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Editor’s Note: Years ago, when I lived as a hermit in Sicily, I would hitch-hike every Sunday to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at Acireale, where it was offered with the permission of the local bishop. That was back in 2008-2011. And by divine providence, I encountered one of the most real Catholics I have ever known, Nuccio, who would invite me every week to Sunday Pranzo (lunch time) and offer me a 5 course meal at the table of his humble abode, above his Auto-Repair shop. The above book is a wonderful recollection of his childhood growing up in Acrireale, Sicily, for those who know Italian or who want to learn Italian. — I have featured his book before, here at FromRome.info, and do so again, in gratitude to a man, who for the love of God was and is unendingly kind to me. — The book recounts how Nuccio learned from his earliest years to use his amazing ability to imagine things in three dimensions to teach himself mechanics and begin a career in automobile repair. — Thanks, Nuccio!

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

FRENCH

The other day, I had an interesting exchange in the Comments to, “Traditionalism vs. Sedevacantism: Which is the Catholic solution?“

And that exchange brought to light the distinction between those who are called heretics and those who can be called material heretics.

This is a distinction which I have seen misused so much in the last 40 years that it merits a more clear explanation.

My interlocutor in the Comments, “MS”, holds that material heretics are heretics. And I contradicted his thesis. For transparency sake, I will admit that he doubled down on his point, but I did not publish his final comment, because I don’t give space to the assertion of error which contradicts the common opinion of Catholic theologians.

Formal vs Material

These are the two terms which are often bandied about by persons without any training in philosophy, such that even Canon Lawyers and Theologians, today, use them incorrectly and improperly.

So, having translated more than 9 thousand pages of Medieval Scholastic texts (Saint Bonventure & Duns Scotus), in translations which are acclaimed by medievalists from the the U.S.A. to Great Britain and from the Japan to Argentina, let me give a brief lesson in what these terms mean, so you can spot their misuse in the above-mentioned friendly exchange I had with MS.

Aristotelian Hylomorphism

The great Greek Philosopher, who followed in the footsteps of the dialogues of the great thinkers who came before him, Aristotle, was a profound thinker who asked the deepest questions about the real world.

His philosophical conception of realty was based on two concepts, in a system of duality which he took from his Greek pagan world-view: of a heavenly spiritual superior and an earthly material inferior.

His conception uses two Greek words, which could be translated into modern English as “shape” and “stuff”, but which are normally named in philosophy as ‘form’ ad ‘matter’. This conception of reality is called Aristotelian Hylomorphism, from the Greek “hylos”, meaning ‘wood’, and “morphos” meaning shape.

And Aristotle’s insight is founded on observation and an analogy or conjecture inferred from it. For he observed carpenters making a chair from wood, and identified the wood as the stuff or material out of which the chair was made, the form of a chair as the shape into which the wood was carved or formed, the carpenter as the working cause which brings the chair into being a chair, and the request by the patron to have a chair as the end or purpose for which he worked.

From this observation of everyday life, he wisely drew a comparison which he applied to all reality, that every thing or being has a that from which it is made (matter) and a that into which it is made (form).

So fundamental is this philosophical reflection of Aristotle that these terms have entered deeply into the minds of all thinkers in the West in the last 2300 years, such that in physics scientists speak of matter, and in bureaucracies the standard document requesting information for the sake of complying with a law or to obtain some benefit or favor is called in English a “form”, and in Italian a “modulo”, a little measure of the shape of a thing.

What Form and Matter are in Moral Acts

Now,  let us return to the discussion of heresy and heretics. — With this brief discursus into Aristotelian Hylomorphism, we can begin to see that in human moral acts there is also a form an matter.

First, let me be clear, there is a distinction between human acts and acts of a human. We might call theses two classifications, moral acts and human acts. The acts of a man are any actions of the man as a physical living being, whether they be voluntary or not, intentional or not. So the batting of your eyes is in normal circumstances only the act of a human, not a moral act, though it can be intentional and thus also a moral act. But sleep is a natural necessary act, even if intentionally we can precipitant or delay it. But digestion is an involuntary act and thus is an act of a man, but not a moral act.

Thus, for the act of a human being to be a moral act it must be potentially voluntarily, because “moral” in reference to act refers to the quality of the act as an intentional positing of one action rather than another. Thus it can never be moral or immoral to digest food, but batting one’s eyelashes can be either moral or immoral, and things such as knowingly making false statements to damage the reputation of another is always an immoral act, since speech is always a moral at, since by its nature it is produced out of intentionality.

Thus, when we come to consider what “sin” is, the Church Doctors and Fathers define it as an intentional positing of an action which is contrary to what ought to be done or not done, with the rule of “ought” imposed either by God through Divine Revelation of what is right or wrong, or discerned by our intellectual faculties from the observation of reality. Thus, bearing false testimony is a sin, by reason of the Divine Revelation of the 10 commandments to Moses, wherein God lists it as one of the “Thou shalt not”, but neglecting your health is a sin recognized chiefly by right reason, even long before it could lead to death, where it would be recognized as a possible breach of the 5th Commandment of the Decalogue.

So form in a moral act is its deviation from the right order. And matter in a moral act is the free intentional choice to do this or that or omit doing this or that.

Thus, to use an example, you can brush you teeth in three ways: well, badly, or recklessly. The first is neither good nor bad of itself, but might partake of the virtue of prudence or responsibility for your work or family, in that it impinges upon sanitation or good appearance needed to present yourself. Brushing your teeth badly is not a sin, even if you have a habitual habit of doing it, though over long periods of time it can fall under imprudence, injustice or recklessness under specific conditions of the requirements of your work, personal relationships, or health. But brushing your teeth recklessly, such as with a wire brush or with toxic materials, is always morally wrong, since it violates the obligations of the 5th Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”, which first of all forbids things that lead to our own death, though in certain specific cases, like washing your mouth out with natural soap as a penance for blasphemy, might quite contrarily be a very meritorious and good act for certain persons at certain moments in their life, even though to do so habitually it is always morally wrong.

The Five Kinds of Heresy

As I have often said, there are 5 things which can be properly called “heresy”. And you will nearly never hear anyone, Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, Priest, Monk or Laymen ever mention them, because they do not distinguish well and/or were improperly educated.

The first thing which can be called a “heresy” is a verbal statement which signifies something which is contrary to a truth revealed by God on His own authority.

The second thing which can be called a “heresy” is the error, that is the act of a free rational intellect assenting to such an error.

The third thing which can be called “heresy” is properly the sin, that is, the consent of a free rational human will to a denial of a truth which is known to be revealed by God.

The fourth thing which can be called heresy is the heretical pronounced expression: which is a verbal or factual signification of the error in human speech or gestures or art or written words, by a free rational individual.

The fifth thing which can be called “heresy” is the canonical crime: which is the commission of what the canons define as a free pertinacious formal manifestation of the sin of heresy by means of a heretical expression.

Heresy as a Sin vs. Heresy as a Crime

It follows that the sin of heresy is much more common than the crime. For the sin occurs in human minds, wills, actions, private or pubic, known to God and sometimes also known to angels and men. But the crime only exists when it becomes a public act which is imputable to a particular known human person under the precise circumstances by which its manifestation can be known to be correlated with a free, informed, pertinacious consent to the denial of a Divinely revealed truth.

In addition, the crime only is known with certitude to have occurred when a juridical sentence declares it, and this requires that an authority declared by law have the competency to make such a ruling. Though the accusation of the crime obviously precedes this.

For example, Saint Joan of Arc was put to death for the crimes of heresy and witchcraft by three Catholic Bishops who served the King of England. But as the Saint had appealed to the Roman Pontiff, the proceedings afterwards, which led to her condemnation and death, were overturned a generation later by a Royal French commotion acting under a Papal Inquest.

Saint Alphonsus dei Liguori on Protestants as Heretics

In his writings, the great Doctor of the Church, Saint Alphonsus instructs the Redemptorist missionaries to Germany, thus, saying that Lutherans should not be regarded as guilty of the sin of heresy, because so many generations have passed that it cannot be presumed that they know they are denying truths revealed by God. He calls them expressly, “material heretics” and urges missionaries not to shun them, as formally condemned heretics are, but to teach them the Apostles’ Creed and win them back to the Truth Full Christian Faith of the Church.

On the contrary, many sectarians use the exaggeration that all material heretics are heretics to justify their claims that the Faithful must separate from these people and that the only trust and obedience that can be legitimately given is to THEM who make this claim against material heretics. — This is obviously a mind-control technique used by so many cults, and Catholics should reject it, because it presupposes that everyone in error is intentionally in error and is simply not someone who is deceived by unscrupulous persons; while at the same time, it discounts the power of grace and truth and the Mission given by Christ to the whole Church to bring the Gospel to all nations.

In fact, those who push such exaggerations are actually involved in the same campaign of disinformation and misinformation as the agents of endless aggiornamento and updating.

The Catholic position, sanely expressed, is that the Lutheran Church professes heresies, but not that everyone who identifies as Lutheran is a heretic, because an organization is not a human person, so it can be categorized by its official positions, but an individual is a human person, and cannot therefore be condemned unless there is proof of intentional pertinacious rejection of revealed truth.

However, without everything I already explained above, the average Catholic is vulnerable to be manipulated by this kind of exaggeration. And those groups which use this tactic are never to be trusted in anything they do or say, because no one moved by supernatural charity attempts to practice mind control. And to be sincere, such tactics are used among groups of liberals, progressives, conservatives, traditionalists and sedevacantists — not all of them, however, for the doctrinal positions of each don’t require this at all.

The Church of the Antichrist

If you are a Catholic and live in a nation among protestants, you probably know that simply explaining the Apostles’ Creed is not going to have much effect, if you are even given the opportunity to discuss it with your protestant friends — though this is changing rapidly in modern times, there being a greater reluctance in my youth, than there is today.

This reluctance among Protestants comes from the propaganda of the Reformers who published 10 thousand lies against Christ, the Apostles, the Fathers of the Church, the Doctors of the Church, Catholic Saints, Bishops, Theologians, Popes, and Rulers, in order to ensnare millions of Christians of Europe and beyond in the narrative that Protestants had rediscovered the authentic original Christianity.

And, if you have met any Protestant well schooled in this propaganda, it is indeed very difficult to even have a discussion with them. This is because they have accepted a Narrative of lies which is more important to them as the key to read all history and scripture than History or Scripture itself.

I liken this to what we all experienced during the Scamdemic, when 24/7 10 thousand lies were propagated in every form of communication to justify the behavior sought by the Eliltes.  This Matrix of lies overcame many minds, even very learned persons, the more they listened to them. Only those who did not have the habit of watching TV were able to easily break free and reject the Narrative.

And in this we see something like what the Church of the Antichrist will found its doctrine upon: not truths revealed by God, but cleverly concocted lies which seem to be harmless platitudes but conceal open hostility with Divinely revealed Teaching on Faith and Morals.

We see this Church being built as we watch, if we pay attention: and it most certainly contains Catholics of all kinds: liberals, conservatives, traditionalists, sedevacantists. It does so, precisely because Catholics of all kinds are willing to live with Big Lies and have become so addicted to a life founded upon lies that they no longer want to hear the truth and suffer not those who speak it.

And the biggest lies of all are that Pope Francis and Pope Leo were elected validly in the Conclaves of 2013 and 2025, respectively. These two men were not simply antipopes but were and are manifest formal heretics guilty of public heretical professions and certainly capable of being condemned as heretics if a just tribunal could be found. A thing which will never happen until Catholics recognize that they were antipopes and that all claims to obedience to them, on account of their election in these Conclaves, were based on a lie.**

These lies, in conjunction with the Vatican II and “spirit of the Council” narratives, form a Narrative Matrix which prevents most Catholics from seeking the truth itself; instead, they seek only the agreement of cardinals and bishops, and that has become their new and ever changing Truth.

I have no doubt that the Church of the Antichrist will claim “apostolic succession” from these two men, and as the years pass, and so many Catholics grow so comfortable with submission to these antichrists, the advent of the Church of the Antichrist can be said to be not far off, if it has not already come to birth in these two men and their crew of diabolically perverted and mendacious supporters.

FOOTNOTE

** Namely, the lie that these elections were held in accord with the Papal Law Universi Dominici Gregis. The 2013 conclave was not legitimate, because it was called to elect a man to receive the petrine munus (UDG n. 53) when Pope Benedict XVI had not renounced the petrine munus, and this in violation of the prescription of UDG 77, which requires a renunciation in accord with Canon 332 §2. ” The 2025 Conclave’s invalidity is explained here, and is succinctly, the violation of UDG 33 with a claimed dispensation, which UDG 4 forbids being used, and based on an implicit claim to interpret a papal act, which UDG 1 forbids, and thus results in a violation of UDG 68, and an invalid election as per UDG 76.