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Sedevacantism: A Quick Primer

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Links to essential reading, updated November 2019

by Rev. Anthony Cekada

imagesSINCE THE ELECTION of Jorge Bergoglio (“Pope Francis”) by the March 2013 conclave, more and more Catholics have started to wonder whether the sedevacantist explanation for the state of affairs in the post-Vatican II church might not indeed be the correct one. After all, how can you reconcile the countless outrageous public statements that Bergoglio has made (no Catholic God, who am I to judge, doctrinal security is not possible, proselytism is nonsense, etc.) with the claim that he is indeed the true Successor of Peter? On the face of it, you can’t.

The only explanation that makes any sense alongside the Catholic (pre-V2) theology of the Church and the papacy is sedevacantism. Bergoglio is not a real pope, and the papal office is therefore objectively vacant (sede vacante = the Holy See is vacant). The man who deposited a beach ball on the altar of a Roman basilica, donned a clown nose, told Protestants he wasn’t interested in converting them and, most recently, participated in a pagan “pachamama” worship ceremony in the Vatican gardens is not, thank God a real pope, despite the fact that he wanders around in a white cassock.

Because of the upsurge in interest in sedevacantism, therefore, I decided to put together a quick primer to give newcomers an overview.

1. The Sedevacantist Argument in Brief

We have published this little summary of the argument many times over the past decades, and it will be helpful to do so again here. The argument is essentially the same for all the post-Vatican II “popes,” even though its force has become much more evident with the arrival of Bergoglio.

  1. Officially-sanctioned Vatican II and post-Vatican II teachings and laws embody errors and/or promote evil.
  2. Because the Church is indefectible, her teaching cannot change, and because she is infallible, her laws cannot give evil.
  3. It is therefore impossible that the errors and evils officially sanctioned in Vatican II and post-Vatican II teachings and laws could have proceeded from the authority of the Church.
  4. Those who promulgate such errors and evils must somehow lack real authority in the Church.
  5. Canonists and theologians teach that defection from the faith, once it becomes manifest, brings with it automatic loss of ecclesiastical office (authority). They apply this principle even to a pope who, in his personal capacity, somehow becomes a heretic.
  6. Canonists and theologians also teach that a public heretic, by divine law, is incapable of being validly elected pope or obtaining papal authority.
  7. Even popes have acknowledged the possibility that a heretic could one day end up on the throne of Peter. In 1559 Pope Paul IV decreed that the election of a heretic to the papacy would be invalid, and that the man elected would lack all authority.
  8. Since the Church cannot defect, the best explanation for the post-Vatican II errors and evils we repeatedly encounter is that they proceed from individuals who, despite their occupation of the Vatican and of various diocesan cathedrals, publicly defected from the faith, and therefore do not objectively possess canonical authority.

For a rather easy-to-digest explanation of this argument, I suggest my short video, Sedevacantism: How to Tell Aunt Helen.

 

TradsInfallCover2. Links to Essential Reading

For those inclined to investigate further, here are links to articles that provide a deeper explanation of the foregoing argument, together with citations to the writings of popes, theologians, canon law experts, and saints whose writings provide the unassailable basis for the sedevacantist argument in Catholic teaching. The first three articles are from the pre-Francis era:

  • Traditionalists, Infallibility and the Pope. Rev. Anthony Cekada. A clear and concise survey of the sedevacantist argument, based on the teachings of pre-Vatican II canonists, dogmatic theologians and popes. First published in 1995 as a booklet, and revised in 2006 to address various objections, Traditionalists, Infallibility and the Pope has enjoyed a world-wide circulation. Despite its continuing popularity, it is the one major treatise on sedevacantism that the Society of St. Pius X has never even attempted to answer. We are happy to make it available here on-line for the first time in its 2006 edition.
  • Resistance and Indefectibility. Most Rev. Donald J. Sanborn. The authority of the Church cannot give evil. The positions of the Fraternity of St. Peter/Indult, SSPX, and sedevacantists on the Vatican II changes, analyzed in light of this principle. (Sacerdotium 1, Autumn 1991)
  • Resisting the Pope, Sedevacantism and Frankenchurch. Rev. Anthony Cekada. A short case for sedevacantism. Can one recognize and then ‘resist’ a true pope? The nature of heresy. Ratzinger’s ‘Frankenchurch’ heresy that denies an article of the Creed: I believe in one Church. (Remnant, November 2005)

The fourth article zeroes in on how these principles apply to Francis:

  • Bergoglio’s Got Nothing to Lose. Rev. Anthony Cekada. Theologians and canonists teach that a man who is a public heretic cannot become a true pope, and that the rule is a matter of divine law. Since Bergoglio is a public heretic, the conclusion is clear and self-evident: he cannot be a true pope. He was never a real pope in the first place. This principle also sweeps away a host of common objections to sedevacantism that one heard from traditionalists in the SSPX and R&R camps in the past. (Quidlibet, May 2014)

For still more reading on the topic, I recommend that you work your way through the Sedevacantism section on the Articles Page of traditionalmass.org.

3. Responses to Some Typical Objections

Naturally, apologists for Vatican II groups and traditionalist organizations like the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) have tried to raise various objections to sedevacantism. Here are some typical objections put forth over the years and links to articles and videos that answer them:

Also of interest for those who have come across various SSPX polemics against sedevacantism: a collection of quotes from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre that favor the sedevacantist position:

4. The Salza/Siscoe/SSPX Anti-Sede Circus

In January 2016, the Society of St. Pius X’s U.S. seminary published a lengthy anti-sedevacantist screed entitled True or False Pope? Refuting Sedevacantism and Other Modern Errors by John Salza and Robert Siscoe. Fr. Cekada had already analyzed and refuted many of the authors’ arguments in a June 2015 video, and continued with a series of  articles and videos in 2016:

The videos have been particularly effective in reaching large numbers of people who might not otherwise read an article (and certainly not a 700-page book!) on the topic. As of this writing (April 2019), the cumulative number of viewers for Fr. Cekada’s videos on the Salza/Siscoe/SSPX book has reached 114,000.

Fr. Cekada’s initial video provided an overview and a devastating demolition of the entire book:

You can sign up for email alerts for videos and articles by using this contact form.

NOWatchLogo5. Bergoglio News Updates

The foregoing sections provide material that lays out the general theological arguments for sedevacantism. It is necessary for the well-informed traditional Catholic, however, to keep current on events as they actually unfold in the Vatican from day to day. This will provide lots of material for discussion with Catholics who are vaguely unsettled by Bergoglio’s antics, but fuzzy on a lot of the details.

For this, there is no better source than Novus Ordo Watch. It provides pithy summaries what Bergoglio and company are up to, as well as longer analytical articles. It also provides a handy page of quotes from Catholic sources that are most pertinent to the current crisis.

6. Updated List of Articles on Bergoglio

We periodically publish articles or videos here on Quidlibet analyzing the major themes that have emerged so far in Bergoglio era. Here is a list that we will try to update as new material is posted:

* * *

THIS MATERIAL, we hope, will provide a good primer for Catholics curious about sedevacantism, as well as refresher course on the main points for those who have already adopted the position.

Remember: All traditional Catholics are in fact sedevacantists — it’s just that not all of them realize it yet!

—–

For information and to contribute to SGG’s apostolate,

Click here

Filed in Francis / Bergoglio, Sedevacantism, Sedevacantism: Objections, Trad Controversies | | Comments (13)

Organ Music and Tradition at St. Gertrude the Great

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

by Rev. Anthony Cekada

 

EVEN AT AGE 13 in 1964, the Vatican II liturgical changes that were just being introduced left me a bit uneasy, in particular, the near-immediate decline of good Catholic church music. I resolved to do something about it, so at age 14, with no keyboard training at all, I began to study organ and aspired to compose good liturgical music.

Michael P. Hammond

Michael P. Hammond

To make a long story short, in a mere year or two my enthusiasm (it sure wasn’t my keyboard technique!) landed me a little scholarship at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. The head of the Conservatory was Michael P. Hammond – expert in medieval polyphony, Rhodes scholar, conductor of the Civic Orchestra, assistant to the great Leopold Stokowski, later head of Rice University and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Mr. Hammond, probably somewhat amused that a high school sophomore was interested in writing imitation Renaissance polyphony, personally tutored me in counterpoint, composition and even a bit of orchestration.

For my organ professor, Mr. Hammond chose William A. Eberl, himself a former student of the great French organist, composer and Bach scholar, Marcel Dupré (1886–1971). Though Mr. Eberl was a Lutheran, he was a staunch traditionalist when it came to Catholic church music. One point he insisted on was that I learn to improvise interludes at the organ using Gregorian chants as themes, even though chant had disappeared from the new liturgy, as had the moments of silence where organists once played these improvised interludes.

Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré

(The new liturgy didn’t stop the great Dupré, however. His last public performance was an improvisation at St. Sulpice in Paris on a Gregorian chant for Pentecost. In the recording you can actually hear the old master start to falter a bit, but you’re inclined to give him a free pass for it when you learn that, only a few hours later, he died!)

Though opportunities to exercise this skill were thin on the ground at the Novus Ordo, several years later I found myself playing the organ for the traditional Mass, first as a seminarian and then as a priest. The compositional and improvisational techniques I’d picked up from Messrs. Hammond and Eberl really came in handy.

The press of my priestly work caused me to set aside playing the organ and improvising for several decades. Without regular practice, the keyboard skills of a late starter such as I become rusty very quickly. Through Dupré, a fellow organist once told me, I could trace my “apostolic succession” of organ teachers straight back to Bach himself. Alas, the only resemblance between me and J.S. ended up being the buckled shoes…

In 2009, however, we found ourselves without an organist here at St. Gertrude the Great, and I stepped up to the console once again. Fortunately, I was able to revive a few of the old skills at least, including improvisation and arranging motets and Masses for smaller choirs.

About this time, one of our grade school boys who had been very well trained in piano by his mother took an interest in learning the organ. Merely from listening to me improvise on chants at Sunday High Mass, he started to pick up some of my techniques himself and used them to provide organ interludes during the quiet parts of our school children’s daily High Mass.

In seventh grade at about age 12, he came up with the following improvisation on the Gregorian hymn for Vespers of the Feast of St. Michael, Te Splendor et Virtus Patris.

It’s a rather impressive piece of work, especially since the boy’s only compositional “training” at this point came from listening to me. Note also the smooth ending at precisely the right liturgical moment.

My organ professor, Mr. Eberl, and his professor, old Dupré, would have beamed at the thought that, despite the musical disasters of the liturgical reforms and despite a tenuous and highly improbable chain of events, a 12-year-old in an Ohio suburb was carrying on a tradition of improvisation stretching back to Dupré in Paris, and thence to the organists of the great cathedrals of Europe.

Since 2011, our young organist has not contented himself with merely improvising. During the past two years, he has studied with an organ professor from the Cincinnati Conservatory, and honed his skills on works by the great composers for the instrument, especially Bach.

On this video, he performs Bach’s “Gigue” Fugue in G Major as a postlude for our High Mass this past Sunday. His rendition is remarkable for a fourteen-year-old, because the tempo of this piece is absolutely relentless.

Non-organists should note the following: On the organ, the organist plays the bass melodies with his feet on pedals which are configured like the notes of a piano keyboard. When the bass lines in the “Gigue” Fugue really get going, you’ll see the organist almost dancing a little jig on the pedals.

Since I posted this article and video a few hours ago, a non-musician asked me to explain a bit more about the piece. In a fugue, a composer takes a simple theme – in this case, a little jig that someone might dance to – and develops it (almost plays with it) in a variety of ways. He announces the melody at the beginning, and moves it through the high, middle and bass voices (usually four), adding other independent melodies above it, below it and in harmony with it, taking care that these melodies, too, are attractive and beautiful.

The musical form is called a “fugue” because the simple little theme “flies” from one voice to another very quickly, and from one “key” (in effect) to another. If you listen closely to the following, you can hear the the little jig theme emerge from the music again and again in high and middle range, and of course in the pedal bass. It all builds up to very busy-sounding and technically demanding climax at the end.

We’re very blessed at St. Gertrude the Great to be able to carry on these great musical traditions. Already there is another young boy in our grade school who shows similar interest and promise, and is slogging away at his piano lessons in hopes of one day playing “the King of the Instruments.”

May these videos inspire more of our young people to honor God through sacred music!

 

Filed in Liturgy, Music at SGG | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

SGG Young Person’s Field Guide to Potential Trad Spouses

Monday, November 11, 2013

Binoc Field GuideIT ISN’T easy to be young and a traditional Catholic these days. Practicing the faith – and even just getting to Sunday Mass – requires a lot more effort and determination now than it did when I was growing up in the balmy pre-Vatican II era, and Mass was just a short bike ride away.

Then there is conflict among different traditionalist groups. While the average young Catholic pre-Vatican II encountered no doctrinal or disciplinary disagreements, and could safely go from one Latin Mass to another without worry and be left  in complete peace, now he often encounters doctrinal problems and other types of disputes. I have addressed this issue before in a talk called Young People and Conflict among Trads that I posted here last year.

To this there is joined another acute problem: If I am serious about practicing my faith, how do I find a spouse who is likewise serious about the faith? How could the differences among various traditionalist groups affect my potential choices? Sometimes, too, young trads – and alas even many older ones! – wrongly believe that the only issue is “the Latin Mass.” Any group or priest that offers a Latin Mass is just fine.

But “the Latin Mass” is not the whole story because trads are in fact engaged in a battle against the doctrinal errors of Vatican II and the false pope and hierarchy who adhere to them.  Our high school catechism teacher here at St. Gertrude the Great (SGG) asked me to speak to his students about the topic this past Sunday. To keep the issues and groups clear, I came up with a one-page chart as a “field guide.” Since the problem that occasioned it and the issues it addresses are of general interest to faithful Catholics, I decided to make it available here. (You can click on the chart to enlarge it.)

 

 

imagesSGG, SGG Approved Chapels List, CMRI: Obviously, potential spouses from the chapels in the first three columns are on the proverbial same page as regards Vatican II, the false popes, and Holy Orders of priests in their chapels. They are all sedevacantist – that it, they believe the papal see is vacant. I’ve listed the numbers of chapels in these categories in order to show young people that their possibilities for encountering potential spouses is not limited to one local chapel. We at St. Gertrude the Great have taken the firm position that, since the post-Vatican II popes are heretics and therefore false popes, it is objectively a sin to participate in traditional Latin Masses that name them as true popes in the Canon of the Mass. (For a short explanation of the reasons, see my short article here and the longer study on which it is based here.) Such Masses, sometimes called “una cum Masses” (from the Latin phrase used to insert the name of the false pope into the Canon) are offered by the Society of St. Pius X, certain independent traditional priests, SSPX affiliates, the Fraternity of St. Peter and others. Since you know and believe Francis is a false pope, you should not participate actively in a Mass that proclaims he is a true pope. For the sake of avoiding misunderstanding, I must note here that CMRI and other clergy on our approved chapels list disagree with this position, and see nothing wrong assisting at una cum Masses if nothing else is available. I even held that position at one time myself, but rather extensive research into the issues forced me to conclude otherwise.

KellySSPV, Immaculate Conception: Of all the groups on the list, this causes the most problems for our young people. The clergy of SSPV and Immaculate Conception (its affiliated Cincinnati-area chapel) regard clergy at the chapels listed in the first three columns as invalidly ordained, forbid attendance at our Masses, publicly refuse the sacraments to laymen who receive sacraments at these Masses, forbid SSPV laymen to be baptismal sponsors at such chapels, etc.

These policies, as you can imagine, caused great heartache and division in families, because SSPV and Immaculate Conception clergy insist that one side of a family in a marriage treat the religion of the other side of the family as non-Catholic. In the case of one potential SGG/SSPV marriage, the local SSPV priest, Fr. William Jenkins, even insisted that I participate in a public debate with him over SSPV policies with the couple present. Some engagement party! (Those who are interested can view the tape of the debate here.)

images-2Nevertheless, many lay people who go to SSPV or Immaculate Conception simply do not believe what their priests say on these points, and observe the SSPV policy only because of social/familial pressure, school possibilities or mere geographical convenience. On a local level here in Cincinnati, in fact, many Immaculate Conception parishioners ignore the policy entirely, and assist at Mass or receive sacraments at St. Gertrude the Great whenever convenient. (A waggish priest at St. Gertrude’s, who shall remain nameless, suggested that Fr. Jenkins might therefore consider running a courtesy shuttle over to SGG as a fundraiser.) In any event, a potential spouse from among the latter group who was willing to ignore the flack and to start going to Mass at a chapel in one of the first three columns would not therefore be a bad bet.

SSPX: While this organization recognizes the false Vatican II popes as true popes and some of its lay followers are militantly anti-sedevacantist, others are not and have no difficulty assisting at Mass at a sede chapel. In the case of a potential spouse, sometimes contact with sedevacantist clergy will lead a lay SSPX-er to examine the sedevacantist position more closely and embrace it. This will become more common, I think, once Bergoglio (“Pope Francis”) really gets his revolutionary program into gear.

FSSP logoMOTU PROPRIO, FSSP: These refer to organizations that offer the “Latin Mass” under the aegis of the modernist hierarchy. A problem can arise if a potential spouse’s family members are really militantl anti-sedevacantists or “conservative” Novus Ordo “legalists.” They would regard marriages in sedevacantist churches as invalid and “schismatic.” Again, though, the contact of a potential spouse with sedevacantist clergy sometimes leads him to re-examine his position. As with SSPXers, Bergoglio has offended many conservatives by his outrageous words and actions. For a recent example of this conservative reaction, see the recent blog post by Steve Kojec, It Doesn’t Take a Rigorist: Why All Catholics Should be Concerned about Pope Francis.

STANDARD NOVUS ORDO: The Novus Ordo does not recognize our sacraments at SGG as valid, treats any marriages that we perform as null, and routinely allows spouses married here or in one of our affiliated churches to marry again. On the other hand, since the nature of the new religion is decidedly indifferentist,  potential spouses from this milieu are usually “non-militant.” Contact with a traditional Catholic from one of our chapels sometimes leads them to discover the true Catholic faith for the first time.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: First, one of my hopes in founding TradCircle was that it would become a social meeting site for young traditional Catholics and hopefully, future spouses. Though we had a number of marriages come from it, this has yet to happen on any large scale, probably because of the rather fragile ecosystem of social media sites. Perhaps we will still find a way of making TradCircle (or some other social media site) effectively achieve this end in the future.

Second, what we have said here is intended to address just one specific issue involved in choosing a potential spouse. There are many other important points for the young Catholic to ponder as well.

Finally, and most important of all: Since Catholic marriage is a sacrament and a means of sanctification established by God, agreement between spouses on religious principles will be the key to their success in the married life. In the matter of considering and choosing future spouses, however, I urge our young people to reject the temptation to soften or compromise the religious principles I have mentioned, should they take an interest in someone from a “Latin Mass” group that espouses questionable doctrinal ideas. Save compromise in marriage for the color of the wallpaper. When it comes to future spouses and your faith, seek instead to convince and convert. Your priests will be happy to help! St. Raphael, patron of future spouses, pray for us!

Filed in Francis / Bergoglio, Miscellaneous, Sedevacantism: Objections, SSPX: Misc, Trad Controversies | | Comments (0)

1968 Rite of Episcopal Consecration: Valid or No?

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

1378608_649701761741083_1351231262_nVideo Conversation with Fr. Anthony Cekada

Links to articles

In 1968 Paul VI radically altered the Rite of Episcopal Consecration. This act had profound consequences for Catholics, because it ultimately affected the five sacraments whose validity depends on the validity of the Holy Orders of their minister, a problem Abp. Lefebvre himself had raised in the mid-1970s.

In 2006 I researched and wrote a lengthy study of the new rite and concluded that it was invalid; I also produced a shorter version of the article for popular consumption.

In 2011 Stephen Heiner of True Restoration conducted a lengthy video conversation on this topic with me, which we are happy to make available here.

The issue has recently become even more timely, due to the election by the 2013 conclave of Jorge Bergoglio. Since Francis was both ordained a priest and consecrated a bishop with the new rite, the real possibility exists that the man who now claims to be pope is in fact nothing more than a simple layman.

For those interested in further information on the topic, here are the links to the original articles and my subsequent writings on the issue.

 

Filed in Epis Cons: '68 Rite, Francis / Bergoglio | | Comments (0)

9/11 for the Magisterium: The Francis Interviews

Thursday, October 24, 2013

WTC_1_mediumby Rev. Anthony Cekada

NO ONE who follows the religious or secular press is unaware of the firestorm that Bergoglio (“Pope Francis”) ignited with his recent press interviews and public letters.

Understandably, the discussion centered on the meaning of Francis’ particular pronouncements (on atheism, proselytism, “judging,” conscience, no Catholic God, etc.) What in the world did this or that statement mean? How did it square up with previous Catholic teaching? Or did it at all?

Because each pronouncement seemed so surprising in itself, though, a larger question went mostly unasked: What, apart from Francis’ continuing popularity with the religious and secular left, will be the long-term effect of his recent statements as a whole?

This will inevitably be felt on the level of how the Church’s teaching authority is understood and perceived — and the consequences will be disastrous.

One can easily predict as much from the reaction of new-agey modernists like Richard Rohr who gleefully treated the Francis interviews as a watershed moment for the Church:

“He has forever changed the Catholic conversation. We can never go completely backward. No one can ever say a validly elected pope, with all that implies in anyone’s mind, did not say the things Francis said in the interview published Thursday. They will be quoted for a long time to come. It is now a part of the authoritative data, like the Gospels themselves, and must be reckoned with.”

Seen in this light, the Francis interviews are nothing less than 9/11 for the Church’s magisterium In effect, they first turn it into a generator of gibberish which needs to be decoded, and then they destroy its very foundations.

To understand why, we must first look at what the magisterium is and what is the pope’s role in it is supposed to be.

Berg_Wheel_medium1. Magisterium = Teaching Functions

The imposing Latin term magisterium is really very easy to understand. In general, it just means “the function of instructing others.”

The Church’s teaching magisterium (= docens) is directed at imparting the knowledge of sound doctrine and good morals to all the faithful.

Now, in the minds of most Catholics, the word magisterium is automatically linked to the word infallible, as in something like, “The magisterium of the pope is infallible when he issues an ex cathedra definition about faith or morals.”

The flip side of this, most Catholics conclude, is a principle that boils down to “No ex cathedra/infallible stamp, no obligation to believe.”

But this idea is completely false, for in addition to infallible magisterium, a Catholic is also bound by what is called authentic magisterium. This is the way the pope usually teaches Catholic doctrine and moral principles.

It works this way: A pope has the “power and office to teach doctrine” and as a Catholic you have “the obligation and the right to receive instruction.” The teaching of a pope is authentic in the strict sense, “because of the authority of God’s delegation that the teacher uses.” You would therefore “be bound to give it assent of the intellect,” because his teaching authority is founded in “a mission received from God, to which is attached divine assistance.” (Salaverri, De Ecclesia 1:503ff. His emphasis)

Pope-with-Fr.-Spodara_medium2. Francis’ Interview Magisterium

Obviously, the overwhelming number of Catholics in the world consider Francis to be a true pope. So for them, where would we situate his disturbing interviews and public letters in terms of the principles outlined in point 1?

Writers such as Carl Olsen, who were appalled and embarrassed by many of Bergoglio’s statements, would respond: “Nowhere at all.” Papal interviews, he says, are “not magisterial in nature.”

Vatican press spokesman Fr. Frederico Lombardi joked that the material “isn’t Denzinger” — a collection of papal and conciliar statements on faith and morals. Francis is merely “giving pastoral reflections” which must “be distinguished from an encyclical, for instance, or a post-synodal apostolic exhortation, which are magisterial documents.”

But what exactly was Bergoglio doing if not publicly teaching about doctrine and morals, and doing so as pope? And teaching is exactly what “magisterial” means. As for pastoral, the first duty of the Supreme Pastor is what? “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep” — with sound doctrine.

Veteran Vatican reporter Sandro Magister nails down exactly what Francis is doing in the headline of an October 7 piece: “Encyclicals Have a New Format: The Interview.” The point Magister develops is this: Where previous popes used encyclical letters to communicate doctrinal and moral teachings to the world, Francis has now chosen a new means more suited to the modern age: press interviews. These carry his teaching throughout the world through the wonders of 21st century technology. The interviews, Magister says, are “the first acts of this ‘magisterium’.”

An exaggeration, perhaps?

Not at all. A pope is not restricted to one particular format when exercising his authentic teaching authority. Popes always had an array of options to employ when addressing doctrinal or moral questions: bulls, decrees, briefs, epistles, etc. They adopted the now-familiar encyclical letter only in the 18th century. In the 20th century, Pius XI and Pius XII added addresses and allocutions to the mix, and a good number of these did end up in Denzinger.

These different formats were merely various means that a pope used to teach. It was his choice.

There is therefore nothing to prevent a pope from using the web, press interviews or public letters to atheists to communicate his authentic teaching. The form of a communication does not create the obligation to assent. Rather, it is the fact that a pope is the “content provider” (as web-savvy types might say).

Indeed in January 2015, Bergoglio himself clearly stated that his public statements are “magisterium.”

“I’m constantly making statements, giving homilies. That’s magisterium. That’s what I think, not what the media say that I think. Check it out; it’s very clear.” Source

Those Catholics who regard Bergoglio as a true Successor of St. Peter are therefore not free to dismiss the content of his interviews and public letters as so much white noise. Rather, they must regard it as authentic teaching and consider themselves “bound to give it assent of the intellect.”

And it is here we begin to stare in horror at the effects of the first blow Francis has launched…

9.11-4_medium3. A Magisterium that Teaches Gibberish

To understand why, first recall how the Bergoglio interviews generated a seemingly endless stream of “What-the-pope-really-meant” articles in the Catholic press and blogsphere.

Novus Ordo Wire provides a lengthy list of the writers who felt compelled to weigh in: Fr. Dwight Longenecker (3 articles), Simcha Fisher, Jimmy Akin, Jeffrey Mirus, Elizabeth Scalia, Lalah Alexander, Jennifer Fitz, Joanne McPortland, Gerard Nadal, Thomas McDonald, Terry Nelson, Mary Eberstadt, Stacy Trascanos, Kathy Schiffer, Joseph Shaw, Joseph Susanka, Christopher Orlet, Edward Mulholland, Mark Shea, Carl Olsen, and of course, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (at least 3 articles).

Whew!

A few of the article titles will demonstrate the level of confusion that Francis’ comments provoked: “What Did the Pope Really Say?” “Francis Will be Misunderstood,” Getting Pope Francis Wrong,” “I Am Too Sinful to Understand Pope Francis,” “The Problem is US, Not Francis; The Pope is Moving in Mysterious Ways,” and “The Good, the Baffling and the Unclear.”

The writers engaged in an elaborate exegetical process that attempted to reconcile Francis’ actual words with the established Catholic doctrines and moral principles that his words seemed to plainly contradict. And indeed, they had “a whole lot of ‘splainin’ to do.”

The pain and the puzzlement of the writers is evident, as is that of their readers. Fr. Zuhlsdorf even begins one such article by saying, “My email is filled with notes from people who need to be talked off the ledge.”

If we step back step back from the ledge and examine the whole process that Bergoglio’s statements unleashed, what we see is this: A magisterium that no longer actually teaches.

Bergoglio, supposedly its authentic teacher, to whose teaching we are “bound to give assent of the intellect,” publicly proclaims to the Universal Church doctrinal and moral principles which, on their face at least, contradict previous magisterial teachings. Private persons must then attempt to reconcile his teaching to previous teachings through an elaborate exegetical process.

We who are supposed to be taught by the authentic teacher must instead become gibberish decoders, wearing Joseph Smith-like spectacles to decipher the hieroglyphics he’s handed us.

Thus the statements in the Bergoglio interviews and letters blow the very purpose of the magisterium — to teach — all to smithereens. No one can understand the teacher’s message!

This would disastrous enough. But certain of Bergoglio’s statements combine to deliver a second attack in the form of a…

collapse-01-2_medium4. A Magisterium that Destroys Its Own Foundations

This becomes apparent when you group summaries of Bergoglio’s outrageous statements under the general headings of either faith or morals.

(a) Faith: There is no Catholic God, doctrinal security exists no more, he who claims to have all the answers does not have God within him, proselytism is nonsense, atheists can go to heaven, etc.

These declarations blow away the meaning of the Creed, the nature of God, the possibility of arriving at doctrinal truths, the divine mission to convert others to those truths, and faith as a requirement for eternal salvation.

(b) Morals: Moral teachings (on the 6th and 9th commandments) are a disjointed multitude of doctrines that cannot be imposed insistently, one must not obsess about such matters (abortion, gay “marriage” and contraception), what is objectively adultery admits of a “pastoral solution,” who am I to judge, each one has his own vision of good and evil, spiritual interference in personal life is impossible, etc.

These declarations portray mortal sins as trifles, castigate as “obsessed” those who say otherwise, trivialize adultery, reprove moral judgments, enthrone the conscience as autonomous and supreme, and effectively renounce the right of the magisterium to tell the individual conscience anything.

It takes no effort to derive the underlying principle here: The magisterium of the Church can no longer deliver certitude about what to believe or how to act.

Poof! The whole edifice of the magisterium crumbles, its foundations forever undermined by what Italian theologian Peter De Marco calls Bergoglio’s “relativistic slippage.” Everything — everything — is subverted.

* * * * *

WE WILL no doubt, occasionally hear Catholic-sounding Bergoglian pronouncements that seem to contradict the modernist Bergoglianisms we’ve mentioned here. Indeed, this is happening already. Don’t obsess about abortions vs. aborted babies are “the face of Jesus.” Proselytism is solemn nonsense vs. Mission Sunday is really a great thing. Rosaries are Pelagian vs. let’s all remember that October is Rosary month.

Don’t be fooled. All this is just part of the modernist shtick that St. Pius X exposed in Pascendi. Modernists can be devout sounding Catholics on one page and near-agnostics on the next. Once you’ve figured how to relativize dogma and turn it into intellectual mush, you can say just about anything.

21_Wand_Heresy_mediumIn seven months, Bergoglio thus has stripped all the weapons from the perhaps 20% of souls in the post-Vatican II church who still cling to vestiges of the old religion’s doctrinal and moral teachings. Henceforth, their objections to modernist doctrinal or moral outrages will be met with quotes from the “authentic teacher” about small-minded rules, obsessions, no doctrinal security, no Catholic God, triumphalism, restorationism, ideologies, etc. Rest assured that modernists like Fr. Rohr will indeed forever treat these pontifical dicta “as part of the authoritative data.”

For my part, I now state that I no longer consider Jorge Bergoglio merely a heretic. He is an apostate because he adheres to a system that rejects the possibility of religious truth and the objective moral law.

Apostasy is indeed, as St. Pius X warned, the final product of the modernist system. But Jorge Bergoglio didn’t get to be a modernist apostate by dint of his own efforts. He is a Vatican II product from top to bottom, and all his noxious and scandalous utterances against Catholic faith and morality are but the poisonous fruit of the seeds sown by that Robber Council.

There is a straight line from Vatican II’s ecumenism, religious liberty and pagan sects as tools of the Holy Ghost to Bergoglio’s no Catholic God, proselytism is nonsense, atheists go to heaven, I don’t judge and each of us has his own vision of good and evil.

There are tens of thousands more Bergoglios out there, so in the long run there is really only one cure for the disease. Get rid of what really caused the infection in the first place: Vatican II.

And if you hesitate to take advice from a sedevacantist, remember, “even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

Well, the time is now 10:28 AM — and the date is 9/11…

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Don’t like sedevacantists and want to toss a stone or two at Fr. C? Try these!

And for a short course on Francis, try this SGG Resources video:

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Bergoglio: Trashing Trads is the Least of His Program

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

by Rev. Anthony Cekada

DURING THE PAST few days, trad internet forums have been abuzz over two shots that “Pope Francis” (Bergoglio) has taken against trads.

BergHand_largeOne was in his July 28 address in Rio to the coordinating committee of CELAM, the supra-regional episcopal conference for South American and the Caribbean, in which he referred to trads (“restorationists”) as “Pelagians” (a term for a 4th-century heresy) who seek to solve problems in the Church “through the restoration of outdated manners and forms which, even on the cultural level, are no longer meaningful… It seeks to ‘recover’ the lost past.”

The second shot came in the form of a Vatican decree for the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, an officially-approved group that has been taking advantage of Benedict XVI’s 2007 Motu Proprio permitting wide use of a form of the traditional Latin Mass. Priests in the group celebrated both the Novus Ordo and the pre-Vatican II Mass, but the overwhelming majority used the latter. The Vatican decreed that henceforth the Novus Ordo must be used and that special permission would be required for using the old Missal. The decree stated explicitly that its provisions had been personally approved by “the Holy Father Francis” himself.

But these interventions, dramatic though they be, have drawn the attention of traditionalists away from other, equally horrifying things that Bergoglio has been up to at the same time.

1. Sacraments to the Divorced and Remarried. In his news conference on the plane ride back to Rome, Francis hinted at the possibility of dumping the Catholic teaching and practice on giving sacraments to the divorced/remarried (i.e., adulterers):

“Times have changed and the Church faces many problems,.. I think the time for mercy has come as John Paul II predicted by introducing the Feast of Divine Mercy. Divorced people can take communion, it is those who have divorced and remarried that cannot. Here I must add that the orthodox follow the theology of economics and allow second marriages. When the commission of eight cardinals meets at the beginning of October we will discuss how to proceed. The Church is taking a very close look at pastoral initiatives for marriage. My predecessor in Buenos Aires, Cardinal Quarracino always used to say: ‘I consider half of today’s marriages to be invalid because people get married without realising it means forever. They do it out of social convenience, etc…’ The issue of invalidity needs to be looked into as well.”

Note the last point. It’s a hint that Bergoglio and company will try to weasel around the traditional Catholic teaching by cooking up a broad, new reason for declaring marriages invalid — “people these days don’t realize that it’s forever.”

2. Praise for Charismatics. “Then I got to know them better and I was won over. I saw the work that they did and I said Mass for them in Buenos Aires every year. I think movements are necessary; they are a gift from the Holy Spirit. The Church is free; the Holy Spirit does what it wants.”

This is an open license for allowing these nutty crypto-protestant groups not only to expand and continue to function, but also to do so without hierarchical supervision. Hey, it’s the Holy Spirit.

3. Dumping the “Pope” Title. Already Bergoglio has dumped the title “pope” when signing documents (including his first encyclical), banished traditional papal titles from the main page in the Vatican yearbook (Annuario Pontificio), and repeatedly referred to himself in public as “Bishop of Rome.

Why has he done this? In his news conference on the plane back from Rio, he said, “Placing emphasis on the number one title, that is, Bishop of Rome, favours ecumenism.”
You bet it does!

4. Trashing Papal Authority through “Synodality.” I predict that this is really the area to watch. Bergoglio has already hinted that he has an agenda for the institution of the papacy and church governance that is no less than revolutionary.
His CELAM speech laid out the principles for an ecclesiastical restructuring (at least in South America) along the lines of the ’60s liberation theology/base communities initiative. It was loaded with leftist bromides about good pastors “following their flocks” which are led by the Holy Spirit, dialoguing, etc., etc.
In his press conference on the plane back to Rome, Bergoglio was asked about the commission of cardinals he had earlier appointed. “The ethos of the work being done by the commission of eight cardinals – it was important they came from outside – is that of developing the relationship between synodality and primacy.”

From these two comments, it seems that Francis intends to institute a radical overhaul of ecclesiastical institutions and the whole decision-making process in the Church.

The “synodality” language should be particularly scary. I think it portends “synods” of bishops (if not clergy and laity) on the international and national level that will be given real legislative authority. Francis has already praised the Orthodox schismatics for this set-up, and has alluded to the importance of “synodality” several times as a way of implementing Vatican II’s teaching on collegiality.

Then the fun for the modernists will really begin. (Democratic synods are the voice of the Holy Spirit! We are Church. The voice of the People of God must be heard!) They couldn’t pull this off in the ’60s and ’70s, but it looks like Bergoglio will give them another bite of the apple.

Bergoglio’s disdain for the old Mass will look like nothing more that a sideshow, once he gets going on all this.

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Pro-Sedevacantism Quotes from Abp. Lefebvre

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

NOTE FROM FR. CEKADA: In discussions on various forums, I’ve noticed that many SSPX supporters can’t bring themselves to believe that Abp. Lefebvre EVER said ANYTHING that favored sedevacantism, implying in bargain that SSPX sede old-timers like myself are are either liars or delusional.

Below is an article by John Daly which provides a nice selection of the Archbishop’s “pro-sede” quotes. I think it is time for SSPX loyalists to put aside the false ideas they have been fed about Abp. Lefebvre as the great anti-sede.

Since this is a rather long article, I have taken the liberty of putting into bold some passages in the quotes from Abp Lefebvre.

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ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE AND SEDEVACANTISM

by John Daly

(Four Marks, 2006)

So far as we know, Archbishop Lefebvre never formed a definite judgment that John-Paul II was not a true pope. So if we divide the ecclesiastical spectrum into two categories, those for whom the see is legally vacant and those for whom it is legally occupied, Archbishop Lefebvre will be in the non-sedevacantist camp.

But such divisions are not always helpful. If we divide the animal kingdom between bipeds and the rest we shall find ourselves misleadingly close to the turkeys. Other criteria of evaluation exist. Did Archbishop Lefebvre admit that sedevacantists might well be right? Did he consider them to be upright members of the Church? Did he avow that his persevering recognition of John-Paul II was due more to heroically cautious hesitation than to any solid conviction? Did he envisage declaring the vacancy of the Holy See if the situation continued unchanged? Did he insist that settling the question of whether the Vatican II “popes” were truly popes or not was an important duty, not to be evaded? Did he hold that Vatican II was unequivocally schismatic? Did he hold that Vatican II was unequivocally heretical? Did he believe it impossible to interpret Vatican II in an orthodox sense? Did he reject outright all the conciliar reforms? Did he declare that Vatican II had founded a new, false and schismatic religion? Did he deny that the members of the new Vatican II Church were Catholics? Did he doubt the validity of the new rites of Mass, ordination and episcopal consecration? Did he hold that John-Paul II and his henchmen were already excommunicated? Did he rejoice to be separated from the Church of John-Paul II? Did he consciously employ sedevacantist seminary professors at Ecône, ordain and assign ministries to sedevacantist clergy, and send his seminarians to gain pastoral experience with a sedevacantist priest?

You may find it surprising, even bewildering, but the answer to all the above questions is “yes”, as we shall shortly see. But it should first be emphasised that we are not studying Archbishop Lefebvre’s convictions in order to accept them as necessarily sound and judicious in every respect. Nor do we deny that other apparently contradictory texts may be cited from him on many of these points. The interest of the late prelate’s attitude to the Conciliar Church lies elsewhere. We shall come back to that subject after having shown that the Archbishop did indeed express the views we attribute to him. To do this we shall repeat the above questions, allowing the Archbishop’s own words and deeds to answer them.

Did Archbishop Lefebvre admit that sedevacantists might well be right?

1. “You know, for some time, many people, the sedevacantists, have been saying, ‘there is no more pope’. But I think that for me it was not yet the time to say that, because it was not sure, it was not evident…” (Talk, March 30 and April 18, 1986, text published in The Angelus, July 1986)

2. “The question is therefore definitive: is Paul VI, has Paul VI ever been, the successor of Peter? If the reply is negative: Paul VI has never been, or no longer is, pope, our attitude will be that of sede vacante periods, which would simplify the problem. Some theologians say that this is the case, relying on the statements of theologians of the past, approved by the Church, who have studied the problem of the heretical pope, the schismatic pope or the pope who in practice abandons his charge of supreme Pastor. It is not impossible that this hypothesis will one day be confirmed by the Church.” (Ecône, February 24, 1977, Answers to Various Burning Questions)

Did he frequently and respectfully allude to the sedevacantist explanation of the crisis?

1. “To whatever extent the pope departed from…tradition he would become schismatic, he would breach with the Church. Theologians such as Saint Bellarmine, Cajetan, Cardinal Journet and many others have studied this possibility. So it is not something inconceivable.” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)

2. “Heresy, schism, ipso facto excommunication, invalidity of election are so many reasons why a pope might in fact never have been pope or might no longer be one. In this, obviously very exceptional case, the Church would be in a situation similar to that which prevails after the death of a Pontiff.” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)

3. “…these recent acts of the Pope and bishops, with protestants, Animists and Jews, are they not an active participation in non-catholic worship as explained by Canon Naz on Canon 1258§1? In which case I cannot see how it is possible to say that the pope is not suspect of heresy, and if he continues, he is a heretic, a public heretic. That is the teaching of the Church.” (Talk, March 30 and April 18, 1986, text published in The Angelus, July 1986)

4. “It seems inconceivable that a successor of Peter could fail in some way to transmit the Truth which he must transmit, for he cannot – without as it were disappearing from the papal line – not transmit what the popes have always transmitted.” (Homily, Ecône, September 18, 1977)

5. “If it happened that the pope was no longer the servant of the truth, he would no longer be pope.” (Homily preached at Lille, August 29, 1976, before a crowd of some 12,000)

Did he consider sedevacantists to be upright members of the Church?

Undoubtedly. He rebuked certain over-zealous Society priests who refused the sacraments to sedevacantists. He collaborated with Bishop de Castro-Mayer after the Brazilian prelate had made his sedevacantism quite clear. He accepted numerous seminarians from sedevacantist families, parishes or groups. He patronised the Le Trévoux “Ordo” with its guide to traditional places of worship throughout the world, which has always included (and still does) certain known sedevacantist Mass centres. He was at all times well aware of the presence of sedevacantists among the Society’s priests.

Did he avow that his persevering recognition of Paul VI and John-Paul II was due more to heroically cautious hesitation than to any solid conviction?

1. “While we are certain that the faith the Church has taught for 20 centuries cannot contain error, we are much further from absolute certitude that the pope is truly pope.” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)

2. “It is possible we may be obliged to believe this pope is not pope. For twenty years Mgr de Castro Mayer and I preferred to wait…I think we are waiting for the famous meeting in Assisi, if God allows it.” (Talk, March 30 and April 18, 1986, published in The Angelus, July 1986)

3. “I don’t know if the time has come to say that the pope is a heretic (…) Perhaps after this famous meeting of Assisi, perhaps we must say that the pope is a heretic, is apostate. Now I don’t wish yet to say it formally and solemnly, but it seems at first sight that it is impossible for a pope to be formally and publicly heretical. (…) So it is possible we may be obliged to believe this pope is not pope.” (Talk, March 30 and April 18, 1986, text published in The Angelus, July 1986)

Did he envisage declaring the legal vacancy of the Holy See if the situation continued unchanged?

1. “That is why I beseech Your Eminence to …do everything in your power to get us a Pope, a true Pope, successor of Peter, in line with his predecessors, the firm and watchful guardian of the deposit of faith. The…eighty-year-old cardinals have a strict right to present themselves at the Conclave, and their enforced absence will necessarily raise the question of the validity of the election” (Letter to an unnamed cardinal, August 8, 1978.)

2. “It is impossible for Rome to remain indefinitely outside Tradition. It’s impossible… For the moment they are in rupture with their predecessors. This is impossible. They are no longer in the Catholic Church.” (Retreat Conference, September 4, 1987, Ecône)

Did he insist that settling the question of whether the Vatican II “popes” were truly popes or not was an important duty, not to be evaded?

1. “…a grave problem confronts the conscience and the faith of all Catholics since the beginning of Paul VI’s pontificate: how can a pope who is truly successor of Peter, to whom the assistance of the Holy Ghost has been promised, preside over the most radical and far-reaching destruction of the Church ever known, in so short a time, beyond what any heresiarch has ever achieved? This question must one day be answered…” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)

2. “Now some priests (even some priests in the Society) say that we Catholics need not worry about what is happening in the Vatican; we have the true sacraments, the true Mass, the true doctrine, so why worry about whether the pope is heretic or an impostor or whatever; it is of no importance to us. But I think that is not true. If any man is important in the Church it is the pope.” (Talk, March 30 and April 18, 1986, text published in The Angelus, July 1986)

Did he hold that Vatican II was unequivocally schismatic?

“We believe we can affirm, purely by internal and external criticism of Vatican II, i.e. by analysing the texts and studying the Council’s ins and outs, that by turning its back on tradition and breaking with the Church of the past, it is a schismatic council.” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)

Did he hold that Vatican II was unequivocally heretical?

In an interview with Mr Tom Chapman’s Catholic Crusader in 1984 the Archbishop expressly characterised the decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) as “heretical”.

Did he believe it impossible to interpret Vatican II in an orthodox sense?

“Do you agree to accept the Council as a whole? Reply: Ah, not religious liberty – it isn’t possible!” ((Retreat Conference, September 4, 1987, Ecône. The Archbishop’s words imagine the kind of interrogation his seminarians would have been submitted to if he had accepted the terms of agreement John-Paul II was offering him, entailing a Cardinal-Visitor entitled to grant or refuse the ordination of seminarians. The reply is the reply he assumes his seminarians would have to make and he goes on to explain that such a reply would have enabled the Cardinal-Visitor to refuse the seminarian’s ordination – his reason for refusing the deal.)

Did he reject outright all the conciliar reforms?

“We consider as null…all the post-conciliar reforms, and all the acts of Rome accomplished in this impiety.” (Joint Declaration with Bishop de Castro Mayer following Assisi, December 2, 1986)

Did he say that Vatican II and its “popes” had founded a new, false and schismatic religion?

1. “It is not we who are in schism but the Conciliar Church.” (Homily preached at Lille, August 29, 1976, before a crowd of some 12,000 – these words appear in the original un-corrected version of the sermon as recorded and reported in the press)

2. “Rome has lost the Faith, my dear friends. Rome is in apostasy. These are not words in the air. It is the truth. Rome is in apostasy… They have left the Church… This is sure, sure, sure.” (Retreat Conference, September 4, 1987, Ecône)

3. John Paul II “now continually diffuses the principles of a false religion, which has for its result a general apostasy.” (Preface to Giulio Tam’s Osservatore Romano 1990, contributed by the Archbishop just three weeks before his death)

Was he forthright in stating that the Conciliar Church is not the Catholic Church?

1. “This Council represents, in our view and in the view of the Roman authorities, a new Church which they call the Conciliar Church.” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)

2. “The Church which affirms such errors is both schismatic and heretical. This Conciliar Church is therefore not Catholic.” (July 29, 1976, Reflections on the Suspension a divinis)

Did he deny that the members of the new Vatican II Church were Catholics?

1. “To whatever extent pope, bishops, priests or faithful adhere to this new Church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church.” (July 29, 1976, Reflections on the Suspension a divinis)

2. “To be publicly associated with the sanction [of excommunication] would be a mark of honour and a sign of orthodoxy before the faithful, who have a strict right to know that the priests they approach are not in communion with a counterfeit Church…” (Open Letter to Cardinal Gantin, July 6, 1988, signed by 24 SSPX superiors, doubtless with Archbishop Lefebvre’s approval)

Did he question the validity of the new rites of Mass, ordination and episcopal consecration?

1. “This union which liberal Catholics want between the Church and the Revolution is an adulterous union – adulterous. This adulterous union can only beget bastards. Where are these bastards? They are [the new] rites. The [new] rite of Mass is a bastard rite. The sacraments are bastard sacraments. We no longer know whether they are sacraments that give grace. We no longer know if this Mass gives us the Body and the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. (…) The priests emerging from the seminaries are bastard priests.” (Homily preached at Lille, August 29, 1976, before a crowd of some 12,000.)

2. “If we think that this reformed liturgy is heretical and invalid, whether because of modifications made in the matter and form or because of the reformers’ intention inscribed in the new rite in opposition to the intention of the catholic Church, evidently we cannot participate in these reformed rites because we should be taking part in a sacrilegious act. This opinion is founded on serious reasons…” (Ecône, February 24, 1977, Answers to Various Burning Questions)

3. “The radical and extensive changes made in the Roman Rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and their resemblance to the modifications made by Luther oblige Catholics who remain loyal to their faith to question the validity of this new rite. Who better than the Reverend Father Guérard des Lauriers to make an informed contribution to resolving this problem…?” (Foreword contributed to a book in favour of the thesis of invalidity by Fr Guérard des Lauriers. Écône, February 2, 1977)

4. Moreover Archbishop Lefebvre personally conditionally re-ordained many priests who had been ordained in the 1968 rite and re-confirmed those purportedly confirmed in the new rite or by the new bishops.

Did he hold that John-Paul II and his henchmen were excommunicated “antichrists”?

1. “So we are [to be] excommunicated by Modernists, by people who have been condemned by previous popes. So what can that really do? We are condemned by men who are themselves condemned…” (Press conference, Ecône, June 15 1988)

2. Post-consecration statement (Summer 1988), SSPX school Bitsche, Alsace-Lorraine: “the archbishop stated, going even beyond even his 15th June press conference, that those who had excommunicated him had themselves long been excommunicated.” (Summary in the Counter-Reformation Association’s, News and Views, Candlemas 1996)

3. “The See of Peter and the posts of authority in Rome being occupied by antichrists, the destruction of the Kingdom of Our Lord is being rapidly carried out even within His Mystical Body here below (…) This is what has brought down upon our heads persecution by the Rome of the antichrists.” (Letter to the future bishops, 29 August 1987)

Did he rejoice to be separated from the Church of John-Paul II?

1. “We have been suspended a divinis by the Conciliar Church and from the Conciliar Church, to which we have no wish to belong.” (July 29 1976, Reflections on the Suspension a divinis)

2. “…we do not belong to this religion. We do not accept this new religion. We belong to the old religion, the Catholic religion, not to this universal religion as it is called today. It is no longer the Catholic religion…” (Sermon, June 29, 1976)

3. “I should be very happy to be excommunicated from this Conciliar Church… It is a Church that I do not recognize. I belong to the Catholic Church.” (Interview July 30 1976, published in Minute, no. 747)

4. “We have never wished to belong to this system that calls itself the Conciliar Church. To be excommunicated by a decree of your eminence…would be the irrefutable proof that we do not. We ask for nothing better than to be declared ex communione…excluded from impious communion with infidels.” (Open Letter to Cardinal Gantin, July 6, 1988, signed by 24 leading SSPX priests, doubtless with Archbishop Lefebvre’s approval)

Did he consciously employ a sedevacantist seminary professor at Ecône, ordain and assign ministries to sedevacantist clergy, and send his seminarians to gain pastoral experience with a sedevacantist priest at his month-long summer camp each year?

He did indeed. We shall not run the risk of setting the poursuivants on the heels of those involved by naming persons who in many cases are still sedevacantist and still members of the SSPX or in collaboration with it. Any priest who was at Ecône in the days of the Archbishop will confirm our answer.

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The above quotations and facts point to a hard-line Lefebvre, very close to sedevacantism, rejecting outright Vatican II, the new sacraments and doctrines and communion with the leaders of the new pseudo-Catholic religion. But it is only honest to grant that that is only half of the story. Other words and deeds of the Archbishop would give a strikingly different impression.

It would be idle to debate which was the real Archbishop Lefebvre. The plain fact is that the Archbishop wavered. Unswerving on the fact that a new and false religion has been founded, he hesitates as to whether the pope of the new religion can also be head of the Catholic Church. Particular outrages provoke a strong reaction on his part: the suspension of 1976, the 1985 Synod, the 1986 Assisi jamboree of false religions, the 1988 excommunication – all bring him to the very brink of the explicit statement that those responsible cannot be popes. Close contact with men such as Fr. Guérard des Lauriers and Bishop de Castro Mayer, and with books such as that of Arnaldo Xavier de Silveira, encourage him towards such a declaration. Poised to plunge, he hesitates…and retreats.

We cannot justly force the facts in order to make Archbishop Lefebvre into a sedevacantist, for he was not one, but we can justly and respectfully draw several interesting conclusions from our texts and others too lengthy to quote in this article.

1. From 1975-8, and from 1985 until his death, Archbishop Lefebvre was not hostile to sedevacantism as such and seems to have accorded it the status of what theologians would call a “probable opinion”. He often came close to sharing this opinion, never pretended to be able to refute it outright, and he recognised that it might well one day become sufficiently clear for him to accept it firmly.

2. Not even the Archbishop’s most fervent admirers could claim that his statements bearing on recent papal claimants were always clear, firm and consistent or that they displayed detailed knowledge of the relevant theology and Canon Law.

3. Though aware of the classic “heretical pope” controversy among theologians, the Archbishop does not seem at any stage to have made a serious study of the nature of heresy, its effects and its recognition. He even thought that the extreme liberalism of Paul VI and John-Paul II was in some sense a defence against the charge of heresy. He meant that their minds were too full of heretical ideas for them to be insincere in believing these ideas to be orthodox. It does not seem to have occurred to him that such a “defence” would have been equally available to the likes of Lammenais and Loisy.

4. He was confident of his competence to recognise and denounce the heresies of Modernism and Liberalism, but he was conscious of lacking the theological formation necessary to be able to evaluate the status of the Johns and the Pauls, the difficulty the crisis poses with regard to the Church’s indefectibility and the infallibility of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium.

5. His seminary training at the French College in Rome under the celebrated Père le Floch had vaccinated him forever against Liberalism in all its shapes. His ecclesiastical career had prepared him for organisation and for diplomacy. But neither had made him a specialist theologian or given him any notion of being one. This is apparent in his rôle of defender of tradition at the Council and afterwards: he organises and negotiates with skill, but he is uncertain in the theological evaluation of previously unimaginable events. He had relied heavily – and for very good reason – upon his profoundly learned and saintly theological adviser Fr Victor-Alain Berto, responsible for many of the Archbishop’s interventions at Vatican II, but Berto had died in 1968, succumbing to the anguish of the Vatican II apostasy. Lefebvre was never again to find an adviser he could so fully trust, even when he stood in most need of one.

6. Archbishop Lefebvre’s nominal recognition of Paul VI and his successors was explicitly presented as being a provisional position. Those who have erected it into an immutable dogma are thus unfaithful to the Archbishop.

7. Archbishop Lefebvre was highly optimistic in the early years of John-Paul II and it was in those years that he was most trenchant in his anti-sedevacantist words and deeds. Yet even then he never expelled any priest from his Society for private sedevacantism and only twice for even public sedevacantism in the absence of other issues. His general policy was to persuade sedevacantist priests to remain. And with the 1985 Synod and Assisi in 1986 he was disabused of his illusion that “Pole” could be made to rhyme with “Pope”.

8. No one can be sure that, if Archbishop Lefebvre were alive today, he would not be a sedevacantist. No one can be sure that he would be one either. But one thing that seems highly improbable is that he would have adopted the anodyne style of Bishop Fellay and the ruling left-wing of the Society for whom in our days expressions such as “excommunicated antichrists” is more likely to be an allusion to sedevacantists than to the apparent occupant of the Roman See. And another equally improbable notion is that he would have been deceived into taking Josef Ratzinger, whom he cordially detested, for a sincere friend of traditional Catholicism.

9. It is possible to sympathise with the Archbishop’s plight as he contemplated, alone, the very grave ecclesiological aspect of the crisis – the aspect which he felt unable to make up his mind about; indeed it would be heartless not to sympathise. Defend the faith, assure the continuity of the priesthood and the availability of the sacraments to the faithful, but leave “on hold” the difficult question of the status of the soul-murderers in the Vatican: however much we may regret it, that is at least a comprehensible policy. Certain glib young sedevacantists of our days, with no gift of hindsight and quick to attribute blame, clearly cannot imagine the weight of responsibility felt by the Archbishop as he contemplated, trembling, the enormity of what sedevacantism implied.

10. What seems much harder to countenance is the consequent policy of pragmatism by which a position the Archbishop himself was not sure of became officially obligatory in the Society in order to maintain unity and streamline the Society’s apostolate. Like all men, priests need to be able to converse freely with their peers about their concerns and their doubts, without fear of denunciation for “thought-crime” and possible sanctions. The Archbishop failed to provide this facility and it still does not exist in the SSPX. One consequence is the weakness of character of many SSPX priests – inevitable outcome of a sectarian training. Another is the massive defection rate from the Society: some have become sedevacantists, some have accepted the indult, some have gone independent, some have gone off to “marry” and some have succumbed to nervous breakdowns – all bear witness to the Society’s internal stress problem.

We have seen that there is no truth in the mythology according to which Archbishop Lefebvre had a firm and consistent policy of recognising the Vatican II popes, sternly and consistently rejecting sedevacantism as a solidly refuted error. On the contrary, the Archbishop often expressed views so hard-line that today no SSPX priest or seminarian would dare say anything similar for fear of expulsion! The mythology is due to the fact that the Archbishop fluctuated and hesitated, leaving on the record words and acts enabling him to be invoked both by the liberal and by the hard-line camps. Indeed his fluctuations and hesitations were on a scale such as to be tolerated only because of the great personal veneration which the mass of traditional Catholic faithful felt for the Archbishop himself. And today the Society no longer has any prominent member whose personality or ecclesiastical status are comparable to those of the Archbishop. Thus the Society’s need for credibility requires it to show more consistency than the Archbishop himself did, while continuing to invoke his authority for decisions that no one can feel any confidence he would have endorsed.

Let us be candid about the origins of this situation. The SSPX’s independent traditionalist apostolate was originally intended only as a provisional succour for a temporary need. Understandably no one foresaw the length of the crisis. Emergency measures sometimes have to be undertaken before there is time for a full theological evaluation of the need that calls for them. But there can be no lasting and effective apostolate which is not firmly founded on theology. This does not mean merely that effective apostles must have an adequate formation in theology, though that is true. It means that the basis, nature, actions and aims of their apostolate itself must also be theologically determined. This is not and never has been the case of the SSPX, because the Archbishop’s legacy to the Society he founded did not include any ecclesiology of the Conciliar Church’s relation to the Catholic Church. The SSPX malaise will continue until this omission is fully rectified, if that is possible.

And that malaise cannot be denied. A quarter of a century ago, the SSPX was swamped with vocations, had a high level of priestly loyalty and was in a position to contrast its success with the manifestly miserable state of the Modernist seminaries and clergy. Everyone knows that the gloating has stopped. Fewer vocations, very high drop-out and expulsion rates in the seminaries, numerous priestly defections in every direction, scant sign of a theological élite among the Society’s clergy, the toleration of priests infected with the innovative itch, high second-generation lay lapsation rates even among those schooled in the Society’s own schools – the sad tale is undeniable and things are not getting any better. Meanwhile, the Society is losing the theological debate not only with sedevacantism but also with the indult groups, who have shown a remarkable drawing power and a surprising ability to produce a learned and thoughtful clergy.

For the SSPX publicly and formally to declare the vacancy of the Holy See would require a miracle and doing so would not suffice to cure the malaise we have pointed to.

But it is perhaps not completely unrealistic to wonder whether the Society’s authorities might not one day explicitly avow that sedevacantism is at least a theologically probable opinion and encourage polite and open debate about the sedevacantist thesis among priests and faithful within the Society and outside. It would not perhaps be incurably optimistic to hope that the Society’s sedevacantist priests and collaborators might be allowed to be frank about their convictions. A statement might be made pointing out that in any discussions with occupied Rome, Benedict XVI can place nothing worth having on his side of the negotiating table except the remote prospect of his own conversion to the Catholic Faith which he has spent the greater part of his life destroying. While we are daydreaming, we could imagine collaboration between SSPX priests and such sedevacantist priests as might be appropriate and willing. We could add the expulsion of the Society’s ultra-liberal fifth column – beginning with Fr. Grégoire Célier – and what about publicly disowning Fr. Boulet’s absurdly ignorant anti-sedevacantist pamphlet which finds it necessary to quote falsified history and theology from a book on the Index of Forbidden Books in order to defend what its author believes to be the party line? Nor could anyone reasonably object to the formal study of Bellarmine’s De Romano Pontifice on the dogmatic theology syllabus.

It cannot seriously be doubted that such measures would be sound in theology, a relief to many of the Society’s priests and faithful and would strengthen the Society’s ability to answer the objections made to it from Conciliar quarters. Nor would there be any difficulty in invoking Archbishop Lefebvre’s authority in favour of such initiatives. Above all, there should be the consideration that truth is more important than pragmatism and that its courageous profession earns the blessing of God.

© John Daly 2006

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Saved by Context? The ’68 Rite of Episcopal Consecration

Thursday, June 21, 2012

A success for succession?

QUESTION: Like you, I believe the Conciliar rite of episcopal consecration to be invalid, and that this invalidity is amply supported by your two articles. However, an acquaintance of mine… said the following, [after quoting for me ¶¶ 26-27 of the rite]

“Sorry guys. I can no longer consider this rite invalid, at least not materially.

“The prayer of consecration itself, in its ENTIRETY clearly and univocally denotes the grace of the holy spirit, that this grace is the gift of the high priesthood, and that the rank of bishop is being conferred, with some of the particular powers of bishops mentioned: ‘Through the Spirit who gives the grace of high priesthood grant him the power to… assign ministries as you have decreed, and to loose every bond by the authority which you gave to your apostles.’

“This, for me is earth shattering. There is absolutely no doubt as to the intention here. I agree Paul VI shouldn’t have changed it, but I mean, LOOK. It clearly spells out the role of a Catholic Bishop.”

Now, I personally disagree with his estimation of the rite’s intention. I see nothing of the consecration coinciding with the true rite, describing the faculties of a bishop, (to judge, interpret, consecrate, ordain, offer sacrifice, baptize or confirm). Can you perhaps comment on his concerns? I fear for his soul, should he be lost to the SSPX or, worse still, the Modernists.

RESPONSE: This is a variant of an objection to my lengthy 2006 article on the 1968 Rite of Episcopal Consecration, “Absolutely Null and Utterly Void,” that I have answered before, but perhaps not in sufficient detail. I will try to remedy that here.

Your friend’s objection does not really concern intention (what the minister intends to do) but rather the sacramental form the minister pronounces: Does it say what it is required to say? And does it therefore “work”?

Assessing this objection hinges on the principle that Pius XII laid down in Sacramentum Ordinis: That the essential sacramental form for the conferral of the episcopacy must univocally signify its sacramental effects: (1) the power of the order being conferred (the Order of episcopacy) and (2) the grace of the Holy Ghost.

Your friend (and others) argue that, even though the short passage in the Prayer of Consecration that Paul VI designated as the essential sacramental form may not specifically mention the rank of the episcopacy, other language in the Prayer (high priest-hood, power to assign ministries, loose every bond) clearly and univocally denotes that the rank of bishop is being conferred.

The whole Prayer of Consecration, in other words, makes up for seeming any lack of clarity in the essential sacramental form about the power of the Order being conferred, i.e., the episcopacy.

So what of this objection? At first glance, it may seem like a plausible argument for validity. It does not, however, withstand closer scrutiny.

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Saved by its context?

I. OVERTHROWING A GENERAL PRINCIPLE

By proposing the whole Prayer of Consecration as a requisite for properly understanding the essential form, this argument overthrows the distinction in sacramental moral theology between the words of the rite as a whole and the essential form, which strictly speaking includes “only those words without which the sense of the sacramental sign cannot exist,” and which are therefore re-quired for validity.

A substantial defect in an essential sacramental form. however, cannot be rendered valid by the language that surrounds it, no matter how specific it may be. Two examples will illustrate the point.

A. Penance. Thus, while the Roman Ritual II.2 designates four prayers (Misereatur, Indulgentiam, Dominus Noster, Passio Domini) as the “Common Form of Absolution,” only the last sentence of the third prayer is considered the essential sacramental form: I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

If one of the requisite elements is omitted from the latter formula (I, absolve, you or your sins), the language in the surrounding prayers (forgive you your sins, grant you absolution, remission of sins) does not supply for or fix the omission. The formula is invalid, period.

B. Baptism. Here too, the texts that precede and follow the es-sential sacramental form (I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost) contain language that refers to new birth, the bath where one is born anew, calling to the font of Baptism, cleansing and sanctification, the grace of baptism, the will to receive baptism, new birth by water and the Holy Ghost, remission of all sins, and safeguarding of one’s baptism by a blameless life.

However, if I recite all these prayers but omit the word “baptize’ or “you” when I pour the water, the baptism is invalid, because these words are essential elements of the form. It cannot signify without it. The context cannot remedy such omissions, and the rite is invalid, period.

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II. A MISSING ELEMENT

Pius XII said that the essential form for Holy Orders must signify both the grace of the Holy Ghost and the order being conferred.

While the essential form Paul VI prescribed contains an ex-pression (spiritus principalis) that can be construed as (among eleven other things) the grace of the Holy Ghost, the new form does not contain a second expression that could be construed as the Order of episcopacy.

So even assuming that phrases elsewhere in the Prayer (high priesthood, power to assign ministries) clearly connoted the Order of episcopacy, the essential form itself lacks the requisite expression for the phrases to “clarify.” It simply isn’t there.

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III. ADMISSION OF A SUBSTANTIAL DEFECT

Arguing that phrases elsewhere in the Prayer of Consecration must be adduced to clarify the essential sacramental form, moreover, is an admission that the latter is not univocal, and therefore defective.

Otherwise, why would one have to look elsewhere in the Prayer of Consecration to figure out what the essential form signifies?

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Symbol without substance?

IV. EQUIVOCAL QUALIFIERS

What of the particular expressions themselves? The sentence following the new form speaks (in a subordinate clause) of one “whom You [God] have chosen for the episcopate,” adding:

May he be a shepherd to your holy flock, and a high priest blameless in your sight, ministering to you night and day; may he always gain the blessing of your favor and offer the gifts of your holy Church. Through the Spirit who gives the grace of high priesthood grant him the power to forgive sins as you have commanded, to assign ministries as you have decreed, and to loose every bond by the authority which you gave to your apostles.

So even assuming for the sake of argument that another element is present in the Paul VI form to construe as the power of the Sacred Order of bishop, would the foregoing language indeed render that element univocal?

A. High Priesthood. The two expressions referring to high priesthood may at first look helpful to the argument for validity, but they do not in fact unequivocally connote the Sacred Order of bishop.

The reason is that Eastern Rite liturgies use similar language in non-sacramental rites to “consecrate” a Metropolitan or a Patriarch. These prayers ask that the candidate serve according to the order of the Great Highpriest, that he is chosen as a high priest over all Thy Church, be a faithful high priest over thy housE, he function in the high priesthood, etc.

But they do so for offices that are jurisdictional, not sacramental. So the expressions in the Paul VI Prayer of Consecration cannot be univocal, because they can be used to confer a non-sacramental office as well.

B. Enumerated Powers. Nor do the powers of the high priest-hood enumerated after the new sacramental form unequivocally signify the Sacred Order of bishop.

• To forgive sins. This is a sacramental power that a priest also possesses.

• Assign ministries (or distribute “offices” or “gifts”). These acts do not depend upon the sacramental powers of a bishop but upon someone receiving ordinary jurisdiction. Again, a simple priest who received ordinary jurisdiction could “assign ministries.”

• Loose every bond. This, too, has nothing to do with sacramental powers, and depends only upon jurisdiction.

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V. SIGNIFICANT OMISSIONS

Moreover, the non-episcopal powers enumerated in the Paul VI Prayer of Consecration and mentioned above in IV.B actually strengthen the case against validity. Why? Because of what they replace and omit.

The source given for the Paul VI Prayer of Consecration was the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus. Various reconstructions of this work, however, contain a petition to God that the candidate would receive “the power… to confer orders according to your bidding” — a sacramental act proper to the Sacred Order of bishop.

In the Paul VI Prayer this has been replaced with assigning ministries or offices — a purely jurisdictional act.

That the omission was deliberate is clear from the Coptic Rite form for episcopal consecration, which Dom Botte, the principal author of the new rite, consulted to reconstruct the text of Hippolytus. The Coptic form further specifies after the phrase quoted above (to confer orders) that the bishop is to provide clergy “for the priesthood… to make new houses of prayer, and to consecrate altars.”

None of this appears in the Paul VI Prayer of Consecration.

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Correctly attired?VI. REFUTED BY ITS RUBRICS

Finally, the rubrics for the Prayer of Consecration in the new rite prescribe that co-consecrating bishops recite only the essential form. The balance of the prayer, which contains the phrases referring to high priesthood, etc., is recited by the principal consecrating bishop alone.

To argue that the latter language is needed to “clarify” the form is to imply that the co-consecrating bishops omitted something necessary to the validity of the rite. (= The words they recited were not truly univocal.)

* * *

THE “CONTEXT” argument cannot therefore be used to maintain that the Paul VI form for episcopal consecration is valid. It overthrows a general principle of sacramental moral theology, it posits the existence of an expression in the sacramental form that is not in fact present (one connoting the power of Orders), it implicitly admits an essential defect, it is founded on expressions that are themselves equivocal, and it is undermined by omission of elements that in the Apostolic Tradition and the Coptic rite referred unequivocally to powers proper the Sacred Order of bishop. The rubrics of the new rite itself, moreover, reduce the context argument to absurdity.

If one could regard the Paul VI Rite of Episcopal Consecration as unquestionably valid according to the principles of traditional Catholic sacramental moral theology, untold problems could be avoided.

But alas, it was not to be. The men who gave us the new rite also adhered to a new theology — and Catholics everywhere paid the price.

(Internet, March 2012)

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Fr. Cekada Video: Sedevacantism: How to Tell Aunt Helen

Monday, June 11, 2012

IN 1995, I wrote an article for the periodical Sacerdotium about the emotional difficulties Catholic traditionalists and others have with the issue of “sedevacantism” — the theological position that the post-Vatican II popes were not true popes.

Inspired by his aunt

The article, I noted, was prompted by a cordial correspondence with the later Father Paul Wickens (left). In one letter he allowed that while many of the sedevacantist arguments seemed reasonable, the “pastoral” side of the issue bothered him. He worried that such a position would shock parishioners, both current and potential, and possibly drive them into the arms of compromise groups such as the Fraternity of St. Peter. How would simpler people react, he wondered. And what would my Aunt Helen think?

With Father Wickens and his dear aunt in mind I set forth the different arguments as simply as I could.

Late last year, Stephen Heiner approached me to do a video interview about this somewhat highly-charged topic for the benefit of his subscribers on the True Restoration website. Stephen has now made this interview available to the general public, and I am happy to present it here.

Traditionalists who are already sedevacantists may find the interview useful in explaining the position to others, and I encourage them to forward the link to anyone they think might be interested in trying to understand the topic.

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Young People and Conflicts among Trads: A Talk by Fr. Cekada

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The trad movement: Why always serve free punch?

WHEN YOUNG PEOPLE who have been raised in the traditionalist movement get into their teens and twenties, they start to ask questions about why there seem to be so many conflicts within the ranks of Catholics who appear to have so many of the same goals.

Father Cekada provides some answers in a sermon given at St. Gertrude the Great Church, West Chester OH, on Trinity Sunday, June 3, 2012. He offers a short review of the problems with Vatican II and of the history of the traditionalist movement.

Father offers five points for putting things into perspective:

(1) Conflict was common in Church history.

(2) Doctrine, not just the “Latin Mass,” is the real issue.

(3) Study your Catholic faith and the great issues of our time.

(4) Practice your faith in more than “default” mode.

(5) Be grateful and optimistic about your faith as a trad.

The sermon is also a good review for older folks who may be discouraged by divisions in our ranks. To listen to it, follow this link:

Young People and Conflict among Trads: A Talk by Fr. Anthony Cekada

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