From Recognize and Resist to Recognize and Retreat

From the Fire of Archbishop Lefebvre to begging for crumbs: The sad legacy of Trad Inc.

The Filial Appeal That Falls on Deaf Ears

Edward Pentin reports that a coalition of Catholic associations, inspired by TFP founder Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, has delivered a “filial appeal” to Leo, begging him to revoke Fiducia Supplicans and restate perennial Catholic doctrine on sexuality and marriage.

The timing could not be more surreal. Hours earlier, Leo told Crux:

“We have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the Church says about any given question.”

He was speaking specifically about homosexuality and marriage. Not only did he defend Fiducia Supplicans, he openly admitted that doctrine itself could change once people’s attitudes catch up.

So the filial appeal is dead on arrival. Francis binned the 2015 appeal with 850,000 signatures. Leo has already made clear he is continuing the project, just with softer tones and a smile. Asking him to revoke Fiducia Supplicans is like asking a man to saw off the limb he’s sitting on.

The Placeholder Strategy

Leo’s words reveal his role: a 20-year placeholder, tasked with cementing the Bergoglian revolution while stacking the College of Cardinals. His “pastoral” method is to preach humanistic platitudes, avoid polarizing statements, and give the press nothing to panic about. But the engine keeps running: Fiducia Supplicans stays, Fernández stays at the DDF, the bishops pushing homosexuality and women’s ordination keep their red hats.

Leo admitted as much: change doctrine? Not “impossible,” just “highly unlikely, certainly in the near future.” That means he’s waiting. He is the smiling time-waster who will hand the next pope a Church whose “attitudes” have been reshaped enough to permit doctrinal change outright.

The Liturgy as Leverage

What Leo said about the Latin Mass is revealing, not for its theology, but for its politics. He admitted he has never really engaged with advocates for the Tridentine rite. Yet somehow he already knows what the “issue” is: polarization, ideology, division. In other words, if trads want their Mass, they must prove their loyalty by not being “ideological.”

That is a loyalty test. Leo has converted the ancient Roman Rite into a bargaining chip, to be granted or withheld depending on how much silence he can buy from its adherents.

And it worked. The very people who once thundered that the Mass is the “right of every Catholic” now speak in the hushed tones of supplicants. Instead of demanding the return of their patrimony, they polish their manners, modulate their critiques, and pray they can pass the attitude test Leo has devised.

This is how the revolution consolidates itself: not by outright abolition, but by weaponizing permission. The Mass becomes not the immemorial inheritance of the Church, but a conditional privilege and conditional privileges always come at the price of truth.

Trad Inc.’s Capitulation

And silent they are. Look at the responses:

• Kwasniewski counsels civility and patience, urging trads to put their “best foot forward” so Leo will look kindly on them.

  

• Rorate Caeli waves away concerns as “overreactions” and praises Leo’s “measured and careful” style.

  

• Michael Matt crows that his “wait and see” strategy has been vindicated, ignoring that Leo just defended gay blessings and dangled doctrinal evolution on sexuality.

  

• Gavin Ashenden goes full satire, insisting Leo’s ambiguous words are “coded Catholic broadside against the heterodox.”

  

Meanwhile, ordinary Catholics in comment sections are calling out the insanity: how can a pope claim doctrine depends on attitudes, or say it is merely “unlikely” that marriage teaching will change?

But Trad Inc. can’t hear them. They’ve traded Archbishop Lefebvre’s fire for a place at the table.

Recognize and Retreat

This is not recognize and resist. This is recognize and retreat.

Trad Inc.’s strategy is to zip their lips, pretend ambiguity is orthodoxy, and beg for crumbs of diocesan Latin Masses. They will praise Leo as merciful if he offers concessions. They will claim vindication when the crumbs fall, boasting that “waiting and seeing” bore fruit.

But the reality is stark: Leo has already defended gay blessings, minimized the difference between the TLM and the Novus Ordo, and admitted that doctrine itself can evolve.

Silence in the face of such heresy is complicity.

Conclusion

We are living through a surrealist episode of Candid Camera. The cameras will not come out to reveal the joke. This is the joke.

Trad Inc. leaders decided within twenty-four hours of Leo’s election to lay down their arms. They want the best terms of surrender they can get, even if it means living under a Church where sodomy is smiled upon, where doctrine depends on popular attitudes, and where the Tridentine Mass is reduced to a consolation prize.

From Archbishop Lefebvre’s fire to begging for crumbs; this is the sad legacy of Trad Inc.

The Ballad of Trad Inc.