'Life is full of disappointments' – Responses to some objections
Unfortunately, one cannot please everyone all the time.
Unfortunately, one cannot please everyone all the time.
Response to some recent criticisms
As the conclusion of Zero Marks (and some other pieces) attracted some criticism, I have decided to reply to a few recent comments or objections here.
Before we start, let me be clear. At The WM Review, one editor does not necessarily speak for the other. We are dealing with difficult and disputed topics, which admit different possible explanations.
Neither of us have any authority to impose our ideas on each other, or on anyone else. What we do is explain what seems to make the most sense to us (whether as individuals or as a collective). Our answers are not always going to satisfy everyone, and that is just how things are.
1. ‘I am disappointed’
In a subsequently deleted tweet, a regular critic expressed disappointment at a recent article we published.
But as it amuses my esteemed father to remind the family: “Life is full of disappointments.”
It is a great mistake to make the disappointment of others the basis of making decisions.
Indeed, with regard to this regular critic, I have long since learned to live with his disappointment.
Dealing with the particulars of his complaint, however:
He pointed out a passage in which the caveat “allegedly” could indeed have been usefully employed – and it has been retrofitted to the article.
He was mistaken in describing the article as “anonymous”, as it was pseudonymous – with the author’s Substack profile linked in the byline.
He was mistaken in saying that the given claim was unreferenced; it was in a footnote.
The article included another footnote which made the specific point which was supposedly omitted (e.g., the role of the legitimate electors in responding to an hypothetical divine intervention designating a pope).
The majority of his long, hectoring message was about a comment from the author in the combox.
As mentioned, the tweet in which these criticisms were raised has since been deleted.
2. “They would not tell us clearly their opinion”
On the same day, the person mentioned in n. 1 alleges that I and/or “The WM Review” refuse to state our positions on various topics (cf. the comment above about “positions of The WM Review”).
This is not the case at all.
What I have declined to do is reply to rude and hectoring emails and tweets – and I shall indeed always so decline.
3. “Where is the Church?”
I recently appeared on Integrity Magazine’s podcast to discuss the conclusion of Zero Marks with Stephen Kokx, as well as the question of whether or not Vatican II inaugurated a new religion.
The original headline assigned to this video, after recording, was something like “Where is the Church.”
I did not select this title. There were two questions related to this subject at the end of this eighty minute show. Due to time constraints, I gave a quick response, and suggested we prorogue the topic for a future date.
The title has since been changed to the more representative title of “The Vatican II Religion: Stephen Kokx And S.D. Wright On The 4 Marks Of The Conciliar Church.”
As to the question itself – Where is the Church? – I have dealt with it on a number of occasions in the past (see below).
Some people object to being referred to articles, and demand a one-sentence reply instead.
But sometimes, brevity is simply not possible; and sometimes, brevity can, without the wider context, cause more harm or confusion than good. Sometimes, again, the explanation will fall on deaf ears, because one’s interlocutor vehemently disagrees about the problem which gives rise to this question – and in such circumstances, an explanation is not a good use of time or energy.
If people do not like this, or if they consider it as “gnostic and patronizing”, then there is not much I can do about that. I am sorry that they feel that way.
Nonetheless, for those who do not expect others to do their work for them, here are some examples of articles in which the question (and/or related issues) has been addressed:
Where is the Church today? Archbishop Lefebvre and the Conciliar Church
The Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church—it lacks the necessary marks
The duty for laymen to study and spread the faith—Pope Leo XIII
The question Where is the Church? keeps getting asked, I believe, because the questioners are not satisfied with the answer. Perhaps they are “disappointed” that it is not dramatic or extravagant (like, for example, the claim that “Only sedevacantists are the Church”).
Nonetheless, I will offer again my answer.
The Catholic Church is the congregation of the faithful. Both components in that definition – faith, and being congregated – are essential. They correspond to the external profession of faith, and communion. She is the society of baptised men, who profess the faith externally, are subject to legitimate pastors, and are not separated from the body (whether through heresy, schism, apostasy, or a full excommunication). This society will manifest, even in a state of obscuration, the four marks of the Church.
These marks, and the properties which they manifest, are absent in the Conciliar/Synodal Church. The structures of the Catholic Church are being materially occupied and used by men who are not Catholics, and are promoting the new religion.
In Zero Marks, I have exhaustively explained how and to what extent these marks may be obscured, whilst remaining present. In the April 2024 article below, I also explained how they continue to be manifest today:
As a concession to those who do not wish to read the full articles, I will provide the following from this article:
“[T]his living Church remains precisely where she always was, albeit obscured by those who have left her.
“She remains, as Pius XII taught, the body of men ‘who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.’
“At least in the Western world, this body of men is the body of traditionalists, along with some of the conservatives here and there who remain materially entangled with the Novus Ordo structure.
“This body of men exhibits the property of unity: even if they are materially divided in ways similar to the Great Western Schism, they remain visibly united in their profession of the Catholic faith, notwithstanding differences over confusing matters, or doctrinal matters which are not ‘of faith’.
“This body of men exhibits the property of holiness, in the ‘causative sanctity’ of the sacraments, doctrine and discipline, which are vigorously used. It also typically exhibits at least the ordinary personal sanctity through these means, and through the continuation and serious use of the institutes of perfection.
“This body of men exhibits the property of catholicity, in that they are diffused throughout the entire world (as any directory of Traditional Masses may indicate) and are typically very clear that the Church is for all men.
“This body of men exhibits the property of apostolicity, in that history and the other marks show that it is apostolic in origin and doctrine. While apostolicity in succession is harder to demonstrate, this body of men contains absolutely no intruders into the apostolic succession, as traditional bishops agree that they are ‘merely sacramental bishops’, or bishops in an auxiliary sense. Similarly, by virtue of being Catholics, they remain united and in communion to whatever true successors of the apostles remain in the world, as well as with any and all other Catholics elsewhere.
“It is indeed difficult to see what, if anything, is left of the Latin-rite successors of the apostles after so many have disappeared into heresy and a false religion, as have several Eastern-rite claimants. But this is quite distinct from positing a universal negative, and saying that the entirety of the Church’s hierarchy has utterly disappeared.
“In short, the location of the Roman Catholic Church is somewhat harder to verify than it was a century ago; but this is the very nature of an obscuration or eclipse.
“As such, the Roman Catholic Church continues to exist, visibly, with these necessary properties intact. In spite of any problems and obscurity, there is no need or reason to conclude that the Conciliar/Synodal Church is the Roman Catholic Church.”
It is difficult to say exactly where the exact boundaries of this society are today, due to a) the almost universal absence of legitimate authority, and b) the interposition of illegitimate authority and non-Catholics which obscure the Church. But as Fr Victor White OP wrote:
“There is something wrong with the facile assumption that the distinction of Catholics from non-Catholics, of members of the Church from non-members of the Church, is always a manifest one. Certainly there are those who clearly are such, and those who pretty clearly are not. […]
“Certainly the Church is visible, and visible by reason of the visibility of her members and her organisation. But the edges are very blurred.”1
And as Billot wrote:
“This visibility also deals with the whole group considered all together, and not each person taken singly […] For this visibility certainly does not require that there be no doubt about anyone at all about whether he be a member of the Church or not, but it is sufficient that there be certitude about most of them; and I mean that certitude which is moral certitude, and sufficient in practice among men.”2
With regards to the hierarchy, we should note that the canonist Wernz and Vidal wrote the following:
“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.”3
Some people find these answers inadequate, too simple, or not leading to something immediately actionable. The problem seems not to be that they disagree with the answer, but that they disagree that we have given an answer. I have the impression that our opponents consider this matter to be a very significant problem for the “sedevacantist” position, and that they object that it cannot be a significant problem due to Our Lord’s promises. When I respond by agreeing that it is not a significant problem and provide an answer, they allege that I have not answered it properly.
What can one say? “Life is full of disappointments.”
Let me explain a littler further. It is possible for both the visible head of this society (the Roman Pontiff) and the local head of one’s diocese (the residential bishop) to be absent at the same time. When this occurs, those who would be subjects of these authorities remain “subject to legitimate pastors” in the sense relevant for membership of the Church – through their adhesion to the vacant sees of Rome and their diocese. They remain subject to all the Church’s laws. They also remain in union with – although not subject to, for obvious reasons – all other Catholics and all other members of the hierarchy.
There is nothing to prevent this happening on a wide scale, and for a long time. This, broadly, is what I hold to be the case today. As a result, the majority of the Church is left to “fend for itself” without legitimate pastors – although I believe that there must continue to be at least a few residential bishops who are governing their flocks in a legitimate way.
Where are these bishops? They may be hidden to us (e.g., in a part of the world, or oriental rite, of which we have no personal knowledge) or they may “visible” to us, but difficult for us to discern amidst a collection of usurpers.
I have explained this matter – in what sense we remain members of the society and in communion with those legitimate pastors who remain – here:
How do you tell the true Church after a rupture? Journet’s answer
‘Zero Marks’ – Why the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church (fn. 92)
But, as Fr 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.”4
4. Is there a problem?
I have been asked whether I see a problem with asserting that there must continue to be formal successors of the Apostles, despite being unable to identify even a single one?
No, I don’t.
In Radically Sufficient, I wrote the following:
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.
If the Church proposes something, it must be received as true. We believe because the Church teaches, and we do not need to verify it on intrinsic grounds in order to believe it. As Pope Pius IX taught:
“[L]et the faithful also be on their guard against the overrated independence of private judgment and that false autonomy of human reason. For it is quite foreign to everyone bearing the name of a Christian to trust his own mental powers with such pride as to agree only with those things which he can examine from their inner nature […]”5
We also recall the words of Our Lord to St Thomas:
“Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen and have believed.” (John 20.29)
5. Where to be received?
The question has been asked:
“Where should someone go to be received into the Catholic Church today? The SSPX? The CMRI? The RCI?”
Where I think someone should go is an irrelevant question. Much more relevant is where they could go.
All things being equal, I would assume that anyone baptised in one of the above groups becomes a Catholic (and, contrary to what some claim, all infants validly baptised in sects are Catholics until such age as they are construed to adhere to their sect).
I would happily extend it to the FSSP and other groups, and even – again, all things being equal6 – to someone who is validly baptised in a standard diocesan parish.
The reasons for this should be clear from what is above.
The same applies to a convert who has already been baptised, for reasons to be addressed in the next question.
6. Censures
The following question has been asked:
“What about someone who has cut himself off from the Church by heresy, schism, or apostasy? Who currently has the authority to lift the censure and receive such a person back into the Church?”
Someone who has cut himself off from the Church by heresy, schism or apostasy is a non-Catholic because he has broken the external bond of faith and/or charity – not because of the censures that are imposed as a result of those acts. They may receive an extra “title” to their non-membership through the intervention of authority.
The theologian Fr Emil Dorsch SJ writes:
“A juridical fact may be derived from many sources; and thus in this case the sentence of excommunication adds a new title of separation. This is evident when such heretics return to the Church; for then it is not sufficient that they return to the faith and renounce heresy, but absolution from the censure is a distinct requirement; and even when the censure has been absolved, [the manifest heretic] is to be received into the Church by a separate act.
“Nor is it useless that the Church, by such a sentence, adds to the separation already accomplished by heresy itself; for excommunication also has its own effects (e.g. deprivation of public suffrages) and helps to deter the faithful, who are prevented from establishing civil relations with [excommunicates].”7
Needless to say, the average convert has not had any sentence of excommunication levelled against them at all. The censures are all latae sententiae, and they have not been formalised with any kind of decree.
This is relevant because theologians discuss which type of censures actually put a person outside the Church, as opposed to outside the goods of the Church. Here is what Billot writes:
“[T]he excommunication of vitandi8 [those to be avoided] is a perfect and consummated excommunication, and for this reason they are quite simply outside the Church, no differently than are heretics and schismatics, though by a different means.”9 (Emphasis added)
Here is what Salaverri writes:
“1049. An excommunication is a censure or penalty whereby a delinquent or obstinate person is excluded from the communion of the faithful, until after abandoning his contumacy he is absolved. That can be called formal which affects a man who is really delinquent and obstinate. But that can be said to be merely material, which concerns a subject who through invincible error is thought to be delinquent and obstinate when in reality he is not such. It can be total or partial according as the excommunicated person is excluded from communion with the faithful in all or only in some of the good which fall under the jurisdiction of the Church. But the internal supernatural goods, such as sanctifying grace and the infused virtues, are not taken away by the censure itself. An excommunicated person is one who must be avoided (vitandus) who by name has been excluded from the communion of the faithful by the Apostolic See, and either by the law itself or by a public decree or sentence by name has been denounced as someone who must be avoided.
“We call that excommunication perfect whereby the Apostolic See properly intends to separate a delinquent and obstinate person from the body of the Church. Therefore, besides the privation of spiritual goods which fall under the jurisdiction of the Church, a perfect excommunication implies, as its own special nature, this manifest intention of separating someone from the body of the Church. But because the dominant intention of the Church is ‘to impose an excommunication for healing and not for ruin,’ therefore, if by his contrition the excommunicated person recovers grace and charity, by that fact his excommunication ceases to be perfect, even though juridically he really remains an excommunicated person to be avoided, and he cannot licitly participate in the communion of the faithful until he is absolved. […]
“1054. 3) That those who have been excommunicated from the Church by a perfect excommunication are not members of the body of the Church is an opinion common among Catholics.
“a) That the Church wishes indeed to punish by excommunication delinquent members, but de facto does not intend to separate the excommunicated from the body of the Church, although she says that they are to be avoided, is held by D’Herbigny, Dieckmann, Spacil, Sauras, with Banez, Valentia, Suarez and Guamieri.
“b) That those excommunicated with a partial excommunication are members of the Church is a common opinion among Theologians, who also generally hold that merely material and occult heretics and schismatics are members of the body of the Church.
“1055. State of the question. We are considering the Church in the strict sense, that is, the Church which and inasmuch as she was instituted by Christ, and concerning those who not merely putatively, nor only in desire, but in reality have been constituted members of the Church through Baptism. We divide the thesis into two parts. In the first part we say: heretics, apostates and schismatics, who are formal and manifest, by that very fact are separated from the Church. In the second part we hold: those persons excommunicated with a total, formal and perfect excommunication, that is, for this purpose legitimately imposed, are also separated from the body of the Church.”10
To restate the point above: the average convert is not a vitandus under a perfect excommunication. (We can leave possible rare exceptions to one side for now, as that was not the question.) As such, these censures are not a title by which they are outside the Church.
The question as to who can lift the relevant censures is an interesting one. But in order to understand how it relates to the question at hand, we need to return to the basics of membership of the Church.
Baptism constitutes a person as a member of the Church – provided that he do not posit any obstacle to this effect. One such obstacle, for example, is the manifest profession of heresy.
If heresy is put away, and the person returns to the profession of faith, this obstacle is removed – and it thus ceases to prevent the effect of baptism from constituting him as a member of the Church.
The ordinary way that this is achieved, at least in many cases, is through an abjuration of heresy and profession of faith to a priest – and indeed, the lifting of censures (which we have already noted were not a title by which they were not members of the Church). But all this is a provision of positive law, and is simply managing what is “in the nature of things” – namely, the necessity of a public and external profession of faith.
As such, given that…
The censures on those converting are not the title by which they were outside the Church;
The actual titles for non-membership this are removed; and
The requirements for the lifting of these censures pertain to positive law…
… it would seem to me that a generalised inability to observe the letter of the law regarding abjurations and professions render this a non-problem. The actual putting aside of heresy and the actual profession of faith (manifested both by words, and by a person living an ordinary life of practising the faith) are sufficient. This is especially so, given that censures are lifted in confession11 – and, as the 1917 Code states:
“Can. 2251: If absolution of a censure is given in the external forum, it applies in the other forum; if [it is given] in the internal [forum], the one absolved, avoiding scandal, may conduct himself in this way, even for actions of the external forum; but, unless the grant of absolution can be proved or at least legitimately presumed in the external forum, a Superior of the external forum to whom the defendant owed compliance can enforce the censure until absolution in that forum can be had.”
7. Dodging questions of formal succession?
We have been told that “sedes” dodge or never fully explain the question of formal apostolicity.
This is not true. It is a central issue, and all the various “sedevacantist positions” offer an attempt to account for it.
If someone doesn’t find any of these attempts convincing, that is a separate matter.
8. Responding to a recent interview
We have been told that “sedevacantists” should be responding to a recent interview “attacking sedevacantism”, and it is a missed opportunity not to do so.
On the contrary, what seems to have been intended as an interview about the alleged errors of “sedevacantists” visibly turned into an interview about the SSPX and trads in general (as was entirely predictable, given the guests).
As such, I do not understand why it is “our” responsibility to respond. Let the public defenders of SSPX positions reply, if they consider it so urgent.
One must be judicious with how one spends one’s time, and refuse to be invited down rabbit holes, or to respond to minutiae at the expense of the wider issue.
Once again, some may find this disappointing: “Life is full of disappointments.”
Personally, I consider tasks such as completing my reply to the good Fr Thomas Crean OP a more pressing engagement, and a more fruitful use of my time.
9. You need better answers and need to directly respond to these questions.
I am sorry some are disappointed by our answers.
We do respond directly to questions, but not always directly to every individual who asks them – even if others think that this or that individual is significant enough to merit that.
Once again: “Life is full of disappointments.”
Conclusion
All in all, although some were interesting, I consider most of these objections to be very disappointing.
But: “Life is full of disappointments.”
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Victor White OP, ‘Membership of the Church’, Blackfriars, September 1941, Vol. 22. No. 258 (September 1941), pp. 455-470, 457.
Louis Cardinal Billot, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Prati ex Officina Libraria Giachetti, Filii et soc, 1909, 282. Quoted in English in White, 456.
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.
Pope Pius XI, Casti Conubii, n. 104.
By “all things being equal”, I mean principally that the person being baptised does not posit an obstacle to the effect of baptism, viz. through a failure to profess the faith. The question asked was about reception into the Church, not about where one should attend Mass, etc. I am saying that a person may enter the Church in such places, and not that I am recommending attendance there. The latter question would give rise to various questions, not least the validity of orders. Needless to say, someone in good faith, worshipping at a Mass offered by a priest with doubtful Holy Orders, does not become a non-Catholic by that fact alone.
If anyone objects to this, they are invited to read the SSPX’s accounts of why one should not attend “Indult” Masses or the Novus Ordo.
Aemil. Dorsch SJ, Institutiones theologiae fundamentalis, ‘De ecclesia Christi’ (Vol. II), Oeniponte, Feliciani Rauch, Austria, 1928, pp 492-3, available at: https://archive.org/details/ddeecclesiachristidorschsj/page/n502/mode/1up?view=theater. Translation taken from from Eric Hoyle, On Heresy and Heretical Popes, version 1.2.1 – 31 May 2022, p 26-7, with the most recent version available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fHMb2KWjNt3Saxm6rZfvhDvHs7-ysVCH/view?usp=sharing. Hoyle’s paper also provides the following text from Palmieri along the same lines:
“You ask: why then does the Church excommunicate heretics, if they are already outside? I reply 1. nothing prevents the Church from sanctioning by positive law that same thing which is declared by divine law. 2. the Church also excommunicates occult heretics: 3. Excommunication has some effects of its own, which depend on ecclesiastical law, e.g. deprivation of civil and external commerce, public prayers and such like.”
p. 5.
Someone is excommunicated as a vitandus either ipso facto for violence against the Pope (Can. 2343, § 1, n. 1), or by a publicly-announced excommunication by name, by the Apostolic See, expressly as one to be avoided (Can. 2258 §2). The 1917 or Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law, in English Translation with Extensive Scholarly Apparatus, trans. Dr Edward Peters, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2001.
Cf. Louis Cardinal Billot, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Prati ex Officina Libraria Giachetti, Filii et soc, 1909, p 310. Trans. Fr Julian Larrabee, 310.
Joachim Salaverri, ‘On the Church of Christ,’ in Sacrae Theologia Summa IB trans. Kenneth Baker SJ , Keep the Faith, 2015.
Do traditionalist priests have the power to do this? We should note that no-one who accepts the pre-Francis situation of the SSPX can object to this point. Further, priests refer to the principle of epikeia, which Fr Nicolás Despósito ICR explains as follows:
In Catholic moral theology, epikeia (from the Greek for “equity” or “fairness”) is a virtue rooted in justice that governs the interpretation of human laws. It rests on the understanding that human legislators draft general laws for ordinary circumstances but cannot foresee every possible specific situation. When faced with a particular case where following the strict “letter of the law” would be harmful, unjust, or counter to the common good that the law intends to serve, the ideal response is to seek clarification or dispensation from the proper authority. However, in the absence of the legislator—meaning when there is no time or opportunity to consult the competent authority due to urgency or inaccessibility—epikeia allows an individual to use prudent judgment to act according to the “spirit of the law.” The individual presumes the benign intention of the lawmaker, reasoning that if the legislator were present and understood the unique circumstances, he would not intend for the law to bind in that specific instance. Therefore, epikeia is not a license to break the law, but rather a way to fulfill the higher demands of justice and the ultimate purpose of the law when the written rule falls short in an unforeseen situation.
The application here should be obvious.
Fr Nicolás E. Despósito ICR, The Apostolicity of the Church and the Cassiciacum Thesis, p. 11. 2026.