Instead of Recalling the Defective Product, Rome Hired a Better Salesman

The documents are the same, the doctrine unchanged, but now the salesman plays piano.

Nearly two months after the white smoke, Trad Inc. promised us a course correction. “Leo XIV will restore the dignity of the papal office,” they whispered. “He’s not like Francis. He’s better.” Now, almost eight weeks into his papacy, we’re beginning to see the outlines of the truth:

He’s not better, just more polished.

While Victor Manuel Fernández, architect of Fiducia Supplicans, assures the world that the LGTBI blessings “will remain,” Pope Leo XIV is playing Bartók on the piano, replying to WhatsApp messages at 3am, and giving speeches about hope and discipleship, much to the delight of public relations priests like Fr. Moral, who can’t stop praising his “rare balance.” But the substance? That’s still pure Bergoglio.

Meet the Man, Not the Mission

In a gushing puff piece from Il Messaggero, Fr. Alejandro Moral describes Leo as an indefatigable multitasker: a thinner, busier, more likable pontiff who takes time to answer messages personally, works on his encyclical in the evenings, and still squeezes in a set of tennis now and then. We’re told he governs with “judgment, loyalty, and transparency.” He even plays the piano.

But we are also told, almost offhandedly, that his thought hasn’t changed. He still holds the same views, just filtered through a more “diplomatic” lens. Same policies. Same trajectory. Just with a better user interface.

This is not reform, it is rebranding.

The Francis 2.0 Papacy: A Software Update, Not a Recall

Let’s not forget who Leo was before March 2025. A loyalist. A defender of synodality. An enabler of the Francis agenda who floated AI in theology and never challenged Amoris Laetitia, Traditionis Custodes, or the pachamama pageantry. Those who hoped he’d throw Fiducia Supplicans in the trash were delusional. Cardinal Fernández just reaffirmed the document’s permanence. And Leo? Not a whisper of objection. He’ll talk about compassion, peace, dialogue, but never about truth unmoored from novelty.

His speeches reflect it. To the Danish, Irish, and English pilgrims, Leo offered a reflection on “digital noise,” encouraging kids to “listen to their hearts” (a theme pulled from every 2010s youth minister’s workshop). To religious sisters, he urged them to fight culture with “wisdom and listening.” To the street paper L’Osservatore di Strada, he praised their mission to let “the voiceless be heard.” Even his Angelus focused on the shortage of missionary zeal; not heresy, not doctrinal confusion, not liturgical chaos. No urgency. Just feelings.

Same Dogma-Free Gospel, Wrapped in a Nicer Box

Leo’s words overflow with warmth, but little substance. He calls for laborers of the harvest, but never addresses why Catholics are fleeing the fields, perhaps because his predecessor salted the earth. He praises young pilgrims but ignores the reality that most of their peers haven’t set foot in a church since confirmation. He celebrates listening, walking together, and dialogue while Traditionis Custodes still kneecaps the only form of liturgy that was drawing vocations and families.

The regime that told us ad orientem worship is “divisive,” communion on the tongue is “disobedient,” and kneeling is “preconciliar,” continues unchecked. The difference now? Leo smiles more.

The Real “Continuity” Is the Lie

The defenders of the current regime now insist there’s a “hermeneutic of continuity” between Leo and Benedict. That Leo is no longer Francis’s legacy, but a prudent pastor navigating nuance. But the documents remain. Fiducia Supplicans remains. Traditionis Custodes remains. Fernández remains.

The only thing that has changed is the tone. Rome didn’t recall the defective product. They just hired a better salesman.

The Scent of Lavender, Now with Citrus Notes

Behind the lavender drift still hangs the stench of synodal rot. You can perfume it with piano-playing and personal texts at 3am, but it’s still the same modernist enterprise: anthropocentric, sentimental, allergic to doctrinal clarity, and obsessed with consensus. Rome’s liturgical wreckage remains, its doctrinal ambiguity is emboldened, and its visibility is maintained through performative hope.

If Francis was the sledgehammer, Leo is the scalpel. But both are working from the same blueprint.

Conclusion: Don’t Fall for It

If you felt gaslit watching Trad Inc. do a 180 after the conclave, you weren’t imagining it. Within 24 hours, figures who once blasted Francis as a destroyer were praising Leo as a restorer, based on emotion, not substance. They mistook poise for principle, manners for orthodoxy, a silver tongue for silver lining.

But a salesman who believes in the defective product is more dangerous than one who doesn’t.

And Leo XIV believes.