Leo poised to grant ‘generous’ exemptions to Traditionis custodes, UK bishops told

 “Leo will ask Cardinal Arthur [Roche, prefect of the dicastery] to be generous.”

THE PILLAR

Sources close to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales told The Pillar that Pope Leo appears poised to grant widespread exemptions to Traditionis custodes, without revoking the motu proprio itself.

Pope Leo XIV, pictured on Sept. 7, 2025. Credit: © Mazur/cbcew.org.uk.

Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía, apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, gave a recent address to the plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, informing the bishops that the Vatican would “be generous” when asked to dispense from the restrictions to the traditional liturgy, a senior cleric told The Pillar.

According to one source present for the address, the nuncio explained that while Pope Leo is “not minded to change [Traditionis custodes], but as there are many different rites in the Church, there’s no reason to exclude the TLM.”

“The details were a bit blurry,” said one source. But the nuncio did convey that while pastors of parishes would still need the approval of their bishops to offer the extraordinary form in parish churches, and diocesan bishops still need to apply to the Dicastery for Divine Worship for permission, “Leo will ask Cardinal Arthur [Roche, prefect of the dicastery] to be generous.”

Earlier this week, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales met with the apostolic nuncio, as part of the conference’s plenary assembly. After the meeting, reports began to surface that the nuncio had conveyed Pope Leo XIV’s intention to permit more broadly pre-Vatican II liturgical celebration.

According to one cleric present for the nuncio’s address, although Pope Leo was not inclined to repeal the Francis-era motu proprio, “the impression [the nuncio gave] was that the pope wants the door to be left open and not  narrowed or closed.”

More: https://x.com/pillarcatholic/status/1989461856998858923?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

narrowed or closed.”

In 2000, the Congregation for Divine Worship also confirmed that ad orientem worship is not forbidden

In summary: celebrating Holy Mass in the traditional manner, ad orientem, which Cardinal Ratzinger has called "not something accidental" but "a rediscovery of something essential, in which Christian liturgy expresses its permanent orientation," is at the very least a legitimate option "in accord with liturgical law" and "to be considered correct." No bishop is able "to exclude or mandate the use of a legitimate option."

Which Way to Turn? A Tale of Two Citations October 10, 2001

By Rev. Joseph Fessio, SJ

o WASHINGTON, DC (CNS)--The Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments July 28 issued the first revision in 25 years of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. 

The new Latin-language instruction--released simultaneously in Washington in an English study translation--introduces numerous minor changes in the way Mass is to be celebrated. 

It also makes a clear legislative decision on a controversy of recent years by declaring that it is "desirable whenever possible" for the priest to celebrate Mass facing the people. 

o But what about the altar? In what direction should we pray during the Eucharistic liturgy? … When the altar was very remote from the faithful, it was right to move it back to the people…. It was also important to distinguish the place for the Liturgy of the Word from the place for the properly Eucharistic liturgy…. On the other hand, a common turning to the east during the Eucharistic Prayer remains essential. This is not a case of something accidental, but of what is essential. (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, 2000.) 

Can these two citations be reconciled? What is the mind of the Church? Is it "essential" to face east during the Eucharistic Prayer? Or has there been a "clear legislative decision" that it is undesirable?

More: https://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=20573

Ave Crux Spes Nostra

The Holy Cross as an amulet against plague and witchcraft.

Enemies of Christ: “hireling” bishops who “standeth by, and defendeth not them that are committed to his charge”

From the Holy Gospel according to John
John 10:11-16
In that time Jesus said to the pharisees: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. And so on.

Homily by St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople.
59th on John.

Dearly beloved brethren, the Bishops of the Church hold a great office, an office that needeth much that wisdom and strength whereof Christ hath given us an example. We must learn of Him to lay down our lives for the sheep and never to leave them; and to fight bravely against the wolf. This is the difference between the true shepherd and the hireling. The one leaveth the sheep and seeketh his own safety, but the other recketh not of his own safety, so as he may watch over the sheep. Christ then having given us the pattern of a good shepherd, warneth us against two enemies; first, the thief that cometh not but to kill and to steal, and, secondly, the hireling that standeth by, and defendeth not them that are committed to his charge. 

In Europe, foreigners are raping white women in droves – and the left yawns

 'This Marxist-socialist discrimination is the opposite of the historical Western ideal of equality'

By Hanne Nabintu Herland

October 30, 2025

Read Hanne's The Herland Report.

It is widely known that foreign-born rapists and criminals avoid accountability in Europe because political leaders are consumed with fear of being labeled racists. For decades, Marxist-socialist indoctrination has ingrained into Europeans that one should always excuse and feel sorry for non-Western immigrants since they come from non-functional, often highly corrupt states in poor parts of the world.

The Marxist left has thereby implemented a multicultural discrimination against native Europeans that demands accountability from indigenous European ethnicities in ways one would never dream of demanding from a dark-skinned, non-Western immigrant. In the authoritarian U.K., this discrimination against indigenous Brits are demonstrated as British individuals now are thrown into prison for social media comments that are negative toward mass immigration from non-Western countries, while foreign-born rapists and killers are almost excused in court.

This Marxist-socialist discrimination is the opposite of the historical Western ideal of equality regardless of race, creed, or social standing. It has produced the racism against white Europeans that today permeates European mainstream media and public discourse.

Take Scandinavia. In Norway, one of the few reports that published the ethnicities of criminals showed that 100% of assault rapes were committed by non-Western immigrants. Immigrants from Asia, Africa, South and Central America, and Turkey have much higher crime rates than the general population, with the worst being from Africa. In Sweden, a recent studyshowed 96% of such assaults committed by immigrants. In both cases, almost exclusively native, white women were raped. In Denmark, non-Western immigrants are more than seven times more likely to be convicted of rape than native Danes.

Sweden is notoriously lost to its Marxist politicians, who simply do not stop the violence against its indigenous population. The country has almost 60 "no-go zones" ruled by immigrant gangs where the police are not allowed; the city of Malmø has over 50% non-Western immigrants with a higher crime rate index than Baghdad; Sweden has the highest number of bombings for a country not at war.

More: https://www.wnd.com/2025/10/europe-foreigners-are-raping-white-women-droves-left/

Pope Saint Pius X defined “synodality”

 

Poverty Isn’t a Path to Heaven

 While caring for the poor has always been a duty of Catholics, romanticizing poverty is not path to holiness.

• 
  John Mac Ghlionn

  
  

  was raised Catholic—the kind of Catholic who knew the smell of incense before the sound of morning cartoons. My father was (and still is) a farmer, my mother a care nurse tending to the elderly in their final days. We weren’t poor, but we were acquainted with struggle. So when Pope Leo recently declared that “love for the poor—whatever the form their poverty may take—is the evangelical hallmark of a Church faithful to the heart of God,” I felt something between irritation and déjà vu. It’s not that I disagree with loving the poor. It’s that many Catholics seem to have mistaken poverty for holiness itself. 

  It’s an old Catholic habit, this romanticizing of suffering. Somewhere between St. Francis stripping naked in the square and the endless talk of “blessed are the meek,” the Church began confusing destitution with decency, as if the less you own, the more your soul shines. It’s a comforting fantasy, especially for those sitting in marble halls. But equating poverty with purity is as false as equating wealth with wickedness. The poor can be cruel, the rich can be kind, and goodness cannot be measured by one’s bank balance or battered boots. 

  The truth is, the Bible never glorifies poverty; it simply refuses to lie about it. Scripture speaks of the poor often, not as paragons of virtue but as people to be helped, fed, and treated with respect. Christ dined with fishermen and tax collectors alike—not to canonize deprivation but to shatter the hierarchy that measured worth by wealth. The command was clear: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and lift the fallen—not idolize their condition. Poverty was never meant to be a stage for holiness, but rather, a challenge for justice.

  More: https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/poverty-isnt-a-path-to-heaven

Church signs

 

Leo’s Vatican: The Adulteress Gets a Medal, the Predator Gets a Mission

“If you want to know why victims stop reporting, why faithful Catholics stop giving, why young men stop discerning, why families stop trusting, why the confessionals are empty while the chancery calendars are full: look at Rupnik with a microphone, look at the Sistine with a program, look at synodality with a badge, look at the liturgy with a drum kit. The revolution always promises communion. It keeps delivering committees.”

CHRIS JACKSON

OCT 24, 2025

81

31

21

The Man Who Wouldn’t Sit Down: Rupnik Preaches On

A Church that claims zero tolerance keeps finding exceptions for its friends. While Rome trumpeted “independent judges” for Marko Ivan Rupnik, the Centro Aletti rolled on like an extraterritorial duchy. Bishops lodged there as if on spiritual holiday. Clergy cycled through for exercises. Then the center paywalled his summer meditation, monetizing the scandal like a museum gift shop at the exit. No precautionary measures. No meaningful restrictions. Only the little people get laicized. The networked get microphones.

The institutional reflex is always the same. Delegitimize the accusers. Reassign the collaborators. Incardinate the untouchable. Canon 269 says a bishop must verify a cleric’s conduct and moral suitability before accepting him. What need to verify when the whole machine runs on deniable knowledge. If abuse is the acid test of post-conciliar reform, the solution in Rome keeps getting more diluted until no one notices the color.

Apostolic Mission for the Abuser, Suspension for the Faithful

Preaching is not a hobby; it is a juridical act. In Catholic theology it belongs to the missio canonica: the apostolic mandate to speak in the name of the Church. Trent was explicit: “No one may preach publicly unless sent by lawful pastors.” When a priest is permitted to give spiritual exercises, preach retreats, and publish meditations with episcopal approval, he is exercising precisely that public mission.

Which makes Rupnik’s case all the more obscene. Rome says his canonical trial is underway, yet he continues to deliver sermons under diocesan sponsorship, his talks hosted by clergy and even sold online. To preach freely is to be authorized. The hierarchy can protest procedural technicalities all it wants, but the facts are simple: the man has an apostolic platform granted by silence and sustained by complicity.

Meanwhile the same establishment that shields him insists that priests of the old rite, those who have never abused anyone, “lack a canonical mission.” They are barred from pulpits, driven from parishes, and told their preaching carries no authority because it was not sent by modern Rome. The abuser keeps his pulpit; the traditional confessor loses his church. In the new moral geometry, apostolic mission is no longer tied to fidelity or virtue, but to the approval of the regime. The right paperwork redeems what repentance cannot.

More. https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/leos-vatican-the-adulteress-gets 

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Rupnik Preaches On — The Holy See’s Complicit Silence

“ 'When one enjoys protection at the highest levels, there is nothing to fear,' wrote Silere non possum back in 2022. Those words now sound like a verdict. In an age when the Church proclaims its commitment to fighting abuse, the Rupnik affair remains a bitter window into reality: if you are powerful, you have nothing to worry about."

Rome – Despite the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith recently announcing the appointment of judges for the canonical trial of Marko Ivan Rupnik, the Slovenian priest accused of abusing several nuns continues to exercise his ministry without any restriction. Nothing seems to undermine his freedom of movement nor his ecclesial influence. Guaranteeing him this privilege — or rather, this protection — have been figures such as Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, then the Pope’s Vicar for the Diocese of Rome, and now Cardinal Baldassare Reina, his successor, who should be supervising the Centro Aletti, which has instead become a sort of extraterritorial zone, beyond any effective control.

In the past, De Donatis had already stood out for defending the Centro Aletti, the institute founded by Rupnik, appointing a so-called “third-party visitor” who, far from being independent, turned out to be a “friendly tourist.” The result of that visitation was an “acquittal” for the Center, which effectively covered up years of violations of the restrictions imposed on the Slovenian priest by the Society of Jesus.

This summer, while Silere non possum denounced the inappropriateness of the “jubilee outing” organized by Msgr. Gianpiero Palmieri, archbishop-bishop of Ascoli Piceno and San Benedetto del Tronto-Ripatransone-Montalto, at the Casa Santa Severa of the Centro Aletti with his diocesan priests, Father Marko Ivan Rupnik was preaching in the same place — welcomed by faithful and priests as if nothing had happened, in an atmosphere of normality that cries out for scandal.

Palmieri, a man from De Donatis’ inner circle, not only ignored every call for prudence but also tried to delegitimize criticism, accusing those who raised concerns of being polemical and unqualified to speak. It is the usual dynamic: those who denounce are discredited, while those who cover up are rewarded. Palmieri knows this mechanism well — he navigates it skillfully, accustomed as he is to elbowing his way through ecclesiastical salons to obtain what he wants, only to react hysterically whenever a collaborator or priest dares to remind him that the center of the universe does not coincide with his person.

Palmieri and the priests from the Marche region stayed at the Centro Santa Severa on June 26–27, while Rupnikpreached there from June 29 to July 3. Leading the exercises for Palmieri and his clergy was Father Ivan Bresciani, for years part of the Centro Aletti’s leadership, who not only failed to prevent Rupnik from violating the Jesuit restrictions but also covered and supported him. And despite this, Palmieri, following De Donatis’ indication, chose to incardinate Bresciani in the Diocese of Ascoli Piceno, thereby rewarding one of those who helped perpetuate the code of silence.

The truth is that Rupnik, once dismissed from the Society of Jesus, managed to build himself a perfect escape route. He was incardinated in the Diocese of Koper (Capodistria), welcomed kindly by his friend Msgr. Jurij Bizjak. The procedure was a canonical farce: canon 269 of the Code of Canon Law requires the bishop to verify the conduct and moral suitability of the cleric before accepting him — but what need is there to verify, when everyone knows and no one wants to see?

Rupnik does not reside in the Slovenian diocese: he lives permanently in Rome, where he continues to direct his “artistic work” and preach spiritual exercises as if nothing had happened, while the Holy See remains silent and imposes no precautionary measures. The same applies to Bresciani, who travels to Ascoli Piceno only to preach to priests, but otherwise continues his activities with the Centro Aletti. If any other priest were accused of similar crimes, he would have long been laicized. Rupnik, however, remains a priest — and even enjoys the protection of a diocesethat has welcomed him. Meanwhile, a priest accused of far lesser offenses would receive a flat refusal if he asked to transfer to another diocese. In fact, there are today priests unable to move not because of scandals or crimes, but simply because their bishops deny permission, even in the presence of serious family reasons.

It is yet another demonstration that within the Church there is no equal justice for all: everything depends on the network of relationships, protections, and friendships. And even the trial against Rupnik, however “independent” or “impartial” it may be presented, is born devoid of credibility, because the disparity of treatment remains the most evident of all judgments.

More: https://silerenonpossum.com/en/rupnik-continua-a-predicare-il-silenzio-complice-della-santa-sede/