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).

Announcing the Publication of Defending the Faith Against Present Heresies

Paperback on the left, hardcover with dustjacket on the right

Arouca Press, rapidly establishing itself as the most interesting and valuable Catholic publisher in Canada, is much to be commended for its latest release, a 450-page volume entitled Defending the Faith Against Present Heresies: Letters and Statements Addressed to Pope Francis, the Cardinals, and the Bishops, with a Collection of Related Articles and Interviews.

Guest Op-Ed: 500th anniversary of the excommunication of arch-heretic, Martin Luther

By Mark Thomas

This Sunday, January 3, 2021, is the 500^th anniversary of the excommunication of Martin Luther as a heretic and schismatic – the greatest damage ever done to the Holy Catholic Church. He died unrepentant, without the sacraments and outside the One True Church.

Yes, Pope Leo X, who issued the excommunication decree and the previous Exsurge Domine warning (6/15/1520) to Luther, had a mixed record of papal righteousness – but in this event he is nearly unsurpassed and fairly vindicated. 

In this writer's view, these documents are two of the most formidable, necessary and courageous decrees emanating from the Chair of Peter, defending the Holy Roman Catholic Church from doctrinal attack. They were subsequently, fully upheld by the Council of Trent – also one of the greatest Councils in Church history – to which we owe very much, especially on the Eucharist!

We still face great danger. With Luther, there was no warning, just 95 absurd theses appearing out of thin air. 

Here today, we had a warning in 1917 at Fatima. “Russia will spread her errors throughout the world,” did Our Lady alert the three children and us Catholics. 

We feel these effects today – a far more serious warning than Luther. In full deference to Our Lady and the Most Holy Trinity – it is extremely doubtful (despite assertions to the contrary) that the full, correct Consecration to Russia was done; or that the decisive 3^rd Secret text was totally revealed. 

De Mattei: The ‘Mestizo’ Theology of Pope Francis

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

December 18, 2019

One of the oft repeated words in Pope Francis' vocabulary is “mestizo”. Francis gives a political, cultural and even a theological interpretation to this term,  not only an ethnic meaning,  He did this on December 12, when affirming  Our Lady “wanted to be  “”mestizo’. She became mestizo for us, not only for Juan Diego. She became  mestizo to show that she is everyone’s mother. She became mestizo with all of humanity. Why?  Because God became “mestizo”. And this is the great mystery: Mary, Mother “mestizo” God, true God and true Man, in His Son” (’Osservatore Romano, 13 December 2019.

Whether Pope Francis is aware of it or not, the origin of  this “mestizo” vision  regarding the Mystery of the Incarnation is in the heresy of Eutyches (378-454,  Archimandrite, of a monastery in Constantinople,); according to Eutyches,  after the hypostatic union, the humanity and Divinity of Christ, was fused to form a tertium quid, a hybrid coalescence that would actually be neither God nor man. ‘Eutycheanism’ is a rough form of Monophysitism because it admits in the Son of God Incarnate, one single nature, resulting from this confused union of divinity with humanity.

Following Eusebius of Dorylaeum’s denunciation (he had also accused Nestorius twenty years before that), Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople, in 448 A.D. summoned a synod in which Eutchyes was condemned as a heretic and excommunicated. Eutchyes, however, with the support of Dioscoros, the Patriarch of Alessandria, succeeded in having another synod called in Ephesus, at which he was rehabilitated, while Flavian, Eusebius and other bishops were attacked and subsequently deposed.  The Pope at that time was Leo The Great, who rejected the Synod of Ephesus, calling it Latrocinium Ephesinum; in fact, it was called the  Robber Council of Ephesus and went down in history with that name.

The significance of Cardinal Brandmüller's latest condemnation of the Amazon Synod: "A situation never before seen in the Church's history"

By now (6th September 2019), many media outlets (among them Catholic Herald and Catholic News Agency) have reported on the latest broadside against the upcoming Amazon Synod (and its Instrumentum Laboris) by Cardinals Raymond Burke and Walter 

This is not the first time that either Cardinal has denounced this horrid document. What is new is Brandmüller's declaration that the current crisis surpasses even the Arian Crisis in severity: 

"'We must face serious challenges to the integrity of the Deposit of the Faith, the sacramental and hierarchical structure of the Church and its Apostolic Tradition. With all this has been created a situation never before seen in the Church’s history, not even during the Arian crisis of the fourth and fifth century,' Brandmüller added.

Recent Profane Novelties: A Dialogue on the Death Penalty

The papal apologists who have been so vocal in recent weeks about "how dare you criticize the pope and accuse him of heresy" have fallen eerily silent in the face of his explanation of "development of doctrine" when speaking last Friday, May 10, to the International Union of Superiors General of Women Religious:

The Church is not only Denzinger, that is, the collection of dogmatic passages, of historical things. This is true, but the Church develops on her journey in fidelity to Revelation. We cannot change Revelation. It’s true the Revelation develops. The word is “development” — it develops with time. And we with time understand the faith better and better. The way to understand the faith today, after Vatican II, is different than the way of understanding the faith before Vatican II. Why? Because there is a development of knowledge. You are right. And this isn’t something new, because the very nature — the very nature — of Revelation is in continual movement to clarify itself.

Also the very nature of the moral conscience. For example, today I said clearly that the death penalty is not acceptable — it’s immoral. But, fifty years ago, no. Did the Church change? No. Moral conscience has developed. A development. And the Fathers [of the Church] understood this. In the 800s [actually 400s] there was a French Father, Vincent of Lerins, who coined a nice expression. He says that the knowledge of faith — I’ll say it in Latin, and then I’ll translate it — ut annis consolidetur, dilaetur tempore, sublimeture aetate. That is, it grows with the years. It is continually growing. It doesn’t change, it grows. It expands with time. It is better understood. And with the years it is sublimated. 

[IMPORTANT] Guest Op-Ed - Bishop Schneider: On the question of a heretical pope

Note: We urge everyone to reprint, post and share this important Op-Ed -- published first here at Rorate Caeli -- far and wide. And we urge you to keep reading beyond the "Read more" link as His Excellency lays out a plausible case for future binding canonical norms to address a "heretical or a manifestly heterodox pope":

By Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Special to Rorate Caeli

March 20, 2019

On the question of a heretical pope

The issue of how to handle a heretical pope, in concrete terms, has not yet been treated in a manner which approaches anything like a true general consent in the entire Catholic tradition. So far, neither a pope nor an Ecumenical Council has made relevant doctrinal pronouncements nor have they issued binding canonical norms regarding the eventuality of how to handle a heretical pope during the term of his office.

There is no historical case of a pope losing the papacy during his term of office due to heresy or alleged heresy. Pope Honorius I (625 - 638) was posthumously excommunicated by three Ecumenical Councils (the Third Council of Constantinople in 681, the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, and the Fourth Council of Constantinople in 870) on the grounds that he supported the heretical doctrine of those who promoted Monotheletism, thereby helping to spread this heresy. In the letter with which Pope Saint Leo II (+ 682 - 683) confirmed the decrees of the Third Council of Constantinople, he declared the anathema on Pope Honorius (“anathematizamus Honorium”), stating that his predecessor “Honorius, instead of purifying this Apostolic Church, permitted the immaculate faith to be stained by a profane treason.” (Denzinger-Schönmetzer, n. 563)

The Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, a miscellaneous collection of formularies used in the papal chancery until the eleventh century, contains the text for the papal oath, according to which every new pope, upon taking office, had to swear that he “recognized the sixth Ecumenical Council, which smote with eternal anathema the originators of the heresy (Monotheletism), Sergius, Pyrrhus, etc., together with Honorius." (PL 105, 40-44)

In some Breviaries until the 16^th or the 18^th centuries, Pope Honorius was mentioned as a heretic in the lessons of Matins for June 28th, the feast of Saint Leo II: “In synodo Constantinopolitano condemnati sunt Sergius, Cyrus, Honorius, Pyrrhus, Paulus et Petrus, nec non et Macarius, cum discipulo suo Stephano, sed et Polychronius et Simon, qui unam voluntatem et operationem in Domnino Jesu Christo dixerunt vel praedicaverunt.” The persistence of this Breviary reading through many centuries shows that it was not considered scandalous by many generations of Catholics, that a particular pope, and in a very rare case, was found guilty of heresy or of supporting heresy. In those times, the faithful and the hierarchy of the Church could clearly distinguish between the indestructibility of the Catholic Faith divinely guaranteed to the Magisterium of the See of Peter and the infidelity and treason of a concrete pope in the exercise of his teaching office.

De Mattei: Pope Francis and the Eternal Destiny of Souls

Roberto de Mattei 

Corrispondenza Romana

April 4, 2018

 

The purpose of the Church is the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Salvation from what? Eternal damnation, which is the destiny awaiting those who die in mortal sin. For the salvation of men Our Lord offered His Redeeming Passion. Our Lady reminded us of this at Fatima: the first secret, conveyed to the three little shepherds on July 13^th 1917,  began with the terrifying vision of a sea of hell-fires. If it hadn’t been for Our Lady’s promise to take them to Heaven - writes Sister Lucy -  the visionaries would have died of shock and fright. Our Lady’s words are upsetting and severe: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart.” A year before, the Angel of Fatima had taught the three little shepherds this prayer: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls into Heaven especially those in most need of Thy mercy.”

Scalfari and the Pope: A farce that has to end

Riccardo Cascioli

La Nuova Bussola Italiana

March 30, 2018

The Pope who denies the existence of Hell. A thing of such magnitude that was then spread by newspapers throughout the world for hours and hours before the Holy See issued a denial of  Eugenio Scalfari’s words. Yet some things don’t quite add up in the Press Office’s communiqué...

What must a poor Catholic think, when connecting to Internet on Holy Thursday morning he finds that the Pope has told an old journalist friend that hell doesn’t exist and that the souls who don’t repent simply disappear? A Pope who denies two truths of the Faith: Hell and the immortality of the soul.  It cannot be, it has never happened in the history of the Church. And right at the beginning of the Paschal Triduum, when we relive the Sacrifice of Our Lord, Who came to save us from sin. Diabolical timing. If Hell doesn’t exist neither does salvation.   It matters little that it is not a magisterial text and that it’s the ‘usual’ article by the founder of the Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, who transcribed the sense of a conversation with Pope Francis at Santa Marta. The statement is of unprecedented magnitude and devastating consequences.

Op-Ed: "Adultery as a venial sin" -- and other absurdities of trying to defend the indefensible Francis Doctrine

Nathan rebukes King David for his Adultery (Eugène Siberdt)

Dr. Jeffrey Mirus on marriage and the Eucharist

by Dr. John Lamont

Dr. Jeffrey Mirus has recently published an article entitled ‘Not heretical: Pope Francis’ approval of the Argentine bishops’ policy on invalid marriages’*. The object of this article is to argue that Pope Francis has not asserted or endorsed heresy in approving of a recent document issued by some Argentinian bishops concerning the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. To justify this conclusion, Dr. Mirus makes a number of claims about moral behaviour and the discipline of the sacraments. 

These claims urgently need to be addressed.

This discussion of Mirus’s assertions will not consider the rights and wrongs of the Argentinian bishops’ document itself and the Pope’s endorsement of it. Nonetheless it should be noted that Dr. Mirus’s article is somewhat misleading on this subject, because it gives the impression that the only objectionable part of this document is the permission it gives for the divorced and remarried to receive the Eucharist. In fact the document in its paragraph 6 extends this permission to both absolution and reception of the Eucharist, and states that the divorced and remarried persons it refers to can grow in grace through these sacraments. This contents of this paragraph have been addressed by a group of Catholic scholars, who have drawn up theological censures of heretical and erroneous propositions that could be attributed to Amoris Laetitia and have asked the college of cardinals and the patriarchs of the Church to petition the Pope to condemn these propositions. These censures were sent privately, but were leaked to the media and are now publicly available. Paragraph 6 of the Argentinian bishops’ document endorses the propositions condemned in censures 6, 7, 11, 15, and 16 of the document sent to the cardinals, which are accessible here. The bishops’ statement thus has a broader scope than the issues addressed by Dr. Mirus, a scope whose extent can be grasped by considering their statement and the censures referred to above.

The heretic Pope

Honorius I: the controversial case of a heretic Pope

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

December 30, 2015

The case of Pope Honorius is one of the most controversial in the history of the Church. As the Church historian, Emile Amann, rightly notes in the large entry he dedicates to the Question d’Onorius in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (vol. VII, coll. 96-132), the problem needs to be treated in an unbiased manner and with the serene impartiality which history owes to past events (col.96).

At the center of the pontificate of Pope Honorius who reigned from 625-638, was the question of Monothelitism, the last of the great Christological heresies.  In order to please the Byzantine Emperor, Heraclius, desirous of guaranteeing religious peace inside his kingdom, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Sergius, sought to find a compromise between Catholic orthodoxy, according to which in Jesus Christ there are two natures in one person, and the Monophysite heresy, which attributed to Christ one person only and one nature only. The result of the compromise was a new heresy, Monothelitism, according to which, the double nature of Christ was moved in His action of one operation only and one will only. This is semi-Monophysitism, but truth is integral or it is not, and a moderate heresy, is always heresy. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, was among those who intervened with the greatest vigor in denouncing the new doctrine which rendered the humanity of Christ futile and led to Monophysitism , condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451).  

The Denial of the Law of God and His Rights

In his great encyclical letter Libertas Praestantissimum, Pope Leo XIII explains that it is not man’s place to dictate to God what man owes Him, but rather humbly and obediently to receive from God the law that must be followed if we are to please Him and attain the happiness for which He created us:

If the human mind be so presumptuous as to define the nature and extent of God’s rights and its own duties, reverence for the divine law will be apparent rather than real, and arbitrary judgment will prevail over the authority and providence of God. Man must, therefore, take his standard of a loyal and religious life from the eternal law; and from all and every one of those laws which God, in His infinite wisdom and power, has been pleased to enact, and to make known to us by such clear and unmistakable signs as to leave no room for doubt. And the more so because laws of this kind have the same origin, the same author, as the eternal law, are absolutely in accordance with right reason, and perfect the natural law. These laws it is that embody the government of God, who graciously guides and directs the intellect and the will of man lest these fall into error. (Libertas 17)

We see in these luminous words the confidence of a pope and of a church convinced of the reality and primacy of God, the existence of absolute truth, the ability of reason and faith to know that truth—and the ability of even fallen men to live according to that truth with the help of God’s grace (as Pope Leo develops at greater length elsewhere in the same encyclical, and as John Paul II was to do so masterfully in Veritatis Splendor).

A POPE WHO FELL INTO HERESY, A CHURCH THAT RESISTED: John XXII and the Beatific Vision - by Roberto de Mattei

A Pope who fell into heresy:

John XXII and the Beatific Vision of the Just after Death

Roberto de Mattei

           Corrispondenza Romana

January 28, 2015

[Hieronymus Bosch, The Ascent of the Blessed, Palazzo Ducale (Venice)]

    Among the most beautiful and mysterious truths of our faith is the dogma of the Beatific Vision of the souls in Heaven. The Beatific Vision consists in the immediate and intuitive  contemplation of God reserved for souls who have passed to the after-life in a state of Grace and have been completely purified of every imperfection. This truth of faith, enunciated in Holy Scripture and confirmed over the centuries by Tradition, is an unreformable dogma of the  Catholic Church. The new Catechism restates it in n.1023:”Those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live forever with Christ. They are like God forever for “they see Him as He is” (1 John 3,2), “face to face” (1Corinthians 13,12).

     At the beginning of the XIV century, a Pope, John XXII, contested this thesis in his ordinary magisterium and fell into heterodoxy. The most fervent Catholics of that time corrected him publically.  John XXII – Cardinal Schuster wrote –“has the gravest responsibilities before the tribunal of history (…) since “he offered the entire Church, the humiliating spectacle of the princes, clergy and universities steering the Pontiff onto the right path of Catholic theological tradition, and placing him in the very difficult situation of having to contradict himself.” (Alfredo Idelfonso Schuster o.s.b. Jesus Christ in Ecclesiastical History, Benedictine Publishing House, Rome 1996, pp. 116-117).