District Magazine

On Easter Monday, Pope Francis went the way of all flesh and departed this world. He then appeared, as we all must do, before the judgement seat of God. During his pontificate, we were too often obliged to judge his actions as not being in conformity with the Catholic Faith and Tradition. However, it belongs to God alone to judge the soul of a man. As we prayed for him to make a happy death, that is, a death in the state of grace, so we must now pray for the repose of his soul. Requiescat in pace.

According to Saint Luke, all the nations of the Earth were present in Jerusalem on the day of the first Pentecost. On Pentecost — and on all other days — you can find all the nations of the Earth at the Nag’s Head in Holloway, near the church of Saints Joseph and Padarn. Here I bumped into a sedevacantist. Having identified me as a ‘Lefebvrist’, it was not long until he exposed his certainty that Francis is not the Pope. ‘Bergoglio is a heretic,’ he said ‘and no heretic is a member of the Church. Therefore, Bergoglio cannot be pope.’ Moreover, as charitably as he could, he accused me and the Society of being formally disobedient and closet-sedevacantists: ‘because,’ he said ‘while you purport to believe that Francis is the Pope, you disobey him by not following his every command while knowing that obedience to the Pope is necessary for salvation.’ (He himself, by the way, is formally obedient to the Pope because he will obey him once he decides that he is the Pope).

As the winter of 1958 drew in, Pope John XXIII was thinking aloud to Cardinal Tardini: how to give an example of peace and unity in the modern world? He mused for a moment. ‘A Council!’ said the Pope. ‘Si, si! Un Concilio!’ replied His Eminence. And so the conciliar project began, but it was misconceived from the start. The Catholic Church is the Body of Christ; her purpose is not to be an example of unity; She is the unity to which all men of all times and places must belong. She exists to bring all men into the one mystical body of the Divine Lord Jesus Christ. He alone who is Saviour of the world reconciles them with God.