Counter-Reformation Association
NEWS AND VIEWS
La Guerche,, Monks Kirby, Warwickshire, CV23 OQZ, England
1 Nov 2001 AD All Saints Day
A Brief Critical Companion to
“A Little Catechism on Sedevacantism”
William Morgan
This “Critical Companion” refers to the English translation, published in the
November 2001 issue of the Transalpine Redemptorist publication, Catholic, of
the Avrillé Dominican original by “Dominicus”. Neither the original French nor
the English Questions & Answers are in fact numbered, but the following
numbered sections correspond to the order in which they are presented.)
(1) The See of Peter is vacant (sede vacante) from the time a valid pope dies,
abdicates or forfeits his office until a new valid Roman pontiff is elected. The
See of Rome remains vacant even if an invalid claimant  an anti-pope  is
recognised, even one installed in Rome itself. Present day sedevacantists (Nov
2001) hold that the Roman See is currently in theological reality vacant because
John Paul II is not a valid pope (nor, indeed, are the various obscure alternative
claimants).
(2) Serious sedevacantist theologians do not base their conclusion on the
“dereliction of the Roman pontiffs” (a question-begging formulation), but upon
the view  shared by-all anti-Conciliarists  that John Paul II (like Paul VI) has
endorsed a rite of Mass (the Novus Ordo Missae) lacking doctrnal rectitude
and/or taught heresy urbi et orbi to the Universal Church: things which no valid
pope could do.
(3) By definition, all sedevacantists hold that the See of Peter is currently
vacant. Accordingly, should any sedevacantists go on to recognise an alternative
pope, they, ipso facto, cease to be sedevacantists. Simply as a matter of fact, the
Palmar sect directed from Spain (like a similar sect directed from Canada)
would not appear to have attempted to elect their own Pope, but rather, as
apparitionists, to have accepted a “Pope appointed by heaven”. A few small
groups of former sede-vacantists_ .most of them minute  claim to have
elected their own popes; but even the most serious of them had no well-based
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claim to be the legitimate representatives of the local Holy Roman Church, or, in
this emergency situation, of the Universal Church.
Whether or not sedevacantists “consent to receive the Sacraments from nonsedevacantist
priests”, is an entirely distinct theological issue. The introduction
of the word “ultra”, apparently used by the late Abbé Coache, is simply a piece
of rhetoric. Ironically, the Avrillé Dominicans themselves have elsewhere borne
public witness to the fact that the Abbé Coache was himself a clandestine
sedevacantist!
The statement that “all sedevacantists... think that the Pope should not be prayed
for in public” is question-begging and fatuous. No sane sedevacantist could pray
for a non-pope as the Pope, whether in public or private!
(4) Sedeprivationists  those who hold that John Paul II is “materially ‘Pope’
only”  are not sedevacantists, because they precisely maintain that the See of
Peter is not vacant but “materially [materialiter] occupied”.
The “materially ‘Pope’ only” [Cassiciacuм] thesis is manifestly a completely
fallacious piece of decadent Scholastic reasoning (even when stated accurately,
which the Dominicans fail to do). To repeat: sedeprivationists are not
sedevacantists, nor do they claim to be so. Only the disciples of Mgr Marcel
Lefebvre carelessly and pertinaciously insist on referring to them as such.
(5) Obviously the Church does not cease “to exist in a visible manner” when
the See of Peter is vacant, as it has been hundreds of times from the death of St
Peter himself! Nor, incidentally, are the cardinals part of the Catholic Church’s
divinely instituted constitution.
Yes, by its divinely instituted constitution the Catholic Church must, at all times,
have some bishops (at least one), not only validly consecrated but also`
possessing hierarchical authority. Therefore, anyone who has the wit to
understand that to be a Catholic they must be a member of the hierarchicallystructured
Church, must necessarily affirm that there are such bishops. (I do
know a few people who do not understand that elementary fact, but they have
manifestly never understood what the Catholic Church on earth is.)
(6) No serious sedevacantist theologians base their conclusion on a sheerly
canonical argument. That is, they do not rest their case on any merely
ecclesiastical law, but rather upon the Divine Law. Their case is essentially,
doctrinal. Sometimes such theologians will make reference to various Canons,
past or present, to illustrate the Magisterium’s understanding of the Divine Law.
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The laws of the Church, at any time, expressly invalidating the “election of a
heretic”, or the maintenance in office of a pope who became such, were never
simply matters of ecclesiastical law.
(7) It cannot be too strongly emphasised that there are a number  not one only
 of’ in principle valid theological arguments for the conclusion that John Paul
II is not a valid pope.
The most manifest such theological argument does not  repeat, not  premise
itself upon the fact of John Paul II’s being a manifest heretic (or schismatic). It
bases itself rather upon the fact that he has done things which no valid pope
could do.
Having demonstrated the fact that John Paul II is not a valid pope, sedevacantist
theologians may well go on to discuss why he is not the Pope. Most such
theologians (indeed all I have ever heard of) do not in fact say that John Paul II
forfeited the Petrine office by becoming a manifest heretic or schismatic; but
rather that  among other possible reasons  he was a manifest heretic and
schismatic before his putative election, and so was never at any time a valid
pope. (By contrast, some would hold that Paul VI did forfeit a validly acquired
papal office.)
Given that John Paul II is manifestly not a valid pope  because he has
performed acts which no valid Roman pontiff could perform  an exaggerated
Cartesian doubt as to whether the fact that he “often enough makes heretical
affirmations” sufficiently proves that he is a formal heretic, is both intrinsically
unfounded, and also contrary to the traditional theological and canonical
teaching on the presumption of pertinacity, and so of formal heresy, in such
cases.
It is most certainly not “more prudent” to follow Archbishop Lefebvre’s
illogical, untheological, indeed heretical, “line of conduct”.
(8) The contention that, even if a Catholic is convinced that John Paul II is a
“manifest, formal heretic”, he should still not conclude that he is not a valid
pope, is a multiple sophistry.
It is, by Divine ordinance, impossible for a valid pope actually to teach heresy to
the Universal Church  and that is what all anti-Conciliarists claim that John
Paul II has done. If Almighty God did allow a manifest formal heretic to acquire
or retain the Petrine office, then he would necessarily preserve him from
performing acts which no valid pope, by the nature of the office, can do.
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Additionally, the contrary contention blatantly contradicts papal teaching, as.
expressed in Pope Paul IV’s famous Bull, cuм Ex Apostolatus Officio”,
expressly confirmed by Pope St Pius V, that the Roman Pontificate cannot be
validly obtained by a heretic (or schismatic), or  by implication  be retained
by a previously valid pope if he should become a heretic.
That an emergency Council of Bishops should indeed declare  for the good of
the Church and for the restoration of ecclesiastical order  the fact of the Holy
See’s vacancy is obvious. But such a declaration would only be an authoritative
recognition of the facts of John Paul II being an anti-pope and the See of Peter
being vacant; it would not create those facts which already obtain.
Talk of “common” or even “more common” opinion to the contrary is no more
than bluff. “Common” opinion is not equivalent to “more common” opinion. In
any event, in such questions what matters is not a mechanical count of opinions,
but rather the intrinsic merits of the arguments advanced and the extrinsic
authority enjoyed by the teachings.
The hypocrisy of such a defence of a minority and discredited position is that
those who make it do not do what their authorities require: namely seek to
assemble an emergency General Council, leading inexorably and
incontrovertibly to the sedevacantist situation
(9) Whether or not one regards the Dominican Father Garrigou-Lagrange as a
weighty authority depends upon one’s view of him, either as a brilliant
Thomistic thinker or as a decadent Scholastic whose writings “contain nothing
but sophistry and illusion”!
Independently of such a general assessment, Fr Garrigou-Lagrange’s quoted
“reason” for his opinion that “a heretical pope, while no longer a member of the
Church, can still be her head”, is no more than an arbitrary assertion.
Presumably he would also hold that men such as Thomas Cranmer or Walter
Kasper could be validly elected to the Roman pontificate!
It is certainly arguable that someone who is occultly not the Pope enjoys  for
the good of the Church  a supplied jurisdiction to prevent the unwitting Church
from being reduced to anarchy. (Such was the conviction, for example, of St
Thomas More). However, people confronted with someone who is manifestly
not a valid pope (whether or not a manifest, formal heretic) are not innocent
victims if they perversely insist on maintaining their recognition of the antipope.
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(10) As we have already seen, no serious sedevacantist theologians base their
conclusion on a sheerly canonical argument  an argument from ecclesiastical
law only. They may certainly invoke Canons, past or present, to illustrate the
Church’s understanding of the Divine law. Among those, some  though not all
 of Pope Paul IV’s dispositions in the Bull, cuм Ex Apostolatus Officio 
expressly confirmed by Pope St Pius V  are especially important.
(11) Whether or not any of the teachings of Vatican Council II would satisfy the
criteria for forming part of the infallible doctrines of the ordinary, universal
Magisterium of the Pope and the bishops, if Paul VI had been a valid pope, is an
interesting but strictly irrelevant point. If Vatican II did teach any heresies at all
(for instance, that the one, true Church of Christ “subsists in”, but is not one and
the same as the Catholic Church in communion with Rome), then  on the
hypothesis that Paul VI was a valid pope at the relevant time  the Church of
Rome would have erred in matters of the Faith. The doctrine of Roman
indefectibility would have been falsified, Catholicism would have been
demonstrated to be false. In other words, the “gates of hell” would indeed have
prevailed against the Church.
The statement that “the liturgical laws (about the New Mass) and the canonical
laws (the 1983 Code of Canon Law) promulgated by the most recent popes... are
not covered by infallibility, although normally they would be”, is manifestly
fatuous.
(12) Consider this absurd assertion : “The expression ‘una cuм’ in the Canon of
the Mass does not mean that one affirms that he is ‘in communion’ with the
erroneous ideas of the Pope, but rather that one wants to pray for the Church
‘and for’ the Pope, her visible head.” It is plainly irrational.
Of course the “una cuм” phrase expresses one’s concern to pray for the one
named as Pope. If one does not recognise John Paul II as Pope, then one must
omit the whole phrase, as the rubrics expressly direct in a period of sede
vacante.
If one does name John Paul II as Pope, then one must  unless a self-condemned
schismatic  be professing one’s communion with him.
Mention of not being “in communion” with the erroneous ideas of the Pope”, is
just plain silly. One is naming him as the first of “the orthodox, those who
profess the Catholic and Apostolic Faith”. Those, therefore, who do not believe
John Paul II to be orthodox are guilty of lying to the Eternal Father in the
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sacramental renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross if they name him “una cuм” in
the Canon.
(13) What St Thomas Aquinas actually says in the “Summa Theologica”, Part
III, Question 79, Article 7 is: “Hence in the Canon of the Mass no prayer is
made for those who are outside the pale of the Church.”
However, to reiterate, one does not name a heretic as one of the orthodox, nor
does one pray for a known anti-pope as the Pope.
(14) Mgr Marcel Lefebvre is not the Magisterium, nor does he voice the
theological consensus on the matter. On the contrary, Mgr Lefebvre’s promotion
of “Roman defectibility in the Faith” is manifest heresy.
Fr Munoz or anyone else who claims that “no saint in the Church’s history was
ever a sedevacantist”, is in error.
As to canonised saints defending the theoretical possibility of the sedevacantist
position, one has but to mention Cardinal St Robert Bellarmine.
As to actually being a sedevacantist, in the restricted but relevant sense of
denying that a specific papal claimant is a valid Pope, then we have but to think
of St Bernard of Clairvaux, who for eight years refused to recognise Anacletus
II, although actually installed in Rome. St Bernard eventually succeeded in
having his own alternative claimant, Innocent II, universally recognised as the
valid Pope.
The Dominican saint and miracle worker, St Vincent Ferrer OP, famously
championed the claims Benedict XIII for many years during the Great Schism of
the West. Eventually., however, he withdrew his recognition, on the grounds that
Benedict was pertinaciously dividing the Church, and became a sedevacantist,
leaving it to the emergency Council of Constance to appoint a valid Pope.
By way of conclusion, we submit that this “Critical Companion” has abundantly
demonstrated the appalling factual errors of “Dominicus” and, in many ways
more importantly, the grotesque errors of reasoning. We are forced to the view
that the seminary training provided for the Avrillé Dominicans and others at
Ecône or its allied institutions has corrupted their intellects.
The explanation is only too obvious. The uncritical devotion afforded to Mgr
Lefebvre has made them imitate him in his “liberalism”  his setting aside of the
principle of non-contradiction when it did not suit his convenience.
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