Guest Column: Heresy? What Is It?
by
Jerry Meng
Because of his justified concern about the
upcoming “beatification” of Karol
Wojtyla, Mr. John Vennari recently wrote an excellent exposé of one of Wojtyla’s
heresies (Cf. “John Paul II and the Old Covenant”, Catholic Family News, February 2011): that is, his public repudiation
of the Catholic teaching that the New Covenant replaced or superseded the Old
Covenant, when he declared to the Jewish community in Mainz, Germany on
November 17, 1980 that, “The first dimension of this dialogue, that is, the
meeting between the people of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God, and that of the New Covenant, is at the same
time a dialogue within our Church, that is to say, between the first and second
part of her Bible…Jews and Christians, as children of Abraham, are called to be
a blessing to the world.”[1] This declaration by Karol Wojtyla aka John Paul
II (John Paul II), besides being explicitly heretical, is fraught with dangerous
implications.
First, it explodes
Catholic teaching that the Church is one in faith, indefectible and infallible,
and is an admission that the gates of Hell have prevailed, if one thinks or
believes Wojtyla was a true pope.[2] Second, regarding the salvation of the Jewish
people, and by extension to all adherents of false religions, it is a denial of
the solemnly defined dogma of the New Covenant Church – the Catholic Church –
which proclaims that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation. Finally, there is the ambiguous novelty that
seems to insinuate that the Catholic Church is a composite of Old Covenant Jews
and New Covenant Catholics, because they are children of Abraham.[3]
In other words, the obvious purport of John Paul II’s
statement is that the Jews can be saved without believing in Jesus Christ, our
Lord and Savior, because the Old Covenant is a viable alternative to salvation
– it has never been revoked by God! [4] This spells heresy. There is no other way to interpret this new,
Modernist doctrine.
Yet, Mr. Vennari cannot
bring himself to call it heresy. He merely
calls it an error that Catholics must neither embrace nor applaud – although
good advice on the face of it, but a grave error on his part, because Catholics
are not allowed to pick and choose what a true Pope teaches about the Faith[5] and
John Vennari believes that John Paul II was a true pope. So, his use of the word “error” becomes a
white-washing, much to the detriment of the readers of Catholic Family News, who remain in a fog of doctrinal confusion, while it maintains
the fiction that John Paul II was a true pope despite the evidence of perennial Catholic
teaching and the evidence he himself presents in his article.
So, what is the thing named heresy that Mr.
Vennari is reluctant to use to define Karol Wojtyla’s declaration in
Mainz? St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic
Doctor, states clearly in his Summa
Theologica, Part II-II, Question 11,
Article 1: “Falsehood is contrary to truth. Now a heretic is one who devises or follows false or new opinions. Therefore heresy is opposed to the truth, on
which faith is founded; and consequently it is a species of unbelief.” Canon 1325.2 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law
states that a heretic is “one who, after the reception of baptism
pertinaciously denies or doubts any of the truths to be believed by divine and
Catholic faith.” Dr. Ludwig Ott in his
magisterial Fundamentals of Catholic
Dogma points out, that “If a baptised [sic] person deliberately denies or
doubts a dogma properly so-called, he is guilty of the sin of heresy (CIC 1325,
Par. 2), and automatically becomes subject to the punishment of excommunication
(CIC 2314, Par. I).” Question no. 205 of
the Baltimore Catechism, asks “How
does a Catholic sin against the faith?” The answer: “A Catholic sins against faith by apostasy, heresy,
indifferentism, and by taking part in non-Catholic worship.” Explanation “(b)” to this question explains
heresy: “Heresy is the refusal of baptized persons, retaining the name
Christian, to accept one or more of the truths revealed by God and taught by
the Catholic Church. If this refusal is
voluntary and obstinate, it is formal heresy; if it is involuntary, it is
material heresy.” In the excellent article,
“Resisting the Pope, Sedevacantism and Frankenchurch”, Fr. Anthony Cekeda,
citing the Catholic canonist A. Michel, points out that there are three
distinguishing problems of heresy: dogmatic (heresy as false doctrine), Moral
(heresy as sin), and Canonical (heresy as an ecclesiastical crime
[delictum]). What is very important to
understand is that no true pope can commit an ecclesiastical crime against
canon law, because he is the supreme legislator. What concerns us, here, are the first
two. Fr. Cekeda states, “The teaching
must be an article ‘of divine and Catholic faith’ that the Church has
authentically proposed as such. A prior ex cathedra or conciliar definition is
not required. ‘The explicit teaching of
the universal ordinary magisterium suffices for a truth to be authentically
proposed for adherence by the faithful.’ The heretic may deny the doctrine ‘in explicit or equivalent terms,’ through
either a contradictory or a contrary proposition.”[6] Thus, John Paul II’s statement about the Old Covenant
never having been revoked by God is a contradictory proposition. It was explicitly made before an audience of
Jews and it was reported in the media throughout the world.
John Paul II’s Mainz assertion is also a new
opinion and it is false. It was made
voluntarily and with obstinacy. The
canonist Michel says, “Because the act of heresy is an erroneous judgment of
intelligence, to commit the sin of heresy it suffices to knowingly and
willingly express this erroneous judgment in opposition to the Church’s
magisterium. From the moment that one
sufficiently knows the existence of the rule of the faith in the Church and that,
on any point whatsoever, for whatever motive and in whatever form, one refuses
to submit to it, formal heresy is complete. This willed opposition to the Church’s magisterium constitutes the pertinacity authors require for the sin
of heresy. With Cajetan we must observe
that pertinacity does not of necessity include long obstinacy by the heretic
and warnings from the Church. A
condition for the sin of heresy is one thing; a condition for the canonical
crime of heresy, punishable by canon laws, is another.”[7] As Fr. Cekeda remarks, “This torpedoes the
oft-heard R&R [Recognize and Resist policy of the Society of Saint Pius X] argument that a
trial or canonical warnings would be required before one could conclude that a
pope was pertinacious in heresy.”[8]
Mr. Vennari gives us plenty of Catholic
evidence in his article to prove John Paul II’s heresy. For instance, from the New Testament when Our Lord warns the Jews, “If
you do not believe that I am He [the Messiah], you will die in your sins.”
(John 8:24) And, “You search the
Scripture because in them you think you have life everlasting. And it is they that bear witness to Me, yet
you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40) And, “Who is the liar but he who denies that
Jesus is the Christ. He is Antichrist
who denies the Father and the Son.” (1 John 2:22). He cites St. Peter’s sermon to the Jews on
Pentecost morning, when the first Pope told the Jews, “Do penance, and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of
your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your
children, and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call.”
(Acts 2:38-39).As Mr. Vennari rightly
observes, “He [St. Peter] did not tell them they had their own workable
covenant independent from Christ.” He
then quotes from the American theologian, Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, who
“pointed out that Saint Peter did not direct his words to men of no religion at
all.Saint Peter, the first Pope,
directed his words to pious Jews who had traveled from various parts of the
world to attend the religious feasts at Jerusalem. Nonetheless, Saint Peter told these
well-meaning Jews that the religion of the Old Covenant would not save them,
but they must enter the New Covenant forged by the Blood of Jesus Christ, The
Catholic Church.”
Again appealing to Holy Scripture, Mr.
Vennari cites St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews (8:13), wherein “St. Paul
declares explicitly that Our Lord’s New Covenant ‘has made obsolete the former
one,’ that is, made obsolete the old Judaic Covenant.”
He goes on to explain that “The doctrine
of the supersession of the Old Testament by the New is a universal and
perpetual doctrine of the Catholic Church. It is a defined article of the Catholic Faith that Catholics must
believe.” The example he offers is the
Profession of Faith of the Ecumenical Council of Florence under Eugene IV: “The
sacrosanct Roman Church…firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter
pertaining to the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into
ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were
established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to
the divine worship at that time, after Our Lord’s coming had been signified by
them, ceased, and the sacraments of
the New Testament began;…All, therefore, who after that time observe
circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it (the
Roman Church) declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to
participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these
errors.”
Can it be any plainer?
Well, it’s all too plain to Mr. Vennari,
because he rightly concludes, “It is clear then that no Pope could trample
underfoot this Scriptural and Dogmatic truth if he wished to be true to the
Catholic Faith, and to the Papal Office.”However, this is exactly what John Paul II did. He trampled underfoot this ‘Scriptural and Dogmatic truth”. Still, for some reason baffling to this
writer, he does not equate John Paul II’s repudiation as heresy. Instead, he has fallen into line with the
preposterous policy of the Society of St. Pius X, which is one of “recognize and resist”. He writes, “We know, then, that Pope John
Paul’s rejection of supersessionism is an error that must be neither embraced nor applauded. Catholics have a duty to resist Pope John Paul II’s new teaching, as it defies Sacred Scripture and Sacred
Tradition” (emphasis added). Based on
the above definition of St. Thomas Aquinas, common sense would conclude that
John Paul II’s words are a species of unbelief, that is, they are heretical. However, and for some reason which is truly
mysterious, the Society of Saint Pius X and Mr. John Vennari want to influence the Traditional
Catholic world into thinking that a man who has committed heresy in this matter
(and in so many others) has actually only made an error, and that he is still a
true pope, whom they may resist by sifting papal acts and words in matters of
Catholic doctrine. This policy of the
Society of Saint Pius X is not only a grievous distortion of Catholic teaching, but it also
demands an answer to the question: who gave authority to the Society of Saint Pius X to resist a
man they consider to be a true pope.
As I wrote in a previous article, “Because
of Catholic teaching before Vatican II, we know there can be no lack of
continuity with past Catholic doctrine, since Vatican I (Session IV, July 18,
1870, Dogmatic Constitution I on the Church of Christ) taught, that the faith
of Peter [the Pope] cannot fail and no new doctrines can be taught.” Yet, in John Paul II’s public repudiation of
supersessionism we certainly have a discontinuity with past Catholic doctrine,
a discontinuity which is the introduction of a new and false opinion, which,
according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is a species of unbelief and that is
heresy. Pope Leo XIII explained in his
encyclical Satis Cognitum, “The
practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous
teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion,
and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any
point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium.” In Mystici
Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII teaches, “For not every sin, however grave
and enormous it be, is such as to sever a man automatically from the Body of
the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy.” Canon 188.4 states, “all offices whatsoever
fall vacant and without any declaration if the cleric…publicly defects from the
Catholic Faith.” This is exactly what
John Paul II did in Mainz in November 1980. Based
on the infallible teaching of Vatican I cited above, John Paul II, therefore, could
never have even been a true pope from the start.
Now, some readers may question my
conclusion that John Paul II was a manifest heretic, but he has exhibited all of the
requirements that justify my reasonable conclusion. He
denied a Catholic teaching in public, and he knew with what he was in conflict. Anyone who says John Paul II believed that his
heresies were Catholic doctrine is totally ignorant themselves. As Mr. John Lane wrote while John Paul II was alive,
“he [John Paul II] received a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum (Rome) in 1948 under the
guidance of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, one of the few real Thomists of that
era. In fact, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange was
openly anti-Modernist, and caused a huge controversy at that time by publishing
a refutation of heretical arguments which were being spread by hand among
theologians and students in unpublished tracts. For this action Garrigou-Lagrange was viciously attacked by the Modernists,
who asserted that it was ‘unfair’ to publish what had previously only been
privately circulated. The Modernists had
their final answer when Pope Pius XII alluded, in strong terms, to these
tracts, in Humani Generis, thus
vindicating Garrigou-Lagrange. Karol
Wojtyla was an eye-witness to these events, in daily contact with Fr.
Garrigou-Lagrange, who was the sponsor of his doctoral thesis….In the light of
these facts, it cannot seriously be maintained that JP2 is unaware of the conflict between his Modernist heresies and Catholic
doctrine. All canonists teach that if a
man is aware of the conflict between
his own doctrines and Catholic doctrine, then he is pertinacious.”[9]
Our Lord warned us, “Beware of false
prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are
ravening wolves. By their fruits you
shall know them.” (Matt. 7:15-16) In
other words, by what is apparent, what is visible, what is produced; not by the
judgment of the Church. What kind of
fruit was it that John Paul II publicly gave to the world in Mainz in 1980 when he
repudiated Catholic teaching? It wasn’t
Catholic fruit; it was the bitter fruit of heresy. It was new and it was false. It was not Catholic truth. This is heresy according to St. Thomas
Aquinas. One guilty of formal heresy is
no longer a Catholic, because as Popes Leo XIII and Pius XII taught, it is the sin which ipso facto separates a person from the Church. It does not need a Church declaration as
Canon 188.4 affirms. Therefore, the
conclusion is that John Paul II was not and cannot have been a true pope. As Fr. Anthony Cekeda explains in his
article, “Is Sedevacantism ‘Pope-Sifting’?”, “Traditional Catholics have tried
to explain in various ways how the errors and evils of the officially-sanctioned
Vatican II changes could come from what appears to be the authority of an
infallible Church. The sedevacantist
position maintains that the only coherent explanation for this state of affairs
is to conclude that, since error and evil cannot come from the authority of an indefectible and infallible Church, the
ecclesiastics who promulgated these changes – from pope on down – at some point lost their office and authority
through personal heresy.” It is hoped
the reader will understand that this is a reasonable conclusion based on the
state of affairs and is not the same thing as a confirmatory declaration of
fact from the Church.
One must remember what Pope Pius XII
emphasized, “That Christ and His Vicar constitute one only Head is the solemn
teaching of Our predecessor of immortal memory Boniface VIII in the Apostolic
Letter Unam Sanctam; and his
successors have never ceased to repeat the same” [Mystici Corporis, #40]. What
St. Ambrose meant when he said, “where Peter is, there is the Church” was
explained by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Testem benevolentiae to Cardinal Gibbons, January 22, 1899. “One in unity of doctrine as in unity of
government and this Catholic, such is the Church; and since God has established
that its center and foundation be in the Chair of Peter, it is rightly called
Roman; for ‘where Peter is, there is the Church.’” Consequently, it would be deceptive to say
that John Paul II was one with Christ and that the Church was in Mainz in 1980, when he
declared that the Old Covenant had not been revoked by God. It would be contrary to Catholic belief and
to common sense to assert that the Catholic Church is infallible and
indefectible in the face of the doctrinal fiasco committed in Mainz.
In light of these contradictions, it is an
absolute absurdity for Mr. John Vennari, obviously, under the influence of the
Society of Saint Pius X, to insist that John Paul II was a true pope. Worse still, it puts him and the Society of Saint Pius X in a dangerous dilemma, because of
the Society of Saint Pius X’s “recognize and resist” policy. In other words, according to the Society of Saint Pius X, Catholics may “recognize” a pope
while at the same time “resisting” his bad laws and doctrinal errors. This, however, is not Catholic teaching. Briefly, Vatican I taught that no Catholic is
free to reject rites promulgated by the Church; condemned the proposition that
the Pope cannot be trusted to make judgments on faith and morals; condemned the
proposition that Catholics are free to reject or accept ordinary magisterial
teachings from a pope since they can be in error; and condemned the proposition
that the faith of a pope can fail.
With these facts before us, we can see
that the Traditionalist Catholic Mr. John Vennari and the Society of Saint Pius X have been
disobedient to those whom they believe to be legitimate and valid popes since
the death of Pope Pius XII, because they have refused to accept or have condemned
certain teachings or rites presented by these popes to the Catholic world for
belief and practice, particularly, in this article, John Paul II’s repudiation of
supersessionism. Therefore, Mr. Vennari
and the Society of Saint Pius X have rejected the authority of the man they believe to be a true
pope and have fallen into schism. They
are no longer Catholic according to the teaching of popes and ecumenical
councils. The only other option they
have, not to be schismatics and to remain consistent with their thinking
(leaving out the option of sedevacantism), is to give their assent to the new
teachings. Of course, this would mean
that the Catholic Church defected and it would be an acknowledgement that the
gates of hell have prevailed against the Church, which Our Lord promised would
never happen.
You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Vennari. It is a metaphysical impossibility. Our Lord said, “He that is not with me is
against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth.” (Luke 11:23). It is impossible to be with and against
Christ at the same time. To assert that
one can is a matter of blasphemy.
[1] “Those of the seed of Abraham who live according to the Law of Moses and who do
not believe in Christ before death shall not be saved; especially they who
curse this very Christ in the synagogues; who curse everything by which they
might obtain salvation and escape the vengeance of fire” (St. Justin
Martyr). “So clearly was the transition
then made from the Synagogue to the Church that, when the Lord gave up His
soul, the veil of the Temple was rent in two” (Pope St. Leo the Great). “Many, I know, respect the Jews and think
that their present way of life is a venerable one. This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out
this deadly opinion. I said that the
synagogue is no better than a theater and I bring forward a prophet as my
witness. Surely the Jews are not more
deserving of belief than their prophets. ‘You had a harlot’s brow; you became shameless before all’. Where a harlot has set herself up, that place
is a brothel. But the synagogue in not
only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for
wild beasts. Jeremiah said: ‘Your house
has become for me the den of a hyena’. He does not simply say ‘of wild beast’, but ‘of a filthy wild beast’,
and again: ‘I have abandoned my house, I have cast off my inheritance’. But when God forsakes a people, what hope of
salvation is left? When God forsakes a
place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons” (St. John Chrysostom). In commenting on Matthew 23:15, St. Hilary
said, “For after the preaching of Christ there was no faith left in their
doctrine [Scribes/Pharisees], but whoever was gained to the faith of the Jews
became a child of hell” (Catena Aurea). Despite these dire warnings and statements of
fact, John Paul II and his successor have visited various synagogues and confirmed the
Jews in their false worship.
[2] One of the four marks of the true Church of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is
that it is one – its oneness or unity. Dr. Ludwig Ott in his Fundamentals
of Catholic Dogma, says, “By unity is to be understood not merely numerical
unity or unicity, but above all the inner unity or unicity in the sense of
being undivided.” He points out that Our
Lord “placed Peter over the other Apostles and instituted in him both a
perpetual principle of unity and a visible foundation.” In Testem
benevolentiae Pope Leo XIII cites St. Ambrose, “where Peter is, there is
the Church.” Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis taught, “That Christ
and His Vicar constitute one only Head is the solemn teaching of Our
predecessor of immortal memory Boniface VIII in the Apostolic Letter Unam Sanctam; and his successors have
never ceased to repeat the same.” Vatican I, Session IV defined that the faith of Peter cannot fail. Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI,
in their work entitled Tumultuous Times,
cite St. Ambrose: “[He] 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 [infallibility]. Indefectibility means that the Catholic Church will, until the end of
time, remain essentially what she is. Again, Ott: “In saying that the Church is indefectible we assert both
her imperishableness, that is, her constant duration to the end of the world,
and the essential immutability of her teaching, her constitution and her
liturgy. This does not exclude the decay
of individual ‘churches’ and accidental changes.” The indefectibility of the
Church requires that at least a remnant of the Church will exist until the end
of the world, and a true pope will never authoritatively teach error to the
entire Church. It does not exclude
antipopes posing as popes…or a counterfeit sect that reduces the adherents of
the true Catholic Church to a remnant in the last days.
[3] What
did Wojtyla mean by “our Church”? It
seems to fit the new ecclesiology of Vatican II wherein the Church of Christ
subsists in the Catholic Church. That
is, that the Church of Christ is no longer identified as the Catholic
Church. It has a greater extension to
include more than just Catholics. Fr.
Curzio Nitoglia states that “The concoction of this ‘new church’ was to justify
false ecumenism and inter-denominational dialogue and prayer meetings so
rabidly encouraged and practiced by the Roman Modernists. It is diametrically opposed to Catholic
teaching.” So, was Wojtyla referring to
the Catholic Church per se or to the
Modernist invention: the umbrella church called the Church of Christ which
subsists in the Catholic Church?
[4] In
a Zenit News Story, “Are Believers of
other Religions Saved?”, Sept. 5, 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger made the following
statement, “[W]e are in agreement that a Jew, and this is true for believers of
other religions, does not need to know or acknowledge Christ as the Son of God
in order to be saved, if there are insurmountable impediments, of which he is
not blameworthy, to preclude it.” This
accords, perfectly, with John Paul II’s Mainz talk to the Jewish community. Another evil implication derived from this
rejection of Jesus Christ is that those who convert to Judaism from Catholicism
can be saved. We have an example of this
during the episcopacy of John Cardinal O’Connor of New York noted by Dr. Thomas
A. Droleskey when he wrote, “ABC-TV's Nightline televised a
story on Christmas night in the late 1990s that dealt with a young Catholic
man, Stephen Dubner, who had found out that his parents had converted from
Judaism to Catholicism. Horrified by this knowledge he learned in his twenties,
Mr. Dubner decided to "rectify" the injustice of his parents'
conversion by converting to Judaism. Mr. Dubner reached out to the then
Archbishop of New York, the late John Cardinal O'Connor, to ask him how to deal
with his mother's grief at his conversion to her former religion. Cardinal O'Connor
did not attempt to dissuade Mr. Dubner from converting out of the true Faith.
Indeed, His Eminence told his interviewer that "God is smiling on all of
this" as the interview ended. This prompted me to write an article for The
Wanderer entitled, "How to Break a Mother's Heart." The Mother was,
of course, Our Most Blessed Mother, Mary ever Virgin.” Cf. Dr. Droleskey’s website www.Christorchaos.com.
[5] According
to the twist Society of Saint Pius X authorities have put on it is this: we are free to sift what is Catholic in the
teachings of a pope on matters of faith and morals, because he can’t be trusted
to make judgments on these matters. Their seeming justification is Galatians 2:11-14 in which is described
St. Paul’s public rebuke of St. Peter for “dissimulating about observing the
Old Testament dietary laws: ‘I withstood him to the face, because he was to be
blamed.’” Fr. Cekeda remarks, “St.
Thomas and others observe that St. Paul gave an example of how subjects should give
fraternal correction to their prelates ‘even publicly’ if they commit a crime
that is public, scandalous and a danger to the faith. This is standard teaching in moral theology
manuals. The principle, however, applies
only to fraternal correction. No
theologian I know of extends it to rejecting a pope’s universal disciplinary
laws or teachings of his universal ordinary magisterium. The theologian Suarez, in fact, says that
neither Gal 2:11-14 nor Mt 18:17 allow ‘fraternal correction’ of a pope through
public denunciation of his crime” (Cf. Resisting
the Pope, Sedevacantism and Frankenchurch). The “recognize and resist” policy of the Society of Saint Pius X is a grave error and
possibly heretical, because it was condemned by Vatican I (cf. Denziger 1792)
and by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Satis
Cognitum #15. This erroneous
teaching of the Society of Saint Pius X has influenced thousands of Traditional Catholics,
unfortunately.
[6] Cf. www.traditionalmass.org. In footnote 41, Fr. Cekeda gives an
illustration of both. “Example: Christ
is God-Man = de fide. Christ is not God-Man = contradictory
proposition. Christ is pure man, Christ
is an angel = contrary propositions.”
[8] Ibid. In another article by Fr. Cekeda, “Did Bellarmine Condemn
Sedevacantism?” he mentions that St. Robert Bellarmine in his work De Romano Pontifice, II. 30, treats the
question of whether a heretical pope can be deposed. “A pope who is a manifest heretic
automatically (per se) ceases to be pope and head, just as he ceases
automatically to be a Christian and a member of the Church. Wherefore, he can be judged and punished by
the Church. This is the teaching of all
the ancient Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all
jurisdiction.”
[9] Cf. www.sedevacantist.com/post7.html. New information indicates that Karol Wojtyla
did not receive his doctorate at the Angelicum, at least, according to Fr.
Luigi Villa in an extensive article he wrote in Chiesa viva of September 2010. It is titled, “Karol Wojtyla Beatified? Never!” In a chronological section
of the article that describes Wojtyla’s life before 1978, Fr. Villa presents
the following: "1948 (June 14) Took the admission examination for
his Ph.D. Cardinal Sapieha sent him to Rome to continue his studies at the
Angelicum. But there was, at that time, as Rector of the university, the
great theologian and writer Father Garrigou-Lagrange, who was a giant on
Thomism. Wojtyla, not being a member of that teaching, was following the
philosophy that he wanted, that of existentialism, the modern type of Kant.
Therefore his dissertation, 'Faith according to St. John of the Cross,'
was criticized and rejected by Lagrange, because it supported the
ideas of the Modernists who claimed that Faith is based on personal
experience. For this, Wojtyla was not accepted for the doctorate
and he had to return to the University of Krakow, where there he was
accepted." This is certainly proof of Wojtyla's Modernism. (see http://www.ourladyofgoodsuccess.com/frames-3-4-2005/chiesa-viva/Chiesa%20viva%20430%20S%20en[2].pdf.)
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