Cum ex Apostolatus Officio: A special law binding forever
+St. Camillus of Lellis, Confessor+
Introduction
Some may object that Pope Paul IV’s 1559 Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio has too frequently been discussed on this blog and cannot possibly be elaborated upon any further. But the information on one site only recently viewed needs to be addressed, especially in light of the fact that we swear obedience to the Sacred Canons in the profession of faith, as was pointed out in our last blog. To do so we must know to what extent the canons bind us and how they bind us. And we must learn this from what the popes, especially, and truly approved pre-1959 theologians and canonists have taught — NOT the spew of LibTrad pseudo-clergy and their subservient apologists who are not Catholic in the first place, so have no right to even comment. Below is a sample of the damage that can be done regarding the teachings of the Church and Canon Law, based on nothing but the opinions of LibTrad “experts.” Please forgive the length of this blog, but it is necessary if the papacy is to be defended and those spreading error unequivocally rebuked.
The following is taken from the WM Review: “While everyone has an opinion on Paul IV’s Apostolic Constitution [Bull] ‘Cum ex Apostolatus Officio’ and the heretic pope question, not everyone has read his text, or understood its status today… The 1917 Code of Canon Law makes clear that penal laws which are not expressly incorporated into the code are abrogated. The Bull was included in the Fontes (sources) of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, as a footnote for Can. 188.4. However, Fontes is a private work of Cardinal Gasparri, and not an authoritative indication that Paul IV’s Constitution remains in force, in whole or in part (still less, in which parts).” There is no indication in this comment of WHERE the Code makes this clear, (Canon Law citation), nor is any proof offered that the teaching of Cum ex… is excluded from the Code, and how and why it is excluded.
The WM Review author’s article then goes on to list comments made only by “experts” evaluating the Bull today and dismissing it as no longer in force. To support this claim, they cite one 19th century canonist, Joseph Cardinal Hergenrother, who classified the Bull as a penal law — denying its infallibility and dismissing it as a “disciplinary” document. But Hergenrother wrote before the 1917 Code of Canon Law came into existence and commentators on the Code clarified the application of the old laws. But before quoting Hergenrother, we need to remind readers what the Vatican Council and Pope Pius IX taught concerning disciplinary laws: “If anyone thus speaks that the Roman Pontiff has…not the full power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals but also in those things which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church…Or that this power is not ordinary and immediate…over pastors and faithful altogether AND INDIVIDUALLY; let him be anathema.”
Hergenrother says in his work, “The Bull…only contains penal sanctions against heresy, which belong to disciplinary laws alone…Besides the renewal of old, there is an addition of new punishments, which equally belongs to the sphere of discipline.” But Pope Pius IX makes it clear below that it is heresy to deny that disciplinary documents are binding on Catholics. In 1873, in his Quartus Supra, (to the clergy and faithful of the Armenians) Pius IX taught: “Nor can the Eastern Churches preserve communion and unity of faith with Us without being subject to the Apostolic power in matters of discipline. Teaching of this kind is HERETICAL, and not just since the definition of the power and nature of the papal primacy was determined by the ecumenical Vatican Council: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS ALWAYS CONSIDERED IT SUCH AND ABHORRED IT.”
Pope Pius IX also taught, in Quae in patriarchatu: “In fact, Venerable Brothers and beloved Sons, it is a question of recognizing the power (of this See), even over your churches, not merely in what pertains to faith, but also in what concerns discipline. HE WHO WOULD DENY THIS IS A HERETIC; HE WHO RECOGNIZES THIS AND OBSTINATELY REFUSES TO OBEY IS WORTHY OF ANATHEMA,” (Pope Pius IX, September 1, 1872, to the clergy and faithful of the Chaldean Rite.) Since the Church has “always abhorred it” and considered it heresy, those shamelessly limiting the application of these papal condemnations to the Armenians and Chaldeans can scarcely defend their claim.
We know that the primary reason Angelo Roncalli, (John 23), could never have been a candidate for the papacy was his listing as a Modernist by Pope Pius XI. Roncalli’s biographer Peter Hebblethwaite (John XXIII, Pope pf the Century) seems to imply that Roncalli in 1910 approached [his taking of the Modernist] oath as a general act of loyalty to the pope without endorsing its provisions (p. 34). Hebblethwaite observes that, in something of the same spirit, “[F]rom the whole tragic episode Roncalli drew the conclusion that there were other and better ways of dealing with ‘error’ in the Church.” (p. 36). So it is no surprise that Roncalli later fell victim to this error, having obviously been infected with it during his seminary days, just as many others were. If we have any doubts that Roncalli was a professed Modernist (not to mention good reason to believe he was a Freemason) one need only turn to the public comments he made. A great collection of these may be found HERE, as well as in various papal biographies.
The attempts to totally discredit Cum ex… can only be viewed as a wholesale effort on the part of LibTrads to discourage any serious investigation into the validity of Roncalli’s election and the true situation in the Church today, which would divest them of their fraudulent status. Rev. Anscar Parson (Canonical Elections, Catholic University of America Canon Law dissertation, page 73) notes that Cum ex… is the OLD LAW listed in the Fontes regarding heresy and schism in canonical elections (Can. 167). A careful elucidation of the actual content of para. 6 of the bull reveals Pope Paul IV’s true intent in preventing Roncalli and anyone else from ever being considered a canonically elected pope. We make the observations below only because so many continue to misrepresent the bull and omit certain factual details.
Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, Dryden translation, para. 6
“In addition, [We enact, determine, decree. define] that IF EVER AT ANY TIME IT BECOMES CLEAR THAT ANY BISHOP, EVEN ONE CONDUCTING HIMSELF AS an Archbishop, Patriarch, or primate; OR ANY CARDINAL of the aforesaid Roman Church, even as mentioned, a Legate; OR LIKEWISE ANY ROMAN PONTIFF BEFORE his promotion or elevation as a Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has strayed or deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy, or has incurred schism, then his promotion or elevation shall be null, invalid and void. It cannot be declared valid or become valid through his acceptance of the office, his consecration, subsequent possession or seeming possession of government and administration, or by the enthronement of or homage paid to the same Roman Pontiff, or by universal obedience accorded him, or by the passage of any time in said circumstances, NOR SHALL IT BE HELD AS QUASI-LEGITIMATE.… The persons themselves so promoted and elevated shall, ipso facto and without need for any further declaration, be deprived of any dignity, position, honor, title, authority, office and power…”
- IF EVER AT ANY TIME IT BECOMES CLEAR [manifest or evident]: This is the Prof. Benjamin F. Dryden translation, from the Latin version of Cum ex…, first published in 1978 by Prof. Carlos Disandro of Argentina. This introductory phrase has been cross-referenced (by this author) with Cassell’s Latin Dictionary. The Daly translation reads “APPEAR,”(become visible), the first definition in Latin; but this is ambiguous. And the alternate, second (modern) definition of appear as “seem” could be said to apply, when “seem” indicates an indefinite determination of a grave matter — heresy, apostasy or schism.
- That ANY BISHOP, OR ANY CARDINAL EVEN ONE CONDUCTING HIMSELF AS… [a] ROMAN PONTIFF: to conduct oneself AS something means that one is not really that something;
- BEFORE his promotion or elevation as a Cardinal or Roman Pontiff: which indicates said bishop or cardinal was in this condition prior to his elevation as a cardinal or election as pope;
- Has strayed or deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy, or has incurred schism, then his promotion or elevation shall be null, invalid and void: And this, according to other translations, “…even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals.” So if at any time after the fact, it should be discovered that a man elevated to the cardinalate or the papacy was guilty of heresy apostasy or schism prior to that elevation, then the election to that office was null, void and invalid; that is, IT NEVER HAPPENED, and the votes of the cardinals were void.
It should be noted that WM Review publishes the translation of the Bull by John S. Daly. This translation conveniently omits an important part of paragraph 6 of the bull, which the original Latin and Dryden’s translation includes. That part is, in addition to heresy, “has deviated [deviasse] from the faith or has incurred schism.”Very Rev. H.A. Ayrinhac wrote in his Penal Legislation in the New Code of Canon Law, under Can. 2314 that a fide Catholica deviasse in the Bull is now definitely interpreted as “a Christianae fide apostatus,” or apostasy from the faith (no. 197 in Ayrinhac work). Regarding the matter of schism, its inclusion is important as explained by Rev. Ignatius Szal in his dissertation, The Communication of Catholics with Schismatics (1948, Catholic University of America), where he wrote:
“The earliest Bulla to contain an enacted excommunication against schismatics was that of Paul IV in 1559… From what has been said, it is evident that the status of the schismatic before the year 1559 was at most one of doubtful excommunication.” And as Ayrinhac also wrote in his Penal Legislation under Can. 2314: “Schism is formally assimilated now to heresy and apostasy in every respect at least in regard to the penalties enacted in this cannon. There is no distinction made as formally between schismatics and persons who withdraw from obedience to the reigning pontiff.” He further notes, under Can. 2331 [no. 243]: “Disobedience becomes schism when it implies rejection of the Pope’s authority and separation from the center of unity.” Given Pope Pius IX’s clear teaching on matters of discipline and LibTrad behavior in general regarding papal teaching, schism is their middle name.
- NOR SHALL IT BE HELD AS QUASI-LEGITIMATE: The meaning of this prefix is, according to https://www.etymonline.com/word/quasi-quasi(adv: “As if, as it were,” used in introducing a proposed or possible explanation, late 15c., a Latin word used in Latin in hypothetical comparisons, “as if, just as if, as though;” in real comparisons “just as, as;” and in approximation, “somewhat like, nearly, not far from.” Pope Paul IV forbids any such appointment to be considered even potentially legitimate. Sorry, material formal believers, this nixes your hypothetical nonsense. No inference contrary to the evident facts is true; conjectural opinions are dangerous, (Pope Pius XII; Humani Generis).
Commenting on Can. 1828, which warns against conjecturing about something not proven as “a fact established by evidence in the case,” Revs. Woywod-Smith write: “(5) All persons are presumed to know the law. (CANON LAW DOES NOT ADMIT IGNORANCE AS AN EXCUSE FROM THE LAWS THAT DISQUALIFY A PERSON OR RENDER ACTS INVALID…)” Both Cum ex Apostolatus Officio and Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis are infallible pronouncements which disqualify persons from acting and render their acts invalid. Yet LibTrads remain willfully ignorant of this fact.
- WITHOUT NEED FOR ANY FURTHER DECLARATION: Once the heresy is clear, evident, manifest, there is no need for any declaration that the person is excluded from office and was never elected or appointed. Abp. Amleto Cicognani, in his Canon Law, quotes the theologian Chelodi, who tells us that according to Can. 2232 §1: “The notoriety of an offence is held equivalent to a declaratory sentence” (page 703-704). The proofs presented HERE leave no doubt that LibTrad contentions regarding the necessity of declaratory sentences directly contradict the teaching of Pope Paul IV in Cum ex… as well the continual teaching of the magisterium.
Pseudo-bishop Sanborn declares Cum ex… abrogated
Why is there so much confusion concerning Cum ex…? Because so-called LibTrad “experts” such as the pseudo-bishop Donald Sanborn have officially weighed in on the matter — they who must be obeyed. Sometime during the usurper Benedict 16’s reign Sanborn wrote:
“Cum ex Aposatolatus is an apostolic constitution, a law, made by Pope Paul IV, which says that if a pope should be a heretic, his elevation to this dignity would be null. It was made in order to ensure that no Protestant could ever become the Pope. It does not apply to the present case for two reasons. The first is that it is no longer the law. It was derogated (made obsolete) by the 1917 Code of Canon Law. The second reason, and the more important, is that even if it should for some cause still have force, it could only apply to Ratzinger if he were legally recognized as a public heretic. But, as we have seen, there is no legal condemnation of Ratzinger. Before the law of the Church he does not have the status of heretic because (1) he himself does not hold himself guilty of heresy, and (2) no legitimate superior holds him guilty of heresy. An admission of guilt, or an authoritative judgment, is a condition required for the election to be juridically rendered null. Without it, the man is and remains the true pope quoad nos, and all his acts of jurisdiction remain valid.”
Let us begin by saying that Pope Paul IV’s Cum ex Apostolatus Officio was not a constitution but a BULL, in its time, “The most solemn and weighty form of papal letter” (Attwater’s Catholic Dictionary). “Formerly all-important papal letters including canonization decrees were called Bulls” (New Catholic Dictionary, Pius XI edition). These definitions say nothing about bulls being just laws, strictly speaking. And neither is an apostolic constitution merely a “law.” This type of papal document can deal with serious doctrinal matters regarding the definition of dogma, changes in canon law or disciplinary matters. Apostolic constitutions in later times were issued as papal bulls because of their solemn, public form. Sanborn’s intent appears to attempt to minimize the weight of Cum ex… and limit it from the outset solely as a law without doctrinal content. Furthermore, he obviously does not even know the difference between abrogate and derogate in the law. Abrogate means to abolish (make obsolete, with obsolete meaning no longer in use; replaced with something new). Derogate means to annul only in part; to restrict. And this guy is passing himself off as a bishop?!
We now address (1) in Sanborn’s document, the inapplicability of Cum ex… in the 1917 Code. Commenting on Can. 6, Revs. Woywod and Smith relate in their commentary on the Code: “In reference to the former Canon Law, the Code states that, as a rule, the old discipline is retained…The STUDENT of Canon Law must keep in mind the rules of Can. 6 throughout the whole course of study of the Code, for these rules are the key to the correct interpretation of all the laws of the Code.” Can. 6, no. 5 reads: “All former ecclesiastical penalties of which no mention is made in the Code are abolished.” But the Latin version of the Code definitely lists Cum ex… in its footnotes, also recorded by Peter Cardinal Gasparri in his Fontes (sources). This is true not only for Can. 188§4 but also for several other Canons dealing with heresy, (Codex Iuris Canonici, Peter Cardinal Gasparri, Newman Press, 1957.) The Code lists Cum ex… as a source not only for Can. 188§4, but also for Canons 167§3, 2198, 2209, 2264, 2265, 2294, 2314, 2316 and 2317, and there may be others, (see HERE).
Rev. Cicognani comments: “Under the canons are placed footnotes or notes…first from the ‘Codicis Iuris Canonici,’ the Constitutions of Popes, from the Sacred Congregations, and from Liturgical Books…In the Code there are nearly 26,000 citations of the old law. Of these, 8,400 are from Gratian’s Decretum; about 1,200 from Ecumenical Councils; about 4,000 from Papal Constitutions; about 11,200 from the Sacred Congregations and 800 from liturgical Books. Surely this is a very eloquent reply to those who think that since the old the old laws of the church have lost all utility and the history of their sources is become meaningless.” Cicognani then goes on to mention that Pietro Cardinal Gasppari is in the process of presenting all the documents cited in the notes to the canons. He notes that they don’t have the same legal force as the Canons themselves but are intended to be used in matters of interpretation. He also points out: “In a commentary on the canons the footnotes must never be neglected list that occurred which Quintillian spoke the pediments are viewed the foundations are hidden.”
Special law is immune from abrogation
Rev. Nicholas Neuberger comments that fewer fontes are provided for the penal laws, making the mention of Cum ex… even more auspicious. And it is Rev. Neuberger who provides the reason why Cum ex… could never be abrogated. He states: “Canon 6 deals with subsidiary sources of the Code. The old law in general is esteemed as such an interpretive aid. If a prior law is bound up by an oath which reads into it immunity from abrogation, the law is not countermanded unless expressed mention is made to that effect. The reasons for this assertion is that the legislator is mindful of a law which has an oath attached and hence abrogation would be INVALID. No allowance is made for such enactments in Canon 6… A doubt concerning valid abrogation has no significance, for the law ever retains its binding force… In doubt the presumption is in favor of the former legislation. The penalties, for example, in the Vacante Sede Apostolica are still enforceable. This constitution of Pius X is special legislation. All special legislation is inviolate according to the prescriptions of Canon 6 n. 5.” And there is no record that Cum ex… was ever abrogated or derogated. In fact, Pope St. Pius V reaffirmed it in his Inter Multiplices.
Therefore Cum ex…, Pope Pius II’s Execrabilis, forbidding the appeal of a Roman Pontiff’s decrees to a future council; Pope St. Pius V’s Quo Primum; Pope St. Pius X’s papal election law Vacante Sede Apostolica; Pope Benedict XV’s Providentissima Mater Ecclesia, promulgating the Code of Canon Law and Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, which forbids anyone to change the laws or teachings of the Church in any way during an interregnum cannot be abrogated — all have an oath attached and state they must be observed “in perpetuity.” They can be counted among those documents which the Church teaches can neither be questioned nor violated. In updating Vacante Sede Apostolica, Pope St. Pius X’s election law, Pope Pius XII was careful to change very little out of respect for his predecessor and in accordance with this maxim. This can be seen from the documents themselves. As stated HERE it has been retained in several canons, not just 188 §4. So it is interesting that the WM Review article, referring to Daly, observes:
“The Bull was included in the Fontes (sources) of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, as a footnote for Can. 188.4. However, Fontes is a private work of Cardinal Gasparri, and not an authoritative indication that Paul IV’s Constitution remains in force, in whole or in part (still less, in which parts).” How disingenuous! For the Fontes was printed by the Vatican Press, and Gasparri served for 17 years as the President of the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code of Canon Law. The quote on which this assumption is based is taken out of context from Neuberger’s work. I can say this because the Neuberger work in my possession was given to me by John Daly in Australia and is marked in precisely the spot referenced above. The entire quote reads:
“Much of the former discipline has been retained. Very few canons are destitute of some form of prescription. These old laws have juridical force only inasmuch as they are embodied in the canons. They are the interpretive norms of the new law whenever the new and the old coincide. The laws effective at the promulgation of the Code are usually cited in the footnotes of each Canon. The notation of the sources, however, is not authentic. Consequently other sources may be used by the canonists provided they have survived the principles of abrogation and produce relevant matter. Thanks to the eminent canonist Gasppari not a little chaotic interpretation has been averted through the alignment of the sources under each Canon. There are Canons which reproduce the old law in its entirety.”
Cum ex..., then has juridical force because it is retained not in just one canon on heresy, but several. The listing itself as a footnote does not give it this force, but its embodiment in the Code does. Without the actual documents and a complete listing of all the relevant documents, which Gasparri provided, one does not possess the entirety of the sources. Neuberger only confirms what Abp. Cicognani already stated above: the old laws have no legal force themselves unless embodied in the Canons, and then they can be consulted to facilitate interpretation.
Rev. Neuberger says about the conditions of retention of the old law in the 1917 Code: “The legislator has constructed Can. 6 (n. 1-6) to show the relation between the Canon and preceding enactments.” He then lists three different ways a law may be retained in the Code.
1.) The old law is retained by either stating it verbatim;
2.) Mentioning the subject matter followed by the phrase ad normam Constitutionis (referring one to the specific Constitution) or
3.) By expressing the enactment in different terminology.
As quoted from Woywod-Smith above: “All former ecclesiastical penalties of which no mention is made in the Codeare abolished (Can. 6 n. 5).” So if one refuses to search the Code for reiterations of Cum ex… based on Gasparri’s footnotes providing the sources, which Cicognani says cannot be ignored, we are left only with 188 §4, which Daly cited in his translation in 1984. The only other treatment I am aware of regarding the additional canons mentioning Cum ex… was published to this site in 2006. But they were also partially listed in the work Will the Catholic Church Survive…? in 1990. So in discrediting the reliability of the sources listed as not authentic, WM effectively contradicts the canons themselves, demolishing the ability of canonists to determine what is listed in the sources as the “old law.” This effectively shuts down any attempt at interpretation, when, as Woywod-Smith note, “…The student of Canon Law must keep in mind the rules of Can. 6 throughout the whole course of study of the Code, for these rules are the key to the correct interpretation of all the laws of the Code.”
This being the case, special attention must be paid to Can. 6 §4, as Hutton Gibson pointed out in his newsletter in the early 1980s. This rule under Canon 6 reads: “In case of doubt whether some provision of the Canons differs from the old law one must adhere to the old law. Rev. Neuberger comments: “In doubt, the presumption is in favor of the former legislation. The presumption is merely in favor of a more seasoned rule of interpretation. It is not the rejuvenation of the old law but merely an appeal to the interpretation which is certain. If the opposite were favored, much confusion would ensue… When the legislator prefers the old established rules, be they authentic or doctrinal, not a little trouble is avoided for the jurist.”
And that is the whole point: what we are discussing here is really how Cum ex… applies to the exclusion of apostates, heretics and schismatics from office. The elite pseudo-clergy pretend only they are allowed to peruse canon law and determine this, when Neuberger states that even private interpretation of the Canons is allowed. Can. 6 §4 legislates that the norms of Cum ex… be employed to judge heresy in cases of doubt. Failure to follow this Canon and adhere to the old law is a violation of the Canons, and Pope Pius XII condemns any departure from the Canons in his infallible constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. This effectively renders null and void Sanborn’s material-formal fiction and attempts to minimize LibTrad heresies.That these “experts” are so afraid of the truth and anxious to conceal it from their followers should be sufficiently clear, given the elaborate smokescreen Sanborn, in abrogating Cum ex…, attempts to erect regarding heresy below.
Sanborn contradicts the approved theologians on heresy
And now to Sanborn’s second error, (2), stated as fact, contradicting the approved canonists regarding the determinants for formal heresy. In the face of what the renowned theologian Rev. Garrigou-Lagrange tells us in his work, The Theological Virtues: Faith: “The one thing that suffices for formal heresy is an obstinate denial of any truth which has been infallibly proposed by the Church for belief. IT IS NOT NECESSARY THAT THE INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER REALIZES THAT THE TRUTH IN JEOPARDY HAS BEEN REVEALED” (p. 432). Revs. McHugh and Callan, in their Moral Theology, A Complete Course, teach: “Heresy is defined as “an error manifestly opposed to faith and assented to obstinately by one who had sincerely embraced the faith of Christ, (meaning only catechumens and the baptized, who after baptism have retained the name of Christian – Can. 1325 §2),” (#826, 827). And according to Can. 1325, Catholics must be able to determine what is heretical and denounce it or else they themselves become heretics.
“By “opposed to faith” means any judgment which, according to the logical rules of opposition between propositions, is irreconcilable with the truth of a formula of dogma OR A CENSURE FOR HERESY (826c). One who declares in public addresses or articles that he agrees with Modernism, or who joins openly an heretical sect… is a public heretic, (#828c). In Spirago and Clarke’s The Catechism Explained, 1927, (which errs in other points but agrees with McHugh and Callan on this particular point) the authors state: “Doctrinal decisions are usually accompanied by sentence of excommunication against those who refuse to submit to them; hence such decisions are binding for all Catholics” (p. 240). We mention this only because this catechism is a favorite among LibTrads. All these men were approved canonists and theologians, something Sanborn has never been and could never be. But this self-proclaimed “expert” is superior to them?!
In evaluating heresy, Sanborn focuses on imputability and pertinacity without identifying the Church’s definition of pertinacity, as the scholastic method and canons of the Code bid him to do. “Heresy is not formal unless one pertinaciously rejects the truth, knowing his error and consenting to it. But for formal heresy it is not required that a person give his consent out of malice, or that he continue in obstinate rejection for a long time, or that he refuses to heed admonitions given him. Pertinacity here means true consent to recognized error, and this can…be given in an instant and does not presuppose an admonition disregarded” (McHugh and Callan, ibid., #829b).
Rev. Eric MacKenzie, in his 1932 dissertation, The Delict of Heresy, says that heresy “consists not merely in error, but in error which is consciously and deliberately conceived by excluding the evidence which would otherwise lead to a true judgment… Heresy is an externalized, morally imputable violation of the Church’s law…committed most commonly by words written or spoken…[or by] signs, acts or omissions.” He defines pertinacity as “holding firmly.” Well LibTrads have held firmly to their disregard for Cum ex… and consideration of it as abrogated for decades “by excluding the evidence which would otherwise lead to a true judgment.” Likewise with Pope Pius XII’s infallible constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. That evidence has existed since 1990 and was readily available to LibTrads at that time.
Rev. Garrigou-Lagrange teaches in his “The Theological Virtues: Faith” that: “Pertinacious adherence to his error is the most distinctive character of a heretic. The sin of heresy consists in an obstinate upholding of A PERSONAL VIEW, recognizable as being against the faith, after the opposite truth or truths of faith have knowingly become sufficiently manifest. (…Once [heresy] becomes commonly known, especially on a large scale, it passes as manifest heresy…) Such a position cannot be ascribed to ignorance. It is the product of ill will… Pertinacity dignifies completeness of attachment, not necessarily temporal duration. The attitude can be instantaneous, a sudden seizure of ill-will against the faith after it has been sufficiently propounded by the Church…Heretical pertinacity is not directed immediately against God’s word, or truth in revealing. Its target is the infallibility of the Church’s authority.”
LibTrads hold liberal views on heresy
Canon E. J. Mahoney comments in his Questions and Answers: The Sacraments (1945): “The liberal view [is that] baptized non-Catholics in good faith are members of the body of the Church precisely because they are not excommunicated…The view diametrically opposed to this is [that] the excommunication of heretics applies to material as well as formal heretics…If a choice had to be made between these two views…, there is no question that the second fits in best with Catholic discipline, and, in particular, with our practice in reconciling converts…” Revs. Woywod-Smith on Can. 731: “All canonists and moralists agree that those who are heretics or schismatics and know they are wrong cannot be given the Sacraments of the Church unless they renounce their errors and are reconciled with the Church. Numerous decrees of the Holy Office put this point beyond controversy.” Did all those exiting from the Novus Ordo sect make the 1942 Profession of Faith when joining LibTrad sects? For certainly they were admitting they were wrong in staying with the Novus Ordo. And certainly Ratzinger admitted he and his usurping predecessors were wrong when he returned the consecration of the wine to “for many” after decades of “for all.”
MANY Catholics considered it a crime to change Christ’s very own words of the consecration of the wine. Patrick Henry Omlor, followed and respected by many, first labeled this as heresy in the late 1960s, implicitly condemning as the authors of this heresy both Paul 6 and John 23 (who inserted for all men into vernacular missalettes for the laity)? Omlor wrote: “142. …in the context in which it has been placed, in the “form” for The Eucharist, [for all men] conveys a FALSEHOOD, and also an implicit HERESY: the denial of the doctrine of The Mystical Body of Christ” (The Robber Church). But this widely circulated work was not public; the 1969 promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae was not public; the 1970s works of Saenz-Arriaga and Francis Panakal were not public?! The canonists Revs. Woywod-Smith note under Can. 2197: “The Code calls an offense public when knowledge of it has been spread among the people or when it was committed under circumstances which make it practically impossible to keep the offense secret. In order that a crime may be called public, it is necessary that the fact be publicly known as a criminal or morally imputable act, i.e., that the act is known as a crime.” Yet no one followed Omlor’s work or the works of these others through to their logical conclusions.
Conclusion
Given the above, the idea that Paul 6 and even John 23 were false popes, guilty of crimes against the faith, was certainly no secret; it was publicly known. “Heresy is an externalized, morally imputable violation of the Church’s law…committed most commonly by words written or spoken…[or by] signs, acts or omissions” (MacKenzie, see above). The faithful’s first impulse to act on these words was stifled and redirected by Sanborn and other branches of the Traditionalist movement worldwide. Sanborn, Daly and others rely heavily on St. Bellarmine’s teaching regarding an heretical pope. But what they never cite from his writings, the one reflex principle that would have resolved everything, is the following from Rev. E.S. Berry’s The Church of Christ, (1927):
“A DOUBTFUL POPE. When there is a prudent doubt about the validity of an election to any official position, there is also a similar doubt whether the person so elected really has authority or not. In such a case no one is bound to obey him, for it is an axiom that a doubtful law begets no obligation — lex dubia non obligat. But a superior whom no one is bound to obey is in reality no superior at all. Hence the saying of Bellarmine: a doubtful pope is no pope.
“Therefore,” continues the Cardinal, “if a papal election is really doubtful for any reason, the one elected should resign, so that a new election may be held. But if he refuses to resign, it becomes the duty of the bishops to adjust the matter, for although the bishops without the pope cannot define dogmas nor make laws for the universal Church, they can and ought to decide, when occasion demands, who is the legitimate pope; and if the matter be doubtful, they should provide for the Church by having a legitimate and undoubted pastor elected. That is what the Council of Constance rightly did.”
Well we know why the “bishops” never resolved the matter — they were never priests, far less bishops. Certainly they were never Catholic. Having carefully crafted and profited from their schismatic and heretical little empires, they and their lay apologists will happily continue to mislead the unwary. Perhaps they should pay attention to Pope Paul IV’s warning in para. 3 of Cum ex…:“[When those who teach others the Catholic faith] …prevaricate, they sin more gravely than others; for they not only lose themselves, but drag down with them to perdition and the pit of death countless other peoples entrusted to their care and government or otherwise subject to them.”
A validly ordained Catholic priest who avoided involvement with LibTrad groups wrote to a follower as early as 1979: “At present, if one of us could perform miracles to prove the Church is in apostasy, the Catholics who have been blind since John the 23rd’s reign will claim the miracle is by power of Beelzebub. It has been actually about a year that I do not wish nor try to convert anyone because it is useless. Only at the extreme where I am asked for help do I waste my energy… I am convinced that if people did not see the light in 15 years of Paul 6, they never will… The devil has really had a holiday with private prophecies. Prophecies are vague notions — nothing definite — open to hundreds of interpretations. Satan has made prophecy become ridiculous and a laughingstock especially when the ignorant Catholics were basing their hopes not on the Bible and Bible prophecy but on what one might suspect: hysterics… that salvation would come out of France with the limping nobleman who would lead an army on a horse and subjugate all nations to the Church. How stupid and ridiculous!
