At his most recent General Audience, Leo began his catechesis on the Council documents in earnest with a look at the Constitution on Divine Revelation. Well, he looked at one sentence anyway, using it a springboard to launch into a deceptive blather session on divine friendship.
And just you wait until you hear what he had to say about prayer!
[NOTE: A transcript appears below the video for those who prefer to read.]
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back to the AKA Catholic Podcast and another installment of Conciliar Catechesis Watch, I’m your host, Louis Verrecchio. In this week’s general audience, which took place on January 14th, 2026, Leo focused his attention on the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. Dei Verbum.
Before we consider what Leo had to say, I’d like to remind viewers of comments that were made by Francis at a general audience back in 2021. Providing at that time catechesis on St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Francis said this:
The law [and here he’s referring to the Old Law] does not give life. It does not offer the fulfillment of the promise because it’s not capable of being able to fulfill it. The Law is a journey, a journey that leads toward an encounter. Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ.
Now this is one of those very rare occasions when Francis spoke actually fairly well, right? He almost sounds like a Catholic here, doesn’t he? But do you recall what happened very shortly thereafter? A number of self-identified Jewish leaders immediately began kvetching, saying that Francis’s words were offensive.
For instance, the rabbi who sits at the head of Israel’s Commission for Dialogue with the Unholy See, fired off a letter to the Vatican. He complained that Francis’s words had implied that maybe Jewish religious practices have been “rendered obsolete.” (Well, there’s a reason for that!)
He even pulled the Nostra Aetate card, suggesting that what Francis said harkens back to an alleged teaching of “contempt toward Jews,” which was supposedly repudiated at Vatican Council II.
So why do I mention this now? The point is simply this: It is well understood by the post-conciliar men-in-white that non-Catholics, in particular the leaders of other false religions, they’re paying attention to these general audiences. They’re hearing what’s being said and they’re making note of it.
For a true pope, of course, this represents a great opportunity not just to speak to the faithful – that’s a given – but to serve the mission that was given to the Church by Christ, to teach the nations.
And so with that in mind, let’s now consider what Leo had to say.
He began his Catechesis on Dei Verbum by citing John 15:15, where we find Jesus saying, “No longer do I call you servants, but I have called you friends.”
This is the theme of Leo’s entire audience, wherein he mentions friendship and in particular friendship with God well over a dozen times. Dei Verbum, by contrast, mentions this theme only once, just one time, and that’s in Article 2, which Leo quoted later saying:
Dei Verbum affirms, through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God out of the abundance of his love speaks to men as friends and lives among them, so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with himself.
This, in fact, is the only quote that Leo offers directly from the text of Dei Verbum, and I’ll have more to say on that note in just a moment.
Leo states:
Dei Verbum reminds us that Jesus Christ radically transforms man’s relationship with God, which is henceforth a relationship of friendship.
Now, this statement, in itself, is not entirely objectionable, but it falls woefully short insofar as it speaks of man in a general, generic sense, right? As if Jesus Christ radically transforms every man’s relationship with God.
And so with this in mind, ask yourself: Is the relationship with God of the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Kvetching Jew, or anyone else who flatly rejects Christ – and some of them militantly so – are those relationships radically transformed into friendship with God?
No, of course not. In fact, the opposite is true. As our Lord said, those who reject Christ reject the Father who sent Him.
To be clear, this isn’t just a Leo problem. Lumping together all men, believer and unbeliever alike, this is perfectly in keeping with the conciliar text as a whole in which we find all manner of platitudes being heaped upon men, applauding their soaring dignity, and even going so far as to suggest that all men are sons of God.
Well, the truth of the matter is, however, all men are not sons of God, not as understood in the Catholic sense. Yes, it’s true, all men are created in God’s image, but divine sonship, this only properly applies to those who have received the grace of adoption in Baptism.
And the same can be said of friendship with God.
In its treatment of Justification, the Council of Trent teaches, “The sacrament of Baptism is the Sacrament of faith, without which no one is ever justified.”
The Council of Trent goes on to describe preparation for baptism, whereby one attains the right disposition for receiving the Sacrament as follows:
Justification itself follows this disposition and preparation, which is not merely remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man through the voluntary reception of the grace and gifts [of baptism], whereby an unjust man becomes a just man, from being an enemy becomes a friend.
So, did you get what the Council of Trent is saying here? It’s saying that prior to being liberated from the bondage of sin in the Sacrament of faith, that is prior to Baptism, fallen men are as enemies of God. And why? Well, because divine friendship was lost by the sin of Adam.
Now, would Leo dare to speak as clearly as the Council of Trent did? Obviously not, but a true pope certainly would.
Leo continued. He said:
St. Augustine commenting on John 15:15, insists on the perspective of grace, which alone can make us friends of God and His Son.
And of course, this is true. It is grace alone that can make us friends of God in His Son. Not just any grace, however, but rather sanctifying grace, the grace of Baptism.
But as mentioned, Leo doesn’t mention Baptism, much less does he mention membership in the Church, not even once.
Now this is noteworthy, of course, but it’s hardly surprising in as much as Dei Verbum and other documents of the Council, I have in mind Gaudium et Spes chief among them, it too fails to mention Baptism at all, and at the most inopportune times to fall silent on the matter.
Leo went on to say, and I want you to pay very close attention to the words that are being used, I’ll call your attention to them when I’m finished:
As we can see in all the Scripture, in the Covenant, there is a first moment of distance in which the pact between God and mankind always remains asymmetrical. God is God and we are creatures.
Let’s stop here for just a moment. Leo is being very careful here, very deliberate, and I’d say, evidently, calculatingly so, when he speaks of all the Scripture and what we see there. By framing it that way, it’s clear that the Covenant to which he refers is the Old Covenant, the Covenant with the People Israel.
OK, having established that, Leo goes on:
However, with the coming of the Son in human flesh, the Covenant opens up to its final purpose in Jesus. God makes us sons and daughters and calls us to become like Him, albeit in our fragile humanity. Our resemblance to God then is not reached through transgression and sin as the serpent suggests to Eve, but in our relationship with the Son made man.
You know, in reading this, it occurs to me that when a man proclaims the truth plainly, in particular, a churchman, a bishop, a pope, a priest, the listener is typically able to receive that message, with the help of God’s grace, with a certain ease, right?
By contrast, when the message being delivered is cloaked in the language of a mealy-mouthed diplomat, well, in that case, one must labor to decipher what’s actually being said. And that’s exactly the case here with Leo.
So, to recap what he’s doing here, notice that he begins by alluding to the Old Covenant, as I pointed out. But rather than stating the truth plainly, namely that in Christ, God made a New Covenant, which through the prophet Jeremiah, He said will “not be according to the Covenant” of old.
Leo stated that the Covenant – again, referring to the Old Covenant – “opens up to its final purpose.”
Well, no, I’m sorry, that’s not going to cut it. The truth is the Old Covenant didn’t open up to the New – no – it was fulfilled by the New in such a way that the Old Law has been abolished. It is obsolete.
Writing in Mystici Corporis, Pope Pius XII teaches:
By the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law, which had been abolished. Then the law of Christ, together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites, was ratified for the whole world in the Blood of Christ.
So why is Leo being so very careful to speak as if the Old Covenant is still in full force?
Well, I think everyone watching this right now knows the answer, but just in case it’s not perfectly clear to all, let me just tell you:
The Board of Directors of the conciliar church, which was birthed at the Vatican Council II, it’s comprised of rabbis and Talmudists, and the man-in-white answers to them.
That recollection that I shared with you at the beginning – of this general audience that Francis delivered in 2021 – and got him into such hot water with the Board of Directors of the church over which he ruled, immediately resulted in him backtracking and apologizing and groveling. It was quite embarrassing actually. You can look it up for yourself. It’s reprehensible.
Leo states this:
The only condition of the New Covenant is love.
Now, if Leo had appeared at Woodstock and he said this from the stage, the pot smokers in that crowd would have roared their approval. Yeah, man, groovy. It’s just all you need is love, you know!
But actual Catholic catechesis, by contrast, would follow up that statement, at the very least, by including the words of our Lord as recorded in John 14 when he said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”
But then the catechist would necessarily then be compelled to explain that the commandments of Jesus include the precepts of the Church, it includes her laws, her disciplines, her moral doctrines as they are made known by the Sacred Magisterium when she teaches in His name.
And so you see, for that reason, it’s just not enough to say that the only condition of the New Covenant is love.
In fact, it’s so mealy-mouthed and weak that he would have done better to keep silent than to say love is the only condition of the New Covenant. It’s deceiving and deceptive.
Leo went on to speak of “the need for prayer in which we are called to live and to cultivate friendship with the Lord.”
Now, this is quite true. No doubt about it, but then Leo says something that is, to my mind, absolutely beyond bizarre. He says this:
We are required to speak with God, not to communicate to Him what He already knows, but to reveal ourselves to ourselves.
Now look, I don’t know, maybe I’m just not that smart, but for the life of me, I just can’t figure out what I can possibly say to God that He doesn’t already know.
Imagine going to your room to pray in private and saying: Dear God, I hope you’re sitting down for this one because you’re not going to believe it!
I mean, honestly, folks, the nonsense that comes out of these people’s mouths, it’s at times stunning. It’s stunning.
That just about wraps up this edition of Conciliar Catechesis Watch, and I want to close with just one final comment.
Even though this Audience is presented as a catechesis on Dei Verbum, as I said, Leo only quoted just one sentence from the entire document. And he used that sentence as a way to launch into an eight-minute blather session, mischaracterizing man’s alleged friendship with God.
And so this leads me to wonder if he’s going to address the rest of the document, one sentence at a time, in future Audiences. If that’s the case, this entire series might take us well into 2028. God help us!
I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Until next week, thanks for joining me.
