Open Letter from a Priest in Exile Re PF

I’ve said here before I hold the mental reservation that Pope Francis will someday be declared an antipope by the Church. It’s the only way I can fit the square peg of this pope and his heterodox words and actions in the round hole of Christ’s promises and Church teachings about the papacy.

That presupposes that PF was validly elected. The Church alone can declare a validly elected pope to be or have been an antipope.

However, the argument has been made, is growing and will become stronger that PF was not validly elected.

The following article makes that argument as clearly and concisely as any I’ve found. It’s an argument that we’re going to have to deal with rationally and logically.

But to some extent I can’t say I disagree with any of its points.

So my mental reservation that someday PF will be judged to have been an antipope has to include the line of reasoning in this article as a possibility also.


https://nonvenipacem.org/2023/09/29/open-letter-from-a-priest-in-exile/#comments

Open Letter from a Priest in Exile
Mark DochertyJanuary 18, 2023
Across the transom. I know this priest personally, and can vouch for his credibility, seriousness, and holiness. Take it to the bank. His personal situation requires him to remain anon, but can I beg you an Ave for Father Anonymous, please? The best part is, Father gets every point correct in this essay. Read it all, and share with confused or scandalized faithful. The synod next month will be another disaster. Bergoglio is not the pope. Warn people. Blessed Michaelmas, everyone.-nvp

Open Letter from a Priest in Exile
Upon his presentation to the waiting world on March 13th, 2013, Pope Francis struck me with a disquieting impression. Seeing the man in white on the loggia of St. Peter’s that night hit me like an unexpected punch to the gut. Dear God, I whispered, a diabolical horror mocking Holy Church has just been thrown defiantly into the Face of Christ.

For more than ten years, I have sought to understand why I experienced such an unusual reaction that night, especially since I am not inclined to be shocked by the depth and breadth of human depravity and malice. There was something different here. I could not shake off the sense that Satan was attempting a decisive assault to mortally wound the Church and sweep more souls to eternal damnation.

Deserving mention for aiding my efforts to understand what has happened in the Church are priests and bishops, as well as intrepid and tenacious laity. Special mention goes to Miss Ann Barnhardt, Mr. Mark Docherty, and Dr. Edmund Mazza.

Endowed with all the means to fulfill her mission, the Catholic Church is able, with the divine assistance promised by Jesus Christ, to extricate herself from her current woes. Men steeled by faith, sustained by hope, and moved by charity for God and souls, need only heed what St. Joan of Arc commanded: “Act, and God will act!”

Of all the ills burdening the Church today, perhaps none is more damaging than the perversion of authority by its apparent possessors, who often divorce it from the service of goodness and divinely revealed truth. Without authority—an authority licitly wielded for the good of souls and the building up of the Church—the Church, in her living members, descends into chaos and confusion. Unless the authority vested by Christ in the Sovereign Pontiff and the bishops is exercised, and exercised as Christ intends, it is replaced by a fraudulent version parading as the real thing, at worst a vicious deceiver and destroyer of the flock of Christ, a cruel and tyrannical cudgel to beat down the faithful striving to be good sons and daughters of the Church. Christ is not to be found where true authority is absent or where it is put to perverted use.

Today we witness and are all too often subjected to this perversion of authority. This abuse of authority renders null and void whatever is proposed or commanded. Yes, null and void, not worthy of our assent, cooperation, or obedience, but deserving our fitting rebuke and opposition.

I state my deep conviction regarding the problem of authority in the Church today fully aware that I am fallible. I am nonetheless grieved to see that many serious Catholics, who want to understand why their leaders are so deviant and delinquent, avoid what appears to be the proverbial elephant in the room. Notwithstanding whatever virtue and learning they might otherwise possess, they are unable to admit the possibility, let alone the reality, that Francis is not the Successor of Peter and never has been. Perhaps such an evil is too blinding to gaze upon with eyes wide open.

It is my considered opinion that Francis cannot be the reigning Sovereign Pontiff. Why not? Canon law. According to the law of the Church regarding the validity of juridical acts—a law from which the pope himself is not exempt—Pope Benedict XVI never validly resigned the papacy. Hence, no conclave could lawfully convene and elect his successor until his death.

The issue with Francis which concerns me here is not his apparent lack of the Catholic Faith. I agree with others that he is ostensibly not Catholic by any reasonable measure. However, Pope Francis is firstly a problem for the Church because he was never elected in a lawful conclave. Let me express it this way: the conclave of 2013 was a chimera and an unlawful exercise by the cardinals because Benedict XVI, failing to validly resign the papacy, remained the reigning Supreme Pontiff until his death on December 31st, 2022. The conclave of March 2013 was unlawful, and the man then elected is no pope at all. These are the indisputable conclusions drawn from the crystal-clear provisions of canon law.

Benedict’s desires, subjective state of mind, or his fanciful Teutonic theology of the Petrine primacy in no way validate so as to make operative the renunciation he announced on February 11th, 2013, and supposedly executed seventeen days later. His juridical act of resignation was invalid according to canon law itself, to whose particular relevant provisions he was bound, since he had not changed them, although he had the power to do so.

Benedict did not resign the papal office (munus), but renounced only its active exercise (ministerium). He did not give up being pope, but merely relinquished “doingpope,” if you will pardon the expression. Keep in mind that Benedict also retained the external signs, comportment and some actions proper to the pope alone until his death. He believed he could remain a pope still possessing his office (munus) and exalted station, while the active governance of the Church (ministerium) could at the same time pass to another man elected in conclave as a genuine pope. In short, he wrongly believed that the papacy could be shared and exercised by two popes at once. This is contrary to the divine constitution of the Church and the nature of the papacy established by Christ.

Given this grave and substantial error regarding the nature of the papal office, Benedict posited an act of resignation that was invalid, as canon law stipulates. He was attempting to commit himself to doing something impossible, thus rendering his act of resignation invalid. His act effected no resignation from office at all. His unique dignity as Supreme Pontiff remained as it had been before: the status quo ante held until his death.

Suppose for the sake of argument that Francis were overtly Catholic and even a saint. He would still not be pope nor could he be, unless he were elected in a lawful conclave following the valid resignation or death of Benedict.

The near-universal acceptance of Francis as pope for ten-plus years by the members of the Church is not sufficient to validate his supposed claim to the papacy. Such an argument presupposes that he was elected in a lawful conclave, and he was not. This makes him since March 13th, 2013, until the present a usurper of the papal throne, an anti-pope.

Con’t

 

Con’t

To suggest that we have no way to solve the problem of Francis but must endure him until the Church in the future judges his status and relationship to the Church Militant is an implicit denial of the Church’s ability as a perfect society to recognize the ills that afflict her and to remedy them for the good of souls. It is to deny her ability in our present circumstances to recognize in real time what I have just expounded above about Benedict and Francis.

Many observers of our current crisis in the Church would object to my assessment of Francis as the anti-pope and usurper of the Roman See that he is as a violation of the principle that “[t]he first see is judged by no one.” In other words, the Roman See, precisely the Roman Pontiff, is to be judged by no one. This is to say that no one may lawfully render a juridical judgment against a reigning pope. I agree. I am not handing down a juridical judgment at all. Not one of us, myself included, can render a legal judgment against a reigning pope. None of us has the authority to do so; we are all subject to him. I am not hereby judging Francis in the strict juridical sense. I am judging him according to the common, broader meaning of that term, that is, to evaluate, assess or discriminate. I am recognizing that the man, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is no pope at all. I arrive at this reasonable and logical conclusion based on observable facts and common sense in light of canon law.

Furthermore, those are not to be considered schismatic who reject Francis for the reasons I have laid out above. Theologians make this clear. For example, the Spanish Jesuit theologian Francisco de Lugo (1580-1652) states: “Neither is someone a schismatic for denying his subjection to the Pontiff on the grounds that he has solidly founded [‘probabiliter’] doubts concerning the legitimacy of his election or his power [refers to Sanchez and Palao].” (Disp., De Virt. Fid. Div., disp xxv, sect iii, nn. 35-8). (Tip of the hat to Miss Ann Barnhardt.)

How can the problem of Francis and his anti-papacy be solved on the practical level? It would seem necessary and reasonable for members of the hierarchy, especially the cardinals, to expose and explain to the Church the ecclesial reality since February 11, 2013, and to make clear the cardinals’ duty and intention to proceed to the election of a worthy successor to Pope Benedict by lawful conclave. While this appears utterly impossible and ridiculous at first glance given the current state of the hierarchy, we cannot forget how God and men have moved in concert in the past. Remember, it only takes one man to stand up and declare the truth to shake the foundations of a lying and tyrannical regime. Recall also Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. One boy from the crowd declared the truth: “The Emperor is not wearing anything at all.” At this, the crowd abandoned its collective fear and delusion, embracing the reality that the emperor was naked indeed. The Bergoglian house of cards cannot abide the full force of truth, no matter how few proclaim it. Nor can it survive if the ranks of the truth-tellers swell.

History proves that the Church can set things aright regarding her internal affairs, even though solutions have not been spelled out in detail by popes, theologians, canon lawyers, scholars or saints for all the various problems that can arise. We need only look at the actions of St. Bernard in the 12th century. He supported the lawful pope, Innocent II, against the anti-pope Anacletus II. The Roman population supported the anti-pope, but the saint eventually convinced them to give their allegiance to the rightful pope. The saint had no qualms about assessing the situation and taking action against the popular acceptance of an anti-pope. We can also note the unconventional healing of the Great Western Schism at the Council of Constance nearly 300 years later. In each case, we see that bold action was both possible and necessary on the part of human agents.

Perhaps the appeal to divine intervention as the only way out of our present impasse is but a shameful excuse for a kind of paralyzing despair or quietism that leaves the Bride of Christ naked to her enemies, scorned and humiliated, abandoned even by those who should be her friends and defenders. I would propose in response to such bystanders that divine intervention did occur in the resolution of past crises, but not independent of human cooperation. God intervened by moving generous and bold souls to action, and He was with them in all their efforts for the advancement of His kingdom. “Act, and God will act!”

Some voices now publicly proclaim that Francis is not pope because he is a heretic and has excommunicated himself from the Mystical Body of Christ. Some of them assert that he may very well have never been fit for the Petrine office, believing he was a heretic at the time of his supposed election.

Others dispute this claim of automatic excommunication in light of the various distinctions that must be made between the internal dispositions of the man and his juridical status as pope. They presume, of course, that he had been participating as a rightful cardinal-elector in a lawful conclave. They say we must consider Francis as pope until the Church formally judges the matter and declares the invalidity of his reign. By then, Francis and the rest of us may be long dead. There is nothing to do while Francis lives but to suffer and wait for some future official judgment from the Church.

Still others insist that it would be impossible to ever have a true pope who was at the same time a formal heretic. In other words, a formal heretic, manifest, public and pertinacious in his heresy, has never occupied the throne of Peter, nor could he. Otherwise, Christ’s promise to Peter to make him the “rock” upon which the Church is built and by whom his brethren are strengthened would be a lie. Impossible and blasphemous!

You see what a mess we are in today. We are attempting to slog through it while maintaining, please God, our sanity, our Catholic Faith, and the state of grace. We should all agree that we must at a minimum resist the evils of Francis and distance ourselves from the harm he is inflicting on the Church. Beyond this, you may not agree with my conclusions, nor would I impose them on you. Do your own investigation of the matter. You may be surprised by what you find. Sadly, many refuse to investigate at all, even though they know something is foul and amiss with Francis. Perhaps they prefer a comfortable and dishonest ignorance. I do not know their motives, but I deplore their failure.

Each of us must do his best to understand and navigate the current crisis in order to please God and save his soul in the Barque of Peter. That requires a solid Catholic life, a commitment to prudence coupled with magnanimity and an unwavering trust in God. It requires a lively charity that seeks God above all and desires to draw all men, even the most ignorant, sinful and despicable, to a participation in the divine life here below and in the world to come.

Still something more is asked of us. It seems to me that until we seriously and thoroughly address Benedict’s actions and the Bergoglian terror unleashed in the Church, we will continue to be burdened by chaos, confusion, and division. Francis’ usurpation and attempted destruction of the papacy must be recognized and denounced, as the man himself must be for his daring sacrilege. We must admit that Benedict remained pope until his death on December 31st, 2022.

My hope is that we may awaken fellow Catholics, most importantly members of the hierarchy who still possess the Catholic Faith, to help lift the Bride of Christ from the depths of her public humiliation and to relieve the misery of her bitter captivity. She is suffering at the hands of those who hate and despise her. Her enemies are no less Christ’s enemies. May we, with His help, expose and defeat them, so that His reign may advance in the minds and hearts of men and in the world presently ensnared in a mesh of monstrous lies. Let us accomplish what God asks of us, for His greater glory, for the triumph of His Church, and for the salvation of souls.

 

Or Pope Francis AND the one to come after him are both antipopes?

 

There are multiple ways in which the Church could eventually declare he was an antipope:

1) Invalid resignation on the part of BXVI which would invalidate the subsequent conclave - because BXVI was either

a) in error (in thinking he could bifurcate the papacy, maintaining the munus while passing on the ministerium to his successor) or
b) coerced, by

i) the West and their shutting down Vatican access to international banking, which occurred just prior to him announcing his resignation and was restored within hours of his actual resignation and
ii) the credible threats of assassination which were investigated at BXVIs behest in the year leading up to his resignation​

2) Excommunication of Bergoglio and others during the conclave in which he was elected, thereby negating his election, due to blatant documented violations of the laws written by JPII regarding papal conclaves which incurred automatic excommunication, or

3) multiple and ongoing instances of manifest grave heresy on the part of PF over the last ten years.

The first two instances do NOT require the Church to “judge a pope” because if either of these are the case, PF is not, nor ever was, the pope, regardless of any claims of “universal acclimation” to the contrary.

The third would require the Church to call a council to declare him a manifest grave heretic and declare him no longer pope.

In all 40 historical cases where the Church declared a papal claimant to be an antipope they did so WHILE HE WAS ALIVE; they did not wait till he was dead to pass such a judgment or otherwise wait for Divine Intervention. It would have been malfeasance to do so.

Any of these three cases would mean PF was an antipope; his heretical words and actions do not permit of a conclusion that he’s “just a bad pope.”

“Bad popes” historically have lead immoral personal lives. They were not guilty of heresy in word and deed and destroying the Faith.

PF has no documented immoral personal behavior.

Much worse, far worse by orders of magnitude, he as “pope” is undermining the Faith and leading souls to perdition.

This is the greatest chastisement God could inflict on the Church.

In my own mind, I’m now leaning more towards the first two above for why I believe eventually PF will be declared to have been an antipope.

 

Very interesting. Is she credible?

 

Naming the homosexual and heterodox Archbishop Victor Fernández to head the CDF is one of PF’s most heretical acts to date.
https://catholicherald.co.uk/clash-...ggle-between-two-opposed-theological-visions/




Clash of the Prefects: An Olympian struggle between two opposed theological visions
Diane Montagna
September 28, 2023 at 12:48 pm

Clash of the Titans is a nearly 50- year-old fantasy action film based on ancient Greek mythology. Since 2013, quite a few Catholics have reported the sensation of being trapped in a remake of the 1970s.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is a giant of a man in several senses. Cardinal Victor Fernández (not so much) has been called upon by Pope Francis to step into his shoes. It’s generally agreed that, as Müller was a prelate characteristic of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate who survived for a time into the present era, so Fernández is the first prefect to be fully Pope Francis’s own man.

These two men have now entered the Synodal arena armed with clashing theological visions: one laser-focused on divine revelation, the inerrancy of sacred scripture and the Apostolic Tradition; the other swathed in the “recent magisterium” of Pope Francis and equally determined that our thought “be transfigured with his criteria”, particularly in matters of moral and pastoral theology.

In his first interview after assuming his new role as prefect, the then-Archbishop Fernández stated that the Pope not only has a duty to guard and preserve the “static” deposit of faith, but also a second, unique charism (hitherto unknown), only given to Peter and his successors, which is “a living and active gift … at work in the person of the Holy Father”.

“I do not have this charism, nor do you, nor does Cardinal Burke. Today only Pope Francis has it,” Cardinal Fernández told Edward Pentin. “Now, if you tell me that some bishops have a special gift of the Holy Spirit to judge the doctrine of the Holy Father, we will enter into a vicious circle (where anyone can claim to have the true doctrine) and that would be heresy and schism.” Fernández appears to believe that while the deposit of faith remains unchanged, the understanding of it held by the Church can pass through radically different, even contradictory phases. “Today the Church condemns torture, slavery and the death penalty, but this did not happen with the same clarity in other centuries. Dogmas were necessary because before them there were issues that were not sufficiently clear,” he said.

Fernández has consistently maintained an openness to the blessing of same-sex unions so long as such unions are not confused with marriage, which “at this point” the Church understands as “an indissoluble union between a man and a woman who, in their differences, are naturally open to beget life”.

Just days after Pope Francis appointed Fernández, Cardinal Müller, who has described the October Synod as “the great hour of manipulation”, confirmed the CDF had kept a file raising concerns about his successor’s orthodoxy. Müller seems less sure that it would be impossible to reach a negative verdict on the doctrine of a reigning pontiff.

Pope Innocent III famously said: “Only on account of sin committed against the faith can I be judged by the Church.” A handful of former popes have been censured for aberrant doctrinal positions or have recanted of opinions they had taught as pope. Pope Honorius I was even anathematised by three ecumenical councils and his successors.

For Müller, to preclude the possibility of an erring pontiff even in areas beyond the scope of infallibility would be to deify the Pope and transform the papacy into the strawman of Protestant apologetics. “The formal authority of the Pope cannot be separated from the substantive connection with holy scripture, Apost-olic Tradition and the dogmatic decisions of the Magisterium that preceded him,” he said re- cently. “Otherwise, as Luther misunderstood the papacy, he would put himself in the place of God, who is the sole author of His revealed truth, instead of simply witnessing faithfully, in the authority of Christ, to the revealed faith in an unabridged and unadulterated manner and presenting it authentically to the Church.”

Blessings for homosexual couples would, in Müller’s view, cross the doctrinal Rubicon and undermine the position of the reigning pontiff. “To bless the immoral behavior of persons of the same or opposite sex is a direct contradiction of God’s Word and will; it is a gravely sinful blasphemy,” he said. Were the Synod to approve blessings for homosexual couples, “every ecclesiastical official would have lost his authority and no Catholic would be obliged any longer to religiously obey a heretical or schismatic bishop”.

The faithful are therefore faced with an Olympian struggle between two opposed theological visions: one in which black is white if the Pope says so; and another in which, in the words of Vatican I, “the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the Apostles”.

 

I agree 100%.

 

Now Vigano is also implying Pope Francis is not the pope, not because of heresy but

“…this criminal intention emerges from the cunning by which the cardinals who were accomplices to the plot collaborated in deceiving the cardinals who voted in good faith. I wonder, then: are we not in the presence of a defect of consent that affects the validity of the election? Without saying that the very co-presence of a renouncing pope and a reigning pope is already in itself an element that leads us to believe that they had a false concept of the essence of the papacy, considered to be a role that can be shared with others. Let us not forget that the distinction between munus and ministerium is arbitrary and that there cannot be a Pope who dedicates himself to the “ministry of prayer” and another one who governs.”