The St. Benedict Center’s Newsletter condemns sedevacantism as schismatic and says “No Pope? No Hope!” – oops, they just condemned themselves out of their own mouth

Heresy of the Week, Week of 2/3/06
By Bro. Peter Dimond
For more see: Heresies of the Week Relating to “Traditional” Issues and Persons

Doug Bersaw, St. Benedict Center (NH) Newsletter, Jan. 2006, “No Pope? No Hope!”: “We are all too well aware of those, known as sedevacantists, who have effectively reduced the Mystical Body to a loose confederation of warring tribes… Because it is a divided house, sedevacantism cannot be called ‘a schism,’ but it is clearly schismatic… Sedevacantism implicitly denies the virtue of faith by contradicting Vatican I… Thank God, we have hope.  Our Lord is still in charge and will protect His own, namely, those in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, outside of which neither holiness nor salvation can be found – and which has a visible head in the Roman Pontiff!”

It’s often the case that God allows heretics who attack His truth to condemn themselves out of their own mouths.  We find a prime example of this here with Doug Bersaw, writing for the St. Benedict Center in NH.  (Since newsletters such as this are fraught with such contradiction, such blindness, such hypocrisy, they, in particular, spark a Catholic’s righteous indignation.)  Mr. Bersaw entitles his brief attack on sedevacantism “No Pope? No Hope!”  Let me repeat that: his article, which defends that Benedict XVI is the Pope, and asserts that sedevacantism is schismatic and a denial of Vatican I, is called “No Pope? No Hope!”  This is astounding, because it is Benedict XVI who explicitly says that there is no “hope” in converting schismatics and Protestants to an acceptance of the Papacy and Vatican I! 

Benedict XVI, Principles of Catholic Theology (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1982), pp. 197-198: “Against this background we can now weigh the possibilities that are open to Christian ecumenism.  The maximum demands on which the search for unity must certainly founder are immediately clear.  On the part of the West, the maximum demand would be that the East recognize the primacy of the bishop of Rome in the full scope of the definition of 1870 [Vatican I] and in so doing submit in practice, to a primacy such as has been accepted by the Uniate churches.  On the part of the East, the maximum demand would be that the West declare the 1870 doctrine of primacy erroneous and in so doing submit, in practice, to a primacy such as has been accepted with the removal of the Filioque from the Creed and including the Marian dogmas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  As regards Protestantism, the maximum demand of the Catholic Church would be that the Protestant ecclesiological ministers be regarded as totally invalid and that Protestants be converted to Catholicism; the maximum demand of Protestants, on the other hand, would be that the Catholic Church accept, along with the unconditional acknowledgement of all Protestant ministries, the Protestant concept of ministry and their understanding of the Church and thus, in practice, renounce the apostolic and sacramental structure of the Church, which would mean, in practice, the conversion of Catholics to Protestantism and their acceptance of a multiplicity of distinct community structures as the historical form of the Church. While the first three maximum demands are today rather unanimously rejected by Christian consciousness, the fourth exercises a kind of fascination for it – as it were, a certain conclusiveness that makes it appear to be the real solution to the problem.  This is all the more true since there is joined to it the expectation that a Parliament of Churches, a ‘truly ecumenical council’, could then harmonize this pluralism and promote a Christian unity of action.  That no real union would result from this, but that its very impossibility would become a single common dogma, should convince anyone who examines the suggestion closely that such a way would not bring Church unity but only a final renunciation of it.  As a result, none of the maximum solutions offers any real hope of unity.”

Did you get that, you blind fools of the St. Benedict Center?  That means that Benedict XVI holds that there is no hope in converting schismatics and Protestants to an acceptance of the Papacy and Vatican I!  In other words, he holds that there is no hope in accepting a true Pope!  And that is why he is not a Pope, because he holds that there is no hope in accepting a true Pope.

Since this crowd at the St. Benedict Center is very obstinate (they have rejected and attacked this truth for years, and fact after fact that has been presented to them), one can say – and must say – that they are blind fools, enemies of God, and bad willed, non-Catholic heretics on the road to damnation.  They reject Vatican I by obstinately asserting that one should hold communion with non-Catholics who totally reject the dogmatic teaching of Vatican I, such as Benedict XVI.

At their Judgment, God may very well say: “You said that sedevacantism was schismatic because you claimed that it rejected Vatican I.  But you knew that Benedict XVI said that people are free to reject Vatican I, and you didn’t call him a schismatic.  Begone, you cursed liar, into the everlasting fire.”

In summary, the people at the St. Benedict Center call sedevacantism “schismatic” and a denial of Vatican I, when they are defending the number one, top-ranked schismatic and denier of Vatican I in the world: Antipope Benedict XVI.

So, in response to “No Pope?  No Hope!” We say:  Wrong again!  It’s your schismatic Antipope who says that there is no hope in accepting a true Pope, and that is precisely why he is not the Pope! 

What is written here applies not only to the heretical and schismatic St. Benedict Center, but to all of those people out there who think that they are defending the Papacy while defending Benedict XVI.  They are actually enemies of the Papacy and enemies of Vatican I.  They are too blind to see that the one they are defending totally rejects Vatican I.

APPENDIX – OTHER DENIALS OF VATICAN I BY BENEDICT XVI

Benedict XVI, Principles of Catholic Theology (1982), p. 198: “Nor is it possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  The symbolic gestures of Pope Paul VI and, in particular, his kneeling before the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch [the schismatic Patriarch Athenagoras] were an attempt to express precisely this….”

Benedict XVI is referring to the Papal Primacy here, and he says that all Christians are not bound to believe in the Papal Primacy as defined by Vatican I in 1870!  This means that Benedict XVI claims to be a Catholic and the Pope while he holds that heretics and schismatics are not bound to believe in the Papacy!  This is one of the greatest frauds in human history.  Benedict XVI even admits that Paul VI’s ecumenical gestures with the schismatics were meant to show precisely that the schismatics don’t have to accept the Papal Primacy.  This is a blatant denial of Vatican Council I. 

Benedict XVI, Address to Protestants at World Youth Day, August 19, 2005: “And we now ask: What does it mean to restore the unity of all Christians?... this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history.  Absolutely not!” (L’Osservatore Romano, August 24, 2005, p. 8.)

Just like the notorious heretic “Cardinal” Kasper, Benedict XVI blatantly rejects the “ecumenism of the return,” that is, that non-Catholics return to the Catholic Church, accept the Papacy and reject their heretical sects.  He rejects the teaching of Pope Pius XI word for word. 

Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos (#10), Jan. 6, 1928: “… 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…”

Benedict XVI, Address, Nov. 12, 2005: “In this regard, I ask you, venerable Brothers, to convey my cordial greeting to Patriarch Maxim, First Hierarch of the Orthodox Church of Bulgaria.  Please express to him my best wishes for his health and for the happy resumption of his ministry.” (L’Osservatore Romano, Nov. 23, 2005, p. 9.)

Benedict XVI encourages the non-Catholic, schismatic Patriarch to resume his non-Catholic and schismatic ministry, which rejects Vatican I and the Papacy!

For more see: Heresies of the Week Relating to “Traditional” Issues and Persons