Some discussion resulted from Ann Barnhardt’s published determination that Francis is an anti-pope; that he’s not the Pope and Benedict still is. This is a happy assertion and I like it. After all, Benedict’s resignation was ridiculous, not just unfortunate. Did he mean it? Perhaps. His communication, I believe, is often falsified or lied about and, if it were true he was deposed, his few more recent words are still often made under pressure. It would be a mistake just to believe what seems to emerge from or about him. He’s read statements. He’s also mentioned his indelible papal character and ‘contemplative’ new role, detailed by Abp. Ganswein, which Barnhardt and others believe nullifies his abdication.
Was he forced? I think it’s likely, but we don’t know for certain. He couldn’t have professed and cared about the things he did for the thirty-plus years prior and knowingly enabled the result that he did. I think he was probably presented with two bad options originating ultimately from someone, some empire outside the Church, and he chose what he thought was the lesser of two evils. These are just good guesses, but that type of scenario would have constituted a putsch.
How do we respond to this? There’s really very little precedent. But it doesn’t matter. Francis isn’t Catholic, so he has no legitimate role in the Church. It’s our job to see that he’s removed from the official position and to demonstrate our contempt for him and his destruction in the meantime. The same is true of anyone who calls himself Catholic. If they are heretics (or clearly no longer in a state of grace for some reason), then they aren’t a part of the Church. An open heretic is different than a plain sinner because he can’t achieve a state of grace. He would have to repent of his heresy first. Francis should be expected to do so.
Does Francis or any other faithless cleric have certain canonical status? Are they able to bring us the sacraments? I believe so. But regardless, whether the pope’s an open adversary like Francis or a capitulator like Benedict, the ‘Church’ in our lifetime is being ruled by its enemies, falsely. Why are the bishops usually worse than the pastors, who are worse than the vicars? It’s because the Church is being crushed. You’d have to look far and wide today to find a Catholic who doesn’t blame the collapsing Faith on the changing world as if the Church were the world’s fault. It’s not that. It’s generations now of ‘bad’ management.
If the Church is ever to become a growing thing again, we have to excise the dead tumors both high and low. We have to take the long view, see life and death in eternal, metaphysical terms, and act accordingly like children of the Light. That is done through properly placed contempt. Contempt is the opposite of honor, and today we use both quite poorly. We abuse them. We say one thing, but then we honor what’s evil and show contempt for what is true: Christian charity namely, drawing the hard line.
We have a certain ‘allowance’ to think in our time, but when it comes to treating contemptuous things and people appropriately, then we are circumscribed. We must follow our minders. We sketch an outline of a Catholic life, but we don’t enforce it by walling-out trouble and heaping love and respect on what’s good. We don’t calibrate our honor and contempt correctly because that would mean bringing worldly contempt and ‘dishonor’ upon ourselves and real consequences. So error and sin flourish in the weedy garden we cultivate while we wave our too-short arms like babies who can’t reach their mothers. We don’t really stand.
That’s why it’s so important to avoid treating dead things as if they were part of the Church. It’s a sin to do that. The Church now is actually quite small. It’s an underground Church. It has few buildings or institutions and most of the people who appear to be part of it are not. They aren’t headed for life. For them, unless someone faithful has the courage to treat them appropriately and they respond correctly, they will be shortly dead forever. We can’t leave these things just up to God. We have to call them out so there is hope.
The same goes for monstrous Francis and his minions willing or compelled. Is he the Pope? He’s not even part of the Church. As such he should be resisted fiercely, treated contemptuously, and his words and actions denounced and ignored, because as a heretic in white, he is an enemy of God and, unless he repents, a child only of death.
Do you think this sounds too harsh? I know our proud rulers will appreciate your restraint. In fact, I’m positive they expect it.
Thank you, Stumbling Block, for your clear analysis of where we are in the Church today. I like your take on Bergoglio: He is not even part of the Church. The problem is, because he holds the most powerful (apparent) position in the Church, he is keeping the masses (who are deluded that he is ‘the pope’ and is to be listened to) in the dark about the sin into which he is leading them. That is why I like Ann’s forthrightness regarding his true status canonically. I agree with you also that we are already in schism and that the true Church is very small. I was blocked from a so-called respected Catholic site for strongly asserting what I just did here. Many bloggers are starting to arrogate to themselves ‘guidance’ and/or ‘instructor’ roles no one called them to arrogate to themselves. I am losing respect for those blog masters who insist on interjecting their control every time someone says what they do not agree with. It hampers the free flow of ideas necessary at this critical time.
Malachi Martin predicted what we are seeing today in his book Windswept House.
One problem with identifying the Pope as not a Catholic and deserving of contempt is that Henry VIII beat us to it.
Thus our sorrow and our wound runs much deeper, because to be Catholic is to recognize a visible, hierarchical existing institution as the one true Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And to recognize a privately-discerned ‘true’ Church, or to think that a true Church of the Lord Jesus is presently only an ideal, a dream, a nostalgia, is already to have forsworn her, and thus Him as well.
This is a hard saying, but I think its unshakable truth is why people like Steve Skojec at One Peter Five are characterizing the damage now being done as only reparable over hundreds — hundreds — of years.
Right now, we simply can’t get our minds around how radically evil our situation is. It challenges, root and branch, the whole concept of being Catholic as visibly belonging to this one visible and hierarchical institution. This evil doesn’t ‘challenge’ our faith. It’s a direct attack. This evil forcibly stretches our senses, apperceptions, and instincts apart from our faith. It tears at even the solidity of the sacraments. And yet who is roused to defend us?
Thus, I wish you were right in your remarks. Because then this evil that we are living through would not be so insidious, so radical, so coruscating. The Church that we see — meaning especially her visible hierarchy — appears to be no-kidding-for-real gravely diseased, not merely sinful but evil, and even dead, and yet we know that in Him, she is still alive, not merely invisibly but visibly; though we cannot see how.
It seems that how to proceed is not yet given to us. All we know for sure is that to abandon her as a visible hierarchical institution, fully within and responsible to the history of herself, is to abandon her for real — and so we cannot do that.
And thank you, for your long service to us Internet denizens.
I speak only of the Church militant, the true Church in the eyes of Heaven. I have no desire to abandon the hierarchical Church. I just believe it is dysfunctional with a heretic on the throne. It is always given to Catholics how to proceed, and even doing nothing is something, but I believe it is our duty to call for Francis to step down so that a Catholic can replace him. Unfaithful bishops should do the same. Henry VIII was dealing with an actual Catholic pope, as they have almost always been.
As a layperson I call for every cleric, every priest, bishop or pope, who does not hold the Catholic Faith to resign their positions. I think it’s a scandal to treat them as though they were Catholic. If a Pope and most of the bishops aren’t Catholic, it is left only to the faithful to defend the Church against her enemies, even within. We have seen the Church suffocate for our whole lives. The destruction to souls is enormous. Simply watching them kill the Church out of some notion of obedience is not our Christian duty. If the Pope is not Catholic he should step down or be removed.
God bless you.
Well said, Stumbling Block. The commentator mentioned above is he who blocked me for saying what I am saying here. Our obedience is to the fullness of the Faith. This takes precedence before any canonical strictures. Canon Law is subservient to obedience to the fullness of the Faith. Skojec is dead wrong that it will ‘take hundreds and hundreds of years to repair the damage done to Holy Mother Church’. It will not. Those who believe the fullness of the Faith will be worshiping soon in caves and barns and Rome will be the head of the one world church. Each of us will have to choose loyalty to Christ or allegiance to the false church Bergoglio is so readily bent on forming. This is not going to take long at all. Skojec likes to twist things this way and that, this way and that, and through this labored process he increases confusion. He has a hard time being definite, and his gushing worship of Ms. Hilary White is unfortunate.
Well said…the icing on the cake will be the fiesta celebrating Martin Luther…
1.”…he [Pope Benedict] was probably presented with two bad options originating ultimately from someone, some empire outside the Church, and he chose what he thought was the lesser of two evils.?”
What could be worst than abandoning the flock? Papa Bene might have saved himself from the wolves by abdication, but his flock’s spiritual well-being is sitting duck to Pope Bergolio’s bullet of the “[G]od of many surprises.”
2. I see that Abp. Ganswein has walked back his theory of two comingled popes [or one-half pope spliced with another half equals one whole pope?] Whatever, Ganswein can never walk it back totally, since he had backed up his original thesis with the facts that Pope Emeritus still wears white, is still addressed as “His Holiness,” hasn’t taken back his original name, and lives within the confines of the Vatican.
If there is one person who knows the real story, it’s Abp. Ganswein, who is also an expert in Canon Law. Yet he sounds as confused like the rest of us? Who can we believe?
3. “If the Church is ever to become a growing thing again, we have to excise the dead tumors both high and low.”
Yes, but how? The Church is not a democracy. The Church has a hierarchy and authority starts from the top, as our Lord intends her to be. And what if we succeed in making Pope Francis resign and a new Pope takes over? Great, we’ll then have two contemplative Pope Emeritus [Emeriti?] and one active pope. One Martha and two Mary’s equals a trinity of popes. If I were Cardinal Muller, I’ll resign my post.
4. From the combox of the link below: “If Bishop Benedict has an expanded theology of the Petrine office to offer the Church, let him submit it to the judgment of the Magisterium of which he is no longer the head.” I agree. Let him – or Ganswein – submit it to the judgement of the CDF.
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/archbishop-gaenswein-recalls-dramatic-struggle-of-2005-conclave/#ixzz4CfxmwGX8
Likewise, I suggest that Anne Barnhardt’s column be submitted to the CDF.
5. We have all become familiar with Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich’s vision of the two popes. Now, take a look at what Melanie Calvat, to whom Our Lady appeared at La Sallette, had written:
“I didn’t see, I don’t see any Great Pope or Great Monarch before an extremely great tribulation, horrifying, terrible and general for all Christendom. But before that time, twice there will be a short lived peace; two shaky, servile, doubtful popes.”
Two shaky, servile, doubtful popes…I shudder to imagine who could they be?
6. Our Lady has given us the weapons: Prayer and fasting. Pray the Rosary. Do the Five First Saturday devotion of Penance and the Eucharist. Wear the scapular. Those who can fast, fast – in reparation for sins against Her Immaculate Heart. This is the only way we can fight. Stay with her and stay with the Church.
I think Benedict abandoned us because he’d already lost control and was told it was going to get worse. The Vatileaks, his own valet stealing from him, the embarrassing photos, all that was contrived. There are rumors that he can’t go back to Germany safely and that the Vatican bank was threatened. I guess it was all too much so he left. Did we have a bad conclave? Yes, but was it bad enough to officially call Francis an anti pope? I don’t know. We can say one thing: Francis– he guy who holds the position of pope really stinks at it and we should ignore him and continue to be Catholic. Ann is receiving a lot of blow back and people who called themselves friends a few weeks ago are weaseling away from her. I don’t know if she ever trusted any of these people but it reminds me of something I’ve felt for a long time: never trust professional Catholics who make all their income from talking about the Church. They will do anything to keep the mortgage paid, pay their kid’s tuition and keep the lights on.
I don’t think they’re no longer friends of hers just because they disagree, do you? I know she’s migrating her server.
They could have said nothing. They could have said oh my friend has an opinion and I have mine but the reactions have been more along the lines of distancing themselves.
Sorry I’m late to the party on this. I agree with most of what you’ve written here, but not with the title. It MOST CERTAINLY matters. Millions of souls are at stake, and I pray we will find a way to depose this evil heretic and renounce the heresy. If he turns out to be an antipope, it makes it that much easier. Unfortunately, I don’t think Ann got it right in terms of the specific mechanism triggering the defect in the resignation. Read here: https://nonvenipacem.com/2016/06/26/examining-the-benedictine-option/
We find it very strange that the very persons who know that Pope Francis is dead wrong and a formal public manifest pertinacious heretic, are the ones who censor the news about a conference to call for his repetence or removal from office, held at Rome on Saturday June 25.
The laity doesn’t hold the cards here. It is indeed the hierarchy that calls the shots, the very ones to hold Francis accountable. The ONLY way for the laity to get the attention of our prelates is to STOP THE MONEY. And…..it must be done COLLECTIVELY, and PUBLICLY, holding our prelates responsible for their cooperation and silence to this evil that has permeated the Vatican. I know, I know…….very hard to actually pull off successfully, but it is the only avenue I see for getting their attention. The ONLY thing they listen to is MONEY or lack thereof. STOP THE MONEY AND LET THEM KNOW
W H Y!!! Oh yes, people have been trying to talk to their Priests and Bishops, as have I………..THEY IGNORE YOU!! Kind of pretend that you’re not even there. If the money would stop, they may pay attention.
That’s true, there’s money behind this, because outside the Faith what else is there? But that dirty money can never grow the Church, only kill it by doing the will of the prince of this world. I think St. Francis and Jesus had the plan: ignore the money altogether. We have to stop honoring heretics and enemies of the Faith by pretending they’re Catholic.