We have been discussing in this space the sad state of a man whose intellect is darkened, despite having a high IQ, mostly in the context of the CoronaScam and the DeathJab.  It is a sad and terrifying thing to behold.  Men are RATIONAL INTELLECTS, created in the image and likeness of God.  When that rationality is darkened, and men speak and act in IRRATIONAL ways, it is absolutely chilling to behold.

Sadly, the Catholic attorney and columnist Christopher Ferrara is, yet again, putting on a master class in the terrifying spectacle of a man who, while having significant intellectual capacity, is seemingly in a freefall of irrational disconnect. The throttle is mashed, but the transmission is in neutral… and Chris is rolling backwards downhill.

I saw this headline linked on Canon212.com and when I clicked it open at Fatima.org, even I was taken aback at Chris’ ability to type these words, proofread them, and then post them publicly.  Chris Ferrara in the opening sentence of his piece dances very, very close to total apostasy, and certainly embraces Lutheranism.  Take a look:

“Nothing is more tedious or wasteful of time and intellectual effort than the debate over the supposedly invalid election of Francis. There was a conclave in 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio emerged as the Pope-elect, he accepted the office and was installed therein. Everything else is vain speculation—awaiting, perhaps someday, a revelation that would be confirmed by a successor Pope or Council, failing which the whole debate is academic.”
-Christopher Ferrara, 7 April, ARSH 2021, Fatima.org

The Vicariate of Christ, the Papacy, is a supernaturally protected Office, instituted by the Second Person of the Triune Godhead Himself, and recorded in the Holy Gospels by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Christ Almighty established the Petrine Office as the VISIBLE HEAD OF HIS CHURCH ON EARTH.  The Vicar of Christ is IN HIS PERSON nothing less than the PRINCIPLE OF UNITY and therefore the Vicar of Christ is also THE STANDARD OF SCHISM.

The entire Church for 2000 years has held the Petrine Office as the Rock upon which Christ built His Holy Church.  EVERY Apostle, EVERY Church Father, EVERY saint, EVERY believing Catholic without exception held the Papacy as the Vicariate of Christ on Earth without exception. By the loving gratuitous grace and Providence of God, Vatican I formally promulgated this a dogma – precisely so we would know, with certainty, that Bergoglio is an Antipope and to therefore look back to the events surrounding his usurpation – namely Pope Benedict’s utterly bizarre and totally unprecedented attempt to “half-resign” only the “active ministry for the governance of the Church”.

But if that weren’t enough, because Our Lord made the Petrine Promises, explicitly recorded in the Holy Gospels, the Papacy is tied DIRECTLY and INEXTRICABLY to the question of Our Lord’s DIVINITY.  If Our Lord LIED, if Our Lord was in ERROR, if Our Lord FORSOOK HIS EXPLICIT REPEATED PROMISES regarding the Petrine Office and its guarantee of supernatural protection, then Our Lord IS NOT GOD. And if Our Lord is not God, then His Passion and Death are NOT the once and for all sacrifice that redeems mankind, and we ARE NOT SAVED. Put bluntly: if what Chris Ferrara holds with regards to the Papacy is true, then Easter is a JOKE.  A very, very, very bad joke.

If ANYONE sees any flaw in this excruciatingly obvious logical corollary, PLEASE, do let me know.  THIS is why I say that it is absolutely horrifying to watch a man with the intellectual capacity of Chris Ferrara blithely open an essay with a complete denial of not just the Papacy, not just the Holy Catholic Church, but of Our Blessed Savior’s VERY DIVINITY without the slightest hint of self-awareness.

For Chris Ferrara to say that the TRUTH is “tedious” and “wasteful of time” is a direct, personal attack on Our Lord, because OUR LORD IS HIMSELF THE TRUTH.  Jesus Christ IS REALITY.  We declare this at the end of almost EVERY MASS when the Last Gospel, John 1: 1-14, is proclaimed:

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…

How can ANYONE possibly say that THE TRUTH doesn’t matter?  Jesus Christ IS the Truth!

How can anyone possibly say that REALITY doesn’t matter?  God IS reality.  He is its Author, Sustainer and its essence. CHRIST IS REALITY, and is thus THE criterion of all thought and action.  Christ is not an evil schizophrenic saying to us, “Maybe-yes, maybe-no, reality is one thing today, but could change retroactively in the future, tee-hee, ain’t I a stinker?”

One wonders, after reading just the opening sentence of Ferrara’s bilge if he has ever, one time in his entire life actually THOUGHT about the words of the Gloria Patri as he was saying it.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.  As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Gloria Patri,
et Filio,
et Spiritui Sancto.
Sicut erat in principio,
et nunc, et semper,
et in saecula saeculorum.

Amen.

Folks, it is a VERY fair critique of Catholics that so many Protestants make that Catholics mindlessly babble rote prayers.  Chris Ferrara’s opening paragraph proves this is often true in his denial of the very concept of objective reality. Perhaps Chris should convert to islam, wherein the supreme deity is openly held to be “the greatest deceiver”, and even more up Chris’ alley, pure will, changeable and capricious, utterly devoid of rationality.  Marry that to Luther’s denial of the Church being VISIBLE, most especially at ITS EARTHLY HEAD, and Chris Ferrara could found the final, perfect religion: Luthislam.

Has the great legal scholar Ferrara, the self-appointed last word on all things juridical ever once read Canon 748?

Can. 748 §1. All persons are bound to seek the truth in those things which regard God and His Church and by virtue of divine law are bound by the obligation and possess the right of embracing and observing the truth which they have come to know.”

Finally, it must be pointed out that Chris Ferrara, A CIVIL LAWYER, ostentatiously denies and shows ZERO intellectual curiosity with regards to the very Canon Law that he SHOULD be engrossed with, the selfsame Canon Law which arbitrates the entire question of the validity of a putative Petrine resignation.  What is going on here?

If I may shed, perhaps, some personal light on this?  As I have recounted in this space before, I have met and dined with Chris multiple times, the first being on the night of the faux-election of Antipope Bergoglio in the restaurant Da Roberto on the Borgo Pio beside the Vatican.  I had the lasagna.  The cheese was extra crispy from the broiler.  It was sublime.  The red table wine was… table wine.  I subsequently dined with Chris several times after that.  The last time I saw Chris was in the summer of ARSH 2016.  I had just gone public with my “Benedict is Pope” position, and so I dropped in on a gathering so that I could shake hands with Mike Matt of the Remnant, whom I had been writing columns for over the previous year.  I felt that it would not be fair for me to write for the Remnant given that I could no longer refer to Bergoglio as anything but “Antipope”, and Mike Matt and The Remnant did not publicly share my position.  But, there were absolutely no hard feelings, hence my desire to see Mike Matt in person, shake his hand, and make sure that all was copacetic between us personally.  Kind of a, how would one phrase this, “unite the clans” sort of a vibe.

Upon arriving at the gathering, I immediately ran into Mike Matt and we starting chatting merrily.  A few minutes into our conversation, Chris Ferrara briskly approached, and immediately began talking to me – no introductions necessary, because Chris knew exactly who I was, by sight, because he had met and dined with me several times before.  Chris was lying when he said not long ago that this occasion was the only time he had ever met me in person.  LIED.  As in BEARING FALSE WITNESS.

The first words out of Chris Ferrara’s mouth to me as he, I and Mike Matt stood huddled together were:

“Look.  We all think you’re probably right about Bergoglio, but who do you think you are to be publicly declaring it?”

Counselor Ferrara then, in full shyster snoot mode, proceeded to VOIRE DIRE me in the middle of a cocktail bar.  “And Miss Barnhardt, tell me, do you have a degree in Canon Law? Or theology?”

“No, Chris, I have a degree in Animal Husbandry,” I replied with a BIG grin.

When Chris Ferrara saw that I was TOTALLY unfazed by his shameless and effeminate appeals to credentialism (by the way- NOTHING signals that you have lost an argument faster than appeals to credentialism; don’t do that), he turned on his heel and stormed off in a snit.  Mike Matt looked at me and shrugged wryly.

So, if I had to guess at what is behind Chris Ferrara’s incredibly sad descent into Luthislam, I would say the primary factor is intense intellectual pride, which feeds into envy.  Chris thinks, for some absolutely bizarre reason, that HE and HE ALONE should be the voice of ANY legal argumentation about ANYTHING, and thus the fact that he has totally, completely dropped the ball and then been steamrolled by unlettered lay nothings like me, Mark Docherty and others who have simply looked at the words of Pope Benedict, and later +Ganswein, and then cross-checked that against Canon Law, while praying the Rosary, is just too much for him to bear.  Now we have Dr. Mazza – a MERE historian, and now Estefanía Acosta – a MERE third world Juris Doctor.  OH! The humiliation!

Interestingly, since my summer ARSH 2016 encounter with Chris Ferrara, I have had multiple extended conferences with faithful churchmen, and not only have my credentials never once been brought up, but exactly the opposite.  I have been given the repeated extended, patient attention and humble inquisitiveness of men who demonstrated not a shred of personal insecurity. Not surprisingly, every one of these men had read and were familiar with the Dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena. I’m not illiterate like St. Catherine was, but I’m the 21st century equivalent: UNLETTERED.  I am not a saint yet, but I have hope that I will be.  And I know who the Pope is.

The other factor that MUST be mentioned is, of course, MONEY.  Despite the recent Canon212.com poll that showed that among faithful, orthodox Traditional Catholics in the English-speaking world, the VAST majority believe that Pope Benedict is the one and only living Pope, these men still believe that if they stray from the “Fwanciss is definitely Pope” line that their fundraising will collapse. AS IF THAT SHOULD BE ANY CONSIDERATION AT ALL.

Chris Ferrara is intimately involved in the Fatima Center, which was founded by his spiritual father, Fr. Nicholas Gruner.  Sadly, Chris was caught is ANOTHER bold-faced lie when he said that he has never had any dealings with Traditional Catholics who believed that Pope Benedict’s resignation was invalid.  Fr. Nicholas Gruner was openly, publicly, even STRIDENTLY BiP years before I was.  Here is my post on this from several years ago:

And THAT folks, is how a man with a very high IQ can have his intellect so darkened that he writes sacrilegious, heretical, flirting-with-apostasy bilge like this, and think that it is “good” and bolsters his credibility: