You raise a good point that there's a subtle financial incentive behind Bennyvacantism.
See, a lot of people that make their living off their Internet Celebrity, their websites, podcats, Youtube videos, etc. ... they stand to lose a huge percentage of their financial support if they go full-blown sedevacantist. So this is a compromise position. "I'm not one of these crazy sedevacantists. I'm on board with Vatican II and the New Mass and Saint JP2 the Great, etc."
Now that Benny is dead, there's no actual difference between the Bennyvacantists and the Sedevacantists regarding the current state of the Church. They're divided ONLY on the principle of whether the Crisis goes back to Vatican II, the NOM, Roncalli, Montini, Wojtyla, Ratzinger ... or whether it started the day Jorge got elected.
EXACTLY!!!
I was thinking this morning of addending to my commentary what amounts to what you've said here.
I've been rolling over and over in my mind this idea of hermeneutic of continuity, which was singularly Ratzinger's novelty plate. It has to be stripped of its accidents and brought down to its substance or principle or essence. When it can be seen for what it really is, then the Barnhardts, the Marshalls, the Rippergers, the Vorises, etc, can be understood for what they are. To use Ann's terms, they are betas profiting off the alphas. But that's probably too simplistic.
If the essence of the HARMeneutic is the superimposition of authentically Catholic sense images and intellectual forms over foul and pestiferous realities (that everyone would run from the way they run from Bergoglio), then the HARMeneutic is nothing more or less than a marketing strategy to keep money (and other currency) inside the novus ordo. [That other currency is minds and souls - yikes!]
Remember the jews are the "Free Marketeers," who fund all sides in wars. The jews are the novus ordo; the jews are the HARMeneutic side of the dialectic; the jews are the Gallen side of the dialectic; the jews are the pseudo-trad media. They are hidden in plain sight in all of these hideous manifestations.
The HARMeneutic is the Good Housekeeping Seal for the Ratzinger wing of the dialectic. It's a literal database or shopping list from which the profiteers (alpha and beta) may choose items with which to "color themselves in."
Sworn allegiance to the Latin Mass, postings of lovely Catholic art images, Saint quotes and portraits in bucket loads, red shoes, nice vestments, birettas, "resident Thomists," "resident exorcists," "translations" of Catholic works,
Paters in Latin to precede word salad, and so forth.
And as when we are speaking about the novus ordo we are speaking about Jєωιѕн infiltration, we must consider that whenever they successfully infiltrate, they not only destroy every spiritual good; but they steal every material good.
In the macro, they destroyed the faith of perhaps billions; all the while breaking into the Vatican archives to steal precious and ancient knowledge; breaking into the Vatican coffers to steal gold and currency; breaking into the vast treasure stores to steal all manner of precious art objects.
Why would their betas not do this to Catholic dupes on the micro level?
As a blazingly ugly and malicious perpetual spitting in the face, the alphas finance and promote beta media satellites, who, like their masters, combine these two harms - spiritual and material - in their internet outreaches.
Hence we have in our midst this ever burgeoning breed of pseudo-trad media giants who both rob you spiritually by making you think that you have to serve out a life sentence in novus ordo prison; AND fleece your pockets and get fat on your hard earned cash.
They all do exactly the same thing: Catholic sense images and intellectual forms to cover the fact that they prostitute themselves for their Jєωιѕн pimps. Why are so many of them Jєωιѕн? Why so many of them not cradle Catholics? Why so many of them go from total obscurity to top of the heap fame in less than 60 seconds?
Only money and power behind the scenes can explain all the observable phenomena.
TO LARAMIE: The paragraph you cited was poorly written, as failing to make a necessary distinction. There is a chasm separating those who disseminate and pander bennyvacantism through for-profit media outlets; and those poor slobs who simply believe them. I refer all of my comments to the former, on behalf of the latter.