A "Correction" That Damns Ratzinger Just as Much as Bergoglio

With time at a premium given an unexpected of circumstances yesterday, Sunday, September 24, 2017, the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of Our Lady of Ransom, this commentary, which is the first of several concerning Correctio Filialis da Haeresibus Propagatis, July 16, 2017, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, must of necessity be limited to a few initial observations.

First, the “correction” of the heresies contained in Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s Amoris Laetitia, March 19, 2016, the Feast of Saint Joseph, that issued by sixty-two “conservative” scholars and others within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism is based upon the false premise that it is permissible to correct a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. The fact that there are heresies contained in Amoris Laetitia—and in Bergoglio’s subsequent statements of those of others that have received his endorsement ex post facto—proves that he is not and has never been a true a legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. Bergoglio hath not a Catholic mind. Indeed, he abhors the true Catholic Faith that has been handed down to us by the Apostles and protected infallibly in its transmission and explication by the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost.

In this regard, therefore, it is highly ironic that the Correctio contains multiple references to the papal encyclical letters of Pope Pius IX (Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1946, Ineffabilis Deus, December 8, 1854, and The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864), Pope Leo XIII (Libertas Praestantium, June 20, 1888, Providentissimus Deus, November 18, 1893), Saint Pius X (Lamentabili Sane, July 1, 1907,  Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910), Benedict XV (Spiritus Paraclitus, September 15, 1920), and Pope Pius XII (Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943, Divino Afflante Spiritu, September 30, 1943, Decree of the Holy Office Against Against Situation Ethics, and Humanae Generis, August 12, 1950) as many of the citations against each of the conciliar “popes” themselves and, quite indeed, the whole ethos of the false conciliar religion.

Even more ironically, however, is the fact that Pope Pius XII’s Humani Generis, which is cited several times in the Correctio, contains the following passage that proves they are duty-bound to accept Amoris Laetitia or to come to the conclusion that an imposter sits on the Throne of Saint Peter:

20. Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in 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”;[3] and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

Why does this prove that the authors of the Correction are bound to adhere to Amoris Laetitia or come to the logical conclusion that an imposter sits on the Throne of Saint Peter?

Well, I will let Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton explain how Paragraph 20 of Pope Pius XII’s Humani Generis binds all Catholics to accept whatever a pope causes to be inserted into his Acta Apostolicae Sedis:

The text of the Humani generis itself supplies us with a minimum answer.  This is found in the sentence we have already quoted: "And if, in their 'Acta,' the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves."

Theologians legitimately discuss and dispute among themselves doctrinal questions which the authoritative magisterium of the Catholic Church has not as yet resolved.  Once that magisterium has expressed a decision and communicated that decision to the Church universal, the first and the most obvious result of its declaration must be the cessation of debate on the point it has decided.  A man definitely is not acting and could not act as a theologian, as a teacher of Catholic truth, by disputing against a decision made by the competent doctrinal authority of the Mystical Body of Christ on earth.

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.  TheHumani 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 Fenton provided no wiggle room for the authors of the Correctio as they are engaging in the shoddy tricks of minimalism to justify their open dissent from what they think is papal teaching.

Moreover, as it is impossible for a pope to proclaim heresy, one must come to the conclusion that a “pope” who does so is not a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. Even a conciliar “cardinal,” the late Mario Francesco Pompedda, who was the prefect of the conciliar Signatura between 1996 and 2003, noted the following about the See of Peter being vacant in the case of heresy:

It is true that the canonical doctrine states that the see would be vacant in the case of heresy. ... But in regard to all else, I think what is applicable is what judgment regulates human acts. And the act of will, namely a resignation or capacity to govern or not govern, is a human act. (Cardinal Says Pope Could Govern Even If Unable to Speak, Zenit, February 8, 2005.)

It does not take one with a doctorate in sacred theology to see that Jorge Mario Bergoglio and each of his predecessors have been heretics. It simply takes the courage to recognize the truth of the state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal as we are reminded once again by the words of Pope Pius XI, contained in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, that the Catholic Church can never be the author of any doctrinal errors or heresy that a true pope caused to inserted into the Acta Apostolicae Sedis:

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.)

No one can claim that a person can be considered a Catholic while defecting from even one article of the Faith. This is simply an immutable truth of the Catholic Faith:

With reference to its object, faith cannot be greater for some truths than for others. Nor can it be less with regard to the number of truths to be believed. For we must all believe the very same thing, both as to the object of faith as well as to the number of truths. All are equal in this because everyone must believe all the truths of faith--both those which God Himself has directly revealed, as well as those he has revealed through His Church. Thus, I must believe as much as you and you as much as I, and all other Christians similarly. He who does not believe all these mysteries is not Catholic and therefore will never enter Paradise. (Saint Francis de Sales, The Sermons of Saint Francis de Sales for Lent Given in 1622, republished by TAN Books and Publishers for the Visitation Monastery of Frederick, Maryland, in 1987, pp. 34-37.)

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine:they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

No, “partial credit” does not cut it to retain one's membership in good standing within the maternal bosom of Holy Mother Church:

Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected: ‘This is the Catholic Faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved’ (Athanasian Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim ‘Christian is my name and Catholic my surname,’ only let him endeavor to be in reality what he calls himself.

 

Besides, the Church demands from those who have devoted themselves to furthering her interests, something very different from the dwelling upon profitless questions; she demands that they should devote the whole of their energy to preserve the faith intact and unsullied by any breath of error, and follow most closely him whom Christ has appointed to be the guardian and interpreter of the truth. There are to be found today, and in no small numbers, men, of whom the Apostle says that: "having itching ears, they will not endure sound doctrine: but according to their own desires they will heap up to themselves teachers, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables" (II Tim. iv. 34). Infatuated and carried away by a lofty idea of the human intellect, by which God's good gift has certainly made incredible progress in the study of nature, confident in their own judgment, and contemptuous of the authority of the Church, they have reached such a degree of rashness as not to hesitate to measure by the standard of their own mind even the hidden things of God and all that God has revealed to men. Hence arose the monstrous errors of "Modernism," which Our Predecessor rightly declared to be "the synthesis of all heresies," and solemnly condemned. We hereby renew that condemnation in all its fulness, Venerable Brethren, and as the plague is not yet entirely stamped out, but lurks here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully on their guard against any contagion of the evil, to which we may apply the words Job used in other circumstances: "It is a fire that devoureth even to destruction, and rooteth up all things that spring" (Job xxxi. 12). Nor do We merely desire that Catholics should shrink from the errors of Modernism, but also from the tendencies or what is called the spirit of Modernism. Those who are infected by that spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savours of antiquity and become eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in private exercises of piety. Therefore it is Our will that the law of our forefathers should still be held sacred: "Let there be no innovation; keep to what has been handed down." In matters of faith that must be inviolably adhered to as the law; it may however also serve as a guide even in matters subject to change, but even in such cases the rule would hold: "Old things, but in a new way."  (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

While the authors of the Correctio have ably pointed out the heresies and errors contained in Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s Amoris Laetitia (heresies and errors, it should be noted, that were identified and critiqued on this site in the following articles last year: J), their scholarly endeavor fails the test of Catholicism as both Pope Leo XIII and Pope Saint Pius X explained that no one can publicly criticize a true Roman Pontiff:

And how must the Pope be loved? Non verbo neque lingua, sed opere et veritate. [Not in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth - 1 Jn iii, 18] When one loves a person, one tries to adhere in everything to his thoughts, to fulfill his will, to perform his wishes. And if Our Lord Jesus Christ said of Himself, “si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit,” [if any one love me, he will keep my word - Jn xiv, 23] therefore, in order to demonstrate our love for the Pope, it is necessary to obey him.

Therefore, when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope.

This is the cry of a heart filled with pain, that with deep sadness I express, not for your sake, dear brothers, but to deplore, with you, the conduct of so many priests, who not only allow themselves to debate and criticize the wishes of the Pope, but are not embarrassed to reach shameless and blatant disobedience, with so much scandal for the good and with so great damage to souls. (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at: (“Love the Pope!” – no ifs, and no buts: For Bishops, priests, and faithful, Saint Pius X explains what loving the Pope really entails.)

In other words, accept Amoris Laetitia or recognize that the man in white is having himself quite a costume party as imposter of the first order, the sixth in the line of such imposters.

Second, it is rather tiring to have to refute the misrepresentation of the correction that was issued against Pope John XXII, who held that the souls of those in Heaven qwho had bodies could see the Beatific Vision. This belief was erroneous, but the truth of the matter had yet to be formally defined.

Anti-sedevacantist authors, including some of those who composed the Correctio against the Argentine Apostate, assert that Pope John XXII (Jacques D'Euse) was a "heretical pope" because of his teaching about the Beatific Vision. Theologians beseeched him to correct his error on this matter, which had not yet been defined solemnly by the authority of the Catholic Church. Pope John XXII did recant his error before he died. It is important to emphasize, however, that the matter had not been declared solemnly by the authority of the Church. Pope John XXII was not, as Cardinal Manning pointed out at the [First] Vatican Council, a "heretical pope." There is no comparison between the correction issued against Pope John XXII and the Correctio against a known heretic, Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Third, there are three instances—one general and the author two specific—in which the authors of the Correctio cite papal documents that damn Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI just as much as Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

To wit, there are four references in the Correctio to Pope Pius IX’s The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864. The authors are to be commended for including these references. As they seem to have forgotten—or perhaps do not want to recall within the text of the Correctio—“Pope Benedict XVI” dismissed the relevance of The Syllabus of Errors as follows in his very misnamed Principles of Catholic Theology:

Does this mean that the Council should be revoked? Certainly not. It means only that the real reception of the Council has not yet even begun. What devastated the Church in the decade after the Council was not the Council but the refusal to accept it. This becomes clear precisely in the history of the influence of Gaudium et spes. What was identified with the Council was, for the most part, the expression of an attitude that did not coincide with the statements to be found in the text itself, although it is recognizable as a tendency in its development and in some of its individual formulations. The task is not, therefore, to suppress the Council but to discover the real Council and to deepen its true intention in the light of the present experienceThat means that there can be no return to the Syllabus, which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism and a newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage. In the long run, neither embrace nor ghetto can solve for Christians the problem of the modern world. The fact is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out as early as 1952, that the "demolition of the bastions" is a long-overdue task. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p, 391.)

All that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is doing at this time is demolishing the bastions  that his predecessor, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, could not or would not abolish during his own time as the universal public face of apostasy.

Ah, but the Correctio’s two citations concerning the immutable nature of dogmatic truth that do indeed prove Bergoglio’s belief in dogmatic evolutionism to be heretical also damn the progenitor of the “hermeneutic of continuity,” Ratzinger/Benedict, who has promoted dogmatic evolutionism throughout the entirety of his sixty-six years of priestly and academic lives.

The first of these two citations is from The Oath of Against Modernism, which, just incidentally, you understand, was suppressed by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI in 1967, and the second comes from Pope Pius XII’s Humani Generis:

“I hold with certainty and I sincerely confess that faith is not a blind inclination of religion welling up from the depth of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the inclination of a morally conditioned will, but is the genuine assent of the intellect to a truth that is received from outside by hearing. In this assent, given on the authority of the all-truthful God, we hold to be true what has been said, attested to, and revealed, by the personal God, our creator and Lord.” (Pope Saint Pius X, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)

“Some hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. […] It is evident from what We have already said, that such efforts not only lead to what they call dogmatic relativism, but that they actually contain it.” (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

Pope Saint Pius XI condemned the Modernist precept of dogmatic evolutionism, and Pope Pius XII condemned the “new theology’s” efforts to endorse dogmatic evolutionism in slightly different terms. Is it really necessary to point out that a twenty-three year-old German seminarian had been completely indoctrinated in the falsehoods of the “new theology” by the time that Pope Pius XII issued Humani Generis?

Joseph Alois Ratzinger/“Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI” believes that human language is so imprecise that dogmatic formulae are conditioned by the historical circumstances in which they are pronounced, subjecting them to new interpretations as circumstances and the alleged “needs” of men change. This is, of course, heretical, and it is also blasphemous as it means that the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, did not infallibly guide our true popes and the fathers of Holy Mother Church’s true general councils in their dogmatic pronouncements.

Herewith is the contempt that the heretic Ratzinger has shown for the two citations quoted by the authors of the Correctio to use against heretic Bergoglio:

1971: "In theses 10-12, the difficult problem of the relationship between language and thought is debated, which in post-conciliar discussions was the immediate departure point of the dispute. 

The identity of the Christian substance as such, the Christian 'thing' was not directly ... censured, but it was pointed out that no formula, no matter how valid and indispensable it may have been in its time, can fully express the thought mentioned in it and declare it unequivocally forever, since language is constantly in movement and the content of its meaning changes." (Fr. Ratzinger: Dogmatic formulas must always change.)

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)

Secondly, it was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.

Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.

These are all subjects of great importance - they were the great themes of the second part of the Council - on which it is impossible to reflect more broadly in this context. It is clear that in all these sectors, which all together form a single problem, some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned. It is easy to miss this fact at a first glance.

It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itselfIt was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.  

On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change.

Basic decisions, therefore, continue to be well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied to new contexts can change. Thus, for example, if religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge.

It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction.

The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State with the Decree on Religious Freedomhas recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22: 21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty (cf. I Tm 2: 2); but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the State.

The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one's own faith - a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God's grace in freedom of conscience. A missionary Church known for proclaiming her message to all peoples must necessarily work for the freedom of the faith. She desires to transmit the gift of the truth that exists for one and all. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)

What was that Pope Pius XII wrote in Humani Generis about how the "new theologians" deny that the true meaning of doctrines may be known and understood with metaphysical certitude?

Let me remind you:

34. It is not surprising that these new opinions endanger the two philosophical sciences which by their very nature are closely connected with the doctrine of faith, that is, theodicy and ethics; they hold that the function of these two sciences is not to prove with certitude anything about God or any other transcendental being, but rather to show that the truths which faith teaches about a personal God and about His precepts, are perfectly consistent with the necessities of life and are therefore to be accepted by all, in order to avoid despair and to attain eternal salvation. All these opinions and affirmations are openly contrary to the documents of Our Predecessors Leo XIII and Pius X, and cannot be reconciled with the decrees of the Vatican Council. It would indeed be unnecessary to deplore these aberrations from the truth, if all, even in the field of philosophy, directed their attention with the proper reverence to the Teaching Authority of the Church, which by divine institution has the mission not only to guard and interpret the deposit of divinely revealed truth, but also to keep watch over the philosophical sciences themselves, in order that Catholic dogmas may suffer no harm because of erroneous opinions. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.

For the likes of men such as the conciliar revolutionaries to be correct, the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity not only hid the true meaning of doctrines for over nineteen hundred years, He permitted true popes and the Fathers of Holy Mother Church's twenty true general councils to condemn propositions that have, we are supposed to believe, only recently been "discovered" as having been true. Blasphemous and heretical.

Yes, the Correctio does indeed damn Joseph Alois Ratzinger just as much as Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Alas, the authors of the Correctio do not see (or, more perhaps more accurately, do not want to see) that this is what they have done.

Although there is much more to write on the subject of the Correctio, the lateness of the present hour demands that it wait for the next installment of this series.

Keep close to Our Lady during this month devoted to her Dolors, remembering that she has conquered all heresies. We must use her Most Holy Rosary with devotion as a weapon against all heresy and sin, including our own many sins that have worsened the state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal and worsened the state of the world at-large, as we beg her to pray for us now, and at the hour of death.

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.

Saint Nicholas of Flue, pray for us.