The Astounding Heresies in Benedict XVI’s
2000 Book God and the World
By Bro. Peter Dimond,
O.S.B.
*
This is from my continuing study of Benedict XVI’s
books. For those who don’t know,
Benedict XVI is Joseph Ratzinger.
God and the World by “Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger, 2000 (Ignatius Press, 2002)
HERESIES
IN GOD AND THE WORLD:
-BENEDICT
XVI BLUNTLY TELLS US THAT PEOPLE DON’T HAVE TO SEE CHRIST AS THE MESSIAH AND
FULFILLMENT OF THE PROPHECIES
-BENEDICT
XVI CRITICIZES AS “HOTHEADS” THOSE WHO DESTROYED PAGAN TEMPLES
-BENEDICT
XVI CALLS INTO DOUBT THE STONE TABLETS OF THE EXODUS ACCOUNT
-BENEDICT
XVI TEACHES THAT JEWS ARE WITHIN THE FAITHFUL COVENANT OF GOD
-BENEDICT
XVI TELLS US AGAIN THAT JEWS ARE NOT EXCLUDED FROM SALVATION
-BENEDICT
XVI ACKNOWLEDGES THAT THE VATICAN II SECT HAS ABANDONED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH’S
TRADITIONAL PROHIBITION OF CREMATION
-BENEDICT
XVI REJECTS THE DOGMA ON THE NECESSITY OF INFANT BAPTISM AS “UNENLIGHTENED”
-BENEDICT
XVI SUGGESTS THAT ST. PAUL MAY NOT HAVE WRITTEN HIS LETTERS
-BENEDICT
XVI TELLS US THAT MATTHEW 7:13; LUKE 13:24 DON’T MEAN THAT MOST ARE LOST
-BENEDICT
XVI ON EVOLUTION
-BENEDICT
XVI ON THE AGE OF THE EARTH
-BENEDICT
XVI TELLS US THAT A POPE CANNOT TELL PROTESTANTS HOW THE UNITY OF CHRISTIANS
MUST GO
-BENEDICT
XVI ON THE QUESTION ABOUT WHETHER ONE CAN BE A GOOD CHRISTIAN AND REJECT CHURCH
TEACHING ON SEXUAL MORALITY
-BENEDICT
XVI TELLS US THAT THERE CAN BE NO FURTHER DISCUSSION ON THE THIRD SECRET OF
FATIMA
-OTHER
QUOTES OF INTEREST IN GOD AND THE WORLD
The
book God and the World by Benedict
XVI consists of a lengthy interview with Peter Seewald. Seewald asks the
questions and Benedict XVI gives the answers.
It is the second part to the book Salt
of the Earth. Like the book Salt of the Earth, God and the World is also extremely revealing.
BENEDICT
XVI BLUNTLY TELLS US THAT PEOPLE DON’T HAVE TO SEE CHRIST AS THE MESSIAH AND
FULFILLMENT OF THE PROPHECIES
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 209: “It is of course possible to read the Old
Testament so that it is not directed toward Christ; it does not point quite
unequivocally to Christ. And if Jews
cannot see the promises as being fulfilled in him, this is not just ill will on
their part, but genuinely because of the obscurity of the texts and the tension
in the relationship between these texts and the figure of Jesus. Jesus brings a new meaning to these texts –
yet it is he who first gives them their proper coherence and relevance and
significance. There are perfectly
good reasons, then, for denying that the Old Testament refers to Christ and for
saying, No, that is not what he said.
And there are also good reasons for referring it to him – that is what
the dispute between Jews and Christians is about.”
Benedict
XVI just denied that the Old Testament points unequivocally to Christ. He just denied that Jesus is unequivocally
the Christ – the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament. He just said that there are perfectly good
reasons for not believing that that the Old Testament refers to Christ
as the prophesied Messiah. Benedict XVI
just denied the entire Christian Faith.
Does one need to say more?
No. But we will in order to
completely expose this apostate.
Jesus Christ, John 5:39, 45-47 – “Search the scriptures, for you think in
them to have life everlasting; and the same are they that give testimony of me…Do
not think that I will accuse you before the Father: the one who will accuse you is Moses, in whom you have placed your
hope. For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed
me, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how
will you believe my words?"
This
is why Benedict XVI wrote the preface for the 2001 book The Jewish People and the Holy Scriptures in the Christian Bible, which
teaches that the Jews wait not in vain for the Coming of the Messiah. Anyone who is reading this and still says
that Antipope Benedict XVI is not a heretic denies Jesus Christ and will be
denied by Him before the Father.
Matthew 10:33- “But he that shall deny me
before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
John 8:23-24-“And he said to them [the Jews]:
You are from beneath, I am from above.
You are of this world, I am not of this
world. Therefore, I said to you, that
you shall die in your sins: for if you believe not that I am he, you shall
die in your sin.”
1 John 2:22 –
“Who is a liar, but he who denieth that Jesus is
the Christ? He is antichrist, who denieth the Father, and the Son.”
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Sess. 8, Nov. 22, 1439, ex cathedra: Whoever wishes
to be saved, needs above all to hold the Catholic faith; unless each one preserves
this whole and inviolate, he will without a doubt perish in eternity.– But the Catholic faith is this, that we worship
one God in the Trinity, and the Trinity in unity… Therefore
let him who wishes to be saved, think thus concerning the Trinity.
“But it is necessary for eternal salvation that he faithfully believe
also in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ...the Son of God is God and
man... This is
the Catholic faith; unless each one believes this faithfully and firmly, he
cannot be saved.”
BENEDICT
XVI CRITICIZES AS “HOTHEADS” THOSE WHO DESTROYED PAGAN TEMPLES
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 373: “The
mission as a whole was not always consistent.
There were in fact Christian
hotheads and fanatics who destroyed temples, who were unable to see paganism as
anything more than idolatry that had to be radically eliminated. ”
This
just shows us again that Benedict XVI is a complete apostate. Those “hotheads” whom he criticizes would
include St. Francis Xavier:
St. Francis Xavier [regarding
the heathen children he had converted to the true faith, +1543): “These children… show an ardent love for the
Divine law, and an extraordinary zeal for our holy religion and imparting it to
others. Their hatred for idolatry is
marvelous. They get into feuds with
the heathens about it… Whenever I
hear of any act of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of
these children, who very soon load the devil with a greater amount of insult
and abuse than he has lately received of honor and worship from their parents…
The children run at the idols, upset
them, dash them down, break them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick
them about, and in short heap on them every possible outrage.” (Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier,
Vol. 1, p. 154)
BENEDICT
XVI CALLS INTO DOUBT THE STONE TABLETS OF THE EXODUS ACCOUNT
Exodus 31:18- “And the Lord, when he
had ended these words in mount Sinai, gave to Moses
two stone tables of testimony, written with the finger of God.”
Deuteronomy 10:1- “At that time the Lord said
to me: Hew thee two tables of stone like the former, and come up to me into the
mount…”
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, pp. 165-166,
168: “Q. …Were these laws really handed over to Moses by God when he appeared on
Mount Sinai? As stone tablets, on which,
as it says, ‘the finger of God had written?’… to what extent are these Commandments really supposed to come from God. A. … [p. 166] This [Moses] is the man who
has been touched by God, and on the basis of this friendly contact he is able
to formulate the will of God, of which hitherto only fragments had been
expressed in other traditions, in such a manner that we truly hear the word of
God. Whether there really were any stone tablets is another question…
[p. 168] How far we should take this
story literally is another question.”
BENEDICT
XVI TEACHES THAT JEWS ARE WITHIN THE FAITHFUL COVENANT OF GOD
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 150:
“Q. God
has not, then, retracted his word that Israel is the Chosen People? A. No, because he is
faithful… they still stand within the
faithful covenant of God.”
Here,
on page 150 of his book God and the World
Benedict XVI inculcates the heresy that the Jews are still the Chosen People
and the Old Covenant is still in force.
This was condemned by the Council of Florence. This heresy is consistently taught by the
Vatican II Antipopes and the Novus Ordo Bishops.
BENEDICT
XVI TELLS US AGAIN THAT JEWS ARE NOT EXCLUDED FROM SALVATION
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, pp. 150-151:
“This is another of the paradoxes that the New Testament sets before us. On the
one hand, their [the Jews] No to Christ brings the Israelites into conflict
with the subsequent acts of God, but at the same time we know that they are
assured of the faithfulness of God. They are not excluded from salvation,
but they serve in a particular way, and thereby they stand within the patience
of God, in which we, too, place our trust.”
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate
Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra:
“The Holy Roman
Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are
outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or
heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal
life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and
his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives; that the unity of this ecclesiastical body is of such importance that
only those who abide in it do the Church’s sacraments contribute to salvation
and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the
Christian militia productive of eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he
has given away in alms and even if he has shed blood in the name of Christ,
unless he has persevered in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.
BENEDICT
XVI ACKNOWLEDGES THAT THE VATICAN II SECT HAS ABANDONED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH’S
TRADITIONAL PROHIBITION OF CREMATION
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 436: “Q. Is it permissible to have dead bodies
cremated, or is that just a heathen ritual?
A… Right
up to the Second Vatican Council, cremation was subject to penalties. In view of all the circumstances of the
modern world, the Church has abandoned this. ”
Benedict XVI is acknowledging the radical teaching of John
Paul II’s 1983 Code of Canon
Law in this regard.
1983 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1176 § 3: “The Church
earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burying the dead be observed; it
does not, however, forbid cremation unless it has been chosen for reasons
which are contrary to Christian teaching.”
So,
as long you claim that you are not getting cremated for the express purpose of
contradicting a dogma – but rather, for instance, because you want your ashes
to rest on your favorite golf course – cremation is allowed by the Vatican II
sect. This is a very serious issue
because the teaching of the Catholic Church, as reflected in the 1917 Code of
Canon Law, forbids cremation under pain of mortal sin and further stipulates
that those who requested it cannot receive Christian burial. This shows us a clear difference between the
two religions.
1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1203 § 1-2: “The bodies of
the faithful departed shall be buried, their cremation being reprobated.
2. If anyone by any manner orders that his body be cremated, it is
illicit to execute that desire; and if this was added to any contract or
testament or any other act.”
1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1240 § 1-5: “Unless they
gave before death a sign of repentance, the
following are deprived of ecclesiastical burial: 1. Notorious apostates
from the Christian faith, or those who notoriously gave their name to heretical
sects or schismatic or Masonic sects, or other societies of this sort; 2.
Excommunicates or those under interdict after a condemnatory sentence; 3. Those
who killed themselves by deliberate counsel; 4. Those who died in a duel, or
from wounds related thereto; 5. Those
who ordered that their body be handed over for cremation; 6. Other
public and manifest sinners.”
BENEDICT
XVI REJECTS THE DOGMA ON THE NECESSITY OF INFANT BAPTISM AS “UNENLIGHTENED”
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 401: “Q… But what happens, when a man dies unbaptized? And what
happens to the millions of children who are killed in their mothers’ wombs? A. The question of what it means to say that
baptism is necessary for salvation has become ever more hotly debated in modern
times. The Second Vatican Council
said on this point that men who are seeking for God
and who are inwardly striving toward that which constitutes baptism will also
receive salvation. That is to say that a
seeking after God already represents an inward participation in baptism, in
the Church, in Christ. To that extent,
the question concerning the necessity of baptism for salvation seems to have
been answered, but the question about
children who could not be baptized because they were aborted then presses upon
us that much more urgently. Earlier ages
had devised a teaching that seems to me rather unenlightened. They said that baptism endows us, by means of
sanctifying grace, with the capacity to gaze upon God. Now, certainly, the state of original sin,
from which we are freed by baptism, consists in a lack of sanctifying
grace. Children who die in this way are indeed without any personal sin, so
they cannot be sent to hell, but, on the other hand, they lack sanctifying
grace and thus the potential for beholding God that this bestows. They will simply enjoy a state of natural
blessedness, in which they will be happy.
This state people called limbo.
In the course of our century, that
has gradually come to seem problematic to us. This
was one way in which people sought to justify the necessity of baptizing
infants as early as possible, but the solution is itself questionable. Finally, the Pope made a decisive turn in the
encyclical Evangelium Vitae, a change already anticipated by
the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
when he expressed the simple hope that
God is powerful enough to draw to himself all those who were unable to receive
the sacrament.”
There
is a lot heresy in Benedict XVI’s answer to this
question. First, he indicates that
people can be saved without baptism.
That he holds this heresy should surprise no one. Second, he says earlier ages “had devised”
(but not received from Christ) the teaching about how infants need baptism for
sanctifying grace to avoid limbo. He
says that this teaching is “unenlightened”!
This is gross heresy; it is a mockery of the dogma that those who die as
unbaptized infants – since they are in a state of
original sin – descend immediately into hell.
These unbaptized infants descend to the part
of hell called the limbo of the infants.
This has been authoritatively taught by the Catholic Church:
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Letentur coeli,”
Sess. 6, July 6, 1439, ex cathedra: “We define also that… the souls of those who depart
this life in actual mortal sin, or in
original sin alone, go straightaway to hell, but to undergo
punishments of different kinds.” (Denz. 693)
Pope Pius VI, Auctorem fidei,
Aug. 28, 1794:
“26. The
doctrine which rejects as a Pelagian fable, that
place of the lower regions (which the faithful generally designate by the name
of the limbo of the children) in which the souls of those departing with
the sole guilt of original sin are punished with the punishment of the
condemned, exclusive of the punishment of fire, just as if, by this very
fact, that these who remove the punishment of fire introduced that middle place
and state free of guilt and of punishment between the kingdom of God and
eternal damnation, such as that about which the Pelagians
idly talk” – Condemned as false,
rash, injurious to Catholic schools. (Denz. 1526)
Third,
Benedict XVI points out that this teaching that infants need baptism to attain
sanctifying grace and avoid limbo (which is a part of hell where there is no
fire) was the justification for baptizing infants so early. He says that this this “solution” is “itself questionable.” This means that the Church’s teaching that
infants cannot be saved without baptism is “itself questionable.” Finally, at the end of his answer, he clearly
indicates that aborted infants can be saved in his reference to Evangelium Vitae (which taught the same).
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence,
Session 11, Feb. 4, 1442, ex cathedra: “Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can
often take place, when no help can
be brought to them by another remedy than through the sacrament of baptism,
through which they are snatched from
the domination of the Devil [original sin] and adopted among the sons of God,
it advises that holy baptism ought not be deferred for forty or eighty days, or
any time according to the observance of certain people…” (Denz.
712)
Pope Paul III, The Council of Trent, On
Original Sin, Session V, ex cathedra: “If anyone says that recently born babies
should not be baptized even if they have been born to baptized parents; or says that they are indeed baptized for the
remission of sins, but incur no trace of the original sin of Adam needing to
be cleansed by the laver of rebirth for them to obtain eternal life,
with the necessary consequence that in their case there is being understood a
form of baptism for the remission of sins which is not true, but false: let him be anathema.” (Denz.
791)
BENEDICT
XVI SUGGESTS THAT ST. PAUL MAY NOT HAVE WRITTEN HIS LETTERS
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, pp. 354-355:
“Q… Paul,
in one of his great sayings, calls the Church the pillar and foundation of
truth…The Church as strict
guardian of the grail – is that what she is?
A. You are quoting here from the Pastoral Letters, which a majority of
modern exegetes say are not by Paul, but that need not concern us here. In any case, these letters stand in Pauline
tradition; and they take Paul’s ideas a step farther, at least within the
Pauline school.”
BENEDICT
XVI TELLS US THAT MATTHEW 7:13 AND LUKE 13:24 DON’T MEAN THAT MOST ARE LOST
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 288: “Q.
Jesus once says: ‘Go in through the narrow gate! For the gate is wide that leads to
destruction, and the road to it is broad, and many go that way. But the gate that leads to life is narrow,
and the road to it is narrow, and only a few people find it.’ A. We
might conclude from this that hell is completely full, and heaven
half-empty. But that’s certainly not
what is meant here.”
BENEDICT
XVI ON EVOLUTION
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 76: “Q. In
the beginning the earth was bare and empty; God had not yet made it rain, is
what it says in Genesis. Then god fashioned man, and for this
purpose he took ‘dust from the field and blew into his nostrils the breath of
life; thus man became a living creature’.
The breath of life – is that the answer to the question of where we come
from? A. I think we have here a most important
image, which presents a significant understanding of what man is. It suggests that man is one who springs from
the earth and its possibilities. We can even read into this representation
something like evolution.”
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 139: “The Christian picture of the world is this,
that the world in its details is the product of a long process of evolution
but that at the most profound level it comes from the Logos.”
BENEDICT
XVI ON THE AGE OF THE EARTH
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, pp. 115-116:
“Q. …about 3.4 billion years ago – life
first appeared on this planet in the shape of single cells…dinosaurs …dominated
the earth certainly for 150 million years, and without causing
devastation…Mammals finally appear…and Man not until…fifteen to twenty million
years ago. The story of Homo Sapiens himself begins only about 150,000 years ago. Thus it was pretty late when the Crown of
Creation first saw the light. A. First of all, these figures are of course only estimates. They are made on quite reasonable grounds,
but we should not regard them as absolute.”
BENEDICT
XVI TELLS US THAT A POPE CANNOT TELL PROTESTANTS HOW THE UNITY OF CHRISTIANS
MUST GO
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 453: “…the unity of Christians cannot be
restored by some kind of political coup or by cutting the Gordian know with a
sword. It’s a matter of living
processes. And neither a pope nor a World Council of Churches can simply say, Dear
friends, let’s do it this way!”
He
tells us that a Pope cannot tell people how the unity of Christians must be
promoted. This is totally
heretical.
Pope Pius
XI, Mortalium Animos (#10), Jan. 6, 1928:
“… the union of Christians can only be promoted
by promoting the return to the
one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it…”
BENEDICT
XVI ON THE QUESTION ABOUT WHETHER ONE CAN BE A GOOD CHRISTIAN AND REJECT CHURCH
TEACHING ON SEXUAL MORALITY
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 428: “Q. Can
you be a good Christian if in questions of sexual morality you are always
running counter to the Church’s idea of what is right? A.
The other side of this is that we always fall short of the great things
that the Church, in expounding the Word of God, proclaims man to be capable
of. If, at any rate, one wants to stay
on the path, if one retains a basic recognition of the sacred nature of this
co-creation with Christ, then one does
not cease to be a Catholic simply on account of failure. Then, in our very searching, we remain, in
you want to put it like that, a ‘good Catholic.’”
Huh? This is
a diabolically brilliant non-answer to the simple question that was asked. But if one can make anything out of this
answer it is that one can be a Catholic, and also a “good Catholic,” despite
rejecting Church teaching on sexual morality.
This seems to be indicated when he says that one does not cease to be
Catholic on account of failure, and that in one’s searching he remains a “good
Catholic.” If he didn’t believe that one
could be a good Christian while rejecting Church teaching on sexual morality he
would have simply said: NO! This quote
just shows us again the kind of apostate you are dealing with in Benedict XVI.
BENEDICT
XVI TELLS US THAT THERE CAN BE NO FURTHER DISCUSSION ON THE THIRD SECRET OF
FATIMA
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 311:
“…the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made available to the press
the full text of the so-called third secret of Fatima, at a press conference on
June 26, 2000. At the same time the
Congregation was responsible for a booklet published in the major languages of
the world, in which the text in Sister Lucia’s handwriting is reproduced by
facsimile, so that there can be no
further reasonable discussion as to the authenticity and the completeness of
this text.”
OTHER
QUOTES OF INTEREST IN GOD AND THE WORLD
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, pp. 60-61:
“I read a very interesting remark on this point. It comes from a book about the Protestant
theologian Adolf Schlatter,
who was a very firm believer. Schlatter was given an appointment in Berlin, at the time
when Adolf Harnack,
the great liberal theologian, was teaching there. The
Lutheran church intended thereby to balance the liberalism of Harnack to some extent.
Harnack was truly a noble man.”
This
means that the Protestant Schlatter was a “firm
believer” and that the “great liberal” Lutheran theologian Harnack
was “noble.”
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 410: “Q. [Should
one receive] Communion in the hand, or directly in the mouth? A. I wouldn’t
want to get fussy about that. It was
done in the early Church. A reverent
manner of receiving Communion in the hand is in itself a perfectly reasonable
way to receive Communion. ”
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 433: “The term ‘last rites’, which had come
to hold such terrors for sick people, has
long since been replaced, deliberately and quite rightly, with ‘anointing of
the sick’, so that for the patient the arrival of the priest with this
sacrament is no longer an announcement that he is finally about to die.”
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 153: “It
is another thing to see the Bible as a whole as the Word of God, in which
everything relates to everything else, and everything is disclosed as you go
on. It follows straightaway that neither
the criterion of inspiration nor that of infallibility can be applied
mechanically. It is quite impossible to pick out one single sentence and say, right,
you find this sentence in God’s great book, so it must simply be true in itself…
This is the reason why patristic theology and mediaeval theology never referred
to the Bible itself as ‘revelation’.
Revelation is the greater thing that stands behind the Bible.”
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 199: “The Turin shroud is a mystery, an image
that has not yet been satisfactorily explained, even if there is much to
suggest it may be genuine.”
“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the World, 2000, p. 382: “…the Papal States grew out of this
situation, bringing with them many disastrous associations, until they were
finally lost in 1870 – thank God, we would have to say.”
A HERETIC CANNOT BE A VALID POPE
It
is a proven fact that Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) is
a non-Catholic heretic. The Catholic
Church teaches that a heretic cannot be validly elected Pope, since a heretic
is not a member of the Catholic Church. Ratzinger, who is now Benedict XVI, is a non-Catholic
Antipope whose election was utterly null and void.
Pope Paul IV, Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, Feb. 15,
1559: “6. In addition, [by this Our
Constitution, which is to remain valid in perpetuity We enact, determine,
decree and define:-] that if ever at any time it shall appear that any
Bishop, even if he be acting as an Archbishop, Patriarch or Primate; or any
Cardinal of the aforesaid Roman Church, or, as has already been mentioned, any
legate, or even the Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion or his elevation as
Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into
some heresy:
(i) the promotion or elevation, even if it shall
have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals, shall
be null, void and worthless;
(ii) it shall not be possible for it to
acquire validity (nor for it to be said that it has thus acquired validity)
through the acceptance of the office, of consecration, of subsequent authority,
nor through possession of administration, nor through the putative enthronement
of a Roman Pontiff, or Veneration, or obedience accorded to such by all, nor
through the lapse of any period of time in the foregoing situation;
(iii) it shall not be held as partially
legitimate in any way…
(vi) those thus promoted or elevated shall be
deprived automatically, and without need for any further declaration, of all
dignity, position, honour, title, authority, office
and power….
10. No one at all, therefore, may infringe this document of our
approbation, re-introduction, sanction, statute and derogation of wills and
decrees, or by rash presumption contradict it. If anyone, however, should presume to attempt this, let him know that
he is destined to incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed Apostles,
Peter and Paul.
Given in Rome at Saint Peter's in the year of the Incarnation
of the Lord 1559, 15th February, in the fourth year of our Pontificate.
+ I, Paul, Bishop of the Catholic Church…”
St. Robert Bellarmine: “A pope who is a manifest heretic automatically (per se) ceases to be pope and head, just as he ceases automatically to be a Christian and a member of the
Church. Wherefore, he can be judged
and punished by the Church. This is the teaching of all the ancient
Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all
jurisdiction.” (De Romano Pontifice, II, 30)
The Catholic Encyclopedia, “Papal
Elections,” 1914, Vol. 11, p. 456: "Of
course, the election of a heretic,
schismatic, or female [as Pope] would
be null and void."
(This article may be quoted, spread and
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must be given. Copyright,
Most Holy Family Monastery, 2005.)
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