The Art of Losing Quietly

Cupich ascends, Opus Dei collapses, Vienna applauds women’s ordination—and the keepers of the peace keep their mouths shut.

“Almost there!”

The Rebel pilot’s last words before disintegrating over the Death Star could just as easily describe today’s Catholic commentariat. The professional optimists of the post-Francis right keep repeating the same line every time Leo promotes another heretic or dismantles another bastion of orthodoxy: almost there. Just a little more patience. A little more obedience. Don’t criticize. Don’t give Rome a reason to clamp down. Stay on target.

But the longer they whisper it, the clearer the target becomes. Rome isn’t leading them back to the Traditional Latin Mass at all; it’s leading them to a Latin Novus Ordo. When Knoxville’s Latin Mass was canceled, the Vatican told the faithful they could have the Novus Ordo in Latin instead. That is the shape of “reconciliation” under Leo. And when he gave that famously clueless interview wondering why anyone would prefer the traditional Mass when “they can have the Novus Ordo in Latin,” he revealed what could possibly be the whole scheme: to replace restoration with imitation, tradition with theater.

The Vienna Heretic

(Although they are all heretics, the one this section is referring to is the second from the right.)

If reports are true, the next Archbishop of Vienna will be Josef Grünwidl, a man who publicly supports the ordination of women and wants a new council to make it happen. In saner times that would earn him defrocking. In Leo’s Church, it earns promotion.

Grünwidl isn’t coy. He has said plainly that mandatory celibacy should end, that women could join the College of Cardinals, and that the Church must enter a “dialogue” on female ordination. Translation: the apostolic faith is outdated and must be re-imagined by the next synod. This is the model bishop now: a smiling reformer who dismantles the priesthood with a tone of prayerful sensitivity.

When the hierarchy starts demanding a new council to “clarify” what Christ already defined, we’re watching open rebellion canonized as virtue.

Cupich Ascendant

Meanwhile, Chicago’s own Blase Cupich has been rewarded with yet another position of power: this time on the commission that governs Vatican City itself. The man who handed an award to pro-abortion senator Dick Durbin now sits on the legislative body of the Vatican State.

This is validation. Cupich represents the seamless-garment theology Leo openly admires: politics first, faith optional. The very bishops who once whispered misgivings about his excesses now bow to his influence. For Leo, Cupich isn’t a liability; he’s a prototype. The revolution promotes its own.

Trad Inc’s Trench Run

Watch the so-called guardians of tradition strain to keep their composure. Every week brings another scandal, another anti-Catholic appointment, another public gesture toward syncretism; and still the pundits insist we’re “almost there.” Keep zipping it, they say. Don’t provoke Rome. Don’t jeopardize your permissions.

It’s the theology of perpetual approach: forever nearing the restoration, never arriving. They can’t admit what’s obvious. Instead of preparing to lift restrictions, the Vatican could be preparing to redefine them. If a diocese offers a Latinized Novus Ordo as a substitute for the old rite, will these same voices still call it a victory? Will they hail obedience as the path to freedom while the Faith itself is quietly rewritten behind the veil of prudence.

Opus Dei Gutted

Even Opus Dei, the most disciplined of Rome’s loyalists, has been gutted. The prelature has been carved into three parts: the priests in one box, diocesan affiliates in another, the laity handed over to their local bishops. The prelate’s authority is gone. The laity are exposed.

Rome calls it “clarifying governance.” What it really is, is the final domestication of an organization that still remembered order and hierarchy. Now its lay members will answer to bishops who barely believe the Creed. The fortress hasn’t been stormed. Its gates have simply been removed.

A Carpet for the Crescent

(Photo courtesy of Novus Ordo Watch)

As all this unfolds, the Vatican proudly offers a prayer room for Muslims inside the Apostolic Library. The same curia that forbids public listings of the Latin Mass now provides a carpet for Islamic prayer. Ecumenism has swallowed evangelization whole. They’ll call it hospitality; it’s really surrender. The one religion that once converted the world now apologizes for its exclusivity.

The Pattern of the Age

Promote the heretics. Reward the compromisers. Dismantle the strongholds. Appease the unbelievers. That’s the rhythm of this pontificate. Each move is packaged as dialogue or decentralization, but the direction never changes: away from faith, toward accommodation.

Almost There, Again

Trad Inc still thinks they’re seconds from victory. But every time they say almost there, another Latin Mass disappears, another heretical bishop is installed, another “reform” is baptized as pastoral mercy. The Vatican may yet dangle a Latin-language Novus Ordo as the great concession to the faithful, but that would only prove what the faithful already know: the revolution no longer hides its face.

And when the smoke clears from the next diocesan “compromise,” the silent faithful will realize what the talk-show Catholics never will. The pilot muttering almost there isn’t heading for triumph. He’s already on fire.

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