Boy, If Only Leo Knew, part four

The work of being the universal public face of apostasy is so demanding, it would appear, that it may be impossible to keep track of all that is being done by the local public faces of apostasy throughout the world. Perhaps this is why Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV does not realize that that some of false religious sect’s “bishops” are openly celebrating perversity and those who practice it, including in San Diego, California, whose “bishop,” Michael Pham, one of Prevost/Leo’s first appointees:

SAN DIEGO (LifeSiteNews) — Auxiliary Bishop Ramón Bejarano recently celebrated St. John the Evangelist Church’s annual “All are Welcome” LGBT “Pride” Mass and allowed “Nicole” Murray-Ramirez, an LGBT “drag queen” activist and longtime San Diego City Commissioner, to speak during the Mass.

Bejarano was the celebrant of the July 13 Sunday Mass, which was organized by St. John’s “LGBTQ Ministry” and had the full backing of the Diocese of San Diego under Bishop Michael Pham, one of Pope Leo XIV’s first bishop’s appointments. During his speech, Murray-Ramirez, a former board member of the pro-LGBT group Human Rights Campaign, thanked Bishop Bejarano for his work “standing up” for the “LGBTQ community.”

“(The) All Our Welcome Mass celebrates the gift of the Church as a Mother who loves, embraces and journeys with everyone who wants to be closer to Christ. As our late Pope Francis proclaimed, ‘Todos, todos, todos,'” the diocese wrote in a Facebook post advertising the Mass.

Murray-Ramirez wrote extensively in a Facebook post about what an honor it was to speak during the Mass and praised Bejarano.

“The Bishop’s sermon was a most powerful one that focused on (the fact) that God loves ALL of us the way we are,” he wrote. . . .

Based on Murray-Ramirez’s account, it appears that Bejarano omitted any mention of the Church’s teaching on same-sex “marriage.”

“I had the Honor to be asked to speak and it was so wonderful to see and hear the well deserved thunderous prolong ovation that Bishop Bajarano received when I sincerely thanked him on behalf of all of us for standing up for not only the LGBTQ COUUMINTY but the undocumented and refugees,” Murray-Ramirez continued.

“I apologize for the pain and distress that I and the Church have caused to many of you. I apologize for the stigmatization and trauma we have caused to others because we have told them that they are not valued and that they are not worthy of the love of God. There are many others out there who feel rejected and unvalued,” Bejarano said during that sermon.

Murray-Ramirez’s comment thanking the bishop for standing up for illegal immigrants and refugees likely refers to Bejarano, along with Bishop Pham and other faith leaders, “standing in solidarity” with migrants facing deportation at a federal courthouse in June.

Photos posted by Murray-Ramirez from the Mass on Facebook show the “drag queen” posing for a tophoto and being blessed by Bejarano. The pro-LGBT Mass was also attended by San Diego’s openly homosexual, nominally Catholic Mayor Todd Gloria, who also posed for a picture with the bishop.

Bejarano was also among the 68 American bishops who in 2021 signed a letter asking the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to end discussions on prohibiting then-President Joe Biden and other pro-abortion Catholic politicians from receiving Holy Communion.

St. John’s parish is also well known for celebrating numerous “pride” Masses over the years, such as one in 2017 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the USCCB’s 1997 Always Our Children document, which underscored the “importance” of parents accepting their children with same-sex attraction. Murray-Ramirez also attended the 2017 Mass.

The parish’s “LGBTQ Ministry” has special monthly services and potlucks for LGBT parishioners, according to their webpage, which is loaded with “pride” and rainbow imagery. 

After the Vatican released Fiducia Supplicans, which allowed for the blessing of same-sex “couples” in 2023, the leaders of St. John’s “LGBTQ ministry” expressed their approval to a local San Diego news outlet. One “ministry” leader seemed to indicate that many homosexual “couples” attend St. John’s.

“We have a lot of committed Catholic couples here that are LGBT, that have been in relationships for quite a while,” the person said. “Myself, I’ve been in a committed relationship for 40 years now and married [i.e., in a homosexual civil ‘marriage,’ which is not an actual marriage] for 10, so this is something that is really welcomed news.”

The Diocese of San Diego and St. John’s parish did not return LifeSiteNews’ request for comment by publication time. (San Diego bishop celebrates LGBT 'All are Welcome' Mass, allows 'drag queen' activist to speak.)

Boy, if only Leo knew, huh?

Leo knows.

Leo’s silence about this scandal signifies consent to what was said and done, meaning that, absent any word from him to the contrary, he himself must believe that the Catholic Church has “hurt” sodomites and must “apologize” to those whose perverse behavior is contrary to nature and has been condemned by the following words contained in Sacred Scripture, every word of which was written the Divine inspiration of the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Holy Ghost:

[13] If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination, let them be put to death: their blood be upon them. [14] If any man after marrying the daughter, marry her mother, he hath done a heinous crime: he shall be burnt alive with them: neither shall so great an abomination remain in the midst of you. [15] He that shall copulate with any beast or cattle, dying let him die, the beast also ye shall kill. (Leviticus 20: 13-15.)

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them. (Romans 1: 18-32.)

[9] Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, [10] Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 6: 9)

[1] Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James: to them that are beloved in God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. [2] Mercy unto you, and peace, and charity be fulfilled. [3] Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. [4] For certain men are secretly entered in, (who were written of long ago unto this judgment,) ungodly men, turning the grace of our Lord God into riotousness, and denying the only sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ. [5] I will therefore admonish you, though ye once knew all things, that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, did afterwards destroy them that believed not:

[6] And the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day. [7] As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. [8] In like manner these men also defile the flesh, and despise dominion, and blaspheme majesty. [9] When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command thee. [10] But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not: and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted.

[11] Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain: and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves, and have perished in the contradiction of Core. [12] These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water, which are carried about by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, [13] Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion; wandering stars, to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever. [14] Now of these Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying: Behold, the Lord cometh with thousands of his saints, [15] To execute judgment upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly for all the works of their ungodliness, whereby they have done ungodly, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God. 

[16] These are murmurers, full of complaints, walking according to their own desires, and their mouth speaketh proud things, admiring persons for gain' s sake. [17] But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, [18] Who told you, that in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. [19] These are they, who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit. [20] But you, my beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 

[21] Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto life everlasting. [22] And some indeed reprove, being judged:[23] But others save, pulling them out of the fire. And on others have mercy, in fear, hating also the spotted garment which is carnal. [24] Now to him who is able to preserve you without sin, and to present you spotless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,[25] To the only God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and magnificence, empire and power, before all ages, and now, and for all ages of ages. Amen. (Jude 1-25.)

There are no “loopholes” in these passages. 

The likes of Ramon Bejarano who believe that they can ignore and/or deconstruct the plain words inspired by God the Holy Ghost are abject rebels who have been anathematized by the Council of Trent:

Moreover, the same sacred and holy Synod,—considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic,—ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.

Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,—in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, —wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,—whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,—hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established. (Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent.)

Furthermore, Pope Leo XIII explained that no one must ever doubt the fact that the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, inspired every word of Sacred Scripture, which cannot be ignored by anyone desirous of pleasing God and saving his own immortal soul:

Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author. For, by supernatural power, He so moved and impelled them to write — He was so present to them — that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture. Such has always been the persuasion of the Fathers. “Therefore,” says St. Augustine, “since they wrote the things which He showed and uttered to them, it cannot be pretended that He is not the writer; for His members executed what their Head dictated.” And St. Gregory the Great thus pronounces: “Most superfluous it is to inquire who wrote these things — we loyally believe the Holy Ghost to be the Author of the book. He wrote it Who dictated it for writing; He wrote it Who inspired its execution.” (Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, November 18, 1893.)

To take issue with the clear denunciations of sodomy contained in Holy Writ is to blaspheme God the Holy Ghost, and Pope Benedict XV, aware that innovators were trying to deconstruct the plain words of Sacred Scripture by casting aspersions upon Saint Jerome’s translation of it into the Latin Vulgate by claiming that the holy Dalmatian’s work was unreliable.

Pope Benedict XV used a good deal of Spiritus Paraclitus, September 15, 1920, to denounce innovators who were attempting to distort Saint Jerome's body of work for their own Modernist ends. One will see in the passages below an exact description of how the conciliar "popes," including Karol Joszef Wojtyla, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, have sought to reconcile the Modernist precepts of conciliarism with the truths of Catholicism by distorting the work of various Church Fathers, Doctors and saints:

24. Nor do modern innovators stop here: they even try to claim St. Jerome as a patron of their views on the ground that he maintained that historic truth and sequence were not observed in the Bible, “precisely as things actually took place, but in accordance with what men thought at that time,” and that he even held that this was the true norm for history.[44] A strange distortion of St. Jerome’s words! He does not say that when giving us an account of events the writer was ignorant of the truth and simply adopted the false views then current; he merely says that in giving names to persons or things he followed general custom. Thus the Evangelist calls St. Joseph the father of Jesus, but what he meant by the title “father” here is abundantly clear from the whole context. For St. Jerome “the true norm of history” is this: when it is question of such appellatives (as “father,” etc), and when there is no danger or error, then a writer must adopt the ordinary forms of speech simply because such forms of speech are in ordinary use. More than this: Jerome maintains that belief in the Biblical narrative is as necessary to salvation as is belief in the doctrines of the faith; thus in his Commentary on the Epistle to Philemon he says:

“What I mean is this: Does any man believe in God the Creator? He cannot do so unless he first believe that the things written of God’s Saints are true.” He then gives examples from the Old Testament, and adds: “Now unless a man believes all these and other things too which are written of the Saints he cannot believe in the God of the Saints.”[45]

25. Thus St. Jerome is in complete agreement with St. Augustine, who sums up the general belief of Christian antiquity when he says:

Holy Scripture is invested with supreme authority by reason of its sure and momentous teachings regarding the faith. Whatever, then, it tells us of Enoch, Elias and Moses — that we believe. We do not, for instance, believe that God’s Son was born of the Virgin Mary simply because He could not otherwise have appeared in the flesh and ‘walked amongst men’ — as Faustus would have it — but we believe it simply because it is written in Scripture; and unless we believe in Scripture we can neither be Christians nor be saved.[46]

26. Then there are other assailants of Holy Scripture who misuse principles — which are only sound, if kept within due bounds — in order to overturn the fundamental truth of the Bible and thus destroy Catholic teaching handed down by the Fathers. If Jerome were living now he would sharpen his keenest controversial weapons against people who set aside what is the mind and judgment of the Church, and take too ready a refuge in such notions as “implicit quotations” or “pseudo-historical narratives,” or in “kinds of literature” in the Bible such as cannot be reconciled with the entire and perfect truth of God’s word, or who suggest such origins of the Bible as must inevitably weaken — if not destroy — its authority.

27. What can we say of men who in expounding the very Gospels so whittle away the human trust we should repose in it as to overturn Divine faith in it? They refuse to allow that the things which Christ said or did have come down to us unchanged and entire through witnesses who carefully committed to writing what they themselves had seen or heard. They maintain — and particularly in their treatment of the Fourth Gospel — that much is due of course to the Evangelists — who, however, added much from their oown imaginations; but much, too, is due to narratives compiled by the faithful at other periods, the result, of course, being that the twin streams now flowing in the same channel cannot be distinguished from one another. Not thus did Jerome and Augustine and the other Doctors of the Church understand the historical trustworthiness of the Gospels; yet of it one wrote: “He who saw it has borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he tells the truth, and you also may believe” an. 19:35). So, too, St. Jerome: after rebuking the heretical framers of the apocryphal Gospels for “attempting rather to fill up the story than to tell it truly,”[47] he says of the Canonical Scriptures: “None can doubt but that what is written took place.”[48] Here again he is in fullest harmony with Augustine, who so beautifully says: “These things are true; they are faithfully and truthfully written of Christ; so that whosoever believes His Gospel may be thereby instructed in the truth and misled by no lie.”[49]

28. All this shows us how earnestly we must strive to avoid, as children of the Church, this insane freedom in ventilating opinions which the Fathers were careful to shun. This we shall more readily achieve if you, Venerable Brethren, will make both clergy and laity committed to your care by the Holy Spirit realize that neither Jerome nor the other Fathers of the Church learned their doctrine touching Holy Scripture save in the school of the Divine Master Himself. We know what He felt about Holy Scripture: when He said, “It is written,” and “the Scripture must needs be fulfilled,” we have therein an argument which admits of no exception and which should put an end to all controversy. (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritius Paraclitus, September 15, 1920.)

There is really nothing more that needs to be written about men who, barring a miraculous conversion, will wind up being “welcomed” into hell by the adversary, who will then proceed to torture them for all eternity those who were stupid as to claim that “welcoming” practitioners of perverse sins against nature important enough for them to teach that, in essence, Holy Scripture is not inerrant and can be ignored with impunity in order not to offend the tender sensibilities of those steeped, objectively speaking, in one Mortal Sin after another.

Yet it is the commission and/or celebration of Mortal Sins is, contrary to what Ramon Bejarano and others within the conciliar hierarchy and presbyterate have long contended, not compatible with devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, it is a mockery of the pure love of Love Himself for His Co-Equal, Co-Eternal God the Father and for us as sin of any kind wounds the Sacred Heart of Jesus once in time and is a fresh source of sorrow to His Most Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Heart, out of which the Sacred Heart of Jesus was formed in her Virginal and Immaculate Womb and which beats in unison with It for all eternity.

Ramon Bejarano is far from alone, of course, as there are many throughout the world, including in Europe and the United States of America, who, having lost the Holy Faith, directly support all types of perversity, including the utter insanity of “gender identity”:

Bishop Heinrich Timmerevers of the Diocese of Dresden-Meissen has recently challenged traditional Church doctrine by questioning its stance on “gender identity.”

In a recent interview covered by Katholisch.de, taken from the new issue of the “Herder Thema” series, titled “Visibly Recognized: Diversity of Sexual Identities,” Timmerevers claimed that new philosophies must be considered in the development of Church doctrine.

In 2023, the bishop expressed his desire for Church-run schools in Germany to recognize “sexual diversity.”

“In the future, church-run schools should be recognizable by the fact that they provide space for students to address their own sexuality,” the bishop stated.

Timmerevers went on to say that the goal of the Church should be to “make church spaces, spaces of recognition for people of all sexual identities.”

Timmerevers is not alone in his position. Marianne Heimbach-Steins, a Catholic academic based in Münster, recently accused the Church of ignoring its own ethical standards.

“The defensive struggle waged by the Magisterium against ‘gender’ and the recognition of sexual diversity counteracts its commitment to the unconditional recognition of human dignity,” she said in the same “Herder Thema” issue. (Heterodox German bishop calls for change to traditional Church teaching on gender.)

Boy, if only Leo knew, huh?

Of course, Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV knows. Bottom of Form

Prevost/Leo chooses to turn a blind eye and a death ear while keeping his mouth shut about such utter insanity. That anyone can remain silent in the midst of insane claim that there are more two genders, a claim if that would have gotten anyone who made it sent away to the funny farm as late as sixty years ago, stands condemned by the following words of Pope Saint Leo the Great in his Epistle to Anastasius:

But it is vain for them to adopt the name of catholic, as they do not oppose these blasphemies: they must believe them, if they can listen so patiently to such words. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, Epistle XIV, To Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, St. Leo the Great | Letters 1-59 )

The belief that there are more than two genders is indeed blasphemous as, apart from being insane, ait denies the plain words of God’s creative work as recorded by Moses in the Book of Genesis:

[26] And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. [27] And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. [28] And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. [29] And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: [30] And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done.

[31] And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And the evening and morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1: 1-31.)

Men such as Ramon Bejarano and Heinrich Timmerevers maintain their good standing within the counterfeit church of conciliarism because the likes of the late Joseph Alois Ratzinger did not believe it was his duty to “police” his “bishops” and because the likes of the late Jorge Mario Bergoglio believed in what such men believed, which meant that they were speaking for him as they went entirely unpunished, if actually being rewarded, for giving aid and comfort to perversity and insanity. Robert Francis Prevost/Leo/XIV’s continued silence about these outrages and his decision appoint men such as Michael Pham as “bishops” means that, no matter his sartorial and oratorial differences with buffoonish caricature of a predecessor, his affinity for those who promote perversity is the same, something that quite speaks for itself.

Sadly, there is more as the president of the German conciliar “bishops’” conference, Georg Batzing, recently recommended “guidelines” for the blessing of a variety of objectively sinful relationships that he, channeling the late Argentine Apostate, calls “irregular unions”:

Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, president of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK), recommended implementing the conference’s official guidelines for the “blessings” of same-sex “couples,” the divorced and civilly “remarried,” and other irregular unions in his diocese this week.

The Diocese of Limburg published Bätzing’s recommendation to implement the heterodox “blessings” in its official diocesan journal on July 9. The bishop’s recommendation follows April announcement from the German Bishops’ Conference and the lay organization Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) that they were adopting the guidelines for these “blessings” in line with “the pastoral approach” of the late Pope Francis.

The heretical “blessings” in the document are meant to be offered for “divorced and remarried couples, couples of all gender identities and sexual orientations, as well as couples who do not want to or cannot receive the sacrament of marriage for other reasons.”

It’s worth noting that the document is not binding on the country’s bishops but merely represents “practical advice.” Bätzing is now the first German bishop to recommend implementing these “blessings” in his diocese.

The German bishops’ guidelines further state that the “blessings” can be carried out by both clerics and laypeople with an episcopal assignment. They also note that the ceremony for the “blessings” should be marked by “greater spontaneity and freedom with regard to the life situation of those who ask for the blessing.”

“For this reason, no approved liturgical celebrations and prayers are planned for the blessings,” the document states.

“The way in which the blessing is conducted, the location, the overall aesthetics, including music and singing, should testify to the appreciation of the people asking for the blessing, their togetherness, and their faith.”

The document does suggest that no one should be forced to commit the heterodox “blessings.” However, it also states that “Pastors who nevertheless come to the conclusion that they cannot reconcile a blessing with their conscience or are unsure about this should refer the couple requesting a blessing to supportive persons (e.g., representatives for queer pastoral care, marriage and family pastoral care of the diocese).”

LifeSiteNews reached out to the German Bishops’ Conference but did not receive a response by publication time.

These guidelines for homosexual “blessings” had been expected in Germany, since the country’s heretical “Synodal Way” had already decided to allow and implement same-sex “blessings” in 2023. That same week, the “Synodal Way” had also voted in favor of allowing female deacons and approved a declaration saying that “transsexuals” should not be “excluded” from the priesthood.

Several prominent Catholic prelates have criticized the Synodal Way. Cardinal Gerhard Müller has slammed the “Synodal Way” for “not respecting the Christian anthropology, that everybody is created according to the image and likeness of God, but they are occupied and influenced by the LGBT and woke ideology, that is meta-realistic and nihilistic, and therefore they have these strange ideas for the ‘blessing’ of same-sex unions.” 

Pope Francis’ controversial 2023 document, Fiducia Supplicans, which allowed the “blessings” of homosexual “couples” under certain conditions, offered much support to the heretical course of the German “Synodal Church.” Indeed, the German Bishops’ guidelines cite Fiducia Supplicans to justify their heretical cause.

“In order to bring the pastoral approach of Pope Francis’ pontificate to bear more strongly on this issue as well, it is the declared intention of Fiducia Supplicans to ‘coherently combine doctrinal aspects with pastoral aspects’ (FS 3),” the German bishops wrote. (German bishop suggests guidelines for blessing same-sex 'couples,' divorced and 'remarried'.)

Boy, if only Leo knew, huh?

As I noted in a recent commentary, it is possibly the case that some of what we are witnessing with these very public displays of affection for the sodomite agenda of perversity are efforts to test the limits of the American-born “pope’s” tolerance for “diversity” and “inclusion, and it does appear that Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV is passing these tests rather well and with flying lavender colors.

Ah, but the coup de grace in all this is the recent discovery by a secular news organization that a “Father” Carlo Alberto Capella, who had been convicted of possessing the sickest forms of pornography extent, the sort of which has ensnared even traditionally-minded presbyters, including one I knew from Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary in the Fall 1981 Semester (see Catholic News Agency), has returned to work with the conciliar Vatican’s Secretariat of State after four years of a five year prison sentence within the walls of the Occupied Vatican on the West Bank of the Tiber River:

VATICAN CITY — He was the personification of shame in the Vatican, the lone prisoner in the three-cell jail of the world’s smallest sovereign state. Now, the Rev. Carlo Alberto Capella — convicted of possessing and distributing a “large quantity” of child pornography while serving as a Vatican diplomat in Washington — is presenting Pope Leo XIV, the new American pontiff, with one of the first challenges of his papacy.

Capella, a 58-year-old Italian priest, was investigated by U.S. and Canadian authorities for almost two years for gathering and sharing child pornography while a senior diplomat at the Holy See’s embassy in Washington. In 2017, the U.S. State Department asked the Vatican to waive his diplomatic immunity, a request it denied. Instead, Capella was recalled to Rome, where he admitted to tracking down “repugnant” images and, in a rare Vatican criminal trial a year later, was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.

In recent weeks, reports have emerged on Catholic blogs of his 2022 release and quiet return to work at the Holy See’s Secretariat of State. His restoration to the powerful department has outraged advocates for the survivors of abuse by Catholic clerics. They insist that even though he was never accused of sexual abuse, a convicted priest who consumed child pornography has no place in a prominent Vatican office.

“Why not give him a job scrubbing floors, or bathrooms, at the Vatican,” said Peter Isely, a member of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP. “Why is he still an official member of the state department? It’s wrong on every level.”

As Pope Leo is confronted with demands to act, he becomes the fourth pontiff since the 1990s to face scrutiny, and potentially judgment, over how he handles the still-emerging cases of sexual crimes committed by clerics.

Pope John Paul II faced both contemporary and posthumous criticism for his handling of abuse cases. The issue dogged Benedict XVI even more, with a chorus of complaints seen as one of several factors contributing to his historic decision to retire. Pope Francis enacted reforms aimed at addressing the scandals, yet survivor groups routinely took him to task for failing to adopt a policy of zero tolerance including mandatory reporting to civil authorities.

Now, advocacy groups are looking to Leo to chart a different course, and even reverse Francis on the Capella case.

Capella’s attorney, Roberto Borgogno, said in an interview that his client was released a year early, in the first part of 2022, for “good behavior” and resumed work at the secretariat in January 2023. Pope Francis, Borgogno said, approved Capella’s return and had at least one direct post-release conversation with him about his contrition.

“These are certainly decisions made logically, rationally, by the pontiff at the time,” Borgogno said.

The direct involvement of Francis and the specifics of Capella’s living arrangement and monitoring have not been previously reported.

Capella, whose work is limited to checking translations and doing archival work, now lives just outside the Vatican, in a center for retired diplomats, his lawyer said. His work computer is monitored by Vatican officials, though he has an unmonitored personal cellphone.

Borgogno noted that while Capella had not been defrocked, Vatican authorities stripped him of his elevated title of monsignor. Though he returned to the secretariat in 2023, Capella was considered to be “on probation” and only recently appeared on the Holy See’s official personnel registry.

“It’s merely a desk job,” Borgogno said. “He won’t be carrying out pastoral work; he won’t be in contact with people on the outside.”

Through Borgogno, Capella declined an interview request.

The renewed focus on Capella comes as Archbishop Guy de Kerimel of Toulouse, France, faces criticism for appointing a priest, convicted of raping a 16-year-old boy in 1993, to the senior post of archdiocesan chancellor, citing the moral imperative of forgiveness. Victims groups are now calling on Leo to intervene in both instances.

“This is a test,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a watchdog group that tracks abuse cases in the Catholic Church. “To me, it brings up bigger questions of the Vatican’s continued rejection of zero tolerance for sex offenders. I think these two things together really put all eyes on Pope Leo. We’re all wondering if he will be tougher on sex abusers than Pope Francis was.”

The Secretariat of State did not respond to a detailed request for comment. A senior Vatican official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter said he didn’t know whether Leo had been briefed on the cases or intended to take specific action.

It’s hardly unheard of for a pope to reverse a predecessor’s decision — Francis, for instance, curbed use of the traditional Latin Mass after Pope Benedict XVI had relaxed restrictions on it.

“The pope clearly has jurisdiction in the matter … it will all be up to him,” said Giovanni Maria Vian, former editor of the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, and a historian of early Christianity. “He’s likely aware of the [Capella] case. It wouldn’t be unusual if he took action.”

The official described Capella’s job as one in which he has minimal contact with the public and can “earn his keep.” His return to work is a chance for Capella to “redeem” himself, the official said, arguing that no punishment for such priests will ever “be enough” for some victims advocates.

If everyone who does wrong “gets shunned,” the official said, “few of us would still be standing.”

The Washington Post reported in 2021 that Capella had been allowed to participate in a work-release program in which he spent mornings at the small Vatican office that sells certificates of papal blessings for personal occasions.

Now, Capella’s case is once again underscoring how the Holy See routinely approaches wrongdoing by clerics — from the religious standpoint of mercy and a spirit of Catholic atonement. That vision has clashed with that of victims advocates, who see Capella’s return to the secretariat in any capacity, as well as the senior appointment of a convicted rapist in France, as evidence of an overly lenient approach.

The demands for action have raised questions about how the new pope will handle perhaps the thorniest issue facing the faith he leads: tainted priests.

Under Francis, the Vatican sought to address widespread allegations of church complicity. In 2019, he convened an unprecedented summit on clerical sexual abuse, later imposing a sweeping law requiring church officials to report accusations of abuse or official cover-ups to their superiors.

But the law did not require allegations to be reported to civil authorities, and victims groups have pointed to more-recent scandals in Switzerland and elsewhere as evidence that not enough has changed. They say Leo should remove Capella from the secretariat and overturn the recent French appointment to show his commitment to zero tolerance.

Leo has a mixed record on handling abuse cases.

As a bishop in Peru, for instance, he won praise for moving against the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae — a secretive, archconservative Catholic group that expanded from Lima to several countries and was accused of systematic sexual and psychological abuse. At the same time, he was accused of lax oversight in the handling of abuse allegations by three women in his diocese of Chiclayo.

Last month, in a note honoring a Peruvian journalist whose work helped expose sexual abuse within the Sodalitium group, Leo called for a cultural shift inside the church.

It is necessary to instill “throughout the Church a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse: abuse of power or authority, of conscience or spirituality, of sexual abuse,” he wrote. (A convicted priest is back at work. Child advocates want Pope Leo to act..)

The way for “Father” Capella to “redeem” himself would be to assign him to a hermitage for the rest of his life to atone for his moral and civil crimes by living a life of prayer and solitude. One of the great crimes of conciliarism, has been to treat perversity as ordinary offense against God that, once presumably (but not actually, of course) absolved in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance serves as no impediment to future priestly work.

Such was not the view of the late Father Gerald Fitzgerald, who founded the Servants of the Paraclete to deal specifically with priests with sodomite tendencies:

As early as the mid-1950s, decades before the clergy sexual-abuse crisis broke publicly across the U.S. Catholic landscape, the founder of a religious order that dealt regularly with priest sex abusers was so convinced of their inability to change that he searched for an island to purchase with the intent of using it as a place to isolate such offenders, according to documents recently obtained by NCR.

Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of the Servants of the Paracletes, an order established in 1947 to deal with problem priests, wrote regularly to bishops in the United States and to Vatican officials, including the pope, of his opinion that many sexual abusers in the priesthood should be laicized immediately.

Fitzgerald was a prolific correspondent who wrote regularly of his frustration with and disdain for priests "who have seduced or attempted to seduce little boys or girls." His views are contained in letters and other correspondence that had previously been under court seal and were made available to NCR by a California law firm in February.

Fitzgerald's convictions appear to significantly contradict the claims of contemporary bishops that the hierarchy was unaware until recent years of the danger in shuffling priests from one parish to another and in concealing the priests' problems from those they served.

It is clear, too, in letters between Fitzgerald and a range of bishops, among bishops themselves, and between Fitzgerald and the Vatican, that the hierarchy was aware of the problem and its implications well before the problem surfaced as a national story in the mid-1980s.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles archdiocese, reacting in February to a federal investigation into his handling of the crisis, said: "We have said repeatedly that ... our understanding of this problem and the way it's dealt with today evolved, and that in those years ago, decades ago, people didn't realize how serious this was, and so, rather than pulling people out of ministry directly and fully, they were moved."

Indeed, some psychology experts seemed to hold the position that priest offenders could be returned to ministry. Even the Paracletes, as the order developed and grew, employed experts who said that certain men could be returned to ministry under stringent conditions and with strict supervision.

The order itself ultimately was so inundated with lawsuits regarding priests who molested children while or after being treated at its facility in Jemez Springs, N.M., that it closed the facility in 1995.

Whatever discussion occurred during the 1970s and 1980s over proper treatment, however, for nearly two decades Fitzgerald spoke a rather consistent conviction about the dim prospects for returning sex abusers to ministry. Fitzgerald seemed to know almost from the start the danger such priests posed. He was adamant in his conviction that priests who sexually abused children (often the language of that era was more circumspect in naming the problem) should not be returned to ministry.

In a 1957 letter to an unnamed archbishop, Fitzgerald said, "These men, Your Excellency, are devils and the wrath of God is upon them and if I were a bishop I would tremble when I failed to report them to Rome for involuntary layization [sic]." The letter, addressed to "Most dear Cofounder," was apparently to Archbishop Edwin V. Byrne of Santa Fe, N.M., who was considered a cofounder of the Paraclete facility at Jemez Springs and a good friend of Fitzgerald.

Later in the same letter, in language that revealed deep passion, he wrote: "It is for this class of rattlesnake I have always wished the island retreat -- but even an island is too good for these vipers of whom the Gentle Master said it were better they had not been born -- this is an indirect way of saying damned, is it not?"

The documents were sealed at the request of the church in an earlier civil case involving Fr. Rudolph Kos of Dallas. Eleven plaintiffs won awards in the case in which Kos was accused of molesting minors over a 12-year period. He had been treated at the Paraclete facility in New Mexico. The documents were unsealed in 2007 by a court order obtained by the Beverly Hills law firm of Kiesel, Boucher & Larson, according to Anthony DeMarco, an attorney with the firm that has handled hundreds of cases for alleged victims of sexual abuse in the Los Angeles archdiocese and elsewhere.

According to Helen Zukin, another member of the firm, the documents have been used in some cases to dispute the church claim that it knew nothing about the behavior of sex abusers or the warning signs of abuse prior to the 1980s.

In a September 1952 letter to the then- bishop of Reno, Nev., Fitzgerald wrote: "I myself would be inclined to favor laicization for any priest, upon objective evidence, for tampering with the virtue of the young, my argument being, from this point onward the charity to the Mystical Body should take precedence over charity to the individual and when a man has so far fallen away from the purpose of the priesthood the very best that should be offered him is his Mass in the seclusion of a monastery. Moreover, in practice, real conversions will be found to be extremely rare. ... Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal." The advice was ignored and the priest was allowed to continue in ministry, and was ultimately accused of abusing numerous children, for which the church paid out huge sums in court awards.

While Fitzgerald told anyone who would listen of the futility of returning sexually abusive priests to ministry, that conviction became less absolute as the order, today headquartered in St. Louis, grew and the scope of its work became more complex. Fitzgerald, by most accounts, was deeply motivated by a sense of obligation to care for priests who were in trouble. Originally a priest of the Boston archdiocese for 12 years, he became a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross in 1934, and started the Servants of the Paraclete in 1947. His concern at the time was primarily for priests struggling with alcoholism. As his new order matured and its ministry became known, bishops began referring priests with other maladies, particularly those who had been sexually abusive of children. The order for years was the primary source for care of priests in the United States with alcohol and sexual problems.

At times, Fitzgerald appears to have resisted taking in priests who had sexually abused youngsters. In his 1957 letter he requested concurrence from the cofounder archbishop "of what I consider a very vital decision on our part -- that for the sake of preventing scandal that might endanger the good name of Via Coeli [the name of the New Mexico facility] we will not offer hospitality to men who have seduced or attempted to seduce" children. "Experience has taught us these men are too dangerous to the children of the parish and neighborhood for us to be justified in receiving them here."

In September 1957 the bishop of Manchester, N.H., Matthew F. Brady, sought Fitzgerald's advice regarding "a problem priest," John T. Sullivan, who seemed sincerely repentant and whose difficulty "is not drink but a series of scandal-causing escapades with young girls. There is no section of the diocese in which he is not known and no pastor seems willing to accept him," Brady wrote. The "escapades" involved molestation of young girls. In at least one instance, he procured an abortion for a teenager he had impregnated. In another case, he fathered a child and provided support to the mother until she later married. The charges of molesting girls would follow him the rest of his life.

"The solution of his problem seems to be a fresh start in some diocese where he is not known. It occurred to me that you might know of some bishop who would be willing to give him that opportunity," Brady wrote in his original letter.

Fitzgerald responded that in his judgment the "repentance and amendment" in such cases "is superficial and, if not formally at least subconsciously, is motivated by a desire to be again in a position where they can continue their wonted activity. A new diocese means only green pastures."

Fitzgerald added that the Paracletes had "adopted a definite policy not to recommend to bishops men of this character, even presuming the sincerity of their conversion. We feel that the protection of our glorious priesthood will demand, in time, the establishment of a uniform code of discipline and of penalties."

He acknowledged the degree of deference with which Catholic clergy were treated even by civil authorities. "We are amazed to find how often a man who would be behind bars if he were not a priest is entrusted with the cura animarum [the care of souls]," he wrote.

Sullivan apparently had already been pulled from active ministry. In October 1957, less than a month after contacting Fitzgerald, Brady wrote a response to the bishop of Burlington, Vt., among the first of more than a dozen bishops approached by Sullivan for the next five years, warning against accepting him.

Brady then wrote a letter that he sent out time after time to bishops inquiring about Sullivan after he had requested acceptance for ministry. "My conscience will not allow me to recommend him to any bishop and I feel that every inquiring bishop should know some of the circumstances that range from parenthood, through violation of the Mann Act, attempted suicide, and abortion.

"Father Fitzgerald of Via Coeli would accept him only as a permanent guest to help save his soul but with no hope of recommending him to a bishop."

According to a 2003 Washington Post story, Sullivan, who had bounced around from diocese to diocese for nearly 30 years, "was stripped of his faculties to serve as a priest after he kissed a 13-year-old girl in Laconia, N.H., in 1983, when he was 66. He died in 1999, never having faced a criminal charge." After his death the church paid out more than a half-million dollars in awards to Sullivan's victims, including three in Grand Rapids, Mich., and one in Amarillo, Texas, two dioceses that did not heed the warnings of the bishops in New Hampshire. The victims said they were abused when they were between 7 and 12 years old.

In April 1962, Fitzgerald wrote a five-page response to a query from the Vatican's Congregation of the Holy Office about "the tremendous problem presented by the priest who through lack of priestly self-discipline has become a problem to Mother Church." One of his recommendations was for "a more distinct teaching in the last years of the seminary of the heavy penalty involved in tampering with the innocence (or even non-innocence) of little ones."

Regarding priests who have "fallen into repeated sins ... and most especially the abuse of children, we feel strongly that such unfortunate priests should be given the alternative of a retired life within the protection of monastery walls or complete laicization."

In August of the following year, he met with newly elected Pope Paul VI to inform him about his work and problems he perceived in the priesthood. His follow-up letter contained this assessment: "Personally I am not sanguine of the return of priests to active duty who have been addicted to abnormal practices, especially sins with the young. However, the needs of the church must be taken into consideration and an activation of priests who have seemingly recovered in this field may be considered but is only recommended where careful guidance and supervision is possible. Where there is indication of incorrigibility, because of the tremendous scandal given, I would most earnestly recommend total laicization."

But by 1963, Fitzgerald's powerful hold on the direction of the order was weakening. According to a 1993 affidavit by Fr. Joseph McNamara, who succeeded Fitzgerald as Servant General, the appointment of a new archbishop, James Davis, began a new era of the relationship between the order, which was a "congregation of diocesan right," and the archdiocese. Davis and Fitzgerald apparently clashed over a number of issues. Davis was far more concerned than his predecessor about the business aspects of the Santa Fe facility and demanded greater accountability. He also demanded greater involvement of medical and psychological professionals, while "Fr. Gerald [Fitzgerald] distrusted lay programs, psychologists and psychiatrists," favoring a more spiritual approach, according to McNamara.

McNamara said Fitzgerald was eventually forced from leadership by a combination of factors, not least of which was a growing disagreement with the bishop and other members of the order over the direction of the Paracletes. After 1965, said McNamara, Fitzgerald "never again resided at Via Coeli Monastery, nor did he ever regain the power he had once had."

Nor did he get his island. In 1965 Fitzgerald had put a $5,000 deposit on an island in Barbados, near Carriacou, in the Caribbean that had a total purchase price of $50,000. But the new bishop apparently wanted nothing to do with owning an island, and Fitzgerald, who died in 1969, was forced to sell his long-sought means for isolating priest sex offenders.

When asked for comment, a spokesman for the Paraceltes referred NCR to historic accounts previously written about the order. (Bishops were warned of abusive priests.)  

True bishops before the "Second" Vatican Council had been warned by Father Fitzgerald. They did not care. The seeds of corruption were planted long ago. They only managed to come to the forefront and receive liturgical expression, and now even "papal" approbation in the decades thereafter.

The doctrinal, liturgical, moral, and pastoral revolutions of conciliarism are partly the result of the fact those who institutionalized the protection and promotion accorded to all that is perverse, indecent, and salacious within the darkest recesses of the conciliar sect were corrupt in mind, body, and soul before the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, and then found a champion from their own ranks in the person of the sodomite named Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI on June 21, 1963.

Moral corruption begets doctrinal and liturgical corruption, and this triple expression of corruption is embedded into the very framework of conciliarism, which is why we must pray to Our Lady every day, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, to provide us with a true pope so that the pure light of her Divine Son can shine forth into the world once again as he is served by priests and bishops with minds and hearts that inspire the souls they serve to the heights of personal sanctity and who are willing to risk everything, including death itself, to defend the Holy Faith in all of its perfect integrity.

Millions of martyrs preferred death to apostasy, and among those martyrs are the saints whose feast is celebrated today, Saints Cyriacus, Largus, and Smaradgus:

Today a precursor of Laurence appears on the cycle, the deacon Cyriacus, whose power over the demon made hell tremble, and entitles him to a place among the Saints called helpers. He and his companions in martyrdom form one of the noblest groups of Christ’s army in that last and decisive battle, wherein the eagerness of the faithful to show that they knew how to die, won victory for the Cross. Rome, baptized in the blood she had shed, found herself Christian in spite of herself; all her honors were now to be lavished upon the very men whom in the time of her folly she had put to the sword. Such are thy triumphs, O Wisdom of God!

Mention of the three martyrs celebrated today is to be found in the most authentic calendars of the Church that have come down to us from the fourth century. (Calendarium Bucherii) If, then, as Baronius acknowledges, (Annal. ad An. 309:6) there is some reason for calling into question certain details of the legend, their cultus is nonetheless immemorial upon earth; and the unwavering devotion of which they are the objects, especially in the sanctuaries enriched with their holy relics, proves that they have great power before the throne of the Lamb.

Cyriacus, a deacon, underwent, a long imprisonment together with Largus, Sisinius and Smaragdus, and worked many miracles. Amongst others, by his prayers, he freed Arthemia, a daughter of Diocletian, from the possession of the devil. He was sent to Sapor, king of Persia, and delivered his daughter, Jobia, in like manner from the devil. He baptized the king, her father, and four hundred and thirty others, and then returned to Rome. There he was seized by command of the Emperor Maximian, and dragged in chains before his chariot. Four days afterwards he was taken out of prison, boiling pitch was poured over him, he was stretched on the rack, and at length he was put to death by the axe, with Largus, Smaragdus, and twenty others at Sallust’s Gardens on the Salarian Way. A priest named John buried their bodies on that same way, on the 17th of the Calends of April, but on the 6th of the Ides of August, Pope Marcellus and the noble lady Lucina wrapped them in linen with precious spices, and translated them to Lucina’s estate on the Ostian Way, seven miles from Rome.

The Church today recites this prayer in their honor:

PRAYER

Oh God, who dost rejoice us by the annual solemnity of thy holy martyrs, Cyriacus, Largus and Smaragdus, mercifully grant that we may imitate the virtue with which they suffered, whose festival we celebrate. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Litugical Year, Feast of Saints Cyriacus, Largus, and Smaradgus, August 8.)

We know the end of the story about all this, don’t we?

Of course, we do.

Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart will triumph in the end, and every Rosary we pray helps to plant the seeds for this triumph.

What are we waiting for?

Isn’t it time to pray a Rosary now?

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saints Cyriacus, Largusm, and Smaradgus, pray for us,