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Andrea Cionci: Catholic News Organizations Lost at Sea?
The Interview that Life Site News tried to bury
Dear readers, here is the second bombshell that Andrea Cionci asked me to drop this week. What follows speaks for itself, but let me add some context.
Two months ago, Life Site News solicited Andrea Cionci for an interview regarding his best selling non fiction investigation, The Ratzinger Code. Andrea Cionci, humbly acknowledging his lack of an adequate command of the English language, enlisted the professional and purely academic assistance of a university professor and native English speaker fluent in Latin and Italian as his liaison. The interview occurred on Thursday, 22 December 2023, but has never been aired. What follows are in two parts. 1: Cionci’s last email communication with Life Site News, to which he has yet to receive a reply. 2: The transcript of that unpublished video interview. Bear in mind that the transcript of the interview is Cionci’s own words.
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Dear [name redacted] (lifesitenews.com),
I must say that I regret your treatment of Prof. [name redacted] and myself.
I have received proposals from you over time to do an interview, my replies to which have fallen often on seemingly deaf ears. Then, we finally agreed, and I mobilized a distinguished academic to be my liaison precisely out of respect for your channel.
I am an internationally award-winning licensed, credentialed, and seasoned journalist, who has been writing for 20 years for Italy's leading newspapers, a Knight of the Republic of Italy for Cultural Merit ("Cavaliere al Merito della Repubblica Italiana"), and I have been described by you as a "blogger".
I am the author of the most monumental investigation ever produced on the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI including 900 articles, 600 podcasts, 20,000 sold copies of the book The Ratzinger Code, 90 lectures, 5 translations, and 2 journalistic awards.
Yet, I feel treated as if I were a novice student presenting fictitious conspiracy theories as evidenced in some of the interview questions.
The first appointment with Prof. [name redacted] was missed without having any indication from you. Then, the broadcast of the interview skipped without another date being provided for its airing. It has been almost two months since the interview.
Your personal research assistant, [name redacted], indicated that you would have responded to me this week upon your return from travel, which has not happened and seems personally and professionally discourteous.
Your silence leads me to surmise that unfortunately events have unfolded as I had imagined. Most likely traditionalist circles of influence particularly in the anglosphere have pressured you to not publish the interview with Prof. [name redacted] on my behalf regarding Pope Benedict XVI's impeded See, which now remains vacant and undeclared - in addition to being usurped on 13 March 2013 - without historical precedent since his death on 31 December 2022.
Viganò seems to be pursuing a subversive and schismatic path, given that he had himself reconsecrated bishop (which remains unconfirmed) by the schismatic [Archbishop] Williamson, ostracizing and fighting - without ever having refuted - the obvious and thoroughly documented reality of the impeded See and Bergoglio's antipapacy. These matters are not up for debate but necessitate rigorous analysis and explication.
My study remains the most extensive and accurate that has ever been produced on the "resignation" of Pope Benedict XVI. Lack or obfuscation of it is unscientific and undemocratic, which goes against logos/ratio, reason, the truth and against Christ, if only as a matter of legitimate scholarly discussion.
Notwithstanding documented email correspondence among us over recent months, the obvious work, time, and energy invested and expended, and no financial remuneration involved, no party has entered into any semblance of legally binding contractual obligations.
Unless I receive confirmation by Monday, 05 February 2024 at noon EST (New York City time) of a precise date and time for the interview to air, I immediately will pursue the other avenues that have been waiting for some time to publish happily this material specifically in the anglosphere with all rights reserved to me and my collaborators regarding the original material, its genesis, and its context.
This is a war, and what is at stake is the Church of Jesus Christ, the security of my country, and the human race. All MSM and Legacy Media as well as social media outlets in the Collective West will go extinct if these matters remain unresolved. Rearranging the deck furniture on the Catholic Boat is long over.
Hoping for a change in your perspective and, authentically yours,
Andrea Cionci [Thursday, 01 February 2024]
Here is the transcript of the never before published interview:
INTERVIEW ON THE RATZINGER CODE FOR LIFESITE NEWS (www.lifesitenews.com)
[Interviewer’s name redacted]: Andrea Cionci, a native Roman Italian, is an art historian, journalist, war correspondent, and was nominated at a very young age as Cavaliere al merito della Repubblica for cultural commitment (Knight of the Republic of Italy). He is a regular contributor to several national newspapers and author of The Ratzinger Code (Codice Ratzinger, May 2023, ed. Byoblu), a bestseller that has sold 20,000 copies, been translated into 5 languages, and presented 75 times in as many Italian cities at the invitation of readers. Since Andrea Cionci never wanted to appear on video, out of respect for Pope Benedict XVI, we speak today about his work with Prof. [name redacted], a philologist, theologian, and professor of history, Latin, and religious studies from [name redacted] University in Rome, who has lived, studied, and worked in Rome for almost thirty years. Prof. [name redacted], fluent in English, Italian, and Latin is very familiar with Andrea Cionci's investigation and was interviewed by the journalist and author on Friday, 13 October 2023 on the author's YouTube channel, Andrea Cionci – Codice Ratzinger.
What is Andrea Cionci's point, Professor?
After a three-year investigation, 700 articles and 400 podcasts, Cionci has come to the conclusion that in the “Declaratio” of resignation Benedict XVI announced something very different from what has been understood.
The issue, in a nutshell, is very simple: Pope Benedict XVI was forced out of the way by globalist powers linked to international freemasonry. However, he applied a perfect anti-usurpation plan that had been ready since 1983, with profound theological and eschatological implications.
He pronounced a Declaratio, ingeniously written using Latin and canon law, which 'led into temptation', i.e. tested, his enemies in the Sankt Gallen Mafia, to whom it seemed an abdication. Instead it was anything but: it was a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, similar to when Christ said: 'Some of you will betray me'. Benedict XVI, with that Declaration, freely offered himself to his own impeded See and, thereby, rendered anti-Pope Bergoglio since his illegitimate election the result of a conclave convened with the pope not dead and not abdicating but impeded. The correct translation of the Declaratio from Latin was signed by three renowned Italian Latinists, including one from the University of Turin.
Can you explain something about the “impeded See”?
Gladly: no one talks about it as if it were the great taboo. It is the alternative to the sede vacante, in which case the pope is not dead and has not abdicated but is a prisoner, exiled, and not free to express himself. In fact, one fact under everyone's eyes is that Benedict XVI has remained in the See, vested in white with all of the proper appointments of protocol, and with the pontifical name. Does it seem possible that the man Ratzinger, so mild and precise, if he had wanted to abdicate would have remained in the Vatican, dressed in white to annoy his successor? Cionci was the first to interpret that Declaratio as an announcement of a forthcoming impeded See and not as an abdication.
But how can a Pope place himself in the impeded See?
Indeed, he cannot. Hence the ingenious contrivance of the Roman hour. Ratzinger says: “I declare that I renounce the ministerium so that from 28 February, hora vigesima, the See of St. Peter vacet”. By hora vigesima, Benedict may, also, have been referring to the old traditional papal time, (Roman time) whose countdown clock begins not at midnight but at sunset. Thus, the hora vigesima could legitimately coincide with 1.00 p.m. on 1 March. Ratzinger knew that the papal bulletin (VIS notes) always comes out after 12 noon and before 1.00 p.m., so that the convocation of the new conclave would have been illegitimate because it would have occurred with a pope neither dead nor abdicated. And, so it happened. The convocation, which actually occurred before the hora vigesima, was thus a sort of putsch, and Benedict XVI officially entered the impeded See, losing his ministerium. Thus, 1.00 p.m. on 1 March is the hour at which he loses the ministerium, entering an impeded See. Incidentally, he greets everyone from Castel Gandolfo where above his head is the face of a six-hour Roman clock. This is perhaps the absolute most ingenious thing about Benedict's plan. It does, however, need some concentration to be understood. It would be better to see this time pattern to get a clear overview.
But what is meant by the 'Ratzinger Code'?
Benedict XVI used, both for the Declaratio, and in his later years as impeded pope, the moral theological concept of the “broad mental reservation”, a way of telling the truth in cleverly veiled but absolutely logical language, to make clear the fact that he has always remained the only pope. For example, one of the most revealing phrases is: “I am the first pope to resign after a thousand years”. Too bad that the last abdicator was Gregory XII in 1415. So, for him the term “resignation” is not equivalent to abdication. The reference, as Cionci later discovered with the help of Church historian Prof. Luca Brunoni, is rather to Pope Benedict VIII, who in 1013 also made a similar declaration of renunciation of the ministerium, without abdicating. Take for instance when Pope Benedict XVI said that he kept the white robe because he had no other clothes available. Of course, since there is no specific robe for the impeded pope, he remained dressed in white and with the pontifical name. Or, in even easier terms, Benedict continued to impart his apostolic blessing, the exclusive prerogative of the pope, and repeated for nine years: “There is only one Pope”, without ever specifying which one.
Yet, he called him Pope Francis, Holiness, Holy Father...?
Exactly as he called Pope and Holiness Theodore II, the schismatic Coptic Orthodox Patriarch. Benedict called Francis 'Pope' because he is a schismatic patriarch, and he called him his “successor” because, as an anti-pope usurper and impediment, he sits on his throne albeit illicitly. As you can see, one must not stop at superficial aspects that can make one subscribe to a banal vernacular of Bergoglian semantics. There is a solid and objective canonical fact and, at a higher level, subtle statements to be interpreted with broad mental reservation.
So how do we get out of it?
With an accurate reading of and precise attention to the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, specially prepared by Card. Ratzinger in 1996. From the combined provisions of articles 76 and 77, Bergoglio is not the pope and has no rights because the vacancy of the See through renunciation did not occur in accordance with canon 332.2 of the Code of Canon Law, which requires the explicit renunciation of the munus. The discourse on the alleged synonymy between munus and ministerium is an outright deception. The munus is a gift, a spiritual essence that, as Benedict explains in the Declaratio, must then be exercised and applied with the ministerium: steering Peter's boat and proclaiming the Gospel. There is only one case in which the pope loses the ministerium and retains the munus and that is the impeded See. Munus = being pope, ministerium = doing pope. So much so that in the encyclical Pastor Bonus this dichotomy is continually emphasised and not by chance, as Cionci discovered. Sometimes munus can also be used including the meaning of administering as pope, but ministerium never means being pope, and that is the object of renunciation.
So today it is enough for the cardinals, who according to Article 3 of the UDG have the duty to intervene, to simply declare “vere Papa mortuus est”, that the true pope really is dead, and a valid and licit conclave must be convened. Moreover, Bergoglio must be punished according to can 1375, which sanctions the usurpation of an ecclesiastical office.
Hence, the petition promoted by Cionci on 23 October and delivered to the secretariat of state on 8 November.
Yes, on the day of Saint Mary of Victory. In less than two weeks it collected 11,500 signatures. As of 8 November, the Church can no longer say “I didn't know”. The anti-mafia judge Angelo Giorgianni and the lawyers' association Arbitrium participated in promoting the petition, also. It is a point of no return, as Cionci wrote, and Cardinal Parolin already seems to be repositioning himself.
In what way?
Parolin personally wrote to Cionci thanking him for sending the initial enquiry on 3 July 2023. He has not yet expressed himself on the petition, but you understand that if the Secretary of State responds so cordially (in an undue way) to a journalist who has been claiming for three years that Bergoglio is an anti-pope, it is a political gesture of enormous significance. From this moment on, the next pope according to Cionci is likely to be the first prelate to denounce the impeded See and demand the convocation of the conclave. That is why he has written a public letter to Bishop Strickland, who, however, has so far been unwilling to consider this stance.
Has Cionci ever been challenged?
So far he has mostly been the object of indifference, offensive, and unargued remarks if not outright insults. The most oppositional theory is that of substantial error, which maintains that Ratzinger was 'mistaken' because he was influenced by conciliar modernism.
This theory would be valid in theory because the Declaratio is not a valid abdication. But Cionci's study, with its analysis of hundreds of messages in Ratzinger's Code, i.e. in broad mental reservation, as well as the perfection of the canonical device that allows the election of Bergoglio to be declared null and void, unequivocally demonstrates his perfect awareness and strategy in conducting this operation. Cionci has proven that Ratzinger introduced into canon law in 1983 the necessity of renouncing the munus, (can 332.2.) which was not necessary before. In '96 Ratzinger reiterated in the UDG the need to renounce in accordance with that canon. And then in 2013 he gets it wrong and renounces the ministerium? Come on...
Benedict was not wrong, he did something so ingenious that to the most superficial it appears as "conspiracy theory" according to a self-defensive posture and category invented by the CIA in 1967 following the Warren Commission and so overused today as to render the phrase meaningless. It takes less than half an hour to watch Cionci's three documentaries Dies Irae, Intelligenti Pauca, and Redde Rationem to get the full picture. I hope LifeSite will one day broadcast them.
But what does Cionci think of the other avenues being pursued to remove Bergoglio?
What the traditionalists themselves think, albeit from different voices: it is very difficult if not impossible to depose a heretical or flawed pope, since there is a lack of jurisprudence on the matter and any unprovable irregularities in a 2013 conclave deemed legitimate can be remedied by universal peaceful acceptance. The only viable and, also, downhill road is that of the impeded See and the finding of nullity of the 2013 conclave convened with the pope impeded. The 2013 conclave was illegitimate. So, neither Bergoglio's heresies nor irregularities are of interest or necessity.
The canonical road has been paved already with the CIC of 1983 (can. 332.2) and UDG 3, 76, and 77. Just tell the truth: Bergoglio is not the pope because Benedict never abdicated. The pre-2013 appointed cardinals must simply declare “vere papa mortuus est”, that the pope really is dead as of 31 December 2022, and a licit and valid conclave must be convened. Bergoglio must be punished according to canon 1375, which sanctions the usurpation of an ecclesiastical office.
What else does Cionci ask for?
The media support of the whole remaining Catholic world. Without a critical mass, without widespread awareness, it will be difficult for the cardinals to take action. The risk is that we will go to an impure conclave, with Bergoglio's false cardinals, and thus continue his anti-papal line of succession, devoid of munus and lacking the assistance of the Holy Spirit. The visible canonical church is in danger of ending forever. All Catholics should only care about one thing: a pre-2013 conclave that can return a legitimate pope to the throne, likeable or dislikeable, whatever he may be, but endowed with the Petrine munus. Given that the Holy See and Vatican are a temporal sovereign state with global authority, power, and influence should interest the believer and non-believer alike. Andrea Cionci would like to thank Lifesiste News and you for this space and remains at the complete disposal of all American media who would like to explore this issue further.
These last four questions and answers were not included in the original video interview:
Was the distinction between munus and ministerium discussed by Catholic theologians before 2013 or is it a new concept?
These concepts were already there in embryo in the Code of 1917, but they took on more and more substance at the Second Vatican Council and merged into the code of 1983. Benedict's genius was to use the nuances of meaning of these canonical concepts by creating the anti-usurpation device, but the categories were not created from scratch for this purpose.
I can tell you that the need to renounce the munus, for papal abdication, was introduced by Ratzinger himself in the new edition of Canon Law of 1983. In fact, in the previous edition of 1917 it is only said, in canon 221, “Si contingat, ut romanus pontifex renuntiet… - In the event that the Pope renounces…” without specifying an object for the renunciation. The concept that distinguishes the legitimate dynastic title from the consequent, legitimate possibility of governing has already been present since around the 17th century in the Fuerstenrecht, the dynastic right of the German princes, as I was informed by Dr. Andrea Borella, editor of the Yearbook of Italian Nobility and one of the 4 - 5 experts on dynastic law in the world. It was a system used even then to avoid usurpations. It is plausible that Ratzinger knew it well.
In Final Conversations (Seewald-Ratzinger, 2016) Benedict XVI expressly states that he had a free hand – as per Pope John Paul II’s wish – to create new norms and legal structures to punish a certain “filth” in the Church which however was something different from the well-known plague of pedophile priests. He does not specify, but obviously he was referring to the ecclesiastical freemasonry on which Monsignor Edouard Gagnon spoke extensively to John Paul II in 1983, as Father Charles Murr tells us in his recent book Vatican Freemasonry. This distinction recurs almost obsessively in the apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus dated 1988 precisely to make people understand the difference between "being pope" and the consequent possibility of "doing pope". Everything was prepared well in advance. If the pope renounces the munus, he abdicates and also loses the ministerium. If the pope loses the ministerium and retains the munus it means that he is impeded: he still remains pope, but cannot do pope due to force majeure, due to impediment.
2. In his letter of resignation Benedict XVI states that: "the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be summoned by those responsible". How is the statement that he did not intend to abdicate the papacy compatible with this statement?
It is explained with the correct translation from the latin language signed jointly by Prof. Mosetti Casaretto (University of Turin), by the greatest translator of Sallust, Prof. Rodolfo Funari and by the philologist Gian Matteo Corrias, the first to identify it at my request.
The translation that has been published of the sentence: "...and the Conclave for the election of the new Supreme Pontiff must be summoned by those who are responsible for it" is wrong, given that only one person is responsible for summoning the conclave, that is, the dean of the College of Cardinals. It should be added that “his” in Latin means “these” and not “those”. Furthermore, the agent complement ab his quibus competit (ab + ablative) according to the proper Latin usage should not depend on convocandum esse (a passive periphrastic which requires the dative of agent), but on ad eligendum.
Therefore, the correct translation is: "AND I DECLARE that it will have to be summoned the Conclave for the election, BY THESE (CARDINALS) WHO ARE IN CHARGE OF IT, of the new Supreme Pontiff".
With this sentence Pope Benedict specified exactly that, following his impeded see and after his death, the next (true) Supreme Pontiff will have to be elected by those same cardinals present there at the time, appointed by Ratzinger and Wojtyla. In fact, Universi Dominici Gregis prescribes in article 33 that “…The right of active election by any other ecclesiastical dignitary or the intervention of any lay power of whatsoever grade or order is absolutely excluded”.
3. Benedict XVI died a year ago. If he was Pope until his death, what would it mean for the cardinals he appointed to say that Francis is Pope?
It means that either they have not understood the matter yet, or they are trying to sweep things under the rug under the illusion that they can keep this disruptive reality hidden. If they are taking time to wait for Bergoglio's death prior to intervening, as it is possible, the whole Church would eventually look terribly bad. Starting from November 8, 2023 all of them have received via the Secretariat of State the petition with the 11,500 signatures and the explanation of the canonical question. So they can no longer say “we did not know”. Very serious that the cardinal Mueller appointed by Bergoglio said that “a challenge to the papal election would do more harm than good and that we must keep in mind the bonum ecclesiae (the good of the Church)”. Article 3 of Universi Dominici Gregis, in fact, imposes: “the College of Cardinals may make no dispositions whatsoever concerning the rights of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Church, much less allow any of these rights to lapse, either directly or indirectly, even though it be to resolve disputes”. There's only one thing to do: declare the Pope’s death and summon the conclave, according to what the Pope and the Universi Dominici Gregis have arranged. The pre-2013 Cardinals are not to count on giving us another antipope for the sake of a quiet life, they just cannot behave according to the infamous age-old ecclesiastical standard that makes a point to “conceal the scandal”, something that is now definitively to be abandoned given the tragic results it has delivered in the past.
4. Do you see a danger of "narrative thinking" in the practice of reading hidden messages in statements whose superficial meaning seems opposite? That is, do we risk seeing in what we confirm a narrative that we have adopted for other reasons, rather than the simpler truth?
First of all, there is the canonical question which is objective: Benedict had to renounce the munus simultaneously in order to abdicate (as a juridically pure act, such as an abdication is, requires), and instead he stated that he would lose the ministerium after 17 days. This can only happen in an impeded see. And then he makes unequivocal statements like: “I am the first pope to resign after a thousand years”: 2013-1415 = 598. Does this sound like a hidden message or is it elementary arithmetic? “I kept the white cassock and the name Benedict because I had no other clothes available”. Obviously, if one does not want to take seriously the ridiculous hypothesis that no one, in all of Rome and for three years, could lend a black cassock to the pope who had resigned, the most practical thing – precisely because Benedict has always remained pope and there is no specific cassock for the impeded pope – was to remain dressed in white and to bear the pontifical name. “The pope is one”: these are all sentences genially constructed to be either subtly univocal, or clearly amphibological, that is, with a possible double interpretation. This is a concept drawn from moral theology, the so-called broad mental reservation, as already mentioned. Neither Cionci nor Ratzinger invented this, if anything, Jesus Christ himself did, he who often speaks only to those who have ears to hear, and uses silences, amphibologies and initial misunderstandings.
This point about cognitive “patterns recognized only by those who want to recognize them, as in the movie “A beautiful mind””, dissolves itself immediately upon contact with documents and logic. But we must approach Cionci’s investigation with scientific rigor and not with contemptuous superficiality, an intellectual trait now become typical of all his opponents, which often hides authentic punctiliousness or partisan interests.
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