June–July 2026
Mired in Modernism
The late Father John Hardon, S.J., never pulled his punches about the state of Holy Mother Church. A saintly scholar, he inspired the embattled faithful for decades with his merciful candour. This, of course, left him open to attack. And so he developed the practice of saying a little prayer before answering the phone, since he knew from long experience of writing, editing, and speaking out against the bogus New Springtime narrative that any call could be 'problematic', as it were.
For my part, logistical constraints imposed by CO's straitened circumstances finally entailed withdrawing the telephone option (among other 'luxuries') a dozen years ago. Nonetheless, one never knows what electronic and physical mailbags will throw up by way of praise or rebuke; thanks, or 'no thanks'. Writing and editing has its rewards but it's not for wimps! Reader reactions, like their temperaments, can differ wildly: a healthy state of affairs, albeit exasperating whenever raw emotion leapfrogs uncomfortable yet incontrovertible facts systematically set forth. Father Crane would relate hilarious examples of such 'feedback.' My own pièce de resistance was an envelope containing the finely cut-up remains of an entire edition! (I kept it for many years as a trophy of sorts, always offering a little prayer whenever it surfaced during cleanouts—for the poor anonymous soul I had clearly unhinged and driven to commit the ultimate hate crime: CO annihilation!)
Regardless, all letters, emails, and comments scribbled on renewal reminder letters are greatly appreciated and read with gratitude and interest, ever adding to my store of knowledge while keeping even a hint of pride well and truly in check! Sometimes it is the briefest remark that both surprises and says the most.
One such that stopped me in my tracks was a lone query on a recent renewal reminder that read: "Is the pope really that bad?". Despite all the damning evidence against the Holy Father laid out in these pages since his election, one could sense the writer's desperate desire to swap the excruciating reality for the consoling siren call of "No, he's actually not that bad."
After 60 scandalous years this remains the default setting for heads still ruled by wishful Catholic hearts. Heedless and blind, the disposition is nonetheless understandable. For, there is nothing more painful for the faithful than having to face their baptismal duty to defend our holy Faith from wayward post-conciliar pontiffs: to continually oppose their spurious pronouncements and scandalous acts of omission and commission. And yet, Saint Paul did not stint to strongly rebuke Saint Peter himself for compromising the Faith (for fear of the Jews). He recounted to the Galatians that "when Cephas came to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed."
So, if Peter was at fault for a one-off show of imprudence that imperilled unequivocal evangelisation of the Gentiles, how much more blameworthy and worthy of public rebuke are his Modernist successors for repeatedly muddying the pristine waters of Catholic truth; subverting unequivocal evangelisation at every turn.
Not wishing to belabour this point apropos our current pontiff, whose damning record we have dutifully cited throughout his first year in office, simply consider some recent headlines reflecting the tenor of his pontificate:
• Pope Leo appoints pro-LGBT archbishop as secretary for Dicastery for Clergy (22/1/26)
• Pope Leo officially appoints McCarrick-linked bishop as new archbishop of New Orleans (12/2/26)
• Pope Leo appoints heterodox consultants to Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue (21/1/26)
• Pro-Masonic Cardinal who Protected Child Molester and Homosexual Priest Campaigns for Canon Law Change (8/3/26)
• Pope Leo XIV just referred to Pope Francis as having “entered heaven.”
• New photos of future Pope Leo XIV in Pachamama idolatry emerge (19/3/26)
• Pope Leo DIVIDES CHURCH on SSPX, Freemasonry, and homosexuality
• Leo XIV Wants to “Generously” Include TLM Catholics but Only Within Vatican II Guidelines (25/3/26)
• Archbishop Viganò urges Italy to reject scandal-ridden Apostolic Nuncio designate (26/2/26)
• Bishop Labaka, in the process of beatification by Leo XIV, recounted how he allowed young indigenous people to touch his genitals. (12/2/26)
• Pope Leo is pushing the synodal error that process trumps truth
• Cardinals Cupich, McElroy, Tobin slammed for pushing leftist talking points on 60 Minutes (13/4/26)
• Pope Leo XIV has received the female “archbishop” of Canterbury in a private audience (28/4/26)
It goes without saying that the detailed reports below such explosive headlines are even more explosive—blowing apart desperate attempts by papolators to reconcile Leo with the Catholic faith of his papal forebears. The 'Archbishopess of Canterbury' debacle alone—a blasphemous Monty Python skit played out before the world—is enough to place Leo in the annals of papal infamy alongside Francis: the heretical infiltrator he has all but canonised.
Ever channelling Francis with alacrity, Leo always makes time to condemn capital punishment as well. It is, he said once again in a pre-recorded 24 April video message to an event at Chicago's DePaul University, "inadmissible." On the one hand, there goes Genesis 9:6 and the Catechism of the Council of Trent! On the other, here comes Martin Luther! The German heresiarch considered capital punishment "against the will of the Spirit", an idea condemned by Leo's namesake Leo X, in his 1520 bull Exurge Domine against the errors of Luther.
Occasionally, headlines emit slivers of light amid the gloom, e.g., Pope Leo names pro-life, anti-gender ideology bishop as new nuncio to Germany (10/4/26). But this outlier distracts from the major thrust of a papacy busily appointing figures "previously active in synodal processes, interreligious initiatives, and controversial theological movements across the Church," as one report noted.
The relentless trajectory was embodied in the 19 January 2026 papal appointment of Sofia Chipana Quispe as a consultant for the Vatican Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue. According to Novus Ordo Watch, Quispe is "(a)ssociated with indigenous, feminist, and decolonial currents, (and) she maintains that she promotes ‘prayer with Pachamama’; she also cites a statement from 2025: ‘We are not Pachamama … we belong to Pachamama’," per InfoVaticana.
Even as I type these words yet another damning headline trumpets: Pope Leo’s work with pro-abortion communist groups exposed in new report (11/5/26). It involves a detailed investigation by Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute into the Vatican’s World Meeting of Popular Movements and its connections to Marxist, pro-abortion, and LGBT organisations. On cue, the Holy Father is championing these Popular Movements, an initiative launched under Francis that Hinchborn confirms has brought openly socialist and communist organisations into close partnership with Vatican structures and local churches. (Readers will recall how Francis, after leading a Popular Movements meeting with the socialist Evo Morales, then president of Bolivia gleefully accepted the infamous hammer-and-sickle crucifix presented to him by Morales.)
There is no need to go on with daily examples of a papacy mired in Modernist sludge and the compromise, corrosion, and apostasy synonymous with the "synthesis of all heresies." (See Fr. Carney's concise summary of St Pius X's masterly condemnation of Modernism herein.) Diabolically disoriented by this overarching heresy, is it any wonder that Leo XIV places unity and the polarisation in the Church at the heart of his pontificate without comprehending that it is not the SSPX consecrations but regular reports of 'conservative' (read Catholic) priests being cancelled by their bishops (transferred out of a diocese or involuntarily laicised) that should be the focus of papal agendas and efforts? Does the Holy Father even see a connection between the widespread sympathy for the SSPX decision and the polarisation he wishes to overcome?
And what about the surfeit of bad bishops in the Church? Men whose Modernist malformation Leo mirrors even as he appoints, promotes and protects them. Thus, he enables them to carry on driving souls from the Church, while undermining the faith of those who remain: feeding them the saltless pap of the social gospel instead of the strong meat of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is our lot to endure this nightmare with the patience and charity of Christ. But not necessarily in silence. Responding to the insistence of Cardinal Fernández that Pope Leo XIV is not reversing Pope Francis but continuing him, and that anyone who suggests otherwise is being "dishonest," John-Henry Westen summed up the state of play:
The statement, buried in a recent interview, confirms what traditional Catholics have feared: Amoris Laetitia remains the road map. Communion for the divorced and remarried? Still open. The death penalty? Still redefined. The hermeneutic of continuity? Fernández calls it a lie.
If Leo is Francis’ successor in agenda as well as office, then the doctrinal shifts of the last 12 years are not anomalies; they are a trajectory. And the cardinal who drafted Fiducia Supplicans [Fernández] is now the gatekeeper, making sure no one turns the wheel the other way.
The warning is urgent: Calls to abandon attachment to past teachings are not pastoral. They are Modernist, condemned by popes before Francis was born. The question for Catholics is no longer whether the Church is changing. It is whether the faithful are expected to change with it — or resist.