[VaticanNews] reports that antipope Leo XIV has sent a message to the French Bishops’ Conference meeting in Lourdes, addressing three themes: Catholic education, the abuse crisis, and the liturgy, particularly communities attached to the so-called Vetus Ordo. The letter, signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, urges bishops to defend Catholic education’s Christian identity “with determination” while promoting “openness and respect for the convictions of all.” On abuse, it calls for continued listening to victims and extending God’s mercy to all, including “priests guilty of abuse.” Regarding the liturgy, Leo XIV expresses concern that divisions over the Vetus Ordo constitute a “painful wound” and invites bishops to seek “concrete solutions” to include these communities “while remaining faithful to the directions of the Second Vatican Council.” He also points to rising catechumen numbers as a “sign of hope.”
This letter is not a pastoral exhortation but a manifesto of the conciliar apostasy, a systematic denial of the supernatural ends of the Church and a surrender to the naturalistic humanism condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium. It reduces the Church to a philanthropic agency, distorts justice and mercy, and perpetuates the liturgical revolution under the guise of “welcoming” those who rightfully reject it. Every theme is imbued with the modernist errors anathematized by St. Pius X and Pope Pius IX.
The Naturalistic Reduction of Catholic Education
The antipope’s call to defend Catholic education’s “Christian identity” while simultaneously promoting “openness and respect for the convictions of all” is a direct contradiction in terms. Catholic education exists not to foster “openness” to all convictions but to form souls in the exclusive truth of the Catholic faith, for which the Church has the right and duty to demand full assent. This is precisely what the Syllabus of Errors condemns:
Error #15: Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.
Error #16: Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation.
Error #19: The Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free—nor is she endowed with proper and perpetual rights of her own, conferred upon her by her Divine Founder; but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church…
By framing Catholic education’s “raison d’être” in terms that must coexist with “respect for the convictions of all,” Leo XIV subscribes to the indifferentism of Syllabus #15-18. The pre-conciliar Church taught that Catholic education is an extension of the Church’s mission to teach all nations (Matt. 28:19-20), not a pluralistic forum. Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Divini illius magistri (1929) explicitly states: “The Church alone possesses the right to educate, because she alone has the mission to form the whole man, in body and soul, for the supernatural end to which he is destined.” There is no “openness” to error; there is the duty to refute it. The antipope’s language mirrors the secular “climate of growing hostility” he acknowledges, thereby accepting the premises of the anti-Catholic state—a capitulation condemned by Syllabus #39-55 on the subordination of the Church to civil power.
The omission is damning: there is no mention of the supernatural purpose of education—the salvation of souls. No reference to the necessity of Catholic doctrine as the sole rule of faith. No condemnation of secular curricula that poison youth with atheism and immorality. Instead, the focus is on institutional survival in a hostile environment, a purely naturalistic concern. This is the “cult of man” denounced by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis, where Modernists “invite” the Church to “enter into an alliance with the world.”
The Perversion of Mercy and Justice in the Abuse Crisis
The letter’s treatment of abuse is a masterpiece of ambiguity, substituting sentimental “mercy” for the rigorous demands of justice and the protection of the faithful. While calling for listening to victims and prevention, it shockingly includes “priests guilty of abuse” among those to whom “God’s mercy” must be extended, placing them in the same pastoral category as victims. This is not Catholic teaching. Mercy does not cancel justice; it presupposes it. The Church’s first duty is to protect the innocent and purge the corrupt (cf. 1 Cor. 5:13). Canon law (1917) mandated deposition and degradation for clerics guilty of sexual abuse (Can. 2359 §2). The antipope’s language, however, reflects the post-conciliar obsession with “accompaniment” and “mercy” that has become a cloak for leniency toward predators and a betrayal of the vulnerable.
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili sane exitu, condemned the Modernist proposition that “the Church has no power of using force, nor has she any temporal power” (#24) and that “the ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government” (#20). The abuse crisis has shown the catastrophic results of a Church that, having embraced these errors, defers to civil authorities and psychological “experts” instead of exercising its own judicial power with severity. The letter’s call for “long-term prevention measures” without any mention of canonical trials, laicization, or the duty to report to civil authorities when required by law (a duty pre-dating the 1983 Code) is a further sign of the conciliar sect’s abdication of its authority.
The phrase “deeply affected” for bishops “affected by the consequences of abuse committed by some of their fellow clergy” is a bureaucratic euphemism that obscures complicity and negligence. Where is the call for public penance? Where is the demand for bishops to resign if they covered up crimes? The pre-conciliar Church held bishops accountable as successors of the Apostles, not as CEOs managing a PR crisis. The antipope’s letter treats abuse as a pastoral “wound” to be healed by “understanding and sensitivity,” not as a crime demanding justice. This is the naturalistic, psychological approach of the world, not the supernatural justice of the City of God.
The Liturgical Ambiguity: A “Wound” of Unity?
The most audacious section is the treatment of the Vetus Ordo. Leo XIV calls the division over the liturgy a “painful wound within the Church regarding the celebration of the Mass,” which he calls “the very sacrament of unity.” This is a inversion of reality. The wound is not the existence of communities attached to the immemorial Roman Rite, but the violent imposition of the Novus Ordo by the architects of the conciliar revolution, which has shattered liturgical unity by replacing the traditional Mass with a rite that is, at best, deficient and, at worst, invalid. The antipope’s concern is not for the integrity of the Mass but for the “pain” of division caused by those who refuse the reformed liturgy—as if the problem were the resistance, not the revolution.
He invites bishops to find “concrete solutions” that “generously include” Vetus Ordo communities “while remaining faithful to the directions of the Second Vatican Council.” This is a logical and theological impossibility. Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, mandated the “active participation” of the people through the vernacular, the simplification of rites, and the insertion of new prayers—all of which constitute a fundamental rupture with the Tridentine Mass. To be “faithful to Vatican II” is to reject the Vetus Ordo. To be attached to the Vetus Ordo is, by definition, to reject the council’s liturgical “directions.” The antipope’s call for “solutions” is a demand for compromise with error, a typical conciliar tactic: acknowledge the “sensitivity” of traditionalists while insisting they conform to the revolution.
This duplicity is condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus: Error #55: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.” The conciliar sect has applied this to liturgy, creating a “parallel Church” where the old Mass is tolerated as a private devotion, not as the true public worship of the Church. The antipope’s language of “welcoming” and “understanding” is the language of the ecumenical movement, not of Catholic authority. The true solution is not “generosity” toward traditionalists but the restitution of the Vetus Ordo as the exclusive rite of the Roman Church, as it was before the tyranny of Sacrosanctum Concilium. The antipope, by upholding Vatican II, sides with the revolutionaries and against the immemorial tradition.
The False “Signs of Hope”: Catechumens in a Time of Apostasy
The letter’s conclusion points to rising catechumen numbers as a “sign of hope and of God’s presence in people’s hearts.” This is a satirical inversion. In the pre-conciliar Church, catechumens underwent rigorous instruction in Catholic doctrine, with explicit warnings that outside the Church there is no salvation (extra Ecclesiam nulla salus). Today, the RCIA process is a watered-down, ecumenical program that often presents Catholicism as one “path” among many. The “renewed spiritual interest” is not measured by baptisms but by the content of the faith received. The Syllabus condemns the notion that “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion” (#18)—yet post-conciliar catechesis routinely presents Protestant communities as “ecclesial communities” with elements of sanctification. Catechumens baptized into this ambiguous system are not converts to the Catholic faith but to the conciliar sect’s synthetic religion.
Moreover, the letter ignores the catastrophic decline in sacramental practice, vocations, and belief in core dogmas (e.g., the Real Presence, the divinity of Christ) that has followed Vatican II. St. Pius X, in Pascendi, warned that Modernism “leads to Atheism, to Pantheism, to human respect, to a false liberty of conscience, to a false liberty of the press, to the separation of Church and State, to the denial of the rights of God over the State and of the rights of the Church over the family and over individuals.” The “signs of hope” are statistical illusions masking the greatest apostasy since the Arian crisis. The antipope’s optimism is the optimism of the Modernist who believes the Church can evolve with the world, contrary to the immutable truth that “the Church is an enemy of the progress of natural and theological sciences” (Lamentabili #57).
The Theological Bankruptcy of the Conciliar Mindset
Underlying every theme is the fundamental error of the post-conciliar church: the substitution of the supernatural order with a naturalistic, humanitarian project. The antipope’s letter never mentions the Sovereign Majesty of God, the necessity of grace, the reality of hell, the duty of Catholic states to recognize Christ as King, or the absolute exclusivity of the Catholic Church as the sole ark of salvation. This silence is itself a heresy, for it denies the raison d’être of the Church: the salvation of souls through the exclusive means of the sacraments and the true faith.
Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, established the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism that now permeates the conciliar sect:
“When God and Jesus Christ—as we lamented—were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed… the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation.”
Leo XIV’s letter operates entirely within the framework of “God removed from laws and states.” Its concerns are institutional reputation, psychological healing, and social cohesion—the very things Pius XI identifies as the fruits of rejecting Christ’s kingship. Where is the call for the French bishops to publicly proclaim the Social Kingship of Christ over France? Where is the condemnation of the French Republic’s secularist laws as contrary to the divine constitution of society? Where is the demand that Catholic education teach that all human rights are subordinate to God’s rights? Nowhere. The letter is a surrender to the world’s agenda.
The symptomatic level reveals the depth of apostasy. The antipope speaks of “communities attached to the Vetus Ordo” as if they were a special interest group, not the faithful upholding the true worship of God. He speaks of “abuse” as a pastoral failure, not a crime that demands canonical penalties. He speaks of “education” as a service, not a supernatural mandate. This is the language of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15)—a pseudo-Church that has replaced the worship of God with the worship of man, the salvation of souls with the management of crises, and the immutable faith with a dialogical, evolving religion.
Conclusion: A Call to Reject the Conciliar Sect
The letter from Leo XIV is not a document of the Catholic Church. It is a product of the post-conciliar revolution, dripping with the errors of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X and the Syllabus of Errors. It promotes indifferentism in education, perverts justice in the abuse crisis, and perpetuates liturgical ambiguity. Its “signs of hope” are delusions. Its tone is managerial, not apostolic. Its God is a vague “mercy” without justice, a “presence in hearts” without dogma.
The only appropriate response for faithful Catholics is total rejection. The true Church, which endures in those who hold the integral faith and are led by valid bishops who have not embraced the conciliar errors, must have no part in this apostate structure. As St. Pius X taught, Modernism is “the synthesis of all heresies.” The antipope’s letter is a synthesis of all the errors of the conciliar sect: naturalism, relativism, and the denial of the Church’s supernatural mission. To follow this letter is to follow the path to perdition. The only hope is the restoration of the immutable faith, the traditional liturgy, and the Social Reign of Christ the King—a hope that cannot be found within the walls of the conciliar abomination.
Source:
Pope writes to French Bishops on education, abuse, and liturgy (vaticannews.va)
Date: 25.03.2026