Timeline: Papal-critique and 'resistance' media

The annual Catholic Identity Conference, organised by The Remnant, met near Pittsburgh from 2 to 4 October 2026. InfoVaticana described a programme bringing together Vaticanists, liturgists and several bishops, with a keynote by Bishop Athanasius Schneider under a title referring to a "hostile takeover" within the Church; The Remnant reported that co-founder Eric Frankovitch closed the event by urging traditional Catholics to stop attacking one another.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, declared excommunicated for schism in 2024, posted a critique on X of Leo XIV's 25 September address at the Élysée Palace, which LifeSiteNews republished. He objected to the speech's favourable references to Enlightenment-era thinkers in connection with human rights and to its treatment of France's motto liberté, égalité, fraternité.

Religion News Service reported that newly released Justice Department files include 2019 messages in which Steve Bannon discussed with Jeffrey Epstein a never-made documentary based on In the Closet of the Vatican, writing that it "will take down Francis." RNS noted that it is unclear how serious the plan was. The book's author, Frédéric Martel, said he never accepted Bannon's offer.

The board of Catholic Family News, the traditionalist monthly long edited by John Vennari, announced that its December 2025 issue would be its last and that The Fatima Center USA would preserve the paper's archive.

In a message published by Pillars of Faith, Strickland objected to Pope Leo XIV's appointment of Cardinal Blase Cupich to a Vatican City governing body, while stating that he was not speaking in rebellion and remained loyal to the papal office.

The Pillar reported that a letter from Strickland addressed to priests and distributed at an event at Mar-a-Lago urged them to take St. Peter Damian as a model and criticised Pope Francis. The Pillar also published an analysis asking whether his stance amounted to schism.

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.

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 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.

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.

La Civiltà Cattolica published Pope Francis's 12 September conversation with Jesuits in Bratislava. In it he criticised an unnamed large Catholic TV channel that kept speaking ill of the pope, and called attacks on the Church the work of the devil. Observers widely read the remarks as aimed at EWTN, and an NCR editorial urged the U.S. bishops to reconsider their relationship with the network.

Two weeks after announcing that Crisis Publications, led by Eric Sammons, had acquired OnePeterFive from its founder Steve Skojec, the site named Timothy Flanders as editor. Skojec, who had written publicly about a crisis of faith earlier that year, stepped away from the site.

Bishop William Callahan of La Crosse removed Fr. James Altman as pastor of St. James the Less "for an indeterminate period of time". Catholic World Report said the decree barred him from celebrating public Mass, preaching, assisting at marriages or administering baptism; Altman had drawn national attention with a 2020 video saying no Catholic can be a Democrat.

Corrispondenza Romana published, in Italian and English, Roberto de Mattei's article 'The Viganò Case: The Archbishop and His Double', alleging that many letters signed by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò had been written by one or more other people. Viganò responded that the allegation was completely false.

During the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, five statues displayed at the Carmelite church of Santa Maria in Traspontina were taken early on 21 October 2019 and thrown into the Tiber; traditionalist and conservative critics had objected to them as idolatrous. On 25 October Pope Francis, speaking as bishop of Rome, asked pardon of those offended by their removal, and in November Austrian activist Alexander Tschugguel said he was one of those responsible.

On a flight to Mozambique, Pope Francis told the French journalist Nicolas Senèze, whose new book described a network of U.S. conservative critics and the outlets that amplify them, that it was an honour to be attacked by Americans. A Vatican spokesman later said the pope always considers criticism an honour, particularly from authoritative thinkers.

Taylor Marshall's book Infiltration argues that modernists and Marxists planned to subvert the Catholic Church from within. National Catholic Reporter reported that it topped several Amazon categories while drawing criticism from conservative Catholic outlets.

Italian journalist Marco Tosatti told the Associated Press that he had helped Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò write, rewrite and edit his 11-page testimony against Pope Francis during a three-hour session at Tosatti's home on 22 August 2018, and that he persuaded Viganò to cut claims that could not be documented.

Former U.S. nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò released an 11-page statement, published by two conservative U.S. Catholic websites during the pope's visit to Ireland, alleging that Francis had known of restrictions placed on Theodore McCarrick under Benedict XVI. He called on the pope to resign; Francis declined to respond in detail.

A 25-page letter to Pope Francis concerning Amoris laetitia, delivered on 11 August 2017 with 40 signatures from clergy and lay scholars including historian Roberto de Mattei, was made public after receiving no reply. The list later grew to 62 names; Bishop Bernard Fellay of the Society of St Pius X was then the only bishop among them.

After Benedict XVI's resignation at the end of February 2013, the conclave elected the Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 13 March 2013, on the fifth ballot. He was the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit pope and the first to take the name Francis. The Associated Press later reported that traditionalists had become some of his fiercest critics.

In his Declaratio, Benedict XVI announced that he was renouncing the ministry of Bishop of Rome, with the See to fall vacant on 28 February 2013 at 20:00. He was the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415. The wording later became the basis of benevacantist claims that the resignation was invalid.