The Magical “Convert-Making” Chair-of-Peter

They refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false.—2 Thess 2:10-11.

Before the 2025 Conclave, Archbishop Viganó stated: “The Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis that regulates the Conclave, confirmed by the Motu Proprio of Benedict XVI Normas Nonnullas, peremptorily establishes that the number of Cardinal electors must not exceed 120 individuals. But the Cardinal electors who make up the imminent ‘conclave’ are 136: we are therefore faced with a very serious violation that alone would be enough to undermine the legitimacy of any supposedly valid Conclave. Furthermore, a College of Cardinals composed of 108 ‘cardinals’ created by a Jesuit who usurped the Papacy for twelve years cannot validly elect a legitimate pope.”

Even if Archbishop Viganó was wrong about that and the 2025 Conclave was valid, we need to realize the obvious:  When a leftist takes the Chair-of-Peter and promotes the error of religious indifferentism in his first week, there is minimal chance of a coming conversion in the next couple decades.  This is especially true when (in his past) he had promoted open-borders and abortion-tainted vaccines.  Bishop Prevost also brought altar girls to a diocese in Peru that didn’t have them.

I know this is a big let-down for many of you.  Traditional Catholics are starving for someone to help them after the past 13 years in the Vatican.  I don’t blame a starving man for diving into a dumpster for a half-eaten quarter-pounder.  But I’m obliged to tell you there’s poison on that quarter-pounder that will kill you even faster than your near-starvation diet over the last 13 years.  I don’t want you to despair, but I am also obliged as a traditional Roman Catholic priest to keep you from false-hope.  As St. Augustine said, “There are two things that kill the soul: despair and false hope.”—Sermon 87.8.

Many traditional Catholics online are currently pointing to Pope Blessed Pius IX, hoping that Leo abandons his former globalist ways for a more traditional route as did Pius IX.  While it is true that “Pio-Nono” (Pius IX) changed his mind on a few political topics after his coronation as Supreme Pontiff in 1846, he never had “a conversion” on dogma or liturgy.  Pio-Nono was always Catholic.  In fact, it would be a deconstructionist rewriting of Catholic Church history to say he had a “conversion” after assuming the Chair of Peter.  As we will see, the topics upon which Pio-Nono reversed are quite small.

Encyclopedia Brittanica writes: “It has often been asserted that Pius returned to Rome a changed man, that the former liberal had become a narrow reactionary. That his policy had changed there is no doubt, but his fundamental attitude remained the same. The interests of the church had always been his first concern. He had been prepared to countenance both nationalism and liberalism while they left the church intact, but experience had taught him that both led to revolution, which he had never been prepared to countenance. Furthermore, political concessions on his part had led to attacks on his spiritual power, and he considered that it could be protected only by his continued exercise of a temporal authority. Once these two aspects of his dominion had become indissolubly linked, it is easy to see why Pius considered himself obliged to oppose any alteration of his position as a temporal ruler.”

Our Sunday Visitor also mentions a few small points Pio Nono changed his mind on: “The new pope — ‘Pio Nono’ to everyone — set about living up to his reputation, introducing into the Papal States, that swath of central Italy ruled for centuries by the popes, reforms like railway service, gas street lights in Rome and abolishing the requirement that Jews attend weekly Christian sermons.”

Notice, again that Pio Nono had no conversions on dogma after his coronation as the Roman Pontiff.  The notion that God would override free-will and automatically change the intellect of a person just because he lives in Rome is a stifling superstition I see among hundreds of trad-Cats on X.  It is as if they superstitiously believe there is a Magical Chair in the Vatican that can convert liberals to traditionalists.

Of course, this notion is ridiculous for many reasons.  One of the most obvious reasons is because there’s an old maxim of the Catholic Church that says “Grace builds upon nature without destroying it.” It means that the divine gifts of the interior life normally only increase if we have had prior cooperation with the Natural Law and the Natural Virtues. This is because God respects free-will.  God rarely “zaps” somebody like He did St. Paul.  It is possible, of course, but keep in mind that even Saul was somewhat following his conscience and even telling the truth as a Christian-persecuting Jew at the time.  There was a small crack for an enormous grace.

On the contrary, a lying spirit is almost never open to grace.  (Also, keep in mind the Doctor of the Church St. Robert Bellarmine teaches a heretic assuming the Chair-of-Peter refrains from ever becoming Pope in God’s own eyes, even if no one on earth recognizes the deceit.)

I was telling a married couple on the phone about these weird desires for the Chair-of-Peter to automatically change a man overnight without his free-will being involved at all.  The wife of the family added something brilliant: “This is like the husbands who have an addiction to the internet and then think their wife in marriage is going to end their addiction.” Notice she was NOT implying that anyone who moved into the Vatican this week has an addiction to porn. She was simply saying that who you are before a vocation is who you are within that vocation.  Not even the sacrament of marriage changes an addict unless he wants to have a conversion.  Operative word there is wants.

Another analogy to lead to clarity:  Imagine my friend Fr. Jim Altman had become Pope last week.  No, really, just try to imagine it for thirty seconds.  Do you think my enemy, Fr. James Martin, would tweet out endless requests for novenas that that new pope become “more inclusive” upon accepting the Chair of Peter? Of course not.  Even Fr. James Martin (someone I rarely defend) would never be so stupid.  Even he knows when to believe someone when they tell you who they are. Thus, the trads online are acting much more obtuse than even liberals would act in the inverse situation.

Traditionalists and conservatives can share short clips of Leo blessing people in Latin all day long.  But only the leftists like James Martin and Cupich are really confident they got their guy on the Chair-of-Peter again.  I grew up among liberal South-Side of Chicago Catholics my whole life, so I understand them.  And I believe them that they got their guy again.  Just look at James Martin with his shit-eating grin on Stephen Colbert’s show.  They know they got their guy again, and I agree with them for once. Look, even if Leo does not write any new heresies soon, I guarantee he will not reverse heresies found in Amoris Laetitia or Fiducia Supplicans.  In fact, there is evidence from his theology as a bishop that he supports both.

Cardinal Cupich of Chicago teaches that those who commit sodomy can receive Holy Communion without confession.  Yet Cupich was brought to tears at the election of Prevost.  Pro-LGBT Cardinal McElroy of DC also said he “will follow much in the path of Pope Francis, but he will set his own pathway.”

So, why aren’t traditional Catholics believing these leftist Cardinals who know him in real life and claim him as one of their own?

The fact traditional Catholics think they got a good guy honestly looks like a diabolical spell to me.  The delusion reminds me of how many Catholics were mad at me in 2020 when I told them all not to take the C19 jab.  Is this the time to tell you I told you so? on the mRNA re-arranger when so many Catholics cursed my name in 2021?  Yes, it’s again the time to tell you:  I told you so when nearly no other public clergy did, except a few like Archbishop Viganó and Fr. Altman.  (Interestingly enough, I have communicated with both of them over the last few weeks on the Conclave, too.)

Anyway, even if the three of us are too extreme for you, these are the basics of classic Catholic ascetical theology that every good traditionalist should agree to: God respects free-will and grace builds on nature without destroying it. Therefore, it’s superstitious to believe Rome has some magical convert-making Chair that might turn an ultra-liberal into a traditionalist (because he speaks a little Latin while moving into the Vatican.)  95% of trads are under a current delusion as I alluded to in the opening Scripture quote of my article: They refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false.—2 Thess 2.

Read an excellent analysis of this new deceit by Fr. Paul Kramer here.

Don’t believe me?  Deride me at your own peril, just like the mRNA shot I warned you all about five years ago as nearly the entire Catholic world mocked me.  As St. Bernadette said, “My job is to inform, not to convince.”  I also believe the old phrase: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”  I did that with Bill Gates and I’m now doing it with Leo.  No judgment here.  I just take every man at his word.

Featured image at top p/c: Wonka via A. Busygin.