Pope Leo receives TLM Supporter Cardinal Simoni in private Vatican audience after Easter appearance

 For the second time …

AdVaticanum

Apr. 28, 2026

Pope Leo received Cardinal Ernest Simoni in a private Vatican audience on April 27, marking their second meeting since Easter Sunday. The Albanian cardinal, once sentenced to death under communism, presented a relic the Albanian martyrs.

The audience took place in the Hall of Popes and included around 40 members of the cardinal’s family. It marked the second notable encounter between the two men in recent weeks, following the Easter Sunday Urbi et Orbi blessing on April 5, when Cardinal Simoni stood alongside the cardinal protodeacon during the papal appearance from the central loggia of St Peter’s Basilica.

Speaking afterwards to Vatican Media, Cardinal Simoni described the meeting in direct and emphatic terms. “All joy, all hope,” he said, describing the atmosphere of the encounter. He added: “It was an atmosphere of all joy, all hope, gazing upon the face of the Holy Father, which represents the face of Jesus, to proclaim to all men the news of Heaven, of peace, of brotherhood and of love for all the peoples of the world.”

 “Let us proclaim together for all the peoples of the world the peace that comes from Heaven,” Cardinal Simoni said.

At the conclusion of the audience, Cardinal Simoni presented Pope Leo with a gift connected to the history of Catholic persecution in Albania. “Coming to Italy from Albania, my thoughts are with the martyrs,” he said, before offering “the cross and a relic of the Albanian martyrs who gave their lives for fidelity, for the love of Jesus, for the salvation of the Albanian people, to see all men smile upon Heaven”.

A priest of the Archdiocese of Shkodra-Pult, he marked the 70th anniversary of his ordination earlier this month, on April 7, a milestone reached after a lifetime marked by persecution under Albania’s communist regime.

Arrested on Christmas Eve 1963 for celebrating a Mass deemed illegal by the authorities, he was initially sentenced to death before the penalty was commuted to 25 years of forced labour.

Released in 1981, he remained under suspicion and was still regarded by the regime as an “enemy of the people” until the collapse of communism in 1990 allowed him to resume public ministry. His testimony later came to wider attention during the papal visit to Albania in 2014, when Pope Francis listened to his account and referred to him as a “living martyr”. Two years later, he was created a cardinal in recognition of that witness.

Despite his age, Cardinal Simoni has remained active in maintaining links with communities attached to the Traditional Latin Mass. He is a defender of the older liturgical form and has longstanding associations with traditionalist institutes, including regular visits to the International Seminary of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest at Gricigliano, near Florence. He has been present there for major liturgical celebrations, including the Feast of St Joseph, and has spent periods such as Holy Week with the community in recent years.  

During a Pontifical Latin Mass for the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage celebrated by Cardinal Raymond Burke in St Peter’s Basilica on October 25, 2025, Cardinal Simoni recited the prayer to St Michael the Archangel, describing it as a reminder that “the Devil exists, and the Church continues to fight”.

More: https://x.com/realadvaticanum/status/2049087212625461260?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

Scripture for today: the Diotrephes problem

N.B. The malicious words and works of Diotroephes are seen today in calumniators who, in attacking others by name within the community, commit mortal sin.

 3 John 1:5-10

5 Dearly beloved, thou dost faithfully whatever thou dost for the brethren, and that for strangers,
6 Who have given testimony to thy charity in the sight of the church: whom thou shalt do well to bring forward on their way in a manner worthy of God.
7 Because, for his name they went out, taking nothing of the Gentiles.
8 We therefore ought to receive such, that we may be fellow helpers of the truth.
9 I had written perhaps to the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them, doth not receive us.
10 For this cause, if I come, I will advertise his works which he doth, with malicious words prating against us. And as if these things were not enough for him, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and them that do receive them he forbiddeth, and casteth out of the church.

The problems of 'trans-ecumenism' when Canterbury goes to Rome.

Pope's Leo's effusive hospitality does little to engage with and confront reality.

GAVIN ASHENDEN. APR 28 ∙ PREVIEW

Is ecumenical respect a one-way street? There was a great deal of respect at the meeting between Pope Paul 6th and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in March 1966 marked a moment of proximity on the trajectory of the possible return of schismatic Anglicanism to the mother Church that may never have been closer. 

Anglicanism had experienced a deep wave of nostalgia for the sacrament of the Mass which gave birth to the Anglo Catholic movement. Rome had begin the process of negotiation with the spirit of the age that was to move it closer to the novelties of the Reformation Churches in the Second Vatican Council.

Nearly sixty years later, the trajectory of Anglicanism has been torn out of orbit and moved not only beyond the reconciling reach of the most hospitable of ecumenical gestures from Rome, but in the judgement of many, beyond the boundaries of orthodox Christianity itself.

Sarah Mullally is not only the first woman to be ‘produced’ by the appointments system of the Anglican establishment, but she represents a rebuke to orthodox Christianity not only in her person, but also in her convictions.

She is the expression of a Church that has drunk deep from the rage of contempt and antipathy that is an aspect of feminism, and carries a full range of progressive views which she imposes on the tradition of the Church like a rebuke.

The right to kill children in the womb is one of those views. The right to promote sterility in adult romantic relations is another.

If she represents the full impetus of secular feminism in its assault on deeply embedded Christian belief and culture which the Catholic Church represents, the Catholic Church should temper the respect it owes to the head of a Protestant denomination with a degree of caution and wariness.

In fact, there was no caution or wariness in Pope Leo’s greeting of the feminist pro-abortion Anglican woman archbishop. 

Should there have been? Should niceness and diplomatic politeness have been modified by fidelity to those values Sarah Mullally repudiated?

More: https://open.substack.com/pub/drgavinashenden/p/the-problems-of-trans-ecumenism-when?r=2x82t4&utm_medium=ios

Catholicism loses members in most countries surveyed: Pew

 Many Catholics left the faith or joined the Protestant Church as the latter showed gains in several regions 

People worship at the Satchmo Summerfest Jazz Mass, honoring New Orleans jazz legend Louis Armstrong, in historic St. Augustine Catholic Church on Aug. 3, 2025. (Photo: AFP)

By Gina Christian, OSV News

Published: April 25, 2026 05:15 AM GMT

A new analysis from Pew Research Center has found that Catholicism has lost more members than it has gained in most of the 24 countries surveyed, while Protestantism has seen net gains in several nations, especially Latin America.

The shifts are due to religious switching, or leaving one's childhood religious identity for another in adulthood.

Pew published its findings April 23, based on data from its surveys of 24 countries spanning Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, North America and sub-Saharan Africa.

The center's 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Study provided the data for the U.S., while international data was drawn from surveys conducted during the spring of 2024.

Pew noted the latter data included additional countries not referenced in the April 23 analysis, since the overall percentages of Christians in those nations was too small (1% or less) to statistically differentiate between Protestants and Catholics.

Those who leave Catholicism "tend to join Protestantism or disaffiliate from religion altogether," said Pew, noting that "disaffiliation is especially common in parts of Europe and Latin America."

In contrast, those who leave Protestantism "tend to become religiously unaffiliated," said Pew, which defines "religious nones" as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular."

Even with the losses sustained, Catholicism remains the majority religion in eight of the 24 nations studied, with Poland, the Philippines and Italy topping the list.

Pew noted that 96% of the Polish population was raised Catholic, with 92% still identifying as such in adulthood. The Philippines, where 88% are raised Catholic, has also seen a high adult retention rate, with 78% of that nation's adults still regarding themselves as Catholic. In Hungary, 57% of adults identify as Catholic, with 59% of the population having been raised Catholic.

Italy has experienced higher losses, with 89% of the nation's adults raised Catholic, and 67% of them identifying as such.

In Mexico, 66% of adults regard themselves as Catholic, although 87% of the nation's population is raised in the faith. In Peru, where 81% are raised Catholic, 63% of adults still identify with the faith.

Spain sees 80% of its population raised Catholic, but just 45% identify as such in adulthood, while in France, with 60% raised Catholic, only 34% of adults describe themselves as such.

In the U.S., less than one third (30%) are raised Catholic, and only 17% of adults describe themselves as Catholic. Those figures are slightly higher in Canada, where 39% are raised Catholic and 20% of adults identify as such.

More: https://www.ucanews.com/news/catholicism-loses-members-in-most-countries-surveyed-pew/113001

Scripture for today: “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

Lesson from the first letter of St. John the Apostle

1 John 4:1-6
1 Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2 By this is the spirit of God known. Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God:
3 And every spirit that dissolveth Jesus, is not of God: and this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, and he is now already in the world.
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome him. Because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
5 They are of the world: therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them.
6 We are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

Fr. Heimerl: Pope Francis marks the fulfillment of Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich’s ‘dark church’ prophecy

According to German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, the ‘after-church’ will not be a counter-church or a schismatic church, but the Catholic Church itself because it is increasingly distancing itself from Christ.

Pope Francis during his weekly general audience, February 2022Mazur/cbcew.org.uk/Flickr

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Fr. Joachim Heimerl

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on September 19, 2024. LifeSite has decided to republish it for the one-year anniversary of Pope Francis’ death, which occurred on April 21, 2025. We continue to pray for his soul and for his successor, Leo XIV.

The following essay is the first in a two-part series on the prophecies of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, the ‘synodal church,’ and Pope Francis. Part two can be found HERE.

(LifeSiteNews) — Two hundred years ago, the German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich died in Dülmen, Westphalia. The stigmatized nun saw not only the life of Jesus in her visions, but also the future of the Church. Shortly before her death, she said: “There will be an after-church.”

During Emmerich’s time, such a thing was hardly imaginable, and what would an “after-church” be on top of that? I admit: I wondered about that as well, at least until with Pope Francis the “synodal church” emerged and, with it, a rapid decline.

But one thing at a time: What do Francis, the “synodal church,” and Blessed Anne Catherine have to do with each other?

The key lies in an amendment made by Emmerich, in which she spoke of a “dark church.” By this, she meant a church in which the light of Christ is extinguished. Accordingly, the “after-church” will not be a counter-church or a schismatic church, nor a Protestant “church” like the “church” of the Anglicans or Lutherans. Instead, the Catholic Church itself will be this “post-church” because it is increasingly distancing itself from Christ.

This is where Francis comes into play, who has openly contradicted his predecessors and – at least in part – even Christ Himself. Cardinal George Pell has, therefore, rightly called Francis’ pontificate a “disaster,” one could also say: a pontificate that does not correspond to the will of Christ.

More: https://x.com/shiningsweu/status/2046882570969776401?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

Consistory on the mission: Confirmation of a preoccupying orientation

In a letter published on April 14, 2026, Pope Leo XIV announces the holding of an extraordinary consistory on June 26 and 27 of this year. This meeting of the College of Cardinals, centered on the "mission," fits into a dynamic that is now clearly identifiable: that of an assumed continuity with the orientations of the previous pontificate.

After an initial meeting in January, this new consistory confirms the intention to establish these assemblies as a regular organ of governance. But beyond the rhythm, it is above all the doctrinal line that draws attention. From the first initiatives of the new pope, one observation stands out. Far from a doctrinal rebalancing or a return to the traditional foundations of the faith, the work undertaken in Rome seems to confirm a line already widely drawn.

At the heart of the reflections proposed to the cardinals once again stands the programmatic text of Pope Francis's pontificate: *Evangelii gaudium*. This text is presented by Leo XIV as a "decisive point of reference" that remains, in his view, under-exploited. The Roman Pontiff wishes the cardinals to evaluate what has been implemented and what remains "misunderstood."

Yet, as Abbot Davide Pagliarani emphasized in a recent interview, this orientation rests on a profoundly new conception of evangelization. This consists in reducing the proclamation of the faith to what its promoters call the "kerygma," that is, to an extremely simplified formulation of the Christian message, centered on a few essential affirmations.

Such a method, appealing in its apparent simplicity, in reality relegates to the background the entire doctrinal and moral content transmitted by the Church's Tradition. What, for centuries, constituted the richness and precision of the Catholic faith thus finds itself regarded as secondary, or even as an obstacle to proclamation.

The notion of "kerygma" forms the central axis of this orientation. It involves expressing the faith in a few brief, accessible, and immediately "attractive" formulas, intended to spark a personal experience.

But this approach poses a major difficulty: it tends to dissociate the encounter with Christ from the objective truths of the faith that are nevertheless its foundation. Faith is no longer primarily adherence to a revealed content, transmitted and clarified by the magisterium over the centuries; it becomes a subjective experience, detached from the dogmatic formulations that guarantee its authenticity.

Such a perspective inevitably leads to a doctrinal impoverishment. As the Superior General of the FSSPX has pointed out, this method has already produced, under the previous pontificate, a genuine doctrinal void felt in many sectors of the Church.

In this perspective, three main dossiers must be addressed during the consistory.

The reform of the catechism is presented as a priority in the face of the erosion of faith transmission. If the stated intention may seem legitimate, one question remains: will this reform truly restore the integral teaching of the Church's doctrine and morality, or will it fit into the logic of the "kerygma," at the risk of proposing a simplified and incomplete version?

Ecclesiastical communication constitutes a second axis. In a world saturated with information, the Holy See wishes to make its message "more audible." But here again, the difficulty lies not so much in the form as in the content: effective communication cannot compensate for a doctrinal weakening.

The promotion of bishops' pastoral visits, finally, is presented as a means of fostering a "missionary boldness," while avoiding an approach deemed too administrative. However, this orientation fits into a broader vision where pastoral action tends to take precedence over doctrinal clarity.

These various initiatives take place within a more general framework: that of synodal reform. This is presented as the body responsible for discerning, according to contexts, what must be preserved or modified in the Church's teaching and practice.

In practice, this amounts to substituting evolving decisions for the constant responses of Tradition, dependent on consultative processes whose criteria remain vague. Recent experience has shown that this mode of operation can lead to gravely problematic orientations on the doctrinal and moral levels. The danger is twofold: on the one hand, a weakening of the content of the faith; on the other, a growing instability in its expression and application.

The reduction of the Christian proclamation to a minimal core presents an obvious advantage in an ecumenical perspective. By limiting itself to very general affirmations—the love of God, salvation in Jesus Christ—it becomes easier to find common ground with the Orthodox and Protestants.

But this apparent unity comes at the price of integral truth. For what precisely makes the specificity of the Catholic faith—its precise doctrinal content, its theological coherence, its demanding morality—tends to disappear from the discourse. The result is a form of unity without depth, based not on the fullness of truth, but on a reduction of it to its most minimal expression.

The consistory announced for June 2026 thus appears as an additional step in a process already well underway: that of a progressive transformation of the very conception of the Church, of its magisterium, and of its mission.

Behind the themes of "mission" and "communication" looms in reality a profound mutation: a Church where doctrine tends to fade before experience, where Tradition is relegated to the background, and where magisterial authority dissolves into evolving processes.

Faced with these developments, it appears more necessary than ever to recall that the Church's true mission cannot be conceived without the integral transmission of the faith, as it was received from the apostles and faithfully preserved over the centuries. For diminishing the truth does not make it more accessible, but without integral transmission, it truly leads souls to Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Translation courtesy of @FSSPXFR on Twitter/X

https://x.com/fsspxfr/status/2046509571628314769?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w