Within hours after the election of Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Burke sent the new Pope a heartfelt message of congratulations:
Please join me in thanking Our Lord for the election of Pope Leo XIV, Successor of Saint Peter, as the Shepherd of the Church throughout the world. The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe at La Crosse has a particularly strong bond with the Roman Pontiff, especially through its affiliation with the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major. I urge all pilgrims and friends of the Shrine to pray fervently for Pope Leo XIV that Our Lord, through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Saint Peter Apostle, and Pope Saint Leo the Great, will grant him abundant wisdom, strength, and courage to do all that Our Lord is asking of Him in these tumultuous times. May God bless Pope Leo and grant him many years. Viva il Papa
When I read that message my heart leapt, and for the first time in many years, I felt the stirrings of the possibility of a light and happiness as a Catholic priest that I have not known for a good part of my priesthood. There has always been a deep happiness in my heart in thanksgiving for the gift of my priesthood, in so many ways a most unlikely gift given my life history. But the pain of the attack of that “spirit of Vatican II” on the teaching and liturgical life of the Church, an attack on Catholic Tradition itself, has been always there in my priesthood for over forty years, and I have tried to understand this pain as being united to the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. I say this with no sentimentality, for I have always known, thanks to St. John Henry Newman, that sentimentality is the acid of religion.
I wrote a piece published on Rorate Caeli just before the death of Pope Francis about the death of the “spirit” of Vatican II being coterminous with the death of Pope Francis. That “spirit” must always be enclosed in quotation marks, because it has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit that is always present in the Church. That ‘spirit’ also has little if anything to do with the Documents of the Second Vatican Council except to use those documents, especially Sacrosanctum Concilium, the document on the Liturgy, to impose a liturgical form on the Church that is a snapshot of the “spirit” of Vatican II, which was waiting to be born at least a decade before the Council. The results of this “spirit” and its effects on the Church’s liturgical life and moral teaching are well documented in their reality but still only beginning to be understood. It is this same “spirit” that allowed the clergy sexual scandals of the last part of the twentieth century as well as the terrible reality of the widespread lack of belief by Catholics in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
The contrast between Pope Francis’ appearance on the loggia of St. Peter’s twelve years ago and that of Pope Leo XIV just a few days ago is strking. Pope Francis refused to wear the traditional mozzetta and stole. Pope Leo XIV wore these two symbols of the papacy with great happiness. Pope Francis began his address to the people with the words “Buona sera” --good evening. Pope Leo begam his words with Jesus’ words to the apostles in the Upper Room after the Resurrection: “Pax tecum”--Peace be with you. In Pope Francis’ talk on the loggia he never mentioned the name of Jesus Christ. Pope Leo XIV spoke about Jesus Christ as the very center of the Catholic faith. Pope Francis asked the people to pray for Pope Benedict in a formal way. Pope Leo thanked Pope Francis for his labor in the Church with warmth.
I will not go on with this comparison in these days following Pope Leo XIV’s election. Suffice it to say that what he has said and done in the week after his election gives evidence that the “spirit” of Vatican II is dead. There can be no doubt that for many Catholics who love the Tradition of the Church as embodied int the Roman Rite that grew organically--not Concilium-ly--this is a time of great hope. The number of calls and emails and texts that I personally have received expressing real joy and hope after the election is part of why I am filled with joy and hope. And dare we say that Robert Prevost is a splendid example of all that is good in what at least used to define the American character and spirit: an openness of mind and heart that is never forced but genuine. There is no doubt that that character and spirit has been under attack for many years now and is still under attack in the United States. But the smile with tears on the face of Pope Leo on the loggia of St. Peter’s says he understands the lacrimae rerum, the tears of things, as well as the world shot through with grace of God in Jesus Christ. He understands how “all is smeared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil, and wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell.” But he understands as well :
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things,
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
