This is a very long commentary containing a very detailed examination of both Traditionis Custodes and Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s “explanatory letter” to it.
The commentary, which is very detailed, consists of the following five sections:
I. Modernism’s War Against the Glories of the Roman Rite
II. From the Founding of the Society of Saint Pius X to Quattuor Abhic Annos, Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, and Summorum Pontificum
III. A Detailed Dissection of Traditonis Custodes
IV. Dissecting Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s Explanatory Letter to Traditionis Custodes
V. Concluding Remarks
Herewith is a summary of some of the major points made in this commentary:
1) The counterfeit church of conciliarism is not and can never be the Catholic Church;
2) Each of the conciliar “popes” defected from the Catholic Faith on man points long before their apparent “elections;”
3) Those who accept the nonexistent authority of these “popes,” however, are duty bound to submit to and obey the teaching and the disciplinary decisions of one they consider to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, something is simply part of Holy Mother Church’s Divine Constitution and is not subject to Gallicanist deconstructionism;
4) Traditionis Custodes is binding upon those who accept Jorge Mario Bergoglio as “Pope Francis”;
5) Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton explained in the American Ecclesiastical Review that no Catholic can dissent from anything that legitimate Successor of Saint Peter causes to be inserted into his Acta Apostolicae Sedis:
Thus, according to the clear teaching of the Humani generis, it is morally wrong for any individual subject to the Roman Pontiff to defend a thesis contradicting a teaching which the Pope, in his "Acta," has set forth as a part of Catholic doctrine. It is, in other words, wrong to attack a teaching which, in a genuine doctrinal decision, the Sovereign Pontiff has taught officially as the visible head of the universal Church. This holds true always an everywhere, even in those cases in which the Pope, in making his decision, did not exercise the plenitude of his apostolic teaching power by making an infallible doctrinal definition.
The Humani generis must not be taken to imply that a Catholic theologian has completed his obligation with respect to an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Holy Father and presented in his published "Acta" when he has merely refrained from arguing or debating against it. The Humani generis reminded its readers that "this sacred magisterium ought to be the immediate and universal norm of truth for any theologian in matters of faith and morals."[9] Furthermore, it insisted that the faithful are obligated to shun errors which more or less approach heresy, and "to follow the constitutions and decrees by which evil opinions of this sort have been proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See."[10] In other words, the Humani generis claimed the same internal assent for declarations of the magisterium on matters of faith and morals which previous documents of the Holy See had stressed.
We may well ask why the Humani generis went to the trouble of mentioning something as fundamental and rudimentary as the duty of abstaining from further debate on a point where the Roman Pontiff has already issued a doctrinal decision, and has communicated that decision to the Church universal by publishing it in his "Acta." The reason is to be found in the context of the encyclical itself. The Holy Father has told us something of the existing situation which called for the issuance of the "Humani generis." This information is contained in the text of that document. The following two sentences show us the sort of condition the Humani generis was written to meet and to remedy:
"And although this sacred magisterium ought to be the immediate and universal norm of truth on matters of faith and morals for any theologian, as the agency to which Christ the Lord has entrusted the entire deposit of faith - that is, the Sacred Scriptures and divine Tradition - to be guarded and defended and explained, still, the duty by which the faithful are obligated also to shun those errors which approach more or less to heresy, and therefore 'to follow the constitutions and decrees by which evil opinions of this sort have been proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See,' is sometimes ignored as if it did not exist. What is said in encyclical letters of the Roman Pontiffs about the nature and constitution of the Church is habitually and deliberately neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they claim to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks."[11]
Six years ago, then, Pope Pius XII was faced with a situation in which some of the men who were privileged and obligated to teach the truths of sacred theology had perverted their position and their influence and had deliberately flouted the teachings of the Holy See about the nature and the constitution of the Catholic Church. And, when he declared that it is wrong to debate a point already decided by the Holy Father after that decision has been published in his "Acta," he was taking cognizance of and condemning an existent practice. There actually were individuals who were contradicting papal teachings. They were so numerous and influential that they rendered the composition of the Humani generis necessary to counteract their activities. These individuals were continuing to propose teachings repudiated by the Sovereign Pontiff in previous pronouncements. The Holy Father, then, was compelled by these circumstances to call for the cessation of debate among theologians on subjects which had already been decided by pontifical decisions published in the "Acta."
The kind of theological teaching and writing against which the encyclical Humani generis was directed was definitely not remarkable for its scientific excellence. It was, as a matter of fact, exceptionally poor from the scientific point of view. The men who were responsible for it showed very clearly that they did not understand the basic nature and purpose of sacred theology. For the true theologian the magisterium of the Church remains, as the Humani generis says, the immediate and universal norm of truth. And the teaching set forth by Pope Pius IX in his Tuas libenter is as true today as it always has been.
But when we treat of that subjection by which all Catholic students of speculative sciences are obligated in conscience so that they bring new aids to the Church by their writings, the men of this assembly ought to realize that it is not enough for Catholic scholars to receive and venerate the above-mentioned dogmas of the Church, but [they ought also to realize] that they must submit to the doctrinal decisions issued by the Pontifical Congregations and also to those points of doctrine which are held by the common and constant agreement of Catholics as theological truths and conclusions which are so certain that, even though the opinions opposed to them cannot be called heretical, they still deserve some other theological censure.[12]
It is definitely the business of the writer in the field of sacred theology to benefit the Church by what he writes. It is likewise the duty of the teacher of this science to help the Church by his teaching. The man who uses the shoddy tricks of minimism to oppose or to ignore the doctrinal decisions made by the Sovereign Pontiff and set down in his "Acta" is, in the last analysis, stultifying his position as a theologian. (The doctrinal Authority of Papal allocutions.)
Are there any further questions about the binding nature of what a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter places in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis?
Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton denounced "the shoddy tricks of minimism to ignore the doctrinal decisions made by the Sovereign Pontiff and set down his his 'Acta'."
4) The “resist while recognize” movement has reduced the papacy to little more than a political office that is “fair game” for dissent, open criticism and mockery;
5) The battle that is being fought at this time is about the integrity of the Catholic Faith, not about merely having access to a modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition;
6) Starting with an unremitting warfare against the very immutable nature of Divine Revelation, which is nothing other than an attack upon the very immutability of God Himself, the conciliar officials have made war upon true Catholic ecclesiology, reaffirmed non-Catholics in their false religions, taught that the Old Covenant was never abrogated even though this abrogation is a fact that has been taught from Apostolic times and reiterated many times, including most recently by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi, June 29, 1943, have publicly done things, such as esteeming the symbols of false religions with their own hands and participating in “inter-religious” “prayer” services, for which millions upon millions gave up their lives rather than even give the mere appearance of doing, have denied the irreformable teaching of the Social Reign of Christ the King both in theory and in fact having nothing to do to concessions made by our true popes to the regrettable state of things caused by the Protestant Revolution, dethroned the papacy in favor of “episcopal collegiality” and have proclaimed that members of false religions have a positive “right’ from God Himself to propagate their falsehoods;
7) Those who, in spite of this evidence, continue to insist on the falsehood that the Catholic Church has had “heretical popes,” have to reckon with Saint Robert Bellarmine's Defense of Popes Said to Have Erred in Faith and with the simple summary of Catholic truth as found in the readings for Matins in the Divine Office on the Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great, April 11:
When the Lord, as we read in the Evangelist, asked His disciples Who did men, amid their divers speculations, believe that He, the Son of Man, was; blessed Peter answered and said Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father, Which is in heaven and I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Thus therefore standeth the ordinance of the Truth, and blessed Peter, abiding still that firm rock which God hath made him, hath never lost that right to rule in the Church which God hath given unto him.
In the universal Church it is Peter that doth still say every day, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and every tongue which confesseth that Jesus is Lord is taught that confession by the teaching of Peter. This is the faith that overcometh the devil and looseth the bands of his prisoners. This is the faith which maketh men free of the world and bringeth them to heaven, and the gates of hell are impotent to prevail against it. With such ramparts of salvation hath God fortified this rock, that the contagion of heresy will never be able to infect it, nor idolatry and unbelief to overcome it. This teaching it is, my dearly beloved brethren, which maketh the keeping of this Feast to-day to be our reasonable service, even the teaching which maketh you to know and honour in myself, lowly though I be, that Peter who is still entrusted with the care of all other shepherds and of all the flocks to them committed, and whose authority I have, albeit unworthy to be his heir.
When, therefore, we address our exhortations to your godly ears, believe ye that ye are hearing him speak whose office we are discharging. Yea, it is with his love for you that we warn you, and we preach unto you no other thing than that which he taught, entreating you that ye would gird up the loins of your mind and lead pure and sober lives in the fear of God. My disciples dearly beloved, ye are to me, as the disciples of the Apostle Paul were to him, (Phil. iv. 1,) a crown and a joy, if your faith, which, in the first times of the Gospel, was spoken of throughout the whole world, Rom. i. 8, abide still lovely and holy. For, albeit it behoveth the whole Church which is spread throughout all the world, to be strong in righteousness, you it chiefly becometh above all other peoples to excel in worth and godliness, whose house is built upon the very crown of the Rock of the Apostle, and whom not only hath our Lord Jesus Christ, as He hath redeemed all men, but whom also His blessed Apostle Peter hath made the foremost object of his teaching. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, as found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)
Well, it is all there, isn’t it?
One must engage in all kinds of intellectual gymnastics to believe that the contagion of heresy is not rife within the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which is why all those who are not yet convinced of the truth of our ecclesiastical situation in this time of apostasy and betrayal should re-read these words:
This is the faith which maketh men free of the world and bringeth them to heaven, and the gates of hell are impotent to prevail against it. With such ramparts of salvation hath God fortified this rock, that the contagion of heresy will never be able to infect it, nor idolatry and unbelief to overcome it. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, as found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio has esteemed the symbols of idolaters. So have Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and “Saint John Paul II” before his own election as the head of the false conciliar sect on March 13, 2013, and Bergoglio has shown repeatedly that he has no belief in the integrity of the Catholic Faith. So have his predecessors in the past sixty-two and one-half years.
Dom Prosper Gueranger praised Pope Saint Leo the Great as follows in The Liturgical Year:
One of the grandest Saints in the Church’s Calendar is brought before us today. Leo, the Pontiff and Doctor, rises on the Paschal horizon, and calls for our admiration and love. As his name implies, he is the Lion of holy Church; thus representing, in his own person, one of the most glorious of our Lord’s titles. There have been twelve Popes who have had this name, and five of the number are enrolled in the catalogue of Saints; but not one of them has so honored the name as he whose feast we keep today: hence, he is called “Leo the Great.”
He deserved the appellation by what he did for maintaining the faith regarding the sublime mystery of the Incarnation. The Church had triumphed over the heresies that had attacked the dogma of the Trinity, when the gates of hell sought to prevail against the dogma of God having been made Man. Nestorius, a Bishop of Constantinople, impiously taught that there were two distinct Persons in Christ—the Person of the Divine Word, and the Person of Man. The Council of Ephesus condemned this doctrine, which, by denying the unity of Person in Christ, destroyed the true notion of the Redemption. A new heresy, the very opposite of that of Nestorianism, but equally subversive of Christianity, soon followed. The monk Eutyches maintained that, in the Incarnation, the Human Nature was absorbed by the Divine. The error was propagated with frightful rapidity. There was needed a clear and authoritative exposition of the great dogma, which is the foundation of all our hopes. Leo arose, and, from the Apostolic Chair, on which the Holy Ghost had placed him, proclaimed with matchless eloquence and precision the formula of the ancient faith—ancient, indeed, and ever the same, yet ever acquiring greater and fresher brightness. A cry of admiration was raised at the General Council of Chalcedon, which had been convened for the purpose of condemning the errors of Eutyches. “Peter,” exclaimed the Fathers, “Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo!” As we shall see further on, the Eastern Church has kept up the enthusiasm thus excited by the magnificent teachings given by Leo to the whole world.
The Barbarian hordes were invading the West; the Empire was little more than a ruin: and Attila, “the Scourge of God,“ was marching on towards Rome. Leo’s majestic bearing repelled the invasion, as his word had checked the ravages of heresy. The haughty king of the Huns, before whose armies the strongest citadels had fallen, granted an audience to the Pontiff on the banks of the Mincio, and promised to spare Rome. The calm and dignity of Leo—who thus unarmed confronted the most formidable enemy of the Empire and exposed his life for his flock—awed the barbarian, who afterwards told his people that, during the interview, he saw a venerable person standing, in an attitude of defense, by the side of Rome’s intercessor: it was the Apostle St. Peter. Attila not only admired, he feared the Pontiff. It was truly a sublime spectacle, and one that was full of meaning;—a Priest, with no arms save those of his character and virtues, forcing a king such as Attila was, to do homage to a devotedness which he could ill understand, and recognize, by submission, the influence of a power which had heaven on its side. Leo, single-handed and at once, did what it took the whole of Europe several ages to accomplish later on.
That the aureola of Leo’s glory might be complete, the Holy Ghost gifted him with an eloquence which, on account of its majesty and richness, might deservedly be called Papal. The Latin language had, at that time, lost its ancient vigor; but we frequently come across passages in the writings of our Saint which remind us of the golden age.
In exposing the dogmas of our holy Faith, he uses a style so dignified and so impregnated with the savor of sacred antiquity, that it seems made for the subject. He has several admirable Sermons on the Resurrection; and speaking of the present Season of the Liturgical Year, he says: “The days that intervened between our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension, were not days on which nothing was done: on the contrary, great were the Sacraments then confirmed, and great were the mysteries that were revealed.” (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, April 11, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)
“Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo.”
Yes, it is always Saint Peter who speaks through the mouth of a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.
Have the conciliar “popes” spoken truth or have they, quite instead, propagated falsehoods with ready abandon and made it appear as though their invocation of a “living tradition” and/or a “hermeneutic of continuity” can disguise their belief in the philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned Modernist precept of dogmatic evolutionism. Indeed, the conciliar revolution has degenerated to the point where some of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s “theologians” speak openly in support of dogmatic evolutionism without making any advertence whatsoever to the euphemisms used by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, or Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.
The devil, not Saint Peter, has spoken and continue to speak through the mouths of the current line of antipopes.
Dom Prosper Gueranger’s prayer to Pope Saint Leo the Great reminds us of what the constituent elements of a true pope, including integrity of doctrine, a hatred of error, and a pastoral zeal for the good of souls without flinching when approached by the mighty of this world such as Attila the Hun:
Glory be to thee, O Jesus, Lion of the Tribe of Juda! that hast raised up in thy Church a Lion to defend her in those dark times when holy Faith was most exposed to danger. Thou chargedst peter to confirm his Brethren; and we have seen Leo, in whom Peter lived, fulfill this office with sovereign authority. We have heard the acclamation of the holy Council which, in admiration at the heavenly teachings of Leo, proclaimed the signal favor thou conferredst on thy Flock, when thou badest Peter feed both Sheep and Lambs.
O holy Pontiff Leo! thou worthily didst represent Peter in his Chair, whence thy apostolic teaching ceased not to flow, ever beautiful in its truth and majesty. The Church of thine own day honoured thee as the great Teacher of Faith; and the Church of every succeeding age has recognised thee as one of the most learned Doctors and preachers of the divine Word. From thy throne in heaven, where now thou reignest, pour forth upon us the understanding of the great Mystery which thou wast called on to defend. Under thy inspired pen, this mystery grows clear; we see how sublimely it harmonizes with all other mysteries; and faith delights at gaining so close a view of the divine object of its belief. Oh! strengthen this faith within us. The Incarnate Word is blasphemed in these our own times; avenge his glory, by sending us men of thy zeal and learning.
Thou triumphedst over barbarian invaders: Attila acknowledged the influence of thy sanctity and eloquence by withdrawing his troops from the Christian land they infested. In these our days, there have risen up new barbarians—civilized barbarians, who would persuade us that religion should be eliminated from Education, and that the State, in its laws and institutions, should simply ignore our Lord Jesus Christ, the King to whom all power has been given, not only in heaven but on earth also. Oh! help us by thy powerful intercession, for our danger is extreme. Many are seduced, and are apostates while flattering themselves that they are still Christians. Pray that the light that is left within us may not be extinguished, and that the public scandals which now exist may be brought to an end. Attila was but a pagan; our modern statesmen and Governments are, or at least call themselves, Christians: have pity on them, and gain for them light to see the precipice to which they are hurrying society.
These days of Paschal Time must remind thee, holy Pontiff! of the Easters thou didst once spend, here on earth, when, surrounded by the Neophytes, thou gavest them the nourishment of thy magnificent Discourses: pray for the Faithful, who have this Easter, risen to a new life with Christ. What they most stand in need of is, a fuller and better knowledge of this their Saviour, in order that they may cling more closely to him, and persevere in his holy service. Thy prayers must get them this knowledge; by thy prayers, thou must teach them what he is both in his Divine and Human Nature: that, as God, he is their Last End, and their Judge after death; as Man, their Brother, their Redeemer, their Model. Bless, O Leo! and help the Pontiff who is now thy successor on the Chair of Peter. Show now thy love for that Rome, whose sacred and eternal destinies were so frequently the subject of thy glowing and heavenly eloquence. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, April 11.)
We can see very well—indeed, it is the subject for the next original article on this website—that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, far from opposing our modern Attila the Huns, is in full, not partial, “communion” with every socialist, globalist, environmentalist, statist, Communism, anti-life, pro-sodomite public official in the world, including Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and the man to whom he has sold out the long suffering Catholics of the underground church in Red China, Xi Jinping. Bergoglio does this while opposing those in public life who are ostensibly “pro-life” and stand for a defense of their countries’ national sovereignty as “enemies” of “social justice.” Bergoglio is far cry from Pope Saint Leo the Great, which is why we must continue to pray fervently, especially through Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary, for the restoration of a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter and end to the counterfeit church of conciliarism and its support one abject evil after another.
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
