Below is a lengthy (and hopefully for listeners, interesting) conversation that I had with Eric Gajewski of TradCatKnight Radio yesterday. I had a great time doing it and could have gone on for another hour at least.
Eric recently interviewed my friends Dr. Peter Chojnowski and Cornelia Ferreira as well. You can find those segments, which are fantastic, by searching the channel.
I’m sure u will get sum flack for the interview as Eric gajewski is “resistance “. A few Sedes might not be too happy but hey there’s a lot of traditional catholic “groups,types, etc” as things progress in these end times. Keep up the good work Louie !
Good end of interview advice…read long, read old.
Im a sedevacantist and have no problem. While I fundamentally disagree with the premise of the vatican 2 church and its “popes” being Catholic, I also see how far the “traditional” stance has moved towards my sedevacantist stance in the last three years. Sede’s and hardcore traditionalists are getting to the point where they are nearly indistinguishable from one another. The “are these guys actual popes” argument isnt going to be an argument much longer….jorge is seeing to that.
Trads all act the same in practice, regardless of what they think of the Pope. Everyone on this side simply ignores him and his post-conciliar predecessors, the Novus Ordo and Vatican II.
“Trads all act the same in practice…”
I’m sorry but this isn’t true. Some are inconsistent and go to Mass at the SSPX or SSPX-MC, which prays for Francis as Pope even though he isn’t. Some go to ‘unauthorized shepherds’, that is, sedevacantist priests who have no jurisdiction. The true and consistent position is that of Gerry Matatics, who is a sedevacantist and does not go to Mass anywhere.
http://www.gerrymatatics.org/shop/index.php?target=products&product_id=29823
Description from above link:
“During the crisis and confusion of these prophesied last days true Catholics must avoid, not only the counterfeit Catholicism of the “left” (the new religion of Vatican II) but also the equally counterfeit Catholicism of the “right,” represented by those who believe the current situation in the Church gives them carte blanche to become, by hook or by crook, priests and bishops — in defiance, not only of Church law, but even immutable divine law, which neither “epikeia,” a “state of emergency,” or “supplied jurisdiction” can successfully dispense the would-be priest or bishop from. Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, the Doctors of the Church, and the Magisterium all consistently teach that the Church’s clergy must always and necessarily possess a divine mission and authorization in order to legitimate, validate, and make salvifically efficacious their priestly activities. Since the clergy of such unauthorized groups as the SSPX, SSPV, CMRI et al, lack such a mission, these men are therefore NOT priests of the Christ’s one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church, but merely the priests of various man-made traditionalist sects. As such, they are off-limits to true Catholics, upon peril of our eternal salvation. Our most controversial CD ever! ”
It is vital to be consistent. You can’t just go to the SSPX because you like the service and singing.
I would acknowledge of course that it is dangerous to dance with the devil of the Vatican II religion. However, we must not forget that the souls of our lost and misguided brothers who have been blinded by the Modernist heresies are still important to God. Therefore I see it as our duty as traditional Catholics to refect the Vatican II religion.
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It is our job to retrieve the lost generations back to the truth. I am not at all confident that this can be done “within the system” and under the governing framework of the current Vatican II church, but I can’t discount those inside it who are trying, even if they are not perfect.
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We are at a point now that is worse than the Arian crisis ever was, where at least the laity still held to the old faith.
In listening to this interview I happened on another one entitled: James Perloff “Rothschild Israel Narrative & Zionist Endtime Deception”.
Having listened to the whole broadcast I’m left to conclude that Mr. TradCat is a through going nutter. Much of this stuff is pure rubbish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1t4tLxoC_M
Excuse me, the word is “thorough”.
Yes, acknowledging reality is “inconsistent.” “Not My President” & “Not My Pope” – the same illogic of emotion over reason.
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Sedevacantism Debunked In A Nutshell
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The dogmatic sedevacantist position is one that may appear as a legitimate solution to this crisis in the Church (the worst in Her history, it would seem), but only to those who have not yet fully explored its ramifications or do not know Her teaching 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 logically impossible and, actually, leading directly to material heresy. We will explore a few of them here, and then briefly explore the false basis of the sedevacantist position.
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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 – of course – 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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2) The Church teaches that the public acceptance by a moral unanimity of the Church of a supreme pontiff is itself proof of his validity; the theologians agree that this constitutes what is known as a “dogmatic fact,” which is a matter so closely related to a dogma that it must be infallibly true for the dogma to have meaning (that dogma in this case being essentially papal infallibility). It is a mortal sin against Faith to reject a dogmatic fact.
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What if Pius V had lost his office due to heresy, and his ratification of the Council of Trent was thus null? If Catholics could not rely on the dogmatic facts of papal acceptance, absolutely nothing in the Church would be certain! Would Christ have constructed such a house of cards?
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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 probably 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, formally, know the Catholic Church is the true 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 constant 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*. They know this and do not try; that is how they end up with the Protestent definition of the Church as merely a collection of visible members.
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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 formally visible.)
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We’ve got three separate, unrelated matters that each kill the sede hypothesis dead in one shot.
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Now that we have taken a look at some things that destroy the sedevacantist position before it gets out of the gate, we’ll look at the root of their errors.
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As we all know, the core tenet of sedevacantism is that the post-conciliar popes (as well as more than a few others some of them also condemn) either were never popes or lost their office due to heresy (the *sin* of heresy as opposed to the crime, they say, this being an important distinction).
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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 (as John Salza likes to say). The demonstrated fact (it’s been demonstrated very thoroughly by Salza & Siscoe) is that there is no theologian in the history of the Church who ever sanctioned what the sedes do: Making the critical determination of formal (obstinate) heresy a matter of private judgment.
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I’m going to include only one link in this little piece, and that’s this one: http://www.trueorfalsepope.com/p/whyfr.html
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Bellarmine has long been the sedevacantists’ “go-to theologian,” but he, like all the rest of them, clearly taught that *the Church* (not Fr. Cekada, Mario Derkson, John Lane, or any of the rest of them) must make a judgement of pertinacity in heresy for a pontiff to be separated from his office.
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(Bellarmine, the canon “Si Papa” which was Church law for eight centuries, and other theologians note that the crime of heresy is the one exception to the rule that “the First See can be judged by no one.”)
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There is more. Related to the determination of pertinacity, sedes all make a critical error in confusing the sin vs. the crime of heresy. They have long based their position on thesis that *sin* of heresy (which lives in the *internal* forum) results in the loss of ecclesiastic office, which is a matter of the *external* forum. In fact, neither the Church in any capacity nor any theologian has ever taught such a thing. God alone, of course, judges the internal forum, and nothing in the internal forum can possibly sever one from the *Body* of the Church (sedes typically make no distinction whatever between the Body and the Soul of the Church), which is where ecclesiastic office resides. (All the evidence for these assertions is in “True or False Pope,” and it is irrefutable.)
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As Bellarmine also said, to paraphrase, as the Church is directly involved in elevating a man to the papacy, so it must be involved in separating him from it, should that occur.
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Aquinas condemned the “judgement by usurpation” endemic to an individual claiming to have the power to depose a prelate from his office (in congruence with the Fourth Council of Constantinople referenced above).
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This has been a very high-level view of the fatal issues with sedevacantism, intended to be extremely succinct. Rest assured that for every objection raised, there is an answer, and they can pretty much all be found in “True Or False Pope.”
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God hasn’t given us a Church – perpetual, indefectible, and immaculate, the infallible Ark of Salvation – yet so ridiculously fragile and subject to individual whim as the sede thesis claims. 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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One can see that some of these things can’t really be explained in sound bytes; it seems that sedes do tend to like things simple. They throw out Fr. Cekada’s syllogism again & again without realizing it is full of oversimplifications and other errors. Sorry, but we can’t demand a Theology of Bumper Stickers.
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But, actually, this IS simple – look above. Sedevacantism quickly leads to logical nonsense, contradicts de fide teachings of the Church, and, according to the theologians, entails anathema or mortal sin in at least two areas (formal separation from a prelate without judgement from the Church, and rejection of the dogmatic fact of a pontiff’s election & reign).
Eric is an odd “bird”. He believes he is the Great Monarch. I have no idea if he is or is not, but his theology is solid.
Christ is the Head of His Church. That is all we need to focus on. He has revealed Himself and cannot change. The Catholic Church or the body of those who are faithful to Christ, even unto death, cannot be torn asunder by anything man or the demons do. God will deal justly with every individual and all we need do is submit our will to His will in all we do, praise Him, glorify Him, and turn away from sin and all occasions for us to sin.
Thank you for the link. Both speakers present a very plausible and compelling view of world events. What specifically in the interview with James Perloff do you think qualifies as “pure rubbish?” One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Give me a break, A ‘Catholic’ Thinker. Siscoe & Salza’s crap has been refuted by “Fr.” Kramer, Fr. Cekada, & by the folks over at suscipedomine.com. I’m not going to waste my time arguing with you. Francis is a clear heretic, and heretics are outside the Church. It’s that simple.
Hi Michael,
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It’s of no interest to me if you reply or not, as I debate for the audience.
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Fr. Kramer has refused to challenges from Salza: For public debate and for review of their positions by an independent theologian. This should tell you a thing or two regarding his confidence in his own screed. He also has no understanding of the positions he thinks he’s refuting, and has adopted all the standard sede arguments without admitting he’s now a sede.
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Fr. Cekada has been routed thoroughly, for those with ears to hear interested in truth. All can be found at trueorfalsepope.
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http://www.trueorfalsepope.com/p/the-kramer-files.html
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Concerning your preposterous oversimplification of Church teaching, the Church actually teaches that the *sin* of heresy has nothing at all to do with ecclesiastical office. The crime of heresy can deprive of public office, and that is decided by the Church, not you.
For those who pine for the return of Benedict XVI, it is delusional to believe he was not instrumental in creating the crisis and confusion in the Church. His philosophy and theology already poisoned the thinking of virtually all members of the hierarchy. A “Chardinian”, spiritual “evolutionist” who denies original sin, Hell, substantial “being”, and so many other heresies.
“The Lord hateth all abomination of error, and they that fear him shall not love it.” (Ecc: 15:13)
See a thorough expose on him by James Larson at his blog “The War Against Being”. You will be shocked and saddened but it is important to know that, as he points out: “Francis is not simply “some sort of singular aberration, and to hunger for a return to what is thought to have been the relative Catholic ‘sanity’ of a papacy such as that of Pope Benedict XVI. As a consequence of this position, it is also a prevalent attitude that it is now just a matter of ‘getting beyond’ Francis in order for things to return to some sort of normal.”
http://www.waragainstbeing.com/
It should probably be noted that Mr. TradCatKnight, Eric Gajewski, believes he is the Catholic “Great Monarch” of the end times, and, furthermore, is a complete fraud who has been caught red-handed buying his “followers” and page views:
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http://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-great-monarch-caught-redhanded.html