The Jonah Reality, Valid Priests and Bishops: and Papal Infallibility

Amici,

In my previous essay, I mentioned The Jonah Reality as a possible solution to an intractable problem. 

As Bergoglio and his peeps ("Tucho" "Kissy" Fernandez and a large coven of other Modernists and deviants) do their best to disintegrate the Church, we need to take a moment and consider our options, although things are happening so fast now that "Fiducia supplicans" has been foisted on us, and as it is apparently going to be seriously defended with Tucho saying bishops can't opt out of it, full rebellion might erupt at any moment, and some bishop or bishops' conference will declare Tucho, at least, excommunicated. Now, that would be interesting! The firing on Fort Sumter and Pearl Harbor rolled into one. It's past due.

Three Options

1. We Traditionalists can pretend that Bergoglio is an actual pope, which many Trads do, for example, the SSPX itself, the FSSP, and various VIPs, such as Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Cardinal Burke (more like Cardinal Punching Bag) or Bishop Strickland.
   
2. We can be "Benesedevacantists", such as Ann Barnhardt and Dr. Edward Massa, and so far as I can tell, Archbishop Viganò himself. I myself basically take this position; i.e. that while John 23rd, Paul 6, JP 2 and Benedict 16 were very flawed and essentially heretical in various ways, they were at least still validly elected pontiffs. JP2 and B16 certainly were, though maybe not the first two. Bergoglio (for a number of reasons) clearly wasn't validly elected. (N.B. Popes are not "the Lord's Anointed" as I saw one blogger insist; they're just elected as already-existing bishops to serve as bishop of the Roman See. E.l.e.c.t.e.d. Just whether they're immune from heresy after that election is pretty much what Trads – and everyone else – are fighting over at the moment. See Papal Infallibility below.)
   
3. Or one can take the "Hard" Sedevacantist" position, such as Novus Ordo Watch or AKA Catholic, who argue cogently that a true pope hasn't existed since Pius XII died in 1958. Don't simply dismiss their efforts; they're trying to make sense of a total mess, after all.
   

1. If we take Position 1, we blow our circuits; i.e. cognitive dissonance will eventually cause us to go cross-eyed and sit in trees and chirp and eat worms. Bergoglio is that much an anti-pope.
   
2. If we take Position 2, we can at least argue that Bergoglio is an usurper and anti-pope, and none of his antics are valid. But we have still many bishops consecrated by JP2 and B16 to work with and who could – if they want – act to preserve the Church. Some seem to be waking up and doing just that.
3. If we take Position 3, we easily solve the disastrous problem of the wayward, clearly heretical (increasingly heretical with Bergoglio in charge) Vatican II Era Church. But then we create a new problem: What or Where, then, is the "true" Catholic Church? Can it be said to still exist at all?

Position 1 is we stay in the frying pan as Bergi burns the whole house down around our ears; Position 2 allows us to dump The Ogre and jump-restart the Church, or you could compare it to removing a kidney stone to save the kidney; Position 3 is a case of "out of the frying pan and into the fire" of the Unknown, a search for Apostolic Succession in the shifting sands of a very grainy desert.

• For if the "Hard" Sedes are right, they would say the Church exists here and there, extant via bishops consecrated NOT by any Vatican II bishop. (The Novus Ordo Watch provides a list of priests not ordained by Vatican II-consecrated bishops.) Yes, these priests would be excommunicated automatically for receiving ordination from an excommunicated bishop, but that excommunication would be from a Church the "Hard Sedes" regard as heretical, and thus void.

The Dilemma

In other words, a dilemma! I mean, this Hard Sede argument would insist Bishop Athanasius Schneider is just a layman in fancy dress (as we used to say of the Anglican clergy). It would mean that Fr. Chad Ripperger is just a layman in fancy dress, too. We KNOW that isn't true because of his long success against demons, those hyper-legalists of all legalists would not let themselves be pushed around by a befuddled layman!

• So, it seems, the "Hard Sedes" can't be right, either. Unless you are a very, very "Hard Sede", what does N.O. Watch offer? A bunch of excommunicated bishops and priests who may or may not have Apostolic Succession, but no standing – except in their own eyes – to confect the sacraments. That is hardly comforting to most of us.
• Or we can stay in the mainstream Church, the "Universal" or "Catholic" Church. So, what if the pope is a lunatic? Or at least a massively obvious heretic like Bergoglio? Sooner or later, Bergi's reign will end and his "Ape of the Church", his Synodal Church, will collapse – because it most definitely is not of God. We see collapse in seminarian numbers in both Poland and Germany, with the latter below 50 now, while in Poland, the number has fallen from 6,789 in 2000 to 1,690 today. That's The Bergoglio Effect and it can't continue. (BTW: Germany harbors a bit under 21 million folks who identify as Catholics, but just 1.2 million of them went to Mass. I bet a lot of those are Trads.)
• A Schism will almost certainly occur as this impossible mess cannot continue, which Bergoglio's "Fiducia supplicans" is demonstrating by the hour. The Church has already fractured de facto, but it is about to become de jure. Yet unless he is officially declared to be an anti-pope and his appointments and rulings invalid and illegal – by a significant group of orthodox prelates – we are still stuck with heretics running the show. For a time.
  

Solution: The Jonah Reality

• Hence my argument about Our Jonah Reality.
  

Jonah was an Old Testament prophet and God assigned him the job of going to the great pagan city of Nineveh and preaching to its inhabitants, sometime in the 700s BC. Jonah, an Israelite nationalist, didn't want them saved: he wanted them in Hell. So he fled God. God caught up with him on the sea and stuffed him into the belly of a whale (or fish, or aquatic creature of some sort) for three days. After that digestive experience, Jonah got himself cleaned up and went to Nineveh and starting walking straight through the metropolis, preaching away. Sure enough, via his preaching, the pagans repented and their city was saved. (Important: God, you see, clearly had a whale-sized tub of grace prepared to pour out on the citizens – as He had at Pentecost; He just wanted to work through human agency like He works through the Church.)

Jonah served as a unwilling prophet, but God worked through him anyway. The Jonah Reality is that God works through us even when we don't want Him to. Saul of Tarsus was literally Hell-bent on destroying Christians, for example, but God zapped him on the road to Damascus, and Saul became Paul, the famous Apostle. God does things like that.

So even though the Vatican II Avatar (version) of the Catholic Church is a mess and a disaster, God can work through it. Even though the Vatican II Church changed the consecration of bishops and the ordination of priests, God can still consecrate and ordain valid priests from that. It is all pure Gift to begin with, pure Grace. All existence is. God rules. And He loves; i.e. He "wills our good". He's already gone to great lengths for us (see Christ, Jesus) and we can have confidence in Him.

Reflections and Addenda

Excommunication and Power Manipulation

Excommunication the Church uses to control people. It is mean to sober sinners up, and tell them they cannot receive the Sacraments until they repent and get their life in order. Instead, the Powers-That-Be in the Church use it to slap down people and control them. An Italian priest named Father Ramon Guidetti called out Bergo

glio recently as an anti-Christ – which his parishioners immediately applauded in the church – and his superiors excommunicated him. This will not sit well with real Catholics.

When Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four bishops for the SSPX in 1988, he and they received Canon Law-stipulated automatic excommunication, but that didn't sit well with a great many; those having "the Catholic sense" knew it was wrong, and in 2009 Pope Benedict grudgingly lifted these excommunications. God stood behind all that. Despite the mainstream hierarchy's foot-dragging, God got His priests un-excommunicated. And He had a tub of grace prepared! Pope Francis, old Begoglio himself, anti-pope and Church Smasher, the Terror of Trads and Dragon of Argentina no less, later allowed the SSPX to hear confessions, etc., and basically since then, very few except hard-core wackos would argue that the SSPX is a heretical, excommunicated sect. (One of its bishops was kicked out for preaching against the Jews, and formed his own Church, consecrating four bishops as of now, I think it is.) The SSPX's canonicity might be still a bit "unsettled", but so what? Good for them. The SSPX grows daily by leaps and bounds. Obviously, God supports it. Who can stand against God? (See Gamaliel, Rabban, in Acts 5) Jonah couldn't stand against God, the Sanhedrin couldn't, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio can't, either.

Apostolic Succession note:

• Apostolic Succession is the traditional way ancient Christianity was and is organized. Protestantism opposes it; they dismiss Apostolic Succession, root and branch, as mumbo-jumbo. You're saved by faith alone, Protestantism (usually) teaches, not good works – though most Protestants won't put up with charlatans doing evil deeds yet saying they are "saved" despite the fact that Luther specifically taught you are damned if you DO any good works! (Few, or none, modern Protestants could stand either Luther or Calvin today.) That would impinge on God's sovereignty, see? 
• However about Protestants, all the ancient historical Christian Churches: the Western Orthodoxy, aka Roman Catholicism, Catholicism in general (Latin Rite Catholics plus the 22 Eastern Rite Churches in Communion with it), the Big Fourteen Orthodox Churches that don't recognize the pope (The Russian Orthodox, The Greek Orthodox, the Serbian Orthodox, etc.) and the "Oriental Orthodox", the Copts, the Ethiopians, the Armenians, etc., ALL have Apostolic Succession, the Seven Sacraments, and so on. They are ALL based on that doctrine, and rite, of Apostolic Succession. This was how Christianity was founded, and it is central to it, for priests and bishops exist to confect the Sacraments, and it is by participation in the Sacraments by which we are saved.

The Anglican Exception

Now, many Anglicans squirmed about regarding Apostolic Succession. A lot of them didn't feel very Protestant, to put it simply. Some of them therefore wanted to claim Apostolic Succession, and asked Pope Leo XIII to recognize Anglican Orders as valid re: Apostolic Succession. But Leo sagely pointed out that since the Anglican Church was founded by an Act of Parliament, and because that Act founding this Church did not recognize Holy Orders as a sacrament, then he, Pope Leo, could obviously not recognize them as validly ordained since their founding document disallowed Apostolic Succession. Kapow! So, since then, some Anglican priests have somehow got Orthodox bishops (of one of the autocephalous Orthodox Churches, of which there are 14, as noted above), to ordain them. All so they can truly have Apostolic Succession. If that works for them. Er, well. Whatever. God will sort it out.

Popes and Infallibility

This doctrine is actually the rock upon with so many crash their barques and find themselves in the water, as Jonah did. Is the pope infallible? If so, exactly how? It's been a developing doctrine, from the ancient past down to today, but it certainly seems more headache than anything else. No one ever seemed to have thought – maybe a handful of theologians like Robert Bellarmine, for one – what would happen if a true heretic became pope. The usual idea was that God would preserve the papal office from such. Yet since all the Vatican II popes have one way or another, some more, some less, taught against Tradition and the Deposit of Faith (The Deposit of Faith equals Tradition, as Archbishop Lefebvre said) then are they all false popes? It seems a true Gordian Knot. And round and round the arguments go. 

I just touch on it here since the entire Vatican I Council dealt mainly with this Infallibility issue, and volumes upon volumes have been written about it. 

1. Part of the problem is that the Church has always had the pope, and the pope has always been the last court of appeal. Any organization needs such. It is inherently necessary. The Protestant idea that Sts. Peter and Paul and James and so on were just guys who knew Jesus and got together once in a while is not Biblically or Traditionally sustainable. There've always been bishops and there's always been Christ's vicar on Earth serving as bishop at Rome. Truly, "the buck stops with him". That's simply in the nature of the job. But obviously, the man has to be orthodox Catholic.
2. The Corinthians had an issue with their bishop about the year 100 AD, and to solve it, they didn't write to Antioch, site of a very strong Church and the first place Christians were called Christians, and where St Peter had once served as bishop. They didn't write to Alexandria, the second largest city of the empire, and center of a strong Church. Jerusalem had been destroyed 40 years previously and Constantinople didn't yet exist (and wouldn't for 230-some years). 
3. The Corinthians wrote to Rome, and they accepted Pope Clement's ruling.

So it has always been. A problem arises – Martin Luther is an example – and slowly it works its way up through the hierarchy and eventually (I say eventually) lands in the pope's lap, and he has to deal with it. Henry VIII is another example of this. But since Pope Pius IX's reign, we have had transatlantic cables. Technology altered the situation. So, since the 1870s a pope has been able to deal directly with issues on the other side of the planet. 

• Over time, this caused centralization and increased power in the Vatican. 
• The Vatican bureaucracy grew and grew, costing ever more, and the figure of the pope himself grew and grew, average Catholics began reading papal encyclicals which appeared more and more often, all this while the papacy itself became economically poorer, losing the Papal States in 1870 and thus relying on handouts, with the pope a "prisoner" in the Vatican. 
• Today, apparently, Bergoglio has sold the Vatican to the Chinese Communists for huge sums of money, which explains a lot of his behavior and his betrayal of Chinese Catholics. "Follow the money" is just as crucial in Church issues as in anywhere else. But because of our technology, should the "pope" slap some woman away from him, as Bergoglio once infamously did a Chinese woman, it is instant news worldwide. 

My point is a lot of the problems we have with the Pope are structural, as in organizational and financial. One man now is literally universal bishop, universal dictator, really. He needs a huge bureaucracy. If he's a good man like Leo XIII or St. Pius X, great. If he's an actor and a flashy Public Relations genius, like John Paul II (who was also a true hero against the Nazis and the Communists, let us never forget), well, that's nice. But if he's an out-and-out coward, as was the effeminate Paul VI, or a dunce, as was John XXIII, or a bully – as is Bergoglio; unfortunately for us, an anti-Catholic bully! – then we're in trouble.

And this is simply structural: as the Church became more and more centralized, it became more and more open to infiltration and take-over by hostile forces. Modernism the Mother of All Heresies arose with Darwinism and the idea of Evolution (we evolve, truth evolves, God evolves, we make up God and evolve Him ourselves; i.e. basic Freemason or Communist conceits). It attracted theologians to it, and they began to try to alter Church teaching. The Church resisted till Vatican II when modernism won out. Now we suffer from an over-centralized Church flinging heaps of heresy on us like monkeys in a zoo throwing poo at visitors.

We need to decentralize, but not in this false "Synodal Church" fashion, which is a fraud, but back to bishops and archbishops running their dioceses. And we see today that the African prelates may be the key to that. How far will Bergoglio push them to establish his pervert agenda? We need a pope who will free himself from the over-centralized bureaucracy so he can do his job. The job Clement I did. The job most all the popes have done. And his primary job is to defend Catholic (i.e. Universal) Church's Tradition, also known as the Deposit of Faith (Bergoglio dismisses the whole idea of that, by the way) while strengthening his brother bishops (not treating them as hogs he can slaughter, as Bergoglio does). Like the Emperor Augustus, a pope is the first among equals in the Church's Universal Republic, for all the bishops are direct descendants, via Apostolic Succession, of the Apostles. Apostolic Succession, then, remains central.

We need to get back to that model, that paradigm. It is a necessity.

 An Préachán