I reply the same way as above - it is still your private judgment which is insufficient to know anything with certainty of faith, which is absolutely necessary in case of knowing Papal legitimacy/illegitimacy. Novus Ordo apologists interpret these quotes regarding ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity, atheism etc. in such a way as to bring them in line with Catholic orthodoxy (and many of these quotes are, in fact, ambiguous, as usual in modernist double-speak, and even more so in the case of earlier V2 claimants to the Papacy, who were much more conservative than Francis in the area of sɛҳuąƖ morality). So, it is Jimmy Akin's/Tim Staples' interpretation vs. your interpretation of Francis' words - again, it comes down to private judgment. As long as there is no judgment of the Church, or at very least Francis is not confronted about these teachings by the hierarchy, it remains a matter of private judgment.  

Notice, I'm not arguing that Francis is a Pope - I argue that we can't answer with certainty of faith the question of his legitimacy/illegitimacy. I personally believe he is most likely not a Pope, but I can't be sure about it. This is why I declared numerous times that I agree with Ladislaus on what he calls sede-doubtism.

 
If you were really interested in the truth on this matter, you would be thoroughly analyzing the quotes in-depth to see if they could indeed be legitimately interpreted to be in line with Catholic orthodoxy. But instead of going that far, you stop and put your hands up and say, "there is no way for us to know". You are clearly avoiding the obvious.
 
Example: Here's the quote from Francis on atheism. To say that an atheist is not condemned is DIRECTLY against the Natural Law - the Church teaches that NOBODY can claim ignorance to the existence of God. How can we possibly twist this into orthodoxy without being labeled a lunatic? Putting your head in the sand and saying "we can't know" in a case like this is sickening. Anyone with even knowledge of grade school English knows exactly what the statement below means.
 
On Heaven and Earth, pp. 12-13: “I do not approach the relationship in order to proselytize, or convert the atheist; I respect him… nor would I say that his life is condemned, because I am convinced that I do not have the right to make a judgment about the honesty of that person… every man is the image of God, whether he is a believer or not."
 
 

Today, that is a good formula only for not going to mass anywhere, being a home aloner.

All the sede groups and SSPX seminaries teach that Jєωs, Mohamedans, Hindus, Bhuddists..... can be saved by their belief in a God that rewards.
Clear dogma says that one can't be saved even if they shed their blood for Christ, but the sede & SSPX priests teach or are taught that anyone can be saved just by believing in a God that rewards. Go figure!

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra:

“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jєωs or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire ..and that nobody can be saved, … even if he has shed blood in the name of Christ[/b], unless he has persevered in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”

Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, Constitution 1, 1215, ex cathedra: “There is indeed one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which nobody at all is saved, …

Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, Nov. 18, 1302, ex cathedra:
“… this Church outside of which there is no salvation nor remission of sin… Furthermore, … every human creature that they by absolute necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

Pope Clement V, Council of Vienne, Decree # 30, 1311-1312, ex cathedra:
“… one universal Church, outside of which there is no salvation, for all of whom there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism…”

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Sess. 8, Nov. 22, 1439, ex cathedra:
“Whoever wishes to be saved, needs above all to hold the Catholic faith; unless each one preserves this whole and inviolate, he will without a doubt perish in eternity.”

Pope Leo X, Fifth Lateran Council, Session 11, Dec. 19, 1516, ex cathedra:
“For, regulars and seculars, prelates and subjects, exempt and non-exempt, belong to the one universal Church, outside of which no one at all is saved, and they all have one Lord and one faith.”

Pope Pius IV, Council of Trent, Iniunctum nobis, Nov. 13, 1565, ex cathedra: “This true Catholic faith, outside of which no one can be saved… I now profess and truly hold…”

Pope Benedict XIV, Nuper ad nos, March 16, 1743, Profession of Faith: “This faith of the Catholic Church, without which no one can be saved, and which of my own accord I now profess and truly hold…”

Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council I, Session 2, Profession of Faith, 1870, ex cathedra: “This true Catholic faith, outside of which none can be saved, which I now freely profess and truly hold…”

The weak teaching of the SSPX and the sedevacantist groups on the salutary salvation dogma is a scandal to the modern Jesuits:

http://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/sspx-and-salvation-outside-church

Cambridge, MA. I was inspired by Fr Jim Martin’s excellent piece on the deep anti-semitism of the Society of Saint Piux X (SSPX) and looked for myself at the website of SSPX to see what else might be found there. The essay to which Fr Martin refers, “The Mystery of the Jєωs,” is now missing from the website, but I did find an interesting pair of articles in debate with Fr. Leonard Feeney, SJ, on salvation outside the Church. Working at St Paul’s Parish and the Catholic Student Center at Harvard in the 1940s, Fr Feeney had argued that the consistent position of the Church should be that no person, Christian or non-Christian, outside the Church could be saved. All were damned.
    
To be candid, I expected that the SSPX website would embrace Fr. Feeney’s stance — but in fact the site does not. Rather, a 1986 article, “Fr. Feeney and Catholic Doctrine,”  argues against the Feeney view, and asserts rather that while one must be baptized to be saved, there are, in addition to baptism by water, also baptism by blood and by desire - that is, by martyrdom and by a deep (and sometimes implicit) longing to participate in Christ. This teaching, vaguely familiar to me from the catechisms of my youth, is in turned explained at length by Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer in an article entitled “The Three Baptisms.” Fr. Pfeiffer cites the Vatican letter to Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, in firm rejection of the very unchristian idea that all non-Catholics are damned: “That one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is necessary that at least he be united to her by desire and longing. However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance, God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wants his will to be conformed to the Will of God..." (Letter to the Archbishop of Boston, August 8, 1949).
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/sspx-and-salvation-outside-church

You still don't get it. Even if I analyze these quotes in depth and come to a conclusion on the basis of it, it is still merely my private judgment vs. private judgment of another person, like Jimmy Akin or Tim Staples. In some cases there were clarifications from the Vatican about what Francis meant - obvious damage control, but there were such nonetheless. For example, in the above quote one could argue that Francis refered only to earthly life of this person ("nor would I say that his life is condemned"), but does not negate that a person who will die as atheist will be condemned after death. I don't suggest that is what Francis meant, personally I am convinced he is a formal heretic, but one could clearly take this line of defence. In that case it is merely his vs. yours private interpretation.

Mine and your private judgments carry zero authority and are insufficient to determine Papal legitimacy/illegitimacy with certainty of faith, which is absolutely necessary in this case. We could know it with certainty of faith only through Church pronouncement, for only Church has such authority. St. Cyril of Jerusalem believed Nestorius to be in heresy, nevertheless he asked Pope Celestine I to investigate the matter and render judgment before takign action himself - how much more cautious must we be in case of a Pope, whose legitimacy/illegitimacy must be known with certainty of faith. Yes, there is a strong possibility that the Chair of Peter is vacant, but currently there is no way we could know it for sure.

 
See reply from Bumphrey just a little while ago which answers your objection here. The Church approves of making private judgments and allows us to act on them even before the Church makes the final decision. It's no different than if you saw a man robbing a bank in broad daylight - you could certainly refer to the man as a thief before he is captured and convicted by the law. If you witnessed the robbery, you wouldn't say, "I think the man is a thief but I can't know for certain".
 
I could see if Francis were otherwise known to be holy and Orthodox, and his quote approving of atheism were his only problem - then we would be more hesitant, but Francis has been teaching heresy after heresy in public for years now on about 30 different doctrines. He is notorious for it. That makes the private judgment that he lost his authority very easy to make. It's like countless people witnessing a man robbing banks over and over for the last two years - the certainty that the man is a thief is undeniable even though the man may still be on the run.
 

*   There is a Catholic principle, "a doubtful pope is no pope". It's on the books. This is something you, and the R&R, go against.

*   St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Francis de Sales, nay, the Church Herself by official approval of the former, says that the Church can/must judge and punish a man who ceased to be pope by manifest heresy.  

*   That fact that the Church can and must do this does not argue that individuals cannot come to the certain conclusion for themselves and publish it. The first bastions against

*   Proof of (a) is that before the Cardinals convene they must individually have come to the solid conclusion the man is not longer pope. The same individual process of faith and reason as anyone can use.

*   The purpose of the Church doing so is to have everyone believe it who were no capable before. This is necessary in order to have the next man elected accepted as pope.

*   The book "Liberalism is a Sin" was highly praised directly by the Holy Office in 1887, and in its second to last chapter it explains that those who try to insist that we must only wait for the top authority in the Church to judge, are actually promoting "a species of brutal and satanic Jansenism".

*   sede-doubtism is flatly contrary to St. Francis de Sales, Liberalism is a Sin, and the Church telling us that an individual can judge and act upon it. If you can't come the personal conclusion, then you should just humbly admit that you are not personally capable, without trying to declare nobody is.


The Scriptures predicted in the last days, that the "operation of error" would come.....and I think we are witnessing it.

Ad 1) Again, straw-man - I'm not arguing that Francis is a Pope, rather than we can't know his status with certainty of faith.

Ad 2) Exactly, and how do we know that he ceased to be Pope by manifest heresy before the judgment and punishment from the Church which, as you rightly pointed out, is necessary? Again, we can't.

Ad 3) No, the individuals cannot come to any binding conclusions in matters of certainty of faith, like a Papal legitimacy/illegitimacy, which must be known as dogmatic fact. For example, lets suppose one is convinced that Our Lady is Co-Redemptix of mankind. He is allowed to express that opinion, however, his opinion is not binding for anyone - he cannot claim that it is a dogma of the Church which must be believed, because the Church has not defined it yet and the person could be in error in his claim that Our Lady is a Co-Redemptrix. Same here - you are allowed to express your opinion that Francis is probably not a Pope (like I do), but your judgment does not make it a dogmatic fact and you could be wrong.

Ad 4) Yes, but their individual conclusions are not binding for anyone and remain a private judgment until they deliver a judgment on behalf of the Universal Church. The difference is of course that the Cardinals can judge on behalf of Universal Church in the case of Papal heresy, while laymen in pew cannot - therefore it is not "the same individual process of faith and reason as anyone can use" as you claimed.

Ad 5) See previous point

Ad 6) Again, strawman - I am not advocating that we must only wait for the top authority to judge. We are allowed to doubt legitimacy of the Pope on the basis of available evidence and take appropriate action, such as separating oneself from the Novus Ordo, attending independent chapel, whether it is SSPX, Resistance, CMRI or any other traditionalist group. We are also allowed to judge specific statements as objectively heretical. However, we cannot claim that vacancy of the Chair of Peter is a dogmatic fact which one must hold - because only judgment of the Church could determine that, and your private judgment is insufficient and not bindig for anyone.

Ad 7) No, it is not - sede-doubtism correctly points out the areas in which we can make judgment (necessity of joining Trad chapels, objective errors in V2 and Papal teachings etc.) and where we cannot (claim that the Chair of Peter is Vacant as a dogmatic fact). And yes, I'm going to say you are not capable of determining status of the current V2 claimant with certainty of faith, because you don't have the authority of the universal Church which is necessary to determine it. Your personal conclusion in this matter is just that - private opinion which holds no authority at all.

Mithrandylan-
I'm very confused as to what you're position is.  I am not a sedevacantist but I believe it's a possibility.  I say that 'I don't know'.  I think we agree more than not.

Regarding your second point, all i'm pointing out is that a particular Church teaching is not dominated by one, particular theologian (i.e. Bellarmine).  In some cases, he could have an enormous influence, but that doesn't mean that everything he says on the topic MUST be accepted.

No it doesn't.  My point is that we believe that 'so and so' is the pope because the Church tells us.

Mithrandylan said
How does she tell us?  What infallible docuмent is presented to the faithful that informs them of who the pope is?  And how do you know that it's infallible?  Or if it doesn't need to be infallible (I'm not sure exactly what your position is) then what assurances do we have that the man in the white robe standing on the loggia is actually the new pope?

How does the church tell us we have a new pope?  By a visible election of the pope, by visible cardinals and by the visible, liturgical celebrations which occur immediately afterwards (i.e. smoke, bells ringing, and papal blessing over the crowd).



Quote

And we believe that Martin Luther was in error because we know our faith and we see that what he said was wrong.  ...But, we laymen CANNOT make a determination that Martin Luther (or the pope, or anyone) is a heretic (which is a very SERIOUS label) until the Church tells us.  It it Her authority, and Hers alone, which can do this.

A Catholic cannot act as though the Church has declared so-and-so to be a heretic when she hasn't, so in that regard a sedevacantist cannot insist, as though it were a dogmatic fact, that such and such conciliar claimant must, under pain of sin, be considered an anti-pope.

I agree wholeheartedly.  

But I'm not insisting that and you'll find that outside of the Internet, very, very few sedevacantists think this is the case.  Just the Dimonds and a few Ohioans and Floridians.

I'm glad you aren't insisting that, contrary to others on this chain who are extremely dogmatic.  However...based on my interactions with regular, everyday sedes (the kind who are trying to do the right thing, who want to save their souls, etc) is that they ARE very dogmatic.  Because 1) they read or hear arguments from the 'popular' sedes and they take this or that catchphrase and run with it, 2) because they don't know enough of the issues to distinguish and properly analyze the topics involved, 3) because they want an easy answer to the crisis, and so they clutch to a 'black and white' outlook in an ever-increasingly gray world, 4) because they're scared they don't know their faith when people ask them to explain the situations we live in, which, in some respects are so demonically confusing that they are unexplainable.

And the above situation is VERY dangerous for their souls, because, they are adding to the confusion.  Many tepid souls listen to all the arguments and lose hope and stop going to mass.  Other become bitter by the constant arguing and lose their love of the faith.  Others fall into so much argumentation that they become angry at any catholic who doesn't their false interpretation of church teachings.

I'm sure you see the problems this can cause...and i'm not blaming any sede or the idea of it.  I'm just preaching to the choir that we must all be very cautious in the way we present our arguments.  For many times the unlearned are being influenced by those of us who have read and studied and who sound like we know what we're talking about (and many times we really don't).

But that's not the case, because what a person does and what a person professes is a reflection of what a person believes.  This is the mind of the Church, as evidenced by the fact that we presume sacramental intention if a man exteriorily follows the rubric; as evidenced by the fact that we flee those who teach heresy even if they claim authority (because if they are heretics they, in fact, are not authorities), etc.

I agree with your argument in theory.  I agree that it APPEARS as if the Vatican 2 popes are outright, damnable heretics who should be burned at the stake for their crimes against Holy Mother Church.  But, as you stated above, I can't say that with certainty, and my opinion doesn't matter, so I leave it to God to sort it out, which He will, through His Church authorities, at some point.

Pax,

Yes, I do think we agree more than we disagree.  I think that our main points of disagreement are over the value of authorities, and over the lawfulness of eliciting a private judgment about certain matters.  To the latter point, I have little more to add (though will be adding some, I think, in some replies to others whose view differs a bit from yours) that I've not yet already said.  I stand by my contention that it is at least in theory lawful to arrive at a private judgment about whether or not a person is a Catholic, and that this judgment can extend to a papal claimant.  To authority, I would point out that on the contrary, many theological disciplines are in fact very dominated by certain authors, or at least by their findings.  Ss. Augustine and Thomas on grace.  St. Alphonsus on moral theology.  St. Frances de Sales on apologetics.  And St. Bellarmine on the papacy and the Church. 

First of all, I'm not sure how you reached the conclusion from your first sentence. I did not say you can't make any judgment about anything - but most certainty you can't make a private judgment where the matter has to be known with certainty of faith (in this case, Papal legitimacy). And yes, to know it without Church declaration you would have to know condition of Francis' soul (whether he is a formal heretic or not), and you can't know it, and thus you can't make a judgment whether he is a Pope or not. Why? Because it is not up to you, but up to the Church to judge this - you have absolutely no role in determining that. You start with an incorrect presupposition that we are suppose to make such a judgment and there must be a way to do that - no, for a laymen equipped just with his private judgment there is no such possibility. There are arguments and evidence tobe sure, but at the end of the day there is no way to determine whether Francis is a formal or merely material heretic (as unlikely as the latter one is), and your private judgment is insufficient to determine anything with certainty of faith.

By the way, your first paragraph is a logical fallacy - you claim that if we can't identify a formal heretic (indeed, we can't without Church declaration, or if he himself doesn't to be a non-Catholic) we can't identify a Catholic, but that does not follow at all. An analogy - at present we can't know about anyones condemnation to hell (maybe except Judas). However, we know that some people are for sure in Heaven - the Saints. Likewise, we can't know who is a formal heretic without Church declaration, but we can recognize a Catholic.

As to Bellarmine, his writings are not as in favor of sedevacantist position as sedes claim, as Salza and Siscoe correctly pointed out. Bellarmine's third opinion explicitly says that Pope can be judged and that heresy is the only case when inferiors and judge superiors.

"The third opinion is on another extreme, that the Pope is not and cannot be deposed either by secret or manifest heresy. Turrecremata in the aforementioned citation relates and refutes this opinion, and rightly so, for it is exceedingly improbable. Firstly, because that a heretical Pope can be judged is expressly held in the Canon, Si Papa, dist. 40, and with Innocent [321]. And what is more, in the Fourth Council of Constantinople, Act 7, the acts of the Roman Council under Hadrian are recited, and in those it was contained that Pope Honorius appeared to be legally anathematized, because he had been convicted of heresy, the only reason where it is lawful for inferiors to judge superiors. Here the fact must be remarked upon that, although it is probable that Honorius was not a heretic, and that Pope Hadrian II was deceived by corrupted copies of the Sixth Council, which falsely reckoned Honorius was a heretic, we still cannot deny that Hadrian, with the Roman Council, and the whole Eighth Synod sensed that in the case of heresy, a Roman Pontiff can be judged. Add, that it would be the most miserable condition of the Church, if she should be compelled to recognize a wolf, manifestly prowling, for a shepherd."

This is why in fifth opinion Bellarmine says that although the Pope loses office ipso facto, there is still necessity of judgment from the Church to determine that:

"Now the fifth true opinion, is that a Pope who is a manifest heretic, ceases in himself to be Pope and head, just as he ceases in himself to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church: whereby, he can be judged and punished by the Church."

So, although Bellarmine does teach ipso facto loss of jurisdiction, he does not teach than an individual in a pew can determine that - rather, Church must render judgment that the ipso facto deposition occured. So, it is possible, and even probable, that Francis is not a Pope - but we can't know that with certainty of faith.

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No, I said that if we can't identify who a Catholic isn't, we can't identify who a Catholic is. 
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A Catholic (in the strict sense-- a member of the Church) is defined by pope Pius XII as meeting the following conditions: baptized, professing the faith, not separated by their own acts of heresy, apostasy, or schism, and not separated by a lawful excommunication.
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To say that one can not identify whether or not someone isn't Catholic is to say that one cannot identify whether or not these conditions are met.  But it is only in identifying whether or not these conditions are met that we can know that someone is Catholic. 
.
As I asked earlier, how do you know that Billy Graham isn't Catholic?  I would like to establish that in principle, this is a judgment that can be made.  Forget about whether or not it can apply to a papal claimant for now, let's figure out if we can ever know if someone isn't Catholic.