Easter, the conclave, and seeking the living among the dead
Many failed to recognise our Lord in his Resurrection. Those who insist that the Conciliar/Synodal Church is the Roman Catholic Church fall into the same trap.
Many failed to recognise our Lord in his Resurrection. Those who insist that the Conciliar/Synodal Church is the Roman Catholic Church fall into the same trap.
Preface: Conclave 2025
In the wake of Francis’ death, the Catholic world is ablaze with frenetic speculation about the coming conclave and its likely candidates.
Many souls have allowed themselves to be unsettled by the dire state of the college of cardinals, and the question of who they will elect—as if the Church’s fate hung on the ambitions of men.
In their loss of peace, we could ask such persons: Why do you seek to living among the dead?
Yet this agitation—itself contrary to the peace bestowed by Christ on Easter Sunday evening—betrays a deeper problem. Many have misunderstood the true nature of Church’s visibility, her perpetuity, and her divine constitution, and cast the Church in purely naturalistic terms. They have, in effect, adopted the same all-too-natural approach shared by Our Lord’s friends in the time before he manifested himself to them.
They are seeking the living among the dead.
Our Lord’s friends retained a natural love for him, as do many of our friends today. But a merely natural love is not sufficient for keeping the faith—and without the faith, even a natural love will fade into indifference or even hatred and disdain.
We have seen it happen.
This danger is real—but it is not too late. The article below recalls the peace Christ bestowed on Easter Day, and calls us to recover that peace by recognising the Church where she still stands, glorious and unshaken, for those with eyes to see.
In our current ecclesiastical crisis, which many have called a “Passion of the Church”, some apologists of the self-titled '“Conciliar/Synodal Church” like to say that, just as the Apostles fled and abandoned Christ, so too have Traditional Catholics refused to stand at the foot of the Cross.
They say that, just as the Jews failed to recognise the suffering Christ, we too have failed to recognise the Church in her mystical Passion.
Even some sympathetic to Catholic tradition make claims like this, particularly against those who hold that the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church, but a different and foreign body; and that the recent papal claimants have lacked legitimacy.
Is a distinction between the Conciliar/Synodal Church (which was then “merely” the “Conciliar Church”) an extravagant idea? It was voiced explicitly on several occasions by no less than Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
What did Archbishop Lefebvre really think about the 'Conciliar Church'?
Did Lefebvre see the Conciliar Church as a separate society to the Catholic Church?
Where is the Church today? Archbishop Lefebvre and the Conciliar Church
For this reason, let us not hear any of his admirers insisting that we recognise this chimerical body as the Catholic Church.
In spite of this, however, not losing peace over the conclave is not the same thing as not caring what goes on in Rome. We should care deeply about what goes on there—whether we are talking about a true successor of St Peter, or a true successor of Paul VI. And once again, we can call Lefebvre as a witness against those who propose the ludicrous objection of “the medieval peasant” who allegedly neither knew nor cared about what happened in Rome.
Now, among the defenders of the Conciliar/Synodal Church, some men are of evident bad faith. They delight in the revolution, and their new religion of Vatican II. I have nothing to say to such persons here.
However, there are also many reluctant apologists of this Conciliar/Synodal Church. Such men feel obliged to defend it, because they think that it must be the Roman Catholic Church, because they cannot see any other alternative, and because they are—if they are honest about it—afraid of what it would mean for the traditionalist arguments were true.
This essay is for them.
The Church lives the life of Christ
Easter is a time to liberation from bondage and from fear. During this holy season, the traditional Roman Liturgy is, as ever, the means by which the Church teaches and guides her faithful sons. Across the holy octave of Easter, the Gospel passages read at each Mass recount the various apparitions of our risen Lord.
Each one teaches us something about the true answer which we must give to the reluctant apologists of Vatican II’s religious revolution. That answer is this:
Like those who failed to recognise our Lord in his Resurrection, those who insist that the Conciliar/Synodal Church of Vatican II is the Roman Catholic Church are “seeking the living amongst the dead.”
The nature of the situation presents us with an opportunity to make very meritorious acts of faith, possibly with greater purity and definitely with fewer visible aids than previous generations.
In previous parts, we have referred to St Augustine’s recurring idea:
“[Christ] is the Head of the Church, and the Church is His Body, [and the] Whole Christ is both the Head and the Body.”1
The idea that the Church is Christ still living on earth is very common and rooted in the New Testament itself. Alongside it is the idea that the Church lives the life of her head. In one sense, this happens because the Church’s members live the same supernatural life as Christ himself. In Mystici Corporis Christi, Pius XII taught:
“Christ our Lord wills the Church to live His own supernatural life, and by His divine power permeates His whole Body and nourishes and sustains each of the members according to the place which they occupy in the body, in the same way as the vine nourishes and makes fruitful the branches which are joined to it.”2
Many have tried to argue that the Church is mystically re-living the life of Christ in a linear way through history. This can be a fruitful way of reflecting on our current situation: no doubt the Church is suffering a Passion at this time; and no doubt we all long for a glorious vindication of her claims in the world.
But if this idea is pushed too hard, we may miss what is before our eyes.
In his 1911 book Christ in the Church, Mgr Robert Hugh Benson suggests that the Church lives out the events of Christ’s life simultaneously in her members. At any given time, in her members, “He is born here, lives, suffers, dies, and eternally rises again on the third day.”3
The Church will never die; as such she will also never rise from the dead. Nonetheless, metaphorical terms can be instructive so long as they are not pushed too far.
We could call to mind the introit of Easter Sunday:
Introit: “I am risen, and am with thee still.”
The Church has already “risen” from her Passion, and is still amongst us today. She is there for those who are prepared to make an act of faith, and believe that what she has taught about herself remains true today.
Only those with such faith will be able to see the Church where she is; the rest will be looking for her, sorrowfully, where she is not.
“They have taken away my Lord; and I know not where they have laid him”
Holy Scripture and Tradition tell us that the first “public” apparition of the risen Lord was to St Mary Magdalene.
She has already seen the empty tomb (recounted on Easter Saturday), and Ss Peter and John (who then believes) have come to see it on her account. She returns and is weeping at the sepulchre, even in the face of two angels. We might wonder how it is possible that she could not draw the obvious conclusions from Our Lord’s earlier words, the empty tomb, and the presence of the angels.
Nonetheless, Our Lord condescends to appear to her himself—and yet again he is not recognised, until he says her name.
He then sends her to tell the disciples, and we know from the other Gospels that she is not universally believed.
We see an image here of our reluctant apologists, who are disinclined to believe the incredible or apparently hysterical account of those of us who are deemed to be unworthy messengers.
The Holy Women: natural considerations and natural loves
On Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, we hear the accounts of the Resurrection in the Gospels of St Matthew and St Mark.
These holy women, distraught following the death of their Lord, come to the tomb to anoint his body. They are worrying about practical questions, like who will be able to roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre.
While there is much to appreciate in these women, as with St Mary Magdalene—their dedication in setting out as early as is possible, and their sorrowful zeal for their supposedly dead master, we can already see that they are approaching the tomb with a natural, rather than supernatural love. As Severianus, in the Catena Aurea, says:
“The women in this place run abroad with womanly devotion, for they do not bring Him faith as though He were alive, but ointments as to one dead; and they prepare the service of their grief for Him as buried, not the joys of heavenly triumph for Him as risen.”4
Similarly, the talk of the stone shows that they are still dominated by natural considerations. Our Lord has already said that he will rise from the dead, but they do not believe.
Nonetheless, Our Lord still has regard, even for their too-natural love. In the Catena Aurea, Cyril explains that it is because of “their love of Christ and the tender care they had shown Him” that they “were thought worthy of the vision of angels.”5
What do the angels say?
“Fear not you: for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified: He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come and see the place where the Lord was laid. And going quickly, tell ye His disciples that He is risen: and behold He will go before you into Galilee: there you shall see Him. Lo, I have foretold it to you.” (St Mark’s Gospel, Holy Saturday)
But in spite of this glorious vision and declaration of the resurrection, the women remain afraid, apparently struggling to comprehend that Christ is not where they thought they would find him.
Something similar occurs with the reluctant defenders of the Conciliar/Synodal Church. Their considerations are similarly practical and naturalistic, in that they treat the Church of Christ as a society like any other, albeit one which is supernatural and whose continued nominal or legal existence is guaranteed. In many cases, their view approaches an Anglican conception of ecclesiastical politics, which has no place in the Catholic Church.
As a result, they accept the Conciliar/Synodal Church’s prima facie claim to be the Roman Catholic Church, based on certain appearances, and a simulacrum of visibility. But this is a crass reduction of what is meant by visibility, and perpetuity.
Most people seem to know that the Church must be visible, and stop there. They do not consider that the true Church is “distinctly” visible, in that she is recognisable as the Church of Christ, particularly through her perpetual possession of the constitution with which Christ endowed her, and the four marks mentiond in the Creed. But the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not distinctly visible as the Roman Catholic Church, because it lacks these marks and properties, as discussed previously.
We find a further illustration in the Gospel of St Luke. Fr Henry James Coleridge proposes, based on various reasons, that this similar account given by St Luke was actually about a second set of holy women, visiting the sepulchre with the same intent. St Luke gives us an extra saying of the Angel, relevant to many of the apparitions:
“Why seek you the living with the dead?” (Lk. 24.5)
In a similar way, our reluctant apologists are looking for the living Church of Christ in a tomb. Like these women, those who weep at the tomb of the Conciliar/Synodal Church are motivated by something good: a love for the Christ and for his Church. But they are overlooking essential supernatural truths, which leads them to weep at the tomb of one who has already risen and gone ahead of them. They are looking for the Church amongst a body of non-Catholics, who preach a false Gospel and impose a new religion on the faithful.
However, at least these women believed the testimony of their eyes: they knew that the body had gone.
What our Conciliar/Synodal friends are doing is more akin to insisting that the body remains—or even spending their time weeping over body of Gesmas, the bad thief, insisting that it is Christ’s body. It is not.
“They knew him in the breaking of bread”
On Easter Monday, the Church reads St Luke’s account of the apparition on the road to Emmaus.
Here, we hear how Our Lord rebuked and comforted the gloom of Cleophas and the other disciple, as they were going away from Jerusalem, presumably out of fear.
The Gospel tells us that “their eyes were held, that they should not know [Jesus]”. St Gregory the Great tells us that because these disciples loved and but also doubted, so too Our Lord appeared to them, but as a stranger.6 St Bede explains that he really was a stranger to them, because they did not yet have faith in his resurrection.7
The situation is tragically similar to those who cannot see that the Roman Catholic Church has already “risen” and is right before them.
It is in this “risen” Church, and anywhere within her, that they will hear expounded the whole doctrine of Christ, just as he expounded the Scriptures on the road to Emmaus.
This cannot be said of Conciliar/Synodal Church, where one might receive Catholic doctrine, but will most likely receive some modernist distortion.
It is within the Church thus that their hearts will burn with them, as they are taught, ruled and sanctified by Christ even in our day. It is there that they will find the received rite of Mass and the other sacraments, and so know Christ, with opened eyes, “in the breaking of bread”.
By contrast, the only way one might succeed in knowing Christ in the Conciliar/Synodal rites is by closing both eyes and ears.
“But they were troubled and frightened”
On Tuesday is read the passage following the road to Emmaus, in which Christ appears in the midst of his Apostles and bestows peace upon them.
St Luke tells us that, rather than accept this peace, they were “troubled and frightened” and “supposed that they saw a spirit”.
Does this not describe those reluctant Conciliar/Synodal apologists—and is it not a contrast to the religious peace of traditionalists? We are like ghosts from the past to them, as terrible as Banquo appearing at table in Macbeth—and yet all we want is for them to share the peace which we have accepted.
On the road to Emmaus, Christ said that these disciples were “slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” He says something similar in this passage.
Our Conciliar/Synodal friends are similarly “slow of heart” to believe all that the Church and her theologians have taught about her; and thus they are forced to write traditionalists off based on cranks on social media, and thereby justify their rethinking and casting away of traditional ecclesiology—all to maintain the claims of this imposter body.
Lack of Faith amongst the disciples
On Easter Friday, we hear the following:
“[T]he eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing him they adored: but some doubted.”
Some confusion of faith continued amongst the disciples even up until the Ascension, in that some of them still expected a temporal restoration of the kingdom of Israel. By contrast, we see (in the Gospel of Easter Wednesday) the blossoming of some sort of faith, in that St Peter believed that Christ is present on the shore when he heard St John say so. Following this, and his threefold profession of love for Our Lord, he received the primacy over the whole Church.
But the ultimate gospel passage about faith and doubt is read on Low Sunday, the Easter Octave. Our Lord appears to the apostles, without the presence of St Thomas.
In spite of all the testimony which he had received, St Thomas refuses to believe that Christ has risen from the grave—and sets his own arbitrarily-chosen criteria for belief.
In a similar way, those who are too timid to accept what has happened to the Church produce an artificially high bar for their belief, demanding infallible definitions, improbable declarations by modernist cardinals, and who knows what else.
More than this: some are driven to a position in which they openly reject and “rethink” what the Church has taught about herself, and say that they will only accept the prior, traditional teaching if their artificially high requirements are met.
Some want miracles to be worked in testimony of either the traditional principles, or our application of them. Others want miscellaneous details proved with degrees of certainty above what is proportionate to the circumstances.
They might demand that, in order for traditional principles or their application to be accepted, we must (for example) produce the names of the extant successors of the apostles, whoever they might be—as if it were possible or necessary for us to do so.
They demonstrate no appreciation of the fact that these principles are in possession; that the burden of proof is on those who wish to rethink them; and that the circumstances call for acts of faith and trust, rather than their private judgment.
Instead, ironically, we are the ones accused of private judgment.
Loss of faith amongst Catholics
It is common to hear talk of “falsification events,” meaning an event or events that would disprove the claims of the Catholic Church. Those who express such ideas are one step away from losing the faith themselves.
This is because they have lost sight of the reason for our faith, which is in turn the reason for the certainty of the faith—which is God revealing. This is summed up in the amazing text taken from 1 John, which is read on Low Sunday (the Easter Octave) in the traditional Roman rite:
Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory, which overcometh the world, our faith.
Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ: not by water only, but by water and blood.
And it is the Spirit which testifieth that Christ is the truth.
And there are three who give testimony in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that give testimony on earth: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three are one.
If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater: for this is the testimony of God, which is greater, because He hath testified of His Son. He that believeth in the Son of God hath the testimony of God in himself. (1 John 5.4-10)
What God has revealed cannot be falsified: to speak in such terms is to have already conceded that God might not have revealed it.
Our Lord condescends to St Thomas, for his sake and for ours, and elicits from him the confession of his divinity. But we should note that Our Lord’s condescension to St Thomas, made for our benefit, is the exception to the rule. The rule, rather, is that given in the parable of Dives and Lazarus:
“They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them […] If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead.” (Luke 16.29, 31)
This is why Our Lord also says:
“An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign: and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet.
“For as Jonas was in the whale's belly three days and three nights: so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.” (Mt. 12.39-40)
The “sign” vindicating the Church and her teaching about her nature and constitution has already been given in Christ’s resurrection, which he mentions himself here. It is for this reason that Christ says:
“Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen and have believed.” (John 20.29)
There have been few generations who have seen fewer visible proofs of the Church's claims than ours; let us, then, believe so that we may also be blessed.
The testimony of the Church’s magisterium, the teaching of her theologians, the history of the Church, and the continuity of the four marks, even in a form obscured by our current crisis: these are sufficient grounds for these reluctant apologists to leave the empty tomb of the Conciliar/Synodal Church—rather, a whitened sepulchre—in favour of the Roman Catholic Church.
Those who set themselves impossible conditions for belief, or demand new signs and proofs, are not safeguarding faith—they are betraying it. The Church is neither dead nor buried. Even while she undergoes a mysterious Passion, she stands already risen, for those with eyes to see. It is time to stop looking for the living among the dead—and to believe.
Conclusion
The Church has not transferred herself from one body to another; once again, what has happened is that a vast number of laymen and clerics have ceased to be Catholics. In other words, they have transferred themselves, in a moral sense, whilst maintaining their “geographical” location in our buildings. In retaining the Catholic name and (on the part of the clergy) some semblance of holding office, they have obscured the true identity and location of the Church.
Our current crisis is strange and horrible. But there can be no doubt about what it demands of us: Faith. In the face of our current difficulties—and indeed anything that appears to contradict the Gospel—we are obliged to make an act of faith.
We are not obliged to start checking the teaching of the Church to see whether or not we are willing to accept it in light of the supposed facts around us. But we are also not obliged to ignore the facts of the crisis (which is the route more or less taken by the defenders of the Conciliar/Synodal Church).
Our grounds and motives for making the act of faith are as they ever were. Such an act, under these circumstances, can surely be very meritorious indeed: after all, we are assenting to these propositions solely on the authority of what God has revealed and is proposed to us by the Church.
Only once we have made this act of faith, and only while we continue in it, can we try to understand the details about the situation. As 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.”8
It is essential that we make an act of faith in the continuing existence of the Church, as we find her described in her own teaching and in her approved works of theology—no matter how difficult this may seem. As Cardinal Newman famously said, “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.”
All that is left for our reluctant Conciliar/Synodal apologists is to put aside their doubts; to make the Act of Faith a regular part of their life; and to embrace, in its full integrity, the religion believed and practised by their grandparents, whilst maintaining unity as far as is possible with all other Catholics.
Returning to the conclave, let us be interested without losing our peace. We have nothing to fear. “He is not here: for He is risen, as He said.”
Postscript: The Rosary
While we might be terrified, as were the apostles, the solution may be found in the Gospel of Easter Wednesday—that of Our Lord appearing to some of the Apostles as they were fishing at the sea of Tiberias. In this passage, Our Lord miraculously bestows a draught of 153 fish on his disciples. This has been applied to the 153 Hail Marys said in the Holy Rosary.
Many reluctant Conciliar/Synodal apologists do indeed persevere in saying the Rosary: perhaps they should use it to pray for the grace to see the Church truly as and where she is today.
Our Lady maintained faith in Christ's claims while he suffered, died, and was buried. She expected his resurrection—and if he did not appear to her first, as tradition tells us, she would certainly have believed it while many of his friends were still weeping over his death or the theft of his body.
May she obtain for us all a similarly firm faith today.
This is an updated part of The Roman Liturgy—an ongoing series of standalone pieces about the liturgy, hope, and the crisis in the Church.
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Read Next
Further Reading:
Dom Prosper Guéranger – The Liturgical Year
Fr Johannes Pinsk – The Cycle of Christ
Dom Columba Marmion – Christ in his Mysteries
Mgr Robert Hugh Benson – Christ in the Church
Fr Frederick Faber – The Precious Blood
Fr Leonard Goffine – The Church’s Year
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St Augustine, Sermon 87 on the New Testament (Tenth chapter of the Gospel of John), n. 1. Translated by R.G. MacMullen. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff, Christian Literature Publishing Co., Buffalo, NY, 1888. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Available at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160387.htm.
Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christ, 1943, n. 55. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi.html
Mgr Robert Hugh Benson, Christ in the Church, p 10. The Cenacles Press, Stamullen, Ireland, 2022.
(ap. Chrysologum, sermon 89, in St Mark, 16.1-8)
Cyril, in Luke 24.1-12
Catena Aurea of St Luke for this verse.
“[T]hey thought Him a stranger, whose countenance they did not recognize. But in reality He was a stranger to them, from the infirmity of whose natures, now that He had obtained the glory of the resurrection, He was far removed; and to whose faith, as yet ignorant of His resurrection, He remained foreign.” Ibid.
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.
Heartfelt thanks for this rich & lucid essay! It’s a great encouragement now, as my wife & I have determined to go back to the basics, which were so mixed in with the mis-catechesis we both received in our respective dioceses long before we ever met. We now pray & believe as Catholics with clarity, not with souls baffled & perplexed by the doctrines of the changeling substituted for the Church six decades ago. The light of grace through the gift of Faith eliminates such perplexities, with a light never to be found within the misbegotten edifice of the Conciliar-Synodal construct.
A very well written essay. The point that those who are its intended target audience will raise is that “traditionalists” lack unity of government.
How might we respond to this and how important is it for the nature of the Church?