XavierSem keeps interjecting from the perspective that there's no grave substantial error in the V2 Magisterium and that the New Mass is not inherently defective and displeasing to God.  That's why he's muddling up the question, because he's not a Traditional Catholic.  He actually agrees with the SV major that the Magisterium cannot become this corrupt, and then he agrees with the R&R major that the Holy See can't be vacant for this long.  So he's agreeing with the majors of BOTH positions, and he's stirring the pot because rejects the minors of both positions (i.e that the NO Magisterium and Mass are not Catholic).  He's basically a conservative Novus Ordite and not a Traditional Catholic.  So he continues to fan the flame of disagreement among Traditional Catholics, at one time appearing to agree with R&R, and at other times appearing to agree with SV.

Hmmm. I must be the reverse side of the coin that Sem is the obverse of, since I reject or disagree with both majors.  

In many cases the saints and doctors of the Church show a parallel between Christ and His Bride, the Church.  I think the best theory I have ever heard of how the Restoration will happen is that it will happen through the Hand of God and not through normal means of mankind.  Most of mankind could not wrap their minds around the idea that Our Lord could die and still truly be God.  Hence He was abandoned by even most of those closest to Him.  If the apostles had known how Our Lord's Crucifixion would have been remedied by His Resurrection they would not have abandoned Him.  It was a matter of Faith and only Our Lady, Saint John and a few others remained faithful and trusting in Our Lord until the end ...

Come Holy Ghost and restore the Faith on earth!

Viva Cristo Rey!

Agreed. We are to remain faithful to Our Lord and Our Lady until the end. No question about that. 

But the issue is whether sedevacantism can still claim to be a true theory, when all Papally appointed Bishops (if SVism is true) have died. In my view, that is an empirical falsification of sedevacantism's claims. If SV is not dogma, then it could be revised, right?

Put another way, if even a 60+ year interregnum is not doctrinally impossible, then what is? A 100 year one? At what point does "Perpetual Sucessors" dogma become a meaningless formula?

Matthew, home alone sedevacantism (HAS), as you say, is definitely extreme. Even among sedevacantists, I think it is the minority opinion. The HASers have been arguing to other sedevacantists like this: there is no Pope, therefore no means to obtain jurisdiction, nor mission, therefore, they claim, no licit apostolate whatsoever. It all begins imo from that erroneous first premise. Who told them there was no Pope? Which Church authority declared it? which defined dogma required it? If the HASers see that there being no Jurisdiction or Mission at all in the entire Church is a defection, then at least they, when that last Bishop dies, may re-think their opinion. Let's see. 

Decem Rationis, thanks for the scan. That passage, as the commentary says, is speaking about the continuation of the Priesthood in Christianity. There's another passage where God says He will take Priests and Levites from the Gentiles (Is 66:21).

But do you mean that the Apostolic Succession has, similarly, in a way been continued without the Pope? For that, you would need something like an underground Pope or something. Christ had invested His Apostles with the Priesthood, of the order of Melchizedech, and so the Christian Priesthood continued and succeeded the Aaronic Priesthood. I don't think the same applies here.

Ladislaus, still lying, I see. Notice how you keep switching from "the end will come before it happens", to "it's not a problem at all", to "it has to almost happen to fulfil prophecy". You can't even hold to a consistent narrative. Which is it? Also, it's only your opinion that this doesn't affect sedeprivationism. Even other sedeprivationists disagree. But more to the point, cuм Ex refutes the opinion that a so-called "material Pope" can invest others with authority. He cannot. cuм Ex says those appointed by him will have as much authority as he does, i.e. none. Either the last 62 years of Popes were truly Popes and therefore the Bishops appointed by them have their authority, or they were not Popes and the Bishops appointed by them have no authority. There is no third option. 

Your claims about me are false, as usual. But I'm not going to answer them again. I support the FSSP, the SSPX and the ICK, and all other groups who are working for Tradition in the Church. Those who recognize a 62 year SV is impossible will not be led astray by extreme and false opinions like yours.

Ladislaus, still lying, I see. Notice how you keep switching from "the end will come before it happens", to "it's not a problem at all", to "it has to almost happen to fulfil prophecy". You can't even hold to a consistent narrative. Which is it? Also, it's only your opinion that this doesn't affect sedeprivationism. Even other sedeprivationists disagree. But more to the point, cuм Ex refutes the opinion that a so-called "material Pope" can invest others with authority. He cannot. cuм Ex says those appointed by him will have as much authority as he does, i.e. none. Either the last 62 years of Popes were truly Popes and therefore the Bishops appointed by them have their authority, or they were not Popes and the Bishops appointed by them have no authority. There is no third option.

Not a single thing you wrote here is correct.  You don't even understand what I'm saying, so you set up your misinterpretation as a straw man.  To begin with, my "the end is night" comment was a joke.  I cited prophecy to the point that it would almost APPEAR as if the Petrine succession had ceased, and when we have flaming heretics like Bergoglio heading up the putative Church and a Conciliar establishment which would be unrecognizable as Catholic to a St. Pius X, St. Nicholas of Flue could have been speaking about no other period.  You, of course, missed the expression, that it would "appear" to have almost ceased.  As written, cuм ex also explicitly rejects the principle of universal acceptance.  We've had 50-page discussions about cuм ex, and yet you arrogantly claim that your interpretation is correct while being oblivious to the fact that your interpretation actually undermines your own position.

You are no Traditional Catholic, but a run-of-the-mill schismatic who has no theological justification for aligning with the SSPX instead of some group that's in actual full communion with Rome.

That is a highly unusual position, since each side typically uses their respective major to argue against the other major as a corollary.

SVs:  the See must be vacant because the Magisterium cannot become this corrupt.
R&R:  the Magisterium must be able to get this corrupt because the See cannot be vacant for this long.

It may be unusual, but the times are unusual.

There is not enough thinking about the cause of V2 and the Conciliar regime that has followed. A bunch of bishops appointed by Pius XII and his predecessors - an overwhelming majority of those at V2 - approved of V2 and a pope confirmed the decrees, constitutions and declarations. These men all celebrated the TLM each day they were deliberating and deciding, and V2 was what we got nonetheless despite the graces that should have come from those masses.

There is a judgment of God here, perhaps only permissive, but He was in control. Why did it happen? Cause precedes effect and there were causes for the judgment.

It is a fact  that the Magisterium has become this corrupt. You can say, well, it's not the Magisterium, but that's a bit circular: the Magisterium can't X, and the thing we are considering did X, so it's not the Magisterium. Yet they WERE (the V2 prelates and those who effected the revolution) the Magisterium.

It seems to me that the facts show us that indeed the Magisterium can become "this corrupt." Fact.

A man who embraces heresy is without the Catholic faith and ipso facto outside the Church - Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, etc. So in some sense, a de jure sense, the seat can be said to be vacant, uninhabited by a man who can rightly claim the title of pope.  I hesitate to adopt this position because it, also, is circular: a pope can't X, and he whom we are considering has X'd, so he's not the pope.

So both the majors of the Sedes and the R & R crowd appear to be false under the facts.

If I had to choose, I would tend to adopt the SSPX/Resistmce position, since I think it best conforms to reality, the facts: John XXIII, Paul VI, etc. were in fact popes, and the bishops responsible were duly elected bishops - the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Yet many of their acts, decrees, etc. are maggot ridden and full of corruption  - another fact.

I have no authority or position, no warrant, to speculate as to the "why" this has happened, so I don't. I keep those musings to myself in light of my lack of shall we say gravitas and authority on this point.

But I wish those who do have authority and some gravitas would start thinking about the "why" and not just moaning about the what, and simply trying to go back to 1958, with the cause still undiagnosed and waiting again to become symptomatic.

DR

The oldest living Bishops are mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_living_Catholic_bishops_and_cardinals

This is a question to sedevacantists: Will any length of purported interregnum make you re-think whether we really are in an interregnum? Even if you think a 62-year interregnum is still possible, does a 65 or at least a 70 year interregnum stretch the limit?

Why does the time matter? Because, Bishops receive Appointment to Office by the Pope that Appoints them. Of every Bishop, it can be said, Bishop X received his Authority from Pope Y. Thus, the Apostolic Succession and the Petrine Succession are intimately connected.

Hence, it follows also from the Dogma of Apostolicity that the Church cannot be without Successors to St. Peter forever. For the Petrine Succession being thereby disrupted, the Apostolic Succession also will eventually cease, when all Papally-Appointed-Bishops finally die.

Take a look at the link. Only one Bishop was Consecrated in 1958. (That Bishop was Appointed only in 1960 per http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bpinc.html) Only 4 living Bishops were Consecrated before 3 Jun 1963. Another 4, 8 in all, were Consecrated by 1965.

So has not the hypothesis of an interregnum or sede vacante starting in 1958, at least, been demonstrably falsified by this point? Will not the idea of a sede vacante starting in 1962 or 1965 be clearly disproven in just another few years? At some point, sedevacantism, being only a human opinion, and not a divine dogma, must give place to reason, and admit itself falsified by the length of interregnum. If it is true that the Church needs perpetual Successors to St. Peter, that She must always remain Apostolic not only in Orders but also in Jurisdiction or Apostolic Authority, and that Bishops receive Authority only from the Roman Pontiff, at the very least a 65 or 70 year interregnum with no pre-65 Bishops remaining must be adjudged impossible by Catholics conscious of these doctrines and dogmas.

Thoughts?

Papal appointment is not the same as Consecration so, even after the last Pius XII appointed bishop dies, the Apostolic Succesion will not be broken. Disciplinary laws can be void if they are impossible to follow. In an extreme scenario, should the pope  and all cardinals die today, the bishops would have to elect a new pope. The law is at the service of the salvation of souls.

There's no way theologically to put an arbitrary TIME limit to it.

This is a textbook strawman. The limit is when all Papally appointed Bishops die. Bishops are Appointed or Consecrated around 35 and if they die around 80, that's around 45 years. There'll be outliers, so you can add 5 to 10 years at most. Beyond that is plainly ridiculous.

XavierSem, all these papally appointed bishops adhere to the heretical robber council. They lost their offices just like all the antipopes lost theirs or didn't attain any to begin with, for the very same reason. Your reasoning is confused. These antichrist "bishops" play no role at all.

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This sounds more like Home Aloneism than sedevacantism. There are certain home alone types who only go to Mass to priests who were ordained before Vatican 2, and who received jurisdiction over a parish before V2. Those people might think what is being described here. When those old priests die (and most of them already have in recent years), many of their parishioners become *actual* home aloners.
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No major sedevacantist group adheres to the view XavierSem is arguing against, namely that a new pope can only come from a bishop or cardinal appointed by P12 or J23, and in fact I don't think I've ever even run into a layman who believes that.
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This whole thread is basically XavierSem claiming sedevacantists believe something that they actually don't believe.

No, the whole thread is XavierSem saying that sedevacantists' theories are incoherent because they don't believe what he's saying, and they don't believe what he's saying because it would reveal their theories as incoherent.

To answer the main question here, of how sedevacantists think the Church can get a pope again, sedevacantists generally agree that if Francis (Bergoglio) were to repent and publicly abjure his errors, he would become a valid pope. Different schools of thought explain this differently, but they pretty much all agree on the basic idea. The people who adhere to the Thesis of Bp. Guerard des Lauriers would simply say that he was already validly elected, and simply removed the obstacle that was preventing him from being pope, so he forthwith becomes pope. Sedevacantists who do not adhere to the Thesis of Bp. Guerard would probably say Francis became pope by being accepted by the whole Church as pope. This is called election by "acclamation", and I believe it has happened in the past. It has been discussed by St. Robert Bellarmine and numerous other theologians.
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Alternatively, most sedevacantists would probably accept it if several Novus Ordo cardinals -- or possibly even bishops -- renounced their errors, denounced Bergoglio as a modernist heretic, declared the papacy vacant, and elected a pope after he refused to recant his errors. Sedevacantists would accept a pope resulting from this process for similar reasons to the prior scenario I mentioned.
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This is off the top of my head so some sedes might want to chime in and tinker with some of the details of this, but substantially that's the answer to your question. Note that it doesn't place any time limit on the Church. And yes, there are objections that can be made to these ideas, but they are of trifling difficulty in comparison with the difficulty of saying that real popes have been behind the universal heresy and apostasy of the Vatican 2 religion.