The See of Rome is no longer authentically Catholic — in the way that Catholicism had been understood and practiced for the 2000 years preceding Vatican II.

Allow me to explain:

With something far more profound and painful than “regret,” we now encounter the tragic possibility, if not the realization, that the state of the Church under the ruthless pontificate of Francis is one in which it appears not simply to have lost, but to have repudiated her very identity, and ceased to be authentically Catholic. Under the faithless stewardship of Francis, it seems to have devolved into something of a simulacrum of what had once been the Catholic Church for 2000 years — and is no more.    

The Memory of the Odor of Sanctity

Apart from the magnificent architecture of another age, the beautiful art, sculpture, and statuary uniquely and inextricably identifiable as Catholic, the Church has become much more a recalcitrant memory that we cannot, and will not, relinquish; it still possesses the odor of sanctity, as from the incense in a thurible passed before the altar of sacred memories too dear to allow us to say that they are nothing more than memories, reflections on what was was and is no more; something still sacred despite its depredation. Holy Mother Church has suffered much and needlessly under the radical pontificate of Francis.      

Without retreating in the least from the One, True, Holy, and Apostolic Catholic Church to which our forefathers — and the great saints, scholars, composers, and artists of eons past — had cleaved for two millennia, we find the claim at least plausible, if not painfully credible, that,  

Francis is not, of course, the sole cause of the Church’s dissolution into something ultimately pointless and tiresome, although he has been the single greatest catalyst in this sorry narrative. That concatenation of events began with Vatican II some 60 years ago and culminated in what now appears, to some, to be an imminent collapse of historical Catholicism. Perhaps collapse is too energetic a word: assimilation may be closer to the mark. The Church has been assimilated into — and become largely indistinguishable from — the secular culture against which it defined itself for two millennia. In becoming simply another iteration of the world, it has made itself superfluous. Who needs two “Worlds”? One is sufficient to strain one’s wits.

If this were not enough in its ecumenical pursuit of an egalitarian anonymity that made it neither offensive nor obtrusive in the City of Man, it resorted to the innocuous, if inane, refuge of religious indifferentism where all gods are God and no contention exists in the realm of minds; where every contradiction is sublated into a synthesis called “ecumenism,” and where logic is banished as fomenting disagreement. In the logical world of the Law of the Excluded Middle, Ecumenism has become the Included Middle, or perhaps more apropos of the times, the Inclusive Middle. And somewhere in this absurd morass, the veritable Roman Catholic Church has been either misplaced or displaced, and no one appears to be clear about which one it is, or if it is either at all! One thing is sadly certain: it is the topic for an argument. And that it is so is a scandal indeed.

What, then, does this say about Francis in the mix?

This is not to say that “Pope Francis” — is not a legitimate pope.

He is a legitimate pope — but he is not an authentically Catholic pope.  As we have stated elsewhere:

Confused?

Legitimacy pertains to law or legality — in other words, conforming to canonical standards and requirements — authenticity pertains to the substance, to what is substantive (L. substantia, “the quality of being real”, “the reality of a thing, as distinct from outward appearance”¹.) In other words, it pertains to what possesses reality as distinct from appearances, or in the present case, simply meeting criteria to be deemed legal.

An Example May Help

Jack Ma Jun is legitimately the owner of Alibaba, a Chinese technology giant involved in e-commerce, retail, and Internet assets — whose personal net worth is $38 billion dollars — but he is also a member of the Chinese Communist Party. Communism, you may remember, eliminated private ownership of the means of production together with all class distinctions — all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. All are equally “comrades” sharing in a wealth commonly generated and commonly distributed.

As a member of the Chinese Communist Party, Jack is legitimately one of the Proletariat, eschewing private ownership, personal wealth, a disproportionate share in the means of common production, and is in the same “Class” as a rice farmer (the average Chinese annual income is approximately $1,375 USD).  Jack Ma Yun is legitimately a member of the Communist Party, although he is indisputably an authentic Capitalist — but he is not and cannot be a legitimate Capitalist — for Capitalism is the antithesis of Communism: it is the Enemy of the People. Even while Jack is overseeing more than 100 Chinese companies, and making 38 $Billion dollars in the process, these companies are, somehow, nevertheless considered “state-run entities” under the central control of government.

While a legitimate Communist Party member, Jack Ma Yan nevertheless remains authentically a Capitalist. The two do not coincide.

An Enormous Crisis of Identity

The question now is, where are we to find the One, Tue, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church from time immemorial? It is and ever will be. Christ promised as much. But if the “First See” can no longer be found in Rome, where is it? Where is the “authentic” Chair of Saint Peter rather than its legal simulacrum? And if we can discover it, who occupies it? — if anyone! If we hold that “the Chair is empty” in light of the repudiation of orthodox Catholic canons— are we to be understood as “Sedevacantists” ... or simply “orthodox”?            
 
God by any other name ...

Much, much, more remains to be said — so much of authentic Catholicism remains to be articulated against the hyphenated-Catholics:       

So much remains to be re-acquired because it has not been taught for 60 years. It has been forgotten, contemptuously dismissed, suppressed, and ridiculed by Jorge Bergoglio as “rigid” — by which assessment we must also account Christ as the paradigm of “rigidity,” for He was absolutely inflexible in His teachings!

Grains of Incense

Of course, we understand that such insistence on authentic Catholicism, on the factual rendering of the Gospels and Epistles, the Church Fathers, the Sacred Deposit of Faith, and Tradition, will be greeted with much hostility, contempt, ridicule, and disdain. We can certainly count on this from Francis alone whose undisguised contempt for traditional Catholics is well known. However, it has ever been the conviction of the saints that a faithful Catholic cannot be on mutually good terms with the World and God. Saint James was clear about this: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God?” (St. James 4.4)

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¹ The Latin Oxford Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1968