Edward Pentin has published an extensive piece on his own private website titled, “Debate Intensifies Over Benedict XVI’s Resignation and Role as Pope Emeritus.” CLICK HERE TO READ.

It is telling that EWTN (who owns the National Catholic Register) refused to publish this – as one correspondent put it – “meticulously even-handed” piece by the best and most respected English language Vaticanista working today.  Remember folks, if you think the dollar$ flying around in Trad Inc. are eyebrow-raising, remember that Novu$ Ordo Inc. is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE bigger than Trad Inc.  Novu$ Ordo Inc. will not touch this.  I’m telling you folks, it’s all about the money.

Kudos to and prayers for Edward Pentin in having the stones to publish this anyway. He is definitely sticking his neck out.

I obviously encourage everyone to read the whole thing, but I do want to excerpt one bit from an Italian deacon whose work I was not previously familiar with.  There are now MANY Italian scholars and canonists who are speaking out with regards to the invalidity of Pope Benedict’s failed partial resignation – the English language press and FiP blogosphere is intentionally ignoring the Italian scholarship, knowing full well that English speakers are notorious for refusing to investigate anything that isn’t written or published in English. “Just ignore it. No one will ever see it.”

From Pentin’s piece:

A further study currently circulating in Rome is that by Italian deacon and scientist Liberato De Caro, a researcher at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche-Istituto di Cristallografia in Bari.

Noting that Benedict has preferred to leave his status “unregulated,” De Caro argues that the title “Pope Emeritus” is, in itself, of concern as it “involves a sort of split between the primatial office of the Pope and that of the Bishop of Rome” — a division which, because those aspects of the papacy are “united in the one person of the Roman Pontiff,” presents “inevitable legal-theological implications.”

[…]

To imply the papal office is by its very nature divisible, and that it us up to “human willingness to choose which faculties to renounce and which to maintain, is in blatant violation of divine law,” De Caro writes in an essay of “brief reflections” on the “emeritus papacy.” He concludes, therefore, that the Benedict’s resignation is invalid as it is “contrary to divine law itself.”

And now we wait for Trad Inc. to character assassinate Edward Pentin, and to impugn the credentials of Dr. De Caro, while their own position is based on the thoroughly debunked writings of two civil lawyers, one of which is a former 32nd degree Freemason.

Speaking of which, I particularly enjoyed this paragraph too:

Other senior Vatican sources have said that between Benedict’s announcement of his resignation on Feb. 11, 2013, and his departure from the apostolic palace three weeks later, a number of cardinals pressed Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then Vatican Secretary of State, to clarify the canonical status of an abdicated pope as they saw it could be “potentially problematic,” but “nothing was done.”

You couldn’t make this up in a million years.

Fast and pray, folks!! It’s all happening!!

Fr. Anthony Hannon states in his very kind and gentle demeanor what so many people have also noticed – there is no real counter-argumentation to the case that Pope Benedict’s resignation was not valid as I have laid it out both on video and in writing in this space over the past 3.5 years.

There is, however, a very noticeable and conspicuous tendency towards ad hominem attacks against my person, which, as Father Hannon rightly points out, at this point is actually serving to bolster my credibility.  Ad hominem might have worked years ago, but now people are seeing me being called such names as “online Catholic cancer”, or, perhaps even more tellingly when people make the obvious dodge by saying, “Barnhardt’s arguments are so ridiculous that they merit no consideration” and instantly recognize it for what it is: a total retreat.

The Prayer Over the People at the end of Mass today is one of my all-time favorites. SO VIRILE!

Prayer over the people

Let us pray.

Bow your heads to God.

O Lord, we beseech You, shed light upon our minds by the brightness of Your glory, so that we may see what we must do and have strength to do what is right.

Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.

R. Amen.

O Lord, show us what ta do, then help us git ‘er dun.