By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

I have previously written an extensive description of how the horrible sin of pride is the hallmark of wicked men in the Church since the time of Vatican II, in my article on The Downfall of Luciferian Pride.

Today, I want to focus on one of the outstanding characteristics of the unfaithful who are members of the Church of the Antichrist, though they may not realize it or admit it. I want to do this because it is very easy to fall into the camp of Lucifer without realizing it, because, as I said in the previous article, the vice and sins of pride, being the most evil, are the hardest to discern and recognize, because they are full of the deprivation of the being that should be in an act of virtue. And that makes them spiritually invisible, except to the very humble who desire to glory solely in the Divine Majesty of God.

Ann Barnhardt’s Righteous Indignation

I am continually impressed by the righteous indignation of many devout Catholics on social media. Righteous indignation is the sense of disgust and anger which rises in the heart of someone who loves God and puts God first, and this kind of indignation is expressed solely because the rights of God are being transgressed.

As you may know, in recent years, months and weeks certain clergy, religious and laymen, who insist Bergoglio is the pope, because they refuse to doubt for a moment that Cardinals and Bishops are infallible, have begun to fault Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His promises to Peter, the teaching of Vatican I on Papal Authority and Infallibility, and the credulity of the Saints in regard to the Roman Pontiff’s authority and magisterium.

A recent example is the declaration of the Hermits of Westray, Scotland. Who know well what the arguments for Benedict still being the pope are, but refuse to harken to them, because they prefer to deny the indefectibility of the Catholic Church or the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff which they cannot reconcile with their more cherished “belief” that Bergoglio is the Pope.

One of the more shocking and sustained attacks came recently from Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, in his blog post entitled, How Francis may be vindicating the “inopportunists” of the First Vatican Council, published by Lifesite News, run by the Campaign for Life Coalition, a political organization out of Toronto, Canada, whose editor is a Mr. John-Henry Westen, co-founder of Lifesite and of the Voice of the Family Coalition, one of the leading “Bergoglio is certainly the pope” politicians-journalists.

Ann Barnhardt rightly unloaded a cartload of righteous indignation on Dr. Kwasniewski’s attempt to undermine the infallible teaching of Vatican I, in her recent post, entitled, Hey! Here’s a wacky idea. Instead of assuming that God is incompetent and Vatican I and the declaration of the infallible dogma of Papal Infallibility was all a big mistake…

I will quote the key passage, which I want to focus on, as a preamble to a discussion of the Marks of the Beast.  Ann Barnhardt, addressing the problem many Catholics are having, from Cardinal Burke down to the last man in the pew, to understand how a man like Bergoglio could be the pope, says decisively:

Maybe if people would attack this controversy from the base assumption that GOD ALMIGHTY is THE PERFECT ONE as manifested in His Spotless and Indefectible Bride the Church, in His Angels, and in His Saints, and that THEY THEMSELVES are deeply fallible and so very capable of error, INSTEAD OF THE EXACT OPPOSITE,  there might be a bit more clarity of thought round about.

(Bold Face in the original)

What Ann Barnhardt is addressing is PRIDE. And a particularly diabolic kind of pride, which holds that the unholy fallible trinity of “I, me, and myself,” knows better than the Holy Infallible Trinity of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

No use talking about modern errors, if you embrace them without so much as a wink of the eye

What is so ironic about her observation is that it is valid against a good number of popular writers and speakers and YouTube personalities, who either ascribe to or have been leading members of the so-called “Traditional Movement” in the Catholic Church since the time of the Second Vatican Council. A group which has made it a point and raison d’entre to fault the errors of modernity.

These errors consist in Modernism, Neo-Modernism, Relativism, Individualism, Secularism, Humanism, Marxism, Socialism, Communism, Liberalism, Progressivism, Hedonism…  Have I left any out? Probably.

However, when it comes to the controversy of how a man like Bergoglio can be thought to be the Vicar of Christ and act more heretical than any lay leader of one of the main line Protestant “churches”, then their opposition to certain modern errors is cast to the wind and instead some of these errors are readily embraced.

First of which is Modernism, which holds that that which validates religious belief is interior religious sentiments, not objective revelation. For the Modernist, Papal Infallibility is not a gift from God, but the habit of mind of believers to take whatever a Pope says or does and regard it as a religious doctrine. For that reason, there is nothing wrong in criticizing Catholics throughout history who had this sentiment.

Second of which is Neo-Modernism, which holds that there is no unchanging eternal truth revealed by God, but that religious truth consists in conformity of the mind to modern life. Neo-Modernists think that the Church is dead unless She is in the process of continual aggiornamento, that clergy are not properly formed unless they are undertaking continuous formation, etc. etc. For them no event can be condemned by religious doctrine because events themselves are the goal posts of truth and the sacred. They worship history, but not as something that once was, but which is always changing. Hence, papal infallibility must also now be reconsidered and redefined in light of Bergoglio’s way of acting.

The Third of which is Relativism, which holds that there are no absolute moral truths implicit in human nature or in an eternal unchanging law. Truth is found in the right relation of things and actions in the here and now. And right, here, means what is suitable to me. Relativism in turn gives birth or opens the door to Hedonism and Individualism, the definitions of which are well known. Hence, what papal infallibility should mean today is not limited to what it meant before. And what I think it should mean is more important than what any Saint, Doctor of the Church, or previous Pope said it meant, because what is most important is that I have a pleasant experience of Catholicism.

Bergoglio is certainly the Pope, because …

Many Catholics unwittingly have adopted the errors which I just mentioned in a very imprudent attempt to rationally explain why they hold the position that Bergoglio is certainly the pope.

None actually confront the historical facts, which are as follows:

1. Pope Benedict, as the man who is the pope, renounced the ministerium in his declaration of Feb. 11, 2013.
2. Canon 332 §2 says a Roman Pontiff renounces when he renounces the munus.
3. Canon 17 says that Canon 332 § must be read in accord with the Code of Canon Law’s usage of terms, canonical tradition, and the mind of its legislator, Pope John Paul II.
4. Benedict behavior after Feb. 28, 2013, shows that he retains the papal dignity in all respects.
5. The idea that Benedict’s renunciation of ministerium means a renunciation of the papacy comes from a tweet by Giovanna Chirri, an ANSA reporter, minutes following the Consistory of Feb. 11, 2013.
6. No meeting of canonists was called to examine the act of the Renunciation to determine if it was valid or not.
7. The Vatican has never officially claimed that the renunciation was valid.
8. The Cardinals have never claimed that they did anything to verify that the See was Vacant before meeting in the Conclave of 2013 to elect Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
9. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a public manifest and pertinacious heretic, idolater and fomenter of schisms, who by divine right cannot be a member of the Catholic Church, let alone hold any office in Her.
10. The Church has NEVER taught that the Cardinals or Bishops or even all the clergy are infallible in matters of canonical interpretations or knowledge of historical facts.

Instead, these “Bergoglio is certainly the pope” Catholics take another route.  They hold that the solidarity of opinion of the vast majority, who say Bergoglio is the pope, is more authoritative than:

1. God who is infallible by nature.
2. Christ Jesus who created the office of Saint Peter and promised it infallibility.
3. Christ Jesus’ Prayer for the person of the Pope that his faith may NEVER fail.
4. The First Vatican Council in its decree, Pastor Aeternus.
5. The Code of Canon Law of 1983 promulgated by the Vicar of Jesus Christ, Pope John Paul II.
6. The words of Pope Benedict himself during and after the Renunciation of Feb. 11, 2013.

Solidarity in Dissent, is a Mark of the Diabolic

The essence of pride, the vice, is dissent. This is because pride as the worst of all vices is directed more principally against the truth and against knowing the truth, than all other vices.  Pride is a spiritual vice and since the intellect is the most spiritual of all the powers of the soul, pride takes root first of all in it.

We can see this in Scripture, where, from the name of Saint Michael, who according to Saint John the Apostle, in his Book of the Apocalypse, was the first Holy Angel to act out of holy indignation and take up arms to fight against Lucifer and his angels, that the sin of Lucifer was pride.  For Saint Michael’s name means, Who is like unto God? A name, which, according to the Fathers of the Church, he merited for repelling the evil suggestions of Lucifer who suborned and seduced a third of the Angels of God with a sin of pride.  Lucifer then was probably saying something like, Worship me, because I am like unto God!

But this is also the sin of all prideful men.  When you by any act of mind or will or body or soul do something which presupposes any affirmation that you have the merit, right, worthiness, power, protection, etc.. that only God has by Nature, then you are committing a sin of pride. This is so, because you are acting as if you were like unto God in such a way as to fail to distinguish that you are much more unlike God than like Him, and that you fail in being like Him in 3 principle characteristics:  You are not omniscent, You are not omnipotent, You are not infallible.

Omniscent means all knowing. Omnipotent means able to do all things by your own power or ability. Infallible means able not to err.  I could add impeccable, which means unable to sin, but since a proud man is already entirely oblivious to his ability to sin, I will omit that here.

It follows, then, that since Lucifer seduced the Angels of God by pride, and that those who fell with him and were cast out of Heaven by the Divine Power and Saint Michael and his Angels, that one of the marks of the diabolic community is their solidarity in pride. And that means solidarity in the misuse of their intellects in dissenting from the truth.

Dissent, which merely means disagreement, can be good or evil. But when it disagrees with objective reality or revealed truth or even a truth which we know is true on account of other truths, natural or revealed, then it is evil, a mortal sin. This is the dissent of which I speak in this article.

Our Lord points this out for our observation, when He calls Lucifer a liar and a murderer from the beginning.  Because a liar attacks a truth because he disagrees with it. And a murders kills a living thing, because he disagrees that it should be allowed to live.

Solidarity in Dissent is, therefore, the Mark of the Beast

Solidarity in dissent, therefore, must be the chief mark of the Beast, that is, the chief distinguishing characteristic of all the members of the Church of the Anti-Christ, the Mystical Body of Satan.

Saint John the Apostle indicates this symbolically in his Apocalypse, when he says that in the days of the Antichrist no one will be able to buy or sell anything without having the mark of the beast inscribed upon their right hand.  According to the Fathers of the Church this is a symbolic expression, chiefly, for the conspiracy of the wicked in acting on principle out of falsehood. The biblical number, often translated as 666 is actually in the Greek text written very similar to sss, three Snake like symbols which were used in Asia Minor, in the time of Saint John, as the symbol for the number 6, which in the bible indicates the fullness of imperfection.  And since pride is the fullness of all vice, and vice is the moral habitual failing which leads to imperfection and wickedness, 666 is a pre-eminent symbol for pride and dissent.

Whether the number 666 means more than this, is another consideration. I am here giving a mystagogic reading of the text, that is, a reading which applies to the moral or spiritual life and how we should or should not be living our lives today.

But the “Bergoglio is certainly the Pope” people are doing just this. They are acting out of a spirit of solidarity in dissent from the 10 truths which I listed above.  They ignore all arguments, refuse all reflections and reasons, even conversations, which would lead them to confront the fact of what they are doing. They have willfully blinded themselves to the truth and they show absolutely no worry whatsoever of what might or will befall them for denying and dissenting from truth. They do this because they do not want to separate themselves from the massa (damnata)* who define themselves as dissenters from these truths. They do not want to disagree with the Cardinals and Bishops who reject these truths or close their eyes to them. They are literally willing to risk their eternal salvation on the basis of this solidarity in dissent.

And it is true dissent, because they do not even attempt to give reasons for what they are doing. They only lash out with insults or vicious punishments, calumnies etc..

These catholics are profoundly confused. The unanimous or near unanimous opinion of men might be truth in the political order, but it is not the criterion of truth in matters of canon law. That many of these Catholics are very political people might indeed explain why they cannot understand that in the Church democracy or politics means nothing. Truth means everything.

Indeed, it is the teaching of Christ, Scripture, the Apostles, the Fathers of the Church, the Doctors of the Church, the Saints and the Magisterium throughout the ages, that to deny even one truth is a mortal sin meriting eternal damnation. But a godless politician will never accept or understand this.

This is why solidarity in dissent is the preeminent spiritual mark of the beast. If you have this mark, then you are a member of the Church of the Anti-Christ, no matter what religion you practice, what mass you attend, what Cardinal you follow, or what you otherwise might think of yourself, as holy or impious.

Solidarity in dissent can last a long time. It is what destroyed and is destroying the Protestant Churches, who agreed in the Reformation to deny certain Catholic truths, and in that tradition, from which they refuse to break, they ran into the necessity of denying other truths. — This follows the spiritual law of moral degradation, namely, that if you deny one moral truth with unbending firmness and fidelity, then you will be forced to sacrifice your adhesion to other moral truths, until you become utterly depraved and ultimately are driven insane. This is why among men, insanity is a hallmark of the diabolic. — And this is why Protestant Churches, or any group which practices solidarity in dissent, such as those who deny the 10 truths above, cannot be saved: they are doomed by that solidarity to fall into continually worse and more diverse errors and vices.

So I warn all: solidarity in dissent is a mark of the Beast and so long as you are marked with that mark, you belong to that Beast.

________

* “Massa damanata” is a Latin phrase used by Saint Augustine of Hippo to name the collectivity of all the damned souls. Massa in Latin means mass, damnata, means damned.