I'm afraid Pope Leo is rapidly becoming Francis 2.0.
Imagine promoting a bishop who caused an international firestorm by displaying pagan idols in his cathedral.
19 June 2025
Family Affair: Diocese of Lincoln Has 6 Sets of Brothers As Priests
My Diocese! This is what happens when a Diocese has been blessed with three solidly orthodox Catholic Bishops in a row, as we have been.
From Aleteia
By Christine Rouselle
While all priests are "brother priests" in the spiritual sense, for six families in the Diocese of Lincoln, the phrase is a little more literal.When a man is ordained a priest, he joins a spiritual fraternity of every other man who has received holy orders. But for six families in the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, the phrase "brother priests" is a literal one.
On Saturday, May 24, with the ordination of Father Isaac Wahlmeier, the Wahlmeier family became the newest members of this special group. In 2020, his older brother Joseph was ordained a priest for the diocese.
For Isaac, his brother's vocation and path to the priesthood played a large part in his discovering his own vocation. When Joseph was studying at St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward, Nebraska, the idea of he himself entering the seminary became much more approachable, he told the Southern Nebraska Register.
The Southern Nebraska Register is a publication of the Diocese of Lincoln.
“Where you see the witness of one person, it’s an instrument for God to increase the trust in your own life, and the confidence you have in His will and His love for you," said Isaac Wahlmeier.
Joseph told the Southern Nebraska Register that he was studying in Rome when he heard the news that his brother had also decided to enter seminary.
He said he was "both surprised, and not, at the same time" in regards to his brother's decision.
“It kind of felt like my own vocation,” said Joseph Wahlmeier. “I didn’t really think about being a priest, especially until college, but when the call came, it just made so much sense.”
"May God's will be done"
The Wahlmeier brothers credit their parents, Patrick and Debbie, for creating an environment that nurtured their vocations, as well as those of their siblings. Patrick and Debbie are the parents of 15 children and grandparents of 29.
While two of her sons are priests, Debbie told the Southern Nebraska Register that she did not have any special inkling about their vocations when they were children, but that she prayed that all of her children would eventually discover God's call.
“I don’t think a parent has the power to make a vocation or make it happen, whatever that vocation is, but let it happen. Let God make it clear to your children,” said Debbie Wahlmeier.
Her prayer, she said, is simple: "May God's will be done."
In addition to the Wahlmeiers, the other sets of ordained brothers in the Diocese of Lincoln are Fathers Matthew and Jeffrey Eickhoff, who were ordained in 1989 and 1995, respectively;
Fathers Andrew and Christian Schwenka, ordained in 2019 and 2022;
Monsignor Daniel and Fathers Mark and Leo Seiker ordained in 1987, 1984 and 1991;
Fathers Evan and Dominic Winter ordained in 2016 and 2022;
and Fathers Matthew and Michael Zimmer, who were ordained in 2011 and 2012.
Communion in the Hand and Liturgical Reforms: What is God's Will?
From One Peter Five with Bishop Schneider.
Timothy Flanders interviews Bishop Athanasius Schneider about his new book: Flee From Heresy
A Catholic Guide to Ancient and Modern Errors: https://sophiainstitute.com/product/f...
In Flee from Heresy, Bishop Athanasius Schneider — raised among persecuted Catholics in the Soviet Union — offers a systematic treatment of more than 130 doctrinal errors, from ancient times down to our own day, along with English translations of the Church’s major anti-heresy documents of the past two centuries.
In this fascinating exposé, you will discover the ideological roots of our own unsteady times and be better equipped to “test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21).
- What heresy is — and what it is not
- A sweeping history of heresies across the centuries
- How heresy destroys charity and the spiritual life
- Why God allows heresy to afflict His holy Church
- Names and categories of more than 130 doctrinal errors
- The nefarious heresy of the anti-Christ and the anti-Mary
- How heresy relates to schism, apostasy, and excommunication
- Why the Virgin Mary is invoked as “Destroyer of Heresies”
The Catholic Struggle Against Same-Sex Attraction
All Catholics are called to chastity in their state of life. I know how hard that is as a straight male. I cannot even begin to imagine the difficulty for someone who suffers from SSA.
From One Peter Five
By "Henry Williams"
I am no longer Catholic
It was one of the hardest phone calls of my life. A day that I had predicted would come years ago, but always hoped and prayed that I was wrong.
“I don’t have control over anything right now. This is the one thing that I can control.”
Liam and I had first met in 2017 at a Courage meeting. We recognized one another from passing each other at our local TLM, but it was the first time we had spoken to each other. It was a bit of a comfort to know that someone else who loved the Traditional Mass was in the same boat as myself: we both experienced same sex attractions (SSA), and we had both returned to the faith of our youth in recent years, turning away from shameful lives and trying to live for Christ. I was a bit more outspoken about my past. Liam was far more reserved. Myself and one other person in our friend group (who also experienced SSA) were the only ones who knew his secret.
For years, I was the late night phone call, I was the shoulder to cry on, I was the support in the hardest times for Liam, all while trying to figure things out for myself in a confusing world and a confusing church with a confusing pope.
There were, however, some great moments, some incredible memories, some victories. One that will stick with me is the time that I gathered a bunch of guys together to stand outside of our local pride festival to pray and converse with attendees. We offered them bottled water, and started deep conversations. I printed out a bunch of copies of the Litany of the Sacred Heart. We prayed it with people. We talked to them about their experiences with faith. I believe we may have opened some hearts in those conversations, but we will only know in Heaven. On Saturday, I brought a bunch of guys from my Bible study group. They were all very nervous going into it, as was I, but by the end, I think everyone understood a little better the misery these poor people live in on a daily basis. I know some of these men still today pray in a special way for these “prideful” souls as a result of this experience. And these people certainly need a lot of prayer.
On the Sunday, it was myself, Liam, and my dear seminarian friend Joseph. Compared to the nervousness of the previous day, Liam was ready to encounter these souls and bring them the good news of Jesus Christ, and the love offered to them in His Sacred Heart. That day, Liam was also able to tell Joseph about his own experience. It was an inspiring and therapeutic experience for everyone. I will never forget the enthusiasm Liam had that day.
When Liam wanted to pursue further studies out of town to advance his career, he was equally determined. Knowing the delicate state of Liam’s heart, I admonished him to reconsider. I knew that if he left, he would subject himself to a loneliness that he feared more than anything. I predicted that by the time the program was complete, he would lose the faith and return to the gay lifestyle. He was undeterred by my warnings, saying that he knew he had to do this, and besides, his support team was only a phone call away.
Several years later, Laim seemed fine. He seemed, in fact, to be on an upward trajectory to many on the outside. He was in a relationship with a woman. He smiled so big. He had completed his studies. But the warning signs began to appear. Supporting him became very difficult. I dreaded the phone calls as they became more and more frequent. I often didn’t know how to counsel him as I got more and more pushback on the advice I was giving.
In the fall that year, I knew the phone call was coming. I knew the relationship with his girlfriend was not all that it seemed to be to those on the outside. With significant medical issues in his family, moving once again to a different town to do further training, and many cracks in the relationship, I knew it was only a matter of time.
A friend had warned me earlier in the day that the call was coming. I had already cried many tears, offered so many Hail Marys, and many more would come.
“I don’t have control over anything right now. This is the one thing that I can control. I am no longer Catholic. I am going to have a boyfriend and be happy. I can no longer accept the sentence of loneliness in this life.”
In the conversations that surround SSA in the Church, we often hear or say things like “we are all called to chastity in the same way.” Indeed we are, but the burden of that chastity can fall differently on different people. For those who experience deep-seated SSA but also accept the truth of the natural law, the yoke of chastity can at times feel like staring into a black hole. Some of us will marry women and have families, but a great many won’t be able to. We fast forward in our heads to the day where a close friend gets married, and the tears that we cry on that day are truly bittersweet as we hand over one of our greatest treasures to his bride. We see the future where all of those that we rely on presently are carrying a child in each arm, and they cannot give a moment’s thought to us. We see ourselves in old age, laying in a hospital bed, with no one by our side except sterile medical personnel. We see a Requiem where few will mourn our departure from this world. We see these things and feel the yoke of chastity to be nearly impossible to carry.
When I brought my friends to this pride event, I made it clear in my pep talk that taking June as Pride Month is indeed a diabolical attack on Our Blessed Lord and His Sacred Heart. The call came from Satan himself to co-opt this month and dedicate it to these shameful things. But I also made it clear that Our Blessed Lord, in His Divine Providence, took what Satan made for evil, and gave the homosexual and the gender-confused soul the very medicine that he needs to heal his soul in this month: devotion to the Sacred Heart.
For what Heart can better understand the depth of sorrow that the souls afflicted by these maladies experience than the Heart that was pierced and bled for our sins? What Heart knows loneliness more than the Heart that cried from the cross, “Deus, Deus meus, respice in me: quare me dereliquisti?” And is our God not close to the broken hearted? Will He whose side was pierced by St. Longinus abandon the soul that cries and wails for His aid? Indeed not! But we find ourselves so often shunning His aid, running away from our Lover as He cries for us to return to His loving embrace. We lose faith in He who moves the mountains with a simple word. We place our trust in feeble men to give our pathetic lives meaning, and we pretend to be shocked when they fail. But God does not fail, He is incapable of it! But the soul that seeks Him and finds Him, the soul who finds his own heart captivated by the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ has a faithful Lover indeed who shares with us His Divine Life not always by ecstasies and enduring peace of soul, but also by trial and the cross.
We often hear about taking up our cross and following Christ, that the cross is the way to salvation. It took me years to understand what this means in my life, how to invite Jesus to be in the midst of my loneliness and pain, and I am still learning more everyday what this means for my life. This June, pray fervently the Litany of the Sacred Heart for all those affected by SSA and gender dysphoria.
Corpus Christi
Today's Holy Mass from Corpus Christi Church, Tynong AUS. You may follow the Mass at Divinum Officium.
Ss Gervase & Protase, Martyrs
From Dom Prosper Guéranger's Liturgical Year:
There being but a simple commemoration made to day of these two glorious brethren, whose names were formerly so celebrated throughout the West, must not lessen their merit in our eyes. The Holy Spirit, whose function it is to maintain within the Bride of Jesus that divine mark of Holiness, whereby she is to be, up to the day of doom, forever recognizable both to angels and to men, ceases not in every generation to raise up new saints, who more especially attract the devout homage of that particular period to which their virtues have served as an example, and of which they are the distinctive glory. But while in thus honoring these children of hers, whose brilliant virtues add fresh jewels to her vesture, holy Church is moved by a sentiment of gratitude to the Paraclete for present benefits; these his later manifestations can never make her forgetful of those wrought within her by the same divine Spirit in her earlier days. Gervase and Protase are indeed no longer honored by a solemn feast, preceded as heretofore by a Vigil, whereof the Sacramentary of Gelasius preserves the memory; but they still occupy an important place in the Roman Litanies as representatives of the great Martyr host; which position none have been allowed to assume in their stead. To these two in preference to a vast array of Martyrs whose festivals are now of a rite superior to theirs, does Holy Church turn in the more solemn of all her supplications; whether it be in holy processions to implore the averting of scourges and the obtaining blessings of this present life; or whether the sacred assembly of the whole Christian people, prostrate together with the Pontiff, unite in imploring the grace of abundant consecration to flow upon altars and temples or upon future priests, virgins, or kings.
We learn from the historians of sacred rites, that the Introit of the Mass of our two holy Martyrs: The Lord will give peace unto his people, is a monument of the confidence of Saint Gregory the Great in their powerful succor. Filled with gratitude for results already obtained, he committed to their care, in the selection of this antiphon, the complete pacification of Italy, then a prey to Lombard invasion and to the petty vengeance of the Byzantine Court.
Two centuries previously, Saint Ambrose had a first experience of the special power of pacification which it seemed Our Lord Christ had attached to the very bones of these his glorious witnesses in return for their having given their life for Him. The empress Justina and the Arian Auxentius now for a second time directed against the Bishop of Milan a united assault of the powers of earth and of hell; and Ambrose, thus again ordered to abandon his Church, replied: “It were unseemly in a priest to deliver up the temple.” (Amb. Epist. xx.) Upon the soldiers sent to lend main force to the invaders of the sacred precincts he denounced sentence of excommunication, if they passed one step farther; and they, knowing that they had been engaged to God by their baptism before being so to their prince, thereupon made fitting estimate of such a proposed act of sacrilege. To the court, terrified at the universal indignation that had ensued and now praying him to quell the popular excitement aroused by these odious measures, he replied: “It is in my power not to excite it; but to appease it, belongs only to God.” When such troops as could be assembled composed exclusively of Arians, were at length surrounding the Basilica wherein was Ambrose, his faithful people were there to be seen gathered around him in the name of the undivided and ever tranquil Trinity, sustaining by the sole force of divine psalmody and sacred hymns a novel kind of siege. But the last act of this two years’ war levied against a disarmed man, the event which completed the overthrow of heresy, was the discovery of the relics of Gervase and Protase, precious treasures unconsciously possessed by Milan and now revealed to their bishop by a heavenly inspiration.
Let us hearken to the bishop himself recounting to his sister Marcellina these facts, in all the sweet simplicity of his great soul. Long consecrated by the Supreme Pontiff himself to the Spouse of virgins, Marcellina was one of those all-powerful in humility, who are almost invariably placed by Our Lord side by side with the great historic names of holy Church, to be their stay and support before God; ignored co-operatrices in deeds the most brilliant, whose intervention by prayer and suffering must, for the most part, remain concealed until the day when eternal realities shall be revealed. Ambrose had already kept his sister informed of the details of the first campaign directed against him: “In almost every letter,” he says, “thou dost anxiously inquire about what affecteth the Church; well, then, here it is. The day after that on which thou didst send me the account of thy dreams, the weight of heavy disquietude fell upon us.” (Epist. xx.)
The following letter, on the contrary, breathes already of triumph and liberty regained:
“The Brother to the Lady, his Sister, dearer to him than are his eyes and his life. It is my wont to leave thy holiness ignorant of nothing that passeth here in thine absence: know also then, that we have found Martyrs. For of a truth, when I was engaged about the dedicating of the Basilica which thou knowest, many began to call upon me with one voice, saying: Dedicate it after the manner of the Roman Basilica. I replied: I will do so, if I find relics of Martyrs. Thereupon there came upon me, as it were, the glowing heat of a presage. What shall I say? The Lord hath bestowed his grace. Despite the fears of the very clerics themselves, I ordered the earth to be dug up about the spot facing the balustrade of Saints Felix and Nabor. I found the wished-for signs. Men even came forward bringing possessed persons on whom we might impose hands; and it so fell out, that at the very first sight of the holy Martyrs, while we as yet had not broken silence, a (Urna in the Latin text, is taken for una by the best interpreters.) woman from among them was instantly seized and thrown to the ground before the holy tomb. We found therein two men of wondrous stature, as in the times of the ancients; all the bones entire, and a quantity of blood. There was a vast concourse of people during these two days. Wherefore these details? Towards evening we transported the holy bodies (in their entirety and laid out in a fitting manner) to the Basilica of Fausta; there vigil was kept all night, and imposition of hands. On the morrow, the translation to the Basilica that they call the ‘Ambrosian.’ During the transit, a blind man was cured.” (Epist. xxii.)
Ambrose then goes on to relate to Marcellina the discourse pronounced by him on this occasion. We can cite only one passage: “O Lord Jesus, I give thee thanks for having raised up in our midst the spirit of thy holy Martyrs, at a time in which thy Church is in need of greatest succor. Be it known unto all what kind of defenders I desire; such as can defend and yet attack not. Holy people, lo! I have gained such for you, they are useful to all, hurtful to none! Such are the guardians I ambition, such my soldiers. On their account I have no envy to fear; yea, I wish their succor to be profitable to those even who are jealous of me. So then let them come, let them behold my guards: I deny not my being surrounded by arms such as these! Even as in the case of the servant of Eliseus, when the Syrian army was besieging the prophet, —God hath opened our eyes. Behold us, Brethren, freed from no light shame: to have had defenders and not to have known it! … Behold how from an ignoble sepulcher, noble remains have been taken, trophies at last brought to light. Gaze upon this tomb still wet with blood, glorious stains marks of victory! See these relics inviolable in their hiding place, laid just in the very same order wherein they were placed the first day! Look at this head separated from the shoulders! Our old men now begin to remember having formerly heard these Martyrs named, and to have read the inscription on their tomb. Our city had lost her own Martyrs, she who had borne away those of foreign cities! Although this is God’s gift, still I cannot refuse to see therein a great grace, whereby our Lord Jesus has vouchsafed to render the time of my episcopacy illustrious. Not deserving to be myself a Martyr, I have procured these Martyrs for you. Let them be brought in then; bring hither these victorious victims, let them take their place there where Christ is the Victim; but, on the Altar be He who suffered for all, and under the Altar be they whom His Passion redeemed. I had destined this spot for myself; since fitting it is that the Pontiff should repose there where he hath been wont to present the Oblation; but I cede my right to sacred victims: this place was due unto Martyrs.” (Epist. xxii.)
In fact, Ambrose did come, ten years later, to take his own place under the altar of the Ambrosian Basilica; he occupied the Epistle side, leaving that of the Gospel to the two Martyrs. In the ninth century, one of his successors, Angilbert, placed the three venerable bodies together in one same sarcophagus of porphyry, which was placed length-ways of the altar, above the two primitive tombs. There, after the lapse of a thousand years, on August the 8th in the year 1871 owing to necessary repairs being made in the Basilica, they once more reappeared; not this time amidst blood, as the fourth century had disclosed our Martyrs, but under a sheet of water, deep and limpid; a touching image of that water of Wisdom (Prov. xviii 4; xx 5; Ecclus. xv 3; etc.) that flowed so copiously from the lips of Ambrose himself, now the principal occupant of this holy tomb. There, not far from the tomb of Saint Marcellina, itself also an altar, the pilgrim of these days, with soul brimful of by-gone memories, may still venerate these precious relics; for they are united together in one crystal shrine where, placed under the immediate protection of the Roman Pontiff, Pius IX, they await the glorious day of resurrection. (Constitutio Pius IX: Qui attingit a fine usque ad finem fortiter.)
The brief legend of these two Martyrs runs as follows:
Gervase and Protase were the sons of Vitalis and Valeria, who both testified even unto death, for the Lord Christ’s sake, by martyrdom, —the father at Ravenna, and the mother at Milan. After the victory of their parents, Gervase and Protase gave all their inheritance to the poor, and set free their slaves. This act of theirs stirred up against them savage hatred, on the part of the heathen priests, and when the Count Astasius was about setting forth to war, they believed they had got a good occasion for the destruction of the two holy brethren. They persuaded Astasius that their gods had revealed to them that they had no chance of conquering in the war, unless he had first made Gervase and Protase to deny Christ, and to offer sacrifice to the gods. Being commanded so to do, they refused with horror, and Astasius then ordered Gervase to be beaten with rods until he died under the stripes, and Protase to be beaten with clubs, and his head to be struck off. A servant of Christ named Philip took away their dead bodies by stealth and buried them in his own house; and in after times, St. Ambrose, being warned of God, found them, and bestowed them in a hallowed and honorable place. They suffered at Milan, on the thirteenth of the kalends of July.
Though short is the account of your combat, O holy Martyrs, because few are the details handed down to us concerning you, still may we cry out with Saint Ambrose when he first presented you to the populace: “That eloquence is best that springs from blood; for blood is a voice of thunder, re-echoing from earth to heaven.” (Epist. xxii.) Oh! make us to understand its potent accents! Ever must the veins of a Christian be ready to pour forth testimony to God, our Redeemer! Say, is there no blood left in our impoverished veins? Oh! cure our generation of such a hopeless state of lingering decline; what physicians may not, Jesus Christ can always do!
Up then, glorious Brethren; teach us the royal road of devotedness and suffering! Surely not in vain have our feeble eyes been granted to contemplate you in these our days even as did Ambrose; if God, after the lapse of so many ages, has once more revealed the sight of you, he must therein have intentions not unlike those he had in by gone times! Therefore, dear Saints, may he perchance vouchsafe to raise up, through your intercession, mankind and our present society from the degradation of a fatal servility; to banish error, to save the Church who cannot indeed perish, but whom he loves to deliver by means of her Saints. Doth it not behoove you, generous Martyrs, to recognize by signal favors, the protection lavished by the successor of Peter on your relics, despite his own captivity? Be Milan worthy of you and of her Ambrose! Deign lovingly to visit the various lands both near and afar, formerly enriched with the blood found near your tomb. France was especially devout to you, placing no fewer than five of her cathedrals under your glorious invocation; may she not look for particular help at your hands? Oh! rouse up once more her piety of by-gone days; free her from false sects, from traitors! Let the day soon come when she may step forth once again the soldier of God!
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