Dr. Carlos A. Disandro’s Doctrinal Precisions (T. S. Benns, 2007)
Introduction
It is always enlightening to review the places we have been at different moments in our development and existence as Catholics. Dr. Carlos A. Disandro’s work sheds much light on where we find ourselves today and how little things really have changed. But most importantly, his writings point out that the misunderstanding of the relationship between doctrine and discipline, begun at “Vatican 2” has continued to plague Traditionalism to this day. It has deepened the rift between the various Traditional sects to such an extent that discipline has been reduced to a matter of inexpert opinion, with everyone able to access a Canon Law book qualified as a “canonist,” (and here I do not exclude myself). Those laws such as Cum ex, issuing from the doctrinal authority of the Church, have been lost in the canonical shuffle, as Disandro ably points out in his Precisions.
As a result, Disandro’s “incoherent” Traditionalists continue to circulate information concerning Cum ex that is not only false but injurious to doctrine. That they are still circulating these things after 20 some years without either further researching the matter or reconsidering their position is amazing enough. But that to this day they have never discovered nor credited the man who first uncovered the Latin version, translated it and even published it with commentary a second time 10 years later, is astonishing. This is especially true since Disandro was practically the father of the Sedevacantist movement, at least in South America. We corresponded for several years, sending articles and books back and forth. His books are inscribed with kind words such as or “For my distinguished friend, with cordial regards,” a kind breeze in a then-hostile Traditional world. While he commended my fervor in wishing to end the sede vacante, he did not support the election of David Bawden. It is to my great regret that he died before I came to my senses. Perhaps it is for this reason that I feel obligated to continue his defense of Cum Ex and to fight as he fought to uphold the Bull he believed was the answer to the madness that already had engulfed us.
While some have questioned his political affiliations during the Peron regime in Argentina, his native country, Disandro’s analysis of the religious situation following the false Vatican 2 council was doctrinally sound and uncompromising. Following a meeting between Marcel Lefebvre and Argentinian Catholic intellectuals in 1977, Disandro released a statement proclaiming the following:
• The Church is suffering a global persecution led by wolves disguised as shepherds — those who have taken possession of THE VACANT SEE OF ROME — a war led by the powerful heresiarch Montini.
• ONE WHO LEADS, PROMOTES AND ENCOURAGES THIS WAR IS NOT ABLE TO BE A PONTIFF; the prophecy of La Salette has been accomplished.
• St. Robert Bellarmine: A heretic pope ceases as pope and must be deposed.
• The Church is suffering an infiltration exercised by a heresiarch who joins Arianism, Nestorianism and Jewish Christianism.
• The Montinian heresy pursues to overthrow the SEMANTIC OF FAITH AND ABOLISH THE CHURCH; to build in Her place and the hearts of the faithful the apocalyptic kingdom of the Beast. We know however that the Church will triumph always…
• There is a usurper in the Apostolic See… The new mass is a false mass and the faithful have reverted to idolatry. The days of Enoch and Elias have come.
• May Our Lady of Lepanto guard and enliven the faith of the Iberian-American peoples, for the dark, threatening clouds of the Bolshevik tyranny already are on the horizon.
In 1978 the Institute of San Anastasio in Cordoba, Argentina released Disandro’s first edition of Cum ex Apostolatus Officio in Latin, laid out side-by-side with his Spanish translation of the Bull. A second edition followed in 1987. Disandro translated the Bull from the Latin text of the Magnum Bullarium Romanum, pages 829-831. Obviously members of the Society of St. Pius X in Argentina critiqued Disandro’s work. Publications such as Veritas and The War Is Now publicized parts of the Bull, without offering commentary. Bp. Thuc cited the Bull in his declaration. Briton’s Catholic Library (BCL), first in Under the Laws of the Catholic Church the Papal See is Vacant and also in one of their “Library Letters” publicized the entire Bull and wrote what seems to be the only other commentary extant on it. Both BCL and Prof. Benjamin Dryden translated the Bull, with Dryden maintaining it had been abrogated. Traditionalists still maintain its abrogation today. Disandro vehemently denied this, as his work below demonstrates.
T. Stanfill Benns
COMING NEXT... Popes Paul IV and Benedict XV — Doctrinal Precisions, by Dr. Carlos A. Disandro
Profesor Dr. Carlos Alberto Disandro