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Posted on 04/22/2026 8:23:31 PM PDT by ebb tide
While celebrating Pope Francis’ “birth into heaven” on the first-year anniversary of his death, Pope Leo XIV said his predecessor took up the legacy of the Second Vatican Council.
In a message delivered by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re at the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major, Leo honored Francis yesterday as a “devoted shepherd,” saying that he, “in continuity with his predecessors, took up the legacy of the Second Vatican Council,” Vatican News reported.
Leo’s remarks were given on the first year anniversary of Francis’ death, a day which Leo called Francis’ “birth into heaven,” in the assumption not only that Francis was headed toward heaven, but that he went straight there as a saint. This assumption contradicts Catholic tradition by which, for the good of the deceased, one prays for their souls in the hope of salvation and for deliverance from purgatory.
The assumption that Pope Francis was immediately welcomed into heaven as a saint is also at odds with his legacy of sowing confusion and error by making statements and issuing documents that contradicted perennial Catholic Church teaching, as has been documented in a recently published book.
In his commemoration of Francis, Leo suggested, remarkably, that his pontificate marked a turning point in the Church.
He said Francis recognized that he acted as pope “at a time that has marked – and continues to mark – a change of era, a change of which he was fully aware, offering all of us a courageous witness that represents a significant patrimony for the Church."
By all indications, Leo appears to embrace the “change of era” marked by Francis’ pontificate. He has praised one of his most controversial – and heterodox – documents, Amoris Laetitia, which suggested Holy Communion may be given to divorced and “remarried” Catholics who are living in grave sin, itself a grave offense that violates Catholic teaching.
Leo has also endorsed Francis’ idea that there is an “infinite human dignity,” when he authorized a study by the International Theological Commission published in February.
Various clerics, and Leo’s own brother, have affirmed that he desires to continue that path of Francis. Vatican Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, has said that “Pope Leo has expressed in various ways the need to continue to receive the magisterium of Francis.”
Leo himself has explicitly and repeatedly positioned himself as the inheritor of Francis’s program, stressing continuity on synodality, women’s roles in the Church, ecumenism, curial reform, and liturgical disputes. He stated in a September interview, “I hope to continue in the footsteps of Francis, including in appointing women to some leadership roles at different levels in the Church’s life.”
Leo has also actively championed the Second Vatican Council, sharing his affinity for it with Francis, who said his spirituality comes directly from Vatican II. Leo announced in January that he would be beginning a catechesis series to “closely” study Vatican II, which many priests and scholars have affirmed to be in need of correction.
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I still don’t miss Frank.
Most Catholics seem politically, religiously and sexually conservative. How do they take back the Church from commie gay pachamama worshippers?
Calls to beatify Pope Francis emerge just one year after his death
Cannonize? Did he have 2 substantiated miracles?
Una pregunta muy bien.
That’s what I want to know!
Don’t they have to wait a certain amount of time, and go through lot of steps?
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