Grabbed By The Tail; Spun Three Times; Flung Against A Tree.

Over the Target; Getting Flak

It began as just another Saturday Afternoon over at the RunDown.  All the usual suspects were there along with a guest appearance by Adrian Fonseca, largely missing in action from the Blogosphere since his Platform, Catholic Drive Time (Known affectionately by this Wolf as Catholic Drive By so far as its slaughter of good Catholic thought was concerned) was sacked by the good folks over at EWTN, because even Bishop Fulton Sheen and Cardinal Raymond Burke are much too Catholic for the Seat of the Antichrist.

This Wolf was reacting to Adrian Fonseca's plea that, in reacting to all the "popesplainers" who look at Pope Frantic and say "well we've had bad popes before" and "Nothing really to see here, move along... move along", we must simply hug and and kiss all those Pre-Vatican II Popes, especially those Piuses, and continue to adore these pontificates as good Ultramontanes.  And so this Wolf posted a comment suggesting that Vatican I may not have been as pure as the wind driven snow, but rather may have something to do with the predicament in which we find ourselves today.

The first salvo was fired by Adrian Fonseca:  "Right now White Wolf made a comment that Vatican I distorted the papacy. (Ryan Grant obligingly flashed those comments onto the screen: "Vatican I distorted the Papacy" and "Vatican I made Vatican II Possible")  This is exactly the anti-Ultramonist position that we have to be wary of.   We cannot have hatred because Francis is abusing the power of the papacy and using the authority and the  prestige of the papacy to denigrate the faith. That cannot result in us now saying Vatican I was distorting the papacy and was bad.   All the Ultramonists like John Bosco and  Dom Gueranger, the great conservative and traditional bishops and saints praised Vatican I.  Criticising that council is such a danger.  It's going to cause us to lose our faith and could damn us if we now foster this hatred for the papacy.   That's very very dangerous."
 
A second fusilade was fired by Alberto the Mexican: "What an irony isn't it Fr Martin that White Wolf was not going to say anything about  Bishop Meikle, who believes in Vatican I as does Fr Martin.  White Wolf, you seem to think that Vatican I was bad, which would be a sin to say.   So who's Catholic, Bishop Meikle who believes Vatican I or you who say that Vatican I was bad?"

Now, first off, this Wolf did not suggest that Vatican I said anything heretical, or that Papal Infallibility is pernicious.  And ever since Vatican I a lot of ink has been spilled over the fine print.  The Pope is infallible, the theologians said, when he speaks from the Chair of Peter, intending to teach the Universal Church, stating a dogma that has always and everywhere been affirmed by Holy Mother Church.  In other words, the dogma is essentially circular.  How do we know a dogma is Traditional?  Because it has always and everywhere been taught, and the pontiff can cite numerous examples from the writings of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture (read with the mind of the Church), and pronouncements of past councils.  Of course, this Wolf has no problem with that.

What this Wolf does have a problem with is the Hyperpapalism that has been pushed since 1870 and the definition of Infallibility in reaction to the Revolution, particularly the sacking of the Papal States by Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi and his cronies.  Like Vatican II, Vatican I took on a life of its own as a supercouncil along the lines of Trent.  (We can thank Otto Von Bismarck and the Germans for invading France and threatening to embroil Europe in a wider war, which set the Bishops to fleeing before some horror show like the Council of Pistoia broke out.)  When the dust settled, Catholics were more or less being taught to lean on the latest pronouncements of the Holy Seat, which was now resolved to micromanage all affairs of Holy Mother Church.  Any criticism of the modes of operation of the popes was no longer to be tolerated.  All the churches were to be little Vatican Amen Corners, and Catholics were expected to march in lockstep behind the pope towards an ephemeral political vision.

Now elsewhere this Wolf has given quotes where Leo XIII and Pius X exacerbated the tendency to hyperpapalism by suggesting that if one does not love the person of the pope he is "not in communion with the Holy Seat".  Meanwhile, in Leo XIII's Satis Cognitum" we have this problematic statement: "But it is opposed to the truth, and in evident contradiction with the divine constitution of the Church, to hold that while each Bishop is individually bound to obey the authority of the Roman Pontiffs, taken collectively the Bishops are not so bound."  Many saints have held that the college of bishops does have a certain authority over the pope in extreme circumstances- for example, if the pope was to become manifestly insane, or if he was to force manifest heresy on Holy Mother Church.  Such a pontiff could be legitimately resisted.  Today we see clearly manifested the dangers of hyperpapalism.  Actors like Cardinal Burke and Bishop Schnieder wring their hands and shrug their shoulders: "Nothing any of us can do while Pope Frantic turns the Vatican into a brothel."

This Wolf contends that both Classical Sedevacantism (the notion all the popes since Pius XII were heretics and therefore invalid claimants to the Chair of Peter) and  apphyperpapalism are two wings of the same bird.  Hence, Adrian Fonseca, to put it in scholastic terms, is opposing an error to excess- hyperpapalism and the tendency to baptize every word Pope Frantic utters- with an error of defect: act as though Vatican I had nothing to do with this.  This Wolf was even a little prophetic and could see this coming.  "Adrian is about to open mouth and insert foot..." he wrote in the chat dialogue about a minute before.

Alberto meanwhile gets somewhat more vicious, and accuses this Wolf of not being Catholic.  And in the process he does bring Bishop D Edward Meikle into the fray.  And who is bishop Meikle?  Bishop Meikle is a traditional Catholic Bishop of the Chair ["see"- this Wolf detests Latin mistranslations of "Sede")  of Caer-Glow.  The Chair of Caer-Glow is an "Old Roman Catholic Church" Diocese currently occupied by "The Most Reverend John J Humphreys, Archbishop".  And who is Bishop Humphreys?  He was ordained by Fr Anthony Girandola, a "married" priest who "jumped ship" in the 1960's and, among other things, wrote a book: "The Most Defiant Priest : The Story Of The Priest Who Married."  And if the reader thinks the proverbial plot has just thickened, he ain't seen nothing yet.

The Wolf pulled the following off Wikipedia: " Humphreys left the new church  [founded by Fr Anthony Girandola] shortly thereafter, forming Our Lady of Good Hope Old Roman Catholic Church under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Richard Arthur Marchenna. Humphreys served as that group's vicar general for several years, until Marchenna ordained Robert Clement as a bishop of the Eucharistic Catholic Church, a church perceived as having a pro-homosexual orientation.  Marchenna was then excommunicated by Gerard George Shelley, who, as primate of the Old Catholic Church in England and America, saw himself as Marchenna's superior. Father Humphreys was then himself consecrated as a bishop by Shelley, and formed the Historical and Canonical Old Roman Catholic Church to be Shelley's North American jurisdiction.  After Shelley's death in 1980, Michael Farrell, whom Humphrey's had made a bishop in 1981, succeeded Shelley, only to resign himself shortly thereafter, to be replaced by Emile Rodriguez y Fairfield, the pastor of a small church in East Los Angeles who had been ordained by the Mexican National Catholic Church.  Fairfield himself left the position in 1983.  He was one of three bishops of the Mexican National Catholic Church line and left to become the leader of that church.  The following year, in 1984, Humphreys himself was elected primate of the church."

Meanwhile, Bishop Meikle presides over "Immaculate Conception Old Roman Catholic Church" near Tampa Florida.  According to the Mass Schedule, it offers the "Traditional Mass" in English at nine o:clock in the morning, and the "Latin Mass" at eleven.  And here this fuddy duddy old Wolf thought the Council of Trent insisted the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass be offered only in the venerable Latin.

But, hey, there's a crisis in the Church, and so we can resort to the steamy swamps of Ordinations'R'Us and become a Priest or a Bishop so we can save the church- and perhaps set up a racket on the side as Fr Anthony Girandola apparently did.  (Perhaps that is where Fr Malachi Martin got his inspiration?)

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a world of shills, trolls, grifters, cronies, and downright Satanists out there.  That is why we MUST pray the Most Holy Rosary and remain vigilant.  This "crisis in the church"- St Paul called it the Great  Apostasy and boy, he was not whistling Dixie!!- is several orders of magnitude beyond Clown Masses and Folk Liturgies.  This is the Wildest Dreams of the Grand Pubas come true.  And this Wolf resents any attempts from any quarter to pooh-pooh his observations, historical analysis by those who think the simple solution is to "attend the Latin Mass and Don't Worry".  (Fr Ripperberger is selling the T-Shirts.)

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.  You are our only hope.