The v2 New Advent  encyclopedia is wrong. Atwaters Catholic Dictionary says that the Fr faction of GWS popes are  not considered anti-popes because of the uncertainty of their status.

There was No heresy or No ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs during GWS. I believe it is von Pastor who explains that a compromise was reached at the conclusion of Constance where Catholics are allowed to recognise either the It or Fr faction of GWS popes.  :detective:

I'm sorry, but are you saying that a Catholic council basically said you can choose which 'pope' to follow so from this you deduce that both were valid popes simultaneously???

The Council had enough and everyone wanted to go home. A compromise was reached that Catholics were free to recognise either the FR or It faction as true Popes. I am not deducing anything-- only reporting a historical truth.

The reason this was accepted by all was that neither faction was involved in ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity or heresy. The Catholic soul is in no danger no matter which faction is followed because their teachings on matters of faith & morals were the same.  :reporter:


There are no anti-popes during GWS

So your point is that Sedes, SSPX, Indults and Pope-in-Redists all play for the same team until Pope Gregory XVII's successor becomes visible?

 

... Thus, sedevacantism doesn't seem to have any precedent.

There was a possible 19th century precedent:

Manharter

...  They extended their opposition even to the pope himself, declaring that Leo XII, having set himself in contradiction to Pius VII, was not a lawful pope, and that the Holy See was for the time vacant. Thus the sect endured still a few dozen years with a restricted following until at last it disappeared completely with the death of its last adherents.

Quote from: 2Vermont

Quote from: Centroamerica

This is like saying there is no mention of the word 'purgatory' in the Bible.

The fact is that a group of cardinals got together when there already was a valid pope, they acted as if he was not valid and elected an anti-pope.  To argue that they didn't believe that the See was vacant is possible, but I don't see it as likely.  They denied the legitimacy of a validly elected pope.  They didn't say we refuse to submit to any successor of St. Peter like the Orthodox do.  We can't know their thoughts, but I'll be willing to bet that the majority who elected an anti-pope truly believed that the valid pope was no longer pope.  If they weren't schismatics, then they truly believed there was no pope for them to submit to.

 

Like I said, the CE is VERY clear that there was no schismatic intention on the part of any of these groups.  Go ahead, call them "sedevacantists", but they weren't considered schismatic.  

Edit:  Huh, which now makes me think there was precedence to a certain degree.

Yeah, I don't see them as schismatics if they are intending to stay true to the papacy.  They just didn't believe there was a pope to submit to.

Interesting.

Nevertheless, their actions led to a conclave and an anti-pope.

Perhaps this is why most sedevacantists do not support similar actions.

Quote from: 2Vermont

Huh, which now makes me think there was precedence to a certain degree.

Yeah, I don't see them as schismatics if they are intending to stay true to the papacy.  They just didn't believe there was a pope to submit to.
Interesting.
Nevertheless, their actions led to a conclave and an anti-pope.

Their efforts were most assuredly all done in good faith, and for that reason, though it turned the two-way split into a three-way split, the "split" as such remained fully and truly "internal" to the Church, unlike the external splits ("schisms" proper) such as between Catholic and East Orthodox.

But the true solution was that the various sides (however many) get together, cooperate with each other, and all together elect the next Pope (Martin V).  Perhaps in a way having three sides may well have even helped, with each side being able to serve as a "buffer" between the other two.

This is the kind of conclave I most certainly believe in, and "the crisis" will not be over until this happens.  It is this kind of total, or "Catholic" conclave which will provide the next true Pope, not some factional pseudo-conclave that represents only one side or else creates only yet another.

Actually there is no mention of sedevacantists in the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for the Western Schism.  In fact, the CE is very clear that none of the groups were true schismatics during this time.

The term "sedevacantist" first appeared in the late 1960s.

Yes, everyone was free to recognize either pope, but in the end two were false and one was true.

Yes, this is what Canon J. Didiot, dean of the faculty of Lille, wrote

If after the election of a pope and before his death or resignation a new election takes place, it is null and schismatic; the one elected is not in the Apostolic Succession. This was seen at the beginning of what is called, somewhat incorrectly, the Great Schism of the West, which was only an apparent schism from a theological standpoint. If two elections take place simultaneously or nearly so, one according to laws previously passed and the other contrary to them, the apostolicity belongs to the pope legally chosen and not to the other, and though there be doubts, discussions, and cruel divisions on this point, as at the time of the so-called Western Schism, it is no less true, no less real that the apostolicity exists objectively in the true pope. What does it matter, in this objective relation, that it is not manifest to all and is not recognized by all till long after? A treasure is bequeathed to me, but I do not know whether it is in the chest A or in the casket B. Am I any less the possessor of this treasure?