If only Pope Francis would listen to the teachings of his papal predecessors. If only Francis would put a stop to his *** plans to build a church to his own personal liking, far removed from the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Wishful thinking. But we must remain always hopeful in prayer.
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“Nothing new is allowed, for nothing can be added to the old. Look for the faith of the elders, and do not let our faith be disturbed by a mixture of new doctrines.“ (Pope St. Sixtus III)
“The faith by which we live shall never vary in any age . . . for one is the faith which sanctifies the Just of all ages.” (Pope St. Leo the Great)
“If anyone according to wicked heretics in any manner whatsoever, by any word whatsoever, at any time whatsoever, or in any place whatsoever illicitly removes the boundaries firmly established by the holy Fathers of the Catholic Church [and] should anyone through diabolical operation crookedly and cunningly act contrary to the pious preachings of the orthodox teachers of the Catholic Church … and persist without repentance unto the end: let such a person be condemned forever, and let all the people say: So be it! So be it!“ (Pope St. Martin I)
“From the time the Christian religion began to be spread, she has held unchangeable and taught uncorrupted throughout the world the doctrines which she has received once and for all from her patron and founder, Saint Peter.“ (Pope St. Nicholas the Great)
“Let nothing of the truths that have been defined be lessened, nothing altered, nothing added, but let them be preserved intact in word and in meaning.” (Pope Gregory XVI)
“If a future pope teaches anything contrary to the Catholic Faith, do not follow him.” (Pope Pius IX)
“Let nothing new be introduced, but only what has been handed down.” (Pope Benedict XV)
“Progress of dogmas is, in reality, nothing but corruption of dogmas … I absolutely reject the heretical doctrine of the evolution of dogma, as passing from one meaning to another, and different from the sense in which the Church originally held it. And likewise, I condemn every error by which philosophical inventions, or creations of the human mind, or products elaborated by human effort and destined to indefinite progress in the future are substituted for that Divine Deposit given by Christ to the faithful custody of the Church . . . Condemned and proscribed is the error that dogmas are nothing but interpretations and evolutions of Christian intelligence which have increased and perfected the little seed hidden in the Gospel.
I accept with sincere belief the doctrine of faith as handed down to us from the Apostles by the orthodox Fathers, always in the same sense and with the same interpretation.” (Pope St Pius X)
“We are not, therefore, teachers of a doctrine drawn from human minds, but – conscious of our charge – we ought to embrace and follow that which Christ Our Lord taught and Whose teaching, by a solemn commandment, He committed to His Apostles and to their successors … Moreover, since We are very certain that this doctrine which we must safeguard in all its integrity is Divinely revealed, We repeat the words of the Apostle of the Nations: “But though we, or an Angel from Heaven, preach to you a Gospel besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Galatians 1: 8).” (Pope Pius XII)
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
Nicely done research, CP&S! St. Pope Martin I was most explicit. “If anyone removes the boundaries ( with words or actions) of the early Church Fathers”, he’s is doing wrong. Therefore, we (all of us, including popes and clergy) need to go back and read them!
Thanks!
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Excellent post, thank you.
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This post is an absolute gem. It gives me such comfort to know that popes throughout history have rejected and condemned the novelties which our present incumbent and his allies – some of whom are utterly despicable (here’s looking at you, Rosica!) – insist are leading us to a new and improved “Better Than Butter!” Christian faith. A huge debt of gratitude is owed to them all…not including PF.
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Thank you, Mary, planechant2 and JH.
And there were plenty more examples from other good popes that could have been chosen for this article to demonstrate that unbroken mission of the Vicars of Christ’s Church. They were all fully conscious that they had been chosen as faithful guardians and protectors of the Glorious Faith, but not, under any circumstances, its owner! Francis is unique in that way.
So that is absolutely true, JH: popes down through the ages have always “rejected and condemned” novelties to the holy Deposit of Faith. Even the so-called bad popes (“bad” for other failings) never attempted to tamper with doctrines and dogmas*. (The one pope who is the exception to this rule is Pope John XXII on one issue, but even he recanted on his deathbed.)
*Although one could question some of the Protestantised changes in practice and Liturgy introduced at V2. Yet these seemed to be have been implemented more through the unfortunate weakness of Paul VI to stop them, rather than at his instigation! He greatly lamented these “changes” later on.
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Good, very good. I can only add one thought. There should never have been a pope called Francis. Taking the name was a gross presumption he could never live up to.
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Gareth is right imo, which is why I also don’t like papal names such as John, Paul, John Paul…
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…and Benedict, but I do like the names Pius, Leo, Gregory, Boniface and others of *their ilk*.
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Pope ilk? OK, I’ll go with that. Anything is better than what we have now.
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Great post, Kathleen and reassuring to realise that there have always been bad leaders and members of Christ’s Church on earth. I have screen-shotted some of the quotes – they are inspirational.
I don’t understand the subtle points with the names, JH, and Gareth – why Leo and Pius but not Benedict- do you say that they equate themselves with the person by the name, ‘Francis ‘ or ‘Benedict ‘ but ‘Leo’ or ‘Pius ‘ is a name of the position? I do get the dislike and presumption of this Pope taking the name of the most popular saint. My dislike of it comes from the feigned humility of appropriating the name and the political nature of the act in owning a popular saint and incorporating the qualities of St Francis into the Bergoglio public persona. How political is that man!
Now, Pope Ilk-hmmm….
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Hi Crow,
I’ll explain since you ask. JH can speak for himself but I am broadly in agreement with his points. “Pope ilk” was just me being silly, a Monty Python response, so don’t even think about it.
Bergoglio took the name Francis, not by accident but it was suggested to him by his promoters. The St Gallen Mafia (a name his promoters themselves cultivated) were a group of key liberal bishops who organised the election of Bergoglio – a political lobby which is entirely outside f the spirit of papal elections (and indeed illegal under canon law). All this is well documented in The Dictator Pope, a book I recommend that you read in order to know why we need to fight.
So they conspired to elect Bergoglio but instead Cardinal Ratzinger was elected and became Pope Benedict XVI, which was the very last thing the liberal conspiracy wanted. The only thing they could do was undermine Benedict’s papacy with severe internal destruction, and so he resigned. This was a bad move from an otherwise good theologian who was more at home with his books than running a mad homosexual disco with a money laundering shed out the back, which was how Benedict inherited the Vatican. In his earlier role as head of the CDF he knew all about it so it should not have been a surprise, but he hoped to just carry on writing good theology and it would all work out. It didn’t.
Gosh: this was supposed to be the short version! OK so why did I say it was “a gross presumption” for Bergoglio to take the name of Francis?
In the 13th century the “Poor Man of Assisi” went with his first followers to the Lateran in Rome, and he pleaded with Pope Innocent III to be allowed to start an order of poor men. (I write this without looking up the stuff so don’t all write in having a go at me saying I didn’t tell which road they took to Rome or what did they have for breakfast in Spoleto!) And Pope Innocent didn’t like the look of these guys as they seemed like a bunch of tramps. But he had a dream that they would support a Church that was collapsing, and next day he gave them permission to begin a religious order.
I walked from that place in December 2008, out of Rome into the countryside, up into the hills, in the snow. I followed their route walking back to Assisi. Such was my love of that moment in the history of the Church and its attempt to get back to Gospel basics, I froze in the hills and I enjoyed the sense that I was getting close to Francis! I stopped at a Franciscan hermitage near to Spello, cold and hungry and with blisters, and they turned me away as they were preparing their lunch. Oh perfect joy! I felt even closer to Francis who was always turned away, even by his own brothers. And I arrived in Assisi eventually, cold, tired, hungry and glad that I had made the journey. I wrote it up for the journal of the Pontifical Beda College and you’ll find it there in the 2009 edition.
OK Crow, this was meant to be the simple version but it just got complicated, didn’t it?
The St Gallen mafia finally had a second chance to get their way, after fellow liberals had stabbed Benedict in the back and he resigned. They got their man elected as pope. To our shame, the English cardinal Murphy O’Connor was a key political player. After the white smoke, Bergoglio came out onto the loggia (in the company of the seediest cardinal of them all, Daneels, of the St Gallen mafia) and declared himself to be Pope “Francis”.
Why do I say this was a presumption, to take the name? It is more than presumption: it is a contradiction. Saint Francis was a traditionalist not a moderniser. He was not an educated man, unlike Saint Clare – his townswoman – who was one of the most intellectual of medieval saints and his educator; the one who put his practice of poverty into theory. His ecclesial understanding, like his Gospel reading, was at once evangelical and Catholic, which is why Francis always appealed to protestants too – Sabatier, Jorgensen, etc. (I am not helping to keep this simple am I Crow? But I do try!)
Francis had such an enormous and quite touching faith in all priests, all bishops, and of course the “Lord Pope” because in all of these fellow Christians and followers of his Lord he could only see Christ himself. Every priest was Jesus. The Pope Innocent III was the representaive of the heavenly Father seated on the Throne on High. We somehow forget the poetry is part of the faith, and the stained glass is part of what we are priveleged to own as our Catholic culture.
When some of us set up this CatholicismPure&Simple project in2010, we had such things in mind. We didn’t know quite what was coming, did we? For a man like Bergoglio to take the name of Saint Francis and use it for political purposes AGAINST the very Tradition that Francis had set out to uphold, from the moment he renounced his inheritance and even his clothes, before the Bishop of Assisi, is an outrage and an insult to the Church and one of its most powerful saints.
That is why, I say Bergoglio’s taking of the name is a presumption. Sorry, Crow: it was a longer explanation than I intended. But I hope you see it now, and who am I, but a peasant who cares for four donkeys?
Pax et bonum. + Pace e bene. + Peace and all good. +
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And we go again… someone quoting previous Popes without citing any specific source(s) to confirm that what their saying these Popes said… was actually what they said. I’m not a fan of Pope Francis. But I’m also not a fan of people like this who do not cite a credible source for what their claiming someone said.
And for that reason your peice gets a grade of F
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[Moderator writes : Are you asking us to do your homework for you Peter Simon? Look up via the Internet the popes cited in the article and you will find each and every one of the above quotes attributed to them.]
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So who is Pope? Since all of the post Conciliar
(Vatican II) teach heresy can they legitimately and validly hold the Papacy? Can the Church exist without one? If we reject papal teaching of a pope we call a valud Pope in council or Apostolic teaching (ie Laduto Si, Amoris Laetitia, Traditiones Custodes etc) are we really Catholics? Can we reject so many teachings and still say he’s a valid Pope in our eyes? Somethings wrong in doins so. Let your yes be yes and your no be no! (Matt 5:37).
There is only one logical and true conclusion.
Conciliar popes were andcare not Popes for they are not Catholic as thier teachings clearly reflect. Catholics cannot follow ir call them Pope in good conscience (with knowledge) of Catholic teachings prior to thier new teachings.
Does this make sense? If not why?
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