by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
Not even a dog keeps doing the same thing over and over if it hurts. The Lord God and Creator gave even dogs enough sense which rivals the intelligence of sinful men, in such circumstances. And this is why through the ages it has often been this observation about dogs which gets men to change their ways.
And this is what the clergy need to do in regard to the whole phenomenon of “cancelled clergy”: a recently coined term or neologism by which there is signified a member of the clergy, upright and honest, who is the victim of the abuse of authority by a superior intent on pushing globalism, modernism, heresy, or sodomy.
Though the word is a new one the genus of persecution is an old one. Before the Second Vatican Council it was much more mild, and simply consisted in being side-lined by your Bishop or superior. But there was always hope that if one persevered in following the laws of the Church and right discipline that with the next change of superior, at his death, transferal or the next ecclesiastical election of one kind or another, the new superior would recognize the worth of the sidelined Cardinal, Archbishop, Bishop, Priest, Monk, Sister etc..
After the Council, however, the penal system of the Church was weaponized against faithful clergy and religious. But in many cases the Faithful never recognized what was going on, simply because back then there was no uncontrolled Catholic media and the main stream media simply ignored such news.
But as the decades have past the persecution of honest men and women of God has become more frequent, and the pretexts for doing so less and less credible, such that we are less and less shocked that individuals are persecuted, and being persecuted by such revolutionaries and heretics is becoming more and more a wreath of honor.
How many priests were removed from ministry during the Scamdemic because they refused to observe the controls (by continuing to give communion in the mouth), to shut their churches (by keeping them open), to wear masks, or to replace the Gospel with preaching the Scam?
But through these 60 years of persecution, the hardest and saddest thing is that those persecuted nearly immediately fell out of any network of charity, such that they no longer had anyone to help them, save but their immediate relatives or friends, a charity which often lasted only a short time.
I remember when I realized that my former community was canonically lawless and had no intention of observing the Rule of Saint Francis. I requested my superior permission to do so according to the Papal Decrees on the Rule of Saint Francis, and got a letter back immediately denying my request and suggesting I leave. But when I did leave, my own parents denied me housing and food in an attempt to convince me to give up my vocation. I would say that this was the darkest moment of my vocation.
How many religious women face the same conflict and never found help and thus gave up. Religious brothers too. That is why I am so ardent about insisting that we persecuted religious who do not give up have more the right to keep calling ourselves “religious” than those of us who remain in communities which are corrupt to their core and in many cases openly heretical or apostate.
Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops and Priests usually have a less hard time since their dignity in orders naturally attracts many supporters and benefactors.
Neverthless, no priest wants to be a cancelled priest, and nearly every priest will use as much discretion as possible to avoid the worse forms of being cancelled. Most of the time it is simply reticence and pretending is nothing wrong.
Those of us, like myself, who are not priests, are often wrong in our impatience with such honest men who are avoiding being cancelled and thus too silent about the problems in the Church. They do this for us, knowing that more rapacious men would take their places if they got cancelled. We need to remember this in our public declamations about clergy doing nothing.
But if you are a member of the hierarchy or a priest, deacon, or religious and you want to avoid being cancelled, I would give this advice.
Recognize that the Apostolic See, or the episcopal See of your diocese, or your religious superior is impeded in the execution of his office by the public manifest errors which that office has been used to promote, confirm, authorize, establish, defend or support.
Unlike simply giving up, like Bishop Strickland, or saying there is no solution like Cardinal Burke, or affirming that a heretic can remain Pope, like Bishop Athanasius Schnieder, or daily criticizing the Pope, like so many Bishops, or declaring the Pope a heretic and thus no longer the pope — some of which can get a member of the clergy out of a job quickly, whether by excommunication, suspension a divinis, laicization etc.., declaring the Apostolic See impeded balances two truths which need to be kept in mind: that Schism from a legitimate superior is a grave crime, and that obeying a legitimate superior in what is morally unacceptable is a grave sin.
And such a declaration need not be a canonical one. It can simply be a way of critiquing the present situation by applying discernment of the kind which comes from the grace and charism of truth which is bestowed in holy Orders or analogously by one’s religious vocation.
By such a declaration or recognition, a man or woman of God avoids the charge of schism, because such a declaration affirms that the Pope is the pope. At the same time it canonically conditions criticism of a bad Pope, who has gone into the extremes of heresy and apostasy and idolatry by public acts, within the bounds of remaining in communion, while insisting on the freedom granted in Canon 212 to speak out against injustice.
So the next time you are tempted to say Pope Francis is a heretic, schismatic, apostate, idolater or no longer the Pope. Start by recognizing that he has impeded the Apostolic See by his public insistence of approval for the manifestly heretical, illogical, sacrilege promoting, wrong and just false teaching in ‘Fiducia supplicans’, such that everyone in the Church objectively, and not just yourself subjectively, no longer has the moral obligation to obey his decrees while he remains in the state of impenitence.
Don’t say I will no longer obey him. Full Stop. Since that can be understood as an act of schism or heresy. Say rather, that man by his heretical profession in approving ‘Fiducia supplicans’ has taken a position which the entire Church can never accept and thus has so discredited himself as a superior, that it would be both unreasonable and uncanonical to persecute those who call a spade a spade, rather than seek his removal from office in whatever canonical manners that is possible.
And in the mean time do NOT give up the ministry or your vocation. Keep serving God where you are and do not understand such a recognition or declaration as a pretext for violating Church law. Why, you do not even have to publish the fact of your recognition, if you are not a Bishop. Bishops however are now gravely obliged to make such declarations as they will assist the Bishops of the Roman Province to call a provincial council and take the ultimate action as requested in the Sutri Initiative. As for those who are NOT laymen and lay women, I would urge great caution in participating in the Sutri Initiative if you are a priest, deacon or religious, since your letter could be used against you to persecute you, if any one of the Bishops receiving it return a copy to your superior. But if you are a Bishop you should write them as you have the grave duty to act.
At the same time, Bishops have, on account of the objective state of impedition of the Apostolic See, now awesome powers and liberty of action, as I have explained here.
