Figured I would get the sedes riled up with this little gem I found :dancing:


Please don’t say “We’re all sedevacantists now”

by John Vennari

It is usually said in light-hearted jest: “We’re all sedevacantists now,” in reference to the resignation of Pope Benedict. Yes, I am as ready for humor as the next man; and yes, I smile when it is said to me, but usually out of courtesy rather than genuine amusement.

The truth is we are not “all sedevacantists now,” but simply Catholics living through the normal cycles of Church history, one of which is that short interval between when a Pope dies and a new one elected.

The 2013 drama is different in the sense that we have never had a Pope reign for eight years – and one who had been head of a leading Vatican discatersry for more than 20 years prior to his Papal election – simply resign because he feels his health does not permit him to carry on. Even Cardinal Pell and others express unease with this novelty.

“Sedevacantism,” however, is a position taken by a small number of traditional Catholics who believe that those who call themselves post-conciliar popes are guilty of formal manifest heresy and have thus lost their office. The average traditional Catholic has little in common with this position, since it comprises the belief that none of the Cardinals gathered are true Cardinals, and most of the world’s bishops are not even bishops. The Papal Election of 2013 will not change anything for sedevacantists, since the men in the Sistine Chapel are fraudulent Cardinals with no authority to elect a Supreme Pontiff.

Sedevacantism is a position I have never even been tempted to embrace. I see it as a kind of despair that ends up asking more questions than it answers.

Yet the main cause of sedevacantism, I believe, is not the sedevacantists themselves. Rather, it is the post-Conciliar Popes who give the impression that there can be some transformation of the dogmatic teaching of the Church over time – that there is one form of “Catholic Truth” for the 19th Century, and an updated and different form of “Catholic Truth” for the 20th and 21st centuries; that in the 19th Century, it was good to have the 1864 Syllabus of Errors, but in the 20th Century, it was good that Vatican II was a countersyllabus.

The guiding principle of any Pope must be what is defined infallibly at Vatican I and spelled out in the Oath Against Modernism: to teach the Catholic Faith “in the same meaning and in the same explanation” as the Church always taught throughout the centuries.

This principle is a head-on collision with what Vatican II produced.

By some miracle may we be granted a Pontiff who will eventually recognize Vatican II for the catastrophe that it is, who will put all human respect and modernist trends behind him, and who will govern the Church according to the immutable Catholic truths of the centuries.

I don't think this will rile too many sedevacantists.

Mr. Vennari is simply mistaken on what a sedevacantist is.  We do not "believe" that the papal claimant is "guilty of formal manifest heresy".  We acknowledge the fact that the last papal claimant was a public and pertinacious heretic.  Therefore, since he is not a Catholic, he cannot be the head of the Catholic Church.

On the other hand, I agree with Mr. Vennari in that those people who accepted the claims of Benedict 16 and will accept the claims of whomever is named as his replacement without considering whether the man has already excommunicated himself should not really be called "sedevacantists".  

I actually think that it is individuals like Mr. Vennari (and Seraphim) who are riled by the declaration, generally made in jest, that "we are all sedevacantists now!"  

Interesting article.

John Vennari disavows "sedevacantism" then hopes for a  miracle to straighten out the Vatican?  

???

It seems that concerning controversies, even John Vennari is vague and ambiguous. It's PC among trads.

It seems the one marking my and John Grace's posts down underestimates how deep the h0Ɩ0cαųst dogma is entrenched in the post-Conciliar Church and in the nєω ωσrℓ∂ σr∂єr, or that the German SSPX is unfortunately emasculated, in part thanks to kowtowing to Germany taking blame for it.

That's right!

People should re-read the EC "Fourt Trial" by Bishop Williamson.


Thanks John and Quo-vadis-Petre for your smart articles.

A CMRI priest told me that the conciliar church is a counterfeit church.

Less than two months ago, an SSPX priest told me that I should not go to the "so called New Mass." Another priest told me that his seminary professor said the new Mass "is evil," and apparently some trad priest or layman described it as feces covered in chocolate.

The Roman "authorities" "were Catholic" or "used to be Catholic."

Now, I don't have a problem with non-sedes or the SSPX, but the Roman Catholic Church cannot give us a Protestant Mass. The Mass cannot be dung.

The authorities are either the authorities or not. These aren't political matters, but matters of Faith and Morals.

Either the conciliar "annulments" are true annulments, and thus 500,000 couples did not even contract the sacrament, or the conciliar Church is a false sect.

Likewise, the so called head of the inquisition, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, has said that protestants and Catholics are "in the visible Church."

Now, this is heresy on two points. The first is that the Catholic Church is the Church. The "Church" isn't a larger, amorphous body.

The second part of this heresy is that it destroys all unity of Faith.

This post is nothing but a series of blunt assertions.

1/2 right; 1/2 wrong.

Theological subtlety and necessary distinctions are not even attempted.

No attempt to support to support your conclusions with any sort of theological underpinning.

But it all must feel good to say.

Quote from: Seraphim

Quote from: Capt McQuigg

A CMRI priest told me that the conciliar church is a counterfeit church.

Bishop Williamson said the same.

As do I.

Do you think most SSPX priests feel the same way as you, Bishop Williamson and the CMRI priest?