Inside the Vatican magazine September-October 2025

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PHOTO - FRANCESCO SFORZA/VATICAN MEDIA

Pope Leo, on August 19, at the entrance to the cave in the shrine of Mentorella, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where St. Benedict stayed for 2 years and experienced his conversion in about the year 500 A.D.

P oPe l eo s ets f oRtH Reflections on His fiRst 100 Days

ST. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, THE NEWEST DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

C OMPELLiNG S TORiES OF C OMPELLiNG S TORiESLOF COURAGEOUS CATHOLiC EADERS COURAGEOUS CATHOLiC LEADERS

◆ FATHER JOSEPH FESSIO, S.J. ◆ GEORGE CARDINAL PELL ◆ FATHER JOSEPH FESSIO, S.J. ◆ GEORGE CARDINAL PELL California Blackrobe Pax Invictus California Blackrobe Pax his in-depth, page-turning biography of the founder of his Invictus definitive biography of the great Australian Cardinal

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his in-depth, biography of the founder of Ignatius Press is page-turning written by one of Fessio’s earliest Jesuit Ignatius Press is written by one of Fessio’s earliest Jesuit mentors, historian Fr. Cornelius Buckley, S.J. mentors, historian Fr. Cornelius Buckley, S.J. Raised in the Bay Area after World War II, the bold Joe Fessio Raised in the Bay Area after World War II, the bold Joe Fessio entered the Society of Jesus at age twenty and, by divine provientered the Society of Jesus at age twenty and, by divine providence, studied for for six six years under three dence, studied years under threeofofthe thegreatest greatest theologtheological minds of the 20th century—Henri de Lubac, von ical minds of the 20th century—Henri de Lubac,Hans Hans Urs Urs von Balthasar, and Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI).

He reBalthasar, and Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). He returned from Europe and started the St. Ignatius Institute at USF, turned from Europe and started the St. Ignatius Institute USF, and Ignatius Press.

Over decades,hehehas hasbecome become one one of and Ignatius Press.

Over thethe decades, of the the powerful forces in the AmericanCatholic CatholicChurch, Church, designdesignmostmost powerful forces in the American ingCatholic the Catholic Great Books programatatUSF USFand andfounding founding one ing the Great Books program one the largest Catholic publishing housesininthe theworld. world. of theoflargest Catholic publishing houses is robust yet unsentimental studyofofFessio’s Fessio’sunique unique life, life, cut This Th robust yet unsentimental study cut with Buckley’s trademark wit, shows what effective Christian with Buckley’s trademark wit, shows what effective Christian missionary work can look like in the age of media. missionary work can look like in the age of media.

Includes 32 pages of photos. FRFH . . . Sewn Hardcover, $27.95 Includes 32 pages of photos. FRFH . . . Sewn Hardcover, $27.95 “No one has impacted the Catholic Church in America and beyond

“No one impacted the Catholic Church inisAmerica and” beyond like has Father Fessio. Th is delightful biography a must-read. like Father This Conley, delightful biography is NE a must-read.”

—MostFessio.

Rev. James Bishop, Lincoln —Most Rev. James Conley, Bishop, Lincoln NE “Essential reading to appreciate Fr. Fessio’s undaunted character, sense of mission, the impact his workundaunted on the globalcharacter, Catholic “Essential reading toand appreciate Fr.of Fessio’s scene. ” — Scott Hahn, Author, Rome Sweet Home sense of mission, and the impact of his work on the global Catholic scene.” — Scott Hahn, Author, Rome Sweet Home

“As the light of Christian faith flickers across the West, one American priest leads on with inimitable brilliance, Joseph Fessio, S.J.” “As the light of Christian faith flickers across the West, one American —Mary Eberstadt, Author, Adam and Eve after the Pill

priest leads on with inimitable brilliance, Joseph Fessio, S.J.” —Mary Eberstadt, Author, Adam and Eve after the Pill

P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522

P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522

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his nitive journalist biography Tess of theLivingstone great Australian Cardinal bydefi veteran traces his life from by veteran journalist Tess Livingstone traces his life from childhood in Australia to his role as the Vatican treasurer; childhood in Australia to his role as the Vatican treasurer; through his trials, unjust imprisonment, and exoneration, to his through his trials, unjust imprisonment, and exoneration, to his untimely passing away in January 2023. untimely passing away in January 2023.

Hishuge hugelegacy legacy includes rebuilding Church precincts in His includes rebuilding Church precincts in Melbourneand andSydney, Sydney, revitalizing seminary formation, Melbourne revitalizing seminary formation, founding Catholic Catholicuniversities, universities, leading Australia’s founding leading Australia’s Catholicforeign foreign agency, heading World Catholic aidaid agency, andand heading World YouthYouth Day Day 2008. a weekly column in Australia’s largest Sunday news- news2008.From From a weekly column in Australia’s largest Sunday paper books andand scholarly lectures, he hasheleft a left a papertotobestselling bestselling books scholarly lectures, has trove ThTh is book includes snippets of some of the of best troveofofwritings. writings. is book includes snippets of some the best ofofthem captures his his ideas, wit, wit, and and personality. themand and captures ideas, personality.

InInhis Vatican treasurer, his eff the the hisrole roleas as Vatican treasurer, hisorts effto ortsreform to reform Church’s finances met with resistance from an entrenched “old Church’s finances met with resistance from an entrenched “old guard’’. Through it all, he retained his dignity and integrity as a guard’’. Through it all, he retained his dignity and integrity as a faithful successor to the apostles. GCPBH . . Sewn Hardcover, $29.95

faithful successor to the apostles.

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“George Pell, was a giant — on the football field, as a bishop leading “George was a as giant — on the football eld, a bishop the flock inPell, Australia, a brilliant intellect, andfiin hisas love of Jesusleading the flock in Australia, as every a brilliant and in his whom he served with vigor day ofintellect, his extraordinary life.love ” of Jesus —whom Cardinal Timothy Dolan, York he served with vigorArchbishop every day of of New his extraordinary life.”

— Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York

“Cardinal Pell was extraordinary in every sense: a man of sacrificial intelligence, and tremendous “Cardinalfaith, Pellsuperior was extraordinary in every sense:evana man of gelical energy.

Livingstone has captured all these qualities, in evansacrificial faith, superior intelligence, and tremendous this marvelous biography.” gelical energy. Livingstone has captured all these qualities, in —Francis X. Maier, Author, True Confessions: Voices of Faith from this marvelous biography.” a Life in the Church

—Francis X. Maier, Author, True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church

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EDITORIAL by Robert Moynihan

Pope Leo’s First Summer The new Pope this summer took his first steps as the Successor of Peter. Elected on May 8, his first 100 days were complete on August 18. His 70th birthday will be September 14 Wednesday, August 20, 2025 — Pope Leo did something this summer that Pope Francis never did: he went out to Castel Gandolfo, a village about 15 miles outside of Rome, to leave behind the scorching heat of Rome’s summer. In Castel Gandolfo there is a papal palace which stands high on the edge of a volcanic crater, looking down upon a beautiful blue crater lake, called Lago Albano, and nearby there are extensive Vatican gardens, larger than the ones in Vatican City. Here, since 1626, pontiffs have come for a summer rest. But Francis broke the tradition, staying in Rome each summer, in the Domus Santa Marta, his residence.

So Leo, in his first summer, reversed the decision of Francis, came out to Castel Gandolfo, and the local residents received him with great joy.

The Rome daily newspaper La Repubblica now reports that Leo, when he moves into the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace in the fall, will make of this 10-room apartment a home to a “small community of three or four Augustinians” from the Pope’s religious congregation, along with himself and his secretary, the Peruvian priest Fr. Edgar Rimaycuna. These could be the three religious who make up the “papal sacristy,” responsible for preparing the Pope's liturgical celebrations.

These Augustinians — one Italian, one Filipino and one Nigerian — currently live near the Sistine Chapel. “Sometimes the current Pope goes to lunch with these religious,” the prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine, Spanish priest Alejandro Moral Antón, told I.Media last June. Father Moral said he suggested to the new Pope “that it would be good to form a small community of brothers around him who would study, pray and live with him” in the Apostolic Palace.

So one of the things we may say about Leo is that he is doing at least some things differently from Francis. Leo knew Francis well; he met with him for an hour nearly every Saturday for the past two years. But, Leo is also himself, his own man.

This may be seen even in tiny details. Just today, August 20, there is a story by Luisa Mosello in Il Gusto, an Italian food magazine, of how Pope Leo invited a local Italian food caterer and pizza maker, Alessandro Pacetti, owner of “Pizza Country” restaurant, to make him a pizza for the evening of his departure from Castel Gandolfo, August 19.

“I approached him and asked if he liked the Tonda (round pizza), and he said, ‘Yes, let's do it on Tuesday evening.’ I used the best ingredients, and it was a dream come true. And he loved it.

"It all started last Sunday (August 17, ed. ) when we prepared the catering for an event with Caritas in the Vatican gardens of Borgo Laudato Si'...We brought our fried foods, supplì cacio e pepe, arancini all'amatriciana and carbonara, and fried pizza Montanara. Then, when the Pope returned after the Sunday Angelus, we offered them to him too.

“My family and I were there: my wife Loredana and my son Alfonso, who is the pizza chef, plus two staff members,” Pacetti continued. “We were introduced to His Holiness by the bishop of Albano, Vincenzo Viva, and that’s when the idea came to me.”

Here Pacetti gets a little emotional remembering that moment: “I don’t even know how I said these words, ‘Your Holiness, do you like pizza?’ And he, very easy-going, replied, ‘Of course, of course...’ At which point, the bishop intervened, saying, ‘Alessandro has a pizzeria across the street and his dream is to make a pizza for the Pope.’ At that moment, I was completely lost, and I thought Pope Leo was laughing in my face. Instead, he said, ‘Let’s do it Tuesday evening (August 19, ed.). Do everything as you like, to your taste, you choose.’

“In the end, we decided on a Capricciosa, and a special one dedicated entirely to him, which is called Pizza Leone XIV: with mozzarella and cooked zucchini, enriched fresh from the oven with smoked Black Angus, stracciatella and truffle cream. With high-quality ingredients, excellence, the best of the best for the Pope, but everything balanced, without overdoing it... nothing American...And we accompanied them with a dedication of thanks...The waiter who delivered the pizzas said that the Pope had enjoyed them. It was a great honor for me, the best gift."

We all know that Pope Leo now faces the many great issues of our time: wars, AI, technocrats, moral confusion. But we also know that he is bringing a certain humility and good humor and gentle kindness to the great task that confronts him, as this story of the pizza in Castel Gandolfo shows.

Another sign that Pope Leo is a man of kindness and humility is the fact, as reported August 14 by an NBC Chicago journalist who interviewed him, that Leo’s brother, John Prevost, continues to speak every single day by phone to his brother in Rome.

But Pope Leo’s concern extends to the entire world as well, and in particular, to those troubled areas where many continue to die every day: he asked the world’s Catholics and all people of good will to join him in a day of prayer and fasting for peace on Friday, August 22 — a very traditional Catholic practice.

On Tuesday, August 19, Pope Leo, strikingly, visited the mountaintop Shrine of Our Lady of Grace at Mentorella, located in a small cave just south of Rome (see cover), where he prayed — no doubt for the peace that so eludes the world, and for his own mission. The place is perhaps the oldest Marian shrine in Italy, consecrated by Pope Sylvester in 335 A.D. Today, back in Rome’s sizzling heat — having left Castel Gandolfo — speaking at his Wednesday Audience, Leo’s main theme was forgiveness, the forgiveness of Christ. “Even at the darkest moment,” he said, “it is never too late to love and forgive.”

Pope Leo told the faithful how Jesus’ love, despite being betrayed, did not allow evil to have the last word, and that “there is always a way to continue to love, even when everything seems irredeemably compromised.” He said: “Let us ask today for the grace to be able to forgive, even when we do not feel understood, even when we feel abandoned.” To forgive, the Pope said, does not mean to deny evil, but to prevent it from generating further evil. “It is not to say that nothing has happened, but to do everything possible to ensure that resentment does not determine the future.” This is clearly at the center of Pope Leo’s teaching.m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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CONTENTS SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 Year 33, #5

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Robert Moynihan ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Christina Deardurff ASSOCIATE EDITOR: George “Pat” Morse (+ 2013) ASSISTANT EDITOR: Christopher Hart-Moynihan CULTURE EDITOR: Lucy Gordan CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: William D. Doino, Jr. CHIEF VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Anna Artymiak WRITERS: Giuseppe Rusconi, Andrew Rabel, Vladimiro Redzioch, Serena Sartini ESSAYISTS: Peter Anderson, Anthony Esolen, Aurelio Porfiri, Matthew Trojacek, Robert Wiesner, Marcellus Roberts PHOTOS: Grzegorz Galazka LAYOUT: Giuseppe Sabatelli ILLUSTRATIONS: Stefano Navarrini CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Deborah B. Tomlinson ADVERTISING: Katie Carr Tel. +1.202.864.4263 kcarr@insidethevatican.com

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4 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

Year 33, #5

LEAD STORY: A NEW PONTIFICATE BEGINS TO TAKE SHAPE Who is Pope Leo? Reflections on the First Hundred Days

by Robert Moynihan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 “What Will Save the World is Man Kneeling Before God” — Homily by Cardinal Robert Sarah

by Diane Montagna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Leo, the Pope of Tender Surprises

by Anna Artymiak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 “To Move Aside that Christ May Remain”: The New Pontificate of Leo XIV

by Fr. Robert Imbelli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 “You’d make a very good Pope”: An interview with Pope Leo’s good friend, Fr. Tony Banks

by Anna Artymiak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 Special: Pope Leo Names John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church Progressives Who Hail Newman as their Champion Have Got it Wrong

by Gavin Ashenden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 The Restoration of the Social Order: Leo XIII, Newman and Catholic Social Teaching

by Michael Greaney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 CULTURE REVIEW/Fr. Boniface Luykx’s memoirs tell a behind-the-scenes story of liturgical mayhem

by Peter Kwasniewski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 OBITUARY/Bishop Peter Elliott of Melbourne: Friend of Catholic Tradition

by Fr. Glen Tattersal (Rorate Caeli) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 SPECIAL SECTION: Giovanni da Palestrina: The Genius of Liturgical Music Turns 500, Pt. 2 Palestrina After 500 Years: The Legacy of the “Roman School”

by Aurelio Porfiri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 Gregorian Chant During the Age of Palestrina

by Guido Milanese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 Palestrina and His Burial: A Proposal

by Aurelio Porfiri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 FOOTSTEPS ON THE WAY/ The Jubilee of Two Popes

by Anna Artymiak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 SCRIPTURE/Who is the Man on the Side of the Road?

by Anthony Esolen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 SPIRITUALITY BEHIND BARS/Leo: Do Not Seek a Technological Savior

by Marcellus Roberts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 URBI ET ORBI: CATHOLICISM AND ORTHODOXY Icon/David the Dendrite

by Robert Wiesner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 East-West Watch/Pope Leo and the 1700th Anniversary of the Council of Nicea

by Peter Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 News from the East/Syriac Orthodox, Catholics “ready to unite”; St. Sharbel in Ireland; Orthodox churches in Ukraine fight; Zelensky cancels citizenship of UOC Primate

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 FEATURES Art/Treasures of the Pharaohs in Rome for the First Time

by Lucy Gordan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Lord of the World/Catholicism Survived; But No More...

by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 Vatican Watch/A Day-by-day Chronicle of Vatican Events: June, July and August, 2025

by ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 People/Vatican cardinal: “Desirable” to re-open door to TLM; White Sox great gets papal gift; Vatican at UN: Israeli action must be “proportionate”; US Ambassador to Holy See confirmed

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 Food for Thought/From Eggs to Apples: Gastronomy Preserved in Lava

by Lucy Gordan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

PROFOUND & PROVOCATIVE CONVERSION STORIES ◆ INTO THE DEEP Abigail Favale

◆ THE TWO

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his book traces one woman’s spiritual odyssey from birthright evangelicalism through postmodern feminism and, ultimately, into the Roman Catholic Church. As a college student, she experienced a feminist awakening that reshaped her life and faith. A decade later, on the verge of atheism, she found herself entering the oldest male-helmed institution on the planet—the last place she expected to be.

With humor and insight, Favale describes her gradual exodus from evangelicalism and surprising swerve into Catholicism. She writes candidly about grappling with wounds from her past, Catholic sexual morality, the male priesthood, and an interfaith marriage. A thoroughly 21st century conversion and compelling account of recovering an ancient faith after a decade of doubt.

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—Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., Best-selling Author and Philosophy Professor “A beautifully written story of conversion. In this raw and compelling narrative, Favale reminds us that, in the most mysterious of ways, God’s grace can reach all of us.”

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◆ THE GENESIS OF GENDER

Weaving personal experience with expert knowledge, Favale provides an in-depth yet accessible account of the gender paradigm: a framework for understanding reality and identity that has recently risen to prominence. She traces the genealogy of gender to its origins in feminism and postmodern thought.

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JERUSALEMS

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he moving story of a young man’s amazing journey to discover the roots of the Christian faith in the Ancient Near East, which led him from Protestantism through the Messianic movement and into the Catholic Church. This journey took him to the rainforest of Papua New Guinea, the Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw, and the Judean Desert and into the heart of ancient Jewish tradition: the Hebrew Bible.

Through it all, Wiseman’s relentless desire for truth and consistency kept him searching until he discovered the “beauty ever ancient, ever new”. His powerful stor y is like a course in fundamental theology, in compelling narrative form.

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Also available ◆ SALVATION IS FROM THE JEWS Roy Schoeman Traces the role of Judaism and the Jewish people in God's plan for the salvation of mankind, from Abraham through the Second Coming, as revealed by the Catholic faith and by a thoughtful examination of history.

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INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

[Re: Moynihan Letter #57, 2025: Fr. Boniface on the Liturgy. This letter contained the same text by Peter Kwasniewski that is reprinted in this issue on pages 28 to 35; so the letter writer is commenting on the text published on those pages]: Thank you for this letter, and, I bought the book [A Wider View of Vatican II: Memories and Analysis of a Council Consultor by Boniface Luykx], and will read it.

The following, from your letter, perfectly describes the coming One World Religion which will wholly exclude God our Father, as will the One World Government. Roman Catholicism’s survival cannot actually be at stake, though such a fullness of Christian civilization may well be. But Jesus said that He will never leave us nor forsake us even if the land and buildings and more are taken away. Very serious, indeed.

“There was — and still is — nothing less at stake than the very survival of the Church and of Christian civilization. This threat to her survival comes not from a ‘spontaneous evolution’ resulting from practices becoming worn out or meaningless, but rather from an organized and concerted agenda of actions that aim, by all available means, to tear down the Church and destroy Christianity.

“While many leaders of the Church and Christianity are sleeping, the wolves are decimating the unsuspecting flock.”

(11) Plus, Jesus gave this to me back in 2011: “Know Me, so your confidence in Me will be perfect.

“Love Me, so you can abide in Me forever.

“Serve Me, that My will be done in your life, that My life show through your life.

“A time is coming when you will trust

Me completely, and you will hear not with your ears, but with your heart. Jesus” Claudia Person personcm@comcast.net I have always been a defender of Pope Paul VI his writings and speeches and so much of what he did. The one big question has always been, why the Novus Ordo?

Now this set of recollections from an inside practitioner helps me immensely in coming to this conclusion: it should never have been brought forward to the Church at all.

And it would seem that the fault falls on Paul VI, who, as the pontiff, had the only say that mattered, and the training and grace to know better.

This account helps to show that the members caught up in the liturgical movement were imagining reunifying the Church from the fractures of the Council and dreamy about a liturgy accepted by all, healing old wounds, by no longer staying rooted in the Spirit-centered tradition for organic growth.

In reality, their efforts were half-baked they gave in to the temptation to rush things rather than submit to the work of the Holy Spirit and His consistent testimony.

Unfortunately, their mistakes were compounded by the wolves who had other rotten plans to dislodge the Faith from its sacred foundations.

This is distressing to realize, but conveys a sense of relief that something may start to make sense again within, as John XXIII liked to say, “Mother Church.”

Dan Murnane Reading, Pennsylvania, USA Of all of your so informative letters, this one sadly ended up in the “junk” folder, which fortunately I always check!

This topic is of most interest to me. I will order the book. Bugnini was sent to Iraq if I remember correctly.

I hope Pope Leo will not be Francis II. Louise Helder omiehelder@optonline.net

The editor replies: Archbishop Bugnini was sent by Paul VI to Iran, not Iraq.

Bugnini asked to see Paul VI, but Paul VI declined his requests for an audience, and the two never met again as far as we know.

Archbishop Lefebvre hit the nail on the head when he stated, “The Paschal mystery celebrated in the (new) Mass was more the triumphant Christ in His Resurrection than the Christ who expiates by His Passion; sin was no longer considered as an injustice towards God and His rights, but only as something that harms man and human solidarity; the Redemption brought about by Christ's offering of satisfaction and by the Father’s propitiation was thus emptied of its substance: the cross of Christ was made void.”

The problem is in the Council documents and those errors that are manifest in the documents must be corrected Tim Bratt thughbratt@gmail.com The editor replies: When you refer to “those errors” in the Council documents, I would take exception and argue that the problem is not “errors” but ambiguities.

Some passages in the documents may be taken out of context. But the Council documents, read respectfully and carefully, can be interpreted in an orthodox sense. The need is for a careful labor of interpretation. Then the conciliar documents, and their occasional ambiguous passages, can be read back into the tradition.

FR. MURR PODCASTS I liked very, very much the interview between you and Fr. Murr on our new Pope Leo XIV. The two of you expressed every single thought and emotional response I have had since hearing he had been elected.

I agreed most strongly with your comments at the end — about your hopes that Catholics will give this Pope a chance and not be quick to condemn him as a modernist. I am filled with great hope.

Jeannette Thomas jthomas154@roadrunner.net I am a Polish guy currently located in Thailand. I would like to express my great admiration for your podcasts with Fr.

Charles Murr. As I count, I have spent already about 75 hours of my life listening to you both on recorded podcasts uploaded to the Urbi et Orbi YouTube channel. All I can say is, it is just wonderful to listen to two great personalities who are well equipped with knowledge, life experience and — first and foremost — faith and love for God and His Church.

You are truly a gift from God for all of your viewers and listeners.

A few suggestions I have for future podcast topics: exorcisms, Freemasons, the third secret of Fatima, and the case of Fr. Peter Glas, a popular Polish priest with a great devotion to Mary, who was accused of sexual harassment from 20 years ago, suspended before any trial, and sentenced to 5 years prison on the basis of sketchy testimony.

Keep up the holy work you do by bringing even more light, hope — and often a smile — to our hearts and minds.

Tomasz vinietune@protonmail.com A few comments from the back row of the “peanut gallery”: 1)The outstanding discussions between you and Father Murr are a much-needed faith-filled oasis in today’s world. I have sent a few “up-beat” notes to you over the past few years in spite of feeling very unqualified in doing so.

However, today, my wife and I were able to listen on YouTube to the episode of the week ending July 27, which featured tète-a-tète between you two excellent sages and would like to add our “one-cent” worth.

Now in my 83rd year, I, beginning in 1948 up to early 1959, was privileged to have had the Sisters of Providence,

American food American owner

Via di Porta Cavalleggeri, 25 ✆ 338 13 71 344 home baked

homebakedrome

Sisters of Saint Joseph (altar boy years), Sisters of Loretto and the Dominican Sisters. And after they all threw me out, I wrapped up my education years including college with seven Jesuit years (mostly pre-Vatican II). Actually, because of my father’s devoted livelihood, it necessitated many moves.

Why, all of this somewhat irrelevant information? In moving to so many different parishes and states (pre-Vatican II), I observed that, while the Latin Mass was being offered, unless individuals in the congregation were following with a missal, they were seemingly present but distracted rather than participating.

I believe that Pope Francis in his years in Argentina and elsewhere, probably experienced the same. After Vatican II, the choice of saying the Mass in the vernacular enabled all Roman Catholics around the world (from Africa to the Far East, who wouldn’t necessarily use a missal) to fully understand the prayers of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

In all due respect, Father Murr related that, on Corpus Christi Sunday many years ago, he participated in several Masses, and after listening several times on that day to the words of the Consecration, the Holy Spirit enlightened his soul to a fuller understanding of what happened on Holy Thursday at the Last Supper.

My question is this: Were the words of the Consecration in Latin or the vernacular? If in the vernacular, consider how the folks in the congregation might also benefit in participating if it is in their own language as opposed to Latin.

However, the bottom line is, having grown up with the Latin Mass, I am fully behind having the option of allowing parishes to have Traditional Latin Masses.

To not allow it is a gross error from the Vatican. Hopefully, this ruling will be reversed.

My only concern would be that a pastor of a small parish (with only one or two Mass options) would personally prefer and impose a Latin Mass upon his congregation when for them it unfortunately would, for whatever reason, not be as prayerfully as meaningful.

2) Father Murr mentioned Catholics not knowing their faith — citing folks falsely stating that there are no merits/graces from Sacraments being adminSEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

9

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR istered by bad priests. Our beautifully written post-Vatican Council II Catechism is not necessarily a good teaching tool for the youth of today (early primary grades — 1st to 6th) who are being homeschooled, going to weekly study classes, or taking the initiative on their own. A derivative of an updated “Baltimore Catechism” might be a good base to work from — as (for most) it was in the past.

I guess after reading all of this, instead of saying my “one cent worth” from the “peanut gallery,” I, like the very old variety shows of the past in London, should expect a few thrown tomatoes and a huge hook pulling me off the stage. I accept that with love.

Pat and Greg Strauss gstrausshaus@aol.com The editor replies: No tomatoes and no hook at all, but respectful appreciation for your experiences and thoughts. Much appreciated.

“THEOLOGICAL” ZIONISM Please consider sharing this with Church leaders. It was time sensitive and needed to be released asap with the new offensives on Gaza City and warnings by former Israeli security leaders…

Part II opens by showing that all the former heads of Israeli national security are in agreement with me that “theological” Zionism is a major part of the problem. The issue is handled with great fairness and makes sure the Christian Palestinians are not ignored when Israel makes false claims to divine mandates to take Palestinian lands. The Introduction to the series gives multiple clarifications on the distinctions between “political” or secular Zionism and the “theological” Zionism that is the problem: https://catholic460.substack.com/p/co nclusion-encyclical-should-reaffirm It is part of my effort to ensure that people stop misrepresenting the teachings of Vatican II by showing what Benedict XVI actually taught. In Part III, I deal with Catholics who call other Catholics “antisemites” and correct those misusing the issue of “supersession,” too.

Please share or reprint this if you feel you can.

Dr. Matthew A. Tsakanikas Christendom College Department of Theology Front Royal, Virginia, USA 10

INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH I am writing now in response to your recent letter [Moynihan Letter #55, 2025: Newman] commenting on Pope Leo declaring Newman a Doctor of the Church.

I appreciated your commentary and it prompts me to send for your possible interest a piece I published a few weeks ago in New Blackfriars: “Catholic, Apostolic, and Orthodox.” It is published online by Cambridge University Press and is open access.

John Haldane FRSE Professor of Moral Philosophy Emeritus Senior Fellow, Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Department of Philosophy, University of St Andrews, UK Very well done. Thank you! Interestingly, the Bishop of Oakland, Michael Barber, SJ, (my Bishop) is one of the most influential experts on Saint Cardinal Newman. In fact, he moved to England to study Newman’s life and work. He wrote a very important paper about our new Doctor of the Church whose medicine seems to be continuity — in a Church which is a pilgrim Church, built to be infallible but not only through the Pope — through its people too.

Tom Greerty tgreerty@aol.com

JOHN PAUL II AND THE SHRINE AT MENTORELLA I just happened to read your letter on Mentorella from November, 2024. Here is an excerpt from my chronology, Poland, Russia, and Our Lady of Czestochowa: October 13, 1978 Cardinal Wojtyla arrives in Rome to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul and to participate in the conclave to elect a new pope. During the days before the conclave, Wojtyla spends much of his time with his best friend in Rome, Polish Bishop Andrzej Maria Deskur, who is the president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. On the morning of Friday, October 13, Wojtyla is shocked to hear that the 54-year old Deskur had suffered a massive stroke and had been rushed to the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome.

Deskur is stricken on the Fatima feast day

of the miracle of the sun. Less than three years later, Wojtyla himself will be stricken on the other major Fatima feast day, May 13.

Immediately before the conclave, Wojtyla makes a pilgrimage alone to the Marian shrine of Mentorella, located on a mountain 55 kilometers southeast of Rome. It had been Deskur who had first introduced Wojtyla to this shrine many years before. The shrine, which contains an ancient wooden carving of the Madonna with the child Jesus on her arm, had become a favorite place of prayer for Wojtyla. On leaving the shrine, the cardinal experiences car trouble. Abandoning his car, he hikes down the mountain road to the village of Capranica Prenestina, where he is able to hitchhike a ride to Palestrina and then to Rome to attend the conclave. (George Wiegel, Witness to Hope, pp. 248, 251) (...)

October 29, 1978 As pope, the first trip of John Paul II outside the Vatican is to visit Bishop Deskur at the Gemelli Polyclinic. Deskur states, “My mission now is to support the Holy Father with my suffering.” The Pope will attach spiritual significance to the close timing between his own election as Pope and the sufferings of Deskur. In later years, Deskur, who will subsequently be named a cardinal, will remain paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheel chair until his death in September 2011.

The Pope’s first visit outside of Rome is to take a helicopter to the mountain shrine of Mentorella on October 29, 1978.

It is a private visit with no official photographers allowed. Here, the Pope prays before the statue of the Madonna, where he had prayed shortly before the conclave.

[Endnotes] Oct. 13, 1978: (Deskur) George Weigel, Witness to Hope, pp. 248, 251; Oct. 29, 1978: (Deskur) George Weigel, Witness to Hope, pp. 267, 271 Peter Anderson Seattle, Washington, USA

“THE REAL PRESENCE” I think I mentioned my film project to you while we were in Rome, “The Real Presence: The Mass,” which shows what happens visibly and invisibly at every

Catholic Mass, with narration by some well-known Catholic speakers.

It premiered on EWTN on Holy Thursday. We are now trying to market it to get as many people to watch it and share it as possible. It can be seen free on YouTube or www.TheRealPresence.com, our website.

If you like it, please share it with as many other people as you can and encourage them to share it as well. If people really understood what we do at Mass, they could never leave the Catholic Church. I believe that this film can also draw non-Catholics to the Church.

Joe Helow jhelow@bellsouth.net

WHO LEO IS I enjoyed the story [Moynihan Letter #54, 2025: Who Leo is and Why He Needs Us] about your encounter at the Pope’s summer residence since we visited there on our Christmas pilgrimage.

I found the story of the Great Debate interesting; however, I put very little credence in someone that has been excommunicated. I appreciated the balance you added with your perspective and the letter from then-Bishop Provost; the relating of the name-changing was very interesting, as I can’t imagine the changes a mere man would undergo when being elected Pope.

Thanks also for the dirt about the conclave even if there is no truth to it; it was fun to imagine how things may have gone down.

Roger Youngblut Davenport, Iowa, USA Thanks for republishing that interview with Archbishop Viganò. On the one hand it seemed to be a complete muddle; on the other, it does point to specially Bergoglian features of what appears to be Prevost’s approach.

The jury, it would seem, is still out on Prevost, but it should not be out much longer: we need to know what he really thinks about synodality, homosexuality, relations with the government of China; and also about why Parolin and Fernandez are still in post, and what will be done about financial corruption in the lavender Vatican.

Many of us would want to be hopeful about Prevost, but that means we need to

know what he will do, not merely what he signals affably.

John Rist johnmrist@yahoo.com.uk This letter is a masterpiece! I will do my part. But please be patient with me.

I’m on the road at the moment. I have relocated twice and haven’t settled down, yet have to relocate again.

May God continue to bless you and all your works, Josephine jstlig@gmail.com First, thank you for your continued reporting on the papacy. Your ob-servations and spirituality are a blessing on those of us trying to make sense of the inner workings of the Church we call home.

I hope, therefore, that you will receive the following in the spirit of humility in which is it offered, and if you disagree or take issue with it, know that I am not offended in the least.

Over the years you have given voice to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. While he was in communion with the Church, giving him a voice to express a viewpoint — however valid or invalid it may have been — was, in my estimation, appropriate journalism for a publication with a mission such as yours.

But Viganò is no longer in communion with the Church, and continuing to refer to him now as “Archbishop” is borderline scandalous.

It connotes that you do not recognize the action taken by the Church in his regard.

I recognize that following his statement as published in your Letter, you provided counter points, but I do not believe that this justifies providing a soapbox for a dangerous, schismatic excommunicant.

Viganò’s comments and agenda are given amplification by their inclusion in your Moynihan Letters, which enjoy great prestige and trust among your readership, and are therefore a grave disservice to them. I implore you with great urgency to discontinue providing this man — not an Archbishop! — the favor of attention in your Letters and publications.

John Brennan johnsbrennan@gmail.com

In regard to the former archbishop’s last few paragraphs: It’s amazing how certain he is of damnation for those who don’t see things in the same way he does.

It’s an amazing black/white world, seeming almost gnostic to my ears.

The former archbishop should take heart: Trump, the leader of the ‘children of the light’* is President! All will be well. * in Viganò’s words....(Not sure if I got the phrase exactly there; but it was one of the former archbishop’s greatest hits, back in the day.)

I’m being sarcastic of course; Trump won’t resurrect a mythical city on a hill.

However, we have one more reason for hope with a humble servant of the servants of God on the chair of St Peter.

Hang in there Robert, I'm praying for you.

Mike Gutenkauf mikesdak@gmail.com Thank you, dear Dr. Moynihan, for addressing this issue of Leo’s identity.

I am definitely not happy, but understand his task. I hope for the best for all of us.

He will lose the Traditionalists, and no singing of Regina Coeli, etc. will fool them.

I don’t know what awaits us, but we shall see.

Louise esiol@optonline.net

A PROMISING NEW HOLY FATHER Your far too generous remarks [Moynihan Letter #56, 2025: A Perfect Essay] were sent me by a friend.

Thank you. I am glad the essay resonated with you.

However, since I am 86, I don’t think our promising new Pope will be summoning me forth from the retirement home where I happily dwell.

I’m grateful to the Lord for the blessings of 60 years of priesthood and for still being able to make a small contribution to his Church.

(Father) Robert Imbelli robert.imbelli@bc.edu [Fr. Imbelli’s essay, which I termed a “perfect” essay, and he says was “far too generous,” is published in its entirety on pages 18-21 of this issue of ITV. — Ed.] SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

11

LEAD STORY

PoPe leo sets foRth Reflections on the fiRst 100 Days of the new PoPe n BY ROBERT MOYnIHAn Pope Leo greets the crowd of reporters and the faithful awaiting him outside his Apostolic residence at Castel Gondolfo, where he took his summer holiday for half of July and several days in August this year.

(Photo - Grzegorz Galazka)

Below, an image from a Vatican News video showing Pope Leo about to greet Inside the Vatican Editor-in-Chief Robert Moynihan (in the checkered shirt) shortly after Leo’s election to the papacy in May

I

have followed the words and actions of Pope Leo for some 100 days now.

I have seen him in many different venues, and watched videos of his many addresses, and conducted and listened to many interviews with his friends and colleagues over the years.

A few weeks ago, I was able to shake Pope Leo’s hand. It was July 6, in the town of Castel Gandolfo, when Leo came out from Rome to stay for his 2-week summer vacation on the edge of a volcanic crater about 15 miles outside the walls of Rome.

Yet, the only conversation I have ever had with him was in October, after a press conference in the Vat-

ican Press Office, when he told me he felt he knew me because he had been reading my letters for many years.

So when I shook his hand, I wanted to speak, and hear a word, but there was a crowd, and little time, so no word was spoken. Here below is an image of the moment I shook his

12 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

hand (that is me in the blue and white checkered shirt). The little boy in the middle of the picture, behind my hand, was trying excitedly to speak to the Pope. I think he said that it was his birthday. The Pope replied, kindly, “Quanti anni hai?” (“How old are you?”).

Then, as the Pope shook my hand, he turned from the boy toward me then looked immediately to where he had to go next, and walked to the other side of the street.

THE GREAT DEBATE The “great debate” among Catholics, and among those who have some interest in the Catholic Church, is over this question: “Who is Pope Leo?” How traditional is he?

How progressive? How, after

Francis, will Leo lead the Church?

“The time between the Nuntio health regulations.”

Many have praised and embraced vobis and the promulgation of the But such critical observations are Leo, pleased by his evident humility, ‘green’ Missa votiva has seen a se- in a profound sence irrelevant to the selflessness, reasonableness, good- ries of pronouncements on various question at hand.For Prevost is no ness. Others have criticized him, and topics come to light, all of which longer here. Leo is. distanced themselves from him, per- show us a Leo who is fully commitWe all know there was there are a suaded that he is aiming at carrying ted to conciliar and synodal ecclesi- number of times in the Bible when forward the ideas and agenda names are changed.

Pope Leo concelebrates the new Mass for the Care of Creation of Pope Francis, ideas and an July 9 in a garden at Castel Gondolfo, a rite developed during the These name changes signiagenda that they opposed. fied significant spiritual transpontificate of Francis. However, strikingly, Leo’s homily focused Moreover, a good number more on the redemptive role of Christ, the Church’s head, than on formations and new covenants for “sustainable development” likely to be of these Catholics, at the specific prescriptions with God. Abram became Abheard from his predecessor (Photo - Vatican News) same time, have also critiraham, Sarai became Sarah, cized and have distanced Jacob became Israel, Simon themselves from Leo’s most became Peter. These changes recent predecessors: first of represent a shift in identity, all, from Pope Francis, but purpose, or relationship with also, in many cases, from God. Pope Benedict XVI, from Now, none of us knows the Pope St. John Paul II (then, inner spiritual life of Robert for the most part, skipping Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. over Pope John Paul I, beBut certainly he has been spircause his papacy in Septemitually changed by his election ber 1978 only lasted 33 days), as Pope and by the assumption from Pope Paul VI, and from of his new name, Leo. Pope John XXIII. Election to the papacy In other words, there are a places a great burden on the number of Catholics who are shoulders of the man chosen. opposed to many of the “moderniz- ology, with the sole difference from Indeed, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of ing” pastoral, and sometimes doctri- his predecessor being his more po- Newark, New Jersey, told journalists nal, decisions taken, not only by lite demeanor,” said Viganò. after the conclave that, during the Pope Francis, but by some or all of final vote on May 8, he saw Prevost ROBERT PREVOST’S NEW NAME the Popes since 1958. put his face in his hands as he realThis is a position that ArchbishArchbishop Viganò, in his re- ized the choice was falling upon op Carlo Maria Viganò, 84 — who marks above, speaks of “Prevost” — him. was excommunicated a year ago, on “Bishop Prevost did not hesitate to But there is a special charism July and 4, 2024, for his opposition support the pro-vaccine narrative, granted to the Pope, a special grace, and disobedience to Pope Francis — recommending the use of masks, so- which goes beyond human calculaseems to have taken. cial distancing, and compliance with tion. And for this reason, I believe In an interview July 18 with the WHO’s useless and harmful that Leo, as he faces a task that is, American Catholic writer Stehumanly speaking, beyond his or Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, 95, on a video call with phen Kokx, Archbishop Viganò Pope Leo on the 56th anniversary of the first moon landing any of our powers, will receive said, “I fear that Leo represents July 20. They spoke of the “mystery, greatness and fragility” that special grace that will make of God’s creation as described in Psalm 8 ‘Modernism with a human face’ him truly a “lion,” defending and — to borrow the expression ‘Sopromoting the faith for the glory cialism with a human face’ assoof God and for a blessing to enciated with the Prague Spring of lighten and bring wisdom and 1968 — and that his undeniably help to a sorely troubled persuasive and affable manner mankind. And toward this end, may mislead many, especially he needs our help, and we should ‘conservative Catholics,’ leading help him, each in our own way. them to create a virtual image of In the following pages, we the Pope that, however, does not offer further reporting and reseem to be borne out by reality. flections on Leo’s first days.m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 13

LEAD STORY

Who is PoPe Leo?

“What WiLL save the WorLd is Man KneeLing before god” PoPe Leo’s sPeciaL envoy, cardinaL robert sarah, exhorts the faithfuL to “rebuiLd the church of your hearts” n BY DIAnE MOnTAGnA

C

ardinal Robert Sarah on July 26 delivered a forceful and inspiring homily marking the 400th anniversary of the apparitions of Saint Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at her shrine in Sainte-Anned’Auray, Brittany, France.

Appointed by Pope Leo XIV as his special envoy for the historic celebration, Cardinal Sarah, 80, declared that France — and Brittany in particular — has been chosen by God as a sacred land. He urged the faithful to return to Eucharistic adoration and to place God first in both private and public life.

The former Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments

condemned what he called “barbaric and inhuman laws” that promote death — a clear reference to France’s ongoing debate over the legalization of euthanasia. He warned against a society that distances itself from God, making idols of “money”

and “screens,” and affirmed instead that “what will save the world is man kneeling before God.” Drawing on the Church Fathers, the Guinean cardinal called on believers to care for their souls — the inner sanctuaries where God speaks — through prayer, silence, and adoration. He offered particular encouragement to couples longing for children and to all those enduring suffering, inviting them to turn to Saint Anne as a source of hope and intercession.

What follows are excerpts from a working translation of Cardinal Sarah’s homily, published in its essential entirety in the original French by Aleteia. m

EXCERPTS FROM THE HOMILY ON THE FEAST OF ST. ANNE, MOTHER OF THE VIRGIN MARY, JULY 26, 2025 n BY CARDInAL ROBERT SARAH MOST DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF BRITTANY AND OF FRANCE,

I respectfully greet the civil authorities present here on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the apparitions of Saint Anne in this place. Pope Leo XIV has sent me to you as his special envoy to this shrine of Sainte-Anne-d’Auray.

Through this gesture, the Holy Father wishes to emphasize the importance he accords to your pilgrimage. I therefore bring to all of you, pilgrims of Saint Anne, the greetings and the blessing of our beloved Pope Leo XIV. The Pope is praying for you on this day. Through his envoy, he expresses his fatherly affection for you. [...]

In this place, four hundred years ago, Saint Anne appeared to Yvon Nicolazic and said to him: “Yvon Nicolazic, Me zo Anna, mamm Mari” (“I am Anne, mother of Mary,” in Breton, Ed. note). “Yvon, fear nothing, I am Anne, mother of Mary. Tell your rector, your priest, that on the land called the Bocenno—meaning this very place where we now stand—a chapel was once built in my name; it was the first in the entire region. For 924 years and 6 months it has lain in ruins; I desire that it be rebuilt as soon as possible, and that you care for it, because God wills that I be honored there; God wills that you come

14 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

there in procession.” [...]

BRITTANY, A SACRED LAND CHOSEN BY GOD Here lies a great mystery, one that must be pondered. There were indeed many other churches available, many other possible places—but He chose this one. Why? First, to remind us that God comes first, that the glory of God precedes us and does not belong to us. God created us by an act of gratuitous love; all of creation is the work of His hands, the free gift of His love. […]

We have not merited His love; He loved us first. We owe Him every-

Facing: Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, 80, sent by Pope Leo, presides at Auray’s 400th anniversary observances. Below, top: a procession in honor of St. Anne in Auray, France, to the Shrine of Sainte Anne d’Auray. Bottom, pilgrims approach the shrine

thing, for it is from Him that we receive life, movement, and being. For us, who are His creatures and His children, to honor God and give Him glory is to act in justice. Rendering glory to God is not an optional choice—it is a duty, a necessity. It is most important that we recover this awareness, especially in your societies which tend to consider God as dead, useless, or irrelevant.

REBUILDING THE CHURCH OF THE SOUL During the apparitions, Saint Anne asked Yvon Nicolazic that the ancient church be rebuilt and cared for. It is difficult, it is costly, it is demanding— and yet it is the image of what God desires today. God still wants us to rebuild His house. [...]

Yes, it is time to rebuild the church of your soul. It is time for you to go to

THE FALSE WESTERN VISION OF RELIGION

Too often in the West, religion is presented as an activity in the service of human well-being. Religion is equated with humanitarian efforts, acts of charity, the welcoming of migrants and the homeless, the promotion of universal fraternity and peace in the world. Spirituality is viewed as a form of personal development, meant to offer some comfort to modern man absorbed in his usual political and economic pursuits.

Even if these matters are important, this vision of religion is false. [...]

We see clearly how, in lands of comfort, wealth, and abundance, man destroys himself, self-destructs, because he forgets God and thinks only of his riches and earthly wellbeing. What saves the world is the bread of God. Man must be nourished with the bread of God—and the bread of God is Christ Himself. What will save the world is man kneeling before God, to adore and to serve Him. God is not at our service. It is we who are at His service.

confession: confess the sins you have committed in word or in deed, by night or by day; confess now, in this favorable time, and on the day of salvation receive the heavenly treasure. [...]

SILENT ADORATION AS THE ONLY REMEDY We were created to praise and adore God. It is in the adoration of God that we discover our true dignity, the ultimate reason for our existence.

It is on his knees before God that man discovers his true greatness and nobility. And if we do not adore God, we will end by adoring ourselves. [...]

LOOKING TO SAINT ANNE AMIDST TRIAL Our trials and sufferings sometimes plunge us into a state of profound bewilderment. Why the death of a child? Why the suffering of the innocent? Why war? Why betrayal?

Why, Lord? We sometimes feel abandoned by Him. Apparently, God is no longer present; for Europe, God is

dead. Should we rebel? Should we believe that God has become indifferent to us? Should we abandon religious practice because He does not hear our prayers? Should we cease praying and attending Sunday Mass?

Let us look to Saint Anne and listen to her voice. What does she do? Does she rebel against God? Does she turn away from Him? No, she remains in adoration. God is greater than our misunderstandings, greater than our doubts. [...]

Saint Anne came here to tell the Bretons and all of France—and through them to the men of all countries and places—that adoration is the sole remedy for despair. Faith in God and adoration of God are the only remedies capable of granting men a firm and lasting peace. […]

To all of you who suffer, I speak to you: look to Saint Anne. To all of you who despair for your children, your parents, your homeland, look to Saint Anne. Like her, let us persevere in adoration. The adoration of God will never disappoint us. The patient and silent adoration of Saint Anne made possible the birth of Mary, the mother of the Savior, the most beautiful, the purest, the holiest of all creatures. To all of you whose hearts bear suffering and sorrow, your adoration will bear fruit in hope. Persevering and relentless adoration tears through darkness and brings the light of hope. [… ] Even when all seems dark, we can always say, with our beloved Pope Leo XIV, evil will not triumph, evil will not prevail. God, our God, is infinitely good, infinitely beautiful, infinitely great. Today, with Saint Anne, in this place blessed and chosen by God, may this cry of love rise up in each of our hearts: “Come, let us adore the Lord, come, let us adore Him, let us bow down before Him, let us kneel before the Eternal, our Creator, for He is our God. Amen.” n

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LEAD STORY

Who iS PoPe Leo?

PoPe Leo, the PoPe of tender SurPriSeS n BY AnnA ARTYMIAK Rome, 2 August 2025. Pope Leo XIV with the young people on the occasion of the Jubilee of Youth in the area near the University of Tor Vergata (Photos Grzegorz Galazka)

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bout a month ago I had an interesting private conversation with one of the top officials of the Vatican Secretariat of State. He told me that he would not be surprised if Pope Leo “grows” into his role very quickly.

“Just give him a little more time,” he told me.

And it seemed to happen on the night of July 29, at the Vigil of the Jubilee of Youth. For example, the Pope added some spontaneous phrases in English, Spanish and Italian to his prepared text. Somehow this Jubilee event was a “test” for Pope Leo, as journalists are still trying to understand the new pontiff.

He remains unknown to most of the Vatican correspondents — he has not been one to give interviews easily; he granted them only to some of the more “institutional” media.

Leo XIV is yet to be discovered by the faithful as well.

The connection between the Pope and young people became fundamental to the papacy after John Paul II began to bridge the traditional “generation gap” between the old and the young.

The Pope from the far country — at that time, communist Poland — had already, as archbishop of Cracow, developed a pastoral outreach to youth. He brought his experience

with him to the Vatican. He is considered the Pope who contributed to fall of the communism — but his contribution to the pastoral dimension of the Petrine ministry, though underestimated, is perhaps just as important.

The encounters with young people known as World Youth Days became an obligatory part of the pastoral activity of every one of his successors. Popes could decide not to participate in some other big events, like the World Meeting of Families, but it became unthinkable that a Pope would not be personally present at a world Youth Day.

16 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

Benedict XVI was conscious of this, so his decision to resign was timed so that in Rio de Janeiro in 2013 there would be a new Pope to meet the youth there.

Leo XIV himself did pass the “test” in an excellent way: he definitely conquered the hearts of the young people at the jubilee. But while the new Pope is enjoying meeting people and listening to them, he is not a celebrity looking for popularity.

Already some people — among them, some journalists — are becoming disappointed with his tender style, compared to the more feisty style of Francis. His gentle smile, sober gestures, reading speeches without changing or ignoring the written texts, blessing children instead of kissing them… it all can seem slightly boring, or even “cold,” as one journalist called him.

But instead of trying to latch onto stereotypes, I would advise all of us to open our minds a little, and try to enter into his unique style, in order to better understand his message.

Of course, every Pope remains a prophet and, like any prophet, is not fully understood by his generation.

It happened to John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and for certain, it will be the same with Leo XIV, though probably apart from the young people. The crowded events with young people at first sight

might have seemed disappointing to them: they became tired of the long walk; at times they seemed bored, exhausted and not interested in anything. At one music event, the program featured mostly pop music, witha number in attendance apparently sunbathing. It could have given the impression that it was not necessarily a Catholic gathering.

Of course, that was only a part of the reality.

Most of the tens of thousands of young people were full of joy as they sang and danced to solemn and moving religious songs.

Still, when the Pope arrived, the mood of the young people changed. They wanted to see and hear him.

First, after his helicopter first landed at the site, he asked to be taken up again, to circle the crowds of young people by way of greeting. Then, after landing and alighting, Leo XIV did a long drive around St. Peter’s piazza in the popemobile.

But then he did an even more surprising thing: at a certain point, he left the popemobile and took the jubilee cross, walking with it to the podium with some young people who represented the whole

gathering. (This was the second time he had carried the jubilee cross; the first was on June 9 at the Jubilee of the Holy See.) As he walked, the almost 70-year old pontiff seemed 10 years younger. Leo chose to carry the cross for a long distance, leaving the impression that he is in very good physical condition.

Then, when he started a dialogue with three young people, he added

some phrases first in English, then in Spanish and then in Italian, acting as interpreter of his own words.

He also added a few more phrases spontaneously to the prepared text.

The most significant of these was at the very end of the first section on friendship: “Dear young people,” he said, “love one another! Love one another in Christ! Know how to see Jesus in others. Friendship can truly change the world. Friendship is a path to peace.”

When an Italian journalist saw the original prepared text, she was disappointed that Leo’s remarks were not to not include a single word about peace. But Leo included it anyway.

In fact, he told the crowd of young people in Italian, “Let us walk together with our faith in Jesus Christ. And our shouts must also be for peace in the world,” he continued.“Let’s all say it: ‘We want peace in the world!’” he shouted, as the crowd responded, “We want peace in the world!”

“Let us pray for peace,” and be witnesses to “the peace of Jesus Christ, the light of the world that we are all seeking,” he said, as darkness fell on the crowd.m

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 17

LEAD STORY

Who is PoPe leo?

CenTered in ChrisT: refleCTions on PoPe leo’s firsT 100 days “To move aside so ThaT ChrisT may remain” n BY ROBERT P. IMBELLI

remain, to make oneself small so that he may be known and glorified.”

Even the choice of name manifests, in my view, this desire to let his person be subordinated to the office.

No doubt the choice of “Leo” bespeaks a commitment to both the social and intellectual sensibilities of Leo XIII. But it also implicitly n these first months of counters his predecessor’s Leo XIV’s pontificate, idiosyncratic impulse in seinitial impressions have lecting the never previously often been based on matters employed “Francis.” of style, manifested in garPerhaps even more imporments and gestures. tantly, his “style” consistentThus, his first appearance ly expresses genuine appreon the balcony of Saint ciation and gratitude for the Peter’s Basilica, wearing contributions of others. mozzetta and papal stole, s the pIrIt to be understood To a frankly dispirited was rightly taken as a decidRoman clergy he spoke In functIon of hrIst ed contrast to his predeceswords of encouragement: “I sor, Pope Francis, who would like to help you, to or hrIst understood shunned both. walk with you, so that each So too, his decisions to person may regain serenity In functIon of the pIrIt dwell in the Apostolic Palin his own ministry.” ace and to spend some vacaHe commended the memThey suggest that, unlike Frantion time in the papal villa at Castel cis’s penchant to bend the office to bers of the papal diplomatic corps, Gandolfo mark a distancing in style his person, Leo appears bent on ac- saying: “The network of Pontifical from his predecessor, who not only commodating his person to the of- Representations is always active avoided these dwellings, but stu- fice he has assumed. In many ways and operative. This is for me a diously neglected vacations. this “kenotic” disposition reflects cause for great appreciation and Such “stylistic” departures, his pledge, at the opening Mass gratitude. I say this thinking cerwhile not decisive, are still signifi- with the cardinals after his election, tainly of the dedication and organicant. “to move aside so that Christ may zation, but, even more so, of the

The following essay by Fr. Robert Imbelli, 84, a priest of the archdiocese of New York and a renowned theologian, was first published in English on July 17 on Public Discourse — The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute, and later published online in Italian by veteran Vaticanist Sandro Magister.

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Facing page, his first appearance on the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica, wearing mozzetta and papal stole.

Below, Leo appears wearing the traditional pallium of the Bishop of Rome at his inauration Mass

motivations that guide you, the pastoral style that should characterize you, the spirit of faith that inspires us.”

And the spontaneous admission made to the diplomats seems a feature of all his presentations: “what I said, I said not at the suggestion of anyone, but because I deeply believe it: your role, your ministry, is irreplaceable.”

But questions of “style” also set a distinctive tone to Leo’s homilies.

A friend has remarked that a noteworthy feature is their “uncluttered” style. There is a directness to his words, unalloyed by rhetorical flourishes and “obiter dicta” [Note: Obiter dicta is the plural form of obiter dictum, which is Latin for “something said in passing.” The term describes comments, suggestions, or observations made by a judge in an opinion that are not necessary to resolve the case, and as such, are not legally binding on other courts].

Saint Peter’s Square, Leo said: “We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ!

Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles!

Listen to his offer of love and become his one family: In the one Christ, we are one.”

A month later, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, he quoted and

urged: “Keep your gaze always fixed on Jesus (Heb 12:2) always nourishing your relationship of friendship with him.”

And he reminded a conference on families: “What drives the Church in her pastoral and missionary outreach is precisely the desire to go out as a ‘fisher’ of humanity, in order to save it from the waters of evil and death through an encounter with Christ.”

And to a group of students and teachers from various European countries Leo said that, in a culture too often inundated with sounds, they should strive to listen with their hearts, “allowing God’s grace to strengthen your faith in Jesus (cf. Col 2:7), so that you might more readily share that gift with others.”

The striking impression conveyed in these and Pope Leo’s other exhortations is that of a renewed Christological concentration that is well summed up in his episcopal motto: “in Illo Uno Unum,” or “in the One Christ we are one.”

CHRISTOCEnTRIC COnTEnT Like so much of his theolog“THE CHURCH’S PRIMARY CONCERN This very directness makes ON OUR CONTINENT IS NOT THE CAUSE ical and spiritual sensibility, the the crucial content of his premotto’s source is the great AuOF CHRIST AND THE SALVATION sentations appear with remarkgustine of Hippo, patron of his HE HAS WON FOR US, BUT RATHER able clarity. So, the style happiown Augustinian Order. ly subserves the content.

And the promise going forSOCIAL ISSUES” And that content is adward is a recentering of the –FR. CLODOVIS BOFF mirably Christocentric.

Church upon its Lord in a manThe appeal to Christ never ap- made his own Vatican II’s teaching: ner that is not perfunctory and pears “pro forma,” a rote feature of that “in the sacrament of the Eu- merely notional, but consistent, Church-speak. charistic bread, the unity of believ- comprehensive, and passionate: “in It serves, rather, as the “cantus ers, who form one body in Christ, is Illo Uno.” firmus” upon which the whole mu- both expressed and achieved. All sical composition is based. are called to this union with Christ, CHRISTOLOGICAL AMnESIA Pondering Leo’s sermons and who is the light of the world, from It may appear strange to suggest talks is to hear variations on Paul’s whom we come, through whom we that the promise is to recenter the ecstatic confession: “for me to live live, and towards whom we direct Church upon its Lord. is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). And, like our lives.”

Has that not been the case?

Paul, he rejoices in proclaiming At the many more intimate enSadly, many indications point to and sharing the pearl of great price counters of this Jubilee Year, the what I have called a “Christologiwith others. Already in his inaugur- melody remains the same. So to the cal amnesia” in too many quarters al homily, preached in a packed seminarians of Northern Italy, Leo of contemporary Catholicism.

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LEAD STORY

Who is PoPe Leo?

The former preacher of the papal household, Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, has, over the years, lamented that in North Atlantic Catholicism one often receives the impression “that Christ is not a reality:” “etsi Christus non daretur.”

And just a few months ago the well-known Brazilian priest and theologian Clodovis Boff issued a heartfelt appeal to the Bishops of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM). He wrote, in a trenchant criticism of their recent message, “One can’t help but conclude that the Church’s primary concern on our continent is not the cause of Christ and the salvation he has won for us, but rather social issues like justice, peace, and ecology — which you repeat in your message like a worn-out refrain.”

He then issued a striking call to renewal: “It is, therefore, time — long past time — to bring Christ out of the shadows and into the light. It’s time to restore his absolute primacy, both in the Church ‘ad intra’ — in personal consciences, spirituality, and theology — and ‘ad extra’— in evangelization, ethics, and politics. Our Church in Latin America urgently needs to return to her true center, to her ‘first love’ (Rev. 2:4).”

Boff is by no means advocating a withdrawal of the Church from “the world,” but that the Church assume its true mission to be a transformative force founded on its defining Christological nature and identity. Boff calls for “a broad and transformative Christocentrism that leavens and renews everything: every person, the whole Church, and society at large.”

Does Pope Leo sense the crisis outlined here? Does he have the personal and theological resources

not only to critique this Christological deficit in the Church, but to guide and inspire a true Christological renewal?

On this 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, no questions are more pressing for the Christian witness in the world.

“IT IS TIME TO BRING CHRIST OUT OF THE SHADOWS AND INTO THE LIGHT”

– FR. CLODOVIS BOFF

PROMISInG SIGnS FOR CHRISTOLOGICAL REnEWAL There are, indeed, promising signs.

In a Mass, celebrated at Castel Gandolfo, for “the Care of Creation,” Leo purposely chose to preach on the Gospel account of the disciples, awe-struck at Jesus’s calming of the sea.

And he lifts up the Christological question they pose: “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Mt. 8:27).

He pointedly insists: “We too

20 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

should be asking ourselves” this Christological question of him whose “power does not break down, but builds up. It does not destroy, but calls into being and bestows new life.”

Leo finds in the Christological hymn of the Letter to the Colossians the tradition’s full-throated response.

He says: “So, we can ask ourselves once more: “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Mt. 8:27).

The hymn from the Letter to the Colossians that we have heard seems to answer this very question: ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created’ (Col. 1:15– 16).”

Moreover, in his message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation to be held on September 1, Leo again stresses the distinctive Christological basis of the Christian commitment to environmental justice.

“For believers it is also a duty born of faith, since the universe reflects the face of Jesus Christ, in whom all things were created and redeemed.”

Invoking two of the more controversial encyclicals of Pope Francis, Laudato si’ and Fratelli Tutti, he both confirms them and provides their common Christological foundation.

DAnGERS OF THE “GLOBAL SYnODAL PROCESS” One awaits, of course, Leo’s first major document, whether an apostolic exhortation or even an encyclical to gauge more fully his theological and pastoral vision, and to indicate the direction in which he hopes to guide the Church.

However, it is only realistic to acknowledge a possible constraint

Facing page: St Augustin of Hippo, by Philippe de Champaigne; in the round: Brazilian priest and theologian Fr. Clovodis Boff.

Below, Pope Leo gazes at the monstrance during the Corpus Cristi procession he led in Rome June 22.

placed on him in these first months of his papacy.

It is the “global synodal process” launched by his predecessor and now taking on further impetus due to a document signed by Pope Francis during his last hospitalization.

That document provides for an elongated three-year process, beginning this past June and slated to culminate in a little defined “ecclesial assembly” to be held at the Vatican in October 2028.

There are two potential pitfalls here: one regards governance, the other theology.

As to the first, the danger is that a semi-autonomous bureaucracy, the General Secretariat of the Synod already in place and functioning, risks acting, in effect, as an alternative magisterium.

As to the second, both the process and the documents thus far produced by the synods manifestly lack that robust Christocentrism so evident in Leo’s homilies and presentations.

Absent from the synodal vision is the urgency of the exhortation of Saint Cyprian, dear to Pope Leo: “Prefer nothing whatever to Christ!”

Let me frame the theological issue in a way that I hope is both succinct and suggestive.

The crucial question confronting the Church in these confused and polarized times of a post-postmodernity is whether the Spirit is to be understood in function of Christ or Christ understood in function of the Spirit.

The latter is the option of a theological liberalism that implicitly or explicitly seeks to “go beyond” Christ to meet the supposed exigencies of the present and future.

The former, with Nicaea, sees in Christ the “novissimus,” his unsurpassable newness: God’s incarna-

tion and full revelation to humanity. For the orthodox tradition we do not go beyond Jesus Christ, but strive to “catch up” to him, to become more fully incorporated into him so that “Christ may be all in all” (Col. 3:11).

All we have seen and heard indicates that the crucified and risen Christ who sends the Spirit is the

“JESUS IS NOT A WALL THAT SEPARATES, BUT A DOOR THAT UNITES” – LEO XIV

very heart of Leo’s spirituality and theology. Saint Augustine’s spirituality and theology have clearly formed and continue to nurture him.

JESUS IS THE DOOR THAT UnITES Yet, in a mid-June catechesis in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Leo invoked another notable figure, thereby reinforcing his Christocentric view.

He spoke appreciatively of the second-century father of the Church, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons.

Irenaeus famously opposed the

feverish gnostic heresies of his age, with their reductive Christology and disdain for the flesh, the “caro.”

Irenaeus famously articulated the “regula fidei,” the rule of faith that serves as authentic interpretation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the incarnate Son of the Father.

Leo has called Irenaeus “one of the greatest of Christian theologians,” who in his person bore witness to the common faith of the undivided Church both East and West.

And Leo underscored Irenaeus’s relevance to us. He said: “In a fragmented world, Irenaeus learned how to think better, bringing his attention ever more deeply to Jesus. Irenaeus became a cantor of his person, indeed of his flesh [un cantore della sua persona, anzi della sua carne]. Indeed, he recognized that in Jesus Christ, what seems to conflict is reconciled in unity. Jesus is not a wall that separates, but a door that unites us. We must remain in him and distinguish reality from ideologies.”

And Leo concluded: “Irenaeus, teacher of unity, teaches us not to oppose, but to connect. There is intelligence not where there is separation, but where there is connection. To distinguish is useful, but to divide, never. Jesus is the eternal life in our midst: he brings opposites together and makes communion possible.”

And the Spirit of communion, of “koinonia,” is no anonymous spirit, but the Spirit of the “one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made.”

So, the Fathers of Nicaea.

So, Leo. m

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INTERVIEW

“I ThINk I shouLd TELL you — you’d mAkE A VERy Good PoPE” AN INTERVIEW WITh PoPE LEo’s cLosE fRIENd, AusTRALIAN fR. ToNy BANks, AssIsTANT GENERAL of ThE AuGusTINIAN oRdER foR ThE AsIA-PAcIfIc REGIoN. BANks mET PoPE LEo IN 1981... n BY AnnA ARTYMIAK, ROME CORRESPOnDEnT FOR INSIDE THE VATICAN

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nside the Vatican: Fr. Tony, when did you meet Fr. Bob Prevost for the first time?

Fr. Tony Banks: In 1981 on the tennis courts outside of Chicago was the first time I met him — I was studying in Washington, he was studying in Chicago, but we were attending the same Augustinian conference. By mid-morning Tony Pizzo, who is now Provincial of Chicago, came over to me at the break and said, “Do you want to join us? We are going to play tennis.” And that was when I met him.

And then your friendship started?

The next time I saw him he was studying here in Rome.

And then really the friendship started. I got to meet him when he was back in America for vocations work, and I was doing vocations work in Australia. And then after that, he was on congregation councils, I was on councils; he became Prior General, I ended up as Provincial during his term. And he was very helpful, most particularly during the council time.

Fr. Prevost participated at the World Youth Day in Sydney in July, 2008, and from that event you have some special memories…

As an order, we generally hold youth encounters around the time of World Youth Day. So immediately afterwards we had the Augustinian Youth Encounter which was set in a beachside suburb of Sydney. It was in a wonderful place called Collaroy run by the Salvation Army, where if you just sat there, the lorikeets and the cockatoos would all come and swoop, and they may even sit on your arm. Bob was there for the entire week.

We went on a bushwalk one night, along with members of the Aboriginal community, which took us from the heights above Sydney’s Northern Harbour, and we had to walk down. We had Mass, and we’ve got wallabies, little kangaroo-like kind of things, jumping around in the back22

INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

ground. And he was quite touched by that.

Leo XIV twice came to your house after his election…

He knows we’re trying to look out for him. He came here for lunch immediately after his election, and went next door for lunch for the Prior General’s birthday. But we weren’t on the ball completely yet... educating our younger men on what is appropriate to record for private use, and what can be put on social media, etc., so people don’t try to interpret things out of context. So we’re slowly getting on top of, how do we, as an order, deal with a brother who’s now Pope?

Can you tell us more about Pope Leo, your friend Bob? Is he American or Peruvian?

He is one of the calmest human beings I’ve ever encountered. So when there is a problem, I get agitated, others get agitated. Bob remains calm.

And whether it’s from his family background, or from being in the Peruvian missions and having to face issues from property developers to forestry people denuding the forests, he just doesn’t seem to get fazed by anything. He comes and starts to deal with it immediately.

So whether he’s Peruvian or American…He has solid roots in the Chicago White Sox and many things American.

He and I both enjoy Scotch whiskey. He tells wonderful stories from Peru. And he was in awe of the people of Chiclayo when he became their bishop. There are many influences, but is he profoundly American or profoundly Peruvian? No, he’s profoundly Bob. What is the charism of the Augustinians?

For the Augustinians, the vow of obedience is about going to chapter. We listen to one another and then say: this is where we might need to proceed. We hear the Holy Spirit in that interaction and dialogue, not in the voice of the general saying: “You have to do this.” So obedience is to the

Opposite page, Fr. Tony Banks looks at artwork depicting the founder of his order, St. Augustine of Hippo. (Photo Katarzyna Artymiak) Bottom, Fr. Tony Banks gives Pope Leo a copy of the first biography of the new Pope.

will of the Holy Spirit within the group, not to a person per “If I’m not back for the conclave, I think I should tell you, se. you’d make a very good Pope.”

Is this the style that Pope Leo might introduce to the So he writes back 24 hours later: “Oh, thank you for the Church? messages: The funeral was great, etc.” And then he wrote, He will definitely do that. He’s a man of dialogue. One “I am sleeping easy in the belief that no American will ever of the things Pope Francis brought to prominence was this be elected as Pope.”

You say he took his name after Pope Leo XIII: Not word synodality. Synodality is based on two charisms, the many know about Leo XIII’s relations with the Auguscharism of Jesuit discernment and the charism of Augustintinian order… ian interiority. You take an issue, you go within, you reflect, you dialogue, you go back within, you enter into further Well, the order was having major difficulties in Italy, dialogue. And discernment is a necessary factor. But what post-Napoleon, and was trying to re-establish itself there.

Bob brings is this whole movement into the interior so that Our headquarters for many years had been the Basilica of you can then come up with a San Agostino. But we were common statement. evicted from the residence and So far we can see from the the library there, so we lost basibeginning how important an cally everything, and the order issue for Pope Leo is unity. was suppressed. But under Leo We begin our liturgies, in XIII, the order was allowed to our prayers, in English with the re-establish, and to help the line: a sacrament of love, a sign order re-establish, Leo XIII of our unity, bond of our fratergave us a residence at Carpineto nity. Whoever longs for life has — the town Leo was from — here its very source. And above which is our mission house. Leo that whole notion of unity, XIII also helped re-establish the communion, unity, Eucharist, devotion to Our Mother of Body of Christ, us becoming Good Counsel, which is one of one, is at the heart of our the great Augustinian devocharism, at the heart of our spirtions, at Genazzano.

What is your own vocaituality.

So he will bring that with tions story?

“COMMUNION, UNITY, EUCHARIST, BODY him.

I was a merchant banker And for us, in the liturgy, OF CHRIST, US BECOMING ONE, IS AT THE from New Zealand, working in these labels of progressive or Australia for three years, endHEART OF OUR SPIRITUALITY. SO LEO traditionalist, they’re very coning up leading the leasing diviWILL BRING THAT WITH HIM” fused. We have places within a sion of my company. There was couple of hundred kilometers of each other which are far more traditional in liturgy, and others which are far more progressive. We have very monastic groups within the liturgy. We have groups that are pastoral. We have groups that are missionary. But we seek unity among the whole group.

For me it’s really striking that he started to begin every audience, dealing with Catholics, with the sign of the cross.

Let’s go back to the Conclave. Did you have an intuition that he might be elected?

Well, I’ve seen him in operation, and my thought was that some of the cardinals will vote for him just because of what he was like in Peru. But secondly, when he was in charge of bishops, cardinals and bishops found him very good to work with. And he’s had to deal with all sorts of situations; Francis had him dealing with the bishops of Germany, for example.

So I wrote to Bob after the funeral of Francis to congratulate him and the other cardinals who had put together what I thought was a wonderful funeral. And at the end, I wrote:

suicide. There were drugs. There was alcohol. There were divorces. You worked very, very hard, and you got incredibly well paid, but it was destructive as a lifestyle. And that was when I met the Augustinians.

They actually seemed to enjoy each other’s company. I said I was interested in joining the order, and they said, “OK, you start in January.” And it was like a different world: “Okay, this morning we will meditate for half an hour.”

“Yeah? What do you do in meditation?”

“Just keep quiet and pray.”

At the end, I was accepted to make my vows. I told the first councilor of the province, “I thought I would probably be asked to leave.”

“Why did you think that?” he asked.

“Because the novice master and I, we were always in disagreement,” I said.

And he said, “That’s exactly the reason we voted for you.”m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

23

analYsis

newman, newest Doctor of the church Progressives who hail him as their chamPion have got it wrong n BY GAVIN ASHENDEN*

W

hen Pope Leo conferred on St. John Henry Newman the title of Doctor of the Church on July 31, he was both conferring a great honor on Newman whilst at the same time stating the relevance of Newman to his own new pontificate.

It was a theological and a political statement of some weight.

The Catholic Church has been waiting nervously for Pope Leo to show his pontifical face.

What will he stand for as the successor to St. Peter in the wake of these last troubled few years?

Out of more than 10,000 canonized saints, there were, until now, only 38 Doctors of the Church. So how do we assess the significance of Leo’s distinctive elevation of Newman?

Perhaps one of the most dramatic elements of this act is the extent to which people disagree over what it means.

This may not be surprising, since there is something of a civil war within the Catholic Church: an increasingly secular and anti-Christian culture is ramping up the tension between the traditions and dogmas of the Church and the culture’s demands.

“Progressives” believe there needs to be some compact or concord between the Church and the “developments” in culture and ethics we are surrounded by, while “conservatives” resist this idea.

Some commentators who have celebrated Newman’s new status believe that he has the capacity to unite the progressive and the conservative, and believe it is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

They see that both sides claim him as their own. And indeed they do. But I want to suggest that the progressives have misled themselves.

I think they are mistaken.

NEWMAN REPRESENTS AUTHENTIC CATHOLICITY I believe Newman’s elevation instead signifies a determination by Pope Leo to reaffirm the Church in its authentic Catholicity, in the face of serious challenges at the hands of secular ideology. In the present struggle between holy and profane, political and supernatural, secular and 24 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

Catholic, Newman represents the deep integrity of authentic Catholicism.

Let’s look at the three things that he is particularly known for.

They are: the idea of the University, the pre-eminence of conscience and the development of doctrine.

Newman’s pioneering work on the idea, or purpose, of the university — Newman’s educational philosophy — is an arbiter in the seismic conflict between the claims of absolute truth and those of relativism (upon which the future of our culture, civilisation and faith hinge).

The idea of “post-truth” is an intellectual fashion forged in the high-octane atmosphere of rarified university speculation.

But it has seeped into common culture in a form of pronounced and petulant relativism.

It has succeeded to the extent that the ludicrous model of Third Wave Feminism has triumphed throughout the West.

In it, the world of human fantasy takes precedence over even what until recently have been agreed as issues of fact, science and, in particular, biology (cf. the “trans” debate).

So the first aspect of the impact of St. Newman being made a Doctor of the Church is as a sign that the Catholic Church is marshalling its resources to confront the anarchic toxicity of relativism.

MISREADING NEWMAN The theological progressives (or to borrow from the “same-sex-attracted” lexicon, the progressive-attracted) are mistakenly under the impression that Newman is going to act as a totemic influence for the theological forces of socalled progress.

This is a misreading of both who Newman was and what he believed and wrote.

The signification of language and labels he used in the nineteenth century have not remained identical in the twenty-first. So, a little translation is needed.

Newman fought against what he called “liberalism.” He defined it in his Biglietto Speech of May 12, 1879, when he was made a cardinal: “Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed

Facing page, the large banner depicting Cardinal Newman that was hung at St. Peter’s for his October 12, 2019, canonization ceremony.

Below, a portrait of Newman painted by Sir John Everett Millais in 1881, two years after Pope Leo XIII made him a cardinal of the Catholic Church

is as good as another; and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy.”

He is seen also as the apostle of conscience. And once again, it is assumed by those who have not read him that by highlighting and preferencing conscience — an epistemologically prior value — he is in some way resisting or challenging the authority of the Catholic Church and its magisterium.

His famous quote is often thrown around — as if by itself it is evidence that Newman preferred the integrity of subjective judgement to obedience to the papal office: “Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts [which indeed does not seem quite the thing], I shall drink — to the Pope, if you please — still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.”

It’s not surprising that he is misread on this point. In fact, one of the most painful internal arguments over authority within the Church in the last decade occurred over the role of conscience.

If we take, for example, the controversial Amoris Laetitia, paragraph 303, we see the word “conscience” being used by Pope Francis 13 times — as a device, critics contend, to override the demands of traditional Catholic teaching on marriage (though in fairness we note that the Pope’s defenders point to a flawed translation of the original Latin.)

Be that as it may, it is impossible to avoid the impression that “conscience” is indeed being used this way, becoming a trump card in an attempt to forge a not only fresh, but divergent Catholic epistemology.

But Newman did not understand conscience in that way or in that context.

Much of his clearest writing about conscience was in response to Gladstone’s book (and earlier pamphlet) “Vaticanism.”

Newman was championing the rights of the well-formed Catholic conscience in distinction to Gladstone’s misrepresentation of the Catholic conscience creating a Catholic automaton who was a threat to the body politic.

Newman’s understanding of conscience contains two absolute elements at either end of the process — God in Scripture and Tradition at the front end, and God as judge and arbiter at the rear end (so to speak); only in the middle

is there any subjectivity, as the individual, competently or incompetently formed in the faith, exercises his best discretion and discernment. But the idea that conscience operated as an alternative to the demands of faith and ethics? Nothing can have been further from Newman’s intentions.

THE DEVELOPMEnT OF DOCTRInE The development of doctrine may be Newman’s most striking contribution to the theological conversation of the nineteenth century. And again, context is everything.

The progressive heart beats quicker at the promise of patronage for developing doctrine — of which disordered sexual identity and practice and the ambitions of feminism are always presented as legitimate examples.

But, the conflict in the Catholic Church centers on exactly this issue: what is legitimate development and what is outright change?

Newman had no interest in development as change or alteration — only in development as deeper and clearer articulation of the implications of truth as encountered at different stages of its pneumatic amplification.

His articulation of development was intended to counter the under-informed accusations of Anglicans that Catholic dogma had changed and grown more corrupt since the Reformation.

Newman set out to show, with considerable skill, how and why it was not true.

Along the way, he provided certain tests and clarifications for distinguishing between genuine development and corruption.

Newman is therefore a powerful theological ally for those who want to guard the integrity of the Church in the struggle against false epistemological alternatives based on sociological analysis or greater sensitivity to lived experience.

The recognition of St. John Henry Newman as a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIV is a sign that he recognizes the weight of Newman’s advocacy for the absolute in the face of relativism; the need for well-formed consciences tuned to harmonic resonance with the Magisterium; and the provision of clearer criteria to separate apostolic development from heretical distortion. It is a sign that should encourage faithful Catholics that this new pontificate brings the welcome promise of clarity to replace confusion. *Dr. Gavin Ashenden is a former Anglican Archbishop and Chaplain to the Queen of England, in addition to his distinguished academic career; now he is a Catholic convert and lay author, blogger and podcaster. m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 25

the reStoratIon of the SoCIaL order Leo XIV, John henry newman, and the ChaLLenge of CathoLIC SoCIaL teaChIng n BY MICHAEL D. GREAnEY*

B

y his choice of regnal name and citing Rerum Novarum as his guide, Pope Leo XIV clearly intends to initiate a new effort to implement the fullness of the Church’s social teachings. He will, of course, integrate Pope Pius XI’s development of doctrine with the act of social justice and the personalism of Pope St. John Paul II into the work of Pope Leo XIII. Further, by naming St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church, Leo XIV is emphasizing the essential role of reason guided and illuminated by faith — and what can happen when reason and true faith lock horns with the unreason and false faith of the rei novae, the “New Things” of socialism, modernism, and the New Age. This is illustrated by the rise and fall of the Oxford Movement, led by Newman, one of the greatest intellects ever to grace the Church of England.

It began Sunday, July 14, 1833, when the Reverend John Keble preached a sermon on “National Apostasy.” The British government had recently decided to shut down 10 Church of Ireland bishoprics. A group of Oxford divines concerned about widespread indifferentism in the Church of England took the move as an attack on the faith.

Newman quickly became leader of the Movement. Members focused on preaching and issuing religious tracts, becoming known as the Tractarians.

THE “VIA MEDIA” Initially, the Movement made great strides in returning the Church of England to orthodoxy. Their goal was to restore what Newman and others viewed as authentic Christianity without the Bishop of Rome. This was a “Via Media,” a Middle Way between the liberal perversion of Protestantism and the reactionary depravity of Rome.

The Tracts took England by storm. It was, however, Newman’s sermons which startled High clergy, alarmed Low Evangelicals and their Dissenting allies, and panicked radical Broad liberals and socialists.

To explain, Anglicanism is divided into parties, High, Low, and Broad, with numerous sub-parties. Oversimplifying, the 26

INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

High Church party regards itself as non-papal Catholic. The Low Church party rejects the Catholic label. Low Church adherents believe whatever is Roman or Catholic deviates from the pure faith of Jesus.

Then there is the liberal Broad Church party which expands the definition of Christianity and even of Christ. This enables the Broad Church to include or “broaden” Christianity to encompass virtually everything except what the High and Low Church parties hold as absolutes.

What ended the Oxford Movement was the appointment on purely political grounds of the Reverend Renn Dickson Hampden as Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1836. Hampden’s Broad views made his Christianity essentially meaningless in orthodox terms.

Low Church and Dissenters, and High Church and Tractarians forgot their quarrel whether the Church of England was Protestant or Catholic, respectively, in their fury over the appointment of a man whose theology convinced both sides he was neither. To divide and conquer, Broad Church adherents accused the Tractarians of Romanism.

THE PROTESTAnT SURREnDER Ironically, it was the adamantly anti-Catholic Newman who provided the pretext. This was the publication of Tract 90, “Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles,” which presented a non-papalist form of Catholicism.

Without giving Newman a chance to defend himself, the Heads of the Colleges condemned the Tract.

Newman’s religious superior, Richard Bagot, Bishop of Oxford, gave him an “understanding” if he, Newman, stopped publishing the Tracts, the bishops would not condemn Tract 90. Bagot condemned Tract 90 anyway — unofficially. Other bishops joined in.

By refusing to charge Newman officially or in writing, yet implicitly denouncing him, they ensured Newman could not present his case. If he protested, he would be ignored, but if he restarted the Tracts, he would be condemned. Why? If the Church of England was Catholic but not Roman, why the mal-

Facing page: John Henry Newman. Below, Leo XIII, Pius XI, and John Paul II

ice? If, however, the Church of England was not Catholic, but Protestant, why did the bishops not present their arguments?

Why did they appear to accept the Broad Church position, which Newman regarded as neither Catholic nor Protestant, but non-, even anti-Christian?

By equivocating, the bishops forced the questions whether the Church of England had ever been orthodox in the first place, and if it could now be called Christian or even a religion in the traditional sense. Horrified, Newman realized the question for him was not whether the Church of Rome was true, but whether the Church of England was false!

It ended the Oxford Movement. As far as Newman was concerned, an effort begun to save Anglo-Catholicism from the New Things ended with a Protestant surrender to them.

Leo XIV evidently sees parallels between the Church of England in the 1830s and the Catholic Church of today. This presents a challenge. The Catholic Church has always held firmly to the doctrine that knowledge of God’s existence and of the natural law written in the heart of every human being is discernible by the force and light of human reason alone.

Nevertheless, the rei novae [“new things”] — socialism, modernism, and the New Age — have made tremendous inroads, recreating in the Catholic Church of today what Newman saw afflicting the Church of England in the 1830s. Many Catholics accept “Broad Church” beliefs unquestioningly. Fideism, Pope St. Pius X’s term for modernism, a false faith based not on reason but religious sentiment and private opinion, reigns supreme throughout society. As Pius XI noted in Ubi Arcano, “There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.”

LEO XIV’S CHALLEnGE Seemingly, Leo XIV wants to take matters to the next level — which presents another challenge, demonstrated by the development of the Church’s social teaching. This began in 1832, when Pope Gregory XVI issued Mirari Vos, the proto social encyclical, “On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism.”

The encyclical presented an argument based on faith, reason, and tradition (both human and sacred) opposing certain “novelties.” Later known as socialism, modernism, and the New Age, these rei novae (“New Things”) as Gregory referred to them in 1834 in Singulari Nos, threatened not merely Christianity, but all natural religion and philosophy.

Acknowledging the importance of the State, Pope Pius IX added political reform to Catholic social teaching. Consequently, as a personalist, “American” type liberal, Pius IX came into immediate conflict with both radical, “French” liberals, and reactionaries.

Overthrown by the radicals in 1848, an alliance between reactionaries and elitist “English” liberals (today’s conservatives) restored Pius IX to power. Unable to implement further political reforms, Pius IX turned to developing and propagating the Church’s social and religious teachings, calling the First Vatican Council which formally defined the primacy of reason and papal infallibility.

Leo XIII continued Pius IX’s efforts but soon realized the Church needed a specific program to counter socialism and modernism. In 1891 he issued Rerum Novarum, presenting a consistent, coherent three-step plan combining principles of natural law, religious doctrine, political policy, and economic reforms: —Implement immediate measures to improve working conditions and raise wages, —Shift from the wage system to an ownership system, and —Restructure the social order to provide the proper environment within which all people have the opportunity and means to become virtuous.

THE RESTORATIOn OF THE SOCIAL ORDER Unfortunately, people assumed Rerum Novarum demanded increasing pay and benefits, improving working conditions, and collective bargaining as ends in themselves. They ignored the primary message of the encyclical, “the restoration of [the social order] according to the principles of sound philosophy and to its perfection according to the sublime precepts of the law of the Gospel” as Pius XI summarized it, and dismissed as prudential matter widespread capital ownership, the principal means to empower people to become virtuous and reform society.

This, then, is Leo XIV’s challenge: to maintain adherence to the natural law and Catholic doctrine, restore orthodoxy, and restructure the social order. This must be done, however, without surrendering to the rei novae or giving into the transitory and often illusory advantages offered by establishing the Church as a branch of the State or by instituting a theocracy. One possibility for achieving these goals is through the application of what has been called the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism, based on principles of natural law and the social teachings of Leo XIII, Pius XI, and John Paul II. This is described on the website of the Center for Economic and Social Justice, www.cesj.org. *Michael Greaney is Director of Research for the Center for Economic and Social Justice in Arlington, Virginia, and co-author of 2022’s The Greater Reset, among many other and articles. m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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BOOK REVIEW

prominenT liTurgisT’s rediscovered memoirs reveal whaT happened To The mass and why The “horizonTal” liTurgy was crafTed around “The supremacy and normaTive value of secularized wesTern man” n BY PETER A. KWASnIEWSKI A Wider View of Vatican II: Memories and Analysis of a Council Consultor by Archimandrite Boniface Luykx. Edited by Julie Rogers. 258 pp. Paperback $19.95; hardcover $32. Also available at Amazon.

A

rchimandrite Boniface tant works: Louis Bouyer’s Luykx is not exactly a Memoirs, which were stuck in a household name. drawer for decades until, at last, Yet he was a very important the same redoubtable Angelico figure in his day — and his thePress published John Pepino’s ological memoir just published translation in 2015, and Fr.

by Angelico Press, A Wider Bryan Houghton’s hilarious and View of Vatican II: Memories profound Unwanted Priest, and Analysis of a Council Conwhich was believed lost until the sultor, will put him back on the manuscript was rediscovered in map.

2020 and then published, once As a priest-scholar active in again by Angelico, in 2022. Like the preconciliar Liturgical the householder of the Gospel, Movement (he was close Divine Providence is pulling out friends, for instance, with Lamthese eye-opening works at just bert Beauduin), as a participant the right moment, when their in the preparatory liturgical message will fall on receptive commission for the Second ears.)

Vatican Council, as an expert “SOME COMMISSION MEMBERS Luykx’s ravishment with the for an African bishop at all four NEVER INTENDED TO ABIDE BY THE preconciliar Liturgical Movesessions of the Council, and as ment, his Byzantine-colored criSCOPE OR SPIRIT OF THE COUNCIL a member of the infamous Contique of the preconciliar Roman silium [super-committee] that Rite, and his ebullient (if at times DECREES” produced the Novus Ordo, embarrassing) enthusiasm for Archimandrite Luykx is uniquely positioned to offer an John XXIII’s Council make his withering critique of the insider’s view of the good, the bad, and the ugly. This he postconciliar reform and its anarchic reception all the does with zesty prose and uninhibited frankness in a more credible and powerful, for he is no grinder of axes. remarkable personal testimony, completed in 1997 but Refreshingly, he is not afraid to name names; signifbelieved lost until it was recovered in 2022. (The “lost icant new information on Annibale Bugnini will be of and found” aspect may remind you of two other imporparticular interest to many readers here. This will be my 28

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Maria Laach (below) was the undisputed center of the Liturgical Movement and a center of spiritual renewal for all of Western Europe.

focus here, where we will examine hitherto unknown — and rather unsavory — details about the inner workings of the reform, including an episode where Bugnini snubbed an African bishop, telling him that only modern Western man’s perspective counted.

tion in many aspects of life in the Western Church, and thus even in Western civilization.” (9) “There was — and still is — nothing less at stake than the very survival of the Church and of Christian civilization. This threat to her survival comes not from a ‘spontaneous evolution’ resulting from practices becoming GEnERAL IMPRESSIOnS worn out or meaningless, but rather from an organized Our author does not have a particularly rosy view of and concerted agenda of actions that aim, by all availthe situation after Vatican II: able means, to tear down the Church and destroy Chris“The sacraments are being desecrated and man’s tianity. While many leaders of the Church and Christianneed for the holy and for reverence is being violated ity are sleeping, the wolves are decimating the unsusunder the pressure of secularism, sanctioned by the dispecting flock.” (11) enters’ ‘new liturgy.’...

With laser-like precision: “The dissenters recognize “My own unhappy experience, during many years of the ultimate primacy and necessity of the liturgy; this is work in the post-conciliar why they use the liturgy as subcommissions appointed their battlefield.” (12, italics to implement the Council’s in original) Luykx praises the German documents, was that from the abbey of Maria Laach in the very beginning, some com1940s/50s, before things got mission members in high out of hand: “Maria Laach positions never intended to Abbey... was the undisputed abide by the scope or spirit of center of the Liturgical the Council decrees; they intended rather to promote Movement and a center of their own ideas. Their spurispiritual renewal for all of ous interpretation was largely Western Europe. On an averforeign to the Council age Sunday eighty busloads decrees and was rather that of spiritual seekers visited demanded by current fads Maria Laach, magnificent in and by liturgists and theoloboth its physical setting and gians of certain schools.... its worship. The liturgy was “This awareness of the celebrated there more beauti“FROM WHENCE DOES ONE MAN, OR ruling, normative value of fully than one can imagine: GROUP, GET THE RIGHT TO IMPOSE HIS Holy Tradition wherein all faultless yet naturally reverthe Councils’ authority is WAY OF PRAYING OR CELEBRATING UPON ent, amidst a dignified yet rooted has practically disapsincere brotherly love. How THE WHOLE WESTERN CHURCH?” peared in the modern Westoften I heard visitors say, ern Church, under the pressure of rebellious theolo‘This is heaven on earth; it couldn’t be more beautiful.’” gians, some of whom have totally rejected Holy Tradi(26) tion and are essentially in a state of heresy.” (4, 5, 7) He summarizes the preconciliar Liturgical MoveAgain: “I am convinced that the Consilium’s subment thus: “...the deep impulse of the whole renewal commissions misunderstood their true task and hence, movement, including in America, was a striving for true wittingly or unwittingly, betrayed the Constitution on piety and a return to the sources of Christianity — comthe Sacred Liturgy.” (8) pletely the opposite of the destructive resentment of More broadly: “We will follow the post-conciliar today’s dissenters. To my great sorrow I must report that passage from Church crisis to world crisis, from occamany of the renewal movement’s leaders in both the sional disagreement to organized dissent, from differUnited States and Europe, some of whom were my dear ences of opinion to open rebellion, from legitimate friends, gradually lost the movement’s original vision adaptation to neo-paganism, and from God-centered and no longer promote its goals. Mais où sont les neiges verticalism to man-centered horizontalism.... I will pred’antan. How have the old dreams vanished.” (30–31) sent both theological and anthropological analyses of “The true nature of liturgy has been perverted, resultthe post-conciliar decay, showing, among other things, ing in social, man-centered, desacralized “services” in how the deterioration of the liturgy has led to deteriorawhich awe and reverence for God’s holiness have all but SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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BOOK REVIEW A WIDER VIEW OF VATICAN II disappeared.... In the heart of the Church today there exists a decay precisely the opposite of the goals of both the Council and the preconciliar renewal movement.

Why was it that Christians in the decades before the Council thronged to the European abbeys that were hearts of the renewal? Was it to be entertained by popular novelties or have their ears tickled by new teachings?

No; they came to share in true worship, enlivened by a solid hunger and respect for the holy, for reverence, and for objective authenticity. By participating in reverent worship and embracing objective truth, the people were freed from their unredeemed subjectivism and the often-prosaic banality of daily life.” (34)

entrusted with its work. After the Council they became more and more infected by a new high-handed spirit whereby some commission members put themselves and their opinions above the Council documents on which they were supposed to work in the very spirit of the Council Fathers. Worship became the primary victim of their high-handedness, but this man-centered viewpoint also deeply affected the problem of religious liberty and the Church in the world. It was essentially a switch from the objective, vertical ascent toward God to the subjective, horizontal gravitation in man.”

(81) “The members of Pope Paul VI’s Consilium and its subcommissions (including myself) began their work of interpreting EnTER THE VInCEnTIAn CSL [this abbreviation refers to SECRETARY the Constitution on the Sacred The first substantive mention Liturgy] in January 1964. Thus of A.B. comes on page 45: began the first phase, a time of “Father Annibale Bugnini, editor creative work of fellows: study, meetings, and discussions withof the journal Ephemerides Liturgicae and professor at several Archbishop Annibale Bugnini with Pope Paul VI. Paul “gave in the subcommissions. This Roman institutes, was our Secre- in” to the New Mass, believing it was ecumenically desirable work was initially good, but it tary [for the Preparatory Comsoon became infected by erroT HE RESULT OF HORIZONTALIZING mission for Liturgy prior to Vatineous attitudes.” (82) can II]. He was a very capable Now we get into the heart of WORSHIP IS THE ALMOST TOTALLY man and an adroit politician with the matter: “In the beginning of SOCIALIZED AND MAN-CENTERED a special charism for bringing our postconciliar work, the spirpeople together and bridging DIMENSION OF THE LITURGY... BUT it of excitement and brotheroppositions. As we will see in the hood was strong and generated THIS DESTROYS THE MOST BASIC pages to come, he exerted a good results, as long as the MEANING OF ALL WORSHIP. strong (and often problematic) experts stuck to the text and influence in the liturgical develspirit of CSL. I would like to opments during and after the Council.”(45–46) remember the experts primarily as scholars who wanted With gentlemanly discretion, Luykx states: “In to serve the Church. between sessions of the Preparatory Commissions, “But after working with them for some time, I came while most of us were working on our assigned tasks in to see how their personal differences began to dominate: our home countries, certain men in Rome were also their belonging to this particular school or order or counbusy, but in a less honest way. Some of them, thinking try, their view on the importance or unimportance of histhey had the field free for their obscure operations, went tory and Church Tradition, their past scholarly work, so far as to change the conclusions reached by the Memtheir personal likings. Many of these men were in-depth bers at previous sessions. In our Preparatory Commisresearch scholars, lopsided toward their own field of sion for Liturgy, we strongly suspected a certain monstudy. Secretary Bugnini, who was rather a horizontal signor of doctoring texts that the Commission had ‘overview scholar,’ often gently overcame these approved but were not to his liking. In the aftermath, experts’ tyrannical misgrowth and brought them to some have seen this underhanded activity as part of a agreement beyond their specialty. But personal differgeneral plot, but it has not been proven.” (52) ences quickly came to claim the status of absolute values When Luykx arrives at Paul VI’s creation of the Conwhich the more aggressive experts imposed upon others. silium, he turns up the heat: “Between the preconciliar “So gradually a rift grew among the experts. Two facand postconciliar times, then, something changed drastors were involved. First, the ambitions, characters, and tically — including in the Council’s commissions idiosyncrasies of both persons and groups became more 30

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and more blatant and difficult to handle; the situation was especially difficult between some Germans and French. Second, some experts broke more and more away from fidelity to CSL, valuing their own opinions above the Church and the Holy Spirit. These men became highly aggressive and often prevailed in the final decision-making process, as we will see. Some of my most painful memories of this period are of certain experts’ reckless tyranny, which had harmful consequences for the whole Western Church.”

(85)

ars made him feel useless; they treated him as an ignoramus and even insulted him. In addition, the subcommissions’ entire work was going counter to CSL and was useless for the mission countries, especially those of Africa. Bishop Malula stated this fact more than once to Secretary Bugnini. On such occasions Bugnini answered the good bishop with remarks so atrocious they are forever etched in my memory: Bugnini: If you cannot agree, set up your own commission in Africa.

Malula: Where will our Church, poor as a beggar, get the funds to do such a thing, BUGnInI “SnAPPED” while you here avail yourselves of the Interestingly, contrary to the normal money of the whole rich West? traditionalist narrative (which I personally Bugnini: N’importe. [French for “it share, but I want to give every historical doesn’t matter’] We here work from the source a fair listening), Fr. Luykx believes assumption that the modern Western man is that Bugnini was sound and sincere before the man tout court, the model of all true the Council but that something “snapped” humanity, for all countries and cultures, afterwards. Here are his own words, as he and for all ages to come. shares a very revealing episode: “That was the straw that broke the “The trend away from adherence to camel’s back. Furious over such an Bishop (later Cardinal) Malula, who was CSL spread to the top, to Secretary accompanied by Boniface Luykx as his theo- arrogant and absurd insult, Bishop Annibale Bugnini. Throughout the logical expert for all four sessions of Vatican II Malula vowed never to return. He Liturgical Movement, the Preparatoauthorized me to replace him and ry Commission for Liturgy, and Pope “THE NOVUS ORDO IS NOT instructed me accordingly. I suppose John’s Consilium, Father Bugnini had Father Bugnini and his people were FAITHFUL TO CSL BUT been faithful to Tradition and the happy to be rid of an ‘enemy,’ accordMagisterium. But after the Council he ing to the emerging policy of excludGOES SUBSTANTIALLY changed. Based on my personal BEYOND THE PARAMETERS ing those who were faithful to CSL. friendship with him, I believe that this “We will return later to Father SET FOR THE REFORM OF change arose not from purposeful Bugnini’s revealing response to Bishmalice, but rather from weakness. He op Malula, for it became apparent that THE MASS” seemed to me very impressionable: if his opinion about the supremacy and someone pushed him one way, he went that way; if normative value of modern Western man was part of his someone pushed him the other way, he went there agenda — and consequently part of the agenda of the instead.

Consilium’s subcommissions he oversaw.

“But Father Bugnini was also a politician, and one “At this point, one might ask the obvious and serious who wanted power. In order to gain power he had to question: from whence does one man, or group, get the appear successful, so he went along with those who were right to impose his way of praying or celebrating upon the most vocal and apparently powerful. He was heavily the whole Western Church? This question goes to the influenced by the modernists who broke from fidelity to heart of the dubious validity, or at least the liceity, of CSL, the most outspoken of whom was Johannes Wagmuch of the work of the Consilium’s subcommissions, ner from the Trier Institut in Germany. Before long, for they often worked in defiance of CSL, the only Bugnini stopped inviting to the meetings those ‘reacauthoritative norm given by the Council.” (86–87) tionary’ members who dared to adhere to the text of CSL “One of the last general meetings of the Consilium or to sound principles of religious anthropology. I know was dedicated to liturgical language. I was to give a this as fact, because Bishop Malula and I were among paper on how the new Christian cultures (such as those who fell out of his favor.

Africa’s) saw this problem. Bishop Malula and I spent “What role did Bishop Malula and I play in the midst several hours in deliberation and study to bring together of this growing tension and polarization? After a short all our experience, for the profit of the Church. The bishtime, Bishop Malula lost all desire to participate in the op, a highly-cultured man and outstanding linguist, had subcommissions. The revolutionary boutique of scholworked his entire adult life on building up a Christian SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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BOOK REVIEW A WIDER VIEW OF VATICAN II language, in the vernacular, fitting for Holy Scripture “Father Bugnini and the proponents of change and worship in Africa. believed that the first and real foundation of “good wor“His strong conclusion was this: worship requires a ship” was its horizontal (i.e., man-oriented) dimension, holy language, permeated with reverence and awe of and that its vertical (God-oriented) dimension was secGod and thus lifting up the worshipers to truly meet with ondary, following from the other.... This is perhaps the God and the divine world. primary cause of the demolition of the post-conciliar “So I gave my talk, opening with a description of Roman liturgy. The primacy of the horizontal is the basic Bishop Malula’s experience and continuing with my principle of the agenda of the second post-conciliar own anthropological research. But my presentation was phase. In this principle, liturgy’s first dimension is horgenerally rejected. The experts had already made up izontal, as a social action of the people to create a downtheir minds: they had no into-earth sharing among the tention of learning from these participants. The result of half-wild Africans! horizontalizing worship is “They had already decided the almost totally socialized that the new liturgy was and man-centered dimenmeant for the poorly-educatsion of the liturgy now ed, secularized, modern Wesfound in most parishes. But tern man (the model of future this destroys the most basic culture, as Father Bugnini had meaning of all worship. It is said). They reasoned therea tragic desacralization of fore that its language should Christian worship, where be on this same under-civiman, not God, is central, and lized level —not street lanthe liturgy becomes a fireside affair, a civil perforguage per se, but close to it— Above, a session of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). so there would be no break mance intended to make Below, Father Josef Jungmann between the liturgical sereveryone feel happy, as in vices and man’s usual lanBUGNINI: “WE HERE WORK FROM THE some Protestant groups.” guage outside of them. I (135) ASSUMPTION THAT THE MODERN strongly protested. In re“This horizontal image venge, they decided not to WESTERN MAN IS THE MAN TOUT COURT, of man embraces the attimention my talk in the index THE MODEL OF ALL TRUE HUMANITY, FOR tude that the model for man of the proceedings.” (88) is the science-man that ALL COUNTRIES AND CULTURES, AND FOR Father Bugnini had in mind: THE SUBJECTIVE, the human being who stands ALL AGES TO COME” NOT THE OBJECTIVE totally free from all depth Later in the book, Luykx returns to the dimension, all religion, history, and tradistartling interview and comments on its sigtion, and is rather geared totally toward the nificance: present reality.” (150) “Father Bugnini’s statement, made twice OUTSIDE THE PRESPECTIVE in my presence, is important for two reasons.

“First is the persons involved. Bugnini OF THE SACRED was Secretary of the Consilium and thus had Quite astonishingly, Luykx views Josef enormous influence over the subcommisJungmann as a conservative ally in the sions’ operation and results. Bishop Malula struggle against the ideologues! “Some was the only representative of the African spiritual giants like Father Josef Jungmann continent, and he henceforth boycotted the exercised a soothing influence, although he meetings in protest. was firmly opposed to some iconoclastic novelties being “Second is that Bugnini’s arrogant statement in fact proposed, including the altar facing the people, an issue rendered well the policy of the Consilium. Thus we see we will discuss later. I shared the disappointment of Father Jungmann and many other dear friends in the that the subjective, not the objective, theological standpoint of the Consilium’s Secretary (and its members) Consilium at the iconoclasm of our rebellious colwas a strong factor in decisions regarding the postconleagues.” (77) “As Father Josef Jungmann often warned ciliar liturgical documents.” (132) the subcommission leaders (but alas! he was unheeded), 32

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An unspecified meeting connected with liturgical reform, posted at the Dicastery for Divine Worship

the Novus Ordo was essentially built up outside the perspective of the Sacred and its demands. Proof of this is that the two ‘lungs’ of the Sacred — reverence and symbolism — have practically disappeared from worship.

And ‘worship’ without symbolism and reverence (holiness) is a contradiction in terms.” (138)

especially the most aggressive ones, do not deserve the confidence placed in them.” (91–92) The archimandrite expresses displeasure with many particular results of the Consilium. Thus, he speaks of “the mongrelized combination that has become the Western Rite of Confirmation” (76), and notes that “the suppression of the subdiaconate was inconsistent with a return to the ancient sources as intended by the Council Fathers” (94); as for the rite of the consecration of churches, “the dropping of some valuable Carolingian elements deprived the rite of symbolism that had given it the mystery-filled dramatics so beloved by the faithful — and which had been an element of ecumenical rapprochement with the East” (ibid.).

IMPEnETRABLE WALL OF EXPERTS’ “COMPETEnCE” Luykx also relates how the bishops, when attending certain wrap-up meetings in order to vote as the ones with hierarchical authority, felt as if they were cornered by the experts and pushed in a certain direction: “At most of these sessions, I felt I was assisting at a joke, for the bishops were often manifestly manipulated by the relators —some of whom dared even to silence A nEW LITURGY the bishops for their ‘incomStrikingly, he identifies the petence’!

Novus Ordo Missae as “cer“In the aftermath, some “‘WORSHIP’ WITHOUT SYMBOLISM AND tainly... a new liturgy” (which ‘bishops told me they felt he thinks was never called REVERENCE (HOLINESS) IS A obliged to approve ‘the for). Indeed, his account of wonderful work of these why Paul VI accepted it is CONTRADICTION IN TERMS” all-competent experts.’ Inrather disillusioning: deed, more than once in “One of Pope Paul’s subcommission meetings I queries of these Protestants had heard bishops say, ‘You [who had been invited as conexperts are appointed by the sultants to the Consilium] had Church to work all these been whether or not the things out; the Church trusts planned Mass rite, the Novus you because you are exOrdo, would bring the perts. It makes no sense that Catholic Church closer to her we, who are not specialists, Protestant brethren. It is aswould presume to correct serted that the Protestants’ your work, on which you unanimous ‘yes’ tipped the have labored so long and scale toward its final introassiduously.’ duction. I personally asked Father Louis Bouyer, who “Other bishops later expressed privately to me how was close to Paul VI, what influenced the pope to choose much they regretted the course those events took, knowthe Novus Ordo. He said in essence that the Pope was ing it was because they themselves ‘let things go,’ feelinstructed and convinced by the subcommissions’ rebels ing unable to change them in the face of the impenetrathat the Church, and the Protestants, wanted this Mass. ble wall of the experts’ perceived competence. The So the Pope said, in essence: if that is so, I give in. The experts’ aggression and the bishops’ lack of real interNovus Ordo was indeed favorable toward ecumenical vention explain the tenor of the documents and why efforts with Protestants — but it gravely hurt those many are so lacking in the pastoral dimension. efforts with the Eastern Churches, contrary to the Coun“I have been a professor of theology and liturgy at cil’s intent.” (99) several colleges and universities for almost fifty years.

His sobering words on the reception of the Novus During that time I have gathered broad experience of the Ordo are worth underlining: “Loyal and orthodox liturtragic inbreeding and incompetence of many who are gists were perhaps the most disappointed by the new called ‘experts’ and ‘scholars.’ Sadly, many of them, Missal. They knew that perfection and unanimity are SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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BOOK REVIEW A WIDER VIEW OF VATICAN II impossible, but they also knew there is quite a distance ‘Magnificat’ in Vespers), which would have been of between a particular option and a mediocre result which great benefit. comes from constantly compromising on essentials.

“This situation urges us to again ask the question: Who in the Church has the right to impose his way of They immediately recognized that the Novus Ordo exceeded all measure of compromise. Moreover, they praying upon the whole Church? And who has the right to interrupt the centuries-old organic flow of prayer trawere critically aware of this fact: the Novus Ordo is not dition in the Western Church and also to ignore the faithful to CSL but goes substantially beyond the paraancient tradition of her sister meters which CSL set for the Churches in the East?” (95–96) reform of the Mass rite.” (98, emphasis in original) Fr. Luykx’s detailed critique The wry remark on the verof the inadequacy of the Novus nacular hits the nail on the Ordo as religious ritual can be head: “For many people, the found on pp. 104 to 120. vernacular was the great ‘savSOME CAVEATS On THE ior’ that overshadowed and jusBOOK tified all the other changes; unfortunately, however, it beThe editor of A Wider View came a sort of narcotic that disof Vatican II, Julie Rogers, who pensed them from further critiknew Archmandrite Luykx cal thinking.” (100) well and served for a time as his I should also mention in secretary, comments that passing Luykx’s complaint that “Abbot Boniface shared with the new liturgical calendar me, in deep sorrow, that some “looks much like an abstract of [his Liturgical Movement exercise,” in which “the elefriends] (including a few menment of popular devotion was tioned in this book) became systematically removed, in dispart of the post-conciliar regard of its role as one of the ‘rebellion.’ He said that men basic ingredients of a living such as these, to varying liturgy. For instance, the degrees, gradually abandoned authors adopted mostly recent “THE ELEMENT OF POPULAR DEVOTION their foundation of deep prayer, saints and dropped many earspiritual discipline, and humWAS SYSTEMATICALLY REMOVED, IN lier ones who still enjoyed ble devotion to the Mother of popular veneration” (95).

God. As a spirit of pride took DISREGARD OF ITS ROLE AS ONE OF His appraisal of the Liturhold, they started considering THE BASIC INGREDIENTS OF A LIVING action more important than gy of the Hours is particularly LITURGY” noteworthy: “The post-conprayer — and valuing their own opinions over Holy Tradiciliar writers essentially cretion and the Council’s primary documents they were ated a new Office, contrary to the instruction of CSL 23.... The flaws in this new Office are many; here I will tasked with implementing.” (xxii) emphasize just one. If the Divine Office is to be truly the Now, it is true that many writers (including myself) ‘prayer of the Church,’ it must be provided a dual strucview Sacrosanctum Concilium as by no means innocent ture and ethos—one for private prayer and one for of blame, but here is not the place to go into that question recitation or singing in common. Some patterns for ease (those who are interested will find a detailed treatment of singing, such as the Gregorian or Byzantine systems in the opening chapter of my book Close the Workshop, of eight tones, should have been built in. and in Christopher Ferrara’s classic article “Sacrosanc“But the president of this subcommission refused to tum Concilium: A Lawyer Examines the Loopholes”). allow a dual structure, and the Office was treated as a But the larger point made by Luykx and echoed by text to be merely read or silently meditated upon, not celRogers deserves emphasis: the liturgical crisis has spirebrated.... This subcommission’s experts took as their itual roots; the new rite reflects and transmits the indisparadigm ‘praying a private text’ instead of ‘celebrating cipline, arrogance, secularity, and activism of the men a liturgy of prayer’; hence they failed to provide actions who designed it. This is one reason among many why its or rubrics or gestures (except eventually incense at the use is spiritually dangerous: from a bad tree cannot come 34

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Below, clockwise from top left: Sri Lankan Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith; Spanish Cardinal Antonio Cañizares; German Cardinal Gerhard Müller; American Cardinal Raymond Burke

good fruits. Oddly enough, Abbot Boniface still thinks alist” in tone. But if you read the book, you will find pasthe reform can be reformed — a view only a few of the sages reminiscent of Mary Healy that may induce pain. most ostrich-like human beings still hold at present.

He paints a rose- colored picture of the pre-conciliar We’ve had Ratzinger for Pope, Ranjith, Cañizares, and liturgists, holds Jungmann’s corruption theory, and Sarah as liturgy czars, Burke as head of the Signatura, seems more than a little naïve about nouvelle théologie Müller in the CDF, and so forth, and the needle hasn’t and ressourcement. Luykx is no friend of the classical even crawled a millimeter towards any of the goals of Roman Rite; he considers Latin an impenetrable obstathe ROTR. cle to participation, he favors No, it’s dead in the water, married priests, the permanent diaconate, concelebration, and that’s because the formacommunion under both kinds, tive and normative principles of the Novus Ordo stand in the charismatic movement, conflict with the elements of and African adaptations; tradition people wish to bring indeed, he was a co-author of back. If you want them back, the “Zaire Use.” you need to bring back the All that being said, both liturgical rite in which they conservatives and traditionalfind their natural and necesists will be able to rally around sary home. Period. It’s a packcharacteristic statements such age deal, you take it all or you as these: “The atmosphere of leave it all. It’s precisely the the celebration of the liturgy “pick and choose” mentality must be holy, clothed in awe that has dissolved ritual coherand reverence, as befits the ence like sulphuric acid. redeeming Presence of God’s An EQUAL-OPPORTUnITY Majesty and our answer to this OFFEnDER Presence” (67); “...the authoriIn the interests of transty of, and real recourse to, parency, I will state that Luykx Holy Tradition take preceis what one might call “an dence over all other consideraequal- opportunity offender”: tions, including adaptation” there is something in this book (73); “...a break with true Trato set off just about anyone in dition is always a disaster for LUYKX, IN SHORT, IS A CURIOUS the liturgical debates. If you the piety of the faithful and MYTHICAL CREATURE, HALFlove the Latin Mass, Luykx often for the liturgy itself.

PROGRESSIVE AND HALF TRADITIONAL , will tell you why it’s hopelessHence there is no provision ly in need of reform, and why AN ANTIQUARIANIST AND A BELIEVER for creating a new Mass, a new no one before the Council ever liturgical year, a new Divine IN BUILDING BETTER LITURGY BY really participated, since they Office, et cetera” (76). understood nothing and had no In any case, to read theoCOMMITTEE. logical memoirs of a priest, proper role, etc. — all the old chestnuts about what’s wrong with the Tridentine rite. At monk, and liturgist who helped write Sacrosanctum the same time, if you love the Novus Ordo, he will tell Concilium and worked alongside Bugnini is a rare privyou why it’s a betrayal and a failure, a pathetic substitute ilege. You might say this book is a comprehensive comfor tradition. I am not really surprised that this liturgist mentary on one of the most poignant things Joseph who began in a Western religious community ended in Ratzinger ever said: “Anyone like myself, who was an Eastern one: he was critical of nearly everything moved by this perception [of the liturgy as a living netWestern! You will never find a more colossally Byzanwork of tradition] in the time of the Liturgical Movetophilic author than he. ment on the eve of the Second Vatican Council, can only Luykx, in short, is a curious mythical creature, halfstand, deeply sorrowing, before the ruins of the very progressive and half-traditional, an antiquarianist and a things they were concerned for.” believer in building better liturgy by committee (just so long as it’s not the committee that actually did it). My (This article was originally published at Tradition quotations above represent Luykx at his most “traditionand Sanity Substack on August 14, 2025)m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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OBITUARY

Bishop peter J. elliott of MelBourne, AustrAliA A profound scholar of the Theology of Marriage and the Family, and a dedicated friend of the Traditional Mass, Bishop Elliott passed away on August 6, Feast of the Transfiguration n BY FR. GLEn TATTERSAL (RORATE CAELI)

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hroughout the world, Catholics Paul II — he predicted in private (and not a few non-Catholics) conversations the restoration of the are mourning the loss of Bishop old Mass. He was delighted by Peter John Elliott, retired Auxiliary John Paul II’s Ecclesia Dei decree Bishop of Melbourne, Australia, who in 1988, and by the further providied on Wednesday, August 6. sions made by Benedict XVI in The son of an Anglican clergyman, Summorum Pontificum in 2007 after completing a Master of Arts (in (issued only weeks after Elliott’s History) at the University of Melown elevation to the Episcopacy). bourne, Peter went on to Oxford, where Bishop Elliott frequently celehe obtained a Master of Arts in Theolobrated the Traditional Pontifical gy. Known affectionately by his friends Mass in Melbourne’s Cardinal at Oxford as “Naples” — because of his Newman Parish (devoted to the proximity to Rome in matters of reliTLM), as well as during “Juvengion — it was at Oxford that he was tutem” (WYD) and the Christus received into the Catholic Church.

Rex pilgrimage.

Peter’s sponsor was the young Fr. In July 2021, Pope Francis George Pell. issued the decree Traditionis CusReturning to Melbourne in 1969, Bishop Peter J. Elliott, Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus of todes, imposing severe restrictions Melbourne, Australia (1943-August 6, 2025).

Peter entered the Provincial Seminary, on celebration of the traditional May he rest in peace, and may eternal light shine upon him and was ordained to the Sacred PriestMass. Less than two weeks later, hood in 1973. Fr. Elliott was appointed Bishop Elliott published in the to parish ministry, and served as Secretary to Bishop John national newspaper, The Australian, an impassioned A. Kelly (Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne) from 1979-84. defense of the traditional Mass and of those Catholics It was during this time that I had the privilege of meeting attached to it. “It might be argued,” Bishop Elliott wrote, Fr Elliott, and received the gift of a friendship with him “that key points in the decree are plainly untrue, and that that would endure and deepen through more than 40 years. the document is so incompetently drafted as to be moot In the mid-1980s, Fr. Elliott pursued doctoral studies at anyway. The pastoral effects of [this] dictat are: confuthe Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, specialising in sion, anger and hurt.” the Theology of Marriage, and in 1987 he was made an The Bishop continued: “Having received copies of a Official of the Pontifical Council for the Family. flood of anguished letters, protesting about the severe Returning to Melbourne in 1997 at the behest of thenpapal ruling, I hear not only their pain but moving arguArchbishop George Pell, Msgr. Elliott served as Episcoments explaining their love for the stately old rite, its pal Vicar for Religious Education, producing new cateattractive silence and engaging spirituality. Young people chetical materials for Catholic schools. He was also and young families wrote many of these sad letters. They appointed Director of the Melbourne Session of the John are certainly not divisive extremists, aggressive cranks or Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family, while connostalgic old folk.” tinuing as a parish priest.

Bishop Elliott continued to support traditional CathIn addition to his many contributions in the fields of olics through these difficult times, both in word and in marriage and the family, human sexuality and the right to deed. He welcomed the election of Pope Leo XIV, and life, Bishop Elliott had a profound devotion to the Sacred died hopeful of the traditional Latin liturgy’s being Liturgy. Through his publications and talks, he attempted restored definitively to an honored place in the life of the to steer the new Roman liturgy in the greatest possible Church, through a retrieval of the disciplines and teachcontinuity with the historical and received forms. ings of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. He also lent great support — both in season and out — As Bishop Elliott said in 2024, after the last Confirmato the traditional Roman liturgy and those attached to it. tions he conferred in the Parish of St. John Henry NewAs a young priest — years before the 1984 Indult of John man, “the only way forward is through the past.”m 36

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tradition Palestrina

PalesTrina afTer 500 years The ChurCh — indeed The whole saCred musiC world — CelebraTes The 500Th anniversary of his birTh. ParT Two in a series on The gianT of saCred musiC, Giovanni da Palestrina n AURELIO PORFIRI

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he anniversary of the birth of the great Giovanni Alessandro Scarlatti, Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni, and Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-2025) leads us to many others. reflect on the legacy left by this great Catholic An essay by musicologist Arnaldo Morelli, “A Place musician, a legacy embodied in the concept of the "Roas Sublime as the Pontifical Chapel” (included in man School." What do we mean by this term?

Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Italie et A first approach seems relatively easy: one could deMéditerranée modernes et contemporaines [Online], fine it as all the music composed for the churches and 133-2 | 2021), provides some insights into the concept basilicas of Rome. However, the matter is certainly of the Roman School. more complicated than that. Not all music composed He tells us that it was Antimo Liberati (1617-1692), for the churches and basilicas of Rome can be considthe renowned cantor and composer, who was one of the ered ipso facto as belonging to the Roman School. The first to proclaim the importance of the Roman School Roman School has some important characteristics: and the central role that Palestrina played within it: “It Gregorian chant and the Palestrina model as examples, was Liberati who outlined a kind of first ideological absolute adherence to the liturgical text, Italian singamanifesto, upon which the identity of the Roman music bility, sentiment but not sentimentalism, and a certain school was built, when in 1685 he published his judggrandeur that only those who live in Rome can underments on the composition tests carried out by candistand. dates for the position of maestro di cappella at the This great school had a profound influence, especialCathedral of Milan.” ly during the golden age of the Morelli says in his essay, Renaissance, and in modern “Liberati recognized Palestrina as MUSICOLOGIST ANTIMO MORELLI: the founder of the Roman School, times, its greatest representative “THE ‘PRINCE OF MUSIC’ WAS ‘A seeing in his works an unsurpasswas Cardinal Domenico BartolucTORRENT, WHICH ABSORBED AND ci (1917-2013), the unforgettable able model: to question it – in his maestro of the Pontifical Sistine DISPERSED ALL OTHER RIVULETS’ — view – would have been a ‘sacriChapel Choir. Over the centuries, ‘STREAMS OF VIRTUE’ FROM FOREIGN lege,’ almost like ‘placing one’s many masters have honored this mouth in the heavens.’ Through MASTERS WHO PLANTED THEIR school. I think of Tomas Luis de the description of an ideally SCHOOLS IN I TALY ” Victoria, Orlando di Lasso, Palestrinian style of counterpoint, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 37

TRADITION PALESTRINA Liberati thus codified the idea of harmony as in this artist, whose a Roman School, clearly defined polyphonic works are among the POPE BENEDICT XVI: as ‘the best in Italy,’ a kind of most precious ornaments of Our “NOT WITHOUT DEEP SATISFACTION, Pontifical Chapel and the Roman ‘school of schools,’ founded on the indisputable authority of the WE HAVE LEARNED THAT THE CITY basilicas. Therefore, the monuOF PALESTRINA IS PREPARING TO composer from Palestrina. With ment that the city of Palestrina an expressive metaphor, Liberati erects to its great son and the parPAY SOLEMN TRIBUTE TO THE saw in the princeps musicae ticularly solemn inaugural celeMEMORY OF THE GREAT MASTER [prince of music] ‘a main and bration it is preparing deserve speGIOVANNI PIERLUIGI...THESE greater torrent, which absorbed cial consideration from the AposCELEBRATIONS WILL UNDOUBTEDLY tolic See." and dispersed all other rivulets,’ that is, those ‘streams of virtue’ SERVE AS AN ENCOURAGEMENT NOT Here, we see the seal of papal emanating from the ‘foreign masauthority affirming the centrality ONLY TO CLASSICAL MUSIC ters who planted their schools in of this great musician in the music SCHOLARS BUT, ABOVE ALL, TO Italy and in Rome.’” of the Church of Rome. Going THOSE WHO ZEALOUSLY UPHOLD However, this primacy of even further back, in a book by Palestrina within the Roman THE DIGNITY OF GOD’S TEMPLE...” Giuseppe Baini (1775-1844) on School is more of an honorary one than pertaining to its the life of the great Palestrina, we find an account of actual origin. In fact, Morelli also cites Ghiselin the relationship between two important yet now largely Danckerts (1510-1567), a Dutch composer and papal forgotten figures in the Roman musical world: cantor, who around the mid-16th century, to settle a Pasquale Pisari (1725-1778) and Giuseppe Jannacconi controversy among theorists, states that: “the manner (1740-1816). Baini recounts the following: "In the [of the new composers] is little appreciated and acceptmeantime, [Jannacconi] formed a very close friendship ed by the Roman musical school, and much less apprewith the aforementioned Pasquale Pisari, due to their ciated and praised – in fact condemned – by all the exshared profession, their similarly pure character, and cellent and expert musicians, composers, and cantors, their comparable fortunes. Following Pisari’s advice, both of the papal chapel and of the other chapels that under his guidance, and together with him, he dedicatexist not only in Italy but also in France, Spain, Flaned himself to transcribing and studying the works of ders, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, and Pierluigi with such benefit that Pisari all the rest of Christendom.” judged him worthy, above his fellow At the time when Danckerts was writpontifical chapel singers, of being ening, Palestrina was about 25 years old trusted with all the traditions of the Roand was just beginning his musical career man School, along with the manuscript in Rome. However, references to the Rorecords that had been passed down to man School would be numerous throughhim by his predecessors." out the centuries, and Palestrina’s role As we can see, the idea of the Roman within it would come to be considered School and of a tradition handed down absolutely central and indispensable. from musician to musician was very Jumping forward to the last century, much alive. And all of this was done in we cannot forget what Pope Benedict XV the name of the great Pierluigi da Palestsaid in an apostolic letter to Cardinal rina. Furthermore, this immense recogVincenzo Vannutelli, then Dean of the nition of the musician from Palestrina is Sacred College of Cardinals, concerning evident in the words of many Popes, the importance of music in churches: who regarded him as a fundamental ref"Not without deep satisfaction, we have erence for defining an authentic conceplearned that the city of Palestrina is tion of sacred music. We know that the The monument that the city of Palestrina erected in 1920 preparing to pay solemn tribute to the Cecilian reform, which in the second to its great son. memory of the great master Giovanni half of the nineteenth century sought to Pierluigi, who, having been born there, made its name restore sacred music that had become overly influfamous throughout the world. enced by operatic styles, was based on two pillars: Gre“These celebrations will undoubtedly serve as an engorian chant and Palestrinian polyphony. couragement not only to classical music scholars but, The ultimate seal on this reform was placed by the above all, to those who zealously uphold the dignity of Motu Proprio of Saint Pius X on November 22, 1903, in God’s temple, for rarely in history have the ideals of art which, after listing the qualities of true sacred music, he and the splendors of faith been fused with such perfect stated: "These qualities are also found in an eminent de38 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

gree in classical polyphony, espespeak of the “Roman School,” are ST. PIUS X: cially that of the Roman School, we referring to a concrete, physiwhich reached its highest perfec- “THESE QUALITIES ARE ALSO FOUND IN cal institution as well? This is an tion in the sixteenth century interesting point and one that deAN EMINENT DEGREE IN CLASSICAL through the work of Pierluigi da serves further exploration. CerPOLYPHONY, ESPECIALLY THAT OF THE Palestrina and continued to protainly, we primarily refer to an ROMAN SCHOOL, WHICH REACHED ITS duce compositions of excellent ideal concept, but this does not liturgical and musical quality. HIGHEST PERFECTION IN THE SIXTEENTH necessarily exclude the existence CENTURY THROUGH THE WORK OF Classical polyphony closely apof an actual school in Rome. We proaches the supreme model of all can be sure that in the Middle PIERLUIGI DA PALESTRINA AND sacred music, which is Gregorian CONTINUED TO PRODUCE COMPOSITIONS Ages, such a school existed as a chant, and for this reason, it has OF EXCELLENT LITURGICAL AND MUSICAL well-defined physical entity: the rightly been admitted, along with famous Schola Cantorum, which QUALITY...”

Gregorian chant, into the most a certain (albeit late) tradition atsolemn functions of the Church, such as those of the tributed directly to the responsibility of Saint Gregory Pontifical Chapel. It must, therefore, be widely restored the Great. The history of this choir would take too long in ecclesiastical functions, especially in the most signifto recount here. However, we also know that in the Reicant basilicas, in cathedral churches, and in seminaries naissance, there was a school in Rome where the Naniand other ecclesiastical institutions, where the necesno brothers played an important role. In conclusion, the sary resources are not lacking." Here, too, we see Saint Roman School is not only a subject worthy of study; it Pius X emphasizing the role of the Roman School in must also be regarded as a precious resource for our upholding the excellence of sacred music. But when we times, which are marked by great spiritual aridity. m

GreGorian Chant DurinG the aGe of Palestrina n BY GUIDO MILAnESE

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ive hundred years have passed Changes in the 16th century since Palestrina’s birth, a time The writing of polyphonic chant that seems very long to us, and had for centuries been left to oral traindeed it is. We do not realize, howevdition and not infrequently to improvier, that the span of time from the essation. Now the attention of comtablishment of Gregorian chant in posers turned to new polyphonic comnorthern Europe, the time of Charleposition, although monodic music magne, to that of Palestrina is even continued to be produced for several greater. centuries, such as cantus fractus or the If we place the composition of what entire repertoire of sequences, tropes we usually call Gregorian chant, or, and a large part of the Kyriale. more correctly, “Roman-Frankish”

By Palestrina’s time, then, the chant, at the end of the eighth century/ Gregorian repertoire was now a tradibeginning of the ninth century, about tional chant that formed the basis of seven hundred years separate it from the liturgy, but could no longer be perthe time to Palestrina. formed by musicians of the time in the During this period, Gregorian chant same way as it might have been perhad become the basic repertoire of the formed half a millennium earlier.

The first page of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Catholic liturgy, but its transmission The modal sensibilities had Marcelli. had to reckon with the development of changed, and the relationship to the musical language, within sacred music and liturgical murhythm of the musical phrase was profoundly different, sic in particular. as it would obviously be after so many centuries of muIt is now a certain and accepted fact in contemporary sical development. musicology that polyphony did not mysteriously emerge It should not be forgotten that the relationship with the after centuries of monody, but had always been pracLatin language was also different from that of the early ticed. But a phenomenon of the greatest importance for Middle Ages. The humanistic sensibility towards Latin the fate of Gregorian chant occurred in the 16th century. now made the existing treatment of the Latin word in SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 39

TRADITION PALESTRINA Gregorian chant intolerable: for example, the presence of have put in their proper place the melodies that had been rich melodic ornamentation on syllables with no accent, placed haphazardly on the text”). or an accent position that the humanists of the time conA less well-known example is the word Libanus, sidered simply wrong. whose “normal” accent is Líbanus, but in the Gregorian The Gregorian repertoire had become to some extent a repertoire is often accented Libánus (it refers to Lebanon source of embarrassment. but could also refer to the frankincense plant). Here too On the one hand, it was a respected and revered reperthe “correction” completely distorts the sense of the origtoire because it was traditionally traced back to St Greinal Gregorian text. gory the Great; on the other hand, it was often completeThe Gregorian repertoire often has large melismas ly incomprehensible to the ear, and even to the eye, of (i.e., developed melodies) on the last syllable of a piece. musicians who had received both a musical and gramAgain, 15th- and 16th- century editions correct composimatical education very different from that of centuries tional tendencies that were incomprehensible to the sensiearlier. bilities of the time. For example, where the word dominus It was therefore necessary to find a way of making was used by ornamenting the final syllable -us with many Gregorian chant comprehensible — by eliminating acnotes (melisma), in the editions of the time the melody cents that were considered inappropriate for the Latin of shifts to the accented syllable dóminus, thus “restoring” the mature humanist age, melodies that could no longer the relationship between text and melody — according to be understood, and ornaments the editors. considered meaningless.

For a long time these ediFor example, in many sotions, culminating in that of called “formulaic” melodies 1614-1615, called the “Medi(melodies that are adapted to cea” after the name of the Rodifferent texts), the 15th- and man publisher Medici who 16th-century editions do not printed the books, were treated follow the previous formula, as evidence of pure “decabut adapt it according to the podence.” The Vulgate editions of sition of the accent. Or we see the 15th and 16th centuries purchanges in the text: the hymn ported to restore the Latin text Conditor alme siderum (“O to its original form: The official you, noble creator of the stars”), edition was printed in 1592, in Chapel Choir, which performed an album of music by is changed to Creator alme The Sistine the last years of Palestrina's life, Palestrina on the Deutsche Grammophon label in 2016 siderum, because the position of revised later in 1593 and finally the accent (creátor) fits the melody better for the Latin in 1598; but already at the beginning of the century there connoisseurs of the humanist age. In fact, they recogwere many editions of the biblical text, one of which was nized the word as condítor (“he who adds seasoning,” edited by the famous philologist and philosopher Erase.g. to a dish) and not as cónditor (“creator”) accenting mus of Rotterdam in 1516. the second syllable.

The musicians who edited these editions of Gregorian Thus, from the humanist age onwards, the editions of chant were trying to achieve the same thing: the musical this hymn (which was composed with the word conditor) result was a text that was certainly far from the “original” feature the text “corrected” according to the sensibilities Gregorian, but it was the only way to make these venerof the time. able musical masterpieces comprehensible to the musiThe publishers of the time were convinced that they cian and, more generally, to the user of the time. were restoring a better text: in the printed edition of the Many of the liturgical compositions of Palestrina and Gradual published by Giunta in 1499, edited by the Franhis contemporaries are based on these re-adapted Gregociscan friar Francesco de Brugis, the text is called correcrian melodies: and the same is true of organ music. Two tum, “corrected,” in order to restore the melodies ad generations after Palestrina, Girolamo Frescobaldi pristinas neumas, that is, to their original composition.

(1583-1643) composed much of his organ music by placIn 1524 (the year before Palestrina's birth), the edition ing the organ in dialogue with the Gregorian melody in published in Turin by Porro-Dossena, edited by E. Porta the version of the time.

G.A. Lenonus, states that the aim of the edition was to reIn terms of the relationship between Palestrina and the store the relationship between melody and text: notas, Gregorian chant, at any event, it is important to underpausas, neumasque que superfluere videbantur expunxstand how the “traditional’ chant, revised through a long chronology and constant “editorial” process, represented imus, que autem vagatim oberrabant operam dedimus ut suis in locis collocarentur (“we have eliminated the notes, a secure and constant point of reference for the great pauses and melodies that seemed superfluous, and we master. m 40 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

PALESTRINA’S BURIAL: A PROPOSAL n AURELIO PORFIRI

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e all know that individuals who have made significant contributions to their communities often receive a dignified burial — even grand funerary monuments for people to pay their respects. Understandably, when we deeply admire someone, we desire some means of “personal” connection.

This applies, of course, to great artists, and among them, musicians. It is important for us to be able to pray or meditate near those who have enriched our lives with their art. For example, some pray at the tomb of Johann Sebastian Bach, buried in St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, or of Ludwig van Beethoven, who rests in Vienna's Central Cemetery.

But what about those who want to pray at the tomb of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina? Things are not so simple.

Let’s go step by step. At the end of January 1594, Palestrina fell ill with pleurisy. His condition did not improve, and according to Giuseppe Baini, his important 19th-century biographer, he was attended by St. Philip Neri, who was a sort of spiritual father to him. He then asked to see his only surviving son, entrusting to him his artistic and spiritual legacy.

For his final moments, we follow Baini’s account: "The inflammation and fever grew ever worse. On February 1, Giovanni spent the day in fervent aspirations and devout conversations, inspired by his saintly confessor. Finally, the first light of dawn on February 2, 1594, a Wednesday, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary—whose praises he had recently set to music and published—broke upon him. His holy comforter, increasing his zeal, urged him to desire to take part in the celestial celebration honoring the Queen of Angels and the Saints on that day.

“The dying Giovanni Pierluigi summoned his last strength and responded, ‘Yes, I ardently long for it; may Mary, my advocate, obtain it for me from her divine Son.’ No sooner had he spoken these words, fully aware, filled with tranquility and trust in the Lord’s mercy, he peacefully surrendered his spirit to God, his Creator, and, as we hope, through the intercession of

the Virgin Mother of God and the prayers of his saintly confessor, St. Philip Neri, he entered the blessed realm of eternal song and eternal beatitude.”

According to reports, the funeral of Palestrina, whose fame had spread even during his lifetime, was attended by thousands, including all the musicians of Rome and many others from the musical and ecclesiastical worlds. It must have been a truly moving ceremony. He was buried in the “New Chapel” of St. Peter’s Basilica, which was still the old Constantinian basilica; the new structure, standing today, was completed around 1612.

On his coffin was inscribed in Latin: “Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Prince of Music.” Unfortunately, the remains of the illustrious musician were, in time, lost. The question we must ask is: where exactly was the New Chapel located?

Throughout the 16th century, construction proceeded on the new basilica. Today, if I understand correctly, there are two schools of thought: one suggests Palestrina’s remains were lost during the construction, while the other holds that he is still buried beneath St. Peter’s; opinions vary on the precise location.

My personal belief, for whatever it may be worth, is that it seems very unlikely that someone so beloved would not have received some special attention in his burial. Then why wasn’t his grave transferred to the new basilica? A fair question. My proposal is that we should finally resolve this mystery once and for all.

A thorough investigation beneath St. Peter’s Basilica should be made to try to locate Palestrina’s burial site.

If it is found, his tomb should be relocated so that his many admirers may visit and pray there. It is said that Herbert von Karajan, the great conductor, was deeply disappointed when he visited St. Peter’s to conduct a Mozart Mass and realized that he could not pray at Palestrina’s tomb. Indeed, we are not talking about a second-rate musician but a star of the highest magnitude in the firmament of music. I truly hope that this dream can one day be realized. m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 41

FOOTSTEPS On ThE WAY

JubIlee years wIth two popes It’s only happened twIce In the hIstory of the church — and 2025 Is one of those two tImes... n BY AnnA ARTYMIAK

P

ope Leo XIV began his pontificate almost in the middle of the Jubilee Year named by his predecessor Francis as the Jubilee of Hope. It is a time of special grace for pilgrims, which the Catholic Church since 1450 has celebrated every 25 years.

A year ago, everybody expected a beautiful holy year marked by joyful Jubilee events. Few expected it would be marked by the death of the Pope.

In the 725-year history of the Jubilee Years, in fact, Leo XIV is only the second Pope to succeed his predecessor in the Petrine office during a holy year.

The first jubilee year with two In 1700, the beginning of the Popes happened in 1700. The Holy Year was announced by a winter of 1700 was in fact very EVERYONE EXPECTED A JOYFUL 2025 cold. The Archives of the St. JUBILEE YEAR. FEW EXPECTED IT WOULD BE double ringing of the bells of St. Peter’s between 3 and 4 pm and Gallen Abbey recently published MARKED BY THE DEATH OF A POPE again between 6 and 8 pm. The “Roman diaries” written by two ceremony started at 7 pm with a Swiss monks who spent a year in solemn procession though St. Peter’s Square, led by the Dean Rome and in other parts of today’s Italy at that time. The of the College of the Cardinals; not many pilgrims attended monks called the winter of 1700 “glacial.” (people tended to travel only during the warmer months then).

Similarly, those who spent Christmas last year in Rome and But this holy year, around 30,000 people gathered in St. participated in the opening celebration of the Ordinary Jubilee Peter’s Basilica and St. Peter’s Square to witness the second Year on December 24 probably will never forget the icy wind Ordinary Jubilee of the Third Millennium, and many more that didn’t allow even the bravest and most warmly-dressed watched live satellite broadcasting. pilgrims to endure the whole celebration in St. Peter’s Square People in 1700 were invited to pray for the sick pontiff: in without shivering. A little bit luckier were those who could St. Peter’s Basilica there was Eucharistic adoration to pray for enter inside the Basilica, although it was bone-chilling even in his health. This year, almost a month of rosaries were said for there.

Pope Francis’ recovery, which were started on March 24 by Another precious witness of the beginning of the 18th cenCardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State. Among the tury are the Diaries of St. Peter’s Basilica of the Chapter of St. cardinals who were present the most was Cardinal Robert Peter’s Basilica, which day by day tell the story of the liturgiFrancis Prevost, the future Pope Leo XIV. He came every day cal life of the Vatican Basilica. On December 24, 1699, the regardless of cold or rain, and led the rosary himself on the already sick Pope Innocent XII couldn’t even be present at the evening of March 3. opening of the Holy Door (at that time the ceremony wasn’t Innocent XII passed away on Monday September 28, 1700 connected with the Eucharist celebration as it is today). in his sleep at the Quirinale Palace. (Between the 16th and In 2024, Pope Francis, visibly weak, was, like Innocent 19th centuries, the Popes resided in the Palace of Quirinale on before him, ill and struggling with breathing problems; he was the hill of the same name, the highest of the seven hills of forced to sit in a wheelchair, as he had for two and a half years, Rome — known at that time as well as Monte dei Cavalli — though he managed to open the Holy Door himself.

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Facing page: Pope Francis opens the Holy Door at St. Peter’s. Below: Pope Clement XI, elected in 1700, by an unknown artist (Vatican Museum).

where today is the residence of the PresiAt around 5 pm Cardinal Pamfilio, cardent of the Italian Republic.) dinal protodeacon, announced from the We read in the Diaries of St. Peter’s Loggia the election. The Diary of the VatBasilica that a day later, his body was ican canons reports a slightly different transferred from the Quirinale to the Sisphrase used what we hear today: “Annuntine Chapel in the Apostolic Palace on the cio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus Vatican Hill, and later, with 36 cardinals Pontificem […] Cardinalem Joannem in attendance, to the middle St. Peter’s Franciscum Albanum nuncupatum Basilica.

Clementem XI.” After the responsorial chant Libera me The newly-elected Clement XI was Domine, Pope Innocent’s body was finalcarried in the gestatorial chair to St. ly exposed in the Holy Sacrament Chapel, Peter’s Basilica at 10 pm to pray before where the cardinals paid their final the Holy Sacrament. He entered the Basilrespects with the bacio de’ piedi (kiss of ica through the Holy Door; it was a quick the foot) — a tradition which has since visit. disappeared; one of the last laid out in this The papal coronation of Clement XI did way was Leo XIII in 1903. not take place until December 8, the Feast The nine-day esequial novendiali of the Immaculate Conception, 154 years Masses started immediately after the Ponbefore the dogma was proclaimed. The IN 1700, THE NEW PONTIFF tiff’s death — not after the funeral, as it is climax of the ceremony was the moment WAS ELECTED ON THE 36TH celebrated today. The pontiff in 1700 was of the coronation with the papal tiara on buried on the fourth day after his death, on the Loggia of the Blessings, ending with DAY OF THE CONCLAVE October 1, and the novendiali Holy MassClement XI’s blessing of the crowd. es continued.

In 1700, the College of Cardinals wasn’t as international as Similarly, Pope Francis passed away in the early morning it is today; the Catholic Church in North America was in its hours, on Easter Monday, April 21 — not in the Apostolic infancy; the United States did not yet exist. The first AmeriPalace, but in his room at the Domus Santa Marta in the Vatican-born cardinal was not appointed until 1875 — Cardinal can, where he had decided to reside after his election.

John McCloskey, archbishop of New York. Just 150 years His body was laid out in the Chapel of the Domus that Monlater, the first American-born Pope would be elected. day evening and for the whole of the following day; then it was Today no one expects an extremely long conclaves. The transferred solemnly in an open cofconclaves are now focused exclufin to St. Peter’s Basilica on WednesSEE OUR NEW POPE, LEO XIV, sively on voting; preliminary debate day morning and laid out there until occurs during the General CongreWITH INSIDE THE VATICAN! Friday night. Around 250,000 people gations which precede the conOur Easter 2026 pilgrimage begins came to pay their last respects in clave. On the remarkable day of the week before Easter in Assisi — those three days.

May 8 this year — only the seccity of St. Francis and St. Clare — in The funeral of Francis was the first ond day of the conclave — the the Umbrian hills. esequial novendiali Mass and it gathwhite smoke appeared at 6:07 pm On Holy Thursday, we travel to Norcia, birthplace of St. Benedict, tucked ered another crowd of 250,000 peolocal time. An hour later, the whole under snow-capped mountains in the heart of ple in and around St Peter’s Square, world had learned it was the AmeriItaly. Here we begin the Easter Triduum with and 150,000 along the way to and can Cardinal Robert Prevost who Benedictine monks who use the ancient Latin around St. Mary Major Basilica, had become the 267th Successor of liturgy in their daily round of prayer. where he was finally laid to rest.

Peter.

We return to Rome for the Masses with the Going back to 1700, on Sunday, Newly elected Leo XIV made a Pope on Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.

Some highlights of our time in Rome: October 9 a solemn Mass of the Holy speech before giving his first Urbi Spirit with the Gloria and Credo pro et Orbi blessing — only the fourth v Easter Vigil Mass with Pope Leo eligendo Summo Pontifice (for the Pope to do so, following a tradition v Easter Sunday Mass with Pope Leo election of the Supreme Pontiff) was begun by John Paul II, the first nonv Day trip to Holy Face of Manoppello shrine v Walking tour of Baroque Rome with ITV celebrated; immediately after, the Italian Pope after 455 years. editor-in-chief Dr. Robert Moynihan Master of the Pontifical Ceremonies The coronation ceremony now v Visit the four major basilicas of Rome sang the Veni Creator and the cardibelongs to a bygone era; the beginv Attend a Papal Audience nals departed immediately for the ning of Leo’s pontificate was inv Meet friends of Inside the Vatican conclave. stead inaugurated May 18 with Insidethevaticanpilgrimages.com The new pontiff in 1700 was finalMass in St. Peter’s Square, attend202.536.4555 ly elected on Tuesday, November 13 ed, according to official estimates, Email: Pilgrimages@InsidetheVatican.com — the 36th day of the conclave. by 150,000 people. m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

43

SCRIPTURE

Who Is the Man on the sIde of the road?

It Is you and I — seduced by sIn and left to suffer the consequences n BY AnTHOnY ESOLEn* The Good Samaritan (1849)

by Eugène Delacroix (private collection)

W

hen the man of law tried to test Jesus, asking him what he must do to attain eternal life, Jesus turned the question back upon him: “What do you read in the law?” The lawyer replied quite sensibly: we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, and we are to love our neighbor as ourself. Jesus was satisfied with that reply, but the lawyer pressed him farther, because he wanted to show himself to be a just man. “Who is my neighbor?” he asked.

We are all familiar with the whole account in Luke (10:25-37), and how Jesus answered the lawyer with the parable of the man who had fallen among robbers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and left in a ditch, stripped naked and half dead. A priest and a Levite pass by, they see him, and they walk past him on the other side of the road. The priest and the Levite are of the same class as the lawyer. All three, we assume, delight in studying the law, and perhaps take pride in their learning. But it is one thing to know the right thing to do, and quite another to do it, just as it is one thing to know that God exists, and another to adore him and to order your life accordingly.

We aren’t told why they pass by. They do see the suffering man. They cannot help but notice his bleeding and his nakedness. Do they wish to avoid becoming ritually unclean? Perhaps. Are they hard of heart, generally?

Perhaps not. If they knew who the beaten fellow was, if they knew he was one of their townsmen, if they knew 44

INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

his family, who knows but that they might be vigorous in assistance? Clearly they have something of a bad conscience about the matter, because they deliberately shy away so that they do not have to look, or worse, do not have to hear his groans or his pleas. Then the man of Samaria happens by, and he is moved with compassion.

The Greek word is uncomfortably physical: his innards are moved; think of the contraction we feel in the gut, or the skip of a heartbeat, when we round a corner and on a sudden see what startles us with the sight of human misery.

When Jesus gives the lawyer a Samaritan to emulate, he is wringing the man’s conscience, since the Samaritans practiced a rival form of Jewish worship, centered on their temple atop Mount Gerizim. “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans,” explains the apostle John, writing for Greek-speaking converts to the way of Christ (Jn. 4:9). Going from priest and Levite to Samaritan is rather like going, in old days, from the archbishop of Canterbury and his canons to a dissenting preacher making the rounds of coal-mining villages in Wales. But the urgency of the case makes such a rift irrelevant. The Samaritan, meanwhile, does not ask who the beaten man is. He knows only that he is a man, and he needs help.

Jesus does not say that the man in the ditch was the Samaritan's neighbor. He asks instead who was a neighbor to the man in the ditch. The Greek word for neighbor suggests proximity. And I do believe that it is all too easy in our time for people to love mankind and detest the

people next door – those who are “THE PRIEST AND THE LEVITE What the innkeeper would have done uncomfortably close to us, and to SAW — BUT DID THEY SEE? WE in the Samaritan’s place, we do not whom we owe a special consideraknow.

CAN WILL OURSELVES NOT TO tion. That is the virtue originally The priest and the Levite saw – but known in medieval English as neigh- SEE. MOST OF OUR HARDNESS OF did they see? We can will ourselves borhood: think of brotherhood. But in HEART IS BOUND UP WITH SELF- not to see. Most of our hardness of order to become the man’s neighbor, heart is bound up with self-inflicted INFLICTED BLINDNESS” the Samaritan must draw near him. It blindness. We do not want to see the is not possible for him to be a neighman fallen among thieves. We do not bor while keeping his distance. want to know who he is. So we will say that perhaps the Now then, here is our challenge. The Samaritan, man is not so bad off, really; or we say that he must have drawing near, became a neighbor. He drew so near that done something to bring the suffering on. he could touch the man. He had to clean his wounds, We ought to be wiser than that. The great robber in the pouring oil and wine upon them: he had to do this with world is Satan, and we all fall victim to his murderous his own hands. He could not call up some emergency lies, since there is not one among us who has not been team to soothe his conscience and keep his fingers clean. seduced and blindsided into sin and then left to suffer the In some measure, he had to involve his life with the consequences. Who is that man on the side of the road? man’s life. He had to learn who the man was; he had the I am, you are. Jesus draws near, Jesus whom the world whole rest of the day to do that. despises. Let us then go and do as Jesus does.

There is more. The Samaritan had to be on his way, so he instructed the innkeeper to continue with the * Dr. Anthony Esolen, faculty member at Thales man's care, giving him two denarii to defray the College in North Carolina, has been a professor costs and promising to repay him if there should be of literature and humanities for 35 years and is a more to spend. That means that the innkeeper also poet and author or translator of more than 30 must be brought into this new neighborhood, this books and more than 1,000 articles. Dr. Esolen virtue of drawing-near. Had the Samaritan not trusted publishes a web magazine dedicated to language, the innkeeper, he would not have left as he did. Thus did music, poetry and classic films called Word and Song the Samaritan’s compassion ripple forth from his action. with his wife, Debra.m

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45

SPIRITUALITY BEHIND BARS

PoPe Leo XiV: “do not seek a technoLogicaL saVior” Like PoPe Leo Xiii (1878-1903), the new PoPe Leo wants to Protect us from the dehumanizing resuLts of unfettered technoLogy n BY MARCELLUS ALLEn ROBERTS * Pope Leo has addressed the topic of AI in talks to several audiences since his May 8 election, including a June 20-21 gathering of tech leaders

N

o one can deny that the name of the much beloved world is changing. We mendicant friar. can debate whether it Cardinal Prevost, by choosis for better or worse, but the ing the name Leo XIV, has state of flux about us is appargiven us permission to review ent. Every day offers an unthe words and actions of Leo welcome news story. War XIII and make presumptions threatens to redraft the borders about how he might influence of Europe. The sands of Sudan the world and impact souls as are swallowed up in sorrow. the highest pastor of the Gazans scramble for fallen Church. flour while political prisoners Artificial intelligence. bleed in Beijing.

CRISPR. Quantum computing.

A single headline stands out Robotics... Choose a new techamong all others because it nology; over-hype its capacity was never supposed to hapfor good.; divorce it from pen. Not as long as the United “AUTHENTIC WISDOM HAS MORE TO DO WITH Christian morality; then, watch States was, well... the United RECOGNIZING THE TRUE MEANING OF LIFE THAN as “groundbreaking solutions” States. White smoke from the succumb to abuses and become WITH THE AVAILABILITY OF DATA” Sistine Chapel roof signaled a problems. Big problems.

— POPE LEO XIV, JUNE 21, 2025 decision: the cardinals had Pope Leo inherits a world broken huddle and shocked that needs to be recalibrated for the world with a Hail Mary, a deep pass for the end zone... an encounter with the Summum Bonum [“Highest Good”]. and what many considered a long shot. Cardinal Robert His energies and prayers will be taxed as he confronts Prevost had been made the first Pope to have been born and unpredictable forces that are integrating and consolidating raised in the United States of America. power now to shape a paradigm for the future.

And from what travail! Credit is due to those who lost Leo XIII reigned during a time of similar social upheavtheir lives planting Catholicism in the brutal and unforgival. Fathers were separated from their children during the ing mission territory that became the United States. — best hours of their day to work in a new industrial world. those early missionaries to Florida, California, New MexThe result was the first serious rupture of the Western famico, Texas and the Mississippi Valley. Credit is due to Lord ily. The working conditions away from home were often Baltimore and the brave Maryland Catholic colonists who dangerous because safety of the worker took a back seat to rooted themselves in the founding soil of this country. profits. Factories could be cold places where human input What travail! made dollars and low wages made sense.

And then, as the world slept, God was sowing the good Leo XIII found it necessary to remind the world that, seed by 20th century twilight. Now that mission land and “...human society in its civil aspects was renewed fundarefuge of the oppressed has birthed a Supreme Pontiff. mentally by Christian institutions” (Rerum Novarum, 41).

The election of Pope Francis in 2013 entailed much He foresaw a future flung from its rails, where the educated guessing about what his pontificate would look like. We man is an unbeliever whose sole function in society is to saw him forego the customary residence of the Papal perpetuate the godless State. It was a social experiment that Palace and downplay the pomp of his Popemobile, signalwould cost millions of lives. ing his desire to embody the virtues of St. Francis of Assisi.

Pope Leo XIV may reiterate this message in words fit He set precedent by becoming the first Pope to choose the for our time, warning us against the overwhelming temp-

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INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

tation to adopt a technological savior. He may remind us along the way? that all created things should be directed toward the reconMaybe a better question is: Will Pope Leo promote the ciliation of God and the human heart. Boldly, he might proemergence of more small, agile, local, personal and grassclaim that anything that loosens the bond between God and roots Christian institutions? Leo XIII believed in subsidiarman is a perversion which prevents the renewal of societies ity: “...the principle that every social issue should be by stunting the spiritual growth of its individuals. resolved by the most immediate level possible...” Maybe In May of 2023, our prison’s George Beto Unit issued he can remove existing red tape that prevents these associelectronic tablets to its general population, tablets provided ations from forming organically at the diocesan and parish

by SECURUS Technologies. level. At the least he could rebuke those wallowing in These devices give inmates access to electronic messag“institutionalism.” ing, phone calls, entertainment, Archbishop Charles J. Chabooks, podcasts, educational LEO XIII WAS NOT AFRAID OF “REVOLUTION” put, in his book, Strangers in a content and religious program- — HIS ONLY CONCERN WAS THAT IT BE IN THE Strange Land, defines “instituming. tionalism” as laypersons “abdiSERVICE OF CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS Through this technology, I cat[ing] our personal sense of was introduced to Fr. Robert mission to the official religious Ballecer, S.J., a.k.a. “The Digimachinery...” and “[tying] up tal Jesuit.” He is a frequent our energies in bureaucracy.” guest on “This Week In Tech,” a We can hope that Pope Leo will weekly podcast panel discusshake the laity out of an apathy sion on all things tech. On June that threatens to paralyze the 22, 2025, Fr. Ballecer commajority of the Body of Christ mented on Pope Leo’s focus on at this precise moment when artificial intelligence. He menshe could possibly become the tions the similarities between most active she’s ever been in Pope Leo’s concerns and the concerns of Leo XIII during her long history. the Industrial Revolution. Both Popes feared the inevitably “Inadequacy of his strength, learned from experience, dehumanizing results of unfettered application of new impels and urges a man to enlist the help of others” (Rerum technologies. He even went so far as to refer to the era we Novarum, Leo XIII). are entering into now as, “The A.I. Revolution.”

The emerging technologies on the horizon can benefit The use of the word “revolution” suggests that we are us all if we collectively agree to use them in the honest serabout to experience a period of irreversible change. It vice and creation of Christian institutions in a spirit of subwould be wise to examine how a previous generation mansidiarity. The narrow path toward societal renewal is aged a similar crisis. dependent upon how Christians respond to this moment, It was never Leo XIII’s intention to stifle progress or to but especially American Catholics in both hemispheres. make it more difficult to engage the world around us. In God is now putting us to the test. He has answered the fact, what’s so impressive about his actions are the calcuprayers of the last five hundred years. We have been called lated risks he took in order to innovate within the bosom of to leave behind an outdated “Americanism” and enter, Tradition. fully mature, into leadership within the fabric of the UniAlongside his admonishments and warnings, Leo XIII versal Church and the folds of American society. “And created new Christian institutions like the Pontifical Bibliwho knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for cal Commission. This allowed biblical scholars to apply such a time as this” (Esther 4:14). the latest tools and sciences to the study of Sacred ScripHave you ever felt the weight of these words more powture, under the watchful and encouraging eye of the Magerfully than you do right now? isterium. Catholics and others were advised to unionize Ask yourself, American: “Why am I here, and why and negotiate for better treatment, fair pay and safe worknow?” Every hand has to find the courage to reach out for ing conditions from employers. Without apology, he the plow and never look back. Pope Leo cannot do this on affirmed the responsibility and authority of the father over his own. He needs our daily prayers, our support, our goodhis household, proclaiming it off limits to the State. will and our action. Its okay to feel as if we have “arrived” Leo XIII was not afraid of revolution; his only concern — as long as we arrive to work. was that it be in the service of Christian institutions.

Let’s unite behind our native son. Long Live Leo XIV! Will Pope Leo also take calculated risks when it comes to the use of the advanced tools and sciences available to us *Marcellus Roberts is a Catholic Texas prison inmate today? Will he use them to strengthen existing Christian and Prison Oblate of St. Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, institutions? Will he create new Christian institutions Kansas, serving a 25-year penance.m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

47

C AT H O L I C I S M A n D O R T H O D O X Y E D I T E D B Y: C H R I S T I N A D E A R D U R F F

The Message of the Icon

BY ROBERT WIESnER

DAVID THE DENDRITE THE MONK WHO, IN ABOUT 500 A.D. IN GREECE, SPENT THREE YEARS IN A TREE SEEKING WISDOM

A

mong the more unusual monastic callings was At the end of his three-year trial, an angel came to that of the Dendrite, or Tree-Dweller. Taking to David and assured him that his prayers had been heart the various references Jesus made to the birds of answered and told him to descend from his tree and the air, these monks made a tree their cell and dwelt, take up once again the usual life of a monk in a cell. much like their relatives the Stylites, suspended The angel also told him that he would be asked after between heaven and earth. The calling to Dendritism a time to offer himself for “one other act of love,” generally seems to have been a temporary vocation; which would be revealed to him later. these monks stayed in their trees exposed to the eleOnce he re-entered his cell, David was recognized ments only for a period of time before descending and by the people of Thessaloniki as “an angel of God.” taking to a regular monasThey flocked to him to tic cell. They resorted to seek his advice, to be their unusual life for some healed of disease and parspecific reason, like fulticularly to seek exorcism filling a vow or asking for from unclean spirits. some special grace from David’s cell was so situGod. ated that he could never Saint David, legend even see the sun! has it, came from northern In such seclusion he Mesopotamia. He was continued until around born around 450 A.D. at a 520. time and place well At that time the bishop acquainted with monastic of Thessaloniki asked life. His birthplace eviDavid to travel to Constandently supported a numtinople on a political misber of monks who took to sion. The Emperor had ”Divine Trinity” in this Neo-Gothic back of the Klaren Altar by Wilhelm Mengelberg the trees. The climate in plans to divide the region the East was kinder overall to such a life. into two separate sections; Archbishop Aristeides But David did not remain in his native land. For believed that the plan would so weaken the area that some unknown reason he traveled to Thessaloniki in northern barbarians could easily lay waste to the Greece, along with a monk named Adolas. In Greece region. He asked David to lead a delegation to argue David entered the monastery of Saints Theodore and against the danger. So, David emerged from his cell, Mercurius between the years of 465 to 470. seeing the sun for the first time in many years.

Since he had not had much of a chance for educaHis mission to the Emperor was successful and the tion while a youth, David ascended a nearby almond decision to divide the territory was rescinded. Howtree to asked the Lord for wisdom and humility, as ever, David died on the way back to Thessaloniki and well as to reveal His will for his monastic calling. his body was returned to his monastery for burial.

For three years he stayed in his tree, enduring the About 150 years after his death, his tomb was climate of northern Greece, scorching heat in the opened and David’s body was found to be incorrupt. summers and bitter cold in the winters, weather quite His relics were taken to Italy during the Fourth Cruunlike that of his native land. sade, but returned to Thessaloniki on September 16, He stayed in his tree for the three years in imitation 1978. of King David, who spent the same period of time His incorrupt body is now enshrined in the asking God for goodness, education and prudence. monastery of Saint Theodora in that city. m page 48

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East-West Watch

BY PETER AnDERSOn

POPE LEO AnD THE 1700TH AnnIVERSARY OF THE COUnCIL OF nICAEA

O

ne of the hallmarks of the joint celebration in Nicaea pontificate of Pope Franwould take place at the end of cis was an emphasis on ecuMay 2025. menical relations with the Sadly, the illness and subseEastern Orthodox Churches. quent death of Pope Francis on Pope Francis met most of the April 21 made these plans primates of the Orthodox impossible.

Churches and visited a signifEcumenical Patriarch Baricant number of countries tholomew personally attended where Orthodoxy is the prethe funeral Mass of his very dominate religion. good friend Francis.

He even made history by On May 8, when Ecumenibeing the first Pope to meet the cal Patriarch Bartholomew Pope Leo XIV greets Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch head of the Russian Orthodox heard the news of the election of Bartholomew of Constantinople during a meeting with Church.

Pope Leo XIV, he immediately religious leaders at the Vatican, May 19, 2025. Bartholomew Indeed, Pope Francis developed a came to Rome for Leo’s inauguration Mass on Sunday, May expressed the hope that the new 18 in St. Peter’s Square. (CNS photo|Vatican Media) very close friendship with EcumeniPope would become “a dear brothcal Patriarch Bartholomew, who is er” and collaborator for the rapconsidered “first in honor” among the heads of the various prochement of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

Orthodox churches of the Byzantine tradition.

He also expressed the hope that Pope Leo would “comThe two men met on more than 10 occasions. Their most bine a visit to Nicaea with an official visit to the Ecumenifamous meeting was a joint pilgrimage to Jerusalem in cal Patriarchate, on the occasion of our [patronal] feast of May 2014, where they prayed together at the Holy SepulSaint Andrew on November 30.” cher.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew attended the InauImmediately after the meeting in Jerusalem, the Ecuguration Mass of Pope Leo on May 18 and met with the menical Patriarch revealed that he and Pope Francis had Pope on May 19. discussed a joint pilgrimage in 2025 to Nicaea to observe The meeting was very cordial and fruitful. Pope Leo the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. expressed his strong desire to visit Turkey later in 2025, at This Council was held from May through the summer of a specific time to be determined.

325 and is considered the first ecumenical council.

In accordance with a long tradition, a delegation from The Council condemned the heresy of Arianism, which the Ecumenical Patriarchate came to the Vatican for the taught that the Son had not existed for all eternity but was solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. The delegation, led by created by the Father before the beginning of time.

Elder Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon, met with the The Council also established a creed and the method for Pope on June 28. determining the date of Easter.

Pope Leo assured the delegation of his “desire to perse(The ancient city of Nicaea is now the Turkish town of vere in the effort to restore full visible communion between Iznik, population 44,000, located 85 miles southeast of our Churches.”

Istanbul.)

Metropolitan Emmanuel expressed joy that the Pope On May 18, 2024, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was planning to visit the See of the Ecumenical Patriarannounced that Pope Francis wished to celebrate the chate (in Istanbul) and to journey to Nicaea. Emmanuel Nicaean anniversary with him and that a joint organizing said: “The preparatory dialogues for this momentous occacommittee was being formed to plan the visit. sion have already begun to bear promising and encouragOn June 29, 2024, Pope Francis stated that the joint visit ing fruit.” to Nicaea was “a trip that I truly wish to make.” In early Although Leo has been Pope for only a few months, his September 2024, the Ecumenical Patriarch stated that the relations with the Orthodox are off to a very good start.m InsideTheVatican.com t UrbietOrbiCommunications.com t +1-202-536-4555

page 49

C AT H O L I C I S M A N D O R T H O D O X Y E D I T E D B Y: M AT T H E W T R O J A C E K

NEWS from the EAST CHRISTIAN UNITY CANNOT COME FROM A resists”]. In the article, Vatican journalist Antonella Palermo reports on a recent pilgrimage, led by Bishop Bizzeti, “BLUEPRINT,” POPE LEO XIV SAYS Speaking on June 7 to members the Symposium to historic Syriac Christian monasteries in Turkey.

“Nicaea and the Church of the Third Millennium: Palermo commented that “in Anatolia” — the Asiatic Towards Catholic-Orthodox Unity” — jointly organized peninsula in largely Muslim Turkey — “being Christian by Œcumenicum, the Institute for Ecumenical Studies of is something you choose every day... And unity today is the Angelicum, and the International Orthodox Theologiboth a longing and a fact.” (CatholicCulture) cal Association — Pope Leo XIV said unity will be a gift received as Christ wills and by the working of the Holy CARDINAL GRECH MEETS PATRIARCH Spirit.

BARTHOLOMEW: LET US BUILD BRIDGES The four-day ecumenical conference was held to mark A fraternal meeting — marked by an embrace reministhe 1,700th anniversary of the First cent of those often exchanged with Council of Nicaea.

Pope Francis — took place on the afterAt the beginning of the conference, noon of June 17 at the Phanar between Cardinal Kurt Koch — the prefect of Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinothe Dicastery for Promoting Christian ple Bartholomew I and Catholic CardiUnity — said, “The Council of Nicaea nal Mario Grech, Secretary General of took place at a time when Christianity the Synod of Bishops, who is currently had not yet been divided by so many in Istanbul for the meeting of the Gensubsequent schisms; its creed is thereeral Secretaries of the Bishops’ Conferfore shared by all Christian Churches ences of Europe (CCEE). and ecclesial communities, uniting During the gathering, Cardinal them in a common confession to this Grech presented to all participants the Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod, met Ecumenical Patriarch of day.” process accompanying the implemen“Its ecumenical importance cannot Constantinople Bartholomew I in Istanbul June 17 tation phase of the Synod. His itinerary be underestimated,” Koch added. also included a stop in Nicaea, present-day Iznik, the site Pope Leo noted the Council of Nicaea “inaugurated a of the First Ecumenical Council, whose 1,700th anniversynodal path for the Church to follow,” and also mensary is being celebrated this year, and where a visit by tioned efforts to find a unified date for the celebration of Pope Leo XIV is anticipated in November, continuing the Easter between the Western and Eastern Churches. intention of his predecessor, Francis.

“Sadly, differences in their calendars no longer allow In his address to the participants of the CCEE meeting, Christians to celebrate together the most important feast Patriarch Bartholomew recalled Pope Francis and exof the liturgical year, causing pastoral problems within pressed his “great anticipation” for a possible visit by communities, dividing families and weakening the crediPope Leo XIV. First, the Patriarch conveyed his gratitude bility of our witness to the Gospel,” Leo said. (Crux) “for the personal friendship and the unwavering commitment of Pope Francis” (whom he described as “a true SYRIAC ORTHODOX CHURCH “READY TO friend of Orthodoxy”), noting that his pontificate “has UNITE” WITH LATIN CHURCH, CATHOLIC been a time of warmth and mutual encouragement.”

BISHOP SAYS He then expressed joy at the election of his successor, In the most prominent front-page article in L’OsservaRobert Francis Prevost, whom he has already met twice. tore Romano’s June 10 daily Italian edition, a retired “We are confident,” the Patriarch said, “that under his Latin-rite bishop in Turkey is quoted as saying that “the leadership, the ties between our two Churches will continSyriac Orthodox Church is ready to unite with the Latin” ue to deepen in truth and love. We pray that his pontificate Church. will be marked by spiritual discernment and prophetic The Syriac Orthodox Church is among the Oriental courage, as the Church continues to bear witness in a Orthodox churches that ceased to be in full communion world longing for direction and unity.” (VaticanNews) with the Holy See following the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451).

ORTHODOX DELEGATION VISITS ROME FOR The statement by Bishop Paolo Bizzeti, SJ, appeared in THE FEAST OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL “Il monachesimo che resiste” [“The monasticism that An official delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate page 50

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of Constantinople visited Rome June 27-29, the Holy See Press Office announced.

The visit comes as part of the traditional exchange of delegations for the respective feasts of the Patron Saints: June 29 in Rome for the celebration of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul ,and November 30 in Istanbul for the celebration of Saint Andrew the Apostle.

The Orthodox delegation attended the Mass presided over by Pope Leo XIV on Sunday, June 29, to mark the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, and previously met with the Pope on Saturday, June 28. (VaticanNews)

western Ukraine. Metropolitan Onufry, the primate of the UOC, previously headed the Chernivtsi Eparchy of 23 years. Metropolitan Epifany, primate of the OCU, spent his childhood in the Chernivtsi Oblast.

In the afternoon of February 16, an outdoor meeting was held in Chernivtsi. The 2,042 registered participants unanimously voted to transfer the Holy Spirit Cathedral and the two other largest churches in Chernivtsi to the OCU. That evening, 4,506 persons came to the Holy Spirit Cathedral and marked ballots stating their desire to remain in the UOC. On June 17, however, the Cathedral was forcefully A FIRST FOR IRELAND: HISTORIC ST. SHARBEL seized by a large, highly organized group of young men CONFERENCE BRINGS 200 RELICS TO IRELAND For the first time in Irish history, Catholics encountered who appeared to be OCU supporters. The was filmed by the ancient beauty of the Maronite Catholic tradition at the security cameras and circulated on the internet.

2025 St. Sharbel Conference, which took place in Meigh Interestingly, the Orthodox Times, which is very supfrom July 11 to 13. This landmark portive of the Ecumenical Patrievent united East and West in a archate — with which the OCU is powerful weekend of prayer, associated, referred to the videos relic veneration, and spiritual as “heartbreaking.” renewal.

The attackers had arrived at Throughout the three days, the the Cathedral grounds in vans, Maronite Divine Liturgy, one of and soon controlled the Cathedral the oldest liturgies of the and locked the gates of the steel Catholic Church, was chanted in fence surrounding it. Those who English and Aramaic, the lanresisted the attackers were beatguage spoken by Christ himself. en, including two UOC priests.

Supporters of the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine More than 200 first-class (Peter Anderson) relics of the saints, including attempt to take over the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, in Chernivtsi relics of the crib of Jesus, the Holy Cross, the Twelve ZELENSKY TERMINATES CITIZENSHIP OF Apostles, and modern mystics, were also reverently disMETROPOLITAN ONUFRY, PRIMATE OF played for public veneration and prayer. (NCR) THE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH On July 2, the Press Center of the Security Service of FIGHTS BREAK OUT BETWEEN MEMBERS OF Ukraine (SBU) posted a press release that President Zelensky has signed a decree terminating the Ukrainian citizenTHE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND ship of Metropolitan Onufry, primate of the UOC. The folTHE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF UKRAINE Relations between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church lowing is an excerpt from the release: (UOC) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) con“According to the information available to the Security tinue to worsen. Certainly, a major factor has been the loss Service of Ukraine, Berezovsky (Onufry) maintains ties of UOC churches to the OCU — a complex issue. There with the Moscow Patriarchate and deliberately opposed are situations where a UOC religious community volunthe acquisition of canonical independence of the Ukraintarily decides by a fair vote to change its affiliation to the ian Church from the Moscow Patriarchate, whose repreOCU. However, difficult questions can arise as to who is sentatives openly support Russian aggression against eligible to vote. If a village has only one church, should Ukraine. Despite the full-scale invasion, Berezovsky villagers who rarely attend services be able to vote or (Onufry) actually continues to support the policy of the should the voters be limited to only the faithful core of Russian Orthodox Church and its leadership, in particular parishioners?

Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev).”

There are also situations where a transfer of a parish to On July 2, the President referred to the matter in his the OCU has been legally approved, but the UOC pastor evening address: and some of the parishioners refuse to vacate the church.

“Figures with political influence and Russian passOn the other hand, there are situations where the supports, individuals who work against Ukraine’s indepenporters of the OCU seek to “capture” the church by viodence in all its dimensions, including spiritual indepenlence or by force. In June 2025, the media focused on the dence, anyone who supports or justifies aggression: all OCU-UOC dispute over the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Cherthese people have no place in Ukraine, and never will.” nivtsi, a city of approximately 265,000, located in south(Peter Anderson). m InsideTheVatican.com t UrbietOrbiCommunications.com t +1-202-536-4555

page 51

Of Books, Art and People

Treasures of The Pharaohs exhibiTed by egyPT in rome for The firsT Time n By Lucy Gordan

Left, intricate gold funerary mask of the Pharaoh Amenemope (reigned 993-984 B.C.).

Below, amulet of the head of Hathor, goddess of the sky, of love, music, and dancing, and of women and fertility.

I

taly has several distinguished ancient Egyptian collections. The most important is The Egyptian Museum in Turin with artifacts from every period of ancient Egyptian history; others, although with fewer artifacts and some chronological gaps, include Florence, Bologna, Naples and Vatican City — founded by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839.

In addition, since the first century A.D. there have been more ancient Egyptian obelisks (13) in Rome than anywhere else in the world, including Egypt. Many of these were discovered by “archeologists” working for the Renaissance Popes and then erected outside Rome’s important churches as markers for pilgrims: St. Peter’s Basilica, St. John in the Lateran, St. Mary Major, the Pantheon, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Piazza Navona and Piazza del Popolo, to name a few.

00 52 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

Soon Rome will temporarily host the new exhibition “Treasures of the Pharaohs.”

On display in Rome from October 24, 2025 to May 3, 2026, it will be a once-in-alifetime experience about ancient Egypt.

Located in the Scuderie (once the stables) of Rome’s Quirinal Palace — first the Popes’ summer palace, then the residence of Italy’s royal family and, since 1946, that of Italy’s President — this is the first time ever that Egypt has mounted an exhibition of its ancient artifacts in Rome.

In fact, it is only the second time that Egypt has lent many of its ancient artifacts to Italy.

The first exhibition, “The Pharaohs,” was held in 2002 at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. But while the Venice exhibition of some 80 artifacts focused on the role of kingship in the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BC), the period known for its peak of

Chair of Princess Sitamum (14th century B.C.), eldest daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, and later one of his wives.

Below, one of several famous triads featuring King Menkaure (reigned 2550-2503 B.C.) during the Old Kingdom, flanked by the goddess Hathor and one of various local deities

Egyptian power and prosperity, the 130 artifacts of “Treasures of the Pharaohs” will explore in six sections the complexity of Egyptian society, not only royal power and the divine authority of the pharaohs, but also daily life, religious beliefs, its multiple gods and goddess, funerary customs, the afterlife and artistic achievements over 3,000 years.

Thus, it will span the entire arc of ancient Egyptian history, from the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150-2890 BC) to the Late Period (664-332 BC), and will include archeological discoveries never before shown outside Egypt, on loan from The Egyptian Museum in Cairo’s Thari Square and the Luxor Museum.

It will also include recent discoveries, notably, from the “Golden City,” unearthed by an Egyptian team led by world-famous archeologist Zahi Hawass in Luxor in 2020.

This vast urban settlement dates to the reigns of Amenhotep III (reigned 1386-1349 BC) “The Magnificent,” and considered one of the greatest pharaohs due to his military prowess, and of his son Akhenaten (r. 1353-36 or 1551-33), best-known as the husband of Nefertiti and father of Tutankhamon.

This final section will offer an unprecedented glimpse into the lives of the artisans and craftsmen who built Egypt’s grand monuments including their tools, ceramics, amulets and personal belongings.

In addition, The Egyptian Museum in Turin will loan its Mensa Isiaca, or Bembine Tablet, the first object in Turin’s collection, and several of its treasures, still-to-be-

chosen, which have never been loaned before.

Among the highlights of “Treasures of the Pharaohs” are: the schist Triad of Menkaure, showing the pharaoh who lived more than 4,500 years ago and commissioned one of the three great pyramids of Giza.

A monumental sculptural masterpiece from the Old Kingdom, Menkaure is flanked by Hathor, goddess of love, beauty, music, dancing, fertility and pleasure, as well as the protective deity of the Theban region, underscoring the divine mandate of his rulership.

Other highlights are the lid of the gilded wooden coffin of Queen AhHotep, adorned entirely in gold, a magnificent example of New Kingdom (c. 15501070 BC) funerary art. Also belonging to the queen is the legendary “Necklace of Golden Flies,” an honorary military distinction reserved for Egypt’s greatest warriors — for Queen AhHotep commanded the Egyptian army before her son Ahmose I was old enough to reign.

Like Christianity, ancient Egyptian doctrine was centered on the belief of the resurrection after death, recognizing paradise and hell. In short, like Christians, the ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife where the deceased would be judged on their deeds during their lifetime on earth.

One symbol of immortality, gold, was sacred to the solar deity Ra and is the material of many other treasures here: the intricate gold funerary mask of the Pharaoh Amenemope (reigned 993-984 BC); the golden 00 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 53

Of Books, Art and People coffin lid of Tjuya, grandmother of Akhenaten, with its intricate decorations and hieroglyphic inscriptions; and the golden funerary covering of Pharaoh Psusennes I, one of the most fascinating relics of the Third Intermediate Period (1070-664 BC). It is finely decorated with sacred symbols intended to grant the pharaoh protection in the afterlife.

Also on display are imposing statues. One is of Sennefer, a nobleman who was mayor of Thebes and “Overseer of the Granaries and Fields of Cattle of Amun.” A favorite of Amenhotep II, he accumulated great wealth and was allowed to place gray granite statues, shown here, of himself and his wife Senetney and their daughter Mutnofret in the Temple of Karnak.

Sennefer, 15th-century B.C. mayor of Thebes, with his wife and daughter

00 54 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

Another two imposing basalt statues are of Ramses VI (reigned 1180-1136 BC) and Thutmose III (reigned 14811425 BC), the stepson and coruler of the domineering Hatshepsut, one of only a few female pharaohs, not to omit the exquisite royal jewelry, all revealing the extraordinary artistic sophistication and profound spirituality of ancient Egypt.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a richly illustrated catalog by Hawass, published in Italian and English editions by Allemandi Editore.

Tickets are on sale from the Scuderie’s website at scuderiequirinale.vivaticket.it.

Should you need help, you can telephone Vivaticket at 011-39-0292897722 MondayFriday from 8:30 AM-7 PM and Saturday 8:30 AM-6 PM (Italian hours).m

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THE END EXCERPTS fRom LoRD of THE WoRLD

CaTHoLiCiSm SuRvivED; BuT No moRE...

MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO, MONSIGNOR ROBERT HUGH BEnSOn FORESAW THE RISE OF SECULAR HUMANISM, THE CONTRACTION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND THE COMING OF THE ANTICHRIST n BY ITV STAFF Editor’s Note: The passage below is from the novel Lord of the World, written by the English Catholic convert Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (the son of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury) in 1907. He attempts a vision of the world more than a century in the future — in the early 21st century… our own time… predicting the

LORD OF THE WORLD

BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON (1907) BOOK III, THE VICTORY, CHAPTER I, SECTIOn II-III (After Rome’s destruction and the Pope’s murder, Fr. Percy Franklin, elected secretly by three remaining cardinals as Pope Silvester, establishes life in exile in Nazareth in the Holy Land.)

The Pope’s private life was as simple as his room. He had one Syrian priest for his chaplain, and two Syrian servants. He said his mass each morning, himself wearing vestments and his white habit beneath, and heard a mass after. He then took his coffee, after changing into the tunic and burnous of the country, and spent the morning over business. He dined at noon, slept, and rode out, for the country by reason of its indeterminate position was still in the simplicity of a hundred years ago. He returned at dusk, supped, and worked again till late into the night.

That was all. His chaplain sent what messages were necessary to Damascus; his servants, themselves ignorant of his dignity, dealt with the secular world so far as was required, and the utmost that seemed to be known to His few neighbohrs was that there lived in the late Sheikh’s little house on the hill an eccentric European with a telegraph office. His servants, themselves devout Catholics, knew him for a bishop, but no more than that. They were told only that there was yet a Pope alive, and with that and the sacraments were content.

To sum up, therefore — the Catholic world knew that their Pope lived under the name of Silvester; and thirteen persons of the entire human race knew that Franklin had been his name, and that the throne of Peter rested for the time in Nazareth.

It was, as a Frenchman had said, just a hundred years ago.

Catholicism survived; but no more.

III And as for his inner life, what can be said of that? He lay now back in his wooden chair, thinking with closed eyes. He could not have described it consistently even to himself, for indeed he 56

INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

rise of Communism, the fall of faith in many places, the advance of technology (he foresees helicopters) and so forth up until... the Second Coming of the Lord, with which his vision ends. For this reason, and also because Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have repeatedly cited the book, saying its clarification of the danger of a type of humanitarianism without God is a true danger that we do face, we print a selection from it in ITV, now and in the months ahead.

scarcely knew it: he acted rather than indulged in reflex thought. But the centre of his position was simple faith.

The Catholic Religion, he knew well enough, gave the only adequate explanation of the universe; it did not unlock all mysteries, but it unlocked more than any other key known to man; he knew, too, perfectly well, that it was the only system of thought that satisfied man as a whole, and accounted for him in his essential nature. Further, he saw well enough that the failure of Christianity to unite all men one to another rested not upon its feebleness but its strength; its lines met in eternity, not in time.

Besides, he happened to believe it.

But to this foreground there were other moods whose shifting was out of his control. In his exalted moods, which came upon him like a breeze from Paradise, the background was bright with hope and drama — he saw himself and his companions as Peter and the Apostles must have regarded themselves, as they proclaimed through the world, in temples, slums, market-places and private houses, the faith that was to shake and transform the world. They had handled the Lord of Life, seen the empty sepulchre, grasped the pierced hands of Him Who was their brother and their God. It was radiantly true, though not a man believed it; the huge superincumbent weight of incredulity could not disturb a fact that was as the sun in heaven.

Moreover, the very desperateness of the cause was their inspiration. There was no temptation to lean upon the arm of flesh, for there was none that fought for them but God. Their nakedness was their armour, their slow tongues their persuasiveness, their weakness demanded God's strength, and found it. Yet there was this difference, and it was a significant one. For Peter the spiritual world had an interpretation and a guarantee in the outward events he had witnessed. He had handled the Risen Christ, the external corroborated the internal. But for Silvester it was not so. For him it was necessary so to grasp spiritual truths in the supernatural sphere that the external events of the Incarnation were proved by rather than proved the certitude of his spiritual apprehension.

Certainly, historically speaking, Christianity was true — proved by its records — yet to see that needed illumination. He

God as depicted by British poet William Blake as the “architect of creation,” now in the British Museum, London

apprehended the power of the Resurrection, therefore Christ was risen. Therefore, in heavier moods it was different with him.

There were periods, lasting sometimes for days together, clouding him when he awoke, stifling him as he tried to sleep, dulling the very savor of the Sacrament and the thrill of the Precious Blood; times in which the darkness was so intolerable that even the solid objects of faith attenuated themselves to shadow, when half his nature was blind not only to Christ, but to God Himself, and the reality of his own existence — when his own awful dignity seemed as the insignia of a fool. And was it conceivable, his earthly mind demanded, that he and his college of twelve and his few thousands should be right, and the entire consensus of the civilized world wrong? It was not that the world had not heard the message of the Gospel; it had heard little else for two thousand years, and now pronounced it false — false in its external credentials, and false therefore in its spiritual claims.

It was a lost cause for which he suffered; he was not the last of an august line, he was the smoking wick of a candle of folly; he was the reductio ad absurdam of a ludicrous syllogism based on impossible premises. He was not worth killing, He and his company of the insane—they were no more than the crowned dunces of the world's school. Sanity sat on the solid benches of materialism.

And this heaviness waxed so dark sometimes that he almost persuaded himself that his faith was gone; the clamors of mind so loud that the whisper of the heart was unheard, the desires for earthly peace so fierce that supernatural ambitions were silenced—so dense was the gloom, that, hoping against hope, believing against knowledge, and loving against truth, he cried as One other had cried on another day like this — Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani! … But that, at least, he never failed to cry.

One thing alone gave him power to go on, so far at least as his consciousness was concerned, and that was his meditation. He had travelled far in the mystical life since his agonies of effort.

Now he used no deliberate descents into the spiritual world: he threw, as it were, his hands over his head, and dropped into spacelessness. Consciousness would draw him up, as a cork, to the surface, but he would do no more than repeat his action, until by that cessation of activity, which is the supreme energy, he floated in the twilight realm of transcendence; and there God would deal with him—now by an articulate sentence, now by a sword of pain, now by an air like the vivifying breath of the sea. Sometimes after Communion He would treat him so, sometimes as he fell asleep, sometimes in the whirl of work. Yet his consciousness did not seem to retain for long such experiences; five minutes later, it might be, he would be wrestling once more with the all but sensible phantoms of the mind and the heart.

There he lay, then, in the chair, revolving the intolerable blasphemies that he had read. His white hair was thin upon his browned temples, his hands were as the hands of a spirit, and his young face lined and patched with sorrow. His bare feet protruded from beneath his stained tunic, and his old brown burnous lay on the floor beside him….

It was an hour before he moved, and the sun had already lost half its fierceness, when the steps of the horses sounded in the

paved court outside. Then he sat up, slipped his feet into their shoes, and lifted the burnous from the floor, as the door opened and the lean sun-burned priest came through.

“The horses, Holiness,” said the man. ***** The Pope spoke not one word that afternoon, until the two came towards sunset up the bridle-path that leads between Thabor and Nazareth. They had taken their usual round through Cana, mounting a hillock from which the long mirror of Gennesareth could be seen, and passing on, always bearing to the right, under the shadow of Thabor until once more Esdraelon spread itself beneath like a grey-green carpet, a vast circle, twenty miles across, sprinkled sparsely with groups of huts, white walls and roofs, with Nain visible on the other side, Carmel heaving its long form far off on the right, and Nazareth nestling a mile or two away on the plateau on which they had halted.

It was a sight of extraordinary peace, and seemed an extract from some old picture-book designed centuries ago. Here was no crowd of roofs, no pressure of hot humanity, no terrible evidences of civilization and manufactory and strenuous, fruitless effort. A few tired Jews had come back to this quiet little land, as old people may return to their native place, with no hope of renewing their youth, or refinding their ideals, but with a kind of sentimentality that prevails so often over more logical motives, and a few more barrack-like houses had been added here and there to the obscure villages in sight. But it was very much as it had been a hundred years ago.

The plain was half shadowed by Carmel, and half in dusty golden light. Overhead the clear Eastern sky was flushed with rose, as it had flushed for Abraham, Jacob, and the Son of David.

There was no little cloud here, as a man's hand, over the sea, charged with both promise and terror; no sound of chariot-wheels from earth or heaven, no vision of heavenly horses such as a young man had seen thirty centuries ago in this very sky.

Here was the old earth and the old heaven, unchanged and unchangeable; the patient, returning spring had starred the thin soil with flowers of Bethlehem, and those glorious lilies to which Solomon's scarlet garments might not be compared. There was no whisper from the Throne as when Gabriel had once stooped through this very air to hail Her who was blessed among women, no breath of promise or hope beyond that which God sends through every movement of His created robe of life.

As the two halted, and the horses looked out with steady, inquisitive eyes at the immensity of light and air beneath them, a soft hooting cry broke out, and a shepherd passed below along the hillside a hundred yards away, trailing his long shadow behind him, and to the mellow tinkle of bells his flock came after, a troop of obedient sheep and wilful goats, cropping and following and cropping again as they went on to the fold, called by name in that sad minor voice of him who knew each, and led instead of driving.

The soft clanking grew fainter, the shadow of the shepherd shot once to their very feet, as he topped the rise, and vanished again as he stepped down once more; and the call grew fainter yet, and ceased. (to be continued) m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

57

VATICAN WATCH

By Matthew Trojacek with CNA Reports - Grzegorz Galazka and CNA photos

JUNE SUNDAY 15 BLESSED FLORIBERT BWANA CHUI: A WITNESS TO GOODNESS AND PEACE On Sunday, 15 June 2025, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, presided over the beatification of Floribert Bwana Chui at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. A customs officer and member of the Sant’Egidio Community in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Floribert was killed in 2007 for refusing to allow spoiled food to cross the border, a decision made to protect the lives of the poor.

“Floribert is a teacher of hope,” Cardinal Semeraro said during the homily, “He teaches us to overcome evil with good.”

The liturgy, marked by song and joy, was animated by the Congolese community in Rome and Sant’Egidio members from across Africa. Concelebrants included Bishop Willy Ngumbi of Goma and Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of Kinshasa.

Floribert’s relic — his jacket worn during his abduction and martyrdom — was presented by his brothers. His mother, Gertrude, was also present at the celebration.

(Vatican News)

for the positive developments in the relations between the Holy See and Vietnam, in particular in the implementation of the Agreement on the Status of the Resident Pontifical Representative in Vietnam, while underscoring the contribution of the Catholic Church to Vietnamese society.

An exchange of views then took place on the socio-political situation of the country, as well as on regional and international developments. (Vatican News)

JULY

MONDAY 7 VATICAN OFFERS NEW GUIDANCE FOR SYNOD’S IMPLEMENTATION PHASE A new document from the Synod of Bishops is intended “to provide an interpretive key for understanding the implementation phase of the synodal process.” Released by the Synod on July 7, Pathways for the Implementation Phase of the Synod offers “local Churches throughout the world the world a shared framework that will make it easier to walk together” and promotes “the dialogue that will lead the whole Church to the Ecclesial Assembly,” set for October 2028 that will mark the culmination of the synodal process begun by Pope Francis in 2020.

Opening Pathways, Cardinal Mario Grech, the Secretary General of the Synod, notes that “the synodal form of the Church is FRIDAY 20 at the service of its mission… it is the urPOPE LEO XIV APPROVES gency of this mission that drives us to impleDECREES FOR MORE THAN 170 ment the Synod, a task for which all the bapMARTYRS A portrait of Blessed Floribert Bwana Chui On June 20, Pope Leo met with Cardinal during his June 15 beatification at the Basilica tized share responsibility.” (Vatican News) of St. Paul’s Outside-the-Walls in Rome Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery WEDNESDAY 9 for the Causes of Saints, and authorized the Dicastery to proVATICAN GRANTS ‘NIHIL OBSTAT’ FOR MARIAN mulgate several decrees.

DEVOTION ON MOUNT ZVIR IN SLOVAKIA These include the recognition of a miracle attributed to the The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — thanks to the intercession of a Spanish diocesan priest as well as the martyrnew norms published last year — has granted the go-ahead dom of several priests and laypeople killed out of hatred for the (nihil obstat) after evaluating the spiritual fruits connected to faith in Spain and France—among them a seminarian. the alleged Marian apparitions that are said to have occurred The Pope also recognized the heroic virtues of four Servants between 1990 and 1995 in Litmanová, on Mount Zvir, in Sloof God from Brazil and Italy. (Vatican News) vakia.

Cardinal Prefect Víctor Manuel Fernández sent a letter, MONDAY 30 published on July 9, addressed to Archbishop Jonáš Jozef POPE LEO XIV RECEIVES VICE-PRESIDENT Maxim, Archieparch of Prešov for Byzantine Rite Catholics.

OF VIETNAM He wrote in response to the archbishop’s request, who cites the Pope Leo XIV received in audience, the Vice-President of countless “sincere and profound confessions” and conversions, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Madam Vo Thi An Xuan, expressing appreciation for the “many spiritual fruits obtained who subsequently met with Archbishop Paul Richard Galby the pilgrims who continue to frequent the place” despite the lagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International alleged phenomenon having concluded thirty years ago.

Organizations.

Analyzing the related messages, the Dicastery said they During the cordial discussions which took place in the Seccontain “precious invitations to conversion.” retariat of State on June 30, warm appreciation was expressed 58 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

These include statements such as: “Let Jesus free you… And do not allow your Enemy to limit your freedom, for which Jesus shed so much blood.” (Vatican News) MONDAY 14 HOLY SEE: POLICIES MUST SUPPORT FAMILIES, MOTHERHOOD, EQUALITY “Policies that support and protect families, motherhood, and maternity, need to be implemented alongside the promotion of equality between women and men.”

The Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, expressed this during the course of the High-Level Political Forum debates on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3) on ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages, on July 14, and on Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5), on achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, on July 15, at the UN in New York. (Vatican News) FRIDAY 25 NEW VATICAN MEDIA HUB OPENS UNDER ST. PETER’S COLONNADE As preparations for the Jubilee Year continue, the Vatican’s communications network has opened a new space in Saint Peter’s Square dedicated to encounter, dialogue, and hope. Located beneath the Braccio di Carlo Magno, the new radio booth was inaugurated live on air at 8:10 am on Friday, July 25, during a special broadcast of the Italian show Radio Vaticana con voi.

The structure has been set up as a working base for the Holy See’s main media outlets — Vatican Radio, Vatican News, L’Osservatore Romano, and Vatican Media — and will serve pilgrims and journalists throughout the Jubilee.

The initiative, which also aims to cover key moments such as the upcoming canonizations of Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis in September, was made possible thanks to authorization from the Vatican Governorate and financial backing from the Friends of the Holy Father donor network.

“This small station shows that even the tiniest sparks can ignite great flames of hope,” said Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, as he inaugurated the new space.

“To celebrate a Jubilee of Hope at a time when the world is weighed down by despair is, in itself, a powerful statement: that hope must never be lost,” he said, pointing out that the Dicastery’s strength «comes from a network that holds us together — not just as colleagues, but with those who listen to us,

read us, and place their trust in this message of hope.”

Deputy Editorial Director, Alessandro Gisotti, explained that Vatican Media continues in its mission of supporting the Pope’s voice “in a beautiful continuity that stretches from John Paul II, through Benedict XVI and Francis, to Pope Leo XIV today.”

AUGUST MONDAY 4 POPE’S MESSAGE TO MEDJUGORJE SUMMER YOUTH FESTIVAL (PHOTO) Pope Leo XIV, in a message to the thousands of pilgrims gathered for the 36th International Youth Festival in Medjugorje August 4-8, said that the theme for this year’s edition — “We will go to the house of the Lord” (Psalm 122:1) — resonated deeply with him.

“No one walks alone,” Pope Leo repeated. “We encourage each other. We ignite each other. The flames of our hearts unite to become one great fire that lights the way forward. You too, dear young people, are not solitary pilgrims. This path toward the Lord is one we walk together. That is the beauty of a faith lived out in the Church.”

“Remember: no algorithm will ever replace an embrace, a look, a real encounter — with God, with family or with friends.” (Vatican News) WEDNESDAY 6 POPE ON HIROSHIMA ANNIVERSARY: “LET JUSTICE REPLACE A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY” On the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima August 6 (photo), Pope Leo XIV dedicated some time to remembering the tens of thousands killed and injured on August 6, 1945.

He also recalled that three days later, the world would mark another sad anniversary: Nagasaki.

At the close of his General Audience, the Pope offered words of solidarity, “I wish to assure my prayers for all those who have suffered its physical, psychological, and social consequences.”

He highlighted that despite the eight decades which have passed since the bombings, “those tragic events remain a universal warning against the devastation caused by war — and particularly by nuclear weapons.”

Pope Leo expressed his hope that the world today — plagued by intense divisions and deadly violence — will replace its false sense of security “based on the threat of mutual destruction” with justice, open dialogue, and trust in fraternity.

(The CatholicThing.org) m SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

59

PEOPLE B M Y

ATTHEW TROJACEK with Grzegorz Galazka photos

STATEMENT BY ROBERT PREVOST AGAINST DEATH PENALTY COMES TO LIGHT Newly surfaced records reveal that on March 9, 2011, the same day Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a landmark law abolishing the death penalty, a message of support arrived in the governor’s inbox from a man listed simply as Robert F. Prevost – now Pope Leo XIV. Submitted through the governor’s official website, the message thanked Quinn for his “courageous decision,” commending his “vision and understanding” on what it called a “very complex matter.”

At the time, Prevost was not yet a bishop, let alone a Pope. He was serving as the global head of the Augustinian order, having spent years as a missionary and Church leader in Peru. His ties to Illinois, however, remained rooted: he had been born in Chicago and, according to the message, was staying at a residence owned by his brother in New Lenox, a suburb of the city.

When informed of the message, Quinn, who said he had never heard of Prevost at the time, was stunned. “Can you text me a copy of the letter?” he reportedly asked. “I think I’ll frame it.” (Zenit) VATICAN CARDINAL: ‘DESIRABLE’ TO OPEN DOOR NOW CLOSED TO TRADITIONAL MASS Speaking to Austrian website kath.net, Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, opined on the question of liturgy under Pope Leo XIV. Though admitting he has not spoken to Leo about this question, Koch presented his own hopes for the Traditional Liturgy: “Personally, I would appreciate it if we could find a good way forward here. Pope Benedict XVI has shown a helpful way by believing that something that has been practiced for centuries cannot simply be banned. That convinced me.

“Pope Francis has chosen a very restrictive path in this regard. It would certainly be desirable to open the now closed door more again.” (LifeSite) A SAINT OF AND FOR OUR TIMES Peter To Rot (from Papua New Guinea, 1912-1945) illustrates why Pope Saint John Paul II accelerated the canonization process: to showcase both modern examples of holiness and the modern persecution of the Church. Beatified in 1995 by John Paul, Peter died a martyr’s death in odium fidei [“in hatred of the faith”].

He is to be canonized on October 19, 2025.

Peter, born in 1912, was a second-generation Catholic. At age 18, in 1930, Peter went off to become a zealous catechist who continued to spread the Gospel. He married in 1936 and had three children.

His true test came with the Second World War. Imperial Japan had taken over Papua New Guinea, arresting Christian clergy and putting them in an internment camp.

Peter stepped into the gap, baptizing children, organizing 60 INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025

FROM ONE “14” TO ANOTHER: WHITE SOX GREAT PAUL KONERKO GETS GIFT FROM POPE LEO XIV IN HONOR OF 2005 TITLE

White Sox great Paul Konerko got a present from one No. 14 to another in honor of the 20th anniversary of the 2005 World Series championship run — a jersey signed by noted Chicago fan Pope Leo XIV. Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, presented Konerko a jersey with the new pontiff’s signature on the back during a ceremony prior to the game against the Cleveland Guardians. It had the six-time All-Star’s last name and “Pope Leo” above the No. 14.

“It’s kind of surreal,” Konerko said. “I’m sure my mom will ask for dibs on it.”

Konerko said he was going to sign a jersey to be sent to Pope Leo. “I’m not sure he’s going to be as excited for mine to arrive, but we’ll see,” he said. (Crux) prayer, providing spiritual counsel, and instructing people in the Faith.

When the Japanese tried to restore the pre-Catholic practice of polygamy, Peter criticized it and was arrested. The Japanese sent a doctor to the camp who gave him a fatal injection; from then on, he was regarded locally as the “martyr catechist.” (Crisis) PONTIFICAL UNIVERSITY DISTANCES ITSELF FROM FRANCIS COLLABORATOR The Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm (the Anselmianum) issued a statement June 23 distancing itself from the views expressed by a professor, Andrea Grillo, in which he criticized the Eucharistic spirituality of Blessed Carlo Acutis.

Grillo wrote the following in a blog post about Blessed Acutis’ website documenting Eucharistic miracles: “How is it possible that a young blessed can communicate a Eucharistic theology so old, so heavy, so obsessive, so focused on the inessential and so neglectful instead on the decisive things?... Should we perhaps go so far as to say: we recognize him as a saint ‘despite his distorted fixation on Eucharistic miracles’?”

Grillo collaborated with Pope Francis on the Pope’s 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which severely restricted the availability of the Traditional Mass. (Rorate Caeli)

LEÓN DE PERÚ: NEW VATICAN MEDIA DOCUMENTARY RETRACING POPE’S MISSION IN PERU A new documentary entitled León de Perú (the Spanish for Leo of Peru) follows the footsteps of Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. Produced by Vatican Media’s journalists Salvatore Cernuzio, Felipe Herrera-Espaliat, and Jaime Vizcaíno Haro, the documentary depicts the years the Augustinian Pope spent in the Latin American country.

The film unfolds across Chulucanas, Trujillo, Lima, Callao, and Chiclayo, touching small and large cities, villages, districts, suburbs, parishes, schools, and religious houses.

In these places, then-Father and later Bishop Prevost celebrated Mass, preached, taught, formed religious, met with youth, celebrated birthdays, and practiced active charity amid tragedies like the El Niño floods and the coronavirus pandemic. Leon de Perú was first made available on the official channels of Vatican Media at the end of June, 2025. (VaticanNews)

POPE LEO XIV APPOINTS CARDINAL PIZZABALLA TO DICASTERY FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE On Thursday, July 3, 2025, the Vatican announced that Pope Leo XIV had appointed Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, to the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue. Other appointees include Cardinal Frank Leo, Archbishop of Toronto; Archbishop Mitchell Thomas Rozanski of Saint Louis; Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, England; Bishop Brendan Leahy of Limerick, Ireland; and Cardinal Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, S.V.D., the Archbishop of Tokyo. (LifeSite)

UN headquarters in New York. The issue: the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution.

The Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent ObVATICAN’S UN REPRESENTATIVE: ISRAEL’S server of the Holy See to the United Nations, SELF-DEFENSE MUST BE PROPORTIONAL Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, explained that For three days — 28-30 July — United Nations member “in the light of the profound anguish and terstates joined the High-level International Conference at the rible human suffering that has befallen the region,” the Holy See “unequivocally” condemns the Hamas attack of OctoTIME DEDICATES ITS COVER AND A MAJOR REPORT TO ber 7, 2023.

POPE LEO XIV: FROM US MIDWEST ROOTS TO “Terrorism can never be justified,” the THE CHAIR OF PETER Permanent Observer argued.

Weeks after the white smoke signaled a new era for the Catholic But he also emphasized that self defense Church, a quiet storm continues to swirl around a modest home on the outmust be contained within the “traditional skirts of Chicago. The mailbox overflows limits of necessity and proportionality.” with letters, the phone rings late into the Archbishop Caccia stressed the concern night, and baseballs arrive in the hope of of the Holy See over the thousands of chilbeing signed by the new Pope. But Robert dren who have died and the many homes, Francis Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV — hospitals, and places of worship destroyed. didn’t rise to the papacy through ambition (Vatican News) or theatrics. According to those who know him best, his life has been a slow, BURCH CONFIRMED AS NEW AMsteady shaping by faith, people, and provBASSADOR TO THE HOLY SEE idence.

The US Senate on August 2 confirmed In a cover story titled “The Making of former CatholicVote president and founder the Pope,” Time Magazine’s Belinda Brian Burch to serve as U.S. Luscombe paints a portrait of a man ambassador to the Holy See. formed less by Vatican intrigue than by The Catholic father of nine pastoral grit, theological pafrom Chicago was confirmed tience, and the steady presin a 49-44 vote, which was sure of humility. Her report is as much about the road that originally blocked by Democled him to the papal balcony on May 8, 2025, as it is about rats. “In a remarkable coincidence, what kind of Pope he might become. or what I prefer to attribute to providence, The legacy of Leo XIV may be just beginning. But its Pope Leo XIV is from Chicago, which is roots lie not in Vatican corridors but in an ordinary boy’s quiet also my hometown,” said Burch. (NCR)m decision to serve — and the extraordinary life that followed. (Zenit) SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 61

Food FoR THoUGHT n BY MOTHER MARTHA

O

ne sunny autumn afterThe first of its four sections noon in 79 AD the volconcerns ancient Herculaneum’s ast ays of omPei cano Mount Vesuvius most important food: bread. The ood From ggs to pplEs erupted, ejecting a cloud of poisobread displayed here was made nous gases and molten ashes some with many different grains like rEsErvEd in AvA 20 miles into the sky before it spelt, millet, barley and wheat, in buried the town of Pompei under shapes like round loaves or flat some 20 feet of ash — killing like today’s pizza. At first the over 2,000 of Pompei’s 15,000 ingrains were home-ground and habitants. home baked. Later, bakeries proHowever, very little ash fell on duced both bread and cakes; some nearby Herculaneum, allowing aleven baked their clients’ bread, most all of its 5,000 inhabitants to inscribing the dough with the escape before the town was owner’s initials. buried under 66 feet of lava which Also on display here are millflowed down the mountainside in stones, primitive hand-turned six successive surges on the next mixers and bronze baking dishes day. and trays.

Only some 350 people died — On display in the “Not to Bake, carbonized — at Herculaneum. to Cook” section are legumes: Once the lava solidified, this rich lentils, chickpeas and dried peas town, a seaside retreat for the Roand beans, the common ingrediman elite, was preserved under ents for thick soups, popular nourthe lava, charred but nearly intact The Last Day of Pompeii by Russian painter Karl Pavlovich Bryullov ishment during the autumn and because of the lack of oxygen. (1833). Below, a broken loaf of bread preserved in hardened lava winter, as well as numerous terraThus, many wooden objects such as roofs, beds and doors, cotta pots. as well as other organic-based materials such as food and Also here are iron spits and grills for meats, usually chickpapyrus, were preserved. en, rabbit or lamb, and bronze cooking utensils.

For many centuries it was believed that Mount Vesuvius Highlights include a covered bronze boiler filled with wahad erupted during the summer. However, recent excavation ter, omnipresent on the stove so there would always be hot and research have determined for several reasons water for soups and braised meats; a large that the eruption took place on or after Ocdecorated bronze “barrel” or cista, also tober 17. filled with water but for general household For example, the Pompeians buried under use; a store’s multi-shelved wooden cupash were wearing heavier clothing than their board, still containing amphoras of olive light summer clothes. Coins found in a oil and wines, sacks of flour, onions, dried woman’s purse include one minted with a vegetables, pine nuts, almonds, olives, 15th Imperatorial acclamation among the dates from Egypt, and terracotta or glass Emperor Titus’s titles, impossible before the jars of honey and valuable spices like second week of September. Wine in fermentpepper from India. There is also a section ing jars found at both archeological sites had of a septic tank containing human waste been sealed, which would have happened from the latrines often located next to the kitchen, as well around the end of October. And fresh fruits and vegetables as culinary discards like fruit pits, egg shells, meat and fish excavated in the shops are typical of October; conversely, bones, and broken dishes and cooking utensils. fruits typical of August were already being sold in dried or The highlights of “Shopping List” are frescoes on loan conserved form. from the National Museum of Archeology in Naples of mulGoing on in Herculaneum until December 31 at the maglets and shellfish, and another of amphoras labelled with the nificently frescoed 18th-century rococo Villa Campolieto local wines for sale, hand-held scales, coins, and a locellus designed by the Neapolitan architect and painter Luigi Vanor wallet made of wood, bronze and silver, dropped by its vitelli (1700-1773) is the exhibition, “From Eggs to Apples: owner, probably while in flight from the terrifying lava flow The Culture of Food and the Pleasures of the Table in Anafter the volcano’s eruption. cient Herculaneum.”

The artifacts in “From Breakfast to Dinner” are items of This first-time exhibition, devoted entirely to ancient tableware, and foods, at the three daily meals: Ientaculum, “Roman” food, gets its name from a proverb: “ab ovo usque Prandium and Coena, and a larva convivialis — a banquet ad mala,” composed by the ancient Roman poet Horace, table decoration consisting of a miniature silver skeleton, who was alluding to the Roman tradition of starting a meal there to remind the guests, usually both men and women, with eggs and finishing it with apples. that life is short and its pleasures should be enjoyed. m

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Prepare for Eucharistic Adoration and Processions Let us help you select a beautiful monstrance, tabernacle, and altar candlesticks for your adoration chapel and sanctuary.

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Reliquaries Tabernacles Clergy Wear Sanctuary Lamps Statuary Clergy Accessories Thuribles Mass Kits Albs and Surplices Altar and Floor Viaticum Kits Altar Linens Candlesticks Religious Jewelry Candles Crucifixes Vestments …and much more 816-A Harding Street When a seminarian purchases a chalice from Southern Liturgicals we will donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of that chalice to Lafayette, Louisiana 70503 the Seminary Education fund/Seminary Burse to the respective diocese he is going to be ordained to the priesthood for in his name. We want (337) 456-5892 to give back to lend our support to the Seminarians coming behind that seminarian being ordained to help with the expenses of educating SouthernLiturgicals.com priests. This program is strictly limited to the United States Seminarians as the International wiring fee of funds would make it cost prohibitive.

We are an A mer icanowned and operated company financially supporting the spiritual and academic formation of future priests since 1992.

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Celebrate the Triumph of Jesus Christ Easter in Italy Pilgrimage March 30 – April 9, 2026

Join us on pilgrimage and renew your faith during the Jubilee of Hope!

Easter in Italy Pilgrimage March 30-April 9, 2026 Our Easter 2026 pilgrimage will begin almost a week before Easter in Assisi — the city of St. Francis — in the Umbrian hills near the very center of Italy. Assisi is one of the loveliest, most peaceful cities in the world. The very light and air of the city seem filled with the presence of the spirits of St. Francis and St. Clare.

During this Holy Pilgrimage, we will also travel to Norcia, the birthplace of St. Benedict. Tucked beneath sparkling, snow-caped mountains, Norcia is the scene of a poignant and unforgettable Good Friday procession.

Our final and climactic destination is the eternal City itself – Rome – where we will attend Easter Vigil Mass, and then Easter Sunday Mass, celebrated by Pope Leo XIV and continue the festivities on Easter Monday (“la Pasquetta”) in Manoppello, at the shrine of the miraculous Holy Face. These liturgies, celebrating the triumph of Jesus Christ over sin and death, are among the most splendid and joyous in the Church’s calendar.

Join us for this joyous Easter celebration!

Visit us online for more information on this moving spiritual pilgrimage.

PILGRIMAGE@INSIDETHEVATICAN.COM ∞ +1.202.536.4555 ∞ InsideTheVaticanPilgrimages.com