Post, Wednesday April 20: Good News and Bad--Already  - by Christopher A. Ferrara

ROME: On the second day of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, as my fellow correspondent and I write our final dispatches from Rome, there is already both good news and bad news to report concerning the new papacy.

The good news is that the media jackals are already baring their fangs in a sign of aggression against the new Pope.  The same talking heads that were heaping praise on John Paul II only days ago, and who are still praising him to the heavens, are now orchestrating a series of admonitory interviews with various neo-modernist dissidents along the theme of “Benedict XVI had better be another John Paul II or else.”

The most obnoxious of these parasites on the Body of Christ I have thus far seen on television is “Sister” Joan Chittister, the widely published peacenik feminist “nun,” who frequently appears on talk shows in a sports jacket.  On Larry King Live last night (2:00 am Rome time), Chittister said that while John Paul II was “the Word of God for all people,” Pope Benedict, she warned, had better learn to listen, listen, listen—and be nice to everyone, just like John Paul II.

Holding up the “conservative” side of the Larry King panel were Father Joseph Fessio, who studied theology under the former Cardinal Ratzinger, and a priest from the Legionnaries of Christ who Mike Matt and I had encountered the night before in the lobby of the Columbus Hotel.

Fessio bobbled the ball completely, defending the new Pope as a cultured man with a good sense of humor who plays the piano and is “very consultative”—i.e., don’t worry world, this Pope won’t issue any unilateral dictates in the manner of, say, a Vicar of Christ.  Fessio did, however, manage to get in the remark that he had not had enough time to put on his red suspenders before the appearance on Larry King Live. (He also noted that, after all, Vatican II had not called for the total abolition of Latin in the Mass, contrary to what a liberal priest on the panel had suggested when he called Vatican II a “Prague spring” for the Church.) And this, mind you, was the “conservative” defender of Benedict XVI. 

As for the Legionnary priest, he never even picked up the ball but simply ran off the field, protesting that Cardinal Ratzinger was no dictator but a man of Vatican II who would leave people “room” to make their own decisions.  Based on this priest’s performance, I would not give a farthing to the Legionnaries of Christ (otherwise known as “the Millionaires of Christ”), whose peculiar corporate mission (the merit of their individual priesthoods aside) appears to be that of extremely well-groomed ecclesiastical front men for the postconciliar status quo.  There is no hope of a return to Tradition with this bunch.

It is a very telling indication of the current state the Church that neither Fessio nor the Legionnary priest was even remotely as conservative as the non-Catholic caller who observed that according to his understanding of Catholic theology, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ and thus speaks for “the sovereign God,” so why don’t people simply listen to the sovereign God and shut up, or else leave the Church?   Both Fessio and the Legionnary danced around that very well-made point, even though they had been given a perfect opportunity to agree with the caller and throw down the gauntlet to forces of conformity, both within and without the Church, that are now positioning themselves to surround and attempt to intimidate the new Pope.

It is already apparent that the media jackals will try to tear Pope Benedict to pieces if he attempts anything approaching a traditionalist restoration of the Church.  If the new Pope has any such thing in mind, he will need a great deal of courage to carry it off, for the same voices of the world that are still praising John Paul II will savage Benedict XVI without mercy.

So, this is good news and bad: good, because the world is extremely wary of the new pope, and bad because even the Pope’s “conservative” defenders are already giving ground to world opinion. Who will be there to defend the new Pope should he turn out to have something of a traditionalist agenda?  We traditionalists must defend him, if only he will lead us in the right direction.

But will he?  This brings me to more good news and bad. The Pope’s Mass in the Sistine Chapel this morning was entirely in Latin and certainly a huge improvement over the public papal liturgies of the last pontificate. It was recognizably and distinctly Catholic, even if not the traditional Mass itself, which remains under the insane quarantine of the past 35 years.   But this Mass was offered facing the people on a table brought into the Sistine Chapel after the conclave, there was a lay reader, and communion in the hand was permitted as an option, although almost everyone received the Blessed Sacrament sub lingua.

What does this mean?  It is too soon to say.  But if it means a revamped Latin Novus Ordo for the general population of the Church, along with a papal commitment to restoration of the traditional Latin Mass wherever it is requested, that would at least be a step toward the inevitable restoration of the Church. 

On the other hand—and this would appear to be very bad news—in his homily during the Mass today, Pope Benedict promised to continue the “realization of Vatican II” (but only in keeping with “the bi-millennial tradition of the Church”) and the commitment of his predecessor to ecumenism.  But is far too early to tell whether these statements were mere diplomacy as a prelude to a serious course correction for the Church, or a concrete commitment to still more postconciliar novelty.  We can only wait and see. And pray.

For now, however, the Catholic thing to do is withhold any judgment or criticism.  Let the forces of the world threaten and criticize the new Pope only two days into his pontificate.  We traditionalists should adopt a prudent and respectful attitude of waiting, for soon enough a great deal is going to happen in the pontificate of Benedict XVI.

Post, Tuesday April 19: Habemus Papam  - by Christopher A. Ferrara

ROME - We have a Pope:  Benedict XVI, formerly known as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. In the fortieth year of our exile from Tradition, the new Pope has begun by restoring a verbal link with the long line of his successors. The new Pope has taken the name last taken by the preconciliar pontiff whose advice, had it been heeded by the world, would have avoided the bloodbath of World War I, the triumph of “democracy” under the tank treads of Woodrow Wilson’s armies, and the final toppling of altar and throne in Europe. 

Benedict XV was also one of the Popes cited by Pius XI in his condemnation of social modernists, who (like present-day Catholic “libertarians”) pay lip service to the Church’s social teaching while dissenting from it. As Pius XI wrote in Ubi Arcano Dei: 

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

Verbally, at least, the papal line of Tradition has been restored.  This is cause for hope, for the papacy is no merely human office.

Many Catholics (myself among them) have objected, with good reason, to certain of the theological views of the man who was once known as Cardinal Ratzinger.  We have protested, quite rightly, the former Cardinal’s attempt to “deconstruct” the Message of Fatima.  We have even, in keeping with our duty as confirmed soldiers of Christ, expressed our conviction that as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Cardinal did not act in any serious way to protect the Church against her neo-modernist enemies and had even favored some of their errors.

But now we encounter Pope Benedict XVI, and the incomparable grace of the papal office.  And that grace was evident in the Latin benediction, rich with traditional Catholic content, to which Pope Benedict proceeded without ado as he stood on the balcony before a crowd of 100,000 relatively subdued Catholics (compared to the rowdy party atmosphere we were accustomed to seeing during the last pontificate), of which crowd I was privileged to be a part.  There were tears in my eyes as I heard the Latin words absolving us of our venial sins and explicitly imploring for us the grace of final perseverance.  What a joy it was to hear such words from the mouth of a Roman Pontiff again.

After forty years in the postconciliar desert, is this the beginning of the end of our exile?  The period seems biblically appropriate—and if not now, then when? But in this moment of high emotion, when we are clearly witnessing some kind of return to unity with the Church’s past, we can only pray and prudently wait and see.

Will the new Pontiff begin steering the bark of Peter away from the ruinous shoals of novelty and bring it back to a firm place of mooring, as in the prophecy of Don Bosco, between the twin pillars of the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Mother?   Only time will tell. And while we watch and wonder if our deliverance is really at hand, or whether, instead, the modernist subversion of the Church will only worsen, the traditionalist critique of the postconciliar aggiornamento will continue unabated—supported, in fact, by many strong statements found in the writings of the former Cardinal himself. 

But whatever has been said and written before, and whatever will be said and written in the future, every Catholic owes his allegiance to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.  May God bless and protect him in the stormy days to come, and may the Holy Ghost make of him a great restorer of the devastated vineyard of the Church.

Post, Tuesday April 19 (1:00 PM Rome Time)  - by Christopher A. Ferrara

Navarro-Valls Addresses Press Corps

Conspiracy theorists will feast on this morning’s televised images of gray/white smoke followed by black smoke from the stovepipe in the Sistine Chapel.  Having observed the “fumata” firsthand, however, I can see that the great conspiracy theory over the “white smoke” that supposedly signaled the “election” of Cardinal Siri in 1958 is just plain silly: every plume of smoke that has come out of the stovepipe since yesterday—four plumes in all—has begun as white or gray only to blacken quickly. 

Apparently, that is just the way the stove operates.  It takes a few moments for the black smoke to work its way up the stovepipe after the first flames produce some white smoke.  As the conspiracy enthusiasts would have it, however, there have been four aborted papal elections since yesterday.  But the “fumata ambigua” means nothing.  The conspiracy theorists are just blowing smoke.

Moments ago, Vatican press spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls [see photo] addressed us on an interesting development: this morning there were three plumes of smoke (all black) even though there were supposed to be only two votes.  No one knows why.

If there is no Pope by the end of the day, then we can be sure there is a pitched battle going on inside the Sistine Chapel for control of the Church by the ultra-modernists, and that the Ratzinger candidacy has probably failed.  In that case, a pope could come from anywhere. Will the conclave pull a stunt?  Stay tuned to remnantnewspaper.com.

Monday April 18 (8:00 PM Rome Time) - by Christopher A. Ferrara

At 8 p.m. today many in the crowd of 50,000 in Saint Peter’s Square shouted “Nera! Nera!” as black smoke arose from the stove pipe of the Sistine Chapel.  A ballot had been taken and no pope had been elected.  And now the maneuvering begins.

Pope John Paul II personally created as cardinals all but three of the 115 cardinal electors in attendance at the conclave (two more were unable to attend due to illness). Moreover, the late Pope also personally affirmed the arbitrary rule enacted by Paul VI that bars the remainder of the College of Cardinals, 66 in all, from voting in the conclave because they are age 80 or older.  Each of these elder cardinals is eligible to be the Pope if elected, but not to vote for a papal candidate.  A more transparent measure to diminish a conservative influence over the conclave could hardly be imagined.

Within the next few days the world will see the true legacy of John Paul II, for this is the conclave he created—a conclave which, humanly speaking, could not be more slanted toward the further liberalization of the Roman Catholic Church.  If the Church is saddled with an overtly modernist pope such as Lustiger, Tettamanzi or Kasper—a pope who would be restrained only by the Holy Ghost from compromising the deposit of the Faith as such—that result will be the late Pope’s legacy to the Church.   

But, on the other hand, the sermon given by Cardinal Ratzinger today just before the ingression into the conclave was perhaps the most clearly Catholic thing we have heard from the Vatican since the Council—an open declaration that the household of the Faith is in need of a papal broom. If what was said in Cardinal Ratzinger’s sermon reflects the program of the next pontificate, then there is hope.  Despite this newspaper’s public objections to a number of things the Cardinal has said over the years, it is time to consider whether the Holy Ghost is impelling the beginning of a restoration after a biblically appropriate 40 years in the postconciliar desert.

The world waits to see what will be the true legacy of John Paul II.

Post, Monday April 18 (5:45 Rome Time) - by Christopher A. Ferrara

ROME - As I write this dispatch to The Remnant’s readers from Rome, the Sistine Chapel is being filled with the heavenly strains of the Veni Creator, as the assembled cardinals, each standing in his appointed place, are about to begin the process for electing the next Roman Pontiff. 

The ingress into the Sistine Chapel was a moment of sheer Catholic magnificence, as the novelties of the past forty years, all forgotten for moment, gave way to Tradition in all its fullness.  The very sight of these proceedings would have the power to convert souls open to the Faith.  Hanging literally above the cardinals’ heads is Michelangelo’s stunning vista of the Last Judgment.  Each one in turn is now taking the oath of secrecy and fidelity in the election of the Pope.  At this moment, the Catholic Church of all time has returned, at least in appearance. Soon we will await the verdict of an ecclesiastical jury on whose decision, quite literally, the fate of the whole world will hinge.

Meanwhile, a well-placed contact here in Rome, who spoke on condition of anonymity, disclosed to me earlier today that internal Vatican sources have confirmed the persistent rumor that the Pope did not die on April 2 but on April 1, as the Italian press first reported in stories that were later withdrawn.  The Italian stories were apparently prompted by these same “internal Vatican sources.”  I have been given the name of one of these Vatican sources on condition that it not be disclosed to the public. 

While I cannot confirm this information independently, what I have been told is this:  that the Pope’s death on April 1 could not be announced because considerable work had to be done to make the body (the face in particular) presentable due to the agony of the Pope’s final sufferings. It was also necessary to “transfer” the date of death in order to accommodate episcopal appointments which the Pope was not able to make during his final agony.  In other words, my source claims these appointments were not, in fact, validly made, as the Pope was incapable of authorizing them—a very grave accusation indeed.  Again, the information cannot be verified; I am merely reporting what this contact has told me. But I believe the source to be honest.

The same contact tells me that there is, at this very moment, a huge conflict underway between the Sodano faction, which favors the election of Tettamanzi, and the Ratzinger faction, which opposes Tettamanzi, whose election would certainly be a disaster for the Church. 

The last few cardinals have taken the oath, and the doors of the Sistine Chapel have just been closed.  When the doors open again, the world will have a new pope.  Pray that Sodano fails, and that the Holy Ghost is not resisted in the grace of a pope who will restore the Church.

Post, Rome, April 17, 2005 - by Christopher A. Ferrara

ROME:  As the cardinals recessed out of Sunday Mass today in St. Peter’s basilica, there was thunder and lightning over the Vatican.  There has been a great deal of thunder and lighting over the Vatican as the conclave approaches—days filled with it.

This is not the atmospheric disturbance one expects in the Roman spring, when warm fronts are pushing their way toward the long Roman summer.  It is cold here as the thunderheads boom overhead; there is no warmth in the rainwater that is filling the streets of Rome on the eve of the conclave.

It is only an intuition, and perhaps a worthless one at that, but a single colloquial phrase keeps repeating itself in my head as this city huddles under thunder and lighting and pouring rain and the conclave predictions multiply and contradict each other: “They’re going to pull a stunt.”

We have had 26 years of stunts in the name of Vatican II, so why not another—the greatest stunt of all?  The safe bets are on Ratzinger as the interim pope, who will seek to balance novelty and tradition in an effort to dampen the wild oscillations of the postconciliar Church and restore something resembling stability. 

But, humanly speaking, I cannot see this group of liberal cardinals allowing even that sort of limited return to the dreaded preconciliar past.  When the conclave is over and the new Pope is seated, I cannot see even the Latin-but-not-quite-traditional liturgies that have suddenly become the norm in the Vatican being established elsewhere in the Church.

No, these liberal prelates, who have unswervingly presided over the worst ecclesial disaster in Church history, can only desire to forge ahead with the rest of their revolution.  And that means a stunt at the conclave: the election of an out-and-out modernist such as Lustiger or Tettamanzi, whose effort to reconstruct himself as a “conservative” is fooling no one in the know here in Rome.

Lustiger.  Will it be Lustiger?   The election of the first Jewish pope since Peter would be the culmination of one of the great neo-modernist ecclesial trends since the Council: the Judaization of the Church.  It is Lustiger who has said that he views Christianity as the best means of spreading the Good News to “the goyim”—his very word. 

The Eternal Word Television Network, an always reliable barometer of revolutionary progress in the Church, is now avidly promoting the Association of Hebrew Catholics, which calls for the creation of a canonically distinct “Hebrew Catholic Community” in the Church—a veritable Hebrew branch of Roman Catholicism.   

In two showcase appearances on EWTN, AHC’s head, David Moss, openly declared that as a “sociologically Gentile community” which practices a “Gentile religion,” the Catholic Church cannot attract the Jews unless it makes a special place for them—a claim that would have surprised Edith Stein, now known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who became a Carmelite nun like any other.

Humanly speaking, Lustiger or some other equally noxious modernist would be a logical choice for this group, and John Paul III the logical choice for his name.  The Holy Ghost, as always, is the wild card at papal conclaves, and thus anything can happen. 

But I think they are going to pull a stunt at this conclave. And if the Holy Ghost permits it, then the Church will have only the promised negative immunity from a final defection from the Faith to protect her.  This, after all, is what Scripture itself foretells for the time just before the end of days: a great apostasy.

That is one Catholic’s opinion, for what it is worth.  I hope that I am utterly wrong.