29 May 2015

Archbishop Lefebvre
on the New Code of Canon Law
Conference given in Turin, Italy on March 24, 1984
Translated from the French District's bulletin published on February 5, 1992

I want to speak to you of a very serious novelty: the New Code of Canon Law. I had not seen any necessity for a change. But if the law changes, the law changes, and we must make use of it, for the Church can ask nothing evil from her faithful.

However, when one reads this new code of Canon Law one discovers an entirely new conception of the Church. It is easy to be aware of, since John Paul II himself describes it in the apostolic constitution which introduces the new Code.

...It follows that which constitutes the fundamental novelty of Vatican Council II, in full continuity with the legislative tradition of the Church (this is to deceive), especially in that which concerns ecclesiology, constitutes also the novelty of the new Code.

Hence the novelty of the conception of the Church according to the Council is equally the novelty of the conception of the new Code of Canon Law.

What is this novelty? It is that there is no longer any difference between the clergy and the laity. There is now just the faithful, nothing else, on account of the doctrine according to which all the members of the people of God, according to the mode which is proper to each, partake in the triple priestly, prophetic and royal function of Jesus Christ. To this doctrine is likewise attached that which concerns the duties and rights of the faithful and particularly the laity, and finally the Church's involvement in ecumenism!
This is the definition of the Church (Canon 204):

The faithful are those who, inasmuch as they are incorporated in Christ by baptism are constituted as the people of God, and who for this reason, having been made partakers in their manner in the priestly, prophetic and royal functions of Christ, are called to exercise the mission that God entrusted to the Church to accomplish in the world.

We are all faithful, members of the people of God, and we all therefore have ministries! It is clearly said in the Code: all the faithful have ministries. They therefore all have the responsibility to teach, to sanctify and even to direct.
Let us continue our commentary on this Canon 204:

…having been made partakers in their manner in the priestly, prophetic and royal function of Christ, they are called to exercise the mission which God entrusted to the Church to accomplish in the world, according to the juridical condition proper to each one.

Hence everyone without exception, without distinction between clergy and laity, inasmuch as they are the people of God, has the responsibility of this mission entrusted by Jesus Christ properly to the Church. There is no longer any clergy. What, then, happens to the clergy?

It is as if they said that it is no longer parents who have the responsibility to give life to children but the family, or rather all the members of the family: parents and children. This is exactly the same thing as saying today that bishops, priests and laymen have all responsibility for the mission of the Church. But who gives the graces to become a Catholic? How does one become faithful? No one knows any more who has the responsibility for what. It is consequently easy to understand that this is the ruin of the priesthood and the laicization of the Church. Everything is oriented towards the laymen, and little by little the sacred ministers disappear. The minor orders and the subdiaconate have already disappeared. Now there are married deacons, and little by little laymen take over the ministry of the priests. This is precisely what Luther and the Protestants did, laicizing the priesthood. It is consequently very serious.

This is quite openly explained in an article in L’Osservatore Romano of March 17, 1984:
The role of the laity in the new Code. The active function that the laity has been called on to exercise since Vatican II by participating in the condition and mission of the entire Church according to their particular vocation is a doctrine which, in the context of the appearance of the concept of the people of God has brought about a reevaluation of the laity, as much in the foundation of the Church as for the active role they are called on to develop in the building up of the Church.

Such is the inspiration of the whole new Code of Canon Law. It is this definition of the Church which is the poison which infects the new laws.

The same can be said for the Liturgy. There is a relationship between this new Code of Canon Law and the entire liturgical reform, as Bugnini said in his book The Fundamental Principles of the Changing of the Liturgy:

The path opened by the Council is destined to change radically the traditional liturgical assembly in which, according to a custom dating back many centuries, the liturgical service is almost exclusively accomplished by the clergy. The people assist, but too much as a stranger and a dumb spectator.

What? How can one dare say that the faithful are present at the sacrifice of the Mass as simply dumb spectators so as to change the Liturgy? How must the faithful be active in the sacrifice of the Mass? By the body or spiritually? Obviously spiritually. One can draw a great spiritual profit from assisting at Mass in silence. It is, in effect, a mystery of our Faith. How many have become saints in this silence of the true Mass!

"A long education will be necessary for the Liturgy to become an action of all the people of God." Without a doubt. Then he adds that he is speaking of "a substantial unity but not a uniformity. You must realize that this is a true break with the past." This past is the twenty centuries of prayer of the Church.

Bugnini was the key man in the liturgical reform. I went to see Cardinal Cicognani when this reform was published and I said to him: "Your Eminence, I am not in agreement with this change. The Mass no longer has its mystical and divine character." He replied: "Excellency, it is like that. Bugnini can enter as he likes into the Ppope's office to make him sign what he wants." This is what happened to the Secretariat of State. This is how all these changes happened. They agreed on it beforehand, and then obtained signatures for some changes, and then others, and then others.
I said to Cardinal Gut:

Your Eminence, you are responsible for Divine Worship, and you accord permission for the Blessed Sacrament to be received in the hand! They will know that this was published with the agreement of the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship!
He replied:

Excellency, I do not even know if I will be asked for it to be done. You know, it is not I who command. The boss is Bugnini. If the pope asks me what I think of Communion in the hand, I will cast myself on my knees before him to ask him not to do it.

You see, then, how things happened at Rome: a simple signature on the bottom of a decree and the Church is ruined by numerous sacrileges... The real presence of Our Lord is ruined, for it is no longer respected. Then, nothing sacred remains, as was seen at the large reunion at which the Pope was present, where the Blessed Sacrament was passed around from hand to hand between thousands of persons. Nobody genuflects anymore before the Blessed Sacrament. How can they still believe that God is present there?

It is this same spirit which inspired the changing of the canon Law as that which inspired the changes in the Liturgy: it is the people of God, the assembly, which does everything. The same applies to the priest. He is a simple president who has a ministry, as others have a ministry, in the midst of an assembly. Our orientation towards God has likewise disappeared. This comes from the protestants who say that eucharistic devotion (for them there is neither Mass nor sacrifice: this would be blasphemy) is simply a movement of God towards man, but not of man towards God to render Him glory, which is nevertheless the first (latreutic) end of the Liturgy. This new state of liturgical mind comes likewise from Vatican II: everything is for man. The bishops and priest are at the service of man and the assembly. But where is God then? In what is His glory sought? What will we do in heaven? For in heaven "all is for the glory of God," which is exactly what we ought to do here on earth. But all that is done away with, and replaced by man. This is truly the ruin of all Catholic thought.

You know that the new Code of Canon Law permits a priest to give Communion to a protestant. It is what they call eucharistic hospitality. These are protestants who remain protestant and do not convert. This is directly opposed to the Faith. For the Sacrament of the Eucharist is precisely the sacrament of the unity of the Faith. To give Communion to a protestant is to rupture the Faith and its unity.



THE CASE OF THE DUAL PAPACY -- "DEUX PAPES VERMOULU"



Jorge Bergoglio (Francis 1) and Benedict XVI: Who is the pope?


If one wishes to understand the mystery of the spiritual schizophrenia of the Conciliar popes, one must consider their personal history in the light of two chapters of Malachy Martin's Hostage to the Devil. 1. The chapter that relates of the possessed priest and the possessed exorcist. Both became possessed by having given their minds over to the heretical doctrines of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. 2. The chapter that relates how a girl rebelled against the teaching authority of the Church in school and became possessed because of her rebellion.

Those two chapters sufficiently shed light on the case of the Conciliar popes. They were/are not cold blooded infiltrators who entered the priesthood with the premeditated intention to destroy the Church. They were men of God who fell into the most ancient and original temptation, to eat the forbidden fruit of error in the vain and illusory pursuit of illicit knowledge. What they gained by their disordered intellectual pursuits was not superior knowledge; but the darkening of the intellect that made them become slaves to error; and allowed the demons to enter and possess them. This accounts for their duality of spirit which is in one moment Catholic, and then becomes heretical, gnostic, and even pagan. That is how we have ended up with the Church reduced to God's "Devastated Vineyard", presided over by the " Deux papes vermoulu" -- the "two worm eaten popes" foretold by Our Lady of La Salette.

Bergoglio's Religion: Naturalism, Rationalism, Deism

"First of all, you ask if the God of the Christians forgives those who do not believe and do not seek faith.

Given that—and this is fundamental—God's mercy has no limits if he who asks for mercy does so in contrition and with a sincere heart, the issue for those who do not believe in God is in obeying their own conscience."

The key words are: "those who do not believe and do not seek faith." Does God forgive them? Bergoglio says, "God's mercy has no limits . . . the issue for those who do not believe in God is obeying their own conscience" (!!!) and: "The goodness or the wickedness of our behavior depends on this decision"

Note also the moral relativism: "listening and obeying it [conscience], means deciding about what is perceived to be good or evil"

In fact, listening and obeying it, means deciding about what is perceived to be good or to be evil." (This is the basis of Bergoglio's "Who am I to judge?")

Bergoglio states with unmistakable clarity that one with no faith at all obtains forgiveness from God by obeying his conscience: "deciding about what is perceived to be good or to be evil."

For Bergoglio, the conscience is autonomous: the "Thou shalt not" commandments are nullified -- human dignity demands that the human person decides for himself what is right or wrong, without the tyranny of clericalism dictating to man's conscience, "Thou shalt not!"

Bergoglio's economy of salvation dispenses entirely with any need for faith -- faith is utterly superfluous. Salvation depends exclusively on following one's own autonomous conscience; and absolutely no one may dictate to that conscience by claiming to teach in God's name with divine authority.

This is Bergoglio's religion. It is as far removed from Christianity as heaven is from hell. Bergoglio's religion is not Catholicism -- it is Masonism in its purest form. His creed is essentially identical to that of the godless Enlightenment freethinker, Lord Shaftesbury (1671 - 1713): " The articles of Shaftesbury's religious creed were few and simple, but these he entertained with a conviction amounting to enthusiasm. They may briefly be summed up as a belief in one God whose most characteristic attribute is universal benevolence, in the moral government of the universe, and in a future state of man making up for the imperfections and repairing the inequalities of the present life." AH! The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. (Wikipedia). Shaftesbury's moral doctrine is that of the "Moral Sense", of which the two most basic principles are:

"1 that the distinction between right and wrong is part of the constitution of human nature; 2. that morality stands apart from theology, and the moral qualities of actions are determined apart from the arbitrary will of God."

Fr. Cornelio Fabro cites the verbatim quotation (Introduzione all"ateismo moderno) in which Shaftesbury declares that religion does not consist in believing tenets of revelation, but in morality. His religion was essentially Deism and Rationalism.
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/shaftesbury/#8)

Lest anyone thinks Scalfari fabricated the quotation, here's a parallel passage in Bergoglio's sermon:

Francesco, il capo della Chiesa Cattolica Romana ha affermato che anche gli atei vanno in paradiso. Pochi giorni fa infatti, ha raccontato la storia di un parrocchiano Cattolico che chiese ad un prete se anche gli atei erano stati salvati da Gesù, ed ha detto:

‘Il Signore ci ha creati a Sua immagine e somiglianza, e noi siamo l’immagine del Signore, ed Egli fa del bene e tutti noi abbiamo questo comandamento nel cuore: fai il bene e non fare il male. Tutti noi. ‘Ma, Padre, questo non è Cattolico! Non può fare il bene’. Sì, può farlo …. ‘Il Signore ha redento tutti noi, tutti noi, con il Sangue di Cristo: tutti noi, non solo Cattolici. Tutti! ‘Padre, e gli atei?’ Anche gli atei. Tutti!’ …. Dobbiamo incontrarci facendo il bene. ‘Ma, Padre, io non credo, sono un ateo!’ Ma fai il bene: noi ci incontreremo là’ [in paradiso].

Ecco le parole in inglese così come sono state pubblicate dall’Huffington.’ Post:

“The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can… “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”.. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

Bergoglio On Heaven and Earth:

"As I am a believer, I know that these riches are a gift from God. I also know that the other person, the atheist, does not know that. I do not approach the relationship in order to proselytize, or convert the atheist; I respect him and I show myself as I am. Where there is knowledge, there begins to appear esteem, affection, and friendship. I do not have any type of reluctance, nor would I say that his life is condemned, because I am convinced that I do not have the right to make a judgment about the honesty of that person; even less, if he shows me those human virtues that exalt others and do me good."

Bergoglio does not believe in God in the proper sense of professing the dogmatically defined nature and attributes of God. No wonder that he says he doesn't "believe in a Catholic God". He really does not even believe in the God we profess in the Catholic creeds.

"On Heaven and Earth", Chapter 3 - "On Atheists" :

"We can say what God is not ... but we cannot say what He is. I would classify as arrogant those theologies that ... had the pretense of saying who He was".

Bergoglio's deistic notion of God logically precludes the affirmation of a precise body of doctrines supernaturally revealed by God. In his 9 October 2014 sermon, Bergoglio evokes a revelation of God that is experienced directly. Supernatural revelation as has been traditionally professed by the Church has no basis in Bergoglio's deistic philosophy; and therefore cannot logically fit into the framework of his Soteriology. One must not be fooled by his usage of traditional terminology: Deism is the philosophic basis of Modernist theology; and therefore it is of strict logical necessity that Modernists profess what Hans Küng calls "a Christology from below" -- and indeed, a Theology from below which conceives of divine revelation along the lines of the Enlightenment naturalism of Schleiermacher. Therefore, such terms as 'incarnation', 'revelation', 'Saviour', 'mystery', have a different meaning from that which the Church infallibly professes. Bergoglio professes the condemned heresy of Religious Liberty because it is a strict logical corollary of his deistic Modernism, which easily fits into its framework Paganism, as well as anthropomorphically modified monotheistic belief systems. What does not fit into the deistic framework is the notion of supernatural revelation of a transcendent Godhead. Hence, all religions are welcome in the Civilization of Love -- except One: the unreformed Catholic religion -- "the actual original faith, teaching, and tradition of the Catholic Church; which the Lord bestowed, the apostles proclaimed, and the Fathers safeguarded." (Athanasius ad Serapion) Outside of that faith there is no salvation (Profession of Faith, Vatican Council I); and unless one holds that faith integral and inviolate, he will without doubt perish in eternity (Athanasian Creed).

Bergoglio wants the remaining vestige of the Catholic Church to break up into a loosley knit denomination like the Anglican Communion. This breakup was foretold by St. Hildegard von Bingen nearly 900 years ago. This is the APOSTASY foretold in Scripture and at Fatima. 2 Thess. verse 3 says FIRST must come the "apostasy" (αποστασια); and then the "man of sin" (ανθρωπος της αμαρτιας): 3 μη τις υμας εξαπατηση κατα μηδενα τροπον οτι εαν μη ελθη η αποστασια πρωτον και αποκαλυφθη ο ανθρωπος της αμαρτιας ο υιος της απωλειας. The apostasy (αποστασια) is what is happening now. Its leader and standard bearer is Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The spiritual imperium of Rome is dissolved -- the katechon is removed: 6 και νυν το κατεχον οιδατε εις το αποκαλυφθηναι αυτον εν τω εαυτου καιρω 7 το γαρ μυστηριον ηδη ενεργειται της ανομιας μονον ο κατεχων αρτι εως εκ μεσου γενηται.

Thank you Jorge! Jorge has opened the doors of Rome wide to receive the "lawless one" -- the "man of sin". Our Lady of La Salette said: "ROME WILL LOSE THE FAITH AND BECOME THE SEAT OF THE ANTICHRIST". The obtuse knuckleheads of the Conciliar Reformed Sect deny what is happening on the basis of a logically misapplied generality -- the dogma of Indefectibility. They misapply the dogma to deny the explicit prophetic teaching of St. Paul! They think Our Lady was wrong in La Salette and Fatima -- yet the temporary removal of the spiritual Imperium of Rome and the pope is taught in Scripture: 6 And now you know what withholdeth, that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way.


The ancient Fathers interpret this "katechon" to be the Roman Imperium, which since the collapse of the temporal Imperium has resided in the Roman Papacy, which is now "taken out of the way" by Jorge Bergoglio.

Ratzinger's Spinozism in his Einführung in das Christentum

Two years after Paul VI abolished the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books) in 1966, the Rev. Prof. Dr. Joseph Ratzinger of Tübingen infamy published his first major work (of heresy) -- Einführung in das Christentum. Pius XII would have placed the book on the Index and would have had him removed from the Catholic faculty of Theology. Paul VI appointed the dissident Vatican II peritus Archbishop of Munich and made him a cardinal.

Ratzinger says the doctrine of the duality of body and soul is "obsolete". He says it is contrary to the unity of the person, of the "self". That is nonsense, and it is heresy. The unity of the human substance is preserved in virtue of the soul being the substantial form of the body.

Council of Vienne:

"Adhering firmly to the foundation of the catholic faith, other than which, as the Apostle testifies, no one can lay, we openly profess with holy mother church that the only begotten Son of God, subsisting eternally together with the Father in everything in which God the Father exists, assumed in time in the womb of a virgin the parts of our nature united together, from which he himself true God became true man: namely the human, passible body and the intellectual or rational soul truly of itself and essentially informing the body."

"We, therefore, directing our apostolic attention, to which alone it belongs to define these things, to such splendid testimony and to the common opinion of the holy fathers and doctors, declare with the approval of the sacred council that the said apostle and evangelist, John, observed the right order of events in saying that when Christ was already dead one of the soldiers opened his side with a spear. Moreover, with the approval of the said council, we reject as erroneous and contrary to the truth of the catholic faith every doctrine or proposition rashly asserting that the substance of the rational or intellectual soul is not of itself and essentially the form of the human body, or casting doubt on this matter. In order that all may know the truth of the faith in its purity and all error may be excluded, we define that anyone who presumes henceforth to assert defend or hold stubbornly that the rational or intellectual soul is not the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be considered a heretic."

The Fourth Lateran Council solemnly professed that the soul of Christ descended into hell and the body rose from the dead: "sed descendit in anima et resurrexit in carne". The Roman Catechism, teaching the infallible doctrine of the universal magisterium, declares that so long as the body of Christ remained in the sepulchure, his soul remained in hell.

God the Son remained hypostatically united to both body and soul while they were in the separated condition; the body in the sepulchre and the soul in hell. Ratzinger rejects the Catholic dogma of Christ's descent into hell, dismissing it as "mythological"; and says the descent into hell is to be understood to mean being in the state of death. This is heresy!

The term "resurrection", according to Ratzinger is not to be understood as a reuniting of the soul as the animating principle of the body; but an "awakening" of the self, the whole person, who exists eternally in the mind of God! Thus Ratzinger rejects the idea of the "resurrection of the body" to refer to the rising to life of the corporeal body, but the awakening of the whole self existing eternally in the memory of God, and thus eternally united to God.

Ratzinger hides his heresy behind his Augustinian mask, in the manner of Luther and Jansen -- none of them being authentically Augustinian in their theology.

The Catholic Church professes the "resurrection of the body" to mean the rising to life of the physical-corporeal body, as so pithily expressed by Augustine -- "illa ista caro".
Ratzinger's doctrine of resurrection conceived as a quasi-afterlife in the mind of God is not the Gospel of the Apostles and Evangelists; but is the "gospel" of Benedict XVI, which is also the "gospel" of Benedict Spinoza.

The human person cannot subsist in the mind of God any more after death than it did before birth; because the creature composed of potentiality and act does not subsist in the divine mode of being, which is actus purus.

Therefore the Ratzinger/Spinoza notion of the afterlife is logically inconceivable in the framework of Christian philosophy and theology -- it is intelligible only in the framework of the Spinozan philosophical system which gratuitously posits Thought and Extension as the two known eternal attributes of "Substance", which Spinoza calls "Deus sive Natura" (God or Nature).

Spinozan Pandeism is the philosophical basis of Ratzinger's reinterpretation of dogma -- yet he still attempts to adhere to dogma as the basis of faith; and insists on the radical necessity of faith. Bergoglio, on the other hand, dispenses entirely with the necessity of faith for salvation -- following one's own conscience suffices -- even if one's perverse conscience denies the duty to believe in God and obey the divine law. A belief system, such as Bergoglio's, which professes salvation without faith; constitutes a religion without faith, and as such, is the faithless and godless religion of apostasy.

Pope Benedict Did Not Resign The Papal Office, But Only Renounced The Active Ministry Of The Office

In order to understand the precise scope and extent of Benedict XVI's "renunciation" (not "resignation" or "abdication"), one must focus on his words which explain exactly what he renounced:

" Qui permettetemi di tornare ancora una volta al 19 aprile 2005. La gravità della decisione è stata proprio anche nel fatto che da quel momento in poi ero impegnato sempre e per sempre dal Signore. Sempre – chi assume il ministero petrino non ha più alcuna privacy. Appartiene sempre e totalmente a tutti, a tutta la Chiesa. Alla sua vita viene, per così dire, totalmente tolta la dimensione privata." ... " Il “sempre” è anche un “per sempre” - non c’è più un ritornare nel privato. La mia decisione di rinunciare all’esercizio attivo del ministero, non revoca questo."

"Here, allow me to go back once again to 19 April 2005. The real gravity of the decision was also due to the fact that from that moment on I was engaged always and forever by the Lord. Always – anyone who accepts the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and completely to everyone, to the whole Church. In a manner of speaking, the private dimension of his life is completely eliminated." ... "The 'always' is also a "for ever" – there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to renounce the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this."

Here Benedict XVI states explicitly that the gravity his decision to accept the papacy consisted in the fact that he was thereby engaged in a commitment, received from Christ, which is "for always", and his "decision to renounce the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this." Thus, Benedict did not renounce the Petrine office or its ministry, but only the active exercise of the ministry. He then goes on to say that he will no longer wield the power of office, but will remain "within the enclosure of St. Peter": " Non porto più la potestà dell’officio per il governo della Chiesa, ma nel servizio della preghiera resto, per così dire, nel recinto di san Pietro. San Benedetto, il cui nome porto da Papa, mi sarà di grande esempio in questo. Egli ci ha mostrato la via per una vita, che, attiva o passiva, appartiene totalmente all’opera di Dio." ("I no longer bear the power of office for the governance of the Church, but in the service of prayer I remain, so to speak, in the enclosure of Saint Peter. Saint Benedict, whose name I bear as Pope, will be a great example for me in this. He showed us the way for a life which, whether active or passive, is completely given over to the work of God.") 

Hence, the intention expressed by Pope Benedict is to remain in the Petrine office and retain the passive aspect of its official service (munus), i.e. "the service of prayer"; and to hand over the active aspect of the munus, i.e. exercise of governance, to a successor, who will effectively fulfill the function of a coadjutor with power of jurisdiction. Thus, Benedict's clearly expressed intention was not to abdicate the office, but only to vacate the cathedra in the qualified sense of handing the seat of power of governance to one who will succeed him in the active governance, but not abdicating from the office itself. This solves the apparent mystery and explains why Benedict XVI refused to revert to being Cardinal Ratzinger; and why he retains his papal coat of arms and papal attire.

In his Declaration of Feb. 11, 2013, Pope Benedict states as the reason for his decision his waning energy and consequent inability to administer the official duties of the papacy due to advanced age: Conscientia mea iterum atque iterum coram Deo explorata ad cognitionem certam perveni vires meas ingravescente aetate non iam aptas esse ad munus Petrinum aeque administrandum.

However, he states his awareness of the spiritual nature of the official service, the munus of the petrine office; namely, it is not merely active and verbal, but is to be fulfilled to no lesser degree by praying and suffering: Bene conscius sum hoc munus secundum suam essentiam spiritualem non solum agendo et loquendo exsequi debere, sed non minus patiendo et orando. It is this passive function of the office that he expressly stated was his intention to retain in his above cited discourse of 27 Feb. 2013.

It was only the active service, the execution of the ministry regarding grave affairs of the Church and proclaiming the gospel, which he said he could no longer adequately perform: Attamen in mundo nostri temporis rapidis mutationibus subiecto et quaestionibus magni ponderis pro vita fidei perturbato ad navem Sancti Petri gubernandam et ad annuntiandum Evangelium etiam vigor quidam corporis et animae necessarius est, qui ultimis mensibus in me modo tali minuitur, ut incapacitatem meam ad ministerium mihi commissum bene administrandum agnoscere debeam.


Therefore, in the next sentence he declares his intention to renounce that ministry:Quapropter bene conscius ponderis huius actus plena libertate declaro me ministerio Episcopi Romae, Successoris Sancti Petri, mihi per manus Cardinalium die 19 aprilis MMV commisso renuntiare ita ut a die 28 februarii MMXIII, hora 20, sedes Romae, sedes Sancti Petri vacet et Conclave ad eligendum novum Summum Pontificem ab his quibus competit convocandum esse.

One notices the corrected Latin in this Vatican website version of the Declaratio. In the official document the word "commissum" was used, and not "commisso" as you can see in the sentence. This is one of two glaring grammatical errors in the document that, according to the canonical custom which remains in force, renders the juridical act null & void. The 1983 Code of Canon Law states explicitly that where there is no statute or custom ruling on some matter in the Code, the jurisprudence of the Roman Curia is to be followed*. The precedents go back to Pope St. Gregory VII, as I have explained in previous posts.

However, leaving aside the question of the Latin errors; the far more weighty consideration of the pope's intention not to abdicate the munus, but only to renounce the active ministry is decisive in determining the nullity of the act. It is patent that a pope who intends to renounce the active exercise of the Petrine ministry, but who expresses his intention to retain the passive service of the munus which he received on 19 April 2005, does not vacate the office. Hence, the intention to render the chair vacant is defective, since one who retains the passive exercise of the munus retains the munus, and therefore still occupies the chair.

* Can. 19 - Si certa de re desit expressum legis sive universalis sive particularis praescriptum; aut consuetudo, causa, nisi sit poenalis, dirimenda est attentis legibus latis in similibus, generalibus iuris principiis cum aequitate canonica servatis, iurisprudentia et praxi Curiae Romanae, communi constantique doctorum sententia.

The assertion made by some, that Jorge Bergoglio is the "vicar of Christ on earth" is highly problematical (to put it mildly). Not only was Benedict's renunciation canonically defective, but Bergoglio's election, according to some eminent canonists, canonically irregular.

Even more problematical is the matter of Bergoglio's belief system. He is no Christian, but a Deist who does not believe in objective moral standards, or supernatural dogmatic revelation. He is an infidel who rejects the necessity for faith in the revealing God.

Revelation, for Bergoglio, is obtained through phenomenological experience. His contempt for dogmatic Christianity is visceral. His "theology" is not the theology of the Catholic Church, but of the Deists, such as Lord Shaftesbury, Gotthold Lessing, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. By Catholic standards, Bergoglio is a heathen -- an unbeliever, an infidel. Such a one, even if he had been canonically elected, such a one is to be "cast out and trampled underfoot by men"; according to Innocent III (Sermo IV).



Father Paul Kramer, Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015.


28 May 2015

A “Feminized” Catholic Church?

by Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi


“Religion does not fear the dagger’s point; but it can vanish under corruption. Let us not grow tired of corruption: we may use a pretext, such as sport, hygiene, health resorts. It is necessary to corrupt, that our boys and girls practise nudism in dress. To avoid too much reaction, one would have to progress in a methodical manner: first, undress up to the elbow; then up to the knees; then arms and legs completely uncovered; later, the upper part of the chest, the shoulders, etc.,” says International Review on Freemasonry, 1928.

If you wish to visit a Church where this freemasonic instruction is being followed to the letter, then Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, located in Victoria Island, Lagos, is the place to be. It is a typical example of a “Vatican 11 Catholic Church” here in Lagos State. A similar example is Church of the Assumption, located in Falomo, Ikoyi, but Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, built just a few years ago, has simply “out-shined” the Falomo Church in immorality—in the war against Catholic beliefs and practices. Among innumerable evils existing in this church, particularly in the area of their Protestantised Mass, if you haven’t witnessed young girls serving the “mass”, with their hairs completely uncovered, then visit this Church. If you haven’t witnessed a Church where almost the entire women dress like harlots every Sunday during “mass”, with the hairs completely uncovered, then visit this Church. If you haven’t witnessed a Church where women—instead of God—are increasingly becoming the object of worship on each passing day, then visit this same Church.

Modern atheistic democracy that preaches gender equality, human right and freedom without a limit has simply confused most Catholic men and women—starting from the very clergy themselves—in these times. In 1930 Pope Pius XI condemned the previous decades' women’s emancipation movement as undermining the divinely founded obedience of the wife to her husband and a false deflection from her true and sole role as mother and homemaker. Feminism was intrinsically linked to suffrage and therefore abhorred by the church. Nearly 50 years later in the late 1960s and early 70s, the women at the helm of the second feminist movement again found the Catholic Church to be among their “staunchest foes”. But today’s tragedy is that those who have been given the mandate by heaven of opposing the errors of feminism and defending Catholic doctrine, now hiding under the priestly cassock and manifesting like angels of light—more than the feminists themselves—are the very people championing these errors in ours time with all their powers. Their quest for “women empowerment”—women lay readers, altar girls, priestess, etc—goes together with the clamour for women’s nudity inside the church.  There are even some seemingly “good” priests who are also sympathetic to feminism, and support its errors either directly or indirectly because of the powerful influence of democracy.

We start from the issue of head-covering: In fact, today if you wish to see real religious women, who need not be reminded that they must cover their hairs during worship, then the Mosque, rather than the Church, is the place to be. But why this? Is head-covering only a Muslim practice and not a Christian practice?  

Now pay attention! On the issue of head-covering, we know that canon 1262 of the 1917 code (promulgated by Pope Benedict XV) says that women must cover their hairs while in the Church. We also know that the same canon says that women should be separated from men in the Church—a pious practice which also exists now only in the Mosques, and in the Catholic Church only among the traditionalists such as the Society of Saint Pius X. However, this canon was “abrogated” by John Paul II, who promulgated a new Code of Canon Law in 1983, which is “in force” today. With regards to head-covering, this new canon—deliberately silent on the issue—is the cause of the scandal we witness today all over the Catholic world. We have seen “priests” who even believe that to tell women to cover their hair and dress modestly during worship is to marginalize them. We have seen “priests” who, following the atheistic principles of modern democracy, clamour for women leaders in the church, and even openly give the impression that the early Church of the Apostles was biased against women simply because it was against their current unchristian belief. Saint Augustine, the greatest Catholic theologian after St. Paul, tells us that the entire Scripture—from Genesis to the Revelation—was written by God Himself. He calls the sacred writings of St. Paul “letters sent to us from heaven”. Now this Bible—particularly the writings of St. Paul on this issue of women—is simply put aside as something biased and outdated by the majority of modern clergy and “theologians.” The reason? Because “the times have changed!” But ironically, these are the same people who, after the evil Council, now claim that the Bible, more than ever before, has been made accessible to all and is now well read and understood by all!

Women indeed played a large part in the ministry of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Some of His closest friends and faithful followers were women (cf. Matt. 27:55-56; Luke 23:49, 55). They were the last to leave Our Lord’s cross and the first to see Him resurrected (Luke 23:55; 24:1ff.). There were women who followed Jesus as He travelled about, and who supported Him and His disciples (Luke 8:1-3). If perchance we are inclined to think that the role of women was primarily in the kitchen, or preferably in the kitchen, we need to be reminded that Jesus commended Mary for sitting at His feet, while Martha was obsessed with fixing the meal (Luke 10:38-42).

We must also recall what women did not do to minister when they accompanied Our Lord. Our Lord did not choose women to be among the 12 apostles. He did not send women to teach, preach or heal. So far as we know He did not invite women to the Lord’s Supper in Matthew 26:20. When the great commission was given in Matthew 28:16-20, it was given to men. In brief, women did minister to Our Lord and with Our Lord, but never in a capacity of leadership or of authority such as teaching or preaching.

Likewise the Apostle Paul had high regard for women. Many of those greeted in the last chapter of Romans were women. Phoebe was especially mentioned as one who had greatly helped the church at Cenchrae (verses 1-2). Paul’s teaching on the marriage relationship greatly enhanced the position of the married woman (cf. Eph. 5:22-33). But once again we see that women were not allowed to assume positions of leadership or authority within the church. In 1 Timothy Paul wrote:

“Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments but rather by means of good works, as befits women making a claim to godliness. Let a woman quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” (1 Tim. 2:9-12).

And why should a woman remain quiet? Saint Paul explains:

‘But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed; then Eve. And Adam was not seduced; but the woman being seduced, was in the transgression. Yet she shall be saved through child-bearing; if she continues in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.’   (1 Tim. 2: 12-15).

Again, in 1 Corinthians we read:

“As in all the churches of the saints, let the women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but let them subject themselves, just as the law also says. And if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church. What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached?...If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognise this, he is not recognised.’” (1 Cor. 14:33-37).

The uniform practice of the churches, then, was that women should not take leadership in the church meeting. They were not to teach or to exercise authority, nor were they to engage in questions. They are to subject themselves, as the law teaches, says Paul. 

Now back to head-covering: St. Augustine, the great theologian, describes any failure in the veil to conceal all the hair, even a minor one, as a violation of chastity. St. Ambrose of Milan says: “Is anything so conducive to lust as with unseemly movements thus to expose in nakedness those parts of the body which either nature has hidden or custom has veiled, to sport with the looks, to turn the neck, to loosen the hair? Fitly was the next step an offense against God. For what modesty can there be? ”

We read the following from the same Apostle Paul:

“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered, disgraceth his head. But every woman praying or prophesying with her head not covered, disgraceth her head: for it is all one as if she were shaven. For if a woman be not covered, let her be shorn. But if it be a shame to a woman to be shorn or made bald, let her cover her head. The man indeed ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. For the man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man. Therefore ought the woman to have a power over her head, because of the angels. But yet neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, so also is the man by the woman: but all things of God. You yourselves judge: doth it become a woman, to pray unto God uncovered? Doth not even nature itself teach you, that a man indeed, if he nourishes his hair, is a shame unto him? But if a woman nourishes her hair, it is a glory to her; for her head is given to her for a covering. But if any man seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the church of God.” (1 Cor. 11: 3-16).   

First Corinthian (11:3-16) is not limited to a woman’s presence in the church, angels are indeed present in the sanctuary with the consecrated host, for angels bring the Eucharistic sacrifice to God’s altar in heaven (as the Eucharistic canon says: “may your angels bring this sacrifice to your altar in heaven”). The angels have a keen eye on the entire proceedings of Mass, including how the parishioners are conducting themselves. As St. Paul says in First Corinthian (4:9), “we are made…a spectacle to angels.” St. John Chrysostom, chiding the misbehaving parishioners of his day, once said, “Know you not that you are standing in company with angels? With them you chant, with them sing hymns, and do you stand laughing? Is it not wonderful that a thunderbolt is not launched…For such behaviour might well be visited with the thunderbolt.”

The angels are sensitive to the issue of head-coverings, for the covering demonstrates that one is under authority, since the angels, in the presence of God, always cover themselves, yet God is uncovered (Is 6:2).

Now on “women leaders” in the church: In First Corinthians (11: 3) we read again: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.”

Here St. Paul indicates that there is a divinely ordained hierarchy, in which men are directly under Christ as their “head” while women are under the headship of man. Christ is directly under the head of God the Father in this grand scheme of things. A similar hierarchical conception was expressed by Paul earlier in the epistle, in 3:21-23, where the arrangement is of teachers under the church, which is under Christ, who is under God. There the relationship is expressed in terms of ownership. The point concerning Christ being under God is also repeated in 15:28, where it is expressed in terms of subjection. Paul mentions it here, in the context of his discussion of the relationship between men and women, so as to impress upon the Corinthians how important the “chain of being” principle of hierarchy is in spiritual matters, and in the very constitution of the universe. And perhaps he mentions the subordination of Christ in particular to suggest the teaching we have in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.”

The subordination of the woman to man is no more done away with in Christ than is the subordination of men to Christ. Christ himself is functionally subordinate to God the Father, and did not “seek equality” with God. Though he is the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3), he also willingly fills his place in the divine economy. 

It may be that Paul had information that certain women in Corinth were falling into extravagant notions of Christian liberty (the usual problem at Corinth — “all things are lawful to me”), and had cast off their head-coverings in some kind of demonstration of sexual equality. 14:34-35 gives us some reason to think that egalitarian tendencies had created problems at Corinth. If this was the case, then Paul’s words here go straight to the root of the problem.

In verse 7 of First Corinthians 11, we read: “For indeed a man ought not to cover his head, being the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. 8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” The Greek passage reads: 7 Ἀνὴρ μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ὀφείλει κατακαλύπτεσθαι τὴν κεφαλήν, εἰκὼν καὶ δόξα θεοῦ ὑπάρχων· ἡ γυνὴ δὲ δόξα ἀνδρός ἐστιν. 8 οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀνὴρ ἐκ γυναικός ἀλλὰ γυνὴ ἐξ ἀνδρός· 9 καὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἐκτίσθη ἀνὴρ διὰ τὴν γυναῖκα, ἀλλὰ γυνὴ διὰ τὸν ἄνδρα. 

Here Paul begins a new argument in which the head-covering is explained as a symbol. He begins by explaining that man and woman are themselves like symbols, pointing to the purposes for which they were created. When he says that man is the “image” (εἰκὼν) of God he is referring to Genesis 1:26-7, where it says, “Let us make man (Heb. adam) in our image, after our likeness.” When he adds “and glory” (δόξα) he is probably using it in the sense of “honour, majesty,” in contrast with the “dishonour” mentioned in verse 4. The majesty of God belongs to men according to the mandate, “Let them have dominion,” and for a man this is part of what it means to be the image of God. The phrase “image and glory” in Greek is “εἰκὼν καὶ δόξα”. It is probably best understood as a hendiadys, meaning “image of the majesty” (or perhaps “majestic image”). Man was created to symbolize God’s dominion in the earth. But the woman was not created for that iconic purpose, she was created for man. It should be noticed here that Paul does not say that woman is the εἰκὼν καὶ δόξα “image-glory” of man, but only the δόξα “glory” of man. The omission of the qualifying word εἰκὼν is not accidental — the implication is that her “glory” is not iconic or imitative. She is not merely a lesser man, an inferior second-hand copy of the image of God, as those who accuse us of “male chauvinism” rashly suppose. While she remains substantially human like man himself, she symbolizes something altogether different, and this will have consequences for the way in which she ought to worship God.

We should notice at this point that Paul rejects the idea that God has ordained a “unisex” spirituality for Christians. God, who created us male and female, has ordained a masculine spirituality and a feminine spirituality. The influence of the Holy Spirit does not lead us to androgyny, but to a sanctified masculinity for men and a sanctified femininity for women. This is contrary to certain pagan ideas which were becoming popular in places like Corinth in ancient times. Under the gnostic ideologies that arose from Middle Platonism in the first century, the human soul was essentially a spark of the cosmic Reason or mind of God, and the ideal and glorified human soul, liberated from the accidents of the flesh, was androgynous or sexless. Women in their spiritual exercises were supposed to become more like men, and men more like women. This idea is plainly expressed in various pseudo-Christian writings of the gnostic sects in the first three centuries of the Church, and there is good reason to suppose that it was present already in the first generation of the Corinthian congregation. The first-century gnostics, like the “inner light” Quakers and the Transcedentalists of the nineteenth century, maintained that there is “no sex in the soul.” But Paul does not share that opinion.

For Paul, the outstanding fact of woman’s existence is her subordinate position, or rather her subordinate nature, as revealed in the story of creation. It is not merely a matter of position, determined by custom, or an accident of the flesh. A woman is womanly by nature, and by God’s design. She is ontologically subordinate to man because she was fashioned for man. In another epistle he says that in this subordination she symbolizes the Church under submission to the authority of God. A well-ordered marriage is a holy mystery that “refers to Christ and to the Church” (Ephesians 5:32). This is the inherent symbolism of man and woman, intended by God from the beginning. Sexual differentiation and identity is not a tragic result of the Fall, to be reversed or transcended by the soul’s escape from the body of flesh (as the gnostics taught), but a consequence of the Creator’s good design.

We have witnessed how, in his two years at the head of the sprawling worldwide Church, Jorge Bergoglio has, among innumerable errors and heresies, consciously—and assiduously—worked towards a complete “Feminized” Catholic Church. Feminism is Atheistic Communism in liquid form. Massively championed by atheistic democracy, it has seeped into every crack and crevice of our families, our culture, our schools, and our churches. The papacy was to be infiltrated by Communists and Freemasons, as warned by Our Lady of Fatima, and it is clear that now the warning has been fulfilled. But something that perhaps no one expected: a homosexual "Pope" posing as the leader of the Catholic Church to further attack and attempt to destroy her from within. In March this year (2015) the Vatican formally hosted one of Britain’s most virulently pro-abortion and pro-homosexual writers, as well as the head of an American organization promoting female ordination, at an officially sanctioned event inside Vatican City walls. Organizers spoke to Vatican Radio as well as the secular press, praising the new atmosphere within the Church’s leadership that made the conference possible. The presence of the outside-organized event held inside the Vatican is being forthrightly hailed by organizers and the secular media as feminist victory over the traditional stance of the Church. Among the organizers and speakers were Deborah Rose-Milavec, one of the US’s most prominent agitators for female ordination, and Tina Beattie, a British feminist academic notorious for her advocacy for abortion, homosexual relations, and “gay marriage,” and who once compared the Catholic Mass to homosexual sex.

Even Moscow has vehemently condemned this. The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russians, Kirill, warns against the “danger” of feminism, condemning the existence of a propaganda which encourages women to take on roles that jeopardise their household and family duties. “I believe that this phenomenon, feminism as it is called, is very dangerous,” Kirill said in a speech to an organisation of Ukrainian Orthodox women, the content of which is published on the official website of the Russian Orthodox Church. “Feminist organisations proclaim a pseudo-freedom for women, which must be manifested outside of marriage and the family,” Kirill said, adding that “it is the man's job to take care of things outside the home; he must work and earn, while the woman's place is inside the home, looking after the family.” “If this incredibly important role the woman has is broken, then everything else will collapse along with it: family and, in a broader sense, the country,” he added.

Hopefully, however, this Satanic plan has never been unnoticed by an insignificant number of the faithful and church leaders themselves. It has particularly roiled many conservatives and traditionalists. US Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, the former top canon lawyer at the Vatican, now demoted by Bergoglio himself, is a perfect example of a Church leader who seems to understand a little about the evil mission of the man called Jorge Mario Bergoglio.  Cardinal Raymond Burke has warned that Bergoglio’s views had “done a lot of harm” at a so-called synod on family life held in October, 2014. Burke went even further in a website interview when he spoke out, in no uncertain terms, against what he said was the “radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s”, and which “has left men very marginalized.”

The “heroic nature of manhood” has been lost, the former archbishop of St. Louis told the online site The New Emangelization, a magazine whose pun decries what it terms the “man-crisis” in the Catholic Church today.

“Manly character” and “chivalry” have been obscured since the church has had “to constantly address women’s issues at the expense of addressing critical issues important to men,” Burke said.

“Apart from the priest, the sanctuary has become full of women,” Burke continued. “The activities in the parish and even the liturgy have been influenced by women and have become so feminine in many places that men do not want to get involved.”

Beyond the current controversy, his words illustrate the wide gulf between Jorge Bergoglio and many American bishops, unlike what we witness in Nigeria among the wolves who masquerade as Catholic Bishops and Cardinals.

The Cardinal, too, suggested that the child sexual abuse scandals that shattered dioceses around the United States since the past 20 years, came as a result of “feminized men” entering the priesthood, rather than “manly and confident” men.