June 20, 2006

Dear Fr. Peek,

I welcome this opportunity to respond to your questions in regard to the CMRI theological position.

You inquire:

“If there has been no successor to St. Peter for 48 years, then there must not be a successor to the Apostolic College ... How can the successor be perpetual if all the electors and those with the power and jurisdiction to order, organize, govern, and certify a valid election have no successor?”

I answer in two parts. First, an extended interregnum is not impossible or inconsistent with the promises of Christ. Please consider the following references:

Institutiones Theologiae Fundamentalis by A. Dorsch, 1928:

“The Church therefore is a society that is essentially monarchical. But this does not prevent the Church, for a short time after the death of a pope, or even for many years, from remaining deprived of her head, [vel etiam per plures annos capite suo destituta manei]. Her monarchical form also remains intact in this state . . .

“Thus the Church is then indeed a headless body. . . Her monarchical form of government remains, though then in a different way — that is, it remains incomplete and to be completed. The ordering of the whole to submission to her Primate is present, even though actual submission is not...

“For this reason, the See of Rome is rightly said to remain after the person sitting in it has died — for the See of Rome consists essentially in the rights of the Primate.

“These rights are an essential and necessary element of the Church. With them, moreover, the Primacy then continues, at least morally. The perennial physical presence of the person of the head, however, [perennitas autem physica personis principis] is not so strictly necessary” (de Ecclesia 2:196-7).

Also Fr. Edward J. O’Reilly, SJ, in The Relations of the Church to Society, 1882 stated in regard to the time of the Western Schism:

“We may here stop to inquire what is to be said of the position, at that time, of the three claimants, and their rights with regard to the Papacy. In the first place, there was all throughout, from the death of Gregory XI in 1378, a Pope — with the exception, of course, of the intervals between deaths and elections to fill up the vacancies thereby created. There was, I say, at every given time a Pope, really invested with the dignity of vicar of Christ and Head of the Church, whatever opinions might exist among many as to his genuineness; not that an interregnum covering the whole period would have been impossible or inconsistent with the promises of Christ, for this is by no means manifest, but that, as a matter of fact, there was not such an interregnum.”

As for your question about the impossibility of future papal election, please consider Monsignor Charles Journet in “The Church of the Incarnate Word,” who quoted Cardinal Cajetan, O.P.:

“During a vacancy of the Apostolic See, neither the Church nor the Council can contravene the provisions already laid down to determine the valid mode of election (Cardinal Cajetan, O.P., in De Comparata, cap. xiii, no. 202). However, in case of permission (for example if the Pope has provided nothing against it), or in case of ambiguity (for example, if it is unknown who the true Cardinals are or who the true Pope is, as was the case at the time of the Great Schism), the power ‘of applying the Papacy to such and such a person’ devolves on the universal Church, the Church of God.”

In the opening paragraph of your letter, you misunderstand statement No. 4 of the CMRI position. Of course, the Catholic Church possesses and will always possess the four marks: one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic; however, this new Conciliar Church of Vatican II is not the Catholic Church. Infallibility and indefectibility are properties of the true Catholic Church.

The “magisterium” of the Conciliar Church has erred in its teachings of false ecumenism and religious liberty and has promulgated the New Mass and the New Code of Canon Law (which legislates Communion to heretics and schismatics without their return to the Church).

If you recognize these errors as such, you must come to one of two conclusions:
           A) Either the magisterium is not infallible, or
           B) The modern hierarchy of Vatican II is not the magisterium.

Pope Leo XIII in Satis Cogitum taught:

“If the living Magisterium could in any way be false — an evident contradiction would follow, for then God would be the author of error.”

Vatican Council I made it perfectly clear:

“For the fathers of the Fourth Council of Constantinople, following closely in the footsteps of their predecessors, made this solemn profession: ‘The first condition of salvation is to keep the norm of the true faith. For it is impossible that the words of our Lord Jesus Christ who said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church” (Matt. 16:18) would not be verified. And their truth has been proved by the course of history, for in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been kept unsullied, and its teaching kept holy...’”

“. . . For they fully realized that this See of St. Peter always remains untainted by any error, according to the divine promise of our Lord and Savior made to the prince of his disciples, ‘I have prayed for thee, that thy faith may not fail; and do thou, when once thou has turned again, strengthen thy brethren’ (Luke 22:32).”

“Now this charism of truth and of never-failing faith was conferred upon St. Peter and his successors in this Chair, in order that they might perform their supreme office for the salvation of all; that by them the whole flock of Christ might be kept away from the poison of error and be nourished by the food of heavenly doctrine; that the occasion of schism might be removed, the whole Church preserved as one, and, secure on its foundation, stand firm against the gates of hell.”

Consider the following quote of Fr. Joseph Ratzinger from his book, Die Sakramentale Begrundung Christlicher Existenz (“The Sacramental Reason for Christian Existence”), 1966:

“Eucharistic devotion such as is noted in the silent visit by the devout in church must not be thought of as a conversation with God. This would assume that God was present there locally and in a confined way. To justify such an assertion shows a lack of understanding of the Christological mysteries of the very concept of God. This is repugnant to the serious thinking of the man who knows about the omnipresence of God. To go to church on the ground that one can visit God Who is present there is a senseless act which the modern man rightfully rejects.”

In light of Fr. Ratzinger’s denial of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, Pope Paul IV in his Bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio (16 February 1559) excludes such a one from the papacy:

“Further, if ever is should appear that any bishop (even one acting as an archbishop, patriarch or primate), or a cardinal of the Roman Church, or a legate (as mentioned above), or even the Roman Pontiff (whether prior to his promotion to cardinal, or prior to his election as Roman Pontiff), has beforehand deviated from the Catholic faith or fallen into any heresy, We enact, decree, determine and define:

— “Such promotion or election in and of itself, even with the agreement and unanimous consent of all the cardinals, shall be null, legally invalid and void.

— “It shall not be possible for such a promotion or election to be deemed valid or to be valid, neither through reception of office, consecration, subsequent administration, or possession, nor even through the putative enthronement of a Roman Pontiff himself, together with the veneration and obedience accorded him by all.

— “Such promotion or election, shall not through any lapse of time in the foregoing situation, be considered even partially legitimate in any way . . .

— “Each and all of the words, as acts, laws, appointments of those so promoted or elected — and indeed, whatsoever flows therefrom — shall be lacking in force, and shall grant no stability and legal power to anyone whatsoever.

— “Those so promoted or elected, by that very fact and without the need to make any further declaration, shall be deprived of any dignity, position, honor, title, authority, office and power.”

One objection raised against our position of the vacancy of the Apostolic See is that heresy is principally a crime (“delictum”) against canon law — and a pope, as supreme legislator for canon law, is not himself subject to it.

However, the case of a heretical pope, rather, pertains to heresy as a sin against divine law — for the canonists clearly state that it is divine law that precludes a heretic from obtaining or retaining papal authority:

“Heretics and schismatics are barred from the Supreme Pontificate by the Divine Law itself, because, although by divine law they are not considered incapable of participating in a certain type of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, nevertheless, they must certainly be regarded as excluded from occupying the throne of the Apostolic See, which is the infallible teacher of the truth of the faith and the center of ecclesiastical unity” (Marato, Institutions Iuris Canonici [1921] 2:784).

“‘Appointment to the Office of the Primacy, 1. What is required by divine law for this appointment ... Also required for validity is that the one elected be a member of the Church; hence, heretics and apostates (at least public ones) are excluded....”

“If indeed such a situation would happen, he [the Roman Pontiff] would, by divine law, fall from office without any sentence, indeed, without even a declaratory one. He who openly professes heresy places himself outside the Church, and it is not likely that Christ would preserve the Primacy of His Church in one so unworthy. Wherefore, if the Roman Pontiff were to profess heresy, before any condemnatory sentence (which would be impossible anyway) he would lose his authority” (Coronata, Institutiones luris Canonici [1950] 1:312,316).

Given the hypothesis of a heretical pope, says Cardinal Billot, such a pope would automatically lose his power because he would be cast outside the body of the Church “by his own will” (De Ecclesia Christi, 5th ed., 1927, 1:632)

It is not a crime against canon law, that deposes a heretical pope, but his public sin against divine law.

This leads me to ask you in return. How do you function as a traditional priest without faculties from the local Vatican II bishop who is in union with your pope? Do you have permission from your pope? Why are you a traditional priest in the first place? Is it because you reject the New Mass and Vatican II? How can you sit in judgment of the “Apostolic See,” which is clearly against Vatican Council I? For the First Vatican Council taught:

“We declare that the judgment of the Apostolic See, whose authority is unsurpassed, is not subject to review by anyone; nor is anyone allowed to pass judgment on its decision.”

If you reject the Novus Ordo Missae and the errors of Vatican II, are you not passing judgment on the teachings of the “Apostolic See”?

Sincerely in Christ,
Most Rev. Mark A. Pivarunas, CMRI

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