He deliberately misuses the term. “Schismatic” would be what he actually describes.
He also probably thinks he is turning the tables. Sedevacantists are justified by pointing out the heretic in Rome, using the Church’s teachings against heresies; and Ripperburger thinks that sedes are calling the alleged ‘pope’ as one who is ‘judged by his own heresies’; whereas the R&R position is, unofficially, that the robe of the papacy is a kind of invincible armour that preserves him through all heresies and errors and thus, so can anyone else, if they just keep ‘faithful’ to him. This is literally the doctrine of the Antichrist; it is precisely what everyone must not do.
I’ve always been wary of celebrity exorcists (Ripperger, Amorth, et al). Somehow it seems incongruous with preconciliar practices (hidden, discreet, etc.).
Ps: Notice the majority are bald (Amorth, Ripperger, Lampert, Rossetti, Martins, Farao, et al). As though trying to convey some kind of image?
Fr Amorth said that "around 1960" Padre Pio told him, "You know, Gabriele? It is Satan who has been introduced into the bosom of the Church and within a very short time will come to rule a false Church." (Interview with Fr Amorth by José María Zavala, in The Best Kept Secret of Fatima)
Unfortunately - and mysteriously - Fr Amorth, like almost everyone else, didn't recognize the Vatican II church as that "false church."
It is a pity how many faithful will be deceived by this. Father already caused a lot of damage With his talks about exorcisms. You are Not supposed to talk about that in public, that should be a no brainer.
The conversation gets nutty pretty fast once the topic of a prolonged vacancy enters the chat. I think it's pretty clear at that point that you are talking with people under duress of various kinds.
Thank you, thank you, for this patient and scholarly rebuttal and defense. Of the many illuminating quotes you adduced, the one from Fr Edmund O'Reilly had this gem that needs to be heeded in many situations: "What I would infer is, that we must not be too ready to pronounce on what God may permit." Amen!
I want to thank you for this important principled defense that extends even to those of your faithful readers who hold differing positions regarding the very apparent crisis in the hierarchy. I tend to favor the hypothesis that Benedict XVI was the last pope, because the dissolution of doctrine and practice has sharply accelerated especially since his death, as if the floodgates had burst, a boundary had been crossed--or the Restrainer has been removed? Of course, one can make a persuasive case that the boundary was Vatican II, and I continue to read with appreciation your defenses of that position. And you have not deserved such a charge as the one you responded to here.
The "dissolution of doctrine and practice...sharply accelerated" with the crypto-Jew "Saint" Paul VI, a.k.a. the Destroyer of Catholic tradition, worship, sacramental rites* and more.
"Paul VI: The Pope Who Changed the Church":
catholicendtimetruths.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Chiesa-viva-441-S-en-OK-1.pdf (Title should really read "Antipope"; Communist double agent: p.18; Responsible for the murder of scores of bishops & priests: p.21; Freemason: p.30; his mother a false convert Jew: p.44; as Jewish High Priest: p.50; Homosexual: p.55; Satanist?: 53, 59, 82, 87; p.80: read "Impostor Sr Lucia of Fatima": sisterlucytruth.org)
* As astounding as this may sound to many readers, Paul VI invalidated Holy Orders, and knowing pretty well how evil he was, I'm quite sure intentionally.
The problem Reverend Ripperger has is that his demons insist that the V2 heretical ‘ordinaries’ have faculties and they won’t move house unless Rev. Ripperger goes to them and asks for what they haven’t got to give. The fraud is evil genius. As Fr Cekada once said of Bergoglio he’s got nothing to lose because you cannot lose what you never had and you cannot give what you do not have. Before the Reverend begins pointing fingers, let’s look at some of his doozies; he said, “Pentecost essentially consists in an infusion of the Holy Ghost in the Apostles and Mary…” Our Lady wasn’t ‘infused’ at Pentecost, she didn’t need to be. Also he reckons that the “Deposit of Faith when attacked by a 'proximate rule' is made clear by the 'remote', that is to say what has always been the Faith.” It’s worth noting that in Ripperger’s prayer book he calls on the aid of the ‘pestiferous’ memory of the deluded Sr Faustina and her fraudulant imposition on the minds of the faithful, and he messes with St Patrick’s breastplate, because apparently St Patrick got some things wrong. One of his layworkers went on a podcast that gets millions of views and explained how he had to humble himself and accept the sacraments from an openly ‘gay [Novus Ordo] priest’. I reckon Ripperger Inc. has done more to draw the clueless into the fog of the demonic than Hollywood could dream of.
Our Lady was immaculately conceived and 'full of Grace', in other words not lacking what the Apostles lacked. The fact that Our Lord was baptized for the sake of others does not mean that He received something He lacked; He lacked nothing. Just as Our Lady did not need to be 'purified' by the sacrafice of doves after Our Lord's birth. These things were done as an example out of obedience.
Our Lady had no part in Adam’s sin:
Servius of Antioch: And there appeared to them separate tongues: So then, the thorns were consumed, that is, the transgression from Adam was consumed.
Hippolytus: His is the Spirit that was given to the apostles in the form of fiery tongues.
Cyril of Jerusalem: And there appeared to them separate tongues: Thus they were entirely baptized according to the promise, and invested soul and body with a divine garment of salvation. They partook of fire, not of burning but of saving fire; of fire which consumes the thorns of sins, but gives lustre to the soul.
To propose that Our Lady needed to be 'infused' necessarily proposes that she was lacking a 'garment of salvation'.
Your welcome. “Hail, full of grace ( Luke 1:28)." "...full of grace" is from the Greek "kecharitomene", a unique title given only to the Blessed Virgin Mary, denoting a perfection of grace - she has been perfected in grace by God from all eternity.
"Our Lady wasn’t ‘infused’ at Pentecost, she didn’t need to be."
OTOH, in the Loreto edition of Dom Gueranger's "The Liturgical Year", in the entry for Pentecost (formerly Whit Sunday), Volume IX, pgs 262-263, he says:
"After those measureless gifts lavished upon her... we should have thought heaven had given all it could to a mere creature... But no. Here is a new mission open for Mary... Mary has given birth to the bride of her son; new duties fall upon the Mother of the Church. Jesus has ascended into heaven, leaving Mary upon the earth, that she may nurse the infant Church... But this second Eve, this true Mother of the living, must receive a *fresh infusion of grace* to fit her for this her new office... The Holy Ghost now *infuses into Mary* the plenitude of the grace needful for her maternal mission. From this day forward, she acts as Mother of the infant Church."
So, was Mary not "full of grace" at the Annunciation? Of course she was. Mary was always full of all the graces needed to fulfill her various missions during the course of her life on earth. But those missions changed over the course of her life, and at each of those changes she received the "fulness of grace" necessary to accomplish those missions. At Pentecost, her mission expanded to serve the infant Church, and she was given the extraordinary graces needful for that mission.
Ok. I was reading the commentaries of ancient fathers and Doctors and could find no such allusion to the Blessed Virgin being re-'freshed' or 'infused'.
My comment includes a reference and a quote from Dom Gueranger's "The Liturgical Year". He doesn't cite where he got his interpretation of Mary's "infusion" of grace at Pentecost, but if you google his name, his bona fides as a Catholic spiritual and liturgical master will appear. I'm assuming that if he said anything against the Catholic faith in his magnum opus, he would not have received the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, especially back in the mid-1800s, when such approbations actually meant something. Beyond that, I cannot say much. Perhaps other readers may have more information?
Yeah - thanks for the reference. I looked it up. It landed in the 280s pages of whatever publication I was reading. I never read his Liturgical Year - my bad. It must be drawing on a Traditional understanding. With regards to Ripperger (he obviously was quoting Dom Gueranger on that point), he has a huge following and is, I reckon, preventing a lot of lay people of good will who, without his trashing the reality of an empty chair, would probably move forward and reach the obvious conclusion. One of the things that prevented me from reaching the conclusion of 'sedevacante' was his preaching on 'faculties' quoting demons, basically.
Sowing doubt that priests do not have orders is erroneous. Because it implies that the sacrament is dependent on the morality or character of the priest.
No it doesn't. The reason we doubt his orders is because of the rite itself... as you would know if you had done a modicum of reading before commenting.
When I began my conversion to Catholicism, I came across Sedevacantist sources pretty early on. But no main stream Catholic sources discussed these communities. Now there are basically 'in house' Sedes. So, 'edge lords' trads like Ripperger need to distance themselves from the swell of the movement, and assure everyone that it is perfectly Catholic to disagree with everything the pope says and does, as long as you call him Holy Father.
Here is another quote from Fr. O'Reilly speaking of the possibility of a long vacancy lasting for the whole duration of the Western Schism (about 40 years):
"We may here stop to inquire what is to be said of the position, at that time, of the three claimants [during the Western Schism], and their rights with regard to the Papacy. In the first place, there was all through, from the death of Gregory XI in 1378, a Pope — with the exception, of course, of the intervals between deaths and elections to fill up the vacancies thereby created. There was, I say, at every given time a Pope, really invested with the dignity of Vicar of Christ and Head of the Church, whatever opinions might exist among many as to his genuineness; ***not that an interregnum covering the whole period would have been impossible or inconsistent with the promises of Christ, for this is by no means manifest***, but that, as a matter of fact, there was not such an interregnum.
(O’Reilly, The Relations of the Church to Society, p. 283).
Honestly, I like Fr Ripperger, man is a warrior for God and he wouldn't last 5 seconds doing what he does if he wasn't but knowing what he knows, in fact, he's publicly spoken this, about the demonic influence on the hierarchy, his loyalty to them does strike me as odd but I guess he would see it as loyalty to the Church not the people.
Ripperger is a celebrity who has based his fame on interactions with demons. If he had any discernment he would understand that he doesn't have priestly orders. His sincerity notwithstanding, he is a menace to souls.
When I was still half in the Novus Ordo I once contacted Rippgerger’s organization asking about my local Novus Ordo Cathedral which was wreckovated in the 90s. It was redecorated with pagan carvings on all the pews in deference to ‘indigenous rites’. I asked about the prudence of worshipping in a church sporting demons. I was instructed to direct my concerns to the very ‘Bishop’ responsible for the abomination. Men like Ripperger are ‘company men’. He defends the promulgators of heresy and all manner of evil. His talks include demon communications.. He promotes a novel heresy that the ‘proximate rule’ can diverge from the ‘remote rule’, and in such an event ‘resist’ the Pope. His prayer book includes an appendix basically giving the reader a crash course on demonic heirarchies and Freemasonic oaths. No ordinary Catholic should have a book in their house including such filth.
I have no problem with him retelling what demons say because it serves an educational purpose in that it illustrates how they behave and people should know that.
The devil is a liar. The most expert liar. Ripperger is a consumer of those lies and is working very hard to sell the same lies to others. Wisdom has nothing to do with lies or liars.
No one denies that but he usually mixes lies with truth and essentially Sedes agree with what Fr Ripperger reports about the hierarchy when it comes to demonic infestation which makes your comment even more amusingly silly
I haven't met a single 'sede' who has any time for Ripperger. The degree to which one grows in the actual Catholic faith is the degree to which men like Ripperger lose their credibility. “Despite the seriousness of his demeanour’, as one critic wrote, objectively Ripperger is not a serious traditional Catholic man but an intellectual who has found a niche market. I witnessed a bit of a back and forth once between a Ripperger fan and a priest who was not a fan. The priest pointed out the superstitious nature of Ripperger’s approach to ‘spiritual warfare’. True spiritual warfare has its sole focus on God and growing in virtue. Ripperger's amounts to a Protestant-like ‘deliverance ministry’, at best, and an occult like ‘curses, hexes and spells (a phrase used in Ripperger’s prayers)’ business. Ripperger’s 'warfare' produces books and conferences, and media this and that encouraging a daily dose of attention towards the demonic and gathering a huge conservative Novus Ordo following where these scattered sheep hang on his very word taking him for some sort of religious authority. Other exorcists have pointed out the unorthodox character of Ripperger’s fame and fandom and his teachings on the demonic as being foreign to Catholic tradition and theology, including his very Protestant teaching on ‘generation curses’ and ‘ancestral spirits’, whereas ‘ancestral sin’ is an heretical notion according to the Church. One Novus Ordo 'priest' in a review of his prayerbook wrote: “There is an obsessiveness, nuttiness, and creepiness behind so many of the prayers, and what I regard as seriously defective in them….I believe that this prayer book will induce scrupulosity, obsessions, fears, intense worry, and possibly depression.” I can recall folks who have displayed this sort of 'worry' under the burden of the Ripperger weltanschauung.
I think you have clearly demonstrated that there is no incompatibility between perpetual succession and an extended vacancy. This is a crucial point in the sede vacante issue. From my conversations and experience working through this controversy, it seems many simply assume an incompatibility between the two, and the conversation, thus, goes no further. Given Ripperger's influence, do you know if he is aware of your response? Is there a way he can be urged to address it?
He deliberately misuses the term. “Schismatic” would be what he actually describes.
He also probably thinks he is turning the tables. Sedevacantists are justified by pointing out the heretic in Rome, using the Church’s teachings against heresies; and Ripperburger thinks that sedes are calling the alleged ‘pope’ as one who is ‘judged by his own heresies’; whereas the R&R position is, unofficially, that the robe of the papacy is a kind of invincible armour that preserves him through all heresies and errors and thus, so can anyone else, if they just keep ‘faithful’ to him. This is literally the doctrine of the Antichrist; it is precisely what everyone must not do.
I’ve always been wary of celebrity exorcists (Ripperger, Amorth, et al). Somehow it seems incongruous with preconciliar practices (hidden, discreet, etc.).
Ps: Notice the majority are bald (Amorth, Ripperger, Lampert, Rossetti, Martins, Farao, et al). As though trying to convey some kind of image?
Fr Amorth said that "around 1960" Padre Pio told him, "You know, Gabriele? It is Satan who has been introduced into the bosom of the Church and within a very short time will come to rule a false Church." (Interview with Fr Amorth by José María Zavala, in The Best Kept Secret of Fatima)
Unfortunately - and mysteriously - Fr Amorth, like almost everyone else, didn't recognize the Vatican II church as that "false church."
+Fr. Amorth said he refused to use the new rite of exorcism (yes, they even changed that). He said, "it doesn't work like the old rite in Latin."
It is a pity how many faithful will be deceived by this. Father already caused a lot of damage With his talks about exorcisms. You are Not supposed to talk about that in public, that should be a no brainer.
“Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.” Gospel of St Matthew
We really need to be careful, as these days progress—
the deceptions and betrayals are astoundingly pervasive.
Thank you for this exposé.
The conversation gets nutty pretty fast once the topic of a prolonged vacancy enters the chat. I think it's pretty clear at that point that you are talking with people under duress of various kinds.
Thank you, thank you, for this patient and scholarly rebuttal and defense. Of the many illuminating quotes you adduced, the one from Fr Edmund O'Reilly had this gem that needs to be heeded in many situations: "What I would infer is, that we must not be too ready to pronounce on what God may permit." Amen!
I want to thank you for this important principled defense that extends even to those of your faithful readers who hold differing positions regarding the very apparent crisis in the hierarchy. I tend to favor the hypothesis that Benedict XVI was the last pope, because the dissolution of doctrine and practice has sharply accelerated especially since his death, as if the floodgates had burst, a boundary had been crossed--or the Restrainer has been removed? Of course, one can make a persuasive case that the boundary was Vatican II, and I continue to read with appreciation your defenses of that position. And you have not deserved such a charge as the one you responded to here.
Many thanks as ever for your encouragement, No Greater Love. It is much appreciated.
The "dissolution of doctrine and practice...sharply accelerated" with the crypto-Jew "Saint" Paul VI, a.k.a. the Destroyer of Catholic tradition, worship, sacramental rites* and more.
"Paul VI: The Pope Who Changed the Church":
catholicendtimetruths.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Chiesa-viva-441-S-en-OK-1.pdf (Title should really read "Antipope"; Communist double agent: p.18; Responsible for the murder of scores of bishops & priests: p.21; Freemason: p.30; his mother a false convert Jew: p.44; as Jewish High Priest: p.50; Homosexual: p.55; Satanist?: 53, 59, 82, 87; p.80: read "Impostor Sr Lucia of Fatima": sisterlucytruth.org)
Also novusordowatch.org/paul-vi
* As astounding as this may sound to many readers, Paul VI invalidated Holy Orders, and knowing pretty well how evil he was, I'm quite sure intentionally.
novusordowatch.org/2018/06/unholy-orders-50-years-invalid-ordinations
The problem Reverend Ripperger has is that his demons insist that the V2 heretical ‘ordinaries’ have faculties and they won’t move house unless Rev. Ripperger goes to them and asks for what they haven’t got to give. The fraud is evil genius. As Fr Cekada once said of Bergoglio he’s got nothing to lose because you cannot lose what you never had and you cannot give what you do not have. Before the Reverend begins pointing fingers, let’s look at some of his doozies; he said, “Pentecost essentially consists in an infusion of the Holy Ghost in the Apostles and Mary…” Our Lady wasn’t ‘infused’ at Pentecost, she didn’t need to be. Also he reckons that the “Deposit of Faith when attacked by a 'proximate rule' is made clear by the 'remote', that is to say what has always been the Faith.” It’s worth noting that in Ripperger’s prayer book he calls on the aid of the ‘pestiferous’ memory of the deluded Sr Faustina and her fraudulant imposition on the minds of the faithful, and he messes with St Patrick’s breastplate, because apparently St Patrick got some things wrong. One of his layworkers went on a podcast that gets millions of views and explained how he had to humble himself and accept the sacraments from an openly ‘gay [Novus Ordo] priest’. I reckon Ripperger Inc. has done more to draw the clueless into the fog of the demonic than Hollywood could dream of.
Our Lady was immaculately conceived and 'full of Grace', in other words not lacking what the Apostles lacked. The fact that Our Lord was baptized for the sake of others does not mean that He received something He lacked; He lacked nothing. Just as Our Lady did not need to be 'purified' by the sacrafice of doves after Our Lord's birth. These things were done as an example out of obedience.
Our Lady had no part in Adam’s sin:
Servius of Antioch: And there appeared to them separate tongues: So then, the thorns were consumed, that is, the transgression from Adam was consumed.
Hippolytus: His is the Spirit that was given to the apostles in the form of fiery tongues.
Cyril of Jerusalem: And there appeared to them separate tongues: Thus they were entirely baptized according to the promise, and invested soul and body with a divine garment of salvation. They partook of fire, not of burning but of saving fire; of fire which consumes the thorns of sins, but gives lustre to the soul.
To propose that Our Lady needed to be 'infused' necessarily proposes that she was lacking a 'garment of salvation'.
Your welcome. “Hail, full of grace ( Luke 1:28)." "...full of grace" is from the Greek "kecharitomene", a unique title given only to the Blessed Virgin Mary, denoting a perfection of grace - she has been perfected in grace by God from all eternity.
"Our Lady wasn’t ‘infused’ at Pentecost, she didn’t need to be."
OTOH, in the Loreto edition of Dom Gueranger's "The Liturgical Year", in the entry for Pentecost (formerly Whit Sunday), Volume IX, pgs 262-263, he says:
"After those measureless gifts lavished upon her... we should have thought heaven had given all it could to a mere creature... But no. Here is a new mission open for Mary... Mary has given birth to the bride of her son; new duties fall upon the Mother of the Church. Jesus has ascended into heaven, leaving Mary upon the earth, that she may nurse the infant Church... But this second Eve, this true Mother of the living, must receive a *fresh infusion of grace* to fit her for this her new office... The Holy Ghost now *infuses into Mary* the plenitude of the grace needful for her maternal mission. From this day forward, she acts as Mother of the infant Church."
So, was Mary not "full of grace" at the Annunciation? Of course she was. Mary was always full of all the graces needed to fulfill her various missions during the course of her life on earth. But those missions changed over the course of her life, and at each of those changes she received the "fulness of grace" necessary to accomplish those missions. At Pentecost, her mission expanded to serve the infant Church, and she was given the extraordinary graces needful for that mission.
But hey, I'm just one guy. I could be wrong.
Thanks for that. P.S. What does OTOH mean?
Sorry. I'm cribbing too much off of texting jargon. It means "On The Other Hand."
Ok. I was reading the commentaries of ancient fathers and Doctors and could find no such allusion to the Blessed Virgin being re-'freshed' or 'infused'.
My comment includes a reference and a quote from Dom Gueranger's "The Liturgical Year". He doesn't cite where he got his interpretation of Mary's "infusion" of grace at Pentecost, but if you google his name, his bona fides as a Catholic spiritual and liturgical master will appear. I'm assuming that if he said anything against the Catholic faith in his magnum opus, he would not have received the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, especially back in the mid-1800s, when such approbations actually meant something. Beyond that, I cannot say much. Perhaps other readers may have more information?
Yeah - thanks for the reference. I looked it up. It landed in the 280s pages of whatever publication I was reading. I never read his Liturgical Year - my bad. It must be drawing on a Traditional understanding. With regards to Ripperger (he obviously was quoting Dom Gueranger on that point), he has a huge following and is, I reckon, preventing a lot of lay people of good will who, without his trashing the reality of an empty chair, would probably move forward and reach the obvious conclusion. One of the things that prevented me from reaching the conclusion of 'sedevacante' was his preaching on 'faculties' quoting demons, basically.
Here is a wonderful commentary from this site: https://www.fathercoleridge.org/p/mary-day-pentecost-i
Sowing doubt that priests do not have orders is erroneous. Because it implies that the sacrament is dependent on the morality or character of the priest.
No it doesn't. The reason we doubt his orders is because of the rite itself... as you would know if you had done a modicum of reading before commenting.
When I began my conversion to Catholicism, I came across Sedevacantist sources pretty early on. But no main stream Catholic sources discussed these communities. Now there are basically 'in house' Sedes. So, 'edge lords' trads like Ripperger need to distance themselves from the swell of the movement, and assure everyone that it is perfectly Catholic to disagree with everything the pope says and does, as long as you call him Holy Father.
Excellent article.
Here is another quote from Fr. O'Reilly speaking of the possibility of a long vacancy lasting for the whole duration of the Western Schism (about 40 years):
"We may here stop to inquire what is to be said of the position, at that time, of the three claimants [during the Western Schism], and their rights with regard to the Papacy. In the first place, there was all through, from the death of Gregory XI in 1378, a Pope — with the exception, of course, of the intervals between deaths and elections to fill up the vacancies thereby created. There was, I say, at every given time a Pope, really invested with the dignity of Vicar of Christ and Head of the Church, whatever opinions might exist among many as to his genuineness; ***not that an interregnum covering the whole period would have been impossible or inconsistent with the promises of Christ, for this is by no means manifest***, but that, as a matter of fact, there was not such an interregnum.
(O’Reilly, The Relations of the Church to Society, p. 283).
Honestly, I like Fr Ripperger, man is a warrior for God and he wouldn't last 5 seconds doing what he does if he wasn't but knowing what he knows, in fact, he's publicly spoken this, about the demonic influence on the hierarchy, his loyalty to them does strike me as odd but I guess he would see it as loyalty to the Church not the people.
Ripperger is a celebrity who has based his fame on interactions with demons. If he had any discernment he would understand that he doesn't have priestly orders. His sincerity notwithstanding, he is a menace to souls.
When I was still half in the Novus Ordo I once contacted Rippgerger’s organization asking about my local Novus Ordo Cathedral which was wreckovated in the 90s. It was redecorated with pagan carvings on all the pews in deference to ‘indigenous rites’. I asked about the prudence of worshipping in a church sporting demons. I was instructed to direct my concerns to the very ‘Bishop’ responsible for the abomination. Men like Ripperger are ‘company men’. He defends the promulgators of heresy and all manner of evil. His talks include demon communications.. He promotes a novel heresy that the ‘proximate rule’ can diverge from the ‘remote rule’, and in such an event ‘resist’ the Pope. His prayer book includes an appendix basically giving the reader a crash course on demonic heirarchies and Freemasonic oaths. No ordinary Catholic should have a book in their house including such filth.
I have no problem with him retelling what demons say because it serves an educational purpose in that it illustrates how they behave and people should know that.
The devil is a liar. The most expert liar. Ripperger is a consumer of those lies and is working very hard to sell the same lies to others. Wisdom has nothing to do with lies or liars.
No one denies that but he usually mixes lies with truth and essentially Sedes agree with what Fr Ripperger reports about the hierarchy when it comes to demonic infestation which makes your comment even more amusingly silly
I haven't met a single 'sede' who has any time for Ripperger. The degree to which one grows in the actual Catholic faith is the degree to which men like Ripperger lose their credibility. “Despite the seriousness of his demeanour’, as one critic wrote, objectively Ripperger is not a serious traditional Catholic man but an intellectual who has found a niche market. I witnessed a bit of a back and forth once between a Ripperger fan and a priest who was not a fan. The priest pointed out the superstitious nature of Ripperger’s approach to ‘spiritual warfare’. True spiritual warfare has its sole focus on God and growing in virtue. Ripperger's amounts to a Protestant-like ‘deliverance ministry’, at best, and an occult like ‘curses, hexes and spells (a phrase used in Ripperger’s prayers)’ business. Ripperger’s 'warfare' produces books and conferences, and media this and that encouraging a daily dose of attention towards the demonic and gathering a huge conservative Novus Ordo following where these scattered sheep hang on his very word taking him for some sort of religious authority. Other exorcists have pointed out the unorthodox character of Ripperger’s fame and fandom and his teachings on the demonic as being foreign to Catholic tradition and theology, including his very Protestant teaching on ‘generation curses’ and ‘ancestral spirits’, whereas ‘ancestral sin’ is an heretical notion according to the Church. One Novus Ordo 'priest' in a review of his prayerbook wrote: “There is an obsessiveness, nuttiness, and creepiness behind so many of the prayers, and what I regard as seriously defective in them….I believe that this prayer book will induce scrupulosity, obsessions, fears, intense worry, and possibly depression.” I can recall folks who have displayed this sort of 'worry' under the burden of the Ripperger weltanschauung.
I think you have clearly demonstrated that there is no incompatibility between perpetual succession and an extended vacancy. This is a crucial point in the sede vacante issue. From my conversations and experience working through this controversy, it seems many simply assume an incompatibility between the two, and the conversation, thus, goes no further. Given Ripperger's influence, do you know if he is aware of your response? Is there a way he can be urged to address it?