By Robert Royal
Virgil’s Aeneid—the epic poem about the founding of Rome that virtually every educated person in the West has read since the time of Christ—contains a verse that has puzzled many readers. Aeneas descends to the underworld. He sees wicked souls being punished, the good enjoying the Elysian Fields (a kind of heaven), and a parade of future heroes who will bring glory to Rome. One figure in particular is striking (and frustrating for the student trying to decipher the Latin): tu Maximus ille es, unus qui nobis cunctando restituis rem (“You are, Fabius Maximus, who alone with his delay restored the Republic”). Fabius Maximus was a legendary general who, through prudent delaying tactics, defeated the fearsome leader of the Carthaginian army, Rome’s greatest enemy: Hannibal.
We don’t usually think of delay as a way to win wars—or to win anything, really. And it’s unusual to see the Romans—who just in the time of Jesus were brutally conquering wherever they pleased—praising a master of military subtlety. When the Cunctator (“the Delayer”) took command, a large number of Roman troops had just been crushed in the Battle of Cannae, and many believed Rome should surrender to Carthage. But Fabius Maximus revitalized the city and began a long campaign of attrition, avoiding major battles with slim chances of success, but gradually wearing down the enemy in multiple minor skirmishes. The Carthaginian army collapsed over time.
The history of Rome is unknown to most people today. But all this has been on my mind lately when thinking about Pope Leo and what will probably be a long pontificate. Speculations about it are already tedious and range from discouragement to optimism. However, one thing we can already see clearly: he is not a man of great frontal battles, even though many—including myself—would wish for quick and decisive actions.
He is clearly a “Fabius Maximus” type. The cumulative effect of many small actions will determine the course of the Church in the next two decades and decide whether She can, slowly, advance against the many forces—internal and external—that seek, let’s be frank, to destroy Her.
I have always believed that the Pope does not need to become a kind of “global firefighter”, intervening in what the world considers the Really Important Issues. (The recent Vatican proposal for a two-state solution in Israel, for example, not only poses an impossibility, but is a misuse of the Church’s moral authority in a field where it possesses no greater insight or influence than anyone else.)
Of course: one must condemn war, discourage armed violence (without pretending to have a magical solution to the problem of shootings in an armed nation like the U.S.); welcome the stranger (without turning it into immigration policy); care for Creation, warn about the risks of artificial intelligence. But the central action—and Pope Leo has reiterated it—is to find Jesus Christ and live in His goodness and His truth.
Feeding and caring for God’s people, and inviting those outside to enter the fold—through conversion and daily steps of repentance—is more than enough task for any Pope. Not through political suicides in the style of “diversity” and “inclusion.”
Until a few days ago, I had hopes that Pope Leo understood this.
After the disaster of this weekend’s LGBT Jubilee, I also have doubts.
First, we saw the spectacle of Fr. James Martin preemptively offering a convenient interpretation of the Pope’s views on LGBT people and the Church. He said he “heard” Leo tell him to continue his ministry along the lines encouraged previously by Pope Francis.
As an American, Pope Leo must know that this issue has been a source of division for decades, not just under Bergoglio’s pontificate. In 1976, the Call to Action in Detroit (Robert Prevost was 21 years old then) was already agitating for: married priests and women priests, communion for the divorced without annulment, changes in teaching on homosexuality, and greater lay participation in Church governance. As a French poet said: “Everything changes, except the vanguard.”
Nearly half a century later, except for: confusing pronouncements from Francis (timidly, in a footnote) on communion for the remarried and other “irregular” situations; the vague “welcoming” and “accompanying” of LGBT people without openly modifying doctrine; the endless saga of “deaconesses,” which has led nowhere; and the prolonged mess of synodality… what has changed? The dam has cracks and could easily collapse, but so far it holds.
Pope Leo did not personally meet over the weekend with the LGBT contingent of the Jubilee parading through Rome demanding ecclesial acceptance. It’s impossible to think they didn’t propose it to him.
Fr. Martin, master of a constant campaign of attrition—amplified by media that turn any ecclesial ambiguity into supposed progressive victories—, offered in advance the excuse that Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar already occupied the Pope’s agenda. But if he really wanted to, the Pope could have granted a brief meeting to a group he supports.
But he also didn’t do two other things—small, but necessary—:
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He did not declare that any “welcoming” of LGBT people must take place under the undivided moral tradition that comes to us from Moses to Jesus, St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Alphonsus Liguori, Newman, St. John Paul II, Benedict, and so many others.
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He did not prevent—although the official Jubilee calendar changed several times regarding it—the LGBT event, clearly promoted by the usual suspects inside the Vatican, from taking place.
There are no Jubilee events for thieves, adulterers, or liars. Why yes for those who publicly celebrate inclinations and behaviors that the Church teaches as objectively disordered? Unless, with his silence, Leo wants to align himself with those seeking a moral revolution within the Church?
I would like to think it was not his intention. But that is the situation in which he has now placed himself.
These are serious failures. And we know that great Popes like St. John Paul II and Benedict also struggled to contain the heterodox forces in the Church. In this case, Leo could have blocked them with the small tactics he prefers. Because what is at stake is enormous: nothing less than confronting the anti-Christian forces of the world, protecting Rome… and protecting us all.
About the author:
Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. Among his most recent books are The Martyrs of the New Millennium: The Global Persecution of Christians in the Twenty-First Century, Columbus and the Crisis of the West y A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.