The Great Lowering of Expectations: How Trad Inc. Sells You Leo XIV

While radicals push women cardinals, synodal life spaces, Jesuit pro-abort hires, and Leo’s plastic hope, Trad Inc. tells you the revolution is about to reverse.

Sometimes you don’t need to speculate about where the post-conciliar Church is heading. You just need to open the news feed. This week, the revolutionaries said the quiet parts out loud and their “moderate” enablers nodded along, still telling trads to sit quietly and wait for change that will never come.

From the fantasy of women cardinals, to the Jesuit university that just hired a pro-abortion politician, to papal platitudes dressed up as “hope,” to Damian Thompson’s latest exercise in moving the goalpost, it’s all one story. The machinery that of Vatican II isn’t malfunctioning. It’s operating exactly as designed.

Women in Scarlet: The Abbot’s Dream

Former Einsiedeln abbot Martin Werlen is confident the time has come for a “female cardinal.” He’s even picked a candidate: Sister Simona Brambilla, the nun now running the Vatican’s religious life dicastery. Werlen believes Francis wanted this too, and that Leo XIV could be the man to finish the job.

The modernist logic is flawless: once you’ve accepted a female dicastery head, why not give her a biretta? And once you’ve normalized that, why not revisit women deacons? And then, why not women priests? The post-conciliar reformers know you don’t need to win the whole war in one battle. Change the symbols, then change the reality.

Werlen says “the time is ripe.” Of course it is. TheChurch has been marinating in fifty years of synodality, anthropocentrism, and feminist theology. By the time the cassock is tailored for the first “Cardinaless,” most Catholics will shrug.

Paul VI’s Doubts, Leo’s Continuity

A new Vatican book reveals Paul VI nearly scrapped the Holy Year entirely in the 1970s, questioning whether indulgences were “still in keeping with the times.” He decided to keep the tradition, but the hesitation is telling.

That’s the Vatican II papacy in miniature: keep the externals for the sake of optics, while gutting their theological content. The current Jubilee under Leo XIV is the direct heir of Paul VI’s doubts: the same event, but now packaged for the global interfaith tourist. The Holy Door stands, the indulgence remains on paper, but the supernatural aim is diluted into a “celebration of humanity.”

Damian Thompson: The Art of Lowered Expectations

In the attached screenshot, Damian Thompson warns trads not to expect a dramatic reversal of Traditionis Custodes. His instinct is that the TLM will be “celebrated more often” under Leo, but only because trads themselves will organize them, not because Leo will act decisively.

This is the quietist’s new trick: redefine success downward. No longer do we expect a pope to restore the Roman Rite. We just hope he won’t suppress it as harshly as his predecessor. By this standard, a “good” pontificate is one that tolerates you if you stay in your corner and stop saying the revolution was a mistake.

Thompson calls Leo “his own man,” as if that phrase magically separates him from Francis while Leo continues the same synodal trajectory. It’s the political equivalent of telling yourself your abusive boss is “tough but fair” because he hasn’t yelled at you yet.

The Eternal Waiting Game

Alexander Lucie-Smith has now joined the Damian Thompson school of Vatican patience: don’t worry, Leo’s just “thinking, thinking, thinking.”

It’s the same script every time. The “new pope” is like a new parish priest, we’re told. He has to move slowly, avoid upsetting the old guard, wait for the right moment, let people “age out.” You’d think we were talking about a junior associate trying to work his way up in a law firm, not a monarch with universal jurisdiction who, if he were truly Catholic, could change the entire direction of the Church in an afternoon.

This is the magic trick of post-conciliar commentary: take the obvious fact that nothing is changing, and reframe it as part of a master plan. We’ve been hearing versions of this for over half a century. Paul VI was “taking his time” to reform after the Council. John Paul II was “building a case” before acting against the heretics. Benedict XVI was “carefully positioning” before fixing the liturgy. Every time, the clock runs out and the revolution marches on.

Lucie-Smith even uses Bugnini’s exile as a cautionary tale; as though removing a key architect of the liturgical wreckage was a mistake because it “made him a martyr.” That’s not how Catholic governance works; that’s how corporate HR works. If a man in the Chair of Peter had the will to restore the Faith, he wouldn’t worry about whether the heretics felt appreciated on the way out. He would defend the flock, period.

The truth? The “slow and steady” excuse is just another way of saying nothing will change. Roche, Fernández, Parolin, the whole cast of Francis’s inner circle, will keep their portfolios until they retire or die. Synodalism will keep advancing. The liturgy will keep hollowing out. But we’ll be told the delay is “strategic” and the inaction is “prudence.”

If Leo truly wanted to dismantle the Francis program, he could do it by Monday. He doesn’t. That’s why we keep getting columns urging us to see the lack of action as proof of future action. It’s the Vatican’s oldest con and the trad commentariat keeps selling it like it’s wisdom.

Synodal “Life Spaces” and the Church as Lifestyle Brand

At another Salzburg panel, Werlen and Austrian pastoral leaders called for churches to become “life spaces” instead of places of worship, swapping pews for chairs, redesigning sanctuaries, and thinking “from the people” instead of “from the Church.”

This is the synodal Church’s endgame: strip the temple of its vertical orientation so that it can serve any horizontal “need”: community gatherings, art shows, therapeutic circles. Once the altar is no longer the axis mundi, it’s just another piece of furniture.

They assure us this is how the Church will “draw people back.” And they’re right, it will draw them back to a building. It just won’t be for the Sacrifice of the Mass.

The Jesuits Hire Another Wolf

In Scranton, a Jesuit university has hired former Senator Bob Casey Jr. as a “Distinguished Fellow in Public Service.” Once nominally pro-life, Casey is now an unapologetic supporter of abortion-on-demand.

His father, the late Governor Robert Casey Sr., fought the Democratic Party’s pro-abortion machine with courage. His son climbed aboard that same machine when it suited his career. That the Jesuits would present him as a moral mentor tells you everything you need to know about the state of “Catholic” higher education in 2025.

Leo’s Plastic Hope

Mundabor was right to skewer Leo’s latest address on “hope” — a message so stripped of supernatural content that it could be delivered at a Rotary Club luncheon without raising an eyebrow.

This is not the theological virtue of hope, anchored in eternal salvation. It’s “hope” as an Oprah segment: the bills will get paid, the team will win, the future will be bright. You can apply it to any religion or none at all.

Francis used to offend Catholics outright. Leo has perfected the art of not offending anyone, which, in practice, means offending God by refusing to speak His uncomfortable truths.

Conclusion: The Managed Decline Continues

This week’s headlines show the two speeds of the post-Vatican II Church. At full speed, you get the radicals like Werlen — pushing women cardinals and tearing up sanctuaries. At half speed, you get the “moderates” — soothing you with talk of gradual change, lowered expectations, and “pastoral” patience.

Both lead to the same destination. One just lets you enjoy the ride a little longer before you see the wreckage.

Until Catholics stop mistaking delay for deliverance, the revolution will never need to hide.