TrapCast Express
TrapCast Express, it's Thursday, June 2nd, 2022.
Boy, did Francis drop a few fancy buzzwords yesterday,
both in his Wednesday catechesis and especially in his address to participants
in the international conference Lines of Development of the Global Compact on Education.
He spoke about such profound ideas as the magisterium of frailty
and mentioned the usual jazz from Roots and Horizons to the museum piece of Dead Traditions.
Naturally, he also did not fail to include the imperative of moving forward,
lest we become a sect.
By going backwards.
Meanwhile, the Vatican's so-called Congregation for Catholic Education
released an endless document yesterday called
The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue.
One of the things the text promotes is an education that goes forth.
And included under that profound concept,
we find education as movement.
Listen to this.
Quote,
Education consists in a polyphony of movements.
First of all, it starts with a team movement.
Everyone collaborates according to their personal talents and responsibilities,
contributing to the formation of the younger generations
and the construction of the common good.
At the same time, education unleashes an ecological movement
since it contributes to the recovery,
of different levels of balance.
Inner balance with oneself,
solidarity with others,
natural balance with all living beings,
spiritual balance with God.
It also gives rise to an important inclusive movement.
Inclusion, which is an integral part of the Christian salvific message,
is not only a property,
but also a method of education
that brings the excluded and vulnerable closer.
Through it, education nurtures a peacemaking movement
that generates harmony and peace.
Unquote.
Yeah, so, whatever.
Two days ago, May 31st, was World No Tobacco Day.
And you can guess who had something to say about that.
You got it.
The Frankster.
Now, don't worry.
We're not going to look at that.
It was just a fact.
A few brief words about the importance of physical health,
which is a gift from God.
And that is true, of course.
It's just really not something the supposed Pope
needs to concern himself with, right?
At least not while the entire world is drowning
in a cesspool of unbelief and grave immorality.
But then that's just Francis being Francis.
He is super concerned about bodily health and temporal well-being,
while at the same time giving very little to no consideration
to people's supernatural life of sanctifying grace.
And so, it's not surprising that in 2018,
Francis outlawed the sale of cigarettes throughout Vatican City,
while at the same time he has shown no concern
for the harm done to souls by the smoke of Satan.
Let us now turn to an article that popped up
on May 31st at 1 Peter 5.
It is entitled,
The Catholic Response to Corrupt Cardinals,
and was written by one Joshua Charles,
who, according to his biographical blurb,
is a former White House speechwriter
for Vice President Mike Pence,
a number one New York Times best-selling author,
historian, columnist, writer, public speaker,
and ghostwriter.
He is also a convert from Protestantism.
The controversy,
and the context in which this article appeared,
is Francis' appointment of 21 new bogus cardinals
just the other day,
among whom are such theologically unsavory characters
as Robert McElroy of San Diego
and Arthur Roche of the Vatican's Congregation
for Divine Worship.
So, that's what occasioned Joshua Charles' write-up,
and we'll give it a critical review now.
Overall, we can say that
Charles follows the usual semi-trad blogger tactic
of making lots of confident assertions,
yet providing very little evidence for them.
Sure, some things stand to reason,
and when they're obvious,
they don't really need proof.
But when it comes to talking about
what is the authentic Catholic position
on a controversial matter,
you need to show evidence.
For what you're saying,
evidence from the Church's magisterium,
or at least her approved theologians.
Anyway, let's get going here.
Charles begins as follows.
Quote,
One of the most common objections
against the Catholic Church
is that it is corrupt
and full of wicked shepherds.
This supposedly justified the Protestant revolt
and people leaving the Church to this day.
Whether through immoral living
or teaching bad doctrine,
the Catholic Church may have been
the original Mother Church,
but it is now hopelessly corrupt,
and the only way to respond to this,
the problem is to separate from it.
But as I discovered
when I began studying the Church Fathers,
this is not a new objection.
In fact, it's a very old one
to which the Fathers offered
a unanimous and resounding answer.
Separation from the Church
is never justified.
Unquote.
What the author is doing here
is he is lumping together
different issues
that must be kept separate
because they are separate things,
and are governed by different principles.
For example,
he is lumping together
wicked shepherds in the Church
with the Church teaching bad doctrine.
Now, these are two very different things.
God never promised
that all of the legitimate bishops
in the Church would be saints,
but God did promise
that His Church would forever be
the Ark of Salvation,
that this Church would never
lead the sheep astray,
and never give them anything
that is harmful to their souls.
In fact, Christ founded His Church
as the pillar and ground of the truth,
as we read in 1 Timothy 3.15.
It goes without saying
that separation from that Church
founded by Jesus Christ
from that bulwark of truth
and Ark of Salvation
is never justified,
is never permitted
under any circumstance.
That is clear.
But the matter under dispute
is precisely whether
the Vatican II Church
is that infallible
and indefectible Catholic Church
founded by Christ.
Joshua Charles simply
assumes that it is,
and then concludes that you are therefore
not permitted to leave it.
Well, at least we agree in principle
one is never allowed to abandon
the true Roman Catholic Church.
However,
there are two sides
to every coin,
and there is a flip side
here as well.
Just as one is not allowed
to abandon the Church
founded by our blessed Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ,
neither is one allowed
to refuse submission
to the Vicar of Christ
or to reject His laws,
doctrines,
canonized saints,
or sacramental rites.
And you know what?
If the Catholic Church
really is the Church
founded by Christ,
and it is,
then this shouldn't be a problem, right?
I mean, why would you
want to reject the Magisterium
and other official acts
of the Supreme Pontiff
if He is the Vicar of Christ
and has the divine assistance,
and that not only concerning
those things that are infallible?
In an elocution to cardinals
given on June 2, 1944,
Pope Pius XII taught,
quote,
Mother Church, Catholic, Roman,
which has remained faithful
to the Constitution received
from her divine founder,
which still stands firm today
on the solidity of the rock
on which His will erected her,
possesses in the primacy of Peter
and of his legitimate successors
the assurance guaranteed
by the divine promises
of keeping and transmitting
inviolate and in all its integrity
through centuries and millennia
to the very end of the world.
And so,
to the very end of time,
the entire sum of truth and grace
contained in the redemptive mission
of Christ, unquote.
In the address
Ancora Una Volta
of February 20, 1949,
the same Pius XII taught,
quote,
The Pope has the divine promises.
Even in his human weaknesses,
he is invincible and unshakable.
He is the messenger of truth
and justice,
the principle of the unity of the Church.
His voice denounces errors,
idolatries, superstitions.
He condemns iniquities.
He makes charity and virtue loved, unquote.
That doesn't sound like Jorge Bergoglio, does it?
So, you can see how Joshua Charles
is not doing anyone a favor
by simply assuming
that the Vatican II Church
is the Catholic Church
and then declaring that
no one is ever justified
in abandoning it,
all the while holding, apparently,
that Catholics are justified
in rejecting the magisterium
of that Church.
I say apparently because
although Charles doesn't explicitly say that,
his article is published
at 1 Peter 5,
which does take that theological position.
So, I'm going to have to assume
that it is his position as well.
Let's continue with the article.
A little further on, Charles writes,
quote,
Like Israel in the wilderness,
the one true Church would remain itself
throughout all its tribulations,
none of which would change
its fundamental nature.
Amalek could not destroy it from without,
and Korah, Daphne, and Eberam
could not destroy it from within.
There was to be no refounding of Israel.
There was one and only one Israel
founded by God Himself
on a pilgrimage,
on a pilgrimage to the Promised Land.
Those who endured to the end
would see the promise.
Unquote.
Well, no one is arguing
that the Catholic Church needs to be refounded.
In fact,
we Serebakanis are the ones insisting
that the Catholic Church cannot change,
cannot suddenly proclaim
a different religion,
cannot defect.
That is why we reject
the Vatican II Church as a counterfeit
of the real Catholic Church.
It is the Vatican II Church
that has redefined the nature
of the Catholic Church
with its elements ecclesiology,
according to which the true Church
of Jesus Christ exists fully
in the Catholic Church,
but also exists in elements
in heretical sects,
such that even Lutherans
are part of the mystical body of Christ.
They're simply an imperfect communion
with the Catholics.
In fact, in 1977,
then Cardinal
Karol Wojtyla,
who would go on to become
Pope John Paul II,
wrote in his book
Sign of Contradiction,
quote,
the Church succeeded during the Second Vatican Council
in redefining
her own nature.
Unquote.
And that's on page 17 of the English edition
of Sign of Contradiction,
published in 1979.
So that's exactly what they did.
They had to redefine
the nature of the Catholic Church
in order to make it compatible
with ecumenism.
As Bishop Donald Sanborn
once pointed out,
you can't do ecumenism
with Protestants and Orthodox
if you're claiming to be
the one and only true Church of Christ
to which all non-Catholics
must convert.
If you take that position,
there can be no change.
There can be no change.
There can be no ecumenism.
So they had to come up
with some kind of redefinition
of the Catholic Church
that would reduce
her claim to exclusivity
in order to provide an opening
for ecumenism.
And that's what they did
at Vatican II.
And they admit it, too.
We just heard Carol Wojtyla
about this writing in 1977.
Also, Joseph Ratzinger,
the future Benedict XVI,
wrote in 1969
that,
the ecclesiological teaching
of Vatican II
amounts to
a reduction
in the claim
of exclusivity.
And that's a quote,
reduction
in the claim
of exclusivity.
That's from his book
The New People of God,
which may or may not
be available in English,
but in German,
the German edition
is Das neue Volk Gottes.
And that was published in 69,
and you can find that
on page 236.
Now, that was back in 1969,
but don't think that Ratzinger
reversed himself on that later.
He didn't.
In fact, in 2001,
Ratzinger wrote an article
for the Vatican newspaper
Osservatore Romano
entitled
The Ecclesiology of the Constitution
on the Church.
Now, before we can look
at what he wrote there,
let me first give you
a little bit of background.
The monumental change
about the Church
at Vatican II
was that the Council claimed
that the true Church
of Jesus Christ
subsists in the Catholic Church,
whereas the traditional teaching
insisted upon by Pope Pius XII
had been that the true Church
of Jesus Christ
is the Catholic Church,
that they are one
and the same thing,
as he wrote in the encyclical
Humani Generis in 1950.
Now, when you go from is
to subsists in,
you are inevitably
creating confusion, right?
You're muddying the waters.
Everyone understands
what it means to say
that the Church founded by Jesus
is the Catholic Church.
But when you change that
to say that that Church
subsists in the Catholic Church,
it is no longer clear
what exactly you mean.
Ask 10 different people
about what it means
and you'll get 11 different answers.
It is true
that subsistence
is a very precise mode of existing.
Something that subsists
exists as a substance,
not as an accident, for example.
But that doesn't save Vatican II at all
because it says that this Church
Christ founded
exists in the Catholic Church,
thereby drawing a distinction
between two churches,
the Church founded by Christ
and the Catholic Church.
And although the Council claims
that this Church,
has its proper existence
in the Roman Catholic Church,
it also claims
that it exists in elements
in other religious bodies.
All right,
now we can look at
what Ratzinger wrote in 2001
in the Vatican newspaper.
Quote,
With this expression,
and he means subsists in,
with this expression,
the Council differs
from the formula of Pius XII,
who said in his encyclical
Mystici Corporis Christi,
the Catholic Church is,
Latin est,
is the one mystical body of Christ.
The difference between
subsistit and est
conceals within itself
the whole ecumenical problem.
Unquote.
That is from the English edition
of Osservatore Romano
of September 19th, 2001,
page 3.
Page 5.
So, to return to Joshua Charles,
here's the problem he has.
He says, very correctly,
that the Catholic Church
cannot change her nature.
But he leaves out of account
that the institution he identifies
as that Catholic Church
defines itself as having
a different nature
from the Catholic Church
that was once ruled
by Pope Pius XII
and all his predecessors.
See,
this is why we're
Sedevacantists.
We believe
that the Catholic Church
cannot change.
It is the Vatican II Church
that doesn't believe that.
Now, Charles draws an analogy
with the people of Israel
in the Old Covenant,
and he points out
that they often became unfaithful.
Right?
They wandered off
into idolatry and apostasy,
but they still remained
the true people of God.
That's his argument.
And while that is true
for Israel,
the analogy is false
because who belonged
to the people of Israel
was determined by kinship
and not by public profession
of faith.
You were born into
the people of Israel
by being a descendant
of Abraham, right?
Or more properly, of Jacob.
That is what made you
an Israelite.
But in the New Covenant,
that is completely
different because the church
is a spiritual people.
The members of the church
founded by Christ
are not determined
by natural kinship,
but by faith.
That is, by the common
public profession
of that faith,
by baptism,
and by being subject
to the lawful hierarchy.
Remember, Christ said
to Nicodemus in John 3
that a man had to be
born again spiritually.
And he told the Jews
in John 8
that their descent
from Abraham
is of no value
if they do not believe in him.
In his letter to the Romans,
St. Paul writes,
Is God the God of the Jews only?
Is he not the God
of the Gentiles too?
Of the Gentiles too,
assuredly,
there is only one God
who will justify
the circumcised man
if he learns to believe
and the Gentile
because he believes.
That's Romans 3, 29, and 30.
And I'm using the Monsignor
Ronald Knox translation here
because the Douay-Rheims
is a bit obscure on this.
Likewise, in Galatians 3, 26-29,
St. Paul says,
Through faith in Christ Jesus
you are all now God's sons.
All you who have been baptized
in Christ's name
have put on the person of Christ.
No more Jew or Gentile,
no more slave and freeman,
no more male and female.
You are all one person
in Jesus Christ.
And if you belong to Christ,
then you are indeed
Abraham's children.
The promised inheritance
is yours.
Joshua Charles repeatedly
makes the point
that the church includes
saints and sinners,
sheep and goats,
wheat and chaff,
clean and unclean.
And yes, that's all very true.
But that is always in reference
to Catholics,
to the members of the church.
You have to be a Catholic
to be a member
of the Catholic Church.
Now, that stands to reason.
Yes, holy Catholics
and terribly sinful Catholics
both are members of the church.
But heretics are not members
of the church.
Again, what Charles is doing is
he's lumping all sins together,
sins against faith
and sins against morals.
And although he doesn't say it outright,
the implication is
that therefore it doesn't matter
if bishops or cardinals
profess the true faith or not,
or if the pope teaches heresy
in his magisterium,
or if he leads souls to hell
with evil laws
or invalid sacramental rites.
None of that matters
because it's still the true church.
That, at least,
is what I'm understanding
Charles to be saying.
What evidence does he give for that?
Well, none that actually says that.
On the contrary,
we have countless examples
from the papal magisterium
teaching the opposite
of what Charles is arguing.
For example,
remember what Pope Pius XII
taught about membership
in the church.
Quote,
Actually, only those
are to be included
as members of the church
who have been baptized
and profess the true faith
and who have not been
so unfortunate
as to separate themselves
from the unity of the body
or been excluded
by legitimate authority
for grave faults committed.
For in one spirit,
says Charles,
the apostle,
were we all baptized
into one body,
whether Jews or Gentiles,
whether bond or free.
As, therefore,
in the true Christian community
there is only one body,
one spirit,
one Lord,
and one baptism,
so there can be
only one faith.
And therefore,
if a man refused
to hear the church,
let him be considered,
so the Lord commands,
as a heathen
and a publican.
It follows that
those who are divided
in faith or government
cannot be living
in the unity of such a body,
nor can they be living
the life of its one
divine spirit.
Unquote.
That's from the encyclical
Mystici Corporis,
number 22.
So there you have it.
Whoever does not profess
the faith of the Catholic Church
cannot be a member of it.
So now we have to ask,
does Francis profess that faith?
Does Robert McElroy?
Does Blaise Cupich?
Does James Martin
or Richard Rohr?
Does Reinhard Marx
or Gerard Betzing?
But more importantly,
regardless of what
these individual clerics
do or don't profess,
the bigger question is,
does the official magisterium
of the Vatican II Church
teach Catholicism?
And if it does,
what is there to resist?
Why should anyone resist
the Catholic magisterium?
But if it does not teach Catholicism,
then it cannot be
the Catholic magisterium,
because unlike the people of Israel,
God founded the spiritual Israel,
the Catholic Church,
as the pillar and ground
of the truth.
The infallible Church,
which as Pope Pius IX taught,
quote,
can never totter and fall
while this chair remains intact.
The chair which rests on the rock
which the proud gates,
the gates of hell,
cannot overthrow
and in which there is
the whole and perfect solidity
of the Christian religion,
unquote.
And he's talking about
the papal chair, of course,
the Holy See,
the chair of St. Peter.
That's from the encyclical
Inter Multiplices,
number seven.
Returning now to Joshua Charles,
he writes, quote,
Scripture makes abundantly clear
there is only one body of Christ,
which is the Church,
and there is only one Church
preaching only one faith,
unquote.
Amen.
But then that's not
the Vatican II Church, is it?
I mean, the reason why
there is traditionalism at all
is precisely because
the Vatican II Church
does not teach or profess
the Roman Catholic faith
as it was known
until the death of Pope Pius XII.
Charles also writes, quote,
This is why the Church Fathers
everywhere taught
the necessity of unity
with the Church for salvation
and that the Catholic Church
was that one true Church, unquote.
Again, couldn't agree more.
But that is not the teaching
of the Vatican II Church,
which claims that
the mystical body of Christ
includes all the baptized
regardless of whether
they're Lutherans, Anglicans,
Orthodox, Presbyterians,
or whatever.
Charles goes on to denounce, quote,
a form of ecclesial utopianism
that in its quest
for a pure Church
has murdered countless souls
in the same way political utopianism
has murdered
countless bodies, unquote.
Well, you know, it would have been good
if he could have defined
what exactly he means by that
pure Church, he says,
as utopian.
If by that he means that the Church
only consists of exceptionally holy people,
then of course that is utopian
and is certainly not the Church
founded by Christ,
which exists precisely to make
sinners holy, and that is
typically a lifelong struggle.
However,
if by that pure Church
he means a Church that is the
Ark of Salvation,
that teaches only salutary doctrine,
offers to God the true,
and perfect worship,
makes holy laws, and sanctifies
its people by dispensing
the sacraments,
then not only is that not utopian,
it is in fact
a dogma of the faith
that the Church is pure
and perfect in that way.
In the Creed,
we profess belief
in one holy
Catholic and Apostolic
Church.
In Ephesians 5.27,
St. Paul speaks of
a glorious Church not having
spot or wrinkle or any
such thing, but that it
should be holy and without
blemish. Sounds
like a pure Church to me.
In the
Encyclical Mystici Corporis,
paragraph 66,
Pope Pius XII writes,
certainly the loving Mother
he's talking about the Church,
certainly the loving Mother is
spotless in the sacraments,
by which she gives birth to and
nourishes her children.
In the faith which she has always
preserved in violet, in her
sacred laws imposed on all,
in the evangelical councils
which she recommends, in those
heavenly gifts and extraordinary
graces through which, with an
exhaustible fecundity, she generates
hosts of martyrs, virgins,
and confessors. But it cannot
be laid to her charge if some
members fall weak or
wounded. Unquote.
When it comes to the holiness
of the Church, Catholic theology
distinguishes ontological
holiness from moral holiness.
The Church's
doctrines of faith and morals,
her laws, her worship,
and her sacraments all pertain
to her ontological holiness,
and that is a necessary
property the Church
cannot lose. Yes,
the Church can have bad
popes, immoral, wicked
popes, but she cannot
have non-Catholic popes
that impose a false religion
on the faithful, corrupt
the Church's perfect worship,
taint the Catholic magisterium,
and make laws that lead souls
to hell, such as permitting those
in public mortal sin to receive
the sacrament of Holy Communion.
If those
things were possible,
how then would the Catholic Church be
distinguished from heretical
sects? What would be the
point of such a Church,
and how could we take
it seriously in its claim
to being the Ark of
Salvation?
To sum up, there are
two fundamental errors in
Joshua Charles' article,
The Catholic Response to Corrupt
Cardinals. One,
he fails to distinguish sins
against faith from sins against
morals, and two, he fails
to distinguish the personal holiness
or lack thereof of
clergy from the official
exercise of the magisterium
of the Church, which cannot
mislead souls, cannot preach
condemned doctrines, cannot teach
errors against the faith.
So these are
two enormous blunders the author
makes, which taint both
his analysis and his conclusion.
There
is no saving the
Vatican II Church. If you cannot
adhere to it because it teaches
modernism and other heresies
and errors,
then,
then it's not the pillar
and ground of the truth,
not the Ark of Salvation,
and not the Roman
Catholic Church. It
is a diabolical
counterfeit.
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