A shorter and more accessible version of ‘Zero Marks’ – engaging with Fr Thomas Crean OP’s article on ‘sedevacantism’, and Dr Peter Kwasniewski’s promotion of it.
Preface
The following article is a summary of my long and detailed piece ‘Zero Marks’ – Why the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church.
While this work has been very well received, its length (over 42,000 words including footnotes) means that it is not exactly “accessible”. In the interests of accessibility, Stephen Kokx and myself discussed each of the five chapters of Zero Marks on Kokx News, and then Integrity Magazine.
Video: Visibility
Video: Unity
Video: Holiness
Video: Catholicity
Video: Apostolicity as a Mark
Video: Apostolicity as a Property
Video: Conclusion
With the same end of accessibility in mind, I am pleased to publish a summary version of Zero Marks, running at around 6,000 words. It is structured in the same way as the original, with direct links throughout.
Although at that length it is not exactly the “executive” summary mentioned in the title, it is certainly easier for those who do not necessarily wish to get into the nuts and bolts of the affair.
What is Zero Marks all about?
Zero Marks was Part II of a long engagement (which is not quite finished) with an article by Fr Thomas Crean OP. Here are the articles so far:
‘Radically insufficient’ – Reply to Fr Crean on the Church’s visibility
‘Zero Marks’ – Why the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church
‘Spotless and Unsullied’ – Indefectibility and the Extended Vacancy
Fr Crean’s short and popular article, originally published at Pelican+, was lauded by Dr Peter Kwasniewski as a “definitive rebuttal of sedevacantism”:
As my articles have shown, this is very much not the case.
While I have no doubt that Fr Crean wrote this article in good faith, intending to defend the Church, it was objectively an assault on the traditional understanding of the her authority. For this reason, the enthusiasm of Dr Kwasniewski’s praise recalls a certain passage of Pope St Pius X’s encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis:
“Finally, the Modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium itself by sacrilegiously falsifying its origin, character, and rights, and by freely repeating the calumnies of its adversaries. To all the band of Modernists may be applied those words which Our Predecessor wrote with such pain:
“‘To bring contempt and odium on the mystic Spouse of Christ, who is the true light, the children of darkness have been wont to cast in her face before the world a stupid calumny, and perverting the meaning and force of things and words, to depict her as the friend of darkness and ignorance, and the enemy of light, science, and progress.’ (Motu proprio, Ut mysticum, 14 March, 1891) […]
“[T]hey load with constant praise the writers who range themselves on their side, hailing their works, excluding novelty in every page, with choruses of applause; for them the scholarship of a writer is in direct proportion to the recklessness of his attacks on antiquity, and of his efforts to undermine tradition and the ecclesiastical magisterium […]”
Trying “in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium” is, in fact, the very essence of Dr Kwasniewki’s long-term project of “rethinking the papacy” – which also served as the subtitle of his two volumes The Road from Hyperpapalism to Catholicism.
The publication of this summary
Just as Dr Kwasniewski prompted Zero Marks itself, his recent interventions on this topic have prompted this summary.
Aside from his comments at the Catholic Identity Conference and elsewhere, the following tweet in particular attracted my attention:
Both this tweet and the article from Fr John Zuhlsdorf (with whom we have previously engaged here) were striking, in that they appeared to be mere reassertions of what had already been comprehensively addressed in Zero Marks – but without any engagement, or new arguments being brought to the table.
While I will not presume that Fr Zuhlsdorf has read Zero Marks, Dr Kwasniewski wrote to me on 29th May requesting a copy of it for himself and Fr Crean. (In fact, it was already freely available, and I had already sent a copy to Fr Crean on 2nd April.)
Having been sent Dr Kwasniewski’s tweet and Fr Z’s article – which as I said, brought nothing new to the table – I resolved to publish this summary.
Repetition of deficient arguments without engagement
I was confirmed in this resolve soon after, when I was made aware of the following tweet from Dr Kwasniewski, republishing Fr Crean’s essay:
Once again, and with all the more clarity as it referred to the article itself, we see Dr Kwasniewski simply restating the same claims – and again, without engagement with the counter-arguments.
Now, being “convinced” without any actual basis – and in the face of all evidence and argument to the contrary – is indeed the core of the “lay R&R” strategy, and has been for decades. Further, if Dr Kwasniewski were to give any weight to contrary arguments, he may have to
Retract several books
Make public reparation for all his calls to “rethink the papacy”, and the indecorous insulting of those who disagree with him.
Admit that he and his allies had been the ones “misleading souls” – as he accuses “sedevacantists” of doing in his tweets.
For these reasons, it is not surprising that he repeats his insults, and reasserts his opinions without engagement.
More surprisingly, however, Fr Crean also retweeted Dr Kwasniewski’s message with the following comment:
Aside from it being most disappointing to see Fr Crean following Dr Kwasniewski’s line of conduct, he also shows a serious lack of self-awareness in such a message.
This is because his comments undermine his own position. First, as discussed in the articles, his position is a kind of naturalism and nominalism, whereby the Catholic Church is identified by being the body referred to by that name, without regard to the actual properties of the Church – each of which are stated in even the Penny Catechism. The thesis of Zero Marks is proved with theological authorities or manuals, but can be known without them; the thesis of Fr Crean cannot be accepted with those same authorities, as it contradicts them.
Next, when he says that the Church must be “visible to the masses, not just to speculative theologians or to others who have studied scholastic manuals”, what he seems to mean is that the Church must be “visible to those who close their eyes and refuse to take cognisance of the facts around them”, viz. the demonstrable absence of the very properties by which she is to be recognised.
Finally, the visibility of the Church exists in order that souls may identify her and submit to her teaching; but Fr Crean’s own account of a doctrine like religious liberty is such that it can only be accepted on the basis of an interpretation completely different to that given to it by the Conciliar/Synodal Church. The same applies to his contrived account of the modern practice of communicatio in sacris. Thus, it is Fr Crean himself that is advancing a position inaccessible to the “masses” without the intervention of theologians and manuals.
Such conduct from both men is rather disappointing.
Unfortunate conduct
Dr Kwasniewski comments:
“While it is true that lengthy efforts have been made to refute Fr. Crean’s arguments, I am convinced his case prevails, with the benefit of a simplicity that is recognizably Catholic and common-sensical.”
While American Reform engaged with Fr Crean on Twitter, I am not aware of any “lengthy” engagement with his article except Zero Marks and its associated parts. My overall response is not yet complete, and it is understandable that Fr Crean may wish to wait for its completion before replying – but Dr Kwasniewski’s failure to name it or link to it in his republication is noticeable.
One also cannot help suspecting that if the response had been less “lengthy”, it would have been dismissed as simplistic – as shorter and more popular treatments sometimes are. But, as Our Lord said:
“They are like to children sitting in the marketplace and speaking one to another and saying: We have piped to you, and you have not danced: we have mourned, and you have not wept.” (St Luke 7.32)
Between Dr Kwasniewski’s reassertion-without-engagement, a failure to link to or reference the actual “lengthy” responses, and his insults against “sedevacantists” as “gnostics” and so on, we are again put in mind of a passage from Pascendi Dominici Gregis:
“[N]o wonder the Modernists vent all their gall and hatred on Catholics who sturdily fight the battles of the Church. But of all the insults they heap on them those of ignorance and obstinacy are the favourites. When an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that render him redoubtable, they try to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack […]”
Without claiming any “erudition and force” on my own part, the idea that Zero Marks did not constitute a serious assault on the arguments promoted by Dr Kwasniewski’s set is, as the young men would say, “cope”.
While it is always disappointing that engagement has been limited to name calling and the restating of arguments already shown to be deficient – such is life.
On the other hand, it is encouraging to meet new people every day who are interested in seriously engaging with our current crisis. And I suspect that it is concern about the existence of these very people, who are not interested in being an anglicanised “high church wing” of the Conciliar/Synodal Church with Dr Kwasniewski and his set, that are prompting this recent foray into aggressive anti-“sedevacantist” rhetoric.
I once again invite Dr Kwasniewski – as well as Fr Crean, and anyone else who wishes to speak or write publicly on this topic – to desist from ignoring serious responses, and to engage with the arguments at hand.
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