If for no other reason than its tittle, This Disastrous Papacy, a recent post by Phil Lawler at CatholicCulture.org is being received by many as evidence that neo-conservative eyes are slowly beginning to open to the Bergoglian crisis.
Lawler writes:
Something snapped last Friday, when Pope Francis used the day’s Gospel reading as one more opportunity to promote his own view on divorce and remarriage.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that this Santa Marta homily finally caused something to “snap” for Lawler, but Francis has been mangling Scripture at will for years now.
What’s more, in so doing he is simply following the example of the Almighty Council wherein Sacred Scripture is boldly misappropriated in the conciliar text to create the illusion of tradition when, in fact, it is being turned on its head. (For example, see HERE.)
Back to Francis…
It’s nice that Lawler is finally fed up with Francis’ blatant biblical liberties, but it has been nearly eleven months since Francis disseminated heresy and blasphemy in an Apostolic Exhortation addressed to the entire Church.
Lawler, apparently, isn’t prepared to acknowledge the gravity of this particular transgression, much less Francis’ obstinate refusal to confirm the true faith in light of his errors, and this even after being publicly challenged to do so on numerous occasions.
Perhaps he just isn’t ready for the “crackle” and “pop.”
No surprise here. Denial is endemic to Catholic neo-conservativism, and, as expected, it was on full display in Lawler’s column:
When I tell friends that I consider this papacy a disaster, I notice that more often than not, they feel oddly reassured … knowing that their own misgivings are not irrational … that they need not continue a fruitless search for ways to reconcile the irreconcilable.
OK, so far so good. Admitting that the false doctrines being taught by Francis are irreconcilable with the immutable faith of the Church is a step in the right direction, but then the other shoe drops:
Moreover, having given the problem a proper name, they can recognize what this crisis of Catholicism is not. Pope Francis is not an antipope, much less the Antichrist. The See of Peter is not vacant, and Benedict is not the “real” Pontiff. Francis is our Pope, for better or worse. And if it is for worse—as I sadly conclude it is—the Church has survived bad Popes in the past.
We have had bad popes in the past…
Yes, we have, but when invoked in relation to Francis, this is truly nothing more than a canard.
Never before has the Church suffered a pope who has attacked Catholic doctrine and promulgated heresy and blasphemy as boldly as Francis has. Never.
Never before has a pope been publicly warned and admonished to remove the suspicion of heresy by so many – including members of the College of Cardinals – much less refused, as Francis has. Never.
Never before has a pope accused Our Lord of instituting Laws too difficult to follow and of actively willing that we should persist in mortal sin. Never.
I could go on, but presumably the point has been made.
Francis is our Pope, for better or worse.
For Lawler, apparently, it is utterly inconceivable that Jorge Bergoglio is, or even may become (i.e., judge and thus reveal himself to be), a formal heretic; a man who by his own actions has separated himself from the Body of Christ and thus the papacy.
Again, no surprise here either as, in addition to denial, papalotry is yet another bedrock feature of Catholic neo-conservatism.
Lawler plays that card for all to see as he continues:
We Catholics have been spoiled for decades, enjoying a succession of outstanding Vatican leaders: Pontiffs who were gifted teachers and saintly men. We have grown accustomed to looking to Rome for guidance. Now we cannot.
Oh, yes, of course… those gifted and saintly men who thumbed their nose at Our Lady and conspired to bury the Third Secret of Fatima; orchestrated the Assisi abominations; begged the intercession of St. John the Baptist to “protect Islam;” insisted that “the freedom to choose and practice religion, and the freedom to change it” are “fundamental human rights and freedoms;” fled for fear of the wolves, etc.
And let us not fail to acknowledge that outstanding Vatican leader who shines more brightly than his post-conciliar peers for having jettisoned the papal tiara, worshiped at the altar of humanity in the sanctuary of the United Nations, and foist upon the Church the Novus Ordo Missae – blessed be he!
Look, I don’t mean to be harsh…
If indeed some of the scales are falling from neo-conservative eyes, great, but let’s be realistic about just how many are still firmly in place.
The latest from Bergoglio: “Families should have fewer children in order to sustain the planet” (paraphrased). Should we be shocked????
It was at least twenty seven years ago that I read The Three Days Darkness and I’ll never forget how bone chilling it was at the time and how I prayed it wouldn’t come to that. Time has passed quite rapidly since then and the events that have unfolded in the Church and in the world have brought me to understand that the cleansing spoken of in that book are vital, because only God can fix this devastation. Mr Lawler no doubt loves the Church but can’t bring himself to accept the harsh realities in the Catholic Church. His Novus Ordo world is comfy enough for him and confirmed as vibrant and good each Sunday by his pastor at the NO mass.Ill bet he would never consider reading Chiesa Viva and if he did venture down that path he probably wouldn’t accept or beleive what Monsignor Luigi Villa exposed in his writings about our heretical VII Pontiffs. Bottom line is that he’s safe where he stands and sadly we’ve all been there at one time or other. Hope Our Lady intervenes soon because souls are being decimated.
I wish that Catholic journalists & theologians would eradicate the notion that we must always respect & revere a rogue pope because Our Lord singled out Peter from among His Apostles for special significance as being the ‘rock’ on which He would build His Church. PF is not St.Peter. Not only would he not willingly given his own life for his Master but he continually contradicts His Word & doesn’t agree with His instruction to ‘go & teach all nations what I have taught you’. Far from it – he tells us there is no Catholic God & Atheists can get to Heaven by their good deeds. The Sacraments also have been dumbed down to practically nothing, with Marriage & Holy Orders greatly diminished. Cohabitants of every hue can live in grace & receive Holy Communion if they wish (most don’t want to as they have already left the CC). Sodomy amongst the priesthood & prelature is ignored & those who practise it, or enable those who do, are promoted to high office.
It is beyond time that Catholic journalism wiped their eyes & related the truth of the demonic scene they envisage. “Vatican archbishop featured in homoerotic painting he commissioned” @lifesitenews.com. Is this what we are paying towards & forcibly told we must accept in order to conform to those living in the peripheries (formerly outcasts) so that they might feel welcome? All those involved in such a heinous display of homosexual pornography should be expelled from the CC, put on civil trial & made financially & spiritually pay for their immorality. The cathedral should be exorcised (as well as the Vatican & all churches within Vatican City) as to publicly display such a depiction in a holy place is sacrilegious.
I never prayed to John Paul II, have you?
The NO v2 sect approves of such blasphemies. They will never self correct.
Catholics dont pray to heretics.
May I make a comment in charity about use of the word “decimated”? I’m seeing it used quite a bit in regards to damage being done by this papacy and it sounds odd used by in that way. Decimated means reduce by ten percent. It’s appropriate to say, perhaps, that a war or natural disaster decimated the population in a certain area, but are souls really being reduced by 10%?
I think this is a losing battle, friend. The sense of “devastate” is in the dictionaries for “decimate.” It may have historically meant “reduce by 10%,” but usage determines meaning in language, and what probably began as a misuse has become the common meaning of this word.
A certain common sense way of thinking is becoming clearer and clearer as the months pass thanks largely to the evilness of Mr Bergoglio. Thank God for that.
Knowing the evilness of Bergoglio is step number 1. When do we see step number 2–getting rid of him?
Yes, we’ve been calling for action to protect the Faith and souls for nearly four years, since at least Holy Thursday, 2013. Lord, save us!
Be are we not of a traditional mindset and use words in the traditional sense? Please, you’ve not drunk the “gay” kool-aid have you? 😉
I know there are many Sedevacantist reading Louie’s blog, I have a question on annulment, see if you can answer (of course anyone can answer but I just haven’t found out their position). Essentially is this “What should a traditional priest do if someone who wants to become a traditional Catholic if he or she got an annulment before?” who decides if the annulment granted is valid (that means the marriage was invalid)? There is a traditional Catholic web site called “Tradition In Action” in answering someone who became a traditional Catholic but obtained an annulment previously and asked what he or she should do, TIA told him or her to not to question it. And I asked the same question of the Fatima Center founded by Fr. Gruner the answer I got was “We don’t know what Fr. Gruner think if someone already got an annulment and become a traditional Catholic”. I don’t know if The Remnant, Catholic Family News etc. has any article on how to deal with annulments handed out by the tribunals. Did Louie write about what to do with annulments before? It seems SSPX approch is right if there is an annulment look into it to see if it is valid from what I know the rejection rate for NONE lack of form, that means there was a marriage blessed by the Church, is close to 100 percent. That means the tribunal usually got it wrong. But does SSPX or any traditonal priest have the authority to reject the validity of an annulment? How about those annulments granted under the New Canon issued by Francis which is based solely on heresies, should we as laity reject those annulments wholesale?
Everything in the v2 NO church is doubtful.
Good Sunday evening, Theresa. How refreshing to read someone mention the holy Don Luigi Villa, may Almighty God rest his beautiful soul in the company of his dear friend and confidant, Saint Padre Pio. His apostolate, Chiesa Viva is the true “hermeneutic of continuity” to the One True Church, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, and not the hermeneutic of the Freemasonic anti-Church as controlled by the current Pontiff, Pope Ratzinger. This menace, anti-pope Francesco, is the final conclusion of the Freemasonic anti-popes John XXIII and the sodomite and Freemason, Paul VI. As you know, Pope Pius XII sanctioned the clandestine work of Don Luigi, under the guidance of the faithful son of the Church and Cardinal, Prefect of the CDF, Otavianni, all at the behest of the living Saint, Fr. Padre Pio, who requested that his dear friend, Don Luigi, spend the rest of his life (dying in 2013 two weeks before the defective abdication of BXVI) rooting out ecclesiastical Freemasonry. Of course what was to be discovered would cause the “unprotected” Catholic to loose his faith, which in praxis he has already done, even unbeknownst to him. These emissaries of Lucifer have taken the discipline of lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi, and used it against the Faith, with the so called, “Novus Ordo Missae” as their weaponized prayer. This Freemasonic expression of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass led to a loss in belief and a change in life, leaving the Supernatural Faith. Our Lady of Guadalupe please pray for us. In caritas.
I don’t think that you will find an answer in these times. What authority are you going to bank on? The almost 100% annulment rate of the Novus Ordo establishment? If heretics can be Catholics, then they are the authority, and they bear the burden of guilt at their judgement. But if heretics can’t be Catholics, then the Novus Ordo establishment has a serious doubt regarding the certainty of the annulment fiasco.
Could it be that for those who need an annulment simply do not have access to this in the current time, and have to remain chaste and continent for the time being, which may mean the rest of one’s life? I don’t know. I don’t think you are going to find a satisfactory answer at the moment, and I am very sorry to have to say so.
Tom thanks for your reply! I take it all annulments should not be recognized then. Now how about marriages that were not conducted by a Sedevacantist priest? Are those marriages not Sacramental or not Catholic marriages?
If the couple gets married in a Novus Ordo church, they are presumed to have the intention of doing what the Church does. The spouses are the ministers of the sacrament, not the Priest. He is the witness representing the Church. His view of the Pope has no effect upon the validity of the sacrament of matrimony. The couple thinks that the Novus Ordo is the Church, so they go there because they have the right intention. Generally of course. There are always exceptions. So Novus Ordo marriages are as valid, Catholic and sacramental as any other Catholic marriage.
The Sacrament of Marriage (in the West/Roman rite) is effected by the mutual, free consent of the man and woman- the priest is only the Church’s official witness. As for annulments- I do not know.
All of these are good questions, If we had a real Pope we could get answers to these questions.
It really is ironic that the whole focus in the NO V2 sect today is over divorced and remarried. Its a red herring because all they have to do is apply for an NO annulment and they would get it. But this solution isnt presented in their concocted scenarios because it isnt really the issue. The final issue is to do away with these sins of the flesh so the NO prelates can justify their sodomy. Its truly a nest of filth and I cannot for the life of me understand how any faithful Catholic continues to have anything to do with these filthy perverted heretics.
“We have had bad popes in the past…” Problem is NOT BAD POPE, problem is Vatican II, when all anti-Church, modernist forces get theoretical basis for further devastating dirty tricks. From that time on there could not be, and was not pope in true sense of this word. This is not question about were these popes good or bad, they simply ceased to be catholics. This is much, much worse than simple bad pope. If we are remaining in this poisonous VII environment, we have not any chance to get CATHOLIC pope, even theoretically. I’m simple layman, not theologian, however, by applying common sense and elementary knowledge of Church history, I can’t recognize popes since VII. Probably they were good guys, but not popes of catholic Church.
There are no valid annulments as there is no valid Church to set forth a valid tribunal. Any v2 annulment is certainly false as it is conducted by a false tribunal which has been set up by the vatican 2 false church. Any person who partakes in this garbage, and gets married again, lives in constant mortal sin. As For this “living as brother and sister” thing…how do you reconcile this notion as the TRUE spouse who was abandoned lives in misery while you live with your “brother” or “sister”? Yeah ok.
Thanks Tom. I am surprised a marriage can be Sacramental addition to valid (like you said the contract is between the man and woman) if the witness is not a clergy. Now do Sedevacantist reject ALL annulments? How about for lack of form which is straight forward.
I as a sede reject ALL V2 annulments because the tribunals are false. No set of goofball homosexuals formed in a false rite can determine what marriage is…..they dont even know what Catholicism is.
Daniel, there is no set opinion on these matters amongst sedes. The reason is that these matters must be settled by competent authority in the Church. And right now we do not have any competent authority to judge these matters since 99% of the “catholics” are modernists and modernists are heretics and heretics are not Catholic. So I go back to my original answer of everything is doubtful that has been issued after 1958. We can be assured that if one is Baptized according to the proper form and matter then the sacrament is valid no matter who administers it. We can also be assured of a sacramental marriage if the man and women had the intention of doing what the Church does. After that any other V2 NO sacrament is doubtful due to the ambigious changes in the form and the misunderstanding of priesthood taught in the modern seminaries. It sounds harsh but we were warned of a great apostasy and I believe we are living it right now.
Sedevacantism Debunked In A Nutshell
–
The dogmatic sedevacantist position is one that may appear as a legitimate solution to this crisis in the Church (the worst in Her history, it would seem), but only to those who have not yet fully explored its ramifications or do not know Her teaching well enough. In point of fact, there are at least several “one-shot kills” of the position – simple facts that, in and of themselves, render it logically impossible and, actually, leading directly to material heresy. We will explore a few of them here, and then briefly explore the false basis of the sedevacantist position.
–
1) The Fourth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, Canon 10: The Church directly and formally considered the question of whether or not the faithful can formally separate from any prelate sans judgment by the Church, and the answer – of course – was no. Sedevacantists live materially under the anathema the council declared:
–
“… this holy and universal synod justly and fittingly declares and lays down that no lay person or monk or cleric should separate himself from communion with his own patriarch before a careful enquiry and judgment in synod, even if he alleges that he knows of some crime perpetrated by his patriarch, and he must not refuse to include his patriarch’s name during the divine mysteries or offices.”
–
2) The Church teaches that the public acceptance by a moral unanimity of the Church of a supreme pontiff is itself proof of his validity; the theologians agree that this constitutes what is known as a “dogmatic fact,” which is a matter so closely related to a dogma that it must be infallibly true for the dogma to have meaning (that dogma in this case being essentially papal infallibility). It is a mortal sin against Faith to reject a dogmatic fact.
–
What if Pius V had lost his office due to heresy, and his ratification of the Council of Trent was thus null? If Catholics could not rely on the dogmatic facts of papal acceptance, absolutely nothing in the Church would be certain! Would Christ have constructed such a house of cards?
–
(Note that the exceptions such as the Western Schism do not undo this rule: In such cases there obviously was *not* universal acceptance of the pontiff.)
–
3) The Visibility of the Church: The Church’s visibility is one of her three attributes – necessary qualities that follow directly from her nature – and sedevacantism leads directly to a denial of it (or her indefectibility, which is probably an even more serious breach of Catholic doctrine).
–
This visibility has both material and formal aspects: Materially, people can identify the Church by her visible members & hierarchy and, formally, know the Catholic Church is the true Church, by her Marks. For God to command that souls enter this Church (as He does) as the Ark of Salvation, it must be formally visible. As Christ’s incarnate, physical Body was visible, so is that of His Church. (And as He is composed of two natures, divine and human, so is the Church – one can err, one cannot.)
–
The notion of an invisible Church (with visible members) was, of course, one of the primary errors/denials of the early “Reformers,” and that is exactly where sedevacantists have pitched their tent today – as with the Protestants, it is essentially a *necessary* consequence of their position. Sede leaders have advanced models of the Church that are identical to the Protestant definition. But the Church cannot be invisible; it cannot be hidden; it cannot be some visible entity other than what it was in the past. Any of these things destroy the Church’s teachings regarding her visibility. Sedevacantism tosses this to the wind with their constant talk of the “false church of Vatican II”. If this Church is now false, where, now, is the Catholic Church? Clearly they cannot point to any specific Church that *has her four Marks and necessary attributes*. They know this and do not try; that is how they end up with the Protestent definition of the Church as merely a collection of visible members.
–
(Somewhat related to visibility is the mark of universality (catholicity). Theologians have discussed two two aspects of catholicity: right & fact. The former of these means that the Church always had the aptitude to spread throughout the world, and the latter that it did, in fact, do so. Van Noort, among others, notes that once the Church became universal in fact (spread to many nations) this characteristic became a permanent, necessary quality of it. Thus, once the Church (visible as she always has been and will be) became spread broadly among many nations, this so-called moral universality became a permanent property. The Church is now formally visible throughout virtually the entire world, perpetually – everyone (generally speaking) knows of the Catholic Church. It can never be the case that the Church that was once so broadly visible can cease to be formally visible.)
–
We’ve got three separate, unrelated matters that each kill the sede hypothesis dead in one shot.
–
Now that we have taken a look at some things that destroy the sedevacantist position before it gets out of the gate, we’ll look at the root of their errors.
–
As we all know, the core tenet of sedevacantism is that the post-conciliar popes (as well as more than a few others some of them also condemn) either were never popes or lost their office due to heresy (the *sin* of heresy as opposed to the crime, they say, this being an important distinction).
–
Concerning that critical determination of heresy, it is here where the dogmatic sedes first go wrong – and these errors in premise result in large errors in conclusion (as John Salza likes to say). The demonstrated fact (it’s been demonstrated very thoroughly by Salza & Siscoe) is that there is no theologian in the history of the Church who ever sanctioned what the sedes do: Making the critical determination of formal (obstinate) heresy a matter of private judgment.
–
I’m going to include only one link in this little piece, and that’s this one: http://www.trueorfalsepope.com/p/whyfr.html
–
Bellarmine has long been the sedevacantists’ “go-to theologian,” but he, like all the rest of them, clearly taught that *the Church* (not Fr. Cekada, Mario Derkson, John Lane, or any of the rest of them) must make a judgement of pertinacity in heresy for a pontiff to be separated from his office.
–
(Bellarmine, the canon “Si Papa” which was Church law for eight centuries, and other theologians note that the crime of heresy is the one exception to the rule that “the First See can be judged by no one.”)
–
There is more. Related to the determination of pertinacity, sedes all make a critical error in confusing the sin vs. the crime of heresy. They have long based their position on thesis that *sin* of heresy (which lives in the *internal* forum) results in the loss of ecclesiastic office, which is a matter of the *external* forum. In fact, neither the Church in any capacity nor any theologian has ever taught such a thing. God alone, of course, judges the internal forum, and nothing in the internal forum can possibly sever one from the *Body* of the Church (sedes typically make no distinction whatever between the Body and the Soul of the Church), which is where ecclesiastic office resides. (All the evidence for these assertions is in “True or False Pope,” and it is irrefutable.)
–
As Bellarmine also said, to paraphrase, as the Church is directly involved in elevating a man to the papacy, so it must be involved in separating him from it, should that occur.
–
Aquinas condemned the “judgement by usurpation” endemic to an individual claiming to have the power to depose a prelate from his office (in congruence with the Fourth Council of Constantinople referenced above).
–
This has been a very high-level view of the fatal issues with sedevacantism, intended to be extremely succinct. Rest assured that for every objection raised, there is an answer, and they can pretty much all be found in “True Or False Pope.”
–
God hasn’t given us a Church – perpetual, indefectible, and immaculate, the infallible Ark of Salvation – yet so ridiculously fragile and subject to individual whim as the sede thesis claims. It can’t have been meant to work that way and it does not work that way. Realizing how terrible this crisis of modernism is, seeing the Church bruised and bloodied, is indeed impetus for *exploring* notion such that the pontiffs who have ruled over this ruin were and are not truly popes. However, it simply is not possible to conclude so without embracing not only logical absurdities but material heresy as well.
–
One can see that some of these things can’t really be explained in sound bytes; it seems that sedes do tend to like things simple. They throw out Fr. Cekada’s syllogism again & again without realizing it is full of oversimplifications and other errors. Sorry, but we can’t demand a Theology of Bumper Stickers.
–
But, actually, this IS simple – look above. Sedevacantism quickly leads to logical nonsense, contradicts de fide teachings of the Church, and, according to the theologians, entails anathema or mortal sin in at least two areas (formal separation from a prelate without judgement from the Church, and rejection of the dogmatic fact of a pontiff’s election & reign).
Unfortunately for you, you don’t know the definition of the word.
ACT
I have certain issues with the Dimond Bros, but I would pay serious cash to hear you debate them and get ripped to shreds in the process. PLEASE challenge them to a debate and let me know when it is.
St. Thomas (II-II:11:1) defines heresy: “a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas”.
Sorry ACT, I assumed you meant the word “heretic.” Cant be too sure with lawyer types. So let me define a Catholic too: A baptised person who professes the Catholic faith. Or was it one of the other words you think I dont know the definition?