Seventy Long Years of Priestly Apostasy

Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who observed the seventieth anniversary of his priestly ordination on June 29, 2021, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul,  is constitutionally incapable of accepting truth as it is. He believes that it is impossible for human language to adequately express or grasp truth in all of its “infinite” possibilities given what he thinks is the subjective influences of the particular circumstances of the moment which gives rise to its expression. In other words, Ratzinger/Benedict, following the teaching of his Hegelian mentor, the late Father Hans Urs von Balthasar, believes that truth contains within itself the seeds of its own inherent contradiction and that the clash between the original idea, the thesis, and its opposite to which it gives birth, so to speak, the antithesis, produces a new idea, the synthesis. This is madness. It is insanity. However, it is the key to understanding who Joseph Ratzinger is and how he will be until he dies, especially since he is persisting in his refusal to accept truth in its simplicity.  

It was in his capacity as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that Ratzinger particularly noted the supposed necessity of examining past dogmatic statements, especially those on Modernism by Pope Saint Pius X and those issued against Modernist Scriptural exegesis by the Pontifical Biblical Commission during the latter’s reign, in light of the historical circumstances which, the nonagenarian antipope emeritus contended, produced those statements, which must be subject to further modifications once circumstances change. In other words, dogmatic statements are never the “final word” as it is impossible to express truth adequately in a permanent way given the limitations of human language and the specific circumstances that may have contributed to a specific dogmatic formulation.

Here once again, therefore, one can see how Joseph Alois Ratzinger phrased his support of dogmatic evolutionism as a priest, the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and as a supposed Successor of Saint Peter:

1971: "In theses 10-12, the difficult problem of the relationship between language and thought is debated, which in post-conciliar discussions was the immediate departure point of the dispute. 

The identity of the Christian substance as such, the Christian 'thing' was not directly ... censured, but it was pointed out that no formula, no matter how valid and indispensable it may have been in its time, can fully express the thought mentioned in it and declare it unequivocally forever, since language is constantly in movement and the content of its meaning changes." (Fr. Ratzinger: Dogmatic formulas must always change.)

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)

Secondly, it was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.

Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.

These are all subjects of great importance - they were the great themes of the second part of the Council - on which it is impossible to reflect more broadly in this context. It is clear that in all these sectors, which all together form a single problem, some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned. It is easy to miss this fact at a first glance.

It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.  

On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change.

Basic decisions, therefore, continue to be well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied to new contexts can change. Thus, for example, if religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge.

It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction.

The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State with the Decree on Religious Freedom,has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22: 21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty (cf. I Tm 2: 2); but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the State.

The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one's own faith - a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God's grace in freedom of conscience. A missionary Church known for proclaiming her message to all peoples must necessarily work for the freedom of the faith. She desires to transmit the gift of the truth that exists for one and all. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)

What was that Pope Pius XII wrote in Humani Generis about how the "new theologians" deny that the true meaning of doctrines may be known and understood with metaphysical certitude?

Let me remind you:

34. It is not surprising that these new opinions endanger the two philosophical sciences which by their very nature are closely connected with the doctrine of faith, that is, theodicy and ethics; they hold that the function of these two sciences is not to prove with certitude anything about God or any other transcendental being, but rather to show that the truths which faith teaches about a personal God and about His precepts, are perfectly consistent with the necessities of life and are therefore to be accepted by all, in order to avoid despair and to attain eternal salvation. All these opinions and affirmations are openly contrary to the documents of Our Predecessors Leo XIII and Pius X, and cannot be reconciled with the decrees of the Vatican Council. It would indeed be unnecessary to deplore these aberrations from the truth, if all, even in the field of philosophy, directed their attention with the proper reverence to the Teaching Authority of the Church, which by divine institution has the mission not only to guard and interpret the deposit of divinely revealed truth, but also to keep watch over the philosophical sciences themselves, in order that Catholic dogmas may suffer no harm because of erroneous opinions. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

For the likes of men such as the conciliar revolutionaries to be correct, the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity not only hid the true meaning of doctrines for over nineteen hundred years, He permitted true popes and the Fathers of Holy Mother Church's twenty true general councils to condemn propositions that have, we are supposed to believe, only recently been "discovered" as having been true. Blasphemous and heretical.

Very interestingly insofar as the latest "synthesis" developed by Ratzinger/Benedict is concerned, that infamous December 22, 2005, address to the conciliar curia contained the following passage about the "necessity" of seeking a "new way" to "understand" what he alleged to be the Catholic Church with the "faith of Israel":

Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.  (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005)

No event of secular history can cause the Catholic Church to breathe new life into a false religion that is hated by God.

The events of World War II have been used by various adherents of the Talmud to demonstrate their deeply held belief that the spilling of Jewish blood is more horrible a crime than the spilling of the blood of others. Indeed, the Zionists in Israel have treated the Palestinians, who were thrown out of their own homes and had their property seized from them in 1948 and have been subjected to all manner of degrading conditions since that time, as the same sort of subhumans as the Jews and others, especially the Poles, were treated by the Nazis. The exploitation of the crimes of the Nazis during World War II has resulted in an endless effort to impose "guilt" on anyone and everyone who dares to proclaim the Holy Name of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in public, no less hold to everything that He has revealed to us in the Sacred Deposit of Faith and has entrusted to the infallible teaching authority of His Catholic Church for Its explication and eternal safekeeping.

Ratzinger/Benedict has made numerous heretical statements that contradict the consistent, immutable teaching of the Catholic Church that the Old Covenant God made with Moses was superseded by the New and Eternal Covenant that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ instituted at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and that he ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday as the earth quaked and the curtain in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom:

“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 Ghsot, 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.

Wake up, resignationists.

Wake up.

Look at Catholic truth rather than continue being mired in falsehoods and delusions that cause you to chase down one rabbit hole after another and/or to push that Sisyphus-like boulder up a hill repeatedly only to have it come crashing down upon you time and time again.

Joseph Alois Ratzinger was never "Pope Benedict XVI" as he has been in a state of revolt against the Holy Faith, starting with the very nature of God and of His Holy Truth, throughout the course of his seminary years and, of course, during his seventy years of priestly life.

Indeed, "Pope Benedict XVI" constantly esteemed the symbols of false religions, including those of Mohammedanism, thereby scandalizing a Mohammedan convert named Magdi Allam. Indeed, it was less than seven months after what appeared to be the completion of his “personal journey” in 2008 that Magdi Allam wrote an open letter, which was addressed to the man who received him into what he, Allam, believed to be the Catholic Church, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Muslim-born journalist baptized by Pope Benedict XVI at Easter asked the pope to tell his top aide for relations with Muslims that Islam is not an intrinsically good religion and that Islamic terrorism is not the result of a minority gone astray.

As the Vatican was preparing to host the first meeting of the Catholic-Muslim Forum Nov. 4-6, Magdi Allam, a longtime critic of the Muslim faith of his parents, issued an open letter to Pope Benedict that included criticism of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

In the letter, posted on his Web site Oct. 20, Allam said he wanted to tell the pope of his concern for "the serious religious and ethical straying that has infiltrated and spread within the heart of the church."

He told the pope that it "is vital for the common good of the Catholic Church, the general interest of Christianity and of Western civilization itself" that the pope make a pronouncement in "a clear and binding way" on the question of whether Islam is a valid religion.

The Catholic Church's dialogue with Islam is based on the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions ("Nostra Aetate"), which urged esteem for Muslims because "they adore the one God," strive to follow his will, recognize Jesus as a prophet, honor his mother, Mary, "value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting."

The council called on Catholics and Muslims "to work sincerely for mutual understanding" and for social justice, moral values, peace and freedom.

Allam told Pope Benedict he specifically objected to Cardinal Tauran telling a conference in August that Islam itself promotes peace but that "'some believers' have 'betrayed their faith,'" using it as a pretext for violence.

"The objective reality, I tell you with all sincerity and animated by a constructive intent, is exactly the opposite of what Cardinal Tauran imagines," Allam told the pope. "Islamic extremism and terrorism are the mature fruit" of following "the sayings of the Quran and the thought and action of Mohammed."

Allam said he was writing with the "deference of a sincere believer" in Christianity and as a "strenuous protagonist, witness and builder of Christian civilization."

After Pope Benedict baptized Allam March 22 during the Easter Vigil and Allam used his newspaper column and interviews to condemn Islam, the Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said that when the Catholic Church welcomes a new member it does not mean it accepts his opinions on every subject.

Baptism is a recognition that the person entering the church "has freely and sincerely accepted the Christian faith in its fundamental articles" as expressed in the creed, Father Lombardi had said.

"Of course, believers are free to maintain their own ideas on a vast range of questions and problems on which legitimate pluralism exists among Christians," he said. (Magdi Allam Writes Open Letter to "Pope Benedict" )

"Of course, believers are free to maintain their own ideas on a vast range of questions and problems on which legitimate pluralism exists among Christians"?

“Father” Lombardi meant to say that there is a "legitimate pluralism" as to whether Mohammedanism is a violent religion of its very false, diabolical nature, which was about as absurd as his statement in April of 2009 that there was such a thing as “therapeutic abortion” that was seen as morally licit in some circumstances according to Catholic moral theology (So Long to the Fifth Commandment.)

Once again, the late Jean-Louis Tauran was only the voice of a message that belonged to "Pope Benedict" himself.

Remember, if you will, that Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI personally esteemed the blasphemous Koran on two separate occasions in 2008, including at the “John Paul II Cultural Center” in Washington, District of Columbia, on Thursday, April 17, 2008, and a few weeks thereafter at the Apostolic Palace as he termed the Koran “that dear book.”

Perhaps more significantly, he assumed the Mohammedan “prayer” position at the Blue Mosque on November 30, 2006, the Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle, and entered into two other mosques while visiting Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Zionist State of Israel eight months later.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI entered into the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, taking off his shoes so as to symbolize that he was in a "holy place" and then turned in the direction of Mecca at the behest of his Mohammedan "host," who instructed him to assume the Mohammedan prayer position as they "prayed" together. God is offended by honor being given to such a false religion as the souls of His faithful Catholics are scandalized and bewildered and confused as a consequence.

Places of worship, like this splendid Al-Hussein Bin Talal mosque named after the revered late King, stand out like jewels across the earth’s surface. From the ancient to the modern, the magnificent to the humble, they all point to the divine, to the Transcendent One, to the Almighty. And through the centuries these sanctuaries have drawn men and women into their sacred space to pause, to pray, to acknowledge the presence of the Almighty, and to recognize that we are all his creatures. (Speech to Muslim religious leaders, members of the Diplomatic Corps and Rectors of universities in Jordan in front of the mosque al-Hussein bin Talal in Amman, May 9, 2009. Ratzinger/Benedict at the Mosque Al-Hussein bin Talal, Amman, Jordan, Saturday, May 9, 2009.)

I cordially thank the Grand Mufti, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, together with the Director of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, Sheikh Mohammed Azzam al-Khatib al-Tamimi, and the Head of the Awquaf Council, Sheikh Abdel Azim Salhab, for the welcome they have extended to me on your behalf. I am deeply grateful for the invitation to visit this sacred place, and I willingly pay my respects to you and the leaders of the Islamic community in Jerusalem. (Courtesy visit, May 12, 2009, to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the Mount of the Temple, since when is a place of false worship "sacred" to the true God of Divine Revelation?)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI entering the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Wednesday, May 12, 2009. Note that the false "pontiff" has taken off his shoes once again.

Saints gave up their lives rather than to give even the appearance of such apostasy. It is no wonder that Magdi Allam left what he thought was the Catholic Church after Jorge Mario Bergoglio's own repeated praises of Mohammedanism.

Joseph Alois Ratzinger's convoluted mind of contradiction and paradox was shaped, if you can call it that, during his years in seminary by professors who served as propagandists for the “new theology” that would be condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis on August 12, 1950. George Weigel, the hagiographer of Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II (Enjoy the Party, George, Enjoy the Party) and a propagandist in behalf of all things conciliar, noted with approval that Ratzinger/Benedict was the first “non-Thomist” (Jorge Mario Bergoglio has care only for Talmudic philosophy) to serve as the head of what he thinks is the Catholic Church’s doctrinal office in centuries, citing Ratzinger’s seminary training as being responsible for this sign of “progress” that is actually, of course, a sign of apostasy: 

In November 1945, Joseph Ratzinger and his brother, Georg, entered the major seminary at Freising. (Freising, a town some twenty miles north of Munich, is joined to the much larger city in the name of the local archdiocese, which is “Munich and Freising.” The diocese of Freising dates back to 739, while the double-named archdiocese into which the Freising diocese was incorporated only dates to 1818). In the seminary, which was also serving as a hospital for foreign POWs awaiting repatriation, older war veterans and youngsters like Joseph Ratzinger were united in a determination to serve the Church and, in doing so, to help rebuild a physically and morally shattered Germany. For a mind like Ratzinger’s, the return to academic life was a long-awaited feast: “a hunger for knowledge had grown in the years of famine, in the years when we had been delivered up to the Moloch of power, so far from the realm of the spirit.” In addition to the prescribed courses in philosophy and other subjects, Ratzinger and his colleagues “devoured” novels, with Dostoevsky, Claudel, Bernanos, and Mauriac among the favorites. The seminary curriculum didn’t neglect the hard sciences; as Ratzinger would later put it, “we thought that, with the breakthroughs made by Planck, Heisenberg, and Einstein, the sciences were once again on their way to God.” Romano Guardini and Josef Pieper were favorites among the contemporary theologians and philosophers.

The prefect of Ratzinger’s study hall, Father Alfred Läpple, put him to work reading books that introduced him to Heidegger, Jaspers, Nietzsche, Buber, and Bergson, philosophers most certainly not on any Roman (or American) seminary reading list in those days; the young Ratzinger immediately made an intuitive connection between the personalism of Buber and Jaspers and “the thought of St. Augustine, who in his Confessions had struck me with the power of all his human passion and depth.” Conversely, and concurrently, Ratzinger had an unhappy introduction to the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas, which were presented in what he later termed a “rigid, neo-scholastic” form that was “simply too far afield from my own questions.” The young Bavarian scholar was beginning to range freely across centuries of western and Christian thought, a lifelong process that would eventually give him an encyclopedic knowledge of theology. His seminary experience with neo-scholasticism would also mark him permanently, and would later make him the first non-Thomist in centuries to head the Catholic Church’s principal doctrinal office.

In 1947, Ratzinger went to Munich for his theological studies, encountering there a host of renowned theologians and teachers who were breaking with the rigidities of neo-scholasticism and rethinking Catholic dogmatic theology through a return to the Bible, to the Fathers of the Church in the early centuries of Christianity, and to the liturgy, the Church’s worship, which they believed was alocus theologicus, a “source” of theology. Preeminent among these teachers was Michael Schmaus, who had come to Munich from Münster after the war and was considered a theologian on the cutting edge of the renewal of Catholic thought. Ratzinger was also intrigued by the New Testament scholar Friedrich Wilhelm Maier, and while he could never accept aspects of Maier’s method of biblical interpretation, he learned from him a passion for biblical studies which, as he later put it, “has always remained for me the center of my theology.” Another influential teacher during these years was his Old Testament professor, Friedrich Stummer, who helped the neophyte theologian to understand that “the New Testament is not a different book of a different religion that, for some reason or other, had appropriated the Holy Scriptures of the Jews as a kind of preliminary structure.” No, “the New Testament is nothing other than an interpretation of ‘the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings’ found from or contained in the story of Jesus.” In Munich, under the tutelage of Josef Pascher, Ratzinger began to explore the mid-century liturgical movement more deeply and to read in the mystical theology that had grown out of one center of that movement, the Benedictine monastery at Maria Laach. The Bible and the liturgy came together for Ratzinger, intellectually, in his Munich studies: “Just as I learned to understand the New Testament as being the soul of all theology, so too I came to see the liturgy as its living element, without which it would necessarily shrivel up.” (The Making of a New Benedict.)

Has not Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI told us throughout the course of his priesthood that he dreads the clear, precise expression of dogma?"

Yes, he told us this in his own memoirs, Milestones:

Ratzinger loved St. Augustine, but never St. Thomas Aquinas: 'By contrast, I had difficulties in penetrating the thought of Thomas Aquinas, whose crystal-clear logic seemed to be too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made' (op. cit., p.44). This r aversion was mainly due to the professor of philosophy at the seminary, who 'presented us with a rigid, neo-scholastic Thomism that was simply too far afield from my own questions' (ibid.). According to Cardinal Ratzinger, whose current opinions appear unchanged from those he held as a seminarian, the thought of Aquinas was "too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made," and was unable to respond to the personal questions of the faithful. This opinion is enunciated by a prince of the Church whose function it is to safeguard the purity of the doctrine of the Faith! Why, then, should anyone be surprised at the current disastrous crisis of Catholicism, or seek to attribute it to the world, when those who should be the defenders of the Faith, and hence of genuine Catholic thought, are like sewers drinking in the filth, or like gardeners who cut down a tree they are supposed to be nurturing? What can it mean to stigmatize St. Thomas as having a "too impersonal and ready-made" logic? Is logic "personal"? These assertions reveal, in the person who makes them, a typically Protestant, pietist attitude, like that found in those who seek the rule of faith in personal interior sentiment.

In the two years Ratzinger spent at the diocesan seminary of Freising, he studied literature, music, modern philosophy, and he felt drawn towards the new existentialist and modernist theologies. He did not like St. Thomas Aquinas. The formation described does not correspond to the exclusively Catholic formation that is necessary to one called to be a priest, even taking into account the extenuating circumstances of the time, that is, anti-Christian Nazism, the war and defeat, and the secularization of studies within seminaries. It seems that His Eminence, with all due respect, gave too much place to profane culture, with its "openness" to everything, and its critical attitude...Joseph Ratzinger loved the professors who asked many questions, but disliked those who defended dogma with the crystal-clear logic of St. Thomas. This attitude would seem to us to match his manner of understanding Catholic liturgy. He tells us that from childhood he was always attracted to the liturgical movement and was sympathetic towards it. One can see that for him, the liturgy was a matter of feeling, a lived experience, an aesthetically pleasing "Erlebnis," but fundamentally irrational (op. cit. passim.). (The Memories of a Destructive Mind: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Milestones, found on a Society of Saint Pius X website.) 

Who believes that dogmatic truths are never adequately expressed at any one time as the result of the limitations of human language and the historical circumstances in which a formulation is made?

Joseph Ratzinger and his successor, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/, who speaks down to us about the “no church” of the “past” and the “yes church” of today.

Although differing in their methodologies as Ratzinger relies on the Hegelianism of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Bergoglio is an open dogmatic evolutionist, both living antipopes believe in the mutability of dogmatic truths, a falsehood that leads to "ungraspable shiftings" of belief and pastoral praxis. The result has been massive confusion and uncertainty among Catholics as to what the Catholic Church teaches. Some even are so befuddled by the smoke blown in their direction by the conciliar revolutionaries that they permit themselves to believe that the Faith is beyond human understanding and that it can be expressed only in terms of uncertainty, paradox and ambiguity, although I would assert that there is nothing uncertain, paradoxial or ambiguous about Jorge Mario Bergolgio's rank pantheism. Bergoglio has no use for Catholic doctrine as his version of Modernism is entirely viscerally-based whereas Ratzinger has always tried to “discover” some kind of theological rationalization that represents a “synthesis.”

What the illogical, self-contradictory and ever-paradoxical mind of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict ignores, however, is that the dialectical process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, which was later adapted by Karl Marx and turned, as Marx called it, “right side up,” is an ongoing process that is supposed to end at an “ideal” stage, which is illusory as (a) the process itself is false and (b) who is to say when the “ideal” stage has been realized?

This is all based on the believe that the true God of Divine Revelation has revealed truths to His Holy Church that are so opaque and murky that it is possible for them to be understood at different times by different generations of alleged theologians and in light of the “changing” circumstances in which “modern men” live. Ah, the specific circumstances in which men live change, but fallen human nature remains the same. More to the point, however God Himself is without shadow of change or alternation and to suggest otherwise is to deny His own very immutable nature and to make of Him whatever the human mind conjures up. No matter the window dressing of “living tradition” and/or the “hermeneutic of continuity,” though, the “new theology’s” adaptation of dogmatic evolutionism according to the dialectical process of George Friedrich Hegel is nothing other than paganism.

The antipope emeritus’s “search” for some kind of “new” truth about the supersession of the Old Covenant by the New and Eternal Covenant that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is thus nothing new as he wrote in the misnamed Principles of Catholic Theology that it was necessary to find a “middle ground” between two alleged extremes: the teaching of the Catholic Church as the one and only true Church of Christ and Protestantism’s rejection of that teaching:

Against this background we can now weigh the possibilities that are open to Christian ecumenism. The maximum demands on which the search for unity must certainly founder are immediately clear. On the part of the West, the maximum demand would be that the East recognize the primacy of the bishop of Rome in the full scope of the definition of 1870 and in so doing submit in practice, to a primacy such as has been accepted by the Uniate churches. On the part of the East, the maximum demand would be that the West declare the 1870 doctrine of primacy erroneous and in so doing submit, in practice, to a primacy such as has been accepted with the removal of the Filioque from the Creed and including the Marian dogmas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As regards Protestantism, the maximum demand of the Catholic Church would be that the Protestant ecclesiological ministers be regarded as totally invalid and that Protestants be converted to Catholicism; the maximum demand of Protestants, on the other hand, would be that the Catholic Church accept, along with the unconditional acknowledgement of all Protestant ministries, the Protestant concept of ministry and their understanding of the Church and thus, in practice, renounce the apostolic and sacramental structure of the Church, which would mean, in practice, the conversion of Catholics to Protestantism and their acceptance of a multiplicity of distinct community structures as the historical form of the Church. While the first three maximum demands are today rather unanimously rejected by Christian consciousness, the fourth exercises a kind of fascination for it – as it were, a certain conclusiveness that makes it appear to be the real solution to the problem. This is all the more true since there is joined to it the expectation that a Parliament of Churches, a "truly ecumenical council’, could then harmonize this pluralism and promote a Christian unity of action.  That no real union would result from this, but that its very impossibility would become a single common dogma, should convince anyone who examines the suggestion closely that such a way would not bring Church unity but only a final renunciation of it.  As a result, none of the maximum solutions offers any real hope of unity.

As a result, none of the maximum solutions offers any real hope of unity. In any event, church unity is not a political problem that can be solved by means of compromise or the weighing of what is regarded as possible or acceptable. What is at stake here is unity of belief, that is, the question of truth, which cannot be the object of political maneuvering. As long as and to the extent that the maximum solution must be regarded as a requirement of truth itself, just so long and to just that extent there will be no other recourse than simply to strive to convert one's partner in the debate. In other words, the claim of truth ought not to be raised where there is not a compelling and indisputable reason for doing so. We may not interpret as truth that which is, in reality, a historical development with a more or less close relationship to truth. Whenever, then, the weight of truth and its incontrovertibility are involved, they must be met by a corresponding sincerity that avoids laying claim to truth prematurely and is ready to search for the inner fullness of truth with the eyes of love. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 197-198)

This statement of utter apostasy was "ratified" by Ratzinger as "Benedict XVI" when he made the following statement to an "ecumenical" gathering in Cologne, Germany, on Friday, August 19, 2005:

Benedict XVI: "We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.

On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return:  that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!

It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity:  in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. (Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne English)

This means that the work of countless Catholics, including Saint Francis de Sales, who worked assiduously to bring Calvinists back to the true Church,  outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order, as well as that of Saint Clement Mary Hofbauer, who brought many German and Swiss heretics back to the Catholic Faith, and the work  of countless martyrs, including, among so many others, the English and Irish Martyrs, Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen, the Martyrs of Gorkum and Saint Andrew Bobola, who gave up his life at the hands of the Orthodox, was wrong. There is a true Church, and it is the job of all Catholics no matter their state-in-life to pray for the return of all lapsed Catholics and of all non-Catholics to the Barque of Saint Peter. 

False religious are hideous in the sight of God, Who has deigned in His inifinite mercy to show us concrete signs of his displeasure with false religions:

It is indeed a remarkable fact that, as the devil made use of Luther, an apostate monk, to abolish the Mass and deny the Real Presence; in like manner, God made use of His arch-enemy, the devil, to prove the Real Presence. He repeatedly forced him publicly to profess his firm belief in it, to confound the heretics for their disbelief, and acknowledge himself vanquished by Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. For this purpose, God allowed a certain Mme. Nicola Aubrey, an innocent person, to become possessed by Beelzebub and twenty-nine other evil spirits. The possession took place on the eighth of November, 1565, and lasted until the eighth of February, 1566.

Her parents took her to Father de Motta, a pious priest of Vervins, in order that he might expel the demon by exorcisms of the Church. Father de Motta tried several times to expel the evil spirit by applying the sacred relics of the holy cross, but he could not succeed; Satan would not depart. At last, inspired by the Holy Ghost, he resolved to expel the devil by means of the sacrament of Our Lord's Body and Blood. Whilst Nicola was lying in a state of unnatural lethargy, Father de Motta placed the Blessed Sacrament upon her lips, and instantly the infernal spell was broken; Nicola was restored to consciousness, and received Holy Communion with every mark of devotion. As soon as Nicola had received the sacred Body of Our Lord, her face became bright and beautiful as the face of an angel, and all who saw her were filled with joy and wonder, and they blessed God from their inmost hearts. With the permission of God, Satan returned and again took possession of Nicola.

As the strange circumstances of Nicola's possession became known everywhere, several Calvinist preachers came with their followers, to "expose this popish cheat," as they said. On their entrance, the devil saluted them mockingly, called them by name, and told them that they had come in obedience to him. One of the preachers took his Protestant prayer book, and began to read it with a very solemn face. The devil laughed at him, and putting on a most comical look, he said: "Ho! Ho! My good friend; do you intend to expel me with your prayers and hymns? Do you think that they will cause me any pain? Don't you know that they are mine? I helped to compose them!"

"I will expel thee in the name of God," said the preacher, solemnly.

"You!" said the devil mockingly. "You will not expel me either in the name of God, or in the name of the devil. Did you ever hear of one devil driving out another?"

"I am not a devil," said the preacher, angrily, "I am a servant of Christ."

"A servant of Christ, indeed!" said Satan, with a sneer. "What! I tell you, you are worse than I am. I believe, and you do not want to believe. Do you suppose that you can expel me from the body of this miserable wretch? Ha! Go first and expel all the devils that are in your own heart!"

The preacher took his leave, somewhat discomfited. On going away, he said, turning up the whites of his eyes, "O Lord, I pray thee, assist this poor creature!"

"And I pray Lucifer," cried the evil spirit, "that he may never leave you, but may always keep you firmly in his power, as he does now. Go about your business, now. You are all mine, and I am your master." (Exorcism of Nicola Aubrey)

Many years ago in the village of Plantees, France, there lived a farmer named Pierre Port-Combet, who used to work on Sundays and Feast Days. At one time he had been a Catholic, but he had fallen away from the truth Faith and joined a Protestant religion called Calvinism. He had a great dislike for Catholics and anything about the Catholic Faith.

Pierre had married a devout Catholic woman named Jeanne. They had six children and Jeanne tried to raise them as good Catholics. But even though Pierre had made a vow to allow his wife to raise their children as Catholics, he gradually led their six children into the Calvinist religion! Jeanne was broken hearted about this because it meant that her husband and children were in great danger of loosing their souls. And since Pierre would not listen to her pleadings, the best she could do was to go to Mass, pray, and make sacrifices.

This area of France was very Catholic at the time. There was a law that all people should not work on Sundays and on special Holy Days, so that they could go to Mass and spend the rest of the day in prayer and holy reading. But Pierre loved to break this law, especially on Our Lady's Feast Days, because he did not like the Catholic religion!

On March 25, 1649, the Feast of the Annunciation, Pierre showed his dislike for the Catholic Church by working near a road where villagers could see him, as they traveled on their way to Mass. He pretended to work, by using his knife to cut into a willow tree, which grew beside the road. But as soon as he cut into the willow, the tree bled! Pierre was shocked as the blood flowed out of the tree and splashed onto his hands and arms. At first Pierre thought he was wounded, but finding that he was not injured, he stabbed the willow tree another time, and again the tree bled!

Around this time, Pierre's wife passed by on her way to church. Seeing that her husband's arms were covered with blood, she rushed over to help him. While she was looking for the wound, Pierre tried to explain to his wife what had just taken place. Jeanne tried to calm her husband and cut the tree with his knife, but nothing happened. When Pierre noticed that no blood came from the tree, he grabbed the knife from his wife and cut off a willow branch. The blood came gushing out of the tree!

By now Pierre was terribly frightened! He called to Louis, a neighbour who was just passing by, and begged him to come and see what happened. But when Louis took the knife and tried to cut the tree, no blood came out. As the other villagers passed by they began to realize that the blood from the tree was a warning from God to Pierre, so that he would come back to the Catholic Faith and not work on Sundays.

Before long, Pierre was brought to court for working on this special Feast Day and he had to pay a fine. And when the Bishop heard about the miracle of the bleeding willow tree, he ordered some priests to look into the matter. Pierre and others who saw the miracle were questioned. In the end it was decided that this miracle was a stern warning from God to Pierre, so that he would mend his ways!

Pierre had a change of heart and realizing that he was wrong, he would often go to pray near the willow tree. But when some of his Calvinist friends saw him, they threatened to hurt him if he left the Calvinist religion. Because of this Pierre refused to go back to the Catholic Church.

Heaven was watching over Pierre and after seven years, on March 25, 1656, Our Lady appeared to him. On that day, Pierre was working in the field and saw a Lady standing far away on a little hill. The Lady wore a white dress, a blue mantle and had a black veil over her head, which partly covered her face. As the Lady came toward Pierre, she suddenly picked up speed and in a flash, she stood beside him. With her beautiful, sweet voice, the Lady spoke to Pierre, "God be with you my friend!"

For a moment, Pierre stood in amazement. The Lady spoke again, "What is being said about this devotion? Do many people come?"

Pierre replied, "Yes many people come,"

Then the Lady said, "Where does that heretic live who cut the willow tree? Does he not want to be converted?"

Pierre mumbled an answer. The Lady became more serious, "Do you think that I do not know that you are the heretic? Realize that your end is at hand. If you do not return to the True Faith, you will be cast into Hell! But if you change your beliefs, I shall protect you before God. Tell people to pray that they may gain the good graces which, God in His mercy has offered to them."

Pierre was filled with sorrow and shame and moved away from the Lady. Suddenly realizing that he was being rude, Pierre stepped closer to her, but she had moved away and was already near the little hill. He ran after her begging, "Please stop and listen to me. I want to apologize to you and I want you to help me!"

The Lady stopped and turned. By the time Pierre caught up to her, she was floating in the air and was already disappearing from sight. Suddenly, Pierre realized that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary had appeared to him! He fell to his knees and cried buckets of tears, "Jesus and Mary I promise you that I will change my life and become a good Catholic. I am sorry for what I have done and I beg you please, to help me change my life…"

On August 14, 1656, Pierre became very sick. An Augustinian priest came to hear his confession and accepted him back into the Catholic Church. Pierre received Holy Communion the next day on the Feast of the Assumption. After Pierre returned to the Catholic Faith, many others followed him. His son and five daughters came back to the Catholic Church as well as many Calvinists and Protestants. Five weeks later on September 8, 1656, Pierre died and was buried under the miraculous willow tree, just as he had asked.

Fr. Fais, the parish priest from the nearby town of Vinay, helped a lady to buy the field where Pierre had spoken to Our Lady. In time the chapel of Our Lady of Good Meeting was built on the spot where Our Lady had spoken to Pierre. Soon, a large church was built over the spot of the miraculous tree, and named in honour of Our Lady of the Willow. Some good person also carved a statue of Our Lady similar to the way Pierre had described the Blessed Virgin Mary. When this statue was placed in the church, many people came to honour Our Lady of the Willow.

But alas, because of the sinfulness of man, this beautiful shrine did not last and was ruined by members of the horrible French Revolution. These wicked men took the statue of Our Lady of the Willow and chopped it to pieces! Oh, what a terrible way to treat Our Lady's image! However, all was not lost! A good lady gathered up the pieces of the statue and hid them until the French Revolution was over. A piece of the willow tree was also saved from the hands of these wicked men.

After the horrible French Revolution, people came again to honour Our Lady of the Willow at this sacred spot. The statue of Our Lady was repaired and in time the shrine was placed in the hands of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Now some priests were caring for the shrine and could help the many people who came there.

In 1856, two hundred years after the apparition of Our Lady to Pierre, Blessed Pope Pius IX decreed that the statue of Our Lady should be crowned on September 8 of that year. More than 30,000 people were present at the shrine for the crowning of Our Lady of the Willow, and at least four hundred priests were also present at the ceremony. And this same Pope ordered that another crowning should take place in 1873!

On March 17, 1924, Pope Pius XI declared that Our Lady of the Willow Church was now a minor basilica. Here the statue of Our Lady of the Willow is venerated. A box containing a piece of the old willow tree lies under her altar and Pierre's grave is at the foot of the altar.

Many people come to honour Our Lady of the Willow at this shrine and many have left little plaques in thanksgiving to Our Lady, for some special grace which she has given them. Also more than a hundred miracles are reported to have taken place at this shrine. Thank-you Jesus and Mary for your great mercies.

Our Lady of the Willow, Pray for Us! (Our Lady of the Willow Tree)

None of this matters to the "pope," Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who supposedly never resigned from an office he never held, to the "pope" who was a "defender" of a Faith in which he did not belief, a "pope" who felt free to ignore dogmatic declarations of the true general councils, which are, after all, guided infallibly by God the Holy Ghost, Who is immutable and thus cannot contradict Himself nor make opaque and uncertain what has always been clear and certain, and of our true popes, who have always exhorted non-Catholics to return to the Holy Faith and to condemn false ecumenism when they had occasion to do so:

It [the Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord's coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors. Therefore, it commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation. Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can often take place, when no help can be brought to them by another remedy than through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are snatched from the domination of the Devil and adopted among the sons of God, it advises that holy baptism ought not to be deferred for forty or eighty days, or any time according to the observance of certain people, but it should be conferred as soon as it can be done conveniently, but so ,that, when danger of death is imminent, they be baptized in the form of the Church, early without delay, even by a layman or woman, if a priest should be lacking, just as is contained more fully in the decree of the Armenians. . . .

It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart "into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels" [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church. (Pope Eugene IV, Cantate Domino, Council of Florence, February 4, 1442.)

It is for this reason that so many who do not share 'the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church' must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. She does not hesitate to raise to the Lord of mercy most fervent prayers to tear down of the walls of division, to dissipate the haze of errors, and lead them back within holy Mother Church, where their Ancestors found salutary pastures of life; where, in an exclusive way, is conserved and transmitted whole the doctrine of Jesus Christ and wherein is dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace.

It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd. (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.) 

It was a mere sixty years after Pope Pius IX issued Iam Vos Omnes as an exhortation for Protestants to convert to the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order, that Pope Pius XII issued a similar exhortation while reminding the bishops of the world that the only way that “the union for Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those wo are separated from it and not by Catholics participating in the assemblies of non-Catholics”:

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. . . .  Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is 'the root and womb whence the Church of God springs,' not with the intention and the hope that 'the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth' will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and government. Would that it were Our happy lot to do that which so many of Our predecessors could not, to embrace with fatherly affection those children, whose unhappy separation from Us We now bewail. Would that God our Savior, "Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," would hear us when We humbly beg that He would deign to recall all who stray to the unity of the Church! In this most important undertaking We ask and wish that others should ask the prayers of Blessed Mary the Virgin, Mother of divine grace, victorious over all heresies and Help of Christians, that She may implore for Us the speedy coming of the much hoped-for day, when all men shall hear the voice of Her divine Son, and shall be 'careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'" (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

Just consider two of the statements quoted above, one from Pope Pius IX's Iam Vos Omnes and the other from Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos:

. . . .the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd. (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes.)

To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos.)

None of this has mattered to any of the six conciliar “popes,” and Jorge Mario Bergoglio has taken things so far as to base his “ecclesiology” upon an unconditional acceptance of all "believers" as part of the "church," thus placing him in perfect communion with Martin Luther himself, who believed that the "church" was an amorphous mass of "believers," not a visible, hierarchical society. 

Unity exists in the Catholic Church. It is one of her Four Marks. No other religion except Catholicism pleases the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity.

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.) 

The Catholic Church gives us clarity and nothing else. She does not give us statements that make it appear as though "visible unity" among all "believers" has not yet been achieved as only those who believe in Our Lord as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His true Church are His true believers. Those steeped in errors about the nature of Our Lord and the Divine Constitution of His Holy Church cannot give a "witness" in behalf of anything other that confusion, something that applies as much to the conciliar revolutionaries as to all non-Catholic Christians and others.

None of this matters to the nonagenarian "new theologian, Ratzinger/Benedict.

No, what matters to Ratzinger/Benedict is to deconstruct the nature of dogmatic truth so as to find what is "really" true in dogmatic pronouncements from what is an "historical development" so that "impediments" to "unity" may be overcome, which is why it is so necessary to understand Ratzinger/Benedict's warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth, which is really a warfare against the very nature of God as He has revealed Himself to be through His Catholic Church, in order to understand the entirety of his Modernist agenda.

Pope Pius XI specifically rejected “distinctions” between “fundamental” and “non-fundamental” truths as a condition of effecting the reunion of non-Catholics with the true Church:

We know not; that unity can only arise from one teaching authority, one law of belief and one faith of Christians. But We do know that from this it is an easy step to the neglect of religion or indifferentism and to modernism, as they call it. Those, who are unhappily infected with these errors, hold that dogmatic truth is not absolute but relative, that is, it agrees with the varying necessities of time and place and with the varying tendencies of the mind, since it is not contained in immutable revelation, but is capable of being accommodated to human life. Besides this, in connection with things which must be believed, it is nowise licit to use that distinction which some have seen fit to introduce between those articles of faith which are fundamental and those which are not fundamental, as they say, as if the former are to be accepted by all, while the latter may be left to the free assent of the faithful: for the supernatural virtue of faith has a formal cause, namely the authority of God revealing, and this is patient of no such distinction. 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.) 

It is because of such pronouncements that Ratzinger/Benedict, like Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, must rely almost entirely, save for some gratuitous references in “cf” (confer) footnotes now and again, upon the documents of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and the statements of the conciliar "pontiffs" to justify their apostasies, including the “new ecclesiology” that can be used to place a Protestant syncretist, Roger Schutz, in “Heaven” even though he was a lifelong Protestant. And it is the new ecclesiology of effecting “unity” by means of “spiritual reconciliation,” which is a variation on the theme of “spiritual ecumenism” of the late Abbe Paul Couturier, a direct disciple of the late Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., who believed that God Himself was in "the process of becoming" and that our “understanding” of Him must ever evolve as He “evolves,” that Ratzinger/Benedict himself directly endorsed on numerous occasions, including explicitly in his August 19, 2005, address to “ecumenical” leaders in Cologne, Germany. Ratzinger/Benedict used this same “understanding” as the basis of his, Ratzinger/Benedict’s efforts to forge “unity” between the heretical and schismatic rump “church” in Red China with the underground church of suffering Catholics there that is being brought to its ultimate conclusion of a complete sellout of those Catholics by Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Ratzinger/Benedict also provided us in Principles of Catholic Theology with the method by which “unity” could be forged between the Catholic Church and the heretical and schismatic Orthodox churches:

After all, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, in the same bull in which he excommunicated the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and thus inaugurated the schism between East and West, designated the Emperor and the people of Constantinople as "very Christian and orthodox", although their concept of the Roman primacy was certainly far less different from that of Cerularius than from that, let us say, of the First Vatican Council. In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 198-199.)

Perhaps influenced by his chief ideologist, "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, this distortion of Catholic history found its way into the text of Ut Unum Sint, May 25, 1995, which was the complete and total contradiction of Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928: 

Whatever relates to the unity of all Christian communities clearly forms part of the concerns of the primacy. As Bishop of Rome I am fully aware, as I have reaffirmed in the present Encyclical Letter, that Christ ardently desires the full and visible communion of all those Communities in which, by virtue of God’s faithfulness, his Spirit dwells. I am convinced that I have a particular responsibility in this regard, above all in acknowledging the ecumenical aspirations of the majority of the Christian Communities and in heeding the request made of me to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation. For a whole millennium Christians were united in “a brotherly fraternal communion of faith and sacramental life … If disagreements in belief and discipline arose among them, the Roman See acted by common consent as moderator“.

In this way the primacy exercised its office of unity. When addressing the Ecumenical Patriarch His Holiness Dimitrios I, I acknowledged my awareness that “for a great variety of reasons, and against the will of all concerned, what should have been a service sometimes manifested itself in a very different light. But … it is out of a desire to obey the will of Christ truly that I recognize that as Bishop of Rome I am called to exercise that ministry … I insistently pray the Holy Spirit to shine his light upon us, enlightening all the Pastors and theologians of our Churches, that we may seek—together, of course—the forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned“.

This is an immense task, which we cannot refuse and which I cannot carry out by myself. Could not the real but imperfect communion existing between us persuade Church leaders and their theologians to engage with me in a patient and fraternal dialogue on this subject, a dialogue in which, leaving useless controversies behind, we could listen to one another, keeping before us only the will of Christ for his Church and allowing ourselves to be deeply moved by his plea “that they may all be one … so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:21)? (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, May 25, 1995.)

It was twelve years later, October 13, 2007, the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun, that an "unofficial" official document, the Ravenna Document, was issued by William "Cardinal" Levada on behalf of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church that formalized the musings of Ratzinger in Principles of Catholic Theology and of Wojtyla/John Paul II inUt Unum Sint:

It remains for the question of the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of all the Churches to be studied in greater depth. What is the specific function of the bishop of the “first see” in an ecclesiology of koinonia and in view of what we have said on conciliarity and authority in the present text? How should the teaching of the first and second Vatican councils on the universal primacy be understood and lived in the light of the ecclesial practice of the first millennium? These are crucial questions for our dialogue and for our hopes of restoring full communion between us.

We, the members of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, are convinced that the above statement on ecclesial communion, conciliarity and authority represents positive and significant progress in our dialogue, and that it provides a firm basis for future discussion of the question of primacy at the universal level in the Church. We are conscious that many difficult questions remain to be clarified, but we hope that, sustained by the prayer of Jesus “That they may all be one … so that the world may believe” (Jn 17, 21), and in obedience to the Holy Spirit, we can build upon the agreement already reached.Reaffirming and confessing “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4, 5), we give glory to God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who has gathered us together. (The Ravenna Document)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI put his “papal” seal of approval on The Ravenna Document just forty-one days after its issuance on the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal:

This year we thank God in particular for the meeting of the Joint Commission which took place in Ravenna, a city whose monuments speak eloquently of the ancient Byzantine heritage handed down to us from the undivided Church of the first millennium. May the splendour of those mosaics inspire all the members of the Joint Commission to pursue their important task with renewed determination, in fidelity to the Gospel and to Tradition, ever alert to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in the Church today.

While the meeting in Ravenna was not without its difficulties, I pray earnestly that these may soon be clarified and resolved, so that there may be full participation in the Eleventh Plenary Session and in subsequent initiatives aimed at continuing the theological dialogue in mutual charity and understanding. Indeed, our work towards unity is according to the will of Christ our Lord. In these early years of the third millennium, our efforts are all the more urgent because of the many challenges facing all Christians, to which we need to respond with a united voice and with conviction. (Letter to His Holiness Bartholomaios I, Archbishop of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch, on the occasion of the feast of St. Andrew, November 23, 2007.)

So much for the “unofficial” nature of The Ravenna Document.

Conciliarism's mythical view of how the authority of the papacy was exercised in the Fist Millennium prior to the Greek Schism of 1094 was eviscerated by Pope Leo XIII in Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 29, 1894:

First of all, then, We cast an affectionate look upon the East, from whence in the beginning came forth the salvation of the world.  Yes, and the yearning desire of Our heart bids us conceive and hope that the day is not far distant when the Eastern Churches, so illustrious in their ancient faith and glorious past, will return to the fold they have abandoned.  We hope it all the more, that the distance separating them from Us is not so great: nay, with some few exceptions, we agree so entirely on other heads that, in defense of the Catholic Faith, we often have recourse to reasons and testimony borrowed from the teaching, the Rites, and Customs of the East.

The Principal subject of contention is the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff.  But let them look back to the early years of their existence, let them consider the sentiments entertained by their forefathers, and examine what the oldest Traditions testify, and it will, indeed, become evident to them that Christ’s Divine Utterance, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, has undoubtedly been realized in the Roman Pontiffs.  Many of these latter in the first gates of the Church were chosen from the East, and foremost among them Anacletus, Evaristus, Anicetus, Eleutherius, Zosimus, and Agatho; and of these a great number, after Governing the Church in Wisdom and Sanctity, Consecrated their Ministry with the shedding of their blood.  The time, the reasons, the promoters of the unfortunate division, are well known. Before the day when man separated what God had joined together, the name of the Apostolic See was held in Reverence by all the nations of the Christian world: and the East, like the West, agreed without hesitation in its obedience to the Pontiff of Rome, as the Legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and, therefore, the Vicar of Christ here on earth.

And, accordingly, if we refer to the beginning of the dissension, we shall see that Photius himself was careful to send his advocates to Rome on the matters that concerned him; and Pope Nicholas I sent his Legates to Constantinople from the Eternal City, without the slightest opposition, “in order to examine the case of Ignatius the Patriarch with all diligence, and to bring back to the Apostolic See a full and accurate report”; so that the history of the whole negotiation is a manifest Confirmation of the Primacy of the Roman See with which the dissension then began.  Finally, in two great Councils, the second of Lyons and that of Florence, Latins and Greeks, as is notorious, easily agreed, and all unanimously proclaimed as Dogma the Supreme Power of the Roman Pontiffs.

We have recalled those things intentionally, for they constitute an invitation to peace and reconciliation; and with all the more reason that in Our own days it would seem as if there were a more conciliatory spirit towards Catholics on the part of the Eastern Churches, and even some degree of kindly feeling.  To mention an instance, those sentiments were lately made manifest when some of Our faithful travelled to the East on a Holy Enterprise, and received so many proofs of courtesy and good-will.

Therefore, Our mouth is open to you, to you all of Greek or other Oriental Rites who are separated from the Catholic Church, We earnestly desire that each and every one of you should meditate upon the words, so full of gravity and love, addressed by Bessarion to your forefathers: “What answer shall we give to God when He comes to ask why we have separated from our Brethren: to Him Who, to unite us and bring us into One Fold, came down from Heaven, was Incarnate, and was Crucified?  What will our defense be in the  eyes of posterity?  Oh, my Venerable Fathers, we must not suffer this to be, we must not entertain this thought, we must not thus so ill provide for ourselves and for our Brethren.”

Weigh carefully in your minds and before God the nature of Our request.  It is not for any human motive, but impelled by Divine Charity and a desire for the salvation of all, that We advise the reconciliation and union with the Church of Rome; and We mean a perfect and complete union, such as could not subsist in any way if nothing else was brought about but a certain kind of agreement in the Tenets of Belief and an intercourse of Fraternal love.  The True Union between Christians is that which Jesus Christ, the Author of the Church, instituted and desired, and which consists in a Unity of Faith and Unity of Government.

Nor is there any reason for you to fear on that account that We or any of Our Successors will ever diminish your rights, the privileges of your Patriarchs, or the established Ritual of any one of your Churches.  It has been and always will be the intent and Tradition of the Apostolic See, to make a large allowance, in all that is right and good, for the primitive Traditions and special customs of every nation.  On the contrary, if you re-establish Union with Us, you will see how, by God’s bounty, the glory and dignity of your Churches will be remarkably increased.  May God, then, in His goodness, hear the Prayer that you yourselves address to Him: “Make the schisms of the Churches cease,” and “Assemble those who are dispersed, bring back those who err, and unite them to Thy Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.”  May you thus return to that one Holy Faith which has been handed down both to Us and to you from time immemorial; which your forefathers preserved untainted, and which was enhanced by the rival splendor of the Virtues, the great genius, and the sublime learning of St. Athanasius and St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzum and St. John Chrysostom, the two Saints who bore the name of Cyril, and so many other great men whose glory belongs as a common inheritance to the East and to the West. (See also the excellent discussion of the history of what led up to the Greek Schism that is contained in Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki’s Tumultuous Times.)

Such “crystal-clear logic” has always been rejected entirely by the nonagenarian protégé of Hans Urs von Balthasar.

Moreover, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Antipope Emeritus Benedict XVI has repeatedly demonstrated his belief that Judaism is a valid

Consider how Joseph Ratzinger was trained to accept the very Modernist methodologies and presuppositions that had been condemned so clearly by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and would be condemned during his final year in seminary by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. Those seeking to praise the men responsible for the warping of the mind of the currently governing “pontiff” have to dismiss the following warnings that these Pope Saint Pius X and Pope Pius XII gave us about the contempt that Modernists have for the truths contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith and for the Fathers and Doctors of the Holy Mother Church who have explicated and defended them:

42. Would that they had but displayed less zeal and energy in propagating it! But such is their activity and such their unwearying labor on behalf of their cause, that one cannot but be pained to see them waste such energy in endeavoring to ruin the Church when they might have been of such service to her had their efforts been better directed. Their artifices to delude men's minds are of two kinds, the first to remove obstacles from their path, the second to devise and apply actively and patiently every resource that can serve their purpose. They recognize that the three chief difficulties which stand in their way are the scholastic method of philosophy, the authority and tradition of the Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church, and on these they wage unrelenting war. Against scholastic philosophy and theology they use the weapons of ridicule and contempt. Whether it is ignorance or fear, or both, that inspires this conduct in them, certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in them with hatred of scholasticism, and there is no surer sign that a man is tending to Modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for the scholastic method. Let the Modernists and their admirers remember the proposition condemned by Pius IX: "The method and principles which have served the ancient doctors of scholasticism when treating of theology no longer correspond with the exigencies of our time or the progress of science." They exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.''

The Modernists pass judgment on the holy Fathers of the Church even as they do upon tradition. With consummate temerity they assure the public that the Fathers, while personally most worthy of all veneration, were entirely ignorant of history and criticism, for which they are only excusable on account of the time in which they lived. Finally, the Modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium itself by sacrilegiously falsifying its origin, character, and rights, and by freely repeating the calumnies of its adversaries. To the entire band of Modernists may be applied those words which Our predecessor sorrowfully wrote: "To bring contempt and odium on the mystic Spouse of Christ, who is the true light, the children of darkness have been wont to cast in her face before the world a stupid calumny, and perverting the meaning and force of things and words, to depict her as the friend of darkness and ignorance, and the enemy of light, science, and progress.'' This being so, Venerable Brethren, there is little reason to wonder that the Modernists vent all their bitterness and hatred on Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the Church. There is no species of insult which they do not heap upon them, but their usual course is to charge them with ignorance or obstinacy. When an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that renders them redoubtable, they seek to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack. This policy towards Catholics is the more invidious in that they belaud with admiration which knows no bounds the writers who range themselves on their side, hailing their works, exuding novelty in every page, with a chorus of applause. For them the scholarship of a writer is in direct proportion to the recklessness of his attacks on antiquity, and of his efforts to undermine tradition and the ecclesiastical magisterium. When one of their number falls under the condemnations of the Church the rest of them, to the disgust of good Catholics, gather round him, loudly and publicly applaud him, and hold him up in veneration as almost a martyr for truth. The young, excited and confused by all this clamor of praise and abuse, some of them afraid of being branded as ignorant, others ambitious to rank among the learned, and both classes goaded internally by curiosity and pride, not infrequently surrender and give themselves up to Modernism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 2007.)

21. It is also true that theologians must always return to the sources of divine revelation: for it belongs to them to point out how the doctrine of the living Teaching Authority is to be found either explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures and in Tradition.[4] Besides, each source of divinely revealed doctrine contains so many rich treasures of truth, that they can really never be exhausted. Hence it is that theology through the study of its sacred sources remains ever fresh; on the other hand, speculation which neglects a deeper search into the deposit of faith, proves sterile, as we know from experience. But for this reason even positive theology cannot be on a par with merely historical science. For, together with the sources of positive theology God has given to His Church a living Teaching Authority to elucidate and explain what is contained in the deposit of faith only obscurely and implicitly. This deposit of faith our Divine Redeemer has given for authentic interpretation not to each of the faithful, not even to theologians, but only to the Teaching Authority of the Church. But if the Church does exercise this function of teaching, as she often has through the centuries, either in the ordinary or extraordinary way, it is clear how false is a procedure which would attempt to explain what is clear by means of what is obscure. Indeed the very opposite procedure must be used. Hence Our Predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, teaching that the most noble office of theology is to show how a doctrine defined by the Church is contained in the sources of revelation, added these words, and with very good reason: "in that sense in which it has been defined by the Church."

22. To return, however, to the new opinions mentioned above, a number of things are proposed or suggested by some even against the divine authorship of Sacred Scripture. For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council's definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters. They even wrongly speak of a human sense of the Scriptures, beneath which a divine sense, which they say is the only infallible meaning, lies hidden. In interpreting Scripture, they will take no account of the analogy of faith and the Tradition of the Church. Thus they judge the doctrine of the Fathers and of the Teaching Church by the norm of Holy Scripture, interpreted by the purely human reason of exegetes, instead of explaining Holy Scripture according to the mind of the Church which Christ Our Lord has appointed guardian and interpreter of the whole deposit of divinely revealed truth.

23. Further, according to their fictitious opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation, carefully worked out under the Church's vigilance by so many great exegetes, should yield now to a new exegesis, which they are pleased to call symbolic or spiritual. By means of this new exegesis the Old Testament, which today in the Church is a sealed book, would finally be thrown open to all the faithful. By this method, they say, all difficulties vanish, difficulties which hinder only those who adhere to the literal meaning of the Scriptures.

24. Everyone sees how foreign all this is to the principles and norms of interpretation rightly fixed by our predecessors of happy memory, Leo XIII in his Encyclical "Providentissimus," and Benedict XV in the Encyclical "Spiritus Paraclitus," as also by Ourselves in the Encyclical "Divino Affflante Spiritu."

25. It is not surprising that novelties of this kind have already borne their deadly fruit in almost all branches of theology. It is now doubted that human reason, without divine revelation and the help of divine grace, can, by arguments drawn from the created universe, prove the existence of a personal God; it is denied that the world had a beginning; it is argued that the creation of the world is necessary, since it proceeds from the necessary liberality of divine love; it is denied that God has eternal and infallible foreknowedge of the free actions of men -- all this in contradiction to the decrees of the Vatican Council[5] (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XV’s rejection of Scholasticism is directly responsible for his believing that errors of all kinds can be useful in “understanding” what is already very clear of its very nature: the Sacred Deposit of Faith. Our true popes have warned us that those who are so reckless as to cast aside the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas will be open to, if not always suspect of, heresy as their minds are incapable of accepting truth in clear, immutable terms that can never be subjected to reinterpretation or reformulation at any time:

But, furthermore, Our predecessors in the Roman pontificate have celebrated the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas by exceptional tributes of praise and the most ample testimonials. Clement VI in the bull 'In Ordine;' Nicholas V in his brief to the friars of the Order of Preachers, 1451; Benedict XIII in the bull 'Pretiosus,' and others bear witness that the universal Church borrows luster from his admirable teaching; while St. Pius V declares in the bull 'Mirabilis' that heresies, confounded and convicted by the same teaching, were dissipated, and the whole world daily freed from fatal errors; others, such as Clement XII in the bull 'Verbo Dei,' affirm that most fruitful blessings have spread abroad from his writings over the whole Church, and that he is worthy of the honor which is bestowed on the greatest Doctors of the Church, on Gregory and Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome; while others have not hesitated to propose St. Thomas for the exemplar and master of the universities and great centers of learning whom they may follow with unfaltering feet. On which point the words of Blessed Urban V to the University of Toulouse are worthy of recall: 'It is our will, which We hereby enjoin upon you, that ye follow the teaching of Blessed Thomas as the true and Catholic doctrine and that ye labor with all your force to profit by the same.' Innocent XII, followed the example of Urban in the case of the University of Louvain, in the letter in the form of a brief addressed to that university on February 6, 1694, and Benedict XIV in the letter in the form of a brief addressed on August 26, 1752, to the Dionysian College in Granada; while to these judgments of great Pontiffs on Thomas Aquinas comes the crowning testimony of Innocent VI: 'is teaching above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoys such a precision of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will always be suspected of error.'

The ecumenical councils, also, where blossoms the flower of all earthly wisdom, have always been careful to hold Thomas Aquinas in singular honor. In the Councils of Lyons, Vienna, Florence, and the Vatican one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided over the deliberations and decrees of the Fathers, contending against the errors of the Greeks, of heretics and rationalists, with invincible force and with the happiest results. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order of conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs, the 'Summa' of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.

A last triumph was reserved for this incomparable man -- namely, to compel the homage, praise, and admiration of even the very enemies of the Catholic name. For it has come to light that there were not lacking among the leaders of heretical sects some who openly declared that, if the teaching of Thomas Aquinas were only taken away, they could easily battle with all Catholic teachers, gain the victory, and abolish the Church. A vain hope, indeed, but no vain testimony. (Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, August 4, 1879.) 

Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Antipope Emeritus Benedict XVI, puffed up with overweening pride and oozing with hubris, believes that he knows better that Pope Leo XIII. He knows better than Pope Benedict XIII. He knows better than Pope Saint Pius V. He knows better than Pope Clement XII. He knows better than Blessed Urban V. He knows better than Pope Innocent VI. He knows better than the man whose thought was good enough for “his time” but has become obsolete now, the Angelic Doctor, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Ratzinger/Benedict's rejection of and contempt for the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas that he acquired in his seminary days was the pathway by which he would come to embrace and serve as an apologist for the new ecclesiology, false ecumenism, Modernist Biblical exegesis, inter-religious prayer services, religious liberty, episcopal collegiality and separation of Church and State 

Ratzinger/Benedict’s rejection of and contempt for the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas makes it possible for him to distort, pervert and misrepresent the lives and work of various Fathers and Doctors and saints, including Saint Robert Bellarmine and Saint Francis de Sales, to make them appear to be precursors of his own revolutionary agenda. He has done this even with Saint Paul the Apostle (see Attempting to Coerce Perjury). He did this during his antipapal years with various other doctrines, including that of Purgatory (see From Sharp Focus to Fuzziness.) Indeed, the antipope emeritus started off the year 2011 with yet another attempt to justify the falsehood of “religious liberty” (see Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, part one, Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, part two and Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, part three), using this as a springboard to announce plans for Assisi III (see Bearing "Fruits" From Hell Itself, part one, Bearing "Fruits" From Hell Itself, part 2 and Not Interested in Assisi III.)

It matters not that Ratzinger may write and speak like a Catholic now and again. What matters is that he defected from the Faith in his seminary days and has been a destroyer of Its “bastions” ever since. Please refer to the following articles for a review of just some of the contemporary manifestations of Ratzinger/Benedict's lifelong apostasies that he learned to embrace in his seminary days and has promoted ever since: Impressed With His Own Originality, Accepting "Popes" As Unreliable Teachers, Obeying The Commands of a False Church, Boilerplate Ratzinger, "Cardinals" Burke and Canizares, Meet The Council of Trent, Vesakh, Not Miller, Time at the Vatican, Saint Vincent Ferrer and Anti-Saint Vincent Ferrers, Celebrating Apostasy and Dereliction of Duty, To Be Loved by the Jews, As We Continue To Blaspheme Christ the King and His True Church, Coloring Everything He Says and Does, part one, Coloring Everything He Says and Does, part two, Perhaps Judas Was the First to Sing "A Kiss is Just a Kiss", Enjoy the Party, George, Enjoy the Party, Anticlimactic "Beatification" for an Antipope, Open Letter to Pretended Catholic Scholars, Scholarship in Conciliarism's Land of Oz, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part one, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part two, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part three, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part four, Peeking into the Old Conciliar Fowler's Lair, part one, Peeking into the Old Conciliar Fowler's Lair, part two, Future Home of the "Reform of the Reform", Quite Right, which contains a summary of some of the false "pope's" warfare against the immutability of dogma and a listing of the major ecclesiological errors of the Society of Saint Pius X that undermines and, indeed, makes a mockery of  the papacy itself and of their priests' defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King, Excuse Me, Father, While I Look For My New Paperwork From Rome, Just A Personal Visit, Conversion of Russia Update, So Much For Charles Martel, So Much for the Crusades, So Much for Pius V and Jan Sobieski, So Much for Catholic Truth and Let's Play The Let's Pretend Game.

An insightful essay, published as part of a series by Si, Si, No, No in 1994, got to the very roots of the Modernist thought that penetrated deep into the heart, mind and soul of Joseph Ratzinger in his seminary days as he became part of the school of the "new theology" that was advanced at the "Second" Vatican Council and thereafter by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI and, of course, by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II:

Pope Paul VI's discretion and persistence most effectively handed over supreme control and power to the “new theology” in the Catholic world. There is absolutely no room for doubt on this score. However, the triumph of this "new theology" has not meant a triumph for the Catholic Faith. The German theologian Dormann, referring to the last Council (The Theological Way of John Paul II and the Spirit of Assisi) writes, "Never before has a Papal encyclical, written barely fifteen years previously, been repudiated in so short a time and so completely by those very persons whom it condemns, as Humani Generis (1950)." The Jesuit and "new theologian" Henrici has given us a portrait of the present situation:

"Nowadays, when theological professorships are in the hands of our Concilium colleagues, almost all of the theologians who have been named bishops in the last few years have come from the ranks of Communio (a more moderately progressive journal)…Balthasar, De Lubac, and Ratzinger, the founders [of Communio], have all become cardinals" (30 Days, December 1991).

Presently, in the Church-affiliated universities, including Pontifical universities, the founding fathers of the "new theology" are being studied; doctoral theses are being prepared on Blondel, De Lubac, and Von Balthasar. The Osservatore Romano as well as Civilta Cattolica praise these modernists and their ways of "thought" and the Catholic press falls in line: Everyone falls into line with the one occupying Peter's throne.

At the present time, a "new theologian" holds the exalted position of President of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. . . .

Must anything else be added to prove that Ratzinger the Prefect is in perfect accord with Ratzinger the "theologian"? Yes, we do owe it to our readers to point out the fact that Elio Guerriero; chief editor of Communio (Italian edition) is in perfect agreement with us on this score. In order to illustrate the new theology's victorious march in his journal Jesus (April, 1992), he wrote, "Anyway, in Rome we must bring to your attention the work done by Joseph Ratzinger, both as a theologian and as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." The only thing left of Ratzinger the "restorer" is the myth.

It is not difficult to see what gave rise to this myth. In his Preface to Introduzione al Cristianismo (1968 Italian edition of Ratzinger's book Einfuhrung in das Christentum) for example, Ratzinger writes, "The problem of knowing exactly the content and meaning of the Christian Faith is presently shrouded in a nebulous halo of uncertainty, thick and dense as has never been seen before in history." And this because "those who have followed at least in some small way the theological movement of the last decade and have kept a certain distance from the herd of unthinking souls who consider anything new as being always and automatically better," have been quite anxious to know if "our theology ...has not gone in the direction of an interpretation reducing the rightful claims and demands of our Faith which seemed overly oppressive, for the simple reason that since nothing of any great importance seemed to have been lost and so many things still remained, the new theologians could immediately dare to go still one step further" (p.7).

What Catholic who loves the Church and who is suffering such a heartache in the midst of the present universal crisis would not wholeheartedly agree with these affirmations? Already in this Preface, which has remained unchanged since 1968, we find sufficient matter to give rise to that popular myth of Ratzinger the "restorer."

But just what does he oppose to this progressive onslaught and demolition of the Faith being perpetuated by present-day (new) theology? His opposition consists in a general absolution of this very same "theology" concerning which - he declares - "one cannot...honestly ...affirm that, taken as a whole, it has taken this kind of direction." By way of "corrective action," he suggests the repudiation of Catholic Tradition along with the Church's Magisterium by which the new theology of the last few decades has succeeded in shrouding "the content and meaning of the Christian Faith. For the deplorable tendency of this new theology to reduce the Faith, Ratzinger remarks, "We will surely not find the solution by insisting on remaining attached to the noble metal of fixed formulas of former times and which, in the final analysis, turn out to be simply a heap of metal which weighs heavily upon our shoulders instead of favoring, by virtue of its worth, the possibility of reaching true liberty [which in this way, has underhandedly replaced the truth]" (Preface to Introduzione al Cristianismo, p.8). The fact that his foreword is certainly heading in the same direction as contemporary "theology" seems to have completely escaped Ratzinger. Long ago, Pope St. Pius X noted that all modernists are in no way able to draw from their erroneous premises truly inevitable conclusions. (cf. Pascendi).

Ratzinger is always the same: those excesses or abuses from which he keeps a "respectful" distance (often by cutting remarks) he never opposes with Catholic truth but only with some other apparently more moderate error which, however, in the logic of error, nevertheless leads inevitably to the same ruinous conclusions.

In his book Entretien Sur La Foi (Discourse on the Faith), Ratzinger labels himself as a "well-balanced progressive." He favors a "peaceful evolution of [Catholic] doctrine" without, however, "solitary breakaways ahead of the flock," yet "without nostalgia nor regret for times irretrievably past"; meaning, of course, quietly leaving behind the Catholic Faith (pp. 16-17). Although he shrinks back from extreme "progressivism," Ratzinger cares even less for Catholic Tradition: "We must remain faithful to the present day of the Church [l'aujourd'hui de l’Eglise], not to its past [non a l'hier], nor its future [ni au demain]" (Entretien sur la Foi, p.32).

For this reason, a Catholic who cherishes the Catholic Faith and loves the Church is able to favor or subscribe to a number of Ratzinger's central affirmations, but, on closer observation of what this "restorer" proposes in place of the current universally-deplored "abuses," he will find himself unable to approve even a single sentence. And this is because the downward neo-modernist path leads us down the same slippery slope, even though it does so more gradually, it still ends up with the very same complete rejection of Divine Revelation, that is, in apostasy. No doubt about it: the writings of Ratzinger the "Theologian" are there for all to see, demonstrating an undeniable proof of this flagrant apostasy. (They Think They've Won! Part VI; one wonders why anyone in the Society of Saint Pius X could have believed that Ratzinger/Benedict had not expelled himself from the Catholic Church, no less that he could have been a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.)

Do not be deceived by the appearance of Catholicism that Ratzinger/Benedict may have given during his career or even in his effort three years ago to that mythical “synthesis” about Judaism that could be acceptable to Jews and Christians. It is only the appearance, not the substance. No one who believes and says and does what he has done in the past seventy years can maintain membership in the Catholic Church. Our true popes have taught us this. Why do we fail to believe them?

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

The Modernists completely invert the parts, and of them may be applied the words which another of Our predecessors Gregory IX, addressed to some theologians of his time: "Some among you, puffed up like bladders with the spirit of vanity strive by profane novelties to cross the boundaries fixed by the Fathers, twisting the meaning of the sacred text...to the philosophical teaching of the rationalists, not for the profit of their hearer but to make a show of science...these men, led away by various and strange doctrines, turn the head into the tail and force the queen to serve the handmaid."

18. This will appear more clearly to anybody who studies the conduct of Modernists, which is in perfect harmony with their teachings. In their writings and addresses they seem not unfrequently to advocate doctrines which are contrary one to the other, so that one would be disposed to regard their attitude as double and doubtful. But this is done deliberately and advisedly, and the reason of it is to be found in their opinion as to the mutual separation of science and faith. Thus in their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist. When they write history they make no mention of the divinity of Christ, but when they are in the pulpit they profess it clearly; again, when they are dealing with history they take no account of the Fathers and the Councils, but when they catechize the people, they cite them respectfully. In the same way they draw their distinctions between exegesis which is theological and pastoral and exegesis which is scientific and historical. So, too, when they treat of philosophy, history, and criticism, acting on the principle that science in no way depends upon faith, they feel no especial horror in treading in the footsteps of Luther and are wont to display a manifold contempt for Catholic doctrines, for the Holy Fathers, for the Ecumenical Councils, for the ecclesiastical magisterium; and should they be taken to task for this, they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty. Lastly, maintaining the theory that faith must be subject to science, they continuously and openly rebuke the Church on the ground that she resolutely refuses to submit and accommodate her dogmas to the opinions of philosophy; while they, on their side, having for this purpose blotted out the old theology, endeavor to introduce a new theology which shall support the aberrations of philosophers. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Sounding like a Catholic does not make one a member of the Catholic Church. One must subscribe faithfully to everything contained within the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to her teaching authority for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that Catholic dogma can never be expressed adequately at any one time, meaning that God the Holy Ghost has failed Holy Mother Church in directing the work of our true popes and the Fathers of Holy Mother Church's true councils. This is impossible. It is also impossible for anyone to believe such a thing and to remain a member of the Catholic Church.

The feast we are celebrating today, July 2, 2021, 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 disquistion 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," including Joseph Alois Ratzinger, have embraced it.

In the midst of Antipope Emeritus Benedict XVI's incredible seventy-year career of apostasy, heresy, blasphemy and sacrilege, which has included esteeming the symbols of false religions with his own priestly hands and calling places of false worship as "sacred" as he has been content to be treated as an inferior in those places and as he has given "joint blessings" with the "ministers" in some of those theaters of false worship, we must have recourse to Our Lady as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit and as we keep her company in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in our time in fervent prayer before her Divine Son's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Conciliarism is not nor can ever be Catholicism. However, "opaque" one may believe Ratzinger's heresies are, no one can have any doubt about his successor's open hatred for all to do with the Catholic Faith. 

While each person must come to recognize this for himself (it took me long enough to do so; I defended the indefensible for far too long!), we must nevertheless embrace the truth once we do come to recognize and accept it without caring for one moment what anyone else may think about us as we make reparation for our sins, which did indeed transcend time and served to help to motivate the Jews of Our Lord's day to cry out for His Crucifixion just as we mock Him by means of our disordered self-love and stubborn refusal to obey His Commandments, and those of the whole world as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

As I noted some eleven years ago, we can never grow accustomed to apostasies that can never become acceptable with the passage of time. We can never grow accustomed to offenses given to God by the conciliar "popes" and their conciliar "bishops." We must never "spin" in their behalf.

We must cleave to the Catholic Church, not to the counterfeit church of conciliarism, as we attempt to plant the seeds for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as we seek to live more and more penitentially, making reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our own many sins and for those of the whole word, praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon. 

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex! 

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.