The following is an email I received from an attorney here in the USA. He didn’t expect me to publish it, but he did give me permission to do that, provided I remove his name.
Dear Father Nix:
I am not a scholar, influencer, or thought leader as you certainly are. I am just a profane, vulgar, pew-sitting, often disaffected Catholic who has, by virtue of his professional training, often been elevated to a higher station than his merit or virtue warranted. The election of Robert Prevost, OSA to the papacy has been one of those times when I feel as if I were among the last sane individuals on the planet, the others being the immediate aftermath of 9-11, the election of Jorge Bergoglio, and the outbreak of COVID 19, times when natural and righteous skepticism seemed to evaporate. With the anti-Bergoglian commentariat re-discovering its deference to the papal office, regardless of its occupant and how he got there, I felt quite at sixes and sevens about the Prevost election until I read your May 15, 2025 article, “The Magical Convert-Making Chair of Peter” From these perspectives, I offer the following observations.
I was born in the early 1960’s. The Council convened from 1962 to 1965. During that time reigned a Pope who imprudently (purposefully?) convened an Ecumenical Council which, as is well documented, was highjacked by bad faith actors. He was followed by a pope who was arguably orthodox in doctrine yet oversaw a dismantling of discipline unprecedented in its scale. His was followed by one of the shortest pontificates in history, whose promise, if any, can only be left to conjecture. John Paul II’s long pontificate represented a return to sanity, even a Renaissance of faithful Catholicism, after a long hiatus, but there were many problematic elements: the flirtations with indifferentism, the failure to fully and systematically root out apostacy across the Church, the unjust treatment of Traditional Catholics, the abysmal appointments to the hierarchy, and the widespread neglect of priestly sexual misconduct. Benedict XVI, the former liberal and Vatican II peritus, was perhaps the most orthodox and thoughtful of the lot (who else could have composed and delivered the Regensburg address?), but he was also the least effective.
And then there was Francis. The product of a robber Conclave, ostentatious in his humility, and iconoclastic in his every gesture. We cannot be certain that he was installed as an agent of the globalist elites, but from the very first, his actions could not have been better contrived to meet their purposes if he were: the downgrading of abortion as an offense under Canon Law; the elevation of Environmentalism to Church Doctrine; the ambiguous statements about homosexuality; Pachamama; Amoris Laetitia; the appointment of gay and trans affirming clergy to positions of the highest authority; and on and on. The Franciscan depredations were so pervasive and so damaging that as early as 2018 Traditional Catholic writer and activist attorney Christopher A. Ferrara, Esq. proposed, pursuant to quite persuasive argument and research, the convening of an imperfect council to resolve the issues raised by Francis’ papacy.
Through retirements, downright evil episcopal appointments, and stacking the College of Cardinals, he reshaped Church’s senior hierarchy in his own image, an image that is a funhouse mirror distortion of the robust, manly, and clearly orthodox faith of the Young Boomers, X’ers, and Millennials who dominate Her lower ranks. This hierarchy betrayed the Faithful throughout the COVID debacle, shuttering churches, gravely curtailing the sacraments, insisting that we take an abortion-compromised jab. The pews emptied, and the coffers grew shallower than ever. Although not as vigorous as it should have been, there was resistance, especially to manifest abuses, such Traditionis Custodes.
His status unresolved, the old man died on Easter Monday, comparatively, but not entirely, unlamented by the ordinary Faithful. In a final act of vandalism, a baroque niche in Santa Maria Maggiore was simply sledgehammered to make way for an aggressively simple, poorly-crafted monument to the shepherd of smelly sheep.
So, like the abused wife, whose husband has slapped her around one too many times, who has come home drunk more often than sober, and whose roving eye is all too evident, I am supposed to greet Francis’ successor with open arms when he appears at my door clean shaven, well dressed, well spoken, and carrying a modest bouquet of flowers but without explicit purpose of reform. After more than 60 years of this nonsense, the keys to my heart and my strongbox remain steadfastly closed, especially as he spends the first days of his pontificate affirming his commitment to Synodality, Nostra Aetate, and Conciliarism. Yet I am told that this simple exercise of prudence, caution, and sensus catholicus is disobedient, unworthy, and even sinful.
Finally, my so-called intellectual and spiritual betters lecture me that I should not see this through lens of secular politics; that I should be grateful for the election of a seemingly authentic pope; and that I should not let my support for a single man or political program get in the way of my duties as a Catholic. But this is simply impossible: first, because, whatever his personal merits, the election of Leo XIV was engineered by a cabal of cardinals that included some of the most evil and secular-minded prelates since the Borgias; second, because it occurred in the aftermath of the Catholic Church’s ahistorical and a-theological solicitude for immigration being exposed as grifter cover (whether deliberate or inadvertent) for the misappropriation of US Taxpayer funds and for human trafficking (What better way to divert attention and perhaps avoid prosecution than to elect an American pope?): third, because, contrary to the sneering condescension of certain elements of the orthodox Catholic intelligentsia, I support Trump and Trumpism because I am Catholic, not the other way around.
Regarding the last, there is no doubt in my mind that whatever his intentions in the matter might have been, Leo XIV’s election was at least in part a secularist maneuver on the part of Modernist agents who have embraced globalism, collectivism, and progressivism in lieu of authentic Catholic teaching.
Ironically, an honest reading of Leo XIII’s encyclicals suggests that Trump’s political program is closer to the Leonine vision than his modern ecclesiastical detractors recognize. On the international front, why should not a newly revivified United States, informed by Christianity and, frankly, Catholicism lead the Western Hemisphere, especially its Northern half, while Catholic Europe (if it cares to be) and Orthodox Russia lead the Eurasian landmass? And let a sovereign Catholic Church, concerned most of all with the salvation of souls, inform them all? Continued adherence to a Will Herberg (Protestant, Catholic, Jew)/John Courtney Murray Baptized Enlightenment is a recipe for the continued failure and decline of both Western Civilization and the American nation.
While recognizing that despair is a poor counselor and sincerely hoping that my initial skepticism about Leo XIV will be disproven by events, I, for one, shall cease to look to the hierarchy for a Catholic Restoration. The episcopacy and the priesthood, with some honorable exceptions, having failed to protect their flock, the Restoration must continue to derive from the laity, first by reforming ourselves and then by speaking and acting upon the Truth within our spheres of influence, whether great or small, prudently, charitably, and, above all, courageously.
Respectfully and gratefully yours,
A Catholic Lawyer