EWTN News reports that the current usurper of Peter’s throne, Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), has responded to a letter from an 18-year-old Italian youth named Pietro who expressed anxiety about leaving high school and beginning university studies. The response, published in a Vatican-affiliated magazine, is a masterclass in therapeutic deism, emotional manipulation, and theological vacuity. While couched in tender language, the letter reveals the spiritual bankruptcy of the conciliar sect and its fundamental departure from the integral Catholic faith. The thesis is clear: the “advice” offered by the antipope is not merely inadequate but actively harmful, replacing the salvific mission of the Church with psychological counseling and reducing the Christian life to a journey of self-actualization devoid of doctrinal substance, sacramental urgency, and the supernatural order.
The Erosion of Doctrine: From Divine Revelation to Emotional Reassurance
The letter from Leo XIV is a textbook example of the modernist heresy condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis and Lamentabili sane exitu. The young man’s concerns are entirely natural and understandable—fear of the unknown, anxiety about friendships, uncertainty about God’s will. A true pope, acting as the Vicar of Christ and the supreme teacher of the faith, would have seized this opportunity to instruct the youth in the unchanging truths of Catholicism: the necessity of sanctifying grace, the reality of mortal sin, the importance of frequent and worthy reception of the sacraments (especially Confession and the Most Holy Eucharist), the obligation to seek a state of life in accordance with God’s law, and the paramount duty of saving his immortal soul above all earthly considerations.
Instead, the usurper offers a series of platitudes that could have been penned by any secular therapist or self-help guru. He assures Pietro that “the love of Jesus will always accompany you,” but fails to define what this love entails or how it is mediated. Is it merely an emotional feeling? Or is it the theological virtue of charity, infused into the soul by baptism and sustained through the sacraments? The deliberate ambiguity serves to reduce the supernatural reality of divine love to a vague, comforting sentiment. The statement that this love “does not depend on the decisions you make or the paths you take” is particularly dangerous. While it is true that God’s love is unconditional in the sense that He desires all men to be saved, it is a grave error to suggest that our choices have no bearing on our relationship with God. The entire moral theology of the Church, from the Ten Commandments to the Sermon on the Mount, is predicated on the reality that our actions have eternal consequences. To imply otherwise is to undermine the very foundation of Christian ethics and the necessity of repentance.
The Sacramental Vacuum: Silence on the Means of Grace
Perhaps the most damning omission in the letter is its near-total silence on the sacramental life. The young man is about to embark on a new chapter of life, one fraught with spiritual dangers—the temptations of the world, the allure of false ideologies, the pressure to conform to secular norms. A true shepherd would have emphasized the absolute necessity of frequent Confession to cleanse the soul of sin, of devout reception of the Holy Eucharist to strengthen the soul against temptation, and of daily prayer and recitation of the Rosary to maintain a close union with God. Instead, the usurper generically advises Pietro to “pray every day, listen to the word of God, receive the sacraments,” but without specifying which sacraments, how often, or why they are essential. This is not pastoral care; it is spiritual negligence.
The conciliar sect has systematically dismantled the sacramental life of the faithful. The Novus Ordo Missae, the rite of “Mass” promulgated by the apostate Paul VI, is a Protestantized abomination that obscures the propitiatory nature of the Sacrifice of the Calvary and reduces the Eucharist to a mere communal meal. The rite of Confession has been replaced by communal penitential services that lack the juridical precision and spiritual efficacy of the traditional sacrament. The other sacraments have similarly been corrupted, their rites altered to reflect the anthropocentric theology of the Second Vatican Council. To advise a young man to “receive the sacraments” within this context is to lead him into a spiritual wasteland where the true means of grace are either unavailable or gravely compromised.
The Cult of Man: Self-Factualization Over Sanctification
The letter’s emphasis on “discernment” and “inner peace” reveals the modernist obsession with subjective experience over objective truth. The young man is encouraged to focus on desires that grant him “a profound peace,” as if peace were a psychological state to be achieved rather than the “tranquility of order” (as St. Augustine defined it) that results from living in accordance with God’s law. The advice to “not be in a hurry to understand everything immediately” and to let “time be a patient teacher” is a recipe for spiritual passivity. The Church has always taught that the time for decision is now, that the uncertainty of the hour of death demands constant vigilance, and that the pursuit of holiness requires immediate and decisive action.
The reference to Mary is equally problematic. The usurper entrusts Pietro to Mary “who as a young woman learned to trust despite having kept in her heart questions greater than herself.” This is a sentimentalized, psychologized version of the Blessed Virgin, stripped of her role as Mediatrix of All Graces and Co-Redemptrix. The true Mary is not a model of passive trust in the face of uncertainty but the powerful intercessor who crushes the head of the serpent and leads souls to her Divine Son. The conciliar sect’s Mary is a harmless figure, a supportive friend rather than the Queen of Heaven and Earth.
The Absence of Christ the King: A World Without Authority
The entire letter is written from the perspective of a world that has rejected the social reign of Christ the King. Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas, established the Feast of Christ the King to combat the secularism and laicism that were already poisoning society in 1925. He taught that Christ’s kingship extends over all aspects of life—individual, familial, and societal—and that states and rulers have a public duty to recognize and obey Him. The usurper’s letter, by contrast, operates entirely within the framework of liberal individualism, where the relationship between God and man is a private matter, disconnected from the broader social and political order. There is no mention of the obligations of the state to uphold the faith, no warning against the dangers of secular education, no call to defend the rights of Christ the King in the public square. The young man is left to navigate the spiritual minefield of modernity with nothing but vague encouragement and emotional support.
Conclusion: The Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
The letter from Leo XIV to young Pietro is not an isolated incident but a symptom of the systemic apostasy that has consumed the conciliar sect since the death of the last true pope. It is a carefully crafted piece of propaganda designed to present the usurper as a compassionate, understanding figure while concealing the spiritual emptiness of his message. The young man deserves better. He deserves the fullness of the Catholic faith, unadulterated by modernist innovations and sentimental platitudes. He deserves a shepherd who will tell him the hard truths about sin, grace, and the necessity of salvation—not a counselor who offers therapeutic reassurance in place of the bread of life. Until the true Church is restored and the See of Peter is occupied by a legitimate successor of St. Peter, the faithful must rely on the immutable teachings of Tradition, the sacraments administered by validly ordained priests outside the conciliar structures, and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who alone can guide souls through the darkness of these times.
Source:
Pope encourages young man fearful of the future: ‘The love of Jesus will always accompany you’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 21.05.2026