THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

And now, Bergoglio wishes to wipe out
the legacy of Benedict XVI
by Riccardo Cascioli
Translated from

January 13, 2019

In a matter of days, two important threads linking Pope Francis to his predecessor will be cut off. Increasingly insistent voices from the Bergoglio Vatican say that for sure
1) the Prefecture for the Pontifical Household will be abolished (its current prefect is Mons. Georg Gaenswein, who is also the personal secretary of the Emeritus Pope)
2) likewise, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei which was set up in 1988 primarily for dialog with the FSSPX (and eventually other traditionalist groups wishing to use only the Traditional Mass), and since 2007, has been the authority on the application of Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum.

[What Cascioli does not mention is that the rumors also say that 1) the functions of the Household Prefecture will devolve to an office in the Secretariat of State; and 2) Ecclesia Dei, though formally placed under the CDF in 2010, will now be a mere ‘office’ in the CDF instead of an autonomous commission.]

Two decisions which, if confirmed, have great symbolic value beyond their operative consequences. But these are not really surprising moves.

The first eminent Ratzingerian to fall was US Cardinal Raymond Burke whom Benedict XVI had called to Rome in 2008 to head the Apostolic Signatura (the Church’s highest canonical court). In 2014, the reigning pope named him Patron of the Knights of Malta [an obvious demotion, if not a downright sinecure], although already in 2013, he had not reappointed him to the Congregation for Bishops [replacing him instead with Cardinal Donald Wuerl].

[For some reason, Mr. Cascioli forgets that the first Ratzingerian struck down by the Bergoglio axe was Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, who just six months after Bergoglio’s election, was suddenly demoted by the pope from being Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy (and one of the Curial stalwarts Benedict XVI depended upon for "his efficiency and in-depth knowledge of how the Congregation worked and its problems" and "his traditionalist ecclesiastical line of thought", as Piacenza’s Wikipedia entry notes, quoting from Marco Tosatti’s La Stampa report on Oct 22, 2017 to head instead the Apostolic Penitentiary*.]

*[The Apostolic Penitentiary is chiefly a tribunal of mercy, responsible for issues relating to the forgiveness of sins in the Catholic Church. It has jurisdiction only over matters in the internal forum, the realm of conscience. (In canon law, this refers to acts of governance made without publicity, as opposed to the external forum, where the act is public and verifiable. For example, a marriage might be null and void in the internal forum, but binding outwardly, i.e., in the external forum, for want of judicial proof to the contrary.) The work of the Apostolic Penitentiary consists mainly of 1) absolution of excommunications latæ sententiæ reserved to the Holy See, 2) dispensation of sacramental impediments reserved to the Holy See, and 3) the issuance and governance of indulgences.]

Then it was Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who had been Prefect of the CDF since 2012 and a personal friend of Benedict XVI (he has been the editor of the Emritus Pope’s 16-volume Opera Omnia), whom the reigning pope promptly replaced the day his five-year appointment expired on June 30, 2017.

But the pope has used a different modality in dealing with the Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, whom Francis moved in November 2014 from being president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum** which he had led since 2010, to be Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship - where he has been neutralized by surrounding him with Bergoglians [who like the pope have nothing but contempt for tradition], circumventing his decisions and isolating him publicly, even with open rejection of his initiatives.

**[Cor Unum supervised and coordinated the Church’s worldwide charitable activities – about which Cardinal Sarah followed Benedict XVI’s stipulation that all Catholic social initiatives must promote Catholic values. In other words, even if Catholic charities seek to treat all needy people regardless of religion,charity work must be seen as “a means of opening the door of faith to those who seek the love of Christ”. A view not shared by Cardinal Maradiaga, then the head of Caritas International, and his successor at Caritas, Cardinal Tagle, nor obviously by the reigning pope. Cor Unum was suppressed as of January 2017 when it was integrated into the new super-dicastery for integrating human development.]

Now the last vestige to be removed is Mons. Gaenswein, an inconvenient person who, in interviews and lectures, has kept open the question of ‘two popes’, well explained by the new book by Antonio Socci with statements that reject the role of ‘wise grandfather’ that his successor has cast for him.

“With his renunciation on February 11, 2013, he [Benedict XVI] has not abandoned his ministry”, Gaenswein has said. “There are not two popes, but de facto, an enlarged ministry with an active member and a contemplative member”.

[Words I wish GG had never said - at least not in public. It’s a wonder Bergoglio did not sack him then and there. But the pope holds all the cards – supreme uncontested power and authority in the Church - while Benedict XVI has nothing substantial or negotiable. As a retired pope, he does not even have the power that the least employee in the Vatican has. There is no role for an ex-pope – only what Benedict XVI has spelled out for himself as Emeritus Pope, and by doing so, ensured that at least as long as he is alive, the Church – and the world – will have a modicum of respect for the dignity of the office he held, which cannot be trifled with.]

Words that could not have been pleasing to the pope. So, abolishing the Prefecture of the Papal Household – assigning the task of scheduling appointments and audiences for the pope to a section of the Secretariat of State - now allows him to get rid of Gaenswein and justify it as part of his Curial reform. [But part of the rumor is that the pope will make him secretary of the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood.]

But even more significant and ominous for its consequences is the second move, which has been in the air for some time: closing down the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which strikes at an important magisterial act of Benedict XVI, namely, the re-validation of the traditional Latin Mass according to the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V in 1570, in its latest edition by John XXIII in 1962.

In June 2007, with his Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI made it the ‘extraordinary form’ of the Roman rite, whose ‘ordinary form’ is the Novus Ordo Mass promulgated by Paul VI in 1969. In this way, Benedict XVI sought to recover a treasure of the faith that was ‘never abrogated’ and which deserved ‘due honor’, thus seeking to do away with dangerous divisions in the Church on account of the liturgy.

It is no secret that many bishops who insist on a ‘revolutionary’ reading of Vatican II have blocked and continue to seek to block the application of this decision. A mindset shared by the reigning pope who has never hidden his aversion for the ‘extraordinary form’ which he considers nothing more than an exercise in nostalgia that borders on obsession.

Abolishing Ecclesa Dei will formally change nothing, but this will strengthen the position of those who would want Summorum Pontificum abrogated and with it, the traditional Mass ‘forever’.

This may seem a technical question, but it touches on a vital element of the Church, since liturgy is the heart of the Catholic faith, and in a church that is already so divided and confused, the last thing she needs is yet another rupture. [Which is so unnecessary! Why is the pope of mercy incapable of tolerating the Mass that nurtured all the saints of the Church – at least until he canonized quite a few Novus Ordo types, starting with Paul VI and Oscar Romero, for ideological reasons?]