Vatican Insider is reporting that Pope Francis’ infamous interview with the founder of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, has been removed from the Holy See’s website.
How wonderful! The pope is finally coming to appreciate the power of his words and the damage they can cause when poorly chosen. Right? Well, not exactly.
While this is certainly welcome news, the details point directly to the burgeoning crisis that began in earnest the moment the Barque of St. Peter emerged from the conciliar dry dock stripped of nearly every outward sign of her God-given purpose, the Council Fathers having lowered from her mast the banner of Christ the King, hoisting in its place a pennant to the human person; her true identity as the solitary Ark of Salvation obscured from the sight of countless a perishing soul as she gives forth every appearance of yet another rudderless ship helplessly tossed about on the tempestuous seas of mere earthly concerns.
According to Vatican Insider:
In response to journalists’ questions about the reason for this decision, the Holy See’s spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi replied: “The information in the interview is reliable on a general level but not on the level of each individual point analysed: this is why it was decided the text should not be available for consultation on the Holy See website. Its removal is a final update on the nature of this text. Some mistakes were made regarding its value, which was questioned. The Secretariat of State took the decision.”
Is there any among us who could possibly mistake this public relations doublespeak for the preaching of churchmen determined to convert the world to Christ?
What Fr. Lombardi is saying is that the Holy See isn’t so much disturbed by the humanistic rhetoric contained in the interview as it is by the scrutiny of those who would dare to examine its individual claims in the light of tradition.
The solution?
The message, along with its invitation to religious indifferentism, will remain, even as the text itself will not; i.e., we will have our cake and eat it too.
The interview, as readers may recall, contained any number of baffling, and frankly, embarrassing statements (like that twice-repeated bit about the greatest challenge facing the Church being youth unemployment and lonely old folks), but the most egregious assault on Catholic doctrine was the pope’s treatment, also twice-repeated, about conscience.
“Each one of us has his own vision of the Good and also of Evil. We have to urge it [the vision] to move towards what one perceives as the Good,” the pope said, you know, on a general level.
On this particular note, Vatican Insider reported:
A statement – completely compatible with the Catechism of the Catholic Church – regarding the importance of conscience issue gave rise to many debates and discussions. Lombardi denied that the decision to remove the interview from the Vatican website was taken at the request of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Gerhard Ludwig Müller.
It’s not immediately clear whether Fr. Lombardi himself stressed this notion of “complete compatibility” (in the Italian original, tutto compatibile) or if the writer is editorializing, but in any event, the Holy See’s position is clear enough:
Let there be no mistake, the Vatican PR apparatus is at pains to make it clear that we should not consider the present action an acknowledgement that doctrinal concerns relative to the Scalfari interview are justified, which is precisely why Fr. Lombardi made it a point to say, bizarre though the claim may be, that the decision to remove the text from the Vatican website was made by the Secretary of State, not the CDF.
So, more than two weeks after Italian journalist Antonio Socci reported that Pope Francis “regretted” the publication of the Scalfari interview in L’Osservatore Romano and had “complained of it to the director, Gian Maria Vian, in Assisi on Oct. 4,” the, ahem, Secretary of State decided to pull the dreadful screed from the Vatican website; all of this and still not a peep from the pope who is allegedly concerned that his words may have been misunderstood.
Forgive me for robbing you of any optimism that this story may have engendered, but if this entire affair doesn’t paint a portrait of a rudderless ship helplessly tossed about on the tempestuous seas of earthly concerns nothing does.
The plain truth is that until either this or a future pope wakes up and preaches the objective truth entrusted to his care, rebuking the prevailing winds of secular humanism in the name of Christ, there will be no calm, and the Barque of St. Peter will continue to take on water as she is tossed to and fro on the watch of men of little faith.
Louie: thanks so much for your Truthful comments.
As a former PR person for an aerospace corporation, ‘double-speak’ is a specialty to use when you want to confuse people. First, throw out the ideas or facts you want people to be shocked by, then recant them and modify them the next. But the concept is out there, and slowly but surely one moves toward changing the issue from what people want to hear to what you want to do.
This is very effective when you want to change employee perceptions, etc. They will see the answer you propose to the problem as a ‘quality improvement’ or a ‘significant business issue’ that needs to wrapped in a ‘Total Quality Management’ system to uproot the problem and fix it. Now think of the Survey that Francis wants completed.
I think this has all been played out in a book called Windswept House. People can call it fiction all they want, but page by page the scenarios depicted can be witnessed, whether in the dethroned style of Francis as ‘just one of the bishops,’ to the outrageous ‘survey’ used in the book to discover the ‘Common Mind of the Bishops.’
The only problem for the author, Malachi Martin, is that while he was a Jesuit insider, he focused on these events believing they would happen under John Paul’s watch. He couldn’t see that they would be played out in the next pontificate under Benedict.
Now the enemies of Benedict and John Paul have what the book predicted with the resignation of the pope: their man in position as their ‘Change Agent.’
Hang on — and Holy Mother of God, along with St. Joseph and St. Michael, protect us all!
What is perhaps more depressing than the interview, is the exceedingly naive belief that the damage can be somehow negated, in this information age, by the equivalent of closing the stable door.
The correct response to this unfortunate interview is to hold it, but with an explanatory note. Well what else can you do?
Just as we need an explanatory note, or “a conciliar Syllabus with doctrinal value”, as called for by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, to enable a correct reading of the Vatican II documents.
Thank you so much for another excellent article. I so appreciate your articulation of what seemed so deeply disturbing — and yet remained vague and hazy in my efforts to identify it — from the moment Francis stepped onto the balcony after his election. The disturbing element, in your words, was “the burgeoning crisis that began in earnest the moment the Barque of St. Peter emerged from the conciliar dry dock stripped of nearly every outward sign of her God-given purpose, the Council Fathers having lowered from her mast the banner of Christ the King, hoisting in its place a pennant to the human person…” This is a profoundly important point. Thank you.
Steve…read Windswept House before BXI abdicated…..and then Feb11 happened and it was all too real. Malachi Martin was on the money and there is much to be learned from his tapes that were recorded by Bernard Jansen ( not sure of the spelling of the interviewers name). These usurpers are having their day ……but Our Lady has other plans and Hers are in accordance to the Divine Will of God.
politics 101 – problem-reaction-solution. The double-speakers create the ‘problem’ garnering the anticipated reaction so they can, with little resistance, implement the ‘solution’.
Steve said: ‘First, throw out the ideas or facts you want people to be shocked by, then recant them and modify them the next. But the concept is out there, and slowly but surely one moves toward changing the issue from what people want to hear to what you want to do.’ This age old thesis-antithesis-synthesis (merely a return to the thesis after messing with people’s minds) is at play. This seems to be exactly the MO of this papacy. It reeks of deceit. Meanwhile in the parishes, the world continues to be preached from the pulpit, everyone is going to heaven so long as they don’t believe in hell, the sanctuary is just a place with a table and a box, and the priest is just the lay person who gets to wear the colored sheet. And Pope Francis’ comments on making an ‘idol’ of true, good and worthy worship, on not ‘saying’ prayers – yes that shocked (he seems to like shocking people – the little altar boy who had his prayful hands roughly pulled apart by the Pope might not have shocked the boy, but it shocked a lot – so how many people have stopped ‘saying’ prayers out there, and how many priests and laity feel even more casual about the abused sanctuaries of the Church? If there was an SSPX Mass within 500 miles I’d be there. I pray for the expansion of the SSPX, plentiful vocations – they are the guardians through all this – like a tug-boat out in the squall trying to keep the ship from hitting the rocks. No wonder satan’s little helpers hate them so much.
On the subject of the Barque of St. Peter being tossed to and fro, even the papal Catecheses for the Year of Faith have not escaped this phenomenon.
On reading them one would, for example, be left in doubt about the meaning of such non-trivial matters as the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension.
In his Catechesis for the Year of Faith on January 9, then-Pope Benedict XVI remarked:
“The Son of God truly became a man. He was born of the Virgin Mary in a specific time and place…and ended the course of his earthly life on the Cross” (“ha terminato il corso della sua vita terrena sulla croce”).
In his first Catechesis on April 9, current-Pope Francis adds that, at the Resurrection:
“Jesus makes himself present in a new way…; he did not return to earthly life….” (“non è tornato alla vita terrena”).
Francis follows this two weeks later with this statement:
“Jesus’ earthly life culminated with the Ascension” (“La vita terrena di Gesù culmina con l’evento dell’Ascensione”).
Imagine you were completely new to the Catholic Faith. Then compare the above catechetical toing-and-froing with the clarity of Pope Innocent III, in his letter Eius exemplo:
“He suffered in the true passion of His flesh; He died in the true death of His body, and He arose again in the true resurrection of His flesh and in the restoration of His soul to the body in which, after He ate and drank, He ascended into heaven” (Source: Denzinger, 30th ed., para. 422).
Which papal statement would give you a clear understanding of the Articles of Faith of the Apostles’ Creed?
Innocent III’s is the Creed. Benedict’s is of the Creed. Francis’ hermenutic of vagueness sounds Gnostic.
Yep.
The resulting confusion has been effected, and that’s all that ultimately matters.
This has been a perfectly orchestrated mind bomb; like dropping some little ambiguous quip, then walking away with a passing “just saying, that’s all.”
As they say these days, some things just can’t be un-seen.
Nor un-thought, unfortunately.
The Primacy of the Logos over the Ethos
~
~
“For the soul needs absolutely firm ground on which to stand. It needs a support by which it can raise itself, a sure external point beyond itself, and that can only be supplied by truth. The knowledge of pure truth is the fundamental factor of spiritual emancipation. “The truth shall make you free.” The soul needs that spiritual relaxation in which the convulsions of the will are stilled, the restlessness of struggle quietened, and the shrieking of desire silenced; and that is fundamentally and primarily the act of intention by which thought perceives truth, and the spirit is silent before its splendid majesty.
~
In dogma, the fact of absolute truth, inflexible and eternal, entirely independent of a basis of practicality, we possess something which is inexpressibly great. When the soul becomes aware of it, it is overcome by a sensation as of having touched the mystic guarantee of universal sanity; it perceives dogma as the guardian of all existence, actually and really the rock upon which the universe rests. “In the beginning was the Word”–the Logos….”
~
– Romano Guardini, “The Spirit of the Liturgy”
~
Read that second to last sentence again and marvel at its clarity: “it perceives dogma as the guardian of all existence, actually and really the rock upon which the universe rests.” Dogma is the Word, it is the Logos, it is Christ. Make no mistake, they are denying Our Lord.
I Am With You
Excerpt from a letter of William Weston an English Martyr, to Robert Persons
Peter’s ship is as safe as ever.
She may be tossed by the waves but never can she become a wreck.
Buffeted and beaten by the surge, she is never broken. Hell can open wide its jaws, belch forth fire,
shroud her in clouds of black smoke, but God’s promise stands unaltered…….From the day the storm
first hit, the Church has gathered great increase.
Wherever she is brought to the test, she conquers. When persecution strikes her she is there all the firmer for it.
Violently oppressed, she reigns in glory………….In the midst of tribulation, sorrow and weariness our Mother, Jerusalem, is not sterile, and
ceases not to bear her children.
One day she shall see peace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1-G7HVbERk
….very interesting talk on the papacy by Father Hesse……
“the Barque of St. Peter [The Catholic Church] … gives forth every appearance of yet another rudderless ship” and “if this entire affair doesn’t paint a portrait of [The Catholic Church being] a rudderless ship … nothing does”.
Louie, do you claim that The Catholic Church only “gives forth every appearance of yet another rudderless ship helplessly tossed to and fro” and that at the same time, in reality, it isn’t a rudderless ship helplessly tossed to and fro?
If The Barque of St. Peter has the most certain course of everything on Earth how come it doesn’t give any appearance of that but gives every appearance of the opposite?
The title of your post is “A rudderless ship”, NOT “Appearance of a rudderless ship”. So The Holy Ghost has done in the title of yours what He has done in the Gospel (John 11:49-52): told you/readers the truth without you knowing it (only till now, hopefully).
Listen to the truth you have written by your own hand because it’s a Catholic dogma (NOT “sedevacante” dogma): no heretic/non-Catholic can’t be Pope. If you don’t, you are not a Catholic no matter what you or others think.
Sedevacantism, sedevacantists etc. are slanders and falsities intended to keep people away from obedience to the Catholic dogma “no Catholic, no Pope.”. Take care.
… Of course, The Catholic Church can’t be a rudderless ship helplessly tossed to and fro. Only counterfeit of The Catholic Church can be and is exactly that.
Should have been written above:
1. “Louie, do you claim that “The Catholic Church only gives forth every appearance of yet another rudderless ship helplessly tossed to and fro” and that at the same time, in reality, it isn’t a rudderless ship helplessly tossed to and fro?” (apostrophes should have begun before The Catholic Church and NOT before gives!);
2. “If The Barque of St. Peter has the most certain course of everything on Earth (IT HAS) how come it ALLEGEDLY doesn’t give any appearance of that but ALLEGEDLY gives every appearance of the opposite?”.
I apologize very much for these two ugly and blasphemous, although unintentional, errors.
I agree that the barque isn’t rudderless but that a team of captains are deliberately trying to sink it in the waves of the world. Hence the little SSPX tug boat (one of the Church’s ‘auxiliary ships’ in the dream of St John Bosco) except in this instance it is the auxiliary ship keeping the main barque on course despite the best efforts of the captain and his pilots turning the wheel towards the Charybdis of the great apostasy.
Archbishop Levebvre wrote, ‘I read…from the Joint Catholic-Lutheran Commission, officially recognized by the Vatican, statements like this: Among the ideas of the Second Vatican Council, we can see gathered together much of what Luther asked for…’ !?! Luther – who called the Holy Mass an ‘abomination’.
“Indiscipline is everywhere in the Church. Committees of priests send demands to their bishops, bishops disregard pontifical exhortations, even the recommendations and decisions of the Council are not respected and yet one never hears uttered the word “disobedience,” except as applied to Catholics who wish to remain faithful to Tradition and just simply keep the Faith.” (these words from 1986)
Lefebvre, Archbishop Marcel. Open Letter to Confused Catholics. Angelus Press.
Archbishop Levebvre likened the Dogma of the Faith to the Rock of certainty and security which the Church was commissioned to give. A certainty and security which the current Pope has also ridiculed. The uneven keel of the VII papacies is finding its most uneven keel yet in Pope Francis. He and his ‘pilots’ confuse and create doubt.
St John Bosco’s Dream of the Two Pillars:
http://miraclerosarymission.org/bosco.html
……..May God help me to persevere, because I will just continue, ‘working out my salvation in fear and trembling’,………threading the ferocious waters, together with the little SSPX tug boat ……..Ave Maria!
Viva Cristo Rey!
MayJesus Christ Be Praised!
Regarding Malachi Martin, who is certainly credible, he gave an interview on Art Bell in 1998, the year before he died, in which he affirmed a caller’s statement about part of the third secret of Fatima. The caller said that an old Jesuit who, the caller claimed, had read it told him,’ The final pope will be under the control of the devil’. Malachi Martin’s response was, ‘It sounds as if this priest read the third secret’. Add this to the prophecy of Our Lady of LaSalette -an approved apparition of the 1800’s- who said that the antiChrist would sit on the Seat of Peter. Our Lady of Good Success also predicted this. These area approved apparitions–approved by the Church. This tragedy is being played before our eyes. Where is the Church? She is with the revealed dogma and her her age-old richness. No ‘pope’ has the right to tamper with that.
seemingly rudderless indeed….this from one of the chief 8 hand-picked advisors to the B of R…..
http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/
sorry, it should have been this specific one…
http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/2013/11/c-8-cardinal-advisor-1-cardinal-marx.html
this is truly a nightmare. The first comment under the article sums it all up nicely.
Whaaaaaaat ??
Let’s hope a pamphlet containing the records of the life of Bl. Jacinta flies into this man’s face today.
Archbishop Lefebvre, pray for us.
“3. … BY THE FULNESS OF OUR APOSTOLIC POWER, WE enact, determine, decree and DEFINE … 6. In addition, that if ever at any time it shall appear that … even the Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion or his elevation as … Roman Pontiff, has deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy:
(i) the promotion or elevation, even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, void and worthless;
(ii) it shall not be possible for it to acquire validity (nor for it to be said that it has thus acquired validity) through the acceptance of the office, of consecration, of subsequent authority, nor through possession of administration, nor through the putative enthronement of a Roman Pontiff, or Veneration, or obedience accorded to such by all, nor through the lapse of any period of time in the foregoing situation;
(iii) it shall not be held as partially legitimate in any way; …
(v) each and all of their words, deeds, actions and enactments, howsoever made, and anything whatsoever to which these may give rise, shall be without force and shall grant no stability whatsoever nor any right to anyone;
(vi) those thus promoted or elevated shall be deprived automatically, and without need for any further declaration, of all dignity, position, honour, title, authority, office and power.” (Pope Paul IV, “Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio”).
So it has been defined as Catholic DOGMA that between two successive popes there could be one or more impostors invalidly elected, that is, that The Catholic Church can be a rudderless ship as it has been for some time.
But unlike all the other rudderless ships this rudderless ship – The Catholic Church – cannot be helplessly tossed to and fro because it has the unbreakable anchor of the Catholic faith and because there is Jesus Christ who oversees the tempest and will silence it whenever it threatens the existence of the rudderless ship – His only Church (Matthew 8:26; Mark 4:39; Luke 8:24).
Louie and others, don’t become heretics and leave The Catholic Church by denial of either of the two dogmas in cases of Vatican II** impostors: “no heretic/non-Catholic can be Pope.”, “there can be an impostor or a series of impostors invalidly elected and sitting on the Chair of St. Peter between two successive Popes.”.
** – Vatican II says it adores with the Mohammedans (Lumen Gentium, 16.) and is therefore NOT a Council of The Catholic Church Who doesn’t adore with the Mohammedans
Although Rome fell under the chastisement of God, by the violence of the successive barbarian invasions, a remnant stayed faithful. The outstanding figure of this remnant was St. Remigius. From his fidelity came the conversion of Clovis, the Franks and the beginning of medieval Christendom. St. Athanasius, a century before, fleeing the semi-Arian persecution, would bring to Rome the seed of aAlthough Rome fell under the chastisement of God, by the violence of the successive barbarian invasions, a remnant stayed faithful. The outstanding figure of this remnant was St. Remigius. From his fidelity came the conversion of Clovis, the Franks and the beginning of medieval Christendom. St. Athanasius, a century before, fleeing the semi-Arian persecution, would bring to Rome the seed of a new model of religious life, monasticism. This seed would germinate in St. Benedict of Nursia and would give birth to the Benedictine order, largely responsible for the two religious reforms that gave shape to the Middle Ages. There was also St. Augustine who left another seed that would germinate: it was his great work The City of God. This book was taken by Charlemagne as the fundamental book that oriented him in the institution of the new Empire. Thus we have in St. Remigius, St. Athanasius and St. Augustine the same law of the remnant that returns to fulfil the plan of God.
From the height of the Middle Ages to our days, the Catholic Church and Christian Civilization has suffered the offensive of the revolutionary conspiracy. Three great revolutions shook the stability of the Reign of Christ: the Protestant Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Communist Revolution. The germs of these three revolutions have penetrated into the Holy Church and, by a strange paradox, today there are ecclesiastics who promote the most advanced strains of the Revolution. The apostasy of Hierarchs, Clergy and the faithful has reached unimaginable proportions. Those who are faithful are reduced to a small remnant.
This small remnant is formed in part by those who are here present. My message to you is this: Do not think that we are isolated, smashed, without the possibility of doing anything. We have behind us thousands of years of History of the Old and New Testament in which the same law of the remnant is verified. We are the remnant of medieval civilization. And we are the seed of a new era. We have before us a glorious future that will be the Reign of Mary. After this, there will be a decadence and the end of the world will come. In the Middle Ages, the one who found himself in a position similar to that of our times was Saint Remigius, who saw the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Reign of Christ installed over the earth. At the end of the world, the ones who will be in an analogous situation to ours are the Prophet Elias, the Prophet Enoch and those few who will remain faithful. They will see the end of the Reign of Mary and the beginning of the Celestial Jerusalem.
We are in an epic historic position. If we extend one hand to the past we will find the hand of St. Remigius. If we extend the other hand to the future, we will find the hand of the Prophet Elias. We are the present remnant that can support itself on the past remnant and on the future remnant.
Within this broad perspective of History and the glorification of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I am pleased to transmit here one of the important laws that governs the plans of God, the law of the fidelity of the remnant. Residuum revertetur! The remnant shall be returned! The remnant shall once again conquer! from the transcript of the tape and adapted by Atila S. Guimarães new model of religious life, monasticism. This seed would germinate in St. Benedict of Nursia and would give birth to the Benedictine order, largely responsible for the two religious reforms that gave shape to the Middle Ages. There was also St. Augustine who left another seed that would germinate: it was his great work The City of God. This book was taken by Charlemagne as the fundamental book that oriented him in the institution of the new Empire. Thus we have in St. Remigius, St. Athanasius and St. Augustine the same law of the remnant that returns to fulfil the plan of God.
From the height of the Middle Ages to our days, the Catholic Church and Christian Civilization has suffered the offensive of the revolutionary conspiracy. Three great revolutions shook the stability of the Reign of Christ: the Protestant Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Communist Revolution. The germs of these three revolutions have penetrated into the Holy Church and, by a strange paradox, today there are ecclesiastics who promote the most advanced strains of the Revolution. The apostasy of Hierarchs, Clergy and the faithful has reached unimaginable proportions. Those who are faithful are reduced to a small remnant.
This small remnant is formed in part by those who are here present. My message to you is this: Do not think that we are isolated, smashed, without the possibility of doing anything. We have behind us thousands of years of History of the Old and New Testament in which the same law of the remnant is verified. We are the remnant of medieval civilization. And we are the seed of a new era. We have before us a glorious future that will be the Reign of Mary. After this, there will be a decadence and the end of the world will come. In the Middle Ages, the one who found himself in a position similar to that of our times was Saint Remigius, who saw the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Reign of Christ installed over the earth. At the end of the world, the ones who will be in an analogous situation to ours are the Prophet Elias, the Prophet Enoch and those few who will remain faithful. They will see the end of the Reign of Mary and the beginning of the Celestial Jerusalem.
We are in an epic historic position. If we extend one hand to the past we will find the hand of St. Remigius. If we extend the other hand to the future, we will find the hand of the Prophet Elias. We are the present remnant that can support itself on the past remnant and on the future remnant.
Within this broad perspective of History and the glorification of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I am pleased to transmit here one of the important laws that governs the plans of God, the law of the fidelity of the remnant. Residuum revertetur! The remnant shall be returned! The remnant shall once again conquer!
from the transcript of the tape and adapted by Atila S. Guimarães
“the law of the fidelity of the remnant. Residuum revertetur! The remnant shall be returned! The remnant shall once again conquer!”
Johnny: ‘Louie and others, don’t become heretics and leave The Catholic Church’.
No one on this site is leaving the Rock (this is exactly what Archbishiop Levebre was talking about – turning the tables so that suddenly faithful Catholics are suspect) but we are documenting Bishops, and all kinds of nominal catholics trudging off to join the enemy with smiles on their faces.
Lou while I agree with your criticisms of Bergoglio and Lombardi, I cannot agree with those who pose the SSPX as the solution to the Church’s problems. They have rarely shown themselves to pratice a pastoral morality different from the modernists, taking as they do Macchiavellii’s Il Principe as their handbook for action. There are 10 Catholics who left the SSPX chapels for every 1 catholic who attends, precisely because the SSPX ostracized them for not buckling under their claims to obedience, when in fact they have no jurisdiction. Imagine a Church where Christ’s words, “Do not lord it over them” were law…the present crisis is a large part due to the mega problem of clericalism in the Church, on both sides of the fence.
‘They have rarely shown themselves to pratice a pastoral morality different from the modernists, taking as they do Macchiavellii’s Il Principe as their handbook for action. There are 10 Catholics who left the SSPX chapels for every 1 catholic who attends,’
Oh please.
Johny,
You wrote:
“Louie and others, don’t become heretics and leave The Catholic Church by denial of either of the two dogmas in cases of Vatican II** impostors: “no heretic/non-Catholic can be Pope.”, “there can be an impostor or a series of impostors invalidly elected and sitting on the Chair of St. Peter between two successive Popes.”.
One becomes a heretic when one loses the Faith, not when one “leaves” the church. We know that the pope can be a heretic and teach heresy. But the Faithful are not absolved of guilt in accepting the teaching of a heretical pope/bishop/priest. The Faithful simply need to believe in what the Magisterium has always taught, as a condition for their salvation.
With respect to the oxymoron “VII dogma”, I am beginning to think that the defense mechanism that the Holy Spirit created to protect the Bride of Christ during this period of the great chastisement is found in Catholic dogma. To be more precise, how Catholic dogma is defined. Now, VII did not define any new dogma. All parties, whether faithful to the Magisterium or modernists, both agree on this point. And since this is the case, any new quasi dogma or dogmatic beliefs (novelties) arising from VII should be considered null and void. Pure deductive reasoning. Those who do not admit this are being untruthful. Therefore, those who are faithful to the Magisterium CAN NOT accept these novelties. And the modernists who accept these novelties have in fact created a new religion grounded in this new VII magisterium. And it is the conversion to this new, and false magisterium by the post-conciliar clergy that is at the root of the demolition of the Catholic Church. Any reversal of this death spiral will need to begin with a frank admission that this co-habitation of two distinct religions in one institution is what is causing all the confusion and this “irrational” state can not be maintained for much longer.
Therefore, questions about whether the Holy See is occupied by an imposter or a legitimate successor of St. Peter, or whether the pope teaches heresy or is a functional apostate is of a secondary nature. Whatever heresy is presently taught can be corrected by a legitimate future council. ( How does the Council of Econe sound? Does have a ring to it.:)) So arriving at an agreement on this matter does not solve the problem.
What does solve the problem is keeping the one true Faith. The post-conciliar church will eventually die off. There will come a time when the growing number of true Catholic Faithful will reach critical mass, and then the post-conciliar church will need to decide if it wants to commit suicide by running it’s infrastructure into the ground (which is quite possible when looking at all the ideologues on that side) or convert to the one true Faith…or maybe just hand over control of the institution.
And why am I certain that the above is how this will play out? Because the bishop of Rome gave the game away. If you remember, there was an incident where a N.O. religious community was dieing out and unable to support their monastery. When they appealed to Rome for help, the bishop of Rome commented that a religious order whose “mission” was ending should not ask Rome’s aid while still clinging on to their real estate. Spoken like a true materialist… i mean modernist. And when the time comes for his coreligionists to decide whether they want to run the Church assets under their care into the ground and starve in the mean time, or whether they will trade them to the Faithful for a guarantee of a “rack and two square meals a day”, I think their choice will be obvious.
St Francis of Assisi, ora pro nobis.
Wow, what rudderless commentary (not Lowy).
My overall take is that it seems rudderless… but we are definitely going though some tough seas. Peter, did partially sink into the raging waters, but is regardlessly brought right back out by Christ.