I do not now, have ever, and will never do comments here, BUT if you want a “safe space” to leave comments and have an intelligent discussion of this issue/question of the Ratzingerian faux-abdication and Bergoglian Antipapacy, might I recommend the NonVeniPacem blog.

The proprietor of NonVeniPacem is an independently “set” person who is NOT making nor looking to make any sort of living off of the Church nor off of BLEGGING.

Happy Feast of St. John the Evangelist, to whom we have a VERY strong devotion, especially because of his preface to the Gospel, which is so good, which is one of the greatest pieces of prose ever set to paper, that the Fathers of the Church saw fit to make it the conclusion of EVERY MASS.

The “Last Gospel” is one of the parts of the Mass that I have MEMORIZED IN LATIN, not that it is any great accomplishment, because if you go to daily Mass, you almost can’t help but memorize the Last Gospel.

Think about it.  You have either just received Communion – either sacramental OR spiritual Communion.  I am convinced that Our Blessed Lord loves to hear us, while He is reposed in our hearts either physically/spiritually or spiritually, to hear us whispering to Him about Him, along with the priest celebrant, these incomparably beautiful words given to “the Beloved Disciple” John by the Holy Ghost, for us to echo:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum.

[2] The same was in the beginning with God.
Hoc erat in principio apud Deum.

[3] All things were made by Him: and without Him was made nothing that was made.
Omnia per ipsum facta sunt : et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est.

[4] In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum :

[5] And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt.

[6] There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
Fuit homo missus a Deo, cui nomen erat Joannes.

[7] This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him.
Hic venit in testimonium ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine, ut omnes crederent per illum.

[8] He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light.
Non erat ille lux, sed ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine.

[9] That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world.
Erat lux vera, quae illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum.

[10] He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.
In mundo erat, et mundus per ipsum factus est, et mundus eum non cognovit.

[11] He came unto his own, and His own received Him not.
In propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt.

[12] But as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in His name.
Quotquot autem receperunt eum, dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri, his qui credunt in nomine ejus :

[13] Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
qui non ex sanguinibus, neque ex voluntate carnis, neque ex voluntate viri, sed ex Deo nati sunt.

[14] And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis : et vidimus gloriam ejus, gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre plenum gratiae et veritatis.

The so-called “Last Gospel” is one of the greatest gifts to humanity in prose ever given. It is an infinite treasure of contemplation of Our Lord. If we have never memorized anything ever – no Shakespeare, no nothing – the one thing to put in to the effort and memorize in both Latin and English is the “Last Gospel”; John, Chapter 1 verses 1 through 14.

Let us open with a quote from the new MUST-HAVE BOOK: “The Divine Right of the Papacy in Recent Ecumenical Theology” by J. Michael Miller, ARSH 1980, (who is now the Archbishop of Vancouver).  Let us quote the opening words of Chapter NINE, “Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue”, emphases mine, with screen cap below:

In ecumenical dialogs the question of papal primacy was long avoided.  Theologians preferred to discuss a series of other controversial questions before taking up the papacy, the one teaching which all non-Catholics reject.  When Paul VI said to the members of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity that “the pope… is without doubt the most serious obstacle on the road to ecumenism,” he articulated the difficulty which all ecumenists recognize. The first bilateral conversations on the ministry and related themes shied away from any lengthy discussion of papal primacy.

The taboo against broaching the question of the papacy has been lifted by recent discussion. Whereas Catholic ecumenists have concentrated their attention on ways of restructuring the papal office in order to make it more attractive to non-Catholics, some Lutherans have moved towards a critical acceptance of a reformed papacy.

MOTIVES FOR “FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMING THE PAPACY”: RATZINGER vs. KASPER et. al.

POPE BENEDICT XVI RATZINGER

I believe that Pope Benedict’s motive in wanting to “fundamentally transform the papacy into a collegial, synodal ministry” was to appease the Lutherans (and Anglicans) so that he, Joseph Ratzinger, would go down in history as the man who “healed the Protestant schism”.  I’m afraid that we all severely underestimate the role of PRIDE in the heart of Pope Benedict XVI in this massively erroneous mess.  Look again at +Ganswein’s speech from the Gregorianum of 20 May, ARSH 2016. Remember, Pope Benedict read and approved this speech.  Emphases mine.

Indeed, I must admit that perhaps it is impossible to sum up the pontificate of Benedict XVI in a more concise manner. And the one who says it, over the years, has had the privilege of experiencing this Pope up close as a “homo historicus,” the Western man par excellence who has embodied the wealth of Catholic tradition as no other; and — at the same time — has been daring enough to open the door to a new phase, to that historical turning point which no one five years ago could have ever imagined. Since then, we live in an historic era which in the 2,000-year history of the Church is without precedent.

[….]

And I, too, a firsthand witness of the spectacular and unexpected step of Benedict XVI, I must admit that what always comes to mind is the well-known and brilliant axiom with which, in the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus justified the divine decree for the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God:

“Decuit, potuit, fecit.”

That is to say: it was fitting, because it was reasonable. God could do it, therefore he did it. I apply the axiom to the decision to resign in the following way: it was fitting, because Benedict XVI was aware that he lacked the necessary strength for the extremely onerous office. He could do it, because he had already thoroughly thought through, from a theological point of view, the possibility of popes emeritus for the future. So he did it.

As a German, I think Joseph Ratzinger wanted to be nothing less than the man who “fixed” the German schism, that is to say, the Lutheran schism.  And, if you bring the Lutherans back in, the Anglicans will eventually follow, because both schisms revolved around the Papacy.  And so, in one of the most massive displays of pride the Church has ever seen, Pope Benedict Ratzinger decided that he could change that which is IMMUTABLE – that he could change the unchangeable.  Except he didn’t.  All he did was slam into an infinitely large reinforced concrete monolith (the Truth) at 100mph.  The wall did not move or change.  All that Pope Benedict achieved was causing a massive, flaming mess, which he survived as the one and only living Pope, whether he likes it or not. The Truth, and the Papacy, remain fully intact.

Walt€r Ka$p€r and th€ oth€r Faithl€$$ G€rman Pr€lat€$

Let’s do a quick review of the German Church Tax, or Kirchensteuer.  Many Americans are unaware of this, and shocked when they learn about it.  In Germany, there is a MANDATORY 8% tax that is levied on top of one’s income tax due.  In order to NOT pay the Church Tax, one must formally, in writing, APOSTASIZE from whatever Christian church one was baptized into. For Catholics, this means that they may not partake of the Sacraments, their children may not be baptized in the Church, and they may not receive a Catholic funeral.  Yes, this is simony. No question.  And it is one of the primary reasons that the German Church should be put under interdict.  For Protestants it is the same, although the stakes are considerably lower for them, considering….

Here is a sample calculation of the German Church Tax.  All figures are made up and simplified.

If a German makes €100,000 and is in the 20% income tax bracket, his income tax due is €20,000.  The Church tax is 8% on the TAX DUE, so in this case €1600.  So, the TOTAL tax due, income tax plus Kirchensteuer on a €100,000 income would be €21,600, or which the state automatically funnels the €1600 to whatever Church or “c”hurch the taxpayer was baptized into.

In ARSH 2016, despite the fact that the practice of Christianity in any form in Germany is almost completely gone, and despite the fact that Germans are formally apostasizing by the hundreds of thousands every year in order to not pay the Kirchensteuer, the Catholic Church in Germany received Kirchensteuer revenues of €6 BILLION.  That was $7.2 BILLION.  The total assets of the German Catholic Church are estimated to be AT LEAST €26 BILLION.

Now, consider this: the Protestant churches in Germany (mostly Lutheran) are about equal in terms of numbers of people.  Germany is split fairly evenly Catholic-Protestant.  Godless, faithless wretches like Cardinal Walter Kasper are desperate to appease the Lutherans and get some sort of formal “re-unification” on the civil books WITH AN EYE TOWARD FOLDING THE LUTHERAN KIRCHENSTEUER REVENUES INTO THE CATHOLIC SLUSH FUND, WHICH WOULD COME CLOSE TO DOUBLING THE ANNUAL REVENUES.

ALWAYS.
FOLLOW.
THE.
MONEY.

For filth like Kasper, and almost all of the rest of the German prelates, this is all about POWER, with MONEY being the manifestation and measure of power.  For many of them sex/sodomy is also in play as a manifestation of power, but I think the POWER of MONEY is what drives Kasper.

Kasper has been and continues to be at the absolute forefront of the attack on the top two Catholic dogmas needed to appease the Lutherans:  The indissolubility of marriage, and the Papacy.  The heresy that Antipope Bergoglio has pushed from day one of his usurpation regarding the acceptance of divorced and civilly “remarried” persons (that is, public, unrepentant adulterers) to receive Holy Communion is CALLED THE KASPER PROPOSAL.  And remember this scandal, when Antipope Bergoglio went to the Lutheran church in Rome, and when asked by a Lutheran woman if she could receive Holy Communion with her Catholic husband, Antipope Bergoglio said THIS (citation from LifeSiteNews):

The pope (sic) began his answer to the Lutheran woman evoking laughter and applause as he said, “The question on sharing the Lord’s Supper isn’t easy for me to respond to, above all in front of a theologian like Cardinal Kasper – I’m scared!” Cardinal Walter Kasper, the man responsible for the initial suggestion to allow Communion for remarried divorcees, accompanied the pope (sic) on his visit to the Lutheran church.

And as we can see from the screen cap below from the Index of Names in Miller’s text, Kasper was and is at the very heart of the madness of “restructuring the Papacy in order to make it more attractive to non-Catholics”.

Journalists need to go after Kasper.  Might I recommend the following question?

Q. Cardinal Kasper, do you believe that Pope Benedict’s fundamental transformation of the Papal Office into a synodal ministry opens the door to more robust and fruitful ecumenical dialogue with Lutherans and Anglicans?

And then just let the faithless money grubbing scumbag talk.  But make darn sure your phone’s battery is fully charged.

I hope this helps, and that everyone is having a wonderful Christmas.

Finally, I would like to conclude this post with a quote that was sent to me by a reader, from St. Philip Neri, who is very closely joined to this entire endeavor, and is one of its patrons:

“Besides pardoning those who persecute us, we ought to feel pity for the delusion they are laboring under.”
-St. Philip Neri

The gaslighting ends right here, right now, folks.  ENDS.

The accusation is that the notion and idea of Pope Benedict’s attempted resignation being invalid due to the Substantial Error clause in Canon 188 is “insanity” because “there is no evidence that the notion of fundamentally transforming the Papacy by bifurcating the Papacy into a “shared ministry” with a “contemplative member” and an “active, administrative member” entered Pope Benedict’s mind.”  It is further argued and cast as insanity that the distinction in Pope Benedict’s attempted resignation statement between the “munus” (Office) and “ministerium” (Ministry/Administration) has any meaning, and the words are used unthinkingly as pure synonyms.  It is argued that these very notions are “desperate grabbing at straws” and “insanity”, or indicative of insanity.

Punchline first:

Among German theologians of the 1960s and 1970s, with Joseph Ratzinger squarely and prominently at the core of the discussion, the question and desire to “fundamentally transform the Petrine Office”, namely to “DISSOLVE the Petrine Office” in favor of a “collegial, synodal PETRINE MINISTRY shared among multiple living people simultaneously” was not only discussed, it was one of the more popular topics of the day, with a veritable MOUNTAIN of texts, mostly in German, written and published.

We have found, however, a text, written in English in ARSH 1980, that is a synthesis and compendium of all of these (mostly) German theologians’ positions, written by the current Archbishop of Vancouver, J. Michael Miller.  I highly recommend that anyone with even the slightest interest in WHO THE VICAR OF JESUS CHRIST ON EARTH REALLY IS go ahead and buy this text:

“The Divine Right of the Papacy in Recent Ecumenical Theology” J. Michael Miller, 1980

Joseph Ratzinger is cited and footnoted many times throughout this book.  He was at the center of the conversation along with his mentor and close friend, Karl Rahner; Hans Kung; his close associate at the University of Tubingen with whom he co-edited a 150 year retrospective compendium of the works of the Tubingen faculty, Johannes Neumann; and wait for it… WALTER KASPER. Even the American Avery Cardianal Dulles is prominently footnoted.

Again, in the interest of getting to the point ASAP, here is a screen cap of pages 196 and 197 from Chapter 8, “Contemporary Catholic Views on Papal Primacy Iure Divino”, Section 4, “Irreversibility of the Papacy” wherein Ratzinger is footnoted, and Ratzinger’s mentor and close friend, Karl Rahner is cited in Footnoted 102 stating almost word-for-word what Archbishop Ganswein stated in his May 2016 address at the Gregorianum.  So that the text will populate onto search engines, I retype that which is shown in the screen caps below:

“[Heinrich Stirnimann, for ex-]ample, holds that “the papacy as an historical form can disappear without harming the faith, in order to allow a new expression of the Petrine Ministry.” (Footnote 101)  By making use of this terminology belief in a necessary Petrine function is affirmed; at the same time the historical form it has taken in the papacy is not absolutized.

In ecumenical discussion, theologians often use this distinction between the Petrine function and the papacy, even though it is not free from ambiguity.  Non-Catholics draw conclusions from it which most Catholics would be unwilling to draw.  Although they might leave open the possibility of some different configuration of the Petrine office in the future, the majority of Catholic theologians hold that primatial authority must be personally exercised by a bishop who is recognized as the successor of St. Peter. (Footnote 102).  Their use of the Petrine function-papacy distinction is more focused on the possibility of change in the historical form of the papacy, in order to emphasize the many realizations of the Petrine ministry which are open to the Church of the future.  They do not separate the two in any radical way which would suggest that the pope is not the necessary bearer of the Petrine ministry.

The possible changes in the shape of the papacy that theologians envisage demonstrate that irreversibility and immutability are not the same.  In order to show a degree of openness to change compatible with holding that Roman primacy is of divine right, a few proposals can be mentioned.  First, some theologians maintain that when the papacy is situated within the context of other institutions of divine right, then its own relation to the constitution of the Church as an essential element is clarified.  In spite of its importance, the papacy is still just one of the irreversible elements in the Church’s structure. (Footnote 103)  Secondly, other proposals concern the need for changes in the way in which primatial authority is exercised: from a monarchical or centralist model to a more collegial and decentralized one. (Footnote 104) Thirdly, an important change in the papacy would occur if the process was clarified by which Rome has united under a single title its unique primacy originating from a special apostolic charge conferred by Christ, and its administrative role for the Western Church originating from its patriarchal status.  The pope has not adequately distinguished his exercise of Petrine authority from patriarchal authority. (Footnote 105 Ratzinger) If a careful distinction is worked out between these two roles, much of what the pope has absorbed into his primatial authority might again be seen as an exercise of his patriarchal authority.  All these proposals demonstrate that when contemporary theologians apply ius divinum to Roman primacy they do not thereby imply that there can be no changes in the way papal authority will be exercised in the future.

Footnote 102:
In this regard Rahner does not share the opinion of the majority. He holds that the Church can distinguish between and individual and a moral person as the bearer of apostolic authority.  In the case of the episcopacy, for instance, it is not its monarchical dimension which is iure divino, but the need for the presence of episcopal authority in every local church.  It is possible therefore that a small group of persons or a central body possess episcopal authority (“Basic Observations,” 19; cf. “Open Questions on Dogma,” 215-216).  Later he applies the same argument to papal primacy (Amtsverstandinis, 25-32).  In this case the Petrine function would exist iure divino, but not need to be exercised by a single individual.  Cf. J. Neumann, “Eine Verfassung fur die Freiheit,” Wort und Warheit 23 (1968) 387-400.  Dulles makes the same point as Rahner: “In theory, the Petrine function could be performed either by a single individual presiding over the whole Church, or by some kind of committee, board, synod or parliament – possibly with a ‘division of powers’ into judicial, legislative, administrative, and the like” (“Papal Authority,” 55).  See a favorable Protestant reaction to this idea of a “shared papacy” in Andreas Lindt…. (see screen cap)

Footnote 105:
Ratzinger, Il nuovo popolo di Dio, 2nd ed. (Brescia: Queriniana, 1972) 144-146; and Ratzinger, “Primat,” 762-763…. (see screen cap)

WITHIN THE SPECTRUM of these theologians, Joseph Ratzinger was actually on the more conservative side, which is damning with faint praise, indeed.  There was OPEN TALK in this circle about the ABOLITION OF THE PAPACY OUTRIGHT by Kung, Rahner, Neumann and others. Ratzinger denied this possibility of total abolition, but did argue that the Papacy was NOT immutable (unchangeable), could be changed, and could be “synodalized” along the lines of Petrine Office vs. Ministry AND along the lines of Petrine vs. Patriarchal.

Antipope Bergoglio’s IMMEDIATE refusal to refer to himself as anything other than the Bishop (aka Patriarch) of Rome, AND his immediate citing of Cardinal Walter Kasper as his “favorite theologian”, who was up to his eyebrows in this business of, as Rahner termed it, “the dissolving of the Petrine Office” as a means of appeasing the Lutherans – now ECHOES SO MUCH THE LOUDER in the ears of every honest and Godfearing Catholic.

I’m going to wrap this post up here, just to keep it short, but there are several things that need to happen:

EVERYONE BUY THE BOOK BY J. Michael Miller and READ IT.  Chapters 7 and 8 are jaw-dropping.

I need my German readers (God bless you!!) to get to work on poring over these German texts that are cited in Miller’s bibliography and footnotes.  We need the key passages, and we need them translated into English.

We need JOURNALISTS to go to Archbishop Miller who is currently the Archbishop of Vancouver and start asking questions.

• Archbishop Miller, when you heard the news on February 11, 2013 that Pope Benedict had announced his intention to resign the papacy were you surprised?
• When you heard Pope Benedict’s remarks at his final audience on 27 February 2013, were you at all reminded of the 300 page text you wrote in 1980 citing Ratzinger on the expanding and transforming of the Papacy?
• When you read the text of Archbishop Ganswein’s speech delivered at the Gregorianum on 20 May 2016, did you feel as though you had been plagiarized? (I’m being snarky here.)

Again, what this proves is that this CONCEPT of transforming the Papacy, splitting it into a synodal, collegial ministry shared by multiple people simultaneously HAD BEEN IN POPE BENEDICT’S MIND, WITHOUT ANY DOUBT, SINCE the MID-1960s AT THE VERY LATEST.

He wanted to quit, which has been a life-long habit of his, because he saw how utterly overrun with corruption the Vatican and Institutional Church were (and we will leave the question of coercion for another day) and so he retreated to this wildly erroneous “hypothesis” that he and his closest friends and colleagues had been discussing, debating and publishing on at length for OVER 45 YEARS, and actually attempted it.

His attempt to do this madness – analogized in its uniqueness and enormousness to nothing less than the Immaculate Conception by Archbishop Ganswein – of course, FAILED because the Petrine Office, instituted by Jesus Christ Himself and recorded in the Gospels, is IRREVERSIBLE AND IMMUTABLE.  Any other position is SUBSTANTIALLY ERRONEOUS, and any attempted resignation of the Papacy proffered under the false premise of a REVERSIBLE, CHANGEABLE Papacy is INVALID BY THE LAW ITSELF.

It does not matter whether or not you, I or anyone else, including Pope Benedict HIMSELF “wants” him to be Pope.  Ontological realities have NOTHING to do with “wants” nor with “numbers”.  All that matters is the TRUTH of what IS. An error held unanimously is still an error.  A truth universally denied is still the truth.  Appeals to “wants” or “numbers” are pathetic, and should be taken as de facto concessions of the argument itself.

I would like to acknowledge and thank my German readers, and also to the author of the NonVeniPacem blog, without whose invaluable help this discovery would not have come to light, at least not any time soon.

TU ES PETRUS ET SUPER HANC PETRAM AEDIFICABO ECCLSIAM MEAM.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.

The man at the very end, outside looking longingly in through the barred window of the jail cell is the “Scrooge” of Mayberry, Ben Weaver.

Hello Ann, Merry Christmas.

Thank you for all the effort you have put into the fight over the last year. Weather you see it or not you are making a difference.

If I may be bold enough to make a request. Can you please ask that prayers be said for Ruth Bader Ginsburg? I was reading about her recent surgery, a pulmonary mastectomy to remove malignant growths. Having half her lung cut out at 85 is not a sign of good health. The comments section was less than kind and it occurred to me that there was possibly no one praying for her soul. As she is not Catholic and has a long history of supporting pro choice legislation I think some heavy divine intervention may be required. With all RGB’s planned parenthood work maybe St. Baby Tiny Princess could help.

I know it is a strange request but you are known for having prayers said for your enemies and judging by the comments section there may not be may people praying for her soul.

Kindly,
M

St. Tiny Princess is already “making things happen”.  SuperNerd is already getting local testimonies.  We MIGHT have a “birth defects St. Philomena” on our hands.  Let’s put our girl to work: Salvation of the soul of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  😬

St. Tiny Princess, pray for us.

The Schwerer Gustav was a rail-based piece of German Artillery, in fact, the largest gun ever produced and used: 800 millimeters.  Yes, your read that right.  Eight HUNDRED millimeters.

When big German guns go “boom”, they tend to produce much smoke….

Big.
Smoking.
Guns….

https://youtu.be/zISYZA1x620

Here’s the Smoking Gun, folks….

First read the post immediately below.

Now, from the German readership:

———————

UPDATE: Full German citation with English translation requested below received and posted immediately above!

Pope Benedict’s partial attempted renunciation speech of 11 February, ARSH 2013:

I am well aware that this office [munus], according to its spiritual essence, ought to be exercised not only by acting and speaking, but no less than by suffering and praying.  Moreover, in the world of our time, subjected to rapid changes and perturbed by questions of great weight for the life of faith, there is more necessary to steer the Barque of Saint Peter and to announce the Gospel a certain vigor, which in recent months has lessened in me in such a manner, that I should acknowledge my incapacity to administer well the ministry [ministerium] committed to me.  On which account, well aware of the weightiness of this act, I declare in full liberty, that I renounce the ministry [ministerio] of the Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, committed to me through the hands of the Cardinals on April 19, 2005, so that on February 28, 2013, at 20:00 Roman Time [Sedes Romae], the see of Saint Peter be vacant, and that a Conclave to elect a new Supreme Pontiff be convoked by those whose duty it is [ab quibus competit].

An OFFICE and its MINISTRY or ADMINISTRATION are two different things.  Let’s take a couple of examples to understand why these words are NOT synonyms, and have never been considered such.

For the first example, let’s look at the American OFFICE of the Presidency.  When President Reagan was shot and taken into surgery wherein he lost over half his blood volume, he did not lose the OFFICE of the Presidency.  Even in an induced coma he was still 100% the sole occupant of the OFFICE of the Presidency.  What did happen is that the ADMINISTRATIVE authority passed to Vice President Bush (Alexander Haig’s claims to administrative authority notwithstanding) who immediately returned to Washington D.C., and ADMINISTRATIVE authority remained with Bush until Reagan regained consciousness.  In this period, Vice President Bush did NOT become the President, he was merely the person with Administrative authority, and was still “Mr. Vice President”.  Because, of course, there can never be two Presidents of the United States (Hillary Clinton’s claim to being co-President during Bill Clinton’s administration notwithstanding.)

Note that adMINISTRATION and MINISTRY have the same root, the Latin MINISTERIUM.

President Reagan, while temporarily unable to exercise the ADMINISTRATION of the OFFICE of the Presidency, did NOT lose his OFFICE, nor was his OFFICE conferred upon anyone else.  ADMINISTRATIVE authority temporarily passed to Vice President Bush, who remained Vice President even while holding temporary ADMINISTRATIVE authority.  Vice President Bush became neither President nor co-President in ARSH 1981.

The second example is the assasination attempt of Pope John Paul II a few weeks later in ARSH 1981.

Like Reagan a few weeks earlier, Pope JPII was rushed into surgery wherein he lost most of his blood volume after being shot, and went into cardiac arrest on the operating table wherein he had to be resuscitated.  While Pope JPII was incapacitated by anesthesia/induced coma, he was incapable of carrying out the Papal MINISTRY because… he was in a coma.  But he did not lose the OFFICE of the Papacy.  The OFFICE remained with him and him alone, and would have remained with him no matter how long he was comatose.

If you think about it, you will realize that many DOZENS of Popes have been rendered unable to perform the Petrine MINISTRY for various lengths of time – usually at the end of their lives – but retained the OFFICE until they died.  As we all know, some people get old and their death is near-instant, that is they “drop dead”.  Pope John Paul I died this way.  He dropped dead.  But, many times, the end stage of life is not sudden.  Many people “go downhill” and are bedridden and unconscious for a period of time before they expire.  Cancer, organ failure, neurodegenerative diseases, even surviving an incapacitating stroke.  Do we honestly believe that this has NOT happened to previous Popes?  Of course it has happened.  Many, many times.  The Vatican simply did not publicly announce these things up until just a few decades ago.  Popes were rarely seen, and even more rarely heard.  The era of the “highly visible Pope” began, more or less, with Pope Pius XII, and was taken into overdrive by Pope JPII himself. When a Pope would near death or merely fall gravely ill, the day-to-day running of the Vatican continued apace even though the Pope was no longer able to administer the Petrine MINISTRY. The OFFICE remained his until he died.  If he recovered such that he was able to resume the Petrine MINISTRY, he would do so as the sole holder of the Petrine OFFICE.

Let it also be noted that a Pope could also lose his ability to exercise the Petrine MINISTRY by virtue of being imprisoned – but an imprisoned Pope would still retain 100% the OFFICE of the Papacy.  An imprisoned Pope would remain Pope until he died.  If he were to be liberated from imprisonment, he would then resume the Petrine MINISTRY as the holder of the Petrine OFFICE.

So, we can clearly see and easily understand that these two terms are DIFFERENT THINGS, and are NOT SYNONYMOUS.

The notion that Pope Benedict XVI Ratzinger is “too stupid” to be aware of this difference is laughable.  If an American convert gal with a degree in Animal Husbandry (but definitely NOT Latin) can see and understand this, then it goes without saying that Joseph Ratzinger does too.  To argue otherwise would be to argue that Ann Barnhardt is more intelligent than Jospeh Ratzinger.  And do we REALLY want to do that?  I mean, if you really, really want to, go ahead, but I would strongly advise against it.

But wait, there’s more….

We KNOW that Pope Benedict XVI Ratzinger had heard of the false hypothesis of bifurcation of the Papacy into a collegial, synodal office precisely by having a sitting Pope renounce the MINISTRY but not the OFFICE, thus resulting in an “active” and a “contemplative” Pope simultaneously.

How do we know this?  Because Pope Benedict’s good friend and mentor, to whom he looked up tremendously, KARL RAHNER, proffered EXACTLY this false notion in ARSH 1974 in his work “Vorfragen zu einem okumenischen Amtsverstandnis”.  In the opening pages of this work, Rahner advocated the dissolution of the Petrine OFFICE such that multiple people could simultaneously exercise the Petrine MINISTRY.

Karl Rahner was greatly admired by Ratzinger, and they were close friends.  Rahner died a liberal, but Ratzinger drifted back toward orthodoxy as he grew older and saw the damage done by the very heterodoxy that he, Rahner and all of the other “Nouvelle Theolgie” (New Theology) proponents of the 20th Century inflicted upon the Church, with its zenith at Vatican II.

Pullquote from the Wiki page on the Nouvelle Theologie, with hyperlinks intact:

“The theologians usually associated with Nouvelle Théologie are Henri de Lubac, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, Karl Rahner, Hans Küng, Edward Schillebeeckx, Marie-Dominique Chenu, Louis Bouyer, Jean Daniélou, Jean Mouroux, Henri Bouillard, and Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI)”

Here is what I need, and perhaps my German readers can help with this.  I need the exact passage from Rahner’s “Vorfragen zu einem okumenischen Amtsverstandnis” and its English translation.  While I can see the book available online, even if I bought it, I couldn’t read it and find the passage because I speak ZERO German.  The German language is just squiggles on a page to me. I can see numerous references to it by others, but I can’t find the text itself.

{UPDATE: Full German citation with English translation requested above received and posted here!}

But remember folks, there is NO EVIDENCE of Substantial Error or that Pope Benedict XVI intended to “fundamentally transform the Papacy into a collegial, synodal office” along the lines of OFFICE vs MINISTRY, and to even discuss such a thing is “grasping at straws” due to an inability to accept that Vatican I “might have been wrong”, and that Our Lord’s promise to Peter was a “pretty useless guarantee”. And also, SHUT UP. YOU’RE INSANE. </sarcasm>

As always, I hope this helps.

Here are some pictures of Rahner and Ratzinger together over the years, including at Vatican II:

Get off social media. It is satan’s tool. It is soul-killing. You know this is true. You’ve been thinking about doing it for a while, maybe even for years. Now is the time. Today is the day. You can do it. Live your life in the REAL world, not online.