-----------Special Feature------------            Opposing the         Sedevacantist           Enterprise       by Christopher A. Ferrara

Published with the generous permission of Catholic Family News.



Part 4 -------Conclusion
Attempts to Avoid Absurdity

I will begin this final installment of my series in CFN by recalling the fundamental absurdity of the sedevacantist hypothesis-----absurd because it blatantly contradicts the promises of Christ concerning the indefectibility of His Church and the infallible teaching of the First Vatican Council on the perpetuity of successors to Peter. The sedevacantist hypothesis is that all of the Popes since 1958 and all of the bishops and priests who adhere to those Popes-----that is, virtually the entire hierarchy of the Church-----are formal heretics who fell from office, and that only a handful of bickering sedevacantists have noticed the disappearance of the Pope and the hierarchy nearly half a century ago.

In fact, the sedevacantist hypothesis was not advanced until 1973 when a lone Mexican priest first published on the matter. It was not until 1976 that Father Noel Barbara took up the idea in his own published works. ⁸⁰ This means that for some 8 to 11 years after Vatican II, no one noticed that the Pope and virtually all the bishops had fallen from office on account of embracing the "heresies of Vatican II."

This hypothesis is absolutely incompatible with the Divine institution of the Church as a visible society of Pope, bishops, priests and lay faithful that will endure until the end of time. The faith itself demands an explanation other than the sedevacantist one for the current, undeniably profound, crisis in the Church. Sister Lucy's phrase "diabolical disorientation" suggests the real cause of the crisis, and in no way did she mean by this a nearly universal loss of ecclesiastical office from the Pope on down. On the contrary, she called upon us to pray for the Holy Father, not to cast him into outer darkness as a "manifest heretic" based on the private opinions of random members of the Church. Sister Lucy also urged the faithful to pray for "those who hold high responsibility" ⁸¹ in the Church, which can only mean that she viewed the objects of this prayer as the holders of ecclesiastical office, rather than self-deposed "manifest heretics".

The sedevacantists have advanced a number of secondary arguments in an effort to make their absurd hypothesis seem reasonable. I will conclude this series by examining some of them.

The "Warm Body" Thesis

Even some sedevacantists recognize the absurdity of the "rigorist sedevacantist" position. They insist, with us, that a determination of papal heresy is not possible for isolated members of the faithful in present-day circumstances, as the Pope cannot be administered such canonical warnings as would be necessary to establish the pertinacity of his alleged heresy. ⁸² But, seeing that the idea of a vanishing Pope and hierarchy cannot be reconciled with the promises of Christ, this sedevacantist faction advances the so-called Cassiciacum thesis. ⁸³

According to this thesis, the last five Popes were indeed validly elected "material" Popes in the sense they are not subject to juridical deposition by random members of the Church, yet (due to their "heresy") they are not "formal" Popes who actually exercise their office. The same is true of the bishops and cardinals since the Council. God has deprived these "material" (and heretical) hierarchs of all "authority, jurisdiction and assistance." ⁸⁴ They serve only as warm bodies, maintaining the outward appearance of a visible Church. Advocates of the thesis think that these warm bodies without authority or jurisdiction are sufficient to preserve the Church's visibility and thus her indefectibility. ⁸⁵ They argue that the warm bodies possess the "matter" of their offices, in that they were appointed to them by apparently regular processes (including papal conclaves), but not the "form," which is the Divine grant of authority and jurisdiction. But this makes no more sense than arguing that the unconsecrated host and wine are "material Holy Communion." Without the consecration of the species, there is no Holy Communion at all, because God has not transubstantiated them. Likewise, without a Divine grant of authority and jurisdiction there would be no hierarchy at all, as God would not recognize it.

Putting aside for the sake of brevity the various rabbinical subtleties of this thesis, in essence it likens the Pope and hierarchy to "a comatose body bereft of any authority," ⁸⁶ but which will form the human substrate, as it were, for a return of authority to the Church. So, "material" conclaves with no authority, composed of "material" cardinals with no authority, will go on electing "material Popes" with no authority "until a future material Pope will remove the obstacle (obex) which currently prevents the holder of that office from receiving the charisms and authority of the papacy, or when he will finally manifest the objective intention to act for the good of the Church." ⁸⁷

And how will we know when this happens? Apparently, we will know when the sedevacantists have verified the lifting of the obex through their scrutiny of papal words and deeds, sounding an "all clear!" to their followers. So, ultimately, both "rigorist" and Cassiciacum sedevacantists reach the same operative conclusion: that there is no Pope and governing hierarchy until they determine otherwise. What, then, is the Cassiciacum thesis but a fig leaf to cover the naked absurdity of "rigorist" sedevacantism-----the use of one absurdity to hide the embarrassment of another?

By the way, some sedevacantists who hold to the Cassiciacum thesis maintain that it is not licit to receive the Sacraments from "rigorist" sedevacantists, and they have forbidden collaboration with the rigorists. ⁸⁸ Thus we see how sedevacantists even excommunicate each other, as private judgment devours its own.

My Kingdom for an "Ut"!

Now let us consider the sedevacantist argument that on account of the new rites of priestly ordination and episcopal consecration being "invalid," no priests have been ordained or bishops consecrated since 1968, so that virtually the entire hierarchy has disappeared along with the five successive heretical impostor Popes who approved these invalid rites. Here, the sedevacantists put the cart before the horse: unless they can show that the Pope who first enacted these new rites, Paul VI, was already an impostor at the time he enacted them, by the very infallibility they invoke the new rites must be valid.

That difficulty aside, we need spend only a few words on this fantastic claim. As Michael Davies has shown in The Order of Melchisedech, the matter and form of the rite of priestly ordination were not changed at all by Paul VI. The matter is the same: the laying on of hands. The form is likewise the same, except that Paul VI removed the conjunction "ut" (that) which was not in the traditional Leonine form, but rather had crept into the form probably due to a copyist error. ⁸⁹ As a result the "new" form reads: "may they hold from Thee, O God, the second rank in Thy service" instead of "that they may hold from Thee, O God, the second rank in Thy service . . ." Granted, the traditional prayers and ceremonies of the ordination rite were systematically revised or suppressed to be less offensive to Protestants, and this is absolutely deplorable, but the matter and form essential to validity were not affected. As Davies concludes, "The fact that the removal of ut restores the form to the version found in the Leonine Sacramentary places allegations of invalidity into the realm of the ridiculous." ⁹⁰

Equally ridiculous is the claim that the new rite of episcopal consecration is invalid. ⁹¹ Our sedevacantist parsers of rites have concluded that while the matter of the rite-----the laying on of hands by the consecrating bishop-----remains the same, the form has been changed so much that it no longer, in their opinion, expresses what is taking place in the act of consecration and thus fails to confer the power of the office of bishop.


As Pius XII declared in his apostolic constitution Sacramentum Oridinis, on the matter and form of the Sacrament of Orders, Our Lord Himself did not prescribe the form of priestly ordination or episcopal consecration, so that "the Church is able even to change and abrogate what she h as established." ⁹² Pius XII did not attribute an apostolic origin to the old form of episcopal consecration, which varies among the different rites of the Church.
 
Therefore, who gives a hoot what the sedevacantists think about the new rite of episcopal consecration? They have no competence whatever to examine the two forms and conclude that the new one "fails to signify" what the old one did. And, according to their own argument (that a true Pope cannot promulgate evil laws), unless they can prove that Paul VI was a heretical impostor even before he approved the new form-----the very thing they haven't proven-----then the form, having been approved by a true Pope, must be valid.

The "Interregnum" Argument

In another effort to mitigate the absurdity of their position-----the last I will consider here-----the sedevacantists argue that a succession of five heretical impostor Popes elected by conclaves, with no true Pope reigning anywhere since 1958, is not inconsistent with the indefectibility of the Church because this situation is nothing more than an "interregnum" between Popes. Abusing yet another theology text, the sedevacantists habitually cite the reflection of Edmund J. O'Reilly, S.J., a little-known 19th Century theologian, on the Great Western Schism:

"We may here stop to inquire what is to be said of the position, at that time, of the three claimants, and their rights with regard to the Papacy. In the first place, there was all through, from the death of Gregory XI in 1378, a Pope----- with the exception, of course, of the intervals between deaths and elections to fill up the vacancies thereby created. There was, I say, at every given time a Pope, really invested with the dignity of Vicar of Christ and Head of the Church, whatever opinions might exist among many as to his genuineness; not that an interregnum covering the whole period would have been impossible or inconsistent with the promises of Christ, for this is by no means manifest, but that, as a matter of fact, there was not such an interregnum."  ⁹³

Based on this out-of-context quotation, the sedevacantists argue that Fr. O'Reilly supports the view that five successive universally recognized anti-popes with no true Pope in opposition can be seen as a mere "interregnum." Nonsense. In context, Fr. O'Reilly was in no way discussing the sedevacantist hypothesis of successive heretical impostor anti-popes, but rather the possibility that the papal office could be vacant due to death of a Pope for a period as long as forty years.

Moreover, as Fr. O'Reilly explains, the Great Western Schism arose precisely because there was no universal acclamation of the ultimately determined true Pope following the conclaves in question, but rather rival Popes coming out of rival conclaves, with only one of them truly being invested with the papal office. Yet there never ceased to be a valid Pope at at! times; it was merely that the identity of the valid Pope was rendered uncertain by circumstances. I have no doubt, therefore, that Fr. O'Reilly would be the first to reject as absolutely ridiculous and inadmissible the present-day sedevacantist claim that the indefectibility of the Church is consistent with five Popes, universally recognized as such after election at conclaves, all being heretical impostors-----along with all the Cardinals who elected them and virtually every bishop in the Catholic Church, and with no means in sight for electing a valid successor of Peter.

It is interesting to note, however, that in passages from Fr. O'Reilly's book the sedevacantists never cite, he sustains the very point I made at the beginning of this essay: that should it happen that a Pope is suspect due to irregularities in his election or allegations of heresy, the only way the Church can verify the matter is by means of a general council that would ascertain the facts and confirm papal deposition for the whole Church. As Fr. O'Reilly rightly observes:

"[T]he Council of Constance was the means of putting an end to that terrible schism . . . A general council was the proper remedy, or rather the proper road to a remedy . . . If it should happen that there are one or more doubtful Popes, whose pretensions are an obstacle to the government of the Church by one universally recognized as Vicar of Christ on earth, a general council can set aside the obstacle (my emphasis). ⁹⁴

Hence the Council of Constance ended the Great Western Schism by obtaining the resignation of the anti-Pope John XXIII, rival anti-Pope Benedict XIII and the true Pope, Gregory XII, declaring the deposition of all three rival claimants to the papal throne and electing Pope Martin V as the next Pope. What else could the Church have done? As Catholic historian Eric John observed, the Council of Constance was "a desperate measure but the only remedy for such a confused situation." ⁹⁵

No theologian, however, including Fr. O'Reilly, lends support to the preposterous idea that any random member of the Church can determine papal "heresy" by his own lights and view any given Pope, or succession of Popes, along with virtually the entire hierarchy, as "deposed" on account of heresy. The Catholic Church does not work that way.

Conclusion

With that, I bring this series on the errors of sedevacantism to a close, and I thank CFN's loyal readers for bearing with me. Although much more could be said, I believe I have demonstrated beyond serious dispute that the sedevacantist hypothesis is no way to approach the crisis in the Church. While one can certainly understand how the unprecedented magnitude of the post-Conciliar upheaval has driven well-meaning members of the laity into the sedevacantist camp-----and for this, the Church's leadership must bear responsibility-----the theorists of the sedevacantist Enterprise are too intelligent not to know the insuperable difficulties with their position. The creation of the elaborate "material Pope" hypothesis is a testament to this knowledge. The leaders of sedevacantism are, I believe, proceeding at their peril, for they take upon themselves not only the responsibility for their own opinions, but also the effect those opinions have on the souls who are taken in by them.

I can only end this series with yet another reference to the example of Sister Lucy of Fatima, who knew intimately the details of the Third Secret with its prophecy of an unparalleled ecclesial crisis. That Sister Lucy was no sedevacantist, despite the knowledge she received from Heaven itself, is an unanswerable testament to the correct Catholic approach to our situation. It is, in fact, the approach of Our Lady of Fatima-----which is to say, the approach commanded by God Almighty.

Yet now we see the movers and shakers of sedevacantism distancing themselves from the Fatima Message, which they either ignore or rewrite into a prophecy that will not be fulfilled until the Second Coming. Our Lady, however, did not speak of the Second Coming. She spoke of the Triumph of Her Immaculate Heart and a period of peace for mankind before the Last Days, the appearance of Antichrist and the return of Our Lord. Heaven's plan, therefore, does not coincide with the claims of the sedevacantists. And so it seems that the sedevacantists, like the modernists, have become opponents of the authentic Message of Fatima. Surely any Catholic of good will can see that this development is a sign that sedevacantism is not of God, but rather is one of the many deceptions of the devil in this time of diabolical disorientation in the Church. Sedevacantism, like all the other novelties that have assailed us over the past forty years, fails the test of Fatima.

For the good of the Church and the welfare of souls, those who obstinately persist in building the sedevacantist "case," which has become for many almost a religion unto itself, ought to abandon their useless enterprise and devote their gifts to the cause of restoring the devastated vineyard rather than walking away from it-----a restoration that will begin in earnest when Russia is consecrated to the Immaculate Heart. This is what Our Lady of Fatima expects of us.

Notes:

80. Sedevacantism: A False Solution to a Real Problem (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 2003), pp. 7-8.
81. "Little Treatise of Sister Lucy about the Nature and Recitation of the Rosary" (Letters of 1970). Republished as Supplement to The Fatima
Crusader; 2005.
82. Sedevacantism: A False Solution to a Real Problem, pp. 14-15.
83. Bishop Sanborn defends this thesis, although not in a manner hostile to the "rigorist" sedevacantists, as do the European proponents of the thesis. See http://www.catholicrestoration .org/library/cassiciacum.html
84. Sedevacantism: A False Solution to a Real Problem, p. 11.
85. Ibid.
86. Ibid.
87. Ibid.
88. Francesco Ricossa, Risposta al libro, Petrus es tu?, pp. 12-13, 24, cited in Sedevacantism: A False Solution to a Real Problem, p. 13. Ricossa is a leader of the Cassiciacum faction.
89. Order of Melchisedech, Appendix XI.
90. Ibid., p. 238.
91. See "Why the New Rite of Consecration is Valid," Father Pierre-Marie, O.P., The Angelus, December,
2005.
92. DZ 2301.
93. Edmund J. O'Reilly, S.J., Relations of the Church to Society (London: John Hodges, 1892), p. 283.
94. Ibid., p. 286.
95. The Popes: A Concise Biographical History, Ed. Eric John (Harrison, NY: Roman Catholic Books, 1964), p. 289.

 

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