In what appears to be an attempt to clarify remarks made in a recent conference given by Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta concerning the relationship between Rome and the Society of St. Pius X, an interview of Superior General Bishop Bernard Fellay has just been published on the DICI website.
In the interview, Bishop Fellay addresses the following matters:
1. The relations of the Society of Saint Pius X with Rome
2. The new Roman proposals
3. “To be accepted as we are”
4. The Pope and the Society of Saint Pius X
5. The jurisdiction granted to the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X
6. The visits of prelates sent by Rome
7. The present state of the Church
8. What should we ask of the Blessed Virgin?
It’s a rather lengthy interview and should be read in its fullness there, but let it be said that those who humbly receive His Excellency’s words for what they plainly convey; avoiding the temptation to sin by speculating openly about hidden nefarious motives (in the manner of the so-called “resistance”) will find no indication whatsoever that Bishop Fellay is willing to “compromise” with Rome in exchange for canonical regularization.
On the contrary; Bishop Fellay gives us every reason to believe that he is determined to carry out the mission of the Society as described in Archbishop Lefebvre’s 1974 Declaration:
“We hold fast to all that has been believed and practiced in the faith, morals, liturgy, teaching of the catechism, formation of the priest and institution of the Church, by the Church of all time; to all these things as codified in those books which saw day before the Modernist influence of the Council.”
Among the noteworthy highlights of the interview, Bishop Fellay acknowledged that the Society does not trust Rome:
Now we still have this idea in the back of our minds, it is a rather widespread attitude: “If they want us, it is because they want to stifle us, and eventually to destroy us, to absorb us totally, to disintegrate us.” That is not an integration, that is disintegration! Obviously, as long as this idea prevails, we can’t expect anything.
Gaining what he called “some minimal trust” will take time, according to Bishop Fellay, but he does not say that such is utterly impossible short of Rome totally repenting of its modernism.
Even though such a pronouncement would earn the applause of certain of his detractors, it would be unreasonable for a number of reasons. For one, Archbishop Lefebvre never insisted upon such a thing as a prerequisite for an agreement with Rome.
As Bishop de Galarreta said in his conference:
‘You cannot admit the possibility of an agreement with Rome without being liberal.’ Such is not our position. It is important to repeat it: it was not Archbishop Lefebvre’s position. He signed a protocol for an agreement with Rome. And at that time, even when he broke it off after the protocol, the Archbishop said: ‘it is because the necessary conditions for our protection, for our survival, are not there.’ Because they wish to deceive us, because they do not wish to give us Tradition, because they wish to bring us over to Vatican II. It is because the conditions are not there. He said, ‘If they had granted me the conditions, the conditions I had requested, I would have signed.’ Archbishop Lefebvre said that after the consecration of the bishops. And he explained, ‘If I signed a protocol for an agreement, it was because there was nothing against the faith.’ Neither in the contents, nor in the act of signing. This is obvious. So we continue along these lines.
In other words, Archbishop Lefebvre insisted upon two things: First, and most obviously, he would never agree to anything that went against the Faith, and secondly, the Society must be sufficiently assured of its protection moving forward.
On the latter point, notice that he did not insist that such an assurance is impossible; representing an insurmountable stumbling block. This is Bishop Fellay’s position as well.
Perhaps more importantly as it concerns motives for engaging with Rome, Bishop Fellay spoke of the need to ask Our Lady to aid the Society in fidelity:
Fidelity to this whole treasure of the Church which—God knows why, God knows how—is in our hands, an extraordinary heritage which is the treasure of the Church; it does not belong to us, and our only desire is for it to regain its place, its true place in the Church.
He concluded the interview saying:
Therefore ask the Good Lord to send graces that will win souls for Him, and collaborate in this work! In this way we will ask Him for many things. We ask Him that the Church might rediscover all the elements that make up her mission of saving souls. The one thing, the first thing, the only thing that matters for the Church is to save souls!
This, my friends, is the perspective of a true son of the Church, an authentic shepherd and dedicated father.
He is aware of bearing the full weight of a great responsibility, and he deserves our trust and our prayers.
The Lord has in some way entrusted to the Society, initially by way of its saintly founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the task of both preserving the great treasure of the Church’s inheritance, and laboring to restore it, to the fullest extent possible, to its rightful place in the heart of the Church for the good of souls.
It’s a profoundly difficult task indeed. It would be far easier to simply hoard the treasure of the Church as its very own, as if the SSPX has somehow become the Church, but such is not the case.
The Adversary has corrupted the hearts and minds of many in the sacred hierarchy, even to the highest places in Rome, and he is determined to see the Society fail so as to succeed in dragging countless more souls to Hell.
Bishop Fellay is well aware of the scope of this battle, and he knows what it will take in order to prevail:
Let us ask for the triumph of the Blessed Virgin. She announced it. I would say that it is keeping us waiting, and we may even be a little impatient, especially when we see everything that is happening, which seems in contradiction to it. Yet this is not a contradiction; it is quite simply a development that the Good Lord permits, a frightening, terrible game: the lack of correspondence between human freedom, even among Christians, and what Heaven demands, the intention of Heaven declared at Fatima—in other words, God’s intention—to introduce into the hearts of Christians a devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which has so much trouble prevailing. However it is not so difficult; it is so beautiful, so consoling! And we see this major battle between the devil and the Good Lord, the battlefield being souls, the souls which God designed to be free and which He wants to win over, but not by force. He could have imposed His will majestically in such a way that all human beings would be prostrate—that’s what will happen at the end of the world, but it will be too late then. The battle must be waged now.
As I write, a contrary, earthbound narrative is emanating from Rome in the aftermath of the terrorist (read, Islamic) bombings in Brussels; one that stops short of addressing the true nature of the battle that is raging in our midst.
According to Vatican Radio, Pope Francis has sent a telegram to Jozef De Kesel, Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, which reads in part:
The Holy Father again condemns the blind violence which causes so much suffering and imploring from God the gift of peace, he entrusts on the bereaved families and the Belgians the benefit of divine blessings.
No, the tragic events in Brussels do not represent “blind violence” as much as they are the fruits of a false religion; one that rejects Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, and is at war with His Church.
Pope Francis, not unlike his predecessors, apparently does not care to acknowledge “what Heaven demands, the intention of Heaven declared at Fatima.”
Instead, he pays lip service to “imploring from God the gift of peace,” busying himself with planting trees, organizing soccer matches, and even going so far as to encourage Muslims to hold fast to their false religion and to cling to that blasphemous book of lies penned by the pedophile warmonger Muhammad at the Evil One’s urging.
Bishop Fellay gets right to the heart of the matter concerning the crisis in both the Church and the world when he says that we must ask for the triumph of the Blessed Virgin.
To that end, let us pray and fast for the conversion of Pope Francis this Holy Week, that he may come to embrace the extraordinary heritage which is the treasure of the Church, and will at long last carry out the simple requests made by Our Lady at Fatima, ushering in a profound period of conversion and peace.
“It is not a human combat! We are at grips with Satan! It is a combat requiring all the supernatural strength we need to fight against the adversary who means to destroy and uproot the Church, who means to destroy everything Our Lord Jesus Christ did. He meant to destroy Our Lord from the moment He was born, and now He means to continue destroying His Mystical Body, to destroy the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to destroy all His institutions whatsoever.
So we must be aware of this dramatic and apocalyptic combat through which we are living, and not play it down, because the moment we play it down, we no longer wish to give battle, we become weaklings and we dare no longer proclaim the Truth; we no longer dare to proclaim the social kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ because our godless and atheistic world does not want to hear of it. To say that Our Lord Jesus Christ should reign over societies is folly as far as the world is concerned. “You are backward-looking, out-of-date fossils, stuck fast in the Middle Ages “, we hear, “that doctrine is over and done with, it belongs to the past! Let’s hear no more of Our Lord Jesus Christ reigning over societies!”
And so we might tend to be afraid of this public opinion opposing us because we stand for the kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us in any case not be surprised to find that any demonstrations of ours in favour of the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ come up against an army directed by Satan to destroy us, to hinder and nullify any influence we might have.”
Archbishop Lefebvre
I believe that those who are members of the SSPX, for the most part, are of good will….but they have, as a society, rejected the fundamental idea that we most always be obedient to the pope on matters of faith and morals. We all know that those in Rome are of satan…..but the true papacy can never be of statan….this is a Catholic impossibility. This is why I can never again oblige the SSPX as long as it stands where it currently does. They are at complete odds with the man who they keep on insisting is a valid pope. They are schismatics at the very least. I know most here will disagree with me but I have to stand by what I know is right. Never, ever, in the history of our Church prior to the last 60 years has the valid pope been denounced as a heretic as he is now, and still been called “pope”. This concept is not Catholic at all.
Here’s an explanation for what the Novus Ordo means by “full” and “partial” communion:
“…and a Catholic is either fully in communion or not in communion. There can be no degrees.
Not so in the modern church, that officially admits varying degrees of communion, or partial communion, which exists in those “separated churches” that “have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation”, that are “means of salvation” and whose members are “in some, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church” (Vatican II, Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, §2). The consequence of this is that the Catholic Church is considered as an inner circle in the wider concept of “church” in which it subsists. The further one goes from the center of unity, via a series of widening concentric circles, the less is the “communion”, but nevertheless all these religious groupings are in some way “related” to the Catholic Church, in some way a part of the whole idea of church. Such a perspective is certainly a practical denial of the doctrine “Outside the Church, no salvation”.”
Fr. Peter Scott, 2003
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All I know is that this Bishop Fellay’s words are words which I thirst for. Being raised V2 I recognize clear Truth when I hear it. It’s marvelous. Maybe one day a Holy Prelate will come out of this ORDER. Our Lady of Good Success said that we should be praying unceasingly for a Holy Prelate. This Prelate will be with us during the restoration of the Church. May Our Lady of Good Success provide a speedy restoration.
Sorry, Rich, but little to nothing you say is congruent with Catholic teaching. It is based on oversimplification and lack of understanding of that teaching.
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In point of fact, to recognize & resist a pontiff who either teaches or commands against the faith has always been the Catholic way, and there are numerous historical example to aid us in that understanding. Here’s a bit:
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http://www.cfnews.org/page88/files/da9f34183725cf13392d5f9f9ccadf6d-334.html
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When St. Peter contradicted Catholic teaching by refusing communion with gentiles, St. Paul resisted him public. When Pope Liberius supported the Arian heresy indirectly or directly, he was resisted by St. Athanasius. When Pope John XXII publicly preached heresy, he was resisted by the Roman clergy and theologians and, thankfully, recanted on his deathbed. There are more examples. Papalotry is mostly a modern phenomena.
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As to your factually incorrect statement (which amounts to calumny, invincibly ignorant though it must be) that the SSPX are “schismatic”, Google “Chris Jackson SSPX schism” to see that debunked. *The Vatican itself* has stated on numerous occasions that the SSPX bishops and priests are not in schism – if anybody would assert that they were, it would be the Vatican prelates they oppose, but, by & large, they do not and have not. Who are you to contradict them? (I do not post the link to the Jackson piece as I believe only one link per post is allowed here.)
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Schism is, at its heart, the denial of the Supreme Pontiff’s *right to rule* itself, something the Society has never done and will never do. Schismatics such as the Anglican and the Orthodox (groups that the Vatican designates as fellow Christians and dissuades from conversion to Catholicism!) reject the very *office* of the papacy itself, where, in most stark contrast, every SSPX chapel in existence recognizes Francis as the Vicar of Christ and successor to St. Peter. His image displayed in the sacristy of every such chapel.
Hello Cortez,
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Many believe that that holy prelate was Archbishop Lefebvre himself. Bishop Fellay continues what he began. God bless you.
Wait, the false vatican 2 Church has said that the SSPX is not in schism…and that would prove to me what exactly? I never said that the SSPX rejects the papacy, I only said that they reject Bergoglio. Whether or not they pay him lip service by still calling him “pope” is of no consequence. I know full well that his picture hangs in their chapels.
As for Pope Liberius, I would suggest you re-check your facts. The ideas that he was a heretic or that he ever ex-communicated St Athanasius are based on lies.
“The accusation of separation and of schism made against us because we refuse to participate in the protestantization of the Church is ridiculous! It is, however, deserved by those who foment that same protestantization. Among them are those who have for a long time fallen away from the Catholic Faith and yet, in common with all the heretics of history, work to try to make the Church become like them and conform to their ideas. We cannot understand how intelligent people can state that they “prefer to err with the Pope rather than to be with truth against the Pope.”
If one day they shall excommunicate us because we remain faithful to these theses we shall consider ourselves excommunicated by Freemasonry. Our consolation will be that we remain in the company of God and of all the martyrs who have given their lives to keep the Faith.”
+Lefebvre
“… he (Cardinal Ratzinger) explicitly said to us: “Obviously, if this Protocol [of 1988] is granted to you, you must also accept what we do, therefore, in the Church of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet it will be necessary also to say a New Mass every Sunday…”
You see, he wanted to lead us to the Conciliar Church! This is not possible since it is clear that they want to impose these innovations on us to end the Tradition! They do not grant anything out of appreciation for the traditional Liturgy, but simply to cheat those to whom they give it and to diminish our resistance; to insert a wedge in the Traditional block to destroy it!
This is their policy, their conscious tactics! They do not make a mistake, and you know the pressures that they exert…”
+Lefebvre
A Catholic Thinker,
Thanks for affirming what I was thinking. I am new to Tradition so I come at all this from a new angle than many of you experts. I do thank God for allowing me to see His Truth. It’s so nice to hear this bishop’s words so crystal clearly and unblemished. I know only a little about this order, but if the time is near that our church be restored, I can’t help but think that this is where the Holy Prelate will come from. I mean he won’t come out of no where. And I can’t imagine him coming from anywhere else, lest we all be scandalized. This seems to be a sacred place- A hidden home for our Lord amonst all this loud clutter of evil and lies. I hope and pray to live to see the day and reep all it’s rewards. If what I am saying is right than that Bishop Lefebvre must be a saint. Oh, how I hope and pray with all my heart for Our Lord to end this punishment so that we could all live freely and openly and share His Faith together. Yes! Our Lady of Good Success, pray for us!
Oh, and thanks, Louie, for all you do for us. May Our Lord, Jesus Christ, bless you this Easter and always.
The “Vatican II Church” is, in point of fact, the same, exact, visible Church that existed before Vatican II. By declaring the visible, hierarchical Church that Christ founded a false church, you – inevitably – must abandon either the visibility or indefectibility, and either way you go you have entered into material heresy. Sedevacantism is a solution that only works for those that don’t delve too deeply; it’s a solution to this crisis for the will, not the intellect.
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So, while we can certainly make practical distinctions regarding the Church’s human element (even Vatican prelates started using the phrase “conciliar Church” after the council), the Church didn’t magically transform into something other than what it was previously in its divine essence. It could not have.
Regarding Liberius, while there are some conflicting accounts, the lion’s share of the evidence is definitely that he sided with the Arians – see Cardinal Neumann’s work especially, which is probably the most thorough.
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Anyway, so – you picked the one example where there is some doubt as to fact? That does nothing for your case.
I will now present a little canned response to sedevacantism I’ve put together for this forum:
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Sedevacantism: A Bridge Too Far
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The dogmatic sedevacantist position is one that appears as a legitimate solution to this crisis in the Church (the worst in Her history) only to those who have not yet fully explored its ramifications and/or do not know her theology well enough. In point of fact, there are at least several “one-shot kills” of the position – simple facts that, in and of themselves, render it untenable and, even, impossible. We will explore a few of them here.
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Before we begin, there is something else to note: The dogma sedevacantist position actually encompasses the “recognize & resist” response to wayward prelates (which is what the Church really teaches, more or less) that they loathe, but simply takes it further – at least one bridge too far (and sometimes as many as 30 or so). Those who recognize prelates the Church has validly elected (as the Church and even common sense require, in the end), but decline to accept their non-binding, non-infallible teachings (again, as the Church commands) use their intellects and actual, binding Church teaching to determine what is congruent with that teaching and what is not – just as God and the Church have always required. Sedevacantists do the same, but then, continue where they have no logical or lawful right to go, declaring that a pope the Church has elected is not really a pope because the individual determines he is a heretic either before or after his election. So, when the sede disparages the position that the popes and theologians have aspired, to recognize but resist prelates with false (but non-binding) teachings, they condemn their own position as well, essentially.
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Concerning that critical determination of heresy, it is here where the dogmatic sedes first go wrong – and these errors in premise result in large errors in conclusion. The fact (as has been thoroughly demonstrated by Robert Siscoe over the past few years, causing sede leaders to (futiliy) change their positions, etc.) is that there is no theologian in the history of the Church who ever sanctioned in any sense what the sedes do: Make the critical determination of formal heresy a matter of private judgment. Bellarmine, the sedes’ go-to theologian, was explicit in the fact that the determination of formal heresy is something that belongs to *the Church*: the Church must, at the least, issue two formal warnings to an erring pontiff before it declares him *to have judged himself* (since he can be judged by no man).
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So, the basic tenet of dogmatic sedevacantism – that men canonically elected pope are actually *not*, and that an individual can determine this for himself and then insist upon it as a *public fact* that mus be accepted by all – can be proven false rather simply and from several different angles. Here are a few:
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1) The Fourth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, Canon 10: The Church directly and formally considered the question of whether or not the faithful can formally separate from any prelate sans judgment by the Church, and the answer was no. Sedevacantists live materially under the anathema the council declared:
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“… this holy and universal synod justly and fittingly declares and lays down that no lay person or monk or cleric should separate himself from communion with his own patriarch before a careful enquiry and judgment in synod, even if he alleges that he knows of some crime perpetrated by his patriarch, and he must not refuse to include his patriarch’s name during the divine mysteries or offices.”
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Fr. Cekada, in a perfect display of what sedevacantism is really about, objects that this canon that says one can’t depose prelates doesn’t apply to the prelates he wants to separate from because he’s declaring them deposed. It comes back to his judgement, which he insists must be regarded as factual and accepted with ecclesiastical (if not divine) faith, regardless of any “careful enquiry and judgment in synod”.
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So, already, we can say sedevacantism is false: QED.
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2) The Church’s public acceptance of a supreme pontiff is itself proof of his validity; the theologians agree that it is a dogmatic fact. I.e., if we didn’t know if we ever had a pope we wouldn’t know ANYTHING: We wouldn’t know the dogmas he’d proclaimed (directly or via ratification of an ecumenical council’s teachigs) were true or not. Thus, the Holy Ghost would not allow, could not allow the visible Church to accept a pope as such if he were not. Anarchy (such as the anarchy of sedevacantism) would be the result if the Church did not have certainty in the validity of a papal election: Not only would no one ever know if we had a pope or not at the present time, no one could ever have even moral certainty in the validity of past popes, and thus no one could grant even ecclesiastical faith to *any* of the Church’s dogmas (since the validity of the promulgating pontiff would not be morally certain). (And we do have sedevacantist leaders extent who have declared invalid popes that reigned centuries ago that the Church has always recognized as valid pontiffs, so this not some kind of theoretical red herring.)
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(Note that the exceptions such as the Western Schism do not undo this rule: In such cases there obviously was *not* universal acceptance of the pontiff.)
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3) The Visibility of the Church: The Church’s visibility is one of her three attributes – necessary qualities that follow directly from her nature – and sedevacantism leads directly to a denial of it (or her indefectibility, which is an even more serious breach of Catholic doctrine).
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This visibility has both material and formal aspects: Materially, people can identify the Church by her visible members & hierarchy and also (the important, formal part) know that this is the Catholic Church, by her Marks. For God to command that souls enter this Church (as He does) as the Ark of Salvation, it must be formally visible. As Christ’s incarnate, physical Body was visible, so is that of His Church. (And as He is composed of two natures, divine and human, so is the Church – one can err, one cannot.)
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The notion of an invisible Church (with visible members) was, of course, one of the primary errors/denials of the early “Reformers”, and that is exactly where sedevacantists have pitched their tent today – as with the Protestants, it is essentially a necessary consequence of their position. Sede leaders have advanced models of the Church that are identical to the Protestant definition. But the Church cannot be invisible; it cannot be hidden; it cannot be some visible entity other than what it was in the past. Any of these things destroy the Church’s teachings regarding her visibility. Sedevacantism tosses this to the wind with their talk of the “false church of Vatican II”. If this Church is now false, where, now, is the Catholic Church? Clearly they cannot point to any specific Church that has her four Marks and necessary attributes.
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(Somewhat related to visibility is the mark of universality (catholicity). Theologians have discussed two two aspects of catholicity: right & fact. The former of these means that the Church always had the aptitude to spread throughout the world, and the latter that it did, in fact, do so. Van Noort, among others, notes that once the Church became universal in fact (spread to many nations) this characteristic became a permanent, necessary quality of it. Thus, once the Church (visible as she always has been and will be) became spread broadly among many nations, this so-called moral universality became a permanent property. The Church is now formally visible throughout virtually the entire world, perpetually – everyone (generally speaking) knows of the Catholic Church. It can never be the case that the Church that was once so broadly visible can cease to be visible, formally, anywhere. It will also never be reduced to a number or size that lacks moral universality – a *tiny* remnant.)
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I think there are more one-shot killers such as these but that will suffice.
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I think we can say it’s intuitively obvious that the Church just can’t work the way the sedes assert. If personal heresy (judged authoritatively by a third-party individual) were enough to deprive a pope of his ecclesiastical office (or prevent him from obtaining it), no Catholic at any time in history would know if we had a pope or not and thus no Catholic in the world at any time or place could have ecclesiastical faith in anything the Church has ever taught as definitive. This point is intentionally reiterated for effect.
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God hasn’t given us a Church, perpetual, indefectible, and immaculate, the infallible Ark of Salvation, so ridiculously fragile and subject to individual whim as they imagine. It can’t have been meant to work that way and it does not work that way. Realizing how terrible this crisis of modernism is, seeing the Church bruised and bloodied, is indeed impetus for *exploring* notion such that the pontiffs who have ruled over this ruin were and are not truly popes. However, it simply is not possible to conclude so without embracing not only logical absurdities but material heresy as well.
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So, concluding that sedevacantism just doesn’t work, what’s a Catholic to do when faced with Popes who at least seem to undermine Catholic doctrine in their statements and practices, and even foist (but not authoratively) a new Rite of Mass upon the entire Roman Church designed to subjugate Catholic dogma so as to appeal to heretics? Fortunately, the answer to that query is essentially provided by the theologians and popes of old. The below is nothing but the barest of bare treatises of the subject.
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Sedevacantists like the papal bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio because they think it justifies their position. However, Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio speaks of *valid popes*: “the Roman Pontiff… who may judge all and be judged by none in this world, may nonetheless be contradicted if he be found to have deviated from the faith”. Here we have a veritable R&R proof-text, don’t we? We have a Supreme Pontiff telling us in a papal bull no less that the faithful should, indeed, “contradict” (resist) a pope who has “deviated from the faith”. Implicit in the statement is the notion that human beings must be willing to use their intellects to determine what is congruent with the defined, infallible Faith and what is not. He is to be resisted, but certainly there no justification for declaring him deposed.
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St. Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church: “We must point out, besides, that the faithful can certainly distinguish a true prophet (teacher) from a false one, by the rule that we have laid down, but for all that, if the pastor is a bishop, they cannot depose him and put another in his place [recognize]. For Our Lord and the Apostles only lay down that false prophets are not to be listened to by the people [resist], and not that they depose them [recognize]. And it is certain that the practice of the Church has always been that heretical bishops be deposed by bishop’s councils, or by the Sovereign Pontiff” (from De Membris Ecclesiae, as quoted in True Or False Pope, pp 645-646; bracketed portions are from True of False Pope). So, the sedes’ go-to theologian tells us that false prophets are “not to be listened to” *and* specifically that they “not depose him”.
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Pope Adrian II: “It is true that Honorius was posthumumously anathematised by the Eastern churches, but it must be borne in mind that he had been accused of heresy, *the only offense which renders lawful the resistance of subordinates to their superiors, and their rejection of the latter’s pernicious teachings*” (Cited by Billot, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, as quoted in True or False Pope, pp 647, emphasis mine).
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The canon Si Papa, part of canon law for around eight centuries, says this: “Let no mortal man presume to accuse the Pope of fault, for, it being incumbent upon him to judge all, he should be judged by no one, unless he is suddenly caught deviating from the faith.” (This quote is sometimes attributed directly to Pope Innocent III; it is likely not his, but clearly reflects not just theological opinion but Church law. It is also used by sedevacantists themselves to justify individuals’ formal separation from/deposition of a pontiff, but it clearly justifies no such thing.)
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Of course, there are many more such quotations, from theologians including Aquinas, that could be brought to bear.
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These teachings of the theologians and papal Magisterium are congruent with what the Magisterium teaching about itself, in that it is the Deposit of Faith that is the primary rule of faith, with the Magisterium secondary. The secondary Rule cannot contradict the primary without losing its essense and validity. Aquinas: “We believe the successors of the apostles only in so far as they tell us those things which the apostles and prophets have left in their writings” (De Veritate, as quotes in True or False Pope, pp 648). Aquinas points out that it is the virtue of Faith that allows Catholics to sense error – Catholics have the blessing of the Church as Mother and Teacher, but, especially in abnormal times, no Catholic can leave himself without the benefit of both his intellect and the enlightenment of the Holy Ghost.
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This post is intended to be as brief, given the venue. I recognize that references are not provided consistently. If you’d like to challenge any particular point, please go ahead, and I will respond with more detail and references.
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Finally, for a thorough demonstration on how the leaders of the sedevacantist movement have completely and absolutely failed to meaningfully engage, much less refute, Salza & Siscoe’s new work, have a look here:
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http://www.trueorfalsepope.com/p/sedevacantist-watch.html
Cortez, it’s great to have you here. And, I must say, if you’re new to tradition, you’re a quick study; I myself had a much harder time getting my head around the SSPX. It took a few years.
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God bless.
A Catholic Thinker,
Servant of Our Lady is my sibling and has charitably and patiently been showing me Truth. God has blessed me for sure. Thanks Servant of Our Lady for persevering in Truth!
You accept the fact that the Catholic Church can promote false teaching that, if followed, to the letter, will result in damnation. I reject that impossible possibility.
Regarding Liberius, again, get your facts straight. The lion’s share of the evidence is NOT in your favor…it is simply an excuse for the vatican 2 “popes”. The “letters” in question were forgeries and NOWHERE does St. Athanasius ever in his writings allude to the fact that he was ex-communicated. If St Bellarmine didnt determine that Liberius was a heretic I have no idea what you are wasting your time for.
I can copy and paste volumes refuting siscoe and salza….as you know I can. I wont though as this is not the site to do that. At the end of the day the difference between you and I is that you believe the Church in Her Ordinary Magisterium is capable of teaching error, and I do not. This comes from the false idea, on your part, that universal Church teaching, such as the declarations of vat 2, need to be declared infallible for them to be binding…which of course is wrong. When the Magisterium sets forth universal teaching then you HAVE to obey. If you dont then you are in schism. I disobey all of vatican 2, and know full well that I am not a schismatic, because the entire vatican 2 religion is strictly opposed to Catholicism. That is, after all, what this good blog is about.
My friend, the Church has never stopped being clearly visible to me. The vatican 2 church is filth and has always been filth just like any other heretical or apostate religion. The TRUE Catholic Church though, even though its very unpopular and very much rejected by even those who call themselves Catholic, is still very visible to me.
Cortez. Like you I thank God for the likes of A Catholic Thinker whose profound insight and erudition are like pools of living water to guide us when our shepherds don’t. But until Our Blessed Lord puts an end of this nonsense, then we should offer all of our sufferings up to the Immaculate Heart of Mary where treasure can be stored for us in heaven. We should understand that we are people of the Cross here on earth, not the Easter people of post VII, and we should join our sufferings to those of our Lord in heaven. As I struggle here in this vale of tears, it is through prayer, availing myself of the sacraments, and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament that see me through; and I am no saint!
“You accept the fact that the Catholic Church can promote false teaching that, if followed, to the letter, will result in damnation. I reject that impossible possibility.”
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Ah, sorry, Rich, but throwing out straw men isn’t going to fool anyone who understands Church teaching. You commit the gross sede error of failing to make virtually any distinction whatsoever between binding and non-binding teaching. And that’s just ridiculous.
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Books can & have been written on this topic, but for now I’ll just refer the reader here to this little piece:
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http://www.acatholicthinker.net/a-response-to-novus-ordo-watch/
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Have a look at what the Church really teaches.
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Liberius is a red herring that, regarding which even if you were complete correct would not do anything for the sede case. However, you are not correct. There are testimonies from four distinct, indepedent sources that Liberius either or both excommunicated Athanasius and subscribed to a bastardized Arian formula of the Godhead: St. Athanasius, Doctor of the Church, St. Hilary, St. Jerome, and Sozomen. Again, see Cardinal Newman, “Arians of the Fourth Century”, the Catholic Dictionary (Addis & Arnold), and other sources. What is your source?
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“My friend, the Church has never stopped being clearly visible to me.”
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What is this visible Church you refer to that has the Four Marks of the Catholic Church? It is a plain fact that none exists which even the sedevacantist leaders acknowledge. Your response was nothing more than a sophistic feint. The reader here will recognize that.
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In order to BE the Catholic Church the non-existent visible Church you cite would have to have been that very same One, Holy, Apostolic, *Universal* Church throughout time & space. So, work on your response to this query and we’ll see how it fares.
Hi Rich,
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I didn’t copy & paste anything – I wrote this, though to be sure “True or False Pope”, a magnificent and truly groundbreaking work, was my primary source.
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As for your copy & paste threat, such is the stuff of sophistry, not scholarship – but that is what dogmatic sedevacantism is ultimately composed of. We knew that.
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Your reference to the “Ordinary Magisterium” reveals another source of sede errors, but you actually got the name wrong: It’s “Ordinary And Universal Magisterium”, and, by its very definition, cannot contradict Tradition. The OUM consists is what has been taught “always and everywhere” and novelties need not apply – they are excluded ipso facto.
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“This comes from the false idea, on your part, that universal Church teaching, such as the declarations of vat 2, need to be declared infallible for them to be binding…which of course is wrong.”
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Rich, you need to expand your reading circle beyond sedevacantist circles because your comments, again, reveal a gross oversimplication of actual Catholic teaching and this is, again, the stuff dogmatic sedevacantism is made of.
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Here is a bit of what the Church teaches regarding what is *binding* and what is not – what levels of assent are required to various types of teaching:
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“The level of assent required is proportional to the intention to bind, the subject matter (is it faith & morals, the only subjects of Catholic doctrine?), and the type of language employed (an unclear proposition leaves nothing to assent to).
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As quoted in Michael Davies’ Pope John’s Council, Dom Paul Nau. O.S.B., “cites a number of authors regarding the attitude Catholics should have towards statements of the Ordinary Magisterium: ‘…that of inward assent, not as of faith, but as of prudence, the refusal of which could not escape the mark of temerity, unless the doctrine rejected was an actual novelty of involved a manifest discordance between the pontifical affirmation and the doctrine which had hitherto been taught.'”
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So, we see here the nature of the valid exceptions to giving assent.
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No less an authority than Dr. Ludwig Ott (author of the seminal work Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma) notes that, “The ordinary and usual form of papal teaching activitiy is not infallible. Further, the decisions of the Roman Congregations (Holy Office, Bible Commission) are not infallible. Nevertheless, normally they are to be accepted with an inner assert which is based on the high supernatural authority of the Holy See (assensus internus supernaturalis, assensus religiosus). The so-called silentium obsequiosum, that is ‘reverent silence’, does not generally suffice. By way of exception the obligation of inner agreement may cease if a competent expert, after a renewed scientific investigation of all grounds, arrives with a positive conviction that the decision rests on an error.”
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Though sedevacantists deny it was a valid ecumenical council, let’s take a look at a statement from Vatican Council II’s Secretary of the Council, Archbishop Pericle Felici; this is taken from a theological note appended to the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: “In view of the conciliar practice and the pastoral purpose of the present Council, this sacred Synod defines matters of faith and morals as binding on the Church only when the Synod openly declares so. Other matters which the sacred Synod proposes as the doctrine of the supreme teaching authority of the Church, each and every member of the faithful is oblige to accept and embraceaccording to the mind of the sacred Synod itself, which becomes known either from the subject matter or from the language employed, according to the norms of theological interpretation.”
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So, although of course it is not true to say that only infallible teachings require assent, the level and type of assent owed varies with non-infallible statements. Furthermore, it may absolutely be the case that a Catholic is not able to give assent that he recognizes is not compatible with defined Catholic teaching, lest the principle of non-contradiction be violated. (Such is not an example of Protestant-type “private judgement”, because the individual is not defining doctrine but deciding what lies in accord with defined doctrine, which the Church Herself requires.)”
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What is your theological source for the startling assertion that (apparently) every single thing in every single document of Vatican II is “binding”? In fact, no Catholic theologian or pope or other reputable source ever taught that with regard to Vatican II or *any other ecumenical Council* for that matter.
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http://www.acatholicthinker.net/a-response-to-novus-ordo-watch/
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“When the Magisterium sets forth universal teaching then you HAVE to obey. If you dont then you are in schism. I disobey all of vatican 2, and know full well that I am not a schismatic, because the entire vatican 2 religion is strictly opposed to Catholicism.”
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First, check your definition of schism: The actual, Catholic definition has to do with refusing (formal) submission to the Roman Pontiff.
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Second, and more importantly, Vatican II taught a grand total of zero new doctrines – of any source – and absolutely nothing *new* that is binding upon the faithful.
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Heck, the promulgating Pope told us that himself!
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And – heck again – none of its vague, wishy-washy new stuff is even *precise* enough to be binding!
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Ok, it’s a thin line in some respects, but you’re on the wrong side of it.
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“That is, after all, what this good blog is about.”
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The blog is not and has never been about sedevacantism. In fact, Louie has spent time refuting the sedevacantist error here. Perhaps you should take a look at the archives.
Oh – I should have mentioned that though I’ve no doubt you could copy & paste volumes of text, what you can’t do is actually refute these simple arguments.
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This isn’t about doing battle with quantity of words – not for people after the truth, anyway – but about who’s right.
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Sedevacantism is false. It doesn’t work. It leads to logical absurdities, contradiction of Catholic teaching, and has been specifically condemned by the Church.
Amen.
Well summed up.
Pauldale, you’re right suffering is a good thing even though I’m terrible at it. Thanks for introducing me to Marie Julie Jahenna. I’m wondering if all she said was approved by the church. As for the Blessed Mother-forget about it I LOVE her!!! I cling to her hem. She’s our only hope. I thank her Son for sending her to us- the weak, the proud, the stupid.
“I will place the discussion at the doctrinal level: “Do you agree with the great encyclicals of all the popes who preceded you? Do you agree with Quanta Cura of Pius IX, Immortale Dei and Libertas of Leo XIII, Pascendi Gregis of Pius X, Quas Primas of Pius XI, Humani Generis of Pius XII? Are you in full communion with these Popes and their teachings? Do you still accept the entire Anti-Modernist Oath? Are you in favor of the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ? If you do not accept the doctrine of your predecessors, it is useless to talk! As long as you do not accept the correction of the Council, in consideration of the doctrine of these Popes, your predecessors, no dialogue is possible. It is useless.” – Archbishop Lefebvre, Fideliter, November/December 1988
THIS was Abp Lefebvre’s position. He made no noises about “needing” connection with the heresy represented by conciliar Rome – quite the contrary. And if Bp Fellay observed the ground rules laid out by his spiritual father, he would never have started up with these discussions, which have riven asunder the fraternal bonds among so many good SSPX priests. This is a tragedy and a great betrayal on the part of Bp Fellay, whose cynical acts of aggression against any voice of dissent should have been enlightening to all people who love the one true faith.
An excellent refutation. Good job mate!
The above posted comment was meant for “A Catholic Thinker” regarding his remarks to “Rich”.
It would really be great if there was some way to edit these blinkin’ posts.