This pope is so clear and precise! No scratching of one’s head here!
I have often spoken of Pope Benedict’s most wonderful Christmas speech to the Curia about the proper interpretation of Vatican II in continuity, not in a breach, with the Church prior to Vatican II.
Pope Leo has told us that he agrees with Pope Benedict’s elocution to the Roman Curia, not by words but by a major, major symbolic gesture, taking the name of Leo and specifically linking his papacy to one of the strongest pre-Vatican II popes of the late 1800’s to 1903, Pope Leo XIII!
If you had any doubt about this, read and watch Pope Leo’s very first Wednesday audience and the speech he gave to the bishops and laity of the Eastern Churches.
And, WOW!, what Pope Leo said about their Liturgy and how the Latin Rite’s new Mass has blown it. That implies the old Latin Rite was far more in continuity with the Eastern Churches’ Liturgy as it concerns Mystery and Prayer and Christ being the center rather than the personality of the priest!
Pope Leo is so clear in his discourses and teachings compared to Francis. And please recall how many times Pope Francis tossed his written text in order to give off-the-cuff gibberish! Pope Leo won’t do this in another break with his predecessor!
Pope Leo also speaks of the Eastern Church’s proper use of Synodality. This has implications too for how Pope Leo will refine the hot mess of synodality over the last 13 years in the Latin Rite!
Please note my comments in RED embedded in the Pope’s text:
ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER LEO XIV
TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE JUBILEE OF ORIENTAL CHURCHES
Audience Hall
Wednesday, 14 May 2025
_________________________________
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Peace be with you.
Your Beatitudes, Your Eminence, Your Excellencies,
Dear priests, consecrated men and women,
Dear brothers and sisters,
Christ is risen. He is truly risen! I greet you in these words that Eastern Christians in many lands never tire of repeating during the Easter season, as they profess the very heart of our faith and hope. It is very moving for me to see you here during the Jubilee of Hope, a hope unshakably grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Welcome to Rome! I am happy to be with you and to devote one of the first audiences of my pontificate to the Eastern faithful.
You are precious in God’s eyes. Looking at you, I think of the diversity of your origins, your glorious history and the bitter sufferings that many of your communities have endured or continue to endure. I would like to reaffirm the conviction of Pope Francis that the Eastern Churches are to be “cherished and esteemed for the unique spiritual and sapiential traditions that they preserve, and for all that they have to say to us about the Christian life, synodality, and the liturgy. We think of early Fathers, the Councils, and monasticism… inestimable treasures for the Church (Address to Participants in the Meeting of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches [ROACO], 27 June 2024).
I would also like to mention Pope Leo XIII, the first Pope to devote a specific document to the dignity of your Churches, inspired above all by the fact that, in his words, “the work of human redemption began in the East” (cf. Apostolic Letter Orientalium Dignitas, 30 November 1894). Truly, you have “a unique and privileged role as the original setting where the Church was born” (SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Orientale Lumen, 5). It is significant that several of your liturgies – which you are now solemnly celebrating in Rome in accordance with your various traditions – continue to use the language of the Lord Jesus. Indeed, Pope Leo XIII made a heartfelt appeal that the “legitimate variety of Eastern liturgy and discipline... may redound to the great honor and benefit of the Church” (Orientalium Dignitas). His desire remains ever timely. In our own day too, many of our Eastern brothers and sisters, including some of you, have been forced to flee their homelands because of war and persecution, instability and poverty, and risk losing not only their native lands, but also, when they reach the West, their religious identity. As a result, with the passing of generations, the priceless heritage of the Eastern Churches is being lost. (This has happened to the Latin Rites by way of a liturgy committee of Pope Paul VI and modern liturgists after it who have completely dismantled the liturgical patrimony of the Latin Rites!)
Over a century ago, Leo XIII pointed out that “preserving the Eastern rites is more important than is generally realized”. He went so far as to decree that “any Latin-Rite missionary, whether a member of the secular or regular clergy, who by advice or support draws any Eastern-Rite Catholic to the Latin Rite” ought to be “dismissed and removed from his office” (ibid). (My friends this has implications for those who are being forced today to abandon the patrimony of the Liturgical pre-Vatican II Church by a bishop of Rome as well as other bishops who force them to be accompanied to the modern rites of the Church!) We willingly reiterate this appeal to preserve and promote the Christian East, especially in the diaspora. In addition to establishing Eastern circumscriptions wherever possible and opportune, there is a need to promote greater awareness among Latin Christians. In this regard, I ask the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches – which I thank for its work – to help me to define principles, norms, and guidelines whereby Latin Bishops can concretely support Eastern Catholics in the diaspora in their efforts to preserve their living traditions and thus, by their distinctive witness, to enrich the communities in which they live. (This is a bombshell, because Pope Leo could easily ask the Dicastery for Divine Worship to reexamine TC and make it more like SP and thus help Pope Leo support those who desire the older liturgies with bishops supporting this desire!)
The Church needs you. The contribution that the Christian East can offer us today is immense! We have great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies, liturgies that engage the human person in his or her entirety, that sing of the beauty of salvation and evoke a sense of wonder at how God’s majesty embraces our human frailty! It is likewise important to rediscover, especially in the Christian West, a sense of the primacy of God, the importance of mystagogy and the values so typical of Eastern spirituality: constant intercession, penance, fasting, and weeping for one’s own sins and for those of all humanity (penthos)! It is vital, then, that you preserve your traditions without attenuating them, for the sake perhaps of practicality or convenience,(INTELLIGIBILITY or SIMPLICITY?) lest they be corrupted (LIKE THE MODERN LATIN RITE?)by the mentality of consumerism and utilitarianism. (This is bombshell stuff folks, bombshell. It has implications for how Pope Leo will move the liturgies of the Church in the Eastern direction, even ad orientem, by recovering what was abandoned in our similar Latin Rite liturgies that are rooted in Eastern principles! I am thrilled that Pope Leo mentions the East’s emphasis on PENANCE, FASTING AND WEEPING FOR ONE’S OWN SINS AND FOR THOSE OF ALL HUMANITY! Look at the pre-Vatican II Mass and its constant reminder of our sinfulness, erased in the new rites, and our practice of fasting prior to 1966!)
Your traditions of spirituality, ancient yet ever new, are medicinal. In them, the drama of human misery is combined with wonder at God’s mercy, so that our sinfulness does not lead to despair, but opens us to accepting the gracious gift of becoming creatures who are healed, divinized and raised to the heights of heaven. For this, we ought to give endless praise and thanks to the Lord. Together, we can pray with Saint Ephrem the Syrian and say to the Lord Jesus: “Glory to you, who laid your cross as a bridge over death… Glory to you who clothed yourself in the body of mortal man, and made it the source of life for all mortals” (Homily on our Lord, 9). We must ask, then, for the grace to see the certainty of Easter in every trial of life and not to lose heart, remembering, as another great Eastern Father wrote, that “the greatest sin is not to believe in the power of the Resurrection” (SAINT ISAAC OF NINEVEH, Sermones ascetici, I, 5).
Who, better than you, can sing a song of hope even amid the abyss of violence? Who, better than you, who have experienced the horrors of war so closely that Pope Francis referred to you as “martyr Churches” (Address to ROACO, ibid.)? From the Holy Land to Ukraine, from Lebanon to Syria, from the Middle East to Tigray and the Caucasus, how much violence do we see! Rising up from this horror, from the slaughter of so many young people, which ought to provoke outrage because lives are being sacrificed in the name of military conquest, there resounds an appeal: the appeal not so much of the Pope, but of Christ himself, who repeats: “Peace be with you!” (Jn 20:19, 21, 26). And he adds: “Peace I leave you; my peace I give to you. I do not give it to you as the world gives it” (Jn 14:27). Christ’s peace is not the sepulchral silence that reigns after conflict; it is not the fruit of oppression, but rather a gift that is meant for all, a gift that brings new life. Let us pray for this peace, which is reconciliation, forgiveness, and the courage to turn the page and start anew.
For my part, I will make every effort so that this peace may prevail. The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together, face to face, to talk to one another, so that peoples everywhere may once more find hope and recover the dignity they deserve, the dignity of peace. The peoples of our world desire peace, and to their leaders I appeal with all my heart: Let us meet, let us talk, let us negotiate! War is never inevitable. Weapons can and must be silenced, for they do not resolve problems but only increase them. Those who make history are the peacemakers, not those who sow seeds of suffering. Our neighbours are not first our enemies, but our fellow human beings; not criminals to be hated, but other men and women with whom we can speak. Let us reject the Manichean notions so typical of that mindset of violence that divides the world into those who are good and those who are evil.
The Church will never tire of repeating: let weapons be silenced. I would like to thank God for all those who, in silence, prayer and self-sacrifice, are sowing seeds of peace. I thank God for those Christians – Eastern and Latin alike – who, above all in the Middle East, persevere and remain in their homelands, resisting the temptation to abandon them. Christians must be given the opportunity, and not just in words, to remain in their native lands with all the rights needed for a secure existence. Please, let us strive for this!
Thank you, dear brothers and sisters of the East, the lands where Jesus, the Sun of Justice, dawned, for being “lights in our world” (cf. Mt 5:14). Continue to be outstanding for your faith, hope, and charity, and nothing else. May your Churches be exemplary, and may your Pastors promote communion with integrity, especially in the Synods of Bishops, that they may be places of fraternity and authentic co-responsibility. Ensure transparency in the administration of goods and be signs of humble and complete dedication to the holy people of God, without regard for honors, worldly power or appearance. Saint Symeon the New Theologian used an eloquent image in this regard: “Just as one who throws dust on the flame of a burning furnace extinguishes it, so the cares of this life and every kind of attachment to petty and worthless things destroy the warmth of the heart that was initially kindled” (Practical and Theological Chapters, 63). Today more than ever, the splendor of the Christian East demands freedom from all worldly attachments and from every tendency contrary to communion, in order to remain faithful in obedience and in evangelical witness.
I thank you for this, and in cordially giving you my blessing, I ask you to pray for the Church and to raise your powerful prayers of intercession for my ministry. Thank you!
FOLKS THIS IS A BOMBSHELL SPEECH WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR HOW POPE LEO WILL REFINE OUR LATIN RITE LITURGIES AND KEEP IN MIND THE LATIN RITE HAS SEVERAL RITES EMBEDDED IN IT OBLITERATED BY REFORMS AND DESTRUCTION AFTER VATICAN II NEVER INTENDED BY VATICAN II!
36 comments:
I simply do not see all the inferences you make out of this speech. It was a wonderful popish speech, praising, cautioning, winding up by an appeal for world peace...but until his acts show what you infer, I just do not see it.
I could just as easily infer that it shows an ecumenical intention for the Latin church to return to earlier forms of the rite when it was closer to the Eastern practices by returning to veiling/concealing/screening the holy of holies, and removing all the late addition protestant inspired pews for penitential worshippers to only stand or kneel, reinstallation of ancient original languages and vestments, etc etc etc, thereby helping build a bridge to the Orthodox world, capped by a synodality with all churches of papal admission that the pope might be Peter's successor, but so too are all Eastern bishops, to include Orthodox, successors of Andrew, John, etc etc etc, and Peter at very best only first among equals.
Thank you Doubting Thomas, I mean, Bob.
Sorry for not playing along with all your unwarranted giddy projections conjured out of nothing but hopeful dreams. He has made a good start at acting as a real pope, but my refusing to go along with seeing wonderful secret meanings in everything, is not being a doubting Thomas, but only showing mature sanity.
That's a lot to unpack, Bob.
I agree with Fr., its implications for the Roman Church are significant.
"Popish", as you say, would have been "let's reread what VII provided, the ultimate and bestest ever gift to the Church and world".
I like your humility Bob! But I, more sane or most sane compared to others, see what Pope Leo is doing, brick by brick, 🧱 a kind of softening of the ground for his future refinements! Nothing insane about that observation.
Popish is quite the Protestant, anti Catholic word often used by the no nothings in this country.
Yes! It's a pejorative of that era, those riots are why the Philadelphia cathedral doesn't not have low windows.
Uniates, also a pejorative, is how many in Orthodoxy refers to us Greek Catholics. We're generally battered on some of their Facebook pages.
Bob, I get where Father is coming from. After the PTSD caused by the Francis Debacle, it's only natural to hope for something better to follow and Pope Prevost has shown a few hopeful signs.
I'm not going to join the naysayers who are already condemning Leo as "Francis 2.0" nor will I join in the jubilation that we finally have a pope who will restore all things. The fact is, right now, we JUST DON"T KNOW.
I am encouraged to see him wearing the mozzeta. I am pleased that the virtue-signalling residency at the Casa Santa Marta has finally ended and the pope is back in the papal apartments. But there are few other things I'd like to see that would actually impress me that this pope is a return to a serious papacy. Among those are:
1) An end to Francis' TLM homicide "Traditiones Custodes Abusemus"
2) Enlisiting Bishop Strickland back into active duty (that dismissal was injustice on steroids).
3) Answering the dubia on Amoris Laetita
I'm not holding my breathe that any of these things are going to happen immediately, but if they do--I'll probably go from "we'll see" to "Thank God!"
And if he DOES end up being Francis 2.0, I'll focus on the positive. Francis was the greatest recruiter for Traditionalism the Church has ever seen. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Father, you are seeing and projecting a closeted traditionalist rite/doctrines mole restorationalist, and that I will believe when it happens, and not before, and certainly not based upon only the fact he simply dresses and behaves as all popes prior to Francis have behaved and dressed, that is, popish.
And THAT is exactly where I am coming from, and Father is PO'ed simply because I am not joining the Pollyanna choir.
I am a liberal in the same vain as Pope Leo. I have lived without the TLM for most of my life and priesthood, although like the new pope, I appreciate properly celebrated modern Masses, a refinement of it and freedom to celebrate the TLM guided by the local bishop.
"We have great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies, liturgies that engage the human person in his or her entirety, that sing of the beauty of salvation and evoke a sense of wonder at how God’s majesty embraces our human frailty! It is likewise important to rediscover, especially in the Christian West, a sense of the primacy of God, the importance of mystagogy and the values so typical of Eastern spirituality: constant intercession, penance, fasting, and weeping for one’s own sins and for those of all humanity (penthos)! It is vital, then, that you preserve your traditions without attenuating them, for the sake perhaps of practicality or convenience, lest they be corrupted by the mentality of consumerism and utilitarianism."
Bob, I get the pessimism. I don't share it, but I sympathize.
I would briefly point out that saying "we need to recover a sense of mystery" (remember the debate I had here about the place of mystery in the liturgy? LOOOL!) or "penance, fasting, and weeping for [sins]" implies we lost it--and the next logical question is how we lost it, and the next is how to re-gain it. While I doubt Pope Leo or any pope in my lifetime will answer those questions by displacing the Novus Ordo as the normative ceremonial for the Latin Church, it is certainly possible (and I pray for it) that Pope Leo could see a loosening of restrictions on TLM communities as one way to discovery what we have lost and begin recovering it.
Nick
Bob, do and feel as you see fit. Christianity brings hope in addition to the possibility of salvation. Try, therefore to have faith, embrace hope such that peace and joy follow. There is no reason evident to me to embrace negativity. At best, the pope is pastoral to the needs of his entire flock. At worst, which i don't see as being the case, things remain as they are.
Indeed. If the TLM is restored but emphasizing episcopal oversight, that would be great. But, if that doesn’t happen, giving the Modern Mass an update, like the Ordinariate’ Divine Worship has, approved by Francis, btw, would be excellent. PATFOTA, traditional offertory prayers, rubrics similar to the TLM, and all the quiet prayers of the priest returned. That can happen easily in any NO Mass with the current missal, be it the vernacular or a Latin option!
Agreed, Father, except that I differ in that the re-discovery under discussion almost requires liberation the TLM. Even the Ordinariate's missal has the TLM as reference for many of its variations from the NO. But without the TLM itself, identifying where we started, got off onto the wrong path, and how to get back onto the right path will be much more difficult--not impossible, because with God nothing is impossible, but it would take more (avoidable) time and work.
Nick
Nick, nowhere have I been pessimistic, past saying I think/hope things will largely stay static with perhaps a few gradual moves to more "progressive", as Francis really hurt that cause, and back to normal is current rage so they can salvage respectibility they have lost. But Leo was largely placed by progressives united getting behind someone while conservatives stayed disunited among several candidates and conservatives ending muchly backing Prevost as the least dangerous and perhaps able aid a few pet causes. I simply see no cause to celebrate a great restoration until I see one. I very much remember the prior tea leaves reading here trying also to see every move made by Francis as some secret conservative sign only misrepresented by liberals, and here we go again, all sunshine and roses.
Oh, and Burke denied any secret meeting, that "news" clearly a move by someone to boost Prevost among conservatives.
Interestingly, Pope Leo speaks of a sense of mystery in a more laudatory fashion than his predecessor, who spoke of the loss of a "sense of mystery" (direct quote) as being to the Novus Ordo's "credit"!
Nick
Bob,
Fair enough--call it realism, if you will. I won't hold you to a specific label if you'll reciprocate.
For what it's worth, Cardinal Burke's denial was very specific. Would an account, such as one in the following link, move the needle at all for you?
https://x.com/alexsalvinews/status/1922431850326478887#m
Nick
Nick, I had read the election saga as posted the other day on I believe Catholic World Report, and muchly have written the same thing here...
For other insight into what actually is KNOWN of Prevost's stances on things in the PAST (although strangely silent on the alleged abuser/abused bungling), this is a fairly balanced compendium of Prevost past actions/words/tweets/etc, although I do not agree on some reads.
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2025/05/leo-xiv-man-priest-and-bishop-who-is-he.html?m=1
There is a lot more to rebuilding the Church than only reestablishing the mystique of the institution, but Leo has made a fine start in that regard in only days....but nearly everything I see focuses on only the institutional appearances, rather than concrete methods and means of accomplishing its purpose, that of uniting individual souls to God, and instead sounds oh so self-referential institutional, churchmen uttering predictable churchmen phrases divorced from reality, whether liberal or conservative, fixated entirely on externals except in vaguest companyman of ways.
An interesting fact about the Eastern Rite , I believe, is that their understanding of purgatory differs greatly and remains undefined. This open end theological question means a Latin Rite revision of that concept may be in the wings too in the coming eccumenical years, decades and centuries .
The very idea that the Roman Catholic Church could revise one of their doctrines for ecumenical ends is essentially the reason why discussions of reunion with the Orthodox Church won't happen. Specifically, the Latin doctrine of purgatory arose in the 12th century and is intertwined with the peculiar soteriological and ecclesiological doctrines that were also developing around that time in the West. These doctrines manifest a very different ethos that is certainly not Orthodox. That the Roman Catholic Church has now openly embraced the idea of development of doctrine itself is yet another roadblock in the way of reunion with the Orthodox, who reject the fundamental idea.
So, returning to the original point, the idea that a doctrine could develop -- as these Latin doctrines demonstrate -- is totally antithetical to the Orthodox mindset. Put simply, the fact that the Roman Catholic Church could "develop" its doctrines in the first place is the problem, even if the doctrines happen to be developed in the direction of an Orthodox position.
And a clarification -- the Orthodox teaching on the afterlife is not undefined. It is defined, and it is not purgatory.
This isn't quite true.
Maccabees, among others books within scripture references prayer for the departed.
Key premise: Nothing unclean enters heaven.
In the East, purification is a state. In the West, this purification occurs in a specific location, that being Purgatory.
Apologies, I haven't more time to devote here.
Marc,
The Immaculate Conception is similarly problematic. It was not part of the early Church, developed in the second millenia, made Roman Doctrine in the 1850s.
While we Byzantines had "observed" for political reasons, it is not part of our theology and we've returned to our tradition of commemorating the Maternity of Holy Anna.
Byz, yes that’s another example of a doctrine based on presuppositions that are simply absent from Orthodox teaching. For me, it seems impossible that Roman Catholics would now reject these dogmatic teachings. If they did, they would thoroughly refute any claim to doctrinal consistency, which would undermine the entire edifice.
Similarly, of course, Orthodox will not accept things like the Immaculate Conception — for many reasons that are interesting to me, but probably not to others here!
Do the Orthodox believe in the BVM’s perpetual virginity and personal sinlessness?
Marc,
I would be interested in hearing your reasoning which I believe to be identical to ours. To my understanding, this dogma of the Roman Church undercuts original sin as noted in Genesis, then much, scripturally, that leads to the passion narratives of the 4 canonical gospels. And agreed, how possibly would a pivot occur without admitting to error?
I can answer Fr. AJM's question, but will defer to you given how the question was directed.
Also, as I think these doctrines are all interrelated in our dogmas, so what about the Virgin Birth as traditionally taught and the Assumption? Although not a defined doctrine by way of dogma, but a theological construct, Mary, as the mediatrix of all graces. That could be defined as a development or deepening of doctrine.
"That the Roman Catholic Church has now openly embraced the idea of development of doctrine itself is yet another roadblock in the way of reunion with the Orthodox,..."
Marc - The very fact that you have properly noted that, "...the Latin doctrine of purgatory arose in the 12th century and is intertwined with the peculiar soteriological and ecclesiological doctrines that were also developing around that time in the West." is an indication of the fact (and the necessity) of the Development of Doctrine.
Byz - The Latin Church does not teach that purgatory is a "specific location." Like you, we understand it to be a state of purification.
The Eastern Churches indeed did accept the development or deepening of doctrine as they accept 7 major ecumenical councils prior to their schism with the pope. That choice ossified them in developing doctrine in union with the pope in subsequent ecumenical councils. “ The Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes the Second Council of Nicaea as the last of the first seven ecumenical councils. This council was held in 787 AD. It is also recognized as such by the Catholic Church, according to the Eastern Orthodox Wiki, and by some Old Catholics and Protestants”
Orthodox believe in the perpetual virginity and sinlessness of The Mother of God.
But Orthodox reject the Roman Catholic understanding of Original Sin. So there is no place for the Immaculate Conception idea in Orthodox teaching.
The Assumption (Dormition) of the Mother of God is not a doctrinal development because it is an historical fact not a theological conjecture.
Of course the Roman Catholic Church develops doctrine. That is an obvious fact, as you say.
Orthodox reject development of doctrine as it is understood by the Roman Catholic Church, which as in the examples above related to Purgatory and the Immaculate Conception, rest of scholastic reasoning and conjecture. The definition of doctrines in the Councils is markedly different than the developments that led to those definitions.
Marc - Thank you so much for your posts.
Fr. MJK - I had forgotten about JPII's clarification in 1999. I fell victim to the preposition "in" that usually precedes purgatory.
Byz - Discussing these things is among my favorite things to do so I appreciate the conversation with you and others.
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