For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;1 Timothy 2 : 5, Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him,and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

Revelation 1 : 7

Sebastian Morello

Monday, May 26, 2025

It seems a decision has been made among many outlets of the Catholic commentariat to remain, for the time being, uncritical of the new pope, Leo XIV. Undoubtedly, this approach is the right one, as everyone should proceed in good will, hoping that with Prevost’s election will come a new chapter after the unhappy decade or so of Francis’s pontifical reign. But, troublingly, for the third time since his pontificate began only a short while ago, Pope Leo XIV has declared that the soul of Pope Francis is in Heaven. Most recently, Pope Leo asserted this to be the case via an official Pontifex ‘tweet’ on the social media platform X, which stated that Francis had “returned to the Father’s house. He accompanies us and prays for the Church from Heaven.”

[12] Is not God in the height of heaven? and behold the height of the stars, how high they are! [13] And thou sayest, How doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud? [14] Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven.Job 22 : 12-14

Lingered over the Church for twelve years as if he were an enormous dark cloud

But this eccentric habit of declaring, outside any official canonisation process, that, as it were, no such process is needed, is deeply problematic. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the faithful of the Catholic Church are being prepared for this highly controversial figure (who, as one journalist friend put it to me, “lingered over the Church for twelve years as if he were an enormous dark cloud”) to be canonised soon, as if it were inevitable and unavoidable.

At the age of twelve, Jesus accompanied Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem to attend the Passover. Here, for the first time during His child life, He looked upon the temple. He saw the white-robed priests performing their solemn ministry and witnessed the impressive rites of the paschal service. Day by day He saw their meaning more clearly. Every act seemed to be bound up with His own life. New impulses were awakening within Him. Silent and absorbed, He seemed to be studying out a great problem. The mystery of His mission was opening to the Saviour. The work that He was to accomplish for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the appointed heirs of the promises of the covenant, began to dawn upon His mind.
When the services of the Passover were ended, Jesus lingered in the temple courts; and when the worshipers departed from Jerusalem, He was left behind. It was then that He found the learned rabbis and plied them with questions regarding the coming of the Messiah. He presented Himself before them in the attitude of a humble learner, and yet the doctors of the law were astonished at His questions. They could not always answer Him. In reality He revealed perfection of character; and although He had not been taught by the rabbis, He was more learned than they.

The mother of Jesus, after a long search, found Him in the school of the rabbis. When He was alone with His parents, the mother said, in words that implied a rebuke, “Son, why hast Thou thus dealt with us? Behold, Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.” [Luke 2:48.]
“How is it that ye sought Me?” answered Jesus. “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” [Verse 49.] And as they understood not His words, He pointed upward. In the answer to His mother, Jesus showed for the first time that He understood His relation to God. 21LtMs, Ms 85, 1906, par. 8 – 21LtMs, Ms 85, 1906, par. 11

There are several very serious problems with Leo repeatedly stating that Francis is in Heaven. For one, such statements cause the faithful to doubt the gravity of Francis’s public sins. These sins are not inconsiderable, given that they include idol-worship (Pachamama), the suppression of an ancient apostolic rite of the Church, syncretism and religious relativism, the protection and promotion of predators and deviants, the abuse of the Church’s law, the teaching of heresy, etc.

I saw that the Lord has given the world opportunity to discover the snare. This one thing is evidence enough for the Christian, if there were no other; namely, that there is no difference made between the precious and the vile. Thomas Paine, whose body has now moldered to dust and who is to be called forth at the end of the one thousand years, at the second resurrection, to receive his reward and suffer the second death, is represented by Satan as being in heaven, and highly exalted there. Satan used him on earth as long as he could, and now he is carrying on the same work through pretensions of having Thomas Paine so much exalted and honored in heaven; as he taught here, Satan would make it appear that he is teaching in heaven. There are some who have looked with horror at his life and death, and his corrupt teachings while living, but who now submit to be taught by him, one of the vilest and most corrupt of men, one who despised God and His law. [ EW 89.1

Who knows if Francis was a heretic, but it’s clear that he was heretical. The distinction being that the former would have required him to be publicly accused of heresy and for him in response to have held obstinately to his heresies. Given that he customarily refused to meet with those who raised objections to his teaching or manner of governing, we were not given the opportunity to witness any obstinate attachment to heresy. But in any case, the record is not good. If such sins can be committed and the perpetrator still immediately enjoys the beatific vision upon his death, then the message to the faithful is clear: either these sins were not even as grave as our ancient faith would have led us to believe, or they are not sins at all.

The fact that Satan claims that one whom he loved so well, and who hated God so perfectly, is now with the holy apostles and angels in glory, should be enough to remove the veil from all minds and discover to them the dark, mysterious works of Satan. He virtually says to the world and to infidels, No matter how wicked you are, no matter whether you believe or disbelieve in God or the Bible, live as you please, heaven is your home; for all know that if Thomas Paine is in heaven, and so exalted, they will surely get there. This error is so glaring that all may see if they will. Satan is now doing through persons like Thomas Paine what he has been trying to do since his fall. He is, through his power and lying wonders, tearing away the foundation of the Christian’s hope and putting out the sun that is to light them in the narrow way to heaven. He is making the world believe that the Bible is uninspired, no better than a storybook, while he holds out something to take its place; namely, spiritual manifestations! EW 91.1

Purgatory does not really exist!

Perhaps people will not be led to such erroneous conclusions, but then the remaining alternative is that, despite the Church’s age-old teaching to the contrary, Purgatory does not really exist. If such sins can be committed without any need for purgation from the guilt entailed by them, then Purgatory must not be in fact necessary. Thus, again, if the faith is to remain intact among the faithful, Leo’s habit of declaring Francis’s heavenly status is far from desirable.

Such declarations by Leo, moreover, discourage the faithful of the Church from exercising charity. Whatever our view of Francis, he was a baptised member of the Church and thus a brother in Christ who may now stand very much in need of our prayers.

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:Hebrews 9 : 27

For if his sins are as grave as the ancient faith would lead us to believe, even if he made a perfect act of contrition prior to his death and made a good confession, his soul will remain in Purgatory for a very, very long time. Those who wish to participate in God’s mercy upon Francis’s soul, and therefore to say prayers and do acts of penance for his benefit, may be dissuaded from doing so by the reigning pope’s repeated statements.

As Tetzel entered a town, a messenger went before him, announcing: “The grace of God and of the holy father is at your gates.”—D’Aubigne, b. 3, ch. 1. And the people welcomed the blasphemous pretender as if he were God Himself come down from heaven to them. The infamous traffic was set up in the church, and Tetzel, ascending the  pulpit, extolled the indulgences as the most precious gift of God. He declared that by virtue of his certificates of pardon all the sins which the purchaser should afterward desire to commit would be forgiven him, and that “not even repentance is necessary.”—Ibid., b. 3, ch. 1. More than this, he assured his hearers that the indulgences had power to save not only the living but the dead; that the very moment the money should clink against the bottom of his chest, the soul in whose behalf it had been paid would escape from purgatory and make its way to heaven. (See K. R. Hagenbach, History of the Reformation, vol. 1, p. 96.) GC 127.3

But there is another reason why Leo is, in fact, playing with fire. It has not gone unnoticed among many of the Church’s faithful that, of late, canonisations have been co-opted as an instrument in what has for decades been the dominant ecclesiastical regime. Instrumentalising such holy things, besides being sacrilegious, is a very foolish thing to do. Ultimately, it does not serve to strengthen the regime, as intended, but only to undermine that which is instrumentalised.

It should not surprise us, then, that many theologians have begun to question the infallibility of canonisations. Increasingly, theologians have argued that the conditions of canonisation posed by Thomas Aquinas are either no longer in place or have been dramatically warped. And the modern practice of popes to waive the remaining ordinarily required canonisation conditions due to personal whim or preference has not helped the situation.Pope Francis at the tomb of Pope Paul VI [Source: YouTube screenshot]

Pope Francis at the tomb of Pope Paul VI [Source: YouTube screenshot]

The instrumentalization of canonizations has, thus, only weakened devotion to the saints and damaged the credibility of the Church’s judgment in such matters. Increasingly, it is felt among the practising faithful that canonisations have little to do with the Church’s response to an organically emerging devotion to a particular deceased holy person, and everything to do with whatever consolidates the dominant ecclesiastical regime, helping to impose and enforce its ideological commitments.

A case in point is that of Saint Philomena. Few saints have enjoyed such popular veneration in modern times. Soon after her remains were discovered in the catacombs in 1802, many amazing things began to surround the growing interest in who she was and what her role in the early Church could have been. Miraculous healings, weeping statues, and the visions of ecstatic seers all contributed to the massive cultus that erupted, with everyone from the reigning pope to the poor parish priest of Ars, John Vianney, spreading devotion to this early martyr who had refused to breach her vow of chastity even for an Emperor.

But then, under Pope Paul VI, her name was removed from liturgical calendars. Devotion to this powerful intercessor was incompatible, it seems, with the new rationalistic and naturalistic regime that Pope Paul introduced. That the faithful had such a deep and sincere devotion to Philomena – a sign, according to Church tradition, that the sensus fidelium was manifesting itself – meant nothing to the new experts whom Pope Paul had raised up to lofty offices from which to experiment upon the Lord’s faithful.

Proof, indeed, that canonizations seem to have little to do with the Church’s response to an organically emerging devotion is offered by the subsequent canonisation by Pope Francis of Pope Paul VI. The fact is, almost no one likes Pope Paul VI. He was a sulky, bourgeois social climber with a snobbish liking for connoisseurs and academics, who presided over the most destructive period in the Church’s history, leading to a great exodus from the pews and the universal collapse of priestly vocations.

Really, again, no one likes him: traditionally minded Catholics never forgave him for suppressing the ancient liturgy and gutting the Church of her ancient traditions, and progressively minded Catholics never forgave him for giving the thumbs down to contraceptives. The only people who didn’t really mind him – yet certainly did not pray to him or venerate him – were the ecclesiastical neo-conservatives. But their position as a faction in the post-conciliar Church was made practically impossible by the reign of Pope Francis, given that it then became just too difficult and embarrassing to keep arguing that the post-conciliar papacy was in perfect continuity with the pre-conciliar papacy.

The canonisation of Paul VI happened for one reason only, and that was to send a message to the faithful that if they think Vatican II was a disaster then, well, tough luck, because “there’s no going back.” But that message only works if the Church’s faithful take these modern canonisations seriously, and of course increasingly they do not, precisely for this very reason: they lose their power with their misuse. Canonisations are now widely understood as just another weapon in the armoury of an ecclesiastical regime whose ambition it is to mix the Church’s roles with an affirmation of secular, atheistic modernity.

If the Church continues to struggle for survival under such a regime; that regime’s ultimate collapse will make the Church’s presence almost undetectable in the world. Consequently, there’s no way out of the new, anti-traditional Church except that of repudiating the whole modern experiment and once more taking up the mission, under the ministerial care of the Paraclete, to make disciples of all nations, thereby rescuing them from the unconverted world which is, I wish to emphasise, the principality of Satan.

It is possible that Francis’s soul is neither in Heaven nor Purgatory.

Since Cardinal Prevost ascended to the Chair of Peter, there have been some promising signs that have given me and other traditional Catholics reasons for hope. But he must stop the nonsense. He should stop saying that Francis is in Heaven. It is possible that Francis’s soul is neither in Heaven nor Purgatory. It is possible that Francis’s soul is in Purgatory, in which case, if you feel so inspired to do so, it would be laudable to pray for him.

It is almost unthinkable – if the tradition of the Church on matters of idolatry, abuse of law, corruption of holy offices, etc. etc., is taken seriously – that Francis is now in Heaven. Saying that he is there is quite obviously done for ideological reasons, to resurrect the mythology of post-conciliar continuity that duped so many Catholics for so long, and has so profoundly contributed to the mass apostasy of the faithful over the past half-century or so.

It is time to stop these games now and to reconcile the Church with her tradition, and that will require a lot more honesty about who the bad guys were, and are, to this day.