Sedevacantist... serious or without any merit?

[MTD]

This problem has not disappeared…it has become more and more manifest that the Conciliar Church lacks the four marks of unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity, that the Catholic Church always necessarily possesses.

I have a hard time seeing how the sedevacantist Church has the four marks…

Your position, as best I can tell, is to either hold that there is no problem or admit some of the problems and travel from parish to parish looking for orthodoxy.

Sedevacantists have to commute to church too, you know.

Maria

 

[JKirkLVNV]

I have a hard time seeing how the sedevacantist Church has the four marks…

Sedevacantists have to commute to church too, you know.

Maria

True enough! There’s been schism upon schism, splintering off from Lefebreve’s actions.

 

[guanophore]

I prefaced it with “Gorman”.

Yes, but if you don’t want anyone on the public forum to respond, then don’t post it here! If you only want to hear from Gorman, send a private message!

 

[gorman64]

I’m afraid your position tell us that the Church has failed. According to Franzelin, the Church has the duty to perpetuate the Petrine succession by appointing a new pope when the previous one resigns/dies. Yet the supposed true Catholic Church has not fulfilled that duty for 50 years and is still doing nothing about it. In practice, that Church is falling for the heresy that the Church can prevail without the rock of Peter.

Maria,

I don’t think this is an impossibility according to Franzelin. Why do you think it is an impossibility?

Why do you refer to the supposed true Catholic Church? I thought we dispensed with that awhile ago?

Gorman

 

[bear06]

Yes, but if you don’t want anyone on the public forum to respond, then don’t post it here! If you only want to hear from Gorman, send a private message!

Look, if I’m having a conversation with 5 other people and I say “Liz, what do you think about x,y and z” I don’t expect the others to say “Liz thinks…” It’s not that I want to have a private conversation but I want to hear how that person weighs in on the topic. Notice that I didn’t say anything when MTD responded to his response. His views are very applicable to the topic, don’t you think?

 

[MTD]

I don’t think this is an impossibility according to Franzelin. Why do you think it is an impossibility?

I didn’t exactly say I thought it was an impossibility to have a long interregnum. I was just pointing out that the Church as you see it is doing nothing to fulfill its duty of perpetuating the Petrine succession. In practice, it is saying it can prevail without Peter.

Why do you refer to the supposed true Catholic Church? I thought we dispensed with that awhile ago?

Well, for one, I don’t necessarily agree with the view I attributed to sedevacantists; in post #74, I was attempting to explain their view, not mine. Second, I tried to indicate the strictly sedevacantist portion of the Catholic Church by using the word true; after all, material heretics, though they aren’t cut off from the Church, don’t profess the true teachings of the Church. And given the situation of the Church as you see it, only the sedevacantist portion can really appoint a new pope because the rest, who are material heretics/schismatics, think we already have a pope. So it’s up to the sedevacantists to see to the Petrine succession. But they aren’t doing anything.

Maria

 

[alih]

for the sake of clarification, it would be usefull to obtain authoritive decisions on sedavacantism by representative of the hierarchy. too many people throw stones with-out basis except for personal opinion. the adoremus bulletin carries verbateum texts by the bishop’s councils of the u.s.a. and in many cases disagreement reigns. i don’t believe that many are willing just to write off the salvation of souls. have a good year. (alih)

 

[TNT]

If he [pope]is proven a pertinacious heretic by the proper authorities, he would not then be pope according to Bellarmine’s theological opinion because a formal heretic is by nature outside the Church and thus can have no jurisdiction in the Church. In such a case, he can claim no obedience from you.

Maria

What authority are you proposing?
I always thought a heretic who is perti was ipso facto outside.

 

[thecoach]

Any historian would say that the papacy passed from John XXIII to Paul VI to John Paul I to John Paul II to the present Pope Benedict XVI.

Really sedevacantism amounts to a claim that the Pope has defected from the authentic teachings of Jesus. However it is packaged slightly differently to avoid sounding like Protestantism. That the Pope is wrong isn’t a claim that can be easily dismissed. Many millions of non-Catholics would say the same, though they would give rather different reasons for the defection.

Sedevacantism is an attempt to simultaneously claim that the Pope is infallible whilst disobeying or disagreeing with him. It is thus without merit.

In a way, dont traditionalists do the same when knocking the Novus Ordo?

 

[MTD]

What authority are you proposing?

The Teaching Church and those to whom it delegates its authority to judge heretics.

I always thought a heretic who is perti was ipso facto outside.

True enough. But that doesn’t mean the Taught Church/Learning Church has the authority to judge the pertinacity of the heresy and therefore the jurisdiction of its superior, the Teaching Church.

Maria

 

[Feanor]

Come now everyone,

Any serious Catholic knows that Sedavacanists and even SSPX followers are not part of God’s church and are being influenced by the Devil. Only the Pope or the Bishops working in union can make definitive statements of Faith. We are not Baptists or Episcopalians who VOTE for what they believe.

 

[Ham1]

In a way, dont traditionalists do the same when knocking the Novus Ordo?

Yes. It’s interesting that when the subject of sedevacantism comes up, most of the usual defenders of the SSPX and critics of the NO are strangely silent (except for an occasional non-sequiter on Cardinal Mahony). Apparently, they don’t have the desire to refute sedevacantism. Or perhaps more likely, they realize the extraordinarily weak intellectual position maintained by defenders of the SSPX. If SSPX’ers and those who dispute the worth of the NO Mass wanted to be consistent, they would become sedevacantists. We should give credit to brave posters like Gorman for at least being intellectually honest and consistent.

 

[Feanor]

Yes. It’s interesting that when the subject of sedevacantism comes up, most of the usual defenders of the SSPX and critics of the NO are strangely silent (except for an occasional non-sequiter on Cardinal Mahony). Apparently, they don’t have the desire to refute sedevacantism. Or perhaps more likely, they realize the extraordinarily weak intellectual position maintained by defenders of the SSPX. If SSPX’ers and those who dispute the worth of the NO Mass wanted to be consistent, they would become sedevacantists. We should give credit to brave posters like Gorman for at least being intellectually honest and consistent.

That’s a good point! These folks are crazy along with Mel Gibson what’s his name Pope Michael

I like reading about these fringe groups sometimes- they remind me of when I would play pretend games at recess. “I’m a transformer, I’m He Man!”

 

[MTD]

We should give credit to brave posters like Gorman for at least being intellectually honest and consistent.

I should say so. I don’t see how one can acknowledge the validity of a pope and then dispute the validity of the rite he promulgates. What do such people understand about disciplinary infallibility?

Maria

 

[gorman64]

I should say so. I don’t see how one can acknowledge the validity of a pope and then dispute the validity of the rite he promulgates. What do such people understand about disciplinary infallibility?

Most Catholics don’t understand these things…they should not have to really…why is this understanding so important today?

The infallibility of the discipline of the Church is part of the general infallibility of the Church.

The proximate rule of faith for Catholics is the preaching of the Church. Protestants rely on only the remote rule, and thats why they get it wrong.

There is a serious problem with “the Preaching of the Church”…the general infallibility of the Church tells us that this preaching is always true and at a minimum safe.

Any decent theology library will have a copy of Franzelin on Divine Scripture and Tradition. He was Pius IX’s papal theologian at the Vatican Council. His book was an explanation of the teaching of the Church on the transmission of true doctrine. He teaches that popes are infallible even when not speaking solemnly. He teaches that the Church is infallible in her universal laws, her liturgy, etc. He also teaches that even when a pope is not speaking infallibly, his teachings are infallibly safe. That is, they will never constitute a danger to the faithful. This is all in Franzelin. This is also found in Billot.

Yours,

Gorman

 

[MTD]

I should say so. I don’t see how one can acknowledge the validity of a pope and then dispute the validity of the rite he promulgates. What do such people understand about disciplinary infallibility?

Gorman,

Anyone who, believing in the validity of a pope, considers himself qualified to dispute the validity of the rite promulgated by said pope is under the obligation to first understand disciplinary infallibility. If he does not understand disciplinary infallibility, he has no business engaging in such disputation.

Maria

 

[BobP123]

That’s a good point! These folks are crazy along with Mel Gibson what’s his name Pope Michael

I like reading about these fringe groups sometimes- they remind me of when I would play pretend games at recess. “I’m a transformer, I’m He Man!”

You cannot generalize like that. Both of you are guilty of slander against most of the TLM supporters.

Should I put both of you in the liberal camp?

 

[JKirkLVNV]

You cannot generalize like that. Both of you are guilty of slander against most of the TLM supporters.

Should I put both of you in the liberal camp?

You don’t like generalizing, Bob?

Wow.

 

[Feanor]

You can put me in any camp you like. The truth is sedevacanists and SSPX supporters are in error and not in communion with God’s Church.

One of my favorite Bishops (an auxiliary at the time) Bishop David Foley once told me “there are no liberals or conservatives- there are Catholics and non-Catholics.”

By the way I think Pope Michael was elected via a telephone conclave! I think there is another nut case in South America or somewhere.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

If he is proven a pertinacious heretic by the proper authorities, he would not then be pope according to Bellarmine’s theological opinion because a formal heretic is by nature outside the Church and thus can have no jurisdiction in the Church. In such a case, he can claim no obedience from you.

Maria

And yet there is no “proper authority” that can judge the pope because he is the ultimate court of appeals. An ecumenical council cannot sit in judgment on a pope because it only acts authoritatively when done in communion with him - do we really expect an errant pope to condemn himself? The curia can’t condemn the pope for the same reason of its authority being tied to his. Bishops have no extraordinary authority, which leaves us only with the ordinary magisterium, but that magisterium does not produce “authoritative documents” of the sort that produce binding sentences against individuals.

Any decent theology library will have a copy of Franzelin on Divine Scripture and Tradition. He was Pius IX’s papal theologian at the Vatican Council. His book was an explanation of the teaching of the Church on the transmission of true doctrine. He teaches that popes are infallible even when not speaking solemnly. He teaches that the Church is infallible in her universal laws, her liturgy, etc. He also teaches that even when a pope is not speaking infallibly, his teachings are infallibly safe. That is, they will never constitute a danger to the faithful. This is all in Franzelin. This is also found in Billot.

Yours,

Gorman

And this is why the sedevacantists can’t argue that we have true popes who just preach and discipline in a bad way - the evil wrought by the recent popes is, in their eyes, sufficient to prove they were not popes. But this is where I think sedevacantism stands or falls. We need a way to tell whether a person is really pope. I think there would be legitimate grounds for doubting an individual’s claim to the papacy, but I don’t think heresy is one of them (St. Robert’s opinion notwithstanding).

I don’t think the charge of heresy pans out because I think the principle is such as to vitiate the protection granted the Church by papal infallibility. Why? Well, let’s say the charge is that a heretic, even a secret one, cannot be pope. If being a secret heretic were an impediment to being pope we would have absolutely no way of knowing whether a single “pope’s” actions and teachings had actually been part of the papal magisterium. Papal infallibility doesn’t do us much good if we have absolutely no guarantee that the person we believe to be pope actually is.

If we modify the claim, however, to say that manifest heretics cannot be pope, I don’t really know if we’re doing that much better. Sure, it has gained some ground because now we at least have to have heard the pope attesting to his heresy - but do we have anyone competent of actually judging the pope? There is no authority in the Church that can pass judgment on a sitting pontiff (he can always appeal to the pope - who would be himself), though so what is to be done. We could say we don’t need an official condemnation, but then we seem to be at the point where it is up to individuals to decide whether or not the pope is a heretic, in which case papal infallibility appears again to be of no avail, since those who disagree with the pope can simply side-step it by accusing him of heresy.