For those who have yet to do so, I highly recommend watching the interview (available at the end of this post) of Bishop Pierre Roy on Catholic Family Podcast.
Getting right to the point, while the long-held attitude among most so-called “traditionalists” and sedevacantists seems to be that the present ecclesial crisis can only be solved by divine intervention, Bishop Roy strongly advocates for concrete steps to be taken to proactively seek a remedy.
Full disclosure, I’m among the former, or at least I was for a number of years, but no more.
Perhaps something like this has happened to you as well in some other situation:
Someone floats an idea that cuts against the consensus opinion, a notion that is so well-grounded in basic truth that, upon hearing it, you’re genuinely astonished that you hadn’t really given it due consideration previously.
That was my immediate reaction upon hearing Bishop Roy discuss the urgent need for the Church to act, beyond simply praying (which remains indispensable), in order to rectify the terrible situation in which we find ourselves.
At its most basic, the idea is this:
Despite all of the division and disagreement that exists between the various sedevacantist groups, one thing that all of us accept as true is that the Church possesses within herself, and will continue to possess until the end of time, all of the means necessary to obtain a true pope, one who is able to exercise supreme jurisdiction over the Universal Church, in the name of Christ, for the good of souls.
Those who hold the Thesis will argue that not only does the Church possess these means, they have been employed in 1963, 1978, 2005, 2013, and 2025! Unfortunately, the men designated in these conclaves to be pope, by a defect of intent that runs counter to the duty to teach the true faith, haven’t validly consented to accept the Office, and thus it is that they have taken only material possession of the papal office, not formal possession.
The best we can do, therefore, is to pray for their (in the present case, Leo’s) conversion.
These good people mean well, no doubt, but this scenario seems to render the Church paralyzed, stuck in an apparently endless cycle whereby cardinals – men who collectively do NOT hold the Catholic faith – occasionally assemble in conclave to elect a man from among their own ranks for the express purpose of continuing the conciliar revolution, one that created what Bishop Sanborn rightly describes as “a whole new religion, different from the Catholic religion.”
At this, let’s consider what is at stake. Writing in Mystici Corporis, Pope Pius XII teaches:
The person of Jesus Christ is represented by the Supreme Pontiff, who in turn must call on others to share much of his solicitude lest he be overwhelmed by the burden of his pastoral office … Moreover as our Savior does not rule the Church directly in a visible manner, He wills to be helped by the members of His Body in carrying out the work of redemption. (MC 44)
So, if the Thesis is correct, then one would be forced to conclude that the work of redemption has effectively been placed on hold, or at the very least severely hampered, for six decades running, and, worse, it will remain so until such time as Leo (or a future product of yet another faithless conclave) decides to abandon the “whole new” conciliar religion in favor of the Catholic faith.
It’s very difficult to imagine that the Church Militant has been reduced in this way to what we might more properly call the Church Paralytic, effectively held hostage by the “pope designate” until he alone decides to release her from bondage.
Writing in the Apostolic Constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (On the Vacancy of the Apostolic See, 1945), Pope Pius XII addressed the consent of the man elected to the Petrine Office, at which point he acquires supreme jurisdiction over the Church (that is, formal possession of the papacy) stating:
This consent having been given within a term, to be determined by the prudent judgment of the Cardinals by a greater number of votes, the true Pope is immediately elected, and in fact he acquires and can exercise full and absolute jurisdiction over the whole world.
What seems rather clear is that the “pope elect” (if you will) is not granted an indefinite amount of time to either validly consent to the papacy or not. Contrast this with the suggestion that Montini, Wojtyla, Ratzinger, Bergoglio, and now, Prevost have collectively been granted a term of more than six decades to give the consent necessary to ascend to the papacy! It is difficult, if not impossible, to fathom that this is the case.
All of that said, as our friends (and even our foes) in the Resist-the-Pope movement understand as well, the present crisis is a crisis of the papacy, and it is one that bears directly on how well, or not, the fruits of redemption are made available to the men of this age unto salvation.
Pope Pius XII, once again writing in Mystici Corporis, continued:
When those graces [of redemption] come to be distributed, not only does He share this work of sanctification with His Church, but He wills that in some way it be due to her action.” (cf Mystici Corporis, 44)
This is true with respect to choosing the Successors of St. Peter:
Christ ordained that St. Peter should have successors in his primacy of jurisdiction over the Church, but He did not designate the person of the successor. It is left to the Church to elect, or otherwise designate, the person who then obtains the power of universal jurisdiction by virtue of divine institution, i.e., immediately from Christ, not from those who have elected him. (Fr. E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise)
It is left to the Church…
As Bishop Roy sees it, and correctly so in my opinion, sitting back and waiting for another seventy years in the hope of divine intervention is not just a bad idea, it’s an abdication of duty, i.e., our sacred pastors are not just able by the will of Christ to do what is needed to provide the Church with a true Roman Pontiff, they are obligated to do so.
It is with this in mind that Bishop Roy, along with six other bishops and thirty-three priests (to date) are dedicated to laying the groundwork for an imperfect general council to explore what can be done, exactly how, and by whom. Before such a council can take place, however, a great deal of preliminary work must be done – including meetings among bishops, priests, theologians and others – to address a number of fundamental questions.
Of course, there are those who will immediately reject the very notion, but according to Bishop Roy’s vision, even they are invited to bring their dissenting voices and insights to the table.
At this, in addition to recommending that you watch the interview below, I encourage you to visit the website that has been created for this effort under the name Unam Sanctam. There you will find all of the details necessary to understand what this effort entails and why it is so important. You may also add your name to an Open Letter to bishops and other clergy stating the same.