INTELLIGENTI PAUCA - How Benedict XVI has revealed the Impeded See

INTELLIGENTI PAUCA - How Benedict XVI has revealed the Impeded See

The Latin motto "Intelligenti pauca" may be easily rendered in English by the proverb "A few words to the wise". And yet the Holy Father Benedict XVI left us not a few words, but rather quite a lot of words to help us understand the difficult canonical question of his resignation.

As we illustrated in the short documentary "Dies Irae", which is meant to be viewed in tandem with this video, Pope Benedict — who was being forced to get out of the way by strong international powers and by the fifth column of the Saint Gallen mafia that was promoting Bergoglio — made sure that the Cardinals themselves, by convening an abusive conclave on the 1st of March 2013, unknowingly placed him in an Impeded See (Sede Impedita).

This is a canonical status that is an alternative to the Sede Vacante, in which the Pope is not abdicated, but is instead a prisoner, confined and/or exiled. However, in the situation of an Impeded See, the Pope remains fully the Pope. So much so that if there is an attempt to elect another Pope, the latter man actually becomes the antipope. And thus the pseudo-pontificate of Francis will be annulled.

During the nine years as Pope Emeritus — that is, as an impeded Pope — Benedict XVI disseminated by means of numerous books, letters and interviews, hundreds of phrases and expressions that allowed him to always tell the truth. His words, in turn, allowed us to reconstruct the complex canonical affair over the course of three years of investigation, which was then summarized in the best-selling book "The Ratzinger Code".

These messages were constructed by the German Pope thanks to a boundless depth of culture, a meticulously logical intelligence, and an extraordinary spiritual, theological and prophetic depth. In fact, what we have termed the "Ratzinger Code" is actually a communicative style that imitates the style of Jesus Christ, who was often not immediately understood even by His apostles.

As you know, the Savior spoke to those who had "ears to hear", often telling parables or teaching by means of words that contained initial misunderstandings and amphibologies — that is, expressions that have two meanings. Benedict XVI, however, has even included accents of refined humor in his communicative code. And it is not surprising to learn that as a young man, his favorite actor was the German humorist Karl Valentin, who specialized in dismantling sentences and drawing brilliant puns.

The messages of Pope Ratzinger were very diverse and varied. There were some for all levels of intelligence, from the easiest and most immediate, which do not require any intellectual effort, to others that are more complex to resolve and require in-depth study. The simplest amphibological message is the one he repeated for nine years: "There is only one Pope", without ever explaining whether it was Francis or himself.

In a similar way, Pope Benedict always amphibologically repeated that he had freely renounced his ministry. But which one? The munus ministry or the ministerium ministry? Both Latin words are translated into English and Italian by the word "ministry", but they have a very different meaning with destructive juridical consequences. If the Pope loses his munus, he has abdicated; whereas if he loses his ministerium, as happened with Benedict XVI, he is impeded.

Among the most obvious messages, few people are aware that from 2013 to 2022, Pope Benedict regularly imparted his Apostolic Blessing in writing — something that is an exclusive prerogative of the Pope in office. Ergo, if there was only one Pope and Benedict personally imparted the Apostolic Blessing numerous times, it's not too difficult to figure out who the Pope was during those nine years.

Other statements, however, are absolutely unambiguous, such as the one contained in a letter sent in response to a member of the faithful through the Secretariat of State. Let's read it together: "Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has received your letter with which you wished to address expressions of filial affection to him. Grateful for the sentiments of devotion manifested, the Supreme Pontiff encourages you to turn your gaze to the Heavenly Father". As you can see, the Pope Emeritus was without doubt the Supreme Pontiff — the same subject who was moved by the sentiments of filial devotion of the faithful.

We also recall one of Ratzinger's most immediately accessible codes, the one he used in his 2016 book interview "Last Conversations", in which the journalist Peter Seewald asks the Holy Father: "One imagines that the Pope, the Vicar of Christ on earth, must have a particularly close, intimate relationship with the Lord". To which Benedict answers: "Yes, it should be so, and it's not like I have the feeling that He is far away". As you read in his answer, Benedict XVI implicitly accepted the premise of the question, namely that he was the Pope and the Vicar of Christ.

Even more explicit were Benedict's words during his last audience on February 27th, 2013, when he recalled his election in 2005: "The 'always' is a 'forever'. There can be no longer a return to the private sphere. My decision to renounce the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this". The Holy Father stated explicitly: he renounced only the active exercise of the ministry, that is the ministerium. But this resignation did not revoke being Pope, the munus. He thus declared it openly, but at the time no one had ears to hear.

Let us listen to him once again: "I am not abandoning the cross, but remaining in a new way at the side of the crucified Lord. I no longer bear the power of office for the government of the Church, but in the service of prayer I remain, so to speak, in the enclosure of Saint Peter". Having renounced the practical power of the office, removed from him by the Impeded See, Benedict did not come down from the cross: he remained in the "enclosure of Saint Peter", a term that is clearly evocative of a state of imprisonment.

Now let's move on to a slightly higher level, that of the so-called "average messages", for which only a little logical common sense is required. Particularly witty is the response that the Pope gave in 2016 to the then-vaticanista of La Stampa, Andrea Tornielli, who had asked him why he had kept the white robe and the pontifical name: "The maintenance of the white dress and the name Benedict is a simply practical thing: at the time of the renunciation there were no other clothes available. After all, I wear the white garment in a way clearly distinct from that of the Pope".

Now, can anyone really believe that in the three years since the Declaratio, Pope Benedict had not been able to find a black cassock of a bishop or a cardinal anywhere in Rome? Of course, since Benedict had not abdicated but rather was impeded and had always remained the Pope, the most practical thing was to keep both his name and his white robe. However, Pope Ratzinger took off his mantelletta and his fascia in order to distinguish his dress from that of the normal Pope in full possession of the ministerium.

In the same 2016 book, Seewald then refers to the prophecy of the medieval bishop Saint Malachy, who compiled a list of pontiffs that, according to certain interpretations, ended with Pope Benedict. Seewald's question: "According to this list, the papacy would end with your pontificate. What if you were effectively the last person to represent the figure of the Pope as we have known him to be so far?". Benedict's response was: "Tutto può essere — Everything is possible".

This is an incredible answer because, according to the official narrative, after Benedict there was Pope Francis, the 266th Roman Pontiff. But Pope Ratzinger does not consider him in the least to be a canonical Pope. He does in fact consider Bergoglio to be an antipapa. This dramatic message of Pope Ratzinger contains all the uncertainty of the future of the Church: if the next conclave does not include only real Cardinals appointed by real Popes before 2013, Bergoglio's anti-papal succession line will continue, without the Petrine munus, and the visible canonical Church will be finished.

Then there are some messages that were entrusted by the Pope to Archbishop Gänswein. One of the most ingenious was provided in response to the question of a Bergoglian priest who asked Bishop Gänswein: "When Pope Benedict celebrates Mass, with whom does he say he is in communion with?". This is a fundamental question that, in a Bergoglian narrative, would have involved the most obvious and direct answer: "Benedict XVI celebrates in communion with Pope Francis". Instead, here is Archbishop Gänswein's tortuous response: "Pope Benedict has never mentioned any other name in the Canon of the Mass, and has never named himself in the Canon".

The phrase is ingeniously articulated to refer to the liturgical formula with which the Pope celebrates his Mass: "In communion with me, your unworthy servant". In this case, in fact, Benedict would have named neither his own name nor any other name in the Canon of the Mass. The definitive composition of the "busilis" or puzzling point about Pope Benedict's Mass was provided by an unfortunate episode in November 2022. Don Alessandro Minutella, the priest who first sounded the alarm to the world that Bergoglio was not the real Pope, received a letter written on the official letterhead of Archbishop Gänswein, in which Benedict XVI allegedly wrote that he was rebuking him by stating that the Pope Emeritus had always celebrated in communion with Francis.

We immediately understood that the letter was false by way of an improbable sender. But after a few hours, Archbishop Gänswein himself denied everything by calling the letter a fake and a lie, pure fake news. He meant not only the document itself, but also the content of the letter was a complete lie. Therefore, if it was a lie that Benedict celebrated in communion with Francis, by force of circumstances he must have celebrated in communion with "me, your unworthy servant", because he was the real Pope.

Gänswein said that Minutella was a "madman, theologically out of his mind". Now, since Christ in the Gospel of Matthew preaches that whoever calls his brother crazy will be thrown into Gehenna, it is very unlikely that Gänswein's use of the term "madman" was an offensive and gratuitous insult directed at the Sicilian theologian. The explicit reference is instead to the theological meaning of madness: the well-known mystical theme of "folly for God" — that is, the prophetic affirmation of the truth even at the cost of paying personally.

But even after his death, Pope Benedict left other eloquent signs about the fact that he had always remained the only Pope. Not only in the readings chosen for his funeral Mass, where both in the first and in the second reading we are invited to wait "a little more time", waiting for a coming reversal of the scenario, but also in the Rogito or deed that was placed in his casket. It is a scroll that summarizes in brief the life of the deceased pontiff. When the Rogito arrived chronologically at 2013, it quotes in full his Declaratio in Latin, without providing any other explanation, and goes on simply to say that Benedict lived his last years in prayer and meditation. There is no mention of resignation, renunciation of the papacy or abdication.

This is absolutely incredible for the official biographical account of a Pope who, according to the common narrative, was supposedly the first Pope to abdicate in 600 years. By the way, we have already recalled in the video "Dies Irae": Pope Ratzinger claimed twice in "Last Conversations" that he was the first Pope in a thousand years to have resigned. If he had really abdicated, however, he would have been the first Pope to have resigned after exactly 598 years, since the last Pope to abdicate was Gregory XII in 1415. But in fact, as we know, Pope Ratzinger did not abdicate at all: he renounced the ministerium, just as Pope Benedict VIII had done exactly a thousand years earlier, in 1013.

The difference lies in the fact that Benedict VIII renounced a ministerium that he had conferred on himself without waiting for the Holy Roman Emperor's placet, while Benedict XVI, a thousand years later, renounced a ministerium that was going to be taken away from him by the Cardinals who had involuntarily placed him in an Impeded See. In fact, the book specifies that Pope Ratzinger is the first Pope in history to have taken this step in full possession of his powers.

A typical objection is: why didn't Benedict speak clearly? For two reasons. First, because he was prevented from doing so, and a prisoner cannot do and say exactly what he wants. Second, for a spiritual reason: as he himself explained to the German periodical Herder Korrespondenz in 2021, it was necessary to separate believers from non-believers. This idea of the separation of believers is found in one of his theologians of reference, the African Ticonius, who in the 4th century wrote a commentary on the Book of Apocalypse.

According to Ticonius, the "church of the devil" is hidden within the Church of Christ, carried out by a certain number of traitorous bishops. According to Ticonius, this church of the devil will come to light only after a great discessio or withdrawal of the Church of Christ, which is exactly what Pope Benedict did by withdrawing into self-exile in an Impeded See. Thanks to the Ratzinger Code which explains the canonical question, Pope Benedict is thus even today enlisting an army of new Catholics: people endowed with intelligence, intuition, logical common sense, faith, trust in the Pope and courage.

All the others who are not interested in the truth for various reasons will say that it is a conspiracy theory, an exploitation, or a bunch of novel fantasies, refusing to ascertain and discuss even the most obvious realities. But as the Gospel says: "If these are silent, the stones will cry out".