Rorate note: Traditionalism did not start in 2025, or even during the Francis years. It is necessary to be truthful, but also prudent. Wise as serpents, gentle as doves, in the words of Our Lord and God Jesus Christ (Mt 10:16).
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A new painful episode: Father Pompei's choice
After the “cases” of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Father Alessandro Minutella, and Father Giorgio Faré, now comes, in Italy, the no less serious and painful case of Father Leonardo Pompei, a priest who had been appreciated until now for his orthodoxy and moral conduct.
On August 29, Fr. Pompei, parish priest of S. Maria Assunta in Cielo in Sermoneta, in a letter written to the bishop of Latina, Bp. Mariano Crociata, his ecclesiastical superior, announced that he no longer felt in communion with either the diocesan bishop or the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
On the morning of September 4, Bp. Crociata notified the priest of a decree suspending him, "from all acts of power of order, from all acts of power of governance, and from the exercise of all rights or functions inherent in the office. Any act of government performed by the priest in question is to be considered invalid. Rev. Leonardo Pompei is granted dispensation from the obligation to wear ecclesiastical attire and is asked not to present himself publicly as a priest."
According to the diocese's statement, this decision was reached due to the violation of the criminal precept imposed on September 2 by Bp. Crociata on Fr. Pompei, “which required and ordered the priest, under penalty of suspension, not to convene any parish meetings or assemblies with the faithful of the parish of S. Maria Assunta in Cielo in Sermoneta, and to suspend any type of activity on social media.” Instead, on the evening of September 3, “Fr. Pompei violated the penal precept imposed on him,” reads the statement from the diocese of Latina, "by convening an online meeting open to anyone who was able to connect remotely and broadcast live on the YouTube social media platform. By doing so, the Rev. Fr. Leonardo Pompei ‘positively and publicly failed to comply with his obligation of obedience to his ordinary, for which reason the next step was his suspension from the priesthood.’"
Fr. Pompei did not contest this reconstruction of the facts, nor did he challenge the canonical legitimacy of the decree. On September 4, in a video on YouTube, in which he detailed his “painful but inevitable choice,” and in a subsequent video of ‘clarifications’ the following day, he calmly described himself as a “schismatic.”
This is an important point to emphasize. We are not playing here with words. Fr. Pompei has proclaimed himself a schismatic because he knows that he is one according to Canon Law, which is the legal order of the Church. Jesus Christ, in fact, did not proclaim a purely spiritual message, but established a hierarchical society, entrusting to the Apostles, with Peter as their head (cf. Mt 16:18-19; Jn 21:15-17), the authority to teach, govern, and sanctify the faithful.
For the Fathers of the Church, schism is one of the most serious sins, often considered equal to or worse than heresy, because it denies the authority of the Church and tears apart the unity of the Body of Christ. St. Augustine's judgment is categorical: “Nihil gravius est quam scisma” (Enarrationes in Psalmos, 30, 2,7); schism is more serious than doctrinal error itself, because those who are in schism lose fraternal love and therefore salvation, even if they preserve the true faith (De Baptismo, 1,1). If heretics have a perverse doctrine, schismatics separate themselves from fraternal charity; “therefore, even though they believe in God as we do, without charity they say in vain that they are Christians” (Contra Faustum, 20,3).
Fr. Pompei claims that he finds it impossible to exercise his ministry in the current Church and has decided to leave it, choosing instead the “Church of all time,” after having discovered the “world of tradition” this year. But some questions arise spontaneously.
Don Pompei, born in 1971, was ordained a priest in 2004. Has he only now, in 2025, learned of the existence of a “world of Tradition” that has existed for over fifty years? On January 15, 1976, in an opening lecture at the 26th Anti-Communist Formation Week, a few months before the media explosion of the so-called “Lefebvre Affair,” Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira already clearly described the existence of two major currents within the Catholic Church: the Progressive and the Traditionalist. "The conceptions of these currents are diametrically opposed, in complete contrast. It is not possible for both to be right, because two contrary positions cannot be simultaneously true. (...) The great contemporary battle is not only—and, I add, not primarily—that of Catholics against Communists or against non-Catholics. The great center of the contemporary battle—the immense battle between truth and error, between good and evil, which is taking place everywhere—is at the very heart of the Holy Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church: the clash between traditionalists and progressives."
Until his death in 1995, Prof. de Oliveira was a champion of the traditionalist and counter-revolutionary cause, but he never left the Church, nor did he suffer any sanctions from it. Archbishop Lefebvre himself, who was excommunicated in 1988 for consecrating four bishops, considered the sanction “null and void” because the Code of Canon Law provides for the absence of punishment for those who act in a state of necessity (can. 1323 and 1324), but he never questioned the legitimacy of the ecclesiastical authority that had issued it and which, in 2009, removed the excommunication.
Fr. Pompei considers the New Mass and Vatican II unacceptable, yet he accepted them for 20 years. Why did he accept them? To obey, albeit with great suffering, the authority of the Church, he explained in his videos. And today, in order to reject what he accepted yesterday, he questions the authority of the Church. Don Pompei's mistake, common to many who slide toward Sedevacantism, is a misunderstanding of the authority of the Church. At first, one accepts from ecclesiastical authority even what it would be lawful to resist; then, starting from the assumption that authority is always right, one rejects not only the order that appears unjust, but the authority itself that issues it. In reality, an authority can impose unjust sanctions on a priest (suspension a divinis, excommunication, reduction to the lay state), but an unjust order does not invalidate the authority of the Church. Bishops are not infallible in the government of the Church, but the existence of a hierarchical church is a truth proclaimed as infallible by the First Vatican Council in 1870 (DS 3064) and reaffirmed in 1943 by Pius XII in Mystici corporis (DS 3808; 3827).
Authority can be resisted, sometimes even publicly, as was the case with the Correctio filialis to Pope Francis in 2017, but one cannot disobey on points that do not directly affect Catholic faith and morals. For example, a priest may refuse to distribute Communion in the hand, considering it an act of irreverence towards God, but he cannot refuse the bishop's order to suspend the activity of a blog, since this act does not in itself violate any religious or moral principle. The bishop has a divine mandate to care for the common good of his flock, and he may err in exercising this right, but the priest has a duty to obey the orders of the bishop to whom he is incardinated, except in the case of an order that violates natural and divine law.
Don Pompei claims to reject hierarchical communion with the Catholic Church as it now stands in order to join a church he defines as “alternative.” But where will he end up? Is there an “eternal church” alternative to the Roman Catholic Church, which today has in Leo XIV the legitimate successor of Peter? (Roberto de Mattei)
