ON SOME WRITINGS BY TERESA BENNS (Abbé Zins)

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Teresa Benns seems however to hold the opposite, as she wrote recently (on the 17th of June 2021) that :

one excommunicated [priest] however for heresy whose Mass would be invalid

There she returns to an old error, a plain heresy, defended for a time by various bishops from Africa, including Saint Cyprian who, were it not for the patience and firmness of Popes Saint Stephen Ist and Saint Xystus II after him, nearly got lost into a schism of their own and nearly fell into heresy.

Those bishops went indeed as far as holding that all the Sacrements conferred by schismatics and heretics, (Donatists mostly at this time), were by themselves "invalid", even baptism, which according to them had to be reiterated on those who returned to Catholic unity.

Now, when the sacramental rite has been respected in its essentials (and without any publicly expressed counter-intention against the very nature of the administered sacrement), sacramental validity follows, ex opere operato.

Pope Saint Stephen thus retorted to them that their opinion and practice were contrary to the Holy Tradition of Mother Church, using a now-famous formula :

« Nihil innovetur, nisi quod traditum est » (Denz S 110), « Let us not innovate in anything, but stick to that which is traditional », that which has always been held and done.

No less was needed than the glorious martyrdom of Pape Saint Stephen (he was beheaded on his pontifical throne just after having finished saying Mass in the Catacombs), to make Saint Cyprian admit that the Pope had not spoken thus out of weakness or complacency towards the heretics and schismatics, and finally submit to the Pope's sentence, which expressed the Church's constant doctrine and practice.

May Teresa Benns have the humility and the common sense to emulate this example, by acknowledging the errors she made on those matters.

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She also misunderstands the stability of jurisdiction, both of the bishops and the ordinaries such as the parish priests or religious superiors, their power to delegate a part of their jurisdiction to their subordinates :

arguments that bishops were allowed to function during interregnums in the past.
Pope Pius XII on more than one occasion warns of harking back to previous discipline to justify one’s actions.

This level of misapplication borders on the grotesque.

As though, in the past (or at any time for that matter), the bishops did not keep their jurisdiction during a vacancy of the Holy See!!!!

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« NO MORE CAN ANY CATHOLIC IN HIS RIGHT SENSES REPUDIATE EXISTING LEGISLATION OF THE CHURCH TO REVERT TO PRESCRIPTIONS BASED ON THE EARLIEST SOURCES OF CANON LAW.»

But it is she who with her warped understanding believes that bishops lose their jurisdiction during a vacancy of the Holy See!!!! and pretends to pit recent laws against earlier ones.
As though Pius XII had changed the laws!!??
She does not even know that his Constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis is almost a word for word repetition, except for this or that detail, of Pope St. Pius X's one.

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No one, not even the cardinals, can usurp the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff during an interregnum. They cannot do what only the pope is typically allowed to do. This includes erecting seminaries

This is grotesquely false. Such establishments depend on diocesan bishops (c. 1354-1359) or religious superiors ...

This includes : (...)
supplying jurisdiction

This is false. This supplied jurisdiction exists and remains available to all those who have the power to delegate it, within the limits defined by their functions.

“In truth, if anything adverse to this command should by chance happen to come about or be attempted, We declare it, by Our Supreme Authority, to be null and void.” (Quote from Vac. Apost. Sedis)

Since Ms. Benns extends the scope of this quote far beyond its intended meaning, she eventually reaches a point where she declares "invalid" just about anything done during a vacancy.

In this regard, she is of one mind with a certain Lady-Pope.

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Bishops have simulated ordinations without dimissorial letters, (2373). Traditional “priests” have simulated the Mass and Sacraments, (Can. 2322).

The quote above tells volumes once again about how she mingles together liceity and validity on the pratical level.

These are only some of the offenses racked up against them. It is complicated because the functions of their clerics must be judged on two separate standards; the one they claim applies to them as “clerics” and the one that the law actually indicates as applying to them in a lay capacity. If they hold themselves to be clerics (and there is no certainty that they ever became clerics) then they incur excommunications as such but only where matter of conscience are concerned. If not then they still incur infamy of law and the penalties for heresy and schism (communicatio in sacris), also defending heresy and simulating the Sacraments. But in reality they are to be considered laymen and the penalties for clerics would not apply. This is because those things they attempted were prevented from taking effect by Pius XII during an interregnum.

What a mess. She assured us often at first that none of the tonsures were valid, and therefore that not one of those men was a cleric, but now she says :

there is no certainty that they ever became clerics

so there might be a possiblity after all!!?? When should we believe her, when she says one thing or when she says the opposite!? Is this some sort of navigation by sculling, according to her fuzzy estimate of the moment? So many confusions there!

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Jurisdiction cannot be supplied in any way, by anyone but the Supreme Pontiff, as has been the constant practice of the Church.

This is false as stated, by reason of excessive vagueness. Jurisdiction comes from God, its source, through the Pope, but once received it stays in the recipient unless revoked; besides, it can also be delegated at several levels in the hierarchy, by all those who possess such a power of delegation; and finally, certain delegations are by law itself and codified by it.

The simulated ordination of such men by doubtfully valid bishops, who could call men to the priesthood in the first place because calling and clerical tonsure both are acts of episcopal jurisdiction.

There, as before, the word simulated is distorted and used in a non-canonical sense, by a factual confusion between canonical and moral illicitness and sacramental invalidity.

When false bishops are involved, there is indeed a simulation in the canonical sense ; but not if the bishops are true bishops (even if schismatic), the situation is like the one where a priest fallen into schism nevertheless retains his sacremental power to consecrate, even though his use of this power is immoral and gravely sinful; and not either because of a tonsure received illegally or in other words illicitly.

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« The simulated consecration of bishops, for to consecrate bishops a papal mandate (permission) is required and there is no pope. In proceeding to consecration, these schismatic bishops usurp the power of the pope to approve the consecration and grant jurisdiction to the bishop, which can come only from the Roman Pontiff (Pope Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis; Ad Sinarum Gentum). »

There, we have once again confusion between canonical or moral illicitness and sacramental invalidity, between a lack of jurisdictional power and a lack of the power of orders, even though the latter is used immorally and in a gravely sinful way.

Thus, the Chinese “patriot bishops” consecrated at the behest of the Communist party and despite Pope Pius XII's interdiction, were schismatics, excommunicated, suspended a divinis and considered as such, but they were not "non-bishops".

Their consecration was gravely unlawful and schismatical, was a grave sin, and was considered as such, but it was sacramentally valid nonetheless.

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All this looks like an attempt at face-saving, after her earlier confusion between validity and licitness was pointed out to her and blamed on her.

But this attempt fails and only worsens her preceding confusions by yet another bogus deduction, even more obviously outlandish.

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The credibility gap is widened even more by the following peremptory (again) claim :

Under Can. 188 no. 4, all bishops who recognized the counter-Church as the Catholic Church and engaged in communicatio in sacris by celebrating the John 23 “mass” and the Novus Ordo Missae became guilty of schism and lost all jurisdiction. This could have been avoided had they refused to participate in the false Vatican 2 council and sign its documents and withdrawn their obedience to and cooperation with the false popes as heretics and schismatics. Lefebvre, Thuc and others schismatic bishops like them who established Traditionalism, thereby misleading the faithful, were far worse than those bishops who abandoned them by remaining in the Novus Ordo church.

If we take this literally and apply it from the start, we should conclude that all the marriages after V2 are invalid (because the ecclesiastical witness must have jurisdiction), that all those who were baptized in the parishes after V2 automatically became participants in schism and the V2 heresies (before they could hear them stated and understand them !?), and similarly for all the laymen who did not separate themselves immediately, etc...

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But one also notices a curious feature in those sort of studies made by those sort of laymen, namely that in their mind, law and principles (as they understand them) apply to the clergy only, and not to themselves at all.

Even more curiously, they are some rules that she applies to the clergy and extends to the "traditionalists" (in which she includes schismatics from old lines and sectarians) :

Traditionalists have joined a non-Catholic Church by following the leaders of various Traditionalist sects, non-Catholic because these sects do not recognize a true pope as their head

Now, according to her preceding claims, she should extend this to just about everybody :

- All those who did not reject V2 from the start (even if they were unaware of its contents !!??)

- And even those who rightly call the impostor a false pope.

Because to recognize a true pope as one's head, one obviously needs a true pope present to begin with.

She herself thus faces this impossibility also.

But perhaps there is someone that she holds to be a true pope?