Professor John Rist.
The recent suspension of an Italian priest for writing a scholarly critique of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia was a foolish and “wholly unjust” decision but one that underlines the depth of a crisis in the Church that could be worse than the Arian controversy, Professor John Rist has said.
Regarded as one of the Church’s finest living scholars of ancient philosophy, classics, and early Christian philosophy and theology, Rist believes the suspension in April of Father Tullio Rotondo would never have happened under a previous pontificate and put the decision partly down to an over-centralized papacy that has allowed “bad popes” to act lawlessly and with impunity.
Father Rotondo, who has a doctorate in theology and is the author of several books, remains suspended a divinis by his bishop, Mons. Camillo Cibotti of Isernia-Venafro, for writing Betrayal of Sound Doctrine Through Amoris Laetitia — How Pope Francis and Some of His Collaborators Are Spreading a Morality Contrary to the Deposit of Faith (the English translation can be read in its entirety online here).
According to its description, the book highlights “various errors that the Pope and some of his associates are spreading regarding the Sacrament of Confession, moral conscience, the moral law and the death penalty.” It also includes a weighty critique of some of the writings of the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández.
Professor Rist, who in 2019 was among 19 signatories of a letter to the world’s cardinals and bishops accusing Pope Francis of heresy, said Father Rotondo’s suspension is symptomatic of a doctrinal crisis that he believes is “even more serious” than the Reformation.
“You’ve got to go back to the Arian controversy to find something comparable,” Rist told me recently at his home in Cambridge. “But I think that, in terms of the damage that it now might cause, what might happen to the Church in the future, this is going to cause more trouble, more than anything else we’ve seen before.”
The English philosopher quotes Father Rotondo in his new book, Infallibility, Integrity and Obedience: The Papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, 1848-2023, which will be published on Thursday (July 27).
In that forthcoming book, Rist exposes the developments that have led to the current doctrinal and structural crisis in the Church, and explains why he believes a misapprehension of the nature and definition of papal infallibility is at the root of the crisis facing the Church today. He also proposes how the conciliar and individual decisions that have led to the current situation might be reversed, and how the proper role of the Pope can be reclaimed for the good of the Church.
Professor Rist, what is your view on the suspension of Father Rotondo for writing the book for which you wrote the preface?
Well, my view, as I’ve expressed it in the interview with Maike Hickson, was that the bishop acted wholly unjustly. In fact, instead of punishing Don Tullio, he should have thanked him for defending the practice of the Church for over 2000 years. I would add, of course, that in my preface, I said I didn’t agree with everything that Don Tullio says, but I certainly think that his major thesis has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt.
And you mentioned that he’s been balanced and given both sides.
He is. And what the book is, is a collection of all the literature which has arisen since Amoris Laetitia, but it goes much wider than that. It’s not only concerned with that apostolic exhortation. If a historian a hundred years later on wants to know what all the fuss was about, he can look at the book by Don Tullio and will find articles for and articles against all laid out, and then examined, and commented on by Don Tullio himself.
Is this why you decided to write the preface, because you saw it was an even-handed and scholarly treatment of it?
Yes, I thought that the project itself was worth doing. I didn’t know Don Tullio at that time. He wrote to me asking if I would write the preface. I asked why he asked me, and he said it was because he’d seen your interview with me about the open letter in which I answered why I had signed the letter. Well, he’d read that, and that induced him to write to me. He asked whether I’d be willing to write the preface of the book. So I then had a look at the book. I can’t say I read every single word of it, but it became quite clear to me that this was a book which was a) both interesting and important in the contemporary debate, but b) also a goldmine of material for people looking back. They can go to Don Tullio and they can find an enormous number of resources and so examine the arguments of our period.
It no doubt concerns you that somebody of his ability, someone who’s contributing something important to the debate, is basically shut down and censored. How does such a ruling within the Church come about?
Well, it’s due to what I’ve called servile abuse of authority that has no place in the Catholic Church. If you think you can stop people arguing about Amoris Laetitia and other questions about traditional theology by just shutting down somebody who knows what they’re talking about, you’re really behaving like a fool. It won’t work. It causes more trouble. It’s just a stupid thing to do. But it comes out of a series of bad habits.
It’s also one thing for a bishop to shut down heresy and heterodoxy, but if it’s orthodoxy, or trying to emphasize orthodox arguments, that’s very odd, isn’t it?
As I say, because Don Tullio has got a position which he’s trying to advocate, and he’s done so by producing material on either side, and has then tried to evaluate it — what the French would call a catalogue raisonné. That, of course, is how things should be sorted out. It’s exactly what people should be doing. Don Tullio has a doctorate in theology. It’s his job to think about these kind of things. And because some bishop doesn’t like his conclusions… Put it this way: this book couldn’t have been written in the time of John Paul II or Benedict XVI, but had it been, he would not have been banned by his bishop. Let’s forget about Amoris Laetitia, if he’d discussed the subject matter of an encyclical, and related matters in the times of Benedict and John Paul, or let alone John XXIII, or Paul VI, for that matter, people would have said, “Yeah, it’s a bit pedantic, long-winded and so on, but of course very useful.” It would not have led to him being suspended by his bishop. Undoubtedly, it would not.
What does it tell us about this time in the Church?
Well, Don Tullio cites me, and others, in the interview which he gave to Maike Hickson, as well as, for example, John Finnis, who was a professor of law at Oxford, saying that the present crisis is probably the worst the Church has had for centuries, perhaps from its beginning, in some way or another. It’s more dangerous to the existence of the Church. You can compare the Reformation, but I think it’s even more serious than that. You’ve got to go back to the Arian controversy to find something comparable. But I think that, in terms of the damage that it now might cause, what might happen to the Church in the future, this is going to cause more trouble, more than anything else we’ve seen before.
Why do you say that?
Because it’s inviting the Church to follow the Protestant churches, to take a “if you can’t beat them, join them,” approach, that you think that you can persuade the secularists to become Catholic if you yourself become a secularist. But of course, that’s not going to work because if the Church is just another, for example, NGO, people are going want to join the real NGOs. They’re much more useful really.
It also appears to be an easier route?
Yes, it’s suicidal in that sense. Whatever the motive, whatever people think they’re going to get out of it, it can only have bad effects, I think that is what it comes down to. And it’s contrary to tradition. I mean, there’s a problem about the role of popes in the Church now, which didn’t exist in the middle-ages, for example. Even in the great rows that took place in the 13th and 14th centuries, generally speaking these things were dealt with at a local level. But now we’ve got a centralized Church, and it’s too centralized. A “good pope” can suppress undesirable things in terms of its tradition, but a bad pope can do what he likes and suppress the good things, because the Church has become “The Pope,” which is a thoroughly undesirable situation. It has no relationship to what the papacy was, even in the post-Reformation period. This is a modern 200-year phenomenon. And it’s a disastrous mix. It encourages servility among the bishops particularly. And of course, if you become servile and you lose your integrity in that sort of way, it’s going to affect not only what you do in the Church, it’s going to affect your relationship with the secular powers as well. I mean, when you think about the relationship with, for example, the Communist Party of China, you really wonder what on earth is going on.
And you can see the disintegration, the disintegration was there before the present papacy, but it is being encouraged now. It’s been encouraged and developed. In this situation, always, the most extreme positions tend to predominate and win out. It’s the revolutionary dynamic that we’re basically talking about. And it’s particularly attractive because if you go down that sort of road, in the end, what you’re doing, you are making yourself “safer.” You are being the opposite of a sign of contradiction with regards to the secular universe. You are just part of the secular universe. And so, at best, the Pope becomes spokesman of the spiritual aspects (if there are any) of the United Nations or something like that. That’s not the role which I think he ought to have. And that’s not the reason why I joined the Church in the first place — not for anything like that. No.
Have we had a pontiff who’s impinged on doctrine like this before?
No, nothing like this at all. It’s the consistent view of canonists that a pope validly elected, and I think this pope was validly, though irresponsibly, elected, automatically disqualifies himself from holding office if he’s teaching heresy. And this is a consistent view. And, in the case of Honorius from the sixth century, it was actually carried out in practice. He was thrown out by his own clergy in the first instance, and their judgment was later on validated by the decision of ecumenical council, in fact.
So who is the successor of the clergy of Rome who first acted against Honorius? The answer to that is the College of Cardinals. That’s the modern equivalent. So it’s their responsibility. And that’s why when we signed the open letter, it was addressed primarily to them because they are the people who elected the Pope, and therefore they’re the people who should making sure that he follows tradition. Unfortunately, despite the example of Honorius, there’s nothing in canon law that tells you how, precisely, in other circumstances, you can remove a heretical pope. That’s a real hole in canon law, I would say. It means that you can’t get rid of him basically. So this has got to be rethought, and that’s why Don Tullio has done a real service, in my opinion.
And Father Rotondo didn’t expect this to be the consequence?
Right, because when Don Tullio started this work, he realized it was almost a full-time job. And he told his bishop what he was doing, and the bishop initially said, “Well, you go on ahead doing it, and I’ll let you go on doing it. Nevertheless I’m going to draw the attention of the CDF to this, and they’ll decide what to do.” But he didn’t do that. Instead, the bishop consulted with the Congregation for the Clergy and then fired him because his book would be contrary to the Pope’s authentic magisterium and Don Tullio wasn’t willing to retract it. Now, where that pressure came from is obviously an interesting question. You assume it must have been put on him by the bishop.
From the Vatican?
Yes, no doubt. So that’s another “political aspect” of the situation. I think that, in one way, Don Tullio was very surprised when this happened but in another, he wasn’t surprised. He told me specifically that the bishop had said he was going to refer this to the CDF, and then it would be up to them. But that isn’t what happened.
Do you see Father Rotondo’s suspension as just the beginning of many other future and similar disciplinary measures given the appointment of Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez as the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith?
Who can tell, but if priests are open in their criticisms of the current heresies being peddled, they will need to watch their backs!
Edward Pentin
Dominus flevit!
“And the man looked up and said, ‘I can see people, but they look like trees, walking’.” Mark 8:24
Still a bit of work needed to get the vision clear.
No — his physical vision was clear. We need to learn to see with our brains as well as our eyes. The neurologist and writer Oliver Sachs actually wrote about exactly this bit of Scripture — I don’t remember exactly where but it’s worth looking up.
Very interesting article. This ought to rock some boats.
Prof. Rist is operating from a false base premise, namely that Bergoglio is or ever was the Pope. Pope Benedict Ratzinger never validly resigned. Bergoglio is an Antipope. How it is that the simple, obvious question, “Did something odd happen in February of 2013?” cannot even be asked, but declaring the Papacy in se to be some massive mistake that must be “corrected” is totally fine, boggles the mind. Destruction of the Church via destruction of the Papacy is the founding objective of Freemasonry. When your agenda matches exactly that of Freemasonry, don’t you think that as a Catholic you should pump the brakes and go back and check your base premise for error? Just as in the secular space, the only things that are censored today are the things that are TRUE, i.e. Pope Benedict never validly resigned. But lies like, “Vatican I was wrong, the Dogma of Papal Infallibility is a mistake, the Papacy must be evanesced into irrelevancy in order to save the Church, but ‘Francis’ is totally, definitely, unquestionably the Pope…” gets the megaphone. Again, the mind reels.
Yes. What Ann B said
Ibid.
The devil, the purveyor of diabolical disorientation, manages often to give targeted Catholic leadership & academics [like Professor John Rist] a perception quite different from reality and yet, the person so diabolically disorientated is convinced what he thinks is the truth when it is actually a lie [e.g. Bergoglio is pope]. Sadly, Prof. Rist appears to be affected by the same diabolical disorientation which has afflicted millions of nominal Catholics throughout the world. It is precisely the same affliction that Sister Lucy of Fatima warned us about in writing over 50 years ago.
I agree with Ann Barnhardt. Bergoglio is in fact an antipope by every common definition of the term. The fact that Pope Benedict never used the word abdicate in either a spoken or written form. Never expressed in writing his intention to break apostolic succession, never renounced his papal name (Benedict XVI) nor did ever revert to his Christian name of Joseph Ratzinger along with his refusal to stop wearing the papal white cassock and other papal accoutrements, as well as his adoption of a theologically invalid nonexistent title of “pope-emeritus” is prima-facie evidence of his invalid “resignation.”
Totally agree with Ann B.
The problem is that cannot say for sure if Bergoglio was validly elected or not. You have no authority to determine that since you are not a cardinal. The cardinals who were present at the election are the only ones who can give testimony to that and since they are not supposed to divulge that outside the conclave, how are we laity to know for certain? We can see the errors of his teachings, but how does that get us anywhere with ousting Bergoglio? Only the cardinals can put him on trial. So to harp on the status of alledged anti-Pope is not really helpful since we have no way to know for certain how the election was run and also how to get rid of him, too. Yes, pray, resist him, and tell others the truths of the Faith is all we can do..
We can definitely say Bergoglio is an antipope. By Canon Law a conclave cannot be held while the throne is occupied by a living Pope. One can make arguments about whether or not Benedict validly resigned. But, even if Benedict used a VALID resignation ‘formula’……..the resignation was coerced, and therefore invalid.
You forgot to tell us how you know the resignation was coerced.
The fundemental issue is not the conclave, but the validity of Benedict’s resignation, about which there is no lack of public evidence to be sifted. Lacking clerical authority is not an excuse to turn off your brain. Or be silent in the face of a lie. And sincere efforts at truthtelling are not harping. The evidence and arguements of Barnhardt, Mazza and others are convincing. I would like to see Mazza and Rist debate.
“We can see the errors of his teachings…”
…and you square that with the doctrine of infallibility exactly how?
I think each of us has the Duty before God to consider the weighty things that bear upon our practice of The Faith – by which we hope to achieve eternal salvation – and thus to ascertain correctly who is and who isn’t the valid possessor of the Papal Office is an important question to answer for one’s self. True we don’t have the Authority to bind others as to what they are to believe about this situation but I do have the right to make known to others, and especially to those in Authority – and others who teach and influence – my concern and my reasoning for my concern. True?
Nobody needs autjority to intellectually discern that one is an antipope. It’s a matter of fact, not authority. “Antipope” is not a rank in the authority. This man is no more pope than “Pope Michael” was. A cardinal may be needed to make official actions in a juridical process and/or new conclave, and those who believe Bergoglio is an antipope must continue to say so outloud as often as possible. Do not shrink away because you don’t have episcopal authority to do something formal. Spreading the word is necessary.
By their fruits you shall know them. So what are Bergoglio’s fruits? Fleurs du Mal.
The heart of Barnhardt’s argument is Christ’s promise that the Pope shall be guided – perhaps even against his personal will – and will not be able to promulgate such evil even if he is personally bad or heretical. That Bergoglio can is proof that he is not the Pope.
This kind of “mystical legalism” (my term) is a long way from modern thinking, but is an intrinsic part of the Catholic tradition, even if it is now scorned and not taught.
“The problem is that cannot say for sure if Bergoglio was validly elected or not. You have no authority to determine that since you are not a cardinal.”
As others have pointed out, the factors in question go beyond the conduct of the conclave itself, and center above all on the question of whether/how BXVI’s declaratio consitutes a “due manifestation” of resigning the papal office.
I just have to point out, though, re: that initial quotation that logically, even insofar as it is true, it also applies to people who assert that Bergoglio/ Francis is definitely Pope. Yet almost no one does so– WHY? what is going on intellectually that you can’t see it cuts both ways?
I’ll also venture to point out, sometimes we are misled by ambiguities of language. Take “determine” in the sentence above. It can mean both 1)to “discern” what is already the case, and 2)to establish or to make be. (i.e. as a teacher I might “determine” grading criteria).
Surely it cannot be 2) in this case. No mortal– not even cardinals– can determine reality. There are facts bearing on the case that they may or may not be in a special position to know about, but also plenty of others that are, so to speak, in the public domain for all of us to shift and discern.
I think the question of an invalid resignation by BXVI should be taken very seriously and *much* more widely discussed. For those dead set against the possibility of an invalid resignation, how much do you know about the Masonic, occultist infiltration of global society and the Church? See the 1885 book by Msgr. George F. Dillon, “The War of the Antichrist with the Church and Christian Civilization,” updated and edited by Joshua Charles, for a start.
The thing is that
1. Pope Benedict did abdicate (if not, he would have been a really nasty liar about the fact of his abdication – and even criminals usually have motives, so what even if he had the worst of intentions, what would he gain by not abdicating and pretending to?),
2. whenever the bishop whom the Church of Rome has accepted as her bishop is not actually her bishop, he immediately becomes her bishop (and thus, Pope) by the fact of this acception, and even you cannot doubt that the Church of Rome has done so in 2013,
3. there is nothing wrong with Vatican I (as St. John Henry also observed); what is perhaps wrong is the spirit-of-Vatican-I.
An invalid resignation doesn’t make Pope Benedict a nasty liar. It just makes him someone who believes in expanding the Petrine ministry (which he does) per the +Ganswein speech. Pope Benedict was mistaken as all human beings can be, not a liar. God bless~
That he or his secretary found some words for the praying activity of a Pope emeritus which you overinterpret is the one thing, but even assuming by hypothesis that the theory “Pope Benedict wished to, actually, split the office of Pope, and meant his resignation in that way, and now that’s not possible” was true (and I do by no means concede it, except that such a split is indeed not possible), still the question is: “What did he, if subconsciously, wish his resignation to mean in case the by hypothesis intended split was not possible?” And the obvious answer to that is “well, in that case let me be understood to have left office”.
Again: the Church of Rome has recognized the resignation of her bishop Benedict XVI. The Church of Rome has recognized Francis to be her bishop. That is all we need to know here. But if you need it for corroboration, this recognition has been done by the previous Pope in person, both by some express acts in 2013 and by never ever doing (or even, I should assume) thinking what I take you to mean he should have done, namely claiming the Papacy for his own again.
I totally agree with Ann’s position, it is the only one that makes any sense!
The February 2013 resignation was coerced. Remember when the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication cut off the Vatican City/State? The opening move in a war against Benedict. Benedict folded. His statement in his letter about not resigning the office, and continuing to wear white was a statement. Basically that he may have been beaten by these people, but wasn’t surrendering. And, per Canon Law, a forced resignation is an invalid resignation.
Unfortunately perhaps, he was obsessed with the idea of bifurcating the Papacy decades prior to this. Why anyone would think like this is beyond me. It just seem utterly destructive. So when the time came, one could say he ran, partially resisting – or that he got to put his pet idea into the practice.
A fine man in many ways, but a Lamb when we needed a Lion.
Alpha Bravo….you are the woman.
Totally agree with Ann! Also, remember that Cardinal Daneels confessed in his biography the collusion that he participated in on the election of Bergoglio. It was obvious that he didn’t care who knew at the time since he was retired! Why that did not create a firestorm boggles my mind!
I agree with Ann Barnhardt!
A lot people say that there is no point in saying it, because lay people “can’t do anything about it.” But according to canon law, we still have a right, and even a duty, to make our voices heard in such a critical situation! Souls are on the line. It matters.
Ms. Barnhardt,
You say: “How it is that the simple, obvious question, “Did something odd happen in February of 2013?” cannot even be asked..”
The question “did something odd happen happen in February of 2013?” has certainly been asked. By many people. You are by no means the first or best of them. It has not been ignored. Lots of folks have asked questions about the conclave. Loads of articles have been written on the St. Gallen mafia, campaigning at the conclave, etc. At least one book has been written on the St. Gallen Mafia. Lots of podcasts have looked at the conclave. For my part, I’ve looked at some strange things surrounding the 2013 conclave (see https://romalocutaest.com/2020/09/23/the-conclave-chronicles/https://romalocutaest.com/2020/09/23/the-conclave-chronicles/ and https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/theres-still-many-unsolved-mysteries-surrounding-the-2013-election-of-cdl-bergoglio/). See also my research on the Jesuit vow question (see https://romalocutaest.com/2018/07/31/curiouser-and-curiouser-who-dispensed-jorge-bergoglio-sj-from-his-vows/).
As can be seen from my articles cited above, I certainly hoped there might be a ready, easy answer that might neatly solve the Pope Francis question — and I actively researched them all. Indeed, when I first came across the sorts of arguments made by you and Mark Docherty back in 2017, I hoped you were both onto something. I really hoped so – and said so. But then I read the source documents cited in your arguments. THEY DID NOT SAY WHAT YOU SAID THEY DID.
Despite WANTING to find the opposite to be the case, it became quickly apparent that you both were grossly misinterpreting the key documents, particularly the last audience. This I said back in my very first article on the Benepapist controversy (see https://romalocutaest.com/2017/09/04/benedict-is-not-pope/). The “substantial error” Benepapists have never even attempted to explain where my interpretation is wrong, or why theirs is to be preferred.
I further developed the argument in a more recent article (see https://romalocutaest.com/2022/02/27/regarding-benedicts-last-audience/). Again, no response. Dr. Mazza even fails to counter the arguments in his recent book, for which I called him out (see https://romalocutaest.com/2023/02/10/a-rebuttal-of-dr-mazzas-book-on-pope-benedicts-resignation/). Again. No response.
So, it seems something of a game of make-pretend among the arch-Benepapists. The Benepapists, such as yourself above, cry about being “censored” — but the claim is ridiculous on its face. Aside from at least a couple of blogs dedicated to it, you’ve got your own podcast, and quite a few shows such as those like Taylor Marshall, Patrick Coffin, and John-Henry Westin are either friendly toward, or are explicitly in favor of Benepapism (e.g., as in the case of Mr. Coffin). Each of them, for example, have had Dr. Mazza on their shows. Aside from that, by my last count, there are at least 8-9 books in favor of Benepapism which have been published. So, again, the claim of “censorship” is laughable. Benepapism has had its opportunity to get its message out.
The problem for the Benepapists is that, your arguments are exceedingly weak. That is why Benepapism is not taken seriously. That is why no active ordinary, who is active pastor of souls, has publicly accepted them. That is why no cardinal has publicly accepted them. That is why erudite scholars, such as Dr. Rist, do not accept them — not because any of them accept any premise of freemasonry. Absolute nonsense.
The Benepapist question has been asked. It has had its hearing, and opportunities to be read, viewed, and hear. But the reality is, Benepapism has been rejected. Not censored. Rejected.
I pray you stop leading folks astray.
God bless,
Steven O’Reilly
(www.RomaLocutaEst.com)
Many books have been published. Some canon lawyers have questioned. Nobody in the hierarchy of the church has announced an investigation into the canonical itregularities, which are legion. I believe that is what Ms. Barnhardt etal mean when they say nobody addresses it. In the meantime, the various “conservative” cardinals and bishops, who are measured nit by greatness, but by “who is the least bad”, submit to the authority of the pachamama worshipper, which is a contradictikn in itself. How can the man be both the Vicar of Christ, and a literal demon worshipper at the same time? And nobody of any authority of the Church investigates that question.
Can a pope be denied his papacy? If so, what does it take? What action is too far? Is public demon worship live-streamed on Youtube not enough. Child sacrifice on the altar? What? If he hasn’t crossed the line, where is the line?
These questions aren’t intelligently investigated beyond brief interviews with media personalities who also entertain the possibility of alien life on other planets.
Thank you for posting links to your refutations. I will assume by your use of snark and manipulation in your comments here that the pieces are of similar merit and thoughtfulness.
Matthew,
If Ms. Barnhardt means no one with actual Church authority has addressed the evidence to her satisfaction; then she should not definitively pre-judge the matter as she has done with her bold, unnuanced, and public assertions that Benedict definitively remained pope till his death, and that therefore Francis is an anti-pope. That is what she preaches, not as a hypothesis or an opinion, but as a fact.
Therefore, it seems clear that Ms. Barnhardt cannot be bothered with waiting for those with authority in the Church to decide the question; it is rather the Church that must catch up to her. I suggest it is unwise and ‘unCathlolic’ to follow after, and accept as true, the views of such a person. They will lead you into schism.
Yes, Pope Francis is awful. The worst pope ever, in my opinion. There are other explanations for the pontificate, other than the untenable Benepapist assertions.
It’s your call whether to read the refutations or not. One can only lead a horse to water. One cannot make him drink.
God bless,
Steve
No active ordinary, no active pastor, and no cardinal has publicly accepted any questioning of Bergoglio’s right to the papal chair?
Can you really be that naive, Mr. O’Reilly?
How may clerics do you know who would give up their financial position, their retirement benefits, and their public status to say something suicidal?
Joseph,
If they suspected the truth was something other, all the good clerics I know would sacrifice accordingly. But…ask Ann Barnhardt if the shoes was on the other foot. The same might be asked of Ann Barnhardt. If she recanted her Benepapism…what does she think would happen to the donations she receives? What would happen to the donations that Dr. Mazza receives? What do you think would happen to them? Don’t be naive.
For the record, as I explicitly state in my videos, my blog neither seeks nor accepts ANY donations.
God bless,
Steve O’Reilly
Mr. O’Reilly, that is a “tu quoque” argument, and you know it.
Anyone who has known and followed Ann Barnhardt’s apostolate for many years knows that she is ferociously committed to absolute honesty and integrity, and gave up a lucrative career in finance to devote herself to defending the faith and directing attention towards the heretical poisons that this Antipope and his hierarchical toadies have been pushing on the Church.
You seem to say very little about those poisons, or about the current occupant of the See of St. Peter. Instead of spending so much time in the minutiae of whether Benedict XVI resigned validly, why not expand upon the statement you made somewhere in this discussion thread that Francis may well be the worst Pope in all Church history? Or would that upset all those “good clerics” you know?
Donations aren’t the only things that could corrupt someone’s public statements. Some people are also afraid of losing the good opinion of their friends and associates in the media. I would suppose that being in charge of “Roma Locuta Est” also has its intangible rewards, in the form of esteem and respect from the hierarchical establishment. Those things might be painful to lose.
So stop the ugly insinuations about Ann Barnhardt’s motives. She could have been a very wealthy woman today if she had not taken on the task of diagnosing the diseases that afflict the Conciliar Church, and attacking this unspeakable monstrosity called Bergoglio.
I still haven’t heard the exact charges of heresy against Francis or Bergolio or whatever you wish. Surely he falls into one of the prior heretical categories and is not proposing anything new. He can’t be. This guy says he is like Arius. That’s a hard thing because Arius the person was not the same as the heresy we now call Arianism. Is it a Christological heresy? What?
Perhaps, “Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ ” Pope Francis (2018)
“The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race, and language are willed by God in His wisdom.” Pope Francis, Abu Dhabi (2022)
Deplorable, but no heresies.
1. Wrong teaching, but one step short of heresy. That to punish by death is in principle within the rights of a state (though the Church has at all times advised to do so cautiously) is the clear teaching of Scripture; but there has not actually been a dogma about it. Maybe Pope Francis’s successor issues one, now the thing has been contested.
2. This statement allows the reading that this is God’s permissive will. It is quite immaterial here whether that was what the Pope intended to say; something that allows an orthodox interpretation is not a heresy, however much its tone suggests to use a different interpretation.
Agree.
The language of Francis in Fratelli Tutti is, like that of
JPII, not adequate to qualify as morally proscriptive sub poena peccati. Both seem to invoke their spiritual position to give advice.
theirtheir spit
It seems to me the Pope has chosen to invite all into the Church, everybody (herecomeseverybody) is welcome!
It’s a start, Jesus healed people without judgement, but then said “now sin no more” (This makes sense as the broken psyche can’t right itself, but once you are healed you know you can not return to sin). I note exorcisms in Africa are easy if the person is a pantheist, but a Catholic who has strayed is much more difficult to free.
I see Catholics leaving the Church for xyz issues, but they were not serious in the first place. But to offer healing and not call the problem a sin is a horror. Once sin is no longer sin, then there is no need for the cross.
The wreckage of the environment is caused by sin, a result of sin, and the complaints in society of rights forgoes the responsibility attached to them…We sin but confess, again and again, until we are sick of the sickness. Time heals when we use it prudentially.
The cultural issues Francis addresses are real, but he, in my humble opinion, does not say “sin no more” and instead offers a road going nowhere toward salvation.
I think Ann B is correct. Clearly so. We’re seemingly faced with a choice: either declare Francis to have been irregularly elected, and a material heretic, etc., i.e. a true anti-pope, OR say “We must destroy the Papacy in order to save it.” If the latter route is taken, all subsequent popes, if there are any, will be profoundly weakened, truly hamstrung. On the other hand, the first route just “resets/reboots” the Church to “Pre-Bergolio” and serves as the Occam’s razor solution.
The problem, the core/root problem, is that there is a fairly new religion of The Papacy. It is now, after centuries of growth, very much a version of Protestant Reformation caricatures of the Papacy. And it aligns almost perfectly with 15th and 16th century Catholic condemnations of almost all Reformation leaders as being not just Pope want-to-bes, but the most autocratic Pope want-to-bes. The simple fact is that once you loosen the ties of Tradition, you feel free to start doing just whatever the Hell you want. And as every major Protestant leader and ‘prince’ learned, once you bury historic Christian Tradition, it is very easy to become the most brutal and self-serving autocrat. The Church fell into Luther’s trap by focusing so much of its opposition to the Reformation on simplifying things to: The Pope is Catholicism. And that was doubly bad because Luther ‘s original thrust was not at all anti-Papal. It was about promoting the novel doctrine ‘sola fide.’ If the Vatican had accepted ‘sola fide,’ Luther would have been an arch Papalist. That means that proper Catholic rejection of Luther’s teaching must be against ‘sola fide’ and not something obsessed with framing the Papacy as being akin to a Christian Era Ark of the Covenant.
Pope Francis is, so far, the ultimate expression – meaning the worst case example – of a Vatican II Pope, who sees his purpose as to bury as much of pre-Vatican II Tradition as possible so the new traditions inherent in Vatican II can flourish. Vatican II is a Protestantizing of the Church in that its focus is not on Truth but on opening to the world, on re-shaping the Church in order to try to get along better with the Modern world. And it should terrify people that such is now deeply embedded even in many younger priests who profess to love Tradition. I attend a parish TLM, and the roughly 30-35 year old priest seems fully orthodox and Traditional until he talks about the papacy. His position essentially is that the Pope is above being so much as doubted, much less openly questioned, by anyone. His actual faith is in the human hierarchy of the Church, and he is rather nasty about enforcing his sense of faith. Vatican II holds such people firmly in place serving the office and the man holding it rather than serving the truth of the Faith and the Christ who died for the Church. I have no doubt that this priest would order us not to read Professor Rist’s book because he will see it as anti-Papal.
The crisis is worse than the Arian heresy because the faithful, including “Traditionalist” Catholics, have lost the belief in the dogmas of papal infallibility and the indefectibility of the Church by insisting that Bergoglio is the pope and that the new conciliar church ushered in at the heretical Vatican 2 council is actually the One, True Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Church is in eclipse by a false freemasonic church and is being run by a usurper, the arch heretic Jorge Bergoglio.
I get so tired of this line of thinking, which is a natural progression from Ann Barnhardt’s position. They may have ironclad arguments. But at the end of the day, if Francis isn’t Pope, and the Church isn’t the Church, then everything devolves and we find ourselves cast into the outer darkness.
The key is to step outside the human political aspect of all this and look at it from the point of view of the Guy who started the Church to begin with, putting it in the hands of the very man who denied Him three times.
We humans are a mess. Absolutely incapable of doing anything right without huge infusions of grace. And yet God placed His greatest treasure in our keeping. Boggles the mind. But so it is.
The Church, no matter how abused it is, and whether or not its leadership has been usurped by Satan himself, remains the Church until such time as God Himself gives us the light that can help get us back on His Boat. All of us blind men can argue all day over whether the elephant is a snake, or a tree, or a wall, or a rope (or a pope). Meanwhile Satan gets just what he wants: division and bitterness, apathy and vice.
The first assumption from which we must all proceed is the fact that this is God’s Church, not the Pope’s, and no matter which side of the food fight you are on, you must concede that God knows what He is doing. Job couldn’t understand why God allowed the death and destruction of everything he held dear either, and his three annoying friends didn’t help much. Our task, like his, is to put on sackcloth and ashes and patiently listen for God’s voice alone.
Until such time as Barnhardt or Mazza or anyone else can provide us with the sure and safe way through the wilderness, we do well to wait for God to send Moses and the Pillar of cloud and fire. Because that is what He does when we trust in Him. Heroic patience is necessary; forbearance and virtue must lead the way, not harsh words, name calling and acrimony.
Yes, it’s the worst kind of hell on earth to have to endure this shipwreck of our Beloved Church, this Passion and Crucifixion of Christ’s Mystical Body. We have to struggle against crushing despair and anguish, and we long to find anyone, anywhere that we can cling to, to understand what and why this is happening, to feel that we can oppose this evil and conquer. I want that too. But it is an illusion. Peter fought to keep Christ from being crucified too, because he couldn’t yet see in that darkness and chaos how God’s plan was glorious beyond all understanding.
Neither you, Catherine, nor Ann Barnhardt, nor Edmund Mazza, nor anyone else is able to show us where and in whom the Church resides here on Earth, having determined that it is not in Rome. Thus we are cast upon Christ Himself, and there we must remain until He deigns to sort out the mess.
Let us spend our time and energy wisely, then, in praying with all our might for Him to do just that. Let us cease acting like Job’s useless friends, and leave the squabbling to His enemies, for they will all be repaid according to their deeds. Only love and prayer can conquer in this hopeless battle.
So that’s a big No on all the prophecies from our Lady, from Scripture, and from the Saints? Well you can’t say you weren’t warned. Christ asked, When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on Earth? Apparently not much, most of it will be “under” the Earth, in the catacombs. Scripture also says, Even the very Saints will be confused. So at least you’ll have some good company up there.
In other words, “Francis” must be pope because you’re so tired of thinking. Got it. Seriously, do you know anything of Church history? Bergoglio isn’t the first antipope. People didn’t all lose their faith just because of the rise of any antipope. Get a grip.
I believe Barnhardt is correct and no one so far has addressed her argument with information to the contrary.
Dear Ann thank you for stating the obvious to this article which I have been telling people on several places since Benedict died. FRANCIS IS NOT NEVER HAS BEEN AND NEVER WILL BE THE VALID OR REAL POPE. They keep yapping on about praying for him to resolve this but it is like to me these people are willfully blind or unbeliably naieve or just downright assinine to even suggest that any pope can do these things. Its just tragic.
Many people just laugh at and then ignore that idea when they hear it. The reason is that they assume it sounds too crazy to ever be true. But what they fail to grasp is that it is a purely ‘academic idea,’ and nothing is ever too insane for a bunch of academics to embrace. Then their students and other disciples eventually want to put that crazy academic idea into place in the real world. I, with my PhD, do see clearly how that academics playing with the idea of dividing papal functions could have been nurtured long enough to put it into place with Jorge Bergoglio of backwater Argentina, while Benedict XVI assumed he was just resigning form a mer part if the papal function
I agree that that possibility needs to be studied, openly.
Thanks Edward Pentin for this interview! Professor Rist expresses the fears of many faithful who are never listened to.
Prof Rist marvels at the crisis that he deems potentially worse than that of the Arians if the 4th century. I agree. In both belief in Christ and the nature of His body, Holy Mother Church, are at risk.
But what precedes this current crisis? The unprecedented election that left us, by design, with two visible Popes for the first time in history in disobedience to the direct Word of revelation of Jesus Christ at our founding. Pope Emeritus with the Office; and another Pope with the Ministry – both visibly, physically, obviously occupying the same Vatican space?
Prof Rist sees these facts and concluded “I think this pope was validly, though irresponsibly, elected”. Even though all the evidence demonstrates that something went terribly, terribly wrong from the moment of the invalid resignation that left the Pope (Benedict XVI) in the Office, unchanged, in disobedience to Canon Law and Sacred Tradition.
The man the RC Church presents to the Faithful as Pope presided over a witchcraft Wicca demon-god enthronement, conducted by about 20 witchcraft shamans, in the Vatican Gardens, accompanied by numerous of his Cardinals. How is this even possible if Bergoglio is a validly elected Pope?
Even in the time of Arius, there has never – *never* – been a Pope who manifestly promoted and advanced apostasy within the RC Church.
Bergoglio’s errors are so grave and his attacks against the Faith so fundamental that if he were truly Pope, I can say with certainty that the whole religion is a lie.
Thank God Bergoglio is not the pope.
Pope Benedict never validly resigned (ergo Francis was not validly elected) and the sooner the “smart” people wrap their minds around that the sooner we can get this heretical Jesuit off the See of Peter. We must ALL fast and pray that our Lord step in to resolve this.
Why is it that “professors” with degrees papering the walls of their offices cannot grasp the simple concept that Bergolio is NOT a real pope? I am just a poor old septuagenarian with a BA in a useless discipline (psychology), but I totally get that Benedict never resigned the office but rather tried to bifurcate the papacy and that there was no valid conclave. The man squatting on the chair of Peter is a usurper, and those constantly defending him and challenging the very concept of the Papacy are playing right into the agenda of the Freemasonic goals of destroying the Papacy and the very Faith itself. Whether they are doing it out of ignorance, “diabolical disorientation,” or with malice remains the question. It is vital that people wrap their heads around the truth that Bergolio is not now, nor has he ever been THE POPE. To hold that he has lost the Papacy due to heresy just adds fuel to the fire of the argument that maybe the concept of the Papacy itself should be re-examined, and that, dear readers, spells the end of the Church and makes Jesus a liar when He said that He would always be with us. Wake up all you “theologians”! Stop letting your sheepskins think for you, and start using your common sense, your Sensus Fidelium – if you have any left.
Ann B is 100% correct. He is not now, nor has ever been the pope.
There are only two logically consistent paths from here. Either Francis was never Pope as Ann Barnhardt asserts, or the Eastern/Oriental Orthodox have the correct exegesis of Matt 16 and Vatican I got it wrong.
Well Al than I feel sorry for you because you are in clearly the minority of Catholics in a poll online which asked Who Do you think is the Pope. Only 35 percent said Francis and over 65 said Benedict. A very small number said there was NO pope since 1958 a few said Francis became Pope after Benedict died last New Years and some said they simply did not know. There are two different views of the 2013 Renunciation but I degress.
Ms. O’Connor, I appreciate your sympathy, but I’m not clear from your comment where we disagree. In order to highlight the gravity of the situation I proposed two alternatives, and you seem to be in agreement with the first. I do not believe the election of Francis was canonical.
Why do we posture as doctors discussing a corpse and its potential for life or as children discussing cartoon slapstick and it applicability to solving problems? It is a farce to pretend there is an earnestness behind the heresies and all the rest that comes from not just the one wearing white but most of the mitered. They do not hold the Faith. If they did, they would fight for it. We do more commenting in boxes than they do. This should be a public, sustained, and vigorous battle between prelates. The schism is de facto and damage permanent as the sheep fend for themselves. Whatever occurs to resolve the current situation will not be just some canon law strokes or red-hatted doddering in closets or even a new council–if that is even possible any more. It will be a terrible.
On Francis | Barnhardt, Ann
Let me start with a positive comment. Remember, this is the best I could come up with: If we had gotten the pope we DESERVE, we would now have Pope Snoop Dogg. And thus ends the positivity.
He’s a Jesuit. Now, I must disclose that I have a deep personal, seething, visceral hatred of Jesuits, but my hatred of them is a corollary to the fact that they long ago descended into truly evil heresies and apostasy. Jesuits, in addition to being a cult of sodomites who hate God, are also † wait for it † Marxists. Now Francis has in the past put up some token resistance to so-called “Liberation theology”, which is just Communist Totalitarianism in religious drag, but he is huge, huge, huge on “social justice”, which is merely code for Marxism. This guy’s worldview revolves around giving people free stuff because it’s nice, which as we have discussed is contrary to logic and reason, specifically in the subset of mathematics, and thus is contrary to Our Lord who is FIRST the Logos, with the Divine Caritas (charity) proceeding out of the Logos. Bottom line, there will be zero positive assistance to the world from Francis with regards to the inevitable economic collapse. Not only will there be nothing helpful coming from him, he will almost certainly come out in favor of more debt, more “free stuff”, and more rhetoric about how people are “entitled” to physical and service commodities (which are someone else’s man-hours, remember) as “rights”.
https://www.barnhardt.biz/2013/03/14/on-francis/
Note the date: 14 March, ARSH 2013. I didn’t come to moral certainty that Bergoglio was an Antipope until I read Edward Pentin’s reportage of +Ganswein’s speech at the Gregorianum on 20 May, ARSH 2016.
My blog archives are fully available from January ARSH 2013.
But nice try there, Rich.
It’s a very nice point that Rich alludes to. This isn’t about moral certainty that Bergoglio is an antipope.
In February 2013, no one questioned Benny’s resignation. He gave his blessing and left with his white fascia between his legs. All the prissy cardinals came flocking to vote. The masses assembled at St. Peter’s Square looking for smoke.
When Chico was elected, no one breathed a peep. “He’s the pope we deserve” was all the rage with the dowdy brimstone bunch.
Only when El Jefe started doing things that traddies didn’t like, THEN that the “Papa Ratzy didn’t resign” solution emerged. Lots of motivated reasoning. Lots of very nice tries.
If it’s true that there was no resignation, what does it say about His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Vicar of Christ, Successor of St. Peter, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, etc., etc.? That he had no clue of who or what he is? Why, when pressed did he insist that Gaucho Argento is pope? He was the proximate cause of this state of affairs, the very source of this new form of “error” that strikes at a matter of faith: the constitution of the Catholic Church. Where was his infallibility?
Mon Dieu!
There WERE people who declared a problem with the resignation in 2013!!!
I can think of two just off-hand: Fr. Gruner of the Fatima Centre and Br. Bugnolo.
Mon Dieu!!!!
Actually there were canonists and theologians who shortly after the invalid resignation said that Pope Benedict could not do this…they were silenced. Pope Benedict has a history of toying with the notion of expanding the Petrine ministry. He decided to play that out and we are living with the consequences. God bless~
There are two sources of authority of canon law: 1) God, when certain texts concern Eternal Law. e.g., Sacraments and Moral Law 2) The pope, when texts are are a matter of human law.
Any pope can dispense himself from the latter, simply because papal authority is its source.
The MO of Papal resignation is an example of human law.
But do you agree that a person who is not a member of religion cannot be the leader of the religion? How is this not a matter of natural law?
Or are you saying that one can be a formal heretic, vincibly ignorant [at best] and still a member of the Church?
Your comments indicate that you are certain he is a formal heretic.
I think he is an incompetent (exc for clearing up the question of the validity of SSPX absolutions and marriages), who seldom speaks clearly.
A formal heretic is someone who asserts heresy, knows it is condemned by the Church and adheres to it anyway. Like claiming the Old Covenant is still in effect, prefacing a declaration of heresy with “this might sound heretical but…”, calling the Church teaching on death penalty unmerciful and inadmissible, claiming you can practice idolatry without having idolatrous intent….
But Benedict did not change Canon Law to allow what he proposed to do.
He didn’t need to change canon law, just not follow it.
Abp Gänswein was referring to the status of an Episcopus Emeritus. An EE no longer has jurisdiction (of a diocese or for a pope of the entire world [universal].
A emeritus bishop of,say, Kansas City, neither has jurisdiction in KC nor titular jurisdiction (e.g., an auxiliary)
IMHO, the relation of jurisdiction to an episcopus emeritus (incl a retired pope) has yet to be determined.
ms Barnhardt.. not sure what you mean by nice try? i understand your posts are easy to find and am not disagreeing with you.. BUT you do not reply when i do question!!
Thanks for this reply Annie
btw… you refuse to post a comments section and that is a form of censorship!
it is 9pm on the east coast and not 155am
this comment was posted at 9pm in the east and not 155am
my last comment was not posted
Dude…don’t poke the bear. Be thankful that we(mankind) have a courageous beacon such as Ann to stand up for OUR souls. That’s exactly what she does. She stands up for souls. And I’m pretty sure it’s Miss Barnhardt…not Ms.
Dudette.. sounds like a threat? Ive read MISS Barnhardt since the beginning and applaud her work but do not say there are things I can not question!
Noon in Pa.
Rich
It is nice to see someone call out the “bully”. I agree with Ann also, and I agree with dudette that the tone in which Rich wrote to Ann was meant to be triggering. I.e. “Annie”.
I became certain of Bergolio being a false prophet the moment that he told a kid that her unbelieving father would go heaven. This is in direct conflict with John 3:16 and 14:6, which is the foundation of the Christian faith. And it goes downhill from there! St. Ignatius and Francis Xavier pray for us! AMDG
I concur with Ann Barnhardt that Bergolio is an antipope and usurper. Benedict’s attempted resignation was in substantial error, there was no valid conclave in 2013, and Benedict died as Pope. As such, the church is interregnum. Additionally, anyone preaching heresy cannot be the Vicar of Christ. Examples of Bergolio’s heresies include preaching salvation by works and without faith, bringing a Pachamama witch doctor into the Vatican, and promoting the LGBTQ+ agenda. If St. Ignatius were here, he would slap Bergolio’s face! AMDG
Wasn’t it the so-called St Gallen Mafia who, after threatening and forcing Benedict XVI to resign, then plotted and schemed in their hides hole in Switzerland to get “their man” on the Chair of Peter? This was a devious Masonic plot and nearly everyone fell for it initially.
The problem remains: how do we get rid of Bergoglio, the anti-Catholic, heretical, antipope seemingly protected by Satan?
We must pray daily to the Lord our God for deliverance from Satan’s little helper, Jorge Bergolio. May the Lord rebuke him, we humbly pray! St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier, pray for us. AMDG
Four years into my reversion and on fire with the understanding that I was baptized into the one, true faith, I was in a meeting with a client. My clientele were the 1% – Politicians, celebrities, musicians, billionaires.
My client took a phone call. It was her equally famous BF. The conversation was hushed and I felt like I was eavesdropping so I excused myself. When I returned, she was still on the phone and although the conversation was still hushed, I sensed a giddy, anticipatory tone. It quickly wrapped up with undeniable excitement and glee. I asked “what was all that about?”. She replied “you have a new Pope, darling”. It should be noted that neither my client nor her BF were Catholic, much less Christian. My heart sank.
Trust me, I am a huge nobody. I didn’t study Theology and I don’t have multiple degrees but I do think critically and I know our God is not a liar.
All you brilliant men, the Catholic pundits who I learned so much from coming back into the faith are suddenly just baffled by what is happening to the Bride of Christ! How can that be????
Ann Barnhardt is absolutely correct and one of the few lone voices willing to speak the truth on this situation.
It took me awhile but after reading what Pope Benedict said in his supposed abdication along with the +Ganswein speech the gift of clarity and truth was given to me i.e. that the resignation of Pope Benedict was invalid. All of the insanity afterwards makes perfect sense. The Chair of Peter cannot be the standard of unity and schism at the same time…and Scripture, Tradition and an infallible Council (Vatican I) cannot be wrong. May Our Lord send this same gift to ALL Catholics of good will so that they may see the truth, be set free and pray that God (and those with power) act asap. God bless~
There is no doubt in my mind these are the most confusing times of the Church. Or maybe I am just twisted into substantial error. I think it will take a group of correct intentioned Cardinals to resolve definitively. Vatican Council I seems to fall short of explaining the current morass. I know I have logically resolved my current thought to Benedict did not (could not due to what I think is a substantial error) fully resign the Papacy. If he could not resign all, he did not resign any, therefore he was the only true Pope until death and now the Church is in a state of interregnum.
If PP Benedict believed what his old and newer writings/interviews that I have read indicate, that he believed the elevation to Pope is a permanent ontological change like Baptism or Orders, then he could accept the elevation to all of the Papacy, temporal and ontological, but even in his ministerial resignation, in his rationale he would remain as an ontological pope, a Spiritual Pope. Ergo title Emeritus, ergo wearing papal white, ergo imparting Papal Blessing, ergo keeping signet ring till death. If under his own rationale he could not resign all, he did not resign all. In an accounting auditing analogy, Benedict did not make himself independent in appearance, therefore he was not independent in fact. In my rationale, the logical extension of this is if the Papacy is indelible we have 265 popes reigning with Christ as co-heads of the temporal Church, some possibly from hell; I can not comprehend how that is what Christ intended.
If on the other hand the Papacy is a temporal office and only the valid holder of that office is preternaturally guarded. And that temporal office is only transferrable when the valid office holder dies or resigns it in it’s entirety, then Frances is not Pope because the conclave was null, his bantering is not magesterial and the chaos we are in makes perfect sense as the diocese of Rome has a usurper in control upon whom there is no preternatural protection.
But hey, who am I to judge; except I read somewhere you will know a tree by it’s fruit…
I am just trying to work out my salvation with fear and trembling.
FIAT! IN VOLUNTATE DEI! 🙂
PAX!
I’m 100% with Verecchio. Claims of invalid resignations, heresies and other Vatican game playing are most likely true but are simply irrelevant. Bergoglio just isn’t Catholic, and that’s all we need to know. End of discussion.
Ann Barnhardt is correct. Benedict’s resignation was invalid. There is no way a man like Bergoglio could be elected pope. Maybe God let this happen so that we, the laity, could see which of our bishops are cowards or pederasts or Protestants or atheists. It is up to us, the laity, to pressure our local bishops to grow some cojones or expose their homosexuality or their false religion and to pray they return to the church and repent. As a start, I suggest we all send our local bishop a gift—a coffee mug with the name “Vigano” inscribed on it. Then follow up with a phone call.
Is the Pope Catholic used to be a joke. Now it’s a real question. There is no evidence that he is and overwhelming evidence that he is not – or even Christian.
Can a non Catholic be Pope? By definition, no. He can be a fake Pope of course, a mere clothes horse with a title, a chair eaten inside by termites that will bear no weight, thus unable to function as a real chair though appearing to be one.
The evidence is in, and it’s overwhelming. Not only is he not Catholic, he’s at war with Catholicism.
Ann, Aqua, Evangeline… thank you. Let us start with the OBVIOUS true base premise, that Bergoglio is an antipope, and proceed in rationale thought and fact finding from there. How did this come to be? Did anything strange happen in February 2013? Dear Cardinal Burke, shouldn’t we initiate a canonical investigation of the irregularities of Pope Benedict’s rather unusual not-quit, you know, when he kept “pope” in his title, invented emeritus but never wrote it into canon law, kept wearing white, kept being adressed as His Holiness, residing in the Vatican, and imparting his Apostolic Blessing? Is there any evidence at all that Pope Benedict intended to retain some portion of the papacy? That he intended to remain in any way papal? Because if that’s the case, his resignation was totally invalid. Does that merit an investigation? Or would it be better to continue insisting Bergoglio is definitely pope, and so we need to destroy the office, tear down its powers and protections, to “prove” how an arch heretic can not only be pope, but how he can also officially promulgate heresy into the Magisterium. By the way, “proving” that last part would make Catholicism a false religion.
Mark,
There is no evidence that Benedict intended to “remain in any way papal.” Neither you, nor Ann have provided any direct evidence that Benedict thought any such thing. There is no paper. There is no document. You can cite no document. There is nothing in which Benedict, either as Cardinal Ratzinger, or as Pope Benedict, either thought, considered, or taught any such thing. You are making it all up. Prove me wrong.
Regarding Apostolic Blessings see https://romalocutaest.com/2023/03/04/benepapists-and-their-false-claims-about-apostolic-blessings/.
God bless,
Steve O’Reilly
Has no one been reading https://www.barnhardt.biz/ ???!! I feel like I’m taking CRAZY PILLS!!
Diocesan parish pastors are now improperly declaring as “schematics, even if undeclared” otherwise devout individuals in their local flock who merely express honest doubt about Bergoglio’s status as Pope, e.g., because it appears that Pope Benedict XVI failed in 2013 properly to resign his office (and therefore retained it).
When presented with further objections, remarking that Bergoglio, since he appeared on the loggia enthusiastically claiming the title of “Bishop of Rome”, has not only never once referred to himself as “Vicar of Christ”, but has overseen a Holy See, a Roman Curia, and a Vatican Staff that similarly avoids like the plague referring to the title “Vicar of Christ”, these same pastors go further, effectively disowning such doubting faithful, and insisting that unless and until they declare that Bergoglio is “the legitimate Universal Pastor of the Roman Catholic Church”, they are under no obligation even to speak to such doubting faithful (once again, improperly deemed schismatics).
How does this comport with holding the title “shepherd”?
How shall they be distinguished from hirelings, or, worse yet, thieves?
If Rist had read UDG, he would know that the election was invalid (even had Benedict truly resigned).
The Third Secret of Fatima & The Synodal Church: VOL. I Pope Benedict’s Resignation https://a.co/d/9xGR9oA
We are witnessing the emergence of a group of bishops, priests, and laity who constitute the Body of the Devil hiding in the Church, who are causing, not only by not restraining but also by actively promoting, the abominable evils unleashed after the inauguration of the Great Scamdemic Lie:
The now completely unrestrained spiritual and moral lawlessness and upside-down world of child sexual mutilation defined as loving affirmation and malicious rape-thirsty pedophiles characterized as heroes and role models for children.
The installation of the groundwork for genetically destroying most of the world’s population with the rest living under complete mental and physical enslavement in Hunger Games silos euphemistically named “smart cities.”
Aggressive and mendacious military attacks based upon outrageous lies and using gullible nations’ young men as canon fodder to trigger nuclear war at the behest of a global criminal mafia, all propagandazied as “freedom and democracy.”
Add to all this evil the great apostasy embodied in the utterly diabolical “Synod on Synodality” that is set to be imposed by the antichurch on all the Faithful.
Who is at the head of this emerging evil antichurch?
It is obvious to any Catholic with even a minimum sensus Catholicus that the man who calls himself Pope Francis is at the least a material heretic. Aside from his outrageous doctrinal statements and writings, as well as his scandalous acts, this is a man who mocked those who questioned the scamDemic narrative and is responsible for the thousands if not millions of deaths of those who upon his asinine moral admonition injected themselves with a deadly bioweapon.
As Edmund Mazza makes abundantly clear, a public material heretic can not even be a member of the visible Catholic Church, let alone the Pope. But there are many other compelling arguments to read and ponder in this extremely well researched and meticulous analysis.
Regardless of what the establishment Catholics will tell you, the legitimacy of Benedict XVI’s resignation and the validity of the election of Bergoglio as Pope are open questions. It is not “schismatic” or “conspiracy theory” to ask questions about these matters. We as Catholics are responsible for knowing the truth, and this book is indispensable for finding it.
The Church must, before it is too late, name and condemn those malicious personages and ruling groups of the unbaptized, including especially in elite positions of power, who reject both the Torah and Jesus Christ and are imposing this rejection on Christian population.
We need an all-out evangelization campaign, not useless “dialogue.” The Catholic prelates and laity who are traitors to the Church must be unmasked and excommunicated. We must present a strong, courageous, manly, authoritative Church, tempered by genuine compassion and humility, to the world, so that men of good will recognize in us their Lord. Our Lady of Fatima told us that the world would be chastised by the persecution of the Church, and I think we can see now what this means. The world needs to be rescued from itself by the Church, but the traitors within, as well as the cowardly, worldly, scandalous, and lukewarm, have rendered her all but unable to bear witness to the Truth and restrain the world’s evil, let alone save it.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thaddeuskozinski/p/the-church-is-damning-the-world?r=24l7o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
In his book that was released earlier this year “The Third Secret of Fatima & The Synodal Church VOL. I Pope Benedict’s Resignation”, (which I’m currently re-reading), Dr. Edmund Mazza presents compelling analysis/evidence that Pope Benedict’s resignation was invalid due to substantial error.
Canon 188, which governs the resignation of Catholic prelates, states “A resignation made out of grave fear that is inflicted unjustly or out of malice, substantial error, or simony is invalid by the law itself.”
To date I’ve seen no serious or effective efforts to disprove Dr. Mazza’s view, which he very clearly lays out for all to critique and rebut. Any takers?
We have a responsibility to man-up and apply our God given intellect and will to figure out what went wrong and how to get back on track, for the salvation of souls. God can’t be impressed with the lack of courage and/or indifference in the face of what may be the greatest crisis in Church history. Bad leadership is punishment for sins! Penance, penance, penance.
Katherine,
Check out this rebuttal of Dr. Mazza’s book.
https://romalocutaest.com/2023/02/10/a-rebuttal-of-dr-mazzas-book-on-pope-benedicts-resignation/
Regards,
Steven O’Reilly
(www.RomaLocutaEst.com)
Steven,
Thank you for the link. I thank you also for being willing to debate Dr. Mazza on Timothy Gordon’s youtube channel on Feb 11, 2022 [Debate:Is Benedict Still Pope?].
Near the beginning of the rebuttal of Dr. Mazza’s book that you linked to above, I read the following:
Steven writes:
“Okay. Let’s answer Dr. Mazza’s questions.
So, what about Wearing White, “His Holiness”
One does not need to agree with the “accidents” or “externals” surrounding Benedict XVI’s resignation but they are no proof against the validity of his resignation. Having witnessed the final years of John Paul II’s papacy, it is clear Benedict did not want the papacy to be weakened by having an enfeebled pope on the throne. Thus, he set out to set a precedent of a pope resigning for no other reason than that he had reached the conclusion he was too weak to carry on in the Petrine office. This thesis is confirmed by his Declaratio, the Last Audience, Ganswein’s speech, and the Seewald interviews. Given Benedict was establishing a precedent whereby he hoped to encourage other popes to follow his example in similar circumstances, it is not surprising he attempted to surround a ‘resigned pope’ with some externals that might make the choice more attractive, than what befell a resigned pope like Celestine V.”
Katherine comment: I think Pope Benedict himself would say that thesis (accusation?) of yours represents a “functional misunderstanding”!
Excerpt from page 49 of Dr. Mazza’s book, hard copy edition: Mazza writes: “If after all this, anyone still doubts that Benedict’s renunciation was a qualified one, let us turn to the words he addressed to his old friend and fellow countryman, journalist and author Peter Seewald, in his 2016 book, Last Testament:In His Own Words:
Peter Seewald: “Is a slowdown in the ability to perform, reason enough to climb down from the chair of Peter?”
Pope Benedict: “One can of course make that accusation, but it would be a functional misunderstanding. The follower of Peter is not merely bound to a function; the office enters into your very being. In this regard, fulfilling a function is not the only criterion.”
Seewald merely repeating the words of Benedict’s own Declaration back to him and Benedict calls it an “accusation”? A “functional misunderstanding”?
Katherine comment: Based on this sample of O’Reilly’s Dr. Mazza rebuttal material, I’m reluctant to allocate time to read the rest. Quantity does not trump quality. But maybe there are some good points to be found, if I had time to wade through it all. The topic definitely deserves much scrutiny, debate and discussion.
Katherine K.,
Thank you for your kind comments.
Now, with regard to the quote your cite from Dr. Mazza’s book, I did a quick search of my Kindle library where I keep the Seewald books. The first one I checked was A Life: Volume Two; which provides the same quote to Last Testament, the one cited by Dr. Mazza. On Kindle page 655…here is the quote which appears in both works:
Asked whether failing capacity was sufficient reason to step down from the chair of Peter, he answered:
“Of course, that might cause a misunderstanding about the function. The Petrine succession is not only linked to a function, but also concerns being. So functioning is not the only criterion. ON THE OTHER HAND, a pope must also do particular things, must keep an eye on the whole situation, must know how to set priorities and so on. Receiving heads of state, receiving bishops, with whom you must be able really to have an intimate conversation, then all the decisions which have to be taken every day. Even if you say that some things can be dropped, it still leaves to many that are essential, that if the work is to be done properly, it becomes clear: if you are no longer capable it is advisable – at least for me, other may see it differently – to vacate the chair.”
Please note, compare Dr. Mazza’s citation in his book, to what I cited above.
It becomes quickly apparent Dr. Mazza DOES NOT cite all of what Benedict says here. Dr. Mazza leaves out an important portion of what Benedict went on to say. Basically, Benedict goes on to say if one cannot do the function, for him, one should VACATE THE CHAIR of Peter…i.e., that is what Benedict did!!
Again, Benedict AFFIRMS he vacated the chair Peter. This absolutely consistent with his Declaratio. If the See of Peter is VACANT..there is NO pope. No hold the Petrine munus.
Dr. Mazza has misread his source material. But this is not the first time. He did this here as well (see https://romalocutaest.com/2022/04/22/a-closer-look-at-mr-coffins-evidence-dr-mazzas-thesis-3-0/). The point of the dialogue here in a broader context is, Benedict is saying being pope is more than just a job (function) in that he becomes also a spiritual father to others. We see him talk of this in his Last Audience where he speaks of what I have called a “bond of charity” between him and the “sons and daughters” he takes on when becoming a pope. So, that is what he means…being pope is NOT just a “function”, i.e., a job, as if one were merely a corporate president of an impersonal organization.
Thus, we understand Benedict goes on to say, it’s not just a function, it’s more than that…but EVEN SO…if one can’t ‘do the function’ out of weakness, one should, in his view, VACATE THE CHAIR. And that is what he did. Dr. Mazza has plainly misread the text.
Hope that helps a little in this short space. Please go on to read the rest of my article rebutting Dr. Mazza’s book. God bless him…but I don’t think he is looking at his source material in a scholarly, unbiased way when it comes to Benepapism. He is reading INTO the text, and thus he has gone a stray, despite his good intentions. See my article above also where I cite where he clearly misreads Cardinal Ratzinger’s works. and which he cited on Coffin’s show.
God bless,
Steve O’Reilly
While the actions and words of Pope Benedict (and not Jorge Bergoglio) at the time of his resignation directly led to the ascendency of an antipope, it’s enough to just look at where we are to realise that this man can’t be Pope. That is – if you have any faith at all in Christ and his promise about the Petrine Office.
Did this man just accuse the man he says is Pope of
heresy?
Wasn’t that a Martin Luther move?
What about the Petrine Promise?
What about fidelity to the Sovereign Pontiff?
Has this man excommunicated himself?
How can a lay person set themselves opposite the Pope?
Aren’t Catholics bound to follow who they say is the Pope?
Is there more to the story….?
Jorge’s disqualification began with the pre-conclave Saint Gallen campaign to elect him. Also it’s likely the conclave votes were irregular — word on the strada is they used Dominion machines. His teachings discouraging proselytism, “make a mess”, annihilation of the soul, the doubts of the Blessed Mother, the validation of sodomy, Holy Communion to Pelosi et al., the secret deal with China, silence on the “dubbia”, his motto “fanculo fratelli” — the hits just keep on coming
May God have mercy on our souls!
R&R Catholicism (“Remain and Resist,” or “Recognize and Resist”) is now an intellectual dead-end. Trying to argue for it produces only cognitive dissonance and blatant absurdity. The Argentine heretic Jorge Bergoglio IS NOT and NEVER WAS a valid Pope. Everything that the man has said, done, or proclaimed carries no weight whatsoever for Roman Catholics.
As long as there are naive and trusting Catholics who fail to recognize this plain fact, the institutional Church will be is a state of total paralysis.
Ann Barnhardt has been correct and logical and articulate on this subject for years. Why has it taken so long for so many persons to see it? Why are there still people at Church Militant and The Remnant who are desperately trying to square the circle?
Oh, look! The Pharisees have arrived. “The pope is not the pope” seems to pull them all out of the woodwork, dunnit? I love how everyone is a capital T “Traditionalist” until this comes up. News flash: The pope is *who the Church says he is* until a later Council decides he is not. The Church (whether in Truth or in error) proclaims the current bishop in white — who strains the very rivets of the Chair of St Peter — is, in fact, the pope. What many (rightly) proclaim about this diabolical situation is of little avail unless *the Church* acts.
And let’s stop pretending that all the popes previous to “that man” were any great shakes. B16, JPII, Paul VI, and John XXIII all had serious, serious theological problems. But either God is in control of His Church or He is not. Either it is headed by Christ or it is Protestant and the laity get to call the shots. Pick a side.
Has anyone considered that God has allowed this in order to bring about greater good — specifically that the primacy of Peter be *better* established? Perhaps through a cleaning out of the clergy a la The Third Secret of Fatima, the election of a righteous pope and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart? Nope? No? No one? Oh, Our Lady just revealed the Third Secret to the three shepherd children over a hundred years ago because the Church was doing just fine until “that man” arrived?
Lemme tell you something: “That man” could not set foot in St Peter’s if God didn’t allow it. That man could not *draw breath* if God didn’t allow it. Pause and think why that might be in God’s grand design. What could be so bad, so rotten, in the Church that Our Lady would have foretold that a third of them would be destroyed? Methinks it not because they are all so “holy”. If anything, it’s a “holy cleaning out” by the very Hand of God. Something that will cleanse the Church and vindicate it to the world. Something that could never happen by natural means. Never mind that the Third Secret (which is Church approved) is backed up by other apparitions of Our Lady including, but not limited to, Akita and La Salette (also Church approved).
But let’s just ignore that.
We aren’t Protestant and the Church is not a democracy. This isn’t the French Revolution and we are admonished — by Our Very Lord! — not to be zealots. (Remember which Apostle was a zealot? Yeah, the one who was embarrassed that Our Lord wasn’t “doing enough” about the injustice of the Romans and the Pharisees.) What you all are proposing comes right up to the line of either Judas Iscariot’s zealotry, or St Peter’s mistaken attempt to save Our Lord by cutting off an ear. In both cases, Jesus did not approve.
We don’t get to vote. And for those of you (myself included) who are screaming, “It’s not fair!” and “We deserve better!” Ask yourselves what “the Church Militant” actually does deserve. With very little difference between the common Catholic and the common person on the street (contraception, p*rn addiction, divorce and remarriage, co-habitation, immodest dress, apathy about the Sacraments, spotty Mass attendance, and no prayer life to speak of) it strains credulity that we were not chastised in this way long, long ago.
Christ died for the Church. He was crucified by His own. But we’re better than that? We aren’t going to be silent when we are whipped, spit upon, God is blasphemed, and we unjustly crucified *by our own Church*. No, we’re just going to whine, “But, but, but, FWANCISSS ISN’T EVEN POPPPPPEEEEE!” Give me a tiny break. The student isn’t better than their Master. If they crucified Him, they will crucify you. You can’t see that around the giant plank in your eye.
You were born for such a time as this. This trial is meant to train up Saints — the likes of which the Church have never seen! Don’t let the devil trick you into thinking it’s just about arguing over things you can’t change. Go and be holy. Get your house in order. Get your kids in order. REFUSE TO SIN. Flowers do not grow from sterile soil. If you want good priests and religious, make fertile soil! Rejoice when you are persecuted! Pray for those who hate you! If someone — even “the pope” — slaps you on the cheek, offer him the other! But you are *not in charge here*.
GOD IS IN CHARGE. LET GOD ACT. He will never fail His people.
With all due respect, AVey, you’re just blowing emotional smoke.
We have eyes, ears, brains, and intelligence, and we are not going to abstain from using them in a calamitous situation such as this, where the institutional Church is being dismantled by this insufferable Argentine impostor. You, on the other hand, are urging us to keep our mouths shut and stop thinking and wait (hopefully) for some future authority to tell us what to think. Your position is the same quintessential R&R quietism that has been preached to us since 2013, when this nightmare began. The game is over, AVey –nobody believes it anymore. not after the outrages that this heretical Antipope has perpetrated.
You have said a number of silly things in your post, but the silliest is your notion that all of this will soon pass and things are bound to get better. Really? How is that possible after Bergoglio has just finished packing the College of Cardinals with his flunkies, toadies and ideological comrades? Do you actually think the next Pope will be someone like Innocent III or Leo XIII? Dream on.
Nowhere did I say to keep your mouth shut. Nowhere did I say to obey the man who now occupies the See when he is in error. What I did say is that God will solve this problem, because this is His Church, *not yours*. If Francis isn’t the pope, then less so are you. And, interestingly enough, I have seen not one proposal in your or anyone else’s sedevecantist stance on a solution. Just plugging your ears and saying, “lalalalalaa, I’m not listening,” isn’t sufficient; neither is storming the Bastille, starting your own Church, nor committing patricide. What, precisely, are you proposing then? I’d like to see a plan, or you’re just bloviating on the internet.
You are a layperson, yes? Vote with your feet. Attend the TLM exclusively and refuse to leave the Church. Be a saint. Shame the enemy with your holiness and your refusal to abandon the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Disobey unholy orders. Shout the Truth. But do not be surprised — or afraid — if you are persecuted for it.
“Get thee behind me, Satan.”
AVey, you’re a textbook example of R&R illogic. You tell us not to obey “the man who now occupies the See when he is in error.” Well, that admonition presumes that we have the intelligence and knowledge and perception to distinguish truth from error, and genuine Catholicism from its fake conciliarist version. If you think that, we certainly can use those same intellectual abilities to listen, read, examine, and come to a conclusion about this venomous moron, Jorge Bergoglio.
If you are an R&R partisan, you must accept the long-established element of the magisterium that a valid Pope is to be obeyed in all matters that touch upon faith and morals. Are you really going to tell us that you consider the pronouncements and actions of this man in those two areas to be consistent with Roman Catholicism? And if you don’t, how do you defend your position that allows for disregarding or disobeying them? Let’s have a straight answer, and not just pro forma bleating about obedience and loyalty and how we aren’t listening. There are PLENTY of good, devout, learned Roman Catholics who attend TLM and who have been listening very attentively to the garbage that this Antipope and his cronies have been spouting for a decade. These Catholics haven’t left the Church. But Bergoglio sure as hell wants them out of the Church, or reduced to irrelevance. Where have you been since 2013?
We are not Pharisees. We are rational human beings who will not accept blatant cognitive dissonance, the way that R&R Catholics are forced to do.
And yes — you do tell us to shut up and be silent. Don’t be disingenuous. All your appeals for obedience and loyalty and quietism are implicit demands for silence. It’s over, AVey — you can’t fool all of the Catholics all of the time.
Still haven’t heard your plan, Señor Ad Hominem.
I never said I had a plan, AVey. I can’t save the Church, or devise a means of escape from the current predicament. BUT NEITHER CAN YOU, especially since your only counsel is for all of us to shut up, make no trouble, obey our bishops, and hope for the best, like the sheeple in the almost empty Novus Ordo pews.
Nobody made any ad hominem remarks against you. Maybe you don’t know Latin, but the phrase means “against the person,” and refers to personal remarks directed against an opponent, which are irrelevant to the issue at hand. Calling people like me “Pharisees” is ad hominem.
I still haven’t heard your responses to my major points. Let me simplify them for you:
1) If the Pope is to be obeyed in all matters touching upon faith and morals, how do you defend the many absurdities and heresies and scandalizing things that Bergoglio (your “Pope”) has uttered, published, and done since 2013?
2) If you urge that we disobey Bergoglio “when he is in error,” how does that fit in with your commitment to the idea that a valid Pope is to be obeyed unquestioningly on matters of faith and morals? If we know that he’s in error, yet must proclaim our intellectual union with him, how is that not contradictory and hypocritical?
Your views on this question seem to be encapsulated in the Italian fascist motto: MUSSOLINI HA SEMPRE RAGIONE! (Mussolini is always right!) That’s your view of Bergoglio. Or is it? Perhaps you have a case of cognitive dissonance, and can’t decide.
We’d all like to hear what you have to say on this, since it appears that the R&R position is crumbling. Bringing in Steve O’Reilly to this thread to help bail out water seems to be a sign of panic.
“I never said I had a plan, AVey.”
Finally! An admission!
“I can’t save the Church, or devise a means of escape from the current predicament.”
So you *are* just bloviating on the internet, then: okay.
“BUT NEITHER CAN YOU”,
Yeah, because (quick check), nope, I’m not God. Refer to my previous response: “GOD IS IN CHARGE. LET GOD ACT. He will never fail His people.”
“especially since your only counsel is for all of us to shut up,”
Refer to my previous response: “Shout the Truth!”
“make no trouble, obey our bishops”
Refer to my previous response: “Shame the enemy with your holiness and your refusal to abandon the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Disobey unholy orders.”
“and hope for the best,”
Refer to my previous thread quote: “What could be so bad, so rotten, in the Church that Our Lady would have foretold that a third of them [“stacked cardinals” included] would be destroyed? [includes the assassination of the pope with “bullets and arrows”] Methinks it not because they are all so “holy”. If anything, it’s a “holy cleaning out” by the very Hand of God. Something that will cleanse the Church and vindicate it to the world. Something that could never happen by natural means [like people whining on the internet]. Never mind that the Third Secret (which is Church approved) is backed up by other apparitions of Our Lady including, but not limited to, Akita and La Salette (also Church approved). But let’s just ignore that.” (Which, bravo, you did.)
Yes, “hope for the best” includes believing my Mother, and yours, when she goes out of her way to tell us the same things, repeatedly, hundreds of years apart.
“like the sheeple in the almost empty Novus Ordo pews.”
[Um] ‘Maybe you don’t know Latin, but the phrase means “against the person,” and refers to personal remarks directed against an opponent, which are irrelevant to the issue at hand. Calling people [un]like [yourself] [“sheeple”] is ad hominem.”
I’m not a Novus Ordo attendant, for the record.
“I still haven’t heard your responses to my major points.”
Yes, you have. You refuse to concede them.
“Let me simplify them for you:
1) If the Pope is to be obeyed in all matters touching upon faith and morals,”
Yes, that is a Catholic command
“How do you defend the many absurdities and heresies and scandalizing things that Bergoglio (your “Pope”) has uttered, published, and done since 2013?”
I don’t. We are not bound to obey unjust orders; also a Catholic command. And if you are a member of the Catholic Church, he is your pope, too. Otherwise, you are outside the Church. Do, please, tell me who “your pope” is if not Francis. Whether I like it or not, Francis is “my” pope, just like Biden is “my” president. I wouldn’t urinate on either of them if they were on fire, but I can’t pretend they don’t hold their respective offices.
Oddly enough Francis hasn’t advanced any “formal heresy, ex cathedra”. Why is that? He doesn’t want to? Of course he does. It’s because the Holy Spirit will never allow that. Either God has abandoned His Church (impossible) or He is allowing this trial for a reason. If God is restraining Francis (which He is), why would God do this IF HE WERE NOT POPE?
If he wasn’t pope, we’d already have a new catechism, ex-cathedra pronouncements of all kinds of heresy and blasphemy, and God knows what else. No matter what the pope says in private, on a airplane, in an interview, or even to his gay lover, unless it is proclaimed ex-cathedra, it’s air.
Notice that Vatican II advanced no dogma, but was instead a “pastoral council”. But they treated it like it *was* dogma, and the people (“sheeple”? Is that the word you prefer?) went along with it because they had been trained to just (your words) “shut up, make no trouble, and obey our bishops”. That’s largely the working model up to this very day. Fortunately, we have had to become catechists and canonists, due to the ongoing crisis, and we are wiser than the serpents, whilst trying to remain as innocent as doves.
2) “If you urge that we disobey Bergoglio ‘when he is in error,’ how does that fit in with your commitment to the idea that a valid Pope is to be obeyed unquestioningly on matters of faith and morals?”
I never said the latter, and do not hold it. “Unquestioningly” is not part of the Catholic command to obey. One’s conscience should be well-formed in order to examine the command against the dogma and Magesterium of the Church. This is why we memorize the Baltimore Catechism.
“If we know that he’s in error, yet must proclaim our intellectual union with him, how is that not contradictory and hypocritical?”
We proclaim our union with the office of the Chair of St Peter, not necessarily the man who occupies it, if he is in grave error. See: Catholic teaching on the primacy of the pope. See: antipopes throughout history. See also: The Arian Heresy
“Your views on this question seem to be encapsulated in the Italian fascist motto: MUSSOLINI HA SEMPRE RAGIONE! (Mussolini is always right!) That’s your view of Bergoglio.”
Señor Ad Hominem is sneaking up on calling me a fascist now.
“Or is it? Perhaps you have a case of cognitive dissonance, and can’t decide.”
Nah, I have a rational opinion you can’t see because you have the feels.
“We’d all like to hear what you have to say on this, since it appears that the R&R position is crumbling. Bringing in Steve O’Reilly to this thread to help bail out water seems to be a sign of panic.”
I don’t know who Steve O’Reilly is, but the only thing that seems to be crumbling is *your* argument.
You don’t like the pope, neither do I. But you can’t pretend he’s something he’s not. If he’s not validly the pope, the Church will decide that and remove him and/or add him to the list of condemned anti-popes. (Quick check: Nope, no one named Joseph Cardinal Salemi or Cardinal AVey exists; we don’t get a vote).
But neither is Francis God; neither are you; neither am I. GOD RUNS HIS CHURCH. HE WILL NEVER ABANDON IT. Get out of His way.
“Pray, hope, and don’t worry.”
St Padre Pio
Sigh. Arguing with an R&R Catholic is like trying to nail jelly to the wall, as Theodore Roosevelt used to say. It’s the fault of the jelly, not the nail. So rather than paragraphs of prose, let me put up some quick notes with thumbtacks. Some are longer than others.
1) AVey was the one who brought up the notion of having a “plan” in one of his early posts, not me. Now he keeps harping on it, saying that any discussion that doesn’t propose a plan is “bloviating.” Well, what’s his “plan”? It’s basically a squib from Padre Pio: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” That’s all very nice and pious, and I have great respect for the saint, but it hardly constitutes an intellectual argument.
2) “GOD IS IN CHARGE. LET GOD ACT.” That isn’t a plan. That’s the simple piety of quietism. All it does is confirm what I said in my posts: AVey wants Catholics to keep their mouths shut and be obedient to Bergoglio. It basically makes him a gatekeeper for the Bergoglian establishment, and an enabler of whatever Bergoglio does.
3) Lots of Novus Ordo Catholics today are “sheeple.” That isn’t an ad hominem remark; that’s an honest description. Unfortunately, a lot of R&R types are the same way,
4) Heresy and anti-Catholicism don’t just come “ex cathedra,” from someone sitting on the papal throne, in full regalia, making a dogmatic pronouncement! AVey’s remarks here are pure legalistic cover, designed by R&R types to let them avoid calling the Argentine creep out for what he is. Bergoglio has said and done so many things marking him as an enemy of the Church and of God that only deaf, dumb, and blind R&R types can’t recognize the facts. The fanatical hatred of the Latin mass, the deliberate wrecking of contemplative orders, the Pachamama scandal, the protection and promotion of pedophile priests, the honoring of pervert-protectors like James Martin, the appointment of “Tucho” to head the Dicastery for Faith, tampering with the Cathechism on the question of capital punishment, Amoris Laetitia, the silencing or dismissal of clerics who show the slightest sign of Catholic orthodoxy… it goes on and on, endlessly. But for R&R Catholics, this just means “Shut up, don’t say anything, keep in your ranks!” I’ll repeat it: AVey is a gatekeeper for and an enabler of Bergoglio.
5) I never called AVey a fascist. I compared his craven R&R attitude to that of those who insisted that Mussolini was always right on everything. Saying that you respect “the office” while disliking “the man” is pure sophistry. At least the Italian fascists were honest enough not to spout that absurdity. When they realized in 1943 Mussolini was incompetent, they dumped him.
6) Steve O’Reilly is an anti-Benepapist writer who is desperate to maintain that Bergoglio is a valid Pope, by insisting that Benedict XVI’s resignation was canonically valid. To me the issue is not especially important — whether Benedict resigned properly or not has no bearing on what kind anti-Catholic creep occupies the See of St. Peter right now. But the fact that AVey doesn’t know who O’Reilly is shows that he has not been reading this thread, where O’Reilly has posted several extensive comments.
My opinion is that he was not validly elected. Lifelong Catholic here. Ratzinger thought he could bifurcate the papacy. He was a brilliant man but not smarter than Jesus.
The word “judge” is being used equivocally. Ann doesn’t have the authority to judge him legally, but she certainly can personally judge him. In fact a few years ago Cardinal Burke claimed that a [formal?] heretic ipso facto loses the office. In legal discussion, a matter of fact talks about an ontological matter that can be proven prior to a legal judgement. A manifest heretic loses office prior to a legal sentence, in the same sense that a heretic gets automatically excommunicated before anyone with authority judges him to be a heretic.
when did the heretic Apostle Judas lose his office of Bishop?
Who said he was a heretic?
I knew we were in trouble the second I saw a picture of the man dressed in white placing a beach ball on the altar of St. Mary Major. Lol. There are countless other examples that one could mention but…
Most people here are familiar with Malachi Martin’s “Windswept House” and the dual “enthronement” ceremony that took place upon the election of Paul VI. Did it really happen? A prominent priest has been very vocal over the past few years that it in fact did happen.
That said, the satanic ritual that the man dressed in white presided over in the Vatican Gardens in October of 2019 happened before our very eyes. Ponder that. And what followed it? The “pandemic”. It was a ritual used in order to usher in a new era and billions of lives have been changed forever. The “Holy Father” presided over a satanic ritual.
Whether you believe in private revelations or not, the world was given a warning just after the satanic ritual when Sr. Sasagawa of Akita issued a statement that her Guardian Angel appeared with a message. If you’re not familiar please do some research. These are dire times, folks, and Divine intervention is the only thing that can turn things around.
Dear Mr Pentin, thanks for this avenue to express our comments, but I must say, I am shocked, SHOCKED that this Ann person and those who agree with her have been allowed to rule the day as they have. Don’t you think it would be wise to remove all of their comments now because that’s just how things are done these days. After all masks and gene therapy drugs are healthy, perverted men can be women if they want to be, and the fwancis is pope are all dogmas that if challenged will lead to your censorship.
Ann B. and Dr. Edmund Mazza nailed this correctly with impeccable research long ago. The Rx for addressing this situation was laid out dogmatically at the Council of Trent. Wolves in Cardinal’s clothing, along with their spineless episcopal counterparts, have ignored the necessary declaration of anathema and are prolonging the Marxist/Masonic/Modernist advance. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us! Our Lady of Akita, pray for us!
John,
I beg to differ on the question as whether Dr. Mazza or Ms. Barnhardt have conducted “impeccable research” on the matter of Benedict’s resignation.
With regard to Dr. Mazza, consider the following wherein I cite two specific examples of Dr. Mazza’s misreading of his sources:
https://romalocutaest.com/2022/04/22/a-closer-look-at-mr-coffins-evidence-dr-mazzas-thesis-3-0/
Please demonstrate how it can be said he has not misread the sources cited in the article, which were essential to his argument presented on Patrick Coffin’s show.
As for Ms. Barnhardt’s “impeccable research”, read the following.
https://romalocutaest.com/2019/01/15/benedict-is-still-not-pope-and-other-errors/
These are but a couple of examples. I also recommend you see what they’ve written on the last audience, for example, and see how they have badly they have misinterpreted Benedict’s words. See, for example, https://romalocutaest.com/2022/02/27/regarding-benedicts-last-audience/
God bless,
Steven O’Reilly
I’m with Ann and Dr. Mazza. Bergoglio is an anti pope per Cannon law and from the horrific fruit produced by Bergoglio.
He’s not Catholic. The infiltration goes to the top. Exorcise the Vatican. Use the spiritual power of the Faith if anyone there has it.
…none of the wicked shall understand, but the learned shall understand. Dan 12:10
How many times has he said Jesus ‘becomes bread’ for us. He has been nails on a blackboard from the beginning.
He *said* who am I to judge! Why do we not take him at his word.
What Alpha Bravo said.
Mr. Pentin,
Fr. Rotondo is a great priest. His book on the problems with Amoris Laetitia – for which Dr. Rist wrote the foreword, and for which Fr. Rotondo was punished, is excellent.
It should also be noted that Fr. Rotondo provides a number of videos against the arguments of Benepapists of all varieties, whether they be believers in a supposed “substantial error”, and or a supposed “Ratzinger Code.”
Fr. Rotondo is to be commended for both efforts, which have as their aim the same goal — the truth.
Some of the sorts of arguments made by Fr. Rotondo against the Benepapists, and additional ones, can be found as well on my blog http://www.RomaLocutaEst.com (see https://romalocutaest.com/2022/03/21/the-case-against-those-who-claim-benedict-is-still-pope/). For example, I lay out the case how the Benepapists have grossly misinterpreted Benedict’s last audience, and the “always is also a forever”; as well as their misrepresentations of Ganswein’s speech from 2016.
In addition, one can find the arguments against the Benepapists in my book “Valid? The Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.” (see https://www.amazon.com/Valid-Resignation-Pope-Benedict-XVI-ebook/dp/B0BGQPP4KX/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1690049996&sr=1-1). In the book, I take on all the major objections of the Benepapists.
Regards,
Steven O’Reilly
(www.RomaLocutaEst.com)
Statement: “I am no longer the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, or I will be until 8:00 this evening and then no longer. I am simply a pilgrim beginning the last leg of his pilgrimage on this earth.”
Question: how does BP understand “Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church”? Someone who has both “the functions” (active ministry of the Papacy) AND that part of the Papacy which is a spiritual reality adhering to the soul of any man who at one time accepted his election to “Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church”?
Could it be “both / and” rather than “either / or” as we try to make sense of such statements highlighted by out 2 camps?
Statement: It is clear the man elected accepts his election “as Supreme Pontiff.” Thus, “Supreme Pontiff” must include the idea or concept of the Petrine “munus” upon which the Beneplenists rest their argument. Yet, as we see in the Pope’s comments to the pilgrims just hours before his effective resignation, he says as of 8pm, he would “no longer be Supreme Pontiff“, clearly indicating his intent to give up the papacy fully, without retaining any part of it (and not that that is even possible).
Agreed. But still the question remains. Did BP consider himself “in a forever contemplative way” within “the See of Peter”? If he did, and if this is apparent in those comments that “Beneplenists” argue from, would this indicate a substantial error in his thinking about “resigning the Papacy”?
What effect would such an understanding on Pope Benedict XVI have on his resignation in light of Canon 188?
In any event, I think both camps – seeking to remain true to The Faith – know that “Francis’ magisterium” is to be opposed.
John,
Thanks for the reply. Both “camps” may and do agree on various problems with the “Francis magisterium.” However, merely “seeking” to remain true does not always bring one to the proper conclusions. “How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:14).
If one wondered whether or not Benedict’s resignation was valid, and left it at that until the Church rendered a judgment…that might be one thing. However, the arch-Benepapists, the charter members (a couple of whom have already opined in this combox), do not fall into this “camp.” They hold it as definitive that Benedict remained pope, and the Francis is definitively an anti-pope.
That, as I’ve argued before, and most recently in my 1P5 article, for the die-hards, leads to either rejecting the next conclave if Francis-cardinals vote; or even accepting them, rejecting the pope who they elect if the new pope confirms the validity of Benedict’s resignation (see https://onepeterfive.com/whither-benepapism/). Rejecting such future popes…what is left to them? Aside from an injection of some humility, what will it take for them to admit their error?
Now, as to BXVI having explicitly stated he would no longer be “supreme pontiff.” The meaning of the title is clear, just see UDG, with which you seem familiar. Yet, the arch-Benepapists avoid this the speech to the pilgrims from Albano. Curiously, Mr. Docherty had used these same words *against* Ms. Barnhardt’s “substantial error” argument long ago. Now, Mr. Docherty has claimed Benedict contradicted himself in saying it. To my knowleldge, Ms. Barnhardt hasn’t touched that document with a ten foot poll.
There is plenty of evidence ministerium may be used. For example, the title of the Declaratio in the AAS makes clear BXVI resigned the Petrine munus; it is also clear when we look at Lumen Gentium 18-20, where it is clear a ‘munus is a ministry.’ And as shown in my article, if one resigns the Petrine ministerium, one necessarily resigns the Petrine munus (see https://romalocutaest.com/2022/11/04/lumen-gentium-destroys-benepapism-in-toto/).
As to the “active” vs. “contemplative”, unfortunately, much confusion has arisen around this. There are a couple of reasons for this. The arch-Benepapists have badly interpreted the “always is also a forever” by neglecting to consider the meaning and definition of terms found in the preceding paragraph of Benedict’s last audience (see https://romalocutaest.com/2022/02/27/regarding-benedicts-last-audience/). The resignation of the “active ministry” has reference to the papacy, not some bifurcated “active” vs. “passive” papacy. BXVI refers further on in the same paragraph to the distinction in the writings of St. Benedict between and ‘active’ and ‘passive’ LIFE. Repeat. Passive LIFE. Not a ‘passive papacy.’ Benedict was speaking of giving up his active life, as pope, for a passive life of prayer. Ganswein speech…another document misinterpreted by the arch-Benepapists…is consistent with this (see https://romalocutaest.com/2022/03/19/regarding-gansweins-speech/). That is why he calls Benedict a “power station” of prayer. See my article, it goes into the related confusion around an “expanded ministry,” and similar terms.
So, with regard to Canon 188. There has been no “substantial error” — except the one committed by the arch-Benepapists. I pray they have a change of heart, and mind, for they are leading folks astray. There is absolutely no reason to commit to the Benepapist course.
Regards,
Steve O’Reilly
Why did he continue to wear white and impart his apostolic blessing? And create an office that has never existed in the history of the Church. All the evidence points to a very confused (even brilliant people can be confused) and timid man (for fear of the wolves) who intended to occupy some space of the papacy indefinitely. One can split endless hairs about definitions of this and that but we all witnessed was an objectively crazy situation with two men calling themselves ‘pope’.
Jeff,
I am not defending the ‘how’ of Benedict’s resignation. I am only defending its validity. Two very different questions.
Should Benedict have continued to wear white? Stay on Vatican grounds, etc.? Continue to let himself be addressed as “His Holiness”, etc? In my view, especially with the benefit of hindsight regarding all the grief and confusion it has contributed to, the answer is “no.”
I’ve said before, only in part tongue-in-cheek, former popes should be locked away in some cold, dank, mountain monastery to never be heard from again. There are two reasons I suggest this, (1) to discourage men from ever resigning the papacy, and (2) to prevent against mischief should one resign. The danger of confusion and mischief is too great, in my opinion. Could one imagine Francis as emeritus, and the mischief he’d cause the way he runs his mouth constantly? Lock him away.
Still, even given the above, wearing white does not make one pope. In fact, Benedict XVI stopped wearing the white mozetta, which is a symbol of authority. So too he stopped wearing the red shoes. Also a symbol of authority. Ganswein reported he witnessed the removal of the Fisherman’s ring, again a symbol of authority, one of the two symbols he receives at the mass inaugurating his papacy. So…it’s clear enough: he was no longer pope. But, arch-Benepapists such as Barnhardt, Docherty, Acosta, Cionci, etc., don’t mention Benedict took these steps. Why? Because it doesn’t fit their narrative.
To say he created ‘an office which never existed’ is something in need of clarification. It is true to say, he is the first one to be called pope “emeritus.” But, Canon 185 states that “emeritus” can be used of one who has LOST HIS OFFICE due to resignation. Though the canon did not specifically apply to popes, as it was intended for those whose resignation must be accepted, the analogy still remains. That is: “Emeritus” is an honorific for a LOST OFFICE. For an office NO LONGER HELD.
On the other hand, ‘pope emeritus’ is not new in the sense that Benedict believed that is what former resigned popes were IN FACT, if not name. This is clear in his letter exchange with Cardinal Brandmuller, when the latter complained about the use of “pope emeritus”. I discuss this in my article wherein I address Ms. Barnhardt’s misstatement of the principle of non-contradiction on this very topic (see https://romalocutaest.com/2022/05/30/ms-ann-barnhardt-vs-the-law-of-non-contradiction-ms-barnhardt-loses/).
As for Apostolic Blessings, the pope is not the only one who can give them. He can and does delegate the granting of them to others. Per canon 1167.1, “The Apostolic See alone can establish new sacramentals, authentically interpret those already received, or abolish or change any of them.” Patriarchs, bishops, and other have or can receive authority to give them a couple to a few times a year.
Given they can receive such a delegation, how, more so, should a ‘pope emeritus’ receive such a grant given the dignity of his former office. I only know of a couple occasions where BXVI did so in private letters. I saw one of his letter to a larger group of people, and he did not extend one on that occasion. So, there may have been some limitations.
Per the relevant portion of Canon 1168 which applies to this question, “the minister of sacramentals is a cleric who has been provided with the requisite authority.” Thus, Benedict, even as pope emeritus, is the “minister of the sacramental” on the basis of having been “provided the requisite authority” via delegation. Consequently, even in giving the apostolic blessing in an informal setting of a private letter, he is a true “minister of the sacramental.” Thus, in this sense, it is ‘his’ blessing to give; just as we ask a priest to receive ‘his’ blessing.
So, the question remains, ‘who delegated the authority’ to Benedict, as pope emeritus. Pope Francis might have done so informally; or, alternatively, Benedict, while still pope, might have granted himself as future pope emeritus the authority to give them. Which it was, I don’t know. But the point here is, there are other more, more mundane solutions to the question available than jumping to the conclusion “Therefore Benedict was still pope!”
I discuss in my book on Benedict’s resignation, and also in an article: https://romalocutaest.com/2023/03/04/benepapists-and-their-false-claims-about-apostolic-blessings/
Regards,
Steven O’Reilly
Jeff,
I am not defending the ‘how’ of Benedict’s resignation. I am only defending its validity. Two very different questions.
Should Benedict have continued to wear white? Stay on Vatican grounds, etc.? Continue to let himself be addressed as “His Holiness”, etc? In my view, especially with the benefit of hindsight regarding all the grief and confusion it has contributed to, the answer is “no.”
I’ve said before, only in part tongue-in-cheek, former popes should be locked away in some cold, dank, mountain monastery to never be heard from again. There are two reasons I suggest this, (1) to discourage men from ever resigning the papacy, and (2) to prevent against mischief should one resign. The danger of confusion and mischief is too great, in my opinion. Could one imagine Francis as emeritus, and the mischief he’d cause the way he runs his mouth constantly? Lock him away.
Still, even given the above, wearing white does not make one pope. In fact, Benedict XVI stopped wearing the white mozetta, which is a symbol of authority. So too he stopped wearing the red shoes. Also a symbol of authority. Ganswein reported he witnessed the removal of the Fisherman’s ring, again a symbol of authority, one of the two symbols he receives at the mass inaugurating his papacy. So…it’s clear enough: he was no longer pope. But, arch-Benepapists such as Barnhardt, Docherty, Acosta, Cionci, etc., don’t mention Benedict took these steps. Why? Because it doesn’t fit their narrative.
To say he created ‘an office which never existed’ is something in need of clarification. It is true to say, he is the first one to be called pope “emeritus.” But, Canon 185 states that “emeritus” can be used of one who has LOST HIS OFFICE due to resignation. Though the canon did not specifically apply to popes, as it was intended for those whose resignation must be accepted, the analogy still remains. That is: “Emeritus” is an honorific for a LOST OFFICE. For an office NO LONGER HELD.
On the other hand, ‘pope emeritus’ is not new in the sense that Benedict believed that is what former resigned popes were IN FACT, if not name. This is clear in his letter exchange with Cardinal Brandmuller, when the latter complained about the use of “pope emeritus”. I discuss this in my article wherein I address Ms. Barnhardt’s misstatement of the principle of non-contradiction on this very topic (see https://romalocutaest.com/2022/05/30/ms-ann-barnhardt-vs-the-law-of-non-contradiction-ms-barnhardt-loses/).
As for Apostolic Blessings, the pope is not the only one who can give them. He can and does delegate the granting of them to others. Per canon 1167.1, “The Apostolic See alone can establish new sacramentals, authentically interpret those already received, or abolish or change any of them.” Patriarchs, bishops, and other have or can receive authority to give them a couple to a few times a year.
Given they can receive such a delegation, how, more so, should a ‘pope emeritus’ receive such a grant given the dignity of his former office. I only know of a couple occasions where BXVI did so in private letters. I saw one of his letter to a larger group of people, and he did not extend one on that occasion. So, there may have been some limitations.
Per the relevant portion of Canon 1168 which applies to this question, “the minister of sacramentals is a cleric who has been provided with the requisite authority.” Thus, Benedict, even as pope emeritus, is the “minister of the sacramental” on the basis of having been “provided the requisite authority” via delegation. Consequently, even in giving the apostolic blessing in an informal setting of a private letter, he is a true “minister of the sacramental.” Thus, in this sense, it is ‘his’ blessing to give; just as we ask a priest to receive ‘his’ blessing.
So, the question remains, ‘who delegated the authority’ to Benedict, as pope emeritus. Pope Francis might have done so informally; or, alternatively, Benedict, while still pope, might have granted himself as future pope emeritus the authority to give them. Which it was, I don’t know. But the point here is, there are other more, more mundane solutions to the question available than jumping to the conclusion “Therefore Benedict was still pope!”
I discuss in my book on Benedict’s resignation, and also in an article: https://romalocutaest.com/2023/03/04/benepapists-and-their-false-claims-about-apostolic-blessings/
Regards,
Steven O’Reilly
Witnessing the horror Bergoglio and his crew have perpetrated against the Roman Catholic Church — the divisiveness, the confusion — a man of integrity would step aside. He is devoid of integrity, grossly deficient in faith or reason.
It is simply disgusting to observe.
Compare the above with “various problem of Francis magisterium” by Mr O’Reilly. Much learning does not save one from diabolic disorientation. Indeed it often seems to enable it.
If one is on board with the notion (obviously held by Benedict XVI…refer to Ann Barnhardt’s and Dr Mazza’s documentation on the matter) that a reigning validly elected Pope can bifurcate the OFFICE of the Papacy into an “active ministry” component and its “spiritual contemplative” component then I can only ask “by what Authority” do you accept this idea? Does it come down to us from Tradition? Did Pope Benedict XVI or some prior Pope declare it a dogma of The Faith ex cathedra? If by his resignation Pope Benedict XVI thought that he was resigning “the active ministry” ONLY while remaining Pope in it’s spiritual aspect what else but a “substantial error” can this be? and wouldn’t such an error invalidate his act of resignation? (see Canon 188)
We’ve had antipopes (invalidly elected) “Popes” in the past. That we might be faced with one now – given the obvious harm being done by Frances and his “magisterium” – you’d think the question would be an easy one to entertain.
He made a mistake. A big one. If he had meant to fully abdicate and resign he would not have said that he remained ‘in the enclosure of St. Peter.’ Canon law expressly recognizes that a mistake in this matter CAN be made.
Yes, separation of the “mind” and “body” of the Church. Sounds more gnostic than Christian. Was it Karl Rahner who came up with this originally? Any one know? In any case, the Enemy has a much long time line than ordinary people do. Could they have elected Ratzinger because he was so enthralled by this idea – with the hope of doing exactly what they did, namely the creation of a fake Papacy?
All I can say is: “Ann, I am your Huckleberry”…….
“…in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer.”
— St. Francis
I think the best part about this post is seeing all the comments of people saying Benedict never validly resigned and Bergoglio is an anti pope. What’s even more encouraging is seeing the 200+ people like Ann Barnhardt’s comment which only proves that the silent/vocal majority of the flock agree that Bergoglio is an anti-pope. This is major progress and proof Our Lady is at work in Her elect. Our Lord is a very good Bridegroom and will not allow His Church, the rock of Peter or His flock or His flock to be led astray. Can’t wait for Mary’s Heart to triumph over all this nonsense 🌹
Can a hindu, jew or muslim be a pope? If no, why not? Is it because they’re not catholic? What makes one a Catholic? Is it what they believe?
Mr. Pentin,
Many Benepapists / Benevacantists have shown up in the combox. For those open to challenging their belief in Benepapism — in addition to my articles, and book already cited — I have prepared a series of videos rebutting Benepapism.
On YouTube, the series is currently in 12 episodes, with more in the works:
https://www.youtube.com/@StevenOReilly777/videos
This same series is available on SpiritusTV:
https://spiritustv.com/@StevenOReilly
The videos referenced above address the ministerium vs. munus, Canon 17, “the always is also a forever” and the last audience, the Ratzinger Code, etc. An upcoming video will address Ganswein’s speech. Other planned include one on Apostolic Blessings, and mnore.
God bless,
Steven O’Reilly
(www.RomaLocutaEst.com)
A series of articles:
Looks like O’Reilly is desperate to do some damage control.
He seems to think that we are all concerned with the minutiae of whether Benedict’s resignation was valid or not. For many of us, it’s an insignificant issue. The real question is whether a flaming heretic and anti-Catholic can be the Vicar of Christ.
Joseph,
No. I don’t do damage control. I am interested in facts. If the facts don’t substantiate the supposed invalidity of Benedict’s, I am not going to say it is invalid. I first began looking into the whole mess hopeful the Benepapists might be on to something, but a review of the facts quickly pointed to something else. I felt a responsibility to speak up. So, no…not “damage control.”
But glad you seem to admit you all (i.e., Benepapists) are not interested in the “minutiae” (i.e., the facts) regarding the validity of Benedict’s resignation.
Yes, Pope Francis poses serious doctrinal questions which will certainly need to be addressed by a future pope. Those questions can only be settled by a future pope at this point; though my guess is, Francis will get a severer form of the treatment Pope St. Leo II meted out to Honorius. Time will tell.
Until then, folks should not get carried away by the shrill polemics and claims of the arch-benepapists which will only back those who follow them into a schismatic corner.
Regards,
Steve O’Reilly
I admit nothing about the details of Benedict’s resignation. Since the man is dead, the question is moot. But it is clear from your obsession with the issue (which matches that of the Benepapists) that you are fighting a purely tactical battle — the purpose of which is to validate the papacy of Bergoglio against the charges of outraged Catholics. And like all faux traditionalists of the R&R camp, you decline to argue at all about the actual heretical views and pronouncements of the Argentine Antipope, preferring a rather distanced and aloof comment about “serious doctrinal questions.” How convenient! In this way you can urge your fellow Catholics to shut up, obey, and be assured that everything will be decided by some council in the far-distant future. No wonder you like the Latin “Roma Locuta Est.” It’s a fancy way to tell lay Catholics to be silent and stop thinking.
Your fight against the Benepapists has never been about canonical details and resignation procedures and munus-versus-officium definitions. This is just window-dressing. Your purpose is to validate Bergoglio’s papacy, and enable his acts and pronouncements.
And you still haven’t apologized for accusing Ann Barnhardt and Dr. Mazza of being ruled by a love of donations.
None of the post Vatican 2 papal claimants held the Catholic Faith whole and entire.
Benedict was a heretic too and therefore could not have been elected pope.
Ann’s theory holds no water and is why laymen should not be trying to interpret Canon law. She should spend her time studying Ratzinger’s heresies instead.
Vatican 1 was not wrong.
The Church is indefectible.
The conciliar church is not the Catholic Church.
Catherine, I am not writing this to raise a contention or dispute needlesslt, but to invite paleovacantists to study what the Church claimed “indefectability” meansa.
The short end of it is that the Church claims that it will never lose apostolic succession. What does the Church mean by apostolic succession? That, not only will there always be men that can trace their orders back to the apostles, but that they will have ordinary juridiction. No paleovacantist priests or bishop can claim too have ordinary jurisdiction. And when the last bishop appointed by Pius XII died, that means the Church defected for paleovacantists. Or they have to come up with novel theological theories never taught before Vatican II to explain why they are still apostolic.
Neovacantism is the only position still possible. Are you sure that the Church of Darkness prophesied by Anne Catherine Emmerich was talking about the Church after Vatican II and not the synodal church? She talks about a pope and an antipope, not six antipopes. The world did not end 3.5 years after the Novus Ordo mass was instituted.
Schism is here. Anyone can see it, and just reading the comments here it can be observed. The Catholic Church is in schism, right now, today. Francis caused it. Well, he welcomed it, and stated he would probably be the pope to cause schism (he has) and he was “not afraid of it”. And so he did.
I wont wade much into the weeds of pope vs not-pope. Personally, I think an argument can be made both ways. But what I do think is, he is clearly at least an antipope, and could best be labeled “Destroyer”. He is tearing the church apart. I know good Catholics are trying to find the legal remedy, and of course Catholics refer to Canon law and precedence, but by any definition Francis is a heretic. He has trampled on Catholic teaching and tradition in so many ways, when his primary ONE JOB is to defend and pass on the faith intact. What he proposes is a new religion, in no way is it like the former, it is a contradiction to it. As Fulton Sheen rightly said, the false church would be “an ape of the church”, and so it is now. Satan does not create, he mocks, and badly. A Catholic pope who refuses to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament, one of the first habits he established. Refusing to refer to himself as Vicar of Christ. All argument should cease after his October 2019 act of abomination in the Vatican garden and at the Roman church where Pachamama, the demon idol, was enthroned by the pope, taking the place of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is clearly banning the Mass of the Ages, the Holy Mass of all our saints and martyrs, most of our popes, and openly elevates homosexuals and deviants while persecuting and punishing faithful Catholic religous and laity. His “teaching” is globalist, worldly, and insipid drivel. His closing of orders and tossing faithful religious out into the street, even elderly nuns, is indicative of a truly malevolent character, which fits what many already know of him after observing him over ten, arduous years.
How is this man merely Catholic?
In what sense is this man Catholic?
Is what he says, what he has done, what he is doing, in line with all former popes and with Catholic teaching? If not, why is that not sufficient to declare he should be held anathema, and Catholics must not ever consider him pope nor listen to him.
The man has excommunicated himself as a Catholic. Jesus said his sheep would know the voice of the shepherd. Who considers this man’s voice the voice of the shepherd? By these comments we see many do not. We were told that if anyone comes preaching a different gospel, even if he be an angel of light, we should consider him anathema.
Many Catholics do not see Francis as pope, either because of the dodgy abdication, the St. Gallen interference, or the fact that there is nothing Catholic about the man and in fact he has demonstrated in so many ways glaringly anti-Catholic intentions.
We have little hope the careerists-bishops-Cardinals-Catholic pundits will ever find sufficient reason to do anything about the Destroyer.
We need divine intervention.
I second that. When i hear his voice I recoil. Using his office to force an experimental drug on people — which he had no authority or competence whatsoever to do — i had had enough.
Superb and accurate.
What is never mentioned anywhere in the Combox is that Montini, Wojtyla and Ratzinger set the table for Bergoglio. He could not achieve the level of diabolical disorientation without the previous 50 years of drilling holes into the Barque of Peter.
100%
The Church has been in a modernist nosedive for awhile now. Pope Saint Pius X, ora pro nobis!
This was superb thread. Until repeat spammers showed up on it w commercial links.
“If anyone thus speaks, that the Roman Pontiff has only the office of inspection or direction, but not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church spread over the whole world; or, that he possesses only the more important parts, but not the whole plenitude of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate, or over the churches altogether and individually, and over the pastors and the faithful altogether and individually: let him be anathema.”
(First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, Chapters 1, 3; Denz. 1823, 1831)
Benedict denied the primacy of Peter in his Principles of Catholic Theology, wherein he questions the dogma of papal primacy:
“[I]t would be worth our while to consider whether this archaic confession, which has nothing to do with the “primacy of jurisdiction” but confesses a primacy of “honor” … and agape [love], might not be recognized as a formula that adequately reflects the position Rome occupies in the Church. . . .”
So, we are supposed to believe that we had a pope of the Catholic Church who did not understand or believe in the Primacy of Peter? Impossible!
“Miss Shrapnel” “Camden Wright” are the true bullies
Thank you Mr Pentin for allowing this thread to continue. It’s a question that has me tied up in knots also. I’m in good company it seems. Many are on the fence with this issue such as me who have less intellectual capabilities than these folks. Some solace knowing it’s a tough issue for them too. A few private prophecies indicate a large correction by God may take place, possibly in many of our lifetimes. If and when it does take place we may not have the time or inclination to try and resolve this question. Not that we shouldn’t. Thanks again.
This comments section is full of absolute nutters.