TrapCast Express
TrapCast Express, it's Tuesday, January 30th, 2024.
Being a popesplainer in our times is a dangerous undertaking.
You know what I'm talking about, right?
A popesplainer, so-called, is basically an apologist for the supposed pope.
Specifically, Jorge Bergoglio, otherwise known as Pope Francis.
The popesplainer's task is to explain why whatever heretical, blasphemous, idiotic, or otherwise scandalous thing Francis just said or did,
he did not, in fact, just say or do.
Or if he did, he didn't mean it.
Or if he did mean it, he's still not guilty because of a footnote over here or a misunderstanding over there.
Or because he's a Jesuit, or his native language is Spanish, or he's well into his 80s,
or some other excuse that is meant to get him off the hook.
Some hard-working popesplainers of the last ten years have included the Reverend John Zuhlstorf,
who's long given that up,
Jimmy Akin, who's also stopped defending Francis three times a week,
and Dave Armstrong, who is probably still at it.
I'm not including Michael.
I'm not including Michael Voris in this list because he wasn't really a popesplainer.
His strategy for years was basically to spin Francis into an ultra-conservative,
apparently thinking that the readers of his website were too dumb to look at other news sources as well.
Voris would simply report only on whatever orthodox words of Francis he could find and ignore all the rest.
We called it the Voris virus, and his vortex program, the Ignortex.
For a record, he was a popesplainer.
It's true that that changed eventually.
He did start covering scandals, but for the first few years, that's exactly what he did.
Pope Francis talks like a pope, like the successor to St. Peter.
At present, however, the popesplainer extraordinaire,
who I think is most deserving of the title and even has a shirt with the label popesplainer on it,
is no doubt Michael Lofton of the Reason and Theology website.
When it comes to popesplainers,
when it comes to defending Bergoglio,
supposedly the pope, the vicar of Christ,
Lofton doesn't miss a beat.
Therefore, it's rather curious that there is one recent incident
Lofton has ignored completely, and I think I know why.
But first, let's go back in time a little bit to April 18th, 2023.
On that day, a curious thing happened at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome.
St. John Lateran is not just any historic,
it is the cathedral of the pope.
That's right.
No, it's not St. Peter's in the Vatican.
That's just an important basilica.
The papal cathedral is that of St. John Lateran.
So, what happened there that day?
An Anglican bishop, Jonathan Baker, accompanied by 49 other Anglican clerics,
offered a Eucharistic liturgy, a mass, on the main altar of the Catholic cathedral.
That's a problem.
Not simply because Anglicanism is a false religion,
and its rites and ceremonies constitute false worship,
but also because Anglican ordinations are invalid.
And so, whatever they offered there, it was certainly not a valid mass.
And that's not simply my judgment,
it's the solemn and definitive magisterial judgment of the supreme pontiff
of the Roman Catholic Church, Leo XIII.
According to his Apostolic Constitution,
Apostolice Curiae, published in 1896,
Anglican ordinations are invalid.
That means that Bishop Baker is only Mr. Baker.
He is neither a bishop, nor even a priest, but just a layman.
The invalidity of Anglican orders is affirmed officially even by the Vatican II Church.
In other words, their own Vatican II Magisterium holds that Anglican orders are invalid.
Invalid.
Okay, so that was a big scandal,
but it wasn't entirely clear whether Pope Francis had permitted the Anglican pseudo-bishop
to perform this Eucharist in the papal cathedral or not.
Certainly, somebody in charge there had permitted it,
but whether Francis knew about it and approved it,
that was never demonstrated to be the case,
and so we cannot affirm that he did.
We simply don't know.
After enough of a rummage,
a ruckus ensued over this.
One of the authorities at St. John Lateran released a statement
saying there had been some kind of failure in communication,
and he expressed his deep regret.
Meanwhile, however,
Recognize and Resist YouTuber Taylor Marshall
had rashly made a video accusing Francis himself of knowing about
and approving this without any real evidence.
And so that was basically a real feast for Michael Lofton,
who was able to,
slam Marshall,
and defend his supposed pope
from those evil accusers
who would dare to suggest
that he, the vicar of Christ himself,
would ever possibly authorize an invalid Anglican mass
in a Catholic church.
Here is an almost three-minute compilation of various soundbites
taken from Lofton's video
Taylor Marshall Spreads Lie About Pope and Anglican Mass,
published on April 21st,
2021st,
2023.
These are different snippets I've stitched together,
and I'm separating them with a little accent sound
to indicate a skip.
Go ahead and listen to how passionately and confidently
Lofton defends Francis,
and then I'll tell you the rest of the story.
Hey everybody, welcome back to Reason and Theology.
Your host, Michael.
On a Friday, I want to review Taylor Marshall's video
spreading the lie that Pope Francis allowed a fake mass
by a fake bishop on an altar in Rome.
However, I do agree that it would be a fake mass
and a fake bishop since it was an Anglican bishop
who celebrated the liturgy,
which I think is tragic.
That certainly should not have been allowed,
and however this happened,
there was somebody who certainly dropped the ball
in light of the fact that Anglican masses are invalid
per Pope Leo XIII,
due to the invalidity of their order.
So this is certainly an issue.
It needs to be corrected.
It doesn't ever need to happen again
because at the end of the day,
this is simulating a mass.
It's not actually a mass itself.
So I agree with the fake mass and fake bishop part,
but the claim is Pope Francis allowed it to take place
at St. John Lateran's Basilica,
and this is a lie.
This is spreading a lie, misinformation,
and stirring people up in their passions
to get people,
all angry and upset with Pope Francis.
And of course,
this lie is spreading all over social media,
and now, as you can imagine,
the orthobros,
that is some of the more toxic online orthodox apologists,
are trying to use this against Catholics
and saying,
look, your Pope approves of fake Anglican masses
and stuff like that.
And so,
they're, of course,
watching radical traditionalist Catholics
who are spreading this lie,
and they're trying to use it against us.
So once again,
the radical traditionalists are wreaking havoc upon the church,
stirring people's passions up
and falsely accusing the Holy Father.
Truly tragic.
The enemies of the church
are now using this against the Catholic Church
to mock the Catholic Church.
They are watching this stuff,
and they're using it as ammunition,
against the Catholic Church.
Looks like the people who are in charge
of booking at St. John Lateran's,
yeah,
whoever made this mistake probably needs to be fired,
and you need to get somebody more reliable.
Just FYI.
If you're booking people who aren't actually
valid priests and bishops
to celebrate liturgies on a Catholic altar,
you might need to get somebody else in charge.
So,
there's certainly some fault here with whoever did it,
but it can't be blamed on Pope Francis
or any of the high dicasteries that represent him, frankly.
Let's just make sure this doesn't happen again.
Can we do that?
That'd be helpful.
Yeah, wouldn't that be helpful?
Well, I already said it's a dangerous job
being a popesplainer in our day under Jorge Bergoglio.
Lofton was foolish enough to go all in for Francis.
He didn't just say that there is no evidence
that Francis knew about this
and that it's wrong to rashly accuse the Pope,
but no, he went much further.
He said that Francis would have given a firm no
if he had been asked for permission in advance.
Here's another soundbite from the same video.
I think the dicastery,
one of the dicasteries,
if not the Holy Father himself,
should have been involved in making this decision,
which would have been a firm no.
But since they weren't involved,
and this shows you they weren't involved,
Pope Francis wasn't involved,
and none of the dicasteries were involved,
you know, you can't blame this on Pope Francis
or any of his direct representatives in the dicastery.
Oh, well, that was on April 21st, 2023.
But now let's fast forward to January 25th, 2024.
As part of the annual week of prayer for Christian unity,
a bunch of Anglicans were visiting,
including Justin Welby,
the so-called Archbishop of Canterbury.
He's the highest-ranking clergyman in the Anglican Church.
But having only Anglican orders,
he too is not valiantly ordained.
In other words, the Archbishop of Canterbury
is in reality only the Archlayman of Canterbury.
And once again, that is so even for the Vatican II Church.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to have a church like this one?
Wouldn't it be a shame now if Pope Francis
had given authorization to the Archlayman of Canterbury
to offer an invalid Eucharistic liturgy
in one of the historic Catholic basilicas in Rome?
Not St. John Lateran, granted,
but yes, this time Pope Francis himself
gave permission for Justin Welby
to defile the Basilica of St. Bartholomew
with an invalid Anglican Mass.
How do we know that?
We know it because Welby himself
proclaimed it from the pulpit.
Gerard O'Connell, a Vatican journalist
writing for the Novus Ordo Jesuit rag America,
published a tweet with a brief video clip
of Welby solemnly processing into the sanctuary
to begin his heretical and invalid liturgy.
O'Connell writes,
Archbishop Justin Welby,
the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury,
arrives to celebrate the Holy Eucharist
in St. Bartholomew's Church on Tiber Island, Rome,
January 25th, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.
He does so, he said,
with the permission of the Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis.
Unquote.
LifeSite had a whole article on this,
and I'm going to link it in the show notes.
It goes without saying that Michael Lofton
now has more than just egg on his face.
He's got a whole omelette.
To show how devastating
this news is to Lofton's position,
let's replay the three-minute clip
in which he takes to task
those who would be so evil
as to accuse Francis
of authorizing an invalid Anglican service.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to Reason and Theology.
Your host, Michael.
On a Friday, I want to review
Taylor Marshall's video
spreading the lie that Pope Francis
allowed a fake mass by a fake bishop
on an altar.
In Rome, however, I do agree
that it would be a fake mass
and a fake bishop
since it was an Anglican bishop
who celebrated the liturgy,
which I think is tragic.
That certainly should not have been allowed.
And however this happened,
there was somebody who certainly dropped the ball
in light of the fact that
Anglican masses are invalid
per Pope Leo XIII
due to the invalidity of their order.
So this is certainly an issue.
It needs to be corrected.
It doesn't ever need to happen again.
Because at the end of the day,
this is simulating a mass.
It's not actually a mass itself.
So I agree with the fake mass
and fake bishop part.
But the claim is Pope Francis
allowed it to take place
at St. John Lateran's Basilica.
And this is a lie.
This is spreading a lie, misinformation,
and stirring people up in their passions
to get people all, you know,
angry and upset with Pope Francis.
And of course,
this lie is spreading all over social media.
And now, as you can imagine,
the orthobros, that is,
some of the more toxic online orthodox apologists
are trying to use this against Catholics
and saying, you know,
look, your Pope approves of fake Anglican masses
and stuff like that.
And so they're, of course,
watching radical traditionalist Catholics
who are spreading this lie.
And they're trying to use it against us.
So once again, the radical traditionalists
are wreaking havoc upon the church,
stirring people's passions up
and falsely accusing the Holy Father.
Truly tragic.
The enemies of the church
are now using this against the Catholic Church
to mock the Catholic Church.
They are watching this stuff
and they're using it as ammunition
against the Catholic Church.
Looks like the people who are in charge
of booking,
at St. John Lateran's,
yeah,
whoever made this mistake
probably needs to be fired
and you need to get somebody more reliable.
Just FYI.
If you're booking people
who aren't actually valid priests and bishops
to celebrate liturgies on a Catholic altar,
you might need to get somebody else in charge.
So there's certainly some fault here
with whoever did it.
But it can't be blamed on Pope Franz,
or any of the high dicasteries
that represent him, frankly.
Let's just make sure this doesn't happen again.
Can we do that?
That'd be helpful.
Yeah, some things just don't age well.
But okay, let's go ahead now
and look at Lofton's reaction
to the news that the Archlaemon of Canterbury
had papal permission
to defile the Catholic Basilica
of St. Bartholomew.
That's right.
Not a word from the professional popesplainer.
Not a word.
At least not in public,
and not as of the recording of this podcast,
to my knowledge.
And I checked the website
and his YouTube channel
and his Twitter feed.
It's as if the whole thing hadn't happened.
Now, Lofton's passionate 2023 video
Defending Francis Against the Church,
in charge of permitting an invalid Anglican Mass,
that video, as of the recording of this podcast,
has almost 29,000 views.
That's a lot of people.
And I think it would be a real shame
if those who watched that
weren't now informed
that this time around,
their pope has approved
the invalid Anglican Mass
performed by Justin Welby.
And so, this little podcast
is trying to make its own way
and its own modest contribution
to help get the message out
to at least a tiny fraction
of those 29,000 viewers.
Since, obviously,
Lofton himself isn't doing it.
Whoever made this mistake
probably needs to be fired
and you need to get somebody more reliable.
As I said at the beginning,
being a popesplainer in our times
is a dangerous undertaking.
Lofton had put all his eggs
in one basket.
And now it turns out
it was the wrong basket.
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