Category Archives: Debates

Fra’ Bugnolo responde alle critiche di Andrea Cionci

In questo video, Fra’ Bugnolo risponde alle critiche mosse di Andrea Cionci (vedi QUI) sul video allegoria publicato 2 settimane fa, di Fra’ Bugnolo:

Un’Analogia per i nostri giorni

This video does not have an English version, but a similar argument was used here in English
https://www.fromrome.info/2023/03/12/hate-cancer-and-toilets/

For a complete list of articles and about the recent controversy about Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis see
https://www.fromrome.info/2023/02/05/the-triumph-of-the-lamb-of-god/

Per aiutare Fra’ Alessio
https://www.fromrome.info/2023/05/07/br-bugnolos-may-appeal-2/

Per aiutare FromRome.Info
https://www.fromrome.info/2023/05/15/fromrome-info-needs-your-help/

La Vera Fede Cattolica: Apologia per l’elezione giuridicamente valida

Editor’s note: in this video, I summarize my several articles about the Election, in the Italian language.

Here is the same video, at FromRome InfoVideo on YouTube:

And here is the same video at FromRome:

Why did none who said Benedict XVI was the pope, prepare for the election of His Successor?

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

FRANÇAIS

Alas we live in such an age of dishonestly, that the dishonest frame themselves as the honest and claim to be offended by the honest.

Though I have the greatest respect for Saint Augustine, who defended the truth with more than 240 written works, I disagree with those who take his quote, “The truth is like a lion, it has no need of being defended” out of context and advocate we should let a thousand lying mouths defame the truth.

On the contrary, I believe that we should defend the truth by every legitimate means, and that is why there are more than 6000 articles and posts at FromRome.info.

So, as regards the present controversy, by which some are feigning madness to justify their irrational reactions, to the election of Pope Francis in the Assembly on Monday, I pose this nuclear question:

Why is it that no one among all those writers and speakers who said Pope Benedict XVI was the pope, prepared or supported the election of His Successor in the eventuality of his death?

I was the only one. I spoke of this years in advance. I formed committees to restore him to power and to elect his successor.

Notably, when I formed a committee to restore him to power, no one helped me but one friend. Neither Don Minutella nor Andrea Cionci lifted one finger. Don Minutella said it was a good effort. But no supporter of Don Minutella acted on it, except my one friend.

I was even asked by a priest follower of Don Minutella why I was even attempting a political solution?

That question revealed to me something I should have paid attention to.

That some people did not want a solution to the crisis.

And this became clear as soon as Pope Benedict XVI was called from this life by the Lord.

NO. ONE. EVEN. ADVOCATED. PROMOTING. THE. ELECTION. OF. HIS. SUCCESSOR.

Except me.

I am not tooting my horn, there is no need too. All know what I did. I am pointing out the contrast between speaking about a problem and advocating a solution.

You can talk all day long about the horror of abortion. But you are not for real, unless you stand  in the cold and counsel women not to kill their children. Because that is the only solution for the individual. In the mean time you can also work to overturn the laws enabling abortion. That too is true commitment.

But if you only show images of abortion on social media, lament the problem, found an organization and raise money to keep doing the same thing over and over, but never actually organize side-walk counseling or legislation to stop the killing, how can anyone claim you are sincere?

You see, it’s the same thing in every endeavor.

If you are going to open your mouth about some problem, no one should take your seriously unless you are proposing solution and taking action.

And if in any endeavor someone actually takes action and solves the problem, then God have mercy on those who attack him for it.

Take for example, Donald Trump. My readers know that I am not a Trump supporter. But I will forever praise him for his appointments to the Supreme Court of the United States, by whom Roe vs. Wade was overturned. Catholic appointments.

I have as of today more people who hate and criticize me than support me. But all know that I am not a grifter. If I talk about a problem I do something.  That is why I founded the Scholasticum, Ordo Militaris Inc., L’Italia per gli Italiani, and Cross Azure Ukraine. I have a track record of honesty, even if I am not always as successful in each endeavor as I dreamed.

So in every controversy, we should keep in mind the bigger picture, and when anyone is criticized for anything, let us first ask, who actually solved the problem, and who only talked about it. Who actually is trying to solve the problem, and who is only riding the bull of dissent and milking the cow.

Finally, we must keep in mind, that when a problem is solved, there is a strong temptation for those who did well milking the cow, to say it has not been solved and the issue is still hot. Self interest is strong in some, and as adults we need to admit that it exists with social media influencers, who, if they do not get likes, hits and donations, will scream all the louder at someone to get attention.

 

That the Right to Elect the Roman Pontiff belongs to the Roman Church

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

FRANÇAISITALIANO

Contra factum non est argumentum, as the Latin adage goes: that is, “Against a fact, there is no argument”.

If there is any Catholic who doubts that the Catholics of Rome have the right to elect their own bishop, they need not believe anything I say, they need only to open up any book about the election of the Popes, or in this case, even see the List of Popes over at Wikipedia, to confirm this.

Deny this, and you deny the Apostolic Succession in the See of Rome, and make every pope after Peter a fake. But if you do that, you are anathematized by Vatican I, which declared infallibly that there will always be successors of St. Peter at Rome, until the coming of the Lord.

So, to those who are are reading this or that section of the Papal Law, Universi Dominici Gregis, and understanding none of it, I make this reply.

Yes, there is a stricture in that law, that states that for the election of the Pope in a Conclave only Cardinal Electors can vote (n. 33). That stricture applies only to the manner of election in that Apostolic Constitution, for otherwise the Apostolic Succession would be in jeopardy. Indeed, in the final sentence of the preface, Pope John Paul states explicitly his intention, that the norms of the special law are to bind the Cardinals. He does not impose them on the whole Church.

Those who do not think so, are pretending that John Paul II or the scholars of jurisprudence who worked for more than 10 years on the new Code of Canon Law did not know about what happened in the Church for the previous 19 centuries, or how the Apostle Peter left this right to the whole Church.

For they pretend that John Paul II wants in all times and places, even outside of a conclave, that only Cardinal electors vote.

But if that were the case, then the enemies of God would only have to kill 120 men, to end the Apostolic Succession forever. — But, that would make the Gates of Hell prevail. Which is absurd.

So obviously neither the Pope nor his experts intended that.

Which means, that their argument is false.

And these experts show that this argument is false, because this stricture of n. 33 is placed in the special law UDG and not in canons 349 and 359, which regard the privileges of the College of Cardinals. By placing this in a special law, it removes the stricture from general application. And this is confirmed by canons 5 §1 and 5 §2, which affirms apostolic rights remain in force in special circumstances not provided for in law.

And this was necessary, because Canon Law depends upon Apostolic Right for its authority, not the other way around. Thus, no Pope can abolish anything in Apostolic Tradition, not even the right of the Roman Church to elect his successor.

And to the further argument, that in canon 349, it says the contrary, it is clear that that argument would be wrong, since the Latin says, that the election pertains to the College of Cardinals as to provide for it (provideat) according to norm (ad normam) of the special law on elections.  It does not say they enjoy this right per se or semper nor does it use a verb which signifies or connotes that they can obstruct the election by violating the norms of that special law. Indeed, someone who has the right to provide for something which is needed, does not have the right to deny that something when needed, because the right to provide is the right of a servant not of a lord. Otherwise, a mother who has the right to provide for her children’s supper could rightfully starve them to death by not providing for it, and a father who attempted to do so, when she was starving them, could not rightfully act. Which is horribly absurd.

So there are a lot of laymen out there who cannot read Latin or who have not studied law or history, who are saying foolish things. That they do not pause to think what will happen to the Church before they speak, is incredible, after the 10 years of savage attacks on the Faith and the Mass.

And for those who argue against n. 76, I have already replied in a footnote to my article, How John Paul II determined the election of Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.

Those who say Munus = Ministerium are the Enemies of the Living God

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

President of the Scholasticum,
Translator of Saint Bonaventure’s Commentaria in Quator Libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi,
Translator of Critical Edition of St. Francis’s Collected Works

Munus and Ministerium, in all major western languages are NEVER translated correctly with the same terms. Those who might think so are neither linguists, nor do they understand etymologies. — Heed them at the peril of saying something stupid as they do.

Munus, for example, is not translated as function, because function is a verbal noun, but munus is a substance. A substance is a thing, but a verbal noun names properly an action.

This can also be seen through connotation and denotation. Denotation is the inherent or primary signification of a thing. But connotation its what it signifies secondarily or consequently.

Thus, Munus (gift or charge) is a term which connotes a relation between the one receiving it and the one giving it, but Ministerium (service) is a term which denotes the relation of the one serving to the ones served. This is because Ministerium is exercised in favor of inferiors and needy, but a Munus is received from superiors of abundance.

Likewise, when one recognizes the relation of terms in the logic of the Latin language, by which the duty of a superior is termed a magisterium, and the duty of an inferior a ministerium: for he who has a munus to teach holds a magisterium, and when he renounces his ministerium, he does not lose his magisterium, nor his munus.

Therefore to say that munus and ministerium mean the same thing is absurd. To say they signify the same thing is a psychotic denial of reality. Thus Benedict XVI never abdicated, and those who say he did are the enemies of the Living God, who is Eternal Truth.

Dr. Andrea Cionci: Dear Dr. de Mattei, if you think the Resignation was a mistake, reconsider!

Introduction by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Ever since Dr. Andrea Cionci, one of the renowned experts on the methodology of pedagogy in Italy, came to understand that Pope Benedict XVI was not being listened to carefully, he has blazed a path for all others to follow with a precise and wide-range investigation into the precise meaning of what the only native German speaking pope since Pope Victor II (1055-1057 A. D.) is trying to say.

As a translator, I know that most modern translations are worthless, because they are done hastily by persons who have little academic formation and almost never have any studies to make them careful listeners when it is a question of a speaker or writer whose culture and erudition go beyond the normal. Dr. Cionci kept that in mind and thus finally opened up the understanding of what the Holy Father has been trying to tell the world for nearly 10 years.

But Dr. Cionci, who merited a Knighthood from the Italian Republic for his invention of a pedagogic method, used in Italian public schools for its wonderful efficacy, has also blazed a trail in apologetics, by his earnest, sincere and longanimity in engaging other famous, erudite Italian scholars and writers on the question of who is the true Pope and how can this be demonstrated by facts, laws and documents.

This year, he has written open letters to many scholars, asking them to at least take a look at the encyclopedic collection of evidences which show that Pope Benedict XVI has never intended to resign the papacy, did not in fact renounce the petrine munus, does consider himself the only true Pope, and does not recognize Bergoglio (“Pope Francis”) as the legitimate Successor of St. Peter. He even offers a free copy of his book, The Ratzinger Code, to all scholars willing to take the challenge.

Not infrequently, he receives in return only insults and scurrilous accusations. One such response was received from the rather well acclaimed founder of the Instituto Lepanto, here at Rome, Dr. Roberto De Mattei, who throughout the last 40 years, through his magazine, Lepanto, has in his capacity as a Professor of History, attempted to stay the tide of modernism and defend western Christian Civiliazation.

Dr. De Mattei’s response to Cionci can be found linked in the text of Dr. Cionci’s response to him, which follows.

OFFICIAL ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Professor de Mattei: “Benedict XVI’s resignation is a mistake.” The “Ratzinger effect” keeps on taking place. 

Dear Professor de Mattei,

I write to thank you for your article “About Andrea Cionci” published yesterday at Corrispondenza Romana, which I invite all readers to read.  Even if we had agreed about it in advance, I could not have wished for a better and more eloquent recommendation: it is a small masterpiece of the sense of professorial superiority and ill-concealed anger that – without even entering into the merits of the argument – led you to lapse into making ad personam attacks against me and arguments so superficial and contemptuous as to make Professor Giovanni Zenone blush.

Your article is a “sublime recapitulation” of all those who have preceded you [in attacking me]: the accusation that I am “incompetent” stolen from Don Tullio Rotondo; calling me a “fool who is dominated by the desire to know” and “has lost his compass,” taken from the director of the same site, Riccardo Cascioli; the ridicule of my “brainy theses” made by the excellent Don Ariel Levi of Gualdo, the careful popularizer of the false letters of Monsignor Gänswein produced with a Microsoft Word license registered in his name.

If you will allow me to make a suggestion: there was only one note missing: you should have pointed out the assonance of my surname [Cionci] with the verb “cianciare” (“to gossip”), and then the article would have been perfect.

But, on the other hand, you have given us proof of your amazing capacity for contradiction when you state:

“The abdication of Benedict XVI and the manner in which it took place is considered by many scholars and even by eminent members of the Sacred College as a grave error.”

Excellent point. So then, what makes you suppose that in Canon Law such an erroneous act (and, moreover, one of such magnitude) both in content and modality, can be considered valid?

(Just yesterday we wrote about a “Ratzinger effect“: the  strange phenomenon whereby the enemies of Benedict XVI’s papal legitimacy are the first to affirm it involuntarily).

Think of my “vana curiositas” concerning the details which have fascinated me: in order to be valid, the abdication needed to be made simultaneously, be a resignation of the petrine munus, and be formally and juridically correct, while instead it was deferred [seventeen days], was only a resignation of the ministerium, was not confirmed after 20.00 on 28 February 2013 and finally was filled with grammatical errors. Yet, Pope Benedict claims to have written it in Latin so that he would “not commit errors.” Really? Is it not perhaps possible that it was never an abdication, from the beginning?

I really enjoyed your trick of presenting me to your many readers as a crazy person who complains because no one interprets the mysterious codes that only he sees. I am quite happy to accept the role of the buffoon. Perhaps then, since you are a historian, you will be able to explain to us why Pope Ratzinger has written that, like him, “no pope has resigned in the last thousand years and even in the first millennium it has been an exception.” 

Or perhaps you can enlighten us as to why he continues to impart his apostolic blessing, or why he makes the Secretariat of State reply in a letter that the pope emeritus is the “Supreme Pontiff.”

And regarding the fact that he said he still wears the white robe because it was the most “practical” thing, perhaps you will agree with Don Rotondo, who said that Benedict XVI preferred to save 1,000 euros on a new black cassock, regardless of the confusion into which he would throw a few million faithful souls. Or perhaps, dealing only with “what is visible,” you actually believe that, for the past nine years, no ecclesiastical tailor has had time to make a black cassock for the “emeritus.”

By the way: wasn’t it precisely you who maintained that the status of “emeritus,” for the pope, does not have any meaning?

In my penultimate article I addressed criticism towards you (serious criticisms, but not offensive on a personal level) concerning the objective nature, as well as the historical implications, of the fact that you and other conservative Catholics refuse to examine  the juridical possibility that Pope Benedict did not leave the see vacant, but impeded, in accord with canon 335. I cite the code of canon law from this website (https://www.altalex.com/documents/news/2013/02/12/codice-di-diritto-canonico-le-dimissioni-del-pontefice) because, magically, the Vatican website dedicated to the Code of Canon Law has not been usable for the last few days:

“Canon 335. When the Roman See is vacant or entirely impeded, nothing is to be altered in the governance of the universal Church.”

And here is my bizarre thesis: Could it not be possible that if the pope does not exercise his munus (and is therefore deprived of his ministerium) he is impeded rather than having abdicated? Canon 412 states: “An episcopal see is understood to be impeded if by reason of captivity, banishment, exile, or incapacity a diocesan bishop is completely prevented from exercising his pastoral office (MUNUS) in the diocese, so that he is not able to communicate with those in his diocese even by letter.” (… Episcopus dioecesanus plane a MUNERE pastorali in dioecesi procurando praepediatur…”.

And could it not be precisely because of this difficulty of communication imposed by the impediment that Benedict XVI expresses himself with subtle language, but not too subtle, so that even a journalist (“the scum of the world of letters,” as Prof. Zenone explains) has managed to understand it?

Perhaps one could ask for enlightenment from the canonists of Bologna who, just one month after my “provocation,” formed a study group “on the pope emeritus and the impeded pope.”

You will be amused by the fact that, by strange coincidence, Benedict XVI recently declared: “The answer is in the book  of Jeremiah,” – where we read: “I am impeded” (Jer 36:5).

Finally, allow me a general consideration: as a historian, you will certainly know that, for centuries and millennia, the figures keep returning in a wearily repetitive way of “those philosophers who, filled with the obstinacy of the asp,” do not even want to examine the theses of their opponents, delegitimizing them regardless of the merits of what they say.

Yet you have published the interesting volume “I sentieri del male[“The paths of evil. Plots, conspiracies, collusions”] and you therefore of all people would be highly qualified to examine the most important plot of all.

I tell you with “personal friendship” (quoting a delicious example of a phrase used as a “Ratzinger code”): are you sure you want to miss this final opportunity to avoid going down in history with the label of being the prestigious university professor who does not stoop to consider the interpretations of others?

Think about it. It could be a big mistake, since there will certainly be a day when Pope Benedict will no longer be impeded and will provide a word no longer intended only “to those with ears to hear,” but to the whole world.

In any case, renewing my gratitude to you, I send you my cordial greetings and make myself available to offer you a copy of my book, should you be interested.

Andrea Cionci

 Original article by Professor Roberto De Mattei here in Google English version.

SPANISH TRANSLATION:

FRENCH TRANSLATION:

ITALIAN ORIGINAL:

Pope Benedict XVI’s teaching on munus and ministerium

The gratuitous assertion that Pope Benedict XVI intended to renounce the papacy, by means of renouncing the Petrine ministerium, is absurd on the face of it, as is demonstrated from his Homily on May 7, 2005, when he began his pontificate

FRENCH TRANSLATION HERE

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

The principal gratuitous assertion of those who hold that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is Pope Francis, is that in renouncing the petrine ministerium, Pope Benedict XVI renounced the petrine munus, and thus opened the way for the canonically valid election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as the vicar of Christ.

This argument is gratuitous because, so far, no one has attempted to prove it.

But there are ample counter proofs, which have been drawn into light by the investigations of Andrea Cionci, Attorney Acosta, Father Kramer and myself, that Pope Benedict XVI considers himself still the holder of the Papal Authority, even if one were to ignore what his own eyes see, that the Pope dresses as the pope now for 9 years running.

Here we must remember, that the Catholic world is victim of a psyop.  A psyop is the term in military warfare for a deception to make your enemies not see what they see.  And that is what was pulled off on Feb. 11, 2013, as I explained in the documentary, A Message in a Bottle. For the whole world says Benedict XVI abdicated, though Benedict XVI never did anything of the kind.

For Pope Benedict XVI on that day, said, “I declare that I renounce the ministry [ministerio] which was committed to me by the Cardinals on the day I was elected…” (source and translations here)

But Canon 332, section 2, requires that a pope renounce his munus, to abdicate validly.

Si contingat ut Romanus Pontifex muneri suo renuntiet … (source here)

And that Pope Benedict XVI does not consider the munus of the office of the Pope (petrine munus) to be simply identical with the ministry of the Pope (petrine ministerium) can be seen from his Homily on May 7, 2005 A. D., for the Celebration of his taking possession of the Lateran Basilica, as the Bishop of Rome, a most solemn moment, at the start of his papacy.

For in that homily he spoke these words in Italian (Vatican.va):

Questa potestà di insegnamento spaventa tanti uomini dentro e fuori della Chiesa. Si chiedono se essa non minacci la libertà di coscienza, se non sia una presunzione contrapposta alla libertà di pensiero. Non è così. Il potere conferito da Cristo a Pietro e ai suoi successori è, in senso assoluto, un mandato per servire. La potestà di insegnare, nella Chiesa, comporta un impegno a servizio dell’obbedienza alla fede. Il Papa non è un sovrano assoluto, il cui pensare e volere sono legge. Al contrario: il ministero del Papa è garanzia dell’obbedienza verso Cristo e verso la Sua Parola. Egli non deve proclamare le proprie idee, bensì vincolare costantemente se stesso e la Chiesa all’obbedienza verso la Parola di Dio, di fronte a tutti i tentativi di adattamento e di annacquamento, come di fronte ad ogni opportunismo. Lo fece Papa Giovanni Paolo II, quando, davanti a tutti i tentativi, apparentemente benevoli verso l’uomo, di fronte alle errate interpretazioni della libertà, sottolineò in modo inequivocabile l’inviolabilità dell’essere umano, l’inviolabilità della vita umana dal concepimento fino alla morte naturale. La libertà di uccidere non è una vera libertà, ma è una tirannia che riduce l’essere umano in schiavitù. Il Papa è consapevole di essere, nelle sue grandi decisioni, legato alla grande comunità della fede di tutti i tempi, alle interpretazioni vincolanti cresciute lungo il cammino pellegrinante della Chiesa. Così, il suo potere non sta al di sopra, ma è al servizio della Parola di Dio, e su di lui incombe la responsabilità di far sì che questa Parola continui a rimanere presente nella sua grandezza e a risuonare nella sua purezza, così che non venga fatta a pezzi dai continui cambiamenti delle mode.

Which words regard the power of the Papal Office, and which I translate into English, thus:

This power of teaching frightens so many men, inside and outside of the Church. They ask themselves whether this is not a threat to freedom of conscience, whether it be a pretense [presunzione] set against the liberty of thought. It’s not like that.  The power conferred by Christ upon Peter and upon his successors is, in an absolute sense, a mandate to serve [mandato per servire]. The power to teach, in the Church, conveys a commitment to service [impegno a servizio]. The Pope is not an absolute sovereign, whose act of thinking and willing [pensare e volere] are law.  On the contrary: the ministry [ministero] of the Pope is a guarantee [garanzia] of obedience to Christ and to His Word [Sua Parola].  He ought not proclaim his own ideas, but rather bind himself and the Church constantly to obedience to the Word of God [Parola di Dio], in the face of every temptation to adapt and water it down, in the face of every opportunism.  This did Pope John Paul II do, when, facing every temptation, apparently good-willed toward man, in the face of the erroneous interpretations of freedom, he underlines in an unequivocal manner the inviolability of the human being, the inviolability of human life from conception until natural death.  The freedom to kill is not a true freedom, but is a tyranny which reduces the human being to slavery.  The Pope is conscious of being, in his great decisions, bound to the great community of the Faith of all times, to the binding interpretations grown up along the pilgrim path of the Church.  In this manner, his power is not above, but is at the service of this Word of God, and upon him there is incumbent the responsibility to make sure that this Word continues to remain present in its greatness and to resound in its purity, such that it is not broken into pieces by continual changes according to fads.

Commentary

To unpack the teaching of the Holy Father on munus and ministerium, one needs to look carefully at the above text, and see how the Holy Father uses different phrases to express himself in Italian.  Here I list them:

The power conferred by Christ upon Peter and upon his successors is, in an absolute sense, a mandate to serve [mandato per servire].

The power to teach, in the Church, conveys a commitment to service [impegno a servizio].

On the contrary: the ministry [ministero] of the Pope is a guarantee [garanzia] of obedience to Christ and to His Word [Sua Parola].

In this manner, his power is not above, but is at the service of this Word of God, and upon him there is incumbent the responsibility [responsibilità] to make sure that this Word continues to remain present in its greatness and to resound in its purity…

Here I remind those who do not know Latin well, that there are 3 Latin terms used in Canon Law for governance: mandatum, munus and ministerium.  In regard to the Papal Office, the mandatum is given by Christ.  This mandatum regards the twofold command that Christ gives to Peter: feed My sheep and lambs (John 21:15) and confirm your brethren (Luke 22:32 – Cited by the Holy Father in the previous paragraph of his Homily). The munus is that which Peter receives by Christ in these commands. It is the charge of authority, to exercise the power, and the responsibility to execute the commands. The ministerium is that which Peter does when executing the commands.

But, in the Holy Father’s native language, German, the words: munus and responsibility are the same word, Verantwortung.  Canon 145 reckons every office [officium, ufficio, Amt] to be a charge [munus, incarico, Verantwortung].  But canon 332 §2 requires that a Pope renounce his munus.

Now, Italian has a word, impegno, which has no exact equivalent in English. Above I translated it as commitment, but it could be translated charge, obligation, or duty. Indeed, in German it is often translated by Verpflichtung which is a synonym for Verantwortung! So I think it is safe to say that by “commitment to service” the Holy Father is signifying or at least referring to the munus ad ministrandum in the Latin.  And garanzia in Italian [Garantie in German] means the assurance of the fulfillment of an impegno! — Thus in Italian, it is indisputable that the Holy Father sees the ministerium to be distinct from munus, just as it is in German.

From all this it is clear that in the mind of Pope Benedict XVI, from the very first days of His Pontificate, he understands the distinction between munus and ministerium and does not consider them identical concepts or words which mean the same thing. Because every human being using different words to signify different things, recognizes that the difference of the things signified is the cause of the difference of the words.

And thus, since Benedict XVI knows that by renouncing the papal ministerium, he is NOT renouncing the papal munus, he knows that on Feb. 11, 2013, he did NOT renounce the papacy.

————–

CREDITS: The recent image of the Holy Father, standing in front of the new painting was published from here.

Creationism — Part I: A short history of the word

In this first installment of a multi-part lecture, Br. Alexis Bugnolo, B. A.  Cultural Anthropology, and translator of St. Bonaventure’s, “On the Creation and Fall of Angels and Men” (Commentaria in Secundum Librum Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombari), presents a brief history of the word, “creationism”, and explains what will invariably happen if, when asked, “Are you a creationist?”, you respond, “Yes”.

For more information about the origin of the word, “creationism”

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/creationism

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/creationism

Catholic Encyclopedia of 1899 on “Creationism” : https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04475a.htm

Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, article on “Creationism” which lacks a consideration of this: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creationism/#HisCre

Another historical treatment which does not consider the origins of the word: https://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/22/11/article/i1052-5173-22-11-4.htm

NOTA BENE: While Br. Bugnolo’s English translation of Bonaventure’s Tract on Creation is not yet in print, his English translation of St. Bonaventure’s tract on the Trinity is. You can get a copy of that here.

If you ignore the laws of the Church, then there is something wrong with you…

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

There are endless threads of insults against Catholics today, who hold to the laws of the Church, for we are in an age of lawlessness, and the man of lawlessness, i. e. the Antichrist, has many precursors, especially among those who claim to be Catholic.

But the fact remains, that if you ignore the laws of the Church promulgated by the Pope, you really have no ground to stand on, upon which you can claim to be a good Catholic.

Conservatives who does this must recognize that they are being hypocrites, because if conservativism means anything it should mean keeping the laws of the Church.

And Traditionalists are even more at fault, if they pretend that the traditionalism which they sustain is nothing other than being a faithful Catholic like Catholics were exhorted to do, before the reign of Pope John XXIII.

And practicing Catholics have also fallen into self-contradiction, if they claim to be practicing but refuse to follow the laws of the Church.

Pastors who preach mercy are acting like hypocrites, in a remarkable way, if they insist that impenitents be given the rights of penitents, but refuse good Catholics to have recourse to the laws of the Church which defend and guarantee their rights.

And all this has to do with Canon 332 §2, which says that a Pope abdicates when he renounces his munus. And Canon 17 requires that we understand that munus mean something other than ministerium, because in canon 1331, §2, n. 4, the Code of Canon Law says that excommunicates cannot hold any dignity, office or munus in the Church, but does not forbid them a ministerium.

And is it something difficult for a Pope to say the word, munus? No.

And could it be that a pope makes a mistake in such matters? Yes.

And does Canon Law provide for this? Yes.

So what is the problem of just following the law?

For is it reasonable, sane, and sensible to hold that we should ignore the law simply because it appears that everyone else is doing it, or our favorite Bishop or Cardinal or Priest tells us to ignore it?

As Catholics, there are positive laws which are not just or are not enforceable, since they go beyond the power of the State or Church to levy.  But it is certainly not unjust or unreasonable that the Church have a canon so we can all be sure if a pope has renounced or not.

So, for those of you who insist that Bergoglio is the pope, or hold that he must be presumed to be the pope, you should read the Code of Canon Law if you want to be credible.

And you need to recognize that Catholics, in virtue of canons 40 and 41, have the right, whether clergy or not, to NOT act upon any administrative act of their superior, when that act is something which is NOT provided for in the Law, transgresses the rights of others, is inopportune, or is simply not yet written in an unambiguous manner or in a manner conform with the canons of the Church.

And for that reason, anyone who attacks Catholics who say that they regard Pope Benedict XVI as the Pope due to some defect in his resignation, are the ones who truly deserve to be ridiculed in public.

Because, If you ignore the laws of the Church, then there is something wrong with you … not those who keep them.

 

Mark Mallet’s Ridiculous escapade into the Controversy over Benedict XVI’s Papacy

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Hey, when you see that a blogger, on the header of his blog, has a classy fashion photo shoot of himself next to a rock which strangely bears the symbol of the Masonic Lodge, you gotta take interest why such a person is writing, his motives.

In his Sept. 16th post, Mark Mallet is just such a writer: entitled, “Who is the True Pope?” it is a tour de force of error, misinformation, misdirection, disinformation, lies and just wrong headed reasoning.

As a Franciscan brother I have no desire to take pleasure in taking his little crumb cake to pieces, but I have to defend the truth from Rome, to which Mallet is either entirely oblivious (maybe because he cannot read either Latin or Italian) or totally and intentionally wants to hide (a la the Masonic Agenda, which of course is enthralled with Bergoglio).

So here is my take down of Mark Mallet.

I first came to know of his post through an interview given at the YouTube Channel, “Mother & Refuge of the End Times”.  — It is absolutely hilarious that a channel which is always talking about the Apocalypse wants so badly that we accept Bergoglio — the Freemason, Heretic, Apostate, usurper of the Papacy, and active unrepentant idolater — as the Pope and Vicar of Christ!

You would think the person or persons behind the channel must be utterly loony, or Freemasons who intended such a deception when they launched their channel, since it seems so contra-indicatory to their entire video project. I mean, to say, if you want Catholics to take refuge in Our Lady in the end times, why on earth would you be telling them to stay in the boat with the likes of Bergoglio, who, if he is not the False Prophet, is clearly the next runner up.

But there it is. Judge it for yourself.

The opening arguments lone show that Mallet has not used the least bit of his critical thinking skills (I will concede arguendo that he has them) or his ability to do some historical or canonical research (I presume he can) to just check for a moment if he understands that of which he speaks or the facts of the matter and just what the arguments of the other side are.

l do not believe he has, because I cannot explain how he has ignored 6000 articles at FromRome.Info, many of which have put into English the meaning of the important Latin and Italian texts (see my Index on Pope Benedict’s Renunciation here) which lie at the heart of this controversy. Also, because I would expect a researcher to at least write someone, like Cionci or myself, who are the leading experts on this controversy at Rome. He has not written me, and Mallet appears to be entirely oblivious to the corpus of writings by Cionci translated here at FromRome.Info or at Sfero.it.

Ad initium

He begins his argument by accusing his opponents of “flirting with schism”!

I have been doing an apostolate on the internet since 1992, and so I find it extremely lame that anyone is using such silly jargon. It is even more disingenuous, because as any Catholic who has studied the Catechisms of the Church knows already, schism is not the worst of sins. But for the collectivist, whether Communist or Fascist, and for their patron, the Masonic Lodge, schism is the worst of sins, because it means you are not under a control system or at least risk at breaking free from their control system.

Schism is not like divorce. You don’t flirt with it. The great schisms in the Church were all healed on the basis of accepting the truth, not out of fear of flirtations. Catholics have in the cause of truth never feared being called schismatic, because it is absurd to say that someone holding to the truth of anything is in schism from the Church of Jesus Christ which is the Pillar and Mainstay of the Truth!

Mallet’s use of such jargon shows he wants to be chic, but really knows nothing about theology, ecclesiology or canon law. So let’s not be surprised if he gets everything else pretty much wrong, after that comment, which is so Skojecesc.

What spurred Mallet to write was the recent article, in English translation, of that which appeared on Marco Tosatti’s blog last week, about Tyconius, which I critiqued here. An article which, in the comments to my own, has been shown by Attorney Acosta to be fatally flawed, since Pope Benedict XVI has explicitly said that the ecclesiology of Tyconius is NOT Catholic. So Tyconius’ view of the great discessio cannot be a Catholic view. I explained in my critique why it cannot, anticipating Pope Benedict XVI’s own position in present time, since I was unaware of it at the time I wrote.

St. Gallen Mafia

It is a tour de force of misinformation to discuss this group and cite the book by Cardinal Daannels biographer as proof that no election conspiracy took place, when the book cited by all Vaticanista who have discussed it, clearly does admit they key facts to find this group guilty of election tampering in violation of n. 81 of Universi Dominic Gregis, resulting not only in their ipso facto excommunication but also in the invalidity of the election. To say, as Mallet does, that we should not pay any such interpretation any attention because the members of the St. Gallen Mafia have denied such an accusation, is a principle of argumentation which if adopted would exhonerate every criminal in court at all times and in all cases: that principle is: if the accused deny the charge, they are innocent. Shut up. And stop investigating!

I mean, Mr. Mallet, is that your position?

But his ignorance goes deeper, for he writes:

Moreover, on the election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to succeed Benedict XVI, there were 115 cardinals who voted that day, far outnumbering the handful of those who loosely formed this “mafia.” To suggest that these other cardinals were haplessly influenced like impressionable children is a judgement of their faithfulness to Christ and His Church (if not slightly insulting to their intelligence). 

Amazing. Really amazing. The Papal Law on elections says that a Conclave is invalid if anything is done contrary to its law. While it is true that a conspiracy among 26 or so Cardinals to make an impressive first vote would lead directly to their own punishment, the consequent excommunication would render the tally of their votes in the decisive 72-74 final vote in favor of Bergoglio as not countable, and thus invalidate the entire election. There are attempts to avoid the application of the canon on votes-to-be-counted in an ecclesiastical election, on the grounds that the Papal Law is sui generis, but even if, arguendo, that canon did not apply to the special election of the Roman Pontiff, nevertheless, since  Canon Law expressly says that they can innovate nothing, if a Cardinal or his accomplice (canon 1329 §2) is excommunicated he immediately loses the right to vote because he immediately loses the dignity of the Cardinalate (canon 1331 §2, n 4), and you cannot suspend canon 1331 until after the Conclave, since there is no provision for the suspension of its effects on the basis of particular or special law: wherefore, the votes of all the accomplices and perpetrators of the vote canvassing lost the dignity of the Cardinalate and therefore could not vote. That their non-votes could not be counted is a canonical sequitur which cannot be rationally challenged or put in dispute.

Moreover, the invalidity of the election is founded on other grounds: the 5th ballot, when only 4 ballots are allowed, and worse of all, the convening of a Conclave when the current occupant of the Papacy is neither dead nor legally abdicated. That it was convened was a connivance of the Mafia of St. Gallen, too.

The Declaratio

Mallet opens up with disinformation: saying, “There are some debating that the actual language Pope Benedict XVI used in his resignation is only a renunciation of his ministry (ministerium) and not his office (munus).” — No, Mr. Mallet. All are talking about this. But they are not debating the fact, which you seem to claim does not exist, since you cite the English translation of the Declaratio — a translation which has neither legal or canonical value — The one side is saying what Benedict XVI said and comparing that with Canon 332.2 and finding no correspondence. The other side is not debating anything, they just don’t answer.  That makes the entire discussion one-sided, but not a debate.

And Mr. Mallet, your saying that the controversy has no basis in the text, is simply a childish cop-out.

Nor can you appeal to the Pope’s actions as proof that your interpretation of his intentions in using the wrong word were not erroneous, because if he intended munus when he said ministerium, canon 332.2 would make the renunciation invalid by 2 factors: substantial error and lack of due manifestation.

You can argue all you want till you are blue in the face, but you cannot argue away the fact and the law of the case.

Then Mr. Mallet cites these words of Pope Benedict XVI to prove his own position, even though it proves the opposite:

There is absolutely no doubt regarding the validity of my resignation from the Petrine ministry. The only condition for the validity of my resignation is the complete freedom of my decision. Speculations regarding its validity are simply absurd… [My] last and final job [is] to support [Pope Francis’] pontificate with prayer. —POPE EMERITUS BENEDICT XVI, Vatican City, Feb. 26th, 2014; Zenit.org

Mallet reads this statement as if it read, “There is absolutely no doubt regarding the validity of my renunciation of the Petrine munus“.

That Mallet does not realize what he is doing, some less respectful reader might surmise is due to some mind-control or deep psychological block. I hate to imply anything of the kind: I will simply call him out as a liar and fraudster. After 9 years of controversy this is not a mistake that can be pardoned anymore.

That the Holy Father consciously chose to renounce the ministry not the munus, he states quite well in the citation made by Mallet, which follows:

It was a difficult decision but I made it in full conscience, and I believe I did well. Some of my friends who are a bit ‘fanatical’ are still angry; they did not want to accept my choice. I am thinking about the conspiracy theories which followed it: those who said it was because of the Vatileaks scandal, those who said it was because of the case of the conservative Lefebvrian theologian, Richard Williamson. They did not want to believe it was a conscious decision, but my conscience is clear. —February 28th, 2021; vaticannews.va

But again, this has nothing to do with the fact that he renounced the ministry not the munus.

In fact, in Italian, to renounce ministry rather than munus, is what makes the difference between saying, Ho fatto le mie dismissioni, and Ho abdicato. That is, I resigned, vs., I have abdicated.

So the Holy Father is perfectly consistent. His mind is truly very clear. I will grant that Mallet’s might not be so.

You can read the rest of Mallet’s scribblings above, through the link to the top image, as I won’t bother, having proven the case already.

The papacy is a monarchy. As St. Alphonsus says in the interpretation of laws, when a monarch does not use the word which signifies that which you want to hold is the meaning of the text, you have to have recourse to him to change it by written decree, otherwise, your interpretation is not authentic, nor is it binding upon anyone.

Case closed.

Why Tyconius’ idea of a future Great Discessio is heretically wrong

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

The other day, Marco Tosatti launched on his blog, an anonymous essay, about the Donatist writer Tyconius‘ idea of a final great separation of the true Church from the false Church. And since I am seeing many refer to it across the net, I believe it is necessary to warn against how great an error it contains.

Tyconius was a Donatist. Donatists believed that there were some sins so great that EVEN WHEN REPENTED OF they put you out of the Church. It was a very convenient theory for that group of Catholics in North Africa, who having faithfully endured and resisted the final persecutions of Diocletian, considered themselves therefore not only superior but entitled to govern the Church thereafter.

In the Apocalypse of the Apostle John, we read about the beast with 10 horns, the last of which has one horn removed and three sprout up in its stead. Some writers interpret these horns as the 10 major persecutions of the Catholic Church in the Roman Empire, which culminated with the persecutions of Diocletian, which was a threefold persecution: confiscating the Scriptures, rounding up the clergy, and demanding all Catholic to burn incense on an altar of Mars, the refusal to comply with which was in each case to be punished by local authorities with death.

In many parts of the Roman Imperium the local authorities were reluctant to persecute Christians in such a vicious manner. They allowed Catholics to purchase a document, a libellum, which stated they had burned incense or otherwise cooperated with the decrees of Diocletian. For many lax-conscienced Catholics this was the easy way out. Others burned the incense, handed over priests to death, and surrendered copies of the books of Scripture and liturgical texts.

After Constantine decreed that Catholics had the liberty to worship the Triune God, Catholics returned to practice their faith, and indeed, were now allowed to do so in the open light of the day.

Throughout the Church, the Bishops called for the repentance of those who had failed to resist the terms of the persecution and chose treachery, idolatry or apostasy as a way out.  Long penance where required. In some places a life time of waiting at the door of the Church, with re-admittance to communion only at death.

A great controversy about the Sacrament of Penance broke out in the Church, with some espousing the idea, which was common, that this Sacrament can only be received once in a lifetime sincerely, others that it could be received more often.

But in North Africa the situation was even more grave, since many bishops had denied the faith, obtained libella, handed over the scriptures and betrayed their priests, or burned incense to Mars (the Roman God, not the planet).

When these repented and received the Sacrament of Penance, they were admitted back to communion in many Churches, even back to their offices.

The idea of a ex-apostate, ex-traitor, ex-idolater, ex-collaborator as one’s bishop incensed the Catholics of North Africa.  This is totally understandable, and in an age of persecution, we ourselves can readily appreciate their just anger.

But some Catholics went to the extreme of asserting that such men, EVEN WHEN REPENTANT and reconciled to the Church, could no longer hold the offices of Bishop or pastor of souls.

This group was led by a certain Donatus, and so they were called Donatists.  He taught that these repentant clergy were still so odious to God that even the Sacraments they confected were invalid.

So his followers separated from them and began ordaining their own bishops and clergy and seizing Churches. As they had numerous Bishops and clergy among their number, these ordinations and consecrations were valid. But they were usurping jurisdiction in those dioceses where there were already bishops, albeit repentant ones.

So Tyconius’ had a very bad personal experience upon which to begin to theorize interpretations of St. John’s Apocalypse, on such passages as the Whore of Babylon and the Stars Swept out of the Sky by the Dragon’s tail.

His idea was that at the end of time, the True Church and the False Church, which had been cohabiting in the one visible Church, would separate from one another in a sort of final divorce. He called it the great Discessio, a Latin word which means, “walking away from one another”.

And his error was a serious one, because he posited that the false and evil men, who were not among the elect, were not true members of the true Church, and that therefore the Church of the Antichrist or the Body of the Antichrist, as it came to be called in the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo, were a real entity, and thus positively willed by God (since nothing can have real existence but what is positively willed by God).

St. Thomas Aquinas, about a thousand years later, explained how wrong this error is when he succinctly summarized the Catholic doctrine on evil: evil is the deprivation of some good which ought to be in a real existing thing. It has no existence of itself.

The Catholic interpretation of the Apocalypse therefore never envisions the Church of the Antichrist or the Mystical Body of the Antichrist as something positively willed by God, as a real thing existing by itself. It is rather an infection, disease, evil in the one true Mystical Body, though its “members” are really only those who heed the voice of Demons rather than that of God.

Now if Cardinal Ratzinger mused on occasion about Tyconius’ theories, that is nothing really notable, since he commented on the theories of many theologians, Catholic or otherwise during his lifetime. And that he repeated his opinions as Roman Pontiff, means nothing more too, because Popes can express private opinions, as John XXI did regarding what he believed was the necessity that the Saints be purified before attaining Heaven (condemned as a heresy, by his Successor).

But in our day, this error of Tyconius is especially dangerous, because those who accept it would be led to think like Tyconius, that they can pursue fidelity to the will of Jesus Christ by abandoning the visible Church, founding their own Churches, and thus coping out of the Church Militant by a de facto surrender to the forces of Darkness which want to take Her down.

And this is just what the Globalists and Bergoglians would want Catholics to do, because they do not want a restoration. They want to take full possession of the property, moral and legal authority of the visible Church.

Marco Tosatti has been shown the evidence that Benedict XVI is still the pope. He has allowed discussion of it, but personally he has rejected the opinion. He has even stooped to vile insults of those who defend the Holy Father, giving them no space to defend themselves on his blog.

So it does not surprise me that he is airing a theory which is basically saying, “Surrender to Bergoglio and to the Church he is founding”.

But this notion of Tyconius is shared ideologically and widely by many groups, which style themselves as Traditionalist, such as Sedevacantists and many priests and priestly groups which espouse the Traditional Latin Mass, because it is a convenient theory to justify opting out of the visible Church, ignoring Canon law, usurping jurisdiction and authority and washing one’s hands of any responsibility to work for the salvation of your Diocese.

However, it should be noted and highlighted by everyone, that the Holy Father clearly uses a different theory in his Declaratio, when he speaks the vobis decisionem magni momenti. He is speaking not of a great separation, but of how he is announcing that there exists between him and the Cardinals a separation, and that he is cutting them off from the Papal Munus since they won’t obey him any more. His use of the term decisio (“a cutting off”, “a pruning away”) rather than discessio, show that he understands that the Church of the AntiChrist has no life and can have no life separated from the true Church, and its time to distinguish the wheat from the tares. Indeed, what he did in his Declaratio of Feb. 11, 2013, is the means whereby those with true Faith can discern what is going on, while those blinding by their lusts for the world, flesh and devil, cannot.

CREDITS: The Featured Image is a depiction of the meeting between St. Augustine of Hippo and the leaders of the Donatist party, by Charles Andre van Loos (18th century). Note the anachronistic clothing.

 

The Latest Work around for Canon 332 §2 — The Liturgical Theory

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

The amount of non-intellectual work being done by those who insist Bergoglio is the pope no matter what, even if that be the only dogma left in the Catholic Church, has arrived at it most silly and absurd assertion.

I call it the “Liturgical Theory”.  According to this theory, a man is pope if he offers the holy Sacrifice of the Mass without saying, “And for our Holy Father, N.”, naming some one else.

It is alleged, as an example, the case of Don Sione Pifizzi of Florence Italy, who in the presence of Cardinal Ernst Simoni, in the private chapel of Pope Benedict XVI, in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery — where he is watched and held in de facto isolation from all media and all the faithful, except those hand selected by Bergoglio, that the Holy Father at Mass offers it, “And for our Holy Father, Pope Francis”.

Therefore, according to this theory, that means he is not the pope.

But there is a problem with this theory.

First, it is not a theory, because the hypothesis has never been proven. Because there is no law in the Church or teaching, which asserts that a man is not the pope if he says these words, or ceases to be pope if he does, or has duly (rite) manifested his renunciation of the papacy if he says such words at any later date.

The other problem is one of interpretation.

What do these words mean when you are being held prisoner by Bergoglio and the entire Curia and Episcopacy are involved in a diabolic “threaten to kill you if you don’t renounce” conspiracy of many if not all of the Sacred Hierarchy and clergy.

I will never forget the wild rejoicing from all the Modernists and impure clergy round the world, on Feb. 11, 2013. I was at Rome and I saw that from that day onward the Pontifical Faculties began to throw off any pretense of the Faith.  They were gleeful. They knew what happened and they lied to us each day to distract us from the truth of it or prevent us from every knowing it.

So if you presume that such an event happened because Bergoglio’s hand picked clerics say so, and if you insist it means that he is no longer the pope, you have no proof, but only an absurd allegation, backed by no law and forensically compromised by the circumstances in which it is alleged to take place.

And if you think that means Bergoglio is the pope,  then I would humbly submit that you do not give a damn about the truth or a bleep about who is really Christ’s Vicar on Earth, not to mention, that you fear not even to imply that Christ is a impardonable liar, in saying to Peter and all his successors: “Simon, Simon: Satan has desired to sift you all like wheat, but I have prayed for you, that your faith may never fail…”

Refuting the Serial Liar ex-CIA agent, Steven O’Reilly, again

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

There is nothing more grave of a sin for the tongue than to lie. And there is nothing more perverse of the spirit to be a habitual liar, even after correction. That is deplorable pertinacity. But if you become a publicist for your lies after multiple corrections, you in all truth merit to be called a serial liar.  And this is what Steven O’Reilly, ex-CIA agent is.

First, I remind my readers that this ex-CIA Agent has his own theory of meta-signification (which I dissected and refuted here), which he dangles before the eyes of his readers so that they abandon the normal and sane principles of forensics: accepting prima facie evidence.

For O’Reilly, of course, as a intelligence officer, reality is not what is out there, reality is what we tell you is out there.

This ex-CIA agent is no outlier on the debate. For as soon as the discussion of Benedict XVI being still the pope exploded in the English speaking world, in the fall of 2018, on account of the comments by Msgr. Nicolas Bux, this ex-CIA agent was banging his keyboard to produce refutations. He was defensive, upset and clearly worried at the risk to the dominant narrative. He attempted to craft arguments against the first part of my Scholastic Question. So I adopted many of them and refuted them completely in the second part.

His behavior does not surprise anyone who knows how the CIA works, since it was Hilary Clinton, as Secretary of State of the United States, who had called for a “springtime” in the Catholic Church, something like the “Arab spring”, which was CIA engineered to topple governments throughout the Mediterranean and abroad.

Seven months after he entered into the fray, even dispassionate observers judged that Steven O’Reilly could be safely ignored, for evading the questions and problems in the theory that Bergoglio is the pope.

So it is not without a certain reluctance that I address the rehash of disinformation that this ex-CIA agent is peddling.  Yet, because he is so eloquently disinforming and doing so in conjunction with the recent denials by Bergoglio of resigning, the recent FB attack on Pope Benedict, it is easy for even a simple Catholic to connect the dots to see the internationally coordinated attack on Pope Benedict XVI, orchestrated between Langley, in McLean Virginia and the St. Martha Hotel, on the south side of the Vatican City.

But I will not omit to remind all, that as the public opinion shifted in these last 4 years to recognizing Pope Benedict XVI as the true pope — a thing proven now even in the Italian speaking world with the near unanimous acclaim of Cionci’s encyclopedia of evidence, Codice Ratzinger, rising to the top of the charts for book sales in Italy, Steven O’Reilly attempted to caulk the leaking Globalist narrative by admitting in part that the Conclave of 2013 contained irregularities. This was not a sincere repositioning, however, as can be seen from above, where he dismisses it as a substantive or actionable doubt.

With these things as preamble, let us unpack Steven O’Reilly’s litany of lies and misrepresentations:

Put on the Visors

The article linked to above, opens with this telling introduction:

A small but vocal number of Catholics are convinced not only that Francis is not the pope, but that Benedict XVI is still the valid pope. What are their arguments? Are they right—is Joseph Ratzinger still the pope?

The words are chosen to spark your emotional response to radical anti-Catholic groups which militant against Church doctrine. At the same time, they self contradict. Because they admit that all call Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, but catching themselves, they name him with his baptismal name, to sneer at the man and indicate what way their argument will go.

All this is MKUltra conditioning, so that you prepare yourselves to accept the disinformation which follows.

But this introduction also contains a lie. Because it is not a small number of Catholics. In fact, a poll done last summer by Canon212 showed that it is as much as 60% of all Roman Catholics in the English speaking world.  Cionci’s Book’s success argues that in the Italian speaking world, where they really do know more about the Vatican, it may be similarly dominant as a view.

Sammons on O’Reilly

Mr. O’Reilly has told me that it displeases him that I mention in public his past employment. He evidently thinks that might make Catholics doubt his intentions, motivations or truthfulness.  It should, if you know anything about how the Nazi Spy Network merged with U.S. Military Intelligence (OSS) after the war to form the Central Intelligence Agency, all under the direction of the Skull and Bones men who were in the US Military and State Department back in 1948-55. If you would not be concerned, that would be concerning, especially since a very weighty investigation published nearly a decade ago, showed that the U.S. Government declared war on the Catholic Church and has aimed since 1953 for her total destruction. My colleague and the Station Manager over at Ordo Militaris Radio TV and I have done numerous shows explaining and documenting this.  So if O’Reilly wants us to ignore it, I tell you, we should not ignore it.

Corroborating the respect that Sammons, his interviewer, has for the CIA, Sammons opens his introduction by identifying the Agent as an Agent, but not by naming his Agency.   This is really cheek, I think. Use enough of the resume to get your listeners to listen, but not enough to raise their critical thinking.

Sammons’s Declares his intent to discuss what is thought, not what is real

Sammons, who is a convert from Methodism, then continues with the CIA style framing of the discussion by making it clear that they are going to discuss what is in the minds of other people and not what in reality, by saying:

To be honest, it is a confusing situation. I do think there are a lot of sincere and well-meaning Catholics who are honestly unsure about the status of Francis and about whether or not Benedict is still the Pope. Now, those who don’t think that Francis is the Pope, they generally fall into two categories. One is the Sedevacantists who believe that there is no valid Pope. That just means the seat is vacant, no Pope. We’re not going to talk about that today, that’s a whole different discussion. What we’re talking about is that group of people who believe that Pope Benedict, for whatever reason, his resignation wasn’t valid, it didn’t happen, whatever the case may be, so he is still the Pope. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. First, to clear it up at the beginning, the first question I want to ask is what do we call the people or the view that Benedict is still the Pope? I’ve seen a lot of different names and I’ve seen people get upset at the various names. Let’s first clarify what should we call this theory?

This means, that Sammons did not and would not even admit a discussion of reality or facts, that is how deep his prejudice goes. But that is probably why the ex-CIA agent agreed to the interview, because in disinformation or misinformation warfare, the first rule is never to admit reality, and the second, never to admit anything said by your opponent which unmasks you as a total fraud.

Mr. O’Reilly’s sense of manners: insult, but be polite when excusing it as an insult

Then this ex-CIA agent shows the depravity of his mind, by the most pharasaical argument to excuse himself:

Sure. Well, when I first started writing on this subject back in 2017 on my blog I coined the term BIP which just stood for Benedict is Pope, quite literally, even though occasionally some folks have taken exception to that, somehow I’m being dismissive of them. It was not, it was just a way of naming them. Other folks have used Benevacantist and Beneplenist. In my book I decided, recently in my blog I’ve opted to use Benepapist or Benepapism. Again, not to be pejorative, just to be descriptive. I thought that Benedict is Pope or BIP as an acronym probably … long live Benedict but he is up there in age and, when he passes, Benedict is Pope, it will obviously no longer be an accurate name so I just thought Benepapism and Benepapists would be the terms I use on my blog and book.

He could have simply called them “Catholics who follow canon law”, but no, that would let the game out of the bag, since Steven O’Reilly is all about convincing you — and this is a CIA imperative — that you are only a good Catholic if you accept the anti-Pope that Hilary Clinton had installed, and who parrots Barrack Obama on a daily basis.

Sammons then plays the Overton Card

The Overton window, is where you discuss something which is more absurd to excuse something which is still absurd. Sammons must know this technique well, because he then says:

Yeah. I think that’s good because it’s not trying to be demeaning or anything like that. Benevacantism was kind of a silly term. I know I used that at first too because it was jokingly connecting to Sedevacantists, but of course that makes no sense, the actual term, that Benedict is vacant or something like that. I think though Benepapist is good because it’s just simply the idea that Benedict is still the Pope right now. In just a few sentences, give the overall view of the Benepapist position other than just the fact that he’s obviously still the Pope. How would you describe that position?

By which he dumps Peter Skojec’s favorite pet insult in the can, so he can get you to accept the CIA’s less crude but still erroneous label for Catholics. I wonder what Skojec will think of that slap. And I would wager that Sammons himself used the label, and that a deep search of the internet would uncover that…. but that is my pure speculation.

The correct term that both men should use is Canonical Party or Papal faction, because we who hold that Benedict XVI is still the pope base our argument solely on the requirements of Canon Law. But Sammons and O’Reilly cannot say that, because such a name would get you to think that they are part of the un-Canonical Party or anti-Papal faction. Which is really what they are. Oops.

The ex-CIA Agent dons his psych-analyst hat

Then Mr. O’Reilly really goes for the outrageous, when he plays the psycho-analyst, to push even deeper into his listeners minds the notion what he and Sammons are not discussing reality, but the deep psychological needs of some few strident distraught Catholics, by saying.

The Benepapist view is that they looked back at the original documents of the resignation and some of the oddities around the Saint Gallen Mafia. Did they somehow force Benedict out? Was there something wrong with his actual resignation statement? Then they looked at that overall situation and determined that his resignation was invalid. Therefore, if you can say Benedict’s resignation is invalid, he’s still Pope. If he’s still Pope, obviously Francis is not, problem solved and we can forget about things like Amoris Laetitia and all that. We just have to wait for the rest of the Church to catch up to us or to them. That’s how I think it originated. We can obviously go into some of the documents and some of the specific theories that they have.

I mean, this interview reeks with condescension of the kind which would make Hilary or any other radical Marxist liberal proud.

Sammons the eternal Protestant

Now the big reason why Catholics should never listen to protestants, even after they convert, is that those raised in that error can with great difficulty remove it from their minds, hearts, and sensibilities. And thus they easily lead Catholics astray, which is why the CIA has intentionally promoted such persons as converts and made them leaders in the information world of Catholics.

And Sammons shows this, when he then says:

Right. Before we do that, it sounds to me though, I mean, this is how it appears to me as well, we have a problem and I think a lot of Catholics, good Catholics do acknowledge the problem and that is Francis is doing things that a Pope probably shouldn’t be doing or at least is scandalous.

As a cradle Catholic I do not know whether to burst into a mocking laughter or a tearful head-shaking stint, at hearing anyone who publicly claims to be a Catholic call the worse existential crisis in the history of the Church, a crisis, which is leading 100s of millions to damnation, “a problem”.  And makes the language even weaker by saying, “I mean, this is how it appears to me as well, we have a problem ….”.  Totally conditioning and relativizing it.

A true Catholic remembers, knows, and sympathizes with his forefathers who, in accord with the civil law of their day, burnt heretics like Bergoglio at the stake, and did so with a holy zeal and glee to see justice done and souls freed from such a demonic mouth.

But Sammons shows that he is double-minded and forked-tongued when he immediately adds that he also holds the contrary view:

Another idea is the view that I think a lot of people watching this and myself, I hold, is that he is a true Pope but, yes, these are problematic elements. They don’t invalidate his papacy but they do show, like in the past where Popes have done things that are bad, he’s a Pope that’s done things that are bad. Others have just tried to gloss over it saying, “Oh, it’s not really that bad. You’re misinterpreting him,” or something like that. Then of course this view of, “Well actually Benedict is still Pope,” the question becomes when did the idea that the papal resignation of Benedict was not valid, when did that originate? Was it right after in 2013 or did it take some time before it originated, before people started really promoting it?

And this shows when he says, “these are problematic elements. They don’t invalidate his papacy”, that despite his doctorate, he does not know still in what consists both the Papacy, Infallibility, Error, or even that Eternal Name of the Son of God, Truth, means. He actually thinks that self-contradiction is not contradictory to truth.  This is the level of insanity which inhabits his still protestant mind.

Stevie rewrites history

Then Mr. O’Reilly does what he loves best, he rewrites history, saying:

As early as 2014 I think it was, Andrea Tornielli had interviewed Benedict and at that point he was even saying theories that his resignation was invalid were absurd. It does go back pretty far. I think, to my mind, what really launched Benepapism was the Gänswein speech in 2016. That’s when he did make some kind of … when you read it, on the surface at least that really raised a lot of eyebrows talking about an expanded papal ministry and that type of stuff. I think it was Ann Barnhardt who was the first to call that out. That’s when she came up with the theory, the substantial error theory that there was a substantial error in Benedict’s resignation, in his Declaratio. Then they found some evidence for that also in the last audience of Pope Benedict on February 27th, 2013, the day before his resignation. That became, I think, the basis for substantial error theory which has become one of the two major theories since that time.

Pope Benedict XVI has never spoke about His “resignation”, because the word “resignation” does not exist in the Italian language, and its cognate, He also never uses. He speaks of his renuncia or dimissione.  Neither of which means the same.  And since He did in fact renounce his ministerium, he of course when speaking of his renuncia, speaks about that. But by glossing this fact, O’Reilly wants us to believe, that Benedict XVI has insisted that he has validly renounced the papacy, the petrine munus, or the Papal Office, and thinks that those who think he has not are promoting absurd theories.

But the reality is quite the contrary. Pope Benedict XVI has never refuted those who say that his Declaratio is not a valid renunciation of his petrine munus. I know this, because I sent him the very Scholastic Question that this ex-CIA agent objects to, and received no objection from the Holy Father. By remaining silent the Holy Father has tacitly agreed that His Declaratio has no force to deprive Him of the papal dignity, office, or munus. He also has not rebuked Cionci or Airton Vieira.

Now if Steve was simply a blowhard who ran a blog, we could excuse him for simply being ignorant. But as you can see from the end of this interview, he is not such a man: he is publishing a Book, entitled, “Valid, the Renunciation of Pope Benedict XVI”. So he has no excuse in Heaven or Earth for getting these facts wrong: especially since he admits to have read FromRome.Info, which has in more than 5000 articles covered this story on a near weekly basis for 4 years.

Sammons and the CIA Agent play games with Substantial Error

Next Sammons launches a discussion of substantial error, as being by reason of canon 188, the cause for the invalidty of the renunciation of munus.  Without pointing out that Benedict XVI never said he renounced the munus. Only the MSM narrative makes that claim.

They discuss some examples: fear and mistaking a necessity of duty.

They omit explaining the term, “substantial error”.  That is, a substantial defect which totally destroys the canonical validity of a juridical act, by touching the substance, or requirements, of the act.

But they cannot define the term, because, then, again, their game will be exposed, and their listeners will begin to inquire what is required for the act of a papal renunciation. — Hint: the one who is the Roman Pontiff, must renounce his papal munus, do so freely, express himself in due ritual form. Period. Read canon 322.2 for details, in the Latin.

Noooooh, but Steven and Sammons cannot do that, it would let the cat out of the bag. Everything must be done to avoid that discussion!

Don’t Read Seewald or listen to Pope Benedict, let Stevie tell you all

Then we reach at the heights of the absurdity of this interview, when the ex-CIA agent remarks:

That’s right. The other thing too I’d point out with regard to Benedict’s case is, if you look at the things he said in his Peter Seewald interviews which he did actually before he resigned and then afterwards, it’s clear that he recognizes that a Pope cannot leave under duress. The question was did the WikiLeaks scandal, which erupted in early 2012 … he said no, in fact he waited, he deferred his resignation until the gentleman was arrested and then they had a trial and the trial ended in October, late October, early November 2012. I think his resignation was, he really, I think, settled on it in December even though there’s strong indications that he told Petroni and he told Gänswein as early as June or July 2012 that he was going to resign. He deferred his resignation because of WikiLeaks. There’s no indication that he submitted to fear. Even though there might have been the smoke out there, there’s no indication that he understood himself to be under any kind of duress that led him to resign.

Here I must speak about the sophistic argumentation which can be employed in English with our verb, “can”, that is, “to be able”. It is a really vague and generic verb. It can refer to any kind of capacity, intellectual, physical, moral or legal, among the many others.

Benedict XVI has never said that He believes or holds that the man who is pope cannot physically, morally or legally leave the Papacy when under duress.  But He has said that He would not do so.  So Mr. O’Reilly has stated an utter falsehood and crafted it in such a way as to make his listeners think that Benedict XVI was denying that duress was put on him personally. — That he has never denied. But He has denied that it is the reason why He chose to make His Declaratio, that is, that he was forced to make it. He denies this, because it is precisely His free act to renounce the ministerium rather than the munus, which is the center piece of his strategy to defeat Freemasonry and the CIA in their attempt to seize the papacy and destroy the Catholic Church forever.

Then the litanies begin

Then Sammons cites Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s arguments for Bergoglio being the pope, even though he has been twice publicly refuted by myself and Cionci.  So Sammons must be actually ignorant of what is on the internet, or is really gaming all his listeners with the most gross omissions.

Next, Mr. O’Reilly pretends that he has extensively investigated the Conclave (as if he was the first to do it) when he has not cited half the evidence which FromRome.Info did from 2014 onwards — this is actually what made From Rome world famous (our Chronology on Team Bergoglio is used by journalists the world over, as can be seen from our sites logs for 8 years).

Next, Stevie says that ministerium is the common term, and munus is the technical term, but they both mean the same thing. This is really a gross and public deception, after the difference of both these terms has been discussed by authors he cites, Acosta and myself. Either do your research and respond to ours or stop repeating this Big Lie.

Next, our CIA agent veteran says that all who hold that Benedict XVI is the Pope don’t accept that ministerium is the wrong word to renounce by. That might have been true in 2017, but it is certainly a misrepresentation today, since it has become the common position of all by 2022.

Then, the same says that we should listen to Father John Rickert of FSSP, who want us to use a famous Latin Dictionary, instead of obeying Canon Law, in canon 17, which says we should not do that, but use the code itself, as I did in my never-quoted and never-refuted-in-four-years study, which I just linked to above (under the word, “myself”). It is never quoted, because every argument that Bergoglio is pope goes up in flames as soon as you admit my study exists, the canonical argument is that solid.

Next, the ex-CIA agent is self-consistent with the ideology of its Masonic founders, when he compares the Papacy to a baseball player, that is, something man-made and totally functional.  That is a very nasty denigrating comment about an office created by Jesus Christ. But for them it is necessary, because since if there was a substantial existence of grace underlying the Papal Office, it not only could renounce acting, it could remain in existing so long as it itself was not renounced. Oops.

Next, the same claims that Cardinal Burke thinks the renunciation of ministry is sufficient to produce a valid resignation. False. As I have reported here, without any contestation by Cardinal Burke or anyone else, Burke has gone on record from Feb. 2013 till 2016, saying that he doubts the renunciation of ministry effects a papal abdication.

Finally — since I tire of wading through this sewer of lies — Stevie discusses what he thinks Benedict thought and intended to so. This is so apt, having completely ignored the evidence, what is left to discuss, but thoughts about thoughts.

This whole interview is so MKULtra that it is sickening. I hope that I did not offend my readers by dissecting some of it.

Cionci: Barnhardt’s obvious pro-Bergoglian apology

RESPONSE TO BARNHARDT’S PERSONAL ATTACK

by Andrea Cionci

AUTHORIZED ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY FROMROME.INFO

Italy is at war for the Pope: with The “Codice Ratzinger” (Byoblu editions) now at 2nd place for best seller according to Rizzoli & Mondadori’s rating services. And naturally this is inciting envy and bad graces of every kind.

The Enemies of Benedict XVI

Moreover, in the circle of enemies of Pope Benedict, the reward for the lowest, crudest and most offensive kind of insinuation belongs by right to the rather well-known American bloggeress by the name of Ann Barnhardt, who for years has sustained that Pope Ratzinger did not understand his own job and made a mistake in his Declaration of 2013, because he wanted to create two popes, one active and one contemplative.  This is the theory of substantial error, of which we have written a short time ago.

In recent weeks, to Barnhardt there were sent three friendly private emails, three articles, an interview hastily-translated into English, to explain the controversy over the impeded see.

We sought to make her understand by every method, and with the greatest gentleness, the controversy over the Plan B, that is, that the Declaratio which she is obstinate to consider as an invalid renunciation of the papacy, was in reality a perfect and sincere announcement by which Pope Benedict XVI retreated into an impeded see, to put his enemies among the Cardinals to the test and to remain pope, even if, in a state of imprisonment.  “With highlighters”, we tried to illustrate the question of the Ratzinger Code, or rather, of the logical and amphibologic language, imitating the style of Jesus Christ with which the Holy Father is communicating his own canonical situation to the world, by inviting her to share all her doubts in a peaceful and friendly exchange.

Ann Barnhardt lack of any response

Nothing came in reply. Ann Barnhardt never responded, never accepted the smallest cordial and mature exchange unlike Mark Docherty and Dr. Edmund Mazza, the other two supporters of the theory of substantial error.  Strange, indeed, because this blogger loves to show herself armed with a pink rifle, a thing which should indicate a certain openness to a fair “fight.”  Instead, we were left to record only the retreat of a bunny-rabbit.  Thus, the self-selective effectiveness required to comprehend the Ratzinger Code has newly pigen-holded Ann Barnhardt: a flunky on the exam, found to be unqualified by reason of her lack of comprehension and “obstinate doubt”.

At first, she did indeed deride me, by describing an absurd Pope Benedict who “plays chess underwater in 15 diverse dimensions”, then she accused me directly for promoting “Gnosticism” by means of the Ratzinger Code.  A tragic-comical score in her own goal: because through “Gnosticism” one understands a mystical knowledge, obscure and intended for a few elect.  In such a manner, Barnhardt has shown the world that she thinks that the patent logical messages of which even a child is capable of comprehending (such as, “there is only one pope” without saying which one) are for her something terribly difficult and obscure to understand, as some sort of alchemical jargon.

But the final pearl that she left me in her recent article, where she writes: “Let us disabuse ourselves of ANY notion of any categorical nonsense like a “Ratzinger Code”. Anyone pushing such a fiction – and FICTION truly is the word – is a profiteer, looking to make money off of this abject train wreck of a situation.” “Pope Benedict has committed the greatest error in the history of the papacy.” (Trans.: Translated from Cionci’s Italian — could not find original on Barnhardt.biz)

Heavy words, which are not surprising for the “intemperate Ann”, who easily insulted Msgr. Ganswein, as if to make him appear to be insane, for having become very emotional in his recent discourse in which he spoke of the passing of Pope Benedict.  Everyone understood why, except Barnhardt.  Firm in her B. A. in Animal Husbandry, Ann Barnhardt had previously called the Holy Father, Benedict, “the worst pope in history”, and Br. Alexis Bugnolo, one of her principle admirers, “a larcenist”.

Such a heavy judgement, as “grifter” then, might — at the most — be expressed solely after a point by point refuation of my investigation, but Barnhardt did not know how to reply to any part of it, given that she never accepted the least sort of exchange.

More than 200 Articles on the Ratzinger Code

“Do not let right hand partake in what the left hand does”, says the Gospel (In the Italian version), but the defamatory accusations of the bloggeress require me to clarify a few things, even at the cost of putting private matters on display in public.  The undersigned, wrote, without pay, more than 200 articles on the web regarding the investigation of the Ratzinger code: my blog at the Libero Quotidiano, by definition, is not remunerated by the newspaper, and by personal insistence of the same, so were the articles at ByoBlu and at Roma.IT produced voluntarily so that I might have the greatest liberty of expression and not to make a profit on a sacred and epochal question. Likewise, for all the interviews I gave on YouTube.

Moreover, the same accepted in accord with the standard editorial contract with ByoBlu, the smallest percentage of royalty allowed by Italian law to keep the price of the book at the lowest possible, within the limits of the cost of printing.  In sum, the investigation, “Pope and Antipope”, which had the bare bones about this greater Question, was published in 60 chapters by ByoBlu and is distributed free to everyone, so that even someone without four coins in his pocket might be able to have access to the findings thereof.

Hence, the “commercial profiteering” amounted to a loss of 10 thousand euro value of my own work invested “freely and for the love of God”, concerning which I do not expect ever to be reimbursed.  Not to speak of the risks to my person, career and good name.

Poor Miss Barnhardt has consigned herself, in suchwise, to the dustbins of history, as one of those who castigated the Vicar of Christ, in the style of a volunteer “friendly opposition” of the Pope.  I would not want to be in her shoes when this matter is concluded with the epilogue of the promised Banquet, of which one of my readers has spoken about.

Another antipope is on his way

Moreover, there is even a greater responsibility to be considered: that of remaining obstinately in the inability to comprehend what the Pope has put into motion, and of contributing thereby to guarantee another antipope, with the most likely name, as Bergoglio has presaged, of John XXIV (the name of the successor of the antipope Baldassarre Cossa, as well as that of Pope Roncalli).

Indeed, nearly two-thirds of conservative Catholics have been taken hostage by the theory of substantial error, of which Barnhardt is the intransigent proponent, according to which Pope Benedict is a modernist, is a close accomplice of Bergoglio, erred, is an ignoramus, inept etc..

According to you my readers: do you think anyone might ever enter the field of battle to defend such a pope in an impeded see? No. Never.  Against him, they nurture only a rage and disdain, without wanting to understand anything.

And thus, behold, what will happen thanks to this theory of substantial error which prevents any comprehension of the situation of Pope Benedict XVI in an impeded see.

There is in process a very dangerous project of making Bergoglio legitimate among the very circles of the conservatives and traditionalists.  There are shining examples of this in the recent statements made by Cardinal Gerhardt Mueller and the Bishop Athanasius Schneider.

Together with these intellectuals who support this project, who, as usually, have furnished not the least response to the lengthy letters I have sent, they will lead themselves at the end of the Antipapal Act of Francis, into the spurious conclave, comprising nearly 90 non-Cardinals named by Bergoglio.  In such a manner, there will be the enormous possibility of a terrifyingly ultra-modernist (such as Zuppi, Tagle, or Mariadiaga) to give the final death blow to Catholicism.   But, even in the highly unlikely scenario of the election of a traditionalist, there would still be an antipope, deprived of the Petrine munus (which remains with Pope Benedict) and hence deprived also of the guarantees of infallibility and of divine assistance which belong to the legitimate Pontiff alone.  Besides ratifying the end of the visible canonical Church, from the spiritual point of view, this might lead us to suffer by “Divine permission” the punishments of pandemic, war and famine etc..

From the point of view of a layman, this will guarantee the undisturbed advance of the dynamics of the deep-state Globalists with their Sanitary Dictatorship, the digitalization of the population, demographic reduction, gender ideology, the loss of nation state identities and other atrocious eugenic politics.  Understand now?  With another antipope, “one returns to the rack”: and begins again the same game.

And for this reason, we ought to give thanks to all those who those who are affectionate most for their own egos, to their own theories, and not to objective truth, or at least, to the peaceful to a rational exchange face to face.

Andrea Cionci responds to Msgr. Athanasius Schneider’s appeal to accept Bergoglio as Pope

READERS OF FROMROME.INFO PAY ATTENTION — THIS  LETTER CONTAINS IMPORTANT THEOLOGICAL AND FORENSIC OBSERVATIONS WHICH HERETOFORE HAVE NOT BEEN CLARIFIED.

by Andrea Cionci

Authorized English Translation by FromRome.Info

FRENCH TRANSLATION

FOR ORIGINAL TEXT CLICK IMAGE ABOVE — For links in text, see Italian original

Most Reverend Excellency,

I have listened to your reflections (here) on the question of the validity of the pontificate of Francis.  As author of a two-year long inquiry into the question of two popes, advanced by more than 200 articles publish in national newspapers in Italy and recently published in a book of 340 pages, I hope that you do not judge me presumptuous if I permit myself to direct to you this public letter, trusing in your intellectual openness and in your courageous and praiseworthy effort to defend the truth.

You sustain that the theory, according to which Benedict XVI has not abdicated, “contests the tradition of the Church”.

Yet, in the history of the Church we have had about 40 antipopes, and hence it is not a novelty that persons bound to worldly powers have sought to conquer the Papacy by the use of force: this in fact is part of the “tradition”.  What is absolutely new — and on this you are right — is the courteous rely that the legitimate Pope has furnished to defend himself from this aggression upon the Papacy, an aggression foretold in ages past by the prophet Daniel.

Of such a plan, I have written in the book, “Codice Ratzinger” (The Ratinger Code), a copy of which I have sent to your personal address.

However, according to you, the prospect of Benedict as the one sole pope would be impossible because, citing your words: “The human law which regulates the assumption of the papal office or the destitution of the  papal office should be subordinated to the greater good of the whole Church, which in this case is the real existence of a visible head of the Church and the certitude of this existence for the whole body of the Church, clergy and faithful.”

If, I have understood you well, simplifying it, this would be impossible because there has to be, for the good of the Church, an active pope.

Excuse me, but you yourself have courageously declared some time ago that Pope Francis “ought to convert” (here). You are right, but by recognizing Francis as the legitimate pope, in fact presuppose the existence of a non-Catholic as a pope and how could this ever constitute the greater good of the Church?  The fact that Bergoglio is not Catholic, as measured by the Faith, is derived from his not being the pope, from his not having the munus, the divine investiture (retained by Benedict XVI) which guarantees infallibility ex cathedra and the ordinary assistance of the Holy Spirit (CCC 892).

If the legitimate head of the Church “has to convert” to Catholicism, something which is at conflict with his very role as pope, this is an atrocious misfortune and hence, consequently, all of his un-catholic acts as pope and his nominations do not in fact suit the supreme good of the Church, but are indeed spirituallyl noxious and lethal to Her.  Hence, the supreme good of the Church is exactly that these be annulled in their entirety, a thing which happens precisely thanks to the status of the impeded see of Pope Benedict XVI.  Just give a look at the nominations of Cardinals done by Bergoglio: a heap of ultra-modernists who have passed en bloc to an alternate globalist religion and, from our point of view, have very little to do with Catholicism.

You affirm, however, that our discussion is configurable to a type of sedevacantism, but were are not speaking here of an empty see, because there is a Pope, and as it is, he is Benedict XVI.  Let us speak rather of an impeded see, a state entirely taken into account by Canon Law, which impeded see, in fact, produces “a pontificate of exception” which, to revive the conceptualization of Carl Schmitt, brings about a providential general suspension of law in the life of the Church.

Certainly, it is shocking that in nine years the entire active practice of the visible Church has been nullified, but this is a supreme good, considering that that actual “administrator” is not Catholic.  All this has been permitted by the Holy Father, Benedict, with a precise purpose: the final purification of the Church as a response to the attack of the heretical modernist Masonic party.  We are speaking, hence, about an eschatological period of tremendous, millennial importance and Pope Benedict, as Dr. Giorgio Agamben has highlighted, has in this way “reinforced the papacy” by separating the good seed from the tares and by conceding to His enemies a short period of lawlessness before they are “cast into Gehenna”.

In fact, I strongly doubt that your sanatio in radice derived from the pacific universal acceptance could ever heal, from one day to another, under the present canonical regulations, the coup d’eta which began with a conclave convoked when the preceding pope was not yet dead nor abdicated, but was impeded and had no intention to leave the throne of Peter.  Otherwise, one would legitimate the law of the jungle in the bosom of the Church.

Even the doctrine of ecclesia supplet (the Church supplies), which you site, refers to the Sacraments, not to the juridical order.  For this reason, Pope Benedict XVI has guarded the souls of the simple ones who continue in good faith, unknowingly, to approach the Sacraments in communion with the one that they believe to be the legitimate pope, but at the same time, Benedict defends the Church from the forced usurpation by taking advantage of the canon law, which is not an “accessory” to the life of the Church but regulates the legitimacy of every provision.

The idea that Benedict has put his enemies to the test, who wanted to make him abdicate, and who in fact put themselves into schism on their own, is not — excuse me — a dead end, as you write, but a clever strategy to definitively purify the Church.  It would, on the other hand, be a dead end, to hold that there can sit on the throne of Peter a legitimate pope who is not a catholic:  that would be equivalent to saying that Christ has abandoned His Church.  Another dead end — the one absolutely worst of all — would be to approve of another invalid conclave, which, with about 90 bergolian non-cardinals, would certainly gift the Church with another antipope, a Zuppi, a Tagle, or a Maradiaga, maybe even with the semi-antipapal name of John XXIV.  A true suicide to which there would be in agreement the many cardinals nominated by Bergoglio, who imagine that they bear the crimson, by descending into similar compromises and thus would lose not only the cardinalate, but perhaps, something, in the optic of the Faith, which would be infinitely more important.

In your talk, there is cited the declarations of Mons. Gaenswein which opened the field to the theory of “substantial error” according to which Pope Benedict wanted to create a pope emeritus, but made a mistake and committed an error of concept by seeking to double the papacy into two pontificates, one contemplative and one active.

This is a position shared by a significate part of the traditionalist world, but the Declaration (of Pope Benedict XVI on Feb. 11, 2013) is not based solely on the inversion of the terms munus and ministerium (which could at most lead one to think there was a conceptual error) but is rather an outstanding cocktain of implosive canonical mecchanisms which, beyond rendering any such hypothesis completely inacceptible, which speaks of an abdication, evidences, on the contrary, an extraordinary, perfect self-consciousness that as the true Pope draws up a coherent announcement of self-exile in an impeded see (canon 412).  A renunciation of the papacy, in fact, ought to be simultaneous and could never be deferred for 17 days:  the ministerium cannot be juridically separated from the munus.  This can only happend de facto and not de jure in the case of an impeded see when a bishop cannot exercise his own power because he is impeded by overwhelming forces.

Indeed, if Benedict has wanted to juridically separate munus and ministerium on the basis of a substantial error, after 8 P. M. on February 28, 2013, though in error, he would certainly have confirmed by writing or verbally his — though impossible — juridical renunication of ministerium.  A think which never happened, as has been demonstrated in the book by Carlo Maria Pace.  Hence, as one can see, Pope Ratzinger was perfectly conscious of what he was doing.

Moreover, Benedict XVI recommends — and not by chance — in his Declaration that the next pope will have to be elected “by those who are competent”, that is, by those who were Cardinals nominated before 2013 and not by false cardinals nominated by an antipope.  The verb, vacet, which has been arbitrarily translated into the vernacular as “sede vacante”, ought to be translated literally with “empty see”, because the expressions “see of Rome” and “see of St. Peter”, have no juridical existence as to be vacated, as Attorney Arthur Lambauer noticed.

If Benedict had believe in a doubling of the papal charge into two legitimate pontiffs, he would have above all insisted since 2013 by seeking to convince us that this was possible, by defending his erroneous imposition, at least by saying something like:  “There are two popes, both valid, but the one which is more important is Francis”.  Nothing of the kind has happened, in fact, he has repeated for 9 years that “There is only one Pope”, without ever explaining which one.  If the pope is — in the sense of the verb to be — only one, there cannot be two popes who are legitimate at the same time, but rather one legitimate and contemplative (Benedict in an impeded see) and another illegitimate and active (Bergoglio usurping the throne) has Msgr. Gaeswein has explicated in his famous discourse of 2016 (here).

Besides, if there is only one pope, and he be Francis, why does Pope Benedict write that the pope emeritus is the Supreme Pontiff (here) and why does he impart his own Apostolic Blessing (here)?

In summary, Pope Ratzinger has simply said that just as there was not sufficient strength for him to govern, by reason of his recent decline, he renounced in everything the exercise of power, leaving in fact the see empty.  With self-sacrificing meekness, having accepted with Christian resignation his own being-impeded, he has permitted that another usurp his own power, by considering him abdicated, and put himself into a schism by his own hand, having ruined himself by his own infidelity and longing for power.  A perfect plan, even from the theological point of view, which does not grasp for what reason he was taken hostage (if one does not gather together all the necessary overlooked evidence) and is not comprehended by many conservative Catholics who are in fierce opposition to Bergoglio.

Only from these brief comments, does one comprehend that the argument is enormously complex to reconstruct, but is in its essence a most simple one.  Moreover, it is necessary to read follow the investigation in detail to have a general overview and, above all, to explain the diverse, but only apparent, moments, which seem to contradict it (such as His discourse for the 65th anniversary of his priesthood, or his presumed oath of fidelity, HERE).

My own investigation, at first, instead of considering philosophical speculations unconnected to the real documents, “listened” to what Pope Benedict XVI said he had done and I have not been contradicted even by the Holy Father (the true one) when He honored me with His own letter, in which, moreover, he furnished me with the only response which could indicated an impeded see, reinforcing his message even with His own heraldic device as the reignin pope (here).

Behold, this is why I say to you:  pay attention, your Excellency, this question is unimaginable more grave than you think.  I supplicate you to read more attentively the book, “Codice Ratzinger”.  I have dissected and illustrated the subtle system of communication which Pope Benedict uses from his impeded see, which he has employed to make “him who has ears to understand” understand and “to separate believers from unbelievers”, as He Himself declared to Herder Korrespondenz last summer.  But one does not treat here of anything transcendent or “gnostic” as someone had the daring to affirm, rather, this communicative style, which repeats en bloc that which was used by Jesus against His accusers (here), is open to all and has been understood and certified by specialists who took the time to consider and examine it with great attention:

“The objective and strange ambiguity of Benedict XVI’s language termed the “Ratzinger Code”, admitted even by journalists, and even readers, are not by chance, and are owed not to the age of their author or, even less, to his impreparation.  They are subtle messages, but unequivocal ones, which lead us to the canonical situatoin describe in the investigation.  Pope Benedict communicates in a subtle style because he is in an impeded see and hence he is made unable to express himself freely.  The “Ratzinger Code” is his own logical and indirect form of communication which takes advantage of apparent inconsistences which are not passed over by educated readers.  Such phrases, “decodified” with with needed research into the references that the Pope makes to history, to current events, and to Canon Law, conceal a logical subtext which is perfectly recognizable, with a precise and univocal signification.  In other occasions, Benedict XVI opts for “amphibologic” phrases not without their humoristic points — which can be interpreted in two diverse ways.  These techniques of communication give “to those who have hears to understand” a means to understand, that He is still the Pope and that He is in an impeded situation.  Moreover, whoever sustsained that the messages of the Ratzinger Code are capricious interpretations either has not understood or denies the evidence.”

Signed:

Prof. Antonio Sànchez Sàez, Professor of Law, University of Seville
Prof. Gian Matteo Corrias, Professor of Literature and essayist on religious history
Prof. Alessandro Scali, Professor of Classical Letters, writer, and essayist
Prof. Gianluca Arca, Professor of Latin and Greek, philologist, researcher and essayist
Dott. Giuseppe Magnarapa, psychiatrist, essayist and writer psichiatra, saggista

An example of the above?  In “Last Conversations” (here), Benedict XVI replies in this manner to the journalist Seewald: “Was there any interior conflict regarding the decision to resign?”

The response of Pope Ratzinger was: “It is not so easy, naturally. No pope has resigned for a thousand years and even in the first millennium it constituted an exception”.

A seemingly clamorous error (since 6 popes have abdicated in the first millennium, and 2 in the second), if one does not consider one’s own resignation as that of solely ministerium and thus indicates perfectly those two popes (Benedict VIII and Gregory V) who in the first millenium, before the Gregorian reforms, were temporarily driven out by antipopes and lost their own practical exercise of power, their ministerium, but remained popes.  Behold a case of an impeded see before there was any canon about that.

As you see, there is nothing of the gnostic in this, but a message which is comprehensible to everyone, even to the undersigned, author of the discovery, who is certainly not a specialist in Church history.

There are dozens and dozens of examples of this kind and they go from those which are the most simple and direct, to those which are more complex and refined.  Such a logical style has already become the patrimony of the common reader, who has adjoined other discoveries of messages, open and brilliant, contained in the writings of the Pope.

I repeat: one is dealing here with OBJECTIVE reality against which no one, even now, has attempted to respond with a refutation which is more than snobbery or without the elusive accusations of “conspiracy”, “fantasy”, and “fictitional plots”.

My critics, other than insulting me gratuitously (here), systematically, and with a conscious superficial mindset, and one which is potentially fatal to the visible Church’s existence, refuse to analyze and refute this corpus of papal declarations.

One fears the evidence, the truth, if one has fear to “take a canonical look”, if one has fear to read the hundreds of messages in the Ratzinger Code, because in this case it is necessary to enter the field, take a position, and renounce material comforts, to step back from one’s own past convictions, and many do not have the courage to do that, even if the salvation of Church requires it and that too of one’s own soul, if we look at it from the light of faith.  The “broad way” is that of thinking that, at the end, when Bergoglio leaves the scene, it will be easy to put everything back together.

But no: as you yourself have pointed out, the next conclave composed of a crowd of non-cardinals named by Bergoglio will elect another antipope and the canonical visible Church will be finished and, perhaps, will have to rise up against from the catacombs having “abandoned the synagogue” of Satan.

Pay attention: with his own subtle and Christological language, Pope Benedict, the legitimate vicar of Jesus Christ is selecting “his own” army.  It is easy for so many to DESERT by confounding the carts on the canonical table and ignoring his own messages, by stamping them “a conspiracy theory”.

But there will arrive the moment of final revelation and of the purifying schism.  The important thing will be to find oneself on the just side.

I beg you to believe me:  I have not gratuitously invested 800 hours of my time to put my professional reputation in jeopardy, or for some miserable commercial speculation.

Read the book which I am sending you. Please examine it with much attention and you will be able to recognize the complete “mosaic”, reconstructed, as much as possible, piece by piece.

With respectful and cordial salutations….

Unpacking Bishop Schneider’s Rosary of Lies, Errors and deceptions

Commentary and Rebuttal by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Authorized Portuguese Translation — Authorized French Translation

It is personally painful for me to have to, yet again, put pen to paper, as it were, and refute the silly arguments of a prelate whom I once admired as one of the best of the best in the Church. While he took the correct positions against Amoris Laetitia and the ridiculous arguments of the SSPX in their Magazine, on the topic of the DeathVaxx, he has more frequently than not fallen somehow into supporting the most ridiculous theological and moral theses on controversial topics (see here for FromRome.info’s coverage of the Bishop’s notorious interventions).

But because I love Jesus Christ more than any Bishop in the Church, whenever one gravely deviates from the truth on such an important topic as who is the pope and what are the Catholic principles by which we are to recognize who is the pope, I know I am under grave obligation to speak out, seeing that I know these principles and am known for defending them.

First, we know who is the authentic successor of Saint Peter not by private judgement, public opinion, polls, surveys, theological reflections, newspaper articles, television reports. No, we know who is the authentic successor of St. Peter by the conformity of public acts with the published canons and laws of the Church which determine the process for his election or renunciation.  And this conformity must be precise and exact and not one which is simply claimed to exist. It has to be prima facie, as one says in forensic circles, that is, it must appear to be conform on first sight.  — And it cannot be otherwise, because since the Church is visible, the concord of the Church must be and can only be based on unambiguous public acts and laws, and their conformity.

Second, you can argue till your face is blue in Hell for all eternity by any other means, but your argument is worthless. Argumentation does not prove who is the true pope. Only facts and laws do. (Here by facts, I mean documented or documentable words or actions).

And third, by conformity with the law, I refer to the fulfillment of a legal requirement.

Bishop Schneider proposes the error of Traditionalism, as his false principle of discernment

So it is crystal clear that Bishop Scheider’s entire thesis is false from the get go, as they say in parts of the United States: namely, when he says, that to say Pope Benedict XVI is the true Pope is contrary to Tradition.  Because tradition, whether sacred and divine or merely ecclesiastical, is not a first immediate principle to have recourse to, in determining who is the authentic successor of Saint Peter is. Facts and law are. This argument is the flip of the common Modernist argument, which says you should reject some Catholic practice or doctrine, because it is contrary to the progress of the Church in modern times.  And by this comparison with its contrary error, we see that Bishop Schneider is appealing to the error of traditionalism, which was condemned at Vatican I: which error says that all truth comes from tradition.

If facts and law say Benedict XVI is still the pope — and you do not like that conclusion — you cannot have recourse to Tradition or tradition to propose a different answer to the question.  That’s not how juridical acts work. But that is how spoiled children who never grew up attempt to run governments and even the Church.

Bishop Schneider appeals to the moral error of Tutiorism, to apply his false principle

Next, Bishop Schneider advances his traditionalist error on the back of an exaggerated moral principle known as tutiorism, which holds that in every moral decision one must always make the choice of that which is more safe.  This principle is faulty because it leads to neurosis and a pharasaical self-righteousness, where the individual determines what is right and wrong and not God.

This error is not easy to discern by those who are given to wantonness because it never occurs to them to consider it. But it is the exact error of their own vice, since it insists that it is morally evil not to be obsessed with seeing possible evil in everything. The super-scrupulous easily fall into complete paralysis of judgement by adopting the error of tutiorism, for example.

But lest there be no misunderstandings, I will give some examples.

  • The tutiorist will hold that in brushing your teeth you should never do so out of vanity and that you should omit all brushing of the teeth until you can do so without vanity, even if this would cause your teeth to rot.
  • Again, the turiorist, will hold that it is too dangerous ever to go in public, because by being in public places you might be tempted to impurity, and thus they omit to fulfill even the duties of their state, when these require some recourse to public places to obtain the necessities of life or to fulfill religious duties.

Tutiorism, alas, is a very deceptive form of pride, because the one thing the turiorist is never worried about, is the misuse of his own discretion to determine what is right or wrong, safe or dangerous. He always relies on his own judgement, not those of God, the Church, or wise and prudent men, such as Saints and pastors.

And this is precisely the moral error into which Bishop Schneider falls by crafting his entire argument, that in the name of safety, we should reject the thesis that Benedict XVI is still the pope.

Bishop Schneider employs a gross error in forensics

Again, at the beginning of his ridiculous discourse, Bishop Schneider crafts an argument against admitting prima facie evidence (namely that when Pope Benedict renounced, he announced the renunciation of ministerium, but did not renounce the munus).  Against this obvious problem all are having to ignore this fact, the Monsignor proposes a principle whereby you can ignore all facts (how convenient!):

The principle of legality applied ad litteram (to the letter) or that of juridical positivism was not considered in the great practice of the Church an absolute principle, since the legislation of the papal election is only a human (positive) law, and not a Divine (revealed) law.

The human law that regulates the assumption of the papal office or the dismissal from the papal office must be subordinated to the greater good of the whole Church, which in this case is the real existence of the visible head of the Church and the certainty of this existence for all the body of the Church, clergy and faithful.

Now, it is clear that anyone who holds that Pope Benedict XVI remains the only and true pope, does not have to appeal to such an argument, which seeks to overturn the letter of the law or the plain meaning of documents, and says that they should be read to serve the greater good of the Church.

This approach to Church law is like the the boy who believes that all laws are like library regulations, or that the laws against murder are light traffic laws.  Which is simply not so. Yes, there are norms, regulations and laws, but not each have the same obligating force, because not each exists for the same purpose.  Norms are advisory, regulations are bureaucratic and laws are legally binding, such as to make infraction criminal, even if only as a misdemeanor.

There are norms in libraries, such as to keep quite. There are regulations about how to fill out your driver’s license application. And then there is the law against murder.  And if you imagine, as an adult, that each is equally binding or not binding, you have only a child’s comprehension of the matter.  For in libraries sometimes you can and must speak. The rule of silence is practical only. At motor vehicle registries, the regulations on how to fill out your application are binding, but if you violate them you will not go to jail, you simply wont get your license.  But as for murder, you cannot say that someone who committed such a crime should not be prosecuted, simply because it serves the greater good, for it never serves the greater good to tolerate murder.

And obviously the papal laws on Papal Elections or the canon regarding Papal Renunciations is of the latter kind: it is a law, not a norm nor a regulation.

And so, I must say: No, Bishop Schneider: in the Catholic Church laws mean what they mean regardless of what you want them to mean or what outcome you want to have.  For as the saints all say, “I would prefer that the world perish, rather than that God be offended by one of my sins”.  This is true religion. Nothing can be justified merely on the basis that it achieves an outcome which we want. That is pagan.  A Catholic judges things on the basis of God’s judgements revealed in Scripture and contained in Sacred Tradition. Things are right and wrong in themselves and by themselves, apart even from circumstances and intentions or goals.  If goals alone determined such things, we could do as we want, and not as the Divine Will has commanded.

And, as regards having a valid pope, whom the whole Church can recognize as such, it is never for the good of the Church that any canon or law regarding his election or renunciation be violated!

Bishop Schneider’s insistence on a visible head of the Church

Yes, the Church should have a visible head, but the way that the Bishop wants this principle to be applied goes to every excess and extreme.  I do not find it necessary to point out, to the readers of FromRome.Info that in an argument about which of two living and speaking claimants to the papacy is the true one, a discussion about visibility makes no sense. — I almost get the impression that he says this to slight Pope Benedict XVI — Quite the contrary, yes, the Church ought to have a visible head, but Her existence and unity is not shaken per se by not having one, for this happens after the death of every pope, before his successor is elected.  Nor is the unity of the Church shaken by the fact that a true Pope remains a claimant to the Papacy against the false claims of an anti-pope.  To think like that would be to turn truth on its head.

And when one reflects on how outrageously Bergoglio has used his claim to the papacy to destroy the Church, to advance the argument that since he is more visibly the head he should be the pope, is simply a malign mafia style prudence equivalent to saying, that since the criminal who robbed you of the farm, de facto, is the better manager of its destruction, the owner loses all rights.  I mean who argues like this, but a Marxist and a demon?

Bishop’s Schneider’s total incomprehension of Ecclesia supplet during Papal Schisms

Next, the Bishop appeals to an false argument ad absurdum.  For he attempts to argue that since an anti-pope’s appointments are canonically invalid, the unity of the Church or the visibility of the Church would be somehow damaged by such an event.  He writes as if there have never been antipopes naming bishops or Cardinals. He imagines that the consecration of Bishops and the confection of Sacraments stopped during the Great Schism.  He also seems to think that the Church held, after the fact, that all such invalid appointments and illicit sacraments were such forever.

What he completely ignores, is that after these ancient papal schisms were ended, Popes ex post facto granted the appointment of Cardinals, the nomination of bishops and the confections of Sacraments canonical liceity by an act which is called sanatio in radice.  This is not a condonation of the immorality of those acts, but is a monarchical act of the Vicar of Christ for the sake of those who in good conscience were fooled by liars. Those who knew the antipope was an antipope are not by this act of sanatio excused from sin or from the obligation to repent. Not even from the obligation to resign their offices, unless the Pope grants them a personal or general indulgence.  The Popes generally grant such a sanatio after every papal schism, because it is sufficient that all bishops and clergy and faithful recognize the one true pope as pope, and it is not necessary to punish every sinner canonically, nay it would cause too much strife, when the peace of the Church does not require it. God will render the punishments in such cases, and the popes have always chosen the way of mercy and been very light in their punishments, after papal schisms, by restricting them to the antipope himself and his closest supporters or henchmen.

Bishop Schneider gets the matter backwards, when he argues instead that we can presume a sanatio in radice after an invalid resignation, because the Church’s peace requires it. We cannot presume any such thing. Such an act is reserved to the Vicar of Christ alone. And it has to be a written juridical act, otherwise is has no existence.

Bishop Schneider continues in ignorance about the events of 1046 A. D.

Even after being publicly corrected by numerous individuals, Bishop Schneider continues to ignore the facts of 1046 A. D., when at the Council of Sutri 3 “popes” or more exactly, papal claimants, were deposed.  He seems to think that Gregory VI obtained the papacy invalidly because of simony.  He is entitled to his opinion. But as there were almost never laws which invalidated papal elections on the basis of simony — not then, nor now: the only time being the Bull of Paul IV where in this determined an invalid election; which clause was overturned by his next successor because it would introduce too much doubt as to validity of any election — I think it would be difficult to support such an opinion.  Yes, Henry III, King of the Germans asked Gregory VI to resign because he did not want to be crowned Emperor by anyone with the stench of simony on his hands, and Gregory did so, because episcopal elections and nominations obtained by simony were canonically invalid and always held to be such, his behavior was in no way morally defensible. But the Pope is no mere bishop, and the Roman Church has always insisted that general laws for bishops do not apply to the Roman Pontiff.   This is why the Church recognizes Gregory VI as a true pope, even though he himself recognized that he obtained the papacy by simony and therefore had no moral claim to the title.

But you cannot apply this case to the present controversy over which is the pope: Benedict XVI or Francis, because there is a PAPAL law and there is a Papal canon, which do regard the validity of the election and resignation of the pope, both of which have not been observed!

Bishop Schneider’s red herring of 1378

Next Bishop Schneider wastes the time of his audience by discussing the papal election of 1378, which no one doubted the validity to, until the Cardinals who were French discovered that the new Pope was pro-Italian.  They then invented an excuse for their disobedience, and pharasaically claimed some circumstance of the election made it invalid, and immediately elected another as antipope. He argues as if what they did had some legitimacy.  And he implies that those who hold that Benedict XVI is the pope are in a similar situation of claiming a past failure of legal form and inventing an excuse to refuse allegiance to the new pope.

This is totally absurd.  The Cardinals profess a solemn vow in conclave to elect someone to receive the petrine munus. If the pope remains alive and has not renounced the munus, their vow does not legitimize their illegal action of electing another under those circumstances.  In fact, Bishop Schneider has flipped the moral case on its head. It is the Cardinals in the Conclave of 2013 who imitated the French Cardinals of 1378, as both proceeded to an illicit, illegal and illegitimate election of another pope, while the true pope which they all previously elected and supported was still alive and had not resigned.

Bishop Schneider then takes back 1378 and reinterprets 1294

Moments after appealing to 1378, Schneider pretends we have forgotten what he claimed was the correct position, namely, to support a reigning pope, and proposes the case of the papal renunciation made by Saint Celestine V on Dec. 13th, in the year of Our Lord, 1294.

On that day, Celestine V by written and signed decree, renounced the papacy.  No one doubted that the act existed and was signed by the Pope.  In all his behavior thereafter, he acted as a hermit: he took off the papal robes, renounced the dignity and left Rome. He even accepted being held under house arrest by his successor to prevent the faithful from approaching him.  The act was canonically explicit. I have reported on it here.

Therefore, there was no need of a sanatio in radice, and Boniface VIII never granted one. Nor has any pope since.

This case Bishops Schneider should have never mentioned, because if you argue that a canonically valid and explicit renunciation of the papacy should not be questioned, then you must sustain likewise that a canonically invalid and explicitly deficient renunciation of the papacy SHOULD BE QUESTIONED.  That is the simple logical conversion.

In conclusion

Bishop Schneider attempts to box off thought about his absurd position by saying that there will be no other way for Benedict XVI to have a successor, since Bergoglio has appointed the majority of Cardinals, who, if they are invalid, mean that there will never be a valid successor again.  This is equivalent to saying that since a thief now has full possession of your diamond ring, there is no point going to the police to report the crime and get them to obtain it back.

His moral principle fails from the virtues of zeal and justice for the House of God. It also fails on right, because, hypothetically, if no validly nominated Cardinal elector broke from the antipope within 20 days after Benedict XVI’s death, the papal law for Conclaves, which is the only normative practice which is canonically valid for the election of the pope, would ipso facto cease to bind, since in the case in which there are no Cardinals in communion with the Church, there is no obligation to elect a pope via a conclave of cardinal electors. And hence, in such hypothetical, the right to elect the Pope would return to its source, that is the Apostolic Tradition in the See of Rome, wherein the entire people of God in the Diocese, which encompasses Rome and the suburbican dioceses (which in law are not separate from Rome), would have the right to elect the Roman Pontiff to succeed Benedict XVI. And such an election would be legitimate and licit even if it could not be properly termed canonical or uncanonical. I have discussed this several times already. The right to election returns to its source, since the Papal law for elections is only an application of Apostolic Tradition, which cannot be annulled by custom nor overturned by any papal act, since it pertains to Sacred Tradition itself, that is, to the Deposit of the Faith. This is because the Roman Church is not the Church of Rome, but  the very Church Christ founded, with universal jurisdiction, which was not separated into dioceses in other parts of the world.

I think by now you can see that the Bishop has simply presented a Mafia style argument to serve a Mafia style usurpation of the papacy. The depths of depravity of judgement and opinion to which he has descended to sustain his opinion are most shameful.

In a better age, a bishop arguing like this would end up in a papal dungeon on bread and water. In the meantime, I think the only charitable thing to do is to ignore him as one of the worst of the worse.

A Reply to Msgr. Athanasius Schneider’s preposterous appeal to accept Bergoglio as pope

by Antonio Ghislieri

Despite not being an ordinary, the Auxiliary of Asana, Kazakstan, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, OSC has enjoyed no small influence within the Universal Church owing to his vast travel, his remarkable facility with many languages and a reputation for defending the Apostolic Tradition in both its content and praxis.

This article replies to the recent video by the Bishop, published here.

And yet, perhaps more for these reasons than any others, his recently video-posted reflections through the auspices of LifeSite News represent not simply a profound disappointment to those whose have been following very carefully the all-important details surrounding the papacy since Benedict XVI’s historical “Declaratio” of 2013, but a rupture in His Excellency’s reputation as a voice to be counted upon in the grave matter of sound theological leadership. In short, he has denounced the position that Pope Benedict has never left office, calling this a gateway to ‘Sedevacantism.”

Schneider’s View

In an oral presentation — calmly, but deceptively delivered — one comes to understand that Bishop Schneider’s position is not based at all upon facts, but upon a political discomfort, namely, that for Benedict as true pope not to have taken any act of governance for nine years would undermine the Church’s visibility, a necessary aspect of the indefectability of the Mystical Body. Moreover, he utterly refuses to consider the forensic evidence for the claim, condemning it as “legal positivism” and resorts to a terribly convoluted review of other instances of contested papal elections for a “sure guide” in how to deal with the contemporary papal crisis.

Problems with Schneider’s Historical “Approach”

Perhaps Bishop Schneider seeks to style himself a latter-day St. Bernard of Clairvaux; if so, he has failed quite blatantly. St Bernard successfully prevented an open schism in the Church; the same will not be said for Schneider’s intervention. Inasmuch as the Cistercian Doctor’s reputation for holy wisdom was so widespread whilst he lived, not only was he called upon to examine the validity of claimants of the papal throne in 1130, Bernard’s conclusion, based upon EXAMINATION OF THE CANONICAL EVIDENCE was respected. In wake of Bernard’s offering it, Antipope Anacletus renounced his claim. Curious, to say the least, that Bishop Schneider failed to include this applicable, historical precedent in his little review of ecclesiastical history.

Posterity’s “Looking Back” upon the purported simony of Gregory VI, by which he is said to have procured the papal throne for himself does not bestow upon posterity the authority to re-adjudicate the facts of that time. Do the annals of that era indicate there to have been a challenge on anyone’s part of the validity of Gregory’s election? Though the bishop does not tell us, one way or another, this historical moment might well — if simony was, in fact involved — constitute something of an embarrassment to students of Catholic history; it by no means serves to conclude that that moment in history serves as “precedent” for the present one: we are witnessing an open challenge to the election of Bergoglio based upon canonical facts. Schneider’s taking it upon himself to rely upon this 1045 “example” frighteningly recalls Justice SD O’Connor’s legal opinion that an abortion “option” ought not be withdrawn for the fact that people have come to rely upon its availability. “Let’s not look at the liceity of that action, but consider that others were able to live with it,” the Bishop seems to suggest.

The inference that the French Cardinals responsible for instigating the Western Schism at the close of the 14th century had any legitimacy to call for a “mulligan” owing to their votes’ having been forced by fear has ever been risible — and that is why their attempts to resurrect an Avignon Papacy were always counted as political scheming against the good of the Church. According to Schneider’s rendition, one is given to believe this was an instance where applicable law (governing conclave) was set aside by the Roman Church. Such rubbish ! — Urban VI’s legitimate election was never in question until the French cardinals discovered that he meant business about reform and went about it with a zeal which made life a tad too penitential for their collective scarlet bottoms.

Moreover, the Bishop’s belittling of contemporary, legal evidence concerning our present-day crisis is a disgraceful ruse, undermining, above all, our Lord’s own words: “What you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” In the end, Schneider’s assertions amount to little if anything more than a politically-fitted “Don’t rock the boat,” when the “rocking” has, in fact, been orchestrated by those who have set aside the authority of John Paul II, which yet governs the licit running of papal succession.

Gate to “Sedevacantism”

As to the bishop’s assertion that challengers to the Bergoglio’s regime pave a way to “sedevacantism,” this is no more than “chum thrown to sharks.” For, Benedict XVI, beyond the wildest expectations, continues to live and breathe (itself an indication of where God might be lending His support). To adjudicate a situation based upon circumstances that have not yet obtained is itself bad logic.

What is more bad logic is to disregard a priori what the law itself would require, in whatever event would trigger yet another illegitimate conclave. The fact remains that the major events of 2013, namely, the canonically null “abdication” and the conclave which ensued, must be revisited for the sake of healing both the papacy and the Church. To rely upon a papal secretary — as Bishop Schneider does — as sufficient witness to conclude that Bergoglio is pope is the gestalt of the fabled ostrich: it refuses to see facts in plain sight because the resulting obligations in justice are both enormous and frightening.

Without question, there must obtain at some future date the not only enormously painstaking task of sanatio for the acts of purported government by a putative papacy, but also the condemnation of its many criminal actions. Until that time, the gift of valid episcopal ordination provides sufficient continuation of the Sacraments, supported as that charism is by the principal of “ecclesia supplet.” (Oddly, not mentioned in Schneider’s list of “endangered” acts: phoney canonizations.)

The Good of the Church/ of Souls

What the Asana Auxiliary never takes into consideration — manifesting his trust to be more in men than in God — is heaven’s manifold demonstration that the Holy Spirit of God in no way illuminates, protects, nor makes fecund the work of him whom Schneider claims to be successor of Peter. Who can argue that the machinations of the Jesuit idolator are anything other than bereft of divine support? Only 5th Columnist Freemasons.

How heaven will intervene to address the situation created by Benedict’s Declaratio, the ramifications of which will perdure beyond his death, is not yet manifest. What we do know is that Christ has conquered, Christ reigns and that He commands from heaven as well as from the Tabernacle, where He appears to nap once more. Yet once more, He will arise to calm to storm. Faith in Him, not in the facile words of poorly-spoken pastors will avail His own who know His Voice and distinguish It from that of hirelings.

Divine Infant Jesus, have mercy on us.
Mary Guadalupe, Patroness of the Unborn, convert our country’s hearts and end the abortion holocaust.
St Joseph, Protector of the Holy Family, pray for us.