It is evident that indefectibility, as the doctrine is commonly understood in the West, is false.  I used to be a semi-trad but that position, too, has been undeniably empirically falsified.  And there's no other way to resurrect the doctrine.  This has devastating consequences but first let's go over the options.  Devotees of all these will, I'm sure, show up to defend their various positions but they either involve a mega dose of special pleading, a wholesale denial of the facts, or else (most often the case) they have already reinterpreted indefectibility to mean something other than what theologians meant by it.

1.  Sedevacantism.  Sure, theologians envisioned that a Pope could become a heretic and thereby fall from office.  What they didn't envision is that this would happen and nothing whatsoever be done about it; that a Pope could crank out erroneous/heretical teaching after teaching.  They all envisioned a Pope's legal removal from office right away.  And rightly so, because the Church must continue to exist materially as well as formally, and any break constitutes a defection.  That is the very definition of the term.  So it's too late.  And it's clear the post-Vatican II Church is materially continuous with the pre-Vatican II Church.  As I said on a different thread, SVs arguing over "ordinary jurisdiction" of Bishops or how to get a new Pope is arguing over who should have locked the barn door after the horses have already escaped from an inescapable barn.  If a new Pope is to come from any other method besides legal election by those legally given the power to do so, there is no material continuity; it is starting a new Church.  But those legally given the power to do so are the post-Vatican II Cardinals.  So that means the material organization can have the Faith, lose it, then get it again (and maybe lose it again in the future).  (And no, to forestall an inevitable side argument, it doesn't matter who some theologian claims has the legal power.  It matters who actually has it, which is determined by Church Law, in this case by Pius XII.)

2.  R & R / SSPX.  There are three methods to this.  One is to insist that the Pope is only infallible when he speaks ex cathedra.  Therefore, it simply doesn't matter what he does the rest of the time.  (Fine, you want to disregard Vatican II; I'll then feel free to disregard Mortalium Animos, Quanta Cura, Pascendi Domenici Gregis, and the rest of the encyclicals cited against Vatican II.)  But this disregards the fact that any Church with a substantively false official teaching is a false Church, whether the teaching is qualified as "infallible" or not.  (If not, all Churches are true, since only the Roman Church claims infallibility.)  And, if the ordinary Magisterium can be so far out to lunch, why believe the extraordinary?  There is no logical reason to do so.  Another is simply to deny the facts and deny that the Popes really taught anything.  Paul VI, you see, promulgated the docuмents of Vatican II "with Apostolic authority" but he didn't really mean it, since the Council was a mere "pastoral Council", etc.  Finally, there is the (desperate) argument that the Popes really only teach when what they say is in accord with Tradition, it being left to the laypeople to decide whether this is or is not the case.  (Fine, Quanta Cura isn't in accord with Tradition; there's absolutely no evidence the Apostles taught their followers what civil government should do in this regard, so I'll reject it as the ravings of a power-hungry Pope.)  Again this is simply a denial of the facts.  The Pope has supreme jurisdiction over the Church, meaning he is not subject to any kind of a board or "second level of review" to determine whether his teachings are official or not.  He and no one else determines whether his teachings are official.

3.  Semi-trad.  This involves straining to the maximum extent possible to show a real continuity between the teachings.  It is a very good question as to why this should be necessary.  But it's a moot point after the reversal on the death penalty.  If Francis is wrong, it's game over.  If he's right, it's also game over, for it means the Church officially sanctioned a grave evil for centuries.

Despite what I know will be the angry retorts, there aren't really any good arguments to be made against the above.  The reason there are such never-ending debates is because the fundamental premise is obviously false.  And it doesn't matter what may or may not happen in the future; it's been falsified by the data which exists in the here and now.

I'm sure some of the Eastern Orthodox posters will be quick to say all of the above proves Orthodoxy.  I won't get into this in much detail here, except to say, as I have in the past, that they lack a framework for deciding who was right in the Schism which doesn't involve making the individual the final authority.  However, I will have to concede the point that if Rome's indefectibility is falsified that can't be brought into the picture either.

So, while I think Churches are there to provide a proper spiritual framework, such that one can thrive and grow, and are "indefectible" in that sense, they do not provide absolute truth.  Despite all the apologetic contortions which have tried to deny the fact, the Church was simply wrong in the Galileo affair.

Posted from Suscipe Domine Traditional Catholic Forum on September 02, 2018 by Quaremerepulisti

The hierarchy continues in the Eastern rites with their valid holy orders for both bishops and priests.  The eastern Catholics were never affected by Paul VI’s change in the rites of holy orders.  So long as the eastern Catholic bishops continue to exist, the unbroken apostolic succession continues with them.  The Church remains indefectible, just as the manuals state.  

I'm sure some of the Eastern Orthodox posters.....

Who are they, pray tell?

Eastern Catholics are members of the Roman Catholic Church.   Their hierarchies still exist to this day.  The jurisdictional bishops of the Eastern Catholics rule over their flocks.  

Strictly speaking, they are not members of the Church of Rome. They are in Communion with the Roman Church.
Only to One particular Church is indefectibility assured, viz. to the See of Rome.

Snip from a sermon given by Fr. Wathen on the miracle of the calming of the sea...

"...The reason Our Lord laid down and went to sleep, was not so much to give into His fatigue, but in order to teach this lesson. And after going to sleep, it was Christ Himself who stirred up the storm on the sea.  

Try to visualize this storm. Those of you who have seen the ocean know what kind of waves there can be, and try to picture this little wooden vessel. You know that it would be as fragile and as helpless as the waves got strong and high. And you can visualize this little boat being first at the very top of a huge wave, then thrown into a trough, and these men thought certainly that they were going to drown...

...the interesting thing about this is that Our Lord made a point of remaining asleep. This is a tremendous storm which means the boat is being thrown this way and that, and yet He makes a deliberate point of remaining asleep. And these disciples come and wake Him, and you see that they act very much like people act...

...We are supposed to imagine this little ship to be the Church, tossed about during this epoch much more furiously, much more frightfully than it ever has been, and we are supposed to trust that almighty God will take care of things. Not, that we are to do nothing, we are supposed to pray, but we are also supposed to maintain faith.  

We are supposed to have this in mind that no matter what we see, no matter what happens, everything is in the hands of God, everything. And there is nothing that can threaten His power. Anything can threaten His holiness, anything can defy His authority, but nothing can threaten to overcome Him..."    

   

I second this. You sound like you have lost your faith. It's one thing to struggle with how to reconcile the situation in the Church today with what theologians have taught, but saying that "Churches [...] do not provide absolute truth" is a denial of the Faith. Your problem is a spiritual problem, not a theological problem.

This^^^.
Hermenegild sounds like where I was a few years ago. Gods ways are not our ways.  

I am quite sure Catholics felt this stress during the Great Western Schism.

I am quite sure that was not even remotely close to as bad as this.  There was zero doubt about the Church in se, nor about the Catholicity of those vying for the throne.  Frankly, it'd be an incredibly preferable dilemma to have multiple unquestionably orthodox men simultaneously claiming to be Sovereign Pontiff of an institution that is certainly the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, one in doctrine, worship and discipline.

Who wouldn't trade up for that right now????  

I did not say they were near as bad as each other. I agree, I would prefer then to now.