The Pope is the visible head of the Church on earth. Pretending he does not exist for 60+ years is not possible within the Catholic system.

Without a Pope, there are no Bishops, with no Bishops, there are no Priests, with no Priests there are no sacraments.

Who exactly determines the meaning and reality of scripture, divine law, and faith? You? Me? Our milkman? Maybe pop out your Denzinger and I'll pop out my Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma and we'll battle it out Pokemon style?

The Church cannot survive without a head. At that point, it is not Catholic.

His Excellency Archbishop Lefebvre was undoubtedly in disobedience. The question was: is the disobedience justified?

Anyway, what is the "faith, true Mass, and sacraments" without the head of the Church?! Might as well become Orthodox, no?

First of all, I appreciate your civility in conversation!


Secondly, I did not say that they were "The Church." I said that they are the authority of the Church which must be obeyed if one is to be considered Catholic. I highly recommend you read The Papal Monarchy by Dom Gueranger. It will clear up the inconsistency in mindset you seem to hold to.


As for Msgr. Lefebvre, he was disobedient, but as to how to go about determining if he was justified in his disobedience? I will leave that question to someone more knowledgeable than I. I have no authority to determine that.


3. I know yours was a rhetorical question. The reason I asked what I asked was for this reason: if Catholicism consists of simply the Sacraments, Faith, & Mass then the Orthodox would certainly be part of the Church. Their Priests and Bishops are valid, Sacraments are valid, Mass is valid, yet they are schismatics who will go to hell. Pope Boniface VIII said it clearly: "Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."

First of all, I appreciate your civility in conversation!


Secondly, I did not say that they were "The Church." I said that they are the authority of the Church which must be obeyed if one is to be considered Catholic. I highly recommend you read The Papal Monarchy by Dom Gueranger. It will clear up the inconsistency in mindset you seem to hold to.

As for Msgr. Lefebvre, he was disobedient, but as to how to go about determining if he was justified in his disobedience? I will leave that question to someone more knowledgeable than I. I have no authority to determine that.

3. I know yours was a rhetorical question. The reason I asked what I asked was for this reason: if Catholicism consists of simply the Sacraments, Faith, & Mass then the Orthodox would certainly be part of the Church. Their Priests and Bishops are valid, Sacraments are valid, Mass is valid, yet they are schismatics who will go to hell. Pope Boniface VIII said it clearly: "Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."

Initially, in this post, you said: "The Church has told us to stop Mass for the time being and it has authority to do so for those who believe that Francis is Pope". It seems to me that this is what you still believe.  

Yes, we are bound to obey the Church's authority, unless this authority wants us to do something sinful. This is a fundamental truth of our holy faith which has given way to a blind obedience to the Church's authority due to the false idea that whatever their directives are, are automatically infallible.

It is not at all complicated. He was obedient to the Church, disobedient to the pope, as such, his disobedience to the pope was certainly justified. There should be no question in your mind about this.


First, no, the Orthodox are certainly not the Church because although they may have valid sacraments, they are against defined dogma, they reject the pope and subjection to the pope, therefore they do not have the faith - which is where it all begins. Without the faith, even with valid sacraments, they are outside of the Church. They cannot reject any dogma and at the same time be part of the Church. Never the less, it all begins with faith, which is why I said "if you have faith, the Mass and the sacraments, it's a rhetorical question". If you do not have the faith, it is a question where no answer will ever suffice.

What is needed for our salvation is clear. Heresies are always, for the most part, cropping up, and we have Councils to deal with that, and good Popes like St. Pius X who strive to deal with heresies such as Modernism. We do need the authority of the Popes and Councils, but the Popes are not needed to continually re-interpret Scripture and Tradition. Every time a new Pope is elected, he is not supposed to re-interpret Church teaching according to his own inclinations. That's not how the papacy works.

The Popes are to pass on the Deposit of Faith in a faithful manner. I'm pretty sure that you don't understand this, or you just don't agree with it, since you seem to be an advocate for "development of doctrine." That's a phrase that the Modernists like to use, too.

1. Who determines what is sinful in obedience? Do I open up my Denzinger and determine it myself? Just look at the Dimond Bros. This is exactly what they do. Look at everyone who purports to be Catholic and is actually interested in their faith. This is what they all do and everyonr arrives at opposing and different conclusions!
2. The authority of the Church, while not being the entirety of the Church, is still the center of and the majority of the totality of its being for without its head, there is no Church.
3. I do not wish to discuss Msgr. Lefebvre's case. Like I said. I don't have the authority.
4. The Orthodox, like yourself, have rejected the authority of the Church albeit in different ways. While they reject the dogma, you reject the practice of the dogma in reality. The faith without the head of the Church is a dead one. It is an ancient tome that is interpreted by each person to his or her own liking and pre-existing dispositions.

Do not over complicate the matter, it is really not at all complicated.

1) See my sig.
2) This is confused thinking, or at least confused communicating.
3) We do not need authority to know right from wrong. What the Church's authorities did (and still do) was and still is wrong, what +ABL did was right. Taken to the extremes, two prime examples of that situation you can use are St. Athanasus and St. Joan of Ark.
4) The Orthodox reject the pope as pope, those of us who are not sede do not. We do deny granting or accepting the conciliar popes' wishes and/or directives that are sinful, we can do that, we must always do that. The people lacking in or without the faith, they say because we deny granting his sinful wishes that we reject him as pope and/or reject his authority. It's been that way since the days after V2 and will remain so long as there is a lack of faith among the accusers.