Adversus Hæreses - Against Harrisonism
©Lucio Mascarenhas, March 16th., 2003, Feast of Saint Julian of Cilicia, M. Revised May 3rd., 2004.
This article is my notes on the exchange in the the notoriously anti-Sedevacantist newspaper, the Remnant, between Fr. Anthony Cekada and Mr. Brian Harrison, a 'priest' and an apologist for the Antichurch.
Mr. Harrison has emerged as the greatest ideological justificator for Antichurch and Antipope, surpassing such persons as Dave Armstrong, William Most, Keating, 'Matt1618' and the Akin, Loughnan & Grossklas trio. However, in fact what Harrison does is merely enact a desperate Charade of "the blind men of Indoostan who went to study an elephant..." that and nothing more. All his 'clever' reasoning is merely empty noise and vain sophistry, combined with a pigheaded obstinate Know-Nothingism.
I have already written a previous article against Mr. Harrison's hypocritical tract "A Heretical Pope Would Govern The Church Illicitly But Validly"
From 1 Remnt Sede Harrison.html
Harrison: since "notorious" means, by definition, generally or commonly known, it is clear that none of the conciliar and post-conciliar Popes could have lost their office through heresy. For only a tiny minority of Catholics — indeed, not even one of the thousands of Successors of the Apostles now in communion with Rome! — have believed any one of those Popes to be heretics.
What is relevant here is St. Vincent of Lerins' formula or criteria for discerning heresy:
What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty.
But what, if in antiquity itself there be found error on the part of two or three men, or at any rate of a city or even of a province? Then it will be his care by all means, to prefer the decrees, if such there be, of an ancient General Council to the rashness and ignorance of a few. But what, if some error should spring up on which no such decree is found to bear? Then he must collate and consult and interrogate the opinions of the ancients, of those, namely, who, though living in divers times and places, yet continuing in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, stand forth acknowledged and approved authorities: and whatsoever he shall ascertain to have been held, written, taught, not by one or two of these only, but by all, equally, with one consent, openly, frequently, persistently, that he must understand that he himself also is to believe without any doubt or hesitation.
Harrison: There must be clear evidence that dissent from the dogma in question is really in the mind of the 'Pontiff'
This is the most absurd nonsense, and one to which this heretic tenaciously holds on to. Catholic Theology is very clear on this point, we are NOT concerned with what goes on internally, but only by external words, actions, omissions, etc. This heretic (Harrison) obstinately holds on to this error because without this pretended figleaf he will be forced to recognize that his sect is in incontrovertible heresy and schism!
Harrison: The heresy must be so clear-cut and obvious as to be "notorious", i.e., recognizable as heresy by a consensus (moral unanimity) of those qualified to judge, namely, other Successors of the Apostles in communion with Rome
As Fr. Cedada has pointed out, such a 'relevant community' as per Harrison's criteria has no basis in Catholic theology. It is made up from whole cloth. The only truly relevant community is the entire community of the faithful, laity and clergy indiscriminately. And here too, those clerics and laypersons who too have defected, do not participate in this Community.
Harrison cutely pretends that the "Sedevacantist" merely denounces the heresies of the Antipopes Roncalli, Montini, Luciani and Wojtyla. However, as a matter of fact, we Catholics denounce the heresies of these Antipopes in the head of the sect they have established, and also in their following: their sect, made up of the clergy and laity who adhere to them.
In Catholic Theology, they are, at the least, schismatic. That is, even where those who have followed these heresiarchs into schism and heresy have not themselves consented to these heresies, they are culpable in not having acted in accordance with the faith, but keeping a watch-out for the eternally ravening Devil and his ambushes, and thereby being taken prisoner by the devil. This, their captivity, is culpable; they are culpable for their faults by which they have been taken captive.
However, as a matter of fact, the vast majority, if not every single one of them, has actually consented, in a smaller or larger degree, to the crimes of their heresiarchs, and so are culpable , not merely of schism, but also of heresy.
From 2 Remnt Sede Cekada.html
Fr. Cekada: Canonists and theologians teach that external heresy consists not only in words, but also in "signs, deeds, and the omission of deeds." (Merkelbach, Summa Theologiã Moralis, 1:746.) Obviously, this must cover such omission of deeds as the exercision of prayers, rituals, etc., from the Holy Mass. Obviously, too, it must cover the substitution of 'ambiguous, murky and obscure' terminology in place of orthodox terminology.
Fr. Cekada: "If indeed such a situation would happen, he [the Roman Pontiff] would, by divine law, fall from office without any sentence, indeed, without even a declaratory one. He who openly professes heresy places himself outside the Church, and it is not likely that Christ would preserve the Primacy of His Church in one so unworthy. Wherefore, if the Roman Pontiff were to profess heresy, before any condemnatory sentence (which would be impossible anyway) he would lose his authority." (Coronata, Institutiones Iuris Canonici [1950] 1:312, 316.)
Coronata comments, as an aside, that a condemnatory sentence would be impossible anyway. But it is precisely this Impossibility that Mr. Harrison wishes to impose upon us Catholics! The mark of Satan — a stratagem to bind us into slavery under the power of darkness!
My chief point is this: Harrison pulls a sleight of hand over us, but claiming that his heresiarchs could be denied to be legitimate popes only as a result of a declaration, which he further alleges, belongs only by right to an absolutely unanimous "College of Bishops".
But, this is not true. Catholic Theology recognises that, as a result of certain crimes, the certain fact that the perpetrators of these errors have thereby proven that they have defected from the faith and abandoned the Church, all other pretensions to the contrary notwithstanding.
As a second point, which is another aspect of the first point, it is a fact that certain errors have already been recognized, analysed, and have antidotes provided for them; also, they have been so proscribed that, in the future thereafter such exclusionary judgement, any who professes these errors, accrues automatic excommunication and all the other punishments contingent to these judgement. It is our case that Harrison's heresiarch — and all of his sect — have openly and officially contradicted exactly these judicial pronouncements.
[I give here a statement by His Holiness Pope Michael: The infallible decree Ineffabilis Deus states that heretics, are condemned BY THEIR OWN JUDGEMENT... and what is more, that BY THEIR OWN ACT they subject themselves to the penalties established by law, if they... signify (heresy) by word or writing, or ANY other external means.'
Therefore, those who claim that some ecclesiastical warning must be given, or some time period must elapse before inflicting the penalties we set forth in pages 62 and the following, are holding a heretical doctrine and themselves become subject to these penalties BY THEIR OWN JUDGEMENT.
Where Does This Confusion Come From? Canons 2314 through 2317 describe four different but similar crimes, heresy, suspicion of heresy, propagation of heresy and teaching condemned doctrines. Canon 2315 provides that those who are judged by the Church as under suspicion of heresy become heretics IPSO FACTO six months after their notification.
Conclusion: Heretics condemn themselves and subject themselves to the penalties described by law by their heretical act without any need of admonition, warning, notification or further censure by the Church!]
Third Point: The most important, what Cekada does not answer, but I will:— It is obvious that Canon 188.4 can not be invoked to mean that Montini, for example, became Pope and then tacitly resigned the Papacy, since this Canon can not be applied to a legitimate Pope legitimately elected. But our precise argument is that it applied to each of these four men, not after their purported elections, but before, which fact precludes entirely the possibility that they could attain to the papacy!
From 3 Remnt Sede Harrison.html
Harrison: Such unheard-of novelties (1986 Assisi gathering or kissing the Koran) in no way signify unambiguously any heresy: the Holy Father would no doubt argue that they were merely expressions of respect for those "rays of truth" (as Vatican II calls them) which Catholics have always recognized to exist in pagan religions, mixed in with their errors.
We are NOT at all concerned about imaginary arguments that the antipope could make to justify his impieties, blasphemies and sacrileges, but with the external evidence of wrongdoing. And as for justification, these antipopes have time and again defended these actions on ideological grounds as being legitimate and Catholic, thus making nonsense of Mr. Harrison's attempts to whitewash them and pass them off as something else entirely.
Harrison: But even supposing some such declaration is heretical, its distribution by the Vatican, as such, only makes the heresy materially public. As long as it is not recognized as heretical by a majority of the relevant community, it is still "formally occult" in terms of c. 2197 �4 Yet more gratuitous Harrisonism!
Harrison: Furthermore, even if most or all of the Catholic episcopate (or some representative group thereof) did recognize some published papal statement as heretical, such recognition, while rendering the statement formally (not just materially) public, would by no means guarantee that it was formally (not just materially) heretical. For canon 188 �4 certainly does not contemplate loss of ecclesiastical office for someone who publicly utters (or signs) a heretical statement through mere carelessness in verbal expression, negligence in checking the wording beforehand, or ignorance � even culpable ignorance � that it contradicts some Catholic dogma. As far as I know, negligence in a layman excuses, but not in a cleric.
Harrison: Fr. Cekada first objects that no canonists or theologians he is aware of "require this procedure in the case of a heretical pope". The objection might have merit if the authoritative theologians and canonists who discuss the hypothesis of a notoriously heretical Pope indicated some alternative 'procedure' for establishing how � and by whom � such a Pope would need to be identified. Unfortunately, they don't go into that. But some such 'procedure' there clearly must be. And Fr. Cekada himself has evidently worked out one of his own � one which has no more support from the approved authors than mine does... Consistently with this assumption, they regard the views � indeed, even the consensus � of the Successors of the Apostles as being simply irrelevant in determining such questions.
Heretic bishops are NOT 'Successors of the Apostles', and as such their views on the subject are utterly irrelevant. As for a 'procedure' the Church indeed does not exactly specify an exact 'procedure' to recourse to in such a situation, but only specifies the possibilities, and permits its members to devise one in extremity.
Harrison: My critic also accuses me of making "a hidden assumption that contradicts canon 2200 �2: �when an external violation of the law occurs, in the external forum the existence of malice (dolus) is presumed until the contrary is proved�". Father Cekada seems to assume that any outward manifestation of a heretical opinion is itself, ipso facto, an "external violation" of the divine and ecclesiastical law against heresy. This I deny.
But what you deny is exactly what Catholicism teaches and specifies. Therefore, you are not a Catholic, but a heretic!
Harrison: All I am saying is that the very step which sedevacantists have felt themselves entitled to take � namely, concluding definitively that the post-conciliar Popes are �already judged� to have lost office � is a step which could only be appropriately taken by a consensus of bishops and/or cardinals in communion with the Apostolic See. Same old Harrisonism being purveyed again - ugh! no thanks!
Harrison: The relevant canon is 2197 �3, which refers to "notoriety of the fact." This is said to exist when an offence is not only public, but has been committed in such circumstances "that neither the fact itself, nor its imputability [criminal liability], can be concealed by any subterfuge or excused by some favorable point of law (ut nulla tergiversatione celari nulloque iuris suffragio excusari possit)"
Precisely. Despite all your attempts to whitewash the Antichurch, it will not be justified.
Harrison: For I am maintaining that Fr. Cekada and other sedevacantist clerics and laity are simply not competent, any more than I am, to conclude, with the degree of certainty which could justify their actions � i.e., their total withdrawal of obedience from recent Popes and the deletion of their names from the canon of the Mass � that these men have in fact been non-Popes. Only a consensus (or at least a majority) of the bishops or cardinals in communion with the Apostolic See could, in theory at least, be competent to draw such a drastic conclusion.
Nonsense. Individual Catholics always had the right and the duty to make this decision for themselves. And while they could be mistaken in it, they are excused as long as they are sincere and as long as Vincible Ignorance can be claimed. Certainly, such a step must be taken only after deep consideration and conviction of facts.
Mr. Harrison makes much of the Antichurch and its antipopes not stating frank and unambiguous heresy, that in fact they sometimes issue orthodox statements. But it is precisely this that is characteristic of them - their chicanery, which Pope Pius X exposed long before, and which, therefore ought not need to be gone over again - or occasion surprise among sincere men.
Harrison: A particularly glaring example of distortion occurs when Fr. Nitoglia rages against the Council�s "blasphemy" in teaching (supposedly) that many elements of sanctification can be found "outside the Catholic Church". But when we turn to the Decree on Ecumenism, we find that what the Council actually said is that such "elements" can exist "outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church." The difference is obvious. In �17 we are taught that not only individual persons or �elements of sanctification�, but also local religious communities as such, can adhere at least partially to the Mystical Body while remaining outside the Catholic Church�s visible structure. Those (mainly Oriental) schismatic dioceses in which a valid Eucharist is celebrated are now called, not just �Churches�, but "true particular Churches," in which "the Church of Christ is present and operative"!
In Dominus Iesus �17 the adjective "true" is applied only to "particular Churches" (i.e., each of the many local town or city communities under a validly consecrated bishop), because a "particular [separated] Church" as such - unlike the larger denomination it belongs to - is understood to be a reality not by virtue of its very separation from Rome, but by its celebration of a valid Eucharist. Now, it is undeniable that the divine Head of the Catholic Church is truly present there in His Body and Blood, offered in sacrifice, and received devoutly in Holy Communion by at least some invincibly ignorant worshippers, who will thereby receive the grace of the Holy Spirit in spite of being material schismatics. Thus, since Christ the Head is always inseparably joined to His Mystical Body, the Catholic Church, it does indeed seem hard to deny that, at least in some invisible, limited and partial sense, this Mystical Body must �truly� be �present� and �operative� in that community, even though it is outside the �visible structure� of the Catholic Church.
But it is precisely this misrepresentation of Catholic Docttrine that is heresy. The Catholic Church has always recognized that while schismatic bishops and priests retained their valid orders, they did NOT retain jurisdiction. Which is why it (the Church) appointed Catholic bishops, such as the 'Latin' (as opposed to the schismatic, pretender) Patriarch of Constantinople, or otherwise Bishops in partibus.
The New Religion thus reverses Catholic theology!
But, not only so, but the Apostolic Faith has always maintained, from the very beginning, that while schismatics may retain the authentic form and rites of the Sacraments, and be able to confect them validly, they cannot confect them holily; that is: each and every of these liturgical acts is not pleasing to God, but is an offense to God, an insufferable affront, and therefore is not only not a help towards salvation, but is actually an active help towards eternal damnation.
Nor is it that the invincible ignorance of some or even the greater part of those who partake of these liturgies excuses these liturgies. The invincible ignorance of individuals partaking in what is, from the Catholic theological viewpoint, a criminal attempt to parody the Sacred Liturgy, therefore, a public act of a criminal liturgy, and therefore a criminal assembly, excuses only and solely each and every of these individuals, but not the entire gathering as a gathering, or as a formal assembly.
Again, one must distinguish between mere invincible ignorance, which is merely a negative quality, one the one hand, and on the other, the positive quality: an ignorant, uninformed and developing pursuit and understanding of God and His purposes for the soul, even as it (that soul) which has not yet attained to the point of fnding or being able to understand and appreciate the Gospel of Christ Jesus.
In Catholic Theology, such souls are understood to be precariously progressing towards salvation, by the grace of God acting outside the visible confines of the Church, and tending the soul towards it and towards a confession of Christ; such souls are said to be invisibly belonging to the Church, and if they endure faithfully, they will yet be saved, even without a formal water baptism. It is this ancient and thoroughly orthodox doctrine that the Feeneyites perversely deny.
But this Feeneyite denial has no connection or comparision of the Catholic denial of the Modernist heresy, as Mr. Harrison here uniquely posits, that entire particular sections of schismatic sects also belong invisibly to the Church! Mr. Harrison teaches heresy, pure and simple!
Harrison: The 1945 Apostolic Constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, explicitly abrogating any previous papal legislation whatsoever to the contrary, makes a point of lifting, for the purposes of future papal elections, "any excommunication whatsoever" (cuiuslibet excommunicationis) that might be weighing on any Cardinal, and enabling any such man to take part in electing the next Pope, and even to be elected as Pope (cf. AAS 38 [1946], pp. 76, 98-99). (If Montini had fallen into public defection from the Catholic faith before the 1963 conclave, he would have ipso facto lost his membership in the College of Cardinals by virtue of c. 188 �4 of the 1917 Code, and so would not even have �made it to first base�: i.e., he would not even have been admitted to the Conclave. Obviously, he was.)
I have already found, on Pope Michael's website, an English translation of this document, and it does exclude excommunicates. Again, as specified by Pope Paul IV in Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, the fact that the 'Cardinals' did not recognize that Roncalli or Montini were heretics and thus exclude them from the conclave is utterly irrelevant. The incontrovertible fact is that both did fall under 188.4 and thus their elections, though seemingly valid, are invalid.
Harrison: I would conclude with an earnest plea to Fr. Cekada and other sedevacantist readers: For the love of God, abandon your extreme and terribly mistaken position, and return to full communion with our sick and ailing Holy Mother Church in this hour of her crisis! You need her — and she needs you!
Mr. Harrison here makes a very strange statement and an appeal based on that. For one thing, there is no crisis whatsoever. What is happening is deliberate. Secondly, not only is it deliberate, but even the pious humbug of a pretension that there is some inexplicable 'crisis' is also meant to use emotionalist blackmail, to blackmail us into entering this foul sect, participate in a futile, internal effort to reform it, even while it gleefully corrupts us and assures us our damnation!
Harrison's sect is sick and ailing, not because of an external invasion but because, as a contrived sect, its constitution is sick. And irreformable. Those who would be Catholics are obliged by Divine Law to abominate and reject utterly this evil, vile sect, and to have nothing whatsoever to do with it. To join or to participate in it is to tempt God and to put ourselves on the path of certain damnation!
From 4 Remnt Sede Cekada.html
Fr. Cekada: Catholics are obliged to adhere to a dogma, as the anti-Modernist Oath professes, "always with the same sense and with the same interpretation" (eodem sensu eademque semper sententia),
From 5 Remn Sede Harrison.htm
Harrison: It was explicitly recognized that infants could be validly baptized in heretical or schismatic sects, and that in such cases they thereby became salvifically attached to the one Church even though they were clearly outside her "visible boundaries."
True enough. But this IS temporary, for when the infant reaches to maturity, he/she becomes a schismatic by persistently partaking in the rites of those sects. But Harrison ignores, minimizes or reject an important point in Catholic theology: Schismatics may be able to confect some sacraments validly, but this is not pleasing to God, is blasphemous and not a vehicle of grace but of the wrath of God.
Harrison: I invite Remnant readers to judge for themselves whether these wild and fanciful conclusions really follow logically from my comments about a few rather obscure magisterial statements of recent years. To read this section (#8) of Fr. Cekada�s latest reply, one would think that the contrast between the pre- and post-conciliar styles of magisterial teaching is as stark as that between day and night � and that I myself am unwittingly testifying to this contrast! Father creates the impression that up until Vatican II, we were given nothing but pellucid, crystal-clear papal pronouncements whose meaning was always self-evident; but that ever since Vatican II, nothing has come out of Rome but garbled verbiage "which doesn�t actually teach." This is a totally unhistorical caricature of the truth.
The heretical teachings of the Antichurch are NOT proposed in a 'few rather obscure magisterial statement' - Such a claim is an outright and very evident lie! The Documents of the Great Latrocinium 'Vatican II' are not occult or obscure, rather, as his sect emphasizes again and again, it is crucial to the NEWNESS of his sect and its ideological bases.
Sedevacantists such as I, do not need to be taught by Fr. Cekada or anyone else that 'the contrast between the pre- and post-conciliar styles of magisterial teaching is as stark as that between day and night'. We have found that all for ourselves, and it is self-evident.
Mr. Harrison may say what he pleases: The vast majority of the Catholics awoke to this crisis by recognizing that the 'Church' in which they were, under the impression of being the Catholic Church, is 'filled with the smoke of Satan.' Of course, Montini along with Roncalli and their accomplices were themselves deliberately and consciously responsible for this; Montini's 'rueful' remark is entirely an attempt at disingenuity!
Harrison: But it was negligence, not ignorance, which I proposed as a possible mitigating factor in the case of Popes (see The Remnant, September 15, p. 13, col. 1, last paragraph). And we don�t yet know what, if anything, McKenzie would have to say about that. Negligence is not an excuse in a cleric. And a pope has all the resources to help him - theologians, canonists, etc.
Harrison: According to the 1917 Code (c. 2197, �3), a "notorious" offence is one so widely and publicly known "that neither the fact itself, nor its imputability [criminal liability], can be concealed by any subterfuge or excused by some favorable point of law." I claim that if the conditions spelt out in this quotation were ever really fulfilled in the case of a papal teaching, then in God�s Providence a consensus, or at least a large majority, of bishops in communion with Rome would certainly recognize this �notorious� fact, so that the Church would be able to deal with the crisis in an orderly fashion.
They noticed it, but did not bruit it abroad because they themselves were party to it. In short, it was heresy and schism nearly en-masse
Harrison: The result (of Fr. Cekada's conention) is that the See of Peter, having remained vacant for decade after agonizing decade, has now lost any chance of ever being filled again! For since, according to this view, none of the true (i.e., pre-Vatican II) Cardinals still remains alive as we move into the new millennium, any clearly valid papal election will now be forever impossible!
This merely betrays a contemptuous know-nothingism towards Church history, teachings, laws of election, etc. The Church has already discussed such a scenario often in the past, and these have been more than amply discussed in the public forum by Catholics, so Harrison does not have even this reason to pretend ignorance. In the absence of Cardinals, the election passes to the Canons of the Basilica of St. John on the Lateran, from them to the clergy of Rome and its environments. The most commonly discussed Extra-Ordinary alternative means of electing a new pope is an Acephalous Œcumenical Council such as what Constance was. And a lay or mixed lay-clerical election, as an Extra-Ordinary means is also legitimate.
Harrison: Even though sedevacantists may deny the existence of any canonically "relevant community," they cannot avoid answering the question, "Who decides that a papal statement is heretical?" And the answer from each one of them is breathtaking in its self-confidence: "Me! I can decide!" Each sedevacantist, as an individual, considers his or her own grasp of doctrine and hermeneutics perfectly adequate to reach this catastrophic conclusion � and with all the serene certainty which impels corresponding action: i.e., totally withdrawing obedience to the man recognized by almost everyone else as the true Successor of Peter! I am afraid this kind of �private judgment� of magisterial statements is just as presumptuous, subjectivist and potentially anarchic in its own way as the classical Protestant �private judgement� of Scripture.
For a heretic who makes a hypocritical combination of individualism raised to deity together with a pretended security in an feigned unquestioning adherence to the 'Vatican', this (Catholic attitude) is cause for them to take (Pharisaical) scandal. But from the Catholic viewpoint, excluding presumption, this is the correct procedure. Because Protestantism distorted and exhalted private judgement to one of its idols is no reason why Catholics are forbidden it. We are only told to judge with the Church's sensibility.
Harrison: In a nutshell, this option implies the laughably absurd thesis that all four conditions for loss of papal office through notorious heresy were fulfilled by Paul VI at some stage in the 1960�s without anyone in the whole world having noticed this �notorious� event at the time it occurred! This has already been replied to above.
Harrison: As I said in my previous reply, I agree that the new rite, even in Latin and sticking strictly to the editio typica, lacks some of the �incentives to piety� found in the traditional rite. The main problem with the post-conciliar rite is what it leaves out, not what it still contains. For what it still contains is, from start to finish (assuming that universal Church legislation is strictly observed), nothing but an uninterrupted succession of orthodox prayers and Scripture readings, dignified gestures, genuflexions, signs of the cross, kisses of the altar and Gospels, and a valid consecration � all interspersed with sacred silences, accompanied by good quality sacred music (Gregorian chant or polyphony where possible), and celebrated by a reverent, traditionally-vested priest.
The purposeful deletion of important prayers and significations from the Mass is impious and evil in itself. But the addition of anti-Catholic distortions and significations - such as for example, the abolition of the Altar, with its signification of Sacrifice, and its substitution by the Table, with its significance of purely a social community. Then the monstrous blasphemy and sacrilege of falsifying the words of our Lord in the Consecration.
From 6 Remn Closing Stat.htm
Harrison: First, since John Paul II has serenely occupied the ApostolicPalace for 24 years, he must obviously be PRESUMED to be a true Pope until the contrary is proven.
And how does this square with Cum ex Apostolatus officio?
Harrison: I have argued that no one who is not a Catholic bishop may conclude definitively that a Pope is a notorious heretic until such a declaration is made. This, I have just discovered, is also the position of the great canonists Wernz and Vidal (1942, vol. II, p. 518).
Harrison: Thirdly, Fr. Cekada remarks that the failure of modernist bishops "to declare modernism heretical should be no surprise". True, but irrelevant. The point is that Christ's promises to His Church exclude the sedevacantist scenario, according to which the Pope and ALL the bishops in communion with Rome have fallen into modernist heresy.
The treason of traitors is not surprising certainly, but certainly not irrelevant. Not ALL the bishops, perhaps. But most, certainly. And, if the Church can be supplied bishops in a legitimate manner, then there is no difficulty with the defection of even ALL bishops.
Harrison: I will merely point out that in "The Remnant", Sept. 30, 2001, section F (pp. 14-15), I have already rebutted Father's exaggerated claim that "Of its very nature, the magisterium must be integrally true". Not so. Christ's promises to His Church are quite compatible with the occurrence of occasional magisterial mistakes that are not proposed with the force of infallible doctrine. (Look at the classic cases of Popes Honorius and John XXII.)
Harrison: It is simply untrue that I have confused "the reality of heresy" with its "legal recognition", or that I have "constantly appealed to canon law" in such a way as to ignore the fact that "it is DIVINE law, not canon law, which strips a heretical pope of his authority". In fact, it is not I, but Fr. Cekada, who seems confused and incoherent on this point. In one breath he insists that "a pope is not subject to canon law", and in the next breath he himself appeals to canon law (as interpreted by the canonist McKenzie) in his attempt to prove a "juridical presumption of heretical depravity" on the part of recent Popes.
Looking up Fr. Cekada's closing statement, to which Mr. Harrison is here rebutting, we see that he has pointed out that popes do not come under canon law but under divine law. Furthermore, he quotes McKenzie. In quoting McKenzie, he is not being contradictory, as Harrison claims, for McKenzie's is merely interpretation of Law — both Ecclesial and Divine!
Summation: Catholic Remonstrances Against Modernism
In my previous page, I had dealt with various difficulties proposed by Mr. Harrison against the Catholic position. In this, last page, I will deal with his major thesis that we ought to remonstrate with his antipopes against their purported heresies and only after being assured of their pertinacity and obstinacity, should we have rejected them and separated ourselves from them.
It is Mr. Harrison's implicit contention that we have failed to do so. But this is not true. From the very beginning, when Roncalli commenced this circus, we, the Catholics, have raised these issues with these men and remonstrated and despiced these crimes.
Since Roncalli is the fountainhead of this circus, it was only necessary for us to remonstrate with him, and not with his purported successors. But, as a matter of fact, we kept on remonstrating and keeping our patience till long after, being unable to deal and understand precisely and immediately comprehend the facts and the real truth behind these crimes. We kept on remonstrating with Montini and with the Latrocinium and we waited with breathless hope that Wojtyla would reverse this sordid mess and revert to orthodoxy. But all in vain.
We organized the Coitus Patrorum Internationalem - Union of Internatinal Fathers, to stop the not so covert takeover of the Council by heretics under the active guidance and direction of Roncalli and Montini. We threw up the so-called Ottaviani Intervention. All this was in vain. The heretics proved obstinate and persistent, and therefore we have fulfilled our obligation.
But as we studied the subject, our understanding grew deeper and we became aware of the fact that Roncalli was not a legitimate pontiff, that his election was in fact void because he had been, as far as Canon Law is concerned, a public and manifest heretic. We became aware of Church Law and of Magisterial decisions which we are required to use in such a case.
It was in application of these that we saw that we had no need at all to remonstrate, negotiate with, be held hostage to the tender mercies of or beg from these malefactors for what are our rights in the Faith.
We learnt that Catholicism had already condemned the very heresy of Roncalli, when Pope Pius X had condemned the Modernist heresy and excommunicated the Modernist heretics. And so Roncalli and his followers were mere infiltrators and enemy agents and never legitimate rulers of the Church.
And in application of Pope Paul IV's Apostolic Constitution, Cum ex Apostolatus officio, which obviously retains its force, we saw that we never had to accept either Roncalli or Montini or Luciani or Wojtyla as legitimate pontiffs and waste our time remonstrating with these clowns.
[It is interesting that St. Bernard of Clairvaux applied these same principles long before Pope Paul IV wrote them down, in championing the cause of Pope Innocent II against the antipope Anacletus II]