Jorge Mario Bergoglio's Version of Beat the Clock

The speed with which Jorge Mario Bergoglio is acting to purge “conservative” “bishops” as well as others appointed by Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II or Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI who have aided and abetted clerical abuses while not being sufficiently “progressivist” for the Argentine Apostate’s liking seems to indicate that “Pope Francis’s” recent hospitalization may have brought with it news that his end is near. It could also be the case that, having recent the ten-year mark in his antipapal governance, Senor Jorge believes that the time is right to move with alacrity to dispatch “reactionaries” and thus to remove all traces of any immediate influence of his two immediate predecessors as the universal public faces of apostasy from the conciliar curia and from the ranks of the conciliar hierarchy.

Bergoglio’s appointment of “Archbishop” Victor Manuel Fernandez, who had a major role in drafting Evangelii Gaudium, November 24, 2013 (see Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part one, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part two, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part three, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part four, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part five, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part six, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part seven) , and the infamous “apostolic exhortation,” Amoris Laetitia, March 19, 2016 (see Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men: A Brief Overview, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men: Another Brief Overview, Jorge's Exhortaion of Self-Justification Before Men, part three,  Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part four, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part five, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part six, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part seven, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part eight, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part nine, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part ten, THE END!), as the prefect of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s misnamed Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is an “in your face” proclamation that the days of the supposed “pit bill of doctrinal” orthodoxy, Joseph Alois “Cardinal” Ratzinger are over. No more denunciation of doctrinal errors. No more references to moral theology manuals that do not reflect the “smell of the sheep.” Jorge’s appointment of Victor Manuel Fernandez is his own death knell to any kind of moral certitude, thus paving the way wide for the endorsement of fornication in cases where couples have a “commitment” to each other, the formal acceptance of divorce and civil remarriage without the fig leaf of a conciliar decree of marital nullity, contraception, abortion in certain “hard” cases,” euthanasia in the cases of the terminally ill, and, of course, the “blessing” of sodomite unions in perdition, to say nothing of endorsing gender mutilation in the name of “diversity,” “love,” and “toleration. It is only a matter of time before the offices of the congregation, which are housed at Santa Uffizio 11 outside the Vatican’s walls, will be adorned with the rainbow flag. The so-called Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under Victor Manuel Fernandez will become the Congregation of Moral Relativism, Casuistry, and Accompaniment of Hardened Sinners.

How can I say such things?

Well, for one, we have the marching orders that the false “pontiff” has given to his long time friend in apostasy, Victor Manuel Fernandez:

Pope Francis has named Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández, his longtime personal theologian and ghostwriter, to lead the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Argentine prelate succeeds Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, SJ, 79, who has been prefect of the dicastery since 2017.

Fernández, almost 61, will take up his new post in the middle of September, the Vatican said. The prolific writer has been archbishop of La Plata, Argentina, since 2018.

“As the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, I entrust to you a task that I consider very valuable,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter to Fernández, published July 1 with the announcement of his appointment.

The pope said the dicastery at times has promoted pursuing “doctrinal errors” over “promoting theological knowledge.”

“What I expect from you is certainly something very different,” Francis said. “I ask you as prefect to dedicate your personal commitment in a more direct way to the main purpose of the dicastery, which is ‘guarding the faith.’”

Fernández posted a photo of himself with Pope Francis on Twitter on June 30, the day before the announcement of his appointment as doctrine prefect.

He said he spent the week with the pope and called it “the new stage for Francis.”

“He works more hours than anyone else in the Vatican,” the archbishop wrote in Spanish. “Here he is seen tired after five hours with dense stuff, but after a siesta he was perfect and happy.”

Fernández is a controversial figure in the Church in Argentina, in part because of some of his past publications. The theologian has published more than 300 articles and books.

Pope Francis, who has known Fernández for decades, reportedly entrusted him with drafting his first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, a text in which the archbishop cited his own prior scholarship as a source document.

The archbishop was also reputedly involved in the drafting of Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’ 2016 apostolic exhortation on love in the family, which followed the Church’s two synods on the family.

Fernández was heavily involved in both synods on the family in 2014 and 2015 and was on the commission for the writing of the 2015 synod’s final report.

Quoting his apostolic exhortations Evangelii Gaudium and Gaudete et Exsultate, Pope Francis wrote that Fernández’s task as the new head of the Vatican’s doctrine office “should express that the Church ‘encourages the charism of theologians and their theological research efforts’ as long as ‘they are not content with a desk theology,’ with ‘a cold, hard logic that seeks to dominate everything.’ It will always be true that reality is superior to the idea.”

Fernández was born in 1962 in the small rural town of Alcira, in the Province of Córdoba. He was ordained a priest in August 1986 in Río Cuarto, a mostly rural diocese. In 1988 he obtained a degree in theology with a biblical specialization at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and then obtained a doctorate in theology at the UCA in 1990. He was pastor of Santa Teresita in Río Cuarto (Córdoba) from 1993 to 2000 and was founder and director of the Jesús Buen Pastor Lay Formation Institute and Teacher Training Center in the same city.

In the early 1990s he moved to Buenos Aires, where he was appointed a consultor to several commissions within the Argentinean bishops’ conference and the Latin American Bishops Council (CELAM).

Having shown a great capacity for writing, Fernández was brought by then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as an expert to the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American Bishops, held in 2007 at the Brazilian Marian shrine of Aparecida. 

Aparecida, many sources have claimed, solidified the relationship between the future pope and the theologian.

From 2008 to 2009 he was dean of the faculty of theology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and president of the Argentine Theological Society.

On Dec. 15, 2009, Cardinal Bergoglio appointed Fernández as rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina. However, Fernández was not able to take the oath of office until ( May 20, 2011, after he had answered objections to his appointment raised by Vatican officials who expressed concerns about the orthodoxy of certain elements of his scholarship.

An avid writer, by the time Fernández was chosen by Bergoglio as the UCA rector, he had written hundreds of articles and books, including, “Incarnated Spiritual Theology” (2004), a book that was featured in the Argentinean soap opera “Esperanza Mía,” about an illicit love affair between a priest and a nun.

The book commonly regarded as his most unusual is the 1995 work “Heal Me With Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing.” Regarding the book, Fernández explained that “in these pages I want to synthesize the popular feeling, what people feel when they think of a kiss, what they experience when they kiss ... So, trying to synthesize the immense richness of life, these pages emerged in favor of kissing. I hope that they help you kiss better, that they motivate you to release the best of yourself in a kiss.”

The book has disappeared from most official lists of Fernández’s works.

Pope Francis appointed Fernández the titular Archbishop of Tiburnia on May 13, 2013, thus making him the first rector of UCA to become an archbishop. (Pope Francis appoints Argentine Archbishop Fernández as head of doctrine dicastery.)

Before continuing with a discussion of Victor Manuel Fernandez’s “theology,” such as it is, it is important to note that Joseph “Cardinal” Ratzinger was no defender of the Catholic Faith, which he did not possess. “Cardinal” Ratzinger used his twenty-three years, five months as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to, among other things, explicitly endorse dogmatic relativism, rehabilitate Antonio Rosmini (forty of whose errors were condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1888), declare that Nestorian canon that did not include explicit words of consecration was nevertheless “valid,” and, among many other things, declared that a “Jewish reading of the Bible was a possible one” that it could be not said that every page in the Old Testament points unequivocally to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (see the appendices below). This is not exactly a record of a “pit bull” of orthodoxy. However, Jorge Mario Bergoglio believes that any kind of reiteration of Catholic doctrine, even is couched in conciliarspeak, does not touch the “hearts” of Catholics as it is steeped in “cold, hard logic,” which, ironically, Ratzinger himself rejected early in his seminary days as he came under the influence of the heretical New Theologians and their Hegelianism.

Additionally, Ratzinger chose his protégé, William Levada, to be his successor as the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith on May 13, 2005, even though (or, quite perhaps, because) Levada had written in his doctoral dissertation that one can never know moral truth with certainty. William "Cardinal" Levada's defections from the Holy Faith have been chronicled many times on this site (see  Generating Controversy and Negative Press and Rescind the Appointment at Once, both of which were written during my own "resist and recognize days in 2005; Anathematized by His Own Words, No Need to be in Limbo Any Longer, Piracy, Conciliar Style, Red Carpet For A Modernist, Words Really Do Matter, Short And To The Catholic Point and Apostates Reprimanding Apostates.)

Levada gave us the "unofficial" casting off of the doctrine of Limbo five years ago in The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised and essentially jettisoned six months later a thousand years of history and doctrine to redefine the papacy to the liking of the Orthodox in the The Ravenna Document, another one of those "unofficial" conciliar documents that make their way into the consciousness of most who hear of them as being quite official, and gave us several "clarifications," including Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church to "clarify" the meaning of the word "subsist" in Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, and a Note to "clarify" Ratzinger/Benedict's comments in an "unofficial" book length interview concerning the use of a certain type of prophylactic (see also Making a Mockery of Catholicism). Yet it is that some delusional folks out there in cyberspace who were immersed in the Motu world dared to write that Levada had not done anything "egregious" as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Oy!

Moreover, this “defender of orthodoxy” once said the following to Father Eugene Heidt when he, Levada, was the conciliar “archbishop” of Portland, Oregon:

Archbishop Levada, while Ordinary of Oregon, also had run-ins with Father Eugene Heidt, a feisty traditional priest. Levada eventually illicitly “suspended” Father Heidt for his no-compromise adherence to Tradition. Before the “suspension”, during a meeting with the Archbishop, Father Heidt complained that the Archbishop’s Pastoral Letter on the Eucharist contained no mention of Transubstantiation. Levada replied that Transubstantiation is a “long and difficult term” and that “we don’t use it any more”. (John Vennari, “Invincible or Inculpable,” Catholic Family News, June 2005. This attack on Transubstantiation was no accident as Levada learned it from his mentor, Joseph Ratzinger. See Bishop Donald Sanborn’s Modernism Resurrected: Ratzinger on the Resurrection.)

It was as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that William Levada endorsed dogmatic evolutionism in an interview he gave to Whispers in the Loggia:

The role of the Church in that dialogue between an individual and his or her God, says the Cardinal, is not to be the first interlocutor, but the role is indispensable. "We believe that the apostles and their successors received the mission to interpret revelation in new circumstances and in the light of new challenges. That creates a living tradition that is much larger than the simple and strict passing of existing answers, insights and convictions from one generation to another.

But at the end of the day there has to be an instance that can decide whether a specific lifestyle is coherent with the principles and values of our faith, that can judge whether our actions are in accordance with the commandment to love your neighbor. The mission of the Church is not to prohibit people from thinking, investigate different hypotheses, or collect knowledge. Its mission is to give those processes orientation". . . . (Levada Gives Rare Interview.)

The mission of the Catholic Church is to sanctify and to save souls.

As Pope Gregory XVI noted in Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834, Mother Church brings forth Our Lord’s teaching without so much as a slight taint or varnish of error:

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.) 

Pope Saint Gregory XVI was condemning an approach to doctrinal truth that was propagated by the late Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict, a progenitor of novelty and innovation in his own Modernist right, and that he taught to his own students, including William Levada, thus making short work of the Act of Faith:

O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art One God in Three Divine Persons. I believe that Thy Divine Son became Man, died for our sins, and will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which Thy Holy Catholic Church teaches because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. (Act of Faith.)

The Catholic Faith is certain.

The conciliar faith is filled with uncertainties, complexities, and contradictions that leave much to the “individual” to “decide” even though there is nothing in the objective order of things to decide except to obedient to Holy Mother Church.

William Levada’s successor at Santa Uffizio 11 was another protégé of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Gerhard Mueller, a doctrinal “pit bull” who denied both the bodily Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Here is a summary of Muller's record as found on a European website, Catholic Conservation:

 He insulted the mother of God, the Eucharist and the Church. It is a foretaste of what is to come from the post-conciliar church headed by Benedict XVI (Cathcon- small modification of the text here as kreuz.net expressed themselves in rather more vivid terms than I would be prepared- but the catastrophe of this appointment cannot be hidden, along with the appointment of Annibale Bugnini's reincarnation, Bishop Roche to be Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship- although Bugnini for all his grave errors had studied the liturgy very thoroughly)

Today at noon is the Vatican announced the appointment of the Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller of Regensburg, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Cathcon- removed the adjective heretical- but with these views he would have stayed a parish priest in all ages but our own). The future Cardinal is known for his irascible nature. He is an ice-cold careerist, to whom no truth is sacred (Cathcon- surely an exaggeration but see below). His doctorate and postdoctoral thesis were supervised by the arch-liberal theologian, Cardinal Karl Lehmann (Cathcon- who was a research assistant to Karl Rahner).  His doctoral thesis dealt with the protestant God-is-dead theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer († 1945) (Cathcon- again we are dealing with post-war German traumas about religion- of which a significant part of the post-conciliar world is an expression) . In 1986, the future Bishop Müller became Professor of Dogmatics at the decaying University of Munich.

Virginity does not mean virginity

In his book Catholic dogma : the study and practice of theology, he denies the dogma of the virginity of Mary.  The Virgin Birth is "not about the different physiological features in the natural process of birth (things such as the opening of the birth canal, the lack of damage to the hymen and the lack of birth pains), but the healing and redeeming influence of the grace of the Saviour on human nature. " 

The Body of Christ is not the Body of Christ in 2002, the Bishop in his work, "The Mass - source of Christian life" denied the transubstantiation of the Host during Holy Mass. He said that the Sacrament should not be described as "Body and Blood." This leads to “misunderstandings." Otherwise, one would think, "flesh and blood stood here for the physical and biological components of the historical person Jesus." It "also does not simply mean the glorified body of the risen Lord." (Cathcon- hopefully the Bishop still maintains the identity of the Sacrifice of the Mass with that on Calvary, save that the Sacrifice is not bloody. This latter is not to say that Our Lord is not truly present in flesh and blood- lest there be any misunderstanding of my own position)

Transubstantiation is not transubstantiation

The Communion creates "unity with Jesus Christ, mediated by eating and drinking of the bread and wine. Alone in inter-personal relations can something like a letter between the people be established and at the reception, one can say the affection of the addressee can be seen and embodied. " Bread and wine are only "signs of his saving presence." “

Müller sees this as transubstantiation

"'The essential understanding of bread and wine must be established anthropologically. The natural character of these gifts [bread and wine] as the fruit of the earth and of human labour, as the expression of natural and cultural product which illustrates the nutrition and strengthening of the people and society under the sign of the common meal. " This "natural essence of the bread and wine" would be "transformed by God in this sense that the essence of the bread and wine now display and realise the salvific communion with God."  (Cathcon- this belief is Lutheran and can only be considered Catholic on a good day).

The Church is not the Church

On 11October 2011 held the belief Bock offers a eulogy for the former Bavarian Protestant Bishop Johannes Friedrich who tolerated homosexual partners for his clergy. He asserted here that Catholics and Protestants "are united in what we call the visible church" It was no longer a case of churches side by side, but that Protestants were a "division within the church".

Everything is distorted

Mons. Müller contradicted the document 'Dominus Jesus' of the Congregation of 6 August 2000. . This document must not be understood literally. The statement that the protestant community, is "not at all a church" is is "not theologically correct." - says the Bishop. 

'Dominus Jesus' only describes the difference between a Protestant regional church and a Catholic diocese -. allegedly without judging them , "The Catholic magisterium" - Msgr. Muller said herself - was "far from denying" that Protestants were a church.

(Cathcon- one is reminded of Cardinal Hume's comments that the statement that homosexual activity was intrinsically disordered in the Letter to the Bishops on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons sounded unintentionally harsh in English translation from the Latin.

One cannot hold out much hope for further clarification of the notorious phrase subsistit in while Bishop Müller is at the CDF. It now means all things to all people and remarkably came from the pen of Father Sebastian Tromp SJ, who was nothing if not a conservative of great learning. He was clear that the meaning of subsistit was close to identity, however in the post-conciliar world one is reminded of Alice in Wonderland.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all." 

Through the Looking Glass. 

Now that Bishop Müller is master of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one can only entertain enormous fears about the meaning he will put on the words of the great dogmas of the Faith. (Catholic Church Conservation,)

As is ever the case when dealing with false opposites, Gerhard Muller has earned a reputation as a “conservative” even though he is a Modernist of the first order because he appears to many Catholics who are unfamiliar with his record to be a “defender of the faith” when compared with Jorge Mario Bergoglio. This is somewhat akin to believing that Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., is a “conservative” when compared to Fidel Castro. There is no such thing as gradations when it comes to the Holy Faith. One is either a Catholic or he is not. Gerhard Mueller is not.

As is the case Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself, Victor Manuel Fernandez is simply the result of an “evolutionary” process within the counterfeit church of conciliarism in that, while each of his predecessors at the Palazzo Uffizio have been Modernists, Fernandez’s Modernism is more simply more overt and thus unapologetic in his defense of objectively moral evils that he believes must be “re-evaluated” in light of the “needs” of the “people.”

In this regard, therefore, it is useful to recall that Bergoglio’s Evangelii Gaudium, which was the work of two Latin Americans (Victor Manuel Fernandez of Argentina and Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, who has taken up what amounts to “permanent residency” in the Vatican in recent years to avoid charges relating to widespread sodomy within his archidocese at home and his own personal financial corruption-- Maradiaga responds to allegations of corruption and Honduran Seminarians Allege Widespread Homosexual Misconduct), disparaged the importance of doctrine in favor of a false concept of “mercy”:

161. It would not be right to see this call to growth exclusively or primarily in terms of doctrinal formation. It has to do with “observing” all that the Lord has shown us as the way of responding to his love. Along with the virtues, this means above all the new commandment, the first and the greatest of the commandments, and the one that best identifies us as Christ’s disciples: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you”(Jn 15:12). Clearly, whenever the New Testament authors want to present the heart of the Christian moral message, they present the essential requirement of love for one’s neighbour: “The one who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the whole law… therefore love of neighbour is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom 13:8, 10). These are the words of Saint Paul, for whom the commandment of love not only sums up the law but constitutes its very heart and purpose: “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself’” (Gal 5:14). To his communities Paul presents the Christian life as a journey of growth in love: “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all” (1 Th 3:12). Saint James likewise exhorts Christians to fulfil “the royal law according to the Scripture: You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (2:8), in order not to fall short of any commandment. . . .

194. This message is so clear and direct, so simple and eloquent, that no ecclesial interpretation has the right to relativize it. The Church’s reflection on these texts ought not to obscure or weaken their force, but urge us to accept their exhortations with courage and zeal. Why complicate something so simple? Conceptual tools exist to heighten contact with the realities they seek to explain, not to distance us from them. This is especially the case with those biblical exhortations which summon us so forcefully to brotherly love, to humble and generous service, to justice and mercy towards the poor. Jesus taught us this way of looking at others by his words and his actions. So why cloud something so clear? We should not be concerned simply about falling into doctrinal error, but about remaining faithful to this light-filled path of life and wisdom. For “defenders of orthodoxy are sometimes accused of passivity, indulgence, or culpable complicity regarding the intolerable situations of injustice and the political regimes which prolong them”. (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Evangelii Gaudium, November 26, 2013.)

Aided and abetted by the likes of Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga and Victor Manuel Fernandez. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is forever attempting to posit a false dichotomy between doctrinal fidelity and charity. This effort is unspeakably insidious as true charity starts with love of God, and one cannot truly love God unless one adheres to everything that He has taught to us. To disparage the importance of doctrinal formation in order to seek to replace it with a nebulous kind of social work that is performed to "prove" how "good" and "kind" Christians can be is nothing other than to place a complete seal of approval upon the false principles of The Sillon that were condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910. It is also to make a mockery of the very words of Our Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the entire patrimony of the Catholic Church:

[11] The Jews therefore sought him on the festival day, and said: Where is he? [12] And there was much murmuring among the multitude concerning him. For some said: He is a good man. And others said: No, but he seduceth the people. [13] Yet no man spoke openly of him, for fear of the Jews. [14] Now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. [15] And the Jews wondered, saying: How doth this man know letters, having never learned?

[16] Jesus answered them, and said: My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. [17] If any man do the will of him; he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. [18] He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, he is true, and there is no injustice in him. [19] Did Moses not give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? [20] Why seek you to kill me? The multitude answered, and said: Thou hast a devil; who seeketh to kill thee?  (John 7: 11-20.)

Saint John the Evangelist, the only Apostle who stood at the foot of the Cross along with Our Lady and Saint Mary Magdalene, Mary of Cleophas and Salome, explained that we cannot truly love God unless we keep His Commandments: 

Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And every one that loveth him who begot, loveth him also who is born of him. In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not heavy. (1 John 5: 1-3)

There is no dichotomy between love of doctrinal truth and the provision of the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy as to contend this is to blaspheme the infallible guidance of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Who inspired the Fathers of Holy Mother Church's true general councils to care for nothing so much as to So the truths of the Holy Faith, condemning doctrinal errors as circumstances required them to do so.

It is very interesting that Bergoglio's quote at the end of Paragraph 194 of Evangelii Gaudium cited above ("“defenders of orthodoxy are sometimes accused of passivity, indulgence, or culpable complicity regarding the intolerable situations of injustice and the political regimes which prolong them”) came from a conciliar document, Libertatis Nuntius, that was issued on August 6, 1984, by the so-called Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and was signed by none other than, yes, Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger. Here is the full text of the paragraph from which Bergoglio quoted:

18. The defenders of orthodoxy are sometimes accused of passivity, indulgence, or culpable complicity regarding the intolerable situations of injustice and the political regimes which prolong them. Spiritual conversion, the intensity of the love of God and neighbor, zeal for justice and peace, the Gospel meaning of the poor and of poverty, are required of everyone, and especially of pastors and those in positions of responsibility. The concern for the purity of the faith demands giving the answer of effective witness in the service of one's neighbor, the poor and the oppressed in particular, in an integral theological fashion. By the witness of their dynamic and constructive power to love, Christians will thus lay the foundations of this "civilization of love" of which the Conference of Puebla spoke, following Paul VI. [34] Moreover there are already many priests, religious, and lay people who are consecrated in a truly evangelical way for the creation of a just society. (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Libertatis Nuntius, August 6, 1984.)

Pope Pius VI explained the methods of innovators such as the conciliar "pontiffs" to promote error in the name of the Catholic Church: 

[The Ancient Doctors] knew the capacity of innovators in the art of deception. In order not to shock the ears of Catholics, they sought to hide the subtleties of their tortuous maneuvers by the use of seemingly innocuous words such as would allow them to insinuate error into souls in the most gentle manner. Once the truth had been compromised, they could, by means of slight changes or additions in phraseology, distort the confession of the faith which is necessary for our salvation, and lead the faithful by subtle errors to their eternal damnation. This manner of dissimulating and lying is vicious, regardless of the circumstances under which it is used. For very good reasons it can never be tolerated in a synod of which the principal glory consists above all in teaching the truth with clarity and excluding all danger of error.

"Moreover, if all this is sinful, it cannot be excused in the way that one sees it being done, under the erroneous pretext that the seemingly shocking affirmations in one place are further developed along orthodox lines in other places, and even in yet other places corrected; as if allowing for the possibility of either affirming or denying the statement, or of leaving it up the personal inclinations of the individual – such has always been the fraudulent and daring method used by innovators to establish error. It allows for both the possibility of promoting error and of excusing it.

"It is as if the innovators pretended that they always intended to present the alternative passages, especially to those of simple faith who eventually come to know only some part of the conclusions of such discussions which are published in the common language for everyone's use. Or again, as if the same faithful had the ability on examining such documents to judge such matters for themselves without getting confused and avoiding all risk of error. It is a most reprehensible technique for the insinuation of doctrinal errors and one condemned long ago by our predecessor Saint Celestine who found it used in the writings of Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, and which he exposed in order to condemn it with the greatest possible severity. Once these texts were examined carefully, the impostor was exposed and confounded, for he expressed himself in a plethora of words, mixing true things with others that were obscure; mixing at times one with the other in such a way that he was also able to confess those things which were denied while at the same time possessing a basis for denying those very sentences which he confessed.

"In order to expose such snares, something which becomes necessary with a certain frequency in every century, no other method is required than the following: Whenever it becomes necessary to expose statements which disguise some suspected error or danger under the veil of ambiguity, one must denounce the perverse meaning under which the error opposed to Catholic truth is camouflaged." (Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794.)

To denounce error is not to "pile on" those who propagate it.

No, to denounce error is acquit our duties before God without being respecters of persons, and those who are concerned about "piling on" Jorge Mario Bergoglio ought to be reminded that Successors of Saint Peter can never teach error, which is why it is important to reprise this brief section from Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846:

10. This consideration too clarifies the great error of those others as well who boldly venture to explain and interpret the words of God by their own judgment, misusing their reason and holding the opinion that these words are like a human work. God Himself has set up a living authority to establish and teach the true and legitimate meaning of His heavenly revelation. This authority judges infallibly all disputes which concern matters of faith and morals, lest the faithful be swirled around by every wind of doctrine which springs from the evilness of men in encompassing error. And this living infallible authority is active only in that Church which was built by Christ the Lord upon Peter, the head of the entire Church, leader and shepherd, whose faith He promised would never fail. This Church has had an unbroken line of succession from Peter himself; these legitimate pontiffs are the heirs and defenders of the same teaching, rank, office and power. And the Church is where Peter is,[5] and Peter speaks in the Roman Pontiff,[6] living at all times in his successors and making judgment,[7] providing the truth of the faith to those who seek it.[8] The divine words therefore mean what this Roman See of the most blessed Peter holds and has held.

11. For this mother and teacher[9] of all the churches has always preserved entire and unharmed the faith entrusted to it by Christ the Lord. Furthermore, it has taught it to the faithful, showing all men truth and the path of salvation. Since all priesthood originates in this church,[10] the entire substance of the Christian religion resides there also.[11] The leadership of the Apostolic See has always been active,[12] and therefore because of its preeminent authority, the whole Church must agree with it. The faithful who live in every place constitute the whole Church.[13] Whoever does not gather with this Church scatters.[14] (Pope Pius IX, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846.)

Each of our true popes and Holy Mother Church's true general councils had to be wrong to denounce error and to insist on doctrinal formation in catechesis and missionary work for Bergoglio, Rodriguez Maradiaga, and Victor Manuel Fernandez to be correct. This simply cannot be so.

Moreover, Pope Pius IX’s Qui Pluribus reminds us yet again that Holy Mother Church “has always preserved entire and unharmed the faith entrusted to by to by Christ the Lord,” meaning that it is impossible for heresies to be taught by a true pope in the name of the Catholic Church.

Is God any less offended by the Argentine Apostate’s false dichotomy between doctrine and mercy in Evangelii Gaudium (and in his daily screeds at the Casa Santa Marta as he conducts his Ding Dong School of Apostasy) than by the application of that dichotomy in Amoris Laetitia, March 16, 2016, and the entirety of his antipapal ministry?

Of course not.

Moreover, Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his oft-used ghostwriter, Victor Manuel Fernandez,  whom he has now appointed to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), laid the foundation g for the “easing” of consciences on issues of Catholic morality that he believes are impossible for the faithful to observe, something that Fernandez will do with ready abandon at the CDF.

Admitting that he has sought to “welcome” practicing sodomites throughout the course of his antipapal presidency, Bergoglio’s first formal project was to “ease” the consciences of Catholics who are divorced and civilly “remarried” without a conciliar decree of nullity as well as those engaged in other “imperfect” unions from receiving what purports to be Holy Communion in the Protestant Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination.

The Argentine Apostate and his ghostwriter made it clear in Paragraphs 186 and 199 of Amoris Laetitia that no “scandalous distinctions and divisions” could be made among those who approach to receive what they think is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament in the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service. This means that no one is to be excluded. Not those who are divorced and civilly “remarried” without a conciliar decree of marital nullity. Not those who are cohabiting while unmarried. Not those who are engaged in perverse sins against nature. Not those who are using contraception. Not those who are either killing babies or are public officials who support the execution of the innocent preborn. Not those who have killed their own babies and are unrepentant about doing so. Not those who have engaged a “surrogate mother” to bring a child conceived artificially to birth. Those who “create” “scandalous divisions and distinctions” need to undergo what the false “pontiff” calls “missionary conversion”:

186. The Eucharist demands that we be members of the one body of the Church. Those who approach the Body and Blood of Christ may not wound that same Body by creating scandalous distinctions and divisions among its members. This is what it means to “discern” the body of the Lord, to acknowledge it with faith and charity both in the sacramental signs and in the community; those who fail to do so eat and drink judgement against themselves (cf. v. 29). The celebration of the Eucharist thus becomes a constant summons for everyone “to examine himself or herself ”(v. 28), to open the doors of the family to greater fellowship with the underprivileged, and in this way to receive the sacrament of that eucharistic love which makes us one body. We must not forget that “the ‘mysticism’ of the sacrament has a social character”.207 When those who receive it turn a blind eye to the poor and suffering, or consent to various forms of division, contempt and inequality, the Eucharist is received unworthily. On the other hand, families who are properly disposed and receive the Eucharist regularly, reinforce their desire for fraternity, their social consciousness and their commitment to those in need.

201. “This effort calls for missionary conversion by everyone in the Church, that is, one that is not content to proclaim a merely theoretical message without connection to people’s real problems”.229 Pastoral care for families “needs to make it clear that the Gospel of the family responds to the deepest expectations of the human person: a response to each one’s dignity and fulfilment in reciprocity, communion and fruitfulness. This consists not merely in presenting a set of rules, but in proposing values that are clearly needed today, even in the most secularized of countries”.230 The Synod Fathers also “highlighted the fact that evangelization needs unambiguously to denounce cultural, social, political and economic factors – such as the excessive importance given to market logic – that prevent authentic family life and lead to discrimination, poverty, exclusion, and violence. Consequently, dialogue and cooperation need to be fostered with societal structures and encouragement given to lay people who are involved, as Christians, in the cultural and socio-political fields”.231 (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Amoris Laetita, March 19, 2016.)

These passages serve to prepare readers for the coup de grace that Bergoglio delivered to discredit and to undermine the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church in Paragraphs 291 to 310 of what some have aptly called his ode to the adversary, Amoris Laetitia.

“Pope Francis” believes that the denial of what purports to be Holy Communion to those who are living in sin, a phrase that he rejects as being “unmerciful” and without any sense of “nuance” (a word that was one of the late Bernard “Cardinal” Law’s many ways to cloud the clarity of Catholic teaching on Faith and Morals), constitutes the “creation” of “distinctions” and “divisions” that are “sins” against “equality.” Bergoglio believes that those who “create” such distinctions are the ones who partake of the Eucharist unworthily, thereby turning the following words of Saint Paul the Apostle in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians on their head:

For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come. [27] Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. [28] But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. [29] For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. [30] Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep. (1 Cor. 11:17-34.)

The meaning of this is quite clear.

Bishop Richard Challoner commented as follows in his English translation of the Douay-Rheims Bible:

[27] Guilty of the body: not discerning the body. This demonstrates the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, even to the unworthy communicant; who otherwise could not be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, or justly condemned for not discerning the Lord's body. (Bishop Richard Challoner Commentary, Douay-Rheims Bible.)

Father George Haydock commented similarly:

The real presence in the sacrament is also proved by the enormity of the crime, in its profanation. See St. Chrysostom, hom. de non contem. ec. and hom. lx. and lxi. ad pop. Antioch. where he shews that the unworthy receiver imitates the Jews in crucifying Jesus, and trampling under foot his sacred blood. Hence the dreadful punishments we read of in verses 27 and 30. ((Haydock Commentary.)

It is interesting that Jorge Mario Bergoglio cited verses 26-29 of Saint Paul the Apostle’s First Epistle to the Corinthians but omits a reference to verse 30, which Father Haydock explained as follows:

Ver. 30-32. Therefore in punishment of the sin of receiving unworthily, many are infirm, visited with infirmities, even that bring death, which is meant by those words, many sleep. But it is a mercy of God, when he only punishes by sickness, or a corporal death, and does not permit us to perish for ever, or be condemned with this wicked world. To avoid this, let a man prove himself, examine the state of his conscience, especially before he receives the holy sacrament, confess his sins, and be absolved by those to whom Christ left the power of forgiving sins in his name, and by his authority. If we judge ourselves in this manner, we shall not be judged, that is, condemned. (Haydock Commentary.)

Leave it to a figure of Antichrist to twist the clear meaning of the words of Saint Paul the Apostle to condemn those who are in a state of Sanctifying Grace while looking with an indulgent “kindness” upon those who are not.

Believing Catholics know that Saint Paul the Apostle condemned those who dare to receive Holy Communion unworthily, that is, those who are in a state of Mortal Sin. Saint Paul’s admonition applies directly to the very people whose sins against Holy Purity are justified by “Pope Francis” by various means, including what he calls “gradualness,” in Amoris Laetitia. It is nothing other than the work of a figure of Antichrist to twist the words of Saint Paul in verse twenty-seven of Saint Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians to make them apply to those would deny Holy Communion to the very sort of unrepentant sinners condemned by the Apostle to the Gentiles.

The Argentine Apostate believes that unrepentant sinners are worthy to partake of what purports to be the Holy Eucharist while those who call sin by its proper name and seek to protect the Sacred Species from sacrilegious reception are said to be creating “distinctions” and “divisions,” thus rendering themselves unworthy. This kind of theological filth can only have one author, the devil himself. His concept of "missionary conversion" refers to a Stalnist or Maoist style "re-education" of "reprogramming" of Catholics who still cling to what he believes are Pharisaical standards that simply cannot be realized by people in contemporary circumstances. 

Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Victor Manuel Fernandez disparage the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as nothing other than a "set of rules" that can break the backs and dispirit the souls of those who are living in ways that do not conform to the "fullness" of what he believes is but a mere "ideal," a falsehood that he repeated throughout the text of Amoris Laetitia and that denies the efficacy of the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood to effect the conversion of those steeped in sin. This hideous little man does not view moral sins as grave matter. He views them as "expressions of love" that show tenderness and compassion. No one, though, loves another by enabling him in his sins. No one loves himself by excusing away his own sins and justifying them before men. No one can love God and persist in a life of sin as Our Lord Himself taught us to quit our sins, each of which caused Him to suffer unspeakable horrors during His Passion Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday and that caused those Swords of Sorrow to be pierced through and through the Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother.

Although it has been well-established on this website that conciliarism itself and its explication by the postconciliar antipopes have sought to contradict, obfuscate, or disparage or simply disparage the defined teaching of the Catholic Church on everything, especially about the nature of dogmatic truth and hence upon the nature of God  and His Divine Revelation and in matters concerning the unicity of the Church, interreligious “prayer” services, religious liberty and the proper relationship  between Holy Mother Church and the civil state, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has moved the conciliar revolution to the point where he has been undermining and contradicting the “magisterial” teaching, such as it was, of Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

That is, even though Wojtyla/John Paul II and Ratzinger/Benedict used their false pontificates to advance the conciliar revolutionary agenda, especially as it pertains to false ecumenism and interreligious “prayer” services, they did so at a slower pace than was to the liking of Jacobin/Bolshevik “progressives” such as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who believes that his two immediate predecessors in the conciliar seat of apostasy were too “conservative” on matters of theology and morality and that they “stifled” so-called “theologians” such as Leonardo Boff and Hans Kung.99

However, the Girondist/Menshevik and Jacobin/Bolshevik conciliar revolutionaries are more united than divided than most of those “conservative” Catholics within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism understand. Indeed, very much like Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict himself, Victor Manuel Fernandez has been in the forefront of serving the interests of Talmudism at every opportunity provided to him, and it was to defend his mentor, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, that Fernandez wrote the following after “Pope Francis” said that the Jewish law was obsolete:

When Saint Paul speaks of justification by faith, he is actually exploring a deep conviction of some Jewish traditions. Because if one were to affirm that one's justification is obtained through the fulfillment of the Law through one's own strength, without divine help, one would be falling into the worst of idolatries, which consists in worshipping oneself, one's own strength, and one's own works, instead of worshipping the one God.

It is essential to remember that some texts of the Old Testament and many extra-biblical Jewish texts already showed a religiosity of trust in God's love and invited one to a fulfillment of the law actuated in the depths of the heart through divine action (cf. Jer 31:3,33-34; Ez 11:19-20; 36:25-27; Hos 11:1-9, etc.).[1] "Emunah," an attitude of deep trust in Yahweh, which actuates authentic fulfillment of the Law, "is at the very heart of the requirement of the whole Torah."[2].

A recent echo of this ancient Jewish conviction, which renounces self-sufficiency before God, can be found in the following phrase of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (early 19th century): "I fear my good deeds that produce pleasure much more than my bad ones that produce horror."[3]

Jewish traditions also recognize that fulfilling the Law in its entirety requires a transformation that starts in the heart. Christians and Jews do not say that it is the outward fulfillment of certain customs that matters, without the inward impulse of God. In reality, Jewish theology coincides with Christian doctrine on this point, especially if we start from the texts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, where the need for purification and transformation of the heart appears. How can we not see Rom 2:28-29 as a continuation and deepening of Jeremiah 4:4 and 9:24-25? Jews and Christians alike recognize that the external law alone cannot change us without the purifying and transforming work of God (Ez 36:25-27), who has already begun to make Himself present for us in His Messiah (Gal 2:20-21). 

On the other hand, we recall that, according to the very profound interpretation of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas on the Pauline theology of the new law, the sterility of an external law without divine help is not only a characteristic of the Jewish Law, but also of the precepts that Jesus Himself left us: "The letter, even of the Gospel, would kill unless there were the inward presence of the healing grace of faith."[4] (Law and grace for Jews and Christians.)

One’s eyes roll at the fact that these heretics and apostates actually think that they make sense!

Victor Manuel Fernandez’s “reply” is nothing other than an exercise in “smoke and mirrors” as the “chief rabbinate” knows actual Catholic doctrine better than he does. Obviously, they hate that doctrine. However, they know it, and what they, the “rabbis,” what want their conciliar “allies” to keep reiterating that the Old Covenant is still in force and that any version of Judaism is perfectly valid. Anything that puts this “settled issue” into dispute is a casus belli.

As to the little of substance contained in Fernandez’s fairy tale, suffice it to say that Saint Paul was indeed affirming that the Mosaic Law can justify no one, that Justification comes solely from being in a state of Sanctifying Grace as a member of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Father George Leo Haydock provided a commentary about verses 16-21 of Saint Paul the Apostle’s Epistle to the Galatians:

Ver. 16. &c. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law. St. Paul, to the end of the chapter, seems to continue his discourse to St. Peter, but chiefly to the Jewish Galatians, to shew that both the Gentiles, whom the Jews called and looked upon as sinners, and also the Jews, when converted, could only hope to be justified and saved by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law. — But if while we seek to be justified in Christ, by faith in him, and by his grace, we ourselves also are found sinners, as the false doctors teach you, and not to be justified but by the ceremonies and works of the law of Moses, this blasphemous consequence must follow, that Christ is the minister and author of sin, by making us believe that by faith in him, and complying with his doctrine, we may be justified and saved. For thus we must be considered transgressors, unless we renew and build again what Christ and we have destroyed. — For by the law I am dead to the law. That is, says St. Jerome, by the evangelical law of Christ I am dead to the ancient law and its ceremonies. Others expound it, that by the law and its types and figures, and by the predictions contained in the law, I know the Mosaical law hath now ceased, in which sense he might say, by the law I am dead to the law. — If justice. That is, if justification and salvation be to be had, or could have been had by the works of the law; therefore Christ died in vain, and it was not necessary that he should become our Redeemer. (Witham)

Ver. 19. He here expresses the change which had been wrought in him. The law to which he had been attached, had passed away from him. Now he was so united to Christ and his cross, that he says: Not I, but Christ liveth in me. The strong expressions made use of by St. Paul with regard to the Jewish law in this chapter, may appear strange, and very capable of a wrong interpretation. But we must ever bear in mind that St. Paul speaks exclusively of the ceremonial part of the law, and not of the moral, contained in the decalogue: of this latter he says in his epistle to the Romans, (ii. 13.) the doers of the law shall be justified. But to effect this, was and is necessary the grace which Jesus Christ has merited and obtained for all, grace which God has shed on all, more or less, from the commencement of the world. (Galatians 2 – Haydock Commentary Online.)

In other words, we need Sanctifying Grace to faithfully observe the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue). The ceremonial law of the Mosaic precepts has been superseded. It is gone. It is dead. It has the power to save no one. Justification comes solely from being a baptized member of the Catholic Church who is in a state of Sanctifying Grace.

Saint Thomas Aquinas explained the passages whose meaning were tortured and mangled by the Modernist mauler called Victor Manuel Fernandez as follows:

Or, in another way: a man is said to live according to that in which he chiefly puts his affection and in which he is mainly delighted. Hence men who take their greatest pleasure in study or in hunting say that this is their life. However, each man has his own private interest by which he seeks that which is his own. Therefore, when someone lives seeking only what is his own, he lives only unto himself; but when he seeks the good of others, he is said to live for them. Accordingly, because the Apostle had set aside his love of self through the cross of Christ, he said that be was dead so far as love of self was concerned, declaring that with Christ I am nailed to the cross, i.e., through the cross of Christ my own private love has been removed from me. Hence he says God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (6:14): “If one died for all, then all were dead. And Christ died for all, that they also who live may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them” (2 Cor 5:14). And I live, now not 1, i.e., I no longer live as though having any interest in my own good, but Christ liveth in me, i.e., I have Christ alone in my affection and Christ Himself is my life: “To me, to live is Christ; and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).

Then when he says, And that I live now in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, he answers a twofold difficulty that might arise from his words. One is how he lives and yet it is not he who lives; the second is how he is nailed to the cross. Therefore he clears up these two points. First of all, the first one, namely, how he lives and yet it is not he who lives. He answers this when he says And that I live now in the flesh I live in the faith of the Son of God. Here it should be noted that, strictly speaking, those things are said to live which are moved by an inner principle. Now the soul of Paul was set between his body and God; the body, indeed, was vivified and moved by the soul of Paul, but his soul by Christ. Hence as to the life of the flesh, Paul himself lived and this is what he says, namely, and that I live now in the flesh, i.e., by the life of the flesh; but as to his relation to God, Christ lived in Paul. Therefore he says, I live in the faith of the Son of God through which He dwells in me and moves me: “But the just shall live in his faith” (Hab. 2:4). And note that he says in the flesh, not “by the flesh,” because this is evil.

Secondly, he shows that he is nailed to the cross, saying: Because the love of Christ, which He showed to me in dying on the cross for me, brings it about that I am always nailed with Him. And this is what he says, who loved me: “He first loved us” (I Jn 4:10). And He loved me to the extent of giving himself and not some other sacrifice for me: “He loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev 1:5); “As Christ loved the church and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life” (Eph 5:25).

But it should be noted that the Son delivered Himself, and the Father His Son: “He spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us” (Rom 8:32). Judas, too, delivered Him up, as is said in Matthew (26:48). It is all one event, but the intention is not the same, because the Father did so out of love, the Son out of obedience along with love, but Judas out of avarice and treachery.

Then when he says, I cast not away the grace of God, he draws the principal conclusion. First, he draws the conclusion; secondly, he explains it. He says, therefore: Because I have received from God so great a grace that He delivered Himself, and I live in the faith of the Son of God, I cast not away the grace of God, i.e., I do not repudiate it or show myself ungrateful: “The grace of God in me hath not been void, but I have labored more abundantly than all they” (1 Cor 15:10). Hence another version has, I am not ungrateful for the grace of God.” “Looking diligently lest any man be wanting to the grace of God” (Heb 12:15), i.e., by showing myself unworthy because of ingratitude.

A form of repudiation and of ingratitude would exist, if I were to say that the Law is necessary in order to be justified. Hence he says, For if justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain, i.e., if the Law is sufficient, i.e., if the works of the Law suffice to justify a man, Christ died to no purpose and in vain, because He died in order to make us just: “Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might offer us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). Now if this could have been done through the Law, the death of Christ would have been superfluous. But He did not die in vain or labor to no purpose, as it is said in Isaiah (49:4); because through Him alone came justifying grace and truth, as it is said in John (1:17). Therefore, if any were just before the passion of Christ, this too was through the faith of Christ to come, in Whom they believed and in Whose faith they were saved. (Chapter 2 - Patristic Bible Commentary.)

Thus, it is necessary for all men to have belief in Our Lord’s Redemptive Act on the wood of the Cross and that the graces which He won thereon and are administered into the hearts and souls of men through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, by the power of God the Holy Ghost at work in the Catholic Church. Men must also pray for the graces necessary to cooperate with the graces they receive and persist therein until the moment they die. It is by being nailed to the Cross of the Divine Redeemer that we are made free, liberated.

The Mosaic Law kills.

The law of the New Covenant giveth life by means of Sanctifying Grace and is thus the one and only means of human salvation.

As to Victor Manuel Fernandez’s assertion that that is by the “impulse” of God in the hearts that men can be justified, one only needs to point out that he is not speaking about Sanctifying Grace as he, as a Modernist, believes that this “impulse” is “actuated” in the “hearts” of all men—Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Hindus, Shintoists, Animists, Jains, Theosophists—even atheists, something that was specifically and categorically condemned as follows by Pope Saint Pius X, whose feast we celebrate today, Friday, September 3, 2021, in Pascendi Dominici Gregis:

14. Thus far, Venerable Brethren, We have considered the Modernist as a philosopher. Now if We proceed to consider him as a believer, and seek to know how the believer, according to Modernism, is marked off from the philosopher, it must be observed that, although the philosopher recognizes the reality of the divine as the object of faith, still this reality is not to be found by him but in the heart of the believer, as an object of feeling and affirmation, and therefore confined within the sphere of phenomena; but the question as to whether in itself it exists outside that feeling and affirmation is one which the philosopher passes over and neglects. For the Modernist believer, on the contrary, it is an established and certain fact that the reality of the divine does really exist in itself and quite independently of the person who believes in it. If you ask on what foundation this assertion of the believer rests, he answers: In the personal experience of the individual. On this head the Modernists differ from the Rationalists only to fall into the views of the Protestants and pseudo-mystics. The following is their manner of stating the question: In the religious sense one must recognize a kind of intuition of the heart which puts man in immediate contact with the reality of God, and infuses such a persuasion of God’s existence and His action both within and without man as far to exceed any scientific conviction. They assert, therefore, the existence of a real experience, and one of a kind that surpasses all rational experience. If this experience is denied by some, like the Rationalists, they say that this arises from the fact that such persons are unwilling to put themselves in the moral state necessary to produce it. It is this experience which makes the person who acquires it to be properly and truly a believer.

How far this position is removed from that of Catholic teaching! We have already seen how its fallacies have been condemned by the Vatican Council. Later on, we shall see how these errors, combined with those which we have already mentioned, open wide the way to Atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with that of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being found in any religion? In fact, that they are so is maintained by not a few. On what grounds can Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? Will they claim a monopoly of true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed, Modernists do not deny, but actually maintain, some confusedly, others frankly, that all religions are true. That they cannot feel otherwise is obvious. For on what ground, according to their theories, could falsity be predicated of any religion whatsoever? Certainly it would be either on account of the falsity of the religious sense or on account of the falsity of the formula pronounced by the mind. Now the religious sense, although it maybe more perfect or les perfect, is always one and the same; and the intellectual formula, in order to be true, has but to respond to the religious sense and to the believer, whatever be the intellectual capacity of the latter. In the conflict between different religions, the most that Modernists can maintain is that the Catholic has more truth because it is more vivid, and that it deserves with more reason the name of Christian because it corresponds more fully with the origins of Christianity. No one will find it unreasonable that these consequences flow from the premises. But what is most amazing is that there are Catholics and priests, who, We would fain believe, abhor such enormities, and yet act as if they fully approved of them. For they lavish such praise and bestow such public honor on the teachers of these errors as to convey the belief that their admiration is not meant merely for the persons, who are perhaps not devoid of a certain merit, but rather for the sake of the errors which these persons openly profess and which they do all in their power to propagate.

15. There is yet another element in this part of their teaching which is absolutely contrary to Catholic truth. For what is laid down as to experience is also applied with destructive effect to tradition, which has always been maintained by the Catholic Church. Tradition, as understood by the Modernists, is a communication with others of an original experience, through preaching by means of the intellectual formula. To this formula, in addition to its representative value they attribute a species of suggestive efficacy which acts firstly in the believer by stimulating the religious sense, should it happen to have grown sluggish, and by renewing the experience once acquired, and secondly, in those who do not yet believe by awakening in them for the first time the religious sense and producing the experience. In this way is religious experience spread abroad among the nations; and not merely among contemporaries by preaching, but among future generations both by books and by oral transmission from one to another. Sometimes this communication of religious experience takes root and thrives, at other times it withers at once and dies. For the Modernists, to live is a proof of truth, since for them life and truth are one and the same thing. Thus we are once more led to infer that all existing religions are equally true, for otherwise they would not survive. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Pope Saint Pius X amplified his teaching against the Modernist propositions in The Oath of Against Modernism, September 1, 1910, which, just incidentally, you understand, was suppressed by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI in 1967:

“I hold with certainty and I sincerely confess that faith is not a blind inclination of religion welling up from the depth of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the inclination of a morally conditioned will, but is the genuine assent of the intellect to a truth that is received from outside by hearing. In this assent, given on the authority of the all-truthful God, we hold to be true what has been said, attested to, and revealed, by the personal God, our creator and Lord.” (Pope Saint Pius X, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)

It does not take a lettered theologian with a licentiate from a pontifical university to understand that Pope Saint Pius X was condemning the likes of the conciliar “popes” and their theological “experts” such as Victor Manuel Fernandez, all to tickle the itching ears of non-Catholics with one condemned fable after another. Yes, Victor Manuel Fernandez will certainly do everything possible to negate, overturn, mock, and denounce doctrinal pronouncements that interfere with la dolce vita of hardened sinners.

Even those of us who understand that the Throne of Saint Peter has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, can nevertheless admit Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s dogged determination to remake what he thinks is the Catholic Church, starting with the purging of those within his hierarchy he believes are “bad” “bishops” is precisely what, for example, Pope Pius XII should have done in the years prior to his death. Instead, however, Pope Pius XII enabled and empowered most of the men who would mock him after his death as they started a revolution against Catholic Faith and Worship that is yet ongoing.

“Pope Francis,” on the other hand, who waxes prosaically about “collegiality,” is unafraid to knock and lop off the heads of those he believes to be “reactionary” “bishops,” and he does not flinch for one nanosecond in the appointment of those who hate everything about Catholic Faith and Worship just as much as he does. Such a man is Victor Manuel Fernandez, who will no doubt put the CDF’s imprimatur on everything that the anti-life Vincenzo Paglia is doing at the misnamed “Pontifical” Academy for Life.

Yes, to contraception.

Yes, to the surgical execution of children in certain cases.

Yes, to in vitro fertilization.

Yes, to direct euthanasia for the chronically and terminally ill in addition to the “yes” that Senor Jorge has already given to “palliative care” and “hospice.”

Yes, to every Marxist effort to curb legitimate human liberties to curb “man-made climate change.”

Yes, to sodomy and its perverse mutations.

Yes, to fornicators.

Yes, to adulterers.

Yes, to civil divorce and remarriage.

Yes, to a false reunion with the Orthodox.

Yes, to a false reunion with “other ecclesial communities.”

In other words, yes, to a formally expressed One World Religion according to the prophetic words of Pope Saint Pius X:

And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

Everything about the counterfeit church of conciliarism is untrue, starting with its claim to be the Catholic Church when it is, of course, her counterfeit ape, a home of veritable figures of Antichrist, men who fear not to blaspheme God, reaffirm adherents of false religions in their falsehoods to the point of their very deaths, stage sacrilegious liturgical events that would have shocked even the pagans of yore, and propagate every manner of false doctrine that has been condemned solemnly by the authority of Holy Mother Church.

This is important to emphasize as so many commentators in the Gallicanist resist while recognize universe are making appeals to “fight” against the man they consider to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. Some of these commentators have termed the man they say is their pope as a heretic, although a believing Catholic understands that a heretic has never served on the Throne of Saint Peter. The incalculable harm done by this recrudescence of Gallicanism is such that anyone who points out the simple truth that anyone who defects knowingly from a single tenet of the Catholic Faith is outside the pale of Holy Mother Church must be condemned, ridiculed, and scorned as an object of derision.

Contrast the neo-Gallicanism of today with the true understanding of Catholics about the papacy just one hundred fifty-three years ago as Mario Cardinal Mattei, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, affirmed Pope Pius IX’s denunciation of the very errors that have been embraced by the conciliar revolutionaries, including, of course, Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Victor Manuel Fernandez:

The demonstrations which took place at Rome of the following day [after Pope Pius IX’s canonization of one of the Japanese Martyrs and of Saint Michael de Sanctis of the Trinitarian Fathers] were not less important, and perhaps had greater significance, although not accompanied by so much pomp and ceremony. There was held in the Palace of the Vatican, a semi-public consistory, at which all the bishops who were at Rome attended. The venerable Pontiff denounced, in his allocution to the attentive audience, those errors which are too ancient to have even the merit of originality, but which are the more dangerous that, at the present time more than ever, they are loudly preached and widely disseminated. He alluded in particular to that German criticism, which views our sacred books as nothing better than a system of mythology, and to that too well-known romance of a French writer, M. Renan, entitled "The Life of Jesus." He condemned materialism, pantheism, naturalism, and those more or less degrading systems which deny human liberty, proclaim a morality independent of the laws of God; which derive form material force and superior numbers all law and authority: and which in philosophy make reason their God, the state in politics, and passion in the daily conduct of life. The Holy Father then thanked the bishops who were present, regretting the absence of those of Portugal and Italy, the latter of whom were restrained by the Piedmontese government, and exhorted them all to continue to combat error, and to turn away the eyes and hands of the faithful from bad books and bad journals, and to promoted, without wearying, the instruction of the clergy and the good education of youth. He concluded in a voice which was impeded by his tears, and with his eyes raised to heaven by joining with all present in beseeching the Father of mercies, through the merits of Jesus Christ, His only Son, to extend a helping hand to Christian and civil society, and to restore peace to the church.

Cardinal Mattei, dean of the Sacred College, replied in the name of all the bishops. Three points chiefly, among others, were affirmed in his declaration. First of all, the supreme doctrinal authority and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, "You are in our regard the master of sound doctrine. You  are the centre of unity. You are the foundation of the church itself, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. When you speak we hear Peter. When you decree, we obey Jesus Christ. We admire you in the midst of so many trials and tempests, with a serene brow and unshaken mind, invincible fulfilling your sacred ministry." Next, the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See. "We acknowledge that your temporal sovereignty is necessary, and that it was established in fulfilment of a manifest design of Divine Providence. We hesitate not to declare that this sovereignty is required for the good of the church and the fee government of souls. It was necessary that the Supreme Pontiff should be neither the subject not even the guest of any prince. there was required in the centre of Europe a sacred bond, placed between the three continents of the ancient world, an august seat, whence arises in turns, for peoples and for princes, a great and powerful voice, the voice of justice and of truth, impartial and without preference, free from all arbitrary influence, and which can neither be repressed by fear nor circumvented by artifice. How could it have been that at this very moment the prelates of the church, arriving from all points of the universe, should have come here in order to represent all people, and confer in security on the gravest interests, if they had found any prince whomsoever ruling in this land who had suspicions of their princes, or who was suspected by them on account of his hostility? In such case their duties as citizens might have conflicted with their duties as bishops." Finally, the intimate union of the Catholic world with the Pope. "We condemn the errors, which you have condemned. We reprove the sacrilegious acts, the violations of ecclesiastical immunity, and the other crimes committed against the chair of Peter. We give utterance to this protest, which we claim shall be inserted in the annals of the church, in all sincerity, in the name of our brethren who are absent, in the name of those who, detained at home by force, lament and are silent, in the name of those whom the state of their health or important affairs have prevented from joining us in this place. To our number we add the clergy and the faithful people who give you proof of their love and veneration by their assiduous prayers, as well as by the offering of Peter's pence. Would to God that all kings and powerful men in the world understood that the cause of the Pontiff is the cause of all states. Would to God that they came to an understanding in order to place security the sacred cause of the Christian world and of social order."

Pius IX made reply: "United as we are, venerable brethren, we cannot doubt that the God of peace and charity is with us. And if God be with us, who shall be against us? Praise honor, glory to God! To you, peace, salvation and joy! Peace to your minds; salvation to the faithful committed to your care; joy to you and to them, in order that you may all rejoice, chanting a new canticle in the House of God for evermore!"

The address which Cardinal Mattei read bore the signature of all the bishops who were in Rome. The bishops of Italy hastened to express their concurrence, with one exception, Ariano, who had participated in the revolutionary movement, and who came to an unhappy death within the year. There came, in due course, numerous adhesions from all parts of the world, together with countless addresses from the clergy of the second order. The laity, on their part, received the bishops on their return home with triumphal honors. They came around them and escorted them to the pulpits of their cathedrals, in order to hear from their lips, all that had taken place at Rome. The Bishop of Moulins, Mgr,. de Droux Breze, admirably expressed in a few words the impressions of the venerable pilgrims: "Rome is a city of wonders; but the wonder of Rome is Pius IX."  (The Rev. Æneas MacDonell Dawson, Pius IX. And His Time, London: Thos. Coffey, Catholic Record Printing House. 1880, pp. 256-257.)

It is useful, I believe, to highlight the following sentences from Cardinal Mattei’s address:

“You are in our regard the master of sound doctrine. You are the centre of unity. You are the foundation of the church itself, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. When you speak, we hear Peter. When you decree, we obey Jesus Christ. We admire you in the midst of so many trials and tempests, with a serene brow and unshaken mind, invincible fulfilling your sacred ministry.”

“You are in our regard the master of sound doctrine.”

Can anyone who is intellectually honest (seen any of that lately?) say this about Angelo Roncalli, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, Albino Luciani, Karol Josef Wojtyla, Joseph Alois Ratzinger, or Jorge Mario Bergoglio?

“When you speak, we hear Peter.”

Do those in the “resist while recognize” movement hear Peter when Jorge Mario Bergoglio speaks?

Did many of them hear Peter when Karol Josef Wojtyla or Giovanni Montini spoke?

“When you decree, we obey Jesus Christ.”

Yet, of course, “Bishop” Athanasius Schneider, not to be confused with Athanasius of Alexandria, has counseled recently that Catholics can ignore and disobey “Pope Francis’s” Traditionis Custodes, July 16, 2021 (see Jorge Mario Bergoglio Bares His Teeth to Do the Work of Baal for an analysis of that decree)

Mario Cardinal Mattei was not speaking simply about Pope Pius IX. He was speaking about the very nature of the papacy itself.

Today’s neo-Gallicanists do not believe that the papacy is the center of unity, nor do they believe that they must obey when the pope speaks, which means, according to Cardinal Mario Mattei’s own words, they can disobey Christ’s Vicar on earth with absolute moral impunity.

Not so.

On the Feast of Pope Saint Leo II

Despite the old lie about “heretical” popes that is accepted without question by almost everyone within the “resist while recognize” and/or “conservative” circles within the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Dom Prosper Gueranger, writing about Pope Leo II, whose feast is celebrated today, Monday, July 3, 2022, within the Octave of Saints Petr and Paul, came to the defense of the truth that we have never had a “heretical” pope in the history of Holy Mother Church, a point that was discussed in some detail recently in Holy Mother Church is Infallible, No Ifs, Ands, or Buts.

Pope Saint Leo II teaches how a true pope fought heresy and even denounced his predecessor, Honorius, for his failure to combat it even though, as Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., pointed out in The Liturgical Year, Honorius had an otherwise irreproachable pontificate and could not be charged with being a heretic himself. His fault was political and administrative, not doctrinal, as Dom Prosper Gueranger explained in his disquisition about Pope Saint Leo II:

It were fitting that our attention should not be diverted, on this Vigil, from the august object which is occupying the Church in the preparation of her chants. But the triumph of Peter will shine out with all the more splendor in proportion as the testimony he rendered to the son of God is shown to have been maintained with all fidelity, during the long series of succeeding ages, by the Pontiffs, inheritors of his primacy. For a considerable time, the twenty-eighth of June was consecrated to the memory of Saint Leo the Great; it was the day chosen by Sergius I for the Translation of the illustrious Doctor, and indeed a more magnificent usher into tomorrow’s Solemnity could hardly be desired. From no other lips but his has Rome ever set forth, in such elevated language, the glories of these two Princes of the apostles and her own fame; never since the incomparable scene enacted at Cesarea Philippi, has the mystery of the Man-God been affirmed in manner so sublime, as on that day wherein the Church, striking the impious Eutyches at Chalcedon, received from Leo the immortal formula of Christian Dogma. Peter once more spoke by the mouth of Leo; yet far was the cause from being then ended: two centuries more were needed; and another Leo it was, even he whom we this day celebrate, who had the honor of ending it, at the Sixth Council.

The Spirit of God, ever watchful over the development of the sacred liturgy, by no means wished any change to be effected on this day in the train of thought of the faithful people. Thus when towards the beginning of the fourteenth century, the 11th of April was again assigned to Saint Leo I (for that was really the primitive place occupied by him on the cycle), Saint Leo II, the anniversary of whose death was this 28th of June, and who hitherto had been merely commemorated thereon, being now raised to the rank of a semi-double, came forward, as it were, to remind the Faithful of the glorious struggles maintained both by his predecessor and by himself, in the order of apostolic confession.

How was it that Saint Leo’s clear and complete exposition of the dogma and the anathemas of Chalcedon did not succeed in silencing the arguments of that heresy which refused to our nature its noblest title, by denying that it had been assumed in its integrity by the Divine Word? Because for Truth to win the day, it suffices not merely to expose the lie uttered by error. More than once, alas! history gives instances of the most solemn anathemas ending in nothing but lulling the vigilance of the guardians of the Holy City. The struggle seemed ended, the need of repose was making itself felt amidst the combatants, a thousand other matters called for the attention of the Church’s rulers; and so while feigning utmost deference, nay, ardor even, if needful, for the new enactments, error went on noiselessly, making profit of the silence which ensued after its defeat. Then did its progress become all the more redoubtable at the very time it was pretending to have disappeared without leaving a track behind.

Thanks, however, to the Divine Head, who never ceases to watch over his work, such trials as we have been alluding to, seldom reach to such a painful depth as that into which Leo II had to probe with steel and fire, in order to save the Church. Once only has the terrified world beheld anathema strike the summit of the holy mount. Honorius, placed on the pinnacle of the Church, “had not made her shine with the splendor of apostolic doctrine, but by profane treason, had suffered the faith, which should be spotless, to be exposed to subversion;” Leo II, therefore, sending forth his thunders, in unison with the assembled Church, against the new Eutychians and their accomplices, spared not even his predecessor. And yet, as all acknowledge, Honorius had otherwise been an irreproachable Pope; and even in the question at stake, he had been far from either professing heresy or teaching error. Wherein, then, did his fault lie?

The Emperor Heraclius, who, by victory had reached the height of power, beheld with much concern how division persistently lived on between the Catholics of his Empire and the late disciples of Eutyches. The Bishop of the Imperial City, the Patriarch Sergius, fostered these misgivings in his master’s mind. Vain of a certain amount of political skill which he fancied himself to possess, he now aimed at re-establishing, by his sole effort, that unity which the Council of Chalcedon and Saint Leo the Great had failed to obtain; thus would he make himself a name. The disputants agreed in acknowledging two Natures in Jesus Christ; hence to reply to these advances of theirs, one thing were needed, thought he, viz., to impose silence on the question as to whether there are him Him two Wills or only one. The enthusiasm with which this evident compromise was hailed by the various sects rebellious to the Fourth General Council showed well enough that they still preserved and hallowed all the venom of error; and the very fact of their denying, or (which came practically to the same thing) hesitating to acknowledge that in the Man-God there is any other Will than that proper to the Divine Nature, was equivalent to declaring that He had assumed but a semblance of Human Nature, since this Nature could by no means exist devoid of that Will which is proper to It. Therefore, the Monophysites, or partisans of the one Nature in Christ, made no difficulty in henceforth being called by the name of Monothelites, or partisans of the one Will. Sergius, the apostle of this novel unity, might well congratulate himself; Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, hailed with one accord the benefit of this “peace.” Was not the whole East here represented in her patriarchates? If Rome in her turn would but acquiesce, the triumph would be complete! Jerusalem, however, proved a jarring note in this strange concert.

Jerusalem, the witness of the anguish suffered by the Man-God in his Human Nature, had heard him cry out in the Garden of His Agony: Father, if it be possible, let this Chalice pass from me; yet, not My Will, but Thine be done! The City of dolors knew better than any other what to hold concerning these two Wills brought there face to face, yet which had, by the heroism of Incomparable Love, been maintained in such full harmony; the time for her to bear testimony was come. The Monk Sophronius, now her bishop, was by his sanctity, courage, and learning, up to the mark for the task that lay before him. But while, in the charity of his soul, he was seeking to reclaim Sergius, before appearing against him to the Roman Pontiff, the bishop of Constantinople already took the initiative; he succeeded thus, by a hypocritical letter, in circumventing Honorius, and in getting him to impose silence on the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Hence, when at last, Saint Sophronius, at the head of the bishops of his province assembled in council, thought it had become a positive duty on his own part to turn towards Rome, it was but to receive for answer a confirmation of the prohibition to disturb the peace. Woeful mistake! yet withal, it by no means directly implicated the Infallible Magistracy; it was a measure exclusively political, but one which was, all the same, to cost bitter tears and much blood to the Church, and was to result, fifty years later, in the condemnation of the unfortunate Honorius.

The Holy Ghost, indeed, who has guaranteed the infallible purity of the doctrine flowing officially from the Apostolic Chair, has not pledged himself to protect in a like degree, from all failure, either the virtue, or the private judgment, or even the administrative acts of the Sovereign Pontiff. Entering into the views of this marvellous solidarity which the Creator made to reign both upon earth and in heaven, the Man-God, when he founded the society of saints upon the authentic and immutable basis of the Faith of Peter, willed that to the prayers of all should be confided the charge of completing his work, by obtaining for the successors of Peter such preservative graces as do not of themselves necessarily spring from the divine Constitution of the Church.

Meanwhile Mahomet was just letting loose his hordes upon the world. Heraclius was now to learn the worth of his Patriarch’s lying peace, and was to come down lower in shame than he had been exalted in glory by his victories over the Persians, in the days when he had acted as the hero of the Cross. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt fell simultaneously beneath the blows of the lieutenants of the Prophet. Sophronius, placed as he was in the very midst of the scene of invasion, grew still greater under trial. Abandoned by the emperor, where the defense of the empire was at stake, disavowed by Rome, as regarded Faith, he alone intrepidly treated with Omar, as power opposed to power; and when about to die, still hoping against all hope in Rome, though thence had come a blow harder far to bear than that of the Caliph, he confided to Stephen of Dora the supreme, which the latter thus relates: “In his justice strong as a lion, contemning calumnies and intrigues, blessed Sophronius took me, unworthy as I am, and conducted me to the sacred spot of Calvary. There he bound me by an indissoluble engagement, in these words: Thou shalt have to render account to him who being God was voluntarily crucified for us according to the Flesh on this spot, when on the day of his terrible Coming he will appear in glory to judge the living and the dead, if thou defer or neglect the interests of his Faith now in peril. Well knowest thou, that I cannot in the body do this thing, being hindered by the incursion of the Saracens which our sins have deserved. But do thou set out as soon as possible, and go from these confines of the earth unto the furthest extremity, until thou reach the See Apostolic, there where are set the foundations of orthodox dogma. Go again and again, not once, not twice, but endlessly, and make known to the holy personages who reside in that place, the shock that these lands of ours have sustained. Importunately, ceaselessly, implore and supplicate, until Apostolic prudence at length determine, by its canonical judgment, the victory over these perfidious teachings.”

The Bishop of Dora was faithful to the behest of Sophronius. When, twelve years later, he gave this touching narrative at the Council of Lateran in 649, it was then the third time that despite the snares and other difficulties of the times, he could say: “We have taken the wings of a dove, as David speaks, and we have come to declare our situation to this See, elevated in the sight of all, this sovereign, this principal See, where is to be found remedy for the wound that has been made upon us.” Saint Martin I, who received this appeal, was one worthy to hear it; and soon afterwards he repaired by his own martyrdom the fault committed by Honorius, in suffering himself to be tricked by an impostor. His glorious death, followed by the tortures endured for the Truth by the saintly Abbot Maximus and his companions, prepared the victory which the heroic faith of Sophronius had announced to the Roman Pontiff. Admirable was this amends received by Holy Church for an odious silence: now were Her Doctors to be seen, with tongue plucked out, still continuing by divine power to proclaim that Christian dogma which cannot be enchained; still with lopped off hands, finding means, in their indomitable zeal, to affix to the mutilated arm the pen whose function, now made doubly glorious, continued thus to carry throughout the world the refutation of falsehood. 

But it is time to come to the issue of this memorable contest. It is to be found in him whose feast we are this day celebrating. Saint Agatho had assembled the sixth General Council at Constantinople, at the request of another Constantine, an enemy of heresy and a victor over Islam. Faith and justice now did the work, hand in hand; and Saint Leo II could at last sing aloud: “O holy Mother Church, put off thy garb of mourning, and deck thee in robes of gladness. Exult now with joyous confidence: thy liberty is not cramped.” (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Pope Saint Leo II, July 3.)

Pope Saint Leo II fought against falsehood.

The conciliar "popes" have embraced it just as they have taught false moral theological concepts to justify their indemnification of Catholic pro-aborts in public life.

The papacy is a subject for our veneration, not mockery and scorn, something that Dom Prosper Gueranger pointed out in his reflection for July 6, the Octave of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul:

Firmly resting upon Peter, the Church turns to him whom the Spouse has given to be her Head, and testifies to him no less veneration and love, than obedience and fidelity; such is the craving of her gratitude. Moreover she is fully aware of what is thus expressed by St. Peter Damian (or as others say by a disciple of St. Bernard), “none may pretend to intimacy with our Lord, unless he be intimate with Peter.” How admirable is this unity in God’s advance towards his creature! but, at the same time, how absolute is the law of the creature’s progress to the Life Divine. God is not found, save in Jesus; nor Jesus, save in the Church; nor the Church, save in Peter. If you had known Me, said Christ, you would, without doubt, have known my Father also; but the Jews sought God, outside of Jesus, and their efforts were vain. Since then, others have come, wanting to find Jesus, while setting aside his Church; but that which God has joined, what man shall put asunder? So these men, running after a Christ, a phantom of their own conceptions, have found neither Jesus Christ nor his Church. In fine, others are sons of the Church, yet they persuade themselves that in those pastures where, by right, the soul may feed upon God, they have none to seek, save the divine Shepherd, who dwells in heaven. By the very fact of his having committed to another, the care of feeding both lambs and sheep, Jesus seems to have had quite a different view; for these words imply, not only some, either mere beginners and the imperfect, or the strong and saints, but all, little and great, whom the heavenly Shepherd confided to Simon-Barjona, to be, by him, fed, directed, advanced, and guarded.

O thou soul that hungerest after God, go to Peter; think not, otherwise, to appease thy cravings. Formed in the school of the holy Liturgy, thou hast surely no part with such as neglect the Humanity, as they say (speaking of Mary’s Divine Son), in order to come all the more assuredly to the word; but in like manner take care, thou also, not to turn God’s Vicar into an obstacle in thy path. Jesus longs for the blissful meeting, even as thou dost; be certain, therefore, that what he places between thee and himself, on the way, is no obstacle, but a help. Just as in the adorable Eucharist, the sacred species are but to point out to thee where he is whom, of thyself, thou couldst never find here below; so too the mystery of Peter has no other end but this, to show thee with absolute certainty He Who resides for thee in the Divine Sacrament, in his proper substance, resides also for thee, in his authority and infallible guidance. These two mysteries complete one another; they walk hand in hand an will both cease at the same moment,—at the moment when our eyes may gaze at last directly upon Jesus; but, from now till then, the Church sees herein not so much an intermediary or a veil, as the most precious Sign of the invisible Spouse. Therefore, wonder not, if the homage she pays to Peter seems to rival that which she bestows on the Sacred Host; in her multiplied genuflections which she makes before both, she is indeed adoring; adoring not that man, it is true, whom we see seated on the apostolic throne, nor yet the mere species perceived by our senses on the altar; but, adoring, in both instances, the same Jesus, who is silent in the Eucharistic Sacrament, and who speaks and commands in his Vicar.

Further still, she knows that Peter alone can give her the Sacred Host. Baptism which makes us to be sons of God, and all the sacraments which multiply the divine energies within us, are a treasure which he alone has license to dispose of legitimately, either by himself or by others. It is his word, throughout the world, that, in every grade of authorized teaching, gives birth within souls to faith, the beginning of salvation, and develops it from these humble commencements right up to the luminous summits of sanctity. And because, on the mountain heights, the life of the Evangelical counsels of the chosen garden reserved to himself by the Spouse, Peter must needs likewise claim as his own, the guidance and protection, in a more special manner, of religious communities, for he is wishful to be always able himself to offer directly to Jesus, the fairest flowers of that holiness of which his exalted ministry is the very principle and support. Thus sanctified, to Peter again, does the Church address herself, when she would learn in what way to approach her Spouse, in her worship; she says to him, as heretofore, the disciples said to Our Lord: Teach us to pray, and Peter, animated with what he knows so well of the gorgeous pomp of worship in the heavenly country, regulates for us here below the sacred ceremonial, and dictates to the Bride herself the theme of her songs. Lastly, who but Peter can add to her holiness, those other marks of unity, catholicity, and apostolicity, which are, in face of the whole world, her irrefragable right and title to the throne and to the love of the son of God.

If we are truly sons of the Church, if in very deed it is from the heart of our Mother, that we draw our sentiments, let us well understand what should be our gratitude, respectful love, tender confidence, and utter devotedness of our whole being, towards him from whom, by the sweet Will of God, come all these good things. Peter, in his own person and in that of his successors, specially in him who in these our own days bears the weight of the whole world and our burdens also, ought to be the constant object of our filial reverence and homage. His glories, his sufferings, his thoughts should become ours. Forget not that He of whom the Roman Pontiff is visible Representative, has willed that every one of his members should have their invisible share in the government of his Church; the responsibility of each one in a point of such major importance, is clearly indicated in the great duty of prayer, which in God’s sight is of more value than action, and which is rendered by love, stronger than hell. Then, there is that other strict duty of alms-deeds, whereby we are obliged to come to the relief of the indigent, even of our humblest brother: if so, can we deem ourselves free with regard to the Bishop and Father of our souls, when unjust spoliation makes him know, in the necessities of his immense administration, cramping want and difficulty? Happy they who to the tribute of gold, may be allowed to add that of blood! but all are not granted such an honor!

On this, the last day of the Octave consecrated to the triumph of these two Princes of the Apostles, let us, once again, salute the city which was witness of their final combat. She is guardian of their tombs and continues to be the the See of Peter’s successors; by this double title, she is the vestibule of heaven, the capital of the spiritual empire. The very thought of the august trophies that adorn both banks of her noble river, and of all those other glorious memories that linger around her, made the heart of St. John Chrysostom exult with enthusiasm, beneath his eastern sky. We give his words as addressed to the people, in one of his Homilies: “In very deed, the heavens illumined by the fiery rays of the meridian sun, have naught comparable to Rome’s resplendent rays shed over the whole earth by these two luminaries of hers. Thence will Paul arise, thence Peter likewise. Reflect, yea tremble, at the thought of what a spectacle Rome is to witness, when Peter and Paul rising up from their graves, shall be borne aloft to meet the Lord. How brilliant in her roseate hue is Rome before the eyes of Christ! What garlands encircle this city! With what golden chains is she girded! What fountains are hers! Oh! this city of stupendous fame! I admire her, not because of the gold wherewith she abounds, nor because of her proud porticoes, but because she holds within her these two Pillars of the Church.” Then the illustrious orator goes on to remark how he burnt with longing desire to visit these sacred tombs, the treasure of the world, the secure rampart of the queen-city.

In these our own days, the bishops of God’s Church are bound by law to come at fixed intervals, from their various dioceses, throughout the world, to visit the basilicas raised over the precious remains of Peter and Paul; like this latter, they too must needs come and see Peter, still living in the Pontiff, his successor in the primacy. Although simple Christians are not subject to the same obligation to which bishops are bound by oath, yet ought every true Catholic frequently to visit in thought, at least, these blessed hills, whence flow the streams of salvation that divide and carry their waters over the whole world. One of the most consoling symptoms, at the present sad time, is the visible stir which is evidently taking hold of the masses, and urging them to the Eternal City. A movement, which must be encouraged as much as possible, because it is a return to the wisest traditions of our forefathers; and in these days the facility for such a pilgrimage, once in a lifetime, is so great, that few or none would thereby undergo any serious inconvenience, as regards either their family or social position.

But if some there be who really cannot apply to themselves in this literal sense these words of the Psalm: “I have rejoiced at the things that have been said to me, we shall go into the House of the Lord;” let them, at least, make these sentiments of true spiritual patriotism their own, and more so than did the Jews of yore: “May there be abundance for them that love thee, O true Jerusalem! Let peace be in thy strength and abundance in thy towers. For the sake of my brethren who are in thee, this is my prayer: yea this is my prayer, because thou art the house of the Lord our God.” (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Octave of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, July 6.)

The See of Peter is our safeguard against doctrinal impurity just as it is the rock that guarantees fidelity in all that pertains to Faith and Morals, and it is offensive to the very Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church to even suggest that there can be a “loyal opposition” to the one who is Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s very vicar here on earth.

I have long contended that the worst enemies of believing Catholics when the “loving” and so very “tolerant” merchants of the slaughter of the innocent preborn and apologists for all that is indecent, impure and hideous in the sight of the Most Blessed Trinity control all three branches of the Federal government of the United States of America launch their overt schemes of persecution against us that believing Catholics will be fingered by the Bergoglian “bishops,” who will serve as the apologists for and cheerleaders of our own show trials to eradicate all dissent from the prevailing cultural agenda of evil.

We must take seriously the following words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that are contained in Chapter Ten of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew:

Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. [17] But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. [18] And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles: [19] But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. [20] For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.

[21] The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. [22] And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. [23] And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come. [24] The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. [25] It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?

[26] Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. [27] That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops. [28] And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. [29] Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. [30] But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

[31] Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows. [32] Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. [33] But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. [34] Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. [35] For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

[36] And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. [37] He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. [38] And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. [39] He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. [40] He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me.

[41] He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive the reward of a prophet: and he that receiveth a just man in the name of a just man, shall receive the reward of a just man. [42] And whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. (Matthew 10: 16-40.)

We must never fear to proclaim the truths of the Holy Faith, especially as the time of the Roman caesars and their persecution of believing Catholics has returned, this time with the full support and enabling of a putative Successor of Saint Peter and many of his equally putative clergy.

We must always remember that this is the time that God has appointed from all eternity for us to live and thus to sanctify and to save our immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church. The graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flows into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, are sufficient for us to handle whatever crosses—personal, social, and ecclesiastical—that we are asked to carry.

We must always give thanks to God for each of our crosses as we seek to serve Him through Our Lady in this time of apostasy and betrayal, making sure to pray our Rosaries of reparation as we give unto the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary the fruits of all our efforts to restore all things in Him, Christ the King.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us. 

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Pope Saint Leo II, pray for us.

Appendix A

“Cardinal” Ratzinger’s Endorsement of Dogmatic Evolutionism

1990: "The text [of the document Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation] also presents the various types of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms - perhaps for the first time with this clarity - that there are decisions of the magisterium that cannot be the last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. The nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times influenced, may need further correction.

In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century [19th century] about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time [on evolutionism]. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from falling into the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they became obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at their proper time." (Joseph Ratzinger, "Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation," published with the title "Rinnovato dialogo fra Magistero e Teologia," in L'Osservatore Romano, June 27, 1990, p. 6, cited at Card. Ratzinger: The teachings of the Popes against Modernism are obsolete)

Appendix B

“Cardinal” Ratzinger’s Rehabilitation of Antonio Rosmini and Endorsement of the Nestorian Canon that Omits Words of Consecration

(Excerpted from “It is Never Advisable to Die as the Former Leader of a False Religion, part three)

To wit, as a prelude to antipapal “beatification” of Father Antonio Rosmini-Serbati in 2007, Joseph “Cardinal” Ratzinger saw fit to, in essence, claim that Pope Leo XIII had been mistaken on December 14, 1887, to confirm and approve the Holy Office’s condemnation forty of Rosmini-Serbati’s errors, a list of which can be found on pages 475 to 480 of Monsignor Henry Denziger’s The Sources of Catholic Dogma (Thirteenth Edition of Henry Denizger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum) that was published in the United States of America by B. Herder Books in 1957.

Yesterday’s condemned propositions can be rehabilitated very simply by rejecting Thomism and claiming that it is “impossible” to express dogmatic truth adequately at any particular time because of the influences of historical circumstances and the vagaries of human language.

Rosmini’s rehabilitation in 2001 was merely a prelude to his “beatification,” which occurred on November 18, 2007, after his cause had been approved by the man who rehabilitated him, Ratzinger/Benedict:

The events following Rosmini's death required a certain distancing of the Church from his system of thought and, in particular, from some of its propositions. It is necessary to consider the principal historical-cultural factors that influenced this distancing which culminated in the condemnation of the "40 Propositions" of the Decree Post obitum of 1887.

The first factor is the renewal of ecclesiastical studies promoted by the Encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879) of Leo XIII, in the development of fidelity to the thought of St Thomas Aquinas. The Papal Magisterium saw the need to foster Thomism as a philosophical and theoretical instrument, aimed at offering a unifying synthesis of ecclesiastical studies, above all in the formation of priests in seminaries and theological faculties, in order to oppose the risk of an eclectic philosophical approach. The adoption of Thomism created the premises for a negative judgement of a philosophical and speculative position, like that of Rosmini, because it differed in its language and conceptual framework from the philosophical and theological elaboration of St Thomas Aquinas.

A second factor to keep in mind is the fact that the condemned propositions were mostly extracted from posthumous works of the author. These works were published without a critical apparatus capable of defining the precise meaning of the expressions and concepts used. This favoured a heterodox interpretation of Rosminian thought, as did the objective difficulty of interpreting Rosmini's categories, especially, when they were read in a neo-Thomistic perspective. (Note on the Force of the Doctrinal Decrees Concerning the Thought and Work of Fr Antonio Rosmini Serbati.)

There are two things that stand out in this passage of the "note" reversing Pope Leo XIII's condemnation of the propositions of Father Antonio Rosmini.

First, "Cardinal Ratzinger," with the full approval and "papal" benediction of John Paul II, essentially said that Pope Leo XIII was too stupid to understand the complexity of Rosmini's admittedly ambiguous work, leading to that pontiff's misunderstanding of that work. Ratzinger's contention was that the "misunderstanding" served the Church well at the time as, in essence, most other people would have come to the same conclusions as they lacked the "tools" to unlock the "true" meaning hidden deep within Rosmini's words. Ratzinger, of course, had those "tools" at his disposal, most fortunately for the cause of conciliar "truth," you understand.

In other words, Father Rosmini’s posthumously published works that were condemned by the Holy Office under the authority of Pope Leo XIII on December 14, 1887, were “victimized” by the very Thomism that Ratzinger himself had long believed was to “crystal clear” and “too logical” to be of any real use to examine such a “profound” thinker as Father Antonio Rosmini Serbati. Pope Leo XIII was wrong, Ratzinger believed, to have place such an emphasis on what he, Ratzinger, dismissed as the “school of thought” of Saint Thomas Aquinas..)

A review of Rosmini’s propositions as condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1887 leads one to recognize very readily that the likes of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his own predecessor, “Saint John Paul the Great,” who praised Rosmini as a “great thinker” in Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1998, had a profound kinship with a fellow traveler in the belief that religious faith just kind of “springs up” from within one’s inner consciousness. Indeed, the very first through fourth of Rosmini’s proposition condemned by the Holy Office in 1887 contain germs, if you will, of this cornerstone of Modernism:

1. In the order of created things there is immediately manifested to the human intellect something of the divine in its very self, namely, such as pertains to divine nature.

2. When we speak of the divine in nature, we do not use the word divine to signify a nondivine effect of a divine cause; nor, is it our mind to speak of a certain thing as divine because it is such through participation.

3. In the nature of the universe, then, that is in the intelligences that are in it, there is something to which the term of divine not in a figurative but in a real sense is fitting.–The actuality is not distinct from the est of divine actuality.

4. Indeterminate being, which without doubt is known to all intelligences, is that divine thing which is manifest to man in nature.

5. Being, which man observes, must be something of the necessary and eternal being, the creating cause, the determining and final cause of all contingent beings: and this is God.

6. In the being which prescinds from creatures and from God, which is indeterminate being, and in God, not indeterminate but absolute being, the essence is the same.

7. The indeterminate being of intuition, initial being, is something of the Word, which the mind of the Father distinguishes, not really, but according to reason from the Word. (As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, Nos. 2183-2185, pp. 475-476. A very good analysis of Rosmini’s propositions was written well over a decade over now by the late, militantly antisedevacantist writer, Mr. James Larson: The Rosmini Rehabilitation – When To Be is Not To Be. Those who believe that a true pope can be in error and is need of “correction” from members of the laity, however, have to realize that such a position is false. Pope Leo XIII made this very clear in EPISTOLA TUA, June 17, 1885, and EST SANE MOLESTUM,  December 17, 1888. To “be” a true pope one must be a Catholic, and to be a Catholic means that one cannot defect from even a single tenet of the Holy Faith. Not one.  See also Bishop Sanborn’s response to Bp. Williamson on Sedevacantism.)

Conciliarism’s embrace of propositions condemned by Holy Mother Church as the circumstances of time required was noted by an “ultra-progessive” conciliar revolutinonary, “Father” Gregory Baum, S.J., shortly after “Cardinal” Ratzinger’s “rehabilitation” of Father Antonio Rosmini-Serbati’s propositions was promulgated on July 1, 2001:

Today the situation is different. First, according to Ratzinger, serious research has shown that if Rosmini’s ambiguous and obscure passages are interpreted in the light of his own philosophical work, which is, of course, the only honest way of reading a philosophical text, then their meaning is not contrary to the Catholic tradition. Second, in his encyclical Faith and Reason of 1998, John Paul II has welcomed philosophical pluralism in the church and, in fact, mentioned with great respect Antonio Rosmini among several Catholic thinkers of the 19th century. That is why, at the present time, lifting the condemnations decreed in 1887 is justified.

The nota of July 2001 is an important ecclesiastical document because it applies the historical-critical method to the understanding of the magisterium. Yet has Ratzinger’s “attentive reading” demonstrated that lifting the condemnation does not involve the magisterium in an internal contradiction? I do not think so.

He has shown that the condemnation of Rosmini’s propositions in 1887 was justified in terms of the church’s pastoral policy and hence could be lifted without inconsistency later. Yet he does not raise the truth question. The readers of the condemnation of 1886 were made to believe that these propositions were erroneous: They were not told that they were erroneous only when read from a neo-Thomist perspective and that their true meaning should not be pursued at that time because Pope Leo XIII wanted neo-Thomism to become the church’s official philosophy.

The nota demonstrates that the condemnation of 1886 exercised a useful ecclesiastical function, not that it was true. Ratzinger’s explanation reveals that the Holy Office showed no respect for the truth at all. Its intentions were tactical and political. The Holy Office at that time saw itself as a servant of the church’s central government and judged ideas in terms of their ecclesiastical implications, not their truth.

Still, the nota is an important document since it is the first time an ecclesiastical statement wrestles with a question that has troubled Catholics for a long time. How are we to interpret apparent contradictions in the magisterium?

Here is a famous example. In the bull Unam Sanctam of 1302, Pope Boniface VIII wrote these words: “We declare, we set forth, we define that submission to the Roman pontiff is necessary for the salvation of any human creature.” And the Council of Florence solemnly declared in 1442 that outside the Catholic church there is no salvation, neither for heretics nor schismatics, even if they should live holy lives or shed their blood in the name of Christ. Vatican Council II appeared to proclaim an entirely different doctrine. We read in Gaudium et Spes that since Christ has died for all humans and since the destiny of humanity is one, we are to hold that, in a manner known to God, participation in the mystery of redemption is offered to every human being.

We are bound to ask with Ratzinger whether there is an internal contradiction in the magisterium. Were the solemn declarations of Boniface VIII and the Council of Florence wrong? The words of Boniface were so emphatic, “we declare, we set forth, we define,” that the reader may wonder whether Vatican Council II has made a mistake. At the same time, the declarations of Boniface and the cardinals in attendance at the Council of Florence were hard to reconcile with the teaching of the Church Fathers of the second and third centuries who believed that God’s redemptive Word, incarnate in Christ, was operative wherever people sought the truth. There may have been good church-political reasons for Boniface and the cardinals of the Council of Florence to make these harsh declarations, yet — I would argue — these declarations were wrong. The magisterium has made mistakes. The church, guided by the Spirit, is forever learning.

Ratzinger’s document has sent theologians off into a new area of research. (Ratzinger explains how condemnation was right then, wrong now)

Left unaddressed by Baum’s analysis is the simple fact that the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, cannot contradict Himself. Alas, those impressed with Georg Hegel and Teilhard de Chardin and Hans Urs von Balthasar believe, at least minimally, that the “Spirit” can contradict Himself as men grasp to understand “Him” better over time. Pure Modernism, of course.

Baum’s “analysis,” although supportive of conciliarism, is nevertheless interesting because it does raise the issue of contradiction. Yes, those of us who have come to realize that the conciliar church is not the Catholic Church and that its “magisterium” has no authority to contradict anything taught by the Catholic Church realize that the “overturning” of Pope Leo XIII’s 1887 condemnation of forty of Antonio Rosmini’s propositions by Joseph Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on July 1, 2001, has no binding force whatsoever. It is always useful, however, when true conciliar revolutionaries such as Gregory Baum point out the plain truth that “contradiction” can be part of the Faith, an important component element of the Modernist mind.

Then again, you see, Father Antonio Rosmini-Serbati was, apart from providing a useful justification of the conciliar revolutionaries’ embrace of Modernism, an apostle to the poor, and that, according to the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his comrades is all that is needed to save one’s soul. They really do believe that “outside the poor there is no salvation” just as much as they reject the Catholic doctrine of outside the Church there is no salvation (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus).

To attack the nature of dogmatic truth is to attack the nature of God, and to do that is to attack His very existence and that He has revealed anything so definitive that cannot be understood differently by different generations as befits supposedly different “circumstances” in which men live, and this is how the conciliar revolutionaries can “redefine” Original Sin and Special Creation and thus come to put the lower species, plants and inert matter on the plane of equality with the human being. To “redefine” life is to debase man as the zenith of God’s creative work and thus to debase Our Lord, the Incarnate Word, and His Redemptive Act on the wood of the Holy Cross as being nothing other than an expression of “love” that had nothing to do with paying back the debt of Adam’s sin. (A detailed examination of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s careerlong obscuring of the doctrine of Original Sin is appended below.)

Rosmini’s rehabilitation in 2001 was merely a prelude to his “beatification,” which occurred on November 18, 2007, after his cause had been approved by the man who rehabilitated him, Ratzinger/Benedict.

Similarly, none other than that great “restorer of Tradition,” used his variation of the historical-critical method to accept the Assyrian Church of the East’s Anaphora of Addai and Mari of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East that does not contain any actual words of consecration within its text. The fact that this Anaphora, which was rejected by the authority of the Catholic Church in the Sixteenth Century when the Chaldeans (the former Nestorians) were reunited with Rome and once again in 1902 when news reached Rome that many priests of the Chaldean Rite were still using the old Assyrian Anaphora of Addai and Mari without the words of consecration. Nonetheless, however the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, who was one very busy little ecclesiastical termite in the years prior to his "election" on April 19, 2005, used the exact same false methodology in this instance as he had when he rehabilitated Rosmini-Serbati:

The principal issue for the Catholic Church in agreeing to this request, related to the question of the validity of the Eucharist celebrated with the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, one of the three Anaphoras traditionally used by the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East. The Anaphora of Addai and Mari is notable because, from time immemorial, it has been used without a recitation of the Institution Narrative. As the Catholic Church considers the words of the Eucharistic Institution a constitutive and therefore indispensable part of the Anaphora or Eucharistic Prayer, a long and careful study was undertaken of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, from a historical, liturgical and theological perspective, at the end of which the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith on January 17th, 2001 concluded that this Anaphora can be considered valid. H.H. Pope John Paul II has approved this decision. This conclusion rests on three major arguments.

In the first place, the Anaphora of Addai and Mari is one of the most ancient Anaphoras, dating back to the time of the very early Church; it was composed and used with the clear intention of celebrating the Eucharist in full continuity with the Last Supper and according to the intention of the Church; its validity was never officially contested, neither in the Christian East nor in the Christian West.

Secondly, the Catholic Church recognises the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East as a true particular Church, built upon orthodox faith and apostolic succession. The Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East has also preserved full Eucharistic faith in the presence of our Lord under the species of bread and wine and in the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. In the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, though not in full communion with the Catholic Church, are thus to be found "true sacraments, and above all, by apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist" (U.R., n. 15). Secondly, the Catholic Church recognises the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East as a true particular Church, built upon orthodox faith and apostolic succession. The Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East has also preserved full Eucharistic faith in the presence of our Lord under the species of bread and wine and in the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. In the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, though not in full communion with the Catholic Church, are thus to be found "true sacraments, and above all, by apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist" (U.R., n. 15).

Finally, the words of Eucharistic Institution are indeed present in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, not in a coherent narrative way and ad litteram, but rather in a dispersed euchological way, that is, integrated in successive prayers of thanksgiving, praise and intercession.

4. Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist

Considering the liturgical tradition of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, the doctrinal clarification regarding the validity of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, the contemporary context in which both Assyrian and Chaldean faithful are living, the appropriate regulations which are foreseen in official documents of the Catholic Church, and the process of rapprochement between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, the following provision is made:

1. When necessity requires, Assyrian faithful are permitted to participate and to receive Holy Communion in a Chaldean celebration of the Holy Eucharist; in the same way, Chaldean faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, are permitted to participate and to receive Holy Communion in an Assyrian celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

2. In both cases, Assyrian and Chaldean ministers celebrate the Holy Eucharist according to the liturgical prescriptions and customs of their own tradition.

3. When Chaldean faithful are participating in an Assyrian celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the Assyrian minister is warmly invited to insert the words of the Institution in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, as allowed by the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East.

4. The above considerations on the use of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari and the present guidelines for admission to the Eucharist, are intended exclusively in relation to the Eucharistic celebration and admission to the Eucharist of the faithful from the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, in view of the pastoral necessity and ecumenical context mentioned above.

Rome, July 20th, 2001 Guidelines for Chaldean Catholics receiving the Eucharist in Assyrian Churches

This was pure positivism as to say that the words of consecration are implicitly present in a supposed “institute narrative” when they are not there are all is to stand reality on its hand.

Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did not consider himself bound by anything about the preconciliar era that he found “troubling” even though those “troubles” had been issued by Holy Mother Church’s general councils and/or by individual popes in the course of their ordinary magisterium. Ratzinger/Benedict thus made short work of both papal infallibility and of Holy Mother’s absolute immunity form error and heresy that was summarized as follows by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:

Not least among the blessings which have resulted from the public and legitimate honor paid to the Blessed Virgin and the saints is the perfect and perpetual immunity of the Church from error and heresy. (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.)

The Catholic Church is incapable of being touched by any kind of error, no less heresy, yes, even in her Universal Ordinary Magisterium.

Who says so?

None other than the late Alfred Cardinal Ottaviani, who was the Pro-Secretary of the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII from January 15, 1953, to the time of the last true pontiff''s death on October 9, 1958.

Yes, that's who, well at least that's one who taught us this fact.

Using the teaching of Pope Pius XII about the binding nature of papal encyclical letters as the starting point for his treatise, Cardinal Ottaviani explained that no Catholic may put into question, no less reject, a pronouncement of a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.

The principal target of Cardinal Ottaviani's treatise was, of course, none other than Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., the infamous proponent of the heresy of "religious liberty" that wound up being enshrined in the "Second" Vatican Council's Dignitatis Humanae, December 7, 1965.

Father Murray argued that papal pronouncements on matters pertaining to the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, especially condemnations of religious liberty and separation of Church and State, were merely "transitory" or, more accurately, had "transitory elements" and were thus subject to be "reformed." Murray's boldness in this regard was so open that Alfred Cardinal Ottaviani, saw fit to confront Murray's assertions without any kind of equivocation:

Here the problem presents itself of how the Church and the lay state are to live together. Some Catholics are propagating ideas with regard to this point which are not quite correct. Many of these Catholics undoubtedly love the Church and rightly intend to find a mode of possible adaptation to the circumstances of the times. But it is none the less true that their position reminds one of that of the faint-hearted soldier who wants to conquer without fighting, or of that of the simple, unsuspecting person who accepts a hand, treacherously held out to him, without taking account of the fact that this hand will subsequently pull him across the Rubicon towards error and injustice.

The first mistake of these people is precisely that of not accepting fully the "arms of truth" and the teaching which the Roman Pontiffs, in the course of this last century, and in particular the reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, by means of encyclicals, allocutions and instructions of all kinds, have given to Catholics on this subject.

To justify themselves, these people affirm that, in the body of teaching given in the Church, a distinction must be made between what is permanent and what is transitory, this latter being due to the influence of particular passing conditions. Unfortunately, however, they include in this second zone the principles laid down in the Pontifical documents, principles on which the teaching of the Church has remained constant, as they form part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine.

In this matter, the pendulum theory, elaborated by certain writers in an attempt to sift the teaching set forth in Encyclical Letters at different times, cannot be applied. "The Church," it has been written, "takes account of the rhythm of the world's history after the fashion of a swinging pendulum which, desirous of keeping the proper measure, maintains its movement by reversing it when it judges that it has gone as far as it should.... From this point of view a whole history of the Encyclicals could be written. Thus in the field of Biblical studies, the Encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, comes after the Encyclicals Spiritus Paraclitus and Providentissimus.  In the field of Theology or Politics, the Encyclicals, Summi Pontificatus, Non abbiamo bisogno and Ubi Arcano Deo, come after the Encyclical, Immortale Dei."

Now if this were to be understood in the sense that the general and fundamental principles of public Ecclesiastical Law, solemnly affirmed in the Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, are merely the reflection of historic moments of the past, while the swing of the pendulum of the doctrinal Encyclicals of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII has passed in the opposite direction to different positions, the statement would have to be qualified as completely erroneous, not only because it misrepresents the teaching of the Encyclicals themselves, but also because it is theoretically inadmissible. In the Encyclical Letter, Humani Generis, the reigning Pontiff teaches us that we must recognize in the Encyclicals the ordinary magisterium of the Church: "Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand assent, in that, when writing such Letters, the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say "He who heareth you heareth Me" (St. Luke 10:16); and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already belongs for other reasons to Catholic doctrine."

Because they are afraid of being accused of wanting to return to the Middle Ages, some of our writers no longer dare to maintain the doctrinal positions that are constantly affirmed in the Encyclicals as belonging to the life and legislation of the Church in all ages.  For them is meant the warning of Pope Leo XIII who, recommending concord and unity in the combat against error, adds that "care must be taken never to connive, in anyway, at false opinions, never to withstand them less strenuously than truth allows." (Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion.)

Father John Courtney Murray was trying to "historicize" Catholic Social Teaching even though our true popes had condemned "religious liberty" and "separation of Church and State" as heretical in se as matters of principle while, of course, conceding the existence of those heresies as a fait accompli in the pluralist, religious indifferentist state of Modernity. Our true popes never ceased condemning these heresies while making allowance for Holy Mother Church's childen in such countries to make use of the constitutional and legal structures under which they lived to practice their Faith and to profess It openly without inteference or molestation from the civil authorities.

Father Murray sought to "historicize" Catholic Social Teaching even though such "historicization," which asserts that part of a particular teaching was applicable only to the situation that existed at a certain time and thus was not binding upon the Church in perpetuity, had been condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, which was, of course, simply a reiteration of the condemnations of the "evolution of dogma" promulgated at the [First] Vatican Council by Pope Pius IX and contained in the teaching of Pope Saint Pius X, most particularly in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.

Father Murray's efforts to "historicize" Catholic Social Teaching did not escape the notice of young priest who had been ordained on June 29, 1951, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, in Munich, Germany, named Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who had been trained in his seminary years by the "new theologians" in this exact same methodology.

The very foundation of what Ratzinger/Benedict came to term as the "heremeneutic of continuity" is both philosophically absurd and stands as dogmatically condemned, representing also, of course utter blasphemy against the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, by not only "hiding" a "discovery" of the impermanence of dogmatic formulations but had actually permitted direct condemnations of this very proposition by a dogmatic council and various true popes.

How does something that was absolutely false in 1906 become "true" a century later, a "truth" that must be, as noted yesterday, celebrated by the "popes" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism?

Appendix C

“Cardinal” Ratzinger and the Judaism

“It is of course possible to read the Old Testament so that it is not directed toward Christ; it does not point quite unequivocally to Christ.  And if Jews cannot see the promises as being fulfilled in him, this is not just ill will on their part, but genuinely because of the obscurity of the texts and the tension in the relationship between these texts and the figure of Jesus.  Jesus brings a new meaning to these texts – yet it is he who first gives them their proper coherence and relevance and significance.  There are perfectly good reasons, then, for denying that the Old Testament refers to Christ and for saying, No, that is not what he said.  And there are also good reasons for referring it to him – that is what the dispute between Jews and Christians is about.” (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, God and the World, p. 209.)

In its work, the Biblical Commission could not ignore the contemporary context, where the shock of the Shoah has put the whole question under a new light. Two main problems are posed: Can Christians, after all that has happened, still claim in good conscience to be the legitimate heirs of Israel's Bible? Have they the right to propose a Christian interpretation of this Bible, or should they not instead, respectfully and humbly, renounce any claim that, in the light of what has happened, must look like a usurpation? The second question follows from the first: In its presentation of the Jews and the Jewish people, has not the New Testament itself contributed to creating a hostility towards the Jewish people that provided a support for the ideology of those who wished to destroy Israel? The Commission set about addressing those two questions. It is clear that a Christian rejection of the Old Testament would not only put an end to Christianity itself as indicated above, but, in addition, would prevent the fostering of positive relations between Christians and Jews, precisely because they would lack common ground. In the light of what has happened, what ought to emerge now is a new respect for the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. On this subject, the Document says two things. First it declares that “the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Scriptures of the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading, which developed in parallel fashion” (no. 22). It adds that Christians can learn a great deal from a Jewish exegesis practised for more than 2000 years; in return, Christians may hope that Jews can profit from Christian exegetical research (ibid.). I think this analysis will prove useful for the pursuit of Judeo-Christian dialogue, as well as for the interior formation of Christian consciousness. (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Preface to The Jewish People and Their Scriptures in the Christian Bible.)

“It is of course possible to read the Old Testament so that it is not directed toward Christ; it does not point quite unequivocally to Christ.  And if Jews cannot see the promises as being fulfilled in him, this is not just ill will on their part, but genuinely because of the obscurity of the texts and the tension in the relationship between these texts and the figure of Jesus.  Jesus brings a new meaning to these texts – yet it is he who first gives them their proper coherence and relevance and significance.  There are perfectly good reasons, then, for denying that the Old Testament refers to Christ and for saying, No, that is not what he said.  And there are also good reasons for referring it to him – that is what the dispute between Jews and Christians is about.” (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, God and the World, p. 209.)

To the religious leaders present this afternoon, I wish to say that the particular contribution of religions to the quest for peace lies primarily in the wholehearted, united search for God.  Ours is the task of proclaiming and witnessing that the Almighty is present and knowable even when he seems hidden from our sight, that he acts in our world for our good, and that a society’s future is marked with hope when it resonates in harmony with his divine order.  It is God’s dynamic presence that draws hearts together and ensures unity.  In fact, the ultimate foundation of unity among persons lies in the perfect oneness and universality of God, who created man and woman in his image and likeness in order to draw us into his own divine life so that all may be one. ("Pope" Benedict XVI, Courtesy visit to the President of the State of Israel at the presidential palace in Jerusalem, May 11, 2009.)

9. Christians and Jews share to a great extent a common spiritual patrimony, they pray to the same Lord, they have the same roots, and yet they often remain unknown to each other.  It is our duty, in response to God’s call, to strive to keep open the space for dialogue, for reciprocal respect, for growth in friendship, for a common witness in the face of the challenges of our time, which invite us to cooperate for the good of humanity in this world created by God, the Omnipotent and Merciful. (Ratzinger/Benedict at Rome synagogue: ‘May these wounds be healed forever!’ )  

Pope Pius XII summarized the immutable Catholic truth concerning the fact that Judaism was superseded by Catholicism on Good Friday:

29.And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel [30] -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. [34] "To such an extent, then," says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom." [35]

30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37] and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church. "For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over the gentiles"; [38] by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces, which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His mortal members it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical Body; for they would not have been united to this Mystical Body. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

The perennial truths of the Catholic Faith do not change. It is blasphemous to assert that the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, would direct Holy Mother Church without change for nineteen hundred years before authorizing a series of "reversals" starting in 1962 and continuing thereafter to the present time because the Church had yet to “learn” about that her dogma was conditioned by the historical circumstances in which it was pronounced. This means that God the Holy Ghost did not direct our true popes, whether acting individually or with other bishops in Holy Mother Church’s true general councils, a proposition that is both blasphemous and stands authentic Catholic ecclesiology on its head.

As Pope Pius XI noted in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, God has revealed His doctrines to us, and we profess our faith in what God has revealed. Doctrine is not the product of the “faith experience:”

For this reason it is that all who are truly Christ's believe, for example, the Conception of the Mother of God without stain of original sin with the same faith as they believe the mystery of the August Trinity, and the Incarnation of our Lord just as they do the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, according to the sense in which it was defined by the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Are these truths not equally certain, or not equally to be believed, because the Church has solemnly sanctioned and defined them, some in one age and some in another, even in those times immediately before our own? Has not God revealed them all? For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. But in the use of this extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or that which some have previously called into question is declared to be of faith.  (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928,)

The late Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, never accepted this. He believed that Protestants truly "love" Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ because they are said to have a "relationship" with Him even though they do not know Him or accept Him as He has revealed Himself to men exclusively through His Catholic Church. Ratzinger/Benedict believed that the Orthodox are fellow "believers" even though they reject the Catholic Church's doctrinal definitions of Original Sin, Papal Primacy, Papal Infallibility and Purgatory and reject as well the dogma of Our Lady's Immaaculate Conception as defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854.