'Radically insufficient' – Reply to Fr Crean on the Church's visibility, Part I
Fr Thomas Crean appeals to the visibility of the Church as a means of refuting those who posit an extended vacancy of the Holy See. But this treatment is radically insufficient.
Fr Thomas Crean appeals to the visibility of the Church as a means of refuting those who posit an extended vacancy of the Holy See. But this treatment is radically insufficient.
Fr Thomas Crean OP’s article
Fr Thomas Crean OP has contributed an article to Pelican+ on “The Perpetual Visibility of the Catholic Church Under the Pope.”
However, this article is about more than just the visibility of the Church: the doctrinal exposition is specifically ordered towards an attempted refutation of “sedevacantism” – that is, the thesis which holds that the Holy See has been vacant since some time between 1958 and 1965.
Professor Peter Kwasniewski, who also published the article on his Tradition and Sanity website, advertised it as “a definitive rebuttal of sedevacantism, at the level of first principles.”
However, Fr Crean’s treatment of these “first principles” is radically insufficient.
Fr Crean is considerably more gracious towards those who hold to this thesis than others who enter the lists against it. He also makes many points with which we “sedevacantists” would agree. However, it is regrettable that, at certain key moments, he both misunderstands the arguments made by “sedevacantists,” and fails to appreciate the degree to which his own position violates the true notion of the Church’s visibility.
Fr Crean’s principal failure here is that what he treats as needing to be perpetually visibile is a mere legal structure, whereas the Church’s visibility entails more than this; he also treats the visibility of the Church as discernible in the papacy alone.
The visibility of the Church
We cannot possibly disagree that the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ must indeed remain perpetually visible. This Church was founded, directly by Christ, for the glory of God and the salvation of mankind. Christ’s sacrifice of himself on the Cross achieved the first end, and merited the grace necessary for the second. The theologian Fr E. Sylvester Berry explains:
“Christ’s greatest work was accomplished when He offered Himself on the Cross for our redemption and therefore merited for us every grace. This work, known to theologians as Redemption in actu primo, was personally wrought by Our Lord for all time…
“But the price of our redemption being offered, there was still a further work to perform; the merits of Christ’s suffering and death must be applied to individual souls through all the centuries. This is known as Redemption in actu secundo. Since Our Lord was not to remain upon earth in His bodily presence, there was a need of some agency to carry on this work; therefore, in the words of the Vatican Council, ‘the eternal Pastor and Bishop of souls decreed to establish a holy Church to perpetuate the saving work of Redemption.’”1
The Church is, as Fr Berry put it:
“[T]he only means established by Christ to teach His doctrines, to inculcate His moral precepts, to administer the Sacraments, and to regulate and direct divine worship. No one can practice the Christian religion otherwise than as Christ Himself has ordained; whoever would be His disciple and embrace His religion must submit to the authority of His Church, be taught and ruled by it, and receive through it all the means of salvation.”2
The teaching, government and sanctification given to us by the Church are so essential for our salvation that it is necessary that, “when moral diligence is used,” as the canonists Wernz and Vidal put it, all men can identify and enter her.3
The theologian Fr Joachim Salaverri SJ defines the different ways in which a society may be said to be visible:
“A society of men, such as the Church is, can be visible in three ways: 1) Materially as consisting of men, or by reason of the material element, which is the visible men; 2) Formally as a society, or by reason of the formal element, which is the union of men and their working together for a common end; 3) Distinctly as this individual society, or by reason of the individuating properties, which are the distinctive properties whereby this numerically one society is distinguished from other similar ones.
“A visible society of men can be either manifest or hidden. Manifest is that society whose visible elements are so open that they can be physically attained by the senses. Hidden is that visible society whose visible elements are so covered over by some obstacle that they cannot be perceived by the senses.”4
He sets out further senses in which something can be visible:
“Visible in the strict sense is that which is suitable to be perceived through sight. Visible in the broad sense is that which is suitable to be perceived through the senses. The adequately visible is that of which all the elements are visible. The inadequately visible is that of which not all, but only some of its elements are visible.”5
He then sets out exactly how the Church is said to be visible:
“Concerning the Church of Christ we assert in the thesis: 1) that it is unique; 2) that it is also formally visible, although it is only inadequately and at least broadly visible; 3) that it is distinctly visible, that is, as the true Church discernible from false ones.”
There are two important points for our purpose here. The first is that the Church only inadequately and at least broadly visible – that is to say, “not all, but only some of its elements are visible,” in the sense of being discernible to the senses.6
The second is that the Church is distinctly visible, i.e. distinguishable “as the true Church from false ones.” As noted, Fr Crean reduces this distinguishing feature to the papacy.7 This is correct, to a degree – but only when properly understood. The true Church can indeed be identified from among the false claimants through the Roman primacy.8 None of us dispute this: in fact, we profess it openly.
However, the question at hand is not precisely “Which is the true Church” – because all parties to this discussion recognise that it is the Roman Catholic Church. The question at hand, however, is this: “Where is the Roman Catholic Church, the true Church?” No doubt the former question remains relevant, because we cannot locate the Church without regard for the criteria by which we know her to be the true Church. Nonetheless, these questions are distinct, and must be kept distinct in order to make sense of the crisis in the Church.
Fr Crean and many others are satisfied that the answer to the second question is simple: it is the body of men who recognise Leo XIV as Pope, claim to be subject to him, and whom he (and his officers) recognise as being in good standing with him. In this article, we will refer to this body of men as The Conciliar/Synodal Church.9
Before we examine Fr Crean’s answer to this question, we must take the time to demonstrate that his statement of how the Church is rendered visible, while correct in certain respects, is wanting.
This leads to incorrect conclusions about the visibility of the Church, and a naturalistic and legalistic presentation of the question.
The four notes of the Church
The Church is made distinctly visible by the “four notes” (or “marks”) mentioned in the Creed – unity, catholicity, apostolicity and holiness. In fact, these notes represent four necessary properties of the Church, in so far as they are manifested externally.
What are the criteria by which these four properties can be treated as notes?
1. A necessary property – Van Noort writes, “If a mark really belongs to a thing, it will never be missing from it.”10
2. Visible – because internal or invisible qualities cannot distinguish the Church as visible, unless they are manifested at least mediately or indirectly.
3. More known to us than the Church herself – because it is proper to argue from what is more certain to establish what is less certain. It “should be easier to recognize than the article sought for.”11
4. Easily knowable – at least normally so, because the whole point is making the true Church known to all men, even the simplest.12 For example, “teaching the same doctrine as the apostles” is not easily knowable, as it requires study and cannot be verified without the testimony of the Church. Therefore this real aspect of apostolicity as a property is not usually treated as part of apostolicity as a mark.13
The necessary properties, indicated by each mark, belong inseparably to the true Church of Christ, flowing either from its nature or its causes.14 This is why the notes can be used as a proof “by way of assertion”, in the sense that all four notes are only found in the true Church.15
This is taught by Vatican I:
“God, through his only begotten Son, founded the Church, and he endowed his institution with clear notes to the end that she might be recognized by all as the guardian and teacher of the revealed word. […]
“The Church herself, by reason of her astonishing propagation, her outstanding holiness and her inexhaustible fertility in every kind of goodness, by her catholic unity and her unconquerable stability, is a kind of great and perpetual motive of credibility and an incontrovertible evidence of her own divine mission.”16
Louis Cardinal Billot reprised the same teaching, linking the visibility of the Church to the four notes:
“First of all the visibility of the Catholic Church is unshaken, to the extent that it is the true Church of God. This kind of visibility is the visibility of believability from the four marks which we discussed earlier, by which it is clear that we should believe by faith that this is the only legitimate and genuine religion out of all the religious societies in the world.”17
Billot observes that “all theologians agree unanimously [in the links between visibility, the four marks and the hierarchy] as in a most firm dogma.”18
This is also the teaching of the canonists Wernz and Vidal, in their treatment of a “doubtful Pope” and how a Pope loses office:
“For the visibility of the Church consists in the fact that she possesses such signs and identifying marks that, when moral diligence is used, she can be recognised and discerned, especially on the part of her legitimate officers.
“But in the supposition we are considering [a pope whose legitimacy is doubtful], the pope cannot be found even after diligent examination.
“The conclusion is therefore correct that such a doubtful pope is not the proper head of the visible Church instituted by Christ.”19
We should note that Wernz and Vidal say that the Church is identifiable with moral diligence, and not with superficial lack of diligence. As is clear from the context of the passage (the question of a “doubtful pope”), they recognise not just the importance of the “legitimate officers” of the Church in distinguishing the true Church from other false claimants, but also that this may be impossible or difficult under certain circumstances.
It follows from this that the visibility of these properties (i.e., as notes) may be more or less clear under varying circumstances – even to the point of significant, but not complete, obscuration.
Temporary and incomplete obscuration
The received theological treatment of the Church’s visibility arises, in a significant part, out of controversy with the Protestant reformers. These men argued that the Church was invisible, and variously made up of the elect, or true Christians, or some other grouping. They argued that, at some debated and unverifiable point centuries before any living memory, the visible Church had defected and even disappeared, being overtaken by the Roman Church – a perversion, they claimed, of true Christianity.
Any similarity between this and the claims of “sedevacantists” (and “traditionalists” in general) is superficial, at best. We will leave direct discussion of this matter to a later part, but let us note in passing the following points. Unlike the Protestants…
We do not claim that the Church has defected, but that an enormous number of Catholics have defected from the Church
We do not claim that the Church has disappeared; but that, as a result of the foregoing point, it has become difficult to identify what remains of her hierarchy
We do not point to an alleged and unverifiable defection which took place centuries ago, but to a specific point within living memory, in which everyone agrees enormous changes occurred
We do not advocate a “reform” or return to a chimerical lost golden age, but have simply continued practising the religion of our grandparents – a religion which never ceased being practised, in a very visible way, since the changes began.
Fr Crean’s point, however, is that the Church must remain perpetually visible as a society; a point with which I agree.20 However, as stated, she must remain visible, not only as a society but as the true Church, the society founded by Christ – and there is more to this than there being a man claiming to succeed to the Roman See.
No matter how obscured, the four marks must be perpetually visible in themselves, and therefore to some people; but it is quite obviously incorrect to assert that they must be visible to all men. We have already seen that the Church is only inadequately and at least broadly visible – that is, “not all, but only some of its elements are visible.”
However, it is also certain that these four marks, and therefore the visibility of the Church, admit degrees and may be obscured. This is specifically mentioned in reference to the hierarchy in several cases.
Writing to a recent high-profile convert (a chaplain of King James I), St Robert Bellarmine recognised that the visibility of the true Church may become obscured – whilst still, of course, remaining distinctly visible in herself:
“It is granted to few to recognise the true Church amid the darkness of so many schisms and heresies, and to still fewer so to love the truth which they have seen as to fly to its embrace, generously despising comfort, honour and, above all, royal favour, the unfailing source of such earthly prizes.”21
On the other hand, the priest Fr John MacLaughlin wrote:
“We concede, moreover, that there may have been occasions in the past (and such intervals may occur in the future) when, through the opposition of anti-Popes and a variety of untoward circumstances, it was difficult for individuals for the moment to tell where the right source of authoritative teaching was to be found.
“This, however, does not change the state of the case in the least; the one true Church was in the world somewhere all the same, and in full possession of all her essential prerogatives, although, for the passing hour — from transient causes — she may not have been easily discernible to the less observant.
“Just as there have been times when some dense fog or mist made it impossible for the ordinary observer to tell the exact spot the sun occupied in the sky, although everybody knew that he was there somewhere; knew, too, that he would in due course make the exact location of his presence visible to all, and that, as soon as the mist lifted, his rays would come straight to the earth again, and every one would see that he was identically the same luminous orb that had shone before.”22
Dom Prosper Guéranger echoes the same truth:
“A Decius may succeed in causing a four years’ vacancy in the See of Rome; anti-popes may arise, supported by popular favour, or upheld by the policy of Emperors; a long schism may render it difficult to know the real Pontiff amidst the several who claim it: the Holy Spirit will allow the trial to have its course, and, whilst it lasts, will keep up the faith of his children; the day will come when he will declare the lawful Pastor of the flock, and the whole Church will enthusiastically acknowledge him as such.”23
In 1916, the Polish professor of Dogmatic Theology Fr Maciej Sieniatycki described how a “Church” that adopted modernist principles would become a new Church.
“A Church that would arise on modernist principles – if indeed those principles can create a concrete religious community at all, which is a very doubtful matter – would no longer be the Church of Christ, but a creation of the twentieth century, based partly on Protestant principles and chiefly on the worldviews of agnosticism and positivism prevalent today among many, with an admixture of mystical dreams.
“This new Church could have both a Pope and bishops, but they would be mere puppets; it could speak of dogmas, revelations, of a supernatural religion, but these would be names from which the old content had fled – rather, they would be words without content. So how could one truthfully maintain that the old Church had not been changed, but merely perfected?
“No, never – the old Church would be demolished, and on its ruins there would arise a religious assembly of the twentieth century, beginning the era of its existence from the appearance of the modernists.”24
Naturally, we do not concede that the Church can actually be destroyed. Fr Sieniatycki is speaking here in hypothetical terms, about a scenario which is impossible to unfold in the precise way he describes, because if such a “church” came into being, those responsible would be separating themselves from the true Church, which would necessarily continue without such defectors.
These authorities have addressed what is possible for the Church in “ordinary” extraordinary circumstances. However, other great writers have posited similar explanations for how the Church will be as the end of the world approaches.
The theologian Fr Timoteo Zapalena taught that the catholicity, and therefore visibility, of the Church could be “very restricted”:
“That at the end of the world, living faith will be lacking in many, I grant; that all faith [will be lacking] according as there is an apostasy of all or of most—[this] the second premise demonstrates. Very decidedly, ‘then shall many be scandalized … and many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many. And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold’ (Mt 24:10-12).
“But if at the end of the world apostasy of such a kind actually were to be the case in most men, it would be necessary to think of catholicity in such a manner that it must be understood in a very restricted sense as a stage immediately and very shortly preceding the consummation of the world. However, the difficulty relates to the end of the world, not the existence of the Church throughout the ages, about which we especially speak in this thesis.”25
Discussing the coming of the Antichrist and the “the revolt” mentioned by St Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2.3, Cardinal Henry Edward Manning writes:
“The holy Fathers who have written upon the subject of Antichrist, and have interpreted these prophecies of Daniel, without a single exception, as far as I know, and they are the Fathers both of the East and of the West, the Greek and the Latin Church– all of them unanimously, – say that in the latter end of the world, during the reign of Antichrist, the holy sacrifice of the altar will cease. In the work on the end of the world, ascribed to St. Hippolytus, after a long description of the afflictions of the last days, we read as follows:
“‘The Churches shall lament with a great lamentation, for there shall be offered no more oblation, nor incense, nor worship acceptable to God. The sacred buildings of the churches shall be as hovels; and the precious body and blood of Christ shall not be manifest in those days; the Liturgy shall be extinct; the chanting of psalms shall cease; the reading of Holy Scripture shall be heard no more. But there shall be upon men darkness, and mourning upon mourning, and woe upon woe.”
“Then, the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible, hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking-places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were, from the face of the earth. Such is the universal testimony of the Fathers of the early centuries […]
“The fulfilment of the prophecy is yet to come; and that which we have seen in the two wings, we shall see also in the centre; and that great army of the Church of God will, for a time, be scattered. It will seem, for a while, to be defeated, and the power of the enemies of the faith for a time to prevail. The continual sacrifice will be taken away, and the sanctuary will be cast down […] If you would understand this prophecy of desolation, enter into a church: which was once Catholic, where now is no sign of life; it stands empty, untenanted, without altar, without tabernacle, without the presence of Jesus. And that which has already come to pass in the East and in the West is extending itself throughout the centre of the Catholic Unity. […]
“And thus we come to the third mark, the casting down of ‘the Prince of Strength;’ that is, the Divine authority of the Church, and especially of him in whose person it is embodied, the Vicar of Jesus Christ. The world is in arms to depose him, and to leave him no place to lay his head. Rome and the Roman States are the inheritance of the Incarnation. The world is resolved to drive the Incarnation off the earth. It will not suffer it to possess so much as to set the sole of its foot upon. This is the true interpretation of the anticatholic movement of Italy and England: ‘Tolle hunc de terra.’ The dethronement of the Vicar of Christ is the dethronement of the hierarchy of the universal Church, and the public rejection of the Presence and Reign of Jesus.”26
The application of this passage needs little comment – except to point out Cardinal Manning’s use of the word “invisible.” Neither he, nor we, wish to suggest that the Church will truly lose her visibility. The point is evidently rhetorical, but making the same point: it is possible for the Church’s visibility, including in her hierarchy, to suffer a certain degree of obscurity, without being lost.27
It is also intriguing that he links these assaults against the Roman Pontiff as an assault against the Social Kingship of Christ, a dogma tacitly abandoned at and following Vatican II.
There was possibly no greater champion of Christ’s Social Kingship than the great Cardinal Louis-Édouard-François-Desiré Pie. He both influenced and was highly praised by the subsequent Popes; Pope St Pius X said he read every day, described as his “master.”28 Cardinal Pie expressed the same ideas we have been considering, writing:
“[A]s the world approaches its end, the wicked and the seducers will have more and more of an advantage. Faith will be almost impossible to find on earth—that is to say, it will have almost completely disappeared from all earthly institutions. Believers themselves will hardly dare to make a public and social profession of their beliefs. The schism, the separation, the divorce of societies from God—which St. Paul gives as a sign preceding the end, nisi venerit discessio primum—will be consummated day by day.
“The Church, a society that will undoubtedly always be visible, will be increasingly reduced to simply individual and domestic proportions. She, who said in her early days, ‘The place is too small for me, make room for me to dwell,’ Angustus mihi locus, fac spatium ut habitem, will find herself fighting for ground inch by inch, surrounded and hemmed in on all sides: as much as the centuries had made her great, so much will be done to restrict her.
“Finally, there will be a veritable defeat for the Church on earth, and the Beast will be given power to wage war against the saints and defeat them. The insolence of evil will reach its peak.”29
Cardinal Pie suggests that this is how the world will actually end – an apparent defeat, followed by the triumph of the Second Coming.30
Fr Sylvester Berry also acknowledges that the true Church may be difficult to find, due to the comparative growth of a false sect:
“The beast arising from the earth is a false prophet — the prophet of Antichrist. Our divine Saviour has a representative on earth in the person of the Pope upon whom He has conferred full powers to teach and govern. Likewise Antichrist will have his representative in the false prophet who will be endowed with the plenitude of satanic powers to deceive the nations.
“If Antichrist be of Jewish extraction, as he probably will, the sea from which he arises signifies Judaism. Then the earth whence comes the second beast is a symbol of the Gentile nations in revolt against the Church. The two horns denote a twofold authority — spiritual and temporal. As indicated by the resemblance to a lamb, the [false] prophet will probably set himself up in Rome as a sort of antipope during the vacancy of the papal throne mentioned above. But the elect will not allow themselves to be deceived; they will recall the words of our Lord: ‘Then if any man shall say to you: Lo here is Christ, or there, do not believe him.’”31
These ideas are not limited to modern writers. St Augustine of Hippo wrote the following about the end of the world:
“For the Church is the sun and the moon and the stars, to which it was said, ‘fair as the moon, bright as the sun’ (Canticle of Canticles 6:9).
“In this world our Joseph [=son of Jacob and Rachel] is worshipped [=venerated] by the [moon], as though in Egypt [when he had been] lifted up on high from the lowliest [condition]. For Joseph’s mother, who died before Jacob had come to his son, was certainly unable to worship him, in order that the truth of the prophetic dream (Genesis 37:9), to be fulfilled with Christ the Lord, might be preserved.
“For when ‘the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved,’ just as this passage was recorded by the other two Evangelists (Matthew 24:29, Mark 13:24), the Church will not be perceptible at that time, with the ungodly persecutors raging beyond measure and with all fear laid aside as though the world’s good fortune were smiling approvingly, while they say, ‘Peace and security.’ [1 Thessalonians 5:3].”32
But do we need to turn to theologians or fathers in proof of this point? Our Lord himself said in the Gospel:
“[M]any false prophets shall rise and shall seduce many. And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.” (Matt. 24.11)
“But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 18.8)
I am not asserting that the end of the world is nigh – and in any case, Fr Henry James Coleridge wrote of this subject that “there seems no certain reason in the context” to limiting the principles of these prophecies to the end times – which means that they could apply in our day.33
Whether we are near the end or not, these texts unquestionably show that the visibility of the Church admits of degrees, and that at certain times it may be difficult to identify her due the obscurity of the four marks.
Different ways in which the notes may be obscure
However, the difficulty of verifying a note is different to verifying the absence of the property which the note should manifest.
Although these four qualities may be manifested to a greater or lesser degree as notes, they remain inviolably necessary properties of the Church. This is why their external manifestation is what marks the true Church out from false claimants.
This is also why the apparent lack of a note does not necessarily indicate the lack of the necessary property; and why the apparent possession of a negative note is nullified by the absence of the necessary property.
All this applies to the Church, and not to individual Catholics or groups of Catholics. But if a society, claiming to be the Church, demonstrably lacks even one such property, its claim is proven false.34 A “square” that lacks four sides is not a square.35
By contrast, a square remains a square even if three of its sides are obscured; and we may know that it is a square on independent grounds.
In the next part, we will examine how these necessary properties are manifested as notes – and how these properties may become difficult to verify, or verified as absent. In so doing, we shall see that the “Conciliar/Synodal Church”, whose claim Fr Crean defends, may well be visible, but is not visible as the Catholic Church.36
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Rev E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, (Mount St Mary’s Seminary, 1955), p21-22.
Ibid. p. 23.
Joachim Salaverri, ‘On the Church of Christ,’ in Sacrae Theologia Summa IB trans. Kenneth Baker SJ , Keep the Faith, 2015, n. 1123.
Ibid.
Aside from certain aspects of the Church which are invisible to all, the extent to which she is discernible to the senses will vary according to each individual person – just as someone standing on the north side of Notre Dame Cathedral sees the Cathedral, but does not see the south side – nor, probably, the east or west sides.
It follows that there is nothing absurd or contradictory in stating that one may be able to discern the visibility of the Church without necessarily being able to discern all of it, or even the noblest and most important parts of it. It is possible, in other words, for the Church to be more or less obscured for an individual person – or even many individual persons.
Fr Crean writes:
“[T]he Catholic Church is an empirically identifiable organisation, by which I mean that it can be distinguished from other societies by the application of criteria accessible to the senses, even by a person without faith. From this point of view, the Catholic Church is no different from the Southern Baptist Convention, FIFA, or the Locomotive Club of Great Britain.
“The criterion by which we may identify the Catholic Church is the papacy; she is the society governed by the man who succeeds to St Peter, according to the norms in force at the time of the succession.”
We note, for now only in passing, that for the Catholic Church, “the norms in force at the time of the succession,” cannot be limited to the provisions of positive law. Divine law and the nature of things also have their own significance in this matter: we all acknowledge that it is impossible to elect a woman, or an unbaptised man, or a child, or an insane person; however, some consider it possible to elect an open non-Catholic, in part because of a deficient understanding of the criteria for membership of the Church.
Salaverri writes:
“The Church of Christ is perennial. Therefore it also exists now, and necessarily is one of those that call themselves Christian, that is, either Protestant, or Anglican, or Schismatic Oriental, or Catholic, or a confederation of all these confessions.
“But the Church of Christ cannot be Protestant, nor Anglican, nor Schismatic Oriental, nor a confederation of all Christian confessions. For, in the Church of Christ that is to last perpetually the Primacy can never be lacking. But neither the Protestant, nor the Anglican, nor the Schismatic Oriental, nor the confederation of all Christians acknowledge a true Primacy of jurisdiction.
“Therefore, the only Christian confession, which can be the true Church of Christ, is the Roman-Catholic, since it alone confesses a true Primacy of jurisdiction, to which it says that all of Christ’s faithful must be subject.” n. 497
He continues:
“[I]t is certain that a true Primacy of jurisdiction is a characteristic and necessary property of the Church of Christ; hence it can be concluded immediately that a Church that does not have the Primacy is not the true Church of Christ.”
“The Conciliar Church” is a title invented by Paul VI and popularised throughout the following decades; “The Synodal Church” was used by Leo XIV from the Loggia, moments after his election. Cardinal Koch himself referred to it as the “conciliar/synodal church” in the 2024 document The Bishop of Rome.
Exactly what this term denotes is debated. My working definition is that it refers to a social reality, rather than a society properly defined, made up of two distinct groups. It includes both an ever-shrinking number of Catholics and an ever-growing number of those who have openly and truly ceased to be Catholics, but have not yet been declared as such by authority. This social reality is not the Catholic Church, for the reasons discussed in this piece, but its greater or lesser tolerance of Catholics within its ranks means that it is not clearly a false sect either, and so those who are involved with it do not cease to be Catholics by that fact alone (though they may cease to be Catholics for other reasons).
While this working understanding may be subject to certain difficulties, I consider this the most accurate description of the current state of affairs.
In short, the use of the term Conciliar/Synodal Church, as distinct from the Catholic Church, does not imply that its “members” are necessarily non-Catholics.
Van Noort n. 125
Van Noort n. 159
Salaverri n. 1211
Van Noort n. 131.
Salaverri n. 1151
Salaverri n. 121. Salaverri concludes that “the four [notes] taken together are equivalent to a positive Note” – namely, an indication that the society in question is indeed the true Church. (Salaverri n. 1217)
Vatican I, ‘Session 3: 24 April 1870 Dogmatic constitution on the catholic faith’ Chapter III no. 10. Available at: https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum20.htm
Cardinal Louis Billot SJ, Selections from Tractatus de Ecclesia, by various translators. Document received by the WM Review 2021. This text falls in Question 7, just before the start of Thesis XI. [Billot 281-2, as translated by Fr Julian Larrabee. [12] Billot 282, as translated by Fr Julian Larrabee.]
Billot 282, as translated by Fr Julian Larrabee.
No one can deny that, even if they were indeed limited to “traditionalists”, the Church’s members have remained very visible ever since Vatican II. As mentioned above, our difficulty is an extreme obscuration of the hierarchy, caused principally by the current vacancy of the Holy See, which makes it difficult to tell who, if any, of the known hierarchy is Catholic. However, my working assumption has long been the same as Fr Crean’s: the Church must always retain formal successors of the Apostles, regardless of the state of the Holy See. But if this is the case, then she does so. Those men will remain visible in the sense explained by Salaverri above: they are materially visible as men, and they will be formally and distinctly visible as hierarchs of the Catholic Church to those whom they govern.
This is sufficient to satisfy the requirements of the Church’s perpetual visibility, as set out by the theologians. We subjectively do not know who these men are, but we are not the whole Church, and there is absolutely no necessity that such men be visible to us in order to be visible in themselves and to the Church, viz. those whom they govern. These men may or may not be parts of the hierarchy of the Conciliar/Synodal Church, and simply difficult to verify (people typically point to the East, in which the changes of Vatican II had a considerably lesser effect), or they may wholly unknown to us.
In other words, to use Salaverri’s terminology, from our vantage point, the Church remains materially visible to all, through the existence of Catholics adhering to the traditional faith, that she remains formally visible, in an inadequate (i.e., “not all, but only some of its elements are visible” – and what is currently and temporarily not visible is the hierarchy) and broad way (i.e., discernible to the senses); and she remains distinctly visible as the true Church of Christ, albeit in a way that requires more “moral diligence” and “diligent examination” than is usually the case.
The rejection of these points is typically based on the fundamental errors that a) the Church’s hierarchy cannot be obscured to a degree, which is certainly false; and b) that something can only exist or be visible if it is known to a large majority.
St Robert Bellarmine, writing to Benjamin Antony Carier DD.
Carier was a canon of Canterbury and chaplain to King James I, and was considered by the latter to be the most learned theologian in England. He had converted having read Bellarmine’s Controversies. He abandoned his posts and prospects on the pretext of going to a spa for health reasons, and became a Catholic in Cologne. James I was suspicious, ordered him to return, and had others write to him to ry and prevent his reception.
Carier wrote to Bellarmine telling him what had happened and thanking him for it. This was Bellarmine’s reply:
Very Reverend and Most Learned Sir,
Your letter afforded me immense joy. I thanked God with all my heart for the singular grace which he has given you. It is granted to few to recognise the true Church amid the darkness of so many schisms and heresies, and to still fewer so to love the truth which they have seen as to fly to its embrace, generously despising comfort, honour and, above all, royal favour, the unfailing source of such earthly prizes. If in your voluntary exile you have to endure sorrow and want for our Lord’s sake, you will be blessed indeed, being made worthy not only to believe in Christ with your whole heart, but also to suffer for his Name. As in heaven nothing will be sweeter than to resemble him in his glory, so here on earth nothing is more to our advantage than to be like him in his Passion. Hence arises that solid and perennial joy which nobody can steal from us… I do not write this in any spirit of indifference to your present need, which I am more than willing to assist as far as I can, but because I congratulate you from my heart, not only on account of your reception into the Church, outside which there is no salvation, but also for the precious gift of patience with which I think our Lord has adorned your soul.
As for my part in the matter, you owe me no thanks at all, for “neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God it is who gives the increase”. I only pass on to others what our Catholic Mother has herself passed on to me. If there is any lack of learning in my writings, any obscurity of expression or superficial treatment, you may feel sure that it is in such places I am most original.
And so farewell, most learned and worthy Sir. Remember me in your holy prayers.
Cardinal Bellarmine.
Rome, February 14, 1614.
Fr James Brodrick SJ, St Robert Bellarmine: Saint and Scholar, pp. 89-90. Newman Press, Westminster, MD, 1961.
Rev. John MacLaughlin, The Divine Plan of The Church, Where Realised, and Where Not, Burns & Oates, London, 1901, Chapter VI, on indefectibility. Pp, pp. 93-94.
Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Vol 9 (Paschal Time – Book III), St Bonaventure Publications, Great Falls, Montana, 2000. Thursday after Whitsun, p 385.
Fr Dr Maciej Sieniatycki, ‘The Church in the Conception of the Modernists’, Part III of Modernism in the Polish Book, in Przegląd Powszechny, Oct-Dec 1916, pp. 73-82. Krakow. Available at https://www.wmreview.org/p/sieniatycki-iii
Rev. Timoteo Zapelena, S.J., De Ecclesia Christi: Pars Apologetica, Rome: Gregorian, 1955, p. 489; italics given; underlining added. Translation by Novus Ordo Watch.
We must also point out that the Pope, and to a lesser degree the hierarchy subject to him, is the principal of unity for the Church. The “scattering” of a flock is, as Our Lord tells us, a result of the shepherd being struck.
The upcoming The Social Reign of Christ the King, According to Cardinal Pie (Fr Théotime Saint-Just) contains several testimonials from Popes and other great figures:
Cardinal Pie already enjoys all the authority of a doctor in the Church. The popes have praised him.—Pius IX wrote to him in 1875 on the occasion of the publication of his works: “Not only have you always taught sound doctrine, but with your talent and eloquence, which distinguish you, you have touched with such finesse and certainty on the points that it was necessary or appropriate to clarify, according to the needs of each day, that in order to judge questions soundly and know how to adapt one’s conduct, it was sufficient for each of you to have read you.”
In 1879, Leo XIII created the Bishop of Poitiers a cardinal. This appointment, coming so soon after the publication of his works, was an implicit approval of his doctrine.
Pius X, giving an audience to the French Seminary, declared that he had “read and reread often” the works of Cardinal Pie. One day, speaking to a well-known prelate in France, he said to him, referring to the great Bishop of Poitiers: “Cardinal Pie is my master!” And the first encyclical of the saintly Pope reproduced in large part the first pastoral letter of Mgr. Pie to his diocese of Poitiers.
Finally, Cardinal Gasparri, writing on behalf of Benedict XV to Canon Vigué regarding his publication of Pages choisies du Cardinal Pie, praised these pages in these terms: “There, the Bishop of Poitiers appears in the role of teacher, which he fulfills with such eloquence and authority; he appears as a formidable opponent of naturalism, liberalism, and the insidious remnants of Gallicanism. No one has more clearly exposed, against the various forms of naturalism, the fundamental obligation incumbent upon every man to adhere to supernatural Revelation, and no one has more brilliantly defended against liberalism the inalienable rights of God and the Church in the organization of society… The work that Cardinal Pie accomplished during his lifetime is of the kind that must be perpetuated within the French clergy and in the universal Church.”
We therefore have uninterrupted praise from the Supreme Pontiffs for our guide in the subject we are dealing with.
It also contains the following footnotes about Pope St Pius X:
Croix, supplement of 28 September 1915: “Le Cardinal Pie.”
The following anecdote, reported by Canon Vigué in Pages Choises du Cardinal Pie (vol. 1, Avertissement, p. xi), shows us Pope Pius X’s reverence for the great Bishop of Poitiers. ‘A priest from Poitiers told us that he once had the honor of being introduced into the office of Pope Pius X in the company of a religious, also originally from Poitiers. ‘Oh! Cardinal Pie’s diocese!’ said the Holy Father, raising his hands as soon as he heard the name Poitiers. ‘I have the works of your Cardinal right here, and for many years now, hardly a day goes by without my reading a few pages.’ As he spoke, he took one of the volumes and placed it in the hands of his visitors. They could see from the modest binding that it must have belonged to the parish priest of Salzano or the spiritual director of the seminary in Treviso long before it found its way into the Vatican.”
Compare the encyclical E supremi apostolatus cathedra in Actes de S. S. Pie X (Bonne Presse), vol. 1, pp. 30–48, with the pastoral letter on the occasion of taking possession of the diocese of Poitiers: vol. 1, pp. 96–120. There are many similarities. Let us simply note in the encyclical E supremi apostolatus cathedra: “There will undoubtedly be those who seek to scrutinize our innermost thoughts. To put an end to these vain attempts, We affirm in all truth that We wish to be nothing other than… the Minister of the God Who has clothed Us with His authority. That is why, if We are asked for a motto that expresses the very essence of Our soul, We will never give any other than this: ‘To restore all things in Christ’” (p. 35).—In the pastoral letter: “We are, and will be for you, the man of God. And if we had to bring with us a slogan, it would be this: Instaurare omnia in Christo, ‘To restore all things in Christ’” (p. 102).
Vol. 3, pp. 527–29, in de Saint-Just, at the end of the Conclusion. Soon to be published by Stabat Mater Press.
Cardinal Pie continues:
“Now, in this extreme situation, in this desperate state, on this globe given over to the triumph of evil and soon to be engulfed in flames, what should all true Christians, all good people, all saints, all men of faith and courage still do?
“Striving for an impossibility more palpable than ever, they will say with redoubled energy and through the fervor of their prayers and the activity of their works and the intrepidity of their struggles: O God! O our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name on earth as it is in heaven; thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven! They will murmur these words again, and the earth will slip away beneath their feet. And, as in the past, following a terrible disaster, we saw the entire Roman Senate and all the orders of the state come forward to meet the defeated consul and congratulate him for not despairing of the republic; so the senate of heaven, all the choirs of angels, all the orders of the blessed will come to meet the generous athletes who will have fought to the end, hoping against hope: contra spem in spem.
“And then, this impossible ideal, which all the elect of all centuries had stubbornly pursued, will finally become a reality. In this Second and Final Coming, the Son will hand over the Kingdom of this world to God His Father, the power of evil will have been banished forever into the depths of the abyss, and everything that has not wanted to assimilate itself, to incorporate itself into God through Jesus Christ through faith, through love, through observance of the law, will be relegated to the cesspool of eternal filth. And God will live and reign fully and eternally, not only in the unity of His nature and the society of the three Divine Persons, but in the fullness of the mystical body of His incarnate Son and in the consummation of the saints!”
Rev. E. Sylvester Berry, The Apocalypse of St. John [Columbus, OH: John W. Winterich, 1921], p. 135; underlining added.
St. Augustine, Epistola CXCIX, par. 39; in Collectio Selecta Ss. Ecclesiae Patrum, vol. CXLVIII (Paris: Parent-Desbarres, 1835), pp. 127-128; underlining added. Professional translation commissioned by Novus Ordo Watch.
Salaverri n. 1218. This is distinguished from the apparent lack of a mark – i.e., the accidental difficulty of verifying the presence of such a mark.
E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ, B. Herder Book Co. London 1927. p 147
We are obliged to note that Fr Crean suggests at the end of his article that, if we are correct about the extended vacancy of the Holy See, then the conclusions which he incorrectly believes flow from this vacancy essentially “falsify” the Church.
In general, I consider this attempt to create a dilemma extremely dangerous (including for men of our own position). Under ordinary circumstances, arguments like this might be legitimate, but the nature of the present crisis has meant that it has actually led men of both “sedevacantist” and sedeplenist conclusions to abandon the Catholic Church altogether.
In fact, the claims of the Catholic Church cannot be falsified. I explain the problems with this rhetorical argument here:
What a tour de force!
I was recently on Stephen Kokx’s “Trad Roundup,” and one of the panelists (Matt Gaspers) was making the visibility argument against one of his sedevacantist interlocutors, saying that visibility destroys the entire sedevacantist argument.
Because we’d all agreed to an agenda in advance (which was supposed to discuss the forthcoming SSPX episcopal consecrations), and this digression had already gone on for some time, I held my peace and refrained from interjecting, out of respect for Mr. Kokx.
But now I’m glad I did, because my own comments could not possibly have been as lucid, cogent, and complete as what is written here.
A truly excellent article, and one to bookmark!
I still retain the hope that one day you guys will take all these great articles and join them together in book form. They can stand alone as chapters. It wouldn’t take much to do.
Very, very well done. Wow.
I beggars the imagination to think that a person would hold to the opinion that a public heretic dressed up in a white outfit somehow maintains the visibility of the Catholic Church.
Great article, I am looking forward to reading the rest of it.