Tag Archives: Pope Benedict XVI

Ecclesiology, News

Pope Benedict is now flanked by 2 Bishops

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

One of the most ancient customs of the Papal court, is that whenever the Roman Pontiff sits in formal audience or session, he is flanked on each side by a Catholic Bishop. The reasons for the double accompaniment go back to the days of the Roman Empire, when Imperial Officials were accompanied on such occasions by other high officials, local or imperial. To sit at the right or left had signified that you were consenting to the acts of the One at the center, you showed his authority by submitting to it, and you were shown your dignity by being on occasionally asked for counsel. In the Catholic Church, this is all true, but it is also done because, as Our Lord says, in Deuteronomy 17:6: condemn no one except on the testimony of two or three witnesses.  The presence of the flanking Bishops therefore fully signifies the jurisdiction of the Pope.

His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, gloriously reigning, now has his two flanking bishops: Archbishop Lenga and Bishop Gracida. Both have in a collegial act publicly recognized that Bergoglio never was the pope and that Benedict XVI is the pope.

Many, many Catholics for seven years have lamented that Bishops were not speaking out. Now they have.

Many, many Catholics for seven years have lamented that Bishop were not doing anything. Now they have.

Many, many Catholics for seven years have lamented that the Bishops were not breaking from Bergoglio. Now they have.

Many, many Catholics for seven years have wondered what will become of the Church, if no Bishop does anything. Now they have.

What Archbishop Lenga and Bishop Gracida have done is historic.

Catholic Bishops have not pronounced that the man controlling the Vatican is an antipope in more than 870 years!

That was when after the election of Pope Innocent II, the majority of the Cardinals elected the antipope Anacletus II.  Pope Innocent, lacking support in the Eternal City had to flee to France, where council after council began to declare Anacletus II an antipope. You can read more about this in the article I wrote on Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Patron and Modle for those who fight against anti-popes.

The Battle has now begun

In declaring for Pope Benedict, the College of the Apostles has denounced in the strongest fashion possible the schism which began on March 13, 2013 and which has by guile, lies and intrigue co-involved nearly all the other Bishops of the Church.

Collegial acts and dogmatic facts regard the Church in the formal, canonical and theological reality of what the Church is. Error regards the Church in the human and material aspect of what She is.

For this reason, we can rightly say, both formally, canonically and theologically, that Holy Mother Church has spoken: Pope Benedict XVI is still the pope and all who are NOT in communion with him are schismatics. They need to return to allegiance to Pope Benedict immediately. Any delay will incur their loss and deprivation of all office in accord with canon 1364, which punishes schism with the Roman Pontiff with immediate excommunication, which does not need to be imposed, because the canon itself imposes it. This means not only Cardinals and Bishops, but also Priests, Religious, Deacons, all al laymen and lay women.  To die in schism is to perish in Hell for all eternity.

Therefore, let us proclaim the truth the Church now solemnly professes in the testimony of these two successors of the Apostles and in the Declaratio of Pope  Benedict. Yes, he has renounced the ministerium, but that does not mean his is no longer the one and only true Roman Pontiff and Successor of Saint Peter. However, it does mean that Bergoglio is not and never was the pope.

Priests and Bishops should show their adhesion by naming only Benedict XVI in the canon of the mass and in omitting the name of the local ordinary until such time as he too names Benedict in the Canon of the Mass.

We who are not clergy should seek out the Masses only of clergy in communion with Pope Benedict. And if we do not have the opportunity, I hold that we are obliged at least, if we attend such masses, to say his name out-loud during the canon of the mass to make everyone know, that schism is a serious sin and we can no longer ignore the truth of what happened in Feb. 2013.

We should and are gravely obliged to seek to convince all to return to allegiance to the true Pope. And here is a booklet length article which explains how to do this:

https://fromrome.info/2019/12/14/saving-souls-in-the-time-of-apostasy/

Finally, I invite all to join in person or in spirit with the Prayers in front of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, every Midnight, here at Rome, and transmitted at FromRome.Info Video, as Our Lady said if the people keep coming to pray, She will grant the victory in this battle. FromRome.Info publishes these every night at 11:54 PM Rome time, which is 6 hours ahead of New York City and 10 hours behind Sydney, Australia.

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Editorials, News

In Italy there is Universal non-Acceptance

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

In Italy, wherever I go, I either meet Catholics who recognize that Bergoglio is not the pope. Some knew he was not the pope the day he was elected, as soon as he said, “Good Evening!” instead of imparting the Apostolic Blessing. Others recognized it when he refused to call himself the Roman Pontiff, and styled himself merely, Bishop of Rome. Others recognized it when he went to live at Santa Marta and not in the Papal Apartments. Others, when he began to preach Marxism instead of Christ.

Universal non-Acceptance

There is no universal acceptance in Italy. I would say that about 15% of practicing Catholics consider Bergoglio to be the true pope. That would not even win you an election!

And since according to some, universal acceptance is an infallible sign of a legitimate papal election, we must conclude that the election of Bergoglio was illegitimate for some reason.

Universal Acceptance

However, if you consider what Catholics think, here in Italy, once they are shown the actual text of the Declaratio and the actual text of the Canon on papal resignations, then you would have to say there is Universal Acceptance, however, but not the way Sisco or Salza want the reality to be. Because in such cases, and I have had more than a dozen occasions to test this as an Anthropologist, there is 100% unanimity that Benedict XVI is still the pope.

So, the next time you hear any supporter of Bergoglio, who cannot give a canonical argument in response to the question, Why is the Declaratio of Pope Benedict canonically effective of his loss of the petrine munus? and they take refuge in the theory of Universal Acceptance, remind them of the facts and the reality.

A Challenge to a Public Debate

I have challenged publicly the entire Catholic world to debate the Renunciation for more than a year, I think. No one has ever taken up the challenge. This is because they have neither the facts of history, nor of law, nor even the principles regarding the interpretation of laws on their side. A Public Debate would disprove their position logically, canonically, legally, philosophically, theologically and even on the principle of Universal Acceptance. And their refusal to debate me proves it.

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News

Feb. 22: Today on FromRome.Info Video — Don Enrico Roncaglia at Rome

THE FEAST OF
THE CHAIR OF SAINT PETER

FOR THOSE WHO SUBSCRIBE OR VISIT

https://www.youtube.com/FromRomeInfoVideo

  • To subscribe click the subscription button on the From Rome Info Video homepage

By Subscribing you guarantee that you will not miss any video published at FromRome.Info Video, since you will thereby receive a notification immediately upon publication of each video.

There will be a host of News today. Here is the Schedule of Events. All times are Rome Time, which is 6 hours ahead of New York City, 9 hours ahead of San Francisco, and 10 hours behind Syndey Australia.

All broadcasts will be from the Hotel Palace Pineta, Rome, Italy, where Don Enrico Maria Roncaglia will be offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in union with Pope Benedict XVI, as part of a 2 day conference for those Catholics who have remained faithful to the Church, here at Rome.

Don Roncaglia is a Benedictine who celebrates Mass only in communion with Pope Benedict. He is known in Italy for his near daily transmissions of the Ancient Mass. A close collaborator with Don Alessandro Minutella, he gives a wonderful example to priests everyhere to NOT be afraid and speak out boldly in favor of Pope Benedict XVI.

5:30 PM — Don Roncaglia offers the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the true Roman Rite. Language: Latin — It is expected that Don Roncaglia will preach.

Following the Mass, Br. Bugnolo will attempt to interview Don Roncaglia in person.

Br. Bugnolo will be able to do a life transmission ONLY IF he gets another 500 subscribers on From Rome Info Video. Otherwise, there will be a series of short transmissions, recorded, about 15 minutes later than the actual events.

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News

Today on FromRome.Info Video — Don Minutella et alia

VIGIL OF THE FEAST OF
THE CHAIR OF SAINT PETER

FOR THOSE WHO SUBSCRIBE OR VISIT

https://www.youtube.com/FromRomeInfoVideo

  • To subscribe click the subscription button on the From Rome Info Video homepage

By Subscribing you guarantee that you will not miss any video published at FromRome.Info Video, since you will thereby receive a notification immediately upon publication of each video.

There will be a host of News today. Here is the Schedule of Events. All times are Rome Time, which is 6 hours ahead of New York City, 9 hours ahead of San Francisco, and 10 hours behind Syndey Australia.

All broadcasts or live feeds will be from the Hotel Palace Pineta, Rome, Italy, where Don Alessandro Minutella, will be leading the Rosary and offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in union with Pope Benedict XVI, as part of a three day conference for those Catholics who have remained faithful to the Church, here at Rome.

1 PM —  Br. Bugnolo interviews Catholics who were present at the Grex Vocum Event to hear their complaints about the events in the Church in the last 7 years. — Video will be uploaded after each interview. Language: Italian.

2:30 PM — Br. Bugnolo will upload short Videos on a variety of topics and speak with Catholics who want their voices heard. Language: English and Italian.

4 PM — LIVE — Don Minutella leading the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Language: Italian, or perhaps Latin.

4:30 PM — LIVE — Don Minutella offers the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the true Roman Rite. Language: Latin — It is expected that Don Minutella will preach.

5:30 PM — As opportunity presents, LIVE transmissions on a variety of topics until 8 P.M. Br. Bugnolo will seek to do a live interview with Don Minutella in Italian, and live interviews with other Catholics who are present who would like to speak about the Crisis in the Church to the whole world.

11:54 PM — 40 Days of Prayer against the Church of Darkness, from Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.  Language: Latin, Italian, English. — It is hoped that Don Minutella will be present. But unless From Rome Info Video has 1000 subscribers beforehand, the transmission will be recorded, not live.

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Canon Law, Faith

Why St. Robert Bellarmine would hold the Renunciation was invalid

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

The Saints are a sure guide in every difficulty. We have only to find the Saints who encountered the same difficulty and examine their example or doctrine to find sound counsel for how we should respond.

For this reason, I have written previously or had published here a series of articles on the Saints who would be patrons in discerning what to do in the present Crisis in the Church:

  1. Saint Vincent Ferrer: who was lied to by a Cardinal for 38 years, into supporting an Antipope.
  2. Bless Pope Urban II: who fought and defeated an Antipope by his courage and generosity.
  3. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: who fought against an Antipope on the principles of law.
  4. Bl. Ann Catherine Emmerich: who described in vision the crisis of Two Popes.
  5. Saint Ivo of Kermartin: who make sacrifices so that the poor would not be exploited by the powerful
  6. Saint Alphonsus dei Liguori: who wrote a tract on Legal Interpretation which gives sound principles for the reading of Pope Benedict’s Declaratio of Feb. 11, 2013

To these six, I wish to add a seventh, Saint Robert Bellarmine.

First, we probably have heard the principle, A doubtful pope is no pope. Which Saint Robert advances to resolve the question of whether the man elected in a Conclave which does not follow all the rules is therefore  a valid pope or not. He holds that he is not valid and should resign.

“Hence the saying of Bellarmine: a doubtful pope is no pope. ‘Therefore,’ continues the Cardinal, ‘if a papal election is really doubtful for any reason, the 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 dogma 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.’” 8

(The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, By Rev. E. Sylvester Berry, Page 229, Note 8: Bellarmine, “De Concilio, ii, 19)

(Source: here)

Now, in logic, any affirmation can be transformed into other true statements by a conversion. Let’s apply those principles to the maxim:

A doubtful pope is not the pope.

This is said in the context of a papal election, so let us add that condition to each side of the predication:

A doubtfully elected pope is not an elected pope.

Now let us transform the affirmation by changing the condition, from an election to a resignation:

A doubtfully resigned pope is not a resigned pope.

Now let us simplify the statement, with the logical equivalent of “not a resigned”

A doubtfully resigned pope is still the pope.

NOTE WELL, in the same passage from St. Robert, you see the affirmation of the Apostolic Right of the College of Bishops to intervene when there is an impeded see. I wrote about this in my article, Divine and Apostolic Right takes precedence in a State of Emergency.

But, more a propos to the present consideration: the Saint admits that God concurs with Canon Law in all such questions, there where the Saintly Cardinal in this passage from De Romano Pontifice lib. ii cap. xxx, says:

«Nam iurisdictio datur quidem Pontifici a Deo, sed hominum opera concurrente, ut patet; quia ab hominibus habet iste homo, qui ante non erat Papa, ut incipiat esse Papa; igitur non aufertur a Deo nisi per hominem, at hæreticus occultus non potest ab homine iudicari; nec ipse sponte eam potestatem vult relinquere.»

Which I render thus, in English:

For jurisdiction is indeed given to the Pontiff by God, but as One concurring with the works of men, as is clear: because from men this man, who before was not the Pope, has it, that he begins to be the Pope: therefore, it is not taken away (from him) by God, except through men, but an occult heretic cannot be judged by man; nor does the same want to relinquish that power willingly.

The key words here are: as One concurring with the works of men. This ablative phrase is not an absolute, it modifies God, and follows the classical Latin tradition of speaking of God under a certain restriction or condition. Here it speaks of God inasmuch as He agrees with men.

Saint Robert then explains: that a man who is elected has his office as pope  on account of the election made by men. The context here is a valid or legitimate papal election. And the presupposition is that the law is observed.

Now God concurs with the works of men in three ways, as it clear: by approving them, by disapproving them and by tolerating them. By approving them, when they are in accord with His Divine will for men — I use here will, in the sense of a thing willed, not the faculty of the Divine Nature.  By disapproving them, when they are not in accord with His divine will and hence in consequence He sends a punishment or sign of His disapproval. And by tolerating them, that is, when whether they be more or less perfect, they either do not transgress His will for men or they are the matter out of which He will bring a greater good.

For any one work of man God might be said to be approving, disapproving and tolerating each in a different respect. Approving of what is good, disapproving of what is morally disordered, and tolerating inasmuch He allows them to happen.

And since the ways of God are not always things which lay open to the discernment of men, it is not with great certitude that we can know God’s mind on any particular matter, unless we have certain knowledge of the Divine Mind. A thing which is only possible by Divine Revelation.

But of all the works of men, therefore, that God concurs with, we can say of one, that what God’s will for men is, because we have certain knowledge of the Divine Mind through the testimony of the Son of God as recorded in the Gospel of Saint Matthew and handed down in the Church as worthy of utmost faith:

And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven.

18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

Matthew 16:17-19

And it follows, since, because John Paul II was the valid and legitimate successor of Saint Peter, that Peter lived in him, when he promulgated the Code of Canon Law of 1983. And thus, these words of Our Blessed Lord and Lawgiver Supreme: whatsoever though shalt bind upon earth, are engaged in upholding that Code of Canon Law.

Therefore, God concurring above all, expressly with the works of Peter, we are obliged by divine faith to hold that God concurred approvingly with the work of Pope John Paul II, who laid down in Canon 332, that a pope resigns when a pope renounces his munus. Not at any other time or occasion.

But Pope Benedict XVI did not renounce his munus. He renounced the ministry he had been confided through the hands of the Cardinals.

Therefore, God could not have concurred approvingly with that act, because if He did, He would have made Jesus Christ out to be a liar, or the Gospel of Saint Matthew out to be a fraud, or the Church which proposes both to be believed without any doubt, a trickster. But in such a case, there would be no reason to even care who is the pope and who is not! The Catholic Faith would be a fraud and not worthy of any attention!

But that is an impossibility. Therefore, so is the first premise, namely, that God concurred approvingly with that act.

Therefore, God did not concur approvingly with the Declaratio as an act of papal resignation.

Therefore, Saint Robert Bellarmine would hold that he is still the pope.

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Canon Law, Church History

ABC in 2013: Benedict planned never to leave the Vatican

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By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

A lot of information about what happened in 2013 merits to be look at again, with an impartial eye. Here is just one report, filed by ABC News on Feb. 12, 2013, the day after Pope Benedict read his Declaratio:

There is something stunning in this report, namely, that Pope Benedict had the Monastery Mater Ecclesiae restructured for months prior to his Act on Feb. 11, 2013, with the intent never to leave the Vatican. His brother is also interviewed as saying that the Pope was prepared months in advance and well thought out his act.

As a side matter, it says that Pope Benedict XVI had a pace maker installed in his heart, in the Fall of 2012.

The problem with the testimony of this report and that of his brother, is, How on earth can you prepare to resign for months in advance and still end up reading a Latin text with more than 40 errors in the Latin and at least 10 canonical errors in the formula of resignation?

We must return to the highly authoritative testimony of his brother: It was well thought out and no one forced him to do it.

The only conclusion possible is, then, that Pope Benedict XVI never intended to renounce according to the norm of Canon 332 §2 and leave the Vatican as Cardinal or Bishop Joseph Ratzinger. He fully and deliberately intended to remain the Pope.

For more on this, see the articles on How Benedict has defeated “Francis”, Benedict’s End Game is to defend the Church from Freemasonry, and The Imprisonment of Pope Benedict XVI.

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CREDITS: The Featured Image is a screen shot from the Video embedded in this article, both of which are used in accord with fair use standards for editorial commentary.

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Church History, Editorials

CNN in 2013: Italian press says Benedict’s act was one of desperation

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By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

A lot of historical facts have been erased or forgotten or altered, to keep the narrative going that Bergoglo is the Pope. But some of them still remain. Here is a video report from CNN, dated seven years ago, Feb. 25, 2013, which says that Benedict despaired at all the corruption in the Vatican and that this was a prime motive for his act of Feb. 11, 2013.

Seven years later, the swift denials of the Vatican back then are seen for what they are. But the then unnoticed, and now noticeable, detail among them is that the Vatican spokesman characterized them as attempts to discredit the future pope.

Why would that be?

Unless of course the menace of the corruption had something to do with the invalidity of the Renunciation? And that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was involved somehow in both.

For more on this, see the articles on How Benedict has defeated “Francis”, Benedict’s End Game is to defend the Church from Freemasonry, and The Imprisonment of Pope Benedict XVI.

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CREDITS: The Featured Image is a screen shot of the Video embedded in this article, both of which are used in accord with fair use standards for editorial commentary.

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Canon Law, Debates, Faith

Adoration of the Eternal Word requires the recognition of Benedict XVI as the Pope

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Alas we live in an age of disbelief, of denial, of every sort of ideology invented to pretend that disbelief and denial are not godless excuses against the Lord and Creator. How right Our Lord was when He pronounced the parable of the Owner of the Vineyard who after many attempts to obtain due reverence and respect from his tenant vine-dressers, send his only son thinking that would convince them.

Our Lord and Creator has entrusted to us a beautiful and fruitful vineyard in His Creation, in this planet, Earth, in the human nature with which each of us is wonderfully made and gifted into existence. In gratitude we are obliged to render back to Him His due.

The First and Greatest Commandment is the adoration of God with the entirety of the being which He gave us: in truth, in love, in faith, in hope, in service which above all begins with worship.

The Adoration of the Eternal Word

There are three Divine Persons in the Most Holy Trinity, and the middle one, Who became Man for our salvation is called rightly by Saint John the Apostle: the Word of God. Of Himself, He said: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.

If we believe, then, in Jesus Christ — not just with our lips or our public actions — but in our minds and hearts, we must therefore adore the Eternal Word. Not just as Incarnate, but as coming forth from the Mouth of God from all eternity and containing in Himself all Truth, all Wisdom, all Light, all Knowledge: saving Truth, redeeming Wisdom, clarifying Light and illuminating Knowledge.

It follows then, since by Faith we know that all that is good in this world is a reflection, distant though it may be, of the goodness of God, that every word by which truth can be signified is a reflection or distant similitude to the Word of God.

This, more than anything else, is the great reason behind the Catholic Religion’s fidelity to words, to writings, to documents: to their preservation, to their faithful translation, to their assiduous study and to their printing and publication.

All this is the consequence of the adoration of the Eternal Word which lies at the center of the Catholic Faith: in the hearts of every Catholic, in every liturgy of the Church, and in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar: Jesus Christ present really, truly and substantially: a Presence proclaimed and defended throughout the ages with words.

Words are the touchstones of fidelity

If there is one constant in all of Catholic history it is this: every Saint, Doctor or Father of the Church and every Catholic hero has been faithful to words: to their meaning, to their intent, to their purpose. They all have been men and women of their word. They all have been men and women who believed the words of those who came before them, whether as Apostles or Evangelists, Fathers of the Church, Popes speaking as popes.

This is why, if we want to know the truth, we have the simple and quick solution: believe the words the Church gives us, hold fast to them, perceive their meaning and put that into practice, make it the rule of your life and the itinerary of your journey. Trust in them and never look back.

Every temptation is against the Word

Contrariwise, every temptation which can be brought, has been brought or will ever be brought against the Will of God for any creature will be manifest in an attack on words, on their meaning and signification, on their intent or purpose. When you see this in action you can be certain that the spirit behind the speaker, the voice in his throat and hand in his mind is from the netherworld: the world where there is no meaning, no light, no wisdom, no knowledge of the good and above all no truth, or similitudes of It.

This can be clearly seen in the controversy over the Declaration made by Pope Benedict XVI. It all turns upon words, with one party saying they do not mean what they say, and the other party saying they mean exactly what they say. One party wants them to mean more than what they say, because they already have — here I use a metaphor — their hand in the cookie-jar, and they do not want to stop shoving the cookies in their mouth. Their mindset is of the juvenile who never grew up, of the egomaniac who sees no meaning but in what returns to himself, of the sociopath who denies any moral law which has authority to govern his passions, and of the psychopath who denies there is anything to defend what is right or wrong.

The other party is truly faithful to the Eternal Word. It does not presume that words mean other than what they say. It does not presume that the Code of Canon Law is not operative and does not mean what it says. It does not presume John Paul II was ignorant in promulgating it, nor does it presume that Pope Benedict XVI intended something other than what he did.

This other party has nothing to gain by their position, because not only are they universally reviled for it, but they never intended to get anything personal out of it. That is why they do not see the controversy as a personal fight. They have nothing personal to defend in it.

I have written this short reflection to help those who are confused by the liars and tricksters and those with personal skin in the game, as they say: the ones who want you to pay them to tell you to shut up, stop thinking, buckle under, go along with apostasy, because they who deny and attack words, know what is best for you!

For us who are Catholics, we know that we shall be judged on every idle word we say, because God the Word considers words important. That is why He founded His Church upon words and through words transmits salvation to all who receive them, faithfully and humbly.

WHY IS BENEDICT XVI STILL THE POPE?

Canon 332 §2 reads:

If it happen that the Roman Pontiff renounce his munus, for validity there is required that the renunciation be made freely and manifested duly, but not that it be accepted by anyone whomsoever.

But Pope Benedict’s Declaratio reads, in part:

… I declare, that I renounce the ministerium entrusted to me through the hands of the Cardinals..

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CREDITS:  The Featured Image is of the Tabernacle in the Basilica of Saints Boniface and Alexis at Rome, on the Aventine. Photo by Br. Bugnolo.

 

News

Valli drops the bomb

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Aldo Maria Valli is a noted journalist who works for RAI, the state television network. You may have heard of his name in connection to the letters of Archbishop Viganò or in connection with Dr. Roberto de Mattei, with whom he has done a book conference. He was recently involved in a serious car accident, which killed a close friend, but left him rather unscathed.

Italians, especially Vaticanista, know what they can say and how to say it with a finesse which often escapes Americans who need not fear what they say so much, on account of the culture of openness and sincerely that reigns there. But Italians do it in their own way.

The canonical arguments that Benedict is still the pope are now flooding the email boxes of all the elites of Rome. Valli’s too. He spoke about it in his recent editorial, Passaggiata notturna in piazza San Pietro:

Dopo la passeggiata torno a casa, accendo il computer e trovo la mail con un messaggio dell’amico che da tempo mi invita a riflettere sull’impossibilità di avere un papa emerito. La riassumo in parole povere (canonisti, chiedo scusa): siccome non si riceve una consacrazione a papa, quando un papa rinuncia al pontificato non può diventare papa emerito, perché non è più papa. Non torna a essere neppure cardinale, ma vescovo, e stop. Di conseguenza Benedetto XVI, con la rinuncia al ministerium ma non al munus (sarebbe a dire all’esercizio attivo, ma non al mandato) ha fatto qualcosa che non poteva fare e dunque la sua rinuncia è invalida. Ma se la sua rinuncia è invalida, è invalido anche il conclave che ne è seguito, e pure il papa uscito da quel conclave.

I do not think Valli is on Twitter, so he is immune from the juvenile trolling which will probably be launched against him by those who cannot read Latin or Italian, but do read FromRome.Info. So here is my English translation:

After my walk, I returned home, and turned on my computer and found an email with a message from a friend who for some time has invited me to reflect on the impossibility of having a pope emeritus. I will summarize it in my own poor words (I ask pardon of any canonist who is reading this): just as one does not receive a consecration to be the pope, when a pope renounces the pontificate he cannot become a pope emeritus, because he is no longer a pope. He does not even return to being a Cardinal, but a bishop. Period.  Consequently, Benedict XVI, with his renunciation of ministerium but not of munus (that is, of the active exercise, but not of the mandate) did something which he could not do and hence his renunciation is invalid. But if his renunciation is invalid, the Conclave which followed it is also invalid, and even the pope which came out of that Conclave.

Valli finishes with an elegant Italian double entendre to say that the shocking conclusion of his friend is the literal truth which one observes daily at the Vatican of one who claims to be the pope but shows he is invalid.

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CREDITS: The Featured Image is of Castel San Angelo, the ancient Papal Fortress dedicated to Saint Michale the Archangel, but which is now a museum owned by the Italian Republic. The photo was taken by Br. Bugnolo before sunrise on one December morning in 2019.

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Ecclesiology

Antonio Socci: Pope Benedict’s understanding of the End Times

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“The Two Parts of the Church”

By Antonio Socci

Excerpted from Il Dio Mercato, La Chiesa, e L’Anticristo
Rizzoli, 2019

Translated by Giuseppe Pellegrino
@pellegrino2020

And Reprinted with permission from his FB page

In September 2013 – only seven months after the resignation of Benedict XVI – Giorgio Agamben published a book with an eloquent title: Il Mistero del male. Benedetto XVI e la fine dei tempi [The Mystery of Evil: Benedict XVI and the End Times] (Laterza, 2013).

This philosopher’s interpretation of the event of the “resignation” made in the heat of the moment is surprising. It refers back to the question of the Antichrist and the kathécon.[1] (We shall later see that other thinkers such as Mario Tronti and Massimo Cacciari have interpreted the “resignation” of Benedict XVI in this apocalyptic key; however they are coming from a Marxist point of view.)

But let’s begin with Agamben. He focuses on an old essay written by the young theologian Joseph Ratzinger on the 4th-century theologian Tychonius who, commenting on the Book of Revelation, does not place Jerusalem and Babylon in opposition to one another (as Augustine would do, subsequent to Tychonius, in his famous work The City of God), but rather proposes that Jerusalem includes Babylon within itself.[2]

Ratzinger wrote: “It thus follows that the Antichrist is a part of the Church, it grows in her and with her up until the great discessio, which introduces the definitive revelatio,” that is, the return of Christ and the universal judgment.[3]

Ratzinger observed that “his doctrine [that of Tychonius] is objectively completely Catholic” and he demonstrated that it was instead Augustine who distinguished two cities, Jerusalem and Babylon, the “city of God” and the “earthly city” (that of the devil).[4]

The young theologian Ratzinger added: “Augustine objected against Tychonius’ concept of the Church, saying that the separation [discessio] between Christ and the Antichrist will not occur only in the end times, but is already fundamentally present now.”[5]

After recalling this old essay written by the future pope, Agamben notes that “during the General Audience on April 22, 2009, […] before placing his pallium on the tomb of Celestine V, Benedict XVI made a new reference to the figure of Tychonius regarding the way in which we ought to understand ‘the mystery of the Church’ today.”[6]

On that occasion, Pope Benedict XVI explained Tychonius’ thought in these words:

In his commentary he sees the Apocalypse above all as a reflection of the mystery of the Church. Tychonius had reached the conviction that the Church was a bipartite body: on the one hand, he says, she belongs to Christ, but there is another part of the Church that belongs to the devil.

Agamben writes:

The fact that Tychonius’ thesis now receives the sanction of the bishop of Rome, who calls him a “great theologian,” is certainly not a matter of indifference. What is in question is not only the thesis of the two-part body of the Church; what is also in question is above all the ecclesiological implications of this teaching, that is, the “great discessio,” the great separation between evildoers and the faithful – between the Church as the body of the Antichrist and the Church as the body of Christ – which much take place in the end times. Seen from this perspective, the abdication [of Benedict XVI] cannot fail to evoke something like a discessio, a separation of the beautiful Church [Ecclesia decora] from the “dark Church [Ecclesia fusca],” and yet Benedict XVI knows that this can and must happen only on the eve of the second coming of Christ.[7]

Then Agamben adds:

The [contemporary] Church has long since closed its eschatological office; but the decision of Benedict XVI [to resign] shows that the problem of the last things continues to act underground in the history of the Church. […] What interests the Apostle Paul [in 2 Thessalonians] is not the last day, not the end of time, but rather the end times [the times immediately preceding the end]. […] And one of the theses of Tychonius’ Commentary on the Book of Revelation, which Benedict XVI knew well, was that the prophecies of the Book of Revelation do not refer to end of time but rather to the condition of the Church in the interval between the first and second coming of Christ, that is, in the historical period which we are still living now. […] If we situate this understanding of Benedict XVI in the context of the situation he personally faced as pope, the “great refusal” of Benedict XVI is far from a reference to a future eschatological schism: his “refusal” recalls, on the contrary, that it is not possible for the Church to survive if it passively defers the solution of the conflict that tears apart the “two-part body” to the end of time.[8]

And thus we arrive at the “resignation” of Benedict XVI.

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ORIGINAL FOOTNOTES BY SOCCI

[1] From 2 Thess 2:6-7: “But the one who restrains is to do so only for the present, until he is removed from the scene.” The kathécon is the “one who restrains” the anomos, the “lawless one” before the Second Coming of Christ.
[2] This essay was republished as the first chapter of Il nuovo popolo di Dio [The New People of God] (Queriniana, Brescia 1992). Tychonius (alternatively Ticonius) was an African Donatist writer of the late 4th century whose thought is incorporated into the writings of Augustine and also the Venerable Bede. His best-known work is “Seven Rules of Interpretation [of the Bible]” which are quoted and explained by Augustine in De doctrina Christiana III, 30-37. Tychonius’ Commentary on the Apocalypse is now lost (it is quoted by Bede in his Explanatio apocalypsis, PL XCIII, 130-134). It is believed that Augustine’s Commentary (PL XXXV, 2415-52) is a modified version of Tychonius. The late 5th-century writer Gennadius says of Tychonius, “He flourished at the same time as Rufinus; in the reign of Theodosius and his son,” thus dating his writing to somewhere between 379 and 423.
[3] Ibid., p. 20. The Latin word discessio means a separation or division, meaning a great cleavage or cutting in two. It also has the sense of withdrawal.
[4] Ibid., p. 24.
[5] Ibid. p. 23.
[6] From Benedict XVI’s General Audience of April 22, 2009 (the rich depth of the teaching of Benedict’s general audiences on the Fathers of the Church is astonishing when compared to the content and style of the Bergoglian magisterium):
“Ambrose Autpert’s most important work is without a doubt his commentary on the Apocalypse [Expositio in Apocalypsim] in 10 volumes: this constitutes, centuries later, the first broad commentary in the Latin world on the last book of Sacred Scripture. This work was the fruit of many years’ work, carried out in two phases between 758 and 767, hence prior to his election as abbot. In the premise he is careful to indicate his sources, something that was not usual in the Middle Ages. Through what was perhaps his most significant source, the commentary of Bishop Primasius of Hadrumetum, written in about the middle of the sixth century, Autpert came into contact with the interpretation of the Apocalypse bequeathed to us by Tychonius, an African who lived a generation before St Augustine. He was not a Catholic; he belonged to the schismatic Donatist Church, yet he was a great theologian. In his commentary he sees the Apocalypse above all as a reflection of the mystery of the Church. Tychonius had reached the conviction that the Church was a bipartite body: on the one hand, he says, she belongs to Christ, but there is another part of the Church that belongs to the devil. Augustine read this commentary and profited from it but strongly emphasized that the Church is in Christ’s hands, that she remains his Body, forming one with him, sharing in the mediation of grace. He therefore stresses that the Church can never be separated from Jesus Christ. In his interpretation of the Apocalypse, similar to that of Tychonius, Autpert is not so much concerned with the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time as rather with the consequences that derive for the Church of the present from his First Coming, his Incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And he speaks very important words to us: in reality Christ “must be born, die and be raised daily in us, who are his Body” (In Apoc., III: CCCM, 27, p. 205). In the context of the mystic dimension that invests every Christian he looks to Mary as a model of the Church, a model for all of us because Christ must also be born in and among us. Under the guidance of the Fathers, who saw the “woman clothed with the sun” of Rv 12: 1 as an image of the Church, Autpert argues: “the Blessed and devout Virgin… daily gives birth to new peoples from which the general Body of the Mediator is formed. It is therefore not surprising if she, in whose blessed womb the Church herself deserved to be united with her Head, represents the type of the Church”. In this sense Autpert considers the Virgin Mary’s role decisive in the work of the Redemption (cf. also his homilies In purificatione S. Mariae and In adsumptione S. Mariae). His great veneration and profound love for the Mother of God sometimes inspired in him formulations that in a certain way anticipated those of St Bernard and of Franciscan mysticism, yet without ever deviating to disputable forms of sentimentalism because he never separates Mary from the mystery of the Church. Therefore, with good reason, Ambrose Autpert is considered the first great Mariologist in the West. He considers that the profound study of the sacred sciences, especially meditation on the Sacred Scriptures, which he describes as “the ineffable sky, the unfathomable abyss” should be combined with the devotion that he believed must free the soul from attachment to earthly and transient pleasures (In Apoc. IX). In the beautiful prayer with which his commentary on the Apocalypse ends, underlining the priority that must be given to love in all theological research, he addresses God with these words: “When you are intellectually examined by us, you are not revealed as you truly are: when you are loved, you are attained”.
[7]Giorgio Agamben, Il mistero del male. Benedetto XVI e la fine dei tempi, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2013, Kindle position 163, 170.
[8]Ibid., Kindle position 170-177, 184, 192.

News

Benedict, not Francis, unplugged Gänswein

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By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Sandro Magister has at last spilled the beans — as we say in English — that is, he has told us what really happened during the recent Book Flap over the defense of the Priestly Celibacy by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Robert Sarah, the only Cardinal in any position in the Roman Curia, who was appointed to his office by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Main Stream Media has run with the story that it was Bergoglio who fired Archbishop Georg Gänswein for not preventing that Book from going to press and obstructing its publication as a work of the the Cardinal and the Pope.

But Magister, apologist extraordinaire for the Argentine Regime at the Vatican, in a report on his official Blog at L’Espresso, says what really happened. In a post entitled, Il silenzio di Francesco, le lacrime di Ratzinger e quella sua dichiarazione mai pubblicata – in which he speaks in a noticeable intent to humiliate the reigning Pontiff by calling him by his civil name — he says that it was Benedict who first detected Gänswein’s treachery and took decisive action to circumvent his interference.

Magister, writing in Italian says:

Ebbene, la mattina di mercoledì 15 gennaio, mentre papa Francesco stava tenendo la sua udienza generale settimanale e Gänswein sedeva come di regola al suo fianco nell’aula Paolo VI, lontano quindi dal monastero Mater Ecclesiae che è la residenza del papa emerito di cui egli è segretario, Benedetto XVI alzò di persona il telefono e chiamò Sarah prima a casa, dove non lo trovò, e poi in ufficio, dove il cardinale rispose.

Benedetto XVI espresse, accorato, a Sarah la sua solidarietà. Gli confidò di non riuscire a comprendere le ragioni di un’aggressione così violenta e ingiusta. E pianse. Anche Sarah pianse. La telefonata si chiuse con entrambi in lacrime.

My English translation:

Well, the morning of Wednesday, January 15th, while pope Francis was holding his weekly general audience and Gänswein was sitting, according to the rule, at his side in the Paul VI Hall, far indeed from the Monastery Mater Ecclesiae which is the residence of the Pope Emeritus, of whom he is the secretary, Benedict XVI personally picked up the phone and called Sara first at his home, where he did not find him, and then in his office, where the Cardinal picked up.

Benedict XVI expressed, in a heartfelt manner, his solidarity with Sarah. He confided in him that he had not understood the reasons for such a violent and unjust aggression.  And he wept. Sarah also wept. The phone call ended with both of them in tears.

Magister also reports that Cardinal Sarah and Pope Benedict then wrote up a joint Statement and had Gänswein bring it over to the sostituto of the Secretary of State, Edgar Peña Parra — the very man whom the Italian State Police say they speak with when they are asked by Italian citizens why they are being treated so bruskly by them on Vatican soil or in Vatican extra-territorial zones here at Rome.

I know this, because in October, while I attended the Proud to be Italian rally organized by Matteo Salvini and the heads of all the opposition Parties in Italy, I was accosted by the Italian State police for the “crime” of having attached a banner in support of Pope Benedict to a Fence demarking the beginning of Vatican Extraterritorial zone at the Scala Santa. Here is an image of one of the banners.

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They told me to take it down because it violated Italian Law. I said it cannot be violating Italian law because it is on Vatican Territory. Fluxed, they called the Secretary of State at the Vatican, and then returned and put me on the phone with the sostituto, whose name I did not catch at the moment. This evidently was Edgar. He told me I should not display such a banner at the Rally, because the Rally had nothing to do with the Catholic Faith. I told him that I do an apostolate in public among persons of all kinds. He told me to take it down or else. I asked his name and he refused to give it to me. He insisted.

I understood I would be arrested. So I had my volunteers, all supporters of Pope Benedict, take it down and we mounted upon tall poles provided to us by Forza Italia, the party of Burlesconi. That way even more persons saw them! One of the men who was there the day I was told to take the banners down was in the Piazza S. Pietro on Tuesday morning, when I was led away by the police. Strange coincidence, no?

Thus it is not surprising in the least that the communication written by the Pope and Cardinal never saw the light of day. But Magister says, that the Italian Version of the Book, was defended by the Publisher a few days later, with a public statement crafted by Cardinal Parolin himself, word for word, praising the book.

My observations

The news about Edgar Peña Parra does not surprise me. It was reported at ChiesaRomana.Info in December, that a local priest said in public that Edgar authorizes excommunications over the telephone — a thing which he has no authority to do in any law. That the Archbishop brought the message to him and not to Parolin is already significant, since as Head of the Pontifical Household he should not suffer to speak with anyone but the Secretary of State.

But the real news is this. Pope Benedict XVI is as fiesty as ever. He had no illusions about the Archbishop which would have made him hesitant to break faith with him and make his own phone call behind the Archbishop’s back. He then began direct relations with Cardinal Sarah and was devastated to hear how his former personal secretary had betrayed him in the public press.

The second important fact is that it appears that Parolin is willing to take Benedict’s side, because it is really beneath a Secretary of State’s duties to write a communique for a private publisher of a pope emeritus’ books, but not so, if the author is the Successor of Saint Peter in truth.

The events related by Magister point to a significant moment in history. That was when Pope Benedict XVI unplugged Gänswein. The Italians call it, defenistrazione, which is a colorful word deriving from Late Latin, meaning to throw someone out of their office through the window, rather than letting them resign with dignity by leaving the office through the door after a resignation.

That is really why the Archbishop disappeared. Bergoglio could not fire him. Only the Pope can do that.

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Let us continue to pray for Pope Benedict, by joining the League of Prayer for Pope Benedict XVI, that his strength and resolve grow more and more daily and that he take up the reigns of the Petrine Munus which he still retains to this day.

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CREDITS: The Featured Image is an excerpt of a video feed showing Pope Benedict leaving the Vatican on Feb. 28, 2013, as Pope. It is used here for editorial commentary, in that Benedict’s gesture of leaving the Vatican as Pope and not as Cardinal Ratzinger was a prophetic sign that he had not given up the fight, but that victory in the end would be his.

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Editorials, News

Doesn’t that mean, he is still the pope?

8 Comments

By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

So a little old man who is as frail as any 93 year old man might be — though some are in better health and others not so — writes 100 pages in small folio about the Catholic priesthood and emphasizes that chastity and celibacy are part of the Sacred and Divine Tradition regarding priesthood.

And the entire Catholic world goes into an uproar. Nearly all praising the little old man, but with a vicious back draft from the hateful Main Stream Media who want him to shut up and hateful liberal clergy who likewise want him to go away, and from hate filled self-proclaimed Trad writers, publications and priestly institutes who are upset he keeps intervening and have always hated him more than you would imagine. — Do they not remember Summorum Pontificum? Guess not.

And the end result is that the evil plans of Bergoglio at least for now, regarding anti-celibacy and anti-priesthood, have been shelved. Cardinal Marx is announcing his retirement.

Hmm.

Does that not mean that the little old man is the katechon (2 Thessalonians 2:7), that which holds back the spirit of the Antichrist, according to the Apostle Saint Paul?

And does that not mean, that he is still the one and only true Pope and Vicar of Christ?

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CREDITS: The Featured Image is a close up of the front cover of the English edition of Antonio Socci’s Book, The Secret of Benedict XVI, by Angelico Press, about which FromRome.Info published a review, and is used here to remind everyone of that books historical importance.

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Church History, News

Pope Benedict XVI gloriously reigning!

3 Comments

By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

A lot of Catholics are still wondering: What happened seven years ago on the 11th of February, 2013, when Pope Benedict XVI read out the Declaratio, which being with the Latin words, Non solum proper?

In appearances, all Hell broke loose. That’s what. The Cardinals, all of whom did not understand what the Pope had just read — some because they do not know Latin well enough and others because the act was full of nearly 40 errors in the Latin — nevertheless decided to exploit the aged pontiff and tell the world what they wanted it to mean, and perhaps what the pope thought it meant.

But in the Church, a juridical act has an objective meaning, whether the one writing it or the one reading it, thinks otherwise. And the Church has to act this way, because it has a 2000 year history of incompetence and corruption, overcome by sanity and reason and law. — Those who want it otherwise, are simply false apostles and pathological liars.

Canonically, what happened?

By renouncing the ministerium which was entrusted to him, but not the office, the munus, or the power of the office of Saint Peter, Pope Benedict XVI arguable postied a juridical act which was valid but which did NOT separate himself from the office of Being the Pope or Roman Pontiff.

However, by renouncing the petrine ministry, he withdrew consent from every juridical act which would be posted for the remaining of his lifetime and put the College of Cardinals and the Roman Curia to a test, to see if they were loyal to Christ and Church Law or simply wanton careerists.

Whether Pope Benedict XVI intended this or not, that is the objective meaning of his act. — I won’t go into the fact that the Latin text actually says that he did this to excommunicate the College of Cardinals and liberate the Church from their corruption.

Canonically, what should have been the response?

True loyalty to a superior means serving him in fulfilling the legitimate and honest intentions he has in his acts of governance. This is especially true of the Roman Pontiff. And it is a mortal sin of great severity to obstruct the Roman Pontiff in such affairs. However, one can obstruct the will of the Roman Pontiff, not only by preventing him from doing what he wants, when it is legitimate, but by not correcting his proposed juridical acts which are defective.

On that fateful day of February 11, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI — we can say now — had no friends or allies who were both competent in Latin and Canon Law and willing to help him. Some may have seen errors in the Latin, but did not understand the consequences. Some may have seen errors in the juridical form, but said nothing, because on the one hand they wanted him to resign and get out of their way, and on the other hand they hoped the latent error would one day defeat God’s enemies.

We may never know who was of which disposition, then, but we can know today. Every Catholic who has authentic and true loyalty to the institution of the Papacy is gravely bound to advocate that the passing of this august office from one man to the next be done in accord with the Will of Christ, which is the norm of Canon Law, which requires the renunciation of petrine munus. — In this grave duty, all the Cardinals and all the Bishops alive today are either so ignorant they do not realize the problem, or so incompetent they have not the moral virtue to move to solve it, or so venial that they want the problem to persist. In each case, they probably will go to Hell for all eternity, and drag hundreds of millions of souls with them UNLESS we who know what the problem is, and know how to fix it — through a special Council, after the manner of the Synod of Sutri in 1046 — advocate that this be done.

POPE BENEDICT XVI IS STILL GLORIOUSLY REIGNING

And it is a special grace of God to know this and recognize this. But as to whom more is given, more shall be asked, let us not repose in the gladness of knowing the truth, but realize the great responsibility we have before God and before the entire Church to preach this truth!

So do not let yourself get sucked into the narrative control machinery and flow of propaganda of invalid and illicit acts coming out of the Vatican, keep insisting with your sacred Pastors that Benedict is the Pope and that they will be damned for all eternity if they persist in rejecting the norm of Canon law and leading the flock entrusted to them into the sheepfold of a liar, heretic, usurper and Antichrist.

Finally, let us keep praying for the Holy Father, who is nearly 93 years old, and who, God willing, by the end of July will have been the oldest reigning Roman Pontiff in the last 1000 years and perhaps ever.

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Action Items

Pope Benedict XVI needs our prayers

7 Comments

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

I write to appeal to everyone reading this, to pray for Pope Benedict XVI. The state of health and nearly all news about him is being concealed by the Vatican, where he is effectively imprisoned — prevented from meeting with Bishops and unable to receive any mail which is not filtered — a thing demonstrated by the public letter by Archbishop Negri, Emeritus of Ferrara, the other day, asking for such an audience.

The Featured Image in this article, here above, is a screen shot from the Bavarian State TV documentary, filmed in October of 2019. You can watch the short clip for yourself at

https://tv.iltempo.it/home-tv/2020/01/15/video/papa-ratzinger-dimissioni-benedetto-xvi-libro-documentario-foto-oggi-video-1266775/

which is the source of the screenshot.

From my experience helping my brothers care for my own mother in her last illness, I know that such a frail state is characteristic of the last months of life of aged persons, in many cases.

I therefore ask you to pray for pope Benedict. For his health and for his soul. And I encourage you to join the League of Prayer for Pope Benedict, as hundreds of Catholics already are doing.

And I ask you to share this appeal on Social Media with all of good heart.

News

Vatican Intelligence officer: I am a Freemason and so is Bergoglio

22 Comments

By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

BREAKING — In an intercepted phone call — one of many which were captured during the corruption investigation in Argentina over foreign influence from Iran, the Head Vatican Intelligence officer in Argentina affirmed that he and his boss, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, were indeed members of the Masonic Lodge.

The explosive revelations where made on Roberto Garcia’s TV program, La Mirada, which aired on November 27, 2017 on Channel 26 in Argentina.

Here is the full video:

The video above, at 27:57, features the guests Edgar Mainhard of Urgente24 and the man who speaks about Bergoglio, Juan Bautista “Tata”” Yofre, who was State Intelligence Secretary in Argentina between 1989-1990 and was the Ambassador of Argentina, concurrently to both Portugal and Panama, during the government of Carlos Menem.

In the interview, Roberto asks Tata to discuss the “unpresentables of Argentina that surround the pope”.

“Tata” recounts a phone call that had been aired during a time of “negotiations with Iran” and that such phone calls had been aired on national television. In one phone call between “Yussuf and Karim” which had come out in the outlet “La Nación”, but later disappeared, Tata says, during the call, Yussuf tells Karim about his encounter with Bergoglio’s Vatican Chief of Intelligence in Argentina. “Tata” made a parenthesis to emphasize that Bergoglio indeed had a Vatican chief of Intelligence there in Argentina and that he knew him personally, but did not mention the name.

Tata continues recounting that on the phone call, “Bergoglio’s Vatican Chief of Intelligence told Yussuf that he [the Chief] was a mason and so was Bergoglio.” Tata says, “This was on ‘La Nación’. You could have listened to it yourselves. I listened to it because I had to give it credit.

Canonical Implications

The penalty for becoming a member of the Masonic Lodge is excommunication. That this was the case, even after Vatican II was made clear in a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dated Feb. 17, 1981 and signed by Cardinal Franjo Seper (See text here). Cardinal Seper in that letter declared:

On 19 July 1974 this Congregation wrote to some Episcopal Conferences a private letter concerning the interpretation of can 2335 of the Code of Canon Law which forbids Catholics, under the penalty of excommunication, to enroll in Masonic or other similar associations.

Since the said letter has become public and has given rise to erroneous and tendentious interpretations, this Congregation, without prejudice to the eventual norms of the new Code, issues the following confirmation and clarification:

1) the present canonical discipline remains in full force and has not been modified in any way;

2) consequently, neither the excommunication nor the other penalties envisaged have been abrogated;

Two years later, on Nov. 26, 1983, following the promulgation by Pope John Paul II  of the new Code of Canon Law, a public doubt arose regarding whether that penalty had been removed or not in the new Code.  Cardinal Ratzinger, now head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responded with an extraordinary intervention, confirmed in forma specifica by Pope John Paul II. The key passage of which reads:

Therefore the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who enrol in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.

It is not within the competence of local ecclesiastical authorities to give a judgment on the nature of Masonic associations which would imply a derogation from what has been decided above, and this in line with the Declaration of this Sacred Congregation issued on 17 February 1981 (cf. AAS 73 1981 pp. 240-241; English language edition of L’Osservatore Romano, 9 March 1981).

In other words, the excommunication leveled in Canon 2335 against all Catholics for enrolling in a Masonic Lodge remains in force. This is in accord with the principle of Canon 6 and Canon 20. And thus, the excommunication of Canon 2335 in the old Code is to be understood, in accord with this declaration made by the CDF, to be subsumed into Canon 1364, which punishes by excommunication latae sententiae the crimes of Heresy, Schism and Apostasy, since clearly affiliation with the Masonic Sect is equipollent to all three under the diverse aspects of its creed, its purpose, and its manner of working.

THE CONSEQUENCES ARE SERIOUS: An excommunicated person cannot validly receive any dignity, office or munus in the Church in virtue of Canon 1331 §2 n. 4, of the new Code of Canon Law. That means, that it is canonically impossible that Bergoglio have assumed any ecclesiastical office after his enrollment.

My Comments

Since Cardinal Ratzinger no doubt had knowledge that Bergoglio was a Freemason, as both head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and as Pope, it follows that as pope, if it was demanded of him that he resign the Papacy, so that Bergoglio might succeed him, he would have had the most grave obligation to dissimulate, so that while appearing to renounce, he would deprive Bergoglio of the Petrine Munus, by renouncing something else, as I surmised in my previous article, How Benedict has defeated “Francis”. And especially in my article, Benedict’s End Game is to Save the Church from Freemasonry.

I think, now, you can see why no supporter of Bergoglio cares the lest thing for Canon Law. Cardinals included. How many others in the Vatican are members of the Lodge?

Will Chris Ferrara and Steve Skojec and others, like Cardinal Burke, now stop saying that Bergoglio is definitely the pope? Or are they Freemasons too? — I ask this question because the public has a right to know the answers.

POSTSCRIPT on Evidence and Actionability

There are 3 kinds of evidence, about matters as grave as someone being a Freemason. There is non actionable and actionable. Of the first kind, the non actionable, is information which is hearsay, that is third hand, where there no certainty if the chain of transmission has not invented, corrupted or faithfully related what happened or was said. No legal system in the world accepts such uncertain third party evidence.  Of the second kind, actionable, there are two kinds: morally actionable and legally actionable. Morally actionable evidence is the kind upon which you are obliged to act, but cannot bring a legal charge due to lack of records. Legally actionable is of the kind upon which you can bring a legal accusation. This includes third hand testimony given in affidavits or recordings or before credible witnesses. Even in the Church there is law. And, of the kind of evidence Pope Benedict XVI had as of Feb. 2013, I surmise it was only the morally actionable kind, because I have no legally actionable evidence that it was anything else.

However, with this intercepted phone call, the Entire Church has legally actionable evidence, because the phone call was heard by the entire Argentine people on live TV, and we have the testimony of an Argentine Ambassador that that phone call was broadcast. Just find 2 or 3 others persons who heard it, and have they swear an affidavit. Then the Cardinals who are NOT Freemasons, and or any group of Bishops, call a Council and declare the man outside of the Church and deposed from all offices.

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News

Trad Inc. is hiding something Monstrous

10 Comments

By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

The petition to President Trump is something every human being can agree with, whether Catholic or not. All you have to agree with is a basic concept of patient’s rights and care for all the elderly, even if they be Pope Benedict XVI.

If you have not yet signed, please do! — Here is the link:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/petition-president-trump-advocate-protection-all-elderly-including-pope-benedict-xvi

So far 791 have signed. Share it on Social Media with everyone. Do not wait or hesitate. The very life of Pope Benedict might be at risk! This is obvious.

But Trad Inc., which has been informed about this petition 10 days ago, does not agree. They have censored the news of its existence to prevent Catholics from signing it.

There is only one sane conclusion: Trad Inc. is hiding something monstrous about their motivation to insist Bergoglio is the pope and that Pope Benedict is Joseph Ratzinger.

I say, “monstrous” because such a motivation must be very very evil, if it leads you to work to prevent Catholics from expressing their faith on the most basic question of human rights and charity for the elderly and needy.

Maybe, this monstrous thing, is that they are not operating on Catholic principles anymore, but have accepted some sort of political ideology, which allies with Bergoglio and refuses to give any assistance to his enemies?

In recent days, we have seen 2 major attacks on Pope Benedict XVI from Trad Inc.. There seems to be a pattern here. Does it have to do with big money coming out of Eastern Switzerland or Argentina?

I know my history of the Second World War, as I read William Shirer’s, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, when I was 16. And I recall that Munich was the capital and origin of the Nazi party. Coincidences are fascinating. Just saying.

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News

SSPX reluctant to fault Bergoglio, quick to attack Pope Benedict

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By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

I cannot be silent at the diabolic attack made against the Vicar of Jesus Christ by FSSPX.NEWS the official news outlet of the Society of Saint Pius X, founded by Archbishop Marcel-François Lefebvre, C.S.Sp. (1905 – 1991).

Little has been published about the heresies and blasphemies and idolatries of Bergoglio, the anti-pope par excellence. But within a week of the publication of a book defending priestly celibacy against Bergoglio’s fiendish plan to destroy it, there is the SSPX quick on the attack, like hounds.

You can read their absurd critique here. To say their argument is strained or in search of evidence to prove its a priori accusations, would be an accurate assessment. Let us take a look at the errors in this article:

A GRAVE DEVIATION?

The author of the article begins by attacking Pope Benedict’s declared intention of explaining the priesthood apart from the “methodological defect in the reception of Scripture as the Word of God.” Evidently the author here shows his complete ignorance of historical theology. The term “word of God” was never in the entire history of the Church prior to the 1260’s applied to Sacred Scripture. For Christians before 1260, the Word of God was only one: Jesus Christ. It was at the University of Paris that an analogy was made, based on phrases in the Old Testament which refer to revelations made to the prophets as, “the word of the Lord”, between Sacred Scripture as revealed truth and Jesus Christ as the Truth revealing.

This attribution by the Scholastics was innocent at first, but with time it became divorced from the concept of analogy and with the Reformation it became not “the word of God”, but “The Word of God”, replacing the Mass and the Most Blessed Sacrament with the Bible as the new medium of union with God, under the control of the expert layman, who dictated what Scripture meant, without reference to the Tradition of the Church.

This, since the time of the Reformation, has become indeed a grave theological and methodological error in interpreting Christianity or Sacred Scripture. And thus to fault Pope Benedict XVI for this approach is to adhere to the very errors of Luther and Bergoglio, who just made Scripture Sunday a new day of cult in his Church, with the placement of the Scriptures on the central axis of the nave of Churches, where the Eucharist and the Tabernacle had pride of place before the Council.

A FLAWED EXEGESIS

The next chapter bears a critical title, but the text does not display any substantive disagreement.

Granted that it is better to talk of offices than ministries, but it does not fundamentally alter a theological exposition which is non technical.

WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH

In this chapter, the author agrees, without making much of the praise due to the Holy Father for his exposition. Remarkable, as his affirmations here cut directly against the notion of the priesthood promoted during the Aggiornamento, of the priest as actor, guide and facilitator.

AN ERRONEOUS THEOLOGY?

In this chapter, the author attacks Pope Benedict for writing: “The crucifixion of Jesus is not in itself an act of worship.” And the author admits that the Pope is referring to the action of the Roman Soldiers. But nevertheless, the author goes on the attack and tries to draw the expression of the Pope over to a denial of Christ’s offering of His Passion as an act of worship. This is the absurd method of reading used by Sedevacantists. It is most unworthy of a Catholic priest or priestly society.

In truth, it is a historical fact, that the Roman Soldiers did not put Jesus Christ to death as an act of worship to the Emperor or any Roman or Greek god. Neither did the High Priests sacrifice Jesus as an act of worship of any God. So what the Pope says is perfectly correct. The pope is using “crucifixion” in its active sense, as the crucifying of Jesus, not as ‘the being crucified of Jesus.’  The one is an act of public execution, the other is the matter which Christ offered in the Holy Spirit to the Eternal Father for the Redemption of all. And I do not think you need a degree in theology to understand the difference. The former was objectively a sin, that of condemning the Just to death, the latter was a great act of Mercy, which merited the freedom from condemnation for all those destined to eternal death, who would receive His Sacrifice in faith.

When Archbishop Viganò exposed Bergoglio for covering for pedophiles, the Society was one of the last to speak on the issue. It has been seven years of continual heresies, scandals and blasphemies, but the Society rarely denounces publicly Bergoglio. Suffice it to say, that to publish such a flimsy and error-ridden attack within a week on Pope Benedict’s Book with Cardinal Sarah raises a lot of questions as to the real goals and agenda of a priestly society which still insists that all its priests offer their Masses una cum papa Francisco.

I won’t even mention that the Italian version of this released at Rome (see here) insults the Holy Father by calling him by his baptismal name at the end of the second paragraph of the essay. Nor will I mention, that which is no secret, that the big money behind the SSPX comes from Eastern Switzerland, the power base of the St. Gallen Mafia.

 

Editorials, News

As of this morning, there are 280 human beings in the world

14 Comments

Social Media can be a very useful tool for gathering information and making connections with others who share the same ideas or different ideas than yourself. It is a sort of self publication medium used by many. And without it, most of us would not know what is going on in the world, since the Main Stream Media has long ago ceased reporting it.

But the saddest reality on social media is that it attracts a lot of persons who only care to self promote themselves. They do not care about anyone else. In fact, they have not a shred of humanity outside of serving their egos.

That’s idolatry.

Having helped my brothers care for my aged mom during the last few years of her life, which passed on All Souls Day in 2018 — please pray for her soul, her name was Doris — I had a poignant experience of the tragedy of human suffering for the elderly in today’s hedonistic world, when there is no one who really cares for them in the institutions which are supposed to care for them.

My mom was a wise woman. Before she lost her faculties from dementia, she made my brothers and I promise that we would not leave her alone in the end, not send her to a facility to be “cared for”, in short, that we would keep her at home.

So great was her trust in us and fear of the institutions of medical health, that she asked me one day in private, if it would be a sin to ask God for the grace to die at home. I told her it would certainly not be, that God loves us to ask Him for special favors, if they be pleasing to Him. And I told her several accounts I know of where others have done this and had their prayers answered. So I recommended that she say 3 Hail Mary’s every day, asking for that grace.

And Our Lady granted it. For she died at home, in my arms.

It is the only moment in my life, that I care never to forget.

So, when the Book Flap erupted last week at the Vatican and it became obvious to me that Pope Benedict XVI was being manipulated by those closest to them, you can imagine my anger that such an elderly man be abused. I am especially concerned that this is so, because I have a recording of the voice of Gänswein threatening me on the phone for having dared to ask Pope Benedict XVI if he intended to resign the petrine munus.

So I have no doubts that if he can threaten me over a burner phone, he can threaten others face to face.

For this reason, I find it INCOMPREHENSIBLE that anyone would not want Pope Benedict XVI protected. And thus I find it TOTALLY INHUMANE if there be anyone who does not care whether he be abused or not.

This is why I say, as of writing this post, I can be sure there are 280 human beings on the planet, because that is all who have, so far, signed the Petition to Donald Trump, to ask that he simply advocate for all the elderly, including Pope Benedict.

If you have not yet signed the petition, please do so. Here is the link:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/petition-president-trump-advocate-protection-all-elderly-including-pope-benedict-xvi

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POSTSCRIPT: The featured image is a real photo of Pope Benedict. It was claimed a year or two ago that he fell down and injured himself. Whatever be the cause, that would be sufficient grounds for any son to demand that his parent be moved to another facility, because a frail person should never be allowed to be unaccompanied or in a place he could fall down and be hurt. But a strange group of psychopathically inclined individuals are trying to gaslight Catholics into thinking that Benedict never suffered such an injury and that this photo is a fake, the only sin being the use of it to stir the Catholic Faithful to have pity upon Benedict. — It distracts from the Argentine, you know! — PATHETIC, that any social media platform should allow such gaslighting. And I am shocked that Gloria.TV is one of them.

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Editorials, News

Uber Pope Mundabor explains the Renunciation

5 Comments

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

I have not infrequently read the petulantly declamatory Blog, known as Mundabor. It’s a blog that can be counted on to insult Bergoglio at every turn and nearly every day. As its author often says, in other words, what is worthy of vituperation, should be daily excoriated. He has in the past identified himself as an Italian living in the U.K., and an ardent fan of Ronald Reagan and Pius XII

I am all for excoriating heretics and Antipopes. But as a Catholic I realize the danger in putting oneself up in judgement over a pope, because then you are putting yourself in a position between him and Jesus Christ, if not above Jesus Christ Himself.

The munus of the office of Saint Peter is something tremendous. If you really believe that Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of the Eternal Father, then you must cower at the words: You are the Rock, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail over Her. . .  I give to thee the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven, whatsoever you bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever you loose on earth, shall be loosed in Heaven.

I know from experience and by faith and reason, that I am not God. I know from the facts of history I am not the Pope.  The conclusion I draw is that I cannot judge the man who is the pope.

Pope Innocent III said it clearly, though not exactly in these words:  My status is such that no man can judge me, except in matters of the Faith.

Thus my preamble.

Now, my critique of Mundabor’s recent post, entitled, The Celestine Issue, which was published today, where the author goes after Pope Benedict with knives. The post is his commentary on Dr. Roberto de Mattei’s piece at Rorate Caeli.

Let me start by saying, that I welcome a discussion on the Resignation. It shows that both Dr. de Mattei and Mundabor have come to the point, psychologically, that the feel they must address the issue of who is the real pope. They are both convinced, therefore, implicitly that evidence is so overwhelming that it appears to many that it cannot be Francis. However, they both publicly still hold that Bergoglio is the Pope.

And in this vein, Mundabor writes of de Mattei’s assertion that Benedict acted out of theological error, thus:

I do not think that Benedict confuses the papacy with the Episcopacy. The man is, if you ask me, far too smart for that. I also think that, when he abdicated, Benedict did not have in mind a Bishop Emeritus, but rather the well-known figure of the Professor Emeritus in the University system; that is, a title that indicates the persistence of the role and of the attached prestige in the relevant person, without any reference to sacraments.

Why Benedict did this is evident enough to me: a man deeply rooted in history, and extremely informed about the Italian cultural environment, Benedict wanted to eat his cake and have it, which is what he has done his entire life. 

Bishop Ratzinger wanted to look progressive to “revolutionary” V II thinkers, but still appear conservative to the solid faithful when he was a theologian. As a Pope, he wanted to look like the Pope of the Latin Mass to us decent Catholics, whilst proceeding to countless progressive appointments and not only tolerating, but promoting inter faith rubbish to appease the progressive lobby.

I recommend you read the entire piece by Mundabor, at
https://mundabor.wordpress.com/2020/01/23/the-celestino-issue/

From that point onwards in the piece, however, Mundabor descends to character assassination of a Roman Pontiff. He has no idea at all what really went on in the Vatican, at any time — none of us do — and he presumes that everything was such as to merit the judgement he imposes.

He wrote this attack piece after I tried to gentle correct him in a comment, some days ago, which he promptly erased. I pointed out that a man cannot be blamed for accepting the Papacy without knowing how difficult a job it is.* The ones we should blame are those around the pope that do not help him when he has good will, to do what is good and do it well. Pope Benedict XVI had good will, but was clearly badly served by all about him. They did not fear Benedict and Benedict was not the kind of man to make others fear him. He had seen to much of that in Nazi Germany, and he found none of that in the Life of Jesus Christ.

But Mundabor would hear none of it.

So, in critiquing Mundabor’s arugment, I ask all to first recall here the words of Our Lord: With the measure you measure out, so shall it be measured back unto you.

Whenever I hear these words, I shudder. These words should make everyone cringe with terror and urge them to reexamine themselves in their judgements of others. Yes, we might have to condemn the deeds of others, but we must be always open to being merciful to all.

It would be crude and inaccurate to say that Mundabor’s argument boils down to: Accept the Resignation as valid, because, you see, Ratzinger was a whishy-washy, two-faced coward, who wanted it both ways and did not get what he bargained for. But I think that is an approximate summation, even if it is but a petulant act of emoting which does not amount to a rational argument. For, a Pope does not renounce, unless he renounces the munus, cf. Canon 332 §2. That is what the law says, and you cannot argue around it. Not even with psychology or insults.

As an ironic aside, the subtitle of Mundabor’s blog is, Tradidi quod accepi, which is Latin for I have handed down what I have received.  From this post, I guess that means that Mundabor studied under Freud or Jung, the founders of psychiatry and psychology, because he certainly did not receive this way of speaking about a Pope from Pope Innocent III or the Catholic Church.

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FOOTNOTES

* Moreover, this faultlessness in accepting being elected in Ratzinger’s case has solid historical grounds, for,  in the conclave of 2005, the Cardinals only succeeded in presenting Ratzinger as a viable candidate to the St. Gallen Mafia’s man, Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Accepting his own election, therefore, would then have been the duty of every man, not only of Cardinal Ratzinger, even if he felt disinclined to the magnitude of it.

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CREDITS:  The Featured image is a screen shot of the Article discussed above. The quotation is verbatim, and is republished here according to fair use standards.

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News

It is time to show what you believe in!

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SIGN THE PETITION!

By Andrew J. Baalman

Desiring to promote the Petition to President Trump, for the welfare of Pope Benedict and all the elderly, I wrote to all of the following individuals and organizations, using social media:

Big Pulpit, Father Z, Radical Mothering, Regina Magazine, Alexander Tschugguel, Lifesite News, John Henry Westen, Maike Hickson, 1Peter Five, Stefanie Nichols, Ann Barnhardt, Mike Church, Frank Walker, Pontificator Maximus, Live Action, Marine Le Pen, Wanderer News, Remnant News, John Zmirak, Nick Donnelly.

The only ones which responded on Twitter  were Big Pulpit, Nick Donnelly and John Zmirak who did so by retweeting the Petition Link and liking the tweet.

Those on Facebook who liked it were only Francesco Joseph Dougan, the Scottish Catholic Historian.

The message I shared when sharing the information of the Petition was this:

The serious Pro Life issue not being talked about is protecting the Elderly from Elderly Abuse, even Pope Benedict XVI, which on Thursday January 16th 2020, Archbishop Carolo Maria Vigano confirmed, Benedict is being abused. 

A Protestant on Youtube, from Texas by the name of David Lynn responded saying, and I quote, “Good Morning AJ, old age is not good to many people; but the alternative is worse! Thank you for sharing.”

A Protestant in the comment of the Ordo Militaris Radio Blog Post on the Petition, from John M said, and I quote, “Please protect Pope Benedict the 16th along with all the elderly and unborn.. Pope Benedict is being persecuted buy the Catholic Church he once headed and now is in exile..”

What do I make the faith of the Catholics in wanting to protect the Pope, and protecting the elderly? Not very high at all.

I had more comments expressing concern from the Protestants than from Catholics: even Ann Barnhardt who supposedly believes Benedict is still Pope, does not respond regarding the Petition.

It is a sad state in the Church when Catholics do not physically respond with comments, but only like and share a tweet, and not a post or a video from their own Youtube Channel.

I would say it is time for that question from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade be asked again, “It is time to see what you believe.” Do they, who call themselves Catholics and Profess to be Traditional, even believe the Pope, even a retired Pope, deserves protection from any and all elderly abuse, abuse confirmed by Archbishop Vigano?

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FromRome.Info reported on this Petition earlier this week at: https://fromrome.info/2020/01/18/petition-president-trump-to-speak-out-for-pope-benedicts-care/

We publish this report from A. J. Baalman, to shame the Catholic world into action. It is intolerable that anything get in the way of helping pope Benedict! Let’s have a change of heart and starting soliciting signatures on the petition! The very life of Pope Benedict XVI is at stake!

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