Ultra-Romanism, Page 6
© Prax Maskaren. May 2003.
Dear Mr. Case,
You make a very valid point when you point out and stress that 188.4 is not talking of offices which have never been factually possessed but of offices which have been factually possessed. This is something that had not occurred to me.
You assert that "There is no doubt and you cannot go back to the old law". However, we must stress that the Church never did entertain the attitude that the Antichurch has entertained, that of starting or commencing something absolutely new, without any root or precedent in the past. Let us leave that to the Antichurch.
As far as the Church is considered, since it never had such an attitude, we are forced to presume that there was never any intention to abrogate or obrogate CEAO by promulgating the CIC 1917.
I have already shown that even if there had been any such intention or act, it would have been invalid and therefore null and void, as CEAO is absolutely irreversible, just as much as Quo Primum is.
Coming to your further points:
It is my understanding that VAS (Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, 1945) states that no one who is not a public and manifest heretic is to be forbidden participation and the right to be elected, in a conclave. But that was always Church law: that an occult heretic is supplied and legitimately receives office.
As for Pius XII, his attitude towards Roncalli, etc., etc., the less said the better.
We all know that there are grave problems with him and his works, his acts of commission and of omission. However, until a better study is done to determine exactly his culpability or lack of it, I prefer to recognize that he is legitimate upto his death.
However, I am not such a fool as to pretend that there is/are no problems with him... that he is pristine, immaculate.
Regarding Roncalli, I have an objection. You claim that he was validly elected, but lost office as a result of PIT (Pacem in Terris). I ask: On what basis?
Is it 188.4? But if so, I ask, how can 188.4, admittedly a purely human legislation, affect one who is claimed to be a legitimate pope, given that the pope is above Church law?
A further problem:
If Roncalli fell, it means that he fell because he commenced a heresy. And that he drew off others after him.
Now, all those who followed him, incurred the penalty, at the minimum, of schism. And thus, his followers into schism, in following him as a pseudo-pope, as a pretender pope and even as a heresiarch-antipope, were rendered utterly inelegible to be even considered as valid matter for election as next pope.
[I would look up Church legislations on de facto schisms and of erections by persons of themselves into de facto sects...]
Where then, does this leave us? What is the status, considering this consequent fact, of Montini, Luciani and of the current Wojtyla?
I ask, because you allege, as the main focus of your belief, that these men have, each of them, been validly elected, but failed to validly consent and thus factually receive, the papal office...
Prax Maskaren