TrapCast Express
TrapCast Express, it's Monday, August 30th, 2021.
A week ago, on August 23rd, the semi-trad website The Remnant published an article by Robert Morrison entitled,
Making Sense of Francis, the Destroyer.
The author begins by noting that the dogma proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII in 1302 is a source of great consternation to Catholics today.
What is that dogma? Well, let's quote it.
In his bull Unam Sanctam, the Pope proclaimed,
We declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the
Roman Pontiff.
Unquote.
Morrison says that in ordinary times, this truth presents no problem for Catholics.
You know, in those periods of church history when the Pope is actually a Catholic and not an apostate.
Yeah, well, apparently God, who is the ultimate author of all dogma, since dogma is divinely revealed,
apparently God didn't take that into account when he instituted the papacy and gave to St.
Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Anyway, Morrison says, quote,
Simple people understand that we have a non-Catholic Pope, and yet every human creature must be subject to the Roman Pontiff if they wish to be saved.
How can we possibly reconcile these realities short of rejecting Francis as the Pope?
We know that God, in his loving providence, permits this, but what does it mean to the church?
Is Francis merely...
Now, these are legitimate questions.
The problem is in how Morrison goes about finding answers.
Because what would be the reasonable thing to do here?
How would a Catholic who is genuinely interested in solving these issues proceed to find the answers?
You would think that if there's a problem with Francis, and frankly with any of the apparent Popes since the time of Vatican II, roughly,
that you would want to find your answers in the genuine Catholic literature from before Vatican II, right?
From before the time the mess began.
That would be reasonable, right?
Because you'd want it to be objective and unbiased.
You would want to know what the church teaches about the papacy,
about bad popes, about what can and can't happen with the pope, how the faithful are to act, etc.
Now, the way to get reliable information on that would be to consult theological manuals and periodicals written by priests
to see if and how they address these questions.
Yes, this may actually require a trip to a Novus Ordo seminary library.
Not everything is available at your fingertips.
Within 60 seconds on Google, you know.
But considering how important the topic is, you may want to sacrifice a little bit of your time to get some sources together,
especially if you're writing an article about the topic that will be published in print and on the Internet.
But what does Morrison do instead?
He writes, quote,
As Father Matthias Godron describes in The Catechism of the Crisis in the Church,
submission to the pope obviously does not imply an unlimited obedience, unquote.
So, Morrison is consulting a book first published in its original edition in 1997.
Not exactly a pre-Vatican II source, okay?
Besides, Father Matthias Godron is a priest with the Society of St. Pius X, SSPX, in Germany.
So, from the outset,
Morrison has already made up his mind about what the answer cannot be.
The answer cannot be that Francis isn't the pope.
That's why he consults an SSPX source.
Remember, the SSPX is anti-Sedevacanus and believes that the correct answer is to say Francis is pope, but act like he isn't.
Okay, so I'm being a bit polemical here, but that's basically their position, right?
Accept Francis as pope, but resist him.
When you think he goes against the faith.
So, unfortunately, Morrison's research is already tainted.
He's not looking to find an objective answer.
He consults biased sources that frame the issue a certain way,
such that the undesirable position of Sedevacantism is excluded from the outset.
Now, Father Godron, in turn, quotes from Cardinal Cajetan's commentary on St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica,
saying,
and this is Cardinal Cajetan speaking,
quote,
If someone for a reasonable motive holds the person of the pope in suspicion and refuses his presence and even his jurisdiction,
he does not commit the delict of schism, nor any other whatsoever,
provided that he be ready to accept the pope were he not held in suspicion.
It goes without saying that one has the right to avoid what is harmful and to ward off dangers.
In fact,
it may happen that the pope could govern tyrannically,
and that is all the easier as he is the more powerful and does not fear any punishment from anyone on earth.
Unquote.
Okay, so that was the theological contribution of Cardinal Thomas Cajetan in the 16th century.
It's not terribly specific, of course, to say that one has the right to avoid what is harmful and resist dangers.
Does that mean that the pope,
can teach heresy or some other pernicious error?
Does it mean that the pope can impose invalid sacraments, for example?
And so on.
Now, I don't know if Cardinal Cajetan spoke about that elsewhere,
but at least in that quote,
none of these things are spelled out.
It's way too vague, too ambiguous,
to come to any certain conclusion.
And the same with the comment on holding the pope in suspicion.
What does that mean?
Now, personally,
I think it means there's,
there's a suspicion that he's not actually the pope,
that he wasn't validly elected.
But that's not how Morrison understands it.
In any case,
we have to remember that even though Cardinal Cajetan certainly was a theologian of note,
and his opinion on a controverted point comes with some authority,
nevertheless,
Cajetan is neither a doctor of the church nor even a saint.
Yes, there is a Saint Cajetan,
but that's a different person.
That's not,
that's not this Cardinal Cajetan we're talking about.
So is that the best Morrison can come up with?
An SSPX priest using a Cajetan quote from the 16th century?
You know,
there's been a lot of magisterial teaching on the papacy since then,
especially in the latter half of the 19th century.
Vatican I was held in 1870,
and it was the council on the papacy.
So Morrison could,
quote at Pope Leo XIII in his official magisterium or the council itself.
Instead,
he quotes from Cardinal Cajetan.
Now,
I don't mean to detract from Cardinal Cajetan,
but his commentary on St. Thomas' Summa is not magisterial.
So please allow me to express the suspicion that Morrison probably chose this particular quote
because he agrees with what it says.
Look,
in church history,
you're going to find a lot of people expressing a lot of opinions
that were later either abandoned,
condemned,
or even declared heretical.
So the fact that you can find a theologian saying something hundreds of years ago,
that doesn't mean much.
Now,
here's a question I'd like to address to both Father Godron and Robert Morrison.
If the teaching of the Roman pontiff,
Papadopoulos,
past or present,
can be rejected,
resisted,
or simply be dismissed as not binding,
why not also the 500-year-old opinion of Cardinal Cajetan?
Why should I care about what one theologian thought hundreds of years ago
when, according to them,
what the Pope teaches or legislates today
can and ought to be resisted
under pain of endangering one's faith?
Does this make any sense?
Next,
Morrison considers how Catholics can shield themselves
from their,
you know,
destroyer Pope.
Morrison says,
quote,
Once we understand that Bergoglio is attempting to destroy the Church,
all of his words and deeds make much more sense.
Unquote.
No doubt that is true,
but you know,
how everything makes much more sense still?
Once we understand that Bergoglio isn't the Pope.
But then that was the conclusion that Morrison didn't want to arrive at.
Next, he quotes St. Robert Bellarmine,
you know,
about how it is licit to resist a Pope who destroys the Church.
That's from his work On the Roman Pontiff,
Book 2, Chapter 29.
That argument has long been used to say that the Pope is not the Pope.
That argument has long been shot down by the late Father Anthony Ciccata,
God rest his soul,
who pointed out that in context,
Bellarmine was justifying resistance by kings and prelates,
not by individual Catholics.
And in any case,
he wasn't talking about a Pope teaching heresy or imposing evil laws on the Church.
He was talking about a morally wicked Pope
who gives evil commands to his subjects.
As for a heretical Pope,
well,
Bellarmine talks about that in the next chapter of the same book,
where he says that,
quote,
it would be the most miserable condition of the Church
if she should be compelled to recognize a wolf
manifestly prowling for a shepherd.
Unquote.
Notice that he doesn't say
it would be miserable if the Church should be compelled
to submit to and obey a shepherd.
Who is a wolf?
He says that it would be miserable
if the Church should be required to recognize the wolf as a shepherd.
Maybe that's why Morrison chose to provide the other Bellarmine.
Quote,
Not this one.
Oh, and then there's yet another Bellarmine passage
that she didn't get from the remnant.
Quote,
The Pope is the teacher and shepherd of the whole Church.
Thus, the whole Church is so bound
to hear and follow him
that if he would err,
the whole Church would err.
Unquote.
That's from On the Roman Pontiff,
Book 4, Chapter 3.
Next, Morrison quotes Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre,
the founder of the SSPX.
So that's a recognize and resist source
and therefore not usable
without begging the question.
So we'll just skip over that.
Then, Morrison tells us
that he believes that outside of the strict conditions
for papal infallibility given at Vatican I,
a Pope can teach anything whatsoever.
And Bergoglio, he believes,
is taking advantage of that.
Morrison says,
Quote,
As many of us go about insisting
that he might actually be the Pope
because he has not tried to invoke infallibility,
he congratulates himself
on being able to destroy the Church
because he is clever enough
to avoid invoking papal infallibility.
Unquote.
Now, this is just so much nonsense.
Morrison is basically saying
that Bergoglio out-clevered God, right?
That he outsmarted God.
Apparently, the people at the Remnant
seriously believe
that God establishes a Church,
which is his mystical body,
as a church,
which is the Ark of Salvation,
that he endows this Church
with an office of Supreme Shepherd
who acts in his very stead,
the Vicar of Christ,
teaching, legislating, and sanctifying
in his name,
and possessing even the power of the keys,
so that what he binds and looses on earth
will also be bound and loosed in heaven.
And then, according to the Remnant,
God abandons all that to the vicissitudes,
of human life,
and to the whims and caprices
of fallen human nature,
allowing the perversions of evil men
to thwart it all,
except under the very narrow
and rarely exercised circumstances
of infallible ex cathedra statements,
which a Pope can simply choose
to avoid altogether.
That is how the Remnant thinks
God protects his Church
and keeps the gates of hell
from closing.
You really wonder
whether these people ever actually
think about what they're saying
before they hit the publish button.
You know, that actually,
that would effectively
make Vatican I
into a blueprint
for how to wreck the Church
and send souls to hell.
Get an apostate elected Pope
and have him teach
the craziest heresies and blasphemies,
have him impose the law,
have him impose invalid sacraments,
and so on.
Just make sure he's smart enough
not to try to use
an ex cathedra statement,
because that God wouldn't permit.
Because a Church that teaches
trash all day
and sends souls to hell
with inter-religious dialogue,
religious liberty,
invalid sacraments,
bogus saints,
fake marriage annulments,
because such a Church
the people would accept
as infallible
when it issues
an ex cathedra statement,
right?
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
I mean, with that kind of a theology,
the ex cathedra statements
might as well not be infallible either.
Right?
What difference would that make?
If that's all that protects the papacy,
of what use is it?
Do we need it?
This kind of infallibility?
Or is it not rather
an instruction manual
for apostate Popes
as to what conditions to avoid
when making an infallibility?
When making a papal pronouncement
to ensure it goes through,
so to speak?
But hey,
that is recognize
and resist theology for you.
The Pope can teach
any kind of heresy.
He just cannot do it ex cathedra,
which he never has to do anyway.
Well, that would basically
make him like
the Anglican Archbishop
of Canterbury.
Right?
He also can teach
anything he wants to
and never does it ex cathedra.
Plus,
his underlings can reject
and resist his teachings too
when they think he's wrong.
Perfect.
So for the recognize and resistors,
I guess the Pope
is basically
the Archbishop of Canterbury
plus ex cathedra pronouncements.
That is remnant theology
marketed as
traditional Catholicism.
It is utterly disgraceful.
Now, at the end of his article,
Morrison says this,
quote,
we may learn at some point
that Jorge Bergoglio
was never the Pope,
but even if we knew now
that he is not the Pope,
there would be little change
to how we must act,
unquote.
Now, that may be so,
but only if he is not the Pope
can you actually uphold
the Catholic teaching
on the papacy.
You know, the very teachings
that Morrison neglected to cite,
such as the following.
In his apostolic letter
in Terra Pax,
Pope St. Leo IX
speaks of, quote,
the faith of Peter,
which so far neither has failed
nor up to the end
will fail, unquote.
You can find that in Denzinger
number 351.
In his encyclical
Ubi Primum, paragraph 22,
Pope Leo XII teaches
that, quote,
Peter still maintains the concern
of all pastors in guarding their flocks
and his high rank
does not fail
even in an unworthy air,
unquote.
The First Vatican Council
under Pope Pius IX
teaches dogmatically
that, quote,
this see of St. Peter
always remains unblemished
by any error,
in accordance with the divine
promise of our Lord and Savior
to the Prince of His Disciples.
I have prayed for you
that your faith may not fail
and when you have turned again
strengthen your brethren.
That's Luke 22, 32.
And the Council continues,
This gift of truth
and never-failing faith
was therefore divinely conferred
on Peter and his successors
in the sea.
So that they might discharge
their exalted office
for the salvation of all
and so that the whole flock of Christ
might be kept away by them
from the poisonous food of error
and be nourished
with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine.
Thus the tendency to schism
is removed
and the whole church is preserved in unity
and, resting on its foundation,
can stand firm
against the gates of hell.
Unquote.
That's Vatican I's
Dogmatic Constitution
Pastor Aeternus, Chapter 4
which is also found
in Denzinger.
And finally,
there's actually lots more
but I'm giving you just a few examples here.
Finally, the teaching of
Pope Leo XIII
in his magnificent encyclical
Satis Conitum, paragraph 12.
Quote,
It can never be that the church
committed to the care of Peter
shall succumb
or in any wise
fail.
Unquote.
Notice,
he says the church
committed to the care of Peter
cannot fail in any way.
The reason
why the church is in such shambles
today is because
there has been no Pope.
That is the only
possible explanation.
I understand that that brings with it
a lot of other questions
and difficulties
but until we accept
that fundamental reality
we will just be spinning our wheels.
Now there's one more quote
from Morrison's article on Francis the Destroyer
that I wanted to keep
for last
because it's kind of the icing on the cake.
Having bent over
backwards not to present
any pre-Vatican II magisterial
teaching on the papacy
that could answer his questions,
Morrison counsels his readers
as follows.
Quote,
Many conservative Catholics
complain of the abuses
of the spirit of Vatican II
but reject the best
antidotes available.
The teachings of the pre-Vatican II
popes, especially
St. Pius X.
Why would we expect God
to send us a truly Catholic
pope if we fail to
have recourse to the teachings
of the good popes he gave
us to warn against
the current evils?
Unquote.
Yes, Mr. Morrison,
why indeed.
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