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JMJ
Based on previous discussions, I am confident that a number of people would present objections to some of the statements that I made in this article.
Here are the ones that I have anticipated and my repsonse.
Part 1
P^3
Some Common Objections
The following objections are ones that I have encountered over a number of years. Attached below are some of my thoughts / responses.
"Modern Catholics don't profess the same faith"
"Modern Catholics profess heresy"
This is a variant of the first objection as it is true that some modern Catholics are material heretics as are some traditional Catholics. However, because they are baptized Catholics the Church does not consider them as outside the Church as it is assumed that they will submit to the Church when corrected. The same assumption is not valid for baptized non-Catholics.Further on the presumption of the sin of heresy in another person:
... a person is not to be called a heretic as soon as he shall have offended in matters of faith; but he is a heretic who, having disregarded the authority of the Church, maintains impious opinions with pertinacity.
"The Hierarchy is full of Modernists, Masons and Homosexuals"
There are two ways to identify a person as a manifest heretic. The first way is by the person explicitly denying a truth of the faith and separating themselves from the Church (for example joining a protestant sect). Anything less than a direct denial of a de fide teaching would require a a judgement to be made on the matter of the heresy. Only a person or persons in authority can make such a judgement.This means that again the words of the Catechism of Trent apply:
Hence there are but three classes of persons excluded from the Church's pale: infidels, heretics and schismatics,and excommunicated persons.
Infidels are outside the Church because they never belonged to, and never knew the Church, and were never made partakers of any of her Sacraments.
Heretics and schismatics are excluded from the Church, because they have separated from her and belong to her only as deserters belong to the army from which they have deserted. It is not, however, to be denied that they are still subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, inasmuch as they may be called before her tribunals, punished and anathematised.
Finally, excommunicated persons are not members of the Church, because they have been cut off by her sentence from the number of her children and belong not to her communion until they repent.
But with regard to the rest, however wicked and evil they may be, it is certain that they still belong to the Church: Of this the faithful are frequently to be reminded, in order to be convinced that, were even the lives of her ministers debased by crime, they are still within the Church, and therefore lose nothing of their power.The last paragraph is most pertinent to this objection for those who would believe that traditional Catholics are the remnant of the Church and that the rest have committed apostasy in the canonical sense.
"The Conciliar Church does not have the Four Marks"
If by 'Conciliar Church" a person means that the Church united to the Pope (Francis in case there is any confusion on that point), is no longer the Church then there are serious issues.They need to reconcile their thesis with the:
- Indefectibility of the Church.
- Teaching of the First Vatican Council concerning the role of the Vicar of Christ in establishing and maintaining the Unity of the Church.
- Church teachings concerning the Marks, Indefectibility and Visibility as described above.
Lastly, they need to answer this question: Where is the Church of Christ? Certainly not with any of the Sedevacantist 'Popes' (13+).
"There is no Pope because he's a heretic"
This one phrase sums up a portion of people that have been scandalized by the events in the Church since the Second Vatican Council.There is a large spectrum of belief amongst the sedevacantists, however ultimately they come down to the thesis stated above. They believe that the Pope was a heretic either before or after he was elected.
Taking the first instance, of pre-election heresy. The recognition of the man elected by the College of Cardinals as Pope by the Bishops in union with Rome establishes an infallible dogmatic fact that he is Pope. ( http://tradicat.blogspot.ca/2013/05/everything-you-wanted-to-know.html )
This soundly eliminates the objections put forth of a defect in the election of a Pope due to this cause.
Taking the second instance of post-election heresy. The first item to establish is that there is no one on earth person or institution who can render a valid judgement on a reigning Pope.
This leads to the conclusion that in order for the sedevacantist to invoke the theory of St. Robert Bellarmine, they need to demonstrate that the Pope has explicitly denied a de-fide dogma of the Church.
One caveat-emptor for would-be judges of the occupant of the Holy See, there a number of phrases that circulate in speculative theology, as well as in regular terms that may sound heretical, but are not.
Translation: Don't jump to conclusions, there is a risk that in addition to jumping to the wrong conclusion that the jumper may be jumping out of the Church at the same time as a schismatic.
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