Joseph Ratzinger: The Church Will Become Poor, Meek, More Spiritualized and Simplified

Father Joseph Ratzinger 

From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.

. . .

The Church will be a more spiritualized Church, not presuming upon a political mantle, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. … But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church.

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.
Joseph Ratzinger, Faith and the Future (Ignatius Press, San Francisco: 2009).

Archbishop Vigano Defies The Holy Spirit

Most of the coverage concerning Archbishop Vigano's allegations against Pope Francis and his call for the Pope's resignation have centered around the veracity of the allegations themselves.  I have written several posts in which I seriously question Vigano's credibility.

But there is another issue that we, as Christians, need to consider that is actually far more serious with much graver consequences than the truth or lack thereof of Vigano's accusations.

Did Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano have the right and authority to publicly accuse Pope Francis of corruption and insist that he resign as Pope?

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga said calling for the resignation of the Pope is a sin against the Holy Spirit. 

Is the Cardinal correct?

Ed Pentin Changes His Story AGAIN and Then Proves Vigano's Allegations are False

A few days ago I did a post about the ever-changing reporting of The National Catholic Register's Ed Pentin regarding the Vigano allegations against Pope Francis.  I showed how Pentin keeps changing and revising his story as Vigano's allegations are slowly debunked.

When Pentin first broke the story about the Vigano testimony, he stated that the Register had confirmed that Pope Benedict knew about McCarrick and that the Pope Emeritus had taken "measures" against McCarrick, but he couldn't remember what those measures were.  Pentin gave us no details at that time as to how he got this information or when.

When Pope Benedict's personal secretary flatly stated that Pope Benedict had never at any time confirmed Vigano's allegations and that this was "Fake News!"  Pentin responded by saying that he had never reported that Benedict had said this.

Pentin tried to get around his initial reporting by stating for the first time that he got this information from an inside source.

Of course, that made no sense because the inside source would have had to talk to Pope Benedict, contradicting Pope Benedict's statement that he never talked to anyone about Vigano's allegations. Either the "inside source" was lying or Benedict was lying.

I know who I believe.

Since then, Vigano's allegation of strict sanctions imposed by Benedict against McCarrick has been basically debunked through overwhelming evidence that McCarrick never curtailed his public life in any way whatsoever.

Why Pope Francis Does Not Answer His Enemies

With people lacking good will, with people who only seek scandal, who seek only division, who seek only destruction, even within the family: [the answer is] silence, prayer.  
Pope Francis, Homily, September 3, 2018

Father Dwight Longenecker, a bomb throwing traditionalist, wrote a column in which he said that Pope Francis' refusal to answer Vigano's accusations will most likely lead to a "lame duck papacy":

Pope Francis’ response to Archbishop Vigano’s testimony has, so far, been a sad silence which echoes his silence over the questions about marriage formally presented by some of his cardinals.

If this lack of leadership continues we may see the development of a lame duck papacy.

A "lame duck papacy " would, of course, mean that Pope Francis would be a completely powerless pope with no authority.  In effect, even though he would still physically occupy the office, Pope Francis would no longer, for all intents and purposes, be pope.

To believe this is even possible, Fr. Longenecker must believe the office of the papacy is comparable to that of an elected official. The huge problem with this is that an elected official, at least in a democracy, gets his power from the people who elected him.

But the Vicar of Christ is not elected by the people, nor does he derive his power from the people and how much they like or support him. The Vicar of Christ receives all of his power and authority from the Holy Spirit. The only One who can "depose" a Pope, or make him a "lame duck pope" (as if that is possible) is the One who made him Pope in the first place:  the Holy Spirit.

Fr. Longenecker has either forgotten this or never knew it.

And then there is this problem.  If you believe that the Pope has no power, that is the same as believing that no one occupies the Chair of Peter.  And what do we call those people? 

Sedevacantists. 

Oops.