Are Protestants Christians and Members of the Church of Christ?

The subject of whether Protestants and Orthodox are Christians and their religions are part of the Church of Christ comes up frequently on “Catholic” Relevant Radio, youtube, etc.

According to the religion of Vatican 2, which falls in line with  some Protestants, membership in the Church includes all who are baptized and profess Christ while rejecting dogmas of the Catholic Church.

The Vatican 2 religion has gone out of its way to say that the Eastern Orthodox religion is part of the one Church of Christ in the Balamand statement. [1] It also implied that the Lutheran churches are part of the Church of Christ. [2]

Vatican 2 apologists such as Msgr. Stuart W. Swetland, S.T.D., and Patrick Madrid don’t hesitate for a second to say that the Church has never changed a doctrine while in the same breath saying Protestants and Orthodox are Christians but without the fullness of truth.

To the contrary, the great Pope Leo XIII reiterated in Satis Cognitum what the Church has always taught and practiced. Below are the relevant parts.

“4 Jesus Christ did not, in point of fact, institute a Church to embrace several communities similar in nature, but in themselves distinct, and lacking those bonds which render the Church unique and indivisible after that manner in which in the symbol of our faith we profess: ‘I believe in one Church.’ ‘The Church in respect of its unity belongs to the category of things indivisible by nature, though heretics try to divide it into many parts… And so dispersed members, separated one from the other, cannot be united with one and the same head. ‘There is one God, and one Christ; and His Church is one and the faith is one; and one the people, joined together in the solid unity of the body in the bond of concord. This unity cannot be broken, nor the one body divided by the separation of its constituent parts’….

5 So the Christian is a Catholic as long as he lives in the body: cut off from it he becomes a heretic – the life of the spirit follows not the amputated member. …

9 The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a tertian portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. “There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition” (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos)….

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium….

St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. “No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic” (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88)…

And as souls cannot be perfectly united in charity unless minds agree in faith, he wishes all to hold the same faith: “One Lord, one faith,” and this so perfectly one as to prevent all danger of error: “that henceforth we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph. iv., 14): and this he teaches is to be observed, not for a time only – “but until we all meet in the unity of faith…unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ” (13). But, in what has Christ placed the primary principle, and the means of preserving this unity? In that – “He gave some Apostles – and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (11-12). …

In this wise, all cause for doubting being removed, can it be lawful for anyone to reject any one of those truths without by the very fact falling into heresy? without separating himself from the Church? – without repudiating in one sweeping act the whole of Christian teaching? For such is the nature of faith that nothing can be more absurd than to accept some things and reject others…

Pope Pius XI continued with the subject and declared in Mortalium animos:

11. Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors.

For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head.

Since the Second Vatican Council, Rome now calls heretics and schismatics Christians or separated brethren, and even denies that they are heretics and schismatics.

For instance, Vatican II states:

“The children who are born into these Communities and who grow up believing in Christ cannot be accused of the sin involved in the separation, and the Catholic Church embraces upon them as brothers, with respect and affection…. But even in spite of them it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ’s body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.” (Second Vatican Council, Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, Chapter 1, para. 3)

Children born and raised in false churches would be accused of the sin of separation if they come to know or should know better and remain separated. We don’t presume that everybody remains invincibly ignorant. Regardless, only God can read hearts. We don’t presume to know if one is truly guilty or innocent. To say they all “are members of Christ’s body, and have a right to be called Christian” is a reversal in Church teaching.

We demonstrated that Pope Leo XIII taught exactly the opposite in Satis Cognitum.

Pope Pius XII declared: “To be Christian one must be Roman. One must recognize the oneness of Christ’s Church that is governed by one successor of the Prince of the Apostles who is the Bishop of Rome, Christ’s Vicar on earth” (Allocution to the Irish pilgrims of October 8, 1957).

The terms heretics and schismatics are canonical and doctrinal Catholic terminology referring to the baptized some of whom were justified by faith at one time. Non-baptized persons aren’t called heretics and schismatics, but rather infidels, heathens, pagans, etc. We have long standing and official Catholic terminology which the Vatican 2 religion deems inappropriate, inaccurate, and counterfactual.

We might call heretics “Christians” in conventional language, but to claim they have a “right” to the Christian name would make calling them heretics and schismatics wrong and hateful. Yet, Popes have called Protestants and Orthodox heretics in official documents. Just a few examples include Pope Benedict XIV in Ex Quo (On the Euchologion – 1756), Pope Pius VI in Charitas (In the Civil Oath in France – 1791), Pope Gregory XVI in Summo Iugiter Studio (On Mixed Marriages – 1832) and Probe Nostis (On the Propogation of the Faith – 1840), and Pope Pius IX in Omnem Sollicitudinem (On the Greek-Ruthenian Rite – 1874). Pope Leo XIII used it the most in several documents.

Pope Leo XIII also declared in Satis Cognitum: “Therefore if a man does not want to be, or to be called, a heretic, let him not strive to please this or that man… but let him hasten before all things to be in communion with the Roman See.”

 

Footnotes:

[1] The 1993 Balamand Statement approved by John Paul II on May 25, 1995, in Ut Unum Sint, n. 59, declared:

13. In fact, especially since the panorthodox Conferences and the Second Vatican Council, the re- discovery and the giving again of proper value to the Church as communion, both on the part of Orthodox and of Catholics, has radically altered perspectives and thus attitudes. On each side it is recognized that what Christ has entrusted to his Church – profession of apostolic faith, participation in the same sacraments, above all the one priesthood celebrating the one sacrifice of Christ, the apostolic succession of bishops – cannot be considered the exclusive property of one of our Churches.
14. It is in this perspective that the Catholic Churches and the Orthodox Churches recognize each other as Sister Churches, responsible together for maintaining the Church of God in fidelity to the divine purpose, most especially in what concerns unity. According to the words of Pope John Paul II, the ecumenical endeavour of the Sister Churches of East and West, grounded in dialogue and prayer, is the search for perfect and total communion which is neither absorption nor fusion but a meeting in truth and love (cf. Slavorum Apostoli, n. 27).

[2]  JOINT DECLARATION ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION

by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church Nov. 1, 1999

44. We give thanks to the Lord for this decisive step forward on the way to overcoming the division of the church. We ask the Holy Spirit to lead us further toward that visible unity which is Christ’s will.

John Paul II approved and blessed the Joint Declaration as seen below.

PRESENTATION OF THE JOINT STATEMENT

Edward Cardinal Cassidy

President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity

7. On the Catholic side, the Official Common Statement and the Annex have been approved by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. His Holiness Pope John Paul II has been informed accordingly and has given his blessing for the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, together with the Official Common Statement with its attached Annex on the date and in the place to be decided by the two partners.

 

 

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Jimmy Akin, Patrick Madrid, and Christopher Ferrara in the same Boat of Stupid

Senior apologist Jimmy Akin over at “Catholic Answers” has attempted to explain away “Pope” Francis’ new catechism change on the death penalty. [1] Akin argues that capital punishment is not intrinsically evil. The reason, he gives, is that today’s penal sanctions can protect society without the need for the death penalty, whereas in the past, the Church understood the death penalty as a necessary requirement to protect society.

Akin takes it further and states, “the death penalty could still be justified as a means of protecting society” and “one could understand the death penalty as something that involves ‘an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person’ but an attack that could be tolerated or even required in situations where there is no other way to effectively protect society.”

The whole problem here is that the catechism implies the precise opposite to Akin’s argument.

The revision denotes that in the past the dignity of the person was considered lost due to serious crimes which justified the use of capital punishment. However, now “an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes” and “Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person’, [1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”

The footnote points to Francis’ address in 2017 where he stated that the death penalty is “contrary to the Gospel” and “is an inhuman measure.” That means the death penalty is intrinsically evil.

In case you missed it, the catechism is saying the death penalty is inadmissible because it attacks the inviolability and dignity of the person, but Akin argues that the same quote admits that such an attack is admissible. It can be justified, tolerated, or even required.

Apologist Patrick Madrid (formally of “Catholic Answers”) admits that Francis’ new teaching is contrary to past Church teaching and the death penalty is not an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. Madrid asserts the change is Francis’ “personal pastoral approach” and “pastoral opinion” but no change in doctrine. [2]

If we pay close attention, we can see that the Francis’ catechism revision is implying four things:

1. The Church in the past was wrong for thinking the dignity of the person is lost for serious crimes.
2. The Church was wrong for thinking it was an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes.
3. The Church was ignorant of the fact that the dignity is still present after serious crimes.
4. The Church immorally attacked the inviolability and dignity of the person when such an attack is inadmissible because of the inviolability and dignity of the person.

All four implications are blasphemies against the Church and outright heresies against the Holiness of the Church.

Madrid understands the error of Francis’ teaching but asserts that a pope has the right to make and apply a heretical and blasphemous opinion as a pastoral approach.

Over at the Remnant Newspaper, we have Christopher Ferrara rightly pointing out Francis’ nonsense but then calling his pope’s magisterium “fake.” Well, that’s interesting. We sede’s call Francis’ magisterium fake, too, because Francis isn’t pope. However, Ferrara calls it fake because it’s heretical. [3]

Conclusion

Jimmy Akin twists the very words of “Pope” Francis and his catechism revision to say precisely opposite of their clear meaning.

Patrick Madrid implies that a pope has the right to promulgate a heretical pastoral approach.

Christopher Ferrara thinks his pope’s magisterium is fake with no authority because in Ferrara’s crazy religion, popes can have fake magisteriums and promulgate heresy without losing their office or membership in the Church.

All I can say is, “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

 

Footnotes

[1] http://jimmyakin.com/2018/08/understanding-the-catechisms-death-penalty-revision.html

[2] http://jimmyakin.com/2018/08/understanding-the-catechisms-death-penalty-revision.html

[3] https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/4000-killing-capital-punishment-francis-vs-the-catholic-church#comment-4020553214

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‘Pope’ Francis’ Heresy on the Death Penalty

In a 1973 movie called The Conflict, a modernist priest played by Martin Sheen asks a traditional priest (played by Trevor Howard) how do we begin to define heresy today. The traditionalist gives the answer for the modernist by stating, “yesterday’s orthodoxy is today’s heresy.”

Never has this statement been truer than in today’s religion headed by “Pope” Francis.

In “Why Sedevacantism” I showed that if Vatican 2 is correct that “religious communities are entitled to teach and give witness to their faith publicly in speech and writing without hindrance” [DH 4] then Martin Luther would have been right when he declared “that heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit” and Pope Leo X and his papal bull condemning Luther’s teaching would be heretical.

On Aug. 2, 2018, the Feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, “Pope” Francis has now, once again, officially recognized Martin Luther’s teaching as orthodoxy by ordering the Catechism of the Catholic Church be changed on capital punishment. [1] (Catechism change and the Letter from the CDF.)

The key changes of the 1992 Catechism footnote an Oct. 11, 2017 address from “Pope” Francis to an audience of cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns, catechists, and ambassadors from many countries on the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the catechism. The Catechism now implies that the Catholic Church in the past was ignorant to the dignity of the person after very serious crimes and attacked that dignity out of its ignorance.

In the Oct. address, Francis declared the death penalty is “contrary to the Gospel,” “is an inhuman measure,” “is inadmissible because it attacks the inviolability and the dignity of the person” stressing that “here we are not in the presence of any contradiction with past teaching,” that this, “law of progress” he said, “appertains to the peculiar condition of the truth revealed in its being transmitted by the church, and does not at all signify a change of doctrine. One cannot conserve the doctrine without making it progress, nor can one bind it to a rigid and immutable reading without humiliating the Holy Spirit.” [2]

If only Luther could have lived to see this moment when Rome would say he was right all along. Why Luther would be considered a good Catholic today as even “Pope Saint” John Paul II paid homage to him and the Vatican said he was a “witness to the gospel.” In fact, if Luther lived today, he wouldn’t be so well-known. He’d fit right in with the Novus Ordo establishment.

It really is astounding how Protestant Rome is becoming. One of the doctrines held by the earliest Protestants (Anabaptists) was the unlawfulness of capital punishment. In De Laicis, Doctor of the Church, St. Robert Bellarmine called this a “chief heretical belief” of the Protestant sects. [3]

Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori taught, “It is lawful to put a man to death by public authority: it is even a duty of princes and of judges to condemn to death criminals who deserve it; and it is the duty of the officers of justice to execute the sentence; God himself wishes malefactors to be punished.” [4]

The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent declared, “Execution Of Criminals: Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment¬ is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.” [5]

If this is not enough, I provide more information on how the Church ordered The Death Penalty for Sodomites.

Even when we see a clear reversal of Church teaching on morality, two well-known radio hosts on Relevant Radio, “Catholic” apologist Patrick Madrid and “Monsignor” Stuart Swetland insist that Francis is only making a pastoral change with no actual change in Church doctrine or is just applying a development of doctrine. You can hear the podcasts by clicking on the links provided at the footnote. [6] I haven’t listened to any other talk shows from Relevant Radio to see how they are dealing with this, but I can figure it’s probably all the same.

On July 3, 1907, Pope St. Pius X condemned as an error of the Modernist in Lamentabili, “53. The organic constitution of the Church is not immutable; but Christian society, just as human society, is subject to perpetual evolution.” Is this not what “Pope” Francis is advocating with his statements? Is this not what Madrid and Swetland are defending when they say that we have to understand this in “Francis’ way” or imply that doctrines can develop in the reverse?

It all comes down to the fact that all of them are modernists in the truest sense of the word, for they all hold that “Yesterday’s orthodoxy is today’s heresy.”

 

 

Footnotes:

[1] The Death Penalty

“2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.

Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, [1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.
_______________________________________
[1] FRANCIS, Address to Participants in the Meeting organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, 11 October 2017: L’Osservatore Romano, 13 October 2017, 5.”

“CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
Letter to the Bishops regarding the new revision of number 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty

1. The Holy Father Pope Francis, in his Discourse on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum, by which John Paul II promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church, asked that the teaching on the death penalty be reformulated so as to better reflect the development of the doctrine on this point that has taken place in recent times.[1] This development centers principally on the clearer awareness of the Church for the respect due to every human life. Along this line, John Paul II affirmed: “Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity, and God himself pledges to guarantee this.”[2]
2. It is in the same light that one should understand the attitude towards the death penalty that is expressed ever more widely in the teaching of pastors and in the sensibility of the people of God. If, in fact, the political and social situation of the past made the death penalty an acceptable means for the protection of the common good, today the increasing understanding that the dignity of a person is not lost even after committing the most serious crimes, the deepened understanding of the significance of penal sanctions applied by the State, and the development of more efficacious detention systems that guarantee the due protection of citizens have given rise to a new awareness that recognizes the inadmissibility of the death penalty and, therefore, calling for its abolition.
3. In this development, the teaching of the Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitæ of John Paul II is of great importance. The Holy Father enumerated among the signs of hope for a new culture of life “a growing public opposition to the death penalty, even when such a penalty is seen as a kind of ‘legitimate defense’ on the part of society. Modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform.”[3] The teaching of Evangelium vitæ was then included in the editio typica of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In it, the death penalty is not presented as a proportionate penalty for the gravity of the crime, but it can be justified if it is “the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor,” even if in reality “cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender today are very rare, if not practically non-existent” (n. 2267).
4. John Paul II also intervened on other occasions against the death penalty, appealing both to respect for the dignity of the person as well as to the means that today’s society possesses to defend itself from criminals. Thus, in the Christmas Message of 1998, he wished “the world the consensus concerning the need for urgent and adequate measures … to end the death penalty.”[4] The following month in the United States, he repeated, “A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.”[5]
5. The motivation to be committed to the abolition of the death penalty was continued with the subsequent Pontiffs. Benedict XVI recalled “the attention of society’s leaders to the need to make every effort to eliminate the death penalty.”[6] He later wished a group of the faithful that “your deliberations will encourage the political and legislative initiatives being promoted in a growing number of countries to eliminate the death penalty and to continue the substantive progress made in conforming penal law both to the human dignity of prisoners and the effective maintenance of public order.”[7]
6. In this same prospective, Pope Francis has reaffirmed that “today capital punishment is unacceptable, however serious the condemned’s crime may have been.”[8] The death penalty, regardless of the means of execution, “entails cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.”[9] Furthermore, it is to be rejected “due to the defective selectivity of the criminal justice system and in the face of the possibility of judicial error.”[10] It is in this light that Pope Francis has asked for a revision of the formulation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty in a manner that affirms that “no matter how serious the crime that has been committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of the person.”[11]
7. The new revision of number 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, approved by Pope Francis, situates itself in continuity with the preceding Magisterium while bringing forth a coherent development of Catholic doctrine.[12] The new text, following the footsteps of the teaching of John Paul II in Evangelium vitæ, affirms that ending the life of a criminal as punishment for a crime is inadmissible because it attacks the dignity of the person, a dignity that is not lost even after having committed the most serious crimes. This conclusion is reached taking into account the new understanding of penal sanctions applied by the modern State, which should be oriented above all to the rehabilitation and social reintegration of the criminal. Finally, given that modern society possesses more efficient detention systems, the death penalty becomes unnecessary as protection for the life of innocent people. Certainly, it remains the duty of public authorities to defend the life of citizens, as has always been taught by the Magisterium and is confirmed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church in numbers 2265 and 2266.
8. All of this shows that the new formulation of number 2267 of the Catechism expresses an authentic development of doctrine that is not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium. These teachings, in fact, can be explained in the light of the primary responsibility of the public authority to protect the common good in a social context in which the penal sanctions were understood differently, and had developed in an environment in which it was more difficult to guarantee that the criminal could not repeat his crime.
9. The new revision affirms that the understanding of the inadmissibility of the death penalty grew “in the light of the Gospel.”[13] The Gospel, in fact, helps to understand better the order of creation that the Son of God assumed, purified, and brought to fulfillment. It also invites us to the mercy and patience of the Lord that gives to each person the time to convert oneself.
10. The new formulation of number 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church desires to give energy to a movement towards a decisive commitment to favor a mentality that recognizes the dignity of every human life and, in respectful dialogue with civil authorities, to encourage the creation of conditions that allow for the elimination of the death penalty where it is still in effect.
The Sovereign Pontiff Francis, in the Audience granted to the undersigned Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 28 June 2018, has approved the present Letter, adopted in the Ordinary Session of this Congregation on 13 June 2018, and ordered its publication.
Rome, from the Office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1 August 2018, Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori.
Luis F. Card. Ladaria, S.I.
Prefect
X Giacomo Morandi
Titular Archbishop of Cerveteri
Secretary

[2] https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/10/11/pope-francis-death-penalty-contrary-gospel

[3] St. Robert Bellarmine, De Laicis, “Among the chief heretical beliefs of the Anabaptists and Antitrinitarians of our time there is one that says that it is not lawful for Christians to hold magistracy and that among Christians there must not be power of capital punishment, etc., in any government, tribunal, or court.” (p. 5)

[4] St. Alphonsus Liguori (Instructions for the People on the Ten Commandments and on the Sacraments) https://archive.org/stream/alphonsusworks15liguuoft#page/n467/mode/1up

[5] http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/trent/tcomm05.htm

[6] Listen to Patrick Madrid on the death penalty change here:
https://relevantradio.com/2018/08/the-patrick-madrid-show-august-3-2018-hour-1/
https://relevantradio.com/2018/08/the-patrick-madrid-show-august-3-2018-hour-2/
and
https://relevantradio.com/2018/08/the-patrick-madrid-show-august-7-2018-hour-2/
https://relevantradio.com/2018/08/the-patrick-madrid-show-august-7-2018-hour-3/

and Swetland can be heard here: https://relevantradio.com/2018/08/go-ask-your-father-for-august-7-2018/
https://relevantradio.com/2018/08/go-ask-your-father-for-august-2-2018/

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Patrick Madrid Proves Sedevacantism True in His Book ‘Pope Fiction’

In his book “Pope Fiction,” Patrick Madrid makes the claim that Sedevacantists “come up empty-handed when it comes to the hard facts needed to make their case. Colorful fantasies are about all the Sedevacantists can muster to support their claim.” p. 273.

Yet, Madrid ignores the real “hard facts” and the two easiest and most important arguments used by Sedevacantists to support the position that the Chair of Peter is empty. I cover one of them directly with Madrid with  The Heresy on the Nature of the Church .  The other argument is found in my book here.

However, Madrid does attempt to answer the argument on religious liberty, and it is here that Madrid accidentally proves himself wrong and sedevacantism right.

Madrid quotes Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors that condemns that “Each one is free to embrace and profess that religion which, led by the light of reason, he thinks is true,” and remarks, “This statement condemns relativism, not the freedom from coercion advocated by Vatican II. It’s true, no one has the right to believe in and follow a false religion; all rights come from God, and He doesn’t endorse error. This fits perfectly with the Declaration’s statement on the ‘moral duty’ of people to pursue the ‘true religion and the one Church of Christ.’ In the pursuit, however, no one is to be forced against his free will. They must embrace the truth of their own accord.” Pp. 276-277.

While it’s true that Vatican II rightly condemns coercion, Madrid missed the second part of Vatican II’s declaration, which is contrary to Madrid’s own admission.

After Vatican II defined that religious liberty consists in the freedom from coercion it continues with, “4. The freedom or immunity from coercion in matters religious which is the endowment of persons as individuals is also to be recognized as their right when they act in community. Religious communities are a requirement of the social nature both of man and of religion itself…

Religious communities also have the right not to be hindered, either by legal measures or by administrative action on the part of government…

in erecting buildings for religious purposes, and in the acquisition and use of suitable funds or properties.

Religious communities also have the right not to be hindered in their public teaching and witness to their faith, whether by the spoken or by the written word.”

Madrid has implied that sedevacantism would have a case if Vatican II is shown to have taught heresy.

Madrid admitted that “no one has the right to believe in and follow a false religion.”

Madrid falsely concluded that Vatican II declared that religious liberty consists only in the freedom from coercion, because Vatican II taught that men do have a right to believe in and follow a false religion in religious communities, to erect buildings, acquire property for their false religion, and to spread their false religion publicly in speech and writing without hindrance.

Unknowingly, Madrid proved the truth of sedevacantism, since Vatican II rejects and contradicts what Madrid has admitted is Divine law.

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The Heresy on the Nature of the Church

I recently called Catholic Answers Live and the Right Here, Right Now radio show with host Patrick Madrid. Without being antagonistic, I just asked them some simple questions about membership in the Church, the Balamand statement, etc. What I got were discombobulated answers to the questions. The day I called Madrid’s show, he began talking how he’s about the truth and getting to the truth. But when I challenged him with papal declarations, he cut me off, and then he cut me short without dealing directly with the actual question. When I called back the next day to follow up on my question, I was told that I wouldn’t get on the program.

It’s funny really. Catholic radio criticizes mainstream media for misrepresentation, yet they do precisely what they condemn. Interestingly enough, Patrick Madrid spoke about hypocrisy the day I was told that I wasn’t going to be brought back on air to follow up on the Balamand statement. There’s nothing like criticizing hypocrisy while being hypocritical.

Anyway, below is my position that the so-called Catholic media won’t allow the public to hear.

Pope Pius XII repeatedly taught that “the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing.” (Humani Generis, 1950)

In Mystici Corporis Christi the same pope declared: “Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, ….And therefore if a man refuse to hear the Church let him be considered — so the Lord commands — as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit.”

Later in the same document, Pope Pius XII taught that heresy, schism, and apostasy severs one from the Body of the Church.

As a Catholic, I believe there’s only one true Church and that all other churches are false churches. It doesn’t matter how many truths a church has, if it has one error in doctrine, then it’s a false church.

The 1993 Balamand statement heretically teaches “that the Catholic Churches and the Orthodox Churches recognize each other as Sister Churches, responsible together for maintaining the Church of God in fidelity to the divine purpose, most especially in what concerns unity.”

It’s heretical because it implies that the one visible Church is divided. The Balamand statement implies that the one Church of God is made up of false churches, hence false religions. The Orthodox churches are in no way (formal or informal) part of the Church of God. On May 25, 1995, John Paul II, in Ut Unum Sint, n. 59, approved the Balamand declaration.

The 1999 JOINT DECLARATION with the Lutherans heretically states, “44. We give thanks to the Lord for this decisive step forward on the way to overcoming the division of the church. We ask the Holy Spirit to lead us further toward that visible unity which is Christ’s will.”

It’s heretical because it’s implying that Lutherans are part of the Body of Christ the Church, and that the Church of Christ is not visibly unified. This is a blatant rejection of the Dogma. John Paul II approved and blessed the Joint Declaration.

In an Apostolic Letter by Pope Pius IX to all Protestants and other Non-Catholics at the convocation of the Vatican Council, September 13, 1868: “neither any one of these societies by itself, nor all of them together, can in any manner constitute and be that One Catholic Church which Christ our Lord built, and established, and willed should continue; and that they cannot in any way be said to be branches or parts of that Church, since they are visibly cut off from Catholic unity…

we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ…

we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them…”

Notice that baptized non-Catholics are not members of the Body of Christ, and that they are guilty of the sin of separation since they are “wayward sons” and need to “return.”

Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos (1928) affirmed Pope Pius IX: “the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it…”

In a Jan. 22, 2013 L’Osservatore Romano article titled: The divisions among Christians disfigure the face of the Church, it was written that Benedict XVI said, “One of the gravest sins ‘that disfigure the Church’s face’ is the sin ‘against her visible unity’, and, in particular, ‘the historical divisions which separated Christians and which have not yet been surmounted’”.

The two references of the “Church’s face” and “Against her visible unity” is a point blank denial of the dogma that the visible Church is one in faith.

Conclusion:

The Catholic Church has declared that the Mystical Body of Christ (Church of Christ) is the Catholic Church and that it’s visibly one in Faith. This is an Article of Faith, a dogma and highest form of Catholic doctrine.

Vatican 2 and the conciliar popes have declared that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. Other non-Catholic churches form part of the Mystical Body of Christ as well. Therefore, the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church are not one and the same thing. The Catholic Church is visibly one, but the Church of Christ is not visibly one.

For 2000 years, the Church has declared that only those who are baptized and profess the true Faith are to be counted as really members of the Church, meaning in the external forum.

Vatican 2 and the conciliar popes have declared that all baptized persons regardless of profession of faith are to be counted as members of the Church in the external forum. All baptized persons have a “right” to be called Christian.

It’s gone from…

YES, the visible Church is one in Faith, to
NO, the visible Church is not one in Faith.

YES, the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, to
NO, the Church of Christ is not the Catholic Church.

YES, heresy, schism, and apostasy severs you from the Church, to
NO, heresy, schism, and apostasy only keeps you from the fullness of truth but membership in the Church is maintained.

YES, all baptized non-Catholics are outside the Church of Christ in the external forum, to
NO, all baptized non-Catholics are inside the Church of Christ in the external forum.

I often hear on Relevant Radio that no doctrine changed after the Second Vatican Council. Yet, one can easily see that there’s no continuity with the past on doctrines and dogmas concerning the nature of the Church.

What I’ve discovered over the years is that if a person is not willing to consider the possibilities that his position on religion is wrong, then no argument, no matter how brilliant or logical, will convince such a person of his error. He will not concede. Only those with the ability to consider the possibilities will be able to see and understand the facts, the arguments, and the truth.

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