Fred Martinez over at Catholic Monitor has really been nailing it lately HERE.
He draws some high quality commentary, too.
This one today is priceless. I hope he doesn’t mind me posting it.
Jack said…
People who imagine that Vatican I’s definition of papal infallibility is circular, tautological, or otherwise redundant imagine that the dogma goes like this: “Solemn papal definitions are infallible, because the pope has the power of infallibility.” Which is like saying, “it’s right because the pope says it’s right.”
This would be to set up the pope as a kind of god, since only God is truly self-justifying like this, right simply because He is right, because He is Truth itself by His very essence.
I think in the wake of liberalism and its undermining of all authority, Catholics rallied to the pope and after Vatican I made this kind of mistake, at least implicitly, that the pope is right because he is right. But this is just another human error, setting up a man in God’s place, undermining authority in an even more subtle way.
The pope is not right because he says he’s right, and he’s not infallible simply because he has the power of infallibility (although he is and he does). Vatican I is very clear. The pope is infallible BECAUSE Christ gave the keys to Peter and his Successors, and HE guaranteed by HIS divine power that the pope would never err in his solemn teaching capacity. This is perhaps a subtle distinction, but it makes a profound difference. It means that our faith is not centred on the person of the pope, but centred on Christ just has it has always been.
So when we come across a pope who appears to be erring in doctrine, the first thing we should ask is whether he is really erring or not. And if he is erring, the next thing to ask is whether his papacy is legitimate or whether he’s an antipope. But for people with a worldly mindset who are too willing to accept the world’s opinions and maintain their public image, and who’s faith is more centred on the person of the pope than on the person of Christ, they would rather deny Vatican I and become heretics than accuse a possible antipope (despite there having been many, many antipopes in history) and fall temporarily out of favour.
To be honest at this point I would not be surprised if Skojec is a kind of double agent and 1p5 a false-opposition operation designed to keep potential critics of the regime confused and pigeonholed. Keep traditionalists as a whining bunch of scandalmongerers rather than united in any useful purpose.
Jack’s comment would have been equally relevant with regard to another post which appeared today, which I mirror here for the sake of this combox:
—————————————
The Dr. Pepper Tautology – How “Francis is Pope” Inevitably Leads to Heresy, Schism, and Apostasy
The current argument which you can see on a near-daily basis from most “Trad Catholic” sites, bloggers, pundits, whatever is this:
Papal Infallibility only applies to those magisterial statements which are true. Those statements are infallible, and are manifestations of the Petrine Protection. All magisterial statements that are false are not infallible, and do not fall under the Petrine Protection, and thus in no way violate the Dogma of Papal Infallibility.
Now think about this, folks – and here is where the culture-wide inability to think in a logical progression rears its ugly head yet again.
Everything Bergoglio says that is true is infallible.
Stop. Think about that.
Everything ANYONE says that is true is infallible. The truth IS infallible. It’s a completely circular argument. And thus, by logical extension, anything that is false is not infallible.
This argument, which actually says nothing at all, applies to every man, woman, child and angelic being that ever has and ever will exist. Everything satan has ever said that was true was infallible. Everything Hitler ever said that was true was infallible. Everything Hillary Clinton has ever said that was true (and that set is SMALL) is infallible. Thus, what we have here is a TAUTOLOGY, which is a statement that is true by virtue of its logical form.
The set of “truth” is infallible, because infallibility is freedom from error, which the truth, by definition ALWAYS IS. The root of the word “infallible” is the Latin fallere, which means “to deceive”. The truth cannot be both true and false.
And so, once again, we see the wrong-headed defense of Antipope Bergoglio qua Pope accomplishing EXACTLY what satan wants, which is completely destroying the entire notion of the papacy itself.
If Our Lord’s promise to Peter was nothing more than an empty rhetorical trick, a TAUTOLOGY, and the Petrine Protection is actually a UNIVERSALLY APPLICABLE AXIOM, then no real promise was ever made, and the Papacy has been a joke all along – which is EXACTLY what the various SCHISMATICS; Lutherans, Anglicans, all Protestants and the Orthodox, have all been saying all along. And satan squeeeeeeals with delight.
The truth is, Papal infallibility is real, it is a supernatural promise and gift, absolutely intrinsic to the Papacy, proceeding necessarily out of Our Lord’s infinite love for His Holy Church, and for us as individuals, and the fact that Antipope Bergoglio so very clearly does NOT enjoy that supernatural protection, is just one more clear, obvious “red flag” sign that somehow his “election” was invalid. With even the most superficial examination of events, it is perfectly clear to any who care to look with open, honest eyes that Pope Benedict XVI’s attempted partial resignation was Canonically invalid twelve ways from Sunday, and that Pope Benedict never validly resigned and has been the one and only Pope all along per
Canons 188,
332.2,
131,
359, etc. etc. Like I said, twelve ways from Sunday.
The fact that Antipope Bergoglio is so flagrantly outside of the domain of the true definition of Papal Infallibility – which is real, as history AND the words of Our Lord in the Gospels attest – is a blinking neon sign of a red flag pointing BACK to the events of February ARSH 2013 and the faux-abdication, and thus total invalidity and nullity of the conclave of March ARSH 2013.
If your position always leads to the tearing down of the Papacy, and matches up EXACTLY with the founding objective of Freemasonry to destroy the Papacy, which has been satan’s goal since day one, then dontcha think that MAYBE your base premise – namely the IDENTITY of the Pope – is WRONG?
So, now that Trad, Inc. has pretty much fully embraced the Freemasonic agenda to discredit and destroy the Papacy in their own minds and the minds of the faithful, the next step, which one can see coming like a freight train across the Western Kansas plains, will be to start going after SCRIPTURE ITSELF, declaring certain passages and eventually entire books of the Bible to be wrong, useless, and to be ignored or disregarded. Mark my words. The Luther-esque Bible editing will commence in 3..2..1…
I covered this in my Part 1 video presentation on the Bergoglian Antipapacy at the 01:57:07 timestamp, to which the embed below is cued, if you prefer video.
Pray for Pope Benedict XVI, the Papacy, and Holy Mother Church.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh_CIoVvaOk?start=7027&feature=oembed]
I’m infallible
He’s infallible
She’s infallible
We’re infallible
Wouldn’t you like to be infallible, too?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvCTaccEkMI?feature=oembed]
Nonvenipacem, God bless you. Always feel free to copy and paste anything on the Catholic Monitor.
Thank you, sir. I did try to find an email contact for you on your site to ask permission, but I couldn’t find one. Thanks for all you do.
Every time I make a comment on different blogs about the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any supernatural protection for Francis, I get the same response that a Pope is only infallible on the rare occasion of making an ex-cathedra pronouncement. Even Bishop Gracida said this is true. I find this hard to believe, especially since this is such a rare event.
Couldn’t a “Pope” just wreak havoc in the Church if this was the case, as long as he didn’t make an ex-cathedra pronouncement?
If Christ’s promises are true, he should protect a true pope with great care. For the good of the pope and all the faithful. What Bergoglio does on a daily basis seems rather… unprotected.
Whatever spirit actually is riding Jorge Bergoglio is most evidently not the Holy Spirit. That’s been obvious for years.
Whatever spirit actually is riding Jorge Bergoglio is most evidently not the Holy Spirit. That’s been obvious for years.
Or Barnhardt is right….
I do believe this Skojec person does not really care if Bergoglio, Ratzinger, or anyone else is the true pope. For as long as other Catholic blogger and/or site keeps taking his “opinions” seriously and debating him, he will be happy. That gives him a higher profile, more traffic to his site, and more money. For such an intelligent and accomplished man (Skojec dixit) it is ridiculous to write that drivel and I suspect he is aware of that.
Ignore him altogether and see how his tantrums skyrocket, making the most outrageous claims still.
I don’t think it’s necessary to question Skojec’s motives. The world is replete with well-educated, intelligent men that have fallen into errors without nefarious intent. Something about education encourages men to put too much trust in their own opinions (myself included!). I imagine that a man that makes his living by publishing his opinions to the world is especially vulnerable to this failing. Add heavy social media use on top of that, and I think such a man puts himself in a truly perilous spiritual situation. He’d better be praying the Litany of Humility or something similar every single day. I do not envy such a man.
No, I don’t envy him either. A prideful and confused man deserves our prayers.
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!
Not sure what happened to him. I think Jorgé broke him.
Cardinal Burke, Roberto De Mattei and others have always tried to save both Vat. I and the claim that “Francis is Pope” by stating that not everything that a pope utters is protected by infallibility. This seems pretty sensible to me.
A validly elected pope (e.g. John XXII) can say at table that the saints will not see God until the end of the world. But he would never be able to proclaim it as a dogma.
Between a dogmatic definition (like those of the Immaculate conception or of the assumption of Our Lady) and chatter at table there are lots of different types of utterences: private letters, public speeches, declarations, encyclicals, exhortations (like Amoris Laetitia) etc.
Here is the thing. EVEN IF we were to grant, with cardinal Burke, that Amoris Laetitia has no magisterial authority (pace Bergoglio’s letter to the Argentine bishops), how can we say that Bergoglio’s revision of the CCC is not an act of the universal magister (under the hypothesis that Bergoglio were to be pope)?
Vatican I says that a pope is infallible when he
“speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals [chapter 4:9]”.
So a pope has to:
(a) exercise of office of teacher;
(b) define a doctrine concerning faith and morals
(c) address the whole Church
in order to be infallible.
even if we were to concede that one of these conditions is not met by Amoris Laetitia (i.e. we should grant that either he was not addressing the whole church – but he was – or that he was not speaking of faith or morals – but he was – or that he wasn’t exercising his alleged office of teacher – this is the tricky part, where Burke’s might have a point, cf. AL 3), how could we possibly say that in revising a cathechism for the universal church a validly elected pope is not exercising his office of teacher, addressing the whole church on matters pertaining to faith and morals?
John Paul II was certainly doing it while he promulgated the CCC.
Now “Francis” has inserted an obvious heresy in the CCC. Hence, he cannot be the pope, otherwise Vatican I is false (which it isn’t).
Cardinal Burke’s remarks that “Francis” is speaking as a private man while condemning the legitimacy of death penalty “won’t float”
Bravo!
Does the JPII 1992 Catechism “float”?:
“2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; …”
Well, most of them don’t choose to be SSA. Many who wish to rid themselves of it, cannot. So the condition itself is disordered but not sinful in itself. To act upon it, is.
Ah, that’s your point. Then, I propose a little experiment per analogiam: replace homosexuality with bestiality (or if you prefer newspeak: zoophilia / zoophilic), same sex person with animal and check whether it still stands valid for you.
Yes actually I think you proved my point.
I would like to add that im my humble opinion the statement that merciful God creates persons with SSA (sin-preferring sodomite addiction) is the ultimate surrender to pure satanism.
I did NOT say God created them that way. I said the condition is unwanted by a vast number of them, yet a vast number are unable to “convert” to hetero and so strive to live holy lives of chastity and perfect continence. Are you seriously unaware of the Courage apostolate?
then it seems you agree with certain Miss Gaga who also claim that it is a question of being “born that way”. BTW “homo” and “hetero” is a brilliant semantic design of one 19th century pederast to put both options on the same equal level. Thanks to freethinkers, religious liberty and so on it has worked and voila! you find it in so-called Catholic catechisms and, more, you find it imprinted inside minds of people declaring themselves Catholics, making them accuse the Almighty God of creating attraction/addiction to abomination strictly forbidden by Him. Quite insane times I think.
Correction, I did NOT say they were born that way. Typo. I will fix it. The rest of my comment shows what I meant.
OK. But you say that they were not born that way, then what you mean by “deep-seated tendency” and “homosexual conditions.”? Both terms imply a “birth that way” – therefore, several years JPII Vatican produced the CCC they cut out the 2nd sentence of the above quoted paragraph. I think they came to conclusion that it was too obviously pointing to so-called homo-lobby behind the text. Maybe Francis will come to the similar conclusion with regard to the passage that enraged you so much.
Those terms may sound like Born This Way, perhaps even intentionally so, I admit, but I don’t think it crosses the line. Also, the part they deleted was still available in some part of vatican.va until just recently, I saw someone report.
I see the confusion of who is Pope as a parable. Father explains why God uses parables to reveal His truths. The explantion starts around the 8 minute mark to 15.
Sorry to keep harping on OLOR series, but it explains a lot to this uneducated soul.
https://youtu.be/9vQr28sPVCY
I’ve listened to this one, and father is exactly correct. Once you realize this, it makes very many things a lot easier to understand.