I apologise to those of you for whom this is an off-thread digression, but I don’t think error like this can go unchallenged, for the sake of people reading who may be unaware of how serious a matter this is. I don’t wish to extend the dialogue unnecessarily.
Geremia: I was initially under the impression that your championing of Most Holy Trinity seminary was being performed under the misapprehension that they were in full communion with the Church, but this latest mail suggests that you are knowingly supporting a sedevacantist group. If that isn’t the case, you need to take remedial action so as to avoid the possibility of leading other people into error. If it is the case, I suggest that you should be transparent and state your belief that the current pope and bishops were invalidly elected to their offices. There’s no middle ground on this, so you either believe one or the other - which is it?
I’m confused. So, e.g., between the times a pope dies and his successor is validly elected there is no Magisterium?
Yes, of course there is. But although still present as part of the charism of the Church, the magisterium is unable to act during these periods because it can only be expressed through the active presence of a pope, either extraordinarily (by
ex cathedra statement or the infallible teachings of an ecumenical council); or ordinarily (in unity with the bishops and all the people of God).
But since we have a validly elected pope, and had a validly elected pope when V2 was announced, and when it was held, and have ever since (except when elections were awaited) Most Holy Trinity seminary cannot be said to ‘be with the magisterium’ when they deny the validity of those elections and the decisions and documents that followed them. They have,
ipso facto, become simply another protestant group who deny the authority of the magisterium.
Vatican II was not entirely infallible
No ecumenical council is ‘entirely infallible’ inasmuch as they produce a mixture of doctrinal statements (not all, or even most, of which are infallible); and canonical documents, which are authoritative, but not definitive. Which is a basic error made in the seminary’s statement, by the way, which declares that the Church is:
‘infallible in her doctrines, her disciplines, and her liturgical worship.’
(See:
mostholytrinityseminary.org/aboutus.htm#INTRODUCTORY_PRINCIPLES).
This is wrong on all counts: doctrine may or may not be infallible, discipline is never infallible (this is what defines it as discipline, i.e. a canonical matter) and liturgy could only be said to be infallible inasmuch as it is a medium by which the sacraments can be enacted: thus sacramentology can be infallibly taught by the church, but liturgical forms are ‘merely’ an expression of this, not infallible in and of themselves.
’ this sacred Synod defines matters of faith or morals as binding on the Church only when the Synod itself openly declares so,’ which it never did
Look at the appellation which the council gave to *Lumen Gentium * (1964)
(see:
vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html).
and
Dei Verbum (1965).
(see:
vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html).
‘
Dogmatic Constitution’. So the council did produce dogmatic teachings, and it did inform the Church that it had done so. (Unless you wish to suggest that Jesus lied to us, and that the forces of Satan have prevailed against his Church to the extent that the heir of Peter and his bishops can deceive us by claiming that a teaching is dogmatic when in fact it isn’t).
By the way: re-examine those quotes that you’ve used above - and which are widely replicated on dissenting and sedevacantist sites, of course - and seek them in the context of their full texts. You’ll find that in context, they don’t mean what they seem to mean when improperly parsed and carefully arranged in this way.
(continued)
