Leo reinterprets Scripture to meet UN purposes. Why does he talk that way? Presents vineyard workers story with a modern twist, as if making a case for DEI.

Equal Pay for Unequal Faith: Leo XIV’s Parable of Permission. When even the vineyard gets synodal, don’t expect hierarchy or judgment; only wages without merit,

Equal Pay for Unequal Faith: Leo XIV’s Parable of Permission — Chris Jackson again, Pope Leo again, who . . .

. . . has once again taken a Gospel parable and wrung out of it the last trace of justice, hierarchy, and accountability.

In his June 4 general audience, part of the ongoing Jubilee 2025 catechesis, he reflected on the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Mt. 20:1–16).

Whose gospel?

But as with so many modern papal interpretations, it’s not the Gospel as the Church has taught it for centuries. It’s the Gospel according to the UN Human Rights Council, dressed up in episcopal white.

UN? Do we trust them?

The parable, long understood as a warning against envy and a lesson in the gratuity of grace, is here retooled as a theological affirmation of unconditional inclusion and human “dignity,” divorced from repentance, effort, or fidelity.

Unreal.

It becomes, in Leo’s hands, a story about how nobody should feel left out, how everyone gets a “denarius,” and how the only true injustice is inequality.

Leo:

“What is fair? For the owner of the vineyard, that is, for God, it is just that each person has what he needs to live.”

A call for utopia.

Note the shift. The “justice” of God is redefined not as the right ordering of souls before their Creator, but as the equitable distribution of existential self-worth.

Jackson calls it “a gospel of minimal effort.”

. . . the parable’s startling generosity, long seen as a symbol of God’s mercy to those who convert late, has been twisted into a justification for spiritual mediocrity.

Cheap.

Why strive, sacrifice, or suffer for sanctity, when the wages are handed out regardless?

Exactly.

Leo . . . quotes St. Augustine to caution against delay, but that’s a footnote to an otherwise horizontalized message: “God gives everyone the same thing, because everyone deserves to feel appreciated.”

He’s the Great Morale Officer.

We have seen this logic before. It is the logic of Amoris Laetitia, of Fiducia Supplicans, of every papal press conference that blurs sin and grace under the rubric of “accompaniment.” [As “accompanied,” in this case by the Holy Spirit for our guide.]

A staple of Pope Francis’ theologizing.

No mention is made of judgment. No warning to the lazy or rebellious. No call to repentance. [Forget that!] The workers are not penitents receiving a gift despite their past; they are victims of exclusion, whose mere presence merits payment.

“Repent, you sinners” — a long-time laugh line, right?

In this new parable of synodality, the vineyard is a metaphor not for the Church Militant, called to battle the world, the flesh, and the devil, but for an inclusive economic system of belonging, where the only sin is inequality of outcome and the only holiness is showing up.

Shades of DEI.

“He wants to establish a personal relationship with them.”

. . . built on what? The truth? Conversion? Obedience? Or simply the therapeutic experience of being seen?

Standards, anyone?

Traditional Catholics have long known the danger of this soft gospel. But under Leo XIV, it is no longer just subtext. It is catechesis. The young are told not to strive for excellence but to “roll up their sleeves” and join a vineyard where effort no longer matters and final rewards are guaranteed.

Hop to it.

This is not the hope of the saints, who ran the race with fear and trembling. This is the hope of bureaucrats, where God owes you a denarius for existing and failure is never final, because no one is ever truly disqualified.

Rules?

And in this vision, the ones who started early, labored hard, and bore the heat of the day, the martyrs, the confessors, the lifelong faithful, are cast as petty grumblers.

Because in the vineyard of synodality, perseverance is privilege, merit is exclusion, and hierarchy is the last heresy.

It’s a Francis thing, adopted by Leo, as things stand.