Dr. Edmund Mazza’s Official Statement on the Vatican Investigation into the Putative Partial Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI
Dr. Edmund Mazza’s Official Statement on the Vatican Criminal Investigation into the Putative Partial Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI:
It is encouraging to learn that the Vatican has an active criminal investigation into the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, a subject I have labored upon for over seven years.
His Excellency, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano first called for an investigation into Pope Benedict’s resignation in 2022:
But before discussing the next conclave, it is necessary to shed light on the abdication of Benedict XVI and on the question of the frauds of the 2013 Conclave, which sooner or later will have to give rise to an official investigation. If there were to be proofs of irregularity, the conclave would be null, the election of Bergoglio null, just as all his appointments, acts of government and magisterium would be null. A reset that would providentially bring us back to the status quo ante, with a College of Cardinals composed only of cardinals appointed up to Benedict XVI, ousting all those created since 2013, notoriously ultra-progressive. Certainly, the current situation, with all the rumors about Ratzinger’s resignation and Bergoglio’s election, does not help the ecclesial body and creates confusion and disorientation in the faithful.” (emphasis mine)
Not only must the role of secret societies and deep state actors be investigated, but also theological factors. Arch modernist and godfather of the Sankt Gallen Mafia, Rev. Karl Rahner once wrote:
If, then, a collective authority-bearing agent exists (and is therefore possible) within the church, [during a Conclave] even according to Catholic ecclesial constitutional law, how might one definitively and certainly prove that according to this constitutional law, iuris divini, such a thing can only exist in the case in which it actually exists today [when a pope is dead and the College of Cardinals elects a new candidate], such that, for example, a presbyteral council could not lead a particular church in principle, or that the bearer of supreme Petrine authority can only be an individual?(emphasis mine)
Unfortunately, it appears we are not just dealing with an heretical opinion held by Rahner back in the 1970s, but potentially Joeph Ratzinger too! As Archbishop Vigano recently revealed, he was informed by Walter Cardinal Brandmüller that Professor Ratzinger supported Professor Rahner’s “shared papacy” idea:
Brandmüller confided to me in January 2020 in response to a specific question of mine – that Professor Joseph Ratzinger was developing the theory of the Pope Emeritus and a collegial [shared] Papacy with his colleague Karl Rahner in the 1970s when they were both “young theologians.” (emphasis mine)
In 1647, Pope Innocent declared that the notion of a shared papacy is heretical. A century later, eminent theologian Pietro Ballerini (1698-1769) explained why. As Cardinal Manningwrites:
Ballerini says, that the jurisdiction of St. Peter, by reason of the primacy, was singular and personal to himself. The same right he affirms to belong also to the Roman Pontiffs, St. Peter’s successors. This doctrine he explains diffusely. “This primacy of chief jurisdiction, not of mere order, in St. Peter and the Roman Pontiffs his successors, is personal, that is, attached to their person: and therefore a supreme personal right, which is communicated to no other, is contained in the primacy. Hence, when there is question of the rights and the jurisdiction proper to the primacy, and when these are ascribed to the Roman See, or Cathedra, or Church of St. Peter; by the name of the Roman See or Cathedra, or Church, to which this primacy of jurisdiction is ascribed, the single person of the Roman Pontiff is to be understood, to whom alone the same primacy is attached.
If Pope Francis were a valid pope, he would not need the additional “help or association of” Benedict: “in the service of prayer I remain, so to speak, in the precincts of St. Peter,” because allegedly: “anyone who accepts the Petrine ministry…belongs always and completely to everyone, to the whole Church.”
If, as Benedict claimed, “belonging to the whole Church” “belongs solely to the Roman See and is ascribed to the Roman Pontiff,” then the new Pontiff CANNOT share this with an “Emeritus Pontiff;” Popes “need help or association of none for the exercise of this [exclusive] right.”
If “being pope” is something that attaches to one’s person, it means that it cannot be shared by two people. Benedict opened up the see of Rome to be occupied by Francis, but since he did not give up his personal attachment to the papacy, and since two people cannot share a personal attachment, then Francis would not be pope, Benedict would still be pope.
As Manning explains:
A personal privilege is that which attaches to the person as such. [On the contrary,] A real privilege attaches either to a place, or to a thing, or to an office.
A mixed privilege may be both personal and real; it may also attach to a community or body of persons, as to an University, or a College, or a Chapter.
The primacy, including jurisdiction and infallibility, is a privilege attaching to the person of Peter and of his successors. It is therefore a personal privilege in the Pontiffs. It is personal, as Toletus says, because it cannot be communicated to others. It is not a real privilege attached to the See, or Cathedra, or Church of Rome, and therefore to the person; but to the person of the Roman Pontiff, and therefore, to the See. It is not a mixed privilege, attaching to the Pontiff, only in union with a community or body, such as the Episcopate, congregated or dispersed; but attaching to his person, because inherent in the primacy, which he alone personally bears. The use of the word personal is therefore precise and correct, according to the scholastic terminology; not, indeed, according to the sense of newspaper theologians. (emphasis mine)
Let us turn to the words Pope Benedict addressed to his old friend and fellow countryman, journalist and author Peter Seewald in his 2016 book, Last Testament: In His Own Words:
Peter Seewald: “Is a slowdown in the ability to perform, reason enough to climb down from the chair of Peter?”
Pope Benedict: “One can…make that accusation, but it would be a functional misunderstanding. The follower of Peter is not merely bound to a function; the office enters into your very being. In this regard, fulfilling a function is not the only criterion.” (emphasis mine)
Seewald merely repeated the words of Benedict’s own Declaratio back to him and Benedict calls it an “accusation”? A “functional misunderstanding”?
Yes. Anyone (Seewald included) who reads Benedict’s Declaratio and concludes at face value that by giving up the “active” duties of a pope, Benedict ceased being papal, has not only misunderstood Benedict’s intentions, but the Petrine ministry itself: “The follower of Peter [the Pope] is not merely bound to a function [i.e. the active administration of the Roman see]”:
I had to…consider whether or not functionalism would completely encroach on the papacy …Earlier, bishops were not allowed to resign…a number of bishops…said ‘I am a father and that I’ll stay’, because you can’t simply stop being a father; stopping is a functionalization and secularization, something from the sort of concept of public office that shouldn’t apply to a bishop. To that I must reply: even a father’s role stops. Of course a father does not stop being a father, but he is relieved of concrete responsibility. He remains a father in a deep, inward sense, in a particular relationship which has responsibility, but not with day-to-day tasks as such…If he steps down, he remains in an inner sense within the responsibility he took on, but not in the function…one comes to understand that the office of the Pope [Petrine munus] has lost none of its greatness…(emphasis mine)
So in his 2013 Declaratio, when Benedict said: “I renounce the ministry [ministerium] of the bishop of Rome…in such a way that the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant,” that statement is meaningless because the Papacy is not a “real privilege attached to the See, or Cathedra, or Church of Rome, and therefore to the person; but to the person of the Roman Pontiff, and therefore, to the See.” Benedict had to completely renounce the ontological personal privilege, the Petrine Munus, that entered into his very being, if he wanted to objectively stop being Pope. But this is the very thing it seems he did not completely renounce!
Dr. Edmund Mazza
14 April 2026
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.
I ask all The Catholic Monitor readers to also pray for the end of this war. Watch "Trump Calls Putin To Get Iran War Offramp! w/ Scott Ritter" on YouTube: ...Read more Please Pray for Trump to end the Iran War: Watch "Trump Calls Putin To Get Iran War Offramp! w/ Scott Ritter" on YouTubeFranklin & Graham calls on Christians to pray for 'end to the bloodshed' ahead of Trump-Putin summit...7mo
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Conclave Notes:
-- Open letter urges Pope Leo XIV to correct ‘scandalous incoherence’ in Amoris Laetitia...[Wow! Even notorious Popesplainer Fr.] Harrison warns that Pope Francis taught a ‘dangerous self-contradiction’ on Communion for the divorced and ‘remarried,’ petitioning Pope Leo to correct the record. [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/08/open-letter-urges-pope-leo-xiv-to.html]
-- Are the Cardinals who will participate in the upcoming conclave authentically appointed & morally justified in voting, or will the shadow of Francis's possible illegitimacy cast itself over the next papacy? [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/04/are-cardinals-who-will-participate-in.html]
-- 5 Dubia Questions for 1P5's Steve Skojec & All faithful Catholics especially Francis is definitely Pope Cardinals, Bishops & pundits [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/06/5-dubia-questions-for-steve-skojec.html]
Francis Notes:
l– 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 [J6] 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.
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