Statement from the “Mater Boni Consilii” Institute regarding the election of Robert Francis Prevost
Nothing has changed…
It is known to all that on April 21, 2025, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who occupied the Apostolic See under the name of Francis, died, and that on May 8, his successor Robert Francis Prevost was elected, now occupying the Apostolic See under the name of Leo XIV.
Many people have asked our small Institute what our position is in the current situation. The answer is simple: nothing has changed.
The Church will always have, at least potentially, a successor of Peter (First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, chap. 2, DS 3058). Therefore, it must be possible to elect a successor of Peter, even under exceptional circumstances and through extraordinary means, as occurred at the Council of Constance to resolve the Great Western Schism.
As for the material aspect of the Papacy—consisting of human acts such as election and external acceptance by the elected—Leo XIV is still materially “pope,” since this election has not (yet) been declared invalid by the Church, and he therefore occupies the See of Peter.
As for the formal aspect of the Papacy—consisting in receiving from Christ the grace of being one moral person with Him, and therefore exercising with Him the power to govern, teach, and sanctify the Church—the conclave’s electee and current occupant of the See, Robert Francis Prevost, is not formally Pope. One who adheres to the errors taught at Vatican II, further deepened in the subsequent “magisterium,” as well as to the disciplinary and liturgical reforms that put those errors into practice—errors many times condemned by Roman Pontiffs and by the Catholic Church—cannot objectively and habitually intend the true good of the Church.
Consequently, the deprivation of Authority that began in the Church at least since 1965, unfortunately continues to this day, and the priests of the Mater Boni Consilii Institute cannot and do not mention the name of the occupant of the Apostolic See in the Canon of the Mass.
We invite all Catholic faithful not to base their spiritual lives or their convictions regarding the current state of authority in the Church on worldly criteria or superficial impressions, personal interest, or supposed private revelations, but on revealed Faith, the Magisterium of the Church, and sound theology.
The conclave’s electee and current occupant of the See, who chose the name Leo, may find—should he so desire—in the Magisterium of Leo XIII the most splendid affirmation of the Church’s faith and the clearest condemnation of all the modern errors which, sadly, have spread and festered “within the very bosom and entrails of the Church” (to use the words of Saint Pius X in condemning Modernism), following the ill-fated Second Vatican Council.
May Our Lady of Good Counsel, our patroness—so devoutly venerated by Pope Leo XIII and the Augustinian family—advise and enlighten minds, so that the dreadful storm that has long been ravaging the Catholic Church, and leading to the loss of so many souls, may at last come to an end: Domine, salva nos, perimus!
Verrua Savoia
May 10, 2025