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Staples then unfortunately continued unabated in this vein to the point where he compared the actions of the SSPX to that of rabid feminist Catholics picketing for women priests. Then, a few minutes later, Staples strangely denied that he made any such comparison and kindly preached that we should indeed make "distinctions" between the SSPX and women priest supporters. One clear distinction that Staples failed to make is that those Catholics who defy infallible teaching on women’s ordination, such as members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), are still in "full communion" with the Church according to Staples, yet the Traditional priests of the SSPX, who deny not one Catholic dogma, are not.

Vatican II is Infallible…. Except When it’s Not Travis from Anaheim then rang in asking what level of authority Vatican II possesses. Staples then correctly pointed out that when John XXIII called the Council he stated that it was to be pastoral and would not make condemnations. Of course, Staples immediately gutted the words of John XXIII by stating Vatican II was also dogmatic because two documents of Vatican II are called "Dogmatic Constitutions."

Regardless of the title "Dogmatic Constitution," however, neither of these Council documents declared any new dogma. Thus, Staples is in effect saying that a Council that declared no dogma was somehow dogmatic. Apparently one of the advantages of Neo-Catholicism is that the principle of non-contradiction is optional.

Staples then went on to state that although there were no infallible declarations in Vatican II (aka no new dogmas) and no anathemas, this doesn’t mean that nothing in it is infallible or that adherence to the Council is optional. Staples then stated that Vatican II is, at the very least, on the level of the ordinary Magisterium and demands our assent.

Traditionalists agree, of course, that wherever Vatican II restated infallible Catholic teaching, it is infallible.

However, Neo-Catholics and even some traditionalists have a bad habit of referring to any act of the Vatican, Pope, or every part of a Council as part of the "ordinary Magisterium." This is not the case.

In contrast to the Extraordinary Magisterium whereby the pope declares infallible ex cathedra dogma, the term "ordinary Magisterium" should instead be more properly called the "ordinary and universal Magisterium." This latter Magisterium is also infallible because it consists of what was everywhere and always believed by Catholics. In other words, the "ordinary and universal Magisterium" is Tradition.

In contrast, there also exists an "authentic Magisterium." The authentic Magisterium consists in papal statements, encyclicals, etc. that genuinely come from the Church and that are normally authoritative. However, the authentic Magisterium is not infallible and is therefore liable to error.

Since Vatican II deliberately chose not to invoke the infallibility of the Extraordinary Magisterium, only the texts of the Council documents that are in accordance with the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church (Tradition) are infallible. Thus, if there are any novel teachings in the Council, even though they came from a legitimate and thus "authentic" source, they are not protected by infallibility and thus can be in error. This understanding of Catholic authority is well laid out by Dom Paul Nau, O.S.B. (Solemnes) in An Essay on the Authority of the Teachings of the Sovereign Pontiff written in 1956.

As further evidence of this proposition, even Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, Emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Science, stated in May of 2012 that two of the most controversial documents of Vatican II for traditionalists, Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae , "…do not have a binding doctrinal content."

The Tragedy of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate

Miles in Arizona then called in, bringing up the tragic injustice that the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate (FFI) are now suffering at the hands of the Vatican.

Miles correctly pointed out that the FFI

12 Dom Paul Nau, O.S.B. (Solesmes), "An Essay on the Authority of the Teachings of the Sovereign Pontiff" (July 1956), available in the book, Pope or Church? Essays on the Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium, translated by Arthur E. Slater, (Angelus Press, 1998).

13 http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/05/cardbrandmuller- nostra-aetate-and.html

are currently being forbidden to say the Traditional Mass unless given specific permission. This, of course, is in direct violation of Summorum Pontificum , which recognizes the right of each Catholic priest to say the Traditional Mass.

Instead of recognizing this obvious fact, Staples cited a National Catholic Register story entitled, "Francis Has Not Contradicted Benedict’s Reforms Says the Franciscans of the Immaculate."

What Staples did not point out, is that this article was based on the word of two Friars, neither one of whom had any authority to speak on behalf of the order, and both of whom were part of the progressive contingent within the order protesting against the use of the Traditional Mass.

15 16 The FFI even released an official statement following news reports like the Register’s, stating that "the only official spokesman of our Institute, especially in this very delicate situation, remains our Procurator General, Fr. Alessandro Apollonio."

Despite this fact, the Register story, still to this day, inaccurately states that Father Alfonso Bruno is an FFI spokesman.

In contrast to the two unauthorized spokesmen of the FFI, highly respected Catholic historian Dr. Roberto de Mattei did see this prohibition of the Traditional Mass, purportedly approved by Pope Francis, as a direct contradiction to Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum .

So much so, that Mattei urged the Friars to ignore it because it is an unjust law.

14 http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/no-rejection-ofbenedict- in-franciscans-of-the-immaculate-decree-say-leader 15 http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/2013/08/romefranciscans-of-immaculate-seem-to.html 16 http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/08/for-recordfranciscan- friars-of.html 17 http://www.immacolata.com/index.php/en/35-apostolato/ fi-news/230-vatican-insider-response 18 http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/2013/08/lex-dubianon-obligat-against-unjust.html

True Obedience is the Solution

I would like to conclude by quoting the words of Dr. Mattei addressing the situation of the FFI. These words go beyond the FFI situation to the very heart of the conflict between Neo-Catholicism and true Catholicism: the issue of obedience. Here Mattei gives a true understanding of Catholic obedience, free from all Neo-Catholic spin to the contrary. My hope is that as many Neo-Catholics as possible read these words. In doing so, I hope they free themselves from the self-defeating ideology of Neo-Catholicism that protects and preserves novelty through a false notion of obedience, while attacking adherence to the Church’s own Tradition as disobedience:

…Today there is a purely legalistic and formalistic conception which tends to see the law as a mere instrument in the hands of those who have power (Don Arturo Cattaneo, 2011). According to the legal positivism, which has infiltrated into the Church, what is considered correct is issued by the authority... The law is only seen as the will of the rulers and not the reflection of the divine law, according to which God is creator and foundation of every law. He is the living and eternal law, the absolute principle of any law (jus divinum, ed.

Juan Ignacio Arrieta, 2010).

For this reason, in a conflict between human and divine law, God and not the people is to be obeyed (Acts 5:29). Obedience is owed to superiors because they represent the authority of God, and they represent it, because they keep the divine law and apply it. St. Thomas Aquinas affirms that it is better to fall into excommunication and exile to foreign lands where the earthly arm of the Church does not reach, than to obey an unjust command: ille debits potius excommunicatione, sustinere (...) vel in alias regiones remotas fugere (Summa Theologiae, Suppl, q. 45, a 4, 3 Upper)… The resistance to unlawful commands is sometimes a duty to God and to our neighbor…The Franciscans of the Immaculate had obtained from Benedict XVI the extraordinary goods of the so-called "Tridentine" Mass, accepted and celebrated again today by thousands of priests lawfully throughout the world. There is no better way to express their gratitude to Benedict XVI and at the same time to express their protest against the injustice done to them, than to continue to celebrate in the serenity of a clear conscience, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the traditional Roman Rite. No law can force their conscience. Maybe only few will do this, but compliance to prevent greater evil, will not help to avert the storm that goes beyond their Order and the Church.

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19 P (Some minor grammatical corrections, which did not change the meaning of the text, were made to the cited translation for the sake of readability.)