SEDEVACANTIST ERRORS

SEDEVACANTIST 

ERRORS

In trying to make sense of the current crisis in the Church, some have read the writings of theologians who teach that a manifestly heretical Pope is ipso facto deposed, and have then drawn the false conclusion that if they themselves personally judge the pope to be a heretic, it must mean he is not the pope. They then write articles instructing other member of the laity how they, too, can judge that the Pope is a heretic, in the hope that they will also conclude that the he is not a true pope. What such people have failed to realize is that the theologians who discuss the ipso facto deposition of a pope for heresy, are only referring to the speculative opinion of how the Pope loses his office (one of the “two opinions” mentioned above), which does not eliminate the necessity of the Church performing the ministerial functions necessary to establish the crime. In other words, the Church must render a judgment before the pope loses his office. Private judgment of the laity in this matter does not suffice. John of St. Thomas addressed this point directly. He explained that a pope who is a manifest heretic according to private judgment remains pope. He wrote:

“So long as it has not been declared to us juridically that he is an infidel or heretic, be he ever so manifestly heretical according to private judgment, he remains, as far as we are concerned, a member of the Church and consequently its head. Judgment is required by the Church. It is only then that he ceases to be Pope as far as we are concerned” (John of St. Thomas). (74)

Prior to the necessary judgment and declaration(s) by the Church, a heretical Pope remains a valid pope. The visibility of the Church (both formally and materially) is too necessary for the contrary to be the case.

Fr. Paul Layman S.J. (d.1635), who is considered one of the greatest canonists of the Counter-Reformation era, as it is sometimes called, explained that even in the case of a pope who was a notorious heretic, as long as he was being tolerated by the Church, would remain a true and valid pope. Writes Fr. Laymann:

“It is more probable that the Supreme Pontiff, as a person, might be able to fall into heresy, and even notorious heresy, by reason of which he would merit to be deposed by the Church, or rather to be declared as separated from her. (…) Observe, however, that, though we affirm that the Supreme Pontiff, as a private person, might be able to become a heretic and therefore cease to be a true member of the Church, (…) still, while he was tolerated by the Church, and publicly recognized as the universal pastor, he would really enjoy the pontifical power, in such a way that all of his decrees would have no less force and authority than they would if he were truly faithful.” (75)

Popes Alexander VI, John XXII, and Honorius I, were all accused of heresy by their contemporaries, yet none was declared deprived of the Pontificate while still living. Consequently, they have always been considered true Popes by the Church, even though Pope Honorius, after his death, was “expelled from the holy Church of God and anathematized” (76) for heresy, by the Third Council of Constantinople. For this reason, the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia said: “It is clear that no Catholic has the right to defend Pope Honorius. He was a heretic…” (77) Yet not even Pope Honorius is considered by the Church to have lost the Pontificate while living.

St. Bellarmine himself explained that a heretical bishop must be deposed by the proper authorities. After explaining how a false prophet (meaning heretical pastor) can be spotted, he wrote:

“…if the pastor is a bishop, they [the faithful] cannot depose him and put another in his place. For Our Lord and the Apostles only lay down that false prophets are not to be listened to by the people, and not that they depose them. And it is certain that the practice of the Church has always been that heretical bishops be deposed by bishop’s councils, or by the Sovereign Pontiff.” (78)

Here we see the true thinking of Bellarmine on this point. He explains that a heretical bishop can be spotted by the faithful (who should not listen to him), but he can only be deposed by the proper authorities. If this is true for ordinary bishops, how much more necessary is it when the bishop is the Supreme Pontiff?

Sedevacantists will likely object by saying, since a pope cannot be judged by a council, Bellarmine could not have meant that a council would depose a heretical Pope. They will then insist that this is why Bellarmine taught that a heretical pope loses his office automatically. But this is clearly not the case, since Bellarmine himself defended the opinion that a heretical Pope can be judged by a council. He wrote:

“Firstly, that a heretical Pope can be judged is expressly held in Can. Si Papa dist. 40, and by Innocent III (Serm. II de Consec. Pontif.) Furthermore, in the 8th Council, (act. 7) the acts of the Roman Council under Pope Hadrian are recited, in which one finds that Pope Honorius appears to be justly anathematized, because he had been convicted of heresy, which is the only case in which inferiors are permitted to judge superiors.” (79)

He goes on to explain that even if Pope Hadrian mistakenly condemned Honorius (which is what Bellarmine personally thought), “nevertheless” wrote Bellarmine, “we cannot deny, in fact, that Hadrian, and with him the Roman Council, nay more the whole 8th General council judged that, in the case of heresy a Roman Pontiff can be judged.” (80)

Without examining the cases mention by Bellarmine, it is quite clear that he held to the opinion that a heretical Pope can be judged by a council. Now, since he explicitly stated that “heretical bishops” must be deposed by a council, the same would obviously apply to a heretical bishop of Rome. Hence, his statement that a manifestly heretical pope loses his office ipso facto does not preclude the Church performing the ministerial functions necessary to establish the crime.

Bellarmine’s thinking regarding this matter is perfectly consistent with the mind of the Church, as we see expressed in Canon 10 of the Fourth Council of Constantinople. In response to the schism of Photius, the Council attached the grave penalty of excommunication to any layman or monk who, in the future, separated himself from his patriarch (the Pope is Patriarch of the West) before a careful inquiry and judgment by a synod.

“As divine scripture clearly proclaims, ‘Do not find fault before you investigate, and understand first and then find fault’. And does our law judge a person without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? Consequently this holy and universal synod justly and fittingly declares and lays down that no lay person or monk or cleric should separate himself from communion with his own patriarch before a careful inquiry and judgment in synod, even if he alleges that he knows of some crime perpetrated by his patriarch, and he must not refuse to include his patriarch’s name during the divine mysteries or offices. (…) If anyone shall be found defying this holy synod, he is to be debarred from all priestly functions and status if he is a bishop or cleric; if a monk or lay person, he must be excluded from all communion and meetings of the church [i.e. excommunicated] until he is converted by repentance and reconciled”.

The errors of Sedevacantism will be thoroughly addressed in an upcoming book, which should be out in the Spring of 2015.

Conclusion

In light of what the theologians and canonists have taught throughout the centuries, it is clear that the Church does possess a remedy by which she can rid herself of an heretical Pope. Therefore, faced with such an incalculably grave threat, the Church is not forced to wait for the “biological solution” to solve the problem.

http://www.conciliovaticanosecondo.it/…/can-the-church-dep…/

DIANA OR CHRIST?

"The Church and the world do urgently need intrepid and candid witnesses of the whole truth of the commandment and of the will of God, of the whole truth of Christ’s words on marriage. Modern clerical Pharisees and Scribes, those bishops and cardinals who throw grains of incense to the neo-pagan idols of gender ideology and concubinage, will not convince anyone to either believe in Christ or to be ready to offer their lives for Christ "

- said + Athanasius Schneider Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Kazakhstan in interview with Izabella Parowicz.

THE PAPACY AND THE CHURCH Babington Macaulay (1800-1859)

Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), the English statesman, historian, essayist, and poet 

wrote of the Papacy and the Church:

"There Is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilization. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when lions and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheater. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and useful vigor.

The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor when some traveler from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's."

Communion in the Hand in Poland: A priest writes Plea to the archbishop of Warsaw (2005)

Communion in the Hand in Poland: A priest writes Plea to the archbishop of Warsaw (2005)

The archbishop of Warsaw, Józef cardinal Glemp, is resolved to introduce the hand communion in his archbishopric on the coming holy Thursday (2005). A Polish priest in the Germany writes his emminence a letter.

Praised Be Jesus Christ!

your eminence archbishop, cardinal Glemp!

If I may introduce myself. I am a priest and come originally from the diocese X in the south of Poland. For over ten years I've been working as a parish priest in a diocese in the Federal Republic of Germany. Here Ive become a day by day a witness of the breakdown of the Catholic church in Germany.

For seven years I've been a priest in my two rural communities. Although I try to give my best, church attendance has year to year become less and less in my parishes. Most believers are very old. I have many burials, only few baptisms and fewer and fewer weddings. Sometimes I ask myself and fear whether what is happening today in the Catholic church in Germany is the future of the church in Poland.

I believe that there are two causes for the situation in Germany: the non existence of the sacrament of confession and the disappearence of reverence for the Eucharist.

Therefore, I was horrified when I have read recently, that you, Eminence as archbishop of Warsaw, in your archbishopric will shortly introduce communion in the hand. What do you hope to gain from this step? A strengthening of reverence for the Most blessed Sacrament? A support of the belief in the real presence of Christ in the sacrament? Have you considered in which direction your archdiocese will move after this step?

An older woman told to me that the introduction of communion in the hand was not desired in our parishes by the common church people, but was put through by the priest at that time with the blessing of the bishop. The priest has married later.

The faithful would have even been rather surprised at the innovation. With the introduction of communion in the hand there was initially a visible split for the first time in the parish. Some outsiders, old people and simple church-goers continued with communion on the tongue. On top of it all a strong party of moderns developed who demanded more innovations.

From this split in my parishes I as a priest today can see nothing more. Today no one in my parishes receives communion on the tongue. I know that a family with children goes on Sunday somewhere to the priests of archbishop Lefèbvre.

In spite of my sermons and the first communion preparation there can be no comparison of the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, as I've known it from my home parish in Poland with here in Germany. The faithful take the holy host from my hand, as if it were a postage stamp.

Of course it depends more on the internal desire than on the external action. But a heresy would be maintained to think that both do not hang together narrowly with each other. Otherwise one could abolish in the church all external acts of reverence.

When I am at home in Poland in Summer and concelebrate/distribute holy communion in my home parish, it is as though I'm on another planet and in another church. This is the honest truth. Would our Polish bishops like it when in twenty years the Polish Church looks like the German Church or no Church at all. ?

If you, your eminence, believe that with communion in the hand the Eucharistic devotion will thereby be increased in your archdiocese and the true presence of Christ will be understood by the sign of the bread by communion in the hand more deeply, then look at the Church in Germany. Here the hand communion was the first step in a deep abyss. Of this I can be a witness from my everyday parish work.

Your eminence, I do not know, how much longer I shall be needed in my dying parishes in Germany. I would return with pleasure again in my Polish native country. I hope that I do not find then at home the situation which I must experience today in Germany.

Eminence, is not still too late it to cancel your step. Sometimes it is necessary in the life to have more courage to rescind a wrong action than to carry out a new action. May this courage may be given to you.

I pray every day that the " year proclaimed by pope John Paul II of the Eucharist “ does not remain in Poland as the moment in memory in which you as an archbishop of Warsaw took the first step which led to the same sad state of affairs that now exists in the church of Germany.

 

 

Master, doth it not concern thee that we perish?

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, sleeping upon a pillow; and they awake him, and say to him: Master, doth it not concern thee that we perish?

Mark 4:37-38

I could not help but draw a parallel between the current situation in the Church to Our Lord asleep in the boat. Two Pontificates ago (Under John Paul II) Don Bosco's vision of a pope bringing the the barque of the church safely to a haven between the pillars of the Holy Eucharist and Marian devotion was attributed to Pope John Paul II...now it appears the ship has again floated back outside the harbor and back into the post conciliar tempest and it would appear that our sweet Christ on earth is asleep in the boat (or perhaps oblivious to the storming tempest). I wish so often to ask the holy father our sweet Christ on earth, "doth it not concern thee that we perish?"  Everywhere around us the church lies in ruin. Yet, for decades when the Lord sends us authentically Catholic bishops and priests true shepherds to guide us in these times (think Oliveri of Albenga & Livieres of Ciudad del Eeste, Fr Michael Rodriguez among countless others) they are persecuted or demoted and replaced with modernists. It is one thing to rest peacefully in confidence in God to deliver us from the present storm and another to persecute those he sends to help us!

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not?"  Matthew 23:37

Pray much sisters and brothers for our sweet Christ on earth! Pray that he and all of our shepherds awaken from their slumber. Pray that they cease persecuting the holy shepherds the Lord sees fit to send us in these perilous times. Pray that the course taken by our shepherds for decades into the tempest be changed. Pray that the barque of St Peter be brought between the pillars of the the Most Blessed Sacrament and Marian devotion into the peaceful haven.  

O Lord grant us priests (and bishops), O Lord grant us priests (and bishops)
O Lord grant us holy priests (and bishops), O Lord grant us holy priests (and bishops)
O Lord grant us many holy priests (and bishops), O Lord grant us many holy priests(and bishops )
O Lord grant us many holy religious vocations 
O Lord grant us many holy religious vocations 
Saint Pius X pray for us, Saint Pius X pray for us.

We Live Falling Down & Standing Up

Do You Want God To Communicate with You?

A letter from Mother Luisita (de-coded)

________________________________________

My beloved child,

Do you want Our Lord to communicate with you? Then try to do the following:

• Preserve unity and peace with everyone who lives under the same roof.

• Try to have habitual recollection by thinking of God.

• Familiarize yourself with some little short prayer with which you invite Jesus to come into your heart.

• Make it a point to entertain yourself with things that pertain to God.

• Keep yourself in healthy fear, guarding the doors of your senses, being careful what you let come in.

• Ask for grace to know and overcome the obstacles that oppose a greater union with God.

Here are the counsels I give you:

• Do everything for God our Lord, seeing Him in the person of the poor and the sick and frequently offer Him your worries.

• Try to teach more with your example than with words, even though words are also necessary.

• Never make any decision when you are disturbed, but wait until your soul is in peace.

• Not to expect perfection in people because we live falling down and standing up.

• None of us is perfect, so don’t get scandalized at the sight of somebody else’s faults. We will only be perfect in heaven.

• Don’t get  discouraged when greater difficulties come. Learn to suffer much, much for God.

• Humble yourself  when humiliations come, and be happy that God our Lord is pleased with you, even though there are reasons for humiliations in the eyes of others.

May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be your love, your guide, and your consolation.

~ Mother Luisita, Foundress, Carmelites of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles

Wisdom for Families Struggling in Stressful Times

Gloomy, The Lower Regions: The Lowest Purgatory

V. A porta inferi

R. Erue, Dómine, ànimas eorum.

LOWEST PURGATORY MAY BE CLOSE TO HELL, BUT SOULS THERE ARE ON PATH TO HEAVEN

[adapted from The Other Side]

We have spoken of hell. The level above that is lowest purgatory. However horrible it may be, the soul there is saved and will one day ascend to Heaven. It isn't hell. There are many levels in purgatory. Probably infinite ones.

But gloomy the lower regions are.

The darkness there swirls around the feet and forms a barrier, holding those there prisoner, a darkness that in the words of one woman, Angie Fenimore, who tried to commit suicide, was so thick it could be touched and "had life, some kind of intelligence that was purely negative, even evil."

"Everyone I saw was wearing dirty white robes," recalled Angie in a book about her near-death glimpse called Beyond the Darkness. "Some people’s were heavily soiled, while others’ just appeared dingy with a few stains. Sitting next to me was a man who appeared to be about sixty years old. His hair was gray, and somehow I knew that his eyes were blue, even though everything here appeared in black and various shades of gray.

"This man’s eyes were totally without comprehension. Pathetically squatting on the ground, draped in filthy white robes, he wasn’t radiating anything, not even self-pity. I knew his soul had been rotting here forever. I was sure that this man had killed himself. His clothing suggested that he might have walked the earth during Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry. I wondered if he was Judas Iscariot, who had betrayed the Savior and then hung himself. I felt embarrassed that I was thinking these things in his presence, where he could 'hear' me."

The word "purgatory," said Angie, was "whispered" to her (despite the fact that she was Protestant).

It was edge of the abyss and those who were there – contemplating their lives -- radiated darkness as an aura.

"Like oil over water, the active layer of spirits of light rested above a layer of grim, motionless dark beings," wrote Angie. "Drifting onto the plane, the newly deceased were dressed in white robes, but their gowns were dingy. Like silent sleepwalkers, these spellbound souls descended into the darkness, arms to their sides, their expressionless eyes locked in empty gazes.

"They came from the same direction that I had, dull and hopeless casualties of life that had banked on true death, continuing to fill in the back edge of the prison as the darkness expanded to accommodate them. So sad, they were so young and so dead. As I watched them filing down by the dozens, I was told that most of us who are dying now are going to a place of darkness.

"Hell, while also a specific dimension, is primarily a state of mind. When we die, we are bound by what we think. In mortality the more solid our thoughts become, as we act upon them – allowing darkness to develop in others and in ourselves – the more damning they are. I had been to hell long before I died, and I hadn’t realized it because I had escaped many of the consequences up until the point that I took my life. When we die, our state of mind grows far more obvious because we are gathered together with those who think as we do."

Somehow areas of purgatory seem to branch from the tunnel where those who’ve received a glimpse have encountered what they describe as "bewildered souls."

There are the "dungeon" reaches and what has been described as the middle or "great" area of grayness, where most bound for purgatory head and where the greatest suffering – as in any part of purgatory – is God’s absence. It is gray and ashen – the ashes of sins.

"I can tell you about the different degrees of purgatory because I have passed through them," said that deceased nun during the nineteenth-century revelations called An Unpublished Manuscript on Purgatory. "In the great purgatory there are several stages. In the lowest and most painful, like a temporary hell, are the sinners who have committed terrible crimes during life and whose death surprised them in that state. It was almost a miracle that they were saved, and often by the prayers of holy parents or other pious persons.

"Sometimes they did not even have time to confess their sins and the world thought them lost, but God, Whose mercy is infinite, gave them at the moment of death the contrition necessary for their salvation on account of one or more good actions which they performed during life. For such souls, purgatory is terrible. It is a real hell with this difference, that in hell they curse God, whereas we bless Him and thank Him for having saved us.

"Next to these come the souls, who though they did not commit great crimes like the others, were indifferent to God. They did not fulfill their Easter duties and were also converted at the point of death. Perhaps they were unable to receive Holy Communion. They are in purgatory for the long years of indifference. They suffer unheard of pains and are abandoned either without prayers or if they are said for them, they are not allowed to profit from them. There are in this stage of purgatory religious of both sexes, who were tepid, neglectful of their duties, indifferent toward Jesus, also priests who did not exercise their sacred ministry with the reverence due to the Sovereign Majesty and who did not instill the love of God sufficiently into the souls confided to their care.

"In the second purgatory are the souls of those who died with venial sins not fully expiated before death, or with mortal sins that have been forgiven but for which they have not made entire satisfaction to the Divine Justice. In this part of purgatory, there are also different degrees according to the merits of each soul. Thus the purgatory of the consecrated or of those who have received more abundant graces is longer and far more painful than that of ordinary people of the world.

"Lastly, there is the purgatory of desire which is called the Threshold. Very few escape this. To avoid it altogether, one must ardently desire Heaven and the Vision of God. That is rare, rarer than people think, because even pious people are afraid of God and have not, therefore, a sufficiently strong desire of going to Heaven. This purgatory has its very painful martyrdom like the others. The deprivation of our loving Jesus adds to the intense suffering. The majority of people go to purgatory. The lowest is close to hell and the highest gradually draws near to Heaven. It is not on All Souls Day but at Christmas that the greatest number of souls leaves purgatory. There are in purgatory souls who pray ardently to God, but for whom no relative or friend prays on earth. God makes them benefit from the prayers of other people. It happens that God permits them to manifest themselves in different ways, close to their relatives on earth, in order to remind men of the existence of purgatory and to solicit their prayers to come close to God Who is just, but good."

The threshold is a beauty to behold. Holy people may do their purgatory here – and it can be brief. In some cases, mere minutes. "You should see it here," said one voice from the beyond.

From here they look as from a cloud to the landscape of Heaven in the distance.

It is the waiting room.

It is the final laundering. It is far from the "outer darkness."

Many are those who do their purgatory here.

"In 1973, there was no mention of 'near-death' experiences," a woman named Marianne wrote me. "I never had heard of such a thing. But here is what happened in my dream: I was in a room, although there were no walls -- I just knew it was a room. I was observing people in the room from the ceiling. Someone was with me -- next to me. I did not see this ‘someone,’ just felt their presence. The people who I was observing were very happy. In my frame of reference, I thought they were having a party, although there was no food or drinks. The reason for thinking it was a party is that everyone was so happy. They were smiling and talking with a feeling of great expectation. Then just as suddenly, I was back in my body asking my obviously distraught mother what had happened to me.

"In later years, after hearing about near-death experiences, I took a second look at my own experience with a new point of reference. Now I had an understanding of what had occurred. It is my belief that I was shown the upper level of purgatory -- where people are awaiting their entrance into Heaven. They were so happy, even joyous. Their appearance was young, healthy, and nicely dressed. I did not recognize anyone, but I only knew one person who had died and that was my great-grandfather. From what I knew about him, he may have needed more purgatory time -- although that is not for anyone to say, only God.

"The person next to me showing me this place, my guide, must have been an angel.

"Since that time I have had a few ‘angel’ experiences and truly believe it was an angel showing me where, if I had died that day, I would have gone."

Want to avoid it? Ask the Holy Spirit -- and your angel (this Lent) -- to show you what you must purge. We can know this much: love covers over a multitude of sins, and suffering well causes purification. Joy everlasting comes next.

http://www.spiritdaily.net/othersidelowestpurgatory.htm

First Wednesday: Saint Joseph

The Sublime Image of Her Heavenly Spouse

Saint Charles Borromeo: November 4th

 

Since they attack the very root of faith either by openly denying, hypocritically undermining, or misrepresenting revealed doctrine, we should above all recall the truth Charles often taught. "The primary and most important duty of pastors is to guard everything pertaining to the integral and inviolate maintenance of the Catholic Faith, the faith which the Holy Roman Church professes and teaches, without which it is impossible to please God." Again: "In this matter no diligence can be too great to fulfill the certain demands of our office." We must therefore use sound doctrine to withstand "the leaven of heretical depravity," which if not repressed, will corrupt the whole. That is to say, we must oppose these erroneous opinions now deceitfully being scattered abroad, which, when taken all together, are called Modernism. With Charles we must be mindful "of the supreme zeal and excelling diligence which the bishop must exercise in combating the crime of heresy." ~ Pope Saint Pius X, Editae Saepe

"It is a certain, well- established fact that no other crime so seriously offends God and provokes His greatest wrath as the vice of heresy. Nothing contributes more to the down fall of provinces and kingdoms than this frightful pest." ~ Saint Charles Borromeo

Editae Saepe, Encyclical of Pope Pius X on St. Charles Borromeo 

"Men will remember the just man forever, for even though he is dead, he yet speaks."