Eleison Comments - Number CDVII (407)

Vacancy Sense – II

A heretic Pope is still the Church’s head,
Although, as personal member, he is dead.

Concerning the deposition of a heretical Pope, the Traditional Dominicans of Avrillé in France have done us a great favour by publishing not only the classic considerations of John of St Thomas (cf. EC 405), but also those of other outstanding theologians. In brief, the best minds of the Church teach that a simple and popular argument today, namely that a heretical Pope cannot be a member of the Church and therefore all the less its head, is a little too simple. In brief, there is more to the Pope than just the individual Catholic who by falling into heresy loses the faith and with it his membership of the Church. For the Church, the Pope is much more than just an individual Catholic.

For clarity, let us present these theologians’ arguments in the form of question and answer:—

First of all, is it possible for a Pope to fall into heresy?

If he engages all four conditions of his Extraordinary Magisterium, he cannot teach heresy, but that he can personally fall into heresy is the more probable opinion at least of older theologians.

Then if he does fall into heresy, does that not make him cease to be a member of the Church?

As an individual Catholic person, yes, but as Pope, not necessarily, because the Pope is much more than just an individual Catholic. As Augustine said, the priest is Catholic for himself, but he is priest for others. The Pope is Pope for the entire Church.

But supposing that the great majority of Catholics can see that he is a heretic, because it is obvious. Would not his heresy in that case make it impossible for him to be Pope any longer?

No, because even if his heresy were obvious, still many Catholics might deny it, for instance out of “piety” towards the Pope, and therefore to prevent confusion from arising throughout the Church, an official declaration of the Pope’s heresy would be necessary to bind Catholics to stay united. Such a declaration would have to come from a Church Council, assembled for that purpose.

But if the heresy were public and obvious, surely that would be enough to depose him?

No, because firstly every heretic must be officially warned before being deposed, in case he would retract his heresy. And secondly, in Church or State every high official is serving the common good, and for the common good he must stay in office until he is officially deposed. So just as a bishop stays in office until he is deposed by the Pope, so the Pope stays in office until the official declaration of his heresy by a Church Council enables Christ to depose him (cf. EC 405).

But if a heretic is not a member of the Church, how can he be its head, the most important member?

Because his personal membership is a different thing from his official headship. By his personal membership he receives sanctification from the Church. By his official headship he gives official government to the Church. So by falling into heresy, he ceases to be a living member of the Church, that is true, but he does not thereby cease being able, even as a dead member, to govern the Church. His membership of the Church by faith and charity is incompatible with heresy, but his governing of the Church by his official jurisdiction, not requiring faith or charity, is compatible with heresy.

But by his heresy a former Pope has thrown away his Papacy!

Personally and in private that is true, but that is not true officially and in public until a Church Council has made not only public but also official his heresy. Until then the Pope must be treated as Pope, because for the Church’s tranquillity and common good, Christ maintains his jurisdiction.

Kyrie eleison.

Eleison Comments – Bishop Williamson –CDIII (403)

Sickness Imagined 

Conciliar Popes Our Lord would seem to have dropped?

Not if their total loss of faith he stopped.

The iniquity of true Popes steadily destroying everything Catholic is so mysterious that in these “Comments” four weeks ago we saw Archbishop Lefebvre considering seriously whether the See of Rome might be vacant. He would never pretend with the liberals that the destruction is not really destruction, but at the same time his sense of the Church was too strong for him ever to adopt the sedevacantist solution, so at least in August of 1976 the problem seemed to him “theologically insoluble.” These “Comments” suggested that there might be another line of solution which people as sane of mind as the Archbishop could hardly imagine. Let us try to imagine it.

To ridicule this solution a hard-bitten sedevacantist once dubbed it “mentevacantism,” but the label will do. It means not the See of Rome being vacant, but the Popes’ minds being vacant, or let us say, their minds having had the sense of reality emptied out of them, their minds being empty of reality. Especially since the Protestant Reformation, men have been steadily more liberating themselves from God. To do this they must liberate their minds from the reality around them, because all reality comes from God and points back to God. Here is the liberal illusion, the ultimate liberation, known otherwise as “mind-rot,” “mental sickness” or “mentevacantism,” because the human mind was designed by God to run on reality and not on fantasy or illusion.

Now from 1517 to 1958 the Catholic Popes resisted and beat back the mind-rot steadily engulfing the rest of the world, on its slow way to its end, but all too many of the Catholic laity, priests, bishops and finally cardinals were being progressively infected with the liberal illusion, coming to be convinced that it would create a brave new Church for the Brave New World. So in the papal Conclave of 1958, even if Cardinal Siri was validly elected, the liberals had the power to force the election of John XXIII upon the Conclave, and then by convalidation upon the Universal Church.

But what is a liberal? He is a dreamer, living not in the real world but in a Wonderland of man’s own fabrication. However, as more and more human minds switch off reality and launch into the dream, so he has less and less chance of realizing what he has done, because more and more the world all around him is being taken over by the Wonderland. This means that in modern times it is easier and easier for a man – and every Pope remains a man – to be objectively in Wonderland and yet subjectively convinced that he is in reality. Here is that mental sickness observed at first hand by an SSPX priest in all four Roman “theologians” taking part in the Rome-SSPX Discussions of 2009–2011 (Note the inverted commas – in Wonderland everything is an unreal imitation of the real, so that without some such sign as the inverted commas, we easily take the imitation for the reality.)

On this reckoning the Conciliar Popes are, at least in part, “sincerely” wrong. What that “sincerity” is internally worth, God alone can judge. But externally it is an objective reality, more and more around us day by day. Then the Conciliar Popes are not wholly conscious villains, because in their sick minds they are serving the true Church by changing the old Church out of all recognition, by Wonderlanding it. Now their subjectively good intentions have objectively paved the way to Hell for the real true Church, but can one not say that these good intentions show that the prayer of Our Lord has prevented their faith from failing completely (cf. Lk.XXII, 32)? Even Paul VI condemned contraception, issued a relatively good “Credo,” wept for the loss of vocations, and spoke of the smoke of Satan entering the Church after Vatican II. Then can one not say that even with Paul VI Our Lord kept his promise to look after Peter?

Kyrie eleison.

Eleison Comments - Number CDII - (402)

New Bishop 

St Joseph, Church’s Patron, many thanks

For thus extending her true bishops’ ranks!

Fr. Jean-Michel Faure’s consecration as bishop at the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Brazil last week was a delightful occasion. The weather was warm and dry. The sun shone. Fr Thomas Aquinas’ monks and the nearby Sisters had excelled themselves in transforming a concrete and metal garage into a sanctuary worthy of the noble liturgy, which they had also very well prepared. Despite the late notice, a group of priests was present from all over the Americas and France, and a congregation of a hundred souls, also from many different countries, followed attentively the three-hour ceremony.

Since then all Catholics have rejoiced who see the need for at least one more bishop to help ensure the survival of a “Resistant Tradition.” Archbishop Lefebvre’s understanding of the defence of the Catholic Faith could not be left for very much longer to depend on one bishop alone. His consecration of four bishops in 1988 without Rome’s permission, by “Operation Survival” as opposed to “Operation Suicide,” had to be extended into the 21st century. Apologies go to all Catholics who would love to have attended if only they had had enough notice, but everything had to be done, including a measure of discretion, to make sure that the consecration would take place.

It had powerful adversaries. The official Church in Rome reacted by declaring the consecrator to be “automatically excommunicated,” but as in 1988 this declaration is false, because by Church Law whoever commits a punishable act does not incur the normal penalty, e.g. excommunication for consecrating a bishop without Rome’s permission, if he acted out of necessity. 

That is common sense, and there was certainly necessity here. As the world draws closer and closer to World War III, what individual on earth can be sure of his own survival?

Also the official Society of St Pius X in Menzingen, Switzerland, condemned Bishop F aure’s consecration in a press statement issued on the day itself. Worthy of note in it is the admission that the consecrator was excluded from the Society in 2012 because of his “vigorous criticism” of the Society’s contacts with Rome in recent years. Menzingen claimed for the longest time that the problem was one of “disobedience.” Now at last Menzingen admits that it was being steadily accused of “betraying Archbishop Lefebvre’s work.” Indeed. Betraying and destroying.

Rome itself confirms the betrayal. On the day after the consecration, Monsignor Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, besides declaring the non-existent “excommunication,” went on to say, Several meetings (between Rome and the SSPX) have taken place and more are planned with certain (Roman) prelates, to go into the problems still needing to be cleared up in a relationship of trust,” problems “doctrinal and internal to the Society.”

Monsignor Pozzo went on: 

The Pope is waiting for the Society to make up its mind to enter the Church, and we are always ready with a familiar canonical project (a personal prelature). A little time is needed for things to become clear within the Society and for Bishop Fellay to obtain a broad enough consensus before taking this step.

What more can anyone need to see the writing on the wall?

Kyrie eleison

“Eleison Comments” – Number CCCLXXVI - (376)

CHASTISEMENT COMING

Father Constant Louis Marie PEL (1876–1966) is not a name well-known among the souls gifted by God with a knowledge of how God is going to set today’s world straight, but for those who knew him he was a priest very close to God. Doctor in theology, seminary professor, founder of a convent for women and of a seminary for men, with a great devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, he was a personal friend of Padre Pio who said of him to some French pilgrims in San Giovanni Rotondo, “Why do you come to see me when you have so great a Saint in France?”

Fr Pel would spend nights on his feet in church with his forehead leaning against the Tabernacle, conversing with God in a permanent ecstasy. He died in a car accident just after Vatican II, but not before a seminarian, one of his spiritual sons, had been able to note down a prophecy of his, dating from 1945, concerning the chastisement which will strike France in particular. Here it is, quoted or abbreviated:—

“My son,” said Fr Pel, “know that with the sins of the world increasing in horror as this age wears on, great punishments from God will come down on the world and no continent will be spared by the Wrath of God. France being guilty of apostasy and denying its vocation will be severely chastised. East of a line stretching from Bordeaux in the south-west to Lille in the north-east, everything will be laid waste and set on fire by peoples invading from the east, and also by great flaming meteorites falling in a rain of fire upon all the earth and upon these regions especially. Revolution, war, epidemics, plagues, chemical poison gases, violent earthquakes and the re-awakening of France’s extinct volcanoes will destroy everything . .

“France to the west of that line will be less affected . . . because of the faith rooted in the Vendée and in Brittany . . . but any of God’s worst enemies seeking refuge there from the worldwide cataclysm will be found out, wherever they hide, and put to death by devils, because the Wrath of the Lord is just and holy. Thick darkness caused by the war, gigantic fires and fragments of burning stars falling for three days and nights will cause the sun to disappear, and only candles blessed on Candlemas (February 2) will give light in the hands of believers, but the godless will not see this miraculous light because they have darkness in their souls.

“In this way, my son, three quarters of mankind will be destroyed, and in certain parts of France survivors will have to go 60 miles to find another live human being . . . . Several nations will disappear off the face of the map . . . . A France thus purified will become the renewed “Eldest Daughter of the Church,” because all the Cains and Judases will have disappeared in this ‘Judgment upon the Nations’”. This Judgment is not yet the end of times, but so great is the punishment due to the sins of the nations that Our Lord told Fr Pel that the desolation at world’s end will be lesser.

Dear readers, what do we conclude? Let each of us strive with might and main, and with the help of the Catholic sacraments given to us by God for that purpose, to live in God’s grace and not in the state of sin, and let us make full use of the time he gives us between now and the Hour of his Justice to pray for the largest possible number of sinners to repent and save their souls for eternity when the Chastisement closes in. God, have mercy. Mary, help.

Kyrie eleison.