Dominic J. Grigio, “Why I Wrote The Disastrous Pontificate”—Exclusive for Rorate

Prefatory note: On January 7, 2026, a major new book, The Disastrous Pontificate: Pope Francis' Rupture from the Magisterium, was released by Os Justi Press. Endorsed by a constellation of luminaries including Rev. Gerald E. Murray, Edward Feser, Eduardo Echeverria, Philip F. Lawler, John Rist, Michael Sirilla, Claudio Pierantoni, and Josef Seifert, the work has already attracted international attention for its comprehensive research and bold claims. Today, in an exclusive for Rorate Caeli, the author, Dominic Grigio, tells us why he wrote it. If you'd like to hear it being read aloud, go here, or scroll to the bottom.—PAK

During his last general audience before his abdication Pope Benedict XVI declared his confidence in the barque of the Church weathering the storms of history, ‘Nor does the Lord let it sink; it is He who guides it, surely also through those whom He has chosen.’^[1] Yet amid the escalating crises of his successor's pontificate, it seemed to me that the barque was being deliberately steered onto the rocks. Good and faithful Catholics—those who simply cherished the Traditional Latin Mass and the Church's perennial doctrines and moral teachings—were being cast overboard, incurring scornful ire and punitive measures merely for their fidelity.

De Mattei: The Correctio filialis and the Laudatio of Pope Francis

The Correctio filialis and the Laudatio of Pope Francis

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

October 18, 2017

After three weeks the first organized response to the Correctio filialis has appeared: a Laudatio published on the web, signed by a group of priests and intellectuals prevalently from the Austrian-German domain. (http://www.pro-pope-francis.com/).

Correctio: a challenge for Fastiggi and Goldstein

You know you've had an influence when the Vatican Insider addresses you by name.

Correctio Filialis: a first appraisal

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana 

October 4, 2017

On September 25th, the day after the publication of the Correctio filialis to Pope Francis, Greg Burke, the spokesman for the Vatican Pressroom, with condescending irony, denied the news diffused by Ansa, which had reported that access to the site of the Correctio had been blocked by the Holy See: “Do you really think we would do this for a letter with 60 names?” The director of the Pressroom, who judges initiatives on the basis of the number of “followers” , might be interested to know that www.correctiofilialis.org, eight days after being put online, had more than 180 thousand individual visitors and 330 thousand page visits. 

Joseph Ratzinger: "Criticism of papal pronouncements will be possible and even necessary, to the extent that they lack support in Scripture and the Creed"

In 1969, the future Pope Benedict XVI, then Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, wrote that criticizing papal statements was not only possible, but even necessary, to the extent that the pope might deviate from the Deposit of Faith and the Apostolic Tradition. Pope Benedict XVI included these remarks in his 2009 anthology of his writings, Fede, ragione, verità e amore. These remarks, which we now publish below in English translation, are particularly relevant in light of the filial correction of Pope Francis last week:

Correctio Filialis: A response to some critics

The Filial Correction published last Sunday has attracted more support than I, as a signatory, had dared to hope. Additional signatures from pastors and academics have been submitted by the score; a petition in support has been signed by more than 10,000 people and counting; and it has been reported widely in the secular as well as the Catholic press. 

There has been very little in the way of substantive response to the Correction from those who support what it criticises. Here I — in a personal capacity — want to look succinctly at three of the more serious attempts to get to grips with it. This is made easier by the fact that they all make essentially the same, erroneous criticism 

First, Stephen Walford writes, characteristically:

It is difficult to know where to start on this one: the hypocrisy or the risible accusations of heresy against the Holy Father. I’ll go with hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is the state of those whose beliefs do not correspond with their words, particularly when they wish others to uphold standards in which they do not believe. Does Walford seriously imagine that the signatories are insincere? What on earth is their motivation, Mr Walford, if they don’t think their claims are even true? It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Walford does not actually believe that the signatories are hypocrites; he just likes the sound of the word.  The accusation, in fact, is quite literally hypocritical, as he insincerely accuses others of making insincere accusations. 

RORATE Note: Vade retro me, satana! - Modernism makes all things repugnant

The new guardian of Catholic "orthodoxy", the semper-heretical "National Catholic Reporter", calls us out for "hypocrisy" for our support for the "Filial Correction".

The charge is related to our post from 2012 in which, during the height of the intense persecution of Pope Benedict XVI -- persecution by the media, by many churchmen, by that self-entitled "Mafia" who wanted Joseph Ratzinger gone (and succeeded in it) and used dirty hands inside the Vatican to leak information to the media unceasingly -- we asked for unity and respect for the Pope using the words of Pope Saint Pius X during his life-or-death struggle against Modernism. "Love the Pope," Saint Pius X urged, as rebellious infiltrators did all they could to stifle the effects of  Pascendi in the Pope's efforts to "instaurare omnia in Christo."

We know that Saint Pius X succeeded only partially in expelling the vipers and snakes of Modernism from the dens in which they were crawling. The Church had a half-century of internal peace, but Pius XII already knew that the struggle was coming to an epochal apex when he did all he could to beatify and canonize Pope Sarto in rapid succession. With Vatican II, the gates opened, and the infiltrated Modernists marched on, in order to occupy all spaces that had been denied to them in the previous decades.

De Mattei: The worldwide impact and significance of the Correctio filialis

Robert de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

September 27, 2017

The “filial correction” addressed to Pope Francis by more than 60 priests and scholars of the Church, has had an extraordinary impact all over the world. There was no lack of those who tried to minimize the initiative, declaring  the number of signatories “to be limited and marginal”. Yet if the initiative is irrelevant, why have its repercussions been so widespread in all the media outlets of the five continents, including countries like Russia and China? Steve Skojec on Onepeterfive reports that research on Google News resulted in more than 5,000 news articles, while there were 100,000 visits on the site www.correctiofilialis.org in a space of 48 hours. The adhesion on this site is still open, even if only some signatures will be made visible. It is essential to acknowledge that the reason for this world-wide echo is one only: the truth can be ignored or repressed, but when it is made manifest with clarity it has its own intrinsic power and is destined to spread by itself.  The main enemy of truth is not error, but ambiguity. The cause of the diffusion of errors and heresies in the Church is not due to the strength of these errors, but the culpable silence of those who should openly defend the truth of the Gospel.

And So It Begins: "FILIAL CORRECTION OF POPE FRANCIS For the Propagation of Heresies"

Update: to add your name (the public list will be moderated, i.e. the authors are looking especially for signatories with academic qualifications etc.) please email info@correctiofilialis.org or go to Change.org to support the petition.

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RORATE Note: There will many Catholics, even traditionalists, whose first defeatist reaction will be to belittle this effort. But the wise, the learned in history, will understand that this is just the first part, the first piece of the puzzle, with next steps still to come in a long and extended process.

This first step is an initiative of a theological nature that will likely lead, God willing, to an initiative of a canonical nature from those who have the mandate to act. And so it begins:

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Documents contained below:

* (1) Filial Correction on Account of the Propagation of Heresies - Delivered to the Roman Pontiff Pope Francis at his Residence in Domus Sanctae Marthae, at the Vatican, on August 11th, 2017

* (2) Summary explaining content of the Filial Correction

* (3) Press Release and Historical Precedent (Pope John XXII, A.D. 1333)

* (4) List of first signatories

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(1)

Correctio filialis de haeresibus propagatis

July 16^th, 2017

Feast of our Lady of Mt Carmel

Most Holy Father,

With profound grief, but moved by fidelity to our Lord Jesus Christ, by love for the Church and for the papacy, and by filial devotion toward yourself, we are compelled to address a correction to Your Holiness on account of the propagation of heresies effected by the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia and by other words, deeds and omissions of Your Holiness.

We are permitted to issue this correction by natural law, by the law of Christ, and by the law of the Church, which three things Your Holiness has been appointed by divine providence to guard. By natural law: for as subjects have by nature a duty to obey their superiors in all lawful things, so they have a right to be governed according to law, and therefore to insist, where need be, that their superiors so govern. By the law of Christ: for His Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to rebuke Peter in public when the latter did not act according to the truth of the gospel (Gal. 2). St Thomas Aquinas notes that this public rebuke from a subject to a superior was licit on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning the faith (Summa Theologiae 2a 2ae, 33, 4 ad 2), and ‘the gloss of St Augustine’ adds that on this occasion, “Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects” (ibid.). The law of the Church also constrains us, since it states that “Christ’s faithful . . . have the right, indeed at times the duty, in keeping with their knowledge, competence, and position, to manifest to the sacred pastors their views on matters which concern the good of the Church” (Code of Canon Law 212:2-3; Code of Canons of Oriental Churches 15:3).

Scandal concerning faith and morals has been given to the Church and to the world by the publication of Amoris laetitia and by other acts through which Your Holiness has sufficiently made clear the scope and purpose of this document. Heresies and other errors have in consequence spread through the Church; for while some bishops and cardinals have continued to defend the divinely revealed truths about marriage, the moral law, and the reception of the sacraments, others have denied these truths, and have received from Your Holiness not rebuke but favour. Those cardinals, by contrast, who have submitted dubia to Your Holiness, in order that by this time-honoured method the truth of the gospel might be easily affirmed, have received no answer but silence.

Most Holy Father, the Petrine ministry has not been entrusted to you that you might impose strange doctrines on the faithful, but so that you may, as a faithful steward, guard the deposit against the day of the Lord’s return (Lk. 12; 1 Tim. 6:20). We adhere wholeheartedly to the doctrine of papal infallibility as defined by the First Vatican Council, and therefore we adhere to the explanation which that same council gave of this charism, which includes this declaration: “The Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles” (Pastor aeternus, cap. 4). For this reason, Your Predecessor, Blessed Pius IX, praised the collective declaration of the German bishops, who noted that “the opinion according to which the pope is ‘an absolute sovereign because of his infallibility’ is based on a completely false understanding of the dogma of papal infallibility.”