Bishop Athanasius Schneider: The Validity of the Pontificate of Pope Francis

Bishop Athanasius Schneider is a calm voice in a time of trouble. I pray that he will keep his rock-hard devotion to the truth while maintaining and promoting peace of heart. He has lived through enough turmoil himself (having been born in the Gulag, where his parents were confined) to have perspective as well as a firm understanding of where the evils of man can take us.

His commentary on the validity of the current pontificate (and how to assess it) is well worth reading -- a good follow-up to my previous post. It's hard to read on the site, so I will reproduce it here. (If you read it there on your phone, you can select “show reader view” to put the text in regular black and white text.)

Do read it all. 

Bishop Schneider is saying that no person or group can depose the pope -- at least, history and tradition do not support that idea. Even if some theologians might come to a different conclusion, due to the uniquely bad circumstances of this pontificate, that would take a tremendous amount of time -- time we ordinary people still have to live through and keep our faith.

One point that might be brought out, in relation to that scenario: there is one other way out of our troubles: for the laity, through prayer and insistence on the truth, to convince the bishops that they must confront Pope Francis with his wrongs and urge him to repent and amend. Such a thing did happen in another time, in the Arian heresy; and there has been a pope who repented, as St. Robert Bellarmine says happened with John XXII. I believe that it is the duty of the laity to speak out loudly enough for the bishops to hear.

You might ask: Is Bishop Schneider saying to give up hope? No. We must keep our hope. We must remember that the Church is the body of Christ and as such, will endure, will recapitulate, all His sufferings, including interior abandonment and desolation. 

Is he trivializing this matter? Again, no. Just as Our Lord did not trivialize his Passion, even though as God He could have, as the bad thief said, just shown His power, we must endure the bitterness to the end, if that is what He wants us to do. Bishop Schneider says, "The surer Catholic tradition says, that in the case of a heretical pope, the members of the Church can avoid him, resist him, refuse to obey him, all of which can be done without requiring a theory or opinion, that says that a heretical pope automatically loses his office or can be deposed consequently."

Let's support each other, tell the truth, and be of good cheer! What choice do we have?

Bishop Schneider: About the Validity of the Pontificate of Pope Francis

There is no authority to declare or consider an elected and generally accepted Pope as an invalid Pope. The constant practice of the Church makes it evident that even in the case of an invalid election this invalid election will be de facto healed through the general acceptance of the new elected by the overwhelming majority of the cardinals and bishops.

Even in the case of a heretical pope he will not lose his office automatically and there is no body within the Church to declare him deposed because of heresy. Such actions would come close to a kind of a heresy of conciliarism or episcopalism. The heresy of conciliarism or episcopalism says basically that there is a body within the Church (Ecumenical Council, Synod, College of Cardinals, College of Bishops), which can issue a legally binding judgment over the Pope.

The theory of the automatic loss of the papacy due to heresy remains only an opinion, and even St. Robert Bellarmine noticed this and did not present it as a teaching of the Magisterium itself. The perennial papal Magisterium never taught such an option. In 1917, when the Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici) came into force, the Magisterium of the Church eliminated from the new legislation the remark of the Decretum Gratiani in the old Corpus Iuris Canonici, which stated, that a Pope, who deviates from right doctrine, can be deposed. Never in history the Magisterium of the Church did admit any canonical procedures of deposition of a heretical pope. The Church has no power over the pope formally or judicially. The surer Catholic tradition says, that in the case of a heretical pope, the members of the Church can avoid him, resist him, refuse to obey him, all of which can be done without requiring a theory or opinion, that says that a heretical pope automatically loses his office or can be deposed consequently.

Therefore being it so, we must follow the surer way (via tutior) and abstain from defending the merely opinion of theologians (even be they saints like St. Robert Bellarmine), which says that a heretical pope automatically loses his office or can be deposed by the Church therefore.

The pope cannot commit heresy when he speaks ex cathedra, this is a dogma of faith. In his teaching outside of ex cathedra statements, however, he can commit doctrinal ambiguities, errors and even heresies. And since the pope is not identical with the entire Church, the Church is stronger than a singular erring or heretical Pope. In such a case one should respectfully correct him (avoiding purely human anger and disrespectful language), resist him as one would resist a bad father of family. Yet, the members of a family cannot declare their evil father deposed from the fatherhood. They can correct him, refuse to obey him, separate themselves from him, but they cannot declare him deposed.

Good Catholics know the truth and must proclaim it, offer reparation for the errors of an erring Pope. Since the case of a heretical pope is humanly irresolvable, we must implore with supernatural faith a Divine intervention, because that singular erring Pope is not eternal, but temporal, and the Church is not in our hands, but in the almighty hands of God.

We must have enough supernatural faith, trust, humility, spirit of the Cross in order to endure such an extraordinary trial. In such relatively short situations (in comparison to 2000 years) we must not yield to a too human reaction and to an easy solution (declaring the invalidity of his pontificate), but must keep sobriety (keep a cool head) and at the same time a true supernatural view and trust in Divine intervention and in the indestructibility of the Church.

+ Athanasius Schneider

Querida Amazonia: Enabling Ecclesial Change

I am collecting here my comments on Querida Amazonia and its aftermath and implications. Originally I posted these things on Facebook, but I need to have them in one place for future reference.

The time leading up to Humanae Vitae was traumatic, and like all serious trauma, the effects are long-lasting and reappear at odd times. We now approach papal documents to see whether they meet the lowest bar of not going against Church teaching. Amoris Laetitia only reinforced the syndrome (and some still have not confronted the fact that it does not uphold Church teaching). 

Thus, people anticipated Querida Amazonia (and feared what it might say) the way a beaten child reacts to a sudden noise. The fact that the apostolic exhortation did not explicitly call for the ordination of women came as a huge relief to many, though they did not quite read it for what it does not say; and they didn't read it carefully at all. They simply checked the box labeled "does not call for women's ordination or even married priests in the Roman Rite" and moved on, full of gratitude for a fight avoided.

Finding the document free of radical change gave rise to a lot of scolding of the fearful, which was not only an uncharitable and unjust reaction -- it was wrong. Where the approach to Querida Amazonia was binary -- "celibacy vs. married priests" -- that reader was not paying attention and was perhaps focused on scoring points, instead of defending the splendor of what has been handed down by nature and revelation. 

In a mild article in the Catholic Herald entitled Is this Pope Francis’s ‘Paul VI moment’? C.C. Pecknold optimistically wrote, 

"After months of agitation around the Amazonian Synod, the Holy Father’s post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Querida Amazonia was received with relief by many. 

Pope Francis simply ignored the radical reforms demanded by rich, bourgeois liberals in Germany."

He ended his piece thus: 

"By saying that Querida Amazonia is the closest thing to a Paul VI moment yet, I only mean that it is a moment in the pontificate of Francis in which you can hear a certain “click”— both in those relieved and those disappointed — the “click” of false expectations adjusting. It’s a moment to trust that the Holy Spirit never disappoints." 

I wrote in response to this well meaning but misguided opinion:

"If this is Pope Francis' Paul VI moment, then those of us who cleave to the teachings of the Church should pray all the harder and be all the more wary." 

The reality is that Humanae Vitae contains within it the seeds of its own denial in Church practice, and coupled with the instantaneous subversion of its core restatement of Catholic teaching by whole bishops' conferences, this weakness prevented it from being the panacea we hoped for*. 

Yes, HV held the line in terms of doctrine. But let's face facts: 50 years on, the vast majority of Catholics practice contraception with their pastors' blessing (if they even seek it) -- that fix was in early on, thanks to Cardinal Suenens.

Humanae Vitae has nothing approaching the *positive* teaching and vision of Casti Connubii on the deep meaning of the sacrament of marriage for all mankind. Its tone is regretful and apologetic (and in this way, Querida Amazonia differs, in having a "joyful" tone). It established a fatal legalism that we have yet to confront.

*panacea afterwards, when the relief that it wasn't a betrayal subsided, and we tried to make the best of it. Now it has reached the status of holy writ; I suggest re-reading it in a less ultramontanist light.

The truth is that we have a right to expect more from a papal document than not outright promoting a false teaching.

Pope Francis confirms the use of the 1962 liturgical books

In Scripture we are told to send the serpent after the dove (Mt 10:16). It's not carping or having bad spirit to maintain a sense of reality regarding the words and actions of Pope Francis, and to refrain from acting as if no destructive behavior has ever been displayed before. 

So I agree with Peter Kwasniewski and do not fault him for "seeing the bad side" when on Facebook he wrote the following:

The news that Pope Francis has confirmed the charism of the FSSP affords temporary relief from our woes. We have been assured that their pastoral ministry will continue as before, and that they will continue to enjoy the use of the old Roman Pontifical. This is particularly good news for the seminarians.

Without wishing to sound like a giant wet blanket, however, we need to bear in mind several points.

1. Pope Francis's message could be rephrased: "I hereby condescend to grant you, as a privilege, and by my benign authority, that which you already possess by virtue of particular law and immemorial custom." In other words, he speaks as if the continuing use of the traditional Roman Rite is simply a matter of legal positivism. That is precisely the error we have been fighting all along (and the error that was set to rest by Benedict XVI). Those who live by papal privilege may die by it, too.

2. As Eric Sammons tweeted this morning: "We can (and should) be thankful that the Pope has confirmed the charism of the FSSP while still understanding that his long-term desire is to eliminate the traditional liturgy." 'Traditionis Custodes' itself manifestly seeks to confine traditionalists to ghettos and to dry up the use of the traditional liturgy outside those ghettos; so it makes sense that Ecclesia Dei communities would be strengthened, while the message is transmitted to bishops everywhere that they'd better tighten the screws on the poor diocesan clergy and the faithful who have supported their "turn to tradition." (And not to look like I'm nitpicking but can we be clear about this, please? Adherence to tradition is not a "charism"; it is part of the definition of being a Catholic.)

3. If there is one thing we have learned over the past decade, it is that we are dealing with Machiavellians. There is a steep price to pay for papal favors in the current regime. The pope is strategic enough to wish to "buy" the relative silence of the SSPX and the FSSP (and many others) by granting concessions or aids. 

All that said, we should also be realistic: the restoration of tradition (in liturgy, in doctrine, in life) will be a long, long struggle, and time is in fact on our side, since mainstream Catholicism is on a suicidal course. So any time we can obtain a bit more land or a bit more time, we should rejoice about that, even if the immediate circumstances are dodgy. In short: we make the best of whatever situation we've got, taking the long view of things.

What kept so many of us in the Novus Ordo fold back in the day was the prospect of the "mutual enrichment" that would, we hoped, result in reform of the disastrous Mass of Paul VI and restoration of tradition to the Roman Rite. Let's soberly admit that Traditionis Custodes and its aftermath, including this letter to the FSSP, leaves those hopes in the dead past. In particular, while this "confirmation" certainly offers welcome relief to the FSSP (and by extension, one assumes, the other TLM institutes), it confines them and prevents them from being the fertile ground in which the seed corn would flourish in the wider fields of diocesan parish life. 

Instead, if things go on as they are now, they will be more like "the remote hothouses where the rare plants are kept apart." 

I'm not alone, I'm sure, in hearing rumors that young men in (diocesan) seminary are interested in the traditional form -- that some seminaries have altars at which to practice the TLM, chant classes, and other evidence of a return to ancient form -- or at least a desire for it. 

I am sure the Pope has heard this as well. And I am sure he does not like it.