Because I desire the widest and most intense possible scrutiny of this thesis, I have sent it to a broad cross-section of more than 20 SSPX, Resistance, and sedevacantist clergy, asking the following questions:

1) Is the secundum quid/quoad nos thesis of papal occupancy theologically sustainable?

2) If the thesis is theologically sustainable, is it theologically compelling (i.e., Does it represent obligatory Catholic doctrine)?

An email received says that someone named Lazlo Sjiarto published a similar theory in the Angelus "several decades ago."

I am not familiar with this name, and nothing comes up in an internet search of his name or Angelus (i.e., pre-internet).

If anyone can provide any information (or ideally, the article referred to), it would be much appreciated.

An email received says that someone named Lazlo Sjiarto published a similar theory in the Angelus "several decades ago."

I am not familiar with this name, and nothing comes up in an internet search of his name or Angelus (i.e., pre-internet).

If anyone can provide any information (or ideally, the article referred to), it would be much appreciated.

In 1995, Fr. Anthony Cekada wrote a article (soon after published as a booklet) titled Traditionalists, Infallibility, and the Pope, which advocated the sedevacantist position.

The SSPX response was an Angelus article published in October/1995 by Mr. Laszlo Szijarto which, Fr. Cekada says, made an argument similar to that of Roman Theo.

The article of Mr. Szijarto can be read here: http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/currenterrors/sifting.htm

The rebuttal of Fr. Cekada can be read here: http://www.traditionalmass.org/articles/article.php?id=42&catname=10 (clean copy attached)

[NB: Mr. Szijarto later offered the following explanation against Fr. Cekada's contention: 

"What The Angelus published was NOT an "article".  Nor was it any "refutation" of Father Cekada's booklet.  It wasn't even a direct response.  I had a friend come up to me and tell me that he had read Father Cekada's booklet and had found it to be persuasive.  Knowing that I had backtracked from SVism myself, he asked me to explain WHY I had backed away from it.  I make NO direct references whatsoever to Father Cekada's pamphlet but was just explaining to MY FRIEND why I had back away from SVism.  This little essay wasn't polished, wasn't edited by me, nor did it constitute anything but an informally and hastily-compiled rough-draft letter to my friend.

Evidently my friend passed it around until it made its way to The Angelus.  The Angelus edited it, inserted many/most of the translations from Latin, and even SPELLED MY NAME WRONG.  It's Laszlo, not Lazlo.  I didn't even PUT MY NAME on this thing.  They never once contacted me before publishing it.  I founded out only after a different friend came up to me and "congratulated" me for the article.  I asked, "Huh?  What article?"  At no point did they contact me or get my permission to publish (and edit) it, and they KNEW where I was living at the time.

So that's the complete history of this thing from my end."]

Thanks for posting this, Sean. I’m eager to hear what the resistance and sedevacantists have to say.

An email received says that someone named Lazlo Sjiarto published a similar theory in the Angelus "several decades ago."

I am not familiar with this name, and nothing comes up in an internet search of his name or Angelus (i.e., pre-internet).

If anyone can provide any information (or ideally, the article referred to), it would be much appreciated.

He is near.

… I desire the widest and most intense possible scrutiny of this thesis …

Thank you for starting this thread, Sean. I had not looked at the "Prominent theologians" thread from which you excerpted RomanTheo's thesis, but having been impressed by his thoroughgoing correction of X in the "New rite" thread—a correction that X's stubbornness prevents him from accepting—I am happy to read more of his comments.

Permit me to add a few comments of my own. Being mere obiter dicta, they won't advance the discussion.

(1) I am not surprised that you find RT's thesis appealing, but I am a bit surprised that you seem to be encountering it here for the first time. I say this, not with any implication of disrespect, but simply because it is a thesis that, minus its present name, I encountered as long ago as the early sixties in one of the required theology courses at Manhattan College (perhaps even the freshman-year course, as the sophomore course was exclusively biblical theology). The point, though, is less the time differential than that the thesis was presented as part and parcel of the accepted theological understanding of the doctrinal relation of a cleric with ordinary jurisdiction to the Church office he held.

Put otherwise, this is not a matter I had previously given much thought to (i.e., as debatable or controversial, let alone novel) simply because it was something I assumed that everyone with a modicuм of sound catechesis took for granted. Not for the first time, I have evidently assumed too much.

(2) You wrote the following in the "Prominent theologians" thread:

Part of me thinks it is better to have a Francis in Rome, than a Pope Burke or Pope Mueller, who would emanate a false "traditionalism" (by comparison). Francis's blatant and overt heretical pontificate threatens to burn down the conciliar house, so they want him out. But a Burke or Mueller could do lots more damage over the long haul by pretending to reject error even as he promotes it much more stealthily.

Just so. Indeed, I think you will agree that we have already witnessed this phenomenon. It was for the very reason you outline that Benedict XVI's faux sympathy did Tradition much more harm than John Paul II's open antagonism did. No one should forget that the smells-and-bells mob at Rorate Caeli and St. Hugh of Cluny was so agog over Benedict that I wouldn't be surprised if they had bobblehead dolls of him on the dashboard. Also, from the first reading, I saw Summorum pontificuм as a major step backward from Quattuor abhinc annos of 1984. SP was confected of cheap talk and sloppy sentiment, and the separate instruction to the bishops effectively undercut everything that the motu dangled before its hungry-to-believe audience. I remain puzzled that so few Trads, hard and soft alike, seem to agree.

Still, to return to Francis, there is a case to be made that he should not be seen as better than, say, a Burke unless he turns out to rock the foundations of the conciliar temple. On my soberer days, I don't see that happening save amongst the chattering classes.

(3) Apropos the Angelus article by "Laszlo," as the comments you quote above are excerpted in their entirety from a CI thread of four or five years back, I don't think it's a violation of anyone's privacy or confidence to note that a careful search through the archives will satsfy a reader's curiosity as to his identity.

Hello Claudel-

Thank you for your obiter dicta, which, precisely as you predicted, did not at all advance the discussion.

But allow me to meander with you:

1) What is the purpose of passing a drive-by comment about the Roman Theo vs. Fr. Cekada thread on the new rite of episcopal consecration (which you inaccurately describe as "X" vs Roman Theo; the former is only keeping the latter on point, but the theology is Fr. Cekada's), lest it be some kind of passive-aggressive shot?  

As far as I can tell, that thread has nothing to do with this one.  

The only relevance I can make of it is that, since you know me to also entertain doubts regarding the validity of the form of the new rite, you are trying to take out two birds with one stone?

But in order to do that, you must be able to accomplish that which Roman Theo has thus far been unable to do:

You must explain how the equivocal phrase "spiritus principalis" can somehow unequivocally signify the conferral of episcopal orders.  "X" is exactly on point in noting that, "whatever else this equivocal phrase might signify, the conferral of episcopal orders is not among them" (which once again, is actually Fr. Cekada's argument).

If you believe Roman Theo has done so, please quote his answer/explanation.


2) As for having mastered the secundum quid/quoad nos distinction as applied to the sedevacantist question in the early 1960's (i.e., before the issue ever arose) as part of your basic catechism class, I acknowledge this may make you the greatest theologian currently living. However, if you are tracking the reactions of other sedevacantist and R&R parties, there seems to be a general acknowledgement of the ground breaking nature of Roman Theo's thesis.  

Yes, JST said it all before him, but nobody has applied it to the current situation quite like RT has.  

If, therefore, I am ignorant for not having come to the knowledge of RT's argument before now, at least I seem to have plenty of company (many of whom have been battling on the issue for 10 years or more), and shame on RT for regurgitating such a common and redundant argument.


3) As regards Mr. Szijarto, if you are determined to "out" him (as you seem to be), there really isn't anything I can do to stop you.

So what's really gnawing at you?

Is it still nothing more than that you found Fr. Robinson's book profound, while I find it modernist, and this is all a delayed, melancholic renascence?

That I find evolution destructive of faith, and you find it a non-issue?

Explain your crotchety attitude, man!