When the pope died and in between popes they even issued a stamp, google sedevacantist stamp, which I am told today is a collector's item.

What is there to say, except the Chair is empty as we await for a True Pope.  In the meantime keep the faith.  Be it be 2 weeks, 2 months 2 years or 200 years, there never was a time period, since Jesus is the Head of the Church, and His Vicar on earth CAN NOT CONTRADICT Him in Faith and Morals, nor disobey the Ten Commandments, as in the First Commandment,  that is Catholic dogma.  

Quote from: MyrnaM

When the pope died and in between popes they even issued a stamp, google sedevacantist stamp, which I am told today is a collector's item.

What is there to say, except the Chair is empty as we await for a True Pope.  In the meantime keep the faith.  Be it be 2 weeks, 2 months 2 years or 200 years, there never was a time period, since Jesus is the Head of the Church, and His Vicar on earth CAN NOT CONTRADICT Him in Faith and Morals, nor disobey the Ten Commandments, as in the First Commandment,  that is Catholic dogma.  

Myrnah with all due respect, I don't think you or anyone else really is qualified to determine who the Pope is. Unless this person has spent decades delving into advanced Theology. And isn't running off and starting your own church exactly what the Protestants did?

Quote from: AnonymousCatholic

Quote from: MyrnaM

When the pope died and in between popes they even issued a stamp, google sedevacantist stamp, which I am told today is a collector's item.

What is there to say, except the Chair is empty as we await for a True Pope.  In the meantime keep the faith.  Be it be 2 weeks, 2 months 2 years or 200 years, there never was a time period, since Jesus is the Head of the Church, and His Vicar on earth CAN NOT CONTRADICT Him in Faith and Morals, nor disobey the Ten Commandments, as in the First Commandment,  that is Catholic dogma.  

Myrnah with all due respect, I don't think you or anyone else really is qualified to determine who the Pope is. Unless this person has spent decades delving into advanced Theology. And isn't running off and starting your own church exactly what the Protestants did?

Maybe you mean something else-- but if no one is qualified to know who the pope is, how have Catholics somehow managed to identify some two-hundred and fifty of them over the last two thousand years?

Like Myrna said, Catholics who think we're in a state of sede vacante don't go off and start their own churches.  They simply, to the best of their judgment, identify that the men who've claimed to be popes since Vatican II just aren't.  They pray the same rosary, attend the same mass, use the same devotions, etc.

Anyways, to your actual question, we're in unique times.  The term sedevacantism is a neologism.  It comes from the Latin sede vacante which means empty chair/seat, and describes the status of an office in the Church when it is not occupied.  Usually an office is vacant due to death (we are in a period of sede vacante any time a pope dies, so there have been some two hundred and fifty periods of sede vacante since Peter, the first pope) but offices can be vacated in other ways as well, such as when a bishop or a pastor is removed from his office by a lawful authority.

That's the term in a nutshell, but what's really more important is not the semantics (since sedevacantists have a wide range of opinions on different controversial matters, they only necessarily agree on the simple fact that none of the Vatican II papal claimants starting with Paul VI are lawful and valid popes) but the theology which has led them to come to this private judgment.

It's not particularly complicated, though may seem to be simply because there are other traditionalists who vehemently fight against sedevacantism, as though it were a greater evil than the Novus Ordo.  To be pope, one must be Catholic.  The aforementioned claimants, as manifested and evidenced by repeated acts of public heresy and even conformation to non-Catholic religions, are not Catholic.  Ergo, they are not popes.

I don't know that the logic of this argument is really all that controversial.  But if you needed sources stating that only Catholics can be pope of the Catholic Church, St. Robert Bellarmine would be your best authority.  He's a doctor of the Church and the doctor of the papacy, and a scourge against protestants and other deniers of Peter's primacy.

Maybe at some point later in the discussion you'll have a more salient question for which sources could be provided. As it stands, it's a rather vague request :)

Quote from: AnonymousCatholic

Quote from: Mithrandylan

Quote from: AnonymousCatholic

Quote from: MyrnaM

When the pope died and in between popes they even issued a stamp, google sedevacantist stamp, which I am told today is a collector's item.

What is there to say, except the Chair is empty as we await for a True Pope.  In the meantime keep the faith.  Be it be 2 weeks, 2 months 2 years or 200 years, there never was a time period, since Jesus is the Head of the Church, and His Vicar on earth CAN NOT CONTRADICT Him in Faith and Morals, nor disobey the Ten Commandments, as in the First Commandment,  that is Catholic dogma.  

Myrnah with all due respect, I don't think you or anyone else really is qualified to determine who the Pope is. Unless this person has spent decades delving into advanced Theology. And isn't running off and starting your own church exactly what the Protestants did?

Maybe you mean something else-- but if no one is qualified to know who the pope is, how have Catholics somehow managed to identify some two-hundred and fifty of them over the last two thousand years?

Like Myrna said, Catholics who think we're in a state of sede vacante don't go off and start their own churches.  They simply, to the best of their judgment, identify that the men who've claimed to be popes since Vatican II just aren't.  They pray the same rosary, attend the same mass, use the same devotions, etc.

 One things sedes and Protestants have in common is they left the Church and then disbanded into many different individual groups.

What does it mean to leave the Church?  How does one cease to be a member?  In Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII teaches that those who are members of the Church are those who have been baptized and profess the true Catholic faith, without having been severed from her communion through heresy or schism.  What is the heresy or schism of the sedevacantis Catholicsthat have severed them from this communion?  They differ from other Catholics only on a matter of fact: who is the pope?

Besides, what the protestants summarily did was start an incalculable amount of completely new religions.  Their heresies and schisms had heresies and schisms, and those had heresies and schisms, ad infinitum.  To date, there are about forty thousand different protestant denominations.  Sedevacantist is not a denomination, it's simply a term to describe a Catholic who thinks that the sedevacantist theory is the most likely explanation for the crisis in the Church we're all enduring.  

And finally, when the shepherd is struck, the sheep are scattered.  The pope is the principle of unity in the Church.  Without him, it is only "natural" that the sheep become dispersed and confused.  Really, the personality conflicts and division over controversy among traditional Catholics is just another proof for the sedevacantist case, IMO.  It's utterly symptomatic of being without a pope.

Quote from: Anonymous Catholic

Honestly I hold no ill will to sedes

Good, and most I know have none toward non-sedes :)

Quote from: Anonymous Catholic

but what gives them the right to abandon the institution founded by Christ? To forsake their brothers and sisters who know no better?

Not the literal institution; they've simply fled from the usurpers and unlawful occupiers of the Church's property.  

What would you have them do?  Sedevacantists are under no burden to admit being sedevacantists or to even evangelize for their position, since it's a matter of opinion.  It's not a dogma of the faith.  And there's something to be said for keeping the peace and not unnecessarily disturbing someone.  I know I try to more or less never bring it up, until someone else does.  

I do think it's ironic that your complaint seems to amount to sedevacantists being too quiet or without enough action-- usually the complaint is quite the opposite!

Quote

It seems far more righteous to stay and fight. Invade Rome or something. Catholics have lost control of the world because they refuse to be radical anymore and thus they do nothing but devolve into infighting with themselves. I've seen it everywhere I have ever been. The devil doesn't control anyone he tempts them and manipulates them to his will and when people don't radically fight it, he wins.

I don't really disagree with any of this, not seriously anyways.  The mess we have today probably would have been mitigated at least if Archbishop Lefebvre (as saintly as he was) and others had convened and declared the Petrine Office vacant.

But Christ said the gates of Hell will not prevail.  To prevail is to win in the end.  Satan can look pretty good, even be "winning" up to a point.  But he won't win in the end.

Also, do you seriously mean that a catholic has no ability to tell if a pope is a pertinacious heretic? Suppose a pope were to say publicly and often, in his office as pope, that Jesus was actually a female transvestite and that  transubstantiation isn't true. He's still the pope?

The heresies since Vatican II have increased to the point where they are brazen. No need to evangelize(all churches are part of the church of christ, so why convert to catholicism), religious liberty is guaranteed for all(total heresy) and now we even have adultery as not a mortal sin!(per amoris laetitia).