by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
Recently Cardinal Burke said the situation becoming apparent among the Cardinal Electors is very grave. Translation: Most of the Cardinals who give interventions are open heretics and the majority of the College applaud them.
Even Cardinal Mueller said “It would be a catastrophe for the Church to elect someone like Pope Francis”.
The only Cardinal I know of who has asked for prayers is Cardinal Burke. Henry Sire, author of the expose’, “The Dictator Pope”, says that Burke is not in danger of being elected.
I do not know one sane Catholic commentator who is not concerned about there heretical majority among the College of Cardinals.
So is there nothing they can do about it, but mumble, whine and ask for us to pray for them?
No, of course not; for there is a strategy to ensure a Catholic pope, and it is based on two things, first a juridical principle and second a legal maneuver in the Conclave.
The Juridical Principe
Declare that if a heretic is elected, that the Catholic Cardinals will publicly denounce his election as juridically invalid
On the grounds of Pope Pau lV’s papal Bull, “Cum ex Apostolatus Officio”, which declared that the election by the College of Cardinals of a man who professed heresy before his election, IS totally NULL and VOID and no Catholic is bound to accept it. — Click the link to see my discussion of this papal bull from 2015.
Such a declaration, signed by Cardinal Electors, of howsoever few in number, has the ability to force the election of a Catholic, by inducing the Cardinals whose consciences are not so clear, that such a great scandal should be avoided.*
The Legal Maneuver in Conclave
Plan A: Phase 1 — Form a block of 33%+1 of the Cardinal Electors to permanently block the election of everyone but a Catholic
Cardinal Burke, being an expert on Canon Law should be able to explain to the entire College the extent to which the Papal Bull of Pope Paul IV is still in force in such extraordinary conditions such as exist presently in the College of Cardinals.
That explanation supported by a number of Cardinal Electors of the most prominent pedigree and accomplishments, should rally at least 45+ Cardinals to the side of the Catholics, and form a block to any election of any candidate, permanently, since the Papal Law for elections during conclave has no provision to relax the requirement of 66%+1 for a valid election of the next pope. So with such a block, resolved to make no compromise, they have invincible leverage
And this is very doable, and is not a canonical crime, nor does it espouse a canonical opinion which is wild or crazy or made up by grifters on social media.
If they cannot get a Catholic Elected, this legal maneuver can at least prevent any pope from being elected.
Plan A: Phase 2–Conclave Compromise
The election of a candidate by compromise is not allow in the Conclave. However, the Cardinals can resolve by a vote NOT to elect anyone in accord with the Papal Law, and resolve to leave the election to the Clergy and Laity of the Roman Church, in accord with their Apostolic Rite, a right which would automatically revive on account of the refusal of the entire College to elect a Pope.
The College of Electors then can summon all the clergy of the Church of Rome (Diocese of Rome and suburbican dioceses) to the Paul VI hall and introduce them to the candidates that both groups of Cardinals want, and explain the disagreement which led to their decision to not elect anyone but remit that election to the clergy and faithful. The clergy then will have the grace to chose the Catholic candidate, because in the history of the Church from St. Peter to this day, the faithful of Rome have never elected a heretic. And then both Cardinals and clergy can present the candidate to the Roman Faithful in the Piazza S. Pietro for their acclamation. Thus we would get a Catholic pope.
Thus, though we should be praying, we should not despair, but communicate this information to the Catholic Electors who will vote next week, since this is a nearly fail safe way of saving the Church. You can share this article with Cardinal Burke here.
Plan B — A Catholic Conclave
The fail safe or last resort is, if they cannot form a 46 vote bloc to prevent the election of a heretic indefinitely, that they follow through with their warning to denounce the election of the non-Catholic in accord with the rule of the Papal Bull of Paul IV, Cum ex apostolatus officio. Following this public denunciation which should be made before the election of the heretic is announced, the Catholic Cardinals should gather in a safe place and begin the Conclave again, following the Papal Law, and as soon as they elect a man with 66%+1 votes of the Catholic Cardinals, proclaim him to the world as the true Catholic Pope.
This fail safe is much better than a heretical pope, because entrusting the Church to a heretic is worse than a schism where one side has a worthy Catholic pope and the other has a heretic. And with all or a majority of the Catholic electors supporting the Catholic pope, and the heretical electors supporting the heretic, it will become obvious to Catholics all over the world which is the true pope.
Then the battle will begin, but at least such a battle is winnable, since they would have the Holy Spirit on their side, since they did what is right, within the limits of their own juridical rights, and followed a procedure declared valid in perpetuity by Pope Paul IV, a true Vicar of Christ, which has not been abolished by any subsequent legislation, which deals such such circumstances.
* As Electors, during a sede vacante, they hold the natural right to issue such a declaration, because seeing that the right to elect a pope encompasses naturally the duty to judge candidates, the Cardinal Electors during a valid Conclave, held during a sede vacante, do not usurp the rights of anyone nor damage them. — Remember, whereas no one but a Pope can judge a Cardinal a heretic, when there is a pope, yet when there is no pope, Cardinal Electors have the natural right to manifest which candidates are ineligible on account of prior manifest heresy. In this they do not violate the papal law which guarantees that no un-excommunicated Cardinal can be refused the right to vote and to be elected, they simply respond to the error of electing a manifest heretic as pope, which is a result and condition not addressed in the Papal Law, and therefore, which reasonably can be responded to by appealing to Pope Paul IV’s Bull.
Note, however, I am not saying that laymen or clergy who are not Cardinals can declare whomsoever they do not like as Pope a heretic, and then hold their own Assembly of Apostolic Right, because the ancient right of the whole Church of Rome cannot be appealed to, so long as there are Cardinal Electors willing to elect a pope. And if they won’t call him a heretic, his errors might be great, but that is not sufficient reason to claim, on one’s own authority, the right to judge him. In such a case, Catholics would have to appeal to a Provincial Council in the ecclesiastical province of Rome, to ask the Bishops to remonstrate with the newly elected Pope, once he starts spouting error or heresy. Because outside of a Conclave, no one has canonical authority to discern the pope to be a formal pertinacious heretic, except the Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Rome.
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This is Br. Bugnolo's English Translation, of Saint Bonaventure's encylopedic book of theology on the Trinity: With this book, your priest will always have something intelligent and awesomely inspiring to preach to you about
God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit!
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St. Joseph the Workman
St Philip & James (pre-1955)
Dear Brother, well, I have to thank you for the most practical solution, and in fact, the only practical solution, I have heard, and one that has some semblance of being in the realm of the humanly possible.
While personally I doubt the validity of any Betgoglian cardinal on several grounds, nonetheless this conclave presents a golden opportunity on the world stage for any Catholic in the College to stand up, like St. Athanasius, or even more pertinently St. Catherine of Siena, and prove it.
Copy of the text of my message today to Cardinal Burke follows:
Your Eminence, We’ve met before at St. Mary’s Greenwich, Ct. Please consider forming a block of 1/3 plus 1–45 Catholic Cardinals—to prevent the election of a lavender/St.Gallen Mafia un-Catholic pope. Per idea here: https://www.fromrome.info/2025/05/01/how-the-catholic-cardinals-can-100-guarantee-a-catholic-be-elected-pope/. Also please publish the resolution to denounce any man the conclave attempts to elect if he is or was heretical, and to publicly declare such election invalid.
In Corde Christi,
C. P. Benischek
Phenomenal Brother. This article is truly a gift from God. I hope and pray the Cardenal electors read it.
Haha. If a heretic is elected its not valid.. except when Bugnolo does it in some rented hotel room. Then he is saving the church, which he then admits he hasn’t.. oh dear… if only you would for once judge yourselves like you judge everybody else..
Johanne, I will reply to your trolling, because once again you show yourself totally ignorant on the matter of law. An Assembly of Apostolic Right is open only to Catholics of the Church of Rome. Since you are not such, you cannot judge its actions, you have to accept them or be damned, because the Church of Rome alone has the right to elect the Pope. And in such a matter, your opinion is worth less than a dried fig. So when that Assembly chose to elect Bergoglio, since you were not there and since you urged no one to attend, you accepted tacitly that election and cannot make any objections about it. — Here is an example, for your nasty mind: Just as the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has the authority to judge a case brought to it, so when it does, if you are not a judge on that court, you have no say in what they do or how they do it or what rights they have, so in the case of the election of a Pope in conclave or in an assembly of Apostolic Right. So when that Assembly chose to elect Bergoglio to put the entire Church back into communion with a true pope, they had that right and thus prevented the utter destruction of the juridical order in the Church. Being a servant of lies and error, yourself, you would prefer they had not because you want everyone damned in a fake church, which never again would be canonically valid in the sight of God.
As for trolling me on this matter, it gives me opportunity to expose who you are, but at the same time, it gives you the opportunity to merit Hell once again for your lies and calumnines and libel.
You are so upset that you do not have the power or the authority. I thank God you don’t and won’t ever.
Again, the above case of Cardinals in a Conclave, when compared to the previous Assembly of Apostolic Right, is totally different juridical case, as in the above case, since it is obvious there are more than one candidate: so such a legal approach as I suggest above is perfectly appropriate. I suppose if you object, to that, it means you want no pope, and then I must regard you as an enemy of Christ, because that is what your jealous malcontent makes you.
As the Saints say, when you are falsely accusing your brother in Christ, you cannot see your own sins, so try working on the plank in your own eye, before attempting to tell Catholics at Rome what to do or not to do.
As for the Bull of Paul IV, it applies obviously to conclaves, and says nothing about the special case in which there is only one candidate in an Assembly of Apostolic Right. But for argument’s sake, let us suppose there is a Conclave validly called and all the cardinals are killed except one Cardinal elector who is a heretic in the sense used in the Papal Bull, that is, who is a manifest formal heretic. Well then, who can declare that election invalid, but the Cardinal who elected himself. Now, yes, if he wanted to declare his own election invalid, by reason of the Papal Bull, Cum ex apostolatus officio, he could. But unless your own opinion changes from day to day, you would object both to his election and to his decision that his election was invalid.
And in this manner, by an hypothetical case, I have fully demonstrated that your position is untenable.
But perhaps the real motivation for your trolling me is this: that you prefer to hate and prefer not to have a pope, and thus, on account of the fact that I was one of the Catholics in the Assembly you lash out against me, because on account of what that Assembly did, I have become an eternal enemy of your pride, jealously and thus of your rancor.
I am glad to be the object of such hate as yours, since it will merit me eternal life. Be assured of my prayers that you stop embracing these demons and turn back to Jesus Christ.