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For the sake of argument: what if someone heard that the same situation with +Thuc, happened with a valid Bishop from a heretical sect?

Would the situation be viewed the same way? It seems that the thing which ties people to +Thuc is the sedevacantism among his successors more than anything else, and the consequent unwillingness to seek +Lefebvre consecrated bishops for ordination, which would involve a renouncing of their opinions.

The following principles also may be helpful to read, outlined by Saint Francis de Sales in his chapter on "Rash Judgement", from Introduction to the Devout Life:

"To see or know a thing, is not to judge it; for judgement, at least according to the words of Scripture, presupposes some little or great, some true or apparent, difficulty which must be decided; wherefore Scripture says that they that believe not are already judged (John III, 18), because there is no doubt of their damnation. It is not therefore wrong to doubt our neighbour, no, for we are not forbidden to doubt, but to judge; nevertheless, we are not allowed either to doubt or to suspect others except just so far as the reasons and the evidence furnish grounds for doubting; otherwise the doubts and suspicions are rash."

A prudent doubt is sometimes all we need to make a moral decision, because no further verification is possible. Do any of us have the authority and means to properly judge this matter? Is it not prudent to suspend judgement and avoid for the time being, until the Church makes a clear decision?

I think it is clear that all Catholics here do not want to commit mortal sin. Telling others to avoid mortal sin will not help, because no one here has that as a goal. The precise opposite is true.

I am referring to a moral principle, and in my response was not addressing the facts concerning +Thuc's behaviour, but the attack on the approach Tom and others who agree with him, have on this issue. Reason comes before Canon law, and in fact, is the very means by which we apply Canon Law. In other words, the laws of the Church serve morality. It is not morality that serves the laws of the Church.

It is not difficult to ascertain from various sources, such as the facts recorded in the Memoriam of Fr. Guerard des Lauriers on Archbishop Thuc, and the testimony of Dr. Hiller and Dr. Heller as recorded in "The Sacred and the Profane" by Bishop Kelly, that there are legitimate suspicions surrounding his behaviour, and there is reason to suspect at the very least, that he did not know what he was doing.

This is not gossip, but testimonies from those who knew him personally. It is not detraction for another reason, the reason being that these claims are not unjustly associating him with personal faults, but are testimonies to his instability in decision-making; and the fact that he admitted to withholding intention when concelebrating the New Mass, and in the Palmar Consecrations, reveals his willingness to commit to actions externally, and not internally, at the same time.

The argument is not that there is sufficient reason to say with certitude that all of his consecrations were invalid, but that there is enough reason to avoid, and Catholic morality allows us to act according to just suspicions, when there is no other way of acquiring greater certitude. Please stop attacking a straw man.

In light of these facts, it is important to refer judgement on the matter to the decision of the Church in the future, because the Church would never allow the faithful to seek sacraments from such a person without examining the circuмstances first, surrounded as it is with reasonable doubts.

A negative doubt is based on nothing in reality; it is entirely concocted out of baseless fears. As Saint Francis de Sales taught above, a reasonable suspicion is based in reality, a reality that is enough for us to be cautious about.

An example of where this principle applies in Canon Law is in the case of marriage. If one has a reasonable doubt that one is not truly married to their spouse, the spouses are under an obligation to abstain from the use of marriage, but are not permitted to separate and marry other people if they wish to, until the question has been examined and decided by the Church.