The Catholic Teaching on the Papacy
A Collection of Quotes from Magisterial Documents
In our day there are a lot of people who call themselves, and mean to be, traditional Roman Catholics. Yet a great many of them do not hold to the traditional Catholic understanding of the Papacy, either because they do not know it or because they unhappily accept the “Popes” after Pius XII as valid and legitimate but know that they cannot submit to them without abandoning the traditional Catholic Faith. The tragic irony in the latter case is that by denying the Catholic teaching on the Papacy, they are abandoning the Faith just as much.… READ MORE
Letter from the Holy Office under Pope Pius IX condemning false attempts to procure Christian Unity
“Apostolicae Sedi Nuntiatum”
September 16, 1864
A Letter of the Supreme Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition to all the English Bishops
It has been notified to the Apostolic See that some Catholics and even ecclesiastics have given their names to a Society established in London in the year 1857, ‘for promoting’ (as it is called) ‘the unity of Christendom;’ and that several articles have been published in the daily papers signed with the names of Catholics, in approval of this Society, or supposed to have been written by ecclesiastics in its favour.… READ MORE
Slam Dunk against Vatican II…
Letter from the Holy Office under Pope Pius IX condemning Ecumenism and affirming True Christian Unity
“Ad Quosdam Puseistas Anglicos”
“To Certain Puseyite Anglicans”
November 8, 1865
The binding force of this instruction from the Holy Office, eminently relevant in our difficult times, was reaffirmed by the same Holy Office in 1919, under Pope Benedict XV, and in 1927, under Pope Pius XI.
Highlights:
- “take care lest, while seeking unity, you turn yourselves aside from the way”
- “sorry that you happened to think those Christian groups that boast of having the inheritance of the priesthood and the catholic name belong to the true Church of Jesus Christ, even though they are divided and separated from Peter”
- “what sane person will persuade himself that error can underlie the Church’s public and solemn magisterium”
- “no one is in the Catholic Church who does not cling to that Rock, on which the foundation of Catholic unity has been set”
- “all groups entirely separated from external and visible communion with and obedience to the Roman Pontiff cannot be the Church of Christ, nor in any way whatsoever can they belong to the Church of Christ”
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
License: public domain… READ MORE
His Holiness, Pope Leo XIII
Apostolic Letter to Cardinal Pietro Respighi, Vicar General of Rome
On Protestant Proselytism in Rome (1900)
Apostolic Letter of His Holiness Pope Leo XIII, in which he laments and condemns the preaching and proselytism of Protestants in the city of Rome, Italy.
To M. Pietro Cardinal Respighi, our Vicar General,
Lord Cardinal,
Already, from the first moments of Our Pontificate, We had to indicate, as one of the most deplorable harm that is the change in the order of things in this capital of the Catholic world, the ardent proselytism of heresy and, consequently, the peril which the Faith of Our people was exposed to.
… READ MORE
His Holiness Pope Pius XII
Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office
Cum Compertum (1948)
Canonical Warning on Catholics attending Ecumenical Gatherings
Editorial Comment: Novus Ordo Watch is pleased to provide the first English translation of this rare, hard-to-find document issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office of the Roman Catholic Church, dated June 5, 1948, entitled Cum Compertum. It is a canonical warning, a so-called Monitum, issued by the Church’s highest authority against Catholic involved in ecumenical gatherings with non-Catholics, very much the kind now fully endorsed and promoted by the Novus Ordo Church and its bogus “Second Vatican Council”.… READ MORE
Apostolic Letter of Pope Pius IX
Iam Vos Omnes (1868)
Apostolic Letter of His Holiness Pope Pius IX to all Protestants and other Non-Catholics at the convocation of the [First] Vatican Council, Sept. 13, 1868, that they might return to the Catholic Church
TO ALL PROTESTANTS AND OTHER NON-CATHOLICS
Pius IX, Pope
You all know already that We, having been raised, notwithstanding Our unworthiness, to this Chair of Peter, and therefore invested with the supreme government and guardianship of the whole Catholic Church, divinely entrusted to Us by Christ our Lord, have judged it seasonable to call to Us Our Venerable Brethren, the Bishops of the whole earth, and to unite them together, to celebrate, next year, an Ecumenical Council; so that, in concert with these Our Venerable Brethren who are called to share in Our cares, We may take those steps which may be most opportune and necessary, both to disperse the darkness of the many noxious errors which everywhere increasingly prevail, to the great loss of souls ; and also to establish and confirm daily more and more among the Christian people entrusted to Our watchfulness the Kingdom of true Faith, Justice, and the Peace of God.… READ MORE
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