CathInfo.com

Father Chazal articulated a position that gives R&R a lifeline to avoid a heretical ecclesiology, and yet they refuse to take it.

I'd love to understand why people like SeanJohnson, who's all about the Resistance, rejects Father Chazal's position.  What do you disagree with Father Chazal about?

They are legitimate quoad nos and de jure today.

But it’s also possible they will be declared illegitimate in the future, and that would remove the black eye.

That oughta mean a lot to the billions who lost their souls because they mistook the Whore of Babylon for the Immaculate Spouse! 

FWIW, wouldn't the idea of divinely-protected spotlessness necessarily and altogether exclude incomprehensibly-massive and ugly black eyes?

That oughta mean a lot to the billions who lost their souls because they mistook the Whore of Babylon for the Immaculate Spouse!

FWIW, wouldn't the idea of divinely-protected spotlessness necessarily and altogether exclude incomprehensibly-massive and ugly black eyes?

Every Traditional Catholic insintctively understands that the Conciliar Church is not the Catholic Church, which is why they have separated from it.  But they play these mental games for various psychological reasons that I'm not going to get into here.  Tragically the result is a heretical and decidedly non-Catholic view of the Church.  I get the whole "I don't have the authority to decide this issue" ... to a point.  But we've ALREADY "decided" by separating ourselves from the Conciliar Church.  R&R are simply too afraid to admit it.  They want to have their pope and eat him too.  It makes them feel better to say that "see, we acknowledge the pope" ... as if that means anything when you claim that it's OK to categorically refuse submission to and communion with said pope.  It's an absolute disaster.

I think about this all the time.  I know it's not possible, but if the Church WERE to confirm, "these were legitimate popes," this entire era is a black eye from which the Church could never recover.  Never again could Catholics simply accept anything coming from the Magisterium short of infallible declarations.  And Catholics will consider it acceptable to second-guess anything coming from the Vatican.

I too started as a normal Traditional Catholic, going on just a Catholic instinct that this isn't the true Church and isn't compatible with it.  But then I started reading pre-Vatican II theology and ecclesiology, and it absolutely and categorically and unequivocally condemns as non-Catholic the principles behind R&R.