The following is an essay written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò published November 30, 2024.
THE ‘DISASSEMBLED’ PAPACY
Emeritus. munus, ministerium
The
never-ending saga of the Resignation of Benedict XVI continues to fuel
an increasingly bold and surreal narrative of the events we have
witnessed in the last decade. Inconsistent theories not supported by any
evidence have taken hold of many of the faithful and even some priests,
increasing confusion and disorientation. But if this has been possible,
it is also largely due to those who, knowing the truth, nonetheless are
afraid to speak about it because of the consequences that the truth,
once revealed, could have. In fact, there are those who believe it is
preferable to shore up a castle of lies and deceit, rather than having
to face questions about a past of connivance, silence, and complicity.
The exchange of letters
During a meeting at the Renaissance Mediterraneo Hotel in Naples with Catholics from the local Cœtus Fidelium
held this past November 22 [2024], Msgr. Nicola Bux mentioned an
exchange of letters with “Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,” dating back to
the summer of 2014, which supposedly constitute the definitive denial of
the various theories that are out there about the invalidity of
Benedict’s Renunciation. The content of these letters – the first,
written by Msgr. Bux on July 19, 2014 (three pages), and the second, by
Benedict XVI, on August 21, 2014 (two pages) – was not released ten
years ago, as would have been more than desirable. Instead, only today
has their existence been barely mentioned. It so happens that I am aware
of both this exchange of letters as well as their content.
Why did Msgr. Bux decide not to promptly
disclose Benedict XVI’s response when Benedict was still alive and able
to confirm and corroborate it, and instead to reveal only its existence,
without disclosing its content, almost two years after his death? Why
would he hide this authoritative and very important declaration from the
Church and the world?
The permanent revolution
To answer these legitimate questions, we
must put aside the fiction given us by the media. We must first
understand that the antithetical vision of a “santo subito” [immediate saint]
Ratzinger and an “ugly and bad” Bergoglio is convenient for many. This
simplistic, artificial, and false approach avoids addressing the heart
of the problem, that is, the perfect coherence of action of the
“conciliar popes” from John XXIII and Paul VI to the self-styled
Francis, including John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The goals are the
same, even if pursued with different methods and language. The image of
an elderly, elegant, and refined theologian, in a Roman chasuble and red
shoes , who granted citizenship to the Tridentine Rite, contrasted with
an intemperate globalist heresiarch who does not celebrate Mass and has
nullified Summorum Pontificum, while promulgating the Mayan liturgy with thurifying females, is part of that operation of forced polarization
that we have also seen adopted in the civil sphere, where a similar
subversive project has been carried out by favoring ultra-progressive
forces on the one hand and keeping the voices of dissent quiet on the
other.
In reality, Ratzinger and Bergoglio – and this is precisely what conservatives do not want to recognize – constitute two moments of a revolutionary process that contemplates alternating phases that are only apparently opposed to one another, following the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
A process that did not begin with Ratzinger and will not end with
Bergoglio, but rather that goes back to Roncalli and seems destined to
continue as long as the deep church continues to replace the Catholic Hierarchy by usurping its authority.
In the Ratzingerian vision, the thesis of the Vetus Ordo and the antithesis of the Novus Ordoare combined in the synthesis of Summorum Pontificum, thanks to the subterfuge of “a single rite in two forms.”
But this “peaceful coexistence” is the product of German idealism; and
it is false because it is based on the denial of the incompatibility
between two ways of conceiving the Church, one corresponding to two
thousand years of Catholicism, the other imposed by the Second Vatican
Council thanks to the work of heretics who until then had been condemned
by the Roman Pontiffs.
The ‘redefinition’ of the papacy
We find the same modus operandi in
the intention expressed first by Paul VI, then by John Paul II, and
finally by Benedict XVI to “redefine” the Papacy in a collegial and
ecumenical way, ad mentem Concilii, where the divine institution of the Church and the Papacy (thesis) and the heretical demands of the neo-modernists and the non-Catholic sects (antithesis) are combined in the synthesis of a redefinition of the Papacy in an ecumenical way, proposed by the encyclical Ut Unum Sint promulgated by John Paul II in 1995 and more recently formulated in the Study Document of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity issued this past June 13 [2024]: The Bishop of Rome. Primacy and Synodality in Ecumenical Dialogues and in the Responses to the Encyclical ‘Ut Unum Sint’.
It will not be surprising to learn – as Cardinal Walter Brandmüller
confided to me in January 2020 in response to a specific question of
mine – that Professor Joseph Ratzinger was developing the theory of the
Pope Emeritus and a collegial [shared] Papacy with his colleague Karl
Rahner in the 1970s when they were both “young theologians.”
During a
telephone conversation I had in 2020, a very trusted assistant of
Benedict XVI confirmed to me Pope Benedict’s intention – which he
reiterated several times to her – to retire to private life in his
Bavarian residence, without maintaining either his apostolic name or his
papal vestments. But this eventuality was considered inopportune for
those who would lose their power in the Vatican, especially those conservatives who had Benedict XVI as their point of reference and had mythologized his figure.
We do not know for sure whether the
solution theorized with Rahner by the young Ratzinger was still
contemplated by the elderly Pontiff, nor whether the Papacy Emeritus was
“resurrected” by those who wanted to keep Benedict in the Vatican, also
by making use of external pressure on the Holy See that had
materialized with the suspension of the Vatican from the SWIFT system,
which, significantly, was restored immediately after the announcement of
the Resignation. In fact, the Resignation has created immense confusion
in the ecclesial body and has handed over the See of Peter to its
destroyer, which in any case is something Joseph Ratzinger has been a
part of.
Benedict thus resorted to the invention
of the “Papacy Emeritus,” trying, in violation of canonical practice, to
keep alive the image of the “fine theologian” and the defensor Traditionis
that his entourage had constructed. Moreover, an analysis of the events
that concern the epilogue of his Pontificate is extremely complex, both
because of the peculiarities of Ratzinger’s intellect and character,
and because of the opaqueness of the action both of his collaborators
and of the Curia, and finally because of the absolute ἅπαξ of his
Renunciation, as carried out by Benedict XVI, a completely new modality
never seen before in the history of the Papacy.
On the other hand, this parenthesis of
mozzettas and camauros was supposed to have been eclipsed with the
handover to the already-selected Archbishop of Buenos Aires, who was
nominated by the Saint Gallen Mafia to take Benedict’s place ever since
the Conclave of 2005. The role of Benedict XVI as Emeritus had the
function of supporting a sort of conservative Papacy (munus) that would keep watch over the progressive Papacy of Bergoglio (ministerium),
so as to keep together the moderately conservative Ratzingerian
component and the violently progressive Bergoglian component, thereby
favoring the public perception of a supposed continuity between the
“pope emeritus” and the “reigning pope.”
In essence, a way was found to keep
Benedict in the Vatican, so that his presence within the Leonine Walls
would appear as a form of approval of Bergoglio and the aberrations of
his “pontificate.” For his part, the Argentine saw in this canonical monstrum
– because this is what the “Papacy Emeritus” is – an instrument for the
destructuring of the Papacy in a conciliar, synodal, and ecumenical
way; which, as we know, was a desire shared by Benedict XVI himself.
The canonical ‘monstrum’ of the Pope Emeritus
It must be said that the institution of the Episcopate emeritus is also a canonical monstrum,
because with it the diocesan Bishop sees his jurisdiction “frozen” on
the basis of age (upon reaching the age of 75), contrary to the
centuries-old practice of the Church. The institution of the category of
emeritus, by making the Bishops lose their awareness of being
Successors of the Apostles, has also had as an immediate consequence a
total de-responsibility, relegating them to the role of mere officials
and bureaucrats. The institutionalization of the Episcopal Conferences
as organs of government that interfere with and hinder the exercise of
the power (potestas) of individual Bishops has certainly
constituted an attack on the divine constitution of the Catholic Church
and its Apostolicity.
The Episcopate Emeritus, introduced just after the Council in 1966 with the Motu Proprio Ecclesiæ Sanctæ and then adopted by the Code of Canon Law of 1983 (can. 402, § 1), reveals a significant consistency with Ingravescentem Ætatem
of 1970, which deprives seventy-five-year-old Cardinals of their Curia
functions and eighty-year-old Cardinals of the right to elect the Pope
in Conclave. Beyond the juridical formulation of these ecclesiastical
laws, their mens [purpose] can only be understood in a
perspective of deliberate exclusion of Bishops and senior Cardinals from
the life of the Church, aimed at favoring the “generational change” – a
real reset of the Catholic Hierarchy – with Prelates
ideologically closer to the new requests promoted by Vatican II. This
artificial purge of the most senior members of the Episcopate and of the
College of Cardinals – and therefore presumably less inclined to
innovation – has ended up distorting the internal balance of the
Hierarchy, according to a worldly and secular approach already widely
adopted in the civil sphere. And when, under the pontificate of John
Paul II, the so-called “Montini widows” – that is, the cardinals who had
reached the age limit in the 1980s – asked for the revocation of Ingravescentem ætatem so
as not to be excluded from the Conclave, it became evident that the
progressives of the 1970s were also destined in turn to fall victim to
the norm they had invoked for others: Et incidit in foveam quam fecit (Ps 7:16) [he is fallen into the hole he made].
It will not escape notice that, in a
perspective of “redefinition” of the Papacy in a synodal key, where the
Bishop of Rome is considered primus inter pares [the first among
equals], the institution of the Episcopate emeritus and the norms that
limit the exercise of the Episcopate and the Cardinalate to the
attainment of a certain age, constitute the premise for the
institutionalization of the Papacy emeritus and the jubilation of the
elderly Pope.
The false problem of munus and ministerium
From the thesis of the Papacy (I am Pope) in conflict with the antithesis of Renunciation (I am no longer Pope) there emerges a concept in continuous evolution – just as becoming is the absolute for Hegel – that is, the synthesis of the Papacy emeritus (I am still Pope but I do not act as Pope). This philosophical aspect of Joseph Ratzinger’s thought, which is principal and recurrent to him, should not be overlooked: the synthesis is in itself provisional,
in view of its mutation into a thesis which will be opposed by a new
antithesis that will give rise to a further synthesis, in turn
provisional. This incessant becoming is the ideological, philosophical, and doctrinal basis of the permanent revolution inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council on the ecclesial front and by the global Left on the political front.
We have therefore witnessed a sort of
artificial separation of the Papacy: on the one hand the Pope renounced
the Papacy and on the other the persona Papæ, Joseph Ratzinger,
tried to maintain some aspects of it that would guarantee him protection
and prestige. Since the removal from the Apostolic See could appear as a
form of disapproval of the line of governance of the Church imposed by
the Bergoglian deep church, both the Personal Secretary and the
Secretary of State put strong pressure on Ratzinger to remain
“part-time” so to speak, playing on the fictitious separation between munus and ministerium – which moreover was vigorously denied in the Emeritus’ response to Mons. Bux.
Prof. Enrico Maria Radaelli has
highlighted in his in-depth studies that this arbitrary bipartition of
the Petrine mandate between munus and ministerium renders the Renunciation invalid. Since the Petrine Primacy cannot be broken down into munus and ministerium, since it is a potestas
that Christ the King and High Priest confers on the one who has been
elected to be Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter, Ratzinger’s denial
(in the cited letter) stating that he did not want to separate munus and ministerium
is in contradiction with Benedict’s own admission that he has based the
Papacy emeritus on the model of the Episcopate emeritus, which is
precisely based on this artificial and impossible split between being and doing the Pope, between being and doing the Bishop. The absurdum of this division is evident: if it were possible to possess the munus without exercising the ministerium, it would also be possible to exercise the ministerium without possessing the munus,
that is, to carry out the functions of Pope without being one: which is
an aberration such as to radically invalidate the consent to the
assumption of the Papacy itself. And in a certain sense we saw this
surreal dichotomy between munus and ministerium realized, when the Emeritus was Pope but did not exercise the Papacy, while Bergoglio acted as Pope without being Pope.
The desacralization of the papacy
On the other hand, the process of desacralization of
the Papacy that began with Paul VI (think of the scenic deposition of
the tiara) continued without interruption even under the pontificate of
Benedict XVI (who also removed the tiara from the papal coat of arms).
This is to be attributed principally to the new heretical ecclesiology
of Vatican II, which made its own the demands of secularized and
“democratic” society by welcoming into the bosom of the Church concepts
such as collegiality and synodality that are ontologically alien to her,
thus distorting the monarchical nature of the Church willed by her
divine Founder. It certainly leaves one bewildered and immensely
saddened to see how zealously the Conciliar and Synodal Hierarchy has
promoted subversion within the Catholic Church. A sequence of reforms,
norms, and pastoral practices for over sixty years have systematically
demolished what until before Vatican II was considered intangible and
unreformable.
It should also be remembered that
Benedict XVI’s Resignation was not followed by a normal Conclave, in
which the Electors serenely chose the candidate to succeed the Throne of
Peter; but by a real coup d’état carried out ex professo by the
Saint Gallen Mafia – that is, by the subversive component that has
infiltrated the Church during the preceding decades – through the
tampering with and violation of the regular elective process and the
recourse to blackmail and pressure on the College of Cardinals. Let us
not forget that an eminent Prelate confided to acquaintances that what
he had personally witnessed in the Conclave could jeopardize the
validity of the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Also in this case,
incomprehensibly, the good of the Church and the salvation of souls have
been set aside, in the name of a pharisaical observance of the
pontifical secret, perhaps not entirely free from blackmail and threats.
There is an obvious contradiction between the goal Benedict set for himself (i.e., to renounce the Papacy) and the means he chose to do so (based on the invention of the Papacy Emeritus). This contradiction, in which Benedict subjectively resigned but objectivelyproduced a canonical monstrum,
constitutes an act so subversive as to render the Renunciation null and
void. In due time, this contradiction will have to be remedied by an
authoritative pronouncement, but the inescapable fact remains that the
form in which the Renunciation was placed does not remove the subsequent
irregularities that led Bergoglio to usurp the Throne of Peter with the
complicity of the deep church and the deep state. Nor is
it possible to think that the Renunciation should not be read in the
light of the subversive plan that aimed to oust Benedict XVI and replace
him with an emissary of the globalist élite.
The castle of lies in which lay people,
priests, and prelates cooperate, even in good faith, remains a cage in
which they have imprisoned themselves. In the media dramatization,
the actors Ratzinger and Bergoglio have been presented to us as bearers
of antithetical theologies, when in reality they represent two
successive stages of the same revolutionary process. But appearance, the
simulacrum on which mass communication is based, cannot replace
the substance of Truth to which the Catholic Church is indefectibly
bound by divine mandate.
Conclusion
To the many scandalized faithful, to the
many confused and indignant priests and religious, to the few – at least
for now – who raise their voices to denounce the coup perpetrated
against the Holy Church by Her own Ministers, I address my encouragement
to persevere in fidelity to Our Lord, the Eternal High Priest, the Head
of the Mystical Body. Resist strong in faith, the Prince of the Apostles admonishes us (1 Peter 5:9), knowing that your brothers scattered throughout the world are undergoing the same sufferings as you.
The sleep in which the Savior seems to ignore us while the Barque of
Peter is tossed by the storm, must be for us a spur to invoke His help
all the more, because only when we turn to Him, leaving aside human
respect, inconsistent theories, and political calculations, will we see
Him awaken and command the winds and the sea to calm down. Resisting in faith
calls for the struggle to remain faithful to what the Lord has taught
and commanded, precisely at the moment in which many, especially at the
top of the Hierarchy, abandon Him, deny Him and betray Him. Resisting in faith implies not fainting in the moment of trial, knowing how to draw from Him the strength to overcome it victoriously. Resisting in faith ultimately means knowing how to look straight into the face of the reality of the passio Ecclesiæ and the mysterium iniquitatis,
without trying to conceal the deception behind which the enemies of
Christ hide. This is the meaning of the words of the Savior: You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (Jn 8:32).
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
