Br. Bugnolo’s very Urgent Appeal: February, 2025

By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Traduction française

This month I have some big news to announce.

I have welcomed to the Hermitage of the Holy Cross, Father Walter Covens, who since January 22, 2025, has taken up residence here. You may know Father already through his French language translations of so, so many of the articles of FromRome.Info.

Father Walter (see photo above) was born at Antwerp in Belgium. He became a Catholic priest in Switzerland, in the Diocese of Sion, where he served for 7 years. Then, inspired to help in the missions, he joined the Fidei Donum program, established by Pope John Paul II and went to help the Diocese of Fort de France, Martinique, where he has served nearly 30 years. This year, with the permission of his Bishop, he joins me in the work of The Scholasticum, a telematic institute focusing on Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bonaventure. He holds a Licentiate in Ecclesiastical History from the Dominican Faculty at Fribourg, Switzerland, and will serve as President of the nascent institute.

Father Covens is 73, or rather, will be on Monday, January 27, which is his birthday! You can wish him a happy birthday in the comments below.

Father, however, shows no sign of an aged spirit, as he has volunteered to help me in this apostolate; and I in turn have promised him free room and board, trusting in the providence of God. And I for my part, see to his needs, cooking his meals and chauffeuring him around.

For this reason, I ask that you continue to support my work at Rome in February, 2025. And I will need your generous help because of the added expenses I must confront.

BUT FIRST, I wish to thank each of you who have supported me and my apostolates in the past, either by prayers or your charitable donations. I understand that with the economic problems world-wide, not as many of you can help as in the past. Pray for me, if you cannot, that the Lord will send new benefactors.

Here is list of Expenses Brother will have in February, 2025 ( a means the need has been met, a – the need has not been met):

$ 1000 for groceries and gas
– $ 600 for shortfall in January, getting hermitage ready for Father Covens
√ $ 1560 Rent due on Feb. 15, 2025 (for the period February to May, 2025)

TOTAL: $3110

Total raised so far (from January 26 to today): $ 1649 US Dollars.

(Please note, that the above totals are running, so that with each passing day in January/February as new expenses occur, Brother increases specific expenses)

Previous Post for the January 2025 Report.
Many thanks to the very generous outpouring of support during January!

HOW TO HELP

You can donate in 1 of 4 ways …

Help Br. Bugnolo:


Help FromRome.Info:

FromRome.info’s Bi-Annual Server Costs  of $3485 USD come due in June of 2025:  So far $600 USD has been donated to this cause.


Help the Hermitage of the Holy Cross:


Help  The Scholasticum:

For the expenses to get this Institute up and running for the Fall of 2025. So far $2850 has been raised.

For more information on the Scholasticum, see here:
https://www.studium-scholasticum.org/

If you would like to get a copy of Br. Bugnolo’s translation of St. Bonaventure, click here. It’s now on sale for $40 USD a copy (shipping not included).

Or to help Br. Alexis via Bankwire

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USA Border Czar to Pope Francis: “Fix the Church. It’s a mess!”

Editor’s Note: After Pope Francis savaged the deportation-of-illegal-immigrants policy of President Donald Trump, the latter’s “Border Czar”, who oversees all deportation affairs of the administration, replied with a stinging remark. — Recently nearly the entire U. S. Episcopate has begun a very hot criticism and opposition to the deportation-of-illegal immigrants, even going to far as to challenge the new administration of Donald Trump in court. — This united action of the Catholic Bishops in the U. S. A. seems to be orchestrated from the Vatican. If this should turn out true, Pope Francis may soon find a head of state of one of the most powerful countries in the world looking into what can be done to remove Pope  Francis. The Sutri Initiative is the way to do it. — Unfortunately for those in Pope Francis’ court, they are so drunk on their own self-promoting propaganda, that they do not realize how juridically-able-to-be-challenged is his claim to the papacy. Nor do they seem to understand how much of a militant opponent they have engaged in battle as Donald Trump.

However, I do not know which is more ironic or laughable, for Pope Francis in his walled city to fault Trump for expelling illegal aliens, or for Trump’s Border Czar to tell Pope Francis, of all men, to fix the Church.

That Pope  Francis is organizing resistance to Trump’s immigration policies, however, is not my personal opinion, but that held by notable Catholic clergy in the U.S.A., as can be seen from this report:

VATICAN: Apostolic Signatura asked 2 open 6 investigations into Pope Francis

Editor’s Note: The above document contains a number of accusations against Pope Francis. It is written by Father JesusMary Misighebo, an Opus Dei priest from West Africa. — The unfortunate problems with this letter are multiple, but chiefly, first, because it is not written in proper canonical form as a legal complaint for the violation of rights against the accused. For even if the Apostolic Signatura could put a Pope on trial — something that in Canon Law it has no authority to do — the Signatura is not a prosecutorial or inquisitorial agency to hear complaints and investigate them. Second, the petition is made by priest who is already ostensibly — I say ostensibly meaning “in appearance” — excommunicated. Third, the petition is not made by all the persons whom it alleges have had their rights violated. Fourth, the petition is made under the nom du plum of the author, not under his baptismal or civil name. And finally, the crimes alleged are not all prosecutable in the same tribunal, because some regard personal offenses, when Bergoglio was in Argentina, others do not regard him at all, but ask to know if the Renunciation of Pope Benedict XVI was “valid” or not — a thing only a provincial council at Rome could judge.

However, if you want click bait, favs, and likes on a FaceBook post, rather than actually to solve the problem, this would be a great document to share. Unfortunately, for these people, Christ Jesus, the Eternal Truth will be their judge, and He does not take kindly to such hypocrisy of claiming that crimes should be investigated, while bringing them to the public knowledge of everyone except the tribunal capable of hearing the case.

The correct forum for such a complaint is a Provincial Council in the ecclesiastical province of Rome. This has been explained many times since 2018. But after Pope Francis signed ‘Fiducia supplicans’ it seems that “Catholic opposition” social media all agree to do everything but. That is why I have for two years called them “Pope Francis’ gay opposition”.

Watch now which sites publish news about this petition, without mentioning any of its flaws.

This petition was published on January 22, 2025.

Siscoe: The Church can depose a heretical pope in Council

Commentary with a History of the Sutri Initiative by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Many Italian Catholics are followers of Andrea Cionci and think that he is outstanding for recommending that they appeal to the Cardinals for a new Conclave to elect a true Pope. As I explained in my critical review of his excellent book, “The Ratzinger Code”, which struck a powerful cord with Italians in Italy, since it was published in Italian, here, to elect another pope is something to be done after removing the heretical pope. Otherwise the Church would schism into two.

So my proposal in October 2023 to remove the heretical pope first, is actually the most Catholic thing to do. But I am not the first to say this. This was said by Robert Siscoe back on September 18, 2014, in the above linked article (Click Image).  Even Rorate Caeli called for a petition in the spring of last year, on May 2, 2024, to remove Pope Francis, though they did not say how this was to be done and even admitted they did not know. Evidently they do not know how to use Google to find the answer.

So Catholics in Italy should not think that the two most famous Italians criticizing Pope Francis, Andrea Cionci and Don Alessandro Minutella, pastor of Saint John Bosco Church, at Palermo, Sicily, are leading lights on this issue: neither chronologically nor canonically. Catholics from the U.S.A. are years a head of them.

Even the idea of petitioning Cardinals, was first launched by myself, using the nom du plum, Gaetano Romano, back in 2016 (see here).  So any idea, that I am opposed to petitions to the Cardinals per se, is simply not true.

The whole dialogue about removing a heretical pope disappeared in 2016, when Ann Barnhardt make her first video about the invalid renunciation of Pope Benedict XVI. My own role in that debate, which I joined in 2018, put that controversy to an end on January 30, 2023, with the juridically valid election of a new pope, according to Apostolic Right, which caused an explosion of hate and the most vile insults, calumnies and declarations from so many who sustained that other investigation, all of which were refuted in Italian here, including the calumnious ones of Andrea Cionci, here.

But, I waited patiently after that and prayed with Jesus Christ for His new Vicar. Only after clear signs of heretical depravity, did I propose the Sutri Initiative again on October 19, 2023.

Nor am I the first to suggest that the imperfect Council which has the authority to remove a heretical pope is the Provincial Council of Bishops in the Ecclesiastical Province of Rome.  This was first pointed out by the Ecclesiastical Historian from Poland, whose spoke about the First Council of Sutri, in 1046, back in August of 2018.  And I followed immediately with an article on  September 11, 2018, since I recognized immediately that this was the correct and historically verified way forward on this issue. Within days, the Remnant followed with its own article about the Council of Sutri, here.

I have stuck to the same opinion and proposed this long before Don Minutella could even explain canonically why the Renunciation of Pope Benedict XVI was invalid, or Cionci had even met me, and thus was spurred to begin his own investigations. I have stuck to the same position even though Robert Siscoe, the author of the top article, turned against those who understood that Pope Benedict XVI remained the true pope until death. I have stuck to the same opinion, even though the Remnant which talked about Sutri in 2018, keeps erasing comments which mention the Sutri Initiative for the last 18 months. I have stuck to the same position, even though Rorate Caeli refuses to say the word, “Sutri”.

Recently many are proposing an “imperfect council” to put Pope Francis on trial. But none speaks of Sutri any more nor speaks of the proper canonical way to do this, explaining the procedure and the canonical justifications for the manner of proceeding without violating the current norms of Canon Law. This is called the Sutri Initiative. — A provincial council at Rome is actually better than an “imperfect council” since it can be convoked in a juridically and canonically valid manner and need not have its acts approved by the Pope, since it is basically a quo warranto action, which is a form of formal communication of facts and testimonies, upon the validity of which alone the Council votes and judges.

And to all those who after 11 years won’t speak of what was spoken about 7 years ago, I can only ask, “Why now, after ‘Fiducia supplicans’ do you ALL insist on getting it wrong? “ Ask yourself whether that makes any other sense or serves any other purpose but keeping the Lavender Mafia in power?

So to all those who think that my apostolate “threatens” or “undermines” the apostolates of other, please be honest with yourselves and take a step back from your idolizing of men and start thinking about how the Church merits your love and your protection. You can go back to your YouTube channels after the problem is solved.

Ex-Priest faults Pope Francis for belittling the gravity of sexual abuse at the Vatican

Editor’s Note: There is a reason why Pope Francis has recently downplayed the gravity of sins of the flesh, as is obvious from how he has and is running the Vatican, but will become more obvious with new revelations of massive corruption for decades in that institution, evidenced by the fact that they never investigated and indeed obstructed the investigation of the disappearance of one of their own citizens — Emanuela Orlandi, a 15 year old girl, who disappeared more than 40 years ago — even though her family had served 7 Roman Pontiffs, and her father worked in the Papal Household of John Paul II. — A Committee in the Italian Senate is currently investigating her disappearance and interviewing all who had any personal knowledge of the facts of the case or those involved. And FromRome.Info will continue to report on these developments.

NICARAGUA: Marxist Dictatorship confiscates Catholic Diocesan Seminary

Editor’s Note: The persecution of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua has strangely had silent collaboration from many “conservatives” and “traditionalists” in the West, who see the Church in Nicaragua as heavily infiltrated by socialists and marxists itself. However, this narrative of tacit consent has blown up with the recent news that the Nicaraguan regime has confiscated a Catholic Seminary to prevent the formation of Catholic priests. It did not make much sense, as has been claimed, that the government was persecuting the “left-wingers” in the Church in Nicaragua, since the government itself is Marxist. — Let us pray for all the clergy and faithful and religious in that country, that they keep the faith and give good testimony to it in these evil times. — And for those in the United States, please make known to your representatives, that such actions against Catholic liberty, in the back yard of the United States, should not be tolerated, if the USA is going to have any credibility on protecting Christians world-wide. Mr. Cruz, the new U. S. Secretary of State, and a Catholic himself, should hear Catholics out on this and take swift action with the Nicaraguan regime.

VATICAN CITY: Sr. Raffaella Petrini to be next Governor of City State

Editor’s Note: When the Popes ruled territory in central Italy “Rome” meant the Papal Court, and decisions emanating from the Apostolic See were said to be “from Rome”. Now a days, the correct practice is to say, “the Vatican”. But what many Catholics often forget is that “the Vatican”, the papal court, is located in the Vatican City State, which is a state with a civil-legal existence like any other independent city state. Yes, it is owned, or more properly said, “to be ruled” by the Pope, as a supreme monarch, but even Monarchs appoint governors of territories. Pope Francis recently announced, that the next governor of the Vatican City State will be a religious sister, a complete novelty in the history of civil states belonging to the Patrimony of Saint Peter. The Vatican City State is about 500 acres in size and has about 5000 employees and residents. It’s much smaller than most towns in developed countries. It has its own stores and police, printeries, offices, museums, archives, financial institutions, and hosts, of course, a large part of the Roman Curia and papal administrative organs, though a good part is also found in buildings outside of Vatican territory, along the Via della Conciliazione and throughout Rome in numerous extra-territorial possessions of the Apostolic See. — However, as someone who has seen how Catholic parishes are organized and run in different parts of the world, I cannot help notice that the clergy who are most “pro-sodomy” or who are the most effeminate, nearly always appoint a woman to run the parish. That model seems now to have arrived at the Vatican.

GERMANY: Afghan kills 2, as they attempt defend group of children

Editor’s Note: In a heart rending story, about a crazed man who lashed out with a knife to stab a group of children, there shown a light to the world, in the self sacrifice of a German man and a Moroccan boy, who lost their lives attempting to prevent the Afghan from harming the children. A story which shows that heroism and the highest form of humanity can be found among men of every nation.

ITALY: Favorable Poll about Pope Francis used computer assisted data collection

Critique by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

As a Cultural-Anthropologist I am sensitive to the claims made by pollsters about the results of their polling. Because the very fact that you claim that your poll represents anything but those whom you polled and how you polled them, is misleading and deceptive. In human affairs, reducing human behavior to numbers is not only problematic but inhuman, and it rarely tells you anything objective.

Polling, thus, is not a science, since unless you poll everyone in an objective way and everyone tells you what they really think, you cannot know with accuracy or certainty what everyone thinks. This should be obvious.

In recent weeks there has been a flurry of reports that Pope Francis is popular in Italy or that Pope Francis is not popular. Regardless of the results, what does “popular” mean specifically? And yes, it does not have a scientific nor a numerical definition, strictly speaking.

In the above poll, the most glaring problem was that it was conducted with three computer assisted methods. The very moment you attempt to gather data from human beings, who are asked to respond to a question or questions, and you claim to use “computer assisted” devices or methods, you are involved in an equivocation or in disinformation. Because, since computers are not programed by computers, but by humans, the algorithms they use to arrive at results or decisions are humanly per-determined. Also, if a human is asked a question by a computerized voice, the response is going to be very different than if asked by another human, just as, when you best friend asks you a question, your answer might differ wildly from how you would answer the same question by a local town bureaucrat or policeman.

The results of the poll are found in the article above. Click the image to read them.

Professionally speaking, those who conduct a poll should never meet with the person or persons about whom they polled for information. This is a gross violation of professional ethics and a conflict of interests, and can be understood: for if you know that you may get a meeting with an important person, then you will craft a poll to get such a meeting.

Another common problem with polling, when it regards questions of the Catholic Church, is who really are you asking? Are you asking Catholics who call themselves such, but do not believe, nor practice. Or those who believe and do not practice? Or those who practice and do not believe? Or those who are all three not only in their claim but in truth? However, there is exists no method to know which is which before you ask a question unless you violate the privacy of those questioned.

So often these polls merely arrive at asking persons who have no idea how to answer the questions asked. “What do you think about Pope Francis?” is a question which means many different things to many different people.  To the atheist, it is probably an annoying question, since it requires him to confront a religious reality. To the non-Catholic, it is probably a question about a famous person, about whom they pay little attention. To the dissident Catholic, its a welcome question to express their own views about religion. To the faithful Catholic, it may seem a question which is dangerous to ask or a moment to express their repressed feelings of dissatisfaction or elation. To a clergyman, it may seem a completely ecclesio-political question.

In the end, therefore, if you poll just 3000 persons from pre-selected demographic categories, as this poll claims to have done, and use computer assisted methods to gather data, then you have discovered nothing but what the 3000 who were polled wanted to tell you. And since, in Italy, the culture induces all Italians in all discussions to say what is most acceptable to the person asking the question, you will know nothing from the poll other than how many gave you the customary response, which in the case of the Pope, will be a polite one, informed by howsoever little news from the Masonic mainstream media outlets in Italy, they read.

And Viola! — Polls show that Pope Francis is loved by 3 out of 4 Italians!

A totally meaningless claim which is most likely also totally misleading, if not deceptive.

I won’t even raise the question of how one can be sure that computer assisted data collection collects the data it claims to collect, since all electronic systems can change and alter data on the fly.

ITALY: Sicilian Bishop, praised by Pope Francis, facing perjury charges

Editor’s Note: In a case regarding the sexual abuse of a minor, the Bishop was caught in recorded phone call by the Italian police to have said to the perpetrator of the alleged crime, “I have buried the case”, meaning “covered it up”, in Italian jargon, says the State prosecutor. Pope Francis had praised the Bishop less than 18 months ago for being a “just man” who is unjustly persecuted.  — Pope Francis seems to have the grace to know exactly who is a crook: and they are all those whom he praises. — It’s not for nothing, I remind my readers, that he is called the Don of the Saint Gallen Mafia.

Archbishop Viganò: Pope Francis acts like a servant of Satan’s servants

Editor’s Note: It is a principle of the natural law that if you know of a crime, you denounce the guilty party to the proper authorities so that they can take action and arrest and punish him and restore the order of justice. In U. S. Civil Law the failure to report a serious crime is called “misprison of felony”. Even in the new penal code published by Pope Francis during his antipapacy (and therefore having no legal value) reads in canon 1371:

§ 6. A person who neglects to report an offence, when required to do so by a canonical law, is to be punished according to the provision of can. 1336 §§ 2-4, with the addition of other penalties according to the gravity of the offence. (Vatican Official English translation)

So what I do not understand at all about Archbishop Viganò is why he is constantly publishing declamations of the crimes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, while at the same time never bringing a case against him in any tribunal of the Church.

What does this achieve?

And why does he not instruct the faithful what they can actually do to see Bergoglio brought to trial?

I leave these questions to my readers, to ponder, so as to shed better light on the real crisis in the Church: which is the moral failure and inaction of so many Catholics to do their duty in the Lord.

Father Nix espouses the fundamental error of Sedevacantism, private judgement

Editor’s Note: The protestant error of private judgement is often found to be a tempting alternative to Catholics who do not know their faith and even to clergy who do not know their canon law. Most common in the present crisis of public scandal in the Church, is that more and more Catholics, even Clergy, are resorting to the worst form of private judgement: setting yourself up as the one who determines who is and is not a member of the Catholic Church. While it is true that those living in public sin of any kind can be rightfully refused communion and even excommunicated by the local pastor of the parish, what I a referring to here is the arrogance of those who are not pastors of Churches or Bishops, who say this or that person is not a member of the Church; or worse who claim that the Saints said this, namely that as soon as one is known to you to be a manifest heretic, he or she is by that fact no longer a member of the Church not only spiritually but legally.

Those who embrace this error might not recognize the venom of this position at the beginning, but it leads them imperceptibly to schism from the entire Church and to the heresy of denying Christ’s promises to the Church and finally to despair and the most demonic pride. Most of the priests who claimed to support Pope Benedict XVI, after his death, have fallen into this error, because they want to tell you what rules are in play for the election of a pope, and if they say there is no longer any possible election, then they insist you accept their despair that there will never be another valid pope.

Father Nix should know better. But if he is going to enunciate his error in public, then he deserves to be publicly reproved. Don’t pay attention to this priest. He does not know of what he is speaking.

A Catholic, even if he say, “I am no longer a Catholic” on Monday, and who goes to confess this on Tuesday, has never left the Church. He may not have even left the Church spiritually. That is for his confessor to determine in the tribunal of the confessional. Yes, if we hear someone speak this way we should warn them of their error and great peril. But we cannot presume to go to the next step and make any statement regarding their canonical status. Yes, the Saints speaking in generalities say that one who denies any revealed truth is a heretic and lapses from the Church, but you won’t find any Saint saying that this or that person they know or knew, who was not condemned by the Church, was a heretic or left the Church in the canonical sense.

Only those who read more than snippets of the Saints know these things. And if a priest has little knowledge, beware, it can be a dangerous thing, when in a time of stress he begins to act on the little knowledge he has, rather than seeking advice from someone who has more.

And notice well, that I have not said that Father is a heretic. But I have said that it is dangerous and morally wrong to espouse such an error of presumption. This is the Catholic way. And if any Catholic say that  this or that man is a heretic, we should have the charity to presume that he is only referring to a public error espoused by the person and is not saying that that person has lost all his rights in the Church.

Eric Sammons redefines the Deposit of the Faith

Editor’s Note: This article by Eric Sammons, who once worked for the U. S. Government in data collection, is 100% cringe worthy for his audacious presumption to tell Catholics — even though he is a convert — what the Deposit of our Holy Faith contains and does not contain. Here he pontificates and insists that the Hexameron’s teaching that the world was created in 6 days is NOT part of the Deposit of the Faith, and that therefore Catholics cannot claim that belief in alien intelligent corporeal life is contrary to scripture.

For Catholics who know their faith, they will recognize immediately Eric Sammons fallacy, when he insists, that since the Magisterium has not defined either beliefs, they are not part of the Deposit of the Faith. He is quite wrong.

The Deposit of the Faith contains the whole of Sacred Scripture and the whole of Divine and Apostolic Tradition. Sacred Scripture includes all the books of the Bible accepted in the canon at the Council of Trent. The narrative of the creation of the world, in the Book of Genesis, is part of that canon. As Saint Thomas says, to deny that any verse of scripture is true is heresy by definition. To cut out an entire book or part thereof is obviously way worse, being an act of apostasy, because if you change the foundation upon which you build, it’s obvious you are not building the same house.

Also, I seem to remember that the infallible, inerrant prophet Isaiah said in chapter 45:18, that “God made the world … to be lived in.”. A verse which clearly means that a place for life requires the Divine Intervention.

It may not be obvious to Eric Sammons, but the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, has to be at work for life to exist. And if Scripture does not say He was at work, then the Deposit of Faith does not say there is life there.

Eric Sammons has shown himself to be a classical modernist and a deceptive publisher, who like many laymen throughout the ages has gone off the cliff of presumption and begun to be his own pope. Like nearly all Catholic social media personalities, who are converts, you waste your time listening to these persons, who are often if not nearly always wrong in something, even when they have academic degrees from Catholic institutions.

Eric Sammons also seems to be utterly uninformed about the recent discoveries in cosmology and biology, both of which by an ever growing consensus of empirical scientists require such a precise and mathematically impossible arrangement of things and causes, that God is the only rational explanation for the existence of the planet Earth and of the abundant life on it. So the truth is, that Sammons by denying parts of the Deposit of the Faith to make room for science, is really making room for scientism and disbelief.