Did the False Perception of Vatican I making Popes "Omniscient or Impeccable" lead to the mistakes of the Conservative Vatican II Popes & the acceptance of Francis's Modernist attack on Catholic Infallible Teachings"?
Of course, infallibility does not include a guarantee that any particular pope won’t “neglect” to teach the truth, or that he will be sinless, or that mere disciplinary decisions will be intelligently made. It would be nice if he were omniscient or impeccable, but his not being so will fail to bring about the destruction of the Church. - Catholic Answers [https://www.catholic.com/tract/papal-infallibility]
Scholar Geoffrey Stephen Hull, a "linguist, ethnologist and historian," presents evidence that the problems of the Vatican II popes started with Vatican I with the false perception of some that it made the pope "omniscient or impeccable" and above Tradition which it did not.
Hull makes the case that this false perception of popes being "omniscient or impeccable" lead to the mistakes of the Vatican II popes and the present acceptance of Francis's Modernist attack on Catholic infallible teachings which is enabled to a large extend by conservative Catholics:
I come finally to the other immediate cause of the liturgical revolution, a new and particularly destructive form of ultramontanism, which in my view is the only way of explaining how recent Popes could have made such an astonishing about-turn on the question of liturgical tradition. The term ‘Ultramontane’ first coined by the French Gallicans of the seventeenth century, normally refers to those who supported the definition of the dogma of Papal Infallibility in 1870. However, on the popular level ultramontanism has manifested itself in the cult of the person of the Pope, which hardly existed before Pius IX, but is still very much with us today. In the nineteenth century the enemies of the Ultramontanes were the Liberal Catholics; the Ultramontanes of today, who abide loyally by all the decisions of the Papacy, rejecting criticism and even discussion of any of them, are opposed not only by the heirs to the Liberal Catholic tradition, but also by the Traditionalists. Fully aware of the consequences of their action, traditionalist Catholics feel bound in conscience to criticize certain aspects of the Second Vatican Council and to reject the official and unofficial liturgical reforms that ostensibly issued from it.
To the Ultramontane mind, which is also the mind of the Popes of our day, one cannot adopt the traditionalist stance and remain authentically Catholic. It is often not appreciated that in the discussions preceding the dogmatic formulations of the First Vatican Council, Pius IX strongly favoured the interpretation of Papal Infallibility as meaning Papal inerrancy in matters of Church discipline as well as in dogmatic definitions, an exaggerated claim at odds with the teaching of the Church. But when - so the story goes - Fr. Guidi, Superior General of the Dominicans, pointed out to the Pope that his idea of Papal infallibility was against Tradition, Pius IX angrily reminded him that "La tradizione son’io!" - ‘I am Tradition’, a symptom of Papal megalomania providentially checked by the Holy Ghost.48
Unfortunately, there is ample evidence today that the modern Popes consider themselves the infallible arbiters of disciplinary and liturgical tradition rather than its respectful custodians. John Paul II, for example, has been known to act arbitrarily and inconsistently in contravention of established liturgical law. One famous episode was during his visit to West Germany in 1980 when, in contradiction to the firm Papal policy of not giving Communion in the hand, he administered the Sacrament in this manner to a small boy by way of exception, thus establishing an irrevocable precedent.49 On another occasion, I am told, the Pope incorrectly knelt during a Papal ceremony in Rome, and when his Master of Ceremonies discreetly directed him to rise, John Paul remained on his knees and retorted pointedly: "II Papa s’inginocchia!" - "the Pope is kneeling!". With such a subjective attitude towards liturgical tradition, unthinkable in any of the Eastern Churches, it is understandable that the modern Popes and the ultramontanist Curia should view traditionalist rejection of the liturgical reform as incompatible with Catholic orthodoxy which they narrowly understand as right belief and right morals.
From the traditionalist standpoint, it is an abuse of power for the modern Papacy; however orthodox in its dogmatic teaching, to Command the faithful to accept an anti-traditional liturgy in the name of obedience to the supreme ecclesiastical authority. If the Papacy, in an official document, can reverse a fundamental teaching of orthodox Christianity by totally subordinating the liturgy to the interests of new ‘orientations’, one is forced to conclude that recent Popes, in turning their backs on their own past for whatever noble motives, have placed themselves above Tradition and abused their position as the supreme legislators in disciplinary matters. For a Catholic to make such an admission is painful, and from the ultramontanist point of view disloyal, not to say actively schismatical.
There is unlikely to be agreement on this question until the Holy Father comes to a deeper understanding of his own action in re-legalizing the traditional Roman liturgy, which logically considered, entirely contradicts his thinking on the post-conciliar reform, which is substantially that of Paul VI and of the episcopal conferences. Yet this contradiction which has created a dynamic tension in the Church must ultimately be resolved, and we may optimistically regard it as a sign of hope for the eventual restoration of the patrimony of which Latin Catholics have been unjustly deprived. In the meantime, as Archbishop Lefebvre remarked shortly after his audience with Pope John Paul II in 1978: "We can at least pray to the Blessed Virgin that when he becomes aware of the enormous difficulties he will meet in the exercise of his power as Pope, he will reconsider his stance and perhaps conclude that he must return to Tradition ». [http://civitas-dei.eu/hull.htm]
Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI were in my opinion in many ways very confused thinkers due to their philosophical and Nouvelle theology underpinnings and backgrounds.
Benedict and John Paul II as well as many conservative and even some Traditionalist Catholic thinkers were apparently influenced towards a kind of semi-Modernism by many Nouvelle theologians especially Etienne Gilson and his collaborators.
The deceptive Gilson who is called by many "the chief scholar of Aquinas in the 20th century" not only mislead John Paul II, but most of the orthodox (even some Traditionalists) Catholics to accept the equally dishonest or simply poor scholar Henri de Lubac who made the false claim that Thomas Aquinas didn't make a distinction between nature and the supernatural grace.
As one reads the scholar McInerny's "praeambula fidei" it is obvious that he considers Gilson a real scholar who was dishonest in his discourses on Cajetan and Aquinas while he doesn't, it seems, appear to consider de Lubac "orthodox" or much of a scholar:
"'Supernatural' brought de Lubac... silenced... eventually De Lubac learned that it had been other Jesuits, not Dominicans, who had questioned the the orthodoxy of his views... If de Lubac got Cajetan's reading of St. Thomas wrong, what is to be said of De Lubac's own understanding of Thomas." ("praeambula fidei," Pages 70, 84)
The point is, as McInerny shows in his book, that Gilson and de Lubac were a team who worked to discredit Cajetan and ultimately St. Thomas' real teachings. The poor scholar de Lubac needed Gilson's reputation as a honest scholar to cover for his "question[able]... orthodoxy" and dishonest or poor scholarship.
It can be argued that part of what the nouvelle theologian de Lubac's teaching has done is replace the infallible teachings of the Church with Kantian/Modernist teaching in which all human experience (pagan, heretical, mundane, etc...) is equal to the redemption, grace and teachings given to us by Jesus Christ's Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection as taught and administered through the Sacraments by the Church He established:
"The rejection of the proportionate human nature separate Henri de Lubac more decisively from St. Thomas than anything else, doubtless because this rejection is at the basis of his thought... Grace, as the words suggests, is gratuitous, unowed, above and beyond what our nature is naturally ordered to. The supernatural, as the word suggests, is added onto natural... In de Lubac's account... [it] is almost as if for him the supernatural replaces the natural." ( "praeambula fidei," Pages 85-86)
It might better be said that de Lubac's teachings replaced the supernatural with the natural.
Thomist scholar Taylor Marshall, in the best paragraph of his book "Infiltration," summarized what Nouvelle theologians like de Lubac did:
"They [Nouvelle theologians] sought to make everything grace, and by doing so, they, in fact, reduced everything to the natural, so that the natural longings [human experiences] of every human became the means of salvation. Hence, all human nature itself is 'open' to attaining salvation. This means that liturgy should be less supernatural and that other religions are 'open' as means of salvation. This theology necessitates a new liturgy, a new ecumenism, and a new form of Catholicism. It is Freemasonic naturalism cloaked with quotations of the Church Fathers. The nouvelle theologie was a frontal attack on Thomas Aquinas." ("Infiltration," Page 135)
Pope John Paul II's Vatican II attempt to mix Aquinas' metaphysics of objective reality with the semi-Kantian/Modernist subjectivist thought lead to things like the disastrous "ecumenical" Assisi "prayer meeting" and many of the other problematic actions of his pontificate, but kept intact, for the most part, the moral and dogmatic teachings of the Church despite the Vatican II ambiguities and lack of clear definition in that council's documents as Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre pointed out during and after Vatican II.
Unlike Benedict and John Paul II, Francis's apparently unambiguous pure Kantian/Modernist subjectivist theology unmixed with Thomist's metaphysics is bringing about "a new form of Catholicism. It is Freemasonic naturalism cloaked with quotations of the Church Fathers... a frontal attack on Thomas Aquinas." This theology appears to be leading to his attack on the moral and dogmatic teachings of the Church such as Communion for adulterers and other errors.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in the Radio Spada interview said of the Nouvelle theology influenced Benedict:
"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."
"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 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: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2023/07/is-it-possible-that-francis-is-nihilist.html)
"[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 doubtful 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.
It seems 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 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
– 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.
Comments
The people who call the idea that the pope cannot be a formal heretic ultramonism are those who think Francis is legit and want to create new theologies about tha papacy.
This is especially for Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Pachmama Dave Armstrong, Mark Shea as well as all their Communion for adulterers Patheos collaborators and all the assorted conservative to traditionalist Francis apologists.
Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) in "Si Papa":
"'Let no mortal being have the audacity to reprimand a Pope on account of faults, for he whose duty it is to judge all men cannot be judged by anybody, unless he should be called to the task of having deviated from the faith. (Si Papa)'"
"Pope Innocent III: 'For me the faith is so necessary that, whereas for other sins my only judge is God, for the slightest sin in the matter of the faith I could be judged by the Church.' (propter solum peccatum quod in fide commititur possem ab Ecclesia judican)"
(The Remnant, "Answering a Sedevacantist Critic," March 18, 2015)
Always remember:
"Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin " - James 4:17
All you Catholic cardinals, bishops, priests, pundits, religious, and laity read this passage carefully because your eternal salvation of Heaven or Hell may be in the balance. Pray God gives you the grace and courage to do the "right thing" despite the consequences in this temporary world. You can fool men, but you can't fool God