How do you explain the Moslem conquest, Orthodox schism, and Protestant revolt?

By: Hutton Gibson
Defending the Faith of our Fathers, HERE...

Argument Corner

Objection—I think Bellarmine must be correct that a heretic ipso facto vanishes into his heresy, but this (ontological) fact is not manifest and notorious until the Church declares it a sorry fact. Bellarmine, while correct, likely did not foresee the consequences of his judgment. Suarez and Cajetan did, though they did not fully grasp Bellarmine’s truth. Thus a heretical Pope remains pope in the juridic sense (though he cannot bind us to error) and Christ supplies for the means of grace (Yes, even for the 1970 missal; only a hireling abandons the flock when the wolf comes) until either the clergy / people of Rome or a Council declares a Pope no longer Catholic. Only in this way is the stability, visibility, and means of grace of the Church maintained, even as we call the heretic back to the Faith a la the Abbe de Nantes, et al.... The Good Shepherd never abandons HIS flock to the wolves but supplies the means of grace during any deviation (Avignon), apostasy, or interregnum.

Reply—How do you explain the Moslem conquest, Orthodox schism, and Protestant revolt?

Can you ignore St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter 2?

It lies in the nature of a hostile takeover from the top that no effective group is left to defend religious doctrine or worship, though without these there can be no true Church. There should have been immediate revolt against change, but few, even of the clergy, realized what was happening (though a hundred thousand resigned). Those who protested applied for redress to those who had deliberately imposed change with the deliberate intention of killing the Church. The innovators ignored all protest. They stood on their “authority” and painted the few who kept tradition insane. They drove wedges between us and encouraged the “loyal opposition” with occasional crumbs that persuaded most that they would eventually return what they had stolen. But mostly they conveyed the notion that they had the right to improve on Jesus Christ, because only one fifth of the world was Catholic.

If we pin our hopes to the people or clergy of Rome, we appeal to those who have blindly accepted massive innovation. We should logically rather seek a declaration from the millions who have refused innovation, who are disgusted with weird worship and wall-to-wall heresy, and who boycott the remaining churches.

Pope Innocent III preceded Bellarmine by three and a half centuries in declaring that a heretic ipso facto vanishes into heresy. Pope Paul IV formulated this into law (Cum ex Apostolatus Officio) when Bellarmine was seventeen years of age.

Even if you were correct that instructed Catholics cannot assess a heresy, the innovators have publicly embraced condemned heresies galore, and this alone establishes that they are condemned heretics, which should be public enough for anyone.

It is impossible that the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ has no defense against a hostile takeover, from the top or from the bottom. When taken over from the top there is no possibility of an official statement condemning the takeover, because the entire top is involved in the takeover and will simply not condemn its own actions.

We therefore turn to right reason, and find all the authority we need in the Laws of the Church, specifically Cum ex Apostolatus Officio and the Canon Laws in which it is synthesized, #2314 & #188. These all state with authority that apostates and heretics can hold no office in the Church to which they cannot belong on account of their heresy and/or apostasy. The penalty immediately, automatically, and necessarily follows the fact itself of heresy or apostasy, and requires no declaration from any official source, as the law itself provides. We are all bound by these laws, and by Quo Primum Tempore which standardized our worship against the Protestant revolt, and must refuse recognition to “authorities” which violate them and saddle us with more recent idolatries.

The proof lies in recognition of the fact that the postconciliar “Church” has replaced almost the entire religion in its laws, doctrines, sacraments, and worship. It tries to speak with the authority which it has almost stamped out. It pretends to the authority which Christ conferred on His Church for propagation, which it has criminally discontinued.