All cardinals called to Rome for 2-day meeting…
Leo XIV Holds Extraordinary Consistory:
Semi-Trads Between Hope and Disappointment
‘Pope’ Leo XIV on May 12, 2025 (Shutterstock)
In November of last year, it became known that ‘Pope’ Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) was convening an extraordinary consistory of cardinals for Jan. 7 and 8, 2026. The well-founded rumor was confirmed by the Vatican with an official announcement in December.
A consistory is essentially a meeting of the Pope with his cardinals. It is a very traditional convention in the Catholic Church, and one that has been retained by the Novus Ordo Sect (Vatican II Church):
A Consistory, which comes from the Latin “consistere” meaning “stand together,” is a formal meeting of the College of Cardinals.
They can be either Ordinary, which are largely ceremonial in nature and attended by Cardinals residing in Rome, or Extraordinary.
Extraordinary Consistories, such as the one held in January, include all Cardinals throughout the world able to travel, and allow the Pope to consult with the entire College on various issues that affect the life of the Church.
(“Pope Leo XIV convenes his first Consistory of Cardinals”, Vatican News, Dec. 20, 2025)
On Dec. 16, 2025, journalist Nico Spuntoni had revealed in the Italian Il Giornale that one of the topics for discussion in the consistory would be “the liturgical question”, which has been understood by many as a reference to the controversy over the status of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) in the Vatican II Church after ‘Pope’ Francis issued the Apostolic Letter Traditionis Custodes in 2021, in which he revoked ‘Pope’ Benedict XVI’s 2007 Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum and put new guidance in place that severely curtails the permitted use of the diocesan TLM and gradually phases it out altogether.
Now that there has been a changing of the guard in the Vatican, adherents of the TLM in union with the Novus Ordo Sect are placing high hopes in their new ‘Pope’. Via one cardinal or another who supports the TLM, they are hoping to seize the moment of the Jan. 7-8 consistory to get Leo XIV to revoke Traditionis Custodes and once again make the TLM widely available in dioceses throughout the world.
To that end, 76-year-old Fr. Louis-Marie de Blignières, a former sedevacantist who rejoined the Vatican II Sect in 1987, has even sent a proposal to a number of cardinals:
…dated Dec. 24, the letter was sent in hard copy to fifteen cardinals known for their concern for the traditional liturgy, and to an additional hundred cardinals by email. At its core is a proposal to establish an ecclesiastical jurisdiction—modeled in principle on Military Ordinariates—dedicated to the vetus ordo [old rite], offering a canonical structure that respects both tradition and communion with the Holy See.
(Diane Montagna, “EXCLUSIVE: Letter to Cardinals Offers Solution for TLM Ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s First Consistory”, Diane Montagna’s Substack, Jan. 5, 2026)
That such a proposed arrangement is actually doctrinally unsound and must be rejected by anyone who considers himself a traditional Catholic, is explained by our friends at The WM Review:
We suspect, however, that the hype among the recognize-and-resist traditionalists about “the liturgical question” at the consistory is quite misplaced for the most part.
As The Catholic Herald noted two days ago, Leo XIV sent a letter to the cardinals in mid-December, in which he spoke about the purpose of the extraordinary consistory he was convoking. Il Giornale‘s Nico Spuntoni saw a copy of the missive:
That letter … has since become central to understanding the meeting. According to LifeSiteNews, Spuntoni explained that the consistory would address three main themes: the role of the College of Cardinals in Pope Leo’s governance, synodality, and what he described as “liturgical peace”. The same report noted that Leo XIV had asked cardinals to prepare by rereading Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium and studying the apostolic constitution Praedicate evangelium, the document that reformed the Roman Curia in 2022.
Spuntoni later told LifeSiteNews that the invitation contained no explicit reference to the Traditional Latin Mass, noting instead a general reference to liturgy. This, he said, suggested that the discussion would be broader and not limited to tensions between traditionalist and reformist Catholics.
(“What to expect from the extraordinary consistory”, The Catholic Herald, Jan. 4, 2026)
The Catholic Herald further reported that Crux‘s Elise Ann Allen, who has also seen Leo’s letter to cardinals, “noted that while liturgy has become a flashpoint in recent years, particularly after Traditionis custodes, the Pope’s letter situated it within a broader agenda focused on ecclesial communion, evangelisation, and governance.” Indeed, she wrote:
So far coverage of the upcoming consistory has tended to ignore the broader points of Evangelii Gaudium, Predicate Evangelium, and synodality, and has been pigeonholed almost entirely into a debate about the traditional liturgy.
(Elise Ann Allen, “Pope Leo’s first consistory to be both a landmark and a challenge”, Crux, Dec. 22, 2025)
Leo’s request of all the cardinals to re-read Francis’ mammoth texts Evangelii Gaudium (2013) and Praedicate Evangelium (2022) in preparation for the consistory does not bode well for those who foolishly placed their hopes in the latest Modernist-in-chief the Vatican II Church has produced.
In any case, there are currently 245 living cardinals. While we may assume they won’t all be present at the consistory — some will surely be too old or ill to travel, and a few others might not be allowed to leave their respective countries — even if only 200 show up, what can actually get accomplished in what amounts to just a few hours of actual meeting time?
Yes, only a few hours, because the full official meeting schedule was leaked today, and it is as follows:
January 7
- 3:30 pm – Opening: prayer, greeting by Cardinal Dean, address by Leo XIV, presentation of proceedings and instructions for group work
- 4:15 pm – Group work
- 6:00 pm – Reports from the groups
- 6:45 pm – Address by Leo XIV and concluding prayer
January 8
- 7:30 am – Novus Ordo worship service in St. Peter’s Basilica
- 9:30 am – Prayer and introduction
- 9:45 am – Group work
- 11:00 am – Break
- 11:30 am – Reports from the groups
- 12:00 pm – Open interventions, followed by Angelus
- 1:00 pm – Lunch with Leo XIV
- 3:15 pm – Prayer and introduction
- 3:30 pm – Group work
- 5:00 pm – Break
- 5:30 pm – Reports from the groups
- 6:00 pm – Open interventions
- 6:45 pm – Concluding address by Leo XIV, followed by Te Deum
The total time of group work over the two days amounts to a mere 4.5 hours. The total time of open interventions, in which whoever is lucky enough gets to speak freely to the entire assembly, is a mere 1.75 hours.
And this time is not meant to be spent on a single topic, but on at least three topics that are each rather complex. The total number of participants could be as high as 246 (all cardinals plus Leo XIV), but, realistically, will probably be around 200 or a bit higher. Forget about how many of the participants could possibly address the full assembly. The bigger question is: How many of these prelates from all over the world will even be able to communicate with one another? Don’t assume for a minute that they all know Latin well enough to have a meaningful conversation about theology.
Our prediction is: This will be a big nothingburger. Leo may make use of the consistorial proceedings subsequently for some of his magisterial texts — look for references to this assembly in the footnotes — but beyond that, it will not be a terribly impactful event. By the end of the month, it will have been forgotten by most.
It may just be that the primary reason for the consistory is to inculcate in the cardinals the predetermined agenda of Leo XIV’s ‘pontificate’, ensuring that his advisors are all on board with what Prevost wants to do — while also giving them the opportunity to get to know each other a little and even share some minimal input with their new boss.
Whoever thinks that this two-day event is going to be some major turning point for the Traditional Latin Mass by the Novus Ordo Church’s highest authorities, will be sorely disappointed.
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