"It should go without saying that divine providence would never permit him to define his heresy ex cathedra. The dogma of papal infallibility assures us this can never happen."
It did happen, "Father" hαɾɾιson. Repeatedly.
I know, I know. VII was "pastoral," just ideas thrown out into the ether, suggestions we are free to take or to leave... Right? Then I have to ask -- trying to play by the rules of this totally un-Catholic logic where suddenly Popes suggest instead of teach -- why were these so-called pastoral "suggestions" given to the laity to use at their own discretion and based on their own interpretation enforced with an iron rod? And secondly, how can a Pope teach and not teach at the same time? These fake Popes spouted heresy and then had the audacity to turn around and say "It's only pastoral, you don't have to listen, they're just suggestions" -- contradicting their own docuмents such as the DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH
Lumen Gentium.
Can you imagine even an elementary school teacher trying to pull this? Let's pretend there's a schoolteacher who spends all day every day telling stories about goblins, reading from storybooks and German and Irish fairy tales. Every day the class ends the same way: "Babies are all born of goblins and you have goblins for mothers. JUST KIDDING. You don't have to believe what I say. See you tomorrow!"
After yet another day of this, one kid goes home, confused, feeling like something is wrong. He asks his mom if she's a goblin.
"Mrs. Kringle said you were a goblin. But I think she was kidding."
The mom is surprised and says, "I'm a goblin, huh? What else do they teach you at that school?"
"That's it -- that you are a goblin."
"Do you believe it?"
"Sorta."
Catholics who stay with Vatican II believe that this perverse and psychologically abusive teacher is what the great, all-merciful God has given us for a series of Popes. They believe the Vicar of Christ can teach heresy, then turn around and say it's non-binding, even though heresy is all they ever hear. So they end up as sorta-Catholics, sorta-heretics, but mostly confused.
Another example -- take a prosecuting lawyer who is trying to tarnish the reputation of the defendant. He says, "Is it not true that you were once a stripper?" The defense attorney says "Objection! Irrelevant." Then the other lawyer says, "Sorry, your honor. Strike that from the record." BUT IT STILL REMAINS IN THE MINDS OF THE JURY THAT SHE WAS A STRIPPER. Just as heresy remains in the minds of most VII Catholics even though they ignore the "pastoral councils" and pretty much everything the "Pope" says.
So what are you not understanding here, stevusmagnus, Elizabeth, Caminus? I know you don't agree with these Popes. You think that obedience is to call someone Pope and then just ignore him? That is not Catholic obedience but proves you are more Gallican than the sedevacantists who you accuse of Gallicanism. WE would obey the Pope IF we thought we had one. We do NOT obey a Pope who CANNOT BE a Pope, nor even a Catholic, because he is a manifest and pertinacious heretic. It is our very love of obedience that makes it impossible for us to say these men are Popes.
It is so sad that as many people have gone along with this childish farce for as long as they have, but remember that in Leo XIII's vision, the devil was given 100 years to destroy the Church -- this has been going on since before 1958. The rules that were always so firm began to erode; people began to make up their own and they were given lots of wiggle room to do so. Eventually they ended up just believing pretty much whatever they wanted to believe and no authority ever stops them or teaches them any differently.
Pius X warned about this when in
Pascendi Dominici Gregis he talks about the flood of questionable books and that you can't even trust them if they have an Imprimatur! That shows he knew what was about to happen.
Let no Bishop think that he fulfils this duty by denouncing to us one or two books, while a great many others of the same kind are being published and circulated. Nor are you to be deterred by the fact that a book has obtained the Imprimatur elsewhere, both because this may be merely simulated, and because it may have been granted through carelessness or easiness or excessive confidence in the author as may sometimes happen in religious Orders.
I have become a home-aloner sedevacantist like CM. To the right of the sedevacantist clergy -- at least the American sedevacantist clergy -- but to the left of the Feeneyites. I feel all of a sudden that I am a true Catholic, at the magical age of 33, the age at which many saints and Jesus Christ Himself died, but also the age at which myself and St. Augustine were born. The best thing I have ever done was to walk away from the CMRI, and to stop accepting compromise IN ANY WAY -- God seems to be pleased with my decision, because over the last week I have been flooded with revelation and truth. It is like yet another rebirth.
My view of what has happened in the Church has recently become sharper and clearer. I now believe the devil had a two-pronged entry point into the Church: ( a ) False interpretations of "invincible ignorance" leading to the theory of universal salvation and ( b ) The rhythm method and NFP, imparting a grotesquely sɛҳuąƖ tone to the holy sacrament of marriage and leading to marriages based on lust instead of the qualities necessary for parenthood. I have seen examples of this in my own brief experience with Catholicism, a man of that generation who has told me he married for the wrong reasons, of nuns happily chirping about "rhythm," etc.
The sedevacantists will be riddled with errors for as long as they keep pretending that the 40's and 50's were a Golden Age. They were a worldly, comfortable, fleshly and delusional age and those who pick up where these errors left off are doomed to repeat them. Until they wake up, the Church is dead.
I should also say that Pius XII will ALMOST SURELY go down as an anti-Pope. Read a little speech called the "Allocution to Midwives." Elizabeth, I know you don't often agree with what I say, but you are against NFP, as I am now -- put your money where your mouth is. Don't just knock Father Cekada without seeing the source from which he got his error, who was Pius XII himself. If you are going to refuse to listen to Father Cekada, then REFUSE TO LISTEN TO PACELLI AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
I may have more to say about this in the coming weeks but I want to do more research. I have become as obsessed with NFP as Catholic Martyr is with BoD. Still believe in BoD though!