Dear Art:

I would like to make something clear, I do not and never have believed that I am more Catholic then the Pope. But, if by this you mean JPII than the answer to the question is a definite yes. As I would think any sincere person would recognize that John Paul the second, a.k.a. Karol Wojtyla, is not a Pope.  A Pope must be a Catholic and this immediately disqualifies Karol Wojtyla, for he has no more to do with the Catholic Church than the Dalai Lama or the Chief Rabbi.  I will say very plainly that his church, I will use a small c, is not the Roman Catholic Church but is a heretical sect.  Now I am sure that you have heard arguments for the Sedevacantist position, but before I answer your letter I first want to point out to you what a Catholic is and why JPII is not a Pope.

The Catholic Church holds truth to be a matter of what conforms with reality and has always condemned the proposition that the truth of a statement depends on the number of people who happen to believe in it. The Catholic Church's definition of a Catholic is someone who has been baptized and believes and adheres to the teachings revealed by Jesus Christ to His Apostles - teachings which in sum total are known as the Deposit of Faith - and handed down by the Apostles and their successors without any alteration, addition or diminution, through generation after generation right up to the present day. We can address ourselves anew to the question of whether or not John Paul II is a Roman Catholic by asking ourselves: does he believe wholly and without reservation in everything that, according to the Catholic Church, was revealed by Jesus Christ to the Apostles and has been handed down to the present day? Do any of his beliefs contradict traditional teachings of the Church? For not even the infallible head of the Church can do that. If he purported to, he would be merely tacitly asserting that, contrary perhaps to appearances, he was not the infallible head of the Church; for one of the few qualifications a person needs in order to be Pope is that he be a Catholic. "A man cannot be the head," stated St. Robert Bellarmine succinctly, "of that of which he is not a member. "I only need to produce one example and one example is therefore all that I shall produce. At the Second Vatican Council, held some thirty years ago, a number of documents were issued recording the beliefs of those who signed them, and one of those documents is known as the Declaration on Religious Liberty. It includes these words: "The Council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person... This right to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed. Thus it is to become a civil right." Now it may appear to the reader that this is an eminently and obviously sound, humane, sensible, reasonable and wise statement to have made. To Catholics, however, such considerations, although important, are secondary to the main issue, which is: "Is this stated principle in conformity with traditional Catholic teaching?"

And of course the reader will have guessed that it is not.  I quote from Quanta Cura, an encyclical written by Pope Pius IX in 1864: "And from this wholly false idea of social organization they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, especially fatal to the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by our predecessor of recent memory, Gregory XVI, insanity: namely, that liberty of conscience and Worship is the proper right of every man, and should be proclaimed by law in every correctly established society." (Perhaps, for the sake of those to whom at first sight the Second Vatican Council Declaration seems obviously true, I should add that the Catholic Church has always taught that an erroneous conscience carries with it a duty to obey that conscience, but has always denied that an erroneous conscience has a natural right. Thus, to take an extreme example, no matter how honestly you may believe that cannibalism is a religious duty, the Catholic Church will not accept that your right to practice it should be enshrined in the laws of the land.) Thus Pius IX and Gregory XVI have in advance pronounced the Declaration on Religious Liberty not only as erroneous, and therefore contrary to what was given by Christ to the Apostles and the Catholic Church, but even as insanity. They have in effect stated that the late Paul VI and all those who subscribed to the Declaration, and among their number was the present John Paul II, hold to a belief that is so far from being a teaching of the Catholic Church ("fatal to the Catholic Church" is the expression used by Pope Pius IX) as to be insane.

And do not imagine that Gregory XVI and Pius IX invented this doctrine. They were merely passing on what they had inherited from their predecessors, as was not disputed at the time and has not been disputed since. Now you may think that John Paul II is right and that anyone who disagrees with him is wrong, but again I must emphasize that this is not the point. The question at issue is not whether John Paul II is right or wrong, which perhaps we can debate on another occasion, but whether or not he is a Catholic. And what is absolutely certain is that those who have adhered to traditional Catholic teaching on the subject of religious liberty (which is that the Church will sometimes find it expedient to tolerate it but will never admit it as a right) and those who signed the Vatican II Declaration cannot be members of the same Church; for we are talking not about a change in the rules but about a conflict on a matter of fundamental principle and, incidentally, although it is the only teaching of the Second Vatican Council that is in opposition to traditional Catholic doctrine that I have mentioned, it is far from being the only one that exists! So the answer to my question is: no, John Paul II is not a Roman Catholic and, not being a Roman Catholic, he cannot be Pope and was not even admissible for election. Nor was John Paul I Pope, nor Paul VI. So at present there is no Pope: the office is vacant and has been for a number of years, a situation which has happened before in the Church's history. I can't help it. I am only telling you what the situation is according to the Church's own definition, to undisputed tradition, and according even to Catholic Canon Law. We are not taught that there will be a Pope during every second of the Christian era – the See becomes vacant whenever a Pope dies, for example – but we are taught that only a Catholic can be a Pope.

Lest it be thought that to denounce a doctrine as "erroneous, fatal to the Catholic Church, fatal to the salvation of souls, and insanity" is to stop short of describing it as heretical, and thus also to stop short of pronouncing anyone who professes it a heretic and thus not a Catholic, it is also worth noting that Quanta Cura is an "ex Cathedra" pronouncement made by what is technically known as the Church's "Extraordinary Magisterium" ("teaching authority")according to every single one of the criteria laid down by the Church, for instance, at the 1870 Vatican Council. That is: the pope was invoking his Apostolic authority; he was dealing with a subject concerning faith and/or morals; he was addressing the whole Church; and he made clear his intention to define a doctrine which was binding on all Catholics (or, rather, in this case, he made clear his intention to condemn a contrary doctrine which no Catholic was permitted to hold). Here is how he does it, in the last paragraph of the encyclical: "Therefore we, truly mindful of Our Apostolic duty,… have decided to lift Our Apostolic voice again. And so all and each evil opinion and doctrine individually mentioned in this letter [of which the doctrine of religious freedom is of course one], by Our Apostolic authority lie reject, proscribe and condemn; and we wish and command that they be considered as absolutely rejected, proscribed and condemned by all the sons of the Catholic Church." Now, let me get back to your letter.

Praying at the same time is not the same as praying WITH.  Let me explain. The Holy Father did not participate in a common prayer to "big juju" or whatever the least common denominator supreme being title is this month.  He prayed his own prayer for peace at the same time that others did.  This was both tactful and fully orthodox. Being rude, obstreperous, triumphalist, or whatever is not an option for the followers of Jesus Christ no matter what may have been done in the past.  He humbled himself to die a criminal's death for the sake of ALL MEN.  The very least we can do is treat our fellow human beings – and their heart felt expressions of faith – with respect.  We don't have to agree with them in everything and we should not participate in their rites, but we live in the same world and can make common cause with them.

Have you ever read the encyclical on fostering true religious unity, Mortalium Animos, by Pope Pius XI on Jan. the 6th 1928? apparently you have not, because if you had, you would see how ridiculous the above statement is. let me quote part of it for you: "These pan-Christians who strive for the union of the Churches would appear to pursue the noblest of ideals in promoting charity among all Christians.  But how should charity tend to the detriment of faith?  Everyone knows that John himself, the apostle of love, who seems in his Gospel to have revealed the secrets of the sacred heart of Jesus, and who never ceased to impress upon the memory of his disciples the new commandment "to love one another, "nevertheless strictly forbade any intercourse with those who professed a mutilated and corrupt form of his teaching: "if any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, nor say to him, God speed you" (2 John 10) Therefore, since charity is founded on whole and sincere Faith the disciples of Christ must be united by the bond of unity in faith and by it as the chief bond." This above passage, I would hope, will speak for itself.

Also please ask your friend why JPII prayed at Mahatma Gandhi's grave?

To ask God's mercy on his soul.  What, now we can't pray for people?  What did you want JPII to do?  Insult the memory of a great man while visiting the country he helped to found?  The very country that honored Mother Theresa with a state funeral?  You must be a very rude guest in other people's houses.

For one, Mother Teresa was not a Catholic, she believed that feeding the poor was more important than baptizing Catholics. She was also a member of the Novus Ordo sect which automatically excommunicated her.  And finally, she was purported to have believed in birth control. Now, as for Mahatma Gandhi, who incidentally was not a great man, how do you know that JPII was praying for his soul? Can you read people's minds? I hope you read this letter and pray over it.  I will not take all the credit for it, some of it contains excerpts from the Britons Catholic Library Letters.

Learn the history of the Church before you open your mouth. I would like to make something clear, I do not and never have believed that I am more Catholic then the Pope. But, if by this you mean JPII than the answer to the question is a definite yes.

I reiterate, this is a contradiction in terms.  You are not qualified to sit in judgment on the Pope.  Read Code of Canon Law, Canon 331ff.

The Catholic Church's definition of a Catholic is someone who has been baptized and believes and adheres to the teachings revealed by Jesus Christ to His Apostles - teachings which in sum total are known as the Deposit of Faith - and handed down by the Apostles and their successors without any alteration, addition or diminution, through generation after generation right up to the present day.

This is YOUR definition, not the Church's.  Code of Canon Law, Canon 205: "Those baptized are in full communion with the Catholic Church here on earth who are joined with Christ in his visible body, through the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments and ecclesiastical governance." In other words, being a Catholic is not based solely on a doctrinal standard, but on submission to the visible head of the Church and the hierarchy.  This means that you are not and cannot call yourself a Catholic.  You are a schismatic and a heretic.

Obviously you have never read Dignitatis Humanae (DH).  It clearly states in the beginning of the document that it is dealing with the need for "freedom of coercion in civil societies" with regard to the practice of religion and that it "leaves intact" previous Catholic teaching on "the obligation of individuals and societies towards the true religion."  This means that it was talking primarily about what NON-CONFESSIONAL states owe to their people with regard to religious freedom. Furthermore, objections such as your are usually grounded in a false understanding of the concepts of "Public Order" and "Common Good."  The term "public order" had no definition by the Magisterium until DH defined it in chapter 7.  The "public order" in secular society is not merely peace between different groups but peace based upon "the objective moral order."  In essence the dichotomy that you make between "public order" and the "common good" is fallacious.  The principle of public order in any state must be based upon the objective moral order and not merely that of peace and so it is inseparable form the common good.  Previous Popes had not made this relationship clear and they often condemned the kind of religious freedom that was based on an indifference to the truth in matters of religion.  Previous papal teaching was clear that the exercise of religions – true or false – needed to conform to the objective moral order, but DH is the first Magisterial document to state that "public order" is inseparable from the "common good."  It is this which is the true development of doctrine in DH.  That is, there is no true order that is not directed towards the good of the objective moral order.  By making this important distinction, DH is fully compatible with all previous papal teaching on religious freedom.

The operative statement of DH which rankles most uninformed "traditionalists" is in section 2 of DH where it states that religious freedom "of this kind means that all men should be immune from coercion on the part of individuals, social groups, and every human power so that within due limits no one is forced to act against his convictions nor is anyone to be restrained against acting in accordance with his convictions in religious matters, in private or in public, alone or in association with others."  What does "within due limits refer to"?  See section 7 as I noted above. In short, you are WRONG.  DH is not a departure from previous teaching but a genuine development in which SECULAR STATES are told to lay off and allow the free exercise of religion among their people.  This would allow the public exercise of false religion – even in a confessional state – only while it did not damage the objective moral order and the common good.  Thus, the public suppression of false religion in a state must be based upon objective moral norms.  Prior to DH many Catholic social theorists had assumed that false religion could be tolerated or suppressed by whim and that no moral limit existed to state interference in false religion.  DH established moral limits to clarify what action could and should be taken viv a vis religion by the state generally and the secular state in particular.  While it is true that "error has no rights," it is equally true that erroneous people do have rights which must be respected.  To not respect the rights of human beings with regard to religious freedom is to do violence to the common good and to public order.  Again, this does not conflict with prior papal teaching.

Have you ever read the encyclical on fostering true religious unity, Mortalium Animos, by Pope Pius XI on Jan. the 6th 1928?

I repeat.  Rudeness and triumphalism are inappropriate and immoral behavior.  This may come as a shock to you, but most non-Catholics are going to remain so until they die.  This is tragic but it is also reality.  Being rude to them is a poor witness to Christ and does not recognize their inherent human dignity. I am afraid that all you want to do is display bad manners to people in the name of "truth" and "Christ."  No true Catholic should act as you suggest.  We must speak the truth in season and out of season, but always with charity.  The "pan-Christians" of which Pius XI speaks are those who think that it doesn't matter what Church you belong to as long as you have faith in Christ.  That is NOT JPII's position.  He never compromises on the matters of the faith when he speaks.  He also tries to be a good guest and a gracious host when the situation arises.  He is also an uncompromising witness to the truth and to Christ.  Ask Billy Bob Clinton.  The Pope pinned his ears back in public a while back.  (I would have decked him, but JPII is a saint and I am not.  Lucky for Clinton.)

...it is also worth noting that Quanta Cura is an "ex Cathedra" pronouncement made by what is technically known as the Church's "Extraordinary Magisterium" ("teaching authority")according to every single one of the criteria laid down by the Church, for instance, at the 1870 Vatican Council.

No, it wasn't.  There have been only 2 clearly ex cathedra statements by the Popes (aside form the ratification of the documents from Ecumenical Councils  and Canonizations): the declaration of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX and of the Assumption by Pius XII.  (I am of the opinion that Apostolicae Curae by Leo XIII which condemned Anglican "orders" was also ex cathedra, but I have not seen much support for my opinion in the literature.)  Quanta Cura was NOT an exercise of the Extraordinary Magisterum, but rather of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium.  This means that its teaching was indeed infallible, but not on the same level as that of DH which was a decree from an Ecumenical Council and thus part of hte Extraordinary Magisterium. Technically, DH takes precedence over Quanta Cura for clarification of this complex issue, but in practice they compliment each other.

Mother Teresa was not a Catholic.

Your arrogance knows no bounds, does it?  Lance, you have set yourself up as the infallible judge of everyone else's standing before God.  You have no business doing so.  I am afraid that you don't really know what you are talking about and have fallen under the influence of people who have a very poor knowledge of Catholic theology.  You need to go to confession – NOW, not tomorrow, not this afternoon, but NOW – to a priest in communion with your local ordinary and renounce your schismatic and heretical errors.  You must return to the Catholic Church for you are clearly outside it right now and in objective error which endangers your soul.  Please do not delay.

I was very surprised to read your recent letter. I thought you were going to remain a gentlemen, you've called me arrogant, rude, triumphant, heretical, and schismatic.  I am very familiar with the debating techniques that you use, "always change the subject and put the other guy on the defensive."  However, this will not work with me. Let me remind you that your so-called "popes" took steps to insure that, in countries where such freedom of religion was not already a civil right, it became one!  Before the 1960s, in a number of surviving Catholic nations, non-Catholics were only allowed to meet together for their rituals but could not worship in public, nor own churches, preach publicly or proselytize.  Nor could their ministers dress as clergyman: in Malta, for instance, British army Chaplain's had to wear a tie instead of a clerical collar. I will not let you explain away the text I have cited to you, by your false interpretation.  For example the heretical Karol Wojtyla never misses an opportunity to inculcate his own interpretation of the council's intention: February 1993 he declared in the predominately pagan African Republic of Benin, that "the Church considers religious liberty as an inalienable right…" Please don't play me and my fellow Catholics as ignorant fools waiting to be enlightened by your superior knowledge. Art, one last thing to remember, the members of your church teach universal salvation, my Church believes in "no salvation outside the Holy Roman Catholic Church." Now, if your church is the correct one, I will go to heaven with Gandhi, but if my Church is right you are in big trouble!

I was very surprised to read your recent letter. I thought you were going to remain a gentlemen, you've called me arrogant, rude, triumphant, heretical, and schismatic.

Because you are all those things.  Hey, YOU wanted my opinion and I gave it.  You begged me through intermediates not to ignore your argument that no one else had been able to refute.  So I refuted it.  I am sorry if it was not what you expected. Lance, you do not understand either Catholic theology or Church History.  I noticed that you did not refute my interpretations of DH but started squabbling about the alleged consequences of it.  It shows that you have no valid counter arguments.  In essence, I win the debate on points.  If you have a counter argument to my analysis, let's hear it. In fact the consequences you site were the result of secularization made inevitable by the influence of American (read Masonic) values in the West and Communist (read atheist) values in the East.  When the Pope speaks about religious freedom as an "inalienable right" he is doing so in a world where governments would restrict religious profession both in public and in private making the practice of the Catholic religion impossible in many places such as China, Albania, Pakistan, Sudan, and India.  You must have the right to practice religion generally as the requisite presupposition to practicing the TRUE religion. Before the 1960s, in a number of surviving Catholic nations, non-Catholics were only allowed to meet together for their rituals but could not worship in public, nor own churches, preach publicly or proselytize.  Nor could their ministers dress as clergyman: in Malta, for instance, British army Chaplain's had to wear a tie instead of a clerical collar.

This is the sin of triumphalism.  The erroneous view that beating up on people and persecuting them is somehow justified by your alleged "correctness" and their alleged "error."  How nice it would be if we could just beat up and eliminate everyone who disagrees with us, eh Lance?  Let's dress up in bed sheets and burn a cross on their lawn.  That is your view of Catholicism.  A club to beat people with.  Makes you feel strong and powerful, doesn't it? Well, it is morally wrong.  If someone is not damaging the objective moral order by their public profession of religion, there is no justification for persecuting them.  How far such tolerance should go is a prudential decision, but it must have MORAL limits.  Persecuting someone just because it makes you feel puffed up and important is not permitted. I am sorry that you have decided to pick and choose which teachings of the Magisterium you like and which you would reject.  Technically, if the strict controls you advocate against non-Catholics were to be enforced by the Church, YOU yourself and your errors would also be repressed.  The persecution you would foist on others would boomerang back onto you.  Your pitiful claim that you are a TRUE Roman Catholic when you are not in communion with Rome, and reject the teaching of the Catholic Church would be laughable if it weren't so sad.  You depend for your survival on the tolerance that you would withhold from others.

Remember what I quoted from Canon Law.  You are obliged to be in union with the Pope through your local ordinary.  If you are not, then you are outside the Church.  Anyone found CULPABLY outside the Catholic Church cannot be saved.  So your only hope for salvation is that you are ignorant and not morally culpable for your schism.  And that is a forlorn hope at best. I implore you to repent and to submit to the Pope and the Bishops in communion with him before it is too late.

Poor Art, your argument was ridiculous anyway, but I did not need to rebut it Art, by the heretical "Vatican II Councils" OWN DEFINITION it was a PASTORAL COUNCIL, and you claim it defined something?????

There is no such thing as a "Pastoral Council."  This is a canard invented by ultra-Traditionalsits who want to dismiss its teachings.  VCII was an Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and as such has the highest level of teaching authority: Extraordinary Magisterium.  Not every document was intended to establish new doctrine.  Some documents indeed were of pastoral or disciplinary intent.  The same thing can be seen in every other Ecumenical Council.  Nevertheless, there were teachings proclaimed at VCII which must be accepted as definitive.  The teachings of DH are included among them.

Let me give you a history lesson.  VCI in the 1860's had orignally planned to draft 4 documents each covering a different topic: Introduction, the Papacy, the Church, and Revelation.  Becuase of the advance of the Masonic Army on Rome in 1870, only the first 2 documents were drafted.  The others were never started.  VCII took up the work of VCI to complete it.  That is why there were 2 DOGMATIC Constitutions promulgated by VCII: Lumen Gentium (LG - on the Church) and Dei Verbum (DV - on Revelation). The most important teaching given in LG was in chapter 25 on the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium of the Pope when he is not talking ex cathedra.  It includes similar material to that contained in the encyclical Humani Generis by Pius XII but goes beyond it.  It also spells out the concept or collegiality between the Pope and the Bishops.  It is the definitive refutation for the likes of Kung, Curran, McCormick, McBrien and the like. In DV, the most important ideas were a reaffirmation of the inerrancy of Scripture, and the definitive interpretation of the Council of Trent on the relationship between Scripture and Tradition.  DV makes it clear that Scripture and Tradition are not two separate sources but two aspects of the same source.  This distinction was not made clear at Trent and it was a major dispute in the period between Trent and VCII. These are only two of the definitive teachings from the Council.

Also Art, how can one argue with another when the second party uses documents that the first party finds inadmissible?

The issue I was discussing with you was what DH actually said.  You claimed that it contradicted Quanta Cura (QC).  Whether you accept it as Magisterial is irrelevent to the matter.  I proved that it did not contradict previous papal teaching.  You may refute my interpretation of DH if you please.  If you can't, you lose. Besides, who are you to judge what is and is not a Magisterial document?  You have no authority to make any such determination.  In like vein, you have no authority to decide who is or is not a heretic or a schismatic.  You have admitted that you reject the authority of the Pope.  As such it is you who is BY DEFINITION OF CANON LAW the schismatic.  You reject the solemn teaching of a Ecumenical Council so by your own admission, it is you who are the heretic.  I am just a loyal Catholic layman who submits himself to the authority of the Pope and the Bishops in communion with him. You have not proved that any pope of the ones you despise was (or is) a heretic.   That was your original intention, remember?  I am still waiting for such proof.  As I have shown, your claims about DH were wrong.

You were also wrong about QC being ex cathedra.  You were wrong about he status of VCII.  You obviously did not know the history of VCI and its importance for understanding the documents of VCII.  So far all you have done is made baseless accusations and uninformed statements about things you obviously don't understand.  I think you need to calm down and reassess your position. Maybe it is YOU who are wrong ands the 1 billion of us in the Catholic Church who are right. ;-)

Art what can I say to you? You graduated medical school, you can not be that ignorant.

Lance, you do not understand either Catholic theology or Church History.  I noticed that you did not refute my interpretations of DH but started squabbling about the alleged consequences of it.  It shows that you have no valid counter arguments.  In essence, I win the debate on points.  If you have a counter argument to my analysis, let's hear it.