Pentagon: Chinese Spy Balloon Currently over ‘Center’ of USA… Will Be Here for Days… ‘Violated U.S. Airspace and International Law’…
…Biden ‘Advised Not to Order the Balloon Be Shot Down’…
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…Border Patrol Union: ‘China Watching Our Border More Closely than the Biden Administration’…
…Canada Monitoring ‘Potential Second Incident’
It now controls the very institutions of America that it once mocked and attacked—corporate boardrooms, Wall Street, state and local prosecuting attorneys, most big-city governments, the media, the Pentagon, network and most of cable news, professional sports, Hollywood, music, television, K-12 education, and academia.
Anarchy, American-Style
The Left runs Oceania, and we
work for their various bureaus.
By: Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
January 30, 2023
The 1960s revolution was both anarchic and nihilist. But it was waged against—not from—the establishment. Hippies and the Left either attacked institutions or, in Timothy Leary fashion, chose to “turn on, tune in, drop out” from them.
The current revolution is much different—and far more dangerous—for at least three reasons.
The Establishment Is the Revolution
The current Left has no intention of “dropping out.” Why would it?
It now controls the very institutions of America that it once mocked and attacked—corporate boardrooms, Wall Street, state and local prosecuting attorneys, most big-city governments, the media, the Pentagon, network and most of cable news, professional sports, Hollywood, music, television, K-12 education, and academia.
In other words, the greatest levers of influence and power—money, education, entertainment, government, the news, and popular culture—are in the hands of the Left. They have transformed legitimate debate over gay marriage into a hate crime. Transgenderism went from a modern manifestation of ancient transvestism or gender dysphoria to a veritable litmus test of whether one was good or evil.
Students have no need to jam administrators’ offices because the latter, themselves, are as radical as the protestors and often lead them on in a top-down fashion. Had they not long ago demonstrated they were perfectly willing to subvert meritocracy, free expression, and equality under the law, they would not be occupying their present positions.
Apple, Google, Facebook, and other tech companies are not 1980s and 1990s “alternative” media geeks and hipsters creating neat gadgets for the people. They are not Steve Jobs and his pugnacious Apple battling the evil Microsoft or IBM, or the Macintosh commercial of 1984 depicting a maverick throwing a hammer into Big Brother’s screen. They are the Orwellian screen.
The current generation of techies is effectively Stalinist. Big Tech now colludes with the FBI, the Democratic Party, and the bureaucratic state to suppress free expression, warp balloting, and serve as contractors of government surveillance. Currently, the most totalitarian people in America are likely to wear flip-flops, have a nose ring or pink hair, and disguise their fascism with ’60s-retread costumes.
There are no “armies of the night” marching on the Pentagon. Would-be demonstrators see no need, since radical identity politics, and gay, woke, and transgendered agendas are fast-tracked by the Department of Defense.
There are no protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau or the “La Migra” anymore by advocates of illegal immigration because the Left owns the border. And it has utterly destroyed it. There is no border, no border enforcement, and no meaningful immigration law. As many as 6 million illegal entries during the first two years of the Biden Administration are proof enough of that.
There are no cutting-edge Lenny Bruces or Mort Sahls fighting state censorship because entertainers accept that:
1) there are no impediments to vulgarity or pornographic expression, but
2) no comic or commentator dares to take on the diversity, equity, and inclusion woke industry because he assumes he would be crushed, and his career ruined.
Question the woke status quo, and one is not canonized in Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone as a fighter against the “uptight establishment” or “the man” as in the past, but now demonized as a racist purveyor of “hate speech” and enemy of the people.
The Left does not despise the FBI. It lauds it. And the bureau is no longer consumed with tracking down violent criminals and terrorists. Instead, it has become an enemy of parents worried about school indoctrination, or a retrieval service for lost first-family classified papers, laptops, and diaries, or a Washington, D.C., cadre knee-deep in big money politics.
FBI agents are praised on left-wing media given they have been activist conspirators who sought to destroy conservative candidates, deleted subpoenaed data, lied to federal investigators or committees while under oath, colluded with Russian oligarchs, doctored court evidence, and paid foreign nationals to compile campaign dirt on American citizens.
There are no longer calls for a “three strikes” solution to violent crime as in the past, or talk of adopting the successful, time-tried “broken windows” theories of law enforcement because there is no enforcement to modulate. The debate is no longer over enforcing the law because de facto there is no law.
The new legal establishment has replaced the old by simply nuking centuries of jurisprudence. Violent repeat criminal offenders injure and maim innocents in the morning and are released by noon to prey again—themselves baffled that the state is even crazier than they are.
Note in the 2020-2021 riots, almost no one temporarily arrested was tried, despite $2 billion in damages, upwards of 40 violent deaths, the 1,500 injured law enforcement officers, and the torching of a courthouse, police precinct, and historic Washington, D.C., church. Instead, they were lauded by a mayor as participants in a “summer of love.” Seattle and Washington simply ceded city property to the violent protestors as if they occupied it by right of their superior morality.
The summation of the entire sordid summer was the CNN chyron assuring America that the protests on their screens were “mostly peaceful” as flames shot up to the sky in the background. In the 1960s, rioters forced social welfare concessions—or else!—on the establishment. Today the establishment welcomes urban unrest as an excuse to implement agendas that in normal times would be unpalatable.
In sum, we are living in anarchy, as institutions themselves have become nihilistic and weapons of the revolution. The Left, in viral fashion, took over the DNA of America’s institutions and used them to help destroy their creators.
If we are bewildered why Harvard law graduate prosecutors let out violent criminals just hours after their arrests; or why hyper-rich, pampered athletes who live in near-apartheid enclaves insult the flag, ignore the National Anthem, and sloganeer woke platitudes, it is because they were taught to undermine the status quo by fundamentally becoming it.
In our present anarchy, $7 a dozen eggs are affordable. Unaffordable gas prices become merely necessary “transitions” to fossil fuels. A “secure” border means there is none. Natural gas must be banned because it supposedly causes asthma. Tens of thousands of homeless defecate, urinate, inject, and fornicate in the increasingly vacant downtowns of Los Angeles and San Francisco, as the Golden Bear state, California, discusses reintroducing Grizzly bears.
Cars and yards are evil, elevators, high-rises, and buses sacred. There are 81 genders (and counting), with even more names for them. “Racist” is our exclamation point, fillip, a mere add-on emphatic. Everything from SAT tests to obesity to working out is racist. When little is racist, then everything must become racist.
Batter someone to a pulp and you are out of jail in six hours; claim an election was suspicious and you can be in there for six months or more. Proven merit is a pejorative. Grades are deemed useless by those who could never earn As. Boilerplate equity oaths are the best guide to hiring, retention, and admission. The ACLU or the Anti-Defamation League exist only to spot the incorrect kind of censorship and the wrong kind of antisemitism.
Macintosh Becomes MacBeth
The second contribution to the present anarchy is big tech, which speeds up the revolution and spreads it broadly. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was predicated not just on the Sovietization of the state, but the electronically ubiquitous and near instantaneous means by which the apparat ensures its dominance. One of the strangest things about the Left is that it no longer warns of 1984 but emulates it.
How the Left became synonymous with the Internet, social media, mobile phones, pads, and laptops is a long story. But let it be said the Left, and not conservatives, have mastered them all. It has manipulated high tech to change the way we vote, access information, communicate, consume the news, buy, and sell, and express ourselves. In sum, they run Oceania and we work for their various bureaus.
Our tech complex has combined the ethos of the 19th-century monopoly with the Chinese Communist system of mass ideological manipulation. The result is that the old Twitter or Facebook mob can ruin a career in a nanosecond. Google can manipulate the order of search results to render you a clueless Winston Smith bewildered by the alternate “reality” that pops up on your computer screen.
Wikipedia is pseudo-official falsification. Trotskization relied on scissors and paste; cancel culture can end you by a split-second use of the delete button—and erase you to 7 billion on the planet.
Big Money, Big Woke
Globalization hollowed out the red-state interior and enriched the blue bicoastal elite. Wealth in mining, farming, construction, manufacturing, and assembly became dwarfed by riches of investment, high tech, social media, law, insurance, and real estate. The former were the up-by-the-bootstraps conservatives, the latter one day rich and the next moment through hype, investment, and venture capital, richer than anyone in the history of civilization.
The wealthiest ZIP codes and congressional districts are blue, not red. Most of the Fortune 400 billionaires are left-wing. So, there is no ’60s-style talk about the evils of corporations and the supposedly idle rich, none of the old conspiracy theories about Anaconda Copper, ITT, or the Rockefellers.
The corporations are the Left and in service to it. Disney, American Airlines, and Nike are revolutionary icons, always ready to divest, cancel, fire, hire, and propagandize in service to woke commissars. That they are terrified by tiny bullies who have no constituencies is true, but then a Robespierre, Lenin, and Mao had initially no broad support either—at least before each mastered the use of terror and fright.
In our anarchy, “dark money” like Mark Zuckerberg’s $419 million cash infusion into the 2020 balloting processes is now suddenly good, given it is almost all leftwing. Democrats outraise Republicans in campaign contributions by anywhere from three- to five-to-one. Bundling is noble.
Netflix can buy the brand name of the Obamas for $100 million; George Soros can spend his pocket change of $40 million to elect district attorneys to destroy the law and empower criminals. Jimmy Carter used to be the poor-man idol of the old Democratic Party. Today, there is hardly a Democratic president, ex-president, or presidential candidate who is not a multi-multimillionaire—most by leveraging their heightened political profile.
What anarchy we live in when the richest among us are the most radical and wish to destroy for all others what they enjoy.
John Kerry lectures us on climate change from his private jet. Your leaf blower, not his Gulfstream GIV-SP, is the global threat. Al Gore screams about the evils of carbon emissions—after pocketing $100 million by selling his failed and worthless cable station to smoky and sooty Qatar, fronting for the antisemitic Al Jazeera.
The Clintons felt the pain of the poor all the way to their $100 million fortune from shakedown lectures, Wall Street, “consulting,” and “foundation” contributions. Van Jones, CNN expert, the object of Valerie Jarrett’s oohing and awing, famous for his “whitelash” exegeses, and recipient of a $100 million Bezos award, now lectures us that the five rogue black policemen in Memphis, who beat to death a black suspect, are still proof of white racism that accounts for blacks belittling the lives of blacks.
In our present anarchy, we take seriously the lectures on microaggressions from the Duchess of Montecito. The Obamas weigh in on the dangers of climate change and rising seas from their seaside, multimillion-dollar Martha’s Vineyard estate, or Hawaii beachfront mansion that apparently has an invisible climate-change barrier on its beach. Kamala Harris is our border czar who assures us it is “secure,” defined by 5 million illegal entries since she took office.
Nancy Pelosi works for the “children” and, after a life in politics, that selflessness ends up worth $100 million from her husband’s insider real estate deals and stock tips. It is almost as if socialist Bernie Sanders owned three homes, or anti-capitalist Elizabeth Warren was once a house flipper.
So, the current revolution is anarchy, utter confusion, and pure chaos.
Every time one turns on a computer, there will be someone or something somewhere ideologically warping its use. Your vote means nothing when California cannot account for 10 million automatically, computer-guided mailed-out ballots. That state is still in a drought, defined by releasing most of the water to the ocean that the wettest winter in memory produced.
Stanford students talk revolution, Antifa, and Black Lives Matter, and want to forbid the use of “American.” But from the look of their parking lots, they cannot decide whether Lexus, BMW, or Mercedes should be the most preferred campus car. Oprah and Whoopi suffer terribly from white supremacy. Jussie the foot soldier heroically took on one MAGA thug for each of his foot kicks.
“Don’t take off your mask” at a California McDonald’s means the man who ordered that edict is maskless at the French Laundry. “Don’t get your hair done during the lockdown”means the architect of that fiat sneaks around her salon, which she has all to herself.
The common denominator to the anarchy? The hardcore Left is your FBI, CIA, and Justice Department all in one. It is Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is our era’s J. P. Morgan.
No wonder we are confused by the establishment anarchists and the anarchy they produce.
St. Nathaniel
January 31, 2023
“The simplicity of truth fills a man with awe,
For man knows within his soul when he encounters truth.
For truth is an integral part of who he is,
As he has been formed by the One who is Truth,
And His touch has left fingerprints upon each and every life.
Therefore, there is no one,
Regardless of the depravity of his surroundings,
Whose soul has not the capacity to recognize truth.
Indeed, sometimes a mind has not the capacity to recognize truth,
But always, always the soul can identify it,
For the soul has its origin in the Source of all Truth.
Therefore, when the unblemished soul encounters truth,
The soul recognizes it as an old friend,
And shakes its hand and exclaims, “Why, there you are!”
Shepherds, who have strayed from truth within the Church which is His bride,
And which He has given unto man,
Have no excuse for their departure,
And, indeed, will be held responsible for all souls led astray.
And yet, the lay people themselves are not held blameless,
For those who seek the face of God find Him,
And those who fail to recognize truth are those
Who have spent so little time with the One who is Truth
That, encountering Him, they exclaim:
“You have a familiar face, but I have forgotten your name.”
Therefore, men should not neglect to spend much time with the One who is Truth,
Because, as you have been told, Truth has a face,
And all men should have spent enough time in His presence
That, when encountering truth, they immediately exclaim: “Why, there You are!”
Also hesitate not to embrace those who,
Having seen those who in the Church strike against truth,
And chisel out a piece here and a piece there,
Leaving the One who is Truth wounded again,
Then wrapped their arms around Truth,
And from Truth they refused to depart.
For truly, those who have so wounded His Church have wounded Him,
And will give an accounting of their part in the scourging of Christ,
And those who have stepped aside from Rome,
Rather than apply one scourge upon the Son of God,
Will be moved to the head of the table in the coming days.
And think not in that day that you shall say,
“Forgive me, I did not know Truth,”
And be held blameless.
For He will answer, “Then why did you not spend more time with Me,
So that you failed not to recognize My face?”
For indeed truth has a face, and you will not fail to recognize Truth,
If you have spent so much time with Him
That His face is more familiar to you than your own.
Then, when encountering Truth, you will exclaim: “Why, there you are!”
-S
Our California Rain Forest
By: Victor Davis Hanson
January 27, 2023
It has been snowing, raining, and flooding in California for nearly a month. So great is the deluge that our “climate scientists,” who warned us of a permanent drought and the end of a snow-capped Sierra and green spring coastal foothills, and who until this week admonished us that the “drought is not over” as they allowed 12-million-acre feet of precious California water out to the sea, now concede that the drought is over! Yes, it is over, but they further warn that it may not be in a month or two or three, or a year or more or never in fact.
Oh yes, they now cite “climate change” for the too-wet year, as a month ago they blamed “climate change” for the too-dry year. Suggest that these natural long cycles of California weather predated the Industrial Revolution, and as in the last half-century, witnessed 2–4 years of drought followed by near-record precipitation, punctuated by a few “normal”years in between—and you are a climate denialist.
I was born in California in 1953 and remember some very wet years. I have pictures of the farmhouse I live in covered once with snow and my brothers and mom having snowball fights when I was in first grade. In 1998 I remember walking across the CSU Fresno campus amid a mini-snow flurry. I remember living among flooded streets during the early 1970s in Santa Cruz. So, California weather is the story of extremes.
What is new is that we are a state of 40 million, not the 15 million residents of my youth. And we live with an ossified infrastructure that is largely unchanged since the 1970s. In other words, we canceled new damns, reservoirs, aqueducts, and canals, all once part of the California Water Project master plans. And then we wonder why we have no water. And so, we blame the dearth on periodic droughts that require stringent reductions.
Our elites believe it is sacrilegious to build a reservoir so that 40 million can enjoy the lifestyles that 15 million once enjoyed 60 years ago. One reason why there are shortages of water is that there are 25 million more mouths to feed, 10 million more lawns to mow, and a trillion more showers to provide than in 1960—and no commensurate increase in the ability to deliver water—and by intent. The Jerry Brown–Gavin Newsom motto of California governance was: “Don’t build it, and those who are not Americans will come.”
In contrast, in the olden days of Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian, and Pete Wilson the motto was if you need four-lane freeways, then build six, if we must have 5 reservoirs then build 10, and if there are 18 CSU campuses then expand to 21. Their idea was that the state would always grow, but only traditional conservative governors would invest for that growth rather than redistribute and consume what others had built.
Had we just honored the voters’ will who passed a “water proposition” bill in 2018, that would have led to three huge reservoirs of additional storage space, and much of this current bounty would be captured and banked.
Do the state apparatchiks let the water out, so that when the drought returns, they can say “California suffers from a permeant drought” and then mandate all their pet projects?
So, they can insist on returning farmland to its natural state (on the irrigated West Side that would mean tumbleweeds, dry and hot winds of dust, and Valley Fever outbreaks), or reinventing our tapped rivers as torrents of 19th-century fantasies, or mandating Draconian water rationing that means toilets don’t work on the first flush, shower heads clog with sediment, and we all have rocks or plastic lawns instead of grass?
In a word, California tries 24/7 to ensure that life is not sustainable as in the past, and when it is then not, they boast, “California’s current lifestyle is not sustainable.”
But our decline is not fated in such a naturally rich state with a richer inheritance, but a matter of choice.
California chooses decline.
We see thousands of homeless, calcified infrastructures, terrible public schools, soaring crime, a broken budget with massive deficits, hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded mandates, the highest basket of income, gas, and sales taxes in the nation, one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients, a fifth of the population below the poverty line, unaffordable housing, fuel, and food costs, and 40 percent of the nation illegal aliens.
And they see “sustainability.”
PRESS RELEASE
Those who were against Catholics electing a successor to St. Peter prevailed to convince many not to come to vote, and so the results of the election are as follows:
Unanimous for Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as successor of St. Peter and successor of Pope Benedict XVI.
The electorate present wants the world to know that it has chosen the only outcome that could be both universally accepted and that is to bring the canonical order of the Church back into harmony with the will of Christ. In this it follows the example of the Roman Catholics who, under threat from the imperial army, elected the deacon of the Eastern emperor, who was a Monothelite heretic. With his election completed he was immediately converted to the Catholic faith under the power of the Jesus Prayer.
And so, we hope and pray that the Lord, whose hands are now free to set the Church in order, will now intervene in history, without violating his promise to St. Peter, that “Whatever you bind on earth, be bound in Heaven.” ”.
For my part, I have suggested as candidate Msgr. Gracida, Bishop Emeritus of Corpus Christi, Texas, USA.
Brother Alexis Bugnolo
Moderator
(Please note, that Br. Bugnolo now has a very bad sore throat, so will not be granting interviews for a day or two).
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| January 28, 2023Special Edition The ConstitutionBy: John YooConservative PersuasionsJanuary 27, 2023 To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.—Calvin Coolidge (1) As our politics strain against the Constitution’s limits, popular leaders today demand change. A growing number of states have proposed to ignore the Electoral College system for choosing the president. Leading politicians want to transform Washington, DC, into a new state as part of an expansion of the Senate. Others suggest expanding the Supreme Court to dilute its power. Yet others want the federal government to exercise such broad powers over the economy and society to eliminate the written limits on its authorities. And some want the Constitution expanded to include their favored right, whether it involves abortion, guns, or religion. Such proposals to upend our constitutional order draw on more-fundamental attacks on the founders’ work. At its very birth, say its critics, the Constitution accepted the evil of slavery. Abolitionists famously attacked our founding document as “a covenant with death” and an “agreement with Hell” for blessing slavery. (2) Even though 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War, all three branches of government would permit racial segregation for another century. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall marked the Constitution’s bicentennial by declaring it “defective from the start.” Only “several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation” allowed the United States “to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights.”(3) Today’s scholars have updated this criticism through the lens of identity and with the goal of diversity in mind. They hold no love for a document that originally excluded racial minorities and women from the franchise, that vests great power in a Senate that ignores population size, and that creates a presidency they believe can verge on dictatorship. The New York Times’ 1619 Project put a capstone on this critique of the Constitution by claiming that “our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written.” It goes on to claim that, instead of 1776 or 1789, America’s true founding date was 1619, when the first African American slaves arrived, which launched a nation that has oppressed racial minorities for more than four centuries. (4) These criticisms attack the idea of a fixed constitution and ignore the Constitution’s defense of liberty, its support for civil society, and its check on misguided government. If most Americans wish to eliminate the Electoral College and elect the president by simple majority, why not let them? If a majority would replace the House and state-based Senate with a single, popularly elected body to pass legislation—as our Western democratic peers do—why not do it? Why not allow today’s majority to take away the Supreme Court’s right to stop legislation, which only stands in the way of popular preferences? If racism and sexism so cloud our nation’s birth and its subsequent history, these critics argue, we should pay the founders’ work little heed. Instead, so this thinking goes, we should not allow our 18th-century Constitution to impede the progress of more-enlightened politics today. While our Constitution may well have allowed historical discrimination against minorities and women, it also gave birth to a nation with the principles and mechanisms to overcome these grievous harms. The United States began with the Declaration of Independence, which announced that 13 British colonies would separate from the mother country to form their own nation. But unlike many European and Asian states, some of which have origins going back millennia, America did not form itself from a shared ethnicity. Instead, Americans founded their nation on allegiance to a set of principles, announced in the declaration: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Because all men are equal, no one has a right to rule another; instead, all government comes from consent. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”(5) While the declaration made the promise, the Constitution created the means for its fulfillment. Or, as Abraham Lincoln wrote (drawing from a passage in Proverbs), the declaration’s principle of liberty is the “apple of gold,” while the union and Constitution are “the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it.” Lincoln observed that “the picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple; but to adorn and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple—not the apple for the picture.”(6) (Emphasis in original.) The Constitution creates a mechanism of governance designed to protect and advance the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Beset by the original sin of slavery, tested by the terrible Civil War, the Constitution nevertheless provided the political tools for freedom’s rise. The national government used those powers to end slavery, guarantee individual rights, extend the vote to all adults, and expand civil rights in schools, the workplace, and the public square. As the Constitution ages, it establishes government institutions and national traditions that foster political and social stability. Of course, the founders understood the Constitution to protect liberty by placing certain rights beyond the reach of government. Although the original Constitution did not yet contain the Bill of Rights, the Federalists, who urged ratification, agreed to the demand of their opponents, the Anti-Federalists, that the new government devise one as its first order of business. Proposed by the first Congress in 1789 and ratified by the states in 1791, the First Amendment safeguards the rights of religion, speech, press, and assembly from the federal government. The Second Amendment guarantees the right “to keep and bear Arms.” The Fifth Amendment protects the right to due process against government action and the right to property. Other amendments secure the rights of the people to their “persons, houses, papers, and effects” against searches and seizures and of criminal defendants to a fair trial. After the Civil War, the nation adopted the Reconstruction amendments, which ended slavery, extended the Constitution’s protections for individual rights against the states, and established the right to vote regardless of race. (7) These guarantees continue to protect our rights today. By enshrining them in a written, governing document, the founders made these rights more than just hopes and promises—as is often the case with other nations’ constitutions. Instead, the Constitution obliges all government officials, through their oath of office, to protect these rights, and as written law, it allows courts to enforce them. If the government prevents a protester from speaking, he or she can go to federal court for an order blocking official action. If an official seizes private property without just compensation, the owner can ask the courts to require just compensation. Courts will not allow prosecutors to arrest or try suspects without proper search warrants, access to legal counsel, confrontation of witnesses and the introduction of evidence, and the right to a jury. The Constitution probably appears most vividly in Americans’ everyday lives through its definition of individual rights, as respected by the government and enforced by the courts. But the original Constitution did not exclusively devote the courts to the protection of liberty. Rather, the framers included structural limitations on government throughout the document to prevent tyranny. They wrote the Bill of Rights as a negative restriction on the federal government, for example, rather than a positive definition of individual liberty. Only on the ratification of the 14th Amendment, in the wake of the Civil War, did the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights become individual liberties applicable to both the federal and state governments. The 14th Amendment’s protection for the privileges or immunities of citizens, the equal protection of the laws, and due process allowed the Supreme Court to apply the Bill of Rights to the states. The original understanding of the Bill of Rights sought to preserve mediating institutions just as much as it protected individual rights. The First Amendment does not define a freedom of speech and religion but instead says that “Congress shall make no law respecting” speech and religion. (8) The free exercise and establishment clauses preserve religious groups, which themselves can check government. The rights to speech, press, and assembly prevent government from interfering with private groups, such as political parties, the media, and associations, which can further monitor and restrain public power. The Second Amendment protects “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” not just the right of an individual to own a firearm. It protects the existence of the state militia, another institution of 18th-century self-governance. The Fourth Amendment again protects the “right of the people,”not of an individual, to be free from “unreasonable searches and seizures.” The Sixth and Seventh Amendments preserve juries, which could check overzealous law enforcement. (9) The Constitution erects a second fundamental protection for liberty by creating institutions and processes that restrain public power while empowering self-government. While ever advancing toward “a more perfect Union,”(10) the Constitution fundamentally rejects a pure democracy based solely on majority rule. It bears a skeptical attitude toward the radical change that popular movements might bring. “Why has government been instituted at all?” Alexander Hamilton asked in Federalist 15. “Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.” (11) To help reason overcome passion, the Constitution hinders the exercise of public power. It creates a separation of powers, dividing the power to make law from the powers to enforce and adjudicate it. It requires a popular House to agree on the laws with a state-representing Senate while vesting the executive power in an independent president. A lifetime judiciary remains free of the control of either. The Constitution further inhibits government by passion by granting the federal government only limited, enumerated powers while reserving most authority over the matters of everyday life—property, family, education, and public safety—for the states. The Constitution’s creation of multiple centers of power ensures that a people unbalanced by passion—or deceived by interest groups—cannot rush into disaster. In a parliamentary system, a single majority controls all levers of government and can make new laws at a whim. By contrast, the Constitution creates different levels and branches of government that have the incentive to compete and even conflict. In that collision, the founders assumed, only policy truly in the public interest would emerge. “In the compound republic of America,” James Madison explained in Federalist 51, “the power surrendered by the people, is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each, subdivided among distinct and separate departments.” From this combination of federalism and the separation of powers, “a double security arises to the rights of the people.” Madison explained, “The different governments will control each other; at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.” (12) While it may slow change, the Constitution has endured while our Western and Asian peers have lived under monarchies, revolutionary regimes, socialism, fascism, and authoritarian dictatorships that have killed tens of millions in just the past century. While the Old World struggled through the worst of the two world wars, the Great Depression, and the socialist disasters that followed, the United States avoided the massive death and destruction of these crises and survived with its economic and political orders relatively intact. Admittedly, the federal government greatly expanded its size and reach during the New Deal of the 1930s and the Great Society of the late 1960s. The United States, however, never experienced a competitive socialist political party (Eugene Debs set the high-water mark with 6 percent of the vote for president in 1912) or the widespread nationalization of an industry that occurred in parts of Europe and Asia. The size of the federal government by number of employees and as a percentage of the economy still pales in comparison to that of European governments. The United States still enjoys a significant decentralization among federal, state, and local governments, which are further cabined by the strong institutions of private civil society (such as schools, churches, charities, and civic groups), compared to our advanced industrial peers. The Constitution does not divide power among the executive, legislature, and judiciary and between the federal government and the states solely to reap the benefits of slower, more deliberate policymaking. Decentralization also protects freedom by dispersing public power. Creating 50 sovereign governments and dividing federal authority with a separation of powers makes it more difficult for “factions,” as the framers called them, to subvert the government to their own selfish ends. In Federalist 10, Madison responded to Montesquieu’s claim, repeated by the Anti-Federalists, that democracy could survive only in a small nation and that a large US government would eventually collapse into tyranny. Madison argued that the great threat to liberty came from factions. To Madison, “The most common and durable source of factions, has been the various and unequal distribution of property,” which itself was due to the “diversity in the faculties of men.” (13) Madison’s solution did not reject a national government in favor of small, autonomous, sovereign states, which would only have repeated the failed Articles of Confederation. Instead, liberty would best flourish in a large republic, where clashing interests would cancel each other out. The larger the nation, the more factions would arise. The larger the nation, the more difficult for these many interests to combine and take over government. Because the states would retain jurisdiction over most areas of everyday life, any interest that wished to infringe on individual liberty would have to capture not just the federal government but many of the states. Liberty would come not just from the “parchment barriers” of written documents, in Madison’s words, but through the design of a government that would empower the people but also restrain them. (14) While the Constitution places its protections for individual rights and its structuring of power beyond the reach of regular politics, it does not answer today’s radical challenge against constitutional governance altogether. If we live under a principle of majority rule, today’s critics suggest, then we are under no duty to respect the choices made at the founding. The dead hand of the past should not reach beyond the grave to control us, the living. Thomas Jefferson leveled a similar charge at the Constitution during the ratification. Stationed in Paris as America’s ambassador to France, Jefferson could only send advice from abroad during the Philadelphia and state conventions. He found much to his liking in the new Constitution, such as its separation of powers, the government’s election by the people rather than the states, the presidential veto, and (ironically) the reach of the taxing power. He had several problems with the new frame of government, such as the lack of a bill of rights and the absence of term limits. But Jefferson, here and elsewhere, more fundamentally objected to the idea that “one generation of men has the right to bind another.” As he wrote just after the outbreak of the French Revolution, “the earth belongs always to the living generation,” and “one generation is to another as one independent nation to another.” Because the dead hand of the past should not control the living, Jefferson believed, “no society can make a perpetual constitution or even a perpetual law.” Jefferson believed that “every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years,” or else it is being enforced as “an act of force, and not of right.”(15) In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson recommended that the Constitution create a simple process to call for a new convention to create a new founding charter. (16) In Federalist 49, Madison responded to Jefferson’s argument, conceding, as he must, that “the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.” He also conceded that a constitution should have a means for change, though only “for certain great and extraordinary occasions.” (17) In general, however, Madison argued that a fixed constitution bore important gifts—stability chief among them. Frequent changes to the Constitution, he worried, “deprive the government of that veneration which time bestows on every thing, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability.” Madison observed that “ancient as well as numerous” (emphasis in original) traditions and institutions would fortify “a reverence for the laws.” Without that respect for the past, Madison argued, “the public passions” might disorder “the constitutional equilibrium of the government” and vest vast authority in the wrong hands. “In a nation of philosophers,” Madison playfully suggested, “this consideration ought to be disregarded.” But because “a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato,” he observed, veneration for a fixed constitution could produce the political stability necessary for the reason of the public to control its passions. (18) Madison’s rejoinder to Jefferson provides a last and perhaps most important virtue of a permanent constitution. As the Constitution ages, it establishes government institutions and national traditions that foster political and social stability. It sets the rules of the political game, as it were, that allows Americans to pursue their political futures without suffering periodic disorder or even revolution. It gives the American people the means to rule themselves while always reminding them that they engage in self-government to advance, not regulate, their natural rights. And most importantly, the Constitution reminds Americans that their rights do not come from government but from “their Creator.” And in this, the American Constitution may be the most exceptional of all. Notes: 1. Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, “Quotations—C,” https://coolidgefoundation.org/quote/quotations-c. 2. Paul Finkelman, “Garrison’s Constitution: The Covenant with Death and How It Was Made,” Prologue Magazine 32, no. 4 (Winter 2000), https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2000/winter/garrisons-constitution-1.html#f1. 3. Thurgood Marshall, “The Constitution’s Bicentennial: Commemorating the Wrong Document?,” Vanderbilt Law Review 40, no. 6 (1987): 1337–42, https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2686&context=vlr. 4. Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Our Democracy’s Founding Ideals Were False When They Were Written. Black Americans Have Fought to Make Them True.,” New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html. 5. National Archives, “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription,” https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript. 6. Abraham Lincoln, “Fragment on the Constitution and the Union,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 4:168–69. 7. US Const. amend. I, II, IV, V, and XIII–XV. 8. US Const. amend. I. 9. US Const. amend. II, IV, and VI–VII.10. US Const. preamble.11. Federalist, no. 15 (Alexander Hamilton).12. Federalist, no. 51 (James Madison).13. Federalist, no. 10 (James Madison).14. Federalist, no. 48 (James Madison).15. Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, September 6, 1789, https://jeffersonpapers.princeton.edu/selected-documents/thomas-jefferson-james-madison.16. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781).17. Federalist, no. 49 (James Madison).18. Federalist, no. 49 (James Madison).If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.Plato |
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In what way do the Francis Catholics who complain about Francis not solve the problem of Francis.
Bishop Rene Gracida put it best:
“ONE CAN SAY THAT FRANCIS THE MERCIFUL IS A HERETIC UNTIL ONE DIES BUT IT CHANGES NOTHING. WHAT IS NEEDED IS ACTION… WE MUST PRESSURE THE CARDINALS TO ACT.”
Francis is not orthodox so there are only two things he could be:
1. A validly elected pope who is a material heretic until cardinals correct him and then canonically proclaim he is a formal heretic if he doesn’t recant thus deposing him (See: “Unambiguously Pope Francis Materially Professes Death Penalty Heresy: Cd. Burke: ‘If a Pope would Formally Profess Heresy he would Cease, by that Act, to be the Pope'”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2018/08/unambiguously-pope-francis-materially.html?m=1) or
2. an invalidly elected antipope who is a heretic.
The point is whether you think using all the information available 1. is the objective truth or 2. is the objective truth you must act.
You must as Bishop Garcida says put: “pressure on the cardinals [and bishops] to act” whichever you think.
Strangely enough, a member of the Francis Trads back in 2016 also called on Traditionalists to act and on of all places in One Peter Five which is a card holding member of Trad Inc.
It was five years ago when I used to love to read One Peter Five’s comment section that this happened.
Here is a fun flashback when Steve Skojec actually defended Ann Barnhardt from Chris Ferrara and Ferrara called for an imperfect council:
” Chris Ferrara: To declare that Francis is not the Pope… make[s] for good click bait…”
“… Steve Skojec: “Ann writes things that certainly come across as sensationalist… This is who she is. I don’t believe she ever publishes something she doesn’t truly believe in. I don’t think it’s fair to call this clickbait… “
“…. Chris Ferrara: “My only objection is any of us making final forensic determinations based on ‘overwhelming evidence’ and then announcing our verdict of one. It’s a rather silly exercise.”
“Perhaps a better approach is to amass the evidence and send it to every cardinal, DEMANDING they convene [an imperfect council] and issue the kind of judgement Bellermine contemplated in this situation: not that the Pope is deposed, but that he has deposed himself. Such a hypothetical conclave would offer the Pope an opportunity to explain himself.”
[https://onepeterfive.com/if-francis-is-an-antipope-we-cant-know-it-yet/]
Moreover, Ferrara explained in 2018 about the need for an imperfect council:
What would be the grounds for a declaration of deposition at such a gathering of prelates? One could readily point to the evidence that a faction that included Bergoglio himself had agreed upon his election before the conclave, and that all those involved, including Bergoglio, were thereby excommunicated latae sententiae in accordance with Article 81 of John Paul II’s Universi Dominici Gregis, which provides:
‘The Cardinal electors shall further abstain from any form of pact, agreement, promise or other commitment of any kind which could oblige them to give or deny their vote to a person or persons. If this were in fact done, even under oath, I decree that such a commitment shall be null and void and that no one shall be bound to observe it; and I hereby impose the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae upon those who violate this prohibition.'”
To quote Cajetan on this point (citations taken from the linked article by Robert Siscoe), deposition by an imperfect council is appropriate ‘when one or more Popes suffer uncertainty with regard to their election, as seems to have arisen in the schism of Urban VI and others. Then, lest the Church be perplexed, those members of the Church who are available have the power to judge which is the true pope, if it can be known, and if it cannot be known, [it has] the power to provide that the electors agree on one or another of them.’
I am not saying that such a case has been proven. Rather, what I am saying is that this hypothetical imperfect council could determine that it has been proven and act accordingly, and that the Church would judge any resulting deposition of Bergoglio in the same manner it judges the deposition of Benedict IX.
Ana Milan wrote in the Catholic Monitor how this could be started:
There is no reason for Cardinal Burke not to call for an Imperfect Council in order to clarify once & for all that the Canons governing papal resignations & PJPII’s Rules covering papal election procedures were transparently kept to, as it doesn’t appear to the general laity that they were. He must realise that the Papacy cannot be bifurcated & that PBXVI was improperly coerced into abandoning the Church by foul means, so why must adherents to the OHCA Church of Christ continue to tolerate a Marxist/Masonic Bishop of Rome who does not want the title Vicar of Christ?
It was reported that there was an extra vote counted in favour of AF that has never been explained & Cardinals of the St. Gallen Group admitted afterwards that they had made many ‘phone calls with the intention of persuading fellow Cardinals to vote for AF who was ‘their man’. Such enthusiasm counts as electioneering!
Does Cardinal Burke really believe that a truly elected Pope would hand over 7M Chinese Catholics to the CCP for $2B per annum? How does he stand with the Abu Dhabi Declaration that God desires all religions & the Pachamama disaster within the walls of the Vatican with a follow-up Amazonian Synod later in the year? [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/07/dr-taylor-marshall-mccarrick-perhaps.html?m=1]
Again, the only prelate in the world to take attorney Ferrara’s legal advice was Bishop Gracida who “amass[ed] the evidence” and wrote an Open Letter to all the cardinals “DEMANDING they convene [an imperfect council].”
The laity need to force people like Cardinal Burke and other cardinals as well as bishops to answer the theologically sound, clear and precise arguments put forward and either clearly and precisely counter them or put into action the needed canonical procedures to remove Francis if he was “never validly elected” the pope or else remove him from the Petrine office for heterodoxy.
If Burke and others do not act they could be putting their immortal souls in danger because they are denying the Petrine office of Pope John Paul II who made binding law for the 2013 conclave in Universi Dominici Gregis.
The open letter of Bishop Gracida is an analysis of Pope John Paul Il’s Universi Dominici Gregis which appears to establish the “legal conclusion that Monsignor Bergoglio was never validly elected Roman Pontiff” and calls the Cardinals to “Address… [the] probable invalidity”:
Posted on July 30, 2018 by abyssum
AN OPEN LETTER
TO THE CARDINALS OF THE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
AND OTHER CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN FAITHFUL
IN COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE
Recently many educated Catholic observers, including bishops and priests, have decried the confusion in doctrinal statements about faith or morals made from the Apostolic See at Rome and by the putative Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis. Some devout, faithful and thoughtful Catholics have even suggested that he be set aside as a heretic, a dangerous purveyor of error, as recently mentioned in a number of reports.
Claiming heresy on the part of a man who is a supposed Pope, charging material error in statements about faith or morals by a putative Roman Pontiff, suggests and presents an intervening prior question about his authenticity in that August office of Successor of Peter as Chief of The Apostles, i.e., was this man the subject of a valid election by an authentic Conclave of The Holy Roman Church? This is so because each Successor of Saint Peter enjoys the Gift of Infallibility.
So, before one even begins to talk about excommunicating such a prelate, one must logically examine whether this person exhibits the uniformly good and safe fruit of Infallibility. If he seems repeatedly to engage in material error, that first raises the question of the validity of his election because one expects an authentically-elected Roman Pontiff miraculously and uniformly to be entirely incapable of stating error in matters of faith or morals. So to what do we look to discern the invalidity of such an election?
His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, within His massive legacy to the Church and to the World, left us with the answer to this question. The Catholic faithful must look back for an answer to a point from where we have come—to what occurred in and around the Sistine Chapel in March 2013 and how the fruits of those events have generated such widespread concern among those people of magisterial orthodoxy about confusing and, or, erroneous doctrinal statements which emanate from The Holy See.
His Apostolic Constitution (Universi Dominici Gregis) which governed the supposed Conclave in March 2013 contains quite clear and specific language about the invalidating effect of departures from its norms. For example, Paragraph 76 states: “Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.”
From this, many believe that there is probable cause to believe that Monsignor Jorge Mario Bergoglio was never validly elected as the Bishop of Rome and Successor of Saint Peter—he never rightly took over the office of Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and therefore he does not enjoy the charism of Infallibility. If this is true, then the situation is dire because supposed papal acts may not be valid or such acts are clearly invalid, including supposed appointments to the college of electors itself.
Only valid cardinals can rectify our critical situation through privately (secretly) recognizing the reality of an ongoing interregnum and preparing for an opportunity to put the process aright by obedience to the legislation of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, in that Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis. While thousands of the Catholic faithful do understand that only the cardinals who participated in the events of March 2013 within the Sistine Chapel have all the information necessary to evaluate the issue of election validity, there was public evidence sufficient for astute lay faithful to surmise with moral certainty that the March 2013 action by the College was an invalid conclave, an utter nullity.
What makes this understanding of Universi Dominici Gregis particularly cogent and plausible is the clear Promulgation Clause at the end of this Apostolic Constitution and its usage of the word “scienter” (“knowingly”). The Papal Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis thus concludes definitively with these words: “. . . knowingly or unknowingly, in any way contrary to this Constitution.” (“. . . scienter vel inscienter contra hanc Constitutionem fuerint excogitata.”) [Note that His Holiness, Pope Paul VI, had a somewhat similar promulgation clause at the end of his corresponding, now abrogated, Apostolic Constitution, Romano Pontifici Eligendo, but his does not use “scienter”, but rather uses “sciens” instead. This similar term of sciens in the earlier abrogated Constitution has an entirely different legal significance than scienter.]
This word, “scienter”, is a legal term of art in Roman law, and in canon law, and in Anglo-American common law, and in each system, scienter has substantially the same significance, i.e., “guilty knowledge” or willfully knowing, criminal intent. Thus, it clearly appears that Pope John Paul II anticipated the possibility of criminal activity in the nature of a sacrilege against a process which He intended to be purely pious, private, sacramental, secret and deeply spiritual, if not miraculous, in its nature. This contextual reality reinforced in the Promulgation Clause, combined with: (1) the tenor of the whole document; (2) some other provisions of the document, e.g., Paragraph 76; (3) general provisions of canon law relating to interpretation, e.g., Canons 10 & 17; and, (4) the obvious manifest intention of the Legislator, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, tends to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the legal conclusion that Monsignor Bergoglio was never validly elected Roman Pontiff.
This is so because:
1. Communication of any kind with the outside world, e.g., communication did occur between the inside of the Sistine Chapel and anyone outside, including a television audience, before, during or even immediately after the Conclave;
2. Any political commitment to “a candidate” and any “course of action” planned for The Church or a future pontificate, such as the extensive decade-long “pastoral” plans conceived by the Sankt Gallen hierarchs; and,
3. Any departure from the required procedures of the conclave voting process as prescribed and known by a cardinal to have occurred:
each was made an invalidating act, and if scienter (guilty knowledge) was present, also even a crime on the part of any cardinal or other actor, but, whether criminal or not, any such act or conduct violating the norms operated absolutely, definitively and entirely against the validity of all of the supposed Conclave proceedings.
Quite apart from the apparent notorious violations of the prohibition on a cardinal promising his vote, e.g., commitments given and obtained by cardinals associated with the so-called “Sankt Gallen Mafia,” other acts destructive of conclave validity occurred. Keeping in mind that Pope John Paul II specifically focused Universi Dominici Gregis on “the seclusion and resulting concentration which an act so vital to the whole Church requires of the electors” such that “the electors can more easily dispose themselves to accept the interior movements of the Holy Spirit,” even certain openly public media broadcasting breached this seclusion by electronic broadcasts outlawed by Universi Dominici Gregis.
These prohibitions include direct declarative statements outlawing any use of television before, during or after a conclave in any area associated with the proceedings, e.g.: “I further confirm, by my apostolic authority, the duty of maintaining the strictest secrecy with regard to everything that directly or indirectly concerns the election process itself.”
Viewed in light of this introductory preambulary language of Universi Dominici Gregis and in light of the legislative text itself, even the EWTN camera situated far inside the Sistine Chapel was an immediately obvious non-compliant act which became an open and notorious invalidating violation by the time when this audio-visual equipment was used to broadcast to the world the preaching after the “Extra Omnes”. While these blatant public violations of Chapter IV of Universi Dominici Gregis actuate the invalidity and nullity of the proceedings themselves, nonetheless in His great wisdom, the Legislator did not disqualify automatically those cardinals who failed to recognize these particular offenses against sacred secrecy, or even those who, with scienter, having recognized the offenses and having had some power or voice in these matters, failed or refused to act or to object against them: “Should any infraction whatsoever of this norm occur and be discovered, those responsible should know that they will be subject to grave penalties according to the judgment of the future Pope.” [Universi Dominici Gregis, ¶55]
No Pope apparently having been produced in March 2013, those otherwise valid cardinals who failed with scienter to act on violations of Chapter IV, on that account alone would nonetheless remain voting members of the College unless and until a new real Pope is elected and adjudges them. Thus, those otherwise valid cardinals who may have been compromised by violations of secrecy can still participate validly in the “clean-up of the mess” while addressing any such secrecy violations with an eventual new Pontiff. In contrast, the automatic excommunication of those who politicized the sacred conclave process, by obtaining illegally, commitments from cardinals to vote for a particular man, or to follow a certain course of action (even long before the vacancy of the Chair of Peter as Vicar of Christ), is established not only by the word, “scienter,” in the final enacting clause, but by a specific exception, in this case, to the general statement of invalidity which therefore reinforces the clarity of intention by Legislator that those who apply the law must interpret the general rule as truly binding.
Derived directly from Roman law, canonical jurisprudence provides this principle for construing or interpreting legislation such as this Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis. Expressed in Latin, this canon of interpretation is: “Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis.” (The exception proves the rule in cases not excepted.) In this case, an exception from invalidity for acts of simony reinforces the binding force of the general principle of nullity in cases of other violations.
Therefore, by exclusion from nullity and invalidity legislated in the case of simony: “If — God forbid — in the election of the Roman Pontiff the crime of simony were to be perpetrated, I decree and declare that all those guilty thereof shall incur excommunication latae sententiae. At the same time I remove the nullity or invalidity of the same simoniacal provision, in order that — as was already established by my Predecessors — the validity of the election of the Roman Pontiff may not for this reason be challenged.” His Holiness made an exception for simony. Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis.
The clear exception from nullity and invalidity for simony proves the general rule that other violations of the sacred process certainly do and did result in the nullity and invalidity of the entire conclave.
While it is not necessary to look outside Universi Dominici Gregis in order to construe or to interpret its plain meaning, the first source to which one would look is the immediately prior constitution which Universi Dominici Gregis abrogated or replaced. Pope John Paul II replaced entirely what Pope Paul VI had legislated in the immediately previous Constitution on conclaves, Romano Pontfici Eligendo, but in so doing, Pope John Paul II used Romano Pontfici Eligendo as the format or pattern for His new constitution on conclaves. Making obvious changes, nonetheless, Pope John Paul II utilized the content and structure of his predecessor’s constitution to organize and outline Universi Dominici Gregis. Therefore, while it is not legally necessary to look outside Universi Dominici Gregis, the primary reference to an extraneous source of construction would entail an examination of Romano Pontfici Eligendo, and that exercise (bolsterd by the use of the key word “scienter” in the Promulgation Clause) would reinforce the broad principle of invalidity.
Comparing what Pope John Paul II wrote in His Constitution on conclaves with the Constitution which His replaced, you can see that, with the exception of simony, invalidity became universal. In the corresponding paragraph of what Pope Paul VI wrote, he specifically confined the provision declaring conclave invalidity to three (3) circumstances described in previous paragraphs within His constitution, Romano Pontfici Eligendo. No such limitation exists in Universi Dominici Gregis. See the comparison both in English and Latin below:
Romano Pontfici Eligendo, 77. Should the election be conducted in a manner different from the three procedures described above (cf. no. 63 ff.) or without the conditions laid down for each of the same, it is for this very reason null and void (cf. no. 62), without the need for any declaration, and gives no right to him who has been thus elected. [Romano Pontfici Eligendo, 77: “Quodsi electio aliter celebrata fuerit, quam uno e tribus modis, qui supra sunt dicti (cfr. nn. 63 sqq.), aut non servatis condicionibus pro unoquoque illorum praescriptis, electio eo ipso est nulla et invalida (cfr. n. 62) absque ulla declaratione, et ita electo nullum ius tribuit .”] as compared with:
Universi Dominici Gregis, 76: “Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.” [Universi Dominici Gregis, 76: “Quodsi electio aliter celebrata fuerit, quam haec Constitutio statuit, aut non servatis condicionibus pariter hic praescriptis, electio eo ipso est nulla et invalida absque ulla declaratione, ideoque electo nullum ius tribuit.”]
Of course, this is not the only feature of the Constitution or aspect of the matter which tends to establish the breadth of invalidity. Faithful must hope and pray that only those cardinals whose status as a valid member of the College remains intact will ascertain the identity of each other and move with the utmost charity and discretion in order to effectuate The Divine Will in these matters. The valid cardinals, then, must act according to that clear, manifest, obvious and unambiguous mind and intention of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, so evident in Universi Dominici Gregis, a law which finally established binding and self-actuating conditions of validity on the College for any papal conclave, a reality now made so apparent by the bad fruit of doctrinal confusion and plain error.
It would seem then that praying and working in a discreet and prudent manner to encourage only those true cardinals inclined to accept a reality of conclave invalidity, would be a most charitable and logical course of action in the light of Universi Dominici Gregis, and out of our high personal regard for the clear and obvious intention of its Legislator, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II. Even a relatively small number of valid cardinals could act decisively and work to restore a functioning Apostolic See through the declaration of an interregnum government. The need is clear for the College to convene a General Congregation in order to declare, to administer, and soon to end the Interregnum which has persisted since March 2013.
Finally, it is important to understand that the sheer number of putative counterfeit cardinals will eventually, sooner or later, result in a situation in which The Church will have no normal means validly ever again to elect a Vicar of Christ. After that time, it will become even more difficult, if not humanly impossible, for the College of Cardinals to rectify the current disastrous situation and conduct a proper and valid Conclave such that The Church may once again both have the benefit of a real Supreme Pontiff, and enjoy the great gift of a truly infallible Vicar of Christ. It seems that some good cardinals know that the conclave was invalid, but really cannot envision what to do about it; we must pray, if it is the Will of God, that they see declaring the invalidity and administering an Interregnum through a new valid conclave is what they must do. Without such action or without a great miracle, The Church is in a perilous situation.
Once the last validly appointed cardinal reaches age 80, or before that age, dies, the process for electing a real Pope ends with no apparent legal means to replace it. Absent a miracle then, The Church would no longer have an infallible Successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ. Roman Catholics would be no different than Orthodox Christians.
In this regard, all of the true cardinals may wish to consider what Holy Mother Church teaches in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶675, ¶676 and ¶677 about “The Church’s Ultimate Trial”. But, the fact that “The Church . . . will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection” does not justify inaction by the good cardinals, even if there are only a minimal number sufficient to carry out Chapter II of Universi Dominici Gregis and operate the Interregnum.
This Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis, which was clearly applicable to the acts and conduct of the College of Cardinals in March 2013, is manifestly and obviously among those “invalidating” laws “which expressly establish that an act is null or that a person is effected” as stated in Canon 10 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. And, there is nothing remotely “doubtful or obscure” (Canon 17) about this Apostolic Constitution as clearly promulgated by Pope John Paul II. The tenor of the whole document expressly establishes that the issue of invalidity was always at stake.
This Apostolic Constitution conclusively establishes, through its
Promulgation Clause [which makes “anything done (i.e., any act or conduct) by any person . . . in any way contrary to this Constitution,”] the invalidity of the entire supposed Conclave, rendering it “completely null and void”.
So, what happens if a group of Cardinals who undoubtedly did not knowingly and wilfully initiate or intentionally participate in any acts of disobedience against Universi Dominici Gregis were to meet, confer and declare that, pursuant to Universi Dominici Gregis, Monsignor Bergoglio is most certainly not a valid Roman Pontiff. Like any action on this matter, including the initial finding of invalidity, that would be left to the valid members of the college of cardinals.
They could declare the Chair of Peter vacant and proceed to a new and proper conclave. They could meet with His Holiness, Benedict XVI, and discern whether His resignation and retirement was made under duress, or based on some mistake or fraud, or otherwise not done in a legally effective manner, which could invalidate that resignation. Given the demeanor of His Holiness, Benedict XVI, and the tenor of His few public statements since his departure from the Chair of Peter, this recognition of validity in Benedict XVI seems unlikely.
In fact, even before a righteous group of good and authentic cardinals might decide on the validity of the March 2013 supposed conclave, they must face what may be an even more complicated discernment and decide which men are most likely not valid cardinals. If a man was made a cardinal by the supposed Pope who is, in fact, not a Pope (but merely Monsignor Bergoglio), no such man is in reality a true member of the College of Cardinals. In addition, those men appointed by Pope John Paul II or by Pope Benedict XVI as cardinals, but who openly violated Universi Dominici Gregis by illegal acts or conduct causing the invalidation of the last attempted conclave, would no longer have voting rights in the College of Cardinals either. (Thus, the actual valid members in the College of Cardinals may be quite smaller in number than those on the current official Vatican list of supposed cardinals.)
In any event, the entire problem is above the level of anyone else in Holy Mother Church who is below the rank of Cardinal. So, we must pray that The Divine Will of The Most Holy Trinity, through the intercession of Our Lady as Mediatrix of All Graces and Saint Michael, Prince of Mercy, very soon rectifies the confusion in Holy Mother Church through action by those valid Cardinals who still comprise an authentic College of Electors. Only certainly valid Cardinals can address the open and notorious evidence which points to the probable invalidity of the last supposed conclave and only those cardinals can definitively answer the questions posed here. May only the good Cardinals unite and if they recognize an ongoing Interregnum, albeit dormant, may they end this Interregnum by activating perfectly a functioning Interregnum government of The Holy See and a renewed process for a true Conclave, one which is purely pious, private, sacramental, secret and deeply spiritual. If we do not have a real Pontiff, then may the good Cardinals, doing their appointed work “in view of the sacredness of the act of election” “accept the interior movements of the Holy Spirit” and provide Holy Mother Church with a real Vicar of Christ as the Successor of Saint Peter.
May these thoughts comport with the synderetic considerations of those who read them and may their presentation here please both Our Immaculate Virgin Mother, Mary, Queen of the Apostles, and The Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
N. de Plume
Un ami des PapeSHARE
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In what way do the Francis Catholics who complain about Francis not solve the problem of Francis.
Bishop Rene Gracida put it best:
“ONE CAN SAY THAT FRANCIS THE MERCIFUL IS A HERETIC UNTIL ONE DIES BUT IT CHANGES NOTHING. WHAT IS NEEDED IS ACTION… WE MUST PRESSURE THE CARDINALS TO ACT.”
Francis is not orthodox so there are only two things he could be:
1. A validly elected pope who is a material heretic until cardinals correct him and then canonically proclaim he is a formal heretic if he doesn’t recant thus deposing him (See: “Unambiguously Pope Francis Materially Professes Death Penalty Heresy: Cd. Burke: ‘If a Pope would Formally Profess Heresy he would Cease, by that Act, to be the Pope'”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2018/08/unambiguously-pope-francis-materially.html?m=1) or
2. an invalidly elected antipope who is a heretic.
The point is whether you think using all the information available 1. is the objective truth or 2. is the objective truth you must act.
You must as Bishop Garcida says put: “pressure on the cardinals [and bishops] to act” whichever you think.
Strangely enough, a member of the Francis Trads back in 2016 also called on Traditionalists to act and on of all places in One Peter Five which is a card holding member of Trad Inc.
It was five years ago when I used to love to read One Peter Five’s comment section that this happened.
Here is a fun flashback when Steve Skojec actually defended Ann Barnhardt from Chris Ferrara and Ferrara called for an imperfect council:
” Chris Ferrara: To declare that Francis is not the Pope… make[s] for good click bait…”
“… Steve Skojec: “Ann writes things that certainly come across as sensationalist… This is who she is. I don’t believe she ever publishes something she doesn’t truly believe in. I don’t think it’s fair to call this clickbait… “
“…. Chris Ferrara: “My only objection is any of us making final forensic determinations based on ‘overwhelming evidence’ and then announcing our verdict of one. It’s a rather silly exercise.”
“Perhaps a better approach is to amass the evidence and send it to every cardinal, DEMANDING they convene [an imperfect council] and issue the kind of judgement Bellermine contemplated in this situation: not that the Pope is deposed, but that he has deposed himself. Such a hypothetical conclave would offer the Pope an opportunity to explain himself.”
[https://onepeterfive.com/if-francis-is-an-antipope-we-cant-know-it-yet/]
Moreover, Ferrara explained in 2018 about the need for an imperfect council:
What would be the grounds for a declaration of deposition at such a gathering of prelates? One could readily point to the evidence that a faction that included Bergoglio himself had agreed upon his election before the conclave, and that all those involved, including Bergoglio, were thereby excommunicated latae sententiae in accordance with Article 81 of John Paul II’s Universi Dominici Gregis, which provides:
‘The Cardinal electors shall further abstain from any form of pact, agreement, promise or other commitment of any kind which could oblige them to give or deny their vote to a person or persons. If this were in fact done, even under oath, I decree that such a commitment shall be null and void and that no one shall be bound to observe it; and I hereby impose the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae upon those who violate this prohibition.'”
To quote Cajetan on this point (citations taken from the linked article by Robert Siscoe), deposition by an imperfect council is appropriate ‘when one or more Popes suffer uncertainty with regard to their election, as seems to have arisen in the schism of Urban VI and others. Then, lest the Church be perplexed, those members of the Church who are available have the power to judge which is the true pope, if it can be known, and if it cannot be known, [it has] the power to provide that the electors agree on one or another of them.’
I am not saying that such a case has been proven. Rather, what I am saying is that this hypothetical imperfect council could determine that it has been proven and act accordingly, and that the Church would judge any resulting deposition of Bergoglio in the same manner it judges the deposition of Benedict IX.
Ana Milan wrote in the Catholic Monitor how this could be started:
There is no reason for Cardinal Burke not to call for an Imperfect Council in order to clarify once & for all that the Canons governing papal resignations & PJPII’s Rules covering papal election procedures were transparently kept to, as it doesn’t appear to the general laity that they were. He must realise that the Papacy cannot be bifurcated & that PBXVI was improperly coerced into abandoning the Church by foul means, so why must adherents to the OHCA Church of Christ continue to tolerate a Marxist/Masonic Bishop of Rome who does not want the title Vicar of Christ?
It was reported that there was an extra vote counted in favour of AF that has never been explained & Cardinals of the St. Gallen Group admitted afterwards that they had made many ‘phone calls with the intention of persuading fellow Cardinals to vote for AF who was ‘their man’. Such enthusiasm counts as electioneering!
Does Cardinal Burke really believe that a truly elected Pope would hand over 7M Chinese Catholics to the CCP for $2B per annum? How does he stand with the Abu Dhabi Declaration that God desires all religions & the Pachamama disaster within the walls of the Vatican with a follow-up Amazonian Synod later in the year? [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/07/dr-taylor-marshall-mccarrick-perhaps.html?m=1]
Again, the only prelate in the world to take attorney Ferrara’s legal advice was Bishop Gracida who “amass[ed] the evidence” and wrote an Open Letter to all the cardinals “DEMANDING they convene [an imperfect council].”
The laity need to force people like Cardinal Burke and other cardinals as well as bishops to answer the theologically sound, clear and precise arguments put forward and either clearly and precisely counter them or put into action the needed canonical procedures to remove Francis if he was “never validly elected” the pope or else remove him from the Petrine office for heterodoxy.
If Burke and others do not act they could be putting their immortal souls in danger because they are denying the Petrine office of Pope John Paul II who made binding law for the 2013 conclave in Universi Dominici Gregis.
The open letter of Bishop Gracida is an analysis of Pope John Paul Il’s Universi Dominici Gregis which appears to establish the “legal conclusion that Monsignor Bergoglio was never validly elected Roman Pontiff” and calls the Cardinals to “Address… [the] probable invalidity”:
Posted on July 30, 2018 by abyssum
AN OPEN LETTER
TO THE CARDINALS OF THE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
AND OTHER CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN FAITHFUL
IN COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE
Recently many educated Catholic observers, including bishops and priests, have decried the confusion in doctrinal statements about faith or morals made from the Apostolic See at Rome and by the putative Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis. Some devout, faithful and thoughtful Catholics have even suggested that he be set aside as a heretic, a dangerous purveyor of error, as recently mentioned in a number of reports.
Claiming heresy on the part of a man who is a supposed Pope, charging material error in statements about faith or morals by a putative Roman Pontiff, suggests and presents an intervening prior question about his authenticity in that August office of Successor of Peter as Chief of The Apostles, i.e., was this man the subject of a valid election by an authentic Conclave of The Holy Roman Church? This is so because each Successor of Saint Peter enjoys the Gift of Infallibility.
So, before one even begins to talk about excommunicating such a prelate, one must logically examine whether this person exhibits the uniformly good and safe fruit of Infallibility. If he seems repeatedly to engage in material error, that first raises the question of the validity of his election because one expects an authentically-elected Roman Pontiff miraculously and uniformly to be entirely incapable of stating error in matters of faith or morals. So to what do we look to discern the invalidity of such an election?
His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, within His massive legacy to the Church and to the World, left us with the answer to this question. The Catholic faithful must look back for an answer to a point from where we have come—to what occurred in and around the Sistine Chapel in March 2013 and how the fruits of those events have generated such widespread concern among those people of magisterial orthodoxy about confusing and, or, erroneous doctrinal statements which emanate from The Holy See.
His Apostolic Constitution (Universi Dominici Gregis) which governed the supposed Conclave in March 2013 contains quite clear and specific language about the invalidating effect of departures from its norms. For example, Paragraph 76 states: “Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.”
From this, many believe that there is probable cause to believe that Monsignor Jorge Mario Bergoglio was never validly elected as the Bishop of Rome and Successor of Saint Peter—he never rightly took over the office of Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and therefore he does not enjoy the charism of Infallibility. If this is true, then the situation is dire because supposed papal acts may not be valid or such acts are clearly invalid, including supposed appointments to the college of electors itself.
Only valid cardinals can rectify our critical situation through privately (secretly) recognizing the reality of an ongoing interregnum and preparing for an opportunity to put the process aright by obedience to the legislation of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, in that Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis. While thousands of the Catholic faithful do understand that only the cardinals who participated in the events of March 2013 within the Sistine Chapel have all the information necessary to evaluate the issue of election validity, there was public evidence sufficient for astute lay faithful to surmise with moral certainty that the March 2013 action by the College was an invalid conclave, an utter nullity.
What makes this understanding of Universi Dominici Gregis particularly cogent and plausible is the clear Promulgation Clause at the end of this Apostolic Constitution and its usage of the word “scienter” (“knowingly”). The Papal Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis thus concludes definitively with these words: “. . . knowingly or unknowingly, in any way contrary to this Constitution.” (“. . . scienter vel inscienter contra hanc Constitutionem fuerint excogitata.”) [Note that His Holiness, Pope Paul VI, had a somewhat similar promulgation clause at the end of his corresponding, now abrogated, Apostolic Constitution, Romano Pontifici Eligendo, but his does not use “scienter”, but rather uses “sciens” instead. This similar term of sciens in the earlier abrogated Constitution has an entirely different legal significance than scienter.]
This word, “scienter”, is a legal term of art in Roman law, and in canon law, and in Anglo-American common law, and in each system, scienter has substantially the same significance, i.e., “guilty knowledge” or willfully knowing, criminal intent. Thus, it clearly appears that Pope John Paul II anticipated the possibility of criminal activity in the nature of a sacrilege against a process which He intended to be purely pious, private, sacramental, secret and deeply spiritual, if not miraculous, in its nature. This contextual reality reinforced in the Promulgation Clause, combined with: (1) the tenor of the whole document; (2) some other provisions of the document, e.g., Paragraph 76; (3) general provisions of canon law relating to interpretation, e.g., Canons 10 & 17; and, (4) the obvious manifest intention of the Legislator, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, tends to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the legal conclusion that Monsignor Bergoglio was never validly elected Roman Pontiff.
This is so because:
1. Communication of any kind with the outside world, e.g., communication did occur between the inside of the Sistine Chapel and anyone outside, including a television audience, before, during or even immediately after the Conclave;
2. Any political commitment to “a candidate” and any “course of action” planned for The Church or a future pontificate, such as the extensive decade-long “pastoral” plans conceived by the Sankt Gallen hierarchs; and,
3. Any departure from the required procedures of the conclave voting process as prescribed and known by a cardinal to have occurred:
each was made an invalidating act, and if scienter (guilty knowledge) was present, also even a crime on the part of any cardinal or other actor, but, whether criminal or not, any such act or conduct violating the norms operated absolutely, definitively and entirely against the validity of all of the supposed Conclave proceedings.
Quite apart from the apparent notorious violations of the prohibition on a cardinal promising his vote, e.g., commitments given and obtained by cardinals associated with the so-called “Sankt Gallen Mafia,” other acts destructive of conclave validity occurred. Keeping in mind that Pope John Paul II specifically focused Universi Dominici Gregis on “the seclusion and resulting concentration which an act so vital to the whole Church requires of the electors” such that “the electors can more easily dispose themselves to accept the interior movements of the Holy Spirit,” even certain openly public media broadcasting breached this seclusion by electronic broadcasts outlawed by Universi Dominici Gregis.
These prohibitions include direct declarative statements outlawing any use of television before, during or after a conclave in any area associated with the proceedings, e.g.: “I further confirm, by my apostolic authority, the duty of maintaining the strictest secrecy with regard to everything that directly or indirectly concerns the election process itself.”
Viewed in light of this introductory preambulary language of Universi Dominici Gregis and in light of the legislative text itself, even the EWTN camera situated far inside the Sistine Chapel was an immediately obvious non-compliant act which became an open and notorious invalidating violation by the time when this audio-visual equipment was used to broadcast to the world the preaching after the “Extra Omnes”. While these blatant public violations of Chapter IV of Universi Dominici Gregis actuate the invalidity and nullity of the proceedings themselves, nonetheless in His great wisdom, the Legislator did not disqualify automatically those cardinals who failed to recognize these particular offenses against sacred secrecy, or even those who, with scienter, having recognized the offenses and having had some power or voice in these matters, failed or refused to act or to object against them: “Should any infraction whatsoever of this norm occur and be discovered, those responsible should know that they will be subject to grave penalties according to the judgment of the future Pope.” [Universi Dominici Gregis, ¶55]
No Pope apparently having been produced in March 2013, those otherwise valid cardinals who failed with scienter to act on violations of Chapter IV, on that account alone would nonetheless remain voting members of the College unless and until a new real Pope is elected and adjudges them. Thus, those otherwise valid cardinals who may have been compromised by violations of secrecy can still participate validly in the “clean-up of the mess” while addressing any such secrecy violations with an eventual new Pontiff. In contrast, the automatic excommunication of those who politicized the sacred conclave process, by obtaining illegally, commitments from cardinals to vote for a particular man, or to follow a certain course of action (even long before the vacancy of the Chair of Peter as Vicar of Christ), is established not only by the word, “scienter,” in the final enacting clause, but by a specific exception, in this case, to the general statement of invalidity which therefore reinforces the clarity of intention by Legislator that those who apply the law must interpret the general rule as truly binding.
Derived directly from Roman law, canonical jurisprudence provides this principle for construing or interpreting legislation such as this Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis. Expressed in Latin, this canon of interpretation is: “Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis.” (The exception proves the rule in cases not excepted.) In this case, an exception from invalidity for acts of simony reinforces the binding force of the general principle of nullity in cases of other violations.
Therefore, by exclusion from nullity and invalidity legislated in the case of simony: “If — God forbid — in the election of the Roman Pontiff the crime of simony were to be perpetrated, I decree and declare that all those guilty thereof shall incur excommunication latae sententiae. At the same time I remove the nullity or invalidity of the same simoniacal provision, in order that — as was already established by my Predecessors — the validity of the election of the Roman Pontiff may not for this reason be challenged.” His Holiness made an exception for simony. Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis.
The clear exception from nullity and invalidity for simony proves the general rule that other violations of the sacred process certainly do and did result in the nullity and invalidity of the entire conclave.
While it is not necessary to look outside Universi Dominici Gregis in order to construe or to interpret its plain meaning, the first source to which one would look is the immediately prior constitution which Universi Dominici Gregis abrogated or replaced. Pope John Paul II replaced entirely what Pope Paul VI had legislated in the immediately previous Constitution on conclaves, Romano Pontfici Eligendo, but in so doing, Pope John Paul II used Romano Pontfici Eligendo as the format or pattern for His new constitution on conclaves. Making obvious changes, nonetheless, Pope John Paul II utilized the content and structure of his predecessor’s constitution to organize and outline Universi Dominici Gregis. Therefore, while it is not legally necessary to look outside Universi Dominici Gregis, the primary reference to an extraneous source of construction would entail an examination of Romano Pontfici Eligendo, and that exercise (bolsterd by the use of the key word “scienter” in the Promulgation Clause) would reinforce the broad principle of invalidity.
Comparing what Pope John Paul II wrote in His Constitution on conclaves with the Constitution which His replaced, you can see that, with the exception of simony, invalidity became universal. In the corresponding paragraph of what Pope Paul VI wrote, he specifically confined the provision declaring conclave invalidity to three (3) circumstances described in previous paragraphs within His constitution, Romano Pontfici Eligendo. No such limitation exists in Universi Dominici Gregis. See the comparison both in English and Latin below:
Romano Pontfici Eligendo, 77. Should the election be conducted in a manner different from the three procedures described above (cf. no. 63 ff.) or without the conditions laid down for each of the same, it is for this very reason null and void (cf. no. 62), without the need for any declaration, and gives no right to him who has been thus elected. [Romano Pontfici Eligendo, 77: “Quodsi electio aliter celebrata fuerit, quam uno e tribus modis, qui supra sunt dicti (cfr. nn. 63 sqq.), aut non servatis condicionibus pro unoquoque illorum praescriptis, electio eo ipso est nulla et invalida (cfr. n. 62) absque ulla declaratione, et ita electo nullum ius tribuit .”] as compared with:
Universi Dominici Gregis, 76: “Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.” [Universi Dominici Gregis, 76: “Quodsi electio aliter celebrata fuerit, quam haec Constitutio statuit, aut non servatis condicionibus pariter hic praescriptis, electio eo ipso est nulla et invalida absque ulla declaratione, ideoque electo nullum ius tribuit.”]
Of course, this is not the only feature of the Constitution or aspect of the matter which tends to establish the breadth of invalidity. Faithful must hope and pray that only those cardinals whose status as a valid member of the College remains intact will ascertain the identity of each other and move with the utmost charity and discretion in order to effectuate The Divine Will in these matters. The valid cardinals, then, must act according to that clear, manifest, obvious and unambiguous mind and intention of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, so evident in Universi Dominici Gregis, a law which finally established binding and self-actuating conditions of validity on the College for any papal conclave, a reality now made so apparent by the bad fruit of doctrinal confusion and plain error.
It would seem then that praying and working in a discreet and prudent manner to encourage only those true cardinals inclined to accept a reality of conclave invalidity, would be a most charitable and logical course of action in the light of Universi Dominici Gregis, and out of our high personal regard for the clear and obvious intention of its Legislator, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II. Even a relatively small number of valid cardinals could act decisively and work to restore a functioning Apostolic See through the declaration of an interregnum government. The need is clear for the College to convene a General Congregation in order to declare, to administer, and soon to end the Interregnum which has persisted since March 2013.
Finally, it is important to understand that the sheer number of putative counterfeit cardinals will eventually, sooner or later, result in a situation in which The Church will have no normal means validly ever again to elect a Vicar of Christ. After that time, it will become even more difficult, if not humanly impossible, for the College of Cardinals to rectify the current disastrous situation and conduct a proper and valid Conclave such that The Church may once again both have the benefit of a real Supreme Pontiff, and enjoy the great gift of a truly infallible Vicar of Christ. It seems that some good cardinals know that the conclave was invalid, but really cannot envision what to do about it; we must pray, if it is the Will of God, that they see declaring the invalidity and administering an Interregnum through a new valid conclave is what they must do. Without such action or without a great miracle, The Church is in a perilous situation.
Once the last validly appointed cardinal reaches age 80, or before that age, dies, the process for electing a real Pope ends with no apparent legal means to replace it. Absent a miracle then, The Church would no longer have an infallible Successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ. Roman Catholics would be no different than Orthodox Christians.
In this regard, all of the true cardinals may wish to consider what Holy Mother Church teaches in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶675, ¶676 and ¶677 about “The Church’s Ultimate Trial”. But, the fact that “The Church . . . will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection” does not justify inaction by the good cardinals, even if there are only a minimal number sufficient to carry out Chapter II of Universi Dominici Gregis and operate the Interregnum.
This Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis, which was clearly applicable to the acts and conduct of the College of Cardinals in March 2013, is manifestly and obviously among those “invalidating” laws “which expressly establish that an act is null or that a person is effected” as stated in Canon 10 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. And, there is nothing remotely “doubtful or obscure” (Canon 17) about this Apostolic Constitution as clearly promulgated by Pope John Paul II. The tenor of the whole document expressly establishes that the issue of invalidity was always at stake.
This Apostolic Constitution conclusively establishes, through its
Promulgation Clause [which makes “anything done (i.e., any act or conduct) by any person . . . in any way contrary to this Constitution,”] the invalidity of the entire supposed Conclave, rendering it “completely null and void”.
So, what happens if a group of Cardinals who undoubtedly did not knowingly and wilfully initiate or intentionally participate in any acts of disobedience against Universi Dominici Gregis were to meet, confer and declare that, pursuant to Universi Dominici Gregis, Monsignor Bergoglio is most certainly not a valid Roman Pontiff. Like any action on this matter, including the initial finding of invalidity, that would be left to the valid members of the college of cardinals.
They could declare the Chair of Peter vacant and proceed to a new and proper conclave. They could meet with His Holiness, Benedict XVI, and discern whether His resignation and retirement was made under duress, or based on some mistake or fraud, or otherwise not done in a legally effective manner, which could invalidate that resignation. Given the demeanor of His Holiness, Benedict XVI, and the tenor of His few public statements since his departure from the Chair of Peter, this recognition of validity in Benedict XVI seems unlikely.
In fact, even before a righteous group of good and authentic cardinals might decide on the validity of the March 2013 supposed conclave, they must face what may be an even more complicated discernment and decide which men are most likely not valid cardinals. If a man was made a cardinal by the supposed Pope who is, in fact, not a Pope (but merely Monsignor Bergoglio), no such man is in reality a true member of the College of Cardinals. In addition, those men appointed by Pope John Paul II or by Pope Benedict XVI as cardinals, but who openly violated Universi Dominici Gregis by illegal acts or conduct causing the invalidation of the last attempted conclave, would no longer have voting rights in the College of Cardinals either. (Thus, the actual valid members in the College of Cardinals may be quite smaller in number than those on the current official Vatican list of supposed cardinals.)
In any event, the entire problem is above the level of anyone else in Holy Mother Church who is below the rank of Cardinal. So, we must pray that The Divine Will of The Most Holy Trinity, through the intercession of Our Lady as Mediatrix of All Graces and Saint Michael, Prince of Mercy, very soon rectifies the confusion in Holy Mother Church through action by those valid Cardinals who still comprise an authentic College of Electors. Only certainly valid Cardinals can address the open and notorious evidence which points to the probable invalidity of the last supposed conclave and only those cardinals can definitively answer the questions posed here. May only the good Cardinals unite and if they recognize an ongoing Interregnum, albeit dormant, may they end this Interregnum by activating perfectly a functioning Interregnum government of The Holy See and a renewed process for a true Conclave, one which is purely pious, private, sacramental, secret and deeply spiritual. If we do not have a real Pontiff, then may the good Cardinals, doing their appointed work “in view of the sacredness of the act of election” “accept the interior movements of the Holy Spirit” and provide Holy Mother Church with a real Vicar of Christ as the Successor of Saint Peter.
May these thoughts comport with the synderetic considerations of those who read them and may their presentation here please both Our Immaculate Virgin Mother, Mary, Queen of the Apostles, and The Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
N. de Plume
Un ami des PapeSHARE
| MICHAEL WARREN DAVISJAN 27 |
One Sunday in my fifteenth summer, my Dad and I decided to try one of the other Episcopal churches in town. Everything went all right until the elderly priestess introduced herself to us afterwards. “It’s always nice to see new faces.” she said. “How long have you two been together?”
I glanced up at Dad. His face was beet-red with anger and embarrassment. “This is my son,” he said, and then strode out the door.
That’s the Episcopal Church in a nutshell.
Little wonder that, when King Charles III visited the United States in 2007, he boycotted TEC. During one reception, a layman said to him, “I would have thought that as the head of the Church of England, the parent church of the Anglican Communion, Your Royal Highness would have attended services at the Episcopal Cathedral.”
Charles wagged his finger “in a scolding manner” and said, “You know very, very well why I cannot worship in an Episcopal Church.”
His Majesty must be relieved to hear that the Church of England just torpedoed yet another attempt by liberal bishops to recognize and solemnize same-sex unions. According to a C. of E. press release, “The formal teaching of the Church of England as set out in the canons and authorized liturgies—that Holy Matrimony is between one man and one woman for life—would not change.”
However, the C. of E. will issue “an apology. . . to LGBTQI+ people for the ‘rejection, exclusion and hostility’ they have faced in churches and the impact this has had on their lives.” And I’m afraid it amounts to the same thing.
Now, of course, it’s true that Christians have seldom treated homosexuals with the compassion they deserve as fellow children of God. But that’s not what the C. of E. really means. These days, whenever institutions talk about “rejection and hostility” towards gay people, they mean “failure to affirm and celebrate.” Whenever they talk about a church “excluding” gay people, they always mean “… from the sacrament of Holy Matrimony.”
The Church of England’s bishops know that full well. So, what they’re really saying is, “Sorry for not letting you get married, but we will soon enough.”
If you don’t think the C. of E. is capable of making such a dramatic about-face, then you don’t know the C. of E.
In 1920, the bishops passed a resolution commissioning lobbyists to campaign against the “open or secret sale of contraceptives.” Then, in 1930, they passed a new resolution allowing married couples to use birth control. This sudden reversal prompted T. S. Eliot to observe, “The Church of England washes its dirty linen in public.” Some might say it dirties its washed linen, but I’m not going to quibble with the master.
I should be glad the Anglican Communion is queering itself. Otherwise, I never would have found the courage to join the Catholic Church.
I loved being an Anglican. Truth be told, I still love basically everything about Anglicanism. I love the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Version. I love the music and the poetry. I love the painting and the architecture. I love the history and philosophy. I even love the theology, which is the part nobody loves.
I came back to the Faith via the Church of the Advent in Boston, which still feels to me like my home parish. Back then, I dreamed of becoming a chaplain in the Navy and then going to teach at Nashotah House, the great Anglo-Catholic seminary. I wanted nothing more from life but to spend my days wallowing in all things Anglican.
In that, I know I’m not alone. No less than G. K. Chesterton spoke of the “nostalgia or romantic regret,” the “shadow of homesickness in one who has in truth come home,”
which is felt, at some point, by everyone who swims the Tiber.
But why? Why does the Anglican Church enjoy this devotion even of her apostates?
The answer is deceptively simple. For the better part of five centuries, Anglicanism held a virtual monopoly on English Christianity. Whenever the English genius addressed itself to God, it did so in the Church of England. So, every Christian who is in some way English—whether it’s by nationality, heritage, or culture—is also, in some way, Anglican. That includes many more of us than one might think, since (as Russell Kirk argued quite convincingly) American culture is British culture.
By the way, these are not original ideas. I took them from a letter Walker Percy wrote to Caroline Gordon, the wife of Allen Tate. Percy, Gordon, and Tate were all Southern traditionalists and converts to Catholicism. And they agreed that the key to converting the United States was to rediscover this uniquely English form of Christianity. This is what Percy calls “the Road Back”:
One of the stumbling blocks to the Southerner (or the American) who is drawn to the Church is that he sees, not the Church of [Thomas] More, not the English Church which is his spiritual home, but the Church of St. Alphonsus Liguori by way of the Irish Jesuits. If he does go in, he must go in with his face averted and his nose held against this odor of Italian-Irish pietism and all the bad statues and architecture.
You can take the commentary on the Irish Jesuits, or you can leave it. But Percy is on to something here. Those of us who are in some way English (e.g., most of you reading this) may need this uniquely English expression of our Faith. We may need this uniquely English means of addressing ourselves to God—this uniquely English science of worship and prayer.
That is why the C. of E.’s slow decline into liberal error cuts so deep. Five hundred years ago, the British Crown declared a monopoly on Christianity in its realm. That monopoly, of course, is known as the Anglican Church. For hundreds of years, the Crown violently suppressed any rival sects, be they Catholic (“Recusants”) or Protestant (“Dissenters”).
Now the monopoly is abolishing itself. It is abdicating its mission without surrenduring its privileges. Imagine if the U. S. Postal Service decided to stop delivering the mail… but wouldn’t make way for a new postal service. That’s more or less what the C. of E. is doing now.
The great medieval churches that Henry VIII stole from Rome now stand empty. Some are being turned into fun houses, or mosques, or LEGO® brick-building workshops. Most will be left to rot.
Thankfully, there are faithful Anglicans working to keep our traditions safe from their official custodians in the Anglican Communion.
Some intrepid souls—bishops, priests, and laymen—choose to remain within the Church of England and the Episcopal Church. Others join the so-called Continuing Anglican movement, including the the Anglican Catholic Church and the Anglican Province of America.
The Antiochian Orthodox Church is also doing some amazing work to forge a new “Western Rite Orthodoxy” based largely on the Anglican tradition. Most of their liturgical materials were adapted from existing Anglican texts like Book of Common Prayer. They’re available through Lancelot Andrewes Press, which also has some great icons of English saints like King Charles the Martyr.
Naturally, though, I’m loyal to the Personal Ordinariates of the Catholic Church. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI (God rest his soul!) published the constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, establishing a uniquely English expression of the Catholic Faith—one informed by legitimate liturgical and spiritual progress made during the last five centuries of rupture. At last, our “Anglican Patrimony” entered into full communion with the Holy See. The English branch of Christianity was grafted back onto the Universal Church.
The Ordinariates’ unique liturgy, know as Divine Worship, is heavily influenced by the Book of Common Prayer. So is its edition of the Daily Office, which uses the Coverdale Psalter. Ordinariate priests are officially authorized to use the King James Version of John 1:1-14 for the Last Gospel. And its St. Gregory Prayer Book, whose popularity extends well beyond the Ordinariate, incorporates prayers from Anglican divines like George Herbert and John Keble.
It’s funny: Catholics and the Orthodox are more devoted to the Anglican Patrimony than the Episcopalians or the Church of England. But so it goes. The good news is that English Christianity—the faith of Bede, Becket, Alfred, Edward, Cranmer, Hooker, Andrewes, Tallis, Byrd, Donne, Taylor, Herbert, Traherne, Law, Wesley, Johnson, Wilberforce, Hopkins, Keble, Pusey, Newman, MacDonald, Maurice, Chesterton, Tawney, Cram, Lewis, and Eliot—has found a new home, with new guardians. Thank God for that.
May the Church of England rest in peace; may the Anglican Patrimony live forever. Alleluia, amen!
The Real Differences Between
the Biden and Trump Troves
By: Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
January 26, 2023
Donald Trump for now certainly seems to have had more documents labeled classified at Mar-a-Lago in Florida than did Joe Biden at his various homes in Delaware.
Yet otherwise, the comparisons between the two cases, contrary to popular punditry, hardly favor Biden.
First, a stranger would face a far greater challenge entering a post-presidential Mar-a-Lago than a pre-presidential Joe Biden’s home, office, or garage—or who knows where?
Secret service agents and private security were stationed at Mar-a-Lago. Before the 2020 presidential election they were not at citizen Biden’s various troves for most of 2017-2020 much less before 2009.
Second, we seem to forget that for much of the developing controversy, Joe Biden’s own team was investigating Joe Biden.
On the other hand, the Biden Administration’s Justice Department and the FBI were not just investigating Trump as an outside party, but as a former president—and possible 2024 presidential candidate and opponent of Biden himself.
Remember, the narrative of the first Democratic impeachment of Donald Trump was the allegation that Trump had used his powers of the presidency to investigate Joe Biden and his family, a likely 2020 challenger to Trump’s reelection bid.
Third, no one in a position of government authority had passed judgment on Joe Biden’s alleged security violations.
That was not the case with the still alleged violations of Donald Trump.
Joe Biden, as president, had weighed in, during his own Justice Department’s ongoing investigations of Trump. Indeed, he proclaimed the former president to be guilty: “How could anyone be that irresponsible?” In contrast, he also dismissed the ongoing investigation of himself with “There is no there, there.”
Fourth, Trump is certainly right that as president he had a far more substantial claim of declassification rights than did Biden who took the papers out either as a senator or vice president.
Fifth, the FBI was not merely asymmetrical in melodramatically raiding the Trump home while allowing Biden lawyers to inspect various Biden stashes. The FBI also leaked the purported contents of the subjects of the Trump classified documents (falsely spreading the lie of “nuclear codes” and “nuclear secrets”) in a way it has not with the Biden cache.
The FBI went so far as to scatter the documents on the floor for a fake news photo-op as if the papers were so messily arrayed when they arrived.
So far, the FBI has come lightly and belatedly to the Biden case without the SWAT team get-up, and only under pressure from the public and the Republican opposition.
Sixth, Biden did not “self-report.” Biden’s team did not call the relevant government authorities the minute they discovered the classified documents in Biden’s office and home and garage.
In truth, Biden, or someone close to Biden, certainly knew that he or someone close to him had illegally removed classified documents when he left the vice presidency in 2017—or years earlier as a senator.
For at least the last six years—at least—Biden has felt no compunction to confess to authorities he illegally had classified documents.
Indeed, the only reason the current troves are coming to light was apparent White House paranoia that the media, the Biden Justice Department, and the special counsel were so fixated on the Trump documents that they likely feared someone might raise the logical question of whether a hypocritical Biden himself might be guilty of exactly the crime for which they were pursuing Trump.
Worse, Biden and his staff knew classified documents were in his possession before the midterms, but deliberately suppressed that information until after the elections were over.
Seventh, Trump’s documents were stored only in one place—Mar-a-Lago, and only for about 19 months. Biden’s were stashed at various locations for nearly seven years—or perhaps over a decade. There were far more opportunities of time and space for those without security clearances to have access to the Biden documents than to the Trump files.
Eighth, the press has exhaustively speculated, usually wrongly, about how the documents reached Mar-a-Lago and what they contained. In contrast, no one knows or even asks why Biden took classified documents, what they concerned, or who if any in his family circle had access to them.
Ninth, Trump’s documents did not expose other liabilities of the constantly investigated Trump. The Biden files so far have directed attention to the mysterious tens of millions of dollars in Communist Chinese money that poured into Biden’s think tank at the University of Pennsylvania, the proximity of members of the quid pro quo Biden consortium to these classified papers, and the files’ relevance, if any, to the Biden family’s overseas businesses. Did Hunter Biden ever consult or view classified documents while living in a home with them? Will there be fingerprint or DNA tests on the documents? If Hunter consulted any of these classified documents, then the Biden presidency is finished.
Tenth, former President Trump possessed contested documents as a private citizen. Biden’s files under contention involve the current behavior of the president of the United States. Biden ran for office, was elected, and serves as president with the full knowledge that during all this time he unlawfully possessed classified documents.
How About a Little Context
for Pence’s Classified Docs?
The former vice president is the latest to discover
classified material that was handled inappropriately.
By: Nate Jackson
The Patriot Post
January 25, 2023
Mike Pence is a truly unique politician because he places great value on honor and integrity. He’s the same guy, after all, who makes a point to avoid being alone with a woman who’s not his wife. Left-media personalities mocked him for that, just as they’re now mocking him for discovering classified documents at his Indiana home.
This does seem to be a rather disconcerting fad among members of the last three administrations, but there are some key differences.
Before we get to those differences, the gist of Pence’s story is that after multiple batches of classified documents were found in Joe Biden’s garage and think tank (chuckle, snicker), Pence ordered a search of his own home. Lawyers found “a small number of documents bearing classified markings that were inadvertently boxed and transported.”They added that Pence was “unaware” of their existence, and they alerted the National Archives. The FBI retrieved the documents a day later.
The actual material in those documents remains unknown, though we suspect a good bit of the problem here is what constitutes “classified” material in the first place. In other words, these aren’t the nuclear codes or valuable intel that jeopardizes national security or personnel. The documents are probably low-level briefings or some hand-scribbled notes. That goes for Biden and Donald Trump, too. Heck, with Hillary Clinton it was just wedding plans and yoga routines, right?
Then again, anyone in government who handles classified material must be cringing right now. Every last one of them knows they’d be in a jail cell already.
That said, “I don’t believe for a minute that Mike Pence is trying to intentionally compromise national security. Same thing about Biden and Trump,” said Senator Lindsey Graham. “But clearly, we’ve got a problem here.”
Does that problem mean Merrick Garland will appoint another special counsel? He did for Trump, which backed him into a corner for Biden.
Trump came to Pence’s defense. “Mike Pence is an innocent man,” he declared. “He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. Leave him alone!!!”
Now, let’s talk about what’s different here.
First of all, again, everyone knows Pence is not a corrupt political thug like Joe Biden, who used the vice presidency to cash in on a pay-to-play scheme involving his lout of a son, Hunter. Second, Pence immediately came forward with the discovery as opposed to covering it up until after a major national election like Biden did.
Biden is also cognitively impaired, and he haphazardly kept documents in a box in his garage next to his Corvette. He insisted the garage was “locked” and the docs weren’t “sitting out on the street,” but Hunter was also living in the house and driving the car at the time. Which ChiCom visitor got a peak?
It would also help to consider the cases of Trump and Clinton. Trump actively resisted attempts by the National Archives to retrieve the documents in question, while claiming publicly that presidents can declassify documents “by thinking about it.” Presidents can indeed declassify material, but it’s a bit more complicated than Trump acknowledged. Vice presidents do not have the same authority. Moreover, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home is protected by the Secret Service, though that didn’t stop the FBI from raiding it.
Trump’s case seems to be entirely about his typical bravado. Of course, I did it, he openly admitted, because I had the authority as president. And no one was going to tell him otherwise.
As for Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, she deliberately set up an unsecured email server in her home specifically to avoid scrutiny of her own pay-to-play corruption scheme with the State Department and the Clinton Foundation. She emailed classified material from that server, which had been compromised by foreign intelligence hackers. That’s a whole different level than secured papers.
As Mark Alexander put it, “Let’s be clear: Maintaining hard copies of some documents in a secured area of a former president’s house, which is protected by the Secret Service among other law enforcement personnel, is a minuscule national security risk compared to unsecured transmitting and storing of highly classified information electronically.”
Clinton also methodically destroyed evidence to conceal her crimes. She smashed a Blackberry with a hammer, deleted tens of thousands of emails with high-tech software to ensure recovery was impossible and wiped her servers — you know, “with a cloth or something.” She also lied her pantsuit off about it.
Pence has never been accused of profiting from his position as vice president, and the classified material he is guilty of having in his possession is highly unlikely to be compromising in any way. Trump has certainly been accused of all manner of nefarious schemes, though his deranged critics generally fall woefully short of even a shred of proof.
By contrast, Biden and Clinton both were running lucrative operations based on their names and positions high in the federal government. Clinton took extraordinary measures to cover that up. Biden merely delayed confession until after it would have mattered to his party’s election prospects, and he has worked overtime to dismiss the seriousness of the crime — largely because of the blatant hypocrisy of the way his Justice Department treated Trump.
Carelessness is inexcusable, as is belligerent defiance of the law. What’s worse, however, is double standards and outright criminal corruption.
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
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