Quote from: roscoe

John 23 is an anti-pope.

Which one? There are two.

 :roll-laugh1:

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Sedevacantism is the belief that "The seat (the Chair of Peter) is vacant". It usually derives from a suspicion (or the belief) that Giuseppe Siri was canonically elected at the Conclave of 1958, but then was persuaded to step aside in an uncanonical fashion.

It is not (as Seraphim unequivocally states) "Catholic Protestantism".

...and Seraphim, since you persist in ridiculing the sincere beliefs of people who are looking for the truth, & in deliberately mis-stating those beliefs to conform with your own prejudices, I will respond to your point-by-point post rebutting my arguments regarding the Siri Thesis, but after that I will no longer respond to anything you post. Anyone who believes that a sincerely held, carefully reasoned position can be superficially evaluated with a cursory glance, as you said in a previous post, is unworthy of my efforts.

...and Matthew, if this gets me banned then so be it. I'm not saying that he's a heretic, merely that he's uncharitable & he doesn't make any sense.

MeganProFide-- "So the arch-liberals elect an arch-conservative to an authoritarian position of absolute power on the sheer hope that he will feel grateful and enact their liberal policies?"
No, they nominate him in the expectation that he can't possibly get elected. This happens all the time in political circles in the U.S. "OK-- so you won't support our candidate. We'll support yours on this 1 ballot. If he fails to get elected, then you have to agree to support our candidate on the next ballot."

"And then...they all suddenly change their minds and 'persuade' him to quit? Sorry, the whole theory is absurd on its face..."
It has already been established between me & other posters on this site that V2 was a conspiracy to get ambiguously worded docuмents accepted, so that they could be given a post-Conciliar radically liberal "spin". For that to be true, the conspirators had to ensure that whoever occupied the Chair of Peter would go along with their schemes. They'd tried this before, electing popes whom they thought would be liberal, but the grace of the Holy Spirit always got in the way. (See the post above by Thursday.) In order to circuмvent that grace, it is my assertion that they planned to elect Siri in a canonical fashion & then uncanonically persuade him to quit with extravagant threats so they could elect their anti-pope. Viewed in this light, there is nothing absurd about it whatsoever.

How else can you explain John 23's refusal to release the 3d Secret of Fatima, Paul 6's promulgation of the Novus Ordo, John-Paul 2's notorious concelebrations with heretics & even pagans, & Benedict XVI's teaching that Protestants are not heretics?

Seraphim-- "1) Wrong. Supposing Siri accepted, but was then persuaded to step aside, the end result is the same: When the conclave concluded, he was not Pope."
That is an over-simplification which relies for its force on the logical fallacy of equivocation-- using 1 word in 2 different senses. When you say suppose he "accepted", you're saying suppose he accepted his election as the legitimate pope. When you conclude "he was not pope", you're saying he wasn't the apparent, visible pope. Those are 2 entirely different things. The Siri Thesis maintains, & certain witnesses have testified, that he chose the papal name Gregory XVII. If that is true, then he was canonically elected. Any subsequent balloting would be uncanonical.

"2) A lot of things 'reportedly' happen."
I don't suggest that because Cardinal Tisserant "reportedly" alluded to irregularities at the Conclave that this necessarily proves anything, nor am I trying to prove anything. I merely maintain that John 23's refusal to release the 3d Secret of Fatima, Paul 6's promulgation of the Novus Ordo, John-Paul 2's notorious concelebrations with heretics & pagans, & Benedict XVI's teaching that Protestants are not heretics are impossible to explain if these alleged popes were guided & protected from error by the Holy Spirit. The best explanation for how & why they are not so guided & protected is the Siri Thesis, which receives support from the late Fr. Malachi Martin, Fr. Jean-Marie Char-Roux, former FBI consultant Paul L. Williams (who cited declassified FBI docuмents indicating that Siri had been elected), & many other witnesses. I repeat, the Siri Thesis cannot be definitively proven-- it's just the best available explanation of the observed facts.

"3) Nope. Cardinals do not confess to each other in a conclave." and "9) The seal of the confessional is not relevent to papal conclaves."
You can't prove this. These are just 2 more examples of your gratuitous assertions.

"4) Another supposed refutation that amounts to nothing more than an imagination directed toward a conclusion you want to maintain."
I was merely showing that there is a logical sequence of events that leads towards the observed result. Once again, I'm not trying to prove that anything did happen-- merely that it's possible.

"6) On the contrary, his helplessness demonstrates he was powerless to stop V2, which would not be the case if he were Pope."
It certainly would be the case if he wasn't generally recognized as pope.

"10) Have it your way."
I said that I've posted elsewhere on this site why I believe the Siri Thesis is precisely in accord with various End Times prophecies, including the Book of the Apocalypse. And you have nothing to say to the contrary.

My understanding is that Pope John from GWS recanted his heresy and is therefore not considered an anti-pope.

Those who go for the Siri Thesis are almost always influenced by cloak-and-dagger stories.  While there is certainly much that is cloak-and-dagger going on in the Vatican, the Church didn't get infiltrated without a conspiracy, I actually believe these particular stories are engineered BY the usurpers to generate more confusion, like with their "third secret of Fatima."  

The whole story of the white smoke makes no sense.  It has a diabolical touch to it, that tinge of mockery that I've noticed always surrounds demonic lies.  Just think about it for two seconds. They elect a conservative Pope, send out the white smoke, and then five minutes later think "Oops, we made a boo-boo" and then they cancel the smoke?  

The Church has been overrun by these Machiavellian plotters; do you think they come this far after decades if not centuries, only to do something as boneheaded as to elect a true Pope in front of the world and then clumsily try to stop the smoke?   Who do you think these people are, the Keystone Kops?  On the one hand, you ascribe demonic ingenuity to them, and then on the other, they act like bumbling clowns?

Then there the other problems:  They say Cardinal Siri was threatened and so he had to play along with them.  Do you know why Cardinals wear red?  To remind them they owe it to shed their blood for Christ if necessary.  So Cardinal Siri almost certainly lost the papacy if he ever had it.

Where the Siri thesists really show their weakness is when it comes to the question of how a successor would have been elected.  He dies and a crack team of traditional Cardinals -- how many do you suppose still existed by that point? -- despite being under constant surveillance and with their lives threatened, somehow elect a new Pope, who then also goes into hiding?

But to someone who believes in theory, they don't want to hear it, to them it's exciting, it's like being an insider to dark doings, they probably feel enlightened and are tickled by being privy to devious manipulations.  It's like reading a spy novel.  But the truth is that they don't know a thing about what really happened.  Those who want the real truth will stick to what can be known with the information we have been given, not to speculations about murders in the Vatican and cardinals fighting over smoke signals, all this Malachi Martin-style Godfather III-type hogwash.

Those who go for the Siri Thesis are almost always influenced by cloak-and-dagger stories.  While there is certainly much that is cloak-and-dagger going on in the Vatican, the Church didn't get infiltrated without a conspiracy, I actually believe these particular stories are engineered BY the usurpers to generate more confusion, like with their "third secret of Fatima."

Re-read that paragraph, first sentence, people who go for the Siri thesis are influenced by conspiracy theories, second sentence The Church has been taken over via infiltration and conspiracy, third sentence, some of the theories are engineered by the usurpers themselves.  What evidence do you have that they engineered the Siri thesis? Do you think Paul Scortesco who first wrote about Siri being elected in the 1970s burned himself alive in his own bed after his letters were published to create a theory to confuse people?

The whole story of the white smoke makes no sense.  It has a diabolical touch to it, that tinge of mockery that I've noticed always surrounds demonic lies.  Just think about it for two seconds. They elect a conservative Pope, send out the white smoke, and then five minutes later think "Oops, we made a boo-boo" and then they cancel the smoke?  

Yes that is exactly what the plan was, elect a true pope, shove him aside and then elect an anti-pope who would be free from the effects of the Holy Ghost.[/quote]

Then there the other problems:  They say Cardinal Siri was threatened and so he had to play along with them.  Do you know why Cardinals wear red?  To remind them they owe it to shed their blood for Christ if necessary.  So Cardinal Siri almost certainly lost the papacy if he ever had it.

As if that is the only factor he had to consider. What were the threats?, what optons did he have? Innocent II fled to France after Anecletus II stole his office, it was only after St. Bernard came to the rescue that the papacy was restored.

Where the Siri thesists really show their weakness is when it comes to the question of how a successor would have been elected.  He dies and a crack team of traditional Cardinals -- how many do you suppose still existed by that point? -- despite being under constant surveillance and with their lives threatened, somehow elect a new Pope, who then also goes into hiding?

Not part of the thesis.

But to someone who believes in theory, they don't want to hear it, to them it's exciting, it's like being an insider to dark doings, they probably feel enlightened and are tickled by being privy to devious manipulations.  It's like reading a spy novel.  But the truth is that they don't know a thing about what really happened.  Those who want the real truth will stick to what can be known with the information we have been given, not to speculations about murders in the Vatican and cardinals fighting over smoke signals, all this Malachi Martin-style Godfather III-type hogwash.

What we know is that there was 5 minutes of what smoke billowing out of the Sistine Chapel 2 days before Roncalli got elected. It's not too much of a stretch in light of what's happened since to suggest that the real pope was elected at that time and that his pontificate was suppressed.

Not sure why quotes didn't work.