At the heretical and schismatic website, OnePeterFive, this article described the current CIC (Catholic Identity Conference). It is clearly a conference where prominent heretics and schismatics speak, teach, and preach their errors. At 1P5, they say: “Unite the Clans.” This clearly means uniting a set of different schismatic and heretical groups, to oppose the Magisterium of Pope Francis and Vatican II (as well as other Popes and Councils in many cases).

From the OnePeterFive article on CIC: “The names were standard fare for anyone long in the movement of restorationism. Schneider. Vigano. Marshall. Ferrara. Kwasniewski.”

Vigano, as detailed in my previous post, is a schismatic and heretical retired archbishop who has lost all jurisdiction, who has utterly rejected the authority of Pope Francis and Vatican II, and who accuses the Church of going astray for 60 years.

Schneider is a schismatic and heretical bishop, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan. He has no right or jurisdiction, as a local Bishop, to preach to the whole Church in contradiction to the Roman Pontiff and Vatican II. He is not even the head Bishop of his See. He has openly accused Pope Francis of heresy and other grave failures of faith, in contradiction to the dogma of the charism of truth and of never-failing faith, taught by Vatican I and the ordinary universal Magisterium. As a schismatic and heretic (who also teaches mitigated Feeneyism on salvation), he has lost all jurisdiction. None of the faithful, even in his own diocese, need obey his teaching or decisions on discipline (see Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, 12).

Taylor Marshall, Ph.D. in philosophy, is a former Anglican “priest” (as he says), who was a Catholic for only about 12 years before he utterly rejected the authority of Pope Francis and Vatican II. His book “Infiltration” accuses the Church of a long series of grave errors on doctrine and discipline, and calls Pope Francis “a Pope for Satan on the Roman Chair of Saint Peter” [Kindle version, location 118]. Such a claim is contrary to the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church, the teachings of many Popes, Saints, and Ecumenical Councils, and is not only schismatic and heretical, but blasphemy. Satan cannot infiltrate the Church at the highest levels, since Christ is one Head of the Church with his Vicar (Pope Pius XII, Mystical Body of Christ, 40), and the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. The “smoke of Satan” is nothing other than persons like Taylor Marshall, who oppose the Magisterium and the Popes and Councils, leading the faithful away from Christ.

The CIC is described by 1P5 as “a geographically dispersed group of faithful Catholics who are freely — joyfully, even — traveling into a dark, unknown abyss — together.” No, that abyss is not unknown. It is Hell. Those Catholics who know the teaching of the Church and yet reject that teaching and that Church — by rejecting any Pope or Council — are on the path to Hell. They might have a sincere but mistaken conscience and so still be in the state of grace. But objectively, their gravely sins of schismatic and heretical, as well as grave scandal for leading others to reject and resist the authority of the Church are the gateway to Hell.

Peter Kwasniewski, Ph.D. also has schismatic and heretical teachings, found on OnePeterFive, including rejecting Vatican I and II, Lateran V, and Lyons I and “other Councils you’ve never heard of”. He stated that Vatican I needs an exorcism; that is blasphemy. The work of every approved Ecumenical Council is the work of the Holy Spirit. He has accused a long list of recent and past Popes of grave errors, contrary to the indefectibility of the Church and the charism of truth and of never-failing faith of the Roman Pontiffs, including Pope Saint Peter, Pope Saint Paul VI, and Pope Saint John Paul II.

The errors of the above schismatics and heretics are worse than those of schismatic archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who died outside the formal communion of the Catholic. In many ways, their teachings are incompatible with one another. This often happens when members of the Church fall away by schism and heresy; they devolve into a multiplicity of sects. Conferences like CIC ignore all the differences and incompatibilities in the different heresies of these persons and small groups, pretending instead that they are all more orthodox than the Roman Pontiff.

The CIC is organized by “The Remnant” a ‘Catholic’ newspaper. The Remnant rejects the Second Vatican Council and the teachings of Pope Francis. They are an openly schismatic and heretical organization, falsely claiming to be orthodox Catholic.

Lateran IV: “the Roman church, which through the Lord’s disposition has a primacy of ordinary power over all other churches inasmuch as it is the mother and mistress of all Christ’s faithful”

Lateran IV on the Greeks: “conform themselves like obedient sons to the holy Roman church, their mother, so that there may be one flock and one shepherd.”

Lateran IV on the Patriarchal Sees: “In all the provinces subject to their jurisdiction let appeal be made to them, when it is necessary, except for appeals made to the Apostolic See, to which all must humbly defer.”

First Council of Lyons: “The Son of God, Jesus Christ, for the redemption of the human race, descended from the height of heaven to the lowest part of the world and underwent a temporal death. But when, after his Resurrection, he was about to ascend to His Father, that he might not leave the flock redeemed by his glorious blood without a shepherd, he entrusted its care to the blessed Apostle Peter, so that by the firmness of his own faith he might strengthen others in the Christian religion and kindle their minds with the ardor of devotion to the works of their salvation. Hence we who, by the will of our Lord, though without merit of our own, have been made successors of this Apostle and hold on earth, though unworthy, the place of our Redeemer, should always be careful and vigilant in the guarding of that flock and be forced to direct our thoughts continuously to the salvation of souls by removing what is harmful and doing what is profitable.”

Lyons I: “this privilege which our Lord Jesus Christ handed to Peter and in him to his successors, namely, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, in which assuredly consists the authority and power of the Roman church….”

The Second Council of Lyons: “If questions will have arisen on faith, they ought to be decided by his [i.e. the Roman Pontiff’s] judgment”.

The Council of Florence, 1438: “the most illustrious profession of the Roman Church about the truth of the faith, which has always been pure from all stain of error.”

Florence: “We also define that the holy Apostolic See and the Roman pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world and the Roman pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and that he is the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church and the father and teacher of all Christians, and to him was committed in blessed Peter the full power of tending, ruling and governing the whole Church, as is contained also in the acts of Ecumenical Councils and in the sacred canons.”

Lateran V: “It arises from the necessity of salvation that all the faithful of Christ are to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

Lateran V: “the person who abandons the teaching of the Roman pontiff cannot be within the Church….”

ALL Catholics who reject Pope Francis, or Vatican II, or any other Pope or Council, “cannot be [formally] within the Church”, for it “arises from the necessity of salvation that all the faithful of Christ are to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

And according to Pope Saint Paul VI, in his letter requiring a declaration of the schismatic Marcel Lefebvre: “This declaration will therefore have to affirm that you sincerely adhere to the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and to all its documents — sensu obvio — which were adopted by the Council fathers and approved and promulgated by Our authority. For such an adherence has always been the rule, in the Church, since the beginning, in the matter of ecumenical councils.

“It must be clear that you equally accept the decisions that We have made since the Council in order to put it into effect, with the help of the departments of the Holy See; among other things, you must explicitly recognize the legitimacy of the reformed liturgy, notably of the Ordo Missae, and our right to require its adoption by the entirety of the Christian people.

“You must also admit the binding character of the rules of canon law now in force which, for the greater part, still correspond with the content of the Code of Canon Law of Benedict XV, without excepting the part which deals with canonical penalties.

“As far as concerns Our person, you will make a point of desisting from and retracting the grave accusations or insinuations which you have publicly leveled against Us, against the orthodoxy of Our faith and Our fidelity to Our charge as the successor of Peter, and against Our immediate collaborators.

The above quote detail what is required of EVERY Catholic. It is never permissible, in fact, it is schismatic and heretical, to reject any Pope or Council, and substitute the teachings or judgments of one’s own mind, or what seems to be at least as common, the judgments of a subculture that rejects the authority of Christ in His Church. Such a subculture (e.g. traditionalism) seeks to place itself at the head of the Church, above Popes and Councils, a place given only to God, to stand in judgment over the whole people of God. This is idolatry of a subculture. Instead of worshiping Christ, many of these conservatives and traditionalists — certainly not all — are worshiping conservatism or traditionalism. Nothing taught by the conservative or traditionalist subculture is rejected by them, even the most extreme of schismatic, heretical, or even blasphemous claims (e.g. that Vatican I needs an exorcism, as Kwasniewski claims; or that Pope Francis is a “Pope for Satan”, as Marshall claims).

Faithful Catholics must not follow schismatic or heretical “leaders”, who claim to understanding the truths of the faith better than the Popes and Councils.

Ronald L. Conte Jr.