Introduction:
In my dreams, if I were elected pope, I would accept the election, take the name Pius XIII, take back Vatican II and the Novus Ordo in one day, impose the TLM exclusively, and then retreat to an undisclosed location well guarded by security.
Of course I say this tongue in cheek. We traditionalists often think about what we would do if we were pope, in actuality what SHOULD ideally be done by the pope. My point is I don’t think we will EVER get a traditionalist-type pope who will THEN after his election make sweeping changes to restore the Church back to being in continuity with Tradition.
Before the Second Coming, I do expect, and must hope for, one day a Restoration, AFTER which we will once again have thoroughly traditional popes. But I expect the popes God will use as a means to that restoration will NOT be thoroughly traditional. They will be at least to a certain degree modernist and conciliar. But God will use them materially according to His passive Will, at times active Will, and His Providence which is a mystery.
Incremental Restoration:
Restoration I think will then be incremental and take many more decades if not centuries. As the old baby boomer arch-modernists keep retiring and dying, and as the young priests keep being more and more traditional, it is only a matter of time, mathematically speaking, for the future bishops, cardinals, and popes to favor Tradition enough to start officially ending the modernist Crisis.
This is why I think we should NO LONGER be so caught up with the addictive, obsessive compulsive, extremely pessimistic (black pill) internet world of Trad Inc., heavily influenced by the online culture of the Alt Right and the Manosphere. Those two trends are so fraught with Error, against faith and morals, they must be avoided.
And truth be told, Trad Inc. became a thing because of the Francis pontificate.
Therefore, we should not get upset about, hypercritical of, nor hyper focused on this next pope, Pope Leo and his pontificate. It makes for good money-generating clickbait, but it is spiritually and psychologically unhealthy.
God knows exactly the future and how worthy Cardinal Prevost was to be elected. My attitude going forward is to give him the benefit of the doubt, give him time, and yes maintain reservations about his conciliarism and however much he is aligned to Francis (or not).
My sense of this man is that he likely is going to be more indirectly instrumental over time in the Restoration, in the sense God uses Him as a compromise centrist. That is not as a lukewarm moderate, that is a liberal in disguise, but a true centrist.
Leadership, especially the higher up you go in leadership, requires a certain centrism to manage all the factions. A leader must look down from the position of leadership on the right-left spectrum.
I sense from what I’ve learned about him, that is why he is such a centrist. As he rose gradually up the ranks (missionary—> seminary professor —> Augustinian superior—> bishop —> Cardinal —> Vatican official —> and now pope), and being an Augustinian who emphasize unity, centrism was essential for him to leadership. And I see this man as a very strong and able leader, just listening to his voice, not to mention reading his long resume.
If we could sit down privately and pick his brain, I think there is a part of him that is a traditionalist, another part a conservative, and another part a progressive.
But that his leadership style is centrist.
I sense this is a holy and manly man. A very strong, solid leader. I see no evidence of heresy, a personal revolutionary agenda, or hatred for Tradition and traditionalists/conservatives.
The Key to Understanding Pope Leo is Understanding His Personal Constitution and Temperament:
I see a very well formed, very balanced man, who loves Christ and the Church, since he was a boy, very calm and serious, and very mature and authoritative. God can use him in some way directly or indirectly to restore the TLM, traditional liturgy, traditional seminary formation, traditional monasteries and convents, etc, and through his style of leadership which is humble, charitable, and deeply pastoral, to help restore the Church.
In the long run.
One thing that is interesting to me is that my 89 year old mother, a non Catholic, raised High Lutheran, but very Catholic at heart had a premonition before the conclave it would be Prevost, when watching all the Cardinals on Fox News. She said it was something in his face and demeanor that made her think it would be him, not even knowing his name or that he is American. And then her premonition came true seeing him come out on the balcony. I told her this was a miracle God gave her (I think to draw her closer to the true Church).
My initial impression learning about him was he reminds me closely of my own temperament which is INFJ. Here is another LINK. We are 1% of the population and often misunderstood, as very introverted and very shy, or even in situations extroverted, when in fact we are just a little more introverted than extroverted, motivated more by external action helping others at the individual level than group friendship. We value a few good friends in private compared to conforming to public group dynamics to fit in with a wider group, which drains us. We tend to lead quietly from the background unseen.
In fact, already suspecting he is an INFJ, I then asked AI to estimate which among the 16 Myers-Briggs temperaments is the pope’s (very much rooted in the classical four temperaments, by the way), and yes, it said that it is “moderately certain” he is an INFJ.
We are intuitive, very right brained, empathic, but also strongly left brained and analytical at the same time, less about empirical facts and figures and more about philosophical truth and the psychological-social dimension. This makes us inclined towards anything healing, whether in medicine, counseling, or different forms of rehab therapy. Or the spiritual healing of a priest.
We tend to be moderate in spirit in our approach to philosophical or theological movements like conservatism or traditionalism, valuing more the good in people than perfectionism. We are diplomatic, and tend to easily see things from everyone’s perspective to bridge across differences. This is me to a tee. And I think that is Pope Leo to a tee.
So to understand him and his pontificate going forward, understand his temperament (INFJ), and his spiritual and moral disposition based on it.
And my last point about INFJ’s, we easily sense and DO NOT like being manipulated by anyone, especially a faction. I have no doubt then this makes Pope Leo averse to, loathe to, and opposed to the St. Gallen Mafia types trying to use him as their personal puppet.
Hope for the Future:
Just imagine what can happen in twenty years under Pope Leo. All these young, traditional- minded priests one day becoming bishops and therefore cardinals, saying the TLM, promoting chant and Thomism, and the revival of the timeless and perennial. Restoration will be incremental, pragmatic, and long term. How can the good Pope Leo oppose that? He couldn’t.
In the mean time, even if the St. Gallen Mafia types have their claws into him (which I don’t think he would be okay with) before long they will be retired or dead Pope Leo seems healthy, I think he will likely still be pope when that faction is long gone.
In conclusion, how about we tune out the crazed papal pundits Trad Inc. paying their bills off of YouTube largely by beating their drums about the crisis of the Francis pontificate, and surely this next pontificate. To make $$$.
It is in the past. Francis is dead. His controversies are in the past.
It is true what we call “Francis-Church” still exists, that is that cabal of modernists linked to the St. Gallen Mafia who used Pope Francis like a puppet, their revolutionary hearts still beating to the same beat. People like Cupich, Fr. Martin, or Perolin.
However, I think this pope is not and will not be a Francis 2.0. It would go against his temperament and disposition. He will only be Pope Leo as a unique pope, exercising his own autonomy, and individuality, yet following the plan for more inclusion and ministry to the periphery, however wise that is it isn’t, without the material heresies, absurdities, and political agenda. He follows collegiality, but his loyalty has always been to the universal Church, not a political faction.
I think the many Cardinals who voted for him, who were conservative or moderate, outside of the leftist “Francis-Church” St. Gallen Mafia faction, however much control they had on the conclave (or not), chose him not only because he is a compromise centrist, but because he IS NOT loyal to that political faction itself.
Just think about it. Not all the Cardinals were totally on board with that leftist faction, even if they were appointed by Francis, and there were many conservatives. To reach the 2/3rd vote, so fast, by noon of the second day, indicates much consensus between the conservatives and liberals, not being controlled by the leftist faction.
The point being they obviously did not elect together with such unanimous confidence a man who would be another political puppet to the leftist faction.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, let’s tune out all the loud noise and cacophony from our electronic devices, the fear-mongering over Pope Leo going forward, and instead pray for him, and support him going forward, at the very least until, God forbid, we start hearing about the kind of controversies we endured with Francis. My instinct tells me we won’t.
Maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t happen with Pope Leo. He is in a general sense aligned to Francis’ pastoral plan, but we just don’t know the details of the degree of that alignment to ideological positions. My strong sense is we will not see a tsunami of chaos or a reign of terror, or a revolutionary dictatorship of “synodality” from Pope Leo, as we saw from 2013-2025, but more calm quiet waters, that is being more just and fair. Even though so-called “synodality” is an invention originally designed to invert the hierarchical structure into a democracy, which would threaten to reduce down the divine institution as Christ made into a secularized ape of the Church, ultimately eclipsing it.
Whereas modernism and liberalism have the revolutionary spirit of chaos like that of a destructive forest fire, Catholic Tradition itself is in comparison like deep, quiet, still waters. And in that respect Pope Leo seems to be very traditional.
I dreamt of and prayed for a traditional-minded long shot like Cardinal Sarah. But now that we have a new pope, I don’t know about you, but I am ready and willing to be practical and accept a good willed centrist, compromise candidate. I can and will embrace him as a prudent, pragmatic choice, however far he falls from the ideal or my own expectations.
We did not get a big miracle, but I would suggest this man’s election is a relief, and therefore a great relative blessing from God, a modest degree of Divine Mercy, a reprieve at least that might last decades, that we didn’t get another radical leftist who says in interviews he doesn’t believe in hell. And I don’t believe for a second Cardinal Prevost was the kind of man to conspire with the St. Gallen Mafia to get elected.
Let’s move forward, with the new Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, universally accepted by the Church, not in a state of certainty what happens next, nor bitter pessimism, but in a state of realism, calm, peace, and hope.
Our brains have been fried the last 12 years. It is time to heal. I hope Pope Leo, and every Bishop under him following his example, will especially help us Catholics devoted to Catholic Tradition, to heal.
God bless our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV.
Onward and upward.