Brethren scattered abroad, from H. H. Augustine to the ends of the world,

The Apostolic See condemns Antipope Pius V and his evil Bull Ex omnibus afflictionibus (written 1567 A.D.), which was written in opposition to the canons of the Council of Orange. It also condemns Antipope Clement XI and his Bull Unigenitus (written 1713 A.D.). For centuries most people have considered these wicked men true Pontiffs. The fact is that all of Pius V's successors were antipopes, because they followed and upheld his wicked teachings.

Ex Omnibus Afflictionibus and Unigenitus are evil declarations from antipopes that deny Catholic teaching and dogma, and We do not confirm these declarations, but condemn them as heresy. For they contradict the unanimous teaching of the early Fathers, the Council of Orange, and the confirmation of Orange by Pope Boniface II.

The infallible local Synod and Council of Orange (held in 529 A.D., and confirmed by Pope Boniface II) declared that if there be any good, it is from the "Fountain" (the grace of God):

CANON 9. Concerning the succor of God. It is a mark of divine favor when we are of a right purpose and keep our feet from hypocrisy and unrighteousness; for as often as we do good, God is at work in us and with us, in order that we may do so.

CANON 20. That a man can do no good without God. God does much that is good in a man that the man does not do; but a man does nothing good for which God is not responsible, so as to let him do it.

CANON 22. Concerning those things that belong to man. No man has anything of his own but untruth and sin. But if a man has any truth or righteousness, it is from that fountain for which we must thirst in this desert, so that we may be refreshed from it as by drops of water and not faint on the way.

CANON 23. Concerning the will of God and of man. Men do their own will and not the will of God when they do what displeases him; but when they follow their own will and comply with the will of God, however willingly they do so, yet it is his will by which what they will is both prepared and instructed.

CANON 25. Concerning the love with which we love God. It is wholly a gift of God to love God. He who loves, even though he is not loved, allowed himself to be loved. We are loved, even when we displease him, so that we might have means to please him. For the Spirit, whom we love with the Father and the Son, has poured into our hearts the love of the Father and the Son (Rom. 5:5).

And this, too, we rejoice that your Fraternity, after holding a meeting with certain priests of the Gauls, understood according to the Catholic faith, namely in these matters in which with one accord, as you have indicated, they explained that the faith, by which we believe in Christ, is conferred by the preceding grace of God; adding also that there is no good at all according to God, that anyone can will, or begin, or accomplish without the grace of God, since our Savior Himself says: Without Me you can do nothing" [John 15:5]… Therefore, we salute [you] with proper affection, and approve your confession written above in agreement with the Catholic rules of the Fathers.”- Pope Boniface II's Decree confirming the Council of Orange.

We find the opposite doctrines taught by Antipope Clement XI in Unigenitus, and Antipope Pius V in Ex omnibus. Their Bulls condemn the following truths:

The grace of Jesus Christ, which is the efficacious principle of every kind of good, is necessary for every good work; without it, not only is nothing done, but nothing can be done.

In vain, O Lord, do You command, if You do not give what you command.

When God accompanies His commandment and His eternal exhortation by the unction of His Spirit and by the interior force of His grace, He works that obedience in the heart that He is seeking.

Faith, practice of it increase, and reward of faith, all are a gift of the pure liberality of God.

The difference between the Judaic dispensation and the Christian is this, that in the former God demanded flight from sin and a fulfillment of the Law by the sinner, leaving him in his own weakness; but in the latter. God gives the sinner what He commands, by purifying him with His grace.

When love of God no longer reigns in the heart of sinners, it needs must be that carnal desire reign in it and corrupt all of its actions.

Free will, apart from the grace of God, has power only for sin.

The fact that Antipope Clement XI and Antipope Pius V dared to condemn these doctrines indicates they were not true Pontiffs of the Church. These antipopes teach that faith is not a gift of God's liberality, that God does not give the sinner what God commands, that God does not work obedience in the heart by His grace, and that free will can do good without God's grace.

The true doctrine, taught by the Council of Orange in 529 A.D., in the time of Augustine, clearly teaches that man has nothing of himself but sin, and that if there is anything good in man, it is from that fountain of grace: God. It also clearly teaches that love of God is purely a gift from God. Yet, Clement XI and Pius V believe you can do good without grace.

It is not surprising that these truths were condemned by the antipopes, because these antipopes were also liberally allowing theologians under their jurisdiction to teach false doctrines. This was especially true of the Jesuit theologians after Pius V. While Canon twenty-five of the Council of Orange clearly teaches that it is "wholly a gift of God" to love God, the wicked theologians under the post-Tridentine antipopes were teaching that it might be possible to perfectly love God without the help of His gifts (i.e. His grace):

In the third question, whether natural love of God, even in its highest form (amor Dei naturalis perfectus), is possible without grace, the opinions of [the post-Tridentine] theologians are still very divergent. Bellarmine denies this possibility on the ground that, without any grace, a mere natural justification could in such a case be brought into being through the love of God. Scotus, on the contrary, spiritedly defends the attainability of the highest natural love for God.- (Pohle, J. (1909). Actual Grace. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.)

The post-Tridentine antipopes were therefore plainly allowing the post-Tridentine theologians to engage in heretical speculation. This is not the evidence of an orthodox papacy. Rather, this indicates a papacy steeped in heresy.

These doctrines of the Council of Orange and Pope Boniface II are clearly taught in Augustine's treatise entitled On the Spirit and the Letter. Augustine was a near contemporary of the Council of Orange and lived about the same time. The Council of Orange deliberately borrowed and used Augustine's concepts, to help fight the heretic Pelagius who was harming the Faith. Long ago, the Apostolic See officially announced that in matters concerning free will and grace, Augustine's teachings are the ones fully adopted by the Sovereign Pontiff:

Pope St. Hormisdas: “What the Roman, that is the Catholic, Church follows and preserves concerning free will and the grace of God can be abundantly recognised in the various books of the blessed Augustine, and especially in those to Hilary and Prosper [his last two books, called the Predestination of the Saints and the Gift of Perseverance].” (Sicut Rationi)

Augustine clearly teaches that the doers of the law apart from God's grace are seen only as guilty of sin, and that grace in the Old Covenant was hidden and hardly attainable (i.e. the very doctrines approved by the Council of Orange, and condemned by the antipopes):

For whoever did even what the law commanded, without the assistance of the Spirit of grace, acted through fear of punishment, not from love of righteousness, and hence in the sight of God that was not in the will, which in the sight of men appeared in the work; and such doers of the law were held rather guilty of that which God knew they would have preferred to commit, if only it had been possible with impunity. -Augustine, On The Spirit and the Letter (ch xiii)

This grace hid itself under a veil in the Old Testament, but it has been revealed in the New Testament according to the most perfectly ordered dispensation of the ages, forasmuch as God knew how to dispose all things. And perhaps it is a part of this hiding of grace, that in the Decalogue, which was given on Mount Sinai, only the portion which relates to the Sabbath was hidden under a prefiguring precept.- Augustine, Id. at XXVII

The fact that there is so much heresy in Pius V and Clement XI should not come as a surprise to honest Catholics. Heresy from Pius V's successors was growing in other doctrinal areas since Trent, in subjects like usury and slavery. Theologians were also increasingly denying the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. Antipope Pius IX even suggested, for the first time ever by one claiming to be a Pope, that pagans might be saved if they were worthy and moral (as if such a thing were even possible). Antipope Pius X even published a catechism teaching that non-Catholics could be saved.

By condemning Pius V and his successors, We do not mean to vindicate the sect of known as "Jansenism" as if it fully held to true Catholic doctrine. Many of the Jansenist and Baianist doctrines condemned in Unigenitus and Ex omnibus afflictionibus are indeed heretical and false. But, that does not excuse these Bulls from condemning the true doctrine, as described above. Let it be made very clear that Jansenism is itself a heresy. Jansenism insists that every good work is the result of efficacious grace. They further assert that the free will is led infallibly in one direction or another by the victorious delight of either concupiscence or grace. By declaring this, they deny the very freedom of the will, defined as dogma at the Council of Trent, and taught by the early fathers. The will is indeed free to accept or reject God's grace. Anyone who denies this, in the name of Jansenism, has committed heresy. Likewise, Baius was a heretic when he failed to recognize that Adam in the state of innocence was upheld by grace, and when he also failed to accept that grace is an interior renovation of the soul. Thus, while Pius V proved himself a heretic by denying clear canons from the Council of Orange in his condemnation of Baius, Baius himself was nevertheless a heretic on other points.  Pius V erroneously taught that the will is free to do good apart from grace, while Orange teaches infallibly that man apart from grace only commits sin and lies. Further, there are things condemned in Ex omnibus afflictionibus and Unigentius that are actually heretical. Thus, let not the average layman take upon himself the burden of attempting to discern these often confusing matters without first consulting the Apostolic See or some other expert on this important yet subtle matter, and reading extraordinarily carefully those things which are approved, and those which are condemned.

We declare that one may assert that grace is efficacious if one means that God infallibly can bring a man to a course of action, while yet allowing his will to have technically been able to resist the grace that brings him to this course of action.

We also iterate the source of these evils that prevail, causing the confusion so prevalent. In the high middle ages (beginning circa 1000 A.D.), that school known as "scholasticism" raised head, fomenting all kinds of inventions and novelties. We hereby condemn this school as a fountain of evil confusion.

Rather, We command the Church to remain loyal to the Fathers. We also condemn all past men who sat in the chair of Peter, and who embraced novelties rather than the majority of the Fathers and Christian witnesses of history. Those Pontiffs who did this fell from their authority and became antipopes.

The Pontiffs have no right, and have no ability, to invent doctrines, or to receive special revelations from God and bind the faithful to those special revelations. For the scripture and tradition bind us to follow them, and to invent nothing new. We must hold to the scripture and the tradition, whether written or oral. (2 Thessalonians 2:15). The Pontiffs must uphold what was passed down from the apostles, which means, like all men, they must only uphold that which can be proved to be the doctrine of the apostles, namely: that which is taught by the majority of the Fathers and other witnesses of the ancient Apostolic Tradition. The Pontiffs are the servant of the Fathers, and any Pontiff that contradicts the majority of the Fathers and witnesses to Apostolic Tradition has ceased to be Pontiff, and has become a heretic. This includes all of the false popes that have rejected the Augustinian doctrines of grace. Some wicked men think that a man is only to be denounced as a heretic if he contradicts an ex cathedra statement, or a papal bull, or precise words of some Pontiff. We condemn this wicked idea as anathema. Even so, Pius V and his successors contradict not only the Fathers, but also the infallible canons of the Council of Orange.

Any man who contradicts the Holy Scripture and the majority of the Fathers and traditional witnesses of the Faith in whatever they assert to be truth is a heretic, even if the doctrine was never defined in a synod or council. It does not matter whether the doctrine was actually pronounced in a conciliar canon. Even if a man contradicts a thing that has never been dealt with by an ecumenical council, and that thing is clearly taught by the majority of the Fathers and has to do with the doctrines of Christianity and the apostles, then that man is a true heretic, and he is condemned. If there arise anywhere, any Father, who is in the minority on a particular issue, he is not to be followed, but the majority must be followed. Being creatures limited by reason, men are bound to follow where the evidence of tradition leads, and to embrace the greater weight of the evidence.

Thus, where a doctrine is taught one way before, and another way later, we must attend to the earlier doctrine. And if a doctrine is taught by many on one hand, and few on the other, we must embrace the doctrine of the many, so long as it is traced back to the earliest Fathers. We know this because the apostles Sts. Paul and John themselves stated that if any man bring any other doctrine than the pure gospel received by God's word in scripture and tradition, he is anathema. They declared this before there were councils, and stated it against heresies not condemned by any council (such as the Gnostics). It is clear then that one need not await any council to determine what the Faith is, but that the councils of the Church only reiterate and teach what has already been proved. We are invited to discern the truth from the Fathers, even apart from the holy and august councils of the Church. If any man deny this, he is a true heretic, a sly tongued dupe of the devil, and a worldly snake. He is condemned by Our sword of truth, and We slay him with the daggers of anathema.

Augustine,

servant of the servants of God

this 22nd day of May, 2009.