FAQ 9:  ARE TRADITIONAL CATHOLICS IN COMMUNION WITH ROME?

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                                                   Last Revised:  08/21/11


	THE SHORT ANSWER IS YES.

	First of all, one has to define what "Rome" is.  Rome is the eternal 
Rome of the Roman Catholic Faith, the Rome of Saints Peter and Paul, the Rome 
that leads the Roman Catholic Church faithfully to do the will of Our Lord 
Jesus Christ, as defined in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition (the 
Deposit of Faith) and in the doctrines and practices taught by the Church 
based upon them (magisterium).

	To this Rome, whose roots grew by the hand of Providence in the high 
classical Roman civilization, language, and thought that preceded it, all 
men, including the pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, and laypeople, are 
subject.  Catholics have the duty of being in communion with this Rome, just 
as the pope himself must be in communion with Rome, that is, with his 260 
some-odd predecessors in the Catholic and Apostolic Church.

	Therefore, when, in the Church, prelates, including the pope, teach not 
the Roman Catholic Faith, but personal notions that are against the doctrine 
of the Roman Catholic Church for 2000 years, even St. Peter tells us that it 
is the duty of the faithful not to obey, but to resist.  "We ought to obey 
God rather than men" (St. Peter, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles 
5:29/DRV).

	There is no doubt about ex-cathedra decisions of the pope and the 
immemorial ordinary magisterium of the Church ("what was believed everywhere, 
always, and by all"), but this security is lacking when the pope imposes 
simply his personal notions.

	Communion in the Catholic Church is always based first upon unity in 
the Catholic and Apostolic Faith.  That is why, in the history of the Church, 
we see not only popes but also bishops, priests, and laypeople refusing to be 
in communion with those who no longer have, or are suspected of no longer 
having, the immemorial Catholic Faith transmitted by the Apostles.

	Indeed, the pope has "the fullness of power over all the churches" (St. 
Bernard, Epistulae 131), but this power is limited to confirming and 
defending the faith of Peter, not for altering it or encouraging those who 
would alter it.  This is the limit, set from on high and proclaimed 
dogmatically by the First Vatican Council (Pastor Aeternus, cap. 4):  "For 
the Holy Ghost was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they 
might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His 
assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the 
revelation or Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles."

	Any papal actions outside this dogmatic definition are simply null and 
void and are not to be obeyed, but resisted, by the true Catholic faithful.

	Communion, even with the pope, has an indispensable condition, namely, 
unity in the Catholic faith transmitted by the Apostles.  When scandal is 
given to the Faith, subjects are obliged to resist their superiors, even 
publicly, as St. Paul withstood St. Peter "to his face" (Galatians 2:11/DRV).

	St. Cajetan declares:  "It is imperative to resist a pope who is openly 
destroying the Church" (De Comparata Auctoritate Papae et Concilio).  The 
Saint points out that the famous axiom "Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia" [Where the 
Pope is, there is also the Church] holds true ONLY when the Pope acts and 
behaves as the Pope, because Peter "is subject to the duties of the Office"; 
otherwise, "neither is the Church in him, nor is he in the Church"  (apud St. 
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q. 39, Art. 1, ad 6).

	THE REAL QUESTION IS:  ARE THOSE WHO SUBORN NOT ROMAN CATHOLIC SACRED 
TRADITION, BUT A "NEW" MASS, "NEW" SACRAMENTS, AND A "NEW" FAITH IN COMMUNION 
WITH ROME?  BASED UPON THE DECLARATIONS OF POPES, COUNCILS, FATHERS, DOCTORS, 
AND SAINTS, WE WOULD HAVE TO SAY NO -- AT LEAST MATERIALLY, IF NOT FORMALLY.