Professor Josef Seifert (Edward Pentin)
Catholic philosopher Josef Seifert has said he sees a “terrible danger of a complete collapse of the Catholic Church in many countries” unless cardinals speak up about a “tremendous crisis” within the Church, one he says is possibly the greatest she has ever faced.
In comments following the publication of an open letter he wrote April 30 calling on all cardinals, bishops and Church leaders to stand up for the truth of Catholic teaching in the face of prevailing relativism and situational ethics, Seifert observed what he described as the cardinals’ “frightening silence” on this unique crisis that runs “from the top of the Church down.”
The respected Austrian professor, who in 2017 founded the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family as a counterweight to the once respected Pontifical Academy for Life now led by dissenting Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, said it was his love for the truth and the Church, and the fact that key elements of Pope Francis’ teaching run contrary to Pope St. John Paul II, that prompted him to put pen to paper.
He recalled that in his 1993 encyclical on the moral teaching of the Church, Veritatis Splendor, John Paul II “elucidated magnificently” the truth of recognizing “non-negotiable wrong acts,” defending it against relativist ethical positions which “seek loopholes everywhere” in order to try to justify “adultery, sodomy, contraception, idolatry, apostasy, denial of purgatory, hell and last judgement.”
Tracing such dissent to criticisms of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae which underscored the use of artificial contraception as intrinsically evil, Professor Seifert stressed that the Church’s teaching on the subject has deep roots.
“The anti-baby pill and others, that are already described in the Old Testament as gravely disordered, are intrinsically evil,” he said. He also said that even the Anglicans had issued declarations against artificial contraception, only to then make a “flat contradiction” of their previous teaching at their Lambeth Conference in 1930 when they became first ecclesial communion to allow contraception.
As a result, he said, “tremendous pressure” was placed on Pope Paul VI to adopt the same change, but “the Holy Spirit prevented this,” and Humanae Vitae was written upholding the Church’s perennial teaching. Furthermore, Seifert said, “new studies show” that John Paul II, then Karol Wojtyla, “deeply influenced” that encyclical which practicing Catholics faithful to the Magisterium have long viewed as prophetic. Veritatis Splendor was, in fact, written to counter the dissent against Humanae Vitae.
But Professor Seifert, a senior lecturer in metaphysics and epistemology at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Munich, said that such dissent re-emerged after the publication in 2016 of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, and Francis himself “started to throw doubts on, or even to deny, the essential contents of Holy Scripture and Church teaching.”
“It became incomprehensible to me that none of the cardinals, besides the four dubia cardinals, spoke out clearly against such errors and of obscuring Catholic teaching,” Professor Seifert explained. “Therefore, as in the Arian Crisis, when one bishop, Saint Athanasius, and many laymen, rushed to the defense of truth, it was necessary that even miseri laici [us miserable laity] stood up for the truth.”
Seifert explained that the letter he sent to the College of Cardinals was first sent two and half years ago to a cardinal with whom he was on friendly terms who had said criticism of Pope Francis was a “great evil that should be eradicated.”
When the cardinal replied respectfully but didn’t act, Professor Seifert decided to address the letter to all cardinals and bishops, “not so it would land in wastepaper baskets” but because they have a “holy duty” to warn their brethren, especially in Germany, and the Pope “against any deviation from the perpetual teaching of the truth in the Church.”
Given what he calls the “frightening silence of the majority of cardinals and bishops on this unique crisis from the top of the Church down during a whole decade,” he is not optimistic about receiving a response to his appeal.
But he said he has “hope that the omnipotent God, who is the truth, will awaken the fire of love for truth and for the Church in the hearts of all cardinals and bishops, and will bestow the gift of holy courage on many of them, as he has done already on some cardinals and bishops.”
“I am not at all optimistic but truly hopeful that the cardinals and bishops will no longer watch passively the downfall of the Church which only divine intervention can prevent,” he said. “God wants to use all of us, but especially chooses cardinals and bishops, just as He chose St Paul to spread the Church, and St Athanasius to save it from Arianism and destruction.”
Asked what the consequences might be if they don’t, Seifert replied: “I see a terrible danger of a complete collapse of the Catholic Church in many countries, and indeed of its total destruction in some areas of the world.”
But he added that he knows, not through reason but through a “cruelly tested” faith, that this is “not possible because the truth itself has told us that the gates of hell will not ever prevail against the Church.”
Professor Seifert’s open letter to cardinals and bishops of the Catholic Church.
Edward Pentin
Professor Siefert is spot on laser accurate. He sees what he sees and his heart mind and gut confirm all that he sees. The RCC has purposefully crossed a bridge too far and is within steps of the point of no return…in some countries, in some parts of the world.
Latest example is the Los Angeles Dodgers kick in the groin to the Catholic Church by honoring blasphemy. Six bishops have spoken out clearly on this abomination. Only six.
I am sedevacantist. I hope Vatican II Church collapses, like I hope for all false religions.
The Catholic Church still exists, A remnant (in general terms, sedevacantists who reject all the apostasy). Jesus will keep Catholic Church alive, at size He sees fit.
Now, A kernel, when we get a Pope, and through the Immaculate Heart, we will convert the World to the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ!
I love telling Muslims Our Lady of Fatima Implicitly promises to convert them. And to Jews: I support a CATHOLIC ISRAEL Z, and that after Great Apostasy ends, you all will be studying Saint Pope Pius X the Great catechism, so why not start early?
The facts are: 1) Jorge Bergoglio’s heresy was external and made public and notorious, when as a cardinal, he stated in his book, On Heaven and Earth, in regards to same-sex sexual relationships, and thus same-sex sexual acts, prior to his election as pope, on page 117, demonstrating that he does not hold, keep, or teach The Catholic Faith, and he continues to act accordingly: “If there is a union of a private nature, there is neither a third party, nor is society affected. Now, if the union is given the category of marriage, there could be children affected. Every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help shape their identity.”- Jorge Bergoglio, denying The Sanctity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and the fact that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, while denying sin done in private is sin. 2) The validity of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, may not have been valid, https://gloria.tv/post/2P32sh2Etvb84EghH47uiewdi, https://sancrucensis.wordpress.com/2019/10/28/the-popes-two-bodies-the-the-weinandy-farrow-thesis-as-lancastrian-ecclesiology/ even if the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI was valid, the election process itself was not valid: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/01/10/the-election-of-pope-francis-is-informative-and-captivating-and-raises-many-questions/
“It is not possible to have Sacramental Communion without Ecclesial Communion”, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost” (Filioque), For “It Is Through Christ, With Christ, And In Christ, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost”, that Holy Mother Church, outside of which there is no Salvation, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque ) exists.
“For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the Revelation, the Deposit of Faith, delivered through the Apostles. ”
Jorge Bergoglio, prior to his election as Pope, was not in communion with Christ, and thus not in communion with every validly elected Pope.
Blessed Mother Mary, Mirror Of Justice And Destroyer Of All Heresy, Who Through Your Fiat, Affirmed The Filioque, and thus the fact that There Is Only One Son Of God, One Word Of God Made Flesh, One Lamb Of God Who Can Taketh Away The Sins Of The World, Our Only Savior, Jesus The Christ, thus there can only be, One Spirit Of Perfect Complementary Love Between The Father And The Son, Who Must Proceed From Both The Father And The Son, In The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity (Filioque), hear our Prayer that A True Pope, and those Faithful Bishops In Communion With Christ and His Church, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, will do The Consecration Of Russia to your Immaculate Heart, exactly as you requested, visibly separating the counterfeit church from The True Church Of Christ, and affirming The Filioque.
In regards to your statements on Pope Francis and homosexuality: it seems by your denial of what Francis wrote you would only consider marriages valid if they are Sacramental. But if that is the case, how could anyone not Catholic be married?
If we think of ourselves as being Christians – followers of Christ – how can we think of a true marriage as being anything less than that which has been blessed by Christ? A true marriage is one blest by Christ, it is thus Sacramental.
Legal societies may choose to call any union a marriage, but are all society-approved unions blest by Christ?
I think it is the case that a man and woman marry each other. The Church witnesses the marriage and declares it to be a sacrament. The marriage is only broken by death. The Church, I believe, recognizes marriages performed in the Protestant churches. When we became Catholics we did not have to remarry.
Francis doesn’t hold the Catholic faith? Agreed, obvious. Benedict didn’t either. From where I’m sitting, Benedict was a destroyer, a heretic since Vatican II and before. He sure knee how to wear nice traditional vestments.
The Catholic Church more than ever needs Christian witnesses like the late Cardinal George Pell. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.
Pell accepted that non Catholic churches are used by God as means of salvation. He had some traditional leanings, but this is heresy.
Scripture is the basis for the perpetual teaching of the truth in the Church. Are the teachers in the Church willing to get back to basics?
I have opined repeatedly that Bergoglio must go. His spiritual state is as grotesque as his bodily one — morbidly obese and colon compromised. Those capable of but failing to bring his pontificate to an end are as guilty as he is of what has happened to the Roman Catholic faith.
Professor Seifert is a very admirable man! He expresses what many faithful Catholics fear, namely that the RCC is facing a collapse in many parts of the world if the Cardinals don’t speak up.
I sincerely believe that the gay lobby has taken control of the RCC. Much thanks to the silence and lack of courage by Bishops and Cardinals.
I will pray for Professor Seifert every day! And that his wise words of warning will be heard!
Makes one wonder if there exists a cabal of Bishops who are in lock step of a “couldn’t care less” mentality. Or, conversely, so weak in the proverbial knees, they succumb to marching orders from a higher up personage. Either way, good Catholics struggling to make sense of our Catholic Church today are feeling sunk.
The Catholic Church is spotless bride of Christ. Don’t let heretics, freemasons, communists pretending to be Bishops and popes make you lose faith in Holy Mother Church. The Church Francis (and befithat, Benedict, John Paul II etc) ain’t the Catholic Church.
The Catholic church is in eclipse, hidden almost, perfect. We just have almost no property, no pope, only sacramental bishops.
Catholics, sedevacantists, are worldwide. This is Great Apostasy, great deception.
Foreshadowed.
My gosh, they are worshipping idols in the Vatican and sedes are the problem?😅😅😅
Amen. Catholics are suffering from a major identity crisis. They need to be taught what they believe by fearless leaders who haven’t given in to the insidious theology of accommodation in the name of tolerance that rules popular Western culture.
See : « Fall of Father Dr. Wolfgang Rothe alias “Whiskey-Vikar”
(… And he fell, and his fall was great – Mt 7,27) » :
https://gloria.tv/post/LUpCzi9KybgA23DjcZtZGjKNw
or
https://www.salon24.pl/u/edalward/1290891,the-fall-of-father-dr-wolfgang-rothe
Xaw Ma