The Bombshell Without a Bang.

This month of July 2025, Miss Diane Montagna, an American journalist based in Rome, released an article here titled “Official Vatican Report Exposes Major Cracks in Foundation of Traditiones Custodes (TC.)”  She writes: “The previously undisclosed text, which forms a crucial part of the official report by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on its 2020 consultation of bishops concerning Summorum Pontificum, reveals that ‘the majority of bishops who responded to the questionnaire stated that making legislative changes to Summorum Pontificum would cause more harm than good.'”

But only 30% of the bishops had even responded in that 2020 questionnaire.  Miss Montagna asserts that a new report states “that Summorum Pontificum played ‘a significant, albeit relatively modest, role in the life of the Church.’  By 2021, ‘it had spread to around 20% of the Latin [Western] dioceses worldwide, and its implementation was “more serene and peaceful, though not everywhere.”‘”  She added: “Based on the findings of the survey of the episcopate, and citing a Filippino bishop, the CDF report concludes by recommending: ‘Let the people be free to choose.'”  That is, many bishops thought it was no problem for Catholics in the pews to choose between the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and the Novus Ordo Mass (NOM.)

The shocking news for many is that Francis lied.  I don’t mean to sound like a one-upper or a Black-Piller but here’s the thing:  I don’t understand how that is news at all.  Over ten years ago, my canon lawyer (who I met in Rome) said something I had never heard him say about anyone else.  He said to me:  “Francis is an inveterate liar.”  At first I was shocked at what he said.  But everything has confirmed that fact over the last 14 years in not only private Vatican dealings, but even all public news coming from the Vatican.  So, I fail to see how his lying about the TC-report is news at all.

We also knew the 2020 report couldn’t possibly be true because of the popularity of the TLM.  Just before Miss Montagna’s report was released this summer, Rorate Cæli reported that 7% of practicing Catholics in the United States attend the TLM.  That is a staggeringly disproportionate number of practicing Catholics when compared to the rest of the country.  Or, simply scroll through Catholic X or Catholic IG and you’ll (thankfully!) see a highly disproportionate number of pictures of the TLM in comparison to the NOM.  Also, most trads usually mind their own business in Church affairs.  So, we knew there couldn’t be a report saying we were “causing more harm than good.”

The other reason we knew from the start that the initial report was phony is because most mainstream American bishops wanted the continuation of the TLM in their few semi-trad parishes that offered both new and old Roman sacraments.  Was it because they loved the Latin Mass?  Nope.  Not at all.  It’s because they wanted to keep all the trads isolated in one ghetto.  I’m not kidding.  You see, if the bishops stopped the TLM, they release all the head-veiled ladies into normal parish life who are going to flood the NOM with a piety that is not welcome at the NOM.  What happens then?  Well, then those veiled-ladies write letters to the bishop telling them what one EMHC failed to do, or which heresy the neo-con priest preached.

As I have said before: Please stop trying to figure out which American bishop is conservative or liberal.  They simply want to avoid letters on their desk.  That’s what’s important to them.  And keeping a few trad ghettos within indult parishes helped that.  Barring far leftists like Cupich, the average US bishop did not want who he still sees as jihadist-Catholics released into even their conservative parishes.  Why?  Again, it is better to keep all the strange extremists into one spot, even if that be a parish that used to be called “an indult parish,” that is, a diocesan parish not run by a congregation linked to the former-Ecclesia Dei commission.

I’m also a little suspicious of the timing of the release of the new report that proved old report was false.  I’m not projecting any spurious intention on Miss Montagna, for I have met her in real life, and she is a kind lady.  But I suspect that many traditionalists are exposing the new “bombshell” of a report in order to distance Leo from Francis.  If they were honest, they would instead ask:  Why did Msgr. Bux release his book on the TC-reports only after Francis died?  Why are other online trads still asking insane questions about the TC-report like “Was Pope Francis tricked?”

Or, perhaps it’s not dishonesty.  Perhaps it’s a false-hope.  As Chris Jackson recently wrote about both Vatican apparatus supporting the blessings of gay-couples, most traditional Catholics are approaching it “based on papal aesthetics, low expectations, and above all, a desperate hunger for permission to cling to Rome no matter how corrupted it becomes.”  That is a brilliant line: a desperate hunger for permission to cling to Rome no matter how corrupted it becomes.  Yes, there’s still trads aiming for these Stockholm-Syndrome deals, hoping their new-captor will mercifully grant the TLM as he continues to destroy the faith.

But the trads won’t even get that deal they hope for on the TLM.  I guarantee you Leo will never backtrack anything done by his Blessed Franky.  He certainly won’t admit he lied.  I grew up a liberal Catholic, so I understand the minds of the leftists unlike nearly all the trad commentators.  The fact is that once Marxists and leftists have attained a certain level of power, they do not even try to avoid getting caught in their larks by those on the right.  (The old phrase: “They’ll kiss your hand til they can cut it off.”)

Leftists actually get a spiritual-high in getting caught by knowing that their enemies can do nothing to stop them.  That is what nearly everyone in the trad world is missing in the news on these two TC reports that are allegedly a “bombshell.”  Rather, this TC-mischief is not big news.   So please stop thinking that the new-cult leader is going to overturn the abuse of the former cult-leader.  Heed St. Augustine here:  “There are two things that kill the soul: despair and false-hope.”—Sermon 87.8.