When CNA reported that the Vatican had defrocked Mr. Pavone, he complained that he had no idea. “How did CNA learn about this before I did?” he cried. He wants us to believe he rose one morning in the pink of innocence, said the Office, made his coffee and got online, read CNA, and sat there astonied. Apparently the Vatican defrocked him and decided not to tell him. That’s credible. But now, Pavone tells CNA that it may have gotten lost in the stacks and stacks of mail that come in to Priests for Life. “I have no idea what they sent me,” said the befuddled Pavone. “The communication broke down a long time ago. They may indeed have sent something. I simply didn’t see it.”
Mr. Pavone admits to CNA: I told my bishop to shut up and leave me alone.
BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 18, 2023 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Scandals; priesthood
I wrote on March 23, 2022, on Facebook, that the problem with claiming Benedict XVI was still the pope (as people like Patrick Coffin, formerly of Catholic Answers, claimed) was that, as an attempt to avoid sedevacantism, it led you into an inevitable trap. All that had to happen Mr. Coffin to become a sedevacantist was for Benedict XVI to die. And now he has, by his own confession on Twitter. Told you so.
So I was going to write a post about Cardinal Marx and his dumb remarks recently about how Catholics are perfectly free to be flexible with the Catechism, especially when it comes to those troublesome paragraphs on homosexuality. Then I saw that Bishop Strickland opened his yap about it on Twitter, and so I guess I have to sweep up the detritis of Strickland’s error before I turn to Marx’s. Strickland saw the story at Catholic World Report and, apparently without exercising any theological forethought, tweeted that Cardinal Marx had “left the Catholic faith.
Pope Francis and the world’s bishops reconsecrate — I emphasize: reconsecrate—Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary today; and where the English text refers to Mary as “Queen of Heaven,” the Italian text calls her “terra del cielo,” which means “earth of heaven.” The Fatimistas, who seem to think the pope is religiously bound by every last granular detail of a private revelation, are apoplectic. Demon consultant Taylor Marshall was initially non-committal and insisted he was “studying” the matter. Then, after an intense application of every ounce of intellect he could muster, Dr. Marshall decided that “earth of heaven” could be nothing other than a reference to Pachamama.
St. Francis de Sales, among others, disputes the notion that a pope could teach heresy: “In truth, it is necessary that we should follow him simply, not guide him; otherwise the sheep would be shepherds. … Now all this has not only been true of St. Peter, but also of his successors; for the cause remaining the effect remains likewise. The Church has always need of an infallible confirmer, to whom she can appeal; of a foundation which the gates of hell, and principally error, cannot overthrow; and has always need that her pastor should be unable to lead her children into error. The successors, then, of St. Peter all have these same privileges.”
I won’t deny, if you insist, that secularism is a problem for the Church; I won’t deny, for it would be foolhardy, that elitism exists, even among prelates. But it’s a feverish, undisciplined mind that would try to attribute these things, without evidence or example, to a global conspiracy of bogeymen who are out to get Christians. Archbishop Gomez desperately wants to be persecuted. His recent — hideous — address, delivered in Madrid on November 4, is titled “Reflections on the Church and America’s New Religions”; and you may read it if you insist, but keep in mind, dear reader, that part of my duty as a blogger is to read such painful things so you won’t have to.
Burke goes amiss when he imagines that a pope could teach error — that it’s possible to begin with — and when he speculates that the pope would have to be corrected in such a circumstance: “Therefore, any expression of doctrine or law or practice that is not in conformity with Divine Revelation, as contained in Sacred Scripture and the Church’s Tradition cannot be an authentic exercise of the Apostolic or Petrine ministry and must be rejected by the faithful. As Saint Paul declared: ‘There are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.’ ”
I used to mourn over what has actually been a blessing: that many of the apologists (and real-life friends) who were instrumental in my conversion only ended up disappointing me. But it was a blessing, because it’s a reminder not to idolize people. People will let you down. Only Christ does not let you down. Put not your trust in mortals who cannot save. God alone saves you. In fact, Leila Miller is right, but not in the way she intends. You do have to pick a side.
Nancy Pelosi had an audience with the pope, and as sure as Old Faithful will blow, right-wing Catholics proved themselves faithful. Among them was Joseph Strickland, the bishop of Tyler, Texas; who mounted his pulpit on Twitter and declared, with all the solemnity of an edict, that Pelosi was not even a member of the Catholic Church. “Claiming to be Catholic is easy,” he tweeted. “Living the Catholic faith centered in Jesus Christ is extremely hard. As long as Nancy promotes the slaughter of the unborn she is not a member of the Catholic faith centered in Jesus.” Stop there.
Poor Raymond Burke, a prince of the Church, who everyone tells me is a canon lawyer, doesn’t seem to know his canon law. He seems to think Joe Biden is an “apostate” who can be excommunicated over being pro-choice. (That is to say, Mr. Biden thinks that abortion should be legal, not necessarily that abortion is good.) I’m afraid both claims are false, and we can dispatch with both of them quickly. On the latter point, canon law expressly lays out what a Catholic may be excommunicated for, and disagreeing with the Church’s teaching about legal abortion is not one of them. 
We are all going to have to assume that Fr. Frank Pavone is being utterly honest in his tweet, because to assume that he is engaging in mere bluster would be uncharitable. Fr. Pavone never engages in bluster and is entirely honest in all things — particularly his canonical status in the Church and the fact that his new, supportive bishop is waiting until just the right moment to come out from behind the curtain and announce his identity to an anxious, waiting world. None of these things are lies, and the Diocese of Amarillo is not refusing to answer questions about Pavone because they think they’re not really accountable to anyone; it would be uncharitable to hint at such a thing.
Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Kazakhstan, once again feels a need to tell us that God does not positively will the diversity of religions we find in the world. We’ve been through this before. It all goes back to a joint statement that the pope signed with Muslim leaders at Abu Dhabi in February of 2019. The pope clarified that the diversity of religions is part of God’s permissive will, and LifeSiteNews trumpeted that as a “win.” But two months later, Schneider was claiming the pope needed to “correct” Abu Dhabi. Three months after that, he wailed that the pope was betraying Jesus Christ. Now he says Vatican II itself must be corrected, and he thinks he has precedent for correcting Church councils.
It’s very sad to watch. People all over Facebook are calling this letter “powerful” and “one for the history books.” “He represents the true Church,” one said. “Extraordinary courage,” said another. When you can say words like that about a letter filled with conspiracy theories and eschatalogical gobbledygook about the “children of light” and “children of darkness,” I don’t think you’re in a position to be reasoned with. Viganò’s letter is what a faction’s itching ears want to hear, and they have turned unto fables.
Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood director who became a “pro-life” superstar, has quite a history of racist rants on Twitter, as my friend Mary Pezzulo documents on her blog. Back in September, she used the words “thug” and “stain” to describe Bishop Talbert Swan, who happens to be black, and then proceeded to lecture him about how he was a disgrace to his own community. (AJ, in case you did not know, is white. A white woman telling a black man he’s a disgrace to the black community. “Let me tell you about real racism,” white woman tells black man. You are “an enemy to your own people.” Very lovely.) [