Fr Adam Purdy of the Society of St Pius X is currently teaching a series of adult catechism classes on The Legacy of Pope Francis, a document produced by the Society’s General House. Over the next several weeks, I’ll be drawing up several reflections that connect these lessons to my ongoing work for The Hayride and RVIVR–similar to my recent work on Pius X’s Pascendi.

Here is the full document, ‘The Legacy of Pope Francis,’ along with the first installment of the series “How a Formation Became a Pontificate.”

And here is the ‘Alta Vendita‘, which may help this entire project snap into focus.

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The notion of something seemingly so simple–mercy–became the cornerstone of the Francis pontificate–its definition, its framing, its engine, its justification, its rallying cry. But when a single word–and an “adjusted” one at that–becomes the interpretive lens for everything else the Church believes, teaches, and guards, one must ask a question similar to those that Catholics of every century have been challenged to ask when confronted with sudden affronts to the way things always were.

This version of “mercy”–mercy detached from consequence, from command, from conversion–at the expense of what?

Because mercy detached from Truth and his commands–whether they be commands direct or indirect through his apostles, Church Fathers, each successive shepherd, and in general where his promised Holy Ghost has directed the Church– is not mercy at all. It is the often cited false compassion of the sentimentalist–the same men and women with the same sentiments and feelings Pius X and a century of popes before and after him warned about. It is sentimentality dressed as religion, disguised as love for God.

And during the Francis reign, or at least seeming reign depending on where the strings go, sentimentality did not simply color the deposit of the faith–it became the deposit.

Understand that it had long been obvious enough for people willing to admit it concerning shepherds even before Francis. But people, including my own family, are not ready for those dark truths right now. The moment calls for educational scaffolding and patience, and Francis is known as controversial enough to at least get the internal conversation going in our heads.

I have to do this with charity, indeed, with St Paul’s fear and trembling.

Francis’ programmatic text–Evangelii Gaudium–announced what he called the Church’s missionary transformation, a term that sounds pastoral until we realize that the object of transformation is not the unbelieving world, but the Church herself. Just consider what went through your head, if you’re conservative, when Obama bellowed “Change” and Biden squawked “Build Back Better.”

Then apply here.

This centrality is affirmed from his 2013 exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, described by him as ‘programmatic’. There, he sets out his project for ‘the Church’s missionary transformation’, that is, a profound conversion, not only of her structures but also of the way she positions herself in the world and conceives her mission. The ‘heart of the Gospel’, he explains, is mercy, which Saint Thomas Aquinas defined as ‘the greatest of all the virtues as far as external works are concerned’. This vision would be fully developed with the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. In the bull Misericordiæ vultus, Francis sets out its general framework, explicitly linking it to the Second Vatican Council….

Let’s make one thing clear: Francis is not aligning himself with the same “mercy” as the definition of the greatest Doctor of the Church in the second millennium, Aquinas.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that Tradition stands for something–amazing–to use what has become a castrated word to describe chips and salsa at Casa, but one that simply encapsulates the matter–

Tradition in the line of apostolic succession directly in line with Christ–and how God provided the blueprint for it all in the Old Testament–is, truly, amazing.

And that awe, that reverence, that astonishment with the things of God Almighty, with the story he’s writing for the salvation of mankind, is what has been overhauled for decades now. One might even think centuries.

It’s been a most pernicious, slow infiltration, with ever the fight against it diminishing.

Legacy illustrates the shift well:

By linking mercy in this way to the Second Vatican Council, Francis gives it a particular character, deeply associated with the conciliar pastoral approach of openness to the world:

– He presents Christ above all as the sign of the Father’s love and compassion–attentive to the poor, the sick, the excluded… Yet, he forgets to show Him as the Truth and the Light of the world, the one who heals primarily by pouring the balm of revealed truth on the wounds of ignorance and rejection of God. Indeed, the first mercy brought by the Incarnate Word is precisely the saving light.

– Moreover, in Misericordiæ vultus, we read that God ‘gives his entire self, always, freely, asking nothing in return.’ Yet an essential dimension is missing here: the response that God expects from man. Saint Augustine already reminded us: ‘God created us without us: but He did not will to save us without us’.

– Finally, the miseries that Francis highlights are primarily material: poverty, corruption, criminality. The wounds of the supernatural order—sin as a rejection of God—are revealed far less clearly. Thus, mercy is focused on the healing of earthly miseries, leaving the spiritual healing of souls in the shadows. These various omissions inevitably lead to a profound redefinition of the Church’s mission: through this truncated mercy, we are truly witnessing a ‘missionary transformation of the Church’.

That third one is why so many billions care more about face diapers than eternal life.

See, the understanding of the role of the pope has been annihilated ever since the First Vatican Council of the 1800s, something that apparently was supposed to plug one leak in the dam but opened up another at the Second Vatican Council for Catholics to internalize everything a pope says (at least as far as my understanding goes–some assert that Vatican I was actually a muted part of the plot as well). Simply put, the pope is not above the Church when he chooses to teach counter to her Traditions; he is only considered for conversation’s sake “synonymous” with her when he is in alignment. For dogmatic and doctrinal matters in question, as they are now, he comes after her in the hierarchical order, our Mother and Bride in one that hands down truth through the generations, through the centuries. We must internalize her. Popes are simply supposed to be guardians and handers-down of that–not creators of it.

But for decades we’ve seen shepherd after shepherd unequivocally not do that, and indeed not only contradict popes and great saints of the past–but actually apologize for it.

This is an abomination.

The interesting thing is that Christ knew this would happen and chose this path for Christians, picking Peter the ever-petulant and contradictory, instead of his most beloved disciple–John.

But he gave to John Mary at the foot of the Cross, who is she, her, the embodiment of a Chosen People turned Church that finally offered a fiat to God after centuries of rejecting him with every blessing.

He Gets Us, All Right

The heart of the Gospel, Catholics and others worldwide are told now, is that Christ “Gets Us,” that his mercy is endless and inextinguishable. This is true. But this new mercy is cunningly framed in a very particular, conciliar, post-1960s sense: mercy without conversion (“Go and sin no more.”), mercy without obligation (“Go and sin no more.”), mercy without the hard edges of revealed doctrine shaping the soul back into the likeness of Christ….

“Go and sin no more” has been castrated.

And once mercy is separated from truth, the entire supernatural order quietly slides into goop and gobbledygook.

This formulation expresses a genuine theological shift. The primary aim of the Church’s mission is no longer the eternal salvation of souls, but the transformation of social and political structures. Romano Amerio speaks of a ‘secondary Christianity’: a pastoral approach detached from the supernatural order and focused exclusively on anthropological and social needs. Francis explains that the Church must promote the wholeness of the human person in economic, social and cultural dimensions. Pastors are called to intervene in every matter concerning social life, and this concern must be directed first and foremost to the poorest. In this way, the Church becomes a credible presence in the eyes of the world, committed to peace, the environment and the defence of human and civil rights….”

It is truly astonishing to see the similarities in what has happened to mankind inside this new Ark, this Church, in comparison to what inevitably overtook the Chosen People no matter what blessing God wrought.

The people invariably–and without fail–would fall into complacency and doing it their own way.

God–He–Gets Us, all right.

And that’s why he’s always insisted on hierarchy and order to keep us dummies straight.

Christ is the embodiment of that law and order.

The Society’s analysis is correct: Francis’ mercy does not follow this order. It is selective. It emphasizes Christ the comforter but never Christ the Truth, never Christ the Converter, never Christ the Judge, never Christ the King, whose light exposes the termites and eradicates them; sin itself isn’t even emphasized. Christ the companion, Christ the buddy, Christ the homeboy as the despicable T-shirt says, but not Jesus Christ who commands–with absolutely no equivocation–repentance before forgiveness can take root.

See what Peter says in Acts 2 when they ask what they must do now.

Not because Christ needs us to do something to earn it–but because he knows that in our human weakness, we will always continue to return to the vomit like a dog if we don’t actively participate in our change, in our own salvation.

We’re simply the Chosen People of the New Covenant. Our stiffneckedness and foolishness have not changed.

The soul, its termites no longer exposed, is now left alone to darkness. The soul is now left alone to ruin.

Francis further expands this vision by placing it under the banner of ecumenism: ‘There is an aspect of mercy that goes beyond the confines of the Church. It relates us to Judaism and Islam, both of which consider mercy to be one of God’s most important attributes’. In this way, mercy becomes a principle of universal unity, extending beyond the Christian faith itself. Thus, the ‘missionary transformation’ is accomplished: from now on, the ‘merciful’ Church no longer takes pity on souls lying ‘in the shadow of death’ nor does it seek to preach to them the incarnate Truth, Jesus Christ. Francis’ mercy has a different aim: ‘that this Jubilee year celebrating the mercy of God will foster an encounter with these religions and with other noble religious traditions; may it open us to even more fervent dialogue so that we might know and understand one another better….

Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, a close papal advisor, summarises this dynamic well. In a lecture entitled ‘The Church of Mercy with Pope Francis’, he explains that the Second Vatican Council certainly introduced institutional reforms, but that these were insufficient without a spiritual transformation: ‘Any change in the Church eventually requires considering a renovation of the motivations that the new options inspire. The institutional and functional renovation of the Church requires a renovation of its mystical dimension. [Now, the source of this mysticism,] the wind that propels the sails of the Church towards the open sea of its deep and total renovation is mercy.’

Renovation.

A New Spring Time.

Change.

Build Back Better.

Yes We Can.

Words that feel holy but function as sedatives.

This is where the modern conception of mercy becomes truncated–because it treats man’s material suffering as the primary misery requiring relief, while the spiritual misery of separation from God is quietly sidelined. Augustine’s old warning–“God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us.”–is politely ignored in favor of a mercy that demands nothing, asks nothing, expects nothing.

A mercy that costs nothing is a mercy that saves nothing.

By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them

Cardinal Maradiaga’s own admission is telling: Vatican II gave the structural reforms, but Francis provides the “new mysticism”–a spiritual engine powered not by divine revelation, but by emotional inclusion. “The wind that propels the sails,” he says, “is mercy.”

The result is not surprising: the mission of the Church is no longer the salvation of souls but the “building of a better world.” The Church in 2020 cared more about peddling a false pandemic and propaganda than it did and does saving souls. Structural renewal. Social equity. Global fraternity. Ecological concern. Wear the face diaper. Take the jab. The entire horizon shifts downward, from the eternal to the dirt, from Heaven to the comfy air conditioned home, from sanctification to social activism where even demons feel included.

From the upward beam of the Cross to the horizontal one.

You know this is the primary aim of one all-important secret society out there, right?

The irony is almost unbearable–except that Christ already said it would be this way. For centuries, the Church guarded the supernatural from the encroachment of the political. Now the Church wants to invade every political and cultural arena while quietly surrendering her supernatural authority.

Even ecumenism becomes reinterpreted through the lens of mercy. Not as the return of the loss to the truth, but as the harmonizing of all religions under a common banner of (false) compassion, as if human mercy itself–not Christ–were the unity of mankind. Francis’ Jubilee of Mercy explicitly aimed at deepened dialogue, suggesting that mercy is a universal spiritual language transcending revelation itself.

So if mercy transcends doctrine, does doctrine matter at all?

If unity is achieved through Adam, why convert to Christ?

If fraternity is the goal, why preach God and his Church?

This logic culminates in the pastoral revolution we’ve now seen unfold in real time. Doctrine becomes “stones to be thrown.” Norms become “rigidities.” Fidelity becomes “Phariseeism.” And mercy becomes the solvent that softens every boundary the Church once held as divinely revealed.

The boundaries over which the martyrs bled the ground red.

The saints taught a different mysticism: one where mercy flows from truth, and truth guides mercy like a compass guides a ship.

What happens when we remove the compass and trust only the wind?

We drift.

Everywhere.

Toward everyone.

Toward everything.

And eventually, toward nothing.

This is why Pius X warned that Modernism does not replace dogma or doctrine–it dissolves it. Not in one dramatic act, but in a pernicious, patient, “pastoral” re-interpretation whose motive always appears merciful.

Francis did not change Tradition with a grenade. Of course he didn’t.

He just continued more openly what had already been ignited.

And once the atmosphere changes, the truth becomes lost in the smoke.

That is the real eternal danger unfolding, even now through Leo: a mercy that forgets Heaven, a fraternity that replaces faith, and a Church that lowers her gaze from the eternal to the temporal–and calls the descent the Good Samaritan.

Calls it Christ.

The truth is that perhaps we should be more about the business of “getting” Christ first and foremost, instead of making up fairy tales about how we feel he gets us.

More to come.