A CUSTOMS-OFFICER'S PRIZE
Translated in English by P.J. Andrews:
On coming out of the custom-house I stumbled across brother Juniper O.F.M., who innocently had just got through with a parcel of white powder that Mr Arfel, alias John Madiran, had entrusted him with while warranting: "It's talcum; it helps grasping slippery oecumenical ware more firmly." Indeed the worthy brother made no bones of declaring: "May a pope become a heretic? We definitely answer: "Yes, he may!" (I quote what I remember from his contribution to "The Seraph", sept. 1983 issue). Truly, the Ecônian clique easily beguiles well-minded people and, by proxy, turns them into smugglers, as glibly as they single out popes, who, they claim, have fallen into heresy. Their drug is then hawked about as mere anti-germ powder, whereas it intoxicates people into artificial paradises that are really the anteroom to Hell.
The traditionalist crew that revere His Blackness (K.W.) charge popes Liberius and Honorius I with deviation from the true faith. They only forget to state that Liberius fought arianism as best he could, against the emperor of Rome who wanted the false doctrine to become the creed of the whole Church. He was therefore sentenced to transportation into Illyria. He was eventually harassed into signing an ambiguous statement. This is the only frailty that history has recorded in Liberius'goverment, for the Catholic Church never alleged he was tainted with arianism in any degree. Neither has Rome ever branded Honorius as a heretic. During the catholic council of Vatican the Fathers who were opposing the Holy See's infallibility becoming a dogma thought indeed that they could use the case of this much-abused successor of Peter as a decisive proof. Now the council scrutinized religious history. They found that neither Honorius' immediate successors, nor predecessors, had judged him heretical. The estimation of Saint Gregory the Great, whose beloved disciple Honorius had been and that of Martin I who died a martyr, after being transported to Byzantium and Crimea by the Greek emperor who, like his forefathers had sided with the monothelites, was an insuperable argument that won the battle. For the Greeks, many of whom had treacherously or openly supported rnonothelitism, were unreliable witnesses. To be more precise let us remember that the monothelites were descended from the monophysites who had been condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451): the latter recognised only one nature in Our Saviour, whereas the former, more prudently, do still claim with the Coptic Aegytian church that Jesus had only one will-power, i.e. God's. The patriarch of Constantinople had promoted compromising with the monophysites and then had deliberately deceived Honorius by sending him a false report. He thus persuaded the pope that Sophronius, the patriarch of Jerusalem, was the trouble-maker who had launched new phrases such as "only one energy". The truth is that Sophronius had opposed the Greek... Anyhow, we must say with Saint Augustine: "Roma locuta, causa finita." (Rome has spoken out, the cause is definitely judged). Already in 519 Hormidas was enabled to state what was solemnly confirmed in 1870: "The catholic religion has always remained inviolate in the Apostolic See... God has granted this charisma of truth and faith to Peter and his successors, that the Church might prevail against the Gates of Hell."
But our well-meaning traditionalists immediately extenuate Christ's promised help by retreating into a spurious sort of dichotomy: a pope, they say, may privately deviate into errors. We are thus presented with a heretic whose public addresses will sound perfectly orthodox, and whose subversive doctrine would be professed solely in an intimate family circle. This subtle point is as deceitful as the well-known dichotomy a skilled contractor in the opening of dead alleys has dicovered in Satan's majordomo Since he has been able to ascend into St Peter's chair he is materialiter the Head of Christ's Church. But as he destroys Jesus' mystical body, or rather refrains from doing what he ought to, His Blackness is not formaliter our pope. But, provided he gets converted, the missing half of his legitimacy will automatically come down upon him.
To condemn such a split heretic, that would confess his false doctrine only privately, whereas his solemn Definitions, his Bulls, his Encyclicals, in fact his whole ordinary magisterium would remain unimpeachable, this would be judging a man according to his heart of hearts. We know that only God will expose our forum internum in due time. In other words we, customs-men would be faced with smugglers who would always take talcum with them when travelling abroad, and leave their output of heroin at home. Only their households would share the narcotic with them and become drug - addicts without the police knowing ought about it. This sort of criminals would make us suspect every traveller, however harmless, of dabbling with cocaine, and become all the more watchful as we could not seize any of the white powder being removed.
Brother Juniper's traffic is not of that type. His powder is heroin, not talcum. We devoutly hope he will not adhere to the wrong side, that he will flee from the traffickers'camp. Now he cannot say that he has not been seriously warned, for I strove hard with the other officers to prevent him from being jailed and heavily fined. He should be aware, by now, of the real identity of the honest catholics that send him hawking their poison. He should know that either clad in a white soutane or wearing his pyjamas in his closet, a heretic is always the same person, and refuse to drink the dregs of the beverage that is brewed at Ecône. For sitting on St Peter's throne cannot turn a mole into the clarion of truth, any more than a free-mason can be made a bishop, if we believe Paul IV's Bull. Truth cannot be divided: either Rome has been Christ's mouth piece, i.e. the popes have always guided the faithful to Heaven, or Jesus' praying for Peter never to fail has been ineffectual. Brother Juniper must not be scandalized by our heralding that Christ's vicars have never and will never fall into heresy.
Being a customs'officer I own I am sad whenever I have to summon a naive accomplice of astute smugglers. My only comfort in this case is that I hope he will not be found carrying defrauded poison when searched by the customsangel that stands at the gate of Paradise. This thought solaces me whenever I proceed to a seizure of white powder.
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PRAY THE ROSARY!
THE READERS OF OUR JOURNAL "EINSICHT" PRAY THE ROSARY MONTHLY TOGETHER ON EACH THURSDAY-EVENING BEFORE THE FIRST FRIDAY OF A MONTH.
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