RandomFish, are you John Salza?

I suspect this in my first response, and the fact that he has ignored this question suggests that he is, or else someone associated with him.

So, of late, when an account shows up that denounces Traditional Catholicism entirely, claiming that there's nothing wrong with Vatican II and the NOM, it's more than likely another John Salza account.

He opened by making it sound like he's attacking just SVism, trolling in order to get R&R riled up against the sedevacantists, hoping that R&R would remain oblivious to the fact that he also condemns them.  To this day, we have R&R folks continuing to promote S&S attacks against SVism while paying no attention to the fact that it's a double-edged sword since S&S also attack R&R Traditional Catholics based on the same purely-legalistic view of the Church.

Not only that, but Salza repeatedly attributed to SVs propositions that are actually held by no sedevacantists, but, rather, by some R&R, and over which sedevacantists themselves criticize R&R.

But, if this poster is John Salza, I lost even more respect for him, because his logic was so sloppy (and even non-existent) that it was almost mind-boggling.  For someone who doesn't have a grasp of basic logic (having taken 0 courses in the subject) to posture as some kind of theologian or theological leader is beyond me.

His attacks (when unraveled) entailed a strawman false dilemma layered on top of numerous begged questions, so about a half dozen fallacies in one.

His attacks (when unraveled) entailed a strawman false dilemma layered on top of numerous begged questions, so about a half dozen fallacies in one.

So, eventually having pried out of him the assumptions he was making, i.e. the begged questions, we do finally get to the core argument upon which his entire house of cards rests.

Basically, the argument goes that Catholics cannot make modo tollentis or modus tollens rejections of popes based on perceived erroneous teaching.

While he's incorrect that the Old Catholics claimed that Pius IX wasn't a pope, the point there is not a bad one, namely, the authority of the Magisterium is uprooted if Catholics can sit there and argue backwards (modo tollentis) from a perceived erroneous teaching to a non-papacy.  There needs to be some independent a priori evidence that someone is a pope BEFORE a teaching is issued in order to guarantee the truth of said teaching.  Otherwise, there's nothing stopping someone from rejecting any pope.

Let's say Pius IX was defining the Immaculate Conception.  Some Catholics decide that the Immaculate Conception is erroneous or even heretical.  From there they conclude that Pius IX was not the pope.  With this process, no dogmatic teaching is safe.  This is actually the same problem I raised in my 1995 "paper" (that was not meant to be a paper but the Angelus published without my knowledge or permission ... and it was nothing more than a rough draft outline).

So this is a legitimate argument once someone drills down several layers underneath the logical mess that was the OP of this thread.  I have an answer for it, but let's take the debate down to this level, where we can actually address it rationally.

So, the Conciliar Novus Ordo church is just your average development of the Church that we should expect; completely legitimate?

This argument actually speaks to my response to the previous post, the previous question that I had finally distilled from Salza's post.

Traditional Catholics generally become Traditional Catholics not because they analyze specific teachings of Vatican II and determine that they're in error.  They become Traditional Catholics because their sensus Catholicus tells them that the Conciliar Church is something substantially different than the Catholic Church.  I've done this thought experiment before.  Let's say that St. Pius V or St. Pius X had been time-warped forward in time to today and were shown the Conciliar Church in all its "glory".  Would they recognize it as the Catholic Church, the One True Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ?  Most certainly not.

Vatican I taught about supernatural faith that it depends upon a submission to authority.  BUT the initial determination of the credibility of that authority does from from the use of reason, moved by grace.  It's based on these motives of credibility that people determine, "Yes, this is the Church founded by Christ and it does have His authority."

Traditional Catholics have come to the realization that Bergoglio (and his predecessors) do not speak with the voice of the Shepherd.  Our Lord taught that His sheep know His voice and obey it.  We do not recognize the voice of Our Lord in the Conciliar Church.  Our Lord also taught that we would know things by their fruits, and one could write many volumes about the fruits of the Conciliar Church.

We're not talking about an individual proposition in the docuмents of Vatican II.  We're talking about an entirely new religion that was created that bears little resemblance (except in a few residual trappings) to the Catholic Church of Tradition.

What we see in Vatican II isn't just a handful of problematic statements (the 5% of Bishop Fellay), but we see an entirely new Modernist and subjectivist theological system that has manifested itself in 60+ years of "Magisterium".  Vatican II cannot simply be "corrected," as per +Schneider, by simply amending one or two sentences.  But it's radically defective throughout.

At the core of the Vatican II errors rests the Modernist-reimagined ecclesiology, an anti-Tridentine ecclesiology, where there's a "Church of Christ" that reaches beyond the Catholic Church.  While the Catholic Church remains its "subsistent core," various schismatic sects are referred to as Churches.  So then Vatican II details varying degrees of separation from this subsistent core, this "fullness of truth".

Thus, V2 concludes the equivalent of, Orthodox are 99% Catholic, Protestants (depending on the sect) can be 75%-90% Catholic, and even Jews and Muslims are at least, say, 25% Catholic.  While I'm throwing arbitrary numbers out here, this illustrates the V2 approach to ecclesiology.  Ironically, this is the same mentality +Fellay adopts when speaking of V2 being 95% Catholic.

This is a shift from the prior 1900+ years of Catholic theology, where you were either 100% Catholic or you were non-Catholic, a binary or discrete view, vs. this notion of a continuum of truth promoted by V2.  Why?  That's because supernatural motive of faith depends upon submitting in principle to the authority of Christ's Church.  And that is why it's said that if you deny one dogma, you deny them all, because you're denying the very authority behind ALL dogmas.  So even though certain "Churches" may MATERIALLY overlap with a significant percentage of Catholic dogmas, they're still radically separated from the Church based on this criterion.  This is the Traditional teaching that's now replaced by Vatican II.

How does V2 do this?  Well, it's rooted in subjectivizing the formal motive of faith, and transmuting it from a disposition of the intellect and the will to accept the Church's teaching into some strange form of "sincerity", where if you really believe that you're right, then you have the formal motive of faith and are only in material error with regard to whatever errors you hold.  So the supernatural motive of faith, which used to be, "I recognize that the Catholic Church teaches with the authority of Christ and therefore accept everything it teaches," into "I want to believe what God wants me to believe."  Supernatural Faith now depends not on some objective disposition of the intellect and will, but rather on some subjectivist "sincerity" and "intention".  This is also the root of Religious Liberty.  If I can have faith and please God by sincerely following my (even materially erroneous) beliefs, then, since I have a right to please God, then I have a right to follow my (even materially erroneous) beliefs.

This is the crux of the V2 problem, and the root of the entire V2 theological framework.  And THIS is why the so-called "Feeneyism" question is so important.  Rejection of Vatican II as non-Catholic is inseparable from the same problems that Father Feeney et al. are addressing.

Soteriology and ecclesiology are inextricably joined.  We know as dogma that there's no salvation outside the Church.  So if we want Orthodox and Prots and Jews and Muslims to be saved, we have to find a way to include them IN the Church.  There's no other way to do that than by redefining Church.

MAJOR:  There's no salvation outside the Church (dogma).
MINOR:  Orthodox, Prots, Muslims, Jews can be saved.
CONCLUSION:  Orthodox, Prots, Muslims, Jews can be IN the Church.

So you have to redefine "Church," which is precisely what Vatican II did.

Karl Rahner realized that this was THE fundamental shift at Vatican II (of course he was delighted with it), and he marveled that more of the conservative V2 Fathers didn't so much as make a peep about it.  That's because this erosion of EENS and therefore of ecclesiology had been under way for a couple hundred years at least, and so it was already well entrenched.  Vatican II didn't just come out of nowhere.

So this is the new theological system upon which the Conciliar Church has been established.  We're not talking about one or two problematic statements, but upon a new ecclesiology and new soteriology, a new subjectivist theological system.

So, on top of that, we see a New Mass that's not a lick different from Cranmer's abomination and different very little from Luther's.  Some of the English martyrs proclaimed that they would give their lives for the slightest ceremony in the Catholic Mass.  Conciliar Church spits on their graves and adopts the liturgical theology of the heretical Protestants.

In addition, we have the myriad bogus canonizations (for political reasons) by the Conciliar Church ... applying the criterion of "sincerity", or "nitheness", as Bishop Williamson famously refers to it, rather than objective heroic virtue.

With the new theological system (radically different and not just consisting of a couple propositions), a new Protestantized form of Public Worship (Mass), and a new cult of the saints ... the Conciliar Church is in fact an entirely brand new religion that breaks continuity with the Traditional Catholic Church.

So THIS is how Traditional Catholics have come to a recognition that the Conciliar Church is not the Catholic Church, as their sensus Catholicus has determined that there is a substantial discontinuity and disconnect from the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II, and not based on some modo tollentis argument regarding this, that, or another Vatican II proposition.  We find that this Conciliar Church lacks the motives of credibility, that it lacks the Notes of the One True Church of Christ, and is therefore not recognizable as such.  St. Pius V and St. Pius X would not recognize it as such ... and neither do we.

P.P.S. No one told me we had an anti-Traditional Movement, pro-Conciliar poster here on CathInfo. I discovered it eventually, but NO THANKS TO ANY OF YOU. You're my Catholic brothers and I appreciate all the good you've done in the past, but man! You couldn't have said something?

Well, I tend not to contact you about individual posters, and it took me a few posts to sniff him out.  I suspected it was him from the beginning, and quite frankly I didn't mind mixing it up with him on the forum, provided that I had first exposed who he was and what his intent and motivations were.  I kindof liked arguing with John Salza and exposing his sloppy logic.  As you all have likely noticed, I enjoy mixing it up and debating issues, even with an anti-Traditional poster.  In the case of John Salza, he's doing a lot of damage out there, having become a turncoat, and so I thought it was a decent opportunity to discredit him some.

But ... if I spot him again, I'll be sure to let you know.  I've been criticized before for making guesses about individuals' identifies, and very often I'm fishing.  Had he just responded, "I am not John Salza.", I would have accepted that, since I give Catholics the benefit of the doubt that they would not lie ... unless evidence shows the contrary.  There was another account here some time ago that I also suspected him of being John Salza, but he denied it, so I guess that he was Robert Siscoe or else someone associated with S&S.

That's exactly right, Matthew, and I sniffed him out in my first response:  "But, then, perhaps you're Salza again with a different account [claiming] that the Conciliar Church has not erred."

This was a troll job.  Using the ostensibly motive of attacking sedevacantists, he was working up R&R folks against sedevacantists, hoping to mobilize them against sedevacantism, whereas he was actually attacking all Traditional Catholics, and hoping to fly under the radar, getting R&R and SV to battle against each other, and then, after the bodies had fallen where they did, he would execute the R&R folks who remained standing by turning on them.  It's the old divide and conquer tactic, where you get your enemies to fight each other, and after both sides are decimated, you mop up what's left.

I didn't see R&R attacked by this Random Fish guy. But now that he's banned (which is a good idea, even though he was right about a few things), we can now get back to certain sedevacantists who attack R&R traditionalism. Obviously, it's not a problem that sedevacantists are anti-R&R trad here.

Trads here are very much divided even without the additional presence of someone like Salza.

This wasn't Salza, IMO. It was John Pontrello.

Had had several opportunities to deny that he was John Salza.  There were a few things he posted that did not sound like they could have come from Pontrello.