by T. Stanfill Benns | May 26, 2024 | New Blog
+Most Holy Trinity Sunday+
Many readers grieve over the multiplication of blasphemies and insults against the Blessed Mother by those professing to be “Christians,” both on social media sites and Protestant websites. The intensity of these attacks appears to be increasing, and Catholics are hard-pressed at times to answer these false accusations themselves, dissecting the grounds for the attack and cutting to the core of the issue. What follows is the summary of a little book printed in the 1800s that explains the history, motives, misrepresentations and illogical basis for these allegations. This work proves, from the writings of notable Protestant preachers themselves, that the idol worship Catholics are accused of today is neither worship nor idolatry. It then exposes the true source of the hatred Protestants so vehemently spew against our beloved Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Rev. Henry G. Ganss, the rector of St. Patrick’s Church in Carlisle, Penn., wrote Mariolatry, New Phases of an Old Fallacy in 1897 (Notre Dame Press, Indiana). It first appeared as a series printed in the periodical Ave Maria. His work is based on a scathing address entitled Mariolatry, delivered by a Protestant minister in Pennsylvania and widely distributed to the public. In his work, Rev. Ganss refutes this minister’s sermon and notes the following important points.
Ignorance, name-calling, credulity and insinuations
Regarding the methods used to belittle and castigate Catholics at every possible turn he writes: “Such wholesale and extreme pugnacity may be very convenient as it calls for no discrimination; it requires neither learning nor thought but can be played off under all circumstances by almost any polemic with about the same effect. Its strength consists mainly in calling nicknames; in repeating outrageous charges without regard to any contradiction from the other side; in thrumming over threadbare commonplaces received by tradition from the easy credulity of times past; in huge exaggerations, vast distortions and bold, insulting insinuations thrown out at random in any and every direction. But however convenient all this may be, requiring little learning and less thought and no politeness or charity whatever, it is high time to see that it is a system of tactics which needs in truth only a slight change of circumstance at any time to work just the opposite way from that it is meant to work.
“There is an absence of a cool, dispassionate, judicial temperament; glittering generalities and unsupported assertions are uttered with a melancholy disregard for historic accuracy, conscientious scholarship, logical sequence, and, I regret to say, Christian truth. The covert design seems to be to cast discredit and odium on everything bearing a semblance to Catholicity even if charity the only badge of a true follower of a common Redeemer, and truth, the only criterion that regulates social and spiritual life, must be sacrificed. And when this is done with a mock-heroic air of theological erudition and with the avowed intention of bringing man near to his God, we hardly know whether to be convulsed at the picturesque drollery of the first attitude or filled with burning indignation at the seeming impiety of the second.”
T. Benns comment: What strikes me immediately here is the similarity of these Protestant attacks to those of the LibTrads against Catholics praying at home.
The Incarnation denied
Ganss continues, quoting Luther: “To be the mother of God is a prerogative so lofty, so tremendous, as to surpass all understanding. There is no honor no beatitude capable of approaching an elevation which consists in being of the whole human race the sole person superior to all others unequaled in the prerogative of having one common son with the heavenly Father. Calvin fully endorses this view. The imputation of sinfulness to the Blessed Virgin is confronted with the evidence of the ancient Church. St. Ambrose calls her ‘a Virgin free from every stain of sin;’ Saint Andrew of Crete says that she was ‘not at leavened with the universal leaven of sin.’ Saint Augustine, who is quoted later in the sermon, claims that she had ‘an immunity from all sin concerning whom when there is a question of sin. I wish no question would ever to be raised on account of the Lord, for thence we know that more grace to vanquish sin altogether was conferred on her who merited to conceive and bring forth Him in whom sin has no part.’ Disbelief was so strongly grafted on the ancient Church that at the ecumenical council of Ephesus it was made a standard of orthodoxy, so that all who denied that Mary was the Mother of God were excommunicated as heretics.”
T. Benns comment: And of course the Church later infallibly decreed Our Lady was conceived without original sin.
“The idea that the son of God assumed humanity in a sinful mother or in a woman ‘just as human as any other daughter of Eve,’ cannot be reconciled with a proper conception of the Incarnation. it is repugnant to reason, antagonistic to the consensus of the primitive Church and reprobated by modern orthodoxy. All agree ‘that she must not have stood in the same relation to sin,’ to use the words of the Lutheran divine Dietlien, ‘as other children of Eve, who from the beginning of her existence was to be the vehicle of grace in so preeminent a manner.’ The issue the sermon wishes to raise here is brushed away with theological skill and orthodox vigor by a learned Episcopalian churchman when he says: ‘We cannot doubt that He [Jesus] loved Mary to the fullness of His nature, which was divine. It would be a very idle refinement to say that He loved her as man only, for in Him the human and divine nature were united. That nature human and divine he bore with Him to heaven.’
And Ganss says: “It is hard to believe that she, who once covered with kisses the lips which shall pronounce the doom of men, did not have her maternal tenderness repaid and that she, like any other sinful woman, could possibly expect those divine lips to pronounce her doom.”
Countering false worship charges
Ganss then comments on the charges made in the sermon he is refuting that “devotion to Mary is a superstitious credulity; a sensual worship an idealized paganism.” He quotes the eulogist and historian Lecky a champion of rationalism as stating: “’There is, I think, little doubt that the Catholic reverence of the Virgin has done much to elevate and purify the ideal woman and to soften the manners of men. It has had an influence which the worship of the pagan goddesses could never possess, for these had been almost destitute of moral beauty and especially of that kind of moral beauty which is peculiarly feminine. It supplied in a great measure the redeeming and ennobling element in a strange amalgamation of licentious and military feeling which was formed around women in the age of chivalry and which no succeeding change of habit or belief has wholly destroyed.’
“Shlegel, the great German poet and critic, a staunch Lutheran, coincides with Lecky when he claims that ‘with the virtue of chivalry was associated a new and pure spirit of love and inspired homage for genuine female worth, which was now reared as the pinnacle of humanity and enjoined by religion itself under the image of the Virgin Mother, infused into all hearts a sentiment of alloyed goodness.’” Again we hear from a Protestant: “Ruskin, who as far as Catholicity is concerned has little in common with the above authors and displays an almost frenetic hatred of the Church is compelled all the same to confess: ‘I am persuaded that the worship of the Madonna has been one of the noblest and most vital graces of Catholicism and has never been otherwise than productive of true holiness of life and purity of character. There is probably not an innocent cottage house throughout the length and breadth of Europe in which the imagined presence of the Madonna has not given sanctity to the humblest duties and comfort to the sorest trials of the lives of women.” And he goes on to quote several more.
Countering charges of idolatry, he quotes one Protestant who visited Italy and confessed that, “He could discern no indications of idolatry but testifies that ‘in the six months that I have been in Dr. Schaff protests against the propagation of the calamity that ‘papists are idolaters is the colossal slander on the oldest and largest church in Christendom’ and stigmatize such methods as untrue, unjust, uncharitable and unchristian… Or when Dr. Arnold, while at Bourges, sees a mother in the crypt of the cathedral lift her little girl to kiss the pierced feet of a statue of our crucified Lord, touched by the pathetic spectacle ask himself the question: ‘Is this idolatry? Nay, barely it may be so but it need not be. Assuredly in itself it is right and natural. I confess I rather envied that child.”
Answering the ridiculous charge that the Bible teaches God forbids all “worship” of pictures, when such worship is directed only to what they represent, Ganss writes: “Albrecht Drurer, the greatest German painter of his age… put in a rational plea ‘that a Christian is as little led astray by a picture as a peace-abiding man is tempted to murder because he carries a sword by his side. That indeed must be a stupid man who would pray to pictures, wood or stone.’ And he denounces it as a calumny ‘that the art of painting leads to idolatry.’”
Meaning of the word worship
Rev. Ganss also proves that the meaning of worship is falsely understood, as Protestant preachers and teachers themselves have explained. After demonstrating that certain Protestants actually falsified the teaching of the catechisms to read that we worship Mary as equal to God, he then quotes several highly respected Protestants, Leibnitz, Voss, and others, who acknowledge that ‘the highest latria is to God alone, as the adoration of the Host in Mass, the lowest, dulia,is paid to the saints and angels, while the transcendent virtues of the Blessed Virgin are honored by hyperdulia.’” Protestants likewise testify as follows to the true meaning of worship: “A reference to any standard dictionary will elicit the proof that generically the word worship always means to pay honor or show deference and only specifically does it convey the sense ‘obtained divine honors.’ In Holy Scripture it is used in interchangeably, but following the precedent established we will let Protestant theologians and philologists vindicate the Catholic practice.
“The word worship,’ says Doctor Hodge, ‘means properly to respect or honor. It is used both to express the inward sentiment and its outward manifestation. The old sense of the word is still retained in courts of law in which the judge is addressed as your worship or as Worshipful. We are then to collect the intention of the act of worship for their designed as a token of profound civil respect or of real prostration from the circumstances of the instances on record. Such acts of prostration as are called worship were chiefly paid to civil governors.’” And another Protestant, Trench, “one of the greatest English philologists, from an etymological point, reasons it out as follows: ‘Worship, or worthship, meant honor; this meaning of worship still very harmlessly surviving in ‘Worshipful’ and in the title addressed to the magistrate on the bench. So little was it restrained of old to the honor which man is bound to pay to God that it is employed by Wycliffe to express the honor which God will render to his faithful servants and friends. Thus our Lord’s declaration, ‘If any man serve me him will my Father honor.’ And in Wycliffe’s translation reads thus: ‘If any man serve me, my father shall worship him.’”
T. Benns comment: So if it can be applied even to a civil servant without practicing idolatry, why not to Our Blessed Mother??!!
True origins of idolatry
From whence, then, did all this idolatry nonsense really originate and when and why?? Rev. Ganss tells us: “But may it not be urged that the charge of superstition and idolatry is not a new one, that the concurrent opinion of Protestantism during the last 400 years voices it? Only too true, because this opinion, like the Ptolemaic system was traditionally accepted but never critically examined; because from the nursery jingle to the pulpit thunder it was incessantly dinned into the ears as gospel truth; because from the monosyllabic school primer to the ponderous theological tome, it was taught as an accepted fact; because the majority then, as now, are guided by the convenient maxim: ‘To follow foolish precedent and wink, with both our eyes is easier than to think.’ and because every student knows that, ‘Fanatic faith once wedded fast, through some clear falsehood hugs it to the last.” Length of time may give a prescriptive claim to the possession of property but no number of years or centuries can give error and falsehood countenance much less a justifiable claim to existence.
“The charge of idolatry is not a new one but this ‘miserable pageant of untruth, feeble with three poor centuries of age’ in every case emanated from the most implacable enemies of holy Church. Celsius, the Epicurean, the literary protagonist of rationalism, and Julian the Apostate, the theological precursor of infidelity, fastened this charge on the infant Church. “Deadly superstition,” as Tacitus reports, “a new and magical superstition,” were some of the choice epithets by which the primitive Church was designated. Does not the cynical epigram of Julian the Apostate, ‘You do not cease to call Mary the Mother of God,’ most significantly recall the scornful sneer of modern heresy?”
T. Benns comment: Might we not date this charge back even further? Was it not the Jewish rabbis who set the stage for these horrific insults to Our Lady, teaching in their Talmud that she “committed adultery,” “played the harlot with carpenters” and “was known to be an adulteress… who bore Jesus illegitimately”? (Taken from the Jewish Encyclopedia and the books of the Sanhedrin).
And to continue with Rev. Ganss: “As for the concurrent opinion of Protestantism unprejudiced and impartial historians are gradually disclosing the methods by which it was fed and nourished. In the first place, by a system of ruthless and ruinous Iconoclasm; by the destruction of every image —carved or painted, engraved or embroidered — on which fiendish fanaticism could lay its sacrilegious hands. The accumulated art treasures of centuries, the masterpieces of carved statuary, the exquisitely jeweled windows, the glowingly beautiful canvases, the inimitably gorgeous tapestries, the priceless marvels of illuminated manuscripts — all gathered with princely munificence, guarded with loving care, treasured with tender devotion — were hacked to pieces by infuriated, devastating vandals pillaged by the savage horde of robber barons or laid in ashes by the firebrand of the evangelical incendiary.
“With an open Bible in one hand and a blazing torch in the other, a volley of blistering imprecations gushing from its frothing mouth, Carlostadt, in spite of Luther’s pleas, remonstrances and threats, swept over parts of Germany like a veritable satanic incarnation of destructive malignancy. Reason, justice, law were alike powerless to stay his blighting course. ‘It would be 1,000 times better,’ he shrieks, ‘if the pictures were in hell or in a fiery furnace than in the House of God! No matter if one does say ‘I do not worship the images, I pay no honor to them but to the Saints they represent,’ God answered summarily and in clear terms ‘Thou shalt not adore them, thou shalt not honor them.’ If one should come and say pictures instruct and edify the laity as much as books do the learned answer them: ‘God has forbidden pictures.”
“John Knox at the head of a pillaging mob, ‘who swept from Scotland in a flame of zeal shrine, altar, image and massy piles that harbored them,’ and who saw ‘in fire and sword and desolation a godly thorough Reformation,’ eclipsed the havoc wrought by Leo the Isaurian outside the very devastation of Attila, ‘the scourge of God.’ Wesley groaned over the manner in which the Reformation had been affected in Scotland and when he stood amid the ruins of Aberbrothock exclaimed: ‘God deliver us from reforming mobs! Nor, in his burning indignation, did he mince his words when he dismissed the Scottish reformation with the merciless excoriation that ‘the work of God does not, cannot need the work of the devil to forward it.’
“In England the empty niches, the leveled altars, the rifled sanctuaries, the desecrated tombs, give evidence that the name Rottengeist — to use a word of Luther’s coining — was not idle. Even the invaluable literary treasures of antiquity, the accumulated wisdom of centuries the vast collections of books and still more costly collections of manuscripts stored in the monastic libraries were ruthlessly mutilated, irretrievably ruined or wantonly burned in order that not a vestige of idolatry might survive.” (End of Rev. Ganss quotes). And here we must also add what Rev. Ganss later reports, that in place of those “idols” removed from the churches they stole from us, they placed pictures of their reigning monarchs to be reverenced instead! But that of course was not idolatry. Hypocrites! And so we bow our heads and weep.
History only repeats itself
What does this remind us of? We see the word Iconoclasm mentioned above, but what is an Iconoclast? An Iconoclast is: “A person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions.” We have seen what incendiaries who rile up the mobs can do; witness the destruction wrought by such groups as Black Lives Matter and Antifa, also white nationalist groups. This was the same destruction spurred on during the French Revolution and later by the Bolshevists and the Nazis. Whether they attack ancient culture, religion, or both, they are all the same. And they emanate from the same source, as the free book available on this site, Liberalism’s Shameful Legacy, explains. They feed on the anger and dissatisfaction, the prejudices of the mob; they breed class warfare, a favorite tool of Communism, and then they destroy all in their path.
Christian conservatives claim to be their enemies. And yet Christian conservatives also fan these same flames any time they defame our Blessed Mother. They do this because they are ignorant of their own history and the true history of Christianity. They simply repeat what they have been taught for centuries without examining the facts and searching for the truth. They believe the lies of those who hated Catholics in the past and those who today brand all Catholics as accessories to pedophilia and the “Jesuit conspiracy” to control the world. They mimic the Jews and the pagans in their hatred and do not even know the true meaning of the terms idolatry and worship, far less what the Bible really teaches regarding such things. But then of course they interpret the Bible for themselves, so what can one expect. In short, they are children of the world, and in reality, are little different than those tearing down what is left of our culture today.
The real problem here is that no one any longer understands or values Christ’s divinity. They have made him their friend and “brother,” in the human sense. They picture him laughing and smiling and make hideous caricatures of him for children’s books. They cannot handle the FACT that he was not like other men, He did not smile often but was often known to weep; He did not “mingle” easily but kept Himself apart from others except when teaching. He was like us yet not like us: in this world but not of it, as we are told to be. He was all-holy, and could anyone believe that God the Father would entrust his only begotten Son to anything or anyone less than holy? This is only common sense, that is, if we truly believe Christ was both God and man. Would you pour expensive aged liquor into a glass without thoroughly cleaning it, in order to truly enjoy its taste? And God in His wisdom, would He do any less with something infinitely more precious?
Tell the Protestants on the Internet the following: “If you accuse me of worshipping idols, then know this. I accuse you of denying Christ’s divinity. For if God the Father was truly Divine, and Christ was truly His Son, only the most precious vessel could have borne Him, and if we honor her, it is because God Himself perfected her as that vessel and she yet holds the vestiges of that sacred little Body that once dwelt in her womb.” And then, send them this prayer:
ACT OF REPARATION
(To be recited on the First Saturdays)
MOST HOLY VIRGIN and our beloved Mother/ we listen with grief/ to the complaints of thy Immaculate Heart/ surrounded with the thorns/ which ungrateful men place therein/ at every moment/ by their blasphemies and ingratitude./ Moved by the ardent desire/ of loving thee as our Mother/ and of promoting a true devotion/ to thy Immaculate Heart/ we prostrate ourselves at thy feet/ to prove the sorrow we feel/ for the grief that men cause thee/ and to atone by means of/ our prayers and sacrifices/ for the offenses which men/ return thy tender love.
Obtain for them/ and for us/ the pardon of so many sins./ A word from thee/ will obtain grace and forgiveness/ for us all./ Hasten, O Lady/ the conversion of sin-ners/ that they may love Jesus/ and cease to offend God/ already so much offended and thus avoid eternal punishment./
Turn thine eyes of mercy/ towards us/ so that henceforth/ we may love God with all our heart/ while on earth/ and enjoy Him forever in heaven./ Amen./
Imprimatur # Joseph E. Ritter, D.D., Archbishop of Indianapolis
THE GRAIL, ST. MEINRAD, INDIANA
by T. Stanfill Benns | May 17, 2024 | New Blog
+St. Paschal Babylon+
LibTrads speak a great deal about the need of graces from the Sacraments to lead a Catholic life. Yet their idea of these graces and how they are received are quite skewed. We read from St. Thomas Aquinas: “Now it is manifest that human virtues perfect man according as it is natural for him to be moved by his reason in his interior and exterior actions. Consequently man needs yet higher perfections, whereby to be disposed to be moved by God. These perfections are called gifts, not only because they are infused by God, but also because by them man is disposed to become amenable to the Divine inspiration, according to Isaiah 50:5: “The Lord . . . hath opened my ear, and I do not resist; I have not gone back.” And here, of course, he is speaking of those gifts of the Holy Ghost, which, he explains, are necessary for salvation.
“Even the Philosopher says in the chapter On Good Fortune (Ethic. Eudem., vii, 8) that for those who are moved by Divine instinct, there is no need to take counsel according to human reason, but only to follow their inner promptings, since they are moved by a principle higher than human reason. This then is what some say, viz. that the gifts perfect man for acts which are higher than acts of virtue... Of all the gifts, wisdom seems to be the highest, and fear the lowest. Now each of these is necessary for salvation: since of wisdom it is written (Wisdom 7:28): “God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom”; and of fear (Sirach 1:28): “He that is without fear cannot be justified.” Therefore the other gifts that are placed between these are also necessary for salvation… As stated above (Article 1), the gifts are perfections of man, whereby he is disposed so as to be amenable to the promptings of God. Wherefore in those matters where the prompting of reason is not sufficient, and there is need for the prompting of the Holy Ghost, there is, in consequence, need for a gift” (Summa Theol., I-II, Q. 68.).
Pray to the Holy Ghost
Rev. Frederick T. Hoeger, C.S.s.P, in his The Holy Ghost Prayerbook, (1939), says of these instincts: “’The just man who lives in the state of grace has need of the seven gifts which are properly attributed to the Holy Ghost. By means of them the soul is furnished and strengthened so as to be able to obey more easily and promptly His voice and impulse’” (Pope Leo XIII). To the Holy Ghost himself could be applied those words which he has inspired concerning supernatural wisdom: ‘All things come to me together with him and innumerable riches through his hands.’ As he enters the Christian soul to make of it His dwelling place, He comes laden with precious treasures for His host — sanctifying grace, charity and all the other supernatural virtues. These are called in a general way gifts of the Holy Ghost. But there are seven supernatural habits which He places in the sanctified soul that bear the distinctive title of gifts of the Holy Ghost: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.
“Saint Thomas compares these in our supernatural life to instincts and the natural life. How often it happens that after we have escaped from some dangerous predicament we say, ‘I do not know how I was saved; instinctively I jumped.’ As instinct saves us many times from harm to our body so the gifts save us from harm to our souls. Often in our supernatural life if we had stopped to reason just how much good we had to do or how much evil we had to avoid to escape sin we might have fallen from grace entirely. But when we responded to the influence the Holy Ghost brought to bear upon us through the gifts, we did not stop to measure the efforts more good deeds would cost us. And so when we look back upon the past, we are surprised how bravely we fought against evil, how courageously we went about some good deed. St. Antonius speaks of the seven gifts also as antidotes to the seven inclinations to evil which we have all inherited from our first parents. The gift of fear as opposed to pride, the gift of counsel to covetousness, the gift of wisdom to lust, the gift of understanding to gluttony, the gift of piety to envy, the gift of knowledge to anger and the gift of fortitude to sloth.”
Cardinal Manning on The Holy Ghost
And from Henry Cardinal Manning, in his two works on the Holy Ghost (The Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost and The Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier, we read:
“Now God the Holy Ghost has the office of our sanctification and the office of Sanctifier is twofold. There is the work of the Holy Ghost in every individual soul from the beginning of the world; and that work of sanctification in each individual soul will continue to the end of the world. There is also the work of the Holy Ghost in the mystical Body of Christ, that is His Church, which office began from the day of Pentecost, and will continue to the second advent of the Son of God…
“No man can hide himself from the love and from the glory of God. Go where he may if he walk upon the earth, God is there; if he ascend into heaven, He is there also; if he go down into the deep, God is there before Him. Every living soul therefore has an illumination of God in the order of nature, by the light of conscience, and by the light of reason, and by the working of the Spirit of God in his head and in his heart, leading him to believe in God, and to obey Him. Once more: Saint Paul says that “God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”: that is, without any exception, Jew or Gentile. And once more: “We hope in the living God,” Who is the Saviour of all men, and especially of the faithful; that is, of those who believe, therefore of all men without exception. And two Pontiffs have condemned as heresy the two following assertions:
“That the heathen, and the Jews, and heretics, receive no influence from Jesus Christ, but that their will is without help, that is without grace, was condemned as a heresy by Alexander VIII. Again, that there is no grace given outside the Church, was also condemned as heresy by Clement XI. The work, therefore, of the Holy Ghost, even in the order of nature, so to say, that is, outside of the Church of God and of the revealed knowledge of Jesus Christ among the heathen, that working is universal in the soul of every individual human being; and if they who receive the assistance of the Holy Ghost are faithful in corresponding with it, God in His unrevealed mercies will deal with them in ways secret from us. His mercies unknown to us are over all His works and the infinite merits of the Redeemer of the world are before the mercy-seat of our Heavenly Father, for the salvation of those that follow even the little light which in the order of nature they receive.
“Any gift of God given freely is a grace. Our very existence is a grace; every gift in nature is a grace; every light we receive from the world leading us to the knowledge of God much more every doctrine we receive from revelation is a grace; but this is not the sense in which we are speaking now. When we talk of the grace of the Holy Ghost we mean something interior dwelling in the soul; and therefore the grace of the Holy Spirit working in the soul may be thus defined. It is a gift of God infused into the soul, not due to nature, but something superadded to nature, a perfection above nature elevating the soul to the supernatural order, and leading it to justification and eternal life. Or, to put it shortly, it is the sanctifying power and the influx of the Holy Ghost; it is the presence of the Holy Ghost entering into the soul, and infusing sanctity into the soul.
“When grace takes possession of the soul, in the reason it assumes the form of faith; in the will it takes the form of hope ; and in the heart it takes the form of love: faith, hope, and charity are the three primary workings of the Holy Ghost in the soul. Again, grace may be described as the breath of the supernatural life, which God breathes into the soul of man. A breath of life as necessary to the soul as the natural breath of life is to the body. Therefore it has an operation universal, gratuitous, derived from the sovereign love of God, necessary, vital to man, and sufficient to eternal life. This, then, is the first working of the Holy Spirit from the beginning of the world; and is at this moment even among those nations that have never received the faith.
“All those who are saved eternally will be saved by the sovereign grace of God, and by the free cooperation of their own will; and all those who are lost eternally will be lost because, by the free resistance of their will, they have refused to co-operate with the grace of God. The pre- destination of God in no way violates or takes away the perfect liberty of the human will. God created the will of man with liberty, and He respects the work of His own hands; but from the beginning there has been a line of His elect multiplying perpetually from Abel the just, continuing to expand in number from Abel to Enoch, from Enoch to Noe, from Noe to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses. In the twelve tribes of Israel the saints of God were multiplying continually; and to them God continually gave more and more of His graces, visions, revelations, promises, inspirations, vocations, and special calls: like that which called Abraham out from Ur of the Chaldees; inspirations like that which made Moses to be the Law-giver of His people, and made Aaron to be the Priest to minister before Him graces which constituted the Prophets of Israel as the teachers, the rebukers, and the admonishers of the people of God.
“All those were special graces bestowed by the Holy Ghost for the illumination and sanctification of the people of God; but over and above these there were special interior workings and graces of the Holy Ghost, increasing continually in their measure until the coming of Jesus Christ. Every saint before the coming of Jesus Christ was sanctified by the Holy Ghost in virtue of the foreseen redemption upon Calvary. The merits of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world obtained graces for the sanctification of God’s elect from the beginning ; and the sanctity of every saint like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of every penitent like David, the special graces of Saint Joseph and the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, were all purchased by the same most Precious Blood shed by the Son of God…
“Now we live under the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. We are at this time committed to the care and guidance of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity; so that the dispensation under which we are is the dispensation of the Spirit of God, the Sanctifier. It is a wonder, then, how men with the page of the New Testament before them can fail to see this: that the one great evangelical gift, the one great gift of the Gospel, is the gift of the Holy Ghost. “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear ; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry : Abba, Father.” …” And if we be sons, we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.” Our whole state is elevated. Because we are the children of the Second Adam, His Father is our Father; because we are the sons of God by grace, He is our elder Brother. The Holy Ghost dwells in us, because He descends from our Head upon all His members. We are born again through Christ into a new and supernatural state. We are not restored to the state of original justice, but we are placed in a state of union with God through the Holy Ghost, like, though distinct from, that which the first man received.
“There is this further difference: he was in original justice, but it was possible for him to fall. We are united to a divine Head sinless and immortal, Who therefore can never fall, for He is God. We, who are united with Him, receive from Him, by our regeneration, a special indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Not only every grace that was ever given to man before, all the graces that were ever granted under the law to the saints and to the penitents of Israel not only all those are still given in fullness now to members of the Church, but there are super- added other graces which were never before given. In Israel there were no proper sacraments. There were shadows of sacraments, but the substance was not come. There was circumcision, and there were sacrifices of bulls and of goats, and ceremonial actions, and washings, and purifications, which were the types and shadows of things to come; but those were not proper sacraments, and they did not convey grace. There was no grace in them. They were external actions, like the taking of holy water, and they depended for their sanctifying power upon the internal state of the heart of those who used them.
“According to the measure of faith and piety in the heart of those who received them, was the measure of the grace received by their use. The grace did not spring from them, nor come through them, for they were not fountains or channels of grace. Now here we must observe that, over and above all the graces that have ever been given by the Holy Spirit of God before the day of Pentecost, we have received the special grace of a new dispensation. We who are born again, and are members of the mystical Body of Christ, are under a dispensation of the Holy Ghost, so full, and of such manifold grace, that there is no state of man which is not embraced by it, and in which there is not given an abundance of grace, exceeding all measure that we can conceive, and meted out according to the necessities of each individual soul. Our Lord intended this when He said: “I am come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
“Therefore hope for the greatest gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost. They were all purchased for you by the most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ. They are yours by right, for He has given them to you. All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God. His redemption purchased them for you, and His sovereignty gives them to you. He has promised to give them to all who ask Him, and He delights in being asked, and asked for the greatest things of His kingdom. He loves to be trusted ; and to ask great things is to show great trust in a great love. Timid prayers and low aspirations are false humility, for we ask not for our own merits, but for His. Hope honours Him. Ask for perfect sanctification, for perfect expiation. S. Leonard of Port Maurice used to say, I hope to go to heaven without purgatory. He meant, there is no bound to be set to the love and grace of Jesus Christ. And without a doubt a soul that hopes and aspires for so great a grace will aim and strive at a proportionate perfection in humility, charity, purity, and union with God.
“Let us then resolve, dear brethren, all we can, to love the Spirit of God, to conform ourselves to His will, to worship Him day by day, to pray to Him personally, to place ourselves under His guidance, to beware of those three degrees of disobedience of which He Himself has warned us: “Grieve not the Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption”… “Resist not the Spirit”: “Quench not the Spirit.” These are three degrees by which we may fall from His love and from His presence. Beware also not of actual disobedience only, but of that tardy, slothful negligence by which you may provoke Him to a just impatience. ”Would thou art neither cold nor hot…” [but the lukewarm I will vomit from my mouth]. Nothing provokes the Holy Spirit of God, Who is the fire of the love of God, more than the lukewarmness with which we allow His graces and mercies to pass by us, and to pass by us unperceived.
“Ask, then, of the Holy Spirit of God to give you light to know Him, to know His presence, to be conscious of His indwelling in your hearts. Say to Him, “O my God, I give myself to Thee with all my liberty, all my intellect and heart and will. I desire to be bound to Thee, for “where the spirit of the Lord is there, there is liberty”; no other liberty is true. I desire to be free from the servitude of my own false freedom which is the worst bondage of the human soul. To be Thy servant is to be in the liberty of the sons of God. They that are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God. O Holy Spirit of God, take me as thy disciple; guide me, illuminate me, sanctify me, bind my hands that I may not do evil; cover my eyes that I may see it no more; sanctify my heart that evil may not rest within me. Be Thou my God, be Thou my guide: wheresoever thou leadest me, I will go whatsoever thou forbiddest, I will renounce and whatsoever thou commandest, in Thy strength I will do.” (End of Cardinal Manning quotes.)
Conclusion
And finally, this timely and poignant quote from Rev. Hoeger’s Holy Ghost Prayerbook cited above:
“Pentecost may rightly be called the birthday of the Church. When the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles then only did they become brave and zealous then only did they go forth fearlessly to defend the doctrine of Christ before audiences that were not only unsympathetic but even antagonistic. Today the world is filled with cowards who have not the courage of their convictions, who are slaves to the spirit of the times. What we need is light and strength from the Holy Ghost to help us live up to the Church’s teaching especially in reference to chastity honesty and loyalty so that no man can sneer at the Catholic Church because Catholics fail to do what is right.There is work to be done for God in the Church by the devout client of the Holy Ghost. The powers of evil are abroad this is their hour period let us take God’s side boldly and uncompromisingly not only by our professional faith but also by our good deeds the Holy Ghost will help us to do this even if they help the apostles of old.”
During Pentecost, all Catholics are urged by the Roman Pontiffs to make a novena to the Holy Ghost. And every Catholic is advised to say some prayer in His honor each day and beg Him for His guidance. Perhaps our lack of devotion to the Holy Ghost is what has impeded so many for so long from coming to a knowledge of the Truth. Let us begin today, then, to remedy this neglect of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity by making this novena and reciting the prayers found in Rev. Hoeger’s book HERE. May all receive His lights and gifts.
by T. Stanfill Benns | May 9, 2024 | New Blog
+The Ascension of Our Lord into Heaven+
(Please pray for a Prayer Society member who is gravely ill to receive all the graces necessary to obtain eternal salvation.)
A reader commented recently on the excellence of one of Fr. Hunolt’s series of sermons, written in the 1700s. He especially praised the ones concerning the torments the faithful would have to endure under Antichrist. While Fr. Hunolt wrote before it was determined by Pope Pius XII that there would not be a spiritual renewal or millennium following the destruction of Antichrist’s system, his writings aside from that are good reminders of what our attitude today should be. We know Antichrist has come and gone, but that his system lives on. We also know that Christ will come in person to destroy this system and that the first two individuals receiving the final judgment, their bodies and souls being cast into hell, most likely will be John 23 and Paul 6 (the beast proper and his false prophet). Excerpts from this series on Antichrist’s reign will be examined below. The sermons can be read in their entirety HERE.
Spiritual snowflakes
“It is easy to talk of resisting torments and braving martyrdom! Ah! how could they give up their bodies to the rods, the scorpions, the leaded clubs, the iron hooks, to be torn and flayed, who are now so delicate and tender that they cannot bear the prick of a needle; who find a fast-day intolerable, and are absolutely unable to stand or kneel for an hour in church, or to rise early in the morning on account of the cold? How could they allow themselves to be roasted or boiled alive who, if their beds are the least uncomfortable, cannot sleep for impatience? How could they laugh at torments to whom all crosses are terrible, who sigh and moan at the least trial, and give vent to their feelings in oaths and curses at the most trifling annoyance, expressing their dissatisfaction also by giving up the practice of prayer and devotion and the frequentation of the sacraments?”
Comment: Here we are reminded of those today, so accustomed to ease and indulgence on every count. Unable to accept God’s will, they cuss and grumble with every disagreeable trifle and then proceed to blame others for their troubles! If we are ever persecuted physically and openly, they will be the first to abandon their faith. Must we all not fear we might be among them?
Mortification and obedience to God’s laws
“Oh, no! God of goodness! we are not in want of an Antichrist to prove our virtue, our faith, hope, and charity by putting us to the torture! We have daily tribulations enough: more than we wish for, to try our virtue! Would that we could only bear them with patience and resignation for Your sake and to gain heaven! Every hour of the day we have abundant opportunity of mortifying our eyes, ears, tongue, sensuality, and evil inclinations; but to do so is often for us a bitter martyrdom that, without any tyrant to compel us, CAUSES US TO FORGET THE OBEDIENCE WE OWE YOUR HOLY LAW. A slight chagrin, a word of contradiction, a cross look is sometimes enough to upset our so-called virtue, and change it into impatience, hatred, and anger. What would then become of us in the midst of a terrible persecution, which many even of the holiest and most innocent shall not withstand?”
Comment: It all boils down to obedience to God’s laws, offering little sacrifices throughout the day, and performance of daily duty. Fr. Hunolt repeatedly notes the necessity of obeying God’s laws. And who among us in this age is innocent and holy? Some very sobering thoughts here.
Our state better than those who went before
“Ah, poor, unhappy souls that are to live in those times of Antichrist, how you are to be pitied! But if you, almost forced as you shall be by grievous persecutions, temptations, torments, hypocrisy, and pretended miracles to abandon God, shall nevertheless be condemned by a most just sentence to eternal torments, what excuse shall we have? What sort of a hell awaits us who can so easily enjoy the freedom of the children of God, and who yet allow ourselves to be led astray, to be turned away from God, to be drawn over to the side of the devil, and to live like antichrists, that is, sworn enemies of Jesus Christ?
When the three and a half years of the reign of that terrible persecutor Antichrist shall have expired, then, says Our Lord in the Gospel of St. Matthew, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved.” Mark the word “immediately.” We must not understand by it that the moment Antichrist sinks into the abyss those signs shall be visible. NO; FOR ACCORDING TO COMMENTATORS THE MERCY OF GOD SHALL GRANT A RESPITE OF SOME MONTHS, OR, AS SOME SAY, OF YEARS FOR THOSE WHO SHALL BE PERVERTED BY ANTICHRIST TO REPENT, BECAUSE THEN ALMOST THE WHOLE WORLD SHALL RETURN TO CHRIST AFTER THEIR ACCURSED APOSTASY. “
Comment: Certainly those who led lax lives, or those who lapsed from the faith when the juridical Church yet existed, are far more to blame for any such actions than those of us today, deprived of all spiritual assistance and the Mass and Sacraments. We know from what we have seen for the past 65 years that the three years and a half are not a definite period of time but must be interpreted symbolically. According to the teachings of Pope Leo XIII, only scriptural passages the Fathers of the Church agree upon that are a matter of faith are binding for belief; the rest are only so many opinions, (see HERE). Most of us today who have made the round of various Traditionalist groups then repented for our sins is what the medieval Augustinian Canon John of Ruysbroeck says: “Those good Christians who, from time to time, fell into sin, and rose again through contrition and penance; but who have not made full satisfaction for their sins according to justice… belong to purgatory.” And as St. Thomas Aquinas believes, either we are serving our Purgatory on earth or when the final consummation occurs, we will be cleansed of our sins immediately.
And yes, a respite will be granted for non-believers to repent, but has this taken place over the past 45 some years since Paul 6’s death? We have no sure way of knowing. Or will it occur only after the destruction of Antichrist’s system? Some give this time anywhere from 45 days to several months or even years, as Hunolt notes. We would like to think the whole world would return to the true faith excepting a few, but how could this possibly happen when the pope is the center of all unity, we have no pope and all the means of obtaining one are no longer possible to fulfill? Not unless there is a miracle of exceedingly great proportions, which is nowhere suggested in Holy Scripture for these times, could the papacy be restored.
Signs of the times
“But when the time of the general judgment is finally at hand, ““There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves.” The sun shall be deprived of its brilliancy and make night out of day, like to the darkness of Egypt: “There came horrible darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. No man saw his brother, nor moved himself out of the place where he was.”; The moon, of a blood-red color, shall appear like some grizzly phantom of night; the stars shall fall from the sky; not indeed the stars that God has placed in the firmament: for where should they fall? Not on the earth, because according to astronomers the smallest star is much larger than the earth. But the stars shall hide themselves as if they had fallen, and at the same time luminous vapor in the shape of stars shall fall in masses on the globe as if to set fire to it.”
Comment: Have we not recently experienced “luminous vapors” — fog covering a large section of the US for weeks which hid the stars and kept the sun from shining? There was no fire, but the vapor definitely was there. Also haven’t we seen “blood moons”? Don’t many expect a three-day period of darkness, which could mean anything from a nuclear attack, a solar-triggered EMP or a pole shift? And couldn’t these “fiery stars” have another (symbolic) meaning, as Rev. E.S. Berry, Rev. H.B. Kramer and other commentators have noted? Both authors say this could mean bishops tumbling from their offices owing to heresy. Some will now say this could also mean all the true bishops were “hiding,” and they may have been, for a time. But we know that today there are no true bishops left on earth who were approved by Pope Pius XII. And that even if some elderly bishop yet existed, he could not have retained any episcopal see he once possessed, assigned to him by Pope Pius XII. He therefore would no longer possess an office or any jurisdiction.
Why this judgment will come
“This shall be done at the end of the world, when all creatures are to be set at liberty and released from slavery, and then like a mighty army they will all rush in a body against the wicked to put them to shame, as we read in the Book of “Wisdom: ” And His zeal will take armor, and He will arm the creature for the revenge of His enemies. . . .and the whole world shall fight with Him against the unwise: “The sun will declare war, as Tamerlane did of old, with a black banner spread; the moon colored like blood, and the stars disturbed out of their course shall begin the battle. We, they will say, have given our fair light for such a long time to sinners who were unworthy of it; we have marked for them the hours, days, weeks, months, and years; we have by our regularity in our motions set them a good example of the obedience they owe to God; but they preferred to follow the suggestions of the devil, the appetites of the flesh, the customs and maxims of the perverse world, INSTEAD OF OBEYING THE LAW OF THEIR CREATOR; THEY LOVED DARKNESS MORE THAN THE LIGHT; therefore our period of service is now at an end for them, and we shall be to them henceforth a source of nothing but fear and dread.”
Comment: True Catholics will have their day in the sun and will be used by God to punish the wicked. Those who have not obeyed ALL God’s laws and have followed the maxims of this perverse world we live in will be punished for their disobedience and worldliness. This is especially true of those who refuse to acknowledge and obey papal laws based on Divine law, such as the Council of Trent, Charitas and Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. If these are not God’s laws, as presented by His vicars, why did Christ even bother to appoint St. Peter and his successors as supreme legislators on His behalf
Nature vs. man
“In the same manner the four elements shall take the field against sinners. The air that gave them breath and voice, so that they could breathe and speak; from which they received the fruitful rain; in which the birds dwelt to their delight and nourishment the air will attack them on all sides; it will throw down buildings by the violence of opposing winds; it will tear up trees by the roots; send down hail-storms to strike the beasts of the field dead, and with thunder and fierce lightnings and terrible apparitions that shall be seen in the air (such as were not beheld even in Egypt in the time of the hardened Pharao, nor in Jerusalem when that city was destroyed), it will fill every one with dismay, as if to complain of the sinner and say: ” He has stretched out his hand against God, and has strengthened himself against the Almighty.”
Comment: Certainly we have seen some of these strange weather events recently and some have reported seeing apparitions in the air. These will only increase as man continues to sin.
The wicked panic
“The wicked, those who have a bad conscience, shall indeed wither away with fear and dismay, and seek to hide themselves under the earth; they will howl and moan and lament like the beleaguered Turks: alas! now all is up with us! We must surrender; there is an end to all the pleasures and delights we enjoyed on earth; honor and high places are no more; we must leave our wealth behind us; the last day is at hand; in a short time the terrible trumpet shall sound in our ears the words: arise, you dead, and come to judgment! Soon shall we appear before our angry Judge, whom we have despised and made our enemy by our sins! Now the time is approaching when the shameful things we have kept hidden from men and not dared to mention even in the tribunal of penance shall be openly declared before the world! Soon shall we hear the awful words: ” Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire.” … Alas! how great will be the terror and anguish of the wicked at the sight of the signs and portents of the last day!”
Comment: This is pretty amazing. We read everywhere that the elite are building cities underground with all the modern conveniences and preppers (not all of them wicked) are hiding in private bunkers to escape the wrath of God they know is coming for them. Shades of Adam and Eve! Anna Catherine Emmerich also predicted how “…cities built on a thin crust [of earth] would precipitate [people] into the abyss” (Vol. 1, p. 528). It is the wicked who are trying so hard to do all they can to escape and to grasp all they can before their day in the sun ends. God will not be mocked forever, and even they, in their wickedness, know this on some level.
Lift up your heads
“But what shall be the feelings of those just servants of God who have either kept inviolable fidelity to their Creator, or by true repentance have washed away their sins, and who have hitherto in this vale of tears, amidst so many dangers of soul and body, sighed like prisoners for their eternal home and place of rest! How, I ask, will it be with them? Hear what Christ says to them, after having spoken of the terrible forerunners of the last day: “But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads: because your redemption is at hand. To go with downcast head is a sign of sorrow and fear, and My dear children, that is not for you, but for the wicked who refused to love and honor Me. Let them wither away for fear, because they have no part in My eternal kingdom; BUT YOU, JUST SOULS! WHO HAVE KEPT MY LAW AND IN ALL THINGS TRIED TO DO MY WILL, “Look up, and lift up your heads;” rejoice and be glad; why? “Because your redemption is at hand!” This is the time for which you have been sighing so long; the time for your release from captivity, from all dangers and troubles; the time for you to enter into the eternal repose of the children of God. This is the day on which your enemies and Mine, who have persecuted and oppressed you in so many ways this is the day for them to lie trembling and shaking under your feet. This is the time when I shall make known to the world your humility and other virtues which men knew nothing of, and vain worldlings despised you for! Rejoice, My children! your redemption is at hand; the kingdom of heaven will soon be opened to you. Come, you blessed! possess the kingdom that My Father and you yourselves have prepared for you! Come with Me into everlasting joys!”
Comment: None of us can be certain of our salvation just because we pray at home. Anyone could die in mortal sin and none can presume to be assured of gaining heaven. Nevertheless, we must never lose hope, and must always have confidence in God. We must “look up,” and longing for His coming, place all our hope in God and none in ourselves. Heaven is our only hope of escaping the evils of this world.
Why the coming of Antichrist was missed by most
“No one, says St. Augustine, who wishes to strike you will cry out to you to ‘Be on your guard — I am about to draw my sword to kill you!’ A man who threatens in that way gives clear proof that he is not in earnest, but that he wishes the other to escape his sword by running away. If a judge were to send to a thief whom he has caught in the act, telling him that when he hears the clang of arms or a certain bell tolling, it is a sure sign that the soldiers are on their way to apprehend him, put him in prison, and when sentence has been passed on him to bring him out to the place of execution, what would you think of that? Would the judge appear to you to be in earnest about putting the thief to death ? No; quite the contrary; the judge in such a case must be a good friend of the thief, and would be very glad to see him make his escape. For as the old saying has it, ‘The cat that mews too much will never make a good mouser.’ So it is; he who intends to get hold of his enemy lets not a word of his purpose be known; he hides his weapons and does not draw them until he has the other completely in his power, so that he cannot escape. One of the first and most necessary qualities of a general is silence; he must know how to keep secret the plans he forms against the enemy; he should not reveal them even to his most intimate friends, much less to his own soldiers, that no one may betray them; and if sometimes he publishes that on a certain day, at a certain hour he shall make a sally to surprise the enemy, the latter think at once: “Oh, that is only a blind! We need not fear that attack; but there is some other plan in his mind, and we must be on our guard not to be surprised by it.”
Comment: Those waiting for an obvious manifestation of Antichrist wait in vain. As we have believed for years, offering proofs to support our belief, Paul 6 was Antichrist and no one would have suspected him until almost after the fact. And yet they look for one accomplishing still greater feats than the cessation of the Holy Sacrifice and the perversion of the sacramental rites established by Christ. They demand that fire must come down from heaven, that Antichrist must perform outright miracles that cannot be explained and physically persecute Christians. And yet the Doctors (St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis de Sales) tell us that these things will be only illusions and not real miracles. St. Hilary, Dom Gueranger, John Henry Cardinal Newman and others — all have said that Antichrist won’t show his hand in this way. He will appear as a deceiver and a usurper, pretend to be very kind and loving and will basically kill Christians with kindness and compassion. But underneath lurk dead man’s bones, for he was always a whited sepulchre.
Only the Protestants wait for such an Antichrist. They expect him to come with horns, speaking in curious tongues; healing the sick and raising the dead. I suppose that we could see something like that happen; the final antichrist of this present system might appear to accomplish such things. But it seems highly insulting to God to expect that he would be so obvious, as Fr. Hunolt points out, in making the man of sin known. The primary indicator that Paul 6 was Antichrist is that he dared to change the words of Holy Scripture from “for many to “for all,” abolishing the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This is a point of Scripture on which all the Church Fathers unanimously agree: that Antichrist will indeed abolish Continual Sacrifice. The Vatican Council says that when this is the case, we’re bound ourselves to believe it as well.
Chastisements sent us to avoid hell
“Public calamities are to us what the signs that are to precede the last day shall be to those who are to live towards the end of the world. They shall be exceedingly terrified and dismayed, “for there shall be then great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now.” Such, too, is the effect of calamities on us; they terrify us and fill us with anguish; when we feel them we commence to moan and sigh: alas! how wretched we are! etc. And yet, as with the signs of the last day, so with those calamities. For what else are they but proofs of God’s mercy and goodness to sinners, whose only object is to humble men, chastise them in a fatherly manner, make them enter into themselves, repent of their sins, amend their lives, and so escape eternal punishment in hell? For public calamities are never sent on a country except on account of the sins of the people, in order to eradicate them and put a stop to them. This truth has often been preached from the pulpit, and therefore it requires no further proof; it is a truth founded on the infallible word of God, and one therefore of which the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church have not the least doubt.”
Comment: We have noted in the past several weeks that it is unlikely that anyone in these times we’ll repent regardless of what happens. This is predicted 3 separate times in the Apocalypse. As Saint Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2, they have been given a special kind of blindness that prevents them from converting.
And still they will return to their vomit
“After the appearance of the signs, the last day of judgment shall come upon men quite suddenly and unexpectedly… “Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man shall revealed.” Should we not think that so many signs and portents wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, the persecutions of Antichrist, the disturbance of the elements would be enough to make the men of that time watchful and vigilant? But no! When the fear and terror caused by the signs shall be at an end, they shall resume their former mode of life. Following the opinion of St. Jerome writing on the words of St. Paul, “When they shall say peace and security, then shall sudden destruction come upon them,” I maintain that when the signs shall have vanished men shall live in peace and quiet for a time (how long no one can say), and will continue in their former mode of life; and although the true faith shall then be general over the world, there shall be sinners who shall lead a very wicked life, and tepid Christians who shall lead a very slothful one. Under those circumstances then, when they least expect it, ” in the twinkling of an eye,” as the Apostle says, fire shall fall from heaven and reduce the world to ashes, and then the dreadful trumpet shall resound in all places, and the angel’s voice be heard crying out: “Arise, you dead, and come to judgment ! ” There, my dear brethren, we have all the preparation that shall be made to introduce the great day of the general judgment.”
Comment: How can the true faith be general over the whole world without a canonically elected pope and hierarchy in communion with him to teach it? We do not take the word of commentators, however well respected, or the private revelations, even of saints, over the teachings and laws of Christ’s vicars. The commentators never foresaw the usurpation of the papacy. Only Pope Paul IV considered it a possibility in his 1559 Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio. Fr. Hunolt’s sermons are of great value; he makes many fine points. But he is not the pope. Those who use him to justify their beliefs that Antichrist has not yet come and we can expect a resurrection of the Church do him a grave disservice, for he would be the first to bow to the teachings of the Roman Pontiff had he lived in Pope Pius XII’s day. We can see this in his many references to obedience to God’s laws. Would he have, nevertheless, followed others we believed to be loyal to the papacy into the false Vatican 2 church? Thankfully he was spared that possibility. And we who remain must ever be on our guard that we too remain faithful to all that once was.
by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 30, 2024 | New Blog
+St. Catherine of Siena+
Prayer Society Intentions for May, Month of the Blessed Virgin Mary
“Oh great Queen of Heaven, Bride of the Holy Ghost, do thou cover me with the mantle of thy protection.” (The Raccolta)
First Friday and Saturday this week
We keep receiving correspondence from readers trying to answer those STILL inquiring about topics that have been explained in detail now for decades, but which need to be re-addressed because those new to LibTrad groups continue to believe the errors taught by their pseudo-clergy. We wrote last week that no one ordained or consecrated after Oct. 9, 1958, could ever be considered valid, and therefore nothing they teach can possibly be believed as coming from the Church. It is as one online commentator put it: “The real Church is a visible institution governed by laws; the sedevacantist “church” is an invisible idea governed by circular arguments.” And that is all they can offer.
LibTrads claim that by invoking epikeia they can bypass the necessity for jurisdiction — but wait. They FIRST must prove they even have a right to jurisdiction, i.e., that they were validly ordained or consecrated and validly appointed by proper ecclesiastical authority. This is a prime example of circular argument – presuming that which has yet to be proved. For they can scarcely claim any right to minister to the faithful if they are not even members of the clergy: they must prove they were validly ordained and consecrated and all the evidence presented on this site — mainly in way of Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, (VAS) — proves they are not. And so LibTrads falsely accuse those of drawing attention to these proofs of privately interpreting the laws and teaching s of the Church. Once again, they act as though this has been categorically established by them according to the Church’s time-honored method of Scholasticism, when no such proofs have ever been produced.
Yet what LibTrads REALLY object to is not the fact that papal teachings and canon law have been “privately interpreted” by others, but that they have been outed by those quoting approved authors writing prior to the death of Pope Pius XII who do not agree with THEIR misinterpretation of the canons and papal teaching. They condemn those objecting to their violation of these laws and teachings for demanding they FOLLOW what the Church taught pre-1959. They are the ones interpreting canon law and papal teaching, not those citing these sources and demanding that they proceed according to the approved interpretations.
Therefore, we do not listen to or accept what comes out of the mouth of these LibTrads and their pseudo-clergy. We obey the teachings of the Roman Pontiffs, the Ecumenical Councils and the approved theologians and canonists loyal to the magisterium. Even though the “illicit only” sects quote selected texts from approved theologians to justify their errors, they fail to inform readers of the full scope of what is documented in these sources and the inevitable conclusions that must be drawn from them. This of course results in readers arriving at false conclusions and creates much confusion. For that reason we will examine the comprehensive teachings of these authors on epikeia and their bearing on VAS, to dispel any false notions about this principle.
Fr. Riley on epikeia
The “illicit only” group quotes the author below but does not make any distinctions in his work nor explain the full meaning of what he is saying. To do this one must examine the definitions, citations and final conclusions of the authors and then learn what led them to these conclusions. We quote The History, Nature, and Use of Epikeia in Moral Theology, by Father Lawrence Joseph Riley, Copyright 1948, (The Catholic University of America Press, INC. Imprimatur: + Richardus Jacobus Cushing. D.D.):
— Epikeia may be defined as follows: “A CORRECTION OR EMENDATION of a law which in its expression is deficient by reason of its universality; a correction made by a subject who deviates from the clear words of the law, basing his action upon the presumption, at least probable, that the legislator intended not to include in his law the case at hand.(Presumption is defined by canonists as a “probable conjecture about an uncertain thing.”)
— It may be used only with the greatest discretion; in the internal forum it may be applied to affirmative precepts and to negative precepts (ecclesiastical and civil), but very infrequently with regard to affirmative precepts, because the latter, binding semper but not pro semper, are more susceptible of interpretation than of epikeia.
— Epikeia is not to be identified with interpretation, dispensation, presumed permission, excusing cause, or popular acceptance of human law.
— Epikeia is a lawful institute of Moral Theology, based ultimately on the intention of the legislator to exclude from his law a particular case, and hence the presumed intention of the legislator is of the highest import in regard to epikeia.
— The intention of the legislator not to include a particular case in his law is not a merely interpretative intention, but exists in the mind of the legislator at least virtually though perhaps only implicitly… In a case where the evidence regarding this presumed intention of the legislator is so unsubstantial that the subject cannot even hesitatingly assent that he is free, epikeia may not be used…
— Epikeia may not be applied to precepts of the natural law, nor to precepts of the divine positive law of the New Testament. (“Thou art Peter…whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth.”)
— It seems probable that the use of epikeia was not permissible in reference to precepts of the divine positive law of the Old Testament.
— Human invalidating laws sometimes cease to bind; but epikeia may not be applied to human invalidating laws, and VAS is an invalidating law. (End of Riley quotes.)
Abp. Amleto Cicognani states that epikeia is not to be applied to the interpretation of the law itself, but rather the mind of the lawgiver, in this case Pope Pius XII. LibTrads, however, entirely overlook this important fact.
Invalidating laws and who can rightly exercise epikeia
The purpose of invalidating and incapacitating laws are better explained by the following: “A prohibitory law of its very nature admits the excuse of ignorance or moral incapacity and on this basis will frequently cease in its cogent force. Not so an invalidating law. Invalidation is not premised on an obligation but is derived from the WILL OF THE LEGISLATOR who seeks to protect the common good of society and wishes to safeguard it more compellingly FROM FRAUD, INJURY AND DANGER. THE INVIOLABLE OBSERVANCE OF INVALIDATING LAWS IS CONSTANTLY URGENT BECAUSE THEIR TRANSGRESSION PRESENTS A FAR GRAVER DANGER TO SOCIETY ITSELF” (Doubt in Canon Law, Rev. Roger Viau, S.T.L, J.C.L., 1954, pg. 69; Catholic University of America dissertation).
Abp. Amleto Cicognani, Revs. Bouscaren-Ellis, Woywod-Smith, Francis Miaskiewicz, Raymond Kearney, McHugh and Callan — all these canonists and theologians warn of the great caution that must be used in applying epikeia, and the many dangers of abuse in attempting this application. So this easily amounts to a common opinion, if not a unanimous one. Revs. Bouscaren-Ellis also note that: “The general and habitual interpretation of a law contrary to its clear terms is not epikeia, but an evident abuse,” (Canon Law: A Text and Commentary, 1946, pgs. 33-34). The above authors agree it is to be used only in specific cases, not generally. And yet this is what LibTrads have consistently done.
Riley comments: “[Pope Benedict XIV] cautions that dispensations from a papal law, granted without urgent and just cause by an inferior authority resorting to the use of epikeia, are illicit and invalid (p. 79). … It should be noted that in each of the above-cited passages the implication is that the mitigation of the rigor of the law is made by some ecclesiastical authority. Insofar as can be ascertained, nowhere does the Pope mention epikeia as exercised by a private subject of the law” (p. 96). As we read in last week’s blog, none of the LibTrads possess ANY authority. Given what Pope Benedict XIV says, even in matters NOT involving invalidating and incapacitating laws, even an unquestionably valid cleric possessing the usual authority would not be able to use epikeia to challenge a papal law. If you are upholding the Catholic Church as She existed prior to the death of Pope Pius XII, wouldn’t it only be logical to consult the best possible expert available during that time period, educated in some of the Church’s finest institutions? So why were they not able to locate, study and follow Rev. Riley’s work and obey Pope Benedict XIV, given the utmost seriousness of the situation?
Epikeia and probable opinions
Skipping the issue of sacramental validity entirely, LibTrads rushed to use epikeia as a substitute for jurisdiction. Now some are desperately attempting to preserve their claim to validity by resorting to epikeia to dismiss Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, but they are devoid of any proofs. Their ignorance and gross negligence in these matters is just one indicator of their true orientation and motives. Traditionalists did not even follow the basic rules that govern the application of epikeiabefore establishing their very existence on this shaky principle. They went directly to the laws on the very things that epikeia could never be applied to — the Sacraments. Had they truly understood the teachings of the Catholic Church on the nature and administration of the Sacraments, had they received any true education in the places they dubbed as “seminaries,” they would have known.
Again. Rev. Riley’s very definition of epikeia above tells those praying at home all they need to know about LibTrads’ application of this principle to the Sacraments. Epikeia is “A CORRECTION OR EMENDATION of a law which in its expression is deficient by reason of its universality; a correction made by a subject who deviates from the clear words of the law, basing his action upon the presumption, AT LEAST PROBABLE, that the legislator intended not to include in his law the case at hand. (Presumption is defined by canonists as a “probable conjecture about an uncertain thing.”) The use of epikeia itself is nearly always the product of a probable opinion, as the entire bulk of Rev. Riley’s work shows. And the very reason we pray at home is because the Church forbids the use of probable opinions when conferring the Sacraments. The answer should have been clear. But it was not clear because they insisted on denying the very essence of Christ’s constitution of the Church with Peter as its indispensable head. The only possible way the Church could have been rebuilt was by retracing Christ’s own steps and starting at the beginning, by restoring a head to the Church.
Of course this was never their intent. But had they been sincere in truly glorifying God and working to obey His will to save souls, this would have been their first recourse: to restore the papacy, because then the Mass would logically have followed. There was a canon that covered this situation and could have led them to Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. It at least would have posed the question: IS there a law already governing this affair?
Canon Law and the invocation of epikeia
We read from Canon 20:
“If there is no explicit provision concerning some affair either in the general or in the particular law a norm of action is to be taken from:
(a) laws given in similar cases,
(b) from the general principles of Canon Law based on equity,
(c) from the methods and practices of the Roman Court [Curia] or from the
(d) common and constant teaching of approved canonists.” Because equity is included in (b), it seems Traditionalists, while never mentioning Can. 20 specifically, at least referred to it implicitly. (And LibTrads entirely ignore the canon that follows, which states: “Laws made for the purpose of safeguarding the public against a common danger bind even though in a particular case there is no danger.”)
(1) To invoke this law, LibTrads had to entirely ignore the fact that an “explicit provision” in this affair already existed in a general law. In his work Canon Law, Abp. Amleto Cicognani states: “If there is a law covering the case, this rule [Can. 20] is not to be applied according to the meaning of Can. 18…” (p. 621). This, then, immediately disqualified any appeal to Can. 20. The law we are referring to happens to be an infallible law that has direct bearing on what can and cannot be done during an interregnum. It is Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, (VAS), Pope Pius XII’s 1945 papal election law. This constitution is a rewrite of the codification of all election laws enacted by Pope St. Pius X. Several things would have been clarified by consulting this one law. First of all, in the very first paragraph, the pope teaches that when a pope dies, nothing can be done by the College of Cardinals until a new pope is elected. If the Cardinals (in reality only bishops) attempt to usurp any act of papal jurisdiction, that attempt is null and void. This would include the appointment of bishops and the establishment of dioceses, as well as other acts.
Secondly, in paragraph two, VAS reads: “The laws issued by Roman Pontiffs IN NO WAY CAN BE CORRECTED OR CHANGED by the assembly of Cardinals of the Roman Church while it is without a Pope, nor can anything be subtracted from them or added or dispensed in any way whatsoever with respect to said laws or any part of them.” We refer once again to Rev. Lawrence Riley’s definition of epikeia above. Obviously Pope Pius XII did not wish VAS to be tampered with in any way, clearly showing his mind in the matter for he states: “In truth, if anything adverse to this command should by chance happen to come about or be attempted, We declare it, BY OUR SUPREME AUTHORITY, to be null and void.” This is an undeniable indication of an infallible document. So right off the bat, there is no possible way epikeia could be used to correct VAS, which forbids any changes whatsoever to this constitution. This also rules out the use of equity in (b) above, since in a conflict of law, the higher law prevails. And epikeia is not even a law; it is only a principle which may be applied to law in certain cases.
(2) There is also a question of using epikeia to correct or interpret penalties or even abolish them, in the case of Traditionalists. Canon 20 rules that it cannot apply to penalties, and VAS teaches there will be no changes to canon laws during an interregnum. “The laws issued by Roman Pontiffs in no way can be corrected or changed by the assembly of Cardinals of the Roman Church while it is without a Pope, nor can anything be subtracted from them or added or dispensed in any way whatsoever with respect to said laws or any part of them. This prohibition is especially applicable in the case of Pontifical Constitutions issued to regulate the business of the election of the Roman Pontiff” (VAS, para. 3).
(3) No attempt has ever been made to follow the remaining guidelines of this canon as required in order to justify the use of epikeia. The reasons why seem clear enough: Traditionalists were afraid that someone would point to the fact they could not invoke it at all, since it amounted to correcting the law and interpreting penalties.
Determining the intention of the lawgiver
But there is more. In Rev. Riley’s conclusions listed above, we see that the presumed intention of the legislator, to exclude from his law a particular case, is of the highest import in regard to epikeia. And there was a process that needed to be followed here in order to determine what exactly the mind of Pope Pius XII was even before validly ordained Traditionalists could proceed to exercise their orders. “Bp.” Robert McKenna and Fr. Noel Barbara, among others —in various letters and publications — admit that they “presume” Pope Pius XII would have wished Lefebvre and Thuc to consecrate bishops for the good of the Church and the faithful. No proof whatsoever is presented to support this bold presumption. Guerard des Lauriers, supposedly a trained theologian, could waste time confabulating his material-formal nonsense, but could not be bothered to justify his own “consecration” by a mental incompetent, even though it is reported in the German publication Einsicht that he hesitated because a papal mandate could not be obtained! And Pope Pius XII would have wanted this?!! Or orders rendered by Lefebvre, a suspected Freemason himself, whose own ordination and consecration was suspect?
No proof was forthcoming because it did not exist, and these men had to know that, if they had any knowledge at all of what was taught in Pius XII’s papal encyclicals. Not to mention the censures levied for violation of canon laws regarding failure to seek orders from competent authority and consecration without the papal mandate. Notice Riley says above that at LEAST a probable opinion must exist regarding the legislator’s intent and that means five or more examples from approved authors/reliable documents verifying the (at least) implicit permission to proceed. These opinions do not exist because epikeia was never intended to be applied to invalidating and incapacitating laws. The word incapacitated means “deprived of capacity or natural power : made incapable of or unfit for normal functioning.” If that deprivation is infallibly issued by a sitting pope, it is unquestionably binding.
But given the weight, expressed intent, invalidating clauses and infallible nature of VAS, there can be NO DOUBT that such an intent to allow such things to take place during an interregnum is lacking. The Pope is clear; during an interregnum, all stands just as it did upon the Pope’s death and if anyone dares to make innovations, the attempt is null, void and invalid. As Rev. Roger Viau explains above, no legislator could ever wish to revoke a law crafted specifically to protect “the common good of society… to safeguard it more compellingly FROM FRAUD, INJURY AND DANGER. THE INVIOLABLE OBSERVANCE OF INVALIDATING LAWS IS CONSTANTLY URGENT BECAUSE THEIR TRANSGRESSION PRESENTS A FAR GRAVER DANGER TO SOCIETY ITSELF. ” What everyone is missing here is that in all truth, this law was first enacted by Pope St. Pius X Dec. 25, 1904 (Vacante Sede Apostolica) when surely this saintly pope had already witnessed the inroads of Modernism and realized its grave danger to the Church. Not only did he then set out to issue a new election law, but as Pope Pius XII explained in the preamble to VAS, with “judicious advice” he summarized and updated all previous election laws, to better suit current conditions. In The Catholic Encyclopedia Dictionary, 1941,we read: “All previous legislation concerning the conclave was codified and renewed by Pius X’s bull, Vacante Sede Apostolica (Dec. 25, 1904). The bull of Pius X is rather a codification than a reform.”
Conclusion
Pope Pius XII writes in the VAS preamble: “SURE OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND THE PLENITUDE OF OUR APOSTOLIC POWER, We have undertaken to publish and promulgate this Constitution, which is the same as that given by Pius X, of holy memory, but reformed throughout, “which,” to use the words of the same Predecessor of Ours, “The Sacred College of Cardinals shall solely use during the vacancy of the Apostolic See and in electing the Roman Pontiff.” The two notable things added in VAS by Pope Pius XII was the two-thirds PLUS ONE vote, to exclude candidates from voting for themselves and also the addition, at the end of paragraph three, of the following sentence, regarding any usurpation of papal jurisdiction or changes in papal or canon law: “In truth, if anything adverse to this command should by chance happen to come about or be attempted, We declare it, BY OUR SUPREME AUTHORITY, to be null and void.”
As noted elsewhere, interregnums were intended to last for only just under a month. But the popes both knew that the intent of the Modernists was to hijack the Church. It appears that they both decided that should an attempt be made to delay the election then the hierarchy, whose duty it was to elect, could live with the consequences — everything would be suspended until reviewed by the future pope. It was a brilliant move, made by saintly geniuses sworn to do everything necessary to preserve and protect the Divine Deposit — and they did.
Nothing declares more forcefully than VAS that without the pope there can be NO CHURCH, as Pope Pius IX taught. Issued as it was two years AFTER Mystici Corporis Christi proclaimed that the bishops did not receive their powers from Christ directly, but only through the Roman Pontiff, it based the prohibitions made on the teachings of Mystici Corporis and expanded papal power accordingly — and this is why LibTrads hate VAS. Instead of whining about the loss of Mass and Sacraments, Catholics should be on their knees thanking God that these Pope St. Pius and Pope Pius XII had the faith and the foresight to see that Christ’s promise remained intact — that the gates of hell would never prevail against the Church founded on the rock that was St. Peter. And LibTrads should never forget this solemn warning, reiterated by Henry Cardinal Manning in his works on the papacy:
“Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder” (Matt. 21:44).
by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 21, 2024 | New Blog
+Third Sunday after Easter+
(St. Anselm, Abp.)
In way of a reminder, or for those who are new to the idea of praying at home, I am going to repeat and highlight a binding Church teaching here that has practically been the foundation stone for this site since it first appeared on the Internet. Long before Pope Pius XII wrote Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, (VAS), negating acts contrary to Canon Law or usurping papal jurisdiction that were attempted during an interregnum, the Council of Trent condemned the idea that those acting without out jurisdiction, who were “neither rightly ordained nor sent by ecclesiastical and canonical authority “ (DZ 967) could ever be considered true ministers of the Church. This concept is best expressed as follows:
“A Christian society whose bishops go back to the apostles only through the power of order, and not also through the power of jurisdiction, cannot claim to be Apostolic, and consequently cannot be the Church of Christ,” Revs. Devivier and Sasia, Christian Apologetics, Vol. II), 1924. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Church also states in part: “Apostolicity of mission consists in the power of holy orders and the power of jurisdiction derived by legitimate transmission from the Apostles. Any religious organization whose ministers do not possess these two powers is not accredited to preach the Gospel of Christ. For ‘How can they preach,’ asks the Apostle, ‘unless they be sent?’ (Rom. 10:15).”
In 1950, Pope Pius XII issued a binding decree (AAS 42-601) on the true interpretation of Can. 147, stating that those never canonically appointed to such offices but who: “’…assume the same upon their own authority, are all to be regarded NOT AS MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH but as thieves and robbers, who have entered not by the door’” (DZ 960). Pius XII then issued three ipso facto excommunications for violating this law, all of them reserved in a special manner to the Holy See, which included anyone assisting such individuals in their efforts. Without the necessary jurisdiction and appointment to an office by competent ecclesiastical authority according to the sacred canons, THEY ARE NOT APOSTOLIC MINISTERS; THEY CANNOT FUNCTION VALIDLY (Can. 147). Their ability to function validlydepends on the possession of an office, regardless of their alleged reception of orders.
One might be considered validly ordained if it could once be proven that the ordaining or consecrating prelate used the proper matter and form and possessed the proper intention. But this can be determined only by the pope, as we have pointed out repeatedly. The presumption, however, also repeatedly stated, What is important to understand here is what is expressed in the following: “Commentary in Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils: “The council [of Chalcedon, 451 A.D.] declared absolute ordinations, that is, sine titulo, invalid. Though it used the words (null, void), it is very probable that it had in mind “void of effect through permanent suspension,” (pg. 96; See Mansi, VII, 901, 945.) This is the very principle evidenced in Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (VAS) regarding acts not authorized by the Holy See personally or permitted under Canon Law.
As the Holy Office decreed Nov. 18, 1931: “A lapsed Catholic who receives orders from a schismatic bishop can be received back into the Church only on the understanding that such ordinations, even if valid, will be completely disregarded, (Dr. Leslie Rumble, Homiletic and Pastoral Review: “Are Liberal Catholic Orders Valid,” 1958). Lefebvre and Thuc were schismatics and those they ordained and consecrated were lapsed Catholics, one-time members of the Novus Ordo and Traditionalist organizations who were never validly absolved, abjured by the Holy Office, did not do penance or publicly condemn the schismatic prelate consecrating or ordaining. This is what Canon Law requires of them. And as VAS states, during an interregnum, any violation of Canon Law or presumption of papal jurisdiction (abjuration of heresy) is considered null and void.
As related in his Principles of Sacramental Theology, (1955), Rev. Bernard Leeming wrote that Pope Innocent IV, as a private doctor, opined that ”…the Pope could set up diriment impediments in the case of all the sacraments and could take away a bishop’s power to confirm. He supports this by the text,’ Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven,’ and adds that “obedience must be given to the Pope” in all things not contrary to faith or specially forbidden. Rev. J. Tixeront, in his Holy Orders and Ordination, (1928), cites the same opinion by Innocent IV, but quotes Louis Saltet (a Catholic historian who contributed to the Catholic Encyclopedia) to the effect that, “This theory tells volumes about the development given to the idea of pontifical authority.” We must remember that Pope St. Pius X, in his previous election, law also had declared null, void and invalid all these same acts. All that Pope Pius XII added to this is to declare that part of VAS binding during an interregnum by virtue of his Supreme Authority. Without a true Roman Pontiff, NOTHING can be presumed to be valid, most especially the conferral of Orders.
Pope Innocent IV wrote in 1254, but what these authors call his opinion or theory was, as Saltet said, the kernel sown which later blossomed into the fullness of the pope’s supreme jurisdiction. The ”development” of the idea of papal authority came full circle with the Vatican Council. Unfortunately those opposing the definition of infallibility not only left the Church but reorganized, to more effectively dismantle and oppose Her. Henry Cardinal Manning believed that this effort began with an actual conspiracy hatched by Gallicanist sympathizers and the Old Catholics. He describes this conspiracy in his work written after the close of the Council, (The Vatican Decrees and Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance, p. 11, 115-116) as the “Old Catholic” conspiracy, which translates today, even in the writer William Strojie’s opinion, to Traditionalists, especially those of the SSPX variety. He also identifies it as “The Protestant church… [which] has become a political agent, a tool of the state…in the hands of Liberals, to fight Catholicism” (p. 115).
He then goes on to explain how this conspiracy was hatched even before the Council convened, writing: “Before the Vatican Council assembled, there was an opposition systematically organized to resist it [by the Old Catholics]…” Stanley Jaki, in his 1996 introduction for the release of an exact reproduction of Manning’s The True Story of the Vatican Council, relates that Cardinal Manning, although he could not include it in his work, believed that circumstances surrounding the Vatican Council amounted to “a plain conspiracy to make Pius IX the [Pope] Honorius of the 19th century.” Today these same tactics are being used by LibTrads and Protestants to cast Pope Pius XII in the role of Honorius in the 20th century. What we see in the persistent opposition against VAS by those claiming these me to be only illicit , and by their refusal to accept other other papal teaching is only the continuing flow of that same Gallicanist/Old Catholic/Modernist current. Strojie, Peter Anson and others have warned us of the Old Catholic invasion in our times, but no one is listening.
One of the first LibTrad pseudo-bishops, Francis Schuckhardt, was “consecrated” by an Old Catholic bishop, Daniel Q. Brown. Several of these so-called bishops have been consecrators of certain LibTrads, especially among independents. And one of the men Schuckhardt “ordained” became involved with a rigorist Jansenist sect and went on to become one of the first proponents of the “illicit only” theory now being promoted by himself and others. We have spoken of the Jansenists and their rigorist beliefs in our last several blogs and now we will discover where it is those beliefs originated, how they have filtered down to various sects today and how they have misinterpreted papal teaching to make it appear that the Church still considers those lacking both an office and jurisdiction to be the teaching body of Christ’s Church.
Jansenist/Old Catholic ideology and LibTrads
Many years ago I ran across a very good piece on Old Catholics, entitled The Jansenist Heresy: Old Catholicism is Born. Its author, listed by way of initials, states: “I am indebted to one of the seminarians of the Society of St. Pius X at Ridgefield, Connecticut whose research made this article possible — A.C.” After offering a summary of anti-papal and other Old Catholic teaching, A.C. comments: “The Old Catholic movement was a liberal and modernist movement. Indeed most contemporary modernists would have little difficulty accepting most of their tenets.” Under the heading Old Catholic Sects: General Observations, he describes the behavior of Old Catholic clergy, sadly failing to see they correspond almost identically with that of the SSPX and LibTrads in general. These are listed as follows:
“1.The first thing one notices when one begins to study these sects is that there are indeed a large number of sects calling themselves Old Catholic. It seems that there are about as many as there are Old Catholic bishops… (T. Benns: Just as with the LibTrads.)
“2. This phenomenon is joined to the fact that the Old Catholics foment what seems to be a never-ending series of schisms among themselves. This is explained by the fact that they began in schism. It is understandable, therefore, that they should have so many schisms among themselves. (T. Benns: The never-ending schisms is the dead giveaway.)
“3. Old Catholic clergy are inclined to excommunicate each other at the slightest provocation. (At the drop of a miter?) This is borne out by Peter Anson’s book on their forebears, Bishops at Large, and by studying some of their more recent activities. (T. Benns: Their internecine squabbling on these things is almost as never-ending as their schisms and is what foments them.)
“4. A typical fiction which an Old Catholic will try to promote is a denial that his group is schismatic or heretical. Invariably, such a person will point to another group, supposedly distinct from his own, and say that it is schismatic or heretical. For instance, an Old Catholic may tell you “We are not Old Catholics, but Old Roman Catholics. There is a difference. The other group is schismatic and heretical. We are legitimate.” Such talk is nonsense. There are no real differences among all these groups, no matter what name they go by. They all originate, in some tenuous way or another, in the Jansenist heresy and schism. Common sense tells us that if something was hatched from a duck’s egg, if it looks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, and if it quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck. (T. Benns: Projection is a psychological ploy intended to deflect blame. There are no real differences in these groups as the author says, and all tend to exhibit Jansenist tendencies to one degree or another.)
“5. Most of these groups distort history in an attempt to prove their claims. A quick reading of some of the literature they publish demonstrates this. They distort the Jansenist controversy and avoid giving an honest account of the outrageous activities of Mathew and Vilatte. (T. Benns: One is reminded of all the stories defending Thuc from accusations of dementia and returning to the Novus Ordo; or to the defense of LibTrad pseudo-clergy and “seminarians” accused of homosexual tendencies and sexual abuse, when these accusations were well-documented.)
“7. For the most part, these sects are presided over by clergymen who are ignorant in matters of religion. Some are trained for a short period of time by ignorant superiors, others “study on their own for a while, others grant themselves degrees from non-existent universities, while still others are simply ordained without any pretense of an education at all. (T. Benns: This ignorance is what has cost the faithful so much and has resulted in the denial of so many truths.)
“9. In most cases, it is impossible to prove that an ordination or consecration performed by an Old Catholic bishop in this country is unquestionably valid. In Europe, the question is less complicated, since the Jansenist sects enjoy a certain amount of stability. In this country, however, there exists a multitude of different Old Catholic sects. Consequently, no one has a centralized and comprehensive body of certified documentation which keeps track of the lines of the ordinations and consecrations performed in all these splinter groups. This casts some doubt upon the validity of the orders they claim to possess. Since the Catholic Church teaches that one cannot act if there is a positive doubt regarding the validity of a sacrament, one is obliged to treat their clergymen as though they were invalidly ordained.”
(T. Benns: WHY must Catholics consider them invalid? Because Pope Pius XII teaches that during an interregnum, they cannot be considered valid. This for two reasons: 1) Because consecrations and ordinations without the mandate usurp papal authority and violate the canons and 2) Until declared valid and their cases resolved, there can be no presumption of such validity. I know the LibTrads quote Leeming to the effect that “The minister of a sacrament is presumed to intend what the rite means…” [even in cases where the minister is wicked or a heretic]. “This principle is affirmed as certain theological doctrine, taught by the Church, to deny which would be at least theologically rash.” Principles of Sacramental Theology, 476, 482.) What they will not tell you is that reflex principles cited by moral theologians also declare that presumption must yield to truth. That truth is it must yield to an infallible papal ruling that regardless of the intention or the state of the minister, during an interregnum, all must be considered invalid, void of effect. For only a true pope canonically elected could settle the case. The Old Catholic commentator ends with Pope St. Pius X’s excommunication of the Old Catholic “bishop” Arnold Harris Mathew and those he attempted to consecrate below.
Pope St. Pius X’s condemns the pseudo-bishops
“We have learned that priests of your country, namely Herbert Ignatius Beale and Arthur William Howarth, of the clergy of Nottingham, seeking their own glory rather than that of Jesus Christ, and being carried away by the fire of ambition, having attempted on various occasions to be elevated to the episcopal dignity by non-Catholics, have recently proceeded with such temerity that, having obtained their wish, they have arrogantly announced unto Us that they have procured episcopal consecration. Nor does their announcement lack authentic testimony; for he who was the principal author of this sacrilegious crime, the pseudo-bishop Arnold Harris Mathew, has not feared openly to confirm this deed, having transmitted to Us letters swollen with pride. And, moreover, he has not hesitated to arrogate unto himself the title of “Anglo-Catholic Archbishop of London.”
“Turning Our thoughts and Our solicitude first of all to you, Beloved Sons, of whose constant and devoted good will we have ever received such illustrious testimony, We vigorously exhort you to guard zealously against their frauds and snares.
“Furthermore, lest We should appear to betray Our office, being faithful to the examples of Our Predecessors, We hereby proclaim the aforesaid consecration to have been illegitimate and sacrilegious, and to have been performed in a manner wholly contrary to the mandates of this Holy See and the sanction of the Sacred Canons.
“The above-named priests, therefore, namely Arnold Harris Mathew, Herbert Ignatius Beale, and Arthur William Howarth, and all others who lent aid, counsel or consent to this nefarious crime, by the authority of Almighty God, we hereby excommunicate, anathematize, and solemnly command and declare to be separated from the communion of the Church and to be held for schismatics, and to be avoided by all Catholics and especially by yourselves.
“Given at Rome, at Saint Peter’s, under the Ring of the Fisherman, the eleventh day of February 1911, in the eighth year of Our Pontificate.” (The foregoing was translated by Father William Jenkins (SSPX) from the official Latin edition of Acta Apostolicae Sedis, year III, vol. III, no. 2, February 15, 1911.)
Meaning of the prefix ”pseudo”
Thuc and Lefebvre were not Catholics at the time they ATTEMPTED (note this wording appears in Pope Pius XII’s VAS) to ordain and consecrate men of the various LibTrad sects. Pseudo is defined online as meaning sham; false; spurious; pretended; counterfeit. (Merriam-Webster). It corresponds to Can. 104 which states that “error annuls an action” whenever a certain condition is required for its proper fulfillment. The canonists Bouscaren-Ellis write: “Error of law or a fact, if it is substantial, renders an act null and void. The same is true if the error, though not substantial by nature, is made so by a condition.” It was always a condition, from the time of the Council of Trent, that bishops could receive an office or approval for an office only from the pope. It is a condition, based on ancient practice and dating to the time of the Gallicanist heresy, that during an interregnum nothing can be decided involving the rights usually exercised by the pope or against canon law or papal law. We see the word spurious, or false, used by Pope Pius VI in Charitas below:
“Furthermore, We declare specifically that the elections of the said Expilly… [et al], are unlawful, sacrilegious, and utterly void. We rescind, efface, and abrogate them, as well as the recent creation of the so-called dioceses of Moulins, Chateauroux, and others. We similarly declare and decree that their consecrations were sinful, and are illicit, unlawful, sacrilegious, and at variance with the regulations of the sacred canons; since they were rashly and wrongfully elected, they lack all ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction for the guidance of souls and have been suspended from all exercise of the episcopal office.
“We prohibit severely both those who have been or are to be elected as bishops from rashly accepting episcopal consecration from any metropolitan or bishop as well as the SPURIOUS bishops and their sacrilegious consecrators and all other archbishops and bishops from daring to consecrate on any pretext those who have been or are to be wrongfully elected. Furthermore, We command those who have been or are to be elected, to behave in no way as archbishops, bishops, parish priests, or vicars nor to call themselves by the name of any cathedral or parochial church, nor to assume any jurisdiction, authority, or faculty for the care of souls under the penalty of suspension and invalidity.”
Pseudo-bishop is also found in refence to an Old Catholic bishop in Pope Pius IX ‘s Etsi Multa: “[The Old Catholics] have chosen and set up a PSEUDO-BISHOP, a certain notorious apostate from the Catholic faith, Joseph Hubert Reinkens. So that nothing be lacking in their impudence, for his consecration they have had refuge to those very Jansenists of Utrecht, whom they themselves, before they separated from the Church, considered as heretics and schismatics, as do all other Catholics. However, this Joseph Hubert dares to say that he is a bishop, and, what passes belief, he is recognized… [by] all his subjects as a lawful bishop… The holy martyr Cyprian, writing about schism, denied to the pseudo-bishop Novatian even the title of Christian, on the grounds that he was cut off and separated from the Church of Christ… We declare the election of the said Joseph Hubert Reinkens, performed against the sanctions of the holy canons to be illicit, null, and void.”
And as we noted in a previous blog, Pope Pius XII taught: “Acts requiring the power of Holy Orders which are performed by ecclesiastics of this kind, though they are valid as long as the consecration conferred on them was valid, are yet gravely illicit, that is, criminal and sacrilegious” (Ad Apostolorum Principis).I believe that it was St. Robert Bellarmine who taught that a man who was not even a Catholic could not validly be elected pope. Likewise one cannot consider men consecrated by schismatics, specifically to head schismatic sects, to be valid, either.
And for proof of this we can return to Pope Paul IV’s Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, which clearly states that: “Further, if ever at any time it becomes clear that any Bishop, even one conducting himself as an Archbishop, Patriarch, or primate; or any Cardinal of the aforesaid Roman Church… or likewise any Roman Pontiff before his promotion or elevation as a Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has strayed from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy, then his promotion or elevation shall be NULL, INVALID AND VOID.” Those claiming that these men are “only illicit” who dare to quote this bull need to draw out is FULL implications.
As the Old Catholic commentator notes above, “One is obliged to treat their clergymen as though they were invalidly ordained.” The Church Herself declares that their promotions could never be valid, even when a reigning pontiff existed! The commentator indicates that the validity of the Old Catholics cannot be presumed, just as no one can presume LibTrads were validly ordained by Lefebvre and Thuc. This cannot be the case with US, however, because of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (VAS); the pope clearly declares their ATTEMPTED acts of no effect, reflecting the private teaching of Pope Innocent IV and later Clement II. Pope Pius XII cites Clement II in VAS as stating that no one may exercise the power belonging solely to the pope during an interregnum. The Council of Chalcedon was held in 451, so the principle “void of effect “was already at work in the early days of the Church. No one can claim it was a novelty that was introduced by Pope Pius XII.
Conclusion
Since the establishment of Traditionalism, these men calling themselves bishops and priests have resorted to Canon Law to try and prove their legitimacy. This is truly absurd when one considers that, as Pope Pius VI taught in Charitas, no trumped up “necessity” could justify their activities. Since canon law (Can. 147) pointedly declares they are not valid unless they are appointed by legitimate authority according to the sacred canons, these laws do not even apply to them in the clerical realm. They apply to them only as (lay) heretics and schismatics simulating the Sacraments. That is the true meaning of “pseudo” and “spurious” here. The term “illicit only” presumes their Orders and sacraments to be valid when this is clearly contrary to the Council of Trent and papal teaching. But most importantly it is a denial of the only law now governing us, VAS, and the Church’s right to determine who are members of the hierarchy. TRUE bishops no longer exist because the Church proclaims that not only were these men considered false bishops when a true pontiff reigned, there can be no valid conveying of Orders at all during an interregnum!
Interregnums were intended to last at the most for only less than a month according to VAS. The longest interregnum in the Church’s history lasted less than three years. So VAS, and prior to its issuance Pope St. Pius X’s election law, was intended as a stopgap measure only, to make certain nothing was done to usurp papal jurisdiction or violate canon law during the vacancy of the Holy See. LibTrads often point to the “colored title” theory, pretending that their “orders” alone are sufficient to claim that they possess rights and privileges in the Church. They quote Rev. Francis Miaskiewicz’s work on Can. 209 (supplied jurisdiction) and the canonists Wernz-Vidal as follows: “There is no jurisdiction without a title. And where, by mandate of the Church or her rightful representatives, jurisdiction is required for the validity of a certain act, there, if the minister acts without the proper jurisdiction, he acts fruitlessly because invalidly.” They thus ASSUME there is a validly ordained and/or consecrated minister who COULD possess the title, a sophism called “presuming that which is yet to be proven.” This when the Council of Trent and Pope Pius XII commenting on Trent’s anathema both teach infallibly that they are “not to be regarded AS MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH” (see above).
This is so very confusing for readers because at the same time they admit that “None of the faithful believe the illicit bishops have a papal mandate to do what they are doing.” But it has nothing to do with what the faithful believe, only with what the Church teaches — for as just stated in our last blog: THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE BOUND TO BELIEVE. How about the FACT that they cannot possibly possess the mandate because there was no pope to issue one?! And that the Church says during an interregnum, no valid ordinations and consecrations can even take place if they usurp papal rights and violate canon law, which they most certainly do?
I consider myself an Ultramontane as did St. Anthony Mary Claret, Henry Cardinal Manning, Fr. Frederick Faber, Wilfred Ward, Louis Veuillot, William Peter Allies, Donoso Cortes and Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton. The Vatican Council should have resolved all the questions regarding the pope’s supremacy of jurisdiction, but sadly, as can be easily seen from the above, it did not. Ranged on the opposite side, following John Henry Cardinal Newman, Bp. Ullathorne, Dom Cuthburt Butler and a host of others who believed the definition of infallibility would only harm reunion efforts with schismatics. Newman, especially, was quite cozy with the Anglicans and Old Catholics. He and his followers gave lip service to the definition but continued to travel the road to Modernism and ecumenism. That is where ignoring the integral teachings of the popes leads.
We see all the indicators here of Old Catholic influence:
— The attempt to “foment a schism” among those who pray at home;
— The “excommunication” of those who point out to others that “illicit only” is not Catholic;
— The tendency to Jansenistic rigorism, Liberal charity, quietism, Americanism, anti-Semitism;
— Their denial of the Vatican Council teaching on the pope’s supreme jurisdiction;
— Considering as “valid” men educated in heresy by heretics and schismatics;
— Their distortion of self-evident truths and dogmatic facts to shore up their claims, and
— Since the Catholic Church teaches that one cannot act if there is a positive doubt regarding the validity of a sacrament, [LibTrad ordinations and consecrations], one is obliged to treat their clergymen as though they were invalidly ordained.
And in our case, the absolute necessity of acknowledging the infallible truth that they could not have been ordained and consecrated during an interregnum. Instead they treat these men as valid and insist that others do the same. We cannot and will not let these errors stand. Readers deserve to know when they are being misled and to be able to fully access the truth, and we are obligated to provide it. This according to today’s epistle: “For such is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Peter 2).
by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 12, 2024 | New Blog
+St. Hermenegild, Martyr+
Read HERE of how St. Hermenegild. chose martyrdom rather than receive the Sacraments from the hands of heretics!
Well the solar eclipse has come and gone and here we all are, waiting for the media to exploit the next celestial event on the horizon. Christ told us we could expect signs — in the sun, the moon, and the stars — and we have seen them. He told us that one of these would be given to an evil and adulterous generation, and it would be only a sign, (not a notable event), involving Jonah and the whale. This of course points to Nineveh; in other words, one last chance to repent. If some expected His second coming based on this sign, they have forgotten that He will come as a thief. We continue to pray and watch, do penance for our sins, and pray for the conversion of sinners.
Below we will address a subject that has received little attention in these times in order to explain why it is so important for all to understand the necessity of obeying the teaching of the Continual Magisterium, the popes and ecumenical councils — not those who break the laws of the Church and question the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiffs by demanding belief in absurd propositions.
The necessity of passive infallibility
1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, Infallibility — “When we speak of the Church’s infallibility we mean, at least primarily and principally, what is sometimes called active as distinguished from passive infallibility. We mean in other words that the Church is infallible in her objective, definitive teaching regarding faith and morals, not that believers are infallible in their subjective interpretation of her teaching. This is obvious in the case of individuals, any one of whom may err in his understanding of the Church’s teaching; nor is the general or even unanimous consent of the faithful in believing a distinct and independent organ of infallibility. Such consent indeed, WHEN IT CAN BE VERIFIED AS APART, is of the highest value as a proof of what has been, or may be, defined by the teaching authority, but, except in so far as it is thus the subjective counterpart and complement of objective authoritative teaching, it cannot be said to possess an absolutely decisive dogmatic value.”
Fr. E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ, 1927 — “Thesis: The body of the faithful infallibly accept the truths of revelation proposed to them by the teaching authority of the Church. The Church is infallible in believing, i.e., the faithful, as a body, are preserved from error in accepting and professing the doctrines taught by the Church. Individuals may err; whole provinces, and even nations may fall away from the faith, as history testifies; but those professing the true faith must always remain sufficient in number and in distribution throughout the world to preserve the Church truly Catholic in the unity of faith and worship.
“PROOFS. I. From Reason. Passive infallibility, in the sense just explained, IS A NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE OF THE INDEFECTIBLE UNITY OF FAITH and the perpetual Catholicity of the Church. Since the Church is immutably one in the profession of faith, the faithful as a body must be free from error, otherwise the faith would not be one, but many. Moreover, the profession of a false faith constitutes manifest heresy and excludes one from membership in the Church. Consequently, if the faithful as a body could fall into error in the profession of faith, the Church would immediately cease to be Catholic and would therefore cease to be the Church of Christ. It is evident, then, that the faithful as a body must be infallible or free from error, at least in the profession of faith.
“Passive infallibility, bestowed upon the Church primarily for the purpose of preserving unity of faith, also furnishes a rule of faith, since any doctrine professed by the whole Church must be a revealed truth. Practically, however, such a rule of faith is not sufficient for the needs of the faithful, because it requires long and diligent research to discover whether any particular doctrine is held by the universal Church, and also whether it is held as a revealed truth or merely as a pious belief.
“The value of Tradition as proof for revealed doctrine rests principally upon the active and passive infallibility of the Church. Whenever there are sufficient witnesses to prove that a certain doctrine is accepted by the whole Church as a revealed truth, or that it is taught as such by a majority of the bishops, it is immediately evident that the doctrine is infallibly true and could be defined as a dogma of faith, IF NOT ALREADY SO DEFINED. When appealing to tradition in this sense, it matters not what age of the Church be selected, since truth does not change with the centuries. The truth of a doctrine is established just as securely by proving its universal acceptance today, as by showing that it was universally accepted in any past age of the Church.
Henry Cardinal Manning, Petri Privilegium, Three Pastoral Letters to the Clergy of the Diocese, 1870 — “Passive infallibility… is, the Divine security which sustains the whole Church in its faith: so that it is impossible for the whole Church to err in believing, because the pastors of the Church, WITH THEIR HEAD, cannot err in teaching.But it is manifest that, according to this doctrine, the fountain of infallible teaching is the Divine Head in heaven, through the organ of the visible head of the Church on earth… It is also a matter of faith that not only no separation of communion, but even no disunion of doctrine and faith between the Head and the Body, that is, between the ecclesia docens and the ecclesia discens can ever exist. Both are infallible, the one actively, in teaching, the other passively, in believing; and both are therefore inseparable, because necessarily united in one faith.
“And lastly, that though the consent of the Episcopate or the Church be not required, as a condition, to the intrinsic value of the infallible definitions of the Roman Pontiff, nevertheless, it cannot without heresy be said or conceived that the consent of the Episcopate and of the Church can ever be absent. For if the Pontiff be divinely assisted, both the active and the passive infallibility of the Church exclude such a supposition as heretical. To deny such infallible assistance now after the definition, is heresy. And even before the definition, to deny it was proximate to heresy, because it was a revealed truth, and a Divine fact, on which the unity of the Church has depended upon from the beginning…
“Now, before the definition of the Vatican Council, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was a doctrine revealed by God, delivered by the universal and constant tradition of the Church, recognised in (Ecumenical Councils, pre-supposed in the acts of the Pontiffs in all ages, taught by all the Saints, defended by every religious Order, and by every theological school except one, and in that one disputed only by a minority in number, and during one period of its history; believed, at least implicitly, by all the faithful, and therefore attested by the passive infallibility of the Church in all ages and lands, with the partial and transient limitations already expressed. The doctrine was therefore already objectively de fide, and also subjectively binding in conscience upon all who knew it to be revealed.”
Phantom bishops and other fantasies
All the quotes above are not obscure passages taken at random from certain works, but the common teaching of the Church as found expressed in the same exact way in both catechisms and other works of theology. We bring this topic to the attention of readers today because we are engaged in an ongoing war with those who falsely hold that passive infallibility is not important. They presume to continue to inform those praying at home that LibTrad bishops are only “illicit,” not invalid, even after incontestable proof has been carefully researched and presented clearly showing that Pope Pius XII teaches it is impossible, during an interregnum, for such men to ever become priests or bishops.
According to the heretical teaching of certain LibTrads rejecting Pope Pius XII‘s teaching in VAS, the indefectibility of the Church depends on the existence of mysterious bishops still in hiding or incognito “somewhere,” even without the Roman Pontiff ruling as one of these phantom bishops. Those insisting on this theological absurdity never so much as mention the necessity of the pope to their existence. Why is such a teaching heretical? Because, as the Church has always taught and Pope Pius XII later officially confirmed, unless they are under the direction of the Roman Pontiff and in communion with him, bishops may have orders (if consecrated prior to Pope Pius XII’s death) but they have no power; their jurisdiction comes not directly from Christ but only through his Vicar (Mystici Corporis Christi, Ad Sinarum Gentum). The contention of those insisting there must always be bishops is that “the episcopal order of the hierarchy consisting of Catholic bishops with the power of Orders and the power of jurisdiction” can never cease to exist. They claim that to state otherwise is to commit heresy.
The absurdity of such a statement lies in the denial of the necessity of a HEAD BISHOP, the pope, who alone can grant the necessary approval for consecration of those priests selected to be promoted as bishops. Unless this approval is granted, episcopal consecration cannot be validly received during an interregnum because the papal approval/mandate is lacking. This is no interpretation of a papal document; it is the clear, unmistakable and infallible teaching of Pope Pius XII in Vacantis Apostiolicae Sedis. In Pope Pius XII’s Ad Apostolorum Principis the pope taught: “No authority whatsoever, save that which is proper to the Supreme Pastor, can render void the canonical appointment granted to any bishop…” And in VAS, during an interregnum. Pope Pius XII does so use his supreme authority to declare that the consecrations of any men as bishops, performed without papal approval, are a usurpation of papal jurisdiction and such consecrations are to be considered null, void, and invalid.
What Pope Innocent III tells us in his profession of faith proposed to the Waldenses (DZ 424) about the consecration of the Eucharist and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass also pertains to this topic. He taught that the Eucharist is not validly consecrated by just any priest, “…however honest, religious, holy and prudent [he] may be…Unless he be a priest, regularly ordained by a visible and perceptible bishop.” Pope Innocent III defines such a priest as one who is “established by a bishop for that office…And so we firmly believe and declare that whosever without the preceding episcopal ordination believes and contends that he can offer the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is a heretic and is a participant and companion of the perdition of Core and his followers and he must be segregated from the entire holy Roman Church.” What is of interest here is that we are talking about a “visible and perceptible bishop” and priests established by such a bishop to function as priests. So where are these visible and perceptible bishops? Do these people now believe in an “invisible Church,” a heresy condemned by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi? Do they also believe in fairies and leprechauns?!
It is interesting to note that in attempting to sidestep the invalidity issue those claiming these pseudo-clerics are only illicit resort to the same defense used by the late Daniel Dolan (CMRI) to defend his validity. Dolan also cites Ad apostolorum principis as declaring illicit but valid orders conferred by those not possessing the mandate, quoting the following from Pius XII’s encyclical: “Acts requiring the power of Holy Orders which are performed by ecclesiastics of this kind, though they are valid AS LONG AS THE CONSECRATION CONFERRED ON THEM WAS VALID, are yet gravely illicit, that is, criminal and sacrilegious.” But here Dolan commits a fallacy in logic known as “begging the question,” assuming as true that which has yet to be proved. Did Lefebvre or Thuc validly consecrate? Not without the mandate! Did the pope refer to consecrations performed during an interregnum in Ad apostolorum principis? Obviously not, since he was still alive.
Conclusion
Those pushing the “bishops must yet exist” heresy claim they do so to counter the “heresy” held by this author and those who frequent this site — that the laity can effectively constitute the hierarchy, that the Church as Christ constituted it is not indefectible and that five of the seven Sacraments no longer exist. No one has ever said that these five Sacraments (excluding Baptism and Marriage) have ceased to exist; being instituted by Christ they will always exist. We simply no longer have access to them thanks to the wholesale apostasy of the hierarchy and the commands of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, which we must accept with a firm and irrevocable assent. This is God’s will for us, and these deniers of papal supremacy would be more honest if they simply proved Pope Pius XII was a heretic and VAS was therefore a non-binding decision. As for the indefectibility of the Church, Rev. E. S. Berry and Henry Edward Cardinal Manning are quite clear in what is quoted above:
“Passive infallibility, in the sense just explained, IS A NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE OF THE INDEFECTIBLE UNITY OF FAITH and the perpetual Catholicity of the Church. Since the Church is immutably one in the profession of faith, the faithful as a body must be free from error, otherwise the faith would not be one, but many. Moreover, the profession of a false faith constitutes manifest heresy and excludes one from membership in the Church.” (Rev. Berry) And from Cardinal Manning: “It is also a MATTER OF FAITH that not only no separation of communion, but even no disunion of doctrine and faith between the Head and the Body, that is, between the ecclesia docens and the ecclesia discens can ever exist. Both are infallible, the one actively, in teaching, the other passively, in believing; and both are therefore inseparable, because necessarily united in one faith.”
It is the ones promoting the necessary existence of bishops who deny indefectibility and the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff, not only in his ability to declare such bishops could never be appointed and consecrated without him, but in his grant to the faithful of the responsibility to carry on in their absence. This is treated below.
1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, Laity — “The laity… may be appointed to give doctrinal instruction more or less officially, or may even become the defenders of Catholic truth. Thus they give excellent help to the clergy in teaching catechism, the lay masters in our schools give religious instruction, and some laymen have received a missio canonica, or due ecclesiastical authorization, to teach the religious sciences in universities and seminaries; the important point in this, as in other matters, is for them to be submissive to the legitimate teaching authority… The principle is that the laity as such have no share in the spiritual jurisdiction and government of the Church; but they may be commissioned or delegated by ecclesiastical authority to exercise certain rights, especially when there is no question of strictly spiritual jurisdiction…”
And this is what we have received from Pope Pius XII, a missio canonica which is devoid of any spiritual (sacramental or other) jurisdiction; it must be strictly confined to the preservation of all the Church taught prior to Pope Pius XII’s death. For as Pope Pius XII instructed, Catholics must take up all the responsibilities of the hierarchy in their absence, but only if it involves nothing opposed to faith and morals, the implicit or explicit will of the Church or anything contrary to ecclesiastical discipline (Mission of the Catholic Woman, September 29, 1957; entered into the Acta Apostolica Sedis). Faith and morals demand that we accept the teaching of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. The will of the Church is clearly expressed by Pius XII in this infallible constitution. And in that constitution, he declares null, void, and invalid anything that violates papal law or Canon Law.
It is the most ludicrous of all contentions to hold that bishops could still exist on this earth minus their head bishop, a canonically elected pope, as the identical hierarchy established by Christ with all the rights He acceded to the Apostolic College. THAT is the denial of the Roman Pontiff’s supremacy of jurisdiction; THAT is the Gallicanist heresy. And worse than that: it is the occult Gnosticism that still prevails among the LibTrads generally, as explained HERE. One of the main proponents of this Gnostic “catholicism” once wrote to me: “It is heretical to state that the Catholic Church can be in existence without the episcopal order of the hierarchy consisting of Catholic bishops with the power of Orders and the power of jurisdiction… You deny the dogma that there is a perpetual, living, and infallible magisterium in the Catholic Church.”
The above statement is pathetically devoid of any true understanding of integral Catholic truth. And what is most alarming is that it is cunningly phrased to appear to those not well-instructed in the faith to be a legitimate statement. For the “episcopal order of the hierarchy” MUST include the head bishop, the Pope — Peter is the Rock on which Christ established His entire Church, not the bishops. His faith alone is indefectible, as Rev. Berry notes. And that it is a lie to say that I deny the “perpetual, living, and infallible magisterium” when all I do is insist it be upheld should be apparent to anyone reading what is presented on this site.
The perpetual, living and infallible magisterium is found in all the infallible writings of the popes. Exclude belief in one and you are done. If the pope says bishops can no longer exist during an interregnum, then they do not exist. If the laws of the Church tell us they become heretics and can no longer elect a true pope if they violate the terms of a papal law or Canon Law, then they are unable to do so. And if said cardinals and bishops lose their offices by joining a false sect — as ALL did at Vatican 2 — they are no longer cardinals and bishops!!! WHAT bishops??? Please tell me, if you, dear friends, truly believe in the perpetual, living, and infallible magisterium, which lives on in the Deposit of Faith even without the presence of the Roman Pontiff, how true bishops could ever exist without him?
There cannot be two Catholic churches, one believing LibTrad pseudo-clergy are only illicit and others believing they are invalid. This cannot be when the Roman Pontiff has infallibly taught otherwise. The Catholic Church either lasts until the consummation teaching ALL that Christ’s Vicars have taught, as they have taught it and in its entirety, or it does not exist at all. Those reading this have a choice to make: they can be numbered among the members of the invisible Gnostic “catholic” church praying at home or they can choose to obey ALL the teachings of the Roman Pontiffs. It is as simple as that. What they cannot do is pretend that given the infallible nature of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, they are members of the Catholic Church if they believe LibTrad pseudo-clergy to be only illicit.
