Praying To The Damned

The Vatican II sect is about to "canonize" Karol Wotyla (aka "Pope" John Paul II). Given the fact that the pre-Vatican II theologians held canonizations to be infallible, and Wotyla was a manifest heretic (John Paul the Great Apostate), we must conclude that (a) the Church is not infallible, and our Faith is false or (b) the Vatican II sect is not the Catholic Church, but a group of heretics who defected from the Faith and lost their authority as Catholic theologians taught could happen. Lose your Faith in the Church, or find the Church of your Faith in the Traditionalist movement. Simple logic. Unfortunately, the pseudo-Traditionalists of the "recognize and resist" the "pope" crowd (principally the Society of St. Pius X, or SSPX), have a hard time with logic. They have a psychological need to cling to a false "pope"  to the point where they will ignore or twist theological principles to serve that need and avoid facing the painful reality of sedevacantism.

A Fr. Gleize,  professor of ecclesiology at the SSPX seminary in Econe,  has written an article "Santo Subito: Is There a Problem?" in which he attempts to prove that we can decide which canonizations to accept and which to reject. This is perfectly in keeping with the SSPX's grand scheme of picking and choosing what teachings to accept in the name of "Tradition." In answer to Fr. Gleise's query, yes, there's a problem-- and it's the false premises and conclusion of your article. Father's article will be in black and my responses in red. 

I) Admitting Certain Basic Principles

 Fr. Gleize readily admits that canonizations are held to be infallible:
"Canonization is the act by which the Vicar of Christ, judging in ultimate instance and emitting a definitive sentence, inscribes in the catalogue of the saints a servant of God previously beatified. Canonization has a triple finality and does not refer only to the worship. In first instance, the pope declares that the faithful deceased is in the celestial glory; secondly, he expresses that the faithful deceased deserved to reach this glory for having practiced heroic virtues, which set an example for the whole Church; thirdly, so as to offer more easily these virtues as an example and to thank God for having cause it, he prescribes that the faithful deceased should receive a public cult. On these three scores the canonization is a precept and obliges the entire Church, and it constitutes a definitive and irreformable act."

Further, "The common and certain doctrine of the majority of theologians considers canonizations to be infallible. All the treatises published after Vatican Council I (and prior to Vatican II), from Billot to Salaverri, teach it as a common theological doctrine." 

So far, so good.

II) Creating False Premises To Get Past The Basic Principles To Which You Stipulated

Now Father comes up with three premises to get out of facing up to the basic truth that canonizations are infallible declarations declaring the soul of a faithful departed to be in glory, and his virtues worthy of imitation. 

#1--Insufficiency of the procedure

Here, Father claims..."it is clear that, by itself, the procedure does not have the rigor of the older one. It is much less exigent in matters of guarantees from Churchmen, so that the divine assistance may insure the infallibility of the canonization, and, with greater reason, the absence of error of fact in the beatification. Besides, Pope John Paul II decided not to follow the present procedure (which disposes that the beginning of the beatification process not take place before five years after the death of the candidate), by authorizing the introduction of the cause of Mother Teresa of Calcutta three years after her passing away. Benedict XVI did the same regarding the beatification of his predecessor. The doubt becomes much more legitimate when one considers the reasons the Church has to act cautiously in these matters."

He asserts that we are justified to doubt canonizations if a certain procedure is not carried out. However, the Divine assistance of infallibility has never been held by the Church to be dependent upon following a certain preliminary set of actions. He gives no citation for this novel idea. The process of canonization has taken different forms through the centuries, but all that is needed for the declaration to be infallible (according to the First Vatican Council and the teaching of the theologians) is that the pope intends to define a matter of Faith and/or morals as Supreme Teacher of the Church, and he intends to bind the faithful. Decrees of canonization meet this requirement. 


#2---Collegiality 

This is one that leaves you thinking that old adage, "Say what?"

"Until now, we knew the act personally infallible and definitory of the locution ex cathedra, and the decrees of the ecumenical Councils. In the future, we shall have also an act which would be neither personally infallible nor definitory in itself, but the act of the ordinary magisterium of the pope: this act will aim at discerning a doctrine as infallibly taught by the ordinary universal magisterium of the Episcopal college. According to this third mode, the pope acts as a simple interpreter of the collegial magisterium.

Yet, if we look at the new norms promulgated in 1983 by the Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister of John Paul II, it is clear that, in the precise case of canonization, the pope—according to the needs of collegiality—will exercise his magisterium according to this third mode. If one takes into account both the Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister of 1983 and the motu proprio, Ad Tuendam Fidem of 1998, when the pope exercises his personal magisterium to proceed to a canonization, it seems as if his will consists in intervening as an organ of the collegial magisterium. This would suggest that the canonizations are not guaranteed by the personal infallibility of the solemn magisterium of the Sovereign Pontiff.

Will it be guaranteed by the ordinary universal magisterium of the episcopal college? Until now, the entire theological tradition has never said that this was the case; it has always considered the infallibility of canonizations as the fruit of a divine assistance granted strictly to the personal magisterium of the pope, assimilated to the locution ex cathedra.

With this, we hold a second motive which authorizes us to doubt seriously of the infallibility of the canonizations realized in concordance with these postconciliar reforms."

Collegiality is a heresy of Vatican II. That aside, Father claims that (a) the pope is allegedly acting as an "organ of the collegial magisterium" but (b) a canonization can only be held as certainly infallible if the pope acts personally. 

As to (a), see if this decree of canonization for "St" Josemaria Escriva sounds like a definitive definition from the pope on a matter of Faith intended to bind the Faithful:

In honor of the Blessed and Undivided Trinity, for the uplifting of Catholic faith and the increase of Christian life, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and that of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and our own, after careful deliberation, having called frequently upon God's help, and with the advice of many of our brother Bishops, We declare and define Blessed Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer to be a Saint, and We inscribe his name in the catalogue of the Saints, ordaining that, throughout the universal Church, he be devoutly honored among the Saints. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And what We have declared, We desire to be in force both now and in the future, anything to the contrary notwithstanding.

Given at Rome, at Saint Peter's, the sixth day of October, in the two thousand and second year of our Lord, of our Pontificate the twenty-fourth.

I, John Paul
Bishop of the Catholic Church

Certainly sounds that way, doesn't it? But what about objection (b)? "Further, all those things are to be believed with divine and catholic faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by a solemn judgment, or by her ordinary and universal Magisterium, proposes for belief as having been Divinely-revealed. " (Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius, 1870). It must be definitively held as true if the "college of bishops" decree it as such in union with the pope. That canonizations are not specifically mentioned as subjects of such is entirely irrelevant. 

#3---Change in the Meaning of "Heroic Virtue"

"The change of the object implies a change of the act. This change of perspective is present in the new theology and the postconciliar magisterium. It omits to distinguish between a common and a heroic sanctity, which is what sanctity consists of: even the term “heroic virtue” appears nowhere in the texts of Vatican II.

After the Council, when the theologians speak of heroic virtue, they have more or less the tendency of defining it by opposition to the simply natural act of virtue, instead of opposing it to the ordinary act of supernatural virtue.

This change of optic is corroborated also when we consider the ecumenical orientation of the sanctity which appeared after Vatican II."

Here, Father declares we can doubt the canonization because "the judgment which guided the procedure was guided by a modernist conception of sanctity and heroic virtue." (Emphasis mine) However, the Church teaches:
"In establishing disciplinary laws for the universal Church, the Church is likewise infallible, in such a way She would never legislate something which would contradict true faith or good morals." (See Zubizaretta,  Theologia Dogmatico-Scholastica 1:486,  1948) How then could a true pope legislate that someone is in Heaven and worthy of emulation by the Faithful if their virtue is of a Modernist (heretical) conception, and therefore something that would contradict good morals? 

III) Summary and Conclusion

 Fr.Gleize's article brings forth three false premises to cast doubt on the infallibility of canonizations and thereby hope to save the "papacy" of Francis because he didn't really proclaim Wotyla a saint. He falsely assumes that a certain procedure must be used for the pope to exercise his infallibility. Second, he claims that the pope can act as part of the collegial body of bishops, without exercising his personal infallibility. This is false as (1) the decree of canonization has all the requirements of an ex cathedra papal pronouncement and (2) the Ordinary Magisterium would guarantee their truth anyway as taught by the First Vatican Council and the pre-Vatican II theologians. Third, the Church cannot give that which is evil. A Modernist conception of heroic virtue would never be held up by a true pope as worthy of emulation by the faithful as it is contrary to good morals.

Karol Wotyla is the embodiment of the evils teachings of Vatican II. If Wotyla is a saint, then my patron saint, King St. Louis IX of France was wrong to prohibit false worship in public as it contradicts the teaching of Vatican II on religious liberty. If Wotyla is a saint, then St. Thomas Moore was wrong to condemn King Henry VIII's new religion since it contradicts the teaching of Vatican II on ecumenism; that the Protestant sects can be used as a "means of salvation." I could go on, but I think you get the picture. 

The SSPX would have us accept Antipope Francis as a true pope, and then decide which canonizations they will accept or reject. They like Padre Pio, so his canonization must be accepted. They dislike Wotyla, so they invent reasons to reject his "sainthood." This is not how Catholics act. Reject Francis and all his works. It's absurd and blasphemous to think, God help us, that we must try and make sure that the next "saint" to whom we pray, isn't really burning in Hell.