Quote from: Arvinger

Quote from: Stubborn

Yes, I completely agree - they taught their opinions about a hypothetical situation. This is known as theological speculation, not Church teaching.

But the fact that a formal heretic is outside the Church and cannot excercise any authority in the Church is most certainly Church's teaching.

You do not understand what you are trying to communicate.  Because your foundation falls apart before the starting gate, everything is irrelevant, which is to say, the magisterial teaching of the pope is irrelevant.

I ran out of time, but for a much better and more complete reply to your whole idea about heretic/outside of Church, read this post from Drew, which I will quote below. He explains it beautifully.



Sedevacantists, besides the errors of making the pope the rule of faith overthrowing Dogma from its proper role, they also draw unnecessary conclusions from good principles.

The Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ.  Every mortal sin destroys the life of grace in the soul, that is, it ends the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, makes the soul an enemy of God, destroys all merit of every previous good work, and deprives the soul of the right to eternal life.  Every mortal sin formally separates the soul from the friendship of God completely.  It is not possible for a soul to be an enemy of God and remain part of the Mystical Body of Christ.  He is the dead branch on a living vine where the sap of eternal life, of grace, is lost, completely cut off from life.  He remains formally removed from the life of the vine but materially part of the vine.  Every mortal sin formally separates the soul from God, but it does not materially separate the soul from membership in God’s Church.  

The sin of heresy, like every mortal sin, formally removes a Catholic from the life of grace and friendship with God.  But heresy can, but not necessarily, does more.  It can also lead to the material separation of the Catholic from membership in the Church.  If the mortal sin of heresy is an occult sin in the internal forum, it will formally, but cannot materially, remove the sinner from the Church.  If it ipso facto necessarily caused the material removal of an occult heretic from the Church then the Church would not then be visible because no one could ever know who was or who was not a member of the Church.  If the sin of heresy is public and contumacious, then it is a different problem.  But the important point is that it is not the heresy per se that materially removes from the Church but the fact of the public and contumacious manifestation of the crime.  The public and contumacious character of the crime is the efficient cause and not the heresy itself for the material removal of the heretic from the Church.  The instrumental cause is the imposition of the ipso facto penalty after due process determination of guilt.  The final cause is the glory of God and the protection of the faithful from the scandal of heresy.  

In such cases, the Church determines that the sin of public and contumacious heresy is a problem of scandal for faithful Catholics and therefore the Vicar of Christ, the vicar of the “Lord of the harvest,” may determine to materially remove the cockle before the time of the harvest for the sake of the faithful “wheat.”  But this is not always or necessarily done.  For example, very, very few Modernist heretics were ever materially removed from the Church and then, always after due process even though every Modernists heretic was already formally removed from the Church and cut off from the life of grace.  It is important to recognize that ipso facto penalties are only materially imposed by the law itself after due process. It is analogous to mandatory sentences for specific crimes under specific circuмstances.  The penalty is imposed by the law itself but only after the determination of guilt after due process.  Also, the matter of removing a heretic materially from the Church is a matter of human law and has all the limitation of all human laws, that is, it must be an act of reason, by competent authority, for a good end, promoting the common good, not be overly burdensome, etc.  The essential consideration in the determination to material remove a heretic form the Church is the welfare of the faithful “wheat” in the judgment of the Church authority.

Sedevacantists make themselves the “Lord of the harvest.”  They begin by making the pope the rule of faith and then they get rid of the “rule” because of his personal heresy.  The proof that they hold the pope as the rule of faith is seen in their insistence, just like most conservative Catholics, that Vatican II was “infallible” and the every Catholic must be “obedient” to every disciplinary norm of heretical popes that are clearly harmful to the faith.  They, both the conservative Catholics and the Sedevacantists, corrupt the virtue of Religion by inverting the proper hierarchical order making the virtue of Religion subject to the duty of obedience.  This is evidence of the absence of Wisdom which not only requires the recognition of all truths but necessarily will see them in their proper hierarchical order.

Every good-willed Catholic when they reach a dead-end in the road will conclude that they must have made a wrong turn and will begin to retrace their steps.  Sedevacantists are just pacing back and forth on a dead-end road doing nothing more but insisting that they have faithfully followed the map in every detail.  They have no pope for their Church although they recognize that the Church Jesus Christ founded was established on the first pope, St. Peter.  Even worse, they have no plans of every getting a pope.  They cannot even begin to explain how or when a new pope will be created.  The church they belong to is missing an essential attribute of the Catholic Church.  It clearly is not the Catholic Church!  They insist the pope is the rule of faith and therefore whoever belongs to a Church in which has a heretic pope as the head must necessarily participate in his heresy.  This is absurd.  It is as if to say that Jesus Christ, by worshiping at the temple in Jerusalem, participated in the heresy of the high priest, Caiaphas, or that the man born blind owed unconditional obedience to the high priest and therefore he should have refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ.

I have not read the book by Siscoe and Salza.  If I am repeating what they have already said, I apologize for wasting anyone's time, but I do not think that is the case.  Their book is favorably approved by the SSPX and conservative Catholic Indultists alike.  That would not be the case if they argued that the principle problem for the great majority of Sedevacantists is the overthrow of Dogma from its proper role as the irreformable "formal object of divine and Catholic faith" replacing the revealed truth of God with the opinions of man.

Drew