These Last Days News - May 13, 2025
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My Hopes, My Fears, and My Prayers for Leo XIV...

"THERE MUST BE ALWAYS CHARITY AND PRAYER"
"My children, pray a constant vigilance of prayer, I beg you, for you do not know what is soon to come upon you. Pray for your bishops, My child. There is no place for anger in your heart, but there must be always charity and prayer." - Our Lady, December 7, 1978

"My child, I beg you to continue your mission of praying for your priests, your bishops, and your cardinals. Pray for them constantly." - Our Lady, May 28, 1977

The above Messages from Our Lady were given to Veronica Lueken at Bayside, New York. Read more

TraditionSanity.com reported on May 9, 2025:

By Peter Kwasniewski

There is something surreal about this moment.

You see, for over twenty years now, my imaginary “ideal pope” who will restore Catholic Tradition has been dubbed… Leo XIV. Who knows, perhaps there are others who also had conjured up this (mythical?) figure in their minds.

And now, we have a Leo XIV.

But he is not the ideal pope. Apart from the fact that every man brings his limitations and sins with him to the office—as every single one of us does to our tasks in life, except for Our Lord and Our Lady—Robert Prevost is saddled with more than a few yellow flags and red flags. I will come to that in a moment.

There’s another reason for the feeling of surreality. The only American cardinal I know personally is Raymond Leo Burke. A true leo or lion of orthodoxy. While I never expected him to be elected pope—most cardinals regard him as extremely “right wing” when, in fact, he’s simply more consistently Catholic than most of them are—it is nonetheless bittersweet to think that the first American pope could have been someone of that mighty stature.

Another surreal aspect is where I was when all this happened.

I was sitting on an airplane flying from Chicago to Fort Myers, heading to an event with a Legatus chapter in Naples where I was to give a talk on “Treasuring the Goods of Marriage in a Throwaway Society” that evening. I had my laptop open in front of me with the EWTN livestream. With about 400,000 other viewers (according to the metric on the screen), I saw Leo XIV come out on my unfolded tray table, so to speak, and greet the world. Then the messages and emails began pouring in: “What do you think of the man?” and words to that effect.

My Hopes

Several things struck me immediately, as I’m sure they did many of you.

First, the new pope was wearing the mozzetta and a beautiful historic stole with Sts. Peter and Paul, and looked altogether as a pope should look. None of that ostentatious humility that consists in deliberately breaking with custom, as when Pope Francis appeared on the balcony back in 2013 looking practically undressed, or as when Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe walked into the conclave wearing his Dominican habit, standing out from everyone else like a sore thumb.

You can see this, too, in other vestments he’s worn, as in Malta:

Second, he took a classic papal name, one that has been carried, better or worse, by thirteen popes before him, beginning with St. Leo the Great and running down to the great pope of Catholic Social Teaching, Leo XIII. In fact, I believe he chose the name at least partly because he wishes to be seen as a pope of social justice. Once again, it is true humility to be one in a series, rather than breaking with all precedent by choosing a name no one has ever borne.

Lastly, the words of his speech on the loggia, although somewhat generic (you can find them here), did not give me the creeps the way Bergoglio’s loggia appearance did—and this has been the impression of a lot of people who watched both episodes. Then Leo gave the blessing in Latin—another gesture that was dignum et justum, and a sign of normalcy returning.

Why did the cardinals elect him? Let’s look at some reasons.

A good guess can be made that Parolin’s cause quickly lost support and there was a scrambling to find someone who would be left-of-center but also a peacemaker. Michael J. Matt wrote on Facebook:

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost has been described as a balanced figure in the current debate about the future of the Church, particularly regarding the Latin Mass. He is seen as a potential bridge between Pope Francis's inclusive agenda and more conservative elements within the Church. While he has not explicitly taken a stance on the Latin Mass, his supporters highlight his ability to listen and synthesize diverse perspectives, suggesting he might find a way to reconcile different viewpoints on the matter.

I don’t know how true this brief assessment is, but I’m convinced that many cardinals had to be convinced of it; they would not have voted for a candidate who struck them as simply progressive, with no capacity at all to reconcile factions. The need to address painful divisions in the Church was a topic of some importance in the general congregations, and the cardinals’ choice presumably reflects that motivation.

Kevin Tierney offered some initial thoughts of his own, also on Facebook:

Favorites win for a reason. Yet I think this time Tagle and Parolin being favorites might have looked bad on them, as they were both clearly ambitious men. Parolin has been openly campaigning for the job for the last two years as Francis’ health declined, and Tagle’s move to Rome in 2023 was widely viewed as a stepping stone to the papacy... right before he fell flat on his face in administrative scandals and Vatican intrigue. Once they clearly weren’t close to a majority (let alone 2/3), people coalesced around Prevost.

Prevost is clearly of the Francis camp, but he has also avoided becoming involved in most hot-button Catholic issues of the day. He is not Cupich or McElroy, American prelates who relish in ideological combat and get a kick out of being hated by their fellow bishops. That allows him some flexibility.

By restoring more traditional papal garb upon his first presentation to the world and not taking a novel name, it might be a slight nod people are not looking for a revolutionary or a grand reformer: they are looking for a chance to breathe.

Like almost every prelate of every ideological persuasion (and in between) of the last 30 years, his record on sex abuse is... not great! He will have a chance to address that (and I’m sure he will have to).

Mostly, I think he has to understand what time it is. I don’t mean that in [terms of] some ideological debate. I mean it more in that the Vatican is broke, the papacy is a weakened institution, and there are several potential flashpoints in the global church that could spill into chaos (or worse) if there is not steady and calm leadership….

Outside of that, I am cautiously cautious about him. Neither optimistic nor pessimistic. I don’t think everyone has to “give him a chance,” in that the papal office is something you are invested with, it is not an entitlement. He has to live up to the heavy weight placed on his shoulders. I also think it’s pointless, because it’s going to happen anyway, and a pope who understands the moment will meet it, no matter what we say.

Frankly, if Leo XIV is less aggravating, destabilizing, and petty than his predecessor, I’ll take that as a reprieve and a relief. We don’t need someone banging on about mentally imbalanced rigid hypocrites who like grandma’s lace and all the other trash with which Francis debased and dishonored the Chair of Peter. If that can go away, there might be at least a semi-civilized environment in which to work out our differences.

Prevost doesn’t seem to be an ecclesiastical warmonger, a Peronist caudillo like Bergoglio. Someone who can listen and serve as a mediator. Not a bad quality in the spiritual leader of over a billion Catholics!

Lastly, Leo is a canonist, a “highly competent jurist” in the words of Fr. Claude Barthe. This is more important than it may initially seem. We’ve been living under a regime of lawlessness and continual changes in law for 12 years. It’s time to have someone who knows and presumably cares about canon law and who might be able to restore some semblance of order.

My Fears

But there are troubling things about Prevost, as ably summarized by S.D. Wright:

Prevost has cooperated in advancing Francis’ agenda, facilitated the appointment of heterodox bishops throughout the world, and tacitly denied the traditional teaching on the episcopate. He oversaw the deposition of the most conservative U.S. bishop (Strickland) and the appointment of a notorious liberal to one of the most prominent diocesan see (McElroy). [He would have been involved in the Bishop Rey affair as well.] Prevost has remained silent in the face of the great doctrinal questions of our day, and facilitated the longest-lasting legacy of Francis’ reign [i.e., bad episcopal appointments].

Prevost’s record as prefect of the dicastery of bishops is not a good one, there’s no way to sugarcoat that. But in my opinion and that of others, it’s very likely that he simply signed whatever Francis ordered him to sign. In saying this, I don’t absolve him of personal responsibility, but neither do I make him the one solely responsible for the appalling episcopal appointments of Bergoglio's pontificate. He was, moreover, only in that position for two years.

My concern runs deeper.

I think there is a particular reason that Cardinals Cupich, Tagle, and Roche (inter alia) were smiling so broadly just before the new pope stepped out on the loggia:

“Oh, come on, man, surely they were just relieved that the conclave was over, and were enjoying the festive spirit?” Undoubtedly, that was part of it.

But let’s recall that Prevost is from Chicago and from the more “progressive” wing of the Church (the best spin one could put on it is “left of center”). This means Cardinal Cupich knows, or at least thinks, that he will instantly become a trusted adviser with ready access to the ear of Leo XIV. He can tell him: “Burn it down! Burn down the traditionalist schism and all their hateful Latin Masses!” Let’s recall that Cardinal Roche, for his part, is, or was, the Liturgy Czar who played the Cromwell to Francis’s Henry VIII, gleefully shutting down one thriving Catholic community after another. Roche, too, may believe that Leo will continue in the same line. Cardinal Tagle, whose “passion” for evangelization has led him into repugnant exhibitions of pop culture inanity, may well see in Prevost an “evangelizer” like himself.

Worrisomely, Fr. James Martin indicated that Prevost was his first choice for pope, and Austen Ivereign rejoices. The staff of The Federalist has already published a piece called “Read the New Pope’s Far-Left Takes on Immigration, Climate, Covid, and Race Relations.” Raymond Arroyo’s 8-minute summary strikes me as realistic, not to say sobering.

In short, if I had to articulate my fear, it would be this: that Leo XIV will be far better in style of governance but will carry forward most of Francis’s policies and agenda; that he will cement that legacy, albeit more discreetly and quietly, without all the melodrama; that he will work to normalize and institutionalize Bergoglio’s legacy — putting a smile on it, so to speak, smoothing its rough edges, embedding it deep within the personnel and structures. As a matter of fact, a pope animated by this vision, if at all intelligent, will turn on the charm full-blast and turn down the controversy precisely in order to provide cover for the steady implementation of Amoris Laetitia, Fiducia Supplicans, Abu Dhabi, Traditionis Custodes, etc.

That’s a grim prediction, and I’ve no way of knowing, any more than you do, whether it will pan out.

Other sources, which you have probably seen too, say that Prevost has been known to celebrate the TLM from time to time, and that he was spotted taking part in a private gathering with Cardinal Burke on April 30.

No one knows yet whether Leo XIV will decide to treat traditional Catholics like human beings and Christians, or let the Jim Crow laws stand. Like Abraham, I will “hope against hope” (Rom 4:18). I’m more than willing to give our new pope the benefit of the doubt, as Eric Sammons rightly said; indeed, we are required by divine and natural law to do so.

My Prayer

Finally, there is a gigantic wildcard we mustn’t ever forget.

The “grace of office” can work, and has worked, wonders in the history of the Church. Many a timid, venal, or ambitious cleric has become a faithful disciple when elevated to a higher rank. For every higher position, indeed for any special calling in life (including that of religious and the married), there is a special grace offered by God. It can be refused; it can be embraced. Indeed, over a long career, one will likely do both, perhaps many times. But this is why we do not and must not despair of Leo XIV, regardless of his background. Yes, he brings his past, his habits, his ideas and inclinations, his priorities, to the papacy; but every day he is susceptible to an influx of the charism of his office, and we, by our prayers and penances, have a role to play in asking the Lord to open his heart to the promptings of the Holy Ghost and to fulfill well the tasks laid upon him.

Leo XIV’s first homily today, a blend of vintage John Paul II and Benedict XVI, is a promising sign. Its pure Christocentrism, its clear message without ambiguity or twaddle, is a breath of fresh air.

This is why I will pray every day for Leo XIV. In addition to whatever special prayers I might say, I always remember the pope when praying the “Kyrie eleison” of the monastic divine office.

Here’s a good prayer that you could stop and say at this very moment:

V. Let us pray for Leo, our Pope.
R. May the Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

Our Father and Hail Mary.

O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all Thy faithful people, look mercifully upon Thy servant Leo, whom Thou hast chosen as shepherd to preside over Thy Church. Grant, we beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the flock committed to him, he may attain everlasting life. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

May the grace of office powerfully renew Robert Prevost and make him a servant of the living God, of the Lion of Judah whose name he has boldly adopted.

Beyond that “wildcard” of divine grace knocking on the door of human freedom, there’s also a monumental historical fact.

Traditional Catholics have been (with happy exceptions) battling the Church hierarchy and running at cross-purposes to the popes for more than 60 years now (I’d date it to at least 1963, when Paul VI established the Consilium to revamp the entire liturgy and The Changes began to come fast and furious from Bugnini’s imperious desk). We survived the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s, and we’re halfway into the 2020s. There are more of us than ever, we are better informed, our resources have exploded, we hold the internet captive with our photos and arguments, we have youthful pluck and unyielding determination. We’re not about to pack up and go home. We’re in this for the long haul.

Whether or not Leo XIV does for traditional Catholics what Benedict XVI did for them (or something even better), nothing has the power to alter or undermine our love for tradition, our love for the truth, our love for Christ Jesus, His Mother, the angels and saints, and everything that goes with being a faithful Catholic. This is God’s gift to us and no one can take it away utterly and forever, until the world ends, the curtain falls, and all mankind is either in heavenly glory or in the outer darkness.

St. John of the Cross assures us there is a dark night of the soul. Are we right now in a “dark night of the Church”? Perhaps. And if so, can we persevere through it until the dawn breaks — even as an individual soul can do by the grace of God?

Yes, we can.

Time will tell how best to navigate this new phase in Church history. Let us keep praying for the pope, who indeed has the heaviest responsibility on the face of the earth. Let us pray for ourselves and for one another, that we may be found faithful to the gifts entrusted to us by Our Lord. May His Holy Name be praised, glorified, and exalted, now and for ever, Amen.

Thank you for reading and may God bless you!

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