Napoleon [Benedict] Returns From Elba

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The daily blitzkrieg of apostasy, blasphemy and sacrilege emanating from the one-man demolition derby of doctrine, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, is simply more than one human being can process.

Then again, as I noted just nine days ago in What More Time Needs To Be Wasted On This Horrible Man?, which seems like an eternity ago, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is doing little more than repeating himself over and over again, although he is doing so in increasingly more audacious ways. The false "pontiff's" interview with "Father" Antonio Spadoro, S.J., however, that was published last week in La Civiltà Cattolica on behalf of America Magazine and other Jesuit publications worldwide required a great deal of effort to complete. Indeed, a three-part commentary on this site followed in its wake (see Francis: Apostle of Antichrist, part one, Francis: Apostle of Antichrist, part two and Francis: Apostle of Antichrist, part three.)

Work has begun on the next commentary, which will deal with Bergoglio/Francis's view of abortion and Timothy Michael Dolan's gushy, giddy, gooey embrace of it, and it is my hope that it can be completed by tomorrow morning, Thursday, September 26, 2013, the Feast of the North American Martyrs and the Commemoration of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian.

The presses, so to speak, have had to come to a crashing halt on that next article because, believe it or not, Napoleon has returned from Elba.

All right. All right.

Calm down.

The "Napoleon" to which I refer was not sent into exile forcefully.

No, the "Napoleon" to which I refer left his position of power voluntarily, saying that he would remain "out of view" so that his successor could govern without any interference.

Ah, the "Napoleon" to which I refer is constitutionally incapable of doing this as he lives a world of Hegelian contradiction and paradox. So much so that there are times that he has to apply his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity" to his own promises, no less his own words and actions.

The "Napoleon" to which I refer is none other than the elder-half of the two-headed "pope" monster, none other than Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI himself.

Yes, the man about whom over eight hundred fifty articles were written during the 2,872 days of his tenure as the "Petrine Minister" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Ratzinger/Benedict, has ended, at least briefly, his self-imposed exile in the conciliar Vatican's version of Elba.

No, Ratzinger/Benedict has not come back from the Vatican's Elba to assume power again. No one but a handful of somewhat traditionally-minded Catholics, people who closed their eyes to the reality of what Ratzinger/Benedict said and did that was outlined in fairly definitive form in Mister Asteroid Is Looking Pretty Good Right About Now, in the conciliar structures have any desire for such a return.

Ratzinger/Benedict has returned from the Vatican's equivalent of Elba to defend his record on clerical abuse cases that was criticized in a book written by an Italian atheist, Piergiorgio Odifreddi. The now retired "pontiff" wrote Odifreddi an eleven-page letter, excepts of which were published in the same Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, that had published Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis's letter to atheist Eugenio Scalfari (see Francis, The Out-Of-Control And Uncontrollable Antipope, part one and Francis, The Out-of-Control and Uncontrollable Antipope, part two).

Ratzinger/Benedict's letter to his atheist, the aforementioned Piergiorgio Odifreddi, was a typical product of his Hegelian mind, warped as it was in his seminary days by the "new theology" that was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, just as he, the then young Joseph Ratzinger, was about to enter his final year of study before his ordination to the Holy Priesthood on June 29, 1951, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (see Sixty Years of Priestly Apostasy).

Although the principal focus of his letter was a defense of his record on clerical abuse cases, Ratzinger/Benedict did try to convince Odifreddi that his atheism was misplaced as the "historical-critical method" of Scriptural exegesis had helped to "discover" the "real figure" of Jesus of Nazareth, something that, although hardly new for him, is yet another brazen assertion from this astounding octogenarian apostate that the Catholic Church had not truly known or taught the "true figure" of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ prior to the dawning of "modern" Scriptural exegesis, especially that of the "historical-critical method."

Here is what Ratzinger/Benedict said in his letter to Piergiorgio Odifreddi on this matter of great theological significance:

The pope also gave Odifreddi some recommended readings to address the mathematician's doubts about being able to know anything for certain about the historical figure of Jesus.

Just because there is shoddy research out there "doesn't compromise the importance of serious historical research," which has brought real and certain knowledge about the figure of Jesus, the pope said.

He said "historical-critical exegesis is necessary for faith, which doesn't propose myths" out of historical figures and events, but demands a history that is based on truth and facts, and presents such findings with scientific rigor.

"All of my efforts have been aimed at showing how the Jesus described in the Gospels is also the real historical Jesus; that it is history that has really taken place," Pope Benedict said, referring to his writings on Jesus of Nazareth.

The pope ended his letter admitting he may have been harsh in some of his criticisms, but that "frankness is part of dialogue." (See Retired Uber Apostate Benedict challenges atheist, says he never hid abuse cases.)

 

Thus it is that Ratzinger/Benedict, dismissing the ability of Saint Thomas Aquinas and of those of his fellow Modernists who employ what he believes to be a  too "rigid" reliance upon the historical-critical method of Biblical exegesis, believe that he has "discovered" the hermeneutic that makes it possible for men of this time to "encounter" and to "attain sure knowledge of the real historical figure Jesus." This is a blasphemous and heretical contention that implies that Holy Mother Church has not done this for nearly two millennia under the infallible guidance of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, and with the assistance of her Fathers and Doctors whose works she has held in such high esteem and which have been relied upon by the council fathers of her true councils, including the Council of Trent and the [First] Vatican Council, to reflect upon the meaning of the truths contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith as they have conducted their deliberations under the infallible guidance of the same God the Holy Ghost.

Pope Saint Pius X explicated this Modernist approach to Divine Revelation in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, stressing the fact that Modernists must assess everything about the Faith in term of their own interior feelings and experiences, incapable of accepting the Tradition of Holy Mother Church as It has been passed down from time immemorial under the infallible guidance of God the Holy Ghost as they must "revise" and "reinterpret" that which does not correspond to their own interior dispositions and feelings:

Moreover, the first actuation, so to speak, of every vital phenomenon -- and religion, as noted above, belongs to this category -- is due to a certain need or impulsion; but speaking more particularly of life, it has its origin in a movement of the heart, which movement is called a sense. Therefore, as God is the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and foundation of all religion, must consist in a certain interior sense, originating in a need of the divine. This need of the divine, which is experienced only in special and favorable circumstances. cannot of itself appertain to the domain of consciousness, but is first latent beneath consciousness, or, to borrow a term from modern philosophy, in the subconsciousness, where also its root lies hidden and undetected. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

In all this process, from which, according to the Modernists, faith and revelation spring, one point is to be particularly noted, for it is of capital importance on account of the historicocritical corollaries which they deduce from it. The unknowable they speak of does not present itself to faith as something solitary and isolated; hut on the contrary in close conjunction with some phenomenon, which, though it belongs to the realms of science or history, yet to some extent exceeds their limits. Such a phenomenon may be a fact of nature containing within itself something mysterious; or it may be a man, whose character, actions, and words cannot, apparently, be reconciled with the ordinary laws of history. Then faith, attracted by the unknowable which is united with the phenomenon, seizes upon the whole phenomenon, and, as it were, permeates it with its own life. From this two things follow. The first is a sort of transfiguration of the phenomenon, by its elevation above its own true conditions, an elevation by which it becomes more adapted to clothe itself with the form of the divine character which faith will bestow upon it. The second consequence is a certain disfiguration -- so it may be called -- of the same phenomenon, arising from the fact that faith attributes to it, when stripped of the circumstances of place and time, characteristics which it does not really possess; and this takes place especially in the case of the phenomena of the past, and the more fully in the measure of their antiquity. From these two principles the Modernists deduce two laws, which, when united with a third which they have already derived from agnosticism, constitute the foundation of historic criticism. An example may be sought in the Person of Christ. In the Person of Christ, they say, science and history encounter nothing that is not human. Therefore, in virtue of the first canon deduced from agnosticism, whatever there is in His history suggestive of the divine must be rejected. Then, according to the second canon, the historical Person of Christ was transfigured by faith; therefore everything that raises it above historical conditions must be removed. Lastly, the third canon, which lays down that the Person of Christ has been disfigured by faith, requires that everything should be excluded, deeds and words and all else, that is not in strict keeping with His character, condition, and education, and with the place and time in which He lived. A method of reasoning which is passing strange, but in it we have the Modernist criticism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907. See Appendix A for several other paragraphs from Pascendi that elaborate upon these points.)

 

Pope Pius XII,writing in Divino Afflante Spiritu, September 30, 1943, established new parameters for Scriptural research and for new translations from the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic languages that he believed would be useful in light of relatively new archeological discoveries, noting these discoveries as reason to grant permission for a wider field of exegetical study and translation than was permitted by Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus, November 18, 1893. He did so, however, by placing a strict proviso on this widened permission:

54. Hence their exegetical explanation should aim especially at the theological doctrine, avoiding useless disputations and omitting all that is calculated rather to gratify curiosity than to promote true learning and solid piety. The literal sense and especially the theological let them propose with such definiteness, explain with such skill and inculcate with such ardor that in their students may be in a sense verified what happened to the disciples on the way to Emmaus, when, having heard the words of the Master, they exclaimed: "Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He opened to us the Scriptures?"[37]

 

The permission for a widened field of Scriptural exegesis and translations granted by Pope Pius XII in Divini Afflante Spiritu was principally for purposes of scholars, whose research, if orthodox, would be taught in seminaries to help form future priests. Pope Pius XII urged the exegetes and translators to explain the doctrine of Holy Mother Church, not to undermine it as the Modernists have done. No conflict can exist between the Church's doctrinal pronouncements, whether made in dogmatic councils or by our true popes, and the text of Sacred Scripture as God the Holy Ghost, Who cannot contradict Himself, directed the writing and formulation of each infallibly, unerringly.

Pope Pius XII was aware of how his intentions in Divino Afflante Spiritu had been used by some as the pretext to put into question the Church's doctrine and/or to seek to express that doctrine in novel language that lacked the precision of Scholasticism. Indeed, he expressed this concern quite directly when condemning Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict's "new theology" in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950:

22. To return, however, to the new opinions mentioned above, a number of things are proposed or suggested by some even against the divine authorship of Sacred Scripture. For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council's definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters. They even wrongly speak of a human sense of the Scriptures, beneath which a divine sense, which they say is the only infallible meaning, lies hidden. In interpreting Scripture, they will take no account of the analogy of faith and the Tradition of the Church. Thus they judge the doctrine of the Fathers and of the Teaching Church by the norm of Holy Scripture, interpreted by the purely human reason of exegetes, instead of explaining Holy Scripture according to the mind of the Church which Christ Our Lord has appointed guardian and interpreter of the whole deposit of divinely revealed truth.

23. Further, according to their fictitious opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation, carefully worked out under the Church's vigilance by so many great exegetes, should yield now to a new exegesis, which they are pleased to call symbolic or spiritual. By means of this new exegesis the Old Testament, which today in the Church is a sealed book, would finally be thrown open to all the faithful. By this method, they say, all difficulties vanish, difficulties which hinder only those who adhere to the literal meaning of the Scriptures.

24. Everyone sees how foreign all this is to the principles and norms of interpretation rightly fixed by our predecessors of happy memory, Leo XIII in his Encyclical "Providentissimus," and Benedict XV in the Encyclical "Spiritus Paraclitus," as also by Ourselves in the Encyclical "Divino Affflante Spiritu."

25. It is not surprising that novelties of this kind have already borne their deadly fruit in almost all branches of theology. It is now doubted that human reason, without divine revelation and the help of divine grace, can, by arguments drawn from the created universe, prove the existence of a personal God; it is denied that the world had a beginning; it is argued that the creation of the world is necessary, since it proceeds from the necessary liberality of divine love; it is denied that God has eternal and infallible foreknowedge of the free actions of men -- all this in contradiction to the decrees of the Vatican Council[5] (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

Pope Pius XII described Ratzinger/Benedict's Scriptural exegetical methods with great accuracy, explaining how they foreign they are to "the principles and norms of interpretation rightly fixed" by Popes Leo XIII and Benedict XV and in his own Divino Afflante Spiritu.

Undaunted, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is still promoting those false, condemned methods of Scriptural exegesis in a "dialogue" with an atheist to "prove" that he has "discovered" the "truth" about the "real Jesus." The man is as delusional in retirement as he has been throughout the course of his priestly life. And yet it is that even some traditionally-minded Catholics take the man to be an "intellectual" when he is nothing other than a pseudo-intellectual whose sophistry is laid bare for all the world to see in all of this stereotypical Modernist complexity.

Similarly, Ratzinger/Benedict is completely undaunted in his delusional defense of the systematic protection and promotion of both clerical abusers and their "episcopal" friends and enablers:

"I never sought to conceal these things," the pope said of cases of clerical abuse, and lamented the scholar depicting the church as the only place where such "deviation" and "filth" occur. (See Retired Uber Apostate Benedict challenges atheist, says he never hid abuse cases.)

Ratzinger/Benedict is delusionally oblivious to the the truth of his record as an enabler of clerical abusers and their "episcopal" protectors precisely because he is delusionally oblivious as to how his public words and actions in violation of the First and Second Commandments have offended the honor and majesty and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity. This is because the deity in which he believes is a project of his own warped Modernist imagination. Ratzinger/Benedict has projected onto God his own conception of Him, which is exactly what the pagans of Greek and Roman antiquity did. His false church is indeed a place of theological, liturgical, moral and pastoral deviation and filth.

One who is oblivious to the horror of sins he has committed against the First, Second and Third Commandments will be pretty oblivious to the horror of the sins committed against the Fourth through Tenth Commandments.

This is why Ratzinger/Benedict never realized the gravity of the sins of unnatural vice in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments and why he did not recognize the clear signs of effeminacy and homosexuality that existed right within his own supposedly "Papal" Household, a problem compounded by his successor, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, who just dismisses it all by saying, "Who am I to judge?" Ratzinger/Benedict never thought that there is anything is wrong with signs of effeminacy or homosexuality in any man, including clerics. Sin, to him, is just not that important. The same is true of Bergoglio/Francis, something that has been demonstrated in many recent articles on this site.

How can the horror of sin be important to a man who does not believe in God as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church?

Consider the passivity that characterized the then conciliar "archbishop" of Munich and Freising's silence at a meeting over which he presided on January 15, 1980 when a known clerical abuser, "Father" Peter Hullermann, from the Diocese of Essen, was assigned for parish work in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising:

MUNICH — The future Pope Benedict XVI was kept more closely apprised of a sexual abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have suggested, raising fresh questions about his handling of a scandal unfolding under his direct supervision before he rose to the top of the church’s hierarchy.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope and archbishop in Munich at the time, was copied on a memo that informed him that a priest, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish.

An initial statement on the matter issued earlier this month by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising placed full responsibility for the decision to allow the priest to resume his duties on Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber. But the memo, whose existence was confirmed by two church officials, shows that the future pope not only led a meeting on Jan. 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest, but was also kept informed about the priest’s reassignment.

What part he played in the decision making, and how much interest he showed in the case of the troubled priest, who had molested multiple boys in his previous job, remains unclear. But the personnel chief who handled the matter from the beginning, the Rev. Friedrich Fahr, “always remained personally, exceptionally connected” to Cardinal Ratzinger, the church said.

The case of the German priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, has acquired fresh relevance because it unfolded at a time when Cardinal Ratzinger, who was later put in charge of handling thousands of abuse cases on behalf of the Vatican, was in a position to refer the priest for prosecution, or at least to stop him from coming into contact with children. The German Archdiocese has acknowledged that “bad mistakes” were made in the handling of Father Hullermann, though it attributed those mistakes to people reporting to Cardinal Ratzinger rather than to the cardinal himself.

Church officials defend Benedict by saying the memo was routine and was “unlikely to have landed on the archbishop’s desk,” according to the Rev. Lorenz Wolf, judicial vicar at the Munich Archdiocese. But Father Wolf said he could not rule out that Cardinal Ratzinger had read it.

According to Father Wolf, who spoke with Father Gruber this week at the request of The New York Times, Father Gruber, the former vicar general, said that he could not remember a detailed conversation with Cardinal Ratzinger about Father Hullermann, but that Father Gruber refused to rule out that “the name had come up.”

Benedict is well known for handling priestly abuse cases in the Vatican before he became pope. While some have criticized his role in adjudicating such cases over the past two decades, he has also won praise from victims’ advocates for taking the issue more seriously, apologizing to American victims in 2008.

The future pope’s time in Munich, in the broader sweep of his life story, has until now been viewed mostly as a steppingstone on the road to the Vatican. But this period in his career has recently come under scrutiny — particularly six decisive weeks from December 1979 to February 1980.

In that short span, a review of letters, meeting minutes and documents from personnel files shows, Father Hullermann went from disgrace and suspension from his duties in Essen to working without restrictions as a priest in Munich, despite the fact that he was described in the letter requesting his transfer as a potential “danger.”

In September 1979, the chaplain was removed from his congregation after three sets of parents told his superior, the Rev. Norbert Essink, that he had molested their sons, charges he did not deny, according to notes taken by the superior and still in Father Hullermann’s personnel file in Essen.

On Dec. 20, 1979, Munich’s personnel chief, Father Fahr, received a phone call from his counterpart in the Essen Diocese, Klaus Malangré.

There is no official record of their conversation, but in a letter to Father Fahr dated that Jan. 3, Father Malangré referred to it as part of a formal request for Father Hullermann’s transfer to Munich to see a psychiatrist there.

Sexual abuse of boys is not explicitly mentioned in the letter, but the subtext is clear. “Reports from the congregation in which he was last active made us aware that Chaplain Hullermann presented a danger that caused us to immediately withdraw him from pastoral duties,” the letter said. By pointing out that “no proceedings against Chaplain Hullermann are pending,” Father Malangré also communicated that the danger in question was serious enough that it could have merited legal consequences.

He dropped another clear hint by suggesting that Father Hullermann could teach religion “at a girls’ school.”

On Jan. 9, Father Fahr prepared a summary of the situation for top officials at the diocese, before their weekly meeting, saying that a young chaplain needed “medical-psychotherapeutic treatment in Munich” and a place to live with “an understanding colleague.” Beyond that, it presented the priest from Essen in almost glowing terms, as a “very talented man, who could be used in a variety of ways.”

Father Fahr’s role in the case has thus far received little attention, in contrast to Father Gruber’s mea culpa.

Father Wolf, who is acting as the internal legal adviser on the Hullermann case, said in an interview this week that Father Fahr was “the filter” of all information concerning Father Hullermann. He was also, according to his obituary on the archdiocese Web site, a close friend of Cardinal Ratzinger.

A key moment came on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 1980. Cardinal Ratzinger presided that morning over the meeting of the diocesan council. His auxiliary bishops and department heads gathered in a conference room on the top floor of the bishop’s administrative offices, housed in a former monastery on a narrow lane in downtown Munich.

It was a busy day, with the deaths of five priests, the acquisition of a piece of art and pastoral care in Vietnamese for recent immigrants among the issues sharing the agenda with item 5d, the delicate matter of Father Hullermann’s future.

The minutes of the meeting include no references to the actual discussion that day, simply stating that a priest from Essen in need of psychiatric treatment required room and board in a Munich congregation. “The request is granted,” read the minutes, stipulating that Father Hullermann would live at St. John the Baptist Church in the northern part of the city.

Church officials have their own special name for the language in meeting minutes, which are internal but circulate among secretaries and other diocese staff members, said Father Wolf, who has a digitized archive of meeting minutes, including those for the Jan. 15 meeting. “It’s protocol-speak,” he said. “Those who know what it’s about understand, and those who don’t, don’t.”

Five days later, on Jan. 20, Cardinal Ratzinger’s office received a copy of the memo from his vicar general, Father Gruber, returning Father Hullermann to full duties, a spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed.

Father Hullermann resumed parish work practically on arrival in Munich, on Feb. 1, 1980. He was convicted in 1986 of molesting boys at another Bavarian parish.

This week, new accusations of sexual abuse emerged, both from his first assignment in a parish near Essen, in northern Germany, and from 1998 in the southern German town of Garching an der Alz.

Father Fahr died two years ago. A spokesman for the diocese in Essen said that Father Malangré was not available for an interview. Father Malangré, now 88, recently had an accident and was confused and unreliable as a witness when questioned in an internal inquiry into the handling of Father Hullermann’s case, said the spokesman, Ulrich Lota.

Father Gruber, who took responsibility for the decision to put Father Hullermann back into a parish, was not present at the Jan. 15 meeting, according to Father Wolf, and has not answered repeated interview requests. (Pope Was Told Pedophile Priest Would Get Post; the conciliar Vatican is in full spin-control mode now, insisting that Ratzinger/Benedict knew nothing of Father Hullermann's reassignment even though he presided at the January 15, 1980, in which the reassignment was approved. See Vatican Denies Pope Knew of Pedophile Priest’s Transfer.)

As noted on this site at the time this became news in March of 2010, Ratzinger/Benedict's obliviousness to the horror of the sins committed by the serial clerical abuser named Peter Hullermann has proved over the course of time to be his Waterloo. Yes, it was this same obliviousness to signs of effeminacy and homosexuality and the gravity thereof that caused him to ignore the nest of moral corruption in and around the Apostolic Palace, a place that has since October 28, 1958, housed all manner of men, including putative "popes," who have countenanced it (and in the case of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, practiced it--see "Blessed" Paul The Sick and In Death As In Life: The Antithesis Of Christ The King) with just as much ease of conscience as they have exhibited while promoting one condemned dogmatic proposition after another.

Vatican efforts to indemnify Ratzinger/Benedict in the Hullerman went too for the German priest, Monsignor Gerhard Gruber, who was selected to be his "fall guy." Monsignor Gerhard Gruber regretted having been pressured into accepting responsibility in 2010 for Ratzinger's reassignment of Peter Hullerman, telling friend that he had been subjected to great pressure to do so:

Apparently no one on the crisis team objected to the idea of taking Pope Benedict "out of the firing line" and using Gruber, 81, as a scapegoat instead. On the morning of March 12, while the press office was busy drafting a statement in which Gruber was given the full blame for H.'s appointment to serve as a pastor, and that included Gruber's personal apology, a church official was badgering the retired priest on the phone.

But Gruber, who felt put under pressure, later confided in theologian friends. He told them that he had been emphatically "asked" to assume full responsibility for the affair, and that church officials had promptly faxed him a copy of the statement and instructed him to make any changes he deemed necessary.

'Incorrect Decisions'

According to the statement released by the archdiocese, Ratzinger was partly responsible for making the decision to accept H.'s appointment. "Notwithstanding this decision," however, H. was assigned "by the then vicar general" to assist in pastoral care, without restriction, in a Munich parish. The statement also read: "Gruber assumes full responsibility for the incorrect decisions." A spokesman for the archdiocese later added that Gruber had "acted on his own authority" in the case of Peter H.

Gruber's friends say that the old man was only familiar with parts of the statement, that he was apparently being used as a scapegoat and that he was also under additional emotional pressure. To everyone's surprise, Gruber wrote an open letter in which he qualified the archdiocese's statement, writing that he did not sign any documents over which he had no influence. He also noted that he was "very upset" about the "manner in which the incidents were portrayed" by the archdiocese. "And the phrase 'acted on his own authority' also wasn't discussed with me," he wrote.

The archdiocese was unwilling to comment on the accusations, except to state it continued to believe that the former vicar general had acted on his own authority in the case of Peter H., and that he had admitted to having made mistakes. Gruber has gone on a trip to recuperate from "weeks that have been very stressful for me." His loyalty is greatly appreciated in Munich. Archbishop Reinhard Marx, Gruber writes, has sent him his best wishes and "expressed his appreciation for my 'participation'." (Catholic Abuse Scandal: Was Munich's Vicar General Forced to Serve as Ratzinger's Scapegoat?; see also Priest says he was pressurised into taking blame for pope.)

Monsignor Gruber wasn't the only one who had been thrown under the conciliar bus to seek to indemnify Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI three years ago.

Dario "Cardinal" Castrillon Hoyos, then the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Clergy, commended a conciliar "bishop" in France, Pierre Pican, for refusing to turn over a presbyter to the civil authorities (see Dario Castrillon Hoyos, Meet Pope Saint Pius V),  sought to protect himself and Ratzinger/Benedict by blaming the refusal to hand over clerical abusers for criminal prosecution by the civil authorities on none other than the soon-to-be "canonized" Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II ("Canonizing" A Man Who Protected Moral Derelicts):

Meanwhile, according to the Spanish daily La Verdad , Colombian cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos said at a weekend conference in Murcia that Pope John Paul approved the policy of not reporting to the police clerical sex abuse crimes.

In a September 2001 letter, recently published by the French Catholic publication Golias, Cardinal Hoyos wrote to French bishop Pierre Pican to congratulate him for not reporting an abuser priest. Earlier that year, Bishop Pican received a suspended three-month sentence for not reporting serial abuser Fr René Bissy, who was eventually given an 18-year prison sentence for child sex abuse crimes between 1989 and 1996.

Speaking in Murcia on Saturday, Cardinal Hoyos confirmed the text of the letter, adding also that Pope John Paul had seen it and “authorised me to send it to all the bishops”.

Four months earlier, in 2001, Pope John Paul assigned judicial responsibility for certain “grave” sins (including child sex abuse) to the Congregation For The Doctrine Of The Faith. It was following this that the then prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote to all Catholic bishops advising that they refer all credible cases of clerical child sex abuse to him. That letter was accompanied by another one, also in Latin, instructing that this be kept secret.

If Cardinal Hoyos’s claim is true it would suggest that Pope John Paul’s 2001 directive was intended to encourage a policy of cover-up. (Priest says he was pressurised into taking blame for pope.)

Yes, indeed, Joseph Ratzinger did a whole lot as "Pope" Benedict XVI to enable clerical perverts and to evade all sense of personal "responsibility" for his own role in the systematic cover-up, retention and promotion of clerical abusers and their "episcopal" enablers.

Remember, he appointed William Levada to be his own successor of the conciliar Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith despite Levada's letting the Homosexual Collective have its way repeatedly during his sorry tenure as the conciliar archbishop of San Francisco from December 27, 1995, to May13, 2005. (See Generating Controversy and Negative Press and Rescind the Appointment at Once, both which were written my "resist and recognize days in 2005; and Surely He Jests.)

Levada helped to water down an already weak "instruction" on the admission of men inclined to perversity to study for the priesthood and played a key role in helping his longtime friend, the pervert-friendly George Niederauer, now retired, who praised the propaganda piece in behalf of perversion entitled Brokeback Mountain, to succeed himself as the conciliar archbishop of San Francisco. Levada, who retired in 2012, also gave permission for a Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service offered in a Catholic church in London to cater to the "needs" of practicing homosexuals and lesbians.

Not to be outdone in his "sensitivity" to those steeped unrepentantly in one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, Benedict/Ratzinger's good friend, Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, the conciliar archbishop of Vienna, permitted a "blessing" to to be offered on February 14, 2007, which is the feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the Novus Ordo liturgical calendar (Saint Valentine can be "commemorated" secondarily if the "celebrant" chooses to do so), to be administered to perverts:

The Vienna homosexual-supporting Cardinal permits his Cathedral Dean to bless homosexuals.

In the Cathedral of St Stephen in Vienna, homosexual couples are treated as lovers and are blessed as a couple. And this with the blessings of the Cardinal.

A Commentary

On Valentine’s Day, homo-couples will be blessed in St Stephens by the responsible authorities who are anything but responsible.

The event is being officially promoted as a “Blessing Mass for Lovers”. The Dean, Father Faber has expressly invited homosexuals. It remains the Dean’s secret what homo-couples share with lovers.

Father Faber or Toni, as he is known by those who wish to be overfamiliar

Father Faber stated last year that due to Church regulations, homosexuals could only be blessed individually and he maintains this, this year as well.

It is therefore appears that homosexuals are being blessed instead of being asked to repent and go to the confessional.

Dean Faber does not believe that God excludes homosexual couples or homosexually inclined people and they are therefore “not excluded”.

It is evident the Dean is engaging in a two-faced game with respect to his blessing of individual homosexuals.

This method underlies a system.

With this procedure, the Church has been managing for years to implement immoral and anti-Catholic practices.

One decides on a morally dubious act and one reassures with the assistance of verbal ambiguities that what one sees is not what one sees.

This has been done with the full knowledge and silent agreement of the competent bishops.

These practices are in contradiction to Church documents and become words for their own sake without any imperative. When nobody accuses, there is no judge.

Ambiguities are simply glossed over with the usual justifications.

The so-called shepherds look on but do not act. Anti-Catholic actions becomes habitual, then they become quasi-rules, and then the fixed norm.

Rituals for homosexual blessings. The Dean publically stated last year that he would like to have a special blessing rite for homosexual couples. This he implemented for the first time in February 2006 at the St Valentine’s Day blessing in the Cathedral.

The ceremony at which the Dean officiated and the Cardinal looked on has become a actual homosexual demonstration.

A homosexual ideologist in Church circles and who knows the Dean personally was publicly blessed together with his partner in St Stephen’s Cathedral.

“The priest puts his hands on both our shoulders and asks for God’s blessing for our relationship in good as well as in bad days.”

Dean Faber has beforehand solemnly promised not to do anything which the Holy Father would not agree with.

“We do not bless a relationship for life, we do not bless a homosexual marriage but we bless each and everyone in his longing for love”

The tactics are say one thing and do another.

The responsibility of the Cardinal

The Dean is not acting without authority. He explained to the media that this celebration has been naturally agreed to by the Vienna Cardinal.

Could he have lied?

It appears not. If he had, the Cardinal would have objected to the statement and would have spoken through his press officer to deny it.

It is also not known that the Cardinal has taken up any measures in his Cathedral, right under his nose, homosexual couples were being blessed.

On the contrary, the same spectacle will repeat itself this year. This can only be interpreted that the Vienna Cardinal supports the blessings of his Dean.

There are some Catholics who do not wish to criticize and do not wish to condone, come up with the usual excuses.

“The Cardinal did not know anything about it. He did not really want it. He didn’t actually participate. He has an enormous number of anti-Catholics in important positions to consider. What can he do on his own? He is alone.”

Does this mean that the Cardinal is not master of his own Cathedral parish?

There can only be one conclusion. The Cardinal should become the Dean and the Dean should become Cardinal.

The Cardinal will have to decide whether he wishes to exercise his office which he has received from the Pope.

He has until Wednesday to think about it. After Wednesday we will know.

Wednesday has been and gone.

As predicted, the Archdiocese of Vienna is full of surprises. Blessings also took place in other Churches including the Church of the Knights of Malta and Church of Mary, Our Help (Cardinal permits St Valentine Day Blessings of homosexual couples.)

We must remember that at the heart of the scandals now rocking the counterfeit church of conciliarism on an almost worldwide basis has been the systematic recruitment, retention, promotion and protection of those inclined to commit perverse acts in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments into the conciliar presbyterate and hierarchy.

Compounding this phenomenon, which only those who are wilfully blind and/or intellectually dishonest can ignore, has been the old-fashioned clericalism that infected some true bishops in the past and has caused their doctrinally, morally and liturgically corrupt successors in the conciliar church to seek to discredit those who have become "problematic" to their precious reputations and careers and undeserved good names by assassinating the character of anyone who brings to light their true lack of concern for the eternal welfare of the sheep (see Swinging Clubs To Protect The Club).

Protecting the "institution" at all costs has cost the leaders of the counterfeit church of conciliarism quite a lot of money. Dioceses have gone into bankruptcy. Some have been forced to sell off church properties, including church buildings that were built by the blood, sweat, toil and treasure of Catholic immigrants to this country in the late-Nineteenth and early-Twentieth Centuries. All the while, however, the "bishops" who have enabled the abusers have gone, at least for the most, unpunished. Conciliar officials in the Vatican, including the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, knew all about the protection that conciliar 'bishops" in the United States of America and elsewhere in the world were affording clerical abusers in the 1980s and 1990s.

I once knew a fairly high-ranking official in one of the dicasteries in the Vatican back in the 1990s who was so upset with all that he had learned about the way in which the bad behavior of the corrupt "bishops" was being enabled in the Vatican itself that he resigned his position to return to his native country.  The man, who was a true priest, expressed his dissatisfaction with certain parts of the so-called Catechism of the Catholic Church, saying, "There is one true Church, the Catholic Church. None other." A few believers in the conciliar structures, therefore, got more than a little fed up with the lies that they saw being told, with the deals that were being cut, with the money that was being sent to the Vatican by 'bishops" in the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany, in particular, to purchase Vatican silence and inaction about all types of abuses (doctrinal, liturgical, pastoral). Careerists in the Vatican just remained silent.

This is only too natural when one considers the fact that Ratzinger/Benedict's blatant disregard for the horror of personal sin, whether of a doctrinal or moral nature, including his dismissive attitude about those Catholics who "never enter a church during the year," as he said in an interview Avvenire magazine in 2001:

I have nothing against people who, though they never enter a church during the year, go to Christmas midnight Mass, or go on the occasion of some other celebration, because this is also a way of coming close to the light. Therefore, there must be different forms of involvement and participation. (CARDINAL RATZINGER ON THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY).

 

Ratzinger/Benedict was similarly passive as conciliar "bishops" in his homeland have now formally approved the use of the "Plan B emergency" abortifacient for women who have been the victims of assault (see German Apostates give qualified approval of morning after pill and Top Vatican official calls German bishops’ approval of morning after pill ‘exemplary’; refer also to Crushed By The Weight Of Error, part two).

The only sort of "error" that Ratzinger/Benedict seemed to have been concerned about was Bishop Richard Williamson's proffering his views on the nature and extent of the crimes of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. That and that alone was a "horse of a different color." Ratzinger/Benedict remains yet in retirement as a man who is totally without horror when it comes to deviations from the Faith, which is somewhat understandable given the fact that he deviates from the Faith in many ways (see Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism and Mister Asteroid Is Looking Pretty Good Right About Now).

Ratzinger/Benedict promoted conciliar "bishops" who served as enablers of clerical predators. Among the many such "bishops" he promoted were Timothy Michael Dolan, Donald Wuerl and Richard Lennon. He removed not a single, solitary "bishop" in Sant Patrick's beloved Ireland who was guilty of protecting clerical abusers there and who covered up their crimes, causing many Irish Catholics to quit the practice of the conciliar brand of Catholicism altogether. Ratzinger/Benedict also maintained numerous "bishops" in the United States of America when their own roles as enablers of clerical abusers became publicly known even though he himself had been given evidence of their malfeasance long before the public disclosures.

Ratzinger/Benedict maintained the good standing of countless other spiritual and moral menaces to the souls of those who are as of yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The names are legion: Roger Mahony, Tod Brown, George Niederauer, Sylvester Ryan (each of which were closely associated in their seminary days), David Brom, Howard Hubbard, William Skylstad, Robert Banks, Bernard Law, William Murphy, John McCormack, Richard Lennon, Rembert Weakland, Joseph Imesch, Thomas Gumbleton, Timothy Dolan, Francis George, Thomas Daily, John Favalora, Richard Sklba, Michael Sheehan, Raymond Hunthausen, Matthew Clark, Edward Egan, Theodore McCarrick, and Daniel Pilarczyk, among so many others.

Each of these men has protected or looked the other way at those who were recidivist practitioners of perversion.

Each of these men permit the innocent and purity of children to be undermined by the horror of explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments.

Some of these men have praised motion pictures that have served as propaganda vehicles in behalf of perversion.

Two of them, Weakland and Gumbleton, have written explicitly in support of perverse acts in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments as expressions of "love."

Indeed, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was given evidence concerning Roger Mahony's testimony in a deposition involving a priest in the Diocese of Stockton, Oliver O'Grady, now in Ireland, who was abusing both boys and girls throughout California for over twenty years before his behavior became public knowledge. Look at paragraph two to see what kind of moral monster Roger Mahony is and how little his monstrous attitude matters to the conciliar Vatican, which retains him in power despite all that has been revealed about him in the documentary movie Deliver Us From Evil and that came to late later when the transcript of this wretched apostate's testimony was made public:

In a telephone interview on Thursday from Ireland, Mr. O’Grady maintained that he informed Cardinal Mahony of his “situation” while working as a priest in Stockton. “I told him I would go to counseling and he said fine,” Mr. O’Grady said. “We thought I had resolved it.” ...

In a 2004 deposition related to civil trials in Los Angeles, Cardinal Mahony stated that expressing sexual urges toward a 9-year-old would not be automatic cause for removing a priest from duty. He also said he barely knew Mr. O’Grady, though lawyers in the cases presented warm letters exchanged between the two.

In the Stockton civil case, a jury awarded $30 million in damages to the brothers in 1998, an award reduced to $7 million in negotiations. According to news media accounts at the time, jurors said they did not find Cardinal Mahony’s testimony, that he was unaware of Mr. O’Grady’s proclivities, credible. (Film on Pedophile Priest Revives Focus on Phony Baloney Mahony.)

Q. My question's a little different than that. If if it had come to your attention that Father O'Grady told your Vicar General that he had sexual urges towards a 9 year old or a 10 year old or 13 or an 11 year old, is that cause to remove him from ministry?

A. No. (Deposition of Roger Mahony (11/23/04), Part 2)

 

It was this same kind of shocking indifference to the horror of perversely sinful inclinations and acts that was demonstrated by conciliar "bishops" and chancery officials as men who had proven themselves to be threats to the bodies and souls of others were simply transferred from parish to parish and/or from diocese to diocese or from country to country.

This shocking indifference to perverse sinful inclinations and actions has infected all quarters of the counterfeit church of conciliarism to such an extent that even the morally corrupt predator named Carlos Urrutigoity, the founder of the Society of Saint John, which was a cesspool of perversity from its very inception, not only remains in "good standing" with conciliar officials who has been under the protection of  "Bishop" Rogelio Livares Plano of the Diocese of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, who belongs to Opus Dei, which is, of course, not the work of God. Urrutigoity and his group of well-groomed practitioners of sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments groomed boys as chaplains and part-time teachers at Saint Gregory the Great Academy in Elmhurst, Pennsylvania, in 1998 and 1999, able to do so as authorities there looked the other way.

The authorities of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, which runs Saint Gregory the Great Academy simply preferred to to look the other at Urrutigoity's perverted behavior as the headmaster there was not terribly disturbed by it, not considering it "very serious." Franciscan Brother Alexis Bugnolo, who spent a weekend at the academy in 1999, wrote a detailed letter to Stephen Brady of Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc., of his own observations concerning the moral indifference shown by the authorities at the academy despite all of the evidence of perversity that was presented before them, concluding with the following passage about such matters from Saint Anthony Mary Claret:

…the only morally certain solution to cure such a problem is the disbanding of the faculty and student body, and the dismissal of the chaplains and confessors from their duties there; if the institute is to be reconstituted, this may only be done if there are entirely new faculty, students, and priestly support to do so; this is so because there are always relationships which will never be discovered, and if these are present in the new foundation, the conspiracy will be renewed. Problems like this can be avoided in good foundations only if confessors and spiritual directors take recidivism in matters of the 6^th and 9^th commandments seriously, and are given authority to expel candidates that do not have the grace of chastity and continence, without human respect. (As found in Exploiting Traditionalist: Orders The Society of St. John. See also Mr. James Bendell's Pray for the Children

 

It is very apart from the point to argue, as some in the conciliar Vatican have done, that the "problem" amongst conciliar bishops and priests is about the same, if not a little less, than that which exists in other denominations. That's not the point at all, if that point is true at all, that is. The point is this: souls are not expendable. Our Lord shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem just one soul, no less the whole human race. It is a tragedy of monstrous proportions when a soul is scandalized by the bad behavior of any one of us, no less one purporting to be a "bishop" or a "priest." The Apostles and the Fathers of the Church did not have a bevy of lawyers and insurance companies to decide how best to suppress evidence and to protect them from the flocks that were entrusted to their pastoral care. They had no need of lawyers and insurance companies as they hated sin and took seriously the pursuit of personal sanctity and to promote same among the sheep they were given to get home safely to the eternal sheepfold of Heaven itself.

Once again, those who do not have contact with the lost and confused souls wandering around in the world who have been neglected or abandoned by the false shepherds of the counterfeit church of conciliarism will believe that these matters are anomalies that will go away rather than being representative of the whole ethos of conciliarism. No Catholic makes excuses for anyone's terrible, scandalous behavior, least of all his own behavior! One who loves God hates his sins and wants to live long enough to do penance for them, knowing that what has been confessed in internal forum and sometimes manifests itself in headlines will be revealed for all to see and behold on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead.

Barbara Dorris, who has worked with the victims of clerical predators had the following comment to offer concerning Ratzinger/Benedict's defense to Piergiorgio Odifreddi:

"In the church's entire history, no one knew more but did less to protect kids than Benedict," said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the U.S.-based victims' advocacy group SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "As head of CDF, thousands of cases of predator priests crossed his desk. Did he choose to warn families or call police about even one of those dangerous clerics? No. That, by definition, is a cover-up."

After the 2010 explosion of abuse cases, the Vatican issued informal guidelines ordering bishops to report suspected abusers to police in countries where it is required. But the Vatican has yet to remove or sanction any bishop who covered up for an abuser. (Uber Benedict Defends Abuse Record In Letter To Atheist.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict lived in fantasyland during his false "pontificate." He is doing so in his retirement.

Alas, the truth does have a way of catching up with this nefarious heretic.

The web of the conciliar protection, enabling and promotion of predator clergymen continues to make headlines.

Even as of this writing a number of have been written about such predators as the scandals in the conciliar church continue to explode.

One of these stories, Vatican removes deputy apostate bishop in Peru after abuse allegations, involves a conciliar "auxiliary bishop" in Peru who was removed under Bergoglio/Francis's "zero tolerance" policy that ignores the simple fact that it is sodomite inclinations that lead to such abuse in the first place. The "bishop," Gabino Miranda of the Diocese of Ayacucho, had been appointed in 2004 by none other than the man under whom Joseph "Cardinal" Ratinger worked for over twenty-three years, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. And although a spokesman for Opus Dei in Peru was quick to point out that Miranda was not a "member" of "the work," the now disgraced auxiliary "bishop" was known to attend Opus Dei meetings for priests.

Just as an aside here, you understand, the supposedly "zero tolerance" policy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis does not extend to all proven predators equally as he has chosen to retain his own hand-picked head to run the Institute of Religious Works, the Vatican Bank, "Monsignor" Battista Ricca, despite his own record as an twisted, perverted abuser. (See Dispensing With The Last Pretenses Of Catholicism.)

Yes, I guess that little detail was missed by those who wrote the copy for the story about Gabino Miranda. Then again, who am I to judge?

I digress.

Pardon me.

Yet another story that has emerged in recent days involves a clerical predator, Curtis Wehmeyer from the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis whose abuse took place during the "pontificate" of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and who was protected by lavender-friendly authorities in the chancery office of this "progressive" archdiocese:

The reality was far different. This wasn't the first time Wehmeyer had been in trouble. Top archdiocese leaders knew of Wehmeyer's sexual compulsions for nearly a decade but kept him in ministry and failed to warn parishioners, according to canon lawyer Jennifer Haselberger, who resigned in April, and dozens of other interviews and documents.

A memo written in 2011 obtained by MPR News from police shows the former vicar general – the top deputy of the archdiocese – did not want parish employees to know about Wehmeyer's past.

"At every step of the way, this could have been prevented," Haselberger said. "This is just failure after failure after failure after failure."

The decision in 2011 to still keep Wehmeyer's sexual behavior secret came at a time when the Rev. Kevin McDonough was assuring the archdiocese's 800,000 parishioners that the church was doing everything it could to protect children from abuse. Across the nation bishops were being forced to confront their decisions to protect priests and hide abuse, which resulted in millions of dollars in payments to victims. At the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the fallout from the clergy sex abuse scandal had been minimal.

McDonough likely knows more about clergy sexual abuse cases than anyone else at the archdiocese. He served as vicar general from 1991 to 2008 under Archbishops John Roach and Harry Flynn and more recently served as the "delegate for safe environment," a job that includes oversight of all child abuse prevention efforts in the archdiocese. He quietly left that role earlier this month. (Archdiocese knew of priest's sexual misbehavior yet kept him in ministry.)

 

There have been several other stories as well that have broken recently, each of which follows the pattern of abuse that is now public knowledge around the world, including here in the United States of America, Ireland. Belgium, Italy, Germany, Canada, and, among other countries, Australia. Ratzinger/Benedict did nothing to punish malefactors while refusing to admit at the same time that sodomy itself is the root cause of the problem that has scandalized Catholics and non-Catholics alike and caused millions to lose what little semblance of the conciliar-corrupted version of Catholicism that they may have known.

We are called to quit our sins and to repent of them, not to have them institutionally protected and explained away and covered up as malefactors are rewarded until such time as a scandal erupts and the Faith of many innocent souls is shaken, if not lost altogether. Saint John Bosco, for example, dealt with difficult, wayward boys. Although he used methods of charity and patience, he did so to correct their bad behavior, not to excuse such behavior or to reaffirm them in it with a casual, dismissive attitude that conveys as little sense of the horror of personal sin as that possessed by His Apostasteness Emeritus, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

We are indeed living in a period of profound chastisement where the devil is using the lack of faith and the bad example of Catholics all across and up and down the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide to scandalize and divide Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

We cannot be blind to the truth about the horror of our own sins, each of which wounded Our Blessed Lord and Saviour once in time and wounds the Church Militant on earth today. We must be brutally honest about our sins and the harm that they have done to our souls and to the Mystical Body of Christ, earnestly seeking to live more and more penitentially, seeking to offer up all of our prayers and penances and physical sufferings and fastings and humiliations that come our way in a spirit of reparation to God through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. We are very much responsible for the malodorous state of the Church Militant on earth and the world-at-large.

To Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart belongs the triumph that will vanquish the lords of Modernism once and for all.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

 

Our Lady of Fatima, 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.

Appendix A

Pope Saint Pius X on the Modernist Reliance Upon Subjectivism

Moreover, the first actuation, so to speak, of every vital phenomenon -- and religion, as noted above, belongs to this category -- is due to a certain need or impulsion; but speaking more particularly of life, it has its origin in a movement of the heart, which movement is called a sense. Therefore, as God is the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and foundation of all religion, must consist in a certain interior sense, originating in a need of the divine. This need of the divine, which is experienced only in special and favorable circumstances. cannot of itself appertain to the domain of consciousness, but is first latent beneath consciousness, or, to borrow a term from modern philosophy, in the subconsciousness, where also its root lies hidden and undetected.

It may perhaps be asked how it is that this need of the divine which man experiences within himself resolves itself into religion? To this question the Modernist reply would be as follows: Science and history are confined within two boundaries, the one external, namely, the visible world, the other internal, which is consciousness. When one or other of these limits has been reached, there can be no further progress, for beyond is the unknowable. In presence of this unknowable, whether it is outside man and beyond the visible world of nature, or lies hidden within the subconsciousness, the need of the divine in a soul which is prone to religion excites -- according to the principles of Fideism, without any previous advertence of the mind -- a certain special sense, and this sense possesses, implied within itself both as its own object and as its intrinsic cause, the divine reality itself, and in a way unites man with God. It is this sense to which Modernists give the name of faith, and this is what they hold to be the beginning of religion.

8. But we have not yet reached the end of their philosophizing, or, to speak more accurately, of their folly. Modernists find in this sense not only faith, but in and with faith, as they understand it, they affirm that there is also to be found revelation. For, indeed, what more is needed to constitute a revelation? Is not that religious sense which is perceptible in the conscience, revelation, or at least the beginning of revelation? Nay, is it not God Himself manifesting Himself, indistinctly, it is true, in this same religious sense, to the soul? And they add: Since God is both the object and the cause of faith, this revelation is at the same time of God and from God, that is to say, God is both the Revealer and the Revealed.

From this, Venerable Brethren, springs that most absurd tenet of the Modernists, that every religion, according to the different aspect under which it is viewed, must be considered as both natural and supernatural. It is thus that they make consciousness and revelation synonymous. From this they derive the law laid down as the universal standard, according to which religious consciousness is to be put on an equal footing with revelation, and that to it all must submit, even the supreme authority of the Church, whether in the capacity of teacher, or in that of legislator in the province of sacred liturgy or discipline.

9. In all this process, from which, according to the Modernists, faith and revelation spring, one point is to be particularly noted, for it is of capital importance on account of the historicocritical corollaries which they deduce from it. The unknowable they speak of does not present itself to faith as something solitary and isolated; hut on the contrary in close conjunction with some phenomenon, which, though it belongs to the realms of science or history, yet to some extent exceeds their limits. Such a phenomenon may be a fact of nature containing within itself something mysterious; or it may be a man, whose character, actions, and words cannot, apparently, be reconciled with the ordinary laws of history. Then faith, attracted by the unknowable which is united with the phenomenon, seizes upon the whole phenomenon, and, as it were, permeates it with its own life. From this two things follow. The first is a sort of transfiguration of the phenomenon, by its elevation above its own true conditions, an elevation by which it becomes more adapted to clothe itself with the form of the divine character which faith will bestow upon it. The second consequence is a certain disfiguration -- so it may be called -- of the same phenomenon, arising from the fact that faith attributes to it, when stripped of the circumstances of place and time, characteristics which it does not really possess; and this takes place especially in the case of the phenomena of the past, and the more fully in the measure of their antiquity. From these two principles the Modernists deduce two laws, which, when united with a third which they have already derived from agnosticism, constitute the foundation of historic criticism. An example may be sought in the Person of Christ. In the Person of Christ, they say, science and history encounter nothing that is not human. Therefore, in virtue of the first canon deduced from agnosticism, whatever there is in His history suggestive of the divine must be rejected. Then, according to the second canon, the historical Person of Christ was transfigured by faith; therefore everything that raises it above historical conditions must be removed. Lastly, the third canon, which lays down that the Person of Christ has been disfigured by faith, requires that everything should be excluded, deeds and words and all else, that is not in strict keeping with His character, condition, and education, and with the place and time in which He lived. A method of reasoning which is passing strange, but in it we have the Modernist criticism.

10. It is thus that the religious sense, which through the agency of vital immanence emerges from the lurking-places of the subconsciousness, is the germ of all religion, and the explanation of everything that has been or ever will be in any religion. This sense, which was at first only rudimentary and almost formless, under the influence of that mysterious principle from which it originated, gradually matured with the progress of human life, of which, as has been said, it is a certain form. This, then, is the origin of all. even of supernatural religion. For religions are mere developments of this religious sense. Nor is the Catholic religion an exception; it is quite on a level with the rest; for it was engendered, by the process of vital immanence, and by no other way, in the consciousness of Christ, who was a man of the choicest nature, whose like has never been, nor will be. In hearing these things we shudder indeed at so great an audacity of assertion and so great a sacrilege. And yet, Venerable Brethren, these are not merely the foolish babblings of unbelievers. There are Catholics, yea, and priests too, who say these things openly; and they boast that they are going to reform the Church by these ravings! The question is no longer one of the old error which claimed for human nature a sort of right to the supernatural. It has gone far beyond that, and has reached the point when it is affirmed that our most holy religion, in the man Christ as in us, emanated from nature spontaneously and of itself. Nothing assuredly could be more utterly destructive of the whole supernatural order. For this reason the Vatican Council most justly decreed: "If anyone says that man cannot be raised by God to a knowledge and perfection which surpasses nature, but that he can and should, by his own efforts and by a constant development, attain finally to the possession of all truth and good, let him be anathema." (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Appendix B

Our True Popes on Saint Thomas Aquinas

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. (Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, August 4, 1879.)

Appendix C

New Oxford Review Critique of Ratzinger/Benedict's Ability to Contradict Himself

In Cardinal Ratzinger’s Values in a Time of Upheaval, he muddies up his phrase [the dictatorship of relativism]; indeed, he reverses his position. He says, “The modem concept of democracy seems indissolubly linked to that of relativism.” Well, well! But then he backtracks: “This means that a basic element of truth, namely, ethical truth, is indispensable to democracy.” But then he backtracks again: “We do not want the State to impose one particular idea of the good on us. ... Truth is controversial, and the attempt to impose on all persons what one part of the citizenry holds to be true looks like enslavement of people’s consciences.” And he says this on the same page!

Yes, we know: Some of our readers feel that the Pope is above all criticism; he cannot make a mistake, even in his previous writings. But what he has written here is contradictory and inscrutable.

Ratzinger says, “The relativists ...[are] flirting with totalitarianism even though they seek to establish the primacy of freedom ...” Huh?

So, what is he saying? “The State is not itself the source of truth and morality.... Accordingly, the State must receive from outside itself the essential measure of knowledge and truth with regard to that which is good. ... The Church remains outside’ the State. ... The Church must exert itself with all its vigor so that in it there may shine forth moral truth ...”

Then he says, “Conscience is the highest norm [italics in original] and ... and one must follow it even against authority. When authority - in this case the Church’s Magisterium - speaks on matters of morality, it supplies the material that helps the conscience form its own judgment, but ultimately it is only conscience that has the last word.”

So the Church’s Magisterium will not “exert itself with all its vigor,” because “conscience has the last word.” Indeed, Ratzinger says that “one must follow the erring conscience.” Does the Church support relativism too? Pope John Paul II said in his Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, “Conscience is not an infallible judge” (n. 62; italics in original).

What happened to a rightly formed conscience? The Catechism says, “Personal conscience and reason should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the Magisterium of the Church” (n. 2039), and “One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience” (n. 1793). (A Contradictory Definition of Relativism. See also: Cardinal Ratzinger's Subjectivism.)

Appendix D

Paragraph Nine from Pope Leo XIII's Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

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. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)