Leo XIV on the Multiplication of the Loaves: Christ’s Real Miracle Was the Lesson of Sharing!

Prevost channels Bergoglio…

Leo XIV on the Multiplication of the Loaves:
Christ’s Real Miracle Was the Lesson of Sharing!

His Not-So-Holiness Leo XIV on June 15, 2025, in St. Peter’s Basilica
(image: Marco Iacobucci Epp/Shutterstock)

While certain ‘traditional Catholic’ bloggers, journalists, and YouTubers are focusing on things like how beautifully Leo XIV chants the Our Father in Latin, the new false pope of the Vatican II Church is busy harming souls.

In an official ‘papal’ message released today for the 44th session of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization Conference currently taking place in Rome, the man formerly known only as Robert Francis Prevost states:

The Church encourages all initiatives to put an end to the outrage of hunger in the world, making her own the sentiments of her Lord, Jesus, who, as the Gospels narrate, when he saw a great multitude coming to him to hear his word, was concerned first of all to feed them, and for this purpose asked the disciples to take charge of the problem, abundantly blessing the efforts they made (cf. Jn 6:1-13). However, when we read the account of what is commonly called the “multiplication of the loaves” (cf. Mt 14:13-21; Mk 6:30-44; Lk 9:12-17; Jn 6:1-13), we realize that the real miracle performed by Christ was to show that the key to overcoming hunger lies in sharing rather than in greedily hoarding.

(Antipope Leo XIV, Message to Participants in the 44th Session of the FAO Conference, Vatican.va, June 30, 2025; underlining added.)

Before we dig into it this ridiculous reinterpretation of one of Christ’s most famous miracles, let’s be clear about a few things: Yes, hunger is a terrible evil tragically afflicting many people in the world. Yes, Catholics have a duty to feed the hungry. Yes, Our Blessed Lord had compassion on His followers when they were hungry, and He fed them. All of these things are true. But they do not excuse what Prevost says about the miracle.

First, notice that the ‘Pope’ does not simply speak of the account of the multiplication of the loaves but rather of “the account of what is commonly called the ‘multiplication of the loaves'” (italics added). The implication is clear, and it is a snide one: that although the event is commonly called a multiplication, it shouldn’t be called that because it wasn’t one. Leo then doubles down: “…the real miracle performed by Christ was to show that the key to overcoming hunger lies in sharing rather than in greedily hoarding.”

Oh, so that was the ‘real’ miracle, huh? And Christ’s miraculous increase in the amount of food available to be eaten was…. what? A fake miracle? An overrated stunt? A trick like those worked by Pharaoh’s sorcerers (see Ex 7:10-12)? Or did it not happen at all?

It may be hard for Leo to believe, but there is a reason the Catholic Church has traditionally referred to this wonder worked by our Blessed Lord as the Miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves and not as the Miracle of the Sharing of the Loaves or the Miracle of the Lesson about Sharing. As a matter of fact, Christ pointed out to the crowd that followed Him that the miracle He had worked wasn’t about satisfying earthly hunger at all, and He upbraided them for seeking only after carnal gratification: “Jesus answered them, and said: Amen, amen I say to you, you seek me, not because you have seen miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled” (Jn 6:26).

We know from Sacred Tradition that the Multiplication of the Loaves was a foreshadowing of the Holy Eucharist, and Christ Himself makes that connection in John 6. In Holy Communion, Christ gives Himself as nourishment; and regardless of how many partake of this Most August Sacrament, all are fed, all are satiated, but not in an earthly, carnal sense but supernaturally, unto eternal life: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51-52).

Instead of taking the FAO Conference participants’ laudable goal of feeding the hungry as a stepping stone to encourage them to go beyond it (at least as private individuals) and seek after the Bread that will allow them to live forever — thereby raising them from the natural to the supernatural plane (cf. Col 3:2) — Prevost does the opposite: He takes the supernatural miracle of the Gospel and lowers it to the natural level so that it becomes little more than a nice lesson in selflessly sharing the earth’s resources. How reprehensible!

That is exactly what ‘Pope’ Francis did time and again: naturalizing the supernatural in order to neutralize it. Being a loyal disciple of his immediate predecessor, it is not surprising that Leo should repeat the heresy of his master, who said: “This is the miracle: rather than a multiplication it is a sharing, inspired by faith and prayer” (Antipope Francis, Angelus meditation, June 2, 2013).

By no means was this the only time Bergoglio twisted the Gospel accounts of the miraculous multiplication of loaves. He did it a few times, and not even Jimmy Akin, ‘popesplainer’ extraordinaire, was able to spin it into orthodoxy (although he did try!):

• Jimmy Akin to the Rescue: Francis on Christ’s Miracle of the Loaves & Fishes
• Sharing the Loaves: Modernist Drivel at ‘Papal’ Retreat
• A ‘Miracle of Sharing, Not Multiplying’: Francis on Christ’s Feeding of the Five Thousand

So Prevost chooses to follow in Bergoglio’s footsteps, if not in the externals, certainly in theological substance. The beautiful trappings Leo uses only serve to conceal his infernal agenda under a traditional veneer: “And no wonder: for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14).

Prevost is an Augustinian, that is, a member of the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA). The order was founded by Pope Alexander IV in 1256 and uses the rule of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), one of the Church’s greatest theologians. Pope Boniface VIII declared him a Doctor of the Church in 1298.

Shortly after Prevost’s election as Leo XIV, we began to hear about how his Augustinian heritage would shape his ‘papacy’ and how the new ‘pope’ shows Augustine’s influence. Leo reportedly calls himself a “son of St. Augustine”, and he quotes the sainted theologian in his speeches and sermons frequently (see some examples here, here, and here).

It is, then, all the more surprising that when it comes to the Miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves, Leo XIV is suddenly not interested in quoting from St. Augustine. Could it be because the holy Doctor of the Church contradicts Prevost’s position on the matter? Let’s take a look:

For certainly the government of the whole world is a greater miracle than the satisfying of five thousand men with five loaves; and yet no man wonders at the former; but the latter men wonder at, not because it is greater, but because it is rare. For who even now feeds the whole world, but He who creates the cornfield from a few grains? He therefore created as God creates. For, whence He multiplies the produce of the fields from a few grains, from the same source He multiplied in His hands the five loaves. The power, indeed, was in the hands of Christ; but those five loaves were as seeds, not indeed committed to the earth, but multiplied by Him who made the earth. In this miracle, then, there is that brought near to the senses, whereby the mind should be roused to attention, there is exhibited to the eyes, whereon the understanding should be exercised, that we might admire the invisible God through His visible works; and being raised to faith and purged by faith, we might desire to behold Him even invisibly, whom invisible we came to know by the things that are visible.

(St. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 24, n. 1; underlining added.)

Explaining the matter in some more detail, the sainted doctor writes:

Andrew says: “There is a lad here, who has five loaves and two fishes, but what are these for so many?” When Philip, on being asked, had said that two hundred pennyworth of bread would not suffice to refresh that so great a multitude, there was there a certain lad, carrying five barley loaves and two fishes. And Jesus says, “Make the men sit down. Now there was there much grass: and they sat down about five thousand men. And the Lord Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks;” He commanded, the loaves were broken, and put before the men that were set down. It was no longer five loaves, but what He had added thereto, who had created that which was increased. “And of the fishes as much as sufficed.” It was not enough that the multitude had been satisfied, there remained also fragments; and these were ordered to be gathered up, that they should not be lost: “And they filled twelve baskets with the fragments.”

(St. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 24, n. 4; underlining added.)

We might also note here that, unlike Leo XIV, St. Augustine says nothing about hoarding, greed, or sharing. Instead he speaks of a multiplication of loaves and fishes, about a miraculous increase in food.

In addition to St. Augustine’s own clear instruction, let’s look at other Scripture commentaries to understand the true Catholic interpretation of the miracle worked by Christ:

The loaves miraculously increased partly in the hands of Christ, when he broke them, partly in the hands of the disciples, when they distributed them about. (Witham) — He blessed and brake. From this let Christians learn to give thanks at their meals, begging of God that his gifts may be sanctified for their use. From this miracle it appears, that it is no impossibility for bodies, even in their natural state, to be in many places at the same time; since, supposing these loaves to have been sufficient for 50 persons, as there were a hundred such companies, the loaves must have been in a hundred different places at one and the same time. It cannot be said, as some pretend, that other loaves were invisibly put into the apostles’ hands, since it is said that they filled 12 baskets of fragments of the five barley loaves; and again, he divided the two fishes among them all.

(Rev. George Leo Haydock, Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary [1859], Note on Matthew 14:19.)

If Leo XIV had simply asserted that the miracle of multiplication involved sharing, that would have been fine, since the action of breaking and distributing the miraculous loaves can be looked upon as a kind of sharing of the food. But no, Leo denies that there was a genuine multiplication — the ‘real’ miracle, he assures us, was in the lesson that by sharing food with others rather than by “greedily hoarding” it, we find “the key to overcoming hunger”. Who knew?! (Apparently the hungry multitude in the Gospel was in the habit of stockpiling food.)

Next, if we consult the Great Commentary of Fr. Cornelius à Lapidé (1567-1637) on the account of the miracle in St. Matthew’s Gospel (14:15-21; 15:32-39), we find him mentioning the idea of multiplication quite consistently, again and again:

[Chapter 14] Verse 18. Who said to them: Bring them hither to me. That He might multiply them by His benediction. [p. 54]

[Verse 19] …and He also blessed the loaves themselves (He called down divine grace upon them, by which they might be multiplied, and acquire strength and efficacy to nourish, strengthen, and cheer so great a multitude abundantly, as though they had been fed upon a rich feast of meat and wine). Therefore, Christ by this benediction endued these loaves with a certain virtue, not physical, but moral; that is to say, He ordained and appointed them for miraculous multiplication, whereby He placed His hand, as it were, i.e., His own divine power upon the loaves, that they should straightaway be really multiplied. And this, indeed, He did by converting the neighboring atmosphere, or some other material gradually, but imperceptibly and continuously, into bread while the loaves were being distributed. For God creates no thing anew out of nothing, but produces and transforms all things from the matter which was created at the beginning of the world. In a similar manner He multiplied the meal and the oil of the widow of Sarephta, for the sake of Elias (3 Kings 17:14), and again for the sake of Eliseus (4 Kings 4:5). That these loaves were most excellent, and endowed with great power to nourish, strengthen and cheer those who were provided with them, is plain from this, that they were divine loaves, miraculously produced by Christ. [p. 55]

[Verse 20] … It is probable Christ first broke the five loaves with His own hands, and in breaking multiplied them, and placed them in these baskets for distribution. These were afterward, by His command, distributed by the Apostles to the different companies, and were gradually more and more multiplied; thus they brought back to Christ as many baskets of fragments as they had received baskets of loaves from Him at the beginning. Thus Maldonatus. [p. 58]

[Chapter 15, Verse 36.] … Christ, being God, was able to multiply the loaves by Himself, at His command, but as a man He customarily prays God that He might supply the power for this miracle. Thus it seems obvious that Christ, after giving thanks, made the Sign of the Cross over the loaves and blessed them, and by blessing them gradually and continually multiplied them amongst those who broke and distributed them, as He did in chapter 14, verse 19. [p. 94]

(The Great Commentary of Cornelius à Lapide: The Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew, Vol. II, trans. by Thomas W. Mossman, rev. and compl. by Michael J. Miller [Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2008]; italics given; underlining added. Alternate edition with different translation available here.)

Strangely, Fr. Lapidé knew nothing of the “key to overcoming hunger” interpretation advanced by Prevost as the ‘real’ miracle and instead stuck with the received tradition of a miraculous multiplication of food. Bummer!

All of the foregoing shows how absurd Leo XIV’s position is, and this becomes even more evident when we consider John 6:14: “Now those men, when they had seen what a miracle Jesus had done, said: This is of a truth the prophet, that is to come into the world.” Are we to imagine that the people concluded that Christ was the Messiah — or, at any rate, a true prophet sent by God — because they had just witnessed Him demonstrating “that the key to overcoming hunger lies in sharing rather than in greedily hoarding”?

Of course not.

Why, then, is Leo distorting Christ’s miraculous feeding of several thousand people so ingloriously? Because, as with Francis, his aim is that of reducing Catholicism to a Naturalistic humanitarianism, which would be entirely compatible with any and no religion and with the anti-Catholic ‘human fraternity’ agenda of Fratelli Tutti.

With the last vestiges of the supernatural Gospel out of the way, the path will be clear for the advent of the Antichrist, whom we know from Sacred Scripture and Tradition must appear and rule the world before Christ will return in glory and judgment:

The Sacred Scriptures inform us that the general judgment will be preceded by these three principal signs: the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world, a falling away from the faith, and the coming of Antichrist. This gospel of the kingdom, says our Lord, shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come. The Apostle also admonishes us that we be not seduced by anyone, as if the day of the Lord were at hand; for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the judgement will not come.

(Catechism of the Council of Trent, Creed, Article VII)

Clearly, no one at the FAO Conference will have much of a problem with a message of warm and sentimental sharing as the ‘real’ miracle worked by Christ. That suits unbelievers much better than an actual multiplication of loaves and fish that would demand a response to the question: “Whom do you say that I am?” (Mt 16:15).

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