Why the “Bifurcated-Papacy” Still Matters

(Today is the feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church, who protested at length against antipope Anacletus II, even as that antipope ruled with universal acceptance in Rome for eight years. Got that? Someone who doubts the person of the Pope is NOT schismatic. Upon the death of Anacletus, Pope Innocent II took his rightful place thanks to St. Bernard, Innocent’s Papacy was recognized as being in force for the prior eight years, with the Anacletus antipapacy being fully nullified and expunged. Look it up, because it is only a matter of time before this happens again ;-/. -nvp)

Why the “Bifurcated-Papacy” Still Matters

By Father David Nix

This summer, Monsignor Nicola Bux claimed that Pope Benedict XVI wrote him about public accusations that he had bifurcated the papacy before he died.  Among other things, the late Pontiff allegedly wrote the Italian priest in 2014: “To suggest that I resigned only from the exercise of the ministry and not from the munus is contrary to clear dogmatic and canonical doctrine. If some journalists speak of a ‘creeping schism’, they do not deserve any attention.”

Even if Pope Benedict XVI had written that (something I doubt) the late Pontiff is still the one to blame for that rumor that there was a “contemplative Pope” and an “active Pope” over the last decade.  I have already written much on this topic, so I’m not going to re-hash it all.  But I will remind you that in his last public Wednesday audience at the Vatican, Pope Benedict made it clear he was only executing a semi-resignation to the papacy:

The “always” is also a “for ever” – there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this. I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences, and so on. I am not abandoning the cross, but remaining in a new way at the side of the crucified Lord. I no longer bear the power of office for the governance of the Church, but in the service of prayer I remain, so to speak, in the enclosure of Saint Peter. 

Does a “semi-resignation” exist?  Of course not.  And that is why we are going to see how that novelty foisted upon the Chair of St. Peter continues the destruction within the Vatican to this day.

In fact, even though Pope Benedict died on the last day of 2022, I’m not the only one writing about the troubles in Rome connected to his “semi-resignation” through this summer of 2025.

In this article, I will reference two recent writings on the papacy found only in Italian, but translated from Google Translate to the English on my site at an article I labeled Italian Papal News Translations.  The first writing on that site comes from Archbishop Viganó from August 2025 on the site of Marco Tosatti.  The second comes from a secular Italian writer on the papacy at Roma Today.  The full English to both articles are found in the above link.  If you want to read them in Italian, also click the above link and you’ll be directed to them.

From Archbishop Viganó’s recent writings, I want to highlight and then comment on some of the most important paragraphs.  His words will be in italics below.  My commentary will be in bold font, as usual.

Viganó: It will not be surprising to learn—as Cardinal Walter Brandmüller confided to me in January 2020, responding to a specific question of mine—that Professor Joseph Ratzinger developed the theory of the [papal] emeritus and collegial papacy with his colleague Karl Rahner in the 1970s, when both were “young theologians.” During a telephone conversation I had in 2020, a trusted assistant of Benedict XVI confirmed to me the Pope’s intention—reiterated several times to her—to retire to private life in his Bavarian residence, without retaining either the apostolic name or the papal vestments. But this eventuality was considered inappropriate for those who would lose their power in the Vatican, especially those conservatives who looked to Benedict XVI as their model and had mythologized him.

Nix: Notice here that AB. Viganó is again insisting that Ratzinger had it in his head his whole clerical life that a future Pope (be it himself or someone else) could one day become a “Pope Emeritus” will full power shared into a “collegial papacy.”  So, if Msgr. Bux really got that letter from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2014 referenced in the first paragraph, then Benedict XVI simply changed his mind from his earlier insistence on a bifurcated papacy.  (Dr. Ed Mazza has repeatedly proven very clearly from Ratzinger’s own writings in the 1980s that he [erroneously] believed a “resigned Pope” would still maintain the grace of office of Pope somehow until death.) So, we can ask this question from the beginning: If Benedict really told Bux he never meant to double-up the papacy into “two Popes” then why did he promote this broken notion from the 1980s forward?

Viganó:  It must be said that the institution of the Episcopate Emeritus is also a canonical monster, because with it, the diocesan bishop’s jurisdiction is “frozen” based on his age (upon reaching the age of 75), contrary to the centuries-old practice of the Church. The Emeritus, by diminishing the bishops’ awareness of being Successors of the Apostles, has also had the immediate consequence of a total deprivation of responsibility, relegating them to the role of mere functionaries and bureaucrats. The institutionalization of Episcopal Conferences as governing bodies that interfere with and hinder the exercise of the potestas of individual bishops has certainly constituted an attack on the divine constitution of the Catholic Church and its apostolicity.

Nix:  In other words, Ratzinger got his idea of a “Pope Emeritus” being ontologically the same as a Pope from the notion that a “Bishop Emeritus” retains his original ordination, too.  Besides the fact that Viganó rightly indicates that both are modernist inventions, we have to remember that there is no ontological change to accepting the papacy, even though it contains new graces and responsibilities as the highest office in the Church.  Yet, again in his final Wednesday audience, Pope Benedict XVI revealed he was only semi-resigning when he snuck in there that for him and the papacy, “Always’ is also ‘forever’–there is no return to private life.”  Benedict clearly revealed in that statement he believed he would continue as the “contemplative Pope” with Francis as “active Pope,” thus creating a two-headed monster that would ravage the Church and the minds of believers for decades to come.

Viganó: We thus witnessed a sort of artificial separation of the Papacy: on the one hand, the Pope renounced the Papacy, and on the other, the person Papæ, Joseph Ratzinger, sought to maintain certain aspects of it that would guarantee him protection and prestige. Since his physical departure from the Apostolic See could be seen as a form of disapproval of the Church governance line imposed by Bergoglian deep church, both the Personal Secretary and the Secretary of State strongly pressured Ratzinger to remain “half-service,” so to speak, playing on the fictitious separation between munus and ministerium—a separation, moreover, vigorously denied in the Emeritus’s response to Msgr. Bux.

Nix:  Basically, Viganó is here saying that while Benedict did indeed believe he bifurcated the papacy into a two headed monster (half-Ratzinger and half-Bergoglio) he regretted up to the end of his life that his “other half” was so much more of a member of the “deep church” than he was.   As even Mr. Peter Seewald once admitted:  “As a South American and a Jesuit, [Bergoglio] has erased much of what was precious and dear to Ratzinger.”  Yes, sadly that Hegelian and naive Ratzinger thought the other half of the bifurcated-papal-monster he created would be Catholic… but it wasn’t.

Nix, now pivoting to the next article translated from Italian to English:  What does this have to do with the current situation in the Vatican?  A secular writer at Roma Today asked a Cardinal in Rome right after the Conclave of 2025 why they all chose Prevost.  Again, see the link found in the third paragraph of my blog today if you want to see the full article in English or Italian.

Roma Today: I risked everything and pressed him: “Your Eminence, how did it go? Is it true that Parolin withdrew his candidacy? Is it true that the College of Cardinals wanted to find a more moderate candidate after Bergoglio?” “My dear son,” he said to me, “you just don’t understand: Prevost was Bergoglio’s only candidate. Even shortly before he died, that old Argentine stubborn man had called all the cardinals he could trust and told them: ‘Please remember: after me, it’s the American’s turn. A missionary, an Augustinian, he will be the best for the Universal Church.’”

Nix: This shows that Prevost was always Bergoglio’s number one pick to succeed him in what they have both labeled “the synodal church.”  Also, if this story is true—if a Cardinal really did claim that “Prevost was Bergoglio’s only candidate” and that he chose him, then we’re obviously looking at two successive illegal Conclaves in a row, albeit separated by 12 years.  The Roma Today reporter also gives us clear proof that “Leo is Francis 2.0” (as they say) without any respite from the leftist-globalism foisted upon the Vatican beginning in 2013.  Or, perhaps you don’t believe the account of a secular Roman journalist regarding an “anonymous Cardinal.”  That’s fine.  But then just look at the fact that “Pope Leo will host a pro-LGBT Catholic group in Rome…”  That is all the evidence you need that “Leo is Francis 2.0” and that he had to be his number-one pick for years prior.

Roma Today: “But why Prevost?” I asked. [The Cardinal replied:] “Because Bergoglio was very clear that after his pushback, a ‘normalizer’ was needed, someone who could reassure the Curia, even though he wasn’t a member of the Curia; someone who could reassure the progressives, even though he wasn’t a traditionalist; and finally, someone who could reassure the traditionalists, because he saw himself as a moderate. This last thing was what worried the old Pope most; he had a clear sense that, at a certain point in his pontificate, schism had actually come close. In short, someone was needed to unite, even a little gray, if you like, but after the fireworks, a little silence is good. Look,” he said, bringing his face closer to mine, “I’ll confess something to you, even the name, on that too I think the Argentine pampas had their say; they needed the name of a Pope of tradition, but also the first Pope who opened the Church to the modern world, the one of ‘Rerum Novarum’.”

Nix:  It’s very telling that this anonymous Cardinal in Rome admitted that Prevost was chosen to “reassure the traditionalists” he was a moderate, even though he was Bergoglio’s first pick after the bifurcated Papacy of Benedict XVI.  I have to ask you dear readers:  Does any of this sound legit to you?  Does any of this sound like a valid Conclave?  Does any of this even sound Catholic?  Of course, there has always been lobbying in past Conclaves (and sometimes even funny-business) but never have we seen a full re-definition of the papacy introduced by imposters until the 21st century.  Yes, this level of infiltration is even more novel than Vatican II, even if the two of them are theologically and sociologically connected.

Roma Today:  Anonymous Cardinal: “Only then, to put an end to the matter immediately, did Bergoglio’s most trusted man, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, (coincidentally the Synod’s general rapporteur, Bergoglio’s brainchild) take action. Hollerich set things straight, and Parolin, at that point, declared his unwillingness to be elected. So it was a landslide: 107 votes. I believe poor Erdő even asked not to be voted for again, but the hardline traditionalists had figured out the game and wanted to represent their dissent. In short, only those who made a mistake didn’t vote for Prevost.”

Nix:  The Holy See stated earlier this year that even though Pope John Paul II officially limited the number of Conclave-voting Cardinals to 120, it would simply “dispense” with this number because the late-Francis wanted more Cardinals to succeed him on the next vote.  Thus, it’s either hilarious or devastating (or both) that the above anonymous Cardinal brags about so many illegal voters (men of whom even EWTN claimed another anonymous Cardinal admitted earlier this year that only “ten Cardinals have a good, solid understanding of the faith”) for that “Conclave” which avoided all past rules on electing a true Pope.  Of course, this is all downstream of the invalid-bifurcation attempt upon the papacy executed by Pope Benedict XVI.  Don’t believe me?  No problem.  See the overwhelming evidence to these claims in the above links from Ratzinger, Viganó, Seewald, Mazza and others.

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https://padreperegrino.org/2025/08/bifurcaterevis/