Prior to Benedict XVI, no Pope had announced his resignation of the Papacy since Gregory XII in 1415. As Benedict’s official date of renunciation was February 28, 2013, that means 598 years had passed since the previous Papal resignation. Gregory XII has resigned in order to end the Western Schism, a time during which there were three professed popes. The resignation was along the lines of a compromise during the Council of Constance. So, there was a genuine crisis in the Catholic Church at the time, and the resignation of the Pope was an act of humility designed to bring the Church back together.
The reason Benedict XVI gave for his resignation was declining health, due to old age. Now, this has a bit of a hollow ring to it, considering that his predecessor, John Paul II, continued in the Papacy following two assassination attempts (yes, the second was a stabbing by bayonet while the Pope visited Fatima in 1982, a year following his shooting by Mehmet Ali Agca), and despite suffering from Parkinson's Disease in his later years. Following these heroic efforts, it is difficult to imagine Pope Benedict not feeling that he was seriously letting everyone down by resigning.
There are plenty of accounts purporting what Pope Benedict XVI was up against in the Vatican, the opposition he faced for his continued orthodoxy. What I want to focus on is what I believe to be a particularly telling clue- part prophetic, part insider information.
In the Vatican novel, Windswept House, Fr. Malachi Martin told a tale that wove together a Vatican-insider plot of Cardinals and Bishops, who installed Satan in the Vatican, who tried to control the Pope to change the Mass- who would have to be Paul VI in real life (real people are barely disguised and are easily discernible)- who instigated the reforms of the so-called “spirit of Vatican II” that the author clearly detested and abhorred, and who, during the last part of the book, try their hardest to instigate the “Slavic Pope” (who else but then current Pope John Paul II) to resign. This was called “the resignation protocol”. The purpose, in the novel, of the resignation protocol is to influence the Pope to resign because of his opposition to the Satanic, reformist cabal.
What happened in real life is that John Paul II was too resilient, too strong-willed, if you will, to resign. But the very next Pope, the successor of “the Slavic Pope”, is the first Pope to resign in 6 centuries. Subsequent to his resignation, we are treated to the spectacle of a Pope who is causing more confusion than clarity on issues of morals. This is something new in the history of Popes, at least for well over a century.
I am a recent convert. It is not for me to condemn the Pope. As David said of King Saul, “I will not put out my hand against my lord, because he is the Lord's anointed." [1 Samuel 24:11] But is it possible to speculate that Pope Benedict XVI, despite his statements to the contrary, did not truly resign with complete freedom of the will? It is a thorny question, if an act or decision can be described as freedom of the will if one is deceived. If it is possible that Benedict XVI is, despite himself, still the Pope, then it would be quite a worldly victory by Satan, because that would mean the apparent Pope is not the true Keeper of the Keys, does not have the infallibility of the Papacy, but it is the hidden Pope who retains the graces of the office. It would explain the refusal of Cardinal Bergoglio to answer what he regards as impertinent dubia by some of his Cardinals regarding Amoris Laetitia. It would explain his embrace of the idea of the need to combat climate change, an idea that unites the public moral authority of his office with people who push for global population control. This seems to be the culmination of the plot of Freemasonry to control a Pope. They could not control an actual Pope, who is protected, but they might control a show Pope, especially if he didn't know that's what he was.
If this is true, then upon the death of Benedict XVI- who was the Pope when I came into the Church, and for whom I have a great affection, for his learning and his morality and his orthodoxy- I predict that we will see a monumental change in Francis, who will be confronted suddenly with the true responsibility of the True Magisterium.
