Schisms in the Catholic Church

“The only true freedom, the only freedom that can truly satisfy, is the freedom to do what we ought as human beings created by God according to his plan. It is the freedom to live the truth of what we are and who we are before God, the truth of our identity as children of God, as brothers and sisters in common humanity. “  

This writer was born and baptized into the Catholic Church in 1938. As I became more educated, my philosophical and theological questions (and answers) about Church teachings grew substantially. During these nearly eight decades, I always searched for the TRUTH about the doctrines of my faith and was not disappointed, until Pope Francis became our leader in 2013. Francis began to promote and teach several apparent heresies that seem to contradict traditional Catholic history and unchangeable Church doctrines, delivered by Christ to the apostles, 2000-years ago. 

These plausible heresies include the following fourteen points:

1.    Allowing those who promote abortion (e.g., Speaker Pelosi and President Biden, among other immoral administration Catholics) to receive the Holy Eucharist (body and blood of Jesus Christ).

Pope Blesses Greatest Political Abortionist

Pope Francis greeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Vatican on June 29, 2022. Photo: VATICAN MEDIA HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

ROME — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Pope Francis and received Communion during a papal Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, witnesses said, despite her public position in support of “abortion rights” The Mass celebrated the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul. Though, St. Paul wrote, "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Cor. 11.27).

Speaking to a crowd of ambassadors, Vatican officials and other Rome-based Americans, Pelosi noted the Catholic virtues of faith, hope and charity and the important role they play in the U.S. Embassy’s mission. “Faith is an important gift, not everyone has it but it is the path to so many other things,” she told the crowd.

Pelosi met with Pope Francis before Mass and received his blessing, according to attendees. Pope Francis has upheld the “church's opposition to abortion, saying church leaders must “continue to care for human life,” (without any reference to pre-born life). In his homily, Francis instructed archbishops to welcome everyone into the church, including [grave] sinners, and not “remain pinned to some of our fruitless debates.”…“So many times we become a church with open doors, but only to send people away, to condemn them,” he said.

Pelosi referred to the need to preach the Gospel with “actions, not just words.”  “We had the pleasure of attending Mass this morning with His Holiness and many, many, many leaders of the church,” Pelosi also said. “In the spirit of St. Francis, which is the name of His Holiness and my city of San Francisco, I thank you for preaching the Gospel, sometimes using words.”

Pelosi’s statement, that the Supreme Court’s goal is a “dark and extreme goal of ripping away women’s right to make their own reproductive health decisions.” That is profoundly false! No person has a “right,” under the U.S. Constitution to abortions. The actual Supreme Court decision is that each of the fifty states should decide this question. In addition, her reference to St. Francis, in this context, is an abuse of sainthood. St. Francis would never condone the destruction of embryos that she is supporting publically, worldwide. There was a Holocaust of 63-million babies since Row v Wade imprudent decision in 1973.

Pope's remarks stunned and horrified the pro-life movement in Italy.

April 9, 2019 Pope Francis meets with Italy's most prominent abortion advocate, Emma Bonino, whom he has praised as a "forgotten great." Being pro-life is a sine-qua-non (essential condition) for Catholics. In fact, the Catholic Church has been one of the only holdouts on the international stage still defending the right to life for pre-born children. 

Pope Francis total lack of praise for the Supreme Court’s decision, and absence of any correction of Pelosi’s obvious scandal on abortion, is a disgrace to Catholics. Francis’s lack of guidance and leadership infers that he supports her immoral position. Last year, President Joe Biden, another [professed false] Catholic who supports abortion rights, said after meeting with Francis, that the pontiff told him to continue receiving the Blessed Sacrament. Biden later received Communion during a Mass in a Rome church that is under the direct authority of Francis as “bishop of Rome.”

Pelosi’s partaking of the sacrament inside the Vatican during a Mass presided over by the pope was far more significant, and a sign of Pope Francis’ willingness to give Holy Communion to many grave sinners. Francis has described the Holy Eucharist as “not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”

Asked about bishops who refused Biden the Holy Sacrament, Francis told reporters during an airborne press meeting, that “priests shouldn’t be politicians” and condemn their flock but should be pastors who accompany the faithful with tenderness and compassion.

Pope Francis by his public statements is sanctioning immoral acts by powerful politicians, against Church law (Canon 915). This law says people in a situation of persistent sin should not be allowed to receive Communion. This law issued guidelines for the behavior of Catholics in political life, exhorting them to uphold principles consistent with traditional church doctrine(s).

The sacrament of reconciliation. If Pelosi (and Biden) confesses their grave sins before receiving the body and blood of our Lord, and continue with their abortion scandals, then they are deceitfully receiving this sacrament of reconciliation, which is invalid.

Pope Benedict XVI told U.S. bishops in 2004 that priests “must” deny the sacrament if a politician goes to receive Communion despite an “obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin,” including the sin of consistently campaigning for permissive abortion laws. Most former popes in history have also condemned such serious evil acts.

Based on these words of the Apostle, the Church herself, in her Code (Canon 915), that declares that anyone who is “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin” (e.g., pro-abortion or immorality by politicians) is “not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”. …

Skillful priests appointed by the U.S. Conference of Bishops (UCCB) to travel to all dioceses to educate Catholics laypersons about the “true presence” of the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. How can these priests possibly teach this truth when the pope presents a contradictory public position with Pelosi and Biden (among others), and does not fully support his leading cardinals and bishops?

Pelosi’s archbishop, in San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, said he would no longer allow her to receive the Blessed Sacrament in his archdiocese because of her support for abortion rights. Pelosi must either repudiate her support for abortion or stop speaking publicly of her Catholic faith.

Consequently, we have a direct conflict between what an archbishop is teaching and enforcing within his archdiocese (among other bishops), and what the pope is teaching and endorsing publically. This is the beginning of a perfect schism. (A schism occurs when a single belief system of dogma and doctrines divides and becomes two separate religious teachings). The split can be nonviolent but results in one of the two newly created bodies considering itself distinct from the other. In the early Christian church, the distinction between the concept of "heresy" and "schism" began.

2. On October 4 2019, Pope Francis attended an act of idolatrous worship of the pagan goddess Pachamama. He allowed this worship to take place in Vatican Gardens, desecrating the graves of the martyrs and the church of the Apostle Peter. He participated in this act of worship by blessing a wooden image of the Pachamama. This is clearly against the Ten Commandments of God. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. … “

3.    The Catholic Church every June celebrates the unfathomable mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in Himself.” Catholics cannot teach about the Holy Trinity, and at the same time claim: “The ‘God’ of Allah and of Christianity are the same,” which Pope Francis stated. Islam says it is blasphemous to speak of God as Holy Trinity.

4.    Pope Francis is a Socialist, and appears to favor heritical Liberation Theology.

Pope Pius XI emphasized the fundamental opposition between Communism and Christianity, and made it clear that no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate Socialism. The reason is that Socialism is based on a doctrine of human society, which is bounded by time and takes no account of any objective other than that of material well-being. (Radio message to the Katholikentag of Vienna, September 14, 1952 in Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, Vol. XIV, p. 314)

Saint John Paul wrote, "The fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility, which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is reduced to a series of social relationships and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order. From this mistaken conception of the person, there arise both a distortion of law, which defines the sphere of the exercise of freedom, and an opposition to private property”. (Encyclical Centesimus Annus − On the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, May 1, 1991, n. 12)

Pope Benedict XVI added, “The state, which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs namely, loving personal concern.” (Encyclical Pope Benedict XVI)

5.    Francis claims to be a “pope of mercy,” who refuses to condemn anyone, including publically active homosexual archbishops. Cardinal McCarrick, who was at the center of the sex abuse scandals, had the pope’s authority to make a deal with the Chinese Communist, which compromised millions of underground Catholics, giving PRC rights to select bishops, and restricted those who may attend church. (Francis defrocked Cardinal McCarrick only after most bishops considered him guilty in 2015, only five years later in 2018). The Vatican published a “white wash” report blaming scandals on Archbishop Vigano and two previous popes.

6.    Francis considers faiths, like Islam, Lutherans, Buddhists, equivalent to Christ’s One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, contradicting the Apostles Creed.

7.    Francis proclaims “ridged” Traditional Catholics are sinful, and dictates discontinuance of Latin Masses, and rejects seminarians who were about to be ordained. (Abolition of traditional Latin Mass is not in Vatican II documents.)

8.    Francis promotes UN world political and socialistic policies, including climate change, and “Mother Earth,” and minimum wages for everyone, worldwide.

9.    Francis has not encouraged teaching on Christian morality, or Catholic saving souls by means of conversion. He speaks of “groups or classes of souls,” akin to Biden’s political speeches about the “Soul of the Nation,” inappropriateness.

10. Francis required discontinuance Sacraments and Churches closed during the pandemic, especially Holy Week of Easter in 2020. He demanded that all obtain anti-virus shots and wear masks. (Cardinal Burke, who was dying from Covid-19, was the subject of a jest by Francis on the airplane trip with reporters for being “too conservative” and refusing the shot). Burke survived Covid-19 virus. Then Francis transferred him to a minor position outside of Vatican leadership.

11. Francis is very political in his world viewpoints, and is clearly against conservatives or sovereign nations establishing walls to prevent illegal foreign incursions. He is extremely critical of GOP leaders, and overtly supportive of DEMs, and had public meetings with those who support abortions. (CCHD funds have been supporting numerous illegal migrates, and circuitously pro-abortionists by various recurrent groups in several foreign countries).

12. Pope Francis continues Holy Communion abuses by appointing Archbishop Gregory leader in Washington, D.C. further emboldening abortionist Catholic politicians such as President Biden, Pelosi, senators, and scandalous Catholics.

13. Pope has not handled with scandals, including homosexuals, multiple banking scandals, leadership issues, pagan idols, the German Church Schism, Luther theology, Islam “equivalence” and rejects millions of Traditional Latin Catholics.

14.  The worldwide Synod process is involving the unbaptized and countless atheists, under Vatican leadership, who are reportedly heretics. This “open” process will give non-Christians a significant voice in Synod decisions.

Joseph Ratzinger in: Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II ,Vol. V., pg. 134 (Ed) H. Vorgrimler, New York, Herder and Herder, 1967). "Over the pope as expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there stands one's own conscience which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even the official church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism".

Saint Francis of Assisi, in the 13th century travelled to the Middle East, on a mission to convert the Sultan leader of Islam to Christianity. His mission failed! However, Francis’s holiness impressed the Sultan, so that he permitted only Franciscans the right to maintain Christian Holy sites in Israel from 1219 AD until the present day. Pope Francis went to the Islamic leader Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the most important imam in all (85%) of Sunni Islam “hand-in-hand in a symbol of interfaith brotherhood.” During that public meeting, Francis stated, “The ‘God’ of Allah and of Christianity are the same.” 

Pope Francis then declared, “The diversity of religions” that we see in the world was “willed by God”… “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives. Therefore, the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain religion or culture must be rejected, as too the imposition of a cultural way of life that others do not accept …” (Contradicting the Apostles Creed accepted by the Church Fathers said at every Mass: “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.”)

These are historical facts based on public quotes from Pope Francis and his new book, “Let Us Dream.” While the Pope evidently explores some troubling problems of our society, he presents mostly Socialist solutions. The Catholic leadership mission, we believe, primarily exists to preach the gospel and save souls. He speaks of “groups,” yet evades teaching morality and basic standards for individuals. His focus is often on “other faiths” while equivocating on any talk of conversions to Catholicism.

Without Orthodox Catholic leadership, which teaches morality by example, we can lose our “distinctiveness” vis-à-vis mainstream “compromised” Christians. Today’s youth are wandering in a sea of confusion crying-out for leadership. They will find it, and have found it in the traditional Catholic Church, which requires meaningful sacrifices.

Pope Francis appointed sixteen new cardinals to insure his legacy and control of the next Conclave to select a future pope. This list includes suspicious persons: Archbishop Arthur Roche, prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Includes Archbishop Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, president of the Governorate of the Vatican City State and of the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City. Especially, Bishop Robert Walter McElroy of San Diego, Ca.(publically known supporter of LGBQT. As of August 27 2022, there will be 132 electors eligible to vote in a Papal Conclave, 11 appointed by Saint John Paul II, 38 by Benedict XVI and 83 by Francis, who has named over 62% of those who will effectually elect his successor.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein recently raised eyebrows by stating that Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation had expanded the nature of the Petrine ministry and revolutionized the papacy. The Prefect of the Pontifical Household, who is also Benedict’s personal secretary, told a conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University on May 20 2022, that there are not two popes, but “de facto an expanded ministry — with an active member and a contemplative member.” [On April 2, 2020, Pope Francis dropped the essential title “Vicar of Christ” from the Pontifical Yearbook, calling it a “historical title.” He simply lists “Jorge Mario Bergoglio,” the name of the man who became Pope Francis in 2013.]

“This is why Benedict XVI has not given up either his name, or the white cassock,” Gänswein said. “This is why the correct name to address him even today is ‘Your Holiness.’ [This] is why he has not retired to a secluded monastery, but within the Vatican — as if he had only taken a step to the side to make room for his successor and a new stage in the history of the papacy. [By] that step, [he has] enriched with the ‘power station’ of his prayer and his compassion located in the Vatican Gardens.”

Archbishop Gänswein, who was speaking at the presentation of a new book by Roberto Regoli entitled Beyond the Crisis of the Church — The Pontificate of Benedict XVI. [He] also spoke of a “dramatic struggle” in the 2005 conclave that elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as pope, and acknowledged the existence of a so-called “St. Gallen Group,” which Cardinal Danneels of Brussels jokingly called “a kind of Mafia-club” opposed to Benedict’s election.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has publically stated, “I am not the vicar of Christ.” Therefore, our 265th pope remains Benedict XVI. No valid pope follows after Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy Spirit will resolve all major schisms within the Catholic Church!

Appendix (This author does NOT allow predictions to influence his faith. I leave to my readers to judge the following Saint’s alleged predictions:

St. Malachy was given much attention after the seemingly accurate predictions of the previous two popes before Pope Francis, which were attributed to him. But is the St. Malachy prophecy real, and does it truly predict the future? The answers to those questions are left to discernment and likely requires more research

Saint Malachy was born in 1094 at Armagh, Ireland and died on November 2, 1148. St. Malachy was canonized in 1190 by Pope Clement III. This was the first papal canonization of an Irish saint. The source of the prophecy attributed to him is still up for debate, but the following is how it is usually related:

While in Rome in 1139 St. Malachy received a vision showing him all the Popes from his day to the end of time. He wrote poetic descriptions of each of the pontiffs and presented the complete manuscript to Pope Innocent II, but the prophecies were forgotten in the Vatican until 1590. These mottoes in the prophecies usually refer to a family name, birthplace, a coat-of-arms, or an office held before election to the papacy.

For example, Pope Pius II, who was Pope for just 26 days in 1503, was prophesied by St. Malachy as “De Parvo Homine,” which means ‘from a little man.’ His family name was Piccolomini, Italian for “little man.” Also, St. Malachy sometimes use the Pope’s personal history to make a motto. Pope Clement XIII (1758), who had connections with the government of the Italian state of Umbria and whose emblem was a rose, was called by Malachy ‘Rosa Umbriae,’ the “Rose of Umbria.”

According to the St. Malachy prophecies, Pope Francis is the last pope. Below you will find the last 9 Popes as predicted by St. Malachy, each beginning with the motto ascribed to the pontiff.

1. Religion Laid Waste. BENEDICT XV. 1914-1922. Pope Benedict XV’s reign saw Communism move into Russia where religious life was laid waste, and World War I with the death of millions of Christians.

2. Unshaken Faith. PIUS XI. 1922-1939. Pope Pius XI faced mounting pressure from fascist and other evil powers in Germany and Italy, but he was an outspoken critic of Communism and Fascism. This, of course, enraged Hitler.

3. Angelic Shepherd. PIUS XII. 1939-1958. Pius XII was a very spiritual Pope and he received visions which have not been made public. Peter Bander says Pius XII “has emerged as one of the great Popes of all time,” and he “was in the truest sense of the word an Angelic Pastor to the flock…”

4. Pastor and Mariner. JOHN XXIII. 1958-1963. John was a beloved pastor to the world, and Patriarch of Venice, a mariner’s city.

5. Flower of Flowers. PAUL VI. 1963-1978. Paul’s coat-of-arms depicts three fleurs-de-lis (iris blossoms).

6. Of the Half Moon. JOHN PAUL I. 1978-1978. John Paul I was elected Pope on August 26, 1978, when there was a half moon. He reigned 33 days, about one month or one lunar cycle, and then died. He was born in the diocese of Belluno (beautiful moon) and was baptized Albino Luciani (white light). He became pope on August 26, 1978, when the moon appeared exactly half full. It was in its waning phase. He died the following month, soon after an eclipse of the moon.

7. The Labor of the Sun. JOHN PAUL II. 1978-2005. Pope John Paul II, like the sun, circled the globe many times in his evangelical travels. He was born on May 18, 1920, on the day of an eclipse of the sun. Likewise, his funeral took place on the day of a solar eclipse. Pope John Paul II was intensely devoted to the Blessed Mother, and in Revelations Mary is depicted as “a woman clothed with the sun” who gives birth to Jesus.

8. The Glory of the Olive. POPE BENEDICT XVI. 2005-2013 Pope Benedict XVI took his name from St. Benedict, whose order was known as the Olivetans. Most scholars concluded long before the election that St. Malachy’s prophecy alluded to a connection to St. Benedict. Also of note, Jesus gave his apocalyptic prophecy about the end of time from the Mount of Olives.

9. PETER THE ROMAN. Is a reference to Pope Francis? Perhaps time will tell.

Malachy added this to his final prophecy: “In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Petrus Romanus, who will feed his flock amid many tribulations; after which the seven-hilled city (The Vatican) will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. The End.”