>>17402879
He did this because he felt he could no longer properly function as Pope on account of pervasive opposition from within the Church itself. He was essentially impeded from governing in accordance with his charge in the manner he saw fit. (Canon 412 delineates the criteria of an impeded See).
By stepping aside the way he did, he judged his unworthy, subversive adversaries would likely jump at the chance to seize power; their nefarious ways would eventually be exposed, thereby hastening a much-needed purification of the Church.
Talk about intrigue! I can appreciate how anyone considering this possibility for the first time might be incredulous. But this is not a movie or a novel; if only the widespread, hostile infiltration of the Church – the rot even at its highest levels – were fictional.
One shudders to ponder the depravity stacked against Benedict XVI, who explicitly mentioned his “fear of the wolves” upon first assuming the Papacy. So his maneuver may have been a purposeful act of inspiration born out of desperation.
Both of the above interpretations, sincerely held by their proponents, are products of intensive investigation; both are reasonable suppositions, plausible enough at least at first hearing that they cannot simply be dismissed.
In one sense, both explanations cannot be right because they offer conflicting analyses of Benedict XVI’s motivation for doing what he did – a highly important question that awaits an answer in due time. And yet both are correct in what matters most: whatever his motivation or intention, Benedict XVI did not renounce the Papacy in accordance with Canon Law, and therefore Bergoglio is an anti-Pope and everything he has done carries no weight whatsoever because he has never held the Papal munus.
The implications are massive going forward – and not just for Catholics. If the situation is not rectified, the next conclave (regardless of who dies first) would be invalidly constituted, so we’d have another anti-Pope, succeeded by yet additional anti-Popes – who, like Bergoglio, would not likely supply much forceful, indispensable moral and spiritual resistance to the various inhumane agendas menacing our horizon.
Though initially a bit reluctant to look into this matter, I found myself at peace with my conclusion. Sure, it is a distressing, grave situation. But it also provided an interpretive key to so many other things unfolding all around us – primarily the lockdowns. The unprecedented closure of churches. The “Pope” canceled Easter! A pope never does that.
I just so happened to reach my conclusion about Bergoglio around the end of 2019 – a few short months before the corona operation kicked off in March 2020 for those two weeks going on two and a half years now.
The realization that something was radically off within the Church itself, while obviously troubling, aided me, in a way I can’t adequately describe, when churches closed. It also helped me perceive and brace for the torrent of lies, corruption and oppression that propelled and perpetuated the harms ushered in by a manufactured “pandemic”.
History provides a further measure of peace: two contemporary saints, both Dominicans, had opposing views about who was the legitimate Pope over 600 years ago. It turns out that St. Catherine of Siena was right all along, and for decades the great St. Vincent Ferrer was aligned with an anti-pope. He did not know this, of course. He had been deceived – by a Cardinal who also went on to become an anti-Pope for a time. But once he realized the truth, he promptly shifted his loyalty. This provides proof – and hope today – that people of faith and good will can live holy, productive lives even if they happen to be holding differing views.
There hasn’t been an anti-Pope in centuries, so it’s not as if this matter is on most people’s radar. People are in so many in different places spiritually and intellectually, with different dispositions, dealing with the pressures of daily life. A bit of time is needed to absorb all this.
Yet it is right and just for Catholics to grapple with the evidence that Bergolio is an anti-Pope. The facts and the arguments are out there, and the case is rather airtight – foolproof, in my humble estimation. This is not an arbitrary or agenda-driven personal judgment but the outcome of a sincere reading and dutiful application of the pertinent Canon law, which alone dictates the verdict.
Matthew Hanley is the author of Determining Death by Neurological Criteria: Current Practice and Ethics.
5 of 5