fiducia Supplicans would be a start, then Amoris Laetitia…
No different than any other modern progressive who are conforming God to the world contend that the RadTrads are so polarizing for by their out of step pursuit of conforming the world to God……the idea that Jesus ment what He said and said what He ment is so alien to the progressive brain.
I just wish the Bishop of Rome and all bishops would simply proclaim the kerygma to the entire world. Proclaim it over, and over, and over.. .
Pope Leo said that no one in the Church “should impose his or her own ideas”. 🗿
I know.
The word OBTUSE comes to mind, but that would be a charitable explanation.
This novelty business so widely embraced by our progressive Catholics is reflecting the sentiments expressed by Georges Bernanos’s M.Le Cure.
“….the world is eaten up by boredom.
To shake off this drizzle of ashes you must be forever on the go”
Is this leprosy of boredom that has beset the Vatican “a shameful form of despair”?
Acedia even?
While it might have been off topic for the Instrumentum Laboris for Synod 2024 to center on terms like “interior life” or the “sacramental life” or the “Real Presence,” a lot of mistrust and more could have been avoided with more attention to such grounding.
And, why are these groundings not explicitly featured as integral to a “way of being Church”? The term sacrament does show up 17 times, and Eucharist 12 times, but a poor balance with “synod,” “synodality” and “synodal” which show up 228 times.
Communications “experts” Grech and Hollerich…call your office!