The Roman Empire employed the strategy of divide et impera (divide and conquer) to control the world. The blueprint was so successful that the British Empire used it to rule India — manipulating and exploiting antagonisms within its already fractious populations.
Rome hasn’t changed. Pope Leo XIV has sparked a savage civil war between tradcon (traditional and conservative) Catholics by cleverly permitting his meetings with the Catholic Church’s two most notorious LGBT propagandists — Fr. James Martin and Sr. Lucia Caram — to be exploited for photo opportunities. The timing was impeccable: the schmooze sessions were held at the Vatican just days before a brigade of a thousand Catholic LGBT+ crusaders were scheduled to march triumphantly through the Holy Doors of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Leo has achieved what his Machiavellian mentor Francis never could have dreamed of. With two official photographs that have gone viral, Leo has divided and conquered the tribes of tradcon Catholics. During the Bergoglian monocracy, tradcons de-escalated their domestic dogfights and united in firing a daily fusillade of news stories, videos, and columns against Francis’s theological boo-boos.
Tradcons Fall for Papal Crooning
Then the old king died, and a new king wearing a crimson mozzetta and crooning like Elvis Presley in Latin plainchant appeared on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. A traditionalist Catholic mega-influencer deleted a video he had shot attacking Cardinal Robert Prevost a couple of days before the conclave and issued a new one solemnly saying he would “submit” to Pope Leo. Cardinal Leo Burke, who had hounded Francis with a joint dubia asking him to clarify the papal green signal for giving Holy Communion to adulterous couples, genuflected before Leo and scrounged for crumbs of popcorn falling from his dining table.
All this despite Leo showing every sign of continuity with his predecessor on almost every controversial issue — including the death penalty, illegal immigration, the appointment of heterodox bishops, and a reluctance to reinstate the traditional Latin Mass. When it came from Francis, the tradcons nuked it. But when it started coming from Leo, they lapped it up.
But a small remnant in the tradcon commentariat refused to toe the new party line. Like the French resistance, they hunkered in their bunkers and flung the occasional Molotov cocktail at a passing Leonine Panzer tank. They tirelessly churned out a daily diet of Substack articles reminiscent of Jeremiah’s diatribes against the false prophets who called out “Peace, peace,” when there was no peace.
Leo’s Lovefest with Lavender Prince and Princess
On September 1, Leo rolled out the red carpet for the tradcons’ biggest nemesis, James Martin. The optics were outstanding. Leo’s audience with Martin was held in the Apostolic Palace. Martin was seated directly across from Leo at his desk in the same manner that popes receive high-level dignitaries, including heads of state.
A day later, another Vatican photograph found its way to the sacred corridors of social media. It was a picture of Sr. Lucia Caram — a pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, Mary-virginity-denying Dominican nun — holding the pope in a semi-embrace.
An earthquake hit the tradcon world. A civil war broke out.
An anti-Francis tradcon journalist who is now a Leo devotee tweeted: “Until there’s a statement from the Holy See, which there likely won’t be, this is only an opinion. Besides, Pope Leo is currently receiving many of those who request audiences, from left to right to everywhere in between. Only time will tell ….”
A celebrity Anglican convert who suffered chronic cognitive dissonance under Francis but has become a cheerleader for Leo giggled like a bashful schoolgirl and turned to the above journalist for “therapy” lest he relapse into a second season of cognitive dissonance. Our journalist friend was, of course, eager to assure him that the glass was half-full and if we give Leo enough time, he will change water into bourbon.
Another journalist who used Francis’s face for target practice on the pistol range posted on X: “Fr. James Martin offered a glowing report of his private audience with Pope Leo today. Martin has a long track record of fudging the facts in favor of his agenda. Why are we all of a sudden believing him now?”
A traditionalist patriarch offered more deferential wisdom: “The bigger surprise would have been if Leo had NOT met with Father Martin.” He explained that the “Jimmy Martin stunt should come as no surprise, and why it is no more of a gamechanger than was Leo’s meeting with Cardinal Burke the week before.”
The Silence of Tradcon Pravda
On the whole, the big guns of the tradcon Pravda were mostly silent. Then, bitter online skirmishes broke out between pro- and anti-Leo tradcons.
The editor of a prominent Catholic news site was one of the first to call out: “Emperor Leo is naked! …We CANNOT ignore this! This is the nightmare scenario I warned of at the start of Leo’s papacy.” A tradcon deacon verbally lunged at this editor, and also lobbed word grenades at another tradcon deacon who was venting his indignation at the Leo-Martin-Caram lovefest.
A traditionalist writer who has been warning that the Lion in the Vatican is toothless turned on a traddie guru, accusing him of preaching “the false peace of quietism.” He wrote: “The same man who thundered against the Francis program now shrugs: ‘He is my pope and I pray for him. I will resist his errors, but I am not ‘for’ or ‘against’ him.”
The writer, who has been churning out daily prose on Substack warning that the “golden age” of Leo is an ecclesiastical fashion show, explained: “If anyone still harbored the fantasy that Leo XIV would reset the Vatican after Francis, the past week has killed the illusion. He is not breaking with his predecessor. He is canonizing him; in practice, if not yet in ceremony.”
Killing Me Softly with Self-Delusion
So which faction of the tradcon movement is killing itself softly with a song of self-delusion? Are Leo’s tradcon popesplainers helping by offering justifications that portray him at best as a pliant and captive pope who can so easily be manipulated by the Martins of the church’s Lavender Brotherhood? Is the Pope an absolute monarch, or is he a titular monarch like King Charles III? Did he have to clear his busy calendar to sip prosecco with the Catholic Church’s most opprobrious LGBT proselytizer?
There are reasons to believe the Leonine tradcons are fighting a losing battle.
First, Leo hasn’t (and most likely isn’t going to) abrogate Fiducia supplicans — the papal document from Francis that permits nonliturgical blessings to be conferred on same-sex couples. It makes little sense for tradcons to beat their breast over Leo schmoozing with Martin when there is now a monstrous contradiction between Fiducia supplicans and the Catechism’s condemnation of homosexual acts of “grave depravity” at the very heart of the Church’s moral teaching.
Second, Leo has been promoting pro-LGBT prelates faster than you can say “Raymond Leo Burke.” In June, he elevated Bishop Shane A. Mackinlay as the new archbishop of Brisbane, Australia. Mackinlay, a pro-LBGTQ bishop, permitted a Hindu idol in his cathedral. He also endorses women’s ordination.
Third, like commuters on an Indian train at peak hours, the Catholic priesthood and episcopate are packed to the rafters with homosexuals.
Fourth, the LGBT flag is flying at full mast over Catholic churches in most parts of the Western world. LGBT masses are now the norm, not the exception. Approximately 54% of US Catholics want the Church to recognize “homosexual marriage.” Over a thousand LGBT “pilgrims” have already begun flooding into St. Peter’s Square. The Italian bishops’ newspaper L’Avvenire has dedicated three full pages to celebrating the rainbow events.
Leo isn’t Martin’s useful idiot. He knows which way the wind is blowing.
The Catholic Tradcon Industrial Complex has now splintered into 30,000 factions. Leo’s Roman strategy of divide et impera has won. Ironically, for all their bluster, it is the supine pro-Leo tradcons who have become the useful idiots for James Martin and Lucia Caram. To top it all, St. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is having the belly laugh of a lifetime in the hereafter. And we know for certain that place is heaven because Pope Leo told us so at least three times!
Dr. Jules Gomes (BA, BD, MTh, PhD) has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.
