Dr. Mazza explains Pope Benedict’s failed resignation in LifeSite interview… now with timestamps

On today’s episode of The John-Henry Westen Show, I ask Dr. Edmund Mazza, a professor of Church history, to unpack the controversy and confusion surrounding the 2013 resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and address the potential implications for Francis’s papacy if the resignation were invalid….”

“This is a dense episode — Dr. Mazza dives deep into the subject with remarkable aplomb — but it’s a fascinating one you won’t want to miss. Here’s a taste of what you’ll be getting:”

Dr. Mazza: “Well, believe it or not, Canon Law, Canon 188, says that when someone in the Church resigns from their office, one of the things that would invalidate that resignation is something called substantial error. It’s when your intellect has an erroneous idea of the object that you were choosing, that your will is choosing. Well, if your intellect presents an erroneous object to your will and your will chooses it, your will is not free […] If Benedict thought he could resign the active ministry of the papacy, but somehow still remain papal [in the passive sense, not in the active sense], and was able to offer up his sufferings and prayers in an ontological connection to the munus [ministry or service] that belongs to St. Peter…”

00:10 Archbishop Vigano questions Benedict’s resignation

03:45 +Msgr. Bux proposes investigation

05:10 +Fr. Gruner in 2014 declares Benedict’s resignation invalid

05:45 Video of +Gruner

09:10 Power is tied to Office

10:30 Canon law itself tells us that a papal resignation can indeed be invalid

11:00 Unpacking the Latin of Benedict’s Declaratio

13:00 Munus vs Ministerium

15:15 The crisis of Ecclesiology

16:00 Bishop Arrieta on Munus vs Ministerium

18:10 Lewis and Short won’t cut it

19:00 Slowikowska on the criticality of context

20:40 Substantial Error explained

24:00 Benedict’s last General Audience

24:36 Always and Forever

25:30 Passive vs Active exercise of the Munus

27:00 Seewald money question and answer

28:26 Benedict: “The Office enters into your very being.”

32:00 Benedict: “There were no black cassocks available.”

33:30 Vatican II says, in a nouvelle way, that bishops have the power to govern solely by the fact of their consecration, not by papal mandate/jurisdiction

38:00 If Benedict believes his papal power stems back to his episcopal consecration, he believes he can never lose it

40:00 If you are resigning, you need to resign all of it, and understand you are no longer “papal” in any way

41:30 JPII says there is no such thing as Pope Emeritus

44:00 On splitting Vicar of Christ from Bishop of Rome

46:00 There can be no Vicar Emeritus… that’s heresy

48:00 All of this is Substantial Error

49:00 Does this mean his acceptance of the papacy was also invalid?

52:00 If Benedict is pope, are all of Bergoglio’s appointments invalid?

53:45 St. Cajetan on what schism is not

54:15 F. X. Werner and P. Vidal on what schism is not

55:00 +Kramer’s “On the True and False Pope”

55:30 Dr. Radaelli “He is Pope, Not the Other”

56:00 Speculation on motive

58:00 Fr. Malachi Martin money quote on the False Pope

59: Prophesy of St. Malachy

3 thoughts on “Dr. Mazza explains Pope Benedict’s failed resignation in LifeSite interview… now with timestamps”

  1. Dear Lord, how much longer? I see that a gay concert is happening at the Vatican… Lord, how much longer? Father Gruner used to say things will turn around when there are more Catholics praying and sacrificing for an end to this than there are Catholics who just couldn’t be bothered. What will it take???
    Thanks to Dr. Mozza for all the work he is doing. He is an intelligent and learned man. I’m very grateful to him for the effort he is putting in to this.

  2. Good interview.
    I wish Dr. Mazza would go further into the question of: “Can an antipope appoint cardinals which will choose his successor(s)?”
    I’m wondering where he would stand with a post-Benedict XVI and post-bergoglio Catholic Church. Would he say, “The College of Cardinals has voted this man Pope, he may be a liberal modernist nutjob, but he is the legitimate Pope. Habemus Papam! I’m going to shut up now.”
    Or would Dr. Mazza say, “bergoglio was an antipope, and the cardinals he appointed shouldn’t even have been there to elect his successor, we now need an Ecumenical Council to resolve this mess like at the Council of Constance in 1414* which resolved the Western Schism, and hopefully throw a modernist or three into the Tiber River, to get the Church back on the right track.”
    *I’ve taken a Church History class or two in between all the Math and Physics classes.

    1. This question was touched on briefly toward the end, when he mentions Ecclesia Supplet. We have had this situation occur in the past, and the Cardinals made by the antipope were allowed to remain Cardinals, but were forbidden to vote in the conclave.

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