Jorge Applies the Death Penalty to the Nature of Dogmatic Truth

One of the themes that I have tried to hammer home repeatedly on this site concerns the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s attack on the nature of dogmatic truth, which is nothing other than an attack on the nature of God and His immutability.

Each of the conciliar “popes” is complicit in this attack on the nature of dogmatic truth no matter how much it has been disguised as an “opening to the world” (Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII), a “new mentality” (Giovanni Battista Antonio Enrico Maria Montini/Paul VI), a supposed “living tradition” (Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II) and, of course, the “hermeneutic of continuity” that was enunciated by Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in his December 22, 2005, address to the conciliar curia, thereby giving a new title to his lifelong crusade against the immutability of dogmatic truth.

What about Albino Luciani/John Paul I?

Well, the third conciliar “pope’s” reign consisted of only thirty-four days. However, it is no accident the first of the current reign of antipopes, Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, appointed him as his own successor to the patriarchal See of Venice on December 15, 1958, and elevated him to the College of Cardinals on the very same day that Montini himself received the red hat. Luciani, you see, was just as open to error as was his fat, Rosicrucian patron, Roncalli, and each of the three of his own successors as the universal public face of apostasy, betrayal and sacrilege. Here is what he said to his own priests in Venice in 1967:

John Paul I is often portrayed as a humble, saintly prelate of the Church. His doctrinal stand was very questionable as evidenced by his pastoral letter of 1967 in which he advised his clergy to "see, if instead of uprooting and throwing down [error], it might be possible to trim and prune it patiently, bringing to light the core of goodness and truth which is not often lacking even in erroneous opinions" [Reference 839: Our Sunday Visitor, September 28, 2003, "Celebrating the Smiling Pope," by Lori Pieper.] This is like a doctor telling his patient: "I won't take out all the cancer; it might be good for you. (Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, Tumultuous Times, p. 530.)

The fact that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has ripped the mask off the pretenses used by his predecessors to clothe conciliarism’s embrace of the philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned Modernist precept of dogmatic evolutionism must not, therefore, blind anyone to the fact that each of his predecessors has been such as much an enemy of the Deposit of Faith as he has shown himself to be in the past 1,678 days. All that Bergoglio is doing is to state clearly what has been the case since the usurper Roncalli stepped out onto the balcony of the Basilica of Saint Peter on October 28, 1958, the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, namely, that, contrary to natural reason, papal pronouncements, and dogmatic declarations, dogmatic evolutionism is the basis of their false religious sect.

Indeed, the Argentine Apostate cited Roncalli/John XXIII’s opening address to the “Second” Vatican Council on October 11, 1962, the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in an address he delivered to participants of a symposium on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the so-called Catechism of the Catholic Church by Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II and the fifty-fifth anniversary of the false council’s opening:

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, by which Saint John Paul II, thirty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church, offers a significant opportunity for taking stock of the progress made in the meantime. It was the desire and will of Saint John XXIII to call the Council, not primarily to condemn error, but so that the Church could have an opportunity at last to present the beauty of her faith in Jesus Christ in language attuned to the times. “It is necessary,” the Pope stated in his opening address, “that the Church should never depart from the sacred patrimony of truth received from the Fathers. But at the same time she must ever look to the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life introduced into the modern world which have opened new avenues to the Catholic apostolate” (11 October 1962). “It is our duty,” he continued, “not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves, with an earnest will and without fear, to that work which our era demands of us, thus pursuing the path which the Church has followed for twenty centuries” (ibid.). (Heretic Bergoglio Says the "Dynamic Word of God Cannot be Mothballed.)

Roncalli/John Paul II hated Catholic doctrine. He was a Modernist of the first order. His opening address to the “Second” Vatican Council established the framework by which each of the conciliar falsehoods could be propagated, albeit falsely, in the name of the Catholic Church.

Roncalli’s desire to look to the “new conditions and new forms of life introduced into the modern world” was meant to be a direct contradiction of Pope Pius IX’s The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864:

5. Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to a continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the advancement of human reason. -- Ibid. (Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.)

In other words, it is impossible to know with certitude the truths of the Holy Faith because human language is inadequate to express the infinite variety of aspects which they contain. The expression of dogmatic truths thus is contingent on the historical circumstances and the particular biases of those who formulate it.

Bergoglio’s October 11, 2017, address is replete with Modernist platitudes to justify bold, unmistakable contradictions of Catholic doctrine and even the binding precepts of the Natural Law:

It is in the very nature of the Church to “guard” the deposit of faith and to “pursue” the Church’s path, so that the truth present in Jesus’ preaching of the Gospel may grow in fullness until the end of time. This is a grace granted to the People of God, but it is also a task and a mission for which we are responsible, that of proclaiming to our contemporaries in a new and fuller way the perennial Good News. With the joy born of Christian hope, and armed with the “medicine of mercy” (ibid.), we approach the men and women of our time to help them discover the inexhaustible richness contained in the person of Jesus Christ.

In presenting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Saint John Paul II stated that it should “take into account the doctrinal statements which down the centuries the Holy Spirit has made known to his Church. It should also help illumine with the light of faith the new situations and problems which had not yet emerged in the past” (Fidei Depositum, 3). The Catechism is thus an important instrument. It presents the faithful with the perennial teaching of the Church so that they can grow in their understanding of the faith. But it especially seeks to draw our contemporaries – with their new and varied problems – to the Church, as she seeks to present the faith as the meaningful answer to human existence at this moment of history. It is not enough to find a new language in which to articulate our perennial faith; it is also urgent, in the light of the new challenges and prospects facing humanity, that the Church be able to express the “new things” of Christ’s Gospel, that, albeit present in the word of God, have not yet come to light. This is the treasury of “things old and new” of which Jesus spoke when he invited his disciples to teach the newness that he had brought, without forsaking the old (cf. Mt 13:52).

One of the most beautiful pages in the Gospel of John is his account of the so-called “priestly prayer” of Jesus. Just before his passion and death, Jesus speaks to the Father of his obedience in having brought to fulfilment the mission entrusted to him. His words, a kind of hymn to love, also contain the request that the disciples be gathered and preserved in unity (cf. Jn 17:12-15). The words, “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (Jn 17:3), represent the culmination of Jesus’s mission.

To know God, as we are well aware, is not in the first place an abstract exercise of human reason, but an irrepressible desire present in the heart of every person. This knowledge comes from love, for we have encountered the Son of God on our journey (cf. Lumen Fidei, 28). Jesus of Nazareth walks at our side and introduces us, by his words and the signs he performs, to the great mystery of the Father’s love. This knowledge is strengthened daily by faith’s certainty that we are loved and, for this reason, part of a meaningful plan. Those who love long to know better the beloved, and therein to discover the hidden richness that appears each day as something completely new.

For this reason, our Catechism unfolds in the light of love, as an experience of knowledge, trust, and abandonment to the mystery. In explaining its structure, the Catechism of the Catholic Church borrows a phrase from the Roman Catechism and proposes it as the key to its reading and application: “The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 25). (Heretic Bergoglio Says the "Dynamic Word of God Cannot be Mothballed.)

Leaving Bergoglio’s attack on the death penalty, which is simply part of the Natural Law and can no sooner be “changed” than any precept of the Divine Law that has been subject to the whims of the Modernists in the conciliar church, for later in this commentary, Bergoglio’s closing discussion of the “evolving” nature of doctrine is almost word-for-word what was condemned by Pope Pius IX and the Fathers of the Vatican Council, by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950 (see the appendix below for these ciatations):

“The Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes” (Dei Verbum, 8). The Council Fathers could not have found a finer and more synthetic way of expressing the nature and mission of the Church. Not only in “teaching”, but also in “life” and “worship”, are the faithful able to be God’s People. Through a series of verbs the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation expresses the dynamic nature of this process: “This Tradition develops […] grows […] and constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth, until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her” (ibid.)

Tradition is a living reality and only a partial vision regards the “deposit of faith” as something static. The word of God cannot be moth-balled like some old blanket in an attempt to keep insects at bay! No. The word of God is a dynamic and living reality that develops and grows because it is aimed at a fulfilment that none can halt. This law of progress, in the happy formulation of Saint Vincent of Lérins, “consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age” (Commonitorium, 23.9: PL 50), is a distinguishing mark of revealed truth as it is handed down by the Church, and in no way represents a change in doctrine.

Doctrine cannot be preserved without allowing it to develop, nor can it be tied to an interpretation that is rigid and immutable without demeaning the working of the Holy Spirit. “God, who in many and various ways spoke of old to our fathers” (Heb 1:1), “uninterruptedly converses with the bride of his beloved Son” (Dei Verbum, 8). We are called to make this voice our own by “reverently hearing the word of God” (ibid., 1), so that our life as a Church may progress with the same enthusiasm as in the beginning, towards those new horizons to which the Lord wishes to guide us. (Heretic Bergoglio Says the "Dynamic Word of God Cannot be Mothballed.)

Although the appendix contains antidotes to this liberal serving of Modernist poisons that are no doubt familiar to longtime readers of this site, I am always aware that there might be a new reader or two who may come upon this site for the first time, and it is with this in mind that I am placing them once again in an appendix to demonstrate clearly how Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s noxious beliefs have been condemned word-for-word and anathematized.

For the moment, however, it is important for anyone committed to the pursuit of truth to recognize and to accept the fact that the conciliar revolutionaries believe in a false religion where nothing is stable, nothing is secure:

It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: 'These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.' On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason'; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.' Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: 'Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

As noted at the beginning of this commentary, however, the entire façade, if I may borrow a term, of the counterfeit church of conciliarism is built dogmatic evolutionism, which has been used to justify the new ecclesiology (the “Church of Christ” is larger than the Catholic Church; “elements” of sanctification can be found in false religions), false ecumenism, episcopal collegiality, religious liberty, separation of Church and State, inverting the ends proper to the Sacrament of Matrimony and, under Bergoglio, an unequivocal endorsement of natural and unnatural sins against the virtue of Holy Purity.

The conciliar attack upon the nature of dogmatic truth made its formal, direct manifestation at the “Second” Vatican Council when Albert “Cardinal” Meyer, who was the Archbishop of Chicago from September 18, 1958, to the time of his death on April 9, 1965, in two interventions he made at that illicit council on September 30, 1964, the Feast of Saint Jerome, and October 8, 1964 the Feast of Saint Brigid, as the council fathers considered the conciliar church's Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, which was issued on November 18, 1965, the Feast of the Dedication of the Basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul:

What I have to say in this brief intervention has to do specially with chapter 2, paragraph 8, of our schema. The whole of chapter 2 pleases me very much, and in particular the way in which paragraph 8 shows that tradition is living, is dynamic, is total, is dynamic, that is, it consists not only in doctrinal propositions, but also of the worship and practice of the whole Church. . . . However, this paragraph, if I have understood it correctly. . . . presents the life and the worship of the Church only in its positive aspect. As I understand it, tradition, in this paragraph, extends beyond the limits of infallible magisterium. If this interpretation is correct, then this tradition is subject to the limits and the failings of the pilgrim Church, which is a Church of sinners, that knows divine things “indistinctly, as in a mirror.” The history of the Church offers multiple proofs of such failings, for example, the fact that the theological doctrine of the Resurrection of Christ was for a long time obscured, that piety was non-liturgical, that Sacred Scripture was neglected, and other like things. Consequently, this paragraph needs to be completed by adding words about these failings that are always possible in this life, and by proposing remedies for them. I therefore suggestion to the Fathers the following formula. . . . “However, that living progress does not make progress always and in every respect. For when the Church ponders divine things in its pilgrim state, in some respects it can fail, and it does in fact fail. For this reason it carries Sacred Scripture in itself as a perpetual norm, so that it can unceasingly correct and perfect itself by conforming its life to this norm.” (As found in an article by Father Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., “Catholic Tradition and Traditions. Michael J. Lacey and Francis Oakley, editors, The Crisis of Authority in Catholic Modernity, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 114. (See The Crisis of Authority in Catholic Modernity.)

"Cardinal Meyer" was attacking the very foundation of the nature of Divine Revelation, and he believed that the Church could fail in her proclamation of doctrine. He also repeated the old lie of Martin Luther and his followers that the Catholic Church had neglected Sacred Scripture and that the piety of the faithful was non-liturgical, beliefs constituted nothing other than an attack upon Holy Mother Church's Divine Constitution. It was thus necessary for Meyer to attack the nature of Divine Revelation in order to make the proposal that Sacred Scripture can "correct" itself.

Taken together, of course, one can see that “Cardinal” Meyer was advancing a view of a “living tradition” that was nothing other than Modernism’s “evolution of dogma.” It is this condemned Modernist precept that is at the foundation of the process of theological, liturgical, moral and pastoral degeneration that has accelerated apace during the past fifty-five months since the “election” of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Even though Meyer’s proposal was not adopted at the “Second” Vatican Council, his intervention nevertheless carried the day theologically just as it is the case that a dissenting justice’s dissenting opinion in a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States of America one day can become the basis of jurisprudence accepted as legitimate by law school professors and even by future Supreme Court justices themselves.

The book that contained the combined excerpts of Albert “Cardinal” Meyer’s two inventions on the text of chapter two, paragraph eight, of the schema on Divine Revelation at the “Second” Vatican Council also included a comment made on Meyer’s remarks made by a theology professor in the late-1960s:

Article 8. . . . is an attempt to a widely expressed need for a clear and positive account of what is meant by tradition. The first section points out the total nature of tradition: primarily it means the many-layered yet one presence of the mystery of Christ throughout all the ages; it means the totality of the presence of Christ in this world. . . . Teaching, life and worship are named as the three ways in which tradition is handed on. It has a place not only in the explicitly traditional statements of Church doctrine, but in the unstated—and often unstatable—elements of the whole service of the Christian worship of God and the life of the Church. This is the basis of the final comprehensive formulation of tradition as the “perpetuation,” the constant continuation and making present of everything that the Church is, of everything that it believes. Tradition is identified, and is thus defined, with the being the life of the Church. The danger that lurks in this statement . . . had been point out by Cardinal Meyer in an important speech on 30 September 1964: not everything that exists in the Church must for that reason be a legitimate tradition: in other words, not every tradition that arises in the Church, is a true celebration and keeping of the mystery of Christ. There is a distorting, as well as a legitimate, tradition. . . . Consequently, tradition must not only be considered affirmatively, but also critically; we have Scripture as criterion for this indispensable criticism of tradition, and tradition must therefore always be related back to it and measured by it. . . . It is to be regretted that the suggestion made by the American Cardinal was not, in fact, taken up. . . . On this point Vatican II has unfortunately not make any progress, but has more or less ignored the whole question of the criticism of tradition. There is, in fact, no explicit mention of the possibility of distorting tradition . . . which means that a most important side of the problem of tradition, as shown by the history of the Church—has been overlooked. (As found in an article by Father Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., “Catholic Tradition and Traditions. Michael J. Lacey and Francis Oakley, editors, The Crisis of Authority in Catholic Modernity, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 114-115. (See The Crisis of Authority in Catholic Modernity.)

Yes, according to the likes of apologists for the “Second” Vatican Council and the “magisterium of the conciliar “popes” tradition is “historically conditioned” and “still developing” in order to determine “what is doctrine to be preserved and what is “historically conditioned.”

As one can probably guess, the theology professor who was favorably impressed with "Cardinal" Meyer's interventions was none other than Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who has spent the entirety of his sixty-five years, six months, seven days of his priestly life disparaging what he thinks is “past” teaching by claiming that it was “conditioned” by the historical circumstances in which it was formulated:

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)

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. (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.

Pope Pius IX and the Fathers of the [First] Vatican Council condemned such views on April 24, 1870 (see the Appendix below). a condemnation that was taken up anew by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907:

Hence it is quite impossible [the Modernists assert] to maintain that they [dogmatic statements] absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907. See the Appendices below for another recitation of the Vatican Council's condemnations of everything that the conciliar "popes," including Karol Josef Wotyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, have taught concerning the “adaptation” or “progression” of Catholic doctrine. Appendix B contains material proving “Saint John Paul II’s” commitment to what he called “living tradition,” which was what he called dogmatic evolutionism).

Ah, after having used Amoris Laetitia, March 19, 2016, to deconstruct the indissolubility of a ratified and consummated marriage and to reaffirm unrepentant sinners in their lives of perdition as a display of his false concept of “mercy,” the Argentine Apostate used his defense of dogmatic evolutionism as the basis to justify the death penalty both in theory as well as in practice:

Along these same lines, I would like now to bring up a subject that ought to find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church a more adequate and coherent treatment in the light of these expressed aims. I am speaking of the death penalty. This issue cannot be reduced to a mere résumé of traditional teaching without taking into account not only the doctrine as it has developed in the teaching of recent Popes, but also the change in the awareness of the Christian people which rejects an attitude of complacency before a punishment deeply injurious of human dignity. It must be clearly stated that the death penalty is an inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out, abases human dignity. It is per se contrary to the Gospel, because it entails the willful suppression of a human life that never ceases to be sacred in the eyes of its Creator and of which – ultimately – only God is the true judge and guarantor. No man, “not even a murderer, loses his personal dignity” (Letter to the President of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, 20 March 2015), because God is a Father who always awaits the return of his children who, knowing that they have made mistakes, ask for forgiveness and begin a new life. No one ought to be deprived not only of life, but also of the chance for a moral and existential redemption that in turn can benefit the community.

In past centuries, when means of defence were scarce and society had yet to develop and mature as it has, recourse to the death penalty appeared to be the logical consequence of the correct application of justice. Sadly, even in the Papal States recourse was had to this extreme and inhumane remedy that ignored the primacy of mercy over justice. Let us take responsibility for the past and recognize that the imposition of the death penalty was dictated by a mentality more legalistic than Christian. Concern for preserving power and material wealth led to an over-estimation of the value of the law and prevented a deeper understanding of the Gospel. Nowadays, however, were we to remain neutral before the new demands of upholding personal dignity, we would be even more guilty.

Here we are not in any way contradicting past teaching, for the defence of the dignity of human life from the first moment of conception to natural death has been taught by the Church consistently and authoritatively. Yet the harmonious development of doctrine demands that we cease to defend arguments that now appear clearly contrary to the new understanding of Christian truth. Indeed, as Saint Vincent of Lérins pointed out, “Some may say: Shall there be no progress of religion in Christ’s Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For who is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it?” (Commonitorium, 23.1; PL 50). It is necessary, therefore, to reaffirm that no matter how serious the crime that has been committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of the person.

I will let Saint Thomas Aquinas provide the antidote to this rank heresy on the death penalty:

Objection 1. It would seem unlawful to kill men who have sinned. For our Lord in the parable (Matthew 13) forbade the uprooting of the cockle which denotes wicked men according to a gloss. Now whatever is forbidden by God is a sin. Therefore it is a sin to kill a sinner.

Objection 2. Further, human justice is conformed to Divine justice. Now according to Divine justice sinners are kept back for repentance, according to Ezekiel 33:11, "I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live." Therefore it seems altogether unjust to kill sinners.

Objection 3. Further, it is not lawful, for any good end whatever, to do that which is evil in itself, according to Augustine (Contra Mendac. vii) and the Philosopher (Ethic. ii, 6). Now to kill a man is evil in itself, since we are bound to have charity towards all men, and "we wish our friends to live and to exist," according to Ethic. ix, 4. Therefore it is nowise lawful to kill a man who has sinned.

On the contrary, It is written (Exodus 22:18): "Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live"; and (Psalm 100:8): "In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land."

I answer that, As stated above (Article 1), it is lawful to kill dumb animals, in so far as they are naturally directed to man's use, as the imperfect is directed to the perfect. Now every part is directed to the whole, as imperfect to perfect, wherefore every part is naturally for the sake of the whole. For this reason we observe that if the health of the whole body demands the excision of a member, through its being decayed or infectious to the other members, it will be both praiseworthy and advantageous to have it cut away. Now every individual person is compared to the whole community, as part to whole. Therefore if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good, since "a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump" (1 Corinthians 5:6).

Reply to Objection 1. Our Lord commanded them to forbear from uprooting the cockle in order to spare the wheat, i.e. the good. This occurs when the wicked cannot be slain without the good being killed with them, either because the wicked lie hidden among the good, or because they have many followers, so that they cannot be killed without danger to the good, as Augustine says (Contra Parmen. iii, 2). Wherefore our Lord teaches that we should rather allow the wicked to live, and that vengeance is to be delayed until the last judgment, rather than that the good be put to death together with the wicked. When, however, the good incur no danger, but rather are protected and saved by the slaying of the wicked, then the latter may be lawfully put to death.

Reply to Objection 2. According to the order of His wisdom, God sometimes slays sinners forthwith in order to deliver the good, whereas sometimes He allows them time to repent, according as He knows what is expedient for His elect. This also does human justice imitate according to its powers; for it puts to death those who are dangerous to others, while it allows time for repentance to those who sin without grievously harming others.

Reply to Objection 3. By sinning man departs from the order of reason, and consequently falls away from the dignity of his manhood, in so far as he is naturally free, and exists for himself, and he falls into the slavish state of the beasts, by being disposed of according as he is useful to others. This is expressed in Psalm 48:21: "Man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he hath been compared to senseless beasts, and made like to them," and Proverbs 11:29: "The fool shall serve the wise." Hence, although it be evil in itself to kill a man so long as he preserve his dignity, yet it may be good to kill a man who has sinned, even as it is to kill a beast. For a bad man is worse than a beast, and is more harmful, as the Philosopher [Aristotle] states (Polit. i, 1 and Ethic. vii, 6). (Saint Thomas Aquinas,, Question 64, Summa Theologica.)

Bergoglio’s whole argument about human “dignity” and his effort to place his false concept of “mercy” about justice, thereby once again creating a false dichotomy between justice and mercy, is nothing other than a complete rejection of right reason and of Holy Writ itself. To assert that the Holy Mother Church erred in the past by her support of the imposition of the death penalty according to the particular circumstances of the time is say that the Catholic Church has never been the spotless, mystical spouse of her Divine Founder, Invisible Head and Mystical Bridegroom, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Indeed, Bergoglio believes that the Catholic Church has been guilty of many errors, and he sees it as his own singular mission and purpose to make amends for them once and for all.

Despite Bergoglio’s protestations, no one can say legitimately that the civil state does not have the authority to put criminals adjudged guilty after the exhaustion of the means of due process of law to death.

Innocent human life is inviolable. Life adjudged guilty of a crime is not inviolable. The imposition of the death penalty by the civil state is not an exercise in vengeance. It is an exercise in the administration of justice, that is, the imposition of a just penalty upon one who has grievously wounded the common good.

The death penalty, if administered in a Catholic state that was subordinate to the Social Reign of Christ the King, would also be viewed an exercise of spiritual mercy upon the doomed felon. One who knows that he is going to die at certain time on a certain date is far more likely to make a good Confession of his sins and to be a companion in eternity of Saint Dismas, the Good Thief, than he would be if languished in a prison for the rest of his life, dying a bad, sacramentally-unprovided-for death from a sudden heart attack after thirty years of incarceration.

One of the supreme ironies of our time is that many Catholics who are vocal about their opposition to the death penalty are equally vocal about their support for baby-killing under cover of law. Those who have committed grievous crimes are showered with admiration. Those who have committed no crime are reviled as "burdens" to be eliminated from existence.

Furthermore, no Catholic trained in Thomistic thought and who understands, therefore, the different principles at work in the Fifth Commandment is permitted to equate the taking of innocent human life in the womb, either by chemical or surgical means, with the justified execution of an actual criminal who has had a fair trial and has been sentenced to death for his crime or crimes. The Catechism of the Council of Trent notes the following about this matter:

Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime or murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.

Whether the death penalty should be imposed on any particular person is a judgment that must be made by the civil authorities. Some persons might well be deserving of clemency. Others might not be. However, the simple Catholic truth is this: the civil state has the authority to put malefactors to death and no one has any more authority to say that it does not than he has to say that there are eight persons in the Divine Godhead. Once again, we see the triumph of the sentimentality and irrationality of Modernism over simple Catholic truth, which is why Bergoglio had to attack the nature of dogmatic truth so directly yet again four days ago.

All the more reason, of course, to flee from everything to do with conciliarism and its false shepherds. If we can't see that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is based on a warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth is offensive to God and can in no way lead to any kind of authentic restoration of the "Catholic" Church, then it is perhaps necessary to recall these words of Saint Teresa of Avila, whose feast day we commemorate today, the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, in her Foundations:

"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine)

[Another translation]--Now we are all in peace, Mitigated and Reformed : no one hinders us in the service of our Lord. Therefore, my Brothers and Sisters, since His Majesty has so graciously heard your prayers, up and haste to serve Him ! Let the present generation, who are eyewitnesses of it, consider the mercies He has done us and the troubles and disquiet from which He has delivered us : and those who are to come after, since they find the way made plain, let them, for the love of our Lord, never suffer a single thing which belongs to perfection to slip away. Let it not be said by their fault as is said of some Orders, that their beginning was praiseworthy. Now we are beginning : but let them try to keep on beginning to go on from good to better continually. Let them remember that the devil keeps using very small faults with which to bore holes through which the very greatest may find entrance. Let them never catch themselves saying, "This does not matter : they are over particular." Oh my daughters, everything matters which hinders our progress. For the love of our Lord I entreat them to remember how soon all will be over, and what a mercy our Lord has done us in leading us into this Order, and what a heavy penalty will be incurred by anyone who initiates any relaxation. Nay, let them keep their eyes ever fixed on the race of holy prophets from which we are sprung. What Saints have we in heaven who wore this habit ! Let us aspire with a holy audacity, by the grace of God, to be ourselves like unto them. Short will be the battle, my Sisters ; the issue is eternal. Let us put aside those things which are really nothings, for only those are realities which lead us to our true end, to serve and love Him more, seeing He liveth for evermore. Amen. Amen. To God be thanksgivings! (Saint Teresa of Avila, the History of Her Foundation, Chapter Twenty-nine, p. 238. See "Saint Theresa : the history of her foundations".)

We turn, as always to Our Lady, who holds us in the crossing of her arms and in the folds of her mantle. We must, as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, trusting that we might be able to plant a few seeds for the Triumph of that same Immaculate Heart.

We may not see until eternity, please God and by the graces He sends to us through the loving hands of His Most Blessed Mother, the fruit of the seeds we plant by means of our prayers and penances and sacrifices, given unto the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must remain confident, however, that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ wants to us, as unworthy as we are, to try to plant a few seeds so that more and more Catholics in the conciliar structures, both "priests" and laity alike, will recognize that it is indeed a sin to stand by He is blasphemed by Modernists, that He--and His true priesthood--are to be found in the catacombs where no concessions at all are made to conciliarism or its wolves in shepherds' clothing.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Viva Cristo Rey!

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Appendix A

The Catholic Church's Condemnation of the Evolution of Dogma

For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward

not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence,
but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.

Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.

The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.

Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .

3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from that which the church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding off and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith.

But since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and forbidden by this holy see. (Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1.)

It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: 'These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.' On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason'; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.' Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: 'Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .

Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910; see also Nothing Stable, Nothing Secure.)

In theology some want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped of the elements which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation, it will compare advantageously with the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents.

Moreover they assert that when Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition, a way will be found to satisfy modern needs, that will permit of dogma being expressed also by the concepts of modern philosophy, whether of immanentism or idealism or existentialism or any other system. Some more audacious affirm that this can and must be done, because they hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. They add that the history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that have arisen over the course of the centuries.

It is evident from what We have already said, that such tentatives not only lead to what they call dogmatic relativism, but that they actually contain it. The contempt of doctrine commonly taught and of the terms in which it is expressed strongly favor it. Everyone is aware that the terminology employed in the schools and even that used by the Teaching Authority of the Church itself is capable of being perfected and polished; and we know also that the Church itself has not always used the same terms in the same way. It is also manifest that the Church cannot be bound to every system of philosophy that has existed for a short space of time. Nevertheless, the things that have been composed through common effort by Catholic teachers over the course of the centuries to bring about some understanding of dogma are certainly not based on any such weak foundation. These things are based on principles and notions deduced from a true knowledge of created things. In the process of deducing, this knowledge, like a star, gave enlightenment to the human mind through the Church. Hence it is not astonishing that some of these notions have not only been used by the Oecumenical Councils, but even sanctioned by them, so that it is wrong to depart from them.

Unfortunately these advocates of novelty easily pass from despising scholastic theology to the neglect of and even contempt for the Teaching Authority of the Church itself, which gives such authoritative approval to scholastic theology. This Teaching Authority is represented by them as a hindrance to progress and an obstacle in the way of science. Some non Catholics consider it as an unjust restraint preventing some more qualified theologians from reforming their subject. And although this sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord the whole deposit of faith -- Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition -- to be preserved, guarded and interpreted, still the duty that is incumbent on the faithful to flee also those errors which more or less approach heresy, and accordingly "to keep also the constitutions and decrees by which such evil opinions are proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See," is sometimes as little known as if it did not exist.What is expounded in the Encyclical Letters of the Roman Pontiffs concerning the nature and constitution of the Church, is deliberately and habitually neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they profess to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks. The Popes, they assert, do not wish to pass judgment on what is a matter of dispute among theologians, so recourse must be had to the early sources, and the recent constitutions and decrees of the Teaching Church must be explained from the writings of the ancients. (Pope Pius XII,Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

While Pope Pius XII noted later in Humani Generis that certain scholastic aids may be divested in the study of philosophy, he reiterated the fact that the method of Saint Thomas Aquinas was to be taught to priests so that the path to error not be introduced into their minds and thus become part of their own preaching to the faithful:

30. Of course this philosophy deals with much that neither directly nor indirectly touches faith or morals, and which consequently the Church leaves to the free discussion of experts. But this does not hold for many other things, especially those principles and fundamental tenets to which We have just referred. However, even in these fundamental questions, we may clothe our philosophy in a more convenient and richer dress, make it more vigorous with a more effective terminology, divest it of certain scholastic aids found less useful, prudently enrich it with the fruits of progress of the human mind. But never may we overthrow it, or contaminate it with false principles, or regard it as a great, but obsolete, relic. For truth and its philosophic expression cannot change from day to day, least of all where there is question of self-evident principles of the human mind or of those propositions which are supported by the wisdom of the ages and by divine revelation. Whatever new truth the sincere human mind is able to find, certainly cannot be opposed to truth already acquired, since God, the highest Truth, has created and guides the human intellect, not that it may daily oppose new truths to rightly established ones, but rather that, having eliminated errors which may have crept in, it may build truth upon truth in the same order and structure that exist in reality, the source of truth. Let no Christian therefore, whether philosopher or theologian, embrace eagerly and lightly whatever novelty happens to be thought up from day to day, but rather let him weigh it with painstaking care and a balanced judgment, lest he lose or corrupt the truth he already has, with grave danger and damage to his faith.

31. If one considers all this well, he will easily see why the Church demands that future priests be instructed in philosophy "according to the method, doctrine, and principles of the Angelic Doctor,"[8] since, as we well know from the experience of centuries, the method of Aquinas is singularly preeminent both for teaching students and for bringing truth to light; his doctrine is in harmony with divine revelation, and is most effective both for safeguarding the foundation of the faith, and for reaping, safely and usefully, the fruits of sound progress.[9]

32. How deplorable it is then that this philosophy, received and honored by the Church, is scorned by some, who shamelessly call it outmoded in form and rationalistic, as they say, in its method of thought. They say that this philosophy upholds the erroneous notion that there can be a metaphysic that is absolutely true; whereas in fact, they say, reality, especially transcendent reality, cannot better be expressed than by disparate teachings, which mutually complete each other, although they are in a way mutually opposed. Our traditional philosophy, then, with its clear exposition and solution of questions, its accurate definition of terms, its clear-cut distinctions, can be, they concede, useful as a preparation for scholastic theology, a preparation quite in accord with medieval mentality; but this philosophy hardly offers a method of philosophizing suited to the needs of our modern culture. They allege, finally, that our perennial philosophy is only a philosophy of immutable essences, while the contemporary mind must look to the existence of things and to life, which is ever in flux. While scorning our philosophy, they extol other philosophies of all kinds, ancient and modern, oriental and occidental, by which they seem to imply that any kind of philosophy or theory, with a few additions and corrections if need be, can be reconciled with Catholic dogma. No Catholic can doubt how false this is, especially where there is question of those fictitious theories they call immanentism, or idealism, or materialism, whether historic or dialectic, or even existentialism, whether atheistic or simply the type that denies the validity of the reason in the field of metaphysics.

33. Finally, they reproach this philosophy taught in our schools for regarding only the intellect in the process of cognition, while neglecting the function of the will and the emotions. This is simply not true. Never has Christian philosophy denied the usefulness and efficacy of good dispositions of soul for perceiving and embracing moral and religious truths. In fact, it has always taught that the lack of these dispositions of good will can be the reason why the intellect, influenced by the passions and evil inclinations, can be so obscured that it cannot see clearly. Indeed St. Thomas holds that the intellect can in some way perceive higher goods of the moral order, whether natural or supernatural, inasmuch as it experiences a certain "connaturality" with these goods, whether this "connaturality" be purely natural, or the result of grace;[10] and it is clear how much even this somewhat obscure perception can help the reason in its investigations. However it is one thing to admit the power of the dispositions of the will in helping reason to gain a more certain and firm knowledge of moral truths; it is quite another thing to say, as these innovators do, indiscriminately mingling cognition and act of will, that the appetitive and affective faculties have a certain power of understanding, and that man, since he cannot by using his reason decide with certainty what is true and is to be accepted, turns to his will, by which he freely chooses among opposite opinions.

One can see that Pope Pius XII took careful pains to make the proper distinctions concerning methods of intellectual inquiry while at the same time explaining that the whole basis of the “new theology” was founded in a rejection of Scholasticism because of its metaphysical certitude concerning the nature of truth. The “new theologians” sought to replace certitude with paradox, contradiction, uncertainty, ambiguity, thereby leading the way open for the triumph of the senses. To put the matter more plainly, Pope Pius XII condemned the same Modernist principle of the “religious reality” springing from within human beings that had been condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis.

This is all important to understand and to keep in mind when there is a temptation to think that something a conciliar revolutionary has said is new. Nothing these men say or do is new. Nothing. Even though they fashion themselves to be champions of novelty and originality, the conciliar revolutionaries are positively boring in their unswervingly rigid adherence to every single Modernist precept, admitting that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has made it more possible for Modernism to the “peripheries” of venality and vulgarity.

Appendix B

Karol Joseph Wojtyla's "Living Tradition"

“Saint John Paul II” masqueraded the Modernist principle of dogmatic evolutionism by referring to as “living tradition,” meaning that everything in Sacred Deposit of Faith was open to reinterpretation and “adaptation” as the circumstances require:

5. Today the Church rejoices at the renewed confirmation of the prophet Joel's words which we have just heard: "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh" (Acts 2:17). You, present here, are the tangible proof of this "outpouring" of the Spirit. Each movement is different from the others, but they are all united in the same communion and for the same mission. Some charisms given by the Spirit burst in like an impetuous wind, which seizes people and carries them to new ways of missionary commitment to the radical service of the Gospel, by ceaselessly proclaiming the truths of faith, accepting the living stream of tradition as a gift and instilling in each person an ardent desire for holiness.

Today, I would like to cry out to all of you gathered here in St Peter's Square and to all Christians: Open yourselves docilely to the gifts of the Spirit! Accept gratefully and obediently the charisms which the Spirit never ceases to bestow on us! Do not forget that every charism is given for the common good, that is, for the benefit of the whole Church. (Meeting with ecclesial movements and new communities.)

is not therefore a matter of inventing a "new programme". The programme already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfilment in the heavenly Jerusalem. This is a programme which does not change with shifts of times and cultures, even though it takes account of time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and effective communication. This programme for all times is our programme for the Third Millennium.

But it must be translated into pastoral initiatives adapted to the circumstances of each community. The Jubilee has given us the extraordinary opportunity to travel together for a number of years on a journey common to the whole Church, a catechetical journey on the theme of the Trinity, accompanied by precise pastoral undertakings designed to ensure that the Jubilee would be a fruitful event. I am grateful for the sincere and widespread acceptance of what I proposed in my Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente. But now it is no longer an immediate goal that we face, but the larger and more demanding challenge of normal pastoral activity. With its universal and indispensable provisions, the programme of the Gospel must continue to take root, as it has always done, in the life of the Church everywhere. It is in the local churches that the specific features of a detailed pastoral plan can be identified — goals and methods, formation and enrichment of the people involved, the search for the necessary resources — which will enable the proclamation of Christ to reach people, mould communities, and have a deep and incisive influence in bringing Gospel values to bear in society and culture.

I therefore earnestly exhort the Pastors of the particular Churches, with the help of all sectors of God's People, confidently to plan the stages of the journey ahead, harmonizing the choices of each diocesan community with those of neighbouring Churches and of the universal Church. (Apostolic Letter NovoMillennio Ineunte.)

It should be noted furthermore that Karol Joseph Wojtyla/John Paul II note specifically in Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, July 2, 1988, that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had placed the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (more commonly known as the Society of Saint Pius X) into schism with what is purported to be the Catholic Church by consecrating four priests as bishops without a “papal” mandate and for refusing to accept what the “canonized pope” said was “the living character of tradition”:

4. The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, "comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth".(5)

But especially contradictory is a notion of Tradition which opposes the universal Magisterium of the Church possessed by the Bishop of Rome and the Body of Bishops. It is impossible to remain faithful to the Tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond with him to whom, in the person of the Apostle Peter, Christ himself entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church.(6)

5. Faced with the situation that has arisen I deem it my duty to inform all the Catholic faithful of some aspects which this sad event has highlighted.

a) The outcome of the movement promoted by Mons. Lefebvre can and must be, for all the Catholic faithful, a motive for sincere reflection concerning their own fidelity to the Church's Tradition, authentically interpreted by the ecclesiastical Magisterium, ordinary and extraordinary, especially in the Ecumenical Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II. From this reflection all should draw a renewed and efficacious conviction of the necessity of strengthening still more their fidelity by rejecting erroneous interpretations and arbitrary and unauthorized applications in matters of doctrine, liturgy and discipline.

To the bishops especially it pertains, by reason of their pastoral mission, to exercise the important duty of a clear-sighted vigilance full of charity and firmness, so that this fidelity may be everywhere safeguarded.(7)

However, it is necessary that all the Pastors and the other faithful have a new awareness, not only of the lawfulness but also of the richness for the Church of a diversity of charisms, traditions of spirituality and apostolate, which also constitutes the beauty of unity in variety: of that blended "harmony" which the earthly Church raises up to Heaven under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.

b) Moreover, I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel themselves called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council's continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church. (Karol Wojytla/John Paul II, Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, July 2, 1988.)

Wojtyla/John Paul II was absolutely correct to state that the teaching of the universal magisterium of the Catholic Church cannot be contrary to Tradition. Some in the Society of Saint Pius X have posited a nonexistent conflict between the “authoritative magisterium” and the “governing magisterium.” There is no such distinction as no such division in the magisterium exists. It is a fabrication. The universal ordinary magisterium of the Catholic Church cannot teach error, something that was reviewed most recently in Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton Calls Out Tricks of Shoddy Minimism.

Unfortunately, for “Saint John Paul II,” however, his very argument in favor of the continuity between the “Second” Vatican Council and the Tradition of the Catholic Church is based upon an admission that that false council’s texts might be too obscure to understand properly “especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.” Holy Mother Church teaches clearly. There is nothing “new” in her teaching. The “Polish Pope” was trying to have it both ways by referring to the “living character of Tradition” to call the Society of Saint Pius X to obedience while at the same time unwittingly admitting that that there are “new” points of doctrine that need to be “understood.” This is not from the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Who is immutable. It was from the adversary himself.

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Jorge Applies the Death Penalty to the Nature of Dogmatic Truth

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