The Vatican News portal reports on a February 1, 2026 audience where antipope Leo XIV addressed the “Gentlemen of His Holiness,” antechamber attendants, and chair bearers. The article emphasizes the “sober beauty that characterizes pontifical protocol,” describing their service as involving three verbs: “to prepare, to welcome, and to greet.” The usurper praised these officials for their “attentiveness and humility” in organizing papal encounters, claiming their actions communicate “affability to everyone” through “noble but not affected” gestures. He concluded by vaguely connecting their work to “solid faith” while avoiding any mention of Catholic doctrine, sacraments, or the social reign of Christ the King. This spectacle epitomizes the neo-church’s substitution of bureaucratic pageantry for divine mandate.
Naturalism Masquerading as Piety
The described event constitutes a sacralization of human protocol divorced from supernatural purpose. When antipope Leo XIV declares that “the quality of an encounter… begins with the care that distinguishes its preparation,” he inverts the Catholic hierarchy of values. The Church traditionally measures all human actions sub specie aeternitatis (under the aspect of eternity), yet here protocol becomes an end in itself. Pius XI’s Quas Primas explicitly condemned such naturalism: “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony” (§19).
The usurper’s praise for “gestures of welcome… noble but not affected” reveals the operation of modernist subjectivism. Without reference to the lex orandi (law of prayer) governing papal ceremonies, these rituals become theatrical performances. Compare this to the meticulous rubrics of the pre-1958 Cæremoniale Episcoporum, where every genuflection and fold of the falda manifested theological truths. The article’s description of “elegant but not sophisticated” gestures parallels the Lamentabili sane exitu condemnation of those who reduce liturgy to “a certain pious custom” (Proposition 48).
Ecclesiological Subversion Through Protocol
By directing officials to show equal deference to “prince or pilgrim, patriarch or petitioner,” the Vatican apparatus enacts the conciliar heresy of collegiality. The pre-conciliar Annuario Pontificio maintained strict hierarchical distinctions between cardinals, bishops, and laity – not as social niceties, but as visible expressions of the Church’s divine constitution. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 1258) mandated that non-Catholics be excluded from active participation in Catholic rites, yet this neo-church protocol deliberately blurs distinctions in service of false ecumenism.
The claim that these officials bear witness through “coherent life” and “solid faith” constitutes theological evasion. St. Pius X’s Sacrorum Antistitum required the Professio Fidei against modernism for all clergy and those serving the Roman Curia. Does this “solid faith” include adherence to the Council of Trent’s canons on justification? The Syllabus of Errors condemned precisely this generic religiosity: “The Church ought to tolerate the errors of philosophy” (Proposition 11). Silence answers.
Omission as Dogma: The Unspoken Apostasies
Nowhere does the article mention Christ’s kingship – a glaring omission given that Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat secularism’s “plague which poisons human society” (Quas Primas §24). The term “sacrament” appears zero times, nor is there reference to the Mass as sacrifice. When antipope Leo XIV speaks of “faith,” he reduces it to subjective devotion rather than fides quae creditur (the faith which is believed), the defined dogmas of Trent and Vatican I.
Most damningly, the protocol officers’ black tailcoats and white ties ape the formal wear of Masonic lodges. The 1884 Humanum Genus condemned Freemasonry’s “strict resemblance to the Church in its rites and ecclesiastical pomp,” noting how they “fabricate for themselves a peculiar dress.” That these “Gentlemen” operate under the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household – an office held by the excommunicated modernist Msgr. Leonardo Sapienza – confirms the abomination’s institutionalization.
The neo-church’s protocol is the liturgy of the Antichrist: aesthetically refined, theologically vacant, and diametrically opposed to the ars celebrandi that for centuries guarded Catholic worship. As St. Pius X warned, “The true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries nor innovators, but traditionalists” (Notre Charge Apostolique). In this Vatican theater, we witness not Peter’s successor but “the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not” (Mark 13:14).
Source:
Pope Leo XIV encourages Gentlemen of Papal Household in their service (vaticannews.va)
Date: 01.02.2026