The issue will continue to come up, and that issue is this:

Is the current person claiming to be Pope at the See in Rome, the Pope?

If you believe he is, then you must following his orders for the church as they are binding, otherwise you place yourself outside of its gates.

Choosing to not choose is not actually a decision, ironically as that may be. You are just in between decisions. Pope or not Pope.

Pope or not Pope.

Again, Pope or not Pope.


**Just when everyone thought PIO was not talking anymore ha ha ..

Just when I stopped calling Sedevacantists "simplistic", you go and remind me that the epithet is indeed well-deserved in some cases!

So you think the Pope has absolute authority which must always be followed? What religion are you following? "Papolatry"?

In my religion (the Catholic Faith), the Pope only has authority to build up the Church -- never to start a new religion, or tear the old Church down. He has no authority whatsoever to remix or reconfigure the Church. If and when he attempts to do so, he does so merely as a man and not as a pope -- God's authority is not with him for these activities.

Christ gave to Simon Peter and his successors, the Keys to the Kingdom and the power of binding and loosing. To the Popes was given the authority to teach. To them, in this regard, was given the charism of infallibility. "Infallibility" is not "impeccability" -- the inability to sin. Catholics do not believe that Popes are sinless and never err. Infallibility is simply a gift that is expressed in very specific ways, limited by Sacred Deposit of Faith -- Tradition, Scripture, and the unanimous writings of the early Fathers. As put by Vatican I:

For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles.

For the sake of discussion, let's pretend you're 12 years old. Are you under your parents? Yes. Do they have authority over you? Yes.

One day your father tells you to commit a sin. What do you do?

Well, according to PartyIsOver we only have 2 choices:

1. Deny that your father is indeed your father, because "come on! what father would ever tell me to commit a sin." Besides, you can't be told to commit sin -- so he must not be your father, otherwise you'd be forced to obey him!

2A. Admit he is your father, and go ahead and commit the sin.
2B. Admit he is your father, refuse to commit the sin, and confess the sin of disobedience. (You disobeyed an authority you just recognized.)

Well, any rational individual would admit of a third option:

3. Admit he is your father and has authority over you, but realize that authority has its limits. When ordered to commit a sin, one can virtuously disobey, because you must always obey God rather than men (when the two are in conflict). In other words, parents have no authority to go against God. When they do, they step OUTSIDE their authority and do not have to be obeyed.

Likewise, the Pope has no authority to change the Church. When he does so, he does so ON HIS OWN and must be disobeyed.

Well done Matthew. And, to clarify- you're not saying the sedevecantist position is out of the question. You're simply saying the issue isn't so simple.

Yes, I should have been more clear about that. Sedevacantism isn't out of the question, which is what +Lefebvre taught.

By the way -- you might wonder why I follow +Lefebvre so closely. Abp. Lefebvre is the closest thing to a modern-day saint we can follow -- a saint who lived to know the Crisis we're in today. All other saints we'd have to speculate about what they'd do. I realize +Lefebvre technically isn't a saint, but I've read his biographies and they seem a lot like the lives of the saints that I've read (which number in the hundreds).

Certainly the hand of God was with him. He was led by Providence. Providence seemed to spend a lot of effort on forming him just right for the battle he'd need to fight in his last years.

Anyhow, back to the discusssion...

Some Catholics ("Sedevacantists") point to this or that docuмent or they focus on this or that element of truth, which leads them to their position.

But having a false notion of obedience, or a false notion of Papal Infallibility is NOT legitimate.

Interestingly, the notion of obedience expressed by PartyIsOver (above) is the same argument why countless Catholics stay in the Novus Ordo. "Obedience to the Pope is absolute."

So both PIO and the Novus Ordo Catholics have the doctrine of Obedience dead-wrong.

Is the 12 year old's biological father infallible?

This, IMO, is the misunderstood doctrine which led nearly the entire world to accept the NO. The pope is no more infallible than any man - except under certain conditions.

We know (or should know) that the pope can err - history proves the pope can deviate from the faith  - and the Church even teaches that the pope can indeed  deviate from the faith yet remain the pope.


cuм ex Apostolatus Officio teaches us that the Roman Pontiff,who is the representative upon earth of God and our God and Lord Jesus Christ, who holds the fulness of power over peoples and kingdoms, who may judge all and be judged by none in this world, may nonetheless be contradicted if he be found to have deviated from the Faith...........

This teaches first that none on earth has any authority to dethrone him whatsoever, next it teaches that the pope can indeed deviate from the faith. It also teaches that if and when he deviates from the faith that we are not to follow him in his heresy, not only that, it teaches us that we are bound to contradict him when he does deviate from the faith.

Additionally, they certainly knew that the pope himself most certainly can pretty much completely deviate from the faith - yet remain pope - because  they continue on:
..........Remembering also that, where danger is greater, it must more fully and more diligently be counteracted

I think this is a perfect reference that supports the "recognize and resist" position while at the same time crushes any argument against: 1) "the pope is infallible" and 2) the Chair becomes vacant due to the pope's apostasy.

As regards the validity of the whole election issue, i.e. invalid cardinals cannot elect a valid pope and etc., I believe that there may be validity in that argument, yet I do not see how anyone can know *positively*  that this is the case - anymore than they can say with certainty that all NO sacraments are invalid 100% of the time.

The safest road to be on IMO, is to give the benefit of the doubt to the pope being the pope -  but the further he deviates from the faith,  the "more diligently he is to be counteracted".