“On today’s episode of The John-Henry Westen Show, I ask Dr. Edmund Mazza, a professor of Church history, to unpack the controversy and confusion surrounding the 2013 resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and address the potential implications for Francis’s papacy if the resignation were invalid….”
“This is a dense episode — Dr. Mazza dives deep into the subject with remarkable aplomb — but it’s a fascinating one you won’t want to miss. Here’s a taste of what you’ll be getting:”
Dr. Mazza: “Well, believe it or not, Canon Law, Canon 188, says that when someone in the Church resigns from their office, one of the things that would invalidate that resignation is something called substantial error. It’s when your intellect has an erroneous idea of the object that you were choosing, that your will is choosing. Well, if your intellect presents an erroneous object to your will and your will chooses it, your will is not free […] If Benedict thought he could resign the active ministry of the papacy, but somehow still remain papal [in the passive sense, not in the active sense], and was able to offer up his sufferings and prayers in an ontological connection to the munus [ministry or service] that belongs to St. Peter…”
00:10 Archbishop Vigano questions Benedict’s resignation
03:45 +Msgr. Bux proposes investigation
05:10 +Fr. Gruner in 2014 declares Benedict’s resignation invalid
05:45 Video of +Gruner
09:10 Power is tied to Office
10:30 Canon law itself tells us that a papal resignation can indeed be invalid
11:00 Unpacking the Latin of Benedict’s Declaratio
13:00 Munus vs Ministerium
15:15 The crisis of Ecclesiology
16:00 Bishop Arrieta on Munus vs Ministerium
18:10 Lewis and Short won’t cut it
19:00 Slowikowska on the criticality of context
20:40 Substantial Error explained
24:00 Benedict’s last General Audience
24:36 Always and Forever
25:30 Passive vs Active exercise of the Munus
27:00 Seewald money question and answer
28:26 Benedict: “The Office enters into your very being.”
32:00 Benedict: “There were no black cassocks available.”
33:30 Vatican II says, in a nouvelle way, that bishops have the power to govern solely by the fact of their consecration, not by papal mandate/jurisdiction
38:00 If Benedict believes his papal power stems back to his episcopal consecration, he believes he can never lose it
40:00 If you are resigning, you need to resign all of it, and understand you are no longer “papal” in any way
41:30 JPII says there is no such thing as Pope Emeritus
44:00 On splitting Vicar of Christ from Bishop of Rome
46:00 There can be no Vicar Emeritus… that’s heresy
48:00 All of this is Substantial Error
49:00 Does this mean his acceptance of the papacy was also invalid?
52:00 If Benedict is pope, are all of Bergoglio’s appointments invalid?
53:45 St. Cajetan on what schism is not
54:15 F. X. Werner and P. Vidal on what schism is not
55:00 +Kramer’s “On the True and False Pope”
55:30 Dr. Radaelli “He is Pope, Not the Other”
56:00 Speculation on motive
58:00 Fr. Malachi Martin money quote on the False Pope
59: Prophesy of St. Malachy
Dear Lord, how much longer? I see that a gay concert is happening at the Vatican… Lord, how much longer? Father Gruner used to say things will turn around when there are more Catholics praying and sacrificing for an end to this than there are Catholics who just couldn’t be bothered. What will it take???
Thanks to Dr. Mozza for all the work he is doing. He is an intelligent and learned man. I’m very grateful to him for the effort he is putting in to this.
Good interview.
I wish Dr. Mazza would go further into the question of: “Can an antipope appoint cardinals which will choose his successor(s)?”
I’m wondering where he would stand with a post-Benedict XVI and post-bergoglio Catholic Church. Would he say, “The College of Cardinals has voted this man Pope, he may be a liberal modernist nutjob, but he is the legitimate Pope. Habemus Papam! I’m going to shut up now.”
Or would Dr. Mazza say, “bergoglio was an antipope, and the cardinals he appointed shouldn’t even have been there to elect his successor, we now need an Ecumenical Council to resolve this mess like at the Council of Constance in 1414* which resolved the Western Schism, and hopefully throw a modernist or three into the Tiber River, to get the Church back on the right track.”
*I’ve taken a Church History class or two in between all the Math and Physics classes.
This question was touched on briefly toward the end, when he mentions Ecclesia Supplet. We have had this situation occur in the past, and the Cardinals made by the antipope were allowed to remain Cardinals, but were forbidden to vote in the conclave.