Reply to the above by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

PLEASE NOTE THAT FATHER SCHNEIDER HAS REMOVED THE COMMENT SECTION FROM HIS LIBELLUS.
(As of July, 2022)

There are numerous errors contained in the article above, which you can read by clicking the image.

Note, above all, that the title of Father Matthew P. Schneider’s article is defective: it reads, “Issues with (Br) Alexis Bugnolo, Ordo Militaris & FromRome”, when it should correctly read, “My Personal Issues with (Br.) Alexis Bugnolo, Ordo Militaris Inc. & FromRome.Info”.  The items omitted in the title are to make you think that the issues are something objective, when they are really Father’s pet peeves. And that is at the heart of the entire purpose of the article’s deception.

This first is that the author claims I am not a brother, nor a religious.

To achieve this, the author resorts to the definitions of words which do not apply to me and then implies I am a liar for using words in a sense different than the definitions he uses.

That being the case, he does not prove anything, but his own preconceived prejudice.

These kinds of attacks in the Church are as old as the first religious orders, They are not new. After St. Francis’ death, there were those who claimed that he never received the stigmata. And after St. Thomas Aquinas’ death, there were those who claimed he was a heretic.

I do not expect a Legionnaire of Christ — the religious institute founded by Father Marcel Maciel, to which the author claims to belong — to understand Franciscan spirituality. But I do recognize that he never took any note of my existence until I wrote against the Scamdemic and the Vaxx, the former of which he believes in and the later of which he promotes zealously, even when made from tissues of human babies torn to pieces, alive, by the abortion industry for the sake of the vaccine industry.

I am a Roman Catholic. I believe in Jesus Christ. And the lives of innocents is precious to me. So how a vaccine is made is important to me. I am not a priest, but I would expect a priest to understand that.

In the Order founded by St. Francis, those who profess his Rule are called brothers (in Latin “fratres”), and in some languages “friars” — which does not mean that they cook or eat fried food. They live in monasteries, which in many lands are called “convents”, even though no women are found therein. In English, these buildings can be called “Friaries” or a “Friary” in the singular, but again, it has nothing to do with fried food. — I do not make this remark without cause, since in at least one town in Connecticut, when a religious institute of Franciscan brothers founded a convent, they called it a Friary, which caused them a multi-year long battle with the town over how their kitchen ought to be designed for grease disposal!

So all Franciscans call one another brother or friar. Here in Italy, the proper title is “Frà”, which means the same thing.

In Canon Law, there is no regulation on the use of the term or title, “Brother”, “Friar”, or “Frà”, and the author of the above article agrees with me because he has cited no canon to that effect.

This is because, the titles used to name or salute members of religious orders have to do with their spiritual traditions. Thus some are called, monks, and are saluted with “Don”, others are mendicants and are called “brothers”, some have no title.

I am a Franciscan brother because I observe the Rule of St. Francis of Assisi, which requires me to live as a brother and treat all other Franciscan as brothers in the same family. I have never claimed that by this title, “brother” or “Fra” that I am a member of a religious Order.

Since I have never claimed it, I do not have to rebut Father’s claim that I claimed or am claiming it.

As a person who has taken vows and who lives vows obliging me to keep the Rule of St. Francis, which is a recognized form of religious life in the Church, I am a religious. But in the sense of canon law, which uses the term strictly, as someone who is canonically bound to a religious order on Earth, I am not. But then again all the Saints of the Franciscan Order are not either, but I assure you they are no less religious.

So, when at the beginning of his article, he writes, “However, Alexis is not a brother as he claims”, he not only presumes familiarity with me by calling me by my first name, which is unseemly in an article which attacks my personal public reputation, but he openly commits the crime of libel and the mortal sin of calumny, because I am a brother as I claim to be a brother. Poor Father, who thinks that if I am not a brother as he claims I should claim to be, then I am not a brother in any sense of the term which is permitted in human discourse.  This is a standard Marxist tactic, of faulting others for not using the words as you think they should be used and lashing out at them to denigrate them for that, as if you were the definition of reality.

Finally, that Father could not have claimed ignorance if he had good will and did his due diligence, and did not ignore the documented testimonies of others, is demonstrated by this that long before he wrote his attack there was information to refute it, as one finds here.

Ordo Militaris Inc  & the Scholasticum?

I head several organizations which undertake the works of mercy or justice. I get no remuneration for my work with them.

There is the Scholasticum, founded in Italy as a non-profit. And while it might ruffle the feathers of the author of the above article, I do teach under its aegis. He fails to mention my academic work, which you can find on academia.edu. He also fails to mention that I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Florida, Gainesville, in 1986 with a B. A. in Cultural Anthropology; he also fails to mention that my minor seminary, Our Lady of Grace in Boston, did teach courses in the years I attended (1986-88). The Scholasticum is fully described at its website: studium-scholasticum.org.

He claims that my translation of Bonaventure’s work has not gone any further than its status in 2012. This is a blatant lie, which he cannot be excused of, because as an academic who claims to have read Bonaventure, he would know that my English translation of the first tome of St. Bonaventure’s Commentaria in Quattor Libros Sententiarum has been published. And a world cat library search would show that there are libraries which contain electronic copy of my translations to Tome II and III. He also claims that I am not qualified to run or teach at the Scholasticum. Evidently he thinks that he determines qualifications at even an institute  which I co-founded. He also evidently failed to inquire at the Pontifical Universities at Rome, where those who have published less scholarly works than my translation of Bonaventure teach courses even at the graduate level. Another lie.

And there is Ordo Militaris Catholicus: I think Father does not understand what it is, and so thinks it is a religious Order. It is not. What it is, is described at the website of the private military corporation which its members founded in August of 2016, Ordo Militaris Inc.: ordo-militaris.us . What the corporation is is also described there in length. And its history is also detailed in its news page. At the bottom of its home page you can see a map which details its financial support to Catholics and Christians round the world. The corporation is not a non-profit, but it is a charitable organization, in that it gives its assets and income to the works of charity. This is perfectly legal in the United States of America.

To claim that it is operating suspiciously or non-transparently is simply another lie, which he confects in so many words, without saying so.

Father fails to mention that I am also president of an Italian political party, known as “L’Italia per gli Italiani”, which you can learn more about at its website: ItaliaPerItaliani.it.  To my knowledge we are the only party consecrated to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary which excludes masons. And no one in Italy really wants to work with us for that reason. So it is a work of true piety.

But for Father, again, if Ordo Militaris Inc. or any other organization which I participate in, is not run in such a way as pleases him, then it has “issues” and should be publicly reproved so that “Catholics” can beware of  it.  That is at least the formal intention of defamation, which is a mortal sin, but it is also a cleaver repackaging of the intention of calumny.

FromRome.Info

Father does mention this electronic journal, FromRome.Info, which he incorrectly calls a blog. But he seems to think that it has some tie to the other organizations, other than the fact, that I, whom am its editor and publisher, am involved with the others.

FromRome.Info is an apostolate, and I founded it to do the work of mercy of preaching the truth.

Once again, Father claims that the term, “journal”, must mean what it means with a scientific or medical journal. He fails to cite, such examples as refute him to his face, such as “The Wall Street Journal”, which by his definition is also misusing the term “journal”.  Being schooled in Latin, I know that “journal” means a daily publication, and that is exactly what FromRome.Info is.

False Claims by Father Schneider

Father does present some claims which are confused, wrong and simply false. He claims that I have lived in Rome as a hermit since 2006. I have not. He seems to think that the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life, has jurisdiction over the Diocese of Rome, which it does not. Which is why they would have no knowledge of me. If they have an archive of all the letters they send to private individuals they can find the one they sent me in 2006.

He gets the details of my life mixed up on other points, too.

He seems to think that as a consecrated person of private vows I have always lived as a hermit. He thinks hermits are religious, or that prior to taking canonical vows in the hands of their local ordinary, they fall under the jurisdiction of the Congregation of Institutes of Consecrated life. They do not. He seem to think that every Diocese has hermits, or a protocol for their reception or recognition. They do not. He seems to think that the Church has a definition of what a hermit is, in canon law, and that if you do not meet that definition, you are not a hermit. She does not. A hermit is a Catholic who (1) dedicates himself to his personal sanctification, (2) lives by himself, and may or may not (3) take vows or (4) observe a Rule. I am a hermit who does all four things. But if a diocese has no such protocol, it is scarcely the fault of a hermit that it does not. Nor does that fact mean he cannot follow Christ in this manner therein. Canon Law allows this.

He responded to this present article by refusing to admit he erred about 2006. He conflated the statement I made about 2006 with that regarding Benedict XVI. He fell into this error on his own, but if he had asked me in a comment, he would have avoided that. Charity presumeth no evil.

As for his claimed correspondence with the Congregation for Religious, did he ask them if they keep correspondence and if they admit to writing letters to private individuals, and did he provide them with the protocol number on my letter? For in any such case, they cannot admit that the correspondence exists nor could they find it. Indeed, it is not unusual for an incoming Cardinal to find that his predecessor in office has jettisoned — to be polite – previous correspondence.

As for the Office for Religious in the Curia of the Diocese of Rome, I am really surprised they have any document about me, because they could have none but that by which I wrote the Holy Father and the Vicar of the Diocese. So if they deny knowing me and the purpose of the letter, let them produce it, and if they will not, draw you own conclusions. As for my letter to the Vicar, his own secretary told me in person a year later that he had lost it. But more to the point, Father ignores that the Roman Pontiff has juridiction in Rome and founds his entire argument against me in the unsubstantiated claim that I never obtained tacit permission from the Holy Father. That is simply, on his part, dishonest and uncharitable. Would Father like it if on Patreon someone claimed he was a fake priest simply because they could not or would not or knew not how to verify the claim? I think not.

Jealousy or Envy?

He also seems to think that because I head so many organizations, there is something suspicious about me. He thinks very differently than I do, because I found suspicion on the basis of doing evil, not good. He note worthily does not cite any criminal record or civil lawsuit on my personal record or that of any of these organizations. Because there are none, to my knowledge. He also does not cite the testimony of anyone who has ever been associated with them.

DeathVaxx Apologists hate DeathVaxx Realists or Narrative Outsiders

What irks Father is, however, that I made a video against the Vaxx and got a lot more views than he has followers on twitter. Or that I am not a priest and have the daring to follow Christ or defend Pope Benedict.

He again wants that my statement regarding the DeathVaxx being made from the tissues of aborted children, mean, that I intend to signify, that each vaccine is made directly from such tissues, and refuses to consider that “made” in normal English parlance can refer to remote manners of production, such as experimentation years before which was done on such tissues or involved such tissues.

He is correct that I am notorious for being a strong vocal critic of Pope Benedict. But I know how to make the distinction between personal disagreements and the obligation we all have to recognize that he was elected validly as the Roman Pontiff. And must regard him as such until he does that which canon law says in canon 332.2 or is called before the throne of God. Father for his part is a member of a religious institute which was sanctioned by Pope Benedict. And he is an ardent supporter of Bergoglio. I am a known whistleblower on pedos and immorality among the clergy, and so we have both strong motives to disagree on many things.

Maybe the public should ask Father Schneider why he remains in an institute founded by the most notorious and vicious pedophile predator in the history of the Church, after this has become a public fact? As an anthropologist, I find that his manner of publicly attempting to trash my reputation, is very akin to the way his founder obtained so much control over the sexual victims he preyed upon for so many years, even some who were  his own illegitimate children.

Father seems to be worried and troubled about many things, so I ask you to pray for him. Unlike him, I will not ask you money at the bottom of my article. (This last comment really irked him).