Gagging the Gospel: Leo XIV Offers Warmed-Over Greeting Card Spirituality to Interreligious Audience

Generic ‘love conquers death’ message that works for any religion…

Gagging the Gospel: Leo XIV Offers Warmed-Over Greeting Card Spirituality to Interreligious Audience

Not Catholic? No problem! Then Mr. Prevost has a non-Catholic message for you…

On Saturday, Sep. 20, 2025, an event called the ALS Walk for Life was held in Chicago, Illinois. It describes itself thus: “The ALS Walk for Life is the biggest ALS gathering in the Midwest. We’re building teams, raising funds for essential care and research, and turning the tide in the fight against this disease.”

ALS stands for ‘Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis’ and is also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. It is a terminal condition in which a person gradually loses control over his muscles until he is no longer able even to breathe. Death results typically within just a few years after diagnosis.

Clearly, to be afflicted with ALS is a heavy cross, and is a burden also for caretakers and family members. For an ostensible Pope to send a message of support is therefore a noble idea, and constitutes a golden opportunity for inculcating the spiritual treasures the Gospel has to offer to those who suffer and labor.

Alas, that is not the kind of message Robert Prevost (‘Pope’ Leo XIV) chose to send. Instead of elevating the so-afflicted and their caretakers and loved ones to the level of the supernatural, lifting their gaze to focus on what is spiritual and eternal (cf. Col 3:1-2), he deliberately chose to remain on the level of the horizontal, the natural, the mundane.

Like his predecessor ‘Pope’ Francis, Leo too ensures that he custom-tailors his messages to his listeners. Since he was addressing a mixed audience of people from different religions, he chose to preach not the Gospel but a generic pseudo-spiritual message of humanitarianism that more or less works for people of any religion. A Freemason could adopt his text verbatim for the Lodge.

Before we go on to examine the contents of Prevost’s message, here is the video in which he reads it himself:

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The Vatican published the full transcript here.

Let’s go ahead and review it critically, starting from the very beginning:

Peace be with you all.

Greetings from Rome!

I am very happy to join you in Chicago as the Les Turner ALS Foundation gathers us for the annual ALS Walk for Life.

Ours is a gathering of many people.

Let me say, first of all, that I am filled with admiration and gratefulness to the researchers and scientists gathered here.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters tell us that one of the great projects given the human family by God is to complete and perfect the very good creation given us — tikkun olam. My predecessor, Pope John Paul II, wrote “If an artist cannot be stopped from using his creativity, neither should those who possess particular gifts for the advancement of science and technology be prevented from using their God-given talents for the service of others.”

In the last 10 years — using all your knowledge and compassion to understand motor neuron diseases and to alleviate the sufferings those diseases cause — you have made remarkable progress. I, like everyone here, am deeply grateful to you. For the countless hours you spend alone trying to find a path forward in your inquiries or searching for resources to continue your valuable work, to the men and women doing scientific research at the Les Turner ALS Center at Northwestern Medicine and elsewhere, please accept my gratitude and my encouragement.

Notice that it took Leo a mere 60 words before introducing the concept of Tikkun Olam, which is derived from Talmudic Judaism (that is, from the apostate present-day Judaism that rejects the Son of God, not the Old Testament Judaism that longed for His arrival).

For people to use their God-given talents to alleviate suffering and improve temporal conditions is a beautiful thing. Leo is not wrong, of course, in pointing this out and encouraging it. However, that can be done without invoking a spiritual concept from the religion of those who repudiate Jesus Christ as a blaspheming idolatrous witchdoctor and impostor. In the Jewish Talmud we read, for example, that our Blessed Lord and Savior “performed sorcery, incited Jews to engage in idolatry, and led Israel astray” (Sanhedrin 107b:14) — an outrageous lie! (Many more such examples can be found in Fr. I. B. Pranaitis’ book The Talmud Unmasked [imprimatur 1892].) Furthermore, in our times Tikkun Olam is often used as a political slogan to advance progressivist causes. Neither fact makes it a suitable concept of which to speak favorably, especially not for someone claiming to be the Pope.

Having tickled the ears of Jewish listeners, Leo XIV then offers some crumbs to Muslim ears:

I am also grateful to be in the presence of so many caregivers: doctors and nurses, occupational, physical, and speech therapists, social workers, and, most especially, friends and family. Your care and compassion for those living with ALS and other motor neuron diseases are an inspiration to me and to all people. As our Muslim friends share, in the Haddith, we are told that 70,000 angels are present when caretakers arrive in the morning. 70,000 other angels arrive in the evening. I believe that you too are angels.

By incorporating a story from the Hadith, which purports to record the sayings and deeds of the false prophet Mohammed, Prevost is implicitly recognizing, if not its authenticity, certainly its value. Nothing like appealing to the teachings of the founder of a false religion!

“I believe that you too are angels”, Prevost says to the caretakers and helpers in the fight against ALS. Does it get any sappier than that? You’d expect this kind of statement from the president of the local Kiwanis Club perhaps, but not from someone who claims to be the head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vicar of Christ!

Having thus made both Jews and Muslims happy, and not wanting Christians to feel left out, Leo had a little something for those who believe in Jesus Christ, too:

With devotion, knowledge and skill, you care for our sisters and brothers with ALS — family, friends, and people who were once strangers. Often your care is given at great personal sacrifice. As family members and friends involved in the daily care of those with ALS, you show us the best of humanity. You are the Good Samaritans of whom Jesus spoke.

No, Leo isn’t giving the impression that all religions are equal. After all, Our Blessed Lord was mentioned only third, and then not as the Incarnate God and Redeemer of mankind, but only as the author of the parable of the Good Samaritan! That’s not equality, it’s degradation!

Prevost XIV continues:

Let me say something to you who are living with ALS: You have a special place in my thoughts and prayers.

You have been given a very difficult burden to bear. I wish it otherwise. Your sufferings, however, offer you an opportunity to discover and affirm a profound truth: The quality of human life is not dependent on achievement. The quality of our lives is dependent on love. In your suffering, you can experience a depth of human love previously unknown. You can grow in gratefulness for all that has been given and for all the people who are caring for you now. You can develop a profound sense of the beauty of creation, of life in this world and of the mystery of love.

I pray for you. I pray that rather than being possessed by frustration or hopelessness or despair, you surrender yourself to the mystery of human existence, to the love of your caregivers and to the embrace of the Divine One.

So the false pope assures his hapless audience of his compassion for “a very difficult burden to bear”, but then he won’t preach the Good News of the One who said: “Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light” (Mt 11:29-30). He won’t explain how none of this suffering has to be wasted but can become “treasures in heaven” (Mt 6:20) for eternity, so that one can “now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church” (Col 1:24).

No, instead of informing his spiritually-starved listeners of such important truths as reflect precisely the “hope [that] confoundeth not” (Rom 5:5), the false pope offers them empty Naturalist prattle about “the mystery of human existence” and the quality of one’s life being dependent on generic “love”. Instead of leading them to the abundant spiritual fruits they could be harvesting by uniting all of their terrifying sufferings to those of Christ, who traced out for us the Way of the Cross and commanded us to follow Him (see Mt 10:38; 16:24; Mk 8:34; Lk 9:23), he encourages them merely to “grow in gratefulness” and “develop a profound sense of the beauty of creation, of life in this world [!] and of the mystery of love”, which will ultimately avail them nothing. One can be extremely grateful at the moment of death and even appreciate the beauty of God’s handiwork — and still go to hell.

Prevost doesn’t offer true compassion or hope to his audience, he offers them sweet-sounding but hollow motivational slogans aimed at distracting them from despair. This will not be of any help to them when they must appear before “the Divine One” to be judged, however; for “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6), and this supernatural Faith must be accompanied not only by supernatural hope (see Rom 8:24; cf. Mt 12:21) but also by supernatural charity: “And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Cor 13:13). And yet none of these things can be obtained without the grace of Christ: “I am the vine: you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).

Who will preach this to these poor souls? “How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14).

Leo XIV concludes:

And finally, a word to those who mourn. After a time of caring for your loved ones with ALS, you now mourn their passing. You have not forgotten them. And, in fact, your love has been purified by your service and then by your mourning. You have learned and are every day entering more deeply into the most profound of mysteries — death is not the final word. Love conquers death. Love conquers death. Love conquers death.

May I give a special word of greeting to Harvey and Bonnie Gaffen. For nearly 50 years, Mr and Mrs Gaffen, you have sustained the memory — no, the life of Les Turner. Your love of Mr Turner, and your devotion and energy, have enriched the lives of many people. Look around you today. All these people are here because of you — the greatness of your heart. Thank you, Harvey and Bonnie.

Once again, to all of you, thank you for being here. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you to the Les Turner ALS Foundation for gathering us today.

May our gathering be a source of blessing upon us all. Thank you!

This is about as lowest-common-denominator as it gets. He even ends by expressing the wish that the event be a “source of blessing”, though without mentioning even just the generic “Divine One” this time.

To sum up, Prevost’s message is thoroughly anti-Gospel. In it, the Son of God is essentially relegated to a footnote. No, death cannot be overcome simply by “love”. Death has been overcome by Jesus Christ, “the firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18); and if we wish to overcome death in the same way and be raised to Eternal Life with Him, then we must be attached to Him, to His Mystical Body, through supernatural Faith, hope, and charity at the moment of death. These theological virtues can only be infused into the soul, however, with sanctifying grace. If instead we die in mortal sin, we will be condemned to hell and there suffer eternal death.

That is the Gospel, and it’s the only Gospel there is. There isn’t an alternate Gospel for those who aren’t Catholic.

Leo XIV is now doing the same thing Francis did: Instead of giving his interreligious listeners the pure milk of the Gospel (see 1 Cor 3:2), he offers a string of generic platitudes about love being stronger than death and such like. Instead of raising those who suffer out of the hopelessness of this world to supernatural hope in Christ and His holy Church, Leo provides sappy metaphors about angels being among us. It’s nothing one couldn’t also find on a Hallmark bereavement card or in Chicken Soup for the Soul. And that’s simply despicable.

For a real Pope — for any Catholic, in fact — the occasion of this Walk for Life would have been a wonderful opportunity not merely to assure victims of ALS and their helpers of “a special place in my thoughts and prayers”, but especially to remind ALS patients that their sufferings are not in vain if, aided by divine grace, they unite them to the sufferings of Christ and follow Him faithfully on the Way to the Cross because that alone is the road that leads to the Resurrection. He could have easily said something along these lines.

And for those ALS sufferers who are not Catholics (not just Protestants but also those who don’t even believe in Christ), he could have used that as a perfect opportunity to explain to them, with kindness and compassion, how they should allow Jesus Christ to lighten their load by becoming Catholic and accepting the Cross of Christ as their Redemption so that they too could be saved and allow their sufferings to yield great spiritual fruit.

Oh, what a wonderful opportunity it would have been for Robert Prevost to do some real spreading of the Gospel there, and yet see how badly he wasted it! His message offended no one — and therefore offended God, who said: “He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth” (Mt 12:30); and again, “And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder” (Mt 21:44).

By the way, Leo’s message to the ALS Walk for Life was also a topic in one of our recent podcast episodes, TRADCAST EXPRESS 215. You can listen here (or at this direct link):

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Saint Paul the Apostle said, “woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel” (1 Cor 9:16). But what Leo does is worse than not preaching the Gospel; he preaches a false one: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema” (Gal 1:8-9).

Leo XIV is gagging the true Gospel and giving voice to a false one instead.

Image source: YouTube (screenshot)
License: fair use