#01 Solutions to the Crisis of the Church

Solutions to the Crisis of the Church

 

“The Catholic Church resembles a spring: the more one pushes it down,  

 

the more it springs back with vigor” (P.L.)

 

The Catholic Church, founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ as a visible and perfect society, necessarily subsists until the end of time, indefectible in its hierarchical constitution and in the conservation of the true faith. The promise of the Savior — “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew XVI, 18), and again: “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matthew XXVIII, 20) — absolutely excludes any defection of the universal Church.

 

However, if the Church is indefectible, nothing prevents an individual Roman Pontiff from losing his office. The constant doctrine (confirmed by the 1917 Code of Canon Law, can. 188 §4) teaches that the Pontiff can cease to be pope by death, voluntary abdication, madness, but also by public heresy, apostasy or schism. For, according to the axiom of Saint Robert Bellarmine, “The manifest heretic is in no way a member of the Church, that is, neither by soul nor by body.” (De Romano Pontifice, II, 30); therefore he cannot be its head.

 

Now, it has been demonstrated that the Second Vatican Council promulgated propositions objectively incompatible with doctrines previously taught and condemned by the pontifical magisterium, notably in the matter of religious liberty, ecumenism, communicatio in sacris (common prayer considered as praiseworthy) and relations between the Church of Christ and false religions, presented as means of salvation. These contradictions touch upon certain doctrines and even truths pertaining to the faith, because they are contrary to the previous infallible magisterium, notably to Quanta Cura of Pius IX and to Satis Cognitum of Leo XIII.

 

Indeed, these conciliar texts and the ecumenical practice that issued from them such as “the spirit of Assisi” attribute to separated religious communities elements and functions presented as usable by the Holy Ghost in the order of salvation. We have demonstrated that this attribution, when referred to false religions as religious systems, contradicts the dogma according to which the one Church of Christ is the one ark of salvation.

 

And “Satis Cognitum” effectively demonstrates that one cannot belong to the one Church while refusing a part of its doctrine or of its government. This doctrine refutes the ecclesiology that attributes to separated sects a true ecclesiastical belonging, albeit supposedly imperfect.

 

In promulgating these doctrines and imposing them on the whole Church, Paul VI and his successors rendered themselves guilty of public and manifest heresy. Now, according to the bull Cum ex apostolatus officio of Paul IV (1559), “if ever it should happen that a Roman Pontiff deviates from the faith or falls into heresy, his promotion would be null and without effect”; and according to canon law, the heretic loses ipso facto every office and every jurisdiction. The conclusion is therefore necessary: Paul VI and his successors have not been true popes, but usurpers and antipopes.

 

Indeed, for Paul VI his public defection from the faith became only public and manifest after an initially valid election, and he then ceased, by the very fact, to be a member of the Church and consequently to be its head; and for his successors this defection was anterior to their pretended election, and this election was therefore radically null; in both hypotheses, they could not receive or conserve the pontifical authority after their public and manifest defection.

 

His heresy was formal by his public profession of doctrines objectively incompatible with the Catholic faith, as well as by their obstinate promulgation despite the explicit condemnations of the previous magisterium and the multiple warnings of contemporary bishops faithful to the faith, and Paul VI then manifested exteriorly a defection from the faith incompatible with visible belonging to the Church.

 

Moreover, the Catholic Church cannot universally impose on its faithful a heretical doctrine, an intrinsically evil cult or a universal discipline leading souls to apostasy. Now the conciliar religion has officially imposed doctrines, ecumenical practices and a liturgical reform incompatible with the previous magisterium. Therefore this religion cannot be the exercise of the authority of the Catholic Church. Consequently, those who officially established it did not possess the pontifical authority that they claimed.

 

Some have objected the “peaceful and universal acceptance” (P.U.A.) as a sign of infallible legitimacy. The rejection by a certain number of true Catholics, of clergy and faithful — named after a certain time “sedevacantists” — caused and still causes the absence of a true Catholic P.U.A. for the conciliar popes, and this is an additional confirmation of the vacancy of the See.

 

The visibility of the Church does not mean that the sociological majority bearing the Catholic name must necessarily be the true Church.

 

Visibility requires that it remain objectively possible to discern:

1. the profession of the true faith;
2. the true sacraments;
3. the true priestly and episcopal order;
4. the continuity with the previous doctrine;
5. the right and the possibility to restore the pontifical primacy.

 

The Church can be reduced and persecuted; it cannot become identical to an institution officially professing a new religion.

 

One and the same Church cannot successively teach as true two contradictory propositions under the same respect.

 

The contradiction cannot be resolved by affirming that the later doctrine “develops” the previous doctrine when it affirms its opposite.

 

Doctrinal development explicates what was contained in the revealed deposit; it does not transform into natural right what the popes had condemned as a liberty of perdition. A contradiction is not a development: it is a negation.

 

Argument against the objection of duration:

The duration of the vacancy cannot, by itself, produce a pope. Fifty or sixty years of material possession cannot transform a public heretic into a member of the Church, nor a null election into a valid election. Time consolidates a legitimate possession; it does not change the impossible into the possible, nor the false into the true.

 

Must one conclude that the Church would have failed? No, because indefectibility excludes every defection. Christ, the invisible Head, supplies directly or by His Church the jurisdiction in a period of vacancy, according to the principle of supply recognized by moral theology (Saint Alphonsus Liguori) and by canon law (can. 209 CIC 1917). Thus, the bishops and priests who have remained faithful to the Catholic faith exercise a jurisdiction of supply to teach, sanctify and govern the faithful, ensuring the visible continuation of the Church and the survival of the means of salvation.

 

Indeed, the validly ordained ministers conserve their power of order. In the cases foreseen by the law, the Church supplies them the necessary jurisdiction, notably for sacramental absolution. The question of a more extended jurisdiction of government will be demonstrated separately by the principles of devolution, of necessity and of indefectibility.

 

In conclusion, we can conclude with certainty that:

 

The Second Vatican Council taught heresies.

 

Paul VI and his successors, in promulgating them, lost ipso facto all pontifical authority or the possibility of receiving it.

 

The Apostolic See has been vacant since the public heresies of the “popes”.

 

The Church remains indefectible, governed invisibly by Christ and visibly by its faithful ministers, while waiting for Him to grant to His Church the grace of a legitimate Pontiff.

 

This prolonged vacancy, far from signifying the ruin of the Church, manifests on the contrary the fidelity of Christ to His promise. For, even deprived of a current pope, the Church remains a living, visible and hierarchical society, continuing to transmit the true faith and the sacraments, until the day when, according to the ways of Providence, a true Pontiff will be elected to restore the fullness of visible authority in the militant Church.

 

Let us pray for the total and maximal flourishing of the Church.

Holy Virgin Mary, guardian of the Faith, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Patron of the Church, give us good Pastors.

Saint Michael the Archangel, deliver us from the snares of the devil and of his supporters.

All the Saints and all the Holy Angels of God, pray for us.

 

I submit entirely all my writings to the definitive judgment of the Church.

 

Roma locuta, causa finita.

AMDG

 

Your humble servant

Fr Eric Jacqmin+