Apropos to the Octave of Epiphany, with Epiphany being the Greek for “Manifestation”, we have YET ANOTHER glaring example of the Canonical invalidity of Pope Benedict XVI’s attempted partial resignation from our old friend, Canon 332.2, which I like to call “the Bodyguard Canon” – specifically the “PROPER MANIFESTATION” clause. As I said, apropos.
Let’s look at the text of 332.2 again as we get started.
Can. 332§2. If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made freely and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone.
And here is the Latin:
§ 2. Si contingat ut Romanus Pontifex muneri suo renuntiet, ad validitatem requiritur ut renuntiatio libere fiat et rite manifestetur, non vero ut a quopiam acceptetur.
It has already been established and I made the point at the 1:14:55 timestamp in my PART 1 video on the Bergoglian Antipapacy that IF Pope Benedict were to issue a CANONICALLY VALID resignation in which he resigned the Petrine Office and not merely the “ministry” of the “active governance of the Church”, that act in and of itself would PROVE that the first attempted partial resignation of February ARSH 2013 was invalid. How would it prove this? By simple LOGIC. You can only resign an office which you possess. Proffering a “second” resignation would prove that the first attempt was invalid – hence the “need” for the second.
In fact, if we think LOGICALLY and deal with the REALITY of linear time in the physical universe within which the Church Militant and by definition all of the Church Militant’s juridical offices, the Papacy first and foremost among them, subsists, we almost instantly realize that any resignation of an office CAN NOT be done EX POST FACTO, that is, after the fact, because one must possess the office in order to resign it. Again, our dear friend, the Law of Non-contradiction has arrived at the party and has just ordered a bottle of Ruinart Champagne for all of us to toast the Second Person of the Triune Godhead – Who Is Truth Himself. A man, let’s say Pope Benedict XVI, could not, in the same moment in linear time, be SIMULTANEOUSLY the Pope who is issuing a valid resignation of the Office which he MUST possess in order to resign it, and NOT be the Pope, because the effective date of the resignation issued today was nearly seven years ago.
À votre santé. Clink!
Remember folks, ONLY THE REAL COUNTS. Fantasies about Bergoglio being the Pope that fly in the face of simple logic and the Law of Non-contradiction lead nowhere but to lies and errors such as false sedevacantism, spectacular heresy (i.e. publicly suggesting that Vatican I was wrong), schism (as the scandalous Scottish hermits prove), and eventually apostasy (aka “sleeping in on Sundays” as certain Trad Inc. parti$an$ confess to their correspondents that they are flirting with.)
So that is why Pope Benedict XVI issuing a CANONICALLY VALID resignation today would 100% confirm the TRUE BASE PREMISE that Pope Benedict has been the one and only living Pope since ARSH 2005, and Bergoglio is an Antipope and has been since March of ARSH 2013.
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!!!
IF Pope Benedict were to issue a “clarification” of his February ARSH 2013 attempted partial resignation – guess what? Yep. PER CANON 332.2, the issuance of a “CLARIFICATION” would PROVE that the February ARSH 2013 attempt at partially resigning was canonically invalid. How, you may ask?
The “Proper Manifestation” clause of 332.2, of course.
Here’s the deal. The Roman Pontiff can not be judged nor “interpreted” by anyone. This is absolutely TRUE. But, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, not being an idiot, and actually knowing what He is doing, to put it mildly, has provided in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the Code which we are under today, for EXACTLY such a circumstance as we find ourselves in.
IT’S ALMOST AS IF OUR LORD SAW ALL THIS COMING AND SET THE CHESSBOARD FOR US TO WIN. Like, He loves us and will always, always provide a VISIBLE path forward IN TRUTH for us, such that the Rock upon which He built His Church will always be protected, and the Gates of hell will NEVER prevail. I think I read that somewhere, or something.
Namely, we have an attempted partial resignation by a Roman Pontiff that can be “interpreted” to mean multiple things. It is UNCLEAR. It is… DUBIOUS. When we add Pope Benedict’s words on February 27, ARSH 2013, the fact that Pope Benedict continues to live in the Vatican, wear the Papal white, be addressed by the Papal title and use the Papal Style, give “my Apostolic Blessing”, etc., coupled with the lengthy discourse of +Ganswein of 20 May, ARSH 2016 describing the “new”, “fundamentally transformed”, “collegial, synodal, shared Papacy” AND +Ganswein’s follow-up interview of 27 May, ARSH 2016 in which he confirmed and doubled-down on this, PLUS the immediate objections to the attempted partial resignation by multiple canonists within DAYS of Pope Benedict’s 11 February announcement, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY TO ARGUE THAT POPE BENEDICT’S attempted resignation was “perfectly clear”. NONE.
This is undeniable, because here we all sit discussing it. I, as but one example, have now FOUR HOURS of discourse on the subject on video. Others have written tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of words on the subject. By now, far more than half of Traditional Catholics hold at least some doubt as to the validity of Pope Benedict’s attempted partial resignation – the proof being that most Trad Inc. web$ite$ have ban-hammered a sizable percentage of their commentariat, and my name, as one example, is used as a censor term in their commboxes.
Okay, so, IF Pope Benedict were to issue a “clarification”, what that would do is AGAIN CONFIRM that his resignation of February ARSH 2013 was invalid. Why? Because if the attempted resignation as proffered was sufficiently unclear so as to “need clarifying”, it is IN VIOLATION OF THE PROPER MANIFESTATION CLAUSE in Canon 332.2.
Oh, we can keep going with logic, if you would like. IF the resignation were valid (which it wasn’t, but for the sake of argument) then Ratzinger would no longer be the Pope and therefore would have zero jurisdiction to interpret, much less “sanate” anything he did while Pope. Ho-ho-ho. See how the Truth cuts like a two-edged sword? IF you want to make the false argument that Ratzinger is no longer the Pope, then you have to sleep in the logical bed that you have made. He can’t both hold the Petrine Office and NOT hold the Petrine Office. That’s right. IF he had validly resigned, then HE HIMSELF would have NO POWER to interpret his own acts WHILE he possessed the Petrine Office – which, remember is a SUPERNATURALLY BESTOWED AND PROTECTED OFFICE. Therefore, ex post facto “forensics” would be impossible.
On the other hand, if you argue that Pope Benedict CAN and DOES POSSESS THE AUTHORITY to INTERPRET HIS OWN ATTEMPTED PARTIAL RESIGNATION, then you are, by inescapable logical definition admitting that Pope Benedict is STILL THE POPE, because ONLY THE POPE can interpret the Pope.
This, folks, is why I have said for years now that Pope Benedict doesn’t need to be ASKED anything. He needs to be TOLD that his attempted partial resignation was canonically invalid. The authority here is CANON LAW, LOGIC and REALITY, not any individual person any more than declaring that 2+2=4 is declaring oneself the author and arbiter of mathematics. Truth is Truth. Point to it and say it. Or, as Saint Augustine put it very bluntly in his First Tract on the Gospel of John: Believe the Gospel.
Let me now anticipate what will be said in response to this argumentation. We like nipping things in the bud.
“Ann Barnhardt is stupid.” Go ahead. Make that argument until you’re blue in the face. It’s an own-goal every time.
“Ann Barnhardt is ugly.” An even stronger argument. We laugh.
“Ann Barnhardt has no academic credentials.” Again, we laugh. I can think of no greater collective failure than the theological and canon law academies. None.
“It’s just stupid crazy Barnhardt and a couple of other nuts saying this whack-a-doodle garbage.” The Truth isn’t an earthly democracy, and the entire Church Triumphant knows and confesses the Truth. If I’m right, I’m not alone, and am in splendid and massively powerful company.
“This argument is too long, complicated and hard to follow.” No, it really isn’t, so if your social media addiction has so crippled your intellect such that you can’t follow a couple of very simple logical corollaries, maybe the thinking on this issue should be left to those of us who can think in greater than tweet-length quanta.
“Shut up!” Um, no.
“Schismatic!” Hey, I’m not the one relentlessly tearing down the Papacy like a good little Freemasonic patsy all day every day. In fact, I’m one of the most strident and publicly vocal Papalists alive today.
“Idolator of the papacy!” Nope, just believing words of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel and holding the faith of the Church as it has existed and was held from ARSH 33. If I’m an idolator, then so was EVERY CATHOLIC, including EVERY SAINT, and only now have a miniscule group of social media-addicted parti$an$, at long last, discovered the secret hidden knowledge and the “true faith”. Youbetcha. Gnosticism much?
Finally, may I end on a truly uplifting and encouraging note?
When we go to Mass, at the Elevation of the Host, this moment is the supernatural re-presentation of the moment when the Cross, with Our Lord nailed upon it, was raised upon Mt. Calvary. Our Lord spoke of this moment in John 12: 32.
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself.
Our Lord Jesus Christ IS Truth Itself. The Truth draws all things back to It. All things WILL be reconciled to the Truth through the Cross at Calvary. One of the ways that we can know what is right and what is wrong is by looking at how things such as the juridical question of Pope Benedict’s failed partial abdication behave in the context of logical truth tables. If we plug a FALSE BASE PREMISE into our truth table, namely that Pope Benedict’s attempted partial resignation was valid and thus Bergoglio is the Pope, the logical corollaries almost instantly spin off into an abyss of error and lies, as we have already discussed. Heresy, false sedevacantism, schism, and ultimately THE DENIAL OF CHRIST’S DIVINITY and ATHEISM by necessitating the false corollary that Christ is either a liar, an oath breaker, NOT omnipotent, or a wicked being that has put everyone alive today into a Catch-22 position requiring unity with and submission to a raging apostate and explicit enemy of Christ – a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. Only a wicked being would do this. If Christ is wicked, then He is not Divine… OR the “god of this universe” is a loveless, indifferent watchmaker… Deism…. OR there simply is no God at all. Atheism.
Now, plug in the TRUE BASE PREMISE as I have outlined above and have been doing for 3.5 years now. What do we see? We see the INTERNAL COHERENCE AND INTEGRITY of EVERY COROLLARY that comes out of the Truth Table. At NO POINT is Scripture, Tradition, Canon Law, Natural Law or the Law of Non-contradiction EVER violated. At no point is Our Lord Jesus Christ anything other than THE WAY, THE TRUTH and THE LIFE. At no point is Christ anything other than INFINITE GOODNESS, INFINITE LOVE, INFINITE JUSTICE, INFINITE FIDELITY, INFINITE OMNISCIENCE and INFINITE OMNIPOTENCE. Not only that, but the situation when seen in light of the Truth REFLECTS THE LUMINOSITY AND RADIANCE of the Truth, that is, Our Lord Himself, as the moon reflects the light of the Sun. We see how every corollary LEADS BACK TO THE TRUE PREMISE ITSELF. Every logical corollary DRAWS ONE BACK TO THE TRUTH. In a sense, the TRUTH DEFENDS ITSELF. “And the Light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
Despair? Loss of faith? These are the fruits of holding a falsehood as truth.
It is an incomprehensible HONOR and JOY to have been placed in these times, to have been chosen from all eternity to witness to the TRUTH, and to stand and fight for Our Lord, Holy Mother Church, the Papacy, and the Pope – Pope Benedict XVI Ratzinger.
It is an unfathomable gift to be able to go to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass every day and be able to be present at the foot of the selfsame Cross upon which God Himself is nailed, and is lifted up before our very eyes – to be present EVERY DAY at the centerpoint of reality and existence itself, the moment through which ALL things are drawn and reconciled to Him.
It is further an honor and intense privilege to be able to say to Our Lord in direct imitation of Him, “If it will help, GIVE ME any temporal punishment that might be due your priest for commemorating the wrong man… Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This is not something to be resented any more than one resents being able to offer help to anyone, and then actually help bear a burden. Hopefully every priest that I offer to take any possible temporal punishment for will be out of Purgatory and into the Beatific Vision long before me, and will be as close to God and the Blessed Virgin as possible. If I can help with that in any way, then it is a no-brainer. Lord, let me be a help to others in carrying burdens, and not be a burden to others.
Internal consistency. Coherence. Peace. Confidence. Joy. Awe. Charity. Love of God. The logical corollaries that point back to and confirm the Truth of the base premise.
As always, I truly hope this helps.
Fast and Pray for Holy Mother Church, the Papacy and Pope Benedict XVI.
