Dr. Mazza: Benedict's Jansenist Error & his Resignation "Doesn’t Exist"

Catholic historian Edmund Mazza explains why Pope Benedict XVI's resignation appears to be in "substantial error" and is therefore not a valid papal resignation because he thought he was"still going to be papal":

Then his stipulating that he’s only gonna resign to become Bishop Emeritus or Bishop of Rome Emeritus or Pope Emeritus, would mean what? If a man becomes Bishop of Rome, what does he automatically become? Vicar of Christ. So if a man becomes Bishop of Rome Emeritus, what does he automatically become? Vicar Emeritus of Christ. Does that logically follow? And if that’s true, then not only would Benedict be claiming, the way he does claim publicly in writing, that he still has an ontological connection to the Diocese of Rome that can never be severed as Bishop Emeritus, but he would also have to claim a spiritual share of Vicarship of Christ only as the Emeritus Vicar of Christ. 

But actually this is formal error because in the 17th century during the height of the Jansenist heresy, a pope came out and said there’s only one vicar of Christ and he doesn’t share power because the Jansenists were trying to say that Paul was just as much the leader of the church as Peter was because they were both in Rome. Long story short, the church is on record as saying that you cannot share Vicar of Christ, but I would argue from my research so far to claim to be Bishop of Rome Emeritus or Pope Emeritus is to simultaneously claim to be Vicar of Christ Emeritus, and that’s a complete fiction. That’s a unicorn. It doesn’t exist. Again that would be substantial error because I argue he only resigned because he thought he was still going to be papal, he was still going to share in the shadow of Peter, so to speak. [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/10/part-3-of-exclusive-transcription-is.html]

According to theologian Tracey Rowland in her book “Raztinger’s Faith,” Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict) was drawn in some sense as a theologian to Kantism along with Jansenism:

Kant “appears to be the dialectical opposite of Jansenism with its intensely pessimistic outlook for the capacities of fallen human nature, the two movements share the property of making obedience to a legislator (even if in Kant’s case the legislator is reason itself) the driving force behind moral action,” [and] “They also share a dialectical affinity for fostering a humanism without religion (the project of Kant), and a religion with a humanism (the effect of Jansenius).” [https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/ratzingers-faith-part-iii]

The Jansenist heresy lead to Modernist heresy as Kantism lead to the Hegelian philosophy.

 Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in the Radio Spada interview said:

"Many acts of the government of Benedict XVI are in line with the conciliar ideology, of which the theologian Ratzinger was always a staunch and convinced supporter. His Hegelian philosophical approach led him to apply the thesis-antithesis-synthesis scheme in the Catholic context, for example, by considering the documents of Vatican II (thesis) and the excesses of the post-conciliar period (antithesis) things to be reconciled in his famous “hermeneutics of continuity” (synthesis); nor is the invention of the Emeritus Papacy an exception, where between being Pope (thesis) and no longer being Pope (antithesis), the compromise was chosen to remain Pope only in part (synthesis). The same mens [mind, mentality] lay behind the decision to liberalize the traditional liturgy, while flanking it with its conciliar counterpart in an attempt not to upset either the proponents of the liturgical revolution or the defenders of the venerable Tridentine rite."

"The problem is therefore of an intellectual, ideological matrix: it emerges every time the Bavarian theologian wanted to give a solution to the crisis that afflicts the Church: on all these occasions his academic formation influenced by the thought of Hegel believed he could put opposites together. I have no reason to doubt that Benedict XVI desired, in his own way, to make a gesture of reconciliation with the hopes of Catholic traditionalism; nor that he is not aware of the disastrous situation in which the ecclesial body finds itself. But the only way to restore the Church is by following the Gospel, with a supernatural gaze and with the awareness that Good and Evil, by God’s decree, cannot be put together in an unreal juste milieu [happy medium] but that they are and remain irreconcilable and opposed, and that serving two masters ends up making them both unhappy." [https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/vigano-pope-benedict-surrounded-himself-with-inadequate-unreliable-or-even-corrupt-collaborators]

 

If Pope Benedict is and was a Hegelian, does that mean he is and was a full fledged Modernist heretic?  

 

In the early Church, were Semi-Arians considered full fledged Arian heretics?

 

Cardinal John Henry Newman in his historical research into the Arian heresy showed that the Doctor of the Church St. Athanasius was careful to make the distinction between the full fledged Arian heretic and the "weak" Semi-Arian: 

"Some... assembled [Council] prelates advocated... harsh measures towards the [Semi-Arian] Arianizers... Athanasius, however, proposed more temperate measures... A decree was passed, that such bishops as had communicated with the Arians through weakness or surprise, should be recognized in their respective sees, on signing the Nicene formulary; but that those, who publicly defended the heresy, should only be admitted to lay-communion... Yet it cannot be denied, that men of zeal and boldness were found among the [Semi-Arian] Arianizers. Two laymen, Flavian and Diodorus, protested with spirit against the [unambiguous Arian] heterodoxy of the crafty Leontius, and kept alive an orthodox [Catholic] party in the midst of the [Arian] Eusebian communion."
(The Arians of the Fourth Century, By John Henry Newman, Pages 198-199)  

'Yet the men were better than their creed; and it is satisfactory to be able to detect amid the impiety and worldliness of the heretical party any elements of a purer spirit, which gradually exerted itself and worked out from the corrupt mass, in which it was embedded. Even thus viewed as distinct from their political associates, the Semi-Arians are a motley party at best; yet they may be considered as Saints and Martyrs, when compared with the Eusebians, and in fact some of them have actually been acknowledged as such by the Catholics of subsequent times. Their zeal in detecting the humanitarianism of Marcellus and Photinus, and their good service in withstanding the {300} Anomœans, who arrived at the same humanitarianism by a bolder course of thought, will presently be mentioned. On the whole they were men of correct and exemplary life, and earnest according to their views; and they even made pretensions to sanctity in their outward deportment, in which they differed from the true Eusebians, who, as far as the times allowed it, affected the manners and principles of the world. It may be added, that both Athanasius and Hilary, two of the most uncompromising supporters of the Catholic doctrine, speak favourably of them. Athanasius does not hesitate to call them brothers [Note 7]; considering that, however necessary it was for the edification of the Church at large, that the Homoüsion should be enforced on the clergy, yet that the privileges of private Christian fellowship were not to be denied to those, who from one cause or other stumbled at the use of it [Note 8]. It is remarkable, that the Semi-Arians, on the contrary, in their most celebrated Synod (at Ancyra, A.D. 358) anathematized the holders of the Homoüsion, as if crypto-Sabellians [Note 9]."
[http://www.newmanreader.org/works/arians/chapter4-2.html, Cardinal John Henry Newman]

In my opinion, Benedict was and is a Semi-Modernist in the sense that Athanasius saw the Semi-Arians in the early Church, but it is obvious that Francis is different. Is Francis a full fledged Modernist? He apparently doesn't care about being loyal to the total body of infallible Church teachings. He appears to be a total Modernist heretic. (See: //catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-evidence-that-pope-francis-is.html?m=1) 

 

So, in what ways are and were Benedict and John Paul II different from Francis?

 

The Remnant newspaper and traditionalist were right in saying that the Vatican II ambiguities were in some ways the forerunners of Amoris Laetitia's original ambiguity before the Francis Argentine letter.

Strangely, the non-traditionalist conservative Matthew Schmitz put it best:

"[T]he post-Vatican II settlement [of]... Upholding Catholic teaching on paper but not in reality as led to widespread corruption... a culture of lies... that allowed men like McCarrick to flourish."

It allowed the Church of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI to keep heretics and homosexual predators in the hierarchy such as McCarrick and others like him to flourish and to promote neo-sacrilegious media productions such as the Assisi fiasco and the kissing of the Koran.

This was wrong and God will judge them for their failures to be good fathers (popes) in allowing evil men into God's Church to abuse and to lead many to indifferentism and away from salvation which is only in Jesus through His Church.

Both sincerely in my opinion because of false philosophical personal ideas while not totally abandoning Thomism tried to do the practically almost impossible task of being loyal to the infallible teachings of the Church while holding on to neo-modernist Personalist versions of Kantian as did John Paul and Hegelian philosophy as did Benedict as well as the ambiguities of Vatican II.

Benedict if you read his later writings finally rejected Kantianism, but couldn't completely give up Hegelianism.

However, he realized in a vague way that the ambiguity of Vatican II was destroying the Church so he brought back the Traditional Latin Mass and attempted to fight against sex abuse, the Vatican gay lobby and reform the finances to the Church.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, these efforts united the financially corrupt old guard of Cardinal Angelo Sodano and the Vatican gay lobby which brought about Vatileaks and other pressures against Benedict that eventually lead to the Benedict resignation and the papacy of Jorge Bergoglio whose pontifical validity has been questioned by many even in the hierarchy from the beginning to this day.

As Bishop René Gracida has said there was never universal acceptance of Bergoglio by the Church.

But even more importantly, there are deeply reasonable doubts about the validity of Benedict's resignation and Bergoglio's lawful election to the papacy which were never present with the other papacies which Bishop Gracida declares must be investigated and interpreted by the cardinals as John Paul's conclave constitution explicitly states.

This is one reason that Francis is not the same as Benedict and John Paul.

The other reason that The Remnant is wrong in saying Francis is the same as Benedict and John Paul can be put simply in analogy:

John Paul and Benedict were sincere doctors with medicine that was getting the patient sicker.

Benedict realized the medicine was bad and slowly started giving good medicine.

But, in my opinion, Francis is a doctor who is trying to kill the patient by slow poisoning.

In my opinion, it is obvious that Francis doesn't have even a remnant of Thomism. Nor does he apparently care about being loyal to the infallible Church teachings. He appears to be a nihilistic postmodernist like his favorite theologian Michel de Certeau.

Francis's only grasp of reality or meaning appears to be leftist and Peronist ideology as well as his close friend the kissing bishop's heretical Bernard Haring Hegelian situation ethics all dressed in religious language.

While Benedict and John Paul upheld Church teachings on paper while not always in reality, Francis with Amoris Laetitia, the Argentine letter, the death penalty Catechism change and the latest indifferentism papal statement isn't even upholding the infallible teachings on paper.

George Gilder wrote a book called "Sexual Suicide" which helped me return to the Church because it showed that the Catholic teachings on sexuality were true and those outside those teachings were committing slow suicide.

Francis in my opinion is trying to kill the Church by slow suicide.

He will not succeed because Jesus promised the gates of Hell will not prevail.

Those who don't oppose him in my opinion are his accomplices. 

Pray an Our Father now in reparation for the sins of Francis's Amoris Laetitia.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost - Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.

Francis Notes:

- Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:

"[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)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said "the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church."

[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

- "If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?": http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html

- "Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?": http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html

 -  LifeSiteNews, "Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers," December 4, 2017:

The AAS guidelines explicitly allows "sexually active adulterous couples facing 'complex circumstances' to 'access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'"

-  On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:

"The AAS statement... establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense."

- On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:

"Francis' heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents."

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.

Election Notes:  

- Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: "212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted...Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden" [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]

- Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times "Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003": http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html

- Tucker Carlson's Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written" according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1

 

- A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:

http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1

 

What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: "Anitfa 'Agent Provocateurs'":

http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] 

Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God's Will and to do it.

 

Pray an Our Father now for America.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary