A Brief Commentary on The Remnant‘s “Open Letter to Pope Francis”
(screenshot from Remnant video “CHURCH IN CRISIS: World’s Catholics Resist Pope to His Face”)
Just as the infamous Amazon Synod was concluding in Rome last year, the editor-in-chief of the American recognize-and-resist flagship publication The Remnant, Michael J. Matt, sat down and penned an “Open Letter to Pope Francis”. Although dated Oct. 26, 2019, it was not published until Nov. 20, 2019, together with a video version of the letter, in which a melodramatic Matt reads the text out loud:
Our most recent podcast, TRADCAST EXPRESS 113, provides an audio commentary on the Open Letter, interspersed in between soundbites of Matt’s reading of the missive.… READ MORE
Do You Believe in the Papacy?
Take this brief Test and Find Out!
Frequent visitors to this web site know that the topic of the Catholic Papacy is continually broached here. The reason for that is that a correct understanding of the Papacy is absolutely crucial, especially in our times, and is ironically rejected — wittingly or not — by a large majority of those who call themselves traditional Catholics, specifically by those who accept Francis and his five inglorious predecessors as true Popes but at the same time attempt to remain faithful to the religion of Pope Pius XII and the Popes before him.… READ MORE
Invalid Resignation or Invalid Election?
Benedict XVI’s Denial of the Dogma of Papal Primacy
It is fashionable these days to come up with all sorts of ideas and theories that render the resignation of “Pope” Benedict XVI on Feb. 28, 2013, invalid. This thesis, which we have nicknamed “Resignationism”, is very comforting to those semi-traditionalists and conservatives in the Vatican II Church who can see clearly that Francis is not a Catholic but a manifest apostate and yet will not, for whatever reason, countenance Sedevacantism as the correct alternative position that alone can explain the madness we have been witnessing since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958.… READ MORE
The Papacy as God’s GPS:
A Simple Analogy to illustrate our Predicament
The acronym GPS stands for “global positioning system”. Many people have one, either in their car, their smartphone, or both. It is essentially a satellite-based navigation system that allows the user to know exactly where in the world he is and what roads he needs to take in order to arrive safely at his desired destination.
In this post, we will use a GPS as an analogy to illustrate the essential difference between the positions of sedevacantists, Novus Ordo adherents, and the people in the recognize-and-resist camp, whom we typically call “semi-traditionalists” because their adherence to Tradition is only partial.… READ MORE
Tradition and the Magisterium:
Refuting the False Claims of Prof. Roberto de Mattei
On April 2, 2020, the semi-traditionalist flagship publication Catholic Family News published an interview with Prof. Roberto de Mattei, an Italian historian who is also the founder of the Lepanto Foundation and editor of the Corrispondenza Romana news site. De Mattei frequently speaks at conservative Novus Ordo and semi-trad conferences and is routinely promoted in the publications of those groups as a guiding light of Tradition in our dark times.
In fact, it was precisely in that putative capacity that Matthew Gaspers, managing editor of Catholic Family News, recently interviewed de Mattei, since the hierarchy of the institution they both claim is the Catholic Church, obviously does not hold the Catholic Faith and therefore cannot be considered a reliable teacher of the same.… READ MORE
Vatican journalist Peter Seewald has just published a comprehensive biography of Joseph Ratzinger in his native Germany. The book will be released in English in November under the title Benedict XVI: The Biography, apparently in more than one volume. It includes a type of appendix in which Benedict, once again, answers numerous questions posed to him by Seewald.… READ MORE
Clueless Kwasniewski cranks out another Load of Howlers on the Papacy
On Jan. 9, 2020, the conservative Novus Ordo web site Life Site published yet another blog post by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, currently the semi-trads’ favorite academic because he continually reassures them that despite all his heresies and other errors, Jorge Bergoglio (Francis) really is the Pope of the Catholic Church — you just can’t follow the man without gravely endangering your Faith (which in turn would render the Papacy not only useless but extremely dangerous, but they never think that far).
Brilliant though he may be on many other issues, when it comes to the topic of the Papacy, Kwasniewski is simply abysmal.… READ MORE
Comedy Hour with Athanasius Schneider: Kazakh Auxiliary torpedoes Traditional Doctrine on the Papacy to bail out Francis
Days after the British Tablet published a story on the retired Kazakh Novus Ordo bishop Jan Pawel Lenga publicly declaring that he does not recognize Jorge Bergoglio (Francis) as a valid Pope because he is a “heretic” and an “Antichrist” (Lenga’s words) — adding that he opts instead for Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) –, his famous compatriot and Astana auxiliary “bishop” Athanasius Schneider has injected himself into the debate.
On Feb. 28, 2020, Schneider released a statement via his usual channels, which means LifeSiteNews.com… READ MORE
Salza & Siscoe taken to the woodshed by one of their own…
“To Deceive the Elect”:
Rev. Paul Kramer destroys John Salza and Robert Siscoe
Every so often someone from the recognize-and-resist camp will complain that no sedevacantist has written a full book-length rebuttal of John Salza and Robert Siscoe’s 700-page whopper True or False Pope? Refuting Sedevacantism and Other Modern Errors (Winona, MN: STAS Editions, 2015). Frankly, there has been no need: Years ago already, after seeing the atrocious theology put forward in that book, one of their very own “priests” — the NovusOrdo-ordained Rev. Paul Kramer — announced that he was preparing a lengthy rebuttal.… READ MORE
No Saint Athanasius: “Bishop” Schneider continues to spread Errors about the Papacy
The German branch of the Vatican II Sect has recently opened its so-called “Synodal Way” or “Synodal Path” (Synodaler Weg), which is essentially an elaborate and structured series of chat sessions in which the laity get to tell their pastors what changes they want to see in the “Catholic Church” going forward. And since we’re not talking about just any country but about the Land of Luther, long one of the hotbeds of Modernism, this will produce a veritable catalog of ultra-liberal desiderata: married clergy, women priests, homo “marriage” ceremonies in church, and the like.… READ MORE
Just “Child’s Play”? Refutation of a Historian who says Vatican II Church will “Bounce Back” from Bergoglian Chaos
Every so often, perhaps because they are exhausted by all the cognitive dissonance adhering to the Novus Ordo Sect while trying to be Catholic brings, certain conservative and semi-traditionalist writers and pundits will push the idea that despite the current morass, things really aren’t quite so bad after all. Compared to other periods of Church history, they contend, the present situation is not nearly so troublesome, or at least it is certainly not without equal precedent.… READ MORE
Tempest in a Beer Mug: 130 Novus Ordos and Semi-Trads protest the German “Synodal Way” in Munich
The German city of Munich, capital of the state of Bavaria, is known for its fine beer, the Hofbräuhaus, and its annual Oktoberfest. It is also home of the see of the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, a position currently under usurpation by the rotund apostate Mr. “Cardinal” Reinhard Marx.
On Saturday, Jan. 18, Munich became the place of a protest that had not been advertised beforehand. On Friday afternoon, Michael Matt of The Remnanthad sent out a tweet with a first and rather cryptic announcement: “Please spread the word.… READ MORE
Breaking: Major International Protest today in Munich against Amazon Synod Fallout
Ladies and gentlemen, things are beginning to heat up in the Vatican II Sect. Apparently on very short notice, a major international protest has been organized and is taking place today in the German city of Munich, the seat of “Cardinal” Reinhard Marx, the head of Novus Ordo bishops in the land of Martin Luther.
So far, it seems that only two web sites have reported on this taking place: The Remnant in the United States and Marco Tosatti’s Stilum Curiae blog in Italy.
Alas, the protest is going to be a silent one. … READ MORE
These days it is very fashionable — among those who acknowledge Jorge Bergoglio as a valid Pope, yet try to adhere to the immemorial Catholic Faith — to minimize what Catholics are required and permitted to believe by restricting it to those things that were taught by the Church prior to the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, plus a few select doctrines and ideas that they have privately judged to be “in conformity with Tradition”, as their jargon usually goes. As for the rest, that is declared to be either impermissible or at least “utterly non-binding”, to stay with the typical recognize-and-resist lingo, in defiance of the official teaching of the people they claim are the present-day Catholic authorities.… READ MORE
Excerpt from Essentials and Non-Essentials of the Catholic Religion by Rev. Henry George Hughes
(1906)
What are Catholics Bound to Believe?
The general answer to this question may be put thus: Catholics are bound to believe whatever God has revealed and the Church proposes to them as to be believed. That a man is strictly obliged to assent to anything which he is convinced has been revealed by Almighty God need not be said; it needs no proof for those who believe that there is a God and that He has made a revelation to men.… READ MORE
Back in 2014, when Francis had a golden opportunity to 'proclaim the Gospel' to the needy, to those in darkness, to the oppressed who were Muslims migrants -- but he didn't. Instead he told them to read their Koran -- that would help them to move forward:
The man at the top of a church which refuses to have a mission to the Jews says "the Word [of God] is a gift addressed to everyone; therefore we can never restrict its field of action..." - https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2023/documents/20230122-domenicadella-paroladidio.html Different audiences get to hear a different gospel! #PopeFrancis
They are trying so hard but it is of no avail: You cannot have it both ways: have Francis be Pope AND do your own thing in religion. As long as you recognize him as Pope, he wins. And an opinion of Fr. Henri LeFloch does not trump papal teaching. #catholic
Kennedy Hall admits he doesn't adhere to Vatican II ecclesiology - Keep that in mind for next time one of his co-religionists asks you, "But what doctrine of Vatican II do we actually reject?" #catholictwitter #catholic
@tonylarosa9 <<< Meanwhile, the possibility of heresy in a papal teaching, even if not ruled out by the logic of non-infallibility, IS ruled out by the Church's teaching on the Papacy. If the Pope could teach something that denies the Faith, he would no longer be a safe guide to salvation.
The abominable Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi is now open for worship - Religious egalitarianism breeds indifferentism and syncretism. This is apostasy! #catholictwitter #catholic #vatican #popefrancis
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