Vatican News portal reports on the in-flight press conference of the usurper Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) following his apostolic journey to Africa, covering his statements on war, migration, the death penalty, and the blessing of homosexual couples. The article, dated April 23, 2026, presents Leo XIV’s reflections on his encounters with African nations, his appeals for peace in the Iran conflict, his views on migration, and his response to Cardinal Marx’s authorization of blessings for same-sex couples. What emerges is not a shepherd defending the flock, but a diplomat of moral relativism, carefully avoiding the proclamation of Catholic truth in favor of a naturalistic humanism that serves the agenda of the conciliar sect rather than the eternal law of Christ the King.
The Proclamation of the Gospel Reduced to Political Commentary
Leo XIV begins by framing his journey as “above all a pastoral Apostolic Journey to meet, accompany, and get to know the People of God,” yet immediately qualifies this by stating: “Very often the interest expressed is more political: ‘What does the Pope say about this or that issue? Why doesn’t he judge the government in one country or another?’ And there are certainly many things to say. I have spoken about justice, and those issues are there. But that is not the first word.” This is a telling admission. The successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ, declares that political judgment — that is, the application of divine law to the governance of nations — is “not the first word.” But what is the first word? Not the preaching of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom, not the call to conversion, not the demand that rulers submit to the social reign of Christ the King. Instead, it is a vague “desire to proclaim the Gospel” understood merely as “drawing close to the people in their happiness… but also in their suffering.”
This is the language of the conciliar revolution, not of the Catholic Church. Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught with absolute clarity: “The Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… His reign extends not only to Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” And further: “Rulers of states therefore should not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ, but should fulfill this duty themselves and with their people, if they wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness.” The duty of the Church — and of him who claims to be her head — is not to avoid judgment of governments but to insist, publicly and unambiguously, that all nations must recognize the kingship of Jesus Christ. Leo XIV’s refusal to “judge governments” is not pastoral prudence; it is a abdication of the prophetic mission of the Magisterium and a direct contradiction of the solemn teaching of the Church.
Moreover, Leo XIV states: “It is also important to speak with Heads of State, to encourage a change of mindset or greater openness to thinking about the common good, and to consider issues such as the distribution of a country’s resources.” The “common good” — that modernist buzzword which has replaced the supernatural end of man — is presented as the horizon of the Church’s engagement with states. But the Catholic understanding of the common good is inseparable from the recognition of God’s sovereignty and the Church’s authority. Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei, taught that the common good of the state requires the profession of the true religion, and that the state which excludes God from its public life is built on sand. Pius XI, in Ubi Arcano, lamented: “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.” Leo XIV’s “common good” is the common good of liberal naturalism, stripped of all supernatural content.
Peace Without Justice: The Modernist Pacifism of the Conciliar Sect
When questioned about the war in Iran and the possibility of regime change, Leo XIV responds: “The issue is not whether there is regime change or not; the issue is how to promote the values we believe in without the death of so many innocent people.” He continues: “As a Church — I repeat — as a pastor, I cannot be in favor of war.” This statement, while superficially appealing, is a masterpiece of modernist equivocation. It reduces the Church’s teaching on war to a blanket pacifism that ignores the entire Catholic doctrine of the just war.
The Church has always taught that war can be licit under certain conditions — defensive war, just cause, legitimate authority, right intention, last resort, proportionality, and reasonable hope of success. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the entire tradition of Catholic moral theology affirm this. Leo XIV’s categorical statement, “I cannot be in favor of war,” without any of these distinctions, is not Catholic teaching but the pacifism of the modern world, the same pacifism that serves the interests of powerful nations and international organizations while leaving the weak defenseless.
Furthermore, Leo XIV’s framing of the issue as “regime change versus innocent deaths” is a false dichotomy designed to avoid the real question: What does justice require? If a regime is engaged in unjust aggression, the use of force to stop that aggression can be morally licit. The Catechism of the Council of Trent and the teaching of the Church Fathers are clear on this point. By refusing to address the question of justice and focusing exclusively on the avoidance of death, Leo XIV reveals the humanitarian — not Catholic — horizon of his thought.
His appeal to “international law” is equally revealing. “I would encourage the continuation of dialogue for peace, that all sides make every effort to promote peace, remove the threat of war, and respect international law.” International law, as it exists today, is the product of a secularized international order that explicitly excludes God and His law from its foundations. Pius XII, while acknowledging the possibility of a just international order, always insisted that true peace must be founded on the law of God. The “international law” invoked by Leo XIV is the law of the United Nations, an organization condemned by the Church for its promotion of religious indifferentism and its hostility to the social reign of Christ the King. To appeal to this law as the ultimate standard is to place human conventions above divine revelation.
Migration: The False Dignity of Man Without Baptism
On the question of migration, Leo XIV offers a response that is entirely framed within the categories of secular humanitarianism: “They are human beings, and we must treat human beings humanely, not treat them worse than animals, as often happens.” He speaks of “human dignity” — that idol of the modern world — without ever mentioning the supernatural dignity of baptism, the necessity of conversion, or the obligation of the state to protect the Catholic faith of its people.
The Church has always taught that the primary duty of the state is the salvation of souls, not the management of migration flows. Leo XIII, in Sapientiae Christianae, taught that Catholics are bound to prefer the good of the soul over the good of the body, and that the state exists to serve the supernatural end of man. Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the best theory of civil society requires that popular schools… should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority” (Proposition 47) and that “Catholics may approve of the system of educating youth unconnected with Catholic faith and the power of the Church” (Proposition 48). Yet Leo XIV’s treatment of migration ignores entirely the spiritual dimension of the problem — the danger to the faith of Catholic nations posed by mass migration of non-Catholics, the duty of the state to protect the religious unity of its people, and the obligation of migrants to seek conversion to the Catholic faith.
His call for “greater justice, equality, and development in these African countries so that people do not need to emigrate” is the language of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, not of the Gospel. The Church’s answer to the suffering of the poor is not development aid and investment by multinational corporations but the preaching of the Gospel, the administration of the sacraments, and the establishment of the social reign of Christ the King. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas: “If rulers and legitimate superiors will have the conviction that they exercise authority not so much by their own right as by the command and in the place of the Divine King, everyone will notice how religiously and wisely they will use their authority.” Leo XIV’s “development” is the development of the world, not the conversion of nations.
“Pope-Washing” and the Diplomacy of Moral Cowardice
When asked about meeting authoritarian leaders and the risk of “pope-washing,” Leo XIV responds with a defense of Vatican diplomacy that is breathtaking in its moral evasion: “Sometimes we have diplomatic relationships with countries that have authoritarian leaders. We have the opportunity to speak with them on a diplomatic level, on a formal level. We don’t always make great proclamations — criticizing, judging, or condemning. But there’s an awful lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to promote justice, to promote humanitarian causes.” He adds: “The Holy See, by maintaining, if you will, a neutrality… we’re actually trying to find a way to apply the Gospel to concrete situations.”
This is the language of the Vatican’s Ostpolitik, the shameful diplomacy of accommodation with communist regimes that characterized the pontificates of John Paul II and his successors. It is the language of “neutrality” — a concept utterly foreign to the Catholic Church, which is never neutral between truth and error, between Christ and Satan. The Church is commanded to “teach all nations” (Mt. 28:19), to “preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mk. 16:15), and to “convince, rebuke, and exhort” (2 Tim. 4:2). She is not commanded to maintain “diplomatic relations” with regimes that persecute the faith, nor to work “behind the scenes” while publicly lending her moral authority to tyrants.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). Leo XIV’s “neutrality” and “diplomatic relations” with authoritarian regimes is precisely this reconciliation with the modern world — a reconciliation that betrays the mandate of Christ to His Church.
The Blessing of Homosexual Couples: Unity Built on the Denial of Sin
On the question of Cardinal Marx’s authorization of blessings for same-sex couples, Leo XIV’s response is perhaps the most revealing of his modernist orientation: “I think it’s very important to understand that the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters. We tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality, I believe there are much greater, more important issues, such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue.”
This statement is a direct assault on the Catholic understanding of morality. The Church has always taught that sexual morality is not a peripheral matter but is intimately connected to the natural law and the divine order. The sin of sodomy is not merely one sin among many; it is, as St. Peter teaches, a sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance (cf. Gen. 18:20-21). The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its 1986 letter Homosexualitatis Problema — issued before the full corruption of the conciliar sect — taught that “homosexual activity is not a complementary union, able to transmit life” and that “to choose someone of the same sex for one’s sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals, of the Creator’s sexual design.”
Leo XIV’s attempt to relegate sexual morality to a secondary status — below “justice, equality, freedom of religion” — is a classic modernist maneuver. It is the same tactic used by the architects of Vatican II to marginalize the Church’s teaching on the social reign of Christ the King, the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation, and the obligation of the state to profess the true faith. By declaring that “unity should not revolve around sexual matters,” Leo XIV effectively declares that the Church’s constant teaching on the intrinsic disorder of homosexual acts is not a matter of faith — a proposition that is itself heretical.
His appeal to “unity upon Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ teaches” is particularly cynical. Jesus Christ taught that “whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery” (Mt. 19:9) and that the Sodomites will face the judgment of God. The Church has always taught that homosexual acts are “acts of grave depravity” and “intrinsically disordered.” Leo XIV’s “unity” is not unity in the truth but unity in the denial of truth — the unity of the conciliar sect, which has abandoned the preaching of sin and conversion in favor of a false “welcome” that leads souls to damnation.
The Death Penalty: A False Mercy That Denies Divine Justice
Leo XIV states: “I condemn capital punishment. I believe that human life is to be respected and that all people — from conception to natural death — their lives should be respected and protected.” This blanket condemnation of the death penalty is contrary to the constant teaching of the Church. The Church has always affirmed the right of the state to inflict the death penalty for grave crimes, as taught by St. Paul (Rom. 13:4), St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 64, a. 2), and the Roman Catechism. The death penalty is not a violation of the dignity of man but an act of justice that vindicates the order of God’s law.
The conciliar sect’s evolving position on the death penalty — from John Paul II’s ambiguous qualifications to Bergoglio’s outright condemnation in the 2018 revision of the Catechism — is a clear example of the “evolution of dogmas” condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (Proposition 58: “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him”). Leo XIV’s position is not a development but a corruption — a denial of the Church’s infallible teaching on the justice of capital punishment.
The Absence of the Supernatural: The Defining Characteristic of the Conciliar Sect
What is most striking about Leo XIV’s press conference is not what he says but what he does not say. There is no mention of the necessity of baptism for salvation. There is no call to conversion — not of migrants, not of authoritarian rulers, not of homosexuals. There is no mention of the sacraments, of the state of grace, of the final judgment, of the reality of Hell. There is no proclamation of the social reign of Christ the King, no demand that nations profess the Catholic faith, no warning against the sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.
This silence is the defining characteristic of the conciliar sect. As St. Pius X warned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, the modernists “propose to reform the Church by stripping her of the supernatural” and by reducing religion to “sentiment” and “experience.” Leo XIV’s press conference is a perfect illustration of this program: the Gospel is reduced to “drawing close to the people,” morality is reduced to “justice and equality,” and the Church’s mission is reduced to “dialogue” and “diplomacy.” The supernatural order — the order of grace, of merit, of eternal salvation — is entirely absent.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free — nor is she endowed with proper and perpetual rights of her own” (Proposition 19) and that “the Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion” (Proposition 21). Leo XIV’s entire approach to his “apostolic journey” is built on these condemned propositions. He does not act as the head of a divinely instituted society with the authority to teach, govern, and sanctify all nations. He acts as the secretary-general of a non-governmental organization, promoting “justice,” “peace,” and “human dignity” — the trinity of the modernist religion.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation Continues
Leo XIV’s Africa journey and press conference are a faithful continuation of the conciliar revolution. The usurper on Peter’s throne does not proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ but the gospel of humanitarianism. He does not call nations to conversion but to “dialogue.” He does not demand the social reign of Christ the King but promotes “international law” and the “common good” of secular liberalism. He does not preach the necessity of the sacraments but offers “blessings” to all — including those living in manifest, public, and unrepentant sin.
The faithful who remain steadfast in the integral Catholic faith must recognize, with clear eyes and unwavering conviction, that the structures occupying the Vatican are not the Catholic Church but the abomination of desolation spoken of by Our Lord (Mt. 24:15). The true Church endures — in the faithful who profess the unchanging doctrines of the faith, in the priests who offer the Most Holy Sacrifice according to the immemorial rite, and in the bishops who hold fast to the deposit of faith against all the novelties of modernism. As St. Pius X taught in Lamentabili Sane Exitu, the errors of modernism are “the synthesis of all errors,” and the conciliar sect is their institutional embodiment. Leo XIV’s press conference is but the latest manifestation of this apostasy — a apostasy that will continue until the Church is purified and the social reign of Christ the King is restored.
Source:
Pope: As a pastor, I cannot be in favor of war; too many innocents have died (vaticannews.va)
Date: 23.04.2026