11 February 2013, Pope Benedict read out the Declaratio in which he intended to bifurcate the papacy, which lead to the subsequent invalid conclave and the invalid election of his “successor.” I remember being absolutely blindsided by his announcement (believing it to be valid at that point). The timing was so strange it seemed to me, and many priests I spoke with, especially given the Year of Faith which was then underway.
The Year of Faith had begun on 11 October 2012, the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II. It was first announced by Benedict a year earlier, 11 October 2011, precisely 16 months before the announcement of his faux abdication. What exactly happened in those 16 months which made Benedict retreat from the battlefield and run from the wolves? Perhaps there are many reasons we will never know, but it is insightful to understand the two main objectives of the Year of Faith as laid out in the motu proprio PORTA FIDEI HERE.
The first key element reveals that Benedict thought that perhaps he had done enough housecleaning in what at that point had been a six and a half year reign that he could launch a final assault on an objective we all know he held dear: definitively establishing the “hermeneutic of continuity” as the sole arbiter of Vatican II. It’s truly hard to believe that such a thing was really plausible only six or seven years ago, but it was.
“It seemed to me that timing the launch of the Year of Faith to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council would provide a good opportunity to help people understand that the texts bequeathed by the Council Fathers, in the words of Blessed John Paul II, “have lost nothing of their value or brilliance. They need to be read correctly, to be widely known and taken to heart as important and normative texts of the Magisterium, within the Church’s Tradition … I feel more than ever in duty bound to point to the Council as the great grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century: there we find a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning.” I would also like to emphasize strongly what I had occasion to say concerning the Council a few months after my election as Successor of Peter: “if we interpret and implement it guided by a right hermeneutic, it can be and can become increasingly powerful for the ever necessary renewal of the Church.”” PF #5
Hopefully everyone reading this has done enough research to know by now that this is complete BS, not that I doubt Benedict honestly believed it was true. Vatican II was a totally failed council containing errors and pathways to error at a magnitude never before seen in the history of the Church. Yes, you can read the vast majority of the documents in a traditional light if you so choose, but they can also be read in many different ways precisely because of their ambiguity, and this was done INTENTIONALLY WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT. It’s a false floor; if you think you can use it as a backstop so long as you treat it with respect to Tradition, you haven’t done enough research. The entire thing needs to be suppressed, and someday it will be. If you haven’t learned the reasons why, and you think Vatican II is just dandy, you’re operating from a false base premise.
The second key element of the Year of Faith was an honest admission of the hideous state of catechesis in the Church today, and Benedict’s desire at a serious effort to correct this by way of the new Catechism. Of course there is no mention of Vatican II as a direct cause of the problem.
“In order to arrive at a systematic knowledge of the content of the faith, all can find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church a precious and indispensable tool. It is one of the most important fruits of the Second Vatican Council. In the Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, signed, not by accident, on the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Blessed John Paul II wrote: “this catechism will make a very important contribution to that work of renewing the whole life of the Church … I declare it to be a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion and a sure norm for teaching the faith.
It is in this sense that the Year of Faith will have to see a concerted effort to rediscover and study the fundamental content of the faith that receives its systematic and organic synthesis in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Here, in fact, we see the wealth of teaching that the Church has received, safeguarded and proposed in her two thousand years of history. From Sacred Scripture to the Fathers of the Church, from theological masters to the saints across the centuries, the Catechism provides a permanent record of the many ways in which the Church has meditated on the faith and made progress in doctrine so as to offer certitude to believers in their lives of faith.” PF #11
So perhaps it was these two elements, the lack of movement in the intervening months, or the additional wolves which came prowling as a result of the offensive, which caused Benedict to despair. We know there were other factors, probably threats. Whatever the truth of the matter, here we sit. So again, if you haven’t done the research into why Benedict’s abdication was invalid, and you think he really resigned, and Antipope Bergoglio really is the Vicar of Christ on earth, with all the supernatural protection from error that comes with it, then you are operating from a false base premise and you will never be able to make any sense about what’s going on here.
If you would like to read more about how Benedict began to lay out the breadcrumbs for us about his plans for a bifurcated papacy in his speech five years ago today, go HERE
I will leave you with Matthew 24, which I can’t stop thinking about:
When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand. For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say to you: Lo here is Christ, or there, do not believe him. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. Behold I have told it to you, beforehand. Matt 24:15, 21-25