Fr. Heimerl: From the ashes of the ‘Bergoglian church’ the Catholic Church will rise again

(LifeSiteNews) — Some sentences stay with you and you think about for a long time. These are usually sentences that you didn’t expect, and they are often sentences that explain the world to you. These sentences are rarely special on the surface, and sometimes they come from someone you would never have expected to say them.

In recent weeks, I have been thinking about a sentence by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who said shortly before Christmas that the “Bergoglian church” is no longer the Catholic Church.

I confess: this sentence is outrageous and fascinating, and the most disturbing thing about it is that it is profoundly true because what we are experiencing under Pope Francis is nothing other than the establishment of a neo-church that is undermining the foundations of Catholicism and calling divine revelation into question.

There are dozens of examples of this, and it is tedious to repeat them over and over again. Yet the basic pattern behind everything is always the same: Francis is the first pope to believe that he stands in the place of God and can, therefore, give the Church of Christ a new form.

With the appointment of a woman religious as “prefect” of a Vatican dicastery, this has now happened once again to the applause of (above all) the (inner) enemies of the Church, and in a significant way.

READ: Priest: Pope Francis broke canon law, Catholic teaching by naming woman as dicastery prefect

Let us remember: it is part of the – unchangeable! – Deposit of Faith that Jesus Christ gave His Church a hierarchical structure on the shoulders of the apostles. This means that every ecclesiastical leadership function is bound to the reception of the sacrament of Holy Orders and not, as Francis claims, to a banal “commissioning” by the Pope.

Nor can the Pope replace the sacraments or abolish the sacramental constitution of the Church. On the contrary, he is and remains bound by them, and for this reason he cannot make lay people “prefects,” for example. But if, like Francis, he does so, he is calling the Church as a whole into question.

No, what is Catholic is not what an individual pope happens to believe, but what is Catholic is only what all popes have taught in agreement. However, Francis is now very far from this, and by no means for the first time.

It is not easy for me to agree with Archbishop Viganò, and I don’t think he made it easy for himself with his statement either. Nevertheless, a crucial question remains: if the “Bergoglian church” is no longer the Catholic Church, where has the Catholic Church gone? Or to put it another way: has the Catholic Church completely evaporated in the meantime?

I found the surprising answer to this question a few days ago when I saw a video made during the fire disaster in Los Angeles. In it, a family sang Regina Caeli on the ashes of their burnt-down house, and I thought to myself: “Yes, this and nothing else is the true Church. This is the Catholic Church, and this is exactly what her unshakeable, unchanging faith looks like.”

READ: WATCH: Catholic family beautifully expresses their faith after LA fire destroys their home

While the Pope himself is shaking the foundations of the Church, the Church of Christ exists everywhere where the sacraments are (still) validly celebrated and where what the Church has taught throughout the ages is unwaveringly believed and witnessed. Certainly, it is painful to live in this paradox, but it is without question one of the signs that Christ Himself announced to us before His coming. Only in this respect is the general apostasy under Francis, which is a prophetic sign and one of the final tests for the Church.

But what will happen after Francis? Is there any hope that the next pope will undo the aberrations of the current Pope and restore the devastated Church? I don’t think that will be the case. Francis has consistently appointed heretics and apostates as bishops and cardinals, thereby securing his destructive course. This also says everything about his disastrous pontificate. Truly: “Catholic” is certainly not “Franciscan” and never will be. On the contrary: sooner or later, we will be singing the Regina Caeli of a new beginning on the ashes of the “Bergoglian church.”

Why? Because Jesus Christ is the Lord of His Church and not Jorge Mario Bergoglio.