Since this forum is mainly American, there's not a lot of posts about +Stobnicki. I recently had the opportunity for Mass and dinner with him, so I'd like to report a bit. For anyone who doesn't know, this is his story, from the SSPX to his ordination as a bishop by +Williamson:

https://rexcz.blogspot.com/2024/06/per-mariam-ad-iesum-interview-with.html

To sum up the evening:

+Stobnicki is not sedevacantist, as some have claimed. He spent a lot of time in sede-land with various organizations yes, but he even sees sedeprivationism as dangerous. He has to deal with Polish families who stay at home and think the Church has failed. So this is simply the danger of extreme sedevacantism. However, he gives credence to +Viganós opinion that Francis' election may be canonically invalid (due to Benedict still having "half" of the office) and Leos election may also be canonically invalid (due to too many cardinals being in the conclave). He says there's no "real Catholic pope" to clear up the confusion, so he allows some liberalism as to whether they do or don't name the pope. He is very good friends with +Viganó.

Pastorally, he is a child of +Williamson, he got his tires slashed three times (by Antifa, likely) and had two court cases for preaching about the people who crucified Our Lord (both dismissed already). He now publishes his sermons on a Telegram group, but they're all in Polish anyway. He and one other priest in Warsaw serve about 20 locations in Poland and some missions in Croatia and Prague.

He also talks to a lot of NO priests and tries to get convince especially one Polish priest who leads an entire seminary (he met with this priest four times already and says he's close to asking for conditional re-ordination). The priest in question is not easily replaceable and stopped saying the Novus Ordo last month and now only says the TLM. So, that's progress. But, he says, it's not easy to leave the "official" Church.

In regard to Fr. Hewko, he signs what +Ballini discussed with him, but he says one has to be careful not to fall into Donatism (re: Hewkos "the new Mass cannot give grace" clashing with ex opere operato). For now he didn't say more than that and I didn't want to put too many words in his mouth.

Note: I wanted to help a bit to smooth this "True / False Resistance" stuff from Fr. Hewko - my theory is that it's safer to say one cannot obtain grace at the NO and to also argue with STIII Q82 A9 that we should not take communion from sinful / formally heretical priests (NO, FSSP and post-2012 SSPX) - this avoids the problem of Donatism while also avoiding the idea that "valid consecration = licit to go there". I want to stay a lot more respectful to the late +Williamson than Fr. Hewko has been, but I also noticed that it's not Fr. Hewko himself that is rabid anti-Williamson, more the people behind him. At least that's my impression.

Other than that, he's definitely not silent (neither are the other bishops, except for +Ballini and +Morgan, I'll write up some stuff to refute Fr. Hewko on this once and for all). He discussed something about the latest Vatican doctrinal nonsense but I was distracted with multiple people talking at dinner. I wanted to find out who this "Mgr Gérard de Nice" was (a "bishop?" who came out in support of +Williamson), but he warned me about shady people disguising themselves as priests or bishops, especially "Old Catholics" now re-inventing themselves as VII-trads, while being actual heretics for rejecting Vatican I. He also has WhatsApp, Telegram, everything and gave me all Mass locations for Poland, etc. and was very open about where he is. There will be a full map coming later this year, once I have Fr. Chazals locations.

In Berlin, some FSSP priests questioned whether he was a real bishop because "you need three bishops for validity" (no you don't) and one SSPX priest even said that it would be a "grave sin" to go to Resistance Masses, as they are "preaching hatred". If there was any hatred being preached, I didn't understand it as I don't understand Polish. He did preach with fervor, I just sadly don't speak Polish. He does his Mass very fast, but still with perfect clarity.

So yeah. I remembered that Fr. Hewko wanted to get in contact with him, but I also want to avoid any further splits and drama and "condemnations" of +Williamson, especially posthumous. +Stobnicki supported my efforts to build a proper apologetics site (will be announced later this year, once we have written and reviewed a proper number of articles - not just for Catholics, but also against Atheists, Eastern Orthodox, Islam, Protestants, Vatican II, Sedevacantists, etc. - mostly following the line of Fr. Hesse overall).

I hope you all are doing well and enjoyed reading this update.

That is kind of strange. I could swear that he said once he held the Thesis (Cassiacuм).

Maybe, he had quite a journey with various sede organisations. But now he sees it as either problematic or dangerous (can't remember the exact word).

I asked Fr. Marcel de la Croix (he's in contact with +Stobnicki) about the Thesis and he said "well, according to St. Thomas, matter without form is just matter in potency" (and the papacy is not "in potency", but "in act"). But Fr. Marcel also said "we don't make the pope into some matter of faith, as Lefebvre also worked with sedevacantists - if someone doesn't want to pray for the pope, then it's not the pope for them personally, okay". But he also supported Fr. Hesses idea that "it's safer for the priest to pray for the pope even if I personally don't believe he's the pope - even if I'm wrong, God cannot fault me as a priest for it, whereas the opposite is more of a gamble". Against this is the idea that "nobody is in schism for doubting the pope if there is serious positive doubt about his election" (so, Viganó is definitely not in schism, because the case of a "pope emeritus" is simply unprecedented in Church history and nowhere in canon law).

I asked Fr. Marcel de la Croix (he's in contact with +Stobnicki) about the Thesis and he said "well, according to St. Thomas, matter without form is just matter in potency" (and the papacy is not "in potency", but "in act").

No.  Bishop Guerard eloquently explained the distinction between matter/form distinction applied to the papacy is not of the absolute ontological variety.  St. Robert Bellarmine in fact makes the distinction between the material election / designation by the Church, and then the formal investment with authority.  That's because while the Church designates, the Pope does not get his power from the Church, but directly from God.  That's the root of this distinction, not the ontological version where something in PURE potency effectively does not exist.  There can be degress of potency within a being.  So, for example, I am in potency to be pope, a remote potency, whereas a woman is not.  But then if a legitimate Conclave were to elect me Pope, I'd move to a proximate potency ... which then would become partially actualized by my acceptance.  Why partially?  Because I'm a layman.  So I'd have a right to the office, and per Pius XII, I'd become "pope" somehow at the moment of my acceptance.  But then I cannot do things like, say, make appointments ... until I'm a cleric.  So I get made into a cleric.  But then I can't do other things like, oh, teach .. since I'm not part of the Ecclesia Docens, not being a bishop.  After all, a non-bishop (layman or mere cleric or even priest) cannot be the Bishop of Rome.  Let's say I accepted, I become immediately Pope.  But not completely.  Let's say after a couple weeks I decide I don't really want to get consecrated a Bishop.  That puts me into a Limbo state.  That situation would be strange, but theologians speculate that the Church would rightly consider that to effectively be a resignation, even if the guy said, "no, I'm not resigning [maybe he wants the temporal authority] but just don't want to be a bishop".  This is where a vitium consensus type of perspective might come in, where they might say, you said you accepted in so many words, but you don't really accept the papal office, since that means accepting to be the Bishop of Rome.  It's similar to a ratum sed non consummatum state of a married couple who have not consummated the marriage, where the marriage contract could at that time still be dissolved.  So it's not some oversimplified ontological view of "matter" here.

There may have been an error in my thinking: Canon Law says that papal jurisdiction comes at the moment where "I accept" happens "together with" the episcopal consecration. So I guess - whichever comes later (the "I accept the papacy" or the episcopal consecration), at that point in time the person would become a true pope and get the office and the authority in one step (munus and magisterium). So there's no limbo where a pope has the office, but no apostolic authority or vice versa. So, a priest saying "I accept" would not be pope (not in matter nor in form) until he gets consecrated a bishop. But I'm not sure if that is correct according to In nomine Domini.

In fact, that's one of the things the liberals want to introduce (a pope emeritus, who has the office, but not the magisterium). In any case, if a valid bishop (all definitely up to JPII, with Benedict / Francis / Leo it becomes more difficult thanks to the NO bishop rites) says "I accept the papacy" - at that moment he has apostolic authority and the office of the pope and he becomes "Bishop of Rome". At no point does anywhere suspection of heresy block his acceptance of the papacy. There is no limbo or split between form or matter of the papacy, it is complete nonsense. 

There may have been an error in my thinking...

So, he was wrong, you were wrong, are we sure you are even right about his or your having been wrong to begin with?

Maybe just take a few breaths, dial down the raging and clearly misplaced overconfidence, and just try to enjoy a good conversation among like-minded men of goodwill? 

The "material pope" theory is metaphysically impossible ...

Utter nonsense.  Your gratuitous assertion is gratuitously rejected.  You have no idea what the word metaphysical even means, do you?  And I've already responded to your fallacious attempt to constrain the ontological sense of matter vs. form into the material and formal aspects of office.

Those are clearly distinct things, since there's an election by the Church (matter) that does not in fact confer authority (form).

Matter vs. Form vis-a-vis the papacy is more akin to the matter vs. form distinction used in the Sacraments, that in the ontological / existential sense of the term.  Bishop Guerards clearly delineates between the different modes in which that distinction can be applied.

Let's now say you have a bunch of apathetic Cardinals from some time in the Middle Ages where they just wanted to return to their estates, and they let this priest elected to the papacy go on for weeks and months without calling him out to receive consecration.  Let's say two months have passed.  Does the priest ipso facto lose the designation of the Church?  Or would the Church have to call him out and say that, "Look, if you don't consecrated, we're going to construe that effectively as a refusal of acceptance." (similar to the vitium consensus of +Vigano)  Perhaps he complies immediately ... and the delay was just due to apathy or laziness rather than any intention to not accept.

Bottom line is that it's much more complex than the binary Totalist "all or nothing" view.  There's a very strong case to be made for sedeprivationism, whereas Totalist labors under far too many difficulties to be viable (the ones cited, for instance by John of St. Thomas).

With straight Totalism, there's no backstop against Father Cekada's Aunt Helen waking up one morning during the reign of Pius XII an deciding that he's not the pope because he taught some heresy, in her judgment.  I backed away from Totalism upon reflection after a guy I knew decided that Pius IX had been a non-pope due to some heresy he had discovered in his writings.  This truly was the potential "state of chaos" that John of St. Thomas applied as a reductio ad absurdum to a pure ipso facto loss of office.  And, as mentioned, there's no backstop against this provided by the principles of Totalism.

So, for instance, if I were a bishop during the time of Vatican I and decided that papal infallibility was heresy, pffft ... all I had to do was accuse Pius IX of heresy and declare the See vacant, in order to refuse that dogmatic teaching.  Problem solved.  What's the Pope going to say ... "I infallibly taught the dogma of infallibility?"  So, Pius IX actually realized the conundrum and condemned them more on the basis of how that would constitute a defection of the Church for the Pope and so many bishops to embrace, teach, and define such grave error.  Then afterwards they could have found those statements and docuмents produced by Masonic lodges that Pius IX had in fact become a Freemason (these allegations had in fact been made about Pius IX, and IMO may have been true).  Sound familiar yet?

Yet another serious problem with Totalism.  No SV (and I've challenged many of the top SV personalities out there) has ever provided a shred of evidence that Montini was a "manifest heretic" prior to his allegedly starting to teach heresy from his office.  That's a huge problem.  So you have no a priori certainty regarding papal legitmacy and can find out only when he starts teaching error from the papal office?  See, normally the way it works, is that you know a priori, i.e. up front that he's the pope, and then if he teaches something you didn't believe before, i.e. papal infallibility, well, not that he's taught it you change your mind and accept it as dogma.  You don't cling to your position and simply declare the pope guilty of heresy and therefore deposed.

No, it seems the confusion is which Canon Law you go by. I mixed up the two, as did Ladislaus.

In the 1917 Code of Canon Law for papal election, it states (Canon 219):

So this would allow for "interim authority": at the moment of acceptance the person is already pope, both in munus and in magisterium. Ex. Hadrian V in 1276, who was a layman, reigned for 38 days and still did a valid jurisdicial act.

In the 1983 Code it now states:


So now, the pope-elect has to also be a bishop in order to wield power, creating a limbo for non-bishop popes. I say, even that does not exist, the acceptance is simply, like a marriage, consummated at the point of episcopal consecration. However, I'm not going to explain or defend the modernist Canon Law. Since I reject the entire 1983 Code to be written by modernists, I wasn't actually wrong in the first place.

Right, now let's address the rest in the light of that new discovery of modernist confusion:
According to the 1917 Code, posted above, this is plainly wrong: the election does confer the authority directly. Munus and magisterium, matter and form of the papacy are conferred in a single point in time: the acceptance of the election. This is what the modernists are actually trying to do: split the munus and the magisterium - and the sedeprivationists fall for it (yet another reason to reject the 1983 Code).

Anyway, my point is this: The authority being the goal of the matter means that if the goal is impossible, then so is the matter (the election). It's not a "papal" election, then, if it would be impossible for the person to become pope due to heresy. Sedeprivationists actually agree on that above statement but for whatever reason they make a turn in their heads and say "yeah, yeah, yeah, ..... but then he's still materially pope, even if the 'papal' election was pointless". And this is where sedeprivationism becomes nonsensical.

The Church's backstop against this chaos is not a theory of a material pope, but the principle that a pope is presumed to be the legitimate pope until the Church itself were to authoritatively declare the see vacant due to manifest heresy (future pope). Private judgment, which is the basis of the 'Aunt Helen' scenario, is not the Catholic method.

Yes, SVs make the error of saying the pope can never err. They overblow infallibility to a degree that Vatican I never prescribed.

There have been tons of popes who - non-infallibly - taught error and still retained the papacy. For example, Gregory VII taught that the pope achieves sanctity by his election to the papacy, which is complete nonsense: https://archive.is/9IO8J#selection-3627.0-3627.107 - he still was a true pope. He just made an error.

Dogmas are not "inventions" where the pope tells you to change your mind. Dogmas are what the Church has always believed, now clarified and put into proper canons and words. So, a person even before Vatican I not believing that the pope can speak infallibly would simply not be a Catholic, although not formally condemned yet (Old Catholics). He would be "in error", if he refuses to be corrected, he would simply cease to be a Catholic.

I agree, as I'm not sedevacantist. But also not sedeprivationist. I simply say the true pope has erred and is not doing his job. As authority in general is always tied to defending tradition - as long as the pope doesn't do his job to defend and explain that tradition and instead wants to invent new things, he doesn't have authority. The pope is bound by natural law, divine law and the lex orandi, which he cannot change. Cekada would accuse me of a "cardboard pope" R&R position, to which I would I would agree, but in difference to sedeprivationists I wouldn't split the "matter / form" of the papacy.

Again, sorry for derailing this topic, but I already knew this was going to devolve into a discussion about +Stobnickis position on SV.

Do you understand that the Code of Canon Law is merely descriptive, not prescriptive, in regards to the Papacy since Popes are not subjects of canon law, rather they are legislators as well as executors and supreme judges of the Code? Further, the Code only applies to the Latin Church, the structures and members of all Eastern Churches are neither subject to nor bound by the Code of Canon Law other than by exception or circuмstance, e.g., a bi-ritual priest of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has been lent to a Latin diocese to function as a Latin parish pastor pro temp. Here the priest becomes subject to the Code insofar as and only as long as he is acting on behalf of and in an office of the Latin Church.

So, let us throw a spanner into the clean, totalist vision of a papal election as you advance it -- a Greek Catholic layman is elected to the Papacy.