A few preliminary thoughts as the year 2025 begins.

The Church we love faces a profound fracture. If we wish to preserve and defend the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” Church, our work lies before us. And each day the danger increases. The devil stalks us, as the prayer of Pope Leo XIII teaches us. Our situation is tragic, and much that is good and true and beautiful may be lost. And the cause is within all of us, in our sins, from the halls of the Vatican and Domus Santa Marta, to the rooms of the new college of tradition in Viterbo, to the poor choices abetting the massive wildfires in Los Angeles, to the shadows of my failures which haunt the very rooms where I write these words…

Christmas Eve in Rome was bitterly cold. We spent hours in St. Peter’s Square as the winter wind descended upon us. We shivered as night fell, we who were patiently awaiting the Child…

A Russian Orthodox friend of mine and his wife saw Pope Francis in his residence in the Domus Santa Marta on December 27. More later.

On January 9, four days ago, the actor Mel Gibson gave a fascinating interview to Joe Rogan (here is a link to the conversation, which now has more than 6.1 million views and climbing).

Gibson spoke approvingly of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò‘s argument that much of our Church leadership in recent decades has departed from traditional doctrine, leading many souls astray.

Gibson also spoke briefly about the “Siri thesis” — the thesis that Cardinal Giuseppe Siri of Genoa, the youngest of the 51 cardinals in the 1958 conclave to elect a Pope to succeed Pope Pius XII, received enough votes to become Pope, but, due to some mechanism or threat that has never been fully made clear, agreed not to accept the office.

This, according to “the Siri thesis,” allowed Angelo Roncalli to be elected, who then took for himself the name Pope John XXIII (here is a link to an article about this thesis, link).

Siri himself, who lived until 1989, was reportedly in the mid-1980s asked directly about the matter, but declined to answer the question fully and clearly, saying he was bound by a vow of secrecy.

In late 2004, Mel Gibson came to see me in Italy.

We spent several days together, along with the late Silvio Mattacchione of Canada, who died one year ago this month.

The three of us met with various prelates, including the late Monsignor Luigi Villa.

As the year 2004 was ending, we went together to northern Italy to spend hours with don Villa. Why?

Because Villa had been a close friend and collaborator not only of the late Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani (for years the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and so the highest-ranking doctrinal officer in the Church after the Pope, link) but also of… Cardinal Giuseppe Siri.

We asked Villa to tell us whatever he knew about the 1958, 1963 and 1978 conclaves, and about the “Siri thesis”…

It emerged that there were problems with the “Siri thesis.”

I covered aspects of this matter in a 2007 article archived on the internet here, in which I cite the writing of Gibson’s father, the late Hutton Gibson.

Here is a link to an article Hutton Gibson wrote on this matter in January 2006, entitled Hutton Gibson: The War Is Now, Jan. 2006, Gary Giuffre & The ‘Siri Thesis‘: link.

Hutton says that Silvio Mattacchione was slandered during 2005, after our trip together with Mel, as problems with the “Siri thesis” began to emerge: “About a week before last Christmas Gary wrote to Silvio and included a glowing tribute to Silvio’s support. Less than two weeks later Gary was slandering Silvio overtime. What made the difference? Silvio’s trip to Italy without Gary. The overall reaction was so far out of proportion that we entertained great doubt of Gary’s sanity. From some of his book we suspected paranoia. But investigation suggested that his problem was almost normal fear of discovery of guilt — he had deliberately deceived us, and the record was clear.”

Other fictitious tales were told during 2005, regarding me. When Silvio, who was present when the tales were spun in front of many, told me what had been claimed, I laughed aloud, because it was such pure silliness.

Yet words, once spoken, have their trajectory, and consequences. For words may be blows, blows that shake then shatter friendship and faith, and finally break all bonds of fellowship, bonds which are essential to carry forward the battle for the truth, which is the battle of our deceptive time.

Epistle of St James, Chapter 3

Of the evils of the tongue. Of the difference between the earthly and heavenly wisdom.

(…)

“The tongue is indeed a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold how small a fire kindleth a great wood. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.

“The tongue is placed among our members, which defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by hell.

“For every nature of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of the rest, is tamed, and hath been tamed, by the nature of man: But the tongue no man can tame, an unquiet evil, full of deadly poison. By it we bless God and the Father: and by it we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. (,,,)

“Who is a wise man, and endued with knowledge among you? Let him shew, by a good conversation, his work in the meekness of wisdom.

“But if you have bitter zeal, and there be contentions in your hearts; glory not, and be not liars against the truth.

“For this is not wisdom, descending from above: but earthly, sensual, devilish.

“For where envying and contention is, there is inconstancy, and every evil work.

“But the wisdom, that is from above, first indeed is chaste, then peaceable, modest, easy to be persuaded, consenting to the good, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, without dissimulation. And the fruit of justice is sown in peace, to them that make peace.”

And so may it be. –RM

With the aid, and in the hope, of Christ, believers can
overcome any difficulties…
Here are the testimonies of 10 of His people
Top Ten 2024
It was a difficult year. Around the world there were wars and rumors of wars; brutally contentious elections; assassinations and assassination attempts; deadly storms, earthquakes and mudslides. Conflicts within the Church — excommunications, criminal trials, continuing abuse allegations and the tug-of-war between modernism and tradition — were sometimes just as painful.

Yet the Church is — in a way the world is not — consecrated and filled with grace by her divine Spouse, the Lord Jesus, who ever and always “makes all things new.”

The grace and peace of Christ is available to all Christians of good will, and in 2024, as in every year, it was the antidote to the sickness of our modern age, and the leavening of our lives otherwise weighed down by the consequences of sin.

Jesus did indeed, in 2024, somehow renew us and bring us joy and strength, and one way He accomplished this was through the lives and testimonies of His people. We have chosen 10 of them for your reflection here.

Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, OFM Capuchin, of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Fighting Western Imperialism — Cultural and Financial

Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, OFM Cap., 64, the Congolese cardinal who serves on Pope Francis’ “C-9” council of advisors, has been Archbishop of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, since 2018.

Cardinal Ambongo served as a parish priest and a professor before being named a bishop in 2004, and has since been a leading voice among his conferees for national peace. Pope Francis raised him to the rank of cardinal in 2019, the same year he became president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).

A defender of traditional morality as well as a foe of the ruinous exploitation of the African continent by foreign financial interests, Cardinal Ambongo’s social crusading seems to echo the Pope’s social concerns, even while his doctrinal clarity and fidelity to the “depositum fidei” (“deposit of the faith”) shines forth with splendid brightness.

In fact, earlier in 2024, Cardinal Ambongo made headlines with his rapid and emphatic reaction to the Vatican’s document Fiducia Supplicans, which directed Catholic clergy to impart blessings to same-sex couples.

The Cardinal, whose country is 52% Catholic and has, like much of Africa, a strong cultural distaste for homosexuality, led the African resistance to Fiducia Supplicans by signing a January 11, 2024, SECAM statement saying the member bishops “do not consider it appropriate for Africa to bless homosexual unions or same-sex couples because, in our context, this would cause confusion and would be in direct contradiction to the cultural ethos of African communities.”

What Fiducia Supplicans proposes is “a kind of Western imperialism, but on a cultural level,” he said, adding that “practices that are considered normal in the West were imposed on other peoples.”

Later that month, Cardinal Amongo told a gathering of the Christian Family movement in Kinshasa, “As the West does not like children, they [Westerners] want to attack the basic cell of humanity, which is the family…”

“Little by little, they will disappear,” said the Congolese cardinal, adding, “We wish them a good demise,” eliciting laughter from his audience.

Apparently chiding the Vatican for its lack of the much-touted “synodality” in the manner of Fiducia Supplicans’ implementation, Cardinal Ambongo said in a March 2024 interview “I believe that if we had consulted beforehand, if we had analyzed Fiducia Supplicans in the spirit of synodality, perhaps we could have presented it in a different form and with a different tone, taking into account the sensitivities of others.”

Where the cardinal and the Pope seem to agree, however, is on the need to end the terrible exploitation of Africa’s natural resources by foreign interests while leaving Africa’s people mired in poverty and bloodshed.

In October 2024 Cardinal Ambongo hosted a seminar on the topic of the “modern martyrs” who “suffer and die because of the exploitation of mineral resources in Africa.”

“The extraction and transport of these minerals dispossess and displaces families from their lands,” he said. In addition, “there is often the violent demolition of homes, water contamination, air pollution with heavy metals in particular, the release of cyanide into nature, with serious damage to agricultural, livestock or fishing yields.

“Thus, the possible macroeconomic growth that this exploitation brings does not improve in most cases the standard of living of the communities concerned. Per capita income becomes significantly lower, while only a small group of people get rich.

“That’s not all…The exploitation of critical minerals (tin, tantalum, gold, tungsten, etc.) and minerals of the energy transition (lithium, nickel, cobalt, etc.) gives rise to armed conflicts in several African regions.”

“Indeed, under the instigation of Multinationals, armed groups, locked in a vicious circle of financial logic, are fighting in several African regions. The war allows the control of the different mines; at the same time the sale of minerals is used to finance the war. This export increases the risk of war, because it supports the financing of armed groups, increases the corruption of the administration, feeds the secessionist sentiment of the populations who feel abandoned and makes the indigenous population vulnerable. All this mechanism aims to create a generalized chaos which especially prevents the development of the population directly concerned.”

In the face of this Illegal exploitation and disregard for human well-being, “the Church cannot remain silent,” Cardinal Ambongo declared.