Released by Archbishop Romeo Arguelles of the Archdiocese of Lipa was this Communique dated May 31, 2016. It contains the concluding lines of a "four and one-fourth page, sixteen paragraphs, document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith headlined: PROT. N. 226/1949 PRESUMED APPARITIONS OF THE BVM AT THE CARMELITE CONVENT IN LIPA, PHILIPPINES", dated Rome, December 11, 2015, the official copy of which was received by Arguelles on May 30, 2016.
The CDF decree states in part thus:
"...that in the light of the fact that the declaration of 1951 was a decision confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff and therefore definitive, consequently, the matter of the phenomenon of Lipa is not subject to the authority of the local Diocesan Bishop (cf. CIC can 333). Therefore the decree of Archbishop Arguelles dated 15 September 2015 is null and void.
"Furthermore, this Congregation confirms the definitive nature of the 11 April 1951 decree by which the phenomena of Lipa were declared to lack supernatural origin.
"The authority on which this declaration was made not that of the Bishop members of the Special Commission, but rather of the Supreme Pontiff."
On an online post in TradCatKnight, the most read
traditional Catholic page, Fr. Paul Kramer, lecturer and author of numerous
articles and books on the Catholic Faith and on the subject of Fatima states:
According to Canon Law, if there appears on a decree of the Holy Office such words as, "with the approval of the Supreme Pontiff"; or "after consultation with the Supreme Pontiff", then the decree has the authority of a papal act. If a diocesan decree has such a phrase as "after consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" (as is the case with the Declaration of the Diocese of Brooklyn on the alleged apparitions of Bayside); or "with the approval of the CDF", then the decree has the force of a Roman curial act.
There is no such clause on the April 11, 1951 decree.
If Pius XII whispered his "definitive confirmation", or wrote it, signed it and put it in a drawer -- but it was not noted on the decree, then the decree has no force beyond its own face value, and the alleged "definitive confirmation" would be utterly bereft of any juridical force whatsoever.
The onus is on the CDF to produce the evidence of the alleged confirmation, otherwise the claim must be dismissed by the CBCP as apocryphal. It is standard procedure to note the approval of a higher authority on the decree itself. Such a notation is nowhere to be found on the decree April 1951; and it is inconceivable that Pius XII issued some other decree confirming the 11/04/1951 decree on Lipa, since such a decree is totally unknown to ever have existed, and unless duly promulgated, it would remain bereft of all juridical force.
Whoever it was in the CDF who claimed that Pius XII made a "definitive confirmation in 1951", and "declared they were not of supernatural origin", must have studied Canon Law at the Alice in Wonderland Institute; or else has perpetrated a deliberate act of fraud in order to deceive the Catholic hierarchy and faithful of the Philippines.
What could be behind all these? TradCatKnight makes a plain but revealing statement:
There are many in the Vatican who hate the true message of Fatima (real 3rd secret of Apostasy) because the Vatican is entrenched with Modernists, Masons and Marxists all trying to finalize their One World Religion.
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