Suicide is Canonized, Another Latin Mass is Banned, and an Openly “Gay” Priest Gives Lectures on “Living Queer.” Meanwhile the SSPX is in “Schism.”

A suicide memorial, Lutheran worship in a Catholic sanctuary, a suppressed Latin Mass, and the boundaries of Leo XIV’s open-door Church

Chicago’s Pastoral Canonization

On June 26, the Archdiocese of Chicago dedicated a memorial called At Peace near the main entrance of Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. The memorial offers families affected by suicide a place for prayer, remembrance, and mourning. Bishop Lawrence Sullivan described it as a visible sign that grieving families remain within God’s loving care. Those aims are humane and thoroughly compatible with Catholic charity.

Then the archdiocesan announcement crossed a line which Catholic theology has always approached with fear and trembling.

It declared that the Church now “affirms that they are with God, not condemned.” Father Charles Rubey, whose work inspired the memorial, repeated the assurance: the shrine shows survivors that their deceased loved ones “are with God.”

That is no longer a call to pray for the dead. It amounts to a pastoral canonization of an entire class of deceased persons.

Catholic doctrine gives abundant grounds for hope. Suicide is objectively grave matter because man holds his life in stewardship from God. At the same time, grave psychological disturbance, intense anguish, fear, or other conditions may reduce personal responsibility. God may grant a final act of repentance in the hidden instant between the deed and death. For those reasons, the Church prays for people who have taken their own lives and refuses to despair of their salvation. The Catechism states all of this with admirable precision. It never converts hope into knowledge.

That distinction protects three truths at once: the gravity of suicide, the mystery of individual culpability, and the sovereignty of God’s judgment.

A priest may tell a grieving mother that her son’s mental suffering could have impaired his freedom. He may remind her that divine mercy can reach a soul during its final moment. He may offer Masses, encourage prayers, and counsel trust in God. He has no authority to announce that the son enjoys the Beatific Vision.

The Chicago statement effectively abolishes the need for those suffrages. Souls already known to be in Heaven need celebration rather than intercession. The Requiem becomes a memorial service. The cemetery ceases to teach judgment, purgatory, and the necessity of dying in grace.

Its historical account also deserves scrutiny. The release says that the Church formerly denied funerals to suicide victims because of an inadequate understanding that has since undergone a “significant transformation.” Yet the older discipline was more discriminating than this account suggests. Canon 1240 of the 1917 Code applied the penalty to those who killed themselves deliberato consilio—by deliberate counsel—and allowed for signs of repentance. Older Catholic moral theology also recognized insanity and impaired reason as relevant to culpability. The traditional Church understood the difference between an objectively evil act and the subjective guilt of a suffering person.

Chicago has replaced that careful distinction with certainty in the opposite direction.

The danger reaches beyond theological terminology. A vulnerable person hearing that suicide victims are assuredly “with God” has been deprived of a vital warning. Catholic preaching historically joined compassion for the sinner to the sober reality of judgment. Once eternal beatitude becomes presumed, the deterrent force of doctrine collapses.

A memorial for grieving families could have proclaimed hope, mercy, prayer, and the sacredness of every human life. Chicago chose a stronger message: salvation has already been determined. If the sentence is intended universally, it conflicts with Catholic doctrine concerning mortal sin, particular judgment, and the possibility of hell. If it was intended merely as comforting rhetoric, it remains gravely irresponsible. Churchmen have no license to manufacture heavenly verdicts for therapeutic purposes.

Lutherans Receive the Keys

In Turin, the Church of San Francesco d’Assisi remains an active Catholic church. The Blessed Sacrament is reserved there and Catholic Masses continue to be celebrated. Since Pentecost 2020, it has also served as the regular worship space of the Evangelical Lutheran Community of Turin.

This is no occasional accommodation for a funeral or civic ceremony. The Archdiocese of Turin itself describes San Francesco as a Catholic church “in use by the Lutheran community.” The Lutherans installed Pastor Tobias Brendel there in September 2022. During that ceremony, a Catholic deacon presented him with a set of church keys, allowing the pastor to open and close the building without arranging access in advance. The Lutheran account described the gesture as the fruit of trust developed through their shared use of the church.

The arrangement fits comfortably within postconciliar ecumenical policy. The Vatican’s ecumenical vademecum says a diocesan bishop may offer a Catholic church to another Christian community when he believes the arrangement will create neither scandal nor confusion. Such sharing, the document explains, builds trust and mutual understanding.

Consider what occurs within that sanctuary. A Lutheran minister preaches under Catholic arches. A community founded upon doctrines condemned by the Council of Trent conducts its communion services there. The Catholic hierarchy calls this a fruitful expression of mutual trust.

Then compare the legal status of the Roman Mass.

Traditionis Custodes declared the liturgical books of Paul VI and John Paul II the “unique expression” of the Roman Rite’s law of prayer. It directed bishops to keep the older Mass outside parish churches, prevent the formation of new groups, and require priests to seek authorization for its continued celebration.

The subsequent Vatican Responsa supplied the governing principle with unusual candor. The old Mass is a “concession limited to these groups” and forms no part of the ordinary life of a parish. Use of a parish church requires a special dispensation and proof that every alternative venue is impossible.

A Lutheran pastor may receive the keys to a Catholic church. A Catholic priest trained in the inherited Roman Rite needs authorization to approach a parish altar. The Lutheran service belongs to an approved ecumenical relationship. The Mass of countless saints belongs to an exceptional group whose continued existence Rome intends to curtail.

This arrangement identifies the postconciliar hierarchy’s practical understanding of religious danger. Lutheran worship inside a Catholic sanctuary presents an opportunity for dialogue. The ancient Roman Mass presents an ecclesial threat.

The decisive issue is allegiance to the postconciliar settlement.

The Invisible Mass in Northfield

(Bishop Williams with girl altar boy)

That policy reached St. Gianna Beretta Molla Parish in Northfield, New Jersey, this summer. LifeSiteNews reported that Bishop Joseph Andrew Williams of Camden declined to renew permission for the parish’s Traditional Latin Mass following the retirement of Father Anthony Manuppella. The final celebration took place on June 28.

According to parishioners, the new administrator knows how to celebrate the old rite. Without episcopal permission, he now offers a Latin Novus Ordo ad orientem at noon. Parishioners also claimed that Father Manuppella had previously been chastised for publishing the Latin Mass time on the parish website and in the bulletin. The Diocese of Camden had provided no response when LifeSite published its report.

The Vatican’s Responsa says an exceptional parish celebration of the old rite should remain absent from the parish Mass schedule. The congregation may assemble, provided its worship remains obscure, provisional, and detached from ordinary parish life.

The old Mass must become invisible even when the faithful support it, the priest can celebrate it, and the parish possesses a suitable altar.

Rome once sent missionaries across continents carrying this rite. Its prayers formed nations, monasteries, saints, and martyrs. Under the present discipline, the same rite becomes an embarrassing family secret. It can survive in a borrowed building for a season, subject to review and revocation. Meanwhile, Lutheran worship in Turin acquires stability, publicity, diocesan approval, and its own set of keys.

Bismarck Draws the Boundary

The letter above was provided by a reader. It is dated July 9 and signed by Bishop David Kagan of Bismarck. According to reports from the diocese, it was read at Mass following the July 1 episcopal consecrations performed by the Society of Saint Pius X in Écône.

Its language is sweeping.

Bishop Kagan tells Catholics that every SSPX cleric is now a schismatic. He says formal adherents among the laity are schismatics as well. He warns that they can be denied Catholic burial, that SSPX absolutions are invalid, that marriages witnessed by SSPX priests are invalid, and that the Society’s other sacramental rites are gravely illicit. He then provides separate reconciliation procedures for formal adherents and for people who attended SSPX chapels primarily for liturgical or spiritual reasons.

The Vatican decree itself formally declared six bishops excommunicated: Bishops Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard Fellay, along with the four newly consecrated bishops. An accompanying explanatory note then widened the field. It declared all SSPX sacred ministers to be in schism, described formal lay adherents as schismatics and excommunicates, and declared SSPX confessions and marriages invalid.

Even journalists friendly to the Vatican noticed the juridical leap. America reported that the explanatory note “goes beyond” the decree and that sources questioned the legal weight of its expanded claims. The decree warns priests and laypeople that they would incur excommunication by adhering to the schism. The note changes tense and announces a present, collective status. Questions also arose concerning whether an explanatory note could withdraw sacramental faculties previously granted by Francis.

Canonists have already divided over the matter. One reading treats Leo’s intention as sufficiently clear to govern interpretation of the decree. Another argues that penal law requires strict construction, individual imputability, an external act, and consideration of ignorance, fear, and necessity. A general statement cannot look into the mind of every priest, religious, Third Order member, parent, and chapel attendee.

Bishop Kagan’s letter adopts the broadest and most punitive reading and delivers it from the pulpit as settled law.

The consecrations themselves raise serious questions of authority, necessity, jurisdiction, and prudence. Those questions deserve a separate treatment. The revealing feature here is Rome’s capacity for immediate, comprehensive enforcement when Vatican II and the reformed liturgy are at stake.

In Chicago, a statement touching mortal sin, judgment, and eternal salvation receives the widest charitable construction imaginable.

In Turin, Lutheran worship receives stable use of Catholic sacred space.

When the SSPX resists a conciliar and liturgical revolution, distinctions rapidly disappear. Every priest becomes a schismatic. Lay adherents enter danger of excommunication. Marriages and confessions lose validity. Dioceses are given procedures for bringing the faithful back into the approved structure.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin made the underlying issue explicit after the consecrations: the “fundamental issue is the Council.” Vatican II, he said, is a milestone that must be accepted and implemented.

That statement deserves to be read slowly. The dispute reaches beyond unauthorized episcopal consecrations. Rome considers acceptance of Vatican II a defining test of communion. A council presented for decades as pastoral has become the constitutional charter by which Catholics are admitted, tolerated, or excluded.

Sexual Revolutionaries Receive a Process

Father Bryan Massingale, the Fordham theologian who publicly identifies as homosexual, recently told NY1 that many people feared Francis’s successor would reverse the “welcoming overtures and advances” made toward the LGBT movement.

In April, Leo praised Francis’s 2023 decision permitting informal blessings for same-sex couples. He resisted further formalization because a new step would produce greater disunity. He also said Catholic moral discussion gives too much attention to sexual matters and identified justice, equality, and freedom as larger and more important issues.

The language preserves a formal boundary while protecting Francis’s pastoral trajectory. Leo declines to develop a ritual for blessing same-sex couples. He also declines to repudiate the premise, discipline the architects, or restore the previous clarity.

Massingale continues teaching theology, preaching, and presiding at weekend services. His public dissent becomes part of an ongoing conversation about identity and welcome. The SSPX receives a decree, a canonical category, sacramental disabilities, and diocesan instructions read from the pulpit.

This contrast explains how the contemporary hierarchy manages dissent. Progressive dissent receives biography, context, accompaniment, and time. Traditional resistance receives legal classification. The former is treated as a person’s journey. The latter becomes a crime against communion.

The contrast also clarifies the meaning of “unity.” Sexual and doctrinal confusion can remain unresolved for decades without threatening institutional unity. Refusal to accept the liturgical revolution threatens unity immediately. Communion has acquired a highly specific ideological center.

“Open Doors” at Castel Gandolfo

On July 11, Leo XIV ate lunch in the gardens of Castel Gandolfo with roughly 200 poor and socially vulnerable people. He spoke of his hunger for justice and genuine charity, and for a Church able to open its doors, welcome everyone, and regard no one as an enemy.

Leo’s ecclesiological slogan invites a question, especially nine days after the SSPX decree.

Who belongs inside the open door?

Traditional Catholics have spent years hearing that the Church welcomes everyone. They have watched public dissenters receive appointments, platforms, invitations, and assurances of belonging. Protestant ministers are handed Catholic church keys. Same-sex blessings are defended as pastoral gestures. Suicide victims are publicly declared to be with God.

The same institution tells Catholics attached to the Roman Mass that their liturgy lies outside ordinary parish life. It warns bishops against forming new traditional communities. It keeps Mass times out of bulletins. It now tells SSPX attendees to abandon their chapels and submit to a reconciliation procedure.

Every institution has a boundary. Leo’s Church has one as well. Its boundaries simply appear in different places from those found in the traditional Catholic catechism.

The Catholic Church historically opened her doors to every race, class, and nation. Entrance carried a purpose: conversion, baptism, profession of the true faith, rejection of sin, and perseverance in grace. The door led somewhere. Mercy healed the sinner and restored him to the order established by Christ.

The modern open-door metaphor frequently leaves destination, doctrine, and conversion unstated. Welcome becomes an end in itself. Yet a firm confession is still demanded from traditionalists: acceptance of the Council, acceptance of the liturgical reform, and submission to the ecclesiastical order created by them.

The threshold remains. Vatican II now stands upon it.

The Question Becomes Concrete

These stories may appear unrelated: a cemetery memorial outside Chicago, a Lutheran congregation in Turin, a cancelled Mass in New Jersey, a Jesuit speaking during Pride Month, a papal lunch, and a bishop’s letter in North Dakota.

Together they show how the postconciliar system distributes certainty, mercy, sacred space, and punishment.

It speaks with certainty about the salvation of people who died by suicide, where the Church traditionally prayed and hoped.

It tolerates doctrinal uncertainty surrounding sexuality and blessings, where Catholic moral teaching once demanded clarity.

It grants sacred space to Lutheran worship, whose foundational doctrines were solemnly condemned.

It treats the inherited Roman liturgy as an abnormal concession destined to diminish.

It applies its severest language to Catholics whose central offenses are adherence to that liturgy, rejection of modern errors, and resistance to the ecclesiastical revolution of the past sixty years.

This pattern explains why the sedevacantist question refuses to disappear. It no longer grows chiefly from obscure conciliar footnotes or arguments over Latin terminology. It grows from visible acts of government. Catholics watch an institution use authority in a manner that appears inverted: inherited worship becomes dangerous, Protestant worship becomes enriching, mortal sin becomes an occasion for assurances of salvation, and resistance to novelty becomes evidence of schism.

Some traditionalists will remain within a recognize-and-resist framework. Others will conclude that a claimant who governs against the purposes of the papal office cannot possess that office. Every position carries difficult theological consequences. The conduct of the Roman authorities keeps supplying the evidence that forces the question.

Catholic authority exists to guard the deposit of faith, preserve the sacraments, protect the liturgy, condemn error, call sinners to repentance, and lead souls toward Heaven. Its legitimacy becomes harder to understand when those functions appear reversed or selectively applied.

The institution’s practical creed can be read through its permissions and penalties. Lutherans receive keys. Traditional Catholics receive conditions. Suicide victims receive assurances of Heaven. SSPX clergy and adherents receive declarations of schism and procedures for return.

Leo speaks of a Church with open doors. The locks remain plainly visible. The decisive issue is the confession demanded at the threshold, and that confession increasingly concerns allegiance to the postconciliar settlement itself.

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