A group of 17 scholars and activists have released a lengthy
statement calling for Pope Francis to resign or to be formally asked to
resign by the College of Cardinals.
Stating that Francis has “caused an unprecedented crisis in the
Catholic Church” by his words and actions, the 17 signatories attested
that the Pope has “done great harm to the Church and the whole world”
since assuming the papal throne in March 2013. (Full statement is below,
with a downloadable PDF here).
In
a statement released late on May 2, the signatories stated that “the
members of the hierarchy of the Church have a duty to act in order to
prevent Francis from causing further harm.” They added:
We therefore call for Pope Francis to resign the papal
office, and to repent and do penance for his actions. If he does not do
this, we request that the cardinals and bishops of the Catholic Church
ask Pope Francis to resign the office of pope.
If this eventually should not take place, then the signatories called
on the cardinals and bishops to declare that Francis has somehow lost
the papacy:
If he refuses to resign or recant the heresies that he has upheld, we ask that they declare that he has lost the papal office.
The signatories attribute the aforementioned “unprecedented crisis” to two things:
Pope Francis has committed criminal acts gravely damaging to the Church and to individual believers.
He has shown that he rejects the Catholic faith, and has worked to destroy the faith of other Catholics.
Signatories and their accusations
The seventeen signatories comprise a mixture of academics, activists in various spheres of ecclesial life, and one priest:
Rev. Linus F. Clovis, Ph. D., MSc, JCL, STB
Yves Daoudal: Editor-in-chief of Reconquête and Vice-President of the Charlier Center
Dániel Fülep: Theologian, Hungary
Maria Guarini: Editor, Chiesa e post concilio
Michael Kakooza, Ph. D.: Strategic Management, Eastern Africa
Thaddeus J. Kozinski, Ph. D.: Professor of Philosophy, Memoria College
Peter A. Kwasniewski, Ph. D.
John R.T. Lamont, DPhil
John Rist, Ph. D.: Professor of Classics and early Christian Philosophy and Theology (ret.)
Dr Cesar Felix Sánchez Martínez: Professor of Philosophy, Universidad Nacional de San Agustin, Peru
Wolfram Schrems, Mag. theol., Mag. phil.
Peter Stephan, Dr. phil. habil: Professor of Architecture Theory & Art History, University of Applied Sciences, Potsdam
Anna Silvas, Ph. D.: Specialist in Greek Fathers, UNE, Australia (ret.)
John-Henry Westen, M.A.: Founder and Editor, LifeSiteNews
Michael Wiitala, Ph. D.: Associate Lecturer in Philosophy, Cleveland State University
Elizabeth F. Yore, Esq.: Founder, Yore Children
John Zmirak, Ph. D.: Senior Editor, The Stream
The lengthy statement presents a summary of his interactions and
dealings with a number of high-profile figures in the Church, such as
Cardinals Godfried Danneels, Reinhard Marx, Theodore McCarrick, Wilton
Gregory, and Víctor Manuel Fernández. The extensive list of individuals
presented by the signatories, they state, is part of Francis’ “record of
protecting sexual abusers” which “exemplifies his character and modus
operandi.”
The signatories accuse Francis of committing “crimes other than
heresy,” attesting that the actions listed are “crimes because they
violate either canon law, the law of temporal states, the natural law,
divine positive law, or some combination of laws from these different
legal systems.”
They
also list a number of other actions carried out by Francis through his
pontificate, such as his secretive deal with China, his restriction of
the traditional Mass and approval of blessings for same-sex couples,
while further attesting that Francis “has publicly and pertinaciously
contradicted a number of central teachings of the Catholic faith.”
However, the signatories did not lay all of their blame upon Francis,
stating that he is “a product of a wider crisis in the Church.” Giving
an historical outline of the development of modernism, the signatories
wrote that “during the complex event of the Second Vatican Council,
neomodernists achieved considerable influence.”
Resign or be deposed
Having detailed their list of grievances against the Pope, the
signatories demanded that cardinals and bishops act against Francis, in
the event that he does not resign voluntarily:
It is a mistake and a sin for faithful bishops and
cardinals to do nothing, in the hope that Pope Francis will soon die and
be replaced by someone better. Pope Francis is causing unremitting harm
day by day to souls and the Church. The faithful have a right to expect
their believing shepherds to protect them from his attacks. These
shepherds have a duty before God to protect them, and failure in this
duty will bring eternal punishment upon them.
“As a first step, the bishops and cardinals of the Church should make
every effort to get Pope Francis to resign,” they wrote. While
acknowledging that a papal resignation is “is an extraordinary event
that ought not to happen,” they argued that Francis’ resignation would
be “the least evil outcome available.”
Should he not resign, the signatories argued that it is the “duty of
the bishops and cardinals is to proceed to declare that he has lost the
papal office for heresy.” In the event that there is not a large enough
body of cardinals and bishops to effect the declaration, the
signatories petitioned for the prelates to form a group to “publicly
warn the faithful of his crimes and heresies, state that his tenure of
the papal office is in doubt due to his heresy, and admonish the
faithful not to believe his statements or obey his orders unless it is
clear on independent grounds that these statements and orders should be
respected.”
Call for the Resignation of Pope Francis
May 2, 2024, the feast of St. Athanasius of Alexandria
Since 2013, the words and actions of Pope Francis have caused an
unprecedented crisis in the Catholic Church, and have done great harm to
the Church and the whole world. The members of the hierarchy of the
Church have a duty to act in order to prevent Francis from causing
further harm.
We therefore call for Pope Francis to resign the papal office, and
to repent and do penance for his actions. If he does not do this, we
request that the cardinals and bishops of the Catholic Church ask Pope
Francis to resign the office of pope.
If he refuses to resign or recant the heresies that he has upheld, we ask that they declare that he has lost the papal office.
This crisis is due to two things:
1. Pope Francis has committed criminal acts gravely damaging to the Church and to individual believers.
2. He has shown that he rejects the Catholic faith, and has worked to destroy the faith of other Catholics.
1. Crimes of Pope Francis
1.1 Crimes other than heresy
1. He has committed criminal acts that have gravely harmed individual believers and the Church.
The actions listed below are crimes because they violate either canon
law, the law of temporal states, the natural law, divine positive law,
or some combination of laws from these different legal systems. The
relations of these different legal systems are complex; for example, the
protection of sexual abusers by not reporting their crimes, or by
placing them in positions where they can be expected to continue to
abuse, is a crime in some states, but not in others. The crimes of Pope
Francis listed below all violate one or more of the following canons of
the Latin Code; canons 383 §1, 392 §1 and §2, 1311 § 2, 1326 § 1, 1378 §
1 and § 2, and 1399. These canons are all based on natural law or
divine positive law, so they are not ones from which the Pope can be
dispensed. It should be remembered that the Church has by divine right
the power to legislate for her members and to inflict juridical
punishments on them of a temporal as well as a spiritual kind, and this
legislation is no less real and has no less force than the legislation
of civil states.
1.1.A. Protection of criminal sex offenders, and protection
of religious superiors who themselves protect criminal sex offenders.
Bishops and religious superiors who protect criminal sexual abusers
are themselves criminals, so Pope Francis’s protection and promotion of
such individuals is itself a protection of criminals. It has a
particularly damaging effect, because it tells criminals of this stamp
that protecting sexual abusers not only is ‘safe’ with him, but it will
also probably lead to promotion. Pope Francis’s promotion of these
criminals has been so extensive and over so long a time-frame, both
before and after his election to the papacy, that it can only be seen as
an abiding disposition and an habitual policy. He has appointed large
numbers of these persons to the college of cardinals, thus giving them
significant influence over the election of the next pope, and has
installed them in the commanding heights of ecclesiastical power in the
Roman Curia and the American Catholic church.
The manner of Pope Francis’s protection of these criminals aggravates
his offence. He has repeatedly and brazenly lied about his actions and
slandered victims of these crimes.
In addition to the specific cases recorded below, it should be added
that Pope Francis abolished the moderately effective procedures for
dealing with cases of sexual abuse of minors that had been instituted by
Pope Benedict XVI, and replaced them with ineffective regulations,
personnel, and organisations that brought to a halt the process of
effectively dealing with sexual abuse in the Church. Francis accompanied
this sabotage of justice with frequent public pronouncements about the
supreme importance of bringing sexual abuse to an end.
Pope Francis had a record of protecting sexual abusers before he
became pope, when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires (1998-2013) and
president of the Argentine bishops’ conference (2005-2011). The worst
example of this protection is noted here, as it exemplifies his
character and modus operandi.
Fr Julio Grassi
Fr Julio Grassi founded and ran Happy Children homes for street
children in Argentina. He sexually abused boys at these institutions. In
2009 he was convicted by an Argentinian court of abusing one of them.
At great expense, Archbishop Bergoglio commissioned a 2,600 page report
designed to exonerate Fr. Grassi by slandering his victims. The report
was intended to persuade the Argentinian Supreme Court judges of
Grassi’s innocence, and was condemned by the court as an attempt to
interfere with justice. When challenged about the report, Archbishop
Bergoglio lied in declaring that he had no involvement with it. Grassi
managed to avoid prison until 2013, thanks in part to Bergoglio’s
intervention. Grassi testified that he has the personal support of
Bergoglio.[1]
After his election to the papacy in 2013, Pope Francis protected
and/or promoted many sexual abusers and bishops who covered up sexual
abuse. Some outstanding examples are the following:
Cardinal Godfried Danneels
Cardinal Danneels defended the catechism textbook ‘Roeach’, which was
used in Belgium under his authority and which promoted pedophilia, and
refused to have it altered or removed. He acted to protect the pedophile
Bishop Roger Vangheluwe after it became known that Vangheluwe sexually
abused his own nephew, beginning when the nephew was five years old.
When the nephew, then an adult, asked Danneels to take some action
against Vangheluwe, Danneels refused, told the nephew to keep quiet
about the abuse, and told the nephew that he should acknowledge his own
guilt. These actions were public knowledge in 2010. Cardinal Danneels
stood at the side of Pope Francis on the balcony of St. Peter’s when the
Pope made his first public appearance after his election. Pope Francis
named him as one of his personal appointments to both the first and
second Synod on the Family. At his death in 2019, Pope Francis praised
him as a ‘zealous pastor’ who ‘served the Church with dedication’.[2]
Cardinal Jozef de Kesel
In 2014 Cardinal de Kesel, then bishop of Bruges, appointed Father
Tom Flamez as a pastor after he had been convicted of sexual abuse. He
did not remove Fr. Antoon Stragier from ministry until 2015, although
Stragier’s crimes were known to the diocese in 2004. Pope Francis chose
Bishop de Kesel as Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels in November 2015 and
named him a Cardinal in November 2016.[3]
Cardinal Reinhard Marx
Cardinal Marx admitted to having covered up many sexual abuse cases
when he was bishop of Trier, and offered his resignation to Pope Francis
in 2021, giving this coverup as the reason. Pope Francis refused his
resignation, and Marx continues as the metropolitan archbishop of Munich
and Freising.[4]
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor
In 2008 a woman told English Church authorities that O’Connor had
sexually abused her when she was between 13 and 14 years old. The woman
had previously reported being sexually abused by another English priest,
Father Michael Hill, who was subsequently convicted of this crime in a
British court. Hill had earlier been removed from ministry after
allegations of sexual abuse of minors, but Murphy-O’Connor, then Bishop
of Arundel and Brighton, had reinstated Hill to ministry by naming him
as chaplain at Gatwick Airport. Hill continued to abuse minors in this
post. In 2013 Pope Francis instructed Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller to
drop the investigation of Murphy-O’Connor for sexual abuse.[5]
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga
Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga failed to act on numerous accusations of
sexual misbehaviour with seminarians on the part of Jose Juan Pineda
Fasquelle, auxiliary bishop of Tegucigalpa, who resigned after the
accusations were made public. Maradiaga refused to investigate
complaints made by 48 out of 180 seminarians about homosexual
misbehaviour at the Honduras seminary, and attacked the complainants
instead. Pope Francis named Maradiaga as a member and coordinator of the
council of nine cardinals that he set up in 2013 to advise him in the
government of the universal church. On 15 October 2020, Pope Francis
renewed Rodriguez Maradiaga’s appointment as Coordinator of the Council
of Cardinal Advisers.[6]
Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick
Former Cardinal McCarrick had a decades-long career of grooming and
pressuring seminarians to engage in homosexual relations with him. Pope
Francis was personally informed of this behaviour in 2013, and was told
that Pope Benedict had placed restrictions upon him. McCarrick had made
frequent trips to Argentina to visit seminarians when Pope Francis was
Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Pope Francis freed McCarrick of the
restrictions on his activities that had been imposed by Pope Benedict
XVI as a result of reports of his crimes, and used him for many
important tasks, including trips as a representative of the Holy See to
Israel, Armenia, China, Iran and Cuba. He accompanied Pope Francis on
his trips to Israel and Cuba. He was only removed from ministry in 2018,
after his predation on seminarians was widely reported in the media.[7]
Pope Francis has appointed a circle of men linked to former Cardinal
McCarrick to important posts. These include Cardinals Robert McElroy,
Joseph Tobin, Wilton Gregory, and Kevin Farrell, described below.
Cardinal Blaise Cupich
Pope Francis named Cupich Archbishop of Chicago in 2014, appointing
him a cardinal and a member of the Congregation for Bishops in 2016.
McCarrick had lobbied for his appointment in Chicago.[8]
Cardinal Joseph Tobin
Pope Francis appointed Tobin, Archbishop of Indianapolis, as a
cardinal and as Archbishop of Newark in 2016. McCarrick had been his
predecessor as Archbishop of Newark from 1986 to 2000, committing many
crimes while in that post. The Archdiocese of Newark had made a payment
in 2005 to a seminarian abused by McCarrick. Tobin refused to respond to
a complaint about abuse by McCarrick sent to him in 2018 by Michael
Reading, a former seminarian.[9]
Cardinal Wilton Gregory
Cardinal Gregory worked with McCarrick on drafting the 2002 Dallas
Charter, which provided procedures for American Catholic bishops for
responding to accusations of sexual abuse by clerics. The charter’s
procedures were ineffective, conspicuously omitting any provision for
dealing with accusations against bishops. When bishop of Belleville,
Illinois, Gregory was held in contempt of court for refusing to release
the records of a priest accused of sexual crimes. While Archbishop of
Atlanta, Georgia, he successfully opposed legislation that would extend
the statute of limitations for lawsuits claiming damages for sexual
abuse. Pope Francis made him Archbishop of Washington in 2019 and named
him cardinal in 2020.[10]
Cardinal Robert McElroy
McElroy was appointed Bishop of San Diego in 2015. He was a close
associate of former Cardinal McCarrick. In 2014, Rachel Mastrogiacomo
reported that Fr. Jacob Bertrand, a priest of the San Diego diocese, had
subjected her to satanic ritual abuse. Other women made similar
reports. Bertrand admitted his guilt to the diocesan authorities. In
response to these reports, Betrand was simply moved to another parish.
Only when Mastrogiacomo went to the police did McElroy remove him from
ministry. The diocese of San Diego falsely claimed to have no files on
Bertrand’s activities, and added that even if they had any files they
would not provide them. In 2018, Bertrand was convicted by an American
court of criminal sexual misconduct. He had earlier confessed to the
apostolic administrator of the diocese of San Diego that he had raped
Mastrogiacomo while celebrating Mass and engaging in perverse rituals.
In 2016 the clerical sexual abuse expert Richard Sipe informed McElroy
that McCarrick was a serial abuser. He remained silent and took no
action. Pope Francis made McElroy, a suffragan bishop of Los Angeles, a
cardinal in 2022.[11]
Cardinal Donald Wuerl
Cardinal Wuerl allowed Fr. George Zirwas to continue in ministry
after learning that he had committed numerous crimes of sexual abuse.
Wuerl resigned as Archbishop of Washington after his actions in this and
in other cases of sexual abuse were criticised by a Pennsylvania grand
jury report. When Wuerl resigned Pope Francis praised him for his
nobility, kept him in charge of the Archdiocese of Washington as
apostolic administrator, and retained him as a member of the
Congregation for Bishops.[12]
Bishop Juan Barros Madrid
Barros covered up the grave sexual crimes of Fr. Fernando Karadima,
who was convicted of sexual abuse by a Church tribunal in 2011. Pope
Francis appointed Barros bishop of Osorno in 2015 despite Barros himself
objecting to the appointment, despite the opposition of the Chilean
bishops, and despite strong protests from the faithful. Pope Francis
denounced the critics of Barros as slanderers. Bishop Barros resigned
in 2018 amid a worsening crisis of sexual abuse cases in Chile.[13]
Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa
Cardinal Errazuriz also protected Fr. Fernando Karadima and attempted
to silence his victims. In 2013 and 2014, together with Ricardo Ezzati
Andrello, his successor as Archbishop of Santiago, he attempted to
prevent Juan Carlos Cruz, one of Karadima’s victims, from being
appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
Pope Francis appointed Errazuriz to his Council of Cardinals after the
crimes of Karadima came to light. He remains a cardinal.[14]
Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati Andrello
Ezzati protected both Karadima and Fr. Óscar Muñoz, who was convicted
of repeated sexual abuse and rape of children. He tried to stop the
appointment of Juan Carlos Cruz, one of Karadima’s victims, to the
Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. He submitted his
resignation as archbishop of Santiago, in 2016 and again in 2018, but
Pope Francis refused to accept it; Francis only accepted Ezzati’s
resignation in 2019, the day after the Supreme Court of Chile rejected
Ezzati’s petition to dismiss the civil case against him for protecting
Muñoz. He remains a cardinal.[15]
Bishop Gustavo Óscar Zanchetta
Zanchetta was named by Pope Francis as bishop of Oran in Argentina in
2013. Zanchetta engaged in misconduct of a homosexual character while a
bishop, including the sexual harassment of seminarians. Photographic
evidence of this was submitted to the Holy See in 2015. Zanchetta
resigned from his diocese in 2017, after which Pope Francis named him as
assessor of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See,
the Vatican bank. This post had not existed prior to Zanchetta’s
appointment. Zanchetta was sentenced to four and a half years in jail in
Argentina for sexual assault of seminarians in 2022. There has been no
canonical trial or sentence for these crimes, which have only been
punished by the secular courts.[16]
Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer SJ
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith received complaints
against Father Gianni Trotta in 2009, and three years later found him
guilty of sexually abusing minors. Archbishop Ladaria wrote from the CDF
to the bishop of Foggia in 2012, instructing him not to divulge the
reasons why Trotta was laicized. Trotta continued to present himself as a
priest and coached an under-11 boys’ football team in the province of
Foggia, and molested several of its members. Trotta was sentenced to
eight years of prison in 2015. Ladaria Ferrer also wrote to Cardinal
Philippe Barbarin on behalf of the CDF instructing him to avoid any
public scandal in disciplining Fr. Bernard Preynat, who was charged with
sexual abuse in France in 2016 and later convicted. In 2018 the French
authorities attempted to charge Ladaria Ferrer for attempting to conceal
Preynat’s crimes, but the Holy See refused to extradite him. Pope
Francis made Ladaria Ferrer head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith in 2017, and appointed him cardinal in 2018.[17]
Fr. Mauro Inzoli
In 2012, Fr. Inzoli was sentenced to reduction to the lay state by
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for sexual abuse of
minors, but Pope Francis intervened and lessened the sentence to prayer,
penance and removal from public ministry. In 2016 Inzoli was sentenced
to five years in prison for eight offences of sexual abuse of children
aged 12 to 16 years old between 2004 and 2008. Only then did Pope
Francis reduce him to the lay state.[18]
Cardinal Oscar Cantoni
Cantoni was bishop of Crema when multiple complaints of sexual abuse
were made against Fr. Mauro Inzoli, a priest of his diocese, from 2010
onwards. In 2011 the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith began
proceedings against Inzoli. Cantoni told the faithful of Cremona to not
give in to judgments of condemnation of Inzoli. In 2013 Cantoni asked
Cardinal Coccopalmerio to intervene with Pope Francis for clemency on
behalf of his former priest Fr. Inzoli. The intervention was successful.
Cantoni was responsible for covering up the sexual abuse perpetrated on
underage boys at the Vatican’s St. Pius X Minor Seminary. Pope Francis
made Cantoni a cardinal in 2022.[19]
Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio
Pope Francis appointed Coccopalmerio to the board of the Congregation
of the Doctrine of the Faith that reviews appeals from clergy found
guilty of sexual abuse of minors. In 2012 Coccopalmerio voted against
the reduction of Fr. Mauro Inzoli to the lay state for sexual abuse.
Pope Francis appointed Coccopalmerio to represent the Vatican at the 6th
Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in 2018, and
promoted him from cardinal deacon to cardinal priest in 2022.[20]
Archbishop Mario Enrico Delpini
As vicar general of the archdiocese of Milan, Delpini moved Fr. Mauro
Galli to a new parish after being informed that Galli had sexually
abused a young man. Delpini admitted this in a court deposition in 2014.
The Holy See was made aware of this. Pope Francis named him as
Archbishop of Milan in 2017.[21]
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández
As Archbishop of La Plata, Fernández publicly defended Fr. Eduardo
Lorenzo, after a complaint of sexual abuse of a minor originally made in
2008 emerged in the media. Fernández falsely asserted that the civil
and canonical investigation of this complaint had determined that no
offence had occurred. He published Lorenzo’s letter accusing the
complainants of ‘slanders, insults and defamations’ on the archdiocesan
website, and traveled to Lorenzo’s parish to concelebrate a Mass with
him in which Lorenzo renewed his commitment to the priesthood. Lorenzo
committed suicide the day after being charged with five counts of sexual
abuse of minors. Pope Francis appointed Fernández cardinal and head of
the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2023.[22]
Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard
In 2022, Ricard admitted molesting a 14-year-old girl. He was
permitted to keep his status as a cardinal and cardinal-elector, and
there was no canonical trial or punishment.[23]
Cardinal Kevin Farrell
In 1978 Farrell was ordained a priest in the Legionaries of Christ,
the priestly society that was founded by the criminal sexual predator
Marcial Maciel and used to further his crimes. Farrell was a chaplain at
the Catholic University of Monterrey in Mexico, the city that was the
centre of Maciel’s activities, and was later a general administrator of
the Legionaries with responsibilities for seminaries and schools in
Italy, Spain and Ireland. He was then incardinated in the Archdiocese of
Washington, D.C., and worked as vicar general for the then Cardinal
McCarrick, with whom he shared a residence. Farrell claims to have been
entirely ignorant of the crimes of both Maciel and McCarrick. These
claims are not credible. After becoming pope, Francis appointed Bishop
Kevin Farrell as cardinal in 2016, and put him in charge of the
Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, which controls the
Vatican’s finances. In 2019 Farrell was named cardinal camerlengo, and
in October 2020, Farrell was appointed head of the Commission for
Reserved Matters, a Vatican commission that determines which of its
economic activities remain confidential. In 2023 Francis appointed
Farrell President of the Court of Cassation, which is the supreme court
of the Vatican City State.[24]
Fr. Nicola Corradi
Fr. Corradi belongs to the Company of Mary, an Italian religious
community that runs schools for deaf children. On December 2013, a group
of students from the Italian Provolo Institute in Verona wrote to Pope
Francis informing him that they had been sexually abused by Fr. Corradi
at that Institute, and that Corradi was still working with deaf and mute
children in Argentina. They also sent a video message to this effect to
Pope Francis on May 9, 2014. In February 2016 they were informed by the
Vatican that Pope Francis had referred the matter to the Italian
Bishops’ Conference and that no other action would be taken. Fr. Corradi
was thus free to continue abusing children at the Provolo Institute for
Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children in Argentina. In 2016, Fr. Corradi
was arrested together with other perpetrators and the institute was shut
down. In 2019, he was sentenced by an Argentinian court to 42 years in
prison for sexually abusing children at the Argentinian institute
between 2004 and 2016. The details of the abuse are horrific.[25]
Fr. Marko Rupnik
Multiple accusations of sexual and physical assault of nuns dating
back three decades have been made against Fr. Marko Rupnik S.J., a
well-known artist. Rupnik’s criminal acts manifested exceptionally
abhorrent sacrilege and cruelty. The Jesuits conducted an internal
investigation into the accusations against Rupnik, and in May 2019 they
determined that the accusations against him were credible. The
conclusions of the investigation were forwarded to the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith at that time. As a result, Rupnik was
excommunicated in 2020 for absolving a woman with whom he had had
illicit sexual relations. The penalty for this crime can only be lifted
by the Apostolic See. Rupnik’s excommunication was lifted after a month,
and he was almost immediately invited to preach a Lenten retreat at the
Vatican. After the excommunication he appeared in videos released by
the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life. Pope Francis
initially refused to lift the statute of limitations for the canonical
charges against Rupnik, although it is usual to do so with serious and
well-substantiated accusations. A number of Rupnik’s victims wrote
directly to Pope Francis detailing the abuse they had received at his
hands, but they received no reply. Pope Francis received Rupnik in a
private audience in January 2022. In August 2023 Rupnik, who had been
expelled by the Jesuits, was accepted as a diocesan priest in Slovenia.
In September 2023 Francis had a private meeting with Maria Campatelli, a
former member of Rupnik’s Loyola Community where he carried out much of
his abuse, the current director of Rupnik’s Aletti Centre in Rome, and a
defender of Rupnik who accused his victims of defaming him. A few days
after this meeting, the Vicariate of the Diocese of Rome issued a report
into the Aletti Centre that whitewashed Rupnik in the face of all the
evidence, and cast doubt upon the legitimacy of his excommunication.
Pope Francis lifted the statute of limitations on the accusations
against Rupnik in October 2023, when Rupnik’s crimes had been given
massive publicity, but no further proceedings have been instituted
against him. Rupnik’s career from 2020 on can only be explained by the
personal support of Pope Francis.[26]
1.1.B. Involvement in an act of idolatrous worship, desecration of St. Peter’s Church, and sacrilegious profanation of the Mass.
On October 4, 2019, Pope Francis attended an act of idolatrous
worship of the pagan goddess Pachamama, and participated in this act of
idolatrous worship by blessing a wooden image of Pachamama. On October
7, the idol of Pachamama was placed in front of the main altar at St.
Peter’s and then carried in procession to the Synod Hall. Pope Francis
said prayers in a ceremony involving this image and then joined in this
procession. When wooden images of this pagan deity were removed from the
church of Santa Maria in Traspontina and thrown into the Tiber by
Catholics outraged by this profanation of the church, Pope Francis, on
October 25, apologized for their removal and another wooden image of
Pachamama was returned to the church. On October 27, in the closing
Mass for the synod, he accepted a bowl used in the idolatrous worship of
Pachamama and placed it on the altar.
1.1.C. Removal of Catholic bishops without moral or legal basis.
Bishops receive the power of jurisdiction at their consecration, and
this power is received directly from Christ (cf. Acts 20:28; Eph.
4:11-12; Lumen gentium 21-27 and Nota praevia: Council
of Trent, session XXIII, ch. 4. and canons 6 and 7). It is not a
delegation of papal power, and bishops are not vicars of the pope. A
bishop’s jurisdiction over his diocese cannot therefore be removed
simply at the will of the pope.[27] There
must be a reason in natural or divine law that justifies the removal of
jurisdiction that is received from God. Removing a bishop from his see
without canonical process or legal basis is a crime against divine law.
Pope Francis removed Joseph Strickland, the bishop of Tyler, Texas, and
Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres, bishop of Arecibo in Puerto Rico, from
their sees. This was done with no just cause, no legal process, and no
explanation given.
1.1.D. Suppressing the traditional Latin liturgy.
In his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI
stated that the missal of 1962 containing the traditional Latin
eucharistic liturgy had never been abrogated, and that it is to be duly
honoured for its venerable and ancient usage. In his accompanying letter
to the motu proprio, Benedict XVI asserted that ‘what was sacred for
prior generations, remains sacred and great for us as well, and cannot
be suddenly prohibited altogether or even judged harmful’. These
statements express the teaching of sacred tradition. Pope Francis’s motu
proprio Traditionis custodes and his subsequent interventions
in liturgical matters attempt to permanently destroy this sacred liturgy
and the faithful communities attached to it. This is an apparently
complete betrayal of the role of the Pope in preserving and protecting
the traditions and spiritual patrimony of the Roman Catholic Church and
appears to be an attempt to rupture the Church’s most sacred traditions.
1.1.E. Directing that adulterers be absolved and given the
Eucharist in circumstances where they knowingly and willingly persist in
the practice of adultery.
In the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, Pope Francis
directed that in some circumstances adulterers are to be given
absolution although they intend to persist in adultery, and are to be
given the Eucharist while openly living in adulterous concubinage that
they do not intend to give up (see below, 2.A.). On various occasions
Pope Francis has publicly stated that the absolution must be given
“always”. Obedience to this directive on the part of confessors is
sacrilegious, since the sacrament is invalid if absolution is given when
the penitent expresses no intention of repentance and does not resolve
to renounce sin.
1.1.F. Instituting “non-liturgical” priestly blessings for adulterous and homosexual relationships.
In the declaration Fiducia supplicans, the Dicastery for the
Doctrine of the Faith, over Pope Francis’s signature without appeal,
made provisions for Catholic priests to bless ‘couples’ when the basis
of the relationship between the individual members of the ‘couple’ is
adultery, fornication, or homosexual relations. This means that the
Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church appears to have committed
the supreme moral treason of defying both the natural moral law and the
divine law in his legislation and teaching.
1.1.G. Collaboration with the Chinese Communist government.
In 2019, Pope Francis sent Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, then the
chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical
Academy of Social Sciences, to represent the Vatican at an organ
donation and transplantation conference held in Kunming, China. The
Chinese government is known to execute political prisoners in order to
harvest their organs for transplant. The presence of Bishop Sorondo at
this conference was thus particularly scandalous and grotesque. At the
conference, Bishop Sorondo said: ‘Francis has love and confidence in
China; and China trusts Pope Francis…. In this dynamic, the next step is
to reach [an agreement on establishing] diplomatic relations.’ This
statement of Bishop Sorondo’s, which he made as an official
representative of the Holy See, was never corrected or repudiated by the
Vatican and remains Vatican policy.[28]
In 2018 Pope Francis concluded an agreement with China that permits
the Chinese government to choose Catholic bishops in that country, and
has ordered a number of faithful Catholic bishops to give up their
dioceses to bishops appointed by the state. This agreement was renewed
in 2020 and again in 2022.[29] China
is a totalitarian and officially atheist state ruled by the Chinese
Communist Party, the most murderous organisation in human history. The
Chinese government treats the Chinese people with monstrous cruelty, and
requires all religious belief and practice to be subordinate to
government policy. The Catholic bishops appointed as a result of Pope
Francis’s agreement with China will be supporters and instruments of the
policies of the Chinese Communist Party. After the conclusion of the
agreement between the Vatican and China in 2018, the persecution of
Catholics and other Christians increased greatly. Pope Francis has never
mentioned the persecution of Chinese Christians since the conclusion of
the agreement, and he has renewed the agreement twice despite the
increase in persecution that followed it and that continues to this day.[30]
The crimes committed by Pope Francis, such as his protection of
sexual abusers, are in some cases crimes by the standards of the laws of
sovereign states, as well as being moral and canonical crimes. By
committing them, Pope Francis has made himself vulnerable to blackmail
from powerful temporal forces that have the resources to investigate his
crimes and get evidence of them. In this light, Francis’s collaboration
with the Chinese government, and his call for Ukraine to surrender to
Russia, may be connected to blackmail of this sort. Even if this did not
occur in these cases, the civil crimes that Francis has committed mean
that such pressure can be effectively placed on him. This fact alone
makes him unfit to be pope.
2. Heresies of Pope Francis
Pope Francis has publicly and pertinaciously contradicted a number of
central teachings of the Catholic faith. Only the clearest cases of
heresy on his part will be given here, together with a brief reference
to the places in which he has stated these heresies. These statements
have been analysed at length by faithful Catholic scholars, whose work
can be consulted for a more detailed discussion.[31] Heresy
is a serious crime in canon law, and has always been recognized as
such; see e.g. Canons 1364 and 1365 of the Latin Code of Canon Law. Some
of the actions of Pope Francis enumerated below also violate Canon
1368, ‘A person is to be punished with a just penalty
who, at a public event or assembly, or in a published writing, or by
otherwise using the means of social communication, utters blasphemy, or
gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or
contempt for religion or the Church’, and Canon 1369, ‘A person who
profanes a sacred object, moveable or immovable, is to be punished with a
just penalty.’
2.A. Acts that violate divine commandments in grave matters can nevertheless be morally good and acceptable to God.
In the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, Pope Francis made the following statements:
301: It is [sic] can no longer simply be said that
all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal
sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than
mere ignorance of the rule. A subject may know full well the rule, yet
have great difficulty in understanding “its inherent values, or be in a
concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently
and decide otherwise without further sin.”
303: Conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation
does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel. It
can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most
generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a
certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the
concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective
ideal.
2.B. God not only permits, but positively wills the pluralism and diversity of religions, both Christian and non-Christian.
On February 4th, 2019, Pope Francis and Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand
Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, publicly signed and issued a statement entitled
‘Document on Human Fraternity’, in which they made the following
assertions:
Freedom is a right of every person: each individual
enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The
pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language
are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.
This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of
belief and the freedom to be different derives.
Pope Francis’s involvement in the idolatrous ceremony of veneration
of the Pachamama idol and in the other acts described in 1.1.B above
indicates that he holds this view.
2.C. Adulterous relations can be morally good.
In the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, Pope Francis asserts that in some circumstances adulterers do not sin by committing adultery. See Amoris laetitia 301 and 303, cited above.
2.D. Adultery, fornication, and homosexual relations can be morally good.
The declaration Fiducia supplicans, issued by the Dicastery
for the Doctrine of the Faith with Pope Francis’s approval, asserts that
Catholic priests can bless couples when the basis of the relationship
between the members of the couple is adultery, fornication, or
homosexual relations.
2.E. The death penalty is always and everywhere morally wrong.
In his letter of March 20, 2015 to the President of the International
Commission against the Death Penalty, Pope Francis asserted that the
death penalty ‘is an offence to the inviolability of life and to the
dignity of the human person which contradicts God’s plan for man and for
society and his merciful justice, and it fails to conform to any just
purpose of punishment.’ Pope Francis has revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2267
to read, ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on
the inviolability and dignity of the person’. In his encyclical Fratelli tutti,
263-267, Francis has asserted that the death penalty is “inadmissible”,
which amounts to saying intrinsically wrong. He stated this clearly in
his address on October 11, 2017, which is the sole source cited by the
revised Catechism text:
It must be clearly stated that the death penalty is an
inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out, abases human
dignity. It is per se contrary to the Gospel, because it
entails the willful suppression of a human life that never ceases to be
sacred in the eyes of its Creator and of which, ultimately, only God is
the true judge and guarantor… [The former use of the death penalty in
the papal states was an] extreme and inhumane remedy that ignored the
primacy of mercy over justice… Concern for preserving power and material
wealth led to an overestimation of the value of the law and prevented a
deeper understanding of the Gospel…. It is necessary, therefore, to
reaffirm that no matter how serious the crime that has been committed,
the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the
inviolability and the dignity of the person.
The same view is repeated even more forthrightly in the last published papal document (Dignitas infinita),
which says that “the death penalty… violates the inalienable dignity of
every person, regardless of the circumstances” (no. 34). This view
contradicts the doctrine established in previous solemn magisterium of
the Catholic Church.
2.F. Some Catholic dogmas can be rejected as false.
In his response to the dubia submitted to him by Cardinals Brandmüller, Burke, Sandoval, Sarah, and Zen on July 10, 2023, Pope Francis asserted that
… both the texts of the Scripture and the testimonies of
Tradition require interpretation in order to distinguish their perennial
substance from cultural conditioning. This is evident, for example, in
biblical texts (such as Exodus 21:20-21) and in some magisterial
interventions that tolerated slavery (Cf. Pope Nicholas V, Bull Dum diversas,
1452). This is not a minor issue given its intimate connection with the
perennial truth of the inalienable dignity of the human person. These
texts need interpretation. The same applies to certain considerations in
the New Testament regarding women (1 Corinthians 11:3-10; 1 Timothy
2:11-14) and other texts of Scripture and testimonies of Tradition that
cannot be materially repeated today.
The ‘testimonies of Tradition’ include all Catholic dogmas, since the
teaching of these dogmas by the Church is a central part of Tradition.
Pope Francis gives no criteria for distinguishing the ‘perennial
substance’ of Catholic dogmas from their ‘cultural conditioning’. Since
every part of every Catholic dogma is culturally conditioned in some
way, his position places no limits on which dogmas can be rejected. He
has rejected a number of individual Catholic dogmas, as described in A
to E above. This is good evidence for his holding the general position
that Catholics need not accept the meaning expressed by Catholic dogmas.
2.G. Passages of the Scriptures can be rejected as false.
This is stated in Pope Francis’s response cited above to the dubia submitted
to him by Cardinals Brandmüller, Burke, Sandoval, Sarah, and Zen. Pope
Francis does not say that a certain interpretation of Scriptural
passages can be rejected, or that Scriptural passages should not always
be understood in a literal rather than a metaphorical or a mystical
sense. In the case of 1 Corinthians 11:3-10 and 1 Timothy 2:11-14, he
says that the actual message of some passages of the Scriptures can be
rejected by Catholics. Since he gives no clear criteria for identifying
which Scriptural passages can be rejected as false and which should
still be accepted, he in effect places no limitation on which passages
of the Scriptures can be rejected.
In the last document published by the Pontifical Academy for Life, La gioia della vita
(The Joy of Life) is stated: “it should be impossible for us today to
treat the Scriptures as timeless propositions and norms, claiming to
extract immutable truths from them” (pp. 22-23).
The individual heresies described in A to E above clearly contradict
the teaching of a number of texts of the Scriptures. This indicates that
Pope Francis holds the general position that the undoubted teaching of
Scriptural texts can simply be rejected as false by Catholics. Pope
Francis also makes it clear that he holds this position in his response
to the dubia cited in 2.F above, in which he identifies specific Scriptural texts and asserts that their meaning cannot be accepted.
It should be added that canonists have held that popes who commit
grave crimes apart from heresy thereby incur a suspicion of heresy,
because in the case of a pope belief in the Catholic faith can with
difficulty be reconciled with a life of serious and impenitent sin. Pope
Francis is guilty of the serious crimes described above, and also of
less serious misdeeds that are not strictly criminal, but that give good
reason for doubting his commitment to the faith and the Church. These
include vulgarity and obscenity in his public utterances, hate-filled
denigration of those who oppose him, and a bizarre fondness for Judas
Iscariot that he has expressed in sermons and in the act of keeping a
picture of Judas in his personal study.
These greater and lesser crimes give reason to believe that his
heretical assertions are truly a stubborn and deliberate rejection of
the Catholic faith.
3. Background and effects of the crimes of Pope Francis
In order to understand the crimes of Pope Francis and to discern how
to respond to them, it is necessary to grasp that Pope Francis is a
product of a wider crisis in the Church.
This crisis first took form in the modernist crisis of the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. Modernist thinkers such as Alfred Loisy and
George Tyrrell denied not only the principal doctrines of the Catholic
faith, but also the very existence of divinely revealed truths. This
denial attracted considerable support among priests. Pope St. Pius X
denounced modernism as the synthesis of all heresies and took action
against it. The visible element of the modernist movement was in
consequence suppressed for a time, but a modified version of its ideas
resurfaced in the 1930s. The essence of this neomodernism was the claim
that neither the Scriptures nor Catholic dogma were themselves divinely
revealed truths. Instead, they were human interpretations of divine
revelation. As such, they were subject to the cultural and personal
limitations of their human authors. In consequence, they were open to
revision in the light of later knowledge that uncovered and surpassed
these limitations. Although this revision involves rejecting the
previous meanings of Catholic dogmas, according to the modernist
position it is not a true rejection of Catholic teaching, but the
achievement of a deeper understanding of divine revelation. Necessary
revisions to the contents of the Scriptures and Catholic dogma can be
worked out by theologians, and can then be made official and binding by
magisterial teaching.
No principled criteria are given by neomodernists for distinguishing
between true divine revelation and its historically conditioned
accompaniment. It is not in fact possible to give such criteria, since
the Scriptures and the Church’s formulations of Catholic dogma are
necessarily always entirely expressed in some historical and cultural
form or other. As a result, the neomodernist thesis makes it possible to
deny any Catholic teaching, and to present almost any ideology as
Catholic. Such fundamental doctrines as the Trinity, the Incarnation,
original sin, the redemptive sacrifice of Christ, the Resurrection, and
the necessity of Christian faith for salvation, have accordingly been
rejected by many neomodernists presenting themselves as Catholic
theologians.
The neomodernists used Protestant biblical criticism to support their
position. This Protestant school of biblical study began with the deist
Hermann Reimarus (1694-1768). Reimarus rejected the possibility of any
supernatural intervention in history, and sought to explain the
historical origins and contents of the Scriptures in entirely natural
terms. This approach to the Scriptures was continued by David Strauss
(1808–1874), Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860), Julius Wellhausen
(1844-1918), Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976). The rejection of the
miraculous and supernatural by these thinkers, generally combined with
anti-Semitism as a motive for rejecting traditional Christian belief,[32] was
a philosophical and religious position that they accepted personally
prior to their historical investigations. These positions, rather than
good historical evidence and reasoning, determined their skeptical and
unbelieving historical conclusions. These skeptical conclusions, which
denied the existence of miracles, the existence of divinely revealed
truth, the divinity of Christ, and the divine origin of the Church, were
nonetheless put forward by them as the result of objective and factual
historical scholarship. Catholic modernists and neomodernists presented
the conclusions of this school as established historical fact, and
argued that biblical scholarship required that Catholic theology be
reinterpreted on modernist lines.
Neomodernist theses on the nature of Catholic theology were openly
put forward from the 1930s onward. By the 1940s, neomodernism had
achieved wide acceptance within the clergy, and was openly stated by
theologians like Henri Bouilllard S.J. Determined opposition to
neomodernism was seen as a sign of ignorance, backwardness and
intellectual mediocrity in the most influential clerical circles. Cogent
criticisms of neomodernism were made by orthodox theologians such as
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P. and Marie-Michel Labourdette O.P.,[33] but
these criticisms were met by personal attacks on the critics rather
than reasoned argument. It was claimed that the critics of neomodernism
were slanderers who used false accusations of heresy to attempt to
destroy Catholic theologians holding legitimate theological positions.
Neomodernism was nonetheless condemned in 1950 by Pope Pius XII in the
encyclical Humani generis:
15. …they hold that the mysteries of faith are never
expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever
changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but
is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but
altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in
place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in
the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give
human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even
somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. They add that the
history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in
which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one
another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that
have arisen over the course of the centuries.
16. It is evident from what We have already said, that such
tentatives not only lead to what they call dogmatic relativism, but that
they actually contain it.
This condemnation was however followed up by modest disciplinary
measures that were sufficient to embitter neomodernists, but not
sufficient to interfere with the spread of their ideas.
Loss of faith among the clergy inevitably leads to a spread of moral
corruption (cf. Romans 1:26-27). The spread of neomodernism, which was
especially strong during and after the Second World War with its
disrupting effects, hence fostered an increase in immoral and criminal
sexual behaviour among clergy and religious. Clerics involved in this
corruption used their clerical status to secure sexual access to
vulnerable Catholics. This phenomenon was partially addressed by Religiosorum Institutio, ‘Instruction
on the Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of
Perfection and Sacred Orders’, issued by the Sacred Congregation for
Religious on February 2, 1961. The imperative measures for safeguarding
and reform that were proposed by this instruction were however not
implemented or soon abandoned.
During the complex event of the Second Vatican Council, neomodernists
achieved considerable influence. They assured prelates that some
Catholic teachings that were difficult or unpopular could be modified or
rejected without changing the faith. Bishops who were personally
Catholic believers often accepted these assurances without grasping that
they were based upon heretical premises. The theologians Karl Rahner,
Hans Küng, and Edward Schillebeeckx are examples of open and influential
neomodernists at the Council. Not all of the theologians who belonged
to the progressive camp at the Council were neomodernists, but the
positions of the neomodernist theologians were presented as conveying
the teaching of the Council. The dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum was
falsely presented as teaching neomodernism, and as rejecting and
replacing the teaching of the First Vatican Council on the nature of
Catholic faith and the immutability of Catholic doctrine. It would be
wrong to explain these developments simply as the result of conspiracy.
Pre-existing neomodernist ideological conviction came first among clergy
and religious, and alliances and associations were then made on the
basis of this prior ideological agreement.
After the Second Vatican Council, neomodernists succeeded in
presenting their position as the teaching of the Council, and in largely
enforcing it on the Church. The extensive and favourable publicity
received by neomodernist theologians and prelates at the Council helped
to make this possible. Orthodox professors were purged or sidelined at
Catholic universities and seminaries, and a favourable presentation of
neomodernism was universally required in Catholic schools and
institutions of higher education. Liturgical abuses, suppression of
religious habits and clothing, suppression of traditional devotions, and
destruction of traditional church architecture were all widely used to
make the faithful believe that traditional Catholic beliefs were
obsolete and should be rejected. A systematic attack on all Catholic
teaching on faith and morals was mounted from within the Church by
bishops, priests and religious. Due to a kind of diabolical
disorientation, the attack met with great success. Heterodoxy became
mandatory in many theological institutes. Naturally enough, after being
told that the faith they had previously accepted was wrong, a large
proportion of priests and religious repudiated their vows and left the
religious life, and a large proportion of the laity ceased to practice
the faith. Thus began a decline in religious practice that has continued
to the present, with the result that the Church in many countries faces
extinction.
A number of magisterial interventions were made to counter these
attacks. Pope Paul VI addressed various errors in the encyclicals Mysterium fidei, Sacerdotalis caelibatus, and Humanae vitae, and in the Credo of the People of God. Pope John Paul II did the same in the encyclicals Evangelium vitae, Redemptoris missio, Ecclesia de eucharistia, Veritatis splendor, and Fides et ratio, in the declaration Dominus Iesus, and in the exhortation Reconciliatio et paenitentia. The
existence, content, and number of these interventions testifies to the
gravity of the crisis of faith in the Church. The neomodernist position
at the origin of this crisis, and the theologians who developed and
advanced it, were however not clearly identified and condemned. There
were no serious consequences for clerics and theologians who held and
proclaimed these errors.
Neomodernist success was achieved partly by making allies. The
neomodernists who mounted this attack on the faith faced a difficulty.
They were only dominant in certain religious orders and in Western
Europe. The majority of the clergy at the time of the Second Vatican
Council had been educated in orthodox Catholic theology and philosophy,
and many of them were inclined to hold on to what they had been taught.
The neomodernists thus needed allies to enforce their ideology on the
Church. They found them in the networks of homosexuals and criminal
pederasts that had already developed in the Church as a result of the
crisis of faith in the clergy. Members of these networks naturally
tended to look favourably on neomodernist questioning of divine
revelation. They offered a powerful tool, ready to hand, to enforce the
neomodernist ideology on the Church. By embracing neomodernism and
working to propagate it, they secured influence and promotion in the
hierarchy. Their sexual activities were concealed and protected by their
clerical allies, regardless of any violation of civil or canon law. An
example of this phenomenon is Bishop John J. Wright, appointed cardinal
and Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy by Pope Paul VI in 1969.
Not all of these criminals embraced neomodernism; some of them upheld
conservative liturgical and theological positions. Conservative clerics
involved in illicit sexual activity would however protect neomodernist
clerics involved in these activities.
Catholic seminaries were a key sector for those seeking to transform
the Church. Control of the selection and training of seminarians gave
control over what the faithful would be taught. Influence over the next
generation of priests was particularly important as a result of the huge
exodus from the priesthood after the Second Vatican Council, which left
a hole that could be filled. Control of seminaries and their teaching
staff of seminaries was thus a priority of neomodernists. Priests
primarily motivated by neomodernist conviction were joined on the staff
of seminaries by members of pederastic networks, whose numbers,
motivation, and political skill and connections were needed for the
success of the neomodernist project of transformation. In consequence,
in a large proportion of seminaries men engaging in homosexual and
criminal pederastic activity were selected as seminarians, and men who
objected to this activity were expelled or not admitted. Networks of
criminal sexual predators were given immunity from interference
throughout the Church, and took actual control of large swathes of the
Church. Financial corruption was and is a frequent accompaniment of
their activities. A number of dioceses, religious orders, and religious
institutions became in effect criminal organisations presenting
themselves as religious associations. When these activities were exposed
by civil authorities, the local churches often collapsed as a result.
Ireland, not long ago a staunchly Catholic country, has overwhelmingly
rejected the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church as a result of
revulsion at the criminal sexual activities of the Irish clergy.
Some individual offenders have been removed from ministry by their
ecclesiastical superiors after being convicted by the civil authorities,
or when the mass of evidence against them became too great to deny, but
no attempt has been made by Church authorities to eradicate these
networks, and they retain great power in the Church. They still operate
with impunity and intimidate other clerics into silence, unless the
civil authorities intervene. The career of former cardinal Theodore
McCarrick exemplifies this phenomenon. McCarrick was known in Rome and
among the American episcopate as a sexual predator from at least the
1990s. He was nonetheless made Archbishop of Washington D.C. and a
cardinal in 2001, and in 2002 was the main drafter of the U.S. Catholic
Bishops’ Dallas Charter of procedures for dealing with sexual abuse by
priests. He was only removed from ministry in 2018, when widespread
media coverage of his crimes made it impossible to continue protecting
him.
Pope Francis is a product of these developments in the Church. He
holds and propagates a neomodernist conception of revelation, faith, and
theology. Throughout his career, he has protected and promoted both
sexual abusers and bishops who protect criminal sexual abusers.
Pope Francis uses the well-established technique of appointing
underlings who are personally compromised, in order to be sure of their
absolute obedience and loyalty. His protection of criminals has,
however, a wider goal. It demonstrates to the members of criminal
networks in the clergy that he will protect them if they are loyal to
him. Francis followed this policy both before and after his election to
the papacy, and there are indications that it assisted him in becoming
pope. Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick boasted in 2013 that he had
played a role in the election of Pope Francis, whom he had known prior
to the conclave. Crucial supporters of Bergoglio at the conclave that
elected him were Cardinals Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Godfried Danneels,
Oscar Maradiaga, and Karl Lehmann, all of whom were active in protecting
criminal sexual abusers.[34] This
policy explains why Francis has taken risks and gone to extremes in
protecting Rupnik, although Rupnik is not one of his henchmen. By going
to such lengths for Rupnik, Francis demonstrates to important criminal
abusers in the clergy that he will back them absolutely if they are on
his side.
Pope Francis also sees the ideological value in securing the control
of these criminal elements over the Church. These elements are
committed, by the lives they live, to the rejection of Catholic faith
and morals. Francis knows that ideological trends change. Zeal for
neomodernism presupposed a close acquaintance with traditional Catholic
theology and worship. This close acquaintance with an abhorred reality
was what fuelled the passionate hatred of the neomodernists for
Catholicism. The very success of the neomodernists in devastating
Catholicism has thus undermined the strength of their cause, which is
now visibly being replaced by an interest in and longing for the
treasures of Catholicism that were buried over the course of the last
six decades. This interest is especially marked among the younger
generation of Catholics, to whom the passions and loathings of
neomodernism are virtually incomprehensible. The ascendancy of criminal
elements in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church provides the best
guarantee available for preventing a resurgence of traditional Catholic
faith and worship. Guaranteeing this ascendancy is one main goal of
Francis’s initiatives in Amoris laetitia and Fiducia supplicans. These
documents not only establish immoral and anti-Catholic practices in the
Church; they enable bishops and religious superiors to eliminate
seminarians and postulants who are loyal to the Catholic faith, by
insisting on participation in these practices as a condition of
ordination or of admission to the religious life.
Francis’s fundamental goal for his pontificate is to secure the
ascendancy that neomodernism achieved over the Church after the mid-20th
century, and to turn this ascendancy into a permanent victory that will
lead to the eradication of Catholic faith, morals, and worship once and
for all. The means for attaining this goal have been cleverly thought
out and carefully pursued. They are designed to work in more than one
eventuality; for example, if the Catholic faithful in a given region
refuse to accept the rule and the teaching of a sexually predatory
ecclesiastical clique, their very refusal will lead to a victory over
Catholicism as a result of the desertion of the Church by the faithful
in that region. If however they accept the instruction of this clique,
they will abandon their faith.
Francis has the advantage of understanding his opponents, who
typically do not understand him and his strategy. His main reliance is
on their fear. He knows that they are afraid of his power and cruelty,
and the power and cruelty of his supporters. He knows that they exist in
a Church where the pope is seen as an absolute monarch who is beyond
criticism, where any open denunciation of a pope is seen as
unacceptable, and where open critics of a pope are thought of as
self-condemned. He grasps that they frequently resort to mental coping
strategies that are typical of those in intolerable situations;
strategies in which dangers are denied in the face of the evidence or
simply not admitted to conscious awareness, unrealistic hopes are
entertained, and implacable enemies are seen as fundamentally reasonable
and benign. By playing on these fears and exploiting these coping
strategies, he has advanced toward his goal with little serious
opposition.
4. Action to be taken in response to the crimes of Pope Francis
Pope Francis is manifestly unfit for the papal office. His
fundamental offence against the office is unbelief. Since he no longer
accepts the Catholic faith that it is his task as pope to uphold, he has
a moral obligation to resign the papacy.
This unbelief is not the only reason why Pope Francis should resign.
The proper exercise of the papal office requires a high degree of
natural and supernatural virtue. Pope Francis has shown that he lacks
these virtues. Without belief in the Catholic faith, he lacks the
knowledge and the graces needed to repent of his past sins, to correct
the evils he has done, and to fulfil the duties of his office. Lacking
faith, he also lacks all supernatural virtue. He has shown himself to be
lacking in the natural virtues of prudence and justice. Even if he were
to repent for his past sins, which is devoutly to be wished, he would
remain unsuited for the papacy due to his flaws of character . The only
good course of action open to him is to recant his heresies, express
contrition for the harm he has done, resign the papacy, and devote the
remainder of his life to prayer and penance.
Clearly it is most unlikely that he will do this. The Church must therefore determine how to act in the face of his crimes.
One duty that the Church must fulfil is to speak out about the crimes
and heresies of Pope Francis, to denounce them, to warn the faithful of
them, and to entreat Pope Francis to renounce them. This duty falls on
all the members of the Church who have some right and authority to
publicly teach and uphold the faith. It falls on Catholic theologians
and pastors who have a cure of souls, but it falls most especially upon
the bishops of the Church. ‘Each of [the bishops of the Catholic
Church], as a member of the episcopal college and legitimate successor
of the apostles, is obliged by Christ’s institution and command to be
solicitous for the whole Church, and this solicitude, though it is not
exercised by an act of jurisdiction, contributes greatly to the
advantage of the universal Church. For it is the duty of all bishops to
promote and to safeguard the unity of faith and the discipline common to
the whole Church’ (Lumen gentium 23). Those persons who have a
responsibility to speak out in this way incur the guilt of Francis’s
crimes themselves, if they remain silent. ‘Qui tacit consentire videtur, si loqui debuisset ac potuisset’; ‘he who is silent is understood to consent, when he ought to have spoken and was able to do so’.
The obligations of the bishops are not limited to the public
denunciation of the crimes of Pope Francis. Since these crimes have
already been the subject of public supplications, protests, and
denunciations by members of the faithful, and Pope Francis has only
persisted in them, there are good reasons for doubting that he will be
affected or led to repentance by further protests. His pertinacity in
heresy has gone far enough to make it reasonable to consider that he is a
public heretic. This gives rise to a grave situation for the Church.
The Catholic Church has always held that popes can be heretics, and that
a pope who commits the public crime of heresy loses the papal office
thereby. This belief is based on the teachings of the Scriptures, which
assert that the heretic separates himself from the Church by committing
the sin of heresy. Clearly a pope who chooses to leave the Church by
embracing heresy cannot remain pope.
Theologians and canonists have disagreed on the details of how a
heretical pope falls from office. The principal schools of thought on
this issue are the position of St. Robert Bellarmine, which is usually
accepted by canonists, and the position of Cajetan and John of St.
Thomas, which prevails among theologians. St. Robert Bellarmine holds
that a manifestly heretical pope ipso facto loses the papal
office; Cajetan and John of St. Thomas hold that some action from the
Church is necessary before a heretical pope falls from the papacy
because of his heresy. This difference of opinion is pertinent to the
present situation, and makes it more difficult. The open heresy and
criminality of Pope Francis means that his tenure of the papal office is
now in doubt, but it cannot be affirmed with certainty that he is no
longer the pope.
It is a mistake and a sin for faithful bishops and cardinals to do
nothing, in the hope that Pope Francis will soon die and be replaced by
someone better. Pope Francis is causing unremitting harm day by day to
souls and the Church. The faithful have a right to expect their
believing shepherds to protect them from his attacks. These shepherds
have a duty before God to protect them, and failure in this duty will
bring eternal punishment upon them.
As a first step, the bishops and cardinals of the Church should make
every effort to get Pope Francis to resign. He has a duty to resign
under the present circumstances, and his resignation would be the best
resolution to the catastrophe of his pontificate. This is true despite
the fact that papal resignation is an extraordinary event that ought not
to happen, since the papacy is a sacred office that should only be
vacated by the death of the reigning pontiff. The case of Benedict XVI
illustrates the evils of papal resignation. But the reign of a corrupt
pope who has rejected the faith and is incapable of responsibly
exercising the papal office is also an extraordinary event that ought
not to happen. Since it has occurred, the resignation of the pope in
question is the least evil outcome available.
If Pope Francis refuses to resign, the duty of the bishops and
cardinals is to proceed to declare that he has lost the papal office for
heresy. If such a declaration cannot occur because there are too few
bishops and cardinals willing to speak out about Francis’s heresy, the
faithful bishops and cardinals should form a united group to publicly
warn the faithful of his crimes and heresies, state that his tenure of
the papal office is in doubt due to his heresy, and admonish the
faithful not to believe his statements or obey his orders unless it is
clear on independent grounds that these statements and orders should be
respected.
Of course, even a resignation, or a declaration of of Pope Francis’
loss of office will not solve the problems in the Church. When he is
gone, the clerical corruption that produced him and that he has fostered
will remain. But addressing the crimes and heresies of Francis is the
essential first step in dealing with this corruption.
Signed by
Rev. Linus F. Clovis, PhD, MSc, JCL, STB
Yves Daoudal
Editor-in-chief of Reconquête
Vice-President of the Charlier Center
Dániel Fülep
Theologian, Hungary
Maria Guarini
Editor, Chiesa e post concilio
Michael Kakooza, PhD
Strategic Management, Eastern Africa
Thaddeus J. Kozinski, PhD
Professor of Philosophy, Memoria College
Peter A. Kwasniewski, PhD
John R.T. Lamont, DPhil
John Rist, PhD
Professor of classics and early Chrisitian philosophy and theology (ret.)
Dr Cesar Felix Sánchez Martínez
Professor of Philosophy
Universidad Nacional de San Agustin, Peru
Wolfram Schrems, Mag. theol., Mag. phil.
Peter Stephan, Dr. phil. habil.
Professor of Architecture Theory & Art History
University of Applied Sciences, Potsdam
Anna Silvas, PhD
Specialist in Greek Fathers
UNE, Australia (ret.)
John-Henry Westen, MA
Founder and Editor, LifeSiteNews
Michael Wiitala, PhD
Associate Lecturer in Philosophy
Cleveland State University
Elizabeth F. Yore, Esq.
Founder, Yore Children
John Zmirak, PhD
Senior Editor, The Stream
