The Sound of Silence and its price.

The Catholic media and the highly problematic election of Leo XIV

Hello darkness my old friend…

XIII Kalendas Iulii (19 June) Anno Incarnationis MMXXV

The Feast of Corpus Christi with a Commemoration of the Martyrs Gervasius & Protasius

Something truly amazing happened just over a month ago. A papal conclave was held that blatantly violated the law of how a pope is to be elected and seems very well to have voided the election of Leo XIV and… nobody cared. That’s right: nobody cared.

Everybody just either pretended not to notice or they looked the other way, or they couldn’t be bothered, or whatever. And if anyone was foolish enough to point out the annoying little fact of how screwed up this election was that person was called either ignorant or, even worse… a sede!

Those who have read this substack before may be familiar with the fact that I did address this question twice before here and here¹ immediately prior to the Conclave of 7-8 May. After examining the evidence it seemed obvious that what the Cardinals were doing was blatantly illegal. I noted as well at that time that absolutely the entire Catholic media had gone completely and totally silent about this very obvious and quite serious problem facing the Church.

Because that is really the thing: the silence. It isn’t the legal arguments, although they are extremely important. It isn’t even that someone probably just usurped the papacy² – that has happened before and unfortunately more than once.

It is the fact that no one cares. That is the problem.

The Legal Argument

But to understand why this matters we do have to once again take a rather lengthy trip through the legal argument concerning why the 8 May election of Robert Prevost as Pope was null and void. And then we have to examine the objections which have been made to that argument. And then those objections have to be answered.

It is a lengthy and rather detailed process, but it does have to be done in order to understand why the silence of the Catholic media regarding this topic has been so vile.

I’ll repeat here that I am not a canonist and I claim no formal training in canon law. But the law in this case is fairly self explanatory. And I will be more than happy to engage with any honest criticism of my argument by any person of goodwill in the comments section.

What this is not

But before I begin the review of the legal argument I do want to state that this is a question about the current law governing papal elections promulgated by John Paul II in 1996, twenty nine years ago. It is not about a long forgotten papal bull from the 16^th century. This law governing papal elections was promulgated by John Paul II again, in 1996, when the vast majority of the men who voted in this year’s illegal conclave had already begun their priesthoods. So it is a very current thing whose provisions everyone involved in Church governance, and especially the College of Cardinals, should have had full knowledge of.

Nor is there any outlandish conspiracy theory here. This is not about white smoke, black smoke, white smoke. It is not about munus vs. ministerium. It isn’t about murder in the 33^rd degree. It is about a very public and very visible blatant and gross violation of a very modern and easy to understand papal election law.

And in case you have any question about where I personally am coming from on this i.e. if you want to know whether I am some conspiracy obsessed crackpot I will tell you the following: I am pretty sure that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy because if anyone else was involved I’ve never heard their name. I actually had the privilege to meet the last man to walk on the Moon, the late Eugene Cernan, God rest his soul, and I’m pretty sure he was telling the truth and human beings have actually been there.

Guy looks guilty to me. (source) Photo credit: Dallas Police

I’m also fairly confident that the earth revolves around the sun and I’ve prayed the words orbis terrarum in the psalms too many times to entertain any serious notion that it is flat. And while the CIA and Mossad undoubtedly engage in a wide range of nefarious activities around the world both of these organizations are far too young, having come into existence only in the late 1940s, to be responsible for the major ills of the modern world.

(This article is not about any of those topics by the way, so any comments pertaining to them will be deleted.)

The argument that the 8 May election of Robert Prevost was null and void

All of that said, the argument that the 8 May election of Robert Prevost was null and void is based on that election’s violation of the stipulations of paragraph No. 33 of the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis (UDG), the Church’s governing law of the sede vacante and the conclave, which was promulgated on 22 February 1996 by John Paul II. No. 33 reads as follows:

The right to elect the Roman Pontiff belongs exclusively to the Cardinals of Holy Roman Church, with the exception of those who have reached their eightieth birthday before the day of the Roman Pontiff's death or the day when the Apostolic See becomes vacant. The maximum number of Cardinal electors must not exceed one hundred and twenty. 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.

This paragraph that describes the requirements for the Cardinals who make up a legitimate and lawful conclave to elect a pope is crystal clear: the Cardinals who will elect the pope all have to have been under 80 when the pope dies and there can only be 120 of them. No more. Only 120. That’s it. No más.

And everybody else besides those 120 Cardinals under the age of 80, whether lay or ecclesiastic is absolutely excluded from the process. The paragraph explicitly excludes any other ecclesiastical dignitary, which would include any other Cardinal beyond those 120 permitted, from participating in the election.

Again, the law says the maximum number of Cardinal electors must not exceed one hundred and twenty. The number of electors must not exceed 120. The number of electors must not exceed 120. For the one hundred and ninety millionth time the law governing papal elections says that the number of Cardinal electors must not exceed one hundred twenty and no other ecclesiastical dignitary (and that includes any other Cardinal) may participate. Sorry but that’s what it says. That’s the law.

Why do I keep harping on this? Because those who organized the conclave of 7-8 May 2025 chose to include not the maximum allowable number of 120 Cardinals but instead illegally raised the number of electors to 133. Therefore it illegally included thirteen men who were not supposed to be in that Conclave as they were not actual electors.

But why, you might ask, would the Cardinals do such a stupid thing?³ Were they somehow, in the age of the internet when each and every one of them could pull up UDG on his smartphone at any moment of the day or night that pleased him, ignorant of this law or this provision? No. They weren’t.

The 30 April Statement of the Congregation of Cardinals

The Congregation of Cardinals knew quite well that UDG limited their number to 120 and they publicly acknowledged it. They issued a public statement through the Vatican press office on 30 April which acknowledged that UDG limited their number to 120 and where they announced their intention to flout that law:

Regarding the Cardinal electors, the Congregation has revealed that His Holiness Francis, by creating a number of Cardinals higher than the 120 stipulated by no. 33 of the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis of Saint John Paul II, of 22 February 1996, in the exercise of his supreme power, has dispensed with this legislative provision, whereby the Cardinals exceeding the set limit have acquired, in accordance with No. 36 of the same Apostolic Constitution, the right to elect the Roman Pontiff, from the moment of their creation and publication;

The truth is the Cardinals were lying here. That’s right: the most charitable way of describing this is that their Eminences were lying through their teeth. Francis never dispensed anybody from anything.⁴ And the paragraph No. 36 that they cite as their excuse for breaking the law actually reaffirms that their number must not exceed 120. Here is its relevant portion:

A Cardinal of Holy Roman Church who has been created and published before the College of Cardinals thereby has the right to elect the Pope, in accordance with the norm of No. 33 of the present Constitution, even if he has not yet received the red hat or the ring, or sworn the oath.

What this paragraph that they cite as their justification for including thirteen illegal electors actually says is that you can’t deny a Cardinal the right to vote only because he had only just been named a Cardinal when the pope died (or resigned) and hadn’t yet gone through the formal investiture ceremony. That’s it. It doesn’t say you can add thirteen extra Cardinals to the Conclave.

If you actually read No. 36 you will see that the stipulations of No. 33 still apply i.e. a Cardinal can’t be denied the right to vote in the Conclave only because he had only just been named, but he still has to have been under 80 when the pope died and there can still only be 120 of them. All apologies to Your Eminences who chose not to acknowledge this fact, but that’s what it says.

The consequences of what the Cardinals did

So what are the consequences of the Cardinals of the 7-8 May Conclave choosing to violate this papal election law and illegally increase their number of electors to 133 - thirteen beyond the maximum legal number of 120? The law itself provides the answer. No. 76 of UDG reads as follows:

Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.

The number of Cardinal electors being limited to 120 sure sounds like the way that UDG i.e. the present constitution prescribes that the election take place. And since those who ran the 7-8 May 2025 Conclave insisted on having 13 additional illegal electors beyond the maximum allowable number of 120 it sure seems like the election took place in a way other than prescribed in the present Constitution. So what then is the consequence of that?

The election of Robert Prevost on 8 May was null and void and of no effect and conferred no rights on that man. Therefore the sede vacante which began at 7:35am (CEST) on 21 April 2025 with the death of Pope Francis is still in effect.

Robert Prevost in 2018. (source) Photo credit: Diario La Industria - Chiclayo

Objections to that argument

Now it should be stated once again before laying out the objections to the above argument that this was not an arbitrary statement on my part. We brought up the illegality of this Conclave based on this very reason of the 13 illegal electors twice before the thing even started.

So this is not because I don’t like Robert Prevost.⁵ Nor is this about white smoke/black smoke/ white smoke. Nor is it about munus vs. ministerium.

It is about blatant law breaking on the part of the College of Cardinals during the 7-8 May 2025 Conclave. And almost more importantly it is about the complete and total coverup of their crime by the so called ‘catholic’ media.

However, on the off chance you ever do get anyone in the Catholic media world to discuss the highly problematic election of Robert Prevost you will most likely receive one and only one answer (if you are that lucky) before you are shut down and banned from discussing the subject any further. The substance of that answer, although you may run across it in a slightly different version in a couple of other places, is expressed in its fullest form in a 4 May article from the Unam Sanctam Catholicam blog.

And this article is just stunningly stupid. It is replete with self deluded wishful thinking mating with non sequiters to give birth to a brood of logical fallacies. But like I said, if anybody in the Catholic media can be dragged kicking and screaming into saying anything at all about this issue, this is what you will hear.⁶ This is the opening paragraph:

It is very disappointing that many Catholics are apparently disposing themselves to doubt the validity of the upcoming conclave before it has even begun. These doubts seem to be driven by an overly legalistic readings of John Paul II's Universi dominici gregis, the late pontiff's 1996 Apostolic Constitution on choosing the successor of St. Peter.

He condemns concerned Catholics for an overly legalistic reading… of a law! How are you supposed to read a law - other than legalistically? IT’S A LAW!!!

But this is the usual sloppy, unintelligent, uninterested and uninteresting, and quite frankly deceitful fare that gets promoted and widely propagated by the Catholic media when it comes to the most important issues in the life of the Church.

Speaking parenthetically: in case you have been wondering why Catholic life seems to have been running in place while sinking into quicksand as long as you have been alive and the extremely obvious solutions to a great many critical problems that are hanging like a millstone around the neck of the Church are never even permitted to be discussed, much less implemented – this is why.

And it has to be said that the author of this blog post ends up illustrating the above phenomenon quite well by making an extremely deceitful argument as to why more than 120 Cardinals should be permitted to act as electors. He weaves together two different paragraphs of UDG and in the process omits some very relevant information from one of them which would entirely contradict his blatantly dishonest interpretation of the document’s intention.

His basic argument, and this is the same argument you will hear most other places that can be bothered to bring up the subject of Robert Prevost’s election, is that UDG guarantees every Cardinal under 80 the right to vote and then contradicts itself by limiting the number of said electors to 120. Therefore we can’t follow the law so let’s just do what ever we want.

Here is how he, again very deceitfully,⁷ justifies that conclusion:

This is reaffirmed in paragraph 33 as well, which says, "The maximum number of Cardinal electors must not exceed one hundred and twenty." Well and good. But, on the other hand, the document also says that every Cardinal under the age of eighty at the time of the sede vacante possesses the right to vote (author’s note: the document never says that anywhere) in the conclave:

The right to elect the Roman Pontiff belongs exclusively to the Cardinals of Holy Roman Church, with the exception of those who have reached their eightieth birthday before the day of the Roman Pontiff's death or the day when the Apostolic See becomes vacant...No Cardinal elector can be excluded from active or passive voice in the election of the Supreme Pontiff, for any reason or pretext (33, 35).

If you will remember my above citation of the entirety of No. 33 of Universi Dominici Gregis it will come to mind quite quickly what our friend here who wrote this article that has been trumpeted by some quite notable people in the Catholic social media world chose to leave out of his citation. But for clarity’s sake let’s review the entirety of No. 33 one more time:

The right to elect the Roman Pontiff belongs exclusively to the Cardinals of Holy Roman Church, with the exception of those who have reached their eightieth birthday before the day of the Roman Pontiff's death or the day when the Apostolic See becomes vacant. The maximum number of Cardinal electors must not exceed one hundred and twenty. 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.

Nowhere does it say that ‘every Cardinal under 80 possesses the right to vote.’ All it says is that if you are 80 or above you absolutely cannot vote. However it says nothing whatsoever about guaranteeing the right to vote as an elector to every Cardinal under 80. That so called ‘right’ simply does not exist. So sorry my friend: there isn’t any contradiction.

The paragraph says that if your 80 or above you don’t get to vote and of those who remain no more than 120⁸ of them may vote. Sorry, but that’s what the law says. A pope has the power to appoint as many Cardinals as he wants. He can appoint 500 Cardinals under 80 if that’s what he wants⁹ to do. It doesn’t matter. Universi Dominici Gregis doesn’t govern him. It governs the sede vacante and it states quite clearly that no matter how many Cardinals under 80 there are only 120 of them get to vote. Sorry, that’s the law. It’s crystal clear and there is no contradiction.¹⁰

Moreover, the document explicitly and absolutely excludes any other ecclesiastical dignitary from serving as an elector, and that would include any other Cardinal beyond those 120 no matter what his age. Therefore the above argument from Unam Sanctam that it was perfectly fine that thirteen illegal ‘electors’ participated in the 2025 Conclave because of this nonexistent ‘contradiction’ is completely bogus.

What to do about No. 76?

So the other question here is about No. 76. When it says Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void does it actually mean that? Or did JPII write this just for kicks, never actually intending it to be triggered?

Our intrepid author once again assures us that to take these lines to mean what they clearly do mean to any reasonable (or sane) person i.e. that if you don’t follow the provisions I laid out here your election is null and void and whoever you claim to elect is not the pope, is to read the text of this law in an overly ‘legalistic’ way.

To back up his claim he quotes at length a 2017 article by a canonist of some renown Dr. Ed Peters discussing the precise conditions under which, in Dr. Peters’ opinion, the provision of No. 76 rendering a papal election null and void would be activated.

But it is very important to remember that this article from Dr. Peters has nothing to do with the 2025 Conclave. It was written the better part of a decade ago and its author never offers any sort of opinion whatsoever about what the legal status would be of an election by a conclave that illegally included thirteen extra electors.

Dr. Peters’ article is eight years old and it concerns itself solely with addressing the every other week claim that the Benevacantist crowd was making in those days that Francis wasn’t the pope for this, that, or the other reason. In this particular case he was addressing the ubiquitous but perpetually unproven allegation that the so called St. Gallen mafia conspired before and during the 2013 Conclave to elect Jorge Bergolio as Pope Francis thus violating No. 79 of UDG and rendering his election null and void.

That question is irrelevant to our discussion mostly because Francis is now gone and, unlike the 13 illegal electors in the 2025 Conclave which were on display for the world to see, no verifiable evidence whatsoever was ever offered to back up those allegations. Dr. Peters does however offer an extended meditation on what he personally understands paragraph No. 76 of UDG to mean, which our author at Unam Sanctam quotes at length:

Consider: UDG requires (among many, many things) the use of paper ballots with the words “Eligo in Summum Pontificem” across the top. Now suppose some, but only some, ballots read “Eligo in Summum Pontficem”, but this mistake is not noticed until after a winner is announced in the Sistine Chapel. Has the election taken place “in a way other than that prescribed”? Yes. Suppose the electors run out of paper ballots and start using card stock. Has the election taken place “in a way other than that prescribed”? Sure. Suppose some electors cannot spell a candidate’s name correctly and so either badly guess at its spelling or identify him by his city or country? Has the election taken place “in a way other than that prescribed”? Indeed. Suppose Rome is hit with a heat wave and the Sistine Chapel AC breaks down, so, to save aging electors¹¹ dangerous misery (such as actually happened during the election of Benedict XIV), the afternoon ballots are shifted to take place in the morning. Has the election taken place “in a way other than that prescribed”? Certainly. A thousand variations on the ‘prescribed way’ of electing seem possible, some trivial (like typos on a ballot), others gravely sinful (like simony), such that, in some cases at least, the words in UDG 76, “in a way other than that prescribed”, could not reasonably connote in Church law everything they could well connote in common parlance.¹²

In a following passage that the anonymous author at Unam Sanctam chooses not to include Dr. Peters does go on to explain what kind of thing he thinks would actually trigger the ‘null and void’ provision of UDG No. 76:

I think, after looking at some “parallel places” (and what places can be more parallel here than other papal conclave provisions?), that what John Paul II meant when he scored as null any papal election that took place “in a way other than that prescribed” was basically this: if a papal election purported to take place other than by two-thirds majority of ballots directly cast by individual electors present in conclave—that is, if, say, any one attempted to revive older, long acceptable, but now discarded, means of papal election such as “acclamation”, or “compromise by committee”, or drawing lots, or leaning out a window and asking the crowd outside St. Peter’s who should be pope—that such an election would be invalid.

Now again Dr. Peters clearly states that what he is offering here is only his opinion as to ‘what John Paul II meant’, and one is free to question the wisdom of trying to read the mind of a man (John Paul II) who had been dead for twelve years when he wrote that article. In any case what the good canonist says he thinks the kind of event that would trigger the nullity clause of UDG No. 76 would have to be is something like the Cardinals choosing an alternative method of electing the pope.

Well, fine. But how about if the Cardinals choose to include thirteen men in the Conclave that UDG specifically and explicitly says are not supposed to be there? Even if we do accept Dr. Peters’ opinion as binding, which it is not, that violation would seem to be very much more in line with the kind of thing he says would void an election than writing ‘Pontficem’ instead of ‘Pontificem’.¹³

And yet the Catholic media remains silent…

These are the facts of the case then and they are quite damning. And I’m sorry but it should be patently obvious to everyone by now that if the proverbial man from Mars came to earth and read this law and its provisions and then took a thorough and honest look at what occurred during the Conclave of 7-8 May 2025 he could come to no other conclusion than the 8 May election of Robert Prevost was null and void and the sede vacante that began with the death of Francis on the morning of 21 April 2025 is therefore still in effect.

A pretty good prima facie case exists that the whole papacy of Leo XIV is bogus and that 120 Cardinals who were under 80 years old on 21 April need to be called back to Rome immediately to sort this mess out that they themselves created. But unfortunately that is not likely to happen. The only thing that could make that happen is a media firestorm, and well…

We all know quite well that the vast majority of the Catholic media is bought and paid for.¹⁴ The Fatima hoax of the year 2000 whose silver anniversary is next week made that abundantly clear. Catholic ‘journalists’ are given( by somebody) a managed range of topics they are permitted to discuss. And within that range of acceptable topics it is only permissible to offer an extremely restricted scope of opinions drawn from a very narrow selection of preapproved viewpoints. Anything beyond that is strictly verboten and a threat to their livelihood.

So obviously for this crowd to even posit the notion that there is even the slightest possibility that a papal election might have been null and void is a complete nonstarter.

When you get to the so called ‘trad’ media things get a bit more complicated and actually kind of weird. Because we all remember the Francis years, especially the heyday from say 2016 to 2022. A whole lot of people in the tradosphere made pretty nice careers for themselves (and a nice chunk of change as well) off of doing very little apart from offering a nonstop stream of complaints about Francis for the better part of a decade.

Every time the word ‘rigid’ came out of his mouth we were treated to weeks long diatribes about how he hated ‘tradition’. Every synod was given a year long lead up of almost daily apocalyptic prophecies of approaching doom and lurid predictions of Francis being on the verge of creating women deacons and giving them the right to say Mass in tribal dress.

So you would think that these people who made their bones off going after a pope¹⁵ would have no problem calling out a corrupt and illegal Conclave that produced a papal election that was null and void, right? Well… Actually, and very weirdly, they are nowhere to be found. They have gone completely silent.

Part of it is yes we all know that a fair bit of the tradosphere is bought and paid for as well: the range of topics they are permitted is different but the cost of stepping out of line is the same. Added on to this is the pathological fear of being called or being thought of as ‘a sede’. The number one rule in trad world is ‘don’t get called a sede.’ That is the biggest career ender you can have.

If you bring up the fact that the election of Robert Prevost was null and void in Novus Ordo circles they will just roll their eyes and look at you like you’re an idiot. But if you do it in tradville their eyes will assume a vacant stare and they will begin to chant in zombie like fashion the following mantra: I am a loyal son of the Church… I am not a sede… Universal and peaceful acceptance…¹⁶ before blocking you and deleting you on their way to pick up a check for their next appearance at the ‘cancelled priests’ conference.

The Court of Public Opinion

At the end of the day the problem we face is that there is no court in the world before which we can adjudicate this matter of the papal election of 8 May 2025. It simply doesn’t exist. There isn’t anybody to serve an eviction notice to Robert Prevost and get him out of the Apostolic Palace. The only thing we have is the court of public opinion. And that court has been artificially silenced for the moment by a corrupt Catholic media.

But somebody has to say something. Two generations ago we were silent in the face of the outrages done to the Mass. The generation that followed that was silent in the face of the increasingly obvious fact that the priesthood was becoming more and more populated by men who were active homosexuals - because, really, what other kind of person besides a homosexual man would have traded the Gregorian Chant of the Mass for a bunch of show tunes… and then keep it up for decade after decade after decade after decade when it had become such an obvious failure and laughing stock? Not to mention the general secretary of the USCCB and the Grindr App…¹⁷ But I digress.

The generation that followed that, my generation, largely looked the other way when it turned out that a lot of those homosexual men in the clergy were also child rapists. Sure, we got outraged when the Catholic media told us we were permitted to be outraged; when some report came out or something like that. But the rest of the time we just shut up and looked the other way – especially when the collection basket came around. And then when the next report came out right on cue we would get outraged all over again like it was the first time we had ever heard anything about it. And then we shut up all over again, looked the other way again, and acted like nothing ever happened… again.

Now we are being told once again to shut up and look the other way while a man who was not legitimately elected to the papacy ascends the Throne of Saint Peter. This I will not do. I have had enough. Consider this my official resignation from the shut up and look the other way club. Therefore:

Due to the inclusion of thirteen illegal ‘electors’ in the Conclave of 7-8 May 2025 according to No. 76 of the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis the 8 May election of Robert Prevost is null and void and he has no right to exercise the Office of Roman Pontiff. The period of Sede Vacante that began on the morning of 21 April of this year is still in effect. God willing the Cardinals will reassemble with all speed and do things right this time.

1. I was perhaps far too restrained in those posts because I was just beginning to understand the nature of what was going on and I was desperately holding out hope that somebody in that Conclave would do the right thing. Or at least the man who was elected would attempt to set things right. But none of that happened.

2. Yes. I said ‘usurped’. That’s what happened. Get over it.

3. That is the real question here. Why did they do this? Is it just because they were lazy and/or tone deaf and stupid and knew they had the Catholic media in the bag? But still, why? Thirteen of those men could have just as easily developed a severe ear infection and not been able to come, just to be on the safe side. Even from a PR perspective that would seem to have been the better way. But they didn’t. What was the reason?

Nor would I have advised any man to accept election under those circumstances. I wouldn’t have touched the papacy with a ten meter cattle prod following that kind of election but Prevost decided to walk out on the loggia. All of this was very weird.

4. There is no record of him making any sort of dispensation in oral or written form to anybody, not even a death bed whisper. That issue was addressed at the time of the Conclave here.

5. My personal opinion of Robert Prevost is that he is an empty cassock. There are several potential planetary crises threatening at this very moment and he is greenifying Saint Peter’s Basilica. Say what you want about Francis but from the moment he walked out on the loggia until he drew his last breath the man was, for good or ill, a presence on the world stage. Likewise his two immediate predecessors. Robert Prevost is a non entity. Probably due to the lack of the grace of office

6. I was told by a very prominent public figure in the ‘traditionalist’ movement that this Unam Sanctam article ‘shreds’ the case that the thirteen extra electors were illegal. It doesn’t. Not even close.

7. I use the word ‘deceitful’ here unreservedly because if one can read Universi Dominici Gregis well enough to fabricate a false argument by disingenuously weaving together selected portions from multiple paragraphs in this fashion to create the optical illusion that his argument has some validity then he can also read it well enough to know that according to the actual text of the document his argument is pure hokum.

8. Yes No. 35 gives every Cardinal elector the right to vote without restriction but that is irrelevant to this discussion since No. 33 limits the number of electors to 120. Therefore any Cardinal beyond the allowable number of 120 is by definition not an elector and therefore not covered by this paragraph.

9. The Pope as Supreme Legislator can also change the law anytime he wants do. Francis could have dispensed from this provision of UDG if he had wanted to. But he didn’t. He could have scrapped UDG entirely and written his own Apostolic Constitution if he had wanted to. But he didn’t. Therefore the law that limited the number of voting Cardinals to 120 was still in force during the 7-8 May 2025 Conclave and they violated it.

10. And just for the record the Cardinals were legally authorized to come up with a way of figuring out which thirteen of the Cardinals under 80 would be excluded from voting. No. 5 (which weirdly they don’t cite in their statement) of UDG does give them the following right:

Should doubts arise concerning the prescriptions contained in this Constitution, or concerning the manner of putting them into effect, I decree that all power of issuing a judgment in this regard belongs to the College of Cardinals, to which I grant the faculty of interpreting doubtful or controverted points.

Therefore they could have drawn lots or removed Cardinals by age or whatever means they thought best. What they were not permitted to do was to rewrite the law while lying about its contents and about alleged ‘dispensations’.

11. This is another red herring as Paul VI banned ‘aging electors’ from participating in the Conclave for this very reason when he forbid Cardinals 80 years of age and older from participating.

12. There are a lot of red herrings here. First, as everybody knows, the ballots are burned so it would not be possible to discover a spelling error after the winner was announced to the public since those ballots would no longer be in existence.

Second I have no problem with a requirement for precision. The law is an exacting and precise profession and Dr. Peters of all people should know that. Anyone who has ever had dealings with a law court or a legislature knows quite well that how a word is spelled or even where a comma is placed matters, and can potentially on some occasions even alter the outcome of a case if done carelessly. Why should we expect less of our churchmen?

13. Dr. Peters in his article of eight years ago responding to the Benevacantist claims about Pope Francis makes mention of how in his opinion UDG is a ‘special law for a special event’ that is not independent of the rest of Canon Law. He cites Canon 10 of the 1983 Code that requires a law to “expressly establish that an act is null” in order to invalidate said act.

Dr. Peters’ argument would be that No. 76 doesn’t expressly establish anything as a reason for nullity. It just says should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed. Therefore presumably it is almost impossible to trigger it.

The only problem with employing Dr. Peters’ argument in the case of the thirteen illegal electors who participated in the 2025 Conclave is that UDG No. 33 expressly establishes that “The maximum number of Cardinal electors must not exceed one hundred and twenty.” That sounds very much like it is expressly establishing a violation that would trigger the nullity clause of No. 76.

14. When I say ‘bought and paid for’ I am not implying that someone is coming into their office and dropping a bag of money on their desk and telling them what to write. (Although in some cases…) More than likely they just know, as the saying goes, where their bread is buttered. Everybody knows the subjects you are not allowed to touch; either through experience or observation. And after a while it becomes internalized and a reflex develops to shut down anything that could even lead in that direction.

15. But if you think about it even the tabloid coverage of the Francis papacy by the tradosphere seemed to function within defined limits. They harped endlessly about his use of the word ‘rigid’ but when Francis publicly and shockingly taught, near the end of his life that Sikhism, Hinduism, and Islam were paths to the divine equal to Jesus Christ they barely batted an eyelash. So the fix was probably always in with these people.

16. With some of these guys I am beginning to think that Anton LaVey could walk out on the loggia and the only response we would get from them is: …universal and peaceful acceptance …I am not a sede.

17. It really is amazing how much the presence of active homosexuals in the clergy has basically been accepted and normalized by the laity. When we hear that the general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops gets caught in a bath house in Vegas using the Grindr app we all just shrug our shoulders and say “Whatever…” It’s really embarrassing. And completely insane.