Y’a think so, Monsignor?

Breaking News & Commentary on the same by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Recently, Archbishop Viganò brought to the attention of the whole Catholic world, a stunning claim made by Monsignor Nicola Bux, former advisor to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Cause of the Saints, that he possesses a letter from Benedict XVI affirming that the same did in fact intend to renounce the munus and ministerium of the Papacy.

Here is the excerpt of the recent letter of the Archbishop, published in English by Aldo Maria Valli, the renowned Vaticanista, who works with the Archbishop:

“During a meeting at the Renaissance Mediterraneo Hotel in Naples with Catholics from the local Cœtus Fidelium held this past November 22 [2024], Msgr. Nicola Bux mentioned an exchange of letters with “Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,” dating back to the summer of 2014, which supposedly constitute the definitive denial of the various theories that are out there about the invalidity of Benedict’s Renunciation. The content of these letters – the first, written by Msgr. Bux on July 19, 2014 (three pages), and the second, by Benedict XVI, on August 21, 2014 (two pages) – was not released ten years ago, as would have been more than desirable. Instead, only today has their existence been barely mentioned. It so happens that I am aware of both this exchange of letters as well as their content.

Why did Msgr. Bux decide not to promptly disclose Benedict XVI’s response when Benedict was still alive and able to confirm and corroborate it, and instead to reveal only its existence, without disclosing its content, almost two years after his death? Why would he hide this authoritative and very important declaration from the Church and the world?

Evidently, therefore, the Archbishop possesses a copy of the correspondence. And to the knowledge of FromRome.info, so do many other persons who have worked in the Vatican.

The stunning claim of Msgr. Bux, I cannot find on any website or video platform, so I cannot quote what he is exactly saying or not.

The Letter of Pope Benedict XVI to Msgr. Bux, August 2014: Exceprt

But the Committee to Restore Pope Benedict XVI (@B16Restore), which has Vatican contacts has published an excerpt from the Letter of Pope Benedict XVI to Msgr. Bux, on twitter, which is as follows (I here include the image, not the tweet, lest Twitter erase the tweet):

The Letter of a Roman Pontiff is in the public domain and FromRome.info, being published in the USA, has the legal right to reproduce and translate it. I have chosen to do this as a journalist covering news of great public interest to Catholics in the USA, and for the good of the Church, and on the basis that the Msgr. Bux has already shared this letter freely with numerous persons in the hierarchy, thus forfeiting any right to privacy.

So here is my English translation of this excerpt.

Dear Don Bux,

finally I find a bit of time to reply to your writing of July 19th, left for me on the occasion of your visit to  the Monastery “Mater Ecclesiae”. The true answer to the questions, aired by you, is found in the first six lines of number 1 of your text. The rest of the text — as you yourself say — is a “non objective but only our, mental, problem”.  I would write, therefore, only a few brief observations.

The “authoritative historians” and the “other theologians” according to me are not true historians nor even theologians. The speculations proposed by them are for me absurd. To say that in my renunciation I had left “only the exercise of the ministry and not also the munus” is contrary to the clear dogmatic-canonical doctrine, cited by you in number 1. If some journalists speak “of a creeping schism” they do not merit any attention.

To point 2, second chapter on page 2 I would say, that the parallelism between a diocesan Bishop and the Bishop of Rome in reference to the question of a renunciation is well founded.  I know that Pope John Paul II in …

What is Pope Benedict XVI trying to say?

Until we have the full letter from Msgr. Nicola Bux to Pope Benedict XVI and his full letter in response, one cannot say with certainty what he is referring to.

Is the letter authentic? How is it signed, Pope Emeritus, Pope Benedict XVI, Benedict XVI? These will be clues to whether to pay it attention and how to read it. — Moreover, I join with Archbishop Viganò’s perplexity and consternation that, having received such a letter in 2014 Msgr. Bux did not disclose it to the Catholic world then or thereafter! In addition, since it was Msgr. Bux who quipped in October of 2018, during a public conference, that would be easier to prove Benedict’s renunciation was invalid than that Pope Francis is a heretic, what in the name of decency is he up to, if he now claims there is certain evidence in this letter of the validity of the renunciation?

But on the basis of what the excerpt of the Letter cited above says, it is clearly an equivocal statement (cf. The Ratzinger Code, by Andrea Cionci, for an encyclopedic review of such statements after Feb. 11, 2013). For to say, that ‘Anyone who claims that in my renunciation I split munus and ministerium is wrong or absurd’, is to say nothing: because it can equally mean that they are wrong to say this, because I did not do that for the reason that (1) I never renounced the font of power for ministerium, in that I never renounced the munus, or (2) I never intended not to renounce the munus when I said I renounced the ministerium.

In the former case, the renunciation of ministry is not an abdication of the papacy, and Pope Benedict XVI remains the pope as of the time of writing this letter. In the second case, the renunciation of the papacy intended to be effected by the renunciation of ministerium is canonically invalid as per canon 188 and juridically invalid by natural right, for reasons of substantial error, as I explained in my Scholastic Question on the Renunciation, published 5 years ago, here and as Ann Barnhardt has explained in numerous videos and blog posts since 2016. So regardless of how you read it, objectively speaking it means that Pope Benedict XVI by this letter has given canonical proof that he is still the pope and never abdicated. If this is true, I will bet that the Letter to Msgr. Bux is signed, “(Pope) Benedict XVI”, which is the real reason he has not published it along with his recent statement.

To write this way seem strange, but remember, that in his advanced age, this letter certainly went though many hands before it arrived at Msgr. Bux’s desk. And Pope Benedict XVI understood that. So he wrote what he could write, in a way an intelligent person could understand it. In other words, it is logically equivalent to saying “The owner of the house is one”, while being held hostage in the basement by the Mafioso who took possession of the house. To read it as the affirmation of the Mafioso being the rightful owner, is possible, just as it is possible to read it as inferring the hostage is the true owner.

Moreover it is more important to remember, that in the last analysis, what a man who was validly elected pope but “renounces” says years after his renunciation, means nothing. Because the act must be juridically valid in itself, not only in the mind of its author before, during or after the act is publicized. For the canonical validity is not judged on the basis of anything secret, such as in the heart or in unpublished letters years later, but on the public contents of the juridical act, expressed in word and/or in written form.

Msgr. Bux needs to publish the whole correspondence, and stop making false canonical claims: because no matter what he has in these letters, they have no canonical value, since an interpretation not expressed in the words of a papal abdication, even if expressed before or after (outside of any juridical act), cannot be the basis of interpreting an act of papal abdication.

As for Archbishop Viganò, his letter basically says Benedict XVI intended to deconstruct the Church, and thus his abdication is invalid. I have written on the topic of his intentions, frequently, preferring to side with the presumption of innocence and good will, for it is a dangerous thing to condemn another man on the basis of what you or I think was his intention in doing this or that.

NOTICE: Due to the extreme importance of the above news, I give permission to all publishers to reproduce the entirety of my article and translation, in English or in any other language translated, so long as they omit nothing of it, asking only a link to the original so that their readers can confirm the authenticity of the text or translation therefore, that they publish.