'Zero Marks' – Why the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church (Reply to Fr Thomas Crean, Part II)
The Conciliar/Synodal Church cannot be the 'perpetually visible Church', because it visibly lacks the four properties mentioned in the Creed.
The Conciliar/Synodal Church cannot be the ‘perpetually visible Church’, because it visibly lacks the four properties mentioned in the Creed.
Preface to Part II
This is the second part of a response to Fr Thomas Crean OP’s article “A City Set on a Hill Cannot Be Hidden: The Perpetual Visibility of the Catholic Church Under the Pope.”
This Part II is extremely long and detailed, and is best read as a whole. We are publishing it in full first for WM+ members, and then will be releasing each of the five chapters separately for all readers.
(For a work of this length, typograhical errors will be inevitable. The comment box is available for these to be raised.)
Fr Crean’s article was published on Dr Peter Kwasniewski’s Tradition and Sanity Substack, as well as the Pelican+ platform. Dr Kwasniewski advertised this article as “a definitive rebuttal of sedevacantism, at the level of first principles.”
In the previous part, I demonstrated that Fr Crean’s treatment of “first principles” was radically insufficient.
We considered first what it means for the Church to be visible – namely, that she be distinctly visible as the true Church of Christ. I explained that this is so through the necessary properties of unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity which are manifested as the four notes (or marks) of the Church. The nature of this distinct visibility was overlooked by Fr Crean, who reduced the question to the presence of the papacy.
I also explained that this visibility may be reduced or obscured, making the notes of the Church difficult to verify. I provided authorities, such as St Robert Bellarmine, Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Dom Prosper Guéranger and more, in support of this truth.
Introduction
In this second part, we will turn to the four notes themselves. I will explain:
How each of the four properties is manifested as a note
How these notes may be obscured
How the properties may be shown to be absent in a body claiming to be the Church
That these properties are in fact absent in the so-called “Conciliar/Synodal Church.”1
By “Conciliar/Synodal Church,” I mean 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. This body of men is taken by many to be the Roman Catholic Church, and it is this body which Fr Crean seeks to defend.
This article will demonstrate that, simpliciter, the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Roman Catholic Church.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre made similar comments in a conference at a priests’ retreat, published in Nov–Dec 1988:
“You continue, and you really represent, the Church: the Catholic Church. I think you need to be convinced of this: you really represent the Catholic Church.
“Not that there is no Church outside of us; that is not the point. But lately we have been told that it is necessary for Tradition to enter the visible Church. I think that this is a very, very serious mistake.
“Where is the visible Church? The visible Church is recognised by the signs she has always given for her visibility: she is one, holy, catholic and apostolic.
“I ask you: where are the true marks of the Church? Are they more in the official Church (it is not the visible Church, it is the official Church) or in us, in what we represent, what we are? […]
“It is not we, but the modernists, who depart from the Church. As for saying “to leave the visible Church,” that is a mistake, for it confuses the official Church with the visible Church. […]
“To leave, then, the official Church? In a certain measure, yes, obviously.”2
The Archbishop gives an account of the four notes in this conference, which is necessarily brief and, in some places, imprecise.
This piece is a significantly more detailed and precise account of these four notes, how they manifest the underlying properties, how they may be obscured (and thus difficult to verify), and how the properties may be shown to be absent.
As I stated previously, our contention does not mean not imply that the Conciliar/Synodal Church is itself a false sect, nor that its “members” are necessarily non-Catholics simply by being involved with it. Part of the reason for this is wrapped up with the faulty understanding of authority on the part of the Conciliar/Synodal “hierarchy”, as we shall discuss in Chapter IV.
The properties as notes
I have previously stated the four general criteria by which a property may be treated as a note:
A necessary property – i.e., a property which cannot be absent in the Church of Christ.
Visible – internal or invisible qualities cannot distinguish the Church unless they are manifested mediately or indirectly
More easily known as a fact than the truth of the body’s claim to be the Church – because it is proper to argue from what is more certain to establish what is less certain.
Easily knowable – e.g., unity of faith is more easily knowable than unity of the true faith; material succession is more easily knowable than legitimate formal succession.
This was explained in greater detail in Part I. The necessary properties to be manifested as marks are unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity.
The theologian Fr Joachim Salaverri SJ explains how each of the four properties mentioned are manifested as notes, according to the above criteria:
“[T]he four properties of the Creed are Notes of the true Church, not under every respect but under a certain respect, that is, we are taking the unity and catholicity not of right, but of fact; the apostolicity of succession not formal, but material; moral holiness not as internal, but as evident in good works. For, under other respects we are not completely certain that they assume the character of a Note.”3
As noted in the previous part, Cardinal Billot taught that the visibility of the Church “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.”4
Billot also observes that:
“[A]ll theologians agree unanimously [in the links between visibility, the four marks and the hierarchy] as in a most firm dogma.”5
The same doctrine is taught by the canonists Wernz and Vidal,6 as well as Vatican I7 and – as we saw above – Archbishop Lefebvre.
What does this mean – both in itself, and for Fr Crean’s argument?
Let us consider each property/note in turn.
This essay is extremely long and detailed, addressing the four notes and properties in four chapters.
As it is best read as a whole, we are first publishing it in full for WM+ members, and then will be releasing each chapter separately for all readers.
Priests, religious and seminarians can contact us for free membership and full access.