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Valli launches tirade against Cionci and the Ratzinger Code

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Aldo Maria Valli who has enjoyed, until this day, a very good reputation among the Catholics of Italy for his journalism, has dashed his entire fame to pieces, with one of the most ignominious attacks ever launched in the debate regarding the renunciation of ministry of Pope Benedict XVI, with his publication of the Book Review of the Ratzinger Code by the Italian Biblicist, Fr. Silvio Barbaglia. — Yes, a Biblical Scholar.

Valli entitles his piece, “The Ratzinger Code? It does not exist” — A very strong title, which one would think would be followed up by a very scholarly study. Alas, it is that study which does not exist.

Instead, Valli, who is a noted journalist for Italian State Television, publishes an article by a biblical scholar which attempts to undermine the central thesis of Andrea Cionci’s best-seller, by attacking what it calls the 3 Pillars of his argumentation.

It fails on all three levels.

Thus, it is indeed embarrassing that Valli would conclude, therefore, that Benedict XVI is not speaking in a way designed to reach those with faith, but that all these things are errors or peculiarities which mean nothing at all, even though dozens of scholars which expertise in psychology, forensics and law, have already publicly agreed with Cionci’s thesis.

But since Barbaglia’s attack is one of the few attempted argumentations in Italian, it merits to be completely rebutted.

And, thus, I will oblige him.

I must rebut, however, the very scurrilous remark made by Valli at the opening of his introduction, where he writes:

“Questa la tesi. Ora, non starò a sottolineare che l’autore non ha competenza in merito (non è teologo né canonista). Osservo solo che la tesi è fondata sul nulla. O meglio, è fondata solo su alcune costruzioni mentali di Cionci indimostrate e indimostrabili.”

Which in English would be:

“This is the thesis. Now, I will not take time to underline that the author (Andrea Cionci), has no competence in such a matter (he is not a theologian nor a canonist). I observe only that the thesis is founded upon a nothing. Or better, that it is founded only upon some mental constructions of Cionci, which are undemonstrated and indemonstrable.”

Andrea Cionci is quite competent, on the contrary, because he actually believes in the meaning of words and reads them in accord with the rules of grammar and logic. He is also fluent in the languages he employs. The assertions that the discrepancies which Cionci studies are undemonstrated is an outright lie, and that their coherence with one standard message, “I have not abdicated”, is a gross slur, as anyone who has read the book can see.

This is the worst kind of argumentation, but as we will see, Father Barbaglia pursues it further.

His “refutation” of the Ratzinger Code focuses on three pillars of Cionci’s argumentation.  I will critique and refute Barbaglia, then, following his own exposition.

The Distinction between Munus and Ministerium

The author first declares, without proof, that there is no distinction in Canon Law between these terms. He ignores reading the Code of Canon Law, since he believes his auto-declaration is sufficient, just as he asserts falsely, that no one before Cionci notices that Ratzinger was saying something more than what was commonly apparent (I did so 3 years before).

He then cites the Papal Law on Conclaves, and from that builds the argument that since ministerium is used only once in that document, in reference to the beginning of the Petrine Ministry, it must mean the petrine munus.

It is hard to argue with such an argument which is neither logical nor forensically valid. It is not logical, because what is gratuitously asserted as a conclusion cannot be the first principle of your argument. It is not forensically valid, because from a single thing one cannot infer anything, since the intellect cannot know singulars, as Aristotle reminds us.

It is indeed strange that  Barbaglia is so certain of his thesis, that Cionci’s encyclopedia of evidence is to be discounted, simply because Barbaglia, who has less competence in the matter than Cionci — because he has not studied the evidence and is professionally dedicated to reading meaning into the Scriptures which does not exist there — has found the meaning of one word, ministerium, in a papal law, which to his mind must signify something other than normal rules of Italian would have it be!

It is not difficult for anyone to understand that one can exercise an office and exercise the ministry of an office, and yet the ministry and the office be two different things, precisely because office speaks of duty according to titles, but ministry according to services, but a duty can be both a thing and an action consequent to a thing, when the thing is not static but a charge to act.

But Barbaglia is totally inconscient of such things. I would refer him to my Academic Paper, never refuted, published at the Conference on the Renunciation of Pope Benedict XVI at Rome, in October 2019, Munus and Ministerium in the Code of Canon Law of 1983, a study so unique that anyone on any search engine can find it under that rubric.

Moreover, I will not trouble Barbaglia with noting that canon 17 requires him to see what these terms mean in the code of canon law, and not look for them in a papal law, because these kinds of obvious and fundamental errors in his line of argumentation would surely be of no interest to him.

The Distinction between office and ministry

In his second line of argumentation, Barbaglia repeats the same error, whereby he asserts that the phrase, “exercise of pastoral munus” means that munus and ministerium are the same thing.

This argument would be appreciated from an 8 year old. But for a biblical scholar to advance it is really shameful, if not at first sight totally dishonest, for the reasons I just stated above.

In short, Barbaglia denies the distinction to prove that the distinction does not exist. How Valli could publish such a trite analysis is beyond all presumption of good will on his part.

The Invention of the Ratzinger Code

Third, Barbaglia then attacks 3 of the weakest evidences Cionci cites for the Ratzinger Code.  I say, weakest, because some are incontrovertibly obvious, while the others are reasonably read in harmony with the stronger ones, but are not obvious without recognizing the stronger ones.

As such Barbaglia proves nothing, other than, what is written in code may not be legible to one who has not the cipher, revealed in more obvious passages, which Cionci himself considers the keys to recognizing the common thread in all of them.

But I will disagree with his line of argumentation regarding Pontefice sommo, which he appears to have copied from a US CIA agent. This is because there are two senses in Latin of “pontifex summus”, and hence two in Italian. One means Supreme Pontiff, the other means, High Priest. In English this is easy to see, if you have a decade long experience in critical translation of Latin texts, but not in Italian to every native speaker. Most Italians who are not studied in ecclesiastical terminology and thus who have not considered the precise signification of saying pontifex summus, as we say of Jesus Christ, and summus pontifex, as we are wont to say of Pope, might not notice this.  It is harder to notice, because in the case of the Pope, he can be both, but that does not mean both mean the same thing. Cionci shows himself the better student of Italian than Barbaglia here.

Finally, as a historical note, Pope Benedict XVI, when a youth, forced into the NAZI youth movement, wrote in code with his friends who were similarly disaffected with the state politics of their day.  That an old man return to this manner of communication with his friends, is not at all surprising, it is quite natural and to be expected.

And thus finishes one of the most highly profiled and yet absurd refutations of Cionci’s, The Ratzinger Code.

Valli and Barbaglia have egg on their faces. And without a public apology have exited stage left from the company of erudite and honest scholars of the Italian peninsula. I wish I could say that I am surprised, but I know that you cannot work in Main Stream Media without towing the line of the ruling elites, who in this case, are delighted from day one with Bergoglio, because he is the puppet of their puppet masters.

With Globalist Censorship growing daily, No one will ever know about the above article, if you do not share it.

12 thoughts on “Valli launches tirade against Cionci and the Ratzinger Code”

  1. It’s interesting that Mr CIA Agent pops up yet again. One can hardly fail to notice that two of the biggest opponents of the Ratzinger Code are an ex-CIA operative and a former 32nd degree Freemason.
    Two of the Church’s biggest enemies.

    1. secondo Aldo Maria Valli quello che sta succedendo (l’abbassamento e la secolarizzazione del papato stesso) ha come origine (se non causa) la mancanza di visione da parte di Benedetto XVI delle conseguenze future del suo atto di rinuncia. Perdoni Fra Alexis, non sto facendo propaganda a questi argomenti. Sottolineo soltanto quanto siano illogici. Su questa terra, chi meglio di Benedetto XVI potrebbe conoscere (anche profeticamente) quanto sta accadendo?

      Then, the tirade against codice Ratzinger goes on, even if the title of the transmission is about another matter. That’s why I made this commenti. The transmission itself doesn’t bring anything essentialy new. Several terms and expressions used by the host are not even proper.

      1. Valli pursues the general tactic that is allowed MSM, that of Ratzinger being the cause of the problems. It removes guilt from Bergoglio and makes the Faithful follow the latter into further enslavement.

  3. The people who reject Pope Benedict and accept Bergoglio do so because the antipope embodies all of the heresies and mortal sins the Modernists want and desire. Yes, many Catholics remain confused. And we should pray that they see the truth soon.

  4. Very disappointing from Valli, pathetic even.

    Such people as Valli (and the script writers who give them directions) might be interested to know that for many, or at least some (like me), become not less convinced but more convinced each time we see a public and previously respectable Catholic being forth these embarrassingly bad “refutations”.

    For example, without naming names, there is one Catholic apologist whom I had been listening to for the last 3 years, who was and is very proficient in dealing with Protestant claims and objections, as well as Eastern Orthodox and Islamic ones. He helped me learn a lot about the magisterium of the Church, the papacy and its history as well as that of the Popes. I looked up to him and appreciated his ability and habit of cutting straight to the substance of the claims he would address, and his seeming dedication to avoid misrepresenting opposing claims as much as possible.

    But I noticed an unexpected departure from his usual good habits when he first addressed this topic of those believing Benedict to be Pope. Although by this time I had already become quite convinced that Benedict remained Pope, given that I respected this man so much, I was willing, even eager, to hear him offer a rebuttal. I expected that if he didn’t convince me, he would at least bring up valid points to consider – even if not ultimately convincing. But to my surprise and disappointment, he just sneered and snickered, and to the extent that he actually tried to show how we were wrong, he totally misrepresented us (not to mention slandered Patrick Coffin), and misrepresented the various pertinent facts.

    I was really caught offguard because this departed from his usual thoroughness and tact. And so I reached out to him to let him know that he was way off and pointed out to him the misunderstandings he seemed to have regarding our actual argument. Our back and forth revealed him to be obtuse beyond what I could have ever imagined.

    In any case, he made further videos where he still never represented our arguments correctly and spent most of his time either refuting straw men versions of our claims or pretending to see into our hearts as to our “real motives”. And this from a man who repeatedly decries others who try to judge his motives or those of others, especially when people state their motives clearly. He always talks about giving the “judgement of charity” and yet refuses to apply this to us. He then reached a point where he didn’t even co sider us Catholic and our souls are at great risk of hell.

    So, given this serious risk for our souls, i suggested that in charity towards myself and others like myself, that he invite you onto his show to charitably discuss the topic. I told him that in my opinion, Br. Bugnolo was the strongest English speaking proponent of the “Benedict is Pope” position. He claimed not to be aware of who you are (but based on some comments of his, I suspect he may not be honest when saying that. But maybe he is). So I told him, “if you truly believe that my soul is at risk, as are other souls, then should you not desire to do what you can to help me and show me that I am wrong?” I told him that the fee videos he made on the topic aren’t helpful to us who Believe Benedict is Pope because we know our arguments well enough to recognize that you aren’t correctly representing them and so the only people to whom you may sound convincing are those who also aren’t familiar with the fundamental reasons we believe Benedict to be Pope. I suggested to him that by having you on his show, it would avoid his responding to straw men (at this point is still gave him benefit ofnthe doubt that his strategy men were unintended) and permit for the guest (you) to push back on his own argumentation. I remember asking you here in a comment if you’d be willing to go on his show and you said you were willing to go on any show of rhe host was honest in his desire for truth. I was hopeful, all I had to do was convince this apologist to invite you. I went back to him to make another pitch. I tried to sell him on it by telling him, “Listen, at this point I’m convinced that Benedict is Pope. You say this put my soul at risk. I respect you and have learned a lot from you, and for that I am grateful. But as you said, my soul is at risk and so you should want to help me, for the love of God. And I can assure you, if you invite Br. Bugnolo and are able to respond to him and his push back in such a way that you really deal with the substance of what Br. Bugnolo is saying, then you will have saved my soul. But you’d have to invite him, because unless he or someone like him is there to keep you focused on the substance of our claims, then I’m afraid you’ll just refute a straw man again, and that just isn’t helpful and certainly won’t save my soul.”

    I made it clear to him that I meant no disrespect by saying he was arguing against a strawman and that I’m genuinely seeking help in the matter. But that did not sway him and he wasn’t interested in “saving my soul” I guess.

    I gave him beneditnof the doubt that maybe he was just dine with that topic, having made 3 videos about it already. But then a bit later he made a 4th video on the topic so i then knew he wasn’t merely done with the topic, and simply didnt want to deal with someone who could push back on his “refutation” and rather just wanted to beat around the bush, talking about anything and everything except the actual substance of our claims. Not long after that, he was taken on as an apologist with a major establishement apologetic ministries.

    I know this is a long story, but all to say, as someone has already said, that sadly, it is almost impossible to get someone to see the truth if their income (and reputation and sociable stability) depends on their not seeing it.

    1. I thank you and the others for your testimonies about how others are reacting to the news. I do not get much feedback, though I have heard that in some countries religious superiors are to be on the look out for anyone reading my writings. They cannot suffer the truth and hate it like Satan hates the light. This is the greatest commendation for the little work I do on this.

      1. Brother Alexis, your “little work” on this, THE most important topic in today’s Church, is a veritable library of informative truth!

        It is increasingly clear that the all the masonic-globalist Bergoglian allies within the Church are reacting with a prideful FEAR to the truth that Benedict XVI remains our Holy Father…….as they simply cannot contemplate a defeat on this, their entire ‘livelihood’ whether cleric or lay……it is essential a repeat of satan’s “Non servium” to the TRUTH.

        I have many lay friends in Christ who consider Bergoglio “just a [very] bad pope” but their minds cannot embrace the true consequences of a heretical antipapacy……that all his documents and clerical appointments since the Spring of 2013 are null & void or, to quote an appropriate Editorial expression recently:- “as much authority as a dried fig!”

        Pax tecum.

  5. Randy Engel writes about the Valli-Vigano-Opus Dei connection here; http://www.mgr.org/AldoMariaValli.html

    According to that article, planning to break the Cardinal McCarrick scandal was underway by March 2018.

    Dr Chojnowski started his project of scientific investigation of the two Sisters Lucys in 2017.

    Only a really big story had the ability to overshadow the coming Sr Lucy revelations in the Catholic world.

    The convent at Coimbra where the fake Sister Lucy of Fatima lived reportedly was a cooperator with Opus Dei.

    Skullduggery in high places?

    2. Thanks for “connecting a few more dots”!

      Now it is clear why Abp Vigano, whilst scathing in his critiques of Vatican II, various aspects of the Bergoglian ‘papacy’ and the entire scamdemic, stops short of proclaiming in public that the Throne of Peter is currently occupied by a heretical antipope whose appointments & documents since the the Spring of 2013 have precisely nil authority!

      So it would seem that Abp Vigano had to “go into hiding” to escape the wrath of the Lavender Mafia, the paedophiles, the sodomites and all their protectors, after he comprehensively exposed the McCarrick scandal.

      How long, O Lord, how long…….before an ‘active’ member of the Church’s episopate declares for Pope Benedict XVI, thus joining retired bishops Garcia & Lenga?

      Oremus…….

  6. Valli is a retired “vaticanist”.
    Mr. Aldo Maria Valli retired from RAI 1, Italian state owned TV, about three years ago. At the beginning of the bergoglian era Valli was a famous typical main stream pro-Bergoglio reporter and Catholic columnist.

    In 2017 to 2019 Mr. Valli bravely developed a different attitude toward “pope Francis”.
    And it looked like Mr. Valli could step-by-step overtake Mr. Antonio Socci as the leading Italian Catholic journalist in the disclosure of bergoglian fraud and in the anti-MSM information on the global attack on Catholic doctrine.
    In October 2019, during the Pachamama abomination, something happened to Valli right when he was going to be the only journalist to come to a Cum Benedicto Mass in reparation of the Pachamama abomination. Valli missed that event and sadly he gradually changed into a meany irrational Catholic-in-name-only anti-bergoglian author.

    Now Mr. Valli is, even more than Mr. Tosatti (whose anti-bergoglian but Cum Francisco editorial policy is almost super-partes … giving a little bit of coverage even to Cum Benedicto opinions), archibishop Viganò’s media buddy, that is an anti-Benedict “Confundist”.

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