Part 3 of Exclusive Transcription: Is Benedict XVI Still the Pope? Dr. Edmund Mazza & Patrick Coffin
https://www.patrickcoffin.media/is-benedict-xvi-still-the-pope/
Patrick Coffin:
“The wolves,” seems to be an open secret was a reference to the St. Gallen mafia and the financial improprieties and crimes that were going on. He couldn’t even write to other dicastery prefects, because his mail was intercepted. He was kind of a Vatican prisoner. Who was compromised in several different ways. I don’t mean that in the ordinary sense of compromise, but he was bound up in all kinds of red tape, that he couldn’t snippet himself out of and…
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Well, I’ll tell you another interesting thing Patrick, real quick here. If we think that when he said, “Pray for me that I don’t flee for fear of the wolves,” if we think that he’s leaving breadcrumbs or Easter eggs, I got another Easter egg for you. He could have chosen to resign on any day of the year.
Patrick Coffin:
Mm-hmm (Affirmative).
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Right? He was the Pope. He could have chosen the 4th of July or August 23rd, whatever. He chose February 28th in the year of our Lord 2013. Well, guess what that is an anniversary of? That is actually the 80th anniversary of the Reichstag Fire Decree for the German people. Now let’s remember Joseph Razinger is a German. And what’s the significance of that? Well, back in the 1930’s the Nazi’s were competing with the communists to see who would take over. You know and turn Germany into a police state. Well the Reichstag, the equivalent of our congress, Capitol Hill, was set on fire. And to this day we don’t know exactly whether it was the communists or the Nazi’s. You know making it look like the communists did it, but either way, whether it was the national socialists or the international socialists. On February 28th 1933, President Hindenburg of Germany issued what’s called the Reichstag fire decree where he basically suspended the constitution and constitutional rights and privileges. And this was how the Nazi’s really; this was the catalyst that allowed them to come into power.
Now what’s interesting is that when Georg Ganswein, again, another German in his speech at the Gregorianum in May, 2016, when he’s talking about what Benedict did, he says, “As of February, 2013, the papal ministry is no longer what it was before. It is and remains the foundation of the Catholic Church, and nonetheless, it is a foundation that Benedict has profoundly and lastingly transformed in his pontificate of exception.” Now, he didn’t use English in his speech. What he said in German is [German language] which apparently in German means, well in English, we could translate it as “Pontificate of exception,” but, really what it means strictly in German is “outlaw papacy,” or again a suspension of the constitution or the suspension of ordinary laws. There are various, various ways we could interpret this, but there’s a canonist by the name of Guido Ferro Canale from Genoa and he pointed this out in Sandro Magister’s blog back in, I guess it was 2014.
Anyway, he connects… There’s a whole scholarly literature on the declaration of martial law or the outlaw situation. Anyway, all I’m trying to say is this strikes me as odd. And if you’re looking for breadcrumbs, maybe that’s in there somewhere, that Benedict was trying to give us a hint.
Patrick Coffin:
That his renunciation would inaugurate a kind of lawless papacy? How do you understand that?
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Not lawless like the old West, but lawless in the sense of something beyond the normal situation. In other words, the chief executive, when he invokes something like this, he’s destroying the constitution to save the constitution. It’s one of those things where you cannot in advance stipulate something. It’s a situation in place that the state, in order to continue existing, you’ve got to do something that on the face of it, seems to go against the constitution. I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it.
In my early research on the subject, this phrase and other things led me to believe that perhaps Benedict had separated Vicar of Christ from Bishop of Rome, and maybe that’s why he still wears white and still gives apostolic blessings.
Patrick Coffin:
Feeling himself to be the former, but not the latter.
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Exactly, now what I looked up in my research is that if you look at, for example before Vatican II, between Vatican I and Vatican II If you look at dogmatic manuals of theology. I looked at about three or four of them that are solid, they all say that the majority of theologians believe Christ or Peter constructed Vicar of Christ and Bishop of Rome in such a way that they’re inseparable. But a minority of theologians believe, and have believed that it is possible for a Pope to separate Vicar of Christ from the Diocese of Rome and so I began to think, “Well, maybe that explains what Ganswein is talking about with the Immaculate Conception and what a tremendous thing Benedict did and why Benedict still wears white and why he still gives apostolic blessings.
But the thing is this, let’s just assume that the majority of the Church’s theologians throughout history had been correct and you cannot separate the Vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter from the Diocese of Rome, that they’re tied together you can never lose them.
Patrick Coffin:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Then his stipulating that he’s only gonna resign to become Bishop Emeritus or Bishop of Rome Emeritus or Pope Emeritus, would mean what? If a man becomes Bishop of Rome, what does he automatically become? Vicar of Christ. So if a man becomes Bishop of Rome Emeritus, what does he automatically become? Vicar Emeritus of Christ. Does that logically follow? And if that’s true, then not only would Benedict be claiming, the way he does claim publicly in writing, that he still has an ontological connection to the Diocese of Rome that can never be severed as Bishop Emeritus, but he would also have to claim a spiritual share of Vicarship of Christ only as the Emeritus Vicar of Christ.
Again, we thank Dr.
Ed Mazza and Patrick Coffin for giving the Catholic Monitor permission to
transcribe the whole show and post on our site. Above
is a brief taste of the show. The hour and half show transcript is over
thirty pages long so it has been laid out into four parts. This morning, we
will give part three.
Our plan is to do a series of posts examining if Francis is possibly an anti-pope or as The Coffin Show title stated "Is Benedict XVI Still Pope?" using the show to look at that possibility, but first we will present the four parts. Here is part three:
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
That’s the functional misunderstanding. The munus enters into your very being. In fact, he has repeatedly said in interviews like the 2020 Seewald book, the latest Sewald interview with him, he insists that as Pope Emeritus, he has a spiritual ontological link to the diocese of Rome that can never be separated and done away with. But again, so he can be off about something without actually being a heretic. So I just want to be clear, I’m not casting aspersions, but that being said, he comes very close.
For example, in his again, Principles of Catholic Theology, he talks about how groundbreaking it was when Pope Paul VI met with the patriarch of Constantinople, right?
Patrick Coffin:
Mm-hmm (Affirmative)
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
In 1964, I think it was.
Patrick Coffin:
Athenagoras and-
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Exactly.
Patrick Coffin:
Did the mutual lifting of the schisms? Excommunications, I should say.
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Precisely.
Patrick Coffin:
Yeah
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
But listen to what, and again it’s a brief quote. Listen to what Ratzinger has to say, “When Athenagorus embraced Paul VI, he used a formula from St. Ignatius of Antioch. When St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the bishop of Rome, in the early 2nd century, he talked about that See that presides in charity, Right? That presides in love. The word, I’ll just quote from Ratzinger. “It would be worth our while to consider whether this archaic confession of Ignatius, which has nothing to do with the primacy of jurisdiction, but confesses a primacy of honor and agape.”
Patrick Coffin:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Charity. “Might not be recognized as a formula that adequately reflects the position Rome occupies in the church.” I mean that’s going against Vatican I. Vatican I talked about the primacy of jurisdiction. And then he goes on to say. “Holy courage requires that prudence be combined with audacity. The kingdom of God suffers violence.”
Well, oddly enough, Ganswein in his characterization of what Benedict did on February 11th or February 28th, his last day on the job, he uses in his May, 2016 speech the same vocabulary to describe this expanded Petrine ministry. In fact, Ganswein analogizes what Benedict did to what God did with Mary’s Immaculate Conception.
Let me give you a quote from Ganswein. “It was fitting. God could do it, therefore he did it. In this case, so did Pope Benedict.” And then he goes on to say words and phrases like, “The papacy has been profoundly transformed. This was extraordinary courage, spectacular, unexpected, a new phase, a turning point, historic, never been a step like it, Unprecedented.” Just because the Pope resigned? No, there’s a lot more going on here than just a simple ordinary resignation from a position in the church.
Patrick Coffin:
It’s like he’s saying on the one hand, this should not be a controversy because it’s an actual, literal, truthful resignation and if you question it he’ll phrase it in as he has in print, as an accusation, rather than as a dubia, we’re just raising our eyebrows, inquiring about the truth of it. On the other hand, he’s saying it’s not renounceable.
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
That’s the thing. People again look askance at scholars like myself and say, What do you think your doing? Do you think that Benedict didn’t know how to resign? Do you think that he didn’t know what he was doing? He says it was free. He says just accept him at his word, but that’s the thing Patrick. We are accepting him at his word and his word is that there’s more to go on than meets the eye here. He’s been very open about it, like you say and substantial error means again, your will chose something, when your intellect was operating on error. And that means that your will was not free. So Canon 332.2, star date point 2 says, “In order for a papal resignation to be valid, it’s got to be free,” but according to the church’s moral theology, if you commit substantial error your will is not free.
Patrick Coffin:
Yeah, we’re not even talking about his cryptic mention of the need for prayers. The day he was elected Pope, “Pray for me that I might not flee the wolves, out of fear.”
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Precisely.
Patrick Coffin:
“The wolves,” seems to be an open secret was a reference to the St. Gallen mafia and the financial improprieties and crimes that were going on. He couldn’t even write to other dicastery prefects, because his mail was intercepted. He was kind of a Vatican prisoner. Who was compromised in several different ways. I don’t mean that in the ordinary sense of compromise, but he was bound up in all kinds of red tape, that he couldn’t snippet himself out of and…
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Well, I’ll tell you another interesting thing Patrick, real quick here. If we think that when he said, “Pray for me that I don’t flee for fear of the wolves,” if we think that he’s leaving breadcrumbs or Easter eggs, I got another Easter egg for you. He could have chosen to resign on any day of the year.
Patrick Coffin:
Mm-hmm (Affirmative).
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Right? He was the Pope. He could have chosen the 4th of July or August 23rd, whatever. He chose February 28th in the year of our Lord 2013. Well, guess what that is an anniversary of? That is actually the 80th anniversary of the Reichstag Fire Decree for the German people. Now let’s remember Joseph Razinger is a German. And what’s the significance of that? Well, back in the 1930’s the Nazi’s were competing with the communists to see who would take over. You know and turn Germany into a police state. Well the Reichstag, the equivalent of our congress, Capitol Hill, was set on fire. And to this day we don’t know exactly whether it was the communists or the Nazi’s. You know making it look like the communists did it, but either way, whether it was the national socialists or the international socialists. On February 28th 1933, President Hindenburg of Germany issued what’s called the Reichstag fire decree where he basically suspended the constitution and constitutional rights and privileges. And this was how the Nazi’s really; this was the catalyst that allowed them to come into power.
Now what’s interesting is that when Georg Ganswein, again, another German in his speech at the Gregorianum in May, 2016, when he’s talking about what Benedict did, he says, “As of February, 2013, the papal ministry is no longer what it was before. It is and remains the foundation of the Catholic Church, and nonetheless, it is a foundation that Benedict has profoundly and lastingly transformed in his pontificate of exception.” Now, he didn’t use English in his speech. What he said in German is [German language] which apparently in German means, well in English, we could translate it as “Pontificate of exception,” but, really what it means strictly in German is “outlaw papacy,” or again a suspension of the constitution or the suspension of ordinary laws. There are various, various ways we could interpret this, but there’s a canonist by the name of Guido Ferro Canale from Genoa and he pointed this out in Sandro Magister’s blog back in, I guess it was 2014.
Anyway, he connects… There’s a whole scholarly literature on the declaration of martial law or the outlaw situation. Anyway, all I’m trying to say is this strikes me as odd. And if you’re looking for breadcrumbs, maybe that’s in there somewhere, that Benedict was trying to give us a hint.
Patrick Coffin:
That his renunciation would inaugurate a kind of lawless papacy? How do you understand that?
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Not lawless like the old West, but lawless in the sense of something beyond the normal situation. In other words, the chief executive, when he invokes something like this, he’s destroying the constitution to save the constitution. It’s one of those things where you cannot in advance stipulate something. It’s a situation in place that the state, in order to continue existing, you’ve got to do something that on the face of it, seems to go against the constitution. I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it.
In my early research on the subject, this phrase and other things led me to believe that perhaps Benedict had separated Vicar of Christ from Bishop of Rome, and maybe that’s why he still wears white and still gives apostolic blessings.
Patrick Coffin:
Feeling himself to be the former, but not the latter.
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Exactly, now what I looked up in my research is that if you look at, for example before Vatican II, between Vatican I and Vatican II If you look at dogmatic manuals of theology. I looked at about three or four of them that are solid, they all say that the majority of theologians believe Christ or Peter constructed Vicar of Christ and Bishop of Rome in such a way that they’re inseparable. But a minority of theologians believe, and have believed that it is possible for a Pope to separate Vicar of Christ from the Diocese of Rome and so I began to think, “Well, maybe that explains what Ganswein is talking about with the Immaculate Conception and what a tremendous thing Benedict did and why Benedict still wears white and why he still gives apostolic blessings.
But the thing is this, let’s just assume that the majority of the Church’s theologians throughout history had been correct and you cannot separate the Vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter from the Diocese of Rome, that they’re tied together you can never lose them.
Patrick Coffin:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Then his stipulating that he’s only gonna resign to become Bishop Emeritus or Bishop of Rome Emeritus or Pope Emeritus, would mean what? If a man becomes Bishop of Rome, what does he automatically become? Vicar of Christ. So if a man becomes Bishop of Rome Emeritus, what does he automatically become? Vicar Emeritus of Christ. Does that logically follow? And if that’s true, then not only would Benedict be claiming, the way he does claim publicly in writing, that he still has an ontological connection to the Diocese of Rome that can never be severed as Bishop Emeritus, but he would also have to claim a spiritual share of Vicarship of Christ only as the Emeritus Vicar of Christ.
Patrick Coffin:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
But actually this is formal error because in the 17th century during the height of the Jansenist heresy, a pope came out and said there’s only one vicar of Christ and he doesn’t share power because the Jansenists were trying to say that Paul was just as much the leader of the church as Peter was because they were both in Rome. Long story short, the church is on record as saying that you cannot share Vicar of Christ, but I would argue from my research so far to claim to be Bishop of Rome Emeritus or Pope Emeritus is to simultaneously claim to be Vicar of Christ Emeritus, and that’s a complete fiction. That’s a unicorn. It doesn’t exist. Again that would be substantial error because I argue he only resigned because he thought he was still going to be papal, he was still going to share in the shadow of Peter, so to speak.
Patrick Coffin:
And providentially, he foreshadowed all of this in his writings from the 1960’s and 70’s. We can look back and see revealed the foundation of this thinking, this minority version of identity.
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Exactly.
Patrick Coffin:
Okay.
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
What I hope my own contribution to this as a PhD and somebody who’s taught college for 20 years and I wrote a book on St. Raymond of Penafort, who actually codified Canon law back in 1235, and it stood until 1917. I hope my patron St. Raymond is looking out for me, but what I hope my contribution to this discussion is we’re not simply quibbling over munus versus ministerium. That is how this discussion started, but we’re way past that now. Anybody who does a deep dive into Benedict’s thinking will see here that we’re way past that. Like you said, we can go back to Vatican II and see that his ecclesiology is most likely erroneous, and if his ecclesiology is erroneous, it means that he probably committed substantial error, which means that his renunciation is probably invalid.
Patrick Coffin:
Okay, now I have a problem because I have 14 different possible follow-ups to what you just said. Micah Hikeson over at Life Site News in commenting on, I believe it was the 2020 biography, where Pete Seewald says that that it’s kind of a myth that Ratzinger was sort of progressive at Vatican II, he was part of the German Rhine River Nouveau theology, the new theologians. I’ll put a link to what that means in the show notes. Congar, von Balthasar, let’s see Karl Rahner, Schillebeeckx.
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Patrick Coffin:
Anything new or neo gets my attention and not in a good way.
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Not in a Matrix way.
Patrick Coffin:
Right, that’s right. Ganswein’s saying, loading up all of these extraordinary and new and innovative and profound and apocalyptic. Whatever the phrases he used to show how radical this new understanding, there’s that word again, new. The idea of Ratzinger from the sixties and seventies, as progressive, then he was appointed by Paul VI as the Archbishop of Munich and that began his churchman career as a sitting Bishop. Then of course, he was brought to Rome by John Paul II as the prefect for the congregation for the doctrine of the faith. Then he became sort of traditionalist and fervently conservative. Seewald, if memory serves, says that’s not really true. He never really stopped being a progressive. In fact, he opposed the anti-modernist oath that was instituted. Am I misremembering? Have you heard this before?
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
I have heard this before so I don’t think you’re misremembering.
Patrick Coffin:
I’m going to put the link, just go to patrickcoffin.media. This occurred to me as you were talking.
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Again to show his new Nouvelle Theologie street credit, listen to what he has to say about the teaching of Vatican II, specifically on this issue of munus and ministerium He says that the teaching of Vatican II, “Breaches the wall that separated the Middle Ages from the early church, and hence the Latin West from the Churches of the East.” Other words, Benedict by being fixated on the fact that to teach to sanctify and to govern is given at that sacred consecration or ordination, and that’s enough really, that’s the important thing, not the grant of jurisdiction that you might get.
Patrick Coffin:
Mm-hmm (Affirmative).
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
He’s trying to get back at the early church. That’s the claim of the Nouvelle Theologians. They want to get back to the early church, and this is what he says. He says, “We see the reason why future references to Peter Lombard, Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas Aquinas will no longer be meaningful in this issue.” What you talking about Willis? He’s chucking Peter Lombard, who wrote the Sentences, Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas Aquinas out the window on this issue? Again, this just shows how far left of center he was.
He says, This passage, the passage from Vatican II that he’s talking about is the one I brought up before, Lumen Gentium 22, where he says, “This inconspicuous little statement that membership in the College of Bishops is attained through sacramental ordination and communion with the head and members of the College. This statement gives Episcopal Collegiality a double basis, but in such a way that these two routes are inseparably connected. The rigid, there’s that word again, rigid. The rigid juxtaposition of sacrament and jurisdiction of consecrating power and power of governance, that had existed since the Middle Ages and was one of the symptoms marking the Western separation of the churches from the East, has finally been eliminated. Our century’s liturgical and theological renewal has removed the basis for this division. We have no more right to speak of a ruling power neatly separated from the sacramental ministry than we have a right to speak of a separation between the mystical and Eucharistic body of Christ.” I rest my case.
Patrick Coffin:
So he’s already bifurcated the two in his thinking, dating back 60 years.
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Precisely, I’m willing to debate this to try to get to the truth of the matter with whoever wants to debate me on this, but I think there’s a very strong case, that you could even read it in his decaratio. Let me go back to his actual English translation and the actual wording of… Did I lose it? I think I might have lost it. Oh, here I have it here.
He’s very careful in his declartio of February 11th, 2013 to never specifically renounce the munus itself. In other words, in that Latin quote that we began the show with, he says, “I’m no longer strong enough to wield the munus, practically speaking,” But he actually never renounces the munus itself. What he eventually says is, “Well aware of the seriousness of this act and with full freedom, I declare that I renounced the ministry of Bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter.” Now let’s look at the Latin. Bene conscious ponderis huius actus plena libertate declare me ministerio Episcopi Romae, Successoris Sancti Petri. Now, he used munus throughout his declartio, but at the very end in the Latin, he drops munus and inserts ministerio. Why? I think it’s plain as day. He does want to reject the active words and deeds, he’s no longer capable of that, but ontologically, he’s not rejecting the munus. As he says in his interview with Seewald and as Ganswein says in his speech, before and after his resignation, he understood and understands his current ministry as a participation in the Petrine munus. It’s why he wears white, it’s why he gives apostolic blessings, and it’s why Francesco Bergolio is now seriously thinking, rumor has it of coming out with a modal proprio, trying to either eliminate Pope Emeritus or talk about it in some legal sense, but that’s why I think this topic is especially germane to talk about right now.
PART 3 OF 4 [01:09:04]