I have no interest in arguing with another dogmatic sede. That "the man elected is instantly the true Pope, and he acquires and can exercise full and absolute jurisdiction over the whole world" remains true, your self acclaimed genius in the matter will never prove otherwise.

I have no interest in arguing with another dogmatic sede. That "the man elected is instantly the true Pope, and he acquires and can exercise full and absolute jurisdiction over the whole world" remains true, your self acclaimed genius in the matter will never prove otherwise.

Ah, the "dogmatic sede" card.... 

But there are many criteria for an election to, well, actually be an election. We can all agree that when a certain group of laity "elected" "Pope" Michael, that wasn't actually a real election. There are many requirements for an election to be valid, and trying to wave them away using V.A.S is a complete misunderstanding and misapplication of the constitution. If every purported election was a real election, then by V.A.S all anti-popes would be true popes. But we can agree that's nonsense. We know that the election of anti-Pope Michael wasn't a real election, just as we know the election of anti-Pope Clement VII wasn't, and so we don't have to accept him as pope according to V.A.S.

Yes, I do not concern myself the the popes' status *because it does not matter*, I have to save my soul regardless of the popes' status. I will not be judged on whether or not I guessed his status correctly. I will be judged on everything I ever did, and also on everything I should have done but did not do. Guessing the popes' status does not fall into either category, thankfully.

If he is pope and a heretic, or if he is not pope and a heretic, either way he's a heretic and we must not follow him in his false doctrines. The only thing we must do, is pray for him daily, that is the duty every Catholic has and personally, I fulfill that duty every day - because that's what I am bound to do whether anyone else does it or not.

 The sede proposition is that the election of Francis et al. were similarly not real elections, due to the various impediments they are supposed to suffer from - for example, Francis' doubtful ordination, as well as modernist heresies and possible masonic membership.

What you say is only a proposition, many non-dogmatic and all dogmatic sedes claim, with all the certainty of an eyewitness, to be indisputable fact. After all the debates here on CI, I believe the whole idea of sedeism is and always will be nothing more than an excercise in iniquity. Sedeism simply has no other purpose.

I have no idea but as far as my opinion, as far as I'm concerned, his ordination is also doubtful. But if he was ordained validly or not is altogether irrelevant any way, we may not listen to him as long as he preaches heresy, so that really makes no difference to traditional Catholics.

Like you said, and like most (all?) trads do, I will just continue to ignore whatever the Pope says or preaches. In the unlikely event he says something Catholic, I am quite sure it'll make the news or be broadcasted here on CI, at which time I would listen to what he has to say.

As for me personally, I do my Catholic duty and pray for him daily, that is what we are bound to do whether he is a heretic or not.

Wait.... hold on....

Francis might not be a validly ordained priest. But he's *definitely* the Pope?

I'm often irritated by the ultramontanism of sedes.  But this is literally illogical.

I read the rest of the thread.  I don't see how the citations from Pius X fixes anything.  The Bishop of Rome does in fact have to be, you know, a bishop.

You misunderstood. I did not say he might not be validly ordained, rather I stressed it is only *my opinion* in the matter that like all NO ordinations, his ordination was doubtful, that is not the Church's opinion. To me it is doubtful, but in order to remove that doubt, he does not have to prove his validity, rather it is those of us with doubt that must prove his invalidity, which, far as I'm concerned, is an impossibility.

I referenced Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis because that is the legislation, the law, the rules of papal election that the conclave of cardinals are bound to adhere to. The pope did all the necessary leg work to ensure that this law produces a genuine, valid pope, otherwise he would have wasted his time and should have gone fishing instead.


Although the conclave of cardinals can elect anyone, we can be pretty sure that one of the cardinals in that conclave is going to be elected the next pope.

In VAC it says this: "No Cardinal can in any way be excluded from the active and passive election of the Supreme Pontiff on the pretext or by reason of any excommunication, suspension, interdict, or other ecclesiastical impediment whatsoever; We, in fact, suspend these censures only for the effect of an election of this sort; they will remain in their own force in other circuмstances."

So we can see it is possible that even if one or more of the cardinals was under some ecclesiastical impediment, even if he were excommunicated he could still be elected pope. Taking the sede theory to it's logical end, all the cardinals are excommunicated ipso facto anyway, yet per VAC, could be elected the next pope, so why worry about an ecclesiastical impediment of a doubtful ordination that is only my opinion?

Yeah, I think that IF he were not really a priest or bishop, and IF he were nevertheless validly elected, Sedeprivationism would seem to follow.  I don't, at the moment, share the doubt regarding NO ordinations (I at least as much as I can understand found Salza and Siscoe convincing on the matter) but if I did, I'd also have comparable doubt that he's really the Pope, for the same reason.  I do want to note, however, that there's a difference between "We're not SURE that he's the Pope, but we assume and act as though he is until the Church tells him otherwise" and "he's DEFINITELY the Pope."  I think the latter demands that he's DEFINITELY a bishop as well.  

I realize, BTW, that a man who isn't a bishop can have a valid ELECTION to the pontificate (and this is where Sedeprivationists differ from Sedevacantists, the former do conceed the validity of the election).  I also realize that, were Francis to be not validly consecrated and thus an antipope, that wouldn't necessarily prove the most common sede position.  I'm surprised nobody thinks the see has been vacant since exactly 2005.

And again, I don't really have doubt here, because I don't really doubt NO ordinations.  I mean, I could be wrong on the matter, of course.  And as I'm Eastern Rite, and I know the Eastern Rite priests are valid, no matter who's right on the crisis, I tend to worry about it less.  I find it interesting, and I certainly pray for everyone involved, but while there's definitely still a battle with modernism in the Eastern Rite, the liturgy and priesthood itself is completely intact, again, regardless of who's right.  So I just pray for Pope Francis and don't worry about the remote possibility that maybe he's an antipope.  I would, technically, accept it as a possibility though, and if the Church wants to tell me at some later date that that was the case, I'm all ears.

But just working with the logic here, I think being certain that Francis is the Pope, demands certainty that he is the Bishop of Rome, because those are equivalent terms.

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There have been popes who were not bishops before-- Piccolomini, for instance, was only a Cardinal-deacon and died before he could be consecrated.  Laws governing elections indicate that consecration must be secured within a certain amount of time after the election, but the man elected receives the fullness of the office of the papacy even before then.  If he refuses to be consecrated that is a different matter of course, in which case I believe he is regarded as having resigned.
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In the case of Bergoglio, I think his orders are mostly a red-herring and insignificant to the question of his papacy (not saying its absolutely insignificant because it isn't, only saying that arguments against his validity should more or less ignore his orders).  The reason is that he obviously thinks he is a bishop, so we are dealing with an error in fact rather than an actual refusal to become consecrated.

I'll admit, maybe this is just personal bias talking . But I have a hard time believing the official hierarchy could err *that* badly.  Mind, I'm like majorly not of the ultramontanist opinion that basically everything a Pope says has to be taken as gospel.  I'm inclined to think the hierarchy at one particular time can err pretty badly.  But to err so badly that we don't even know if the priests are priests?  I have a hard time buying that one.  Like I think that conclusion just makes more sense with the Sedevacantist conclusion that the hierarchy isn't the hierarchy.  It would seem *Very* weird to say Paul VI butchered the rites of ordination so horribly that we can't even know if a priest is a priest anymore, but yet he's still a true pope.  I don't know, I find that hard to believe.  That seems more like a case of the shepherd *actually* poisoning the sheep, whereas some of the other stuff is more along the lines of just... the shepherd making it somewhat harder for the sheep to save their souls, if that makes sense.

I'll admit, maybe this is just personal bias talking . But I have a hard time believing the official hierarchy could err *that* badly.  Mind, I'm like majorly not of the ultramontanist opinion that basically everything a Pope says has to be taken as gospel.  I'm inclined to think the hierarchy at one particular time can err pretty badly.  But to err so badly that we don't even know if the priests are priests?  I have a hard time buying that one.  Like I think that conclusion just makes more sense with the Sedevacantist conclusion that the hierarchy isn't the hierarchy.  It would seem *Very* weird to say Paul VI butchered the rites of ordination so horribly that we can't even know if a priest is a priest anymore, but yet he's still a true pope.  I don't know, I find that hard to believe.  That seems more like a case of the shepherd *actually* poisoning the sheep, whereas some of the other stuff is more along the lines of just... the shepherd making it somewhat harder for the sheep to save their souls, if that makes sense.

One thing you are not taking into account here, is that the people eat and drink the poison willingly, many even eagerly - and have done so since the revolution began. Without that ingredient, the revolution would have ended quicker than it began. Even now, if all the NOers renounced the NO and went wholly trad tomorrow, the conciliar church would self destruct.

The Church has ALWAYS taught obedience to God first, to never blindly follow any man, She certainly NEVER taught to blindly follow the pope, and those who chose to eat the poison knew this just as well as the pioneer trads knew this.

So the people themselves bear much of the guilt in this, the question is, who bears the most guilt? -  the people who keep eating the poison up like candy, or the popes and Church authorities who've been feeding it to them for the last +50 years?