Bishop Fellay's Hermeneutic of Hubris

by Thomas A. Droleskey

After seven months of not saying very little, if anything at all, about Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, whose abject Modernism has been on display for the whole world to see and to admire him as one of its own, Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, has come to the "revelation" that the currently reigning universal public face of apostasy is a "genuine Modernist:"

 

What Gospel does he have? Which Bible does he have to say such things. It’s horrible. What has this to do with the Gospel? With the Catholic Faith. That’s pure Modernism, my dear brethren. We have in front of us a genuine Modernist.” (Bishop Fellay on Pope Francis - “What we have before us is a genuine Modernist!”).

Really?

"Pope Francis" is a "genuine Modernist"?

Really?

The absurdity of all of this is evident to those who have the intellectual honesty and integrity to see and to admit.

Yes, Bishop Bernard Fellay has found his "tough side" again, something that was all too characteristic of the Society of Saint Pius X's founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (please see Bishop Donald Sanborn's The Mountains of Gelboe for an excellent recitation of the Archbishop's inconsistencies and contradictions), while discoursing in Kansas City, Missouri, on Sunday, October 13, 2013, the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of Saint Edward the Confessor.

Respect for the fact that Bishop Fellay is a Successor of the Apostles keeps this writer from relying on satire to mock his rank opportunism and positivism in the past eight years as he has, at least for the most part, kept utterly silent about the multiple offenses given to the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity and the immeasurable harm that was done to souls by a penultimate Modernist by way of the "new theology," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. One article, What Lines Are You Reading Between, Bishop Fellay?, provided a summary of these offenses while another, Mister Asteroid Is Looking Pretty Good Right About Now, updated that summary in the context of Ratzinger/Benedict's then pending retirement. What can be said, however, is that Bishop Fellay has found his own "hermeneutic" at long last, and it can be called the "Hermeneutic of Hubris."

Bishop Fellay remained silent as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict propagated his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity" that is nothing other than the "evolution of dogma" condemned by the [First] Vatican Council and by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and in The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. Bishop Fellay not only kept his mouth shut about this, he actually endorsed it shortly after the "doctrinal preamble" that had been presented to him by William "Cardinal" Levada, the then prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Destruction, Deformation and Deconstruction of the Faith, in April of 2012.

This is what Bishop Fellay told the official news service of the so-called United States Conference of Catholic Bishops seventeen months ago now:

 

MENZINGEN, Switzerland (CNS) -- The leader of a breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics spoke in unusually hopeful terms about a possible reconciliation with Rome, but acknowledged significant internal resistance to such a move, which he said might lead to the group splitting apart.

Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society of St. Pius X, spoke to Catholic News Service May 11 at the society's headquarters in Switzerland about the latest events in more than two years of efforts at reconciliation with the Vatican.

The society effectively broke with Rome in 1988, when its founder, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ordained four bishops without the permission of Blessed John Paul II in a protest against modernizing changes that followed the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65.

In April the society responded to a "doctrinal preamble" stipulating the group's assent to certain church teachings, presumably including elements of the teaching of Vatican II, as a prerequisite for reconciliation. The Vatican has yet to respond, but the director of the Vatican press office initially described the latest position as a "step forward."

The society is hardly united behind its leader's position, however. In April, according to a letter which surfaced on the Internet May 10, the society's other three bishops warned Bishop Fellay that the Vatican's apparent offer to establish the group as a personal prelature -- a status currently held only by Opus Dei -- constituted a "trap," and urged him to say no.

"There are some discrepancies in the society," Bishop Fellay told CNS. "I cannot exclude that there might be a split."

But the bishop defended his generally favorable stance toward the Vatican's offer against the objections of his peers.

"I think that the move of the Holy Father -- because it really comes from him -- is genuine. There doesn't seem to be any trap," he said. "So we have to look into it very closely and if possible move ahead."

He cautioned, however, that the two sides still have not arrived at an agreement, and that unspecified guarantees from the Vatican are still pending. He said the guarantees are related to the society's traditional liturgical practices and teachings, among other areas.

"The thing is not yet done," the bishop said. "We need some reasonable understanding that the proposed structure and conditions are workable. We are not going to do suicide there, that's very clear."

Bishop Fellay insisted the impetus for a resolution comes from Pope Benedict XVI.

"Personally, I would have wished to wait for some more time to see things clearer," he said, "but once again it really appears that the Holy Father wants it to happen now."

Bishop Fellay spoke appreciatively of what he characterized as the pope's efforts to correct "progressive" deviations from Catholic teaching and tradition since Vatican II. "Very, very delicately -- he tries not to break things -- but tries also to put in some important corrections," the bishop said.

Although he stopped short of endorsing Pope Benedict's interpretation of Vatican II as essentially in continuity with the church's tradition -- a position which many in the society have vocally disputed -- Bishop Fellay spoke about the idea in strikingly sympathetic terms.

"I would hope so," he said, when asked if Vatican II itself belongs to Catholic tradition.

"The pope says that ... the council must be put within the great tradition of the church, must be understood in accordance with it. These are statements we fully agree with, totally, absolutely," the bishop said. "The problem might be in the application, that is: is what happens really in coherence or in harmony with tradition?"

Insisting that "we don't want to be aggressive, we don't want to be provocative," Bishop Fellay said the Society of St. Pius X has served as a "sign of contradiction" during a period of increasing progressive influence in the church. He also allowed for the possibility that the group would continue to play such a role even after reconciliation with Rome.

"People welcome us now, people will, and others won't," he said. "If we see some discrepancies within the society, definitely there are also (divisions) in the Catholic Church."

"But we are not alone" in working to "defend the faith," the bishop said. "It's the pope himself who does it; that's his job. And if we are called to help the Holy Father in that, so be it." (Traditionalist leader says group could divide over unity with Rome.)

Bishop Fellay ignored the simple truth that the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes," including that of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, is incompatible with the Catholic Faith. Anyone at this late date who continues to reconcile the irreconcilable and to ignore that which provides absolute proof of the absurdity of this effort, something that many of us, this writer most especially included, did for far too long, is being intellectual dishonest, and no amount of "strategy" or positivistic "hopefulness" filled with supposed "good intentions" can redeem a failure to call heresy by its proper name.

Bishop Fellay continued his positivism a month later when he gave one of his infamous canned interviews with DICI, the official news service of the Society of Saint Pius X:

DICI: Most of those who are opposed to the Society’s acceptance of a possible canonical recognition allege that the doctrinal discussions could have led to this acceptance only if they had concluded with a doctrinal solution, in other words, a “conversion” by Rome. Has your position on this point changed?

Bishop Fellay: It must be acknowledged that these discussions have allowed us to present clearly the various problems that we experience with regard to Vatican II. What has changed is the fact that Rome no longer makes total acceptance of Vatican II a prerequisite for the canonical solution. Today, in Rome, some people regard a different understanding of the Council as something that is not decisive for the future of the Church, since the Church is more than the Council. Indeed, the Church cannot be reduced to the Council; she is much larger. Therefore we must strive to resolve more far-reaching problems. This new awareness can help us to understanding what is really happening: we are called to help bring to others the treasure of Tradition that we have been able to preserve.

So the attitude of the official Church is what changed; we did not. We were not the ones who asked for an agreement; the pope is the one who wants to recognize us. You may ask: why this change? We are still not in agreement doctrinally, and yet the pope wants to recognize us! Why? The answer is right in front of us: there are terribly important problems in the Church today. These problems must be addressed. We must set aside the secondary problems and deal with the major problems. This is the answer of one or another Roman prelate, although they will never say so openly; you have to read between the lines to understand.

The official authorities do not want to acknowledge the errors of the Council. They will never say so explicitly. Nevertheless, if you read between the lines, you can see that they hope to remedy some of these errors. Here is an interesting example on the subject of the priesthood. You know that starting with the Council there was a new concept of the priesthood and that it demolished the role of the priest. Today we see very clearly that the Roman authorities are trying to rehabilitate the true concept of the priest. We observed this already during the Year of the Priest that took place in 2010-2011. Now, the Feast of the Sacred Heart is becoming the day consecrated to the sanctification of priests. For this occasion, a letter was published and an examination of conscience for priests was composed. One might think that they went to Ecône to find this examination of conscience, it is so much along the lines of pre-conciliar spirituality. This examination presents the traditional image of the priest, and also of his role in the Church. This role is what Archbishop Lefebvre affirms when he describes the Society’s mission: to restore the Church by restoring the priest. (Rome-SSPX - Important: Interview with SSPX Superior General Bp. Fellay on current affairs.)

Bishop Fellay was serving as just as much a spin doctor for Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J., proved himself to be after he had replaced Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's own spin doctor, Opus Dei's Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls on July 11, 2006, who had served Ratzinger/Benedict for the fifteen months of his false "pontificate."

Not to be outdone in waxing in prosaic wonder at the "generosity" of Ratzinger/Benedict, whose intention in issuing Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, was to "pacify the spirits" of traditionally-minded Catholics who were hostile to the "Second" Vatican Council and to the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service so as to "synthesize" elements of the "old Mass" with those of the new in a "reform of the reform, was Bishop Fellay's first assistant, Father Nicholas Pfluger, who said the following in a sermon on Pentecost Sunday last year:

 

That was actually our argument, and then this Pope comes and says: Stop! The council is being interpreted falsely. That was his famous sermon, an important talk, in December, 22 December, 2005, where he said we need a new interpretation of the council. Up until now, people have been abusing the council, in the name of the council, but that isn't what the council wanted. We need a new interpretation and using the greek term, a new hermeneutic, a new understanding... it's not bad, 40 years after the council, to understand the council correctly, and the correct understanding of the council is the hermeneutic of reform.

So it isn't a contradiction after all, no discontinuity between the council and tradition. It is a continuity, and this continuity is made visible through a healthy reform. That is important for the reason that from now on this is the idea that defines his pontificate. Everything that he does, and thereby the permission for, or the liberation of the ancient mass, plays a very decisive role, everything he does, everything he attempts, is to show that there isn't a break. The council, our main argument for this resistance, for holding firmly to Tradition, for rejecting the ideas of the council, the important ideas of the council -- the Pope wants to say that this argument is no argument at all. It is just... it is just a matter of harmonious development of tradition, this Second Vatican Council. (http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42305.)

Bishop Fellay rained down nothing other than rank terror upon anyone and everyone within the Society of Saint Pius X, starting with Bishop Richard Williamson and Father Joseph Pfeiffer, who went on to organize the "Society of Saint Pius X of the Strict Observance" who dared to criticize the "doctrinal preamble," which Fellay did not sign as the "reservations" he included in a response to "Cardinal" Levada were rejected out of hand (thus making my own very confident prediction of a "happy reconciliation" between the Society of Saint Pius X and the conciliar officials to have been, to put it mildly, completely wrong). Numerous members of the laity in the Society's chapels were expelled. Efforts were made to keep Archbishop Lefebvre's own sermons off the internet as Bishop Fellay claimed "copyright" ownership of them. Families were divided. Friends were estranged. Bishop Fellay was willing to act in a completely ruthless and relentless manner for the sake of appeasing his partner in "ecumenical dialogue," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

Bishop Fellay's reign of terror upon "dissenters" continues at the very time he finally comes out of his fox hole to declare that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is a "pure Modernist" as he is mandating that each of the chapels administered by the Society of Saint Pius X hang the "Modernist pope's" photograph on its walls, thus continuing the pure schizophrenia that is the Society of Saint Pius X's erroneous Gallicanism wherein Catholics are taught to believe that the teaching of what is thought to be the Catholic Church as explicated by true popes must be sifted by "experts" to determine its orthodoxy and that it is possible for the Catholic Church to promulgate liturgical rites that are offensive to God and defective doctrinally.

Consider also just a few more examples of how very hard Bishop Bernard Fellay and his subordinates worked to spin for the man who esteemed the symbols of false religions with his own priestly hands, entered into synagogues and mosques as he termed them "sacred" places, taught that the Old Covenant had never been abrogated, extolled the virtues and some of the teaching of Martin Luther and advanced "religious liberty" and separation of Church and State as cornerstones of his life's work, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, during the eight years in which he, Bishop Fellay, lived in a sort of "Bat Cave" and kept critics from within muzzled and on a very short leash, usually by sending them to Asian outposts so that they could have no contact with Bishop Williamson and other such "renegades:"

 

On August 11, 2007, I attended the talk given by Bishop Bernard Fellay in Cordoba, Argentina.

I was surprised to hear him stating that Vatican II can be accepted if interpreted according to tradition, as the Vatican and Benedict XVI want us to believe. I positively don’t think so. I believe Vatican II was a revolution in the Church, as Cardinal Suenens qualified it. Actually it opened the doors for all the destruction of the Catholic Church we witnessed in the last four decades.

He also tried to justify Paul VI and presented him under a good light, saying that everything he did was the responsibility of the counsel of secretaries, who really decided what to do in his pontificate. Bishop Fellay went so far as to exonerate Paul VI for the Novus Ordo Mass he approved. According to him, Paul VI signed it without reading it, since he entirely trusted those secretaries.

It gave me the impression that this talk was meant to create an atmosphere of distension among traditionalists toward Vatican II and the “reform of the reform” of Pope Benedict XVI, in order to soften reactions. (An Eyewitness Account: Fellay, Buddhism, Text and Context )

MAINZ, February 18 [2009]- A representative of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has announced that Holocaust denier Richard Williamson could be expelled from the priestly fraternity unless he withdraws his statements on the Holocaust by the end of February.

Fr. Matthias Gaudron said in a program on ZDF German Television that the SSPX has given the English-born bishop until the end of February to make his retraction.

"As traditional Catholics, we have no reason to downplay Hitler's crimes or in any way to describe the Nazi regime as any less horrible than it was," Fr. Gaudron said, adding that "Fr. Williamson has caused great harm to our society" [by his statements on the Holocaust]. (Bishop Williamson May be Expelled from his own Order.)

DICI : What are your thoughts on the appointment of Archbishop Mueller as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith?

Bishop Fellay : It is nobody’s secret that the former bishop of Regensburg, where our seminary of Zaitzkofen is located, does not like us. After the courageous action of Benedict XVI on our behalf, in 2009, he refused to cooperate and treated us like if we were lepers! He is the one who stated that our seminary should be closed and that our students should go to the seminaries of their dioceses of origin, adding bluntly that “the four bishops of the SSPX should resign”! (cf. interview with Zeit Online, 8 May 2009).

For us what is more important and more alarming is his leading role at the head of the Congregation for the Faith, which must defend the Faith with the proper mission of fighting doctrinal errors and heresy. Numerous writings of Bishop Mueller on the real transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, on the dogma of Our Lady’s virginity, on the need of conversion of non-Catholics to the Catholic Church… are questionable, to say the least! There is no doubt that these texts would have been in the past the object of an intervention of the Holy Office, which now is the very Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith presided by him. (Bishop Fellay Spins a Tale after Having His Head Handed to Him.)

This is what I wrote last year by way of response to Bishop Fellay's efforts to drive a wedge between Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his own hand-picked appointee to replace William Levada as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Destruction, Deformation and Deconstruction of the Faith, Gerhard Ludwig Muller:

 

As noted two days ago in Rebels in Rerun Season, part two, Bishop Fellay and others in the "resist but recognize" camp made a conscious decision in 2005 to give Ratzinger/Benedict the same kind of "pass" that many of us in the "conservative" camp in the 1980s an early-1990s did with Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II as he retained "bad" "bishops" (John McGann, Francis Mugavero, Rembert Weakland, John Quinn, John Roach, Robert Brom, Daniel Pilarcyzk, et al.) even though we "knew" that our "pope" was going to "restore" what we thought was the Catholic Church when he thought that the time was "right" to do so. So what if the Polish "pope" appointed men such as Joseph Bernardin and Roger Mahony to the second and third largest Catholic archdioceses in the United States of America? He was just getting "bad advice." 

This is essentially what Bishop Fellay did when he criticized "Archbishop" Gerhard Ludwig Muller's multiple defections from the Catholic Faith while ignoring this simple fact: JOSEPH RATZINGER/BENEDICT XVI HAS KNOWN GERHARD LUDWIG MULLER FOR DECAES. HE LIKES HIM. HE AGREES WITH HIM. HE APPPOINTED HIM KNOWING FULL WELL WHAT HE HAS WRITTEN AND THUS WHAT HE BELIEVES. Pardon me, I very rarely write in such a manner. However, I am a New Yorker even if I am living in Ohio. As a New Yorker, you see, I would be screaming this very loudly at Bishop Fellay if he was within earshot of my  booming, sonorous voice. One has to suspend all rationality and pretend that those who will read insanity are completely stupid and without any ability to recognize the simple fact that Gerhard Ludwig Muller is not the problem right now. The false religion of conciliarism that spawned him, a false religion that was cultivated and nurtured by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict, which is why the false "pope" desires to appoint men such as Muller who are as committed to its propagation and institutionalization in the name of the "new evangelization" as he is.

Poor, poor, desperate Bishop Fellay, so eager to seek to protect and indemnify the very man who appointed Gerhard Ludwig Muller to be the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Here is a memorandum of interest to Bishop Fellay:

Item One: It is nobody's secret, to borrow your phrase, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did not stop Gerhard Ludwig Miller from criticizing the the Society of Saint Pius X after the false "pontiff" lifted the "excommunications" on January 21, 2009, that Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II had imposed upon the four bishops who were consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and co-consecrated by Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer on June 30, 1988.

Item Two: It is nobody's secret, to borrow your phrase for a second time, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did not reprimand Gerhard Ludwig Muller for calling for the closing of the Society of Saint Pius X Seminary in Regensburg, Germany.

Item Three: It is nobody's secret, to borrow your phrase for a third time, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's officials continued to warn the Society of Saint Pius X that its priestly ordinations continued to be illicit even though the "excommunications" had been "lifted."  

Item Four: It is nobody's secret, to borrow your phrase for a fourth time, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, appointed Gerhard Ludwig Muller as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith knowing full well his countryman's heretical views on Transubstantiation, Our Lady's Perpetual Virginity and his refusal to seek the conversion of non-Catholics to the Catholic Church. You see, Bishop Fellay, it is nobody's secret that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI shares each of those views perfectly.

You state, quite correctly, Bishop Fellay, that Gerhard Ludwig Muller's writings would have been "the object of an intervention of the Holy Office." It seems to be a "secret" to you, Bishop Fellay, that Father Joseph Ratzinger himself was under suspicion of heresy for his own writings by the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII, a fact that was noted when he was appointed by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI to the "International Theological Commission" at is insipid inception on April 28, 1969:

On 28 April 1969, Paul VI announced the foundation of the International Theological Commission, a organ intended to be parallel to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

On that occasion, the serious French magazine Informations Catholiques Internationales (n. 336 - May 15, 1969, p. 9), reported the story and gave the list of the 30 theologians chosen for the Commission (below in French). Among them, we translate this description:

 

Joseph RATZINGER: German, age 45, dogmatic theology, ecumenism; previously suspect [of heresy] by the Holy Office; member of the Faith and Ecumenism Commission; outstanding work in collaboration with Karl Rahner: Primacy and Episcopate.

Other theologians also under suspicion by the Holy Office were Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. (Joseph Ratzinger under suspicion of heresy.)

Why the selective memory, Bishop Fellay? You do a grave disservice to the cause of truth, leaving aside the disservice done to the cause of truth by the whole false position of "resist but recognize" taken by the Society in the first place.

Bishop Fellay's planned "reconciliation" with Rome, for which he had started a Rosary Crusade, that required silence in the face of grave offenses to God came to a crashing halt last year because of internal opposition from within the rank and file membership of the Society of Saint Pius X and because the counterfeit church of conciliarism's Talmudic minders began to raise massive objections:

 

The Catholic splinter group Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) sent a letter of reconciliation to the Vatican, which Der Spiegel magazine defined as “the greatest gift to the papacy of Benedict XVI.” Pope Joseph Ratzinger has long wanted to heal the schism with the Society and bring the followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre back into the Church.

Richard Williamson, one of four Society bishops whose excommunications the Pope revoked, made global headlines by publicly denying the Holocaust.

Sources now say that an agreement between the Catholic Church and the Society is “imminent” and they are closer to reconciliation.

The National Catholic Register put it this way: “Get ready for SSPX Pandemonium.”

Yet hatred for Israel and the Jews permeates not only Williamson’s fringe, but the entire Catholic Society.

The Vatican’s unity with Lefebvre’s group would be a renovation of the “Adversus Judeaos” teachings that spurred pogroms, burnings at the stake, the Inquisition and the gas chambers. It’s the same medieval European hatred of the people of Israel which was so intense that all calamities were attributed to the Jews’ malfeasance.

The Italian branch of the Society just chose a new head, Pierpaolo Petrucci, whose positions on the Jews are the exact copy of Williamson's. Petrucci published an essay on the website of the Society, stating: “About the Jews, Joseph Ratzinger calls them ‘Fathers in faith’. What does it mean? Supporting Israel’s policy despite the Palestinian question? Supporting the Jewish religion? If that’s the case, how can the Church approve a false religion which rejects Jesus Christ?”

Petrucci calls the Jews “rejecters of Christ” and claims that “the Church always condemned Judaism as a false religion, praying for the conversion (of the Jews,) so that they will reach salvation, seriously compromised by their superstitions.”

The Society’s bulletin, La Tradizione Cattolica, calls Judaism “a false cult” and spreads delusional material on “the Jew Karl Marx” and “the Jews sleeping in the shadow of death.”

The Society’s US website calls the Jews “enemy of man, whose secret weapon is the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy.”

The South African site claims that “Jews have come closer and closer to fulfilling their substitute-Messianic drive towards world dominion.”

The Belgian site accuses Jews of “still believing they are the chosen people” while “awaiting world domination.”

This is even worse than the lunatic statements of Williamson denying the existence of Auschwitz.

It’s the cornerstone of the displacement Christian myth, which rings a genocidal note.

Franz Schmidberger, the right-hand man of superior Bishop Bernard Fellay, asked for the Jews’ conversion and called them “complicit in deicide.”

Another bishop pardoned by the Pope, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, said that “the Jews are the most active artisans for the coming of Antichrist.”

If the Vatican welcomes back the Society, Jewish rabbis should halt their dialogue with the Church and Israeli officials should declare the Society’s leaders “personae non grata.” Any Jewish-Christian rapprochement would be not only futile, but extremely dangerous.

It is incumbent upon Pope Benedict to atone for what Christianity has done to the Jewish people by recognizing the unique role of the Jews in this world and the existence of a restored Israel as the proof that the Jewish people is not annihilated, assimilated and withering away.

Otherwise, Christian anti-Semitism will remain an inextinguishable fire and Catholicism will be embracing, again, a proto-Holocaust theology. (Vatican embracing anti-Semitism.)

Bishop Fellay was furious with the "elder brethren" for interfering with his plans for a "recognition" in what he called nine years ago within my own hearing the "conciliar zoo" to make the Society of Saint Pius X a "full, active and conscious participation" within it along with Focolare, the "Catholic" Charismatic Movement, Cursillo, the Sant'Egidio Community, the Shalom Catholic Community, the Chemin Neuf Community, the International Community of Faith and Light, Regnum Christi, Communion and Liberation, the Emmanuel Community, the Seguimi Lay Group of Human-Christian Promotion, and. among many, many others, the Neocatechumenal Way while claiming to be working from "within" for the restoration of the Catholic Church. There never can be a restoration, however, based upon an admixture of truth and error. Never.

Bishop Fellay let it rip against the "elder brethren" nine months and one-half months ago in another of his infamous conferences after he had rejected the "hermeneutic of continuity" about which he had spoken so favorably just six months previously:

 

And so, so from the start this text we could not accept. And that's what I told Rome: we can't accept. I told it even two times. The first time, I tried to remain broad because my aim was to demolish the frame which they were trying to impose to us. This frame is called the Hermeneutic of the Continuity. That means that we have to interpret, or to understand, they pretend that the Council is in the line of Tradition, and that's the only way, we have to the Council in the light, not only the light, but to say that the Council is traditional. And we say no, that's not true, we say, that we should that we should understand that we should understand anything that comes from Rome in the light of Tradition, it's the only Catholic way, but precisely this Council, with this Council, we can't do that because the texts are opposed to Tradition, they're contrary; what they say in the Council has been condemned before. Especially Religious Liberty, but also Ecumenism for example, very clearly the contrary.

And so, we say: no it doesn't work. Doesn't work. But, I didn't want to go into the details, I just wanted to , so to say, to *ppprrr* to explode the frame. Because they said if I go into the details, they will change the details but they will try to remain, to remind, to keep the frame. So I say no, it doesn't work. They were not happy with it, and they called me and they asked me if I could not be more precise. [0:25:09] I said OK, I will do it that, I will do that. So I sent a second answer. It was not that I would correct the first, no. It was exactly the same answer, but more precise, according to their text. . . .

And the same with the Church! It’s OUR Church! It’s sick, we pray for it, we do what we can. We try not to be burned, once again. So we take our.. our.. our.. precautions. We must – there’s no other way. Now, when will the time come? This is very difficult to answer. I frankly, personally, I don’t think that this is possible until the head is in our favor. Because the fight is too, too heavy. And the head, that means the Pope, must be absolutely convinced of the necessity of Tradition. The fight might continue in the Church, but as long as we don’t have that, I don’t see really any concrete, serious possibility to go ahead, because it’s too dangerous, too dangerous. We have many enemies, many enemies. But look and that’s very interesting. Who, during that time, was the most opposed that the Church would recognize the Society? The ENEMIES of the Church. The Jews, the Masons, the [Modernists]! The most opposed that the Society would be recognized as a Catholic: the ENEMIES of the Church! Interesting, isn’t it? More than that, what was the point? (Transcript of Bishop Fellay's Meandering Musings, December 28, 2012.)

One's head spins.

One's eyes roll at the sheer madness of making an effort to claim an openness to the "hermeneutic of continuity" when an agreement appeared between the Society of Saint Pius X and the Occupy Vatican Movement appeared likely in May of last year before claiming eight months later to have been firmly opposed to it all along.

As has been demonstrated amply earlier in this commentary, such an effort by Bishop Fellay on December 28, 2012, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, hinged on those who follow the "recognize while resist" ecclesiology that is just as damaging to Catholic dogma on the Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church and the nature of Papal Infallibility as the "new ecclesiology" of the conciliar revolutionaries not remembering anything Bishop Fellay had said to the contrary just six months beforehand. 

Thus it is that His Excellency's open admission that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is a "genuine Modernist" comes after seven months' worth of his almost daily harangues against "restorationists" and "Pharisees" and "Pelagians" and "legalists" that continued even as late as yesterday morning at the daily session of the Ding Dong School Of Apostasy at the Casa Santa Marta inside the walls of the Occupied Vatican on the West Bank of the Tiber River, which will be the subject of the next original commentary to be published on this site.

Perhaps Bishop Fellay should review the links provided in Appendix A to the numerous articles on this site that have appeared since Thursday, March 14, 2013, about Bergoglio/Francis's Modernism. His Excellency should also review the massive documentation about Bergoglio/Francis and his own false ecclesiology provided at the Novus Ordo Wire, which is updated regularly.

Bishop Fellay has made one catastrophically false, blasphemous statement after another in the past eight years to avoid coming to the conclusion that even Archbishop Lefebvre said in 1986 was possible, that the Chair of Saint Peter was vacant. To say that the Holy Mother Church is "sick" is offensive to pious ears as she is the spotless and virginal Mystical Spouse of her Divine Bridegroom and Invisible Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Quite despite what the leaders of the Society of Saint Pius X have contended, although errors have existed to a greater or lesser extent in the minds of Catholics during various times in the history of Holy Mother Church, Holy Mother Church cannot be stained by any taint of error, as pope after pope has taught us:

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.)

Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely Wise, Good, and Just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which  it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

10. So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly." The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills." For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

Please note that Pope Gregory XVI wrote that the truth can be found in the Catholic Church without "even a slight tarnish of error."

Please note that Pope Leo XIII stressed that the Catholic Church "makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the command which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity."

Please note that that Pope Pius XI explained that the Catholic Church brings forth her teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men."

Anyone who says that this has been done by the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which has made its "reconciliation" with the false principles of Modernity that leave no room for the confessionally Catholic civil state and the Social Reign of Christ the King, is not thinking too clearly (and that is as about as charitably as I can put the matter) or is being, perhaps more accurately, intellectually dishonest. If the conciliar church has brought forth its teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men," why is there such disagreement even between the "progressive" conciliarists and "conservative" conciliarists concerning the proper "interpretation" of the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath? Or does this depend upon what one means by "ease and security"?

No, the Catholic Church has never endorsed error in any of her officials documents and we have never seen anything like the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges that have characterized the the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes" in the past fifty-four years now.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., explained in but one sentence the simple fact those steeped in error cannot have any part in the Catholic Church, meaning that Federico Lombardi's desire to put aside "differences" is of the devil, not of God:

 

There is a fatal instinct in error, which leads it to hate the Truth; and the true Church, by its unchangeableness, is a perpetual reproach to them that refuse to be her children. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, commentary on the life of Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen.)

The true Church, the Catholic Church, cannot countenance falsehood and error.

The Society of Saint Pius X adheres to errors of Gallicanism that were denounced by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794. False or confusing doctrines and liturgies that give rise to sacrileges and are profanations by their very nature can never come from the spotless Mystical Bride of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which is precisely why the canonical doctrine, which is true in and of its nature, that teaches us the See of Peter is vacant in the case of heresy applies in these times.

Conciliarism is either the same thing as Catholicism or it is not. It is that simple. And the use of reason informed by the Holy Faith instructs us that contradictories cannot be true. Concilairism is not Catholicism, and it is well past time for the Society of Saint Pius X to recognize that their approach is nothing other than a recrudescence of the old spirit of Jansenism that was condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, and satirized so brilliant by Bishop Emile Bougaud on the Nineteenth Century and condemned as well by Pope Pius IX in The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864:

 

6. The doctrine of the synod by which it professes that "it is convinced that a bishop has received from Christ all necessary rights for the good government of his diocese," just as if for the good government of each diocese higher ordinances dealing either with faith and morals, or with general discipline, are not necessary, the right of which belongs to the supreme Pontiffs and the General Councils for the universal Church,—schismatic, at least erroneous.

7. Likewise, in this, that it encourages a bishop "to pursue zealously a more perfect constitution of ecclesiastical discipline," and this "against all contrary customs, exemptions, reservations which are opposed to the good order of the diocese, for the greater glory of God and for the greater edification of the faithful"; in that it supposes that a bishop has the right by his own judgment and will to decree and decide contrary to customs, exemptions, reservations, whether they prevail in the universal Church or even in each province, without the consent or the intervention of a higher hierarchic power, by which these customs, etc., have been introduced or approved and have the force of law,—leading to schism and subversion of hierarchic rule, erroneous.

8. Likewise, in that it says it is convinced that "the rights of a bishop received from Jesus Christ for the government of the Church cannot be altered nor hindered, and, when it has happened that the exercise of these rights has been interrupted for any reason whatsoever, a bishop can always and should return to his original rights, as often as the greater good of his church demands it"; in the fact that it intimates that the exercise of episcopal rights can be hindered and coerced by no higher power, whenever a bishop shall judge that it does not further the greater good of his church,—leading to schism, and to subversion of hierarchic government, erroneous. (Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794.)

The violent attacks of Protestantism against the Papacy, its calumnies and so manifest, the odious caricatures it scattered abroad, had undoubtedly inspired France with horror; nevertheless the sad impressions remained. In such accusations all, perhaps, was not false. Mistrust was excited., and instead of drawing closer to the insulted and outraged Papacy, France stood on her guard against it. In vain did Fenelon, who felt the danger, write in his treatise on the "Power of the Pope," and, to remind France of her sublime mission and true role in the world, compose his "History of Charlemagne." In vain did Bossuet majestically rise in the midst of that agitated assembly of 1682, convened to dictate laws to the Holy See, and there, in most touching accents, give vent to professions of fidelity and devotedness toward the Chair of St. Peter. We already notice in his discourse mention no longer made of the "Sovereign Pontiff." The "Holy See," the "Chair of St. Peter," the "Roman Church," were alone alluded to. First and alas! too manifest signs of coldness in the eyes of him who knew the nature and character of France! Others might obey through duty, might allow themselves to be governed by principle--France, never! She must be ruled by an individual, she must love him that governs her, else she can never obey.

These weaknesses should at least have been hidden in the shadow of the sanctuary, to await the time in which some sincere and honest solution of the misunderstanding could be given. But no! parliaments took hold of it, national vanity was identified with it. A strange spectacle was now seen. A people the most Catholic in the world; kings who called themselves the Eldest Sons of the Church and who were really such at heart; grave and profoundly Christian magistrates, bishops, and priests, though in the depths of their heart attached to Catholic unity,--all barricading themselves against the head of the Church; all digging trenches and building ramparts, that his words might not reach the Faithful before being handled and examined, and the laics convinced that they contained nothing false, hostile or dangerous. (Right Reverend Emile Bougaud, The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. Published in 1890 by Benziger Brothers. Re-printed by TAN Books and Publishers, 1990, pp. 24-29.)

22. The obligation by which Catholic teachers and authors are strictly bound is confined to those things only which are proposed to universal belief as dogmas of faith by the infallible judgment of the Church. -- Letter to the Archbishop of Munich, "Tuas libenter," Dec. 21, 1863. (Proposition condemned by Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864; see also two appendices below, reprised from five days ago to drive home the point that no one can sift through the words of a true pope to "determine" their orthodoxy as popes cannot err on matters of Faith and Morals.)

To contend that one can "recognize" a true pope while opposing him and/or "sifting" his words and actions for their orthodoxy is, as demonstrated above, false on its face. None other than Pope Saint Pius X, after whom the Society of Saint Pius X takes its very name and who knew Catholic doctrine very well, explained that this is the case:

Distracted with so many occupations, it is easy to forget the things that lead to perfection in priestly life; it is easy [for the priest] to delude himself and to believe that, by busying himself with the salvation of the souls of others, he consequently works for his own sanctification. Alas, let not this delusion lead you to error, because nemo dat quod nemo habet [no one gives what he does not have]; and, in order to sanctify others, it is necessary not to neglect any of the ways proposed for the sanctification of our own selves....

The Pope is the guardian of dogma and of morals; he is the custodian of the principles that make families sound, nations great, souls holy; he is the counsellor of princes and of peoples; he is the head under whom no one feels tyrannized because he represents God Himself; he is the supreme father who unites in himself all that may exist that is loving, tender, divine.

It seems incredible, and is even painful, that there be priests to whom this recommendation must be made, but we are regrettably in our age in this hard, unhappy, situation of having to tell priests: love the Pope!

And how must the Pope be loved? Non verbo neque lingua, sed opere et veritate. [Not in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth - 1 Jn iii, 18] When one loves a person, one tries to adhere in everything to his thoughts, to fulfill his will, to perform his wishes. And if Our Lord Jesus Christ said of Himself, "si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit," [if any one love me, he will keep my word - Jn xiv, 23] therefore, in order to demonstrate our love for the Pope, it is necessary to obey him.

Therefore, when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey - that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope.

This is the cry of a heart filled with pain, that with deep sadness I express, not for your sake, dear brothers, but to deplore, with you, the conduct of so many priests, who not only allow themselves to debate and criticize the wishes of the Pope, but are not embarrassed to reach shameless and blatant disobedience, with so much scandal for the good and with so great damage to souls. (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at: RORATE CÆLI: "Love the Pope!" - no ifs, and no buts: For Bishops, priests, and faithful, Saint Pius X explains what loving the Pope really entails.)

No, Bishop Fellay, you and your false ecclesiology stand busted by Pope Saint Pius X.

Yes, The Chair is Still Empty (see also Mr. John Lane's Concerning A SSPX Dossier on Sedevacantism and Why SSPX Priest Fr. Raphael Trytek became a Sedevacantist).

No one can be forced to "see" the truth of our situation (or of any situation involving conflict with others) for what it is, that the conciliar revolutionaries are not Catholic and that they belong to a counterfeit church bereft of Holy Orders and of the graces that flow therefrom. That any of our true bishops and priests, among so many others, who have seen things clearly in the past forty years, right in the midst of a most diabolically clever use of the media to convey images of Catholicism and Catholicity, is the working of the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and that flowed into their hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces. We must remember that it is very easy to go "back," to refuse to "kick against the goad," to "conform" to what the "mainstream" believes is "respectable" and "prudent."

The "mainstream" is not to be followed.

God permitted one hundred percent of the human race to be deceived in the Garden of Eden.

God permitted all but eight members of the human race to be deceived and deluded prior to the Great Flood.

Almost all of the Chosen People who had been led out of their bondage to the slavery of the Egyptian Pharaoh by Moses built and worshiped a molten calf whilst Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai.

All but a handful of people stood by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He suffered and died for us on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday.

All but one bishop, Saint John Fisher of Rochester, England, defected from the Faith at the time of the Protestant Revolt in England when King Henry VIII took this thoroughly Catholic country out of the Church.

All but thirty bishops defected from the Faith at the time Queen Elizabeth I took England out of the Church once again in the 1660s following the brief restoration that took place under the reign of her half-sister, Queen Mary, from 1553 to 1558.

The "mainstream" is not be followed. We need apostolic courage in these times of apostasy and betrayal. God's greater honor and glory must be defended against the against of men who have proved themselves to be precursors of the Antichrist.

How do we think that we are going to recognize, no less resist and reject, the Antichrist when he comes we are so complacent and smug in the face of the groundwork that is being laid by his conciliar minions for his coming? Will the emotionalism of sentimentality and the delusion of positivism not prevail then in the minds and hearts of most men?

It's been seven and one-half years ago now since I began to publicly write about the plausibility of the sedevacantism as applying to these times. I can report that those six years have been difficult ones, humanly speaking, as friendships have been strained or broken and as many former contributors stopped donating to us. Obviously, friendship is a free gift and people are free also to end non-tax-deductible donations whenever they want to do so. It is not for the "money" or for any kind of "honor" or "prestige" that one comes to recognize that the conciliar "popes" have indeed been figures of Antichrist. To embrace sedevacantism is to lose one's credibility on all subjects, including that of the defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King, in the eyes of traditionally-minded "gatekeepers" in the "recognize while resist movement," some of whom would rather turn to lifelong Protestants or to Catholic apostates turned Protestants or Mormons for "commentary" on the events of the day.

No, embracing the truth of our ecclesiastical situation does not make one any bit better than those who do not. Indeed, some of the worst witnesses in behalf of sedevacantism are sedevacantists, both clergy and laity. The bad example given by those who do see the truth of our ecclesiastical situation does not make invalidate the truth that they seek to defend despite all of the opposition that is engendered thereby.

No one has anything to gain, humanly speaking by recognizing that the conciliar "popes" are apostates and their liturgical rites are sacramentally barren and offensive to God and their doctrines have been condemned repeatedly by the authority of the Catholic Church. Yes, it is good to suffer for one's sins. It is necessary to do so in order to save one's soul. One does not embrace the truth in order to suffer, though, as that suffering will find him in due course.

Sedevacantists compose only a handful of mostly warring tribes. They are not the problem facing Holy Mother Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal. Just take a look at the evidence presented above if you believe that I am mistaken.

All the more reason, of course, to flee from everything to do with conciliarism and its false shepherds. If we can't see that the public esteeming of the symbols and places of "worship" of false religions is offensive to God and can in no way lead to any kind of authentic restoration of the "Catholic" Church, then it is perhaps necessary to recall these words of Saint Teresa of Avila, whose feast day we celebrate today, in her Foundations:

 

"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine)

[Another translation]--Now we are all in peace, Mitigated and Reformed : no one hinders us in the service of our Lord. Therefore, my Brothers and Sisters, since His Majesty has so graciously heard your prayers, up and haste to serve Him ! Let the present generation, who are eyewitnesses of it, consider the mercies He has done us and the troubles and disquiet from which He has delivered us : and those who are to come after, since they find the way made plain, let them, for the love of our Lord, never suffer a single thing which belongs to perfection to slip away. Let it not be said by their fault as is said of some Orders, that their beginning was praiseworthy. Now we are beginning : but let them try to keep on beginning to go on from good to better continually. Let them remember that the devil keeps using very small faults with which to bore holes through which the very greatest may find entrance. Let them never catch themselves saying, "This does not matter : they are over particular." Oh my daughters, everything matters which hinders our progress. For the love of our Lord I entreat them to remember how soon all will be over, and what a mercy our Lord has done us in leading us into this Order, and what a heavy penalty will be incurred by anyone who initiates any relaxation. Nay, let them keep their eyes ever fixed on the race of holy prophets from which we are sprung. What Saints have we in heaven who wore this habit ! Let us aspire with a holy audacity, by the grace of God, to be ourselves like unto them. Short will be the battle, my Sisters ; the issue is eternal. Let us put aside those things which are really nothings, for only those are realities which lead us to our true end, to serve and love Him more, seeing He liveth for evermore. Amen. Amen. To God be thanksgivings! (Saint Teresa of Avila, the History of Her Foundation, Chapter Twenty-nine, p. 238. See "Saint Theresa : the history of her foundations".)

We turn, as always to Our Lady, who holds us in the crossing of her arms and in the folds of her mantle. We must, as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, trusting that we might be able to plant a few seeds for the Triumph of that same Immaculate Heart.

We may not see until eternity, please God and by the graces He sends to us through the loving hands of His Most Blessed Mother, the fruit of the seeds we plant by means of our prayers and penances and sacrifices, given unto the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must remain confident, however, that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ wants to us, as unworthy as we are, to try to plant a few seeds so that more and more Catholics in the conciliar structures, both "priests" and laity alike, will recognize that it is indeed a sin to stand by He is blasphemed by Modernists, that He--and His true priesthood--are to be found in the catacombs where no concessions at all are made to conciliarism or its wolves in shepherds' clothing.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

 

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Appendix A

Mr. Michael Creighton's List of the Errors of the Society of Saint Pius X

Mr. Michael Creighton has catalogued the principle errors of the Society of Saint Pius X and the ways in which those who assist at Society chapels justify these errors by way of responding to an article that appeared a few years ago on the Tradition in Action website:

To briefly enumerate some of the problems in the SSPX, they are:

1  A rejection of the of the ordinary magisterium (Vatican I; Session III - Dz1792) which must be divinely revealed. For instance Paul VI claimed that the new mass and Vatican II were his “Supreme Ordinary Magisterium” and John Paul II promulgated his catechism which contains heresies and errors in Fide Depositum by his “apostolic authority” as “the sure norm of faith and doctrine” and bound everyone by saying who believes what was contained therein is in “ecclesial communion”, that is in the Church.

2  A rejection of the divinely revealed teaching expressed in Vatican I , Session IV, that the faith of Peter [the Pope] cannot fail. Three ancient councils are quoted to support this claim. (2nd Lyons, 4th Constantinople & Florence). Pope Paul IV’s bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio teaches the same in the negative sense of this definition.

3  A distortion of canon law opposed to virtually all the canonists of the Church prior to Vatican II which tell us a heretical pope ipso facto loses his office by the operation of the law itself and without any declaration. This is expressed in Canon 188.4 which deals with the divine law and footnotes Pope Paul IV’s bull, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio. The SSPX pretends that sections of the code on penalties somehow apply to the pope which flatly contradicted by the law itself. The SSPX pretends that jurisdiction remains in force when the code clearly says jurisdiction is lost and only ‘acts’ of jurisdiction are declared valid until the person is found out (canons 2264-2265). This is simply to protect the faithful from invalid sacraments, not to help heretics retain office and destroy the Church. Charisms of the office, unlike indelible sacraments, require real jurisdiction. The SSPX pretends that penalties of the censure of ipso facto excommunication cannot apply to cardinals since it reserved to Holy See (canon 2227). This is another fabrication since the law does not refer to automatic (latae sententiae) penalties but only to penalties in which a competent judge is needed to inflict or declare penalties on offenders. Therefore it only refers to condemnatory and declaratory sentences but not automatic sentences. To say that ipso facto does not mean what it says is also condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei.

4  The SSPX holds a form of the Gallican heresy that falsely proposes a council can depose a true pope. This was already tried by the Council of Basle and just as history condemned those schismatics, so it will condemn your Lordship. This belief also denies canon 1556 “The First See is Judged by no one.” This of course means in a juridical sense of judgment, not remaining blind to apostasy, heresy and crime which automatically takes effect.

5  The SSPX denies the visible Church must manifest the Catholic faith. They claim that somehow these men who teach heresy can’t know truth. This is notion has been condemned by Vatican I, Session III, Chapter 2. It is also condemned by canon 16 of the 1917 code of canon law. Clearly LaSalette has been fulfilled. Rome is the seat of anti-Christ & the Church is eclipsed. Clearly, our Lords words to Sr. Lucy at Rianjo in 1931 have come to pass. His “Ministers [Popes] have followed the kings of France into misfortune”.

6  The SSPX reject every doctor of the Church and every Church father who are unanimous in stating a heretic ipso facto is outside the Church and therefore cannot possess jurisdiction & pretends that is only their opinion when St. Robert states “... it is proven, with arguments from authority and from reason, that the manifest heretic is ipso facto deposed.” The authority he refers to is the magisterium of the Church, not his own opinion.

7  Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis is misinterpreted by the SSPX to validly elect a heretic to office against the divine law. A public heretic cannot be a cardinal because he automatically loses his office. This decree only refers to cardinals and hence it does not apply to ex-cardinals who automatically lost their offices because they had publicly defected from the Catholic faith. The cardinals mentioned in this decree who have been excommunicated are still Catholic and still cardinals; hence their excommunication does not cause them to become non-Catholics and lose their offices, as does excommunication for heresy and public defection from the Catholic faith. This is what the Church used to call a minor excommunication. All post 1945 canonists concur that Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis does not remove ipso facto excommunication: Eduardus F. Regatillo (1956), Matthaeus Conte a Coronata (1950), Serapius Iragui (1959), A. Vermeersch - I. Creusen (1949), Udalricus Beste (1946) teach that a pope or cardinal or bishop who becomes a public heretic automatically loses his office and a public heretic cannot legally or validly obtain an office. Even supposing this papal statement could apply to non-Catholics (heretics), Pope Pius XII goes on to say “at other times they [the censures] are to remain in vigor” Does this mean the Pope intends that a notorious heretic will take office and then immediately lose his office? It is an absurd conclusion, hence we must respect the interpretation of the Church in her canonists.

Errors/Heresies typical of an SSPX chapel attendees & priests:

1)  We are free to reject rites promulgated by the Church. [Condemned by Trent Session VII, Canon XIII/Vatican I, Session II]

2)  The Pope can’t be trusted to make judgments on faith and morals. We have to sift what is Catholic. [Condemned by Vatican I, Session IV, Chapter III.]

3) We are free to reject or accept ordinary magisterial teachings from a pope since they can be in error. This rejection may include either the conciliar ‘popes’ when teach heresy or the pre-conciliar popes in order to justify the validity of the conciliar popes jurisdiction, sacraments, etc [Condemned by Vatican I (Dz1792)/Satis Cognitum #15 of Leo XIII]

4)  The Kantian doctrine of unknowability of reality. We can’t know what is heresy, therefore we can’t judge. [Condemned by Vatican I, Session III, Chapter 2: On Revelation, Jn7:24].

5)  The faith of the Pope can fail. Frequently this is expressed as “we work for” or “we pray for the Popes conversion to the Catholic faith”. [condemned by Vatican I and at least 3 earlier councils mentioned above].

6)  Universal salvation, ecumenism, religious liberty, validity of the Old Covenant, etc. can be interpreted in a Catholic sense. [Condemned by every saint, every doctor of the Church and every Pope who comments on such issues; for instance Pope Eugene IV (Cantate Domino – Council of Florence)]

7)  Contraries can be true. [Hegelian doctrine against Thomistic Philosophy]. If these positions appear to be contradictory, they are.

When I point out these positions are against the Faith, frequently the Hegelian doctrine is employed by those in attendance at the SSPX chapel.

Appendix B

The Catholic Church's Condemnation of the Concept of the Evolution of Dogma

These firings, therefore, with all diligence and care having been formulated by us, we define that it be permitted to no one to bring forward, or to write, or to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whosoever shall presume to compose a different faith, or to propose, or teach, or hand to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles or Jews, or from any heresy, any different Creed; or to introduce a new voice or invention of speech to subvert these things which now have been determined by us, all these, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laymen: let them be anathematized. (Sixth Ecumenical: Constantinople III).

• For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward

  • not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence,
  • but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.
• Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.

The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.

Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .

3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from that which the church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding off and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith.

But since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and forbidden by this holy see. (Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1.)

Hence it is quite impossible [the Modernists assert] to maintain that they [dogmatic statements] absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .

Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)

Moreover they assert that when Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition, a way will be found to satisfy modern needs, that will permit of dogma being expressed also by the concepts of modern philosophy, whether of immanentism or idealism or existentialism or any other system. Some more audacious affirm that this can and must be done, because they hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. They add that the history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that have arisen over the course of the centuries. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

Appendix C

The Popes In Support of Scholasticism

For just as the opinion of certain ancients is to be rejected which maintains that it makes no difference to the truth of the Faith what any man thinks about the nature of creation, provided his opinions on the nature of God be sound, because error with regard to the nature of creation begets a false knowledge of God; so the principles of philosophy laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas are to be religiously and inviolably observed, because they are the means of acquiring such a knowledge of creation as is most congruent with the Faith; of refuting all the errors of all the ages, and of enabling man to distinguish clearly what things are to be attributed to God and to God alone….

St. Thomas perfected and augmented still further by the almost angelic quality of his intellect all this superb patrimony of wisdom which he inherited from his predecessors and applied it to prepare, illustrate and protect sacred doctrine in the minds of men. Sound reason suggests that it would be foolish to neglect it and religion will not suffer it to be in any way attenuated. And rightly, because, if Catholic doctrine is once deprived of this strong bulwark, it is useless to seek the slightest assistance for its defense in a philosophy whose principles are either common to the errors of materialism, monism, pantheism, socialism and modernism, or certainly not opposed to such systems. The reason is that the capital theses in the philosophy of St Thomas are not to be placed in the category of opinions capable of being debated one way or another, but are to be considered as the foundations upon which the science of natural and divine things is based; if such principles are once removed or in any way impaired, it must necessarily follow that students of the sacred sciences will ultimately fail to perceive so much as the meaning of the words in which the dogmas of divine revelation are proposed by the magistracy of the Church. . . . (Pope Saint Pius X, Doctoris Angelici, quoted in James Larson's Article 11: A Confusion of Loves.)

 

Innocent VI: "The teaching of this Doctor above all others, with the exception of Canon Law, has precision in terminology, propriety of expression, truth of judgment: so that never is one who has held it been found to have deviated from the path of truth."

Pius V: "It was wrought by the providence of Almighty God that by the force and truth of the Angelic Doctor's teaching, by which he illumined the Apostolic Church with the refutation of innumerable errors, that the many heresies which have arisen after his canonization have been confounded, overthrown and dispersed. This has been made evident both earlier and recently in the sacred decrees of the Council of Trent."

Clement VIII to the Neapolitans: "Devoutly and wisely are you thinking of adopting a new patron of your city, your fellow citizen, the Angelic interpreter of the Divine Will, splendid in the sanctity of his life and by his miracles, Thomas Aquinas, since indeed is this honor owed with the greatest justification to his virtues joined to his admirable doctrine. Indeed, witness to his doctrine is the great number of books which he composed, in a very brief time, in almost every class of learning, with a matchless arrangement and wondrous clearness, without any error whatsoever."

Paul V: "We greatly rejoice in the Lord that honor and veneration are increasing daily for the most splendid champion of the Catholic Faith, blessed Thomas Aquinas, by the shield of whose writings the Church Militant successfully parries the spears of the heretics.

And Leo XIII, at once embracing hand surpassing all of the praises of his predecessors, says of him: "Distinguishing reason from Faith, as is proper, but nevertheless combining the two in a friendly alliance, he both preserved the rights of each and had regard for the dignity of both., in such a way too that reason, carried on the wings of Thomas to the highest human limit, now almost cannot rise any higher, and faith almost cannot expect more or stronger helps from reason than it has already obtained through Thomas."

--And again, presenting St. Thomas to Catholics as a model and patron in various sciences, he says: "In him are all the illustrious ornaments of mind and character by which he rightly calls others to the imitation of himself: the richest doctrine, incorrupt, fittingly arranged; obedience to the Faith, and a marvelous consonance with the truths divinely handed down; integrity of life with the splendor of the greatest virtues." (Readings from the Dominican Breviary (II Nocturn) for the feast of the Patronage of Saint Thomas Aquinas, November 13.)

But, furthermore, Our predecessors in the Roman pontificate have celebrated the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas by exceptional tributes of praise and the most ample testimonials. Clement VI in the bull "In Ordine;" Nicholas V in his brief to the friars of the Order of Preachers, 1451; Benedict XIII in the bull "Pretiosus," and others bear witness that the universal Church borrows luster from his admirable teaching; while St. Pius V declares in the bull "Mirabilis" that heresies, confounded and convicted by the same teaching, were dissipated, and the whole world daily freed from fatal errors; others, such as Clement XII in the bull "Verbo Dei," affirm that most fruitful blessings have spread abroad from his writings over the whole Church, and that he is worthy of the honor which is bestowed on the greatest Doctors of the Church, on Gregory and Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome; while others have not hesitated to propose St. Thomas for the exemplar and master of the universities and great centers of learning whom they may follow with unfaltering feet. On which point the words of Blessed Urban V to the University of Toulouse are worthy of recall: "It is our will, which We hereby enjoin upon you, that ye follow the teaching of Blessed Thomas as the true and Catholic doctrine and that ye labor with all your force to profit by the same." Innocent XII, followed the example of Urban in the case of the University of Louvain, in the letter in the form of a brief addressed to that university on February 6, 1694, and Benedict XIV in the letter in the form of a brief addressed on August 26, 1752, to the Dionysian College in Granada; while to these judgments of great Pontiffs on Thomas Aquinas comes the crowning testimony of Innocent VI: "His teaching above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoys such a precision of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will always be suspected of error."

The ecumenical councils, also, where blossoms the flower of all earthly wisdom, have always been careful to hold Thomas Aquinas in singular honor. In the Councils of Lyons, Vienna, Florence, and the Vatican one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided over the deliberations and decrees of the Fathers, contending against the errors of the Greeks, of heretics and rationalists, with invincible force and with the happiest results. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order of conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs, the "Summa" of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.

A last triumph was reserved for this incomparable man -- namely, to compel the homage, praise, and admiration of even the very enemies of the Catholic name. For it has come to light that there were not lacking among the leaders of heretical sects some who openly declared that, if the teaching of Thomas Aquinas were only taken away, they could easily battle with all Catholic teachers, gain the victory, and abolish the Church. A vain hope, indeed, but no vain testimony.

 

Appendix D

Correcting the Misinformation About "Erroneous" Popes

Material from Tumultuous Times on Gallicanism and the Mythology of "Heretical" Popes

Gallicanism

Papal infallibility had been assailed by an ideology called Gallicanism (Conciliarism) for more than 400 years prior to the [First] Vatican Council. Gallicanism "tended to restrict the authority of the Church regarding the state (Political Gallicanism) or the authority of the pope regarding councils, bishops, and clergy (Ecclesiastico-Theological Gallicanism). These erroneous teachings were widely professed by the clergy of France (formerly called Gaul, hence the name) and later spread to Flanders, Ireland and England. Some prelates at the council followed the Gallican ideology and wished to make papal authority dependent on the bishops and the approbation of general councils.

In the 14th century in consequence of the confusion in ecclesiastical and political affairs, the status of the papacy sank considerably. This was fatefully reflected in its effects on the teaching of papal primacy. William of Ockham, in his battle against Pope John XXII, tried to undermine the divine institution of the primacy. Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun directly denied it and declared to primacy to be a mere honorary primacy, and ascribed the supreme judicial power and doctrinal power to the general council. At the time of the great Western Schism (1378-1417) many reputable theologians, such as Henry as Langenstein, Conrad of Gelnhausen, Peter of Ailly and John Gerson, saw in the doctrine of the superiority of the general council over the pope (conciliary theory) the sole means of reuniting the Church. The viewpoint appeared that the general Church was indeed free from error, but that the Roman Church could err, and fall into heresy and schism. The Council of Constance (Fourth and Fifth Sessions) and of Basle (Second Session) declared for the superiority of the council over the pope. However, the resolutions referring to this did not receive the papal ratification and were consequently legally invalid (D 657 Amm. 2). In Gallicanism the theory of the superiority of a general council lived on for hundreds of years. (Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 289.)

Ultramontanism

 

Many Italians and Romans who opposed Gallicanism and defended the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff became known as Ultramontanists. "Ultramontanism [is] a term used to denote integral and active Catholicism, because it recognizes as its spiritual head the pope, who, for the greater part of Europe, is a dweller beyond the mountains (ultra montes), that is, beyond the Alps. Ultramontanists stressed the monarchical role of the pope, his universal jurisdiction, his primacy over the Catholic Church and his infallibility  in ex cathedra pronouncements.

The Chief Doctrinal Error of the Time

The conflict between theses two groups is described by a contemporary writer:

Each council was convened to extinguish the chief heresy, or to correct the chief evil of the time. And I do not hesitate to affirm that the denial of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was the chief intellectual or doctrinal error as to faith, not to call it more than proximate to heresy, of our times.

It was so because is struck at the validity of the pontifical acts of the last 300 years, weakened the effect of papal decisions of this period over the intellect and conscience of the faithful. It kept alive a dangerous controversy on the subject of infallibility altogether, and exposed even the infallibility of the Church itself to difficulties not easy to solve. As an apparently open or disputable point, close to the very root of faith, it exposed even the faith itself to the reach of doubts.

Next, practically, it was mischievous beyond measure. The divisions and contentions of 'Gallicanism' and 'Ultramontanism' have been a scandal and a shame to us. Protestants and unbelievers have been kept from the truth by our intestine controversies, especially upon a point so high and so intimately connected with the whole doctrinal authority of the Church. Again, morally, the division and contention on this point, supposed to be open, has generated more alienation, bitterness and animosity between Pastors and people, and what is worse, between Pastor and Pastor, than any other in our day. (Cardinal Manning, The Vatican Council and Definitions, pp. 41-42.). . . .

 

The Case of Pope Liberius

Pope Liberius reigned during the height of the Arian heresy and was exiled by order of the Emperor Constantius for his opposition to it. Some authors claim that the pope signed a document promoting Arianism. Frs. Rumble and Carty have refused this false claim by asserting:

Historical research has shown that it is doubtful whether he signed the document at all. ...St. Athanasius and St. Hilary, who thought he did sign, insist that no charge of heresy could be made against Liberius on the score that the document was not necessarily heretical. ...On his return from exile he defended the Nicene decisions against Arianism, and remained a most uncompromising defender of the orthodox doctrine until his death in 366 A.D. (E. Hales, First Vatican Council, pp. 21-22.)

 

Ballerini says that if Liberius compromised the faith, " 'which is by no means certain,' ... it was 'not the result of full free-will; for the fear of the Emperor Constantius was the motive; and still less in this fall was a definition of the faith involved.' "Many authors, like Socrates, Theodoret and Sulpicius Severus testify in favor of Liberius. Of the testimonies brought against him, several are evidently spurious, and even if they were genuine, they show only a semi-Arian Catholicizing formula, but not an 'Arian creed.'

Hagemann in the Journal of Theological Literature notes: "Liberius can be accused, not of what he did, but what he omitted to do; he can, from a moral point of view, be blamed for his silence, for his weakness, while the dogmatic purity of his faith remains intact."

The Case of Pope Honorius I

The council witnessed many heated debates concerning papal infallibility. Opponents to papal infallibility fabricated every objection possible in order to prevent or defer its definition, even claiming that Honorius I was a heretical pope.

Cardinal Manning refuted their false allegations:

In the judgment of a cloud of the greatest theologians of all countries, schools, and languages, since the controversy was opened two hundred years ago, the case of Honorius has been completely solved. Nay more, it has been used with abundant evidence, drawn from the very same acts acts and documents, to prove the direct contrary hypothesis, namely, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiffs.  ...They who have cleared Honorius of personal heresy, are an overwhelming majority compared with their opponents.

It is in vain for the antagonists of papal infallibility to quote this case as if it were certain. Centuries of controversy have established, beyond contradiction, that the accusation against Honorius cannot be raised by his most ardent antagonists to more than a probability. And this probability, at its maximum, is less than that of his defense. I therefore affirm the question to be doubtful; which is abundantly sufficient against the private judgment of his accusers. The cumulus of evidence for the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff outweighs all such doubts.  ...The following points in the case of Honorius can be abundantly proved from documents:

 

 

(A) That Honorius defended no doctrine whatsoever.

(B) That he forbade the making of any new definition.

(C) That his fault was precisely in this omission of Apostolic authority, for which he was justly censured.

(D) That his two epistles are entirely orthodox; though, in the use of language, he wrote as was usual before the condemnation of Monotheletism, and not as it became necessary afterwards. It is an anachronism and an injustice to censure his language, used before that condemnation, as it might be just to censure it after the condemnation had been made.

To this I add the following excellent passage from the Pastoral of the Archbishop of Baltimore: 'The case of Honorius forms no exception; for 1st, Honorius expressly says in his letters to Sergius, that he meant to define nothing, and he was condemned precisely because he temporized and would not define; 2nd, because in his letters he clearly taught the sound Catholic doctrine, only enjoining silence as to the use of certain terms, then new in the Church; and 3rd, because his letters were not addressed to a general council of the whole Church, and were rather private, than public and official; at least they were not published, even in the East, until several years later. The first letter was written to Sergius in 633, and eight years afterwards, in 641, the Emperor Heraclius, in exculpating himself to Pope John II, Honorius' successor, for having published his edict--the Ecthesis--which enjoined silence on disputants, similar to that imposed by Honorius, lays the whole responsibility thereof on Sergius, who he declares, composed the edict. Evidently, Sergius had not communicated the letter to the Emperor, probably because its contents, if published, would not have suited his wily purpose of secretly introducing, under another form, the Eutychian heresy. Thus falls to the ground the only case upon which the opponents of infallibility have continued to insist. This entire subject had been exhausted by  many learned writers.' (Cardinal Manning, The Vatican Council and its Definitions, pp. 245-246).

A Heretical Pope--an Impossibility

 

A legitimate pope cannot contradict or deny what was first taught by Christ to His Church. An essential change in belief constitutes the establishment of a new religion.

The attribute of infallibility was given to the popes in order that the revealed doctrines and teaching of Christ would remain forever intact and unchanged. It is contrary to faith and reason to blindly follow an alleged pope who attempts to destroy the Catholic Faith--for there have been 41 documented antipopes. Papal infallibility means that the Holy Ghost guides and preserves the Catholic Church from error through the succession of legitimate popes who have ruled the Church through the centuries. All Catholics, including Christ's Vicar on earth, the pope, must accept all the doctrinal pronouncements of past popes. These infallible teachings form a vital link between Christ and St. Peter and his successors.

If a pope did not accept and believe this entire body of formulated teachings (the Deposit of Faith), he could not himself be a Catholic. He would cease to belong to Christ's Church. If he no longer belongs to the Catholic Church, he cannot be her Head.

One who, after baptism, retaining the name of Christian pertinaciously denies (rejects) or doubts a divinely revealed truth is a heretic and by that fact ceases to be a Catholic. A heretic incurs ipso facto excommunication, i.e., (by that very fact) automatically, without sentence of law. A heretic is not a Catholic and the pope must be a Catholic. . . .

Therefore, a heretical pope is deposed by his public sin against Divine Law. Were a pope ever to teach formal heresy, he would cease to be pope. There can be no such thing as a heretical pope. This is an oxymoron--heresy  and the papacy are diametrically opposed and the terms are irreconcilable.

In his letter of May 25, 1999, Fr. Martin Stepanich, OFM (S.T.D.) says:

If it is true, as some theologians reasonably maintain, that a true people, one validly elected, cannot become a heretic, because of special divine protection, and cannot for that reason fall from the papacy, then the only logical conclusion to draw is that a heretic occupying the Chair of Peter was a heretic already before being elected, and could therefore not have been a legitimate valid candidate for election to the papacy to begin with.

 

If any baptized person (even an alleged pope) "pertinaciously denies or doubts any of the truths which must be believed by an obligation of divine and Catholic faith, he is a heretic; if he gives up the Christian faith entirely, he is an apostate..." Obviously the pope cannot change 2,000 years of Catholic faith, morals and worship. Canon law states: "If one after the reception of baptism, while retaining the name Christian, pertinaciously denies or doubts any of the truths which must be believed by an obligation of divine and Catholic faith, he is a heretic."

A heretic ceases to belong to the Catholic Church and loses his office and authority. This is not a matter of "judging the pope," it is a recognition of fact. Popes and general councils don't create new doctrines; they merely clarify existing teaching. . . .

The question of a heretical pope was raised by one of the cardinals at the Vatican Council of 1870:

'What is to be done with the pope if he becomes a heretic?' It was answered that 'there has never been such a case; the council of bishops could depose him for heresy, for from the moment he becomes a heretic he is not the head or even a member of the Church. The Church would not be, for a moment, obliged to listen to him when he begins to teach a doctrine the Church knows to be a false doctrine, and he would cease to be pope, being deposed by God Himself. If the pope, for instance, were to say that the belief in God is false, you would not be obliged to believe him, or if he were to deny the rest of the creed; I believe in Christ, etc. The supposition is injurious to the Holy Father in the very idea, but serves to show you the fullness with which the subject has been considered and the ample thought given to every possibility. If he denies any Dogma of the Church held by every true believer, he is no more pope than either you or I. (Father James McGovern, The Life and Work of Pope Leo XIII, p. 241.).

 

Conclusion

 

Christ established His Church upon the rock of Peter and promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. St. Ambrose tells us that faith is the foundation of the Church; because of the faith, and the person of Peter, the Church will always be preserved from error.

To guarantee the lifeline of truth, Our Lord gave the attribute of infallibility to His Vicar on earth. If it were possible at any time for the pope using his supreme apostolic authority to teach error on matters of faith and morals to the universal Church, it would affect the entire Church, thereby giving the gates of Hell power to prevail over Her.

 

If the Vicar of Christ on earth could lead the Church astray, the devil himself would have prevailed over the immaculate Bride of Christ, the Church. this is an impossibility because we have Christ's guarantee that His Church, the Catholic Church, will last until the end of time, unvanquished by the lies and deceits of Satan. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can neither deceive nor be deceived. He will protect His Church from false doctrine until the end of time.

The attribute of infallibility was given to the pope so that the revealed doctrines and teachings of Christ would remain forever intact and unchanged. Any pope who changes such teachings held for almost 2,000 years is a heretic and ceases to belong to the Catholic Church. A heretic is not a Catholic and therefore cannot be head of the Church.

Our study of 20 General Councils of the Catholic Church (325 AD--1870) concludes with Vatican I. During the same period, there were also 20 false councils. Some were convoked by antipopes and many taught heresy. On which side would you place Vatican II?

St. Vincent of Lerins asserted: "Do not be misled by various and passing doctrines. In the Catholic Church Herself we must be careful to hold what has been believed everywhere, always and by all; for that alone is truly and properly Catholic." (Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, Tumultuous Times, pp.236-238; 251-253; 274-275; 276; 278-279.)

A Final Note on Pope John XXII from Thomas A. Droleskey

Anti-sedevacantist authors assert that Pope John XXII (Jacques D'Euse) was a "heretical pope" because he taught the only souls in Heaven who could see the Beatific Vision were those who had bodies. Theologians beseeched him to correct his error on this matter, which had not yet been defined solemnly by the authority of the Catholic Church. Pope John XXII did recant his error before he died. It is important to emphasize, however, that the matter had not been declared by the authority of the Church. Pope John XXII was not, as Cardinal Manning pointed out at the [First] Vatican Council, a "heretical pope."

 

Appendix E

A List of All Previous Articles About Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis That Have Been Published on this Website

Francis, The Talking Apostate, Francis The Lay Pope, Francis The Head Citizen Of The One World Ecumenical Church, Francis The Jansenist,Francis The Ostensibly Pious, Another Day In The Life Of An Antichrist, Francis The Pagan, Francis The Feminist, Francis The Hun, Francis The Deceiver, Francis The Logician, Francis The Manichean, Francis The Blind, Francis The Illusionist, part one, Francis The Illusionist, part two, Francis The Illusionist, part three, Francis The Flexible, Francis The Insidious Little Pest, Jorge Mario Bergoglio And His Friend, Justin Welby, Francis And Other Judases Abound In Holy Week, Francis And The Commissars, Francis The Revolutionary And His Dollies, Please Help Francis The Ecumenist, Do Not Permit Yourselves To Be Snookered, Another Day In The Life Of An Antichrist, No Matter A Difference In Style, One In Modernist Mind and Heart, One Heretic Speaks, Another Listens, Modernism Repackaged as Newness, Standing Firm In Defense Of Gallicanism, "You, Sir, Are A Pharisee!", So Much For Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat, Francis Takes Us To Ding Dong School Of Apostasy, Phoning It In, Don't Worry, Jorge, We Don't Take You Seriously As A Catholic In The Slightest, So Much For The Sandro Magister "Photo Op" Theory, Francis Do-Right, Francis The Liturgist, Francis At The Improv, Relax, Jorge, You're Not The Pope, Francis The Obsessed, Francis The Anti-Campion, Two For The Price Of One, part one, Two For The Price Of One, part two, Incompetent To Teach Squat About The Catholic Faith, part one, Incompetent To Teach Squat About The Catholic Faith, part two, Incompetent To Teach Squat About The Catholic Faith, part three, Where Does One Begin? part one, Where Does One Begin? part two, Where Does One Begin? part three, Dispensing With The Last Pretenses Of Catholicism, Francis The Anti-Apostle, Francis The Syncretist, Francis The Sillonist, Francis The Apostate: From Revolution To Anarchy, Francis The Pied Piper of Antichrist, Francis Says ¡Viva la Revolución!, part one, Francis Says ¡Viva la Revolución!, part two, Francis Says ¡Viva la Revolución!, part three, Francis The Self-Caricaturist, Francis Says ¡Viva la Revolución!, part four, Recruited By Antichrist To Be His Apologist, part two ,Recruited By Antichrist To Be His Apologists, part three, Francis and Barry's Religion of Peace,  Francis: The Latest In A Long Line Of Ecclesiastical Tyrants,  Francis The Insane Dreamer, Rebel And Miscreant, Francis Really, Really Means It, Boys and Girls, Conciliarism's Weapons of Mass Destruction, Conciliarism's Weapons Of Mass Destruction, part two, Conciliarism's Weapons of Mass Destruction, part three, Francis The Impure, Francis The Slayer of Straw Men, Francis, The Out-Of-Control And Uncontrollable Antipope, part one, Francis, The Out-of-Control and Uncontrollable Antipope, part two, What More Time Needs To Be Wasted On This Horrible Man?, Francis The Possessed, "Who Today Will Presume To Say She Is Widowed?", Everything's Just Fine, Jorge, Huh?, Francis: Apostle of Antichrist, part one, Francis: Apostle of Antichrist, part two, Francis: Apostle of Antichrist, part three, Quick Draw Jorge and His Own Baba Looey, To Blind To The Truth At This Point Is Irresponsible, Francis The Ecclesiastical Agitator, They Have Been Doing Something Different For Fifty-Five Years, Nothing Random About This, part one, Nothing Random About This, part two, Nothing Random About This, part three, Nothing Random About This, part four, Nothing Random About This, part five, The Hermeneutics Of Babbling, With Full Malice Aforethought, With Full Malice Aforethought, part two, Francis Rallies The Forces of Antichrist and Francis Has More "Surprises" In Store For Us.