Pope Francis as Public Heretic: The Evidence Leaves No Doubt — by Dr. John Lamont

Editorial Note: Rorate Caeli’s position is that Francis is the pope and that sedevacantism or any of its variants is mistaken. For the sake of enriching the public debate, we publish this study by frequent contributor Dr John Lamont concerning heresies in documents signed by Pope Francis (PDF here for those who prefer that format; the link is now correct). While Dr. Lamont agrees that Francis is the pope, he considers that the questions that the pope's heretical statements raise need to be addressed in order to prepare theologians and prelates for what is to come.

Pope Francis as Public Heretic: The Evidence Leaves No Doubt

Dr. John Lamont

Pope Francis has recently published answers to two sets of dubia submitted to him by members of the College of Cardinals: one set submitted by Cardinals Brandmüller, Burke, Sandoval, Sarah, and Zen on July 10, 2023, and the other set submitted by Cardinal Dominik Duka on July 13, 2023. Pope Francis responded to the dubia of the five cardinals on July 11 and made this reponse public on October 2. On September 25, 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith responded to dubia proposed by Cardinal Dominik Duka; the response was endorsed by the Pope. On November 1, 2023, Pope Francis issued, motu proprio, the apostolic letter Ad Theologiam Promovendam to accompany revised statutes for the Pontifical Academy of Theology. His answers to these dubia and his apostolic letter openly and unmistakably contradict the Catholic faith (see Annexe II for the texts in question).

De Mattei: Cardinals Burke, Brandmüller and Müller and The Dictator Pope

Roberto de Mattei
Corrispondenza Romana
November 29, 2017

Over the last few weeks three interviews from  prominent cardinals have appeared.  The first was released by Cardinal Walter Brandmüller  to Christian Geye and Hannes Hintermeier for the Frankfurter Allgmeine Zeitung on October 28^th 2017; the second was given by Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke to Edward Pentin on November 14^th  for The National Catholic Register; the third, to Cardinal Müller, appeared on November 26^th in the Corriere della Sera, by Massimo Franco.

Tosatti - The two responses to the ‘Correction’: Belittle, label, marginalize and the Pope’s unacceptable silence

Marco Tosatti

Stilum Curiae

September 25, 2017

Primum, denigrate. Saddle the adversary with a label, which will in any case place him in difficulty regarding public opinion as well as put him on the defensive. It is a rhetoric device as old as the world itself and with which the Church is well-acquainted. Thus, faced with an undoubtedly exceptional and exceptionally agonizing event, such as Correctio filialis, signed – at the present moment  - by 62 personalities in the Catholic world, both laity and priests (cardinals and bishops, we are told, have been voluntarily excluded) we have two reactions. The first, on the part of those directly concerned, which we will return to, is:  silence.

The second, by his strongmen, of  pen or computer, or the TV, if you prefer, is to: belittle, label in a way as to marginalize, make it understood that they are a poor lot, and (horror of horrors!) right-wing; after all, didn’t Monsignor Fellay the Superior of the Lefebvrians sign ? Another reaction: let’s pray for them, the poor things, who dare to say that the pope can write erroneous things! It’s not possible: it’s the pope himself that defines who is a heretic! How could he write erroneous things? Let’s leave it to those who know more than we do to confute this thesis, which seems to attribute to the pope, always and everywhere,  prerogatives which he doesn’t have and which no-one has ever claimed.  We note in the articles of criticism, more or less veiled, an element which is rigorously missing: the evaluation whether what is said in the formal correction makes sense or doesn’t.

Cardinal Carlo Caffarra: extracts from a conference he would have held in Milan on September 10th 2017

Nuova Bussola Quotidiana

September 8, 2017

If Cardinal Caffarra’s death on one hand leaves a void for those who grew to love and follow him over the years, on the other hand it calls each and all of us to an even greater responsibility, for our own and the Church’s benefit.

For “La Giornata della Bussola”, (on Sunday September 10^th) the Cardinal had prepared an intervention and sent it to us just before his death. In these extracts we publish now, we are conscious that it is a sort of spiritual testament and that we are called to continue in this defense of Truth, following the great example of Cardinal Caffarra.  

Sunday’s lesson is divided into two parts: in the first the Cardinal examines the factors of the destruction of the human and in the second he explains Who it is that rebuilds the human.

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Woe to us if the Church should have in Her memory something other than the Resurrection of Christ

by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra

Breaking news: Cardinal Caffarra dies, 79.

 Cardinal Caffarra celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass in 2010. (Source)

Various news agencies are now reporting that Carlo Cardinal Caffarra, Archbishop Emeritus of Bologna, has died. He was 79.

He was one of the four Cardinal signatories to the "dubia" to Pope Francis regarding Amoris Laetitia. With his death, the only signatories still alive are Cardinals Walter Brandmuller (nearly 89) and Raymond Burke, 69.

Caffarra was the founder the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family, and will always be identified with the attempts of the John Paul II papacy to shore up Catholic teaching on family and life.

He was also one of the very few Italian Cardinals to publicly celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass [and not just to assist at one]; he had been scheduled to celebrate a Solemn Pontifical Mass according to the 1962 Missal in St. Peter's Basilica on September 16, for the international Traditional Catholic pilgrimage to Rome next week.

May he rest in peace.

Worth reading now: Cardinal Caffarra's testimony on the letter Sr. Lucia of Fatima sent to her regarding the "final confrontation" between the devil and the family:

Cardinal: "What Sister Lucia told me: Final Confrontation between the Lord and Satan will be over Family and Marriage."

Dubia Signatory Cardinal Meisner Dies

Joachim Cardinal Meisner (1933-2017)

Of your charity, pray for the repose of Joachim Cardinal Meisner, who passed away this morning, as the Archdiocese of Cologne announced.

Card. Burke Interview: Amoris Laetitia dubia, 10 years of Summorum, Fatima, and more

The Chartres Pilgrimage, Fatima, the 10th Anniversary of the Motu proprio, the Dubia: an interview with Cardinal Burke

TV Libertés (Terres de Mission/Jean-Pierre Maugendre)
via  Infocatho (Marie Ordioni)
June 20, 2017

During his recent stay in France, Cardinal Burke gave an exclusive interview to TV Libertés. We have transcribed the main points:

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The Cardinal was in France for the Chartres pilgrimage. He celebrated Mass at the close of the pilgrimage on Monday in Chartres Cathedral.

He stated that he was very impressed by his visit to the camp and his meeting with all those who put themselves at the service of the pilgrims. He recalled that pilgrimages, which existed even in the Old Testament, were undertaken in the early Church and practised by Christ Himself. He also underlined the importance of making pilgrimages even today, of leaving behind the circumstances of our everyday existence to go in prayer and penance to a holy place in order to rediscover the supernatural in our lives. The Chartres pilgrimage, which is centred on the Sacred Liturgy, the fullest and highest expression of our life in Christ, is becoming increasingly attractive and the number of participants is set to increase in the years to come.

Conference on Amoris Laetitia: The Need for Consistency between Magisterium and Tradition

On April 22, 2017 at the Hotel Columbus in Rome, a block from Saint Peter’s Square, six internationally renowned lay scholars spoke at a landmark conference: "Seeking Clarity: One year after Amoris Laetitia," calling on Pope Francis to answer the dubia of the four cardinals over the passages in Amoris Laetitia that purport to justify acts of adultery, against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue, and to allow the reception of Holy Communion by those living in permanent and public adultery more uxorio. 

We invite you to read the important interventions from this conference in English by Dr. Anna M. Silvas, "A Year After Amoris Laetitia. A Timely Word" , and by Dr. Douglas Farrow, "The Roots of the Present Crisis" (video).

Additionally, the following is an English translation of the full intervention of Professor Claudio Pierantoni, for the benefit of Rorate's readers:

The Need for Consistency between Magisterium and Tradition: Examples from History

De Mattei: When public correction of a pope is urgent and necessary

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

February 22, 2017

May a Pope be publicly corrected for his reprehensible behaviour? Or should the attitude of the faithful be that of unconditional obedience, until the point of justifying anything the Pope’s says and does, even if  openly scandalous? According to some, like the Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli, it is possible to express “tète a tète” one’s dissent to the Pope, without, however, manifesting it publicly. This thesis nonetheless, contains an important admission. The Pope is not infallible, unless he speaks ex cathedra. Otherwise it would not be licit to dissent even privately and the path to follow would only be that of religious silence.  On the other hand, the Pope, who is not Christ, but only his representative on earth, can sin and make mistakes. Yet, is it true that he may only be corrected privately and never publicly?

Denzinger timeline of communion for adulterers in Church history and current pontificate

CLICK HERE FOR THE TIMELINE

Nathan rebukes King David for his Adultery (Eugène Siberdt)

For the benefit of our readers, Mr. Andrew Guernsey has graciously shared with us his Denzinger-style research identifying the sources of Church teaching and perennial discipline, and exhaustively cataloguing the Bergoglian machinations, to allow communion for divorced and civilly “remarried” adulterers. In a nutshell, this is nearly every known utterance of the topic from the dawn of man, until our current, pathetic state of affairs.

The document starts with the Old Testament, then the New Testament, and then continues chronologically through the Fathers, popes, martyrs, councils and more upon which the Church bases its unchanging doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage and Her perennial mandate of excluding adulterers from Holy Communion and the Sacrament of Penance, except that they live in complete continence as brother and sister.

De Mattei: The irrevocable duties of Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

December 14, 2016

In his intervention at the Lepanto Foundation on December 5, 2016, Cardinal Raymond Burke said: “There is a very heavy burden on a cardinal’s shoulders. We are the Pope’s Senate and his primary counsellors and must, above all, serve the Pope, by telling him the truth. Submitting questions, as we have done to the Pope, is in the Church’s tradition, specifically to  avoid divisions and confusion. We did this with the highest respect for the Petrine Office, without lacking reverence to the person of the Pope. There are many questions, but the five main questions we have posed must, of necessity, have a response for the salvation of souls. We pray every day for a response, faithful to Tradition, in the uninterrupted apostolic line that takes us back to Our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

Article: "Considerations on the dubia of the four cardinals"

by John R. T. Lamont, DPhil

Cardinals Brandmüller, Burke, Caffarra and Meisner have performed a signal service to the Church by sending five dubia on the apostolic exortation Amoris laetitia to the Holy See, requesting an authoritative clarification of the meaning of that document, and then making public the text of the dubia when no response to them was given. Cardinal Burke has performed a further service to the Church by explaining this initiative in an interview with Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register on Nov. 15^th 2016, and stating that if no response was given to the dubia the cardinals would have to make a formal act of correction of a serious error.

As is proper, the dubia were formulated in a manner appropriate to an official request of this kind, and the formal act of correction to which Cardinal Burke refers is an act with a legal character. Catholics may find it helpful to be given a presentation of the canonical, historical and theological background to the dubia and the suggested act of correction, and to the situation that has led to the action of the Cardinals. This background is no doubt well known to the four Cardinals, but it is less accessible to those who lack their specialised knowledge. This article is intended to help with the comprehension and appreciation of their initiative.

The dubia