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[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo XIV celebrates Francis’ ‘birth into heaven.’ Will he canonize him?Marking the first anniversary of Pope Francis' death, Leo XIV praised his predecessor as a ‘devoted shepherd’ who upheld the ‘legacy of the Second Vatican Council.’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...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinals Reject Hope in Leo XIV on Roman RiteSeveral anonymous cardinals and curial officials told the Substack.com account The Pillar on April 17 that they do not expect any resolution to the question of the Mass in the Roman rite in the near future.Some Catholics had hoped the next extraordinary consistory of cardinals on June 26–27 would address the liturgical issue. Instead, Leo XIV chose to focus on Francis' document Evangelii Gaudium.One Vatican official said that Leo XIV was not very familiar with traditional communities or even the traditional liturgy, and that his primary concern was not liturgy...

REVEALED: How Leo XIV presents Vatican II as a rupture with the Catholic pastLeo 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.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.” [1] 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.” [2]Between January 14 and February 11, Leo XIV provided...

Cardinal Müller vs. the SSPX: Did Vatican II Break with Tradition? This case study explores Cardinal Müller’s defense of the Council, the SSPX’s objections, and the explosive question at the center of it all: did Vatican II change the Church’s teaching on salvation?In his recent interview with Communio, Cardinal Gerhard Müller criticized the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) for, among other things, its questioning of certain documents from Vatican II. The thrust of Cardinal Müller’s argument was based on the hermeneutic of continuity, according to which the Council’s documents are perfectly orthodox when “read in the context of the...

Italian bishop backs imam’s presentation of Islam inside Catholic parish churchArchbishop Giovanni Intini attended an April 15 event at an Italian parish where local Imam Khaled Bouchelaghem delivered what journalist Andrea Zambrano called an ‘Islamic catechism. An imam delivered a presentation of the Islamic faith inside a Catholic parish church in Brindisi, Italy, with the participation of the local bishop.On April 15, the parish of San Lorenzo in Brindisi, southern Italy, hosted an event titled “Do You Know Islam? Let us explore together the pillars, the meaning of life, and the celebrations of the Islamic faith,” in which Imam Khaled...

The Catholic Church’s Enemies are Feasting on the “Fruits” of Vatican II Sixty years later, Catholics can no longer ignore its rotten pastoral “fruits” of Vatican II. Robert Morrison examines how ambiguity, false ecumenism, and Rome’s post-conciliar trajectory have fueled confusion, weakened Catholic identity, and emboldened the Church’s enemies.One of the most important things about Vatican II, that both its defenders and critics can agree upon, is that it had a “pastoral” focus. Paul VI made this clear at various times, including during his August 6, 1975 general audience:“Differing from other Councils, this one was not directly dogmatic, but disciplinary...

[Catholic Caucus] Jonathan Roumie says he will only kneel for Holy Communion, even as liberal bishops attack reverenceJonathan Roumie said he has been ‘convicted’ by the Holy Spirit to only receive the Eucharist while kneeling, contradicting prelates who are attacking the practice.Jonathan Roumie, lead actor of The Chosen, informed Father Mike Schmitz during a recent podcast that he was denied Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling.Roumie explained that he felt “convicted” by the Holy Spirit to give the Eucharist more “reverence.” He said that he went to Mass recently and that he knelt to receive Our Lord. To his...

[Catholic Caucus] Has the Merciful Approach to Anti-Catholic Errors Worked for the Church?For centuries, the Catholic Church boldly condemned error to safeguard truth and souls. But beginning with Vatican II, a dramatic shift took place—away from doctrinal clarity and toward a new “pastoral” approach rooted in mercy over judgment. From Pius IX’s Quanta Cura to today’s Synod on Synodality, this article examines whether that shift preserved the Church… or helped unleash the very crisis now engulfing it.Blessed Pius IX began his 1864 encyclical “condemning certain errors,” Quanta Cura, with a paragraph that made it perfectly clear that he understood the...

[Catholic Caucus] Irony Alert: Trads Follow Vatican II on the Liturgy Better Than the Novus Ordo World Follows ItIn the recent much-discussed letter from Cardinal Parolin to the French bishops, conveying the sentiments of Leo XIV, a certain phrase sticks out: “May the Holy Spirit suggest to you concrete solutions that would generously include those sincerely attached to the Vetus Ordo, while respecting the orientations set forth by the Second Vatican Council regarding the Liturgy.”Well, we might want to take another look at the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, promulgated December 4, 1963. Admitting that...

[Catholic Caucus] EXCLUSIVE: Dutch bishop says Church in Netherlands has collapsed, warns Germany may be nextDue to heterodox ‘reforms’ after Vatican II, just 2% of Catholics in the Netherlands now attend Sunday Mass, down from 96% in some parts of the country, Bishop Robert Mutsaerts told LifeSiteNews.Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Bishop Georg Baetzing –former German bishops' conference presidentsDutch Bishop Roberts Mutsaerts has warned the Catholic Church in Germany that it will suffer a collapse like the Church in the Netherlands if its continues with the heretical Synodal Way.In an exclusive interview with LifeSiteNews journalist Andreas Wailzer, Bishop Mutsaerts, the auxiliary bishop...

[Catholic Caucus] Response to the Abbot of Solesmes concerning insertion of a changed traditional liturgy into the new Missal: we already have an “altered Mass”; it’s called the novus OrdoThe addiction to constant change is a feature and not a bug of the Vatican II mentality, legitimized however subversively by reference to a certain “spirit” with loose reference to the documents of said council.The Church is in need not of change, whether or not for its own sake. We have suffered spiritually under the tyranny of nothing but constant change for over sixty years with concomitant chaos and confusion. The...

The Connection Between Zionism, Religious Liberty, and Anti-Catholic BigotryIs it now forbidden to question Zionism without being branded “antisemitic”? Drawing on the words of World Zionist leader Nahum Goldmann himself, this investigation exposes a growing effort to redefine dissent as hate—while tracing the deeper roots of the conflict to Vatican II, religious liberty, and a decades-long struggle over the soul of Catholic teaching. What emerges is a striking paradox: in the name of tolerance, Catholics are increasingly told which beliefs they are no longer allowed to hold.Over the past few years, Zionist political figures and pundits have increasingly instructed Americans...

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican II Is NOT BindingStop Quibbling About ObedienceIn his Opening Speech to Vatican II on Oct. 11, 1962, John XXIII made it clear that Vatican II was about tone and not doctrine:[The Council must present] “the sacred patrimony of truth received from the Fathers [and] transmit that doctrine pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion, which throughout twenty centuries, notwithstanding difficulties and constraints, has become the common patrimony of men.”From the looks of things, the Council failed. If Nostra Aetate isn’t an “attenuation or distortion” of truth handed down from the Apostles to the Fathers and, through...

Priest: ‘Too many in the Church’ would rather condemn the SSPX instead of abortion, sodomyThe Vatican/SSPX dispute is an unfortunate situation for sure. But is it an intrinsically evil act to ordain bishops without the Pope's approval?I get most all of my news regarding the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals from an old married couple at the nursing home. When I pop in they are almost always glued to the TV, watching sports.On a recent visit I was somewhat surprised when the topic of religion came up before athletics. Before we started in about the Chiefs’ backfield or the Royals’...

[Catholic Caucus] Pro-Homosexual Bishop, Enemy of Latin Mass, Closes 70 Churches in the NetherandsSeventy church buildings in the Diocese of Roermond are currently in the process of being closed, Bishop Cornelis Van den Hout, 61, of Roermond, Netherlands, told Nd.nl on March 3.In 2026, he employed a full-time economist to oversee the closure of church buildings. "It's an urgent issue. The financial figures leave us with no other option," Bishop Van den Hout said.He believes that the downward spiral will not stop after the closing of the seventy churches. "At the moment, the diocese has 280 church buildings. Around the...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Schneider says Cdl. Fernández is ‘completely wrong’ that Vatican II texts cannot be changedThe Vatican doctrine chief's recent claim that Vatican II texts cannot be corrected has been pivotal in the SSPX’s decision to proceed with episcopal consecrations without Holy See approval.Bishop Athanasius Schneider declared that Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández’s claim that Vatican II’s texts cannot be modified is “completely wrong.”Schneider, the Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, addressed Fernández’s recent claim – which has now proved to be pivotal in the Society of St. Pius X’s (SSPX) decision to move forward with episcopal consecrations – in an...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Fernández tells SSPX superior that Vatican II documents ‘cannot be corrected’The Vatican's immovability chills the likelihood of an agreement with the SSPX, given that the Society has repeatedly insisted parts of Vatican II texts contradict magisterial teaching.Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, reportedly told Father Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), that documents from the Second Vatican Council cannot “be corrected.” A communiqué from the SSPX General House published Thursday revealed that, while Fernández has proposed dialogue with the SSPX to...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Eleganti urges Church leaders to ‘admit their own failures since Vatican II’Pope Leo XIV has already celebrated the very changes of Vatican II that Bishop Eleganti has lamented: those of the liturgy and of ecumenism.Bishop Marian Eleganti exhorted the Church and Pope Leo XIV to “finally admit their own failures since the Second Vatican Council,” including those of the Novus Ordo Mass, and of ecumenism.In an exclusive statement to LifeSiteNews, Eleganti returned to the last point of a recent statement in which he said that the faithful who “criticize the horizontalism and anthropocentrism in the Novus Ordo...

[Catholic Caucus] Letter to Pope Leo XIV: How Can You Embrace All Christians Except the Society of St. Pius X?As you know, one of the foundations of the Synodal Church is an inclusivity that embraces all Christians. But if the Synodal Church accepts all Christians, how can it also decide to cast off the SSPX if it consecrates bishops to continue its work?Your Holiness,God is in charge of His Church and will always provide for those who truly want to serve Him as faithful Catholics. As such, although we write with concern about the recent news from Cardinal Víctor Manuel...

[Catholic Caucus] Communiqué of the General House (FSSPX): interview in RomeThe interview, held one-on-one according to the Cardinal’s wish, lasted an hour and a half and took place in an atmosphere that was both cordial and frank. It allowed Father Pagliarani to listen carefully to the Prefect, and to specify the scope of the announcement of February 2, as well as the meaning of the steps taken with the Holy See in recent months.The Superior General was thus able to present orally the present situation of the Society of St. Pius X and its duty, in the year of the...