Hayti, Missouri – In 1978, when St. John Paul was elected Pope, I was very disturbed. For the first couple of months after his election, the media crowed that we finally had a “liberal” Pope – and things were going to change dramatically in the Church to catch it up to modern times and be less “superstitious.” Though I was still a Protestant (it would be 12 years before my conversion – and 13 before I was received into the Church) I well knew that the Catholic Church was one of the bulwarks of Western Civilization – and the most effective institutional defenders of the Christian faith against secular assaults in the world. If the new Pope was actually a “liberal,” Western Civilization and all of Christendom had a very rough decade or two ahead of them.
The media came to this conclusion because St. John Paul was one of the primary architects of the Documents of Vatican II. Every dissident Priest, theological crank, and vandal always cited the “spirit” of Vatican II to justify their heretical assaults on the faith. The media was soon to learn, to its sorrow, that the actual Documents of Vatican II and the perniciously fictional “spirit” of Vatican II were two very different things. (Would that some of the idiosyncratic cranks among orthodox Catholics would learn the same!) St. John Paul was architect of the former, not one of the arsonists peddling the latter.
In the early stages of a new Papal Reign, the new Pope is sort of a spiritual tabula rasa, upon which partisans like to project their own wishes and aspirations, searching restlessly for clues to justify their projections. Every Pope is a unique, unrepeatable person with their own unique perspective. Who one is emerges, over time, based on what they say and, more importantly, what they do.
It irritated me when I was received into the Church that so many faithful Catholics thought they could follow a safe course to heaven just by doing whatever the Pope says (about anything), as if having a leader relieved them of any duty of personal moral agency and responsibility. To some extent it was understandable as we had, at least, a good century and a half of well above average Popes. But shortcuts are always fraught with danger – and we will all be held to account by God for who WE were, not who was Pope while we lived. Fortunately, the last Papacy largely cured that: I don’t see many people now who think doing whatever the Pope may say is their ticket to heaven.
A new (and, I hope, short-lived) danger has arisen, though. Many serious Catholics were, like me, serious critics of Pope Francis. I fear some have taken that as their default setting…thinking that is their schtick and they are sticking to it. Not even a day had passed before I saw some prominent critics of Francis deriding Pope Leo XIV for things they just speculated on or made up entirely. To be reflexively cynical is every bit as mindlessly ignorant as to be reflexively credulous.
Others look for signs that Pope Leo XIV will adopt some key principle of their own idiosyncratic preference – and that will solve everything. I read one who I regard highly say that since Leo seems favorably disposed to the Latin Mass, we’re saved – all will be well! It is the dumbest thing I have ever read from him. Though I am not a Latin Mass traditionalist I think well of it – and of my many friends who are. In fact, I am in favor of any long-standing pious tradition that is legitimate, whether or not it is my personal preference. But there are no panaceas.
Building up the house of your faith must be done lovingly, brick by brick. There is no one brick which, if you place it just right, will cause the entire edifice to emerge immaculate and immediate. We all must do the work with patience, resolve, and fortitude. Doing so steadily purifies both us and our intentions. When we get one brick right, the next awaits us.
The chosen name, “Leo,” has sparked lots of speculation, too. Pope Leo XIII was author of the St. Michael prayer which so many of us hold dear. He did this in response to a vision he had in which God gave the satan a century to try to destroy the Church. While the satan has made terrible inroads in parts of the hierarchy and has frayed the unity so essential, the barque of Peter sails on, even so. I think Leo XIV makes a nice bookend to Leo XIII and the last terrible century.
Others weigh in that Leo XIII was the Pope of “social justice” and the labor movement. Yes, he was, but social justice in the late 1800’s was not the toxic, woke nonsense it is today. The industrial revolution badly deformed the relation between capital and labor. Those were the days of sweatshops, abusive child labor, and robber barons. Meantime, Karl Marx’ new philosophy sought to cure all ills by making governments so big and powerful that they could control all things and everyone’s life, under the delusion that destroying any free will and initiative from the great masses could be done benignly. Leo XIII’s great encyclical, Rerum Novarum, pointed the way to reform of labor laws badly in need of it, restored the dignity of the human person in all situations, and unambiguously condemned communism, socialism, and all their pernicious iterations as implacable enemies of freedom and the dignity of the human person. If an incomplete beginning, it remains one of the greatest documents in the history of the Church. It emphasized the concept of subsidiarity, the principle that all human endeavors are best handled at the lowest possible level by the people closest to and most intimately affected by the decision. It was not the treacly sort of “heroes and villains” play that moderns use to infantilize all political disputes with. In fact, it’s subtitle is “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor,” acknowledging from the very beginning the fullness of the dignity of all human persons. It was followed up 100 years later by St. John Paul’s magnificent Centesimus Annus, which has had a great impact on my thinking and – I am convinced – is one of the greatest documents ever written by anyone. Most of the Leo’s in Papal history have boldly and nobly charted out how to properly apply Catholic Doctrine to specific cultural times and milieus so as to facilitate human relations in a manner that fully respects and acknowledges the human dignity of all. Those peddling treacly “heroes and villains” distortions from any side of the political spectrum reveal themselves to me as hacks and knaves, unworthy of contemplation.
I wrote before the conclave that I was not terribly concerned that the late Pope Francis’ stacking of the College of Cardinals was going to be the great obstacle some expected it to be. I thought the internal vandals who want to reduce the Church to a worldly center of political influence were going to find that those “Cardinals from the peripheries” Francis was so fond of were going to turn out to be far less committed to the worldly project for the Church that the vandals expected them to be. I would not be surprised to find that the majority of the Asian Cardinals were horrified at the scandalous deal the Vatican made with China, which betrayed Chinese Catholics and actual Chinese Bishops (those chosen by the Church rather than by the Chinese Communist Party). I also would not be surprised to find that most of the African Bishops were horrified by the Vatican’s efforts to redefine definitions of the family and sexual morality in ways that did not square easily with Scripture or the Magisterium. (In fact, much of the efforts coming from the Vatican the last decade baldly contradict Scripture and the Magisterium, which begs the question of who they think this Church belongs to in the first place.) Finally, donated revenues to the Church have been in freefall, particularly underscoring American dissatisfaction with the contra-Scriptural approach emanating from the Vatican this last decade. Choosing an American as Pope at least suggests the Cardinals know that is a big problem that will only get worse if members of the hierarchy continue to repudiate Christ in their effort to remake the Church in their own image.
Shortly after he was appointed Archbishop of Chicago, the Late Cardinal Francis George and I were seated next to each other at the same table at a downtown political/prayer breakfast. We had a nice, lively conversation. At the time, Abp. George (he was not yet Cardinal) was publicly asking for advice on what he should emphasize from almost every figure of any note he encountered. As we left, he handed me a card and asked me to call with any counsel I might have. I told him I thought he was getting quite enough advice as it was and that, for the time being, anyway, I would prefer to just follow his lead. Touched, he took my arm in his hand as he thanked me for that.
Taking the name, Leo XIV, is a great sign of hope for me. It hearkens back to some of the noblest moments in the papacy – and the lions who have taken this name have been quite adept at managing great crises of faith and culture in their times. A Pope is not defined by what “experts” and “insiders” say about him in the early days of his reign. He is defined by what he does and his fidelity to Christ in doing it. So, for the time being anyway, I am just going to follow Pope Leo XIV’s lead.
I end with a little vignette that touches on my visitations, which I do not expect you to credit, but which can help you understand where I am coming from. A few years ago, I was speaking with the angel that has trained me all my life. I noted that when I hear anyone say that “God told them…” almost invariably what God “told” them just confirmed what they already believed anyway – but that my heavenly visitors were constantly contradicting and correcting me so, as Seinfeld would say, “What’s up with that?” My angel laughed and told me, “That’s because we really are talking to you,” then added that, because of that, I would be held to a rigorous account for what I choose to do and say. For all those offering unsolicited direction to the Pope I say, follow his lead for now. If he starts pulling in a direction contrary to the clear commands of Scripture, by all means, criticize those efforts. But if your criticism is just based on his priorities and methods being different than yours, you are a vain knave who will be called to account for your knavery. And if your interactions with God merely confirm what you already think, know that it is probably not God you are talking with.
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Though few perceive the reality of it because of all the noise they are making, the godless left is perishing before our very eyes. The Democratic Party has become the Jacobin Party, choosing the most violent, unhinged, nihilistic priorities to champion. It has become an agent of chaos that does not care about logic, prosperity or compassion. It just wants to watch the world burn. Meantime, the canards of conventional wisdom that have long propped up the leftist project are collapsing at breakneck speed. HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy’s testimony before Congress last week absolutely mauled the conventional wisdom that has made us so chronically ill in this country, while casually mauling more than a few Congressman who are slaves to whatever “experts” tell them.
I am a believer in what I call “dynamic tension,” that honorable and vigorous disagreement and contrary perspectives make both parties better. When dealing with public policy, we all benefit from it. But you can’t participate seriously unless you know your stuff. I am flabbergasted as I realize that practically none of the leftist elites actually know how anything works, or the underlying philosophy of any coherent principle. All they know is that they want to be in charge (so they can watch the world they would set on fire burn, I presume) and how to make slogans to pretend they care about anything but their own preeminence. It’s not just leftists: a lot of establishment “conservatives” are the same.
For decades (actually most of my life – and I’m nearly 70) we have had most countries, including many allies, effectively closing their markets to us while enjoying next to no barriers to exploiting American markets. That is NOT free trade, just a fixed game. How could anyone, purported free trade purist or anarchist, think it was a good thing for other countries to be able to sell whatever they wanted here while barring our workmen from selling much of anything there? In what parallel universe could this ever be a recipe for prosperity? But all the idiots had just been trained to see tariffs and think, “Bad.” – but only when we do it. I was most disgusted with the so-called free-market purists. They do not understand trade and economics…they are just a more complex version of Pavlov’s dogs – salivating or barking reflexively for reasons they do not understand. It astonished me that so many in the conservative world could not see how brilliantly Donald Trump was using tariffs to RESTORE free trade that had been dying ever since the end of WWII. You really had to be almost bullishly obtuse not to see it. I laughed at the media and other leftists. They clearly know nothing about anything anymore, so I expected it from them. But I am deeply disappointed in the many people who have some smarts yet are unable to see beyond the box of their own impoverished shibboleths.
It was utter genius on the part of Trump to appoint so many people to head agencies they have personally been victimized by. If there is ever going to be a modicum of public confidence restored in public institutions, it can only come from people who are as skeptical of those institutions as ordinary Americans have (rightly) become. As the constant pronouncements of “DOOM!” from leftists in media, government, and culture run aground on the shoals of rising prosperity, falling prices, rising employment, and a rebirth of Americans making stuff and foreign investment supporting it, their already tattered credibility is collapsing like a tower of ashes in a windstorm. (I suppose they take some comfort in burning Teslas and other things as their whole project collapses around them – gotta see something burn.)
The last redoubt of the godless left is the court system, which now pretends to be the final arbiter of executive power exclusively reserved to the executive by the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson feared early on that the big flaw in the Constitution was the failure to put enough checks on the judiciary to prevent it from aspiring to become a judicial oligarchy, holding the final say on all things, thus destroying the idea of a representative Constitutional Republic. (If you hit the link, you will see that Jefferson said the judiciary could easily become the “despotic branch” in the American system if not reined in.) Now the courts, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts seem determined to make Jefferson’s fears America’s reality. But fear not. All the hubris, sound and fury is just prelude to the judiciary being genuinely checked in areas they have no business being involved in and their institutional hubris being humbled.
I feel sad for legitimate liberals. The moonbat craziness that has highjacked the Democratic Party leaves them effectively homeless. But it is just for a time. As I said, the current woke Democratic Party is dying before our eyes – self-immolating for all to see. I have no doubt a new, responsible, liberal party will rise to supplant it in time. Again, I’m a believer in dynamic tension. Though I am solidly conservative (Ironically, what was a classical liberal. A hundred and fifty years ago, a conservative was one who believed in centralized authority and the divine right of kings. A liberal was one who believed in individual liberty, decentralized government, and free markets. The one thing the left is good at is highjacking and perverting concepts that have proven popular – as classical liberalism – now called conservativism – was) I believe a vigorous, responsible liberal party is useful and, even necessary, to make society work at maximum efficacy.
As our society busies itself to completely rid itself of the woke monstrosity, like a cat in the process of spitting out a hairball, I think God is turning His eyes upon the dysfunctions of the pious – not for our destruction, but for our purification. Be ready for some of your most cherished nostrums to earn you a rebuke from God. If you take it well, it will lead you to greater holiness and communion with God. Many will struggle, but most will adjust themselves to the reality that is being unveiled. It will not go well for those who will not serve a God who does not do things the way they prefer. I will touch more on this as the year goes on. For now, it is sufficient to warn you that God does, indeed, chastise those He loves.
I have always maintained that all the dysfunctions I have spoken about are not for our destruction. That is not what the Storm is for. Rather, it is a palliative, sometimes harsh, that God is using to renew the face and faith of the world. It is for all of us, not just for our opponents. The key is that whoever takes up his cross will be saved. He who proclaims he will not serve – whether out of hatred for God or refusal to be corrected – will be lost.
When God chastises and corrects you, do not waste much time sulking. Give thanks and enjoy the closer walk with God that chastisement opens up for you.
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
Find me on X at @JohnstonPilgrim
The Corps of Renewal and Charity (CORAC)
18208 Preston Rd., Ste. D9-552
Dallas, Texas 75252
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