Timeline

Pope Francis appointed Auxiliary Bishop J. Gregory Kelly of Dallas as bishop of Tyler, ending the period of apostolic administration that followed Strickland's removal.

Journalists Edward Pentin and Diane Montagna launched a website, supported by Sophia Institute Press, profiling members of the College of Cardinals and charting their positions on contested issues. Before the May 2025 conclave CNN reported that two church lawyers it consulted judged the site far from impartial.

While the US bishops met in Baltimore in November 2024, Strickland issued an open letter criticising Pope Francis and accusing fellow bishops of silence, OSV News reported.

Falter published a long profile of Heiligenkreuz monk Edmund Waldstein, founder of The Josias, describing him as a source of ideas for the American right and reporting that J.D. Vance appeared to be paying attention to him.

Public radio station WBUR's Endless Thread podcast examined traditionalist Catholic content on TikTok, arguing that its appeal rests heavily on mood and visual style. WBUR's Here & Now followed with a segment on the rise of "Trad Caths" on TikTok in November 2024.

The Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life announced a visitation of the FSSP, describing it as a way to know the society better and support it; the Fraternity said it did not stem from any problems. The previous ordinary visitation was in 2014.

Lauren Horn Griffin's article in the Journal of Media and Religion argues that men's trad Catholic Instagram accounts circulate "counterknowledge" as a populist strategy, building an identity around a community seen as under threat and presenting fragments of Catholic social teaching out of context.

In the note The Queen of Peace, the DDF granted a nihil obstat to the spiritual phenomena of Medjugorje and approved devotion at the shrine, without declaring the apparitions supernatural; the messages remain 'alleged'.

Strickland posted on X asking for prayer that Pope Francis would clearly state that Jesus Christ is the only way, after the pope likened religions to different languages for approaching God at an interreligious meeting in Singapore.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith announced that an extrajudicial penal process concluded on 4 July had found Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò guilty of the reserved delict of schism. It declared the latae sententiae excommunication under canon 1364 §1; lifting it is reserved to the Apostolic See.

Archbishop Viganò posted a Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith decree of 11 June summoning him on 20 June to answer a charge of schism, citing his denial of Pope Francis's legitimacy and rejection of Vatican II. He did not appear and said he did not recognise the authority of the dicastery, its prefect or the pope.

The new norms, in force from 19 May 2024, replaced those of 1978. As a rule, no Church authority will declare a phenomenon supernatural, even when a nihil obstat is granted. Bishops propose one of six verdicts, which the Dicastery must confirm.

At Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, the NFL kicker Harrison Butker urged women graduates to embrace the "vocation" of homemaker. The Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, a founding sponsor of the college, objected to the claim that homemaking is the highest calling for a woman. Butker later said he stood behind his words.

Political commentator and podcaster Candace Owens announced on social media that she had been received into the Catholic Church at the Brompton Oratory in London, calling it a "decision to go home". Her conversion, a month after her split from The Daily Wire, drew wide coverage and debate in Catholic media over her statements about Jews.

A Justice Department inspector-general review of the withdrawn Richmond memo, reported in April 2024, found that analysts had conflated an investigative subject's religious views with his alleged domestic-terrorism activity. It found no evidence of malicious intent or that anyone directed investigation of Catholics because of their religion.

The Lepanto Institute and the Population Research Institute presented a report on Catholic Relief Services projects in Cameroon, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. It alleged that CRS promoted condoms and contraception through federally funded projects. PRI said CRS responded with a blanket denial.

The plaintiff's law firm announced that St. Michael's Media had settled Fr. Georges de Laire's federal defamation suit over a 2019 article with a retraction, an apology and a $500,000 payment, and that Church Militant would cease operating at the end of April 2024.

Crux reported on a Brazilian research team that followed every social-media post of five Brazilian Catholic influencers for a year. Researcher Alzirinha Souza warned that such influencers can build parallel ecclesial communities with their own teaching authority.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith published Fiducia supplicans, allowing non-ritual blessings for couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples while excluding rites or wedding-like signs. Criticism from traditionalist media and from bishops in several African and Eastern European countries led the dicastery to issue a clarifying press release on 4 January 2024.

The St. Michael's Media board said founder Michael Voris had been asked to resign for breaching the Church Militant morality clause and that it had accepted his resignation, without disclosing details. Voris apologized in a video on X without specifying the reason.

Three days after his removal, Strickland led a rosary with a few dozen supporters outside the hotel hosting the US bishops' fall assembly. He told CNA that the apostolic nuncio had asked him not to take part in the meeting.

Replying to Bishop Julito Cortes of Dumaguete (Philippines), the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith confirmed that active membership in Freemasonry is forbidden, including for clergy. It proposed parish catechesis on the irreconcilability of the two. The note was published on 15 November.

The Holy See announced that Pope Francis had relieved Bishop Joseph Strickland of the pastoral governance of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, and named Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin apostolic administrator. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo said Strickland had declined a request to resign two days earlier; the Vatican gave no public reason.

At the Rome Life Forum, Strickland read from a letter by an unnamed friend that, according to OSV News, called Pope Francis a usurper of Peter's chair, and himself accused the pope of backing an attack on the sacred.

By mid-September 2023 Catholic World Report reported that Fr. James Altman, already removed as a pastor in 2021, had declared in a YouTube video that Francis was not really the pope but an antipope. Commentators disputed whether his position was sedevacantist or benevacantist.

Il Post and Euronews reported on messages about Benedict XVI flown over Italian beaches promoting the claim that Francis was an antipope. Euronews described the claim as a conspiracy theory. See benevacantism.

Bishops Dennis Sullivan of Camden and Gerald Kicanas, retired bishop of Tucson, conducted a 19–24 June apostolic visitation of the Diocese of Tyler ordered by the Holy See. Its findings have not been published.

The Dicastery for Communication presented Towards Full Presence, a pastoral reflection dated 28 May 2023 that discusses being an "influencer". It warns that polemical, divisive online communication is especially harmful when it comes from bishops, pastors and prominent lay leaders, because others take it as permission to copy it.

OSV News reported that Fr. Robert Spitzer, Jeff Cavins and Jennifer Roback Morse, along with 17 other speakers, had withdrawn from Patrick Coffin's 24 May online Hope Is Fuel conference after Coffin questioned the legitimacy of Pope Francis. Morse said she withdrew on learning it also featured E. Michael Jones, whose writings the ADL describes as antisemitic.

Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler posted that he accepted Francis as pope but rejected what he called the pope's program of undermining the Deposit of Faith. OSV News reported that the post followed his endorsement of Fr. Robert Spitzer's decision to cut ties with podcaster Patrick Coffin, who had questioned the authenticity of Francis's papacy.

A rescript confirmed by Francis in an audience with Cardinal Arthur Roche on 20 February reserved to the Apostolic See the use of parish churches or new personal parishes for the 1962 Missal and permission for priests ordained after July 2021 to use it.

An FBI Richmond field-office product dated 23 January 2023, warning that violent extremists might be increasingly drawn to what it called radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology, was posted online by former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin on 8 February 2023. FBI headquarters withdrew it as not meeting bureau standards; later internal reviews faulted its failure to assess the bias of sources including the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Postliberal Order co-founder Gladden Pappin took charge of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, a government foreign-policy institute then operating under the Prime Minister's Office (Hungarian Conservative).

Benedict XVI died at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City, where he had lived since resigning in 2013. Some benevacantists then recognised Francis; others turned to sedevacantism.

In a letter dated Dec. 13, 2022, Archbishop Christophe Pierre told U.S. bishops that the Dicastery for the Clergy had dismissed Frank Pavone from the clerical state on Nov. 9. The stated grounds were blasphemous communications on social media and persistent disobedience of his bishop, and the decision could not be appealed. The news was first reported publicly on Dec. 17–18 (CNA; AP via Crux).

Bishop Manuel Sánchez Monge restated that the alleged 1961–1965 apparitions at Garabandal have not been recognised. He objected that organisers of a 'Madrid with Garabandal' event had not consulted him. CNA reported his statement on 21 October 2022.

Francis's apostolic letter on liturgical formation restated Article 1 of Traditionis custodes, that the books promulgated after Vatican II are the unique expression of the Roman Rite's lex orandi.

During a penitential service at St Peter's, with a parallel act at Fátima, Francis consecrated Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart. The Fatima Center called the ceremony solemn but said it was not the consecration Our Lady had requested.

Seven months after Traditionis custodes, Pope Francis signed a decree, made public by the FSSP on 21 February, confirming its members' faculty to use the 1962 Missal, Ritual, Pontifical and Breviary, with the local ordinary's consent required outside its own churches except for private Masses.

A papal decree dismissed Alessandro Minutella, a priest of Palermo, from the clerical state, according to a later diocesan decree. The same decree records that he had incurred excommunication on 18 August 2018; the Archdiocese of Palermo had cited heresy and schism. He continues to lead a movement that rejects Francis and Leo XIV.

Polity published Adrian Vermeule's Common Good Constitutionalism, which drew critical reviews from originalist and natural-law scholars in the Harvard Law Review and Notre Dame Law Review, and from Randy Barnett (Volokh Conspiracy).