Flashback: LifeSiteNews' Westen: "Discussions are going on among the Hierarchy" that Francis is a "Heretic or Illegally Elected"
Today, in a Dr. Taylor Marshall YouTube podcast, LifeSiteNews' chief editor John-Henry Westen admitted that "discussions are going on among the hierarchy" that Francis is a "heretic or illegally elected":
"[Marshall said] Beneplenists, Benedict is pope, has taken off and we saw Bishop Gracida endorsing this [Catholic Monitor correction: Bishop Rene Gracida has apparently proposed this as one option of three courses of action including the illegal conclave option and the Bellarmine option for an manifest heretic.] And also... Archbishop Lenga has kind of joined on board and there are a lot of voices in Italy of course Antonio Socci... "
"... How does John-Henry Westen compute all this?... "
"... [Westen answered] "[T]he easiest solution would be to have Pope Francis declared some kind of heretic or illegally elected or whatever. And I know discussions are going on among the hierarchy. But, for lay people we are unable to make those calls. And for right now we are called to pray for the pope and I pray literally for his [Francis's] conversion."
(Dr. Taylor Marshall YouTube Channel, "Did Pope Francis Betray Catholic China? Is Corona the Judgement?," 51:35-54:04)
Question for Westen:
If lay people are not allowed an opinion, how can he, a layman, affirm Francis is the pope?
At LifeSiteNews, only lay people who question Francis's validity are not allowed to have opinions. Everybody else is.
Moreover, if the "hierarchy" is discussing whether Francis is a antipope due to an "illegal" election then he is a "doubtful pope."
Theologian Fr. Sylvester Berry wrote:
"Hence the saying of [Doctor of the Church St. Robert] Bellarmine: a doubtful pope is no pope. 'Therefore,' continued to Cardinal, 'if a papal election is really doubtful for any reason, the elected should resign... the universal Church... can and ought to decide, when occasion demands, who is the legitimate pope."
(The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, Page 229, Note 8: Bellarmine, "De Concilio, ii, 19)
Finally, if Westen is praying for Francis's "conversion" then that mean he apparently is of the opinion that Francis has lost the faith and may be a heretic.
If this is true then the Bellarmine option summarize by his friend and colleague Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales comes into play:
"[T]he Pope... when he is explicitly a heretic he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church must either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived of his Apostolic See."
(The Catholic Controversy by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as for the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
I think that they speak of this in public, shows that their narrative control is bleeding on all sides.
Their position is emotional politics, not rational, dogmatic, canonical.
How can you and the other Bergoglian normalizers, Mr. Westen, dismiss the questioning of his claim to the papacy as taking the wide road, the easy path, out of one side of your mouths, while out of the other you are constantly shielding yourselves behind the baseless assertion that nothing can be done about the situation because it would just be too hard? You can't have your cake and eat it, too, Mr. Westen. If all of you at Lifesite wish to position yourselves as opinion leaders in the anglophone or even wider Catholic world, you can't just skip the part about making simple sense in the first place.
@SFA: Francis is an antipope. There's no doubt he's head of the criminal clerical Homosexual Network Strangling the Church. These men have just denied the Sacraments--the whole raison d'etre of the Church--to us all including the undersigned sitting ten miles from Grand Central Station in New York. Dioceses of New York (ten counties); Newark; Paterson; Bridgeport; and Brooklyn are having a Mass blackout, following the lead and example of this false pope and antipope you say we daren't challenge.
Sorry, you're wrong.
Benedict did not properly resign the office of the papacy. Hence he is still the Pope. The text is plan. Canon law and resignation.
Mr. Salza is a lawyer w no expertise or training in Church history or canon law, but he sure knows a lot about Free-Masonry. You may consider him 'well-informed,' on the Benedict-Francis debate, and that may be true as to yourself. To me he is a self promoter.
To most traditional Catholics in the pew (contrasted against professional butter-my-bread-bishopdonors talking heads) his commentary is tendentious, rude, arrogant, and insulting to women and clergy.
If you can't figure out Bergoglio simply ain't Catholic, and that Benedict is, and that we have two men as a matter of plain fact running around calling themselves pope, and that people have the right and duty to figure it out and declare for the Catholic one...well then I'm afraid I can't help you.
Perhaps read a little more of Bro. Bugnolo at his site, where today he notes, @ FromRome.Info:
"A great scandal is being given the world, and it is not the Wuhan virus. It is Bishops closing the doors of Churches and/or abolishing the public offering of the Sacraments of our Holy Faith.
"Let us be clear. The Bishops have no right to do this. Their duty is to minister the sacraments, in season and out of season, as the great Saint Paul the Apostle teaches."
Viva il Papa! Viva Benedetto! Viva the Immaculate Heart! ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
¡¡VIVA!!