Appeasers Never Learn

by Thomas A. Droleskey

 

One must certainly give Father Peter Gumpel, S.J., credit for gumption. Growing impatient with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI  over the latter's delay in signing the decree recognizing the heroic virtues of Pope Pius XII so that the last true pontiff's cause for "canonization" in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism may proceed, Father Gumpel has once again gone public with his belief that Ratzinger//Benedict is delaying this process because of pressure being by various Talmudic organizations, going so far as to name the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai Brith and the World Jewish Congress as two of the principal culprits working against the conciliar "canonization" of the pope who saved thousands upon thousands of Jews from execution during World War II.

Here is the latest story about Father Peter Gumpel's crusade for the conciliar "canonization" of Pope Pius XII:

 

ROME (CNS) -- A top proponent of the beatification of Pope Pius XII said Pope Benedict XVI has not moved the cause forward because Jewish groups have warned it would permanently damage Catholic-Jewish relations.

Jesuit Father Peter Gumpel said Pope Benedict has not given the green light to proceed with the controversial beatification, a major step toward sainthood, because he was concerned about the warnings by the World Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups.

After Father Gumpel spoke, the Vatican swiftly issued a statement saying that the pope alone is in a position to determine the progress of the cause and that any interference was "unjustified and inopportune."

Speaking at a Vatican bookstore in Rome June 19, Father Gumpel said Pope Benedict has not signed the decree recognizing the heroic virtues of Pope Pius XII because representatives of several Jewish groups have told him "loud and clear" that "if you do the least thing in favor of the cause of Pius XII, relations between the Catholic Church and the Jews are definitively and permanently compromised."

Pope Pius has been criticized by many Jews and some historians who say he did not speak out forcefully enough against Nazi Germany and the deportation and extermination of millions of European Jews in World War II.

Defenders say Pope Pius did all he could by encouraging Catholic institutions to hide Jews from Nazi persecution, and that an open clash with the Germans under Adolf Hitler would have resulted in many more deaths.

Distancing the Vatican from Father Gumpel's declarations, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said late June 19 that "signing the decrees regarding beatifications are the exclusive competence of the pope, who must be left totally free in his evaluations and decisions."

"If the pope thinks that more study and reflection on the cause of Pius XII is required," the statement continued, "this position must be respected without unjustified and inopportune interference."

Statements by Father Gumpel, a German who said that as a boy he knew the future Pope Pius when he served as papal nuncio to Germany and who has worked enthusiastically on the sainthood cause for decades, have prompted clarification by the Vatican in the past.

When his most recent statements caused a stir in the media, Father Gumpel said he had been misinterpreted.

During the bookstore conference June 19, Father Gumpel said he has a good relationship with Pope Benedict and did not judge him negatively for his position, "which I understand." The current pontiff, he said, "wants to do everything he can to promote better relations with Jews, and this is very admirable."

Still, he said, he thought it was time that "these people change, the attacks stop and we make them realize that they are mistaken and that Pius XII did much for the Jews."

Father Gumpel said all the necessary documents for the beatification of Pope Pius had been gathered by the Vatican Congregation for Saints' Causes by 2004. Subsequent evaluations by historians, theologians and a panel of cardinals and bishops, he said, had resulted in the "enthusiastically positive" recommendation to proceed with the advancement of the beatification process.

Verification of a miracle attributed to Pope Pius cannot go ahead until the signing of the decree recognizing the pope lived the Christian virtues heroically, he said, adding that there are a number of allegedly miraculous healings waiting to be evaluated by medical authorities.

Progress with the cause also has been hindered by ideologically motivated media, he said, but "things are changing, and I hope that the Holy Father realizes this and signs the decree."

Pope Benedict, he said, "has great admiration for Pius XII; he knows he saved hundreds of thousands of Jews and wants the procedure to continue."

"When it will happen, I don't know; we are not in a hurry," said Father Gumpel. "Sooner or later, the beatification and then the canonization will go through."

In October 2008, Father Lombardi issued a statement requesting a halt to all pressure on Pope Benedict regarding Pope Pius, whether for or against the sainthood cause. He was prompted by a statement by Father Gumpel who said that a visit to Israel by Pope Benedict "would be a scandal for Catholics" because of a critical caption on a photograph of Pope Pius in the museum of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

Father Gumpel said that when the pope visited the memorial in May he did not enter the museum where the photograph with the "scandalous" caption is displayed. "He visited the monument to the victims of the Shoah, and this was admirable," Father Gumpel said. "But he didn't set foot in the room with the photograph, because if he had Catholics would never have forgiven him." (Pope Pius XII promoter says Jewish pressure an obstacle to sainthood)

 

What I wrote eight months ago in Fearing Not to Offend God is useful to repeat in light of Father Gumpel's statements on the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Friday, June 19, 2009 (several other items have been added to the list that appeared in Fearing Not to Offend God):

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI may very well wind up "beatifying" Pope Pius XII in another of the counterfeit church of conciliarism's illicit exercises of the authority that belongs solely the Catholic Church. It is understandable for a man who believes himself to be the Vicar of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on earth to want to make it known that he does not want to be pressured by anyone, including adherents of the Talmud, concerning a decision to "beatify" a candidate whose cause for beatification is before him. What is most telling, however, is that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does seem to have a genuine fear of offending the Jews and that this fear is indeed slowing down the process for the conciliar church's "beatification of Pope Pius XII. After all, why do adherents of the Talmud believe that they can have any influence on a putative Roman Pontiff? It is because the conciliar "pontiffs" have given them cause to believe that they do have influence over them, that's why.

Each of us is a weak vessel of clay. Human respect, which is the fear offending others and losing their respect and/or friendship. can get the better of any one of us at any time. We are supposed to overcome human respect over the course of our lifetimes, especially as we grow older, as we cooperate with the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces. We must fear to offend God before we offend any man,, especially those who are His sworn enemies.

It appears to be the case with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI that he fears not to offend God as he seeks the favor of unbelievers and heretics almost without cease. This creates a vicious cycle as many, especially "priests" in the Motu communities and some of the younger "conservative" bloggers who are promoting Ratzinger/Benedict as a "restorer of tradition," desire to please Ratzinger/Benedict rather than to defend the honor and glory and majesty of God as He is offended time and time again by the false "pontiff."

Putting aside, without minimizing for a nanosecond, the many ways in which Ratzinger/Benedict offends God by his lifelong warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth as defined solemnly by the teaching authority of the Catholic Church and by his other defections from the Catholic Faith, all one needs to do is to review the following few actions that have occurred under his false "pontificate" to understand how the Ratzinger/Benedict has offended God greatly and without even seeming to know that he has done so, which is in and of itself a clear sign that he has lost the Catholic Faith:

.

1. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI rejected the "ecumenism of the return" in an address to Protestant and Orthodox representatives at an ecumenical gathering in Cologne, Germany, on August 19, 2005. This offends God greatly as He desires the unconditional conversion of every non-Catholic on the face of the earth to the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation.
2. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI visited a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, on August 19, 2005, in full violation of the authentic Canon Law of the Catholic Church and without exhorting his listeners to convert from their false religion to the true Faith
3. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI personally approved the use of the "Paul VI" Audience Hall for the "world premiere" of The Nativity Story on Sunday, November 26, 2006, although the movie, produced by a Protestant, blaspheme the ever-sinless Mother of God by portraying her as a sulky, mood, rebellious teenager, thereby denying the doctrinal effects of her Immaculate Conception and also denigrating the doctrine of her Divine Maternity as declared by the Council of Ephesus in in the year 431 A.D. and the miraculous Nativity of her Divine Son. God is not pleased as a motion picture blaspheming his Most Blessed Mother and his foster-father, Saint Joseph, is promoted by putative "Catholics" inside the walls of the Vatican itself.
4. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI entered into the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 30, 2006, taking off his shoes so as to symbolize that he was in a "holy place" and then turned in the direction of Mecca at the behest of his Mohammedan "host," who instructed him to assume the Mohammedan prayer position as they "prayed" together. God is offended by honor being given to such a false religion as the souls of His faithful Catholics are scandalized and bewildered and confused as a consequence.
5. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI appeared as an equal with "Patriarch" Bartholomew I in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 30, 2006, issuing a joint statement which included the following statement, "This commitment comes from the Lord’s will and from our responsibility as Pastors in the Church of Christ" (Common Declaration by Benedict XVI and Patriarch Bartholomew I). Bartholomew I, who "prayed" with Ratzinger/Benedict in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday, October 18, 2008, for an end to "fundamentalism" and for "religious tolerance, is not a "pastor" in the Church of Christ. The only Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, from which the heretic Bartholomew I is in schism. He is not a "pastor" in the Church of Christ. Of course, neither is Ratzinger/Benedict.
6. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI sent a letter on August 4, 2007, to an interreligious conference being held on Mount Hiei in Japan, terming Mount Hiei, upon which the Tendei sect of the false religion of Buddhism established its first "stronghold," as "sacred," thereby blaspheming God and reaffirming devil worshipers in their false religion.
7. As has been noted on this site many times in the past six months, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI personally esteemed the symbols of five false religions at the John Paul Cultural Center on Thursday, April 17, 2008, offending God grievously as he violated the First Commandment's absolute and unwavering injunction to have no strange gods before me. How many people rose to defend the honor and majesty and glory of God? Not many. Not many at all.
8. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI walked into a Jewish synagogue in the Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, New York, on Friday, April 18, 2008, to be treated as an inferior and as the choir sang a "hymn" about how they were "awaiting" the Messiah.
9. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI participated in several travesties during "World Youth Day" in Sydney, Australia, including a horrific display of pagan rituals during a Novus Ordo service at Randwick Racecourse on Sunday, July 20, 2008.
10. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI permitted the non-"archbishop" of Canterbury to deliver the "homily" at a Novus Ordo service in Lourdes, France, on Sunday, September 14, 2008, treating the non-cleric as a validly ordained clergyman, which he is not.
11. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI said the following in Amman, Jordan, last month:

    My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam. Now that some years have passed since the publication of the Amman Message and the Amman Interfaith Message, we can say that these worthy initiatives have achieved much good in furthering an alliance of civilizations between the West and the Muslim world, confounding the predictions of those who consider violence and conflict inevitable. Indeed the Kingdom of Jordan has long been at the forefront of initiatives to promote peace in the Middle East and throughout the world, encouraging inter-religious dialogue, supporting efforts to find a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, welcoming refugees from neighboring Iraq, and seeking to curb extremism. I cannot let this opportunity pass without calling to mind the pioneering efforts for peace in the region made by the late King Hussein. How fitting that my meeting tomorrow with Muslim religious leaders, the diplomatic corps and University rectors should take place in the mosque that bears his name. May his commitment to the resolution of the region's conflicts continue to bear fruit in efforts to promote lasting peace and true justice for all who live in the Middle East. (Ratzinger Address Upon Arrival in Amman, May 8, 2009 .)

    .

    Places of worship, like this splendid Al-Hussein Bin Talal mosque named after the revered late King, stand out like jewels across the earth’s surface. From the ancient to the modern, the magnificent to the humble, they all point to the divine, to the Transcendent One, to the Almighty. And through the centuries these sanctuaries have drawn men and women into their sacred space to pause, to pray, to acknowledge the presence of the Almighty, and to recognize that we are all his creatures. (Speech to Muslim religious leaders, members of the Diplomatic Corps and Rectors of universities in Jordan in front of the mosque al-Hussein bin Talal in Amman, May 9, 2009.)

12. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI blasphemed God yet again when he spoke outside of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem on May 12, 2009: "I cordially thank the Grand Mufti, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, together with the Director of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, Sheikh Mohammed Azzam al-Khatib al-Tamimi, and the Head of the Awquaf Council, Sheikh Abdel Azim Salhab, for the welcome they have extended to me on your behalf. I am deeply grateful for the invitation to visit this sacred place, and I willingly pay my respects to you and the leaders of the Islamic community in Jerusalem." (Courtesy visit to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the Mount of the Temple, May 12, 2009.)
13. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI prayed as a Jew at the "Wailing Wall" on May 12, 2009, as he composed a prayer that made no reference to the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ:: "God of all the ages, on my visit to Jerusalem, the 'City of Peace', spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the aspirations, the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world. God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft; send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family; stir the hearts of all who call upon your name, to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion. 'The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him' (Lam 3:25)! (Prayer at the Western Wall (May 12, 2009)
14. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has constantly praised the ability of "religions" to build the better world, doing so in Nazareth on May 14, 2009, and on June 17, 2009, at the end of his "general audience" address: "Is it true that "different religious traditions have a powerful potential to promote a culture of peace, especially through teaching and preaching the deeper spiritual values of our common humanity. By molding the hearts of the young, we mold the future of humanity itself. Christians readily join Jews, Muslims, Druze, and people of other religions in wishing to safeguard children from fanaticism and violence while preparing them to be builders of a better world." (Meeting with the religious leaders of Galilee in the Auditorium of the Shrine of the Annunciation in Nazareth, May 14, 2009?) " I extend my greetings to the various religious leaders present today who have gathered in Rome for an International Conference of interreligious dialogue. I commend this initiative organized by the Italian Bishops’ Conference in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I am confident that it will do much to draw the attention of world political leaders to the importance of religions within the social fabric of every society and to the grave duty to ensure that their deliberations and policies support and uphold the common good. Upon all those taking part I invoke an abundance of the Almighty’s blessings." (17 June 2009.)

 

As was the case with Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has shown himself to be obsequious with the leaders of false religions, giving them the definite impression that their views "matter" to the conciliar officials and permitting them to "lobby" in behalf of their specific interests. This is without parallel in the history of the Catholic Church. One could not imagine that Pope Saint Pius X would have given leaders of Talmudic organizations any reason to believe that they could have any say whatsoever in the canonization process of a candidate deemed by Talmudic leaders to be "unacceptable" to them. One could not imagine Pope Gregory XVI or Pope Pius IX or Pope Leo XIII reaffirming Jews or Mohammedans or Buddhists or Hindus in the hideously false belief that their "religions" could "contribute" to the "building" of the "better" world.

It would not have been necessary for someone in the position of Father Peter Gumpel, S.J., to publicly pressure a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter into refraining from surrendering to demands concerning the Catholic Church's internal policies made by those who deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and who seek to promote one abject evil after another under cover of the civil law and throughout popular culture. To be sure, there were Catholic monarchs who attempted to pressure true popes now and again, usually in matters of their own personal lives or in defense of their kingdom's or an empire's territorial rights or to attempt to press claims against the rights of Holy Mother Church.

To give entree to the adherents of false religions to shape the internal policies of what is believed to be the Catholic Church has become, however, a very standard feature of the conciliar"popes" and their conciliar "bishops" (see No Crime Is Worse Than Deicide and Yes, Sir, Master Scribe).

Indeed, one of the chief reasons, if not the sole reason, that Ratzinger/Benedict felt compelled to take off his shoes upon entering the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 30, 2006, before accept the invitation of his Mohammedan host to turn in the direction of Mecca and assume the Mohammedan "prayer" position was to demonstrate his "good will" to the adherents of this false religion after he had "offended" them in an address at Regensburg University in Germany on September 12, 2006 (Meeting with the representatives of science in the Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg, September 12, 2006.) Mohammedans threatened and even rioted after Ratzinger/Benedict's speech. His apostate "gesture" was meant to appease his critics among the ranks of the Mohammedans by showing how "respectful" he is of their false religion.

Ratzinger/Benedict has also tried his hand at appeasing the leaders of Red China (see Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology), a policy that has been publicly questioned now by one of his own conciliar "cardinals:"

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican's top envoy for China says the time has come for the Holy See to get tough with Beijing and not compromise over religious freedom, saying relations are taking a "worrisome slide" for the worse.

Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen also said the Vatican shouldn't give so much importance to re-establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing because such a move could trick people into thinking there is religious freedom in China when there isn't.

And in an interview Tuesday with the Vatican-affiliated missionary news agency AsiaNews, Zen repeated his call for official bishops in China to "not give in" to pressure from the state-sanctioned church, saying they have to remain firm in their faith and loyalty to the pope - even to the point of martyrdom.

China forced its Roman Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, shortly after the officially atheist Communist Party took power. Worship is allowed only in state-backed churches, which recognize the pope as a spiritual leader but appoint their own priests and bishops.

Millions of Chinese, however, belong to unofficial congregations that are loyal to Rome. Underground priests and bishops have been harassed or arrested by Beijing authorities.

Pope Benedict XVI has made improving often-tense relations with Beijing a priority of his papacy and has sought to unify the country's 12 million faithful under his wing. But there has been little tangible evidence of progress in his four-year effort, and the Vatican recently denounced a new wave of arrests of underground priests and bishops, and accused Beijing of mounting obstacles to a dialogue with the Holy See.

The Vatican insists that Benedict alone must appoint bishops; China says such papal authority interferes in its internal affairs. In recent years the two sides have reached a compromise of sorts under which both Beijing and Rome agree on candidates.

In 2007, Benedict sent a special letter to Catholics in China, praising the underground church but also urging the faithful to reconcile with followers of the official church. Zen, an outspoken advocate of freedom of worship and a critic of Beijing, said that letter was supposed to have ushered in a new season of relations with Beijing but hasn't.

"We've come to the point where it's not possible and just to accept compromise as we did before," he said. "In these two years there hasn't be a turn toward clarity. In fact, it seems to me that we're taking a worrisome slide along the slope of compromise."

Most worrisome, he said, was a planned assembly of official Chinese priests and bishops this year, which he said would be an "insult to the Holy Father" because it would "completely ignore" his letter.

At the same time, Zen also criticized the Vatican for not having reinforced the 2007 letter, noting that Chinese authorities have tried to block its distribution among mainland faithful.

The Vatican has said it was ready "at any time" to switch its diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China. But Zen warned against moving too quickly.

"Sometimes too much importance is placed on diplomatic relations, when these alone don't set things straight," AsiaNews quoted Zen as saying. "In fact, sometimes it could be misleading because it can give the false impression that religious freedom exists." Vatican China envoy to get tough with Beijing

 

"Cardinal" Zen's criticism of Ratzinger/Benedict's policy of appeasement will, of course, fall on deaf ears. Ratzinger/Benedict is an appeaser by his very nature, which is why he gave leaders of Talmudic organizations access to him immediately after the issuance of Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, as they sought to pressure him into changing the Good Friday Prayer for the Jews contained in the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition that was promulgated by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in 1961 and 1962. Ratzinger/Benedict has similarly held audiences with these Talmudic leaders to permit them to lobby him publicly about the conciliar "canonization" of Pope Pius XII and to denounce Bishop Richard Williamson's remarks putting into question the nature and the extent of the crimes committed by the agents of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich during World War II. Appeasement comes most naturally to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

It is little wonder that there is some degree of support in the conciliar Vatican for Barack Hussein Obama's foreign policy of appeasement as Ratzinger/Benedict believes that appeasing the Red Chinese will be "unity" to that nation's oppressed, suffering Catholics. Obama's appeasement of Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro and the Mohammedans in Iran and the North Koreans has emboldened dictators worldwide. His weak-sister approach to the slaughter of innocent human beings on the streets of Tehran, Iran, at this time harkens to one of the ultimate appeasers of all-time, James Earl Carter, Jr., who won a Nobel Prize for Peace as a reward for his appeasement of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Daniel Ortega and Leonid Brezhnev and countless other tyrants and mass murderers (see my own Ever the Appeaser, written in 2002, some three and one-half years before I began to write publicly about the possibility the truth of sedevacantism, and Christopher Ruddy's Jimmy Carter's Trail of Disaster, an article that provides a pretty good documentation of Carter's track record even though I disagree with the author's support of the policies of Georg Walker Bush).

Appeasement always emboldens aggressors. Always.  Appeasement always winds up permitting the appeased party to press forward with greater confidence at the appeasing party continues surrendering in an incremental manner until the appeased party has vanquished his foe bloodlessly.

This is, of course, what happened as a result of the 1984 and 1988 "indults" granted by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul for a "legitimate" offering of the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, and it is what is happening at the present time as a result of Summorum Pontificum and the "lifting" by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI of the "excommunications" that were imposed upon the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X by Wojtyla/John Paul II on July 1, 1988. The original "indult" communities surrendered their voices of protest against the evil of the Novus Ordo service and about the apostasies of conciliarism, content to have a modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition as they grew to convince themselves and others that it was a virtuous act to remain silent in the face of "papal" apostasies and blasphemies, such as the ones listed earlier in this commentary, that grievously offend the honor and majesty and glory of God as non-Catholics are reaffirmed in their false religions. And the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X have learned to temper their voices, saying not a word about the recent "papal" apostasies and blasphemies that were committed in Jordan and Israel last month.

Catholics, however, must flee from heresy without appeasing heretics one little bit. It is not a subjective judgment to know with certainty what constitutes an heretical statement or an apostate act. Mr. Michael Creighton summarized the Catholic Church's clear teaching on this matter when critiquing and condemning the errors of the Society of Saint Pius X:

1)  We are free to reject rites promulgated by the Church. [Condemned by Trent Session VII, Canon XIII/Vatican I, Session II]

2)  The Pope can’t be trusted to make judgments on faith and morals. We have to sift what is Catholic. [Condemned by Vatican I, Session IV, Chapter III.]

3) We are free to reject or accept ordinary magisterial teachings from a pope since they can be in error. This rejection may include either the conciliar ‘popes’ when teach heresy or the pre-conciliar popes in order to justify the validity of the conciliar popes jurisdiction, sacraments, etc [Condemned by Vatican I (Dz1792)/Satis Cognitum #15 of Leo XIII]

4)  The Kantian doctrine of unknowability of reality. We can’t know what is heresy, therefore we can’t judge. [Condemned by Vatican I, Session III, Chapter 2: On Revelation, Jn7:24].

5)  The faith of the Pope can fail. Frequently this is expressed as “we work for” or “we pray for the Popes conversion to the Catholic faith”. [condemned by Vatican I and at least 3 earlier councils mentioned above].

6)  Universal salvation, ecumenism, religious liberty, validity of the Old Covenant, etc. can be interpreted in a Catholic sense. [Condemned by every saint, every doctor of the Church and every Pope who comments on such issues; for instance Pope Eugene IV (Cantate Domino – Council of Florence)]

7)  Contraries can be true. [Hegelian doctrine against Thomistic Philosophy]. If these positions appear to be contradictory, they are.

When I point out these positions are against the Faith, frequently the Hegelian doctrine is employed by those in attendance at the SSPX chapel. (Please also listen, yes, once again, to Father Anthony Cekada's The Errors of the Society of St Pius X and read His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn's Logical Chickens Coming Home to Roost: A Commentary on Recent Events in the SSPX. For a complete listing of Mr Creighton's review of the errors of the Society of Saint Pius X, see Winning at the Waiting Game).

 

A book written by one Jill Haak Adels, The Wisdom of the Saints: An Anthology, contains a few brief passages from saints about heresy, presaged by the author's own very astute remarks:

To become a heretic one must first be a baptized, professing Christian who refuses to accept a truth revealed by God and proposed for belief by the Church. Those who cease to profess Christianity are apostates rather than heretics.

The history of the Church is filled with a bewildering abundance of heresies, begriming with the Judaizers, the Gnostics, and a variety of anti-Triniatarians. Modern heresies tend to take the form of denial of the supernatural as in Naturalism or Humanism. Americanism and Modernism suggest that truth be adjusted to the temper of the times. (Jill Haak Adels,The Wisdom of the Saints: An Anthology, Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 111.)

He said that we must be slain and hated for His name's sake, and that many false prophets and false Christs would come forward in His name and would lead many astray. And this is the case. For many have taught what is godless and blasphemous and wicked, falsely stamping their teaching with His name, and have taught what has been put into their mind by the unclean spirit of the devil, and teach it until now. (Saint Justin Martyr.)

Avoid heretics like wild beasts; for they are mad dogs, biting secretly. (Saint Ignatius of Antioch.)

Do not defile yourself with the Arians, for that teaching is not from the apostles, but from the demons, and from their father, the devil. Indeed, it is infertile, irrational, and incorrect in understanding, like the senselessness of mules, (Saint Anthony of Egypt.)

Sensual living men of the world who feel that the Church's requirements for the proper amendment of their lives are too burdensome quickly and easily follow after these heretics and fiercely support them. All because they imagine that these heretics will lead them by a smoother path than Holy Church. (Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing.)

Concern in your statement that you have heretics with whom you constantly disagree and whom you wish to recall to the Catholic faith, I praise your zeal but reprehend your audacity, for, as the divine scripture says, "Whoever has touched pitch will be defiled by it." Thus beware, beloved son, lest . . . you succumb, conquered ignominiously by heretical persuasions; for while you labor to rescue them from the error of death, they themselves stay awake to submerge you in the abyss of error. (Saint Isidore of Seville.)

In Him, therefore, do I understand and possess all truth that is in heaven and earth and hell, and in all creatures; and so great is the truth and the certainty that were the whole world to declare the contrary, I would not believe it yea, I should mock it. (Blessed Angela of Foligno.)

Hear God's word, ye fishes of the river, since the stiff-necked Cathars will not hearken to it! (Saint Anthony of Padua.)

In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors--all the ancient priests, bishops, and kings--all that was once the glory of England, the isle of Saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter. For what we have taught however you may qualify it with the odious name of treason, that they did not uniformly teach? (Blessed Edmund Campion.)

Christ really suffered as he really raised himself. Some unbelievers say that he suffered in appearance only. Not so--they themselves are mere apparitions. Their fate will be like their opinions, for they are unsubstantial and phantom-like. (Saint Ignatius of Antioch.) (Quotations found in Jill Haak Adels,The Wisdom of the Saints: An Anthology, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 111-112.)

 

To this list, of course, should be added once again the words of Saint Servatus, who was most forthright about avoiding anyone who was plainly a heretic even though there had been no binding ecclesiastical pronouncement made about the particular person in question:

Servatus held the bishopric of Tongres (Belgium) at a time when the whole of Christendom had Arian tendencies. The all-powerful emperor, Constantius, was a heretic and supported the heresy; many bishops no longer believed in the divinity of Our Lord; St. Athanasius and St. Hilary, great champions of orthodoxy, were in exile.

The story of the Jewish origins of St. Servatus and his kinship with St. Anne appears legendary. It is not known when he became bishop of Tongres, but by 336, when St. Athanasius spent his exile at Trier, he had already occupied the see. The declaration which he made before the Council of Cologne in 346 informs us both of his meeting with the celebrated Alexandrian doctor and of his own orthodoxy. This is what he says in reference to the bishop of Cologne, deposed on that occasion: "It is not from hearsay that I know what he has been teaching, but from having myself heard it. Our churches are adjacent; many times I have had occasion to contradict him, when he has denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. It has happened in the presence of Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. .. . I judge that he can no longer be bishop of Christians; and those do not deserve to be considered Christians who remain in communion with him."

After failing in his efforts to reconcile the usurper, Magnetius, with the Emperor Constantius, Servatus made a pilgrimage to Rome. He returned convinced that Tongres would soon fall to the Huns. Hastily he carried the relics of the church to Maestricht, and there, shortly afterwards, he died.The towns of Tongres remained thereafter for nearly a century without a bishop. (Omer Engelbert, The Lives of the Saints, Barnes and Noble, p. 186.)

 

Obviously, each person must come to recognize these truths. Each person must come to realize that it is impossible for the Catholic Church to give us even a light tarnish of error, as Pope Gregory XVI made clear in Singulari Nos, June 25, 1834:

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth.

 

To recognize that those who defect from the Faith cannot hold ecclesiastical office in the Catholic Church legitimately is not to engage in "subjectivism" or mere speculation. The Catholic Church herself teaches that this is the case, as even a now deceased conciliar official, Mario Francesco "Cardinal" Pompedda himself admitted in 2005:

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.)

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI knows full well what the Catholic Church has taught perennially, which is why he has invented his logically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" to seek to "reconcile" his own defections from the Faith with what the Catholic Church has taught perennially (see Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism). Those who do not see that this is so must recognize that those who do see that Ratzinger/Benedict knows full well what he is doing when he contradicts the Catholic Faith by his words and actions, going so far as to appease the ancient enemies of the Church and as his "bishops'" conferences issue "clarifications" about their own apostasies that really do not conform to Catholic teaching at all (see U.S. bishops clarify Catholic approach to Jewish faith), are not the problem facing Holy Mother Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal. Joseph Ratzinger and his ethos of conciliarism are the problems facing Catholics at this time, not those who see apostasy and blasphemy for what they are and stand with the saints in fleeing from any contamination by contact with that which is offensive to Our Lord and harmful to the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

We must be willing to suffer the white martyrdom of ridicule and criticism and rejection and ostracism for refusing to recognize or associate with any of the spiritual robber barons of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who are so blithe in the offenses they commit against God so regularly and who are so dismissive of the gravity of error (save for "defections" from conciliarism by fully traditional Catholics and save for any effort to review the nature and the extent of the crimes of the Third Reich as such defections are "unforgivable" errors that must be "corrected") that do so much harm to the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins (a truth of the Faith that "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch denied sixty-six days ago now and has still remain in "office" without a word of protest from the kindly apostle of the toleration of error, Ratzinger/Benedict). We must cleave exclusively to true bishops and to true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or its officials in the slightest.

Obviously, we must, as always, spend time in prayer before Our Lord's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament and pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, using the shield of Our Lady's Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel and the weapon of her Rosary to protect us from the contagion of apostasy and betrayal that is all around us. We must also, of course, make reparation for our own many sins by offering up all of our prayers and sufferings and sacrifices and humiliations and penances and mortifications and fastings to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The final victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must pray to her, the Spouse of God the Holy Ghost, to cooperate with the Seven Gifts and the Twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost so that we can be instruments, unworthy though we may be, of planting the seeds for the restoration of Holy Mother Church and of the Social Reign of Christ the King so that everyone in the whole will exclaim with hearts consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, remembering to read about and then to participate in Bishop McKenna's Rosary Crusade.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

 

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, 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.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?