Let the din now cease: Francis heresy situation solved by infallible decrees 

by T. Stanfill Benns | Oct 7, 2023 | New Blog

+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.”

How Liberal Trads ushered in the Operation of Error to believe lies

by T. Stanfill Benns | Sep 29, 2023 | New Blog

+St. Michael the Archangel+

The Month of October, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary

Prayer Society Intention

“O Queen of the Most Holy Rosary,…. show unto all men that thou art the queen of peace and forgiveness.” (Raccolta)

As we commented last week, the restoration wars rage on — a repositioning strategy to determine who’s going to acquire paying members. And even a few of those pretending to pray at home are showing their true colors. People are anxious, tired and confused, meaning they are unusually vulnerable. And that always bodes ill for making decisions in matters of faith. But the real problem with Traditionalists hasn’t even been fully realized yet. Many forget that beginning around the time of the French Revolution, three distinct deviations within Catholicism gradually emerged that had not existed before: Liberalism, Americanism and Modernism, all of which were condemned by the popes as heresy. Especially in this country Catholics were at risk, given the so-called liberties touted as democracy. Even certain Novus Ordo Internet commentators admit that all Americans calling themselves Catholic today are infected with these three heresies to some extent.

The Vatican Council condemned the anti-papal heresies related to Liberalism (Gallicanism, Febronianism, Josephism). These heresies advocated limiting papal infallibility considerably and held the bishops equal to — and as a body, even superior to — the popes. But after the council closed, a type of semi-Gallicanist faction emerged that opposed Henry Cardinal Manning’s Ultramontane position, limiting ex cathedra pronouncements to a handful, denying the infallibility of disciplinary decrees and holding the opinion that bishops received their jurisdiction directly from Christ, (then still a free opinion. See the history of this development HERE.) Disciplinary decrees, however, had already been declared infallible by the Vatican Council: “If anyone thus speaks that the Roman Pontiff has… not the full power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals but also in those things which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church…Or that this power is not ordinary and immediate…over pastors and faithful altogether and individually; let him be anathema.”

To further shore up the teaching on disciplinary decrees, between 1873-1876 Pope Pius IX issued Quartus Supra, Quae in patriarchatu and Etsi multa, all of these encyclicals dealing with the binding force of papal disciplinary decrees on the faithful. But the Liberal minimalists began to declare that those things laid down for belief in encyclicals were not binding, an error Pope Pius XII later condemned in Humani generis, along with the idea that ex cathedrapronouncements were rare. And in Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII settled the question on whether bishops receive their jurisdiction directly from Christ when he taught:

“Bishops must be considered as the more illustrious members of the Universal Church, for they are united by a very special bond to the divine Head of the whole Body and so are rightly called “principal parts of the members of the Lord… Yet in exercising this office they are not altogether independent, but are subordinate to the lawful authority of the Roman Pontiff, although enjoying the ordinary power of jurisdiction which they receive directly from the same Supreme Pontiff.” As you might guess, this did not please those Liberal minimalists hard at work in Pius XII’s day, who had hoped to receive a greater share of power in the Church. Minimalism was fought strenuously by Msgr. Joseph Fenton as we have seen is several past blogs. But in the end, the liberals won out.

Traditionalists are the purveyors of Liberalism

Liberalism was the most insidious among the heresies; it seduced Catholics by degrees and failed to present Catholic teaching as an integral whole. That’s why it rests toward the bottom of the Masonic pyramid. In previous blogs we have illustrated the point that Traditionalists (and closet Traditionalists among those claiming to pray at home) practice liberal charity, but it goes far beyond that. They are Liberals through and through, in varying degrees, and most of their followers are completely unaware of this. In examining the modus operandi used by 19^th century Liberals and adopted by Traditionalists, something else emerges. A pattern establishes itself that fits in quite comfortably with modern propaganda techniques and the dissemination of lies and disinformation.

The judgment of this fact is not our own but is taught by approved and respected Catholic authors writing in the 1800s, when Liberalism first made its ugly appearance. We are only applying their observations to the methods Traditionalists use today. These men witnessed Liberalism at work firsthand, so can hardly be accused of not recognizing it for what it is. We refer to Rev. Felix Sarda y Salvany (Liberalism is a Sin), and Louis Veuillot (The Liberal Illusion), both of them Ultramontanes in the era of the Vatican Council. It is primarily from these two sources that we note the following characteristics of “Liberal Catholics,” an appellation both authors agree is a contradiction in terms.

— The predominating element in Liberalism (also Americanism) is the right to one’s own ability to interpret and judge, to assert their own opinions and theories as authentic, independent of papal authority. (Liberalism teaches that all have individual rights of every kind, many of these issuing from the state, not God-given human rights. Liberals teach that these rights are superior to our belief as Catholics and any religious duties or responsibilities. Liberalism was the earliest stage of Modernism.)

— Liberals teach that: “Individual judgment is the rule of faith… The true sense of revealed doctrine is not always certain and human reason has something to say in the matter” (Sarda). This is nothing more than the Protestant principle of private judgment.

— Liberalism’s negative unity is rooted in denial, for it depends on the varying degrees of the truths it denies in order to maintain its existence.

— This denial can be observed in the Liberals’ failure to draw out the logical conclusions of their own principlesand the opinions held by their advocates, stopping short of the consequences logically flowing from its erroneous premises. (Several instances of this will be demonstrated below.)

— Liberals work to confuse ideas and distort the proper meaning of words. (See below.)

— “They show themselves with some appearance of probity and sound doctrine… but are more dangerous and more baneful than declared enemies” (Pope Pius IX, brief to Circle of St. Ambrose in Milan, 1873). Sedevacantists boast they are staunch upholders of the papacy.

— Liberals apologize, excuse, extenuate, soften and explain away points of faith, practice and discipline. (Soft stance on Canon Law, especially those canons governing jurisdiction and heresy, apostasy and schism; abuse of the principles of epikeia and necessity).

— “They subject God’s authority to the scrutiny of reason,” (Sarda), pretending that they can rightfully interpret and dismiss papal teaching when even approved theologians were forbidden to do this.  Only the lawgiver (the Roman Pontiff) may interpret his own documents.

— They believe that, as Rev. Sarda notes: “The limits of the Church’s infallibility may be determined by human science… The Church is of course infallible but they choose to determine when and what She shall speak infallibly, [placing] the formal motive of faith in human reason.”

— They dismiss dogmatic bulls such as Unam Sanctam and In Coenae Domini, even though “the popes inserted these bulls into Canon Law.”  (Veuillot) And here we must add Pope Paul IV’s 1559 Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, the confirmation of this bull by Pope St. Pius V (Intermultiplices) Pope St. Pius V’s Quo Primum, (which some now hold as non-binding) as well as Pope Pius XII’s papal election Constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. But the Traditionalists dismissing these bulls and other binding papal decrees are not clerics, are not approved authors nor are they experts of any kind. Henry Cardinal Manning tells us in his The Vatican Decrees and their Bearing on Civil Allegiance (1875) that: “The Vatican Council… definition, by retrospective action makes all Pontifical acts infallible” and here he includes Unam Sanctam, Unigenitus and Auctorum Fidei. Cardinal Manning I believe without hesitation; Traditionalists have no authority.

— In pretending to be Catholic, Liberals demand “…the moderation and charity recommended by the pope(s) to Catholic writers, [which] applies only to Catholic polemics between CATHOLICS on FREE QUESTIONS” (Sarda; see recent series on religious discussion).

— Liberals either discredit their opponents or pass them by in silence. The truth and papal authority being abandoned as the ultimate good, they preach impartiality, tolerance and compromise, but they never practice what they preach. They consistently resort to ad hominem attacks, loaded questions, arguments beside the point or that beg the question, and engage in equivocation. This is no surprise since Liberals and Modernists alike despise the scholastic system of logic. They have never and will never refute an argument point by point.

— “Liberalism is a false Catholicity… It is paganism disguised in Catholic forms and using Catholic language.” In short, Pope Pius IX describes “Catholic” Liberals as “worse than demons” (Sarda).

Distorted meaning of the term Tradition

Not only are Traditionalists Liberals, but they equivocally use the word “Tradition” to describe themselves, when they more accurately match the description of those condemned for Traditionalism in DZ 1649. The advocates for this system taught: “Reason of itself is radically unable to know with certainty any truth or, at least, the fundamental truths of the metaphysical, moral, and religious order. Hence our first act of knowledge must be an act of faith, based on the authority of revelation” and the common consent of society. This is also the teaching of Liberalism as seen above. The very idea that the word Tradition can in anyway be associated with Traditionalists today is preposterous, since furthermore, as Pietro Parente and his fellow authors write in their Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology, the “…organ [of Divine Tradition] is the living magisterium of the Church (the Roman Pontiff and the bishops united with and subordinate to him).”

So from now on, then, these Traditionalist sects will be referred to here as LibTrads, reflecting these two heresies. These errant sects can scarcely claim they are the successors of the Continual Magisterium. They possess no validly consecrated bishops, as infallibly taught by Pope Pius XII in his Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, far less a canonically elected Roman Pontiff. And in fact, they believe the Church can be governed by bishops alone without a head bishop, meaning they believe the “body of bishops” is superior to the pope as the heretical Gallicanists hold, even when a true pope exists. This heretical principle is also held by some who pray at home, claiming, “there must always be bishops,” without specific inclusion of the pope as head bishop. And the use of this phrase is yet another example of the LibTrad confusion of terms, since it bears the appearance of truth to the less discerning. But in not insisting there must first and foremost be a pope as head of these bishops for the Church to even exist, they deny the teachings of the Vatican Council.

Can LibTrads insist on using their own reason to judge papal teaching and at the same time hold that one is unable to know such truths by way of reason? Yes. Note above that the heresy of Liberalism teaches “the TRUE SENSE of revealed doctrine is not always CERTAIN and human reason has something to say in the matter.”  Here we see the denial that Catholics are able to arrive at certitude, for the heresy of Traditionalism teaches: “Reason of itself is radically unable to know with certainty any truth or, at least, the fundamental truths…” Well this being the case, and the pope being absent, who is able to decide the “true sense” of these  truths? LibTrads consistently refer to the “sensus Catholicus” and their pseudo-clergy’s commission to fulfill the Divine law regarding “the salvation of souls.” This comprises, then, the heresy of Traditionalism’s “an act of faith, [in their validity as successors of the Apostles] based on the authority of revelation,” i.e., the Divine law they say commands them to act. So there must be some directing force, in this case LibTrad pseudo-clergy, deciding for everyone else — those unable to reason for themselves or arrive at certitude — who will speak for the Church in the absence of the Roman Pontiff. They are the ones who “choose to determine when and what She shall speak infallibly.”

This brings us to the remarks in Rev. Sarda’s work regarding, “The dogmatizers of the [Liberal] sect… who teach liberalism in books, in discourses, in articles; by argument or by authority…  Practical liberalists… like a flock of sheep with closed eyes, follow their leaders. They know nothing in truth of principles and systems and did they perceive the perversity of their instructors, they would perhaps detest them. But deceived by a false cry or shibboleth they troop docilely after their false guides. They are nonetheless the hands that act while the theorists are the heads that direct… They are less excusable than those liberals who have never been within the pale of the Church. In short, they sin with their eyes open.” And once again, we have a perfect description of LibTrads.

Individual rights v. duties of priests and faithful

When Pope Pius XII died, those among the faithful infected with Liberalism and Modernism fell prey to these LibTrads after Paul 6 introduced the Novus Ordo Missae. Shell-shocked and vulnerable, with the majority ignorant of their faith, they were ripe for the picking, and their Liberal organizers well knew it. Rather than educate them, which was the first obligation of any lawful clergy (which they were not), LibTrads indiscriminately offered them the Latin Mass and invalid Sacraments. Since the focus of Liberalism is on the inviolability of individual rights versus the absolute obligation to obey the popes and perform one’s Catholic duties, LibTrads appealed to the faithful’s “right” to request the sacraments, excluding the fact that this right applied only if they were not in some way excommunicated (which many were). And they neglected to explain that only lawful pastors, as the Church defined them, were allowed to administer the Sacraments. The entire focus was placed on the Mass and the heretically exclusive idea of a ”community priesthood.” This was no different than the Novus Ordo crowd’s insistence on their “rights” to greater participation in the liturgy and the use of the vernacular.

Negative unity and denial

And here we see demonstrated the negative unity aspect of these LibTrads, a loosely based unity predicated on the denial of various Catholic truths and the failure to draw out logical conclusions — consequences logically flowing from their erroneous premises. If they denied that it could be absolutely determined whether the current holder of the See in Rome was truly vacant (material-formal excuse) they could continue to reign as the hierarchy. If they denied that VAS was an infallible decree that they irrevocably accept, they could continue to claim validity. If they denied VAS applied to them, they could provide the Mass and Sacraments. This in turn would allow them to deny that Paul 6 was Antichrist and the Sacrifice had ceased. All this is assuming that there was no overriding agenda powering the LibTrad movement, and such an assumption would be a huge mistake. For there is every indication that long before Vatican 2 ever occurred, there were preparations to re-channel and misdirect Catholics exiting the Vatican 2 church, and this we have explained in previous articles and blogs.

What else do they deny? The scenario of those believing there will be a restoration of the Church generally goes like this: The papacy would be usurped for a time or the pope would be forced into exile, Antichrist would reign briefly before or after a restoration of the Church, but the Church would be rescued by a great pope (and according to some, a great king) and life would go on. This of course is not what ALL Catholic prophecies, only selected ones, foretold, and there are many variations on this theme. But Church teaching, Canon Law and Catholic commentary on Holy Scripture tell a different story. And there has been no attempt by LibTrads to employ all these resources to arrive at a solution that is fully in accord with Catholic teaching.

Illogical conclusions and false consequences

It is true that some reliable Scripture commentators predict a restoration. But these same commentators did not foresee what happened to us. They did not anticipate a protracted interregnum and the apostasy of all the bishops and cardinals. They wrote before the issuance of the election laws of Pope St. Pius X and Pius XII. Only a few of them wrote after these binding documents were issued and Pope Pius XII handed down his decision on millenarianism. Most importantly, these commentators did not factor in the possibility, in light of Canon Law and Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, that all the bishops and cardinals would apostatize and none of those who claimed to remain faithful would come forward. They never considered that the Church’s ability to canonically elect a successor to St. Peter would be allowed to expire. And the commentators who do not allow for a restoration see the Church ending sometime after Antichrist’s death, but they do not set a time for how long this period might last.

Earlier this year we explained why a restoration is not possible today, and how the confusion perpetuated by LibTrads came about. As the Vatican Council teaches, “The gates of hell, to overthrow the Church, if this were possible, arise from all sides with ever greater hatred against its divinely established foundation,” (DZ 1821). A house can be swept away yet its foundation remains. Notice that the Council says, “overthrow the Church,” yet this cannot mean the Roman Pontiff. For as Rev. E.S. Berry explains in his The Church of Christ: “The Church as it exists in particular places may fail; even the Church of a whole nation may fall away as history abundantly proves. The Apostolic See of Rome is the only particular Church to which the promise of perpetual indefectibility has been made. (p. 56). The Church without Her head can be diminished, scattered, but never entirely destroyed.

One scholarly work in particular proves that the true teaching of the Vatican Council did NOT support the idea that the hierarchy would exist until the consummation of the world by fire OR support the restoration theory. “The idea that the Church shall have a pope, bishops, seminaries, etc. until the literal last day of the world, until the Lord returns, is widespread and plays a significant role in debates between Catholics about consequences to be drawn in the face of the Great Apostasy that has become visible since the robber council of the 1960s. Looking at original Latin documents and writings of the Magisterium, the Fathers, Doctors and Saints, and the Vulgate as well as other editions of Holy Scripture, a different picture comes to the fore. As a matter of fact, the Vatican Council solemnly teaches that the Lord promised shepherds and teachers until the consummation of the age which, according to Catholic commentary, begins with the revelation of Antichrist who is announced to reign before the return of the Lord. Hence, apostolic succession seems to have come to an end already, and we deal with shepherds of vengeance” (B. E. Strauss, Even to the Consummation of the Age, with impressive documentation from the Fathers and Holy Scripture. This PDF is available on request.)

Cessation of the Continual Sacrifice

From the Vatican Council we read: “In order to restrain impetuous minds… We, renewing the decree [of the Council of Trent], declare that in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the instruction of Christian doctrine, that must be considered as the true sense of Sacred Scripture which Holy Mother Church has held and holds, whose office is to judge concerning the true understanding and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures. And for that reason, no one is permitted to interpret Sacred Scripture itself contrary to this sense or even contrary to the unanimous agreement of the Fathers” (DZ 1788). Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton comments: “The Council of Trent identified the unanimous teaching of the Fathers with the interpretation of the Church itself as the standard for the correct explanation of Holy Scripture” (The Concept of Sacred Theology, 1941).

And indeed, Henry Cardinal Manning, in hisThe Present Crisis of the Holy See Tested byProphecy wrote: “The Holy Fathers who have written upon the subject of Antichrist and the prophecies of Daniel — all of them unanimously — say that in the latter end of the world, during the reign of Antichrist, the Holy Sacrifice of the altar will cease.” Speaking of the verse in St. Paul, 2 Thess. 2: v. 7-8,  which reads “He who now holdeth do hold until he be taken out of the way, and then that wicked one shall be revealed.” And Manning says that ALL the Fathers also teach Antichrist will be an individual, identifiable person, a member of the Jewish race.

The withholding power and the Great Apostasy

In his The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, Card. Manning also wrote: “The barrier, or hindrance, to lawlessness will exist until it is taken out of the way.  Now what is the meaning of the words, until it ‘be taken out of the way’? The Son of God shall permit, for a time, the powers of evil to prevail.  That He will permit it for a time stands in the book of prophecy.  When the hindrance is taken away, the man of sin will be revealed. The event may come to pass that as our Divine Lord, after His three years of public ministry were ended, delivered Himself of His own free will into the hands of men, and thereby permitted them to do that which before was impossible, so in His inscrutable wisdom He may deliver over His Vicar upon earth, as He delivered Himself, and that the providential support of the temporal power of the Holy See may be withdrawn when its work is done…

“When the whole number of those whom He hath chosen to eternal life is filled up. It may be that when that is done, and when the times of Antichrist are come, that He will give over His Vicar upon earth, and His Mystical Body at large, [for a time]… The Church would, as in the beginning, again be made up of members voluntarily uniting themselves together throughout the whole world, having indeed a legal recognition here and there, but wandering up and down the earth, without any contact with the nations of the world as such…” And here Manning ends with a warning to the LibTrads: “For as surely as the Son of God reigns on high, and will reign “until He has put all His enemies under His feet,” so surely everyone that lifts a heel or directs a weapon, a tongue, or a pen, against His faith, His Church, or His Vicar upon earth, will share the judgment which is laid up for the Antichrist whom he serves… ‘Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall he broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder’” (Matt. 21:44). Christ’s Vicars shall not be mocked.

Why would any organization calling itself Catholic, seeing the destruction wrought by John 23 and Paul 6, and the prophecies being fulfilled before their very eyes, interpret what they were seeing any way other than Holy Scripture describes? This teaching of Cardinal Manning on the Holy Sacrifice ceasing was first published in 1970 in a work on prophecy that enjoyed numerous printings! Catholics watched their cardinals betray them in electing Roncalli, their bishops betray them at the council he called and both Roncalli and Montini betray them by destroying their Mass. What kept them from seeing it? The denial orchestrated by the LibTrad pseudo-clergy, “the Liberals’ failure to draw out the logical conclusions prophesied in Holy Scripture, consequences logically flowing from Divine Revelation. Their grand plan to elevate themselves to power and supplant the papacy, to realize the Gallicanist dream while maintaining the appearance of orthodoxy, could be realized only if they made it appear that “Reason of itself is radically unable to know with certainty any truth or, at least, the fundamental truths.” 

 And yet any reasonable person could have drawn the logical conclusions had they been taught or taken the initiative to learn the entire scope of Catholic truth in the first place. Had they followed the sequence of the prophecies that foretell the progression of the Great Apostasy and the coming of Antichrist, found in Daniel, St. Paul, Matthew 24 and the Apocalypse, and prayed for the grace to understand it, the lies of the LibTrads and NO would have fallen apart. Christ orders us to read the book of Daniel, that we might be able to recognize the abomination of desolation, noting, “He that readeth, let him understand” (Matt 24:15). And in his infallible Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, Pope Paul IV, speaking as Christ on earth, defines this phrase as an invalidly elected man usurping the papacy.

St. Paul says that first comes the apostasy (the defection of the cardinals and bishops, which began before Pope Pius XII ever died, leading to Roncalli’s invalid election and Vatican 2. This was succeeded by the defection of the once faithful who remained within the Novus Ordo church). But the appearance of the abomination cannot occur unless “he who withholdeth” (the pope) is first “taken out of the way”; THEN the Man of Sin is revealed, (but how long this takes or in what manner he is revealed is not explained). And only after this, according to the unanimous opinion of the Fathers, does the Sacrifice cease.  As Rev. Sarda wrote, “The seduction of liberalism is not of the kind that blinds by a false light but rather the seduction which, in sullying the heart, obscures the understanding,” and Christ urged us to properly understand his words. Here Rev. Sarda describes yet another prophecy now fulfilled — the LibTrad operation of error, to believe lies.

All the events above we have witnessed with our own eyes. Even LibTrads will admit that Paul 6 officially abrogated the Holy Sacrifice and set up an idol — the heretical monstrosity denying Christ’s own words — on the bare table altar. Yet they fail to follow through with the consequences and admit this man was the Antichrist, the Man of Sin. Holy Scripture does not speak of a blissful time of peace following Antichrist’s death, nor a glorious restoration — that comes from the works of private revelations and commentators writing before Pope Pius XII’s decision om millenarianism. It speaks only of the final judgment and the New Jerusalem. The belief that the 1,000 years in Apoc. 20: 2-3, 7 was the predicator of that peace and restoration was sanctioned as unsafe by Pope Pius XII. Failure of the cardinals and bishops to obey his papal election law Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis forever robbed the Church of the ability to re-establish the papacy, signaling the consummation of the age of the Church.

What Christ has in store for us next is uncertain, but most Scripture commentators predict only His Second Coming following the death of Antichrist and his system. As E. B. Strauss says and Rev. Haydock confirms, “…there is not only no reason to expect true shepherds and teachers during the consummation of the age. On the contrary, biblical prophecy, as expounded by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, announces false shepherds and teachers as well as Antichrist, sent by the Lord, sitting in the holy place, slaughtering, selling, and devouring the sheep.” This is easily discerned by reviewing Matt. 24, for once Christ announces the coming of the abomination, there is mention only of the danger of false prophets and false Christs, and the need to pray and watch and not grow weary of doing good. This extends even into Matt. Ch. 25. Once the book of Apocalypse commences, there is no relief seen for the faithful, for as Ch. 13: 7 proclaims, “It was given unto him [Antichrist] to make war with the saints and to overcome them.” Daniel says that Antichrist “will crush the saints of the Most High” (Ch. 7:25).

Conclusion

By obscuring these facts, the LibTrads have successfully prevented their followers from arriving at the inevitable conclusion — that there can be no valid hierarchy, hence no Mass and Sacraments today and no restoration. There is nothing they can point to — in Scripture or papal teaching — to support this hypothesis once it is admitted, as Holy Scripture and the  Fathers show, that Antichrist has come and the Sacrifice has ceased. Their organizers and those controlling them behind the scenes have done so for obvious reasons, i.e., the two motives that fuel the ambitions of everyone today: power and money.  The 19^th century Maryland Redemptorist, Fr. Michael Muller, C.s.s.R, includes a poem in his book, The Church and Her Enemies, that tells us where we all stand today. It should convince anyone who believes that what we are now experiencing can be reversed that such is definitely not the case. And we note here that Fr. Muller does not even factor in here the arrival of Antichrist, — his usurpation of the papal See and the cessation of the Continual Sacrifice — which has now occurred. That should put all on notice who truly think this situation is reversible. And it should finally force them to re-examine, then correct, the fatal misdirection of their thinking processes by Liberals parading as the true Catholic Church.

(The following rendition of Fr. Muller’s poem, kindly brought to our attention by a reader, has been somewhat rearranged and adapted, but is faithful to the original meaning.)

• When senators openly buy the seats they occupy, legislators sell bonds for votes, and Christian statesmen pocket leprous notes;
• When brutal ignorance is armed with power and corporations the poor devour;
• When even the pulpit lends its aid to political parties for selfish and unholy ends, and the courts of justice scoundrels tend;
• When the press with great abandon brazenly broadcasts error;
• When luxury and corruption rules and despots seize the land, creating terror;
• When by reckless gamblers great fortunes are made, and swindling bankers ply their thrifty trade;
• When officials plunder savings accounts and rob the poor, who deemed their little pittances secure;
• When funds held for the poor common man are plundered then rationed, by officials who run the city, state and nation;
• When the curs bark at the heels of honesty and worth and every day sees some new monstrous birth of fraud and ingenious con-artistry, of a monstrous and unnatural villainy;
• When lying no longer disgraces even those who hold the highest places but has become a national disease; and when perjuries are thick as leaves on trees;
• When stock investments are fraudulently watered down and forbidden interests in the national treasury are found;
• When a country pays for private transportation and foots the bill for female vanities and shameful disportation;
• When murders and murderers multiply, their perpetrators acquitted and pardoned if it suits party uses and needs;
• When the widow goes unrelieved and the fatherless are wronged by naked greed;
• When devotion sleeps in cinders of contempt and the land with these leprous sins is rent;

WHEN YOU SEE THESE RIVALS OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH THEN REND YOUR GARMENTS, AND LIKE JONAH CRY: REPENT OF YOUR SINS — THE END IS NIGH!!!

Scholastic method teaches 1965 Great Apostasy theory is “absurd”

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 7, 2023 | New Blog

+Sts. Cyril and Methodius+

Those insisting that one must “protect” Pope Pius XII from accusations of heresy by dating the Great Apostasy as the end of the false Vatican 2 council on Dec. 8, 1965, are ignorant of not only history, but papal teaching, Canon Law and proven facts. None of these have been sufficiently appreciated or understood, so below we will  try to better explain their relevance to our particular place in time.

As already stated in the comments to a previous blog, Pope Pius XI judged Roncalli to be a “suspected” Modernist somewhere between 1924 and January of 1925, when he was relieved of his teaching position at the Lateran Seminary for his liberal and unorthodox views expressed to seminarians there. There also were concerns that he remained in touch with an old priest classmate who had been defrocked and excommunicated for teaching condemned doctrines. Yet Pius XI later approved Roncalli’s consecration as bishop in March of 1925. After Roncalli’s consecration, he was appointed titular archbishop and envoy to Bulgaria, and was later named apostolic delegate! That was considered a demotion for his suspected heresy, believe it or not, because Bulgaria was “a remote area in the Balkans” and he spent 20 years in that region, later serving in Turkey during World War II. As some Vatican officials said of Paul 6’s departure from the Vatican and appointment as archbishop of Milan under Pius XII, Roncalli’s  so-called promotion may well have been “…the old device… in play again: Promoveatur Amoveatur: Let him be promoted that he may be removed” (William Barrett, Shepherd of Mankind: A Biography of Pope Paul VI, 1964, p. 235).

This easily demonstrates that the methods and decisions of the popes are beyond our ability to understand or judge. It is not to be wondered then that in 1943, Pope Pius XII appointed Roncalli nuncio to France, seeing that despite his predecessor’s concerns, Pius XI had not failed to appoint him to these previous positions. Roncalli’s elevation as cardinal in 1953 was a last-minute affair arranged by Montini who recommended him as a replacement for the ailing Patriarch of Venice, due to pass away at any time (he died in December 1952). That primate, Patriarch Carlo Agostini, had already been chosen as a cardinal, so in filling Agostini’s position, one usually associated with the cardinalate, Roncalli also took his slot in the naming of new cardinals. If Pope Pius XI, who listed Roncalli as a suspected heretic later made him an archbishop and an apostolic delegate, why would Pope Pius XII have not concluded that he was cardinal material? As stated before, that doesn’t mean he was papabile, i.e., a suitable candidate for election. All this confusion can be traced to a total lack of understanding regarding the jurisdiction of bishops and their delegation of that jurisdiction.

The office of bishop

• Bishops retain jurisdiction from the pope who granted it for as long as they retain the office:
• When a bishop dies, his jurisdiction and any jurisdiction he delegated apparently dies with him.
• During an interregnum, bishops normally retain their offices (Can. 183). But this only applies to the ordinary jurisdiction possessed by bishops.
• The Catholic Encyclopedia states under the title Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction that: “Delegated jurisdiction expires on the death of the delegate… [or] on the loss of office…”
• Canon 208 further states: “As the canonist Rev. Charles Augustine observes in a footnote to Can. 430 regarding bishops , “…there is also civil death and canonical death (excommunication)…”
• However an episcopal see becomes vacant, whether through death or loss of office, the jurisdiction of the vicar-general ceases (Can. 371).
• Regarding Can. 188 n. 4 and tacit resignation, Cum ex… provides that: “…Each and, every one of their statements, deeds, enactments, and administrative acts, of any kind, AND ANY RESULT THEREOF WHATSOEVER, shall be without force and shall confer no legality or right on anyone. The persons themselves so promoted and elevated shall, ipso facto and without need for any further declaration, be deprived of any dignity, position, honor, title, authority, office and power.”
• The results of administrative acts by bishops included delegated jurisdiction. The fact that priests validly ordained continued to celebrate Mass and administer the Sacraments by invalidly invoking epikeia, Can. 209 and Can. 2261 §2 tells us that they knew they had no jurisdiction to begin with, despite what some of them said or believed.

The bishops publicly lost their offices in January 1959 when they tacitly resigned by promoting the heresy of “for all men” in the missalettes; this proved that they actually lost them on the election of Roncalli, because later it was discovered he was invalidly elected and never became pope; they only possessed the appearance of bishops until January 1959. As Cum ex…  teaches, the discovery or manifestation of the heresy, whenever that occurs, wipes out everything Roncalli did FROM THE BEGINNING; there are no dates involved. The bishops never became members of the Apostolic College; they became members only of a non-Catholic sect, and the excommunication for that act, given the fact they were bound to renounce him once Roncalli’s heresy became manifest to elect a truepope, dates back to Roncalli’s election because they never left him. In authorizing the distribution of the missalettes, they both officially acknowledged him as pope and indicted themselves as heretics and schismatics.

Confusion of acts and the time sequence

This confusion arises from para. 7 of Cum ex… which states that those avoiding the usurper as a heresiarch, even the cardinals who elected him, may depart “at any time” without fear of incurring censure. The bishops also could have asked for help from secular authorities and even the laity in deposing Roncalli and at any time could only mean during that usurper’s reign. The very fact that despite these guarantees none of the hierarchy pulled away, renounced Roncalli or posited a new election is what convinces us that it was a conspiracy from the beginning, which this author and others have proven that indeed it was. So the vacancy begins with Pope Pius XII’s death on Oct. 9, 1958, and now can never be filled.  And on Oct. 28 with Roncalli’s election, the entire Apostolic College ceased to exist.

The proponents of the “Great Apostasy in 1965” theory further pretend that one can apply Cum ex… to a past event when its application to that event was never invoked at the time. For an interested party to consult the old law, or even know to consult it — and for it to actually be APPLIED —  one would need to first have been a) familiar with Canon Law and b) conscious of the fact that some heresy was involved, or at least suspect it was involved. After studying the matter, one would then need to have serious doubt about its application in those circumstances — that is, whether Roncalli was a heretic or invalidly elected and how this could happen.

Following Can. 6 n. 4, one would then have to determine what laws best fit the situation at hand and discover their sources. This is how Cum ex… was uncovered in the 1970s. But this was never done immediately following Roncalli’s election. No one questioned either his election or his orthodoxy. Once Roncalli died, any “excuse” provided in para. 7 of the Bull that might have been used by the bishops to escape censure for heresy no longer applied. They formally became heretics in January of 1959 and remained such. We can now look back and know that all this was pre-planned. The bishops may not have suspected Roncalli when first elected but were bound to leave when the missalettes were being compiled, even before their release, because they had to approve them. They first manifested their heresy in January of 1959, but under a false pope and with no intent on the part of the cardinals or bishops to replace him, the Church had already ceased to exist with the election of Roncalli.

The priests, some of whom had fallen under Modernist and Americanist influences, could possibly have been invincibly ignorant, but not the bishops. Under Can. 2200, they are presumed to be outside the Church until proven otherwise. And at any rate, possessed no jurisdiction, they could not lawfully function without committing sacrilege.

“Great Apostasy in 1965” contradicts papal teaching

One of the disturbing aspects of the1965 deadline drawn by our opponents is that it also was erroneously taught by David Bawden in my first self-published work, Will the Catholic Church Survive…?  Bawden drew two lines just as the current opponents draw them: One in 1958 when Roncalli was elected, and the second line,  “…in 1965, when … Paul VI attempted to infallibly define heresy as Catholic doctrine which is obviously impossible. Those who remained in the Church after 1965 immediately and irrevocably resigned any position they may have had in the Church (Canon 188 n. 4). So we can state without fear of contradiction that in1965 the bishops all left the Catholic Church to join an heretical sect. Between 1958 and 1965 we have a gray area. A Pope will have to decide on a case-by-case basis the status of these bishops and their activities. However we can and must presume according to Can. 2200 that they knew the facts and left the Church in 1958 until the contrary is proven.” (p. 161).

We now believe that the motivation for establishing this 1965 date was an attempt by Bawden to leave the door open for a valid episcopal consecration following his “election.” In drawing this line and including this “gray area,” Bawden failed to mention that Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis infallibly forbids these bishops to do anything other than, in the absence of the cardinals, call for a new election. Most importantly, he failed to understand the true nature of apostolicity, which demands that the bishops be united to the Roman Pontiff in order to function in any way whatsoever, except to gather to elect a new pope. This we see below:

• Pope Pius IX: “Without the pope there is no Church and there is no Catholic society without the Holy See…” (Allocution to religious superiors, June 24, 1872; this same teaching can also be found in The Catechism of the Council of Trent and the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas). “No one can be considered a bishop who is not linked in communion of faith and love with Peter…” (Etsi multa).
• Pope Leo XIII: “Above all things the need of union between the bishops and the successors of Peter is clear and undeniable. This bond once broken, Christians would be separated and scattered, and would in no wise form one body and one Flock… From this it must be clearly understood that Bishops are deprived of the right and power of ruling, if they deliberately secede from Peter and his successors; because, by this secession, they are separated from the foundation on which the whole edifice must rest. They are therefore outside the edifice itself; and for this very reason they are separated from the fold, whose leader is the Chief Pastor; they are exiled from the Kingdom, the keys of which were given by Christ to Peter alone.” (Satis Cognitum) Their break from St. Peter and his successors WAS deliberate, because Pope Pius XII already had clearly forbidden any changes to be made in “the substance of the Sacraments,” and they were bound to know this.
• Henry Cardinal Manning: “The Bishops, in howsoever great a number they may be assembled, can never form the body, or represent the Episcopal College, if they have not at their head S. Peter in his successor” (The Pastoral Office).
• Msgr. G. Van Noort, S.T.D.,: “Apostolicity of government or mission or authority means the Church is always ruled by pastors who form one, same juridical person with the apostles. In other words, it is always ruled by pastors who are the apostles’ legitimate successors… For on no one but the APOSTOLIC COLLEGE under the headship of Peter did Christ confer the power of teaching, sanctifying and ruling the faithful until the end of the world. This triple power therefore necessarily belongs and can only belong to those who form one moral person with the apostles; THEIR LEGITIMATE SUCCESSORS” (Christ’s Church, Vol. 2, 119-122, 1959).
• According to St. Robert Bellarmine, the bishops would not even have needed to determine that Roncalli was actually a heretic, and certainly there was more than sufficient grounds for doubt. “A doubtful pope is no pope,” Bellarmine taught. “Therefore if a papal election is really doubtful for any reason, the one elected should resign, so that a new election may be held. But if he refuses to resign, IT BECOMES THE DUTY OF THE BISHOPS TO ADJUST THE MATTER, for although the bishops without the pope cannot define dogmas nor make laws for the universal Church, they can and ought to decide, when occasion demands, who is the legitimate pope; and if the matter be doubtful, they should provide for the Church by having a legitimate and undoubted pastor elected. That is what the Council of Constance rightly did.” The learned Cardinal Zabarella, writing at the time of the Council of Constance, taught the same.

Speaking of both Traditionalists and Novus Ordo adherents alike, the proponent of the 1965 Great Apostasy theory wrote in his book: “…Common error would keep them in a virtual state of “non-existence”, where the Code of Canon Law and the Magisterium would remain “stranded”, and it is only when they are perceived that the apostasy would “magically” appear out of the blue, so those who perceive it are capable of choosing the moment that interests them… But led by their intolerable moral arrogance, they decide instead that it began when it suits them, because if they had the courage to admit that the apostasy began formally and publicly on December 8th, 1965, and that there has been no Pope since October 9th, 1958, then they would be forced to accept the cold, hard truth…”

But in dating that apostasy to December 1965, isn’t that likewise suspending the Church in “a virtual state of non-existence,” between October of 1958 and December of 1965, stranding both Canon Law and the magisterium? Have they not indeed also chosen “the moment that interests them,” contrary to Canon Law and the teachings of the Roman Pontiffs, which this author and his associates profess to scrupulously uphold?!  These men claim they support Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, yet they fail to uphold the very Sacred Canons and papal teaching this infallible constitution demands them to obey.

This same author goes on in an accusatory email to further assert: “Does anyone in their right mind see Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani, Ruffini, Siri, etc., and the 250 members of the Cœtus Internationalis Patrum during the Vatican 2 cabal, and can anyone even dare to compare them with infamous wretches like Congar, Danielou, Lubac, Haring, Kung, Rahner, Schillebeeck, Suenens, Ratzinger, Wojtyla, Helder Camara and other heretical and apostate scum?… Can anyone consider the former as apostates before the fateful day of December 8th, 1965?” And to answer this last question, well actually YES, since they have no excuse whatsoever for their ignorance and never fled from the evil Vatican 2 bathhouse! Who exactly is not in their right mind here? The faithful had the Catholic decency to depart when the Novus Ordo Missae was released, but these men stand excused? Not on your life! Try doing some realresearch:

• https://www.traditioninaction.org/ProgressivistDoc/A_096_Ottaviani_Betray.html
• https://www.betrayedcatholics.com/why-guiseppe-siri-was-never-pope-2/
• https://www.betrayedcatholics.com/articles/a-catholics-course-of-study/traditionalist-heresies-and-errors/errors-in-matters-of-faith-and-morals/siri-engages-in-communicatio-in-sacris/

Ruffini, Ottaviani and certain “other cardinals” are the very ones who, once it appeared Roncalli would be elected, urged him to call a council (Bro. Michael of the Trinity, The Whole Truth About Fatima; see also https://www.catechistcafe.com/books/john-xxiii-pope-of-the-century-by-peter-hebblethwaite-part-4). This in spite of the fact that both Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII were warned NOT to call a council because of the Modernist infiltration of the bishops (The Phantom Church in Rome, p. 331; see HERE.) Was Siri one of these “other cardinals”? Whether he was or not, what he said following the very first session of the false Vatican 2 council condemns him as a collaborator: “It may take 50 years before the full achievements of the Council are discerned… But certain fruits are evident already, and they are important” (Twelve Council Fathers, by Walter Abbot, S.J., 1963). But he already had incurred excommunication for failing to challenge the election of Roncalli.

The Great Apostasy in 1965 author also erroneously concludes — without documenting his conclusion — that for the great apostasy to occur, men must become apostates, separating this designation from heresy and schism. Yet this is NOT how any of the scriptural commentators interpret St. Paul’s prophecy on the Great Apostasy in 2 Thess. 2:3. Rev. Leo Haydock reports that nearly all commentators generally interpret it as simply a great falling away from the faith, not apostasy as it is defined outside the law. In law we find that it may be any of the three species — heresy, apostasy or schism — and with this Rev. Ayrinhac agrees. All are a falling away from the faith. Holy Scripture actually says revolt, not apostasy, although the Greek for revolt is apostasy as Henry Cardinal Manning points out. Still Manning himself does not lay it up to any more than a “departure.” Yet this objector boldly dares to state as an absolute certainty, based on no proof at all, that: “Undoubtedly, the fraud occurred on December 8th 1965…  It is unquestionable… as we have canonically argued… that it was on this date that the Great Biblical Apostasy took place.” But scholastic theology proves otherwise.

Why the 1965 Great Apostasy theory is illogical and absurd

We have stated numerous times before that if lay people dare to venture into the field of scholastic theology and Canon Law, they are bound to follow Canon Law and the basic principles of scholastic argument as laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas, and this by papal command: “We command you to follow the doctrine of St. Thomas as the Catholic doctrine, and study to embrace it with all your power” (Pope Urban V, letter to the Academy of Toulouse). For as Rev. Michael J. Mahony S.J. states in his 1918 work Logic: “Untrained reason is liable to err, especially in the solution of more difficult problems” (p. 6). St. Thomas’ philosophic system is that of logic. As Mahony explains, “[By] scholasticism we discover through experience that reality, which is independent of the mind, is constituted according to those laws and that antecedently to our knowing them.” In other words we don’t know them naturally although we may have an inclination to know them naturally; we must study them. And to do this, we must study the writings of those who employ them and are familiar with them.

As Rev. Mahony explains it, “Like judgment, reasoning is an act by which the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement between two objective ideas… Every act of reasoning therefore is a judgment, though mediate; but every judgment is not an act of reasoning because a judgment may be immediate… We may therefore define the act of reasoning thus: Reasoning is that act of the mind (intellect) by which the agreement or disagreement of two ideas is perceived through a comparison between them introducing a third idea” and that constitutes a syllogism. The principle of contradiction is stated thus: The same thing cannot be affirmed and denied of the same thing, at the same time and under the same respect” (p. 51-53). And as Mahony notes under his fallacies in argument, false induction can consist in false observation and false interpretation. And that is what we are dealing with here.

In setting out “Rules of Inference” for scholastic philosophy students, Rev. A.C. Cotter S.J. states: “The philosopher is supposed to admit from the start whatever is evident or at least whatever is perfectly evident. He is supposed to hold whatever it would be absurd to doubt or deny…,” (ABC of Scholastic Theology, p.40). And given papal teaching and that of the theologians above, is it not absurd to believe that once separated from St. Peter’s successor the “body of bishops,” without the HEAD bishop, could survive as an independent entity for any length of time? This is the cockamamie teaching of the very Traditionalists the 1965 proponents excoriate! Cotter continues along this same line: “A statement is theoretically absurd if it denies implicitly what it affirms explicitly… That statement is called absurd (preposterous, irrational, crazy) which contradicts a self-evident truth” (p. 135). Here we offer a syllogism on our topic, paraphrased from Rev. Cotter’s demonstration of the absurdity of relativism.

“That theory is absurd if it denies implicitly what it affirms explicitly.” Proof of the minor: The theory that the Great Apostasy happened in 1965 explicitly states that John 23 was a false pope and the False Prophet and that the time of the Church on earth ended with the death of Pope Pius XII. But it implicitly claims that the entire body of bishops without their indispensable head continued to exist independently, without incurring censure, until the Great Apostasy of the bishops occurred at the final session of Vatican 2 on Dec. 8, 1965. To believe this theory one would need to:

• Contradict infallible Church teaching and Canon Law stating that a sitting pope cannot err in matters of faith and morals and that no one may judge the pope.
• Deny the self-evident truths that (a) The revolt must come after he who withholdeth is taken out of the way and before the Man of Sin be revealed (2 Thess 2). Roncalli also created Montini as a Cardinal in January of 1959, the same month he approved the missalettes and announced the convening of the false Vatican 2 council. He then collaborated with him in changing the Church, and this began even before he was elected. (b) “Without the Pope there IS no Church…”
• Dismiss the proven fact that the election of Roncalli by the cardinals was invalid on several counts;
• Dispense from Can. 2314 §3 which declares such men outside the Church for recognizing a non-Catholic religion;
• Refuse to believe that the consecration of the wine falsified in the 1959 mass booklets as “for all men” was heretical and publicly and notoriously deprived these bishops of their offices in 1959. (But in retrospect these offices all ceased on the election of Roncalli.)
• Falsely excuse the bishops from censure when they never even invoked Cum ex…, never renounced Roncalli and were all formally guilty of heresy the day the missalettes were released.

Syllogism: Because  (a)”A statement is theoretically absurd if it denies implicitly what it affirms explicitly,” then (b) that the Great Apostasy began in 1965 is such a statement, so (c) therefore it is absurd. I can state this because: “Two strictly contradictory propositions can neither be true nor false together; hence if one of them is true I can at once infer that the other is false and vice versa, (Cotter, p. 72).

Conclusion

Faces on the Internet are anonymous and too often represent others behind the scenes who are seeking to sabotage the Church. From now on, no one who cannot present a curriculum vitae that can be easily verified and whose complete work is not first offered for editing/comment will be permitted to present ANY of their material on this site. A signed Profession of Faith/Oath Against Modernism also will be required. Those promoting absurd theories such as the 1965 Great Apostasy show who they truly are by proving they cannot possibly substantiate their case with Church teaching or Canon Law and will not withdraw their erroneous conclusions. Those who are incorrigible, as one seminary professor describes them, are suffering from an incurable pride and must never be admitted to the seminary. Nor will they be tolerated here.

It has been repeatedly stated on this site that we believe only Scripture and Tradition, the Roman Pontiffs and the Sacred Congregations, the ecumenical councils, the ancient Fathers, and only then the approved scholastic theologians and canonists. Msgr. Joseph C.  Fenton teaches that “Theological propositions set forth must not only be in strict conformity with the magisterium, but fully capable of demonstration.” Proofs from divine revelation and Church teaching must accompany those things that are “objectively certain.” Reasons advanced for opinions must be “serious and highly pertinent… “Proper reasoning and the correct and adequate use of sources” is essential to theological procedure. In demonstrations from reason, the thesis of theological propositions must remain as the legitimate and certain conclusion. Too many would-be theologians today become entangled in the web of modern thinking and abandon logic as well as Catholic principles in proving their arguments. Only Catholic truth assisted by right reason can safely arrive at the desired destination or conclusion.

And that certainly is not the case with this 1965 proposition above, as we have shown.

Pope Leo XIII wrote, “God in His infinite providence has decreed that men for the most part should be saved by men…St. Chrysostom says, ‘We should be taught by God through men’.” And yet we must be painfully careful not to commit the soul that God has entrusted to us to the false Christs and ravening wolves of the world, even if they appear in sheep’s clothing, claiming special gifts of divine inspiration and assuming the name or possessing the countenance of an angel. For as St. Paul taught, “But though we or an angel from heaven…preach to you a Gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. Nor do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ,” (Gal. 1: 8-10).

We can never allow human respect, or fear of ridicule or reprisal to color our assessment of those who boldly assert falsehoods. They will continue to confront us, and we will never fail to take up the weapons left us by Holy Mother Church and hasten to defend the faith.