.
Every answer to the crisis has this same problem, though. Recognize-and-resist people do not treat their bishops or popes as if they had jurisdiction. Theoretically the indult does do this, but they have other problems besides that.
Sedevacantists are really the only group to admit that there isn't authority functioning in the Church the way it normally does.
What I mean is that R&R groups operate without the permission of the local bishop; they reject liturgical norms approved by what they call the Church; they reject many of its laws; they do not accept all its teachings or canonizations. They operate in practice as if the new church had no jurisdiction, which is the same as saying it doesn't have any jurisdiction.
Right. R&R claim SVs say there's no legitimate hierarchical authority with Ordinary Jurisdiction, but then what kind of "authority" do R&R grant this putatively legitimate hierarchy? Just the ability to opine with a certain solemnity? They call their opinion an "Encyclical" maybe whereas mine is a post on CathInfo. If I say something Catholic, it has more "authority" than if Jorge says something non-Catholic ... where the authority is intrinsic to whether a proposition is true / Catholic or it's not? That's a tautology, where it's true if it's true, but false if it's false. Perhaps the only difference would be if the Popes were to define something solemnly, which they do pretty rarely, especially after Vatican I, or if they commanded something completely neutral.
But, see, the entire point of the papacy and the entire Catholic apologetic against those who deny the papacy is and always has been that when there are doctrinal disputes among Catholics, there has to be some final authority to resolve those differences ... otherwise you have a free-for-all and there's no "principle" of doctrinal unity. Well, in the R&R view of the Church, there doesn't have to be any kind of doctrinal unity, that a fragmentation of faith to the point where Catholics can and sometimes even must separate from subjection to the Magisterium in order to stay Catholic ... that's perfectly normal to have such "disagreements", and a fragmented Church is perfectly compatible with the promises of Christ ... while on the other side of their mouth condeming the Conciliars for precisely the same ecclesiology where there can be lack of "full" communion, i.e. various partial communions, and basically we have a Church that's seeking unity, contrary to
Unitatis Redintegratio? We condemn those Vatican II Modernists for claiming that the Church can be divided on doctrine and in universal discipline, while all nevertheless being Catholics ... but then in practice promote the exact same ecclesiology. Wake up call. In that case, the Conciliars win, and they're right. So you're condemning them for something you yourselves belief, and you base the legitimacy of R&Rism on precisely the same principels that you use to justify the degree of separation you maintain.
R&R: We condemn the Vatican II teaching that the Church can be divided, that we could have separated brethren, and that there can be such a thing as partial communion.
R&R: We are divided from the hierarchy and other parts of the Church, whom we consider our separated brethren, and are in partial communion with Rome and those subject to Rome.
Topic: Considering Sedevacantism and Jurisdiction (Read 5092 times)