Pope Leo omits the Filioque in Ecumenical Prayer Service

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It is my understanding that in this regard, Pope Leo follows in the footsteps of his Conciliar predecessors: John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis.

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A brief excerpt regarding this and other equally troubling words and actions this past week:


The Fading of the Filioque

The week began with a spectacle at St. Paul Outside the Walls. Leo XIV, surrounded by ecumenical dignitaries, led a recitation of the Nicene Creed, minus the Filioque.

Yes, the same Filioque clause that Latin martyrs confessed against Arianism. The same Filioque that councils, catechisms, and centuries of Latin chant placed into the bloodstream of the Church. Dropped, as though it were an optional garnish on a salad of syncretic “unity.”

The camera panned across officials reading from glossy booklets, mumbling a creed purged of the Spirit’s procession from the Son. What was once confessed as eternal truth is now a bargaining chip in the ecumenical poker game. One almost expects the Vatican shop to sell a “Choose Your Own Creed” edition, complete with detachable clauses for various interfaith events.

And the justification? “Martyrs of the 21st century.” Those who died clinging to Christ are posthumously drafted into an ecumenical project that reduces doctrine to optional parts, a witness cheapened for the sake of photo ops.


What About Eastern Catholics?

Some popesplainers object that Eastern Catholics don’t recite the Filioque in the Creed. Eastern Catholics omit the Filioque because their Creed was never altered; it remains the ancient Greek text. But they accept the dogma that the Spirit proceeds from Father and the Son.

What Leo did is different: he deliberately suppressed a defined Catholic dogma in a context where it was rejected by those praying with him. That makes it an ecumenical compromise, not a harmless liturgical variation. Rome playing games with the Creed to appease schismatics is a scandal of a different order.


Lampedusa: Francis Reheated

From there, Leo sent a video message to Lampedusa for the UNESCO “Gestures of Welcome” project. The language was indistinguishable from Francis’ 2013 debut: breath, spirit, migrants as “seeds” for a new world, and the obligatory denunciation of “walls.”

No mention of conversion. No mention of the supernatural life. The “heritage” celebrated here is not the Faith of the martyrs but the sociological virtue of borderless hospitality. Lampedusa becomes a shrine to the globalist creed, and Leo is its high priest.

When he thunders that “there is no justice without compassion, no legitimacy without listening to the pain of others,” one hears the inverted Decalogue of Vatican II humanitarianism. Grace, sin, salvation: those categories no longer register.


A Theology for the World, Not of Christ

At the Pontifical Academy of Theology, Leo discoursed at length about a “theology of wisdom” that dialogues with science, literature, music, and other religions. Augustine and Aquinas were invoked, but only as mascots for a theology that exists to prop up secular projects.

Rosmini, of course, was name-dropped, because nothing says continuity with the Fathers like dragging in a modernist condemned by the Holy Office.

The speech climaxes with theology as “sapida scientia,” not for saving souls from hell, but for contributing to interreligious dialogue, artificial intelligence ethics, and solidarity initiatives. Once upon a time, theologians bled for the deposit of faith. Today they write position papers on android rights under the approving gaze of Leo XIV.


The Umbria Pilgrimage: Beauty Without the Cross

Leo greeted pilgrims from Umbria by lauding their landscape, art, and “centuries of sanctity.” He quoted Paul VI on the world’s “need for beauty.” True enough, but the homily quickly collapsed into aestheticism. Beauty as therapy, beauty as shared admiration. Beauty without conversion.

One wonders how the martyrs of Umbria would recognize their faith in a sermon where the supernatural is displaced by tourist-brochure prose.


Angelus: A Birthday and a Synod

On September 14th, Leo delivered his Angelus for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. The Gospel was faithfully recited, Nicodemus dutifully mentioned, and the Cross framed as the world’s supreme contradiction turned into life.

But then the mask slipped. The true centerpiece was not the Cross but the 60th anniversary of Paul VI’s Synod of Bishops, “a prophetic intuition.” Thus, even the feast of the Cross was yoked to the synodal program. And with a grin, Leo reminded the crowd that it was also his 70th birthday.

Self-exaltation alongside the Exaltation.