Fr Hunwicke on Mons. Schneider
and why depose-a-pope can't be DIY
March 22, 2019
...I commend - how could I not - the fine treatise by Bishop Athanasius Schneider about heretical popes (and much else).
Readers of this blog will immediately discern that his arguments, evidence, exempla, and conclusions are exactly those which I have regularly deployed here. So you will not be surprised that I am feeling quite up-beat.
Bishop Athanasius has rightly emphasised the importance of the Honorius case (above those of other errant popes) in making clear beyond any question that
(1) popes can err [i.e., commit heresy];
(2) such popes can be formally and Magisterially condemned for heresy; and
(3) such popes do not ipso facto by their heresy lose their position.
[Why Cardinal Burke said otherwise not too long ago always puzzled me. But then whoever spoke to him when he said that did not follow up on his statement since it obviously has no concrete practical application: What does losing his position ipso facto mean? The statement is meaningless if no one recognizes that the heretical pope is no longer pope ipso facto!
And has it not been said over and over that to establish the fact that heresy has been committed - especially if it's a pope who's concerned - is virtually impossible? At least not while the putatively heretical pope is still pope - if only because 1) he continues to have plenitudo potestatis, and 2) anyone as cunning as Jorge Bergoglio would be - and has been - extremely careful not to provide any evidence in word or deed that could be used, even if only technically, to charge him with material heresy, to begin with.]
When something has happened, this proves it can happen.
Do-it-yourself depose-a-pope may be emotionally satisfying but it is not an option for grown-ups in a real world.
[This is probably the best way anyone has expressed so far the futility of wishful thinking, especially by those who keep harping,"Why can't the cardinals do something, anything, to depose Bergoglio?"
Which cardinals, for a start? All of the cardinals we might consider to be 'anti-Bergoglio', starting with Cardinal Burke, recognize him as pope - they have used and may use the strongest terms to denounce his errors, real and perceived, but not one can nor has come out to call him heretical outright, and more importantly, not one has called for him to be deposed. Because they know the limits of the possible - it's Canon 212, Par. 3, versus the full weight of a pope's plenitudo potentatis. (Mons. Vigano called for him to resign, to never-ending flak even from those sympathetic to his testimony - their objection being that it supposedly weakens and damages his testimony because it makes him look vengeful.)
To all the ultra-rabid champions of declare-Francis-a-heretic-now and/or depose-Francis-now-because-he-is-illegitimate-and/or-heretical, what exactly do you think can be done to effect any or both of those objectives? "Let the cardinals figure out what can be done" is not an answer. Analysts of the situation, pro- or contra-Bergoglio, have unanimously conceded there is nothing that can be done short of divine intervention one way or the other. This militant depose-Francis/declare-him-heretical-now brigade - who obviously have no answers themselves - can't just go on mocking and insulting everyone else. For what? Because they are not God and can do nothing to 'bring down' Bergoglio?]
The Remnant cartoonist does a great takeoff, left, from the Spectator's unforgettable cartoon of Bergoglio the wrecking ball, and the Remnant caption riffs on the Abu Dhabi 'heresy'.
Thank God for Francis -
who shows us daily by negative example
the limits and pitfalls of papal infallibility
by Christopher A. Ferrara
March 21, 2019
Whether the Catholic Church is the one true Church of Christ depends entirely upon her infallibility as an organ of truth, for if she were not such then she would not be indefectible, Christ’s promise of indefectibility
(cf. Matt. 28:20) would be void and He himself could not, therefore, be what he claimed to be: the God who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
Infallibility of teaching on faith and morals is intrinsic to the divine commission, for without it the Church could not make of all nations disciples of Christ but only disciples of human teaching which may or may not correspond to the revealed truth of the Gospel. This was the lot of the nations that became disciples of Luther and his progeny before any form of the Christian religion was finally banished from all nations by the terminal secularism of political modernity.
As Cardinal Newman put it:
“If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder.” [An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, II.13] But who or what in the Church is the infallible expounder? It can only be the Church as a whole, whose supreme leader on earth is indeed the Pope, but whose head is Christ and Him alone.
The infallible expounder cannot be the Pope alone, even if his authority is supreme, universal and direct as to every member of the Church, for it is not the Pope alone who received the divine commission. And while Our Lord said to Peter “thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church (Matt 16:18),” he also said, before prophesying that Peter would deny Him thrice: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.” (Lk 22:31-32).
The Pope is, after all, a man, and a man is always subject to human frailty and the possibility of error that comes with every exercise of free will, which is not lost upon election to the papacy. Hence Saint Paul’s famous rebuke of the first Pope at Antioch on account of his cowardly feigned adherence to Jewish dietary laws, which threatened the entire mission of the Church to the Gentiles by suggesting that they ought to follow the Mosaic law:
But when Cephas was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.
For before that some came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them who were of the circumcision.
And to his dissimulation the rest of the Jews consented, so that Barnabas also was led by them into that dissimulation.
But when I saw that they walked not uprightly unto the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all: If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as the Jews do, how dost thou compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? [2 Gal 11-14]
The Church, however, is not a man or even a mere collective of men, but the Mystical Body of Christ whose subsistence cannot be destroyed by any human error. Lost in the current mania of hyper-papalism is the infallibility of the Church as a corporate whole, extending even to the faithful as a body, which obeys what has always been taught by the Church as a whole and rejects what is foreign to that teaching. As Ludwig Ott explains:
One may distinguish and active and a passive infallibility. The former belongs to the pastors of the Church in the exercise of their teaching office (infallibilitas in docendo), the latter to the faithful as a whole in its assent to the message of faith (infallibilitas in credendo) Active and passive are related as cause and effect.
During the Arian crisis this “passive” infallibility of the faithful was crucial to the Church’s survival — that is, to the maintenance of her indefectibility. As Cardinal Newman famously explains,
the laity were more faithful than their teachers to what their teachers had always taught them in the light of Revelation:
In that time of immense confusion … the body of the episcopate was unfaithful to its commission, while the body of the laity was faithful to its baptism;… at one time the Pope, at other times the patriarchal, metropolitan, and other great sees, at other times general councils, said what they should not have said, or did what obscured and compromised revealed truth; while, on the other hand, it was the Christian people who, under Providence, were the ecclesiastical strength of Athanasius, Hilary, Eusebius of Vercellae, and other great solitary confessors, who would have failed without them. [On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine (1859)]
So, the Church’s infallibility pertains to the whole of her divine constitution: both the hierarchy and the laity which together comprise the Mystical Body. And
there are times — our time is one of them — when at least a remnant of the laity keeps the faith they were taught even though the hierarchy has generally failed in its commission to defend and protect it. This is not to deny that there are still many among the hierarchs who believe what they were taught. To quote Newman again apropos the Arian crisis:
… I am not denying that the great body of the Bishops were in their internal belief orthodox; nor that there were numbers of clergy who stood by the laity, and acted as their centres and guides; nor that the laity actually received their faith, in the first instance, from the Bishops and clergy; nor that some portions of the laity were ignorant, and other portions at length corrupted by the Arian teachers … but I mean still, that in that time of immense confusion the divine dogma of our Lord’s divinity was proclaimed, enforced, maintained, and (humanly speaking) preserved, far more by the “Ecclesia docta” [the Church that is taught] than by the “Ecclesia docens” [the cChurch that teaches]…
What is “the faith” the faithful remnant are preserving far more than the generality of the hierarchy in our current “time of immense confusion”? It is nothing other than
the total ensemble of doctrines the Church as a whole has taught and believed since apostolic times, otherwise known as the deposit of faith, developed and applied to particular circumstances as necessary but never contradicted.
Too little attention has been paid in our day to
the one criterion by which the validity of all Church teaching is judged: the constancy of what she has handed down in her corporate function as teacher, versus the novelty of some particular pronouncement extrinsic to the depositum fidei.
Blessed Pius IX, the very Pope who narrowly defined papal infallibility by approving the Vatican I decree, was at pains to make clear in answer to Johannes Dollinger, before Dollinger’s apostasy and ultimate excommunication, that
the teaching Church as a whole is infallible, not only as to “dogmas expressly defined by the Church” but also when it comes to “matters transmitted as divinely revealed by the ordinary Magisterium of the whole Church dispersed throughout the world and, for that reason, held by the universal consensus of Catholic theologians as belonging to the faith.” [DZ 2879]
It is of decisive importance in our current circumstances to recall how
Vatican I’s definition of papal (versus ecclesial corporate) infallibility was strictly limited to the rarity of singular and solemn papal pronouncements commanding universal assent on a matter of faith and morals. The Council’s conditions for papal infallibility are that the Pope:
(1) “when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, acting in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians,” (2) “defines, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,”
(3) “a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church…” [DZ 3074]
Only then, the Council declared, can it be said that the Pope in his singular definitions “possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.”
But even in the exercise of this extraordinary Magisterium the Pope can do nothing but define solemnly as dogma matters already “transmitted as divinely revealed by the ordinary Magisterium of the whole Church dispersed throughout the world ” — , of course, Popes and Councils presided over by Popes and the body of bishops as a diachronic moral totality. (The body of bishops does not mean episcopal conferences in particular countries, which are no part of the divine constitution of the Church and were not even given formal juridical status until the Second Vatican Council’s decree Christus Dominus, which Paul VI implemented in 1966 with his motu proprio Ecclesiae sanctae — one of his many prudential blunders.)
In short,
the Pope has absolutely no power to define a novel doctrine that was never a part of the Church’s Magisterium, either ordinary or extraordinary. As Vatican I declared in the very process of defining and delimiting papal infallibility:
“For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that they might disclose a new doctrine by his revelation, but rather that, with his assistance, they might reverently guard and faithfully explain that revelation or deposition of faith that was handed down through the apostles.” [DZ 3070]
Now,
none of the novel notions by which Bergoglio has afflicted the Church can be found anywhere in the deposit of faith laid down by the Church as a whole since apostolic times.
- His authorization of Holy Communion for certain public adulterers, - his notion of environmental “sins against the Earth,”
- his absurd attempt to repeal the Church’s bimillenial teaching in defense of capital punishment by calling the purported repeal a “development,”
- his innumerable distortions and misrepresentations of the Gospel to suit his endless philippic against observant Catholics, and so forth, are
nothing but his own ideas. As such, by definition, they cannot belong to the Magisterium. Nor, for that matter, can they be considered Catholic doctrine at all, as opposed to the doctrine expounded by Jorge Mario Bergoglio yet never imposed on the Catholic conscience by a solemn dogmatic definition, which is impossible given the very novelty of what Bergoglio preaches.
Novel ideas are not Catholic doctrine but rather something else that is literally of no moment for a believing Catholic. And so it is with all of the novel notions and practices that have proliferated in the Church since Vatican II.
- For example,
no Catholic is obliged to believe in ecumenism, dialogue, inter-religious dialogue or collegiality, whatever these notions might mean, for the simple reason that the Church had never heard of them before 1962 — putting aside the further problem of
their virtual meaninglessness as mere conceptual containers for various recklessly imprudent ecclesial activities.
The question that confronts us with Bergoglio, therefore, is simply this:
Is it possible for a Pope’s personal teaching to depart from what the Church as a whole has always taught and believed in favor of his own novel ideas? It must be possible, for it were not then there would be no distinction between the extraordinary and the ordinary Magisterium and the Pope would have to be viewed as simply inerrant
tout court.
Pope Benedict XVI certainly recognized the peril of a Pope who promotes his own ideas when he said the following at the outset of his own pontificate:
The power of teaching in the Church involves a commitment to the service of obedience to the faith. The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law. On the contrary: The Pope's ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to his Word. He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God's Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.
To deny that a given Pope can ever depart from orthodoxy by proclaiming his own ideas is to argue implicitly that every utterance of a true Pope touching on faith and morals must be accepted without question. And it is precisely this Protestant caricature of the papacy to which the sedevacantists resort in opposition to the traditionalist position that Bergoglio may be resisted in his errors while yet being recognized as Pope. To quote the leading sedevacantist website in this regard:
By saying Francis is Pope but then refusing his magisterium, the would-be traditionalists in the Vatican II Church are doing untold damage to the traditional Catholic doctrine of the Papacy because the papal office was instituted as the sure norm of orthodoxy at every point in time in Church history, guaranteed by Christ Himself. This does not mean that every papal magisterial act is infallible, but it does mean that every papal magisterial act is authoritative, thus binding on consciences and, by the providence of Almighty God, always safe to follow. This means that souls cannot be led astray by any pernicious error if they follow the teaching of the Pope. That safety is guaranteed and caused by Christ Himself.
So, according to the sedevacantists, while not every magisterial act by a true Pope is infallible, his every magisterial act is authoritative, binding on conscience, safe to follow and free from pernicious error. This laughable self-contradiction is at the heart of the sedevacantist polemic. And so it must be. For if the sedevacantists were to admit that a Pope is capable of erring in his ordinary day-to-day teaching even once, then their position would collapse into a vain argument over a matter of degree: How much error must a Pope manifest before it can be concluded that he has un-Poped himself or that he never was Pope in the first place? Would only one error suffice? If not one, then how many?
There is no escaping this fatal flaw in the sedevacantist position: they must hold that any Pope who errs in any matter of faith and morals by proclaiming some novelty, such as Bergoglio’s opinion (contrary to divine revelation) that capital punishment is an attack on human dignity, cannot be a true Pope. That necessitarian logic means that they must also hold that we have had no Pope since Pius XII, given the profusion of doctrinal novelties — or what they would call doctrinal novelties — and novel practices that litter every pontificate following his in this time of immense confusion. Bergoglio has simply made it appear easier to sustain the ludicrous sedevacantist contention that we have had no Pope since 1958.
[I really don't see why we should pay any attention at all to what the sedevacantists say! I think they are a very tiny minority who realistically have no effect on other Catholics.]
From our perspective, however, the Bergoglian Debacle is an evil from which God has already drawn a great good. For
Bergoglio has demonstrated dramatically, once and for all, that the limitations of the papacy are exceeded whenever a Pope, in the exercise of his free will, fails to correspond to the grace of his state, departs from the path of Tradition and chooses to “proclaim his own ideas” rather than “constantly bind[ing] himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”
Bergoglio has dispelled the pious fiction, long promoted by ultramontane theologians, that the faithful are obliged to believe unconditionally that the Holy Ghost infallibly insures the “safety” of every papal teaching and that we must not trouble ourselves with any apparent departure from what the Church has always taught.
Philip Lawler has rightly observed of Bergoglio that
“the current Pope’s leadership has become a danger to the faith.” That conservative Catholics now recognize what traditionalists have always understood — that a Pope’s leadership can be a danger to the faith —is a major step toward the greater recognition that
the entire ecclesial crisis of the past half-century has emanated in the first instance from epochal failures of papal governance and that it will end only when a future Pope finds the courage to right the wrongs his predecessors have committed — just as Benedict XVI, at least to some extent, attempted to do before he abdicated the papal throne.
As Bergoglio has said concerning his own conduct of the papacy: “On the other hand, I am by nature oblivious, and so I go ahead.” [“
D’altra parte, per natura io sono incosciente, e cosi vado avanti.”]. Perhaps “oblivious” is too kind a translation of the Italian “incosciente,” whose alternate meanings are reckless, thoughtless, irresponsible and imprudent. But then the entire post-conciliar
aggiornamento has been reckless, thoughtless, irresponsible and imprudent.
The Bergoglian pontificate is but a logical continuation of the same ruinous pursuit of vain novelty. Surely that must now be obvious to anyone who still cares about the faith of our fathers. This is what Jorge Mario Bergoglio has shown to those who still did not know.
Meanwhile, 'Francesca Romana' of Rorate caeli has interviewed Church historian and vociferous Bergoglio opponent Roberto De Mattei on Mons. Schneider's recent essay "On the question of a heretical pope" - and he comes to the same conclusion as any other Catholic who does not allow his opinion of Bergoglio to overwhelm elementary common sense, that there is nothing than can be done now to depose Bergoglio who, moreover, must be "acknowledged as the Supreme Head of the Catholic Church"...
Roberto de Mattei:
Why Bergoglio's errors do not entail the loss
of his papacy and why his deposition is not feasible
Interview by 'Francesca Romana'
March 22, 2019
Professor de Mattei, what do you think of the study His Excellency Monsignor Schneider made on a “heretic Pope”?
I consider it an important document. Firstly, Monsignor Schneider is one of the most esteemed among contemporary bishops for his patristic culture and personal piety. Secondly, the subject is of very great interest and Monsignor Schneider had the courage to address it openly, unambiguously and uncompromisingly.
What points do you most agree with?
First of all, I agree completely with Monsignor Schneider when he admits the possibility that a Pope can “promote doctrinal errors or heresies”, even if never ex cathedra. The hypothesis of a heretic pope is not only sustained by almost all theologians and canonists, but it is also a historical fact which occurred for example, with Pope Honorius, and which can tragically be repeated.
Another point that Monsignor Schneider clarifies well, in the light of Church teaching, is the stance that is to be taken when faced with a heretical Pope.
"In dealing with the tragic case of a heretical pope, all the members of the Church, beginning with the bishops, down to the simple faithful, have to use all legitimate means, such as private and public corrections of the erring pope, constant and ardent prayers and public professions of the truth in order that the Apostolic See may again profess with clarity the Divine truths, that the Lord entrusted to Peter and to all his successors." It is not enough to pray in silence, as if nothing has happened.
We need to resist and react. And the best way is that of fraternal correction, which is chiefly up to the bishops and cardinals, but which also ordinary lay-people can extend to the Pontiff, as happened with the Correctio filialis. I quote:
"In this issue the numerical factor is not decisive. It is sufficient to have even a couple of bishops proclaiming the integrity of Faith and correcting thereby the errors of a heretical pope. It is sufficient that bishops instruct and protect their flock from the errors of a heretical pope and their priests and the parents of Catholic families will do the same.” I agree completely with Monsignor Schneider when he states that: “even if a pope is spreading theological errors and heresies, the Faith of the Church as a whole will remain intact because of the promise of Christ concerning the special assistance and permanent presence of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the truth, in His Church
(cf. John 14: 17; 1 John 2: 27)".
[Can some popular blogger or Catholic website start a project asking their readers to report to them if, when and whenever their local bishop or even parish priest preaches to them that what Bergoglio has been teaching about, say, communion for persons living in adultery or about the absolute wrongness of the death penalty, is contrary to what the Church has always taught? I would like to know, for instance, if Mons. Schneider himself preaches that in Astana. I don't doubt his good faith at all, in every sense of the word, but preaching on paper is not the same as actually going to the pulpit every Sunday to tell your congregation what and why some of the reigning pope's teachings are not just questionable but wrong... For my part, I will attest to the fact that at the Church of the Holy Innocents in New York, both our pastor, Fr. James Miara, and his occasional guest celebrant, Fr. Peter Stravinskas, do so in respectful but unequivocal terms. ]
Is there any point of Monsignor Schneider’s analysis that you don’t agree with?
I’m somewhat puzzled by his statement:
“A pope cannot be deposed in whatsoever form and for whatever reason, not even for the reason of heresy.” Monsignor Schneider denies the possibility of the loss of the papacy, while admitting this thesis has been voiced by great canonists and theologians, like Cardinal Cajetan and St. Robert Bellarmine, in favour of it.
[But it's one thing to be in favor of it - it's another thing to be able to do it. Hypothesis, which is the expression of a possibility, is fine, but is the possible even probable? Obviously, in this case, it has never been probable before, and it is not probable now. Mons. Schneider ought to have properly hedged that statement which puzzles De Mattei (who I am sure understands exactly what Schneider was saying).]
The position that seems to me the most convincing is that of the Brazilian theologian, Arnaldo Xavier da Silveira, who died recently, which he sums up in chapter VII of his book
Can a Pope be…a heretic? The Theological Hypothesis of a Heretical Pope (Caminhos Romanos, 2018).
Arnaldo da Silveira retains that there is a profound incompatibility between heresy and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. However,
loss of office is not automatic. Since as a visible society the Church’s official acts must also be visible, the heretical Pope continues in office until the full outward manifestation of his heresy.
[And then what? Who actually deposes him? A determined narcissist like Bergoglio will simply stay put, secure in his plenitudo potentatis and his smugness that he knows better about everything than everybody, including Christ himself!]
St. Robert Bellarmine teaches that the heretical Pope loses the papacy when his heresy becomes manifest. This is to be understood as a full manifestation, that is, one that imposes itself to acceptance by the
sana pars [literally, 'healthy part', but what is the idiomatic English translation?] of Catholics. If a part of Catholics considers the manifestation doubtful or insufficient, it is either because the latter is not full, or the former are not the true
sana pars. A clash will then become inevitable, and everything depending on the
sensus fidei of Catholics and on the movements of grace.
For as long as he is tolerated and accepted by the universal Church, the heretic will be true Pope, and in principle, his acts are valid.
The loss of the Pontificate, therefore, will not result from a deposition by anyone but from an act of the Pope himself, who, by becoming a formal and notorious heretic will have excluded himself from the visible Church, thus tacitly resigning the Pontificate. [This makes no sense. There can be no 'tacit' resignation of any office - resignation means stepping down from your office. Can anyone imagine Bergoglio resigning because he thinks he has excluded himself from the Church? It's a total impossibility for someone who has behaved, almost from day 1 of his Pontificate, to make it clear to everyone, "L'Eglise, c'est moi!"
What then is your final consideration?
While not agreeing with the thesis that a heretic pope never loses the papacy [You may not agree with it but you are unable to show us how exactly that can be done short of the heretic pope himself leaving office, which he certainly won't do on his own because as far as he is concerned, he is not heretical. Moreover, it has not been possible before, even if Honorius's and John XXII's heresies were minor compared to Bergoglio's offenses, though of course, no one ever thought that any pope would commit the wholesale heterodoxies and carefully hedged heresies that Bergoglio has done] I think that Monsignor Schneider’s position is somewhat acceptable at the present time, in order to avoid that crypto-sedevacantism some traditionalists tend towards. On this point my position coincides with that of Monsignor Schneider, not on the theoretical level but on the practical level.
I think that the errors or heresies of Pope Francis, even if professed publicly, do not entail his loss of the papacy, since they are not known and manifest to the Catholic population. When I speak of the Catholic population, I’m not referring to the Catholic public opinion in the widest sense of the term, but to
that group of baptized who are today maintaining the Catholic faith in its integrity.
[I suppose they make up what De Mattei referred to earlier as the 'pars sana'.] Many of them still interpret pro bono the words and actions of Pope Francis and do not perceive any malice. We cannot say then that his loss of faith is evident and manifest. [There you have one of the fundamental problems with 'establishing' that this pope is heretical: most Catholics still think that 'the pope says...' means that is what the Church teaches].
When St. Robert or Cajetan wrote their books, society was fully Catholic, the
sensus fidei was developed, and it was very easy to perceive the heresy of a priest, a bishop, even of a Pope.
Today the large majority of the baptized, the priests, the bishops, even the Pope, are immersed in heresy and very few people can distinguish the true faith. So the correct indications by great classical theologians are difficult to follow in practice. The famous canonist Franciscus Xaverius Wernz in his Jus Decretalium (tomus VI, 1913, pp. 19-23) makes an important distinction between public and notorious crime.
Publicum does not mean notorious:
“Publicum est vocabulum genericum quod sub se complectitur notorium, manifestum et public simpliciter". - A crime is
publicum when it is
diffused, but it is not known as a crime by all the people. Notorious means something more: the crime is known by all: “Notorious facts they need no proof” (can. 1747, 1).
In my view,
the promotion and spreading of heresy by Pope Francis is public, but not notorious in the canonical sense of the term. For this reason we must acknowledge him as Supreme Head of the Catholic Church. His deposition is for me, unfeasible, not in thesis, but at this concrete, historical point in time. Everything though may change from one day to the next.
[What would change? That Bergoglio's heresies become 'notorious in the canonical sense of the term', meaning his heresies are 'known to all'? Since 'all' in this case would mean a significant majority, at least, of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics, how and when will that happen? Because it also seems apparent that the majority of the world's priests and bishops are happy to simply follow the pope's lead - we know that is the case in Europe and the Americas - then they will go on spreading Bergoglio's word as they have been doing - not the Word of God, but Bergoglio's word as if it were the Word of God - to their respective flocks who are too docile to question them because they do not know any better. Look how they all simply sat back and accepted the Novus Ordo when it was imposed on them overnight!]
In this sense, I too, like Monsignor Schneider, rely on Divine Providence, but without excluding future scenarios, like that of a heretic Pope possibly losing the papacy. [Excuse me, but did you not just say, a few lines earlier, that "His deposition is for me, unfeasible, not in thesis, but at this concrete, historical point in time"? In fact, what would make it feasible even in thesis now and whenever??? And what will make it feasible in the future? That a post-Bergoglio pope will loosen the canonical definition of heresy and provide that any pope who is thereby considered heretical shall automatically forfeit the papacy, and that to ensure this happens, every pope henceforth will be required to wear an oath to this effect when he is elected?
It should be theoretically possible because such a measure would be meant to uphold and defend the deposit of faith against any more Bergoglios - and is probably a necessary and obvious counterbalance to the doctrine of papal infallibility. i.e., no pope can be deemed infallible, and in fact will automatically commit heresy, if he teaches anything other than what is contained in the deposit of faith handed down to him!
BTW, despite the questions I pose to some of Prof. De Mattei's statements in this interview, I am truly grateful and appreciative that he is unequivocal here that Bergoglio must still be acknowledged as pope, and that deposing him is just not feasible. That he is, whatever our objections, and even if he is conceivably an evil man.
On to another potential major controversy unnecessarily generated by the church of Bergoglio:
Pro-'deaconess' theologian claims Vatican commission
on female deacons found no evidence they existed
[At least not as equivalent to male deacons, as the current proponents insist]
by Maike Hickson
March 21, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Professor Peter Hünermann – a well-connected and prominent German theologian – has told LifeSiteNews that, according to members of the German bishops' doctrinal commission who spoke to him,
the Vatican commission created by Pope Francis to study historical evidence for female deacons found that “there is no historical evidence that in the Patristic era, women were ordained as deacons.”
In a recent interview in Germany, Professor Hünermann spoke about this Vatican commission on the history of female deacons that had been established, in 2016, by Pope Francis. This commission ended its work and gave its report to Pope Francis in mid-2018.
Professor Hünermann commented on the fact that Pope Francis “has withheld the results for months now,” saying that
this “is a sign for me that he does not agree with this statement as it stands.”
When LifeSiteNews reached out to the German theologian, asking him for more information on this matter, he answered, saying that “Professor [Marianne] Schlosser of Vienna – a student of then-Professor Ratzinger [and a member of the Vatican female deacon commission] – informed the German doctrinal commission about the results of this study [of the commission]. This I learned from members of the doctrinal commission.” He further explained that the “result of the Roman commission” is: “there is no historical evidence that in the Patristic era, women were ordained as deacons.”
As Professor Hünermann explained, this position had been earlier held by Cardinal Gerhard Müller – the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome – as well as by Professor Karl-Heinz Menke, who was a member of this 2016 Vatican commission on the female diaconate. As LifeSiteNews reported, Menke had said, in 2016:
“A female diaconate has nowhere and never participated in the office transmitted by ordination.”
Professor Hünermann also pointed out to LifeSiteNews that “I assume that Cardinal [Luis] Ladaria as the president of this [2016 Vatican] commission shares this position.” Hünermann himself is in favor of a female diaconate and has discussed this position in a 2012 academic article.
“Whether Professor Phyllis Zagano or other members [of that commission] have introduced a dissenting minority report and whether this has been documented in the final report, is not known to me,” the German professor adds. LifeSiteNews had recently reported on some statements made by
Zagano, who claimed that in the early history of the Church the “ordination ceremonies for women deacons were identical to the ordination ceremonies for men.” She implied that, therefore, a female diaconate would be possible.
Professor Hünermann also hopes for such a female diaconate. He confirms to LifeSiteNews that he himself had recommended, in 2016, to Pope Francis to establish such a study commission on the female diaconate. He also told LifeSiteNews that “it is my reflection that it is not an accident that Pope Francis has not yet published the [findings of the] counseling commission. In his view,
the very fact that the findings of this commission are 'obviously highly shaky' can be seen in the practice of several Orthodox churches which in the meantime have resumed their old practice and ordain women as deacons and have very good experiences with it in the pastoral care.”
[Well, if Bergoglio can overrule synods at will to 'promulgate' whatever he wants, there's no reason to expect he will nor the findings of a commission he himself named if those findings are contrary to what he believes and/or what he really wants to happen. In this case, he can always cite Paul VI who ignored the recommendations of his commission on artificial contraception.]
Already in 2002, a similar commission of the Vatican's International Theological Commission had published its own findings concerning this topic; it found that there was never an ordained office of female deacons in the history of the Church. It stated:
The deaconesses mentioned in the tradition of the ancient Church – as evidenced by the rite of institution and the functions they exercised – were not purely and simply equivalent to the deacons.
The unity of the sacrament of Holy Orders, in the clear distinction between the ministries of the bishop and the priests on the one hand and the diaconal ministry on the other, is strongly underlined by ecclesial tradition, especially in the teaching of the Magisterium.
[But of course, Bergoglio chose to ignore this very authoritative report in favor of a new investigation. In the same way that he chose to re-visit the question of communion for remarried divorcees after John Paul II had already laid down the definitive NO in Familiaris consortio. For him, it always has to be 'my way, regardless'.]
As Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the then-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated in 2013: “According to Catholic doctrine, the Sacrament of Holy Orders – in its stages bishop, priest, and deacon – can only be validly received by a man.”
Professor Manfred Hauke, in recent comments to LifeSiteNews, further strengthened this position when he said: “We cannot identify the consecration of deaconesses with the ordination of deacons. It was not sacramental ordination that can be identified with the Sacrament of Orders (for bishops, priests, and deacons).” He added:
“The history of the institution of deaconesses offers no solid basis, therefore, for the introduction of a sacramental female diaconate. The ancient Church was unacquainted with a female diaconate equivalent to the male diaconate.”