Bishop Strickland on Pope Leo XIV, SSPX, Gaza, and More

His Lordship speaks out on Pope Leo's often troubling appointments and his call for "complete commitment" to VII and its disastrous "reforms".

From One Peter Five

By Matt Gaspers

This week, I was honored to host His Excellency Bishop Joseph Strickland on my new podcast channel, Veritatis Vox.

In preparation for our discussion, I sent His Excellency a total of seven questions covering a myriad of topics, namely:

• the first few months of Leo XIV’s pontificate;

• Pope Leo’s call for “complete commitment” to Vatican II and the post-conciliar program;

• the importance of recovering liturgical reverence and theocentric worship in the Christian West;

• the profound damage done by Pope Francis and how to correct it;

• the canonical status of the Society of St. Pius X, in particular, the claim that the SSPX is “not in full communion” with the Church;

• the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, at the root of which is the heresy of “Christian Zionism” (i.e., dispensationalism); and

• the role of suffering in the Christian life.

Prior to our live discussion, Bishop Strickland thought it would be helpful to prepare written responses to my questions, which I am now pleased to publish with his blessing. It should be noted, however, that His Excellency’s responses during our live discussion do not correspond exactly to his written replies, although they are certainly the same in substance (I encourage readers to watch the recording of our live stream for a lengthier version of the interview).

When I introduced Bishop Strickland for our live stream, I referred to him as one of the most stalwart and courageous bishops in the American hierarchy, a man raised up by God “for such a time as this” (Esth. 4:14), and I sincerely believe that to be true. His honesty, humility, and zeal — for God, for the truth, and for souls — are desperately needed amidst what oftentimes appears to be a sea of lukewarm prelates who see themselves more as branch managers of a multinational corporation than successors of the Apostles in the one true Church of Christ.

In response to my question about Francis’s most egregious errors and how to correct them, Bishop Strickland wrote (below), “Pope St. Pius X warned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) that Modernism is the ‘synthesis of all heresies.’ Those words have proven prophetic, and we must root out Modernism wherever it appears.” During our live discussion, he identified the same Pontiff as one of his “heroes” and said, “I’d love to see the Oath Against Modernism reinstated,” noting how “we need that more [today] than in the time of Pius X.” These comments of his bring me deep consolation, precisely because Modernism is at the root of the crisis in the Church and the vast majority of bishops simply fail to grasp this fact, which is why they consistently fail to address it in any meaningful way (more on this subject here).

May God continue to bless and protect Bishop Strickland and inspire more bishops to follow his courageous example.

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Matt Gaspers: We are now a few months into the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV. On the day of his election, you expressed concerns about former Cardinal Robert Prevost based on his tenure as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in Rome (Jan. 2023–April 2025). You told Glenn Beck, “He was involved in naming bishops that I find very troubling, so we’ll have to keep praying.” What is your overall assessment of his pontificate thus far? Would you say that you still have concerns?

Bishop Strickland: Yes, I did express my concern about Cardinal Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV — on the day of his election. And I stand by those words, because the concerns remain. As Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, he had a role in naming bishops whose track records are, frankly, deeply troubling — men who often undermine the perennial teachings of the Church on faith and morals, and who sometimes openly dissent from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is not a small matter. Bishops are successors of the Apostles, entrusted with guarding the Deposit of Faith, not diluting it.

Now, we are nearly four months into his pontificate, and what I would say is this: we have not yet seen the clarity and correction that the Church so desperately needs. Pope Leo XIV has not corrected the doctrinal confusion left in the wake of his predecessor. Cardinal Fernández, who has been the chief architect of dangerous distortions of Catholic teaching, remains in his powerful role at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Fr. James Martin, S.J., continues to spread error and confusion unchecked. And bishops are still being appointed who openly support ideas contrary to the divine constitution of the Church, such as the ordination of women, which Pope St. John Paul II definitively taught is not within the Church’s power to change.

So yes, I do still have concerns. And I say that not out of hostility, but out of love — for the Pope himself, for the Body of Christ, and for the salvation of souls.

We are called to pray for Pope Leo XIV with fervor, to respect his office as the Vicar of Christ, and at the same time to speak the truth clearly, with charity but without compromise. The Church does not belong to the Pope, or to the bishops; it belongs to Jesus Christ, our Divine Lord, Who is the same “yesterday, and today, and the same forever” (Heb. 13:8). Our duty as shepherds is to guard His truth, to strengthen the faithful, and to call all people to conversion.

So, my assessment after these first few months is this: I hope and pray Pope Leo will yet rise to the mission God has placed on his shoulders. I will continue to pray for him every single day. But as long as silence reigns where truth should be proclaimed, as long as error is tolerated where clarity is demanded, my concerns remain. And I believe every faithful Catholic has the right — and even the duty — to voice those concerns, always with fidelity to Christ and His Church.

During his first formal address to the College of Cardinals, Pope Leo called on the princes of the Church to “renew” with him their “complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.” He then held up Evangelii Gaudium (Pope Francis’s first Apostolic Exhortation) as a masterful and concrete roadmap for moving forward, highlighting “several fundamental points” from that document. What are your thoughts about his call to “complete commitment” to Vatican II and the post-conciliar program?

When I hear a call to “complete commitment” to the post-conciliar program, I have to be very clear: my complete commitment is to Jesus Christ, to His Sacred Heart, and to the Deposit of Faith that has been handed down without change through the centuries. Vatican II is a legitimate council of the Church, but the way it has been twisted and used as a banner for confusion is undeniable. Pope Benedict XVI warned us about the “hermeneutic of rupture” and, sadly, that false interpretation has caused decades of liturgical abuse, doctrinal erosion, and moral compromise.

When Evangelii Gaudium is held up as a master plan, I must say honestly: that document reflects the priorities of Pope Francis, but it cannot serve as the foundation for the renewal of the Church if it sidelines clarity on sin, salvation, and the Kingship of Christ. The true renewal of the Church will never come from clever programs, endless synods, or worldly accommodation. It will come only from returning to the Eucharist as the source and summit, from fidelity to Sacred Scripture and Tradition, and from shepherds who are willing to speak the truth without fear.

So, if “renewal” means watering down doctrine, soft-pedaling the moral law, or treating the Church as a democracy instead of the Bride of Christ, then I cannot and will not give my commitment to that. My commitment is to Christ crucified and risen, and to the fullness of Catholic truth. That is where the Church’s future lies.

Four days after addressing the College of Cardinals, Pope Leo spoke to a gathering of Eastern Catholic prelates. He emphasized during his remarks, “We have great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies,” as well as the importance of the Christian West rediscovering “a sense of the primacy of God,” he said. It would seem that a perfect way to accomplish this would be to abolish Traditionis Custodes and allow the Traditional Latin Mass to flourish within parish communities. Do you think there is any hope that Pope Leo will revoke Traditionis Custodes?

When Pope Leo speaks of recovering the “sense of mystery” and restoring the “primacy of God,” my heart agrees entirely — because that is exactly what the Church so desperately needs. But I must be honest: I cannot see how those words can be reconciled leaving Traditionis Custodes in place. That document has inflicted great wounds by restricting the Traditional Latin Mass, which for centuries has been the most sublime expression of the Church’s worship, a liturgy that breathes mystery, silence, reverence, and the primacy of God at the very center.

If the Holy Father truly desires the West to rediscover reverence and awe before the Lord, then the obvious step is to lift those restrictions and allow the ancient Mass to flourish freely in every parish. Pope Benedict XVI reminded us, “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful” (Letter to Bishops attached to Summorum Pontificum). That is the voice of continuity, the voice of a shepherd who knew the treasure entrusted to him.

Do I hope Pope Leo will revoke Traditionis Custodes? Absolutely, and I pray for it every day. But at this moment, I have to admit that I see no concrete signs that he intends to do so. He has praised Evangelii Gaudium, he has kept Cardinal Fernández in charge of doctrine, and he has even appointed bishops who openly question the Church’s teaching on the priesthood. Those are troubling signals. Yet hope is a theological virtue — and my hope is not in policies or documents, but in Christ Himself. The Lord will never abandon His Bride, and the Sacred Heart still beats at the center of the Church. If the Pope truly embraces the primacy of God, then he must also embrace the Mass that most clearly proclaims that primacy. Until then, we must continue to pray, to speak the truth, and to hold fast to the faith handed down from the Apostles.

In May of 2023, you famously posted on X (formerly Twitter) that you “believe Pope Francis is the Pope but it is time for me to say that I reject his program of undermining the Deposit of Faith.” What would you say are the most egregious examples of Pope Francis undermining the Deposit of Faith and what must be done to right the ship, so to speak?

When I wrote those words in 2023, I was speaking from the heart of a shepherd who saw grave danger in the direction the Church was being led. To “undermine the Deposit of Faith” is no small charge, and sadly, there are clear examples under Pope Francis that justify that concern.

The most egregious, in my view, include:

• Amoris Laetitia, which opened the door — through footnotes and ambiguous passages — for divorced and civilly “remarried” Catholics to receive Holy Communion without true repentance. This directly strikes at the indissolubility of marriage and the sanctity of the Eucharist.

• The elevation and promotion of Fr. James Martin, whose public advocacy has consistently distorted Catholic teaching on human sexuality and confused countless souls, with no correction from Rome.

• The appointment of bishops and cardinals who openly question or defy settled doctrine — from Germany’s “Synodal Way” to those pushing for women’s ordination — without discipline, but instead often with promotion.

• And, of course, the promulgation of Traditionis Custodes, which targeted the Traditional Latin Mass — a treasure of Catholic worship that nourished saints for centuries — treating it as a threat rather than a gift.

All of these, taken together, send a devastating message: that the unchanging truth of the Faith can be set aside for pastoral strategies or cultural accommodation. That is the very definition of undermining the Deposit of Faith.

As for what must be done to right the ship: we must return to clarity, to fidelity, and to courage. The Pope and all bishops must proclaim with one voice that truth is not negotiable, that doctrine cannot be altered, and that the liturgy must always reflect the majesty of God rather than the spirit of the age. Pope St. Pius X warned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) that Modernism is the “synthesis of all heresies.” Those words have proven prophetic, and we must root out Modernism wherever it appears.

So, I pray — and I will continue to say with clarity — that the only renewal worth pursuing is the renewal rooted in Christ, the Eucharist, and the fullness of Catholic truth. Nothing less will right the ship.

In a recent interview with the Catholic Herald, you spoke very positively of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the Society of St. Pius X he founded in 1970, as you also did last December on your Substack (here). It is often said that the SSPX lacks “full communion” with the Catholic Church. Regarding this subject, the Code of Canon Law states, “Those baptized are fully in the communion of the Catholic Church on this earth who are joined with Christ in its visible structure by the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical governance” (can. 205). The members of the SSPX clearly profess the same faith and share in the same sacraments as the Catholic Church. And regarding ecclesiastical governance (i.e., jurisdiction), Pope Francis granted all priests of the SSPX habitual faculties to absolve sins (see Misericordia et Misera, n. 12) and also authorized local bishops to allow SSPX priests to witness Catholic marriages in their dioceses (see 2017 PCED letter) — and Pope Leo has not revoked either of these permissions. How, then, does the SSPX not meet the criteria for “full communion”? (I ask this question specifically in light of you having a licentiate in canon law.)

This is an excellent question, and I am grateful for the chance to answer it clearly. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was a courageous shepherd who, in the midst of the upheaval following the Council, sought to hold fast to what the Church has always taught and lived. The Society of St. Pius X is often spoken of in terms of “irregular status,” but as you rightly point out, they profess the same Catholic faith, celebrate the same sacraments, and now — thanks to explicit provisions made by Pope Francis — possess faculties to absolve sins and witness marriages validly and licitly. Those are not small matters; they are concrete signs of communion.

Canon 205 says that full communion requires three bonds: profession of faith, sacraments, and governance. In faith and sacraments, the SSPX is indisputably Catholic. The real question has always centered on governance, particularly around episcopal ordinations carried out without papal mandate. That irregularity created wounds in ecclesiastical discipline, but it did not amount to heresy, schism in the proper sense, or the founding of a parallel church. In fact, both Benedict XVI and Francis made significant gestures to heal that breach, and Pope Leo has not undone those gestures.

So, when people say the SSPX is “not in full communion,” it is often more a political label than a theological or canonical reality. If a Catholic priest can validly absolve sins with papal mandate, and if SSPX priests can validly witness marriage by delegation of the local bishop, then it is very difficult to argue they are somehow “outside” the Church. In truth, they are Catholics who live in an irregular canonical situation that cries out for resolution, not exclusion.

What is needed now is honesty and charity. Honesty, to admit that the ancient liturgy and tradition they have preserved are treasures for the entire Church. Charity, to seek genuine reconciliation rather than to perpetuate suspicion. I believe history will show that Archbishop Lefebvre, despite the irregularities, preserved a vital witness at a time when many within the Church were losing their way. The way forward is not to marginalize the SSPX, but to recognize that they are our brothers, and to bring them fully into the heart of the Church’s life without condition or suspicion.

For nearly two years, now, we have seen the State of Israel decimate the Gaza Strip and terrorize Palestinians in response to Hamas’ brutal attack on October 7, 2023. This past March, you published an open letter to President Donald Trump in which you urged him and his administration “to reconsider its path” of virtually unconditional support for Israel, noting that “the indiscriminate killing of civilians [in Gaza] — including women and children — has reached an intolerable scale.” Several key figures within the Trump administration clearly hold that Christians are obliged to support the Jewish people as a matter of divine revelation. Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel, recently summed up this belief (commonly known as “Christian Zionism”) as follows: “I can’t be Christian and not be completely connected to the Jewish people. Our entire faith is built on the foundation of Judaism. God blesses those who bless Jews and curses those who curse Jews.” As a Catholic bishop, what is your response to this notion, which has taken root in many Catholic minds as well?

That is an important question, and one that touches both the heart of the Catholic Faith and the great confusion of our time.

First, as Catholics, we certainly affirm that the Jewish people are chosen by God in salvation history. As St. Paul teaches in the Epistle to the Romans: “… to whom belongeth the adoption as of children, and the glory, and the testament, and the giving of the law, and the service of

God, and the promises” (Rom. 9:4). Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, in His sacred humanity, was born of the Virgin Mary into the line of David. In this sense, Christianity is indeed rooted in Israel’s covenant.

But Catholic faith makes a crucial distinction: the promises made to Abraham find their fulfillment not in a political state, but in Jesus Christ, the Messiah. St. Paul is equally clear: “And if you be Christ’s, then are you the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). The Church is the New Israel, the Body of Christ, into which Jew and Gentile alike are called.

Therefore, it is not Catholic teaching that Christians are bound to support the modern state of Israel in all its policies, especially when those policies include the bombing of civilians and the killing of children. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, “Peace is not merely the absence of war” (CCC 2304). It is founded on a correct understanding of the human person and requires respect for the dignity of the human person and the right of peoples to justice. Uncritical support for military aggression, even under the guise of biblical prophecy, distorts the Gospel.

What Mr. Huckabee describes is a view known as Christian Zionism, which is widespread in some Protestant circles but is not Catholic doctrine. It mistakes the temporal nation-state of Israel for the eternal covenant fulfilled in Christ. Popes throughout the ages have rejected such readings. Pope Pius XII, for instance, when addressing the situation of the Holy Land in his encyclical In Multiplicibus Curis (1948), insisted that peace there must be founded on justice, not on theology misapplied to politics.

Catholics, therefore, are not called to “bless Israel” in the sense of endorsing its every miliary or political action. We are called to bless all peoples, including Jews, Muslims, and Christians, by bearing witness to Christ, Who alone is the Prince of Peace. We are bound to defend the innocent, to uphold international law, and to resist the slaughter of children in Gaza as much as we would oppose the slaughter of children in the womb.

In summary: yes, we venerate Israel’s role in salvation history. Yes, we pray for the Jewish people and honor their covenantal heritage. But no, we do not confuse that with supporting a modern government in acts of war and injustice. Our fidelity is to Christ and His Church, and our obligation is to defend the dignity of every human life, made in the image of God.

During a recent appearance on “A Catholic Take” with Joe McClane, you addressed the topic of suffering, including Our Lord’s call to take up our crosses daily and follow faithfully after Him (see Luke 9:23-24). We know, of course, that “to them that love God all things work together unto good” (Rom. 8:28), but sometimes our crosses feel overwhelming and too difficult to bear. What spiritual counsel would you offer to those who are currently bearing a heavy cross? Could you perhaps share some examples of how Our Lord has brought good out of suffering in your life, in particular, the suffering of being unjustly removed from your diocese?

That is such a profound and very real question, because so many today feel crushed under the weight of their own crosses. Our Lord never told us the way would be easy. In fact, He said clearly: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: for he that shall lose his life for My sake shall save it” (Luke 9:23-24).

When we face heavy crosses — whether sickness, family trials, or even injustices — we can feel as though we are abandoned. But Christ is never absent. He is closer to us in our suffering than at any other time, because He Himself carried the Cross, and He carries ours with us.

I often go back to the words of St. Paul: “And we know to them that love God, all things work together unto good…” (Rom. 8:28). Notice that it does not say that all things are good in themselves. Injustice, illness, violence, betrayal — these are real evils. But God, in His infinite wisdom, takes what is evil and bends it toward His good purposes when we unite it to Him.

In my own life, I can say that being unjustly removed from my diocese was a cross I never expected. It was painful to be separated from the flock I loved so dearly. But in that suffering, Christ has opened new doors for me to proclaim the truth more freely, to encourage the faithful across the world, and to remind us all that our identity is not rooted in office or position, but in Christ Himself. That has been a hidden grace: to be stripped of earthly security so as to rely more totally on Him.

To anyone feeling crushed under their cross, I would say this: don’t try to carry it alone. Lay it daily at the feet of Christ. Unite it to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Offer it for souls. And remember His promise: “Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened: and I will refresh you” (Matt. 11:28).

Suffering does not have the last word. Christ does. And the Cross, which seems like defeat, is in fact the throne of victory. If we stay close to Him in our suffering, He will transform even our deepest wounds into fountains of grace.