Editor’s Note: Tomorrow I will launch the Sutri Initiative. But as a preparation, here is my first video made at Sutri, Italy, recounting the remarkable and historic events which took place here in 1046, and its importance for resolving the crisis in which the Church of Rome finds Herself now.
This video is also available on YouTube here:
FromRome.info gives permission to all to translate, transcribe and publish other language versions of this video.
Br. Bugnolo’s other articles on Sutri and Provincial Councils can be found here and here.
Very interesting.
No one fights harder for the Church than you do, Br Alexis. Thank you for this enlightening article.
Wow! Hard to say which is more impressive, your presentation or the background! A very interesting, informative video, one of your better efforts.
I don’t understand why the lettering on the buildings is backwards, though. If I took a video with my phone, I think it would look the same way it does in real life. (A minor point.)
Sometimes, you really outdo yourself.
I prayed a Rosary today for the Cardinals and Bishops to call for a Provincial Council. Let’s all make this our daily petition.
Thank you for this incredible historical lesson on location. Bravo! Well done!
Thank you very much for doing something to actually repair the Church and what is left of the Faithful.
I am confused… let’s assume your opinion is correct and only a couple of months ago your action on 30th of Jan established Bergoglio as successor of Peter. Then where is the protection?
Let’s assume he never was successor of Peter. Then all the Romans have to is toss him in the Tiber from the same bridge as Pachamama.. there are also precedents for this.. gives an excellent signal to the world..
I absense of either. See him fleeing over the dead bodies of his priests… excellent signal also. Forseseen long ago.
The prayer of Christ, that the faith of Simon “not fail” pertains to the man who holds the office. Whether it prevents the man who holds the office from losing the office by heresy is a debated point among theologians. But there are other issues regarding the validity of the juridical election of Bergoglio which also impinge upon the question, such as that raised by Archbishop Vigano, namely, that Bergoglio may have never agreed to accept the Office of St. Peter for the upbuilding of the Church, but solely out of a formal desire to destroy the Church from withing, that is a pre-existent heretical or schismatic desire, which if that was the case, he could not validly hold the office since he was not united with the Church at the moment of his election. But only a Council can discern this and judge this. — Vigano’ has thought about this much more than many think.
What do you consider about the following teaching of Saint Alphons de Liguori?
https://www.intratext.com/IXT/ITASA0000/_P3BD.HTM
“PARTE TERZA – CONTRO I SETTARJ CHE NEGANO LA CHIESA CATTOLICA ESSERE L’UNICA VERA
CAP. VIII. Si prova che i pontefici romani sono successori di s. Pietro colla stessa podestà che a s. Pietro fu concessa.
– 720 –
9. Niente ancora importa che ne’ secoli passati alcun pontefice sia stato illegittimamente eletto, o fraudolentemente siasi intruso nel pontificato; basta che poi sia stato accettato da tutta la chiesa come papa, attesoché per tale accettazione già si è renduto legittimo e vero pontefice. Ma se per qualche tempo non fosse stato veramente accettato universalmente dalla chiesa, in tal caso per quel tempo sarebbe vacata la sede pontificia, come vaca nella morte de’ pontefici. Così neppure importa che in caso di scisma siasi stato molto tempo nel dubbio chi fosse il vero pontefice; perché allora uno sarebbe stato il vero, benché non abbastanza conosciuto; e se niuno degli antipapi fosse stato vero, allora il pontificato sarebbe finalmente vacato.
10. Che poi alcuni pontefici sieno caduti in eresia, taluni han cercato di provarlo, ma non mai l’han provato, né mai lo proveranno; e noi chiaramente proveremo il contrario nel fine del cap X. Del resto, se Dio permettesse che un papa fosse notoriamente eretico e contumace, egli cesserebbe d’essere papa, e vacherebbe il pontificato. Ma se fosse eretico occulto, e non proponesse alla chiesa alcun falso dogma, allora niun danno alla chiesa recherebbe; ma dobbiamo giustamente presumere, come dice il cardinal Bellarmino, che Iddio non mai permetterà che alcuno de’ pontefici romani, anche come uomo privato, diventi eretico né notorio né occulto.”
This opinion of Saint Alphonsus dei Liguori is unique among the doctors and fathers of the Church and runs countrary to all ecclesiastical tradition and ecclesiastical law, as anyone with the slightest knowledge of the history of the papacy can see and document. The work, Verita della Fede, is furthermore an apologetical work, so its scope is to give reasonable arguments against notty objections, a task which is often beyond the personal expertise of each author. Now a days we have access to excellent collections of historical material, which St. Alphonsus did not have access to, and thus, in this opinion, he seems to have fallen back into his bad habits as a civil lawyer, wherein he admits that he often argued a case with more certitude in his explanation than he found in the sources, as most lawyers do, who attend to the end of their discourse rather than to its complete honesty.
Saint Alphonsus is doctor of the Church in morals, not in canon law, so quoting this passage as a locus theologicus would be a very poor strategy. Saint Alphonsus at times fell into grevious errors, for example, as when in all his works he speaks of Scholasticism and shows that he despises it as a theological method, even though the Roman Pontiffs praised it as the most perfect form of theology. I believe these errors of the Saint were based on his uncritical acceptance of the literature of his own day and did not represent well founded opinions, but just repeated prejudices, which he would have disavowed immediately had he known, and which he disavowed as soon as he saw God face to face.
Finally, a short note on the proper theological method.
If you are going to quote Saint Alphonsus’s opinion, now a days, you better darn prove it from the historical record. And if you think you do not have to prove it from the historical record, then you are totally mistaking and exaggerating what the Church teaches regarding the authority of the writings of the Saints, who are not infallible, as Saint Thomas Aquinas’ shows us, when he denied the Immaculate Conception, or as St. Catherine of Siena showed us, when the Devil appeared to her under the form of the Immacualte Virgin to deny that she was immaculately conceived, tricking the great Saint and the whole Dominican Order for centuries.