Expert: Fr. Michael - 3/6/2006

Question
When saints recieve messages from Christ are we to consider them as God's literal word. I am reading the diary of Saint Fastina which originally was a banned book, but I assume that now that its been approved and John Paul II made Sister Fastina a saint, that these words are Christ's. Also the Sacred Heart messages about things such as attending Mass nine consecutive first fridays.
Also, as a Traditionalist do you believe that the church is too liberal? Are Traditionalist Catholics under the rule of the Pope or are you at adds with Popes?

Answer
Catholic doctrine is that nothing is part of public revelation except Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and that ended with the death of the last Apostle, St. John.  We can never know whether private revelations are true or not, but it doesn't make any difference because they are not part of the teaching of the Church in any case.

One must make a distinction between the Roman Catholic Church and anything that poses as the Catholic Church, but teaches something other than Scripture and Tradition, as elucidated by the dogmatic councils or popes within the bounds of Tradition.  It is Catholic doctrine that a pope has no power to innovate, only to pass down the Faith that was handed to him.

As long as the pope stays within the Faith, then he is to be followed, say the Doctors of the Church; otherwise, not.  Nor is there only one pope.  There are some 260 of them.  An individual pope cannot go against his predecessors onto some new tangent.  By doing so, he would become a Protestant.