AN EXAMINATION of the Society of St. Pius X’s charge that sedevacantism produces “bitter fruit,” which some claims “disproves” its theological reasoning.
THE YEAR 2016 will be a banner year for traditionalists to argue over the question of the Pope.
First, there will be the ongoing antics of Bergoglio, aka Francis, the “People’s Pope.”
Second, there will be a lot of back-and-forth over True or False Pope? a 700-page anti-sedevacantist tract written by John Salza and Robert Siscoe, and bankrolled by the Society of St. Pius X. Messrs. Salza and Siscoe, and SSPX, adhere to the “R&R” position – that trads must “recognize the post-Vatican II popes” but “resist” them.
The following video is a little analysis of the R&R position.
Viewers may also be interested in two earlier videos in which I discussed Messers. Salza’s and Siscoe’s attempts to refute the sedevacantist position:
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I’M happy to pass along an excellent little video by Fr. Nicolas Desposito, a colleague and theology professor at Most Holy Trinity Seminary in Brooksville, Florida.
The point: If you insist Bergoglio’s a real pope, you’ve got to treat him like one!
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WE are pleased to offer excerpts from the music sung by the St. Gertrude the Great Choir at Solemn High Mass on Epiphany 2016. The celebrant was Rev. Roberto Mardones of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, who was celebrating the the twenty-fifth anniversary of his priestly ordination.
The selections include:
WELL, just when I thought I could give the pope question a rest for a few days, Bergoglio comes out with a sleek, feel-good video promo for “apostasy lite.”
https://youtu.be/Nq7us5Lf5IU
After clip of a Buddhist expressing confidence in Buddha, a Jew professing belief in Yahweh, a cleric in Jesus Christ and a Moslem in “God-Allah,” Bergoglio says that “Many think differently, feel differently.” Then, as a smiling Bergoglio is shown receiving a Buddha idol, kissing a bearded schismatic, and group-hugging rabbis at the Wailing Wall, they are, he says “seeking God or meeting God in different ways.”
Buddhists, Jews, and Moslems actually “meeting God” in their false religions?
Moreover, Bergoglio says, “In this crowd, in this range of religions, there is only one certainty we have for all:”
That the Catholic Church is the only true religion? That it was founded by the Son of God, who said “he that believeth not shall be condemned”?
Nope. The only certainty the “Vicar of Christ” has for everyone is that “We are all children of God.”
One as good as another! And that ain’t a rosary!
After an “I-believe-in-love” round robin for the Buddhist, Jew, cleric and Moslem, in which each is shown separately holding in his hands a symbol for his religion (Buddha idol, Jewish menorah, Baby Jesus and Moslem prayer beads), there is a final shot of all four holding their symbols together.
You could find no more perfect a symbol for the errors condemned in Pius XI’s Mortalium Animos — and with it, proof of Bergoglio and company “abandoning the religion revealed by God.”
Not “mere” heresy, in other words, but apostasy.
R&R apologists like John Salza and Robert Siscoe will no doubt start shaking their rattles and chanting their best not-infallible/bad-dad spells to reaffirm the ancient tribal myths: Until an orthodoxy buddy gives Bergoglio three “canonical warnings,” and a jury of cardinals (Maradiaga, Kasper, Dolan, Tagle and Gracias?) renders “public judgement” on Bergoglio’s errors, we must all still believe he is the Vicar of Jesus Christ.
But any Catholic with eyes should now see the reality that the myths attempt to conceal: Bergoglio is an apostate, and cannot be the pope.
IN THE FIRST four days of 2016, my video Why Do Traditionalists Fear Sedevacantism? managed to rack up a respectable number of views.
It also provoked a testy post by John Salza and Robert Siscoe, authors of True or False Pope? a book urging traditionalists to — wait for it! — fear sedevacantism. They have now dedicated a portion of their website to “sedevacantist watch,” the first watch-ee being me.
Apparently it is acceptable for them to urge Catholics to fear sedevacantism, but a sign of knees-knocking desperation for me to ask why, and then dare to answer the question, which is what I did in the video. This is what they call an “irrational response.”
What you will not be able to “watch” on Messrs. Salza and Siscoe’s post is either a discussion or a refutation, rational or otherwise, of my threefold answer to the question of why traditionalists fear sedevacantism:
Here I will recapitulate only the first point, because the old tribal myths about the post-Conciliar papacy have begun to crumble in the face of the Francis revolution, and because Messrs. Salza and Siscoe, it seems, have become the new shamans for keeping their tribe entranced and unaware.
To discover the source for the near-irrational fear of sedevacantism that afflicts so many traditionalists, one must first look to the traditionalist movement’s origins in the 1960s and the early 1970s.
Because the Vatican II revolution came “from the pope” and because every good pre-V2 Catholic knew that only non-Catholics “did not recognize the pope” and that only bad Catholics “disobeyed the pope”), proto-traditionalists needed to quickly come up with some sort of plausible explanation for rejecting the errors and evils that Paul VI had officially approved.
The argument the first traditionalists cobbled together for “resisting the pope” revolved mostly around two primitive notions:
(1) Catholics are not really bound by what a pope teaches or legislates unless it has an “infallible” stamp on it (for example, when he makes some once-in-a-century proclamation ex cathedra, as Pius XII did for the dogma of the Assumption), and
(2) A pope can be like a “bad dad” whose evil commands you can disobey, but whom you recognize as your dad, no matter what he does.
Both ideas were based on a whole array of theological errors that eventually mutated into what came to be known as the “recognize and resist” (R&R) position towards the Vatican II popes. All these errors have been repeatedly and definitively refuted, based on the standard teaching of pre-Vatican II ecclesiology — that branch of theology that deals with attributes and authority of the Church and the papacy.
But at the time, these primitive notions sounded plausible enough to laymen and priests who didn’t know any better, and they were repeated so often over the years that they became the unquestionable mythology that identified the tribe.
From its foundation in the 1960s, The Remnant was the principal organ in the English-speaking world for spreading and defending this mythology, aided by its chief apologist and shaman, Michael Davies.
In France, it was Itinéraires and eventually, Abp. Marcel Lefebvre’s Society of St. Pius X (SSPX).
Resistance to “Rome” was an easy sell in France simply because a strain of it has run through French history for centuries: Gallicanism, the petite église, the French anti-infallibility faction at Vatican I, and the French political right-wing’s anger in the twentieth century over the papal condemnation of Action Française.
But we Americans don’t exactly have a sterling record either. The traditionalist mythology we are discussing got an early start on our shores in the 1940s with the followers of the excommunicated Jesuit, Father Leonard Feeney, and it has been going strong ever since.
The original myths that sedevacantism threatened eventually spawned others. Sedevacantism could not be true, we are told, because it would leave us without a pope to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart in conformity with the Fatima message
This argument has long been promoted not only by Messrs. Salza and Siscoe, but also by other R&R Fatima Industry movers and shakers, such as Fr. Nicholas Gruner, Christopher Ferrara and Brian McCall.
Here, a principle invented on the basis of private revelation (which no Catholic is, strictly speaking, obliged to accept) is supposed to trump public revelation (which Catholics are obliged to accept, and which is the data underlying the theological principles for the sedevacantist argument.) The tail wags the dog.
Finally, if you have been raised in the R&R camp, you have been taught to fear sedevacantism as “schism.” If you overcome your fear sufficiently to investigate the position, to raise legitimate questions about your tribal myths and to insist on coherent answers based on principles found in the writings of pre-Vatican II theologians and popes, you are told that you are “proud.”
The latter, in particular, is a trick employed by SSPX retreat masters, who are supposed to give at least one conference aimed at indoctrinating retreatants into the SSPX myths. Bad spirituality covers up bad theology.
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IT IS perhaps understandable that in the early days of the traditionalist movement, residual pre-Vatican II attitudes toward the papal office, limitations in the means of obtaining news and factual information, and the sheer physical obstacles to conducting theological research led faithful Catholics to settle for simple myths to justify resistance to the man whom faith told them stood in the place of Jesus Christ on earth.
And it is also perhaps understandable that these myths, combined with those promoted by the press about the “conservatism” or “orthodoxy” of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, led many souls to give Wojtyla and Ratzinger, two Thomism-hating modernists underneath, the benefit of the doubt and give in to the fear of sedevacantism.
Dad says OK!
But now we’re talking Bergoglio — who’s moved beyond giving a wink to divorce and remarriage to giving a pat on the back to transsexual “marriage.”
So it is time to put aside the contorted theories of the tribal mythmakers, who claim to “save” the papacy with a theory of “resistance” that destroys it.
You can now see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears, the poisonous modernist heresies of Vatican II, incarnate in the person of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
As such, he is no mere bad dad with an unused “infallible” stamp in his back pocket — still less, the Vicar of Christ.
He he is the Vicar of the Devil. And no one should be afraid to say it.
A LENGTHY book by R&R (“recognize and resist”) controversialists John Salza and Robert Siscoe, soon to be published by the Society of St. Pius X, prompts this question.
In this video, Father Cekada provides the answer, based on the early history of the traditionalist movement, theological principles and his own observations on the practical considerations that often cause traditionalists to shy away from the sedevacantist position.
In the in the face of Bergoglio’s “Francis Revolution,” he maintains, it is time for Catholics to re-examine the issue and to put aside the old and often unreasonable fears.
For more on the topic of sedevacantism, see also Fr. Cekada’s Sedevacantism: A Quick Primer.
For Fr. Cekada’s earlier video answering objections to sedevacantism, see Stuck in a Rut: Anti-Sedevacantism in the Age of Bergoglio.
THE ELECTION of Jorge Mario Bergoglio by the March 2013 conclave was a turning point in the ongoing dispute among Catholic traditionalists over the question of the pope: Do we “recognize” the post-Vatican II popes as true popes, but “resist” them? (The “R&R” position held by the Society of St. Pius X, Bp. Williamson, The Remnant, Catholic Family News and many others) Or do we treat them as public heretics who are not true popes at all? (The sedevacantist position)
Francis’ outrageous public statements and madcap antics have led more and more traditionalists to embrace sedevacantism, and many more to consider doing the same.
This has caused consternation in the R&R camp, which has felt obliged to produce a good number of anti-sedevacantist critiques over the past two years.
I’ve received many requests to answer these critiques, and this video will serve as my response. (Continued)
by Rev. Anthony CekadaJORGE BERGOGLIO’s antics are unnerving more and more people in the conservative/traditionalist wing of the post-Vatican II establishment, and it is becoming harder and harder for them to insist that Francis is really a pope.
In the past week alone (in January 2015), Bergoglio has rattled on about “rabbits,” repudiated apologetics (Take that, Catholic Answers!) and given a pat on the head to a “trans” couple. What next?
Those who recognize the gravity of Francis’ errors find themselves peering over the precipice into sedevacantism — the only truly coherent theological explanation for the dilemma he embodies — and it makes them dizzy.
Anything, anything but that!
So controversialists on the right have stepped forward and tried to jury rig some guardrails.
The latest is the work of Dr. Roberto de Mattei, an Italian historian and commentator on Church affairs who has written eloquently and incisively on Bergoglio’s errors and his revolutionary program. In a January 28 article, translated and posted on the Rorate blog, Dr. de Mattei treats the case of Pope John XXII (1316-1334) as an example of “a pope who fell into heresy and a Church that resisted.”
He doesn’t explicitly mention the dreaded “trigger word,” sedevacantism, but it is absolutely clear that this is the real subject of his article.
The implied conclusion Dr. de Mattei wants us to draw about sedevacantism proceeds, more or less, from the following analogical argument: John XXII (1) became a public heretic after he was elected pope, (2) but he did not therefore lose the papal office, and (3) the Church resisted him. So too, Francis (1) has become a public heretic after he was elected pope, (2) but he does not therefore lose the papal office, and (3) we have the right to resist him.
So take a deep breath, and feel the sense of calm and contentment as the effects of your recurring Bergoglio-induced sedevacantism anxiety attack once again recede from your head and members.
But alas, the soothing analogical argument that Dr. de Mattei prescribes fails for at least two reasons.
I. John XXII was not a hereticThe accusation of heresy arose from a series of sermons John XXII preached in Avignon, France in which he maintained that the souls of the blessed departed do not see God until after the Last Judgement. Sounds promising as an anti-sede argument at first, since John XXII was always recognized as a true pope. However:
(a) The doctrine on the Beatific Vision had not yet been defined — John XXII’s successor, Benedict XII would do that.
Dr. de Mattei, perhaps sensing a weakness in his analogy because of this, waffles on the point: when it came to the common teaching on the beatific vision at the time, John XXII “contested the thesis,” “fell into heterodoxy,” “entered into conflict with Church tradition on a point of primary importance,” “sustained the view,” “re-proposed the error,” “tried to impose this erroneous view,” etc.
So while in the title of his article, Dr. de Mattei speaks of “a pope who fell into heresy,” he shies away from employing the specific technical term “heresy” in his text. And the heresy of the post-Conciliar popes, including Bergoglio, is the starting point for the sede argument.
(b) Then there is the mode that John XXII, who had been a theologian before his election, employed to present his arguments and conclusions.
Here, the theologian Le Bachlet says that John XXII proposed his teaching only as a “private doctor who expressed an opinion, hanc opinionem, and who, while seeking to prove it, recognized that it was open to debate.“ (“Benoit XII,” in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, 2:662.)
Thus, it is incorrect for Dr. de Mattei to claim that John proposed his thesis as “an act of ordinary magisterium regarding the faith of the Church.”
In the pope’s second sermon, moreover, he said the following:
“I say with Augustine that, if I am deceived on this point, let someone who knows better correct me. For me it does not seem otherwise, unless the Church would so declare with a contrary statement [nisi ostenderetur determinatio ecclesie contraria] or unless authorities on sacred scripture would express it more clearly than what I have said above.” (Le Bachelet, DTC 2:662.)
Such statements excluded the element of “pertinacity” proper to heresy.
So, two of the conditions which by definition are necessary for heresy to exist were simply not present in the case of John XXII.
II. John XXII validly became Pope, while Bergoglio never didThe second point on which Dr. de Mattei’s implied analogy fails is the hidden assumption that, like John XXII, Bergoglio validly obtained papal authority in the first place, which he could somehow retain, despite public heresy.
Bergoglio, however, was a public heretic before his election, and as a public heretic, he could not be validly elected pope.
The principle is a matter of divine law. When treating the requirements for election to the papal office, numerous pre-Vatican II commentaries on the Code of Canon Law explicitly lay down this principle. For instance:
“Those capable of being validly elected are all who are not prohibited by divine law or by an invalidating ecclesiastical law… Those who are barred as incapable of being validly elected are all women, children who have not reached the age of reason; also, those afflicted with habitual insanity, the unbaptized, heretics, schismatics…” (Wernz-Vidal, Jus Canonicum 1:415)
We made just this point and provided more citations for it in an earlier article, whose title sums up why Dr. de Mattei’s implied John XXII/Bergoglio analogy fails: Bergoglio’s Got Nothing to Lose.
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SO ON BOTH COUNTS — heresy and validly obtaining papal authority — the analogy between John XXII and Francis is yet another shaky barrier that must fall on the road to acknowledging the only logical explanation for Bergoglio: He’s a heretic who was never a real pope to begin with.
Anything else is just whistling past the graveyard.
For more on sedevacantism, see Sedevacantism: A Quick Primer
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from Fr. Leonard GoffineFor those who on account of sickness, old age or for other sufficient reasons cannot assist at holy Mass, especially on Sundays and Holy Days.
Prefatory Remarks: Bear in mind, O Christian soul, that those who would be present at the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, if it were possible, such as the sick, the infirm, the aged, fathers or mothers who must remain at home with the little children, and for other reasons, are all included in the holy Sacrifice, that is, take part in the prayers of the Church, in the blessings and merits of the Sacrifice, if they have a sincere desire to hear Mass.
The holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered for all the faithful. As Christ offered Himself for all men on the cross, so He now offers Himself in the Mass in an unbloody manner for all, hence all partake of the blessings and merits of His sacrifice who assist at Mass with sentiments pleasing to Him. And if you are kept at home, the priest prays, the Church prays, our Savior Jesus Christ offers Himself, and the merits and blessing of the holy Sacrifice flow to you, if you only heartily desire it, and unite your prayers at home with the prayers of the priest and the whole congregation. Therefore kneel in spirit before the altar and devoutly make a good intention.
Good Intention: My Father and my God, Thou knowest how sincerely I would like to assist at the Sacrifice of Thy beloved Son, my Redeemer, which is now being offered to Thee upon the altar by the hands of the priest; but obstacles as Thou knowest, prevent me. Because I cannot now be present in Thy holy house, do Thou graciously look down upon the desire of my heart, and let me have part in the prayers of Thy holy Church and in the blessings and merits of Thy divine Son, who died for me on the cross, and again offers Himself in an unbloody manner upon the altar. With the same intention with which the priest offers the holy Sacrifice on the altar, I also offer it to Thee for Thy praise and glory, in thanksgiving for all gifts and graces which Thou hast granted me, to reconcile Thee with me, a poor sinner, and for forgiveness of my sins, and with the most fervent petition, that Thou wilt be to me in my cares and afflictions a gracious Father, and for the sake of Thy Son Jesus not refuse me Thy aid.
O my holy Guardian Angel, do thou stand by my side and unite thy prayers with mine, that they may be acceptable to God’s Majesty, and do thou, my beloved Mother Mary, assist me that I may attend in spirit the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass with the same intention as thou didst have, when thou didst assist at the bloody Sacrifice of the cross. Amen.