The Catholic News Agency portal reports that “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) addressed the Roman Rota on November 21, 2025, condemning “false mercy” in marriage annulment proceedings while paradoxically defending Benedict XVI’s and Francis’ procedural reforms. The antipope insisted that annulments constitute an “ecclesial service based on the search for truth” requiring “synergy between pastoral attention to critical situations and the judicial sphere,” claiming this balance manifests “justice and mercy.”
Canonical Fraud Under the Guise of “Reform”
The article admits the current annulment process follows Francis’ 2015 reforms which eliminated mandatory appellate review and instituted a bureaucratic “administrative model” under diocesan “delegated judges.” This directly violates Canon 1640 of the 1917 Code which demanded three conforming sentences for nullity declarations. The antipope’s praise for these changes as making proceedings “more accessible and expeditious” exposes the neo-church’s fundamental betrayal of marriage’s indissolubility. Pius XII condemned such innovations in his 1941 address to the Roman Rota: “The Church has never admitted the principle of ‘free examination’ in matrimonial causes…for the essential properties of marriage – unity and indissolubility – admit of no exception” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 33:424).
“The aim of the reform…is to make the process more accessible and expeditious, but never at the expense of truth,”
This Orwellian doublespeak masks the revolution. When “expediency” replaces the Church’s historic safeguards against fraudulent annulments – including the 1917 Code’s requirement for moral certitude (Canon 1869) – truth becomes the first casualty. The article’s admission that tribunals now conduct “preliminary investigations aimed at ascertaining the existence of grounds for initiating a case of nullity” institutionalizes heresy by presuming marriages are invalid until proven otherwise. Contrast this with Pius XI’s definitive teaching: “God Himself…has forbidden the divorce of marriage absolutely” (Casti Connubii §6).
Theological Subversion Through “Pastoral Synergy”
Leonine doublespeak reaches its apex in the claim that annulment processes constitute “a contribution by legal practitioners to satisfy the need for justice…motivated by true mercy.” This naturalistic reduction of sacramental theology to therapeutic jurisprudence ignores the supernatural reality of marriage as “a great sacrament in Christ and in the Church” (Eph 5:32). The antipope’s call for “efforts to promote reconciliation between spouses” rings hollow when the entire neo-annulment apparatus incentivizes divorce by treating marriage as a revocable contract rather than an indissoluble covenant.
The article’s promotion of “pastoral care of the family” as justification for streamlined annulments directly contradicts Pius XI: “No human law can abolish the natural and primitive right of marriage, nor in any way limit the chief purpose of marriage” (Casti Connubii §8). By reducing the tribunal’s role to a “piece in the task of promoting the good of families,” the conciliar sect denies the Church’s judicial authority derives from Christ’s mandate to bind and loose (Mt 18:18). This modernist inversion subordinates divine law to sociological expediency – precisely what Leo XIII condemned as the “pernicious error that the Church must accommodate herself to modern conditions” (Testem Benevolentiae).
Ecclesiological Heresy in Judicial Dress
Most damning is the article’s admission that “the mystery of the conjugal covenant” must be considered alongside “the truth about personal and community rights.” This gnostic separation of sacrament from canon law manifests the conciliar sect’s fundamental error – that the Church’s juridical structure exists independently of her divine constitution. As Pius XII taught: “The juridical community established by Christ…is the supernatural organism which contains within itself the juridical and social elements” (Mystici Corporis §63). The antipope’s claim that “the declared juridical truth is an aspect of existential truth within the Church” reduces sacramental reality to phenomenological subjectivism – the very Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (§6).
The Roman Rota’s continued existence in the neo-church constitutes theater. Its judges lack jurisdiction not only because they serve an antipope, but because they apply invalid 1983 Code canons. As the 1917 Code’s Canon 2200 established, those who promulgate laws contrary to divine law lose all authority. The article’s glowing report on this farce exposes the conciliar sect’s modus operandi: maintain traditional terminology while gutting it of Catholic substance. In the words of St. Pius X: “The Modernist sustains and embraces all opinions…even to the extent of atheism” (Pascendi §39).
Source:
Pope Leo XIV warns against ‘false mercy’ in marriage annulment proceedings (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 22.11.2025