An Italian priest who called Pope Francis a “usurper” is expelled from the Church

In the troubled waters of the Church due to the controversies between pro-presists and traditionalists, only the now former parish priest of a church in Livorno was missing, who He called Pope Francis a “usurper” and described him as a “Jesuit Freemason linked to world power”.

He was immediately summoned by his diocesan bishop and informed in writing of what had happened hit with excommunication “latae sentence”, of immediate application. Kicked out of the Church.

Don Ramón Guidetti (in Italy priests receive the title Don) Ramón celebrated a special mass at the end of the year in his parish of San Ranieri a Guastice, in the city of Livorno, in central Italy.

A truly special mass that the parishioners who filled the parish did not expect. It was dedicated to the memory of Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Ratzinger, who died a year ago, an illustrious conservative theologian and famous protagonist in the Vatican as the right-hand man of Pope Saint John Paul II, guardian of doctrine.

Joseph lived ten years as Pope Emeritus of the Church for his resignation, announced on 11 February 2013.

Almost seven centuries had passed since a Pope resigned on his own initiative and his resignation led to the election by the Conclave in the Vatican Sistine Chapel, on 13 March 2013, of the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, the Jesuit Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio. First time for a Jesuit and first time also for an Argentinian.

“An anti-pope Jesuit Freemason”

Parish priest Gudetti began his explosive speech in front of the Livorno faithful by telling an anecdote. “Last December 17, in a sanctuary near Buenos Aires, lightning struck the statue of Saint Peter. And what did he incinerate? The halo and the keys. The halo because Peter is no longer a saint, because there is a Jesuit antipope who is a Freemason tied to world power, a usurper. And the keys, because good Benedict (Pope Ratzinger) kept those.”

The parish priest from Livorno He publicly attacked the Pope from the pulpit Francis. Guidetti is one of the many far-right exponents who have been spreading the conspiracy theory for years. They argue that Benedict XVI had renounced in February 2013 what canon law defines as the “ministerium”, but not the “petrine munus”. In essence he resigned from “doing” the Pope but not from “being” the Pope. Therefore the current pontiff is a usurper, said Don Guidetti.

AND the second priest excommunicated in Italy for sowing discord, increasing doubts of faith among the faithful and spreading falsehoods. The usurper theory was spread shortly after the election of Pope Francis by far-right Catholics. Before the parish priest of San Ranieri in Livorno, six years ago the former priest from Palermo Alessandro Minutella spread the same schismatic theory and was excommunicated from his clerical mission in 2022.

It should be noted that Emeritus Joseph Ratzinger, every time he was questioned, said that “There is only one Pope”. Benedict XVI lived in a monastery in the Vatican gardens that a group of six Argentine nuns occupy by order of the pontiff with the mission of praying for the Pope, a mission for which the religious building was built until Ratzinger chose it as his residence after resignation.

Ratzinger has reiterated several times that he rightly resigned and that he was faithfully devoted to “the only Pope”, Francis.

But his opinion was also contested by ultra-conservative groups who argued that in announcing his resignation on February 11, 2013, then-Pope Benedict XVI made Latin errors in his announcement, which created the situation. Andrea Cionci, in his book “The Ratzinger Code”, claims that it was a false abdication. Francis is therefore a Pope “in illegitimate mode”.

Theories on the resignation of Benedict XVI

According to the traditionalist ultras, Pope Ratzinger would have been forced to resign. In reality he was 86 years old and thanks to the fact that he resigned when he was already in precarious conditions, freed from the papal burden, terrible for an elderly leader, in an institution of absolute monarchy in which everything happens through the power of the Pope, he died of old age, when he was 95 years old. Now it is the turn of Francis, who has turned 87 and must face the final phase of his pontificate.

As soon as the parish priest Guidetti responded to the call, the bishop of Livorno, Monsignor Simone Giusti, informed him that his declarations obliged him to proceed with an immediate expulsion.

The bishop informed the faithful of the diocese of Livorno that priest Guidotti had publicly committed during the Eucharistic celebration “an act of a schismatic nature, refusing submission to the Supreme Pontiff and communion with the members of the Church”.

In the document released in the diocese, Msgr. Giusti writes that the parish priest Guidotti had incurred “ipso facto” excommunication “latae sentencentiae”. The bishop’s message warns priests and parishioners not to participate in any celebrations and other cultic practices “because they would ipso facto incur the very serious penalty of excommunication”.

The case spread quickly because it is very rare the excommunication of a parish priest for openly preaching against the Pope to the faithful during a religious ceremony.