BELLUM CONTRA HÆRÉTICOS

What is Sedevacantism? 'it is not controversial to claim that a non-Catholic cannot be pope' 👆This proposition essentially sets out the sede vacante position very succinctly... Classic relativism which is well illustrated in the video: -The neo-trad: Don't judge the pope you sedevacantist! -Me: Withholding your assent from the "pope's" teaching is 'judging the pope'! You are judging the man whom you claim to be the pope! As I usually say, the neo-trads are relativists, some of them hardcore... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kuk-Vazsq4

With invincible constancy he always defended the Church against the Arians and Macedonians: the Holy Spirit in fact filled him with divine wisdom and intelligence, so that, writing against those who could no longer bear sound doctrine, he attacked the Arians who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, reaffirming the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and prepared the triumph of orthodoxy over the error of Macedonius, solidly establishing the Catholic dogma about the Holy Spirit. With miracles he bent the Arian emperor Valens so irritated against him that, despite his decision to send him into exile, he forced him to withdraw from his purpose. In fact, the chair on which Valens wanted to sit to extend the decree of exile against Basil broke. And of the three pens he took to write the decree of exile, none let the ink pass, and while he persisted in his intention to write the wicked decree, his enervated right hand became all trembling. Amazed therefore, Valens tore up the paper with both hands. The same night then that she had given herself to Basilio to deliberate, Valens's wife was tortured by stomach pains, and her only son fell seriously ill. Then frightened, recognizing his iniquity, he called for Basil, who as soon as he arrived, the boy began to get better; but Valens, having then called the heretics to see the boy, died shortly afterwards. He celebrated the divine mysteries so holy and majestically that witnessing them once, in the Epiphany of 372, the Aryan emperor Valens, his enemy, was stunned. He was of marvelous abstinence and continence; he was content with a single tunic: very diligent in the observance of the fast, assiduous in prayer, in which he often spent the whole night. He conserved perpetual virginity. He wrote the famous monastic rule that bears his name, which was praised by St. Benedict, and which is still observed today by the monks of the East. In fact, in the monasteries he founded, he thus regulated the life of the monks, which beautifully brought together the advantages of the life of solitude and action. He wrote many works full of erudition; and no one, according to Gregory Nazianzen, explained the books of Scripture with more fecundity and truth. He rested in peace in Caesarea of Cappadocia, on January 1, 379, and since he had lived only for the spirit, it seemed that his body had nothing but bones and skin. The Roman Church celebrates his feast on this day by remembering his ordination. Saint Pius V proclaimed him a Doctor of the Universal Church on September 20, 1568. He is one of the four great Doctors of the East.

SAINT BASIL THE GREAT, BISHOP, CONFESSOR AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH Basil, noble of Caesarea and Cappadocia, born in 329, after studying the profane letters in Constantinople and in Athens together with Gregory Nazianzen, his intimate friend, renounced the world, left his family and embraced the monastic life in the province of Pontus. He admirably learned the sacred sciences in the monastery, and in short time his doctrine and holyness were such that, he has been given the nickname of Magnus, that means Great. Called to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Pontus, he brought back the province to the path of salvation, that has turned away from the Christian customs. Immediately Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea took him as a coadjutor in instructing his city, then succeeding him in the seat in 370. Salt not tasteless, he gave his teaching all the flavour of the Gospel and nourished with the holy Truth the people of Caesarea entrusted to his care.

Sancte Antoni de Padua, Confessor et Ecclesiæ Doctor, ora pro nobis!

The Heretics awaited him with joy and were already singing the triumph: the Catholics trembled at it, not having the faith of the Saint, nor the esteem they owed him; nevertheless they hoped a lot, seeing the miracle of the fishes. The Saint was all in fasts and prayers, and he did not doubt the divine assistance. On the appointed morning, he celebrates Holy Mass and, coming to the square with the Blessed Sacrament accompanied by his Religious, he goes in front of Bonville's house, who in contemptuous air goes to meet him with his mare. He had not given her food for three days and here in the face of the Adorable Sacrament he presents her with fodder. But the Saint after a brief exhortation to the immense people who came to have great faith and devotion to the Most Holy Sacrament, calls the stupid animal in a loud voice, and commands him to come and worship her Creator hidden under the sacramental species. Oh prodigy! the donkey soon leaves the fodder, advances, kneels and lowers her head, and in that act of reverence she stops, until the Sacred Host was brought back to the Church, recognizing in it that Man-God who gives a such a horse was already recognized as a child in the crib. This miracle was repeated by the Saint in France. The triumph of the Catholics and the confusion of the Heretics was what it should be. Bonville, astonished by this fact and touched by grace, renounced the error with much greater glory than the Catholic Dogma, as he was among the most accredited and powerful Patarines; and he then lived in penance the rest of his life, and died with great hope of his salvation. It seemed that such evident proofs of Catholic truths should make all Heretics change their minds of their error; but ordinarily they are Heretics of will, rather than of intellect and they do not believe, since they do not want to believe, not because they are not persuaded of their deceptions [...] Thus from the empire evidently shown by Anthony on the fish of the sea and on the beasts of the earth , drew the hardened Heretics that therefore it was necessary to give him death, otherwise all convinced by his sermons would have abandoned the Heresy. Having established this and choosing the way, they are made to him with lying courtesy to invite him to dine with them in order to poison him. The very abstinent Saint, hoping to find a good opportunity among the foods to earn them for the Church and for God, accepts and goes. As soon as the tables were placed, God revealed to him the warped betrayal and meekly reproached them with the custom of the Heretics of wanting to win with cunning and violence. Nothing disturbed these, although shamed by the unveiling of their arts, “What are you complaining about? - they said - Isn't it written in the Gospel, to which you profess your entire faith, isn't it written, that the ministers of the divine word will not be hurt by poison? Not just to hurt you, but we have prepared it for you only to honor your Gospel itself". The Holy One addressed to God: "Confuse - he said - Lord, the wicked who mock Your infallible word, with Your power"; and having made the sign of the Cross on the poisoned food, he ate them without the slightest harm. At so much prodigious light the most blinded eyes finally opened, and the Saint who had found Rimini a heretic, left her Catholic and religious.

[...] Among these few was a certain Bonville, head of a faction, who either was not present at the miracle or wanted to show a strong spirit, mocking it and also mocking the conversions that had taken place, for having seen, he said, stopped by accident at beach four or six fish. He thought of putting St. Anthony to the test to make him lose his acquired reputation, asking him for a new miracle, which he believed impossible to obtain. He proposed to him that it was indecent to Jesus Christ that he was in the Eucharist under the species of bread; that he preached this to the people to seduce them; and to convince him of the truth. “I want to judge my mare - he added -. We will see, if you place your Sacramentary Bread before her, she adores it”. He horrified the Saint at such blasphemies and proposals; but he, inspired by God, he accepted the challenge and set his day.

Whether in spite of this he was preaching to the few who had remained, or whether he was only protesting that he wanted to preach, he spoke with such resolution and energy, that from that sage alone the Heretics who were lost understood, if he made himself heard, and therefore they came to the sacrilegious resolution to kill him. The Saint heard this, and retired to a small cell, then reduced to a chapel, he stayed there for many days to beg God with harsh scourging, rigorous fasting and very ardent prayers, to want to forgive those blind and hardened people, and to give them docility to allow themselves to be instructed in duties, and in the dogmas of the Catholic Religion. Then he comes out of his retreat, and goes straight to the Adriatic beach where the Marecchia river flows into the sea and calls the fish aloud to hear him celebrate the praises of their Creator, since men so much more bound to glorify him did not want them. to listen. Upon hearing this command, many who were present, either out of curiosity having a distant following or conducted there for pleasure, among curious and mockers, to observe what was happening. And soon the water was moved, the fish appearing darting in various flocks, and dividing each in its own kind with beautiful order, the smallest ones closest to the Saint, the middle ones, and the largest ones further and further away forming an amphitheater; and all raise their heads of various shapes and colors from the water, like a carpet of gems; and there, standing still in the act of listening to him; indeed surprising and pleasant miracle. He took the Saint to represent to them the particular benefits they received from the Creator […] It seemed that those animals understood, they seemed so attentive; and that they consented and applauded his speeches by raising their heads and opening their mouths. Whether the bystanders were stunned is not to say. From the beginning some ran to the town square and, narrating the view, drew immense people to see such a great miracle. The Saint then: "Blessed be God - he said - that He is honoured by fish more than by heretical and unfaithful men". To such a manifest and unheard-of miracle there were few who could prevent copious tears of wonder and compunction. And here, blessed the fishes with the Holy Cross and dismissed them, these with waving their fins and tails and bowing their heads, dived and disappeared. Then resuming St. Anthony to speak: “From the silent animals of the sea - he said - you, men, learn to be grateful and obedient to God”; and having come to represent the malice of sin and particularly of the Heresy and to refute it with extreme force, the number of converts, both of the vicious and of the most brazen Heretics, was incredible; and very few were who did not surrender to him.

Rimini was perhaps the city then for a long time, and more mortally infected, although its zealous Bishops and the Roman Pontiffs themselves had tried every remedy to cure it. The Heretics of there, made fearful of the Holy Preacher, whose fame scattered by the other Cities reported that no Heretic could resist the efficacy of his speech, agreed among themselves not to want to listen to him, and so much struggled with the people, that either, fearful or smeared with the same pitch, he decided to follow their example. So when the Saint arrived and climbed onto the pulpit, instead of finding a crowded and hungry audience to listen to him, as was the custom elsewhere, he saw that when he appeared everyone was leaving, and escaping him. But his zeal was not lost.

But, in 1219, when the bodies of the five blessed martyrs of the Friars Minor were transported to Coimbra (the priests Berard, Otho, Peter, and the lay brothers Accursius and Adjutus), who shortly before had suffered for the faith of Christ in Morocco, ignited by the desire for martyrdom, passed into the Franciscan Order, in September 1220. Under the impulse of such flame, he immediately went, in the autumn of 1220, to the countries of the Saracens; but, after a few months, attacked by an illness and forced to repatriate on a ship that was heading for Spain, the violence of the winds pushed him to Sicily. From Sicily he went to the general chapter of Assisi, that happened from the 30th of May to the 8th of June 1221; and then he retired in the hermitage of Montepaolo, not far from Forlì, in Emilia, where attended for long time to divine contemplation, to fasting and to vigils. Thus, elevated to the sacred orders and sent to preach the Gospel, with wisdom and the faculty of saying brought about such successes and aroused so much admiration of himself that the Supreme Pontiff Gregory IX, having heard him preach once, called him the Ark of the Testament. First of all he fought heresies with extreme energy, hence he was called the perpetual Hammer of the heretics. First of his order, in the grace of his singular doctrine, he taught the sacred letters in Bologna and elsewhere, and directed the studies of his confreres. After crossing many provinces, a year before dying reached Padua, where he left outstanding monuments of holiness. Finally, after having endured great efforts for the glory of God, glorious in merits and miracles, he fell asleep in the Lord, at the age of thirty-five, on June 13, 1231. The Supreme Pontiff Gregory IX inscribed him in the number of saints Confessors, on the 30th of May, 1232. On January 16, 1946 the Supreme Pontiff Pius XII proclaimed him a Doctor of the universal Church with the title of Evangelical.

SAINT ANTHONY OF PADUA, CONFESSOR AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH Anthony (at the century Fernando Martins de Bulhões), born the 15th of August 1195 in Lisboa in Portugal from parents of wealthy and aristocratic origins, who raised him piously, adolescent, at the age of fifteen years old (1219), embraced the life of the regualar Canons of the Holy Cross of the Abbey of St. Vincent of Lisbon. Remained in the abbey of St. Vincent for around two years. Then, preferring a major recollection, hindered by the frequent visits of friends and parents, asked to obtain the transfer near the monastery of the Holy Cross in Coimbra, city at that time capital of Portugal and distant 230 km ca from Lisbon. Fernando arrived in Coimbra in 1212, at the age of ca 17 years old. The monastery was very big and had around seventy canonicals. Here being versed in the Sacred Scriptures and in preaching, a career within the Order awaited him.