Blessings for Sin, Stoles for Heretics, and Silence for Tradition: Leo XIV’s Church Is Francis’s Church

From Spain to San Diego, Leo XIV’s episcopal appointments and silent toleration of sacrilege reveal a Church that blesses sin, imitates heresy, and buries tradition, while calling it pastoral care.

The pontificate of Leo XIV continues to unveil itself as an intensification of everything his predecessor began. This week, I present three overlooked stories from Spain, San Diego, and Rome converge into a single unsettling theme: sacrilege is rewarded, confusion is celebrated, and fidelity is punished. Welcome to the Synodal Spring.

I. Málaga: Promoting the Blessings of Sodomy

Let’s start in Spain. On June 27, Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop José Antonio Satué Huerto to the Diocese of Málaga. Satué is no stranger to ecclesial bureaucracy. He’s worked in the Congregation for Clergy, been close to Cardinal Omella, and played inquisitor in the Gaztelueta case. But his most notable credential is this: he was an enthusiastic supporter of Fiducia Supplicans, the 2023 Vatican document that authorized blessings for homosexual “couples.”

In his public statement at the time, Satué praised the document for helping Catholics appreciate the “attitude” of those seeking blessings, never mind that the “attitude” in question is one of unrepentant sin. He dutifully parroted the party line: the blessings aren’t liturgical, they don’t equate sin with marriage, they don’t confuse anyone, unless, of course, you have eyes, ears, or a functioning sensus fidei.

So what does Leo do with a bishop like that? He promotes him. From a quiet rural diocese of 90,000 Catholics to the sprawling diocese of Málaga, home to nearly 1.3 million. And the Spanish press tells us Satué had his eyes on Barcelona next. Whether or not he gets that prize, one thing is clear: under Leo, advancing moral confusion is not a disqualifier, it’s the résumé.

II. San Diego: World Refugee Day, or Women’s Vestment Day?

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in San Diego, the Diocese marked World Refugee Day on June 20th with a public Eucharistic celebration. But instead of honoring Christ or even refugees, the cathedral liturgy devolved into an ideological spectacle.

Broadcast live, the Mass featured non-Catholics standing in the sanctuary and women clad in stoles: vestments reserved for ordained clergy. At least one woman appeared to take part in roles that would suggest concelebration. This is no longer liturgical abuse, but an open profanation of the altar.

Forget Ordinatio Sacerdotalis declaring definitively that the Church has no authority to ordain women. Forget Redemptionis Sacramentum, which bans lay people from taking priestly roles. Forget Canon Law. In the age of synodality, the sanctuary is anyone’s playground, as long as they’re not traditional.

What consequences will Bishop Michael Pham face for presiding over this event? What public correction will come from Rome? You already know the answer: none. Because in Leo’s Church, if you vest a woman like a priest or let a Protestant imitate a celebrant, you’re being “inclusive.” But say the Roman Canon in Latin and you’re a dangerous threat to unity.

III. Phil Lawler Finally Admits the Obvious

Even Phil Lawler, hardly a Trad, has begun to read the writing on the wall. In a July 9 column, he concedes that Leo XIV will not reverse Traditionis Custodes, the Francis-era document that seeks to annihilate the Traditional Latin Mass. Why? Because Leo, like Francis, governs by continuity of revolution. To revoke Traditionis Custodes would be to admit that the papacy can err grievously, and that’s a level of theological honesty modern Rome cannot afford.

Instead, Lawler predicts, the document will simply be reinterpreted out of existence someday: quietly, slowly, bureaucratically. But even this is too optimistic. Leo isn’t looking to walk back Traditionis Custodes. If anything, he’s preparing to entrench it with smiling Jesuit firmness. And why wouldn’t he? He’s already filling the episcopate with Fiducia fanboys and allowing stoles-on-women in cathedrals. The Latin Mass was never going to survive under a pope like that.

One Church, One Program: Inclusion Without Repentance

You may be tempted to think these three stories, one from Spain, one from California, one from Rome, are isolated. They aren’t. They form the pillars of a single structure: a Church that has traded penitence for permissiveness and worship for theater.

• Bishop Satué blesses sin in the name of “pastoral care.”

• Bishop Pham lets heresy play priest on the feast of human rights.

• Pope Leo silently oversees it all with dignified indifference, refusing to correct even the worst abuses so long as they fit the synodal script.

This is not an unfortunate oversight or a temporary confusion. It is programmatic.

The postconciliar Church has created a new model of governance: punish tradition, reward sacrilege, and call it accompaniment.

How Long, O Lord?

We are not witnessing the twilight of a failed reform. instead, we are living under the full flower of its success. The men who hated the Latin Mass and blessed sodomy are not being corrected, they’re being enthroned. The women who simulate the priesthood are not being barred from the altar, they’re being welcomed into it. And those who resist it all in fidelity to the Catholic faith? They are being driven underground.

So when they tell you that Leo XIV is “conservative” or “balanced,” remember Málaga. Remember San Diego. And remember that Traditionis Custodes is still law, because it always was the law of this revolution.

The Church cannot die. But She can be eclipsed. And in that shadow, the faithful remnant must resist with sorrow, sacrifice, and the unyielding truth.