Do the Nuremberg Laws apply to the don't "'proselytize’ non-Catholics" Francis/Burke situation & does Aquinas' "Case of Necessity" apply to the Church Crisis for Vigano & Lefebvre?

LifeSite News: Pope Francis tells Indonesian clergy not to ‘proselytize’ non-Catholics

Anyone who has read through the transcripts of the Nuremberg Trials is very familiar with the particular excuse which Cardinal Burke has so staggeringly, so stereotypically proffered.  War criminal after war criminal advert to it repeatedly throughout the transcripts—how they were only “doing their duty,” how nothing else was to be attempted against a system so omnipotent and perverse.  The same mentality crops up in our own culture when someone proclaims, always hollowly, “It’s above my pay grade!”  Another form of the stance of assumed powerlessness is the “Catholic” politician who rather conveniently claims to be “personally opposed to abortion, but . . . “

Neither Cardinal Burke nor any one of us has any right to be “personally opposed to Bergoglio, but . . .”  It is profoundly anti-Christian to “suffer and act within the limits of the possible,” when the Sacred Scriptures assure us that through Our Blessed Mother, “nothing shall be impossible with God” (Lk. 1:37).  Do you think it is humble of Cardinal Burke, to assert that he himself is “not the savior of the Church”?  What if God Almighty both wants and intends him to be (in an instrumental but providential sense), as was Saint Athanasius during the Arian Crisis, as were Saints John Fisher and Thomas More in the days of Henry VIII?  It is as though the child from whom Our Lord once asked for some loaves and fishes (Jn. 6:9) should have refused Him instead, declaring, “I’ll keep what I have, which is little enough, thank-you-very-much.  Can’t you count?  Who do you think I am, anyway--the savior of this hungry crowd?”

(In Lifton, Robert Jay.  The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: Basic, 1986), p. 238.) - The Catholic Monitor

Archbishop Viganò in 2020, Archbishop Lefebvre in 1966...

... Archbishop Viganò in 2020, Archbishop Lefebvre in 1966

So follow, from the pen of Archbishop Lefebvre, the practical, pastoral consequences of these doubts:

• “doubts about the necessity of the Church and the sacraments lead to the disappearance of priestly vocations;
• doubts on the necessity for and nature of the “conversion” of every soul involve the disappearance of religious vocations, the destruction of traditional spirituality in the novitiates, and the uselessness of the missions;
• doubts on the lawfulness of authority and the need for obedience, caused by the exaltation of human dignity, the autonomy of conscience and liberty, are unsettling all societies beginning with the Church—religious societies, dioceses, secular society, the family;
• doubts regarding the necessity of grace in order to be saved result in baptism being held in low esteem, so that for the future it is to be put off until later, and occasion the neglect of the sacrament of Penance;
• doubts on the necessity of the Catholic Church as the only true religion, the sole source of salvation, emanating from the declarations on ecumenism and religious freedom, are destroying the authority of the Church’s Magisterium. In fact, Rome is no longer the unique and necessary Magistra Veritatis.”

“Thus, driven to this by the facts, we are forced to conclude that the Council has encouraged, in an inconceivable manner, the spreading of Liberal errors. Faith, morals, and ecclesiastical discipline are shaken to their foundations, fulfilling the predictions of all the Popes” [before Vatican II] (p. 82-83).

It was 54 years ago. And already Archbishop Lefebvre had established this “causal relationship between Vatican II and its logical and necessary consequences” which Archbishop Viganò sees today as the cancerous metastases. [https://fsspx.news/en/news/archbishop-vigano-2020-archbishop-lefebvre-1966-24461]

In a 2020 interview with Ed Pentin published at the National Catholic Register, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke went into greater detail than before, regarding the mysterious disappearance of the promised “formal correction” upon which so many had pinned their hopes. 

Why has no group of Cardinals challenged the openly heretical, openly abusive, and questionably legitimate Bergoglio? Pentin and a growing number of faithful demand to know.  The stance adopted by His Eminence, if reported accurately by the utterly reliable Pentin is to be believed, is positively mind-boggling for an attitude which can only be characterized as elective futility.

“Is there such a group?” Cardinal Burke is said to have responded, as though this rhetorical question of his might substitute for vindication of Christ’s truth against the assaults of Amoris and the Amazonian Synod.  A shrug at the crack of a gun; a sigh at the sight of a rape.  It is being reported elsewhere that--to his credit, as far as it goes--His Eminence did attempt to assemble such a group, to no avail.  In which case, why not act alone?

Two reasons, apparently: one, that throughout the history of the Church, only groups and not individuals like himself have approached an errant Pope in this way, and secondly, that he himself, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, is not “the savior of the Church.”

Here His Eminence echoes a mentality if not peculiar to modern man, then certainly showcased by him.  Showcased, in particular, by a man noted in history as “Henry Q.,” who offered as justification of his conduct and that of his confreres, to researcher Robert Jay Lifton, that:

we suffered and acted within the limits of the possible.1

They did what they could, in other words, and what they could not do they did not attempt.  They had not the position nor the numbers to make any real difference--or so they judged, regarding as meaningless or (far worse) as misguided any gesture through which the less prudent might be tempted to catch sight of a glimmer of the one real fault a person can commit in their sight; namely, heroism itself.  Theirs is a colorless cosmos in the last analysis, these calculating moderns.  It isn’t as though Henry Q. wasn’t a good man, in his heart.  It’s just that the term “good German” has come to mean something very evil indeed.  The ones who “suffered and acted within the limits of the possible” were, of course, those who collaborated in the National Socialist program of the destruction of life devoid of value—in the euthanasia program which led up to the Holocaust, in other words, and generally speaking in the Holocaust itself.

Anyone who has read through the transcripts of the Nuremberg Trials is very familiar with the particular excuse which Cardinal Burke has so staggeringly, so stereotypically proffered.  War criminal after war criminal advert to it repeatedly throughout the transcripts—how they were only “doing their duty,” how nothing else was to be attempted against a system so omnipotent and perverse.  The same mentality crops up in our own culture when someone proclaims, always hollowly, “It’s above my pay grade!”  Another form of the stance of assumed powerlessness is the “Catholic” politician who rather conveniently claims to be “personally opposed to abortion, but . . . “

Neither Cardinal Burke nor any one of us has any right to be “personally opposed to Bergoglio, but . . .”  It is profoundly anti-Christian to “suffer and act within the limits of the possible,” when the Sacred Scriptures assure us that through Our Blessed Mother, “nothing shall be impossible with God” (Lk. 1:37).  Do you think it is humble of Cardinal Burke, to assert that he himself is “not the savior of the Church”?  What if God Almighty both wants and intends him to be (in an instrumental but providential sense), as was Saint Athanasius during the Arian Crisis, as were Saints John Fisher and Thomas More in the days of Henry VIII?  It is as though the child from whom Our Lord once asked for some loaves and fishes (Jn. 6:9) should have refused Him instead, declaring, “I’ll keep what I have, which is little enough, thank-you-very-much.  Can’t you count?  Who do you think I am, anyway--the savior of this hungry crowd?”

(In Lifton, Robert Jay.  The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: Basic, 1986), p. 238.)

Are the post-Vatican II chaos and Francis crisis a state of emergency comparable to the Arian crisis of St. Athanasius?

In my estimation, scholar Michael Davies also speaks for Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano in the present Francis chaos when he said that "Archbishop [Marcel] Lefebvre has been compared rightly to St. Athanasius":

He is the Athanasius of our times. Like St.Athanasius and like St. Eusebius of Samosata, he went into the dioceses of bishops who were not acting as good shepherds, to give the people the instruction, the sacramental grace, and the pastors that they needed. For one bishop to intrude into the diocese of another is a very serious matter. It can only be justified if there is a state of necessity. A state of emergency, urgency, or necessity occurs in the Church when its continuation, order, or activity are threatened or harmed in an important way, and the emergency cannot be overcome by observing the normal positive laws. The emergency would relate principally to teaching, the liturgy, and ecclesiastical discipline. An interesting reference to such a situation occurs in a study of the Church's divine constitution by Dom Adrien Grea, OSB, in his examination of the extraordinary powers of the episcopate:

"In the fourth century St. Eusebius of Samosata traveled thorough Eastern dioceses devastated by the Arians and ordained orthodox pastors for them, without having particular jurisdiction over them. These are evidently extraordinary actions, as were the Circumstances that gave rise to them." [http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/defense/sdavies.htm]

Wikipedia explains that Archbishop Lefebvre's "Operation Survival" was "due to necessity":

Lefebvre argued that his actions had been necessary because the traditional form of the Catholic faith and sacraments would become extinct without Traditionalist clergy to pass them on to the next generation. He called the ordinations "opération survie" ("Operation Survival"), citing in his defense canons 1323 and 1324 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the first of which says that "a person who acted coerced by grave fear, even if only relatively grave, or due to necessity or grave inconvenience unless the act is intrinsically evil or tends to the harm of souls" is not subject to penalty for violating a law or precept, while the other says "the perpetrator of a violation is not exempt from a penalty, but the penalty established by law or precept must be tempered or a penance employed in its place if the delict was committed ... by a person who thought in culpable error that one of the circumstances mentioned in can. 1323, nn. 4 or 5 was present."[34] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Saint_Pius_X]

Scholars Alon Harel and Assaf Sharon show how St. Thomas Aquinas sees the "state of exception" or "Case of Necessity":

In the Summa Theologica Aquinas addresses the case of necessity by focusing on the limits of legislation. Aquinas asserts that: The lawgiver cannot have in view every single case, he shapes the law according to what happens more frequently by directing his attention to the common good. Wherefore, if a case arises wherein the observance of that law would be hurtful to the general welfare, it should not be observed.11Furthermore, Aquinas recognizes that cases falling into this category are not “legislatable” and adds that:

He who in a case of necessity acts besides the letter of the law does not judge of the law but of a particular case in which he sees that the letter of the law is not to be observed. 

Last, Aquinas stresses that agents operating under these exceptional circumstances are not accountable to the law as in ordinary cases. In his view: “The mere necessity brings with it a dispensation, since necessity knows no law.” 11 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part II, 1st part, que. 96, art 6. See also II, II, que. 110 art.1. [https://www.law.utoronto.ca/documents/conferences2/Constitutionalism09-Harel.pdf]

Do the teachings of Aquinas on "necessity knows no law” or "case of necessity" apply to the Francis crisis? 

Note: Part of this article is written by a Catholic Monitor contributor.

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