VaticanNews portal reports (December 31, 2025) that Cardinal Kurt Koch celebrated a Mass in the Vatican Grottoes commemorating the third anniversary of Benedict XVI’s death. The article quotes Koch praising Benedict’s “search for the face of God” through his book trilogy and emphasizes the concept of eternal life as communion with God. Koch describes death as a “new beginning” where Christ’s love overcomes isolation, referencing Benedict’s writings on the Shroud of Turin and Holy Saturday. The piece frames Benedict’s legacy around personal spiritual seeking rather than doctrinal clarity.
Naturalization of the Supernatural
The ceremony’s focus on Benedict XVI’s “personal search for the ‘face of the Lord'” reduces divine revelation to existential quest, contradicting Dei Filius (Vatican I) which dogmatized that God “can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural power of human reason.” Koch’s emphasis on Benedict’s “intensity” of spiritual experience substitutes subjective fervor for the Church’s objective teaching that “the obedience of faith must be given to God who reveals” (Dei Verbum 5). By elevating Ratzinger’s personal theological speculations (Jesus of Nazareth trilogy) to exemplary status, the article enshrines the modernist error condemned in Pius X’s Pascendi: “Religious sentiment is the foundation of faith.”
Eschatological Subversion
Koch’s assertion that death brings “a new beginning, and that the last day of a person’s earthly life is the beginning of a new life” dangerously omits the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell). This contradicts the Council of Florence’s definitive teaching: “The souls of those who depart in actual mortal sin… descend into hell” (Session 6). The homily’s exclusive focus on divine love ignores the necessity of the Sacrament of Penance for salvation – a silence Pius XII condemned as “pernicious error” in Mystici Corporis (1943). By declaring “eternal life with God” as universalist default rather than conditional reward, Koch promotes the condemned proposition: “God will pardon the sins of all men—slights against His goodness included—with no need of any expiation on the sinner’s part” (Syllabus of Errors, Pius IX, Proposition 17).
Liturgical Betrayal
The celebration in the Vatican Grottoes – the very tomb of St. Peter – constitutes desecration when conducted using the invalid Novus Ordo rite. Pius V’s Quo Primum (1570) decreed perpetual validity only for the Tridentine Mass, anathematizing any who would “dare to attempt any action contrary to this Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree, and prohibition.” The article’s failure to specify whether the Mass followed traditional rubrics exposes the Vatican’s systematic destruction of sacramental certainty. Koch’s role as “Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity” institutionalizes the heresy condemned by Pius XI in Mortalium Animos: “The Church is the ark outside of which no one is saved.”
Cult of Personality
The article transforms Benedict XVI into a posthumous prop for modernist revisionism. While acknowledging his death date (December 31, 2022), it ignores his fundamental betrayal in resigning the papacy – an act canonically invalid according to De Romano Pontifice (Bellarmine): “The Pope cannot be a heretic… nor can he resign unless it be that he is not Pope.” The glowing references to his book trilogy deliberately obscure Ratzinger’s role in Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae, which Pius IX had pre-condemned: “Liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right” (Syllabus, Proposition 15). This canonization-by-media of a conciliar architect fulfills the warning of St. Pius X: “The enemies of the Church offer her, in place of bread, a stone.”
Ecclesiological Sabotage
Cardinal Koch’s position itself constitutes heresy. As “prefect” of a “dicastery,” he embodies the post-conciliar destruction of the Roman Curia’s divine constitution. Pius X’s Sapienti Consilio (1908) established the Sacred Congregations as arms of papal authority, not bureaucratic departments. The article’s reference to Koch as “Cardinal” ignores that his 2010 creation by Benedict XVI lacks validity, since Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (Paul IV) voids all acts of heretical prelates. The entire commemorative spectacle exemplifies the “abomination of desolation” foretold in Daniel 9:27 – the replacement of sacrifice with empty ceremony.
The VaticanNews piece epitomizes the conciliar sect’s modus operandi: using sentimental platitudes about “God’s love” and “eternal life” to mask their systematic demolition of Catholic doctrine. As the true Church mourns not Benedict XVI but the 63rd anniversary of the Holy Sacrifice’s suppression (1969 Novus Ordo imposition), we heed Our Lord’s warning: “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:16). These rotten fruits – ecumenism, religious liberty, invalid sacraments – confirm the apostasy predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
Source:
Cardinal Koch: Pope Benedict XVI taught us to seek face of God (vaticannews.va)
Date: 31.12.2025