Dancing With the Devil

Bishops rev their hips, Burke praises VCII, and the FSSP get evicted. Welcome to Leo’s “golden age.”

(Bishop José Leopoldo Gonzalez of San Juan de los Lagos, Mexico, dances the Motorcito)

Cardinal Burke’s Soft Surrender

Cardinal Raymond Burke, once a lion of tradition, took to X on July 21st with what read more like a retirement announcement than a rallying cry.

“After the Second Vatican Council, there was a great emphasis on the Mass, which is wonderful…”

“Wonderful”?

Let’s rewind. What followed Vatican II was not some golden age of Eucharistic reverence. It was liturgical demolition. The Roman Rite was gutted. Latin was banned. High altars were wrecked. Gregorian chant was replaced with felt banners and tambourines. Priests faced the people and turned their backs on God. And yes, men like Cardinal Burke know this. They lived through it.

And yet here he is, spinning this as a renewal of “emphasis on the Mass.”

No, Your Eminence. What we got was an emphasis on novelty, experimentation, and irreverence: on communion in the hand, altar girls, balloons, and banality. The only thing emphasized was that nothing sacred could remain untouched. And the few who objected, priests, laity, and even bishops, were silenced, exiled, or told to “get with the Council.”

For Burke to describe this era as “wonderful” is absurd. Because if even he can’t tell the truth, who will?

The “Golden Age” of Seminaries: We’re Just Kicking Out More Men Now

Meanwhile, U.S. Catholic media has decided to rebrand decline as renaissance. An article this week in the National Catholic Register announces: “US Catholic Seminaries Said to Be in a ‘Golden Age.’”

That’s right. Vocations are still in free fall, but we’re told things have never been better. Why? Because there’s more psychological screening now. Because seminarians read von Balthasar instead of Rahner. Because some guys get dismissed before ordination.

That’s the bar.

What we’re not told is that this “golden age” still forbids the Tridentine Mass, still teaches Vatican II as a non-negotiable dogma, and still forms priests who will spend their ministries navigating DEI workshops, synodal listening sessions, and “accompaniment” guidelines.

We’re told these men want “a strong, clear proclamation of the full Gospel.” But where does that Gospel live if they’re forbidden to say the Mass of Ages? Where does that clarity go when they’re sent to parishes where every doctrine is negotiated and every sacrament is “pastorally adapted”?

The real golden age of seminaries ended in 1965. What we have now is the gilded facade of renewal over the crumbling structure of postconciliar collapse.

When Bishops Dance and Priests Sleep in Cars

While the Vatican praises its own maturity, Bishop José Leopoldo González of Mexico decided to show his spiritual gravitas by dancing “el motorcito” on stage, revving invisible handlebars to a children’s song. This is what episcopal ministry looks like in the synodal church: not shepherds calling their flocks to penance, but aging clerics trying to go viral.

Contrast this with France, where faithful Catholics, old and young, are sleeping in tents outside shuttered churches, begging for the return of the Latin Mass. The FSSP apostolate in Valence has been canceled because the priests refused to concelebrate the Novus Ordo Chrism Mass. Thirteen catechism groups? Gone. All sacraments but one weekly Mass? Abolished. Hundreds of families? Ignored.

And yet the faithful still fast. They still pray. They still show up.

They are not dancing. They are doing penance for the sins of bishops who would rather impose obedience than preserve Tradition.

Leo Chants Latin, So Everything’s Fine

But don’t worry, Catholic influencers say everything’s looking up! Pope Leo XIV wears traditional vestments and smiles. He kisses babies. He is upbeat. He’s a “man of tradition,” we’re told.

Just don’t look too closely.

Leo has kept every major policy from Francis. He continues the Vatican’s China deal. He praises Laudato Si’. He backs Fiducia Supplicans. He promotes women to power over clergy, embraces synodality, and keeps Fernández. He hasn’t said a word about restoring the Latin Mass. But he did mention Eastern liturgies once, and for some trads, that’s enough.

Where Peter Is couldn’t be more thrilled. Their latest piece mocks those who see hope in Leo’s aesthetic while affirming that doctrinally, structurally, and pastorally, Leo is Francis 2.0.

And they’re right.

Leo wears the costume of restoration while enforcing the substance of revolution. And Burke applauds the Council that enabled it all. Things are going great!

The Real Golden Age Is in the Parking Lot

The golden age isn’t in Washington seminaries or dancing bishops. It’s in the French layman keeping vigil outside Notre Dame de Valence. It’s in the mother teaching catechism from her car because the chancery shut the doors. It’s in the fasting, the devotion, the heartbreak of the faithful clinging to tradition when their shepherds dance or delude themselves.

The golden age is among the laity who refuse to forget.

The ones who still believe the Mass is not just “wonderful,” but the unchanging, untouchable center of Catholic life. The ones who know that Vatican II didn’t renew the liturgy, it wrecked it. The ones who aren’t fooled by vestments and Latin in a Church that still persecutes Tradition.

And while the bishops smile and spin, we kneel and wait.

Because the golden age is not here.

But it will return.