Roberto de Mattei
Corrispondenza Romana
July 1, 2020
The demission of Benedict XVI will be remembered as
one of the most catastrophic events of our century, as it opened the door, not
only to a destructive pontificate, but above all to a situation of increasing
chaos in the Church. After seven years
since that disastrous February 11, 2013, the life of Benedict XVI and the
pontificate of Pope Francis are drawing inexorably to a close. We don’t know
which of the two events will precede the other, but in both cases, the “smoke
of Satan”” risks enveloping the Mystical Body of Christ as perhaps has never
happened in history
The Bergoglian pontificate has reached its end,
perhaps not from a chronological point of view, but most certainly from the
point of view of its revolutionary impact. The Post -Amazonian Synod has been a
failure and the Exhortation Querida
Amazonia of last February 2, was the tombstone placed on the many hopes of
the progressive world, mainly in the German zone. The Coronavirus, or Covid 19,
has definitively brought to an end the ambitious pontifical projects for 2020,
presenting us with a historical image of a solitary and defeated Pope, immersed
in the emptiness of a spectral St. Peter’s Square. On the other hand, Divine
Providence, which always regulates all human events, allowed Benedict XVI to
witness the debacle following his abdication.
But the worst is probably still to come.
It was logical to envision that with the
cohabitation of “two Popes” in the Vatican, a part of the conservative world
disgusted with Francis would have looked to Benedict, considering him the “true
Pope”, set against “the false prophet”. Whilst convinced of Pope Francis’s
errors, these conservatives didn’t want
to follow the open way of the Correctio
filialis delivered to Pope Francis on August 11, 2016. The real reason for
their reluctance is probably due to the fact that the Correctio accentuates how the roots of the Bergoglian deviations go
back to the Papacies of Benedict XVI and
John Paul II, and even before, to the
Second Vatican Council.
For many conservatives, instead, the hermeneutic of
John Paul II and Benedict XVI, won’t admit any rupture, and since the
Bergoglian papacy seems to embody the negation of this hermeneutic, the only
solution to the problem is for Francis to be out of the picture.
And Benedict by giving himself
the title Pope Emeritus, by continuing to wear white and imparting apostolic
blessings, has engaged in gestures which seem to encourage this impervious work
of substituting the new Pope with the old one. The princeps argumentation is however the distinction between munus and ministerium, whereby it seemed Benedict wanted to keep for himself
a sort of mystical papacy, leaving Francis with the exercise of government. The
origin of the thesis goes back to a discourse by Monsignor Georg Gänswein of May 20, 2016 at the Pontifical Gregorian University, wherein
he stated that Pope Benedict had not abandoned his office, but had given it a
new collegial dimension, rendering it a quasi-shared ministry(«als einen quasi gemeinsamen Dienst»).
It has mattered naught that
Monsignor Georg Gänswein, in a declaration to LifeSiteNews on February 14, 2019, reaffirmed the validity of Benedict XVI’s renunciation
of the Petrine Office, by stating that “there is only one Pope legitimately elected - and it is Francis.” By then the idea of a possible redefinition of
the Petrine munus had been launched.
And faced with the objection that the Papacy is one and undivided and cannot countenance
any internal divisions, the response of these conservatives is that precisely
this fact proves the invalidity of Benedict’s demission. They say that Benedict’s
intention was that of maintaining the papacy, assuming the office capable of bifurcating
in two; but this is a substantial error, since the monarchal and unitary nature
of the Papacy is of divine right. Thus Benedict’s renunciation would be
invalid.
It is easy to rebut
that if it were proven Benedict XVI had the intention of splitting the papacy,
by modifying the constitution of the Church, he would have fallen into heresy;
and since this heretical conception of the Papacy would certainly be anterior
to his election, the election of Benedict should be considered invalid for the
same reason his abdication is considered
invalid. He in no way would be Pope. But these are abstract discourses, since
God alone judges intentions, whereas Canon Law merely limits itself in
evaluating the outward behavior of the baptized.
A well-known sentence of canon law, referred to by
both Cardinal Walter Brandmüller and Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, affirms that «De
internis non iudicat praetor»; a judge does not judge interior things. On the other hand Canon
1526, § 1 of the new Code of Canon Law
points out that: «Onus probandi incumbit ei qui asserit» (the onus of
providing the proofs falls to the one alleging). There is a difference between a
clue and a proof. The clue suggests the possibility of a fact, the proof demonstrates
the certainty. Agatha Christie’s rule whereby three clues are a proof, is fine
in literature but not in civil or ecclesiastical courts.
Furthermore, if
Pope Benedict is the legitimate Pope, what would happen if from one day to the
next he should die, or instead, before he died, Pope Francis should pass away? Given
the fact that many current cardinals were created by Pope Francis and none of
the cardinal electors consider him an Anti-Pope, the apostolic succession would
be interrupted, jeopardizing the visibility of the Church. The paradox is that
to prove the invalidity of Benedict’s renunciation juridical sophisms are employed, but then to resolve the
problem of Benedict’s or Francis’s succession, extra-canonical solutions ought
to be used.
The thesis of
the French visionary Jean de Roquetaillade (1310-1365),
whereby shortly before the end times, an “ angelic Pope” would appear at the
head of an invisible Church, is a myth spread by many pseudo-prophets, but
never accepted by the Church. Is this the road that a part of the conservative
world is embarking on? It seems more
logical to retain that the cardinals gathered together in conclave to elect a
new Pope, after the death or the renunciation of the papacy by Pope Francis, would
be aided by the Holy Spirit. And if it’s true that the cardinals might refuse
the divine influx by electing a Pontiff worse than Pope Francis, it is also
true that Providence might reserve unforeseen surprises, like it was for the
election of Pius X or other great Popes in history.
What we
need is a saintly Pope, even more than a "next Pope".
With the
title, The Next Pope, an excellent
book by the English journalist Edward Pentin has just been released, published
by Sophia Institute Press (The Next Pope: The Leading Cardinal Candidates). The principal
merit of this work of more than 700 pages, is to remind us that there will be a
“next Pope” and offer us, all the information necessary to enter the post-Franciscan
era, by means of 19 “papal candidate” profiles.
We need to be convinced
that the hermeneutic of continuity has failed, since we are going through a
crisis which must be measured on facts, and not on the interpretations of
facts. «The
implausibility of this approach – Peter
Kwasniewski correctly notes – is
demonstrated by, among other signs, the infinitesimal success that
conservatives have had in reversing the disastrous “reforms,” trends, habits,
and institutions established in the wake of and in the name of the last
council, with papal approbation or toleration» . *
Pope Francis has
never theorized the hermeneutic of “discontinuity” but has sought to implement Vatican II in
praxis and the only winning response to this praxis is in the concrete reality
of theological, liturgical, canonical and moral facts, and not in sterile
hermeneutic debate. In this regard, the real problem will not be the continuity
or the discontinuity of the next pontificate with Pope Francis, but its
relationship with the historical knot of the Second Vatican Council. Some
conservatives want to eliminate Pope Francis, by means of canonical loopholes, in the name of the
hermeneutic of continuity. But if it’s possible to accuse a Pope for
discontinuity with his predecessor, why not admit the possibility of the
discontinuity of a Council with its precedents?
In this context,
the recent interventions on Vatican II by Archbishop Carol Maria Viganò and
Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Athanasius
Schneider are to be appreciated. They have had the courage to face a
theological and cultural debate which cannot be evaded. This work of historical
and theological revision of Vatican II is necessary to dissipate the shadows thickening
around the end of a papacy, and to avoid a division that might place good
Catholics in front of a choice between a bad Pope, but legitimate, and an
Anti-Pope of better doctrine, or “mystical” , but unfortunately illegitimate.
Translation:
Contributor Francesca Romana
