Ashenden: Leo is Now Speaking in Code!

Trad Inc. to Sell Decoder Rings for $39.95

The “Code” That Isn’t

Gavin Ashenden tells readers to break out the decoder ring: Leo XIV’s Crux interview is allegedly a “coded Catholic broadside” against heterodoxy, a kind of stealth orthodoxy that tethers revolutionary rockets to magisterial sandbags. This is the new sport in certain circles: parsing ambiguities as victories and reading tea leaves as dogma. Leo’s line on the Latin Mass is a punt to “sit down & talk” about it under the banner of synodality. We have been “sitting down and talking” since 1965. Meanwhile Traditionis Custodes remains the standing order on the field. If the code really disarms the revolution, one expects fireworks to stop going off. They haven’t.

On women’s ordination, Ashenden applauds a clever deflection: keep praising women’s “leadership roles,” re-raise the specter of clericalism, and treat the diaconate question as a procedural pre-question. That may be deft politics. It is not the clear repudiation that ends the game. On sexuality, we’re offered “highly unlikely” as a proxy for “impossible.” That’s not how Catholic doctrine speaks when it means business. The bar for orthodoxy is not “sounds better than Francis.” The bar is clarity.

Quietism With Better Lighting

Ashenden’s long sit-down with Michael Matt doubles as a commercial for the Catholic Identity Conference. The backstory is familiar: faithful laity, good bishops, prudent rhetoric, and “uniting the clans.” Fine. But the new pitch lands like an old sales script: stay respectful, avoid scandal, keep hope alive, and don’t “sound off” online. Translation in 2025: lower your voice and maybe you’ll get a gym slot for the Latin Mass. The movement that once said “expose the crisis” now says “mind the optics.” The revolution loves optics. It wins while its opponents whisper.

“Silence for Sacraments” Scorecard

How is the quiet strategy working on the ground? In Monterey, Bishop Daniel Garcia just terminated the TLM at Sacred Heart, Hollister, invoking “unity” and the postconciliar rite as the one expression of the Roman liturgy. He cites Traditionis Custodes to close the door and urges the faithful to “join in unity” at the table; precisely the rhetoric used to evict families from the very Mass that formed the saints. We are told an obscure Texas parish received an exemption months ago. Since Leo’s election, no others have been reported. That’s the scoreboard. If the plan is “be calm and they will relent,” the other side didn’t get the memo.

Listening Rooms in the World’s Confessional

St. Peter’s Basilica will open a “listening room” where priests, religious, and laity hear worries and doubts, explicitly “not a substitute for confession.” Rome builds a counseling nook in the heart of Christendom while shuttering the ancient rite that actually reconciles sinners to God in the most austere, transcendent form the West ever knew. It is the pastoralism of feelings without the grammar of repentance. Confessionals already exist, staffed in many languages. The crisis is not a shortage of sofas.

Dialogue All the Way Down

The National Catholic-Muslim Dialogue meets again to “journey together,” now expanding to ecology, AI, and “spiritual communion between Catholics and Muslims.” This is a horizontal program to harmonize the nations through papers and panels. The pattern is fixed: when doctrine grows awkward, shift the conversation to common projects. When worship divides, emphasize shared values. When souls ask for bread, give them a symposium.

Laudato Si’ Jubilee Roadshow

Next week Leo headlines “Raising Hope for Climate Justice” with religious leaders, activists, and civil officials. Expect the set pieces: a “Celebration of Hope,” a shared commitment, and photo-ops with dignitaries like Marina Silva and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Climate stewardship is not a novelty; prudence and gratitude for creation belong to the moral law. The novelty is priority. Rome rations the Latin Mass but spares no expense for another environmental convocation. The liturgical patrimony is treated like contraband; the conference circuit is treated like mission.

Unity—But Around What?

Garcia’s letter in Monterey invokes unity as the reason to abolish the TLM. The Basilica’s listening room invokes openness as a substitute for conversion. The Dialogue invokes solidarity as a stand-in for mission. The climate conference invokes hope detached from penance. Everywhere the watchword is togetherness; nowhere the question is truth. Unity without the Faith is choreography. It photographs beautifully and starves the Church.

Stop Trading Truth for Gym Time

The script from “Trad Inc.” is that docility buys access. It hasn’t. Families are still displaced. Priests are still threatened. The few exemptions are treated like relics in a reliquary of scarcity. Refusing to name the crisis doesn’t soften hearts in Rome; it only fogs the minds of the flock. The faithful don’t need decoder rings. They need shepherds who say what the Church says, in public, without apologies, and then act accordingly.

Choose Clarity

We are told the pope speaks in code. Apostles did not. We are told to wait for processes. Martyrs did not. We are told that listening is love. Christ heard the rich young man, and then told him to sell everything. The choice in 2025 is not between rage and hush. It is between clarity and choreography. One feeds the Church. The other feeds the machine.