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http://www.waragainstbeing.com/node/43Article 20: The Religion of Abandonment: Sedevacantism and the Concilliarist HeresySt. Robert BellarmineSt. Robert Bellarmine’s writings are a constant recourse for sedevacantists. It is necessary therefore to give some attention to his errors. In regard to the situation in which there might be no (certain) Cardinals remaining alive who could elect a Pontiff, Bellarmine writes:
“If there were no papal constitution on the election of the Supreme Pontiff; or if by some chance all the electors designated by law, that is, all the Cardinals, perished simultaneously, the right of election would pertain to the neighboring bishops and the Roman clergy, but with some dependence on a general council of bishops.
In this proposition, there does not appear to be universal agreement. Some think that, exclusive of positive law, the right of election would devolve on a Council of Bishops, as Cajetan, tract. De Potestate Papae & Concilii, cap. 13 & 21 & Francis Victoria, relect. 2. quest. 2. De potestate Ecclesiae. Others, as Sylvester relates s.v. Excommunicatio, 9. sec. 3, teach that in that case the right of election pertains to the Roman clergy. But these two opinions can be reconciled. Without a doubt, the primary authority of election in that case pertains to a Council of Bishops; since, when the Pontiff dies, there is no higher authority in the Church than that of a general Council: and if the Pontiff were not the Bishop of Rome, or any other particular place, but only the general Pastor of the whole Church, it would pertain to the Bishops either to elect his successor, or to designate the electors: nevertheless, after the Pontificate of the world was joined to the bishopric of the City [posteaquam unitus est Pontificatus orbis Episcopatui Urbis], the immediate authority of electing in that case would have to be permitted by the bishops of the whole world to the neighboring bishops, and to the clerics of the Roman Church, which is proved in two ways.
First, because the right of election was transferred from all the neighboring bishops and the Roman clergy to the Cardinals, who are a certain part of the bishops and clergy of the Roman Church; therefore, when the Cardinals are lacking, the right of election ought to return to all the bishops and clergy of the Roman Church.
Second, because this is a most ancient custom (as we showed above from Cyprian), that the neighboring bishops, in the presence of the clergy, should elect both the Bishop of Rome and others also. And it is unheard of that the Bishops or Archbishops of the whole world should meet for the election of the Supreme Pontiff, except in a case where it is doubtful who should be the legitimate electors. For this doubt ought to be resolved by a general Council, as was done in the Council of Constance [emphasis mine].” (Bellarmine's Controversies, De clericis, bk. I, ch. 10. (Translation by James Larrabee)
Cardinal Bellarmine was wrong about Constance. The Council of Constance, as we have seen, did not choose electors, or elect a Pope (Martin V), stemming from any power or authority which it possessed on its own, but from the power and authority which it received from the convocation and legitimization of this Council by the valid Pope Gregory XII, who resigned and made such an election possible. There was no “doubtful” Pope at Constance, only a valid Pope who was doubted by those who were deceived by Antipopes. And there were no valid electors at Constance until Gregory approved them as such. The Council of Constance indeed used a very unusual method of electing Martin V (election by a General Council, which employed a complex system of voting by nations), but the approval and legitimization of this variation from normal procedures for Papal elections came not from any power or authority possessed by the Council itself, but from the convocation of this Council by Gregory XII and his approval of this electoral process.
Secondly, if there are no longer any Cardinal-electors living, the right of election of the Pope falls, according to the teaching of Pope Pius IV, to the clergy of Rome. The following is from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article on “Election of the Popes”:
“Should the college of cardinals ever become extinct, the duty of choosing a supreme pastor would fall, not on the bishops assembled in council, but upon the remaining Roman clergy. At the time of the Council of Trent, Pius IV, thinking it possible that in the event of his death the council might lay some claim to the right, insisted on this point in a consistorial allocution.”
There is, therefore, no power or right inherent in a General Council by which it can elect a Pope, unless it be empowered to do so by a reigning Pope. No General Council could ever come into valid existence in a situation where there is no reigning Pope, or where a valid Pope had not convoked and sanctioned a General Council before his death or abdication.
It should also be noted that, in his analysis, Bellarmine specifically designates a situation in which all the Cardinals or designated electors “perished simultaneously.” In such a situation, the juridical (not to mention moral and spiritual-sacramental) connections and bonds within the Roman Church would still be intact. We would presume, in Bellarmine’s scenario, that the previous Pope was valid. The interregnum would be relatively short. No such situation exists today after a 54 year period of alleged sedevacantism. We have had five Popes (Antipopes in the sedevacantist scenario), and the Cardinals who were alive at the time of the death of Pius XII took many years to all die. The Orders of the existing “Roman clergy”, in the sedevacantist perspective, are almost all invalid. Who will therefore determine what is constituted by the “Roman clergy”? One can almost imagine ads appearing in all the newspapers of Rome advertising for “Sedevacantist Clergy to Elect a Pope.” We are here dealing with buffoonery.
Therefore, even without considering the serious “conciliarist” errors found in Bellarmine’s analysis above, the use of this passage from his works as a solution to the present sedevacantist conundrum should clearly be seen as totally inapplicable.
One other quote attributed to St. Robert Bellarmine, which is often used by both sedevacantists and adherents to the SSPX, deserves mentioning. It too reflects a derogation of Papal Primacy, and is often a fellow-traveler with Conciliarism. It reads;
“When the Supreme Pontiff pronounces a sentence of excommunication which is unjust or null, it must not be accepted, without, however, straying from the respect due to the Holy See.” (I don’t seriously doubt that this is from Bellarmine, but have yet to see it docuмented).
Such resistance to “unjust excommunication” has been condemned by at least two Popes. Following is a passage from Pope Pius IX’s encyclical Quartus Supra (on the Armenian Schism), in which he quotes from Clement XI’s encyclical Unigenitus:
“Since this does not please the neo-schismatics, they follow the example of heretics of more recent times. They argue that the sentence of schism and excommunication pronounced against them by the Archbishop of Tyana, the Apostolic Delegate in Constantinople, was unjust, and consequently void of strength and influence. They have claimed also that they are unable to accept the sentence because the faithful might desert to the heretics if deprived of their ministration . . . The Jansenist heretics dared to teach such doctrines as that an excommunication pronounced by a lawful prelate could be ignored on a pretext of injustice. Each person should perform, as they said, his own particular duty despite an excommunication. Our predecessor of happy memory Clement XI in his constitution Unigenitus against the errors of Quesnell forbade and condemned statements of this kind . . . Through human weakness a person could be unjustly punished with censure by his prelate. But it is still necessary, as Our predecessor St. Gregory the Great warned, ‘for a bishop’s subordinates to fear even an unjust condemnation and not to blame the judgment of the bishop rashly in case the fault which did not exist, since the condemnation was unjust, develops out of the pride of heated reproof.’ But if one should be afraid even of an unjust condemnation by one’s bishop, what must be said of those men who have been condemned for rebelling against their bishop and the Apostolic See and tearing to pieces as they are now doing by a new schism the seamless garment of Christ, which is the Church?”
St. Robert Bellarmine was therefore also wrong on this issue. And this clearly reveals the danger of searching out, for the purpose of self-justification, theologians (Fr. O’Reilly is a prime example), canonists, and even Saints of the past whose opinions clearly contradict the obvious doctrinal positions of Papal docuмents, and the doctrinal teachings of legitimate Councils.
Another example of the influence of Conciliar thinking is to be found in the thought and writings of John Henry Newman. He was an “inopportunist” in regard to the question of the Pope’s solemn definition of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility at Vatican Council I. He expressed written sentiments desiring the death of Pope Pius IX and the election of a new Pope (to prevent the promulgation of this Dogma), or that he be driven from Rome (see my article Newman and the Pope at
http://www.waragainstbeing.com/partvii). He was also of the stated position that Dogma promulgated by the Pope could not be considered infallible until approved by the whole Church, especially to be signified by the moral unanimity of bishops. He therefore held out hope, even after the Dogma’s promulgation, that the bishops of the “minority” (inopportunists) would coalesce in strong resistance to the Definition. He even went so far in his correspondence, during the period between the Dogma’s promulgation and the eventual surrender of all the minority bishops, to counsel others to avoid confessionals where the confessor might disturb their consciences by inquiring into their acceptance of this Dogma. While certainly not being a full-blown Conciliarist, nevertheless his thinking and Faith were obviously seriously affected by these errors.
It might be telling that that when Fr. O’Reilly was appointed to the chair of theology at the newly established Catholic University in Dublin, John Henry Newman was its Rector.
ConclusionIt is profoundly ingenuous for sedevacantists to call their alleged 54 year period of sedevacantism an “interregnum”. The word means “between reigns,” “between Popes.” It requires that there be a link, an “inter,” between two Papacies. The longest Papal interregnum in the history of the Church was two years and nine months. During that period, and all periods of true interregnums, the Papally legitimized process and persons required for election were present to complete the equation. No such situation, under the sedevacantist scenario of a 54 year vacancy, exists today. One side of the equation is empty, and cannot be filled.
The sedevacantist position is integrally one of despair. It is, in fact, a denial of the promise of Our Lord, which is so aptly summarized in Pastor Aeternus of Vatican Council I, and which is so easily understood without the aid of theologians, theological manuals, or canonists:
“That which the Prince of Shepherds and great shepherd of the sheep, Jesus Christ our Lord, established in the person of the Blessed Apostle Peter to secure the perpetual welfare and lasting good of the Church, must, by the same institution, necessarily remain unceasingly in the Church, which, being founded upon the Rock, will stand firm to the end of the world. For none can doubt, and it is known to all ages, that the holy and Blessed Peter, the Prince and chief of the Apostles, the pillar of the faith and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of mankind, and lives, presides and judges to this day, always in his successors the Bishops of the Holy See of Rome, which was founded by Him and consecrated by His Blood. Whence, whosoever succeeds to Peter in this See does by the institution of Christ Himself obtain the primacy of Peter over the whole Church. The disposition made by Incarnate Truth (dispositio veritatis) therefore remains, and Blessed Peter, abiding in the rock’s strength which he received (in accepta fortitudine petrae perseverans), has not abandoned the direction of the Church.”
Sedevacantism is a religion of Abandonment by Christ.
Topic: The Religion of Abandonment: Sedevacantism and the Concilliarist Heresy (Read 2782 times)