Doctrinal Commentary by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

While no “Catholic” news agencies or writers on social media, other than current or past readers of FromRome.Info have had the integrity to call out the Conclave in May of 2025 as invalid, still fewer are denouncing Cardinal Prevost for heresy. — In the above address, which he gave at Castel Gondolfo, to a joint pilgrimage of Catholics and Orthodox from the United States, Prevost denied the Catholic Dogma of the primacy of Saint Peter and His See.

“Rome, Constantinople and all the other Sees, are not called to vie for primacy, lest we risk finding ourselves like the disciples who along the way, even as Jesus was announcing his coming passion, argued about which of them was the greatest (cf. Mk 9:33-37).”

In the context of his address, he is speaking of a Divine Vocation, and thus has explicitly denied the vocation of Saint Peter and his Successors to be the Vicar of Christ on Earth. And he did this by adding the word, “Rome” to his denial.  The patent denial of a Catholic Doctrine is formal, manifest heresy.

And he did not only deny the dogma, he denied the dogma’s relation to the Divine Will for Saint Peter and the Apostolic See, which is also a blasphemy against the one true and living God.

The primacy of Saint Peter is not based on human custom, or some competition won among mere mortals and mere institutions of this world. If it were, then one could quote the Gospel of Saint Mark, chapter 9, to rebuke such behavior, as Prevost did. Rather, the primacy of Saint Peter is derived from the Divine Will of the Church’s Founder, Jesus Christ, Who is the Eternal Son of God. Thus, the Apostolic See is called by God to prosecute her own primacy and supremacy in the Church, for otherwise she would be ignoring the decision of Jesus Christ, that the See of Rome receive and fulfill the munus as His Vicar on Earth, in as much as the Bishop of Rome is the Successor of Saint Peter.

Earlier today, I wrote an article explaining how it’s a Freemasonic game to pretend to have rights that you do not have. In the above statement, Prevost is attempting to destroy the Apostolic See by pretending the other sees have rights they do not have, and that the Roman See does not have the right She undoubtedly has.

If a pope makes such a statement as Prevost has made, is he automatically excommunciated? And does he lose his claim to the office?

Uneducated Catholics will try to lead others into error about this, because it is not the profession of heresy which deprives a Roman Pontiff canonically ipso facto of office, but it does result in immediately excommunication, as per canon 1364. so that spiritually and in the sight of God he no longer be a member of the Church.  Therefore, as a consequence, in virtue of canon 1331, §1, the excommunicate is forbidden to celebrate the sacraments and exercise any munus or ministerium in the Church. However, he must be publicly put on trial, before his claim to office be canonically reckoned null and void, by reason of his heresy. Or to speak more precisely: he must be examined and found to be a pertinacious heretic who has separated himself from the Church, and therefore no longer having a valid claim to the office.  And for a pope, that can only be done in a provincial council, as the readers of FromRome.Info already well know.

Nota Bene: “To lose an office” is a popular term; but if we are to speak precisely, in canonical terms, it’s the loss of the right to claim an office.  Deprivation of office requires a judgement of the proper authority, even when the individual by heresy or schism has lost his right to claim the office. — Thus it is equally wrong to say a heretic “holds” an office as it is to say that there is no need of the intervention of an ecclesiastical office to deprive a man of his de facto tenure of office. — But clearly, because canon 1331 forbids an excommunicate from exercising his office, it is also true that those who were the subjects of the man before he was excommunicated have no obligation to obey him once he is excommunicated. —  Since Vatican II, however, nearly no subject of a heretic has denounced his heretical superior and filed a criminal complaint. Rather, as can be seen from countless news stories, the subject denounces the heretic in public, and his himself punished by the heretic for the crime of schism or heresy, on account of his published statements.*

The problems with Prevost, however, did not begin with his July 17th denial of the primacy of the Roman See, because having professed the heretical denial of many doctrines before his election, Pope Paul IV’s Bull, “Cum ex apostolatus officio”, declares his election null, void, invalid, and incapable of ever being validated even by universal consent.

However, it does remain a moral problem for those who insist he is the pope: because now such Catholics are caught in a conundrum: they claim that fidelity to Pope Leo XIV is required because he is the Successor of Saint Peter, who has primacy over the whole Church, but Cardinal Prevot just denied that dogma.

If common sense and Catholic Faith and sincerity reigned among the Clergy, they would as of July 17th, when he said this — and it is published on the Vatican website, so there is ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT THAT HE SAID THIS — now stop naming him in the Canon of the Mass, because if he can deny the dogma, which when denied leads to eternal damnation, they no longer have any obligation or rational basis to name him in the Canon as holding the authority which he denies holding.

Ironically, it was Pope Saint Leo I who said, that there was no possibility that Constantinople could ever claim a primacy in the Church. So “Leo XIV” just denied also being a successor of Pope St. Leo I.

And for all this, we need to thank the Holy Spirit, for allowing Prevost to fall into such a spectacular heresy, to make it clear to the whole world, that it is theologically and morally impossible that this man has the grace of the Petrine Office.

It cannot get any clearer than this, folks! — Let those Catholics with eyes to see, say they see: and those who say they cannot see, let them meditate on the fires of Hell, which they will see for all eternity, in demerit for their denials.

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** In the Sutri Initiative, where I advocated that Catholics canonically denounce Pope Francis to the Bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Rome, the proper procedure was followed. That is why neither I nor anyone who sent in such petitions was excommunicated, even as numerous priests were because they did not follow the proper canonical procedures.

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