Sickness Imagined - Bishop Richard Williamson

[Michael]

Sickness Imagined

Conciliar Popes Our Lord would seem to have dropped?
Not if their total loss of faith he stopped.

The iniquity of true Popes steadily destroying everything Catholic is so mysterious that in these “Comments” four weeks ago we saw Archbishop Lefebvre considering seriously whether the See of Rome might be vacant. He would never pretend with the liberals that the destruction is not really destruction, but at the same time his sense of the Church was too strong for him ever to adopt the sedevacantist solution, so at least in August of 1976 the problem seemed to him “theologically insoluble.” These “Comments” suggested that there might be another line of solution which people as sane of mind as the Archbishop could hardly imagine. Let us try to imagine it.

To ridicule this solution a hard-bitten sedevacantist once dubbed it “mentevacantism,” but the label will do. It means not the See of Rome being vacant, but the Popes’ minds being vacant, or let us say, their minds having had the sense of reality emptied out of them, their minds being empty of reality. Especially since the Protestant Reformation, men have been steadily more liberating themselves from God. To do this they must liberate their minds from the reality around them, because all reality comes from God and points back to God. Here is the liberal illusion, the ultimate liberation, known otherwise as “mind-rot,” “mental sickness” or “mentevacantism,” because the human mind was designed by God to run on reality and not on fantasy or illusion.

Now from 1517 to 1958 the Catholic Popes resisted and beat back the mind-rot steadily engulfing the rest of the world, on its slow way to its end, but all too many of the Catholic laity, priests, bishops and finally cardinals were being progressively infected with the liberal illusion, coming to be convinced that it would create a brave new Church for the Brave New World. So in the papal Conclave of 1958, even if Cardinal Siri was validly elected, the liberals had the power to force the election of John XXIII upon the Conclave, and then by convalidation upon the Universal Church.

But what is a liberal? He is a dreamer, living not in the real world but in a Wonderland of man’s own fabrication. However, as more and more human minds switch off reality and launch into the dream, so he has less and less chance of realizing what he has done, because more and more the world all around him is being taken over by the Wonderland. This means that in modern times it is easier and easier for a man – and every Pope remains a man – to be objectively in Wonderland and yet subjectively convinced that he is in reality. Here is that mental sickness observed at first hand by an SSPX priest in all four Roman “theologians” taking part in the Rome-SSPX Discussions of 2009–2011 (Note the inverted commas – in Wonderland everything is an unreal imitation of the real, so that without some such sign as the inverted commas, we easily take the imitation for the reality.)

On this reckoning the Conciliar Popes are, at least in part, “sincerely” wrong. What that “sincerity” is internally worth, God alone can judge. But externally it is an objective reality, more and more around us day by day. Then the Conciliar Popes are not wholly conscious villains, because in their sick minds they are serving the true Church by changing the old Church out of all recognition, by Wonderlanding it.

Now their subjectively good intentions have objectively paved the way to Hell for the real true Church, but can one not say that these good intentions show that the prayer of Our Lord has prevented their faith from failing completely (cf. Lk.XXII, 32)? Even Paul VI condemned contraception, issued a relatively good “Credo,” wept for the loss of vocations, and spoke of the smoke of Satan entering the Church after Vatican II. Then can one not say that even with Paul VI Our Lord kept his promise to look after Peter?

Kyrie eleison.

Sickness Imagined - Bishop Richard Williamson

[Michael Fuller]

Bishop Williamson is the most well-balanced son of the Archbishop.  Here he even goes so far as to defend Pope Paul VI in reasonable terms.  The Eleison Comments are so important, because many will try to say that the bishop said many things but we will always have his Eleison Comments to refer back to.  Here the bishop shows us that he is anything but a radical.  A very well-balanced comment this week.  "Then can one not say that even with Paul VI Our Lord kept his promise to look after Peter?"

Even the SSPX does not attempt to defend Paul VI like this.

"Even Paul VI condemned contraception, issued a relatively good “Credo,” wept for the loss of vocations, and spoke of the smoke of Satan entering the Church after Vatican II."

The bishop's views are far from radicalism and are very realistic.  In this sense, the SSPX appears more radical than him, and he appears to be very moderate.  A shame that they threw out some of their greatest members.

[Dawn Marie]

Excellent post Michael F., just so true+

[Dawn Marie]

Michael,

Ana sent me the link today which shows that the same Argentine government (socialist) which expelled Bp. Williamson from their country is now recognizing the SSPX as being officially part of the Catholic Church.

The SSPX has fallen lower than one could have ever imagined they would fall.

HERE  is the link

[Michael Fuller]

Dawn Marie said:

Michael,

Ana sent me the link today which shows that the same Argentine government (socialist) which expelled Bp. Williamson from their country is now recognizing the SSPX as being officially part of the Catholic Church.

The SSPX has fallen lower than one could have ever imagined they would fall.

HERE  is the link

Thanks Dawn.  I had not seen that until now. 

God bless you and have a Happy Easter.

Surrexit Christus vere, aleluia!

[Dawn Marie]

According to Father Paul Kramer:  Posted Yesterday April 10, 2015-

WHY BENEDICT XVI'S RENUNCIATION WAS INVALID

Benedict XVI explains:

1) The munus of the petrine office is twofold -- active and passive: " Bene conscius sum hoc munus secundum suam essentiam spiritualem non solum agendo et loquendo exsequi debere, sed non minus patiendo et orando."

1) Active ministry "agendo et loquendo", 2) Passive ministry "patiendo et orando"
Both pertain essentially to the papal munus: "Bene conscius sum hoc munus secundum suam essentiam spiritualem non solum agendo et loquendo exsequi debere, sed non minus patiendo et orando."
He expressly retains the passive exercise of the munus, i.e. the passive service of the petrine office: " "Non porto più la potestà dell’officio per il governo della Chiesa, ma nel servizio della preghiera resto, per così dire, nel recinto di san Pietro."

On 19 April 2005, Benedict assumed the munus, i.e. the service of the petrine office that is "for always": "La gravità della decisione è stata proprio anche nel fatto che da quel momento in poi ero impegnato sempre e per sempre"; and his decision to renounce the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke that: "La mia decisione di rinunciare all’esercizio attivo del ministero, non revoca questo."

It is impossible for the pope to relinquish only the active exercise of the petrine ministry and hand it over to a successor, since that would amount to an attempt to divide an office that is indivisible. Hence, Pope Benedict's attempt to divide the papacy, according to the formula of the Karl Rahner proposal to reform the papacy by dividing it between two or more individuals; necessarily results in a juridically invalid act, since, the office of the supreme pontiff cannot be divided in the mamner that the episcopal office is sometimes divided in other diocese between the ordinary of the diocese and a coadjutor with power of governance.

The reason why it is impossible is because the pope, who in virtue of the plenitudo potestatis of his office can deprive an ordinary of his jurisdiction, and hand it over to a coadjotor; whereas the papal office is indivisible -- and therefore the office and its power of governance can only reside fully in one subject who is the Roman Pontiff.

The question of the indivisibility of the papal office is a settled point of Catholic doctrine since Domenico Gravina OP spoke the last word on the question in 1610, which has been unanimous and undisputed since then.

"To the Pontiff, as one (person) and alone, it was given to be the head;" and again, "The Roman Pontiff for the time being is one, therefore he alone has infallibility." - Donenico Gravina OP, in De supremo Judice controv. Fidei et de Papae Infallib. in Decret. Fidei, Morum, etc, quaest. 1, apud Rocaberti, Bibliotheca Maxima Pontificia, 1695-99, tom viii, 392. (http://books.google.com/books?)