My field is Computer Science, but I specialized in logic while earning my Philosophy degree. Since analytic philosophers taught, I'm also nearly obsessed with word meanings. Other Catholic traditionalists use phrases like "Novus Ordo Church" and "synodal Church" when those expressions are vague, ambiguous, or both.
Consider "Novus Ordo Church." Does it stand for a group of people in the Catholic Church, a part of Christ's Mystical Body? Or is it a distinct organization? "Novus Ordo church" could refer to a church where priests celebrate both Novus Ordo and some traditional Masses because a diocesan bishop orders that the parish's priests celebrate the TLM.
More than 90% of the Church's bishops became Arians during the Arian crisis. Does that mean the Catholic Church lost the unity of faith? If that unity is part of the Catholic Church's essence, and she lost it, then she ceased to exist because the loss destroyed her. But Matthew 16:18-19 suggests that it can't happen.
To your question, the Church did not lose anything except members when the Arian heretics usurped episcopal sees. Unity is marked by profession of the True Faith. Arians professed a false faith, and thus had no part of the Church. Unity remained intact, as perfect as it was before Arianism. Arianism is not Catholicism, and Arians were not Catholics.
Okay. But the Arian crisis seems like what rigorist sedevacantists believe we have now. They'll tell you that members of the hierarchy lose their offices when they agree with a heretical pope who loses his. For Apostolic Succession to continue between pontificates there must be be bishops leftover from the most recent pontificate. Pope Pius XII teaches that jurisdiction always come from the pope in Ad Sinarum Gentem.
According to rigorist sedecvacantists, St. Peter's chair has been empty since Pope Pius XII died in 1958. If they're right, no Catholic priest, bishop, or cardinal has had jusdiction since then. After all, there's no surviving bishop from Pius XII's pontificate, and no one can receive authority from a dead pope.
That causes a significant problem for sedevantist bishops. If they're right, they have no jurisdiction. Or if they're right, they must agree with Vatican II when it says a bishop receives authority during his consecration. If rigorist dedevacantism is true, it destroys. the hierarchy, and rigorist sedevacantists have no way to know how we'll get a real pope. There's Bible passage, council, or Church document showing that jurisdiction comes directly from Christ in this century, the previous one, or both.
What if descent differs from mere replacement? If I lie when cardinals when I seem to agree to be the next pope, and then pretend to be the pope until my conscience makes me confess the deception, was I a pope, was I a mere replacement instead of a descendant?
Rogelio, we've already dealt with this. You're just repeating yourself without engaging with what is said. I'll draw your attention to the following points of the comments policy:
- Excessive frequency of comments, especially if off-topic
- Comments of excessive length (which would be better posted as articles on the commenter’s own websites)
- Repetition of arguments, especially if vexatious or already addressed at length elsewhere
Again, I apologize for my first posts. Unfortunately, I sometimes write on impulse.
My rigorist sedevacantist friend said John Paul II was a manifest heretic. But my friend didn't define "manifest." If I understand what St. Robert Bellarmine wrote, he believed that after Christ had deposed a pope, a council would need to confirm that Christ had deposed him. But if only a council can determine for sure that St. Peter's chair is empty, and there's no bishop who can serve at a council, maybe rigorist sedevacantists shouldn't be so sure that recognize+resisist traditionalist Catholics are schismatic.
I'm not accusing anyone. But it seems rigorist sedevacantists and pope-splainers are flip sides of a coin. Pope-splainers seem to believe a pope can do nothing wrong. Rigorist sedevacantists seem to believe that if a man does anything wrong, he can't be the pope.
Where's the benefit of the doubt? Why don't the rigorist sedevacantists ask themselves whether an antipope misspoke by mistake? If I were a rigorist sedevacantist, I'd have no authority to accuse anyone of subjective schism or heresy the mortal sin. I'm a tertiary in the SSPX's Third Order. So I usually agree with the Society. But I'm not an expert in theology or Canon Law.
If my sedevacantist friend believes I'm schismatic, the worst he can accuse me of is material schism because I agree with Archbishop Lefebvre when he says: "Lastly, you have at your disposal at the bookstall some books and flyers which contain all the elements necessary to help you better understand why this ceremony, which is apparently done against the will of Rome, is in no way a schism. We are not schismatics! If an excommunication was pronounced against the bishops of China, who separated themselves from Rome and put themselves under the Chinese government, one very easily understands why Pope Pius XII excommunicated them.[1] There is no question of us separating ourselves from Rome, nor of putting ourselves under a foreign government, nor of establishing a sort of parallel church as the Bishops of Palmar de Troya have done in Spain. They have even elected a pope, formed a college of cardinals… It is out of the question for us to do such things. Far from us be this miserable thought of separating ourselves from Rome!
On the contrary, it is in order to manifest our attachment to Rome that we are performing this ceremony. It is in order to manifest our attachment to the Eternal Rome, to the pope, and to all those who have preceded these last popes who, unfortunately since the Second Vatican Council, have thought it their duty to adhere to grievous errors which are demolishing the Church and the Catholic priesthood."
John Paul II's pontificate was terrible. I lived through it. So I can't call him "John Paul the great" or "St. John Paul II." His soul may be in heaven, and I hope it's there or getting ready for it in purgatory.
My sedevacantist goes much farther than you d o and too far to convince me to be a sedevacantist. He also says that Novus Ordo Masses are always invalid and that no one uses natural science to test for sacramental validity.
I've always doubted Our Lord would do Eucharist miracles in Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches because miracles. would seem to confirm heresy, especially for Protestants. But strangely, each Eucharistic miracle described in the article below seems. to have happened in a church where priests celebrate the Novus Ordo Mass.
I don't approve the Novus Ordo, since I've studied the problems with it and can't fulfill a Mass obligation. at it with a clear conscience. Paul VI should have rejected it. Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci and their committee found major defects in that rite. But. those two cardinals did not ask Paul VI abolish it. Instead, the urged him to keep the TLM. available.
They wrote: "Rome, September 25th, 1969
Most Holy Father,
Having carefully examined, and presented for the scrutiny of others, the Novus Ordo Missae prepared by the experts of the Consilium ad exequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, and after lengthy prayer and reflection, we feel it to be our bounden duty in the sight of God and towards Your Holiness, to put before you the following considerations:
1. The accompanying critical study of the Novus Ordo Missae, the work of a group of theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls, shows quite clearly in spite of its brevity that if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The "canons" of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.
2. The pastoral reasons adduced to support such a grave break with tradition, even if such reasons could be regarded as holding good in the face of doctrinal considerations, do not seem to us sufficient. The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place, if it subsists at all, could well turn into a certainty the suspicions already prevalent, alas, in many circles, that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people, can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound for ever. Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful who are already showing signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith.
Amongst the best of the clergy the practical result is an agonising crisis of conscience of which innumerable instances come tour notice daily.
3. We are certain that these considerations, which can only reach Your Holiness by the living voice of both shepherds and flock, cannot but find an echo in Your paternal heart, always so profoundly solicitous for the spiritual needs of the children of the Church. It has always been the case that when a law meant for the good of subjects proves to be on the contrary harmful, those subjects have the right, nay the duty of asking with filial trust for the abrogation of that law.
Therefore we most earnestly beseech Your Holiness, at a time of such painful divisions and ever-increasing perils for the purity of the Faith and the unity of the church, lamented by You our common Father, not to deprive us of the possibility of continuing to have recourse to the fruitful integrity of that Missale Romanum of St. Pius V, so highly praised by Your Holiness and so deeply loved and venerated by the whole Catholic world."
None of this is what we argue at this website. Or at least its a very distorted view of it. It's also off topic. We are talking here about the Conciliar/Synodal Church, not sedevacantism.
I also note you're repeating some of the points you raised a while ago. Here is my response again:
--
This is a common objection, and I really don’t think it’s as powerful as people think.
The argument for a vacant see rests on clear and certain grounds, and there are, to my mind, no other explanations for the current situation.
On the other hand, there are other explanations for the situation you described. Therefore it seems improper for the less clear problem to be used to undermine the more clear conclusion.
Specifically:
1. We don’t claim Pius XII was the most recently pope. Bishop GDL and others have said specifically that from at least December 7 1965, Paul VI was not the Pope, and we take no position on the period prior.
2. We accept that jurisdiction comes from the Pope.
3. Bishop Sanborn would deny that he has authority; he is a merely “sacramental bishop,” an oddity justified by the situation, without jurisdiction.
4. Supplied jurisdiction is enshrined in law. It’s not clear to me that it requires a living peson for it to be supplied. It isn’t a tangible thing, like blood: one doesn’t need to take jurisdiction from a living pope in order to pass it to someone to whom it is supplied, as if it were a kind of liquid taken from the source to the destination.
5. Further, theologians have discussed the idea of a false pope having certain actions validated by supplied jurisdiction too. This could well include the appointment of men to diocesan sees. But diocesan sees are offices, and offices are stable positions to which jurisdiction is attached by the law (i.e., by the previous popes that promulgated or tacitly renewed the law). As such, if a man attains to a diocesan see, he attains jurisdiction.
6. We should note that the Cassiciacum people, ie Bishop Sanborn etc following Bishop GDL, do not hold that these men lost office.
The situation was not that simple. There were full blown Arians - anomoeans but there were also so-called semi-arians with different versions of 4th century synodal creeds.
For example, the question of the synod in Ariminium was summed up by Pius VI in Quod Aliquantum (1791, on the occasion of the schism in France related to the so-called civil constitution of the clergy during the French Revolution) as follows:
"we do not want the Bishop of Autun and anyone else who followed him in perjury to be unaware that the Bishops who spoke at the Council of Rimini, deceived by the equivocal and fraudulent formula invented by the Arians and also terrified by the threats of Emperor Constantius, signed, although they had been warned of the sentence of Pope Liberius that if they persisted in the error «they would have been punished with the spiritual rigor of the Catholic Church». Also by the work of Saint Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Bishop Saturninus was driven out of the Church of Arles, because he stubbornly persisted in the conception of the Arian Bishops. Finally Liberius' sentence was confirmed through Saint Damasus with a synodal letter issued in a Council of ninety Bishops, so that even the Orientals could publicly declare themselves repentant of their mistake, if they wanted to be considered Catholic and actually be so. «Let's believe then [so it was said in that letter] that if they are reluctant to retreat, it will not take long to separate them from Our communion and take away from them the name of Bishop, so that the Peoples freed from the error of their Pastors may breathe».
It cannot be denied in any way that the Bishop of Autun and his followers have placed themselves in a state similar to that of those who succumbed, as has been said, to the sentence of Liberius, Hilary and Damasus, and therefore if they do not retract that oath they have given, let them know from now on what they should expect"
Thus, the above semi-arian bishops were judged not as losing their sees ipso facto (automatically) but they were threatened to be removed only after a previous admonition and demand of withdrawal of their assent to the ambiguous creed.
William, I defined exactly what I mean by that phrase in this and probably every piece in which I deal with the topic directly. You're not going to reach clarity on what someone has written if you don't read it properly.
It's also false that 90% of bishops became Arians. If we concede 90% for the sake of argument, it was common for thr civil authorities to drive out Catholic bishops and install usurpers.
Thank you, Mr. Wright, for showing me mistakes I've made. Please feel free to delete my posts if you want. Maybe they should stay here to correct anyone who may I've read what I've read.
I sure appreciate all the work you are doing, Mr. Wright. May our Lord bless you, grant you a fruitful Lent, and may our Lady keep you in her care.
My field is Computer Science, but I specialized in logic while earning my Philosophy degree. Since analytic philosophers taught, I'm also nearly obsessed with word meanings. Other Catholic traditionalists use phrases like "Novus Ordo Church" and "synodal Church" when those expressions are vague, ambiguous, or both.
Consider "Novus Ordo Church." Does it stand for a group of people in the Catholic Church, a part of Christ's Mystical Body? Or is it a distinct organization? "Novus Ordo church" could refer to a church where priests celebrate both Novus Ordo and some traditional Masses because a diocesan bishop orders that the parish's priests celebrate the TLM.
More than 90% of the Church's bishops became Arians during the Arian crisis. Does that mean the Catholic Church lost the unity of faith? If that unity is part of the Catholic Church's essence, and she lost it, then she ceased to exist because the loss destroyed her. But Matthew 16:18-19 suggests that it can't happen.
To your question, the Church did not lose anything except members when the Arian heretics usurped episcopal sees. Unity is marked by profession of the True Faith. Arians professed a false faith, and thus had no part of the Church. Unity remained intact, as perfect as it was before Arianism. Arianism is not Catholicism, and Arians were not Catholics.
Okay. But the Arian crisis seems like what rigorist sedevacantists believe we have now. They'll tell you that members of the hierarchy lose their offices when they agree with a heretical pope who loses his. For Apostolic Succession to continue between pontificates there must be be bishops leftover from the most recent pontificate. Pope Pius XII teaches that jurisdiction always come from the pope in Ad Sinarum Gentem.
According to rigorist sedecvacantists, St. Peter's chair has been empty since Pope Pius XII died in 1958. If they're right, no Catholic priest, bishop, or cardinal has had jusdiction since then. After all, there's no surviving bishop from Pius XII's pontificate, and no one can receive authority from a dead pope.
That causes a significant problem for sedevantist bishops. If they're right, they have no jurisdiction. Or if they're right, they must agree with Vatican II when it says a bishop receives authority during his consecration. If rigorist dedevacantism is true, it destroys. the hierarchy, and rigorist sedevacantists have no way to know how we'll get a real pope. There's Bible passage, council, or Church document showing that jurisdiction comes directly from Christ in this century, the previous one, or both.
Sedevacantism seems obviously false.
What if descent differs from mere replacement? If I lie when cardinals when I seem to agree to be the next pope, and then pretend to be the pope until my conscience makes me confess the deception, was I a pope, was I a mere replacement instead of a descendant?
Rogelio, we've already dealt with this. You're just repeating yourself without engaging with what is said. I'll draw your attention to the following points of the comments policy:
- Excessive frequency of comments, especially if off-topic
- Comments of excessive length (which would be better posted as articles on the commenter’s own websites)
- Repetition of arguments, especially if vexatious or already addressed at length elsewhere
https://www.wmreview.org/about
Again, I apologize for my first posts. Unfortunately, I sometimes write on impulse.
My rigorist sedevacantist friend said John Paul II was a manifest heretic. But my friend didn't define "manifest." If I understand what St. Robert Bellarmine wrote, he believed that after Christ had deposed a pope, a council would need to confirm that Christ had deposed him. But if only a council can determine for sure that St. Peter's chair is empty, and there's no bishop who can serve at a council, maybe rigorist sedevacantists shouldn't be so sure that recognize+resisist traditionalist Catholics are schismatic.
I'm not accusing anyone. But it seems rigorist sedevacantists and pope-splainers are flip sides of a coin. Pope-splainers seem to believe a pope can do nothing wrong. Rigorist sedevacantists seem to believe that if a man does anything wrong, he can't be the pope.
Where's the benefit of the doubt? Why don't the rigorist sedevacantists ask themselves whether an antipope misspoke by mistake? If I were a rigorist sedevacantist, I'd have no authority to accuse anyone of subjective schism or heresy the mortal sin. I'm a tertiary in the SSPX's Third Order. So I usually agree with the Society. But I'm not an expert in theology or Canon Law.
If my sedevacantist friend believes I'm schismatic, the worst he can accuse me of is material schism because I agree with Archbishop Lefebvre when he says: "Lastly, you have at your disposal at the bookstall some books and flyers which contain all the elements necessary to help you better understand why this ceremony, which is apparently done against the will of Rome, is in no way a schism. We are not schismatics! If an excommunication was pronounced against the bishops of China, who separated themselves from Rome and put themselves under the Chinese government, one very easily understands why Pope Pius XII excommunicated them.[1] There is no question of us separating ourselves from Rome, nor of putting ourselves under a foreign government, nor of establishing a sort of parallel church as the Bishops of Palmar de Troya have done in Spain. They have even elected a pope, formed a college of cardinals… It is out of the question for us to do such things. Far from us be this miserable thought of separating ourselves from Rome!
On the contrary, it is in order to manifest our attachment to Rome that we are performing this ceremony. It is in order to manifest our attachment to the Eternal Rome, to the pope, and to all those who have preceded these last popes who, unfortunately since the Second Vatican Council, have thought it their duty to adhere to grievous errors which are demolishing the Church and the Catholic priesthood."
https://sspx.org/en/1988-episcopal-consecrations-sermon-30926
John Paul II's pontificate was terrible. I lived through it. So I can't call him "John Paul the great" or "St. John Paul II." His soul may be in heaven, and I hope it's there or getting ready for it in purgatory.
My sedevacantist goes much farther than you d o and too far to convince me to be a sedevacantist. He also says that Novus Ordo Masses are always invalid and that no one uses natural science to test for sacramental validity.
I've always doubted Our Lord would do Eucharist miracles in Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches because miracles. would seem to confirm heresy, especially for Protestants. But strangely, each Eucharistic miracle described in the article below seems. to have happened in a church where priests celebrate the Novus Ordo Mass.
https://www.saintbeluga.org/eucharistic-miracles-god-under-the-microscope
I don't approve the Novus Ordo, since I've studied the problems with it and can't fulfill a Mass obligation. at it with a clear conscience. Paul VI should have rejected it. Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci and their committee found major defects in that rite. But. those two cardinals did not ask Paul VI abolish it. Instead, the urged him to keep the TLM. available.
They wrote: "Rome, September 25th, 1969
Most Holy Father,
Having carefully examined, and presented for the scrutiny of others, the Novus Ordo Missae prepared by the experts of the Consilium ad exequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, and after lengthy prayer and reflection, we feel it to be our bounden duty in the sight of God and towards Your Holiness, to put before you the following considerations:
1. The accompanying critical study of the Novus Ordo Missae, the work of a group of theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls, shows quite clearly in spite of its brevity that if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The "canons" of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.
2. The pastoral reasons adduced to support such a grave break with tradition, even if such reasons could be regarded as holding good in the face of doctrinal considerations, do not seem to us sufficient. The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place, if it subsists at all, could well turn into a certainty the suspicions already prevalent, alas, in many circles, that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people, can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound for ever. Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful who are already showing signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith.
Amongst the best of the clergy the practical result is an agonising crisis of conscience of which innumerable instances come tour notice daily.
3. We are certain that these considerations, which can only reach Your Holiness by the living voice of both shepherds and flock, cannot but find an echo in Your paternal heart, always so profoundly solicitous for the spiritual needs of the children of the Church. It has always been the case that when a law meant for the good of subjects proves to be on the contrary harmful, those subjects have the right, nay the duty of asking with filial trust for the abrogation of that law.
Therefore we most earnestly beseech Your Holiness, at a time of such painful divisions and ever-increasing perils for the purity of the Faith and the unity of the church, lamented by You our common Father, not to deprive us of the possibility of continuing to have recourse to the fruitful integrity of that Missale Romanum of St. Pius V, so highly praised by Your Holiness and so deeply loved and venerated by the whole Catholic world."
https://lms.org.uk/ottaviani-intervention
None of this is what we argue at this website. Or at least its a very distorted view of it. It's also off topic. We are talking here about the Conciliar/Synodal Church, not sedevacantism.
I also note you're repeating some of the points you raised a while ago. Here is my response again:
--
This is a common objection, and I really don’t think it’s as powerful as people think.
The argument for a vacant see rests on clear and certain grounds, and there are, to my mind, no other explanations for the current situation.
On the other hand, there are other explanations for the situation you described. Therefore it seems improper for the less clear problem to be used to undermine the more clear conclusion.
Specifically:
1. We don’t claim Pius XII was the most recently pope. Bishop GDL and others have said specifically that from at least December 7 1965, Paul VI was not the Pope, and we take no position on the period prior.
2. We accept that jurisdiction comes from the Pope.
3. Bishop Sanborn would deny that he has authority; he is a merely “sacramental bishop,” an oddity justified by the situation, without jurisdiction.
4. Supplied jurisdiction is enshrined in law. It’s not clear to me that it requires a living peson for it to be supplied. It isn’t a tangible thing, like blood: one doesn’t need to take jurisdiction from a living pope in order to pass it to someone to whom it is supplied, as if it were a kind of liquid taken from the source to the destination.
5. Further, theologians have discussed the idea of a false pope having certain actions validated by supplied jurisdiction too. This could well include the appointment of men to diocesan sees. But diocesan sees are offices, and offices are stable positions to which jurisdiction is attached by the law (i.e., by the previous popes that promulgated or tacitly renewed the law). As such, if a man attains to a diocesan see, he attains jurisdiction.
6. We should note that the Cassiciacum people, ie Bishop Sanborn etc following Bishop GDL, do not hold that these men lost office.
The situation was not that simple. There were full blown Arians - anomoeans but there were also so-called semi-arians with different versions of 4th century synodal creeds.
For example, the question of the synod in Ariminium was summed up by Pius VI in Quod Aliquantum (1791, on the occasion of the schism in France related to the so-called civil constitution of the clergy during the French Revolution) as follows:
"we do not want the Bishop of Autun and anyone else who followed him in perjury to be unaware that the Bishops who spoke at the Council of Rimini, deceived by the equivocal and fraudulent formula invented by the Arians and also terrified by the threats of Emperor Constantius, signed, although they had been warned of the sentence of Pope Liberius that if they persisted in the error «they would have been punished with the spiritual rigor of the Catholic Church». Also by the work of Saint Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Bishop Saturninus was driven out of the Church of Arles, because he stubbornly persisted in the conception of the Arian Bishops. Finally Liberius' sentence was confirmed through Saint Damasus with a synodal letter issued in a Council of ninety Bishops, so that even the Orientals could publicly declare themselves repentant of their mistake, if they wanted to be considered Catholic and actually be so. «Let's believe then [so it was said in that letter] that if they are reluctant to retreat, it will not take long to separate them from Our communion and take away from them the name of Bishop, so that the Peoples freed from the error of their Pastors may breathe».
It cannot be denied in any way that the Bishop of Autun and his followers have placed themselves in a state similar to that of those who succumbed, as has been said, to the sentence of Liberius, Hilary and Damasus, and therefore if they do not retract that oath they have given, let them know from now on what they should expect"
Thus, the above semi-arian bishops were judged not as losing their sees ipso facto (automatically) but they were threatened to be removed only after a previous admonition and demand of withdrawal of their assent to the ambiguous creed.
William, I defined exactly what I mean by that phrase in this and probably every piece in which I deal with the topic directly. You're not going to reach clarity on what someone has written if you don't read it properly.
It's also false that 90% of bishops became Arians. If we concede 90% for the sake of argument, it was common for thr civil authorities to drive out Catholic bishops and install usurpers.
Thank you, Mr. Wright, for showing me mistakes I've made. Please feel free to delete my posts if you want. Maybe they should stay here to correct anyone who may I've read what I've read.
Thanks Bill, no need to delete.