Dr. Kwasniewski take your own advice & debate Dr. Mazza: "Out of intellectual honesty, grapple with what Socci presents here. If they can defeat his arguments, all the better for the defense of truth" - Kwasniewski
Even those who think they have a watertight case in favor of validity [of Francis] should, out of intellectual honesty, grapple with what Socci presents here. If they can defeat his arguments, all the better for the defense of truth. - Dr. Peter Kwasniewski [https://cityoftheimmaculate.com/?p=159]
Why doesn't Dr. Peter Kwasniewski take his own advice and debate Dr. Edmund Mazza?
The City of the Immaculate website reported that "On May 28, 2019, Dr. Kwasniewski posted a favorable review, on Amazon.com, of the English version of [The Secret of Benedict XVI – Is He Still the Pope? by the respected Italian journalist, Antonio Socci] book":
Even those who think they have a watertight case in favor of validity [of Francis] should, out of intellectual honesty, [emphasis added] grapple with what Socci presents here. If they can defeat his arguments, all the better for the defense of truth. If they cannot or will not, however, this would seem to indicate a moral or mental weakness. I would be happy to see a refutation, but it has to go beyond the anodyne statement that “general acceptance of a pope is equivalent to the validity of a papacy.” We are in uncharted waters, and we need to recognize that the safe and sound ecclesiology of the preconciliar period is being burst open in all sorts of ways.
(Dr. Kwasniewski’s full review is included at the conclusion of this article.)
[...]
The Secret of Benedict XVI: Is He Still the Pope? Paperback – May 21, 2019
by Antonio Socci
Reviewed Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski, May 28, 2019
I read this book expecting to be skeptical of an author who would argue that Benedict XVI did not validly or fully resign the papacy. After all, it sure looked as if he intended to do that in his famous speech of abdication, and the world seems to have accepted it as such.
Socci, however, gave me much to think about with his careful analysis of Benedict’s XVI’s utterances on the subject (and there are a surprising number of them!), Archbishop Gaenswein’s speeches, and, above all, the interpretations of canon lawyers — none of them traditionalists, by the way — who argue that the resignation lacks several conditions for validity. The argument is not based so much on the machinations of the St. Gallen Mafia as on the inherent actions and statements of Benedict XVI and others, all publicly available. In other words, this is no “conspiracy theory” but a soberly argued case. There are certainly steps in the argument that I wonder about or find less than convincing, and the book raises quite as many questions as it purports to resolve, yet the complete picture is nothing less than apocalyptic.
Even those who think they have a watertight case in favor of validity should, out of intellectual honesty, grapple with what Socci presents here. If they can defeat his arguments, all the better for the defense of truth. If they cannot or will not, however, this would seem to indicate a moral or mental weakness. I would be happy to see a refutation, but it has to go beyond the anodyne statement that “general acceptance of a pope is equivalent to the validity of a papacy.” We are in uncharted waters, and we need to recognize that the safe and sound ecclesiology of the preconciliar period is being burst open in all sorts of ways.
I would like to add that I have not read anything else by Socci on the question of the Ratzinger/Bergoglio dilemma, and it seems to me that he does not come down clearly *in this book* on the question of whether, or in what sense, Francis is Pope. If anything, he seems to be agnostic and ambivalent, suggesting a kind of papal diarchy, even while recognizing that this makes little sense in a classical perspective. Without a doubt, he thinks that Benedict thinks that both Francis and Benedict are simultaneously the pope, albeit in a bifurcated manner. While I find Socci’s interpretation of Benedict XVI’s motivations overly positive (he adulates Ratzinger as much as he denigrates Bergoglio), the way he tries to place current events in a prophetic and specifically Marian context is extremely helpful.
A last note, due to the explosive nature of this subject: based on the morally unanimous universal acceptance of his papacy, I still consider and acknowledge Pope Francis to be the Roman Pontiff, and pray for him as such. (Indeed, I could not have signed the Open Letter released on April 30, 2019, had I not thought he was the Pope!) Socci has not been able to alter this view of mine. But — I will repeat — Socci brings into clear relief the bizarreness, irregularity, and incoherence of the current situation, and causes in the reader a salutary perplexity.
ADDENDUM 5/30/19: Some are claiming that in my revisions to this review, I am “backtracking” and “sanitizing” my original position. This is not so. Rather, I have sought perfect clarity in expressing my conflicting thoughts about this book and its principal thesis. I think too many people in this debate are expecting (and in some cases, believe they have attained) clear answers where there are none and may never be until we quit this life or until the inexorable progress of events shows, beyond gainsaying, where the truth lies. This, to me, is not a discouragement of further thought and debate, but a warning against celebrating premature certainties.
Pray an Our Father now for reparation for the sins committed because 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
- If Francis betrays Benedict XVI & the"Roman Rite Communities" like he betrayed the Chinese Catholics we must respond like St. Athanasius, the Saintly English Bishop Robert Grosseteste & "Eminent Canonists and Theologians" by "Resist[ing]" him: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/12/if-francis-betrays-benedict-xvi.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
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1]
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