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April 23, 2025 - Lionel Nation
59:20
BREAKING: Pope Francis Dead at 88—What Happens to the Vatican Now? The Power Struggle Begins
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My friends, first and foremost, a prefatory note, a proem, a prolegomenon, a praesi, a preface.
This gentleman and I have known each other for years.
This is the first time we've ever actually met.
He's Professor Eric Thaddeus Walters, a man of imane and brabding, naggy and brilliance.
We are live from Rome as we speak.
Is that correct, sir?
Indeed.
And you are a professor of, explain your curriculum vitae, for those of you.
Sure, sure.
Yeah, and just to be accurate.
So I was a double major.
My undergraduate VA was in a small liberal arts college in Philadelphia.
In both Latin, Greek, and philosophy.
And then I did all my post-graduate work here in Rome in everything from what's called cultural heritage management, which is kind of an interdisciplinary study of art history, archaeology, museum curatorship, archival research, as well as patristic sciences, which is early church history, ancient Christian fathers, dogmatic theology.
And then I finished my terminal degree, my PhD, at the University of Vienna in Austria in something called classical philology, which is basically ancient linguistics and Latin and Greek.
And I'm originally from the United States of America, but Rome is home for now 28 years minus a couple of years in Vienna, Austria, where I did my PhD.
May I ask, just so that people know about this, because we're going to be talking about Bergoglio and the papacy, so that people know, are you a Catholic, devout, or are you strictly an academic regarding religiosity?
How would you describe yourself, sir?
I was baptized as a Roman Catholic, which is strange because actually my family background is...
Lutheran, Russian Orthodox, and Ukrainian Orthodox, but not because I have Ukrainian blood, just because they were Hungarian.
And I grew up in a very strange situation, I guess, in the States for most Americans, my generation, my age, because all of my grandparents were immigrants, but someone my age...
If your grandparents are immigrants in the States, they're usually coming from Latin America, South America, East Asia.
Whereas mine were Europeans, my parents had me a bit late in life.
So my background is Russian, Finnish, and Hungarian.
And when I was very young, already at the age of 10, I started studying Latin on my own.
Formally started studying it in 13. I think you can appreciate that, given your educational background.
And I was always interested in ancient Roman history and church history and European history.
And by the time I started my freshman year of college, I decided I was going to come to Rome.
And then I graduated and I did and the rest is kind of history.
But not that it matters, but there are people...
What we're going to be talking about is...
Yeah.
Kind of like a historical, political, realistic news version, which can be either accentuated or affected by faith.
But we're not looking at this from a pro-Catholic or whatever.
It's more of a...
One of the greatest compliments I receive from either students or visitors here to Rome is they can't pin me down.
Not because I'm any way...
You know, deceptive or disingenuous or elusive.
But just because my approach is very analytical, very just, these are the facts, ma 'am.
There's no bias, or at least I do my best to avoid any kind of bias.
It's purely academic research.
These are the facts.
This is the situation.
And then any other further conclusions one may have, you know.
I mean, I enjoy using humor, and it's usually tongue-in-cheek, and dating myself.
But no, in terms of personal belief or lack thereof, it's just irrelevant, non-relevant.
Good, good, good, good, good, good, because that's important.
And let me explain something.
You are also a preeminent, renowned...
What would you call yourself a tour guide or individual if somebody were to your site, Vatiland?
I want to mention this because if I'm going to Rome, I'm calling you.
Well, thank you very much for that, Lionel.
So I'm a full-time university professor, tenure track, but full-time.
I've been teaching at John Cabot University here in Rome for 15 years now.
That's John Cabot, by the way.
John Cabot.
Yeah, go ahead.
Right.
No, for people who are saying, and not Sebastian Cabot, for those who like Family Affair, that was before your time.
And who was John Cabot, very quickly?
Because that's one of those names where people say, I know that.
It sounds like a miracle of Vespucci.
I don't know what he did.
Right.
So four years after Christopher Columbus set sail for Spain, four years later, Giovanni Cabotto, another Italian navigator, set sail under the flag of England, which is why he's forever after.
He's known as John Cabot.
His real name is Giovanni Cabot, who discovered Canada, which is why now North America's English provenance and South America's Spanish provenance.
He discovered Canada.
I mean, of all the things, not I discovered Paris.
I discovered Canada.
So thanks for the Canucks.
But we'll get to that later, like you say, how they discovered.
Sure.
Now, let's get down to, and by the way, regarding the Vatican, I'm what's referred to, I'm what's called a didactic, a blue guide Vatican docent.
In each language group, there are a handful of guides that have all the highest qualifications one could have to do everything from just bringing, you know, regular folks around to, let's just say, more recognized VIPs and that kind of thing.
And I've been doing that for...
I started as a postgraduate, just as part of my academic formation doing that.
And again, your rank is what again, sir?
Vatican Blue Guide Docent.
And that's...
That's as good as it gets.
Yeah.
I know the Michelin Guide, I know this guy, but a Blue Guide, it's got to be good.
Now...
First and foremost, this is what I want you to do.
And when you and I...
Of course, I live in a vacuum, in an intellectual, inertial bubble here called the United States, where everybody is all of a sudden an expert in this.
Give us the inside track.
Talk to me like you would either a Roman...
A Vatican scholar or somebody who really knows the inside skinny.
Very quickly, I had the unique pleasure one time of watching a baseball game with a retired major league player.
I heard him talk about a game that I'm watching and I don't even recognize it.
So as an insider, What's your take and what should we know?
Make us sure.
Well, okay.
So, in fact, I was thinking about this, you know, I came up with an outline for myself just to facilitate things and what I think are the most important essentials here.
So, what is the status questionis, all right, the state of the question?
What is the...
Magna question.
A great question.
And how did we get there or here?
What is the context, the background?
Now, we could go back to 1775 in the modern era with characters like Weishaupt, who's also misunderstood in popular...
Talking heads kind of thing.
That's the Illuminati, isn't it?
Yeah, it's a real thing.
It's a real thing.
And that's if you want to look for a modern contemporary moment when the infiltration of the Catholic Church, the Holy Apostolic See, the papacy, etc.
began in the modern period, you can go back to that point.
My idea is to stick with the recent of the 21st century.
Good.
Starting with the last pope, Joseph Aloysius Ratzina, usually referred to as Pope Benedict XVI, when he began his pontificate in 2005, following the death of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.
And up to 2013, when this weirdness began with...
An Argentinian cardinal by the name of Jorge Maria Bergoglio, a.k.a.
Pope Francis, but actually he would be number 43 in the history of the Catholic Church, number 43 anti-pope.
And that's what I'll explain, hopefully, in this discussion, this dialogue.
And by the way, just very quickly, for those who are in the know, It's like when lawyers give the style of a case, they always say against, you know, Roe against Wade.
And if you say Roe and Wade, ooh, you're really up there.
But for the Vatican insiders, it is not considered heresy or rudeness to refer to the Pope by his given surname.
Right, in fact...
Affectionately, you know, popularity, you know, locals, if they really, especially if they really love the Pope, like John Paul II, you know, they'll call it Moitiwa.
They know it's Pope John Paul II, but more of an intimate familial thing.
Good.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, well, do you want me to start with the background?
Please.
Okay.
All right.
Tell me what I should know.
Make me smarter.
Tell me something that, and also, The biggest misconceptions and what drives you crazy and what people don't understand and what the left or the right media, because I believe there is an anti, you know, we talk about anti-Semitism all the time, which is fine, but there is an anti-Catholicism, and I've made it very, very clear, I'm a retired Catholic in terms of the actual faith, but I have absolute affection for the priests and the nuns and the schools.
In my American version of this, so I don't have, and I have respect for it, the same way I have respect for Jews and Muslims.
It's a house rule.
Nobody's ever forced anybody to be a Catholic.
If you don't like the doctrinal, canonical synods about whatever, don't be a Catholic!
I mean, there's really nothing to it.
So, that being said.
And also, forgive my pronunciations in Latin.
I go back and forth between what we call spaghetti or ecclesiastical Latin and classical Latin.
So I may go back.
Okay, so in 1983, this was the most recent time when the Codex Iuris Canonicus, the Code of Canon Law, Church Law, Catholic Church Law, was updated.
The previous time was 1917.
All right, so 1983.
The Pope is John Paul II, Oitiwa.
And his right arm, the prefect, what was then the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, now they call it the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, which is the immediate, which is just the renaming of the Office of the Inquisition, by the way, started in the 13th century.
They revamped the Code of Canon Law to make it even more precise, accurate, and explicit, because of obviously natural developments that occur over time.
So, but the two guys, bear in mind, John Paul II, Pope John Paul II, and Cardinal, then Cardinal Ratzinger.
Okay, so that's Codecannon on 1980.
But didn't they, excuse me, didn't they call Ratzinger his pit bull?
He was, he's very, a little bit of...
His Rottweiler.
Yeah, his Rottweiler.
Yeah, okay, well, okay.
But he was, for example, in a lot of the, not to besmirch, whatever, but he was friend, He was the one priest who was married, and apparently Ratzinger was far more...
I always heard there was a bit of a...
I think you may be referring to Marcial Marcial, who was the...
Yes, yes.
That has to do with also a lot of Vatican intrigue, internecine factions within the Vatican.
Okay.
Yeah, Ratzinger wanted to get him out, and his hands were tied.
He couldn't do anything because he's not bald, so...
In any event, so in the revised Code of, and what is the actual Code of Canon Law now, 1983, there are a few canons, a few statutes of the utmost significance and importance and universally binding on the Catholic Church.
The first is, kind of launch this, Canon 335, in which all of the provisions that they I included in the Code of Canada Law in 1983.
Nothing can change them.
Now, you'll appreciate this yourself as a professional attorney, lawyer, and a lover of philology, I think if you're wrong, right?
That nothing regarding everything that we're talking about now can be in any way modified in the Catholic Church, doctrine, dogma.
Juridical decisions, meaning appointments, bishops, cardinals, things like that.
If there is a sede vacante, a vacant C, or a sede impedita, an impeded C. And I'll explain the difference in a moment.
And by the way, not to interrupt, but I've just recently delved into this sede vacantism.
Of a vegano, and to make it really, I mean, just to let people know, if you love, if you think Harry Potter, if you think these levels, these tribunals,
the names, my favorite Pope, Hilarious, I mean, the names from the year 123, this is something Put it this way, where you are so connected to ancient times, whereas like Caesar, you know, this is, if you just love history, this is incredible.
So anyway, not to interrupt.
I'm sorry.
So Canon 335 stipulates that everything we're about to talk about, the other canons, can in no way be abrogated, nullified.
Nothing can be done.
And basically, if there's a vacancy, meaning there is no pope, either because the pope has died or because the pope has abdicated, you can't do anything.
You can't do it.
Everybody's hands are tied.
You can go along doing the same things, celebrating the Eucharist, the holy sacrifice of the mass, that kind of thing.
But you can't make any changes.
You certainly can't name new cardinals.
And that goes, that's the same regarding the so-called impedency, which...
In which case, the Pope is basically a prisoner, either of an external force, or in this case, this is what's unique about Benedict XVI, an internal force, namely, within the church itself.
The other couple of canons, then, that are important, the statutes in canon law, church law, are That Canon 332.2 specifies the need to renounce what's called the munus, and this must be done explicitly.
The munus meaning office of the papacy on the part of the pope, the reigning pope.
M-U-N-U-S, munus.
Office.
As opposed to the ministerium, in Latin, or the ministry.
This is a problem with the lost in translation, whether we're talking about translating ancient texts, the Bible, or even Latin, which remains the official language of the Vatican, the Catholic Church, the Holy See.
So you have to renounce the office, not merely the ministerium, in order for a proper abdication, abdication or renunciation, resignation to occur.
That's Canon 32.2, just to be specific to your audience and your listeners.
And the reason this becomes important then is because what happened on February 11th in 2013, when Pope Benedict XVI famously announced in front of a consistory of cardinals.
A consistory basically just means a meeting of cardinals formerly with the Pope.
Usually people think it means simply when the Pope makes, creates new cardinals.
It doesn't.
It could be any meeting of the cardinals.
Anyway, it's a formal meeting, the morning of February 11th, 2013, when the whole world thinks that he resigned.
That's not at all what he did.
And in fact, the title of the document, which he himself personally wrote in Latin and read out loud in Latin, It's not called a renunciahtio, which would be renunciation, reservation, but a declaratio, a declaration.
A declaration of what?
A declaration that he was about to be forced to enter this thing called the Sede Impedita, or impeded sea, meaning that he is now forced into a corner,
into a jail cell, really, Either by an external force, you can think of Napoleon, Pope Pius VI, Pius VII, when they exiled the Pope up to the north of Italy, or in this case, and that's why this is unprecedented, because this happened internally, and this is very clear, and there's a lot of prelates, both bishops and cardinals of the Catholic Church, that have publicly made these statements, that this is what happened.
It doesn't even matter, though.
Again, anecdotal is not what's important.
What's important are the facts, as I said before.
So, in making this declaration, he declares he's not renouncing the office.
He is being forced by internal factions to renounce the ministerium.
The difference between, let's put it in layman's terms, munus office ministerium, it's the difference between being pope and doing pope.
Let's say, Let's say your 14-year-old son, you know, steals your car, usurps your car, takes it for a joyride, right?
He doesn't have a driver's license, okay?
And so consequently, he doesn't have the moon rules, he doesn't have the office, but he's, and simultaneously, he's actually illegally exercising, however, the mini-stadium, all right?
Or to put it another way, a father.
Let's say you're the father of a family.
You got children.
And you are put in prison.
Okay.
You're no longer to exercise your ministerity.
You're no longer able to act as father.
Doesn't mean you're not father.
Right.
So if that's maybe helpful for listeners, viewers.
And so that's exactly what happened with Pope Benedict XVI.
I'm sorry, not to interrupt.
Did he ever specify what this External, internal, evil, whatever this extraneous force is.
Did he ever do that?
And by the way, what he's doing is he's basically, it's almost like a hostage note or like a video where he says, like remember Jeremiah Denton was a POW who was blinking, I'm tortured.
So he's basically telling the world, I'm not leaving, there's a gun to my head, these people over here, so I'm going to...
I guess this should be called this.
I'm going to step down, but not really.
So whoever's after me, basically, this is...
Oops, sorry about that.
That's some there.
So basically, one could argue the jurisdictional aspect of it.
Was there ever a...
Did you ever convert this?
Was there the succession?
It's almost like bigamy.
You know, you have to get divorced from your first wife before you marry the second wife.
Is that about right?
Yeah, in fact, a few years later, there was a couple of instances.
In 2016, his personal secretary, now Archbishop Georg Ganzwein, gorgeous George they used to call him, for reasons we don't need to get into.
In an interview, he's the one that kind of mentions for the first time, publicly anyway, Or certainly at least intimates something called the Sankt Gallen group or the Sankt Gallen Mafia,
which remains a group of laymen and high-ranking prelates in an enclave in a canton in Switzerland.
The town is called Sankt Gallen.
The members of whom would be very well known to your listeners that are following this kind of stuff, like Cardinal McCarrick, Theodore McCarrick.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, Theodore McCarrick.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Cardinal Daniels, who were already planning a coup d 'etat, a color revolution, if you will, as well as what came out in, you know, the world had its WikiLeaks scandal.
Right.
And then in 2012, the Vatican had its VatiLeaks scandal.
At which time, and that's when Pope Benedict XVI discovered he was just outside of Rome in the papal summer residence in a town called Castel Gandolfo.
Right.
It's the foothills of the Apennine Mountains.
When he read through all these documents that were stolen by the butler, if you remember all that vaguely.
And there was, yeah, there was a conspiracy to murder him.
We call it the Morte Complot in German.
And that's when he realized, you know, what can I do?
So...
Just for a second.
First, this reminds me of that very interesting case of John Paul I. By the way, and there's some reference in the third Godfather installment, which was horrible.
He was not the shortest tenure.
I think it was like...
Pope Urban or something.
He's one of the shortest, but there's others like maybe a couple of weeks.
Right.
But that one, we never got the story about that.
So also, the next question is, is there an internal affairs if a pope finds himself the target of either some type of a coup to Vatican or something that is illegal?
Where does one go?
So, continue along.
Finish the canon law, and then there's one more body.
There's one other document that we'll talk briefly about.
So, canon law, if this situation occurs where there is an impeded C, meaning the Pope has not died, the Pope has not abdicated the moon, it's the office of Pope, but he is either, he's imprisoned somehow, basically.
Coup d 'etat in this case.
And that's the state.
Then, until the situation was resolved, basically, nothing is legal.
So, again, remember, you brought up John Paul I. We're talking about 1978, the year of the three popes.
Paul VI, John Paul I, and then John Paul II as elected.
And John Paul II, that's why as soon as he was elected in '78, he split what's called the papal household because he was afraid basically of getting whacked and he realized he could not trust anyone.
In fact, shortly before, right as soon as he died, they found out that there was a latent lingering, kind of like the Japanese soldier after World War II, there was a lightning Soviet KGB mole who was the Dominican priest and the Secretary of State in the Vatican.
So he splits the papal household, it's called, into two.
Both juridically, canonically, as well as physically.
Right.
Because of, to avoid these sorts of complications, if you want to call them that.
And the same thing, or at least a similar thing happens then, with John Paul II going forward along with his Rottweiler, Cardinal Ratzner at the time.
In that they come up with basically the instruction manual for implementing the Code of Canon Law from 1983.
So remember, this is all the same.
These are the same two guys.
Because they, long history, right?
Long history, decades, centuries in the making.
So this document, it's called an Apostolic Constitution, and its name in Latin is Universi Dominici Gregis, or Gregis.
And it's basically the instruction manual for if the you-know-what hits the fan.
If we find ourselves in an impeded sea, I mean, thinking about it, because they're not, you know, you'd think, wow, you've got to be really Machiavellian to come up with that.
No, it's obviously because they know what they know, they've experienced this stuff, and you've got to prepare for it.
So, 1983 Code of Canon Law, they do these statutes, these canons, in the case of an impeded sea.
1996, so we're talking 13, 14 years later, they issued this apostolic constitution, which is only concerned about what happens in the case of the B2C.
Here's the instruction manual for how to get out of it.
So what has to happen is that, in other words, how to get out of this conundrum now, okay?
And we haven't even gotten into how the conclave was an illegitimate, illegal conclave in 2013 that elected Bergoglio.
After Benedict XVI, okay?
Which is another, the final important piece of the puzzle.
The instruction manual for how to get out of this conundrum the church has, and it's had in its possession since 1983, and definitively since 1992, and everybody knows it.
And quite simply, one of the remaining 28, I think it is, 27 or 28, pre-2013 cardinals, just one of them, The Pope is really dead.
Just one of them.
All right.
And then that sets into motion a legitimate conclave, which can only be held then by those same 2013, pre-2013 rather, cardinals to enter into a legitimate conclave to elect a new Pope,
which could not have been done until January 1st, 2023, because it was the day before, December 31st, 2022, when Pope Benedict XVI died, and consequently moved from an impedency into a vacant seat.
Now, let me ask you this.
In the event of somebody who abdicates, what would they...
There's no need for this, right?
Instead of the Pope is really dead, you can see the Pope is really...
So those canons I mentioned earlier, 335 and 332, they make explicit that the reigning pontiff, the pope, must actually say, I am renouncing the moves.
So we have, with Bergoglio, we don't have that.
He took over, not only with a pope, Ratzinger, who's alive, but who didn't renounce, didn't abdicate, didn't abnegate, nothing.
He's still there.
So basically, there was never that trigger mechanism to allow even the legitimacy of Bergoglio.
So he's not the Pope.
He's not the Pope for two reasons.
One, he accepted.
Which is a usurpation, and you'll appreciate this again from your legal background.
He usurped the cathedra, the chair of Peter the throne.
Wow!
So that's the one problem.
The second problem, which comes before it, is the illegitimate conclave itself.
And this is something really a masterstroke of genius on the part of Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, in his Latin.
So, and at first glance it would seem really, I don't know, just fleeting, not even...
Right.
He announces, so you want to get like, as you said, Dan Brownie or weird about this.
Yeah, right.
He says, when he makes the announcement on February 11th in the Apostolic Palace inside Vatican City State.
He makes this declaration, not renunciation or resignation, declaration of what this is.
He says it will take effect in Latin.
It will take effect at the ora ora rigesima, meaning the 20th hour of 28 February.
Well, as soon as it was translated in all the modern languages, English, Italian, Spanish, French, German, etc., They translated that as the Napoleonic hour, the 20th hour, meaning 8 p.m., you would say, in the United States.
Right.
No, he was using Roman time, meaning ancient Roman time, which has always been the official, legal, go-to default time, officially for the Catholic Church, the Vatican, the Holy See.
And that means it doesn't begin at the midnight hour.
It begins at sunset.
Which means the 20th hour from sunset then on that day, the 28th of February, was at 6 p.m. here, Rome time.
That pushes it to 1 p.m. the following day, March 1st.
In other words, his declaratio does not take effect until 1 p.m., as we would think of it, on March 1st, so the day after.
The problem is, and this is where the illegal conclave comes in, what are called the Vatican Information Service Notes.
These are the bulletins that come out on certain days, usually Tuesdays, certainly, but if they do come out on any given day, they come out between noon and 1 p.m., okay?
And these are the official public, publicly declared binding declarations of whatever it is they're doing.
I'm the canonized saint so-and-so in a couple of months or whatever.
Well, the cardinal secretary of state and the Camerlengo, the dean of cardinals, were the cases of conclave.
They published this, meaning they had already written it, at 12:40 p.m., meaning Preceding.
It was an illegitimate, immature, prior to...
It's like bigamy.
You married before...
Yes.
So basically, they didn't exist then.
This trigger point had not...
You had to wait until 1 p.m.
So that initiating procedure was invalid ab initio.
Yes, exactly.
You got it.
Wow!
And a masterstroke of genius because what he also demonstrated is, number one, These guys, excuse me, you're a cardinal.
Number one.
You don't read it.
It's like in your job description.
It's probably written somewhere you're supposed to have a functioning knowledge of Latin.
Yeah.
Canon law, theology.
So none of that.
Complete ignorance, nation, stupidity.
Wow.
Number two.
Yeah, it's really embarrassing.
Number two, you either are aware.
And therefore, oh my god, you know, you're complicit in everything else.
Or number three, you don't care.
So it's...
And had they, and Eric, had they just waited, everything would be fine.
Had they just said, okay, we'll wait till one o 'clock or whatever it was.
Okay, now we're groovy and then we do it.
Well, no.
Because on the flip side of that, he never renounced the Munos.
What Benedict XVI needed was just a couple of few, just, well, okay, so how to get out of this conundrum.
All he needed was three cardinals to have his back and say, no, wait a minute, this is what I've hopefully made somewhat understandable for your audience.
This is the situation.
No, no, there's a coup d 'etat going down here.
Notice the date, 2013.
Remember 2013?
All the color revolutions, Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa, etc., etc.
Let me say this before I forget.
I'm sorry, because maybe I'm just, as we say, they stutter.
Are you suggesting that this never, that he created a condition that could have never been satisfied?
That it was almost like, The 12th of never, so to speak, as that song goes.
No, you stated it poignantly before with your analogy, and all analogies were weak, but this one is pretty close to being spot on.
The Senator Jeremiah Denton from Alabama and the POW camp in Vietnam doing the Morse code.
That's exactly what this is.
Yeah.
In fact, I should give some credit.
Some credit.
I should give credit.
The only...
I'm the only one in the...
I'm not my best marketer, much less spokesperson, but in humility I say I'm the only one in the Anglosphere that can wrap my head around this and make it hopefully as understandable as possible for people.
There's an Italian journalist by the name of Andrea Cionci who has done a yeoman's work.
He's enlisted my help, he's enlisted in the help of a lot of other prominent Italian I'm professors of everything from theology to philology to law.
And a lot of lawyers, just professional lawyers in Italy, have come out in support.
He has a book, it's a best-selling book.
In Italy, it's called, the original title in Italian is called Il Codice Ratzinger.
In English, it's an English translation.
It's called The Ratzinger Code.
And he's a legitimate Italian journalist who's been working on this, following this for, gosh, I don't know.
How many years?
Several years.
This is blowing my mind.
I'm sorry.
I'm interrupting.
No, no, no, no.
I beg your forgiveness.
Not at all.
So this is something which is so incredible.
You know, there's not to believe in the point, but there's this wonderful Marshall McLuhan line that says, little lies are hard to keep secret.
But big lies are really easy because if you're in credulity, the bigger the lie, the bigger this is.
You say, what?
Wait a minute.
What?
You mean?
And there he was.
And then you've got to ask yourself, well, if somebody else knew this, why didn't they, you know, terminate him?
They used to call it the old days, you know, the black heart of poisoning, nuisance on a bun.
There's different ways to do this.
He's an old man.
You have the official Vatican doctor.
Oh, he had a stroke.
Nobody would question it.
Why was he allowed?
How did he keep the secret, or apparently the secret be kept?
And didn't he have any Confederates, anybody along the way who say, I've got to help you, or were they likewise living in fear?
How did this happen?
Okay, so...
About 20 questions for you.
No, no, no.
So to get to a really...
What I...
It makes me cry to think about it.
I would say at best he was subjected to severe elder abuse.
This is speculation on my part.
And, you know, when you're in prison, you can't...
It's not like you're in prison, you're not walking around free.
So you can't...
Yeah.
So that's one thing.
And nobody wants this.
Nobody is looking for this.
And nobody wants to upset the apple cart.
And nobody would dare to say, well, if nobody else is complaining, who am I to, you know, spoil this transition?
But let's do this also.
If, you know, by corollary, people have always said, you know, if Obama...
Was not a natural-born citizen, and under the Article 2, that means he wasn't a president, and then everything that happens afterwards is invalid, is void ab initio.
So that means that after Ratzinger, Bergoglio was what?
Theoretically a usurper or a nullity?
It's worse than that, Lionel.
Worse?
It's worse than that, and it's stipulated in canon law and the Apostolic Constitution that I mentioned earlier.
Every single act is de facto null and void.
Ab initio.
From the beginning.
Yes.
So that means...
So none of these cardinals nancing and prancing and mincing around the world since...
Saints.
It's...
There's something happened, actually, and this had nothing directly to do with this situation.
But a few years ago, or several years ago, within less than the last ten years, there was a case, there was some priest, I think, in the United States of America, who, you know, they found out he had been, when he was baptizing infants, and it was like a hundred, he was using the incorrect, what they call, what's called materan form.
Wow.
Mater meaning, you know, the material, like water, and you've got to have a baby, not a pet hamster.
And four meaning the formula.
Okay, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Well, he was just baptizing in the name of Jesus.
Right.
Well, and this goes back to Augustine of Hippo back in the, you know, early 5th century.
That's when we get ex operio operato versus ex operio operantes.
So, in any words, the sacramental efficacy, the sticking power of the sacrament, you have to use the proper...
Well, he wasn't doing this.
Yes.
There was a priest, and again, I think it's in the United States of America, and this was like just a few years ago, and again, it has nothing to do with the situation of Bergoglio, where because he was not properly, they discovered that he was not properly baptized.
He was about to be ordained a priest, and during his ordination, they had to do all the sacraments again.
Baptism?
Yeah.
Confirmation.
Now, let me ask you this.
From a sequential point of view, Ratzinger stops.
Whatever this is, the cessation interruptus, papacy interruptus, whatever this is, this hiccup, and then everything stops.
Now, he dies, Bergoglio dies, So you have this interruption followed by this void.
How do you jumpstart this?
How do you say, all right, let's pick up where we left off.
Let's put in a noob.
Maybe it's Cardinal Sarah.
Maybe it's provided he's legitimately picked or whoever it is.
How do you correct it once?
How do you revive the patient with the paddles and resuscitate the patient?
So to jumpstart it.
It could be Cardinal Serra.
Unfortunately, he turns 80 and loses his voting right in the conclave on, I think, June 2nd.
It'll be...
Anyway, it would take a Cardinal Serra.
Who was your bet?
Just by the way, just handicap.
If I got 20 bucks to throw, who would you throw your money at?
There's a saying here that...
Everyone goes into the conclave pope and everybody comes out a cardinal.
Right.
So who knows?
You know, the big frontrunners are Turkson, who's from Africa.
I forget which.
Right.
Maybe Canada.
I don't know which country.
Turkson, who's a pre-2013 cardinal, by the way.
Another one is Tagle from the Philippines.
Right.
Now, by the way, just very quickly.
Pre-2013.
I'm not giving my preferences.
I'm just saying.
No, I understand that.
You're just handicapping.
Pre-2013 is groovy.
After that, we got a problem, correct?
Yeah.
Okay.
That's number one.
And number two, how wild was this to have not an Italian, not a European, some Latin American, but a Jesuit?
How?
How wild was this?
Should that have been a, oh, something, this ain't kosher?
Or was that nothing?
No, no, it was because I don't want to misspeak.
Oh, do it, do it, misspeak.
No, I don't know if it's a written rule.
It's certainly a practiced rule among Jesuits for the past 500 years that you do not become pope.
You don't.
Really?
You don't, yeah.
They were called the Pope's army, weren't they?
My thing was from the days of Loyola.
Yeah, starting from the beginning to implement the counter-reformation against the Protestant Reformation in the beginning following the Council of Trent in the 1560s.
They were the Pope's army in enforcing, in implementing, let's just say.
Right, right.
No.
So, my mind, I hate to use these too, is blown.
I don't know what it is.
Now, how many people, if we were to go into St. Peter's Square, if we were to knock on the doors, how many people would say, anybody hear of this?
Is this something everybody knows?
Or is it, what are you talking about?
Who is this?
Is this Walters doing this again?
He's...
Crazy.
He's a conspiracy theorist with his Illuminati.
He should have a wand.
Or is this something that people say, mm-hmm?
Well, this goes back to two previous questions, which I don't think I finished.
I didn't finish responding.
The first, there's a famous box that Benedict gave to Bergoglio, that Ratzinger gave to Pope Francis, anti-Pope Francis.
As soon as he was elected.
And in this box contains a lot of documents.
And one theory that's been going around now for a while, and I hope it's true, it could be true, certainly could be true, is that Benedict named a region, you could say a region, in his stead.
Because there's been a lot of things happening over the past few years, weird things regarding Bergoglio.
So, he hasn't celebrated Mass.
Now he's dead, but I mean, he hasn't celebrated Mass in three years.
The other two days ago, Easter Sunday, he did not impart the Urbiet Orbi blessing.
He gave a regular blessing, but he didn't give the actual Urbiet Orbi, it's called, which is a plenary indulgence for the city and the world for anyone there to experience it or even You know, now through TV media and stuff.
He didn't do it.
There's a precise formula for it.
A lot of other trappings.
You know, who cares about trappings any longer?
You know, we're not in the 90s.
I get all that.
But these still remain very important and symbolic for people in the know who do this stuff.
Okay.
So that's one thing, this box that, you know, Bergoglio would have gone through.
The other thing regarding jump-starting this.
So you just have to have one pre-2013 cardinal to say, "Vere Papa morto" says, "The Pope is truly dead." And then you go into conclave.
It doesn't even matter how many of the 27 or 28 cardinals show up pre-2013 cardinal.
All you need is three.
Which is why there's actually a timeline.
There's an expiry date for this, which is 2036.
Because that's when the last...
The remaining pre-2013 cardinals, there will be three left, because you only need a two-thirds majority to elect the pope.
Again, this is all based on canon law, and these are the rules of the church.
And, you know, otherwise, then let's just all make it up as we go along kind of thing.
So, as per the church, it's already there, the instruction manual, how do you get out of this conundrum, it's all there.
You need them to actually do something.
I guess it's what maybe you would, to use a weak analogy, you know, countries around the world.
It's all talking.
Why doesn't anybody do?
I'm sorry.
If somebody says the Pope is really dead, which Pope?
Ratzinger or Bergoglio?
It's a good question.
They would be referring to Ratzinger, to Benedict XVI.
So we're just going to ignore...
So in 2013 with Bergoglio, on March 1st, we entered this impeded sea.
The Pope remains the Pope, but he has the munus, the office, but he cannot exercise the ministerial ministry.
He can't do Pope.
He is still Pope.
He can't do Pope.
That's as of March 1st, 2013.
And then we have the usurper that comes along, the anti-Pope, Bergoglio, a.k.a.
Pope Francis, March 13, 2013.
And from that point until December 31, 2022, we are in an impeded sea.
When he dies, Benedict Ratzinger, December 31, 2022, now we are in a vacant sea.
So you'll hear in the talking heads on the news, mass media, whatever.
Oh, we're now in a vacancy.
No, no, we've been in a vacancy since Ratzinger died on December 31st, 2020.
I'm sorry, is this what Viganò was talking about?
The city vacant?
And is he truly excommunicated?
Is he out?
He is.
Yeah, he is.
Well, that's another thing, because all acts are null and void.
Who excommunicated him?
Bergoglio.
Yes!
Theoretically, he would have been excommunicated laetai sententiae, right?
Again, ab initio de facto.
Because he had himself reordained a bishop by a schismatic rad trad, they call them, group connected with Lefebvre.
That's how it has the Vatican II and so on.
What Viganò's sedevacantism is is not this.
Their sedevacantism is that There has been no legitimate Pope since Pius XII because it's the Siri Roncalli thing, 1958, the election.
Right.
One more question.
Is there a Supreme Court?
Who officiates, who adjudicates questions of the Church of Theology?
Where do you go?
I'm so glad you asked that.
You know, as in the United States of America, for example, or other countries, you know, there's all sorts of levels and appellate courts and different jurisdictions.
The Catholic Church has the same thing as the Vatican and the Holy See.
In this case, however, to this point, because of all the stuff that I've hopefully laid out, and understandably enough, for most especially the audience, It's written in there.
They wrote it in.
Again, John Paul II and Ratzinger, 83, and then again, 96. They wrote it in.
Explicitly, I'm paraphrasing, but it's there.
Anybody can go to the canon.
If these things are not done, then there is no need to make any appeal to any...
canonical, juridical, jurisdictional body or anything like that.
There's no going to court.
Do we have to convoke or convene a commission to investigate?
No, no.
It's ab initio, as you say, de facto.
It's almost like self-actuating or self...
So all we have to do, just to get...
All we have to do is...
This sounds so, again, Harry Potter, like we have to jump over the broom.
If somebody stands up and says, one of the three, one of the three pre-23, whatever Cardinal says, the Pope is finally dead or is actually dead or whatever it is.
That then kicks in after Ratzinger and allows us to almost forget Bergoglio, but pick up with the new Pope starting anew.
So there will be this, there will be this, if you have the Hall of Fame of Popes, when it gets to Bergoglio, there's just this empty frame, and then we just kind of move over here.
Yep.
By the way, I'll say, so bear in mind, going back to the first guy, Shimon Bariona, Simon, son of John, Simon Peter, Simon the Rock, or Peter the First Pope, who was executed in the Vatican in November of 64. Upside down.
Yeah, yeah.
Benedict XVI is number 265.
Out of 265 popes, this guy, Bergoglio, would be anti-pope number 43. Wow!
And if you work out the math, that's like an average of every seven years.
There's an anti-pope?
What?
It's like anti-matter.
And moreover, there are two anti-popes who are canonized saints.
Saint Hippolytus.
Whoa!
He was in the 2nd century and Saint, I think it's Felix II in the 3rd century.
This is a, this is just a, almost like if something says, remember the, not the conundrum, but the fallacy where somebody says time travel.
If I went back in time and I killed my parents, how could I be?
It's that sort of thing.
If you went back and we have a pope who wasn't the pope, So would God say, hey, who are you?
I'm the Pope.
No, you're not.
I'm going to say, no, you're not.
And if somebody claims, I had a miracle, because prior to the beatification and canonization, I had a miracle attributed to a non-Pope.
So it's a non-miracle?
Maybe it was just happenstance.
Maybe your recovery was...
I mean, you could just...
I don't want to suggest, but this is one of those things where people could just say, okay, I got it.
Imagine the Pope, and you're just weaving these impossibilities.
This is, you have blown my mind today.
I'm not going to be worthy of anything.
That's a huge compliment.
No, no.
This one, I'm going to walk around saying, you don't understand this, do you?
I want to walk up to Cardinal Dolan and say, come here!
I think he arrives today or tomorrow, I think.
By the way, last question very quick, because we're going to do this again.
Any chance of an American president, an American cardinal ever being Pope?
Yeah, there's always a chance.
No way.
God's got a funny sense of humor.
There's always a chance.
Eric Thaddeus Walters, I am telling you, I'm trying to think, when was the last time I ever learned something that just, I thought, I feel like I'm the only one who knows this.
Or, like if you said, Harry Truman was an alien, you know, from another planet.
It's something along those lines.
It is so existential.
It is foundational.
Wow!
And just finally, also, it doesn't even matter, you can be Catholic, you can be whatever Christian, you can be nothing.
The reason why this is all important is because of all the geopolitical politics as well.
Professor Eric Thaddeus Walters, dear friend, thank you immensely.
I am absolutely...
Nonplussed.
I am gobsmacked by this.
Thank you for this.
No, thank you.
Thank you.
And I look forward to whenever you'd like to pick it up again.
Well, once my heart starts again.
I'm sorry.
So the funeral for Bergoglio, a.k.a.
Pope Francis, is in St. Peter's Square this coming Saturday the 26th at 10 a.m.
The Vatican's closed except for that, so anybody who had a planned tour of the museums, they're not going.
You do this a lot.
You do a lot of these hand signals there.
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