From the Holy Gospel according to Matthew
Matt 2:1-12(N.B. Pope Leo appears, based upon his words and actions to care about liturgical matters. Not a given in the previous ideologically-driven regime. We might hope for good outcomes in such a humane atmosphere.)
By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jan 07, 2026
Through the first eight months of his pontificate, Leo XIV has been a calming presence in Rome. There have been no shocking statements from the apostolic palace to prompt sensational headlines, no dramatic policy announcements to unveil grand new plans. Vatican-watchers are still waiting to see what sort of papacy this will be. The consistory of cardinals meeting this week— his first unexpected initiative— may answer their questions.
To date Pope Leo has appeared content to continue along the path set by Pope Francis. He has lavished praise on his predecessor, and more importantly he has left the personnel of the last papacy in place, to carry out the programs that were already underway. Yet he has reversed a few of Pope Francis’ organizational reforms (the restructuring of the Rome diocese and of Vatican financial affairs). He has also shown a keen appreciation of Catholic traditions and a respect for Church law, contrasting with the iconoclastic approach of Pope Francis.
Now he has brought together his top advisers, the world’s cardinals, to help him plan his next steps. Here too his approach seems markedly different from that of his predecessor, who created a “Council of Cardinals” to advise him, rather than relying on the whole College that was established for that very purpose.
Inevitably, then, the most important topic to be discussed at this consistory—although technically it may not be on the agenda—is the very purpose of the College of Cardinals. How can these prelates, spread all over the world, effectively provide the Pontiff with their advice and counsel?
In practice most recent Pontiffs have relied on a handful of trusted advisers (who may or may not have been cardinals), while meeting regularly with the cardinal-prefects of the Vatican dicasteries (who may or may not have been numbered among those key advisers). For cardinals who were not living in Rome, and not members of the inner circle, the opportunities for advising the Pope were minimal; their responsibilities as cardinals were limited to voting in papal conclaves.
Pope Francis exhibited no great interest in hearing the cardinals’ advice. In fact he stopped the practice of bringing the cardinals to Rome for a few days before a consistory at which he appointed new cardinals, thus giving them a chance to get acquainted and to share their perspectives. The College of Cardinals has not met for several years, then, except in the highly formalized structures of the consistories for new cardinals and the papal conclave. So at this week’s consistory the most important business may take place outside the formal sessions, as the new prelates enjoy their first chance for informal conversations.
Father Daniel Gallagher, who spent a decade working in the Secretariat of State, remarked on the need to revive the advisory function of the College of Cardinals in a fine article for The Catholic Thing. He remarked that while Roman Pontiffs were creating new commissions left and right, cardinals were being left out of the loop. “I have anxious memories,” he recalls, “of escorting lost cardinals through the apostolic palace as they hopelessly tried to find whatever office they were supposed to visit that day.” (In this regard it is telling, if accurate, that a Nicarguan cardinal is not attending this week’s consistory because he says he was not invited.)
The multiplication of special Vatican commissions, Father Gallagher notes, is itself a bad omen: “Ballooning bureaucracy is a sure sign of organizational dysfunction, something the Roman Curia has suffered from for years.” So, he concludes, why not have the Pope’s advice come from the College of Cardinals: the group set up specifically for that purpose?
When he invited the cardinals to Rome, Pope Leo asked them to read two papal documents in preparation for their discussions: Evangelii Gaudium and Praedicate Evangelium. Both, significantly, were written by Pope Francis. The Pope also said that the consistory should discuss synodality, the leitmotif of the Francis papacy.
However, Pope Leo announced another theme for this consistory that was definitely not high on the agenda for Pope Francis: the liturgy. In sharp contrast with Pope Benedict XVI, who spoke constantly and lovingly about the sacred liturgy, Pope Francis rarely touched on the topic— except to excoriate priests who in his view paid too much attention to rubrics, or to criticize the liturgical traditions. Indeed in the last three years of his pontificate, Pope Francis never chose to act as the principal celebrant of the Eucharistic liturgy in public. Now Pope Leo has restored that papal role, celebrating the liturgy with reverence.
Today it is difficult to imagine how the consistory could discuss the liturgy without immediately raising the most contentious subject under that heading: the suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass under Traditionis Custodes. And in his summons to the cardinals, Pope Leo—quoting from the Vatican II document Sacrosanctum Concilium—called for an “‘in-depth theological, historical, and pastoral reflection ‘in order to retain sound tradition and yet remain open to progress.’” That sounds like an invitation to revisit the Council’s teachings, and ask whether the liturgical changes after Vatican II actually fulfilled the Council’s mandate for reform. Any honest discussion of that theme would lead the cardinals to focus on the need to “retain sound tradition,” on the “hermeneutic of continuity” that Pope Benedict sought, and ultimately on the restoration of Summorum Pontificum as the best practical, pastoral path to liturgical peace.
At the time of his election in May and in the months immediately following, this correspondent expressed a cautious optimism that Pope Leo XIV would reunite the Catholic Church after the catastrophic papacy (in the late Cardinal Pell’s words) of Francis. Papa Prevost was owed at least that much, since it is generally unwise to rush to a priori judgements; the man had to be given a chance to get his feet under the desk. Having had that chance, what has emerged from the Vatican gives cause for concern that Leo will indeed be Francis 2.0.
During this Jubilee Year, among the millions of pilgrims from all over the world who have made their way to St Peter’s Basilica in order to renew their baptismal vows, repent for their sins, and commit to reform their lives, in early October an ‘LGBT pilgrimage’ made its way into St Peter’s, an event denounced by many prelates in the Church, but not the Vatican itself.
Only a month beforehand, Pope Leo met with LGBT activist Fr James Martin, who boasted afterward that Pope Leo will show the same ‘openness’ as Pope Francis to ‘LGBTQ Catholics’. In his words, ‘I was honoured and grateful. The pope was serene, joyful, and encouraging. He gave me the same message as Pope Francis: “Todos, todos, todos” – openness and welcome.’
All the while there is no such ‘openness and welcome’ for Traditional Catholics, as crackdowns on the Latin Mass continue with alacrity.
In October, the Bishop of Knoxville, Tennessee, announced the suppression of all Traditional Latin Masses there by the end of the year. This follows similar decrees in Detroit, Chattanooga and Charlotte, to name a few. As for Pope Leo’s view on the Latin Mass, he gave some telling insights in an interview given to Crux magazine in September. First, he mused, ‘The question about, people always say “the Latin Mass”. Well, you can say Mass in Latin right now. If it’s the Vatican II rite there’s no problem’.
Yes, the Mass can be said in Latin now in the rite promulgated by Pope Paul VI (the Novus Ordo), but it is not about the language, it is about the rite, its theology, its prayers, its gestures, its orientation, its very soul. Ask any one of the multitude of Gen Z Catholics who attend the Traditional Mass and they will tell you these things are precisely the reason they are prepared to travel long distances to a chapel converted out of a barn to attend a Traditional Mass rather than one in the New Rite.
More: https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/12/meet-the-new-pope-same-as-the-old-pope/
Dr Richard DeClue
January 8, 2026
Way back in 2020, Pope Francis established a commission to study the question of the history and possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate. This was not the first committee tasked with this purpose. Rather, this commission, composed of five women and five men, “continued the work of a previous group,” as Gina Christian reports.
The commission finally issued a summary report in the form of a letter to Pope Leo XIV. It was submitted to the newly elected pontiff in September but was published at the pope’s request on December 4, 2025.
Unsurprisingly, based on its study of the question, the commission voted against admitting women to the sacrament of holy orders via the diaconate. Famously, Pope Francis himself gave an emphatic no to ordained female deacons in an interview with CBS’s Norah O’Donnell, which aired on May 20, 2024. That clip has become a meme across social media.
In this study report, the commission’s president, Giuseppe Cardinal Petrocchi, gives a summary of major points of discussion, including details of votes taken at various stages in the process for or against certain statements. Back in 2021, the commission unanimously voted on this thesis: “In the current state of historical research and of our knowledge of the biblical and patristic testimonies, it can reasonably be affirmed that the female diaconate, which developed unequally in the different parts of the Church, was not understood as the simple female equivalent of the male diaconate and does not seem to have had a sacramental character.”
More: https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/study-commission-says-no-to-a-female-diaconate/
In a Catholic context, the word “precept” is nearly synonymous with the word “commandment.” In general, the word “commandment” makes us think of the ten moral laws which God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai (see Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). However, since Our Lord has entrusted His authority to the Catholic Church, the Church can also decree moral laws which bind us.
Today the laws of the Church are generally grouped as a body in the Code of Canon Law. The faithful remain largely ignorant of most of these laws, as they are rarely affected by them. However, the Precepts of the Church are set apart because they bind all Catholics and directly impact how we live our Catholic lives.
These long-standing laws are part of our Catholic tradition. Magisterial legislation, including councils and papal teaching, have addressed these matters over the centuries. In the past, catechisms always listed these Six Precepts. Catholic children preparing for First Holy Communion were required to memorize them, alongside the Ten Commandments.
More: https://x.com/dlongenecker1/status/1999506938204164115?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w
(N.B. The Cardinal is heterodox but might otherwise provide insights into the civilizational struggle for the Faith at the highest levels in Rome. Will traditional Faith be relegated to a “side-chapel” in the Church? Banished? Or will we make the Faith Catholic again? For one example, he is honest about the misery imposed on the Church in recent history. - KMC)
“A Church which is miserable can’t preach the Gospel.”
In a new interview, the English cardinal explains why he believes the cardinals chose Pope Leo, and voices support for moving swiftly to ordain women as deacons.
It is vital that the cardinals are happy, he said: “A Church which is miserable can’t preach the Gospel.”
The Dominican friar, 80, who is a former master general of the Order of Preachers, made the comments in a wide-ranging conversationwith the UK’s Daily Telegraph published Jan. 6.
The Telegraph noted that Radcliffe is the grandson of a baronet, an “urbane and cultured man and one of the most important contemporary religious figures in the country” who has been fighting the “progressive fight for more than half a century.” The interview touched on his role in the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV and his long friendship with the late Pope Francis.
More: https://x.com/edwardpentin/status/2008838696334958827?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w
