The Case Against Roncalli

I learn quite a lot thanks to my readers. Each week in the comments section, there are many good discussions. Most are on the same topic as the post, but not always, and that’s fine by me. When I’m challenged on a topic I often re-think my position, to get a better understanding both for my own edification and that I may be of more informative value to my readers. I believe in the axiom,”He who does not understand his opponents’ point of view, doesn’t fully understand his own.” Last week, a comment was made by someone who objected to my designating Roncalli (John XXIII) as a false pope. He had challenged me on this point about a year ago, and I was going to research my position more thoroughly, but alas, life so often gets in the way of our plans.

This time, I started to research the topic and my findings were most fruitful–resulting in this post you’re now reading. Anyone who wishes to read the whole thread between my interlocutor and myself may do so by referring to the comments section of last week’s post. In sum, he said, “Sedevacantists recognize Paul VI onwards as pseudo-popes based on SOLID, IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE. For some reason you’re not applying this standard to Roncalli…Again, I don’t know if Roncalli was an usurper. Neither do you, so perhaps you should pull back on DECLARING him a pseudo-pope, and instead just state that YOU believe he was problematic to the point that YOU have your doubts that he was genuine. ” (Emphasis in the original).

In this post, I will put forth the reasons, proving beyond a reasonable doubt, that Roncalli must be objectively dismissed as a false pope. There’s so much that could be written, but I will confine myself as best as possible to make it terse and get the point across without delving into all aspects of his life. Hence, you will not see, for example, accusations that he was a Freemason addressed. I might touch on such issues in another post. This one will suffice for the stated purpose.

Angelo Roncalli: A Brief Background

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the man who would convoke the Robber Council Vatican II, was born the fourth of thirteen children in 1881. He was born to a family of sharecroppers who lived in an Italian village. Roncalli studied for the priesthood, and completed his doctorate in Canon Law the same year as his ordination, 1904.  He became Professor of Patristics at the Lateran University in 1924, only to be relieved of his post within months “on suspicion of Modernism.”

In February 1925, the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri summoned him to the Vatican and informed him of Pope Pius XI’s decision to appoint him as the Apostolic Visitor to Bulgaria (1925–1935). He was subsequently consecrated a bishop in 1925 by Cardinal Porchelli. On 12 January 1953, he was appointed Patriarch of Venice and raised to the rank of Cardinal-Priest of Santa Prisca by Pope Pius XII. After the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, Roncalli was allegedly elected pope on the eleventh ballot occurring on October 28th. He took the regnal name of John XXIII. Interestingly, this was the first time in over 500 years that this name had been chosen; previous popes had avoided its use since the time of Antipope John XXIII during the Great Western Schism several centuries before. Both his name and his “reign” would be an appropriate foreshadowing of the Vatican II sect which he helped to create.

Preliminary Considerations

1. A pope who falls into heresy— as a private individual— automatically loses his papal authority by Divine Law.

 According to Doctor of the Church St. Alphonsus Liguori, “If ever a pope, as a private person, should fall into heresy, he would at once fall from the pontificate.” (See Verita della Fede, Pt. III, Ch. VIII, 9-10).

According to Wernz-Vidal, “Through notorious and openly divulged heresy, the Roman Pontiff, should he fall into heresy, by that very fact [ipso facto] is deemed to be deprived of the power of jurisdiction even before any declaratory judgement by the Church….A pope who falls into public heresy would cease ipso facto to be a member of the Church; therefore, he would also cease to be head of the Church.(See Ius Canonicum. Rome: Gregorian [1943] 2:453).

2. A heretic is incapable by Divine Law of attaining the papacy.

 According to theologian Baldii, “Barred as incapable of being validly elected [pope] are the following: women, children who have not reached the age of reason, those suffering from habitual insanity, the unbaptized, heretics and schismatics…” (See Institutiones Iuris Canonici [1921]; Emphasis mine).

According to canonist Coronata, “III. Appointment of the office of the Primacy. 1. What is required by divine law for this appointment: …Also required for validity is that the appointment be of a member of the Church. Heretics and apostates (at least public ones) are therefore excluded.” (Institutiones 1:312; Emphasis mine)

3. If one has a reasonable suspicion regarding the election of a pope, he may be considered as a doubtful pope, and therefore no pope in the practical order.

According to theologian Szal, “Nor is there any schism if one merely transgresses a papal law for the reason that one considers it too difficult, or if one refuses obedience inasmuch as one suspects the person of the pope or the validity of his election, or if one resists him as the civil head of a state.” (See The Communication of Catholics with Schismatics, CUA Press [1948], pg 2; Emphasis mine).

Remember that we need not have proof beyond a reasonable doubt (moral certainty) but SUSPICION. A reasonable suspicion in civil law is seen as more than a guess or hunch but less than probable cause. It is based on “specific and articulable facts,” “taken together with rational inferences from the circumstances.” Hence, if someone were elected pope, and coerced into resigning, he would remain pope. Any subsequent Cardinal “elected” could not attain to the papacy even if not a heretic. Moreover, with the death or true resignation of the man elected pope (at a time subsequent to the invalid election), it would not thereby automatically make the invalidly elected cardinal the Vicar of Christ.

Was Roncalli a Heretic Prior to His Election?

• In the biography by Lawrence Elliot entitled I Will Be Called John:A Biography of Pope John XXIII,[Reader’s Digest Press, 1973] it is recorded that as early as 1914, Roncalli was accused of Modernism while a teacher at the seminary at Bergamo. Cardinal De Lai, Secretary for the Congregation of Seminaries, formally reprimanded Roncalli, saying: “According to the information that came my way, I knew that you had been a reader of Duchesne [an author of a three volume work placed on the Index of Forbidden Books  for teaching Modernist tenets—Introibo] and other unbridled authors, and that on certain occasions you had shown yourself inclined to that school of thought which tends to empty out the value of tradition and the authority of the past, a dangerous current which leads to fatal consequences.” (pg. 59)

• For ten years (1905-1915), Roncalli was secretary for Bishop Radini Tedeschi, a Modernist sympathizer. Roncalli describes him thus: “His burning eloquence, his innumerable projects, and his extraordinary personal activity could have given the impression to many, at the beginning, that he had in view the most radical changes and that he was moved by the sole desire to innovate…[Tedeshi] concerned himself less with carrying out reforms than with maintaining the glorious traditions of his diocese and with interpreting them in harmony with new conditions and the new needs of the times.”(See Leroux, John XXIII: Initiator of the Changes, pg. 10) Bp. Tedeschi wanted to “update” traditions by re-interpreting them with the “needs of the times.” Sound familiar?

• He received the red hat of a cardinal from the hands of French President Vincent Auriol in 1953 at Roncalli’s own insistence. Auriol was a committed Socialist, of whom Roncalli said he was an “honest socialist.” Pope Pius XI had stated, “No one can be, at the same time, a sincere Catholic and a true socialist.”(See Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno [1931], para #120)

• While working in Bulgaria, Roncalli became well acquainted with Eastern Schismatics. His heretical ecumenism shone through “Catholics and Orthodox are not enemies, but brothers. We have the same faith; we share the same sacraments, and especially the Eucharist. We are divided by some disagreements concerning the divine constitution of the Church of Jesus Christ. The persons who were the cause of these disagreements have been dead for centuries. Let us abandon the old disputes and, each in his own domain, let us work to make our brothers good, by giving them good example. Later on, though traveling along different paths, we shall achieve union among the churches to form together the true and unique Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (See Luigi Accattoli, When A Pope Asks Forgiveness, New York: Alba House and Daughters of St. Paul, [1998], pp. 18-19; Emphasis mine.) Do the schismatics share the same faith with the One True Church? Obviously not.

• According to Renzo Allegri (translated from the original Italian Il Papa che ha cambiato il mondo, Testimonianze sulla vita private di Giovanni XXIII, pg. 66) a Bulgarian journalist named Stefano Karadgiov stated, “I knew Catholic priests who refused to go into an Orthodox Church even as tourists. Bishop Roncalli, on the contrary, always participated in Orthodox functions, arousing astonishment and perplexity in some Catholics. He never missed the great ceremonies which were celebrated in the principle Orthodox church in Sofia. He put himself in a corner and devoutly followed the rites. The Orthodox chants especially pleased him. (Emphasis mine)

• The import of Roncalli actively participating in false worship cannot be understated. Participating in false religious worship, according to the approved canonists and theologians, is a manifestation of heresy and/or apostasy. According to theologian Merkelbach, external heresy consists not only in what someone says, but also dictis vel factis, that is “signs, deeds, and the omission of deeds.” (Merkelbach, Summa Theologiae Moralis, 1:746; Emphasis mine)

• Nor is this an isolated report of Roncalli participating in prayer with those outside the Church. According to John Hughes in Pontiffs:Popes Who Shaped History [Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1994], “He [Roncalli] became good friends of the Reverend Austin Oakley, chaplain at the British Embassy and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s personal representative to the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch. Even more unusual were Roncalli’s visits to Oakley’s chapel, where the two men prayed together.” (Emphasis mine). Furthermore, according to Kerry Walters in John XXIII (A Short Biography) Franciscan Media,[2013], Roncalli once proclaimed from the pulpit that Jesus Christ “died to proclaim universal brotherhood.” (pg. 14)

Did Something Strange Happen at the 1958 Conclave?

 1.  There were several top contenders for the papacy after the death of Pope Pius XII. Fr. DePauw, my spiritual father, made it known to me that his personal friend, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, who was in charge of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, was so certain he would be elected, that he had already picked out his regnal name as Pope Pius XIII. Other strong contenders included Cardinals Agagianian (Modernist sympathizer), Lercaro (Modernist sympathizer), and Siri (anti-Communist and anti-Modernist like Ottaviani). The U.S. government was very interested in the election, as the Cold War was in high gear, and they wanted another staunch anti-Communist like Pope Pius XII.

In October of 1958, there were only 55 Cardinals in the world, the lowest number in decades because Pope Pius knew so many bishops were suspect of Modernism. It was the “second wave” of resurgent Modernism. Pope St. Pius X had driven the Modernists underground, but had not extirpated them. So why did Pope Pius XII give the red hat of a Cardinal to Roncalli? Contrary to what many think, the Church doesn’t simply excommunicate clerics on a whim. The fact that they were censured or held suspect of heresy is the Church doing Her job. The hope is to reform those who go astray and bring them back into the fold. Even the great St. Pius X gave the worst Modernists time to reform before excommunication. To be clear, the Church is in no way infallible when it comes to ecclesiastical appointments. Choosing someone as a Cardinal does not relieve their censure or suspicion of heresy automatically.

Pope Pius XII had a back-stabbing Judas as his confessor; Fr. Augustin Bea. Bea was thought to be anti-Modernist, but at Vatican II he worked for the passage of Nostra Aetate, the heretical document on non-Christian religions. He was an ecumenist to the extreme and wanted the Jews “absolved” for their crime of Deicide. Could he have protected Roncalli, having the ear of Pope Pius and convincing him he was “reformed” and/or not electable as pope? This is one of many possibilities, but the crux of the matter is it does nothing to absolve Roncalli of his false teachings and even without ecclesiastical excommunication, he would have been removed from the Church by Divine Law for profession of heresy.

2. Confusing white smoke signals appeared and American intelligence had allegedly found out that Cardinal Siri had been elected pope. Then the smoke was black. White smoke signals mean that a Cardinal had been elected and accepted his election as the new pope. This has lead some to speculate that Siri was elected pope (“Gregory XVII”) and was forced to resign. Therefore Roncalli’s election was null and void. I don’t accept the “Siri Theory” for good reason.

See my post http://introiboadaltaredei2.blogspot.com/2015/02/one-question-siri-cant-answer.html for my thoughts on the “Siri Theory.” Is it possible some other Cardinal was elected, forced to resign (which made Roncalli’s election null and void), and then lost office by going along with the Modernists? It’s a possibility. Lest anyone say there is no evidence of seriously confusing smoke, according to Kirk Clinger, “The partly white, partly dark smoke confused even the Vatican radio announcers. They had to apologize frequently for their error. The column of smoke which rose from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel was first whitish, then definitely white, and only later definitely black.” (See A Pope Laughs: Stories of John XXIII,Holt, Rinehard, and Winston, [1964], pg. 43)

3. The most convincing report I heard was that both Cardinals Ottaviani and Siri were unable to muster the two-thirds plus one vote to be elected. As a result, a group of “moderates” convinced most Cardinals to give their votes to Roncalli as a “transitional” pope. He was 77 years old, and (so the reasoning went) wouldn’t do much. Could there have been threats to a Cardinal that got elected and he was forced to resign? At least two Cardinals present made disparaging statements about what transpired at that conclave, which is highly suggestive that there was something seriously wrong. They were Cardinals Ottaviani and Spellman.

4. Does this give us a reasonable suspicion, such that we may doubt Roncalli’s election? Reasonable suspicion is a low standard of evidence, so I’d say definitely so. However, there is more than ample proof Roncalli was a heretic prior to his election and therefore could not attain to the papacy. Finally, let’s not forget that a cause can be discerned by examining the effects. For example, the intelligent design of the universe points to a Creator. Likewise, if the man who came out of the conclave did what a true pope would not (indeed could not) do, we can safely say he wasn’t elected pope.

5. Roncalli, as “pope” rehabilitated every major heretic that had been censured under Pope Pius XII and had them as approved periti (theological experts) at Vatican II. These heretics included the likes of Congar, de Lubac, and Hans Kung, among many others, none of whom were required to abjure any errors. Roncalli promoted ecumenism. He ordered the words removed from the prayer of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus : “Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism.” He changed the Good Friday prayers so as to remove the phrase “perfidious (i.e., faithless) Jews.” He modernized the Mass, Breviary, and Calendar. He was friends with Socialists, Communists, and Freemasons, none of whom he sought to convert. Are these the actions of a true Vicar of Christ?

Pacem In Terris: Heresy On Earth

The death-knell for those who wish to consider Roncalli pope lies in the fact that he professed heresy in his encyclical Pacem In Terris, published April 11, 1963. This section of my post is taken from the work of Mr. John Lane called John XXIII and Pacem in Terris. I give full credit to Mr. Lane for his incredible research  and incisive analysis. I have condensed the pertinent parts of his article in this section and included some of my comments and research, which I mixed in.—Introibo

The encyclical Pacem in Terris, was about “establishing universal peace in truth, justice, charity, and liberty,” and in addition to the Church, it was addressed “to all men of good will.” The heretical proposition is the opening sentence of paragraph #14. The official Latin version, published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (“AAS” –Acts of the Apostolic See), No. 55, 257-304 is as follows:

In hominis juribus hoc quoque numerandum est, ut et Deum, ad rectum conscientiae suae normam, venerari possit, et religionem privatim et publice profiteri. 

In English it means, “We must include among the rights of man that he should be able to worship God according to the rightful prompting of his conscience and to profess his religion privately and publicly.”
Those who defend Roncalli will point out (correctly) that the Church teaches humans have the right to profess and practice only the Catholic religion which is the One True Church, outside of which no one is saved. Error has no rights. There is nothing wrong with this statement in Pacem (they contend) because the word rightful modifies the “prompting of his conscience” such that it implies that one is not simply entitled to follow his conscience in the worship of God unless his conscience is rightful (i.e., in accordance with the One True Church). What no Catholic can declare is that each person should be able “to profess his religion privately and publicly.” This implies (as we shall see) that one can profess any religion, be it the True Religion or any of the myriad false religions, both privately and in public; which idea is heretical and condemned by the Church.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The possessive adjective “his” does not appear in the official Latin text published in the AAS. However, its interpolation by translators (including the official English text available on the Modernist Vatican’s website) is by no means unjustified for two reasons:

(a) Latin very rarely includes such adjectives, frequently showing them to be  understood from the context.
(b) Abundant evidence shows that John XXIII’s true meaning is represented by the inclusion of “his”–which evidence will be examined.

If you read the sentence without the word “his” it admits of an orthodox interpretation: i.e., people have the right to profess religion publicly and privately provided it’s the Catholic religion. Nevertheless, we cannot omit that word without altering the intended sense of the encyclical; a sense that is unabashedly heretical. Let no one protest that this is an exercise in mere semantics. The semi-Arian heretics, under pressure from the Emperor, were prepared to submit to every syllable of the Nicene Creed except they rejected the statement that Our Lord was consubstantial (homo-ousion) with the Father, but He was merely (homoi-ousion) of like substance, not the same substance. One letter marked the all important line between Catholic doctrine and heresy.

It is beyond dispute that the meaning Roncalli wished to convey, and to which he consciously lent his (alleged) “authority,” was that each person has the right to profess his religion—whatever that religion may be–both privately and publicly. Here is the evidence:

1. The encyclical was not, as traditionally done, addressed only to the members of the Roman Catholic Church, but to “all men of good will.” If it was only addressed to Catholics, one could argue that they would know that “his” religion is the Catholic religion, because only the Truth may be openly professed and preached. After all, he would then only have Catholics as his intended audience. It is completely unreasonable to expect Jews, Mohammedans, Protestants, and Eastern Schismatics (among other non-Catholics) to obtain that understanding from the context. The only reasonable conclusion at which they would arrive is that the encyclical guarantees every single one of them the objective moral right to practice and professhis particular false religion in public.

2. The 32nd edition of Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum [The Enchiridion is a compendium of all the basic texts on Catholic dogma and morality since the Apostolic Age. Commissioned by Pope Pius IX, it has been in use since 1854, and has been regularly updated since] was edited by Fr. Schonmetzer and has the offending sentence tagged with a footnote referencing the Masonic United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) article 18:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

This passage is irreconcilable with Catholic doctrine, yet it is linked to the very sentence that would make a reader believe that everyone is free to express his religion in public, no matter if it is the true religion or not. It would suggest that Roncalli was conscious of that portion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as he penned Pacem in Terris. If this does not contradict Catholic teaching, nothing does.

As Pope Gregory XVI taught: “Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care…This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it.” (See Mirari Vos [1832], para. #13 and 14).

The defenders of Roncalli will protest that there is a “lack of evidence” that Roncalli authorized the footnote; but such objection fails miserably. The authors of the Enchiridion are selected precisely to ensure that their references and explanations will meet with official approval of the Holy See, and any remark misrepresenting the mind of same would meet with a public rebuke and a retraction demanded by Rome, which was far from the case. Moreover, the involvement of the editors of the 32nd edition is more demonstrable than in any prior edition. It was the first time that the passage of Pope Pius IX’s condemnation of religious liberty was omitted.  The startling omission is explicable only on the basis that it was intended to conceal the explicit contradiction between Pacem in Terris and Quanta Cura. 

This passage was omitted: From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an “insanity” viz., that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.” But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching “liberty of perdition;” and that “if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling.” (See Quanta Cura [1864], para. #3).

Clearly, it cannot be reasonably maintained that those who took such great care to arrange the suppression of the “offending” part of Quanta Cura were not also responsible for the footnote to Pacem in Terris which concerned the same subject.

3. That fact that the sentence from Pacem in Terris must be understood in connection with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is confirmed by the fact that in Pacem itself, the Masonic United Nations and its Declaration are commended and praised in paragraphs #142, 143, and 144. Roncalli said of the Declaration “It is a solemn recognition of the personal dignity of every human being; an assertion of everyone’s right to be free to seek out the truth, to follow moral principles, discharge the duties imposed by justice, and lead a fully human life. It also recognized other rights connected with these.” (para. #144; Emphasis mine). An encyclical is carefully read over by the Pontiff before signing and promulgating it. Moreover, high ranking theologians craft it at the direction of the pope. Each word is carefully chosen. If these “other rights” written in the Declaration did not include the infamous “right” to religious liberty, is it not obvious this would have been made clear?

4. The encyclical was roundly praised by the Masonic lodges and the secular media both of which promote religious Indifferentism and religious liberty through supporting separation of Church and State.

5. The Church cannot (and does not) teach ambiguously in expressing theological truths. Any deliberate ambiguity must be interpreted against the orthodoxy of the one teaching ambiguously. Propositions that are ambiguous or admit of interpretations that are either orthodox or heterodox are deemed “heretical by defect.” This is also the case with propositions that are true, but are calculated to omit pertinent truths or terms they ought to include. The following proposition of the Jansenist Pseudo-Synod of Pistoia was condemned:
“After the consecration, Christ is truly, really and substantially present beneath the appearances (of bread and wine), and the whole substance of bread and wine has ceased to exist, leaving only the appearances.”

In 1794, Pope Pius VI condemned that proposition in the Apostolic Constitution Auctorem Fidei because “it entirely omits to make any mention of transubstantiation or the conversion of the entire substance of the bread into the Body, and the whole substance of the wine into the Blood, which the Council of Trent defined as an article of Faith…insofar as, through an unauthorized and suspicious omission of this kind, attention is drawn away both from an article of Faith and from a word consecrated by the Church to safeguard the profession of that article against heresies, and tends, therefore, to result in its being forgotten as if it were merely a scholastic question.”

Summation: It is impossible to excuse Roncalli (John XXIII) from the charge of heresy by arguing that this sentence can admit of an orthodox interpretation, because it does not. Even if, ad arguendo, it could so admit of an orthodox interpretation, Roncalli would still be guilty of heresy by defect because it has been shown that the obvious sense of the sentence, taken in both text and context, is incontrovertibly heretical.

Conclusion

What, then, are the practical and objective conclusions we can deduce from the so-called pontificate of “Good Pope John”?

• He was influenced and kept friends with Modernists, Masons, Socialists and other sworn enemies of the Church from his earliest days in the priesthood
• He was removed from his teaching post on suspicion of heresy (Modernism)
• He worshiped and prayed with heretics and schismatics
• He made an overtly heretical statement regarding Catholics and Eastern Schismatics having the “same faith”
• The conclave of 1958 was surrounded by suspicious activity and lead many to believe that someone else had been elected pope prior to Roncalli
• After his “election” Roncalli rehabilitated all the living censured theologians under Pope Pius XII and had them actively serve as theological experts during Vatican II
• Roncalli taught the heresy of religious liberty in Pacem in Terris; he paved the way for its adoption at Vatican II in the heretical document Dignitatis Humanae

Therefore,

1. It is morally certain that Roncalli was not pope since at least the promulgation of the heretical encyclical Pacem in Terris of April 11, 1963. A true pope cannot teach heresy.

2. Was Roncalli “pope” from October of 1958 until April 11, 1963? In a word: No. We know a cause by the effect it produces. If you see someone who’s sick, you know it’s caused by an illness, even if you can’t diagnose exactly what illness it is. Pope’s do not rehabilitate heretics, promote ecumenism and teach heresy. It is highly more probable than not that Roncalli was a heretic at the time he entered the conclave and never attained to the papacy in the first place. It is also possible (but not likely) that someone else was elected pope and resigned under duress, making Roncalli’s subsequent “election” invalid. There’s more than sufficient evidence prior to the promulgation of Pacem in Terris that we can suspect the validity of his election (due to heresy, election of another, or both) to treat him as a dubious pope –which is no pope in the practical order.

I could write dozens of posts on “Evil Pseudo-Pope John.” However, I hope this one will be sufficient to put to rest the arguments of those who are “agnostic” about his “papacy” and think he might have been pope. Finally, for those who have even the slightest qualm of conscience or scintilla of doubt remaining, let me add that Bergoglio “canonized” him a “saint.” The same Argentinian apostate who gave us “St.” John Paul the Great Apostate and “St” Paul VI, gave us “St” John XXIII. If that’s not enough to make you realize the destruction he caused, and for which the Vatican II sect praises him, no amount of information can wake you from your denial.