[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
A recent online debate between Eastern Orthodox podcaster Jay Dyer and Catholic apologist Timothy Gordon focused on the roots of papal authority, as in: What did Jesus really mean when He said, “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church?”
Pundits gave the debate win to Gordon mostly because he put Dyer on the defensive. Other Catholic apologists praised Gordon’s performance, after which they bemoaned the state of Peter’s Church: its wrecked, Protestant-style liturgy; its globalist Francis 2.0 new pope (Leo), and its gradual descent into LGBTQ rainbow land.
Ironically, while none of the apostasy-like aberrations listed above are happening with any real force in the Orthodox Church, no mention was made during the Dyer-Gordon debate of the countless Catholics who have gone over to Orthodoxy because of the corruption of the Catholic Mass versus the ancient unchanging liturgy of the East.
Indeed, why would any serious Orthodox Christian trade the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom for the bland Novus Ordo Mass, in which women in yoga pants distribute communion?
In an interview with Art Bell before his death in 1999, author Malachi Martin stated that Christ had withdrawn His grace from the Roman Church because of the liturgical and theological abuses that arose from Vatican II.
Since Vatican II’s suppression of many Catholic traditions, apologists like Timothy Gordon spend 99% of their time bemoaning the dismantling of authentic Catholicism.
They bemoan altar girls while nearly every Catholic parish in the U.S. utilizes them. They criticize communion-in-hand which has now become the Catholic norm. They decry newer and bolder forms of liturgical abuse, such as when priests and bishops defy Rome and concelebrate with Anglican priestesses.
Such an event occurred on August 26 when a retired Mexican bishop concelebrated the Mass with an Anglican priestess at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
Bishop Emeritus Raul Vera Lopez presided at the Mass with the Rev. Emilie Teresa Smith. The Anglican priestess wore a simple stole, but she was a full participant, even participating in the words of Consecration.
The bishop defended his actions with the following statement: “Not only does she [Rev. Smith] work with the poor, she has a parish, has a theological background, she is a writer, she is ready to participate in a meeting of the United Nations and with God’s people around the defence of our Mother Earth.”
This, in a nutshell, describes the Church of Leo XIV.
Leo XIV allows bishops like Lopez to do what they want while simultaneously ignoring the pleas of Latin Mass communities all over the world for greater freedom in accessing the traditional Mass.
A kind of mafia-like aura has surrounded the papacy since the close of Vatican II. At the top of the “mafia’s” list is the canonization of every pope since 1965. This is their way of legitimatizing and “sanctifying” Vatican II. While Pope John Paul I’s cause for sainthood is already gaining traction, how many months will it be before that most anti-Catholic of all modern popes, Francis, is declared a saint? Not long.
Not only that, but after Pope Leo’s death he will also be declared a saint.
The canonization process in the Roman Church has become a joke, but it is a joke with a purpose: to render null and void any serious reform of the reform.
Paradoxically, many of these same Catholic podcasters — Timothy Gordon and Taylor Marshall, to name two — have switched to one of the Catholic Eastern rites in their personal lives in order to participate in a dignified liturgy while simultaneously defending papal authority, even as that authority reconfigures the mainstream Catholic Church into another variation of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
In the meantime, Leo XIV is busy at work canonizing the legacy of his predecessor Francis with the appointment of liberal bishops, especially when it comes to LGBTQ issues.
Leo’s recent official Vatican meeting with America magazine editor and Jesuit priest, James Martin, was nothing less than a confirmation of his approval of Martin’s ministry to rewrite the Catholic catechism.
Martin came away from that meeting with an ecstatic smile on his face. That smile reminded me of news reports before the election of Prevost that Martin had put his early bets on Prevost as the perfect Francis 2.0 pope.
What did Martin know about Prevost at that time?
I have my theories.
What they used to call the ‘gay sensibility’ in the old gay liberation movement might be a helpful reference here. Let me explain: what unites Catholic male clergy “suffering” from same sex attraction is an unspoken but tight fraternal bond, a kind of psychic radar. It matters little whether the SSA is realized in physical acts or presents as an asexual attraction (held in abeyance because of priestly vows).
What matters is this: it is still operative.
This “soul” fraternity reminds me of the secret hand signals of freemasons. The brotherhood of SSA is an insoluble bond that sadly often slips into the orbit of liberal-political advocacy for open borders, the ordination of women and praise for more James Martin-style priests and bishops.
This was on full display in the Vatican on September 5 during an international meeting called “Listening to the Experiences of LGBTQ Catholics,” organized by Outreach, a U.S. organization founded by James Martin. The event included a prayer vigil inside Rome’s Church of the Gesu with LGBTQ Catholics and their families.
The vigil ended with a procession of some 1300 people, led by someone holding a rainbow cross, that marched into Saint Peter’s Basilica. The event — which included men in shorts, many holding hands and even patting one another on the ass — was blessed by Pope Leo.
Now, something like a rainbow-colored crucifix in an official Vatican procession would have sent pre-Vatican II popes — even John Paul II and certainly Benedict XVI — into paroxysms of disbelief leading to a heart attack or stroke.
Bob Prevost (Leo), is the Joe Biden of popes. He is a weak, milquetoast blank slate or puppet for the controlling radical forces that now steer the Vatican. He cherishes celebrity and the limelight; he autographs motorcycles and holds babies to thunderous applause while refusing to meet with the new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican (because he loathes Trump’s immigration policies), instead filtering that meeting off to an assistant, breaking a long-standing papal tradition.
Before he met with Martin, he met with a heretical nun, Sister Lucia Karam, who publicly denies the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary, supports abortion and gay marriage while making statements like, “The Church needs to bless any kind of love and not interfere in the desires of those who have abortions.”
What kind of Catholic Church is this?
Sister Karam even says it is inevitable that gay marriage will be regarded as a sacrament in the Church.
Rather than correct Sister Karam — who wears a religious habit, unlike those flamboyant radical nuns on a bus — Prevost as Leo smiled his goofy welcoming smile that suggested acceptance of her heretical views.
He let her go without a slap on the wrist, and then he embraced his fraternal soul brother, Jimmy, who has always claimed Prevost as his own.