+Feast of the Holy Rosary+

Those challenging Francis as a heretic today may think they are accomplishing something. But they came to the game to support their team long after they had already lost by double digits. Those in the Novus Ordo church may entertain themselves by pretending they are fighting the “deep church,” but just as it is too late to “drain the swamp” in this country, likewise it is long past the time when Catholics could hope to have swept the Church clean of the Modernists and Liberals who destroyed Her. Those frequenting this blog know that the juridical Church in Rome ceased to exist with the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, 65 years ago this month. But we also know that Christ’s Church continues to live and exist amongst the visible members of His Mystical Body yet faithful to all the teachings of the Continual Magisterium.

Of course all this Francis business will only wind up resulting in further schisms, once those believing Francis is a heretic decide to depart and elect their own “pope.” Been there, done that and it will only make an already catastrophic situation worse. What is needed here is a primer for the laity on what the Church that existed during the reign of Pope Pius XII truly taught on all these myriad questions. This in order to dispel all the controversies now being raised again, questions already debated and researched in the 1980s and errors and heresies long ago condemned by the Church. And as we keep repeating here, it basically requires only two infallible documents to answer the majority of these questions: Pope Paul IV’s 1559 Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio and Pope Pius XII’s 1945 election Constitution, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis.

Where to draw the line

Why do we draw the line at Pope Pius XII’s papacy?  Because after his death is when all this chaos began, when the cockroaches finally came out of the woodwork. If police officials are called to a fatal car crash, they do not begin their investigation of that crash at the scene itself, but carefully trace the trajectory of the vehicle from where the driver first lost control and left the road. With mathematical precision, they calculate very carefully the specifics which led to the crash to establish its actual cause. They investigate the history of the driver and document the condition of the vehicle s/he was driving. It can take as long as a year to pull all the pieces of what happened together to prepare their case for court. And in the meantime, they must fend off defense attorneys for the driver at fault who present every objection imaginable in attempting to defend their client. These we can compare to the many individuals who objected to the fact that the papal see was vacant following Pope Pius XII’s death. Yet it is all a matter of cause and effect.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that there must be a cause for every effect but that cause must be known and rightly identified. Francis is being treated as the cause of this heretical situation being witnessed today when he is only the effect issuing from that situation. This error is what is known as the logical fallacy of Non causa pro causa (Latin meaning “non-cause for cause”). “It is a catch-all term that describes any type of fallacy in which we mistake a false cause of an event for the real cause… Reverse causation fallacy occurs when the direction of cause and effect is reversed. In other words, we assume that A causes B, without realizing that B actually causes A.”  So those accusing Francis are not viewing the situation correctly; they have not traced the actual cause of his heresy to its logical source. The heretical situation itself occurred long ago, and this was the true cause that is now being obscured. Francis is only one of a long line of heretics, as everyone reading these blogs has known all along. And as explained in last week’s blog, the errors in reasoning promoted by the Liberals and Modernists have been deliberately multiplied and refined over the decades to the point that they have become almost impossible to extricate from people’s thinking processes. That is why it is called the operation of error.

We also draw the line at the death of Pope Pius XII because there are abundant proofs on many different levels that the election of John 23, the heretic Angelo Roncalli, was invalid, as documented in these blogs, in site articles and in The Phantom Church in Rome. No one has bothered to refute these writings or have shown that they are the product of false reasoning, misinformation, misapprehension of the nature of heresy or for any other reason. To do so they would need to cite pre-1959 papal teaching and Canon Law on these issues and nothing of the sort has occurred. So the indictment of Roncalli stands, as previously stated. What is needed is a clarification of all the issues at hand regarding the situation we experience today. But what those seeking the truth are handed each week by LibTrads and their buddies is a mass of lies and disinformation to sort through from Rome, topped off with a heavy load of lies, half-truths and propaganda promoting themselves as the answer to the cacophony in the counter-church.

These lies have poisoned the minds of those trying to make sense of all this for decades but the truth could be easily enough rooted out. As stated before in previous blogs and articles, two infallible papal documents discredited by LibTrads as non-applicable today are the answers to the entire Francis conundrum, not their own pretensions to be able to resolve this situation on a human level, when what they are dealing with is a Church Divinely instituted by Our Lord.  Below, we will counter some of the common myths leading to the confusion that escalates daily regarding the sad plight of the Church.

Cum ex Apostolatus Officio — Myths and Facts

Pope Paul IV’s Bull was written in 1559 during the Protestant Reformation, which some theologians have identified as the very beginnings of the great apostasy. The first translation of this bull was published by Argentinian professor, scholar and philologist Carlos Disandro in 1978. Pope Paul IV’s bull  was addressing two different situations:

1. One of his cardinals was actively campaigning for the papacy and that cardinal, Giovanni Morone, was placed on trial as a heretic by Paul IV on suspicion of sympathizing with and defending the Lutherans. Paul IV died in 1559 after releasing his bull before a verdict could be reached in the Morone case and Morone then became a candidate for the papacy. The 19^th century historian and scholar, Joseph Cardinal Hergenrother, in his The History of the Popes reports that Morone’s campaign for the papacy was “…quashed by the intervention of Cardinal Ghislieri, [the future Pope St. Pius V] who pointedly remarked that Morone’s election would be invalid owing to the question mark hanging over his orthodoxy.” In his The Papal Princes, author Glenn Kittler wrote that Paul IV “…decreed that any cardinal accused of heresy could not be elected pope” (pg. 254). Pope St. Pius V later went on to reaffirm his predecessor’s bull in his Motu proprio, Intermultiplices, which also taught that anyone previously suspected of heresy could be retried for good cause, even if declared innocent by a previous pope.

2. In a backhanded fashion, Pope Paul IV also was defining exactly how a pope could “APPEAR” to be (an) or the antichrist but in fact never became pope, in order to stem the tide of errors then being spread by the Protestants regarding the entire papacy as a series of antichrists. In other words, no validly elected pope could ever be Antichrist, but only one invalidly elected who was usurping the Papal See.

Myth —  Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (Cum ex…) was only a disciplinary law and is not binding on the faithful.

FACT —That disciplinary laws are indeed binding on the faithful was proclaimed at the Vatican Council (DZ 1827, 1831), and later by Pope Pius IX in Quartus Supra and Quae in patriarchatu, also in DZ 1578 and DZ 326. (See the article HERE.) This error first circulated prior to these just-mentioned encyclicals of Pope Pius IX’s which declared disciplinary decrees capable of being infallible and those denying this fact guilty of heresy. Later the status of Cum ex… was clarified by the codification of Canon Law, as seen below.

Myth —  Cum ex… was abrogated by the issuance of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Can. 6 n.6: “Any of the remaining disciplinary laws heretofore enforced but not contained in the Code, either explicitly or implicitly, shall be said to have lost all force unless it is found in approved liturgical books or pertains to Divine law, either positive or natural.”

FACT — This law has absolutely no application to Cum ex… for two different reasons. First it is a proven fact that in nine different places, most notably under the laws that treat of heresy, apostasy and schism, Cum ex… is listed in Peter Cardinal Gasparri’s Codex Iuris Canonici 1957 as  the footnotes or sources of these laws. (A free download of this work is available HERE. Further proofs are  posted in the article HERE.) Abp. Amleto Cardinal Cicognani says of the old law in relation to the Code: “Under the canons are placed footnotes… In the Code there are… 4,000 citations from papal constitutions,” and 1,200 from ecumenical councils, also thousands from other sources. Therefore, he comments, “…The old laws of the Church have [not] lost all their utility,” as some have claimed. “The footnotes must never be neglected… the former discipline is no longer the immediate source of legal authority but becomes a source of interpretation.” So if something is to be used as a source of interpretation, how can it have lost all force?

Secondly, Cum ex… most definitely deals with Divine law, the Divine establishment of the papacy by Our Lord and His promise to Peter that his faith could never fail. In excluding heretics and suspected heretics as candidates for the papacy, cardinalate and episcopacy, Pope Paul IV was safeguarding Christ’s promise. The canonist Rev. Charles Augustine writes under Can. 2314 regarding heresy, apostasy and schism: “It is quite natural that a society which claims to be the one Church instituted by Christ should direct its first penalty against crimes that subvert its very foundation i.e., DIVINE AND CATHOLIC FAITH.” And here, Augustine adds in his footnotes that Cum ex… is indeed the source for Can. 2314, (although a typographical error mistakenly attributes this 1559 Bull to Paul III).

So on both counts, Cum ex… is explicitly contained in the 1917 Code.

Myth —  Cum ex… can be interpreted to mean that a pope already in office could become a heretic, which is a contradiction of the Vatican Council. St. Robert Bellarmine teaches that this is a possibility.

FACT — St. Robert Bellarmine did not teach that a sitting pope could become a heretic as the article HERE explains. And Pope Paul IV wrote Cum ex… prior to the Vatican Council, which definitively settled this matter with a resounding “no.” This case is not addressed specifically in Cum ex. But knowing what we do about Roncalli, we have no doubts that he was a heretic pre-election, even if not a heretic admitted as such by the cardinals and episcopate. He was  registered with the Holy Office as a suspected Modernist and this document had not been removed, something the cardinals were bound to know and consider. That they did not do so, as we have stated before, disqualified them as electors. Prof. Carlos Disandro comments on this below in his introduction to the translation of the bull.

“Therefore, according to Paul IV, it is not contrary to the Faith to affirm that there could occur the case of a heretic pope (a false pope, naturally) elected by the unanimous vote of the cardinals, an outcome that could suggest, in turn, the electors’ heretical unanimity. It is certainly not necessary, but it is possible. This would be, I believe, the abominatio in desolationem: the Church without a pope and without legitimate electors, they being automatically dispossessed of their dignities… Finally, according to this doctrinal line, we would now demote the hierarchical body of bishops that could also in totum  sustain, favor, and share heretical and schismatic authority, and consequently would lack jurisdiction. And this assuredly dark horizon would complete the abominatio in desolationem, or, as the text of the Bull says, abominationem desolationis in loco sancto videre,  since every cathedral (seat of wisdom and the Faith) would be occupied by heretics or miniature heresiarchs who would bring about what the canonical providence of our text tries to impede: Catholicae Ecclesiae unitatem et inconsutilem Domini tunicam scindere.”

That such an election is indeed invalid and the cardinals disqualified from voting in any subsequent elections is precisely what Can. 2391 §1 prescribes. Did the cardinals “knowingly” elect an invalid candidate as the canon states? Enough of them knew and deliberately elected him to fall short of the two-thirds plus one majority needed for a valid election under Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (paras. 86, 90). And if we have any doubts all we need to do is remember that Roncalli is the one who called the false Vatican 2 council and all of those cardinals then still living signed Vatican 2 documents. More on this below.

Myth —  The abomination of desolation in Cum ex… would refer to Roncalli if he was the one invalidly elected, not Montini, and the abomination can mean only Antichrist proper.

FACT — The abomination of desolation can have many meanings, as seen HERE. Prof. Disandro notes: “Could we not infer that Montini and his counselors, theologians, and cardinals fundamentally satisfy the explicit and implicit conditions described in these texts, and that from any perspective whatsoever—canonical, mystical, or historical—we find ourselves precisely in those times of the abominatio in desolationem? In this case, the cessation of the Sacrifice and the vacancy in Rome…” Montini himself served as a counselor to Roncalli; they had been close friends since the 1930s. As addressed in previous articles, Can. 2209 states that accomplices are as guilty as the primary agent, and in this case it is difficult to tell who the primary actor was. But one thing is certain: Montini would never have been made a cardinal without Roncalli. And if Montini was Antichrist, Roncalli could only be the False Prophet of Apoc. Ch. 13. Ironically, the footnotes for Can. 2209 list Cum ex… as its source.

Myth —  Paragraph 7 of Cum ex… states that the cardinals or anyone who had at first recognized such a heretical pope as legitimate could “depart with impunity at any time from obedience” without fear of censure or penalty, so that applies right up to our own times.

FACT —  Actually the way it is written it would apply only to those cardinals who elected Roncalli and the faithful subject to him, and the hierarchy had the opportunity to denounce him once it was made public, in the mid-1960s, that he was a suspected Modernist. They lost their chance, and their offices, for electing him as Disandro notes above and they later demonstrated at Vatican 2. No cardinals remained once Roncalli was elected. Pope Paul IV never envisioned a series of invalidly elected popes or a wholesale acceptance of them, without any effort to elect a true pope, so it could scarcely be said to apply after Roncalli’s death.

Cum ex Apostolatus Officio was a warning to all who were praying and watching. It was dismissed by LibTrads and their minions wishing to supplant the papacy, as we explained in our last blog. It has a great deal in common with Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (VAS) in that it nullifies all actions of those daring to function as valid popes or hierarchy outside the laws of the Church. Those claiming that censures for heresy, apostasy and schism today no longer apply or can be interpreted leniently have dismissed Cum ex… precisely because it binds them to an even higher, not a lower standard. Others have challenged them on this repeatedly, insisting that the Canons retain their full rigor, as VAS infallibly teaches. So there exists a state of doubt among many. We know from the above that Cum ex… is explicitly retained in the Code. And since it is, Canon 6 n. 4 resolves this doubt as follows: “In case of doubt whether some provision of the canons differs from the old law, the old law must be followed.”

This is very sobering when we realize that Pope Paul IV teaches: “We approve and renew, by Our Apostolic authority, each and every sentence, censure or penalty of excommunication, suspension and interdict, and removal,and any others whatever in any way given and promulgated against heretics and schismatics by any Roman Pontiffs Our Predecessors, or considered as such, even in their uncollected letters, or by the sacred Councils recognized by God’s Church or in the decrees or statutes of the Holy Fathers or in the sacred Canons and Apostolic Constitutions and ordinances. We will and decree that they be forever observed and, if perchance nowobsolete, that they shall be restored and shall remain in vigorous observance…

“All and sundry Bishops, Archbishops, Patriarchs, Primates, Cardinals… who in the past, as mentioned above, have strayed or fallen into heresy or have been apprehended, have confessed or been convicted of incurring, inciting or committing schism or who, IN THE FUTURE, shall stray or fall into heresy or shall incur, incite or commit schismor shall be apprehended, confess or be convicted of straying or falling into heresy or of incurring, inciting or committing schism, being less excusable than others in such matters, in addition to the sentences, censures and penalties mentioned above, (all these persons) are also automatically and without any recourse to law or action, completely and entirely, forever deprived of, and furthermore disqualified from and incapacitated for their rank…” We will elaborate further on this below.

If this does not sufficiently convince those conniving today that they are placing their souls in great jeopardy by relegating this bull to the trash heap, we might remind them that it is sealed with an oath: “No one at all, therefore, may infringe this document of our approbation reintroduction, sanction, statute and derogation of wills and decrees, or by rash presumption contradict it. If anyone however should presume to attempt this, let him know that he is destined to incur the wrath of almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul.” See the article HEREon the status of papal documents sealed with an oath.

The second document examined here will be Pope Pius XII’s 1945 papal election law.

Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis — Myths and Facts

In writing his 1945 papal election constitution, Pope Pius XII divided his document into several sections, but it is primarily the first section we will be dealing with here.

Myth — “Pius XII’s constitution on how to elect a Roman Pontiff is merely ecclesiastical law and therefore human law. It is not divine law, and it is therefore limited of its very nature.”

FACT —  And you, lay person or LibTrad pseudo-cleric have the authority to state such a thing from WHO? The first three paragraphs of Title 1, Ch. 1 of Pope Pius XII’s election Constitution, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (abbreviated below as VAS), treats of papal jurisdiction as it exists during an interregnum, also the nature of the primacy instituted by Christ. It therefore a treats of a matter regarding DIVINE LAW and is now the only prevailing law that addresses such a situation. These paragraphs are unquestionably infallible, as paragraph three easily proves (see HERE). Certainly anyone presuming to judge an infallible document could never be considered a Catholic, for this is a denial of the supreme jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff. But then this is what LibTrads have done from day one. The link provided explains nearly all the arguments presented by LibTrads and why they are fatally flawed.

Myth — Epikeia and/or Can. 20 can be invoked to override VAS.

FACT — Epikeia, Rev. Joseph Riley states in his dissertation, The History, Nature and Use of EPIKEIA in Moral Theology (Catholic University of America, 1936): “Epikeia can never confer the capacity to act. Epikeia cannot bestow upon him the power which he does not now possess, nor can epikeia restore the power which the law has withdrawn. For such bestowal or restoration of power a positive act is required… Human invalidating laws sometimes cease to bind; but epikeia may not be applied to human invalidating laws.” And Can. 20 states: “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 the following]…” But there are two provisions provided for the solution of this case: Cum ex… and VAS. So Canon 20 cannot apply.

As noted above, both Cum ex… and VAS are essentially invalidating and incapacitating laws, declaring the nullity of acts. Rev. Bernard Wuellner S.J.  writes: “Laws justly declaring an incapacity to act or to receive benefits invalidate the attempted act or reception even if they are inculpably unknown or facts pertaining to their application in a concrete instance are unknown” (no. 342, Summary of Scholastic Principles, 1956). Abp. Amleto Cicognani says the same in his work, Canon Law: “Epikeia has no place in invalidating laws, for the common good demands certitude concerning the validity of acts… An act performed even in ignorance or error contrary to the prescriptions of an invalidating or disqualifying law (unless it be given as a penalty for an offense) is invalid just as if a person performed the act with full knowledge. The validity of such acts and the juridic capacity of these persons can be restored only by law, in no respect by the will of the agent… These laws are enacted for the public good as an essential requisite for validity of certain acts — independently, therefore, of the will of those subject to them.”

And this is not taking into consideration the fact that both Cum ex… and VAS are infallible pronouncements concerning Divine law and are considered special laws made by the Roman Pontiffs. And here we see why both Cum ex… and VAS cannot ever be said to be abrogated. In his dissertation Canon 6 (1927), Rev, Nicholaus Neuberger writes:

“If a prior law is bound up by an oath which reads into it immunity from abrogation the law is not countermanded unless express mention is made to that effect… But the predecessor cannot curtail the power of the successor. The primacy is entrusted to him to rule subjects through just laws… An unjust or useless law is not the only matter suited for abrogation… To make a licit annulment, it is sufficient that the law is too rigorous… less useful… or that greater dangers and evils are in some way avoided…” Pope St. Pius X’s papal election law containing such an oath was abrogated by Pope Pius XII as he notes in his preamble to VAS. However, although it is rewritten, very little of  its substance is changed except for the parts Pius XII adds in various places, to better guarantee the integrity of the election process and validity of the election.

Conclusion

Pope Paul IV’s Cum ex… was never abrogated; on the contrary, it was confirmed and strengthened by Pope St. Pius V’s Intermultiplices and enshrined in the Code as the old law governing the Canons on heresy. Pope St. Pius V issued his famous Quo Primum on the Roman Rite of the Mass and its perpetuity, and this also was accompanied by an oath. Although now considered a “disciplinary law” by some LibTrads, it was never abrogated and certainly never could be abrogated by the likes of Roncalli or Montini. Pius XII’s VAS, of course, was not and now cannot be abrogated. Only the lawgiver himself, the pope and his successors, can abrogate these laws, not LibTrads.

Our last blog explained that it is a belief binding on Catholics that papal elections must be canonical. Cum ex…declares those Cardinals even suspect of heresy are incapable of positing a valid election. How could anyone today viewing the destruction in the Church ignore the papal documents above when they see the destruction wrought by Roncalli and Montini, whom Roncalli collaborated with and supported, and who he named as a cardinal eligible for election. We know that these cardinals accepted Roncalli as pope and never renounced him; that they later voted in the false Vatican 2 council to dismantle the Church. Even those cardinals who did not knowingly elect Roncalli (Can. 2391 §1) were guilty under the laws governing papal elections because as Wuellner and Cicognani explain above, such ignorance cannot excuse one for violating invalidating and incapacitating laws, (that is, VAS itself).

And as Rev, Anscar Parsons explains in the opening page of his 1939 Canonical Elections dissertation, “Canonical election is one of the methods employed by the Church for providing worthy incumbents for ecclesiastical offices. The Code sets forth the principle of public law that no office can be VALIDLY obtained in the Church unless it is duly granted by competent ecclesiastical authority” according to the Sacred Canons, and here he cites Can 147. Violation of this law is prohibited and made null by VAS. The cardinals, who later showed their true colors at Vatican 2 and were already peppered with Modernists could not possibly have validly elected Roncalli, on many different counts enumerated in the links provided here. Those agonizing over Francis need agonize no more; they need only read to understand and obey the Roman Pontiffs — not listen to their talking heads or the dictates of their own perverse wills.

It has all been an illusion, “lying wonders” as St. Paul warned us in 2 Thess. 2:9. Pope Paul IV and Pope Pius XII made it impossible for anyone to corrupt the Deposit of Faith. Pius XII turned the key Christ gave to St. Peter and his successors in the lock on the Church’s front door for the last time and took those keys with him. None of what occurred following the election of Angelo Roncalli did happen or could have happened. No Novus Ordo church, no Vatican 2, no John 23 missal, no new mass, no LibTrads usurping the papacy and spreading their errors, either. All was null, void and invalid. The Church stands as She has always stood and will always stand — inviolate. She has never changed in any way and despite the best efforts of Her enemies, even those who pretend to be Her friends, She shall never change.

Let us pray below for those who insist on continuing to crucify Our Lord in these evil times:

“Most sweet Jesus, mindful that we ourselves have had a share in such great indignities which we now deplore from the depths of our heart, we humbly ask Thy pardon and declare our readiness to atone, by voluntary expiation, not only for our own personal offenses, but also for the sins of those who, straying far from the path of salvation, refuse in their obstinate infidelity to follow Thee, their Shepherd and Leader, or renouncing the vows of their Baptism, have cast off the sweet yoke of Thy law.”