Author Topic: The Soft Sedevacantist (Read 13026 times)

Caminus · « **on:** April 12, 2011, 03:01:20 PM »

After having researched theological writings in the decades prior to the Council, I have witnessed their handling of the very errors and tendencies that found a place within the Conciliar texts. When they engaged these errors and their opponents, they never used the term 'heresy' nor did they censure their opponents as 'heretics'. Thus, men like John Lane who are familiar with the theological discourse prior to the Council are cognizant of this manner of treatment. I suspect that he was at first a hardline sedevacantist who after familiarizing himself with these writings came to understand the approach of unimpeachable catholic theologians dealing with the same errors. Consequently, he mitigated his position. That is also why he looks upon the 'una cuм' issue as seriously flawed. There are a number of lessons to be learned from this, one being that an overreaction is an error by excess. Another is that judging heresy is not nearly as neat and tidy as one would think. For example, when Msgr. Fenton was dealing with the error of creating an "invisible church" or of extending the Mystical Body of Christ beyond the visible confines of the Catholic Church, he used terms like "error," "misleading," "deficient," and "dangerous". But for amature theologians like Bishop Dolan and Fr. Cekada this same error is censured as the "superchurch heresy."

SJB · « **Reply #1 on:** April 12, 2011, 03:22:05 PM »

Quote from: Caminus

After having researched theological writings in the decades prior to the Council, I have witnessed their handling of the very errors and tendencies that found a place within the Conciliar texts. When they engaged these errors and their opponents, they never used the term 'heresy' nor did they censure their opponents as 'heretics'. Thus, men like John Lane who are familiar with the theological discourse prior to the Council are cognizant of this manner of treatment. I suspect that he was at first a hardline sedevacantist who after familiarizing himself with these writings came to understand the approach of unimpeachable catholic theologians dealing with the same errors. Consequently, he mitigated his position. That is also why he looks upon the 'una cuм' issue as seriously flawed. There are a number of lessons to be learned from this, one being that an overreaction is an error by excess. Another is that judging heresy is not nearly as neat and tidy as one would think. For example, when Msgr. Fenton was dealing with the error of creating an "invisible church" or of extending the Mystical Body of Christ beyond the visible confines of the Catholic Church, he used terms like "error," "misleading," "deficient," and "dangerous". But for amature theologians like Bishop Dolan and Fr. Cekada this same error is censured as the "superchurch heresy."

The dogmatic stance on the "pope issue" is the problem, whether it be sedevacantist or sedeplentist.

Dolan/Cekada's problems are not their sede beliefs (if they really believe it), but their dogmatic stance about it. They have a few other serious moral problems as well.

Caminus · « **Reply #2 on:** April 12, 2011, 04:22:36 PM »

Here's my take. The Church had a series of very great Popes, brilliant theologians; very faithful Popes teaching lucidly, with precision, unction, fervor and diligence. Their teaching clarified and edified. They were all trained according to the method of St. Thomas and formed as priests ought to have been formed. John XXIII started out the same way, but he started saying strange things and was silent about others. Not enough to make him a heretic by any measure, but something wasn't quite right. John Paul I didn't reign long enough for anyone to notice. Then came the Polish Pope John Paul II. He was not trained and formed properly, had a lust for novelty, did not teach with the same clarity and unction and was simply a terrible theologian and philosopher. The same for Benedict XVI. His formation was perverted, he had a great love for secular literature, bad philosophers and theologians and didn't care for St. Thomas. The result has been a disaster. The contrast could not be more stark. Compared to the series of Popes prior to the Council, they are intellectually defunct while esteeming themselves to be "profound" thinkers. So a series of great Popes lined right next to a couple of terrible Popes brings it out in greater relief. Some say they are no Popes at all. In comparison to Pope Pius X, you would be correct. The question is how theologically perverse can one man be before he defects from the faith? For, as hard as it is to admit it in light of the glorious memory of past Popes, a thousand errors doesn't amount to a single heresy. And when they make statements based upon pseudo-mysticism and bad philosophy it just complicates things. Some of the things they have said taken literally are absolute denials of faith, but the problem is that these men don't take them that way, precisely because they are bad philosophers and theologians infected with a false mysticism. And you have to take things not as you wish them to be but as they are in themselves. These men do not exhibit the characteristics of formal heretics, rather they exhibit the characteristics of something else. That is why (among other things) we reserve judgment. And even if they do not actually possess the virtue of faith, they at least claim to profess it and that is sufficient for Church membership.

BTW, you never did answer my question in the "Sources" thread. Your comments were essentially irrelevant to the question that was being posed.

s2srea · « **Reply #3 on:** April 12, 2011, 04:28:23 PM »

Caminus- great post- I've read the writings of some who seem to be quick to use the word "heretic"- most of them sedes. There's something different about that and I wonder if it is the approach we should be using. I'm not saying its wrong- but cause if its black its black. Perhaps its just not what I'm used to reading when I'm reading religion.

Caminus · « **Reply #4 on:** April 12, 2011, 04:35:08 PM »

Well, using the term 'heretic' is easy and gets rid of the problem quite nicely. Actually, being an SV would be a very easy solution at face value. I sometimes envy those who have dared to take this road for it must be quite a relief to abandon the entire stinking edifice. But this is only an apparent convenience for the SV solution involves a much deeper problem. We can work though difficulties about the magisterium and other such things, but when it comes to declaring all are heretics we are ultimately left with a Church that possesses no authority and this is no Church at all. There are many more problems, but this is what it boils down to. SJB is keenly aware of the problem but refuses to face it.

stevusmagnus · « **Reply #5 on:** April 12, 2011, 04:41:00 PM »

:applause:

Welcome back Caminus. You've summed up nicely a point I've been trying to make that has fallen repeatedly on deaf ears here, I think by choice.

SJB · « **Reply #6 on:** April 12, 2011, 04:49:22 PM »

Quote from: s2srea

Caminus- great post- I've read the writings of some who seem to be quick to use the word "heretic"- most of them sedes. There's something different about that and I wonder if it is the approach we should be using. I'm not saying its wrong- but cause if its black its black. Perhaps its just not what I'm used to reading when I'm reading religion.

Some are too quick to use the word heretic. Some are too hesitant to use it all.

SJB · « **Reply #7 on:** April 12, 2011, 04:53:36 PM »

Quote from: Caminus

Well, using the term 'heretic' is easy and gets rid of the problem quite nicely. Actually, being an SV would be a very easy solution at face value. I sometimes envy those who have dared to take this road for it must be quite a relief to abandon the entire stinking edifice. But this is only an apparent convenience for the SV solution involves a much deeper problem. We can work though difficulties about the magisterium and other such things, but when it comes to declaring all are heretics we are ultimately left with a Church that possesses no authority and this is no Church at all. There are many more problems, but this is what it boils down to. SJB is keenly aware of the problem but refuses to face it.

The problem is one of all traditional Catholics. The problem is much more than a heretical pope. I have said this many times and am accused by both "sides" of being a traitor.

ServusSpiritusSancti · « **Reply #8 on:** April 12, 2011, 04:54:18 PM »

I agree with you, Caminus.

SJB · « **Reply #9 on:** April 12, 2011, 04:58:23 PM »

Quote from: Caminus

And even if they do not actually possess the virtue of faith, they at least claim to profess it and that is sufficient for Church membership.

By "profess it" you mean they haven't specifically declared themselves to be non-Catholics or joined a condemned schismatic or heretical sect. That however, is NOT what determines membership in the Church.

MyrnaM · « **Reply #10 on:** April 12, 2011, 05:23:32 PM »

Quote from: s2srea

Caminus- great post- I've read the writings of some who seem to be quick to use the word "heretic"- most of them sedes. There's something different about that and I wonder if it is the approach we should be using. I'm not saying its wrong- but cause if its black its black. Perhaps its just not what I'm used to reading when I'm reading religion.

Maybe because the VII popes don't use that word "heretic" against those outside their idea of church.

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #11 on:** April 12, 2011, 06:20:50 PM »

Quote from: Caminus

After having researched theological writings in the decades prior to the Council, I have witnessed their handling of the very errors and tendencies that found a place within the Conciliar texts. When they engaged these errors and their opponents, they never used the term 'heresy' nor did they censure their opponents as 'heretics'. Thus, men like John Lane who are familiar with the theological discourse prior to the Council are cognizant of this manner of treatment. I suspect that he was at first a hardline sedevacantist who after familiarizing himself with these writings came to understand the approach of unimpeachable catholic theologians dealing with the same errors. Consequently, he mitigated his position. That is also why he looks upon the 'una cuм' issue as seriously flawed. There are a number of lessons to be learned from this, one being that an overreaction is an error by excess. Another is that judging heresy is not nearly as neat and tidy as one would think.

I came to this very conclusion sometime ago, after reading how carefully Catholic authors and theologians criticized those opinions of other Catholic theologians and authors which they believed were erroneous. Charity and edification of one's fellow neighbor, together with zeal for the integrity of the Catholic faith and right reason, both motivated their criticism and tempered the same.

Sadly this is not what I am seeing in most "apologetical" treatises and posts, which sometimes succuмb to "playschool polemics."

I further posit that this is precisely the same error of certain anti-sedevacantists, who say that no layman has the authority wherewith to judge a Roman Pontiff, yet they take it upon themselves to judge their fellow neighbor, even to the point of pretending to scan their hearts and reins as if they were endued with divine revelation, or of diagnosing them with random mental disorders as if they had the competence of a professional psychologist. So this error of which you have written seems to be present on all camps of traditional Catholics, for charity, true zeal and civility are becoming as rare as first class relics.

stevusmagnus · « **Reply #12 on:** April 12, 2011, 06:32:52 PM »

Or posting veiled judgment of other posters disingenuously disguised.
If you are referring to me, at least have the honesty and decency to come out and say it.

If you actually read my posts I refer directly to Sede-ism and refrain from personal judgments. And you may want to check those self same orthodox Catholic authors and see what they had to say about judging the Supreme Pontiff. Also if their fellow theologians were judging the pope of the time as an apostate, heretic, and satanic anti-pope, I think you would have seen some fireworks against this "thesis".

Raoul76 · « **Reply #13 on:** April 12, 2011, 06:35:46 PM »

Athanasius punched Arius in the face.

I'm tired of the complaints about the lack of civility. It is partly true, and I have done much work trying to become more charitable and more patient myself, which is pretty hard when you're dealing with those slippery guys using communist smears that the SSPX produces ineluctably.

But I see that notion of "lack of charity" being used very often to excuse errors, as well as the passive-aggressive sophistry of certain members of this board.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. SSPX and the sedes can't BOTH be right.

When St. Augustine was refuting an error, he'd write a book about it and get the backing of the other orthodox clergy and the Pope. He didn't come on a website and go around and around in circles, futilely. That is trying to beat sophists at their own game. I have learned my lesson on that one.

A sedevacantist/privationist like Father Noel Barbara did an excellent job refuting certain SSPX errors, as well as problems with the stance of Abp. Lefebvre. But how many people are going to find copies of Fortes in Fide?

Until then, I'll do what I can, in my limited and insignificant place, to try to nudge people in the right direction. But arguing on the website has lost all appeal. I think the sedevacantist argument has been set out effectively by many people on the Internet, and those who want to know just have to go and look. I see no need for the eternal repetition of saying the same thing over and over.

The SSPX position on the other hand, and unfortunately this is notorious, is not logical, it's emotional, and you can't argue with emotion-driven folk. Someone is in SSPX because they are afraid of saying the Pope isn't the Pope, they think they might go to hell if they're wrong, or else because they don't want to be too "extreme," or else they're concerned that maybe they'd disrupt their lives, etc. But theologically, the SSPX position doesn't stand up, and with every day that passes it gets closer to Old Catholicism. The disdain for the papacy seen in many SSPX people is notable. They simply don't seem to care if there is a Pope or not, and they even go so far as to mock sedes for being "obsessed" with the "Pope issue," as if it's essentially irrelevant.

Raoul76 · « **Reply #14 on:** April 12, 2011, 06:41:40 PM »

StevusMagnus said:

Quote

Also if their fellow theologians were judging the pope of the time as an apostate, heretic, and satanic anti-pope, I think you would have seen some fireworks against this "thesis".

What did the fellow theologians of St. Bernard say when he almost single-handedly agitated for the removal of Anacletus II, who was supported by a majority of cardinals, and WON?

I'm going to follow you around and keep repeating that over and over. You constantly play on false piety, a superstitious approach to the papacy. The man who looks like Pope, to you, is always Pope, no matter what, and it is somehow heretical or scandalous to question that. Your logic is that HE'S THE POPE, SEE, EVERYONE IS SAYING HE IS. You don't seem to get it -- just because someone shows himself as Pope doesn't mean he is. If I'm wrong, please explain the Anacletus II episode, or the fact that all of France followed anti-Popes during the Schism.