Response to an article by Robert Morrison…
True Catholic Church or Diabolical Counter-Church?
Analyzing The Remnant‘s Absurd Theology
Robert Morrison is currently one of The Remnant‘s most prolific writers
On July 30, 2024, the semi-traditionalist recognize-and-resist publication The Remnant once again released an article by its columnist Robert Morrison that purports to offer traditional Catholic guidance to help people cut through the confusion of our times:
In actual fact, however, the write-up accomplishes no such thing. Rather, one is reminded of a warning given by Our Lord, to wit: “Let them alone: they are blind, and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit” (Mt 15:14).
The article was apparently occasioned by the recent defection of Michael Warren Davis to Eastern Orthodoxy. Davis was once editor of Crisis Magazine and U.S. editor of the UK-based Catholic Herald. In other words, he was pretty much in the ‘conservative Novus Ordo’ camp, if we want to use that label.
Morrison’s piece starts out with a quote from a July 12, 2024 post by Stuart Chessman, author of the informative as well as enjoyable read, Faith of Our Fathers: A Brief History of Catholic Traditionalism in the United States (2022):
Undoubtedly, many more Catholics are considering the step Michael Warren Davis has now taken. The ‘fault’ for this, however, resides squarely with the pope, the Catholic hierarchy and the clergy. It is their outrageous and scandalous conduct that motivates some faithful to seek in Orthodoxy respect for Christian tradition, a reverent and beautiful liturgy and, above all, a focus on the spiritual, on the union of the individual and the community with God. . . Orthodoxy will always remain an attraction for a minority. Yet, at some point, on some issue and in some way we all may be forced to decide between loyalty to the clerical establishment or to the truth.
There is no question that accepting Jorge Bergoglio (‘Pope Francis’) as the Pope of the Catholic Church will, if one is logically consistent and believes in the Papacy as it was taught and believed before Vatican II, ultimately lead one to abandon the Catholic religion. That is one of the reasons why we put so much emphasis on the importance and truth of Sedevacantism. We are not just talking about a matter of opinion one can take or leave. Whether or not Francis is a legitimate Pope, really does matter and has tremendous consequences one way or another.
At the same time, let’s not forget the teaching of the first (and only legitimate) Vatican Council that “those who have accepted the faith under the guidance of the church can never have any just cause for changing this faith or for calling it into question” (Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius, Chapter 3). But while one can never have just cause to doubt or deny the true Roman Catholic religion, one can have just cause to doubt, even deny, Bergoglio’s claim to the Papacy. Rejecting his claim to being the Pope is, in fact, a Catholic’s defense mechanism, as it were, to protect his Faith, which is that “pearl of great price” (Mt 13:46) for which we must give up everything else.
In fact, Chessman’s claim, endorsed and repeated by Morrison, that “at some point ‘we all may be forced to decide between loyalty to the clerical establishment or to the truth’”, is an affront to the Catholic dogma of the indefectibility of the Church. Although any other diocese in the world may fall from the true Faith and become apostate, there is one diocese which is guaranteed never to fall, and that is the see of Rome, the Holy See: “…no particular part of the Church is indefectibly Apostolic, save the see of Peter, which is universally known by way of eminence as the Apostolic See” (Rev. E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise [St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1927], p. 141; italics removed).
For that reason, communion with the Holy See, with the (true) Pope, is the ultimate test of orthodoxy:
Union with the Roman See of Peter is to [St. Jerome] always the public criterion of a Catholic. “I acknowledge everyone who is united with the See of Peter” (Ep. xvi., ad Damasum, n. 2). And for a like reason St. Augustine publicly attests that, “the primacy of the Apostolic chair always existed in the Roman Church” (Ep. xliii., n. 7); and he denies that anyone who dissents from the Roman faith can be a Catholic. “You are not to be looked upon as holding the true Catholic faith if you do not teach that the faith of Rome is to be held” (Sermo cxx., n. 13). So, too, St. Cyprian: “To be in communion with Cornelius is to be in communion with the Catholic Church” (Ep. Iv., n. 1). In the same way Maximus the Abbot teaches that obedience to the Roman Pontiff is the proof of the true faith and of legitimate communion. Therefore if a man does not want to be, or to be called, a heretic, let him not strive to please this or that man…but let him hasten before all things to be in communion with the Roman See. If he be in communion with it, he should be acknowledged by all and everywhere as faithful and orthodox. He speaks in vain who tries to persuade me of the orthodoxy of those who, like himself, refuse obedience to his Holiness the Pope of the most holy Church of Rome: that is to the Apostolic See.”
(Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis Cognitum, n. 13)
Morrison asks rhetorically: “At present, though, how many of us are actually compelled to disobey an order given by Francis or his collaborators?” By framing the matter in this way, the author is misstating what the problem is. It is not essentially a matter of evil orders being given by an evil Pope. That is a straw man, as attentive readers of The Remnant will recognize.
Morrison then brings up Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), founder of the Society of St. Pius X, who liked to say that “the masterstroke of Satan has been to trick the Church through obedience into disobeying her Tradition.” But in fact that was only the first consequence of the masterstroke. The real masterstroke was having a false pope replace a true one and thereby get around that pesky problem of the Holy Ghost’s assistance for the Pope. The result is well known: We call it the Vatican II religion, the Novus Ordo Church, the Vatican II Sect.
Having brought Lefebvre into the picture, Morrison next turns to private revelation. He refers to the vision had by Pope Leo XIII in which God granted the devil 100 years to attempt to destroy the Catholic Church in order to remind us that the real enemy we are (or should be) battling is Satan, not simply “bad clerics” (notice, again the convenient straw-man framing of the issue).
Then Morrison writes:
Obviously Leo XIII did not decide that he must leave the Church and join a non-Catholic religion when he learned that God was granting Satan this power to try to destroy the Church. Nor would he have imagined that Catholics in our time would find any legitimate safe harbor from Satan’s attacks by fleeing the Catholic Church. He knew that faithful Catholics would have to do what they have always had to do in the face of similar onslaughts from Satan: do their best to adhere to the beliefs and practices of the Church, and try to become saints.
Morrison is rightly trying to argue that we must never abandon the Catholic Church, but he is simply not doing justice to the issues the way he is going about it. In fact, he is avoiding the real crux of the problem.
The problem is, as The Remnant itself has demonstrated in its countless reports and articles since the late 1960s, that what emanates from the Vatican in our day is a religion that is essentially different from the Roman Catholic religion of Pope Pius XII (d. 1958) and his predecessors. It deviates substantially in matters of doctrine, worship, and government from what the world knew as Roman Catholicism for the first 1900 years.
The question thus becomes whether an institution that professes and instills in its members throughout the world a religion other than Roman Catholicism, can really be the Roman Catholic Church, and its head the Pope, the Vicar of Christ. In other words, is it conceivable that we can really have a false magisterium promulgating false doctrine and establishing a false Mass, false sacraments, false saints, false canon law, etc. — and yet have a true Pope?
We’ve illustrated the absurdity of this position in the following satirical meme, which people are encouraged to share on social media:
Morrison himself, in a Remnant article published last November, has acknowledged that part of the devil’s strategy in conquering the Catholic Church is to replace it with a false church:
…a new church, set up in opposition to the Catholic Church; it seeks to be a brotherhood of men, with a supposed love for humanity that champions freedom and equality; and, in a predominantly superficial manner, it has many of the notes and characteristics of the actual Catholic Church.
(Robert Morrison, “How Francis and Satan Empty Their Synodal Ape Church of Divine Content”, The Remnant, Nov. 6, 2023)
Granted, Morrison believes this refers to the (future) ‘Synodal Church’ Francis and his underlings are currently working on, but that is irrelevant for the present aim, which is simply to point out that Morrison himself does acknowledge the (eventual) emergence of a false church that will mimic the true Catholic Church. Thus he agrees in principle that that is one of the tools in the devil’s arsenal to accomplish what, according to the vision of Pope Leo XIII, he was given 100 years’ time to attempt to do.
There are other contributors at The Remnant who also speak of a false church, by the way, but not as something yet to come. Rather, they know very well that the counterfeit is already here.
For example, the writer known as ‘Fr. Celatus’ informs the hapless readers of the popular recognize-and-resist paper:
Now, the counterfeit church is already in place and has been for some time. The dictionary definition for the word counterfeit is, “something made in exact imitation of something valuable or important with the intention to deceive or defraud.” In the matter of money, for instance, counterfeit bills must match exactly genuine paper bills in color, design, size, texture and all features or they will be recognized and rejected.
Ironically, in the case of the counterfeit catholic church, the more time that passes, the less it resembles the authentic Catholic Church. In fact, so little does the counterfeit church resemble the authentic Church that it is as silly as expecting to successfully spend pink and blue Monopoly money in your grocery store. Can you imagine bringing a $100,000 Art Linkletter Monopoly bill into your bank for deposit? How silly!
Still, the counterfeit church has managed to fool millions of silly souls for some time but its counterfeit nature is now being exposed and recognized by more serious souls. The recent decree promoting priestly blessings for perverted or adulterous couples is a case in point, rejected as it has been worldwide. …
…By the way, silly is way too soft a word to convey what is happening in this counterfeit church. This is nothing short of satanic.
The Last Word is, “Don’t be deceived by silly shepherds. Recognize and reject the false religion they have created in a counterfeit church!”
(Fr. Celatus, “Silly Shepherds of a Counterfeit Church”, The Remnant, vol. 57, n. 5 [Mar. 31, 2024], p. 16; italics given; underlining added.)
These are strong words, but apparently they have not yet reached Robert Morrison, who is still “deceived by silly shepherds”, at least according to the Rev. Celatus.
Then there is Remnant contributor Jason Morgan, who calls the ecclesiastical counterfeit “Newchurch” and describes it as that “faux Catholic Church headed by Pope Francis”, adding that it “is not a religious organization at all”!
Morgan elaborates on “Newchurch” as follows:
In this twisted heap of illogic we can see the tragedy of Newchurch. The contradictions and confusion are not incidental to Newchurch. They are inherent in it. There is no way to be pro-life and Newchurch. For Newchurch is, at heart, a humanistic, man-made institution founded on relativism and compromise. Modernism is Newchurch’s identity. Newchurch is antithetical to the singularity of Christ’s Cross. Newchurch is legion, is pro-choice to its very core. Those who want to remain Catholic will have to find their way out of Newchurch at some point. There is no future in Newchurch, only steadily deepening chaos, despite the best efforts of good men like Archbishop Cordileone.
Newchurch may seem to be comedy, with its “clown masses” and its bumbling, ad lib theologizing carried out in front of airplane bathrooms. But the truth is that Newchurch is horrible tragedy. It thwarts the good that men would do. Take Archbishop Cordileone. What His Excellency seems not to realize is that his efforts are undermined by the very institution he represents. Not the Catholic Church. Newchurch. The Novus Ordo cabal. Archbishop Cordileone is not pro-choice on abortion. Amen to that. But he is—has to be—pro-choice on the Mass. For Newchurch was born pro-choice. It was born in schism, rupture, chaos, duplicity, misdirection.
Think about how Newchurch was born—in bifurcation. After the bait-and-switch of the Second Vatican Council, Newchurch leaders went to extraordinary lengths to argue that they had not done what they had plainly pulled off. “Everything is just as before,” we were told. But then why the need for a years-long gathering of bishops and “observers,” including Protestants? Newchurch is the Vatican II sham-show, on repeat forever. The Catholic faithful have been asked for nearly sixty years now to suspend disbelief and to pretend that the Novus Ordo, the New Coke version of the real thing, is the equivalent (somehow) of the actual Mass.
Newchurch cannot have just one liturgy for just this reason: Newchurch is mockery, a mock-up of Catholicism. It can never preach Christ and Him Crucified, because that would be an insult to Newchurch’s god and Satan’s: “diversity.” When Archbishop Cordileone instituted a monthly Traditional Latin Mass at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco, shortly after Pope Francis issued his motu proprio Traditionis custodes attacking the same Mass, the archbishop couched his decision in plurality and choice. “The Mass is a miracle in any form,” His Excellency wrote.
…
I have often said that Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was probably speaking of Newchurch when he prophesied that the antichrist would set up an ape of Holy Mother Church. Newchurch is this ape, I think. It is also a fetish, a stand-in for the real Church. …
Francis may be the antichrist. …
If Newchurch were to turn around and rediscover what it abandoned, it would stop being Newchurch. That is the promise. But as long as Newchurch is Newchurch, it will continue to destroy whatever good things good men try to do.
That is the tragedy of Newchurch.
(Jason Morgan, “The Tragedy of Newchurch”, The Remnant, Feb. 10, 2022; underlining added.)
In a follow-up article, Morgan doubles down:
Newchurch has nothing to do with the Catholic Church. Newchurch’s prayers are now insults to the Living God.
…The Novus Ordo regime is the devil, clothed in vestments, laughing at Christ crucified and at His Mother at the foot of the cross. Those who are still in the pews at Newchurch “masses” sink deeper into this blasphemy with each passing day.
(Jason Morgan, “Say Your Prayers, Francis Church!”, The Remnant, Apr. 12, 2022)
At this point, the attentive Remnant reader will be thoroughly confused. Which is it? Is the church of which ‘Pope Francis’ is the head the Roman Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, or is it a man-made, humanistic institution that serves the agenda of the Antichrist and leads people to hell? The difference would seem to be significant enough to warrant sober theological reflection characterized by clarity and consistency rather than polemical diatribes to satisfy the emotional needs of the moment, wouldn’t it?
Applying this distinction to the case of Michael Warren Davis, we must ask: By leaving the church over which Bergoglio presides, which church, according to The Remnant, has he left? The counterfeit church (as per Celatus and Morgan) or the Catholic Church (as per Morrison, since the ‘Synodal Church’ is yet to come)?
It stands to reason that if one finds oneself to be a member of, or be in some other way attached to, a false church such as the one described by Morrison, Morgan, and the Rev. Celatus, then it is imperative that one abandon — that is, leave — such a false church immediately.
For years The Remnant has been sending mixed signals about what their position is regarding the nature and identity of the religious institution headquartered in Vatican City since, roughly, the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and presided over successively by Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII), Giovanni Battista Montini (Paul VI), Albino Luciani (John Paul I), Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II), Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) and now Jorge Bergoglio (Francis).
The Remnant‘s position is, effectively, that one and the same institution is both the Roman Catholic Church, the Mystical Body and Immaculate Bride of Christ, and the Whore of Babylon, the Counterchurch of the Antichrist. This blasphemous and schizophrenic situation is the product, among other things, of their stubborn refusal to denounce the false shepherds not simply as “bad” shepherds but as impostors.
They have created a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde-like entity that, depending on the needs of the moment, they can either promote and defend as the only true Church outside of which there is no salvation, or denounce as the counterfeit church of the devil that must be rejected and resisted under pain of apostasy from the truth.
Thus they end up preaching a sick and twisted hell church that apparently has the face both of Christ and Antichrist, depending on what it says at any given time — an absurd blasphemy of staggering proportions! “For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever?” (2 Cor 6:14-16a); “Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid” (1 Cor 6:15); “But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth” (Apoc 3:16).
The Roman Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ “is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15). It cannot also be “the great harlot, who sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication…. Babylon the great, the mother of the fornications, and the abominations of the earth” (Apoc 17:1b-2a,5b). That should be rather obvious.
In his July 30 write-up, Morrison misrepresents the nature of the problem we are facing as simply a matter of diabolical attacks being carried out against the Catholic Church. In reality, however, what he describes, and what readers of The Remnant are frequently exposed to, sounds as if it is the Catholic Church herself who is the doing the infernal attacking — carried out against her own members! — so much so that the columnists have begun speaking of a different, false, counterfeit church!
How absurd this is can easily be gleaned from a study of the traditional, pre-Vatican II teachings of the actual Catholic Church’s magisterium, such as the following:
Just as at the first moment of the Incarnation the Son of the Eternal Father adorned with the fullness of the Holy Spirit the human nature which was substantially united to Him, that it might be a fitting instrument of the Divinity in the sanguinary work of the Redemption, so at the hour of His precious death He willed that His Church should be enriched with the abundant gifts of the Paraclete in order that in dispensing the divine fruits of the Redemption she might be, for the Incarnate Word, a powerful instrument that would never fail. For both the juridical mission of the Church, and the power to teach, govern and administer the Sacraments, derive their supernatural efficacy and force of the building up of the body of Christ from the fact that Jesus Christ, hanging on the Cross, opened up to His Church the fountain of those divine gifts, which prevent her from ever teaching false doctrine and enable her to rule them for the salvation of their souls through divinely enlightened pastors and to bestow on them an abundance of heavenly graces.
…
There can … be no real opposition or conflict between the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit and the juridical commission of Ruler and Teacher received from Christ, since they mutually complement and perfect each other — as do the body and soul in man — and proceed from our one Redeemer who not only said as He breathed on the Apostles “Receive ye the Holy Spirit” [Jn 22:22], but also clearly commanded: “As the Father hath sent me, I also send you” [Jn 22:21]; and again: “He that heareth you heareth me” [Lk 10:16].
(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, nn. 31, 65; underlining added.)
Thus it is an impossibility that in the Catholic Church one should ever “be forced to decide between loyalty to the clerical establishment or to the truth”, as Chessman put it.
Such an idea, in fact, implies that the Church can defect and no longer preach the truth, but that is impossible for as long as Catholics remain in communion with the true Roman Pontiff (if there is one). That is why God instituted the Papacy to begin with, and that is why the Popes taught:
There has never been an enemy of the Christian religion who was not simultaneously at wicked war with the See of Peter, since while this See remained strong the survival of the Christian religion was assured.
(Pope Pius VII, Encyclical Diu Satis, n. 6)
…[R]eligion itself can never totter and fall while this Chair remains intact, the Chair which rests on the rock which the proud gates of hell cannot overthrow and in which there is the whole and perfect solidity of the Christian religion.
(Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Inter Multiplices, n. 7)
Do not let yourselves be deceived by the subtle declarations of others who do not cease to pretend that they wish to be with the Church, to love the Church, to fight for her so that she will not lose the masses, to work for the Church so that she will come to understand the times and so to win back the people and attach them to herself. Judge these men according to their works. If they maltreat and despise the ministers of the Church and even the Pope; if they try by every means to minimize their authority, to evade their direction, and to disregard their counsels; if they do not fear to raise the standard of rebellion, what Church are these men speaking about?
(Pope St. Pius X, Address Con Vera Soddisfazione)
Furthermore, in a consistorial allocution given on May 31, 1954, Pope Pius XII made clear that
all these lay apostles must be, and remain, under the authority, leadership, and watchfulness of those who by divine institution are set up as teachers of Christ’s Church. In matters involving the salvation of souls, there is no teaching authority in the Church not subject to this authority and vigilance.
…[T]here never has been, there is not now, and there never will be in the Church a legitimate teaching authority of the laity withdrawn by God from the authority, guidance, and watchfulness of the sacred Teaching Authority; in fact, the very denial of submission offers a convincing proof and criterion that laymen who thus speak and act are not guided by the Spirit of God and of Christ.
(Pope Pius XII, Allocution Si Diligis; underlining added.)
Thus the idea of having to resist or reject the teachings of what Chessman disparagingly calls “the clerical establishment” — others like to refer to it as the ‘institutional church’, as if there could be any other — in order to remain faithful to the truth of Christ, is thoroughly incompatible with the traditional Catholic doctrine.
Whatever may be the case with regard to the devil’s attacks on the Catholic Church and what God may or may not permit, it is evident that traditional Roman Catholic doctrine can never be ignored, contradicted, suspended, neutralized, falsified, or refuted on account of it. Trying to defend Catholic Tradition while at the same time breaking with that Tradition, is absurdity on stilts!
The question is not whether we can ever have sufficient reason to abandon the Catholic Church — we cannot — but whether the institution presently headed by Bergoglio is that Catholic Church, or whether it is a wicked new creation — the prophesied “operation of error” (2 Thess 2:10) — infernally mimicking the Catholic Church, leaving the latter mysteriously eclipsed for a little while, just as Our Lord was ‘eclipsed’, as it were, for a short time: “A little while, and now you shall not see me; and again a little while, and you shall see me: because I go to the Father” (Jn 16:16).
Now if the organization presided over by Francis, the ‘Conciliar Church’ of Vatican II, were indeed the Catholic Church, then that would mean that it is the Vatican II Church that the infernal ‘ape church’ is eventually going to mimic. It would mean that the devil will try to imitate not only the Novus Ordo sacraments but also the Novus Ordo magisterium’s teachings and practices on ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, religious freedom, and so on. But what would be the point of mimicking those? Do the originals not deceive and destroy souls much more than any copy of them ever could?
As the present write-up is already quite lengthy, we will stop here and deal with the remainder of Morrison’s article in a follow-up post.
Image source: composite with elements from Shutterstock (Hunterframe) and catholicidentityconference.org
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