An Editorial by Br Alexis Bugnolo

Two years ago, this morning, without previous warnings, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI passed to his eternal recompense.

His death came like a shock to the Catholics of Rome, who were given to believe that he was in good health.

But to his enemies, it was a day of rejoicing.

Pope Benedict XVI was perhaps the Pope most hated by the enemies of the Church in modern times: from the first moment he stepped out on the Loggia of Saint Peter’s to the day of his death and beyond. The Godless snarled at his election and hissed in relief at his death.

As a theologian he was extremely controversial, since much of what he wrote was neither profound nor normal sounding to Catholic ears. While there are those who believe he is one of the greatest theologians of the last century, in truth he was a German theologian of the modern school who sought truth in every writer and school of thought other than the great Scholastic theologians and Doctors of the Church of old.

As I do not read German, I can only say that the English translation of his works were in my opinion utterly worthless. I confess that I have dumped into the trash-can numerous books by him, translated into English. — And it was only in reading the careful research of Andrea Cionci that gave me to realize that the English translations of his writing probably never captured his thought in its authentic form, since German is so estranged from the Latin languages of Western Europe, that its words are rarely translated with precision.

So it is very likely that he was a better theologian than I have estimated him to be, or at least one who was more precise.

But as a disciplinarian, I hold him to have been the best pope ever in the history of the Catholic Church. I say this on the basis of having read books on every period of ecclesiastical history and the biographies of all the popes. And I base this judgement on the fact that he dismissed from the clerical state more impure priests than any previous pope in history.

While that is not the only criterion for a good pope, it is in my book the first criterion of an honest man of God who truly respects the great dignity of the priesthood of Christ and guards that zealously from sacrilege by the abominations of sexual impurity. It is also the first and true sign of faith in the Most Blessed Sacrament and love for the Child Jesus, Who descends in Person, Body and Soul, and Divinity, at every Mass into the hands of the priest.

Many condemn Pope Benedict XVI for many things. And for this reason many hold him to be damned. But I would urge them to consider these facts when next they speak on that topic. For the first sign of faith is how we treat Jesus Christ, personally.

His decisions to dismiss so many from the clerical state recognized that the Church’s institutions of formation are not infallible, and are capable of inducting into the clerical state men who were never called by God or able to perceive God’s grace because of their own profound psychological disturbances — a truth which the whole Church undoubtedly now agrees with, having witnessed the behavior of Jorge Mario Bergoglio for nearly 12 years. This accords with the most ancient and traditional addage, that “grace builds upon nature”, and Saint Paul’s monitum in 2 Thessalonians 3:2, “for not all men have faith”.

This devotion of Pope Benedict XVI to Christ is also that which made him most hated by traditionalists, conservatives and liberals in the Church, who are members of the Clergy. We saw this on February 11, 2013, when there was nearly universal exultation that he had renounced. He had expelled 500+ men from the priesthood, and was working to clean out the networks in the Legionaries of Christ and Cardinal McCarricks magic circle.

While we know now that his efforts were not faultless nor perfect, it was a radical earthquake in clerical discipline. Even the modifications that Pope Francis in his antipapacy attempted to make to the Code of Canon Law were inspired chiefly by Pope Benedict XVI’s ground breaking initiatives on responding to clerical abuse.

Today we commemorate the second anniversary of his passing. While we pray for his soul, as we should — for we are not his judges — let us also pray that the revolution he began in breaking down the vicious and monstrous iniquities of the worst kind of clericalism, goes forward until the end of time, so that the Catholic Church might shine for the glory of God as an institution which is safe for families and children everywhere.