Straining at Trump, Swallowing Leo

 

Catholic Unscripted says Catholics are being led away from the Church. The deeper problem is a selective outrage that panics over Trump, pathologizes criticism, and asks Catholics to ignore the rot.

CHRIS JACKSON APR 16

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The Sermon Before the Smear

Catholic Unscripted packaged this episode as a warning about podcasts, personalities, “doing your own research,” and the danger of voices that “sound Catholic” while pulling people away from the Church. The whole thing was framed as an appeal to discernment, humility, obedience, and a return to “the Church, the sacraments, and the truth handed down through the ages.”

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That sounds pious enough. It also sounds safe. That is part of the problem.

Because once the discussion gets moving, what appears is a familiar little operation. Smear the loud critics. Flatten real doctrinal contradictions into internet hysteria. Tell battered Catholics that their problem is not the men wrecking the sanctuary, flattering the world, and dissolving the Faith into humanitarianism. Their problem, apparently, is that they noticed.

That is what this genre of conservative Catholic commentary does now. It wraps a call for passivity in the language of holiness and tells the wounded man that his real sin is being too alarmed by the blood.

Humility for You, Exemption for Them

The episode begins with open mockery of Trump and MAGA. Augustine Virgil presents Trump as a grotesque quasi-sacral figure, a golden-skinned monarch performing a “king’s touch” on the diseased masses. Later, the conversation treats MAGA as one more false political paradise, spectacle, and manipulative dialectic.

Now, to be clear, Trump is not beyond criticism. He says foolish things. He posts foolish things. Catholics are not obliged to pretend otherwise. But that is not what makes this episode dishonest. What makes it dishonest is proportion.

They can find their voice when Trump posts an image or throws a punch. Suddenly the moral alarms work. Suddenly outrage is possible. Suddenly religious men and women are called to discernment.

But where is this same nerve when Leo XIV speaks with studied ambiguity, empowers bad bishops, sanctifies the postconciliar disaster with soft words, and keeps the machinery of doctrinal erosion grinding forward? Where is the same urgency when sacrilege, theological inversion, and bureaucratized apostasy come not from Mar-a-Lago, but from Rome?

That is the central absurdity. They are straining at gnats and swallowing camels

More: https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/straining-at-trump-swallowing-leo?utm_medium=email&action=restack-comment&triedRedirect=true

Vatican court confirms ongoing investigation into validity of Pope Benedict’s resignation

 This is the first time the Vatican’s criminal investigative office has put in writing that multi-year claims have triggered an active investigation file on the validity of Benedict’s renunciation.

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John-Henry Westen

Tue Apr 14, 2026 - 12:07 pm EDT

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — In what is the first official Vatican acknowledgment of an active investigation into the legitimacy of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2013 resignation, the Office of the Promoter of Justice of the Vatican City State has formally confirmed that it is actively carrying out an investigation into a petition to the court alleging the nullity of the resignation. The Office is the body responsible for conducting criminal investigations for the Tribunal of the Vatican City State (commonly referred to by journalist Andrea Cionci as the “Vatican Criminal Court”).

Cionci is a veteran Roman journalist with 20 years’ experience at Italy’s major daily newspapers and the author of the bestselling book The Ratzinger Code (25,000 copies sold and translated into five languages). He has conducted one of the most detailed examinations of Benedict XVI’s renunciation since 2020.

LifeSiteNews has received and independently verified the full chain of custody of the official response, including the email from the Promoter’s Office (with attorney Roberto Tieghi), the lawyer’s formal access request dated 26 March 2026, and stamped Vatican receipt copies of the original petition and supplements. In the letter dated March 30, 2026 (Prot. N. 15/25 R.G.P.), Prof. Alessandro Diddi, the Promoter of Justice, rejected a request for access to the investigative file. The rejection was made solely on procedural grounds during an ongoing inquiry, not because the petition was deemed without merit.

The letter states explicitly (translated from the original Italian): “… l’Ufficio sta svolgendo indagini e non è, allo stato, possibile prevedere quando si concluderanno” (i.e. “… the Office is carrying out investigations and it is not, at present, possible to predict when they will conclude”).

It further notes that access to the dossier is not permitted while the istruttoria (investigative phase) is underway. The signed original bears the protocol number, letterhead, and Diddi’s handwritten signature.

This is the first time the Vatican’s criminal investigative office has put in writing that Cionci’s multi-year claims have triggered an active investigation file on the validity of Benedict’s renunciation. Even if the investigation ultimately concludes without public findings, the mere existence of an open criminal case file marks a significant development in the ongoing debate over the 2013 resignation.

Supported by a team of Latinists, canon lawyers, attorneys, and Church historians, Cionci has produced 1,500 articles, 2,800 podcasts, 185 conferences, and 55 petitions. On June 6, 2024, he filed the original 100-page criminal petition (protocol 116/24) with the Tribunal of the Vatican City State. It was later supplemented by a first formal supplement on 13 February 2025, a second formal supplement on 11 November 2025, and a further complaint in February 2026 regarding the alleged falsification of the Declaratio.

The core argument is that Benedict’s Declaratio deliberately or canonically distinguished between munus (the papal office itself) and ministerium (the exercise of that office), rendering the resignation invalid and leaving the See impeded (sede impedita).

RELATED: ‘The Benedict Code’ author says late Pope’s Declaratio was not an abdication

Report of Study Group No. 9: James Martin is the Synod and the Synod is James Martin

N.B. By what means is he pulling off this grand blackmail scheme to railroad the Church into serving as a handmaid of LGBTQ “globo homo” international? And is someone, in turn, pulling his strings? This news puts the several Martin photo-op papal audiences in better perspective. We’re being scammed.

One thing is for sure: the less we know it’s his pet personal project the more he can impress people with the lie that this is some kind of groundswell effort and that the Church is really able to or needs to change her moral teaching. One person can’t overwhelm the Church, but the pretense that there are more can make it seem as if it is so.

It could be money…a few wealthy malefactors, the opposite of benefactors, bankrolling certain individuals. 

From Mark Lambert:

“Shocking new report reveals controversial Jesuit James Martin as key author of Synod process: 

‘Does Pope Leo XIV now face the difficult task not merely of governing the Synod, but of arbitrating the meaning and limits of synodality itself? That question no longer appears abstract. It has become urgent. For if synodality comes to be perceived by large sections of the faithful not as authentic discernment but as managed consensus cloaked in the language of listening, its credibility may begin to fracture irreparably. And herein lies the true gravity of the present moment.’”

The Synod and the James Martin Paradigm

Study Group No. 9 has exposed a deeper crisis than one controversial report: whether a pastoral method once considered marginal has now become embedded within the Church’s governing culture.

MARK LAMBERT

MAY 14, 2026

∙ PAID

The publication of the Synod’s Study Group No. 9 report has already exposed deep anxieties within the life of the Church. In recent days, those anxieties have only intensified. What first appeared to many observers as a vague and troubling exercise in pastoral ambiguity is now beginning to reveal a more coherent and recognisable theological method beneath the surface. The question is no longer simply whether certain controversial themes have entered the synodal process. The question is whether an entire ecclesial paradigm, cultivated slowly over more than a decade, has now become institutionalised within the machinery of synodality itself.

In an important investigative report, Vatican journalist Diane Montagna has now drawn attention to what may prove to be one of the most revealing dimensions of the entire affair. Her reporting suggests that testimonies and perspectives associated with figures closely aligned to the pastoral approach of Jesuit Father James Martin were not merely present around the edges of the Synod’s discussions, but appear to have been woven directly into the consultative architecture presented as ecclesial “listening”. In short, the controversial Jesuit is the architect of this whole report’s narrative thrust.

The issue is not whether Fr Martin secretly authored synodal documents or orchestrated events behind the scenes like some ecclesiastical puppet master. Such rhetoric would trivialise what is actually unfolding before our eyes. The deeper and more serious question is whether the pastoral method Fr Martin has embodied for years has now seeped into the Synod’s own operating system.

For almost a decade, Catholics have watched a recurring pattern unfold around Fr Martin’s interventions. The doctrinal formulae of the Church are rarely denied directly. Instead, the emphasis shifts subtly but persistently towards personal narrative, emotional framing, experiential authority and the language of accompaniment. Questions of objective moral order become refracted through the lens of inclusion and belonging. 

Ambiguity is rarely asserted openly as a principle, yet clarity itself gradually begins to appear harsh, rigid or pastorally inadequate. The formal structure of doctrine remains outwardly intact while its practical and rhetorical environment undergoes profound transformation.

This is why the concerns surrounding Study Group No. 9 cannot simply be dismissed as reactionary alarmism from nervous traditionalists. The report itself already revealed unmistakable signs of this broader methodology at work. We noted previously the movement away from clear doctrinal categories towards the language of “emerging issues”, the repeated privileging of lived experience as a hermeneutical starting point and the striking absence of the theological precision that has historically characterised Catholic moral teaching. We also observed the growing silence among many bishops and cardinals who, under normal circumstances, might once have intervened far more decisively when questions touching Catholic anthropology and sexual morality appeared to drift into ambiguity.

Now, thanks to Montagna’s reporting, the wider architecture behind this process has become somewhat easier to discern.

The significance of Fr Martin in this story lies not primarily in his personality, but in what he symbolises historically within the Francis pontificate. Under Pope Francis, Martin moved steadily from the contested margins of Catholic discourse into positions of increasing institutional legitimacy. He enjoyed repeated private meetings with the Pope. He received warm public encouragement from Francis even amidst intense controversy. In 2022 he was appointed consultor to the Vatican Dicastery for Communication. None of this demonstrates a conspiracy, it proves something far more consequential. It reveals that a particular pastoral instinct was repeatedly affirmed, elevated and normalised within the life of the contemporary Church. It is clear that that instinct, the pastoral over the true, was deliberately deeply interwoven with the synodal project itself.

More: https://x.com/auditeinsulae/status/2054928914296783152?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

Rome and the German “Synodal Way”: Complicity?

“The Synodal Way has voted on a text to establish the blessing of “irregular” couples—divorced-and-remarried, cohabiting partners, homosexuals. The Curia has sometimes reacted, without going beyond a warning or a reprimand, leaving the process free rein, to the point that one must speak of complicity.

“The truth is that the German bishops, supported—indeed pushed—by a progressive and determined laity, have no intention of changing anything, but rather of pressing forward. For them, in fact, it is a matter of life or death: backing down would cause the base of the Synodal Way to implode, and the Church in Germany along with it.

“Rome has neither the tools nor the will to alter this state of affairs. Neither the tools, which were shattered by the Declaration *Fiducia supplicans*. Under the regime of the CDF’s *Responsum*, it would have been a different story, but the Curia contradicted itself in less than three years. Nor the will, because faith and moral conviction are deserting the Curia.

“If anyone doubts it, let them read the report of study group no. 9, which aligns itself with the Synodal Way and its conclusions on the LGBT question. In the meantime, as “dialogue” produces “consensus” between Rome and the DBK, the harm progresses among the German faithful and is beginning to cross borders, with the Curia’s blessing. Under these conditions, one must speak of complicity.”

Source: https://x.com/fsspxfr/status/2054178371978875124?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

My Manhattan Parish Went Viral This Easter — Here’s What the Headlines Missed

COMMENTARY: The event that draws so many young adults, the Mass itself, is anything but a passing fad.

Dominican Father Jonah Teller incenses the altar during evening Ash Wednesday Mass on Feb. 18, 2026, at the Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village. (photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)

Kayla Bartsch CommentariesApril 13, 2026

If you’ve been reading the headlines lately, you know that urban Gen Zers are flocking to the Catholic Church in droves — or, at least, to a few, particular parishes. 

Last month, Fox & Friends released a cliptitled “GEN Z REVIVAL: NYC church sees lines out the door every Sunday.” The New York City church in question was my own: the Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village, colloquially referred to as “St. Joe’s.”

Soon, the New York Post followed suit: “Gen Z Catholic influencers make church look cooler than ever — snapping up hundreds of thousands of social-media followers.” The article includes photos of influencers and TikTokers descending on my parish. (I can’t say I’ve seen or met any of them.) 

Not to be outdone, The Washington Postpublished an article titled “Why Catholicism is drawing in Gen Z men: Young men in their 20s and 30s are increasingly drawn to the Catholic Church as they seek truth, beauty and, yes, girlfriends.” Evie magazine, hailed as the “conservative Cosmo,” published a viral piece titled “NYC’s Hottest New Club Is Catholic Mass.”

More: https://x.com/jlliedl/status/2043826369587544556?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

“Anti-Christian” Synod: Bishop Schneider on the clear and present moral danger for the Church

Bishop Schneider (Ed Pentin)

“Homosexual heresy is increasingly infecting the Body of the Church, and if the Pope, and with him the cardinals and bishops, do not wake up and, as responsible spiritual physicians and shepherds, clearly and courageously warn and protect people from such spiritual contagion, they will be guilty through their inaction and silence. It is quite possible that future generations, looking back on our era, will apply to it words from the time of the Arian heresy: “The whole world sighed and wondered how it had abolished the Sixth Commandment of God.”

~ Bishop Schneider

More: https://x.com/dianemontagna/status/2054169415684403498?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

In Paris, Traditional Liturgy Is Drawing a New Generation to the Church

 At Saint-Roch — the ‘Church of the Artists’ that has become a hotspot for the traditional Latin Mass in recent years — 55 adults were baptized this Easter, the highest figure in the city.

The light of Christ burns brightly at the April 4, 2026, Easter vigil at Saint-Roch in Paris. (photo: Solène Tadié)

Solène Tadié WorldApril 11, 2026

As night fell on the steps of Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, a large, eclectic crowd gathered in quiet fervor around the newly blessed fire for the Easter vigil. The faithful of all ages — many of them young families — then processed into the Church of Saint-Roch, a baroque landmark known as the “Church of the Artists,” whose high vaults were engulfed in darkness. A low chant rose as light returned, candle by candle, gradually revealing the faces of those who were about to become Catholic.

In total, 55 adults were baptized at the April 4 vigil, the largest number of adult baptisms of any parish in Paris this Easter. Most of those stepping forward were young adults with little or no religious formation. Instead, they had arrived at this pivotal moment after months or years of personal searching, often marked by trials, intellectual curiosity, and a gradual return to fundamental questions about life, death and truth.

Saint-Roch is filled with candlelight during the 2026 Easter vigil.(Photo: Solène Tadié)

And it’s no coincidence that Paris’ largest group of converts has entered the Church via Saint-Roch. The parish is one of the city’s traditional Latin Mass hotspots, with several converts referencing both the sense of transcendence and communal bonds as draws to the faith. The trend points to an emerging dynamic that could reshape the future of Christianity in France.

More: https://x.com/edwardpentin/status/2043573576670777728?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w