I don't expect this to happen, but if it did. Let's say most of the Thuc Bishops and the CMRI and SSPV and SSPX bishops got together and held a conclave. Would you follow the man they elected as Pope?

Nope.

I would have to see their arguments and justifications for doing so.  Such a conclave would need to include all valid traditional bishops, I think.  For the foreseeable future, it's not going to happen and those bishops aren't going to even attempt to make a case for doing so.

If it happened, it would be another illegal conclave resulting in another antipope.  Only those who have the lawful right to elect a pope may do so.  

This is what I was thinking.  All we'd be doing is trading one for another.

God help us.

BTNYC wrote:

This thread cuts right to the heart of the problem I've always seen in Sedevacantism, despite the many protestations I've heard to the contrary - and that is that the only realistic, honest end it points to is Conclavism. David Bawden ("Pope Michael") seems to have been the first to take the premise to its logical conclusion, and I for one, see his story as the greatest, most tragic of cautionary tales.

An election of a pope is a good thing, especially when there has been a very long term state of sedevacante.  It is an illegal election that is the problem.  

David Bawdem took a faulty premise to a faulty conclusion.  Like others who have claimed the papacy, they assume that any Catholic or group of Catholics can elect a pope on their own.  

In the absence of the cardinals' the right of election devolves to the hierarchy and the Roman clergy.  They are the only lawful electors.  Any election of a pope from "traditional" bishops, any clergy or laity is illegal.  

David Nawden and Fr. Pulvermacher are cautionary tales.  Catholics cannot usurp that which does not belong to them.  The right of election belongs only to the remaining members of the hierarchy and the Roman clergy, and no one else on earth has that right.

This thread cuts right to the heart of the problem I've always seen in Sedevacantism, despite the many protestations I've heard to the contrary - and that is that the only realistic, honest end it points to is Conclavism. David Bawden ("Pope Michael") seems to have been the first to take the premise to its logical conclusion, and I for one, see his story as the greatest, most tragic of cautionary tales.

"Yet the general and deep-down problem of liberals and sedevacantists is the same, even if neither would care to admit it: both forget just how far Our Lord can choose to allow the men of His Church to misbehave without it ceasing to be His Church.

This is because the Catholic Church, like its Founder, is truly human and truly divine. For when God became incarnate, or took flesh, then the Son of God, true God, became also true man, so that in Jesus Christ the divine and human natures are always both present and distinct but neither separate nor confused. Similarly in his one true Church, divine and human elements are always both present but especially must not be confused, because whereas the divine element is infallible both in Our Lord and in his Church, on the contrary the human element is sinless in Our Lord but fallible in his Church.

If then I blur the divine and human elements in the Church, the same confusion can go either of two ways. Either I will blur the human into the divine, and then, crediting mere humans with divine infallibility, I will hold the churchmen to be right whatever they say, and, if I blindly follow liberal popes, I will fall into liberalism. Or I will blur the divine into the human, in which case discrediting the stainless Church, bride of Christ, with the stains of fallible churchmen, I risk repudiating the bride and falling out of the Church, as did many Catholics when they became Protestants in Luther’s time, and as have done a number of sedevacantists in our own time. On the contrary Catholics keep their balance by neither, like liberals, crediting the merely human with qualities divine, nor, like sedevacantists, discrediting the divine as merely human....

What has falsified and exaggerated infallibility in many Catholics’ minds over the last 120 years has been the Church’s strong discipline from the definition of papal infallibility in 1870 down to the 1960’s and a series of relatively good popes (in doctrine and morals) from Pius IX to Pius XII inclusive. In a way, Catholics had it too good. That is why when John XXIII and Vatican II began seriously to err, easily most Catholics were caught off their guard. Whether they accepted error with their erring leaders and became liberal, or repudiated the erring leaders and left the Church or became sedevacantists, either way they lost their Catholic balance."

--Bishop Richard Williamson

This is not even an argument... No deep down inside none of us want to go "elect our own Pope."

Just because the logical first step required by most reasonable people would be a state of sedevacante and then you can elect your own Pope. You are seriously grasping at straws here, notice how all of the individuals that carry out "the logical conclusion" are actually messed up in the head. Never mind the fact that there have been several anti-popes elected while at the same recognizing Vatican II is legitimate and the Conciliar Popes likewise. Nutters do what nutters have always done, go against natural reason + faith. Are all of these individuals mentally insane, I am not entirely sure that all of them are as severe as the case with Mr. David Bawden. Nevermind some other Papal mystical elections that happened even without them being sedevacantist, like Palmar de Troya, recognized the legitimacy of the Conciliar Popes even canonizing "Paul VI", so no its not just a "sedevacantist problem.

Ultimately the heart of the problem is that there is a severe crisis in the Church and some individuals have taken the liberty to themselves to "fixing it" without any sort of pedigree or real claim to a mandate from God.

Never mind the fact that such an event will never take place, because the traditional Bishops are not nutters or Conciliarist for that matter. It takes precisely a CONCILIARIST understand of Ecclesioloy in order to carry out Conclavism. So that the real problem is that they have never understood precisely what the fight for tradition is about. It is interesting that even H.E. Williamson puts the liberals and the "rigorist" on the same boat. However, it is precisely quite the opposite. Conclavism is SEDEPLENISM, not sedevacantism. It takes someone with an ecclesiology like the SSPX's in order to be able to.

It was trying to fix the irregularity that the SSPX has with those they recognize that they were trying to solve, not the other way around. Operating under epikea and totally rejecting the new religion is too harsh for most of these unstable souls... Mr. Bawden actually was thinking along the same lines as the SSPX, he went to a SSPX seminary but notice even currently right now his ecclesiology if you listen to his audio etc... Is completely the same as that of any average priest in the SSPX, with one modification...

A lot of sedeplenist attempt to paint Sedevacantist as nutters, so that they can continually justify themselves that the position is "not a serious one." Whatever makes you sleep at night better, but the reality is that you really fail to see the real root of the problem where all Conclavist tendencies can be found, a mind that cannot simply say yes and no at the same time to those they recognize as authorities. They are operating under an ecclesiology of the SSPX, not anywhere remotely close to how any serious Sedevacantist does. They want their Yes to be Yes and their No to be No, when it comes to obedience. The reality is that they feel the total inconsistency of the Recognize and Resist position, which is an abomination to their eyes. I definitely can empathize with them to an extent, but in the end they are a bunch of proud individuals that fail to trust in Providence, and also happen to be control freaks with some sort of "power" frenzy mentality. Pray that within their lifetime they might actually see the foolishness of their idea. Only God knows when they will change, and we must hope for the good and salvation of their souls that they come to the truth of the matter before they die. Schism is not a pretty thing... It actually takes you to Hell.

R & R position does not certainly fall under "Catholic" balance. Especially after 50 years of doing that, it seems quite schismatic from any sort of objective way of looking at it. Some folks actually believe in the word communion as it was understood in the past with the same meaning and same understanding as the Church, anything else is pure modernism plain and simple.

+Pax vobis+

If some of you have some idea what "Dogmatic Sedevacantism" might be, why not chime in, instead of (or at least in addition to) down-thumbing the question?

This has already happened, and I wouldn't, because clergy with no mission cannot elect a pope.

 Who have they chosen? I think you are mistaken.