Debunking inadequate accounts of the Church's indefectibility
In order to defend the Conciliar/Synodal Church's claims, it's necessary to minimise and 'rethink the Catholic understanding of indefectibility. Here is an analysis of one such attempt.
In order to defend the Conciliar/Synodal Church’s claims, it’s necessary to minimise and ‘rethink’ the Catholic understanding of indefectibility. Here is an analysis of one such attempt.
Introduction
This is Chapter II of my latest “book”, ‘Spotless and Unsullied’ – Indefectibility and the Extended Vacancy. This chapter deals with the doctrine of indefectibility itself – before proceeding, in later chapters, to examine other interpretations in light of it.
This chapter covers the following topics:
Chapter II: Fr Crean’s doctrinal exposition considered
Fr Crean’s doctrinal exposition of indefectibility
The Faith
The Sacraments
The Hierarchy
How to identify the Church
Spotless and Unsullied is Part III of my 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.” Peter Kwasniewski described Fr Crean’s article as “a definitive rebuttal of sedevacantism, at the level of first principles.”
The two previous parts may be found here:
‘Radically insufficient’ – Reply to Fr Crean on the Church’s visibility
‘Zero Marks’ – Why the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church
Although Spotless and Unsullied builds on the previous two parts, and the various “ancillary” articles published since I began this response, it can be read independently of them.
How we are publishing Spotless and Unsullied
Although Fr Crean only published a short and popular article against “sedevacantism”, it contained many points that need to be addressed. I am grateful to him for prompting this response, which has ranged over many different topics.
Spotless and Unsullied is not as long as Zero Marks (the previous part), but it is still very long and detailed for a single article – running to nearly 26,000, including notes (which contain a lot of interesting material).
For this reason, I will again be making it available first for WM+ members, and then releasing each of the four chapters separately for all readers over the coming weeks. Chapter I is available here:
Substantial work of this length and depth is only possible thanks to those who subscribe to WM+, to whom we are very grateful.
If you would like to read the whole essay immediately, sign up to WM+ plus today:
Other resources
I discussed this chapter with Stephen Kokx over at Integrity Magazine.
A video playlist of interviews on these studies with Stephen Kokx may be found here:
Readers are also advised to consult the treatment of the topic of indefectibility in the many works of ecclesiology available, as well as Fr Damien Dutertre ICR’s study on the same topic:
Fr Damien Dutertre ICR: On the Indefectibility of the Church
Chapter II: Fr Crean’s doctrinal exposition
In his article, Fr Crean introduces indefectibility as one of the ways in which Christ remains present to his Church. By Christ’s power, he states, “He keeps her in being until the end of time”.
“This last manner of presence,” he continues “gives rise to what is called the indefectibility of the Church.” He states that “[t]heologians debate the details,” that they agree that it “embraces at least three things: the faith, the sacraments and the hierarchy.”
These three heads correspond to the three classical criteria by which someone is a member of the Church – namely, that they:
Are baptised
Profess the Catholic faith
Are subject to the legitimate hierarchy (and/or are not separate from the unity of the body).1
Fr Crean’s treatment of these three heads is in part (or even largely) correct; the difficulties throughout lie in what his treatment omits, and in how much of his argument against “sedevacantism” rests upon those omissions.
1. The Faith
Fr Crean explains that indefectibility means that the faith is preserved, principally by the bishops, who are the successors of the apostles.
“The faith delivered once for all to the saints (Jude 3) is preserved in every age. While every believer has his part to play in this work of preservation, the principal place belongs by divine decree to the bishops, the successors of the apostles. As St Irenaeus of Lyon declared in the second century, the bishops who succeed to the apostles and to the sees that they founded have been granted “the sure charism of the truth”. These bishops maintain this faith not only by their public preaching and writing but also by the documents to which they are publicly pledged: above all, Holy Scripture, but also the creeds and definitions of the councils and the popes.”
He states, correctly, that the hierarchy of the Church possesses “the sure charism of the truth”, and that the bishops maintain the faith not only by the exercise of their authentic magisterium, but also by “the documents to which they are publicly pledged” – including Holy Scripture, and the acts of the magisterium.
But, as Zero Marks demonstrated, the Conciliar/Synodal Church has not preserved the faith. Further, the suggestion that its “hierarchy” has been “maintaining the faith” with “the sure charism of truth” beggars belief. This “hierarchy” has for the most part been responsible for the faith’s destruction over the last sixty years.
However, Fr Crean lays the ground to contest this response, by positioning the goalposts in three ways.
First, as stated, he indicates that bishops “maintain the faith” by being “publicly pledged” to various monuments of tradition. There is a legitimate principle here – what the theologian Fr J.M.A. Vacant calls the tacit exercise of the magisterium. The Church, he says, proposes her doctrine simply by not contradicting it, because the acts of the magisterium (and the monuments of tradition) “are unceasingly imposed on our faith”:
“The ordinary magisterium of the Church fructifies these treasures and offers them to her children. It does this not only when it interprets the doctrine contained in these monuments of past ages, but also when it is silent about them, and thus exercises itself in a tacit fashion.
“The Church, in fact, has repeatedly placed these monuments in the hands of the pastors and the faithful as authentic witnesses of her doctrine. Now, since the Church is infallible and cannot go back on her decisions, all these documents are unceasingly imposed on our faith: in the same way, a law once passed and promulgated by the legislator is imposed forever on the obedience of those who are subject to it.”2
The problem for Fr Crean is that men who explicitly teach errors against faith and morals can hardly be said to be tacitly proposing truths which they contradict.
Second, Fr Crean’s statement that the Church “will always have bishops who teach and administer the sacraments” implies, given other parts of the essay and the trajectory of his argument, that the demands of indefectibility might be satisfied through certain conservative bishops within the Conciliar/Synodal Church, who have supposedly remained faithful.
Let me be clear that Fr Crean does not state this directly. Nonetheless, I shall respond to this popular idea. I do not concede that the various conservative luminaries, to whom many point today, can be said to have remained faithful. Such an idea also runs somewhat contrary to the previous appeal to a tacit proposition of “what is on the books”: after all, if the tacit proposition of that to which bishops are “publicly pledged” were to be sufficient, then there would be no need to posit any bishops who are actually faithful. That said, it is legitimate to provide conditional arguments that provide a “belt and braces” approach.
But the principal problem with this idea is that it concedes that the body in question is not united in faith, and so would lack one of the four properties which indefectibility is meant to maintain. Thus, this attempted objection collapses in on itself.
Third, where particular deviations are concerned, Fr Crean (like Fr Bernard Lucien and many others) has, on several occasions, proposed ingenious interpretations to reconcile problematic texts and doctrines with the traditional Faith – notwithstanding the fact that these texts and doctrines have been treated in an entirely different way by the authorities of the Conciliar/Synodal Church.3 This method entails the idea of the Church as a society in which the true doctrine can be found – but sometimes only in reconciliations devised by private individuals (against the authoritative interpretations), or by a selection of conservative churchmen – amid a great mass of confusion.
Aside from the problems this causes for the properties of unity and apostolicity, and the reconciliations themselves being contrived and unconvincing, it is ironic that they are pressed into the defence of the Church’s perpetual visibility. This is because such an approach, relying on obscure close-readings which run contrary to both the plain meaning of the texts and their interpretation by the putative authorities, frustrates the very raison d’être of perpetuity, visibility and indefectibility and of the Church herself, which is to provide even the simplest people with what they need to be saved.
I shall examine these particular points in a subsequent part, but we have dealt with this phenomenon previously:
Religious Liberty: The failed attempts to defend Vatican II (John S. Daly)
2. The Sacraments
Fr Crean holds that indefectibility also entails the preservation of the seven sacraments, in the sense that they will always remain valid and efficacious:
“The seven sacraments, likewise, are preserved by Christ until the end of time. He causes them to be in every age the unfailingly efficacious means by which God is glorified and human beings are both set free from sin and sanctified for eternal life within the kingdom of heaven. God doth not give the Spirit by measure, says St John the Baptist, speaking of baptism and the Son of God (Jn. 3:34). We can understand this to mean, among other things, that however many people have already received grace through baptism and the other sacraments, Christ can always give more grace; and this He does, whenever those who receive them put forward no hindrance.”
Fr Crean’s account is true, but incomplete.
The sacraments are a central part of the Church’s life, pertaining not only to worship but also the other two components of religion (viz. discipline and doctrine), as already discussed.
The indefectible Church must indeed retain valid and efficacious sacraments: but she must also retain fitting rites for their administration. She cannot, as Cardinal Billot taught, “institute a discipline which would be in any way opposed to the rule of faith or to evangelical holiness.”4
Pope Gregory XVI also asked the rhetorical question in Quo graviora:
“Is it possible that the Church, which is the pillar and ground of truth and which is continually receiving from the Holy Spirit the teaching of all truth, could this Church ordain, grant, permit what would turn to the detriment of the soul’s salvation, to the contempt and harm of a sacrament instituted by Christ?”5
The answer to this is an emphatic “no”, as the Council of Trent demonstrates in the following condemned proposition:
“Can. 7. If anyone says that the ceremonies, vestments, and external signs that the Catholic Church uses in the celebration of Masses are incentives to impiety rather than works of piety, let him be anathema.”6
Pope Pius VI also condemned the following in Auctorem Fidei:
“Condemned Proposition n. 78: … the Church, which is ruled by the Spirit of God, could establish a discipline not merely useless and insupportable for the Christian spirit, but even dangerous, harmful, and conducive to superstition and to materialism. [Along with other propositions, condemned as:] false, temerarious, scandalous, pernicious, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the Church and to the Spirit of God who guides her, at the least erroneous.”7
More recently, Pope Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis:
“Certainly the loving Mother is spotless in the Sacraments by which she gives birth to and nourishes her children; in the faith which she has always preserved inviolate; in her sacred laws imposed on all [...]”8
These texts, and the theologians who have commented them, make clear that the Church’s approved rites are not just infallibly guaranteed to be valid, but also to be good, wholesome, safe, and expressive of the Catholic Faith. There is no sense in which the Church’s indefectibility guarantees validity, but nothing else.
This topic of the “infallible safety” of the Church’s universal disciplines is addressed in greater detail here:
Is the Church infallible in her discipline and rites? Abbé Hervé Belmont
Archbishop Lefebvre & Conciliar Sacraments—Do they ‘come from the Church?’
As such, Fr Crean’s account of how indefectibility relates to the sacraments is – as with his account of visibility – radically insufficient. This is perhaps why, just over week before the time of publication in June 2026, Fr Crean asked the following on X:
“Why shouldn’t Rome allow the SSPX to criticise the novus ordo, even severely?”
Fr Crean’s comment suggests that the criticisms of groups such as the Society of St Pius X are akin to the criticism of the Quiñones breviary, or lamenting twentieth century changes such as the re-ordering of the Psalter in the Divine Office, the loss of the Laudate psalms at the end of Lauds, the loss of commemorations at Mass, and so on. Such “criticisms” are based on disagreements with the prudential decisions of the legislator, and are nothing like the doctrinal criticisms to which the Novus Ordo reforms are subject. Let us consider the criticisms levelled by the SSPX’s founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
“It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.
“This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.
“The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.”9
“[I]t is a duty to habitually abstain, and to only accept attending in exceptional cases, such as a wedding or a funeral, and only if one has the moral certainty that the Mass is valid and not sacrilegious.
“And this applies to the whole liturgical reform.”10 (Emphasis added)
“All these Popes have resisted the union of the Church with the Revolution; it is an adulterous union and from such a union only bastards can come. The rite of the new mass is a bastard rite, the sacraments are bastard sacraments. We no longer know if they are sacraments which give grace or do not give it.
“The priests coming out of the seminaries are bastard priests, who do not know what they are. They are unaware that they are made to go up to the altar, to offer the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to give Jesus Christ to souls.”11
In effect, all such criticisms are merely elaborations on the so-called ‘Ottaviani Intervention’ of 1969, which stated:
“[The new rite] represents, overall and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was elaborated [at] the Council of Trent which, by permanently fixing the “canons” of the rite, erected an insurmountable barrier against any heresy which could undermine the integrity of the Mystery.”12
Such criticisms are different in kind to those already mentioned, which could be legitimate if made in a moderate way, or to a rite which is merely “less pleasing to God”, as Fr Crean suggested in the course of the discussion on Twitter in June 2026:
On the contrary, both the indefectibility of the Church, and the infallible safety of her universal disciplinary laws (including those referring to the liturgy) preclude the possibility of the Church promulgating or tolerating rites as described. This is not to say that the criticisms are unjust, but rather that their justice demonstrates a serious problem for the Church’s indefectibility, which must be resolved.
This is to say nothing of the doubts about the validity of the new rites, which we have addressed here:
Valid Sacraments? Index of Articles
In any case, Fr Crean appears to give this head (the sacraments) a weight out of proportion to its place in the question, at the expense of other pertinent matters – the four marks, the three components of religion, and indeed the fittingness of the rites themselves.
3. The Hierarchy
Finally, Fr Crean states that the hierarchy of bishops, “in union with each other, and united to St Peter and his successors,” pertains to indefectibility:
“Thirdly, the hierarchy of bishops in union with each other, and united to St Peter and his successors as their earthly head, has been preserved by Christ since His Ascension and will remain intact until His return at the end of time. As the word ‘hierarchy’, literally ‘sacred rule’, implies, these bishops have the right to govern the Christian people, and the baptised have the corresponding duty to obey their bishop in sacred matters. The New Testament asserts this duty in clear words: Obey your prelates and be subject to them (Heb. 13:17).
Once again, this is correct, but Fr Crean’s treatment of this head suffers from the same shortcomings already noted under that of the faith: it overlooks the criteria which establishes formal apostolic succession (as opposed to that which is merely material), and by overlooking other aspects of the four properties mentioned, it reduces the Church’s visibility to a merely material succession.13
Further, his description of these bishops as men who “have the right to govern the Christian people” seems to carry the implication – again, not stated directly, but implied by context – that great weight is being placed on the right being held, and less on its exercise; while there may be some legitimacy to this in principle, it cannot mean that both this right and the attribute of indefectibility are maintained by a hierarchy positively undermining the faith and dismantling the Church.
As already mentioned, Fr Crean’s account of what indefectibility includes is largely sound, and its weakness lies in what it omits and obscures. This weakness grows clearer as he proceeds.
Identifying the Church
Fr Crean proceeds to insist that the three elements mentioned are preserved not by “a lawless and disorderly crowd”, but within the Catholic Church. He writes:
“The doctrine of indefectibility does not simply state that some people on earth will always be professing the true faith, administering valid sacraments and possessed of episcopal orders. It states that the Catholic Church will always be professing the true faith, administering the sacraments, and structured by the episcopacy and the papacy.”
This is essentially correct; but once again, the overall context suggests that his phrases (“within the Catholic Church” and “the Catholic Church will always be, etc.”) may be equivocal, in the same sense examined above – as if what he mentions might be found within the Church alongside what contradicts them.
His comments also beg the question of the Church’s identity. Any schism or rupture leaves at least two bodies, and only one will be the Catholic Church.14 Which body this is will turn on a number of factors, and the possession of buildings and so on is not one of them. The presence of the Roman Pontiff is indeed decisive, but not the mere presence of a man who claims the office, where there are serious arguments against his legitimacy. To assume otherwise would simply be assuming what needs to be proved.
This matter is addressed in detail here:
It is at this point of the article that Fr Crean’s omission of the four marks and properties becomes most “visible”. He proceeds to explain the Church’s visibility, by comparing her with various natural societies:
“From this point of view, the Catholic Church is no different from the Southern Baptist Convention, FIFA, or the Locomotive Club of Great Britain.”
A few lines down, he states:
“Where the Catholic Church differs from the Southern Baptist Convention or FIFA is that it has a divine promise of perpetuity; which means, since it is a visible society, perpetual visibility.”
But the Church differs from such societies in far more than this. As I argued nearly two years before his article appeared, this is based on a naturalistic conception of the Church:
“This consideration is naturalistic because it treats the Church of Christ as a society like any other (for example, a football club, a political party or even a religious order), albeit one whose continued nominal or legal existence is divinely guaranteed.
“The visibility of the Church cannot be crassly reduced to the level of something like a football club, or any other merely human grouping: just so, her indefectibility cannot be crassly reduced to mere continuing existence.
“The true doctrine holds that the Church is also distinctly visible as the true Church of Christ, with the same constitution and properties with which she was endowed by her Founder. It means that she will indefectibly and perpetually remain so.”15
I struggle to believe that Fr Crean really believes the ideas which I critiqued in this passage: nonetheless, the objective sense of his words conveys this naturalistic conception of the Church as a society like any other, distinguished from them only by “a divine promise of perpetuity” (and in which supernatural events take place) – and ideas like this are commonly expressed.16
A crucial flaw with this naturalistic conception is that it overlooks the Church as a social miracle, and as a standing witness to her supernatural claims. Vatican I even appears to frame this miracle in terms of the four marks which make her distinctly visible:
“[T]he Church by herself, with her marvelous propagation, eminent holiness, and inexhaustible fruitfulness [...], with her catholic unity and invincible stability, is a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefutable testimony of her divine mission.”17
It is precisely this failure to engage with the four marks that allows Fr Crean to reach his conclusion with such ease. In precisely the place where he should refer to them, he writes:
“[T]he Catholic Church is an empirically identifiable organisation, by which I mean that it can be distinguished from other societies by the application of criteria accessible to the senses, even by a person without faith. […]
“The criterion by which we may identify the Catholic Church is the papacy; she is the society governed by the man who succeeds to St Peter, according to the norms in force at the time of the succession.”
We have discussed above and elsewhere the conditions under which this via primatus (argument from the primacy) is legitimate, and why it is not in present circumstances:
Nonetheless, Fr Crean proceeds as though this argument settles the matter. He can only do this because he does not engage with the four marks as (a) manifesting the four necessary properties the Church must indefectibly possess, and (b) the principal means by which she is made distinctly visible as herself.
Were he to engage with the four marks, the via primatus could not reach its conclusion without first considering whether the Conciliar/Synodal Church actually possesses them, and the properties they manifest.
And, as we have already seen in Zero Marks, it does not.
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Pope Pius XII taught:
“Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church 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.”
Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, n. 22.
Fr J.M.A. Vacant, Le Magistère ordinaire de l’Église et ses organe, Chapter III. Delhomme et Briguet, Libraires-Editeurs, Paris, 1887. Translated by The WM Review: https://www.wmreview.org/p/vacant-oum-chapter-iiib
Cf., for example, Dignitatis Humanae’s doctrine of religious liberty. Fr Crean’s attempted resolution is critiqued in John S. Daly, ‘Religious Liberty: The failed attempts to defend Vatican II’, available here: https://www.wmreview.org/p/religious-liberty-daly.
Fr Crean’s attempt to reconcile Dignitatis Humanae with Catholic teaching entails positing that the documents repeated phrase “due limits” must be understood to “exclude all actually existing non-Catholic religions.” He further states that “this is a very different interpretation of Dignitatis Humanæ from the one that is commonly held; but in my very fallible opinion, I cannot see any other way to reconcile it with Catholic tradition.”
But this is not only different from interpretations that are “commonly held”; it is different from the interpretations which it has received from the supposed authorities of the Church. As an example, let us consider the teaching of Benedict XVI, as provided by Abbé Jean-Michel Gleize SSPX in his 2024 reply to the Fraternity of St Vincent Ferrer. (“En réponse à la Fraternité Saint Vincent Ferrier”, Courrier de Rome, n. 676, June 2024)
Benedict XVI said in the 2012 Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in medio oriente n. 22:
“It is because of Jesus that Christians are sensitive to the dignity of the human person and to freedom of religion which is its corollary. For love of God and humanity, thus honouring Christ’s two natures, and with eternal life in view, Christians have built schools, hospitals and institutions of every kind where all people are welcomed without discrimination (cf. Mt 25:31ff.). For these reasons, Christians are particularly concerned for the fundamental rights of the human person. It is wrong to claim that these rights are only ‘Christian’ human rights. They are nothing less than the rights demanded by the dignity of each human person and each citizen, whatever his or her origins, religious convictions and political preferences.” (Emphasis added)
In n. 26 and n. 27, he wrote:
“Religious freedom is the pinnacle of all other freedoms. It is a sacred and inalienable right. It includes on the individual and collective levels the freedom to follow one’s conscience in religious matters and, at the same time, freedom of worship. It includes the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public. It must be possible to profess and freely manifest one’s religion and its symbols without endangering one’s life and personal freedom. Religious freedom is rooted in the dignity of the person; it safeguards moral freedom and fosters mutual respect. Jews, with their long experience of often deadly assaults, know full well the benefits of religious freedom. For their part, Muslims share with Christians the conviction that no constraint in religious matters, much less the use of force, is permitted. Such constraint, which can take multiple and insidious forms on the personal and social, cultural, administrative and political levels, is contrary to God’s will. It gives rise to political and religious exploitation, discrimination and violence leading to death. God wants life, not death. He forbids all killing, even of those who kill (cf. Gen 4:15-16; 9:5-6; Ex 20:13).
“Religious tolerance exists in a number of countries, but it does not have much effect since it remains limited in its field of action. There is a need to move beyond tolerance to religious freedom.”
In 2011, the message he gave for the celebration of the “World Day of Peace” was titled “Religious Freedom, The Path to Peace”, and contained the following at n. 5:
“It could be said that among the fundamental rights and freedoms rooted in the dignity of the person, religious freedom enjoys a special status. When religious freedom is acknowledged, the dignity of the human person is respected at its root, and the ethos and institutions of peoples are strengthened. On the other hand, whenever religious freedom is denied, and attempts are made to hinder people from professing their religion or faith and living accordingly, human dignity is offended, with a resulting threat to justice and peace, which are grounded in that right social order established in the light of Supreme Truth and Supreme Goodness.
“Religious freedom is, in this sense, also an achievement of a sound political and juridical culture. It is an essential good: each person must be able freely to exercise the right to profess and manifest, individually or in community, his or her own religion or faith, in public and in private, in teaching, in practice, in publications, in worship and in ritual observances. There should be no obstacles should he or she eventually wish to belong to another religion or profess none at all. In this context, international law is a model and an essential point of reference for states, insofar as it allows no derogation from religious freedom, as long as the just requirements of public order are observed. The international order thus recognizes that rights of a religious nature have the same status as the right to life and to personal freedom, as proof of the fact that they belong to the essential core of human rights, to those universal and natural rights which human law can never deny.
“Religious freedom is not the exclusive patrimony of believers, but of the whole family of the earth’s peoples. It is an essential element of a constitutional state; it cannot be denied without at the same time encroaching on all fundamental rights and freedoms, since it is their synthesis and keystone. It is ‘the litmus test for the respect of all the other human rights’. While it favours the exercise of our most specifically human faculties, it creates the necessary premises for the attainment of an integral development which concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension.”
He cites other texts from Benedict XVI and the post-conciliar claimants to the papacy – and further examples could also be presented.
Fr Crean’s objection can only be advanced in opposition to the constant and authoritative teaching of the men he considers to have been legitimate Popes since Vatican II; this is a fundamentally flawed method, and as such his resolution does not even “get off the ground.”
Further, his argument is based in part on the fact that Dignitatis Humanae claimed that “it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.” Here is what Ratzinger wrote immediately after the fourth session of Vatican II:
“Most controversial was the third newly emphasized aspect. The text attempts to emphasize continuity in the statements of the official Church on this issue. It also says that it ‘leaves intact the traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and communities toward the true religion and the only Church of Christ’ (n. 1). The term ‘duty’ here has doubtful application to communities in their relation to the Church. Later on in the Declaration, the text itself corrects and modifies these earlier statements, offering something new, something that is quite different from what is found, for example, in the statements of Pius XI and Pius XII.
“It would have been better to omit these compromising formulas or to reformulate them in line with the later text. Thus the introduction changes nothing in the text’s content; therefore, we need not regard it as anything more than a minor flaw.” (Theological Highlights of Vatican II, end of Part IV Chapter II [p 211])
To be sure, Ratzinger did not write this as the (supposed) Pope, but as a peritus and witness of the Council. As such, it is at least instructive, and illustrates why “contrived” is a just description of attempted resolutions such as Fr Crean’s.
Gregory XVI, Quo graviora, n. 10 in Papal Teachings, The Church (Solesmes) n. 173.
He also added, referring to the errors condemned in Auctorem fidei:
“While these men were shamefully straying in their thoughts, they proposed to fall upon the errors condemned by the Church in proposition 78 of the constitution Auctorem fidei (published by Our predecessor, Pius VI on August 28, 1794). They also attacked the pure doctrine which they say they want to keep safe and sound; either they do not understand the situation or craftily pretend not to understand it. While they contend that the entire exterior form of the Church can be changed indiscriminately, do they not subject to change even those items of discipline which have their basis in divine law and which are linked with the doctrine of faith in a close bond? Does not the law of the believer thus produce the law of the doer?
“Moreover, do they not try to make the Church human by taking away from the infallible and divine authority, by which divine will it is governed? And does it not produce the same effect to think that the present discipline of the Church rests on failures, obscurities, and other inconveniences of this kind? And to feign that this discipline contains many things which are not useless but which are against the safety of the Catholic religion? Why is it that private individuals appropriate for themselves the right which is proper only for the pope?
Quo Graviora, n. 5.
Council of Trent, DH 1757.
In another forum, Fr Crean suggested:
“It doesn’t suffice to invoke the passage in Trent, as that wasn’t envisioning anything like the ‘Montinian revolution’.”
But the fact that the Council of Trent did not foresee the “Montinian Revolution” is irrelevant. It was laying down a principle – understood as such by theologians (see below) – that the Church’s universal disciplinary laws are infallible, including in her liturgy.
To repeat what I have written elsewhere:
It is obvious from the purpose of the Church herself, and the way in which universal disciplinary laws are, as the theologian Van Noort says, “for all practical purposes, tantamount” to doctrinal definitions. (Van Noort, ‘Christ’s Church,’ Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II. 1957, Trans. Castelot and Murphy, The Newman Press, Westminster Maryland, n. 91, pp 115-6.)
It is impossible to claim that this axiom only applies to the traditional liturgy in use at the time of the decrees. It is also impossible to claim that it applies only to rites which are made the object of an obligation or even an exclusive obligation.
On the contrary, it applies to any and all sacramental rites approved for use in the Catholic Church.
(S.D. Wright, ‘Archbishop Lefebvre & Conciliar Sacraments—Do they ‘come from the Church?’’ The WM Review, 13 Aug 2024. Available at https://www.wmreview.org/p/archbishop-lefebvre-and-conciliar)
For a full discussion, without the testimony of theologians, see Abbé Hervé Belmont, ‘Infaillibilité des lois disciplinaires générales’, Quicumque. Translated by The WM Review: https://www.wmreview.org/p/is-the-church-infallible-in-her-discipline
Pius VI, Auctorem fidei (condemnation of the Council of Pistoia), n. 78:
“The prescription of the synod about the order of transacting business in the conferences, in which, after it prefaced ‘in every article that which pertains to faith and to the essence of religion must be distinuished from that which is proper to discipline,’ it adds, ‘in this itself (discipline) there is to be distinguished what is necessary or useful to retain the faithful in spirit, from that which is useless or too burdensome for the liberty of the sons of the new Covenant to endure, but more so, from that which is dangerous or harmful, namely, leading to superstitution and materialism’; in so far as by the generality of the words it includes and submits to a prescribed examination even the discipline established and approved by the Church, as if the Church which is ruled by the Spirit of God could have established discipline which is not only useless and burdensome for Christian liberty to endure, but which is even dangerous and harmful and leading to superstition and materialism,—false, rash, scandalous, dangerous, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the Church and to the Spirit of God by whom it is guided, at least erroneous.”
Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi 1943 n. 67. https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius12/p12mysti.htm
Archbishop Lefebvre, Declaration of 1974. Available at: https://fsspx.org/en/1974-declaration-of-archbishop-lefebvre
Archbishop Lefebvre, Reponses à diverses questions d’actualite - Aux eleves du seminaire d’Ecône, Le 24 Fevrier 1977. Our translation. Available at: http://www.virgo-maria.org/Documents/mgr-lefebvre/1977-02-24-Mgr-Lefebvre-Questions-d-actualites.pdf
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused Catholics, Chapter 15. Available at https://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Archbishop-Lefebvre/OpenLetterToConfusedCatholics/Chapter-15.htm
Alfredo Ottaviani, Antonio Bacci, et al: The Ottaviani Intervention: A Brief Critical Study of the New Order of Mass. pp 17-18. Trans. Rev Christopher Danel. Angelus Press, Kansas City MO, 2015.
This has been discussed throughout the previous two parts.
As stated in Zero Marks, the thesis being advanced here is not that the Conciliar/Synodal Church is a distinct sect, such that the men are its “members” are thereby non-members of the Catholic Church. Rather, it considers this body as an accidental aggregation made up of Catholics and non-Catholics, and not a true society. Thus, while a certain number of Catholics (parts of the Catholic Church) are involved with it, it is not the Catholic Church. This is defended in greater detail in Zero Marks.
S.D. Wright, ‘The Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church—it lacks the necessary marks’, The WM Review. 5th April 2024, available at https://www.wmreview.org/p/the-conciliar-synodal-church-is-not
A variation on this conception treats the Church in similar terms: as basically a natural society with supernatural promises, and in which supernatural events take place (viz., divine revelation is proposed, the sacraments are administered). To my mind, this is what Fr Crean’s article conveys. As another example, Dr Peter Kwasniewski said the following in a 2026 interview with Catholic Unscripted:
“The indefectibility of the Church means – and I think some people exaggerate what it means, grossly – but it means that the true faith will always be taught: that is, there will never — the Church will never define error, and the Church will only ever define what is true. But I take ‘define’ in a very serious way there, right? That is, what the Church officially puts forward in her creeds, in her liturgies, in her dogmatic definitions, at councils, ex cathedra statements. This is true, and nothing but true, and that will never change. That’s one aspect of indefectibility. And by the way, Francis did not touch that at all. He never ever tried to either define something that was not defined, or un-define something that was defined – or, I mean, something like that. He just did everything else wrong, but he never did anything like that.
“And the second thing it means is that the grace of the sacraments will always be available to us. Right? So always in this sense: that if you seek baptism, you can be baptised. That’s why – in fact, because baptism is the only sacrament that’s absolutely necessary – anybody can baptise, right? So I mean, if you’re on your deathbed, you can get the nurse to come and do it. She can – she could be a Hindu and she can still say ‘I baptise you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.’ So baptism will always be available.
The Eucharist, right — it may not be available in the sense that if you’re thrown in jail in a Siberian gulag, you might not have the Eucharist. But even there, St Thomas says, if you have a desire for the Eucharist, God will give you the grace. That’s what we call a spiritual communion. We will always have priests; we will always have bishops.
“Now, having said that, that doesn’t mean that the Church can never have a defective liturgy, that the Church could not promote unworthy people to priesthood or episcopacy. It doesn’t mean that the liturgy is going to be done fittingly or well. I mean, these are things that lie outside of the strict promise of indefectibility, which is that the Church of Christ will survive until the end of time, until Christ comes.”
At the time, I wrote the following as a comment on the video (hence its informal tone):
“Prof Kwasniewski’s account of indefectibility is very flawed, and all mixed up with infallibility to boot. Indefectibility means that the Church will continue with the same constitution which Christ gave her for all time. It doesn’t mean she will continue in a merely legal sense without regard for that reality.
“Infallibility is considerably wider: the secondary object of infallibility absolutely precludes the possibility of an evil liturgy. It is not limited to validity, but also goodness. The Church has defined on a few occasions that her universal disciplinary laws, of which certain liturgical rites will form a part depending on the circumstances, cannot be harmful to the faith.
“But, without being sarcastic or spiky, Prof Kwasniewski has literally published books about ‘rethinking’ Catholic doctrine, specifically on the papacy – which is intimately intertwined with the topics at hand. (Would anyone accept a book about rethinking contraception, or marriage?) As such, what he presents should not be taken as the pre-re-thought Catholic doctrine.”
DH 3013.
“Catholic unity” – unity
“Eminent holiness, and inexhaustible fruitfulness in everything that is good” – holiness
“Marvelous propagation” catholicity
“Invincible stability” – apostolicity.