Obedience, like chastity, works each and every time it is tried.
Disobedience never works.
Sedes are trying less to master themselves, which is our spiritual work for life, and more to to master the Church.
I very rarely encounter them, which is good for me.
This, imo, is one of the biggest problems in dealing with Sedes: Catholics need to understand that 99% of the time Sedevacantism is not a matter of failure vis-a-vis
obedience but a matter of failure vis-a-vis
faith.
Sedevacantism is well outside the category of disobedience and belongs to another category - and it did from the get-go. Disobedience is a rather trivial offence in comparison. Sedevacantism does not arise from a desire to rid oneself of obligation or obedience. It arises out of
a doubt.
Doubt is in the order of
faith, and consequently it is a largely
intellectual matter.
Another mistake commonly made is Catholic apologists as it were super-impose their apologetic experience with Protestants or atheists onto Sedevacantism in a sort of copy-and-paste/apply the same strategy/medicine procedure, as if Sedes themselves don’t do the same thing vis-a-vis Protestantism and atheism, for example; consequently, the Catholic apologist finds himself shut-down rather swiftly - even masterfully or impressively (Sede apologists are used to this approach by Catholics- they anticipate it and turn it against the Catholic) and, very likely, might have their own faith scandalized (this is directly connected as a consequence to the serious mistake of considering Sedevacantism an issue of
obedience, which (disobedience) is only a logical consequence of the real problem ).
Sedes are not atheists or Protestants. In Sedevacantism a Catholic apologist is perhaps for the first time dealing with his first
true heresy and heretic; and if he is unprepared or weak in faith he might well fall victim to it. Like all major heresies and their followers - who were and are alway predominantly originally Catholics - it usually requires a rather gifted, God-given genius in the Church to masterfully dissect and expose the errors of a heresy - carefully sifting out the truth from the error, the wheat from the tares - and so, as it were, taking the wind out of the sails of a heresy.
Average-joe Catholic apologist is rarely equipped or prepared to properly tackle such a threat because he doesn’t realise that all heresies are meant and in a way directed to entice him. The heresy, as it were, knows its audience: Catholics, and means to destroy its average front-line soldiers/defenders; and this can only be done using novel tactics (novel arguments, usually) that the defenders have no training for. Thus heresies usually have an initial dynamism and success.
So heresies are comparable to warfare in that a long-standing country’s ordinary defence/army is used to fighting an old, typical enemy using certain conventional weapons, tactics. So the enemy must reinvent his tactics to negate the advantages of the hitherto unbreakable defenders and enjoys an initial surge of dizzying success. Finally, some gifted person reaches the top-brass, - and he either already is or is elevated to - a general, and begins to turn the tide. Sedevacantism right now is not seen as a serious issue or threat by the “top brass” but it is on their radar. In time they will begin to deploy new resources if they feel that this new threat reaches a certain breaking-point of seriousness or gravity to the Army of Christ.
because so many people have conversations with them, are challenged by them or otherwise run into them.
