"Rend the veil and we shall sail"

As I slowly and by God's grace begin to emerge from my doldrums, hoping and praying for a better second half of 2026, today's traditio is an easy one. It's one that's more in tune with the spirit of the Καθολικός διάκονος Friday traditio. The last several have not only been discernibly out of tune, but only striking a single note. These last several posts I have felt much more myself. It helps that I am nearing the end of some restful and less stressful weeks.

My own screenshot from the Vatican Bolletino for 31 July 2026

Reviewing The Pillar's "Starting Seven" for today, I quickly noted that the only audience Pope Leo had scheduled for today was with "la Signora Patricia Lee Smith." After a quick check, not believing my initial take, I discovered that the Pontiff had indeed granted an audience to the one and only Patti Smith. Patti is often referred to as "the godmother of punk." There is even a video of the beginning of their meeting. You can watch it here.

Patricia Lee Smith w/ His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV- 31 July 2026

Like the Holy Father, Patti was born in Chicago. She is nearly ten years his senior. In both 2014 and 2021, during Pope Francis' pontificate, Patti played at the Vatican's Christmas concert. While Smith is not Catholic, she has a great devotion to Saint Francis of Assisi, whom she calls an "environmentalist saint." Of course, Pope Leo has declared this year a Jubilee for Saint Francis.

It's safe to say, using a contemporary locution, that she is "Catholic adjacent." It's no small thing to have a private audience with the pope. Leo must've wanted to meet her. He's a person both with great expanse and with depth- not a hollow man.

Provocatively, the first words to the first song ("Gloria: In Excelsis Deo") on her earth-shattering debut album, released in 1975 (51 years ago!) simply entitled Horses, are: "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine." For the unnuanced among us, you have unravel the thread a bit.

In his last Encyclical, Dilexit nos, on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Francis, commenting on the Little Flower's Sacred Heart devotion, which, as was her wont, can seem a little non-standard, insisted:

Those moralizers who want to keep a tight rein on God’s mercy and grace might claim that Therese could say this because she was a saint, but a simple person could not say the same. In that way, they excise from the spirituality of Saint Therese its wonderful originality, which reflects the heart of the Gospel. Sadly, in certain Christian circles we often encounter this attempt to fit the Holy Spirit into a certain preconceived pattern in a way that enables them to keep everything under their supervision. Yet this astute Doctor of the Church reduces them to silence and directly contradicts their reductive view in these clear words: “If I had committed all possible crimes, I would always have the same confidence; I feel that this whole multitude of offenses would be like a drop of water thrown into a fiery furnace” (sec 137)

In 1978, with the Patti Smith Group, she also recorded the album Easter.

Despite being Friday (the Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola), it is from Easter that today's traditio emanates. While the album features what is perhaps Patti's best-known song, "Because the Night" (co-written with Bruce Springsteen), that is not our traditio. Rather, it is the first track: "Till Victory."