Update: I have learned to spell.
The momentum is growing all the time. Will enough people stand up before it is too late? Lengthy excerpt:
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High caliber intellects whose work I respect are among those who dismiss the thesis that Benedict XVI remains the pope. Perhaps there is something I haven’t accounted for, but to date I haven’t found any adequate rebuttal to the specific claim that Benedict XVI did not fulfill what is required by canon law for a valid renunciation of the Papal office.
There has also arisen a rift of sorts among those who are rightly convinced Bergoglio is an anti-pope. In one camp are those who feel that Benedict XVI made a “substantial error” in his Declaratio, because he aimed to retain a portion of the Papacy yet also incorporate a successor pope to take over the practical, day to day administrative and governing functions of the universal Church.
In other words, he mistakenly thought he could bifurcate or otherwise expand the Papacy – transform it from a Divinely instituted charge given individually to St. Peter and all his individual successors to a similarly authoritative but more collegial unifying entity.
The relevant canon for this view is 188, which reads:
A resignation made out of grave fear that is inflicted unjustly or out of malice, substantial error, or simony is invalid by the law itself.
Whether or not Benedict XVI audaciously intended to introduce an unprecedented and inadmissible wrinkle into the nature of the Papacy, it may also be said that the failure to heed the distinction between resigning the office itself and ministries or activities emanating from said office constitutes an invalidating substantial error.
In another camp are those who contend that Benedict XVI did not erroneously attempt to pluralize the papacy, but rather that he specifically and intentionally did not renounce the munus because he intended to remain Pope. So why such a tack?
He did this because he felt he could no longer properly function as Pope on account of pervasive opposition from within the Church itself. He was essentially impeded from governing in accordance with his charge in the manner he saw fit. (Canon 412 delineates the criteria of an impeded See).
By stepping aside the way he did, he judged his unworthy, subversive adversaries would likely jump at the chance to seize power; their nefarious ways would eventually be exposed, thereby hastening a much-needed purification of the Church.
Talk about intrigue! I can appreciate how anyone considering this possibility for the first time might be incredulous. But this is not a movie or a novel; if only the widespread, hostile infiltration of the Church – the rot even at its highest levels – were fictional.
One shudders to ponder the depravity stacked against Benedict XVI, who explicitly mentioned his “fear of the wolves” upon first assuming the Papacy. So his maneuver may have been a purposeful act of inspiration born out of desperation.
Both of the above interpretations, sincerely held by their proponents, are products of intensive investigation; both are reasonable suppositions, plausible enough at least at first hearing that they cannot simply be dismissed.
In one sense, both explanations cannot be right because they offer conflicting analyses of Benedict XVI’s motivation for doing what he did – a highly important question that awaits an answer in due time. And yet both are correct in what matters most: whatever his motivation or intention, Benedict XVI did not renounce the Papacy in accordance with Canon Law, and therefore Bergoglio is an anti-Pope and everything he has done carries no weight whatsoever because he has never held the Papal munus.
The implications are massive going forward – and not just for Catholics. If the situation is not rectified, the next conclave (regardless of who dies first) would be invalidly constituted, so we’d have another anti-Pope, succeeded by yet additional anti-Popes – who, like Bergoglio, would not likely supply much forceful, indispensable moral and spiritual resistance to the various inhumane agendas menacing our horizon.
Though initially a bit reluctant to look into this matter, I found myself at peace with my conclusion. Sure, it is a distressing, grave situation. But it also provided an interpretive key to so many other things unfolding all around us – primarily the lockdowns. The unprecedented closure of churches. The “Pope” canceled Easter! A pope never does that.
Saint Louis Catholic 