Religion · Nationwide · August 25, 2026
New Ways Ministry: Pope Leo's Bishop Picks Favor LGBTQ Outreach
What Alinsky tactic is being used
2 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 1
“Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”
The story's force comes from perceived momentum, not counted power: an advocacy outlet relays one writer's Substack analysis of four named appointments and a 1,200-person pilgrimage, and frames them as the shape of the whole pontificate. Nobody in the chain reports how many bishops Leo actually appointed in 2026, what share those four represent, or what each man has actually taught in writing. The claim that the appointments 'will shape' the 2027-2028 assemblies is a forecast presented as a trend.
Counter-Rule 1 · Reality Over Perception
Count the actual numbers. The phantom army depends on nobody checking whether it exists.
Do the arithmetic yourself this month: the Holy See Press Office daily bulletin lists every episcopal appointment with its date, so count the year's total and see what fraction the four named men are. Then read what each bishop has actually published — a diocesan letter or homily — rather than a third party's characterization of it. Write the two numbers down and use them when someone tells you the direction is settled.
Rule 10
“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
The article's horizon is the Vatican's own multi-year calendar: diocesan evaluation assemblies in the first half of 2027, national and continental ones after, and an Ecclesial Assembly in Rome in October 2028. A campaign that can point to a fixed four-stage process with document deadlines does not need any single victory; it needs only to be present at every stage while ordinary parishioners are not. Attention that lasts one news cycle loses to a process that lasts four years.
Counter-Rule 10 · The Long Game
Plan in decades against a campaign built on attrition. Succession and endurance beat any single victory.
Match the calendar with a calendar. Put the published deadlines in your own diary — local reports due to the Synod Secretariat by June 30, 2027, national by December 31, 2027, continental by April 30, 2028 — and ask your diocese in writing, well before the first one, who sits on its synodal team and how a layperson submits input. Two or three people who read the actual reports each year will outweigh a hundred who react to headlines.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
Know where you stand
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