On the Feast of Pope Saint Leo II

Despite the old lie about “heretical” popes that is accepted without question by almost everyone within the “resist while recognize” and/or “conservative” circles within the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Dom Prosper Gueranger, writing about Pope Leo II, whose feast is celebrated today, Thursday, July 3, 2025, within the Octaves of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and of  of Saints Peter and Paul, came to the defense of the truth that we have never had a “heretical” pope in the history of Holy Mother Church, a point that was discussed in some detail again recently in To Disobey a True Pope is to Disobey God Himself.

Pope Saint Leo II teaches us how a true pope fought heresy and even denounced his predecessor, Honorius, for his failure to combat it even though, as Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., pointed out in The Liturgical Year, Honorius had an otherwise irreproachable pontificate and could not be charged with being a heretic himself. His fault was political and administrative, not doctrinal, as Dom Prosper Gueranger explained in his disquisition about Pope Saint Leo II:

It were fitting that our attention should not be diverted, on this Vigil, from the august object which is occupying the Church in the preparation of her chants. But the triumph of Peter will shine out with all the more splendor in proportion as the testimony he rendered to the son of God is shown to have been maintained with all fidelity, during the long series of succeeding ages, by the Pontiffs, inheritors of his primacy. For a considerable time, the twenty-eighth of June was consecrated to the memory of Saint Leo the Great; it was the day chosen by Sergius I for the Translation of the illustrious Doctor, and indeed a more magnificent usher into tomorrow’s Solemnity could hardly be desired. From no other lips but his has Rome ever set forth, in such elevated language, the glories of these two Princes of the apostles and her own fame; never since the incomparable scene enacted at Cesarea Philippi, has the mystery of the Man-God been affirmed in manner so sublime, as on that day wherein the Church, striking the impious Eutyches at Chalcedon, received from Leo the immortal formula of Christian Dogma. Peter once more spoke by the mouth of Leo; yet far was the cause from being then ended: two centuries more were needed; and another Leo it was, even he whom we this day celebrate, who had the honor of ending it, at the Sixth Council.

The Spirit of God, ever watchful over the development of the sacred liturgy, by no means wished any change to be effected on this day in the train of thought of the faithful people. Thus when towards the beginning of the fourteenth century, the 11th of April was again assigned to Saint Leo I (for that was really the primitive place occupied by him on the cycle), Saint Leo II, the anniversary of whose death was this 28th of June, and who hitherto had been merely commemorated thereon, being now raised to the rank of a semi-double, came forward, as it were, to remind the Faithful of the glorious struggles maintained both by his predecessor and by himself, in the order of apostolic confession.

How was it that Saint Leo’s clear and complete exposition of the dogma and the anathemas of Chalcedon did not succeed in silencing the arguments of that heresy which refused to our nature its noblest title, by denying that it had been assumed in its integrity by the Divine Word? Because for Truth to win the day, it suffices not merely to expose the lie uttered by error. More than once, alas! history gives instances of the most solemn anathemas ending in nothing but lulling the vigilance of the guardians of the Holy City. The struggle seemed ended, the need of repose was making itself felt amidst the combatants, a thousand other matters called for the attention of the Church’s rulers; and so while feigning utmost deference, nay, ardor even, if needful, for the new enactments, error went on noiselessly, making profit of the silence which ensued after its defeat. Then did its progress become all the more redoubtable at the very time it was pretending to have disappeared without leaving a track behind.

Thanks, however, to the Divine Head, who never ceases to watch over his work, such trials as we have been alluding to, seldom reach to such a painful depth as that into which Leo II had to probe with steel and fire, in order to save the Church. Once only has the terrified world beheld anathema strike the summit of the holy mount. Honorius, placed on the pinnacle of the Church, “had not made her shine with the splendor of apostolic doctrine, but by profane treason, had suffered the faith, which should be spotless, to be exposed to subversion;” Leo II, therefore, sending forth his thunders, in unison with the assembled Church, against the new Eutychians and their accomplices, spared not even his predecessor. And yet, as all acknowledge, Honorius had otherwise been an irreproachable Pope; and even in the question at stake, he had been far from either professing heresy or teaching error. Wherein, then, did his fault lie?

The Emperor Heraclius, who, by victory had reached the height of power, beheld with much concern how division persistently lived on between the Catholics of his Empire and the late disciples of Eutyches. The Bishop of the Imperial City, the Patriarch Sergius, fostered these misgivings in his master’s mind. Vain of a certain amount of political skill which he fancied himself to possess, he now aimed at re-establishing, by his sole effort, that unity which the Council of Chalcedon and Saint Leo the Great had failed to obtain; thus would he make himself a name. The disputants agreed in acknowledging two Natures in Jesus Christ; hence to reply to these advances of theirs, one thing were needed, thought he, viz., to impose silence on the question as to whether there are him Him two Wills or only one. The enthusiasm with which this evident compromise was hailed by the various sects rebellious to the Fourth General Council showed well enough that they still preserved and hallowed all the venom of error; and the very fact of their denying, or (which came practically to the same thing) hesitating to acknowledge that in the Man-God there is any other Will than that proper to the Divine Nature, was equivalent to declaring that He had assumed but a semblance of Human Nature, since this Nature could by no means exist devoid of that Will which is proper to It. Therefore, the Monophysites, or partisans of the one Nature in Christ, made no difficulty in henceforth being called by the name of Monothelites, or partisans of the one Will. Sergius, the apostle of this novel unity, might well congratulate himself; Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, hailed with one accord the benefit of this “peace.” Was not the whole East here represented in her patriarchates? If Rome in her turn would but acquiesce, the triumph would be complete! Jerusalem, however, proved a jarring note in this strange concert.

Jerusalem, the witness of the anguish suffered by the Man-God in his Human Nature, had heard him cry out in the Garden of His Agony: Father, if it be possible, let this Chalice pass from me; yet, not My Will, but Thine be done! The City of dolors knew better than any other what to hold concerning these two Wills brought there face to face, yet which had, by the heroism of Incomparable Love, been maintained in such full harmony; the time for her to bear testimony was come. The Monk Sophronius, now her bishop, was by his sanctity, courage, and learning, up to the mark for the task that lay before him. But while, in the charity of his soul, he was seeking to reclaim Sergius, before appearing against him to the Roman Pontiff, the bishop of Constantinople already took the initiative; he succeeded thus, by a hypocritical letter, in circumventing Honorius, and in getting him to impose silence on the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Hence, when at last, Saint Sophronius, at the head of the bishops of his province assembled in council, thought it had become a positive duty on his own part to turn towards Rome, it was but to receive for answer a confirmation of the prohibition to disturb the peace. Woeful mistake! yet withal, it by no means directly implicated the Infallible Magistracy; it was a measure exclusively political, but one which was, all the same, to cost bitter tears and much blood to the Church, and was to result, fifty years later, in the condemnation of the unfortunate Honorius.

The Holy Ghost, indeed, who has guaranteed the infallible purity of the doctrine flowing officially from the Apostolic Chair, has not pledged himself to protect in a like degree, from all failure, either the virtue, or the private judgment, or even the administrative acts of the Sovereign Pontiff. Entering into the views of this marvellous solidarity which the Creator made to reign both upon earth and in heaven, the Man-God, when he founded the society of saints upon the authentic and immutable basis of the Faith of Peter, willed that to the prayers of all should be confided the charge of completing his work, by obtaining for the successors of Peter such preservative graces as do not of themselves necessarily spring from the divine Constitution of the Church.

Meanwhile Mahomet was just letting loose his hordes upon the world. Heraclius was now to learn the worth of his Patriarch’s lying peace, and was to come down lower in shame than he had been exalted in glory by his victories over the Persians, in the days when he had acted as the hero of the Cross. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt fell simultaneously beneath the blows of the lieutenants of the Prophet. Sophronius, placed as he was in the very midst of the scene of invasion, grew still greater under trial. Abandoned by the emperor, where the defense of the empire was at stake, disavowed by Rome, as regarded Faith, he alone intrepidly treated with Omar, as power opposed to power; and when about to die, still hoping against all hope in Rome, though thence had come a blow harder far to bear than that of the Caliph, he confided to Stephen of Dora the supreme, which the latter thus relates: “In his justice strong as a lion, contemning calumnies and intrigues, blessed Sophronius took me, unworthy as I am, and conducted me to the sacred spot of Calvary. There he bound me by an indissoluble engagement, in these words: Thou shalt have to render account to him who being God was voluntarily crucified for us according to the Flesh on this spot, when on the day of his terrible Coming he will appear in glory to judge the living and the dead, if thou defer or neglect the interests of his Faith now in peril. Well knowest thou, that I cannot in the body do this thing, being hindered by the incursion of the Saracens which our sins have deserved. But do thou set out as soon as possible, and go from these confines of the earth unto the furthest extremity, until thou reach the See Apostolic, there where are set the foundations of orthodox dogma. Go again and again, not once, not twice, but endlessly, and make known to the holy personages who reside in that place, the shock that these lands of ours have sustained. Importunately, ceaselessly, implore and supplicate, until Apostolic prudence at length determine, by its canonical judgment, the victory over these perfidious teachings.”

The Bishop of Dora was faithful to the behest of Sophronius. When, twelve years later, he gave this touching narrative at the Council of Lateran in 649, it was then the third time that despite the snares and other difficulties of the times, he could say: “We have taken the wings of a dove, as David speaks, and we have come to declare our situation to this See, elevated in the sight of all, this sovereign, this principal See, where is to be found remedy for the wound that has been made upon us.” Saint Martin I, who received this appeal, was one worthy to hear it; and soon afterwards he repaired by his own martyrdom the fault committed by Honorius, in suffering himself to be tricked by an impostor. His glorious death, followed by the tortures endured for the Truth by the saintly Abbot Maximus and his companions, prepared the victory which the heroic faith of Sophronius had announced to the Roman Pontiff. Admirable was this amends received by Holy Church for an odious silence: now were Her Doctors to be seen, with tongue plucked out, still continuing by divine power to proclaim that Christian dogma which cannot be enchained; still with lopped off hands, finding means, in their indomitable zeal, to affix to the mutilated arm the pen whose function, now made doubly glorious, continued thus to carry throughout the world the refutation of falsehood. 

But it is time to come to the issue of this memorable contest. It is to be found in him whose feast we are this day celebrating. Saint Agatho had assembled the sixth General Council at Constantinople, at the request of another Constantine, an enemy of heresy and a victor over Islam. Faith and justice now did the work, hand in hand; and Saint Leo II could at last sing aloud: “O holy Mother Church, put off thy garb of mourning, and deck thee in robes of gladness. Exult now with joyous confidence: thy liberty is not cramped.” (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Pope Saint Leo II, July 3.)

Pope Saint Leo II fought against falsehood.

The conciliar "popes" have embraced it just as they have taught false moral theological concepts to justify their indemnification of Catholic pro-aborts in public life.

The papacy is a subject for our veneration, not mockery and scorn, something that Dom Prosper Gueranger pointed out in his reflection for July 6, the Octave of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul:

Firmly resting upon Peter, the Church turns to him whom the Spouse has given to be her Head, and testifies to him no less veneration and love, than obedience and fidelity; such is the craving of her gratitude. Moreover she is fully aware of what is thus expressed by St. Peter Damian (or as others say by a disciple of St. Bernard), “none may pretend to intimacy with our Lord, unless he be intimate with Peter.” How admirable is this unity in God’s advance towards his creature! but, at the same time, how absolute is the law of the creature’s progress to the Life Divine. God is not found, save in Jesus; nor Jesus, save in the Church; nor the Church, save in Peter. If you had known Me, said Christ, you would, without doubt, have known my Father also; but the Jews sought God, outside of Jesus, and their efforts were vain. Since then, others have come, wanting to find Jesus, while setting aside his Church; but that which God has joined, what man shall put asunder? So these men, running after a Christ, a phantom of their own conceptions, have found neither Jesus Christ nor his Church. In fine, others are sons of the Church, yet they persuade themselves that in those pastures where, by right, the soul may feed upon God, they have none to seek, save the divine Shepherd, who dwells in heaven. By the very fact of his having committed to another, the care of feeding both lambs and sheep, Jesus seems to have had quite a different view; for these words imply, not only some, either mere beginners and the imperfect, or the strong and saints, but all, little and great, whom the heavenly Shepherd confided to Simon-Barjona, to be, by him, fed, directed, advanced, and guarded.

O thou soul that hungerest after God, go to Peter; think not, otherwise, to appease thy cravings. Formed in the school of the holy Liturgy, thou hast surely no part with such as neglect the Humanity, as they say (speaking of Mary’s Divine Son), in order to come all the more assuredly to the word; but in like manner take care, thou also, not to turn God’s Vicar into an obstacle in thy path. Jesus longs for the blissful meeting, even as thou dost; be certain, therefore, that what he places between thee and himself, on the way, is no obstacle, but a help. Just as in the adorable Eucharist, the sacred species are but to point out to thee where he is whom, of thyself, thou couldst never find here below; so too the mystery of Peter has no other end but this, to show thee with absolute certainty He Who resides for thee in the Divine Sacrament, in his proper substance, resides also for thee, in his authority and infallible guidance. These two mysteries complete one another; they walk hand in hand an will both cease at the same moment,—at the moment when our eyes may gaze at last directly upon Jesus; but, from now till then, the Church sees herein not so much an intermediary or a veil, as the most precious Sign of the invisible Spouse. Therefore, wonder not, if the homage she pays to Peter seems to rival that which she bestows on the Sacred Host; in her multiplied genuflections which she makes before both, she is indeed adoring; adoring not that man, it is true, whom we see seated on the apostolic throne, nor yet the mere species perceived by our senses on the altar; but, adoring, in both instances, the same Jesus, who is silent in the Eucharistic Sacrament, and who speaks and commands in his Vicar.

Further still, she knows that Peter alone can give her the Sacred Host. Baptism which makes us to be sons of God, and all the sacraments which multiply the divine energies within us, are a treasure which he alone has license to dispose of legitimately, either by himself or by others. It is his word, throughout the world, that, in every grade of authorized teaching, gives birth within souls to faith, the beginning of salvation, and develops it from these humble commencements right up to the luminous summits of sanctity. And because, on the mountain heights, the life of the Evangelical counsels of the chosen garden reserved to himself by the Spouse, Peter must needs likewise claim as his own, the guidance and protection, in a more special manner, of religious communities, for he is wishful to be always able himself to offer directly to Jesus, the fairest flowers of that holiness of which his exalted ministry is the very principle and support. Thus sanctified, to Peter again, does the Church address herself, when she would learn in what way to approach her Spouse, in her worship; she says to him, as heretofore, the disciples said to Our Lord: Teach us to pray, and Peter, animated with what he knows so well of the gorgeous pomp of worship in the heavenly country, regulates for us here below the sacred ceremonial, and dictates to the Bride herself the theme of her songs. Lastly, who but Peter can add to her holiness, those other marks of unity, catholicity, and apostolicity, which are, in face of the whole world, her irrefragable right and title to the throne and to the love of the son of God.

If we are truly sons of the Church, if in very deed it is from the heart of our Mother, that we draw our sentiments, let us well understand what should be our gratitude, respectful love, tender confidence, and utter devotedness of our whole being, towards him from whom, by the sweet Will of God, come all these good things. Peter, in his own person and in that of his successors, specially in him who in these our own days bears the weight of the whole world and our burdens also, ought to be the constant object of our filial reverence and homage. His glories, his sufferings, his thoughts should become ours. Forget not that He of whom the Roman Pontiff is visible Representative, has willed that every one of his members should have their invisible share in the government of his Church; the responsibility of each one in a point of such major importance, is clearly indicated in the great duty of prayer, which in God’s sight is of more value than action, and which is rendered by love, stronger than hell. Then, there is that other strict duty of alms-deeds, whereby we are obliged to come to the relief of the indigent, even of our humblest brother: if so, can we deem ourselves free with regard to the Bishop and Father of our souls, when unjust spoliation makes him know, in the necessities of his immense administration, cramping want and difficulty? Happy they who to the tribute of gold, may be allowed to add that of blood! but all are not granted such an honor!

On this, the last day of the Octave consecrated to the triumph of these two Princes of the Apostles, let us, once again, salute the city which was witness of their final combat. She is guardian of their tombs and continues to be the the See of Peter’s successors; by this double title, she is the vestibule of heaven, the capital of the spiritual empire. The very thought of the august trophies that adorn both banks of her noble river, and of all those other glorious memories that linger around her, made the heart of St. John Chrysostom exult with enthusiasm, beneath his eastern sky. We give his words as addressed to the people, in one of his Homilies: “In very deed, the heavens illumined by the fiery rays of the meridian sun, have naught comparable to Rome’s resplendent rays shed over the whole earth by these two luminaries of hers. Thence will Paul arise, thence Peter likewise. Reflect, yea tremble, at the thought of what a spectacle Rome is to witness, when Peter and Paul rising up from their graves, shall be borne aloft to meet the Lord. How brilliant in her roseate hue is Rome before the eyes of Christ! What garlands encircle this city! With what golden chains is she girded! What fountains are hers! Oh! this city of stupendous fame! I admire her, not because of the gold wherewith she abounds, nor because of her proud porticoes, but because she holds within her these two Pillars of the Church.” Then the illustrious orator goes on to remark how he burnt with longing desire to visit these sacred tombs, the treasure of the world, the secure rampart of the queen-city.

In these our own days, the bishops of God’s Church are bound by law to come at fixed intervals, from their various dioceses, throughout the world, to visit the basilicas raised over the precious remains of Peter and Paul; like this latter, they too must needs come and see Peter, still living in the Pontiff, his successor in the primacy. Although simple Christians are not subject to the same obligation to which bishops are bound by oath, yet ought every true Catholic frequently to visit in thought, at least, these blessed hills, whence flow the streams of salvation that divide and carry their waters over the whole world. One of the most consoling symptoms, at the present sad time, is the visible stir which is evidently taking hold of the masses, and urging them to the Eternal City. A movement, which must be encouraged as much as possible, because it is a return to the wisest traditions of our forefathers; and in these days the facility for such a pilgrimage, once in a lifetime, is so great, that few or none would thereby undergo any serious inconvenience, as regards either their family or social position.

But if some there be who really cannot apply to themselves in this literal sense these words of the Psalm: “I have rejoiced at the things that have been said to me, we shall go into the House of the Lord;” let them, at least, make these sentiments of true spiritual patriotism their own, and more so than did the Jews of yore: “May there be abundance for them that love thee, O true Jerusalem! Let peace be in thy strength and abundance in thy towers. For the sake of my brethren who are in thee, this is my prayer: yea this is my prayer, because thou art the house of the Lord our God.” (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Octave of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, July 6.)

The See of Peter is our safeguard against doctrinal impurity just as it is the rock that guarantees fidelity in all that pertains to Faith and Morals, and it is offensive to the very Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church to even suggest that there can be a “loyal opposition” to the one who is Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s very vicar here on earth.

I have long contended that the worst enemies of believing Catholics when the “loving” and so very “tolerant” merchants of the slaughter of the innocent preborn and apologists for all that is indecent, impure and hideous in the sight of the Most Blessed Trinity control all three branches of the Federal government of the United States of America launch their overt schemes of persecution against us that believing Catholics will be fingered by the Bergoglian “bishops,” who will serve as the apologists for and cheerleaders of our own show trials to eradicate all dissent from the prevailing cultural agenda of evil.

We must take seriously the following words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that are contained in Chapter Ten of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew:

Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. [17] But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. [18] And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles: [19] But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. [20] For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.

[21] The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. [22] And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. [23] And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come. [24] The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. [25] It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?

[26] Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. [27] That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops. [28] And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. [29] Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. [30] But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

[31] Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows. [32] Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. [33] But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. [34] Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. [35] For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

[36] And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. [37] He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. [38] And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. [39] He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. [40] He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me.

[41] He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive the reward of a prophet: and he that receiveth a just man in the name of a just man, shall receive the reward of a just man. [42] And whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. (Matthew 10: 16-40.)

We must never fear to proclaim the truths of the Holy Faith, especially as the time of the Roman caesars and their persecution of believing Catholics has returned, this time with the full support and enabling of a putative Successor of Saint Peter and many of his equally putative clergy.

We must always remember that this is the time that God has appointed from all eternity for us to live and thus to sanctify and to save our immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church. The graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flows into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, are sufficient for us to handle whatever crosses—personal, social, and ecclesiastical—that we are asked to carry.

We must always give thanks to God for each of our crosses as we seek to serve Him through Our Lady in this time of apostasy and betrayal, making sure to pray our Rosaries of reparation as we give unto the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary the fruits of all our efforts to restore all things in Him, Christ the King.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us. 

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Pope Saint Leo II, pray for us.

Appendix A

“Cardinal” Ratzinger’s Endorsement of Dogmatic Evolutionism

1990: "The text [of the document Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation] also presents the various types of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms - perhaps for the first time with this clarity - that there are decisions of the magisterium that cannot be the last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. The nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times influenced, may need further correction.

In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century [19th century] about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time [on evolutionism]. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from falling into the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they became obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at their proper time." (Joseph Ratzinger, "Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation," published with the title "Rinnovato dialogo fra Magistero e Teologia," in L'Osservatore Romano, June 27, 1990, p. 6, cited at Card. Ratzinger: The teachings of the Popes against Modernism are obsolete)

Appendix B

“Cardinal” Ratzinger’s Rehabilitation of Antonio Rosmini and Endorsement of the Nestorian Canon that Omits Words of Consecration

(Excerpted from “It is Never Advisable to Die as the Former Leader of a False Religion, part three)

To wit, as a prelude to antipapal “beatification” of Father Antonio Rosmini-Serbati in 2007, Joseph “Cardinal” Ratzinger saw fit to, in essence, claim that Pope Leo XIII had been mistaken on December 14, 1887, to confirm and approve the Holy Office’s condemnation forty of Rosmini-Serbati’s errors, a list of which can be found on pages 475 to 480 of Monsignor Henry Denziger’s The Sources of Catholic Dogma (Thirteenth Edition of Henry Denizger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum) that was published in the United States of America by B. Herder Books in 1957.

Yesterday’s condemned propositions can be rehabilitated very simply by rejecting Thomism and claiming that it is “impossible” to express dogmatic truth adequately at any particular time because of the influences of historical circumstances and the vagaries of human language.

Rosmini’s rehabilitation in 2001 was merely a prelude to his “beatification,” which occurred on November 18, 2007, after his cause had been approved by the man who rehabilitated him, Ratzinger/Benedict:

The events following Rosmini's death required a certain distancing of the Church from his system of thought and, in particular, from some of its propositions. It is necessary to consider the principal historical-cultural factors that influenced this distancing which culminated in the condemnation of the "40 Propositions" of the Decree Post obitum of 1887.

The first factor is the renewal of ecclesiastical studies promoted by the Encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879) of Leo XIII, in the development of fidelity to the thought of St Thomas Aquinas. The Papal Magisterium saw the need to foster Thomism as a philosophical and theoretical instrument, aimed at offering a unifying synthesis of ecclesiastical studies, above all in the formation of priests in seminaries and theological faculties, in order to oppose the risk of an eclectic philosophical approach. The adoption of Thomism created the premises for a negative judgement of a philosophical and speculative position, like that of Rosmini, because it differed in its language and conceptual framework from the philosophical and theological elaboration of St Thomas Aquinas.

A second factor to keep in mind is the fact that the condemned propositions were mostly extracted from posthumous works of the author. These works were published without a critical apparatus capable of defining the precise meaning of the expressions and concepts used. This favoured a heterodox interpretation of Rosminian thought, as did the objective difficulty of interpreting Rosmini's categories, especially, when they were read in a neo-Thomistic perspective. (Note on the Force of the Doctrinal Decrees Concerning the Thought and Work of Fr Antonio Rosmini Serbati.)

There are two things that stand out in this passage of the "note" reversing Pope Leo XIII's condemnation of the propositions of Father Antonio Rosmini.

First, "Cardinal Ratzinger," with the full approval and "papal" benediction of John Paul II, essentially said that Pope Leo XIII was too stupid to understand the complexity of Rosmini's admittedly ambiguous work, leading to that pontiff's misunderstanding of that work. Ratzinger's contention was that the "misunderstanding" served the Church well at the time as, in essence, most other people would have come to the same conclusions as they lacked the "tools" to unlock the "true" meaning hidden deep within Rosmini's words. Ratzinger, of course, had those "tools" at his disposal, most fortunately for the cause of conciliar "truth," you understand.

In other words, Father Rosmini’s posthumously published works that were condemned by the Holy Office under the authority of Pope Leo XIII on December 14, 1887, were “victimized” by the very Thomism that Ratzinger himself had long believed was to “crystal clear” and “too logical” to be of any real use to examine such a “profound” thinker as Father Antonio Rosmini Serbati. Pope Leo XIII was wrong, Ratzinger believed, to have place such an emphasis on what he, Ratzinger, dismissed as the “school of thought” of Saint Thomas Aquinas..)

A review of Rosmini’s propositions as condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1887 leads one to recognize very readily that the likes of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his own predecessor, “Saint John Paul the Great,” who praised Rosmini as a “great thinker” in Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1998, had a profound kinship with a fellow traveler in the belief that religious faith just kind of “springs up” from within one’s inner consciousness. Indeed, the very first through fourth of Rosmini’s proposition condemned by the Holy Office in 1887 contain germs, if you will, of this cornerstone of Modernism:

1. In the order of created things there is immediately manifested to the human intellect something of the divine in its very self, namely, such as pertains to divine nature.

2. When we speak of the divine in nature, we do not use the word divine to signify a nondivine effect of a divine cause; nor, is it our mind to speak of a certain thing as divine because it is such through participation.

3. In the nature of the universe, then, that is in the intelligences that are in it, there is something to which the term of divine not in a figurative but in a real sense is fitting.–The actuality is not distinct from the est of divine actuality.

4. Indeterminate being, which without doubt is known to all intelligences, is that divine thing which is manifest to man in nature.

5. Being, which man observes, must be something of the necessary and eternal being, the creating cause, the determining and final cause of all contingent beings: and this is God.

6. In the being which prescinds from creatures and from God, which is indeterminate being, and in God, not indeterminate but absolute being, the essence is the same.

7. The indeterminate being of intuition, initial being, is something of the Word, which the mind of the Father distinguishes, not really, but according to reason from the Word. (As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, Nos. 2183-2185, pp. 475-476. A very good analysis of Rosmini’s propositions was written well over a decade over now by the late, militantly antisedevacantist writer, Mr. James Larson: The Rosmini Rehabilitation – When To Be is Not To Be. Those who believe that a true pope can be in error and is need of “correction” from members of the laity, however, have to realize that such a position is false. Pope Leo XIII made this very clear in EPISTOLA TUA, June 17, 1885, and EST SANE MOLESTUM,  December 17, 1888. To “be” a true pope one must be a Catholic, and to be a Catholic means that one cannot defect from even a single tenet of the Holy Faith. Not one.  See also Bishop Sanborn’s response to Bp. Williamson on Sedevacantism.)

Conciliarism’s embrace of propositions condemned by Holy Mother Church as the circumstances of time required was noted by an “ultra-progessive” conciliar revolutinonary, “Father” Gregory Baum, S.J., shortly after “Cardinal” Ratzinger’s “rehabilitation” of Father Antonio Rosmini-Serbati’s propositions was promulgated on July 1, 2001:

Today the situation is different. First, according to Ratzinger, serious research has shown that if Rosmini’s ambiguous and obscure passages are interpreted in the light of his own philosophical work, which is, of course, the only honest way of reading a philosophical text, then their meaning is not contrary to the Catholic tradition. Second, in his encyclical Faith and Reason of 1998, John Paul II has welcomed philosophical pluralism in the church and, in fact, mentioned with great respect Antonio Rosmini among several Catholic thinkers of the 19th century. That is why, at the present time, lifting the condemnations decreed in 1887 is justified.

The nota of July 2001 is an important ecclesiastical document because it applies the historical-critical method to the understanding of the magisterium. Yet has Ratzinger’s “attentive reading” demonstrated that lifting the condemnation does not involve the magisterium in an internal contradiction? I do not think so.

He has shown that the condemnation of Rosmini’s propositions in 1887 was justified in terms of the church’s pastoral policy and hence could be lifted without inconsistency later. Yet he does not raise the truth question. The readers of the condemnation of 1886 were made to believe that these propositions were erroneous: They were not told that they were erroneous only when read from a neo-Thomist perspective and that their true meaning should not be pursued at that time because Pope Leo XIII wanted neo-Thomism to become the church’s official philosophy.

The nota demonstrates that the condemnation of 1886 exercised a useful ecclesiastical function, not that it was true. Ratzinger’s explanation reveals that the Holy Office showed no respect for the truth at all. Its intentions were tactical and political. The Holy Office at that time saw itself as a servant of the church’s central government and judged ideas in terms of their ecclesiastical implications, not their truth.

Still, the nota is an important document since it is the first time an ecclesiastical statement wrestles with a question that has troubled Catholics for a long time. How are we to interpret apparent contradictions in the magisterium?

Here is a famous example. In the bull Unam Sanctam of 1302, Pope Boniface VIII wrote these words: “We declare, we set forth, we define that submission to the Roman pontiff is necessary for the salvation of any human creature.” And the Council of Florence solemnly declared in 1442 that outside the Catholic church there is no salvation, neither for heretics nor schismatics, even if they should live holy lives or shed their blood in the name of Christ. Vatican Council II appeared to proclaim an entirely different doctrine. We read in Gaudium et Spes that since Christ has died for all humans and since the destiny of humanity is one, we are to hold that, in a manner known to God, participation in the mystery of redemption is offered to every human being.

We are bound to ask with Ratzinger whether there is an internal contradiction in the magisterium. Were the solemn declarations of Boniface VIII and the Council of Florence wrong? The words of Boniface were so emphatic, “we declare, we set forth, we define,” that the reader may wonder whether Vatican Council II has made a mistake. At the same time, the declarations of Boniface and the cardinals in attendance at the Council of Florence were hard to reconcile with the teaching of the Church Fathers of the second and third centuries who believed that God’s redemptive Word, incarnate in Christ, was operative wherever people sought the truth. There may have been good church-political reasons for Boniface and the cardinals of the Council of Florence to make these harsh declarations, yet — I would argue — these declarations were wrong. The magisterium has made mistakes. The church, guided by the Spirit, is forever learning.

Ratzinger’s document has sent theologians off into a new area of research. (Ratzinger explains how condemnation was right then, wrong now)

Left unaddressed by Baum’s analysis is the simple fact that the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, cannot contradict Himself. Alas, those impressed with Georg Hegel and Teilhard de Chardin and Hans Urs von Balthasar believe, at least minimally, that the “Spirit” can contradict Himself as men grasp to understand “Him” better over time. Pure Modernism, of course.

Baum’s “analysis,” although supportive of conciliarism, is nevertheless interesting because it does raise the issue of contradiction. Yes, those of us who have come to realize that the conciliar church is not the Catholic Church and that its “magisterium” has no authority to contradict anything taught by the Catholic Church realize that the “overturning” of Pope Leo XIII’s 1887 condemnation of forty of Antonio Rosmini’s propositions by Joseph Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on July 1, 2001, has no binding force whatsoever. It is always useful, however, when true conciliar revolutionaries such as Gregory Baum point out the plain truth that “contradiction” can be part of the Faith, an important component element of the Modernist mind.

Then again, you see, Father Antonio Rosmini-Serbati was, apart from providing a useful justification of the conciliar revolutionaries’ embrace of Modernism, an apostle to the poor, and that, according to the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his comrades is all that is needed to save one’s soul. They really do believe that “outside the poor there is no salvation” just as much as they reject the Catholic doctrine of outside the Church there is no salvation (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus).

To attack the nature of dogmatic truth is to attack the nature of God, and to do that is to attack His very existence and that He has revealed anything so definitive that cannot be understood differently by different generations as befits supposedly different “circumstances” in which men live, and this is how the conciliar revolutionaries can “redefine” Original Sin and Special Creation and thus come to put the lower species, plants and inert matter on the plane of equality with the human being. To “redefine” life is to debase man as the zenith of God’s creative work and thus to debase Our Lord, the Incarnate Word, and His Redemptive Act on the wood of the Holy Cross as being nothing other than an expression of “love” that had nothing to do with paying back the debt of Adam’s sin. (A detailed examination of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s careerlong obscuring of the doctrine of Original Sin is appended below.)

Rosmini’s rehabilitation in 2001 was merely a prelude to his “beatification,” which occurred on November 18, 2007, after his cause had been approved by the man who rehabilitated him, Ratzinger/Benedict.

Similarly, none other than that great “restorer of Tradition,” used his variation of the historical-critical method to accept the Assyrian Church of the East’s Anaphora of Addai and Mari of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East that does not contain any actual words of consecration within its text. The fact that this Anaphora, which was rejected by the authority of the Catholic Church in the Sixteenth Century when the Chaldeans (the former Nestorians) were reunited with Rome and once again in 1902 when news reached Rome that many priests of the Chaldean Rite were still using the old Assyrian Anaphora of Addai and Mari without the words of consecration. Nonetheless, however the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, who was one very busy little ecclesiastical termite in the years prior to his "election" on April 19, 2005, used the exact same false methodology in this instance as he had when he rehabilitated Rosmini-Serbati:

The principal issue for the Catholic Church in agreeing to this request, related to the question of the validity of the Eucharist celebrated with the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, one of the three Anaphoras traditionally used by the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East. The Anaphora of Addai and Mari is notable because, from time immemorial, it has been used without a recitation of the Institution Narrative. As the Catholic Church considers the words of the Eucharistic Institution a constitutive and therefore indispensable part of the Anaphora or Eucharistic Prayer, a long and careful study was undertaken of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, from a historical, liturgical and theological perspective, at the end of which the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith on January 17th, 2001 concluded that this Anaphora can be considered valid. H.H. Pope John Paul II has approved this decision. This conclusion rests on three major arguments.

In the first place, the Anaphora of Addai and Mari is one of the most ancient Anaphoras, dating back to the time of the very early Church; it was composed and used with the clear intention of celebrating the Eucharist in full continuity with the Last Supper and according to the intention of the Church; its validity was never officially contested, neither in the Christian East nor in the Christian West.

Secondly, the Catholic Church recognises the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East as a true particular Church, built upon orthodox faith and apostolic succession. The Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East has also preserved full Eucharistic faith in the presence of our Lord under the species of bread and wine and in the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. In the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, though not in full communion with the Catholic Church, are thus to be found "true sacraments, and above all, by apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist" (U.R., n. 15). Secondly, the Catholic Church recognises the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East as a true particular Church, built upon orthodox faith and apostolic succession. The Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East has also preserved full Eucharistic faith in the presence of our Lord under the species of bread and wine and in the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. In the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, though not in full communion with the Catholic Church, are thus to be found "true sacraments, and above all, by apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist" (U.R., n. 15).

Finally, the words of Eucharistic Institution are indeed present in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, not in a coherent narrative way and ad litteram, but rather in a dispersed euchological way, that is, integrated in successive prayers of thanksgiving, praise and intercession.

4. Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist

Considering the liturgical tradition of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, the doctrinal clarification regarding the validity of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, the contemporary context in which both Assyrian and Chaldean faithful are living, the appropriate regulations which are foreseen in official documents of the Catholic Church, and the process of rapprochement between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, the following provision is made:

1. When necessity requires, Assyrian faithful are permitted to participate and to receive Holy Communion in a Chaldean celebration of the Holy Eucharist; in the same way, Chaldean faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, are permitted to participate and to receive Holy Communion in an Assyrian celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

2. In both cases, Assyrian and Chaldean ministers celebrate the Holy Eucharist according to the liturgical prescriptions and customs of their own tradition.

3. When Chaldean faithful are participating in an Assyrian celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the Assyrian minister is warmly invited to insert the words of the Institution in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, as allowed by the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East.

4. The above considerations on the use of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari and the present guidelines for admission to the Eucharist, are intended exclusively in relation to the Eucharistic celebration and admission to the Eucharist of the faithful from the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, in view of the pastoral necessity and ecumenical context mentioned above.

Rome, July 20th, 2001 Guidelines for Chaldean Catholics receiving the Eucharist in Assyrian Churches

This was pure positivism as to say that the words of consecration are implicitly present in a supposed “institute narrative” when they are not there are all is to stand reality on its hand.

Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did not consider himself bound by anything about the preconciliar era that he found “troubling” even though those “troubles” had been issued by Holy Mother Church’s general councils and/or by individual popes in the course of their ordinary magisterium. Ratzinger/Benedict thus made short work of both papal infallibility and of Holy Mother’s absolute immunity form error and heresy that was summarized as follows by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:

Not least among the blessings which have resulted from the public and legitimate honor paid to the Blessed Virgin and the saints is the perfect and perpetual immunity of the Church from error and heresy. (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.)

The Catholic Church is incapable of being touched by any kind of error, no less heresy, yes, even in her Universal Ordinary Magisterium.

Who says so?

None other than the late Alfred Cardinal Ottaviani, who was the Pro-Secretary of the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII from January 15, 1953, to the time of the last true pontiff''s death on October 9, 1958.

Yes, that's who, well at least that's one who taught us this fact.

Using the teaching of Pope Pius XII about the binding nature of papal encyclical letters as the starting point for his treatise, Cardinal Ottaviani explained that no Catholic may put into question, no less reject, a pronouncement of a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.

The principal target of Cardinal Ottaviani's treatise was, of course, none other than Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., the infamous proponent of the heresy of "religious liberty" that wound up being enshrined in the "Second" Vatican Council's Dignitatis Humanae, December 7, 1965.

Father Murray argued that papal pronouncements on matters pertaining to the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, especially condemnations of religious liberty and separation of Church and State, were merely "transitory" or, more accurately, had "transitory elements" and were thus subject to be "reformed." Murray's boldness in this regard was so open that Alfred Cardinal Ottaviani, saw fit to confront Murray's assertions without any kind of equivocation:

Here the problem presents itself of how the Church and the lay state are to live together. Some Catholics are propagating ideas with regard to this point which are not quite correct. Many of these Catholics undoubtedly love the Church and rightly intend to find a mode of possible adaptation to the circumstances of the times. But it is none the less true that their position reminds one of that of the faint-hearted soldier who wants to conquer without fighting, or of that of the simple, unsuspecting person who accepts a hand, treacherously held out to him, without taking account of the fact that this hand will subsequently pull him across the Rubicon towards error and injustice.

The first mistake of these people is precisely that of not accepting fully the "arms of truth" and the teaching which the Roman Pontiffs, in the course of this last century, and in particular the reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, by means of encyclicals, allocutions and instructions of all kinds, have given to Catholics on this subject.

To justify themselves, these people affirm that, in the body of teaching given in the Church, a distinction must be made between what is permanent and what is transitory, this latter being due to the influence of particular passing conditions. Unfortunately, however, they include in this second zone the principles laid down in the Pontifical documents, principles on which the teaching of the Church has remained constant, as they form part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine.

In this matter, the pendulum theory, elaborated by certain writers in an attempt to sift the teaching set forth in Encyclical Letters at different times, cannot be applied. "The Church," it has been written, "takes account of the rhythm of the world's history after the fashion of a swinging pendulum which, desirous of keeping the proper measure, maintains its movement by reversing it when it judges that it has gone as far as it should.... From this point of view a whole history of the Encyclicals could be written. Thus in the field of Biblical studies, the Encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, comes after the Encyclicals Spiritus Paraclitus and Providentissimus.  In the field of Theology or Politics, the Encyclicals, Summi Pontificatus, Non abbiamo bisogno and Ubi Arcano Deo, come after the Encyclical, Immortale Dei."

Now if this were to be understood in the sense that the general and fundamental principles of public Ecclesiastical Law, solemnly affirmed in the Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, are merely the reflection of historic moments of the past, while the swing of the pendulum of the doctrinal Encyclicals of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII has passed in the opposite direction to different positions, the statement would have to be qualified as completely erroneous, not only because it misrepresents the teaching of the Encyclicals themselves, but also because it is theoretically inadmissible. In the Encyclical Letter, Humani Generis, the reigning Pontiff teaches us that we must recognize in the Encyclicals the ordinary magisterium of the Church: "Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand assent, in that, when writing such Letters, the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say "He who heareth you heareth Me" (St. Luke 10:16); and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already belongs for other reasons to Catholic doctrine."

Because they are afraid of being accused of wanting to return to the Middle Ages, some of our writers no longer dare to maintain the doctrinal positions that are constantly affirmed in the Encyclicals as belonging to the life and legislation of the Church in all ages.  For them is meant the warning of Pope Leo XIII who, recommending concord and unity in the combat against error, adds that "care must be taken never to connive, in anyway, at false opinions, never to withstand them less strenuously than truth allows." (Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion.)

Father John Courtney Murray was trying to "historicize" Catholic Social Teaching even though our true popes had condemned "religious liberty" and "separation of Church and State" as heretical in se as matters of principle while, of course, conceding the existence of those heresies as a fait accompli in the pluralist, religious indifferentist state of Modernity. Our true popes never ceased condemning these heresies while making allowance for Holy Mother Church's childen in such countries to make use of the constitutional and legal structures under which they lived to practice their Faith and to profess It openly without inteference or molestation from the civil authorities.

Father Murray sought to "historicize" Catholic Social Teaching even though such "historicization," which asserts that part of a particular teaching was applicable only to the situation that existed at a certain time and thus was not binding upon the Church in perpetuity, had been condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, which was, of course, simply a reiteration of the condemnations of the "evolution of dogma" promulgated at the [First] Vatican Council by Pope Pius IX and contained in the teaching of Pope Saint Pius X, most particularly in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.

Father Murray's efforts to "historicize" Catholic Social Teaching did not escape the notice of young priest who had been ordained on June 29, 1951, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, in Munich, Germany, named Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who had been trained in his seminary years by the "new theologians" in this exact same methodology.

The very foundation of what Ratzinger/Benedict came to term as the "heremeneutic of continuity" is both philosophically absurd and stands as dogmatically condemned, representing also, of course utter blasphemy against the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, by not only "hiding" a "discovery" of the impermanence of dogmatic formulations but had actually permitted direct condemnations of this very proposition by a dogmatic council and various true popes.

How does something that was absolutely false in 1906 become "true" a century later, a "truth" that must be, as noted yesterday, celebrated by the "popes" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism?

Appendix C

“Cardinal” Ratzinger and the Judaism

“It is of course possible to read the Old Testament so that it is not directed toward Christ; it does not point quite unequivocally to Christ.  And if Jews cannot see the promises as being fulfilled in him, this is not just ill will on their part, but genuinely because of the obscurity of the texts and the tension in the relationship between these texts and the figure of Jesus.  Jesus brings a new meaning to these texts – yet it is he who first gives them their proper coherence and relevance and significance.  There are perfectly good reasons, then, for denying that the Old Testament refers to Christ and for saying, No, that is not what he said.  And there are also good reasons for referring it to him – that is what the dispute between Jews and Christians is about.” (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, God and the World, p. 209.)

In its work, the Biblical Commission could not ignore the contemporary context, where the shock of the Shoah has put the whole question under a new light. Two main problems are posed: Can Christians, after all that has happened, still claim in good conscience to be the legitimate heirs of Israel's Bible? Have they the right to propose a Christian interpretation of this Bible, or should they not instead, respectfully and humbly, renounce any claim that, in the light of what has happened, must look like a usurpation? The second question follows from the first: In its presentation of the Jews and the Jewish people, has not the New Testament itself contributed to creating a hostility towards the Jewish people that provided a support for the ideology of those who wished to destroy Israel? The Commission set about addressing those two questions. It is clear that a Christian rejection of the Old Testament would not only put an end to Christianity itself as indicated above, but, in addition, would prevent the fostering of positive relations between Christians and Jews, precisely because they would lack common ground. In the light of what has happened, what ought to emerge now is a new respect for the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. On this subject, the Document says two things. First it declares that “the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Scriptures of the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading, which developed in parallel fashion” (no. 22). It adds that Christians can learn a great deal from a Jewish exegesis practised for more than 2000 years; in return, Christians may hope that Jews can profit from Christian exegetical research (ibid.). I think this analysis will prove useful for the pursuit of Judeo-Christian dialogue, as well as for the interior formation of Christian consciousness. (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Preface to The Jewish People and Their Scriptures in the Christian Bible.)

“It is of course possible to read the Old Testament so that it is not directed toward Christ; it does not point quite unequivocally to Christ.  And if Jews cannot see the promises as being fulfilled in him, this is not just ill will on their part, but genuinely because of the obscurity of the texts and the tension in the relationship between these texts and the figure of Jesus.  Jesus brings a new meaning to these texts – yet it is he who first gives them their proper coherence and relevance and significance.  There are perfectly good reasons, then, for denying that the Old Testament refers to Christ and for saying, No, that is not what he said.  And there are also good reasons for referring it to him – that is what the dispute between Jews and Christians is about.” (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, God and the World, p. 209.)

To the religious leaders present this afternoon, I wish to say that the particular contribution of religions to the quest for peace lies primarily in the wholehearted, united search for God.  Ours is the task of proclaiming and witnessing that the Almighty is present and knowable even when he seems hidden from our sight, that he acts in our world for our good, and that a society’s future is marked with hope when it resonates in harmony with his divine order.  It is God’s dynamic presence that draws hearts together and ensures unity.  In fact, the ultimate foundation of unity among persons lies in the perfect oneness and universality of God, who created man and woman in his image and likeness in order to draw us into his own divine life so that all may be one. ("Pope" Benedict XVI, Courtesy visit to the President of the State of Israel at the presidential palace in Jerusalem, May 11, 2009.)

9. Christians and Jews share to a great extent a common spiritual patrimony, they pray to the same Lord, they have the same roots, and yet they often remain unknown to each other.  It is our duty, in response to God’s call, to strive to keep open the space for dialogue, for reciprocal respect, for growth in friendship, for a common witness in the face of the challenges of our time, which invite us to cooperate for the good of humanity in this world created by God, the Omnipotent and Merciful. (Ratzinger/Benedict at Rome synagogue: ‘May these wounds be healed forever!’ )  

Pope Pius XII summarized the immutable Catholic truth concerning the fact that Judaism was superseded by Catholicism on Good Friday:

29.And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel [30] -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. [34] "To such an extent, then," says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom." [35]

30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37] and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church. "For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over the gentiles"; [38] by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces, which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His mortal members it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical Body; for they would not have been united to this Mystical Body. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

The perennial truths of the Catholic Faith do not change. It is blasphemous to assert that the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, would direct Holy Mother Church without change for nineteen hundred years before authorizing a series of "reversals" starting in 1962 and continuing thereafter to the present time because the Church had yet to “learn” about that her dogma was conditioned by the historical circumstances in which it was pronounced. This means that God the Holy Ghost did not direct our true popes, whether acting individually or with other bishops in Holy Mother Church’s true general councils, a proposition that is both blasphemous and stands authentic Catholic ecclesiology on its head.

As Pope Pius XI noted in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, God has revealed His doctrines to us, and we profess our faith in what God has revealed. Doctrine is not the product of the “faith experience:”

For this reason it is that all who are truly Christ's believe, for example, the Conception of the Mother of God without stain of original sin with the same faith as they believe the mystery of the August Trinity, and the Incarnation of our Lord just as they do the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, according to the sense in which it was defined by the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Are these truths not equally certain, or not equally to be believed, because the Church has solemnly sanctioned and defined them, some in one age and some in another, even in those times immediately before our own? Has not God revealed them all? For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. But in the use of this extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or that which some have previously called into question is declared to be of faith.  (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928,)

The late Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, never accepted this. He believed that Protestants truly "love" Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ because they are said to have a "relationship" with Him even though they do not know Him or accept Him as He has revealed Himself to men exclusively through His Catholic Church. Ratzinger/Benedict believed that the Orthodox are fellow "believers" even though they reject the Catholic Church's doctrinal definitions of Original Sin, Papal Primacy, Papal Infallibility and Purgatory and reject as well the dogma of Our Lady's Immaaculate Conception as defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854 and her boily Assumption as defined by Pope Pius XII in 1950.