The Roman Primacy Betrayed: Another Week with Leo XIV

A week of Orthodox flattery, liturgical gaslighting, Byzantine appeasement, and strategic silence on schism

It’s been a busy week for Leo XIV; one of those multifaceted propaganda cycles when the Vatican’s PR shop launches so many storylines at once that Trad Inc. can’t decide which to spin and which to ignore. From charity soccer metaphors to ecumenical bromides, from Carabinieri eulogies to Eastern liturgy flattery, Leo is outdoing even his predecessor in papal multitasking. But when you clear the incense and turn down the acoustic guitar, a pattern emerges: one that confirms exactly what many of us already knew.

The Match of the Heart (or: Papal Peace Through Soccer)

Leo’s video message for the Partita del Cuore drips with sentimentality and the predictable post-conciliar themes of encounter, unity, and vague allusions to the divine. But his theology of peace sounds suspiciously like the theology of sport-as-liturgy: confrontation transfigured into inclusion, opposition reborn as harmony. It’s Joyeux Noël meets Paul McCartney meets Paolo Freire.

Yet beneath the platitudes (“restore unity to broken hearts,” “the heart is the place of the encounter with God”), we get no mention of Christ as the Prince of Peace, no connection between true peace and the Kingship of Christ or conversion. Peace here is a horizontal ideal: a sociological construct achievable through televised charity and truce-themed nostalgia. Leo urges us to be “men and women of encounter.” Christ the King? The scandal of the Cross? Strangely absent. Again.

Virgo Fidelis and the Italian State: A Marian Sandwich with No Theology Inside

At Castel Gandolfo, Leo XIV celebrated Mass for the Carabinieri¹ and reflected on their devotion to Virgo Fidelis, the faithful Virgin. He delivered a solid Marian homily with nods to Augustine and Scripture, even referencing Mary’s fiat and fidelity to the Word. But the application is curious: Mary becomes a patriotic mascot, her fidelity co-opted as a model of loyalty to the Italian Republic.

The Carabinieri, he says, should fight injustice as Mary stood at the foot of the Cross; a beautiful image, until you realize the papacy has weaponized that same Cross against traditional Catholics. Leo praises constancy in upholding the law. Perhaps he should share that exhortation with the Vatican’s own liturgy police, who have spent the last few pontificates dismantling Ecclesia Dei communities and criminalizing Latin Masses.

Meanwhile, the real “faithful ones,” those faithful to the ancient Roman Rite, are treated as threats to peace, not models of fidelity. Nei secoli fedele, says their motto. If only Leo held himself to the same standard.

Primacy Without Peter? Leo’s Ecumenical Amnesia

The Orthodox-Catholic pilgrimage from the U.S. gave Leo another chance to resurrect the ghost of Vatican II. The language is as predictable as it is tired: “journey,” “pilgrimage,” “hope,” “dialogue of charity,” “return to Jerusalem.” Nicaea is the buzzword of the year. But let’s not pretend the 1,700th anniversary is about shared doctrine. It’s about shared optics.

The message was friendly, warm even, but empty. No call to unity through Rome. No mention of doctrinal divergence on divorce, contraception, or the Filioque. Instead, Leo delivered of his most startling lines yet: “Rome, Constantinople and all the other Sees, are not called to vie for primacy…”

Excuse me?

This is a direct contradiction of dogmatic Catholic teaching. The First Vatican Council defined that the Roman Pontiff possesses not merely a primacy of honor, but of jurisdiction over the entire Church, and that this primacy was given to Peter alone and passed to his successors in Rome. That’s de fide. It’s not optional. It’s not ecumenically flexible. It’s not subject to polite suspension during interreligious tourism.

And yet here we are: Leo XIV, who presides over what’s alleged to be the See of Peter, casually denies that the Sees should “vie for primacy,” as if primacy were some ego contest between patriarchs, rather than a divinely instituted office essential for the unity of the Church.

Let’s be clear: The Orthodox do reject papal primacy as defined by Vatican I. That’s what keeps them in schism. They tolerate a “primacy of honor” as a courtesy. What they reject, and what Leo declines to assert, is the very power Christ gave to Peter: universal, immediate, and supreme jurisdiction over all bishops and faithful.

In centuries past, the popes responded to such denials with apostolic firmness. They called the Eastern patriarchs back to unity under the true successor of Peter, not to “dialogue” about which see gets which anniversary. But Leo, like his conciliar predecessors, prefers diplomacy to doctrine. So instead of reaffirming Rome’s primacy, he relativizes it, flattening the hierarchy of Sees into a kind of apostolic roundtable.

This is the culmination of a decades-long soft betrayal of papal doctrine, one that began with Unitatis Redintegratio and now blossoms into full-blown ecclesiological syncretism.

A pope who doesn’t preach Roman primacy is like a king who refuses to be crowned. Either he no longer believes it, or he’s ashamed of it. And if Leo XIV no longer confesses the dogma of Petrine primacy, then we’re forced to ask the very question the Council of Florence raised against the Eastern schismatics: Is he even pope at all?

(Speaking of rejecting the primacy, watch Paul VI shamefully abandon the Papal Tiara. The papal tiara, a three-tiered, bejeweled crown, symbolized the pope's triple power as the head of the Catholic Church. It represented the pope's authority over spiritual matters, temporal affairs, and his role as the Vicar of Christ. Paul VI donated it “to the poor” as if one person is less poor today because Paul VI sold out a treasure of the Church for a self-aggrandizing photo op.)

Gaza, Kut, and the Soft Power Papacy

To his credit, Leo responded swiftly to the bombing of the Holy Family Church in Gaza. He offered prayers, condolences, and called for a ceasefire. Likewise, he acknowledged the victims of a deadly fire in Iraq. These gestures are appropriate, even necessary. But notice the gap between these events and the rest of the week’s messaging.

On the one hand, he’s calling Netanyahu to beg for peace; on the other, he’s chatting about football and issuing statements that elevate soccer, music, and sentiment as vehicles of salvation. The dissonance is theological. He wants global peace but refuses to preach the one Gospel that alone can bring it. The Church is now an NGO that mourns victims but offers no metaphysical explanation for suffering, no call to repentance, no reminder of Four Last Things.

Byzantine Pittsburgh and the Safe Kind of Tradition

Leo’s message to the Third Metropolitan Assembly of the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh is respectful and even reverent. He praises the Byzantine liturgy, notes the strength of the Eastern Catholic witness, and affirms fidelity to tradition. But the real takeaway is strategic: the Eastern rites are tolerated, celebrated even, because they pose no liturgical threat to Rome.

The Byzantine Catholics of Pittsburgh aren’t demanding 1962 Missals. They aren’t denouncing Amoris Laetitia. Their reverence is contained within the boundaries of accepted diversity. Meanwhile, Roman rite traditionalists, who appeal to the actual Roman liturgical patrimony, are shoved into diocesan ghettos or exiled to suburban chapels. You can have tradition, as long as it’s someone else’s.

The Curious Case of Cardinal Sarah

Of all Leo’s appointments this week, the most quietly revealing was the one that sent Cardinal Robert Sarah, former head of Divine Worship and the bane of Bugnini’s ghost, to Sainte-Anne-d’Auray as his special envoy. Sarah’s name still carries weight among traditional Catholics, and his presence will help mask the stench of liturgical demolition. It’s a clever maneuver: flatter the faithful, deploy a “conservative” figurehead, and distract from the fact that Sarah now functions as a ceremonial relic, wheeled out to bless anniversaries while the TLM is buried alive.

Personnel Notes: Nothing to See Here?

Appointments to dioceses in the Philippines, Bulgaria, Lebanon, and Norway drew little attention, and for good reason. These are not headline-grabbing changes. But they remind us that Leo is quietly building his episcopal legacy. One appointment at a time, the college of bishops is being molded in the image of its maker: pastoral, collegial, non-confrontational, synodal. There’s nothing overtly scandalous in these choices, but that’s the trick. Incrementalism is the new revolution. The soft purge continues.

Conclusion: Sentimental Papacy, Sterile Church

Leo XIV’s week was a model of modern papal governance: grief without theology, unity without truth, tradition without Rome. The match is played, the hearts are warmed, the cameras roll, and all the while, the apostasy rolls on unimpeded. The faithful Virgin is invoked, but the faith she guarded is suppressed. The Fathers of Nicaea are honored, but their dogmas are diluted. The Carabinieri are praised for fidelity, while the Mass they once knelt before is cast out as a threat.

1. The national gendarmerie of Italy who primarily carry out domestic and foreign policing duties. It is one of Italy's main law enforcement agencies.