Letter #63, 2025, Wednesday, September 10: Leo analyzed
Pope Leo, elected on May 8, has now been Pope for 4 months and 2 days (just over 120 days).
John Allen argues below that Pope Leo is a “classic Moderate.” (Here is a link to Allen’s September 7 analysis)
For his part, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, 64, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan (he was born in the former Soviet union to a Catholic Volga German family, link), is deeply concerned about certain of Leo’s actions. Here below is what he said to American journalist Diane Montagna in an interview published on Montagna’s Substack page today (link).
Roman sacred music composer, organist and writer Maestro Aurelio Porfiri says, in a reflection published today, “the Church welcomes all sinners,” then adds: “It is absolutely necessary to love all people, whatever their condition or weaknesses may be. But in loving persons, one must not love—much less justify—their sin.” (link)
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All over the world, Catholics are praying for the new Pope.
Catholics everywhere recognize that we live in a profoundly relativistic age of dizzying technological change, and also realize that there are many pressures on every Pope, including this one, sometimes quite public pressures, and sometimes veiled pressures.
Therefore, because of the world’s situation, and the situation of the tiny Vatican City State just 121 acres in size and with a population of just 882 people in 2024, there is a great reserve of good will for this new American Pope.
And millions have been edified by Leo’s calm, devout, pious, and eminently reasonable words and actions during these first four months of his papacy.
Precisely for this reason, millions are praying that God will protect and defend him, and enable him to lead the Church wisely and courageously in these very difficult, challenging, times.
—RM
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Pope Leo XIV at his Wednesday General Audience in the Vatican on June 25, 2025 (Credit: Vatican Media)
Here is an analysis by American Vaticanist John Allen, founder of Crux, an important Catholic news agency.
Maybe we should stop waiting for real pope to emerge from under careful facade (link)
September 7, 2025
ROME – A September 5-7 pilgrimage of roughly 2,000 LGBTQ+ Catholics to Rome as part of the ongoing Jubilee Year, which is not formally part of the calendar of official celebrations but which never nevertheless has been welcomed by some church officials, culminates today with a procession of participants into St. Peter’s Square for the pope’s traditional noontime Angelus address.
Among many Vatican-watchers, pundits and activists – especially, of course, in the United States and Western Europe – the gathering, and everything it represents, is being styled as an acid test for Pope Leo XIV.
The presence of all those LGBTQ+ pilgrims in the Eternal City, these observers say, will force the pope to step out from his shell – to finally raise his voice and declare definitively if he stands with the reformist, inclusive vision of his predecessor, Pope Francis, or if he leans in a more traditional and restrictive direction.
In other words, people on both sides of the ideological tensions that any mention of the LGBTQ+ agenda inevitably awake are breathlessly waiting for the real pope to emerge from beneath his cautious, careful, and measured façade.
To which I suspect the obvious answer may be: You may want to consider that the cautious, careful and measured façade, in the end, is the real pope.
In that light, waiting for someone else to step forward – either a firebrand change agent in the spirit of Francis, or a throwback traditionalist in the manner of some of Francis’s fiercest critics – will turn out to be an exercise in frustration.
In tandem with the current pilgrimage, American Jesuit Father James Martin met [on September 1] with Pope Leo and came out of that session full of reassurances for the LGBTQ+ community, saying that pope had vowed that he wishes to continue the inclusive approach of Francis.
While there’s certainly no reason to question that account, it’s nonetheless telling that Leo is apparently content to deliver his message off-camera and in private to Martin, rather than doing so in his own voice in some public setting.
It’s an clever way of doing business, choosing an interlocutor whom you know will be trusted and taken seriously by the community you want to address, but not making public statements yourself which you know full well would be scrutinized, spun and distorted on all sides of today’s ideological catfights.
At the moment, it seems that’s as much of a “big reveal” as the LGBTQ+ pilgrimage is likely to generate.
Anyone expecting something more from the pontiff – some dramatic public gesture, such as showing up himself impromptu to celebrate Mass for the group, or some landmark public declaration, such as a vow to promote the blessings for couples in same-sex unions referred to in the controversial 2023 document Fiducia Supplicans, is almost certain to be disappointed.
“By all accounts, a classic moderate”
By all accounts, Leo XIV is a classic moderate on most matters, including the LGBTQ+ issue. There’s no sign he plans to disown the Francis emphasis on welcoming anyone who wishes to be part of the church, but there is equally no indication that he intends to move the goalposts in terms of church teaching on marriage, human sexuality and the family.
Perhaps the key difference between Francis and Leo in this regard isn’t so much a matter of substance, but rather that Leo doesn’t feel the need to spell all that out in terms of splashy public comments. He’s seemingly content for people to intuit his approach from what he does, rather than what he chooses to say out loud at any given moment.
There’s a larger point here about the Leo papacy to date which probably shouldn’t be missed.
Monday, Sept. 8, will mark precisely four months since Robert Francis Prevost ascended to the papacy as Leo XIV. In that time, ask yourself: How many lacerating papal bombshell declarations has the church been compelled to deal with? How many divisive personnel moves has the pope made, how many disputed doctrinal declarations has he issued, how many painful firings or demotions has he imposed, and how many sensational but ambivalent and divisive public declarations has he issued?
The correct answer, of course, is “none.”
In some circles, all this is viewed as the calm before the storm. The idea is that Leo is biding his time, keeping his powder dry, figuring out whom he can trust and amassing his resources. Eventually, so the theory goes, he will come bursting forth, making waves and shaking things up.
It’s at least worth considering, however, that these first four months of the papacy are not simply a caesura, a sort of pregnant pause before a dramatic crescendo.
Instead, perhaps in embryonic form these opening days have been the substance of this regime – a mode of leadership that emphasizes balance, consideration for all points of view, restraint in the absence of truly compelling motives for departure, and which believes that what the church needs right now, above all, is not further upheaval but a measure of peace.
To put the point as simply as possible, maybe we should stop waiting for the real pope to please stand up. Instead, maybe we should get used to the idea that what we’ve already seen is what we’re going to get – a gentle, pastoral shepherd, for whom community is a far higher ideal than confrontation.
[End, analysis by John Allen]
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Here is an essay published today by Maestro Aurelio Porfiri, who also has a regular column in Inside the Vatican magazine. (To subscribe to the magazine, click here.)
On the LGBTQ+ Jubilee
By Aurelio Porfiri
September 10, 2025
In recent days, much has been said about the participation in the Jubilee of people whose sexual orientation falls under the well-known LGBTQ+ acronym.
On September 5–6, a large group of people chose to make their Jubilee pilgrimage, and I think we can rejoice in this.
The Church is a mother, and as such she must welcome everyone.
Let us remember that the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the Litany of Loreto, is invoked as refugium peccatorum and consolatrix afflictorum.
I believe there can be no doubt that a Catholic must respect the dignity of all his or her brothers and sisters. After all, Psalm 129 says: “If you, Lord, mark iniquities, Lord, who can stand?” We are all in the necessary condition of needing conversion.
If I take part in the Jubilee while being in a condition that Catholic doctrine judges as erroneous, I must understand that the Jubilee itself is not a seal of approval on that condition, but rather an invitation to conversion.
Therefore, it is wrong to spread the message that the participation of homosexual persons in the Jubilee means that the Church now accepts homosexual behavior.
The true message is that the Church respects the dignity of all, but at the same time calls everyone to the necessary conversion if they find themselves in a state of sin.
The Italian writer Costanza Miriano, in a recent Facebook post, stated:
“How beautiful that there are a few hundred homosexual persons who, from yesterday, will try to live in chastity! (Because let us remember that the condition for the indulgence granted by the Jubilee is the resolve to avoid occasions of sin, and this applies to everyone; otherwise it is not a Jubilee, but simply a stroll in a beautiful church in Rome. And as long as the Catechism does not change, one can stroll in all the churches of the world, but the problem remains the same: all are welcomed, but sin is sin. I imagine that those who cross a Holy Door are well aware of this).”
I think the important concept that must come across is precisely this: the Church welcomes all sinners, but does not justify them.
And as Miriano said, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is an objectively disordered inclination and that those who experience it are called to live in chastity.
This request, which the Catechism describes as a cross, may seem very demanding, in the same way as the demands made on many others in consecrated or married life.
The Holy Door is not crossed in order to receive approval of a personal condition that stands in objective contrast with the Church’s doctrine, but to ask for the strength to be converted.
This is not easy, which is why it is necessary for everyone, beginning with the one writing these words, to be aware that there will be many falls, but that one must keep one’s gaze fixed in the right direction.
We all live with some suffering, often unspeakable.
This is why human respect is important, but so is having a clear understanding of the difference between good and evil.
Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, in 1992 (General Ethics of Sexuality), said:
“We have already carefully distinguished between the non-procreative will and the anti-procreative will, recalling the ethical principle according to which not willing (the realization of) a good can be good, but opposing (the realization of) a good is always evil: every good is worthy of being loved, and only evil must be hated. In this lies the intrinsic and grave injustice of homosexual conduct: in its positive exclusion of the possibility of procreation. When, in fact, a person decides to engage in a homosexual act, he or she positively excludes the very possibility that, through the sexual act, a human person might be conceived. One chooses to perform a sexual act which, by its very biological and symbolic structure, excludes the possibility of conception. In other words, one performs an act that implies, includes, and expresses a radical rejection of the goodness proper to the conception of a human person. Since this is the ethical nature of the homosexual act, it is easy to understand why its justification and ennoblement have always happened, and still happen, in the context of a declining human civilization, of which such an act is the most tragic symbolic gesture.”
It is absolutely necessary to love all people, whatever their condition or weaknesses may be. But in loving persons, one must not love—much less justify—their sin.
[End, essay by Aurelio Porfiri]
And here is the interview granted by Bishop Athanasius Schneider to Diane Montagna, published today (link):
“Spiritual Criminals and Murderers of Souls”: Bishop Athanasius Schneider responds to Vatican-sanctioned “LGBTQ+” Jubilee Pilgrimage
“From my heart I wish Pope Leo XIV the grace of God, that he may have the courage to repair this act of abomination which has sullied the holiness of the Jubilee Year.”
September 10, 2025
VATICAN CITY, September 10, 2025 — Bishop Athanasius Schneider has spoken out forcefully against the recent Vatican-sanctioned international “LGBTQ+” Jubilee pilgrimage, denouncing it as a “desecration” of the Holy Door and a “mockery” of God.
The pilgrimage, listed on the Vatican’s Jubilee 2025 General Calendar, was organized by Italy’s pro-LGBTQ+ association Tenda di Gionata [Jonathan’s Tent]; the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, which had lobbied during the 2018 Vatican Youth Synod; and the U.S.-based Outreach, led by Fr. James Martin, SJ.
On Saturday afternoon, viral photographs showed two male participants openly holding hands in St. Peter’s Basilica, one carrying a backpack emblazoned with the words “F*** the Rules.” Another image depicted a young man in a rainbow shirt taking a selfie of his “clawed” hand with Bernini’s Baldacchino as the backdrop.
The two-day pilgrimage also featured a Friday evening vigil at which a lesbian couple recounted their “love story,” and a Saturday morning Mass celebrated by the vice-president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, who encouraged attendees to be patient until the Church recognizes the LGBTQ+ lifestyle. Over a thousand people were in attendance.
In this exclusive interview with the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, we discuss his reaction to these events, Pope Leo XIV’s widely publicized audience with Fr. James Martin, and the grave risks for the Catholic Church and the world should she forfeit her moral authority in such matters.
Bishop Schneider further implores Pope Leo XIV to follow the example of Pope John Paul II by publicly denouncing the LGBTQ+ incident in St. Peter’s Basilica, acknowledging the Vatican’s fault in permitting it, and performing acts of reparation in humility and truth.
He also denounces priests who affirm the LGBTQ+ lifestyle as “spiritual criminals” and “murderers of souls,” warning that God will hold them accountable, while urging the faithful to work zealously to rescue those deceived by sin.
Here is my interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider.
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Diane Montagna: A viral photo of two homosexual men brazenly holding hands in St Peter’s Basilica, one with a backpack saying “F*** the Rules”, and another image of a young man in a “rainbow” shirt taking a selfie of his clawed hand with Bernini’s Baldacchino as a backdrop, have gone around the world since September 6. The pilgrimage group also somehow entered the Basilica holding aloft a “rainbow” cross; it’s unknown how such an item got through security. The pilgrimage was approved by the Vatican, as part of the Jubilee year called by Pope Francis. Your Excellency, what was your first reaction when you saw these photos?
+Athanasius Schneider: My reaction was a silent cry of horror, indignation, and sorrow. All true believers in the Church—both faithful and clergy—who still uphold the validity of God’s commandments and take Him seriously, should experience this provocation as a brazen slap in the face. I believe that many faithful Catholics and members of the clergy remain, in a sense, stunned by such a massive blow and require time to recover. An unprecedented act has taken place in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, one that may fittingly be described, in the words of Our Lord, as an “abomination of desolation standing in the holy place” (cf. Mt. 24:15).
What is the significance of the Holy Door, and how does its meaning affect the reality of what happened on September 6th?
+Athanasius Schneider: One of essential meanings the Jubilee Year and the Holy Door consists in “leading man to conversion and penance,” as Pope John Pau II explained it in the Bull of Indiction of the Holy Year 2000. Another distinctive sign is the indulgence, which is one of the constitutive elements of the Jubilee. Hence, the Jubilee Year is a powerful means of God’s grace to help the faithful make real progress in holiness through a fruitful reception of the sacrament of penance and the gaining of the indulgence, which implies a conscious detachment of all serious sins and moral disorders. For “free and conscious surrender to grave sin … separates the believer from the life of grace with God and therefore excludes the believer from the holiness to which he is called” (John Paul II, Incarnationis Mysterium, 9).
The declared aim of the LGBTQ+ organizations that assembled adherents and activists for this Jubilee pilgrimage was that the Church recognize and legitimize so-called gay rights, including homosexual acts and other forms of extramarital sexual conduct.
There were no signs of repentance and renunciation of objectively grave homosexual sins and homosexual lifestyle on the part of the organizers and participants in this pilgrimage. To pass through the Holy Door and participate in the Jubilee without repentance, while promoting an ideology that openly rejects God’s Sixth Commandment, constitutes a kind of desecration of the Holy Door and a mockery of God and the gift of an indulgence.
The groups involved in Saturday’s event (Jonathan’s Tent [Tenda di Gionata], the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, and Outreach led by Fr James Martin, SJ) reject the idea of conversion from an LGBTQ+ lifestyle and believe instead that it’s time for the Catholic Church to recognize their lifestyle. What does it say about the current state of the Vatican that this event was allowed?
+Athanasius Schneider: In this, the responsible authorities of the Holy See collaborated de facto in undermining and calling into question the validity of God’s Sixth Commandment, particularly His explicit condemnation of homosexual activity. They stood by and allowed God to be mocked and His commandments to be scornfully cast aside.
Was this event worse than the Pachamama scandal in your view?
+Athanasius Schneider: From a theological and objective standpoint, the veneration of the Pachamama in St. Peter’s Basilica was worse than the LGBTQ+ pilgrimage, for it constituted a direct transgression of the First Commandment of the Decalogue and was therefore more godless than even a heinous event that contradicts or ridicules the Sixth Commandment. The promotion of sodomy and other sexual immorality amounts to a form of indirect idolatry, whereas the Pachamama idol was accorded explicit acts of religious veneration—incense, lights, candles, and prostrations. Both events must be publicly repaired by the Pope himself. This is urgently needed, before it is too late, for God will not be mocked (cf. Gal. 6:7).
Prior to the pilgrimage through the Holy Door, a Mass was celebrated by Bishop Francesco Savino, vice-president of the Italian Bishops Conference, at Rome’s Jesuit-run Church of the Gesù. Everyone was welcome to receive Holy Communion. Isn’t one’s assent to all the Church’s teaching (doctrine and morals) a precondition for receiving Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist?
+Athanasius Schneider: Yes, this is certainly a precondition as ordered by God in Holy Scripture through the teaching of St. Paul: “Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor. 11:29-30). The Church kept this precept unchanged and universally for two thousand years and keeps it still in her official teaching. The Catechism clearly states that: “Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive Communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance” (n. 1415). Furthermore, it notes, Sacred Scripture “presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, [and] tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved” (n. 2357).”
By permitting such public Masses for LGBTQ+ organizations in Rome and granting them passage through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, the authorities of the Holy See displayed before the entire world a striking contradiction between the Church’s official teaching and her practice. In so doing, these high-ranking authorities effectively repudiated the very doctrine they are bound to uphold. In light of these manifest facts, evident to all, one must ask: can the world still take the Church’s official teaching seriously?
The organization “Courage International” is an apostolate that serves men and women who experience same-sex attraction, helping them to lead a life of holiness in accord with the fullness of the Catholic Faith. Had Saturday’s pilgrimage been sponsored by Courage, there would have been no scandal. What is your message to the people who participated in Saturday’s event, who are being misled by Fr James Martin and the LGBTQ+ movement?
+Athanasius Schneider: My message to them is first one of compassion. For when a person consciously rejects God’s explicit commandment prohibiting any sexual activity outside a valid marriage, he places himself in the gravest danger—that of losing eternal life and being eternally condemned to Hell. We must show compassion toward those who advocate the legitimization of homosexual activity and persist in it unrepentant and even proudly. True love for such persons consists in calling them, gently yet persistently, to genuine conversion to God’s revealed will. Such individuals are misled and deceived by the evil spirit, by Satan, the father of lies, and are ultimately unhappy, even if they have stifled the voice of conscience.
We must be filled with great zeal to save these souls, to free them from poisonous deceits. Those priests who confirm them in their homosexual activity or in a homosexual lifestyle are spiritual criminals, murderers of souls, and God will demand a strict account from them, according to His word: “Son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand” (Ez. 33:7-8).
This event was planned before Pope Leo XIV’s election. Some have argued that it could have and would have been worse had Pope Francis still been alive. They point out that Pope Leo did not receive a delegation from the LGBT+ group at his general Jubilee audience in St Peter’s Square earlier on Saturday, nor did he send the group a message.
+Athanasius Schneider: These arguments are unconvincing. For the Pope to have received a pro-LGBTQ+ delegation would have been truly unprecedented and the height of scandal. The fact that Pope Leo XIV did not cause such scandal in no way justifies his de facto consent to this event. Indeed, one cannot reasonably presume naivety on his part, for it was entirely foreseeable that a pro-LGBTQ+ organization, or at least some of its members, would exploit the Holy Door and St. Peter’s Basilica as a platform to promote an ideology that openly scorns and rejects God’s explicit will as expressed in His holy Commandment.
Fr. James Martin circulated photos of an audience he had with Pope Leo several days before the event. Did popes prior to Pope Francis meet with such figures in this way? What is your view of this and other recent audiences, such as that with the controversial Dominican Sister Lucia Caram, who reportedly supports “gay marriage”?
+Athanasius Schneider: Before the pontificate of Pope Francis, the successors of Peter neither received officially nor posed for photographs with those who, by word or deed, openly rejected the doctrinal and moral teaching of the Church. Through these official meetings and photographs, Pope Leo de facto sent a message to the world that he does not distance himself from their heterodox and scandalous teaching and behavior—particularly since the Holy See offered no clarification afterward and did not correct Fr. James Martin’s triumphant messages circulated on social media. There is a common saying that goes: “Qui tacet consentire videtur”—“He who is silent is taken to agree.”
The Church has traditionally not only preached the truth but also actively combatted error. As Islam continues to grow in the West and Europe becomes more de-Christianized, what is at risk if the Catholic Church cedes her moral authority to these lobbies and movements?
+Athanasius Schneider: St. Peter and his successors, the Roman Pontiffs, together with the Holy See, and thus the Catholic Church as such, received from Christ Himself the highest moral authority in this world. This authority consists in teaching the entire world—people of all nations and religions—the commandments of God, that is, to observe all that Christ has commanded (cf. Mt. 28:20).
To the extent that the teaching office of the Church—in the Holy See and the Catholic episcopate—becomes weak, unclear, ambiguous, or even contradictory, the influence of anti-truth, in all its ideological derivations and religious forms, will inevitably increase.
Islam’s strength may increasingly be attractive to some, but it does not and can never impart to the human soul the necessary spiritual power to be inwardly transformed into a new person through Christ’s grace. I live in a Muslim-majority that also has a strong Orthodox presence; when people see these events, religious leaders and common people ask what is happening with the Pope and the Holy See.
By permitting such outrageous events, the authorities of the Holy See are effectively silencing Christ’s truth, Christ’s voice. It is therefore imperative for our time that the words of the Pope and the authorities of the Holy See regarding the Church’s teaching correspond faithfully with their deeds. For there is no higher moral authority in this world than that of Jesus Christ, who entrusted His authority to the Magisterium of the Pope and the episcopate. What a tremendous responsibility! And what an immense future accountability before the judgment seat of Christ!
Although I wrote to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni asking if the Vatican would be issuing an acknowledgement that this should not have been permitted and apologizing for the scandal caused, there’s been no response. What do you believe this silence reveals?
+Athanasius Schneider: The Holy See finds itself in a kind of impasse and is faced with two reactions.
On one side, organizations advocating the legitimization of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle rejoiced. The inclusion of LGBTQ+ activists among the Holy Year pilgrim groups and their solemn entry into St. Peter’s Basilica—the spiritual center of Catholicism—sent a message to the entire world that the Holy See recognizes the primary aim of these organizations: the approval of homosexual activity and other sexual conduct outside of marriage. The world applauds Pope Leo XIV and the Holy See for this.
On the other side, there are all those—Catholics, of course, but also non-Catholics and adherents of other religions—who continue to uphold the validity of God’s commandments and take Him seriously, and who find themselves in a state of shock. All faithful sons and daughters of the Holy Church feel deeply humiliated. It is, as it were, a blush upon the faces of the children of the Church. We feel ashamed before God.
One perceives an embarrassed silence on the part of the Holy See, resembling the conscience-stricken silence of one who has done wrong.
This event occurred on the First Saturday of the month, a day on which Our Lady of Fatima especially asked for reparation for offences committed against her Immaculate Heart. How can the faithful help to remedy what happened?
+Athanasius Schneider: The situation that has ensued is nothing less than a public humiliation of our Holy Mother Church before the shameless jubilation of the enemies of God’s commandments. We should all make a collective act of reparation for the outrage committed against the sanctity of God’s house and the holiness of His commandments. We, the children of the Church—above all the Pope, and especially those clerics who permitted, supported, and even justified such an abomination—should make our own the words of the prophet Daniel: “To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame… because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.” (Dan. 9:7-8)
During the Great Jubilee of 2000, Rome hosted the first ever World Pride (July 1–9, 2000). Pope John Paul II publicly denounced the event, saying:
“In the name of the Church of Rome I can only express my deep sadness at the affront to the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 and the offence to the Christian values of a city that is so dear to the hearts of Catholics throughout the world. The Church cannot be silent about the truth, because she would fail in her fidelity to God the Creator and would not help to distinguish good from evil” (CCC, n. 2358) In this regard, I wish merely to read what is said in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which, after noting that homosexual acts are contrary to the natural law, then states: “The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition” (CCC, n. 2358) (Angelus, July 9, 2000).”
Your Excellency, what message would you like to send to Pope Leo XIV?
+Athanasius Schneider: I would like to implore Pope Leo XIV to repeat, in substance, these words of Pope John Paul II, thereby manifesting before the entire world true humility in acknowledging the fault of the Holy See regarding the outrageous LGBTQ+ event in St. Peter’s Basilica. Humility is courage for truth. Should Pope Leo XIV make public acts of regret and even reparation, he will lose nothing; should he fail to do so, he will forfeit something before the eyes of God—and God alone matters. From my heart I wish Pope Leo XIV the grace of God, that he may have the courage to repair this act of abomination which has sullied the holiness of the Jubilee Year, employing in all truth the words of St. Paul: “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26-27).
Your Excellency, is there anything you would like to add?
+Athanasius Schneider: Pope Leo XIV is not the vicar of Pope Francis, but the Vicar of Jesus Christ, who will ask him to account for his defense of the truth. Harmony was not the aim of Jesus Christ, otherwise He would not have been crucified. And St. Augustine would have enjoyed a very harmonious life had he not fought the errors of his time, also within the Church.
May Our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV take to heart the following words of Our Lord which He once spoke through St. Bridget of Sweden to one of his predecessors (Pope Gregory XI): “Uproot, pluck out and destroy all the vices of your court! Separate yourself from the counsel of carnal-minded and worldly friends and follow humbly the spiritual counsel of my friends. Get up like a man and clothe yourself confidently in strength! Start to reform the Church that I purchased with my own blood in order that it may be reformed and led back spiritually to its pristine state of holiness, for nowadays more veneration is shown to a brothel than to my Holy Church. My son, heed my counsel. If you obey me in what I told you, I will welcome you mercifully like a loving father. Bravely approach the way of justice and you shall prosper. Do not despise the one who loves you. If you obey, I will show you mercy and bless and dress you and adorn you with the precious pontifical regalia of a holy pope. I shall clothe you with myself in such a way that you will be in me and I in you, and you shall be glorified in eternity” (The Book of Revelations, Book IV, chap. 149).
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