In a recent interview with Michael Matt, Bishop Athanasius Schneider responded to the question of whether Pope John XXII had lost the papacy when he fell into heresy in the early 1300s by teaching that the souls of the just did not enjoy the Beatific Vision until after the general judgment. In his response, Bishop Schneider argued that John XXII did not lose his office because the Church had not yet defined the associated dogma, so the pope had not fallen into “formal heresy.” By implication, John XXII might have lost the papacy if he had fallen into formal heresy.

In their October 6, 2022 interview, Raymond Arroyo and Cardinal Gerhard Müller provided a striking assessment of Francis and the state of the Catholic Church: 

Arroyo: “I have to say, I am, I am shaken when I hear you say, and you were just at a consistory, which we'll talk about in a moment, that you believe the synodal process is . . . shaping up into a hostile takeover of the Church, of an attempt to destroy the Church. Is that what you see here?”

Müller: “If they succeed, it will be the end of the Catholic Church. And we must resist it like the old heretics of the Arianism. When Arius thought, according to his ideas, what can God do and what can God not do? And it is irrationalism: human, the intellect to decide what is true and what is wrong.”

“And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints.” (Romans 8:28)

During his interview of Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano at the 2022 Catholic Identity Conference, Michael Matt asked about Francis’s statements that Traditional Catholics “reject Vatican II”: “shouldn’t all Catholics ‘reject the Council’ as it was presented to the world, according to Benedict, by the media?” Archbishop Vigano’s reply would presumably distress Francis and his collaborators:

“In this Bergoglio is perfectly right: Catholics who want to remain faithful to Tradition reject Vatican II precisely because it is alien and opposed to Tradition, which is the norm of Faith.”

October 4, 2022 will mark the third anniversary of Francis’s introduction of the Pachamama idol at the Vatican. During the past three years, Francis has caused numerous other grave scandals, each of which would have been considered unthinkable prior to Vatican II:

• He has convoked the Synod on Synodality, which by its structure and objectives seeks to undermine the immutable nature of the Catholic Faith and set aside Christian morality;
• He travelled to Canada to apologize for evils the Church did not commit and be present for a ceremony described by Archbishop Vigano as “the satanic rites of evocation of the dead performed by a shaman”;
• He has increased his attacks on Traditional Catholics with his Traditiones Custodes and accompanying measures;
• He participated in the “Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions” in Kazakhstan, where he endorsed false religions and false gods;
• He issued his apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi, which suggests that the Church should permit everyone to receive communion; and
• He has repeatedly put himself, and the apparent authority of the Catholic Church, at the service of the anti-Catholic globalists and the Great Reset.

In recent months, a group called “Citizens for Sanity” began running newspaper and billboard advertisements intended to “return common sense to America” by highlighting the lunacy of Progressive policies:

• “With great age comes great wisdom. And Joe Biden is old enough to know that men get pregnant too. Stand tall for progressive values this fall.” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Ad)
• “Don’t let the radical right put our neighborhood street gangs behind bars. Support Joe Biden & Progressive Candidates.” (Phoenix, AZ Billboard)
• “Biology is bigotry. No one is born a woman.” (Milwaukee, WI Billboard)
• “Violent criminals deserve our compassion and respect. This fall, stand strong for progressive values.” (Philadelphia, PA Billboard)
• “Restore Voting Rights for gender fluid shapeshifting pansexuals.” (Greensoboro, NC Billboard)
• “Vote to keep our borders, jails, and bathrooms open. Vote Progressive.” (Albuquerque, NM Billboard)
• “Real progressives support violent criminals in their hour of need.” (Phoenix, AZ Billboard)
• “If you don’t like being mugged then YOU are the problem.” (New York, NY Billboard)

“How many people, even today, lack ready access to vaccines! Let us be on their side, not on the side of those who have more and give less. Let us become prophetic and courageous voices of conscience.” (Address of Francis to the “VII Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions,” September 14, 2022

Anyone who prayed that Joe Biden’s September 1, 2022 speech to the nation would make it abundantly clear that the United States president is serving Satan would not have been disappointed: those with eyes to see readily noticed the demonic background, which was at times rendered mild in comparison with the demonically insane anger animating the ordinarily lifeless Mr. Biden. And indeed many of us have prayed that something would open the eyes of so many souls who have thus far managed to miss the stunningly obvious fact that Biden is leading this country to hell, and not just figuratively.

One can imagine a world in which life simply became progressively worse without also becoming increasingly absurd, but such is not the world in which we live today. Our Church and world have gotten astonishingly worse since Francis introduced us to his blasphemous Pachamama in October 2019, and every single wicked development has also involved an aspect of phenomenal absurdity. We do not necessarily hear the demons laughing uproariously, but surely they are.

The Atlantic magazine’s recent piece on the Rosary, How Extremist Gun Culture Is Trying to Co-opt the Rosary, garnered considerable attention for its utterly bizarre attack on traditional Catholics:

“Just as the AR-15 rifle has become a sacred object for Christian nationalists in general, the rosary has acquired a militaristic meaning for radical-traditional (or ‘rad trad’) Catholics. On this extremist fringe, rosary beads have been woven into a conspiratorial politics and absolutist gun culture. These armed radical traditionalists have taken up a spiritual notion that the rosary can be a weapon in the fight against evil and turned it into something dangerously literal. . . . The rosary—in these hands—is anything but holy.”

As Michael Matt highlighted in a recent Remnant Underground, some of the most persuasive thinkers in the secular world (most notably, Tucker Carlson) have started to describe today’s mounting worldwide crisis in terms of a spiritual battle. Such realizations of themselves do not necessarily lead souls to the truth, but they provide opportunities for Catholics to help more people see that the only path out of this crisis is to embrace the immutable Catholic Faith.