From the Patrick Coffin interview with Cardinal Burke a couple weeks ago, through the lens of a shrieking @DawnofMercy:
Coffin then repeats a traditionalist bishop's call for a synod to "resolve" whether the last conclave was valid. And he asks Burke about Antonio Socci's book claiming Benedict is still pope.
Surely Burke will assure listeners that Socci is wrong? Well, almost, but not quite… pic.twitter.com/7dEC43H3Wq
— Dawn Eden Goldstein 🇺🇦 (@DawnofMercy) August 15, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoUq6sWqaTE
I’m only covering a five minute clip of this interview. If you want a crack at the complete transcript intertwined with Dawn’s pearl clutching, go HERE.
First of all, forget about St. Gallen Mafia and the shenanigans at the “conclave.” Coffin starts in about that around 18:00, referencing Bishop Gracida’s claims, but this will get us nowhere. Since Benedict attempted a partial abdication, which was wholly invalid and therefore a null act, no conclave actually took place. The conclave was rendered invalid ipso facto the invalid abdication. It was a Cardinals’ Retreat, nothing more. Think about this. Any effort to invalidate a conclave that is already invalid would, if successful, only result in another invalid conclave, because the one true living pope is still alive and kicking. The failed partial abdication is the True Premise from which the resolution must proceed.
So start at the 23:00 mark. ++Burke is addressing the question of the validity of the abdication. The audio is pretty terrible, so here is the transcript and commentary from Dawn; sorry, but it’s the only source available. Ignore the sections that she highlighted, and concentrate on the second and third paragraphs.
Burke reluctantly admits that Socci’s claim that the papacy is split between two popes “won’t hold water.” But as for whether Benedict is still the pope, “the whole matter is a bit confused.” And Socci is “an outstanding, … saintly man,” Burke adds; “it merits to read him.” …
That’s enough to show Burke is too close to the schismatic rails. Given that @NCRegister, @cnalive, and @EWTN often run stories portraying him as a guardian of orthodoxy (though @cnalive wisely ignored his Declaration of Truths), they owe it to their readers to report on this …
Do you see what’s going on here? He mixes truth with error. Frankly, though, he is so close to the whole truth that he is looking straight past it.
First, ++Burke asserts that a pope must govern in order to be pope. “There is only one pope and the pope must govern the Church.” Well yes, that’s how it’s supposed to work, governance being one of the three components of the ministry, the others being teaching and sanctifying. However, failure to govern does not unpope a pope. A pope in a coma, a pope in exile, a pope in prison… none of them can govern, but they still remain pope. This is not a difficult concept. Yes, a pope is SUPPOSED to govern, but the failure/inability to govern has exactly ZERO effect on the ontological reality of who is pope. Popes remain pope until they die or validly resign. Period, full stop.
“That someone could hold the office and someone else is actually carrying out the ministry — that simply won’t float.”
YES. EXACTLY. THAT SIMPLY WON’T FLOAT.
THERE’S A TERM FOR IT: SUBSTANTIAL ERROR.
Pope Benedict’s faux partial abdication was based on delegating the governing aspect of the ministry, while retaining the office. This is Substantial Error, per Canon 188. Cardinal Burke correctly makes reference to the last Wednesday Audience and +Ganswein’s speech at the Gregorianum in 2016. There is also evidence in the original Latin Declaratio itself, where he fails to resign the Office. These actions nullified the abdication, per the very clear words of Canon 332.2, a canon which specifically addresses the conditions for a valid papal abdication. Therefore, the Cardinals had no jurisdiction nor authority to convoke a conclave, per Canon 359. You don’t need to be a canon lawyer to understand the plain meaning of the words of the law (a concept which itself is part of the law, as explained HERE).
What really is going on here is ++Burke falling headlong into the old False Base Premise trap. He first gets tripped up by the notion that whomever is governing must be pope, which frankly is just not very bright, in that it ignores the counterexamples I gave and the fact that we’ve obviously had antipopes who’ve governed the Church in the past. Then from the “Francis is pope” false assumption he proceeds to lay out the evidence that Benedict is pope, but he’s unable to apply said evidence back to the question of the effectiveness of the abdication.
Allow me to restate the block quote in the form of a rational argument, from ++Burke’s worldview, and you will see it more clearly:
- “Francis” is pope
- Socci provides evidence Benedict attempted an expanded petrine ministry
- Benedict laments inadequacy to GOVERN, retains vesture and remains in Vatican
- Ganswein in May 2016 defined the structure of a faux expanded petrine ministry
- Burke asserts there can be only one pope
- Therefore, “Francis” is pope
Do you see how that works? All of your assumptions throughout the argument (#2 through #5) can be true, but it will never lead you to a true conclusion if your base premise is false.
- “Francis” is pope – FALSE
- Socci provides evidence Benedict attempted an expanded petrine ministry – TRUE
- Benedict laments inadequacy to GOVERN, retains vesture and remains in Vatican – TRUE
- Ganswein in May 2016 defined the structure of a faux expanded petrine ministry – TRUE
- Burke asserts there can be only one pope – TRUE
- Therefore, “Francis” is pope – F-A-L-S-E………….
I need to write a letter.
Dear Your Holiness Pope Benedict, c.c. Cardinal Burke,
Since you didn’t resign the Munus (violating can. 332.2), and you attempted to split off the governance aspect of the ministry while retaining the Munus (violating can. 188), quite possibly coerced (also violating can. 188), and you allowed a conclave to be convoked while you still held the Munus (violating can. 359), and you remain in the Vatican, wearing white, being addressed as His Holiness, signing your name Pope Benedict, bestowing your Apostolic Blessing, not smashing your fisherman’s ring, writing books, granting interviews, all while an antipope and likely False Prophet forerunner of the Antichrist has usurped the throne, endangering millions of actual souls…
…would you mind calling a press conference, and reclaiming your pallium? I would have it dry cleaned first; you never know where it’s been. You could clear up a lot of this mess of the past 6.5 years, and it might even reassure some people that the Church really is who She says She is, that Christ keeps his promises, pillar of fire pillar of truth, and all that good stuff. If not, and if CCC675 really is in play, could you at least do me a solid and have +Ganswein email me the Third Secret?
Sincerely,
NVP
- Benedict is pope – TRUE
- Socci provides evidence Benedict attempted an expanded petrine ministry – TRUE
- Benedict laments inadequacy to GOVERN, retains vesture and remains in Vatican – TRUE
- Ganswein in May 2016 defined the structure of a faux expanded petrine ministry -TRUE
- The papacy is a divinely instituted monarchy, which cannot be “demythologized” – TRUE
- Burke asserts there can be only one pope – TRUE
- Therefore, Benedict is pope – TRUE
- All logical fallacies nuked from orbit DING DING DING
The beauty of logic and truth.
Thanks Mark. Clear and easy to understand….like our Lord’s promise.
This rings very true.
I have discussed this matter with several of the most intelligent and holy churchmen I know, including two men of very careful thought, both monks, I would even call philosophers. None seemed to be able to entertain the thought even as a postulate or thought experiment that Francis was not Pope.
It was discouraging and downright creepy how these men acted. It wasn’t even close to their usual behavior. It made me wonder whether the “smoke of Satan” was not just talking about the corruption of the Church, but also a curse to blind the vision of our holiest clergy…
I don’t know. Maybe I’m offbase.
I’ve seen it too, so much so that in many cases I’m convinced that demonic oppression is involved.
That was EXACTLY my feeling in every conversation I’ve had with a clergyman about the topic. I thought I might have been jumping to conclusions.
@Uriel: Please ignore this if I am mistaken, but I thought it was you who mentioned having a friendly acquaintance with Cdl. Burke. If so, what do you think of handing him or personally mailing him a letter like the following. It seems as if his personal secretary is not allowing information like this to make its way to him.
(You can find this letter in full here: https://fromrome.wordpress.com/2019/09/05/veri-catholici-an-open-letter-to-cardinals-burke-and-sarah/ and at Veri Catholici’s twitter feed.
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Canon 332.2 cannot be fulfilled by a renunciation of ministerium. That is evident by canon 145.1, 17, 331, and 749. It is also dogmatically impossible.
It’s also evident that canon 124.1 and canon 188 require that the proper object of canon 332.2 be posited, namely the renunciation of the munus, otherwise, in virtue of canon 188, the substantial error of doing otherwise invalidate the act ipso iure!
Now if a pope should act in violation of Canon 332.2, since in doing so he would injure the rights of the whole Church to know who is and who is not the true Pope, he would have to apply canon 38 derogating from the discrepancy. But Benedict did not do anything of the kind!
Therefore, he is still the pope, and canon 359 invalidated the Conclave of 2013. Also, on this account, all the Cardinals and Bishops ARE WRONG to reason from their presumption that Francis is the pope toward any conclusion. As he never was. He is an antipope, a usurper.
Nor can one argue that the Pope, being above canon law, is above Canon 332.2, because that canon enshrines merely the principles of the Natural Law, which are superior to the Pope and from which he CANNOT dispense!
One aspect of which is the semiotic law, whereby the being of a thing cannot in a forensic act be rite manifestatur by a term which signifies an accident of it.
Take this example. A pope has the habit of calling the burden of his work, Bananas. And one day while shaving says, “I am renouncing Bananas.” Can the Cardinals lawfully proceed to elect another, if the Pope says nothing more? No, because Bananas is not a due term for a legal act.
Even if he said, I am renouncing bananas, during a solemn Consistory of the Cardinals, they could not proceed to elect another. Not even if he commanded them or allowed them explicitly to do so, because until he says I renounce the Papacy, Christ does not remove the office!
These Cardinals also need to recognize that the criteria employed to determine validity in contractual law is not the same in beneficiary law. For in contractual law, as is used in Annulments evidence regards whether there was a right intention, this is principal.
But in beneficiary law, which regards bequests, the intention has no force, what matters is only the verbal signification of the act of bequest. Renunciations fall under beneficiary law, not contractual law. This is the fundamental legal error of the Cardinals and bishops.
For just as it is impossible for anyone to be the Pope unless he succeeds to the Chair of Peter, the office, so it is impossible for anyone to renounce the Papal Office unless in a forensic act there is an explicit renunciation of that office.
The case is analogous to property law, wherein no one is the rightful owner of the same single property, until the one who holds the property rights renounces them in a legal act. Renouncing only the usufruct (ministerium) does not grant the title to the successor in law.
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Again, if it was not you who has the personal acquaintanceship of Cdl Burke, please ignore this idea.
Uriel, to get them to learn to think, you need to propose a legal case which does not regard the present but a hypothetical one. That will allow them to think about principles before their knee jerk sentiment kick in and gag their reasons into a mindless somn-ambulance.
Really, who gives a rat’s azz what Dawn Goldstein thinks. Her twitter feed links to an article in CAMERA magazine which libels both Patrick Coffin and Dr. E. Michael Jones as anti-Semites. CAMERA is a notorious pro-Zionist lobbying group. Do I have to connect the dots here?
“We cannot give approval to this movement (Zionism). We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem – but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people… And so, if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we shall have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you. Gerusalemme, must not get into the hands of the Jews.”
St. Pius X speaking to Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism.
Mark, you state so very clearly that the Pope is supposed to “pope”–administer, that is exercise the powers of the Petrine Ministry. And that just because he’s not “pope-ing” doesn’t mean he does not retain his “pope-ness”–the Papal Office. Similarly a doctor is supposed to practice doctoring and just because he decides not to go into his office and practice–administer, exercise his doctoring ministry–doesn’t take away his being a doctor nor does his refusal to give anyone else the keys to his office give anyone else the ontological right to take up the doctor’s keys and practice–exercise his powers–in his place. Herein lies a bone of contention or more precisely a blind spot that I perceive in yours and Miss B’s thought processes.
We agree that we do not and can not know Pope Benedict’s motivation for purposefully retaining the Papal Office while setting down the Petrine Ministry. And yet in your blind spot you insist that the keys were willingly and perhaps even collaboratively passed on by Pope Benedict. Where in any of his statements has Pope Benedict given permission for someone else to take up the keys let alone use them? Just because they are laying there does not mean he did or, by Canon Law, that he even could direct the Cardinals to pass on the keys. As you and Cdl Burke stated, the Keys go with the Office.
In fact part of the renunciation speech that requires examination from the most precise translation is the part when Pope Benedict uses the Subjunctive Mood in mentioning the possible calling of a future conclave. With all the duty that extends from my particular state in life, I demand a rigorous examination into the black-and-white facts of the WORDS of the renunciation in light of Canon Law.
I firmly believe that there exists no substantial error: Pope Benedict saw what he could do to protect the papacy, he and he alone could do it and he did.
What you have laid out is profoundly simple in its truth. It is Catholic.
I will say that the one thing that has surprised me throughout this whole tragedy, is the refusal of intelligent people to grapple with the idea of an antipope. They cannot bear it. I believe it overturns their belief system, which leads me to think that many who think of themselves as Catholic would be shocked to find they are not…at least in the traditional sense.
As far as Cardinal Burke is concerned, I think he is either holding on by a thread, trying to wait out “Francis” in the hope of picking up the pieces later. Or, he is a Company Man to the end. Either one is miserable.
Dear blogger,
Thank you for your time in trying to figure this mess out.
I have a little grammar note: whoever IS governing NOT whomever!! Whoever is Nominative, whomever is accusative (or maybe dative)
I have a question: Which part of the Latin declaratio are you referring to?: There is also evidence in the original Latin Declaratio itself, where he fails to resign the Office.
I have a quibble: Your premises are not quite what Burke lined up. I don’t think you are being fair to him. He is not starting out with “Francis is Pope,” he is saying that Benedict has denied that he is Pope. Burke is saying that the situation is admittedly murky, but he can only go on Benedict’s words.
Oh I saw your blog on the words that Benedict used. I can see your point. It is murky, but since Benedict did strenuously say he was not Pope, can’t we just believe him?
What matters is the juridical act of renunciation. If you commit a crime and then change your mind or regret it afterwards, you still committed the crime.
Benedict never said he was not Pope, and it is absolutely incorrect to say he did.
Source? Vatican shill journalists in unattributed ‘interviews’ using the very same phraseology as the enigmatic Gänswein does not equate to Pope Benedict saying he was not Pope.
All his actions are to the contrary. Whatever he renounced it was certainly not the Papacy per se.
Or, alternatively, if you commit a crime and declare it’s *not* a crime in due to circumstance … it’s still a crime; eg – divorced and re-married one or more times: for the sake of “marital” bliss and harmony my conscience declares I can have sex with wife #2 (+).
“It is so because I and my (malformed) conscience say it is so”.
Or, alternatively, if you commit a crime and declare it’s *not* a crime due to circumstance … it’s still a crime; eg – divorced and re-married one or more times: for the sake of “marital” bliss and harmony my conscience declares I can have sex with wife #2 (+).
“It is so because I and my (malformed) conscience say it is so”.
Those American Cardinals are angry with Pope Francis because he is truly denouncing the capitalist system and because he is truly humble they should learn the meaning of mercy and love and stop creating division in the Church. Pope Benedict xvi clearly renounced to the Petrine office. Long life to Jesus Christ and to his servant Pope Francis.
“I have the humility and the ambition!”
Miguel Perez:
An atheist God-hating communist can be united around the goals of ending capitalism and the redistribution of wealth.
A Christian can *only* be united around the Cross and spreading the Gospel of Christ to a world of lost souls going to hell, in need of redemption, whom God wants us to save for eternal life in heaven.
And of all people, communists are most in need of the Gospel, because they are the most lost having given themselves up to denial of God and the transcendent.
Mercy begins with justice and leads to repentance; from there to forgiveness and on into true unity in God.
Division in the Church is the natural byproduct of an antipope who promotes communist manifestos of anti-capitalist programs and one-world-government schemes.
Unity in the Church is the natural byproduct of a true Pope, in unity with all other Popes and Saints beneath the Cross of Christ in service to God’s Dogmatic unchanging Truth.
By their fruits you will know them.