Condemning The Next Pope Before He Is Elected

I was talking to a good friend today who is a very devout Catholic.  We got on the subject of the papal conclave. He said to me, "I hope this next pope is not the anti-pope." That kind of made my head snap back. Where in the world did that come from? Why would such an idea even enter into any Catholic's mind? He said to me that there are prophecies predicting the anti-pope. I said to him, "You know the danger with a statement like that is that if the next pope does anything that you don't agree with, you could start accusing him of being an anti-pope." His response was that not everything a pope does is infallible. I asked my friend to give me an example, and he brought up Pope Paul VI and the "mistakes" he made with the liturgy.

Both my friend and I agree that we are not happy with the creation of the New Mass in 1969. We both love the Traditional Latin Mass, the Mass of the Ages going back 1500 years that produced probably millions of saints over the centuries. However, my unhappiness with the New Mass is purely personal. I do not share my friend's view that the New Mass was an "error" of Pope Paul VI. Like most Traditionalists, my friend blames Pope Paul VI, the one who gave us the Novus Ordo, or the Ordinary Form of the Mass as it is now called, for being one of the major contributors to the spiritual crisis in the Church. And like all good Traditionalists, my friend said the real problem goes back to Vatican II, which he has basically condemned as the root of all evils in the Church. Anyone who reads my blog knows that even though I call myself a Traditionalist, I have no problem with Vatican II. Many claim that because Vatican II was a pastoral council as opposed to a doctrinal counsel, we don't have to accept it. The Vatican II documents were signed by the Pope in his capacity as Vicar of Christ, therefore making them part of the Magesterium. We must accept this just as we do all official teachings of the Church.

Yet, my friend is certainly right that there is a major crisis in the church that has been ongoing for 40 years. But what really was the catalyst for this crisis? Was it Pope Paul VI and his introduction of the New Mass, with its roots in Vatican II? Does this mean that a pope - the Vicar of Christ, the divinely appointed Head of Christ's Mystical Body on earth - can be wrong and that not only can we, but we actually should question his decisions?

I did a lengthy post on Vatican II entitled, "Vatican II: Blessing Or Curse?" I don't want to rehash this subject, so if you're interested, you can read it here. In this post I lay out the thesis that the root of the spiritual problems we see in the church today, and actually all throughout the world, can be traced back not to Vatican II but to Humanae Vitae.  I quoted from Dr. Ralph McInerny's book on this subject, "What Went Wrong With Vatican II?" in which he explains very clearly and logically that Vatican II is not to blame  for the spiritual crisis we are experiencing, but that the cause of the crisis is the rejection by so many in the Church, including clergy, of Pope Paul VI's encyclical condemning the use of artificial birth control. Interestingly, the conversation I had with my friend today was in front of an abortion clinic where we were praying. As I said to him, we would not even have been standing there if so many in the church had not rejected Humanae Vitae.

Everyone looks at Vatican II as the beginning of the current spiritual crisis we see in the church, but they all seem to forget about the real spiritual crisis of the 20th Century, and that is the rejection of Humanae Vitae in 1968.  Historians all agree that 1968 was a watershed year in the history of the world.  That is when everything began to change.

Here is a sample screenshot of the results of searching for "1968 Watershed Year".  As you can see, there were 219,000 results:

From one website entitled phinnweb.org

1968 was a watershed year, the year when the 60s optimism with its utopian hippie dreams and hopes of social change for the better future started to turn sour. Nothing that came after that would ever be the same as what had come before. It was a year of deep tragedy, pain and anger, but also a year of remarkable social upheaval.

Historians naturally would never consider the acceptance or rejection of a Papal Encyclical as a momentous event in the history of man.  But outside of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, nothing has ever had a more profound impact on the direction of the entire world than the rejection of Humanae Vitae.  It is the cause of almost all the turmoil and evil we see happening around us.  The rejection of this most important encyclical has resulted in the deaths of untold hundreds of millions of unborn babies around the world (35,000 per day in China alone), the acceptance of homosexuality, the meteoric rise in sexually transmitted disease, the AIDS crisis, the rise in cancer among women directly caused by birth control and abortion, the overall general destruction of the family which is the foundation and building block of all societies, and even the sexual abuse crisis in the Church and around the world, to name just a few of the horrific consequences.

Credit:  www.gracepickerington.org 

When so many in the Church rejected Humanae Vitae, they did not reject Pope Paul VI. The rejected the Lord and Master of the Universe. They rejected their Creator.  They told Him they can make their own decisions, and they don't need Him interfering in their lives. As I have mentioned in previous posts, this has resulted in our Lord allowing us to wander in the spiritual wilderness, just as He allowed ancient Israel to wander in the desert wilderness when they rejected Him at Mt. Sinai and turned to other gods. Our Lord promised He would never leave the Church, and that is true to this day and will be true to the end of time. But the rejection of Humanae Vitae was, in reality, a rejection of Jesus Christ. That is the moment when a great number literally turned their backs and walked away from God and the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit.

The spiritual chaos and confusion that we see in the church today is not the result of "papal error". It is the result of God's people turning away from Him. It started in 1968, a year that secular historians note as an unprecedented year of upheaval and change. It is now 45 years later and the world is on the verge of complete moral collapse, just as Venerable Pope Paul VI predicted.

Here in the United States for the past several presidential elections we have been told that each one is "the most important election in our lifetime." The election of a pope is always a momentous event, but I think it is safe to say that the papal conclave set to start on Tuesday, March 12, 2013, is possibly the most important papal conclave in the 2000 year history of the Church, dwarfing the significance of any presidential election. His Holiness, Benedict XVI, said his decision to abdicate was not just a personal decision "to retire" but the result of a revelation from God. As he said in his last Angelus message on February 24:

I hear this Word of God addressed to me in a special way during this moment of my life. Thank you! The Lord is calling me to “scale the mountain,” to dedicate myself still more to prayer and to meditation. But this does not mean abandoning the Church – on the contrary, if God asks this of me, it is to serve the Church with the same dedication and the same love with which I have tried to do so hitherto, but in a way that is more adapted to my age and my strength.

The New York Post had an amusing headline that read "Pope Gives God Two Weeks Notice."  But as Pope Benedict XVI told us, it was Our Lord who made this decision.  Jesus could have easily made the decision to install a new pope by ending Pope Benedict XVI's life.  But creating exceptional circumstances completely focuses the world's attention on the election of a new pope.  It seems Jesus wanted this papal election done under extraordinary circumstances to draw attention to the fact that this is not an ordinary papal election.

The man who will be chosen to sit in the Chair of Peter will quite literally have the weight of the world upon his shoulders.  It is every Pope's role to walk the road of Calvary, but this time, I believe, the Church will be walking that road with him.  I think Our Lord wants us to know that the Chair of Peter is not being filled "in the ordinary course of business".  We live in extraordinary times of crushing evil, and it will take a man of extraordinary spiritual strength to lead the Church.  We will not know the full significance of all of this until we can look back on it.

One thing I think we can be sure of is that whoever is elected as our next Holy Father will be facing tremendous persecution and opposition.  He will be under immense pressure to "modernize" the Church and basically turn it into another protestant denomination, in effect destroying the Catholic Church.  We have a firm promise from Jesus Christ that He will never allow this to happen.  The Church has survived incredible odds over its 2000 year history and it will survive this.  But that doesn't mean we will do so without great suffering.

It will be more important than ever before that the Church be completely loyal and supportive of our next Holy Father, whoever he may be.  In his homily on Ash Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI made the following statement:

The readings that have been proclaimed provide us with ideas that, with the grace of God, we are called to make concrete attitudes and behaviors during this Lent. The Church proposes to us, first, the strong appeal that the prophet Joel addressed to the people of Israel, "Thus says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning" (2:12). Please note the phrase "with all my heart," which means from the center of our thoughts and feelings, from the roots of our decisions, choices and actions, with a gesture of total and radical freedom. But is this return to God possible? Yes, because there is a force that does not reside in our hearts, but that emanates from the heart of God. It is the power of his mercy.

The prophet says, further: "Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, ready to repent of evil" (v. 13). The return to the Lord is possible as a 'grace', because it is the work of God and the fruit of that faith that we place in His mercy. But this return to God becomes a reality in our lives only when the grace of God penetrates to our inmost being and shakes it, giving us the power to "rend our hearts." The same prophet causes these words from God to resonate: "Rend your hearts and not your garments" (v. 13). In fact, even today, many are ready to "rend their garments" before scandals and injustices - of course, made by others - but few seem willing to act on their own "heart", on their own conscience and their own intentions, letting the Lord transform, renew and convert.

Finally, the prophet focuses on the prayers of the priests, who, with tears in their eyes, turn to God, saying: "Do not expose your heritage to the reproach and derision of the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?' "(v.17). This prayer makes us reflect on the importance of the testimony of faith and Christian life of each of us and our community to show the face of the Church and how that face is sometimes disfigured. I am thinking in particular about sins against the unity of the Church, the divisions in the ecclesial body. Living Lent in a more intense and evident ecclesial communion, overcoming individualism and rivalry, is a humble and precious sign for those who are far from the faith or indifferent.

We should not be talking about or even thinking about "anti Popes". Our Lord told us in Matthew 16:18 that the Church is built on the "Rock", on St. Peter and all his successors, and there is nothing that can destroy that. "And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." We either trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit or we don't. And if we refuse to put our trust there, then we have put ourselves outside of the Church and outside the safety and salvation found only in the Church.

When the next pope is elected, all of the Cardinals assembled will personally pledge their loyalty and obedience to him. His Holiness, Benedict XVI, has already done so. And we must follow their lead. The Church will survive, despite the tempestuous storms surrounding it. The question is, will we as individuals survive. The answer: only if we are under the authority of the Vicar of Christ.

The Real Reason Pope Benedict XVI Abdicated

It has been almost a week since we first got the shocking news that Pope Benedict XVI was abdicating the Papacy. I've been mostly sitting back and watching the reactions of others. Some are struggling with grief, anger and fear as expressed in Hilary White's article on Lifesitenews :

Since Monday, I have struggled even to understand my own feelings. These have ranged, honestly, from shock to a kind of dread not only at the ominous question of what happens now, what is coming next, but at the very great strangeness of breaking of this ancient precedent. How can it be right? And why now, when the world seems to be sinking into an unimaginable darkness?

Then there are the traditionalists engaging in conspiracy theories, such as Chris Ferrara writing for the far right Remnant. Ferrara printed the Pope's entire resignation message and then began to look for clues as to the Holy Father's "true motivation". The following is a partial quote from Pope Benedict XVI's statement:

After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.

From the above statement, Ferrara manages to find yet another opportunity to condemn the Second Vatican Council and Blessed John Paul II, with the implication that Pope Benedict XVI's resignation is actually supportive of Ferrara's statements:

Consider: Benedict might have been wrestling with the propriety of raising John Paul to the altars of the universal Church and declaring Paul VI a beatus, thus placing his papal imprimatur on what he himself, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, described as a post-conciliar “process of decay”—a process only Pope Benedict has done anything to reverse since the Council. Yet, Benedict was also under tremendous pressure from “conciliarist” forces to perform both acts in order to shore up the collapsing credibility of the conciliar aggiornamento. At this very moment, the trickle of traditionalist critiques is becoming a torrent of criticism by respectable theologians of the mainstream, as the “spirit” of the Council wanes while its disastrous effects become too obvious to explain away any longer.

It stands to reason that if Benedict were at all committed to the idea of “Saint John Paul II the Great” and “Blessed Paul VI,” he would have remained in office at least long enough to perform the necessary papal acts. Yet he has left office, in a purely discretionary manner, just as those acts were slated to occur—during the ironically designated “Year of Faith” that is taking place in the midst of the “silent apostasy” that is our inheritance from the previous two pontificates.

Or perhaps, even if this was not the Pope’s conscious intent, the Holy Ghost has intervened by prompting him to abdicate rather than inflicting further damage to the Church by acceding to the Council’s canonization via improvident acts of the Magisterium.

Ferrara completely condemns the Second Vatican Council and Blessed John Paul II, and claims that the real reason Pope Benedict is abdicating is to avoid "inflicting further damage to the Church" through "improvident acts of the Magesterium." Ferrara sets himself totally outside of Church authority when he makes such condemning statements. He should know as a Catholic that the Magesterium is guided by the Holy Spirit and cannot mislead the Church. No one should give any credence to Ferrara's statements or any that echo similar sentiments.

Then there is Michael Voris, who is not as radical as Chris Ferrara, but still reads his own feelings into the Pope's resignation and brings in his usual theme of the war within the Catholic Church being the cause of all the problems we face. Voris happily takes this as another opportunity to condemn the hierarchy of the Church. He is not nearly as critical of Pope Benedict XVI, but he still manages to make some absurd statements:

But during [Pope Benedict XVI's] pontificate .. one thing that caught him off guard was the hostility among many of the world’s bishops to his move toward a more traditional faith for the worldwide Church. Even so far as the restitution of the Tridentine Latin Mass .. observers report that Pope Benedict was shocked that so many bishops around the world opposed his desires and worked almost openly to thwart them.

. . .

The internal strife in the Church between the orthodox and the heterodox has had to take its toll on the Holy Father.  It would be difficult for a young vigorous man to navigate these waters.  

Michael seems to have forgotten that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was Cardinal-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 24 years before being elected Pope. He dealt with errant bishops and priests on a regular basis. It is possible, even probable, that he was more aware of the "internal strife in the Church" than his boss, Blessed John Paul II.

But then Voris actually goes on to contradict his statement that "Benedict was shocked" at the behavior of bishops, saying that the Holy Father was actually very aware of the "turmoil in the Church":

When Joseph Ratzinger was elected the 264th successor to St. Peter back in April 2005, he said in his first homily as Pope, “pray for me that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.” He knew very well the turmoil in the Church from errant pastors and ravenous wolves in sheeps’ clothing.

So which is it, Michael?   Did the Pope know or didn't he?

Michael then gives us what he sees as the necessary qualifications for the next Pope, which is someone who is basically ready to go to war against the Church, or at least certain parts of Holy Mother Church:

And now .. we must turn our attention and prayers to the NEXT successor of St. Peter .. and pray earnestly that the Holy Spirit will send another in the mold of Benedict .. one familiar with the struggle [but I thought it took Pope Benedict by surprise?], who knows the intrigues and the players, who loves tradition and understands the need for the liturgy to continue to reveal the Divine Majesty and not be a mere Catholic looking protestant type service.

A Papa who understands that the bold clear truth must be spoken in a world darkened not just by evil in general, but by evil men who make evil choices who must be confronted, and defeated, both inside and outside the Church.

Sigh.

The Holy Father on a wheeled platform

Did anyone ever consider that maybe, just maybe, the Pope told us exactly why he is abdicating and that there is no secret message or conspiracy behind his actions? Consider the fact that in a couple of months he will be 86 years old. If he was still a Cardinal, he would no longer be eligible to vote for the next Pope because he is too old, being past 80 years. If he had been a regular bishop instead of Bishop of Rome, he would have already been too old to serve when he was elected Pope at age 78. Bishops have a mandatory retirement age of 75. He has a pacemaker and has been told by his doctors that he cannot fly anymore, severely limiting his role in our modern world. Those who have been close to him say he is very physically frail. He even has to use a wheeled platform to get to the altar at St. Peter's.

Pope Benedict stated his reasons for abdicating the papacy in a very succinct and clear statement:

After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

We really don't have to parse each and every word to find the "real meaning" behind his resignation. Pope Benedict XVI is bluntly telling us that he is too old and sick to be Pope.

I think the reason so many have a hard time with this is because we witnessed Blessed John Paul II continue his papacy to his death despite being much more infirmed than Pope Benedict XVI appears to be. So, we think, if JPII could do it, why can't our current Holy Father?

Pope Benedict XVI was right next to Blessed John Paul II, and he saw up close how incapacitated JPII had become. It would seem that from the very time Pope Benedict was elected, he was signaling to the world that he would step aside if and when he felt he had become incapacitated. In 2010, he made this statement:

“If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign,”

We live in one of the most evil times in the history of the world, and as always happens when evil is in power, the Catholic Church is in the cross hairs. Right here in my own country, the United States, the State now sees the Church as the enemy, standing opposed to abortion, same sex marriage, contraception, and a myriad of other evils promoted by the State. We need a physically strong and robust man in the Papacy who can stand up and lead the church, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, through these tumultuous times.

Pope Benedict XVI, as has been pointed out by many, is showing great humility and sanctity by telling the world that he is no longer fit for the Papacy, and as a great act of love for the Church, he wants to step aside to allow the Holy Spirit to choose someone else. Pope Benedict XVI will now go into a life of intense prayer, which may be an even greater and more valuable service to the Church than he performed in his role as Pope.

One lesson that should be be apparent from the 2000 year history of the Catholic Papacy is that while the Vicar of Christ, as the visible head of the the Ark of Salvation for the world, is the most important person on the earth, he is also the most dispensable person in the world. He can and will always be replaced. The Pope is really nothing more than a kind of front man, as are all of our bishops and priests. The real Head of the church is Jesus Christ, and as he told us, He will never leave nor forsake us. And He has sent the Holy Spirit to guide and protect us from the evil one, who cannot touch us as long as we stay within the authority of the Church.

I find the words of Pope Benedict XVI very comforting:

"Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer."

May God bless and protect Pope Benedict XVI as he enters this final phase of his life. He has been a wonderful, loving father to the Church,