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Chapter One
The Inferno that resulted from two little words: "subsists in"
  Though a blur to most, what subsisted in Lumen Gentium caused the spark of aggiornamento and ecumenism that has raged into a holocaust of souls, responsible for the scorched faith of billions.
"It is here that all of what is wrong with Vatican-II-style ecumenism finds its basis. This "subsists in" business is no mere one-off typographical error, but a real change in how they believe and what they believe. This change has been reiterated again and again throughout the Vatican II documents and many times thereafter."
There needs to be something of a "paradigm shift" among us Catholics, which would go far towards us all truly understanding our present position as Catholics in good standing. Let me draw the picture that I think most traditional Catholics have in their head to better envision the present situation.
We see the Vatican institution as being, at least in some external, juridical, or "visible" sense, the Church, and obviously it has become gravely corrupted with numerous heretics in all the key positions. We view faithful Catholics as being just barely on the fringe of this Church, at least insofar as we are loyal to them, though they may fail to show any loyalty towards us. We see their disapproval of us as being unjustly imposed and therefore null and void, while we continue to accept their possession of the offices with the right to make such decisions. Having made these assumptions
we:
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Look to them as being essential to the future of the Church, to the point that the Church cannot truly continue until they repent.
- Wonder why they have been permitted to deviate so far from the Faith and for so long, and with no end of the nonsense in sight.
- Scramble for what slender slice of Grace they might on rare occasions throw our way.
- See them and their organization as "the Church," no matter how blatantly heretical and schismatic they become.
- Count on some "cardinal" of theirs to repent and begin reorganizing the true Church around himself and what few might be persuaded to join him, or else some successor of John Paul II to turn out to be (or repent into being) a real Catholic who will put things right.
If this is your picture, and if you are irrevocably committed to this picture of things no matter what, then you'd best hightail it to your nearest Indult situation and pray like mad that they neither fold up and disappear nor get corrupted by Modernism. But if so bear in mind that you would then have a "Church" that only exists for certain times and places, but not all times and places (in other words not "Catholic"). Needless to say, what I propose is for us to consider that such a picture is false, and indeed one that puts all who hold to it at grave risk.
The more one studies the doctrines of the visibility of the Church and how it functions as protected from error by the Holy Ghost (infallible, indefectable), the more one realizes the impossibility of our present situation. One ends up either having to believe that those promises of protection don't amount to very much (if indeed anything at all) or else that all the nonsense is somehow okay. Worse than that, one also finds oneself outside something they cannot afford to be outside. There is no real fringe; one is either inside or not. One must either lose salvation by being outside, or lose the Faith (and thereby also lose salvation) by being inside (unless one has the rare fortune of a good Indult, untainted by Modernism or by a questionably ordained priest). In other words, the gates of Heaven are entirely closed within all dioceses all around the world and only a lucky few whom Geography has placed well can be saved anymore.
I have seen the despair this has brought upon some who succumb to such reasoning. - "No, I can't go to these guys because they are heretics and will mislead me into error."
- "No, I can't go to those guys because they have no jurisdiction, no faculties, are even suspended or excommunicated and were not canonically erected."
- "No, I can't just stay at home because I need the sacraments which God invented to cement us to His Church and remind us of our continual dependence upon Him."
What does that leave for the "almost everyone else" who either have no Indult, or else only one that is compromised in some serious Faith-eroding manner. The magic number needed to open the door is less than 5 and greater than 10. What number is that?
As sedevacantists have shown, the Vatican leader (whatever he is) most certainly cannot be truly considered a pope, at least in the strictly Petrine sense of what it truly means to be a successor of Peter, fully, formally, and materially. What can we make of this observation? What does that mean with regards to God's promises to His Church, over which the gates of Hell would never prevail and so forth?
It is not enough to merely state that wherever faithful Catholics are to be found, there is the Church. I am a faithful Catholic. Does that make ME the Church? One has to ask what sense that question is meant. I can indeed be a member of the Church in the same sense that every faithful Catholic is a member of the Church, so in that sense one could say yes. But in the hierarchical sense, it would have to be "no." As a Catholic in good standing, my ecclesiastical rank is merely that of "layman," practically the lowest on the totem pole. Strictly and hierarchically speaking therefore (the Communion of Saints aside in reference to my role in the Church Militant), I am not part of "the Church" itself, but "the Faithful." My jurisdiction is limited to my immediate family, my employees (should I have any), and that purely political variety that secular law may bestow upon me should I be elected or appointed to some governmental office.
Where is the Church hierarchical? For that too must exist. You can't (as some would seem to have it) put "the Church" over here (in scattered lay believers), the hierarchy over there (in the Vatican), the Faith in yet another place (in history only), and the valid sacramental episcopal succession in yet another place (excommunicated and "excommunicated" bishops of all sorts). If that were the case - which the above described "picture" of things would amount to - the Marks of One and Catholic would have to have been scattered to the four winds and no one thing identifiable as the Church with all Her Marks could possibly exist anywhere. Therefore, something obviously is gravely wrong with the picture I have presented here.
So, let's retrace the steps. On October 8 1958, His Holiness Pope Pius XII's last whole day alive, where was the Church? In union with him, believing, practicing and teaching what he believed practiced and taught, ruled from his station in the Vatican, alike all the world over in their belief, practice, worship, and membership. So far so good. No one disputes that. All Four Marks of the Church were intact.
Was it perfect? In the doctrinal sense that the Church is the Perfect Society, obviously yes. In the lives and private opinions of all Her lawful prelates? Of course not. We know there were modernists secretly eating away at the whole structure, like termites eating up the wooden frame of a house. Though the Pope did all he could to exterminate the pests, there were always still a few he missed somehow, despite his best efforts.
Now, let us move forward to October 10. His Holiness has died the day before. The Cardinals (all appointed by him and his undisputed predecessors) are all on their way to Rome for a conclave to select his successor. The Cardinal Camerlengo has the authority to organize the needed conclave but obviously cannot perform the role of the Pope in selecting and appointing Bishops and Cardinals and of making universal statements to teach, guide, or rule the Church. There is no pope. The Vatican Mint and Post Office issue Sede Vacante coins and stamps. Where was the Church? In Her Bishops and Cardinals and all who were attached to them, loyally willing to submit to the man elected to take the place of Pius XII.
Move again to November 5. It is the day after John XXIII has been crowned Pope, donning the triple tiara, and was led through all the streets of Rome to the tune of "Tu Es Petrus." Where was the Church then? Obviously still visibly with him, even if some legitimate questions have since arisen as to whether he truly accepted the responsibility of Pope or merely pretended to, and whether election had been free and valid. During Roncalli's natural lifetime, not so much as a single soul ever once raised the slightest question or doubt as to his being the Pope, and as it is taught, if someone is universally accepted as a Pope, then he is a Pope, regardless of any questions regarding his election or qualifications. Materially, he was Pope. Whether he was Pope formally as well is something the Church will have to settle some day in the future. Therefore the visibility of the Church still resided with him, and to be organizationally apart from him and his organization was to be separated from the Church and therefore outside it. There things remain through June 2, 1963. On the third, he died.
The same things apply for Paul VI. Materially he was Pope upon his election, with considerably more room to doubt that he was formally Pope, but again, the Church must resolve that question when better times return. At first there were again no questions raised as to his papal claims. The first documented instance of any such doubts on the part of anyone occurred in 1965 when Paul VI called upon the world to look to the United Nations as the last hope for peace. Upon Paul VI's election, the Church still visibly and exteriorly centered on him. To say otherwise would pose severe problems as to where the visibility of the Church could have possibly resided by that point, with no answer.
Later that year, the Second Vatican Council issues its first two documents. Both of them merely set up committees to study the liturgy and the "social communications," and to issue reports and recommendations. Paul VI remained materially Pope, whatever he may or may not have been formally. The next year, the Council issued three documents, voted upon and accepted by all bishops, cardinals, and other prelates of the Church, including Pope Paul himself, all on the same day, November 21 1964. The first of these three documents, "Lumen Gentium," represents the most major departure from historic tradition.
The key paragraph in that document comes in paragraph 8, which reads:
This [the real, visible, and authentic Catholic Church, as clearly and accurately described in the preceding paragraphs of Lumen Gentium] is the sole Church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Savior, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it, and which he raised up for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth." This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church [which is to say, NOT the real and authentic Catholic Church described in the preceding paragraphs, but rather their new Vatican-run organization], which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines. Since these are gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, they are forces impelling towards Catholic unity.
In Latin, the latter half of this is given as:
Haec Ecclesia, in hoc mundo ut societas constituta et ordinata, subsistit in Ecclesia catholica, a sucessore Petri et Episcopis in eius compaginem gubernata, licet extra eius compaginem elementa plura sanctificationis et veritatis inveniatur, quae ut dona Ecclesiae Christi propria ad unitatem catholicam impellunt.
It is those two little words, "subsists in," in the eighth paragraph that changed everything. What do they mean? In Mystici Corporis (1943) and again in Humani Generis (1950), His Holiness Pope Pius XII once and again upheld and reiterated the consistent dogma held by the Church from Her very beginning, namely that the Mystical Body of Christ IS one and the same as that visible institution that he himself ruled as Christ's Vicar.
That teaching is contained in those encyclicals, not as a mere passing remark, but as a teaching carefully and explicitly expounded upon. He makes it abundantly and explicitly clear that they are to be totally, absolutely, and exclusively identified with each other, necessarily and intrinsically equal and identical in scope and boundaries. He also makes it clear that this Mystical Body of Christ and visible institutional Catholic Church he rules is itself alone the means or conduit of God's salvation to humankind. No salvation can be obtained from anywhere outside it. Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. Thus is the eternal teaching of the Church. It is dogma and to teach otherwise would be heresy.
But here we find for the very first time, a clear and indisputable change. What does "subsist" mean? Consult a dictionary and it merely means that one lives or exists or survives. Consult a Catholic Encyclopedia and one finds that an additional technical theological meaning is implied, namely the ability to exist without being dependent upon anything else. Without a doubt, the Real Church that is the Mystical Body of Christ possesses this characteristic. That Church is complete as itself and requires nothing from the world, even as God Himself is complete and requires nothing of His Creation. There is also the word "in." For anything to "be" or "exist" or "live" or "survive" or "subsist" IN a thing means that the first thing IS NOT the same thing as the second. And indeed it is not claimed in the above quoted document that this separate and distinct "Catholic Church" (actually their newly created Vatican institution) itself does any of this "subsisting," but merely that some portion of the Mystical Body of Christ happens to be doing its "subsisting" therein, while other portions "subsist" elsewhere, as indicated. When applied to organizations it effectively takes away any exclusive sense of identity between the two referenced entities.
Has the Church or Her doctors and theologians ever used such a word before? Rarely. But let us look at a legitimate instance where no less than St. Thomas Aquinas uses it in reference to his teaching on the Trinity. He describes each Person of the Sacred Trinity as "subsisting in" the Divine Nature. It is obvious why this must be so. If he were to state, for example, that "the Father IS the Divine Nature," then that would exclude the Son and the Holy Spirit from having anything to do with the Divine Nature, and in that case only the Father could be Deity, since the Son IS NOT the Father, and the Holy Spirit IS NOT either the Father or the Son.
By instead stating that the Father SUBSISTS IN the Divine Nature therefore allows that the Son may (and in fact does) also subsist in the Divine Nature, and likewise the Holy Spirit.
The use of the phrase "subsists in" therefore, in addition to reminding us of the Eternal and self-existant nature of each Person of the Divine Trinity, sets up a nonexclusive relationship between the Mystical Body and the visible institution is what is being attempted here in Lumen Gentium. Can one doubt it?
In case it's not clear enough, the rest of the paragraph in Lumen Gentium (as given above) explains it in excruciating detail: "Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its [the new Vatican institution's] visible confines. Since these are gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, they are forces impelling towards Catholic unity."
What does it mean to be an "element of sanctification and of truth"? I know there are some who would claim that it refers to certain "tools" of the Church such as Sacred Scripture or Liturgies or even Sacraments (what a dismissive view to take of these Divine assets!). But apart from the Church how can any of these things be Truth? As schism invariably leads to heresy, use of the Bible outside the direction and interests of the Church invariably leads to false interpretations and translations that only mislead. Truth is not Truth if it is mixed with error. Mere occasional (or even frequent) passing factual correctness is not Truth. What good is it to learn that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary if, in the same package, one also "learns" that Mary then abandoned her Holy Virginity to have various "half-brothers" and "half-sisters" of our Lord? In the "unlearning" of the second part of that package, could one avoid also "unlearning" the first part, and thus end up no closer to our Lord and His Mother than he was to begin with? And what good could a Liturgy be if it celebrates a false religion?
In the case of Sacraments, while some can be validly administered by heretics and schismatics, what "sanctification" is there when a state of sanctifying grace is neither present nor conferred, but only the other effects of the particular Sacrament? Finally, some might then claim or suggest that "elements of sanctification and of truth" might merely be some individual souls "outside the Church" nevertheless somehow miraculously "in a state of Grace before Almighty God."
One must indeed acknowledge the possibility of such individual souls. For though Mercy finds them only indirectly through the Church (in some cases very indirectly) it remains that their salvation still came alone through the Church. But that is not what is referenced here in this document. An "element of sanctification and of truth" cannot merely be a passive recipient of sanctification and truth, but in fact a means or channel thereof. Just as, for example, an "object of light" would not be merely a "lighted object" but a source of light, i. e. a lamp. That "these are GIFTS..." further implies that they are not mere passive recipients of Grace (as could be such few individual souls who are outside the Church yet inside God's Mercy), but active producers or sources or channels of Grace.
Though the grammar here may be subtle, the Vatican II fathers in their bizarre determination to be "ecumenically correct," made it abundantly clear in another document just what, precisely, these "elements of sanctification and truth" are, which happen to be "outside its [the Vatican institution's] confines." This other document, namely Unitatis Redintegratio which was published later that very same day, invokes again the above referenced paragraph by using the phrase "outside the visible boundaries":
Moreover, some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ.
The brethren divided from us also use many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. These most certainly can truly engender a life of grace in ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or Community. These liturgical actions must be regarded as capable of giving access to the community of salvation.
It follows that the separated Churches and Communities as such, though we believe them to be deficient in some respects, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church.
So there it is in black and white, these non-Catholics (the immediate context seems to be discussing various Schismatic East Orthodox and Protestant communities, but obviously it would be a reasonable extension that all other religions and non-religions are to be included as well) are (in their liturgical actions and communities) themselves the "MEANS OF SALVATION." This is in fact impossible, and in fact an outright and irreconcilable denial of what the doctrine "No Salvation Outside the Church" has always meant.
It is here that all of what is wrong with Vatican-II-style ecumenism finds its basis. This "subsists in" business is no mere one-off typographical error, but a real change in how they believe and what they believe. This change has been reiterated again and again throughout the Vatican II documents and many times thereafter.
That non-Catholic ministers are sources or channels of God's Grace, sanctification, and truth is what provides the basis for the 1983 Code of Canon Law's Canons 844 and 845 that permit Catholics to approach non-Catholic ministers for the Sacraments, not merely "ad extremis" (in extreme and immediate danger of death, and even then they may only approach those who are validly ordained), but practically at will, and any they so choose. This is why John Paul II never considered it the crime of "Communicatio in Sacris" to receive blessing, sacraments, prayers, and so forth from all manner of heretics, schismatics, pagans, and demon-worshippers and their liturgical actions.
What Vatican II really did was attempt to grant a full sharing in the jurisdiction of the Church to any and all religious ministers of any sort. It threw jurisdiction to the four winds, and is itself what reaps the whirlwind. An "element of sanctification and of truth" must be some Church or hierarchical Church representative with the capacity and authority and jurisdiction to rule, teach, govern, and convey Grace unto sanctification, and they are therefore an integral component of the Church, such that the Church is incomplete without them. And it makes these lawful ecclesiastical authorities out there to be not in any way answerable to the Vatican leader, since they still convey Grace while remaining "outside" the confines or boundaries of their new so-called "Catholic Church."
Chapter Two
The decaying shell of Vatican II has no spine, no muscle, no life. It is merely an ecumenical epidermis destined to wither away.
 At Vatican II, beginning with Lumen Gentium, many of those representing the Church had shed their Faith while maintaining the veneer of the Church. But after a certain time because they were no longer connected to the Vine, they have wilted and are decaying and slowly but surely we are seeing that what many thought was the Church is really a decaying skin - the llunoo - of a dying entity.
"It is meant for there to be one bishop ruling them all, and also (in a weaker sense) that he should be ruling from the city of Rome, but the Church does not cease being the Church when either of these details is not present, as in after the death of each pope, or for the second, when the papacy was variously located in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Avignon. Obviously, these features will also return as the presently "green" skin of the Church gradually firms up."
What Vatican II really did was attempt to grant a full sharing in the jurisdiction of the Church to any and all religious ministers of any sort. It threw jurisdiction to the four winds, and is itself what reaps the whirlwind. An "element of sanctification and of truth" must be some Church or hierarchical Church representative with the capacity and authority and jurisdiction to rule, teach, govern, and convey Grace unto sanctification, and they are therefore an integral component of the Church, such that the Church is incomplete without them. And it makes these lawful ecclesiastical authorities out there to be not in any way answerable to the Vatican leader, since they still convey Grace while remaining "outside" the confines or boundaries of their new so-called "Catholic Church."
Now of course, we know that it is intrinsically impossible for any sort of heretic or pagan or member of any other religion to be in any way a means of God's Grace or a holder of any sort of Catholic ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Though the Vatican II fathers attempted to impart these qualities to the heretics and pagans of all sorts, the heretics and pagans themselves are incapable of receiving them. What became of these qualities, then?
In my chapter one, I laid the groundwork of how the Vatican II schema Lumen Gentium set up a new institution.Therefore, let us go back to Lumen Gentium itself. While allowing clergy who do not answer to the Vatican leadership to be nevertheless juridical and hierarchical members of God's Holy Catholic Church, this document itself names no specific groups or religions or heresies embraced by any such. It merely throws jurisdiction to the winds, leaving it to later documents to attempt to assign them specifically to the various brands of non-Catholics.
Lumen Gentium also has the distinction of being the very first such document of Vatican II, the only previous documents released the previous year merely having set up "committees" to do whatever. Though it is clear that the intent of the Vatican II fathers (or at least those who drafted this document along with those that followed) was patently heretical, might not their words, contained in this document Lumen Gentium, admit to another interpretation? A non-heretical one? If so, where can we turn for one?
There is an answer to this, as it turns out. When John XXIII first convened the council, he stated that it was to be only "pastoral" in nature, thus addressing disciplinary and administrative details only, never once any dogmas or doctrines. Is that what came of it? Paul VI himself after the close of Vatican II affirms that very thing: "Some ask what authority - what theological qualification - the Council has attached to its teachings, knowing that it has avoided solemn dogmatic definitions backed by the Church's infallible teaching authority." Therefore, the apparent "heresy" of Lumen Gentium is not meant to have anything to do with any dogma or doctrine of the Church. Is there a disciplinary manner in which it can be understood?
There is such an answer. Go back and read the Lumen Gentium paragraph 8 carefully and the answer presents itself quite readily. There are two entities spoken of therein, one which is the Mystical Body of Christ spoken of throughout the first 7 paragraphs of Lumen Gentium and even the first sentence of paragraph 8. The other is what they call a "Catholic Church," by which they evidently mean the visible structures of their Vatican institution. Since the Mystical Body must itself always BE visible structures, this can only be a reference to a brand new structure which Lumen Gentium is speaking into existence.
What happens when a "second" is spoken of when such cannot be truly separated from the first? I believe that what this does is create a new organization. The interior, spiritual, Mystical Body of Christ will always and necessarily have its exterior visible and civil and legal and structural aspects. Therefore what you really have is two such exterior, visible organizations, one which is in every aspect, including domain, identical to the interior spiritual subsisting Mystical Body of Christ, and the other, a new organization within a portion of which subsists a portion of that Mystical Body.
A good illustration could come from a word in my wife's dialect and a fact from nature (from which the word comes). That word (I don't know the spelling) is pronounced "Llunoo." It refers to certain animals (insects, snakes) who shed their skin whole and crawl out of it, leaving it behind. The Llunoo is that skin which is left behind from the creature. It retains much of the shape of the creature but the creature no longer lives in it (though it may still continue stuck to them for a time) This same word is also used in her dialect to refer to the covers of a bed one has risen out of but not fixed, thus still showing the form of the person once sleeping there.
"You left your llunoo," is how one would remind another that they "forgot to make their bed."
An important point to note from this detail of nature is that the creature, in shedding its skin (leaving it as a llunoo) does not emerge skinless, but has a new skin (albeit very soft and green) which can then gradually harden and firm up into its new skin. The new organization is very like a llunoo of the Church, and with the animal having left it there is nothing of substance to prop up its form. Likewise, the "skin" of the Church (real Church) today being soft and green is like the factual reduction of the Church to its utter barest miminum of Divinely ordained structure.
So much of what the Church has for structure, the Curia, the Cardinalate, the worldwide mapping of territorial "dioceses" and "Archdioceses," Monsignors, Canon Law, and so forth were all created by the Church over her history, and are now stripped from her as Jesus Christ's seamless garment was stripped from Him at the crucifixion. It is clear that the V-2 "fathers" intended that their new llunoo would inherit all those trimmings and trappings along with its echo of those structures which the soft and green Church still retains, namely legitimate bishops to whom legitimate priests answer, and under them the religious and lay Faithful.
It is meant for there to be one bishop ruling them all, and also (in a weaker sense) that he should be ruling from the city of Rome, but the Church does not cease being the Church when either of these details is not present, as in after the death of each pope, or for the second, when the papacy was variously located in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Avignon. Obviously, these features will also return as the presently "green" skin of the Church gradually firms up.
So, they have defined into existence a new organization, their "llunoo," so to speak. Who are the members of this llunoo and how is it structured? This is answered right in the very same sentence which describes this new "Catholic Church" as being "governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him." So, by their acceptance of this decree, the man who was Peter and all those men who chose to go with him by signing this document are made the charter members of this new organization.
They therefore all accepted new offices in a new organization. Often, the taking of a new office constitutes a tacit resignation from one's former office, though there would be exceptions in cases where a person could perform double duty, wearing two hats, so to speak. So at that point, every Church prelate had two offices where before they had one. They still had their former office as Pope, Cardinal, or Bishop in the Church (Mystical Body), and now they each also had a roughly equivalent office in this new organization they had all jointly defined into existence.
Many of them sadly devoted all of their further work to the duties of the new organization instead of their Apostolic duties formerly placed upon them, and there does come a point after some arbitrary period of time after which such a gross dereliction of duty constitutes an official (though still tacit) resignation from their former offices. Such ex-clerics, AWOL from their real duties, are the ones who gave us the rest of Vatican II, the Novus Ordo, the Commuicatio in Sacris with all manner of unbelievers, and the whole pro-communist and pro-leftist agenda.
For those who went in this sad direction, Lumen Gentium was itself their joint resignation letter. In this one official act of theirs, they have quit the Church and absolved themselves of any Apostolic mission. What do they care if no one converts anymore? It's not their job to make or help anyone convert. There is no need for any of us to "judge" them, we need merely and humbly take them at their word in this and recognize the situation in all obedience.
But this is only part of what happened. Legally, Lumen Gentium itself is only a partial resignation, assigning them new offices but not removing them from their former offices. There were some few who continued to serve in their former offices, and as such were not AWOL and not derelict in their Apostolic mission. As the duties of their new conciliar office gradually diverged from the duties of their Apostolic office, these few faithful bishops gave first priority to the obligations of their Apostolic office, or at the very least, devoted some limited time still to those responsibilities of their Apostolic office no longer overlapped by their new duties.
It is these few bishops, and their lawful successors, who have continued the Apostolic Succession as Jesus Christ commanded, and in full visible union with Him and His Church. They (and the faithful priests attached to them) ARE the Church hierarchical. In my book, I have written of some of them in detail, especially those who have managed to arrange for successors, namely Archbishops Thuc and Lefebvre, and Bishops de Castro-Meyer and Mendez. But there were others, such as Sigaud and Van Zuylen, who also served though not producing any episcopal successors.
Returning again to that same passage in Lumen Gentium one also sees their Apostolic mission being officially affirmed and ecclesiastical jurisdiction being awarded to them.
Even though the Schismatic East Orthodox and Protestants for whom it was all intended could not be recipients of the Church's ecclesiastical jurisdiction owing to their adherence to heresy, no such impediment applies to faithful priests and bishops who posses valid orders and profess and teach the wholeness of the Catholic Faith.
Those "elements of sanctification and truth" it speaks of can be none other than our faithful bishops and priests, possessing therefore full lawful jurisdiction. They are, jointly and collectively, the regular and lawful means that Sanctifying Grace unto salvation enters the world and comes to all who receive it. It is even their very service in the same Church that (as the document also states) "impells them towards Catholic unity" with each other. This is so despite the disagreements that currently exist among them, between the SSPX bishops and the sedevacantist bishops, between the Mendez bishop and the Catholic Thuc bishops, between the Indultarian bishop and the non-indultarian bishops, and so forth.
This would therefore be the only possible Catholic interpretation of Lumen Gentium. It has always been possible within the realm of discipline to create a new organization, to declare oneselves all members of it, and even to resign through dereliction one office by turning all of one's attentions to a new office. And it is equally possible to grant a blanket recognition to all valid and Catholic clerics, regardless of their relationship to any such new organization or other status.
Next time someone claims that the SSPX or other traditional bishops have no jurisdiction or faculties or deputation or lawfulness to dispense the Sacraments and act in the name of the Church (as appropriate to their particular ecclesiastical rank as priests or bishops), point them to Vatican II itself, their new "highest law" which as shown above thus overrides and invalidates all "lower" attempts at suspending or excommunicating anyone for merely keeping and continuing to propagate and sustain the authentic Catholic Faith and Church.
So, November 22, 1964, the day after Lumen Gentium was promulgated, where is the Church? It is with all of those few faithful bishops who continued in their former Apostolic offices, and not with those many who abandoned their former offices. What does that make the Vatican institution on that day and ever since? Just another human-made organization, one that humans made and humans can destroy, and which humans can modify to their twisted little heart's content. And thus we have seen over the past 40 years or so since the promulgating of Lumen Gentium in 1964.
Chapter Three
The place of the Indult
and the Future of the Church Why the Indult can be doled out in such insultingly limited amounts, and yet cannot be shut down!
 If the Church is universal why are the "Indult Masses" so sparse throughout the world? Why are most of the hierarchy from the top on down so squeamish about permitting a Mass set in stone for 1800 years? What frees them to be so disobedient to the perpetual celebret of St. Pius V and the Dogmatic Council of Trent? In those questions rest the fate of the Modern Vatican institution...all traceable back to Lumen Gentium wherein the visible unity of the Church was distributed only partially to the Vatican institution and partially elsewhere, and what the Vatican institution must do to regain its former claim as being the True Church.
"Will they one day repent, embrace the Catholic Faith, see to the valid ordinations and consecrations of their clergy (?) as needed, and repeal Vatican II in full? At this time they seem more willing to walk knowingly with their eyes open directly into the eternal fires of Hell rather than give up their "precious" Vatican II. One has to wonder if even God can put the "fear of God" in them. Either that must one day happen, or else the axe must fall. There does come a point (as yet unseen as of this writing) where the Spirit of God ceases to continue striving with Man and gives up on a man, delivering him over to Satan to be buffeted or even condemned. We were all so impressed by those tidal waves in the Far East, or by what a few stupid vandals with box-cutter knives could do to the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon a few years previous. Might not such a judgment of similar scale await today's fallen, heretical, child-molesting Vatican?"
So, November 22, 1964, the day after Lumen Gentium was promulgated, where is the Church? It is with all of those few faithful bishops who continued in their former Apostolic offices, and not with those many who abandoned their former offices. What does that make the Vatican institution on that day and ever since? Just another human-made organization, one that humans made and humans can destroy, and which humans can modify to their twisted little heart's content. And thus we have seen over the past 40 years or so since the promulgating of Lumen Gentium in 1964.
The more it thus changed, the less welcome any authentic Catholic clergy have been tolerated therein. At first, many bishops could easily do double-duty as the duties of both offices old and new largely overlapped. But with the second office (and its concomitant duties) free to change in whatever manner mere worldly man desires, the two sets of duties naturally diverged, increasingly forcing each bishopto make a choice.
However, recalling (again) what Lumen Gentium said, some portion of the Church must nevertheless continue to subsist in their institution as well as the other portions outside of it. And so again we also find. In the beginning, it was through the fact that things had not changed so much, and rather easily a bishop could "drag his feet" as to going to the new forms and purposes.
Bishop de Castro-Meyer managed to do this clear to his retirement in 1981. Up to that point his whole diocese had been safe, quite properly "the Last Catholic Diocese," as Dr. White calls it. And after that the priests of his diocese were tolerated for a time, until one-by-one they were chewed up and spat out, the last of which was none other than (then) Fr. Rifan in 1986. And although Bishop Van Zuylen had not furnished his diocese in Belguim with all the same protections as Bishop de Castro-Meyer (most of it went modernist), he did nevertheless leave faithful Fr. Schoonbroodt unmolested as Father faithfully continued the Catholic religion in his parish, and and this continued clear until his Excellency's retirement in 1988. And of course at this point in time the Eastern Rites were as yet largely unaffected.
But one could see that excuses to continue authentic religion in the Vatican institution were fading fast. The 1990's would see the beginning in earnest to corrupt the Eastern Rites as well, as iconostases were pulled out, pews installed, local vernaculars substituted for the original languages for these Rites, and the horrific Balamand pact. Before long, the Church would not subsist in the Vatican institution at all, unless something else intervened.
That "something else" here turned out to be an "Indult," a localized permission for an individual cleric here and there to continue faithful and authentic Catholic worship (to go along nicely with Catholic Faith and teaching as well). It had to exist; it just had to. There have been several attempts to shut it down, and having failed that there are now attempts to corrupt it. But so long as it exists and priests avail themselves of it there will be those who do so, fully upholding the authentic teaching. In such men as these, the Mystical Body of Christ also continues indeed to subsist in the new Vatican institution that Lumen Gentium created, exactly as it decreed. In an ironic bit of Providence, the Vatican commission appointed to negotiate with the few authentic Catholics within that institution has come to be named "Ecclesia Dei", the "Church of God." And the Indult is the only portion of today's Vatican institition that even qualifies as any part of God's Church.
But these Indult clerics cannot account for the entirety of the Church. For one thing, the Indult is a localized accommodation to a strong Catholic Faith being present in the people of some area. While adequately represented here in the US and also in Europe, most other parts of the world have at best (if at all) a mere token Indult presence, perhaps a single Mass in a single city once a month for their entire nation. That is not Catholic.
To be Catholic means to be universal, not only in accepting the whole counsel of God, but also in applying to all locations, geographically. The Indultarian diocese of Campos is (contrary to original agreements and promises) confined to a ministry in Campos. Furthermore, many Indult Masses go unpublished and unadvertised. When I was in London in 2003, I had the privilege of assisting at a beautiful Indult Mass in no less than Westminster Cathedral. But it was difficult to discover the time of the Mass. There was no mention of it in the parish bulletin, none of the staff seemed to know anything about it, even the lady at the information desk had to pull out from under her desk this giant appointment book listing all reservations of all facilities associated with the Cathedral in order to find any reference to it, and even then one was not sure.
The Indult is therefore confined, caged in many ways. Many localities lack it altogether, and in others it is kept secret, apparently being advertised in local non-Indult traditional chapels only. Obviously it is not meant to spread out far and wide, no "wide and generous" application of it (as originally requested by John Paul II himself in the controversial 1988 Ecclesia Dei motu proprio). I would estimate that the Indult consists of about one tenth of one percent of all (clergy and laity each) the Vatican institution, and even there I am being generous.
No, the Indult can only be a PART of the solution, and PART of the Church, not the entire thing. Think of that llunoo but still sticking to a part of the animal. The animal has largely vacated it, but a small part of the animal is still in a small part of the llunoo. The rest is that which subsists outside the Vatican institution, just as most of the animal is outside its llunoo.
What of the future? Animals that leave a llunoo never return to it once it is fully shed. On the other hand, even our own body can be like a kind of llunoo when we shed it at death, only to be reunited to it (or some sort of glorified version thereof) at our physical resurrection. Will the Church and the llunoo be reunited? That depends on whether it is ever welcomed back, or rather whether the llunoo will return to the animal.
Will they one day repent, embrace the Catholic Faith, see to the valid ordinations and consecrations of their clergy (?) as needed, and repeal Vatican II in full? At this time they seem more willing to walk knowingly with their eyes open directly into the eternal fires of Hell rather than give up their "precious" Vatican II. One has to wonder if even God can put the "fear of God" in them.
Either that must one day happen, or else the axe must fall. There does come a point (as yet unseen as of this writing) where the Spirit of God ceases to continue striving with Man and gives up on a man, delivering him over to Satan to be buffeted or even condemned. We were all so impressed by those tidal waves in the Far East, or by what a few stupid vandals with box-cutter knives could do to the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon a few years previous. Might not such a judgment of similar scale await today's fallen, heretical, child-molesting Vatican?
Do we need them? I must admit that if, IF, per impossible, the folks there were to repent and return corporately to the Faith, the healing and reconstituting of the Church could then proceed with relative speed and ease. But ultimately, this depends upon the will of Man, and Man far more often than not has a stubborn hard heart and a stiff neck. If Man does not repent, if there never is any Vatican repentance, can the Church continue?
Most certainly it can and will. In such a case, things could be much more difficult and dicey, but as the prophecy says, the Immaculate Heart will triumph. We really would like them to fully and truly repent, for then we are stronger than not, but in the final analysis, it is not we who need them, but they who need us. It is we alone who have the legitimate, valid, orthodox, and divinely sent bishops and priests. If the Vatican ever does repent, who will receive them back into the Church, except those among us who ARE still the Church hierarchical.
For otherwise, it is perfectly obvious that the day could come when the judgment falls, it would be so serious as to render moot all those questions that divide us Catholics today: is there a Pope? Who is or is not "approved"? Why don't they repent? What abomination will they come up with next? When that happens, those who continue to mistake the Vatican of today with being any part of the Church will have to cry out in despair, "the Church is destroyed; there can never be any Church anymore!"
Because Christ promised "the gates of hell will never prevail against it", we know that we who are the True Church can never be destroyed. Ergo, should that judgment fall and the modernist institution that most mistake for the Church today would be destroyed many will just have to trust God that His Church has somehow survived. In time it would have to emerge and become publicly known what has happened with the promulgation of Lument Gentium and where the Church has been since then.
But those of us who already know the truth about what happened at Vatican II with Lumen Gentium and its "subsistence in" and "elements of Grace and Sanctification outside the Vatican's confines" will realize at once that God has once again preserved His Church. Just because "King" Herod was merely a Roman puppet (and an Idumean at that), Israel was not left without a King. As Israel had its true King in Jesus Christ who was both legally (through His foster father Joseph, a direct male-line heir of King David) and biologically (through His Immaculately conceived and ever sinless mother Mary) the "Son of David," so we too today traditional Catholics have our faithful, valid, lawful, and Apostolically-sent bishops and priests who alone can truly point to who sent them all the way back to Jesus Christ at the Great Commission.
Chapter Four
The Law & How it applies to these times of crisis
Divine Law always over-rules Ecclesiastical Law. That is a canon you can count on no matter the obliteration caused by Lumen Gentium and the other calamities stemming from Vatican II.
"Canon Law, as expressed in the 1917 Code, reflects the totality of all laws, including both Divine and Ecclesiastical laws. The Divine laws provide the skeleton, fixed, hard, and eternally unchangeable, which could never be changed or compromised in any way no matter what, and the rest provide the flesh, changeable, adjustable, at need."
Those of us who know the truth about what happened at Vatican II with Lumen Gentium and its "subsistence in" and "elements of Grace and Sanctification outside the Vatican's confines" will realize that God has once again preserved His Church. Just because "King" Herod was merely a Roman puppet (and an Idumean at that), Israel was not left without a King. As Israel had its true King in Jesus Christ who was both legally (through His foster father Joseph, a direct male-line heir of King David) and biologically (through His Immaculately conceived and ever sinless mother Mary) the "Son of David," so we too today traditional Catholics have our faithful, valid, lawful, and Apostolically sent bishops and priests who alone can truly point to who sent them all the way back to Jesus Christ at the Great Commission.
So, what does that mean canonically for these bishops and priests who are the Church hierarchical and yet who are not part of today's Vatican institution. The Church is not an institution without laws, even today, though the laws applicable have been also reduced by this situation. However we have more than mere "emergency status" as a canonical basis for our functioning. That would have been enough, were the Vatican institution still to be identified with the Church and therefore bound to recover - but in that case it would have done so long ago. However if it never re-identifies with the Church, then the remaining faithful clergy will need more than such an emergency status anyway, and they do have that, and more.
The laws that bind the action of the Church have two basic sources, namely those rooted in Divine Law (in which I will, for this discussion include all the various categories of Divine Positive Law, Natural Law, and so forth), and those rooted in the men of the Church, namely Ecclesiastical Law. Crudely put, the Ten Commands from Mt. Sinai would be a prime example of Divine Law, whereas the Six Commandments of the Church would be a prime example of Ecclesiastical Law.
By the early 1900's, the many laws of the Church had grown so numerous and complex, consisting mostly of precedents for any and all sorts of cases and situations. A study of Law had become almost prohibitively complex, with no clear place to even start. With good and just reason did His Holiness Pope Saint Pius X seek to have all of that unorganized morass of principles, precedents, customs, practices, local and individual legislations and so forth organized into a single unified whole known as the Code of Canon Law, which was finally promulgated under the auspices of his successor, Pope Benedict XV in 1917.
This new Code of Canon Law was a summary, a summation, and a distillation of all of what had crudely served (but with far more complexity and detail) in the place of Canon Law before it. In effect, it replaced the former ecclesiastical laws with the laws as written in this document itself. Without a doubt, much detail was necessarily lost, and the finest Canon Lawyers in those days after the promulgation of the 1917 Code nevertheless often had recourse to that previous body of data in interpreting that Code in cases where either it was unclear (not many), patently unjust (even rarer), or where it provides options or a range of solutions, for example, of penalties to apply for certain crimes, leaving it up to jurisprudence to interpret and apply. The intent of the Law is best understood from all of that preceding body of data.
Canon Law, as expressed in the 1917 Code, reflects the totality of all laws, including both Divine and Ecclesiastical laws. The Divine laws provide the skeleton, fixed, hard, and eternally unchangeable, which could never be changed or compromised in any way no matter what, and the rest provide the flesh, changeable, adjustable, at need.
No matter what else happens, Divine laws always apply, that is obvious. But what about the ecclesiastical portion? This portion would be most simply (if somewhat crudely) described as being an attempt to apply common sense to the application of the Divine laws. By common sense, one therefore attempts to maintain a delicate balance between being overly scrupulous on the one hand, and overly licentious on the other. Where such laws cannot be directly applied, common sense would again require that equivalent applications should be abided by. Allow me to illustrate with the "rules of the road."
First and foremost it would have to be necessary that one must not drive into buildings, lampposts, other cars, or people, nor engage in obviously risky maneuvers (such as excessive speed) that might seriously the risks of such events occurring. That would have to be considered the equivalent to the Divine law portion, since that is always and intrinsically necessary and immutable. Second however would be a nation's (and state's) laws creating specific mandates, such as driving on the right-had side of the road, signaling before turning, stopping at stop signs and lights, and yielding the right-of-way.
These specific mandates are quite replaceable with equivalents (not simply waived away), such as driving on the left side of the road (as it is in some countries) or using roundabouts (with their particular laws as to use) instead of stoplights and signs and yield signs. The purpose is the same, and that is found in the unalterable parts. The Code of Canon Law is similarly meant to serve as a kind of spiritual "rules of the road" to salvation. Do its detail (ecclesiastical) provisions apply or not, and if not then what equivalents?
Chapter Five
Exploring the ramifications of Lumen Gentium as to authority in the Church
Traditional Catholics have no diocesan boundaries but are bound to the spiritual direction of their Traditional Bishops whose jurisdiction governs their particular parish whether that be a traditional community with a church, a home chapel, a hotel conference room or strip-mall storefront. The fact is, canonically speaking, 'We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.' Catholics everywhere have been caught up in the swirling tornadic troubles wrought by modernism. Clicking our heels and wishing the Modernists at the Vatican would anathematize Vatican II won't do it either. Traditional Catholics need the courage, heart and wisdom to be able to travel the narrow yellow brick road to Heaven amidst the gauntlet of obstacles the wizards and warlocks of the NO, who so freely accept the world, the flesh and the devil, throw at them. If Traditional Catholics are loyal to their baptismal vows and their particular Traditional Catholic clergy and bishops in union with all Holy Mother Church has taught and handed down from Peter through Pius XII, then great graces will flow and many fruits grow while the holy water of baptismal grace will melt the wicked ones who seek to deceive.
"That is what defines our unity with the Church today: Are we willing to submit ourselves to our traditional priests and bishops in matters spiritual, not flitting from one to another as suits our wanton desires, but supporting our chosen clerics as befits all Catholics, and not participating in any of the hateful schismatic denunciations of our fellow Catholics who do the same for their equally faithful clerics of supposedly 'rival' orders? Do we live as we ought, in Catholic charity and humility, with an active and ever-maturing interior life, as guided by our spiritual director? In that we keep our full and lawful membership in the Church as a member in good standing."
In the last chapter, I concluded with the question about the Code of Canon Law being similarly meant to serve as a kind of spiritual "rules of the road" to salvation. Do its detail ecclesiastical provisions apply or not, and if not then what equivalents?
For this we point back to Lumen Gentium again. Notice that when it granted jurisdiction to those outside the Vatican, it required nothing of anyone to be the means of providing God's Grace and Sanctification to souls. Those who subsist within the Vatican (Bishop Rifan and attached priests of Campos, for example) would be still bound by whatever laws it applies to itself (currently a new "Code of Canon Law" issued in 1983), and bound to respect the former diocesan boundaries, if they are to continue functioning within that organization.
But what of those subsisting outside? If you live in the State of Kansas, then you are bound by its State Laws. But to those clerics who lawfully subsist outside today's Vatican, you are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. So let's see what doesn't apply to you: For one thing, diocesan boundaries. Nothing was said in Lumen Gentium (nor even Unitatis Redintegratio for that matter) restricting the activities of these non-Vatican clerics to certain regions nor of granting any cleric remaining within its structures to banish nor judge or exclude non-Vatican clerics from accomplishing their ministry, nor for any non-Vatican clerics to banish or judge each other or even (for that matter) banish or judge any Vatican clerics.
For those who function outside the Vatican boundaries, all geographical territorial diocesan boundaries are therefore dissolved. There are no specific assignments of any such cleric to any particular region. Their jurisdiction is therefore worldwide, but neither primary (as only the supreme bishop can be prime in his jurisdiction, and that limits it to one single bishop), nor territorially exclusive. In short, no traditional bishop can say to any other "This is my area; you must go work somewhere else."
Any ranking, or divvying up of geographical territory must therefore be only by mutual consent of all bishops, until such time as one bishop will once again command the obedience of all and whose duty that normally is. The only known instance of this taking place was that Campos was ceded by all (Indult, SSPX, sedevacantist alike) to the Society of Saint John Vianney. I am not sure if this status has continued now that they have transferred from an SSPX-like position to an indultarian one.
As to the rest of the faithful Catholic clerics, do they belong to a diocese? With Lumen Gentium, all of that was transferred over to the Vatican institution, and with that the Church's diocesan boundaries are all dissolved. When this happens, there can only remain the one eternal diocese, namely that of Rome. Why is that so? Combine any two or more dioceses by dissolving the boundary between them and what do you get? One diocese equal to the total of the former dioceses. If any of the former dioceses happens to be that of Rome, the new larger diocese would simply all become the diocese of Rome.
Traditional bishops are therefore bishops of Rome. None of them being prime (else he would be Pope), they all would properly be described as "assistant bishops to the Diocese of Rome," and that indeed they are. Being of the Diocese of Rome, does this make traditional bishops and priests "Cardinals"? An interesting question and one suitable for further study. For now I can only offer that idea as a speculation. However, one should be able to see that these bishops are all Canonical equals. None has the right to judge or dismiss another (unless one falls into heresy), nor to do same for any member of another's flock.
Can things really be this way, and it is healthy? It was so in the beginning. The whole concept of diocesan boundaries was completely unknown to the original Apostles, who basically just said among themselves "OK, you go North, you go North-East, … and you stay here." When the Arian crisis broke out, no Arian bishop ever once claimed the right to deny faculties to any Trinitarian priest entering even his own city, as the concept of diocesan boundaries and the prerogatives that come with same was still largely undeveloped. One of the less well-known things that the First Council of Nicea did was to begin the setting up and instituting of such territoriality in the first place.
How does it help? This is the amazing part. Unlike any merely human institution where (for example in medicine) it is always good to be able to get a second opinion, the Church, being divinely instituted, does not work that way. By putting one bishop in charge of a particular territory (diocese), whatever assistant bishops he may or may not have who are subordinate to him, this invokes Divine intervention to keep that bishop honest. For the Church to function in that territory, the bishop in charge of it must remain (or at the very least, tolerate) real and authentic Catholicism. Otherwise the Church would not exist there legally, and would thereby cease to be Catholic (universal in territory as well as adherence to the whole counsel of God). God cannot allow that and does not, owing to His promises to His Church.
Strangely, the very lack of such an arrangement is what had allowed the Arian heresy to spread so far and wide. As long as someone (canonical equal or lesser) has the jurisdiction to enter a bishop's territory or city, that bishop can himself fully fall into error and utterly refuse to serve the Church, since it is within the lawful power of others to fill in for him. When 99% of all bishops had went Arian, the Church was no less worldwide in being able to supply all sacraments and ruling guidance as always in all areas. Though few and widely dispersed, the jurisdiction of Trinitarian clergy still legally covered the whole earth.
By dissolving the diocesan boundaries, Lumen Gentium essentially brought the Church back into a pre-Nicene juridical condition. This is what freed the Vatican bishops to defect in such massive numbers even as the Church's bishops similarly defected back then. Yes we have jurisdiction, but they lost a certain Divine protection. And yes, the Church survived several centuries of persecution with such an arrangement without defecting. But it is not an ideal state of affairs. One day, such things must all be restored, and towards this end we are all obliged to work.
And what is first of all required to heal this situation and restore the former order? Point one and most preeminent: Vatican II (or at least Lumen Gentium in particular) must be revoked. To be revoked, that implies that it first be recognized has having been "on the books," so to speak. The later documents may be either revoked or condemned as need be, but that first must be revoked. Indeed, I don't see a full solution that would not start with revoking not only Vatican II itself, but also all that followed from it, and even all that merely (and falsely) pretended to follow from it. Anything short of that will provide a loophole for the evil one to continue the madness.
To possess jurisdiction, it is not necessary to acknowledge Vatican II as even valid (as many Catholic bishops have already condemned it), but to revoke it will require at least a brief acknowledgement of Vatican II so as to revoke it. Who can do this? If today's Vatican were to corporately repent and revoke it, would not all the traditional Catholic bishops around the world join in, making it's revocation official? And else if the Vatican loses even what it could still claim with respect to the Church (that is, if ever the Church should cease altogether to subsist within any portion whatsoever of it), it would be enough for the traditional bishops themselves to come together and do so.
Even from a more basic standpoint, this is a necessary action, since Lumen Gentium has yet one other consequence I have not discussed. If part of the Church subsists within the Vatican organization and another part similarly subsists outside, then, while such a condition persists, could any one bishop really and lawfully possess full and universal jurisdiction? The Vatican lead bishop could still be "prime" (providing he is not found to be a heretic), but his authority is by Lumen Gentium limited to only PART of the Church, namely that which subsists within his organization. Those subsisting outside are beyond his jurisdiction.
For any other bishop, such a difference would be merely a quantitative difference. Instead of having 10,000 souls in one's charge one instead has 8,000, or whatever. But for the Supreme and universal Bishop (Pope), to lack jurisdiction over so much as a single Catholic soul in union with the Church is to redefine his office in a far more fundamental and qualitative manner. His ecclesiastical rank cannot be Pope any longer, but instead something more equivalent to that of Archbishop, or perhaps the Patriarch of some particular Rite.
Look what happens to infallibility: A pope engages his infallibility when he 1) teaches on either Faith or Morals, 2) attempts to impose his teaching by virtue of his Petrine authority, and most crucially of all to this discussion, 3) attempts to bind the WHOLE Church to his decision. Only a bishop whose jurisdiction extends to every Catholic soul can do this, in other words a Pope. That is why the Pope alone can claim infallibility in himself, the infallibility of others being at all times dependent upon their attachment to the Pope's teaching. The Vatican Leader, whose jurisdiction is restricted by Lumen Gentium, is incapable of binding the whole Church for he lacks that fullness of authority.
How could any man whose jurisdiction is thus limited be Pope? Even if he were totally and unquestionably orthodox in all his faith and morals, he still cannot be Pope until Lumen Gentium gets revoked. Nor can anyone else be Pope either. Granted those who have attempted private "conclaves" so far have been of far less than ideal mental stability or even sanity, but even if they were fully sane and mentally stable, their efforts would even then similarly fail to produce a Pope for the Church.
When I say therefore, that our beloved Church has no Pope, I say that, not as a criticism of (for the moment anyway) John Paul II, but as mere statement of fact that no one bishop currently rules all traditional bishops. Indeed, in the case of John Paul II (and John Paul I for that matter, and to some extent Paul VI after Lumen Gentium), I say this as a way to excuse them. Were real and actual Popes, Successors to the Apostle Peter, to have done and said and taught the things done and said and taught by these men, one would have to declare the Church utterly and irrevocably destroyed, the Gates of Hell having thus entirely and perpetually prevailed. It would take a supernatural evil in them to do such a thing as shatter the Papal prerogative of infallibility.
But thankfully, Lumen Gentium has in fact seen to the formal and legal removal of Paul VI (and those following after him and sustaining rather than revoking it) from the papacy. We don't need to remove them (indeed no one of us nor even all of us put together would have had that kind of authority), but instead God acted. Lumen Gentium was God's Providential means for removing the Modernists from office in a formal and legal manner that need only be recognized for it has long since already taken place.
It is in fact their lack of a hold on the papacy that has freed them to fall into whatever errors they have privately and secretly harbored in their pre-Lumen Gentium canonically Catholic days. They do not lose the papacy for being in error, rather they are free to wander into error due to their "a priori" lack of the papacy. So what does that make the Vatican institution, as an organization? It is just like any other man-made organization (since men created it back at Vatican II with Lumen Gentium), and as such as subject to error as any other humanly made organization, nation, club, or what have you. This is why it can create new invalid "sacraments," and knowing all of this is why we Catholics need not continue to twist our minds into pretzels trying to reconcile its activities with authentic Catholicism. It is even why we need not be shocked, nor even the least bit surprised, when they act like the non-Catholics that they are, doing all they can to corrupt the souls of those who mistakenly trust in them.
So, what is the true state of the Church today? What picture is the correct one for all Catholics who would wish to save and keep their Faith? Today, there is no one bishop leading the whole Church, in other words, no Pope. The Papacy is in fact "closed" and can only be "reopened" by revoking Vatican II; a mere conclave, even to elect a truly Catholic and qualified person, is not enough. We have now only a dozen or two bishops, spiritually responsible for the care of all Catholic souls all around the world. Perhaps some several dozen or so Novus Ordo bishops (?) might also show themselves to be with Christ and us rather than against Him by being generous with the Indult and staunchly solid in exhorting truly Catholic morals, such as Bishop Weigand of Sacramento or Archbishop Pell in Australia, but this will have to be seen as history unfolds. Our Faith is as strong and orthodox as ever, perhaps never so sound since at least centuries ago. Our faithful priests, though numbering barely a thousand or so, are spread thin over the whole world, and we are bound to assist them in any way we can, including assisting at their Masses.
Our Faithful make up for their lack of numbers with their almost unequalled zeal and ardor. Never since Apostolic times has our devotion been so strong. However, our lack of leadership has enabled divisions to grow up among us true Catholics, and at times a lack a charity has resulted, even (worst of all) at times in the local level of our concrete actions towards our fellow Catholics. Our bishops, though similarly lacking the organizational unity that is incumbent upon them (and they will answer for this in their personal judgments if they do not repent and cooperate with each other) nevertheless all maintain the same exact Faith.
We are in fact as stripped-down as the Church could ever possibly be, as if several crises were all combined. Like the First Great Western Schism we have factions, each able to be the whole Church, and mistaking itself for that at times, but in fact merely portions of the one Church as due to reunite as the factions did back then. For we are, as Lumen Gentium states, all "forces impelling towards unity." Like the Arian crisis, nearly all the former bishops of the Church have defected, leaving the barest handful of those who walk in the shoes of the faithful St. Athanasius. Like with the fall of England, the non-Catholics have stolen our Church buildings and physical plant and even many fine clerics who unfortunately seem to have thought more of their earthly retirement plans than their heavenly one.
A few real questions occasion some discussion and even disagreement among us, but none of them are doctrinal: should the Leonine prayers be said at the end of the Low Mass? Should the 1962 Missal be used? Or the 1955 or something still previous? Which of the present Vatican leaders are within or outside the pale, as far as being qualified to be considered Catholics at all? But deep down we all know that these questions will just have to wait until somewhat more order can be restored, and all of us with any right to the title of Catholic will strive with all our might to work towards that wonderful Day, working together in charity with all of those other Catholics who disagree with us on the above legitimate questions.
That is what defines our unity with the Church today: Are we willing to submit ourselves to our traditional priests and bishops in matters spiritual, not flitting from one to another as suits our wanton desires, but supporting our chosen clerics as befits all Catholics, and not participating in any of the hateful schismatic denunciations of our fellow Catholics who do the same for their equally faithful clerics of supposedly "rival" orders? Do we live as we ought, in Catholic charity and humility, with an active and ever-maturing interior life, as guided by our spiritual director? In that we keep our full and lawful membership in the Church as a member in good standing. The Resurrection of the Roman Catholic Church has already occured; let the Restoration begin.
Chapter Six
   A Lesson from Jolly Old England
The analogy of what happened in England and what happened 430 years later is uncanny and hits the nail on the head. Both Henry VIII's rebellious Declaration of Royal Supremacy and Vatican II's equally revolutionary Lumen Gentium were the 'chop' that lopped off from the True, Living Tree of Christ those who chose to stay with the branch - a severed, withered branch that cannot grow and are no longer part of the True Tree of Holy Mother Church, the very Church planted by Christ in Matthew 16: 19: "Upon this Rock I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
"But of key importance, see the ontological role of the Declaration of Royal Supremacy and also of Lumen Gentium. It is each of these documents that changed the nature of the groups who signed them from being the Church to being something else. In the case of England it was a change from being the 'Church in England' to a brand new 'Church of England' as free to wander off into error as a severed branch of a tree is free to fall to the ground, wholly other than the Church in England. In the case of today, it was a change from being one and the same as the Mystical Body of Christ, the real Roman Catholic Church, to being a brand new 'catholic church' (more aptly named 'conciliar church') within a portion of which 'subsists' a portion of that Mystical Body of Christ which remains the authentic Roman Catholic Church."
NOTE: Readers of my book and/or my previous columns published on The Daily Catholic might note that I seem to be harping an awful lot on my theory regarding Lumen Gentium. Perhaps I repeat myself a bit. This is deliberate. The theory I have been posing is simple, quite straightforward in fact, but apparently not easy to see at first, and so there seem to remain many who do not understand it. Even many of those who fully agree with its conclusions do so not from understanding it, but merely agree because it affirms what the sensus fidelium of all knowledgeable Catholics truly in a state of Grace would have to affirm.
When I reiterate it here, and in my Lumen Gentium series, and in my book, and even touch upon it (answering some possible objections some might raise) in my article on Benedict XVI, and other places, I do so in differing manners, hoping that even if one way of speaking does not "click" with a particular reader, perhaps another way just might. Until one gets that grand "Ah hah!" experience in finally getting it, one may or may not be sympathetic to its conclusions or even how it is expressed, or even their opinion about me, but I don't care. But once one does "get" it, as some people have, the difference is unmistakable. I have yet to encounter even one person who has ever gotten it without their also seeing the truth of it.
While I persist in putting it out on the table for all to see and be edified by, interiorly I am my theory's harshest critic. I claim a lot here, finding in it a basis for Faith in the face of widespread apostasy, nevertheless I continually seek any and all possible objections to it. Though I gravely doubt that any objection could ever pose a reason to reject it whole hog, it is from responding to such attempted objections that real advancement of my theory is derived, even as responses to heresies has enabled the Church to be ever more and more clear and explicit in her creedal formulas. To all readers, please feel free to send me your questions and/or objections to my theory if you feel there is anything that has not been addressed in any of my references to it. Below I offer another analogy which should hopefully strike a note of understanding with many.
In his book, Cramner's Godly Order, Michael Davies documented quite thoroughly the disintegration of the liturgy in post-reformation England, in the newly separated schismatic "Church of England," along with the Protestant doctrinal roots of that disintegration. Although only focusing on events of the sixteenth century in England, the parallels between what has happened back then and what it is that happened now in the Novus Ordo "church" are inescapably obvious.
One finds altars turned into tables, the ancient Latin replaced little by little with the vernacular, the priest-presider facing the people instead of facing God, the same defective sacramental "forms," and even a strikingly similar corruption of the Ordination Rite. And all of this ties directly into the Protestant denials of the sinlessness of Mary, the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, the Catholic teachings about sanctification, mortification, penance, purgatory, and so many other doctrines. Michael Davies amply proves that the changes to the liturgy did more to erode the faith of the general run of English society than any direct apologetical/catechetical approach could have ever done, even were it possible that truly persuasive arguments could have been concocted in defense of all that nonsense.
There is no sense to make of the contemporary Novus Ordo changes except to posit that the Novus Ordo seeks to teach the same irreligion as the Church of England did back then. But this article is not a study of the modernist pressures to lead souls astray through the use of the perverted new "liturgies," but rather an examination of the juridical, canonical, and ontological events that made the fall of the Church of England (and the Novus Ordo "church" today) possible, doctrinally speaking. By "doctrine" here again, I refer not to the twisted "doctrines" of the heretics in which the details of the particular liturgical perversions find their root, but rather to where the fall of the Church in/of England fits into the context of the true doctrine of the Indefectibility of the Church.
It is true that it has always been possible for some individual cleric here or there to fall by the wayside and fail to teach or practice the truth. Obviously the doctrine of the Indefectibility of the Church does not exclude the possibility of this event, as it has occurred on numerous occasions throughout Church history. What it does mean however is the fact that any such aberrations are purely localized, and take place in the greater context of the "Church as a whole" (real meaning of the word "Catholic") which is intolerant of any such error. Such an erring cleric must find himself reproved by his superiors, his peers, and even his congregation and eventually forced to recant and repent or else be "dealt with" in a severe disciplinary fashion.
Suddenly however, in England, none of that is true. Liturgical abuses, distortions, errors, and even heresies are introduced one after the other, and practically the entire British hierarchy all seem to have no problem with it at all. Did the Church just cease to exist in England? As we know, it did not. But the Church in England was indeed driven underground. How could, as it were, "all of the people" finally actually be "fooled all of the time?" For though the English Church was not the entire Church, it was an integral component of the Church, possessing the same nature as the Church at large around the world. A single cleric here or there could have gone wrong, but not the entire legitimate British hierarchy.
Something else took place, something often not taken much into account, but which was crucial in making this universal fall in England possible. In November of 1534, the clergy in England were all required to sign what was called the "Declaration of Royal Supremacy." In this signing this document, they gave their consent to the claim that the King of England also reigns over the Church, with none above him. It declared the King of England to be, in effect, a "peer" of the Pope in Rome, and its signers to be subject to him as to a Supreme Pontiff. That was all. There was nothing in this document about distorting their liturgy, or changing any of their doctrines, or in any way departing from the authentic Catholic Faith. Yet this is what made all that possible.
It was that signing itself that changed the nature and status of the British clerics who signed it. This was an ontological change on their part. In signing it they went from being a part of the Church to being their own new organization. In that moment they all became like the proverbial branch freshly lopped off the tree. It is that detachment that made it so that the Church's indefectibility no longer applied to them. Previously, as the branch of the tree in England, it drew its strength from the roots and the trunk of the Tree of the Church, and itself provided strength to the remainder of the Tree as well.
But with that "chop," that "snap," of the Declaration of Royal Supremacy, the hierarchy in England became a severed branch, no longer able to draw any support, strength, or root nourishment from the Tree in Rome, nor to provide any of its value in the opposite direction. It was that which cut off and isolated the Church of England from the Catholic Church, thus freeing it to go in directions the Church could never go. It was not necessary therefore for this Declaration of Royal Supremacy to specify any heresies or liturgical ruinations whatsoever. Nevertheless that is what opened the door to them by separating the English clerics from the Church.
That was in November of 1534. Fast-forward to another November 430 years later. On November 21, 1964, the leadership of the whole Church signed a similar document of similar impact known as Lumen Gentium. It differs only in the fact that where the former only applied to one country and as such could truly transfer each and every person who signed it from their former office in the Church to a new office, thus itself booting them out of their lawful Catholic Sees and parishes, this document applied to the whole Church, and as such could only invite everyone to a new office of its creation, an invitation which most accepted, thus abandoning their former lawful Sees and parishes, but which some few declined, thereby remaining in their lawful Sees and parishes.
And once again, it didn't matter that nothing in Vatican II ever said anything about eliminating the Latin or moving the tabernacle or letting Wiccans and Unitarians teach theology in the formerly accredited Catholic schools or any of the rest of it. We all have heard the arguments of those defending Vatican II by quoting its statements to the effect that "the use of Latin shall be retained" or that it mentions nothing of moving tabernacles to a birdhouse across the street or that it quotes numerous Catholic documents at length, and so forth which indeed it does. But this is no different from the fact that the Declaration of Royal Supremacy also said nothing of doing the same damages to the Church of England.
Another event of England at that time, seldom commented upon, is the fact that even though this detachment from the Church had taken place, one still had all the same bishops (with one heroic exception) in all the same Cathedrals, ruling over all (with some precious few exceptions, again) the same parish priests in the same parish church buildings. This was what fooled the general run of English society. After all, one could say that "Father So-and-so baptized me here in this church and he is still the priest of this church even though his Mass is now done in the vernacular and he faces the people and hasn't mentioned the doctrine of transubstantiation in quite some years." All the same men, in all the same Cathedrals, with all the same parishes presided over by all the same priests, and with all the same diocesan boundaries as had existed before, all provided a tremendously deceptive apparent continuity with the Catholic past that indeed fooled practically everyone.
The Declaration of Royal Supremacy laid no diocesan boundaries, assigned no bishops or priests to their Sees or parishes, and in fact changed absolutely nothing except the affiliation of the clerics who signed it. And yet all of the former structures of the Church were now inherited by this new organization decreed into existence in 1534.  But what about the one faithful bishop who refused to be a part of this, and who then died as a martyr in the London tower, namely His Excellency Bishop John Fisher of the Diocese of Rochester? But for a couple extremely minor accidents of historical circumstance, the situation could have equaled our situation today in yet several more important aspects.
Suppose two things, 1) that England was far better at guarding its ports and borders than it in fact was, such that the likes of Father Edward Campion could never have been smuggled into England, and 2) that England was correspondingly less vigilant at combing its own countryside for clerics unwilling to sign the Declaration, such that Saint John Fisher could have escaped from his Cathedral with his life, and then went underground in hiding, instead of being caught at once, sent promptly to the tower, and subsequently executed. In such a circumstance, one could hardly insist that his jurisdiction still pertained only to the Diocese of Rochester as it had in days of former glory. Indeed, as the one remaining truly Catholic bishop in all of England the duty would fall upon him to find what few faithful priests who also avoided signing the Declaration (and maybe in addition, what few are willing to repudiate it, now that they can see what they did in signing it and that they repent of it), and be the bishop to all of them. For permanency, he would also have to look into secretly training more priests and even consecrating some bishops to help him. With the English borders and ports closed, he would obviously have to do this without any explicit mandate from Rome. And who would fault him for doing all of that?
Well, for one, the King of England and all the other clerics who had signed that Declaration and who were unwilling to repudiate it. No doubt they would have spoken of Bishop Fisher as being some kind of "breakaway" or "rebel" or even "schismatic" bishop, and his priests as being mere vagrants, illicit, and without faculties or apostolic missions. Even as things were in actual history, Fr. Campion traveled from parish to parish, from diocese to diocese, exactly as though he were some vagrant, uncanonical priest, while in fact being one of the very few truly legitimate priests of the Church. But of course with the present advantage of 20-20 hindsight we now know that any such accusations had no validity. In such a case, Bishop John Fisher (and whatever bishops he consecrates to be his auxiliaries) would still be the lawful Catholic bishops in England, and their attached clergy would be the real lawful Catholic clergy as well.
In effect, all of England would become one single diocese, and all bishops and priests who remain loyal to Rome in refusing the Declaration would equally have faculties throughout this nationwide "diocese." Furthermore, having to work secretly and underground, the training of the new priests would have to be somewhat abridged, since a full blown seminary - in the classical sense as it existed before - would be impossible, thus resulting in some priests whose training would be more in that "school of hard knocks" of persecution than in the more civilized setting of a conventional Catholic seminary. It doesn't have to require some super duper canonist to see that such a response to such historical circumstances (had they occurred) would indeed be absolutely appropriate.
So when we look at the situation today, we see so many more similarities to that of England, plus a number of additional similarities to what would have happened there had only those couple of accidental historical circumstances differed from what actually happened. We see "priests" and "bishops" possessing the same Cathedrals, ruling over the same parishes, bound by the same former diocesan boundaries, all in the name of a branch known as the Novus Ordo which has separated itself from the Tree of the Church. They denounce those who did not defect from their offices in 1964 as being without faculties, vagrant, illicit, and so forth, again without validity.
But of key importance, see the ontological role of the Declaration of Royal Supremacy and also of Lumen Gentium. It is each of these documents that changed the nature of the groups who signed them from being the Church to being something else. In the case of England it was a change from being the "Church in England" to a brand new "Church of England" as free to wander off into error as a severed branch of a tree is free to fall to the ground, wholly other than the Church in England. In the case of today, it was a change from being one and the same as the Mystical Body of Christ, the real Roman Catholic Church, to being a brand new "catholic church" (more aptly named "conciliar church") within a portion of which "subsists" a portion of that Mystical Body of Christ which remains the authentic Roman Catholic Church.
Whenever the nature ("substance") of a thing changes, it is intrinsic that its accidents will also change. The Eucharist is an unusual exception to this in that it retains its accidents of seeming like bread and wine when it is in fact the Body and Blood (and Soul and Divinity) of our Lord Jesus Christ. But even here, Eucharistic miracles demonstrate the different nature between the consecrated Host and the unconsecrated host, as does the effects of grace conveyed only by those Hosts which truly are consecrated to be the Body and Blood of our Lord. But in everything else, to change the nature of a thing is also to change its accidents. When uranium changes into lead (through the natural process of radioactive decay), its chemical properties change as well. And when a new organization is created, though the entirety of the Church's material resources be committed to it, nevertheless it remains a different organization and as such must also demonstrate different accidents, the different liturgies, doctrines, disciplines, and practices.
This is what truly lies at the heart of why it is that everything changed after Vatican II (and also in England under Henry VIII and his successors other than Mary Tudor) despite the clear desires of many even in the clergy to keep things the same. When they signed that document (Declaration of Royal Supremacy at all, or Lumen Gentium with the intent of serving wholly the new office it created for them instead of pressing on in their former Apostolically appointed offices as only a few of its signers did, they transferred off the Barque of Peter and onto another boat sailing off in another direction. That some of them should lean over the railing facing that ever more and more distant Barque of Peter, hankering for their boat to take a more parallel course, the fact remains that they are on the wrong boat, and that is their entire problem.
Griff L. Ruby
Griff's book is available from iUniverse.com Books for $26.95 or can be read on-line at www.the-pope.com We at The Daily Catholic strongly urge you to share it with all you can for that could be the gentle shove that moves your friends back to where the True Faith resides forever, rooted in the Truths and Traditions of Holy Mother Church as Christ intended and promised.
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