What if all the bishops die?

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whatistrue said:
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Gorgias:
Can. 1014
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I hate to be a nag on this, but doesn’t that affect whether it was licit rather than whether it was valid?
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I tend to get in trouble when I start pontificating on ‘liceity vs validity’ around here, so I’ll defer.

My impression (and this might just be a recollection) was that this was to protect validity – if it turned out that one bishop did not validly consecrate, then the presence of the other two insured that a valid consecration had occurred. (That might just be a tall tale, though…)
 
WOW !

I have returned to this site - not even twenty-four hours have passed - and I have received an absolutely stunning FOURTY-THREE replies !!!
 
God-fordamned Protestant ‘churches’ around the world, completely free of divine inspiration or interference, could find this very hole in canon law and the structure of the Church and choose to coordinate simultaneous assassination of all bishops around the world. This would not necessarily signify the end time (although it would result in great upheaval and chaos for the Church.)
 
I am not writing a novel, this question just appeared in my head and I had to seek counsel.

The bishops, additionally, would not necessarily have to die in the same second or at the same instant. They could die over a period of a few hours, days, or perhaps even weeks, so long as no one new were to be consecrated.

Scenarios which could cause this to happen:
  • As I described earlier perhaps Protestant ‘churches’ around the world could coordinate a simultaneous assassination.
  • Perhaps all bishops congregated in the same place, and fortune caused no one to miss this congregation. Then, a bomb, a terrorist attack, a building collapse, a natural disaster, a flood, or any other sort of catastrophe causes them all to die.
  • Nuclear war or some other similar cataclysm causes the vast majority of human persons to die, including all bishops.
 
tablekitten said:
God-fordamned Protestant ‘churches’ around the world, completely free of divine inspiration or interference, could find this very hole in canon law and the structure of the Church and choose to coordinate simultaneous assassination of all bishops around the world. This would not necessarily signify the end time (although it would result in great upheaval and chaos for the Church.)
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No, it will mean the end of the Church.

If the Church was founded by God who became man and by his own power rose from the dead and established a sacramental economy, with a promise to be with his Church till the end of time, then this would not happen. What would cause “chaos and upheaval” would be the loss of a lot, or majority of bishops. But if at least one survives, then all is not lost.

But if all die, then that only proves Jesus was a fraud, his words carry no weight as he would be shown to have been powerless to keep his Church indefectible. Because no bishops, no ordinations, no Eucharist. It’s as simple as that. If all bishops die, that is proof that the Church is false, all its teachings meaningless. It’s would not be not worth following.

That is why one of the promises to the Church is that she will be indefectible as well as infallible. And so far, he has kept that promise.
 
Glennon_P said:
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HomeschoolDad:
Father Pulvermacher, as “Pope Pius XIII” (not to be confused with Jude Law’s character in the HBO series), did precisely this, and went one step further and created a new line of apostolic succession. Pretty hairy stuff.
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At least Fr. Pulvermacher was a priest.

There’s the group in Kansas that elected a layman to be “Pope Michael”. The group included his parents and a couple siblings, as I recall.
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David Bawden (“Pope Michael”) was ordained a priest, and consecrated a bishop, in 2011. These were illicit and schismatic orders, but they were valid. Actually, being consecrated “after the fact” is not inconsistent with being elected Pope — theoretically, any male Catholic can be elected Pope. Needless to say, he’d have to be ordained and consecrated immediately.

As far as the Bawden situation goes, not condoning, not saying this is a good thing, just stating the fact.
 
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Did some reading on him after I posted that…I was surprised to learn that his orders do appear to be valid. Not the election as Pope, of course…
 
The CE article on Holy Orders casts some doubt on the genuineness of these grants and whether such ordinations were ever actually administered. Either way, there might be more doubt about this power now since Vatican II settled the debate as to whether episcopal ordination was a true sacrament. Some older scholastics said it wasn’t (in their view priests were essentially bishops without as much jurisdiction, and episcopal consecration essentially “unlocked” their other powers). Even by Ott’s time this was a minority opinion and Vatican II put it to rest.

In any event, the episcopacy is a constituent element of the Church she can never lose. At the First Vatican Council some bishops worried that describing the Pope’s jurisdiction as “ordinary” would be misinterpreted as meaning “routine” instead of “non-delegated” (what it actually means) and mean he could practically or actually abolish the episcopate. This was ruled out as impossible for the very reason that the Church cannot lose the episcopate.

Vatican II affirmed this permanence when it said
This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, (12*) which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd,(74) and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority,(75) which He erected for all ages as “the pillar and mainstay of the truth”.(76) This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him…
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The CDF affirmed this meaning in its note on certain aspects of the doctrine on the Church:
In number 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium ‘subsistence’ means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church[8], in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth.
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I’m not challenging you on the novel front. I was honestly just curious because it sounds like the kind of question someone tries to get answered when they’re writing a novel, and I’d seen it suddenly in multiple places at once.

I will say, I think it’s silly to the point of “You can safely discard this premise” to imagine that
tablekitten said:
perhaps Protestant ‘churches’ around the world could coordinate a simultaneous assassination.
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No, that won’t happen, I don’t even feel the need to justify my statement.

Maybe Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists might try, but come on, no, not some grand ‘Protestant’ plot. That’s not the way the real world of Protestantism works.

And regarding:
tablekitten said:
Perhaps all bishops congregated in the same place, and fortune caused no one to miss this congregation. Then, a bomb, a terrorist attack, a building collapse, a natural disaster, a flood, or any other sort of catastrophe causes them all to die.
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I honestly just think this premise will never take place. In reality, the Catholic Church basically never has all bishops congregated in one place. Even during an ecumenical council, I wouldn’t be surprised if she intentionally has certain bishops stay home ‘sick’ for exactly this reason.

And if she hasn’t already done this in the past, I hope she takes the hint from Internet chatter and starts doing it. Haha.
tablekitten said:
Nuclear war or some other similar cataclysm causes the vast majority of human persons to die, including all bishops.
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Sure, this one, maybe. But if God permits this to happen, I again think we’d simply presume that such a thought experiment takes place in the end times. Certainly sounds apocalyptic.
 
MNathaniel said:
I honestly just think this premise will never take place. In reality, the Catholic Church basically never has all bishops congregated in one place. Even during an ecumenical council, I wouldn’t be surprised if she intentionally has certain bishops stay home ‘sick’ for exactly this reason.
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Interestingly enough, when the bishops were consulted during the planning phase of Vatican II, one American bishop wanted to know what precautions were being taken to make sure that the episcopate wouldn’t be wiped out by a nuke. Not sure what response he got.
 
Genesis315 said:
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MNathaniel:
I honestly just think this premise will never take place. In reality, the Catholic Church basically never has all bishops congregated in one place. Even during an ecumenical council, I wouldn’t be surprised if she intentionally has certain bishops stay home ‘sick’ for exactly this reason.
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Interestingly enough, when the bishops were consulted during the planning phase of Vatican II, one American bishop wanted to know what precautions were being taken to make sure that the episcopate wouldn’t be wiped out by a nuke. Not sure what response he got.
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Maybe a “Shhh, but yes certain men will be in certain underground bunkers in different countries, and no we won’t tell you who” response. Haha.

But yeah this is exactly my point. The fact that a bishop publicly asked the question only reaffirms that yes, the Church has thought about this, even if she doesn’t publicize her precautions.
 
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It really does seem unlikely that all bishops and priests would be wiped out at once and before any of them could ordain someone.

What is not so far out is the possibility of some portion or the earth or perhaps all of it becoming depopulated and isolated. A previous poster brought up the Japanese church that went 200 years without a priest. I realize everybody expects global warming, but what if we are actually on the cusp of an ice age nobody could reverse no matter what they did. Humanity would be reduced to a few pockets this time, just as it was the last time. Or perhaps a pandemic as infections but more deadly than Covid19. I think we’re seeing how easily that could happen.

Some miniscule clutch of people barely suriving in the lee of the Rockies perhaps.
 
MNathaniel said:
Maybe a “ Shhh, but yes certain men will be in certain underground bunkers in different countries, and no we won’t tell you who ” response. Haha.
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The is beginning to remind me of the premise for the TV series “Designated Survivor”…

I know that during Vatican II, not every bishop in the world was present for all of the sessions. Some did not travel due to age or infirmity, in some larger dioceses the Archbishop went and an auxiliary bishop stayed home to run things, etc.
 
It would be impossible for every single bishop to be killed at the same moment before he could lay hands to create another bishop. Even the most unbelievable sci fi attempt at this (order 66 in Star Wars) did not obliterate the Jedi. So this, while fun to speculate on, would not ever be possible.
 
The three separated targets in the events of 9/11, the current insanity in cities across the world, not just the US, and the known floods, earthquakes, tsunamies, hurricanes, tornadoes, forest fires, and the explosion(s) in Beirut are all proof that anything could happen.

We must trust in Christ. When all is said and done and we who claim to put Him first have croaked, it will be clear that, indeed, Christ is our only refuge, as promised.
 
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tablekitten said:
One of the Church’s fundamental sources of legitimacy is apostolic succession. What if all of the Bishops in the world, including the Pope and the College of Cardinals, due to some cataclysmic event, die without being able to consecrate any more bishops? Who will lead the Church?
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Jesus Christ a priest in the order of Melchizedek, and the Head of the Church, would handle that situation.
 
Imagine there’s no trolley
It’s easy if you try
No gifted violinist
No Nazis forcing lies
Imagine all the effort
Toward the work to be done
Instead of the same old circles
That are never ever done
 
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