REVEALED: How Leo XIV presents Vatican II as a rupture with the Catholic past

Earlier this year, Leo XIV began “a new cycle of catechesis which will be dedicated to Vatican Council II and a rereading of its Documents.” This weekly catechesis, delivered at the Wednesday audiences, will, he said, be a “valuable opportunity to rediscover the beauty and the importance of this ecclesial event.”

Between January 14 and February 11, Leo XIV provided commentary on Dei Verbum, the “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” and since February 18, he has been focusing on Lumen Gentium, the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.”

The series has already made it abundantly clear that Leo XIV’s theological approach, and his theological preoccupations, are reflective of the post-Vatican II period.

In particular, Leo XIV’s presentation of the nature of the Catholic Church is often difficult, and sometimes impossible, to reconcile with what the Church has always taught about herself.

In this series of articles, I will examine some of Leo XIV’s statements in detail, showing where they conflict with authentic Catholic doctrine and how they favor the theology of the new “conciliar/synodal church” proposed by the Vatican under Francis.

But first I would like to examine Leo XIV’s first catechesis, delivered on January 7, in which he prepares the ground for the assault on Catholic doctrine that is to come by presenting Vatican II as a new beginning for the Church.

In his important work Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century, Professor Romano Amerio noted that the “denigration of the Church is a commonplace with the clergy of the post-conciliar period.”

The present denigration of the Church’s past by clergy and laity is in lively contrast with the courage and pride with which Catholicism confronted its adversaries in centuries past.

He explained this as a consequence of “the radical innovation which has occurred” since Vatican II and “the consequent rupture of historical continuity” that has had the consequence “that respect and reverence have been replaced by the censure and repudiation of the past.”

The very words respect and reverence include the idea of a looking backward, for which there is no room in a Church projected towards the future, a Church which sees the destruction of its own past as a condition of its own birth.

Amerio connects the denigration of the Church with the conviction “in both lay and clerical circles” that was taking place in the post-conciliar period was “a change from one kind of religion to another.”

Even “from among the episcopate,” he writes, “voices are heard speaking quite unmistakably about a change in fundamental matters.” Amerio cites leading members of the hierarchy who speak about the Church undergoing a “revolution” by which it “has ceased being centered on itself and its institutions, in order to Centre itself on God and men” or claimed that “the Church has come out of itself to spread the message.”

The words of the Archbishop of Avignon are reflective of the many bishops cited throughout the book. This bishop “says quite literally that the Church of Vatican II is new” and “the novelty consists, according to the bishop, in a new definition of itself, that is, in the discovery of its new nature, and the new nature consists in, ‘having begun once more to love the world, to open itself up to the world, and to become dialogue.’”

As we will now see, Leo XIV’s introduction to Vatican II revisits many of these same themes.

Vatican Council II rediscovered the face of God as the Father who, in Christ, calls us to be his children; it looked at the Church in the light of Christ, light of nations, as a mystery of communion and sacrament of unity between God and his people; it initiated important liturgical reform, placing at its centre the mystery of salvation and the active and conscious participation of the entire People of God.

At the same time, it helped us to open up to the world and to embrace the changes and challenges of the modern age in dialogue and co-responsibility, as a Church that wishes to open her arms to humanity, to echo the hopes and anxieties of peoples, and to collaborate in building a more just and fraternal society.

It is “thanks to Vatican Council II,” Leo states, quoting Paul VI, that “the Church ‘has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make.’” The Church does this by “striving to seek the truth by way of ecumenism, interreligious dialogue and dialogue with people of good will.”

It is by “rediscovering the Council” he says, quoting Francis, that we will be able to “restore primacy to God, to what is essential: to a Church madly in love with its Lord and with all the men and women whom he loves.”

And, ominously, while calling on Catholics to “rediscover” the “prophetic and contemporary relevance” of the documents of Vatican II, he hints at more radical changes to come, “because we have yet to achieve ecclesial reform more fully in a ministerial sense.”

The similarity between Leo XIV’s remarks and those of the bishops cited from the immediate post-conciliar period are striking, and while Leo does not directly criticize the Church before Vatican II, he clearly implies defects in the pre-conciliar Church.

For example, to state that Vatican II “rediscovered the face of God as the Father” implies that the Church before the Council had lost sight of this truth. Similarly, if Vatican II placed “the mystery of salvation” at the center of liturgy, what was at its center before? And if Vatican II introduced “active and conscious participation of the entire People of God” in the liturgy, the clear implication is that their participation was defective before. Similar conclusions could reasonably be drawn from the other of his remarks cited above.

Those who lived through the destructive decades that followed Vatican II will remember that comments like this were frequently made to justify the radical changes taking place.

Today, however, there are increasing numbers of people who neither not lived through the post-conciliar period nor had opportunity to learn about it firsthand from those who did experience it. This is especially true of younger converts. This, I suggest, is a contributing factor to the phenomenon of “popesplaining” that has become commonplace over the past few years. “Popesplainers” put a positive “spin” on statements by Francis and Leo XIV. They often have a laudable desire to be loyal but lack sufficient theological formation and historical knowledge to fully understand the significance of the statements that they are commenting on.

In this context, it is worth briefly discussing the experiences of Catholics in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, when the process of destruction was at its most intense. This is particularly important given Leo XIV’s statement that “we have yet to achieve ecclesial reform more fully in a ministerial sense” indicates an intention on his part to pursue further reforms of a fundamental nature.

In the years after the Council, revolutionary changes affected every aspect of Catholic doctrine and practice. The liturgy was radically altered and a new calendar was introduced, breaking centuries of continuity. Ancient practices of fast and abstinence were eliminated; beloved devotions were mocked; churches were desecrated; statues, altars and images were destroyed; sacred relics were thrown onto rubbish dumps.

Most seminaries stopped teaching the Catholic religion almost overnight, libraries were purged of orthodox books, faithful seminarians were cast out, and heterodox men – among them those with serious moral and psychological disturbances – were welcomed with open arms. Schools replaced the traditional teaching of the catechism with heretical new programs, and parents watched with anguish as their children lost the faith they themselves cherished.

Those who opposed the changes – or simply expressed their confusion and pain – were ignored or ridiculed. Faithful bishops found themselves suddenly “retired,” priests went without assignments, lay people saw the churches their ancestors had built vandalized. Tens of thousands of priests abandoned the priesthood, similar numbers of religious left their communities, and millions of lay people stopped practicing the faith.

At the heart of this destructive violence was the falsehood that something was fundamentally wrong with the Catholic religion as it had been practiced before Vatican II.

Fr. Bryan Houghton, who served for decades as a pastor in working class parishes in England, spoke out against this denigration of the Church in his moving novel Judith’s Marriage, which was published in 1987.

(T)he new reforms in general and of the liturgy in particular were based on the assumption that the Catholic laity were a set of ignorant fools. They practiced out of tribal custom; their veneration of the Cross and the Mass was totem worship; they were motivated by nothing more than the fear of Hell; their piety was superstition and their loyalty habit. But the most gratuitous insult of all was that most Catholics had a Sunday religion which in no way affected their weekday behaviour.

This monstrous falsehood was – and still is – maintained by bishops and priests who, for the most part, have never been adult laymen. Every day the Catholic workman had to put up with the jeers of his colleagues, as the more educated with their sneers. Every night they took their religion to bed with them.

No words are adequate for me to express my admiration for the conscious faith and piety of my flock, both in Slough and in Bury … I was perfectly conscious that I learned more about God from them than they were likely to learn from me.

What passes belief is that I know of no book or article published within the last 20 years extolling the virtues and cmmiserating the sufferings of the Catholic laity. If they dared to remonstrate they were merely told that they were divisive, disloyal and disobedient. Hence the present novel. Its purpose is to show that at any rate one priest appreciates the predicament into which the laity have been put.

Still today, the suffering of that period is not properly acknowledged, and the denigration of the Church continues through men like Leo XIV.

The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ to preach the gospel of salvation to the whole world.

The Church is composed of sinners in need of redemption. The tares and the wheat (Mt 14: 24-33) will grow together, until Our Lord returns to separate them at the end of the world. The action of the Church in the world will always be affected by the frailty and sins of her members, but this does not prevent her from fulfilling her mission in every generation.

The Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ Himself. She is infallible in her teaching and in her laws, that is, her universal teaching is never in error, and her universal laws are always conducive to the growth in holiness of her members. Her priests offer the unblemished Sacrifice which is always pleasing to God, and her sacraments always lead to an increase of grace in the souls those who receive them worthily. The Church is holy, and her teaching, laws, and sacred rites lead to holiness.

From the earliest centuries, the action of the Church in the world has been such as to lead men to supernatural happiness, and has also been conducive to the natural happiness of mankind.

Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be.

Vatican II reformers suggested that before the Council, Christ was somehow not central to the Church. On the contrary, as Pope Leo XIII made plain:

Of this beneficent transformation Jesus Christ was at once the first cause and the final end; as from Him all came, so to Him was all to be brought back. For, when the human race, by the light of the Gospel message, came to know the grand mystery of the Incarnation of the Word and the redemption of man, at once the life of Jesus Christ, God and Man, pervaded every race and nation, and interpenetrated them with His faith, His precepts, and His laws.

These quotations are taken from Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s great encyclical “On Capital and Labor,” which addressed the suffering of the working class and provided a just alternative to the twin evils of socialism and economic liberalism.

There is no better document to disprove Leo XIV’s implication that the Church before Vatican II was not “open to the world” and had no “message to give.”

Rerum Novarum is only one of the magnificent texts by which the Roman Pontiffs have engaged with the world and applied eternal principles to contemporary problems for the good of mankind.

Peter is no recluse, no abstracted student, no dreamer about the past, no doter upon the dead and gone, no projector of the visionary. Peter for 1,800 years has lived in the world; he has seen all fortunes, he has encountered all adversaries, he has shaped himself for all emergencies. If there ever was a power on earth who had an eye for the times, who has confined himself to the practicable, and has been happy in his anticipations, whose words have been deeds, and whose commands prophecies, such is he in the history of ages, who sits from generation to generation in the Chair of the Apostles, as the Vicar of Christ and Doctor of His Church.

An examination of the teaching acts of Pope Pius XII, the pope who reigned immediately before the era of the Council, reveals the extraordinary range of subjects with which the papacy was concerned. They include texts dealing with psychiatry, midwifery, the care of destitute children, persecuted Christians, the plight of migrants, developments in television and cinema, missionary work, Hungary’s Velvet revolution, the Warsaw Pact, Arab-Israeli conflicts, and the Chinese Revolution. And, of course, all this is in addition to his sublime teaching on the central mysteries of the Christian religion.

This was not a Church turned in on itself, but the Mystical Body of Christ, sending forth its light amidst the darkness of modern world.

In 1950, Pius XII issued his encyclical Humani Generis, “Concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations Catholic doctrine.”

He noted that while it was to be expected that “discord and error” should exist “outside the fold of Christ,” the danger to the Church now came from within, from those claiming the name Catholic while undermining her doctrine.

In this encyclical, Pius XII warned of theologians who “desirous of novelty … try to withdraw themselves from the sacred Teaching Authority and are accordingly in danger of gradually departing from revealed truth and of drawing others along with them into error.”

He noted that out of their desire for “fraternal union” with those outside the Church, they considered as obstacles, “things founded on the laws and principles given by Christ and likewise on institutions founded by Him, or which are the defense and support of the integrity of the faith, and the removal of which would bring about the union of all, but only to their destruction.”

The Holy Father explained the manner in which these men, acting “rather covertly,” by hiding their opinions in their public works, were abandoning the principles of Catholic philosophy and theology, rejecting the teaching authority of the Church, and ultimately working to “undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine.”

In issuing this warning, Pius XII was repeating that which St Pius X had delivered forty-three years earlier when he warned that the Modernists “put their designs for (the Church’s) ruin into operation not from without but from within; hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain, the more intimate is their knowledge of her.”

Moreover, they lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fires. And having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to disseminate poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth from which they hold their hand, none that they do not strive to corrupt.

Within a few years of the death of Pius XII, the ax was openly laid to the root of many trees, and effects of the poison became visible to all with eyes to see.

The errors against which the Roman Pontiffs warned for a century before Vatican II have not yet been relegated to the past. On the contrary, they are still disseminated today by those who continue the project of building up a “new church” to eclipse the light of the Church founded by Jesus Christ.

This “new church” is that of which Leo XIV spoke on the day of his election when he proclaimed: “We want a Synodal Church.”

In the articles to come, I will demonstrate that the understanding of the Church presented by Leo XIV in his catechesis on Vatican II is not in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic Church, but is rather that of “the enemies of the Church” who “lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves as reformers” and “forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ.”

References[+]References[−]

References
↑1, ↑2, ↑11	Leo XIV, General Audience, Wednesday 7 January 2026.
↑3	Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, (translated from the Second Italian Edition by Rev John P. Parson), No. 55.
↑4, ↑5	Amerio, Iota Unum, No. 55
↑6	Amerio, Iota Unum, No. 55.
↑7	Amerio, Iota Unum, No. 51.
↑8, ↑10	Amerio, Iota Unum, No. 53.
↑9	Amerio, Iota Unum, No. 53.
↑12	Rev. Bryan Houghton, Judith’s Marriage, (1987).
↑13	Today it is often mistakenly asserted that infallibility does not extend to laws. On the contrary, while the primary object of infallibility is the teaching of those truths to be believed by divine and Catholic faith, the secondary object of infallibility is all those things which must be known with certainty to safeguard revelation. Universal ecclesiastical laws fall under this secondary object.
↑14, ↑15	Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, No. 27.
↑16	John Henry Newman, Cathedra Sempiterna, which he composed from passages taken from Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education, later republished as The Idea of a University.
↑17	Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, No. 2.
↑18	Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, No. 10.
↑19	Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, No. 12.
↑20	Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Domenici Gregis, No. 3.
↑21	St. Pius X, Pascendi, No. 2.

For example, to state that Vatican II “rediscovered the face of God as the Father” implies that the Church before the Council had lost sight of this truth. Similarly, if Vatican II placed “the mystery of salvation” at the center of liturgy, what was at its center before? And if Vatican II introduced “active and conscious participation of the entire People of God” in the liturgy, the clear implication is that their participation was defective before. Similar conclusions could reasonably be drawn from the other of his (Pope Leo's) remarks cited above.

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