The cited article reports that “Pope Leo XIV” presided over the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica on April 3, 2026. The papal preacher, Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini, delivered a homily exhorting Christians to “approach the Lord’s cross without fear,” framing the Cross primarily as a “throne” for learning to “reign with him by placing one’s life at the service of others.” He referenced the “Servant Songs” in Isaiah, presenting Christ’s passion as the ultimate act of non-violent love and service that breaks the “chain” of evil by “absorbing everything without retaliating.” The homily emphasized that “salvation will not drop down from above” but is achieved by those who “embrace the Songs of the Servant of the Lord as the shape of their own lives,” encouraging the faithful to “lay down the weapons” of their daily relationships and choose “not to return evil for evil.” The article presents this as a standard liturgical event within the post-conciliar structure.
The Theological and Spiritual Bankruptcy of a Modernist Homily
A Factual Deconstruction: The Homily’s Naturalistic Core
The homily, as reported, systematically omits the fundamental, supernatural realities of Good Friday. It presents the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ not as the unique, once-for-all propitiatory sacrifice that redeems mankind from sin and reconciles it to God, but as a moral exemplar of non-violent service. The language is entirely anthropocentric: “placing one’s life at the service of others,” “learning to reign,” “the score of love and service,” “making their lives serve not only themselves, but others.” The Cross becomes a “throne” upon which one learns to reign through human effort, a “score” to be carried out, a pattern for human behavior. This is a radical reduction of the Mysterium Paschale to a merely ethical program, a perfect expression of the Modernist error condemned by St. Pius X: reducing the supernatural to the natural, the divine to the human.
Linguistic Analysis: The Tone of Apostasy
The homily’s tone is one of vague, therapeutic encouragement, devoid of the stark, awe-inspiring terror that should accompany the liturgical commemoration of the death of God-made-man. Phrases like “approach the Lord’s Cross without fear—indeed, with full trust” and “a quiet and persistent song that invites us to love” reveal a sentimental, humanistic piety. The language is bureaucratic and inclusive (“we Christians,” “our days”), lacking any prophetic denunciation of sin, any call to contrition, any mention of God’s just wrath against iniquity. The silence on the necessitas reipublicae Christianae—the necessity of the public reign of Christ the King—is deafening. This is the language of the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place: a liturgy that speaks of love but is silent on justice; that speaks of service but is silent on sovereignty; that speaks of human effort but is silent on divine grace.
Theological Level: Confrontation with Unchanging Catholic Doctrine
The homily’s errors are not mere omissions but direct contradictions of Catholic theology defined before the rupture of 1958.
1. The Denial of the Propitiatory Sacrifice and the Reality of Sin. The homily never mentions that Christ died to satisfy divine justice for sin, to make reparation for offenses against God, and to liberate humanity from the bondage of the devil. It replaces the concept of propitiation (1 John 2:2, 4:10) with the concept of example. This is the core error of Pelagianism and Modernism. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, dogmatically defines Christ’s kingship as founded on His hypostatic union, whereby He possesses “unlimited right over all that is created” and “royal authority contains both these offices [of King and Priest] and shares in them.” The encyclical states that Christ “came to reconcile all” and that His reign encompasses all men because He is “the author of prosperity and true happiness for individual citizens as well as for the state.” The homily strips this of its juridical and sacrificial content, reducing the “reconciliation” to a human model of non-retaliation. It ignores that the Cross is the instrument of God’s justice and mercy, not merely a pattern for human conflict resolution. The Roman Catechism (1566) teaches: “The passion of Christ is the one and only sacrifice… by which the divine justice is satisfied, and eternal life merited for us.” The homily’s silence on satisfaction, merit, and justice is a denial of this defined doctrine.
2. The Omission of God’s Justice and the Final Judgment. The homily speaks of “hatred and violence” and “the darkness of evil” in purely sociological terms. It does not once reference the justitia Dei, the divine judgment that the Passion of Christ both endured and will enact. Pius XI, in Quas Primas, explicitly links the feast of Christ the King to the final judgment: “it will remind [states] of the final judgment, in which Christ, whom not only was cast out of the state, but was also forgotten and ignored through contempt, will very severely avenge these insults.” The homily’s “cross without fear” is a fear of human conflict, not the salutary fear of God’s judgment. It promotes a “god” who is a therapist, not a Judge; a companion, not a King whose rights demand public recognition and obedience.
3. The Reduction of Salvation to Human Effort and the Denial of Grace. The statement “salvation will not drop down from above, nor can it be guaranteed by political, economic, or military decisions” is a diabolical inversion. While correctly rejecting Pelagian trust in human structures, it replaces it with a Pelagian trust in human moral effort. It implies salvation is “guaranteed” by those who “choose not to return evil,” making it a human achievement. This contradicts the entire Thomistic and Tridentine doctrine of grace. The Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter 1, anathematizes the proposition that “the beginning of faith is in the power of man.” Salvation is a gift of God’s grace, merited by Christ’s sacrifice and applied through the sacraments. The homily’s “score of the cross” is something humans “accept” and “carry out,” not a redemption accomplished extra nos (outside of us) and applied to us. This is the “dogmaless Christianity” condemned by Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu, Proposition 26: “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities,” and Proposition 58: “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him.”
4. The Privatization of Faith and the Denial of Christ’s Social Kingship. The homily’s focus is entirely on individual “daily relationships” and personal “service.” It completely omits the social and political reign of Christ, which Pius XI established as the primary purpose of the feast of Christ the King. Quas Primas declares: “the Church… demands for itself… full freedom and independence from secular authority… it cannot depend on anyone’s will.” It states that rulers have the duty to “publicly honor Christ and obey Him,” and that “all relations in the state be ordered on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles.” The homily’s “servants” are those who serve others in personal relationships, not citizens and states bound to recognize the “rights of Christ the Lord’s royal dignity and authority.” This is the precise error of “indifferentism” condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, Proposition 15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which… he shall consider true.” By reducing the Cross’s meaning to personal ethics, the homily implicitly accepts the secularist separation of religion from public life, the very plague Pius XI sought to combat with the feast of Christ the King.
Symptomatic Level: The Fruit of the Conciliar Apostasy
This homily is not an anomaly; it is the logical fruit of the neo-church’s doctrinal revolution.
1. The Hermeneutics of Continuity in Action. The homily uses traditional language (“Cross,” “Passion,” “Servant Songs”) but empties it of its defined supernatural content. This is the “hermeneutics of continuity” in practice: keeping the words while changing their meaning. The “Servant Songs” are not presented as Isaiah’s prophecy of the unique, vicarious suffering of the God-Man who “bore the sin of many” (Is. 53:11) and whose sacrifice alone atones. They are reduced to a generic call to non-violent service, applicable to any “quiet and persistent” person. This is the “evolution of dogmas” condemned by Pius X: “under the guise of more serious criticism… they aim at such a development of dogmas as appears to be their corruption” (Lamentabili, I).
2. The Cult of Man and the Silence on the Supernatural. The homily’s entire focus is on human action: “choosing not to return evil,” “remaining patient,” “believing in good.” There is no mention of actual grace, sanctifying grace, the sacramental system, the Mass as propitiatory sacrifice, or the necessity of the state of grace for salvation. This is the “cult of man” of which Pius XI warned in Quadragesimo Anno. The homily teaches a religion of human effort, a “broad and liberal Protestantism” as Pius X prophesied (Lamentabili, Proposition 65). The most grave accusation is its silence on the supernatural: no mention of the Blood of Christ redeeming us from sin, no invocation of the Father’s mercy merited by the Son’s sacrifice, no reference to the Church as the necessary dispenser of grace. This is the hallmark of the conciliar sect’s preaching: a moralism that leads souls to hell by convincing them they can “serve” their way to heaven without the sacraments and without a living faith in the redemptive act of Calvary.
3. The False Ecumenism and Religious Indifferentism. The homily’s “Servant” is a figure of generic, non-retaliatory love that “does not shout, that does not impose itself by force.” This is a direct echo of the post-conciliar “witness of life” that downplays doctrinal truth and the exclusive salvific role of the Catholic Church. It aligns with the “ecumenical reinterpretation” of the Fatima message described in the provided file, where “conversion of Russia” is stripped of its Catholic content. The homily’s Christ is a “quiet and persistent” moral teacher, not the King of kings whose rights must be publicly acknowledged and whose law must govern nations. This is the “indifferentism” of the Syllabus, Proposition 16: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation.”
Critique of the “Clerical” Agent
Father Roberto Pasolini, as “papal preacher” for the antipope Leo XIV, is a functionary of the conciliar apostasy. His homily is a perfect instrument of the “abomination of desolation.” He uses the sacred setting of St. Peter’s and the liturgy of the Lord’s Passion to disseminate a doctrine that is, in its essence, naturalistic and Pelagian. He speaks of “the voice of God” as “just one voice among many,” directly contradicting the Catholic principle that God’s law is supreme and non-negotiable. His “servants” are those who “try to make their lives serve not only themselves,” a vague humanism utterly devoid of the Catholic concept of imitatio Christi which is rooted in the sacramental participation in His sacrifice. He is a “cleric” of the neo-church, teaching a doctrine that, if persisted in, leads to the loss of faith. As St. Pius X taught in Pascendi Dominici gregis, Modernists “seek to separate the dogmatic from the moral, and the moral from the dogmatic.” Pasolini’s homily is a textbook example: a moral lecture (non-violence) completely severed from the dogmatic heart of the Passion (the satisfaction for sin, the victory over death, the establishment of the New Covenant in His Blood).
The Uncompromising Contrast with Catholic Tradition
A traditional Catholic Good Friday homily, in continuity with the Fathers and the Magisterium, would have centered on:
1. The infinite offense of sin against God’s majesty, requiring an infinite satisfaction.
2. The unique, unrepeatable sacrifice of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, which alone propitiates the Father.
3. The precious Blood shed for the remission of sins, applied to souls through the sacrament of Penance and the Holy Mass.
4. The duty of all rational creatures to adore and make reparation for sins, especially through the solemn liturgy of the Passion.
5. The call to personal conversion, contrition, and penance, not just “service.”
6. The reign of Christ the King, whose rights were violated by His crucifixion and must now be recognized by individuals and states.
7. The hope of eternal life purchased for us, not a vague “more just world” achieved by human non-violence.
Instead, we are offered a therapeutic, this-worldly, humanistic discourse that makes the Cross a symbol of human potential rather than the instrument of divine redemption. This is not Catholicism. It is the religion of the Antichrist, which denies the necessity of the Incarnation’s redemptive act and places salvation in the hands of human moral endeavor.
Conclusion: A Call to Reject the Abomination
The Good Friday liturgy celebrated by the antipope Leo XIV and preached by Father Pasolini is a sacrilegious parody of the Catholic Holy Week. It is a “vain show” (Isa. 1:13) that mocks the true sacrifice of Calvary by replacing it with a sermon on humanistic non-violence. The faithful are not exhorted to adore the wounded, crucified God who bore their sins; they are exhorted to emulate a generic “servant” who “does not return evil.” This is a doctrine of demons (1 Tim. 4:1), designed to lull souls into a false security based on their own efforts, while cutting them off from the sole source of salvation: the sacramental life of the Catholic Church, which the conciliar sect has systematically dismantled. There is only one true Church, the one that teaches that “without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb. 9:22), and that the Blood of Christ is applied to us through the sacraments of Baptism and Penance, administered by priests in communion with the See of Peter. The “church” occupying the Vatican since John XXIII is the “synagogue of Satan” (Apoc. 2:9), and its liturgical ceremonies, however ornate, are idolatrous worship of the human will. The faithful must flee this abomination and seek refuge in the traditional Catholic faith, outside of which there is no salvation.
Source:
Pope Leo XIV Celebrates Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s Basilica (ncregister.com)
Date: 03.04.2026