Jews not guilty of ritual murder charge, popes teach

by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 10, 2025 | New Blog

+Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary+

Fr. Doyle’s Reflections on the Passion, Part 5

Gesthemani (cont’d):

It is right for us to plead earnestly for what we want – earnestly, perseveringly, but never insubmissively. We should recognize that God will not give us what will do more harm than good. Many of us have lived long enough to thank God that He did not give us what we asked in prayer in every instance. The best thing possible for us is always what God wills for us. Sometimes it may be pain, worldly loss, or some bereavement; yet His will is always love, and in simple acquiescence to God’s will, we shall always find our highest good. No prayer, therefore, is pleasing to God which does not end with the refrain of Gethsemani: “Not my will but Thine be done.”

This is the way to peace, for as we yield with love and joy, and merge our will with God’s His peace will flow like a river into our souls. Resolve that each time today you hear a clock strike the hour, you will say reverently, “Not my will but Thine be done.” Christ prayed three times in the Garden of Olives. After each prayer was finished, and the words of those three prayers, by the way, were nearly identical, the Master went back to His Apostles, and in each instance He found them asleep. Between the first and second sessions of prayer our Lord uttered a powerful warning, for He said to the drowsy disciples: “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt. 26:41).

“Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation” is a powerful warning that no man should disregard. In wartime it is not unusual to find a soldier court-martialed and summarily executed for falling asleep at his post. Life is a constant warfare against the legions of hell, and we must be ever watchful against sudden attacks from the enemy. But to watch alone is not enough. A sentinel posted on the walls, when he perceives the enemy gathering for an attack, would be foolhardy indeed, to presume to engage the enemy singlehanded. The wise soldier would send word to his commanding officer of the enemy’s approach. Watchfulness lies in observing the imminent approach of the enemy and prayer is the telling of it to God. Watchfulness without prayer is presumption, and prayer without watchfulness is a mockery.

The great Abbot John remarked that a man who is asleep at the foot of a tree and sees a wild animal coming toward him, will most certainly climb up into the tree to save himself. “So we,” says the Abbot, “when we perceive ourselves beset with temptations, ought to climb up to heaven and by the help of prayer, retire safely into the bosom of God.”

The saints have taught that short prayers are more effective in time of temptation. St. Athanasius, for instance, taught that the opening phrase of the sixty-seventh psalm produced miraculous effects for those who used it in time of temptation. Here are the words: “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered, and let those that hate Him fly before His face.” Note well, that our Lord did not tell His disciples to be relieved of temptation altogether, but rather that they “enter not into temptation.” God tempts no man, but He permits us to be tempted so to prove ourselves. “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been tried, he will receive the crown of life” (James 1:12). St. Bernard, explaining these inspired words of St. James, says: “it is necessary that temptations should happen, for who shall be crowned but he that shall lawfully have fought, and how shall a man fight, if there be none to attack him?”

Be undeceived – position, piety, or experience will not spare you temptations. Adam fell when he was in the state of grace and Peter fell soon after his first Holy Communion. Resolve today to make use of the holy names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the very outset of temptation. Try to commit the first sentence of the Psalm 67 to heart and promise yourself to make use of it as soon as you discern the approach of any temptation. (End of Fr. Doyle quote)

Introduction

In response to the Anti-Semitism booklet posted in a previous blog, it appears that certain bloggers frequented by LibTrads have increased postings condemning the Jews this Lenten season. These postings insinuate that the Church actually accepted Jewish ritual murder charges as true, when such charges were long ago refuted and condemned by the popes. The 1944 Antisemitism booklet explains this in no uncertain terms, and it cannot be brushed off as an already existing tendency to make concessions to the Jews at the false Vatican 2 council. Rev. Riley wrote in his booklet:

“The Popes courageously and in face of general popular antagonism have defended the Jews against calumnious accusations, notably of ritual murder, of ritual profanation of consecrated hosts and of the poisoning of wells at the time of the Black Death. The two calumnies, ritual murder and ritual profanation, still reappear, occasionally under, the names of estimable men, despite their repeated designation as vicious calumnies by Popes. This protecting charity amid wise administrative procedures has been the official tradition of the Church.”

I wish to be clear on this: I do not absolve the Jews of Christ’s time and those applauding them today of guilt in Christ’s death. The Jewish leaders in Christ’s day were definitely responsible for His Crucifixion and death. They cursed their descendants by calling down Christ’s blood upon them. But who those actual descendants are today is the real question. Certainly it is not the Ashkenazi Jews who only converted to Judaism at a later date. The Jewish convert David Goldstein and secular historians conclude that Jewish blood has been so diluted over the centuries, that Jews no longer exist as a race. As will be seen below, most Jews consider themselves such only culturally, not from a religious or racial standpoint. Orthodox and Zionist Jews comprise only a small portion of that group.

That ritual murder is indeed a calumny condemned by the popes is proven by the extensive quotes from papal documents below. But first, a sampling of what is falsely being presented — without any mention of the Church’s position — on other sites.

Fisheaters site

“[Blood Passover is] a book written by Professor Ariel Toaff — son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and a professor of Jewish Renaissance and Medieval History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel — about the reality behind so-called “blood libel” allegations made against some Jews during the Middle Ages. This book was published in Hebrew, in Israel, but when translated into other languages, outrage ensued. Threats were made against the writer’s life, demands were made that he be fired from his teaching post, and all copies of the book disappeared from bookstores, deliveries of the book were disrupted, etc., and it’s virtually unavailable to read in print in any language but Hebrew. So here it is, in spite of the actions and threats of those who don’t want you to read it.”

The extensive book list regarding the Jews on this site includes numerous works by perennialist E. Michael Jones, four volumes by British Israel proponent Henry Ford, Saenz/Pinay’s The Plot Against the Church, Elizabeth Dilling’s The Jewish Religion, (an Aryan nation favorite), and other questionable works. Not one papal document regarding the Jews is mentioned on this list. A disclaimer to this list does state the following: “Before going further, I want it to be made very clear — radically clear, excruciatingly clear: racism has no place whatsoever in a Catholic’s heart or mind. The information here is about Jewish leadership and the Jewish religion; it is not about every single human being born of a Jewish mother, “the Jews” as an ethnic group, or “the Jews” as a “race.” Racism — any idea that one race is more beloved by God or is more deserving of respect and charity than another race — has no place in a Catholic’s heart. None whatsoever. Nazism, “white supremacy,” and other similar ideologies are evil and toxic and in no way compatible with Catholicism.” But the books listed as authoritative seem to call this disclaimer into doubt.

Tradition in Action

This site lists several articles on Judaism, including a lengthy review of Toaff’s work. In his Toaff review, Atila S. Guimarães concludes that the Jews were indeed guilty of ritual murder.

The Thinking Housewife

Numerous recent articles have been posted at this site on the topic of ritual murder (blood libel) with a quote from Toaff. There is no mention of papal teaching on this topic that I was able to discover. Some 22 pages are listed in the search function featuring articles on the Jews. From a 2015 post on this site we read from Laura Wood: “At the time, I didn’t think much of the comment by the Jewish lawyer. But my thinking on this issue has changed, especially over the last two years after a lot of hard, time-consuming study. I am grateful to the many authors, especially Dr. E. Michael Jones, Michael Hoffmann III, the Rev. Denis Fahey and Hugh Akins, who have written powerfully and persuasively on this topic.” Wood has since disassociated herself from the perennialist E. Michael Jones, as explained in a recent blog post comment. Study might ostensibly include secular sources, but it had better be rooted in theological sources. Fahey is one, but he certainly cannot rival what the popes teach.

Rev. Fahey mentions the matter of ritual murder in his The Mystical Body of Christ and the Reorganization of Society, (pgs. 191-192). He states in a footnote that, “There are official documents of the Catholic Church unfavorable to the Jews in this matter,” but fails to quote from the actual documents of the popes. He cites St. Simon of Trent’s feast as March 25, (celebrated with another child martyr attributed to ritual murder, St. Wiliam of Norwich), as entered into the Roman Martyrology. In commenting on these feasts and others, Rev. Alban Butler wrote: “It is a notorious slander of some authors who, from these singular and extraordinary instances, infer this to have been at any time the custom or maxim of that people.” Commenting on Butler’s statement, Rev. Herbert Thurston and his assistant wrote:

“Butler’s protest is certainly well founded. No scrap of serious evidence has ever been adduced which would show that the use of Christian blood formed any part of Jewish ritual. It is possible that such child murders may occasionally have been committed by Jewish maniacs or as an act of private vengeance or by necromancers who wished to use the blood for some magical rite. Moreover if we confine our attention to the two martyrs here in question, there is no conclusive evidence that — confessions under torture being worthless — the guilt was brought home to those who were really the culprits,” (The Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, March, Vol. III, Corrected, Amplified and Edited by Herbert Thurston, S.J. and Norah Leeson, Burnes, Oates and Washbourne, 1931).

Other sites; Quas Primas

Catholic Family News, in the Spirit of Chartres (ISOC), Tradition Family and Property, The Remnant, CultureWars, the Society of St. Pius X and its publications, (and in the past, the publication Veritas) — all at various times have indicated that the Jews were the primary coordinators of Vatican 2 and are responsible for the Church’s ultimate destruction. That the Jews played a role in this is a matter of history, certainly. That they also help direct Freemasonry at the top is not disputed here, but the key word is “help.” As pointed out many times, this emphasis on Jews as the cause of all the Church’s (and for that matter the world’s) woes is a classic case of projection to avoid addressing the real problem: We were betrayed by our own Modernist hierarchy, and those acting as clergy today are not validly ordained or consecrated. Antichrist has reigned and his system continues in the Novus Ordo usurpers.  We are enduring the Passion of the Church, the loss of the Mass and Sacraments, which can only end in Our Lord’s Second Coming.  This is the inconvenient and terrifying truth from which they wish to escape.

There are those who claim that in insisting on the proper attitude we as Catholics must take toward the Jews, we lose sight of the fact that we must also defend the rights of Christ as King. They cite Pope Pius XI’s 1925 encyclical Quas Primas, establishing the Feast of Christ the King for this, but forget the words of the encyclical: “When the populace thronged around Him in admiration and would have acclaimed him King, He shrank from the honor and sought safety in flight. Before the Roman magistrate He declared that his kingdom was not of this world… . “With God and Jesus Christ,” we said [in Urbi Arcano], “excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation.”

And human society is no longer tottering; it has fallen. As St. Paul predicted, the final representation of Christ’s authority as King — the Roman Pontiff — was forcibly removed by those of His own house, the cardinals and bishops, and Christ was betrayed once again. How any of those presenting as “Catholic” can pretend that Christ’s reign as King can be accomplished now with His Church in ruins is beyond me. And yet Christ will establish His kingdom on earth, just as Holy Scripture foretells, for as Quas Primas also teaches, “He whom St. John calls the “prince of the kings of the earth” appears in the Apostle’s vision of the future as he who “hath on his garment and on his thigh written ‘King of kings and Lord of lords!’.” It is Christ whom the Father “hath appointed heir of all things”; “for he must reign until at the end of the world he hath put all his enemies under the feet of God and the Father.”  He WILL reign as the King of Zion, displacing the false Jewish messiah and vindicating those who still love and serve him.

What is totally lacking here is a correct understanding of the Church’s own teaching on this matter, which is presented below.

Ritual murder charges

From the Catholic Encyclopedia

[The death of St. William of Norwich]… has been well named “one of the most notable and disastrous lies of history”. The story is the foundation of the blood accusation or accusation of ritual murder against the Jews, which has found currency and gained popular credence from that date to the present day. In the “Jewish Encyclopedia”, III, 266, may be found a list of the cases of this ritual murder, beginning with William of Norwich. There are 5 other cases given for the twelfth century, 15 for the thirteenth, 10 for the fourteenth, 16 for the fifteenth, 13 for the sixteenth, 8 for the seventeenth, 15 for the eighteenth, and 39 for the nineteenth, going right up to the year 1900. There have been more recent cases still in Eastern Europe.

Ritual murder as a Jewish institution has been learnedly and conclusively disproved, e.g. by Strack, op. cit. below, and in the case of St. William the evidence is totally insufficient. It seems, however, quite possible that in some cases at least the deaths of these victims were due to rough usage or even deliberate murder on the part of Jews and that some may actually have been slain in odium fidei. In this connection we may notice the first case of all, and the only one before St. William, in which Jews are known to have been accused of murdering a Christian child. In 415 at Inmestar in Syria some Jews in a drunken frolic killed a Christian child in mockery of the death of Christ (Socrates, VII, xvi). Many popes have either directly or indirectly condemned the blood accusation, and NO POPE HAS EVER SANCTIONED IT (Strack, op. cit., 177 and v. Strack’s work, The Jew and Human Sacrifice, is available at www.archive.org).

Massimo Introvigne quoting Strack and various popes

What popes are referenced here? A work by Novus Ordo author and attorney Massimo Introvigne, sheds much light on the history of the blood libel accusation. The popes mentioned by this author begin with Innocent IV, who in 1247 issued a series of bulls and briefs condemning the execution of 34 Jews in Fulda Germany, who, it was said, “killed five boys and burned their blood in a magical ritual… The Pope forbade “to accuse any Jew of using human blood in their rites, since it is clear in the Old Testament that it is forbidden to them to consume any blood, let alone the blood of humans” (published in Strack 1909, 254). Twelve years after the first executions, Rome promptly declared the blood libel myth as illogical and false…

“Pope Gregory X (1210-1276, revered as Blessed Gregory X by Catholics after 1713) publish[ed] an even stronger bull on October 7, 1272. There, he threatened to excommunicate “those who very falsely (falsissime) insist that the Jews kidnap Christian children and make a ritual use of their hearts and blood, since their law in fact strictly forbids any Jew to drink blood, including from animals. We do order that any Jew jailed for this foolish accusation be freed immediately, and that in the future no Jew be incarcerated for such foolish accusation, except in the case, which we do not believe to be possible (quod non credimus), of being caught committing this very offence” (published in Strack 1909, 255-256)…

Pope Nicolas V (1397-1455) had published a bull dated November 2, 1447, where he “prohibited in the strictest way” spreading blood libel accusations and fulminated against “some who try to make Jews odious to Christians by daring to spread false rumours about the Jews, accusing them to celebrate their rites.” And Pope Martin V (1368-1431)… condemn[ed] anybody ‘claiming, with false pretexts and arguments (fictis occasionibus et coloribus) that Jews mix Christian blood to their bread for Easter…. Pope Paul III (1468-1549)… concluded that “those accusing the Jews of drinking the blood of children are blinded by avarice and only want to rob [them of] their money” (published in Strack 1909, 258).’”

Introvigne then relates that Pope Benedict XIV later commissioned a study by the Holy Office, which was conducted by the Franciscan bishop and cardinal, Lorenzo Ganganelli, (later to become Pope Clement XIV). Pope Clement XIII approved the investigation, which stated “that it is impossible, according to their history and theology, for Jews to even conceive of drinking human blood or mixing it with bread or other food.”

Rev. Denis Fahey quotes the following from Cardinal Ganganelli’s report: “Cardinal Ganganelli sets aside a number of accusations of ritual murder as not sufficiently supported by proofs but he accepts two cases. He writes in his report: “I admit as true the case of Blessed Simon, a child of three years, put to death by the Jews at Trent in 1475 out of hatred for the faith of Jesus Christ, though that murder has been denied by Basnage and Wagenseil. I admit also as true a second murder which took place in 1462 in the village of Rinn, in the Diocese of Brixen. Blessed Andrew a little child was there cruelly done to death by the Jews out of hatred for the faith of Jesus Christ.” But ritual murder is not specifically mentioned.

Merry Cardinal del Val was asked to submit documentation in a Kiev case in 1911, involving the Lithuanian priest, Iustinas Pranaitis (1861-1917),

The matter of Pope Benedict XIV beatifying Simon of Trent and Andrei of Fulda, and later popes confirming this, is constantly offered as proof that ritual murder charges were admitted to by the popes. But we find this explanation in the January 1914 edition of the Jesuit publication, The Month:

“We cannot refrain from entering a protest against the extraordinary perversity with which so many anti-Semitist journalists — not a few of them, we are sorry to say, Catholics — persist in thinking evil of their Jewish fellow-countrymen… The one argument which is appealed to by all the accusers, and which is supposed to settle the question, is the allegation that “the Church has canonized as a martyr the boy, holy Simon of Trent, murdered in that city on the occasion of the Jewish Easter in the year 1475.” Even supposing this were true, it proves nothing regarding the practices of the Jewish religion. No one denies that Jews may have killed a particular Christian boy out of hatred for the faith, and that such a  victim may lawfully be honoured as a martyr. But the unqualified statement that the Church has canonized little Simon of Trent illustrates nothing so much as the weakness of the cause it is adduced to support. It is simply untrue to say that the Church has canonized little Simon of Trent. A decree of beatification was issued by Sixtus V, which took the form simply of a confirmation of cultus and which allowed a Mass to be said locally in honour of the boy martyr. Everyone knows that beatification differs from canonization in this, that in the former case the infallibility of the Holy See is not involved, in the latter it is. Be this as it may, Pope Sixtus was careful not to say that little Simon had been put to  death with any ritual purpose, and he did not even emphasize the point that the child had been martyred by the Jews.”

Introvigne, commenting on this, explains that “In 1753 Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758), ironically a Pope who did much to fight the blood libel, confirmed the local cult of ‘Blessed Andreas.’ For several centuries, cults practiced locally for many years were simply “confirmed” by Popes as a matter of routine. Denying confirmation would have hurt local sensitivities, and there was no beatification process complete with a historical investigation as it happens today.” So why are these things never investigated and explained?

As for the Toaff work listed at Fisheaters and elsewhere, Introvigne writes that Toaff withdrew his book after it was pointed out to him that he had based one of his major examples of blood libel on the testimony of “dozens“ of Jews who confessed under torture, proofs not considered as reliable by credible scholars. An interesting account in Toaff’s work, however, accredits ritual murder to a secret Ashkenazi cult, which certainly could not be laid at the door of Jews in general. Introvigne notes further: “…Some conservative clergymen befriended by Pius X, including Monsignor Umberto Benigni (1844-1932), did propagate the blood libel, although in a last incarnation of the myth they attributed the ritual sacrifice and blood-drinking to a secret Jewish Kabbalistic cult whose existence was unknown to the majority of common Jews.” This cult easily fits the description of radical Orthodox Jews guiding the Illuminati at the top of the Masonic pyramid, which is further suggested below. But it does not indict them of ritual murder.

Jews are such primarily by way of culture today

Research shows the majority of Jews consider themselves such in ethnicity, but not primarily in religion. Most Jews who consider themselves superior to the rest of mankind do so because they believe they are still “the Chosen People.” But this does not necessarily involve the hateful anti-Christian invective spewed by certain Orthodox Jews, who are guilty of forcefully teaching and believing the stringent application of Talmudic precepts. For as seen below, the Orthodox Jews constitute only a small but fervent and vocal minority. So it seems most unfair to lump the rest of those identifying as Jewish in with a small fanatical faction and represent them all as professing the same beliefs.

“Approximately 5.8 million adults (2.4% of all U.S. adults) [are] Jewish” according to a 2021 Pew Research report (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/the-size-of-the-u-s-jewish-population/The rest of this section is taken from a Pew report issued in 2020). “This includes 4.2 million (1.7%) who identify as Jewish by religion and 1.5 million Jews of no religion… Religion is not central to the lives of most U.S. Jews. Even Jews by religion are much less likely than Christian adults to consider religion to be very important in their lives (28% vs. 57%). And among Jews as a whole, far more report that they find meaning in spending time with their families or friends, engaging with arts and literature, being outdoors, and pursuing their education or careers than find meaning in their religious faith. Twice as many Jewish Americans say they derive a great deal of meaning and fulfillment from spending time with pets as say the same about their religion…” And only 9% of that 2.4% identify as Orthodox, those most likely to take their religion seriously and practice it.

“Compared either with U.S. Christians or with the adult public overall, U.S. Jews are far less likely to say that religion is important in their lives. However, Orthodox Jews rank among the most religiously devout subgroups in the country by this measure;… Among Jews who are neither synagogue members themselves nor live in a household where anyone else belongs to a synagogue, 47% do not identify with any institutional branch or stream of Judaism. More than half of U.S. Jews identify with the Reform (37%) or Conservative (17%) movements, while about one-in-ten (9%) identify with Orthodox Judaism. One-third of Jews (32%) do not identify with any particular Jewish denomination… Nearly half of U.S. Jews say religion is either “very” (21%) or “somewhat” (26%) important in their lives, while 53% say religion is “not too” or “not at all” important to them personally… Religion is more important to Jewish women, on average, than to Jewish men.” Most Jews are deeply worried about Anti-Semitism, the report states (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-identity-and-belief/).

Conclusion

If a secret cabal of Jews engineered the demise of the Church, they were scarcely alone in this endeavor. They had plenty of help from apostates and occult heretics within the Catholic hierarchy. Such a cabal certainly is not representative of most Jews, only a certain minority. So why stir readers up against the Jewish people as a whole when they don’t even seem particularly interested in practicing the Jewish religion? By way of comparison, 62 percent of the U.S. population identify as “Christian.” The Jews are therefore outnumbered many times over. Yet the more things change, the more they remain the same: “The extraordinary perversity with which so many anti-Semitist journalists — not a few of them, we are sorry to say, Catholics — persist in thinking evil of their Jewish fellow-countrymen…” (quoted from The Month article above).  And if they did this when there were still true popes reigning, popes sympathetic to the plight of the Jews before and during World War II, what would stop them today?

All we have left of our Church is the doctrines she taught prior to the hostile takeover by the usurpers following Pope Pius XII’s death. Even papal opinions, Pope Leo XIII teaches, must be adopted as our own: “If, in the difficult times in which our lot is cast, Catholics will give ear to Us, as it behooves them to do, they will readily see what are the duties of each one IN MATTERS OF OPINION AS WELL AS ACTION (quae sua cuiusque sint tam in opinionibus quam in factis officia). As regards opinion, whatever the Roman Pontiffs have hitherto taught, or shall hereafter teach, must be held with a firm grasp of mind, and so often as occasion requires, must be openly professed. Especially with reference to the so-called “liberties” which are so greatly coveted in these days, all must stand by the judgment of the Apostolic See and have the same mind” (oportet Apostolicae Sedis stare iudicio, et quod ipsa senserit, idem sentire singulos, Immortale Dei, DZ 1880).

We have presented papal teaching on ritual murder here because regardless of the loss of the papacy — regardless of the prejudice generated on this subject by men such as the professed Mason Saenz-Arriaga and his The Plot Against the Church, also others like him — we cannot adopt the opinion popular among Traditionalists today regarding the Jews. As Catholics, we can only adopt that opinion of the Vicar of Christ sent to rule in His stead as King, until He comes. This is the bounden duty we owe Christ as King.

Why JBS failed to finger Commie “popes” in 1960s

by T. Stanfill Benns | Feb 18, 2025 | New Blog

+St. Bernadette Soubirous+

Introduction

A few months ago, in the blog article HERE, I mentioned the exposure of upper-level John Birch Society (JBS) members and their associates as high-degree Freemasons. Recently, a reader brought my attention to Francis’ picture on the January cover of the JBS magazine New American asking the question: “Is the Pope a Communist?” by William F. Jasper. Jasper has been writing for in the affirmative. While this will be received by those in the Novus Ordo sect opposing Francis as a confirmation of their claims that he’s not a true pope, the very fact that the article is belatedly trumpeting this fact should sound alarm bells. Why? Because the Birch Society, established in 1960, certainly did not call out the Communist sympathizers Roncalli (John 23) and Montini (Paul 6) whose conduct in the 1950s (and later their concessions to Communist leaders and governments) made their intentions clear long ago. Even though the idea of a sede vacante had been raised, they never seriously addressed the issue at a time when it was most crucial that it be addressed. And as mentioned in the Francis article, they knew full well that the Church had been infiltrated.

This because those espousing sede vacante then were considered the lunatic fringe, and no one picks up paid members by appearing to consider such theories. Had Traditionalists themselves made the papacy their primary concern and cried foul, this might not have been the case. They had the tools at hand — papal pronouncements, Canon Law, Church history and much more — but they refused to study the matter and arrive at certitude regarding the validity of the 1958 election. The Siri fanatics clouded the matter by insisting their boy was the real pope — another failed attempt to “preserve” the papal line, as demonstrated HERE. Practicing heretical exclusivism, LibTrads championed the liturgy above papal supremacy, as if the liturgy could exist without valid clergy in communion with a certainly canonically elected pope to celebrate it. As we wrote in our last blog, they called themselves Traditionalists because they believe, as the Traditionalists condemned by the  Church believed, that: “Human reason is of itself radically unable to know with certainty any truth or, at least, the fundamental truths of the metaphysical, moral, and religious order” (Catholic Encyclopedia).

Catholics ignorant of their faith and desperate for clergy were oblivious. As stated last week, their Modernist-leaning clergy had already eroded the authority of the papacy to such an extent they scarcely paid attention to the discrepancy. They viewed Traditionalists as the new heads of their Church and the JBS offered them an alternative world view that seemed to agree with the Church’s stand against Communism. This view, however, was Americanist-leaning and skewed. Russia, Russia, Russia was the real terror — no mention of the erosion of morals, the destruction of the Church and her absence as a guiding force on the world stage, or the dangers of Freemasonry and the Illuminati. Instead Catholics were offered the conspiracy of the Bilderbergers, the CFR, the Federal Reserve and world bankers, etc. Any weaving in of the Freemasons and the Modernists, or the real cause of Russia’s errors — schism — was left out of the equation. But then what can one expect with Freemasons running the show?

And this diversion and reorientation successfully distracted Catholics exiting the Novus Ordo from focusing on the purely spiritual nature of the problems in the world. Because their “priests” actively supported and promoted the JBS, they followed right along. But over time, Birch influence seemed to wane with Traditionalists. The Internet was born and more interesting conservative talking heads popped up everywhere. Trad sects abounded in every shape and form imaginable. Now Birchers sense a new opportunity, perhaps — a new exodus from the Novus Ordo they can cash in on. Novus Ordo sect members are calling out Francis as pope, unlike those leaving in the 1960s-1970s, and the JBS is siding with them. So what has changed, and why are they now deciding, after all the damage is done, that the man they are still calling “Pope” is a Communist? Readers can probably guess the answer, but let’s hit the high points.

The Birch Society’s Masonic agenda

Jasper asks, toward the end of his article, “Were American intelligence agencies used to coerce and blackmail “regime change” in the Roman Catholic Church? Is this a key part of the Deep State’s plan to create a Deep Church?  It certainly looks that way, as we have reported here in the past.” Here Jasper is referring to his comments on Bp. Vigano’s letter to Pres. Trump in June of 2020: “There are faithful Shepherds who care for the flock of Christ, but there are also mercenary infidels who seek to scatter the flock and hand the sheep over to be devoured by ravenous wolves. Just as there is a deep state, there is also a deep church that betrays its duties and forswears its proper commitments before God.” Vigano, the new Lefebvre, was ordained in 1968. His consecrator, Bishop Carlo Allorio, is listed as a Council Father for all four sessions of the false Vatican 2 council. Needless to say, as a member of the Novus Ordo sect Allorio was incapacitated to validly ordain or consecrate anyone, per Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis and the 1917 Code of Canon Law, then in effect. So Vigano, an avid supporter of Benedict 16, is no cleric.

What is the purpose of the JBS in ignoring the blatant Communist affiliations of John 23 and Paul 6 and suddenly recognizing those of Francis now? Well it is quite simple, if one follows the stated intent of the Masonic game plan. The secret societies do not want to wipe out the idea of the papacy. Instead, as they state in the Alta Vendita: “What we must ask for, what we should look for and wait for, as the Jews wait for the Messiah, is a Pope according to our needs… To assure ourselves a Pope of the required dimensions, it is a question first of shaping for this Pope a generation worthy of the reign we are dreaming of. Leave old people and those of a mature age aside. Go to the youth and if it is possible, even to the children. You will contrive for yourselves at little cost a reputation as good Catholics and PURE PATRIOTS…”

That generation raised at least partially in the reign of Pope Pius XII, who fled the Novus Ordo sect in the 1960s and 1970s, will soon be gone. Their children and grandchildren, born following Vatican 2, the advent of the Internet and all modern perversions, will then be all that is left of those who at least identify as Catholic. Scarcely any of them have been imbued with any true Catholic sense, only that false sense conveyed to them by Traditionalists and the false church in Rome. They follow only what their misguided “clergy” tell them, those pretending to retain their titles of cardinals, bishops and priests. They are incapable of independent thought or investigation, unless it tends to the Modernist bent of their leaders. They have no idea of what really happened following the death of Pope Pius XII and seem to have never heard of the Catholic rule of law, the observance of the Sacred Canons contained in the 1917 Code. If they follow any law at all, it is only that of the desecrated 1983 code instituted by John Paul 2.

Most of them are good little patriots; some of them are Americanists. The Birchers saw to that, presenting as “pure patriots.” This is why many conservatives in the Novus Ordo sect and some LibTrads will welcome the endorsement of the John Birch Society, and because of their parents’ and grandparents’ involvement it will be familiar to them and will even pass for “tradition.” The new-churchers enjoy the freedoms granted them by the false Vatican 2 council and have no desire to relinquish them. It normalizes their relationship with their non-Catholic peers and the false charity it exudes makes socializing with them so much easier. They have been rigorously brainwashed into believing that the papacy will exist “unto the consummation,” when this was never taught by the Church. In fact the absence of the papacy and the Mass in the end times has been anticipated by the Fathers and revered Catholic theologians and commentators, who base their teaching on Divine revelation. But of course this does not concur with the Masonic ideal; Masons have no desire to destroy the idea of the papacy, only to pervert and manipulate it.

JBS identified as Masons decades ago

We have often quoted Mary Lejeune, a Catholic writer who passed away in the 1980s, on the JBS. There was some realization of the unCatholic position of the JBS even then, as Lejeune reports in her Sept.-Oct. 1976 newsletter: “The favorable response to my May-June issue re the connection between The John Birch Society and The Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement [founded by Fathers Saenz-Arriaga and Francis Fenton] was absolutely overwhelming!  Many, many of the letters and long-distance telephone calls came from Catholic ex-Birchers (I had no idea that there were so many on my mailing list) who related to me the many sad experiences that they had suffered through — once they found out the truth about the JBS and decided to expose said organization. Quite a few had given up in frustration after they found that their sincere efforts to help out were thwarted by certain “cliques” within the Society.  One lady asked me if I was aware of the “Zionist infiltration” within the JBS.  I am completely aware of this situation (readers have sent me much documentation to this effect) — a situation which causes me great concern since the safety of Catholics, who refuse to leave the Society, is at stake!”

“I am concerned about them because the ORCM organization is run (with few exceptions) by priests and laity who are what can only be referred to as “super-Birchers.”  These super-Birchers are thwarting the efforts of people, such as myself, to expose the Masonic and Zionist influence within the JBS (and other “anti-communist outfits like them) in order to protect the Catholic members of the “remnant” who sincerely believe that they cannot live without the Mass and who will go anywhere to attend it… Mr. Welch believes in evolution (some Christian!) As anyone turning to page 140 of his “Blue Book” can clearly see. On page 155 of the same book we find that the Society is both a religion (?) and a revolution. I can believe this since the Birchers tried to “pump” me (however subtly) regarding the so-called “changes in the Catholic Church” since Vatican II.

“As I said previously, I have known about the Masonic nature of the JBS for a long time, but within the last six months or so I have learned a lot more about the deception and hypocrisy which is going on within said Society… Some will claim that these are days of emergency (against a Communist takeover which has already occurred), and that we should ignore our different religious beliefs and fight the battle together.  The Novus Ordo “hierarchy” keeps telling the new “People of God” the same thing.  Anyone who suggests such a thing to Catholics is putting said Catholics in a position wherein they can quickly become weakened in their faith.  Once the faith is weakened, there is a great danger of losing it entirely… Today, dear readers, we are in a spiritual battle, a death-struggle between the real Catholic Church and Satan himself and there isn’t a political organization in existence today which can save the world — especially this country.

“The morals in this country today are so decadent that only the great chastisement from the hand of God can purify it.  And let the Birchers not tell me that they write against immorality — indeed they do! But let them clean up their own “closets” in the “upper echelons” before they start preaching to others… The JBS gives hope to the people when there is no hope. The JBS, like some other “anti-communist” preachers around today, have to give people hope, otherwise they would go out of business, and the JBS is a very commercial organization! …America is doomed — not because good people didn’t fight to save her.  America is doomed because the Catholic hierarchy (made up of enemies and cowards) robbed the American people (both Catholics and Protestants) of a strong, spiritual leadership.” (End of Lejeune quotes.)

So true Catholics were warned, and some listened even then. But their children and grandchildren certainly have not been warned and are more vulnerable today by far than their parents ever were.

A new “conservatism” is the real goal

Once everything is put into perspective, the JBS’s motives become clear. They deliberately ignored the ”soft” takeover of the papal See in Rome because John 23 and Paul 6 were “normalizing” church relations with Freemasons. Later John Paul 2 walked some of the more egregious abuses of his predecessors back, just enough that it appeared he was anti-Communist, given his Polish origins and work with the underground during World War II. Then Benedict 16 continued this course, appearing even more “traditional,” and the Latin Mass groupies were encouraged. So this is where they picked up, citing their previous articles on Vigano’s “Deep Church.” It doesn’t matter that a much more comprehensive volume (John Courtenay Murray, Time/Life and the American Proposition, David Wemhoff, 2015), superior documentation-wise by far to Taylor Marshall’s Novus Ordo work, proves that the election of Roncalli was invalid, owing to lay interference (and the 1917 Code of Canon Law).

Like the LibTrad pseudo-clerics themselves, the JBS wishes to keep the idea of a papal “line” alive at all costs. Sacrificing dogma on the altars of their greed and lust for power, they are happy to violate the laws and teachings of the Church if it advances their own agenda. Nor is there any regard for Catholic teaching, for the Vatican 2  documents on ecumenism only echo the JBS’ own credo — liberty, equality and fraternity.  Proof of this can be found on page 11 of The Neutralizers, written by JBS founder Robert Welch: “All we are interested in here is opposing the advance of Communism so that Jews and Christians alike, and Mohammedans and Buddhists, can again have a decent world to live in.”  Lejeune nailed it when she wrote that the JBS teaches: “…we should ignore our different religious beliefs and fight the battle together.”  This fits right in with the American Proposition — that Catholics have no right to claim the Catholic Church is the one true Church of Christ or evangelize to this effect.

Toward the end of his article, Jasper writes: “The papal throne does seem to be occupied by an individual who fits the description of an apostate socialist/communist. How has this come about? The answer to that burning question would require much more space than is available here. However, it is important to note that the subversion we are now witnessing in the Bergoglian papacy was made possible by more than a century of patient infiltration.” It is how the results of this infiltration are interpreted and who is interpreting them that matters, and the JBS surely knows this. It is why they have waited all this time to address this matter head on, when it is too in-your-face to ignore. They quote Pope Pius XI’s Divini Redemptoris, but they do not cite Pope Pius XII’s 1948 and 1949 condemnations of Communism, which declare those either sympathizing with it or openly advancing it, particularly public officials, as apostates. It is the pope’s judgment, not theirs, that must be the determining factor here.

Francis and all his predecessors back to John 23rd were either Communist sympathizers or active supporters of Communism and therefore are considered apostates. As non-Catholics, none could validly be elected pope, given their affiliations. And yet the JBS fails to acknowledge this, pretending that 100 years (and more) of active infiltration would not contaminate and place into question the entire clerical pool. No, they leave it in the hands of those accepting these men as valid popes, with the exception of Francis. And this because the endgame rules call for a usurper pope who appears to be valid and conservative (by today’s standards only), working with world governments to realize the Masonic dream of a one-world religion. Once the Catholic Church was stripped of every vestige of possible efficacy and sacramental validity, there was no objection to this proposition. In fact it could eventually work hand in hand with a plan that would appear to endorse conservatism and reject the New World Order, purging the existing church in Rome and returning to the “old Church,” under the auspices of a charismatic leader restoring the world to a more conservative state.

This would satisfy both the “Catholic” expectations of restoration and a period of peace, foretold in Catholic prophecy and at Fatima, as well as usher in peace in Israel and the advent of the Jewish Messiah. A new “pope” could even rule from Jerusalem. And this would satisfy the goals of both the secret societies and their JBS satellites.

The JBS and British Israel

The Protestant writer Helen M. Peters states that “[Robert Welch’s] definition of Christianity is British Israel and is not based on the Deity of Jesus Christ at all…” The British-Israel hypothesis is that “Anglo-Saxons are the lineal descendants of the ten tribes of Israel and inherit the wonderful promises made to them. These promises the Anglo-Saxons possess nationally” (Protestant theologian William Hoste). “It thus provides for the world another gospel, which captivates and hypnotizes them with the thought of capturing great earthly blessings for themselves and the British Empire, apart from repentance and faith in Christ, as though He had never died and risen to procure us blessings…” British Israel can be found on the second level of the Masonic pyramid appearing in the original edition of Lady Queenborough’s work, Occult Theocrasy. Concerning the end times, British Israel advocates believe that:

• Before the Second Coming, the Jerusalem temple will be rebuilt.
• The Jerusalem temple, not the Church, is where Antichrist will show himself as God.
• Following the Second Coming, this same temple will exist in Jerusalem, or possibly a new or reconsecrated one.
• During an earthly millennium, animal sacrifices offered at this temple will commemorate Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.

As I have explained before, it is primarily the British Israel adherents, among them Traditionalists, who expect a millennium and the restoration of Christ’s Church on earth. Traditionalists believe they will be the beneficiaries of this restoration and Fundamentalists believe it will be a Jewish operation that will somehow include Christians, but they are not in agreement on the extent or timing of this involvement. Millenarianism, even in its mildest, spiritual sense, has been condemned by the Holy Office and is entered into the Acta Apostolica Sedis (ASS 36, 1944, 212). The condemnation reads: “The Holy Office issued a decree on July 11, 1941 (in the session held on July 9) which reached the same conclusion in a letter sent to Archbishop Jose M. Caro-Rodriguez in Santiago, Chile: “It is not possible to safely teach systematic millenarianism even if moderated — namely that it is Catholic revelation that Christ, at the resurrection of the just, will return to reign bodily on this earth.”

In an Internet article, B. E. Strauss, identifying as a Catholic layman, observes that: “The consummation of the ages denotes the last of all ages of the world, the age of the Church. This last age consummates the ages that came before, and it is itself consummated by the consummatio saeculi, by the consummation of the (last) age” or actual consummation by fire/end of the world. Strauss points out that the most common interpretation is consummation of the world, not consummation of the ages or centuries, as it should be. He notes that the Church has not said much on this discrepancy.  But as noted in previous blogs, there are other indications from magisterial documents that the hierarchical Church is not guaranteed to last “unto the consummation” of the world by fire as previously thought. In order to avoid even mitigated Millenarianism, it is important to not associate the “end of the age or centuries” translation with the meaning that such an age will be succeeded by a 1,000-year period of peace.

Strauss continues: “…The Vatican Council solemnly teaches that the Lord promised shepherds and teachers until the consummation of the age – usque ad consummatio saeculi — which, according to Catholic commentary, BEGINS WITH THE REVELATION OF ANTICHRIST, who is announced to reign before the return of the Lord. Hence, apostolic succession seems to have come to an end already, and we deal with shepherds of vengeance.” The thousand-year reign probably began after the papacy was firmly established in Rome once the major persecutions of Christians subsided. In 445, Emperor Valentinian pronounced that the Bishop of Rome was the law for all. Pope Gelasius I was the first pope to be called Vicar of Christ (492-496). A little over 1,000 years later, Luther tacked his heresies to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, followed by Henry VIII’s defection around 1532. Freemasonry was established in England 200 years after Luther’s revolt but existed secretly from the late 1400s on.

Conclusion

A new world order might mean something different than people are expecting. It could mean that a majority of countries together decide to roll back the clock so to speak, peacefully co-exist, appear to return to a more spiritual existence and more or less live by democratic principles — for a time. But we must remember that “The day of the Lord shall so come, as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, peace and security; then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as the pains upon her that is with child, and they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. For all of you are the children of light, and children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep, as others do; but let us watch, and be sober” (1Thess. 5: 1-6). Any reconstruction of the Church or pretended peace — all will be an illusion. For there is no reconstructing the Church once she has lost Her apostolicity. And there can be no peace without Christ’s true vicar. As Msgr. Van Noort wrote in his Christ’s Church, 1959:

“Just for the sake of argument — even though it cannot actually happen — let us conjure up some church which would bear a merely specific likeness to Christ’s Church; a church which would be like it in all respects except numerical identity. Imagine, now, that the Church planted by the apostles has perished utterly. Imagine whether you make it the year 600, 1500, or 3000-that all its members have deserted. Imagine, furthermore, that out of this totally crumpled society a fresh and vigorous society springs up and then, after a time, is remodeled perfectly to meet the blueprints of the ancient but now perished apostolic structure. Such a process would never yield a church that was genuinely apostolic, that is, numerically one and the same society which actually existed under the apostles’ personal rule. There would be a brand-new society, studiously copied from a model long since extinct. The new church might be a decent imitation. IT MIGHT BE A CARICATURE. ONE THING IT DEFINITELY WOULD NOT BE IS APOSTOLIC.”

Strauss, quoted above, obviously believes Antichrist has already arrived for he says the end of the Church’s age on earth, “BEGINS WITH THE REVELATION OF ANTICHRIST, who is announced to reign before the return of the Lord. Hence, apostolic succession seems to have come to an end already, and we deal with shepherds of vengeance.” That Antichrist will be an identifiable individual is taught by the Church as certain. That he will be accompanied by those who will support and continue his persecution is confirmed by St. John, who teaches there will be “many” antichrists. Only Antichrist could cause the cessation of the Continual Sacrifice, and if this did not indeed happen in 1969, how can anyone explain why nearly all true Catholics who exited the Novus Ordo sect insisted on a return to the Latin Mass?

What Birchers and others advocating for a papal election are doing is supporting the creation of a straw man.  A “straw man” is a logical fallacy opposed to the Scholastic method of St. Thomas that occurs when a person rebuts an argument by misconstruing it. The concept itself is taken from the appearance of a scarecrow, which some at first mistake for a real man but is not a real man — it is only a contrived imitation of one. Similarly, in the strawman fallacy, those depicting Francis as a Communist are ignoring the real facts in the case, that John 23 was a Communist, his election was invalid, and Francis is one of a long line of antipopes under Canon Law. An example of a straw man argument is: “I prefer wine to whiskey,” and the straw man promoter falsely concludes: “Then you must hate whiskey.” Likewise the LibTrads, who, when one says the age of the Church and with it, apostolic succession, ended with the invalid election of Roncalli, reply, “Then you are denying indefectibility, because the Church, just as Christ constituted it, will last ‘until the consummation.’”

But as Strauss and others point out, this refers to the consummation of the ages, as stated in the 1869 Vatican Council, not the final conflagration, and the Church did indeed last unspotted until Pius XII’s death. It is quite telling that LibTrads fail to be able to explain how their argument could possibly hold up, given that Christ constituted the Church with St. Peter as its head, and their pseudo-clergy have operated as the true Church without that head since Pope Pius XII’s death. A new conservative “pope,” even if he cleaned house from top to bottom, would be yet another antipope/antichrist, meant to deepen the deception and create yet more confusion.  Francis may be breathing his last as we write this: Beware what comes after him. No matter how amazing his successor may appear to be in rivaling Pres. Trump’s swamp clean-up, regardless of whether he is hailed as Trump’s right-hand man on a spiritual level, the con is on. The next straw man can never resurrect the one, true Church, only Her caricature — the lying wonders foretold by St. Paul.

Sedevacantism: Can it stand without Cum ex…?

by T. Stanfill Benns | Oct 13, 2024 | New Blog

+St. Edward the Confessor+

ATTENTION READERS: Please pray for the repose of the soul of Irene Keast, who passed away Oct. 9 following a long battle with cancer. Eternal rest grant unto her O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen. Without Irene’s help, The Phantom Church in Rome could not have become a book, and the translation of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis could not have been made. She was a spiritual treasure, a dear and faithful friend who will be greatly missed.

Introduction

A reader recently inquired about Pope Paul IV’s Cum ex Apostolatus Officio — when did Hutton Gibson first publish his translation of Cum Ex… online, what year did I publish my breakdown of Cum Ex…, and whether the sedevacantist position stands without Cum Ex…? While there are several articles on Cum ex… published to this site, many of  which have been there for nearly 20 years, I will summarize below.

— Argentinian Professor Dr. Carlos Disandro translated both editions of the Bull (1977,1987) into Spanish, from the Latin text of the Magnum Bullarium Romanum, pages 829-831. The 1987 edition contained a detailed commentary on the bull.

— Publications such as Veritas and Hutton Gibson’s The War Is Now printed parts of the Bull in 1982, 1983 without offering commentary, although Hutton Gibson did remark that under Can 6 § 6, the Bull was still in effect. Veritas claims to have obtained their copy of the bull in 1975 from Hugh McGovern, publisher of The Voice.  If Gibson ever published a copy of Cum ex…, I have no knowledge of that. I first published my copy of the bull online in 2006.

— In 1984, Briton’s Catholic Library (BCL), cited the Bull in their Under the Laws of the Catholic Church the Papal See is Vacant and later, in one of their “Library Letters,” John S. Daly translated the entire bull (most likely from Disandro’s Latin edition). N. M. Gwynne and Daly also wrote what seems to be the only other commentary extant on it.

— Prof. Benjamin Dryden translated the Bull in 1984-85, with the cooperation of Daniel Dolan, but Dryden initially followed the SSPX in declaring it had been abrogated. Later he advocated for a papal election, based on the Bull. Dryden’s translation can be viewed HERE.

— I addressed Cum ex… in my 1990 book Will the Catholic Church Survive…?, and I do believe there was enough said in that book that people could easily come to the conclusion that the hierarchy was basically defunct. In the book, I gave a history of the Bull and referred to the BCL commentary, because at the time I did not have Carlos Disandro’s commentary on Cum ex… in English translation. That was later posted HERE. My observations on Disandro’s commentary are posted HERE.

So Cum ex… was well known and debated in LibTrad circles in the 1980s. The allegations the bull has been abrogated, first raised by the SSPX against Disandro in 1977,  were refuted in my 1990 book. Later, further evidence of the infallible nature of Cum ex… and its retention in the 1917 Code of Canon Law was published to this site in 2006. The abrogation allegations are still insisted upon by various LibTrad sects and even Sedevacantists cannot agree on what constitutes an heretical act, although this is not hard to determine. Canon 2200 tells us that: “Given the external violation of the law, the evil will is presumed in the external forum until the contrary is proved.”

Roncalli clearly proved that the suspected modernist label first pinned to him by Pope Pius XI and never removed by Pius XII was more than justified, given his later promotion of ecumenism and other heresies. He was a Communist sympathizer, an ecumenist, hence a heretic at the time of his “election,” so could never have been validly (canonically) elected. This was proven from his own public statements in my 1990 book. Those who argue that he “became” a heretic as “pope” embrace heresy, for they deny Christ’s promise to Peter that his faith and the faith of his successors could never fail.

Denying the necessity of canonical elections is heretical

Those who refuse to believe that Roncalli was invalidly elected and likewise refuse to consider evidence to prove this fact also deny a truth of faith necessary for salvation. Only canonical elections are valid, as the Church teaches. To be canonical they must be in accord with the rules existing and applicable at the time under canon law, as will be explained below. According to the work Dr. Littledale’s Theory of the Disappearance of the Papacy by Sydney F. Smith, S. J., (Farm Street, Berkeley Square, W. London 1896): “Of the vast majority of individual Popes, and still more of the line of Popes, reaching not merely up to the sixteenth century, but to our own days, it is absolutely clear that they received that loyal adherence and obedience from the Universal Church which Leo XIII receives now, and which of itself is so sure a sign of the legitimacy of his title that we can even make it the matter of an act of faith that he is the true Vicar of Jesus Christ. This is no mere theory, but the common doctrine of Catholic theologians, as will appear sufficiently from the following passage in Ferraris Bibliotheca, a work of the highest authority.

“In his article on the Pope, (S.v. Papa, p. 949) Ferraris says: ‘It is of faith that Benedict XIV, for instance, legitimately elected and accepted as such by the Church, is the true Pope (common doctrine among Catholics). This is proved from the Council of Constance, where Martin V’s Const. Inter Cunctus decrees that those who return from heresy to the faith shall be asked, among other points, ‘Whether they believe that the Pope canonically elected, for the time being, his name being expressly mentioned, is the successor of St. Peter, having supreme authority in the Church of God.’ For thereby he supposes it to be an article of faith, since those who abjure heresy are ‘interrogated only as to truths of faith.’”  And indeed it is enshrined as an article of faith in DZ 650 and 674 under the condemnations of Wycliffe and Huss. So what possible excuse can LibTrads offer to explain their absolute dereliction of duty in formally declaring that election null and void on numerous counts? They commit heresy by pretending a canonical election is irrelevant, which is no surprise since they since they routinely discount and violate canon law.

Those believing John 23^rd’s election was valid point to his “acceptance by the universal Church.” Of course this would be the cardinals, bishops and clergy, then the faithful. Well we know where they all wound up — wholeheartedly approving of and voting for Vatican 2! They definitely were NOT members of the universal Church once they elected and accepted Roncalli as “pope,” nor were many of the cardinals voting in Roncalli’s “election” members of Christ’s Mystical Body.  With no legitimate, canonical election, and acceptance by a universal Church no longer truly Catholic, there can be no true pope. Canonical election depends on faithfully following all the rules laid down in the prevailing election law, in this case Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (VAS). In The Phantom Church in Rome and in articles on this site, I have carefully detailed the many violations of VAS, documented in biographies of Roncalli, the histories of his election and the history of Vatican 2.  And the evidence shows that there were clear violations of Pius XII’s election law that invalidated Roncalli’s election from the start, making him ineligible as a candidate, even aside from the fact that he was a heretic.

One of the very few articles in English (other than those on betrayedcatholics) that treat of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis at all is one written by Anthony Cekada. Cekada sets out to answer the question of whether para. 34 of VAS negates the sedevacantist premise. “If so, the passage means an excommunicated cardinal can be validly elected pope. Doesn’t this shoot down the fundamental principle behind the entire sedevacantist case?”  In the process of answering this question, Cekada makes points that should lead everyone to the infallibility of Cum ex… but fails to mention the connection. And the connection is right there in VAS itself, para. 36: “Canonically deposed Cardinals, or those who have renounced the cardinalitial dignity with the Roman Pontiff’s consent, have no legal right at an election. On the contrary, during the vacancy of the See, the Sacred College cannot restore or bring back to their former state Cardinals stripped of this right or deposed by the Pope.”

Disandro on tacit resignation

Cardinals can resign officially or tacitly, according to Can. 188 §4. And what constitutes tacit resignation? Apostasy, heresy or schism. Can. 188 §4, as pointed out by Prof. Disandro in his Doctrinal Precisions, is directly related to Pope Paul IV’s Cum ex… :

“Pius XII’s article 36 [in his election law] is talking about those “deposed canonically.” The debate is thus opened, since 1945, on the meaning of this expression. Are they the canonically deposed cardinals which the text of Pope Paul IV considers? Is there a coincidence between 1559 and 1945? Yes, naturally, and with a greater foundation [for such a “coincidence”] if we consider the “larva stage” of Modernism. Deposed cardinals cannot function now, nor are they subject to excommunication or interdict. Excommunication could refer to other details, while [these cardinals] remain faithful to the Church. The deposition, in effect, is RADICAL, that is, it affects not only the privileges or canonical singularities of the subject, BUT ALSO ANNULS THE DIGNITY ITSELF, (in an irreversible manner), and of course the position in the hierarchy or office, assumed or conceived in any manner. How then would an election rule be able to determine the resumption of the state of the cardinalate if the Bull itself takes care to emphasize that it is absolutely impossible?

“4. We affirm in a bold manner:

1. a) cardinals deposed, by the force of the Bull are canonically deposed, and they are not able to function either as electors or eligibles;
2. b) the reasons defined by the Bull, by referring to the bond between the Faith and the Hierarchy, are imprescribable, and they act ipso facto (by the very fact), such as the text itself of the 16th century intended;
3. c) cardinals excommunicated for other disciplinary reasons enjoy the exception granted in the document of Pius XII [para. 34], BUT THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO MONTINIAN AND POST-MONTINIAN CIRCUMSTANCES;
4. d) never have we spoken of excommunications or suspensions of cardinals for reasons other than doctrinal. And speaking of the primacy of DOCTRINE over DISCIPLINE, the question which we have pointed out against the heretics who lead the Conciliar church, against the Montinian heresy, has always been and will always be simply referred to the order of being (what actually is): EITHER THERE ARE OR THERE ARE NOT CARDINALS, THERE ARE OR THERE ARE NOT POPES, THEY FUNCTION OR THEY DO NOT FUNCTION IN SUCH OFFICES AND DIGNITIES.”(End of Disandro quote)

As a public heretic, a man declared suspect of such even by two popes, Roncalli was deposed prior to his election. He could not vote or be considered a candidate. Some contest the “public” nature of his heresy, but they should not. The definition is clear under Can. 1325.  “Whenever by silence, subterfuge or manner of acting,” one even implicitly denies the faith. Subterfuge and manner of acting are definitely in play here, both in the case of Roncalli and the cardinals who “elected” him. It was a public act, the attempt to promote an unworthy man to the papacy.

A certain number of these cardinals went into the conclave as occult heretics. Their heresy became manifest on accepting Roncalli as papabile (capable of election), because he had violated VAS and they knew this, having participated in the violations. This itself is heresy, a denial of the necessity of canonical election, which resulted in their tacit resignation; they could not cast valid votes. Roncalli was suspected of heresy by two popes and in violation of several VAS provisions, and only a future pope could lift the excommunication attached to such violations. He was therefore not eligible for election. Moreover, Pope Pius XII states infallibly in VAS that all the acts of anyone violating papal or canon law are null, void and invalid. The attempt to elect a man who was guilty of such violations and hence incapable of being elected until absolved by a future pope was automatically invalidated. As for his suspected heresy, that matter was presumed under Can. 2200 to exist until proven otherwise, and only a future pope could determine this. For as VAS clearly states, NONE of the canons can be changed or dispensed from during an interregnum. 

Cekada quotes from the theologians

“’Heretics and schismatics are barred from the Supreme Pontificate BY THE DIVINE LAW ITSELF… [T]hey must certainly be regarded as excluded from occupying the throne of the Apostolic See, which is the infallible teacher of the truth of the faith and the center of ecclesiastical unity.” (Maroto, Institutiones I.C. 2:784)

“Appointment to the Office of the Primacy. 1. What is required by divine law for this appointment… Also required for validity is that the one elected be a member of the Church; hence, heretics and apostates (at least public ones) are excluded.’” (Coronata, Institutiones I.C. 1:312)

“’All those who are not impeded by divine law OR BY AN INVALIDATING ECCLESIASTICAL LAW are validly eligible [to be elected pope]. Wherefore, a male who enjoys use of reason sufficient to accept election and exercise jurisdiction, and who is a true member of the Church can be validly elected, even though he be only a layman. Excluded as incapable of valid election, however, are all women, children who have not yet arrived at the age of discretion, those afflicted with habitual insanity, heretics and schismatics.’” (Wernz-Vidal, Jus Can. 2:415)

“Thus heresy is not a mere “ecclesiastical impediment” or censure of the type that Pius XII enumerated and suspended in paragraph 34 of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. It is instead an impediment of divine law which Pius XII did not suspend — and indeed could not have suspended, precisely because it is one of divine law.

“Paragraph 34 of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis suspends the effects of censures (excommunication, suspension, interdict) and other ecclesiastical impediments… for cardinals who are electing a pope and for the cardinal they finally elect. Thus, a cardinal who had incurred an excommunication prior to his election as pope would nevertheless be validly elected. This law concerns only impediments of ecclesiastical law, however. As such, it cannot be invoked as an argument against sedevacantism, which is based on the teaching of pre-Vatican II canonists that heresy is an impediment of divine law to receiving the papacy.”

What Cekada could have mentioned here but did not mention is the fact that one suspected of heresy, when that suspicion still exists, automatically incurs the censure for heresy if the suspicion is not removed within six months’ time (Can. 2316). Obviously, Popes Pius XI and Pius XII did not see fit to remove this suspicion of heresy notice from Roncalli’s file, placed there in the 1920s, meaning that this suspicion still existed. Meaning also that on Roncalli’s part, the six months had long expired. He had been advised officially by Pope Pius XI of his delict and had recanted, and by Pope Pius XII regarding the worker priest affair and Roncalli’s naming of a known Freemason, his friend Yves Marsaudon, as the head of the French branch of the Knights of Malta. He may have appeared to repent, but his usurpation clearly showed that he was never sincere and continued in his heresy, just as the embracing of the false Vatican 2 council proved that the cardinals and bishops had all lost the faith. The popes’ failure to remove the suspicion of heresy letter posted to his official file is proof they believed he could not be trusted.

Papal candidates and invalidating ecclesiastical law

Above Cekada says, quoting Wernz-Vidal: “’All those who are not impeded by divine law or by an invalidating ecclesiastical law are validly eligible [to be elected pope].” Let me ask you, who is the sole interpreter of what constitutes divine law? Definitely not Wernz-Vidal or any other theologian. Pope Paul IV was the one who made this divine law clear to all in his bull, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio.  And he wrote regarding a man, one Cardinal Morone, who was aspiring to the papacy and was on trial for, but not yet convicted, of heresy! Morone was later excluded from being made a candidate by the future Pope St. Pius V, who as pope confirmed Cum ex… in his Intermultiplices.

In his bull, Paul IV also made clear that all the acts of apostates, heretics and schismatics who tacitly resigned from their ecclesiastical offices were invalid, null and void because they had lost their offices and had no power whatsoever. This he extended to cardinals and bishops. Therefore, Cum ex… was also an invalidating law. Pope Pius XII also invalidated any acts performed during an interregnum that violated any of the provisions of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis regarding papal elections, usurped the papal power or violated papal or canon law in any way. The cardinals violated divine law by electing a man suspected of heresy. They, including Roncalli, violated several election protocols, among them one allowing the interference of secular authorities in the election. Pope Pius XII clearly declares all these acts null and void, and any acts issuing from them null, void and invalid. This is “invalidating ecclesiastical law.”

Pius XII concludes his Constitution with the words: “This present document and whatever is contained in it can by no means be challenged… [It] will be always and perpetually true, valid, and effective, and acquire and obtain their own full and undiminished results… We command those individuals to whom it pertains and will pertain for the time being to vote, that the ordinances must be respectively and inviolably observed by them, and if anyone should happen to try otherwise relative to these things, by whatever authority, knowingly or unknowingly, the attempt is null and void.”  Sedevacantists could not afford to wholeheartedly  endorse Cum ex… because it deprived those who had “ordained” and “consecrated” them of any power to perform these acts validly, and this based on the divine law they pretend to champion. They did not dare mention Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis because that law invalidates everything done during an interregnum that is not in conformity with papal and canon law. VAS likewise invalidates all usurpations of papal authority, including the approval process necessary prior to episcopal consecration. This also nullifies any priestly ordinations emanating from men falsely claiming to have become bishops during such an interregnum.

Conclusion

The answer to the reader’s question is that the sedevacantist position is verified both by Cum ex Apostolatus Officio AND Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis; they are both documents issuing from the infallible magisterium and both work in tandem. It is impossible to discount Cum ex…as abrogated or dismiss it as a non-infallible document, since it treats of the manner of determining what is a violation of Divine law. Cekada even backhandedly admits this. Cum ex… treats of the Divine law; VAS of invalidating ecclesiastical law applicable during an interregnum. VAS prohibits, however, all LibTrad and Novus Ordo operations and nullifies all attempts at the usurpation of papal jurisdiction and violation of Canon Law. All this has been covered here before, but refresher courses are necessary when some seem to be unclear regarding the actual course of events. The one thing that should be more firmly emphasized here is that denying the necessity of confirming that an election is unquestionably canonical is to deny an article of faith — that canonical election is essential to Apostolic Succession.

This is the predominating heresy embraced by LibTrads and the Novus Ordo sect that should have been addressed from the beginning. We know that God willed otherwise, that His ages-old plan for the Church be fulfilled. And so we accept His will, pray and watch, and lift up our heads, ever hopeful that our redemption is at hand.

Peter’s FAITH the rock on which the Church was founded

by T. Stanfill Benns | Aug 15, 2024 | New Blog

+Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary+

An article written in June has been submitted for comment by a reader from a Novus Ordo site called Canon Law Made Easy. The Canon Law referred to on that site is the false revision of the 1917 Code issued in 1983 by the usurper John Paul 2. This revision was first suggested by Angelo Roncalli before the first session of the false Vatican 2 council.  In the Novus Ordo article, statements are made and links provided regarding the “schismatic” sedevacantist position and the false basis for this position. Of course no one expects members of this non-Catholic sect to get anything right, regardless of their supposed canon law credentials. But the points they use to deflect enquirers from sedevacantism need to be addressed, since they predictably fail to inform their readers that they do after all have the obligation to diligently research the legitimacy of the 1958 election and form their conscience accordingly.

The revised 1983 “code”

Abp. Amleto Cicognani observed that changes to the law are odious and are to be made sparingly. Revs. Woywod-Smith state under Can. 22 that “Changes in the law are made solely by the Holy See, and only for serious reasons and after mature deliberation… It is a fundamental principal that the general presumption is always in favor of the old law remaining unchanged.” So if those considered doubtful “popes,” at best, change the laws, then in doubt the old laws always remain in force under Can. 6 §4. Doubt concerning the validity of these false popes suffices, for those not able to gain a more advanced degree of certainty; a doubtful pope is no pope, as St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, and as a doctor of the Church his opinion is probable according to the moral theologians. We are to use such opinions, also reflex principles whenever we have no one to consult regarding such situations. Canon 22, in the 1917 Code states: “A more recent law given by the competent authority abolishes a former law if the new law explicitly says so or if it is directly contrary to the old law or if it takes up and readjusts the entire subject matter of the former law.”

The entire question here must be asked and answered for those who have not yet done the necessary study: were Roncalli and his successors true popes, “competent authority”? Were their elections unquestionably valid?  The answer to this question should be obvious, given the fruits of these imposters and what has been presented by this author and others for nearly 35 years. This is why, of course, all these objectors assume the question is preposterous, schismatic, absurd, etc. They list those who have the least likelihood of offering any credible evidence for Roncalli’s false election, the more fantastical sedevacantist proponents, to make sedevacantism appear to have little value as a tenable theory. While claiming to uphold the law, they violate it, resorting to sophisms to avoid addressing the issue, that is arguing beside the point. The elephant in the room remains very large and real while they talk around it.

They don’t even get the real jist of the issue or the sedevacantist position held by LibTrads, writing: “And since a man who isn’t validly elected Pope can’t validly select new Bishops and Cardinals, this means that subsequent Popes were chosen by non-Cardinals, meaning that the new Popes weren’t/aren’t validly elected either. So sedevacantists are basically saying that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has pretty much ceased to exist” (June 6, 2024). Only those praying at home really believe the hierarchy has ceased to exist, in this the end times. Sedevacantist pseudo-clergy believe they are the hierarchy and can continue to function without their head bishop, the pope. The proper term, which all canonists should be familiar with, is actually canonically elected. And the real issue here is not whether the non-cardinals chose subsequent popes or a non-pope could select new bishops. The old law easily solves the problem, and if these commentators were truly competent canonists who had done their due diligence, they would know this. Canon 2391 § 1 states that a college electing an unworthy candidate is automatically disqualified from proceeding to a new election.

Certitude and matters of faith

In a link to a 2017 article, provided in the June 6, 2024, article, we read: “Canon 205 tells us that a baptized Catholic is in full communion with the Catholic Church if he accepts the Catholic faith, Catholic sacraments, and Catholic governance — and it’s the issue of rejecting church governance that is the key problem with sedevacantism. If you don’t believe that this or that papal document was issued by a man who is/was really the Pope, then you naturally don’t intend to abide by whatever it says by refusing to accept the authority of the current Pope or his recent predecessors, a Catholic who’s a sedevacantist willfully puts himself into a state of schism… But since sedevacantists tend to cite (incorrectly) a lot of canon law in support of their positions, it seems reasonable to assume that they are aware of both the Church’s position on the crime of schism, and the penalties that may accompany it…

“Sedevacantism… is a schismatic movement rather than a heretical one. As sedevacantist Catholics refuse to acknowledge the authority of the Holy Father(s), deciding for themselves that he/they are not really Pope(s), they are deliberately taking themselves out of full communion with the Church… When people take it upon themselves to decide that the Pope isn’t really the Pope because he took a sketchy theological position, or because his personal morals were scandalous, or because it looks like his election wasn’t done quite right… they’re playing with fire.”

But there is a major problem with these statements. Catholics MUST decide for themselves, for they are obligated to arrive at certitude that the man claiming to be pope was canonically elected, according to the laws prevailing at the time, NOT the revised 1983 code — the old law still prevails. Theologians unanimously teach that one cannot act in a state of doubt regarding matters concerning eternal salvation, such as obedience to a true pope, unless and until that doubt is resolved, and no one will consider ALL the evidence to resolve it. That we are bound to remove this doubt is clearly demonstrated from the binding decrees found in Henry Denzinger’s Sources of Catholic Dogma, (DZ 570d, 650, 652, 674, also Cum ex Apostolatus Officio): “A pope canonically elected, who lived for a time after having expressed his own name, is the successor of blessed Peter, having supreme authority in the Church,” (DZ 674).  This is an article of faith, proposed for belief to the Armenians and to Wycliffe and the Hussites. The article proposed to the Armenians asks them to hold that “all the Roman Pontiffs who…  succeeding Blessed Peter have entered canonically and will enter canonically,” will possess the same plenitude of jurisdiction Christ granted to St. Peter. Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton states that what was proposed to the Armenians is to be considered a dogma of faith, (The Concept of Sacred Theology, pgs. 132-33).

In his 1896 work Dr. Littledale’s Theory of the Disappearance of the Papacy, Sydney F. Smith, S.J. wrote: “The following passage is [found] in Ferraris Bibliotheca, a work of the highest authority. In his article on the Pope, (S.v. Papa, p. 949) [the respected theologian] Ferraris says: It is of faith that Benedict XIV, for instance, LEGITIMATELY ELECTED and accepted as such by the Church, is the true Pope (common doctrine among Catholics). This is proved from the Council of Constance, where Martin V’s Const. Inter Cunctos decrees that those who return from heresy to the faith shall be asked, among other points, ‘Whether they believe that the Pope canonically elected, for the time being, his name being expressly mentioned, is the successor of St. Peter, having supreme authority in the Church of God.’ For thereby he supposes it to be an article of faith, since those who abjure heresy are ‘interrogated only as to truths of faith.’”  (See DZ 674, 675).

No schism if positive doubt established

This same article of faith is one we ourselves must believe. But if certitude cannot be had regarding the canonical status of the election, and the book The Phantom Church in Rome, also articles on this site have provided sufficient evidence for years to cast grave doubt on the results of the 1958 election, then one is bound in conscience NOT to hold such an election valid. According to the opinions of seven notable theologians, in withdrawing from the “obedience” of  a man claiming to be pope who you believe was never canonically elected, no schism is involved. Vermeersch-Cruesen, Reiffenstuel, Schmalzgrueber, Ferraris, Vechiotti and Szal state: “There is no schism involved… if one refuses obedience [to a pope] inasmuch as one suspects the person of the Pope or the validity of his election…” (The Communication of Catholics with Schismatics, Rev. Ignatius J. Szal, A.B., J.C.L.). Serious reasons, that is positive doubt, must exist and proofs must be presented to support such a position. This fulfills the provisions of Can. 20 and establishes probability according to Church teaching. These theologians agree that one need only suspect that the man claiming to be Pope is irregular in some way or invalidly elected (Can. 2200), and we have established far more than just suspicion in the documents presented on this subject.

And then we have the probable opinion of St. Robert Bellarmine, who teaches a doubtful pope is no pope: “When there is a prudent doubt about the validity of an election to any official position, there also is a similar doubt whether the person so elected really has authority or not. In such a case, no one is bound to obey him… But a superior whom no one is bound to obey is in reality no superior at all… An authority that may be justly doubted at all times is no authority; it commands neither obedience nor respect as is evident in churches that reject the claim to indefectibility… One who intrudes himself into the ministry against the laws of the Church receives no authority, and consequently can transmit none to his successors…

“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.”  (Rev. E.S. Berry,  The Church of Christ: “p. 402).

St. Antoninus, commenting on the Great Western Schism, also noted: “The question was much discussed and much was written in defense of one side or the other. For as long as the schism lasted each obedience had in its favor men who were very learned in Scripture and Canon Law, and even very pious people, including some who – what is much more – were illustrious by the gift of miracles. Nonetheless the question could never be settled without leaving the minds of many still in doubt. Doubtless we must believe that, just as there are not several Catholic Churches, but only one, so there is only one Vicar of Christ who is its pastor. But if it should occur that, by a schism, several popes are elected at the same time, it does not seem necessary for salvation to believe that this or that one in particular is the true pope, but just in general whichever of them was canonically elected. The people are not obliged to know who was canonically elected, just as they are not obliged to know Canon Law; in this matter they may follow the judgment of their superiors and prelates.” And the superiors and prelates WE follow are those writing before the death of Pope Pius XII.

Another respected theologian weighs in here: “A doubtful pope may be really invested with the requisite power, but he has not practically in the Church the same right as a certain pope — he is not entitled to be acknowledged as Head of the Church, and may be legitimately compelled to desist from his claim,” (The Relations of the Church to Society — Theological Essays, Rev. Edmund James O’Reilly, S.J., emph. his.) Rev. O’Reilly was the theologian of choice in Ireland for local Irish Councils and Synods and was a professor of theology. The opinion of these men and the proofs that the 1958 election was invalid also constitutes the juridical certainty in way of evidence required by Dom Charles Augustine under Can. 430. What Szal presents, then, is a solidly probable opinion, one which helps establish certitude, and according to the laws and teachings of the Church it may be followed at will.

So those among LibTrads holding John 23 as validly elected and the Novus Ordo “experts” who criticize others for misquoting Canon Law and accuse them of willfully committing schism are asking Catholics to actually ignore their conscience and deny an article of faith. Furthermore they have entirely argued beside the point regarding the question, refusing to consider evidence that amply shows there were numerous alarming irregularities and evidence of outside election interference  in 1958. These facts have been available for years, even decades. Pretending to be champions of Canon Law, they entirely discount and ignore the canons then in effect which have been cited here numerous times. But most importantly, they entirely dismiss Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, which infallibly voids any attempted act or acts contrary to those canons, and levies penalties for violations of his law that could be lifted only by a future canonically elected pope. This renders their reasoning and their arguments null and void.

Peter’s faith lacking in Roncalli, Montini

We read above from this NO site that: “Canon 205 [1983 code] tells us that a baptized Catholic is in full communion with the Catholic Church if he accepts the Catholic faith, Catholic sacraments, and Catholic governance… it’s the issue of rejecting church governance that is the key problem with sedevacantism.” No, the issue of Church governance and unchanging faith is the key problem with ALL LibTrad and Novus Ordo sects. The Church was founded on a rock — on PETER’S FAITH. It was not founded on fractured rock or sand. Both Cum ex Apostolatus Officio and Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis exclude heretics or suspected heretics from election and Roncalli was a proven suspected heretic (see HERE). And the Catholic Encyclopedia tells us: “Of course, the election of a heretic, schismatic, or female would be null and void.” Neither Roncalli or Montini were loyal to Pope Pius XII or retained that same faith. His governance meant nothing to them; they were working together and with others to establish a new church, and they succeeded. Many instances have been cited proving they questioned or denied the faith; Vatican 2 and the Novus Ordo Missae proved that most effectively. Montini and Roncalli were Catholics in name only. But how do you make an objective judgment in this case when the man falsely elected has been declared a “saint”?!!

Dr. Cyril Andrade wrote in a 1976 article, Are Papal Elections Inspired by the Holy Ghost?”: “Pius XII is pope: Montini is his pro-secretary of State: Roncalli is Papal Nuncio in Paris: the Pope suppresses the “Worker Priest” movement in France because far from reclaiming the workers to the Church, all of the 200 “Worker Priests”, themselves, lost their faith; but Montini and Roncalli, in collusion, secretly encourage the movement and keep it alive against the order of the Pope.” After explaining how both the elections of Roncalli and Montini were secretly engineered by Freemasons and others, Andrade writes: “Does this scenario of low, vile intrigue, connivance, collusion and treachery of the hierarchical mafia led by the liberal (heretical) gang of Suenens, König, Döpfner, Lercaro, et al, in any way lend credence to the canard that the Conclave that elected [Roncalli and] Montini was “secret” and “inspired by the Holy Ghost”?

“To thus make a mockery of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, in this vile fashion, is to be guilty of the unforgivable sin. But, then, the Vatican II Mafia does not believe that the Holy Ghost is God for, in the fourth Eucharistic prayer which they have concocted for their Novus Ordo Missae (New Mass) they state categorically: “Father in heaven, you alone are God . . .” (Emphases added), thus excluding the Son and the Holy Ghost from the Trinity Godhead.” And these Novus Ordo pretenders can dismiss these heresies and proofs that faith is lacking, in Francis AND his predecessors, to accuse sedevacantists of schism and rejection of lawful authority?  Please see the article HERE which confirms what Andrade wrote so long ago.

And not only must the one elected as pope be considered here but the ones electing as well. As Andrade notes and Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis states, the cardinals are tasked to select who they believe is the worthiest among them to act as Christ’s vicar. Those making this selection must certainly be Catholic themselves. Yet we see that all those cardinals who participated in Roncalli’s election, minus those who had the good fortune to pass away, went on to convene and approve the deliberations of the false Vatican 2 council. And they were good Catholics, they can be trusted and we have no reason to doubt them? How could anyone be so blind? A canonical election requires that all those voting be Catholics who have not automatically forfeited their office owing to some heresy. Ecumenism is a heresy; religious liberty is a heresy; the insertion into missalettes distributed in 1959 containing the English translation, “for all men,” is a heresy. If only a few cardinals could be proven to be suspect of heresy, or disobedient to the pope or to have participated in plots to confirm Roncalli as pope before Pope Pius XII’s death, and there is proof of this,  Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis declares the election is invalid for want of a two-thirds plus one vote.

Peter’s faith is the rock, and without it the entire  foundation that is the papacy crumbles. Does any true Catholic really believe that the Holy Ghost would descend upon and grant the gift of infallibility to a man suspected of heresy for over 25 years, elected by men, some of whom were complicit in rigging the election, with assistance from the CIA and other groups? Canon Law and pre-1958 canonists deny the election would be valid. Pope Pius XII declares in his infallible Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis that anything done in violation of the sacred canons during an interregnum is null and void. Common sense and any reverence for the institution of the papacy should tell us that such an election is doubtful in the extreme, especially considering what went before compared to what followed. It would convince a rational person, if we were dealing with truly rational human beings identifying as Catholic. But sadly this is not the case today. Pray that the veil be lifted from their eyes and the hardness be driven from their hearts.

More on Trump plus the Church’s stance on Palestine

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 31, 2024 | New Blog

+St. Peter in Chains+

+Prayer Society intention for August+

“O HEART most pure of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
obtain for me from Jesus  a pure and humble heart.”

First, I would like to address the conspiracy theories. There has been speculation on social media that Trump staged his own near-miss, that he was never grazed by a bullet, with the after-bandage photos seeming to show little if any residual damage. That doesn’t mean that a bullet whizzing by that barely touches the ear could not cause profuse bleeding, even if no tissue damage is visible. Or that the inside back of the ear, which cannot be seen, was not abraded. Cosmetic surgical procedures unavailable to the general population and high-tech cosmetic aids can expertly mask skin damage. Even had the shooter missed Trump entirely and only hit the firefighter and father who tragically died, it would still qualify as an attempted assassination.

And yes, as one reader writes in, Trump “could be one of them.” The Church fully understands what voting for an unworthy but less evil candidate entails. Those presenting as Catholic need to be conscious of the fact that they are branded as crackpots and their religious position damaged by suppositions they make that cannot be proven, i. e., conspiracy “theories.” When certainty cannot be obtained, moralists allow us to follow a probable opinion. Let’s leave what we can’t prove aside and focus on what affects us from a strictly religious standpoint, which places us on much safer ground.

Is Trump a Christian?

I recently received the following link from yet another reader: https://www.bitchute.com/video/uNky8MT7g0NX In this video, Trump states he is NOT a Christian, something many did not previously know. I watched some of this speech live and Trump admitted that Catholics have been persecuted and that no Catholic could vote for a Democrat in good conscience. He also embraced all non-Christian religions and placed them on an equal footing, as all those promoting “democracy” do. Those who lean toward him now know his true orientation. His true religious affiliation seems to be unknown. Of course in politics these days it is all irrelevant. We have Pres. Biden, a baptized Catholic and culpable as such, supporting full-term fetal death, as does VP Harris, and Trump, (sporting a Novus Ordo VP), who dodges the issue by leaving it to the states to decide. Anyone expecting a genuine Christian to be capable of election is living in a fantasy world.

Could Trump be Jewish, or at least leaning in that direction? We must remember that Trump’s daughter converted to Judaism, the faith of her presidential senior advisor-husband Jared Kushner. Trump’s father reportedly had many Jewish friends and business associates.  And we know Trump is a staunch supporter of Israel’s war against Palestine following the Oct. 7 attack, the latest result of a conflict ongoing for over 100 years. Israel’s response to this attack is justified because Palestine is currently in the hands of Hamas, the terrorist organization that attacked Israel following numerous skirmishes over the years, aided and abetted by other terrorist groups. All would support any nation’s right to defend itself from such attacks. But the overall history of this conflict, which has escalated into a war, is little understood. And what is not understood at all is the longstanding position of the Church regarding the Jewish occupation of Palestine, which has been effectively buried. So a refresher course is provided below.

Valuable Catholic lessons on the Palestine question

First a little background on the history of the Palestine situation. “The Balfour Declaration of 1917, issued by the British government, supported the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire and under British control following World War I.

“The British Mandate for Palestine (1920-1948) saw increased immigration of Jews fleeing persecution in Europe, particularly during the Nazi era, which led to rising tensions between Jewish and Arab communities. The Arabs opposed the growing Jewish presence and the idea of a Jewish state, leading to outbreaks of violence” ) https://worldhistoryedu.com/origin-and-history-of-the-conflict-between-israel-and-palestine/).

When Israel became a state in 1948, the Arabs occupying that territory objected and went to war against Israel. Although the UN had established specific borders, the war ended with an increased number of Jewish Palestine refugees, which many considered as illegal occupation under international law. Several other wars followed.

In a scholarly work delivered as a history dissertation by Adriano E. Ciani in 2011 (https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/348/), Ciani carefully details the Church’s stance pre-Vatican 2 on the Palestine question. He begins with the following:

“In 1904, Pope Pius X granted an audience to the prominent Zionist Theodor Herzl, in which he reminded his guest that the Roman Catholic Church could never endorse or support the creation of a Jewish home in Palestine. This was to remain the essence of papal policy on Palestine for decades to come. A reader has been kind enough to provide the exact text of Pope St. Pius X’s comment to Herzl: “We are unable to favor this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem if it were not always sacred has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the church I cannot answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people. And so if you come to Palestine and settle your people there we will be ready with churches and priests to baptize all of you.”

What has happened, beginning in the 20^th century, is that anti-Semitism, which the Church has repeatedly condemned, was extended at Vatican 2 to the Palestine question itself, a completely separate political issue promoted by the Zionists, that had no relation to Jewish persecution. Despite their false claims to hold all things Catholic just as they existed prior to Vatican 2, LibTrads have adopted the stance that not only has the Church never condemned anti-Semitism, Her distrust and dislike for the Jews is evidenced by many warnings issued against them and confirmed by their confinement by the popes to the ghettoes of Rome. LibTrads even have revived the ritual murder charge, long ago dismissed by the popes. The founders of Traditionalism in Mexico and the U.S. blamed the Church’s infiltration and demise mainly on the Jews, and for many years those following them have continued to believe this was the case. Some have even descended to neo-Nazism, as various articles and studies have confirmed.

But fingering the Jews is a classic example of projection, which lifts blame for what has befallen the Church from those commissioned to die rather than let this happen — the cardinals and bishops — and transferring it to the Jews and others. Even the laity who were then adults and educated in Catholic schools must accept this blame for not better studying these issues and coming to the aid of the Church. Instead of adopting the offensive, they took the victim stance, waiting to be rescued and comforted. Of course we were all victims, but that should not have been our chosen designation. We are meant to be soldiers of Christ, not shell-shocked survivors of the spiritual combat in which all of us are expected to engage. By playing the victim, we effectively surrendered. The distinction must be clearly made between anti-Semitism and support of Israel’s recovery of the holy places in order to settle their own people there. Below, Ciani provides proofs that although the Church did all She could possibly do to combat anti-Semitism and help the Jews, at the same time She consistently opposed Israel’s efforts to resettle Jews in Palestine.

“Between 1939 and 1945, more than six thousand Italian Jews obtained passports, ship tickets and travel money from the Rome-based St. Raphael’s Association, an organization directly funded by the Vatican. Countless others were sheltered in monasteries, churches, convents and private homes, all with the explicit knowledge of the Pope, and consistent with his opposition to Nazi and Fascist racialist policies. The Vatican Relief Commission, at a cost of nearly one million dollars, supplied food, clothing, and medicine to untold thousands of refugees, prisoners and partisans during the winter of 1943-44, including at least 6,000 Jews in Rome alone.

“Throughout the war, a distinct bifurcation endured in the Vatican’s response to persecution of Europe’s Jews, characterized by assistance to Jews, where possible, on the one hand, and an opposition to the goals of political Zionism on the other. Simply put, the tragedy of the Holocaust and the refugee crisis that it created did not translate into Vatican support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Assistance to European Jews was regarded as a Christian duty, an obligation to lend assistance to a suffering fellow man. Monsignor Domenico Tardini, the Vatican’s undersecretary of state, expressed as much in the spring of 1943, when he observed that “the Jewish question is a question of humanity. The persecutions to which the Jews in Germany and the occupied or conquered countries are subjected are an offence against justice, charity, humanity… Therefore, the Catholic Church has full reason to intervene, whether in the name of divine law or natural law.”  Support for a Jewish homeland, however, despite the catalyst that the Holocaust had created toward that very end, was unfailingly opposed by Pius XII‟s Vatican, based on the ancestral Roman Catholic tenet that the Terra Santa was sacred to the faith, and must never fall under the political jurisdiction of a sovereign power.

“In large part, Catholic periodicals and diocesan newspapers in the United States reflected the position of Rome; namely that the persecution of European Jews was a tragedy for all humankind, but that it did not necessitate, or obviate, the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine… Vatican policymakers preferred to keep discreet any public stance on the future of Palestine. Privately, however, Pius XII and his Secretary of State, Cardinal Luigi Maglione, continued to express severe reservations about the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, fearing a loss of control over Christian sites in the Holy Land, and concerned with the possibility of a “Jewish beachhead‟ for communist influence and infiltration in the Near East. These sentiments were shared by a number of the Vatican’s most powerful Cardinals and diplomats, including Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, who as nuncio to Istanbul was noted for his efforts to save Jewish lives, but was unreceptive to the solutions posed by political Zionism. In a September 1943 letter to Maglione, Roncalli expressed discomfort about the degree to which Vatican aid to Jews would be later considered an endorsement of their ‘messianic dream’, adding that the ‘reconstruction of the Kingdom of Judah and the Israelites would not create a utopia.’

“The Holocaust, despite providing the most compelling rationale yet for the creation of a Jewish home in Palestine, did not alter either the Vatican’s or the American bishops’ opposition to the Zionist program, a stance which remained firmly rooted in historical and theological notions… On the substantive question of Jewish emigration to Palestine, and the creation of a Hebrew national home there, however, the American bishops remained resolutely in line with Rome. It was a policy that withstood the full airing of the tragedy of the Holocaust, and which stood firm against the rising tide of sympathy for Zionism in the United States, not just among Jews but among a growing segment of American Protestant Churches, Congress and even the Truman White House.

“The American Episcopal consensus that remained intact from the 1920s to the 1950s was weakened in subsequent decades by a number of factors, not least the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the great renewal movement in the Roman Catholic Church that was called by Pope John XIII in 1959. A number of American bishops took active roles at the Council, embracing its reformist zeal as evidenced by the promulgation of Dignitatis Humanae, a declaration on religious freedom conceived by John Courtney Murray and tabled by Archbishops Albert Meyer of Chicago and Joseph Ritter of St. Louis. Though Cardinal Spellman loomed large at the Council, and was undoubtedly the leader of the  “conservative‟ faction of American bishops, there emerged in Rome a growing faction of liberal-minded bishops, which included Meyer and Ritter as well as Detroit’s John Dearden and Kansas City’s John Patrick Cody, who more openly took up the Council’s mandate of revival and renewal.

“The Second Vatican Council was also significant, moreover, for the promulgation of Nostra Aetate, a declaration on the relationship of the Roman Catholic Church with non-Christian religions. Notable was the fourth section, which dealt specifically with Judaism. It repudiated the centuries-old charge of deicide against the Jews, and stressed the religious and spiritual bonds shared by the faiths, reaffirming the eternal covenant between God and the people of Israel. It further dismissed the Catholic objective of trying to convert the Jews, a symbolic turning point if juxtaposed with Pope Pius X’s 1904 warning to Theodor Herzl that should the Jews return to Palestine, there would be “Catholic priests waiting there to baptize them all.” For the first time in history, Nostra Aetate called for Catholics and Jews to engage in friendly dialogue and theological discussion to better understand each other’s faiths. After intense debate, the declaration was adopted by the world’s cardinals and bishops on 28 November 1965, a definitive turning point in the history of Catholic-Jewish relations.

“The Second Vatican Council, and its promulgation of Nostra Aetate, would herald the beginning of a new era both in relations between Catholicism and Judaism and, by extension, between the Vatican and Israel. The Council, moreover, would unleash a plurality of views in the Church that would preclude the survival of such a monolithic transnationalism.” (End of Ciani quotes)

What this means for us today

In Nostra Aetate, John Courtney Murray’s American proposition, as explained in our last blog,  was finally admitted as Catholic practice. It taught that the Church need not evangelize to secure converts, Jewish or otherwise, and Jews could not be held responsible for crucifying Christ. Forget the fact that according to Rev. Denis Fahey, Rev. Cahill and others, the Jews had never been held responsible by the Church for this act as a race for His death on the Cross, only the Jewish leaders of that day who actually crucified Him. For they alone knew that He had indeed fulfilled all the prophecies concerning the Messiah, and certainly the rabbis leading the Jewish people following the destruction of the temple, as prophesied by our Lord, never acknowledged Him and shamelessly spread filthy lies about Him and His Blessed Mother. The Church would not have the Jews persecuted for this, but neither would they ever concede that the Holy Land should be given over to the very people who rejected our Lord and had no reason to honor or preserve the ground He trod or the places He taught.

So while we cannot support Muslim control of the Holy Places existing today, neither can we support the plans of the Zionists to repopulate Palestine in order to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem and install the Jewish Messiah, as Roncalli (already in on the plan) well knew. And that is their goal. See https://www.betrayedcatholics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Final-Chapter-for-web.pdf for the full overview, but we will provide some excerpts here. As one Jewish writer observed many years ago, “The Roman Catholic Church wants Israel to lose sovereign control over the Old City of Jerusalem so that “the promises to the literal descendants of Abraham will be applied to the ‘New Jerusalem.’ If Israel controls Jerusalem, it is evidence that Rome’s claims are not legitimate and that the literal interpretation of Scriptures is correct. There is no place for the restoration of the nation of Israel in its theology. How can the Vatican claim to be “the New Jerusalem” and “rightful heir to the Kingdom of God” if the Jews control Jerusalem? How is the Catholic Church going to convince the world that their version of theology is correct?

“The premise is this: According to Rome there will never be a Temple/Synagogue built in Jerusalem unless Rome first controls the real estate (Temple Mount, Old City, City of David, Mt. Zion) upon which it will be built. The Vatican is actively pursuing these goals… The Vatican has attempted to obtain control of Jerusalem, which started with the Crusades. For them to convince the world that the Messiah they put on the world’s stage is going to be accepted as genuine, they need to perform this play in the Old City. The story of this production is that this “Messiah” will merge THE THREE MONOTHEISTIC RELIGIONS, usher in peace and harmony in the world, and solve the Middle East conflict. The location for this “production” will be in none other than the Old City of Jerusalem.”

“This so-called “Messiah” that will be proclaimed, will be a false one and it will insist that by having a “world government” (i.e., the United Nations) the world peace and harmony will be ushered in. This will be a lie, and a fraud, but never mind. In our world, reality isn’t important. Public perceptions are. The end result is the stripping of Israel’s sovereignty as an independent nation giving way to a “regional bloc of nations” in the Middle East. Israel will be pressured to accede to these demands by all world bodies and the superpowers on the claim that “this is the only way to solve the Middle East conflict.”

“In order for the Jews to go along, they will convince them that with the “Messiah” having appeared for the Jews, it is time to start rebuilding the Third Temple — what they call “Solomon’s Temple.” This version of events is widely available through a simple search on the Internet… “Again: The Vatican is going to have everyone believe this “mysterious individual who will ‘unite the faiths’ and appear in Jerusalem which will be under the control of an authority headed by The Vatican.” That deal to have the Vatican come into Israel and take over these properties and to “control and dominate the Old City of Jerusalem” already exists and has been fully documented and reported in the world’s media.

“The deal that it has signed with Israel via Yossi Beilin and Shimon Peres (in secret and without the approval of the Knesset, [Israeli legislature, Ed.]) gives the Church not only extraterritorial status to their properties (which is what the bi-lateral agreement the Israeli government signed with the Vatican on December 30th, 1993, put in law) but of control over the entire city as “custodians” under UN presence. In this way the Jews will give up control over the Old City. To the Vatican, the Israeli people they would have a problem with. To the UN, they would say, “We had no choice.”

“Arafat had been lobbying for the idea of sharing undivided Jerusalem, and for creating a Vatican-style sovereignty in the Old City.” (Somehow we are supposed to believe that Arafat initiated this, and not the Vatican. [Is that why he was murdered? — Ed.). The agreement calls for Jerusalem to be “an international city based on international resolutions and an international guarantee.” The pack was signed despite the Vatican having signed an agreement with Israel six years earlier on December 30, 1993, which gave legal jurisdiction under Israeli law over the Church’s own institutions and assets in the Holy Land” (Barry Chamish, Israeli investigative writer and reporter).

David Ben-Gurion, London, Dec. 16, 1949

“In Jerusalem, the United Nations (a truly United Nations) will build a shrine of the prophets to serve the federated union of all continents: this will be the seat of the supreme court of mankind, to settle all controversies, as prophesied by Isaiah. Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel and world Jewry:  It aspires to become the spiritual center of the world.” And this is their goal, achieved in part by the recent erection of the Abrahamic Family House, which officially opened February 16,  2023. https://www.forhumanfraternity.org/abrahamic-family-house/.

Trump has not formally weighed in on the Palestine question. But he seems in favor of a peaceful resolution and a cessation of hostilities, both in the Middle East and in Ukraine.

Conclusion

Not Francis nor any of his successors are Catholics, or representatives of the Vatican. Any “deal” made with the Vatican was never made with the true Catholic Church, but with the Whore of Babylon, who Protestants themselves established through their creation of Freemasonry. Protestant pastors cooperated in the destruction of the Catholic liturgy and were present at Vatican 2. They applauded ecumenism, the absolution of the Jews as responsible for Christ’s death and the modernization of the Church. It is a certain faction of Protestantism, called Dispensationalists, who have supported the rebuilding of the Temple all along. One group has even established an evangelical seminary in Jerusalem with claims of Jew and Arab converts to Christianity (One for Israel). They teach that “The people of Israel are God’s chosen people whom He loves with an everlasting love. God continues to fulfill all of the promises given to the Fathers. … Yeshua the Messiah will return to establish God’s manifest kingdom, to resurrect the dead and determine the eternal destiny of all men, eternally blessing the believers and eternally punishing the wicked.”

These comprise many of the “Christians” who support Trump unconditionally because he supports Israel, and the number of these people seems to be growing. They are known as British Israel proponents, a  rung listed on the ladder of Freemasonry, and they even count among their number a faction of Traditionalists. Certainly supporters of Hamas such as Harris could never be trusted. And if Trump is not a Christian and has Jewish leanings, one worries he would not be able to appreciate or impartially uphold the right of TRUE Catholics and sincere Protestants to lobby for the preservation of Israel from destruction of the holy places and protest its occupation by the usurpers. But at least it seems he is willing to protect the rights of Christians whether he professes to be a Christian himself or not. That is something that all those voting for him are bound to hold him to, should he be elected.

Regardless of the outcome of this election, Christ and His true followers will prevail in the end. The Jews longed for a fiery-eyed and righteous Messiah, and they shall have Him. Christ the King shall ride His white horse into the arena followed by a legion of angels, headed by St. Michael, when they least expect it and take possession of His throne. For He alone is the King of Zion, reigning forever and ever, Amen.