Taylor Marshall & Schneider vs. Bellarmine & De Mattei
One Five publisher Skojec promoted Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s claim that popes cannot be deposed for heresy which “puzzled” renowned historian and scholar Roberto de Mattei.
The renowned scholar apparently, also, has a different take on what “universal acceptance” means than Bishop Schneider promoter Skojec. It appears to means to the scholar that a heretical pope who (apparently was lawfully elected) could lose the papacy if he is not “accepted by the universal Church.” The 1P5 publisher seems to think “universal acceptance” is a “infallible fact” that a claimant for the papacy is definitely a pope even if his pontifical election was unlawful such as if he violated the conclave constitution of the previous pope for a lawful election.
De Mattei said he was “puzzled” by Schneider’s claim that “popes cannot be deposed… for… heresy” because the bishop held a position contrary to Doctors of the Church, “great canonists and theologians”: “For as long as he [the heretical pope] is tolerated and accepted by the universal Church, the heretic will be true Pope, and in principle, his acts are valid… Schneider’s position is somewhat acceptable… to avoid that crypto-sedevacantism… on the practical level… without excluding future scenarios, like that of a heretic Pope possibly losing the papacy.”(Catholic Family News, “Professor De Mattei Comments on Bishop Schneider’s ‘Heretical Popes’ Text,” March 20, 2019) Moreover, Dr. Taylor Marshall in his YouTube video called “Pope Benedict Resignation 7 Years Later: LIVE Rosary PLUS Q&A” admitted that Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation is “ARGUABLE,” therefore it is DOUBTFUL, and if it is DOUBTFUL then the condition for the Bellarmine solution is triggered for an imperfect council:
“But think about it. From my point of view, the way I understand it is, Benedict had all the tools, all the knowledge, and he quit. He fled for fear of the wolves. But if you hold that his resignation on February 28, 2013, is invalid because he . . . does make a distinction—it’s arguable whether he does make this distinction—that he resigns the ministerium and not the munus.” .[https://youtu.be/2KomzM731KY]
MARSHALL HAS (INADVERTENTLY, I BELIEVE, BUT TRULY NONETHELESS) GIVEN AWAY THE STORE: back where he says it’s “arguable” whether or not Pope Benedict made a distinction between munus and ministerium in the first place.
Marshall adds this thought as a kind of throwaway line, to imply that the whole thought isn’t worth exploring. But what he has admitted is an absolute SMOKING GUN. For if the resignation is ARGUABLE, then it is DOUBTFUL, and if it is DOUBTFUL then the condition for the Bellarmine solution is triggered and neither Marshall’s own perspective, nor yours or mine, nor Benedict’s himself, has anything further to do with the matter. Having admitted that the terms of the resignation are arguable, Marshall has no logical escape hatch from calling for the bishops to take action himself, although he obviously doesn’t see that yet and did not mean to paint himself into this particular corner. TOO LATE!In simple words, Marshall said that Pope Benedict’s resignation is “ARGUABLE,” therefore it is DOUBTFUL, and if it is DOUBTFUL then the condition for the Bellarmine solution is triggered for an imperfect council.Here is the Bellarmine solution:Fr. Elwood Sylvester Berry (1879-1954) was professor at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland.
Dogmatic theology scholar Fr. Berry in his apologetic and dogmatic treatise which according to his introduction “was originally written in Latin” stated thataccording to Doctor of the Church St. Robert Bellarmine: “a doubtful pope is no pope… ‘if a papal election is doubtful for any reason'” therefore a imperfect council of bishops is needed:
“Hence the saying of Bellarmine: a doubtful pope is no pope. ‘Therefore,’ continues the Cardinal, ‘if a papal election is really doubtful for any reason, the elected should resign, so that a new election may be held. But if he refuses to resign, it becomes the duty of the bishops to adjust the matter, for although the bishops without the pope cannot define dogma nor make laws for the universal Church, they can and ought to decide, when occasion demands, who is the legitimate pope; and if the matter be doubtful, they should provide for the Church by having a legitimate and undoubted pastor elected. That is what the Council of Constance rightly did.'” 8 (The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, By Rev. E. Sylvester Berry, Page 229, Note 8: Bellarmine, “De Concilio, ii, 19)
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as for the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Fred Martinez at 2:19 PM
President Jim Graham says Bp. Michael Olson ringleader in anti-life measures
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FORT WORTH, Texas (ChurchMilitant.com) – Texas Bishop Michael Olson led the charge not only in attacking a prominent pro-life group but also supporting measures that would allow a “death panel” to determine if patients live or die.
“Michael Olson is really the person who drives their political agenda, the Texas Catholic Conference,” says Jim Graham, president of Texas Right to Life, in a recent interview with Church Militant. “It has become solely a political organization.”
Bishop Michael Olson allowed pro-abortion Democrat Marc Veaseyto speak in one of his parishes in 2016 while banning TX Right to Life
The Texas bishops issued an advisory in 2018 essentially banning Texas Right to Life from holding events on diocesan property, criticizing its voters guide for counseling voters to reject any “faux pro-life” candidates who block authentically pro-life legislation while choosing to compromise with weaker measures.
“They’ve engaged heavily in politics,” Graham said of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, adding, “Bishop Olson is the person that’s driving it.”
While Olson supported the ban on Texas Right to Life, he had no problem allowing a pro-abortion Democrat to speak in his diocese.
In August 2016, Democratic Congressman Marc Veasey, U.S. representative for Texas’ 33rd district, spoke at All Saints Catholic Church in Fort Worth.
Veasey has been given a 100% rating by NARAL Pro-Choice America, and has consistently voted against pro-life measures, including the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would have protected unborn children who feel pain from abortions. Veasey supports abortion through all nine months, and has attended rallies in support of Planned Parenthood.
CLICK ABOVE TO WATCH FULL INTERVIEW
Olson has also led the vanguard in supporting the Texas Advanced Directives Act (TADA), “a deadly law,” according to Graham, “the worst in America.”
Bp. Michael Olson, Fort Worth, TX
“Prisoners who’ve been found guilty of heinous crimes by a jury of their peers have more due process and more right to life than a little baby does in Texas,” referring to Tinslee Lewis, a baby at the center of a legal battle between her family and the hospital, which wants to remove life-sustaining care, leading to her immediate death. Tinslee is in a hospital within Olson’s diocese.
While Texas Right to Life supplied attorneys to fight for Tinslee’s right to life, amazingly, the Texas bishops submitted an opposing brief arguing in favor of the hospital’s right to pull the plug based on the judgment of an ethics panel — what critics call a death panel — that determined her quality of life did not warrant further care. In Tinslee’s case, the care is a ventilator and feeding tube.
“I’ve sat in those committees; they are death panels,” Graham said. “In one case they actually said as the argument, ‘Well, this woman will never be able to balance a checkbook.’ And that was the argument for removing her life-sustaining care — not that she was dying, not that she was having systemic organ failure, but that her quality of life was too low.”In one case they actually said as the argument, ‘Well, this woman will never be able to balance a checkbook.’Tweet
Once the hospital decides a patient’s quality of life no longer warrants life-sustaining care, the patient’s family has only 10 days to find another hospital willing to take him in — an unrealistic timeline.
“This is coming back to Michael Olson; he is the main person who has kept this law in place,” said Graham, a faithful Catholic. “Increasingly the general public is aghast at what’s going on, but Bp. Olson is making sure that that law is not changed, remains in place, and that his hospitals and the hospitals around the nation have the power over life and death.”
Bp. Olson Voting Democrat?
Graham has researched the voting records of Texas bishops, which has revealed disturbing results. Out of 15 bishops total, five of them have consistently voted in Democratic primaries in Texas. Another bishop has voted in nine straight Democratic primaries. Most others have a mixed record.
Bishop Olson has voted in three primaries total: Republican in 2016 and 2018, and Democratic in 2010. It’s unclear why he chose to vote in the Democratic primaries in 2010, a year when it was more important than ever to vote Republican, as that involved the Tea Party wave.
In Olson’s district in 2010, pro-abortion Republican Kay Granger was being challenged in the primary by fellow Republican Michael Brasovan, the pro-life, Tea Party candidate. Granger was the only GOP candidate who supported abortion. Olson had the opportunity to openly oppose her and send a strong pro-life message in that election, but instead chose to vote Democrat.
Olson also passed up the opportunity to support pro-life Gov. Rick Perry, who experienced a difficult primary fight against pro-abortion Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Instead, the bishop abandoned the Republican races and switched parties.
Olson has been the subject of 10 lawsuits, both canonical and civil, from both priests and laity. More than 1,500 mandates have been signed by Catholics and sent to Rome demanding the removal of Olson from his diocese over malfeasance and abusive speech and behavior. Recently aired testimony from a longtime confidant and friend reveals that Olson allegedly once wanted to torture and murder a priest, leading to questions about the bishop’s psychological fitness for office.
Luther, a corrupt Augustinian Monk, led half of Germany and all of Scandanavia into apostasy, from which they never recovered. Calvin, the son of a simoniacal priest, led half Switzerland at the Netherlands into Apostasy from which they never have recovered Henry VIII who ably defended against the heresies of Luther, when he fell, he dragged all of England and Wales into Apostasy from which they never have recovered.
There is ample evidence. No part of the Catholic Church is immune from apostasy and damnation. It has happened before. Men with less universal acclaim achieved it.
But no part of the Church has even fallen into a Apostasy when it remained united to the true Pope.
That is because the true Pope is the Rock.
Today is the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, established to thank God for the wonderful gift of the Papal office and munus.
Without the Successor of Saint Peter, no matter how learned, or how holy, or how ancient is the faith of your land, you can be led into Apostasy.
This is why now 99.99% of the Catholic Church is being led into Apostasy. Because they are no longer united in reality with the true Pope, though many are still fooled about this.
And this is why Bergoglio has such power. Because the first sin, which gives him power of you, is in holding that Pope Benedict XVI resigned the papacy, when 5 minutes of examination of Canon Law and the Papal Declaration can prove that he never resigned.
All those who refuse to do that much study to save their soul deserve to be damned, because they value their soul worth less that $1 of work.
And those who do this can run their mouths on Social Media until Hell freezes over, but it will never be a sufficient excuse.
The Power of the Rock
However, those who remain in communion with the true Pope have built their house on rock. That is the meaning of the parable of Jesus.
I saw a palpable example of that, last night, at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Since Feb. 15th, Catholic men have been joining in the prayers Against the Church of Darkness. All of them hold that Pope Benedict XVI is the true Pope. I never met them before and I do not know how they heard of it.
Last night, a couple from Croatia were walking by and joined in the prayers. By the time they ended at 12:24 A.M., the husband wanted to confess his sins.
I have never seen such a thing in my life. My only sadness is that there was no priest with us to hear his confession.
Just as power went forth from Jesus to heal and cure, so power went forth from Saint Peter to heal and cure and cause repentance. So also with Pope Benedict.
If priests want to be truly effective, you need to return to communion with the Vicar of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Pope Benedict XVI. Bergoglio will never have that effect, because he is the Vicar of nobody, but the vain imaginations of giddy Cardinals who were, as Pope Benedict XVI implied on Feb. 11, 2013, not competent to elect his Successor.
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Gold Goats ‘n Guns Speaking Truth, Mike Bloomberg: Trojan Horse For Clintonista Revival
It’s been obvious to me since he declared that Mike Bloomberg is not a serious candidate for the Democratic nomination. He is everything the Democratic base doesn’t want — white, billionaire, oligarch, Wall St. 0.000001%’er.
Oh, and until just a couple of years ago, he was a Republican. Billionaires like Bloomberg change parties to where ever they see their money will go the farthest.
Right now, that is the quickly fracturing Democrats, who are staring at a revolt to Bernie Sanders that doesn’t sit with Wall St. at all.
It’s also obvious that Bloomberg is animated by personal animus towards Donald Trump that I suspect is as much about Mike’s ego as it is his desire to protect Wall St. from having any of its dirty laundry aired during a Trump 2nd term.
Because with the failure to convict Trump in the Senate those that were behind that coup attempt are now uniquely exposed to his retribution. And that trail of tears for all involved leads right back up to Hillary Clinton’s poisoned garden of a 2016 presidential bid.
With the Democratic presidential field a uniquely inept mix of the hopeless and insane Bloomberg using saturation advertising to buy himself wins in delegate-rich red states with weak Democratic parties like North Carolina, Florida and Texas is a good strategy, if he was interested in winning.
But he’s not. He’s running to clear the field for Hillary.
Because the fight over these early states are as much about splitting the delegate count as possible, to strip Bernie Sanders of his chance at the nomination. Hillary is still angry at Bernie for challenging her in 2016.
She still wants another chance to fulfill her life’s ambition and if she can screw over all the men that she feels denied her that then it will be all the sweeter when it happens.
Because, honestly, Bloomberg isn’t interested in being president anymore than I am. He’s 78. He’s not campaigning. What he’s doing is a pantomime of a campaign covering for a very sophisticated form of campaign finance evasion.
And he’s doing it to figure out what is necessary for a ‘centrist’ Democratic candidate to say (and where) to steal electoral college votes from Donald Trump in November.
Bloomberg is spending this money today knowing that a targeted campaign which can figure out how to undermine Trump where he is strong can shift the map enough to sneak out a victory.
So Mike will spend more than $1 billion as an in-kind contribution to the DNC in the form of campaign advertising to get this done.
Because, let’s get serious here for a second. None of the candidates, including Bernie Sanders, has a hope in hell of beating Trump this fall. Any mistakes Trump’s made dwarf the basic message that he believes in the U.S. in a way that is genuine, even that vision of America is flawed.
The wizards at the DNC know this. Impeachment was their last real hope. That’s why it was rushed through and so shoddily done, they didn’t have anything substantive. And all it did was cement Trump’s base to him more thoroughly than it was before.
Their best shot is running a moderate who can out-Trump Trump on the issues and raise a ton of money along the way for 2024 while retaining some control over the party proper.
The intention is to hoover up delegates, confound the map and throw up roadblocks to Bernie. This paves the way for Hillary’s emergence at a brokered convention to hand her the rematch she, Wall St. and the DNC want.
The messaging has already begun. Drudge ‘broke’ the story the other day about Bloomberg being open to Hillary as his running mate. Oh please! It’s the other way around.
And I’ve been running that story since October. Tulsi Gabbard unmasked Hillary’s manipulating events no-to-subtlety.
It’s clear the DNC want Hillary and another beta-male, Pete Buttigieg, as her running mate.
So, less than 48 hours after Drudge ‘breaks’ this story, video of Bloomberg just happens to show up and go viral showing him saying disparaging things about farmers and metalworkers.
To top it off, he wants to save healthcare by letting old people die.
We all know Mike hates poor people. He’s a geezer auditioning for the top job in the U.S. who hates old people. He’s a thorough authoritarian and corporatist whose disdain for the plebiscite is palpable.
Nothing says U.S. Presidential material like the blatant disregard for human suffering. On second thought, maybe Mike is the perfect candidate?
All of this was known before, so why these things now?
These videos and quotes are out there to undermine him, casting him in the role of the out-of-touch oligarch.
This is designed to outrage the Deplorables. It’s designed to put a cap on Mike’s likability. It gives Hillary a wedge to drive in and say, “No, Mike you can be MY running mate!”
Mike Bloomberg: billionaire, entrepreneur, media mogul, three-time Mayor of New York, bond vigilante… beta-cuck.
So thoroughly Hillary.
This way, he can have his turn as the front-runner, rising far enough on his money to earn some delegates and ensure a brokered convention. Then hand them to Hillary as a gracious peace offering.
This is about manufacturing Hillary as the unity candidate of a failing Democratic Party while sidelining Bernie in the process. That’s the game plan folks.
It’s not tough, honestly.
If it wasn’t all so painfully obvious it would almost be clever. But it’s not because these people simply don’t understand why no one likes them.
Because they suck.
Bloomberg, Hillary, Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, Booker, Harris and the rest of the crazies, including Bernie, they all suck. Bernie may be honest that he’s a Commie, but that’s what makes him un-electable, if a little more likable.
And for 2020, the DNC would rather roll the dice with two-time loser Hillary, ensuring a candidate acceptable to Wall St. wins, than put Bernie up as the nominee.
Because no matter what happens the Democrats become the Commie and Crazy-Cat Lady party with Bernie as the nominee. And that creates a clear delineation between them and the Republicans.
But, that’s the worst possible result. Because, the most important thing to Bloomberg, Hillary and those they represent is that the illusion of choice between globalist dirtbags remains in place. This is the true face of Democracy in the U.S.
That’s the key to understanding the game he and Hillary are playing.
And once you see that for what it is there’s no unseeing it.
If Bernie sees it clearly, then he will take his Bros, extend his hand to Gabbard and run an independent campaign to split the Blue Wall and destroy these people for real.
If he doesn’t then he’s the same feckless schmuck I pegged him to be in 2016.
Either way, this is now Hillary’s nomination and Bloomberg is the latest goat on its way to her altar.
J
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As someone who has focused, perhaps to the point of obsession, on the decline of family life in America, I cherish David Brooks’s contributions. His New York Times columns have taught me a great deal over the years and I admire him as a thinker and as a writer. I am not as persuaded as usual, though, by this entry in The Atlantic, starting with the title: “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake.”
Brooks takes the usual conservative view that the fraying of family bonds has led to a whole skein of social ills and flips it. Yes, he notes, the decline of family life has created great wells of human misery in the midst of plenty, from rising inequality to childhood poverty to loneliness and diseases of despair.
It’s led to broken families or no families; to merry-go-round families that leave children traumatized and isolated; to senior citizens dying alone in a room. All forms of inequality are cruel, but family inequality may be the cruelest. It damages the heart.
But here’s the twist: It isn’t the decline of the family unit that is at fault, it’s the belief in nuclear families in the first place. The sentence that precedes the quotation above is “For those who are not privileged, the era of the isolated nuclear family has been a catastrophe.”
That’s an odd way to put it. It’s a little like saying “For those who didn’t get the vaccine, the era of small pox eradication has been a catastrophe.” Brooks has taken the copious evidence of social decay that followed the retreat from family life and blamed the nuclear family itself for the consequences of its own fall. It was too fragile, he says, and that, in turn, is because the institution was never really the norm we think it was.
We are beguiled, Brooks writes, by the “freakish” period from 1950-1965, when nuclear families were the dominant form. When we think of family, we imagine a mom and dad in a detached suburban home with 2.5 children. That organization of society, Brooks argues, was made possible only by women’s confinement to the home, mass unionization, social trust, church attendance, and mass prosperity. Leaving aside the matter of women’s roles for now, isn’t it possible that the causation runs the other way? Isn’t it possible that stable families contributed to the social trust, church attendance, and mass prosperity of those years (if not the unionization)?
Many of the data Brooks marshals are solid. But some are debatable. In making the case that the 1950s and 1960s were uniquely suited to the nuclear family, Brooks notes that in 1961, the median American man between the ages of 25 and 29 was earning five times what his father had earned at about the same age. This is less surprising than it seems, considering that the fathers of those men would have been seeking jobs during the Great Depression.
Brooks devotes several paragraphs to the supposed artificiality of the nuclear family, arguing that while we see it as natural, it is not the historical norm. For most of human history, he claims, the extended family was the usual organization of social life. Multiple generations lived under one roof. This structure was generated by poverty (people could not afford their own homes), and the agricultural economy (in America, the majority earned their livings by agriculture until the late 19th century). “Until 1850,” Brooks writes, “roughly three-quarters of Americans older than 65 lived with their kids and grandkids. Nuclear families existed, but they were surrounded by extended or corporate families.”
Perhaps, but in 1850, only 4.4 percent of whites and 3.5 percent of blacks were over the age of 60. There may not have been very many grandmas and grandpas helping out or offering wisdom.
Brooks cites history and other civilizations for the proposition that extended families have been the norm and have notable advantages over the “isolated” nuclear family. The tour through the New Guineans of the Nebilyer Valley and the Chuukese people in Micronesia is interesting, but not convincing. As anthropologists Ryan Schact and Karen Kramer write in their summary of human mating patterns across time, “Marriage is common to all human societies and publicly acknowledges who has sexual access to whom.”
Besides, the historical/anthropological argument seems misplaced in light of Brooks’s dismissal of more recent history: “We’ve left behind the nuclear-family paradigm of 1955. For most people it’s not coming back.” So 1955 America is no guide, but the kinship patterns of the Chuukese people are relevant and cutting edge?
In what seems an inversion, Brooks lays at the feet of the nuclear family the awful consequences of its collapse. Citing the rise of loneliness among the elderly, for example, Brooks chalks this up to the lack of “extended families.” He neglects to cite the decline of marriage and the rise of divorce. In other words, more elderly Americans are lonely because they are divorced or never-married (leaving aside the irreducible percentage who are widows or widowers). It is the unmarriage that has contributed to this problem more than the loss of extended families.
While it’s true that the 1950s are not coming back, we don’t need to consult history to find nuclear families that are thriving. As Brooks acknowledges, among the college educated upper third in America today, marriage remains nearly as universal as it was among all Americans decades ago. Even in our era that is not characterized by mass unionization, women confined to a housewife role, or men earning five times what their fathers did, Americans with a college degree or more are managing to make the nuclear family model work. Not just work, thrive. Interestingly, as Charles Murray highlighted in Coming Apart, the college-educated are actually more likely to be religiously observant than the less-educated today. That was not the case 50 years ago.
Brooks argues that the educated have the advantage of greater wealth and that they use this to purchase some of the goods that extended families once supplied – nannies, tutors, therapists, and so forth. That’s doubtless true to some extent, though wealthier families are also often choosing to have one parent work part-time or not at all. But it isn’t just wealthy families that are clinging to the nuclear model. Among the religiously observant, like Orthodox Jews and Mormons, the nuclear family remains strong. Sixty-seven percent of adult Mormons, and 69 percent of adult Orthodox Jews are married, compared with 48 percent of the general population. Even among the poor, some are making marriage and the nuclear family a priority. Among immigrants, 76 percent of children live with two parents compared with 62 percent of native born families — this, despite the fact that a quarter of immigrant parents do not have high school diplomas.
The two parent nuclear family is not a relic of a never-to-be-recovered past. It does not depend upon the conditions that prevailed during the post-war boom. In fact, some of the stability that we attribute to that era may have been the consequence, not the cause, of communities that were composed of mostly intact families. Raj Chetty and colleagues found that just growing up in a neighborhood with large numbers of married parents has a beneficial effect on children’s outcomes. Intact families are the building blocks of the strong communities that are currently in short supply. As we see with those who marry and stay married today, the institution itself seems to confer greater happiness. Marriage spurs men to steady employment and higher earnings. It offers women economic security and better sex lives (you can look it up). And it confers a thousand benefits on children, who tend to have radically fewer of the traumas that too often (if by no means always) accompany being raised in chaotic single-parent homes.
Brooks uses the word “detached” a lot when describing the nuclear family. He urges that we’ve become too isolated in our island suburban homes:
Over the past two generations, the physical space separating nuclear families has widened. Before, sisters-in-law shouted greetings across the street at each other from their porches. Kids would dash from home to home and eat out of whoever’s fridge was closest by. But lawns have grown more expansive and porch life has declined, creating a buffer of space that separates the house and family from anyone else.
It’s evocative and feels true. But while the space between homes may contribute to lonelier suburbs, it seems more likely that “porch life” has declined because no one is home during the day now. Most of the moms who shouted those greetings are bundling the kids off to school and rushing to the office. The children don’t have free run of the neighbor’s refrigerator after school because the parents don’t get home till evening.
Perhaps we’ve lost something precious. But the kids who live in those prosperous neighborhoods with the sloping lawns are not the ones who are suffering. They are mostly being raised in nuclear families. They may have lost some of the free-range liberty that previous generations of children enjoyed, but they have their dad’s help with their fastball and their mom’s supervision of their extra-curriculars. It’s the kids from other families, the single parent and blended families, who are bearing the brunt.
Brooks is well aware of this and describes it eloquently – “the blunt fact is that the nuclear family has been crumbling in slow motion for decades, and many of our other problems—with education, mental health, addiction, the quality of the labor force—stem from that crumbling.”
Rather than seeking ways to revive the ethic of marriage and family so that those not born into the top third can nonetheless enjoy its benefits, Brooks argues for new “forged families” – that is, creating new family structures that do not depend upon marriage or even kinship. He describes a number of inspiring groups that have formed bonds very like families.
I’m skeptical. The strength of families relies upon the trustworthiness of marriage. The extended families that Brooks lauds are only possible, or so it seems to me, when they extend organically from the root of a two-parent core.
Family is based upon human nature, specifically on the unique bond that ties parents and children. As the mother of an adopted son, I would never question the capacity of human love to extend beyond biology. All kinds of human attachments are possible – and the altruistic and cooperative groups Brooks cites are inspiring. Still, the basic human attachment is mother and child. Fathers, too, are attached to their children, but that bond is not quite as solid. Fathers’ attachments to their children can, and too often do, become attenuated when the relationship with the mother suffers. The work of civilization over centuries has been to tie men to their wives and children for life. Marriage, for all its flaws, accomplishes that better than any alternative.
In his more than 8000 word essay, Brooks fails to grapple with marriage. Without solid marriages to form the bedrock of families, it is hard to see how the extended families or family alternatives Brooks envisions can flourish. If fathers who separate from their wives tend to allow relationships with their children to decay – and they do – what makes us believe that “forged families,” which are based on nothing so much as hope and goodwill, will fare better when relationships run into rough patches, as inevitably, they will. Will a father figure who forms an attachment to a young boy in a “forged family” be more likely than a divorced or never married father to maintain that bond when he is no longer involved with the boy’s mother? Sometimes, sure, but reliably, when he is not the father, and not even the step-father?
Fathers are crucial to the healthy development of children, particularly sons. If there is one great wrong feminism must be held to account for, it is the devaluation of men’s role in the family. In their quest for self-actualization, the second-wave feminists scorned men and fathers, insisting that women were fine on their own.
To be sure, men should be held to high standards. Men who fail to honor and respect women deserve obloquy. But by defaming men as a class and dismissing the importance of fathers in children’s lives, feminists committed a grave error. Social science research confirms what ancient wisdom teaches – from roughhousing with sons to offering their daughters unconditional admiration, fathers play a crucial role in children’s lives. Girls who grow up without dads have lower self-esteem, more eating disorders, and lower grades, among other things, than girls who have fathers in their lives. Boys who grow up without fathers do even worse. They are less likely to finish high school, attend college, or be employed as adults than even their sisters who also grew up without fathers. Ironically, one consequence of feminism’s triumph is that more women are raising sons without fathers, and those sons are less likely to grow into the kind of men women want to marry than those raised by two parents.
Other experiments with alternatives to the nuclear family have foundered on the rocks of human nature: the utopian communities of 19th century America, the kibbutz movement in Israel, the communes of the 1960s.
The forged families Brooks envisions would doubtless have many advantages, but even assuming the best, why would they not also suffer from the problems of blended families? During the heyday of divorce enthusiasm in the 1970s, family “reformers” imagined that changing partners in marriage would exchange good matches for bad, and everyone would be happier. In fact, blended families – and particularly live-in boyfriend situations – present serious problems for adults and children. A study published in the journal Pediatrics found that children raised in households with unrelated adults were 50 times more likely to die from inflicted injuries than those living with their biological parents. And children living with their mother and a boyfriend were 11 times more likely to be physically, sexually, or emotionally abused than those living with their married biological parents.
The 1950s are not coming back. But the nuclear family, far from being discredited, has been vindicated by the decay that surrounds us now. The great task going forward is to revive the marriage norm among the non-college educated. Charles Murray said it well: elites need to preach what they practice.
Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a contributor to The Bulwark, and host of The Bulwark’s Beg to Differ podcast.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on David Brooks, writing about the nuclear family in the NYT seems to be saying “For those who didn’t get the vaccine, the era of small pox eradication has been a catastrophe.” Brooks has taken the copious evidence of social decay that followed the retreat from family life and blamed the nuclear family itself for the consequences of its own fall. It was too fragile, he says, and that, in turn, is because the institution was never really the norm we think it was.
Fla. diocese declares Safe Haven Sunday to focus on harms of pornography
Serving Christ and Connecting Catholics in Western North Carolina
Serving Christ and Connecting Catholics in Western North Carolina
Serving Christ and Connecting Catholics in Western North Carolina
Published: 20 February 2020 Last Updated: 20 February 2020 Save
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Bishop Gregory L. Parkes of St. Petersburg has declared Feb. 23 as Safe Haven Sunday, a day when parishes in the diocese set aside time to address “the pervasive problem of pornography and its devastating effects on marriages and families.”
According to a Feb. 19 news release, the special Sunday designation is part of Freedom From Pornography, an initiative tthe Diocese of St. Petersburg launched in 2016 to combat the growing problem of pornography.
This is the diocese’s second Safe Haven Sunday, and the goal is to make each home “a safe haven” from pornography. Under an overall theme of “Equipping the Family, Safeguarding Children,” this year’s observance will focus on “Helping Parents Navigate Online Exposure.”
“Pornography is detrimental to both the physical and spiritual life of each individual and the greater community,” Bishop Parkes said in a statement. “The use of pornography by anyone in the home deprives the home of its role as a safe haven and has negative effects throughout a family’s life and across generations.”
In February 2018, the Florida House approved a measure declaring pornography a public health risk and called for education, research and policy changes that would protect Floridians, especially teenagers, from pornography. The bill said pornography “can exacerbate mental and physical illnesses and promote deviant, problematic or dangerous behaviors.”
With its pastoral initiative, “the Catholic Church in west central Florida is responding to this crisis that dehumanizes women and children and normalizes violence,” the St. Petersburg diocesan news release said. Statistics show that about 30% of people are exposed to pornography before age 12, it noted.
In February of this year, the Alabama Senate unanimously passed a resolution also declaring pornography a public health risk. More than a dozen other states have acted similarly.
For Safe Haven Sunday, the St. Petersburg Diocese is partnering with Covenant Eyes, a company that creates faith-based resources and tools to prevent exposure to pornography and to overcome pornography use and addiction.
They will offer resources, available in English and Spanish, that are focused on education and prevention, such as books, prayer cards, software to filter out pornography and practical tips to create safer digital environments.
Since it launched the launch of Freedom From Pornography initiative, the diocese has held educational events and training programs to equip Catholics to protect themselves from pornography and to “seek assistance and healing” from using pornography.
The initiative has a website, http://www.dosp.org/freedom-from-porn, with all manner of resources to combat pornography, including a list of counselors who work with people to help them recover from addiction to pornography.
The diocese said the idea for Safe Haven Sunday was inspired by the U.S. bishops’ November 2015 pastoral letter “Create in Me a Clean Heart: A Pastoral Response to Pornography.”
“Being exposed to pornography can be traumatic for children and youth. Seeing it steals their innocence and gives them a distorted image of sexuality, relationships, and men and women, which may then affect their behavior,” the bishops wrote. “It can also make them more vulnerable to being sexually abused, since their understanding of appropriate behavior can be damaged.”
— Catholic News Service
Serving Christ and Connecting Catholics in Western North Carolina
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on BRAVO BISHOP GREGORY L. PARKES OF THE DIOCESE OF St. Petersburg FOR PROMOTING SAFE HAVEN SUNDAY IN HIS DIOCESE. THE SCOURGE OF INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY IS CLAIMING THE LIVES OF MORE AND MORE PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY YOUNG PEOPLE WHO ARE ABLE TO ACCESS PORNOGRAPHY ON THEIR CELL PHONES
At times, priests reveal intimate secrets about themselves from the pulpit. I’ve always hesitated to do so mostly because a sermon should be about Jesus, and innermost secrets and feelings are none of your business. But there are certain advantages that a priest has in the twilight of his priesthood. The expanding mosaic of his experiences – good and bad – can provide others with useful insights.
Parishioners notice many uncomfortable details about priests, ranging from personal hygiene to personality quirks. Depending upon circumstances, a pastor may have a duty to affirm or deny rumors for the sake of tranquility, and transparency. These acknowledgments can be painful but necessary. So here is one of my many secrets: I am a conservative.
I prefer the term “Catholic.” But since I have an obligation before God to conserve and preach what I have received, after careful consideration, I have come to accept the conservative characterization.
But I wasn’t “born that way.” My Baltimore Catechism upbringing, my undergraduate training in philosophy and logic, and even my professional grasp of accounting – that debits must always equal credits – contributed to a conservative understanding of words and reality. Honesty and realism are the stuff of a traditionalist spirit. Nonetheless, the life of a conservative is not without real conflict.
Years ago, over lunch, a retired priest dismissed me as an “arch-conservative.” Puzzled, I questioned the venerable old man. Did he consider me a heretic? No. Did he disagree with me on any doctrinal matter? No. Was he referring to my political positions, if he knew them? No. Did he object to my preference for traditional Catholic practices? No. What, then, is an arch-conservative? No answer.
I concluded that a “conservative” dares to vocalize the hard truths of Church teaching, and an “arch-conservative” – like the priests who deny pro-abortion politicians Communion – acts on his beliefs. Of course, conservative testimony may be more imprudent or contrarian than courageous. But even if the delivery isn’t picture-perfect, bold witness comes with a priest’s job description. “Since we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we too believe, and so we speak.” (2 Cor. 4:13)
*
Many Gospel passages boldly challenge and deeply disturb souls. Years ago, a permanent deacon read the Gospel and preached the homily during a Mass I celebrated. The Gospel included this phrase: “every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Mt. 5:31-32)
To avoid controversy, the deacon ignored the passage in his homily and preached his customary platitudes. After Mass, an irate parishioner – failing to distinguish between the sermon and the Gospel text – lambasted him for suggesting certain behavior was adulterous. The Gospel not only provokes consciences but can even implicate hesitant and timid messenger boys.
The new secular moral world order is far more demanding and unforgiving than the Ten Commandments. Violations of political correctness provoke mean-spiritedness, hate, and intolerance. The politically incorrect is an unforgivable infraction of the politics of inclusion, and respectable society must banish all offenders.
Perhaps, for the sake of peace, priests should insist that the Ten Commandments are not their personal opinions. They are merely delivery boys, reporting to parishioners what God teaches us through His Church.
After all, priests and people alike fail to live up the demands of the Ten Commandments. We all hope for a patient, kindly, and an understanding priest for Confession. Not to put too fine a point on it, we might argue that if you disagree with the Ten Commandments, do not crucify the messengers. You actually want to crucify the Divine Author.
Alas, Jesus even has an uncomfortable answer to that scheme: “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you.” (John 15:20)
Contrary to the dogmas of political correctness and heterodoxy within the Church, intolerance is not exclusively a conservative vice. The breakdown in the seminary system over the last fifty years is old news, though there seem to be recent improvements. (Most senior priests like me are too far out of the loop to know for sure.) But some of us recall past intolerance of Catholic orthodoxy and still have our seminary PTSD flashbacks.
In 1984, as a new seminary recruit, I attended a day of recollection at a retreat house in the Midwest. Over beverages and snacks that evening, the conversation turned to the hot theological topics of the day. I boldly weighed in on the questions of celibacy and the ordination of women, supporting Church teaching. But I unwittingly violated a taboo and paid the price.
The vocations secretary breezily dismissed me with, “Jerry, you’re so conservative.” I responded with good cheer. “You flatter me.” But the rest of the evening, I found myself excluded from the conversation by seminarians who likely feared guilt by association. It was an early encounter with the soft tyranny of institutional theological dissent. In those days, many counted on the “spirit of Vatican II” (not the texts) to change the Church. Dismayed and isolated, I returned to the dormitory room and retired.
By and by, there was a gentle knock on the door; it was a young seminarian. He introduced himself and asked: “Doesn’t it bother you that they think of you as conservative? So am I, but I haven’t told them!”
In time, I moved on to happier ecclesial hunting grounds and lost track of the young Nicodemus, who always kept his distance, publicly at any rate. In recent years, he was consecrated a bishop. Maybe he has come out of the closet.
The “conservative” label may be distracting and an invitation for controversy. But preaching the truth and acting on it is a Catholic thing – and the cause for hope.
*Image:Priest (from the Ordination Series) by Neilson Carlin, 2010 [Commissioned for Saint Paul Seminary, Saint Paul, MN. Visit https://www.neilsoncarlin.com]
The Deep State Takedown of the Boy Scouts Summary: Dr. Lively talks the how and why of the process by which the elites destroyed the Boy Scouts of America. Article: Always remember that the agenda of the deep state is a global Marxist order and its chief barrier is the patriarchal family-centered Judeo-Christian sexual morality on which western civilization rests, because it is the source of societal self-reliance that breeds rebellion to tyranny. As America’s premier youth organization for training boys to become “morally straight” men, the Boy Scouts of America had to be destroyed. Remember also that the deep state are Humanist non-partisan “elites” who control the top strata of both political parties. On June 26th, 1992 I had the privilege of directly confronting then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton about the LGBT attack on the Boy Scouts of America in a live town hall-style television interview being simulcast from Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. By pressing in quickly with an unauthorized follow-up question to the one approved in advance by the producers, I essentially forced Clinton to state whether he agreed with the effort to force the Boy Scouts to embrace homosexuality. He said he didn’t and Rush Limbaugh talked about that on his program the next day. The main purpose of the Clinton town hall interview was to highlight his “Gays in the Military” campaign promise, and that softball question was lobbed to him by discharged lesbian Army Colonel Margarethe Cammermyer. “Gays in the Military” was the first major defeat of his administration thanks in large part to Colonel Ron Ray, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan, the attorney who led the legal fight against it. After Clinton pushed through “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1993, Colonel Ray told me personally that DADT was a purely political decision because the law against homosexuality in the military was rock solid. But the elites wanted it, and they simply implemented DADT as a stepping stone toward “Gays in the Military.” Importantly, it was George W Bush who appointed the Secretary of Defense who orchestrated the final transition: Robert Gates, whose plan required the repeal of the anti-sodomy laws in the US Military Code of Justice and the Common Law which had been in place since the time of General George Washington. Gates completed the DADT repeal in September 2011. Similarly, the Boy Scouts had a rock-solid legal defense against the LGBT agenda: the Supreme Court case of Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, decided on June 28, 2000. But the elites wanted to take down the Scouts, knew that forcing homosexuality on the group was the key to doing it, and simply pressed on toward that goal. Who were the men most responsible for forcing homosexuality on the Boy Scouts despite the Dale victory? The first was GOP elitist Rex Tillerson who, as BSA President from 2010-2012 pushed aggressively for the Boy Scouts to allow openly homosexual scouts (adopted in May of 2013). The second was Bush’s man Robert Gates, held over as Secretary of Defense by Barack Obama, who became BSA President in late 2013. Gates used the same incremental strategy against the Boy Scouts that he had used against the military, and in 2015, the Gates board at BSA voted to allow homosexual adult scout leaders. The Boy Scouts of America had essentially taken a fatal dose of slow-acting poison with that vote, allowing Tillerson and Gates to be long gone before the BSA filed for bankruptcy this week. Ironically, the ostensible reason for the BSA bankruptcy is a long series of sex abuse lawsuits from boy scouts abused by adult male scout leaders: thousands of cases of male on male sexual abuse. Hmmmm. Even more ironically, the most prescient commentary on the BSA takedown was penned just a couple of months after my challenge to Bill Clinton in 1992. It was written by Leland Stevenson, Co-Recording Secretary of the North America Man/Boy Love Association (America’s most notorious pedophile organization), in its NAMBLA Bulletin, November 1992, who wrote: “At its 16th membership conference, held in Chicago, August 7-9-1992, the North American Man/Boy Love Association unanimously adopted the following resolution: ‘NAMBLA calls on the Boy Scouts of America to cease its discrimination against openly gay or lesbian persons in the appointment of its scout masters. This will permit scouts to be exposed to a variety of lifestyles and will permit more of those individuals who genuinely wish to serve boys to do so. I feel especially honored to have been asked to alert you of this resolution…I have also been a scout and a scout leader and share with so many in NAMBLA affection for the movement. We recognize, of course, that the action for which we call is inevitable. What a great added contribution your organization will make possible to all the boys and girls who participate in it when you take this step.’ ” ###
Is AG Barr the next Media’s KKKovington KKKatholic KKKids Mockery of Real News Item?
The Democrat impeachment was a remake of “Dumb and Dumber.” It was funny and just kept getting funnier.
Adam Schiff lied about what President Donald Trump said using lies from a hearsay “whistleblower” who he helped “whistleblow” which the real phone transcript make laughable.
Nancy Pelosi lied that the Schiff lies were true on ABC no less and even leftist George Stephanopoulos calls out Pelosi for lying.
It just kept getting more hilarious.
When the remake of the movie “Dumb and Dumber” is made Pelosi and Schiff need to be cast in the leading roles.
It seems that even some of the leftist fake news personalities such as Stephanopoulos aren’t willing to ride their tricycles down this latest KKKovington KKKatholic KKKids road of mockery of real news.
It appears that author and scholar Dr. Scott Lively thinks that Attorney General William Barr is the next target of the media’s KKKovington KKKatholic KKKids road of mockery of real news:
Scott Lively on the Borking of William BarrSummary: Dr. Lively describes the intensity of the political assault on Attorney General William Barr as an indicator of the desperation of the elites that their criminality will be exposed and prosecuted. He highlights today’s news that Donald Ayer, Deputy AG for Bush 41 has joined the anti-Barr chorus, as proof that desperation has become panic, in that the Bush and Clinton dynasties are now openly working together toward the common goal. Dr. Lively asserts that the elites only come this far out of the shadows together when the stakes are very high, as when Ronald Reagan tried to lock in a conservative majority on the supreme court by adding a second Antonin Scalia in the form of Robert Bork.Article: It should be obvious to any thinking American that the current political blitzkrieg against Attorney General Barr is just a continuation of the assault on the Trump administration. The elites are truly desperate now that they will be held accountable for their criminality during the Obama administration. They couldn’t take down Trump, and now his AG is empowered by the impeachment acquittal to start exposing the coup plotters. Like many, I am skeptical that Barr is actually an adversary of the deep state, and not another one of its deep cover agents. Time will tell. But whether it is from actual fear of Barr, or to give Barr cover to go passive on the swamp draining process, the Borking of Barr has begun.Either way, today’s addition of Donald Ayer (Bush 41’s Deputy AG) to the anti-Barr dog-pile is evidence that the growing desperation of the elites is becoming full-fledged panic. In my view, Ayer represents, at least symbolically, a higher tier of the Bush dynasty than hireling Mitt Romney does, and the elites don’t come this far out of the shadows unless they have no choice. By elites, I mean, of course, the Bush and Clinton dynasties that have ruled America as a tag team since Reagan. Obama is of Clinton dynasty – forced on Bill and Hillary by Ted Kennedy who had decades earlier passed the Kennedy mantle of power to them. (Hillary had to grin and bear it, settling for Sec of State and a guarantee of the Dem presidential nomination in 2016). The first time the elites were forced this far out of the shadows was when the Donald Trump of the 20th Century, Ronald Reagan, tried to put a second Scalia on the Supreme Court in the form of Robert Bork. Bush 41 had let Reagan have his way in moving social policy to the right domestically because Reagan’s Christian-motivated anti-Communism crusade against the Soviet Union served the Bush/globalists interest of pursuing global banking and oil hegemony. Bush 41 knew he could undo Reagan’s conservative gains through the court later – but Bork would have locked in conservative control of SCOTUS and that could not be permitted (they must always have a “swing vote” they can control): so the elites pulled out all the stops, created the new political term “Borking,” and forced Reagan to nominate elitist fixer Anthony Kennedy as punishment.The more we see Bush dynasty assets join Ayer and Romney on the anti-Barr bandwagon, the greater will level of panic we can assume is occurring in the Bush/Clinton Purple Uniparty.The prime figure to watch is Jeb Bush, whom Barr supported in the 2016 primaries to the tune of $55K. If Jeb joins the chorus, we’ll know for sure the elites are ALL-IN to take down or neutralize Barr, and that will be a very dangerous time indeed for Barr (if he bucks them), and President Trump (who will not fold even if Barr does). Because both dynasties of the Purple Uniparty have tasted of ultimate power of the Executive Office and used the full array of its arsenals to enforce their will. But we can also assume President Trump knows all of this as well and is three steps ahead of them. ###May God richly bless you as you stand firmly on His Word.Dr. Scott Lively Subscribe by email request here scottlivelyministries@gmail.com
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on WE HAD BETTER BRACE OURSELVES FOR THE POSSIBLE ‘IMPEACHMENT’ OF ATTORNEY GENERAL William Barr WHEN HE APPEARS BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE CHAIRED BY THE CORRUPT HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIRED BY REPRESENTATIVE JEROLD NADLER LATER THIS MONTH
The Saints are a sure guide in every difficulty. We have only to find the Saints who encountered the same difficulty and examine their example or doctrine to find sound counsel for how we should respond.
For this reason, I have written previously or had published here a series of articles on the Saints who would be patrons in discerning what to do in the present Crisis in the Church:
Saint Vincent Ferrer: who was lied to by a Cardinal for 38 years, into supporting an Antipope.
Bless Pope Urban II: who fought and defeated an Antipope by his courage and generosity.
Saint Ivo of Kermartin: who make sacrifices so that the poor would not be exploited by the powerful
Saint Alphonsus dei Liguori: who wrote a tract on Legal Interpretation which gives sound principles for the reading of Pope Benedict’s Declaratio of Feb. 11, 2013
To these six, I wish to add a seventh, Saint Robert Bellarmine.
First, we probably have heard the principle, A doubtful pope is no pope. Which Saint Robert advances to resolve the question of whether the man elected in a Conclave which does not follow all the rules is therefore a valid pope or not. He holds that he is not valid and should resign.
“Hence the saying of Bellarmine: a doubtful pope is no pope. ‘Therefore,’ continues the Cardinal, ‘if a papal election is really doubtful for any reason, the elected should resign, so that a new election may be held. But if he refuses to resign, it becomes the duty of the bishops to adjust the matter, for although the bishops without the pope cannot define dogma nor make laws for the universal Church, they can and ought to decide, when occasion demands, who is the legitimate pope; and if the matter be doubtful, they should provide for the Church by having a legitimate and undoubted pastor elected. That is what the Council of Constance rightly did.’” 8
(The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, By Rev. E. Sylvester Berry, Page 229, Note 8: Bellarmine, “De Concilio, ii, 19)
Now, in logic, any affirmation can be transformed into other true statements by a conversion. Let’s apply those principles to the maxim:
A doubtful pope is not the pope.
This is said in the context of a papal election, so let us add that condition to each side of the predication:
A doubtfully elected pope is not an elected pope.
Now let us transform the affirmation by changing the condition, from an election to a resignation:
A doubtfully resigned pope is not a resigned pope.
Now let us simplify the statement, with the logical equivalent of “not a resigned”
A doubtfully resigned pope is still the pope.
But, more importantly, the Saint admits that God concurs with Canon Law in all such questions, there where the Saintly Cardinal in this passage from De Romano Pontifice lib. ii cap. xxx, says:
«Nam iurisdictio datur quidem Pontifici a Deo, sed hominum opera concurrente, ut patet; quia ab hominibus habet iste homo, qui ante non erat Papa, ut incipiat esse Papa; igitur non aufertur a Deo nisi per hominem, at hæreticus occultus non potest ab homine iudicari; nec ipse sponte eam potestatem vult relinquere.»
Which I render thus, in English:
For jurisdiction is indeed given to the Pontiff by God, but as One concurring with the works of men, as is clear: because from men this man, who before was not the Pope, has it, that he begins to be the Pope: therefore, it is not taken away (from him) by God, except through men, but an occult heretic cannot be judged by man; nor does the same want to relinquish that power willingly.
The key words here are: as One concurring with the works of men. This ablative phrase is not an absolute, it modifies God, and follows the classical Latin tradition of speaking of God under a certain restriction or condition. Here it speaks of God inasmuch as He agrees with men.
Saint Robert then explains: that a man who is elected has his office as pope on account of the election made by men. The context here is a valid or legitimate papal election. And the presupposition is that the law is observed.
Now God concurs with the works of men in three ways, as it clear: by approving them, by disapproving them and by tolerating them. By approving them, when they are in accord with His Divine will for men — I use here will, in the sense of a thing willed, not the faculty of the Divine Nature. By disapproving them, when they are not in accord with His divine will and hence in consequence He sends a punishment or sign of His disapproval. And by tolerating them, that is, when whether they be more or less perfect, they either do not transgress His will for men or they are the matter out of which He will bring a greater good.
For any one work of man God might be said to be approving, disapproving and tolerating each in a different respect. Approving of what is good, disapproving of what is morally disordered, and tolerating inasmuch He allows them to happen.
And since the ways of God are not always things which lay open to the discernment of men, it is not with great certitude that we can know God’s mind on any particular matter, unless we have certain knowledge of the DivineMind. A thing which is only possible by Divine Revelation.
But of all the works of men, therefore, that God concurs with, we can say of one, that what God’s will for men is, because we have certain knowledge of the Divine Mind through the testimony of the Son of God as recorded in the Gospel of Saint Matthew and handed down in the Church as worthy of utmost faith:
And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven.
18 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.
19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.
Matthew 16:17-19
And it follows, since, because John Paul II was the valid and legitimate successor of Saint Peter, that Peter lived in him, when he promulgated the Code of Canon Law of 1983. And thus, these words of Our Blessed Lord and Lawgiver Supreme: whatsoever though shalt bind upon earth, are engaged in upholding that Code of Canon Law.
Therefore, God concurring above all, expressly with the works of Peter, we are obliged by divine faith to hold that God concurred approvingly with the work of Pope John Paul II, who laid down in Canon 332, that a pope resigns when a pope renounces his munus. Not at any other time or occasion.
But Pope Benedict XVI did not renounce his munus. He renounced the ministry he had been confided through the hands of the Cardinals.
Therefore, God could not have concurred approvingly with that act, because if He did, He would have made Jesus Christ out to be a liar, or the Gospel of Saint Matthew out to be a fraud, or the Church which proposes both to be believed without any doubt, a trickster. But in such a case, there would be no reason to even care who is the pope and who is not! The Catholic Faith would be a fraud and not worthy of any attention!
But that is an impossibility. Therefore, so is the first premise, namely, that God concurred approvingly with that act.
Therefore, God did not concur approvingly with the Declaratio as an act of papal resignation.
Therefore, Saint Robert Bellarmine would hold that he is still the pope.
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ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
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