We ended the week with a news roundup and some precautions ahead of the upcoming encyclical on so-called artificial intelligence. Let’s begin…
Visit of Leo XIV to Acerra.
A very brief visit. Leo XIV travels this morning to the “Land of Fires,” 90 municipalities in the territory between the dioceses of Naples and Caserta. The visit will last approximately four hours, with two speeches and public encounters. In the cathedral he will meet with the bishops of Campania, together with the clergy and religious, and families affected by environmental contamination. He will also meet with the mayors and faithful of the various municipalities of the “Land of Fires” before returning to the Vatican for lunch.
The Spanish president at the Vatican.
The arrival of the President of the Spanish Government in Rome is expected on May 27 ahead of the Pope’s first visit to Spain in 15 years. The apostolic journey will take place from June 6 to 12 and will include visits to Madrid, Barcelona, Las Palmas, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife—the first papal mission to the country in fifteen years. Sánchez is allergic to participating in religious events and did not attend the inaugural Mass of the pontificate. He now appears occupied with a distraction ceremony to “continue collaborating in the search for peace and human dignity,” extending multilateral cooperation to the fight against social inequality and the climate emergency. This will be his third official visit to the Vatican since taking office in 2018. The two previous visits took place during the pontificate of Pope Francis. In October 2024, Sánchez was motivated to extend an official invitation to Pope Francis, which went unanswered.
Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War.
It is certainly an excellent preparation for Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Spain. The martyrdom of the Servants of God Francisco González de Córdova and 79 companions—priests, religious, seminarians, and lay faithful—murdered between 1936 and 1937 out of hatred for the faith in the diocese of Santander (Spain), in the context of the same persecution, has been approved.
Dziwisz in Cascia.
For the celebration of the Solemnity of St. Rita, the “precious pearl of Umbria.” Archbishop Boccardo delivered an emotional greeting to Cardinal Dziwisz, recalling his long and faithful service alongside St. John Paul II. “We ask you to place all these intentions on the altar and entrust them, in the name of all, to St. Rita and St. John Paul II.” The cardinal brought to Cascia “the gift of prayer from Kraków,” recalling how that city—the birthplace of John Paul II and St. Faustina Kowalska—constantly offers prayers for the intentions of the universal Church and for a world “so convulsed in our times, stricken by the tragedy of fratricidal wars.”
Pope Leo XIV’s trip to Uruguay.
Toward the acquittal of Becciu?
After all the commotion, this would be the absurd conclusion of an absurd process. “As the second phase of the trial approaches, the prosecution’s case against Cardinal Becciu is not only cracking but literally collapsing under the weight of shocking revelations and documents. What is emerging is no longer just a trial, but an opaque tangle of procedural violations, external interference, and gray areas that undermine the credibility of the entire investigation into the sale of the Sloane Avenue building.” “The appeal trial on June 22 will not only be a judgment against Cardinal Becciu, but also a judgment on the methods used to convict him. It will include the omission of documents (Article 355 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), the manipulation of testimonies by investigators, unauthorized access, and the recruitment of secret agents outside international letters rogatory (naturally, subject to due verification).
Positive signals from the German synod?
What has happened to the German bishops? For some weeks now, they seem to have stopped challenging Rome, remembering their essential duty of loyalty. Franz Jung, Bishop of Würzburg, acknowledges the loss of “communication with Rome” by the German Church during the “Synodal Way” process. In an interview with K-TV, the bishop recalled the example of Cardinal Döpfner, a key figure in the German ecclesiastical assembly of the 1970s, admitting that at that time every step was taken together with the Holy See. “This was missing in the recent Synodal Way,” recognizing that they had tried to proceed too independently. Now we want to take the next steps together with the Church.” The bishop’s words come after a long season of warnings from the Vatican.
A second case concerns the President of the German Bishops’ Conference,Msgr. Heiner Wilmer, who a few days ago stated that the future “Synodal Conference could not begin without the approval of the Vatican.” The decision to block the main fruit of the long German synodal process, pending explicit approval from the Vatican, has been seen as the clearest sign so far that the bishops are no longer willing to openly challenge Pope Leo XIV. There is also suspicion that the more progressive bishops have lost their majority within the German episcopate.
In recent years, many observers had spoken of the risk of a “German national Church” increasingly distant from Rome. Even Fernández responded to the broad interpretations by the German bishops of “Fiducia supplicans,” reiterating the prohibition of formal blessings for couples not united according to the canons of the Church after the recommendation of Cardinal Reinhard Marx to officially adopt the German guidelines, which were contrary to the Roman ones. Parolin also spoke on the matter, explaining that he considered “premature” any sanction by the Holy See against the German bishops. Parolin indirectly raised the serious issue of excommunication, a topic that remains latent.The German episcopate has shown greater caution and a desire for fidelity to the Church or perhaps caution. This does not mean that the German progressive front has abandoned reforms, but that it may have begun to understand more realistically that betrayal is a dangerous whim that can come at a very high personal cost.
Artificial intelligence or real problems.
Churches (except those celebrating the ancient rite) are emptying, the faithful are absent, religious movements are disappearing, the Church is losing credibility, people have forgotten the Ten Commandments, heresies are spreading, Catholics are persecuted in many parts of the world, faith in the Real Presence is an increasingly distant memory—and what is the Pope doing? He is dedicating his first encyclical to artificial intelligence. Are we sure that, from the Catholic Church’s perspective, artificial intelligence is a priority today? Should the Vicar of Christ not be concerned, especially at this moment, with other lesser matters? For example, the crisis of vocations, the exhaustion of religious life, the progressive decline in Mass attendance, the end of the idea that salvation resides solely in the Catholic Church.
And what about internal relations among Catholics? Division is total and fractures are deepening, to the point that brothers in the faith no longer understand each other. Do we really believe that through a computer system it will be possible to communicate and understand each other again? Or perhaps he has found the algorithm that solves all problems?
“Rerum Novarum” was not the first of Leo XIII’s eighty-six encyclicals, but the fourteenth. And what topics did Pope Pecci address before reaching the fourteenth? It seems he dealt with minor issues such as the Church of God and the salvation of souls, the dangers associated with the spread of the “sect of those who, under various and almost barbaric names, call themselves socialists, communists, and nihilists,” “a more precise and broader knowledge of the things in which one believes,” “a clearer understanding of the mysteries of the faith,” Catholic marriage, the evangelization of the Slavic peoples, help for the sacred missions, the enemies of the Church in Italy, etc. Leo XIII undoubtedly transformed social doctrine, but first he devoted himself to consolidating the metaphysical, theological, and moral foundations of the faith. And in that era, those foundations were infinitely more solid than they are today.
Do Catholics really need an analysis, however precise, of artificial intelligence? Increasingly lost, increasingly less firm in the faith, do we not need something more in this turbulent time, and after a pontificate devastating from a doctrinal, moral, and theological perspective? The presentation will take place on May 25, and just reading the list of speakers is enough to give one hives. Leo XIV will impart the blessing and apparently there will be no androids. But who knows?
In the face of schismatic ordinations.
Editorial that the Superior General addressed to the members of the Society on March 7, in which he does not address the question of the consecrations themselves, but rather recalls the spirit with which they should be prepared and lived: a spirit of faith, charity, supernatural trust, and love for the Church. Because it is not enough to enlighten the understanding if the heart is not disposed at the same time. It includes a call to maintain, in the current circumstances, a profoundly supernatural perspective, a spirit of meekness and strength, and a charity animated by genuine concern for the good of souls and the Church.
“If we were declared excommunicated and schismatic, this would not mean that we sought such punishment or rejoiced in it, for it would be objectively unjust. It is one thing to rejoice in receiving a new humiliation to offer to God, and quite another to rejoice (in a spirit of defiance) in an evil and objective injustice that scandalizes the entire Church. Caritas non gaudet super iniquitatem – ‘charity does not rejoice in iniquity.’ If, on the contrary, there is a significant sector of the Catholic Church that welcomes and supports the Society’s decision, and if the consecrations become a providential opportunity to renew courage and enthusiasm—both within and outside the Society—then we can only rejoice as God himself rejoices. Caritas congaudet veritati : ‘Charity rejoices in the truth.’”
LGBT New Ways Ministry.
The Bishop of Kentucky, John Stowe, inaugurated the new podcast of the heretical LGBT group New Ways Ministry and compared the group’s activities to Pentecost in blasphemous remarks. The bishop also compared the leaders and supporters of New Ways Ministry, which promotes “gay marriage” and “gender transitions,” to St. Paul, St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, and other Catholic figures, and invoked Pentecost to promote “diversity” in the Church: “I like to think of that mighty wind of the Spirit’s presence that flung open the doors and windows of that closed house where the community had been waiting.”
The Conventual Franciscan bishop, appointed by Pope Francis to lead the Diocese of Lexington in 2015, scandalously compared New Ways Ministry’s “welcome” of homosexual and gender-confused people with St. Paul’s inclusion of Gentile Christians in the Church. Stowe praised the “founding leaders” of New Ways Ministry despite the fact that Pope St. John Paul II and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, censured them in 1999. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under Cardinal Ratzinger, declared the founders of New Ways Ministry, Sister Jeanne Grammick and Father Robert Nugent, “permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons.” “The ambiguities and errors in Father Nugent and Sister Gramick’s approach have caused confusion among Catholics and harmed the Church community,” the congregation stated in a document approved by John Paul II. It added that the two activists could not hold any position in their respective religious institutes for an indefinite period. Stowe participated in a virtual “blessing” event for same-sex couples organized by the heterodox LGBT group “Dignity USA.” The event was held in response to the Vatican’s 2021 pronouncement that the Church cannot bless homosexual relationships. In 2024, he allowed a gender-confused woman to live as a transgender “diocesan hermit” with the name “Christian,” and Stowe has referred to the woman with masculine pronouns.
The bishop has also authorized parishes to fly rainbow flags, and a diocesan spokesperson stated that “making this kind of statement is a decision for each parish.” A parish in Stowe’s diocese also held a prayer service for the LGBT community, in which apologies were made for the Church’s opposition to homosexuality, titled “Service of Atonement and Apology to the LGBTQ+ Community.”
Between light and darkness.
A former Freemason told Tucker Carlson that our souls are immersed in a supernatural battle between “darkness and light,” and claimed to have experienced extraordinary manifestations of this during his initiation into Freemasonry. Sean Stone, filmmaker, actor, and television host, told Carlson in a recent interview about his personal experiences with dark supernatural forces, emphasizing the importance of our own will to choose good in our lives as a way to curb demonic influence. He condemned this materialism for considering it, essentially, “earth worship.” Drugs and excessive alcohol consumption induce “low frequency” states that resonate with dark forces. Between his first- and third-degree initiation into Freemasonry, Stone said he received phone calls from numbers beginning with 666 “all the time.” He heard things from “demonic” voices like: “We want your soul.” “I don’t know if it was Satan or the CIA… I just laughed and said, ‘It’s not up to me to give it, my soul belongs to God. Basically, I can’t help you.’” On one occasion he received a call from people who seemed to be participating in a ritual of worship to Baal. Those who join Freemasonry “and choose the dark side” are basically willing to do anything, even the most evil acts, because all they want is power.
The Masonic infiltration.
Schneider during an interview published on Friday about the evils of Freemasonry and its deep infiltration into the Church since the Second Vatican Council. During an interview on the Adrian Milag TV channel, broadcast publicly on May 22, Bishop Schneider stated, speaking about his book Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith, that he included a chapter on Freemasonry because it is one of the key modern evils not addressed in the Church’s official Catechism. The bishop further emphasized that Freemasonry is a form of gnosticism and relativism that has deeply infiltrated the Church since the Second Vatican Council, especially through ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, and the reorientation of liturgy centered on the human person. “This is one of the most dangerous sects and secret pseudoreligious sects, which is a form of gnosticism,” the bishop said. “At the higher levels of Freemasonry, it comes closer and closer to the worship of Satan… and the basic dogma of Freemasonry is relativism: they believe that ‘there is no truth in religion, all religions are equal and everyone can choose their own god.’”
“The greatest obstacle to the ideology of Freemasonry is Jesus Christ, the incarnate God.” “This is totally contrary to the spiritual structure of Freemasonry. Therefore, the true and full Catholic faith… is considered by Freemasons as their greatest antagonism.” “From the beginning, Freemasonry has aimed to marginalize the Catholic faith and combat it.” “Now they have changed to another truly demonic tactic to fight directly against the Catholic faith: they have begun to infiltrate the Church to corrupt it with their ideas of relativism, naturalism, and anthropocentrism… This is the root of the current crisis of the Church since the Second Vatican Council.”
“The second phenomenon within the Catholic Church since the Council is placing man at the center of the liturgy… and Christ in a corner, to the side, even in churches. The Holy Eucharist… the living Christ, the living incarnate God, is placed in a corner and the priest is placed in his chair, in the center,” he added. “This is so anthropocentric, and the way of celebrating Holy Mass facing the people as a closed circle… the altar is no longer an altar. No, it is a table, and the center is the priest, no longer Christ. They say yes in theory, but not in practice.”
The fifteen diseases of the Curia.
Conference on the “15 curial diseases,” the central theme of Rossano’s book. Lawyer Iannotta’s speech was the most popular among the audience. The president of the Academy captivated the audience, which focused specifically on the 15 “curial diseases” identified by Pope Francis, a spiritual and bureaucratic diagnosis that served as the basis and justification for the subsequent structural reform. With precision and clarity, the lawyer illustrated how Praedicate Evangelium sought to address each of these pathologies to revitalize the Church’s missionary work. Rossano, after thanking the speakers and those present, summarized the spirit of his work: an attempt to explain how the Curia, according to Bergoglio’s intentions, should cease to be an instrument of power and control and become an instrument at the service of the proclamation of the Gospel and the most vulnerable.
Italian Episcopal Conference.
The 82nd General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference will be held in the Synod Hall of the Vatican from May 25 to 28. It will be inaugurated by Zuppi and concluded by the Pope. It will focus on the “Guidelines for the Journey of the Churches in Italy” and on some decisions for the reception of the Synodal Way: the bishops will be asked to approve a pastoral perspective for the coming years, starting from the completed synodal path and collected in the Summary Document and identifying some priorities for ecclesial life.
Programmed cell death.
Cellular apoptosis is one of the most extraordinary mechanisms of our organism. It is called “programmed cell death”: when a cell is damaged, corrupted, or ceases to function properly, the body itself recognizes it and eliminates it. It does not hide it, does not transfer it to another tissue, does not cover it up hoping it will recover on its own. It expels it.
The presbyterate must, by nature, be able to defend itself against those divisive and problematic ministers who, unfortunately, are part of it. In reality, they should not even be ordained: it is the Seminary that must fulfill its function, promptly identifying those who can corrupt the presbyterate and expelling them. However, we know well that current formation presents several critical problems, on two fronts.
There are bishops who do not even allow some candidates to attend the seminary, aware that that structure could expose the problems of those they wish to ordain at all costs. So they decide to ordain them and incorporate them directly into the presbyterate, maliciously corrupting it. On the other hand, there is the issue of the malfunctioning of the seminaries themselves, which are no longer places of formation, but of selection. And this is where the first short circuit occurs: selection is no longer carried out according to the criteria that should matter, namely prayer, faith, human and emotional maturity, and cultural preparation. These criteria are inconvenient and have been replaced by the will of the rector.
The calendar of sexy priests.
It has been filling businesses around the Vatican for years, because the false ones, apparently, very few of them are really priests. Giovanni Galizia has been the cover image of the so-called “sexy priest calendar” in many of the last 23 editions. In the same photograph, reused year after year, Galizia wears a clerical collar and sketches an enigmatic smile, leaning against the granite wall of a church in his native Palermo. “It was the smile of a shy boy, because I saw all my friends in front of me laughing out loud because I was dressed as a priest.” The “sexy priest calendar” could more accurately be called the “fake priest calendar.” Galicia only knew one other of those portrayed, a Frenchman who, in turn, was not a priest. It seems that at least a third of the people photographed in the 2027 calendar, which has already been published, are indeed priests.
Pope Francis and Mother Earth.
Carlo Petrini has passed away, and among the first and most emotional testimonies is that of Spadaro SJ. The Jesuit addressed the founder of Slow Food directly: “Goodbye, Carlìn! You were a true friend on this earth. You had a deep connection with Pope Francis.” “Thanks also for supporting the Pontiff’s poetic vision. Because, for you, life itself was a poem.” Petrini is the founder of Slow Food, Terra Madre, and the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo.
Hybrid wars and artificial intelligence.
We have the book “Vatican Zero Day: Hybrid Wars and New Threats to the Church in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” published by Lindau, which, through documents, sources, historical reconstructions, and geopolitical analyses, lucidly explains the risks of an epochal change that also affects the Church—Catholic, as the author Luigi Ricci, statistician, analyst of complex systems, and current director of research at the Barometer Institute of Rome, explains. “The Church is a millennial, analog, and hierarchical institution operating in a profoundly transformed global ecosystem. Threats are no longer only doctrinal or geopolitical in the classical sense: today they are fought on the terrain of cognitive warfare, algorithmic manipulation, and mass disinformation.”
“This is not an apocalyptic vision: it is an analysis of cultural and demographic data. In the face of secularization in the richest Western countries, and due to the rapid growth of the Church in the Global South, it finds itself at a crucial crossroads. Adapting to popular sentiment to please the world means becoming just another NGO and heading toward slow dissolution. Choosing one’s own identity does not imply isolating oneself from the past: it means having the courage to say uncomfortable things in an era that prefers easy answers. A Church that does not make others uncomfortable is useless. The choice is between remaining a credible reference, even when it is bothersome, or becoming a decorative institution, respected in museums but ignored in real life. The data is clear: the Church grows where it speaks of God and grows less where it competes with NGOs.”
The data reveals a very clear paradox. Influential priests respond to a demand for real meaning, but adapt it to the rules of platforms: personalization, fragmentation, and rapid consumption. The follower is a passive user who consumes emotional content; the faithful is an active subject who lives in a physical community, experiences the sacraments, and lives the tension of real relationships. The proliferation of religious “likes” risks creating the illusion of a living Church, when in reality it replaces lived faith with a digital and individualistic representation.
The Catholic Church has survived the fall of entire empires because it possesses something no algorithm can replicate: a grammar of hope. At this historical moment, in my opinion, it is the only global interlocutor capable of speaking of humanity in its totality.
Some Catholic intellectuals have questioned the decision to dedicate the first encyclical to technological issues rather than to the internal crisis of the Church, the desertion of the faithful, the decline of vocations, and rampant relativism. But even under Francis’s pontificate, there was a sense of urgency for an encyclical on artificial intelligence: Leo XIV inherited an agenda that literally overflowed into his hands, because current AI models are immensely more powerful than just a year ago.
The promotion of homosexuality in the Vatican.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Father Gerald Murray, and the Society of St. Pius X have accused the Vatican of being “complicit” in the promotion of homosexuality following the publication of the report by Synod Study Group 9. They accuse the Vatican of being complicit in the promotion of homosexuality, for having allowed the publication of the report and for its almost total silence in the face of the scandal. In a recent conversation with Raymond Arroyo, Bishop Athanasius Schneider described the report as “a propagandistic text that carefully and cunningly uses certain traditional documents or biblical expressions, but whose fundamental objective is to promote the acceptance of homosexual ideology.”
Schneider warned that the Holy See is far from innocent. It was “issued by an organ of the Holy See,” he noted, and therefore many Catholics will believe it is Church doctrine. “Most ordinary Catholics are unaware of the differences between a magisterial text, a Vatican text, and a study group in the Vatican.” “The message being sent to the whole world and to Catholics is that, from now on, the Holy See is accepting, de facto, same-sex relationships, sexual activity between people of the same sex, and the so-called LGBTQ agenda, which is a worldly and anti-Christian ideology.” “The study group report is officially under the jurisdiction of a dicastery or organ of the Vatican called the General Secretariat of the Synod, which has officially published the text, although, of course, as a study group.”
The Catholic Biblical Society has expressed concern about hate speech and defamation related to the current issue of its magazine “Bible and Church.” This issue, titled “Reading the Bible in a Peculiar Way,” was previously presented at the Catholic Congress in Würzburg. With numerous critical reactions and negative comments, according to Katrin Brockmöller, director of the Biblical Society. The trigger was the publication on queer biblical interpretation, presented in a Facebook post. The debate once again demonstrates the polarization that exists in discussions on queer topics within ecclesiastical contexts.
“Lord, who is the one who will betray you?”
Good reading.