If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made freely and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone. (1983 Code of Canon Law, Canon 332 §2)
Note well that two things are “required” in order for a papal resignation to be valid; it must be both “made freely” and “properly manifested.”
Let’s talk about the latter first.
How might a papal resignation be properly manifested?
First and foremost, it is manifested by way of declaration or published statement; i.e., some sort of pronouncement on the part of the pope-resignee that makes his intent known to the members of the Church.
That, however, is not all, and for a very good reason that we will consider momentarily.
A papal resignation is also properly manifested by way of outward signs that clearly indicate that the man in question is no longer the Roman Pontiff.
Common sense and the witness of history alone indicate that the antithesis of a papal resignation “properly manifested” on the part of a former pope includes such things as:
– Continuing to wear papal vestments
– Retaining one’s papal name as opposed to resuming the use of one’s former name
– Continuing to refer to oneself as “Pope” (albeit “Emeritus”) rather than one’s previous rank
– Allowing oneself to be addressed publicly as “Your Holiness” (and by his would-be successor, no less)
– Continuing to live within the enclosure of the Vatican
In the case of Benedict XVI, something is being manifested, and deliberately so!
In other words, it is the height of naivete to presume that such actions as those listed above are just innocent mistakes in judgment.
This brings me to the reason why the outward signs that accompany a declaration of intent to resign the Petrine ministry are so very important.
Commenting on the former requirement set forth in Canon 332 §2 (that the resignation be “made freely”), Cardinal Walter Brandmüller recently said:
The simple declaration of free resignation on the part of the person in question [the pope] is not enough, because depending on the circumstances that statement could easily be forced, and the resignation therefore invalid.
This, my friends, is really just common sense. Think about it:
If you answered your telephone while a burglar was holding a gun to your head, you may very well insist to the caller that all is well. The caller in his turn would then go about believing and behaving as if all truly is well, and no one may be the wiser.
That is, unless you were clever enough to hint that all is not as it appears to be in the hopes that your caller might have ears to hear.
For instance, you might raise a red flag by making statements that your caller would readily recognize as so entirely absurd and irrational that he’d be hard pressed not to inquire further. We’ll come back to this thought in a moment.
One wonders, is Cardinal Brandmüller suggesting that he harbors reservations about the freedom of Benedict’s resignation? Does he mean to imply that others in the Sacred College hold similar doubts?
In any case, I suspect that no small number of prelates sincerely believe that Benedict was forced to resign, and yet are unwilling to go public with their concerns.
While reticence on the part of our churchmen in such matters of importance is deplorable, one might understand why this is the case:
At a time in the Church when the “wolves” are powerful enough to cause a reigning pope to flee, it may come as little surprise that his underlings are guarding their tongues and watching their step for fear of retribution.
Returning to the analogy of a gun wielding burglar…
In addition to the aforementioned outward signs indicating something other than a valid resignation has taken place, Benedict has dropped any number of hints suggesting that all is not what it appears to be.
Readers may recall that Benedict, in a letter to Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli, suggested that he continued wearing papal whites because no black cassocks were available at the time; even though his February 2013 announcement of intent to resign preceded his actual departure by some three weeks.
Given that there are probably more black cassocks available in Rome than anywhere else on the planet, this is more akin to a megaphone blast than a hint.
In early July of this year, as readers may also recall, Benedict was reported to have said (in his soon-to-be released book) that he was aware of a Vatican “gay lobby” that was made up of four or five people, but that he managed to break the group up during his pontificate.
A gay lobby of just four or five people? It was broken up?
For those of us operating on common sense alone, this raises a huge red flag. For those who worked, or are presently working, in the Roman Curia, no doubt this cried out for attention even more so.
Was it to these latter individuals in particular that Benedict was speaking? Is he perhaps suggesting that said lobby had a hand in forcing him to flee?
The Bombshell
Finally, just last week in an interview published in the Italian journal La Repubblica, Benedict provided what I consider to be nothing less than a bombshell; one that thus far seems to have escaped notice.
Most of the attention being paid to this interview concerns the unsettlingly casual manner in which Benedict suggested that his decision to resign came about mainly because he was “no longer able to face the future in transoceanic flights due to the problem of the time difference.”
Specifically, Benedict said that he “did not feel able to make such an intense trip as the World Youth Day of 2013 in Rio de Janeiro.”
He even went so far as to say that the looming prospect of this one event in particular “was a circumstance for which the resignation was a must for me.”
Lost amid the shock and outrage that these statements understandably invited, however, was something far more telling.
Asked whether or not he regrets leaving office before the Year of Faith had concluded, Benedict said:
In a crisis situation, the best attitude is to stand before God with a desire to regain faith in order to continue on the path of life.
Look, Benedict is many things; an alarmist isn’t one of them.
As such, are we really supposed to believe that World Youth Day and the potential for jet lag was what he considered a “crisis situation” that made resignation “a must”?
The very idea is absurd; so absurd, in fact, that one cannot help but believe that he is telling us something else – something far more important and far more believable.
That something, my friends, is that his resignation was brought about by a “crisis situation” that, for whatever reason, he is either unwilling, or feels unable, to reveal plainly.
This, to me, appears quite obvious.
One also does well to pay close attention to the second part of his statement; “the best attitude [in a crisis situation] is to stand before God with a desire to regain faith…”
Clearly, an unwillingness to endure yet another “transoceanic flight” isn’t tantamount to a loss of faith. So, what exactly gives rise to Benedict’s stated “desire to regain faith in order to continue on the path of life”?
Is he alluding to some personal transgression for which he feels guilty? It would seem so.
Could it simply be that he carries the burden of guilt for having fled for fear of the wolves? Could it be that something truly scandalous and deeply embarrassing is being held over his head, and it is this that both led to his resignation and gives rise to his contrition?
It is anyone’s guess, but I for one am hard pressed not to think of the Third Secret of Fatima and Benedict’s complicity in the Vatican cover-up; in particular as it was carried out in June 2000 as this would most certainly explain his need to “stand before God with a desire to regain faith.”
Earlier in the same interview, while speaking of the ways in which he found comfort amid the “more or less great difficulties” of his pontificate, Benedict said something else that I find rather interesting:
Then there was the Mother of God, the mother of hope that was a sure support in difficulties, and to whom I felt closer in the recitation of the holy Rosary and visits to Marian shrines.
Could it be that Benedict’s growing sense of closeness to Our Lady during his pontificate was forcing him to reconsider his public stance on Fatima, and perhaps even to revise the Vatican’s official position on the same?
At the very least, the enemies of Fatima in Rome had good reason to fear that this may have been the case.
Recall that the official Vatican position as made known in June 2000, the same that Cardinal Ratzinger affirmed at the time, is that the vision contained in the Third Secret of Fatima “belongs to the past.”
While en route to Fatima in 2010, however, Benedict offered a contradictory statement when he said:
As for the new things which we can find in this message today, there is also the fact that attacks on the Pope and the Church come not only from without, but the sufferings of the Church come precisely from within the Church, from the sin existing within the Church. This too is something that we have always known, but today we are seeing it in a really terrifying way: that the greatest persecution of the Church comes not from her enemies without, but arises from sin within the Church, and that the Church thus has a deep need to re-learn penance, to accept purification, to learn forgiveness on the one hand, but also the need for justice.
A few days later while in Fatima before half-a-million people, the Holy Father reaffirmed the fact the Third Secret does indeed concern future events, saying:
“He deceives himself who thinks that the prophetic mission of Fatima is concluded.”
[NOTE: The preceding is an accurate translation of the original Italian: “Si illuderebbe chi pensasse che la missione profetica di Fatima sia conclusa.” See Fr. Nicholas Gruner, Crucial Truths to Save Your Soul]
These statements were immediately seized upon by the Apostle of Fatima, Fr. Nicholas Gruner, but one can be absolutely certain that the enemies of Fatima took notice as well.
With all of this in mind, it seems entirely reasonable to wonder if the “crisis situation” that moved Benedict to flee is intimately related to Fatima, and concerns precisely the sorts of things of which he spoke in 2010:
Attacks on the Pope and the Church that come from her enemies within the Church, from sin within the Church, manifesting themselves in a really terrifying way.
As I’ve written in the past, as it concerns the present crisis in the Church and its remedy, all roads lead to Fatima.
In conclusion, while the bombshell contained in Benedict’s most recent interview may give rise to more questions than answers, one is hard pressed to deny that the validity of his resignation is far from certain; if for no other reason than it has not been “properly manifested” in any number of noteworthy ways.
You fail to consider the fact that history, or the traditions, practices, and laws of the Catholic Church have absolutely no meaning to the Vatican institution established in the Second Vatican Council. The newly created Vatican institution defined itself as subsisting in, but not THE Catholic Church. Thus, it created its own liturgy, its own sacraments, its own governing structure, its own laws, and its own practices, some of which correspond to that in and of the Catholic Church but mostly correspond to the difference in its primary mission-Ecumenism-than that of the Catholic Church-the salvation of souls through the teaching and preaching of the Catholic (alone) religion.
So, it does no good to try to make sense of the resignation of a leader of the Vatican institution using the criteria and understanding of the Catholic Church.
What I find most telling is how easily Benedict fooled the Catholic into believing he isn’t the raving Modernist that he is. He is an expert at double-speak and contradiction and very much a believer that there is no law of non-contradiction. Thus, he could say one thing at one time and refute what he said at another time and he found no problem in doing so. You point this out in this article.
In the end, it doesn’t matter why he resigned. He isn’t the leader the Vatican institution no matter why he did so. Even if he had not resigned, he would have continued to lead the Vatican institution away from the remnant of the Catholic faith the Vatican institution hasn’t yet discarded unless his attitude changed where he “stood before God in a desire to regain faith in order to continue on a path to life”, which for the sake of his soul, I pray he does prior to his death.
May I suggest that if His Former Holiness has something to say, he should stop speaking in code and pick up the phone and call one of, perhaps, a thousand journalists who can craft his message and help him stay alive, if it comes to that.
The expanded papacy that is being forced upon us is surely not licit, but with so many Canon Lawyers resident in Rome who, by their silence, are endorsing the view that it is, what can the Catholic laity do about this? If Pope Emeritus Benedict has truly abdicated his position then he should have discarded the papal attire in toto & Pope Francis should have accepted it in toto. This has not been the case & yet our former much esteemed members of the CC Hierarchy are keeping an obedient silence on a grave matter of importance to the governance of the CC in deference to what might be an illicit Papacy, which contradicts their own consecration as Princes of the Church. It is not possible that all of them are being held prisoners in the Vatican even if the most ardent fan of PB thinks that he is, it is more likely they are all complicit in George Soros NWO which, as he has recently admitted, goes back to Vatican II and his own participation in it. Our Lady predicted that “those who should speak will fall silent”.
The whole Vatican & precincts need purging & exorcising & an Imperfect Council called in order to eradicate the bullies, sodomites, Marxists/Masonic/Modernists that have usurped the One Holy Catholic & Apostolic Church. While fear for loss of status prevails in place of love of God & His Blessed Mother & paternal care for the flock, we cannot expect anything better. If Lund lifts the excommunication of Luther & makes him out to be worthy of sainthood, it could be a game changer. On what side will the Princes of the Church fall – Satan’s or Christ’s, that the question!
I agree, John. What is he afraid of – that they will kill him? Realistically, how much time does he have left? How about redeeming himself by telling us the truth of what the hell is really going on in Rome and exercising some heroic virtue worthy of a pope and maybe even a saint in the end. I am so very weary of all this back and forth.
Thanks, Louie, for this post. You make very good sense. It is always a marvel, on the other hand, to hear the comments that follow the article; the convoluted reasoning of those who no longer hold to the Catholic Church to be the Catholic Church is very sad.
Pope Benedict upheld orthodoxy all during his tenure as Prefect of the CDF. He has not changed, but something is very wrong and one can tell that just by looking at him and listening to his simpleton-like prattling. From the criteria to make a papal abnegation valid that you point out, Benedict is still our pope and we have a demon as ‘bishop of Rome’ who is now co-opting him in a new and deceitful way.
Let us pray for “Pope Benedict and withhold the armchair analysis borne of our bitterness about the human element in the Church.
I just can’t get the words out of my head that Sister Lucia spoke in reference to a vision about what she thought “looked like a bishop dressed in white”. This seems to point to the idea that someone was wearing white that shouldn’t have been. If the man in the vision was wearing white, why wouldn’t anyone just assume that he is the Pope? Could this vision be playing out in our time where someone is wearing white that shouldn’t be? Could it be that PB still believes that he is the true Pope and is being manipulated into the dual papacy thing? Could it be that PB truly believes in the dual papacy thing? Could it be that PB knows he is not the true Pope, but forces in the Vatican invented this dual papacy novelty in order to keep PB contained at the Vatican so that he can’t flee to a safe place and then start exposing the wolves at the Vatican? So many questions.
Merciful God, what happens to us when and if they lift the excommunication of Luther…will all the Lutherans become part of the Novus Ordo Church?…will we be facing not being able to attend a novus ordo mass at all. I agree with Barbara Jensen that PBXVI is being drugged, subdued or strong armed in some manner. I also believe your assessment for one whopping housecleaning and I think that is what Our Lady has in store. Louie you always break it down so clearly, Thankyou.
Benedict’s pontificate took my optimism on a bad roller coaster ride. Uphill with his Motu Proprio, his talk of the “artificial manufacture” of the N.O.; and photos giving Communion on the tongue to kneeling receivers; downhill with his “novel theologies like the “unbroken” covenant of the Jews (because of God’s not breaking His half) and no need to convert them; and praise of modernist philosophers. He finally crashed the whole coaster into a cement wall on February 11, 2012. Anybody foolishly remaining on board only got more confusion since – with his “joking?” answer to the serious question of why he retained the papal garb; his total silence about Ganswein’s public claim that he and Francis have together “changed the Petrine ministry forever” into something that can be shared; and most recently (according to Mundabor’s blog “RATZINGERGATE PART II) his praise of almighty God in his new book, FOR giving Jorge Bergoglio to the Church! writing:
“The moment he was elected I felt, as many others did, a spontaneous sense of gratitude towards Providence. After two Pontiffs from Central Europe, the Lord set his eyes as it were on the universal Church and invited us towards a broader, more Catholic communion.”
(my apologies to anyone who finds that as revolting as I do)
“MORE Catholic communion”? God help us all. I’m done trying to figure him out any more than I would expect to “understand” the mind of an underworld crime boss or Chicago gang leader. I’m only trusting people who behave like real Catholics over a long period of time, and I’m waiting for a Pope who tells us to go convert the world, because their false religions and toleration of sin put them in grave danger of losing their souls for all eternity. All others get my prayers and sacrifices for their conversions, while I leave it to God to deal with them and their crazy motives.
You’re right as rain in noting that Benedict XV is a committed Modernist––through and through. Whether he wakes up and renounces his countless number of Modernist beliefs and pronouncements before he faces Jesus Christ is something we should all pray for every day, but I for one would be surprised if that ever happened.
I do not consider this a “bombshell”. I wrote the following on these pages over two years ago:
“I am prepared to believe that, World Youth Week having become the pinnacle of the Vatican’s events calendar, Benedict simply did not have the stomach for another one in Rio.”
Three months before the above remark, I had quoted, also on these pages, the following genuine bombshell comment from the preface to Joseph Ratzinger’s book, Jesus of Nazareth (all emphases in bold below are mine):
“Admittedly, to believe that, as man, [Jesus] truly was God, and that he communicated his divinity veiled in parables, yet with increasing clarity, exceeds the scope of the historical method. Yet if instead we take this conviction of faith as our starting point for reading the texts with the help of historical methodology and its intrinsic openness to something greater, they are opened up and they reveal a way and a figure that are worthy of belief” (p.xxiii).
The bombshell nature of Ratzinger’s comment is made abundantly clear by Pope St. Pius X when he makes this observation in Pascendi:
“Yet it is a fixed and established principle among [the Modernists] that both science and history must be atheistic: and within their boundaries there is room for nothing but phenomena; God and all that is divine are utterly excluded. We shall soon see clearly what, according to this most absurd teaching, must be held touching the most sacred Person of Christ.”
It was because of this genuine bombshell comment, which remains unnoticed to this day, that I surmised the above reason for Ratzinger’s resignation.
The One True Holy and Apostolic Faith tells us God is never outside of history but its main actor as well as its writer. Lord have mercy.
I think that the vast majority of those who post here DO believe that the vatican is still Catholic.
The “vision” of the Third Secret mentions a Bishop dressed in white. The “text” of the Third Secret was never published. Our Lady probably mentions Albino Luciani (White Light), by name, as that Bishop.
The single most sinister thing John Paul II did, was to let the world think that he was the Bishop of the Secret. The real hero of Our Lady was left in obscurity and the financial corruption he died trying to root out, flourished under JPII and his henchman, Ratzinger. I can see why Pope Benedict would have a guilty conscience.
I’ve said this before, the hard copy of the Third Secret text has been destroyed. The people who have read it are getting old and dying off. If the text of the Third Secret is going to be revealed, it will have to be by someone who has maximum credibility with Novus Ordo Catholics and Clergy. Pope Benedict XVI is the most likely candidate to do it.
Thanks for this article. I thought I was the only one who noticed a discrepancy between Benedict’s recent words on the “Gay Lobby” and the investigation by the three cardinals that was completed in December of 2012. Who can forget the photo of Benedict sitting across from Francis with the 300 + page dossier sitting between the two? What better way to finally bury it than to have the man responsible for the investigation say that he dissolved it?
And, I believe that you hit the nail on the head regarding Fatima. I believe Fr. Kramer said that Benedict told a friend (Fr Dollinger?) that he had two regrets upon ascending the papal throne: the excommunication of the SSPX bishops and the dog and pony show from June 2000 regarding Fatima. “With regard to the first, I made a mistake. With regard to the second, my hand was forced,” he reportedly said. The beginning of the end for Benedict was when he opened up the can of worms during his pilgrimage to Fatima in 2010. All of hell was unleashed at that point. Even better than killing him, is to use him to sell the “new government of Rome which has broken the Tiara.” We are watching the Third Secret play out in real time, folks.
While American POWs were forced by the Viet Cong, in a TV interview, to say how well they were being treated, Jeremiah Denton blinked out the word “TORTURE” in morse code. Benedict XVI’s behavior seems to be more obfuscation than pleas for help. More reminiscent of Jane Fonda partying in Hanoi. There seems to be more of Jane than Jerimiah in Emeritus.
The financial corruption I speak of, was introduced by Pius XI in 1929 with the ratification of the Lateran Treaty. “He who restrains”, the Holy Ghost, as He is referred to in Scripture, was removed as a result. That opened the door for the Modernist takeover during the Council. The homosexuals, that are the embodiment of pure evil, fueled the Nazis in Germany. It comes as no surprise that they are now pulling the strings in the Vatican.
and more Benedict Arnold, than Benedict of Nursia.
This. Exactly.
It has been said that the message of Akita is the same as the message of Fatima . Messages of Our Lady in Akita, Japan http://www.michaeljournal.org/akita.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAAkEp0BV9Q
Oh, Rich, you’ve come home!!! So happy to have you standing beside me, a fellow Catholic, at the foot of this cross, our Dear Church undergoing Her own very sad persecution. The gates if hell shall NOT prevail! Our Lord promised this, and He shall use Our Lady to deliver!
It is difficult to keep track of all the bombshells when the entire Catholic Church is exploding thanks to the Modernists in charge.
You mean the kindly old grandpapa who “let” Catholics have the “Extraordinary Form”, aka the Roman Rite of Mass?
He couldn’t be a modernist in disguise! You don’t want them to take away the “Latin Mass” because of your ingratitude, so be quiet about it!
You mean the same kindly man who, though speaking in cloudy modernist gobbledygook, still managed to clearly propose that in the Eucharist, Christ gives himself to us in the bread and wine? That would be formal heresy.
Not this man, surely! He was a great conservative, fending off the wolves.
Or did you miss the memo?
Barbara, unless those who make up the “human element” of the Church profess the true Faith publicly, (you, me and every member of the hierarchy)then they are not members of the Church, i.e. the Mystical Body of Christ, in the slightest degree.
Not. Members. Of. The. Church.
They just keep coming:
But now the rumors abound, and Sandro Magister confirms, that Rome is about to agree to allow the Chinese communist regime in Beijing to select bishops for Vatican approval — a grotesque return to the evil of Caesaropapism, according to which the civil sovereign is head of the Church in his realm and can designate bishops. But, infinitely, worse, the civil sovereign in this case would not be a Catholic king but a communist dictator.
http://www.fatimaperspectives.com/fc/perspective884.asp
Thanks, or hat tip, to Canon212.com
Theresa, as far as I understand things, the situation is already that, one cannot attend the Novus Ordo Mass at all.
The issue is not the question of validity (although it is questionable). The issue is that the theology of the Novus Ordo deliberately supresses the central truth of the Mass, as defined by Trent i.e. the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary.
To be considered a member of the Church according to Pope Pius XII, one must be a). Baptised, and b) Profess the true Faith.
In attending the Novus Ordo therefore, one is not professing the true Faith, but something alien and un-Catholic, because the Novus Ordo, according to the Church’s own prior teaching, is not a Catholic rite.
The majority of Catholics are not culpable, though, but neither were the English under Cranmer, or Germans under Luther. The end result, however is the same.
The English and Germans of the Sixteenth Century started off as Catholics, but ended up outside the Church. Some through their own fault, and others through no fault of their own.
The Church makes no distinction between the two groups; neither are Catholic, and neither are members of the Church.
(date correction -Feb 11, 2013)
Word has it Pope Francis wants to use the year of Mercy to “pardon” the 8 bishops the Vatican formerly refused to recognize as fit for duty (at least two of whom are said to have girlfriends and children) in order to push through this betrayal of the underground Church. 6 of the 8 have already applied for his “pardon”. China hopes to squeeze out Taiwan as it “normalizes” relations with the Vatican. The whole thing in a sell-out of the underground Church, and all its martyrs.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3690211/After-decades-mistrust-Pope-pushes-breakthrough-China.html
Pax in Maria.
We live not only in the midst of widespread depravity, sacrilege, heresy, confusion, ignorance, … today, but also in the midst of plain in-your-face _absurdity and irrationality_. For anybody who has actually been _carefully_ following and reflecting upon developments that pertain to Rome and Pope Benedict XVI, there is absurdity and irrationality _aplenty_. At levels that only increase with time. Things do _not_ “add up” in downtown Roma, any more. Alas, discrepancy is discrepancy, folks.
Mr. Louie Verrecchio represents very well my own thinking, my very own concerns, and also my own admissions that I too have been forced to make over time. He also refers in this article to multiple events that I myself recall very well from the time they occurred, and which have continued to seriously trouble me over the years since.
Mr. Verrecchio again joins dots here in a logical fashion, and he dares to continue pointing out that present-day elephant on the Barque, to which I referred yesterday. Of course, many _will_ dismiss him as some kind of “crazy Fatima loon yada yada” or “conspiracy theorist nut blah blah”. (Their potential loss, whether eternal or not.)
I suspect that this article constitutes about the only(?) way to adequately process and reconcile some of the many _facts_ that we as “aka remnant” Catholics have been, and are still being, unavoidably and inconveniently presented with, regarding the subject at hand.
I am convinced that our Sovereign Pontiff and Vicar of Christ (singular) that we have been allowed to have by God requires a _profound_ number of very sincere prayers and penances at _this_ time. I also believe that he does _not_ need _our_ silence, nor _our_ indifference, nor _our_ inaction.
Let those with ears to hear, hear. Let those with eyes to see, see. Let those with hands to act, act. Let us not stick out heads in the sand out of _fear_. Blessed are they…
Our Lady of Fatima… Ss. Peter, Paul, Pius X, John the Baptist and Joseph, and Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich, … orate pro nobis!
Kyrie eleison!
See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=posrESkEAp0
Alas, Louie, I am so late in replying directly to your post that I fear this comment of mine will be missed in the inevitable tidal wave of replies. Nonetheless, I fully agree with your observations in respect of Pope Benedict XVI’s ‘messages’ for those who can see and who have ears to hear which were signalled to the faithful immediately preceding and following his ‘captivity’.
Recall that Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Benedictine nun Hildegard of Bingen a Doctor of the Universal Church on October 7, 2012. Those who have read the prophetic writings of Saint Hildegard (Pope Benedict XVI surely) will know that she placed the times we live in as the times of the Anti-Christ and the Great Apostasy.
Furthermore, Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 declared the Italian nun and mystic Sister Elena Aiello to be Blessed. Blessed Sister Elena Aiello wrote of the times we are living in an a great war that would break out and terrible chastisements which were imminent. Pope Benedict XVI would not have been unaware of these prophecies.
I think this subtle declarations of Pope Benedict XVI are, taken in the aggregate with the Fatima message, something that those with ears to hear and eyes to see ought examine. Pray much!
Pax in Maria.
Very true indeed, and pertinent also, Bosco49.
Forgive me for being off topic but I do not know what else to do – I hope the good folks here can help.
When I was a freshman/sophomore at Cathedral High School in Springfield Massachusetts I attended a biology class along with everyone else. This was a Catholic School of the Diocese of Springfield Massachusetts.
The biology teacher, Mr Brodeur I think his name was, had in his possession the body of a human child that was preserved in formaldehyde which he would show to the class. This person had been somehow removed from the womb of his mother and somehow preserved for all of us to gawk at. I remember the teacher saying something like “this kid would probably be your age, one of your classmates, if he was still alive.”
I thought it was pretty gross at the time, and didn’t think anything of it for years.
For some reason the memory of that child in the jar has remained with me. This baby could have been my brother. Maybe he was, because my mother had had several miscarriages. This baby probably never got a proper funeral and burial, and probably had no one to remember him.
The Science wing of Cathedral High School was hit by a tornado on June 1 2011 and the school was wrecked. I do not know what happened to this baby in the jar but I am asking everyone to please pray for him.
Apologies again for the off-topic.
Michael F Poulin
Rejecting the Second Vatican Council and all the popes who followed it is not being a true Catholic. We do not know Pope Benedict’s deepest motives, nor what is actually going on with him now. Something is very wrong and he needs our prayers and not our condemnation.
Wow. That’s the kind of thing I wish I never read and will probably never forget. How disgusting and sad. These times are so sci-fi scary. That could have been any of us. God has that baby in the right place now. I will pray for that teacher and the scandalized students that passed through that hellish place.
Talk about common sense. Of course all roads lead to Fatima, and of course it’s all about Fatima, and of course this whole Pope resignation thing has at least something to do with Fatima. The sun came down, which was sent by God through the intercession of His Holy Mother, and threatened to burn everyone up…at least that’s what the crowd believed to be true at the time. This was not a pleasant “how de do” from Heaven light show. This was a message and was attached to another verbal message which contained, obviously, something HUGE. But no one listened to Our Lady, about what she told us to do, and that was what made Lucia sad…that nobody listened. So only bad could come out of that, right? Well here we are living in what is a result of our ignoring God and His Blessed Mother…we’ve got ourselves a mess all dealt by our own hands. We were warned, yet we didn’t listen. It’s not over yet though. It’s STILL all about Fatima. This sort of message from God, probably the greatest message this side of the New Testament, doesn’t just disappear or fizzle away and have no reason or purpose. We can’t outsmart God. He won’t be thinking, “Well that didn’t work.” It’s just not over yet. He warned us. We didn’t listen, and now He’s going to clean up our mess as only a Good Father could. The problem is though, it might hurt a little. You can’t just stuff the Fatima message under a rug forever. Funny that some really think they can. This just isn’t over yet, not until God has the last word regarding Fatima and the fact that we IGNORED His Mother, of all people, who He sent to us out of His extraordinary love for us. This is a very interesting chunk of history that we are living through….the Vatican 2 times. We will have great saints, I bet, to lead us out of it.
Hey Louie, great article. There is definitely something afoot here, that we are not being told. I believe Jesus has plans for Pope Benedict and does not want us to know about them, at this time. I also believe that the time we are in, Jesus is allowing all of us to seek out the true teachings of His Church and to know what they are. I will disagree with you on one thing. I do not believe Benedict had anything to do with covering up the 3rd secret of Fatima in 2000. It is just the opposite. He was blocked from revealing the true 3rd secret by Freemason Cardinals Sodano & Bertone.
This article may help with understanding the ethics involved. It also has a link at the end for further questions. God bless.
http://www.aggiecatholicblog.org/2012/09/the-catholic-teaching-on-donating-your-body-to-science/
It’s Francis’s and his NWO globalist cohorts’ One World Religion to support their One World Government. The Chinese government aggressively persecutes Catholics and others and systematically murders millions every year – before and after birth. A diabolic government. Lord have mercy.
Dia dhuit, a Bhosco! God bless you.
But he lifted the excommunications. What did he regret?
Even if the ABSOLUTE TRUTH of B16’s resignation were known, what could be done about it? Start a petition to evict Francis and return B16 to the throne of Peter? Would he want to come back? Is he so much better than Francis that he could undo the harm of Vat2? How do you fight the Purple Mafia? What would be the point? Are we “kicking a dead horse”? As far as I am concerned, Bergoglio and Ratzinger are “6 of one; half dozen of the other.”
Mike, this was started long ago by Ratzinger: This twaddle about poor Benedict makes me gag !!! http://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/m014rpBetrayal_of_China.html
In the Theological Commentary on Fatima released in 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger states that Lucia was influenced by pictures that she had seen in prayer books. Ratzinger goes on to insist that every heart loyal to God is an Immaculate Heart. If you can’t see the epitome of evil at work in Ratzinger’s heart, you are beyond help.
I think if there was some “bombshell” that the St. Gallen Mafia thought Benedict might expose, he would have “died in his sleep” by now.
Yes, pope B16 is the bishop dressed in white, soon to be martyred.
Of course Louie is right to “try to make sense of the resignation…” I think Louie’s on target in his fact-based speculation. Either Pope Benedict has taken leave of his senses or he’s trying to send discrete messages, something he could not do if he were no longer alive.
I’ll remind Louie of this part of his post, however: “…In any case, I suspect that no small number of prelates sincerely believe that Benedict was forced to resign, and yet are unwilling to go public with their concerns…At a time in the Church when the “wolves” are powerful enough to cause a reigning pope to flee, it may come as little surprise that his underlings are guarding their tongues and watching their step for fear of retribution…”
Please remember this in the future when talking about Cardinals Sarah and Burke, for example. I’m as frustrated as anyone that those we consider faithful won’t just come out and say the things we are saying among ourselves just as explicitly as we do. But this is an evil (demonic?), vindictive pope with minions as evil as he in seeking the destruction of the Church. I want the faithful clergy there to remind, prod, raise questions, even subtle ones, so the lay faithful remnant can be reminded of the True Faith…and the evil that threatens it.
If this theory is correct, the resignation of Pope Benedict is invalid. Ann Barnhardt makes more sense everyday. Are you willing to join her yet, Louie, in her characterization of Bergoglio?
We may not know the true reasons for the resignation of the former pontiff. And what he is saying now does not sound like his former self at all but then he is 90 years old and things are not the same either mentally or physically. But here is what I am focusing on: 2017. Whether or not the whole messages from Fatima have been given us, we do know some of the requests of Our Lady. Are we, each of us, adhering to those requests? We MUST do so. We must pray a daily rosary and if anyone has not made the 5 First Saturdays, start this weekend. Attend more Masses than obligatory even if you suffer through them. Go to at least monthly confession. The holiness of one person is the great pushback to the evil accosting and engulfing our world. The reasons for the pope fleeing is really moot now. It is done. We have what we have. The Jubilee of Mercy is running its course and we shall see what follows it. 100 years from Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima: what does She wish for us to do and how to live
“Whether or not the whole messages from Fatima have been given us…”
There are 20 to 25 lines of text spoken by Our Lady at Fatima that remain a mystery, minus one sentence, “In Portugal, the dogma of the faith, will always be preserved, etc.”. It is easy to deduce from this that Our Lady was talking about a crisis of faith in the Church.
The secret was supposed to be made public no later than 1960. In 1960, the Second Vatican Council was in the planning stage. We can be reasonably sure that the Third Secret talks about the failure of the upper Hierarchy of the Church and the worldwide apostasy from the Catholic Faith.
We are unable to judge anyone’s interior motives.
All we can go on is visibly manifest words and actions. God expects nothing more.
If someone shoots another person, we cannot judge the interior motives, but we can’t deny that someone got shot.
That’s not being “judgemental”; it is an observation of objective fact. Common sense tells us to get away from the person with the gun.
Regardless of their interior motive, which again, we cannot know, if we stay near the shooter, we are likely to get shot also.
If someone is a heretic, then we are commanded by Divine Law to get away from that person, to avoid them (Titus 3:10-11) and have nothing whatsoever to do with them – even if they are wearing the same clothing that Catholic prelates wear.
It’s not about judging another’s internal forum. It is about using our God-given senses to form an understanding of the Truth in our intellect, and act accordingly with the will, even if we don’t like that truth.
etc.” is a Latin expression that means “and other things”, or “and so forth”. It is taken directly from the Latin expression, which literally means “and the rest (of such things)” and is a calque of the Greek “καιὶτα τέρα” (kai ta tera: “and the other things”; the more usual Greek form is “και τα λοιπά” kai ta loipa: “and the remainder”). Et means “and”; cētera means “the rest”.
Nothing the Vatican released provided “the rest” of Lucy’s sentence regarding the dogma of the Faith in Portugal or elsewhere.
Thanks for making a point of this very important fact!
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Great comment, Ana. Very comprehensive. What if, the wee laics that we are, were to direct our efforts at dismantling this novus ordo cult at our diocesan level?
https://cognitivegateway.wordpress.com/
Since Benedict’s resignation, it is as plain as day that we have been living through extraordinary times. The minutae about Benedict continuing to live in the Vatican, the fact that he’s still addressed as your holiness, his wardrobe of white clerical regalia, are all valid additions to the overall extraordinariness of what we’re witnessing.
Are we on the threshold of chastisement? Or have chastisement events already commenced? Who knows for sure.
Catholics should feel emboldened if these are times of chastisement. We should be emboldened anyway because the enemy, through hubris, is slowly making his appearance.
Should Benedict go to his reward in the near future, and Bergoglio lives for, say, another decade, would you regard the See of Peter to be vacant for that duration?
Something similar happened with Pope Eugene IV.
He reigned in between the “two” reigns of Pope Martin V. Martin went into exile for a time, and Eugene became Pope.
Both papacies are considered valid to this day. Neither of these men were heretics.
Eugene stood aside when Martin returned from exile.
Ratzinger practically wrote Vatican II.
If you read the comments about Pope Benedict you will certainly see that there is much judgment of his motives. There is so much that we do not understand about what is happening and what has happened. The reasons for his ‘abdication’ are not clear and not known.. This is different from the explanation you just gave about someone’s ‘internal forum’. People are judging his motives. Trusting our intellects is remaining true to the doctrine that we know that the Church teaches. They are two different areas.
And abject silence on the heinous heresies and blasphemies and sacrileges and persecution of the faithful clergy and religious actively and flagrantly committed by Francis and his appointees and advisors daily. The only thing that is anathema, apparently, is the truth in this evil time of general apostasy from the top of the Church down.
1Peter5 blog sums it up well, too. After citing the ambiguous, confusing and heretical statements of the current Pontiff, it concludes:
“It seems, however, that by giving Francis repeatedly his unqualified support, Benedict now serenely chooses to be a “team player,” even to the point of being complicit with the nuanced, equivocal novelties of Francis in his professedly “pastoral” actions.”
I agree with many posters here, that we are in the thick of a heavenly battle with hell. God has given us His promises and repeated them through Our Lady on numerous occasions. It’s up to us to remain steadfast in Faith, and to DO PENANCE for sin, including our own. Now is the time to redouble our efforts. God help us through this.
Like our Lady said , and Fr Gruner supported Her always in his heart , the apostasy starts at the top, starting with PJXXIII, onwards. He started it officially with his deal with the Bolsheviks, oh my how the errors of Russia have spread within the church as well as outside of Her. P Benedict being a hard core modernist, yet as Pope he was having it seemed a conflict of his conscience. a modernist who became the Holy Father which is guaranteed the Holy Spirit, noticed his change of attitude towards the faith. And yet it seems the heresy has prevailed against him, could it be that we are at fault! not enough prayers to Our Lady, not enought sincerity and love and sacrifice for the Pope like little Jacentia had. We are the blame for it. If we had only prayed harder, did more sacrifices within our power, and do Our Lady’s devotions under penance. My God what is to become of us ? I read More distaste for the Pope from Catholics than I hear compassion, oh my and Our Lady told us to pray for him. What is to become of this generation? We really don’t know what’s going on behind the closed gates of Vatican City. We can only speculate , again when it comes two pope Benedict n pope Francis both not fully garbed as the pope,. Francis without the red slippers n cape, Benedict still wearing the white cassock.
When it comes tow the current situation, I m always reminded what Sr Lucy said concerning the vision about the pope , she said ” appears to be the pope ” her description of the bishop dressed in white makes more sense. Question is who is the real pope? It is quite obvious with al, the facts that they are sharing the seat of St Peter , or are they? I’m not sure, both of them put on the appearance of being pope, Francis being most heritical in his statements , while Benedict is still playing the role of pope? Who’s the bishop in white that appears to be the pope ? Even Sr Lucys description gives sway to her questioning if this bishop was the holy father, or was It a warning for us at what to expect, or is this appearance of a pope not the pope, And just simply a bishop dressed in white? If so how can this be? Well it looks as though we have the answer. But we need to be sure for certain, facts matter here, all we can do is speculate which isn’t enought, facts matter here, it will clear up confusion. Confusion that holds up by its iron grips d strikes division, in that Catholics are to eager to form their own opinion. Not good at all. Wait and see. But in waiting we are in a spiritual limbo. Fact is we need the pope. And if the chair of St Peter is in a uproar then we are paralyzed in the mist of confusion and division.
Also in his statement concerning his lost of faith is he admitting that he didn’t have the faith to begin with? That very faith which Our Lady spoke about ? Oh my my what a ripe old pickle we are in, there’s a smell coming out of the Vatican, the smell of heresy, that we know for certain, and it starts at the top. We can’t rely on the clergy. We can only do what sister Lucy said we must do as lay folk. How far will Almighty God allow it to go, my humble opinion is all the way to the point where the lay will finally suffer enough to the point they will turn to God for help through Our Lady. This is all part of Gods plan to prefect the bride, no one can change that, but the lay can help to speed along its end. Like Fr Perez said thank God for this chaistisement. Men’s hearts will grow zeal for the faith as a result. It’s rather sad really to see Catholics attack the popes, they are after all the ones the Devil wants to rule over , in order to more easily ensnare the lay into hell. like the Lord said to St Peter , ” the devil wants to sift you like wheat. “
No it started long before pope Benedict, it’s been 50 years or more, I believe 1960 is considered the official year. But the brewing of it started way before that. We have been in a spiritual chaistisement all this time, and by the looks of things it’s now getting physical. our Lady warned about this almost 100 years ago, this crisis Pope Benedict speaks about.
Where there is smoke, there is surly fire. I have believed that something is not right since the resignation and even more so, since 13 March 2013. All of the signs were there and continue to this day. When the lightening stuck St. Peter’s dome, the bird perched on top of the smoke stack during the conclave was a seagull (not a dove), when Francis released the doves and a black crow attacked and killed one. Oh, so much, and that doesn’t even touch the confusion and errors coming from this man’s mouth and the mouths of his inner circle. Benedict is not free to speak openly and clearly, he is a prisoner in the Vatican gardens. The visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich about two Popes, the last Pope of Garabandal, St. Faustina’s most difficult day of suffering (birthday of Francis), and many more only cause this fear, confusion, anxiety. We are living as St. John Paul II said living the 12th chapter of Revelation. It’s only too clear that something is not right.
It’s times like these, I find comfort in the Words of St. Peter:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy hath regenerated us unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, Unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that can not fade, reserved in heaven for you, Who, by the power of God, are kept by faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
Wherein you shall greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little time made sorrowful in divers temptations: That the trial of your faith (much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honour at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, you love: in whom also now, though you see him not, you believe: and believing shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified; Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and diligently searched, who prophesied of the grace to come in you.
He was elected pope by his fellow Modernists and couldn’t accomplish their goal of complete destruction of the Catholic faith they began prior to and in Vatican II so he had to go sooner rather than later. They got the man they wanted all along with Francis.
I believe the overwhelming majority of the “Princes of the Church” have already chosen what side they are on and it isn’t the side of Christ.
It makes no difference if all of the Lutheran’s become part of the Novus Ordo institution since it has abandoned the true Catholic religion and replaced it with the synthesis of heresies, Modernism as its religion. Remember, the primary mission of the Novus Ordo institution according to its own documents is false ecumenism and everything written in Vatican II and practiced since then is geared towards entrenching this false ecumenism into every aspect of their institution in perpetuity.
Theresa, if you attend a Novus Ordo worship service, you need to realize it is not a Catholic Mass. It is an invention of a committee of men who, many decades prior to its invention, started a revolution called the Liturgical Movement with the goal of reorienting the liturgy of the Church away from its primary purpose-the re-presentation of Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross (the highest act of religion is sacrifice)-into a liturgy that focuses on man and turns the liturgy into a social/communitarion memorial of the Last Supper, as Luther did.
For the last 50 years there have been many of us who have directed our efforts at dismantling the novus ordo cult. The problem is, the majority of Catholics are so indoctrinated into it they aren’t even aware that it is a cult determined to destroy the Catholic religion.
There is much hope.
I am a Novus Ordo (Protestant) recent “convert” to true Catholicism. Keep speaking the truth and praying those Rosaries, Catherine. You may not see the results, but we’re out here ….. or, I mean, back home.
Louie’s concern is certainly justifiable and the situation is undoubtedly bizarre but many of us have become desensitized to the bizarreness after 50 years of unending novelty. Nonetheless the fact that Ratzinger felt physically unable—-at age 85—-to carry on the rigors of the schedule of the supreme head of a worldwide Church hardly seems to stretch credulity. Ratzinger’s behavior since his resignation, described by Louie, is unseemly, but what it means is anyone’s guess.
Bergoglio, for his part, has merely walked farther out on the limb that Wojtyła and Ratzinger left for him. And Bergoglio certainly doesn’t need any help from Ratzinger to further weaken the Papacy through the existence of a resigned pope who hangs on to some material vestige of the office.
Notwithstanding Ratzinger’s bizarre behavior (keeping in mind that he’s 85 years old) it appears to this non-expert that the requirements of Canon 283.2 have been met. “Proper Manifestation,” according to at least one commentary of 283.2, is satisfied by notification to the College of Cardinals and the election of a new pope—-done and done. Given the fact that false ecumenism, religious liberty, consorting with communists and masons, and liturgical revolution has virtually severed the Church from 2000 years of its dogma, its ecclesiology and its mission; Ratzinger’s bizzaro world doesn’t even register on the Richter Scale.
http://crc-internet.org/our-doctrine/catholic-counter-reformation/murder-john-paul-i/
The Bishop in White