Vatican Investigation Underway to Determine Whether or not Benedict XVI Truly Resigned

It has surfaced in the news that a Vatican investigation is presently underway to officially determine the validity of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation in 2013. This has been confirmed by the Vatican’s Office of the Promoter of Justice, which is responsible for conducting criminal investigations for the tribunal of the Vatican City State. Professor Allesandro Diddi who heads the office, is spearheading this move in the wake of widespread allegations that Benedict XVI never renounced his papal office or munus. And of course, if he didn’t renounce his office it would mean that Francis was never a pope.

Benedict indeed stepped down from the Chair of Peter but there is no logical reason to think that he was no longer a pope. His stepping down can be compared to one who gives up driving his car while continuing to possess a valid driver license. Benedict gave up the active ministry of driving the Barque of Peter while continuing to retain his papal license (office).

In a 2016 book-length interview with Pope Benedict’s biographer Peter Seewald, Benedict told the journalist: "The situation of Celestine V was extremely peculiar and could in no way be invoked as my precedent."

Pope Celestine V resigned, but in doing so he completely abdicated the Petrine office. That is, he laid off his munus and went back to being the simple monk Pietro da Morrone, and not Pope Emeritus. On the contrary, Benedict said he “in no way” related to what Celestine did, that full abdication from the papacy is what he did not do.

What Benedict did do was to simply step down from the active exercise of the papacy while retaining his office. Consider his own words delivered on the eve of his resignation.

“Anyone who accepts the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and completely to everyone, to the whole Church... The ‘always’ is also a ‘forever’--there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this.” (Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, February 27, 2013)

Benedict XVI Ousted

According to the text, Benedict’s office was never revoked. Church law states that a pope must fully give up his office in order for his resignation to be valid. (Canon 332) Benedict makes it clear that he chose to retain his office "forever," which is why he continued to wear the papal garb and to go by the name Benedict XVI.

This matches the explanation offered by Benedict’s private secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein, who also served as Prefect of the Pontifical Household until February 2023.

"He left the Papal Throne,” Gänswein said, “and yet, with the step he took on 11 February 2013, he has not abandoned this ministry," adding that the renunciation of his office would have been "quite impossible after his irrevocable acceptance of the office in April 2005."

Gänswein here says that Benedict was still the pope. “This is the reason why the correct appellation for him is ‘Your Holiness,’” he said.

What it boils down to is that the Vatican deep state forced Benedict to step down because they detested his teachings and his strong support of the Traditional Latin Mass. According to Seewald, the pressures they placed on him were so great that it was ruining his health.

We know from the late Cardinal Danneels of Brussels that he was part of a radical "mafia" reformist group opposed to Benedict XVI. Danneels, known for his support of abortion, LGBTQ, and gay-marriage, said in a taped interview in September 2015 that he and several cardinals were part of this "mafia" clique that was calling for drastic changes in the Church, to make it "much more modern," and that the plan was to oust Benedict and have Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio head it.

This infamous clique was comprised of key members of the Vatican "gay lobby" that had clamored for Benedict's resignation, the same that had almost prevented his election in 2005. As the 2013 conclave neared, they held a series of closed meetings, known as congregations, one of which featured Cardinal Bergoglio (later Francis) as the keynote speaker. They were gathering up pledges to get him elected, which violated Church law.

On the eve of the conclave, Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga was busily on the phone with cardinal electors from the Honduran embassy in Rome. His phone effort was the tail end of this intense lobbying campaign to secure votes for the election of Cardinal Bergoglio as pope.

That same day, Maradiaga attended a private meeting of Bergoglio supporters, which included key players in the “St. Gallen Mafia,” and together they garnered pledges for up to twenty-five votes for Bergoglio. Not surprisingly, Bergoglio opened with twenty-six votes on the first day of the conclave, though that number would rise to 77 on the second day indicating that this campaign effort was gaining ground. Three days later the newly “elected” Pope Francis asked Maradiaga to head his powerful new Council of Cardinals, known as the “Council of Nine.”

On August 27, 2018, Vatican correspondent Edward Pentin tweeted concerning this political campaign.

“Cdls Danneels & Ex-Cdl McCarrick campaigned for Bergoglio to be Pope, as did ++Maradiaga on eve of Conclave, phoning up various cardinals from the Honduran embassy in Rome. Despite their pasts, all 3 prelates have since been special advisors of Francis or rehabilitated by him.”

Rules and Regulations Violated

Clearly, there was intense politics and vote canvassing at work around the time of the conclave, which directly violated Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, governing papal elections. Therein he makes it clear that vote canvassing among cardinal electors is strictly forbidden and renders a papal election null. Consider the following from his Constitution:

Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason ⁽¹⁾ null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected. (76)

With strong evidence supporting the nullity of Francis’ election and that of Benedict’s resignation, Vatican officials are now investigating the matter to determine once and all whether or not his resignation was valid.

However, it would be foolish to not understand that the Vatican deep state is watching this investigation very closely with a mind to hijack it in order to establish that Pope Benedict did renounce his papacy. Their objective is to silence allegations that Benedict didn’t fully resign and thus bind the Church to honor Francis and Leo whose elections grew out of Benedict’s “resignation.”

We saw this conspiratorial activity at work in June 2000. Pope John Paul II wanted to release the Third Secret of Fatima but his enemies hijacked the project by releasing a fake version of the Secret in order to “establish” that the Secret was now released so that Catholics should no longer clamor for its release.

We saw this insidious activity again in March 2022 when Pope Francis did a fake consecration of Russia in order to silence those loyal Catholics who were clamoring for the true Consecration. And sure enough, the Russian assault on the Ukraine broke out that same month leading to more wars and now the middle east war, which Russia has had its hand in.

Hence it could be that Communists of the Vatican deep state are ⁽²⁾ planning to hijack Professor Diddi’s investigation into Benedict’s resignation so they can establish that Benedict ‘did resign’ and thus have leverage to coerce the Church into honoring the “leadership” of Francis and Leo.

On the other hand, officially establishing that Benedict did not resign from his office would encourage Catholics to not take these two seriously. For in every which way, Leo mimics Francis. For instance, Francis denied the miracle of the loaves and for the second time now we see Leo denying the miracle of the loaves. This is deplorable; Catholics should never be exposed to this.

We pray that the Vatican’s investigation into Pope Benedict’s resignation will bring to light the truth of his resignation so that the truth might finally ‘make us free’ (John 8:32).

Footnotes:

1. Only in cases of collusion involving simony does the pope lift the nullity in order that the election may remain valid (78).

2. And of course, there is always the possibility that prosecutor Diddi, under the guise of wanting to declare the nullity of Benedict’s full resignation, might actually have a secret plan to ‘validate’ his resignation so that he could argue that Francis was a true pope. Under pressure people do change their mind sometimes.

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