I have had many occasions of late to write about the things I believe regarding the unfortunate state of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church today. Regular readers are not lost to the fact that I believe Jorge Mario Bergoglio to be an antipope. I have laid out the case before. I believe that Pope Benedict Ratzinger is still, thanks to an invalid resignation, the one and only living Vicar of Jesus Christ, “whether he likes it or not”, as the incredible Ann Barnhardt says.
This is not something foreign to the history of a two-thousand year-old institution. We have had somewhere in the neighborhood of three and a half dozen antipopes before. So what if it hasn’t been for a while? What makes these current days somewhat frustrating is the suspension of rational thought on the part of men who ought to know better.
Take for instance a man like Michael Matt. I will preface this by stating up front how much I respect Mr. Matt’s work over the years. Without The Remnant or even The Wanderer, would many of us know which end is up right now? And yet, from Matt we have the image campaign called “Recognize and Resist”. If I understand this correctly it means that The Remnant’s official position is that Bergoglio is “definitely pope” but that this Vicar of Christ must be resisted at every step because he’s evil. Think about it. He’s definitely pope but doesn’t do things a Catholic pope should do, so resist him. Something doesn’t seem right here. Again, he’s not Catholic but we still think he’s the pope.
If he actually was the pope then he is definitely the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth. One would expect Christ’s vicar to not be, you know, in open defiance of everything that Christ’s Church has taught for two millenia. I could be wrong. But I’m not. I would like to know if there is anything Bergoglio says or does for which we should not resist him? At this point, he could state that the sun is a mass of incandescent gas and I would need a fact check.
But let’s take a look at those who lack the prominence of a Catholic publisher yet still hold the reigns of power where it really counts – the day to day lives of everyday Catholics like you and me.
Over the past few months I have had opportunities to speak with members of the clergy who have sway over important things in our lives. These things pertain to the preservation of the Latin Mass. I will not mention any more about the priests in question. It would not be helpful to any purpose. But in every one of my conversations I have heard, essentially, the following. “We get that he probably isn’t pope but what can we do? He’ll be dead soon anyway and things can get back to normal.”
Really? That’s your game plan? Oh boy, are we screwed…
But this brings us to a bigger question. We all know that the trad world is a very small world indeed. One might say that we are already “a remnant Church”. Anecdotally, I can attest that a majority of my fellow trad Catholics, including the priests, do not really believe in the validity of Bergoglio’s claim to the throne of Peter. It gets really shocking when we factor in the Novus Ordo priests who are starting to wake up as well. And believe me, there are not a few of them. We criticize the bishops of the Church for not speaking out and rightly so. We wonder if they aren’t simply afraid of losing their sees by making a public declaration. But what have we to lose? Are we worried about losing the friendship of the odd parishioner sitting next to us in the pew? Do we fear losing the respect of family members? Are we just like those who say “Yes, we know he’s a fraud but we cannot do anything more than wait for him to die”?
Isn’t it time we recognized the reality publicly and resisted the narrative vocally? I speak here more for myself than for anyone else. I will admit it is easy to write an anonymous blog. Yet, when it comes to speaking up face to face, there are still some people to whom I would rather not mention my true thoughts. And I know that time has come where I must be a man about it. We serve no good when we cling to truth yet fail to expose it. Because waiting for the problem to go away is not a plan so much as wishful thinking.
Pray for the Church, as Frank Walker says.
St. Joseph, guardian of the Holy Church, pray for us!
Harvey Millican's Blog: Musings of a Trad Dad 