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I hope he’s discussing her abhorrent views supporting abortion and her song lyric ‘Jesus Died for someone else’s sins, not Mine’. 

Radical Fidelity
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NOT FOR SENSITIVE READERS: Leo’s Meeting with Degenerate Punk Singer Was Signalling Much More than the Media Told You

But hey, kids, Leo XIV wants to promote the person who inspired this kind of lifestyle.

Radical Fidelity
Aug 01, 2026



The past few days, quite a bit has been said on social media about Leo XIV’s meeting with the so-called “Godmother of Punk,” poet and singer Patti Smith (79).

I do feel, however, that not enough has been said, and that most Catholic readers still do not realize just how scandalous this meeting really was.

I have to warn sensitive folks that I might wade into some pretty dark waters in this essay. What you read and hear here might offend or scandalize you. But that is exactly why I feel this story needs to be told against a broader backdrop than has been the case over the past few days.

Let us start with the basic facts, which many might already know.

This past Friday (July 31), Leo XIV received Smith in a private audience at the Apostolic Palace. The meeting is said to have lasted about 40 minutes and was attended by Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., Undersecretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education. It was reported that Spadaro has been friends with Smith for several years. A Jesuit “priest” who is friends with a degenerate punk figure? Of course, no surprises there.

Afterward, the same Spadaro, according to a report in the Catholic Review, said on social media that, “When that door opened, something happened … a spark was lit—one that came with a few lighthearted moments, but also with a profound sense of emotion and of a shared mission in this challenging world.”

Shared mission? Keep this in mind as we take a closer look at exactly who Smith is and what she represents.

Smith, who was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, has had a cozy relationship with postconciliar prelates and apostate Rome, which says a lot. Paying homage to Jorge Bergoglio after he passed away, she said in an interview, “We have to take the words he cherished—love, humility, compassion—and believe them with our hearts. And, as some of our great Masters taught, we must try to imitate Christ. To imitate Francis is to be that much closer to God.”

Earlier this year, she performed at an event that inaugurated the Holy See’s Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and in both 2021 and 2014 she performed at the Vatican’s Christmas concerts.

Now let us put this into sharper context by starting with her title as the “Godmother of Punk Rock.” She has been called this by the music media for decades, and with good reason. But the reader, who might only be familiar with the much tamer 21st-century version of the punk genre, needs to understand that the music scene she spawned—or at least inspired—back in the 1970s was much darker and more depraved.

It is impossible to give a complete overview of punk rock here, and it would be inappropriate. But let us briefly look first at some of her own contemporaries, and secondly at the band that foisted the punk sound and ideology upon the world in 1976: the S*x Pistols.

Two of her most notable contemporaries, who have been called proto-punk bands, were The Stooges and MC5. The former’s lead singer, Iggy Pop (who is often referred to as the “Godfather of Punk”), was a hopeless drug addict, displayed masochistic and self-destructive behavior, and famously crawled through broken glass on stage while singing, “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” Real high art, by the sounds of it.

MC5, on the other hand, together with their manager John Sinclair, wrote a manifesto in the early 1970s called Dope, Guns and F**g in the Streets. The manifesto called for “absolute freedom,” the end of capitalism, and an all-out war on traditional American culture and values. Sounds like a cruder version of the Synodal religion.

Patti Smith would later marry MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith.

In 1976, the British band credited with officially birthing the punk genre, the S*x Pistols, exploded into infamy. In their song “Anarchy in the U.K.,” the singer snarlingly proclaimed, “I am an Antichrist, I am an anarchist, don’t know what I want but I know how to get it, I wanna destroy...”

Of course, rock music has gotten much worse since then, but I want to illustrate the ideology of which Smith is the “Godmother.” The S*x Pistols’ bassist, Sid Vicious, would later stab his girlfriend to death before fatally overdosing on heroin himself. But hey, kids, Robert Prevost wants to promote the person who inspired this kind of lifestyle.

Before we get into some of Smith’s own lyrics and the causes she championed, I also want to pause for a moment to consider another of her controversial friendships.

Smith was not only a good friend but also an artistic collaborator of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The two met as young artists in New York, lived together for a time, and remained devoted friends until Mapplethorpe’s death from AIDS in 1989.

Mapplethorpe became internationally famous—and deeply controversial—for photographs depicting explicit sadomasochistic acts, homoerotic imagery, and other sɛҳuąƖly explicit subjects. I am sure “Fr.” Jimmy Martin would have loved Mapplethorpe.

Needless to say, Smith has long been an outspoken voice for “LGBTQ+BS rights.”

Another reason Smith is likely a favorite of Synodal Rome is her lifelong outspoken support for legalized abortion, of which she said, “It’s more important to save the lives of young women than to uphold an ideology.” The reader can be sure that the “ideology” in question is Christianity, and that Smith, while pretending to care about young women’s lives, could not care less about their souls.

Which perfectly segues into the subject of the lyrics she has written and the ideology she stands for.
Much has been written in recent days about the line in the song “Gloria” that goes, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine,” but unfortunately that is not the exception but rather the rule when it comes to her career, in which she spent decades promoting ideas and causes that are contrary to the Church’s moral teaching.

Again, it would be impossible to examine all of it, but here are just a few examples that I am sure Francis and Leo considered before inviting her to Vatican events and personal papal meetings.

In the song Rock and Roll N****r, Smith angrily told the world that “Baby was a black sheep. Baby was a whore,” and “Jimi Hendrix was a n****r. Jesus Christ and Grandma, too.” These are the words Smith thought appropriate to describe Christ the King with. Remember also now the words of Spadaro about a “shared mission.”

In the 1978 song “Babelogue,” Smith defiantly claimed, “I have not sold myself to God,” and elsewhere in the same song says that “at heart I am a Muslim.”

In general her songs are filled with themes of satanic liberalism, rebellion, sex, perversion and quasi-mysticism, and is strongly anti-christian and anti-establishment. I am not going to continue, as I have already transgressed against the many decent Catholic folk who read this publication. But I want to end with this.

Do you get it yet?

Let us summarize, and hopefully you will understand.

The postconciliar, hijacked Vatican and its two latest “popes” have associated themselves in different ways with an anti-establishment figure (Patti Smith) who:

• Was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness.
• Claimed that at heart she is a Muslim.
• Is rabidly pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ.
• Speaks of spiritual “Masters” in interviews, of whom Jesus Christ is but one.
• Denies that Jesus Christ died for her sins.
• Called Christ a “n****r” in one of her most famous songs.
• Inspired one of the most degenerate music genres, based on nihilism, anarchism, and anti-Christian rhetoric.
• Was friends with, promoted, and collaborated with a photographer whose claim to fame was his images of sɛҳuąƖly explicit homoerotic sadomasochism.
• Has never repented of this lifestyle or these beliefs, as far as is known.

Only a naïve fool would think that Prevost invited Smith for a meeting in order to share the true Gospel with her or to gently call her to repentance. Neither was this a little indiscriminate oversight or failure on the part of Prevost or his predecessor Bergoglio. They knew exactly what they were doing and what they wanted to communicate when they publicly associate with figures such as Patti Smith.

Read the bullet points above again and you will recognize the Synodal religion in them.

Realize that Prevost was only signaling to us all that he and Smith indeed do have a “shared mission” and know that it is not the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ…